“PALESTINIAN GUERRILLAS ATTACK ZIONIST OCCUPATION SOLDIERS”

Palestinian, settler killed in fresh guerrilla attack in Palestine
IRNA
January 28, 2002

Palestine-Tel Aviv-attack /WRD/
Palestinian, settler killed in fresh guerrilla attack in Palestine

A Palestinian guerrilla on Monday attacked Zionist occupation soldiers and settlers killing one and injuring four others before he himself was killed in an exchange of fire with the police.

Police sources said the guerrilla, a 24-year-old man from a village near Tulkarm, ran over a soldier and a settler near Tel Aviv, causing moderate injuries to both. One of the men reportedly died later in hospital.

Earlier, the same guerrilla ran over another soldier at an Israeli army roadblock south of Qalqilya, wounding him seriously. The guerrilla continued driving his Subaru towards Petah Tikva north of Tel Aviv. He reportedly pulled the 79-year-driver out of the car without harming him only to discover that the old man's wife was in the back seat. When she screamed, he peacefully let her go.

The man later was killed in an exchange of fire with the police. Observers in Palestine notice that there is a growing number of Palestinian youths, men and women alike, who are psychologically willing and ready to sacrifice their own lives to resist Israel's murderous oppression of the Palestinian people.

On Sunday, a Palestinian female university student from al-Najah University carrying a suitcase loaded with explosives blew herself up in West al-Qods killing herself, a Jewish settler, and injuring scores of Israelis.

In its rabid efforts to bully Palestinians into submission and surrender, the Israeli occupation army is imposing a hermetic seal on all Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and Gaza, which Palestinians complain has reduced their towns and villages to virtual concentration camps.

Israel, with the United States at its beck and call, refuses to end its decades-old military occupation and apartheid in Palestine, forcing Palestinians to rise up for freedom.

Since the outbreak of the intifada against Israeli apartheid and occupation nearly 16 months ago, the Israeli army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists murdered nearly a thousand Palestinians, a third of them children and minors. In the same period, nearly 250 Israeli soldiers and settlers were killed by Palestinian guerrillas.

ANTI-SEMITIC – WHATEVER THE INTENTIONS

Anti-semitic – whatever the intentions
The Guardian
Letters Page
January 30, 2002

Your leader (A new anti-semitism? January 26) illustrates why so many British Jews are increasingly disturbed by the left-liberal media. The premise that our representative bodies routinely condemn media coverage of Israel as anti-semitic is a gross and oft-repeated misrepresentation of the community's position.

Many British Jews reacted with incredulity when sections of the left-liberal media started using Israel as an excuse for Bin Laden's terrorism. This crass scapegoating, combined with biased anti-Israel reportage, formed the backdrop for the second and third worst months of physical anti-semitic attacks ever recorded - attacks that took encouragement from the dubious legitimacy conferred by media demonisation of Israel and its supporters. The link between systematic anti-Israel bias and anti-semitic attacks is well proven, and drives Jewish community concerns at the scale and nature of left-liberal media coverage of Israel.

Your editorial concludes that anti-semitism should be "unreservedly" condemned. This is a fine sentiment, but the Jewish community will not leave the definition of anti-semitism to the Guardian. This, after all, is a newspaper that regularly features Faisal Bodi ("Israel has no right to exist"); and last year published, on the inauguration of Holocaust Memorial Day, an advert comparing Israel with Nazi Germany.

Guardian writers and readers can pontificate on whether or not these actions are in themselves anti-semitic, but they should not doubt that their appearance in the paper means that their effect is anti-semitic, regardless of the publisher's intention.

Neville Nagler
Director general, Board of Deputies of British Jews

 

A NEW ANTI-SEMITISM?

A new anti-semitism?
Not to be confused with anti-Sharonism
Leader
The Guardian
January 26, 2002

www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4343593,00.html

"Among educated people," wrote George Orwell in February 1945, "anti-semitism is held to be an unforgiveable sin, and in quite a different category from other kinds of racial prejudice." It would be comforting to think the same holds true today. But there is a growing feeling within some influential sections of the Jewish community in Britain that there is a resurgence of an old prejudice in a form at once elusive and unpleasant. The Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, is shortly to give a lecture entitled "A new anti-semitism?" The liberal Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz has recently published a long article on the same subject (omitting the question mark). The president of the Board of Deputies, Jo Wagerman, is quoted saying: "One is very aware that, recently, Britain isn't the same."

How does this new spirit manifest itself? It is a fragmented picture. Conrad Black accuses sections of the British media – including the Independent, the Guardian and the BBC – of "wittingly or not, stoking the inferno of anti-semitism." His wife, Barbara Amiel, believes she has encountered a newly confident anti-semitism in what she terms "London's political salon scene". Greville Janner, a former president of the Board of Deputies, singles out the New Statesman (which recently published a crude illustration, along with the crass use of the word "kosher") as being explicitly anti-semitic. In the same breath he accuses the Guardian of being "viciously and notoriously anti-Israel". Ha'aretz identifies two prime sources of anxiety amongst the British Jews the paper interviewed: the "left-liberal media" and certain elements within the UK's 2m-strong Muslim community. The Ha'aretz article concludes: "The Jews lump all these together – and are worried."

It would help greatly if there was some rapid un-lumping of all these diverse strands. To start with what should be the most obvious thread: it is perfectly decent and defensible to believe that Ariel Sharon is engaged in a policy towards the Palestinians that is short-sighted, brutal and ultimately doomed. To say so makes one anti-Sharonist. It does not make one anti-Israel any more than being anti-Mugabe makes one anti-Zimbabwe or being anti-Rumsfeld makes one anti-America. It certainly does not make one anti-semitic.

For as long as Sharon stumbles down this cul-de-sac of his own making, Britain's Jewish community better get used to hearing Israel spoken of in despairing and often acerbic terms – just as many despair of a hopeful future for a Palestinian state so long as Arafat lingers on impotently and corruptly. Ellen Dahrendorf, chair of the New Israel Fund's British branch, put it well in Ha'aretz: "What might actually feed anti-semitism is an absolute defence of Israel-right-or-wrong, because Jews would be seen as defending the indefensible."

All this is not to say that there has not been what the writer Dan Jacobson, terms "a lowering of barriers" inhibiting anti-semitism. That is troubling. And the Jewish community is right to fear that the repulsive anti-semitism which is routine in many Arab countries and among some Palestinians can find an alarming echo within some British Muslim communities. We should acknowledge, as the Macpherson report on Stephen Lawrence did, that nobody is immune from the possibility of prejudice. That includes the liberal left. When we see it we should condemn it unreservedly. But it is precisely because anti-semitism is – still – so unforgiveable that it is both offensive and unwise to use the term loosely.

AMERICAN SURVIVES 9/11 AND ESCAPES DEATH IN JERUSALEM 4 MONTHS LATER

American injured by suicide bomb also survived September 11 attack
By Peter Beaumont and agencies in Jerusalem
The Guardian
January 28, 2002

An American who survived the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York was among those injured by yesterday's suicide bomb attack in West Jerusalem's Jaffa Street.

Bandaged and bloody, Mark Sokolow, 43, [whose office was located on the 37th floor of the WTC's southern tower,] described from his Israeli hospital bed how he had escaped death twice in four months.

"I heard like a loud 'whoosh' noise and then like a bang. And I kind of saw things flying around a little bit and then I realised I was able to get up and walk around," he said.

Mr Sokolow was on holiday in Israel with his family. [A hospital spokesman said that Sokolov was suffering from a injury to his eye socket, but “we believe we will be able to save the eye."]

"I am sure there are many parallels that I'll be able to figure out... I don't know. I was obviously a lot luckier last time. This one involved my whole family," he said.

Mr Sokolow's wife and two daughters also suffered injuries in the blast. Mr Sokolow said that he and his daughter Lauren had cuts and bruises, while his wife, Rina, was getting a skin graft to her leg and his other daughter, Jamie, 12, was undergoing eye surgery.

Mr Sokolow, from Long Island, New York, recalled running down flights of stairs in the World Trade Centre on September 11, when suicide hijackers flew commercial aircraft into the landmark New York buildings, killing nearly 3,000 people.

"I was in the second tower and we evacuated after somebody in my office saw that the first tower was on fire," he said.

"We walked downstairs from the 38th floor... Our building got hit [when] we were at the lobby level," he said, speaking from his hospital bed, his head bandaged and flecked with blood.

When the blast occurred yesterday, Mr Sokolow and his family were waiting at a shoe shop on Jaffa Street to pick up a package from a cousin to take back to New York.

"As a matter of fact we changed our plans after September 11... We were meant to go on vacation elsewhere. We changed our plans to bring our whole family here," said Mr Sokolow, who described himself as a religious Jew.

"We just felt that it was more important that we do this and come here and spend time in Israel as opposed to going elsewhere."

 

SECOND DEADLY ATTACK IN JAFFA STREET IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK

From News agencies:

Sunday's bomb, which killed two and injured 150, was the second deadly attack in Jerusalem’s Jaffa Street in less than one week. The thunderous blast was heard as far away as the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Zayit. Its force hurled bleeding and dazed passersby into the air.

It was the first time a woman suicide bomber – a student from the University in Nablus – has carried out an attack in Israel. During the period of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, the Iranian-backed Hizbullah used women suicide bombers who had allegedly dishonoured their families and who killed themselves to clear the stain, a practice later banned by Islamic authorities.

105 victims of Sunday's attack remained in Jerusalem hospitals last night. Two of the injured were listed in very serious condition.

 

PINHAS TOKATLI, 81, KILLED PURSUING PASSION FOR PAINTING

Victim of blast died pursuing passion for painting
By Itim, Israeli news agency
January 28, 2005

Pinhas Tokatli, 81, killed in yesterday's Jerusalem suicide bombing, will be buried at 3 p.m. today at the Har Hamenuhot Cemetery.

Tokatli, born in the capital and a fifth generation Israeli, served in the Hagana, and worked in advertising. He died only a short distance from the spot on Jaffa Road where, in the 1940s, British soldiers beat him up, damaging his vision.

After retiring, he became interested in cycling and was one of the founders of the Jerusalem cycling club.

His son Gilad, 35, said his father went riding on his bicycle daily and had become an amateur painter. He had been coming home from a painting class via the downtown area, where he was going to buy some paints, when he was killed.

Police said Tokatli had been standing very close to the woman terrorist when she blew herself up.

Gilad described his father as a gentle man, who refused to grow old.

"My father hated the bus and used to walk or ride his bike," he said. The bicycle was left outside the family's home in the Kiryat Hayovel section, which is filled with dozens of Tokatli's paintings, many of his beloved Jerusalem.

Family members said Tokatli's grandchildren liked to paint with him.

He is survived by his wife Hanna, two sons, two daughters, and 13 grandchildren.

ITIM adds:

There was further blow for Israel as a crowd of 70 people broke into a Palestinian jail in Bethlehem and freed six militants, including one man on Israel's "most wanted" list. Raanan Gissin, an Israeli government spokesman, blamed the Palestinian Authority for the jail break.

SARAH HAMBURGER, 79, SURVIVOR OF 1929 HEBRON ARAB RIOTS

Attack victim was survivor of 1929 Hebron Arab riots
By Margot Dudkevitch, Judy Siegel, and Gil Hofman
The Jerusalem Post
January 24, 2005

Sarah Hamburger, a 79-year-old Jerusalem mother of four who also had 11 grandchildren and one great grandchild, died from wounds sustained in the terrorist shooting attack in downtown Jerusalem on Tuesday, and will be buried at the city's Har Hamenuhot Cemetery today at 2 p.m.

The second fatality in the attack was a 57-year-old woman who was critically wounded and underwent resuscitation that failed. Her name had not been released by press time.

Hamburger was waiting at a bus stop, on her way to a lecture at Yad Sarah, when the terrorist opened fire. A seventh generation sabra, she was the widow of Rabbi Pinhas Hamburger. She was born in Jerusalem, and was raised until the age of five in Hebron. During the 1929 massacre of the Jewish community, an Arab neighbor helped the family to flee the city. They moved to Jerusalem, where she lived until her death.

Her daughter, Rivka, described her mother as a loving, dedicated family person, who loved to host family members in her home and was the backbone of the family. Despite the spate of terror attacks in Jerusalem in the past months she said her mother always told her children not to be afraid, saying, "This is our country, and here we will live."

Eight wounded from Tuesday's terror attack in downtown Jerusalem were still hospitalized yesterday. Hadassah-University Hospital in Ein Kerem had one woman in serious condition, one patient in satisfactory condition, and another with light wounds.

Hadassah-University Hospital on Mount Scopus had one patient in good condition in the surgical department and two women who had suffered shock.

At Shaare Zedek Hospital, two remained – one a woman in serious condition and another in satisfactory condition.

The patient in serious condition at Shaare Zedek is 19-year-old Shayna Gould, an overseas student from Chicago at the Neveh Yerushalayim seminary in Jerusalem.

Friends from the seminary have been with her constantly saying Psalms. They asked the general public to pray for Shayna Miryam, daughter of Alka Yoheved.

GUNSHOTS HIT JEWISH SCHOOLBUS NEAR PARIS

(15:45) Shot fired at Jewish schoolbus near Paris
January 25, 2002

A gunshot hit a schoolbus carrying some 60 Jewish pupils in a suburb of Paris this morning, Israel Radio reported.

 

PALESTINIAN SUICIDE BOMBER WOUNDS 25 IN TEL AVIV

(11:25) Suicide bomber wounds 25 in south Tel Aviv
By The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff
January 25, 2002

Twenty-five people were wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated explosives near south Tel Aviv's old central bus station at 11:16 a.m. today. The bomber was killed in the attack.

Three of the wounded are in serious condition; the remainder, including a four-year-old boy, suffered moderate to light wounds, Israel Radio reported.

The terrorist, at first thought to be riding a motorscooter, set off the bomb at the corner of Rehov Bnei Brak and Rehov Neveh Sha'anan in the densely populated mixed residential and commercial neighborhood surrounding the old central bus station, located several blocks north of the new transit facility.

A motorscooter caught fire as a result of the blast and exploded near a crowded sidewalk cafe.

Police and rescue forces and bomb squads arrived at the scene of the explosion within minutes. A police helicopter was also sent to assist in securing the area.

Three people were seriously wounded in the attack and the remainder, including a four-year-old boy, suffered light to moderate wounds.

Wounded were evacuated to nearby Ichilov Hospital and Wolfson Hospital in Holon. More than 20 ambulances and emergency Magen David Adom medical teams were scrambled on the scene, Israel Radio reported.

Tel Aviv police chief Cmdr. Yossi Sedbon said the bomb was packed with nails and ball bearings to make it more lethal. The device was described by police as small to medium-sized.

Damage was caused to surrounding businesses.

Security forces sealed the neighborhood to search the surrounding area for additional bombs, but police sappers found no further explosive devices.

Police did, however, find a bag containing a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a number of ammunition clips, Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Shlomo Aharonishky said.

Authorities are investigating the origins of the bag and weapon and it's possible connection to the event.

A Palestinian resident of the Hebron region was spotted fleeing from the scene. He was detained and interrogated by police investigators in an effort to determine a possible connection to the attack.

Aharonishky said is it not known whether the terrorist was assisted by accomplices in carrying out the attack.

Bus traffic throughout Tel Aviv has been effected as the central hub area near the old and new central bus stations has been shut down by security forces.

"IRANIAN AUTHORITIES TRANSFERRED $10 MILLION TO MENEM"

Charge: Menem took Iranian bribes in AMIA bombing
The Associated Press
January 23, 2002

Argentina is investigating former president Carlos Menem for allegedly taking bribes to cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center in which 86 people died, the Swiss government said yesterday.

Federal Justice Department spokesman Folco Galli said that Argentinean justice authorities formally asked Switzerland for judicial aid in the case in December.

"There is a suspicion that Iranian authorities transferred $10 million to Menem via a Geneva bank account in return for Menem agreeing to say that there was no evidence that Iran was responsible for the attack," he said.

Argentinean investigators want to establish whether accounts held by Menem or a former Iranian official ever existed at the bank. Galli would not name the bank or the official.

Swiss federal authorities passed the Argentinean request to the cantonal (state) justice department in Geneva last week, Galli said.

An explosives-rigged van leveled the seven-story Argentine Israeli Mutual Aid building in the July 1994 attack. The building was an important symbol of Argentina's 300,000-strong Jewish community, the largest in Latin America.

Iranian terrorists were suspected in the attack, and also were blamed for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which claimed 28 lives.

Last September, 15 former police officers and five others went on trial accused of supplying the stolen van used in the attack and an array of other charges, although none was suspected of direct involvement in the bombing. The trial is expected to end in July.

No one else has been charged with the attack. Iran has vehemently rejected any suggestions of involvement, but some have questioned whether Islamic extremists might have had a hand, in retaliation for Argentina's participation in the Gulf War. Argentina sent four warships to join a US-led international coalition that ejected Iraq's invasion forces from Kuwait in 1991.

Geneva justice authorities already are investigating allegations that money in Swiss accounts belonging or linked to Menem came from selling arms in defiance of UN embargoes.

On Monday, Geneva Chief Prosecutor Bernard Bertossa said that two accounts, blocked in October, contained $10 million. One of the accounts was held in the name of Menem, his former wife and his daughter. The other belonged to a company, which justice officials have refused to name.

 

MENEM DENIES COVER-UP

Menem denies cover-up in 1994 Jewish center bombing
By Mayra Pertossi,
The Associated Press
January 24, 2002

Former President Carlos Menem has denied allegations he holds a Swiss bank account containing $10 million he received to cover up Iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center that killed 86 people.

"Let me say this again: it is absolutely false that I have a bank account in Switzerland," Menem said in a statement issued late yesterday. "And it is also a lie that I had any contact with those responsible for that terrible bombing."

On Tuesday, a Swiss official told The Associated Press that Argentine justice authorities formally asked Switzerland for judicial aid in an investigation looking into the charges.

Officials in Buenos Aires have not confirmed that they have sought such help, but Swiss officials said last August the Argentine government filed three separate requests for assistance in another investigation of the former president.

With the probes still pending, Swiss officials say they have already blocked two bank accounts linked to him.

Swiss Federal Justice Department spokesman Folco Galli said Tuesday that Argentina's new request for assistance was based on "a suspicion that Iranian authorities transferred $10 million to Menem via a Geneva bank account in return for Menem agreeing to say that there was no evidence that Iran was responsible for the attack."

Menem, president from 1989-1999, insisted yesterday that he was the victim of a smear campaign engineered by his political enemies, calling the charges "premeditated actions intended to destroy me morally."

The bombing in July 1994 killed 86 people after a van rigged with explosives leveled the seven-story Argentine Israeli Mutual Aid building, an important symbol of Argentina's 300,000-strong Jewish community, the largest in Latin America.

"I believe this is a baseless accusation that has exceeded the limits of what's tolerable," Menem said in a one-page statement released late yesterday.

Iranian terrorists were suspected in the attack, and also were blamed for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which claimed 28 lives.

Fifteen former police officers and five other people went on trial last September accused of supplying the stolen van used in the 1994 attack, although no one was suspected of direct involvement in the bombing. The trial is expected to end in July.

Iran has denied involvement, but some have questioned whether Islamic militants might have played a role in retaliation for Argentina's participation in the Gulf War. Argentina sent four warships to join a US-led international coalition that ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991.

The flamboyant, two-term president has been plagued by several corruption scandals that tarnished his legacy in the final years of his decade in power.

Geneva justice authorities already are investigating allegations that money in Swiss accounts belonging or linked to Menem came from selling arms in defiance of UN embargoes.

On Monday, Geneva Chief Prosecutor Bernard Bertossa said that two accounts, blocked in October, contained $10 million. One of the accounts was held in the name of Menem, his former wife and his daughter. The other belonged to a company, which justice officials have refused to name.

Argentine authorities allege that Menem headed a small group of former government officials who diverted weapons worth more than $100 million to Croatia and Ecuador during the 1990s when both countries were subject to UN embargoes.

Menem was placed under house arrest in June but released in November after Argentina's Supreme Court ruled prosecutors failed to prove he led the conspiracy.

Switzerland's own investigation, however, is continuing.

SIX YEAR OLD DISCOVERS BOMB NEAR TWO BANQUET HALLS

Child finds bomb in Jerusalem overnight
The Jerusalem Post
January 23, 2002, 8am update

A six-year-old passerby discovered a bomb in Jerusalem's southern Talpiot business district late last night.

The explosive device, hidden in a bag, was lying in the street some 100 meters from two banquet halls.

The child alerted police who called in the bomb disposal squad.

Celebrants at the two halls were evacuated from the buildings as sappers safely blew up the powerful device in a controlled explosion at 04:00 this morning, Israel Radio reports.

There is plenty of anti-Israeli misinformation today in the Western media following yesterday’s attack by Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization, which led to the death of two Israeli women and injured 42 other civilians.

But the grossly inaccurate headline of the week surely goes to the AP:

"Israel takes over entire West Bank"
By Jamie Tarabay
The Associated Press
January 21, 2002

The email below is from an oncologist at the Shaare Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem, written last night.

-- Tom Gross

SHIMON PERES TO FACE TRIAL?

Belgian lawmakers want Peres on trial for '96 Grapes of Wrath
By Yossi Melman
Ha'aretz
January 23, 2002

A group of Belgian lawmakers who visited Lebanon this week are now demanding that the Belgian criminal appeals court, which is hearing a case against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his role in the Sabra and Chatila massacres, put on trial Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for his role in the death of more than 100 Lebanese when Israeli artillery struck the village of Kfar Kana during the 1996 Grapes of Wrath operation ordered by Peres, who was then prime minister.

Irit Kahan, the head of the international department in the Justice Ministry, says this is another example of the systematic effort by Belgian politicans to influence the country's legal and judiciary system.

Three members of the Belgian parliament's Law Committee, including the chairman, visited Lebanon this week and toured both Sabra and Chatila and Kfar Kana, where they declared the Nobel Peace Prize laureate should be put on trial for war crimes.

According to Kahan, the declarations are a political attempt to influence the criminal appeals court, which convenes today to hear Israel and Sharon's position on the suit, which was brought to trial after the Belgian state prosecution reversed itself and said it had no objection to the trial. The plaintiffs in the case are survivors of the massacre.

Israel and Sharon's lawyers will argue on several fronts: that the court has no jurisdiction; that out of more than 30 suits brought against non-Belgian leaders, the only case the courts are handling is Sharon's; that Sharon, as a prime minister, has diplomatic immunity; and that Sharon has already been "judged" by the Kahan Commission, which ruled him ineligible to serve as defense minister and therefore, according to the Belgian law allowing the trial, he cannot be tried a second time.

No court decision is expected at the end of a hearing to be held Wednesday. It could take days or possibly weeks before a decision is forthcoming.

A LITTLE LIGHT RELIEF

'My camel ate the manifest'
Our readers explain it all to Colin Powell
By James Taranto
January 14, 2002

www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/jtaranto/?id=95001721

"Powell Wants Explanation From Arafat" – Associated Press headline, Jan. 11

Friday's Best of the Web Today invited readers to help Yasser Arafat come up with an innocent explanation for the arms shipment the Israelis seized two weeks ago. S.E. Brenner kicked things off by floating the Winona Ryder excuse: Arafat was doing research for a film part.

The response was impressive – more than 200 readers had ideas for Arafat, and many of them were quite witty indeed. Here are our favorites:

Ed Poniatowski: "We bought the stuff to keep it from falling into the hands of the Taliban."

Michael Gleeson: Recent gunfire by Palestinian officials, apparently directed at Israelis, is actually all accidents, misfires and the result of guns being dropped. Israeli propaganda has promoted the false notion that they were intentional. Cargo aboard the ship from Iran was for use in gun-safety classes.

Dan Dressel: There has been a really bad roach problem in Gaza, and they don't trust the locals with poison.

Cliff Thier: "The property that the Israelis stole in international waters were guns that the Palestinian Authority was buying to keep off the streets of American cities and out of the hands of American children. We are outraged that the Israelis, not content to murder thousands of Palestinian children, wish to kill American children as well."

Neal Sanders: It's all a simple ordering error. Arafat, seeking a nonviolent, creative outlet for the Palestinians under his authority, had requested a "shipload of art supplies." Someone in purchasing read it wrong and sent in an order for a "shipload of arms supplies."

Gina Graham: The guns were for the 21-gun salute that Arafat will have to celebrate his next Nobel Peace Price.

Richard Hunter: "Goat season starts Monday."

Charles Austin: "Well, you see, Colin, we acted in the fine tradition of sanctimonious journalists everywhere trying to sneak weapons through airport screeners. Naturally, we had no intent to use any of these weapons. We had already scheduled the press conference to announce how the armed forces and the intelligence services of Israel were clearly not competent to defend the people of Israel without substantially more state assistance. I mean, if they could not keep out a large shipment of arms like this, how could they possibly defend themselves from individual suicide bombers. At the now cancelled press conference, the Palestinian Authority was going to ask the state of Israel to implement programs that would turn all workers into government employees."

Talbot Thrasher: Arafat has in the past, on several occasions, pledged to follow the road of peace. Well, any biblical scholar knows that this entails turning swords into plowshares. So Mr. Arafat had secretly ordered a shipment of "real" weapons, since the Palestinian Authority did not have any of their own, to use in a soon-to-be-announced publicity stunt. They were going to disassemble all the Katusha rockets, use the residual explosives in the blasting required for wells for the new water system, and weld all the now-empty tubes into pipelines to carry the water. Then they would melt down all the shell casings and use the brass for woodscrews for the new housing projects and the remaining electronic components could be converted into thermostats.

Duane Speight: "We need the weapons for self-defense, Mr. Secretary. In case you haven't heard, Palestine is lousy with trigger-happy terrorists!"

Mike Albrecht: "I did not have relations with that vessel, the Karine A."

Pablo Gersten: The Washington, D.C., police department accidentally put the wrong address in their "Guns for Toys" promo, in which inner-city gang members trade their guns for basketballs and Nintendo machines. So unwitting gang members mailed their guns to the Palestinian territories and are anxiously awaiting their new Nintendo Gamecubes.

Geoff Colton: Arafat needed the weapons to seek out and capture the real murderer of Nicole Simpson.

Gregory Taylor: He thought they were pomegranates.

Billy Watson: The shipment was no doubt undertaken when Arafat was distracted because it was his day to be governor of New Jersey.

Bob Mugele: The rifles were obviously for training the Palestinian Olympic team for shooting events such as the modern pentathlon.

Alan Glosson: It was "art" for the lobby of a new Palestinian Authority Headquarters.

M. Farrar: "It was for my daughter's dowry."

Jonathan Brown: The Bush administration was secretly shipping them to Enron.

Marc Rosaaen: Why did he do it? To impress Jodie Foster!

Marc Bielec: Arafat had a coupon that was about to expire for "buy one Katusha rocket, get 10,000 weapons of your choice free."

Brad Randall: "I was planning to use the explosives in a giant fireworks display to celebrate the coming peace agreement with Israel."

Ned Thompson: "My intelligence people said the Taliban were relocating. We needed the arms to defend ourselves against those repressive terrorists."

Peter Hart: "After receiving the arms shipment, I was going to turn it over to Israel – one suicide bomber at a time."

Michael Flynn: "It was all part of my plan to clamp down on terrorists. See, it works like this. I get all the weapons in Gaza. I hand them out to whoever wants them. If they use them, bingo, we know they're a terrorist and we can round them up. It was perfect."

James Walsh: "Well, you see, Secretary Powell, it had come lately to my attention that Iran, which even your very own State Department has identified as a terrorist state, had accumulated a giant stash of weapons that might be used to support terrorist groups, and we in the Palestinian Authority thought that we would do our part to combat terrorism by taking custody of some of those weapons so that they wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. We weren't going to use them to hurt anybody – we just got intercepted by the Israelis before we could land them and get them to the incinerators."

An anonymous reader: Please attribute these to an anonymous reader. We are talking about a terrorist here, you know (or at least an international figure), and I don't want to be identified:

"Haven't you listened to that Johnny Cash song, 'A Boy Named Sue' (where Sue kicks everyone's butt)? I'm scared to death of a man named Sharon."

"Those were prizes for the Jerusalem Midnight Basketball League."

"Ship? What ship? Hey, did you see that story about the guy who beat up the hockey coach?"

"We were hoping to get some local women to pose for G. Gordon Liddy's 'Stacked and Packed' calendar. We've got to compete with that Jewish woman who was just in Playboy."

Rick Richman: He may have been at the meeting authorizing the shipment of the weapons, but he drank a lot of iced tea and may have been in the bathroom when the issue came up.

John Brothers: "Yeah, we ordered those weapons to kill... Hey look – over there! Osama bin Laden!" (Arafat scurries away.)

Steve Sturm: There were actually two ships in the Red Sea – the Karine A and the Karine B (or maybe it was the Anna Karine A). One was full of weapons, the other full of toys. The plan was for the Israelis to be lured into boarding the wrong ship, which would result in all kinds of negative publicity. As it was, the Palestinians got it wrong and let the Israelis get the right (wrong?) ship.

Toby Bianchi: "The shipment was clearly marked as SCHOOL SUPPLIES, K-12."

Paul Smith: The ship belongs to the U.S. Postal Service, and darned if they didn't deliver to the wrong address again.

"Katbyte": "My camel ate the manifest."

Gene Scow: The arms that were en route to the area of Israel were actually the arms the Reagan administration passed to Iran during the Iran-Contra deal. The Iranians were just trying to give them to the Israelis via the Palestinians so they could return them to America!

Thomas Macauley: "Was Tom Daschle responsible for the anthrax sent to his office?"

Jerry Dorethy: "The Israelis did this! Arabs are not smart enough to arrange such a shipment. It was brokered by the Israelis, then they doctored the paperwork to implicate us. Surely you can see the pattern after they destroyed the World Trade Center."

Brian Cronin: The Katayusha Rockets are to help with urban renewal – in Tel Aviv.

Brian Stern: It was a gag gift for Ariel Sharon's birthday.

Herve Wiener: Arafat read in Men's Health that chicks dig guys with big arms (shipments).

Scott H.: "Those weapons weren't mine. I was just holding them for a friend. Who? Um, just some dude I met at the gas station. John something. I don't know. Can I go now?"

Joe Chronister: Hoping to bolster his sagging ratings in the United States, Yasser Arafat has hit upon the idea of creating a sitcom about the wacky world of the Palestinian Authority. Knowing the American weakness for the golden days of television comedy and its current preoccupation with all matters military, he decided to shoot a pilot (figuratively speaking) based on the classic "McHale's Navy" in hopes of selling the concept to Hollywood. Arafat himself confidently assumes the role of the hapless and befuddled Capt. Wallace Binghamton, whose authority is constantly undermined by the boisterous high jinks of Lt. Cmdr. Quinton McHale (convincingly played by the Katrine A captain, Omar Akawi). Comic actors from the community theater milieu of Hamas and Islamic Jihad help round out the cast of "Arafat's Navy," their fresh-faced earnestness more than making up for their scant small-screen credentials.

Jim White: "Wait a minute, you just don't understand! Some poor, underprivileged Palestinian kids are having to use rocks!"

Fred deBros: "I totally forgot I ordered them from the shah."

ESTEE LAUDER

Below is an email received from the Jewish community of Hungary, a recipient of many funds from the Lauder family.

Dear Friends:

Estee Lauder Corporation is being boycotted by a loud and ambitious campaign by the world's Arab and Muslim community due to Ron Lauder's Estee Lauder's President support for Israel. Mr. Lauder has been extremely courageous and public in his support for the Jewish State and has taken real personal and financial risks to inform the world of the war that the Palestinian Authority has declared on Israel and Jews worldwide.

To combat this boycott I suggest that we all go out and buy as much Estee Lauder and Clinique products as possible. Make the Estee Lauder and Clinique counters your gift of choice. Switch brands at least for a while.

Estee Lauder also is the parent company of Prescriptives, Mac, Bobbie Brown, La Mer, Jo Malone, Origins, Aramis, Aveda and Bumble and Bumble.

It is said that beauty has many discomforts. So does supporting those who speak for us.

Am Yisrael Chai!

 

HARRODS

From: [A subscriber to this email list]
Sent: 21 January 2002
Subject: Harrods

This is an email address of at least one person at Harrods. Feel free to circulate...

It's a standard response and doesn't answer my questions, but at least it puts them on notice that we care...

-----Original Message-----
From: Rayner, Peter [mailto:Peter.Rayner@harrods.com]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002
To: [A subscriber to this email list]
Subject: RE: Confidential

Dear Mr Paisner

Thank you for your e mail.

I would firstly like to advise that we have not stopped selling Israeli products. However, following various points being bought to our attention by the Council of Advancement of British Arab Understanding, a number of products were withdrawn from Harrods shelves on Saturday 12th January pending further investigations into the claims being made.

Harrods is still checking the situation and when we have an answer to that we will either stop selling the products altogether or put them back on sale.

With kind regards.

Yours sincerely

Peter Rayner
Manager
Customer Services

AT LEAST 25 WOUNDED, FIVE SERIOUSLY

Terrorist opens fire in downtown Jerusalem
Compiled from three different news sources
January 22, 2002

A Palestinian terrorist opened fire at civilians in downtown Jerusalem near Kikar Zion a short while ago.

Security forces shot and killed the terrorist, Jerusalem police chief Cmdr. Mickey Levy said.

According to a Magen David Adom medic at least 25 people were wounded, five seriously.

The attack on Jaffa Street, a major throughfare in the city, lasted for about 10 minutes and was ended when Israeli police shot dead the gunman.

Witnesses said the gunman, wearing wearing a heavy coat and carrying an assault rifle, emerged from a carpark and began shooting. Some Israeli civilians carrying guns drew their weapons during the attack, but did not fire, according to reports.

Unconfirmed reports said that a second gunman was involved in the attack and was able to escape from police.

Security personnel rushed to the scene and are continuing to seach for accomplices and possible car bombs, Israel Radio reported.

The area is closed to traffic as medics treat the wounded.

Drivers and pedestrians are requested to avoid the downtown vicinity.

The wounded were transferred to Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem, Shaare Tzedek, and Bikur Cholim hospitals.

WHY IS ATTACKING JEWS PERMISSIBLE IN THIS COUNTRY?

Israel's plight
Editorial
The Sun
January 11, 2002

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,31-2002011611,00.html

Why is attacking Jews permissible in this country?

The New Statesman ran a front page yesterday with the racially insensitive headline "A Kosher Conspiracy?"

Apparently much of the media has been conned into supporting Israel.

Bunkum. The media here is often anti-Israeli – as are parts of the Foreign Office.

If there is a Jewish lobby, it isn't very effective. In any case ALL nations have lobbyists in London. We call them Ambassadors.

Only in the case of tiny Israel are such "lobbyists" treated as dark forces instead of wish-list cocktail party guests.

Israel is a brave, democratic nation surrounded by forces intent on its ENTIRE destruction.

Israel's enemies are enemies of Britain. And the United States.

To pretend otherwise is dangerous folly.

ARAFAT-AS-ALLY – CARD NO. 16

January 10, 2002

Topps, the veteran bubble gum company, and the smaller U.S. Trading Cards, have both issued patriotic card series for America's children (and adults) to coincide with America's war on terrorism. Topps' "Enduring Freedom" series gives "biographical information on the civilian and military leaders entrusted to guide us through this fight, statistical data and photos of military hardware."

The makers of Bazooka gum explained that they focused "on America's strengths – its elected leaders, the security of its military, its worldwide support... and the courage and unity of its people." Eight cards portray the world's support for America, with scenes such as:

– Flowers Outside U.S. Embassy In Beijing
– Israel's Foreign Minister Peres Pledges Friendship
– Britain's Tony Blair – A Staunch Ally
– NATO Stands Tall Alongside America
– Arafat Gives Blood For Americans

Arafat? While he was donating blood in a bold public relations ploy, Palestinians were dancing in the streets and handing out sweets, celebrating the September 11 attacks.
(http://honestreporting.com/critiques/2001/68_celebrate.asp)

View the Topps "Arafat-as-Ally" series at [Arafat Gives Blood For Americans is card no 16]: http://www.topps.com/enduringfreedomchecklist.html

If you object to Topps' portrayal of Arafat, send e-mail from:
http://www.etopps.com/Marketing/WhatUThink.asp

Topps' U.S. Headquarters
phone: 212.376.0300
fax: 212.376.0573

The Topps Company Operations Center
401 York Ave.
Duryea, PA 18642
ATTN: Consumer Relations Dept.

HAVE THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH LEARNED NOTHING FROM THE 20TH CENTURY?

Prejudice and abuse in Paris and London:
Have the French and English learned nothing from the 20th century?
By Tom Gross
January 10, 2002

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross011002.shtml

A week before Christmas, the Israeli ambassador to Berlin wrote a letter to Der Spiegel, Germany's leading news magazine, protesting an editorial they had published comparing the policies of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to those pursued by Adolf Hitler.

The comparison, wrote the ambassador, was "an insult to all Holocaust survivors and to the entire Jewish people."

In the ensuing days, the editorial was widely condemned in Germany. Though neo-Nazi elements do still exist in German society, the postwar majority has taken large and largely successful strides to purge itself of the legacy of anti-Semitism.

That the same cannot be said of France, however, was inadvertently given away by the writer of Der Spiegel's editorial, Rudolf Augstein, who is one of Germany's best-known journalists. Rather than properly apologize for his obscene comparison, Augstein made a telling remark in reply to the ambassador's letter: "In France one can say that, but apparently not in Germany."

Augstein may have had in mind comments of the kind recently made by Marc Gentilli, the president of the French Red Cross, who described as "disgusting" a request by the American Red Cross that Israel be admitted to the International Red Cross, and that the Star of David be accepted alongside its existing emblems the Cross and the Crescent.

Gentilli, head of one of France's leading humanitarian organizations, left little doubt of the disdain he holds for the Star of David, but less he be thought hostile to all "foreigners", he did call at the same time on the Palestine Red Crescent Society to immediately apply for membership to the international body, even though Palestine is not yet a state.

But if anyone still had doubts that Augstein was correct in his reading of French attitudes, they would have been dispelled the very next day by a column by Barbara Amiel in the London Daily Telegraph.

Amiel revealed that at a reception at her house, the ambassador of "a major EU country" told guests that the current troubles 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?"

Within 24 hours, the Guardian newspaper identified the ambassador in question as Daniel Bernard, France's man in London and one of President Chirac's closest confidants. (While Bernard has not admitted using these exact words, he hasn't clearly denied doing so either.)

Several conservative columnists in the United States (where are those who profess to be liberal?) have condemned the ambassador for his "crude anti-Semitic remarks".

What has not been properly noted in the US media is that in the British and French media, it is not the French ambassador or anti-Semites who are being condemned, as one would expect, but Barbara Amiel and "those people". As for Israel, it seems to be open season.

A piece in the Independent, for example, by one of the paper's regular columnists (titled "I'm fed up being called an anti-Semite," by Deborah Orr, 21 December 2001) described Israel as "shitty" and "little" no fewer than four times.

"Anti-Semitism is disliking all Jews, anywhere, and anti-Zionism is just disliking the existence of Israel and opposing those who support it," explains Orr. "This may be an academic rather than a practical distinction," she continues, "and one which has no connection with holding the honest view that in my experience Israel is shitty and little".

In the Guardian, another British daily that claims to represent enlightened liberal views, columnist Matt Wells ("Every salon tells a story – that's why the lady is a hack," December 20, 2001), denounced Amiel as "an arch-Zionist" but had nothing but sympathy for poor Mr. Bernard who, he claimed " was struggling against a tide of anger from Israel." (In fact the Israeli government hasn't made a single official comment in relation to the whole affair).

Indeed, rather than impinging on the distinguished diplomatic career of M.Bernard, who previously served as France's ambassador to The Netherlands and at the United Nations, it is Amiel who apparently made the "diplomatic gaffe", according to the British and French commentators. (Le Monde ran a front-page attack on Amiel, and rubbished the Daily Telegraph as "reactionary," "paranoid" and "preachy".)

If the French are now almost as open about their anti-Semitism as the Egyptians (the best-selling song in Cairo in 2001 was titled "I hate Israel"), England seems to be a country where the real crime is to condemn someone for their anti-Semitism rather than being one.

Writing in the (London) Observer, columnist Richard Ingrams (in a piece titled "Black's hole," December 23, 2001 – Black is a reference to Amiel's married name), says the "gaffe" wasn't made by the ambassador, but by Amiel for "betraying the confidences of the dinner table" and writing such an "intemperate article".

Ingrams predicted that it would not be Bernard who would no longer be welcome in polite London society but the Blacks, who he guessed would have to "shortly decamp" to Manhattan.

As if one column of this stripe in a single edition of a newspaper wasn't enough, another of the Observer's columnists, Euan Ferguson, ("Gossip: 'tis the reason to be jolly", December 23, 2001), that same day writes "Ms Amiel is apparently as welcome now in the chic salons of north London as a fatwa in a sauna". Ferguson has no criticism to make of Bernard or the French government that has given him its full backing, but he does say as part of his commentary on 'l'affaire Bernard' that Israel has "the stubborn belief that the lifelong wish of our current pin-up boy, little baby Jesus, was to have his birthday celebrated by the shooting of innocent children in the street."

The level of denial of British racism extends so deep that many in England seem to not even realize what anti-Semitism is.

Columnist Joan Smith ("Dinner at Amiel's leaves a bad taste," 23 December 2001) writes that Amiel's "assumption that Bernard's remark was anti-Semitic, is pretty dubious. If there is a lesson to be learned from this episode, it is not the French ambassador's politics that have been called into question on this occasion, but his taste in friends."

Richard Woods in the London Sunday Times (23 December 2001, "When silence speaks volumes") says the ambassador's remark was only "apparently anti-Semitic".

There have been one or two admirable exceptions to this pattern, notably Andrew Sullivan (a British commentator who has been based in the US for over two decades) and the Anglo-Jewish writer Melanie Phillips, but they are very much in the minority. Phillips has been left to make her strongest remarks on the subject outside the UK ("British Polite Society Has Found a Not-So-New Target", December 24, 2001, The Wall Street Journal Europe).

For every Sullivan and Phillips there seem to be many among the "chattering classes" in London that actually find attacks on Jews rather amusing. Here, for example, is columnist Alexei Sayle in the Independent, writing shortly after the latest batch of Israeli teenagers had been blown to pieces by suicide bombers: "If a vivisectionist has their car burnt or a right-wing Israeli is shot or Ben Elton's musical closes early because of poor ticket sales, I can't say I can find it within myself to care very much." (Ben Elton is a British playwright and stand-up comedian).

Since Bernard's remarks were reported, there have been over a dozen fresh anti-Semitic incidents in France. Only last weekend attackers firebombed a synagogue in the northern Paris suburb of Goussainvil. A few days before that, gasoline bombs were hurled into a Jewish school in the southeastern Paris suburb of Creteil, setting a classroom on fire. On the same day another synagogue was torched.

Fortunately, no one was injured in these particular incidents. But it can only be a matter of time before someone is. Have the French and English learned nothing from the twentieth century?

(For more writing by Tom Gross on the European media and Israel, see
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross110101.shtml )

"ARAFAT IS DOING NOTHING TO DISMANTLE THE TERRORISTS' BASE"

Report: Israel's response to terror raid will come soon
The Jerusalem Post
January 9, 2002

Senior diplomatic sources in Jerusalem this afternoon said Israel will respond in the coming days to this morning's terror raid in which four IDF soldiers were killed.

Sgt.-Maj. Ibrahim Hamadieh, 23, killed in a predawn terrorist raid in southern Israel, will be buried tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. in Reihaneih.

Maj. Ashraf Hoiash Mazarib, 28, from Beit Zarzir, and St.-Sgt. Mofeid Sawayed, 25, from Abu Snan, were killed along with Hamadieh in the attack.

A fourth soldier from the Beduin desert patrol, whose name had not yet be released for publication, was also killed.

Two more of the unit's fighters were also wounded, one critically and one by shock.

The IDF has commenced an investigation into the circumstances of the deadly attack.

Two armed Palestinian terrorists infiltrated into Israel from the southern Gaza Strip in the attack at 4:30 a.m.

Mohammed Abdel Jamus, 23, attached to the Palestinian Authority's naval force, and Imad Abu Razek, 25, a Hamas operative, dressed in PA police uniforms and carried explosive belts, assault rifles, and grenades.

The two, residents of the Dahaniya area in the southern Gaza Strip, were reported missing as of last night, Hizbullah's Lebanon-based Al Manar television said.

Troops shot dead one of the Palestinians. The second was killed after a brief chase.

Sappers defused several unexploded grenades at the scene of the battle.

Kibbutzim adjacent to the Gaza Strip – Nir Yitzhak, Sufa, and Holit – were placed on high security alert during the operation.

"It is clear beyond any doubt that the seven days of quiet have not taken place," sources at the Prime Minister's Office told Army Radio.

"This morning's events prove beyond all doubt that [PA Chairman Yasser] Arafat is doing nothing to dismantle the terrorists' base," the sources said.

I attach an article in Asharq Al-Awsat a Saudi owned daily, analyzing the results of a pan-Arab poll choosing the worst personalities of 2001.

-- Tom Gross

DISHONEST REPORTING "AWARD" FOR 2001

HonestReporting Communique
January 7, 2002

Dishonest Reporting "Award" for 2001
Our annual award for the most skewed and biased reporting.

Dear HonestReporting Member,

We thank all the members of HonestReporting for sending recommendations for this year's Dishonest Reporting 'Award'. There were many candidates for the ignominious honor, and we distilled the list down to the worst offenders.

HonestReporting took many factors into account: Was there a policy of deliberate bias? Did a reporter base reports on unreliable sources or no sources at all? Did the reporter or publication refuse to admit its errors?

So now, without further ado, we regretfully present the Dishonest Reporting "Award" 2001. There were many fine candidates, but only one winner. The "dishonorable mentions" (in alphabetical order) are followed by the bias champion. URLs have been included where available. And we hope that next year, this list will be much, much shorter.

* Associated Press
* CNN
* Robert Fisk – The Independent (UK)
* Suzanne Goldenberg – The Guardian (UK)
* Joshua Hammer – Newsweek
* Chris Hedges – Harpers
* Lee Hockstader – The Washington Post
* Reuters
* Deborah Sontag – The New York Times
* The Winner: BBC

 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

In March 2001, a Palestinian sniper looked through the crosshairs of his scope and murdered Shalhevet Pass, a 10-month old Jewish baby in Hebron. AP's headline writers declared: "Jewish Toddler Dies In West Bank."

AP made no mention of who perpetrated the murder, and there is no indication of the ghastly nature of the crime. According to AP, the baby just "died" – as if from natural causes or an accident. More accurately, Shalhevet Pass was murdered, shot, gunned down, or assassinated – by a killer, gunman, terrorist, or sniper.

More AP bias appeared in June, following the heinous suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco. AP published the headline: "Explosion Kills Bomber in Tel Aviv."

This was an early AP report, when the final death toll was not available, but at that point it was already known that there were scores of Israeli casualties. So why did AP downplay this bestial act as an "explosion," and focus on the suffering – not of innocent teens – but of the evil bomber?

In November, when a Palestinian terrorist sprayed machine-gun fire at a bus in Jerusalem, killing two teenagers and wounding 40, AP reported: "On Sunday, a Palestinian shooting attack on a bus in a disputed section of Jerusalem killed two teen-agers, one of them a U.S.-born settler."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011105/aponline152339_000.htm

The American citizen, 16-year-old Shoshana Ben-Yishai, is described by AP as a "settler." But she was murdered in Jerusalem. To add insult to injury, another AP report refers to the heroic Israeli civilian who killed the terrorist as, you guessed it, "a West Bank settler."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011105/aponline021704_000.htm

Associated Press boasts some 8,500 client newspapers around the world. No other news agency wields so much clout. Therefore, no news agency bears as much responsibility for honest reporting.

 

CNN

Early in the Intifada, HonestReporting conducted a comprehensive study of CNN, analyzing all 133 lead articles in the Mideast section of CNN.com during October 2000, the first month of violence.

In these 133 articles, CNN depicted Arabs in 128 photos, while Israelis were depicted in 60 photos. Photos are important in building reader sympathies with one side or the other, and on this case, CNN's bias was skewed more than double in favor of the Palestinians.

In those same 133 CNN articles, 68 accusations by Arab spokespeople were allowed to stand unchallenged. By comparison, only 28 Israeli quotes were left unchallenged – a CNN bias skewed more than double in favor of the Palestinians.

CNN bias during 2001 was typified by its coverage of a rally of 250,000 Israelis gathered outside the Old City walls in support of Jerusalem. The early edition of CNN devoted a paltry 5 sentences to the event. In the later edition, when many more details were available, the rally was not mentioned in the headline at all – and CNN did not give details of the rally until paragraph #14.

The later CNN article, published after all the speeches had been made, did not offer even one quote from any of the quarter-million attendees. The lone CNN quote came from Muslim Waqf Adnan Husseini, who called the rally "provocative." Were no Jews available for comment?!

In the same article, CNN gravely diminished the Jewish connection. There was no mention of the Temple Mount as Judaism's holiest site, nor to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people (as it has been for over 3,000 years – 1,500 years before Islam ever existed). CNN's description: "The site is known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the third-holiest site in the Islamic world."

Further, in a bizarre reference, CNN says the site of the rally was: "Jaffa Gate, or Bab al-Khalil, the main western entrance to the walled city." "Jaffa Gate" is the standard reference in any encyclopedia, university textbook, diplomatic document, media style guide, or any other acceptable Western source. So why does CNN go out of its way – particularly in the context of reporting a Jewish rally – to dredge up Bab al-Khalil, an obscure Arabic reference?

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/01/08/mideast.04/index.html

 

ROBERT FISK – THE INDEPENDENT (UK)

For more than two decades, Robert Fisk has used his correspondent card to proudly become a crusader for Arab and Palestinian causes. In the 1970s, Fisk reported from Beirut for the London Times. And now, writing for the Independent (UK), Fisk blames Israel for all the Palestinians' ills, and blames the West for all Muslim disgruntlement.

The day after the September 11 attacks, Fisk defied the civilized world and blamed Israel, America, and even the defeat of the Ottoman Empire for the WTC terrorist attack. Fisk proclaimed:

"...This is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps."

Fisk claimed that there would be an "immoral" attempt to "obscure the historical wrongs and the injustices that lie behind yesterday's firestorms."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=93623

Even as Taliban supporters in Afghanistan beat him to a pulp last month, Fisk rationalized: "I couldn't blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were the Afghan refugees of Kila Abdullah, close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=109257

Fisk is overt in his anti-Israel crusade, and portrays any reporter not willing to criticize Israel as a coward: "Our gutlessness, our refusal to tell the truth, our fear of being slandered as 'anti-Semites' – the most loathsome of libels against any journalist – means that we are aiding and abetting terrible deeds in the Middle East."

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=66956

 

SUZANNE GOLDENBERG – THE GUARDIAN (UK)

Suzanne Goldenberg's coverage consistently whitewashed Palestinian terrorist activity and painted Israeli reaction as aggression. In February 2001, when a Palestinian driver plowed his bus into a bus stop, killing eight Israeli civilians, Goldenberg was quick to defend him:

"Far from being... a dedicated terrorist," she wrote, he was a "man who has been taking medication for depression for two years... That Wednesday morning he added antihistamines and antibiotics to the pharmaceutical cocktail. Both can cause drowsiness, according to the pharmacist." This is even after the bus driver admitted to Israeli General Security Service investigators that the attack was intentional and premeditated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4137274,00.html

Incredibly, Goldenberg has won several journalism awards this year from British institutions. The London Press Club said her coverage was a display of "courageous and objective journalism." At another award ceremony, Goldenberg was lauded: "This journalist has been subjected to a campaign of vilification" – in reference to criticism levied by HonestReporting.

The Guardian waged its own campaign of vilification against Israelis. In February 2001, in reference to Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Western Wall (the standard Israeli custom after all elections), The Guardian carried the headline, "Sharon Twists Knife in Muslim Wounds." The Guardian also ran a cartoon that obscenely depicted Sharon's bloody handprints on the Western Wall. The cartoon desecrated the holiest Jewish site and encroached on brash anti-Semitism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/graphic/0,5543,435245,00.html

In February 2001, the Guardian published an editorial column entitled "Media Manipulators," chronicling HonestReporting's criticism of the Guardian. Yet the Guardian ignored the message and attacked the messenger – calling HonestReporting e-mails "bizarre... inconvenient... scary... harassment," and referred to some HonestReporting members as "shadowy... extremists."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4140042,00.html

The Guardian outdid itself in January 2001 when it ran an opinion piece entitled, "Israel Simply Has No Right To Exist." With such blatant anti-Israel bias, what else is there to say?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4111684,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4140042,00.html

 

JOSHUA HAMMER – NEWSWEEK

In May 2001, Newsweek's bureau chief in Israel, Joshua Hammer and his photographer, conducted an interview with Palestinian leaders in Gaza. As the interview was completed, the Palestinians informed Hammer and the photographer they were being held captive. After four hours, they were released. One would expect a kidnap victim to be traumatized and angry. But Hammer had only compliments for his Palestinian captors, as described in Newsweek:

"...Hammer says he never feared his captors would hurt him or Knight. 'They never threatened us or pointed their guns at us,' Hammer says. 'They actually fed us one of the best meals I've eaten in Gaza.'"

In another report, Hammer wrote that most "Palestinians have given up hope of real political progress" as long as Sharon is in power. He questions if the Palestinians have the patience to wait for a "more moderate Israeli leader." The fact is that Palestinians have already rejected far-reaching compromises offered by "a more moderate leader," Ehud Barak.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/594843.asp#BODY

In December, Newsweek presented "A Tale of Two Enemies," a side-by-side comparison of Arafat and Sharon. Arafat is described glowingly as a "revolutionary," a "civil engineer," and a trailblazing diplomat who was the first to be accorded special status at the United Nations. Yet nowhere is Arafat described as a founder of a terrorist organization, nor is there any mention of his connection to terror acts.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/669794.asp#BODY

 

CHRIS HEDGES – HARPERS

In the October edition of Harpers, Chris Hedges wrote his sensationalized "Gaza Diary: Scenes from the Palestinian Uprising." The entire article is a diatribe against Israel without any response by Israeli spokesmen. The climax is a section in which Hedges accuses Israeli soldiers in Gaza of goading Palestinian children to their death:

"I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

http://www.harpers.org/online/gaza_diary/?pg=1

Hedges offers no corroborating evidence – no photos, no videos, no outside verification. Hedges never even saw or heard the shots of the alleged crime. He wrote that the Palestinian youth "descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers."

In preparing his slander, Hedges apparently was unaware that silencers do not exist in the Israeli arsenal, and it is difficult – if not impossible – to outfit an M-16 high velocity rifle with a silencer. Hedges apparently confused "silencers" with canisters of rubber projectiles – a non-lethal alternative used by the IDF soldiers on the end of their M-16s.

 

LEE HOCKSTADER – THE WASHINGTON POST

In July 2001, Hockstader presented a shocking 1,300-word defense of Aziz Salha, the Palestinian who proudly waved his bloody hands out of the window of a Ramallah police station after the brutal lynching of two Israelis. Hockstader provided a sympathetic psychoanalysis of the murderer:

"The young man was very ill when he was a baby, he stuttered, he was shy... maybe it really wasn't him photographed in the window... people's emotions were boiling over because of Palestinians teens shot by Israeli soldiers... Israel's settlements and occupation were on Salha's mind... he was a calm, good-natured and athletic kid..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/world/A28502-2001Jul6.html

In August, Hockstader filed "Palestinians Find Heroes in Hamas," a profile of the terrorist organization that dispatches suicide bombers against Israeli targets. Hockstader paints the organization in moderate shades:

"The group's goal is an independent homeland in at least the West Bank and Gaza Strip – and, Israelis fear, on the territory of the Jewish state."

But Hockstader has been around long enough to know that the destruction of Israel is one of Hamas' main tenets and not just a figment of "Israeli fears." The Hamas covenant clearly states, "There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad." The U.S. State Department's annual terrorism report defines Hamas' goal as "establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel."

Dishonorable mention goes to Washington Post ombudsman Mike Getler, who in March 2001, unhappy by the flood of HonestReporting e-mails, complained at having been "smeared by your robot-like members [who] responded in knee-jerk fashion."

 

REUTERS

Reuters set new standards of inappropriate "even-handedness," by refusing to refer to Palestinian suicide bombers – or even the September 11 attackers – as "terrorists." Steven Jukes, Reuters' global head of news, said:

"We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist... To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack."

Even-handedness characterized Reuters coverage throughout the year. In April, a Reuters report on the 1948 War of Independence stated: "Palestinians mark the birth of Israel on May 15, 1948, as their 'Nakba' or catastrophe, which led to the loss of 78 percent of historic Palestine. Some 700,000 Palestinians left or were forced to flee their homes in the fighting that accompanied the declaration of the Jewish state."

Reuters made no mention of the fact that Israel was invaded by 5 Arab armies, and no mention that Israel lost key parcels of land including the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem and towns in Gaza and the West Bank. And Reuters made no mention of the 650,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries who similarly "left or were forced to flee their homes."

Reuters' Israel correspondent Christine Hauser delivered her own unique form of "even-handed" bias. In a report on Israel actions in the Arab town of Beit Jala, Hauser ignored the fact that Israeli troops were responding to Palestinian salvoes and snipers shooting at Gilo.

Hauser mimicked the Palestinian line, saying that "Gilo is a settlement," without presenting the other view of Gilo as a mainstream Jewish neighborhood within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. According to Hauser, the Palestinians were "fighting for an end to Jewish settlements and the Israeli occupation."

In the same report, Hauser exhibited either ignorance or propaganda when she wrote: "All of the [Beit Jala residents] have ashtrays brimming with collected spent bullet casings." Sorry, Christine. Spent bullet casings are found at the point of origin of the shooting, not at the target.

In December, when terrorists attacked a busload of Israeli civilians near Emmanuel, killing 10, Reuters offered justification for the murder spree: "Most of the Israeli dead were settlers, whom [Palestinian] militants consider targets as occupiers of Palestinian land."

http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=search&StoryID=452483

 

DEBORAH SONTAG – THE NEW YORK TIMES

Deborah Sontag thankfully left Israel in July, but before leaving she took a parting shot at Israel in a front-page, 6,000-word tome entitled, "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why It Failed." Sontag took great pains to defend Yasser Arafat: "[M]any diplomats and officials believe that the dynamic was far more complex and that Mr. Arafat does not bear sole responsibility for the breakdown of the peace effort."

http://nytimes.com/2001/07/26/international/26MIDE.html

Sontag's article has many serious flaws, but one stands out as particularly glaring and biased: She quoted extensively from various Palestinian and American negotiators, but totally ignored the comments made one week earlier in a major policy address by Israel's chief negotiator, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who outlined Arafat's culpability.

In April, Sontag portrayed 10-moth-old Shalhevet Pass, murdered by a Palestinian sniper, as a despised settler: "Many Israelis have long considered the Hebron settlers to be extremists, living in a world apart. But they rallied behind the community after Shalhevet was killed; newspaper headlines referred to the killing of an Israeli baby and not a "settler baby."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/02/world/02MIDE.html

Sontag made the outrageous implication that Jews might normally disregard the ruthless murder of another Jew, simply because they don't share the same political views. Is the average Israeli so cold-hearted? No. But perhaps Sontag is.

In February 2001, Sontag and the Guardian's Goldenberg engaged in classic "pack journalism" by filing nearly identical stories about a Ramallah "martyrs" museum. Both Sontag and Goldenberg used the uncommon word "totem" and then delivered this identical (plagiarized?) one-two bias punch, using the "critics would say" technique of assigning words to a hypothetical Israeli – had the reporters bothered to ask.

Sontag: "Israeli critics would say that the exhibit, '100 Martyrs – 100 Lives,' glorifies death and encourages the cult of the shaheed, or martyr."

Goldenberg: "Israeli critics would argue that the exhibit glorifies violent death, and promotes a cult of martyrdom."

If two university students had handed these in as term papers, the professor probably would have tossed one or both of them back at the students for cheating.

 

THE WINNER: BBC – BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

The ignoble winner of the Dishonest Reporting "Award" 2001 is the BBC, for consistently demonstrating fierce anti-Israel bias.

In May 2001, BBC fabricated a film clip in an attempt to show Israeli brutality. When Israelis struck a Palestinian base in Gaza, there were no pictures of victims – since Israel struck at empty buildings. But BBC editors inserted a film clip of Israeli victims of Palestinian terror arriving at an Israeli hospital, to suggest that these were victims of Israeli attack. The newsreader in London, a former BBC correspondent in Israel herself, ended the segment with "These are the pictures from Gaza."

In June 2001, BBC's flagship "Panorama" program
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/panorama/transcripts/transcript_17_06_01.txt) tried to portray Ariel Sharon as a war criminal, in connection with the Lebanese Christian massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla in 1982. An Israeli commission of inquiry decided that Sharon was not responsible for any direct involvement, but BBC asked: "In the light of developments in international war crimes prosecutions... [should] the evidence lead to indictments for what happened in the camps."

Much of BBC's case rested on the view of War Crimes Judge Richard Goldstone, who subsequently accused the BBC of badly distorting the context of his words: "I agreed to speak to [the BBC] as an expert on the law in general, on command responsibility, but I said I would not in any way comment on any liability, criminal or civil, of Ariel Sharon and I didn't do so. I haven't yet seen the program, but if it comes across that way it's incorrect... I certainly didn't comment on the responsibility of Sharon." (Jerusalem Post)

Further, BBC's duplicity in handling the Israeli-Arab conflict was evident in its refusal to label Palestinian atrocities against Israeli civilians as "terrorism." In correspondence with HonestReporting, BBC admitted to a double standard, saying:

"It has long been the policy of the [BBC] domestic service to refer to terrorists in Northern Ireland of any religious persuasion as [terrorists], but the policy of the World Service is not to refer to anyone in those terms."

BBC's coverage was so outrageous that it came under attack by a leading British politician, Iain Duncan Smith, head of the Tory party. "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," Smith declared. "Let us call things what they are: they are terrorist organizations. Such fudging of what Hamas or Islamic Jihad are confers some sort of legitimacy on people who are terrorists."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1702000/1702120.stm

BBC's bias is perhaps summed up best by one of its own employees, Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC correspondent in Gaza for the past 10 years. Speaking at a Hamas rally on May 6, 2001, he declared:

"Journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people."

In the face of this blatant violation of journalistic ethics, BBC mustered a pathetic response: "Fayad's remarks were made in a private capacity. His reports have always matched the best standards of balance required by the BBC."

If that is the standards of balance required by the BBC, then there is no doubt: BBC has justly earned the Dishonest Reporting "Award" 2001.

(HonestReporting was founded by a group of individuals that affiliates neither to the right nor to the left. We are only interested in ensuring that Israel receives fair coverage in the media. We scrutinize the media for examples of blatant bias, and then inform our subscribers of any offending articles, asking to complain directly to the news organization concerned.

HonestReporting has over 20,000 members worldwide, and is growing daily.)

Spanish - http://prensaveraz.com/
Russian - http://honestreport.narod.ru

Italian - http://honestreportingitalia.com/

ARAFAT'S SMOKING GUNS

Arafat's Smoking Guns
Editorial
The New York Post
January 5, 2002

Israel's capture of a Palestinian Authority ship loaded with 50 tons of sophisticated Iranian weapons has no doubt saved countless lives, and averted a dangerous escalation of the war against the Jewish state.

But the shipment exposed yet again the true aim of the PA and its leader, Yasser Arafat: the annihilation of Israel.

According to Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the ship was carrying long-range Katyusha rockets, anti-tank missiles, mortars, mines, advanced explosive equipment, sniper rifles, ammunition and other weaponry.

"If warfare equipment of this kind had reached the hands of terrorists... it may have dramatically altered the security of... the state of Israel... and drastically increased the terror activity against us," Mofaz said.
He linked the arms directly to Arafat: The ship was owned by the PA, and its captain and several officers were members of the Palestinian naval police.

The link, of course, is no surprise. Rather, the operation typifies Arafat's modus operandi: Talk peace, sometimes even take a few (reversible) steps to curb terror – and all the while secretly plot the next wave of attacks.

Indeed, the intifada that's raged for the past 16 months was being planned even as Arafat was meeting with Israel's then-prime minister, Ehud Barak, and President Clinton at the Camp David summit in July 2000.

Does anyone still believe that Arafat can be trusted and should be treated as a legitimate negotiating partner?

Apparently, President Bush does.

True, so far Bush has had enough sense not to meet with the PA terror-chief personally. But the president continues to dispatch emissaries to the region to talk with officials from both the Israeli and Palestinian camps, including Arafat – often with embarrassing results.

Bush's latest envoy, Gen. Anthony Zinni, met separately yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and with Arafat.

The last time Zinni tried to curb the violence, in November, the Palestinians unleashed attacks that left dozens of Israelis dead and scores injured – and sent Zinni scurrying back to Washington, further from peace than before he arrived.

So wish him luck this time 'round.

But even if Zinni manages to get Arafat's word (on anything), what good is it? As the arms-smuggling caper shows, what Arafat says tells nothing about what he's doing. So far, he has yet to show any sincere interest in peace.

If Bush and Zinni really want to rout terror, they should use Israel like they did the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan – and encourage the IDF to drain another "swamp of terror."

Arafat and all.

Attached below are details of the "Karine-A" ship captured in the Red Sea on Thursday that was heading to the Palestinian Authority.

-- Tom Gross

 

50 TONNES OF IRANIAN–MANUFACTURED ARMS AND MUNITIONS SEIZED...

Israel seizes massive haul of weapons
January 4, 2001

Israel has intercepted a massive haul of weapons which were headed for the Palestinian Authority.

Lt Gen Shaul Mofaz, Israel's army chief of staff, said Israeli commandos stormed a Palestinian Authority-owned ship and seized 50 tonnes of mainly Iranian-manufactured arms and munitions, including mortars and anti-tank missiles.

 

...INCLUDING LONG-RANGE KATYUSHA ROCKETS

IDF seizes ship smuggling 50 tons of weapons to PA
By Amos Harel
Ha'aretz
January 4, 2001

A ship carrying 50 tons of weaponry, including long-range Katyusha rockets, and intended for the Palestinian Authority was captured in the Red Sea on Thursday in a joint operation carried out by Israel's Navy and Air Force.

IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, who announced the capture at a press conference Friday, said the weapons cache aboard the vessel included Katyusha rockets with a 20-kilometer range, "Strella" anti-aircraft missiles, snipers rifles, mortar launchers and shells, mines and a variety of anti-tank missiles, such as the Sager and Lao.

The ship was escorted by Israeli forces to Eilat where it docked Friday evening. Only a small portion of its cargo has been checked.

Senior officials said this was to date the most extensive attempt to smuggle weapons into the Palestinian Authority to be foiled by Israel.

"If (the cargo) had reached terrorists acting against us, it could have dramatically raised the threat faced by Israeli civilians and soldiers, and significantly widened the scale of terrorist attacks," Mofaz said.

"The connection between the Palestinian Authority and the smuggling operation is unequivocal, clear and undeniable," he said. "Official figures in the Palestinian Authority were involved, among them senior officials in the Palestinian naval police."

He said that the ship's captain was an officer in the Palestinian naval police.

The Palestinian Authority denied any connection to the vessel. "We know nothing about this and we are going to investigate it," said Nabil Abu Rdainah, adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. He called the vessel's capture "Israeli propaganda" intended to torpedo the mission of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni to bring about a cease-fire between the two sides.

Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said that the weapons-smuggling attempt showed that the PA was turning towards war, Israel Radio reported. He also said that the capture of the vessel points to the cynicism in the PA's priorities, as it invests money to obtain weapons instead of helping the Palestinian people.

In response to the capture of the vessel, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that, "The Palestinian Authority faces a choice. They cannot continue this double game. An unequivocal declaration is required - whether they are for or against terror."

Israel Radio reported that because Israel believes Iran played a prominent role in the weapons-smuggling attempt, Foreign Minister Peres will lead a diplomatic effort in the internatinal community to declare Iran a country that supports terror.

Channel Two reported that Iran denied any connection to the ship.

U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, who met Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat on Friday as part of his latest mission to broker a cease-fire, was informed of the boat's capture on Thursday.

Mofaz said the operation, in which naval commandos sezied the "Karine-A," was carried out overnight some 500 kilometers from the Israeli coast "in complete surprise and with no casualties."

Mofaz described the operation as "complicated and daring" and that the ship's 13-member crew had also been captured.

"We are witnessing a double game played by the PA leadership," Mofaz told reporters gathered at Beit Sokolov in Tel Aviv. He called the PA "a terrorist network, infected from head to toe by terror, that doesn't understand that it cannot make gains using terror, especially after the events of September 11."

"This smuggling attempt indicates the PA's intentions to continue violence and carry out deadly attacks deep inside Israel," he added.

Security sources said that the size and scope of the cargo captured on the Karine-A was far more troubling than the weapons found on board the "Santorini," a ship the navy intercepted off the coast in May last year. According to the sources, an important country in the region is behind the more recent weapons smuggling attempt – an apparent reference to Iran or Iraq.

The Santorini was laden with large quantities of weapons en route from Lebanon to the Palestinian Authority. The cache included Katyusha missiles, SA-7 "Strella" anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPG), anti-tank grenades, mortars and shells, mines, Kalashnikov assault rifles and ammunition.

The Palestinian Authorty denied any connection to the May weapons shipment.

Partial list of weapons found on the "Karine-A":

-122mm Katyusha rockets with a range of 20 km.
-107mm Katyusha rockets with a range of 8 km.
-80 and 120mm mortars
-anti-tank missiles (Lao, RPG and Sager)
-anti-tank mines
-rifles for sharpshooters
-Kaleshnikov rifles
-scuba and rubber raft equipment