EGYPTIAN PAPER: LETS BLAME THE JEWS (AS USUAL)

Al Akhbar (Cairo)
February 26, 2003

Scholars tell us that the military build-up against Iraq is in fact the working of international Zionism. In the Talmud and Midrash as well as in the Torah, Jews are ordered to occupy Iraq and not to leave it until it is completely destroyed and burned. Politicians and economists give us another opinion. It is absolutely against America's interests that Iraq becomes a waste land, the country possessing the world's second largest oil reserve; a reserve which America's industry is thirsty for? Still, a questions hovers over our heads: why all this universal might now being mobilised? Is it to strike against an impoverished country rendered most feeble by diseases and famine?

 

HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM YASSER ARAFAT TO SADDAM HUSSEIN

Holiday greetings from Yasser Arafat to Saddam Hussein
Special Dispatch - Palestinian Authority/Iraq
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
February 26, 2003

On February 5th, 2003, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sent a telegram to Saddam Hussein in honor of the 'Id. The following is the text of the telegram as reported by the Iraqi newspaper Al-Jumhuriya(1):

"President Saddam Hussein, may Allah protect him, received a congratulatory telegram for 'Id Al-Adha [The Feast of the Sacrifice] from Mr. Yasser Arafat, President of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO.":

"Your Excellency, Brother-President Saddam Hussein, greetings and the blessings of Allah to you."

"As our glorious nation celebrates 'Id Al-Adha, the holiday of sacrifice and redemption, it is our pleasure to send to you, and through you to your revered government and your people – our brethren – in the name of the Palestinian people and leadership, and from me personally, our warmest regards, our heartfelt and sincere congratulations, and our deepest prayers to Allah the Glorious, may He lead our steps onto the road of virtue, success, and progress to our peoples, and strengthen our brotherly ties, cooperation and solidarity in a way that will serve our interests, our rights, our nations, and the future of our generations and repel all dangers that loom presently over us in our region."

"On this blessed occasion, which we are celebrating with our Palestinian people in the holy land of Palestine, the first of the two Qibla [the direction to which Muslims turn in prayer], the land of Al-Israa wa Al-Mi'raj [Prophet Muhammad's night ascent to heaven from Jerusalem, and his return to earth], I wish, with all confidence and hope, that all our brethren in our great nation [will strengthen] their stand beside us, [and] increase their support to us in this difficult and dangerous phase we are going through, with all its old wounds and hurt. To reduce the suffering of our patient and enduring people, to support our ongoing steadfast resistance in confronting the Israeli war-machine, aggression, murders, and destruction."

"To undermine the attempts and plans by which the Israeli government – the occupying power – is trying to blow up the peace process and the foundations and institutions of our national Palestinian authority, and even to forcefully change its elected leadership and to impose on us an Israeli solution that serves Israel's interests and covetous greed in our holy land, and in our resources [in order] to enhance the vile settlement and occupation of our land."

"Any kind of support and assistance from you in these difficult times will enable us to continue our persistence and resistance until we put an end to the occupation, in all its manifestations, of our holy Al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the Islamic and Christian holy shrines, and exercise our legal and lasting rights, based on international legal resolutions, and most importantly our rights for self determination, for repatriation, and for establishing our independent state with its capital Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem]."

"Once again we send you our heartiest brotherly wishes, and to your Excellency we wish the best of health and happiness, and may Allah the Powerful protect Iraq from the great dangers and evils that loom over it ... and together, hand in hand [we will march] to Al-Quds Al-Sharif with the help of Allah."

"[Signed] Yasser Arafat, President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the PLO, Ramallah. February 5, 2003."

Endnote:
(1) Al-Jumhuriya (Iraq), February 22, 2003.

 

THE FUTURE IS MUSLIM, EUROPEAN OR AMERICAN

The future is Muslim, European or American
The world's future is being decided at this time.
By Dennis Prager
World Net Daily,
February 25, 2003

Such moments are extremely rare in history. And when they have occurred, they have between two, not three, competing ideologies.

But there are now three ideologies competing to shape the future of mankind. They are militant Islam, Western European secularism and socialism, and American Judeo-Christianity and capitalism. The first is being spread both peacefully and violently, the second is being spread peacefully, and the third is not being spread.

Though most people ignore the fact, almost all of the world's believing Muslims believe that all of mankind should be Muslim. This, in and of itself, is not troubling – after all, most Christians would like the whole world to be Christian, and most Westerners would like the whole world to democratic. What is troubling is that if only 10 percent of these Muslims are prepared to use violence to impose their religion on others, we are talking about 100 million people.

This is the reason about 1 million non-Muslim Sudanese have been killed in the last 15 years – because they are resisting the violent imposition of Islam by the Islamic government in Khartoum. This is the reason for the Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria – Christians there, too, are resisting the violent imposition of Islam. And this is the reason for Islamic terror – to weaken those countries, particularly the United States and Israel, that stand in the way of an Islamic takeover.

The second ideology seeking to dominate the world is secularism and socialism as practiced in Western Europe and supported by educated elites around the world. This is a primary reason for the anti-American demonstrations in Western Europe and in the United States. They were far more against America (especially the America of George W. Bush) than they were against war. Most of these people could not care less about the wars of the world. They have been silent throughout the mass murder of Sudan's blacks, during the genocide in Rwanda, during China's crushing of Tibet, and during Saddam's wars against Iran, Kuwait and Iraq's own Kurds. American and European "peace" activists have found those atrocities and wars quite boring.

Western European socialists and their American (and Canadian, and Latin American) supporters are as passionate about secularism and socialism as believing Muslims are about Islam. And they want to dominate the world as much as militant Muslims want Islam to. Their vehicles are the United Nations, the European Union, international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocols, and international institutions such as the International Court.

Regarding the American way, there are serious impediments to its success.

First, while the first two ideologies – Islam and socialism/secularism – dominate many countries, the third ideology only dominates one – America. There is no other country that claims to be Judeo-Christian and no other that has such strong support for capitalism and small government (the opposite of socialism). Therefore, while both the militant Muslims and the socialists/secularists have supporters around the world, American values have few. That is why America goes it alone – with the partial exceptions of Israel and Britain, no other society has the same values as we do.

Second, neither Judeo-Christian nor capitalist values are secure in America. Many Americans, including almost its entire intellectual class, are as hostile to Judeo-Christian and non-socialist values as the militant Muslims and European socialists are.

Third, almost no one is teaching the next generation of Americans (as almost no one taught the present adult generation) what is unique, let alone superior, about American values. Our children are overwhelmingly educated by people who believe in Europe's values, not in ours.

As neither China nor the rest of Asia, nor Africa, nor Latin America are offering an ideology that can dominate the world, either Europe's, or the militant Muslims', or America's way of life will prevail.

But the American way can only prevail if Americans believe in it. That is why, as important as the military and ideological battles against militant Islam are, the most important battle is the ideological one within America. But with America's universities, unions, professional associations, mainstream news media, and one of its two major parties ideologically aligned with Europe, and with big businesses constantly undermining Judeo-Christian values, the battle within America itself for America's unique values is far from won. And given that only America offers a viable alternative to both militant Islam and secularism-socialism, if we lose the battle here, humanity has a very dark future.

 

YOU CAN’T “CONTAIN” SADDAM

You can't 'contain' Saddam
Cold War doctrine doesn't apply in the age of terror
By John Howard
The Wall St. Journal
February 26, 2003

Critics of U.S. policy on Iraq have lately begun to employ the term "containment" to describe an alternative approach. That alternative essentially is to muddle along with endless further U.N. resolutions, which Iraq either ignores or partially obeys under intense pressure, with inspectors given "more time" to disarm Iraq.

It's not surprising that containment has been invoked. It's had a good diplomatic history – quite illustrious really. It described the West's successful response to the Soviet Union's expansionism after World War II and stretching into the 1950s. We all know that in the end the Soviet Union imploded. The liberal democratic values of the West won the ideological contest, and the U.S. has emerged as the one superpower. With a track record like that, why wouldn't America's opponents over Iraq want to annex "containment" to their cause?

It is, however, a false historical comparison. Worse, it completely misstates the character of the threat which the world now faces.

Moscow was "contained" because of the possession of atomic/nuclear weapons by both the West and the Soviets. The doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction guaranteed the maintenance of the status quo delivered by containment, until the internal implosion of the old Soviet empire. The view, validly held, was that because both sides had weapons of mass destruction, the potential human cost of military action by the West and the Soviet Union at the time of Hungary in 1956, or Czechoslovakia in 1968, would have been infinitely greater than the human cost (bad though it was) in leaving dictatorial Soviet-backed regimes in power there. Then, the potential cost of doing something was greater than the cost of doing nothing. Now, in the case of Iraq, the potential cost of doing nothing is clearly much greater than the cost of doing something.

If Iraq isn't effectively disarmed, not only could she use her chemical and biological weapons against her own people again and also other countries, but other rogue states will be encouraged to believe that they too can join the weapons of mass destruction league. Proliferation of chemical, biological and, indeed, nuclear weapons will multiply the likelihood of terrorist groups laying hands on such arms. The consequences for mankind would be horrific.

In other words doing nothing about Iraq, potentially, is much more costly than using force, if necessary, to ensure the disarmament of Iraq.

Incidentally, in the very short term, the failure of the U.N. to deal effectively with Iraq will have consequences for the world's dealings with North Korea. Can it seriously be suggested that the Security Council can discipline North Korea if it fails to discipline Iraq?

Not one person wants war. We all abhor it. Those who marched a week ago in the cities of the world do not have a mortgage on detestation of military conflict or of human suffering. They do not exclusively occupy the moral high ground. Have they seriously addressed the human suffering that could flow from the world's failure to deal once and for all with Iraq's 12-year-long defiance of the community of nations? Are they morally comfortable with the suffering Saddam Hussein continues to inflict on Iraqi children through his corruption of the U.N.'s "oil for food" program? What do they say of the torture and arbitrary executions that are a part of everyday life in Iraq?

Military action against Iraq will involve casualties. But a powerful case can be made that the potential casualties will be much greater if the world does not act effectively and now.

A peaceful outcome in the short term, which does not imperil our longer-term security and safety, appears remote at present. It could be made less remote if the world acted with greater unity. Iraq does respond to pressure. The inspectors are in Baghdad because of the American military buildup. Hans Blix and Kofi Annan have both said that. America's critics know it, too, but won't admit it. Rather, their illogical starting point is the presence in Iraq of weapons inspectors, only there because of U.S. pressure – the very pressure they have attacked!

Given past Iraqi behavior, there is a faint hope that a united expression of view from the Security Council, combined with pressure from neighboring Arab states (which carry a special responsibility), might just induce a decisive change of heart somewhere in Baghdad. But true containment of Iraq can be achieved only if the world recognizes that the challenges of today are so different from those of 50 years ago.

The nuclear balance, which through the Cold War alternately traumatized and reassured the world, has been replaced by the constant specter of weapons of mass destruction in the hands not only of more states but also terrorists operating without constraint in a borderless world. That is what is at stake in containing Iraq. The cost of doing nothing is infinitely greater than the cost of acting.

(Mr. Howard is the prime minister of Australia.)

 

HOWARD COULD END UP IN COURT

Iraq justified in launching pre-emptive strikes: Experts
Howard could end up in court for backing U.S.-led war on Iraq, say Australian barristers
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
February 26, 2003

A U.S.-led military aggression on Iraq would be a violation of international law that could end in the world court, 43 Australian legal experts warned Wednesday, February 26.

In an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald, the group of leading barristers and academic lawyers stressed the so-called "coalition of the willing" talked about by U.S. President George Bush, including Australia, had not yet presented any persuasive arguments that an invasion of Iraq could be justified by international law.

Iraq would now be justified in launching a pre-emptive attack against the United States and its coalition partners because it is Iraq that is now facing a direct threat, according to the experts.

The group, which includes a former High Court judge, senior counsel and international law professors from Australia's top universities says international law recognizes two bases for the use of force.

The first, enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, allows force to be used in self-defense only if the attack was actual or imminent.

"The second basis is when the U.N. Security Council authorizes the use of force as a collective response to the use or threat of force."

But the group says the Security Council is bound by the terms of the U.N. Charter and can authorize the use of force under charter seven only if there is evidence of an actual threat which could not be averted by other means such as negotiation and further weapons inspection.

"Ironically, the same principle would justify Iraq now launching pre-emptive attacks on members of the coalition because it could validly argue that it feared attack," said the experts.

The group said even if the use of force against Iraq could be justified, the Geneva Convention significantly limits the means and method.

These include prohibitions on targeting civilian populations or civilian infrastructure and causing extensive destruction of property not justified by military objectives.

Intentionally launching an attack knowing it would cause "incidental" civilian casualties and which would be clearly excessive in relation to the expected military outcome "constitutes a war crime."

"The military objective of disarming Iraq could not justify widespread harm to the Iraqi population, over half of whom are under the age of 15," stressed the legal experts.

They said the creation of the International Criminal Court last year had provided a stronger system of scrutiny and adjudication of violations of humanitarian law.

The court now has jurisdiction over war crimes and attributes criminal responsibility to individuals responsible for planning military action that violates international humanitarian law and those who carry it out.

"It specifically extends criminal law to heads of state, leaders of government, parliamentarians, government officials and military personnel," the group said.

"Respect for international law must be the first concern of the Australian government if it seeks to punish the Iraqi government for not respecting international law."

Publication of the article follows Australian Prime Minister John Howard's strong support Tuesday, February 25, for the U.S.-British draft resolution that could provide a trigger for war on Iraq within two weeks.

Australia and Britain are the only two countries to have committed forces to a possible war against Iraq, although Howard maintains no decision has yet been made to commit Australian troops to fighting.

On Wednesday, February 5, Howard suffered a historic defeat in an unprecedented no-confidence vote by Australia's Senate over his handling of the Iraq crisis.

The Labor opposition, left wing Greens, Democrats and Independent senators used their upper house majority to pass the motion by 34 votes to 31, following an emotional, 11-hour debate over the looming war.

It was the first time in the 102 year history of the Australian parliament that the upper house has censured a serving prime minister with a vote of no confidence.

Howard's conservative Liberal-National government was also censured in the motion, which condemned its decision to deploy troops to the Gulf without reference to parliament and contrary to public opinion.

Sydney and other major Australian towns were theatre for biggest anti-war protests ever seen in Australia.

Up to a quarter of a million demonstrators jammed the center of Sydney Sunday, February 16, in the biggest of a series of nationwide rallies to coincide with a coordinated weekend of global protest.

The rally, organized by a coalition of left-wing activists, trade unions, church groups and pacifists, filled a city park and stretched for two kilometers (a mile and a half) around, making crowd estimates difficult.

 

ROCKET THAT COULD STRIKE AT THE HEART OF ISRAEL

Rocket that could strike at the heart of Israel
By James Bone
The Times of London
January 26, 2003

The missile at the centre of the looming showdown between Iraq and the United Nations may be part of an ambitious secret project to develop a much longer-range missile that could hit Tehran or Tel Aviv, UN and independent missile experts believe. The specifications of the al-Samoud 2 missile appear to have been designed so that it could be fitted with a second engine, making it a much more potent threat than previously realised, the experts have told The Times.

Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, has demanded that Iraq should begin destroying the missiles by Saturday, and UN sources say he is ready to call an emergency meeting of the Security Council this weekend if it fails to do so. If Dr Blix reported a violation to the Security Council it would be tantamount to finding Iraq in "further material breach" of UN demands and would transform the diplomatic landscape at a stroke. Even France, the leading opponent of a war, has insisted that Iraq follow Dr Blix's order to destroy the missiles.

The UN inspectorate has dispatched Demetri Perricos, its chief of operations, from New York to Baghdad to oversee arrangements for dismantling the missiles. He is due to arrive in Iraq on Thursday.

Tony Blair predicted yesterday that Iraq would destroy the missiles at the last minute. "Of course Saddam will offer concessions," he told MPs. "This is a game with which he is immensely familiar. As the threat level rises so the concessions are eked out." But Saddam Hussein indicated in an interview with CBS television on Monday that Iraq would resist. "Iraq is allowed to prepare proper missiles and we are committed to that," the Iraqi President said. "We do not have missiles that go beyond the permitted range." Until now the missiles appeared a poor casus belli because the threat they posed seemed limited.

Dr Blix's inspectors have said that the al-Samoud 2 flew over the maximum permitted range of 150km in only 13 of 40 test flights, reaching a maximum distance of 183km.

But experts say that the specifications of the al-Samoud 2 and its use of a Russian-designed Volga SA2 engine suggest that Iraq might be trying to develop a missile with a much longer range that could threaten the entire region.

In building the new missile, Iraq ignored a 1994 UN letter restricting the missile's diameter to less than 600mm. The UN issued the order with the express intent of preventing Iraq equipping the missile with two engines. Baghdad also violated a 1997 UN letter prohibiting the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles, such as the Volga SA2, in surface-to-surface missiles.

UN inspectors in Iraq have determined that the al-Samoud 2 has a diameter of 760mm, which would make it possible to equip it with two Volga engines instead of one. Moreover, the diameter of the "fat Samoud" – as inspectors call it – was mysteriously increased from its original 750mm design in 1994, possibly better to accommodate two engines.

"You can put two engines in there," said Tim McCarthy, a former UN missile inspector now with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which has studied the al-Samoud 2. "You indeed can carry a larger payload or go a longer range ... There is no question it can go proscribed ranges. It would increase by a factor of two or three the range of this thing."

One source close to Dr Blix said the inspectors suspect that Iraq is copying India's Prithvi single-stage missile. The Prithvi, which is a metre in diameter, can carry a 1,000kg payload, sufficient to transport a nuclear device and has a similar twin-engined design based on SA2 technology. Adding to suspicions is the fact that a new missile test stand at al-Rafah is capable of testing rocket engines above the permissible thrust. Iraq has said that it built a bigger stand after the site was bombed so that it could test two rocket engines side by side. Dr Blix has ordered that the test stand be placed under UN supervision.

Other independent experts say that the al-Samoud 2 may be intended as a two-stage missile like Iraq's previous al-Tammuz project. The al-Tammuz used a Scud as the first stage and a Volga engine as the second stage to reach a range of up to 2,000km.

Iraq first admitted making a "paper study" of the al-Tammuz, but later conceded that it had actually constructed mock-ups of the missile.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, told the Security Council this month that Iraq "has programmes that are intended to produce ballistic missiles that fly over 1,000km". One liquid fuel system was intended to reach 1,200km, he said.

"Saddam Hussein's intentions have never changed," General Powell said. "He is not developing the missiles for self-defence. These are missiles to project power -chemical, biological, and, if we let him, nuclear weapons."

The UN's 150km limit was imposed on Iraq's missiles as a condition of the ceasefire that ended the Gulf War to make it hard to reach Kuwait City, which lies about 100km from the Iraqi border. Israel is about 300km away and Tehran just over 500km away.

PETA SHOWS ITS STRIPES WITH LETTER TO ARAFAT

PETA shows its stripes with letter to Arafat
The Los Angeles Daily News
February 21, 2003

For decades I have looked on as animal-rights activists crusaded against veal, against rigid confinement for poultry and against medical research conducted on myriad living things that don't happen to be human.

I have watched them splatter paint on mink-wearing matrons.

And I have seen these passionate souls chain themselves to department store entryways in hopes of saving sables and seals and chinchillas everywhere.

But today it is too much. Today, in wartime, the whale-lovers and chimp-saviors have crossed over into the territory of blatant bad taste.

It started with a letter from Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Authority chairman (always photographed in olive drab sans even fur collar).

Simply put, Newkirk's note called attention to a Jerusalem terror bombing last month in which explosives were concealed on a donkey. Some Palestinian thug hit a detonator, charges went off and the donkey was blown to pieces. There were no human casualties.

'We have received many calls and letters from people shocked at the bombing,' PETA's leader wrote Arafat. 'If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of the conflict?'

Obviously, for the price of the same stamp, Newkirk could also have asked Arafat to use his influence to leave humans 'out of the conflict.' But, no, the subject was donkeys – and even PLO cats left in Arafat's compound to dodge Israeli bulldozers.

All this to save four-legged noncombatants when so-called Palestinian martyrs – teenagers and young adults who pack their bodies with dynamite – are the real animals of the Middle East.

Truly, Newkirk's letter throws mud on the graves of so many innocent Israeli parents and children whose lives were taken by bloodthirsty fanatics. Further, PETA's moralizer-in-chief pelted decency in the face when asked to persuade Arafat to help stop the bombing of civilians.

'It's not my business,' Newkirk was quoted as saying, 'to inject myself into human wars.'

So that's it. Her brief on behalf of suffering and death stops with donkeys. Or cats. Maybe camels slain by stray shrapnel. No satirist – not Mort Sahl or Bill Maher or Richard Pryor – could come close to such callous conceit. It is tantamount to a contractors association bemoaning the wreckage of buildings and ignoring the bodies inside.

 

ARAFAT GETS ASS-ININE PLEA FROM PETA ON INTIFADA

Arafat gets ass-inine plea from PETA on intifada
By Kerry Dougherty
The Virginian-Pilot
February 10, 2003

Every so often, I violate my own policy against giving PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – the publicity it desperately desires and doesn't deserve.

I do this whenever the Norfolk-based animal rights group does something so astonishing, it simply can't be ignored.

This is one of those times.

But our story doesn't begin in Norfolk. It begins in Israel.

On Jan. 26, a bomb exploded on the road between Jerusalem and the settlement of Gush Etzion.

As terror attacks go, this one was minor. Most of us didn't hear about it because, with the exception of a few bus passengers treated for shock, no one was injured.

Thank God.

Palestinian terrorists delivered the bomb to its destination by donkey. They strapped explosives and a remote device to the animal and detonated the bomb by cell phone as an Israeli bus passed by.

The donkey, of course, was killed.

You know where this is going, don't you?

That's right. PETA, the group that never before expressed concern about the carnage in Israel, is suddenly outraged.

All because a donkey died.

Never mind that, according to the Israeli embassy, which keeps track of such grim statistics, 729 Israelis have perished in terrorist attacks since September 2000.

It took the death of a donkey for PETA to find its voice.

Leave the animals out of it, they cry.

Determined to make Hampton Roads look like a breeding ground for wackos to the rest of the world, PETA President Ingrid Newkirk this week fired off a fax to Yasser Arafat.

She began the letter with a polite salutation: "Your Excellency."

I can think of lots of titles for Arafat. Excellency isn't among them.

But I digress.

"...We have received many calls and letters from people shocked at the bombing ... in which a live donkey, laden with explosives, was intentionally blown up.

"All nations behave abominably in many ways when they are fighting their enemies, and animals are always caught in the crossfire. The U.S. Army abandoned thousands of loyal service dogs in Vietnam. (Odd. No mention of our dead soldiers, MIAs, POWs or even loyal South Vietnamese allies who were left behind, but again, I digress.)

"Al-Qaeda and the British government have both used animals in hideously cruel biological weaponry tests."

Brace yourselves. It gets worse.

"We watched on television as stray cats in your own compound fled as best they could from Israeli bulldozers"

Fleeing cats! PETA confronts the horror of war.

"Animals claim no nation. They are in perpetual involuntary servitude to all humankind, and, although they pose no threat and own no weapons, human beings always win the undeclared war against them...

"If you have the opportunity," Newkirk beseeched Arafat, "will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?" In other words, Newkirk seems to be begging the Palestinians not to stop the slaughter, but rather to find a different delivery system for their bombs.

Appalling.

Perhaps Ms. Newkirk would prefer that the Palestinians used suicide bombers instead of burros. Oh, that's right, they usually do.

Lisa Lange, PETA's vice president of communications, told me yesterday that Newkirk's letter was written after their offices had been bombarded with calls from PETA members who had learned of the donkey bomb.

Lange said it's PETA's philosophy that human cruelty often begins with animal cruelty.

The Washington Post this week asked Ms. Newkirk if she had "considered asking Arafat to persuade those who listen to him to stop blowing up people as well" as animals.

Her response should be required reading for all would-be members of PETA:

"It's not my business to inject myself into human wars," Newkirk told the Post.

How does one respond to such moral ambiguity?

How about a body count of human bodies?

In January 2003 – the month in which the donkey died – 21 Israelis and eight foreign nationals were killed by terrorists in Israel, and 127 others were injured.

Yet PETA weeps for the ass.

Radio talk show host Tony Macrini got it right when he remarked recently that "PETA" was an acronym for "People Embarrassing the Tidewater Area."

One can only hope that Newkirk left off her Norfolk return address on that asinine letter to Arafat.

FULL ARTICLES

EXTREMISTS JOINING FORCES

Extremists joining forces, CSIS warns
Unlikely partners: White supremacists allying with Islamists, document claims
By Stewart Bell
The National Post
February 21, 2003

White supremacist groups are working to expand their support in Canada, according to a top-secret intelligence document released yesterday as federal authorities tried to figure out what to do with Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.

"We do have, unfortunately, our share of homegrown problems. By way of an example is the white supremacist movement," said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) document, dated last Nov. 22.

The briefing report, obtained by the National Post under the Access to Information Act, cites efforts by hate groups "to increase their support and criticize the immigration policies of the Canadian government.

"In addition, over the past year, the firebombing of a Jewish community centre in Saskatoon and threats against the Jewish community in Ottawa have been troubling events."

The document did not present evidence of a link between these incidents and white supremacists.

Experts say Canada's extreme right has been largely in disarray since the 1994 collapse of the Heritage Front, a Toronto-based white supremacist group that united the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and a U.S. criminal terrorist group called The Order.

But such hate groups have found a common cause recently with Muslim extremists in the Arab world who have been promoting Jewish conspiracy theories and attempting to deny the legitimacy of Israel, experts say.

"The threat from the far right has not disappeared, though it's been overshadowed by the threat from Islamism and Arabism," said Manuel Prutschi of the Canadian Jewish Congress. "And indeed, in some ways, they have re-energized each other. It's a bizarre alliance, but nonetheless there it is."

A source familiar with Canada's extreme right agreed, saying: "The people in leadership of the right wing are always looking for opportunities."

But he called the white supremacist and Islamist alliance a "blip," and said that while hate groups once targeted Jews, they are now focusing more on government.

"The situation with the right wing in Canada, it's cyclical. It has its ups and downs. We're at the low but you're going to see a resurgence. The next Canadian hate movement, I think, will be more directed against the government."

Mr. Zundel was "one of the pioneers" of the alliance between the anti-Israeli movement in the Middle East and the Holocaust denial movement in the West, Mr. Prutschi said.

When he was charged in 1984 with "spreading false news," Mr. Zundel had been distributing not only propaganda denying that six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany, but also a four-page letter called "The West, War and Islam."

The letter was mailed to 1,200 addresses in the Middle East.

"Obviously he saw the Middle East as an area where his views would be well-received and also as a source of funding," said Mr. Prutschi, who has tracked right-wing extremists for many years.

In 1989, 17 Canadian white supremacists were invited to Tripoli to attend the 20th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, including Wolfgang Droege, a former KKK member and a founder of the Heritage Front.

Mr. Droege, an associate of Mr. Zundel's, hoped to obtain financing from the Libyans in exchange for supplying information on Canadian Jewish groups. But CSIS succeeded in planting an informant inside the Front and it eventually collapsed.

Evidence of the ties between the extreme right and Muslim extremists can be found on the Internet site operated by Mr. Zundel's spokesman, Mark Weber. He devotes significant space to the Middle East and one of his columns on the "powerful Jewish lobby" was republished by a newspaper in Saudi Arabia.

 

MIDLAND NAZI TURNS TO ISLAM

Midland Nazi turns to Islam
By Amardeep Bassey
The Sunday Mercury (Birmingham, UK)
February 16, 2003

A "Satanic Fuhrer" who urged neo-Nazis to fight a race war has turned full circle to become an Islamic fundamentalist.

Midland-based David Myatt, 51, was the political guru behind white supremacist group Combat 18 and has been the leading hardline Nazi intellectual in Britain since the 1960s.

Now the self-confessed Pagan and Adolf Hitler worshipper hails al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as his inspiration and praises the World Trade Center attacks as acts of heroism.

Writing under various pseudo-nyms, including his Islamic name Abdul Aziz, the thrice-married Physics graduate has posted messages on Islamic religious websites supporting suicide missions and urging young Muslims to take up Jihad.

He is also believed to be the author of several anti-semitic and anti-West articles entitled 'The Crusader War Against Islam and The Zionist Quest for World Domination', written under the name Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt.

It is a far cry from his previous literary works which included the 1997 fascist terrorist handbook 'The Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution'. The book inspired Brixton nail-bomber David Copeland, who is now serving six life sentences.

According to anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, Myatt was also the Grand Master of a secret occult sect called the Order of the Nine Angels, which was alleged to have practised human sacrifice.

But a Sunday Mercury investigation suggests that his sudden conversion to Islam three years ago may be just a political ploy to advance his own failing anti-establishment agenda.

We discovered that Myatt uses various online identities to simultaneously post supportive messages on right-wing nationalist websites, while calling for the creation of a global Islamic superstate on Islamic religious internet sites.

On one site, Aryan Nation, he attempts to reconcile the differences between both extremes under the title Islamic Liaison Group dating his messages with his trademark yf (Year of the Fuhrer).

On another he argues that Muslims and Aryans share the same common enemy in the Jewish nation and western capitalism, supporting his diatribe with claims that more than 60,000 Muslims joined Hitler's SS in the Second World War.

He also continues to publish newsletters for his own German Nazi-modelled National Socialist Movement (NSM) which counted Copeland as a branch organiser and advocated terrorist insurrection to spark a race war.

On Islamic internet discussion sites he likens the American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq to the Allied occupation of Hitler's Nazi Germany.

One Muslim internet user told the Sunday Mercury that Myatt, who has an IQ of 187, had convinced other users he was an Islamic scholar with his eloquent arguments backed with Koranic verses.

He said: "After September 11 Abdul Aziz's messages started to become more extreme.

"But because he wrote with authority, many less-knowledgeable Muslims thought he was a holy man and began supporting his fundamentalist views.

"When his true identity was revealed by other users on the site, he changed his online name to Abdul bin Aziz and then al Haqq.

"Other e-mail addresses he used included sheikh@al-qaeda.com.

"He was a very popular and controversial figure until he was unmasked late last year, after which people became much more wary about what he was writing and his messages dried up."

Gerry Gable, from anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: "Myatt is an ethereal character who has used numerous aliases to post messages on extremist websites.

"He is a dangerous man who has twice been jailed for his violent right-wing activities and who openly asked for blood to be spilled in the quest for white Aryan domination.

"We believe that despite his claims to be a devout Muslim he remains a deeply intellectual subversive and is still one of the most hardline Nazi intellectuals in Britain today.

"Myatt believes in the disruption of existing societies as a prelude to the creation of a new more warrior-like Aryan society which he calls the Galactic Empire.

"Now he has has simply jumped on the Islamic extremist bandwagon to further his own wish of a society divided on ethnic lines.

"He believes they have common enemies but it is his disillusionment with the ineptitude of the Nazi movement that has led to this most unholy of alliances."

Michael Whine, Chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, added: "Myatt has a long history of involvement with Nazi activity and anti-semitism.

"The fact that he has converted to Islam and allied himself with its extremist fringe is in line with the opportunist politics that have seen him dabble in Buddhism and Chinese Taoism in the past.

"I would advise all Muslims to have nothing to do with this man."

But one hardline Islamic group has defended Myatt and welcomed him with open arms.

Sheikh Omar Bakri, leader of the extremist Al Muhajiroun organisation, said: "When you become a Muslim you start afresh with a clean slate so it does not matter what views he held before.

"I am very keen to meet up with him as we both share a lot in common and I am sure he can help the Islamic cause."

Myatt was last night unavailable for comment, having moved from his Leigh Sinton home in Worcestershire some years ago.

 

GERMAN MUSLIM’S RADICAL PAST WAS PAVED BY SAUDIS

German Muslim's radical past was paved by Saudis
By David Crawford and Ian Johnson
The Wall Street Journal
February 24, 2003
[Extracts]

In a deposition that revealed rare details about how an Islamic extremist was recruited, a German man linked with last year's Djerba, Tunisia, synagogue bombing has told police how a respected Muslim leader in Germany sent him on a path of study that led him to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and friendship with an al Qaeda suicide bomber. Mr. Ganczarski, a convert to Islam, was offered a chance to study at a university in Medina, Saudi Arabia. His deposition provides a glimpse of how Saudi educational institutions and religious leaders helped recruit young Europeans to study its puritanical strain of Islam.

 

ATTACKS ON JEWS INCREASE BY 15 PERCENT IN A YEAR

Attacks on Jews increase by 15 per cent in a year
By Marie Woolf
The Independent (London)
February 21, 2003

Violent attacks on Jews and the desecration of synagogues and Jewish sites have increased rapidly in the past year, evidence revealed yesterday.

Anti-Semitic incidents rose to 350 in 2002, the second- highest number recorded, provoking fears that the rising tide of hatred has been fuelled by tensions in the Middle East.

Forty-seven violent assaults against Jewish people, an increase of 15 per cent since 2001, included seven in which victims needed hospital treatment. There was also a marked increase in synagogue and cemetery desecration including the wrecking of a synagogue in Finsbury Park, north London, and attacks on seven Jewish cemeteries where graves were daubed with swastikas.

Since 2000 there has been a 400 per cent increase in attacks on British synagogues, including the attempted petrol bombing of one in Edinburgh.

Jewish groups blamed anti-Israel feelings and a rise in radical Islamic groups for the increase yesterday.

In one incident, a Middle Eastern man on a London Underground train pointed at a Jewish passenger, shouted "Yahud" (Arabic for Jew) and pretended to blow himself up like a suicide bomber.

One religious Jew was viciously beaten in London and left for dead on the street before being taken to hospital.

Two Jewish people were beaten by attackers from anti-Israel demonstrations and a woman was called a "filthy Zionist Jew Bitch" by someone on an anti-Israeli goods boycott demonstration outside a Marks & Spencer store in London.

Mike Whine of the Community Security Trust, which protects the Jewish community from abuse, said: "There was a worrying increase in violent assaults on Jewish people some of which were life- threatening. The majority of these were unprovoked and involved the use of anti-Semitic words or behaviour.

"More than any other trend this reflects the cumulative effect of the promotion of hatred against the Jews that come from the Middle East and from radical Islamist groups."

Of the 350 incidents recorded 100 involved references to Israel or the Middle East, while 48 were linked to right-wing or fascist groups or sentiments.

 

ANTI-SEMITIC “PROTOCOLS” PUBLISHED IN PALESTINIAN PRESS

Anti-Semitic "Protocols" published in Palestinian press
By IDF
February 21, 2003

In a new chapter appearing in the most recent edition of the A-Shuhada'a newspaper (no. 47), sections of the age-old, anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", were published.

A-Shuhada'a, published by the political office of the Palestinian National Security Force, relates to many political, military, and economic topics in accordance with new developments in the Palestinian, Arab, and international arenas. For example, an editorial penned by Ahmed Hilas, the paper's Editor-in-Chief, addresses the current Cairo talks between Fatah and Hamas.

A-Shuhada'a is an official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority intended for officers of the National Security Force in the Gaza Strip. In a chapter that relates to military matters, there is an article that examines Israel's military industry, as well as an article that reflects upon Islam's stance vis-a-vis the Jews.

 

ISRAELI ARABS TAKE LESSONS AT YAD VASHEM BEFORE PLANNED TRIP TO AUSCHWITZ

Israeli Arabs take lessons at Yad Vashem before planned trip to Auschwitz
The Jerusalem Post
February 18, 2003

Yad Vashem is holding special preparatory classes about the Holocaust for an unusual delegation of Israeli Arabs that is planning to visit the site of the Auschwitz death camp.

Some 35 people are scheduled to take part in the trip to Poland, which has been entitled, "From Memory to Peace." In media interviews delegation members have said the purpose of the trip is to better understand the trauma experienced by the Jews and its role in the establishment of Israel.

Yad Vashem said it would hold classes on Wednesday for the group at its International School for Holocaust Studies, which will include a tour of parts of the memorial and a lecture by Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate.

Participants are to be issued with literature about the Holocaust translated into Arabic.

FULL ARTICLES

ANTI-WAR PROTESTS COMPLICATE AMERICA’S PR EFFORT ON IRAQ

Anti-war protests complicate America's PR effort on Iraq
The Associated Press
February 19, 2003

President George W. Bush is shrugging off global anti-war protests, saying his role as a leader is to put national security first and confront Saddam Hussein.

Yet the size of the protests, drawing millions to the streets of world capitals last weekend, complicated White House efforts to rally world support for disarming the Iraqi leader.

The administration mounted a public relations campaign Tuesday in an effort to liken the protests to demonstrations against NATO's staging of missiles in Germany in the early 1980s – rather than to the massive protests against the Vietnam War three decades ago.

"I respectfully disagree" with those who doubt that Saddam is a threat to peace, Bush said. "I owe it to the American people to secure this country. I will do so."

The weekend demonstrations, the largest anti-war protests since the Vietnam era, presented an unwelcome distraction to the White House as it joined with Britain in pressing for a new Iraq war resolution before the U.N. Security Council. More demonstrations are scheduled for March 1 in Washington and San Francisco.

"These marches are 1983 all over again," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, referring to angry street protests against NATO's positioning of intermediate-range missiles in what was then West Germany.

In that case, the missiles helped contribute to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany, Fleischer suggested.

"There is no question that, as a result of peace through strength, communism was defeated and the Berlin Wall came down," Fleischer said.

"The point I'm making is that mass street protests don't always lead to the results people think," the spokesman added. "Often the message of the protesters is contradicted by history."

He also noted that there was substantial anti-war sentiment in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but that President Franklin D. Roosevelt rallied the U.S. public in World War II "to save the world."

Historians and analysts suggested that the recent demonstrations are not really comparable to those against the Vietnam War – held as the war was going on and as thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were losing their lives.

Such protests "are not going to have the same policy implications as Vietnam, because this war is going to be over fast even if it goes badly," said Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst with the Brookings Institution. "So you're not going to have that sense of a protracted military stalemate."

As with those missile protests in Europe, the current demonstrations are "serious but ultimately containable," O'Hanlon said. Even so, he said, the missiles-in-Germany flap "had the potential to really divide the alliance. And it took a lot of work to get beyond it."

At the very least, O'Hanlon said, the level of global opposition now to war in Iraq makes it harder for Bush to press ahead with military action anytime soon.

Bush talked about the protests in a question-and-answer session Tuesday with reporters after a White House swearing-in ceremony for new Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William H. Donaldson.

"Democracy is a beautiful thing," Bush said. "I welcome people's right to say what they believe."

But he said neither the size of the protests nor the anti-war message of the demonstrators would sway him. That would be "like deciding ... policy based upon a focus group. The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security – in this case, the security of the people," the president said.

"War is my last choice. But the risk of doing nothing is even a worse option as far as I'm concerned," Bush said.

As to negative public reaction, particularly in countries that are traditional U.S. allies, Bush said, "I think anytime somebody shows courage, when it comes to peace, that the people will eventually understand that."

Polls show that Bush has persuaded a majority of Americans about the need for military action against Iraq, but most want more time for the United Nations to build a broad alliance.

 

IRAQ FOR THE IRAQIS

Iraq for the Iraqis
After the invasion, leave it to us to establish democracy.
By Ahmad Chalabi
The Wall St. Journal
February 19, 2003

We the Iraqis are ready to embark on a final journey to fulfill our destiny as a dignified and free nation. Here in northern Iraq, I am surrounded by fellow Iraqi patriots, many of whom are now gathering in this liberated zone. We have long been united around the goal of claiming our country from the hands of tyranny. Our struggle for freedom has been a long epic, but our hour of liberation is now beginning.

While the day of Iraq's freedom is at hand, a day of reckoning for U.S.-Iraqi relations is also close by. After decades of struggle the Iraqi people, with the assistance of the U.S., have a chance finally to construct a free and democratic society at peace with itself and with the world. This cooperation between the Iraqi people and the U.S. also has the potential of being a historical watershed between the Arab and Muslim world and America.

No doubt the U.S. will carry the heavy burden of the immediate military campaign. However, we in the democratic Iraqi opposition have been carrying the equally heavy burden of the political struggle against Saddam for many long and lonely decades. The polite term of "regime change" is new in the American political vocabulary. But the idea of democracy in Iraq and liberty for the Iraqi people have been in the conscience of Iraqis for three generations. We have sought it, dreamed of it, and fought for it--always paying a high price in lives lost. As deliverance approaches, we therefore intend to be full participants in shaping the future Iraq. American help is essential – and is welcomed – in winning the fight against Saddam. But the liberation of our country and its reintegration into the world community is ultimately a task that we Iraqis must shoulder.

This is why the proposed U.S. occupation and military administration of Iraq is unworkable and unwise. Unworkable, because it is predicated on keeping Saddam's existing structures of government, administration and security in place – albeit under American officers. It would ultimately leave important decisions about the future of Iraq in the hands of either foreign occupiers or Saddam's officials. Unwise, because it will result in long-term damage to the U.S.-Iraq relationship and America's position in the region and beyond.

The current U.S. plan proposed for Iraq, as outlined by senior officials in congressional testimony and in discussions with the Iraqi opposition, calls for an American military governor to rule Iraq for up to two years. American officers would staff the top three levels of Iraqi government ministries with the rest of the structure remaining the same. The occupation authorities would appoint a "consultative council" of hand-picked Iraqis with non-executive powers and unspecified authority, serving at the pleasure of the American governor. The occupation authorities would also appoint a committee to draft a constitution for Iraq. After an unspecified period, indirect elections would be held for a "constituent assembly" that would vote to ratify the new constitution without a popular referendum.

Here in Iraqi Kurdistan, it is easy to sense the people's mood of jubilation as President Bush moves closer to ending Saddam and his Baath party's 35-year reign of terror over Iraq. The Baathist ideology is rooted in the racist doctrines of 1930s fascism and Saddam has used the Baath to create a one-party totalitarian state. For Iraq to rejoin the international community under a democratic system, it is essential to end the Baathist control over all aspects of politics and civil society. Iraq needs a comprehensive program of de-Baathification even more extensive than the de-Nazification effort in Germany after World War II. You cannot cut off the viper's head and leave the body festering. Unfortunately, the proposed U.S. plan will do just that if it does not dismantle the Baathist structures.

We deserve better. The U.S. has a moral obligation to Iraqis to fight for more. Apart from the practical and ethical problems in terms of loss of Iraqi sovereignty, it is a recipe for disaster on two grounds. First, it puts Americans in the position of having to defend Baathists. What will happen when Iraqis step forward to accuse Baathist officials of torture and crimes? Will American soldiers protect these officials?

Second, it forces American officers to make difficult decisions about Iraqi society and culture with very little knowledge. For example, will an American colonel at the ministry of education decide on the role of Islam in school curricula? How will American officials determine issues of compensation and restitution for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people returning to their homes, which may be occupied by others? Will America have a seat at OPEC and the Arab League, or the Islamic Conference? Will it redesign Iraq's flag – or, even worse, keep the existing one, which was created by Saddam?

The truth is, there is more to the liberation of Iraq than battlefield victory or the removal of Saddam and his top-tier cadre of torturers. The transition to democracy – the task of exorcising Saddam's ghosts from the Iraqi psyche and society – can only be achieved through self-empowerment and a full return of sovereignty to the people. This is our job, not that of a foreign officer. We are a proud nation, not a vanquished one. We are allies of the U.S. and we welcome Americans as liberators. But we must be full participants in the process of administering our country and shaping its future.

Today, members of the Iraqi opposition and representatives of the many resistance groups inside government-controlled areas are gathering for a conference that marks the beginning of the final phase of our struggle. The biggest joke here is the criticism from our opponents in the West that we are fractured. Iraq is a diverse society and this multifaceted nature of the opposition is not its weakness – it is our core strength on the road to democracy. In embarking on a journey toward freedom in Iraq, the U.S. does not need to handpick a successor to Saddam, nor does it need to predetermine every single step in the post-Saddam era. But we expect the U.S. to make a full commitment to accepting the will of the Iraqi people and not fail us in our desire for justice. The idea that those who struggled against tyranny with blood and lives should have less of a say than those who have found a way to get by inside the tyranny is outrageous. We hope Washington and other allies of the Iraqi people will hear the message from this conference. We are ready to assume responsibility for the transition to democracy.

(Mr. Chalabi is head of the Iraqi National Congress.)

 

IRAQ SCIENTIST SAYS SADDAM HIDING ARMS UNDERGROUND

Iraq scientist says Saddam hiding arms underground
By Ruben Alabastro
Reuters
February 18, 2003

A former top Iraqi scientist said on Tuesday he believed Saddam Hussein had dismantled his nuclear program but was making chemical and biological weapons that were hidden deep underground beyond the eyes of U.N. inspectors.

Hussain Al Shahristani said the Iraqi president did not have the capacity to deliver a payload of the weapons to distant countries but could pass them to overseas cells of supporters which he had built up over the years.

"There's no way that they can really find them, unless by pure accident," Shahristani, a former chief scientific advisor to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, told a briefing organized by an association of foreign journalists in the Philippines.

"These materials are hidden deep underground or in a tunnel system."

He said he was jailed for 11 years by Saddam's regime for refusing to develop banned weapons but that he escaped from Iraq in 1991. He now lives in London.

Shahristani said his information came from former colleagues and dissidents who had recently fled the country.

"My understanding is that the nuclear program has been, for all practical purposes, dismantled," he said. "But the program to produce chemical and biological weapons continued even during the years when the inspectors were in Iraq in the 1990s."

Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, said in a report to the world body's Security Council on Friday that his teams had discovered no banned weapons in Iraq.

The report was seen as a setback for U.S. and British efforts to get U.N. endorsement to use military force against Iraq over its alleged failure to get rid of weapons of mass destruction.

Shahristani said he believed Saddam planned to make his last stand in Baghdad in the event of a U.S.-led attack and use the capital's four million residents as human shields.

Reports that Saddam had look-alikes to confuse potential assassins were "absolutely true," Shahristani said.

"I have seen them," he said. "There are usually between four and eight convoys that leave the palace through different doors – identical convoys of black Mercedes – each of them having one who looks like Saddam. They leave in different directions."

 

THIS IS NOT ISRAEL’S WAR, BUT IT WOULD BENEFIT

This is not Israel's war, but it would benefit
By Yossi Alpher
The Financial Times
February 17, 2003

In recent months, Arab commentators and others have sought to identify Israel as a key catalyst of the US effort to remove the Saddam Hussein regime. It is even alleged that the real goal of the war is somehow removing Yassir Arafat from power, ending the Palestinian uprising and compelling Arab states to make peace with Israel.

Before the war starts, it is important to set the record straight. Israel has a far-reaching strategic interest in the destruction of the non-conventional capabilities of Mr Hussein's regime, along with the elimination of its support for Palestinian suicide terrorism. All the other talk of an Israeli role or interest is largely without foundation.

In recent decades Israeli strategic planners have focused on three main threats to the country: large scale conventional attack by our neighbours; terrorism aimed at undermining the resilience of the state and its citizens; and non-conventional attack by one of the region's radical states – Iran, Iraq, Syria or Libya. Over the years, the Israeli threat assessment has evolved to the point where conventional attack is now assigned low probability, while terrorism and non-conventional attack are in some instances seen as a single threat – for example, Iraq or Syria pro viding radical Palestinians with a non-conventional capability.

Until recently, Israel essentially faced these threats alone. In recent years, it became increasingly concerned about the difficulty of mustering the resources to deal with distant hostile states such as Iran as their nuclear and missile programmes advanced. From an operational standpoint, it was clear that the dramatic attack on Iraq's Osiraq reactor in 1981, which set back Baghdad's nuclear programme for a decade, could not easily be repeated. Washington was supportive – financially, technologically and in pressing Russia to deny critical nuclear knowhow to Tehran. But at the end of the day, we knew we were on our own.

Then came the tragic events of September 11 2001, which led the US to revise its view of the threat posed by radical states and movements. Some question the logic and order of the US priorities that have emerged from this reassessment. Some say that September 11 merely reinforced the existing inclination of the administration's neo- conservatives. From the Israeli standpoint, such debates are legitimate but largely irrelevant.

The US and UK have now concluded that Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian weapons of mass destruction, and support for terrorist organisations such as Hizbollah and Hamas, also threaten them and their legitimate interests. At the 11th hour, Israel finds itself no longer alone - a source of immense relief.

Israel stands to gain from an allied attack on Iraq. The Iraqi dimension of the two most pressing strategic threats – non-conventional attack and financial incentives for Palestinian suicide terrorism – will be dealt with by means far more effective than Israel could muster on its own.

Some in Israel and in Washington (and even here and there in the Arab world) have persuaded themselves that getting rid of Mr Hussein will also somehow democratise the Middle East, render Israel's neighbours more friendly, or moderate the Palestinian independence movement. This is wishful thinking that appears to have little basis in the likely postwar reality.

Indeed, the very opposite scenario – a wave of anti-American radicalism and terrorism sweeping the Middle East, Iraq engulfed in ethnic unrest, and millions of refugees destabilising neighbouring countries – is equally plausible. But Israel can reasonably hope that Mr Hussein's forcible removal by a US-led invasion will prove sobering for Iraq's immediate neighbours, Iran and Syria. It should also deter North Korea, which already supplies most of the missiles to the region and is liable to begin offering nuclear weapons as well.

Washington has wisely asked Israel to sit this war out. Israel would benefit from the war, but did not instigate it and Israel-related considerations are secondary to the US war effort. But if Israel is attacked by Iraq and serious losses of life are incurred, Jerusalem may insist on retaliating. Israel may also be the target of attacks by Hizbollah or Palestinian terrorists designed to change the nature of the war in Arab eyes. So Israel may pay a price. But support among Israelis for an offensive against Iraq is near-universal. It would be worth the risk.

(The writer is co-editor of bitter lemons.org, an internet-based Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. He was formerly director of the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.)

 

“HUMAN SHIELDS” HOLD FIRST WAR COUNCIL IN BAGHDAD

"Human shields" hold first war council in Baghdad
Western human shields in Baghdad, America may bomb them?
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
February 18, 2003

The first "war council" opened late Monday, February 17, in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, with the human shields planning to select their targets carefully and split up into different units while coordinating the action once the battle gets underway.

For Ben, a 25-year-old American, there's a lot of work to be done. "We have no plan. We don't have an organization. We don't have a leadership," he admitted at the opening of a first war council of the "human shields" who have come to Baghdad, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Their ambitions run high. They hope to prevent thousands of tons of U.S. bombs raining down on Iraq at the launch of any campaign to (allegedly) overthrow President Saddam Hussein for allegedly concealing banned arms programs in defiance of the United Nations.

Gathered in a smoke-filled hall of a Baghdad hotel, they have come from around the world in a bid to keep at bay the armada mobilized around Iraq by the United States and Britain.

Westerners in Palestinian keffiyehs (head covers) and dungarees mingle with Islamic scarves worn by young women from Turkey, as some 30 activists huddle in a circle to debate how to combat the mighty war machine.

"We have to decide where, when and how we want to be human shields," he told the meeting on the first floor of the Andalous Hotel.

John Ross, 65, surveys the meeting with one eye, the other one hidden behind a black patch since he lost it in an accident. A veteran fighter for causes, he wears his white hair in a pony-tail.

"We are here to protect the population in Iraq, we want to make the American government change its plans," said Ross, a journalist, poet and writer.

For the resident of Mexico who renounced U.S. citizenship, the Iraq crisis brings back memories of Vietnam.

"I was the first conscientious objector to be sent to prison. I went to jail on August 4, 1964," just three days before Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which launched the Vietnam war, he said.

A translator is busy at work for the hefty contingent from Turkey, as the chief of staff meets to draw up a plan of action for the 200 or so human shields who have arrived so far in the Iraqi capital.

Gordon, a young and athletic man, reasons that they should be careful with the choice of sites to be protected.

"We should choose the best sites. If we go to a purification plant, it should be the one that produces the best water," he recommends to his fellow human shields.

A fellow American, Bruce, who sports a tan, is worried and says they must deploy quickly. He proposes drawing up a list of priority targets.

"It gives us hope in the future," said Ross, pointing to the group of young men and women who have come from as far a field as New York, London and Istanbul to fight against all odds.

Godfrey Meynell, in his late 60s, says he had no hesitation in joining the "crusade", although the grueling double-decker bus journey from London has left his legs weak.

JAPANESE “HUMAN SHIELDS”

On Sunday, nine Japanese anti-war activists left Tokyo for Baghdad to act as human shields in the event of a U.S.-led attack against Iraq.

The nine were traveling with 20 Japanese peace activists, including a 18-year-old high school girl.

They held a banner at Japan's Narita international airport that read "Iraq-Japan: Peace and Friendship" and two young men carried placards that said: "I am going to Iraq to stop war" and "Do not attack Iraq!"

Japan on Friday advised its nationals in Iraq to leave immediately, saying it was getting difficult to secure departure flights from the country.

On Saturday, thousands of people took to the streets of downtown Tokyo to join a global protest against a possible war.

MANDELA INVITED TO JOIN THE CLUB

On Thursday, February 13, the mostly western human shields said they had invited Nobel Prize winner Nelson Mandela to join their "voice for peace."

"We have written to ask (former South African president) Nelson Mandela to join us here in Baghdad as a voice for peace," said Canadian Roberta Taman, a leading member of the first group, which arrived in Baghdad a week ago.

"We have not had a response from him yet, but we know that he has said he would come to Baghdad if he was invited. So we have extended that invitation and are waiting to hear from him," she told a press conference.

Taman said her group of 15 volunteers comprised two Canadians, a Spaniard, a Turk and 11 Italians. The group brought with them food and medicine supplies to distribute as well as a Saint Bernard dog.

"More are on their way. There are 40 Italians arriving tomorrow, some people from Spain, a large group from Turkey," she said.

"We are here as part of our own 'human shields' effort; we are here independently as a group of people representing families from each of our countries," she said.

"We came independently. Nobody is funding us. Nobody asked us to come," she added.

FULL ARTICLES

KURDISH PART OF IRAQ ALREADY AT WAR

Kurdish part of Iraq already at war
Villagers live in fear of Muslim extremists
The Associated Press
February 16, 2003

The women of this farm village quietly weep in the kitchen, and the men mourn in the front room.

With the threat of a U.S. invasion looming over Iraq, residents in this community of mud-brick homes and a tiny green mosque say they already live in the middle of a war between the secular government and Islamic radicals holed up in the mountains.

The most recent attack last week killed seven people, including four members of this tight-knit town of 50.

"We're all poor," said Mushir Majid, a grizzled farmer among the mourners. "There's a lot of turmoil in the area. We cannot even talk about everything we have to deal with."

For two years, the militant Islamic group Ansar al Islam has terrorized residents in this corner of the autonomous Kurdish region, in the Zagros Mountains on the Iranian border.

Hoping for an end to their misery at the hands of the extremists, residents privately said they hope the United States will do away with the group, which Washington says is tied to al-Qaida and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Publicly, they're too scared to criticize Ansar.

"We're living here in the middle of the situation," Majid said as he mourned at the house of the brother of Hassan Fatah, a 36-year-old farmer who was killed, leaving behind a wife and four children. "We're a neutral people, and we often have to travel between towns controlled by different groups."

Ansar, which controls several villages, has declared war on secular Kurdish parties. Local authorities belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan – Ansar's main rival – allege that the group has killed dozens of Kurdish soldiers as well as innocent villagers.

In the latest violence, in Qamesh Tapa about 190 miles northeast of Baghdad, Ansar operatives assassinated a well-known minister, Shawkat Haji Mushir, two other senior leaders and four civilians. One of the victims, 8-year-old Deroon Fazel, was shot in the head as she lay sleeping. She died hours later, residents said.

Witnesses and officials say the attack on Mushir, his entourage and the others was as devious as it was violent. Ansar militants had apparently approached the renowned tribal leader weeks ago with the prospect of a defection of Ansar members to the Patriotic Union.

Mushir reportedly had met with the group several times, and the two parties made a deal after a 45-minute meeting Feb. 8. Then the Ansar guerrillas began shooting and lobbing grenades, witnesses said.

"They were randomly attacking everybody," said Nozad Azad, a friend of the victims. "They were very barbarous. It was so fast."

Villagers said Ansar had never found its way up to the dirt path from the main road until that night. "It was their first visit," Azad said.

 

IRAQI OFFICIAL SNUBS ISRAELI JOURNALIST IN ROME

Iraqi official snubs Israeli journalist in Rome
By Frances D'emilio
The Associated Press
February 14, 2003

Touching off hoots and boos, a top Iraqi official snubbed an Israeli journalist Friday, refusing to answer the correspondent's question about whether Baghdad might attack Israel in a case of a U.S. military strike on Iraq.

Correspondent Menachem Gantz, based in Rome for the Israeli newspaper Maariv, asked Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz at a news conference in the Italian capital: "Are you considering any kind of attack as a possibility against Israel in case of an American attack?"

Aziz, invited by the Foreign Press Association to give the news conference, responded: "When I came to this press conference it was not in my agenda to answer questions by the Israeli media. Sorry."

Some journalists in the packed room of the association's headquarters whistled and booed at that reply.

The association's president, Eric Jozsef, a French journalist, urged Aziz to respond.

"No, I'm not going to answer," the Iraqi official said.

The room was packed with about 100 journalists, with scores of others listening from another room. About 20 of the journalists, including Israeli and German correspondents, walked out, Gantz among them.

Later at the news conference, another journalist asked the same question and Aziz replied: "We don't have the means to attack anyone outside our territory."

Aziz, who met with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican earlier in the day, was in Italy for several days of talks, including with Italian politicians.

"I thought a sentence in an Israeli newspaper might be a slight proof that his intentions are peaceful, as his visit is trying to transmit," Gantz later told The Associated Press.

"His way of reacting, in a very nervous way, showed that the values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of press and other human rights are far away from the dictatorship in Baghdad," Gantz said.

The Israeli journalist said he had been in touch with members of the Iraqi delegation earlier in the week about the possibility of posing a couple of questions and that delegation members left him with the impression that Aziz would answer.

 

U.S.: “UNACCEPTABLE” FOR IRAQ TO CHAIR UN ARMS BODY

US: 'Unacceptable' for Iraq to chair UN arms body
By Stephanie Nebehay
Reuters
February 13, 2003

A senior United States arms control official declared on Thursday that it was "unacceptable" for Iraq to take its turn in presiding over the main United Nations disarmament negotiating forum.

Stephen Rademaker, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, told the conference Iraq remained in breach of Security Council resolutions ordering it to disclose its weapons of mass destruction and cooperate with U.N. arms inspectors.

Iraq is due to become president of the Conference on Disarmament on March 17, which could coincide with a possible U.S.-led invasion. The post rotates monthly in alphabetical order among its 66 members, who take decisions by consensus.

"Iraq's assuming the presidency of the CD is unacceptable to the United States. It should be unacceptable to all supporters of the CD, as it threatens to discredit this institution..." Rademaker said in a speech to the conference.

Naji Abid, a member of Iraq's delegation, told Reuters Television: "It is our presidency, we will practice it."

During the debate, Abid took the floor to respond that Baghdad had been cooperating fully for two months with U.N. inspectors in Iraq and had "no such weapons."

Depriving a country of chairing the Conference on Disarmament, a right enshrined under the rules of procedure, would set a "very serious precedent," he told the talks.

The Iraqi also accused the United States of pursuing "double standards and selectivity" in line with its strategic interests.

It would be Iraq's first presidency since joining the forum in 1996, under a heavily-negotiated package which brought in 23 countries including Israel and North Korea.

Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions since 1991 after its invasion and seven-month occupation of Kuwait.

Rademaker told a news conference: "It is the view of the United States that a country under U.N. sanctions for failure to disarm should not be permitted to preside over the Conference."

The U.S. delegation was "considering all options," according to Rademaker, who declined to be specific.

French ambassador Hubert de la Forterelle told Reuters that Western countries were united in viewing Iraq's chairmanship as "inconceivable."

Diplomatic moves were under way to put pressure on Iraq's delegation to step aside, according to the French envoy.

Indian envoy Rakesh Sood, who currently holds the one-month presidency, told Reuters he was holding consultations on the issue. A special informal meeting was due on Friday.

Washington, backed by Britain, says Baghdad is hiding weapons of mass destruction and has threatened to attack Iraq if it does not cooperate fully with U.N. arms inspectors. Iraq says it has no such weapons and is cooperating with the inspectors.

 

IRAQ CHEMICAL ARMS CONDEMNED, BUT WEST ONCE LOOKED THE OTHER WAY

Iraq chemical arms condemned, but West once looked the other way
By Elaine Sciolino
The New York Times
February 13, 2003

Muhammad Moussavi, a volunteer in the war with Iraq, was one of thousands gassed by Iraqi forces. His lungs damaged by mustard agent, Mr. Moussavi is tethered to an oxygen tank at his home in Isfahan, Iran.

His breath was loud and hard, his mouth open wide as he struggled to force air into his lungs. "I am," said Muhammad Moussavi, a "living martyr."

Almost 15 years after Iran's war with Iraq ended, Mr. Moussavi and thousands of others like him are painful reminders of the long-lasting effect of Iraq's use of chemical weapons in that eight-year conflict.

His story is typical of a war generation that fervently believed, after Iraq invaded in 1980, in the need to defend Iran and, later, to overthrow Saddam Hussein. So Mr. Moussavi took time off from his engineering studies for months at a time to serve as a volunteer with martyr brigades. In March 1988, four months before Iran declared a cease-fire, he was badly wounded on the battlefield, not by bombs or bullets but by mustard gas.

"We were wearing gas masks because we expected Saddam to use chemical weapons," he recalled. "But there was too much gas. I suddenly felt a bitter taste in my mouth, and then my mouth filled with blood. I put on a new mask but the gas had already affected my body."

Today, at 40, Mr. Moussavi is chained to an oxygen concentrator. His lungs and air passages are permanently scarred, his vision blurred, his skin susceptible to peeling and rashes. When the breathing nearly stops, he chokes and his chest heaves. Two inhalators bring only partial relief. Words come slowly and, when they do, the sounds are brittle and cracked.

"This is a very burdensome illness, both for me and my family," he said. "I never feel I'm getting enough oxygen. The phlegm I cough is filled with blood and hard like bricks." The perennial feeling of being oxygen-deprived, he said, produces headaches, fatigue and body pain.

During the war, about 100,000 people were killed or wounded in chemical weapons attacks by the Iraqis, said Dr. Hamid Sohrabpour, a pulmonary specialist and the director of Iran's chemical treatment program, who studied at New York's Mount Sinai hospital. Iran has compiled records for about 30,000 of them.

One in 10 of these victims died before receiving treatment, he said. About 5,000 to 6,000 still receive regular medical care under government-financed programs.

In building an argument for war against Iraq, President Bush has stressed the need to rid the world of whatever may be left of Iraq's ballistic missile arsenal and its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

The fear that Iraq still might have such weapons drove the Security Council last November to approve unanimously a resolution calling on the Iraqi regime to disarm or face "serious consequences."

But there is deep resentment and anger here that it was Western companies that helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal in the first place and that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons throughout the war.

"The world knew," Mr. Moussavi said. "Iraq developed these weapons with the help of the United States and the West. No matter how many times Iranians shouted that Iraq was using chemical weapons, they were ignored. I don't know why the United States has suddenly become kinder than a mother for the suffering of us chemical weapons patients."

Dr. Sohrabpour, who has lectured around the world about chemical weapons patients, is equally frustrated. "We took patients to Germany, to Britain, to France, but no one stopped Saddam's regime from using these terrible weapons," he said. "The United States let him develop, stockpile and use these weapons. Now suddenly it's changed. The fact is that the United States is only after its own interests. It doesn't care about what has happened to people."

In the early 1980's, Iranian diplomats visited the United Nations and the capitals of the world armed with disturbing photographs of wounded and dead Iranian soldiers, their bodies swollen, blistered and burned.

By early 1984, Iraq was making no secret of its war tactics. In one broadcast, Baghdad's Voice of the Masses radio gave a hint, speaking of "a certain insecticide for every insect," adding ominously, "We have this insecticide."

After a small group of American and European journalists visiting the war front in February 1984 independently verified the use of chemical weapons, the State Department publicly stated that available evidence suggested that Iraq had used the lethal weapons. It was the first confirmed use of the banned substances since World War I. But the United States, which tilted toward Iraq after it decided that Iran was a more dangerous country, did nothing.

Two years later, Iraq began using chemical weapons as an "integral part" of its battlefield strategy and a "regular and recurring tactic," according to a declassified report by the Central Intelligence Agency. Iranian soldiers often went into battle without gas masks or with masks that did not fit properly. The widespread use of the weapons also overwhelmed Iran's poorly trained and equipped medical personnel, who were themselves sometimes contaminated during rescue efforts. A move led by some Senate Democrats to impose sanctions on Iraq after it used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988 went nowhere.

The Iraqis used both liquid and dry forms of mustard agent, which burns body tissue and causes blindness, severe blistering, skin discoloration and lung damage, and nerve agents like sarin and tabun, which paralyze the muscles and cause convulsions and vomiting before death.

Nerve gas victims usually died on the spot unless they were immediately treated with antidotes. But many mustard gas victims survived, developing ailments that worsened over time and often led to death.

The 12,000-page weapons declaration that Iraq delivered to the United Nations in December identifies 31 major foreign suppliers for its chemical weapons program, including 2 companies based in the United States that are now defunct, 14 from Germany, 3 each from the Netherlands and Switzerland and 2 each from France and Austria.

The plight of chemical weapons patients in Iran is complicated by the fact that it has manipulated the legacy of the war for its own purposes. Even now, a number of power centers in Iran use the "blood of the martyrs" as a mechanism to hold on to power, demand sacrifice and impose limits freedom. But a generation born since the war has vowed not to be controlled or terrorized by this ideology or by the voluntary, state-protected militias that continue to try to control the streets.

Although there is deep sympathy for victims of chemical weapons attacks, there is resentment toward the Foundation for the Deprived and the War Disabled, a huge state-affiliated organization that disperses aid to the victims and that has long been accused of corruption and cronyism.

Mr. Moussavi, who was interviewed in the presence of two officials from the foundation, praised the organization for its constant support and said his sacrifice was worthwhile. "I'm very happy for the sacrifices I've made," he said. "I'm happy I defended my religion and my revolution."

Then, anger overtook him. "My anger is not targeted at anyone in particular," he said. "It's because I can't breathe. All those who are suffering from gas exposure have the same anger."

Mr. Moussavi's father, Reza, by contrast, is angry at the foundation. He has been lobbying for years for a special oxygen maker made in the United States that does not need to be refilled. "We've waited such a long time for the new machine," he told a representative of the foundation. "It will make so much difference for my son. You promised us one. You promised."

Other chemical weapons victims have accused the foundation of ignoring them because of their political beliefs.

The sentiment that the government is not doing enough is so deeply felt that it has been explored in films about the war. The 1998 award-winning film "The Glass Agency," for example, deals with the government's abandonment of the volunteer military forces by not sending a dying war veteran abroad for special treatment. But the film also explores the lack of public sympathy for the volunteers and the privileges disabled war veterans enjoy.

For Dr. Sohrabpour, the issue is more complicated. "Some patients agree with whatever the government tells them," he said, "but others feel they were used by the government as a tool and now they have been neglected. Then there are those who believe that because they are war wounded all their demands should be met, even when we know there is no cure or special treatment for them.

"My experience with all these patients is that they're very demanding. They get nervous and depressed. And they have a right to be so."

 

IRAN EXPECTS: WILL IRAQ’S LIBERATION HELP FREE ITS NEIGHBOR TOO?

Iran expects: Will Iraq's liberation help free its neighbor too?
By Fouad Ajami
The Wall St. Journal
February 13, 2003

If and when it comes, a military campaign in Iraq would be the third to be waged in the service of the Pax Americana at Iran's doorstep.

The first was Desert Storm, the second the Afghan war. In both Iran was, for all practical purposes, America's silent partner, a beneficiary of America's technological mastery. A hated Great Power had come and waged devastating war against reviled neighbors. For Iran, those spectacles were loaded with meaning, and ambivalence: Those reviled regimes in Kabul and Baghdad are culturally – and technologically – of Iran's own world, while the Great Power is of a different order. There, but for the grace of God, and the wiliness and caution of Iran's rulers, go the Iranians themselves. In those Iraqis and Afghans overwhelmed by precision bombing, Iran could gaze at its own condition. This Iranian duality is likely to persist in the current drive against Saddam Hussein. Iran's rulers will take the gift of American retribution, while staying on the sidelines in anxious dread of what an American victory holds out for a clerical regime unsure of its prospects within its own borders and beyond.

Iran's ambivalence about American power recalls something that T.E. Lawrence wrote about the Arabs in the Great War, as they witnessed the punishment their Turkish foes were receiving at the hands of the British. "The big guns" were pounding the Turks, and "the intervening hollows of the Dead Sea" drummed up the echoes of these guns. "The Arabs whispered 'They are nearer; the English are advancing; God deliver the men under the rain.' They were thinking compassionately of the passing Turks, so long their weak oppressors; whom, for their weakness though oppressors, they loved more than the strong foreigner with his blind indiscriminate justice." Saddam brought terrible ruin to Iran. He had had for his campaign the money of the Arab states, the tacit support of the Americans, and French weapons; he had depicted his war as a campaign to "quarantine" the Iranian revolution, to defend order and secularism against the revolutionary theocratic state. No lines had been drawn for him. Desert Storm did for Iran what Iran couldn't do for itself.

Likewise with the Taliban. There was no love lost for that cruel band of fanatics. It wasn't so much the doctrinal difference between the Sunni Afghans and the Shiism of Iran that was the cause of enmity, for Iran's rulers have been keen and able to construct alliances with Sunni Islamists. There were deep differences of temperament: Historically, Persia had always viewed Afghanistan as a land of banditry. In 1722, during a chaotic period in Persia's history, Afghan tribesmen captured the magnificent city of Isfahan. They were to stay there for nearly a decade. In the intervening history, that trauma was to endure as a reminder of the price the Persian realm paid for the deterioration of its public life. If the pain of Iran has been great in its modern history, so, too, has been its pride in its cultural accomplishments. It would be fair to say that for Iranians, Afghanistan is a country of poverty and brigandage, a land that has sent Iran waves of refugees, narcotics contraband and endless trouble. In 1998, it should be recalled, war seemed imminent between the Taliban and Iran. The Taliban had murdered nine Iranian diplomats in Mazar-i-Sharif. Iran had massed troops on the border, but there was no taste in Iran for an adventure in the "badlands."

There was no need to celebrate the U.S. victory over the Taliban; it was enough that Iran averted its gaze, permitted the Americans overflight rights, and welcomed the victory of the Northern Alliance, which Iran had backed. Deep down, Iranians knew the wages of playing with political religion, and they were eager to rein in the furies of religious zeal right next door. True, American power was now directly on their eastern border in Afghanistan. The Iranians are realists. They knew that the Americans would be saddled with holding Afghanistan together, dealing with its destitution and misery. There was no panic that the U.S. could sponsor some orderly Afghan world of emancipated women and secular politics that would "show up" Iran's theocracy.

Saddam is, for Iranians, a different kind of enemy. He struck at their state when the new theocracy had begun to consolidate its rule. A whole Iranian generation was decimated in the trenches of that primitive, senseless war. Saddam had the temerity to claim Islam in that war as a racial, Arab, inheritance. He dismissed Iranians as "fire-worshipping Persians," feeding off the atavisms in the Arab-Persian divide. Desert Storm – the spectacle of the tyrant's armies surrendering to Americans, fleeing for their lives – had in it elements of divine retribution. There was the catharsis of a Persian passion play, the wicked getting his comeuppance. So what if the avenger was himself unjust?

Iran and Iraq are different, and the Bush administration knows the difference. Iran has the elements of change within it; Iraq will have to be changed by force. U.S. policy has been more subtle on Iran than its critics would have us believe. No credible American scenario envisages a war against Iran once the dust of battle settles in Iraq. The Iranians must know this, even as their clerical rulers protest their inclusion in the "axis of evil." Patience, deadly and dangerous in dealing with Iraq (in my view), could work in Iran's case. In this regard, the policy of the Bush administration has been on the mark. There has been no urge to court Iran. The zeal with which the Clinton administration pursued an accommodation with Iran's rulers has been cast aside. This has been one of the lessons of Sept. 11: Why court hated rulers if this only gets you the enmity of their resentful populations? It was in this vein that President Bush pitched his policy on Iran in his State of the Union address. A distinction was made between the Iranian theocracy and Iraq: "Different threats require different strategies." The regime in Iran was put on notice for its support of terror and its pursuit of weapons of destruction. But the people of Iran and their "aspirations to live in freedom" were embraced.

A silent revolution is under way in Iran; it lacks the fury of what played out in 1978-79. It is the imploding of the theocratic edifice, the aging of a revolution that has lost the consent of its children. A young Iranian-American author, Afshin Molavi, in a compelling new book, "Persian Pilgrimages," has just brought us fragments of that burdened land. It is of green cards and visas to foreign lands that the young of Iran now dream; in the year 2000, some 200,000 Iranian professionals quit their native land for Western shores. In a recent public-opinion survey, three out of four Iranians said they favored restoring relations with Washington. Iran is at the crossroads. In one vision of things, Tehran would barter the influence it has in Lebanon, through its sponsorship of Hezbollah, for a deal with Israel and a return to that covert understanding that once bound the Jewish state to Iran. In this vision, there would be a gradual accommodation with the U.S., an acceptance of America's primacy in the Persian Gulf. In the rival vision, Iran would continue to muddle through, alternating terror and diplomacy, hinting at moderation and then pulling back, offering its betrayed people more sterility, and a diet of anti-Americanism at odds with the fixation of young Iranians.

As Iran battles its own demons, we needn't let our obsession with the power of the Iranian revolution that paralyzed American power after Desert Storm do so again in Iraq. Our fear of Iran was a factor of no small consequence in our walking away from the Shia and Kurdish rebellions that erupted against Saddam. America didn't know that world, and it was easy to see the Shiites of Iraq as followers of the Iranian clerical regime, a potential "sister republic" in Iran's image. But the Shiites of Iraq are Iraqis and Arabs through and through. The Arabic literary tradition is their pride, the Arab tribal norms their defining culture. They are their country's majority, and thus eager to maintain its independence. The sacred geography of Shiism is in Iraq--in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and Samarra. Before Saddam shattered the autonomy of Iraq's clerical Shiite establishment, a healthy measure of competition was the norm between the Shiite clerical seminarians of Iraq and those of Iran. In the 1980s, the Shiites of Iraq faced the choice between religious faith and patriotism; they chose the later, fought Saddam's war against Iran, and paid dearly for it. Few Iraqis, I would hazard to guess, would want their country to slip into Iran's orbit.

It is in the nature of things today, in an Iranian society deeply divided between those who would bury the revolution and join the world, and others hell-bent on keeping the theocracy, and their own dominion, intact, that the American drive against Iraq would be defined by that chasm. For those who want to normalize Iran, the thunder of war against Iraq is the coming of a blessed rain. The Americans would be nearby, but what of it? Liberty is rarely a foreigner's gift, and no American war in Iran's neighborhood will settle the fight between theocratic zealots and those in Iran who have twice, in presidential elections, cast their votes for a reform that never came. But the "contagion effect" of a liberated Iraq will no doubt have a role to play in the fight for Iran's future. In Persia, there will be multitudes hoping that the foreigner's storm will be mighty enough to clear their foul sky.

(Mr. Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins, is a contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report.)

FULL ARTICLES

FASCIST PIGS!

Fascist pigs!
By Fred Barnes
The Weekly Standard
February 17, 2003

Demonstrations over the weekend show the left's dedication to preserving murderous, dictatorial regimes – no matter what the cost.

There was a time – the 1960s, 1970s – when the political left in America favored wars of national liberation in countries ruled by dictators, some of them fascist dictators. True, the left would have installed communist dictatorships in their place. But at least leftists targeted enemies who were corrupt, brutal abusers of human rights.

Now the left has flipped. The effect of its crusade against war in Iraq would be the survival – indeed, the strengthening – of Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime. The left has brushed aside the pleas of Iraqi exiles, Kurds, and Shiite Muslims who are seeking liberation from Saddam's cruelty. Instead, leftists have targeted those who would aid the Iraqi dissidents, particularly the Bush administration.

The corruption of the left has deepened in recent years. At no time was this more evident than last Saturday when large antiwar protests were staged in New York, San Francisco, and other cities in the United States and around the world, including London. Did the demonstrators march on the Iraqi consulate in New York to demand an end to Saddam's murderous practices? No. Did they spend time condemning him in their speeches and placards? Nope. Did they come to the defense of Saddam's victims? No. The left now gives fascist dictators a pass. Its enemy is the United States.

No one has explained this better than British prime minister Tony Blair in a speech Saturday. If he took the antiwar demonstrators advice, Blair said, "there would be no war, but there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people... There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chamber which, if he is left in power, will be left in being."

In ignoring the 25 million Iraqis who suffer under Saddam's autocratic rule, the left has stripped any moral dimension from the antiwar cause. And its arguments for opposing a war of liberation in Iraq are either uninformed or merely stupid. Here are a few of those arguments:

(1) War will mean thousands of civilian casualties. If there's anything Saddam has produced in his nearly 25 years of rule in Iraq, it's civilian casualties. He ordered the gassing of thousands of innocent Kurds. He had thousands of Shiites murdered. His war against Iran caused tens of thousands of civilian casualties, and his invasion of Kuwait was marked by the killing of thousands of Kuwaiti civilians. Saddam has personally ordered the execution of thousands of Iraqis. He has allowed thousands of Iraqi children to die from starvation or lack of medicine.

Compare that with the few hundred civilians killed in Afghanistan by the U.S. military. In fact, the American intervention saved hundreds of thousands who would have starved to death otherwise. And in the 1991 Gulf War relatively few Iraqi civilians were killed. In truth, a war that deposes Saddam in Iraq will save civilian lives, thousands of them.

(2) It's a war for Iraqi oil. There's an easy way to get all the oil in Iraq that President Bush or anyone else might desire – and it's not war. No, the easy way is to lift sanctions on Iraq and make a deal with Saddam. He's eager to sell the oil and make money. And the United States doesn't need Iraqi oil anyway, what with Russian oil production coming on line. At the moment, America's problem is the cutoff of oil from Venezuela. A war for oil would oust President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Of course there is no such war planned, nor is there one to cut the price of oil. The price favored by Bush and the domestic oil industry – and producers like Saudi Arabia – will be restored when Venezuela is pumping fully again, probably soon.

(3) War in Iraq will stir a new wave of terrorism. We've heard this one before. The Gulf War, it was warned, would arouse the Arab street and subject Americans to a wave of attacks. That didn't happen. When the United States went into Afghanistan and, worse, bombed during Ramadan, it was supposed to prompt a worldwide uprising of Muslims, and Muslim terrorists in particular, against America. Again, that didn't happen. So when the Arab leader most hated by other Arab leaders – a leader who's far more secular than Muslim, is removed, it's highly unlikely to cause more terrorism. Most likely, the result will be less.

(4) Give the inspectors more time. This was a common cry at Saturday's antiwar demonstrations. But of course those cries were entirely disingenuous. By definition, the "stop the war" protesters don't want war, no matter what the United Nations inspectors in Iraq happen upon. The demonstrators are playing Saddam's delaying game: Let the inspections continue until support in the United States for military action in Iraq dissolves and war is averted. Then Saddam survives. The inspections ploy is further proof the left has given up wars of national liberation against oppressive dictators and is now in the business of saving oppressive dictators from wars of national liberation.

(Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard.)

 

MARCHING FOR TERROR

Marching for terror
By Mark Steyn,
The Daily Telegraph (London)
February 15, 2003 [Published the day of the march]

Hello? Anybody home? After my colleague Armando Iannucci's stirring call to non-arms on Thursday, I expect you're out on the march. But, on the off-chance you're reading this over breakfast while waiting for the paint on your placard to dry, I'd ask you to reconsider.

I understand you and Armando and the distressingly large number of my Daily Telegraph and Spectator confreres, plus spouses and offspring, who'll be joining you on this march, are in favour of "peace". Armando, countering the hawks' argument that Saddam is stalling and "this can't go on for ever", put it this way: "Wait a minute. This may sound stupid, but why can't it go on for ever? What precisely are the disadvantages of this form of stalemate going on for a very, very long time?"

Why not ask an Iraqi what the disadvantages of stalemate are? As far as Saddam's subjects are concerned, the "peace" movement means peace for you and Tony Benn and Sheryl Crow and Susan Sarandon, and a prison for them. I was in Montreal last week, which has the largest Iraqi population in North America. I've yet to meet one who isn't waiting eagerly for the day the liberation of their homeland begins. Then they can go back to the surviving members of their families and not have to live in a country where it's winter 10 months of the year.

They're pining for war not because they like the Americans, or the Zionists, or me, but because they understand that, as long as there's Saddam, there's no Iraq. Saddam has killed far more people than Slobo, Iraq has been far more comprehensively brutalised than Kosovo. Marching for "peace" means marching for, oh, another 15 years of Saddamite torture and murder, followed by a couple more decades under the even more psychotic son, until the family runs out of victims to terrorise, gets bored and retires to the Riviera.

It's easy to say it's up to the Iraqi people to get rid of Saddam. That theory worked well in the days when all the peasants had to do was storm the palace and dodge the muskets. It doesn't work against a man who can poison an entire village from the air. Marching for "peace" means marching against the Iraqi people: it's the equivalent of turning them away as, to their shame, many free nations in the 1930s turned away refugees from Germany.

But perhaps, as is the case with many marchers, your priority isn't the Iraqi people living in bondage under an Iraqi dictator, but the Palestinian people living in bondage under a Zionist dictator: fine, whatever, you're entitled to your point of view. But you ought to know that, as long as Saddam sits in Baghdad, there will never be a Palestinian state. Never. Chance of the "Palestinian Authority" becoming a fully fledged People's Republic: zero.

Saddam serves as principal sugar daddy to the relicts of suicide bombers and neither Israel nor America is going to agree to a Palestinian state where the prime business opportunity is strapping on the old explosives belt and telling Baghdad where to mail the cheque. We're talking cold political reality here: keeping Saddam in power may stymie the crazy Texans, but also those downtrodden Palestinians. If you're serious about them, you might want to think that one through.

Thirdly, "Stop the War" is a slogan that showed up too late. You can't stop it now; it's already started. Even if the ricin factories and the NBC suits in the mosque and the live grenades at Gatwick haven't persuaded you, you can tell something's up from the uncertain tone of the Government's once-confident voice: they've run up against something they don't know how to spin.

Do you really think not invading Iraq will make all the bad stuff go away? Do you honestly believe the fig-leaf argument that, because Saddam is a nominally secular Ba'athist socialist, the Islamists would have nothing to do with him? He recently donated enough blood to have a full-length copy of the Koran written in it: that makes him less of a "secular" leader than Charles Kennedy, don't you think? You don't have to believe that if you don't want to. But your argument depends on giving both Saddam and al-Qa'eda the benefit of far more doubts than their prior behaviour warrants. Your line is basically: we can't really be sure he'd sell suitcase nukes to terrorists until one goes off in Birmingham. Then you and Armando will say, oh, OK, maybe there's a link after all – unless, of course, you're among the dead.

I don't claim to understand the depth of opposition to Tony Blair. It must be frustrating to switch on the television every night and see Blair planning to save the world when he can't even do anything about the crummy hospitals and lousy trains and rampant crime. But sending a million Valentines to a monster to spite your own hard-hearted master is not the answer.

Today's demo is good for Saddam, but bad for the Iraqi people, and the Palestinian people, and the British people. One day, not long from now, when Iraq is free, they will despise those who marched to keep them in hell.

 

IF THIS WAS A PEACE MARCH, WHY DID SADDAM GET NO STICK?

If this was a peace march, why did Saddam get no stick?
By Barbara Amiel
The Daily Telegraph (London)
February 17, 2003

The most revealing aspect of the anti-war march in London was what you did not see. You did not see any messages to Saddam Hussein or criticism of Iraqi policy.

These earnest seekers of peace, with so many signs denouncing George W Bush and Tony Blair, had nothing to say to Saddam Hussein; no request to please co-operate with the UN inspectors. Not one small poster asking Saddam to disarm or destroy his weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps somewhere in that million people there were some bravely asking him to "Leave Iraq and prevent war", but I could not find them.

If this were a genuine anti-war demonstration, why, along with demands on the British and Americans, would there be no demands of the other party to the conflict - Iraq? Commentators on the march were taken by the good order of it. I was taken by the sheer wickedness or naivete.

All those nice middle-aged people from middle England with their children bundled up against the cold, marching for peace; did they have nothing to say to the party that had ignored 17 UN resolutions? A similar silence existed in all the anti-war marches in Europe. One either has to question the good faith of the marchers – or their brains.

Television gave us brief interviews with "ordinary" people marching. ITV's Mrs Noon on the peace train from Stockport had never marched before, but she had work experience dealing with "challenging" children and adults, which she compared with dealing with Saddam. "The first rule," she said, "is to be non-confrontational." The TV cameras cut to the "----ing Bush" and "Stuff Your Imperialism" signs stacked in the train compartment.

A colleague I met at the march said he had counted only two or three anti-Israeli signs. "Torture, Murder, Ethnic Cleansing!!! Welcome to Israel" was the wording of a large banner from the Muslim Association of Great Britain, but that was to be expected. The MAB, co-organiser of the London march, has a number of ideological and personal links with the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist organisation, four of whose members assassinated Anwar Sadat and whose offshoot is Hamas.

In fact, there were hundreds of anti-Israeli signs. What disguised this was the activities of the Jewish establishment. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, well-meaning but dreadfully inept, had worried about all the hate signs against Israel in the last "peace" march. Not understanding that it is best not to help your enemy disguise itself, they had written to the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament asking it about its relationship with anti-Israel groups.

The Deputies were reassured to receive a letter promising them that CND was "working hard to ensure that this march would be free from inappropriate slogans and chants". The result was that apart from a few "Boycott Israel/Boycott Murder" banners, the MAB restrained itself to hundreds of posters with the coded anti-Israel message: "Freedom for Palestine".

Freedom for Palestine, of course, could come the day the Arab world accepts the existence of a Jewish state. There could have been an independent Palestinian state as early as the Peel Commission in 1937 or the UN partition plan in 1948, if only the Arabs had said yes to co-existence with Israel. But anyone who has read the literature of the MAB knows that now, as then, "Palestinian freedom" for the MAB is achieved only at the expense of eliminating a Jewish state in the Middle East. All that the complaints of the British Board of Deputies had done was to make the MAB respectable to the ignorant.

In the end, under the guise of peace, this march was essentially an anti-America, anti-free enterprise, anti-Israel display. A similar approach appeared to have taken hold in the various other "peace" marches in Tokyo, Athens, Paris, Berlin and Madrid.

Looking at the news clips of jubilant Europeans marching behind banners saying "Death to Uncle Sam" shows how much the zeitgeist towards America has changed. I can remember the good-natured humour of the film The Mouse That Roared. America was seen then as the generous saviour of Europe and the welcomed guarantor of freedom. In that 1959 film, a Ruritanian prime minister, played by Peter Sellers, declared war on the United States in order to get American aid. These days the mouse roars to scare or blackmail America.

The spirit towards Israel was different in those times too. After defeating the Arabs in the 1967 six-day war, Israel was seen as an incredible success story by virtually all observers – intellectually, morally and practically. The country was the recreation of a lost state, made all the more credible by its unique parentage – a democratic decision of the world through a UN vote.

One didn't have to be a Zionist in 1967 to list Israel's achievements. That small nation had revived a dead language for the first time in history, absorbed a million and a half people from both Europe and the Orient in 19 years and had made the desert fertile. It had no oil, its waters were insufficient and vulnerable to Arab diversion, and it had never had one day of peace.

Within five hours of its birth, it faced declarations of war by all its Arab neighbours. With no military background or weaponry to speak of, and facing the British-trained Jordanian army among others, it had defeated its enemies in 1948, 1956 and again in 1967. Israel was a classic success story.

Up to 1967, the Jews gave the impression of being the underdog against impossible odds, and the winner. Both those components are attractive to people and to nations. But the sheer weight of size and demographics on the Arab side and the willingness of Arabs to employ terrorism in the West began to eat away at this perception. Gradually, the tables turned. The sense that in the long run the Arabs would prevail gathered steam. It became the Arabs' turn to be carried on the double wings of underdog and winner status.

Israel is now seen as a surrogate for the United States and so destroying it has the added thrill of throwing sand in America's face. For centuries, the Arab world has faced the humiliation of punching below its weight. Given the value in its culture of the romantic masculine virtues of martial prowess and dominance, this realisation that its culture is regarded as backward and insignificant has created much resentment.

The Islamists have come along with the message that, if Islam's large population and wealth could be fused with its mystical fundamentalism, they would create the same fanatical strength that made rising empires from Christendom to Japan pre-eminent. In this climate, America and Israel are viewed as obstacles to an Arab renaissance.

Laying out the world's changing attitudes to Israel and America so barely, makes it sound like a conscious decision – which is absurd. But changes in the spirit of the times are as difficult to explain as those immense flocks of birds you see sitting on some great African lake, hundreds of thousands of them at a time, till all of a sudden, successively, they fly up and turn in a specific direction. One can never analyse which bird started it and how it became this incredible rush. All you see is the result.

One senses that the Islamists, with a billion Muslims in the world, and access to great riches (with some partial success in Iran and Afghanistan, where they defeated the Soviets, albeit with American help), now feel that they may be able to reassert themselves – and the Caliphate.

The world waits, unsure what to do as Muslims hesitate, poised on vast lakes of oil, ready to fly in some direction. The world hedges its bets by backing the Palestinians, who may benefit by any resurgence of Islam.

And one of the reasons many people sense how important it is for America and her allies to be successful against the regime of Saddam Hussein – quite apart from all other valid reasons – is that a perception that the side with the momentum, the winning side, is the Islamist-terrorist side, must be broken.

It is a dangerous and self-fulfilling prophecy that can cause untold bloodshed and tyranny in the world. There are infinitely better, more tolerant, less bloody ways forward for the Arab people. But the West is not yet a paper tiger, even if nearly one million of its inhabitants meekly followed behind those meretricious paper slogans held high in Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon.

IS WILSON FIT TO BE A JOURNALIST IN ANY RESPECTABLE NEWSPAPER?

Is Wilson fit to be a journalist in any respectable newspaper?
By Robin Stamler
February 12, 2003

A.N. Wilson has finally been exposed for promoting anti-semitic material. In the Evening Standard's apology (Wednesday 12th Feb), it claims that the views of Michael Hoffman, whose book Wilson promoted in his latest anti-Israel invective, were "unbeknown to Mr Wilson". No reputable journalist could have failed to do the simplest of checks on any material he was promoting. Even the sloppiest hack would have found Michael Hoffman's website (http://www.hoffman-info.com). This is what Wilson must have seen.

Hoffman's website opens with the declaration in large letters that it is "Your source for suppressed information on Judaism's strange gods, secret societies and psychological warfare and radical history". Clearly Wilson didn't find anything amiss with this, and must have happily continued through the website to discover the pages promoting Hoffman's book that Wilson featured in his article. Somehow, Wilson managed to turn a blind eye to the pages devoted to the "Judeo-Bolshevik Holocaust against Eastern Europe", the reams of material on Holocaust denial, including an advertisement for a $9.95 CD recording of interviews with Hoffman and the Holocaust-denier Robert Faurisson (with "a color photo insert of Prof. Faurisson and Mr. Hoffman"). Wilson contrived to miss Hoffman's hymn of praise for David Irving: "Revisionists were hoping for a world-shaking miracle in the Irving-Lipstadt face-off, instead they got another revisionist weed pushing itself up through hairline cracks in the Jewish concrete that covers our planet."

Wilson also managed to miss Hoffman's comments on the corruption of Christianity by Judaism. "True Christians have an animus toward false religions and wicked ideologies such as Judaism? Many supposed "Christian" pastors, preachers, ministers, "evangelists," bishops and theologians, including Franklin Graham, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and the pope of Rome, are covert adherents of the religion of Judaism. They are crypto-rabbis, loyal to Talmudic doctrine, rather than the authentic Gospel of Jesus Christ, which they betray."

Now that Wilson relies on the writings of an antisemite and Holocaust denier who calls the Pope a "crypto-rabbi" in order to bolster his own animosity to Israel, one has to ask: is Wilson fit to be a journalist in any respectable newspaper?

 

ANTI-WAR, NOT ANTI-ISRAEL, CLAIMS THE STANDARD

Anti-war, not anti-Israel
Editorial
The (London) Evening Standard
February 11, 2003

On Saturday several hundred thousand people will travel to London from around the country to take part in a march against going to war in Iraq. Many of them will be fired by honest motives of concern about the grave international situation and how it should most wisely be dealt with. They may recognise that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who oppresses and tortures his people, but they do not believe that his record of producing chemical and biological weapons constitutes sufficient reason for waging war on him.

Many will be British Muslims who are understandably averse to waging war against fellow-Muslims and are suspicious about America's motives. These marchers have a legitimate standpoint, whether or not one agrees with them.

Far more alarmingly though, the march is in danger of being hijacked by a vociferous minority who seek to turn Saturday's entire anti-war demonstration into a rally against Israel. This well-organised lobby will be marching with banners reading Free Palestine and Down With Sharon; many of them will employ the old Socialist Workers' Party trick of seeding themselves into the march at intervals so that it appears to the TV cameras as if the entire demonstration is condemning the state of Israel as much as it does the prospect of war.

Everybody from the Prime Minister down recognises that the unresolved Palestinian question is a trigger of resentment in the Islamic world. President Bush last week expressed his readiness to address the issue once Saddam had been unseated and his weapons arsenals destroyed. But willfully mingling the two issues, as many marchers will do, turns a reasonable cause into an irresponsible slur.

Israel is not Iraq; Ariel Sharon is not Saddam Hussein. He is an elected leader, fighting a terrorist war; sometimes heavy-handedly, representing the deep concerns of his people about their endangered security. Israel is a democracy and takes account of world opinion in a way that Saddam does not. It is invidious to compare the two – and can only serve Saddam's propaganda purposes. If the marchers allow their cause to be infiltrated by this pernicious twisting of the anti-war cause the marchers will surrender the moral high ground they so strenuously claim. If they wish their cause to be an upright one, they must reject and denounce their anti-Israel fellow-travellers.

FULL ARTICLES

THE JEWISH WAR

The Jewish war: Francois Zimeray's campaign for an investigation into European Union aid to the Palestinian Authority has been crowned with success
By Tami Zilberg
Globes (Israel's daily business newspaper)
February 6, 2003

www.globes.co.il

Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Francois Zimeray has released a dramatic announcement to the press. He announced that he had presented to the office of the European Parliament (EP) president a demand for the formation of a committee to investigate the misuse of European Union aid to the Palestinian Authority, signed by over 170 EMPs.

Under European law, such a demand requires the signatures of 157 EMPs, or 25% of the 626-member EP. The number of signatures is a sign of the petition initiators' success in pro-Arab Europe. For months MEPs Zimeray (France), Ilka Schroeder (Germany), Willy de Clercq (Belgium), and other EP members representing different countries and parties, strove to convince their colleagues that their demand for an investigative committee was essential.

They had to face the direct opposition of Commissioner in charge of European Commission External Relations Christopher Patten, who did not always observe the rules of the game. Last December Patten stated directly, "I need Zimeray's investigative committee like a hole in the head."

Zimeray, 42, a Jewish lawyer from Paris and a French Socialist, is an unusual figure on the European Socialist left, for whom Israel-bashing has sometime appeared to be a supreme obsession. Zimeray, who maintains a large, prosperous law firm in Paris, divides his time between Paris; Rouen, his EP constituency; and the EP locations in Brussels and Strasbourg. Among other things, Zimeray is vice-chairman of the European Parliament delegation for relations with Israel, a member of the EP foreign affairs and defense committee, president of the Conseil de la Communaute de l'Agglomeration Rouennaise in Normandy, and is responsible for a number of initiatives, of which the investigation into EU aid to the PA is only one.

The main factor that persuaded many EP members to sign the investigation petition was the fact that the PA used some of the EU money to compensate the families of suicide bombers. "I don't oppose EU aid to the PA. On the contrary; I would even be willing to increase it, provided that the money reaches the people, is used for Palestinian economic development and education, and promotes reconciliation between the two peoples," Zimeray's press release said.

At this stage, the success in gathering signatures on the petition only guarantees that the issue will be raised. No one will be surprised if the investigating committee never actually comes into being, given the intensive activity of the strong pro-Arab lobby in Europe. This, however, does not deter Zimeray, who uses every available means to promote Israel's interests in Europe. For example, Zimeray reacts angrily when the idea of a business and academic boycott of Israel is regularly raised in Europe. "In Europe, a boycott is considered a criminal offense," he stresses. "I won't tolerate a company, or any other entity, calling for a boycott against Israel."

On January 25, Zimeray won support in an unexpected quarter, when French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin threatened to imprison anyone calling for a boycott of Israeli products. Raffarin issued his threat during the traditional banquet of the roof organization of French Jewry – CRIF (Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France). During the same banquet, CRIF president M. Roger Cukierman said, "Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism," which angered the representative of Les Verts (the French Green Party), and led him to leave the hall.

Zimeray was also present at the banquet. He admitted that Cukiermans' remark was not accepted diplomatic behavior, but nevertheless added that the statement "was very clear, which is a good thing." He also said, "The anti-boycott law in Europe is not new, but we must now enforce it more aggressively."

In Zimeray's eyes, Europe is Israel's most important partner, "and Europe is not a lost cause for Israelis. Europeans understand the Israelis better than their governments do. This is also true of France, which is the Western country with the strongest Muslim influence. People sometimes show more wisdom than their politicians. The people understand terrorism. They certain understand the suffering of the Palestinians, but they also understand the Israeli side, and don't agree with their leaders' demonstrations of weakness."

Zimeray attributes the slowdown in trade between Israel and European countries affecting both imports and exports to the global economic situation, not anti-Semitism. "When the global recession ends, business between Israel and Europe will pick up, and the trade figures will improve," he says. "It should be reiterated that Israel is an important partner for Europe, and Europe is of critical importance for Israel."

Meanwhile, Zimeray is trying to succeed where Israeli public relation efforts have failed. Yes, he believes Israel's public relations should be more effective, and could be improved, particularly in view of what he terms "the globalization of anti-Semitism." "Europe thinks of the Jews, Israel and the Israeli government as a single entity. Since Israel's policy is rejected, so are all the other components of the entity," he theorizes.

According to Zimeray, "Europeans want to get rid of their old feelings of guilt about the Jews, which are hard to live with. That's why they characterize Israel as a Nazi country, and Sharon as a dictator. That's obviously wrong, but it serves their need to rid themselves of their guilty feelings. That's easier to do, when they say that yesterday's victims are now doing to others what was done to them. That's very seductive, because then the collective European 'we' isn't so guilty. For the Europeans, supporting the Palestinians is a form of self-therapy. What's is really terrible is that this therapy, and the policy it engenders is costing the lives of innocent Israelis."

Another element in European antagonism towards Israel is the need to be different from the US. "I think anti-Americanism is Europe's new 'ism', and Israel is paying the price," Zimeray says. "Israel is considered one of the United States, and is therefore included in the hostility towards the US."

Zimeray believes that until some dramatic event forces Europe has to directly face the problem of terrorism, it will not understand what Israel faces. "It's very disheartening to think that even the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US did not wake people up, but it's a fact," he comments. "It should be realized that as long as comprehension of terrorism is lacking, Europe will not understand Israel turn to the political right in the elections. Although terrorist cells have been discovered in various European countries, European politicians simply lack an understanding of terrorism."

Next year, Zimeray plans to promote the establishment of a European-wide Jewish lobby something like a European version of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). According to Zimeray, "The Jewish communities in Europe are organized where religion is concerned, but have not been organized into a political force. I think this is necessary. Such a body could act according to the political culture of Europe, not the US, but the essence is the same the creation of a Jewish lobby, which would affect European policy."

 

“EU PROBES EVIDENCE ITS AID TO PALESTINIANS FUNDED TERRORISM”

"EU probes evidence its aid to Palestinians funded terrorism"
World Tribune
February 7, 2003

The European Union, amid increasing complaints from parliamentarians, has launched an investigation of its aid to the Palestinian Authority.

"We have found no evidence that EU monies have been misused by the Palestinian Authority in order to finance terrorist activities," European Commission for External Relations Chris Patten said.

On Wednesday, the EU's anti-fraud office said the investigation of the European funding to the PA would take several months, Middle East Newsline reported. The office said the investigation was prompted by information received in late 2002.

The probe was announced amid plans by up to 170 parliamentarians to order an independent investigation of EU funding to the PA. The parliamentarians complained that the PA was using the $10.8 million a month in EU aid to finance Palestinian attacks against Israel.

The European Commission has opposed a call by parliamentarians for a formal committee of inquiry. Such a panel would have the authority to visit the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of an EU investigation.

EU sources said the parliamentarians were prompted by an Israeli report that asserted that 10 percent of the PA budget was being concealed. The report submitted to the EU provided documents that suggested that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat signed bank transfers to Palestinian insurgents.

The parliamentarians said PA officials have failed to provide a sufficient response to the Israeli report. PA Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said the Palestinan regime is not transparent and is vulnerable to corruptive practices.

"We are not for Israel, for Palestinians or against them," European parliamentarian Willy De Clerq, a Belgian Liberal, said. "We want the truth. That's all. Transparency is the key. Verification will help the credibility of the EU."

The International Monetary Fund has been authorized to oversee donor aid to the PA. But IMF officials said the fund cannot audit every line item in the Palestinian budget.

Ilka Schroeder, a European parliamentarian from Germany, said Patten has tolerated the PA use of European funding for Palestinian insurgency attacks. Schroeder warned that parliament would launch a probe without the support of the commission.

 

EU PARLIAMENT MOVES CLOSER TO SPECIAL INQUEST INTO PALESTINIAN FUNDS

EU Parliament moves closer to push for special inquest into how EU funds used by Palestinians
Yahoo news.com
January 30, 2003

The European Union's Parliament moved closer to setting up a special inquiry Thursday into whether millions of euros (US$) in EU aid to Palestinians was being used to fund terrorism.

Officials said a petition with the required support of 157 members or one quarter of 626-member EU assembly calling for a special committee was approved this week to investigate claims that EU funds were being misused.

Charles Tannock, a British Conservative member and one of the proponents pushing for the investigation, said the findings of such a probe could clear the way for new aid to the Palestinians "once it can be shown that the money can be used for the much-needed reconstruction of the West Bank and Gaza."

The request for setting up a special committee now goes to the assembly's party leaders who will meet with the parliament's President Pat Cox to consider the issue next month.

The issue over how EU funds were being spent has led to a long-standing dispute between the parliament and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten.

EU lawmakers agreed last June to release new EU aid worth 18.7 million euros(US$20.1 million) that had been held up over charges that some money was going to fund terrorism, but demanded "full transparency" in how it is spent.

The release of the aid came only after Patten passionately defended his efforts to keep tabs on the more than 1.4 billion euro (US$1.5 billion) the EU has spent over the past decade on projects in the occupied territories.

Patten has said that the European Commission found "no evidence of EU funds being used for any purposes other than that for which they were intended."

But despite Patten's reassurances, EU lawmakers continue to have their doubts.

"Since there can be no investigations expected neither from Mr. Patten nor from the rather shortsighted Commission President Mr. Prodi, the parliament will have to take action," said German green member, Ilka Schroeder.

EU aid since June 2001 has included 10 million euros (US$10.8 million) a month in budgetary assistance to the Palestinian Authority to make up for Israel's refusal to hand over customs and taxes it collects on the Palestinians' behalf.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has accused the EU of being pro-Palestinian, something Patten and others vehemently deny.

Israel said last year it had evidence that EU aid was being used to fund Palestinian military actions against Israeli troops and citizens.

 

ARAFAT KNEW CHARITY MONEY FORWARDED TO TERROR INFRASTRUCTURE

Arafat knew: Charity money forwarded to terror infrastructure
IDF (Israeli army website)
January 23, 2003

http://www.idf.il
http://dover.idf.il/IDF/English/

Documents seized from Gaza deal with reports sent to Yasser Arafat concerning the activities of the Charity Coalition – the umbrella organization of Islamic charity funds which solicits contributions from Arabic countries and the West, then transfers them to charity associations in the West Bank, most of which are identified with the terror organization – Hamas. In these reports Arafat was informed of meetings held in Yemen between senior coalition members and Hamas terrorists and of contributions collected from the West Bank and Israel. The collection of incriminating documents discovered in the PA Preventive Security compound in Gaza were addressed to Arafat and describe the principal activities of the Charity Coalition (Aathlaf al Hir).

These documents reveal that on 2 September 2002, the head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service in the Gaza Strip, Rashid abu Shoubak, sent a memorandum to Arafat wherein he reported the visit of a contingent of Charity Coalition senior managers and members of the Coalition's Jordanian branch with Islamic associations in Yemen. Abu Shoubak, who maintains the collection infrastructure in Yemen, listed in the memorandum the names of the people the contingent members met in Yemen, many of whom are known Hamas terrorists, and stressed at the end of the memorandum that the Charity Coalition financially supports Hamas' terror infrastructure.

THE COALITION WAS FOUNDED TO CARRY OUT FUNDRAISING FOR THE PALESTINIANS

The Charity Coalition was founded under the name "101 days" during a worldwide Islamic fund-raising campaign for the benefit of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. A short while after the Al-Aqsa Intifada began in the West Bank, its name was changed to "the Charity Coalition"(Aathlaf al Hir) – the umbrella organization that encompasses Islamic organizations in the Arabic and Western worlds.

The Charitable Coalition gathers contributions from dozens of Islamic charity funds, particularly in the West and the Gulf States and transfers them to the West Bank. Among the more prominent units of the Coalition are three funds belonging to Hamas in Europe: "the al-Aqsa Fund" (located in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands), "the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund" – Interpal (located in Great Britain), and "the Committee for Assistance and Solidarity with Palestine" (located in France). In should be noted that all three were legally outlawed by Israel in May 1997 due to their association with Hamas.

POCKET MONEY FOR SUICIDE TERRORISTS

Money solicited by the Charity Coalition is not transferred to the Palestinian Authority nor to neutral civilian bodies in the West Bank, instead it is transferred directly to charity associations in the West Bank identified with Hamas.

Many of the Charity Coalition's activists and management council members are Islamic terrorists and some of them are even Hamas activists: the Qatari Islamic spiritual leader, Sheikh Yussuf al-Kardawi, chairman of the fund-raising organization which stood for the principle of founding the Coalition; Azzam Mustafa Yusuf, the acting director of the Coalition ( in the past stood at the head of the British Hamas fund "Interpal", and still serves a senior role in the fund); Azzam Na'aman Salheb, member of the Coalition's management council (Hamas activist and member of the Coalition's regional conflict council in Hebron); Bassam Nahad Jarrar, member of management council (senior member of the religious wing of Hamas in Ramallah); another member of the Association is Raad Salakh, among the senior members of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

MONEY FOR HUMANITARIAN PURPOSES FINANCES TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

Rashib abu Shabah attached a batch of Charity Coalition documents to the memorandum that had been sent by fax in August 2002. He claimed that one of the documents details the results of the three "fund drives" carried out by the Charity Coalition in the West Bank and among Israeli Arabs. These documents, and another seized document dealing with transfer of money contributed from Bosnia-Herzegovina to a charity association in the West Bank identified with Hamas, indicates the Authority's concern over large sums of money channeled from abroad to bodies identified with Hamas. These funds maintain Hamas' civilian infrastructure and arrangements among the Palestinian populace. And Hamas' circle of supporters in the West Bank continues to expand, providing for ever widening brainwashing and encouragement for the terrorist organization's activities.

Moreover, money earmarked for humanitarian purposes also flows into Hamas' military-operation infrastructure and serves to underwrite terror activities. Attached to Rashid abu Shoubak's memorandum were several Charity Coalition documents. Due to their illegibility they were not translated, except for a single document, which was translated in its entirety. The memorandum clearly lists charity associations that are complicitous with the Charity Coalition. It mentions charity associations from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Great Britain and the Netherlands.

 

“REMEMBER WHY ISRAEL WAS CREATED”

Remember why Israel was created
By Piero Ostellino
Corriere della Sera
February 7, 2003

It seems to me that the best way to mark the "Day of Remembrance" would be to never abandon Israel to those who desire its destruction. I think this would mean avoiding distinctions between the Jews and Israel, between Israelis and their governments. Israel represents the Jews who are no longer willing to let themselves be killed by totalitarian regimes, religious fundamentalism and racism.

The State of Israel represents those Jews who have learned to defend themselves. Its governments, whatever their political inclination, are the democratic and free expression of the sovereignty of the people. It would be good not to forget that.

The English say "Right or wrong, my country," meaning "Whatever my government does, I am with my country." As Italians, we say that we stand with the Jews, but point out too often that the Jews and Israelis are one thing and that Israel and its government, particularly when we disagree with it, are another.

Consciously or unconsciously, our support for Israel depends on its governments. If the government has a political color we like, we are unconditionally behind Israel. If not, we end up burning its flag, without asking ourselves whether those fires border on racism. Is the distinction between Jews and Israel, people and government, politically accurate and morally acceptable? I think not.

The distinction implies a moral denial of the reasons behind the birth of Israel, the political disavowal of its international recognition and of its internal democratic character, and of the legitimacy of its government.

Even if the government which has emerged from this week's election represents the perception of what is in the national interest, and more importantly of how to pursue the interest of only part of the population, it still represents the whole country when faced with those who seek its destruction. This is the spirit of Israeli democracy. And this should be the spirit of those who still guard memory in their hearts.

From whatever angle one looks at it, the distinction between Jews and Israel, between the government and Israelis, ends up being a morally and politically ambiguous way of distancing oneself from Israel, and from what it represents to all humanity, with the excuse of distancing oneself only from its government.

It risks becoming, on the one hand, a "politically correct" form of support to Israelis who are victims of almost daily massacres, and on the other hand something worse than the tacit insinuation that its government, in the end, asked for it. After all, this distinction can become the political and moral justification for the attacks.

There is a corresponding obligation to the legitimate right to criticize the Israeli government for what it does, and that is not to forget.

All of humanity is indebted to the Jews and should ask for forgiveness, as the Holy Father has done, for all the persecutions they have suffered. Humanity has taken upon itself a responsibility towards the fledgling state of Israel, after the division of Palestine: to ensure, from then on, its existence.

It is more than ever in times like these, with the resurgence of odious and dangerous expressions of anti-Semitism in the whole world, that our collective conscience is called upon to keep our word, in remembrance of that debt.

In the Middle East, a carnage has been taking place for over two years. We are perhaps on the brink of war with Iraq, a war that many consider unnecessary and fraught with dangerous consequences.

Challenging the right of the Jewish people to exist and have a nation would amount to a political and moral regression in the name of a misguided peace effort.

FULL ARTICLES

ISRAEL RECALLS ENVOY FOLLOWING BELGIAN COURT RULING ON SHARON

Israel recalls envoy following Belgian court ruling on Sharon
By Sharon Sadeh, Aluf Benn and Amnon Barzilai
Ha'aretz
February 13, 2003

Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday recalled Israel's ambassador to Belgium, Yehudi Kinar, after the Belgian Supreme Court ruled that Defense Ministry director-general Amos Yaron could be prosecuted for his involvement in the Sabra and Chatila massacres in 1982 in Beirut, when he was commander of the IDF forces in the Lebanese capital at the time.

The court also ruled that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can be put on trial for his alleged involvement in the affair, but only after he ceases to be prime minister, when he no longer has diplomatic immunity.

In addition to recalling the ambassador, Netanyahu urgently summoned Belgium's ambassador to Israel for a meeting today at which the foreign minister will deliver a vehement Israeli reaction to the court decision.

Government sources said last night it was not yet known how long Israel's ambassador to Belgium would be kept at home, but that there was no doubt that the decision would have a negative influence on Israel-Belgium relations.

In a statement issued last night, Netanyahu said the Belgian court had made "a scandalous decision, which legitimizes terror and harms those who fight it. This turns the tables – when those who fight terror turn into the accused and the terrorists are victorious.

"Belgium is helping to harm not only Israel, but also the entire free world, and Israel will respond with severity to this," the foreign minister continued.

Government sources expressed concern regarding the possibility of future prosecutions against Israelis in Belgium, based on yesterday's court ruling. But they also noted that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was also in line for prosecution in Belgium, in the wake of complaints filed against him by Israeli terror victims.

Meanwhile, Yaron, who is most directly threatened by the ruling, said: "The court decision is very serious and the way in which the entire affair was handled does not look right to me."

He said that he would be consulting with legal advisors, including the Defense Ministry's legal advisor, Zvia Gross, to study the decision. "I am not worried by the decision. I don't travel to Belgium. The ministry doesn't have any business with Belgium, and I haven't been there since becoming director-general," he added.

Defense Ministry sources voiced outrage and concern about the decision making it possible to prosecute Yaron, who was in command of IDF forces in Beirut at the time of the massacre of some 800 Palestinians by Phalangist troops who were Israeli allies during the war.

The Defense Ministry will not be issuing a formal statement until it has heard directly from the head of international affairs at the State Prosecutor's Office, Irit Kahn, who was in the Belgian court for the verdict yesterday. One worry is that Belgium could use extradition treaties, to which Israel is signed, and issue a pan-European warrant for Yaron's arrest. However, the court decision yesterday only stipulated that a lower instance could begin an investigation of its own into Yaron's involvement. The Belgian government has, meanwhile, been fashioning new legislation that would severely limit the ability of its legal system to prosecute suspected international war criminals with no connection to Belgium.

 

BELGIUM ASSERTS RIGHT TO TRY SHARON

Belgium asserts right to try Sharon
By Ian Black
The Guardian
February 13, 2003

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, can be tried for genocide in Belgium once he has left office, the Belgian appeal court ruled last night.

The judgment opens the way for survivors of a 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut to press their case against the Likud leader when his retirement loses him his immunity from prosecution.

"International custom prevents heads of government being pursued by a foreign state," the court said.

But to Israel's dismay it ruled that an action against former general Amos Yaron, commander of Israeli forces in the Beirut area at the time of the massacre, could proceed.

The Israeli foreign minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, immediately recalled his ambassador in Brussels, Yehuda Keinar, for consultations, and will call in the Belgian ambassador today to deliver a protest, a senior Israeli source told Reuters.

"This decision is a scandal and it legitimises terror and helps those who fight terrorism," Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.

"Belgium is not only hurting Israel but the entire free world and Israel will respond to it very severely."

Mr Sharon, who was defence minister at the time, is blamed for the death of 800 Palestinians killed by the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia, then allied to Israel.

Relatives of some of the victims appealed against a lower court ruling last summer that Mr Sharon could not be prosecuted under the Belgian law which gives its courts universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and genocide, because he was not in Belgium.

Mr Sharon ordered the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, aimed at putting down cross-border Palestinian guerrilla activity. The following year an Israeli commission of inquiry found him indirectly responsible for the killing in the Sabra and Chatila Palestinian refugee camps in the Beirut suburbs. He was forced to resign but was not prosecuted.

"This is a victory for international justice and for the victims," Luc Walleyn, a lawyer acting for the 23 plaintiffs, said.

Last month the Belgian senate amended the 1993 "universal jurisdiction" law to let prosecutors to investigate suspected war criminals even if they do not live in Belgium, removing the restriction which has so far prevented them investigating cases abroad.

There have been attempts to bring similar cases against other world leaders, including the Cuban president, Fidel Castro, the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and the former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The government hopes to make the amendment law before the end of April.

The revised act will also give the courts jurisdiction in cases which cannot be brought before the newly created International Criminal Court, located in the Netherlands.

The only people tried under the existing law are four Rwandans sentenced last year to between 12 and 20 years for their role in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi ethnic minority and politically moderate members of the Hutu majority.

 

“OUTRAGEOUS IN THE EXTREME”

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Lau condemns Belgian Supreme Court decision as pretentious and hypocritical
Press Release
From the Israel Government Press Office

(Communicated by the Chief Rabbinate Spokesman)

Following are Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau comments on Belgium's Supreme Court's decision to allow Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to be tried for war crimes.

"The thought that a nation which stood by and watched when Jewish blood was spilt like water and ignored victims' cries, is now elevating itself in the position of world policeman is outrageous in the extreme. It is regretful that a State which remained quiet at a time when it should have been screaming out in the name of humanity, is now expressing itself with such a pretentious and hypocritical voice, in order to cast fault on IDF soldiers and its commanders, who have endangered their own lives many times in order to refrain from injuring innocent civilians, and in order to denigrate the behaviour of a democratic, sovereign State."

 

“THOSE WHO ACCUSE US, WOULD DO WELL TO REFLECT ON THEIR PAST ACTIONS”

Statement from President Katsav
Press Release

(Communicated by the President's spokesman)

The President of the State of Israel, Moshe Katsav today (Thursday) 13.2.2003, sent a severe letter to the King of Belgium, in which he expressed his chagrin at Belgium's High Court's decision to try Israelis in their courts.

President Katsav totally rejects Belgium's moral right to bring Israeli leaders and IDF officers to trial.

The President emphasized that Israeli leaders and IDF officers operate according to international norms, the Israeli law, their conscience and basic human morality, and that no-one has the right to doubt the ethical standards Israel holds itself to, and that those who accuse us, would do well to reflect on their past actions.

 

“A PERSONAL HUNT”

Statement by Minister of Justice
Press Release from the Israeli Minister of Justice

(These comments were made last night for Israeli National Television.)

Following the Supreme Court of Belgium's decision yesterday (12/2), the Minister of Justice, Meir Sheetrit, had expressed his outrage :

It is unacceptable that this small and insignificant nation would be the judge for the whole world. It is a disgrace for the legal system in that country. It has the clear scent of a personal hunt for Prime Minister Sharon, which originated from a deliberate Palestinian initiative.

What have we come to? Could every country now decide to judge anything that they feel is wrong in another country? In 1982 there was an official inquiry into this matter (Sabra and Shatila). Legally, this is practically a world precedent "a law which allows for the prosecution of a person for alleged actions in the past. It has a clear retroactive nature to it and is, therefore, unprecedented".

Responding to the claim that the Belgian Supreme Court is independent, the Minister remarked that: "This decision is a result of a campaign of pressure applied on the court, and followed a special law that was passed in their government. This could not be accepted ... anyone who respects International law and the independence of nations must protest".

The Minister pointed out the pattern of recent decisions made by Belgium, and in particular the allignment of Belgium with France against a war in Iraq, a veto in NATO and the siding with the Arab countries against Israeli positions.

In conclusion the Minister declared that: "We – as a country and as a legal system – will fight this decision with every tool and in every institution. It is our duty to make sure that they will not be able to act as they please".

 

OUTRAGED BELGIAN JEWS THREATEN SUIT AGAINST ARAFAT

Outraged Belgian Jews threaten suit against Arafat
By Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim
The Jerusalem Post
February 13, 2003

Belgium's Jewish community is "extremely angered" by a Supreme Court ruling that Ariel Sharon can be tried for war crimes in Belgium, according to Betty Dan, head of the Brussels-based Radio Judaica.

According to the ruling, Sharon may be tried for his responsibility for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre once he no longer enjoys immunity as prime minister, while Defense Ministry Director-General Amos Yaron, one of the chief Intelligence Officers in Lebanon at the time, may be tried immediately.

Dan said her radio station has been flooded with calls from angry members of the Jewish community, who see anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic sentiment behind it.

"There is a unanimous feeling that this is move has everything to do with politics, and nothing with justice."

With federal elections set for May 18, and Belgium's 35,000 Jews outnumbered by Muslims by a factor of 10 to one, the decision to allow the trial to go ahead is seen as an attempt to curry favor with the immigrant community.

Dan says the feeling is shared by the non-Jewish public. "Seven years after his arrest we still have not put the child murderer Jacques Dutroux on trial, we have not caught the killers of (former deputy prime minister and Socialist party leader Andr ) Cools, we never found out who was behind the series of terror attacks on supermarkets in the 1980's but we take the time to judge the whole world," Dan said.

While the Muslim community in Belgium was pleased with the ruling, according to Dan, "they don't see that one could now also judge Arafat in Belgium." She says a Belgian Jew who was hurt in a bombing attack on the main synagogue in Brussels in 1982, is planning to press charges against Palestinian Authority head Yasser Arafat.

The PLO took responsibility for the attack at the time, said Dan.

 

NETANYAHU DENOUNCES BELGIUM DECISION AS “BLOOD LIBEL”

Netanyahu denounces Belgium decision as 'blood libel'
The Jerusalem Post
February 13, 2003

Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu denounced a Belgian court ruling that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could be tried for war crimes as an attempt at a new "blood libel" against the Jewish people.

In a speech on Thursday, Netanyahu called the ruling a "serious blow" to the war on terrorism and international law.

Netanyahu accused Belgium of "distorting the facts" about Israel "and permitting anti-Semitic speeches, which deny the rights of Jews to self-defense."

He spoke after summoning Belgium's ambassador in Israel, Wilfred Geens, to his office to protest Wednesday's decision. The ambassador said he had orders not to respond, adding that he also had not yet read the text of the decision.

In the ruling on Wednesday, Belgium's Supreme Court gave the go ahead, above a ruling by an appeals court, to try Sharon for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres of 1982, once he is no longer protected by immunity as prime minister.

Israel's ambassador to Belgium, Yehuda Kenar, is due to arrive on Thursday afternoon after having been recalled shortly after the verdict was announced.

But Israel does not plan to sever diplomatic contacts with Belgium, and plans to work through other channels to try to change the decision.