“THIS WAS THE BUS YOU WOULD TARGET IF YOU WANTED TO KILL CHILDREN”

Children killed in Israel suicide bomb
By Justin Huggler and Eric Silver
The Independent
November 22, 2002

There were children's voices coming from the wreckage of the bus yesterday. As witnesses to the latest suicide bombing in Israel, in which 11 people died, rushed to the charred remains on Mexico Street, they heard the young crying for their mothers.

And there were children among the dead, four of them. An eight-year-old boy, Ilan Friedman, was on the bus with his grandmother, 67. Both were killed. Two children aged 13 died. So did Michael Sharansky, 16, and his mother. Half of the 49 people wounded were younger than 18, hospital officials said.

There were schoolbooks lying in the road beside the remains of the bus, as well as sandwiches the children were taking to school. This was the bus you would target if you wanted to kill children. Bus number 20 calls at four schools on its route.

And the time the suicide bomber struck was the time you would choose if you wanted to kill children: 7.15am local time, when they were on their way to school.

One of the young passengers was Maor Kimche, 15. "I was sitting at the back of the bus," he said from a hospital bed yesterday. "We were picking people up for about 10 minutes in the neighbourhood. Suddenly there was a very powerful explosion. Everything went black, lots of smoke." And then he said it – what he saw inside that bus full of children on their way to school. "People were burning," he said. "Their faces were red, yellow, white. I don't know how to explain it."

Another of the children on the bus was Hodaya Asaraf, 13. They buried her yesterday. They put a velvet cloth decorated with the Star of David over her at the funeral, but you could still see how terribly small she was.

The Israeli police said they believed the suicide bomber got on to bus number 20 a stop or two before he detonated an explosive belt strapped around him. They said they believed he may have waited for passengers to get on at a few more stops, until the bus was full.

Two militant Palestinian Islamist groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The atrocity was a message, a clear attack on any hope for a peace process.

Two weeks ago, Yasser Arafat's Fatah organisation sent delegates to try to persuade Hamas to call off attacks on civilians inside Israel – at least until after January's Israeli elections, so that violence would not help the election campaigns of hardliners such as the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Hamas gave its answer yesterday.

Last night, the Palestinians of Bethlehem were nervously expecting to bear the brunt of Israel's response after Mr Sharon ordered a "wide and extensive" military operation. The suicide bomber was identified as a 23-year-old from Bethlehem, Nael Abu Hilail.

Bethlehem is the only West Bank city the Israeli army had withdrawn from for any length of time since it re-occupied the area in June. Last night, its residents were expecting the soldiers back.

“A STUNNING BLOW TO THE PEACE CAMP”

Children killed in suicide attack on bus: Hamas claims responsibility for Jerusalem blast that leaves eight dead while dealing stunning blow to peace camp
By Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
The Guardian
November 22, 2002

Nael Azmi Abu Hilail had more than enough time to see those he was about to kill after he boarded the number 20 bus at the bottom of Mexico Street.

The young Palestinian man cannot have failed to notice the two dozen or more children clutching their school books as he squeezed his way to the centre of the packed bus winding through the rush-hour traffic to the centre of Jerusalem yesterday morning.

But that did not discourage him.

Two stops later he detonated the explosive packed around his body, the first suicide bombing in Jerusalem in more than three months and a stunning blow to the peace camp in Israel's general election campaign.

Eight passengers were killed instantly. By the end of the day the death toll had risen to 11. About half were children.

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, ordered the army to launch a "wide and extensive operation" in response to the bombing. He was not specific but, given that the bomber was from a village on the outskirts of Bethlehem, it seemed likely that the army would be ordered back into the city three months after it pulled out as a first step towards restoring Palestinian authority over West Bank towns. Within hours of the attack, the military had arrested the bomber's father and brother.

Among those who escaped with wounds was Tamar Ravivo, who was sitting at the back of the bus. "I never believed that this would happen in my neighbourhood," she said. "So I wasn't looking and just read my book of Psalms. Suddenly there was such an explosion ... and people flew in the air, on fire."

The victims included 13-year-old Hodaya Asraf, who had followed her killer on to the bus. Hodaya was buried eight hours later. Others who died included a mother and her 16-year-old son and an elderly woman and her eight-year-old grandson. A large proportion of the 50 or more wounded were also children.

The explosion tossed schoolbags and textbooks on to the road, and scattered shards of glass for hundreds of metres. Frantic mothers ran to the scene desperate to know if their children were all right. The police were not letting the distraught women near the bodies, so they started phoning hospitals in search of answers. But in the chaos of the moment there were none.

Two young girls stood weeping, hand in hand, on a grass slope overlooking the bus.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and promised worse to come.

"We confirm the path of jihad and martyrdom is continuing in every part of our occupied land as long as there is occupation and there are crimes. What is coming is bigger and, God willing, greater," said Hamas's armed wing in a statement.

The bombing is the first during the campaign for Israel's general election in January and its political significance was quickly made clear. Security is the only issue that matters to most voters, and Mr Sharon is campaigning on the back of his crackdown in the Palestinian territories and his refusal to deal with Yasser Arafat.

Despite Hamas's admission of responsibility, the Israeli government directed its fire at Mr Arafat. "Undoubtedly [Mr Arafat] is the one who is responsible," said Uzi Landau, one of Mr Sharon's cabinet. "We see the Europeans are now pressing for the swift establishment of a Palestinian state. How can we allow that? That would simply be used as a base for more attacks.

"This is a world war. It's no different from what happened in Bali and at the theatre in Moscow. It all has its roots in radical Islam."

The company that owned the bus reinforced the point by filing a lawsuit against Mr Arafat and the Palestinian Authority a few hours after yesterday's bombing, claiming £6.7m in damages for the attacks on its vehicles over the past two years of the intifada.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the bombing as "terrorism" and said it had nothing to do with "resistance to occupation". But it did say that Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian territories and its brutal military crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza, which has left several Palestinian children dead over the past week, kept the suicide bombers coming.

Mr Arafat's Fatah movement spent last week in Cairo trying to persuade militant Hamas leaders that suicide bombings united Israelis behind Mr Sharon's militarist tactics.

But independent Palestinian leaders, such as Mustafa Barghouti, argue that neither Hamas nor the Israeli right are interested in peace. "Hamas has the same interest as Sharon – they don't want an agreement, they don't want to see progress, they feed off each other," he said.

“AN ACT OF EXECRABLE CRUELTY MATCHED ONLY BY ITS UNUTTERABLE STUPIDITY”

Slaughter of innocents
Israeli bus bombing is criminal stupidity
Leader
The Guardian
November 22, 2002

The latest Palestinian suicide bombing is an act of execrable cruelty matched only by its unutterable stupidity. This was not an attack on a military target. It did not take place inside Israeli army-occupied territories or even against illegal settlements, which might have been understandable, although not excusable.

It came in a Jerusalem suburb during the morning rush-hour. Its victims were not "oppressors"; they were ordinary people on their way to work, children going to school. Lunch-boxes and textbooks were left scattered near the devastated bus. Is it possible that Hamas's al-Qassam brigade views this pitiless barbarity as some kind of success? They say it was in revenge for Israel's July assassination in Gaza of their leader, Salah Shehada, in which several children also died. That attack was reckless butchery, too. Thus are the vicious and idiotic acts of both sides weighed with the corpses of innocents.

To commit such an atrocity in the very week when Israelis have at last been given a real electoral choice is sheerest folly. Or do Palestine's men of violence calculate, against all reason and experience, that they have a better chance of getting what they want if Ariel Sharon or Binyamin Netanyahu rather than Labour's new leader is in power? Amram Mitzna has offered unconditional talks and unilateral withdrawals if he wins in January. Likud offers Palestinians and Israelis alike nothing but pain, division and more pain – yet such bombings, by intensifying fear, will only aid its cause.

Yasser Arafat, his orders flouted and his poll ratings falling, is again left looking foolish. Perhaps this, too, is a cynical Hamas calculation. But any discussion of all-round stupidity cannot fairly exclude Mr Sharon and his blinkered patron, George Bush. Their ill-will and incompetence has combined to bring what was left of the peace process to a grinding halt. Do not prate on about two or three-year-long "roadmaps"! Talk about dead children now.

ISRAEL BECAME THE FIRST COUNTRY TO ENDURE 15,000 TERROR ATTACKS IN JUST OVER A TWO-YEAR PERIOD

15,000 and counting
By Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post
November 21, 2002

Though hardly anyone seems to have noticed, Israel recently set a new world's record.

It is unclear when precisely it occurred, or what the exact circumstances were. But at some point earlier this month, Israel became the first country to endure its 15,000th terrorist attack in just over a two-year period.

That's right, you read that correctly. According to statistics compiled by the IDF, as of November 17, 2002, there had been a total of 15,298 Palestinian terror attacks against Israel since the intifada began in September 2000.

That works out, on average, to nearly 1 terror attack every hour of every day over 25 consecutive months.

But that is not what qualifies Israel for a place in the record books.

After all, many countries have experienced periods of civil unrest, subversive violence and lethal terrorism, albeit not nearly as intense or as prolonged as that which Israel has known of late.

What truly puts the Jewish state in a category all its own, however, is its willingness to tolerate this ongoing terror campaign, which should have been defeated long ago.

Everyone, it seems, knows what the answer is to the current predicament. Everyone, that is, except for the government, which has neither the courage nor the vision to move into Judea, Samaria and Gaza and topple the Palestinian Authority once and for all.

Instead, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prefers to play ping-pong with the terrorists, sending in the army only to withdraw it a few days later, bouncing back and forth with no long-term plan and certainly no clear-cut strategy.

Indeed, much of the military activity undertaken by the army seems purely reactive in nature, coming only after Jews have been killed, rather than before.

Take, for example, the recent IDF response to the terror attack on Kibbutz Metzer, in which a member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction murdered five Israelis.

Two hours later, Israeli helicopters fired four rockets into a car-repair shop in Gaza City that was being used as a clandestine weapons factory. Army spokesmen said that terrorists were using it to manufacture explosive devices and mortar shells.

If Israel knew that the place was a death factory, one in which the terrorists were actively producing tools to murder the innocent, then why did we wait until after the Metzer attack to knock it out? The minute the intelligence information regarding the garage's true nature was confirmed, why wasn't it taken out of commission forthwith?

Similarly, after last Friday's massacre in Hebron, when terrorists killed 12 Israelis near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the IDF re-entered Palestinian-controlled portions of the city which it had evacuated just three weeks earlier, on October 25th. According to a statement issued by the IDF Spokesman's Office, the purpose behind retaking the city was "to continue the determined action against the Palestinian terror infrastructure."

That sounds good, except for one nagging question: if Hebron's terrorist infrastructure was still in place, then why did the army withdraw last month? Why did it leave the job only half-finished?

Israel's critics at home and abroad suggest that the government's response to Palestinian terror is immoral because it results in the needless deaths of innocent Arabs. Frankly, I think they have it all wrong. If the government's policy qualifies as immoral, it is because it results in the needless deaths of innocent Jews.

For, by allowing the intifada to continue, and by refraining from taking the necessary steps to dismantle the PA and defeat the terror organizations, the government has undermined Israel's security and that of its citizens, leaving the terrorist threat in place to regroup and fight another day.

But we, the public, must also acknowledge our share of the blame for the current situation. We have been too silent in expressing our outrage over Palestinian terror and the government's feeble response. There have been no demonstrations in the streets, no hunger strikes, no prayer vigils, no mass awakening of indignation or fury.

Histadrut workers went on strike recently over a 2.1% cost of living increase, which amounts to just 70 shekels per month, but many people are unwilling to protest when it comes to the 73 Israelis who have been killed by terrorists over the past three months.

It is incumbent upon us to wake up from this nightmare. With elections approaching, we have an opportunity to use all the democratic and legal tools at our disposal, and to send a clear signal to those running for office. We must let them know that the people of Israel have had enough, and that we will no longer tolerate a continuation of the current policy, which amounts to little more than a series of tired and half-hearted measures.

The time has come for Israel to sweep into the territories, reassert control, and eliminate the terrorist infrastructure and those who sponsor it. Yasser Arafat should be led away in handcuffs and put on trial, along with the rest of the Palestinian leadership. We must stop being afraid of what the world might say, and start being more concerned about what the terrorists are doing to us, day in and day out.

Israel has already passed the 15,000 mark when it comes to Palestinian terror. If the current trend continues, we will hit the "milestone" of 20,000 some time early next summer. That is one record we can not afford to break.

(The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office from 1996 to 1999.)

HARVARD ENGLISH DEPARTMENT RE-INVITES TOM PAULIN

In about-face, English dept. re-invites Anti-Israeli poet
Dept. fears cancellation sent wrong message about free speech
By Alexander J. Blenkinsopp
The Harvard Crimson
November 20, 2002

Concerned about the message it was sending on free speech, the English department yesterday renewed the invitation it cancelled just one week ago to Tom Paulin, an award-winning Irish poet who has expressed violently anti-Israeli views.

English department chair Lawrence Buell said the department's faculty met last night for two and a half hours and voted to re-invite Paulin. The vote, which was unanimous apart from two abstentions, marks a reversal of an earlier decision by a smaller group of English professors to cancel the speech.

A main factor in the decision, Buell wrote in an e-mail, was the "widespread concern and regret for the fact that the decision not to hold the event could easily be seen, and indeed has been seen – both within Harvard and beyond – as an unjustified breach of the principle of free speech within the academy."

University President Lawrence H. Summers, who said in a speech two months ago he is concerned that anti-semitism is on the rise in "progressive intellectual communities," had conversations with English department faculty before Paulin's invitation to deliver the annual Morris Gray Lecture was first cancelled.

According to The National Review, Summers said privately he was "horrified" that Paulin, who has called Israel a "historical obscenity," had been invited to campus.

Facing protests from students, alumns and faculty, Buell announced last week that Paulin would not be coming to campus after all.

Then, last night, the department decided to re-invite Paulin.

"The meeting was patient, it was passionate, and it went to the heart of everything this – or any university – stands for," said Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Jorie Graham.

Paulin, a renowned poet and Oxford lecturer who is currently teaching at Columbia University, has said that Brooklyn-born Jews who move to Israeli settlements in disputed territories "should be shot."

His re-invitation is sure to ignite protest on campus.

"If this fellow is coming back to Harvard, we will be out there to give him the reception he deserves," said Max P. Davis '04, a member of Harvard Hillel's Social Action Committee. "If he comes back and has his free speech, I'm sure I'll have mine as well."

Professor of English and American Literature and Language Peter M. Sacks cited a need for diverse ideas and viewpoints at Harvard as underlying the department's decision.

"We felt that we wished to affirm our Constitutional and intellectual commitment to a vigorous and independent willingness to encounter and if necessary debate divergent points of view," Sacks wrote in an e-mail, "and we therefore decided to renew the invitation."

Buell also noted that the members of the English department who initially helped decide to cancel the talk "might have acted under a sense of pressure."

At the time of the original decision, more than 100 students, alumns and faculty members were protesting anti-Israeli views expressed by Paulin.

Alan J. Stone, Harvard's vice president for government, community and public affairs, said that as of last night, he was not aware of the English department's decision, and that Summers had no comment.

Professor of Psychology Patrick Cavanagh, who signed the Harvard-MIT divestment petition and criticized Summers for exerting what he said was inappropriate pressure on members of the English department to cancel Paulin's visit, called the renewal of the invitation "a positive move."

"I'm happy that the English department has really decided on its own," he said.

According to a colleague of Paulin, the poet is likely to accept the reinvitation.

James Shapiro, a professor of English at Columbia University who said he is a colleague and friend of Paulin, returned a telephone message left for Paulin at Columbia's English Department.

"I'm sure he'll accept," Shapiro said. "It's not just Tom Paulin that's relieved about this – it's a lot of other people relieved about this."

Some faculty members stressed the fact that yesterday's meeting was the first by the entire English department.

"There had been no meeting of the English department, on this issue, before this one," Graham said. "This was the first meeting the English department had a chance to convene on this matter."

Buell said the decision to renew the invitation took place without consultation with Paulin, and "in no sense endorses the extreme statements by Mr. Paulin that occasioned last week's protests against the invitation."

Paulin has repeatedly said he is not anti-Semitic, and that he wishes for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.

Harvard's about-face may also have implications for other schools.

The University of Vermont originally scheduled a talk by Paulin on its campus for today, but canceled it some time after the lecture at Harvard was canceled, according to a receptionist for the University of Vermont's English department.

No faculty members from the department or administrators from the school were available for comment yesterday afternoon.

– Alexandra N. Atiya contributed to the reporting of this story.

HARVARD BARS OXFORD POET

Harvard bars Oxford poet
Protests erupt over Paulin's anti-Israel views
By Oliver Burkeman
The Guardian
November 14, 2002

Harvard University has cancelled an appearance by the controversial Oxford academic Tom Paulin after more than 100 students and faculty members objected to the poet's inflammatory anti-Israel views, which include the claim that Jewish settlers in the West Bank are "Nazis" who should be "shot dead".

Mr Paulin was scheduled to give the Ivy League university's prestigious Morris Gray poetry reading tonight, but Harvard said that, after protests, the event had been shelved late on Tuesday "by mutual consent of the poet and the English department".

"The English department sincerely regret the widespread consternation that has arisen as a result of this invitation, which had been decided on last winter solely on the basis of Mr Paulin's lifetime accomplishments as a poet," said Lawrence Buell, the department's chairman, in a statement.

A Harvard statement added that the invitation had been made "in ignorance of the views that he has expressed" and that "the English department shares the concerns expressed" by the protesters.

Mr Paulin, who is lecturing at New York's Columbia University but is a member of Hertford College in Oxford, told the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram Weekly last April that American-born settlers in the occupied territories "should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them." The newspaper quoted him as saying: "I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all."

Mr Paulin told al-Ahram he had "utter contempt" for the "Hampstead liberal Zionists" who "use this card of anti-semitism" against critics of Israel. In fact, he argued, Israel itself was "a product of both British and Stalin's anti-semitism".

He had already sparked protests from Jewish groups in Britain over a poem in the Observer last year describing "another little Palestinian boy/ in trainers jeans and a white teeshirt/... gunned down by the Zionist SS".

Mr Paulin did not respond to emails or phone calls yesterday, and a spokeswoman for the Columbia English department said he was unavailable. But his Columbia colleague Jim Shapiro condemned Harvard's actions as "disastrous".

"I say this as somebody who is a Zionist, who teaches Jewish studies, who has opposed petitions on my campus for the university to divest from Israel," he said. "The idea of rescinding an invitation because someone has not passed a political litmus test establishes a very dangerous precedent.

"Do I think Tom said a stupid thing? Absolutely, and I know few people who haven't said stupid things. Do I think Tom is an anti-semite? I can say from extensive discussions with him on the Middle East that he isn't. These students have an absolute right to heckle Tom Paulin, but they do not have the right to force the university to rescind the invitation."

Rita Goldberg, who was involved in the Harvard protests, said that she supported Mr Paulin's right to free speech but felt she had a duty to inform the English department of controversies in Britain they might not have known about.

"I was very reluctant to do this, but I think Tom Paulin has crossed the line. Free speech is one thing, hate speech is another," Professor Goldberg said. "I think anti-semitism is on the rise, and Tom Paulin must be quite confused about his own relationship to Jews. He used a public platform to advocate violence, and that is incitement."

Israel, she said, "is a democracy with an active critical population of its own, and to make everyone a great mush of Zionists and Jews who are somehow like the SS has to be inflammatory. We all know in our gut when speech is hate speech and when it's perfectly rational discourse."

POET PAULIN “BANNED FROM HARVARD”

Poet Paulin 'banned from Harvard'
BBC news online
November 15, 2002

Poet Tom Paulin has been banned form Harvard after saying American Jews settling in the occupied territories were "Nazis" who should be "shot dead", according to reports.

Paulin, who grew up in Belfast, was due to give the prestigious Morris Gray poetry reading at the Boston university on Friday night, but the event was cancelled on Tuesday.

The university said it was "by mutual consent of the poet and the English department", the Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.

More than 100 students and members of staff protested at the poet's invitation because of his steadfastly anti-Israeli views, it reported.

Occupied territories

The protests were over an interview the poet recently conducted with Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram, where he repeated anti-Israeli views.

He reportedly told the paper that American Jews who settled in the occupied territories "should be shot dead.

"I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them."

The paper also quoted him as saying ""I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all."

In a statement, the Harvard University said they had invited Paulin because of his poetic history, but had to rescind the invitation after his anti-Israeli comments.

Paulin, a member of Hertford College at Oxford, has been teaching at Columbia University in New York.

The university has been criticised by Paulin's Colleague, Columbia lecturer Jim Shapiro.

He said banning a speaker on account of his political views had set a "dangerous precedent".

Paulin, who won the Somerset Maugham prize in 1977 for his first collection of poetry, A State of Justice.

He is a regular on the BBC Two arts discussion programme Newsnight Review.

NO HATE SPEECH AT HARVARD

No hate speech at Harvard
English department was right to cancel lecture by poet who calls for killing Jews
By The Crimson staff
The Harvard Crimson
November 14, 2002

Harvard is an open academic community dedicated to the vigorous exchange of ideas. The freedom of speech is absolutely central to the University's mission. But Harvard has no obligation to encourage hate speech, speech that explicitly incites ethnic violence. Such speakers have no place in a community based on respect and tolerance, and for that reason, the English department was right to ask Irish poet Tom Paulin not to give the Morris Gray Lecture.

When the department invited Paulin to give the annual speech last winter, he had not yet told Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper that Brooklyn-born Jews who have settled in the West Bank "should be shot dead." "I think they are Nazis, racists," he said, "I feel nothing but hatred for them."

If such an obvious call for killing was not cause enough to cancel Paulin's lecture, he also published a poem in London's Observer newspaper calling the Israeli military "the Zionist SS." To say such a comparison is offensive does not do it justice; ghastly, repulsive and sickening are more appropriate descriptions of the moral bankruptcy of anyone who equates the Israeli Defense Force to an organization that killed six million Jews.

These two comments are hate speech, pure and simple.

Paulin is certainly entitled to express his own opinions – and of course, extremely critical views of Israel should not preclude him from speaking at Harvard, on that subject or any other. Whether or not he believes in the right of a Jewish state to exist is irrelevant to a discussion of epic poetry, the original subject of his lecture. But when the English department learned that he advocated killing civilians and considered the Israeli military a modern-day incarnation of the SS, the content of his poetry became immaterial.

It would have been highly inappropriate for Harvard to honor Paulin by allowing him to deliver the Morris Gray Lecture, which has been previously given by such Nobel Prize-winning luminaries as Seamus Heaney and Anthony Hecht. To let Paulin give a distinguished lecture at this University after expressing such an offensive and violent message would inevitably legitimize his hateful rhetoric.

The more than 100 students, faculty and alumni who complained about the English department's choice were right – as was University President Lawrence H. Summers, who expressed his concerns about Paulin directly to members of the English department, according to the Boston Globe. A poet more than anyone should recognize the power of words. If Paulin is going to advocate killing civilians, whether Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers or ardent Palestinian nationalists, he should find no welcome at this University.

The freedom of speech is a crucial value to be continually defended, but it does not require Harvard to host a poet who preaches hate. It is unfortunate that the banner of free speech has been raised in Paulin's defense; that standard is being sullied by his name.

CAVANAGH’S HATRED OF SUMMERS TRANSPARENT

Cavanagh's hatred of Summers transparent
Letter to the Editors
By Jay M. Harris
The Harvard Crimson
November 15, 2002

Professor of Psychology Patrick Cavanagh's obvious hatred of University President Lawrence H. Summers has led him to a level of intellectual dishonesty that is breathtaking (Letter, "'Ayatollah' Summers' Remarks Show Bigotry," Nov. 14).

So, Prof. Cavanagh, take a few deep breaths, get past your hatred, and consider the following hypothetical: Imagine some division of the University invited a poet to speak who had suggested that some sub-group of African-Americans should be shot on sight because of their alleged political or criminal behavior, who had said that he has nothing but hatred for these people he never met. Would you really suggest that such a hateful person should be allowed to speak here as an invited guest of the University? Would you really think that withdrawing the privilege (not right) of speaking here with the imprimatur of the University infringes on free speech rights? Would you not see the ugly racism in his callous disregard for the lives of an entire class of African-Americans, whatever their alleged misdeeds? I, for one, am certain that you would protest the invitation to such a person, and correctly so.

What happened with Tom Paulin is no different. Paulin is not simply someone who supports Palestinian rights, as you try to whitewash him. He is someone who has said that Brooklyn-born Jews living in the West Bank should be killed (infants too?), that they are all Nazis worthy of hatred. Such a person, whatever his accomplishments as a poet, has no place in a world of civilized discourse.

It is not Summers' bigotry that is showing; it is Cavanagh's indifference to Paulin's bigotry that is on display for all to see.

Jay M. Harris
Nov. 14, 2002
The writer is Harvard College Professor and Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies.

“AYATOLLAH” SUMMERS’ REMARKS SHOW BIGOTRY

'Ayatollah' Summers' remarks show bigotry
Letter to the Editors
By Patrick Cavanagh
The Harvard Crimson
November 14, 2002

By encouraging the cancellation of Irish poet Tom Paulin's poetry reading, University President Lawrence H. Summers has again moved to suppress the free exchange of ideas at Harvard (News, "Controversial Poet Will Not Give Lecture," Nov. 13). Free speech is meaningless if it only holds for the politically correct. As a concerned individual, Summers could have personally joined the protesters planning to boycott Paulin's reading. By acting as president of the University, however, he exposes antidemocratic impulses inappropriate for a university president. For "Ayatollah" Summers to contact English department members about his concerns and then claim, as quoted in The Boston Globe, that "it was for the department to decide" is disingenuous. It is time for Summers to stop targeting, as president, anything and anyone who supports Palestinian rights. His bigotry is showing.

Patrick Cavanagh
Nov. 13, 2002
The writer is professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

WITHDRAWING PAULIN’S INVITATION UNNECESSARY

Withdrawing Paulin's invitation unnecessary
Letter to the Editors
By Alan M. Dershowitz, Charles Fried and Laurence H. Tribe
The Harvard Crimson
November 15, 2002

To the editors:

By all accounts this Paulin fellow the English Department invited to lecture here is a despicable example of the anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israel posturing unfortunately quite widespread among European intellectuals (News, "Poet Flap Drew Summers' Input," Nov. 14). We think he probably should not have been invited. But Harvard has had its share of cranks, monsters, scoundrels and charlatans lecture here and has survived.

What is truly dangerous is the precedent of withdrawing an invitation because a speaker would cause, in the words of English department chair Lawrence Buell, "consternation and divisiveness." We are justly proud that our legal system insisted that the American Nazi Party be allowed to march through the heavily Jewish town of Skokie, Illinois. If Paulin had spoken, we are sure we would have found ways to tell him and each other what we think of him. Now he will be able to lurk smugly in his Oxford lair and sneer at America's vaunted traditions of free speech. There are some mistakes which are only made worse by trying to undo them.

Alan M. Dershowitz
Charles Fried
Laurence H. Tribe
Nov. 14, 2002

The writers are Frankfurter Professor of Law, Beneficial Professor of Law and Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law, respectively.

HARVARD GROWS A BACKBONE

Harvard grows a backbone
The Weekly Standard
November 25, 2002

Congratulations to Harvard's Lawrence Summers, who is rapidly becoming The Scrapbook's favorite university president. Last Tuesday, after "discussions" with Summers's office, the Harvard English department rather abruptly canceled, and publicly apologized for having scheduled in the first place, a poetry reading by Oxford University professor Tom Paulin – which was to have taken place last Thursday. Paulin is the man who this past April told Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly that American-born Jews who've settled in Israel and the West Bank are "Nazis" and "racists" who should be "shot dead." English department chairman Lawrence Buell, who had previously defended the Paulin invitation, now says his colleagues "sincerely regret the widespread consternation that has arisen."

Right. And see that it doesn't happen again.

SUSPECTED HIJACKER OVERPOWERED ON TEL AVIV-ISTANBUL FLIGHT

El Al security guards overpower suspected hijacker on Tel Aviv-Istanbul flight
The Jerusalem Post
November 17, 2002

Airborne guards foiled an attempted hijack of an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, media reports said Sunday night. None of the 170 passengers on board was harmed and the plane landed safely, said Oktay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport.

Guards on El Al flight 581 to Istanbul stopped one of the passengers, who media reports said was an Israeli Arab, from entering the plane's cockpit.

He reportedly first threatened a flight attendant with a knife and tried to approach the cockpit but he was overpowered by two security guards, one posing as a passenger. The suspect was being held at the airport police station.

"We heard people saying there was fighting and half a minute later it became clear that from row five or six a man ran amok toward the pilot's cabin, attacked a stewardess and tried to enter the cockpit," an Israeli passenger on the plane told Army Radio.

"We saw a stewardess running like crazy from the front of the place to the business section... She was terrified," said the passenger, identified only as Menachem.

Security guards "threw him to the floor with his legs spread and his face to the floor. The passengers were hysterical but the flight attendants were very cool, they calmed us down," he said.

An Istanbul airport official was quoted earlier as saying "one terrorist" was arrested upon the plane's landing. Upon landing the man was transferred to Turkish police.

Since the plane had to land far from the terminal, she said, the passengers were now being accompanied to it by Turkish police carrying M-16s.

Pini Shif, Airport Authority Deputy Director General, said it was unclear how the man managed to enter the plane with a knife. He said investigation was still under way to ascertain how this happened.

El Al is widely regarded as the best protected airline in the world, but also one of the most threatened. From the late 1960s into the 1980s, El Al planes and passengers were subjected to shooting attacks, hijacking and bombing attempts.

El Al's formidable security includes armed guards at check-in, on-board marshals and extensive searches of luggage. Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow enough time for the security checks

UPDATE: Hijacker sought to crash plane into Tel Aviv building

The New York Times reports that the Arab Israeli man charged with trying to hijack an Israeli airliner on Sunday told Turkish police he had been inspired by the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. and intended to crash the plane into tall buildings in Tel Aviv.

POPE: HEBRON “A VILE ATTACK”

Pope condemns Hebron attack as 'vile'
The Associated Press
November 17, 2002

Pope John Paul II expressed distress Sunday at "a vile attack" by Palestinian militants in the West Bank town of Hebron that killed 12 Israeli security forces and guards as Jewish worshippers returned from prayers.

The pope has repeatedly urged an end to Mideast violence during the two-year-old Palestinian uprising. In his weekly remarks Sunday to pilgrims and tourists gathered below his window in St. Peter's Square, the pontiff prayed for all to pursue "the road of justice and peace."

"I want to express my emotional involvement in the pain of the families of those who last Friday were victims in Hebron in the Holy Land of a vile attack, just as people had finished praying at a few steps from the tomb of the man we recognize as the common father of our faith, the Patriarch Abraham," the pope said.

"While I invoke eternal rest for those who died, I pray to the Lord to instill in all the courage necessary to find anew the road of justice and peace."

ANNAN: A “DESPICABLE TERRORIST ATTACK”

Annan: Hebron was a "despicable terrorist attack"
Ha'aretz, and news agencies
November 17, 2002

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also dennounced the killing in an extraordinarily harsh statement, calling it a "despicable terrorist attack" and urging Palestinian groups to halt the violence.

Annan has spoken out against Israeli military actions over the past 26 months of fighting, but Friday's statement was one of his toughest on Palestinian terrorism. Annan didn't describe any of the victims as Jewish settlers.

Annan said he was "horrified by the despicable terrorist attack in the West Bank... that killed Jewish worshippers on their way to the Sabbath eve prayers and left many injured."

He conveyed condolences to the families of victims and to the government of Israel and appealed to "all Palestinian groups to stop all such acts of senseless violence, which are extremely harmful to the Palestinian cause."

“AP SPINS HEBRON”

"AP spins Hebron"
HonestReporting
November 17, 2002

Kofi Annan called it a "despicable terrorist attack." The Pope called it a "vile attack." The U.S. State Department called it a "heinous crime."

The Associated Press was far less sympathetic. In a report that went out to 6,500 news agencies worldwide – and was reproduced in the Washington Post, MSNBC.com, and hundreds of other media – AP's Jason Keyser characterized the city of Hebron as follows:

"Hebron, to the south of Jerusalem, has long been a volatile place filled with religious and political tensions. Muslims here are among the most devout and the Jewish settlers among the most radical."

What is the source for Keyser's biased assertion?! Perhaps the city's Muslims – who had just massacred 12 Jews – are the most radical, and the Jews of Hebron – who are perpetuating a Jewish presence in Judaism's second holiest city – are the most devout.

AP's Keyser then comes up with this adaptation of history:

"In 1994, Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 Muslim worshippers before being beaten to death. The massacre sparked riots that lasted for days and helped spawn the phenomenon of suicide bombings against Israelis."

Read closely. The blame for hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombings – termed by Human Rights Watch as a "crime against humanity" – lies with a Jew.

SUPPORTERS RUSHED INTO THE STREETS IN CELEBRATION…

Palestinians in Gaza celebrate Hebron massacre
The Associated Press
November15, 2002

In the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, dozens of Islamic Jihad supporters celebrated the news Friday of the Hebron attack that killed 12 Israelis and wounded at least 15.

The supporters rushed into the streets in celebration, some firing in the air.

"This is retaliation for the daily crimes and massacres committed by the Zionist occupation against our people," one armed man said over loudspeaker.

The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to the Al Jazeera telivision station, saying that it was in response for the killing of an Islamic Jihad leader Iyad Sawalha in Jenin by IDF troops earlier in the week.

PALESTINIAN MEDIA REFUSES TO CONDEMN HEBRON TERROR ATTACK

Palestinian media refuses to condemn Hebron terror attack
(Communicated by the IDF Spokesman)
November 16, 2002

The Palestinian Authority has declined to condemn the brutal terrorist attack that took place in Hebron on November 15th 2002 in which 12 Israelis were murdered, and a further 30 were wounded, some critically. The Palestinian Minister of the Interior, Hani Al-Hasan, has reiterated over the past few weeks, that Israeli citizens residing in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem are "legitimate targets" in the "Palestinian armed struggle".

The view that Israelis living in the West Bank are "legitimate targets" was widely adopted by the Palestinian media covering the terrorist attack in Hebron. The attack was depicted by both the Palestinian Authority dailies Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and Alayam as "an armed attack", and not as a terrorist attack. The two terrorists who carried out the attack, members of the Islamic Jihad, were called "Warriors" by the papers, who also called the perpetrators "Youths who died following the path of Allah" ("Istshehad" in Arabic).

Following is a translation from the front page of the Palestinian Alayam newspaper about the attack in Hebron:

Headline: 12 soldiers and settlers killed and a further 30 injured in armed strike near settlement.

Sub-headline: Islamic Jihad claims responsibility for the operation. Two of its youths die following the path of Allah.

Content of the article: 12 soldiers and settlers met their death and a further 30 were injured in the armed strike carried out by Palestinian warriors yesterday evening in Hebron between the Cave of the Patriarchs and the settlement of Kiriat Arbah.

Translation from the Al-Hayat Al-Jadida newspaper:

The attack occurred at 19:30 last night as the settlers marched from the settlement of Kiriyat Arba toward the Cave of the Patriarchs for the Sabbath prayers. As the procession came to Wadi "Hanotsrim" near the entrance to the settlement, massive fire was opened towards them bringing the deaths of 12 settlers and soldiers.

“HUTU ISLAM, BENT ON THE PHYSICAL ERADICATION OF ITS ENEMIES AND THEIR SYMBOLS”

Hutu Islam
Editorial
The Jerusalem Post
November 17, 2002

Three weeks ago, after the IDF withdrew from most of Hebron on October 25, the city's Jewish community issued the following statement to the press. It read, in part, "We warn the prime minister and the defense minister: Spilled Jewish blood, be it in Hebron, or anywhere in Israel, as a result of this criminal act of abandonment, is your full responsibility. You will not be able to say, 'Our hands did not spill this blood.'"

On Friday, 12 Israelis were murdered, and 15 others wounded, by Palestinian terrorists in Hebron.

In a meticulously executed attack, Palestinians opened fire and tossed grenades at a crowd of Jewish worshipers and the soldiers guarding them as they made their way from the Machpela Cave to neighboring Kiryat Arba after Shabbat evening prayers. Among the victims was Hebron Brigade Commander Col. Dror Weinberg, 38, the most senior member of the IDF killed thus far in the current war. Five border policemen, three other soldiers, and three Israeli civilians also died.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, as the organization's head, Ramadan Shalah, proudly declared in a telephone interview on al-Jazeera. In the wake of the attack, Israeli forces placed Hebron under curfew, and IDF troops took up positions throughout the city.

As army spokesman Lt.-Col. Olivier Rafowicz rightly pointed out, the incident was especially grave because it was carried out "on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, close to the site of prayers." Put simply, not only were Jews being targeted, but Judaism itself.

Indeed, throughout the current conflict, the Palestinians have repeatedly targeted Jewish worshipers and Jewish holy sites. The destruction of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, the arson attack on the Shalom al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho, and periodic gunfire at Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, are just a few of the examples that come to mind.

Such assaults signify a major step backward for Islam. They are reminiscent of the Taliban version of Islam that gripped Afghanistan, which deemed anything un-Islamic, such as the Buddha statues at Bumiyan, worthy of being eradicated. Now it seems the same goes in Hebron. A critical mass of Palestinians rejects Jewish claims to any part of the territories; it rejects Jewish claims to pre-'67 Israel; and it appears to reject a Jewish presence in "Palestine," even without political sovereignty. Thus does Yasser Arafat speak of Jerusalem being a city holy to "Christians and Muslims" while failing to mention Jews, as if we had no claim even to this city.

This is not just Taliban Islam but Hutu Islam, bent on the physical eradication of its enemies and their symbols. Those who question what Jews are doing in Hebron in the first place would do well to remember this point, particularly since the ratio of Jews to Muslims in the city is not all that different from the ratio between Israelis and Arabs in the entire Middle East.

It is impossible to escape the conclusion that Friday's massacre might well have been avoided had the IDF not withdrawn from the area last month. Under pressure from the Bush Administration to ease up on the Palestinians, then defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, with the support of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, agreed to pull out the troops. Now they have been sent back in once again, presumably for a more protracted period of time.

It is not in Israel's long-term interests to remain in day-to-day control of Hebron or other Palestinian cities. But it is still less in Israel's interests to endure constant bloodletting every time it withdraws from those cities. And this dilemma can only be resolved by a Palestinian leadership genuinely intent on divorcing itself, permanently and unequivocally, from terrorism. As the current one plainly cannot, a change of leadership is required.

Since President George W. Bush's Mideast speech June 24, the US has followed a contradictory policy toward Arafat: insisting he must go, while forbidding Israel from easing the way for his departure. For the sake of Jews and Palestinians alike, it's time to take more forceful measures to install a Palestinian leadership capable of fulfilling the most basic obligations of responsible government. The alternative is the next Hebron massacre.

ABBA EBAN: AN OBITUARY

Abba Eban
Obituary
The Daily Telegraph (London)
November 18, 2002

Abba Eban, the Israeli statesman who died yesterday aged 87, represented his country at the United Nations from 1948 to 1959, in Washington as Ambassador from 1950 to 1959, and served as Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1966 to 1974; few Israelis brought greater talents to public life.

A highly skilful diplomat, he was also a considerable scholar, an elegant and successful writer and one of the foremost orators of his day. Yet in a strange way Abba Eban's many gifts impeded his advancement, and though he attained high office, he never rose quite to the heights for which he felt destined.

He was born Abba Solomon at Cape Town, South Africa, on February 2 1915, the child of Lithuanian immigrants. He lost his father when he was still an infant, and his mother took him to live in England. She remarried, and Abba, known in England as Aubrey, was brought up in south London, where his step-father, Isaac Eban, was a doctor.

As Aubrey Eban, the boy attended St Olave's school, near Tower Bridge, and from there won a scholarship to the Queens' College, Cambridge. He graduated with a Triple First in Classics and Oriental Languages, having won prizes in Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic along the way. His immersion in Arabic, he later wrote, made it impossible for him "to adopt the routine Zionist stereotype that regarded the Arab nation with intellectual condescension".

At Cambridge, he also found time to be active in the local synagogue and in the Zionist organisation. At the Cambridge Union, he came to be regarded as one of the most brilliant debaters of his generation.

He was elected a Research Fellow in Persian Studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge, but before he could settle down to the tranquil life of a Cambridge don the Second World War broke out. He immediately enlisted in the Army and was subsequently commissioned in the Intelligence Corps.

In December 1941 he was posted to the Middle East. The Germans were by then at the gates of Cairo, and Eban and other British officers were involved in training Jewish volunteers in Palestine to fight against a possible German invasion. In the course of the posting, he met Suzy Ambache, the daughter of a prosperous Jewish engineer. They were married in 1945, and Eban later introduced a fellow officer, Chaim Herzog, to Suzy's sister.

At Cambridge, Eban had joined the Labour Party, and as the war ended he was invited by the party chairman, Harold Laski, to stand in the General Election of 1945 as Labour candidate for Farnborough. But by then Eban had decided that his future lay with the Zionist movement in Palestine. He joined the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in 1946, and was appointed Liaison Officer with the UN Special Committee on Palestine in 1947.

Having won the UN General Assembly's approval for the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish State, Eban became Israel's first Permanent Representative at the UN in 1949, and in 1950 was invited to couple the post with that of Ambassador in Washington.

Each job was demanding in its different ways, and the fact that Eban combined the two for more than eight years was a measure not only of his undoubted energies but also of the confidence he inspired in Israel and of the esteem he enjoyed in America.

His task was quite easy during the presidency of Harry Truman, who was warmly disposed towards Israel; but it became rather more difficult after Eisenhower became President in 1954. With America now anxious to strengthen its links with the Arab world, Eban sought to maintain what he called "a viable if not an affectionate" relationship with the new administration. He was not helped by the bellicose attitudes of Israel's Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion.

In December 1955 the Syrians shelled an Israeli fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee. There were no Jewish casualties, but Israel retaliated with an operation which left 73 Syrian dead. Eban protested to Ben Gurion privately, while defending the operation in public.

Ben Gurion replied that he, too, had doubts about the wisdom of the operation, but said: "When I read the full text of your brilliant defence of our action in the Security Council, all my doubts were set at rest."

Eban's job both at the UN and in Washington became even more arduous after Suez. He had been kept completely in the dark about the Suez campaign until it was launched, but when called upon to defend it at the UN made one of the best speeches of his career – though it made no difference to the outcome of the debate. Israel was roundly condemned and forced to withdraw.

Yet in spite of the atmosphere of rancour in which Eban had to work during his last years in Washington, he established the special relationship with America which was to become the cornerstone of Israeli foreign policy; and he engaged the loyalties of the American Jewish community which had previously not been particularly zionistic.

In 1959, he was elected to the Knesset and joined the Israeli Cabinet, first as Minister without Portfolio and then as Minister of Education and Culture. At the same time, he became president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel's premier seat of higher learning.

He took urgent steps to improve the level of schooling available in deprived areas of his country's cities and in the new development towns. He encouraged the creation of new universities in Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv and, as he put it, made education "a headline issue in Israel's national consciousness."

In 1963 Levi Eshkol became Prime Minister. Eban was appointed Deputy Prime Minister, a post without clearly defined duties or functions. He had to wait a further three years before he got an office he really wanted, that of Foreign Minister.

Ben Gurion had paid frequent tribute to Eban's powers as an "emissary" and a "spokesman"; to use the title of one of his most popular books, Eban had become "The Voice of Israel". Yet he hankered for an opportunity not only to defend Israeli policies but to formulate them.

When Nasser began to mass troops in Sinai in May 1967, Eban did not feel Nasser had any aggressive intent, and he sought to allay fears of war. But everything changed when the straits of Tiran were closed to Israeli shipping. France was then Israel's main arms supplier, and Eban was particularly mindful of General de Gaulle's warning not to take any precipitate action.

He flew to Paris, London and Washington in an attempt to organise an international stand against the blockade. He failed, as he was perhaps bound to fail, and on June 6 war broke out.

Eban's speech at the UN Security Council in defence of Israel's action was a tour de force, possibly the high-point of his career. He also handled the protracted negotiations on Resolution 242, which required Israel to withdraw from occupied territories, with consummate skill. Had he lived in 19th-century Britain, he would probably have returned to an Earldom. Twentieth century Israel was rather less appreciative.

Israel's foreign policy was now dominated by the fact that she was in occupation of Sinai, the West Bank and Gaza, which were almost the personal fief of Defence Minister Moshe Dayan. Moreover Levi Eshkol, who had the highest opinion of Eban, died in 1969. Golda Meir took his place and she preferred to act as her own Foreign Minister, at least where America was concerned.

Mrs Meir was a person of limited education, with strong likes and dislikes. Eban, with his polished urbanity and linguistic skills was not one of her favourites, and she would often go over his head to deal directly with her man in Washington.

Eban was also more of a "dove" than most of his Labor colleagues, especially Dayan. He preached a conciliatory attitude to the Arabs and advocated territorial concessions. But he received less support than Dayan who spoke of "a new state of Israel with broad frontiers, strong and solid with the authority of the Israel Government extending from the Jordan to the Suez Canal".

The Yom Kippur war brought an end to such complacency and when Mrs Meir retired in 1974 Eban believed that his track record made him her natural successor. But his name was not even seriously considered, and when Rabin became Prime Minister he was offered the Ministry of Information. Eban regarded the offer as derisory and retreated to the back-benches.

He was only 59, and comforted himself with the thought that Israel in her hour of need might yet call him back to high, perhaps even the highest, office. The call, though, never came and in 1988 he retired from politics altogether. He was inundated with invitations for lectureships and professorships at the best universities; but they were no compensation for the loss of office and in his last years Eban was an unhappy man.

Although he had spent less than a third of his life in England, Abba Eban was very English in manner, dress and speech; but where an Englishman of Eban's generation might have felt the need to hide his cleverness under a facade of frivolity, Eban tended to flaunt it – and as he was surrounded by people who were rather less intelligent, this did not add to his popularity.

His instincts were perhaps too old-fashioned: he was disinclined to elbow for position, or even to raise his voice, and he made no effort to build up a personal following. Nor did he belong to any "mafia": he had never served in the Israeli army, had never lived on a kibbutz, and was never active in the Labor movement. He was a lonely intellectual who expected to rise inexorably upwards on the strength of his natural attainments, which were actually something of a handicap.

Although the Israeli Labor movement had, even by the 1960s, discarded most of its egalitarian principles, Eban's wealth and earning capacity continued to excite envy. He wrote some dozen books, most of which became best-sellers in America; he was in great demand on the American lecture circuit; and he was paid handsomely for his television appearances. Political office, to many Israel politicians, meant a livelihood; to Eban it seemed an optional extra.

He was always readily accessible to foreign corespondents, especially as he could address most of them in their own language and would express himself in memorable phrases. As a result, no Israeli politician was more widely quoted in the overseas press, and Eban made the mistake of taking his international standing as the measure of his standing at home. In that sense, Abba Eban was a prophet in every country but his own.

He is survived by his wife, and by their son and daughter.

FULL ITEMS

JORDAN FM CALLS ON PALESTINIANS TO STOP SUICIDE ATTACKS (ONLY DURING ISRAELI ELECTION PERIOD)

Jordan FM calls Palestinians to stop suicide attacks
Albawaba.com
November 8, 2002

The Jordanian foreign minister has called on Palestinians to halt suicide bombing attacks during the upcoming Israeli election period.

Marwan Muasher warned Palestinians that suicide attacks during the election period could contribute to the election of a far right-wing government in Israel.

Speaking to the London-based A-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, the Jordanian minister stressed that the collapse of Sharon's government was a result of domestic issues and not of the peace process.

SGT.-MAJ. MADIN GRIFAT: A BEDOUIN KILLED BY PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS

Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat

Nov 9, 2002 – Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat, 23, of Beit Zarzir was killed when a mine exploded during a routine patrol northeast of Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.

Grifat, a tracker, was leading the unit when the mine was detonated, and died of his wounds shortly afterward. A Givati Brigade company commander who was following just meters behind was wounded. Madin had been at home on leave on Friday, due to return to the his unit on Monday. He returned early, however, when asked to take another soldier's place. The Islamic Jihad's Jerusalem Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack.

Madin Grifat was the 28th soldier from the Bedouin village of Beit Zarzir in the Galilee to die in combat. His close friend and relative, Lt. Malik Grifat, was killed on Sept 5, 2002 when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire towards an IDF patrol near Nisanit in the northern Gaza Strip.

Madin's father Salah Grifat related, "My son served in Gaza since the beginning of his army service, and after he completed his mandatory stint in the army, he signed up for career service. He was a quiet, good person – the best of my five sons." Madin had begun building his home in the village and planned to marry. His cousin Mansur added that Madin "loved the army and was proud to serve in the army."

Sgt.-Maj. Madin Grifat was buried in the military section of the Beit Zarzir cemetery. He is survived by his parents, Salah and Fatma, four brothers – one a twin – and five sisters.

“MORTAR BOMBS ARE BEING FIRED FROM DENSELY POPULATED AREAS”

Palestinians admit: "Mortar bombs are being fired from densely populated areas"
IDF website
November 12, 2002

The official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al Jadida published (November 7, 2002) that Palestinians in the Gaza strip are asking for the Nationalist and Islamic forces to stop firing mortar bombs from within densely populated areas.

This is not the first time that these kinds of complaints have been voiced. However, despite previous calls on the forces to halt their policy of using highly populated areas as cover, the firing from these areas has not ceased.

"Palestinian residents of Al Barka and areas close to the community of Kfar Darom have called on the Nationalist and Islamic forces to stop firing, and especially from firing mortar bombs, from areas close to inhabited houses. Firing from densely populated areas just brings damage and destruction to the residents and their property."

"The residents presented their case during a meeting which took place in the offices of the Nationalist forces in Dir El Balach to which a number of Islamic armed faction members participated. The residents stated that most of the mortar bombs fired actually fell short of their targets, landing instead on Palestinian buildings and land. This, they said, poses a danger to the lives and security of the residents."

"The residents call upon you to take into account the well being of t