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TWO JEWISH YOUTHS HOSPITALIZED AFTER BEING ATTACKED IN PARIS

Two Jewish youths hospitalized after being attacked in Paris
By Amiram Barkat
Ha'aretz
March 23, 2003

Two Jewish youths were hospitalized Saturday afternoon after being stabbed in Paris by individuals who had taken part in an anti-war demonstration. The separate incidents took place near the Hashomer Hatzair youth group building in the city, in close proximity to Beaumarchais Boulevar and Bastille Square.

One young man was stabbed and lightly wounded after a group of men noticed his yarmulke. He was taken to the hospital for treatment. The attackers are believed to have been immigrants from North Africa. After stabbing the young man, they tried to break in to the Hashomer Hatzair building, but members of the youth group managed to block the entrance.

Fifteen minutes later, a 24-year-old youth group advisor exited the building to address a television crew that had arrived to interview him. After exiting the building, he was seriously wounded when passers-by attacked him with metal rods and chains.

Jewish Agency Chairman Sallai Meridor called on the French government to fulfil its responsibility to provide security for its Jewish citizens and prevent the anti-war demonstrations from becoming anti-Semitic events.

JEWISH STUDENT ATTACKED IN FRENCH TOWN

Jewish student attacked in French town
Ma'ariv
March 13, 2003

Three masked men attacked a 21-year-old female Jewish student in the French town of Aix-en-Provence Wednesday and carved a Magen David on her arm.

According to a report on Israel Radio, the student was attacked after having attended a discussion on the situation in the Middle East held in an Aix cinema.

Three masked men called Megli, 21, a "dirty Jew" and proceeded to carve a Jewish star into her flesh. Megli, whose family name has not yet been released, is a student who lives in this quiet French city, had been to the screening of the film Decryptage, which shows how the French media has completely twisted and lied about events in the Middle East to support terrorist Muslims and defame Israel. Megli took part in the heated discussion afterwards. There were many Arab anti-Semites who wouldn't let her speak. She then went out with friends. When she came home, three masked men were waiting outside her door. They assaulted her, and carved the Jewish star into her arm.

NAZIS’ HUMAN CARGO NOW HAUNTS FRENCH RAILWAY

Nazis' human cargo now haunts French railway
By Alan Riding
The New York Times
March 20, 2003

Six decades after his parents were arrested and deported from German-occupied France, an Austrian-born French Jew went to court here today to demand that France's national railroad company accept its responsibility and express remorse for transporting Jews to Nazi death camps.

Kurt Werner Schaechter, 82, is seeking just one euro as symbolic compensation from the National Railroad Service, known by its French initials of S.N.C.F. But he hopes the court will require the company to acknowledge that it played an active role in the deportation of some 76,000 Jews from France from 1942 to 1944. Of those sent to death camps, only some 2,500 survived.

At today's hearing, the company's lawyer, Yves Baudelot, said the case should be dismissed since a 10-year statute of limitations applied. Mr. Schaechter's counsel, Joseph Roubache, responded that the statute of limitations did not apply to crimes against humanity. Further, he added, crucial new evidence was discovered within the last 10 years. A ruling is expected May 14.

"I am doing this out of a responsibility to history," Mr. Schaechter said today. "What distinguishes us from animals is our memory. Humanity cannot forget its history."

This case dates back to 1991 when Mr. Schaechter, a retired musical instruments salesman, was searching in France's National Archives in Toulouse for information about his parents, both of whom were killed by the Nazis. Shocked by the evidence he found of French cooperation with the Germans, he violated regulations by removing documents to be photocopied, then returning them to their files. Over nine months, he copied more than 12,000 documents.

Among these was a letter written by the S.N.C.F. and dated Aug. 12, 1944, nine weeks after Allied troops landed in Normandy, demanding payment of 200,000 francs from the regional government of Haute-Garonne in southern France for transporting Jewish detainees from concentration camps to the border with Germany. The letter warned that interest would be charged if payment was not made on time.

This was just one of the myriad documents that Mr. Schaechter used in his long Ñ and to date unsuccessful campaign to have France open up its wartime archives, most of which remain sealed. In the early 1990's, when Mr. Schaechter first disclosed the long-buried documents, he was widely criticized by French historians for violating the archives secrecy rules, while many French newspapers either ignored his disclosures or dismissed him as an eccentric. The S.N.C.F. document, however, prompted the company to commission a historian, Christian Bachelier, to study its wartime role. His report was eventually released at a colloquium in 2000.

Mr. Roubache said new documents confirmed that 77 train convoys between March 27, 1942, and July 31, 1944, deported 76,000 Jews to the East. He noted that Mr. Schaechter's father, was on Convoy No. 50 of March 4, 1943, which took him to Sobibor in Poland where he was immediately killed. Mr. Schaechter's mother, Margarethe, was on Convoy No. 75 of May 30, 1944, destined for Auschwitz, where she was immediately gassed.

He said that other documents revealed a series of meetings in mid-1942 at Vichy, headquarters of the collaborationist regime of Marshal Petain, where S.N.C.F. officials made detailed preparations for the deportation of Jews from regions of southern France that were still officially called "free zones" and were ruled by Vichy and not directly by the German occupiers.

These documents, he said, showed the company was eager to hide its activity because the convoys were referred to by the code name of IAPT, the French initials for Israelites, Germans, Poles and Czechoslovaks. The trains were also ordered to stay away from the main stations in Marseille, Avignon and Toulouse where they could be delayed by Quaker and other groups who gave food and water to deportees.

Company officials expressed particular concern about punctuality, noting that this was complicated by last-minute changes in instructions provided by German and Vichy authorities. One document specified that S.N.C.F. officials were responsible for closing and locking the doors of wagons carrying the deportees.

Until recently, the railroad company has benefited from the perception that it played a heroic role in the Resistance, an image reinforced by the fact that some 8,900 railroad workers were executed for fighting the occupiers and that the company itself was awarded the Legion d'Honneur after the war. Today, Mr. Roubache pointedly paid homage to the company's "martyrs" and stressed that his charges were directly exclusively at the company's top administration.

He also asked why, even now, the S.N.C.F. felt unable to follow the example of the country's bishops, lawyers and police, who in recent years have sought forgiveness for their actions or silence during the Nazi occupation. In 1995, President Jacques Chirac himself for the first time recognized that "the criminal madness was supported by the French and by the French government."

Speaking for the S.N.C.F., however, Mr. Baudelot argued that the its role in transporting deportees was widely known during and after the war. He also noted that the company was required by the Armistice Convention signed between Germany and France in 1940 to put all its staff and equipment at the disposal of the occupation forces.

A separate case was brought against the S.N.C.F. before a United States district court in New York in 2000 by 10 American plaintiffs whose families were deported from France along with three other plaintiffs representing some 300 participants of a class action lawsuit. The group brought charges of crimes against humanity against the S.N.C.F. and sought damages.

However, in November 2001, the federal court granted a S.N.C.F. motion to dismiss the case when it accepted the company's defense of sovereign immunity. Last summer, the plaintiffs appealed the ruling and a hearing was held in October. A decision on the appeal is now awaited.

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IRAQIS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN OF SABOTAGE AND DEFIANCE TO UNDERMINE SADDAM

Iraqis launch campaign of sabotage and defiance to undermine Saddam
By Con Coughlin
The (London) Sunday Telegraph
March 16, 2003

Open acts of defiance by opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime have intensified in the past week, with saboteurs carrying out attacks against Iraq's railway system and protesters openly calling for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator.

The most blatant act of sabotage took place 20 miles south of the north Iraqi city of Mosul when members of the Iraqi opposition blew up a stretch of track on the Mosul-Baghdad railway, causing the derailment of a train.

Before fleeing back to their base in Kurdistan, they left piles of leaflets by the side of the track urging the Iraqi soldiers who were sent to investigate the explosion to join the "international alliance to liberate Iraq" from "Saddam the criminal". In a separate incident, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a train illegally transporting fuel from Baghdad to Syria.

Demonstrations were also reported to have taken place in Kirkuk, where an estimated crowd of 20,000 marched on the Ba'ath party's main administrative headquarters demanding Saddam's overthrow. Three posters of the Iraqi leader were torn down and a grenade was thrown at the government building. One senior Ba'ath official was reported killed in the attack.

There were also unconfirmed reports that another demonstration by Iraqi Shi'ites in the holy city of Kerbala last weekend was violently suppressed after the intervention of militiamen loyal to Saddam.

The escalation in attacks by Iraqi opposition groups has also been accompanied by widespread acts of anti-Saddam vandalism. Posters of the Iraqi president, which adorn every public building, are being openly defaced and vandalised throughout the country.

Until recently anyone caught carrying out such acts would have received the death sentence. But the mounting acts of open defiance against Saddam's regime is indicative of the growing confidence being displayed by the main Iraqi opposition groups.

"Until recently such acts of open defiance were very rare, and were dealt with harshly," a Foreign Office official commented yesterday. "But as Saddam concentrates his energies on trying to protect his regime from attack, Iraqi opposition groups are becoming more audacious in their attacks."

The only area where Saddam can rely with confidence on the loyalty of his security forces is in the Ba'ath party's heartland around Baghdad. In an attempt to reassert his authority Saddam last week issued a directive ordering Iraqi officials not to give up their positions and flee the country.

To set an example, members of Saddam's security forces arrested a civil servant in the al-Hurriyya suburb of Baghdad on suspicion of preparing to leave the country. The unfortunate official was then tied to a pole in the street and passers-by were ordered to watch as his tongue was cut out and he was left to bleed to death.

SEE MEN SHREDDED, THEN SAY YOU DON’T BACK WAR

See men shredded, then say you don't back war
By Ann Clwyd
The Times of London
March 18, 2003

"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food... on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders."

This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by researchers from Indict - the organisation I chair – to provide evidence for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past two weeks. Another witness told us about practices of the security services towards women: "Women were suspended by their hair as their families watched; men were forced to watch as their wives were raped... women were suspended by their legs while they were menstruating until their periods were over, a procedure designed to cause humiliation."

The accounts Indict has heard over the past six years are disgusting and horrifying. Our task is not merely passively to record what we are told but to challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce is of the highest quality. All witnesses swear that their statements are true and sign them.

For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed since 1991 on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an end to repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been ignored. Torture, execution and ethnic-cleansing are everyday life in Saddam's Iraq. Were it not for the no-fly zones in the south and north of Iraq – which some people still claim are illegal – the Kurds and the Shia would no doubt still be attacked by Iraqi helicopter gunships.

For more than 20 years, senior Iraqi officials have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This list includes far more than the gassing of 5,000 in Halabja and other villages in 1988. It includes serial war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war; the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88; the invasion of Kuwait and the killing of more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians; the violent suppression, which I witnessed, of the 1991 Kurdish uprising that led to 30,000 or more civilian deaths; the draining of the Southern Marshes during the 1990s, which ethnically cleansed thousands of Shias; and the summary executions of thousands of political opponents.

Many Iraqis wonder why the world applauded the military intervention that eventually rescued the Cambodians from Pol Pot and the Ugandans from Idi Amin when these took place without UN help. They ask why the world has ignored the crimes against them?

All these crimes have been recorded in detail by the UN, the US, Kuwaiti, British, Iranian and other Governments and groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and Indict. Yet the Security Council has failed to set up a war crimes tribunal on Iraq because of opposition from France, China and Russia. As a result, no Iraqi official has ever been indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. I have said incessantly that I would have preferred such a tribunal to war. But the time for offering Saddam incentives and more time is over.

I do not have a monopoly on wisdom or morality. But I know one thing. This evil, fascist regime must come to an end. With or without the help of the Security Council, and with or without the backing of the Labour Party in the House of Commons tonight.

(The author is Labour MP for Cynon Valley.)

VATICAN BECOMES ANTI-WAR RALLYING POINT

Vatican becomes anti-war rallying point
The Associated Press
March 12, 2003

Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials are unleashing a barrage of condemnations of a possible U.S. military strike on Iraq, calling it immoral, risky and a "crime against peace."

The unwavering stance has made the pope one of the most visible opponents of war in current circumstances, and a rallying point for peace groups and politicians who seize on his words counseling against war. Even those supportive of a U.S.-led strike, including the prime ministers of Britain, Spain and Italy, have recently lined up to see him, aware of his leadership role.

President Bush, who has rarely met with opponents of his Iraqi stand in recent months, did receive an emissary from John Paul last week. Upon returning to Rome, the emissary, Cardinal Pio Laghi, said American officials had been friendly but that "friendship is not enough."

The next day, as he began a week of Lenten prayers, the pope said he will "bear in mind the needs of the Church and the concerns of all mankind, above all for peace in Iraq and the Holy Land."

The stance reflects what experts say is the Vatican's evolving position on just war, already seen by its opposition to the Gulf War, as well as concern about the impact of war on relations between Christians and Muslims.

"He is looking ahead for the rest of this century where Christian-Muslim relations are key to peace and religious freedom in Africa and many parts of Asia," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America.

John Paul has insisted that war is a "defeat for humanity" and that a preventive strike against Iraq is neither legally nor morally justified.

Aides have repeatedly said the pope is not a pacifist, pointing to his support of humanitarian intervention to "disarm the aggressor" in Bosnia and East Timor and his repeat condemnations of terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.

But in some of the Vatican's strongest language against a possible war, its foreign minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran said a unilateral military strike would be a "crime against peace" with no justification on grounds of self-defense.

Vatican officials have also spoken of what they consider are the political realities of an American attack on an Arab country.

"We want to say to America: Is it worth it to you? Won't you have have, afterward, decades of hostility in the Islamic world," asked the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

The Vatican has been the center of diplomacy.

John Paul sent an envoy to meet with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein last month and received Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz.

Bush, a Methodist, has sought to court Catholic voters, who made up a quarter of the electorate in 2000.

Although no top U.S. official has traveled to Rome to discuss Iraq with the Vatican, prominent conservative American Catholic, Michael Novak, came to help make the case that war is justified. "Humans of good will disagree," Novak said after his meetings.

Novak, in Rome under the State Department's public speakers program, did take issue with criticism of U.S. policies from some Vatican sources, including a Jesuit magazine close to the Vatican that suggested that the U.S. was acting out of economic and political motives, not an attempt to disarm Saddam.

The Vatican has long been stung by the accusation that Pope Pius XII, the World War II pope, failed to raise his voice to head off the Holocaust, an allegation the Vatican rejects.

Without drawing a direct parallel, Cardinal Roberto Tucci told Vatican Radio last week that the pope's efforts for peace have been recognized by the non-Christian world.

"No one can ever say that the pope didn't do enough," Tucci said.

AN ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL WAR

Editorial: An illegal and immoral war
Arab News
March 18, 2003

When American Secretary of State Colin Powell stated yesterday that the Security Council had failed to pass a test set by the United States, a new Gulf War became inevitable.

It was, of course, a test the Security Council never stood a chance of passing.

The Security Council had been given two false choices: Either meekly to submit to the will of the United States or, by rejecting a US-led proposal, reveal itself as powerless to stop the war.

Powell has gone on record as saying that the goal of this war is not only to remove Saddam, but to redraw the regional map as a whole.

That he has the nerve, again and again, to talk in such language betrays an extraordinary arrogance, bolstered by a conviction that his government holds all the trump cards.

This war – which is illegal according to international law and immoral by any standards – is about oil and America's strategic dominance of the Middle East - no more, no less. There was never any real debate. The war has been years in the planning, initially drawn up by neo-conservative zealots in Washington, D.C. who now dominate US defense policy.

The strategy had been finalized long before US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had assumed their respective offices.

These zealots must now surely be laughing in the knowledge that a small group of men and women has been able to harness the full military might of the world's only superpower to the promotion of their private agenda in the face of almost total worldwide opposition.

If the US, with British and Spanish backing, goes to war in the next few hours, this day will be remembered as one which marked the beginning of a new era in the Middle East and international relations.

Is history repeating itself?

It is as though the Middle East has not moved on since the end of World War I, when Western powers carved up what is now the Middle East to suit their own ends.

Then, as now, Iraq was a morsel for the biggest power to dispose of at its pleasure.

The last-minute summits organized by the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference proved only that the Arabs are divided. An Arab world speaking with a strong, united voice was the only force capable of stopping this war.

They did indeed fail an important test, and now they will have to live with the consequences.

Now the US will go it alone, without the UN, without legitimacy -& and in the full knowledge that none of Iraq's neighbors has the power or the will to do anything but either sit by and watch or join in.

So now another war is upon us, decent people the world over pray for one thing: A short war, with an absolute minimum of civilian casualties.

To say that is not to dignify a victory in Iraq as anything other than a victory for imperialist aggression.

But the alternative – a long, drawn-out and bloody conflict - would be even more catastrophic for that country, this region and the rest of the world.

STARS AND GRIPES

Stars and Gripes
Hollywood celebs aren't antiwar. They just hate the president.
John Fund's Political Diary
The Wall St. Journal
March 13, 2003

Hollywood celebrities have become the most visible opponents of liberating Iraq. But as proof that where you stand depends on whether your friends are in power, let's look back at how those same celebrities reacted when Bill Clinton deployed U.S. power in Afghanistan, Sudan and Kosovo.

Actor Mike Farrell, best known for his role as Trapper John's replacement in "M*A*S*H," has emerged as a leading antiwar activist. This month, he even engaged in a surreal debate on geopolitics with former senator Fred Thompson on "Meet the Press." "It is inappropriate," Farrell declared, "for the administration to trump up a case in which we are ballyhooed into war."

But in 1999, Mr. Farrell defended the Clinton administration's rationale for war in Kosovo: "I think it's appropriate for the international community in situations like this to intervene. I am in favor of an intervention." To avoid casualties, the Clinton administration had bombers fly at such high altitudes that "collateral damage" to civilians was bound to increase.

Hollywood stars were oddly silent when Mr. Clinton dropped bombs on Afghanistan and an aspirin factory in Sudan in 1998 in an unsuccessful attempt to deter Osama bin Laden. They were silent when, also in 1998, Mr. Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law and made regime change official U.S. policy. Andrew Breitbart, who is writing a book on Hollywood, jokes that "to not notice this, the stars would have to have been sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom, or perhaps performing at the White House."

Indeed, in 1999 singer Judy Collins--best know for her soulful renditions of antiwar songs – actually sang at a White House gala at the very moment that U.S. and NATO bombs were flattening parts of Belgrade – accidentally destroying the Chinese Embassy in the process.

Similarly, singer Sheryl Crow is appalled by George Bush's moves against Iraq, but she had no problem with Bill Clinton's intervention in the Balkans. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the singer accompanied Hillary Clinton on a USO tour to entertain U.S. troops in Bosnia. "Once over there, I felt extremely patriotic," Ms. Crow told a reporter that year. "Here are these people, from 18-year-olds to military veterans, enduring real duress for the cause of peace. I don't ever want to play for a regular audience again, only military folks who are starving for music." Ms. Crow hasn't been seen around any military bases lately.

Some celebrities are at least honest about their hypocrisy. Comedian Janeane Garofalo was blunt in explaining why Hollywood types didn't protest any of Mr. Clinton's military ventures: "It wasn't very hip." That's ironic, because President Clinton's intervention in Kosovo it was much less justifiable. Weapons of mass destruction were not an issue; the rationale was exclusively humanitarian. "Our mission is clear," Mr. Clinton said in March, 1999: "to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose, so that the Serbian leaders understand the imperative of reversing course, to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo, and if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military's capacity to harm the people of Kosovo. In short, if President Milosevic will not make peace, we will limit his ability to make war." Insert the words "Iraq" and "Saddam" and "the United Nations" in the above excerpt and you could have a speech that President Bush would be happy to give on Iraq.

In fact, the Clinton administration was far less willing to seek approval from the United Nations for its bombing campaign than the Bush White House has been over Iraq. In criticizing the Bush team's decision to seek an 18th U.N. resolution to justify the use of force in Iraq, Richard Holbrooke, a Clinton U.N. ambassador, points out that "in a roughly similar situation, in 1999, the Clinton administration and our NATO allies decided to bomb Serbia (for 77 days) without even seeking U.N. approval, after it became clear that Russia would veto any proposal. This contrast with the supposedly muscular Bush administration is especially odd when one considers that Saddam Hussein is far worse than Slobodan Milosevic, and that Iraq has left a long trail of violated Security Council resolutions, while there were none in Kosovo."

Mr. Clinton himself now cautions against going to war in Iraq, but he seems to be having an argument with the man by the same name who occupied the White House for eight years. Here is President Clinton on Iraq in 1998: "What if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction?... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And someday, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."

All of this history has been conveniently washed down the Hollywood memory hole. So too has much of the record of American foreign policy successes over the last 20 years. I remember when majorities of people in Western Europe opposed the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles to counteract new Soviet missiles aimed at NATO member states. The demonstrations dwarfed even today's "peace" marches. History shows that was the right course of action; along with President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, it helped precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I also remember when leftists and Hollywood stars of all stripes opposed American intervention in Grenada and supported the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. The people of both countries have shown their gratitude for our help and today live in freedom. I remember, too, how many countries were hesitant to join the allied coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, fearing that it would turn out horribly. History has proved them wrong.

Nothing moves world opinion like success. If the "coalition of the willing" acting with or without further U.N. approval, succeeds in ridding the world of Saddam Hussein's regime, world attitudes will shift quickly – just as they did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As television screens fill with scenes of Iraqis greeting American soldiers as liberators, spitting on portraits of a toppled Saddam and pouring forth tales of the torture and degradation, these celebrities will have little to say. Their silence will speak volumes.

IRAQIS SUE OVER FIRST GULF WAR

Iraqis sue over first Gulf War
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
March 19, 2003

Seven Iraqi families have filed a lawsuit against former US president George Bush, father of the current president, and three other US leaders for alleged crimes during the first Gulf War in 1991, a lawmaker said.

The lawsuit cites Bush senior, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired US Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, who led operation Desert Storm against Baghdad, said deputy Patrick Moriau.

Cheney was US defence secretary at the time of the first Gulf War, while Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The action was brought under Belgium's universal competence law, which allows legal proceedings against people accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, regardless of their nationality or location.

The families who brought the action are either victims or relatives of victims of a US bombing of a civilian shelter in Baghdad that killed 403 people in February 1991, Moriau said.

Two of the families currently live in Belgium, added the socialist lawmaker, who accompanied the Iraqi plaintiffs when they filed the lawsuit. Heads of state, prime ministers and foreign ministers are immune from the Belgian universal competence law while in office.

IDF SPOKESPERSON’S ANNOUNCEMENT

IDF Spokesperson's announcement
Home Front Command advises residents to seal rooms

The IDF Home Front Command advises Israeli citizens, today March 18, 2003, to seal their designated protective spaces, such as home shelters, shelters and sealed rooms.

There is currently no need for people to enter their protective spaces.

Civilians who will presently wish to make use of their protective areas or sealed rooms are requested to keep the door to the room or area open in order to allow for ventilation.

Information regarding the preparation of the protective spaces and sealed rooms appears in the booklet distributed to civilians, as well as on the Home Front Command's website: www.idf.il.

In addition, the Home Front Command announces that beginning today, that informational programming regarding preparation of shelters and sealed rooms will be broadcast periodically on Channel 33.

The Home Front Command also stresses not to open the protective kits without receiving specific instruction to do so.

March 18, 2003

Instructional Programs to be screened by the Home Front Command
The IDF Spokesperson's Office would like to announce that as of this afternoon, instructional programs will be screened on channel 33. These instructional programs will deal with the sealing of rooms, the different areas that the country will be divided into in the case of an attack, and everything concerning the Gas mask. These programs will be screened in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Amheric, English and Spanish.

The programs will be screened at the following times:

Today at 16:00, 17:30 and 22:30 in Hebrew

Tomorrow between 10:00 and 13:00 in all the other languages.

Tomorrow At 16:00, 20:00 and 22:00 in Hebrew

We strongly recommend that you record these instructional programs and watch them with the other members of your household. You are also reminded not to remove your gas masks from their case before being ordered to do so.

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WIESEL: PEACE ISN’T POSSIBLE IN EVIL’S FACE

Peace isn't possible in evil's face
Rational people must intervene against the likes of Hussein
By Elie Wiesel
The Los Angeles Times
March 11, 2003

Under normal circumstances, I might have joined those peace marchers who, here and abroad, staged public demonstrations against an invasion of Iraq. After all, I have seen enough of the brutality, the ugliness, of war to oppose it heart and soul. Isn't war forever cruel, the ultimate form of violence? It inevitably generates not only loss of innocence but endless sorrow and mourning. How could one not reject it as an option?

And yet, this time I support President Bush's policy of intervention to eradicate international terrorism, which, most civilized nations agree, is the greatest threat facing us today. Bush has placed the Iraqi war into that context; Saddam Hussein is the ruthless leader of a rogue state to be disarmed by whatever means is necessary if he does not comply fully with the United Nations' mandates to disarm. If we fail to do this, we expose ourselves to terrifying consequences.

In other words: Though I oppose war, I am in favor of intervention when, as in this case because of Hussein's equivocations and procrastinations, no other option remains.

The recent past shows that only military intervention stopped bloodshed in the Balkans and destroyed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Moreover, had the international community intervened in Rwanda, more than 800,000 men, women and children would not have perished there.

Had Europe's great powers intervened against Adolf Hitler's aggressive ambitions in 1938 instead of appeasing him in Munich, humanity would have been spared the unprecedented horrors of World War II.

Does this apply to the present situation in Iraq? It does. Hussein must be stopped and disarmed. Even our European allies who oppose us now agree in principle, though they insist on waiting.

But time always plays in dictators' favor. Having managed to hide his biological weapons, Hussein's goal is to be able to choose the time and the place for using them. Surely that is why he threw out the U.N. inspectors four years ago. If he now appears to offer episodic minor concessions, just as surely that is because American troops are massing at his borders.

In certain political circles, one hears demands for proof that Hussein is still in possession of forbidden weapons. Some European governments evidently do not believe Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's statement that Hussein has such weapons, but I do, and here is why:

Powell is a great soldier and one who does not like war. It was he who prevailed upon then-President Bush in 1991 not to enter Baghdad. It was he who advised the current president not to bypass the U.N. system. If he says that he has proof of Hussein's criminal disregard of the U.N. resolutions, I believe him. I believe that a man of his standing would not jeopardize his name, his career, his prestige, his past and his honor.

We have known for a long time that the Iraqi ruler is a mass murderer. In the late 1980s, he ordered tens of thousands of his own citizens gassed to death. In 1990, he invaded Kuwait. After his defeat, he set its oil fields on fire, thus causing the worst ecological disaster in history. He also launched Scud missiles on Israel, which was not a participant in that war. He should have been indicted then for crimes against humanity. Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and brought to trial for less.

Add to the evidence against him Hussein's conversation with CBS anchor Dan Rather. Listening to him declaring that Iraq was not defeated in 1991 made one wonder about his sanity; he appears to live a world of fantasy and hallucination.

The nightmarish question of what such a man might do with his arsenal of unconventional weaponry is why, more than ever, some of us believe in intervention. We must deal sooner rather than later with this madman whose possession of weapons of mass destruction threatens to provoke an ever-widening conflagration.

What it comes down to is this: We have a moral obligation to intervene where evil is in control. Today, that place is Iraq.

CARTER: JUST WAR – OR A JUST WAR?

Just war – or a just war?
By Jimmy Carter
Op-Ed Contributor
The New York Times

Profound changes have been taking place in American foreign policy, reversing consistent bipartisan commitments that for more than two centuries have earned our nation greatness. These commitments have been predicated on basic religious principles, respect for international law, and alliances that resulted in wise decisions and mutual restraint. Our apparent determination to launch a war against Iraq, without international support, is a violation of these premises.

As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises, I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war, and it is clear that a substantially unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards. This is an almost universal conviction of religious leaders, with the most notable exception of a few spokesmen of the Southern Baptist Convention who are greatly influenced by their commitment to Israel based on eschatological, or final days, theology.

For a war to be just, it must meet several clearly defined criteria.

The war can be waged only as a last resort, with all nonviolent options exhausted. In the case of Iraq, it is obvious that clear alternatives to war exist. These options previously proposed by our own leaders and approved by the United Nations were outlined again by the Security Council on Friday. But now, with our own national security not directly threatened and despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments in the world, the United States seems determined to carry out military and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilized nations. The first stage of our widely publicized war plan is to launch 3,000 bombs and missiles on a relatively defenseless Iraqi population within the first few hours of an invasion, with the purpose of so damaging and demoralizing the people that they will change their obnoxious leader, who will most likely be hidden and safe during the bombardment.

The war's weapons must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Extensive aerial bombardment, even with precise accuracy, inevitably results in "collateral damage." Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, has expressed concern about many of the military targets being near hospitals, schools, mosques and private homes.

Its violence must be proportional to the injury we have suffered. Despite Saddam Hussein's other serious crimes, American efforts to tie Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks have been unconvincing.

The attackers must have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent. The unanimous vote of approval in the Security Council to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction can still be honored, but our announced goals are now to achieve regime change and to establish a Pax Americana in the region, perhaps occupying the ethnically divided country for as long as a decade. For these objectives, we do not have international authority. Other members of the Security Council have so far resisted the enormous economic and political influence that is being exerted from Washington, and we are faced with the possibility of either a failure to get the necessary votes or else a veto from Russia, France and China. Although Turkey may still be enticed into helping us by enormous financial rewards and partial future control of the Kurds and oil in northern Iraq, its democratic Parliament has at least added its voice to the worldwide expressions of concern.

The peace it establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists. Although there are visions of peace and democracy in Iraq, it is quite possible that the aftermath of a military invasion will destabilize the region and prompt terrorists to further jeopardize our security at home. Also, by defying overwhelming world opposition, the United States will undermine the United Nations as a viable institution for world peace.

What about America's world standing if we don't go to war after such a great deployment of military forces in the region? The heartfelt sympathy and friendship offered to America after the 9/11 attacks, even from formerly antagonistic regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral and domineering policies have brought international trust in our country to its lowest level in memory. American stature will surely decline further if we launch a war in clear defiance of the United Nations. But to use the presence and threat of our military power to force Iraq's compliance with all United Nations resolutions with war as a final option will enhance our status as a champion of peace and justice.

(Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.)

SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER STATEMENT

March 17, 2003

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today issued the following statement on behalf of famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal:

"As a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust who lost 89 members of my family, I have experienced firsthand the horrors of war and bloodshed. I know that in any conflict many innocent lives will be lost. But history has taught us that the consequences of ignoring evil and terror pose an even greater risk for mankind.

The world has confronted Saddam before, but for twelve years he has refused to listen. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Prime Minister Jose María Aznar of Spain, do not seek to conquer Iraq but rather to confront a dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction and committed genocide against his own people.

I have spent a lifetime pursuing the perpetrators of evil, not for revenge, but in search of justice and in order to protect future generations from the horrors that I have lived through.

My experience has taught me that you cannot wait indefinitely on dictators. Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, but for six years the world did not act. Had he been taken seriously then, the lives of innocent millions may have been spared.

We must remember that freedom is not a gift from heaven, we must fight for it every day."

CHURCHILL: MY GRANDFATHER INVENTED IRAQ

My grandfather invented Iraq – and he has lessons for us today
By Winston S. Churchill
The Wall Street Journal
March 16, 2003

As thunderclouds gather over the Middle East, America and Britain stand once again shoulder to shoulder preparing to draw the sword in defense of freedom, democracy and human rights. A line has been drawn in the sands of the Arabian desert. We have deployed some 200,000 American troops, together with more than 40,000 British, who will shortly be committed to battle.

Meanwhile, I have a confession to make: It was my grandfather, Winston Churchill, who invented Iraq and laid the foundation for much of the modern Middle East. In 1921, as British colonial secretary, Churchill was responsible for creating Jordan and Iraq and for placing the Hashemite rulers, Abdullah and Faisal, on their respective thrones in Amman and Baghdad. Furthermore, he delineated for the first time the political boundaries of biblical Palestine. Eighty years later, it falls to us to liberate Iraq from the scourge of one of the most ruthless dictators in history. As we stand poised on the brink of war, my grandfather's experience has lessons for us.

The parallels between Saddam Hussein's repeated flouting of U.N. resolutions – 17 over the past 12 years – calls to mind the impotence of the U.N. forerunner, the League of Nations. In the 1930s, the victors of the First World War – Britain, France and the U.S. – fecklessly allowed the League of Nations' resolutions to be flouted. This was done first by the Japanese, who invaded Manchuria, then by the Italian dictator Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and, most gravely, by Nazi Germany.

Had the Allies held firm and shown the same resolve to uphold the rule of law among nations that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are demonstrating today, there is little doubt that World War II, with all its horrors, could have been avoided. Indeed it was for that reason that Churchill called World War II the "Unnecessary War." Tragically, the same sickness that infected the League of Nations – a feebleness of spirit, an unwillingness to face the realities of the world we live in, and a determination to place corrupt self-interest before the common good – now afflicts the governments of France, Germany and Belgium.

I can think of few actions more shameful than the recent vote by these three nations in the counsels of NATO to deny the Turks – the only NATO country to share a common border with Iraq – the protection they need against the very real possibility of an Iraqi missile attack. This region, in particular, was one of the great disappointments of my grandfather's career. After the creation of Iraq, Iran and Palestine, he wanted to create a fourth political entity in the region, Kurdistan. Against his better judgment, he allowed himself to be overruled by the officials of the colonial office, a tragic decision that, to this day, has deprived the Kurds of a nation of their own and caused them to be split up under Iran, Iraq and Turkey, each of which has persecuted them for their aspiration to self-determination – none more so than Saddam.

My grandfather's resolve and leadership offer a second parallel to today's situation – one that confronted the world 55 years ago, when America was on the point of losing her monopoly of the atomic bomb. As leader of the opposition in the British parliament, Churchill was gravely alarmed at the prospect of the Soviet Union acquiring atomic, and eventually nuclear, weapons of its own. He said at the time, "What will happen when they get the atomic bomb themselves and have accumulated a large store? No one in his senses can believe that we have a limitless period of time before us."

As President Bush and Mr. Blair intend today in the case of Iraq, Winston Churchill in 1948 favored the threat – and if need be the reality – of a pre-emptive strike to safeguard the interests of the Free World. Aware of the dangers ahead, Churchill believed that the U.S. – while it still had a monopoly of atomic power – should require the Soviet Union to abandon the development of these weapons, if need be by threatening their use.

The Truman administration chose not to heed his advice. The result was the Cold War, in the course of which the world – on more than one occasion – came perilously close to a nuclear holocaust.

It is no great surprise that the nations which long toiled under the yoke of communism during the Cold War are our greatest supporters today. Unlike the French, Germans and Belgians, the East Europeans have not forgotten the debt of gratitude they owe to the United States, first for liberating them from the Nazis and, most recently, from Soviet domination. With absurd Gallic arrogance Jacques Chirac has threatened to block next year's scheduled entry into the European Union of some 10 East European nations as punishment for their support of the Anglo-American position on Iraq. Beneath the protests of the French and the Germans, we can discern in the current crisis, the fading of the old Europe dominated by the Franco-German axis.

Mr. Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, in urging delay, know full well that if the impending attack is not launched in the next two to three weeks, it cannot, realistically, take place until the end of the year, granting Saddam an eight-month reprieve. In whose interest would that be, I wonder? No doubt they imagine that, by their delaying tactics, they can save Saddam's bacon and with it their own arms-for-oil contracts. But I have news for these two shabby peace-mongers who know no shame: By their failure to join in the coalition of the willing – indeed, by their deliberate attempts to frustrate the removal of Saddam – they will forfeit both their arms contracts and their Iraqi oil. And it could not happen to nicer people!

Like President Reagan before him, George W. Bush has what my grandfather would have called "the root of the matter" in him. He is able to discern the most important issues of the day and to stand firm by his beliefs. Likewise Tony Blair. On Iraq and the Anglo-American alliance, the British prime minister has got it absolutely right: He is pursuing the true national interest of Great Britain, which is to stand at the side of the Great Republic, as my grandfather was fond of calling the land of his mother's birth.

The time has come for the world community – or such of it as has the courage to act – to deal with this monster once and for all. Were we to shirk from this duty, the U.N. would go the way of the League. More gravely, a marriage of convenience would be consummated between the terrorist forces of al Qaeda and the arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities which Saddam possesses.

We have business to do and I believe that together America and Britain, and those of our allies who share our sense of urgency and strength of commitment, will soon rid the world of this demented despot, liberate the Iraqi people from tyranny, and strike a further blow against the ambitions of fundamentalist terror.

(Mr. Churchill, a former British member of Parliament, is the editor of "Never Give In!," a collection of Winston Churchill's speeches, due in November from Hyperion. This is adapted from a speech at the Houston Forum.)

THE ARTICLE

ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT?

All The News That's Fit To Print?
The New York Times and Israel
By Tom Gross
The National Review
March 14, 2003

www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross031403.asp

As the world's most important daily newspaper, the New York Times is disproportionately influential in framing the public and diplomatic discourse on many issues, both in the U.S. and beyond. This is particularly true with regard to the Middle East, given how much space it allocates to the subject. One of the great myths of modern journalism, particularly outside the U.S., is that the New York Times is "pro-Israel." In fact, it would be truer to say that the opposite is the case – to a greater extent than you might think.

A TALE OF TWO BAPTISTS

On March 4, a 59-year-old American Baptist, William P. Hyde, was among 21 people killed by a suicide bomber in Davao in the southern Philippines. That an American died was made clear in the following day's New York Times. The Times titled its news report "Bombing Kills An American And 20 Others In Philippines." The first seven paragraphs concerned Hyde, who had lived and worked in the Philippines since 1978, and another American, Barbara Stevens, who had been "slightly wounded" in the attack. The caption alongside two photos at the top of the front page of that day's Times also made reference to his death, as did a news summary on page 2. In addition, the paper ran an editorial titled "Fighting Terror in the Philippines." And a front-page photo of a wounded boy, and the caption that accompanied it, made clear that at least one child had been among the injured.

On the next day (March 5), another American Baptist, 14-year-old Abigail Litle, was among 16 people killed by a suicide bomber on a bus in Haifa, Israel. The story and photo caption in the March 6 Times, tucked at the bottom corner of page 1, made no mention of Abigail's name. Neither the headline nor the photo caption indicated that an American had died, or that the suicide bomber had deliberately chosen a bus packed with schoolchildren, or that a majority of those killed had been teenagers.

The suicide bombers in both Davao and Haifa were acting on behalf of Muslim fundamentalist groups fighting for separate states. But the Haifa bomber was arguably worse. He deliberately chose children as his target, and his bomb was packed with specially sharpened nails and shrapnel to maximize pain and to make it harder for doctors to save the wounded.

Readers of some newspapers – but not of the Times – were told that Litle's Missouri-born parents had rushed to Haifa's Rambam hospital to look for their "wounded" daughter and instead had found only what remained of her: her legs. They had identified Abigail from an ankle bracelet still attached to one of them. That day's New York Post carried a picture of the pretty, blond-haired New Hampshire-born schoolgirl who had been active in Jewish-Arab school dialogue groups on its front page.

Even the Sun – a British tabloid not known for its foreign news coverage, and which goes to press several hours before the New York Times – gave Abigail's death greater prominence than the Times did. The Sun's report began: "Fury swept Israel last night after a suicide bomber killed 15 people on a crowded school bus. Ten children died and 12 victims were left fighting for life after the bus was blown apart. The youngsters killed were aged 14 and 15 and from local high schools. One was 14-year-old Abigail Leitner, a U.S. citizen." (Initially, Litle's name was transliterated from Hebrew as Leitner by news agencies, hence the discrepancy; the death toll in Haifa has now risen to 17, not including the bomber.)

The lack of prominence given to Litle's death is one small example of what has become a familiar pattern at the Times. The paper downplays Israeli suffering, and de-emphasizes Yasser Arafat's responsibility for the suffering of Israelis and ordinary Palestinians alike.

UPPING THE DEATH TOLLS

While the Times couldn't find room to include a photo of Abigail (or any injured child) last Thursday, it did choose to again run what it terms its "Mideast Death Toll" chart alongside the news report about the Haifa bomb. Strangely, the Times (to my recollection) usually runs this chart – in which it lines up total numbers of Israeli deaths next to the greater number of Palestinian deaths – only on days after Israelis have died. The implication would seem to be that Israel is responsible for more fatalities than the Palestinians.

It also seems odd that the Times doesn't (to the best of my knowledge) run these kind of football-score-type charts for any other conflict (Protestant vs. Catholic deaths in Northern Ireland, for example, or Afghan vs. American deaths since September 11).

The chart itself is fundamentally misleading. It makes no distinction between civilians and armed combatants, lumping together suicide bombers and other gunmen killed on shooting sprees with their innocent victims. It also reports suspected Palestinian "collaborators" killed by their own compatriots as if they had been killed by Israelis.

If the Times wanted its readers to gain a better understanding of what is actually going on in the Middle East, one could think of other statistics it could have given. It could have informed them that 80 percent of Israeli fatalities have been noncombatants, half of whom have been female; or that less than 5 percent of Palestinian fatalities have been female; or that a much higher proportion of Israeli casualties than Palestinian casualties have been older people. All these would be a good indication of which party is targeting the innocent.

Certainly no single act by Israel has led to civilian deaths on a scale that US actions have on several occasions in Afghanistan. For example, 54 civilians (almost all were women and children) were accidentally killed (and 120 injured) by the American bombing of an engagement party in Kakrak last July; or just last month, on February 12, the US killed 17 civilians (again mainly women and children) in an air strike in Helmand province in Southern Afghanistan. (This was reported in the New York Times only at the bottom corner of page 17 on February 13, 2003, with no photos, no mention on the front page, and no editorials. That 10 people died in Bolivia received more coverage: it was the top story on page 8.)

When New York Times readers complained in the past about the misleading nature of its "Mideast Death Toll" chart (on a previous occasion it was published following suicide attacks on Israelis in March 2002), the response from the paper was surprisingly brusque and dismissive. Bill Borders (senior editor on the Times's news desk) wrote: "The graphs are correct because everyone that they count as dead is in fact dead. All of them."

But there is a further problem. The Times appears to have inflated the number of Palestinian dead. "At least 2,100 Palestinians have been killed during the months of violence that began Sept. 29, 2000," stated the Times caption accompanying its chart on Thursday March 6. Yet the Reuters news agency – which even Palestinian Authority officials have admitted is sympathetic to their "struggle" – provides a considerably lower figure. In a story on March 7, Reuters Gaza correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi writes: "At least 1,906 Palestinians and 720 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising for statehood began in September 2000." Not only is Reuters's estimate of Israeli dead higher than the Times's, and the Palestinian figure considerably lower, but the Reuters statistics also included 11 more Palestinian militants and civilians who had been killed in disputed circumstances that morning, March 7.

The New York Times has taken its statistics for its "Death Toll" chart from the Palestinian Red Crescent, which it should know is a highly politicized and sometimes militant organization – Red Crescent ambulances have on more than one occasion been caught smuggling suicide bombers into Israel; and at least one Red Crescent medic became a suicide bomber herself, killing or injuring over 150 Israeli civilians at a west Jerusalem shopping arcade last year.

If the Times wants to rely on Palestinian sources, it might do better to follow the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), whose mission is "to end human rights violations committed against Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, regardless of those responsible." The PHRMG, while certainly no friend of Israel (it is often brutal in its criticism) is nonetheless relatively free from the influence of Arafat's security forces. A PHRMG press release dated March 7, 2003, states that "since the start of this bloody Intifada on September 29, 2000, 1973 Palestinian people have lost their lives" - a figure that again includes Palestinian terrorists, but is still significantly lower than that used by the Times.

(For the record, according to a report in the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz on March 13, 2003: 441 of the Palestinian casualties have been suicide bombers, bomb makers, gunmen, or activists in Hamas and Islamic Jihad; 324 in Fatah and Tanzim; 329 in the Palestinian Authority security forces; 69 in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In addition, 417 have belonged to other small, armed groups, or were individuals killed in the course of perpetrating acts of terrorism against Israel. And 365 innocent Palestinians – unconnected to terrorist or armed activity – have died, though some may have been killed as a result of being caught in Palestinian, not Israeli, crossfire.)

The New York Times is hardly the most anti-Israel newspaper. And it is much too measured and careful to indulge in the kind of ugly calumnies found, for example, in the London Guardian – which in a lead editorial last year compared Israel to al Qaeda, concluding that Israel's behavior was "every bit as repellant." Still, in all kinds of small, insidious ways – most of which are not apparent unless you have expert knowledge on the Middle East – the Times's coverage is more slanted than many readers might realize. And since the Times has a reputation as being the great paper of record, the consequences of its distortions are in some ways much more damaging than those found elsewhere.

PREGNANT MOTHERS

Less than 5 percent of Palestinian casualties have been female, and even fewer have been pregnant mothers. Yet when one is killed – as happened on March 2, when a wall accidentally fell on her – the Times takes care to let its readers know: in news reports on March 3 (page 6), March 4 (page 1), March 5 (page 3), and March 9. Readers would be forgiven for assuming that Israel killed pregnant mothers every day, but these stories all refer to the same unnamed woman.

The New York Times also neglected to emphasize that the woman's unfortunate death happened in the course of a successful military action to capture Mohammed Taha, cofounder of Hamas, who was hiding in the house next door. The front-page report by James Bennet ("Israeli Raid Snares a Foe, but leaves Family Motherless," March 4) refers to Taha only as "a known militant." Not until the twelfth paragraph, on an inside page, does Bennet mention that Taha is a leader of Hamas. (He is in fact the most senior one ever caught.) Other papers ran headlines such as "Israel nabs Hamas founder in Gaza" (Daily News, March 4).

This was an accidental death in the course of a legitimate counterterrorist action. But a number of pregnant Israeli mothers were killed deliberately. If their deaths were reported at all, the Times and other media have referred to them merely as "Israelis" or as "settlers." For example, when a pregnant Israeli, her infant child, and other family members were attacked at their family Passover meal at Elon Moreh on March 28, 2002, the only coverage the Times provided was the following sentence buried in an article about Yasser Arafat: "Even as Mr. Arafat made his pledge, a Palestinian gunmen shot and killed four Israelis in a Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus." No mention of the seven children left orphaned in that attack.

SHE ADORED CHILDREN

When the Times has sympathetically profiled women who have died in this conflict, it has more often been the suicide bombers than their Israeli victims. Wada Idris – who killed or wounded 150 innocent civilians on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road on January 27, 2002 – had "chestnut hair curling past her shoulders"; she "raised doves and adored children," James Bennet reported in a front-page article for the Times.

Another young Palestinian woman, Ayat al-Akhras, who blew herself up in a Jerusalem supermarket last March, was profiled no less than three times by Times correspondents. The first two articles (by Serge Schmemann, March 30, 2002, and Joel Greenberg, March 31, 2002) presented details about her name, age, sex, occupation, and family members, and included a large, full-length photo of her and another of her mourning father. The only information given about the victims of the attack was that "a man and woman were killed," and that at least 30 were wounded. No names, no descriptions, no occupations, no ages, no mourning families, and certainly no photographs. (All these were given in other papers.)

While the schoolgirl victim of al-Akhras's bombing (Rachel Levy, 17) was finally named a week later in a third Times article (which again provided a photo and details of the terrorist – Joel Greenberg writing that al-Akhras wore jeans, had "flowing black hair," and so on), the male victim of the bombing was apparently deemed to not be newsworthy: His name was never mentioned. He was in fact Haim Smadar, who was temporarily working as a security guard at the supermarket during the Passover holidays, and who used himself as a human shield to keep al-Akhras from taking more lives.

New York Times reporters have employed sympathetic language in describing male terrorists too. When 26 Palestinian gunmen, who had seized control of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, were exiled to Gaza last May, Tim Golden's report ("Cast Adrift After Siege, Bethlehem Exiles Grieve," May 21, 2002) was surprisingly sympathetic. These men had just shot their way into one of Christianity's holiest shrines, trashed it, and held its priests hostage; before that they had been involved in shooting at Israeli motorists, preparing bombs, and dispatching suicide bombers. Yet Golden went so far as to describe the difficulties the men might now have finding work: "The echoes, critics of the deal said, could scarcely be crueler: after half a century in which Palestinians have fought for the return of compatriots who fled at Israel's creation, they have been forced from their homes once more."

DOES THE TIMES HAVE AN AGENDA?

The Times's distorted presentation of events is especially troubling given the very high respect in which the paper is generally held by its readership, policymakers, and other members of the media. The Times's framing of the conflict has for years contributed to bad diplomacy at the State Department and elsewhere, and has fueled negative images of Israel among the public at large. As I know from personal experience working as a correspondent in the Middle East for both American and European papers, foreign news editors throughout the world often look to the Times for story ideas. Every evening, editors across America check the next day's front-page stories on the New York Times before altering their lineups.

Especially abroad, some mistakenly presume that the New York Times must be pro-Israel since it is Jewish-owned and has several prominent Jewish writers and editors. In fact, it may be precisely for this reason that it bends over backward to avoid being seen as the "Jew York Times," as one European journalist I used to work with in Israel called it. There would be nothing new in this. The Times deliberately downplayed reports on the Holocaust in the 1940s. It hid news of the ongoing genocide of European Jewry "in small print on the back pages... Jewish-owned but anxious not to be seen as Jewish-oriented," as historian David S. Wyman put it.

WHAT PASSOVER MASSACRE?

The slants and omissions in the Times can be found well beyond basic reporting. For example, in last year's "Year in Review" calendar (December 29, 2002), the Times highlighted the most important events of the year. The entry for March 28 read: "Arab world agrees to relations with Israel if land is returned" (this is hardly news; it is a claim some Arabs have made for decades) – followed directly by, on March 29, "Israel invades Yasser Arafat's headquarters, 5 Palestinians, 1 Israeli die." The reader is left with the impression that Israel's only response to the supposed Arab peace offer was violence.

In fact, on March 27 (on which only the death of comedian Milton Berle was marked by the Times), 29 Israelis – including an 89-year-old Auschwitz survivor, Sarah Levy-Hoffman – were blown up while celebrating a Passover seder at a Netanya hotel, something the Times did not list in its calendar. (The Times does mention the Passover bomb in a footnote to its calendar, but says only that "more than a dozen people died," which is an odd way to characterize a group of 29 people; and incidentally, six Israelis – not one – were killed by Palestinians on March 29, 2002.)

As Bret Stephens, the editor of the Jerusalem Post, pointed out last August, when one carefully examines the New York Times's corrections column, one can see that in all cases the mistakes were made against Israel. "In a more normal world," wrote Stephens, "a newspaper's mistakes, particularly in its political and diplomatic reporting, would more-or-less be randomly distributed... Yet while a search of NYT corrections over the past two years discloses the usual measure of forgivable bloopers, not once has the paper erred on the side of Israel. A pattern of bias, maybe?"

The Times does not seem to be living up to its self-proclaimed reputation for thoroughness. "All the news that's fit to print," trumpets the paper in a famous box on the top left corner every day. In practice, however, the editors only correct a very small proportion of the paper's many Middle East errors and slurs against Israel. The celebrated political commentator Walter Lippmann once observed that "The study of error serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth." This seems to be the case here.

EARLY ERRORS REMAIN

The Times's misreporting may well have continuing repercussions. Take a mistake made on the very first day of the Intifada. A Jewish student, Tuvia Grossman, was brutally beaten and stabbed by a Palestinian mob near the Western Wall. Yet the New York Times picture caption (September 30, 2000) identified him as a Palestinian victim of Israeli violence. Even though the Times did publish a correction in this case (following intense pressure from the Grossman family), today an official Egyptian government website continues to use the Grossman photo – perhaps lifted at the time from the Times website - as part of its propaganda campaign, in a "photo gallery" of Palestinian victims. And until last year, the website of the Palestinian Information Center incorporated the mis-captioned photo of Grossman onto its homepage banner, too. Last year, Arab groups calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola used the photo of Grossman's bleeding face on its "Boycott Israel" poster with the accompanying slogan: "By supporting American products, you're supporting Israeli terror."

THEY DO IT THEIR WAY

The imbalance extends to the op-ed pages as well. For example, on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Times columnist Maureen Dowd allowed the anti-Semitic slanders of the Saudi deputy education minister to be repeated unchallenged and uncriticized, as if they were fact: "Why don't you go to Israeli math textbooks and see what they're saying – If you kill 10 Arabs one day and 12 the next day, what would be the total?" he said ("Under the Ramadan Moon," November 6, 2002). When a reader asked why the Times allowed such slanderous and utterly untrue statements to go unquestioned, Gail Collins, a member of the New York Times editorial board, replied: "Maureen was using the textbook comment as an example of the extreme misinformation that floats around in the Mideast. It's obvious that she didn't expect anyone to take it literally. However I'm very sorry you were disturbed by it."

But, given the Times's track record of Middle East coverage – and the inflammatory accusations and conspiracy theories against Jews and Israel presently popping up elsewhere in the media – does anyone really believe that this will be so "obvious" to the Times's millions of readers?

The Times does have a pro-Israel columnist, William Safire. But this hardly makes up for the slant of other columnists (it would take a whole book to explain how Tom Friedman gets it wrong on Israel), let alone those of its outside contributors – such as Allegra Pacheco, a Jewish lawyer-activist who represents Palestinians in the West Bank and condemns Israel as an "apartheid" state; or Henry Siegman, another Jewish activist whose writings are presently proudly displayed on the website of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Indeed, the New York Times's idea of balance almost seems to be to run alternating pieces – first by Palestinians and others condemning Israel, then by far-left Jews condemning Israel. When an outside op-ed writer, the noted international human-rights expert Prof. Anne Bayefsky, included a sentence sympathetic to Israel in her article (May 22, 2002), the Times tried to muzzle her. Only through dogged persistence, Bayefsky says, did she manage to persuade the Times to restore a sentence criticizing the U.N. Human Rights Commission for directing a full 30 percent of its resolutions against Israel. Bayefsky was so exasperated by her experience with the Times op-ed desk that she wrote an entire article about it in the June 2002 edition of the legal magazine Justice.

JEWS FOR ARAFAT

The Times also likes to devote ample publicity to anti-Zionist Jews. Last March and April, for example – in a period when it ran almost no stories on the hundreds of Israeli victims and survivors of suicide bombs (which were then occurring at a record rate) – the Times carried at least four stories quoting Adam Shapiro, an American Jew who entered Ramallah to protect and assist Yasser Arafat when Israel responded.

The Times repeatedly referred to Shapiro as a "humanitarian worker." This was curious, since Shapiro himself admits to support for "armed resistance" and a Palestinian "violent movement." Nowhere in its extensive and largely sympathetic coverage of Shapiro did the Times quote from his article in Palestine Chronicle a month earlier, in which he explains that when he said he told Western journalists he supported non-violence this was merely a tactical maneuver to "manipulate... a story". In the same article, Shapiro also referred to a "suicide operation" as "noble."

The Times's largely sympathetic portrayal of Shapiro fits into a familiar pattern of photo captions, headlines, and articles about Western supporters of Yasser Arafat, in which they are described as "pacifists," "peace advocates," or "peace activists."

WHITEWASHING ARAFAT

But perhaps, when future historians examine the Times's record in this period, they will conclude that their biggest mistake of all was to have spent years sanitizing the image of Yasser Arafat, in effect helping to persuade Western governments to continue propping up his regime even as both Palestinians and Israelis died and the formation of a democratic Palestinian state was continually delayed.

The Times has consistently underplayed Arafat's role in orchestrating the ongoing terror against Israel. It has failed to report how the al-Aqsa Brigades, the militia Arafat set up after launching the Intifada, has been responsible for as many Israeli civilian deaths as Hamas. Even when the al-Aqsa Brigades proudly claims responsibility for killing a mother, her 5- and 4-year-old sons, and two other Israelis at a Kibbutz (as it did on November 10 of last year, posting a photo of the perpetrator on it website), a front-page Times report on December 17, 2002 which referred to the killings, described the gunman merely as "mysterious" – as though it wasn't known who had pulled the trigger.

SADDAM’S BEST FRIEND

Over the last year, the New York Times has devoted hundreds of thousands of words to both Arafat and Saddam Hussein. Yet you would be hard-pressed to find any reference to Arafat's continuing support for Saddam. When Arafat sent "holiday greetings" to the Iraqi dictator, as he did last month in a telegram (reported in other Arab and Western media on February 22, 2003), calling him "Your Excellency, Brother-President Saddam" and writing that "Together, hand in hand [we will march] to Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] with the help of Allah" – you won't find mention of it in the Times.

The Times will publish an editorial which it says was written by Yasser Arafat ("The Palestinian Vision of Peace," February 3, 2002) allowing him to make statements such as "I condemn the attacks carried out by terrorist groups against Israeli civilians." But it will barely report that in that same week, at a rally in Ramallah (February 7, 2002), Arafat repeated his call for "millions of martyrs" to attack Jerusalem; nor will it emphasize that it was the Arafat-affiliated al-Aqsa Brigades that claimed credit for an attack on Israeli civilians in Moshav Hamra, a farming community, on February 6, 2002.

DON’T MISS YASSER’S VIEWS

The Times even took the unusual step, in its February 3 daily e-mail update sent to subscribers ("Today's Headlines from NYTimes.com"), of listing Arafat's op-ed as the lead article in the International news section, even though it has a specific Op-Ed section in the daily digest. The Times's e-mail update did not identify the story as an opinion, nor did it identify the author. It just read: "Palestinians want to live as equals alongside Israel in an independent and viable state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967" – a very different message than that being broadcast at the same time in the Arafat-controlled Palestinian media.

That the Times has on occasion run editorials calling on Arafat's followers to cease "attacks on Israeli soldiers, settlers, and civilians" hardly makes up for its overall record of obscuring the truth about Arafat's views. For example, when the paper published a long interview and profile of Arafat on July 8, 2001, detailing the Palestinian leader's insistence that he had lived up to a recent U.S.-brokered cease-fire agreement calling on him to stop incitement against Israelis, they failed to mention that, only days before, he had praised the suicide bomber who had recently killed 21 Israelis (mainly teenage girls) at a Tel Aviv seaside disco as a "noble soul" and "the model of manhood and sacrifice for the sake of Allah and the homeland."

Even though Arafat's standing internationally is now greatly diminished (though no thanks to New York Times reporting), the Times continues its pattern of omitting information that might cast him in a bad light. Two weeks ago, for example, on February 27, Forbes magazine released its annual list of the world's wealthiest people. In a new category for "kings, queens, and despots," it ranked Arafat sixth, just behind Britain's Queen Elizabeth.

Forbes outlined how Arafat has "feasted on all sorts of funds flowing into the Palestinian Authority, including aid money... Much of the money appears to have gone to pay off others... [including] payments to alleged terrorists... Take the money out of his hands, reform a corrupt financial system and you could reduce the violence."

Yet, while the Times did run a story on the corruption of the Palestinian Authority – "Palestinian Assets 'a Mess' Official Says," March 1, 2003 – correspondent James Bennet not only refrained from mentioning the Forbes findings, he barely even mentioned Arafat's name. The man who has maintained an iron grip on Palestinian finances and funds for the past four decades apparently has nothing to do with the corruption.

WOULD THEY DO THE SAME TO MECCA?

The Times works against Israel in other, subtle ways, too. Sometimes it is the small words that creep into news pieces in an attempt to tarnish Israel: "After 26 months of Palestinian suicide bombings and pitiless Israeli retaliation," reports Michael Wines – December 8, 2002. (Apparently it is not the suicide bombers that are "pitiless.") Or sometimes in the course of the same article, armed Arab rioters trying to kill Jews are referred to as "demonstrators"; meanwhile, Jewish rioters "rampage" when they respond (as in a report by Deborah Sontag, October 10, 2000, or in a report in the Times on the same day by Chris Hedges, titled "Crowds of Jews Rampage in Nazareth").

On other occasions, information that might cast the Palestinians in a bad light is omitted. For example, even though its news reports are much longer than those in most papers, no mention was made in the Times of the mass celebrations in Gaza following last summer's Hebrew University bombing (five American students and teachers died in that attack).

The New York Times has also subtly altered its definitions and terminology. Take the Temple Mount, for instance, which historians, archeologists, Christians, Muslims, and others have for centuries acknowledged as Judaism's holiest place, the site of two holy Jewish temples. In apparent deference to Yasser Arafat – who has recently begun claiming that no Jewish temple ever existed there – the Times began, two years ago, to add the phrase "which the Arabs call the Haram al Sharif" in mentions of the Temple Mount. Then, a few weeks later, the Times referred to "the Temple Mount, which Israel claims to have been the site of the First and Second Temple." And then, in a subsequent article, the Times described Israeli troops as having "stormed the Haram, holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem" – without even mentioning the status of the "Temple Mount" as Judaism's holiest site. Would they do that to Mecca?

WHATEVER YOU SAY, MR. ASSAD

When it comes to altering history, Times reporters are taken in not only by Arafat's propaganda but by that of other Arab dictators too. For example, when it covered Pope John Paul II's historic visit to Syria in May 2001, the Times, swallowing Syrian claims, charged that Israel had been responsible for the destruction of the border town of Quneitra. "Pope Prays for Peace at City Destroyed by Israel," read its headline (May 6, 2001); readers were informed that Israel had destroyed Quneitra in 1974 (when, in fact, Syria did so in 1973). A few days later, the Times printed a correction – albeit an only partially accurate one. They may only have done so, however, because alert readers wrote in pointing out that the Times itself had over a period of several years reported on the Syrian destruction of Quneitra:

* Syria shelled Israeli positions in the Golan for three hours, hitting "El Quneitra, Nahal Gesher and Ein Zivan," reported the New York Times ("Fighting Flares in Golan Heights as Syrian Tanks Attack Israelis," June 25, 1970).

* Damascus radio announces that Syrian artillery had shelled "Kafr Naffakh and El Quneitra," reported the New York Times ("Syria Shells Israeli Bases in Occupied Golan Heights," November 26, 1972).

* A Moroccan brigade aligned with Syria is "taking part in an attack on El Quneitra," reported the New York Times (October 11, 1973).

* Quneitra is now "a bombed-out military town," following the Syrian and Moroccan bombardment, reported the New York Times (October 21, 1973).

So what has happened to the integrity and professionalism of Times reporting to make its correspondents, in 2001, accept Syrian propaganda as fact?

Of course, the Times is hardly alone in swallowing the propaganda of Arab dictators. During the Pope's visit, CNN's Brent Sadler referred to Israel's "systematic destruction of Quneitra"; Time magazine's Tony Karon wrote that Quneitra "was destroyed by Israeli forces in 1974 and has been maintained as a ghost town ever since"; and so on. But shouldn't we expect more of the "paper of record"?

MURDERING FOR SPORT?

Sometimes, New York Times correspondents only admit how they really feel after stepping down. When Deborah Sontag ended her stint as Jerusalem bureau chief, she wrote a 6,200-word article starting on the Times's front page (July 26, 2001) in which she essentially blamed Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister, and not Yasser Arafat, for the Intifada – even though Palestinian cabinet ministers have themselves admitted at rallies in Gaza and Lebanon to having carefully planned the Intifada months before it started, following Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon; unsurprisingly, these rallies were virtually ignored by the Times. Sontag's piece has been dubbed "the mother of all Arafat-rehab articles."

Sontag has continued her sympathetic account of Palestinian extremists in her new job as feature writer for The New York Times Magazine, for example in a 7,700-word article (February 3, 2002) in which she allowed Palestinian interviewees to make outrageous accusations against Israel without rebuttal.

Another former Times correspondent, Chris Hedges (he was the Mideast bureau chief for the Times from 1991-95), is also continuing to make wild accusations against Israel. For instance, he wrote (Harper's magazine, October 2001) that he has seen children shot in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Sarajevo, and mothers with infants lined up and massacred in Algeria, but that until going to Gaza he had "never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

We have only Hedges's word for this claim, which was furiously rejected by the Israeli army (although Hedges doesn't mention this in his piece). No other journalist in Gaza – and there are plenty of them – claims to have seen what Hedges does. Nevertheless, Harper's was so impressed by the quote that they flagged it in very large type on the flap attached to the cover of the magazine, and National Public Radio was so excited that they invited Hedges to repeat his allegations on the air ("Fresh Air," October 30, 2001). Of course, the Times can't be held accountable for an article that appeared elsewhere, but one nevertheless has to wonder how balanced the reporters it assigns to the Middle East are.

MEDIA BIAS PROLONGS THE CONFLICT

Today the New York Times is held in as high regard as ever. (Last year it won a record seven Pulitzer Prizes.) But it isn't doing a very good job when it comes to the Middle East. The distortions of the media are depressing not only because they are untrue, but because they set back the day when there might be peace and coexistence between Israeli and Palestinian.

Liberals like myself want to see two democratic states coexisting in peace. But we have also followed the conflict closely enough to know that the Western media's misreporting has contributed to the failed policies of both American and European diplomats.

For ten years now, ever since Arafat returned to Gaza, moderate Palestinians - outside the earshot of the dozen different security forces Arafat has set up to safeguard his rule – have long whispered to those Western reporters who would listen that they should help to expose the corrupt, dictatorial, and duplicitous ways of Arafat and his clique. Few reporters have done so.

Various groups of Times readers in New York, exasperated with the paper's bias against Israel, have repeatedly sought to discuss the matter with publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Howell Raines. Yet Sulzberger and Raines have refused to meet them. Instead, last November, they agreed to answer questions on their Mideast coverage (for the first time, according to an AP report) from a group of mostly anti-Israel radicals at the University of California at Berkeley. When one student there did ask Raines why the Times's reporting wasn't more accurate, he replied: "In this business, there's only one thing to do when you get it wrong, and that's get it right as soon as you can."

Fine words – and it's about time the New York Times lived up to them.

(Tom Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and the New York Daily News. Among his previous pieces for NRO is "Jeningrad: What the British Media Said.")

PSYCHOLOGISTS TO HELP OUT IN HAIFA SCHOOLS TODAY

Psychologists to help out in Haifa schools today
The Jerusalem Post
March 6, 2003

The Education Ministry announced that it will send teams of psychologists and educational advisers to Haifa schools on Thursday, to help the students deal with Wednesday's bus bombing, in which students were among those wounded.

The Education Ministry said the teams will report back to a situation room after visiting schools and families of those hurt in the attack. The ministry will consult with experts at an emergency meeting on Thursday morning to determine how best to further help Haifa students after the attack.

SEAFOOD TERRORIST GIVEN THREE LIFE SENTENCES

Seafood terrorist given three life sentences
By Moshe Reinfeld
Ha'aretz
March 6, 2003

The Jerusalem District Court yesterday sentenced Murad Ajluni to three consecutive life terms and another 20 years in prison for driving the suicide attacker who carried out a shooting attack on the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv in February 2002, in which three Israelis were killed. Ajluni, 22, from the village of Akeb near Jerusalem, is a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization. He admitted to driving Ibrahim Hasun, together with two other people, from Ramallah to Tel Aviv. Ajluni used his Israeli identity card to cross an IDF roadblock on the way.

IDF THWARTS ABOUT 15 TERROR ATTEMPTS FOR EVERY ATTACK CARRIED OUT

IDF thwarts about 15 terror attempts for every attack carried out
By Amos Harel
Ha'aretz
March 6, 2003

There have been two important changes in the war on terror in the last few months. The first has to do with the Palestinian Authority's attempt for the first time in a long period to limit the firing of Qassam rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory. The second is related to statistics: While there are still suicide bomb attacks, the ratio between the attacks that are carried out and the attacks thwarted by Israeli security forces has completely changed.

The IDF manages to thwart about 15 attempted attacks for every one in which the terrorist achieves his goal. These phenomena, especially in light of the anticipated attack on Iraq, could be interpreted as initial indications that the IDF may be justified in its recent assessment that "the apex of conflict with the Palestinians is already behind us."

In the wake of the ongoing failure of the Cairo cease-fire talks among Palestinian groups, Palestinian security forces found themselves locked into the attempt to stop the terror attacks. Hamas withdrew from the talks while it was in a strong position (Egypt effectively recognized Hamas as equal to the PA in the negotiations), without having to concede a thing. Hamas representatives even rejected an Egyptian suggestion that the organizations commit in secret to prevent terror attacks. This resulted in damage to the PA's standing.

The IDF is operating simultaneously in the Gaza Strip, Nablus and the Jenin area. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz recently asked the IDF for a statistic comparison: the ratio between the number of terror attacks that were thwarted compared to those that took place in Israeli territory.

The statistics – especially those since the wave of arrests in October 2002 – are impressive. In October, security forces thwarted 15 terror attempts within the Green Line borders, compared to two terror attacks that were actually carried out (on a bus at the Bar Ilan junction on the Geha Highway and a bus at Karkur junction near Hadera). In November 2002, 19 attempts were thwarted and two attacks were carried out (in the Kfar Sava mall and on a bus in Jerusalem's Kiryat Menahem). In December 2002, 15 attempted attacks were thwarted and no attacks were actually carried out, and in January of this year, 15 attempts were thwarted and one attack was carried out (at Tel Aviv's old central bus station).

In contrast, in March 2002 – prior to Operation Defensive Shield – security forces thwarted eight terror attempts, while 17 attacks were carried out.

But the ratio of attacks thwarted to attacks carried out does not indicate the extent of Israeli losses. Thirty people were killed in January (23 of them in the Tel Aviv blast), seven were killed in December, 44 in November and 22 in October.

Israel already has a plan to exile PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, and is just waiting for the opportunity. After the attack on Iraq begins, the Americans will be less likely to force a veto; one more attack that results in a lot of casualties, and Arafat's out.

The chances of a major attack are pretty high, in part because the funds and directives for attacks have been flowing at a high speed recently, especially from Iran, but also from Syria and Iraq.

FULL ARTICLES

THE BBC HAS BECOME AN OPEN OPPONENT OF AMERICA’S POLICIES

The BBC has become an open opponent of America's policies
By Barbara Amiel
The (London) Daily Telegraph
March 4, 2003

Television reporting of the Middle East can be rated in a hierarchy descending from bad to worst. America's Public Broadcasting System (PBS) is better than most. The PBS anchor stations may have a philosophy that sits comfortably in the pages of the Guardian, but that doesn't prevent them from remembering that journalism in Western society traditionally stands for values including fairness and objectivity, and they attempt to honour them – if sometimes only in the breach.

Further down the slope come networks such as CNN, which maintain a sham of objectivity in order to hide a news agenda that veers between generalised antipathy to American positions on most issues and a particular dislike of George W. Bush.

The BBC's News and Current Affairs doesn't bother honouring values of even-handedness. It has become an undisguised opponent of American policies and of Britain's insofar as they coincide with America's. This is especially true of Middle East policy, though it also covers the spectrum of issues on which America has taken a position at odds with the BBC, from the Kyoto Accords to the International Criminal Court.

One has only to take a look at the reports of the BBC's chief correspondent in the Middle East, Orla Guerin. Her December 21 account from Bethlehem of how "the Israelis have stolen Christmas" is a classic of the genre. "Israeli tanks have gnawed away at the pavement," she reports.

There is not a mention in her account of the Palestinian gunmen who occupied the Church of the Nativity earlier that month, held its priests hostage and turned the church into a pigsty before the Israelis ended the terrorist sit-in.

BBC News resorts to a number of familiar tricks to pay lip-service to objectivity, beginning with its po-faced determination to present all sides of an issue even when one side may lack all merit. The merit of suicide bombers, for example, simply cannot be equated to those trying to stop them. Debating this is like pairing off an astronomer discussing rocks on the moon and a person who believes the moon is made of green cheese.

The current fad in British television news analysis is to conduct competitive "debates" over key issues. Serious people opposed to the BBC agenda do get on the air, but only in a programme format where any thought is pulverised between at least four or five other debaters and one important new participant – the audience – which votes in the winner.

One is reminded of the Greek dramatists' use of a chorus. The BBC audience doesn't speak in unison, but it performs the same function, echoing whatever the main theme is that the programmers wish to leave with the viewer.

But if the ordinary BBC news service has departed from any pretence of objectivity, the very bottom rung is occupied by the BBC Arabic Service, funded by the Foreign Office, which is to say the British taxpayer.

No one would want the BBC to turn into a Radio Free Europe or Voice of America. That approach to broadcasting, while legitimate, is the tool of a specific political agenda. But given the censorship in the Arab world, one would hope for a BBC approach similar to its glory days in the Second World War - truthful information in areas denied the listeners by their own media.

This is not what they get. The BBC Arabic Service appears to rule out any criticism of Arab leaders or their regimes. Apart from some cryptic and occasional references in news reports, there is no critical discussion and analysis of public policy issues such as human rights, health, housing and illiteracy. There is no discussion of government priorities, government corruption or the activities of the security forces and police. When Saddam Hussein was "re-elected" with a 100 per cent vote, the election was reported as if it were a perfectly normal exercise in democracy.

The very rare exceptions to this often carry anti-West motives: a programme last December 10 included a member of the Iraqi opposition, Hamid Al-Bayati, but the interview with him was turned into an attempt to prove that the opposition was created by foreign enemies of Iraq.

The British report on human rights problems in Iraq, released last December, was reported in the context of its having been written to justify an attack on Iraq. (An exception was a programme broadcast a few days after the release of the report, which contained genuine criticism of human rights in Iraq. The moderator, however, was firmly pro-Saddam and began with a quotation attributed to a British newspaper that threw doubt on the veracity of the whole report.)

On the other hand, there is no shortage of detailed reports about failings of Western systems. There have been lengthy programmes on Palestinians held without trial in Israel, Muslims held by America in Guantanamo Bay and British treatment of asylum seekers. These may be appropriate topics for the Arabic Service, but not in the context of silence about related issues in the Arab world.

The BBC's Arabic Service has also kept listeners up to date on scandals at the Department for Education, the Home Office and even in the life of Prince Charles. Meanwhile, people in the Arab world may have little idea of how the political and economic systems in the West operate, what values lie behind them and what the relationship is between Church and State, media and government, stock market and investor, ordinary people and their police. Before the flaws are explained, the system needs to be understood.

Unsurprisingly, the BBC Arabic Service is consistently hostile to peace between Israel and Palestine, which puts it at odds with the Foreign Office and the Government. Anti-Israel remarks are thrown into topics gratuitously. Almost two years after the UN certified that Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon, BBC Arabic Services still told listeners that Israel was in occupation. Officials of the Palestine Authority and various Palestinian organisations are frequently heard, but rejectionist voices (those against any peace settlement) are favoured. Prominent moderates such as Sari Nusseibeh are rarely heard.

Legitimate journalism may have a Left-wing prism or a Right-wing one. The Guardian or the New Statesman are not any the less legitimate a journalistic enterprise than The Daily Telegraph or The Spectator. One may disagree with a point of view, but that is not the complaint here.

The complaint against the BBC's Arabic Service is that, in its news analysis, it has abandoned the normal traditions of Western journalism and is embarking on exactly the same exercise as the controlled press in Arabic dictatorships, except it does so under the imprimatur of the BBC and at the expense of the British taxpayer.

Telling the truth might mean that the service loses some of its Arab contributors. It might even be jammed. But it would gain respect, and possibly even listeners. We would all be the better for it.

“HIGH TURNOUT” IN SYRIA POLLS

'High turnout' in Syria polls
BBC News
March 3, 2003

Syrian officials have reported a high voter turnout on the first day of parliamentary elections – the first since President Bashar Assad took power in 2000.

Polling centres re-opened for a second day of voting on Monday. They are due to close at 1400 local time (1200 GMT). Voters are choosing 250 parliamentarians, but opposition parties are boycotting the process, saying it is undemocratic.

Mr Assad's Socialist Arab Baath Party (SABP) and six other allied smaller parties grouped in the National Progressive Front are guaranteed 127 of the 250 seats. Other seats are filled by independents.

The state news agency Sana said 4,945 candidates are contesting the seats in the People's Assembly to represent Syria's 15 provinces.

Casting his vote on Sunday, the Syrian Prime Minister, Mohammed Mustafa Miro, said the elections were a way for Syrians to help modernise their country.

Since succeeding his father, the Western-educated Bashar Assad has introduced much-needed economic reforms and permitted a level of political tolerance.

"There is a feeling now that the community wants to be more involved in decision-making," analyst Sameer al-Taqi said.

"One sign of that is that the business community was encouraged to present heavyweight independent candidates."

Many of the candidates have gained momentum from reforms and presented ambitious programmes that aspire to a modern economy and more popular participation in political life.

The current parliament finished its four-year term late last year.

The assembly is a full legislative body that can amend the constitution and other laws and can deliver a vote of no confidence against the cabinet or any of its ministers. The president appoints the cabinet.

But critics have denounced the house as toothless on the grounds that it has traditionally been dominated by MPs from the ruling Baath party.

Candidates have been on the campaign trail for a month, filling city streets with banners, pictures and tents.

Although several new opposition groups have boycotted the election, some analysts and candidates said the groups had lacked the support needed to win.

Independent candidate Yasser al-Nehlawi said candidates who withdrew represented fairly insignificant parties.

"I do not think that any real party has boycotted the election. They (the parties) should have taken part and displayed their (popular) base, if any," he said.

LIBYA SUMMONS HOME AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA AFTER LEADERS EXCHANGE INSULTS

Libya summons home ambassador to Saudi Arabia after leaders exchange insults
The Associated Press
March 3, 2003

Libya decided Monday to recall its ambassador to Saudi Arabia for consultations following a heated and public exchange of insults between Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at a recent Arab summit in Egypt.

Libya's official JANA news agency reported that the secretariat of the General People's Congress, or parliament, expressed "strong discontent for the verbal attack launched against the positions of the great revolution and its symbol, leader Moammar Gadhafi."

Gadhafi, talking at a summit being broadcast live Saturday by most Arab satellite television stations, said that during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, he had spoken with Saudi monarch King Fahd about Libya's concern over the presence of US troops in the kingdom.

"King Fahd told me that his country was threatened and that he would cooperate with the Devil to protect it," Gadhafi said. Muslims consider cooperating with Satan a sin, and to attribute such a remark to King Fahd – who holds the revered position of custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines – would be particularly offensive.

Before the live feed was cut off, Crown Prince Abdullah angrily responded: "Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country and not an agent of colonialism like you and others."

Wagging his finger at Gadhafi, Abdullah said: "You, who brought you to power? Don't talk about matters that you fail to prove. Your lies precede you, while the grave is ahead of you."

A bewildered Gadhafi replied: "By God, I don't know how I am going to answer this man."

The Libyan secretariat responded Monday, deciding to recall the Libyan ambassador to Saudi Arabia "for consultations," according to the JANA report faxed to The Associated Press in Cairo. It wasn't clear how long the ambassador would remain in Tripoli.

The parliament, according to JANA, also decided to ask the People's Committees to discuss Libya's relations with Saudi Arabia and its membership in the 22-nation Arab League, which Gadhafi has in the past criticized as ineffective and threatened to quit.

After the exchange was broadcast Saturday, thousands of anti-Saudi demonstrators took to the streets in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. Some tried to break into the Saudi Embassy but were dispersed by riot police using tear gas and batons.

Saudi officials could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

However, Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal said during a meeting Sunday with editors of Saudi newspapers, that Gadhafi had not apologized to Abdullah because "he who does not have the characteristics of men and does not have noble principles cannot do such things (apologize)."

Furthermore, Prince Saud said, a noble man "would not commit acts that call for apologies."

"Every official must master communicating with others," Prince Saud advised in the remarks, which were published Monday in Al-Jazirah daily newspaper.

SAUDI ENVOY IN UK LINKED TO 9/11

Saudi envoy in UK linked to 9/11
Riyadh's former intelligence chief has been accused in US court documents of helping to fund al-Qaeda, report Paul Harris and Martin Bright
The Observer
March 2, 2003

It was another royal function on a cold February evening as Prince Charles mingled with the guests at the opening of an Oxford clinic. Among the doctors were a few celebrities, including the actress Joanna Lumley. Canapés were eaten, a few glasses of wine were drunk. 'I can't tell you all how pleased and glad I am to be here today,' Charles gushed. Charles stopped to chat with the new Saudi ambassador to Britain, the distinguished figure of Prince Turki al-Faisal. The two friends shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

But Turki is not what he seems. Behind him lies a murky tale of espionage, terrorism and torture. For, while Turki has many powerful friends among Britain's elite, he is no ordinary diplomat. Turki has now been served with legal papers by lawyers acting for relatives of the victims of 11 September.

They accuse him of funding and supporting Osama bin Laden. The Observer can also reveal that Turki has now admitted for the first time that Saudi interrogators have tortured six British citizens arrested in Saudi Arabia and accused of carrying out a bombing campaign.

The revelations throw a stark light on Turki's appointment late last year as Saudi Arabia's new ambassador to Britain. They also cast doubt on the suitability of Charles's relationship with senior Saudis. A year ago Charles had dinner with bin Laden's brother, Bakr bin Laden, and regularly hosted meetings for Turki's predecessor, Dr Ghazi Algosaibi, who was recalled after writing poems praising suicide bombers.

The US lawsuit is seeking more than $1 trillion in com pensation from a list of individuals and companies alleged to have supported al- Qaeda. The claimants' head lawyer, Ron Motley, a veteran of successful anti-tobacco suits, has already called it 'the trial of the century'.

Now, after papers were served on Turki several weeks ago, the Saudi ambassador will be at the heart of it. Legal papers in the case obtained by The Observer make it clear that the allegations are serious and lengthy. Many centre around Turki's role as head of the Saudi intelligence agency. He held the post for 25 years before being replaced in 2001 just before the attacks on New York.

Turki admits to meeting bin Laden four or five times in the 1980s, when the Saudi-born terrorist was being supported by the West in Afghanistan. Turki also admits meeting Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 1998. He says he was seeking to extradite bin Laden at the request of the United States.

However, the legal papers tell a different story. Based on sworn testimony from a Taliban intelligence chief called Mullah Kakshar, they allege that Turki had two meetings in 1998 with al-Qaeda. They say that Turki helped seal a deal whereby al-Qaeda would not attack Saudi targets. In return, Saudi Arabia would make no demands for extradition or the closure of bin Laden's network of training camps. Turki also promised financial assistance to Mullah Omar. A few weeks after the meetings, 400 new pick-up vehicles arrived in Kandahar, the papers say.

Kakshar's statement also says that Turki arranged for donations to be made directly to al-Qaeda and bin Laden by a group of wealthy Saudi businessmen. 'Mullah Kakshar's sworn statement implicates Prince Turki as the facilitator of these money transfers in support of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and international terrorism,' the papers said.

Turki's link to one of al-Qaeda's top money- launderers, Mohammed Zouaydi, who lived in Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001, is also exposed. Zouaydi acted as the accountant for the Faisal branch of the Saudi royal family that includes Turki. Zouaydi, who is now in jail in Spain, is also accused of being al-Qaeda's top European financier. He distributed more than $1 million to al- Qaeda units, including the Hamburg cell of Mohammed Atta which plotted the World Trade Centre attack.

Finally the lawsuit alleges that Turki was 'instrumental' in setting up a meeting between bin Laden and senior Iraqi intelligence agent Faruq al-Hijazi in December 1998. At that meeting it is alleged that bin Laden agreed to avenge recent American bombings of Iraqi targets and in return Iraq offered him a safe haven and gave him blank Yemeni passports.

Turki did not respond to phone calls and a letter sent by The Observer to the Saudi embassy in London.

But his lawyers will have to respond in court. The case is expected to begin in May and experts think it could go on for four of five years. If it rules against him, Turki may face enormous compensation payments and the seizure of his financial assets. It would also cost him his post as ambassador.

Coupled with the looming court case, Turki last week raised alarming questions over the treatment of six Britons jailed in Saudi Arabia when he admitted that they had been tortured. Turki was head of Saudi intelligence when the men were arrested. Saudi authorities claim the men were involved in a 'bootleggers' feud', despite the attacks continuing after their arrest and bearing the hallmarks of Islamic terrorists.

In an astonishing call-in programme, carried on the BBC World Service and unnoticed in Britain, Turki fielded a call from a British resident of Riyadh who knew some of the imprisoned men. The caller confronted him about the torture allegations. Turki said: 'They were tortured and there was a complaint about it and that complaint would have been investigated.'

The revelation has angered relatives of the men and campaigners, who have accused the British Government of sacrificing their freedom in the interests of good diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Last week the relatives met Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who told them that Britain would continue its 'softly, softly' approach. However, that news angered many. 'His stance is the same. He said softly, softly is working. But it has been two years. How much longer?' said one relative at the meeting.

Lib Dem MP John Pugh has also tabled a series of questions about the men in Parliament, but said that Foreign Office officials had failed to answer them. 'I am being blocked,' Pugh said. Diplomatic sources say Pugh has also been asked 'privately' to stop his questions. Pugh has now applied to have the issue debated in the Commons.

WEST’S FORCES NOT IN SAUDI FOREVER

West's forces not in Saudi forever
BBC
February 24, 2003

Saudi Arabia's new ambassador to London, Prince Turki al-Faisal, has suggested that US and British military forces will be asked to leave his country once the Iraqi crisis is resolved.

"We're not going to tell them 'Get the hell out of here', as it were, but we are going to ask them gently and say the situation has ended, let us co-operate on how we can resolve this, and they will be asked to leave," he told the BBC World Service's Talking Point programme.

Prince Turki, a former director of the Saudi intelligence service, stressed that Riyadh was opposed to military intervention in Iraq unless it received the backing of the UN Security Council.

In a wide-ranging interactive interview, he also defended Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws and its controversial prosecution of British expatriates for a string of bomb attacks.

'Only through UN' The ambassador said that US and British forces were on Saudi territory only to patrol the no-fly zones set up in Iraq under the 1991 Safwan Agreements to end the Gulf war.

He denied a questioner's suggestion that the forces were there to protect Saudi Arabia or its monarchy.

Asked if Saudi Arabia would allow its territory to be used for military action against Iraq, he said his country did not want "this war" but would "play its role as a member of the UN" if such action was approved by the Security Council.

"We have to go through the UN – we did it in 1991 and we should do it again in 2003," he said.

Other Gulf states which already allowed US-led forces to be based on their territory were, he said, acting under their own treaty obligations.

He also said that any future government of Iraq should be decided by its own people.

The ambassador also answered questions specifically about Saudi Arabia:

On reform within Saudi Arabia, he said: "Democracy denies the sovereignty of God over the government that would be established in the name of democracy"

Asked why Saudi Arabia had no churches, he said Christians did not recognise the Prophet Mohammed

On the Saudi public's reaction to 11 September, he said that many were "in denial" that Saudi nationals could have taken part in "this horrible, vicious attack"

On Britons jailed for recent bomb attacks Saudi Arabia blames on "bootlegging", he said Riyadh had no interest in hiding any real terror threat to Western expatriates.

SAUDIS: NO “PARTICULAR CONCERN”

Saudis: No 'particular concern'
Newsweek
March 10, 2003

The Bush administration has decided to reject the recommendation to place Saudi Arabia on an American blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom

March 10 issue – In a move expected to infuriate religious conservatives and human-rights advocates alike, the Bush administration has decided to reject the recommendation of a special government commission to place Saudi Arabia on an American blacklist of countries that violate religious freedom.

Newsweek has learned that Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to shortly release an annual list of "countries of particular concern" – a formal branding of nations the U.S. government concludes engage in "systemic, ongoing and egregious" violations of the rights of religious minorities. After a contentious internal battle, the Saudis won't be on it – despite the conclusion by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that, with the demise of the Taliban, the Islamic nation is probably the worst oppressor of religious rights in the world. "I'm appalled and disappointed," says Felice D. Gaer, the commission chair, about the decision. "But I'm not surprised."

REPORT: SAUDIS TRANSFER $500M TO AL QAIDA

Report: Saudis transfer $500m to Al Qaida
Middle East Newsline
February 26, 2003

Saudi Arabia is said to have transferred $500 million to Al Qaida over the past decade.

A report submitted to the United Nations asserts that the Saudi funds represent the most important source of financing for Al Qaida. The study said Riyad, pressured by leading officials, has failed to stop the flow of money to Al Qaida in wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

"One must question the real ability and willingness of the kingdom to exercise any control over the use of religious money in and outside of the country," the report said.

The 34-page report was written by a French investigator at the request of Colombia, which occupies the presidency of the Security Council. Jean-Charles Brisard, the investigator, has long studied the issue of Saudi financing of Islamic insurgency groups.

SAUDIS FUNDED BALI BOMB CLAIM

Saudis funded Bali bomb claim
Australian news.com
March 4, 2003

An American lawyer has claimed he has proof that money from Saudi Arabia was used to fund terrorist cells involved in the Bali bombing.

Washington-based Allan Gerson – who is leading a bid on behalf of September 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabian banks, charities and royal family members - said today he had evidence to show Saudi Arabians gave money to terrorists in Europe who made trips to Bali.

Dr Gerson said it was likely the European cells also helped fund the Bali attack, which killed about 190 people including 88 Australians.

"When we looked at the actual evidence, we found out, to our surprise, how vast the network of support was, it extended way beyond cells in Europe to cells in Bali," Dr Gerson told ABC radio.

"I discovered that connection to the Bali bombing.

"We have seen evidence of money that went from Saudi sources, that went through the medium of various entities in Europe, to support terrorists cells there that also ... ended up in Bali because of the active intervention of entities with close ties to the Saudis."

Dr Gerson said he could not reveal too many details because his evidence had been uncovered through judicial co-operation with European nations.

He said the money from Saudi Arabia went to terrorists connected with that country.

"Some of the money they provided and support and physical presence we have reason to believe ... that there was that Bali connection," Dr Gerson said.

"The same operators in Europe actually made trips to Bali and we have good reason to believe that there was also financial transfers.

"I have come across evidence that shows you can connect the dots between terror cells in Europe that received financing from individuals and entities in Saudi Arabia.

"Those terrorists cells in Europe definitely had connections with Bali."

He said the ties between terrorist cells around the world was troublesome.

"The spread of the philosophy of global Jihad is alarming and it's very extensive," Dr Gerson said.

Dr Gerson is a former prosecutor of Nazi war criminals and represented many of the families of the victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, in their claims against the Libyan government.