Tom Gross Mideast Media Analysis

Saudi government “Jewish hellish plan to take over the world”

December 30, 2001

"THE JEWISH SENSE OF SUPERIORITY IN THE WORLD"

I attach a dispatch from MEMRI concerning the U.S.'s close ally, Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government daily Al-Watan published a two-part article on "The Jewish sense of superiority in the world." Please note the article claims that "the Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic hellish plan to take over the world." Another spurious claim in the Saudi government daily is that "the big publishing houses (in America) are at the mercy of the Jews"

-- Tom Gross


"JEWISH HELLISH PLAN TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD"

Saudi government "Jewish hellish plan to take over the world."
Saudi government Daily: The Jews are taking over the world
MEMRI Special Dispatch – Saudi Arabia/Arab Antisemitism
December 28, 2001

The Saudi government daily Al-Watan published a two-part article on "The Jewish Sense of Superiority in the World." The article presented a study conducted by the "American-European Center for Security and International Studies."(1) [Which doesn’t actually exist]

The articles were written by Abdallah Aal Malhi. The first part was entitled "Israel, the governess of terrorism, rewards terrorists by appointing them to top posts in the Jewish state."(2) This "study" attacked Israel and its leaders, accusing them of racism. Part two was titled, "The Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic hellish plan to take over the world."(3) The following are excerpts from the article:

"At the end of the last century, the Jewish organizations consolidated a hellish plan to take over the world by sparking revolutions or taking control of the keys to governments in various countries, first and foremost the U.S. and Russia."

"At the beginning of the twentieth century, the goal of the Russians, and with them the Jews and their global organizations, was to topple Russian imperialism, which they considered antisemitic. To this end, the Jewish organizations across the world sought to create a Jewish socialist system. Most of this system's leaders were Jews, and they financed the Russian Revolution, which if truth be told was more of a Jewish revolution than a Russian one. This revolution's main financier was the well-known Jewish capitalist Jacob Schiff of New York."

"Let us show one example of this first Russian government. It is a terrifying example of Jewish hegemony. This [information] can be found in the American National Archives [sic]. According to the information in these archives, out of the 384 members of the first socialist parliament, 13 were Russians; the number of Jews was greater than 300. The London Times correspondent in Russia described this government as the Jewish conquest of Russia. The American ambassador to Russia at that time, David Francis, used the same terms, as did American intelligence officers in Russia. Even Winston Churchill himself described the Russian Revolution as an occupation by the Bolshevist Jews, 'who held capital and became the rulers of a great Russian empire."'

"The Jewish sense of superiority is typified by hypocrisy and zeal... The Jews are incapable of actualizing their influence and control for a simple reason, and that is that they are a demographic minority in every society in the world. For this reason, the Jews are trying by means of their trickery to weaken the national identity [of the non-Jews] and thus take over affairs and direct them to serve their interests. This is obvious everywhere in the world where there is a large community, both in Arab societies and in American society, such as the European-American community or African-American and even among the Muslims in the Arab world, where the Jews act by means of their control of the media, politics, and the economy in order to weaken the non-Jewish groups and bring about their disintegration, in order to secure their goals. How is this carried out?"

"It is carried out by the principle of 'divide and rule.' The Jewish zealots fear, and fight, any racial non-Jewish coalition. In the Western countries, the Jews fight all the organizations attempting to safeguard European interests and tradition. In the non-European countries, the Jews constantly act to fracture and weaken the coalitions and the homogeneity of the main racial groups."

"In America, for example, the Jews did not act merely to weaken the homogeneity and the coalition of European-Americans, but also fought other coalitions, such as the black national movement, the Nation of Islam, and other movements. All these African-American organizations wanted was to preserve the traditions that they had lost in the multicultural society – but the Jews, due to their well-known sense of superiority, did not want anyone besides themselves to preserve their traditions and collective interests. Therefore, they always try to make other societies feel guilty, even about their pride in their culture. They present this interest and sense of pride in the culture of those non-Jewish organizations as a racist tendency."

"The Jews also act to weaken loyalties and other coalitions by using an expression that has been made familiar by the Jewish media to describe these organizations: antisemitism. This charge serves two goals. First, it reinforces the [Jewish] connections across the world, thus obtaining support for the State of Israel. Second, this expression incites anyone not Jewish to collective hatred of the Jews, thus preventing the Jews from assimilating into other peoples."

"Let us take an example of the hypocrisy of the zealous Jews [regarding] intermarriage between the Jewish race and other races. During President George W. Bush's election campaign, Bush found himself subject to great media criticism because he gave a lecture at the Bob Jones [University], which is opposed to the principle of intermarriage. The contradiction is that every Jewish synagogue in America and every leading Jewish organization in America fights Jewish intermarriage. What is strange is that the media has never addressed this well-known fact, and never mentioned this duplicity at all – in a society that one assumes enjoys freedom of speech such as American society."

"When we realize that the American media is controlled by the Jews, we are no longer surprised. Presenting this obvious fact does not suit Jewish interests, and damages the Jews' relations and interests with the American people. For this reason, it is concealed, as are the daily Jewish crimes against the Palestinians."

"On the other hand, we now find books and films, most of them written and produced by zealous Jewish hands, condemning any racial movement that is not Jewish. At the same time, only a very few books have dared to write against Jewish racism. Since the big publishing houses are at the mercy of the Jews, only a few of these are published – and if they are published, their distribution is extremely small... If these Jewish zealots were credible, they should have written about the Jewish racism they know so well."

"After discussing the global Jewish agenda and the well-known Jewish policy of divide and rule, let us conclude this limited study about Jewish racism and their sense of superiority with another tactic of the Jews, one no less important than what we have already mentioned. This is the policy of silencing those opposed to and critical of the Jews and their racism."

"The arrogance and tyranny of the Jews, who manage to hide it from the Western public, has reached such proportions that anyone who talks about them, their hegemony, and their racism knows that he will pay a high price. In America, for example, anyone who dares to talk about this in public has his good name smeared in the media, and declares bankruptcy if he works in commerce. If he is an official, he loses his job. When anyone dares to state a fact that does not please the Jews or does not suit their interests, the Jews' methods of silencing him range from threats to physical harm, in addition to damaging his capital and transferring him to the rolls of the unemployed if he is an official or a businessman. If he is a politician, he is completely done for, and is flung aside. This task is being carried out by the Jewish media, the Jewish lobby, and the Jewish defense team, which always accuses its adversaries of intolerance towards other ethnic, religious, and racial groups."

"If only it would end with accusations against their [the Jews'] critics. But the situation is worse than that. The Jewish zealots, with their great monetary, media, and political influence, can have them imprisoned. The Jewish zealots have already managed to jail many of their critics in many European countries - perhaps because they are incapable, at the moment, of assassinating anyone who criticizes them and exposes their racism in the countries of the West. But they are capable of silencing him in other ways. Anyone who desires to present the words of the racist Jewish leaders as testimony finds himself in prison – this is due to their influence. The Jews do not leave out any charge they can fabricate so as to leave anyone who has dared to speak the truth behind prison bars for many long years."

"What we say is happening [in reality] is hundreds of those who deviated from the outline laid out by the Jews, and who dared to go beyond the red lines drawn for them, find themselves behind bars. These red lines are none other than saying and exposing the truth – something in which the Jews are not interested. [In the prisons] there are hundreds of people who spoke of the Holocaust and exposed the truth about falsified Jewish propaganda."

"In conclusion, the reader is likely to wonder about the extent of the Jews' control... So as to prove our words, we will not address Jewish control of the media in Western countries, primarily in the U.S... but we will give an example of the Jews' infiltration and control of the top positions in the American administration. This control aroused astonishment in the days of the Clinton administration...: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, FBI chief George Tenet, Defense Secretary William Cohen, Clinton's national security advisor Sandy Berger – all Jews. Through this infiltration of the various American administrations, and through controlling the media and money, the Jews impose their agenda on the other peoples, and the Jewish sense of superiority, whose aim is to recruit the peoples and their resources for the good of Jewish interests and their racist state Israel, remain unchanged."

Endnotes:

(1) Neither the center nor the study could be found on the Internet.
(2) Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), December 8, 2001.
(3) Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), December 9, 2001.


Shoe bomb suspect took “dummy run” flight to Israel; El-Al checked his shoes

December 28, 2001

This dispatch contains two articles concerning the visit of Richard Reid, the "shoe-bomber," to Israel last June.

-- Tom Gross


"SHOE-BOMBER" TERRORIST SPENT WEEK IN ISRAEL

"Shoe-bomber" terrorist spent week in Israel
By Ellis Shuman
Israel Insider
December 27, 2001

www.Israelinsider.com

Richard Reid, the terrorist who attempted to bring down an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami this week by igniting explosives hidden in his sneakers, visited Israel in June and was briefly detained at Ben Gurion International Airport.

Reid reportedly arrived in Israel from Europe and identified himself as a citizen of Sri Lanka, media sources reported. Upon arrival, Reid's appearance raised the suspicion of security officers at the airport, and he was detained for questioning, but later released. After one-week's stay in Israel, Reid left the country for Egypt through the international border crossing at Rafah.

Israeli security officials, in cooperation with the FBI, are investigating whether Reid arrived in Israel with the intention of gathering intelligence for a terror attack he was planning. Officials are trying to retrace Reid's visit in Israel, to discover where he stayed and with whom he met while he was in the country.

Le Monde reported that Reid's previous passport was marked with visits to Egypt and Turkey in the year 2000. According to the paper, Reid's Middle East travels raise the possibility that his bombing attempt was in coordination with a larger terror organization.

ABCNews reported that Reid was acquainted with accused hijack conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and that both men trained at the same al Qaida camp in Afghanistan.

 

"SHOE BOMBER" TOOK "DUMMY RUN" FLIGHT TO ISRAEL

Shoe bomb suspect took 'dummy run' flight to Israel
By Alan Philps in Jerusalem, Sandra Laville and Sarah Womack
The Daily Telegraph
December 28, 2001

Richard Reid, the British man accused of trying to blow up an American Airlines flight with explosives in his shoes, earlier flew to Israel aboard El Al in what security services suspect was a dry run for his planned attack.

Israel was alerted to his trip on the world's most security conscious airline by the French authorities after his arrest at the weekend.

Reid, 28, of Bromley, south London, is accused of smuggling bombs concealed in his shoes on to American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami last Saturday.

He was overpowered by the crew and passengers after they noticed him apparently trying to light a fuse connected to the explosives.

Reid told the FBI that he had acted alone in building the bomb, the French news agency AFP reported yesterday.

He bought the explosive, pentrite, in Amsterdam for around £1,000 after finding the sellers through the internet, he was reported as saying.

Israeli security services were last night investigating the reasons for Reid's visit to Israel in July, but it appeared likely that it was a dummy run to test airport security checks for a future bombing trip.

A spokesman for El Al said: "I can confirm that the alleged shoe bomber flew to Israel in July of this year on El Al. Before check-in he went through a security check."

Security personnel considered Reid a high risk and checked his luggage, his person and his shoes before he was allowed to board the aircraft.

El Al aircraft routinely have armed marshals aboard to tackle any would-be hijackers. In addition, passengers travelling on El Al and those leaving from Tel-Aviv airport on other airlines have been liable for several months to have their shoes checked.

Security personnel X-ray baggage belonging to non-Jewish Israelis and other passengers considered suspect, and remove footwear, which is taken to a special machine to check for hidden explosives.

Airport staff refused to say at what stage Israeli security was alerted to the danger of explosive footwear.

Reid was understood to have spent a week in Israel before leaving via the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip for Egypt.

There has been no indication that Reid was working on behalf of Palestinian militant groups in the territories ruled by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. These groups have always been shunned by Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, yesterday ordered a review of prison visits by radical Muslim clerics after a leading imam warned that vulnerable inmates were open to indoctrination by Islamic extremists.

Reid was converted to Islam while in Feltham Young Offenders' Institute and left prison with radical leanings which were further developed by extremists who targeted him at the Brixton Mosque.

Tayab Ali, a member of the Central London Mosque and a visiting imam at Wormwood Scrubs Prison for 12 years, said the current arrangements left it open for extremists to enter jails and preach.

The system was open to abuse, he said. At least one prison imam had been suspended for "making inappropriate comments" after September 11.

"It is left to the mosques to choose any Tom, Dick or Harry to go in and talk to vulnerable prisoners and it concerns me," said Mr Ali. "There are not enough checks on these people in place.

"The local mosque chooses who they want and the police just check whether they have any criminal convictions. The mosques are doing the job the state should be doing."

A source close to David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said a review was being ordered. "Mr Blunkett is prepared to take a further look. If there are areas where there are problems, we would be happy to look at the system again.

"If there are ways of tightening the system, we would be happy to do that."


Christmas day killing; Israel claims Jordan under threat

December 26, 2001

I attach below some information on the death of Sgt. (res.) Michael Sitbon, killed in a rare terror attack on the Jordanian border. Israel's Ambassador to Jordan David Dadon says in the second article below that many Arab states are looking to undermine Jordan.

-- Tom Gross



FIRST ISRAELI FATALITY ON JORDANIAN BORDER SINCE 1995

Reservist phoned wife moments before he was shot dead
The Jerusalem Post Online
December 26, 2001

Sgt. (res.) Michael Sitbon called his wife yesterday on a cellular phone in the midst of gunbattle and assured her he was fine.

Moments later he was shot dead as his unit pursued terrorists along the border with Jordan.

Sitbon, 23, of Beit Shemesh, was killed, and four other reservists wounded – two of them seriously – in a rare terror attack along the Jordanian border, near moshavim Yardena and Beit Yosef, yesterday morning. It was the first Israel fatality along the Jordanian border since 7 Israeli schoolgirls were shot dead in 1995.

Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot published today accounts of the final frantic phone conversation between Sitbon and his wife, Michal.

"Don't worry. I can't talk. We're under fire. I'll call you back," Sitbon told his wife.

Sitbon, a medic, phoned her back a few minutes later and assured her: "Everything is quiet and all right. We have one casualty. We are looking for a terrorist cell. I'll call you back."

Some moments later he was shot and killed as he treated one of the wounded, the accounts said.

Sitbon's reserve tour began on December 9 and was to have finished next week.

His brother, Roniel, told the newspaper, "It's hard for me to talk about my brother in the past tense. He was a person whose only interest in life was helping others. I will remember him as a man with ideals, a perfect brother, a leader."

 

"SEVERAL ARAB STATES TRYING TO UNDERMINE JORDAN"

Israeli Ambassador to Jordan: Arab states trying to end regime

Israel's Ambassador to Jordan David Dadon said that several Arab states are running terror cells trying to distabilize Jordan from within.

"There are elements interested in undermining Jordan. The same elements send terror cells to carry out attacks against Israel," Dadon told Army Radio in an interview this morning.

"We are talking about the same war on terror ... Jordan is one of the Arab states on the front line [of the war]," Dadon said.

Sgt. (res.) Michael Sitbon, 23, of Beit Shemesh, was killed, and four other reservists wounded – two of them seriously – in a rare terror attack along the Jordanian border, near moshavim Yardena and Beit Yosef, yesterday morning.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The intimate military-to-military cooperation between the IDF and the Jordanian Armed Forces, one of the region's best-kept secrets, helped contain yesterday's ambush along the Jordan River.

The well-oiled mechanism of dialogue on the divisional and brigade level kicked in immediately. Jordanian troops closed in on the ambush site from the east, as IDF forces engaged the infiltrators. Coordination was so tight that both sides used maps with joint points of reference.

The prolonged burst of firing along the Jordanian border near Moshav Yardena and Moshav Beit Yosef was as sudden as it was unexpected.

It shattered the tranquility that has characterized what some local residents refer to as "the peace border" for the last few years.

It also turned back the clock to the 1968-70 War of Attrition, when places like Yardena and Beit Yosef were literally on the frontline.


“Jews persecute Arafat like they did Jesus”

December 24, 2001

Below are two of the latest Palestinian blood libels for Christmas 2001.

-- Tom Gross



"ISRAEL STEALS BODY PARTS FROM MARTYRS TO USE IN HOSPITALS"

Headline: "Israel steals body parts from martyrs to use in hospitals"
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
December 24, 2001

Excerpts from the text:

"When the occupying authority holds the bodies of martyrs. it does so in order to hide the traces of its crimes. The witnesses and evidence prove that the occupation forces torture the bodies of the martyrs on purpose and fire bullets into them at close range. There are clear indicators that the occupying authorities steal body parts of the martyrs during the holding process, in order to use them in Israeli hospitals, especially for Israeli patients in need of transplants. After they seize the body parts of the martyrs, they bury the corpses under dubious circumstances, scorning humanitarian values and moral and religious regulations. Legal authorities noted that the occupation's refusal to surrender the bodies of the martyrs to their families is intended to hide the truth of their non humanitarian practices on the bodies of the martyrs."

[Above translation courtesy Palestinian Media Watch.]

 

ARAFAT'S NEWS AGENCY CIRCULATES STATEMENT THAT "ARAFAT, LIKE JESUS, SUFFERS AT HANDS OF THE JEWS"

Wafa circulates statement that "Arafat, like Jesus, suffers at hands of the Jews"

www.wafa.pna.net/EngText/24-12-2001/page004.htm

Yasir Arafat's official news agency, WAFA, has revived the medieval deicide charge against the Jewish people, by circulating a statement asserting that "Jesus suffered on the hands of the Jews and Arafat is facing the same now."

Arafat's WAFA news agency distributed a "news" article on Christmas Eve, in which it quoted a Palestinian Arab resident of Bethlehem saying, "Jesus had suffered on the hands of the Jews and we and our President are facing the same now."

 

"THE JEWS KILLED JESUS"

Other recent examples of Palestinian anti-Semitism:

* "The Jews Killed Jesus": An editorial on the web site of Arafat's Fatah movement on April 15, 2001 stated: "Today on April 15, 2001, while we are celebrating the days of Passover, Sharon's hostile acts remind us of what his predecessors did to Christ."

[see www.fateh.net/e_editor/01/150401.htm]

[Above information courtesy of a journalist subscriber to this email list.]


Sari Nusseibeh: Right of return should be only to Palestinian state

December 23, 2001

This appears to be a sign of moderation, breaking with mainstream Palestinian views, by Palestinian intellectual and politician Sari Nusseibeh.

-- Tom Gross



"RIGHT OF RETURN SHOULD BE ONLY TO PALESTINIAN STATE"

Nusseibeh: Right of return should be only to Palestinian state
By Itim / Israeli press agency
December 23, 2001

Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian Authority representative in Jerusalem, said Friday that it is not possible for the Palestinians to demand both an independent state and the right to return to Israel.

"I believe the Palestinians should recognize that the refugees should return to a Palestinian state, enabling them to build a new life," Nusseibeh told a Labor Party conference at Beit Sokolow in Tel Aviv, chaired by MK Yossi Beilin.

"We must exchange the old Palestinian dream for a new one, for the sake of the future," Nusseibeh said.

He told the conference that an important part of any solution to the "right of return" would be recognition by Israel that it caused the Palestinian refugee problem, even if it only admitted that its role was partial and not deliberate.

Nusseibeh joined Beilin in calling for the establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian movement to pressure leaders from both sides to make peace.

"If the leaders can't do it, the people must force them," Nusseibeh said, adding, "the two peoples must live side by side, and forge an alliance to build a common future."

Nusseibeh asserted that a future Palestinian state would enjoy freedom and democracy. He believes that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat is committed to peace, and that there is widespread support for peace among the Palestinian people.

"His speech [calling for an end to violence against Israel] proves this."

Discussing the Palestinian rejection of former prime minister Ehud Barak's proposal at Camp David, Nusseibeh said, "I don't know exactly what happened in the discussions at Camp David, but in my opinion the current intifada was not started by the Palestinians.

"I believe it was caused by a series of tragic mistakes by both sides, starting the day [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon visited the Temple Mount."

He called for a return to negotiations on the basis of the Camp David understandings.


The hate that dare not speak its name

A TORRENT OF ATTACKS

There has been a torrent of attacks on Israel in the French and British media following Barbara Amiel's article. (Amiel's article can be found in the dispatch Renewed anti-Semitism in England since Sept. 11 (December 18, 2001).)

A single article in the Independent of London, for example, said the ambassador was right and went on to describe Israel as a "shitty little country" FOUR times.

Here, by contrast, is an article attacking British anti-Semitism, by the American-based British non-Jewish writer Andrew Sullivan.

-- Tom Gross


SPREADING THE GREATER LIE ABOUT ISRAEL

Spreading the greater lie about Israel
By Andrew Sullivan
The Sunday Times of London
December 23, 2001

www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,9002-2001593349,00.html

A gaffe is perhaps best described as what happens when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Among professional practitioners of the political arts this doesn't occur too often. But every now and then the truth emerges.

So God bless the French ambassador. All he was saying is what many also privately believe. That "shitty little country", Israel, has become, among many European elites, the object of hate that dare not speak its name.

I'm not talking merely about editorials that seem to deny the right of Jews to emigrate to Israel; or leaders that come close to blaming Israel itself for the mass murder of its own citizens by Hamas terrorists.

It is simply routine at this point to see "balanced" news reports from the BBC and the broadsheet British press that morally equate the actions of Israeli self-defence with the deliberate murder of civilian Jews by Palestinian terrorists.

While Britain and America are allowed to fight a war against terrorism, Israel is urged to practice self-restraint every time another terrorist massacres another group of civilians in a restaurant or disco.

Supporting Israel as a matter of right versus wrong is almost unheard of in polite society. In normal times, this is lamentable but not disastrous. The Jews know something about survival. They can and will defend themselves.

But in abnormal times, when anti-semitism is spreading across the globe like a brushfire, it is deeply dangerous. Not since the 1930s has such blithe hatred of Jews gained this much acceptability in world opinion.

Across the Arab world, in particular, the past decade or so has seen a shift from mere passive resentment of Jews to a paranoid anti-semitism.

That European elites want to ignore it, or – worse – pander to it, suggests we have learnt nothing from history.

Am I exaggerating? I wish I were.

The massacre of September 11 has merely exposed and accelerated this trend.

In the aftermath, a Gallup poll of Pakistanis found 48% believing that the Jews actually flew the planes into the World Trade Center, after warning their compatriots to stay away.

This unhinged lie was routinely reproduced in dozens of Middle Eastern newspapers and remains the biggest single obstacle to getting Arabs and Muslims to acknowledge Osama Bin Laden's guilt.

Al-Ahram, Egypt's biggest newspaper and the official mouthpiece of the government, controlled by President Hosni Mubarak, recently published a particular gem as a compilation of the "investigative work of four reporters on Jewish control of the world". It stated that: "Jews have become the political decision-makers and control the media in most capitals of the world (Washington, Paris, London, Berlin, Athens, Ankara)." It claimed: "The main apparatus for the Jews to control the world is the international Jewish lobby, which works for Israel."

Or take the official "moderates". Consider the view of the former imam of New York's Islamic Cultural Center, a man described until a short time ago as a western-leaning mullah sent to New York to spread inter-faith understanding. After September 11, he disappeared and then popped up in the Middle East with the following statement: "You see these people (the Jews) all the time everywhere, disseminating corruption, heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism and drugs. They do this to impose their hegemony and colonialism on the world. Now, they are riding on the back of the world powers."

Then there's the Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda: the Muslim-Jewish conflict "resembles the conflict between man and Satan... this is the fate of the Muslim nation, and beyond that the fate of all the nations of the world, to be tormented by this nation (the Jews)". Replace the word Muslim with German and you don't have an approximation of Hitler. You have Hitler.

Here's one fact, reported earlier this autumn by Agence France-Presse: Mein Kampf was recently as high as No 6 on the Palestinian bestseller list.

Last week, Reuters ran a photograph that was barely picked up elsewhere. It was a picture of Hezbollah youth brigades gathered in a square and all performing the Nazi salute. If that picture had shown American children doing the same, don't you think it would have been splashed on every front page in the world?

In fact, it is a function of condescending racism to the Arabs that we believe this kind of hate-filled pathology is somehow normal for them. The left is particularly complicit in this evil.

Many western liberals chided America for withdrawing from the Durban conference on racism last August. But that conference was the latest high-water mark for Jew-hating.

The infamous, fabricated tract, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was widely distributed at the meeting. Questioners were shouted down with cries of "Jew! Jew! Jew!"

The Palestinian Authority refuses to include the fact of the Holocaust in its own history books. What about the following statement by one Ali 'Aqleh 'Ursan: "The covetous, racist, and hated Jew Shylock, who cut the flesh from Antonio's chest with the knife of hatred, invades you with his money, his modern airplanes, his missiles, and his nuclear bombs."

Is 'Ursan some fringe extremist? No, he's the chairman of the Arab Writers' Association. There are, of course, completely legitimate criticisms of Israel and Israeli policy that have nothing to do with anti-semitism. The settlements policy of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is extremely hard to justify. There are Jewish extremists as well; and there is brutality in Israel's conduct in the West Bank and Gaza that deserves rebuke.

But these valid arguments are light years away from the Jew- hating that has been fomented by Arab governments for years and tolerated by western elites for far too long.

Such anti-semitism is the fundamental reason why no peace is possible in the Middle East, because it has so infected every possible Arab interlocutor that Israel simply has nobody to make peace with.

In fact, unless western governments expose and condemn such anti-semitism no peace will ever be possible.

And the minute real pressure is put on the Palestinians by the West, we get results.

Hamas's temporary cessation of suicide bombings in Israel last week is directly related to the Bush administration's clear backing for Israel after the latest terrorist wave.

Appeasement is not necessary for peace. In fact, it perpetuates war. Do we remember anything?

Sixty years ago such hatred of Jews – unchallenged, appeased, excused, ignored – led directly to Auschwitz. Its prevalence now in the Middle East should remove any doubt about the morality of Israel's self-defence in these perilous times and shame anyone who trafficks in it.

Yes, this means that Israel's war against terrorism is the same as our war against terrorism.

And, yes, it is good versus evil all over again.

How much more do we need to know about the nature of Israel's enemies to know whose side we should truly be on?


“That shitty little country Israel”

December 19, 2001

A GOOD DEAL OF SYMPATHY FOR THE AMBASSADOR

[Note by Tom Gross]

There has been a strong reaction in the UK to Barbara Amiel's article I sent out on Monday in the dispatch titled Renewed anti-Semitism in England since Sept. 11 (December 18, 2001).

As a result there are calls for the French Ambassador to London to be recalled to Paris. (By way of example, below is an article from the Times of London.)

One should note that the ambassador is a close confidante of President Chirac, and was previously France's ambassador at the UN.

There has also been a good deal of sympathy for the ambassador, including racist comments against Jews and Israelis, comments I am not at liberty to repeat here for reasons of libel.

I also attach two Guardian diary entries from Matthew Norman on the comments by the French ambassador.

-- Tom Gross


DIPLOMATIC GAFFE THREATENS CAREER OF FRENCH AMBASSADOR

Diplomatic gaffe puts Tory salon out of joint
By Andrew Pierce
The Times (of London)
December 19, 2001

The evening began as a party to honor a rising star of publishing and the Tory party. But by the time the last guest had left a diplomatic gaffe had been committed that threatens the career of France's Ambassador to London.

Daniel Bernard was said to have made crude anti-Semitic remarks at the buffet party at the end of last week for Boris Johnson, Editor of The Spectator and successor to Michael Heseltine as Tory MP for Henley. Worse still, the ambassador made the alleged comments in private to his host, Lord Black of Crossharbour, proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, whom he regarded as a close friend, at Lord Black's home in Kensington.

Unfortunately for M Bernard the conversation was conveyed by Lord Black to his journalist wife, Barbara Amiel, who hosted the "Boris Johnson Phenomenon" evening.

She referred to the remark in her Daily Telegraph column. Ms Amiel was not at the table when the fateful conversation took place.

Ms Amiel wrote that the "ambassador of a major EU country told me" that the international security crisis had been triggered by "that shitty little country Israel". The ambassador, according to Ms Amiel, added:

"Why should we be in danger of world war three because of these people?" Ms Amiel, to protect the identity of her guest, did not name the ambassador.

There was no need to. Within 24 hours he had been identified as M Bernard, a man on close terms with President Chirac. Yesterday he was distraught about the breach of trust at a party where he thought he was among friends. The ensuing diplomatic fallout has led to calls from senior figures in the Jewish community in Britain for M Bernard to step down.

Yves Charpentier, Press Secretary at the French Embassy, confirmed that the ambassador Ms Amiel had referred to was M Bernard, who is a Roman Catholic.

M Charpentier said: "The ambassador regarded it as a private dinner with friends. He was surprised to have his remarks reported in this way. He discussed a number of topics including the Israeli and Palestinian conflict."

Challenged whether he used the phrase "that shitty little country Israel", M Charpentier said: "The ambassador does not remember if he used those words.

"The ambassador said we were facing a geographically limited problem, a small area, which has disproportionately huge consequences for world peace. He is not anti-Semitic or anti Israel."

The British Board of Deputies, representing the Jewish community in Britain, expressed concern at the ambassador's apparent criticism. A spokesman said: "These remarks do not constitute the official view of the French Embassy as they were said in a personal capacity. But it does cause grave concern if that is the ambassador's personal opinion, particularly as the country he is talking about is one his Government claims is our staunch friend."

M Charpentier said: "We are sending a Christmas card to them (Lord and Lady Black) today." Asked if the ambassador would return for dinner, he added: "That depends whether they invite him."

BARBARA AMIEL

Barbara Amiel: Factfile
The Times (of London)
December 19, 2001

Otherwise known as: Lady Black

Age: 61, but looks 51. Her close friend Miriam Gross says: "I feel quite frumpy next to her."

Status: married in 1992 to fourth husband Lord Black of Crossharbour who owns the Hollinger publishing group, which includes The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph, for which she writes

Famous saying: "I do not regard my husband's money as my own."

Day job: journalist

Night job: chatelaine of influential political salon.

Other job: director of The Spectator

Homes: divides her time between New York, Toronto, Palm Beach and a stucco "residence" with eight staff in Kensington

Friends of: Baroness Thatcher, Lord Powell, Duke of Marlborough, Sir Elton John, former foreign policy adviser to Lady Thatcher and John Major

Need to know: Lady Black was born in Watford during the Blitz while her grandfather was saving hundreds of people from German bombs – the town now boasts an Amiel Street

Education: moved to Canada after her parents' divorce. A scholarship to the University of Toronto was followed by a career in journalism, which once saw her imprisoned in Mozambique for the sake of a scoop

Career highlights: first female editor of The Toronto Sun. She returned to Britain in the 1980s and became known as the Iron Lady of Wapping because of her attacks on the liberal establishment

DANIEL BERNARD

Daniel Bernard: Factfile
The Times (of London)
December 19, 2001

Otherwise known as: the eyes and ears in London of President Chirac

Age: 60

Status: married, but his wife Monique, whom he married in 1964, prefers to stay at their home in Paris. They have two sons and one daughter

Famous sayings (allegedly): "That shitty little country Israel" and "Hunting is a very important issue in France, but not in the same class-ridden way it is in this country. We have a different attitude. Yes, it used to be the privilege of the nobility, but that all ended with the revolution. After that it became the right of peasants to hunt, shoot, whatever"

Homes: official residence in London and a home in Paris

Friends of: Lord Black of Crossharbour and Barbara Amiel. For now

Need to know: grew up in Lyons at a time when France's second city became one of the first to set up a twinning arrangement with an opposite number in Britain. Which is how, as a schoolboy, he came to Birmingham on an exchange, and discovered cricket, which he follows avidly

Education: studied English at the University of Lyons

Career highlights: worked in the upper echelons of public service leading to an ambassadorial posting to The Netherlands in 1993. France's representative at the United Nations in 1995, before he arrived in London in September 1998

 

* I attach two diary items from The Guardian Newspaper. -- TG

“AN IMBECILIC LITTLE TURD”

Guardian Diary
By Matthew Norman
December 19, 2001

Chapeaux aloft to the embassy of France, if you please, for the hilarious letter that concerns our identification of ambassador Daniel Bernard as the gifted diplomat who, at Barbara Amiel and Conrad Black's dinner table, referred to "that shitty little country Israel". His Excellency was "surprised", Yves Charpentier remarks, "to read the remarks attributed to him regarding Israel". Was he, forsooth? Not so surprised, however, that he can deny them. But perhaps some succinct textual analysis might help. "The ambassador was expressing... the view that we were facing a geographically limited problem" - now would that be the "little country" reference? - "which is proving extremely difficult to resolve" (the "shitty" bit, perhaps?)... Any other interpretation is erroneous and any other historical reference is insulting for the ambassador..." Well, we're absolutely heartbroken if we've upset the poor lamb simply because – and I hope this interpretation isn't too erroneous – the French ambassador is an imbecilic little turd (to adapt from his own lexicon of scatological diplomacy) who ought to be horsewhipped all the way back to the Quai D'Orsee. And having done our best to smooth over this sad misunderstanding, let's hear no more about it. Not, at least, until tomorrow, when we may have news of an outing to the French embassy.

 

“WHY SHOULD THE WORLD BE PUT IN DANGER BECAUSE OF THOSE PEOPLE”

Guardian Diary
By Matthew Norman
December 18, 2001

Now please, please don't ignore this one just because it appeared here first (see below for more detail). It stems from an article in the Daily Telegraph by Barbara Amiel, the wife of the paper's owner Conrad Black, about the rise in overt anti-semitism since September 11. Barbara is Jewish and, like her goyishe husband, a passionate supporter of Israel. You will imagine her horror, then (and in truth it may be a bit of a shocker even for those of us who aren't senior officials in the Ariel Sharon Fan Club), when recently, as she relates, "the ambassador of a major EU country politely told a gathering at my home that the current troubles in the world were all because of 'that shitty little country Israel'." Blimey. Barbara has the ambassador go on: "Why should the world be put in danger because of those people?" The country represented by this Excellency, we are pleased to reveal, is France. But perhaps you guessed that already. Assuming that the ambassador Daniel Bernard isn't recalled to Paris to explain himself, we hope to discuss his approach to the complex matter of Middle Eastern diplomacy later today.


Arafat calls for more “martyrs”

* Arafat on Palestinian TV: "I am willing to sacrifice 70 martyrs to die to kill 1 Israeli"

 

CONTENTS

1. Arafat speech shows nothing has changed
2. Arafat: All Palestinians are martyrs
3. Trouble in the holy land
4. Arafat back on attack
5. 31 Attacks in 48 Hours

 

Much of the western media, while reporting extensively and prominently about Yasser Arafat's speech on Sunday, seem to be ignoring Arafat's very different speech on Tuesday – even though the speech was televised and therefore easily available to executives and news producers at BBC and CNN should they wish to air it. But then that wouldn't fit in with their political views.

-- Tom Gross


ARAFAT SPEECH SHOWS NOTHING HAS CHANGED

Arafat speech shows nothing has changed
By Herb Keinon
The Jerusalem Post
December 19, 2001

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's fiery address in Ramallah yesterday, during which he said he is willing to sacrifice 70 martyrs for one dead Israeli, proves that "nothing has changed," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman Ra'anan Gissin said.

"The Jordan River is the same, and Arafat is the same; he has not changed," Gissin said. "Today's speech is just more proof."

The address to a group of Palestinians from east Jerusalem stood in stark contradiction to his speech on Sunday, when he called for an end to suicide bombings and for a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.

According to a report last night on Channel 2, Arafat said the Palestinians will continue to fight for their land.

"What is that speech, if not incitement," Gissin said. "If he is going to stop the violence, that is not the way to do it. The way to do it is to say, 'Lay down your weapons.' "

 

ARAFAT: ALL PALESTINIANS ARE MARTYRS

Arafat: All Palestinians are martyrs
The Jerusalem Post
December 18, 2001

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat today delivered a more uncompromising speech than the one he gave two days ago.

In contrast to Sunday's speech, in which he called for an end to suicide bombings and armed attacks against Israelis, in today's address in Ramallah he again spoke about martyrs and a holy war, Israel Radio reported.

Arafat said all Palestinians are martyrs, and they will continue to defend the holy ground.

"All Palestinians are Muhammad al-Dura, martyrs," he said, referring to 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura, who was killed in the Gaza Strip last year while his father tried to protect him from crossfire.

In response, the crowd chanted: "One million martyrs are already marching to Jerusalem."

 

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND

Arafat calls for more 'martyrs'
'I am willing to sacrifice 70 to die to kill 1 Israeli'
WorldNetDaily.com
December 19 2001

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25739

In a fiery speech in Ramallah today, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat called for more martyrdom, reportedly saying: "I am willing to sacrifice 70 to die to kill one Israeli."

Israel Radio West Bank correspondent Avi Yissakharov reported Arafat declared "all Palestinians are Muhammad al-Dura," that all Palestinians are martyrs. Al-Dura was a 12-year-old boy killed in the Gaza Strip last year while his father tried to protect him from crossfire between Palestinian snipers and Israeli Defense Forces.

Arafat called for all to join in the struggle to stop what he termed the Israeli program to Judaize Jerusalem.

The crowd roared back to Arafat, "Millions of martyrs are already marching to Jerusalem."

Israel Television Channel Two reported this evening that Arafat also told the crowd, "I am willing to sacrifice 70 martyrs to kill one Israeli" and called for a continuation of the struggle against Israel.

Arafat's fiery rhetoric in Arabic stands in stark contrast to his more conciliatory statements in English in which he has agreed to stop attacks on Israelis.

 

ARAFAT BACK ON ATTACK: 'WE ARE ALL MARTYRS'

Arafat back on attack: 'We are all martyrs'
By Michael Widlansk
The Media Line
December 18, 2001

Yasser Arafat today called on Palestinians to continue violent "resistance" to Israel including acts of "martyrdom"-i.e. suicide attacks.

"We are all martyrs in paradise," declared Arafat in a fiery oration to a crowd of supporters outside his isolated headquarters in Ramallah.

"We will defend the holy land with our blood and with our spirit," the Palestinian leader cried out to the cheering throng in what was a dramatic counter-point to the pre-recorded and carefully orchestrated broadcast address of two days ago.

Arafat's Palestinian supporters and part of the Israeli "peace camp" had claimed violence that the earlier pre-recorded speech by Arafat was an attempt to quell the 15-month war of attrition that has cost more than 1,000 Israeli and Palestinian deaths and more than 10,000 injuries.

But Arafat's remarks today-which were also broadcast and re-broadcast by Voice of Palestine state radio-totally erased, perhaps intentionally, any trace memories of Arafat's earlier remarks, some of which were considered too "moderate" by part of his Palestinian audience.

"We heard a different tone altogether," remarked Avi Yissakharov, the West Bank reporter for Israeli State Radio, referring Arafat's remarks today.

"Anyone listening to these remarks," the Israeli reporter noted, "would have to understand one clear thing – the need to continue these armed actions against Israel and even to add on actions such as suicide operations."

"There is a conspiracy to Judaize Jerusalem," declared Arafat, adding, "no one will evict us from our land."

Only two days ago Palestinian spokesmen rushed forward to claim that Mr. Arafat, in his earlier speech, had offered a new message of hope.

"I don't think there was enough appreciation on the Israeli side of Mr. Arafat's message," asserted, at the time, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, the PA "Minister for Jerusalem."

Nusseibeh, who has been touted as a "moderate," added: "I think it's an unprecedented message."

But in fact the only element of Arafat's speech two days ago which may be called "unprecedented" was Arafat's brief, one-time-only reference to attacks by Islamic human bombers as "suicidal," using the term "intikhari" ("suicidal" in Arabic) which has a pejorative connotation rather than his usual reference to the attackers as "shuhada" ("martyrs" in Arabic).

"We are a people of heroes," the Palestinian leader called out to the crowd, which answered: "We are marching, millions of martyrs to Jerusalem."

 

31 ATTACKS IN 48 HOURS

31 Attacks in 48 Hours
IsraelNationalNews.com
December 19, 2001

In his telephone conversation on Tuesday with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explained that in the past 48 hours, there were 31 terrorist attacks in which four Israeli civilians were wounded including one seriously and one toddler.

The attacks followed Arafat's live Arabic broadcast in which he called for an end to terrorism and implementation of the Tenet and Mitchell recommendations


[The following article was published and sent out this list two days later by John Podhoretz, a subscriber to this email list. -- Tom Gross]

ARAFAT'S LOVE OF BLOOD

Arafat's love of blood
By John Podhoretz
New York Post
December 21, 2001

It didn't take long.

Only two days, in fact.

Two days for Yasser Arafat to prove yet again that his currency is the blood of the innocent, not the peace of the brave.

On Sunday, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority gave a speech that was deemed so important it was carried live with simultaneous translation on CNN.

His advisers had leaked advance word that he would demand that all groups cease their terrorist activities against Israel.

In the speech, Arafat said: "Once again, I call for a complete halt to all operations, especially suicidal operations, which we have always condemned."

Not only had Arafat not "always condemned" suicide bombings, he had long praised bombers as "martyrs."

But that doesn't really matter, because if indeed he had been announcing he would no longer tolerate suicide bombing, such a change in policy would have been significant.

"Those who violate this decision," he said, "would be severely punished."

The words sounded good.

But the State Department and the Europeans didn't immediately hail him as the next Gandhi – in large measure because they had been burned repeatedly in the last two months, when Arafat lied straight in their faces about having arrested people who then went right out and conducted terror attacks on Israelis.

The government of Israel continued to take military action against terrorist ringleaders.

And a poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center indicated that nearly 60 percent of Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza didn't want a cease-fire.

Arafat decided he had gotten nothing useful out of his supposedly landmark speech.

So he simply contradicted it 48 hours later.

"One martyr in Jerusalem is worth 70 martyrs elsewhere," he said on Tuesday.

The word "martyr" has a very specific connotation these days. It refers to a suicide bomber – the most powerful weapon in the Palestinian arsenal.

Despite his claim always to have "condemned," Arafat praises Palestinian martyrs whenever he can – as in a letter he sent to the parents of the monster who killed and wounded 200 Israeli teenagers at a Tel Aviv disco.

Arafat called this act of mass murder a "heroic martyrdom operation" and the Delphinarium bomber "the model of manhood and sacrifice for the sake of Allah and the homeland."

(The letter in question, broadcast on German TV, featured Arafat's personal seal. It was translated into English by the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute, www.memri.org.)

The Palestinian Authority's TV and radio networks – which are under Arafat's direct control – run children's shows teaching kids of the glories that await the suicide bomber in Paradise.

And while it is probably true that Arafat isn't crazy about the suicide bombings perpetrated by the groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, that's only because they're taking place under different management.

But for you fans of suicide bombing, never fear. Arafat's got plenty of them working for him, too – even though he has "always condemned" them.

Arafat's personal faction is called Fatah. Fatah is to Arafat what al Qaeda is to Osama bin Laden – his cat's-paw, his personal organization, his gang, his posse.

Fatah is a charnel-house with many dark rooms. In one, we find the Tanzim; in another, Arafat's personal security squad, Force 17. And then, down in the sub-basement, is the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. (There's that word again – "martyr.")

Members of these groups have all been responsible for terror attacks and suicide bombings. The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade staged the attack last week that killed 10 Israelis and wounded 30 more on the West Bank.

When bombs were detonated on a road, the passengers fled the bus – whereupon these innocents were shot in the back and bombarded with grenades.

When the Israelis say Arafat can stop the violence, they know whereof they speak.

You may wonder what good it is for Arafat to encourage suicide bombings and terror murders when all they do is embolden the Israelis and turn world public opinion against him.

The answer is that Arafat likes to see Jews murdered. He likes death and violence and killing and blood. He is a worshiper of the gun (he wore his sidearm even as he addressed the United Nations in 1974), the bomb, the funeral.

He can no more make peace than the lion can lie down with the lamb.

He is a liar, a mass murderer, an unmitigated monster, a lost cause, a dark stain on the vivid pages of the Book of Life.


Renewed anti-Semitism in England since Sept. 11

December 18, 2001

[Note by Tom Gross]

The following opinion article, from today's (London) Daily Telegraph, is by Barbara Amiel, the wife of the paper's proprietor, Lord (Conrad) Black. Petronella Wyatt, who is referred to at the beginning and end of the piece is a non-Jewish British journalist, and the daughter of the late Lord (Woodrow) Wyatt, who was a senior advisor to Margaret Thatcher.

"THAT SHITTY LITTLE COUNTRY"

Amiel writes: "Recently, the ambassador of a major EU country politely told a gathering at my home that the current troubles in the world were all because of "that shitty little country Israel." "Why," he asked, "should the world be in danger of World War Three because of those people?"

"… For the past 25 years, I've watched sad-faced Israeli activists trudge around Western capitals with heavy hearts beating under ill-fitting suits. They carry folders of transcripts and videotapes to document the misrepresentations in the press and the moral hypocrisy of the world towards Israel. They want to win the war of ideas on its merits…"

Barbara Amiel is a subscriber of this email list.

-- Tom Gross


ISLAMISTS OVERPLAY THEIR HAND BUT LONDON SALONS DON'T SEE IT

Islamists overplay their hand but London salons don't see it
By Barbara Amiel
Daily Telegraph
December 17, 2001

In a column in last week's Spectator, Petronella Wyatt noted that "since September 11 anti-Semitism and its open expression has become respectable at London dinner tables."

This is an accurate observation and cannot be avoided by simply staying at home.

Recently, the ambassador of a major EU country politely told a gathering at my home that the current troubles in the world were all because of "that shitty little country Israel".

"Why," he asked, "should the world be in danger of World War Three because of those people?"

At a private lunch last month, the hostess – doyenne of London's political salon scene – made a remark to the effect that she couldn't stand Jews and everything happening to them was their own fault.

When this was greeted with a shocked silence, she chided her guests on what she assumed was their hypocrisy. "Oh come on," she said, "you all feel like that."

Once that remark would have cost her licence as a serious political hostess, but clearly she believes the zeitgeist is blowing her way.

The editor of a major British newspaper came to our home, and I can tell Petronella Wyatt that it can be just as awkward with good friends at lunch as it is with strangers at dinner.

The editor is a decent man but his paper habitually blames Israel's "opposition to peace" for the problems in the Middle East and lectures them to negotiate. "But, look," he was asked, "Arafat does not believe in the right of the Jewish people to a state. How can the Israelis negotiate in that situation?"

The editor replied with disarming honesty: "You have put your finger on the weak point in our argument."

All this is not as bad as it seems. True, these remarks are exceptionally painful for some British Jews who feel beleaguered aliens in their own land. For myself, it merits only a shrug.

One is irritated when, as last October, the community hall of a north London synagogue burnt down in what police labelled a racist arson attack and the matter barely rated a mention except in the Jewish press.

The Monday after the triple suicide bombings in Israel that killed 26 and injured around 200, the Evening Standard turned to Charles Glass, an old anti-Israel hand. Glass wrote: "Palestinians kill Israelis. Israelis kill Palestinians. Who killed first? No one remembers and it does not matter."

For the past 25 years, I've watched sad-faced Israeli activists trudge around Western capitals with heavy hearts beating under ill-fitting suits. They carry folders of transcripts and videotapes to document the misrepresentations in the press and the moral hypocrisy of the world towards Israel.

They want to win the war of ideas on its merits. Their attention to detail in translating the hate literature of the Middle East and the hate-filled speeches of its leaders is commendable.

It's enlightening to read, for example, their studies of Syrian and Palestinian Authority school textbooks that explain to young schoolchildren that the Jews are a people made up of rapists, murderers and thieves.

It is sad to learn that such PA textbooks are used by the UN in its schools for Palestinian refugees. But something new is "blowin' in the wind".

Today, after years in the media desert, Israel's experts and front-line activists are slowly finding some media doors opening to them. They may think it is their own perseverance. But I think it is the daisy cutter effect.

For years, I said that Jews were out of fashion and I understood why. The world was sick of the Middle East problem: why should it be inconvenienced by the cost and the ripple effect of terrorism?

The West defeated the Third Reich and we Jews were no longer in need of a lifeboat: indeed, today we would probably be safer just about anywhere rather than the Middle East. But events in the past year or so changed the equation and our rehabilitation has begun. The Arab/ Muslim world overplayed its hand.

Their first wrong move was the rejection of prime minister Ehud Barak's offer in 2000. Even if you looked at that proposal from an Arab point of view and believed that a Palestinian state comprising 95 per cent of the West Bank and a shared Jerusalem was not sufficient, you couldn't possibly argue that such a deal should be rejected out of hand.

The second mistake was launching the Al-Aqsa intifada after rejecting that deal. Eventually, the world saw that it was not Ariel Sharon's walk on the Temple Mount that caused the new intifada (a walk pre-cleared with the Muslim authorities) but Arafat's decision to escalate violence for tactical reasons.

The greatest error of all was when bin Laden, acting in the name of the Arab/Muslim world, decided – with a total incomprehension of what this would entail – to blow up Lower Manhattan and blow it up at a time when the American administration was in the hands of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and not Clinton and Gore.

The Arab street remained silent at best or cheered the WTC bombing even as some of their leaders made ritual condemnations of it. Almost overnight, a blindfold fell off America's eyes. Appeasement didn't work.

The problem was not Israel's intransigence, nor even the conflict that comes from Israel's existence: the problem is Islamism.

Islam itself is split between Islam as a religion that can be essentially peaceful – endorsing the qualities of charity and mercy – and militant Islam (Islamism), which is intolerant and expansionist. Islam periodically goes into this expansionary phase and is now in one.

That is why in the past few years some mosques in the West have seen violent incidents, including murders, as radical mullahs fight moderates for supremacy. Militant Islam wants to be the dominant force in the world.

Its crusade has Muslims fighting Christians in Indonesia, Sudan and Pakistan. Christians in Lebanon have largely fled. Muslim fights Muslim in Algeria. Islamism has been on the move all right, but it hasn't a chance now, because it finally woke up America.

It took the blowing up of three planes on an airstrip outside Jordan by Palestinian terrorists in 1970 to turn the world's attention to the Palestinian question. One regrets to say that it has taken a lot more violence to get the world to focus on the true nature of Islamism.

Powerful as the truth may be, it needs a nudge from 16,000lb daisy cutter bombs once in a while. The Arab/Muslim world's intransigence comes into sharper focus when we see the Americans liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban in six weeks and a cornered Arafat unable to go to the bathroom without the risk of being blown into the next world.

Nothing succeeds like powerful bombs, as bin Laden explained in his latest video release. "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse," he said.

"Some of the media said that in Holland, in one of the centres, the number of people who accepted Islam during the days that followed the operations [attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon] were more than the people who accepted Islam in the past 11 years."

Bin Laden understands the power of a successful show of force all right, though he seems slow to grasp that America's horses are stronger than his.

Don't worry, Petronella. It is both sad and true that the consequences of super-liberalism led to suicide bombers and intifadas in Israel and to the attacks in America. But the US has shown it is no paper tiger.

All those people bad-mouthing the Jews and Israel will quieten down. You are looking at the tail end of the train but the engine has already turned a corner and is going in the opposite direction.

Nothing succeeds like success. America is driving this train and the world will get on board – though the last carriage may be those London dinner parties.


Israel’s leading new historian appears to change his mind

December 11, 2001

* Professor Benny Morris: “We will not reach a compromise in this generation, and I have a sneaking suspicion that we will never reach a true and permanent agreement. In the heart of every Palestinian exists a desire that the State of Israel will not be here anymore. For many of them this translates into more than just a desire. As far as they are concerned, all of their misfortunes are a consequence of our deeds, and our destruction will bring about their salvation. Their salvation is the whole of Palestine.”


“THEY EXPECTED TO HEAR A LECTURE BY AN ANTI-ISRAEL ACADEMIC”

In the attached interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, Professor Benny Morris, the leading Israeli “New Historian” and longtime hero of the Palestinian Ministry of Information and of anti-Israel western intellectuals, appears to change his mind on several key issues.

He says “the Palestinians have consistently rejected any notion of compromise,” are “largely to blame for what has transpired [over] the past seventy years,” and accuses the Palestinian negotiators at Taba of “lying” to Yossi Beilin.

-- Tom Gross



INTERVIEW WITH BENNY MORRIS

Excerpts from an interview with Benny Morris
By Miron Rappaport
Yediot Ahronot
November 23, 2001

The audience at the Berkeley Theological Institute has arrived with clear expectations. They had been promised a lecture on the peace process, to be presented by none other than Professor Benny Morris, an Israeli historian, considered by many in Israel to be the enfant terrible of his discipline. He is a leftist, noted for his controversial opinions and particularly for his unorthodox views on Zionist history. Indeed, his views are considered so heretical and iconoclastic, that even the liberal-minded Israeli universities have had difficulties offering him a position.

In the United States, Berkeley is still perceived as a stronghold of the radical left, and all those who filled the hall at Berkeley Theological Institute were certain that the guest speaker would say exactly what they wanted to hear; namely that Israel is to blame for everything, that Israel is the aggressor and the Palestinians the aggrieved party. "They expected to hear a lecture by an anti-Israeli academic," remarks Professor Morris, as he sips a cup of coffee in Jerusalem and struggles to conceal his delight.

Morris had other plans. He knew that he was about to catch is audience unawares. In the course of the presentation, he informed his audience that the Palestinians have consistently rejected any notion of compromise. They opposed the Peel Commission Partition Plan on 1937 proposing both a Jewish state and an Arab state in the territory of Mandatory Palestine, and they rejected the UN Partition Plan of 1947 which called for the partition of British-ruled Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. They would not hear of the Sadat-Begin Autonomy Plan (an element of the Camp David Agreement that has never been implemented), and rejected Bill Clinton's generous proposal involving 95 percent of West Bank Territory. In short, the Jews have always accepted what has been on offer, while the Arabs have always been the rejectionists. The Palestinians are largely to blame for what has transpired; they have been making the same historical mistakes for the past seventy years, and there is a price to be paid for such folly.

These are the words of a man who struggled to find work in Israeli academic institutions because of his radical left wing views. Morris denies that his views have changed. He claims that he has always held these beliefs, although apparently no one else is aware of this fact. Even if he has expressed these views in interviews, they have never been quoted, "it does not sound politically correct" remarks Morris. Nevertheless, Morris acknowledges that his indignation with the Palestinians has accumulated over the last 2 years. The rejection of Clinton's proposal appears to have been the cause of this exasperation. Morris maintains that although former Prime Minister Barak made some mistakes, these were ultimately negligible errors. In the final analysis, Barak accepted Clinton's generous proposal, which required relinquishing 95 percent of West Bank territory and 100 percent of the Gaza Strip, as well as the division of Jerusalem.

Morris also expresses reservations regarding Barak's readiness to compromise over Temple Mount. "if there is a people that should receive the mount, it I us [the Jewish people]. However an injustice was done, and two mosques were established on the ruins of the Jewish Temple, 1400 years ago and [now] the Arabs also have a share of the Temple Mount. I can accept compromise involving [joint] Jewish and Arab control over Temple Mount, but why should the Palestinians have exclusive control? Where is the justice in this?

In any event, this issue is ultimately eclipsed by Arafat's mistake of rejecting Clinton's proposal. "these mistakes have exacted a cost in human lives on both our side and their side." Says Morris. Morris has been vocal in bringing the issue of "right of return" to the awareness of the general public. He is uncompromising on this issue, viewing every reference to the "right of return" as a disaster, and a recipe for the destruction of the State of Israel. He believes that even if Arafat were to settle for an Israeli acknowledgement of responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem, and even if he were to agree to renounce such a right, in practice, Israel should still reject a proposal of this kind: "if you acknowledge responsibility, millions will immediately come forward and demand their proportion of land. The acceptance of a right of return will lead to attempts to exploit this right and, eventually, there will be no State of Israel. There will be no Jewish state to speak of".

Q: In Taba ( the Israeli-Palestinian talks in Taba January 21-27 2001) there were reports that Israel would acknowledge its responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem, but would have to absorb a negligible number of these refugees and also have final say on this actual number. Do you reject this as well?

BM: The Palestinians told [former] Israeli cabinet Minster Yossi Beilin that they were ready to accept any kind of formula on the refugee issue, but they lied to him. They will never compromise on the right of return. They will never be able to face their people in the refugee camps and tell them: we have relinquished your right to return. They are not able to countenance this.

Q: Sari Nusseibeh head of the PA office of Jerusalem Affairs said it himself.

BM: "He is an exception. His statements are putting his life in danger. He is not one of the first rank senior leadership. I never heard Mohammad Dakhlan, Jibril Rajoub, or Abu Allah and their guys saying this. Even if they will sign on such a text at one stage or another, a new generation will emerge in ten or twenty years and will argue that they had no right to give up [the right of return]."

Q: "You are the man who revealed to the Israelis that they have responsibility for the refugee problem. Are you asking them to ignore what you revealed to them?"

BM: "I revealed to the Israelis the truth of what happened in 1948, the historic facts. But the Arabs are the ones who started the fighting, they started the shootings. So why should I take responsibility? The Arabs started the war, they are responsible."

Q: "Should we ignore this issue in a permanent agreement?"

BM: "We need to give some kind of a solution to the Palestinians but we must not recognize the right of return. Arafat and his generation cannot give up on the vision of the greater land of Israel for the Arabs. [This is true, because] this is a holy land, Dar-al Islam. It was once in the hands of the Muslims, and its inconceivable [to them] that infidels like us would receive it. And besides, even if Arafat will sign an agreement, I find it hard to believe, in view of his behaviour during the last two years, that he or his heirs will abide by it."

Q: "Is that because they are Arabs?"

BM: "Not because they are Arabs, but rather because they don't understand that justice exists on the other side as well. We do understand that justice exists on the other side. Have you ever heard a senior Palestinian official who says that the Jewish demand for the State of Israel is justified? I have never heard that being said..."

"We will not reach a compromise in this generation, and I have a sneaking suspicion that we will never reach a true and permanent agreement. In the heart of every Palestinian exists a desire that the State of Israel will not be here anymore. For many of them this translates into more than just a desire. As far as they are concerned, all of their misfortunes are a consequence of our deeds, and our destruction will bring about their salvation. Their salvation is the whole of Palestine."

Q: "Do they not understand the reality? Do they not understand that they absorb all these blows as a consequence of their unwillingness to compromise?"

BM: "Every nation has its own particular way to understand reality, and their reality is very fluid. They feel that demographics will defeat the Jews in one hundred or two hundred yeas, just like the Crusaders. Or [the Palestinians are hoping that] the Arabs will have nuclear weapons. Why should they accept a compromise that is perceived by them as unjust today?"

Q: "And when you hear Palestinian leaders, like Abu Mazen and others, who say that they are willing to accept Israel, and living alongside it, do you not believe them?"

BM: "Not really. I do believe them when they cheer for bin Laden..."


Saudis airing anti-Semitic TV series for Ramadan

A MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR PRODUCTION

This is a particularly disturbing article. Saudi Arabia, one of America's closest allies, is broadcasting an anti-Semitic TV series in no fewer than 30 episodes.

This news has been ignored by the vast majority of newspapers in the western world. One of the very few exceptions is the National Post of Canada, the correspondent of whom (Matthew Kalman) is a subscriber to this email list.

-- Tom Gross


SAUDIS AIRING 30 PART DRAMATIZATION OF ANTI-SEMITIC "PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION"

Saudis airing anti-Semitic TV series for Ramadan
Based on Protocols of the Elders of Zion
By Matthew Kalman
The National Post (Canada)
December 7, 2001

A major Arabic TV channel has produced a 30-part dramatization of the notorious anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to be broadcast throughout the Arab world as a special program for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Horseman Without a Horse is a multi-million-dollar production starring leading Egyptian actor Muhammad Subhi in 14 different roles with a large international cast from Egypt, Syria and France. The program was made by Arab Radio and Television (ART) a popular satellite channel based in Jedda, Saudi Arabia.

Roz Al-Youssuf, an Egyptian weekly, said in an admiring preview that the series successfully debunks Jewish claims that the Protocols – the supposed minutes of the Jewish clique that controls the world – were a forgery invented by anti-Semitic propagandists in Tsarist Russia.

"For the first time, the series' writer courageously tackles the 24 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, revealing them and clarifying that they are the central line that still, to this very day, dominates Israel's policy, political aspirations and racism," the paper reported.

The Protocols, which first surfaced in Russia at the end of the 19th century, have fed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that suggest Jews seek to exercise world domination through control of the media, banking system and political movements.

They were popular in Nazi Germany and are required reading among neo-Nazi groups to this day. The Protocols have sold thousands of copies in several Arabic editions and are particularly popular in Egypt and Syria.

News of the ART production comes as Dubai TV continues its nightly broadcast of Terrorman – a Ramadan satire depicting Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, drinking the blood of Arab children.

Since Sept. 11, one often-repeated fantasy that has been pushed is that the Israeli Mossad was behind the World Trade Center attack – a gruesome twist on the Jewish conspiracy theory that finds its most potent statement in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion


The item (below) was posted subsequent to my dispatch by the website www.smartertimes.com, the editors of whom are subscribers to this dispatch list and are next year planning to launch a new New York daily newspaper, the New York Sun. I also attach an item from MEMRI.

-- Tom Gross

 


ENCOURAGING?

Encouraging?
December 12, 2001

www.smartertimes.com

In his column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes a memo from President Bush to Saudi Arabia's minister of Islamic affairs. "What encourages us is that you seem to understand that and are taking steps to curtail incitement in your mosques and media," Mr. Friedman writes.

Funny how these Times columnists get all worked up over Attorney General Ashcroft's supposed violations of civil liberties in America, but at the same time they are advocating "taking steps" to curtail the freedoms of press, speech and religion in other countries. Mr. Friedman's suggestion might make sense in the short-term context of Saudi Arabia's state-controlled press and broadcast outlets, but not in the context of the march of freedom.

Even in the short-term context, there isn't much to suggest that America should be encouraged that the Saudis "understand" or are "taking steps" to curtail incitement.

Consider this December 7, 2001, report by Matthew Kalman in Canada's National Post: "A major Arabic TV channel has produced a 30-part dramatization of the notorious anti-Semitic 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' to be broadcast throughout the Arab world as a special program for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.'Horseman Without a Horse' is a multi-million-dollar production starring leading Egyptian actor Muhammad Subhi in 14 different roles with a large international cast from Egypt, Syria and France. The program was made by Arab Radio and Television (ART) a popular satellite channel based in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. Roz Al-Youssuf, an Egyptian weekly, said in an admiring preview that the series successfully debunks Jewish claims that the Protocols – the supposed minutes of the Jewish clique that controls the world – were a forgery invented by anti-Semitic propagandists in Tsarist Russia. 'For the first time, the series' writer courageously tackles the 24 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, revealing them and clarifying that they are the central line that still, to this very day, dominates Israel's policy, political aspirations and racism,' the paper reported."

Hard to see how Mr. Friedman, speaking in the voice of President Bush, can say that he is "encouraged" by such developments in Jedda.

 


A RAMADAN TV SPECIAL

Ramadan TV Special: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Special Dispatch – Arab Antisemitism
December 6, 2001
MEMRI

During the second half of Ramadan, a number of television stations, including Egyptian stations, will be screening the thirty-part series "Horseman Without a Horse," starring the well-known Egyptian actor Muhammad Subhi and a cast of 400 others from Egypt, Syria, and France. The series, whose budget ran six to eight million Egyptian pounds, was produced by Arab Radio and Television (ART), established in 1993, which broadcasts to the Middle East, North America, Latin America, Australia, and Africa. (1)

In a report on the series, the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssuf (2) described it as the "first of its kind" – both artistically, as it is the first time a single actor plays 14 different characters, and in the way in which it deals with the issues it raises. The following are excerpts from a report on the series:

"For the first time, the series' writer courageously tackles the 24 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, revealing them and clarifying that they are the central line that still, to this very day, dominates Israel's policy, political aspirations, and racism... The series' first scene is set in 1948, after the retreat of the four Arab armies and the Zionist invasion of the land of Palestine. From this point, there is a flashback to the mid-19th century."

The newspaper states that the idea of exposing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a drama series took shape in Subhi's mind as the result of two events. The first of these was the "London Convention" [sic], which he considered the greatest single calamity ever to affect the Arab region. This agreement, Subhi claimed, was the work of three Zionist rabbis, promoters of the Zionist idea, who concocted an elaborate plot according to which Palestine would be annexed to Egypt, and Britain would subsequently conquer Egypt and hand Palestine over to the Zionists.

Subhi stated that this is what sparked his desire to investigate the Zionist idea, which existed years before the "London Convention," but emerged only at the first Zionist conference in Basle Switzerland, at which the Jews began to appear as a Zionist organization; previously, they had been active only in associations and large institutions throughout the world.

Also motivating him, he said, was a book by the Egyptian author Abbas Mahmoud Al-'Aqqad on the Zionist movement. Al-'Aqqad said that, "[In order to examine] whether the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are an invention – as [the Jews] claim – all we have to do is to trace the [implementation of the] 24 protocols; if we find that some of them have come to pass, we must expect that the rest also will." Subhi followed Al-'Aqqad's advice, and found that 19 of the 24 protocols had [already] been put into practice. "By means of the series," Subhi adds, "I am exposing all the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that have been implemented to date, in a dramatic, comic, historic, national, tragic, and romantic manner."

The weekly also offered quotes from the Protocols that the series addresses:

"We will act to establish a state to be a superpower that will rule the world"; "[When we rule the world], we will damage its morality with pornography, prostitution, and drugs, and we will corrupt the world of the Gentiles"; "We must choose someone corrupt [for the presidency of the superpower] and when he resists us – we will expose him." In this context, Subhi noted, "We all remember what happened to President Clinton and to other presidents throughout history."

The series will also reveal "advice" reportedly taken from the Protocols, such as: "Feed a dog, [but] not a Muslim or a Christian" and "Kill a Muslim or a Christian and take his house as your house and his lands as your lands." He also raises such questions as, "How can a country like America collaborate with the Jews when it is familiar with the Protocols' directives against it [America]?"

Endnotes:

(1) Al-Alam Al-Youm (Egypt), October 4, 2001.
(2) Roz Al-Youssuf (Egypt), November 17, 2001.


British opposition leader: BBC “gives legitimacy to Arab terrorists”

"LET US CALL THINGS WHAT THEY ARE"

Finally, a leading British politician has openly accused the state-owned BBC and others in the British media of having an anti-Israel bias. For those of you who don't know, Iain Duncan Smith is the new leader of the British Conservative party, the party previously led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major. The party forms the chief opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair's ruling Labour Party.

A previous dispatch on this email list was titled BBC: September 11 attacks "not terrorism" (Nov. 29, 2001).

I attach articles below from the (London) Daily Telegraph and BBC Online.

-- Tom Gross


BBC "GIVES LEGITIMACY TO ARAB TERRORISTS"

BBC 'gives legitimacy to Arab terrorists'
By Sarah Womack, Political Correspondent
The Daily Telegraph (London)
December 11, 2001

Iain Duncan Smith accused British broadcasters yesterday of conferring legitimacy on anti-Israeli terrorist organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Conservative leader said the BBC and others were "fudging" the real nature of such groups by failing to identify them as terrorists.

In a speech to the Conservative Friends of Israel in London, he said terrorists must not be appeased, arguing that Hamas and others were bent on destroying Israel.

"Surely it is time that our national broadcasters, not just but including the BBC, stopped describing Hamas and Jihad with such euphemisms as radical and militant?" he said.

"Let us call things what they are: they are terrorist organisations. Such fudging of what Hamas or Islamic Jihad are confers some sort of legitimacy on people who are terrorists.

"Such misappropriation is absurd when even Palestinian moderates in Jerusalem describe the suicide bombers as terrorists."

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have carried out suicide bombings in the past 10 days which have killed 29 people in Israel, not including the bombers, prompting a tough Israeli military response against targets in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

A BBC spokesman said the corporation [the BBC] generally referred to Hamas and Jihad as "armed militant groups".

He said: "We have an obligation to be impartial, accurate and independent and use neutral language to describe news events and conflict situations.

"We are very explicit visually and verbally in reporting attacks by suicide bombers. It is up to viewers to make up their own minds what these groups represent."

 

DUNCAN SMITH ATTACKS MID-EAST COVERAGE

Duncan Smith attacks Mid-East coverage
BBC Online
December 10, 2001

The Tory leader had strong words on Hamas

UK broadcasters including the BBC have been accused by Iain Duncan Smith of conferring a degree of "legitimacy" on groups such as Hamas by not branding them "terrorists".

The Tory leader told the Conservative Friends of Israel that Hamas and other groups such as Islamic Jihad were intent on destroying Israel.

There was, therefore, no mileage in trying to appease such groups and to not identify them as terrorists was "fudging" the issue.

Mr Duncan Smith told his audience, at the Savoy Hotel in London that he backed the view of US President George W Bush that it was time for people who wanted peace to "rise up and fight terror".

He also welcomed recent moves to freeze the assets of terrorist groups.

Mr Duncan Smith added: "Against this background, surely it is time that our national broadcasters, not just, but including the BBC, stopped describing Hamas and Jihad with such euphemisms as radical and militant?

"Let us call things what they are: they are terrorist organisations."

'Absurd'

"Such fudging of what Hamas or Islamic Jihad are confers some sort of legitimacy on people who are terrorists.

"Such misappropriation is absurd when even Palestinian moderates in Jerusalem describe the suicide bombers as terrorists."

A recent spate of attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Israeli civilians in recent weeks.

Israel's armed response has been forceful with a series of attacks by their military against targets in Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority which have killed Palestinian civilians, including two children on Monday.

Mr Arafat himself has come under sustained pressure amid claims that he is not doing enough to stem the activities of extremists.

Mr Duncan Smith said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were "not interested in peace".

Zero tolerance

"They demand nothing less than the destruction of Israel and all that it stands for," he said.

He said that Israel had the right to defend itself and that the Palestinian Authority had to show that it would "no longer tolerate terrorism".

"More than that, it must never again allow terrorists to justify their monstrous acts in the name of the Palestinian cause," he said.

Mr Duncan Smith also turned his attention to the wider battle against terrorism in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the US.

"Our fight against terror must not stop in Afghanistan. The days of safe havens for terrorists are over. No longer can we appease or turn a blind eye to regimes that support terrorism."

Discipline required

He went on to describe Israel as a "lighthouse of democracy in a troubled region".

Turning to the domestic agenda Mr Duncan Smith emphasised the need for his party to have discipline if it was to have a chance at gaining power.

"Our party must once again be disciplined and determined to return to government.

"We must inspire people to believe that we are on their side – our policy must be about helping people to achieve."


Kabul’s last two Jews celebrate Hannuka

December 10, 2001

A DYING COMMUNITY

Below is an article on the last two known Jews in Afghanistan, Ishak Levin and Zebulon Simantov. It explains how they celebrated Hanukka, the Jewish festival of lights.

This comes within the background of the American invasion of Afghanistan and the continuing assault against the Taliban and Al Qaeda there.

In the late 19th Century as many as 40,000 Jews lived in present day Afghanistan.

The relatively small Afghan Jewish population historically shines a light on the enormity of the lies propogated by the Palestinian Authority as outlined, for example, in the dispatch PA radio: U.S. flooding Israel with Afghani Jews (Dec. 9, 2001) in which Palestinian Authority Radio claimed the U.S. is flooding Israel with "more than half a million Afghan Jews."

-- Tom Gross


LAST TWO JEWS IN AFGHANISTAN CELEBRATE HANUKKA

Afghanistan's two Jews in a poignant and solitary Hanukka
By Laura King
The Associated Press
December 10, 2001

To the glow of candles and the soft cadence of Hebrew blessings, the Jews of Kabul celebrated the first night of Hanukka in a city finally free of harsh Taliban rule. But there were only two of them – and each was alone.

At separate ends of a dilapidated synagogue that was once the heart of a vibrant Jewish community, its two sole remaining members, estranged by a long feud, were together only long enough to argue briefly about whether Sunday indeed marked the first night of the holiday.

One grudgingly accepted the other's word. Then they parted, to go about their solitary commemorations.

As the sky outside began to darken, Ishak Levin's old hands trembled as he lighted first one crooked candle, then a second. The synagogue's main hall was dim and cold; his menorah was the plank of a dusty old table.

"Praised be the Lord, king of the world, who has sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to kindle the Hanukka candle," Levin, a Persian Jew in his 70s, chanted in slurred Hebrew.

In a small, bare room across a cracked concrete courtyard, the two candles of Zebulon Simantov, a 42-year-old Jew from Turkmenistan, glowed on the sill of a window patched with plastic sheeting.

"I prayed for the end of the Taliban, so this is a joyous time," he said. He bowed his head, covered with a skullcap, to recite his own blessings.

Despite their common happiness over the collapse of the Islamic militia under which both said they suffered, the two could not set aside their enmity on this night.

"He is a bad person – I am afraid of him," Levin whispered, locking the door of the tiny, carpet-lined ground-floor room where he lives.

"That man is my enemy," Simantov said sternly as soon as he had finished his prayers.

Hanukka, commemorating the victory of an outnumbered band of Jewish fighters and the rededication of the despoiled Jewish Temple, is traditionally one of the festive highlights of the Jewish year. It lasts eight days, recalling the legend that a single flask of ritually pure oil burned in the Temple's candelabrum for that span.

Both men said they would light candles every night of Hanukka – but not together.

"For a thousand and thousand years, our forefathers have celebrated these nights, and now Jews all over the world are celebrating too," said Levin. "But with him – it is not possible."

Being deprived of the companionship of other Jews – and of one another – is for these two men the final blow in the erosion of a once-proud and flourishing community.

In the late 19th century, as many as 40,000 Jews lived in present-day Afghanistan, many having fled persecution in Persia, now Iran.

By mid-20th century, about 5,000 remained, but most emigrated after Israel's creation in 1948. The 1979 Soviet invasion drove out nearly all the rest, but Levin – the synagogue's shamash, or caretaker – stayed on.

He survived the Soviet years, and the civil warfare of the early 1990s that reduced much of Kabul to ruins. Since then, he has eked out a living prescribing charms and potions for Muslim women hoping to bear a son or prevent their husband from taking a second wife.

Simantov, a carpet merchant, returned to the capital about eight years ago after roving Central Asia for his business.

By then, the community had already dwindled to the point that they were almost the only Jews left in Kabul.

The origins of their feud are murky, but both Levin and Simantov were jailed by the Taliban authorities after reporting each other for alleged offenses. They accused one another of wrongdoing ranging from running a brothel to misappropriating religious objects. Each denies the other's claims.

The escalating animosity may have cost the synagogue its most sacred treasure – its Torah scroll. Simantov accused Levin of wanting to sell it; Levin said Simantov asked the Taliban to take it for safekeeping.

The Taliban fled Kabul nearly a month ago, but the scroll has not been found.

Kabul's Jews have little else by which to remember the past. The city's Jewish cemetery was wrecked, like so much else, by rocketing during the civil war. Stones, weeds and debris cover the tombstones.

Both men have relatives in Israel, and groups in the past have raised funds for Levin to emigrate if he wishes.

But both say they intend to live out their lives here, steadfast in their refusal to seek one another's company.

"I hope that other Jews might come back, now that Afghanistan is free," said Simantov.

Levin, his room lighted only by a small lamp and his Hanukka candles, doubted that would happen.

"I am alone with myself, and will be until I die," he said.


Jerusalem bomb had rat poisoning

December 09, 2001

POLICE CHECK FOR POISONS

Yediot Ahronot correspondent Limor Shmuel reported in today's edition (Dec. 9, 2001) that one of the bombs that exploded last week in Jerusalem also contained chemical poison – apparently rat poisoning. The area around the bomb on Luntz Street was checked after police noted an odd smell.

Investigators found traces of a common poison – apparently rat poison – that can be readily purchased. It is believed that the bomb contained large quantities of the poison but that most of it burned in the explosion.

This is an update to eight previous dispatches on this email list on the suicide bombs in Haifa and Jerusalem last weekend. The last of which was this morning, Ido Cohen, 17, succumbs to his wounds. Attached below is an article by Dr Stephen Bryen, a former member of President Reagan's Defense Department, on "The New Terrorism."

-- Tom Gross


"THE SECURITY CHALLENGE TO FERRET OUT TERRORISTS IS FORMIDABLE"

The New Terrorism
By Dr Stephen D. Bryen
JINSA

At least one of the bombs that blew up in Jerusalem on December 1st was more than an explosive device packed with nails; the bomb was laced with rat poison.

Rat poison is an interesting choice for a terrorist weapon. While there are different types of rat poison on the market, the most popular rat poisons use anti-coagulants to kill small mammals like rats. The anti-coagulants have names such as warfarin, fumarin, diphacinone and bromadiolone. All of them work in the same way by making it hard or impossible for the body to produce coagulation factors needed to make the blood clot and stop bleeding.

Ingestion of rat poison in the normal way by eating leads to a slow death for a small animal. Every mammal needs to produce clots internally to manage the body and prevent against hemorrhaging. A rat or dog that has eaten poison made with these coagulants will likely succumb after a few days as it first becomes pale and anemic and then has internal hemorrhaging.

Anti-coagulants that are injected into a patient are, of course, much faster acting. Thus, an anti-coagulant-soaked bomb will unleash projectile fragments while will inject the poison directly into the person struck by a fragment.

According to Israel's internal security minister, Uzi Landau, much of the rat poison used in the Jerusalem bomb burned up in the explosion, so the rat poison was not as effective as intended. But had it worked, many more of the 100 or so victims of the bombing who were wounded would have died or suffered considerable agony.

This is not the only type of poison in the hands of terrorists. In the Al Qaeda caves U.S. Marines found quantities of ricin, a deadly poison. Ricin is also produced in Iraq and Iraq's connection with the Palestinians is another source of the spread of this toxin.

Ricin is made from the castor bean plant. Breathing dust that contains ricin causes cough, weakness, fever, nausea, muscle aches, difficult breathing, chest pain, and cyanosis (blue skin). Breathing the dust can result in respiratory and circulatory failure. Exposure to concentrated ricin particles in the air where large numbers of people would likely experience the signs and symptoms in one place and time could cause many fatalities. Injection of ricin toxin would likely result in tissue (muscle) necrosis near the injection site, probable multiple organ failure, and death. All routes of exposure are very dangerous and can result in death.

In September 1978 the Bulgarian dissident, Mr. Georgi Markov, felt a stabbing pain in his right thigh in front of the Waterloo bus station in London. Three days later, in hospital, he died in great agony, succumbing to what was thought of as some strange type of blood poisoning. In fact what had happened was that an umbrella was remanufactured by the KGB and into its tip was placed a small round ball, which contained nearly microscopic indentures, filled with ricin. Thanks to excellent investigative work, the plot hatched between Bulgarian and Soviet intelligence to kill Markov became generally known and was revealed in a 1979 BBC documentary on the Panorama program called "Who Killed Georgi Markov."

Like rat poison, ricin can be packed into bombs. The fact that Al Qaeda was producing the stuff is a cause for major concern.

Many other chemical and biological materials, some commonly available and others specially manufactured can be packed into bombs. In addition, radiological "dust" can also be put into bombs and there is growing evidence that Al Qaeda, with help from Pakistani scientists, was working on radiological weapons. No doubt the same know-how also exists in Iraq, which has nuclear reactors and experienced nuclear scientists.

Judging from what has been happened in the U.S. on September 11th, what is happening in Israel now, and the risk of sleeper agents already in the United States, the security challenge to ferret out terrorists is formidable. It is questionable that self-defense measures will suffice to protect our population from future attacks. President Bush is right that the only alternative open to us is to go after the terrorists and their supporters and destroy them. Now, as Al Qaeda is collapsing in Afghanistan, we are entering a period of acute danger, and it is imperative that we act quickly and ruthlessly before more, and deadlier, terrorist incidents take place.


Suicide bombings justified, says Jerusalem Mufti

This ruling comes from one of the most senior Palestinian religious leaders, a personal appointee of Yasser Arafat.

-- Tom Gross


SHEIKH AKRAMEH SABRI SAYS SUICIDE BOMBINGS ARE JUSTIFIED

'Suicide bombings are justified,' Jerusalem Mufti Sabri tells paper
By Daniel Sobelman
Ha'aretz
December 9, 2001

The mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, says that suicide bombings are justified and should be encouraged, according to a report published on Friday in the international Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat.

During a visit to Abu Dhabi, Sabri criticized the Muslim religious leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia who issued an Islamic ruling (fatwa) against suicide attacks. Last week, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the sheikh of Al-Azhar University and Mosque in Cairo, ruled that Islamic law does not condone suicide attacks against innocent victims. A leading mufti in Saudi Arabia issued a similar opinion.

According to Sabri, "these rulings came as a result of international pressure." He added that "those who do not have the courage to speak the truth should remain quiet and not say things that create confusion." Sabri, who was appointed by PAChairman Yasser Arafat, added: "Resistance is legitimate and those who give up their lives do not require permission from anyone."

According to Sabri, "We must not stand in the way of the intifada and jihad [holy war]. Rather, we must stand at their side and encourage them."


PA radio: U.S. flooding Israel with Afghani Jews

Even by the fantastical standards of the daily diet of anti-Semitic and racist propaganda pumped out by Arafat's media, this claim is incredible.

-- Tom Gross


PA RADIO: "MORE THAN HALF A MILLION AFGHAN JEWS ON THEIR WAY TO ISRAEL"

PA radio: U.S. flooding Israel with Afghani Jews
By Michael Widlanski
The Media Line
December 7, 2001

The United States is using its victory over the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to flood Israel with "more than half a million Afghani Jews."

That is a report relayed today at 13:00 and 14:00 (Jerusalem time) on the Palestinian Authority's state-run Voice of Palestine, even though there are practically no Jews in Afghanistan.

The report seemed designed to discredit the American military success while also linking ulterior motives to the American actions in Afghanistan, even hinting that the U.S. was conspiring in some way to harm Palestinian interests.

"It is reported that more than half a million Afghani Jews are on their way to Israel," said the Friday afternoon report that lasted for nearly a minute.


Ido Cohen, 17, succumbs to his wounds

CONTENTS

1. Ido Cohen – latest teenage victim of last weekend's attacks
2. Palestinian terrorists seriously wound Israeli motorist
3. Bomb defused near Bethlehem
4. Suicide bombing in Haifa, other bombs found


[Note by Tom Gross]

Attached below are reports on the death of Ido Cohen, who was critically wounded in the suicide bombing in Jerusalem last Saturday night. There is also news regarding the wounding today of an Israeli motorist by Palestinian terrorists, the defusing of a bomb near Bethlehem, and a suicide bomb in Haifa. This is a follow-up to previous dispatches on last weekend's Jerusalem bomb attacks, the last one of which was titled, Some facts you might not have seen in regular news reports (December 5, 2001).


40 OTHERS STILL RECOVERING IN JERUSALEM HOSPITALS

Ido Cohen, 17
December 9, 2001

Ido Cohen, 17, who was critically wounded in last Saturday night's suicide bombings on Jerusalem's Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall, succumbed to his wounds and died last night at Jerusalem's Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem.

Cohen had been in a coma in the hospital's intensive care unit with severe head wounds for a week. He never regained consciousness.

Two other victims of the attack remain in very serious condition, while some 40 others, mainly teenagers, are still recovering in Jerusalem hospitals.

 

19:00: PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS SERIOUSLY WOUND ISRAELI MOTORIST

19:00: Palestinian terrorists seriously wound Israeli motorist
News Briefs
December 9, 2001

Palestinian terrorists seriously wounded an Israeli motorist near the community of Na'aleh, between Modi'in and Ramallah, moments ago.

The victim was shot in the chest and neck, in an apparent ambush, according to initial reports.

 

13.25: BOMB DEFUSED NEAR BETHLEHEM

13:25: Bomb defused near Bethlehem
News Briefs
December 9, 2001

Sappers safely detonated a roadside charge near Bethlehem a short time ago.

The device was discovered on the heavily traveled Bethlehem bypass road which connects Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion bloc of communities to the south.

 

07:45: SUICIDE BOMBING IN HAIFA, OTHER BOMBS FOUND

07:45: Suicide bombing in Haifa, other bombs found
News Briefs
December 9, 2001

A suicide bomber blew himself up a few minutes ago adjacent to a bus stop at the Checkpost Junction near Haifa.

Thirty one people were hospitalized in the wake of the attack, according to a government statement. Casualties have been admitted to Rambam, Carmel and Bnai Zion hospitals in Haifa according to Magen David Adom spokesmen.

Two police officers spotted the man, who aroused their suspicion, before the explosion. They fired at the bomber before he detonated the nail and screw-studded device he was wearing. It is unclear if they wounded the bomber before he detonated the bomb.

Sappers found and blew up a second belt-bomb in a controlled explosion at the scene of the attack.

A third bomb was discovered a few minutes ago, according to Army Radio. It did not explode. No group has taken responsibility for the attack. The intersection is heavily traveled Sunday mornings. There are heavy traffic jams in the vicinity.

This was the second attack in Haifa in a week.


Lebanese Christians face death for contacting Israel

December 05, 2001

Attached below is an article from The Associated Press on Lebanese Christians who now face the death penalty for contacting Israel, and meeting with Israeli officials. No trial date has been set.

-- Tom Gross


THREE LEBANESE CHRISTIANS WHO MET ISRAELI OFFICIALS FACE DEATH

Lebanese Christians face death for contacting Israeli officials
The Associated Press
December 5, 2001

A military prosecutor today charged three Lebanese Christians with contacting Israel and meeting officials from the Jewish state, crimes punishable by death.

Military prosecutor Abdullah al-Haj also charged the men with harming Lebanon's relations with Syria.

Those charged were journalist Antoine Bassil; a senior official of the disband Lebanese Forces group, Toufic Hindy; and Ghassan Touma, one of the group's security chiefs during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

The Lebanese Forces was banned in 1994 and its leader Samir Geagea has been in jail since for killing political enemies.

Bassil and Hindy were arrested in a two-week security crackdown in August that netted about 250 Christian activists opposed to Syria's 25,000 troops in Lebanon.

Touma remains at large and is believed to be living in the United States.

The three are expected to be referred to a military court.

No trial date has been set.

Al-Haj said Hindy had resumed contacts with Israel in 1995 and since then met several Israeli officials. Al-Haj said Bassil had arranged the meetings, some of which Touma had attended.

Among the Israeli officials who Hindy and Touma met was Uri Lubrani, the Israeli government coordinator for south Lebanon during Israel's 18-year occupation, court documents said.

Habib Younis, a senior editor at the Beirut bureau of the London-based and Saudi-owned Al Hayat, is also under detention and was similarly charged in August.

Authorities said that Bassil had worked for Middle East Television, which was run by the South Lebanon Army, the pro-Israeli militia that aided Israeli occupation troops in southern Lebanon until they withdrew last year.

While Lebanon considers itself at war with Israel and bans any contact with it, it is closely allied with Arab neighbor Syria, the main power-broker in Lebanon. Some Christian opposition leaders strongly oppose Syria's military and political influence in Lebanon.


In defense of fundamentalist Jews

I attach an article from Seth Lipsky, a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal.

-- Tom Gross


"THOMAS FRIEDMAN IS TRULY INTOLERANT"

They don't want to save your soul
In defense of fundamentalist Jews
By Seth Lipsky
The Wall Street Journal
December 5, 2001

Three days after the attack on the World Trade Center, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote a column asserting, among other things, that terrorism reflects a struggle "between those Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews with a modern and progressive outlook and those with a medireview one." It was one of those glancing sneers that took some people a bit of time to comprehend.

But not Rabbi Avi Shafran of the Agudath Israel of America, an organization that represents fervently religious Jews and is affiliated with the Council of Torah Sages. "If Mr. Friedman means to impugn Jews who remain faithful to Jewish religious tradition and who accept and observe the Torah's laws even against the zeitgeist, he should be advised," the rabbi wrote to the Times. "Orthodox Jews express their fervency through prayer, study of texts, ritual observance and kindness toward others, not in terrorism. To try to compare them to Islamic radicals is outlandish and worse."

A few weeks later came another of those sneers that are so subtle they can go right past a reader. This time it was by an author named Karen Armstrong, writing in Time magazine. She asserted that every fundamentalist movement she has studied "in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced that liberal, secular society is determined to wipe out religion." She went on to say: "Fighting, as they imagine, a battle for survival, fundamentalists often feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith."

This gibe prompted Phil Baum of the American Jewish Congress to write a letter to Time. "While there are extremists in Judaism and Christianity," he wrote, "the actions of this handful of marginal religious fanatics are almost universally repudiated by other Jews and Christians." By contrast, he added, "Islamic extremism includes thousands of adherents around the globe expressly trained and sworn to kill by leaders like Osama bin Laden. Except for a minuscule number of isolated individuals, Jewish fundamentalists act out their beliefs by railing against the modern world, prohibiting television in their homes and requiring the strictest possible interpretation of Jewish law, such as Sabbath observance. But they do not direct airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon."

When occasionally a religious Jew does commit an atrocity, his co-religionists immediately and forcefully condemn him. This happened in 1994, when Baruch Goldstein slew 29 Arabs while they were kneeling in prayer at Hebron. Of those few who cheered Goldstein, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said, "Sane Judaism spits them out." He spoke for overwhelming numbers. Condemnation came not only from the secular authorities, but also from religious Jewry, including the most fundamentalist authorities.

A few weeks ago, the writer Jonathan Rosen, a former colleague of mine at the Jewish Forward, published in the New York Times magazine a seminal article titled "The Uncomfortable Question of Anti-Semitism." Mr. Rosen wrote about his sense, which a lot of us share, that things are suddenly changing in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11. The language of anti-Semitism, often used in the context of hostile remarks about Israel, is starting to become a routine part of the political chatter.

It reminds a lot of us of an earlier time.

Toward the end of his article, Mr. Rosen quotes Bernard Lewis as pointing out that after Christians reconquered Spain from the Muslims in the 15th century, they decided to expel the Jews before the Muslims. "The reason for this," Mr. Rosen writes, "is that although the Jews had no army and posed far less of a political threat than the Muslims, they posed a far greater theological challenge. This is because Jews believed that adherents of other faiths could find their own path to God. Christianity and Islam, which cast unbelievers as infidels, did not share this essential religious relativism. The rabbinic interpretation of monotheism, which in seeing all human beings as created in God's image recognized their inherent equality, may well contain the seeds of the very democratic principles that the terrorists of Sept. 11 found so intolerable."

In this context, what is one to make of all this carping about Jewish fundamentalism? At one point Rabbi Shafran – a prolific columnist with far too few readers – actually tapped out a charming little piece called "Confessions of a Jewish Fundamentalist." In it he describes the fundamentals of his creed as a rigorously Orthodox Jew, starting with: that there is a God and that he revealed Himself at Sinai and that an ultimate reward and punishment awaits all human beings. He explains what he calls "funny clothes" ("modest in a way that tends to stand out, especially on summer days") and "strange doings" ("from the moment we wake up until we go to bed, our lives are governed by myriad religious rules").

He explains that Jewish fundamentalism seeks neither material success nor world domination but rather good deeds and the study of Torah. He confirms the point that Messrs. Rosen and Lewis have made, explaining that efforts of Jewish fundamentalists to spread the faith extend only to other Jews who may lack traditional Jewish educations. "We don't evangelize other faiths or see them as unsaved," he writes. "Indeed, we consider a Christian or Muslim who observes certain basic moral precepts to merit a share in the World-to-Come."

Then, right after Thanksgiving, Mr. Friedman of the Times issued another column, this one, called "The Real War," attacking "religious totalitarianism." He wrote of "the contention that unless Jews reinterpreted their faith in a way that embraced modernity, without weakening religious passion, and in a way that affirmed that God speaks multiple languages and is not exhausted by just one faith, they would have no future in the land of Israel."

This prompted Aguda's David Zweibel to write to the Times to explain that religious Jews don't need to "reinterpret" their tradition to allow for tolerance of other faiths. "We do not seek, much less try to force, the conversion of Christians or Muslims to our religion." Religious Jews, he said, certainly do believe that the Torah is God's word and that Judaism is the ultimate statement of his will – "just as we imagine that many people of other faiths believe that theirs represents ultimate truth." He went on to write: "Mr. Friedman's vision of America as a country where religious belief is welcome only if it abandons claims to exclusive truth is truly chilling – and truly intolerant."


Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg to light Hanukka candles in Jerusalem

Hardly a single western politician has made a solidarity trip to Israel despite the wave of terror attacks recently.

-- Tom Gross


GIULIANI, BLOOMBERG & PATAKI TO MAKE SOLIDARITY TRIP TO ISRAEL

Giuliani to light Hanukka candles in Jerusalem
By Etgar Lefkovits
Jerusalem Post
December 5, 2001

Staunch Israel supporter New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will join New York Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg and New York Gov. George Pataki, on a 24-hour solidarity trip to Israel this Sunday.

Giuliani has also accepted the invitation of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert to light the first candle of Hanukkah at an official city lighting ceremony on Jerusalem's Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall this Sunday night, the first night of Hanukkah, the city announced this evening.


Former Nobel Committee member: Revoke Arafat’s prize

Kaare Kristiansen who resigned in protest at the decision to award Yasser Arafat the Nobel peace prize has said the panel should publicly express regret. Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 "for his efforts to create peace in the Middle East."

-- Tom Gross


KRISTIANSEN: THE PANEL SHOULD PUBLICLY EXPRESS REGRET

Jewish Telegraph Agency
December 5, 2001

A former Nobel Committee member said the panel should publicly express regret for awarding the 1994 Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat. Blaming the Palestinian leader for the upsurge in Middle East violence, Kaare Kristiansen said Tuesday he had been right to oppose the committee’s decision to award Arafat the prize. Kristiansen quit the committee in 1994 to protest the award.


Some facts you might not have seen in regular news reports

The following information is from today's Israeli army press briefing. This is an update to seven previous dispatches on this email list on the suicide bombs in Haifa and Jerusalem last weekend. The last dispatch, sent yesterday, was titled, Hizbullah MP’s praise the suicide attacks in Israel (December 4, 2001).

-- Tom Gross


ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND MATERIAL THAT ESCAPED THE ATTENTION OF MEDIA COVERAGE

On Monday morning, December 3, following the weekend murder spree that had taken the lives of 28 people in Arab terror attacks throughout Israel, Israeli Defense Forces terror experts held a briefing in front of a packed hall of foreign correspondents at an emergency situation room of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem.

The IDF spokespeople provided essential background material that had escaped the attention of media coverage, both in Israel and abroad.

The IDF stated that it had managed to stop 16 attempted suicide attacks over the past three weeks, besides the three attacks that it did not manage to forestall.

The IDF made it clear that Arafat's arrest of more than 100 people had nothing to do with the list of 108 suspects that Israel had asked Arafat to arrest, in accordance with the Oslo accords that require the PA to arrest suspects at the request of the government of Israel.

From the list of 108 suspects that Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres had handed over to Arafat, only one was arrested by Arafat... ten days before.

What the IDF made clear was that the suspects arrested by Arafat were almost all on the payroll of the PA, and not the leaders whom the IDF was seeking.

The IDF declared that the most important and significant Arab terror organization that had coordinated the series of terror attacks and attempted terror attacks was the Tanzim, which is directly funded and operated by Arafat's elite forces.

The IDF also reported that the Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been ordered by Arafat to give the impression that they were under pressure by Arafat to lay down their arms and to cease all terror activity, even though no such order was issued by Arafat or any other source of authority in the Palestinian Authority.

The IDF assessment was that Arafat had ignored the message delivered by U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell that Arafat would have to make a 100% effort to curtail terror activity.

The assessment of the IDF was that as the U.S. and the EU had continued and even increased their funding of the PA at this time, Arafat did not feel and had not internalized the U.S. warning that Arafat must reign in the forces of terror and provide real evidence that he had done so.


Grenade fired at building with El Al office in Bangkok

A grenade was fired at a building in central Bangkok that contains the ticketing office of El Al, the national Israeli airline.

-- Tom Gross


ASSAILANTS FIRE A ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADE IN CENTRAL BANGKOK

Grenade fired at building with El Al office in Bangkok
The Associated Press
December 5, 2005

Assailants fired a rocket propelled grenade at a multistory building in central Bangkok housing a ticketing office of the airline El Al early this morning.

Local police said they doubted the Israeli carrier was the target.

There were no casualties but some damage to the facade of the 15-story Manorom Building on Rama IV road, one of the main thoroughfares of the Thai capital, said Lt. Gen. Anan Piromkaew, chief of the metropolitan police.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

In 1994, an apparent plot to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok was foiled.

A truck containing a bomb was abandoned a few hundred meters (yards) from the embassy after being involved in a traffic accident.


Today’s bomb at Jerusalem Hilton targeted government ministers

I attach an article below with details of a Palestinian suicide bomber who blew himself up near a Jerusalem hotel targeting Israeli politicians, such as Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, Minister of Internal Security Uzi Landau, and Religious Affairs Minister Asher Ohana.

-- Tom Gross



ELEVEN PEOPLE WOUNDED FROM SUICIDE BOMB ON KING DAVID STREET

Bomb at Jerusalem Hilton targeted ministers
Jerusalem Post Online
December 5, 2005

A Palestinian suicide bomber, reportedly targeting senior government ministers, blew himself up near a Jerusalem hotel early this morning.

Eleven people sustained minor wounds in the blast.

The blast took place in front of the David Citadel Hotel (formerly the Jerusalem Hilton) on King David Street shortly after 7:30 a.m.

The pedestrians, waiting at a nearby bus stop, were lightly wounded by shards of glass and metal fragments in the explosion.

They were taken to Hadassah University Hospital on Mt. Scopus and Shaare Zedek Hospital for treatment, Israel Radio reported.

The terrorist, killed in the blast, was targeting senior government ministers, according to a statement released by Islamic Jihad.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, Minister of Internal Security Uzi Landau, and Religious Affairs Minister Asher Ohana were at the hotel at the time of the attack, Israel Radio reports.

The organization took responsibility for the blast in a fax sent to the Reuters bureau in Beirut. The bomber, Daoud Abu Sawaid was reportedly an Islamic Jihad member, 43, from Artas near Bethlehem.

Police said the nail and metal-studded bomb was very powerful and contained anti-tank munitions.

There was heavy damage to the glass-fronted building.

Windows of numerous cars in the vicinity were blown out by the force of the explosion.

The area was cordoned off as police searched for further explosives.

US envoy Anthony Zinni is staying at a hotel in the vicinity, but was unhurt in the blast. He reportedly heard the explosion.


Palestinian Authority plans longer-range rocket

December 04, 2001

I attach an article from Middle East News Line, a well-informed and generally accurate news service.

-- Tom Gross



THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY DEPLOYS THE KASSAM ROCKET

Middle East News Line
December 3, 2001

The Palestinian Authority has deployed the Kassam-1 short-range rocket and plans to develop longer-range models.

Israeli and Palestinian sources said the PA and Islamic opposition groups are using the rocket along with mortars. They said the Kassam-1 has proven to be an effective Palestinian response to Israeli tank and missile fire.

The Kassam-1 is the first Palestinian-made rocket, designed by the Hamas group. Palestinian sources said the designer was identified as Adnan Ghaoul. Israeli and Palestinian sources said the range of the rocket is between four and five kilometers and is far more accurate than Palestinian mortars. They said the PA has taken charge of production of the rocket.


Intifada poetry: An appeal from Gilo

In case anyone in Israel or abroad on this list wishes to express their feelings through poetry, I attach the following sent to me by a resident of the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, which has frequently been a target for Palestinian rocket and machine gun attack.

As a one time exception, I am enclosing an email appeal from an embattled resident of Gilo, given the complete lack of informative coverage of their plight at present in the western media.

(Please do not ask me to send other such items in the future. This email list is for information purposes, not for lobbying or the sending of appeals.)

-- Tom Gross


INTIFADA POETRY – I AM THE EDITOR – FOR YOUR INFORMATION

From: Sue (Yaffa) Tourkin-Komet
Sent: Sunday, December 2, 2001
Subject: Intifada Poetry – I am The Editor – For Your Information

Dear Friends and future Friends,

This e-mail is meant to GO PUBLIC and inform you (and any of your other poet friends and acquaintances, male or female, of all ADULT ages) – that I am The Editor of a forth-coming book (or short stories / essays / vignettes – 1,500 words maximum) that deals with the topic of – INTIFADA.

That word should need no translation.

You and I may keep in mind that our "current" Intifada is not only 14 months long / short, but goes back many years, decades, and centuries.

I shall accept entries only by e-mail.

I shall accept only 3 entries per person.

If you or they are prolific writers, then you / they may submit 3 poems and 2 essays AT THE MOST.

I shall accept poems that are only one-two standard "typed" pages in length
– at the very most.

I shall accept entries only from persons who send me their full name and basic identification, snail mail address, e-mail address, tel. number, their age desireably (in order to appreciate if "immature poems" are indeed written by 10 or 12 year-olds, rather than by "adults") and an ID number (if your or their name be new to me), be it Israeli or American or any other nationality, because of the sensitive nature of the material.

In the event that the identity of the author or the content of his / her submitted material looks "desireable" but simultaneously "questionable," I may have to request names of recommenders – in any city, village, or hamlet on this planet, in order to discover a mutual third party.

(In other words, not to receive any "practical jokers" un-solicited material.)

NOTE:

I shall not publish (nor keep) anything "Racist."

I shall be the one to determine the "Thin Line" between the Freedom of Speech and on the other hand, some degree of "universal brotherly / sisterly love."

If any one writer's works look so desireable, then I shall be the one to ask for more submissions from him / or from her.

I shall delete any submitter who ignores these standards.

I shall not be giving any one writer or poet any Proteksia (favoritism) because he / she is my friend, neighbor, or relative.

And with such limitations stated, I must add that:

I am the originator of this idea (so far), am doing this voluntarily (so far), have written only 2-3 Intifada poems of my own (so far), thus meeting my own limit – as I set for others.

Poems or stories of a humorous or satirical nature, however – only in good taste – which deal with the Intifada, will also be considered.

I understandably reserve the right to edit the submitted material, but more for "errors" and less for content.

I was awarded this Editorship, by an Editor in Tel Aviv, who edits the annual book of the Israeli English Writers' Association (which is publishing a poetic essay of mine in their upcoming book called "CAFE POETRY" – in Jan. 2002, G-d willing) and whose editor does not have the time nor the inclination to do a separate book on Intifada Poetry.

As I am the Originator of this idea, I am now the Editor.

I welcome all submissions, according to the guidelines set down in this letter to you.

I invite you to copy this letter and to forward it to your Mailing List – but only according to your own good selection.

Respectfully yours,
Sue Tourkin-komet,
poet, author, and editor,
gilo, jerusalem
yaffasue@netvision.net.il

POSTSCRIPT

I shall also accept material that has been previously published, on condition that the author and the prior publishing house will state their explicit "snail mail" advance written permission granting such re-prints' rights – up-front, at the onset, to avoid any and all problems that could occur because of infringements of Copyright Laws.

I shall also consider receiving simultaneous or "second-hand" material which has been submitted to other publishing houses – and was not yet published.


Bush freezes Hamas assets in U.S.

BUSH TO ANNOUNCE ACTION AGAINST LEADING ISLAMIC FOUNDATION IN U.S.

Bush freezes Hamas assets in US
By Scott Lindlaw
The Associated Press
December 4, 2001

The Bush administration froze the assets early today of financial groups accused of financing the militant Palestinian organization Hamas.

Two administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bush would announce the action today against a leading Islamic foundation in the United States and two other financial groups.

The freeze would apply to the assets of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, an organization based in Richardson, Texas, that raised $13 million last year and is one of the largest Muslim charities in the United States.

The two other groups were not immediately known.

The administration had planned the crackdown for later in the month, but moved up the action after the weekend suicide bombings in Israel that killed 25 people.

Hamas, already on the State Department terrorist list, has taken responsibility for the attacks.

The administration action, taken just after midnight, is the third such move since October. Last month, the administration seized terrorist assets linked to Islamic money exchanges operating in the United States.

Money is deposited with a broker in one place and recipients get a code or token that lets them collect the same amount somewhere else, usually from a small merchant belonging to the same clan.

Foreign ministers from the seven leading industrialized nations – the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – agreed in September to produce a coordinated plan to freeze the assets of terrorist organizations.

It was not immediately clear whether any of those countries were moving against groups backing Hamas and similar organizations active in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.


Searching for victims’ relatives abroad

SEARCHING FOR RELATIVES IN SOVIET UNION, GERMANY & UNITED STATES

Fwd -- Urgent

December 3, 2001 11:00

Jewish Agency For Israel Communications and Information Unit

Nine of the victims of the Haifa explosion, whose bodies have so far been identified, are new immigrants.

The Jewish Agency is at this moment attempting to locate relatives of the victims in the former Soviet Union, Germany and the United States, and will fly them free of charge to Israel as soon as possible.

For Details contact Yehuda Weinraub Office of The Jewish Agency Spokesman 055-284805


[Note by TG – The following is adapted from the Jerusalem Post. For those who wish to make donations, at the end of the article, there is a phone number for Sela, the Israeli non-profit group that helps the families of dead and injured immigrants.]

AT LEAST 14 IMMIGRANTS DEAD FROM TERROR ATTACKS SINCE THURSDAY

Agencies rushing to help immigrants hard hit by violence
Jerusalem Post
December 4, 2001

Government and private agencies are rallying to help families of immigrants killed and wounded in the weekend wave of terror attacks, as they are less likely than native Israelis to have family and other support networks, officials said yesterday.

At least 14 immigrants have died in terrorist incidents since Thursday, including at least nine in the suicide bus bombing in Haifa on Sunday and two in the Jerusalem suicide bombings late Saturday night, according to the Israel Crisis Management Center (Sela), an immigrant aid association.

At least 11 of the teens wounded in the Jerusalem attack were immigrants.

Two immigrants were killed in the bus explosion last Thursday on the Wadi Ara highway near Pardess Hanna.

Earlier in the week, a 16-year-old immigrant girl was badly wounded in a terror attack in Afula.

The immigrant community has been hard hit by these attacks. The Jerusalem explosion happened on the six-month anniversary of the attack on the Dolphin disco in Tel Aviv, which killed 21 young adults and teens, virtually all of them FSU immigrants. She had returned from a memorial gathering of the parents when she heard about the Jerusalem explosion.

Following such incidents, the group assigns a volunteer to stay in contact with the affected family members so they do not become isolated.

Sela, founded in 1992, is located in Neveh Tzedek. For information and donations, call (972 - 3) 510-7750


Hizbullah MP’s praise the suicide attacks in Israel

Attached below is an article from the Beirut Daily Star, one of the Arab world's more moderate newspapers. This is a follow-up to the previous six dispatches on the suicide bombs in Haifa and Jerusalem last weekend. The last of these was titled In a rare move... (December 2, 2001).

-- Tom Gross


HIZBULLAH PRAISE SUICIDE ATTACKS IN ISRAEL

Hizbullah, MPs praise the suicide attacks in Israel
By Elie Hourani
The Beirut Daily Star staff
December 4, 2001

The suicide attacks that rocked both Jerusalem and Haifa at the weekend were on Monday the object of praise by several Lebanese groups.

Hizbullah's commander of the South, Sheikh Nabil Qaouq, said that suicide attacks have defeated Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon for the first time in his entire military career.

"Sharon's downfall is imminent as a result of the Lebanese resistance's attacks and those of Palestinian fighters," Qaouq said in a speech at Yaroun. He added that it was a matter of time before the Kfar Shuba hilltops and the Shebaa Farms were liberated from Israeli occupation.

"Israel is now thinking about withdrawing from the occupied areas. But it is looking for a face-saving way to do so. But the Lebanese resistance is determined to make such a withdrawal look like an unconditional Israeli defeat," he said.

In a related development, pro-Hizbullah Baalbek MP Hussein Hajj Hassan praised the suicide operations.

"They have shaken the belief in Zionist security and undermined all the precautionary measures taken by the Israeli military institution," Hajj Hassan said in an iftar Monday at Younin.

He found it strange that Western states are prompt in supporting the Israeli stance, "yet the West does nothing when the Israelis commit crimes against women and children and assassinates intifada activists."

Also on Monday, Hizbullah's deputy secretary-general Sheikh Naim Qassem described the current situation as "not mere fighting" between the Israelis and Palestinians. "What is happening today is a historic moment for shaping the future of the entire area.

"Either the whole Middle East is reshaped to please Israel or the Occupied Territories are freed and the whole area can live in peace and quiet once again," the cleric said.

Speaking at an iftar in Ghassanieh, he said the suicide bombings were legitimate operations. He said that the US had stood by Israel since its foundation in 1948, "and now, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, the United States is even more biased in favor of Israel."

He added that "we are facing an unfair international resolution. Either we give in and accept it or keep fighting to regain our occupied land by force."


In a rare move…

December 02, 2001

Sheikh Tantawi, leader of Sunnite Islam in Cairo condemns attacks against all innocent civilians. This comes after a spate of suicide bombings in Haifa and Jerusalem.

For details of these suicide bombings please see the previous 5 dispatches, the last one was named, Palestinian school teachers celebrate (December 2, 2001).

Though he did not specifically refer to Israeli innocent civilians this comes after suicide bombings in both Jerusalem and Haifa killed many innocent Israeli civilians.

-- Tom Gross


Palestinian school teachers celebrate

COUSIN OF SUICIDE BOMBER: "WE ARE PROUD OF HIM"

Palestinian school teacher, others celebrate
[Edited from AP]

NABLUS, West Bank – The suicide bomber who blew himself up on an Egged bus in Haifa today was a 21-year-old plumber who had gotten engaged six weeks ago, his father said.

Muhiy Habashi, 65, a municipal worker in Nablus, got word of his son's death after he returned home from prayers to mark the holy month of Ramadan. Hundreds of Palestinians filled Habashi's home and spilled out into the street, most coming to offer their congratulations.

"We are proud of him, you should be proud of him," said Habashi's cousin Adel, 45, a school teacher.


QUOTE

"This is the deepest evil imaginable. To attack young people and children, and then to attack rescue personnel – this is the lowest form of humanity that can be imagined." – Gen, Anthony Zinni, U.S. special envoy.

 

PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS KILL PROFESSOR

Israeli killed as vehicles attacked
Jerusalem
December 3, 2001

Prof. Baruch Singer, a scientist from the Nahal Sorek nuclear research site in central Israel, has been shot dead by two Palestinian terrorists dressed in IDF fatigues as he drove between Elei Sinai and Nisanit in the northern Gaza Strip.


"WE ARE PROUD OF HIM"

Palestinians on suicide bomber: 'We are proud of him'
By Mohammed Daraghmeh,
The Associated Press

NABLUS, West Bank – The suicide bomber who blew himself up on an Egged bus in Haifa today was a 21-year-old plumber who had gotten engaged six weeks ago and was preparing for his wedding, his stunned father said.

Muhiy Habashi, 65, said he had no idea his son, Maher, had been recruited by the Islamic militant group Hamas. One of the assailant's younger brothers broke down in tears and had to be restrained while his mother sat in a room surrounded by grieving women, clinging to one of her four daughters.

Outside, Hamas members fired in the air in celebration.

Maher Habashi boarded a bus in Haifa around noon today, paid the fare of five shekels and within seconds set off the nail-studded explosives strapped to his body.

The blast killed Habashi and 15 bus passengers and bystanders, police said. About 40 people were wounded.

The elder Habashi, a municipal worker in Nablus, got word of his son's death after he returned home from evening prayers to join the family for the sundown meal that breaks the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

Habashi was stunned as neighbors and friends came to congratulate him. "He got engaged one-and-a-half months ago and we were getting ready for his wedding," Habashi said, crying and holding on to relatives for support.

Hundreds of Palestinians filled Habashi's home and spilled out into the street, most coming to offer their congratulations and others, their sympathies.

"Everybody feels bad when they lose their son," said Habashi's cousin Adel, 45, a school teacher. "But we are proud of him, you should be proud of him," he said to Habashi.

Bomber quit PA intelligence service to join Hamas two days before attack

JERUSALEM SUICIDE BOMBER RESIGNED FROM PALESTINIAN INTELLIGENCE TWO DAYS BEFORE BOMBINGS

December 2, 2001

Mohammed Halbiyeh, identified yesterday as one of the Jerusalem suicide bombers, resigned as an officer in the Palestinian intelligence service two days before the bombings and announced that he was joining Hamas.

During recent years, PA intelligence officers have received extensive training by the CIA.


Of the 10 Israeli dead, eight were teenagers and two were aged 20

This is an update to yesterday's dispatch titled Three Jerusalem bombs (December 1, 2001). Very few of the international media reports on the Jerusalem bombings make reference to the victims' ages. AP, Reuters, and the New York Times today did not mention the victims ages. CNN, by contrast, did say they were teenagers. I attach details below.

-- Tom Gross


VICTIMS OF JERUSALEM SUICIDE BOMBINGS LAID TO REST

All 10 victims in last night's suicide bombings in Jerusalem were laid to rest today.

The victims from last night's (Saturday) December 1, 2001, multiple bomb attack in Jerusalem have been identified. The victims were all youths whose ages ranged from 14 to 20. Following are the names of the victims:

Yuri Kurganov, 20 years old.
Yosef Elezra, 18 years old.
Moshe Yedid Levy, 19 years old.
Golan Tourjeman, 15 years old.
Assaf Avitan, 15 years old.
Nir Heftzdi, 19 years old.
Michael Moshe Dahan, 20 years old.
Adam Weinstein, 14 years old.
Guy Vaknin, 19 years old.
Yisrael Yakov Danino, 17 years old.



[Follow-up note: The BBC finally mentioned their young ages in their Sunday evening reports, some hours after BBC staff were among those who received this dispatch.]


Today’s suicide bombs followed by celebrations in Jenin

CONTENTS

1. "Palestinians celebrate Haifa, Jerusalem suicide bombings" (Associated Press, Dec. 2, 2001)
2. "Fifteen dead in Haifa suicide bus bombing" (Jerusalem Post Internet Staff, Breaking News, Dec. 2, 2001)
3. "One dead in terror shooting near Elei Sinai" (Jerusalem Post Internet Staff, Breaking News, Dec. 2, 2001)

 

I attach news items below, detailing today's dramatic developments. This is a follow up to yesterday's dispatch titled Three Jerusalem bombs (December 1, 2001).

-- Tom Gross


"THESE GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS RESTORE THE SPIRIT OF VICTORY AND JIHAD TO THE PEOPLE"

Palestinians celebrate Haifa, Jerusalem suicide bombings
By Bassem Mroue
The Associated Press
December 2, 2001

Palestinian refugees fired machine guns into the air today to celebrate the killing of 26 Israelis in 12 hours, as a militant leader said the suicide bombings in Israel were "great achievements" and criticized US attempts to bring calm to the Middle East.

"These great achievements restore the spirit of victory and jihad to the people and the nation," said Ramadan Abdulah Shallah, leader of the Syrian-based militant Islamic Jihad group.

The wave of attacks – including suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa and a shooting in Gaza – also wounded nearly 200. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Speaking to Lebanon Hizbullah's al-Manar Television, Shallah said Palestinians had the right to attack Israeli interests and did not need permission from US envoy Anthony Zinni or President George W. Bush to defend themselves.

 

SUICIDE BOMBER ON BUS NO. 16 IN HAIFA KILLS 15

Fifteen dead in Haifa suicide bus bombing
By The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff
Breaking News
December 2, 2001

Fifteen Israelis were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up on Egged bus No. 16 in Haifa a short while ago.

At least 37 people were wounded in the terrorist attack.

Two of the victims are in very serious condition, six in serious condition, and 29 suffered light to moderate wounds, Israel Radio reported.

The bus driver, Shimon Kabessa, said the suicide bomber aroused his suspicion when he declined to accept change for his ticket.

"Before I could do anything, he blew himself up," he told Army Radio.

Kabessa suffered light to moderate wounds.

A second bus traveling behind the first was also damaged in the terrorist attack.

Hamas took responsibility for the attack.

The area is closed off as police search for another bomb thought to be hidden in the vicinity.

 

ISRAELI MOTORIST SHOT DEAD AND FIVE WOUNDED

One dead in terror shooting near Elei Sinai
By The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff
Breaking News (08:50)
December 2, 2001

An Israeli motorist was shot dead and five others were wounded in a shooting attack between the communities of Nisanit and Elei Sinai in the northern Gaza Strip a short time ago.

The victim was driving a civilian jeep when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on his vehicle.

He was from the center of the country.

The wounded are being transferred to Soroka Hospital in Beersheva.


[This was a follow-up article send out a day later -- Tom Gross]

"WE WERE HAPPY TO SEE DEAD (ISRAELI) BODIES LYING ON THE GROUND"

Palestinians celebrate suicide bombings
By Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star,
December 3, 2001

Several thousand Palestinians celebrated Sunday at the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon following the suicide-bomber attacks that killed 27 people in occupied Palestine over the weekend.

The camp awoke to the sound of prayers from mosques and cars honking in jubilation.

At least 27 people were killed and 220 others wounded, some seriously, in two attacks by suspected Palestinian extremists that occurred with hours of one another in Haifa and Jerusalem.

Wael Abdel-Ghani, a taxi driver, said such attacks gave Palestinians hope of returning to their homeland, adding: "The day will come when we will go back to Palestine."

Dozens of Palestinians gathered at the camp's market around a television set to watch the latest news of the attacks.

Mahmoud Ayoub, a store owner, described the attacks as "wonderful," adding: "We were happy to see dead (Israeli) bodies lying on the ground after weeks of seeing the dead bodies of our martyrs in Palestine."

Members of Al-Kifah Al-Musallah Palestinian faction gathered at their posts, reading newspapers. Abu Fida, who was carrying a machine gun, said: "Today, Israeli blood was shed instead of Palestinian blood."

Ahmad Dahsha, the owner of a video rental shop, said he had recorded the pictures of the attacks from the television, upon the demand of his customers.

Members of the Palestinian Nahda Football Club were chanting revolutionary songs.

The Mieh Mieh camp, overlooking Ain al-Hilweh, was marked by the same reaction.

Taher Yassin and Ahmad Salim Khatib sat outside the camp's mosque awaiting noon prayers. As Yassin carried a small radio to follow the news, Khatib said: "We can die today, we the elderly, and leave the matter of liberating Palestine to those heroes (the suicide-bombers)."

Meanwhile, Palestinians rejoiced by firing shots in the air on Saturday, at Beirut camps Sabra, Shatila and Bourj al-Barajneh.

Elsewhere, Hizbullah official Sayyed Hashem Safieddine praised the attacks of Palestinians "who proved that they are determined and … capable of continuous confrontation, and will never retreat under US pressure and Zionist massacres."

Speaking at an iftar in Baalbek, Hashem said the weekend's attacks were the frank response to all US and Zionist schemes.