FULL ITEMS

THE AP STORY ON THE CEASEFIRE

Palestinian militant groups approve deal to end violence
The Associated Press
June 29, 2003

The militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups announced a three-month suspension of attacks against Israel on Sunday – effective immediately – a breakthrough in attempts to end almost three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

Israel expressed skepticism about the announcement. The announcement came as Israelis and Palestinians worked out details of an Israeli troop pullback in the Gaza Strip, a condition of the so-called road map to peace and a Palestinian state by 2005. Israeli reports said the pullback could start Sunday, while Palestinians said they expected it to begin Monday. The timing of the militants' truce declaration came as a surprise, after Palestinian officials said it would be delayed at least until Monday because of political infighting in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, a partner in the three-way deal.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad apparently did not want to wait for Fatah to resolve its internal agreements. In response to the announcement, Fatah officials said they were still not ready to join the declaration. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader, read the truce announcement in a phone call to The Associated Press.

"The two movements (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) decided to suspend military operations against the Zionist enemy for three months, starting today," Rantisi said.

Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed al-Hindi confirmed that the truce took effect Sunday.

"This is a joint declaration between Islamic Jihad and Hamas and I think our brothers in Fatah are going to declare their position soon,'' al-Hindi told the AP.

Israeli officials said they fear the truce will be used by militants to regroup for more attacks against Israel. The government wants the Palestinian Authority to dismantle militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as required by the U.S.-backed road map to Mideast peace and Palestinian statehood by 2005.

"We are not holding our breath," Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir said. "We here in Israel fully support the road map, and we want it to be implemented chapter and verse."

Rantisi reiterated a list of demands – although not preconditions – for the suspension of attacks. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said they want Israel to halt all military strikes, including targeted killings of wanted militants such as a recent attack on Rantisi.

The groups also want a release of Palestinian prisoners. "We consider ourselves free from this initiative if the Israeli enemy does not implement all the conditions," Rantisi said. The Fatah Central Committee met Sunday to try to defuse its crisis over the truce. Key members of the group – led by Arafat and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas – were upset at being kept out of negotiations. Talks with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the main political rivals of Fatah, were largely handled by Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader jailed by Israel. "It is impossible to recognize an agreement prepared by one person who is in prison,'' said Sakher Habash, a member of the Fatah Central Committee. Fatah members angered by the back-channel talks insisted Sunday that the introduction to the document be changed and that the U.S.-backed "road map" be mentioned, according to officials close to the dispute. Such an addition would be unacceptable to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have rejected the plan.

Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Nabil Shaath said after the meeting that Fatah remained committed to the truce, but that factions might issue separate statements.

"If we cannot agree on one joint declaration by all the factions, then each faction will make a declaration using whatever political language they choose. The important thing is a commitment to the cease-fire," he said. It was not clear if Shaath's comments reflected the opinions of all committee members.

Sunday's renewed debate in the central committee came even though Fatah endorsed the truce declaration in principle Saturday, said Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia, a committee member. Over the weekend, the three main groups held talks with 10 smaller factions on joining the truce. Most factions were expected to go along with the deal but none was part of the joint Hamas-Islamic Jihad announcement.

In one snag, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical PLO faction, told Palestinian officials Sunday that while it would not join a declaration, it would not violate a truce.

A Fatah-affiliated militia, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, also said in a leaflet that it rejected the truce. The militia consists of several armed gangs, however, and it was unclear whether the statement reflected the majority. It is widely believed that the militia could be brought in line with pressure from Arafat and Barghouti. In Jerusalem, meanwhile, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice held talks Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a day after meeting with Abbas. Rice is talking to both sides about implementation of the road map.

Israel Army Radio said Rice and Sharon discussed details of Israel's troop pullback and an easing of restrictions, including a release of Palestinian prisoners and the possible rebuilding of the Palestinians' international airport in southern Gaza. Israeli troops destroyed the runway in 2001. During Saturday's meeting, Rice invited Abbas to the White House in the coming days, and he accepted, a senior Palestinian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The White House did not immediately confirm the invitation.

Abbas would be the first Palestinian leader in three years at the White House. President Bush has boycotted Arafat, saying he is tainted by terror, while Sharon has met repeatedly with the president. Abed Rabbo said the Palestinians told Rice of the importance of getting Israel to halt attacks against militants and release prisoners, including Barghouti. "We told her that this would create a positive atmosphere to implement the road map,'' the cabinet minister said. Israeli media said troops could start pulling out of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun as soon as Sunday night. However, Palestinian Brig. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaide, head of public security in the strip, said both sides first wanted to tour the areas in question, and the withdrawal would start Monday morning.

During the meeting, Israeli officials agreed to Palestinian demands for greater freedom of movement and the lifting of a travel ban on Palestinians under age 35, Majaide said. Israel will issue entry permits for 10,000 day laborers and 5,000 merchants, he said. Israel sealed crossing points from Palestinian territories at the start of fighting, nearly three years ago, preventing more than 100,000 Palestinians from reaching jobs inside Israel. The security deal, negotiated by Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan and Israel's Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, came with an Israeli pledge to halt targeted killings of wanted Palestinians – a key militant demand for continuing with a truce. Palestinians in turn agreed to act against what Israel calls "ticking bombs'' – assailants on their way to attack Israelis. But Israel has reserved the right to go after assailants themselves if Palestinians do not.

 

STATEMENT OF INITIATIVE

An unofficial translation by an Arabic language expert of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad declaration

Out of our desire for the unity of the Palestinian ranks at this dangerous phase which our people and our cause are going through, and in order to protect our national unity achieved through the intifada and the resistance and documented by the blood of the martyrs, and as our contribution to consolidating Palestinian national dialogue on the basis of adherence to the rights of our people, and in order to protect our internal front from the danger of schism and confrontation, and in order to prevent the enemy from having any excuse to wreck it, and in an assertion of the legitimate right to resist the occupation as a strategic option until the end of the Zionist occupation of our homeland and until we achieve all our national rights, and in response to efforts by many in the Palestinian and Arab arena who care about the unity of the Palestinian national ranks, we declare the following initiative:

A. Suspension of the military operations against the Zionist enemy for three months, effective today, in return for the following conditions:

1. An immediate cessation of all forms of Zionist aggression against our Palestinian people including incursions, demolitions, closures and sieges on cities, villages and refugee camps. This includes the siege imposed on President Yasser Arafat, house demolitions, levelling of agricultural land and assaults against land, property and Christian and Islamic holy sites, especially the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque. In addition, the immediate cessation of all individual assassination operations, massacres, all arrests and deportations against our people, leaders, cadres and fighters.

2. The release of all prisoners and detainees, Palestinian and Arab, from occupation prisons without condition or restriction and the return to their homes first and foremost of those who have spent long periods and those with lengthy sentences, women, children, the sick and elderly.

B. In the event that the enemy does not heed these conditions and commitments, or breaches any of them, we see ourselves unencumbered by this initiative and we hold the enemy responsible for the consequences.

Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement)
Islamic Jihad

29.6.2003

THE BBC

Here is some additional information on the contents of the program which aired yesterday on BBC World, and which the Israeli government has called the "final straw" in the BBC's campaign to demonize the state of Israel. (The program aired several hours after my dispatch "Israel breaks links with BBC in anger at 'demonization'" was sent, which is why I include this new information in this follow-up dispatch.)

The program compared Israel's democracy to the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Both were said to possess weapons of mass destruction.

The BBC claimed (wrongly) that an Israeli commission of inquiry found Ariel Sharon "personally responsible" for the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon.

According to press reports, no mention was made by the BBC that a Christian Lebanese militia committed the killings, or that the 1983 Kahan Commission stated that "no Israeli was directly responsible for the events which occurred in the camps." (Sharon, who was then defense minister, was chastised for not anticipating that the Christian Phalangists would attack Palestinian civilians in revenge for the various PLO massacres of Christian civilians in Lebanon.)

The program also quoted Palestinians who accused Israel of using new, mysterious gases against Palestinians.

When asked by the BBC why Israel would not reveal its military secrets, Shimon Peres told the BBC: "You are now having a dialogue with yourself."

Tom Gross adds:

The BBC is the world's biggest television and radio news broadcaster. BBC World – "The BBC's 24 Hour Global TV News Channel" – is now widely watched as the international television station of choice in many Middle East, Asian and African countries.

BBC World Service Radio also attracts 153 million listeners daily.

The BBC's reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been widely criticized in Israel and elsewhere as unbalanced and supportive of Palestinian terrorism. Israeli cable television operators dropped the BBC World news channel from their roster of stations in April.

Here are some other examples of BBC reporting extracted from my own previous writings on the subject:

* In 2001, the BBC's then chief Jerusalem correspondent Hillary Anderson began a report by saying: "Deep underground in Bethlehem are the remnants of an atrocity so vile, so far back in history, King Herod's slaughter of the innocents." (The camera then shows a pile of skulls without identifying them.) Then Anderson moved on to the deaths of Palestinian children, evoking Herod's Massacre of the Innocents, to remind the viewer that Jews, who tried to kill the infant Christ, are busy killing innocent children once again.

The allegation that Israel deliberately kills Palestinian children is horrible and deeply upsetting to anyone who cares about the truth. But equally upsetting is the possibility that Hillary Anderson and her producers at the BBC, are so ignorant of the history of anti-Semitism, that they do not know that the myth of Herod's slaughter is the original anti-Semitic blood libel, which arguably gave rise to centuries of persecution and pogroms, culminating in the Holocaust.

* In June 2001, a flagship BBC "Panorama" documentary, entitled "The Accused" singled out Ariel Sharon from among all the world's leaders and suggested he should be indicted for war crimes. (Shortly after this, attempts to have Sharon indicted in Belgium for "war crimes" intensified. The BBC program was shown in Belgium, as elsewhere.) The BBC regarded this "Panorama" program as so important that they aired it four times in a single weekend (a highly unusual policy for the BBC).

In the 1980s Sharon successfully sued Time Magazine for similar libels in connection with his alleged failure to prevent the Sabra and Shatilla massacre. The BBC has simply ignored the overwhelming evidence and ruling for Sharon in the case against Time magazine.

* On May 6, 2001, Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC's Arabic service Gaza correspondent for the past ten years, told a Hamas rally in Gaza on that "journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people." The best the BBC could do in response to requests at the time from the Israeli government that they distance themselves from these remarks, was to issue a statement saying, "Fayad's remarks were made in a private capacity. His reports have always matched the best standards of balance required by the BBC."

 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE

Press release by Oxford University public relations office.
June 2003

Concerning Comments by Professor Andrew Wilkie

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford said:

"Our staff may hold strongly felt personal opinions. Freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of University life, but under no circumstances are we prepared to accept or condone conduct that appears to, or does, discriminate against anyone on grounds of ethnicity or nationality, whether directly or indirectly. This candidate is entitled to submit an application and to have it dealt with fairly according to our normal criteria.

"Professor Wilkie has issued a personal apology regarding remarks he made by e mail to an applicant for a research degree at Oxford. An immediate and thorough investigation of this matter is now being carried out in accordance with the University's procedures and a report will be presented to the Vice-Chancellor next week."

Note to news editors from Oxford University:

The full text of Professor Wilkie's apology is:

"I recognise and apologise for any distress caused by my e mail of 23 June and the wholly inappropriate expression of my personal opinions in that document. I was not speaking on behalf of Oxford University or any of its constituent parts. I entirely accept the University of Oxford's Equal Opportunities and Race Equality policies."

FULL ARTICLES

THE BBC “DEMONISES THE ISRAELIS AND GIVES OUR TERRORIST ENEMIES REASONS TO ATTACK US”

Israel breaks links with BBC in anger at 'demonisation'
By Christopher Walker
The Times (of London)
June 28, 2003

Israel broke all contact with the BBC yesterday in protest at its repeated "demonisation" of the country and today's planned showing on BBC World of a critical documentary on Israel's nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal. The move will involve a refusal to put up official spokesmen for BBC interviews. There will be visa restrictions, not imposed on other news organisations in Israel, to ensure that the bureau chief is rotated every few months and to make it hard for BBC staff to report.

"The BBC will discover that bureaucracy can be applied with goodwill or without it. And after the way that they have repeatedly tried to delegitimise the state of Israel, we, as hosts, have none left for them," Daniel Seaman, director of the government press office, told The Times.

"We see the well-known pro-Arab touch of the Foreign Office and the traditional anti-Semitism of parts of Britain's Establishment in the way they are acting against us."

Also planned are non-co-operation in all requests for assistance with such restrictions as military road blocks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. A decision to expel all BBC correspondents has been put on ice, but not dismissed out of hand. The first test comes today when the BBC requests that Israeli officials go to its studios to comment on the weekend visit of Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Adviser, who is to have talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders about the "road map" to peace.

Mr Seaman, 42, said the sanctions had been decided at an angry meeting of representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Ministry and the government press office because of what was seen as an overall BBC attitude towards Israel "verging on the anti-Semitic". They were in reaction to a series of programmes which had sought "to delegitimise Israel and showed some of the attitudes once familiar in Der Stürmer (the Nazi journal)."

Mr Seaman added: "Our complaint is with the BBC as an organisation rather than its bureau here, which does try from time to time to rectify its mistakes. The weapons programme, which contains the ridiculous false assertion that we used nerve gas against the Palestinians, was the last straw.

"We decided that we had to draw a red line rather than just complain about a consistent attitude in which successive BBC programmes attempt to place us in the same context as totalitarian, axis-of-evil countries such as Iraq and Iran."

"The attitude of the BBC is more than a pure journalistic matter; it is dangerous to the existence of the state of Israel because it demonises the Israelis and gives our terrorist enemies reasons to attack us. There is no dialogue between Israel and the BBC and no recognition inside the corporation of the sensitivity of a people who have faced attempted annihilation. The questions about nuclear weapons asked by the BBC are never directed against the US or Britain. Mr Sharon is never mentioned without some critical reference to his alleged right-wing tendencies or military past, while Islamic terrorists are politely referred to as 'militants' out of a reluctance by the BBC to upset Muslims by telling the truth."

The final element in Israel's frustration was the BBC's promotion of the programme Israel's Secret Weapon, shown in Britain in March on BBC Two, with a series of provocative questions onscreen: "Which country in the Middle East has undeclared nuclear weapons? Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical weapons capabilities? Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections? Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years?" Israel said it would refuse to put up spokesmen to be interviewed on BBC programmes and would not co-operate with BBC requests for help in such matters as correspondents getting through road blocks and Tel Aviv airport, and in the issuing of press cards.

Israel has applied heavy pressure on the BBC not to re-broadcast the weapons programme. The sections that have caused such anger in Israel compare Israel to Iraq and raise the question of why the world had demanded UN inspections in Iraq, but not similar inspections on Israel.

Andrew Steele, chief of the BBC's six-strong bureau in Jerusalem, which includes the correspondents Orla Guerin, Jeremy Cooke and James Reynolds, said that he had not even seen the programme. He had referred all queries to the BBC press office in London.

Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC News said last night: "We regret that the Israelis felt the need to take this action but we stand behind the veracity of the film."

The questions posed by the BBC trailers

Which country in the Middle East has undeclared nuclear weapons?

Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities?

Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections?

Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years?

 

EMAIL FROM ANDREW WILKIE

From: "Andrew Wilkie"
To: "Amit Duvshani"
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: PhD application

Dear Amit Duvshani,

Thank you for contacting me, but I don't think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because the (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country.

I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I'm sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Wilkie
Nuffield Professor of Pathology,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
The John Radcliffe,
Headington,
Oxford OX3 9DS,
UK.

Fax (44)-1865-222500
awilkie@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk

 

BBC REFUSES TO SAY SORRY FOR IRAQ REPORTING

BBC refuses to say sorry for Iraq reporting
AFP (Agence France Presse)
June 26, 2003

The BBC dug in its heels and refused to bow to demands by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "sultan of spin" to apologize for its reporting on the Iraq war and weapons of mass destruction.

Blair's powerful director of communications, Alastair Campbell, took the world's biggest and best-known public broadcaster to task Wednesday when he appeared before a parliamentary committee.

He told the House of Commons foreign affairs committee that there was no truth to a BBC radio report, quoting an unnamed source, that Downing Street embellished a September 2002 dossier on Iraq to beef up the case for war.

"In relation to the BBC story: it is a lie, it was a lie, it's a lie that's continually repeated and until we get an apology for it I will continue making sure people know it's a lie," Campbell said.

But, speaking on BBC radio Thursday, the network's director of news Richard Sambrook snapped back at Campbell for "seriously misrepresenting" BBC journalism.

"He said we had accused him and the prime minister of lying. That's not true. We haven't," Sambrook said.

"He said we accused the prime minister of misleading the Commons. We have never said any such thing. He said we were trying to suggest the prime minister had led the country into war on a false basis. We've never suggested that," he said.

"He said the BBC had an anti-war agenda. That's untrue, we have no agenda. Finally he said we've not apologised. Well, that is true – because we have nothing to apologise for."

Sambrook spoke on the Today program, the early-morning soap box of Britain's political class, whose defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan had orignally reported the allegation about the September dossier.

It was made by an unidentified individual close to the intelligence community who, Sambrook said, was "a senior, credible and reliable source."

According to the BBC, a one-sentence claim in the 50-page dossier – that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within just 45 minutes – was inserted under political pressure from Downing Street.

Many assumed that that pressure came straight from Campbell, a former tabloid political reporter with no shortage of enemies among politicians and journalists who resent the power he wields behind the scenes.

As Blair's media strategist, and first official spokesman, the 46-year-old Campbell is nicknamed "the sultan of spin" for his presumed ability to manipulate the news media.

Though nominally part of the government, the British Broadcasting Corp. – a vast web of radio stations, television channels, magazines and Internet sites, largely financed by a rigorously enforced tax on television sets – is fiercely protective of its editorial independence.

Gilligan, who like many BBC star reporters also writes for non-BBC print media, stood by his story when he appeared before the foreign affairs committee last week.

It is looking into the decisions that led to Britain's participation in the Iraq war. On Friday it will hear from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for the second time this week, but behind closed doors.

Blair has ordered a separate inquiry by parliament's intelligence and security committee. Though it usually meets in camera, he has promised that its findings will be published.

 

BLAIR AND THE BBC

Blair-BBC
By Michael Mcdonough
The Associated Press
June 27, 2003

The British Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday sharply rejected a charge by Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications director that it lied about the government's use of intelligence on Iraqi weapons.

The dispute centers on a BBC report that Blair's spokesman, Alastair Campbell, was involved in redrafting an intelligence service dossier to emphasize a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of Saddam Hussein giving the order.

On Wednesday, Campbell testified before a parliamentary inquiry into the government's use of intelligence to bolster its case that the threat from Iraqi weapons justified military action.

"I find it incredible ... that people can report, based on one single anonymous, uncorroborated source ... that the prime minister, the Cabinet, the intelligence agencies, people like myself, connived to persuade Parliament to send British forces into action on a lie," Campbell told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Until the BBC acknowledge that is a lie, I will keep banging on ... and they better issue an apology pretty quick."

But the director of BBC News, Richard Sambrook, on Thursday denied that the network had ever accused Blair of lying and leading the country to war on a false premise.

"We have never suggested anything of that kind," he told BBC radio. "We're not going to apologize for something we haven't said. ... I think Alastair Campbell seriously misrepresented the BBC's journalism."

Sambrook defended a report by BBC defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan claiming that British intelligence sources were unhappy about the prominence of the 45-minute claim in a dossier published last September.

"We have always said that we had one senior and credible source in the intelligence services who told us that some of those involved in compiling the September dossier were unhappy about how it was finally presented," he said.

In Wednesday's hearing, Campbell sought to discredit the initial BBC report on the 45-minute claim.

"I've seen the defense correspondent change his story time and time again, talk about one source, then there were four sources, then his sources were journalists on other newspapers," Campbell told the inquiry. "If that is BBC journalism, then God help them."

But Sambrook robustly rejected that attack.

"I'm entirely satisfied that it is a senior, credible and reliable source," he said. "And frankly ... I don't think the BBC needs to be taught lessons in the use of sources by a communications department which plagiarized a 12-year-old thesis and distributed it unattributed."

The government has admitted it lifted material from a graduate thesis posted on the Internet in another dossier on Iraq published in February.

Campbell pressed again, writing to Sambrook on Thursday afternoon to ask whether the BBC stood by its reports on the September dossier, and how it obtained them. He said he wanted a reply "by the end of the day."

Sambrook issued a statement saying, "We stand by our entire story," and adding, "In my experience, this is an unprecedented level of pressure on the BBC from Downing Street.

"The BBC will respond properly to these matters, but not to a deadline dictated by Mr. Campbell," Sambrook said.

FULL ARTICLES

EGYPT BANS “MATRIX RELOADED” BECAUSE THE FILM IS TOO VIOLENT

Egypt bans 'Matrix Reloaded'
Associated Press
Cairo, Egypt
June 15, 2003

Back in the day, racy productions would be described as "Banned in Boston." Now, they're criticized in Cairo.

Officials in Egypt have banned the box office hit "The Matrix Reloaded." The ban is done on religious grounds because the film is too violent.

The head of the Egyptian censorship body says the country's highest committee decided not to let the movie be shown. An official with the censorship body says there's no one scene the panel had problems with; it was the movie as a whole.

But in a statement the committee said it did like the high-tech effects, which they describe as "fabulous."

The "Matrix" sequel, starring Keanu Reeves is still among the top five movies in the United States and has taken in more than $200 million in four weeks.

 

“SHEIKH SAUD DOES NOT FEEL THERE IS A PLACE FOR WOMEN IN TODAY’S ARAB SOCIETY”

Emirate prince ousted in women's rights row
By Susan Bisset
The Daily Telegraph (London)
June 15, 2003

The ruling family of one of the seven United Arab Emirates has deposed its crown prince over claims that he was too sympathetic to women's rights.

An official decree issued yesterday announced that Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al-Qassimi, 63, had been dethroned in favour of one of his younger brothers.

Sheikh Khalid had been the de facto ruler of the emirate of Ras al-Khaimah for the past four years since his elderly father, Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed al-Qassimi, became frail. Sheikh Saqr is one of the world's longest-serving heads of state, having been ruler since 1948.

The decree appoints Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al-Qassimi, 48, as the crown prince, replacing Sheikh Khalid who has been heir to the throne for 37 years, according to WAM, the official Emirates news agency.

WAM reported that it was not immediately clear why Sheikh Khalid was removed. However, a government employee close to the ruling family said that the effective coup centred on Sheikh Khalid's wife, Shaikah Fawqai al-Qassimi, a playwright and women's rights activist in her early 40s.

"Sheikh Khalid was told, at a meeting with his father and six of his brothers, that he had to banish his wife from the emirate and demolish the ladies' club that helps women here if they have problems," said the employee.

"She has done a lot to bring the country forward, but Sheikh Saud does not feel there is a place for women in today's Arab society. Sheikh Khalid said he would think about it, but they did not give him time to come back with his answer – they just issued the decree."

Last night, about 1,000 supporters of Sheikh Khalid, including tribal leaders, gathered outside his palace in a peaceful protest against his brother. The government employee said that the army fired machinegun bursts over the protesters' heads. "There were also about 50 to 60 police vehicles. The crowd has now dispersed, but it is too soon to say what will happen. It's going to be a very long night."

Before his appointment as crown prince, Sheikh Saud chaired Ras al-Khaimah's royal court, which handles mainly administrative responsibilities. He is the son of Sheikh Saqr's third wife, the daughter of one of the UAE's most prominent businessmen, Ahmed al-Ghurair.

Sheik Saqr has six other sons, from three wives.

The dethronement of Ras al-Khaimah's crown prince is the first such dramatic shake-up in the history of the seven emirates, which are comprised of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ras al-Khaimah, Umm al-Qaiwain Sharjah, Fujairah and Ajman.

The crown princes are appointed by each emirate's ruler and approved by the federal government in Abu Dhabi.

A coup attempt in the early 1990s in Sharjah was put down by the federal government.

Ras al-Khaimah is one of the poorer emirates. Its economy survives largely on the generosity of neighbouring emirates. It has no oil and relies on traditional trades of fishing and dhow building. Its population of 170,000 live with traditions and values unchanged for many generations.

 

SAUDI-BEHEADING

Saudi-beheading
The Associated Press
June 15, 2003

A Saudi man convicted of murder was beheaded in public in the eastern city of Ihsa, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Mohammed bin Jowainan al-Arjani al-Ajmi was found guilty of killing Musfir bin Mohammed al-Arjani al-Ajmi following an argument, the statement said.

Al-Ajmi's execution on Saturday, carried out by sword, brings the number of beheadings in the kingdom this year to 13. A Pakistani convicted with drug trafficking was beheaded Friday.

The statement said al-Ajmi drove after his victim, who was on foot, and ran over him over repeatedly until he died. It was unclear how many times al-Ajmi drove over his victim. Their relationship also was unclear.

Last year, at least 49 people – including two women – were beheaded. At least 81 people were beheaded in 2001.

Under laws rooted in a strict interpretation of Islam, Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for murder, rape, apostasy, drug trafficking and armed robbery. Executions are carried out in public to serve as a deterrent.

 

AT LEAST 13 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PUT TO DEATH IN SAUDI ARABIA THIS YEAR

Saudi Arabia beheads Pakistani for drug smuggling
Reuters
June 16, 2003

Saudi Arabia, which implements strict Islamic sharia law, beheaded a Pakistani man on Monday for smuggling heroin into the conservative kingdom, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The execution raised the number of people reported to have been put to death in the country this year to at least 13.

The Gulf Arab state executes murderers, rapists and drug smugglers, usually by public beheading.

At least 45 people were executed last year, 75 in 2001 and 121 in 2000.

 

AMERICAN WOMAN TAKES REFUGE IN CONSULATE IN JEDDAH

American woman takes refuge in consulate in Jeddah
Reuters
June 19, 2003

An American-born woman married to a Saudi man who fled to the U.S. consulate in Jeddah last weekend with her children said on Thursday she would stay there until given safe passage to the United States.

In a telephone interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" show, Sarah Saga said she would not leave the consulate because she feared her husband and father would hurt her and her children.

"It's very dangerous for me to go out of the consulate. I have no choice but to stay here until I can take my kids with me," Saga said.

"The kids might be taken. There is my father out there and my husband. They are both angry and I don't know what they are capable of," she added.

Saga has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past 18 years after being separated from her American mother, Debbie Dournier when her father took her to Saudi Arabia.

Saga said she had been told she could stay in the consulate until her case was resolved.

Under Saudi law, husbands have a strong claim to custody over the children, who are considered Saudi citizens. The husbands also have the right to decide whether their wives and children can leave the country.

The U.S. State Department has been widely criticized over the past two years, both for turning an American woman away from the embassy in the Saudi capital Riyadh and for failing to secure access to children held by Saudi fathers.

 

U.S. PUTS 15 COUNTRIES ON SANCTIONS LIST FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING

U.S. puts 15 countries on sanctions list for human trafficking
By Yoichi Kosukegawa
Kyodo News
June 12, 2003

The United States designated 15 countries, including North Korea and Myanmar, Wednesday as subject to potential U.S. economic sanctions for insubstantial efforts to combat international human trafficking. The 13 other countries the U.S. State Department cited as subject to potential sanctions in its third annual Trafficking in Persons Report are Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Kazakstan, Liberia, Sudan, Suriname, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

"In our 21st century world, where freedom and democracy are spreading to every continent, it is appalling and morally unacceptable that hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are exploited, abused and enslaved by peddlers in human misery," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in releasing the report at a news conference.

The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act, enacted in October 2000, requires the department to submit an annual report to Congress on the status of severe forms of trafficking in persons.

The department classifies countries into three tiers. The 15 countries were put on the Tier 3 list of those that do not fully comply with the act's minimum standards and are making insignificant efforts to come into compliance.

Tier 2 countries, such as Japan and Canada, do not fully comply but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance. Tier 1 countries are in full compliance with the act's minimum standards.

The number of Tier 3 countries was lower than the 19 cited in last year's report.

For the first time, Tier 3 countries could face sanctions including losing certain types of U.S. assistance. The sanctions would be effective Oct. 1, though the U.S. government can waive any penalties.

Among this year's 15 Tier 3 countries, North Korea was cited as a source country for persons trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor.

"Economic and political conditions in North Korea drive large numbers of Koreans to seek a way out of the country, putting them at risk of victimization by traffickers," the report said.

North Korean women who enter northern China may be sold as brides and exploited into prostitution while people are transported to work in isolated regions of Russia for forced labor to pay down the North Korean government's foreign debt to Moscow, it said.

The report also listed Myanmar for allowing continued internal forced labor by the military.

Many industrialized countries were designated Tier 1 countries, defined as those that fully comply with the act's minimum standards, but Japan was again listed in the Tier 2 category of countries that do not yet fully comply with the minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance.

"Japan is a country of destination for men, women, and children trafficked for sexual exploitation," the report said, adding that victims come mainly from China, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines, Colombia and Eastern Europe.

"Japan's law enforcement and immigration response is seriously hindered because government officials, unclear on the nature of trafficking, tend to define the crime too narrowly and disagree among themselves about who is a trafficking victim," it said.

A total of 75 countries appear on the Tier 2 list, up from the 52 cited in last year's report. Other Tier 2 countries listed in this year's report include Canada, China, Indonesia, Laos and Mexico.

There are 26 Tier 1 countries and territories in this year's report, including Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Last year's Tier 1 list had 18 countries and territories.

 

EGYPTIAN BIOLOGIST: ISRAEL PRODUCES ANTI-PALESTINIAN BACTERIA

Egyptian Biologist: Israel produces anti-Palestinian bacteria
The Media Line
May 23, 2003

Are Jews still poisoning wells? This prevalent anti-Jewish allegation from the dark ages took a modern form on Wednesday. The accuser is an Egyptian Professor of micro-genetic engineering, Professor Wagdi 'Abd Al-Fatah Sawahil. Sawahil gave the lecture at the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up in Abu Dabi, a center supported by the Arab League.

"Israel not only uses chemical drugs as means for getting information from Palestinian prisoners and detainees, but it also intends to use the Palestinians as guinea pigs," said Dr. Sawahil during his lecture. "The Israelis are designing and producing new types of diseases, viruses, bacteria and some genetically modified substances, which specifically attack body cells that contain a Palestinian hereditary substance."

"Nonsense," says Adam Friedman, a Professor from the Genetics Department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem told The Media Line. "It's impossible to specifically target genes from a particular ethnic group. Furthermore, the Palestinians don't have a pool of distinctive genes. Note also that Palestinians – and Arabs in general – have genes very similar to those of Jews. It is worth checking where this so-called scientist studied and the source of his professional knowledge."

"This isn't the first time that the Egyptians have accused Israel of a series of scientific 'developments' targeted at Egypt," says Dr. Rivka Yadlin, a researcher at the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University. "Israel was accused of exporting poisonous plants during the nineties; it was accused of standing behind rat epidemics as well as developing aphrodisiac chewing gum meant to lure virgins. Developing an anti-Palestinian virus is just as ludicrous as these allegations."

In his lecture, Prof. Sawahil also attacked the U.S. and Britain. "One of the objectives of the Anglo-American war on Iraq was to eliminate Iraqi scholars, experts and scientists" he said. "The object of this is to implement the Israeli plan to eliminate all Arab atom scientists... and to intimidate Arab intellectuals to stay clear of fields of research which Washington regards as prohibited... because they pose a threat to the Israeli entity."

The Professor doesn't mention Israel specifically, instead calling it "the Israeli entity." This is a reincarnation of the term "Zionist entity" used by Arab states for many years after Israel was established, aimed to show they do not recognize Israel. Various Islamic organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad still use this term at times.

"The war on Iraq caused not only dead and wounded but also the destruction of infrastructure and archeological sites" continued professor Sawahil. He claims that the war also caused "medical and environmental hazards as a result of the occupying forces using a dreadful amount of weapons with vast power of death and destruction, including depleted Uranium, prohibited by international [agreements]."

"The future of the Arab nation depends on the development of science, and Arab businessmen and investors should take on the task of developing science by financially supporting research institutes... Moreover, there is a vital need for Arab scientists living outside [of the Arab states] and within the Arab nation to exchange knowledge and experience" Sawahil concluded.

The Media Line asked for the response of the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) on the subject. When asked if the GSS is indeed developing biological substances made to break the resistance of Palestinian prisoners, the unsurprising response was "No."

Note: The Zayed Center was established in 1999 in Abu Dabi and is managed by Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Emirates. The center claims its aims are "to promote Arab solidarity and to resolve a strategic and unified Arab stand in the fields of politics, economics, society and culture." The center holds exhibitions and conferences and publishes books on various topics.

 

“MUSLIMS LAMENT ISRAEL’S EXISTENCE”

"Muslims lament Israel's existence"
By Meg Bortin
International Herald Tribune
June 4, 2003

If the American threat of preemptive military action against Iraq inflamed the Muslim world over the winter, the war itself fanned the flames, with a sharp new rise in hostility toward the United States, the latest Pew survey has found.

Animosity is so high that solid majorities in five populations surveyed expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden to "do the right thing" in world affairs.

And, at a time when the Israeli government has accepted the right of Palestinians to statehood, most Muslim populations surveyed believe by wide margins that the needs of Palestinians cannot be met so long as the state of Israel exists.

The poll, conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, surveyed more than 15,000 people in May. Muslim populations included were Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey.

The survey shows that negative attitudes among Muslims toward the United States have soared anew since the war, both in the Middle East and beyond.

Anti-Americanism peaked in Jordan, where 99 percent of the people now have a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of the United States, up from 75 percent last summer, the survey found. Hostility was also extremely high in the Palestinian Authority (98 percent).

More than eight out of 10 in Turkey and Pakistan questioned since the war have a negative view of the United States, as do seven out of 10 in Lebanon and two-thirds in Morocco. The most extreme shift was seen in Indonesia, where 61 percent had a favorable opinion last summer but now only 15 percent do.

Steven Simon, an analyst of Muslim affairs with the Rand Corporation, said the about-face in Indonesia could be explained by "a rising sense of Islamic identity of a kind that is new" for that country.

Part of this new self-perception, he said, is tied to the return of people who went through the Islamic fundamentalist camps in Afghanistan and became radicalized there. "The way they see the United States as having acted in the last couple of years confirms views like, 'The United States is evil, the United States wants to devour the Muslim world.'"

As for the spike in hostility in Jordan, he said, the war in Iraq was "colossally unpopular" there and heightened the resentment of the country's largely Palestinian population, who already saw U.S. policies in the Middle East as "helping to perpetuate a situation that is grossly unfair to Palestinians."

Even in Nigeria, traditionally a friend of the United States, favorable opinion sank to 61 percent after the war from 77 percent last summer.

Several Muslim populations also express strong dislike of Americans as people. Nine out of 10 Palestinians, eight out of 10 Jordanians and 60 percent of Turks say they feel somewhat or very unfavorable toward Americans. The rise is sharpest in Jordan, where fewer than half had a negative view last summer.

Still, among Muslims with an unfavorable view of the United States, most put the onus on President George W. Bush – who has included two Muslim countries in his "axis of evil" and has focused his war on terror on the Islamic world – rather than America in general.

Distrust today blazes so brightly that majorities in seven of eight Muslim populations surveyed – Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait – expressed fears that the United States could become a military threat to their country.

In Morocco, 79 percent said they felt Islam was under serious threat today, and people in other countries largely agreed, in many cases far more strongly than last summer. In Pakistan, for example, 64 percent now say Islam is seriously threatened, up from 28 percent in summer 2002. The threat is perceived most sharply in Jordan, by 97 percent, up from 81 percent last summer.

Perhaps as a consequence, bin Laden was one of the three "leaders" most trusted by the nine Muslim populations surveyed, outranking even the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan. The Qaeda leader's confidence rating was matched only by Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

As for the crisis in the Middle East, in a wave of sentiment that bodes ill for the future of the U.S.-sponsored "road map" to peace, Muslims lined up strongly behind the opinion that "the rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists."

The conviction that no way can be found for Israel and the Palestinians to coexist is strongest in Morocco (90 percent), followed by Jordan (85 percent), the Palestinian Authority (80 percent), Kuwait (72 percent), Lebanon (65 percent), Indonesia (58 percent) and Pakistan (57 percent).

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who chairs the Pew project, called these results "very disheartening, and very dangerous, frankly."

"I hope that this is temporary and that, if there are some improvements in the situation because of the peace process, it will change," she said. "There is no way Israel is going to disappear. We will just have to find some way to mitigate those feelings."

Even beyond the Muslim world, the United States is seen as favoring Israel over the Palestinians unfairly. Those sharing this attitude range from 99 percent in Jordan to a surprising 47 percent in Israel itself. Only in the United States does a plurality say that U.S. policies in the Middle East are fair.

Overall, Muslim populations see U.S. policies as destabilizing the Middle East, as do pluralities in many other countries surveyed. Nearly 50 percent take this view in France and Spain, as do 63 percent in Morocco, 74 percent in Indonesia, and 91 percent in Jordan.

Regarding the U.S.-led war, disappointment was widespread among Muslims that Iraq put up so little resistance. More than 70 percent shared this view in Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco and the Palestinian Authority. The notable exception was Kuwait, which was invaded by Iraq in 1990 and where 61 percent said they were happy Iraq did not put up much of a fight.

Despite the animosity toward America, the survey found "a considerable appetite in the Muslim world for political freedoms," the Pew report says.

In eight of the nine Muslim populations surveyed, at least 50 percent believe Western-style democracy can work in their countries. The exception is Indonesia, where 53 percent see democracy as a Western way of doing things that would not work in their country.

 

“BEWARE OF THE THE WOMAN OF STEEL”

Condi Rice: "The Woman of Steel"
By MEMRI
June 24, 2003

In his article titled "Beware of the Woman of Steel," which was published in the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Ayyam, Palestinian columnist Hassan Al-Batal strongly criticized U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice for her position on the implementation of the road map, and her attachment to Israel. The article came out several days before Dr. Rice's scheduled visit to the region. The following are excerpts from the article:

"She has a figure no less fine than that of supermodel Naomi Campbell, and is more intelligent than 'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher. She is Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor with the most influence over the American presidency since 'dear Henry Kissinger,' also called 'The American Metternich' after the shrewd, famous German politician."

"A number of women with powerful personalities have passed through the White House, such as 'The Dominatrix,' Ronald Reagan's wife, 'The Wise and Ambitious,' Bill Clinton's wife, or the 'Beloved,' John Kennedy's wife. But Condoleezza Rice is the first woman, [or to be more accurate] the first black woman to fill the most important post in the White House. She is the 'brain' of the president, particularly [in light of the fact that] the current American president is the strongest in the international arena but one of the weakest presidents in his international political education that was ever in the White House."

"The advisor's 'intelligence' and the 'courage' of General Colin Powell raised this black woman and this black man to the highest posts held by a black American man and woman in any American administration at any time. Officer Powell fought Vietnamese Communists while Ms. Autodidact, Rice, prepared herself for ideological war with Soviet Russia or [its other name] global Communism."

"Now, Secretary Powell and Advisor Rice [are together] putting the [policy of the] 'Velvet Glove' on the 'Iron Fist' in a war on the 'terrorist' global fundamentalist movements and against the repressive regimes across the world."

"But unlike Powell 'The Moderate,' who works in the extremist American administration, Rice makes known far and wide her ideas, which belong to the ideology of the American Christian conservative 'New Right.' She is the daughter of a black minister who, when she was a child, filled her head with stories about the Holy Land."

"In an extraordinary interview with the [Israeli daily] Yediot Aharonot in early May 2003, a few days before the White House officially released the road map, [Rice] spoke of the strong spiritual impression from her first visit to Israel in August 2000 - 'I felt that I had returned home... There is a deep connection between me and Israel'..."

"Ms. Rice will visit Israel for the second time next week, and Palestine for the first time, in order to salvage the road map and to save the 'brave' and 'moderate' black man from [his] failure to salvage the plan."

"Yesterday in Jericho, Mr. Powell used a phrase of great significance attesting to the way in which the 'heavy hammer' of Ms. Rice would work to remove the obstacles to the [implementation of the] road map. Mr. Powell presented an order of [moves] that is the reverse of that of the Palestinians, which is: a Hudna [truce] agreement among the factions, [then] a cease fire, [then] a gradual Israeli withdrawal and [then] gradual deployment of Palestinian Authority security [forces] in the northern Gaza Strip and in the city of Bethlehem. Powell suggested a [different] order of actions: a deployment of Palestinian forces in the northern Gaza strip and Bethlehem, [then] a partial Israeli withdrawal, then a ceasefire, and, finally, the Hudna for the problem between the PA and the factions."

"How does Ms. Rice think to pave the difficult way to the road map and to realize 'the vision of two states living peacefully next to each other?' As we know, the road map speaks of a Palestinian state with temporary borders, and a Palestinian state with final borders. Sharon demands a 'suspension' for an unlimited time between the two stages – a demand that arouses deep fears among the Palestinians."

"The flaw of the Oslo agreement lies in the absence of a prior agreement on the permanent status, while the flaw of the road map is the absence of mutual understanding regarding the political-sovereign map of the State of Palestine – that is, its international borders, its territory, and the congruence of [these criteria] with the 1967 borders."

"In her article in the Global Review Point magazine, Rice explained the following formula: The more the content of the Palestinian state with temporary borders meets the American conditions, including [the establishment] of a democratic state - the closer the Palestinian state's shape will be to the 1967 lines..."

"This means that the American decision regarding the establishment of a 'small' and 'contiguous' Palestinian state is final. If [the state] is 'peace-loving, democratic, honest, and fights terror,' then we can look optimistically towards 2005..."

"Beware of this 'Black Spinster' – [I do] not say 'Black Widow' out of respect for her femininity, her wisdom, and her determination, which transform her into a 'Woman of Steel.'"(1)

Endnote:
(1) Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), June 22, 2003.

FULL ARTICLES

HARRY POTTER 101 TAUGHT AT BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

Harry Potter 101 taught at Bar-Ilan University
By Shira Schoenberg
The Jerusalem Post
June 22, 2003

Students studying literature don't have to take the train from platform 9 3/4 to Hogwarts to read the Harry Potter books in school next semester. It will do just as well to take the bus to Bar-Ilan University, which has added Potter 101 to its curriculum of classics.

Prof. Danielle Gorovitch, 37, a comparative literature lecturer specializing in 12th century Celtic and Anglo-Saxon folklore and tradition, will teach a course for the second time on the classical influence on the modern hero, focusing on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. She does not see discussions of Weasley and Malfoy as incongruous with her medieval field.

"Throughout the Rowling hysteria, I've seen how nothing's changed [since the 12th century]. People are still fascinated with the same things the marvelous, magic, heroes who perform marvelous deeds through their own maturity and friendship."

While skeptics may raise their eyebrows at the idea, Gorovitch insists that the classical mythological influences on Rowling are obvious. "The goblet of fire story in book four, for example, is directly influenced by the story of the holy grail. But in the original myth, the hero Galahad died after he got the grail. Rowling couldn't make Harry die, so instead she killed Cedric Diggory."

When Gorovitch's class discussed the basilisk that Harry fights in book two, Gorovitch brought in copies of a medieval Christian chronicle that describes all animals "in existence" at the time, including the basilisk. Just as in Harry Potter, "the medieval basilisk was afraid of chickens. So people would walk around with cocks under their arms to keep it away," explained Gorovitch. The chronicle also give its readers the same warning that the centaur in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone gives Harry: It is a monstrous thing to slay a unicorn.

Rowling, who has a classical education, makes it easy for fellow Latinists to work out whodunit in the third book by just translating the characters' names (see Remus Lupin and Sirius Black).

Gorovitch has started reading the fifth book and has found allusions to 20th century events, including the two world wars and the war in Vietnam. She has also noticed the influence of children's writer Michael Ende.

"Rowling really combines classical influences with modern situations. She puts this world and the 'other world' together," said Gorovitch.

She's not yet far enough in the book, though, to be certain about the classical elements of book five.

So what qualifies Gorovitch as a leading "Potter-ologist"? For one, she has spent years studying medieval folklore, legends and myths, particularly those of King Arthur's court, which she says much of Harry Potter is based on. She wrote her MA dissertation at Bar-Ilan on Morgan Lasalle, a sorceress and half-sister of King Arthur who dedicated her life to killing him. Her PhD focused on Mary of France, a poetess and troubadour who lived in Henry II's castle and wrote short stories on Arthur's round table. She has also read myriads of books on magic, classics, and children's books.

Gorovitch has not actually met Rowling, and admits that she's not quite ready for that. "I need to think of a really smart question for her, and I haven't done that yet," she laughs. "She's my age, we both have small children. Maybe we'd just talk about baby-sitting."

While some may scoff at the idea of Harry Potter being taught alongside King Arthur, Gorovitch insists that the 21st century fantasy series is itself a timeless classic and attributes its appeal to a few characteristics. "Harry Potter is what anthropologist Joseph Campbell calls a universal hero. Anyone can identify with him. He's a child who finds out he has spiritual abilities, which most of us wish we could have, and he has the strength within himself to change his fate. Finally, it's a series, so we have enough time to grow and develop with him."

Fifty years from now, people will still be reading about muggles and wizards, predicts Gorovitch. "The genre of the marvelous is ever-attractive to children and adults. We live in a world of uncertainty; we need a little magic ourselves. Harry Potter makes you think, can I do this? Can I join the sports team I'm dreaming of? Can I overcome a force that is trying to prevent me from doing what I want?"

Judging by the response of her students, Gorovitch is not the only one who gets exuberant over Potteresque talk of elves and poltergeists. Morag Belinki, one of Gorovitch's students in last year's course, said, "Potter until now has been seen as a kid's book, and I'm happy to see that now it's in its proper place." She explained that from Gorovitch's class, "I've learned literature, psychology, history of England, of Ireland, the Celtic tradition."

Belinki and fellow student Snir Rosenfeld both agreed this was the best class they had taken at Bar-Ilan. Rosenfeld said, "Before I took the class, I was anti-Tolkien, now I absolutely love him. When she said there was a class on Harry Potter, I thought 'This is a break, it's not literature.' But she's connected us to it in a totally new way. If I could take the class again, I would."

Gorovitch is only in her second year at Bar-Ilan, teaching this course as well as a course on folklore studies, which examines hagiographies of saints from the 5th to 15th centuries. She is thrilled with how her Potter course turned out last year, and is excited to be teaching it again. "Over 30 students learned about the 12th century and the 14th century church, and they didn't know they were learning. They just thought they were having fun."

 

JERUSALEM GAY PRIDE PARADE HAS ROOM FOR EVERYONE

Jerusalem gay pride parade has room for everyone
By Jenny Chazan
The Jerusalem Post
June 22, 2003

The capital's Kikar Safra was a sea of rainbow-striped flags, umbrellas, hats, scarves, and popsicles on Friday afternoon, where thousands of colorfully clad supporters of the second annual Love Without Borders Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade gathered to kick off the march.

After postponing the event for one week following the suicide bombing of a No. 14 bus, that took the life of American immigrant and gay-rights advocate Alan Beer and 16 others, Jerusalem's gay community finally had its day in the sun.

"This is the best pride event," said 24-year-old Yovar Rabinovich, a lesbian from Ramat Hasharon. "Pride in Tel Aviv is so mainstream and commercial. You can only be gay, young, and beautiful. Here, it's still open. You can be all sorts of different things. There's room for everyone weird and wonderful."

Among the weird and wonderful crowd were one young woman in tzitzit (and pretty much nothing else), a teenaged boy in a hot pink tutu with matching water wings, and one angel-winged, bare-chested, rainbow-painted lady.

But not all participants were feeling so festive. Like last year's inaugural event, many marchers used the parade as a platform from which to voice left-wing political opinions. Sandwich boards and banners depicted slogans including "Dykes and fags fighting all oppressions," "No pride in the occupation," and "Free condoms, free Palestine."

"I think there is a connection between all people who are oppressed," said Oakland, California-based political organizer Dara Silverman, who is visiting Israel on a Palestinian solidarity mission.

"The oppression of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people and the oppression of Palestinians and Mizrahi Jews here in Israel are connected. Any struggle to be free is never going to happen if there are other people who are oppressed."

Also in attendance were members of political parties Meretz and Shinui, which both call for the full recognition of gay and lesbian couples.

"I made a special effort to come from Tel Aviv to be here, because this parade is more significant," said Jonathan Danilowitz, who hopes to represent Shinui on the Tel Aviv City Council.

"The parade in Jerusalem is much more special. Jerusalem is the most special city in the world. It's unique. I wouldn't miss it for anything."

"We are in one of the most religious cities in the world," noted a member of Young Meretz, which includes former Tel Aviv council member Edan Michal among the list of gay party members. "The fact that we're doing this is really great, because it builds an expression of our democracy and an expression of freedom."

"It is interesting," concurred New Jersey-based tourist Brian Shalinsky. "Most of us in America think it's more conservative here. We don't expect to see this in a place like Israel and especially Jerusalem," he said.
Haifa held its first gay pride parade also on Friday.

The fact that the march began at city hall is significant, especially in light of Mayor Uri Lupolianski's most recent comments about the event to Ma'ariv, wherein he called the gay pride parade an abomination.

Lupolianski, who had initially backed the gay community and was even quoted as saying that "Everyone has his March of the Living," seemed to have finally cracked under the pressure of the city's haredi community.

"They are desecrating our holy city with their perversions," said haredi protester Baruch Ben-Yosef, who stood among some two dozen demonstrators who showed up to cast dispersions on the parade across the street from Kikar Safra. "Even worse, is that the mayor is supposedly religious and he allows this to go on."

"This obscenity is as dangerous as the terrorism. In fact, we believe that it brings terrorism," said Shifra Hoffman, head of the Victims of Arab Terror International Organization. She held a banner that read, "Don't pollute our Holy Land. Your sick abominations should be treated, not flaunted."

"We are not racist. But the Torah, by which we claim this land, says that this is an abomination," she said. "These people deserve treatment if they want, but they have no right to flaunt their sickness and to say that this is the way to go."

While protesters chanted, "No gays, no terrorist attacks," the procession continued along Jaffa Road to Shlomo Hamelech and then to Agron, before concluding at Independence Park, where Interior Minister Avraham Poraz (Shinui) shared the stage with a handful of Jerusalem's drag queens, including soldier Talula Bonet, Lady Di, and Diva D.

The parade reached the park secure in the hands of the Jerusalem police, which has yet to arrest any of the outlawed Kach movement suspects who tore down and burned dozens of rainbow flags three days before the event.

"If there isn't a penalty for vandalism and incitement, then there is no incentive for people not to do those things," said 29-year-old Danny Labin, originally from Los Angeles. "If we don't look at history, it's tempting to say what's a little burning of a flag? But I think we've seen from the history of our own people that the burning of books can lead to the burning of bodies. We can't just overlook things like that, because they are full of the hatred that can spiral into something with much graver consequences."

Despite all the odds, parade organizers were happy with how the event turned out. "At the end of the day, the city did not pull back on a single commitment that it had made in terms of demonstrating support," said Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Jerusalem Open House LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer and Questioning) Community Center. "I think it was a wonderful day. I was moved, almost like the first time I kissed a guy."

 

GAY PRIDE – AND ISRAEL'S

Gay pride – and Israel's
By Bret Stephens
The Jerusalem Post
June 19, 2003

Today, June 20, gay and lesbian Israelis will parade through Jerusalem's streets, from City Hall to Independence Park. The march was supposed to have taken place last week; it was postponed after one of its organizers, 47-year-old American immigrant Alan Beer, was murdered by a Hamas suicide bomber aboard Bus 14A.

For those of us who devote a good amount of thought and breath defending Israel from various calumnies – particularly those coming from the hard Left – the fact that this march is taking place at all is excellent news. So Israel is a theocratic state? Show me an equivalent march taking place in Iran or Saudi Arabia. So the Israeli army is an instrument of Fascist oppression? Maybe, but gays and lesbians serve in the IDF's ranks without formal discrimination – more than can be said for the US armed services.

Why, then, should those most opposed to this march be the same people, more or less, who are most ardently "pro-Israel"?

"This is a disgusting parade which has no place in a Jewish state," said Itamar Ben-Gvir, a spokesman for the outlawed ultranationalist Kach movement who also confessed to taking down 30 rainbow-striped flags in downtown Jerusalem. "The gay and lesbian community is a marginal, fringe group, and they must not be given a public stage," added MK Nissim Ze'ev of the haredi Shas party.

I know at least a few people who'd argue that it is Ze'ev and Ben-Gvir, not Beer, who represent a "fringe." But put that argument aside. The question is, when we boast that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East" (Turkey honorably excepted), what are we really saying? Exactly how does it distinguish us from our neighbors and enemies? And what obligations does it impose upon Israelis, gay and straight?

One way to get at these questions is to point to what we're not. For starters, we're not a country that treats homosexuals the way the Palestinian Authority does.

A few months ago, watching the news in the run-up to the Iraq war, I spotted a couple of demonstrators marching to a "Queers for Palestine" banner. Note the preposition. While most of the antiwar marchers were merely against war (even if this meant keeping Saddam Hussein in power), these two were for Palestine. I spent the remainder of the evening trying to think of the nearest equivalent. Blacks for the Old South? Jews for the Ayatollah? "Recovered" homosexuals?

In fact, "recovered" is what Palestinian gays must be if they are to survive in "Palestine." As Yossi Klein Halevi wrote last August in The New Republic, Islamic law prescribes five separate forms of death for homosexuals. To these, the Palestinian Authority adds several of its own. In the West Bank city of Tulkarm, Halevi reports, a young Palestinian homosexual he calls Tayseer "was forced to stand in sewage up to his neck, his head covered by a sack filled with feces, and then he was thrown into a dark cell infested with insects and other creatures he could feel but not see... During one interrogation, police stripped him and forced him to sit on a Coke bottle. Throughout the entire ordeal he was taunted by interrogators, jailers, and fellow prisoners for being a homosexual."

Tayseer's story is one of hundreds. Halevi also tells the story of one Palestinian homosexual who was put in a pit in Nablus and starved to death over Ramadan; of another whose PA interrogators "cut him with glass and poured toilet cleaner into his wounds"; of a third who lives in fear of his life from his brothers.

"It's now impossible to be an open gay in the PA," says Shaul Ganon of Aguda-Association of Gay Men, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgender in Israel.

All this is of a piece with the broader treatment of homosexuals throughout the Muslim world. The Taliban used to put homosexuals to death by collapsing a wall on them. In Malaysia, the maximum penalty for sodomy is 20 years in prison and "mandatory whipping." In Egypt, an increasingly severe crackdown on homosexuals is now entering its third year. In April, Brazil put forward a gay-rights resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission; Muslim countries successfully filibustered it.

And so on. Of course, everybody knows this, though nobody talks about it much. And of course, everybody knows that Israel is a comparatively receptive place for gays and lesbians, though nobody talks about it much, either. Along with South Africa, France, Ireland, Canada and Spain, Israel has been in the forefront of granting legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. So when we say, "We are the only democracy in the Middle East," we are not simply making a statement about our political structure, but about social and cultural attitudes. We are a typical Western state. Nothing demonstrates it better than today's march.

"Typical," however, is also problematic. Typical Western states also mass produce and widely disseminate pornography, ingest gigantic quantities of narcotics and generally suffer every plague of affluence. The gay-rights movement, some argue, belongs in this category.

I don't buy this for a second. But I appreciate why the argument is made. "Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years," went a headline a few years back in The Onion, a satirical newspaper. "'I'd always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-craved deviants was just a destructive myth'" the paper "quoted" Hannah Jarrett, a fictional 41-year-old mother of four. "'Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong.'"

The Onion gets it exactly. For decades, the basic problem with the gay-rights movement has been that it tended to make opposite demands. It rightly insisted on mainstream acceptance and equal protection of the laws. Insanely, it then proceeded aggressively to flaunt its every difference. The aim, it seemed, was not to join a mainstream in the manner of the black civil rights movement or feminism, but to overthrow the very concept of "mainstream."

The result was to confirm every lurid prejudice about gay life. Sexually promiscuous? Emotionally unstable? Morally suspect? Politically radical? The icons of gay life in the 1970s and 1980s, from Michel Foucault to the Village People to Calvin Klein, all giddily seemed to answer yes.

My guess is that the way in which the gay-rights movement pursued its agenda set it back by at least a decade. That both the IDF and the British military allow openly gay service members ought to have been enough to show that the US armed forces could have done the same – but the gay community bears its share of the blame for making its case such a difficult one to make. Ditto for gay marriage, which only this week was legalized in Canada: This was something that ought to have happened ages ago, if only more of the gay community had been demanding it back then, and if (male) gay relationships did not have a reputation for being so fickle.

Now this is changing. As Andrew Sullivan writes, among gays "a need to rebel has quietly ceded to a desire to belong. To be gay and to be bourgeois no longer seems such an absurd proposition. Certainly since AIDS, to be gay and to be responsible has become a necessity."

Sullivan is right – indeed, has to be right. Those who opposed the gay-rights revolution cannot realistically expect that today's homosexuals will simply be pushed back into the closet. And to preserve existing legal barriers against gays would only perpetuate a gay subculture that is both neurotic and alienating. The only decent conservative alternative is to insist that gay men and women join the social and cultural mainstream – and enact the policies required for them to do so.

Which brings me back to Beer. Cleveland-born, a software engineer, "Al" was also an observant Jew who came to Israel five years ago because "it gave him the opportunity to pray as he wanted and live the [Jewish] life he wanted," according to Ze'ev Pertrucci, a former roommate. Interviewed by The Jerusalem Post in 1999, Beer said his homosexuality had presented no obstacles to joining an Orthodox synagogue.

"My understanding of being Orthodox is that there is a long list of mitzvot to keep, which is what I do," he said. "It doesn't bother my being religious."

Testifying in the Knesset the same year, Beer told a parliamentary committee he was "proud of my many identities": Gay, Orthodox, Jerusalemite, Zionist. "People can be both free and holy," he said. Friends recall his "American swagger," his Hawaiian shirts, his passion for cinema, his "infectious laugh," his willingness to volunteer, easygoingness.

Beer was murdered after returning from a shiva call for a friend up north. Had he not been on that bus, he would have marched Friday for gay pride. Would any of us not want him back? And would any of us, really, not have wanted him there?

FULL ARTICLES

MEIN KAMPF SEQUEL TO BE PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH

Mein Kampf sequel to be published in English
By Michael Smith
The Daily Telegraph
June 22, 2003

The sequel to Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf is to be published in English later this year.

The book, which has no title and will be published simply as Hitler's Second Book, was dictated during 1928 but never published. Instead, it was kept in the safe of the Nazi publishing house, where it was found by American troops in 1945.

At the time, it was not recognised for what it was and taken back to America. There, it was stored along with many other German documents in an old torpedo factory at Alexandria in Virginia.

The manuscript was rediscovered there in the summer of 1958 by Gerhard Weinberg, now emeritus professor of 20th century history at the University of North Carolina.

Prof Weinberg, himself a Jew who lost members of his family in the Holocaust, was then a 30-year-old assistant professor at Kentucky University who had heard suggestions of the existence of a sequel to Mein Kampf.

"There had been a couple of references to it," he said. "One by Hitler's secretary to a French intelligence officer."

He was looking through the documents in the old torpedo factory when he found a typescript marked "draft of Mein Kampf" which was the sequel.

A German version was published in 1961 and Prof Weinberg planned to bring out an English version around that time. But an inaccurate and poorly translated bootlegged version was rushed into print by a rival publisher.

This pirate edition was criticised for its unreliability and soon went out of print but its appearance killed off the plans for a proper, fully annotated translation. Then, two years ago, an editor from Enigma Books, a small American publisher, met Prof Weinberg about another book. After learning of the sequel, he agreed to publish it.

Prof Weinberg said: "It seems to me remarkable that one of the most central figures of the 20th century wrote all of two books and one hasn't been published in a reliable English-language edition."

The book, which deals with Hitler's vision of Nazi foreign policy, makes it clear that he was not simply content, as some have argued, to reoccupy German lands lost after the First World War.

He envisaged the German people becoming involved a series of wars for Lebensraum, culminating in an epic battle against America.

A complete chapter on "Germany and England" makes clear his admiration for the British and his hope that they might prove to be an ally.

 

MALAYSIAN OFFICIALS HAND OUT COPIES OF 'INTERNATIONAL JEW'

Malaysian officials hand out copies of 'International Jew'
Jerusalem Post/Reuters
June 22, 2003

Officials of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's party gave out translated copies of US industrialist Henry Ford's anti-Semitic book The International Jew to delegates at the annual United Malays National Organization (UMNO) conference in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of Muslim Malays attended the last day of the three-day conference to see Mahathir deliver his final speech as party president before stepping down in October.

According to media reports, delegates were handed free copies of an abridged version of Ford's book, translated into Bahasa Malay and published in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ford's book, first published in Ford's own newspaper, The Dearborn Independent in the 1920s, was inspired by and contained sections from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The Protocols purports to be the secret transcription of a Zionist Congress that met in Switzerland in 1897, as taken down by a Czarist spy and first published in St. Petersburg in 1903.

At the meeting, Jewish leaders allegedly discussed their plans to establish Jewish "sovereignty over the entire world." The Protocols includes their boasts of being "invincible" and plans to establish a "Super-Government Administration" that will "subdue all the nations." In fact, the Protocols is a fabrication created by the Russian Czarist secret police, the Okhrana, in about 1898-99. Henry Ford endorsed the book, and his own variation on it, and saw to its propagation in media outlets owned by his Ford Motor Company.

In his book, Ford wrote that the Jews were "a people that has no civilization to point to, no aspiring religion, no universal speech, and no great achievement in any realm."

Ford paid for the first German translation of his work, which soon became a favorite of Adolf Hitler's.

The Malaysian prime minister has frequently used Jews as a scapegoat for political and economic setbacks, including his country's 1997 financial meltdown. "We do not want to say that this is a plot by the Jews, but in reality it is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge, and coincidentally [George] Soros is a Jew," Mohamad said at the time.

"It is also a coincidence that Malaysians are mostly Muslim. Indeed, the Jews are not happy to see Muslims progress. If it were Palestine, the Jews would rob Palestinians. Thus this is what they are doing to our country."

In a 1970 book outlining his view of the problems facing the Malay people, The Malay Dilemma, Mohamad wrote: "the Jews are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively."

Mohamad's government has long been an adversary of Israel in international forums, particularly in the United Nations, and actively advocated an economic boycott of the Jewish nation. Throughout the 1980's, Mahathir spoke of international newspapers critical to his regime as being controlled by Jews, and of Zionist plots to undermine his government.

Malaysia also banned Steven Spielberg's movie, Schindler's List, for being too sympathetic to Jews. The censor wrote that "its seems the illustration is a propaganda with the purpose of asking for sympathy, as well as to tarnish the other [German] race." Malaysia also banned Spielberg's cartoon The Prince of Egypt, the tale of Moses.

 

TZIPI LIVNI: “IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO REMAIN INDIFFERENT TO WHAT’S GOING ON”

Israel acts to stop slide in immigration
The Associated Press
June 24, 2003

Immigration to Israel has fallen sharply this year, a Cabinet minister said Monday, as the government took a step to try to reverse the trend by reinstating housing grants for new arrivals.

Only 7,692 immigrants came to Israel in the first five months of the year, putting the country on track for a yearlong total far below the 35,168 of 2002, according to the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption. Immigration is in a "tailspin," said the head of the ministry, Tzipi Livni. "It's impossible to remain indifferent to what's going on."

A main factor quashing immigration is nearly three years of Palestinian-Israeli violence. Many potential immigrants have thought twice because of terrorist attacks in Israel, and the unrest has contributed to a recession with high unemployment.

In 2001, there were 44,633 new arrivals in Israel. During the peak years of 1990 and 1991, almost 377,000 immigrants arrived, most from the former Soviet Union.

Mike Rosenberg, director of the Jewish Agency, the body responsible for bringing Jews to Israel, said that besides Israel's economic and security situations, measures such as cutting housing grants have discouraged immigration. On Monday, Israel reinstated those grants, the prime minister's office said.

 

346 IMMIGRANTS THIS WEEK

The Jewish Agency for Israel Communications and Information Unit
June 19, 2003

During the coming week 346 immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel, Among these: 150 from Ethiopia, 89 from Russia, 27 from the USA, 25 from Ukraine, 21 from France, 16 fro the Asian republics of the Former Soviet Union and the southern Caucasus, 5 from Switzerland and the remainder from the UK, Australia, Canada, India and elsewhere.

 

HAMAS’ FRENCH FUNDS?

Hamas' French funds?
ByMassimo Calabresi, Jamil Hamad and Adam Zagorin
From the June 30, 2003 issue of TIME magazine

As Secretary Of State Colin Powell traveled to the Middle East last weekend to try to get President Bush's road map back on track, U.S. frustrations with the stalled peace efforts have begun to focus on a familiar target: France. State Department and White House sources tell TIME the U.S. has lodged complaints that Paris is turning a blind eye to fund raising in France by front organizations for Hamas, the terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for most of the recent wave of suicide attacks. The U.S. also claims France is blocking European Union efforts to restrict these front groups elsewhere. "There's a lot of intelligence to suggest that the French have become increasingly a conduit for funds to Hamas and that they're just not taking the steps that are necessary," says a State official. Some Administration hard-liners suspect the French of positioning themselves to influence the Arab-Israeli peace process by leveraging Hamas' European funding. France says it has found no evidence of such funding. "We fight against any terrorist groups who might have bases in France or find financing from France," says embassy spokeswoman Natalie Loiseau.

The pressure is also on Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to crack down on Hamas. He's getting some much needed behind-the-scenes help from the head of Egyptian intelligence, Omar Suleiman, who dispatched assistants to the Gaza Strip to push the terrorist group into talks on a cease-fire with Israel. But those talks are dragging on, and Abbas continues to have his own problems. Last week his security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, met with Abbas' rival Yasser Arafat, a senior Palestinian official tells TIME, and assured him that "I am loyal to you. I am willing to implement your orders." Dahlan seems to be playing both sides of the Abbas-Arafat feud to protect his interests. It's another sign that Abbas' hold on power is weak - and his chances of helping the road map by reining in the terrorists may be slipping away.

 

GARAGE A GRAVEYARD FOR BOMBED-OUT BUSES

Garage a graveyard for bombed-out buses
'When a new bus comes in, I cry,' mechanic says
By Stewart Bell
The National Post (Canada)
June 23, 2003

On a broad plain of overgrown fields and industrial smokestacks, a gravel lot behind a maintenance garage has become the graveyard for the bombed buses of Israel's national transit company.

The skeletons of blown-up buses rest there like crushed toys, looking much as they did months ago when Palestinian terrorists chose them and their unlucky passengers as targets for obliteration.

Each time a bus is bombed, it is loaded on to a flatbed truck and brought to this out-of-the-way property in northern Israel's industrial heartland to be dismantled by company mechanics and laid to rest.

"When a new bus comes in, I cry," said Tsvika Lifschitz, 55, the stocky former Israeli soldier who runs the garage.

"Three weeks after this, the smell of the dead, you can feel it in your nose. It's very tough for a man."

Mr. Lifschitz has been busy lately. A month ago there were 10 buses here. Now there are three, and bus bombings on May 18 and June 11 mean two more are on the way. "This is our life in Israel," he said.

Buses are a favourite target of such Palestinian terrorist groups as Hamas. They offer a concentration of civilian victims in an enclosed space where the force of the explosives is magnified, and they have little security.

Suicide bombers are trained to strap an explosive charge to their body, surround it with a layer of metal shards, nails and ball-bearings, then board a crowded bus, perhaps disguised as a woman or an Orthodox Jew.

It happens so often, it is difficult to understand why ordinary Israelis still use public transit, but many have no other way to get to school or work.

The most recent strike came 12 days ago, when Hamas sent an 18-year-old student from Hebron to Jerusalem to retaliate for the attempted assassination of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a radical Hamas leader.

Seventeen Israelis were killed. Last Thursday, a suicide bomber blew up a convenience store, killing the shopkeeper, but police believe he was intending to board a bus across the street.

Once the police are finished with the buses, they are trucked here to this bleak, blue-collar city near Haifa, where flares from a gas plant light up the sky above a grassy plain ringed by mountains.

At the bus graveyard, the vehicles are scoured by volunteers who remove every spot of flesh, blood and bone so it can be buried with the body, as is the Jewish custom.

The crews working for Mr. Lifschitz then slice the buses into pieces, which are placed in a blue dumpster and sold abroad as scrap metal.

Mr. Lifschitz, a veteran of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the war in Lebanon in the 1980s, has become a sort of undertaker for the bombed buses of Israel.

He knows the stories behind each of them.

"This driver was hit two times," he said, standing next to the chassis of one bus, lying on its side. "First five years ago in Jerusalem and again seven months ago."

He walked across the yard to the rusted shell of another bus, this one hit by a car bomb, and pointed to a dent in the left rear. "It hit here," he said. "Twenty people were killed on this bus."

Next to it was bus No. 97915, blown up by a suicide bomber last year. There was an outward bulge in the metal frame where the bomber was sitting when he pressed the trigger. The windows were gone, the seats shredded.

The exterior still had the red-and-white colours of Israel's public transit system, but inside, the apocalyptic force of the explosion had transformed the familiar layout of a bus into something unrecognizable.

There were also what look like bullet holes, made by the ball-bearings packed around the charge. One of those wounded was a Palestinian who worked at the garage.

"Now he is on pension. He is retired," Mr. Lifschitz said.

"This is a beautiful country. In this one garage, we have 120 people -- Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Arabs. When someone has a wedding, everybody comes."

But the radical Palestinian groups do not share that desire to live together in peace. They want to fight a holy war, he said, adding such groups as Hamas are afraid to fight fair.

While the Israeli forces target such known terrorist leaders as Rantisi, Palestinian groups deliberately try to kill civilians. If they want to have Israel, Mr. Lifschitz said, they should fight against the Israeli armed forces.

"Cowards. Why are you killing the children and the old people on the buses? If you want to fight, come and fight.

"I am a soldier."

But he said he knows they will not do it, so he does what he can to help keep buses out of graveyard. Aside from taking apart bombed buses, Mr. Lifschitz's garage also installs bulletproof glass in bus windows in case they get sprayed with bullets.

 

ISRAEL DISSATISFIED WITH ROMANIAN HOLOCAUST APOLOGY

Israel calls Romanian Holocaust apology insufficient
By Amir Efrati
The Jerusalem Post
June 19, 2003

Israel appeared dissatisfied with the Romanian government's lack of action one day after it retracted a statement that denied its involvement in the Holocaust.

On Wednesday, government officials in Jerusalem stated that while the Romanian government's retraction and corrected statement released Tuesday is a "positive step in the right direction," Israel still expects a public response from the Romanian leadership "in the spirit of the corrected statement."

The recent episode, they said, attests to the fact that although the Romanian government has recently taken "welcome actions" regarding the lessons of the Holocaust, it is a long process that has only just begun.

On Friday, the Romanian Ministry of Public Information claimed that "within the borders of Romania between 1940 and 1945 there was no Holocaust." The government's "corrected" statement released four days later acknowledged that the government "was guilty of grave war crimes, pogroms, and mass deportation of Romanian Jews in territories occupied or controlled by the Romanian army, with methods of discrimination and extermination that are part of the sinister mechanism of the Holocaust."

Since Friday, the office of Romanian ambassador Valeria Mariana Stoica has been deluged with e-mails, letters and phone calls from Holocaust survivors, Jewish organizations, and concerned citizens around the world. "They asked, 'What is the true position of the Romanian government?' " said Stoica. "The real position of the Romanian government is the one communicated on Tuesday... and assumes responsibility for what happened in the Holocaust."

She called last week's mistake by the Ministry of Public Information a "stupidity, a stupid sentence" that may have been caused by miscommunication within the ministry. She also defended shirking Tuesday's invitation by the Knesset Immigration and Absorption Committee to attend a hearing on the matter because she had not yet received a full mandate from Romania to speak at the Knesset a protection she obtained only on Wednesday.

A letter sent to Stoica by Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Israel, urges the Romanian government to face the past through action rather than words and "to identify, locate, and bring to trial any unprosecuted Holocaust perpetrator living in Romania."

It says that the organization was prepared to assist Romanian authorities in achieving that objective. Regardless, it will soon extend "Operation Last Chance," a program that awards $10,000 for information leading to the capture of Nazi criminals, to Romania. It currently operates in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Stoica said a government-appointed task force for Holocaust Studies will convene with Zuroff in September to discuss Romania's collaboration with the Nazis. She added that the Romanian government will coproduce a Romanian-language Holocaust exhibition with the Wiesenthal Center to display across the country.

"We're calling upon the Romanian government to take steps to bring the unprosecuted Nazi war criminals to justice," Zuroff said in an interview, "because they haven't done a damn thing yet."

 

BRITISH MP’S COMPARE GAZA TO WARSAW GHETTO

British MPs compare Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto
By Douglas Davis
Jerusalem Post
June 19, 2003

Two British legislators, one of them Jewish, have compared the situation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.

Oona King, a Labor legislator who had a black West Indian father, a Jewish mother and identifies as Jewish, described Gaza as being "the same in nature" as the Warsaw Ghetto.

"No government should be behaving like that least of all a Jewish government," she told a press conference organized by the Christian Aid charity in London on Thursday.

A visit by King to Gaza, sponsored by the charity, has prompted King to call for a boycott of Israeli products.

In an article published by the London-based Guardian newspaper shortly after her return earlier this month, King said she had "sadly come to the conclusion that, given the scale of the atrocities and collective punishment waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians, I have no choice but to boycott Israeli products. On reflection, whether Jewish or not, you might decide to do the same."

King, a member of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, said Thursday that the visit had opened her eyes: "I recognize the terror many Israelis live with as a matter of their daily lives," she said.

"I was more surprised perhaps by the everyday terror that Palestinians live, the detail and nature of which I had not understood. We must support the moderate voices as opposed to strengthening extremists."

Referring to the Warsaw ghetto, King said: "It is the same in nature but not extent." Noting the "very, very big difference" between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto, she acknowledged that "Palestinians are not being rounded up and put in gas chambers." But, she said: "What makes it similar is what happened to the Jewish people in that time which was the seizing of land, being forced from property, torture and bureaucracy control used in a demeaning way over the smallest task.

"On top of that building a wall around them and that is precisely what the Israeli government is doing. In doing so it is building a political ghetto. I don't think it can escape that conclusion." King added that, "as a Jewish person, I hoped I would never live to see the day I was ashamed of the actions of the Jewish state."

FULL ARTICLES

“THERE WAS NO HOLOCAUST”

Romania denies Holocaust
By Shamillia Sivathambu
Daily Telegraph (UK)
June 15, 2003

The Romanian government issued a blunt denial yesterday that the Holocaust hit the country during the Second World War, defying historical accounts of a campaign of anti-Semitic persecution orchestrated by its pro-Nazi wartime regime.

The statement, issued by the Public Information Ministry, startled Jewish leaders in Romania, where 250,000 Jews were killed or deported to concentration camps under the rule of Marshal Ion Antonescu.

"We firmly claim that within the borders of Romania between 1940 and 1945 there was no Holocaust," the ministry said.

The statement came a day after Romanian authorities released wartime archives to the Holocaust War Memorial Museum in Washington.

Jewish leaders questioned the assertion and criticised the Romanian government for failing to reflect the truth.

"You cannot say there weren't victims," said Ernest Neuman, a Jewish community leader in Timisoara.

Historians have documented numerous accounts detailing the deportation and execution of Jews in Romania. Most died in camps in the former Soviet Union. But several pogroms spilled Jewish blood on Romanian soil.

In June 1941 up to 12,000 people in the north-eastern city of Iasi are believed to have died as Romanian and German soldiers swept from house to house killing Jews.

 

ISRAELI HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CRITICIZES ROMANIA’S INSISTENCE IT HAD NO ROLE IN GENOCIDE

Israeli Holocaust memorial criticizes Romania's insistence it had no role in genocide
The Associated Press
June 15, 2003

Israel's leading Holocaust research institute, Yad Vashem, on Sunday rejected the Romanian government's assertion that "there was no Holocaust inside the Romanian borders," saying that hundreds of thousands of Romania Jews were killed in World War II.

A leading Israeli expert on the Holocaust in Romania, Jean Ancel, said that of the 760,000 Jews who once lived in Romanian-controlled territories during World War II, 420,000 were killed. Yad Vashem recently published a two-volume book by Ancel on the subject.

Documents discovered by Ancel also show that the Romanian government was directly involved in the extermination. "Romania was the only ally of Germany that had its own plan of destruction and used its own army to exterminate Jews," said Ancel, charging that some of the crimes were even more savage and more barbaric than those committed by the Germans.

The German Nazis and their allies killed 6 million Jews during World War II, gassing many to death in extermination camps and shooting others after forcing them to dig their own mass graves. Ancel said that in the Ukraine, Romanian soldiers also burned Jews alive.

Romania has been criticized for its reluctance to come to grips with its role in the Holocaust. On Thursday, the government signed an agreement allowing the Washington-based Holocaust Memorial Museum to study Romanian archives about the Holocaust.

Despite that agreement, the Romanian Ministry of Public Information claimed that "within the borders of Romania between 1940 and 1945 there was no Holocaust."

Today, about 6,000 Jews live in Romania.

 

“THAT UNFORTUNATE SERMON DREW CRITICISM FROM ALL OVER THE PLACE”

Rome Imam Suspended After Praising Suicide Bombers
By Estelle Shirbon
Reuters
June 13, 2003

Italy's Muslim League suspended the imam of Rome's main mosque Friday after he praised Palestinian suicide bombers at Friday prayers and called on Allah to "annihilate the enemies of Islam."

Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa, an Egyptian national, made the declarations in his sermon at prayers last Friday, causing a storm of protest that led to his ousting a week later.

"That unfortunate sermon drew criticism from all over the place, even from the Interior minister, so we decided it would be opportune to replace the imam," Mario Scialoja, head of the Italian branch of the Muslim World League, told Reuters.

Scialoja said Moussa was young and inexperienced and the sermon was a "sin of youth."

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu called a few days after the sermon for Italian mosques to be "freed from advocates of violence, recruiters for holy wars and agents of foreign interests in Italy."

"We are working through dialogue and not through threats for the creation of an Italian Islam ... that will respect our laws and speak our language," Pisanu said.

Italian authorities have been sensitive about what goes on in mosques since the United States said Milan's Islamic Cultural Institute and mosque was the main European logistics base for al Qaeda, which Washington blames for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Leaders of the Milan mosque have denied the allegation.

Mosques have been the targets of close scrutiny and police raids in Italy as it tries to crack down on suspected Islamic militants and members of international terror groups.

Earlier this year, two imams from the cities of Cremona and Florence were arrested on suspicion of links to violent groups.

 

IMAM WHO CALLED FOR “DESTRUCTION OF ISLAM’S ENEMIES” REMOVED FROM ROME MOSQUE

Imam who called for “destruction of Islam's enemies” removed from Rome mosque
The Associated Press
June 14, 2003

The main mosque in Rome has suspended its imam, a week after he delivered a sermon praising Palestinian fighters and calling for the destruction of Islam's enemies, officials said Saturday.

The decision to remove Abdel-Samie Mahmoud Ibrahim Moussa capped a week of debate about the sermon, which was delivered during Friday prayers June 6 and published, in part, on the front page of the Rome daily La Repubblica a day later.

"Allah, let the Islamic fighters in Palestine, Chechnya and elsewhere be triumphant!" Repubblica quoted Moussa as saying in Arabic.

"Allah, destroy the houses of the enemies of Islam! Allah, help us crush the enemies of Islam! Allah ensure the victory of the nation of Islam!" the imam said in quotes that were confirmed Saturday by Mario Scialoja, head of the World Muslim League in Italy, which is affiliated with the mosque.

Italy's interior minister, Giuseppe Pisanu, expressed outrage at the imam's call, saying Italy's mosques "must be completely free of preachers of violence, recruiters for holy war and agents of foreign interests in Italy."

He called for the creation of an "Italian Islam" where its preachers speak Italian, not just Arabic, and respect Italian laws.

Jewish groups including the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged the imam be replaced and expressed concern for the safety of Italy's Jewish community following what it said was Moussa's "religious validation of terrorism."

On Friday, the administrative council of the Islamic Cultural Center, made up of the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Muslim countries, decided to suspend him, Scialoja said Saturday.

"The Islamic Cultural Center is officially recognized by the Italian republic," he said in a telephone interview Saturday. "We cannot allow the mosque to be used to espouse violence the way the young imam did."

He said the majority of Rome's 90,000 Muslims are "quite peaceful and serene" and didn't share Moussa's message. It wasn't clear what would become of the 32-year-old Moussa, who is Egyptian and was named to head Rome's main mosque five months ago by Cairo's Al-Azhar university, Sunni Islam's highest authority.

Another Rome imam presided over Friday prayers this week but Scialoga said it would take some time for a permanent replacement to be named.

Scialoja said he didn't believe the incident would affect relations between the Italian government and Italy's Muslim community, particularly "because the Islamic Cultural Center acted very promptly" in removing Moussa.

"The center has regular contact with the Interior Ministry and we are on very good terms," he said, noting that the center often participates in Vatican-sponsored inter-religious conferences as well.

Pisanu has previously voiced concern about incitement coming from Italy's mosques and called for dialogue between the largely Catholic country and Islamic moderates.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center praised the decision to remove Moussa and urged the Italian government to "cut off all funding for any religious institution that aids and abets the cause of terrorists."

 

ITALY’S JEWS WAIT FOR ROYAL APOLOGY FROM THE SAVOYS

Italy's Jews wait for royal apology
By Sophie Arie
The Observer (UK)
May 18, 2003

It was a rocky start for what was intended as a romantic trip down memory lane for Italy's exiled royal family, the Savoys, who returned to Rome last week to meet government officials, only to be greeted by angry Italian Jews still waiting for an apology for the royals' anti-Semitic leanings during the Second World War. Rather than meeting cheering crowds, Prince Victor Emmanuel, exiled more than half a century ago with his father, the last Italian king, who supported the Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, was hit by complaints that he and his family had made no attempt at reconciliation with the Jewish community on their first trip back to Rome.

'I'm not saying it was he who signed the racial laws in 1938. But, as a Savoy heir, Victor Emmanuel has never distanced himself from them,' the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Amos Luzzatto, said in an interview with Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Victor Emmanuel's father, Victor Emmanuel III, is remembered by many Italians for signing Mussolini's law that stripped Italy's Jews of basic rights, such as marrying other Italians, going to school or holding public office. Thousands of Jews were killed or deported to concentration camps.

Some five years ago, Victor Emmanuel made headlines when he said in an interview that the race laws were 'not so bad'. He has since tried to repair the damage saying that the laws had left 'an indelible stain' and were the 'darkest chapter' in his family's history.

But the Italian Jewish community was not satisfied and continued to demand a 'clear sign that they have rejected that period of history'. Jewish community representatives were unimpressed by the prince's last-minute faxed request to arrange a meeting in response to the complaints.

The prince, now in his 60s, was forced to leave Italy with his parents after Italians voted in a referendum in 1946 to exile male members of the royal family for supporting Mussolini. Last year, after many requests, the prince and his family were allowed to return from their home in Switzerland.

After causing some consternation for failing to make a courtesy visit to the government officials who oversaw the ending of their exile, the family met Italy's President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, and the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, on Friday, in a symbolic gesture meant to show that they have no intention of reclaiming the throne. They fitted in a visit to a Second World War cemetery amid sumptuous dinners and visits to old haunts.

The prince has not endeared himself to Italians while in exile, dealing in arms on behalf of the Shah of Iran and being acquitted after accidentally shooting a German tourist on his yacht.

 

POLAND TO FUND 25% OF JEWISH MUSEUM IN WARSAW GHETTO

Poland to fund 25% of Jewish museum in Warsaw Ghetto
By Etgar Lefkovits
The Jerusalem Post
June 16, 2003

The Polish Government has announced its willingness to fund a quarter of the costs of the establishment of a Museum of the History of Polish Jews, giving a huge boost to the project, the museum's project director, Jerzy Halbersztadt said.

The state of the art, $63 million museum, which aims to present a millennium of vibrant Jewish culture in Poland, is slated to be built on the grounds of the now-destroyed Warsaw Ghetto.

Construction of the project, which will be designed by the noted American architect Frank Gehry, is scheduled to begin next year, with the museum likely to open its doors withing five years, Halbersztadt said.

The idea to create such a museum in Poland – whose Jewish community now numbers less than 10,000 people in a country of 39 million – gathered steam over the last several years following a period of national soul-searching that stemmed, in part, from the publication of a book that it was Poles, and not occupying Nazis, who murdered thousands of Jewish residents in the northeastern Polish village of Jedwabne during World War Two. The book's publication, and the large media and public response it provoked, comes at a time of increased Polish awareness of their mixed role in the Holocaust, and followed four decades of a virtual news and educational blackout on the subject in Poland during Communist rule.

The museum, which is being decried by some due to its lavish price tag, aims to serve the Polish public at large, as well the tens of thousands of Jewish visitors who come to Poland each year, the project director said.

"It is not coincidental that American and Israeli Jews comes to Poland to touch something that is important to their reality," Halbersztadt said in an interview in Warsaw, declaring that despite the Nazi extermination of 3 million Polish Jews during the Holocaust, "Polish-Jewish history is not a closed chapter."

Indeed, the Polish decision to fund 25% of the project – with the remaining costs to be paid for by Jewish philanthropists – comes at a time of blossoming Polish-American relations, and ever increasing Polish-Israeli ties, especially in the military sphere.

The government funding is also seen as an attempt to counter the image of Poland as an anti-Semitic country, a view largely reinforced by post-war pogroms, and the expulsion of tens of thousands of remaining Jews in 1968 during Communist rule. "Skin deep anti-Semitism is still tolerated anti-Semitism in Poland," noted Konstanty Gebert, publisher of the Polish Jewish monthly magazine Midrasz, adding that a recent newspaper poll found that 10% of Poles believe there are more than a million Jews living in Poland.

At the same time, during a period of financial difficulty in Poland, Gebert opined that the $63 million price tag for the lavishly-planned museum was just too high.

"I am not entirely convinced that this grandiose project is responsible," he said, suggesting that the funds could better be used to help Poland's present-day minuscule Jewish community.

The brainchild of the Polish museum – which comes at a time when Yad Vashem is constructing its own new educational center in Jerusalem – was the late Yeshayahu Weinberg, who served as a former director of the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, and the first director general of the Holocaust Museum in Washington. When the Polish-born Weinberg approached Halbersztadt with his idea nearly a decade ago, the project seemed inconceivable, Halbersztadt conceded last week.

Planned museum exhibits include a recreation of the Warsaw Ghetto, a theater, and, in a country where Jewish symbols and traditions are only a remnant of things past, a virtual synagogue.

 

“JESUS CHRIST! YOU HAVEN’T BEEN GASSED?”

Unwelcome Jews
By Roland Prinz
The Associated Press
June 15, 2003

When Michael Siw's parents returned to war-battered Vienna in 1948, they were relieved to see their home had survived the city's heavy bombing by the Allies.

But after a bruising and failed three-year court battle to recover their apartment and a family inheritance, including a factory, they went back to Israel. Depressed and disgusted by crude anti-Semitism and humiliated by officials and neighbors alike, they never returned.

"They tried to get their property back," but found it occupied by new tenants, Siw said. "When they saw my parents, one of the occupants yelled: 'Jesus Christ! You haven't been gassed?'"

Thousands of other Holocaust survivors met with similar resistance in futile attempts to reclaim ownership of property plundered during World War II. More than a half century later, critics say, Austria still has a long way to go in making restitution and coming to grips with its Nazi past.

A new report by 160 historians and researchers criticizes the Alpine country's postwar governments for their unwillingness to indemnify Holocaust victims, saying Austria acted "often halfheartedly."

Serious restitution efforts were initiated only in the mid-1980s. Earlier attempts, hampered by a series of often ambiguous laws, "were all too often made on the basis of outside pressure, especially from the Western allies," said the 14,000-page government-commissioned report.

Anti-Semitism appears to be abating, with opinion polls saying such sentiments have dropped by half since 1991, when a quarter of survey participants expressed anti-Jewish feelings. Not even the far-right Freedom Party or its divisive former leader, Joerg Haider, have publicly challenged the restitution efforts.

Haider's anti-foreigner stance and praise of some of Adolf Hitler's policies led the European Union to temporarily impose sanctions on Austria after the Freedom Party joined the government in 2000. Israel withdrew its ambassador in protest and has yet to fill the post, even though Haider no longer leads the party and its influence has dwindled.

Looting of Jewish property started immediately after German troops entered Austria in March 1938, often to a warm welcome from Austrians. The Nazi catchword was "Arisierung" – the "aryanization" of Jewish houses, apartments, land and artworks.

Some 65,000 Austrian Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, while 150,000 more fled the country or were deported after being forced to pay a "flight tax."

Only relatively recently have Austrians begun to publicly acknowledge their country's complicity.

The official pretext for authorities' shunning of responsibility was the Moscow Declaration of 1943, in which the Allies declared the country of Hitler's birth as the first victim of the Nazi dictatorship. In fact, a disproportionately large number of Austrians had been directly involved in the Nazi death machinery.

It wasn't until 1991 that Franz Vranitzky became the first Austrian chancellor to declare in parliament that Austrians were not only victims but also perpetrators of the Holocaust.

Jewish survivors returning to Austria in the immediate postwar years found their houses and apartments occupied, their bank accounts depleted and their commercial holdings in other people's hands. Few managed to recover their property.

Siw's family fled the Nazis in the 1930s for British-ruled Palestine, later to become Israel. He is now 60, a retired airline executive living in Tel Aviv.

Sitting in a Viennese coffeehouse, he described how his parents came back to their old apartment to be told by the people squatting there that they had nowhere else to go and wouldn't leave without a court order.

"They urged my parents to come again next day or later to pick up the furniture," Siw . "When the family returned the same afternoon, the apartment was empty except for a chandelier which couldn't be removed."

After battling in court for three years, the family was told that enhancements made to the property after they left far exceeded its original value and that they "should be happy for not being charged the difference," Siw said.

"That was when they packed up and left," he said.

Others fared little better.

Ruth Freyer, a 56-year-old Vienna resident, said her grandfather, who had been quite wealthy, managed to get his house back after waiting out the war in Israel. "But all his other property – the valuables, chandeliers, silverware and paintings – were all gone."

The thefts were an added insult. Before the Nazis let him leave Austria in 1939, she said, "Grandfather was forced to pay 28,000 reichsmarks" – roughly $126,000 in today's terms.

Systematic restitution efforts didn't begin until 1985, when parliament approved a law obliging the state to auction off paintings, artworks and other unclaimed valuables. That auction wasn't held until 1996, when the sale of 8,000 items generated more than $14.5 million. Nearly 90 percent of the proceeds went to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

A year earlier, the government started the Fund for Victims of National Socialism and began paying $6,000 to each of 33,000 Jewish survivors. Officials conceded the effort was mostly symbolic.

In January 2001, parliament adopted a $500 million package that included money for those payments plus two other restitution funds.

A $150 million fund was set up to pay Jewish survivors $7,000 each for lost tenancy rights, household goods and personal belongings. A $210 million fund compensates both survivors and their heirs for lost insurance policies, bank deposits, real estate, licenses and other rights.

Progress is also being made – albeit slowly – in confronting the broader issue of Austria's wartime past with books and exhibits paying tribute to Jewish and other victims of the Nazis.

In a 2001 poll, 61 percent of 1,010 youths said they thought it was "very important" to teach students about what happened in Austria under the Third Reich and 29 percent said it was "important." The survey had an error margin of three percentage points.

President Thomas Klestil, meeting recently with 80 former Austrian Jews in Vienna at the invitation of the Jewish Welcome Service, stressed such efforts.

He pointed to the 2001 inauguration of a memorial honoring victims of the Holocaust, the dedication of a new synagogue and a major education project in which students are reconstructing the biographies of all Austrian victims.

"The overwhelming majority of Austrians have the good will to draw the appropriate conclusions from the past," Klestil assured the visitors. "Our country will not shun confrontation with the past."

Siw said he is bitter over what happened to his family, yet he keeps returning to Vienna.

"One always tries to find one's childhood," he said.

"The city, its life and culture – that's something that always pulls me back. Twice or three times a year I come to `fill up' on culture."

 

On the Net:

* Vienna's Jewish community:
http://www.ikg-wien.at/

* Holocaust victims' fund:
http://www.nationalfonds.org/

* Austrian historians' commission:
http://www.historikerkommission.gv.at/

FULL ARTICLES

VOICE OF PALESTINE JUSTIFIES MURDER OF 7 YEAR OLD

Voice of Palestine justifies murder of 7 year old on toll road – labels her "settler"
(Courtesy, IMRA and, Michael Widlanski)
June 18, 2003

Michael Widlanski is an expert in the Arab media and a lecturer at the Rothberg School of the Hebrew University. The following are some of his observations regarding Abu Mazen's Voice of Palestine's coverage of the murder of seven-year-old Noam Leibovitch when her family vehicle was attacked by terrorist fire as it exited the Trans-Israel Highway (toll road 6) near the Kibbutz Eyal junction (inside the Green Line). The family lives in the religious youth village Yamin Ord located in northern Israel near Haifa. Noam's five-year-old sister was also seriously wounded in the attack. The terrorist reached the highway via a storm sewer in the PA controlled Qalqilyeh and left tracks indicating a safe return to PA territory after the attack.

"Voice of Palestine radio's number one achorman, Nizar al-Ghul opened his Wednesday morning 7:30 am morning news round-up by citing the Israeli "invasion" of Qalqilyeh. In the third sentence of his report he cited "the death by shooting of a female Israeli settler" [Arabic: "Maqtal 'ala rasass mustawtinna isra'iliyya"]. Al-Ghul did not actually connect the "death by shooting of the female Israeli settler" with the invasion of Qalqilyeh, from where the shots were fired into Israeli territory.

There was no mention of official Palestinian condemnation of the murder nor even vague disapproval of the timing of the attack."

It should be noted that reports concerning the proposed "cease-fire" indicate that soldiers and "settlers" can be murdered during the cease-fire period. The Palestinian definition of "soldier" is anyone who served in the IDF, thus allowing the murder of adult males.

 

GIRL, 7, KILLED AFTER SHOTS FROM WEST BANK HIT INSIDE ISRAEL

Girl, 7, killed after shots from W. Bank hit inside Israel
By Ran Reznick and Amos Harel
Ha'aretz
June 18, 2003

An seven-year-old Israeli girl was killed and a second child and an adult were wounded in a shooting attack at around midnight Tuesday near the Kibbutz Eyal interchange, close to the Green Line border with the West Bank.

The second child was seriously wounded, and the adult with them, believed to be their father, was lightly hurt.

The seven-year-old was critically wounded in the attack, but died despite efforts by Magen David Adom rescue workers.

The three were in a car driving to the town of Kochav Yair when they came under fire from the direction of the nearby West Bank city of Qalqilyah. The car then collided with a second vehicle.

Until now, the Qalqilyah area has been relatively quiet for some time. On Monday, however, a unit of undercover Border Police officers arrested the head of the Hamas military wing in the city.

Two hurt by mortar fire in Gaza

Two workers suffered light shrapnel wounds Tuesday morning from mortar shells fired at the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip.

The two, who were involved in defense work in the area, were evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.

 

ISRAELI GIRL KILLED, FUELLING CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

Israeli girl killed, fuelling cycle of violence
By Jeffrey Heller
Reuters
June 18, 2003

Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli girl on a road near the West Bank, feeding a cycle of violence that has battered a peace plan U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will try to rescue in a new Middle East visit.

The attack on a car near Kibbutz Eyal in central Israel late on Tuesday was launched shortly after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas failed in another bid to persuade militants to call a truce with Israel.

Medics said the dead girl was aged seven and identified two people wounded in the attack as her five-year-old sister and father. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting which the army said was carried out by Palestinians.

"We have re-emphasised that resistance is a legitimate right of our people," Mohammed al-Hindi, a senior Islamic Jihad official, said after Abbas sat down with representatives of 13 militant factions for three-and-a-half hours in Gaza City.

Ismail Abu Shanab, a senior leader of Hamas, said a ceasefire was still under discussion and the group, which attended Tuesday's meeting, might hold its own talks with Abbas on Wednesday.

More than 50 people have died in tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian attacks since Abbas, U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon affirmed a peace "road map" at a summit in Aqaba, Jordan, on June 4.

Facing the prospect of the collapse of the most ambitious Middle East peace plan in more than two years, the United States said Powell would come to Israel on Friday to mediate.

Sharon has ruled out concessions unless Abbas subdues Hamas, a fundamentalist Islamic group at the forefront of suicide bombings that have killed scores of Israelis since the start of a Palestinian uprising for statehood in September 2000.

Abbas has been seeking to avoid confrontation with militants that could lead to a Palestinian civil war.

The road map, which mandates a crackdown on militant groups along with Israeli troop pullbacks in the West Bank and Gaza, charts a path towards creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

 

U.S. TROOPS KILL TWO IRAQI PROTESTERS

U.S. Troops Kill Two Iraqi Protesters
By Hassan Hafidh
Reuters
June 18, 2003

[Will Bush condemn or ask for restraint?]

A U.S. soldier fired into a crowd of Iraqi protesters outside the headquarters of the U.S.- led administration in Baghdad Wednesday, killing two people.

The shooting occurred when a U.S. military convoy passed through a crowd led by up to 2,000 former Iraqi soldiers who were protesting at their having been sacked by the new U.S. administration. "There is no god but Allah, America is the enemy of Allah," the crowd chanted in the fierce midday heat. "Down, down USA."

U.S. military officials said a U.S. soldier had fired in self-defense after the convoy was pelted with rocks and two Iraqis were injured and later died. "Both men who were evacuated died of their wounds," Lieutenant Colonel Richard Douglas said. The complex is the former palace of toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The sacked Iraqi soldiers were disgruntled over losing their jobs when U.S. administrator Paul Bremer dissolved Saddam's armed forces last month.

Bremer's drive to destroy the legacy of Saddam's Baathist rule has laid off up to 400,000 Iraqis who worked in the now-disbanded armed forces, security services and information and defense ministries, with no prospect of reintegration.

"We were in a peaceful demonstration asking the U.S. to give us our salaries," Abdul-Rahim Hassan, a former soldier, told Reuters. "We were not fighting them, but suddenly they started shooting at us."

ROCKS HURLED

U.S. Army Captain Scott Nauman, whose men were guarding the compound, told CNN television that Iraqis on the other side of the street had been throwing rocks for nearly an hour before the shooting, but no one had been hurt until the convoy arrived.

"The personnel (Iraqis) on the other side of the street swarmed the convoy, shaking the vehicles, breaking out windows, throwing rocks at extremely close range to the personnel in that convoy.

"(They) felt threatened understandably as their vehicle was swarmed and windows broken out and they fired shots then directly into the crowd and injured two personnel...To me it appeared to be in self-defense."

The captain said his men had fired warning shots over the crowd at the same time. Asked if there had been shooting from the crowd, he replied: "No, not to my knowledge."

Before the shooting the demonstrators had beaten passing United Nations and television vehicles with their shoes and assaulted a Reuters television crew and other reporters outside.

Critics say the sweeping policy of sacking the soldiers fails to distinguish between the hard men who enforced Saddam's cruel orders, the many who joined the party out of expediency and some who genuinely believed in its Arab nationalist ideology.

They say the policy has created a large pool of armed and resentful unemployed who may turn to crime or to fighting the U.S.-led occupation, perhaps as part of a Baathist underground.

Nauman said the demonstration was the fourth by Iraqi soldiers in the past few weeks and that officials had set up a meeting with some of the protesters for later Wednesday.

At least 41 American soldiers have been killed in a spate of attacks in and around Baghdad since President Bush (news – web sites) declared major combat in Iraq over in early May.

 

“ONLY A MATTER OF TIME”

Britain: Attack on western city 'matter of time'
By Andrew Cawthorne
Reuters
June 17, 2003

A terror attack on a major Western city using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) technology is "only a matter of time," the head of Britain's domestic intelligence service MI5 said Tuesday.

Eliza Manningham-Buller said violent extremists were becoming more sophisticated in developing such non-conventional threats thanks to help from "renegade scientists."

"We are faced with the realistic possibility of some form of unconventional attack. That could include a CBRN attack," she told a conference in London on countering terrorism.

"Sadly, given the widespread proliferation of the technical knowledge to construct these weapons, it will only be a matter of time before a crude version of a CBRN attack is launched at a major Western city," she added.

The MI5 head was not referring to any specific new threat and was only repeating previous warnings from intelligence sources. But such blunt words in public from a senior secret service official are rare.

Manningham-Buller, who took over MI5 late last year as only the second-ever woman head, said intelligence showed rogue scientists had been helping groups including al Qaeda, blamed for the September 11 attacks against the United States.

"We know that renegade scientists have cooperated with al Qaeda and provided them with some of the knowledge they need to develop these weapons," she said, without saying where the scientists were from.

As the closest ally of Washington, Britain sees itself as a likely target and last month erected a concrete barrier round parliament in the latest high-profile security measure.

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and groups linked to its network have, however, carried out no successful bomb attacks on Western soil since September 11, 2001, focusing instead on easier targets in Kenya, Bali and, recently, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

The British MI5 head said the discovery of traces of the deadly toxin ricin in a London flat in January was a sober warning: "It demonstrates that interest in unconventional weapons."

But she warned against panic over the CBRN threat, as radicals still prefer old-fashioned bomb attacks.

"Before we become unduly alarmist it would be worth noting that the bomb and the suicide bomber remain the most effective tool in the terrorist arsenal," she told the conference at London's Royal United Services' Institute think-tank.

 

SUICIDE BOMBER CAUGHT IN NABLUS

Suicide bomber caught in Nablus
The Jerusalem Post
June 15, 2003

Security forces arrested a Palestinian en route to carry out a suicide attack, media reports said.

The terrorist was captured in the West Bank city of Nablus amid reports of numerous intelligence warnings about plots to carry out attacks against Israel.

Attack threats have grown in the past week following Israel's botched targeted attack on Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in which he was injured and eight other people were killed last Monday.

The following day 17 people were killed in Israel when a Hamas bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem.

 

EU THREATENS HAMAS WITH “CONSEQUENCES”

EU threatens Hamas with 'consequences'
The Jerusalem Post
June 15, 2003

In a statement, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana condemned Hamas' latest terror attacks and threatened the organization with "consequences".

"In Aqaba there was a clear commitment to end terrorism and violence," the statement notes, "And full support for the Roadmap. Those choosing another path will face consequences. The EU will discuss this issue with a view to finding ways to end external support to Hamas.

"Terrorist activities must cease immediately. I would like to encourage Hamas and other groups to follow the offer by the PA and accept a total cease-fire, with the objective of allowing the immediate and full implementation of the Quartet Roadmap."

 

U.S. AMBASSADOR TOLD SHARON: MY COUSIN WAS MURDERED IN ATTACK

Yediot Ahronot
June 15, 2003

American Ambassador Dan Kurtzer now connected to Israel in blood: His cousin, Anna Orgal, was killed in Jerusalem attack.

 

U.S AMBASSADOR’S COUSIN AMONG VICTIMS OF JERUSALEM BUS BOMBING

U.S. ambassador's cousin among victims of Jerusalem bus bombing, State Department says
By Ian Deitch
The Associated Press
June 15, 2003

A cousin of the American ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, was among the 17 people killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in an attack on a bus last week, the State Department said Sunday.

Anna Orgal, 55, was buried Thursday at a cemetery outside Tel Aviv, and Kurtzer attended the funeral, the Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported.

The U.S. Embassy confirmed that Kurtzer's cousin was killed in the Jerusalem attack, but a statement did not release the relative's name.

"The ambassador deeply appreciates the expressions of sympathy he has received. In deference to the privacy of the grieving family in Israel, we will not be commenting further," the Embassy said in a statement read by Brooke Summers, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington.

Kurtzer, an observant Jew, became ambassador in Israel in July 2001 after serving as ambassador in Egypt.

Orgal, daughter of Holocaust survivors, was related to Kurtzer through his mother, who was a cousin of Orgal's father, the paper reported. Kurtzer was in close touch with the family, the daily said.

After the funeral, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with Kurtzer to offer his condolences, the paper said, describing the meeting as emotional. Israeli officials refused to comment.

The bomber, from the militant Hamas group, blew up the bus Wednesday afternoon. Among the victims was an immigrant from Cleveland, Alan Beer, 47. Sarri Singer, 30, daughter of New Jersey State Senator Robert Singer, was wounded.

 

PALESTINIAN STUDENTS RECREATE PARADISE TO SHOW WHAT AWAITS “MARTYRS”

Palestinian students recreate paradise to show what awaits 'martyrs'
By Mohammed Daraghmeh
May 10, 2003

Plastic trees, goldfish swimming in a generator-powered fountain, posters of the dead on the wall: This is a model of the paradise Islamic militants say awaits those killed in fighting with Israel, including suicide bombers.

The display at the West Bank's largest university, An Najah, was assembled by supporters of the violent Hamas group who said they wanted to raise students' morale after 31 months of fighting with Israel.

The university – a hotbed of Palestinian nationalism and a Hamas stronghold – said it officially opposes bombings but didn't want to stifle the students' views.

Israel complains that the Palestinian Authority and many Palestinian institutions systematically incite violence against the Jewish state. Stopping incitement is one of the Palestinian Authority's obligations in a U.S.-backed peace plan presented last week.

As part of the so-called "road map" to peace, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas also would have to crack down on militant groups, including Hamas, that have carried out scores of suicide bombings in recent years, killing hundreds of Israelis.

However, support for militants is still running high among ordinary Palestinians embittered by Israel's tough measures, including travel bans and military strikes, in the current round of fighting.

Palestinian Muslims widely believe that suicide bombers and others killed fighting Israel will spend eternity in paradise, in the company of 72 virgins. That promise has been used as a recruiting tool, relatives of some of the bombers have said.

The model paradise on display at An Najah, which has 10,000 students, was titled "The Victory of the Just." Organizers said it was meant to illustrate the rewards for carrying out attacks on Israel.

The display, which closed Thursday after a weeklong run, did not ignore the fact that death precedes paradise.

Those wishing to enter the room housing paradise had to walk through a candlelit passage with 26 mock graves. Each "grave" contained a green shroud and a photo of one of 26 An Najah students killed in the conflict with Israel, including six suicide bombers.

Stairs from the open graves led down into the paradise section. A small generator pumped water through a fountain into a channel where goldfish swim. Brightly plumed green and yellow birds chirped in cages suspended from plastic trees. The floor was strewn with soft sand and plastic flowers. Pictures of the bombers and quotes from the Quran, the Islamic holy book, covered the wall.

Paradise also was air-conditioned, a telling contrast to the sweltering summertime West Bank.

Hundreds of students filed through the exhibit, some returning again and again. An Najah University would not permit the exhibition to be photographed.

"I have never seen anything like this in all my life," said Abdel Aziz Mohammed, a third-year Arabic studies major. Mohammed said that the exhibit helped him realize "the fate of the fighters" after they blow themselves up among Israelis. "I looked at their pictures, I felt them talking and smiling. They really are in their heaven," he said.

Missing from the display of heaven were the 72 virgins. Organizers said they weren't sure how to depict them. "We don't know what (heavenly) virgins look like," said one of the organizers, a Hamas member and engineering student who only gave his first name, Ahmed. Also, he said, "We don't want people to think we are dying for women. We are dying for God."

Mustafa Abu Sway, an Islamic scholar at Al Quds University in the West Bank, said the Quran is intentionally vague about paradise because it is impossible to grasp its infinite nature.

"Paradise is usually described as something the eye has never seen. It is the same and not the same," Abu Sway said.

Ahmad said exhibit organizers had consulted with Islamic authorities, who said it was "legitimate to represent heaven in a way that shows people what awaits them at the end of life."

University official Sami Keilani said An Najah opposes suicide bombings but did not oppose the exhibition.

"As an institution we believe in pluralism," he said. "We give the students a wide room for theoretical pluralism and we take a neutral position toward the debate among the students."

Ahmad said the display was meant as a response to those criticizing the armed uprising against Israel. "We tell them that they are not wasting their lives. Even if they do not achieve victory in their lives, they gain paradise," he said.

He denied that the exhibition was an incitement to violence.

"We are students, not part of the military wing (of Hamas)," he said. "We ... want to raise morale."

FULL ARTICLES

JBARRA HAS BECOME KNOWN AS THE “PALESTINIAN NELSON MANDELA”

'Fridge bomber' named special adviser to Arafat
By Khaled Abu Toameh
The Jerusalem Post

Ahmed Jbarra, the Palestinian prisoner who was released last week after serving 28 years of a life sentence in an Israeli prison for planting a booby-trapped refrigerator at Jerusalem's Kikar Zion in 1975 and murdering 14 people, has been named a special adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Senior PA officials told The Jerusalem Post that the decision to appoint Jbarra to the new post was a "natural" one, taking into consideration his "great contribution to the Palestinian cause."

Jbarra, 69, who is better known by his nom de guerre Abu al-Sukkar, was released as a goodwill gesture on the eve of the Aqaba summit, which brought together Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and US President George W. Bush.

The officials said Arafat decided to appoint Jbarra as his special adviser for prisoners' affairs. Jbarra, who is a member of Fatah, was also appointed a member of its revolutionary council, the officials added.

Since his release from prison, Jbarra has become known as the "Palestinian Nelson Mandela," because he was the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner. Both Arafat and Abbas have endorsed Jbarra by giving him a hero's welcome and offering him senior posts in the PA.

Last week, Jbarra was present at a press conference organized by Abbas in Ramallah. He is also a frequent visitor to Arafat's office, where he is now expected to serve as the PA chairman's special adviser.

A source close to Arafat refused to say whether the appointment of Jbarra was coordinated with Abbas, who is in Jordan for eye surgery.

The PA has a Ministry for Prisoners' Affairs led by Hisham Abdel Razek, a former security prisoner from the Gaza Strip. It is not clear at this stage whether Jbarra will work under the minister or report directly to Arafat.

 

ISRAEL FREED THE LONGEST-HELD PALESTINIAN PRISONER

Israel freed the longest-held Palestinian prisoner
Jordan Times
June 4, 2003

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (R) - Israel freed the longest-held Palestinian prisoner, a white-haired activist dubbed the "fridge-bomber", and nearly 100 other detainees on Tuesday, a day before a US-led Israel-Palestinian summit in Aqaba.

Defence officials said most had been on the brink of release or were in ill health.

The prisoner release was a goodwill gesture timed to coincide with landmark talks between US President George W. Bush and Arab leaders in Egypt to promote a US-backed peace "roadmap."

The flurry of high-level diplomacy has lifted hopes for ending 32 months of bloodshed, but doubts remain over each side's commitment to implementing the peace plan.

Responding to US pressure for conciliatory moves, Israel freed dozens of prisoners in time for Bush's summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in Aqaba on Wednesday.

Among those released was Ahmad Jbarah, at 67 the oldest Palestinian prisoner held in Israeli jails.

Jbarah, known by nom de guerre of Abu Al Sukkar, spent almost three decades behind bars for his conviction for detonating an explosives-laden refrigerator in Jerusalem in 1975, killing 13 people.

He had been sentenced to serve 75 years for the attack and victims' relatives expressed outrage at his early release.

"We are not murderers, we are not criminals, we are peace seekers," Jbarah said as he was greeted by friends and family at an army checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Detainees flashed V-for-victory signs as they were left prison in buses, and some kissed the ground when they walked free in the West Bank.

DISMISSED AS “COSMETIC MOVE”

Palestinian cabinet member Ziyad Abu Amr dismissed the prisoner release as a "cosmetic" move by Israel on the eve of Bush's meeting with Sharon and Abbas.

"We demand the release of all prisoners," he said, referring to several thousand Palestinians arrested and held without trial since the start of an uprising for independence in September 2000. Many were arrested in sweeps for suspected activists blamed for attacks on Israelis.

 

“WE ARE NOT MURDERERS, WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS, WE ARE PEACE SEEKERS”

Palestinian detainee released after 27 years of captivity
Abu Sukar heads for Arafat's HQ soon after release
PMC (Palestine Media Center)
June 4, 2003

After 27 years of incarceration, Israel released Ahmad Jbara, better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Sukar, who was welcomed by his family and a small but jubilant crowd at Kalandia roadblock, just outside of Ramallah.

The longest-serving Palestinian prisoner was freed along with 90 others held under administrative detention at a time when talks were being held between the US President and Arab leaders in Egypt to promote an internationally endorsed "roadmap" to peace.

Israel freed the Palestinian detainees a day before George W. Bush was to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon in the Red Sea Port of Aqaba.

Unlike the other released detainees, who were imprisoned without charge or trial, Abu Sukar – now a 68-year-old white-haired man – was convicted for detonating an explosives-ridden refrigerator in Jerusalem in 1975, rendering 13 people dead.

He spent three decades behind bars, moving to at least three Israeli prisons in the occupied Palestinian territory and in Israel proper.

"We are not murderers, we are not criminals, we are peace seekers," wires quoted Jbara as saying as he was greeted by friends and family at Kalandia.

Many of the freed detainees were seen flashing victory signs as they were leaving their prisons in buses and kissing the ground as soon as the were in the West Bank.

Immediately after his release, Abu Sukar met with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at his battered Ramallah compound, where he pledged his support for the peace process.

However, he did voice sorrow for having left behind many of his prison inmates with whom he spent more time with than his own family.

"Without liberating all 10,000 prisoners there cannot be peace. I feel my freedom is incomplete because I left 10,000 people behind me in prison," he told AFP afterwards.

However, the Minister of Culture, Ziad Abu Amr, dismissed the move as "cosmetic", and demanded the release of all prisoners, referring to the more than 7,000 Palestinian lingering in Israeli prisons and military detention camps, including more than 1,000 without trial.

Israeli military sources admitted that those who were freed were already on the brink of release or were in ill health.

Nevertheless, Palestinian Minister for Prisoners Affairs said the step was "positive".

"It is a very positive step which creates a good climate for negotiations," Hisham Abdel Raziq told AFP.

"As far as I know, there are 1,700 to 2,000 members of the security branches in Israeli prisons. It is important to release them, but we are working for the release of all Palestinian prisoners," Abdel Raziq added.

Israel had released on Monday Tayseer Khaled, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee, who was arrested by Israeli occupation troops in the northern West Bank town of Nablus six months ago.

 

THE LATEST PALESTINIAN CELEBRITY

A lease of life for Fatah's inside man
Unrepentant Palestinian bomber Ahmed Jubarah gives his first interview after 28 years in Israeli jails
By Conal Urquhart in Ramallah
The Guardian
June 9, 2003

He is the latest Palestinian celebrity: a 67-year-old man with flowing grey hair who has swapped an Israeli prison for the Park Hotel, the closest Ramallah has to the Ritz. As he sits in the lobby, young men and woman come to greet him and kiss him on both cheeks. They are members of the youth section of Fatah, Yasser Arafat's political organisation, who happen to have a meeting in the hotel. He is Ahmed Jubarah, a member of Fatah who has just finished a 28-year prison sentence for a bombing that killed 13 and injured 70.

He is reluctant to relish his freedom. "I am still not free. I left Ramallah 28 years ago and I have come back and it's still under occupation. I cannot be joyous, I have left many friends in prison. Some of them have served almost as much time as me. Until they are free I will not be free."

He was found guilty of planting a bomb in a refrigerator that was then dumped in Zion Square in Jerusalem. While many of his contemporaries were freed in amnesties he became the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, until he was released as a gesture of goodwill by the Israeli government on Tuesday.

As a young man he travelled and worked all over Central and South America, and owned a supermarket in Chicago. "But all the time I wanted to get home to Turmus Ayya," he said – a village 15 miles north of Ramallah.

He divorced his Colombian wife with whom he had three children, remarried and had another three children. But returning to the West Bank meant a return to politics and the struggle against the Israeli occupation. "I have always been involved in the Palestinian struggle. I saw what happened in 1948 and later I was involved in a few things before I was arrested," he said.

He refused to talk about the bombing for which he was jailed, saying only, "I was in Jordan", and neither apologising nor showing remorse. "Have the Israelis apologised for bombing our refugee camps and cities? They never think about us. Every day they are still killing people in spite of the discussions that are going on.

"When there is peace and they say sorry for killing Palestinians, then I will apologise. When you are at war you fight and when you are at peace you support the peace. Now I just want to stop the fighting. My message to the world is: Stop this madness, let there be no more victims."

Despite being a Palestinian icon it is unlikely that Mr Jubarah is in much of a position to influence events. In the 1970s he was a Fatah footsoldier and he has been elevated by the time he has spent in prison. His call for peace, like that of most Palestinians, is equivocal. He still believes that while there is Israeli occupation there should be Palestinian resistance.

He served his sentence in seven prisons, worked-out for two to three hours every day, and studied for a school leaving certificate. He learned Hebrew and improved his command of English, Spanish and Portuguese.

He has little idea what he wants to do in future, but his eyes light up at the mention of travel. "I wish I could go to America. I want to visit friends in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Texas, my sister in Florida. I hope they let me enter the country."

For the moment his home is the Park Hotel as he gets to grips with a world that has changed enormously in 28 years.

Looking out the window at Ramallah's urban sprawl, he said: "This place has grown five times since I left. Now there are buildings with 12 floors." His eyes move to the lobby where the young activists are milling around in jeans and T-shirts. "The young people have more liberty. It is more democratic. I have seen women smoking the narghile [water pipe]. I have never seen that before. I don't know if it is a good or a bad thing."

He has kept abreast of political changes, and since his release he has had several conversations with the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.

"I hope that he can get what the Palestinians need and succeed where everyone else has failed. He is a gentleman, he talks with everyone." Reluctant to divulge the nature of their conversations, he relented and said: "I told him that the most important thing was to maintain Palestinian unity. He agreed."

FULL ARTICLES

“PRESIDENT BUSH DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT GOES ON HERE”

'President Bush doesn't have a clue,' American Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com
June 12, 2003

The daughter of New Jersey State Senator Robert Singer, wounded in the suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem on Wednesday, said President Bush does not understand the situation here. Nevertheless, Israel has pledged to continue to implement the "road map" to an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Bush condemned Tuesday's terror attack, in which a terrorist linked to Hamas, disguised as a religious Jew, boarded a packed bus during rush hour and detonated a powerful bomb. The attack on a busy Jerusalem street killed 16 people and wounded more than 100.

"It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace; people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in security and peace don't happen; who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority [Mahmoud Abbas] and others of a peaceful state, living side-by-side with Israel, do not happen," Bush said in a statement from Chicago, Illinois. Bush also urged the international community to fight terror and "cut off money to organizations such as Hamas."

But American Sherry Singer said Bush just doesn't understand. She described her experience in a radio interview.

"Usually I look just to see who comes on. It was very packed. I sat down into a seat. And the next thing I know is I feel this... very strong blast. And the next thing I know people are pulling me out of the bus," Singer said.

"President Bush, who I voted for and I respect, does not understand what goes on here," Singer said. "I'd like to see him come to the country and visit and talk with Americans that moved here and see what really it's all about before he decides to put a peace plan into action. And I just think it's sad that he doesn't have any clue about what we're going through as Americans here," an emotional Singer added.

Press reports said her father, New Jersey Sen. Robert Singer, is on his way to Israel, hoping to persuade his daughter to return home with him.

Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas at a three-way summit in Aqaba, Jordan last week. There, Sharon pledged to recognize a viable Palestinian state and to evacuate "unauthorized" settlement outposts, while Abbas vowed to fight terrorism and also called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled said Israel would continue to implement its part of the road map but would also continue to fight terror. "We will continue dismantling the outposts, and we will continue fighting terror at the same time, until the Palestinian Authority and Abu Mazen [Abbas] understand that he has to roll up his sleeves and begin taking action against them," Peled said at the site of Wednesday's attack.

"It's going to be a very difficult task but until Abu Mazen understands and realizes that this is endangering him and his government and everything and doesn't decide, 'Okay, I'm willing to fight the Hamas now,' not just sit down and wait to talk to them, I don't think we're going to see quiet," Peled added.

Israel meanwhile, dismantled at least nine "unauthorized outposts" this week and reportedly was ready to take down more.

 

OPERATION PENINSULA STRIKE

US troops say kill 100 in raid on Iraq 'terror' camp
Reuters
June 13, 2003

U.S. troops have killed at least 100 people in a "terrorist" training camp in Iraq, a U.S. military spokesman said on Friday.

He said one U.S. soldier was wounded in the operation, which was still in progress. The 101st Airborne Division took part in the raid.

The army said earlier the raid on the camp, 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Baghdad, was part of the "continued effort to eradicate Baath Party loyalists, paramilitary groups and other subversive elements", but gave no details on the camp.

The operation began in the early hours of Thursday morning with an air strike on the camp.

U.S. commanders say supporters of Saddam Hussein are behind a wave of deadly attacks on U.S. troops in recent weeks. Some 40 soldiers have been killed in attacks and ambushes since Saddam's overthrow two months ago.

Operation Peninsula Strike, the largest U.S. operation in Iraq since the end of the war, involves some 4,000 troops scouring an area around the Tigris river northeast of the tense town of Balad, U.S. officials said.

 

ISRAELI WOMEN INJURED IN ROADSIDE AMBUSH

Israeli women injured in roadside ambush
Ha'aretz
June 13, 2003

Two Israeli women were wounded Friday afternoon in a roadside ambush on their vehicle in the West Bank. One of the women was seriously wounded by the shots; the condition of the second was described at moderate to serious.

The vehicle came under attack close to the settlement of Neveh Tzuf, close to Jenin.

Avner Maimon, 49, from Netanya was killed in a shooting attack Thursday near the village of Yabed, in the northern West Bank. His body was found in a car adjacent to the village. The Magen David Adom crew that arrived at the scene pronounced him dead.

The Al Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Maimon was a merchant who frequented Yabed, in Area B and under Israeli security control, to purchase coal.

Police had received several warnings in recent weeks on plans to murder the man, and he was informed of this. Despite the warnings, he arrived in the village on Thursday.

At approximately 7:40 P.M., the IDF and police received reports that a body had been found near the village. Police investigators are not yet sure if he was shot where he was found, at the entrance to the village, or if he was kidnapped, killed inside the village, and then placed in his car.

The death toll in the Jerusalem suicide bombing rose to 17 on Thursday when Tzipora Levy, 70, from Jerusalem died of wounds sustained in Wednesday's attack.

Twenty-seven of the more than 100 people wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber, dressed as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, blew himself up on a bus in the capital, remained hospitalized, six of them in serious condition.

 

SAUDI FAULTS ISRAEL, DEFENDS AID TO BOMBER FAMILIES

Saudi faults Israel, defends aid to bomber families
By Carol Giacomo
Reuters
June 12, 2003

A top Saudi official on Thursday defended Saudi aid to the families of suicide bombers and faulted Israel's recent attempt to assassinate leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

As the White House branded Hamas the major obstacle to Mideast peace amid a wave of bloodshed that has thrown a U.S.-backed peace plan into turmoil, Adel al-Jubeir, adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, condemned terrorism, but refused to condemn Hamas directly, and focused his criticism on Israel.

"Our view has been and remains that we are against targeted assassination of individuals. We believe it is morally wrong," he told a news conference.

"They do not achieve any objective other than further fueling hate and provoking reactions and responses, which in turn provoke more reactions and responses, which in turn keeps the cycle of violence going and accelerated," he said.

The region has been engulfed in a wave of retributive violence this week, including a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 16 in Jerusalem on Wednesday and lethal Israeli attacks in Gaza.

After failing in an attempt to kill a Hamas leader on Tuesday, an Israeli missile strike on Thursday killed a senior Hamas militant, his wife and one-year-old daughter, among a total of seven dead

Al-Jubeir denied the Saudi government gave money directly to Hamas, saying it provided assistance to impoverished Palestinians through the United Nations, the International Red Crescent and the Palestinian Authority – just as the United States does.

But he acknowledged Hamas may run some institutions receiving the aid and that individual Saudis may help finance the organization.

Saudi government aid to Palestinian families, including relatives of suicide bombers, was justified, he insisted.

With more than half of all Palestinians living below the poverty level, "we give money to Palestinian families in need... Are some of those families, families who have had a suicide bomber? Yes. But do we give the money because their son or daughter was a suicide bomber? No. Is that money an incentive for them to commit acts of terrorism? No," he said.

Al-Jubeir said families in need should not be punished because a son did something people disapprove of, arguing: "I think morally, guilt should not transfer."

Most of the Saudi aid is in the form of blankets and food, not cash, and "there is an accounting of it," he said.

Al-Jubeir noted that Israel's assassination attempt came amid efforts to broker a cease-fire among Palestinian militants groups and after a last week's U.S.-Israel-Palestinian summit raised hopes of a peace deal.

"When you engage in assassination attempts in the midst of efforts to try to broker an agreement that I would think would be beneficial to the Israelis, that's not wise leadership," he said.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the Wednesday suicide bombing on a Jerusalem bus. Asked if he condemned Hamas, Al-Jubeir, said: "We condemn terrorism in all its forms... whether it's perpetrated by one side or the other."

He described new controls imposed on Saudi banks to combat financing of extremist groups and reported that more than 1,000 individuals have been questioned and 300 arrested since the May 12 terrorist bombing in Riyadh that was blamed on al Qaeda.

Washington also blames Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States that killed more than 3,000 people.

 

A “PEDIATRICIAN AND POET”

The Rantisi strike
HonestReporting
June 11, 2003

On Tuesday the IDF carried out an unsuccessful mission to eliminate Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who survived the helicopter strike upon his vehicle in Gaza City. An outpouring of media criticism has followed, claiming Israel's attempted hit has damaged hopes for Mideast peace.

HonestReporting encourages members to be on the lookout for these five media myths, and to respond appropriately with the facts:

Myth 1: Rantisi is not all that bad.

The Associated Press issued a lengthy, sympathetic biography of Rantisi, described in the headline as a "pediatrician and poet." The AP's Jayson Keyser characterizes Rantisi, who "wears gold-framed tinted glasses," as a healthy, caring and gracious patriarch of "six children and 10 grandchildren. He has written poetry for one of them, a girl named Assma." Keyser then proceeds to quote effusive verses from the love poem.

Fact: Rantisi, the "great family man," stated to the AFP in August that he would encourage his own sons to become suicide bombers. Rantisi has claimed responsibility for many bloody Hamas attacks, including the Hebrew University cafeteria bombing last summer. Prior to the Iraq war, Rantisi called on Iraqis to carry out suicide bombings against US forces.

Can one imagine AP describing so warmly a perpetrator of mass terror against Americans?
Comments to: feedback@ap.org

Myth #2 Israel has undermined Abbas' effort to rein in terror.

The New York Times predicts the strike will "doom any prospect of a cease-fire in the near future," and Washington Post editors claim "the strike likely will undermine Palestinian efforts to control terrorism."

Fact: Abbas has suggested only a hudna (temporary ceasefire) with the terror groups, a frail approach Israel has consistently rejected. The road map itself demands at this stage much more than a hudna calling on the P.A. to "arrest, disrupt, and restrain" terror leaders.

As recently documented by The Washington Institute, Hamas agreed to ten ceasefires in the past ten years, and after every one of them returned freshly rearmed for terror. Why should this time be different?

Myth #3 The timing of the hit indicates Israel is trying to kill the peace effort.

The Globe and Mail called the strike "a direct challenge both to peace and to Mr. Bush."

Fact: The IDF action was not intended to kill the road map, but actually make the process possible. Consider had the strike been successful, it would have strengthened Abbas by removing one of his most ardent opponents, who condemned Abbas' peaceful course, then directed Sunday's killing of four Israeli soldiers, just days after the hopeful Aqaba summit.

As Vice President Cheney expressed after the recent attacks against Americans in Saudi Arabia, to bring peace, terrorists must be eliminated: "The only way to deal with this threat ultimately is to destroy it. There's no treaty that can solve this problem, there's no peace agreement, no policy of containment or deterrence that works to deal with this threat. We have to go find the terrorists."

At the least, this attempted strike keeps Hamas leaders off-balanced, on the defensive, and denies them the opportunity to perpetrate attacks unhindered, which would ultimately derail the peace process.

Myth #4 Israel has abandoned diplomacy in favor of military means.

The Times of London headlined their report, "Roadmap Left Burning on the Streets of Gaza."

Fact: On Monday, Israel began dismantling 14 illegal settlement outposts, a tangible expression of its commitment to moving the road map forward. Israel has always maintained, however, that even as it fulfils its road map commitments, it will continue to act against the terrorists and defend its citizens if the PA does not take action. The PA has not acted, the terror continued, and the IDF responded.

Myth #5 The consequence of the strike will be more terror.

The Washington Post claims "it's not hard to imagine the probable consequences of Israel's failed attempt yesterday to assassinate Abdel Aziz Rantisi [Hamas] will now launch a new terrorist onslaught at Israeli civilians."

Fact: Israel currently has over 50 specific warnings of planned terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. This figure existed on Monday, even before the attempted hit. Never has Hamas indicated their plans are anything other than a "terrorist onslaught at Israeli civilians." Israel had every reason to assume that Rantisi's terror activities would increase; one Israeli official said "Rantisi was not just a ticking bomb, but a factory of ticking bombs."

 

FROM “CHICAGO” TO TEL AVIV

From "Chicago" to Tel Aviv: Richard Gere's peace mission
By Ellis Shuman
Israel Insider
June 2, 2003

One week after pop star Whitney Houston's highly publicized "spiritual retreat" in Israel, actor Richard Gere arrived in the country on a "visit to promote peace."

Gere, the 54-year-old star of hit films including An Officer and a Gentlemen, Pretty Woman and Chicago, asked that the media not cover his three-day visit to Israel, but the Israeli press was full of reports of his arrival on an El Al airliner at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Sunday and his lodgings in the royal suite at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv, which had previously hosted the Dalai Lama, Gere's spiritual mentor.

Gere is visiting Israel as the guest of Spirit of Peace, the Israeli chapter of the International Peacemaking Community - a global, multi-faith peace organization. In recent years, Gere has made frequent visits around the world to promote peace, conciliation and the restoration of Tibetan rights.

"This is a modest visit to explore how he can help us in different ways," said Tel Aviv University Professor Yaakov Raz, chairman of Spirit of Peace.

Gere asked to "hear the voices of the people" and to get to know the special places in the region," said Iris Elhany, organizer of the visit.

Gere is expected to meet with Jewish and Arab citizens, peacemakers, artists, and businessmen in his efforts to understand the problems of the Middle East. He will also meet with former foreign minister Shimon Peres and visit the Palestinian Authority, although it is not clear if he will meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen. The Jerusalem Post added that Gere also plans to fly to Iraq.

FULL ARTICLES

“16 ZIONIST SETTLERS KILLED, 74 INJURED”

16 Zionist settlers killed, 74 injured in Jerusalem blast
Hamas web site
June 11, 2003

Occupied Jerusalem – In an apparent retaliation for the failed assassination attempt on Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Rantisi, a Palestinian guerilla blew himself aboard an Israeli bus in downtown West (al-Qods) Jerusalem, killing and injuring dozens of Jewish settlers.

The blast ripped the bus, reducing much of it to charred, twisted metals.

Israeli police sources said 16 settlers were killed and as many 74 others were injured in a preliminary count.

The Israeli state-run radio quoted medics as saying that several people died in the blast.

Hamas on Tuesday vowed to retaliate for the failed assassination attempt and also for killing by Israeli forces of six Palestinian civilians, including three members of the same family at the Refugee camp.

 

HAMAS PRAISES BUS BOMBING

Hamas praises bus bombing
The Jerusalem Post
June 11, 2003

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas co-founder and target of Israel's botched attack on Tuesday, stopped short of claiming direct responsibility for the Jerusalem bombing.

Speaking to The Associated Press from his hospital bed he said that "the Zionists will pay an expensive price for all of their crimes."

Rantisi said the bus bombing "took place at a time when the Zionists were on utmost alert, more evidence that our people will not be defeated."

 

ARAFAT PHONES RANTISSI, WISHES HIM QUICK RECOVERY

Arafat phones Rantissi, wishes him quick recovery
Xinhua, Chinese State news agency
June 11, 2003

Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Chairman Yasser Arafat on Wednesday telephoned Hamas leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, who had escaped an Israeli assassination attempt a day ago.

During the phone call, Arafat wished Rantissi quick recovery from the injuries he sustained during the Israeli helicopter attack that targeted his car in one of the most crowded streets in Gaza City, the PNA-run WAFA news agency reported.

The agency said Arafat had strongly denounced the assassination attempt, in which Rantissi and one of his sons were moderately injured, but one of his aide and two bystanders were killed. Arafat asserted that such military operations "could never lead to peace or achieve security and stability for either side."

"The PNA will keep up its efforts and contacts with the international parties concerned in order to halt such Israeli crimes," Arafat said.

 

MOFAZ WARNS “MAY BE NO CHOICE” BUT TO EXPEL ARAFAT

Arafat may be expelled soon, Mofaz warns
By Gideon Alon
Ha'aretz
June 11, 2003

There "may be no choice" but to expel Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in "the very near future," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday.

"My opinion in the past was that we should deport Arafat," he said, responding to questions from MKs Benjamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) and Ehud Yatom (Likud). "At this moment, it would not be right to do so, but it is very possible that in the very near future, there will be no choice but to do so."

Mofaz said Arafat is making every effort to foil the Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement and the reforms that Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is trying to effect. Arafat still controls some of the PA security services, he noted.

Terrorist organizations are also trying to disrupt the process and are, therefore, instigating attacks, he said. This creates difficult problems but there is now a chance for peace that must be fully explored, he said. However, he added, the process is likely to take years and be studded with many ups and downs.

Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, head of Military Intelligence's research division, said the army has foiled some attacks, including suicide bombings, over the last few days, but new warnings of planned attacks keep pouring in. Most of the attacks are being planned by organizations affiliated with Fatah, the faction to which both Arafat and Abbas belong, he said.

Kuperwasser noted that Abbas initially refused to condemn Sunday's attack at the Erez Junction, which killed four soldiers. Even after he was pressured into doing so, his condemnation was not reported by any of the Palestinian media. It was evidently purely for external consumption, he said.

Brigadier General Eli Yaffe, head of the General Staff's Operations Directorate, said that in the 40 days since Abu Mazen's government was established, there has been no change in the level of terrorist activity. During this period, the IDF killed 75 terrorists and arrested 650, he said.

 

ISRAEL “KNOWS” 53 ATTACKS PLANNED

Israel 'knows' 53 attacks planned
Australian news agency, Sydney
June 11, 2003

Israeli security services have intelligence on plans for 53 attacks, military radio reported today, a day after Israeli forces failed in a bid to assassinate Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, a leader of the hardline militant group Hamas.

Half of the attacks were planned by Hamas, which has been responsible for the bulk of anti-Israeli attacks in recent years, the radio added.

Rantissi and other Hamas officials vowed bloody retaliation yesterday after the helicopter strike in central Gaza.

According to the intelligence material gathered by Israel, Rantissi had recently advocated resuming suicide attacks inside Israel during a recent meeting with the movement's spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin.

Rantissi's intention was also to force Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas to go back on his statement at last week's peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan, in which he promised to put an end to the armed struggle.

 

PRESIDENT BUSH: “THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST WHO HATE PEACE”

Statement by President Bush
Subject: Middle East Violence
Chicago
June 11, 2003

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, today there was a terrible bombing in Jerusalem. I send my heartfelt condolences to those who suffered and lost life.

The – it is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace. There are people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in secure peace don't happen; who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister from the Palestinian Authority and others of a peaceful state living side by side with Israel do not happen.

For the people in the world who want to see peace in the Middle East, I strongly urge all of you to fight off terror, to cut off money to organizations such as Hamas, to isolate those who hate so much that they're willing to kill to stop peace from going forward.

I strongly condemn the killings, and I urge and call upon all the free world, nations which love peace, to not only condemn the killings but to use every ounce of their power to prevent them from happening in the future.

Thank you.

Q Would Israel be justified in going after Hamas, sir?

(No answer.)

END.

 

THE PA PREMIER DID NOT FIND IT STRANGE TO BUY SUCH AN EXPENSIVE CAR

Abbas' new car cost half a million dollars
By Palestine Information Center, London, England
June 10, 2003

Occupied Jerusalem – Zionist occupation forces refused entry of Palestinian Authority premier Mahmoud Abbas' new car at the crossing bridge with Jordan on the same day of the Aqaba summit.

Hebrew sources said that the Zionist officials refused to allow Abbas' new black Mercedes-600S to cross the bridge because its custom dues were not paid.

The Palestinians should pay custom dues to the Zionist authorities on any imported commodity according to the economic agreements between the two parties then part of those duties would be transferred to the PA.

The half a million dollars bullet-proof and fire-proof car was considered one such commodity, the sources said, noting that driver of the car protested the treatment saying that he had a VIP identity card.

Directors of the custom departments consulted Zionist finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the political sensitivities involved.

The minister refused to allow entry of the car without paying the money so the custom officials proposed a "creative solution" asking the Palestinians to choose either to pay the dues or the "Israelis" would deduct the sum from the money transferred from "Israel" to the PA each month.

The Palestinians chose the second option after which the driver was allowed to drive the car into the West Bank, according to the sources.

The Palestinian people are experiencing their worst ever economic hardship, yet the PA premier did not find it strange to buy such an expensive car at such hard times!

 

PM ABU MAZEN REFUSES TO MEET THE ITALIAN PM BERLUSCONI

PM Abu Mazen refuses to meet the Italian PM Berlusconi
Palestinian Authority Website
June 11, 2003

Palestinian Information Minister, Nabil Amr, declared Monday that the Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), would not meet his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi, in his office in Ramallah for the latter's refusal to meet with President Yasser Arafat, in compliance with Israeli demands.

Amr made clear that the Palestinian leadership views Berlusconi's position as a derogation form the European Union's policy line, in terms of the EU-Palestinian diplomatic relations, asserting that such a stance does not represent the European Union.

Palestinian representative to Italy, Nemr Hammad, was reported by "Republica Daily" as saying that Berlusconi would not meet with any Palestinian official during a visit to the Middle East region

Noteworthy, it is the first time that a European official refrains from meeting with President Yasser Arafat, who the United States and Israel have been attempting to sideline.

Prime Minister Abu Mazen said yesterday in a press conference in Ramallah that "President Yasser Arafat will remain on top of the Palestinian Authority and he will also resume our struggle until we establish our Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Berlusconi started Monday a Middle East tour that commenced by a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

 

ABU MAZEN DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT

Abu Mazen doing nothing about it
Israel National News

Defense sources report that there are no signs that PA chief Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is taking any actions against terrorism. In the course of the past month, Israel has arrested 20 suicide terrorists – including one yesterday – before they could carry out their murderous crimes. Ten of them were caught after the Aqaba summit. Israeli security elements are dealing today with 55 terrorist warnings around the country – half of them from Hamas, which is hankering to retaliate against yesterday's attempted assassination of terrorist leader Abdel Rantisi. Police in Wadi Ara (Nachal I'ron, between Hadera and Afula) and in the Netanya region have been on high alert all day.

In Gaza and the Shomron, the intense Palestinian violence of this morning continued this afternoon with a terrorist bomb against a passenger bus near Gush Katif; no one was hurt. Another bomb was found earlier in the same area, and Arabs fired at an IDF position near Ganei Tal. A mortar shell was found, unexploded, on the roof of a home in Kfar Darom; no one was hurt. In the Shomron, there were at least two incidents of Arab gunfire at Israeli targets; no one was hurt.

This morning saw several Kassam shells fired at Sderot and environs, and Palestinian shooting at soldiers in Gush Katif was the name of the game for most of the night. Close to ten anti-tank missiles were fired and over 25 grenades were hurled at the Israelis. At least two people were treated for shock in Gush Katif, and the shells in Sderot caused some damage. Yesterday's shelling in Sderot sent 8 people to the hospital to be treated for shock.

News of a shocking terrorist murder a month ago was revealed today. An Israeli-Arab from Kfar Kassem, outside Rosh HaAyin, has admitted murdering his girlfriend, 26-year-old Tali Weinberg. Her mutilated body was found on May 4, and police originally said that the crime occurred on a criminal or romantic background. Arutz-7's Kobi Finkler reports that the Arab, who lived with Weinberg in a room in a garage, reenacted the crime, saying he murdered her in order to prove to the terrorist organizations that he can meet their standards. He was caught last night by Shabak agents in Jericho, and was ordered remanded for ten days.

Matan Gadari, the soldier who was killed in a firefight with terrorists in Hevron on Sunday, was buried in his hometown of Moledet late this afternoon. His sister arrived this morning from South America.

 

REUTERS: “PEACE DIDN'T STAND A CHANCE ON WEDNESDAY”

Death from the skies strikes Gaza again
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Reuters Financial News website
June 11, 2003

Peace didn't stand a chance on Wednesday on a Gaza street where sudden death struck two Palestinian militants after a bomber from their Hamas group ended the lives of 16 Jerusalem bus passengers in a flash.

Swooping down on a car, an Israeli helicopter fired three missiles, killing Tito Masaoud – a senior commander of Hamas's armed wing – his deputy and five passersby.

It was deja vu for Palestinians angered by an almost identical attack a day earlier in Gaza City in which Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, a senior Hamas leader, was wounded by missiles fired from Israeli helicopter gunships.

"This is the kind of peace the road map will bring us," said a witness, his eyes brimming with tears, as he gave his assessment of a new U.S.-backed peace plan already battered by a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Around 35 people were wounded in the Gaza strike, several seriously, hospital officials said.

"Pools of blood, cut-off body parts, cut-off heads – this is what I saw," another witness said.

The strike took place shortly after a Palestinian suicide bomber disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew blew up a bus in downtown Jerusalem, killing at least 16 people and wounding more than 100.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the blast that followed hard on the heels of the assassination attempt against Rantissi.

Amid the dizzying cycle of violence, thousands of Gazans rushed into the street calling for more revenge.

"No for Abu Mazen's peace, yes for resistance," hundreds chanted, referring to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who affirmed the peace plan with Israeli leader Ariel Sharon and President Bush at a summit in Jordan a week ago.

Witnesses said the helicopters continued to hover until it was clear the two militants – their bodies charred by fire that engulfed their car – were dead.

"Helicopters fired a fourth missile at the crowd that ran toward the Hamas car to help, and many were hit," said the owner of a nearby store.

Women wept as they ran behind an ambulance carrying their children to hospital.

"Death to Israel, death to America," cried a Gazan as he watched a stretcher being loaded into a rescue vehicle.

FULL ARTICLES

NEW PALESTINIAN PM BEHIND MUNICH OLYMPICS ATTACK

New Palestinian PM behind Munich Olympics attack
By Steve K. Walz
May 9, 2003

President Yasser Arafat's newly appointed Palestinian Authority prime minister does not have the pristine past touted by his supporters, charges an Israeli civil rights group. Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, provided financing for the terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, says Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center.

In a letter to President George W. Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Darshan-Leitner called for an investigation into Abu Mazen's role in the Sept. 5, 1972, attack, carried out by Arafat's central Palestinian Liberation Organization faction Fatah.

Operating under the name "Black September," the terrorist group, send a squad of armed Palestinians to attack dormitories housing the Israeli Olympic team. The gunmen murdered a coach and a member of the weightlifting team, then took nine other Israelis hostage. The Palestinians demanded they be transported to the Munich airport where a rescue attempt by German police failed, and all nine hostages were murdered.

Last week, President Bush praised Abu Mazen as "a man dedicated to peace," indicating he would invite him to the White House for talks after his cabinet was installed. The Palestinian parliament meets today to confirm the new prime minister as head of a cabinet created under international pressure to curb Arafat's powers as president.

Shurat Hadin claims it has contacts within the Palestinian Authority itself who point out the hypocrisy of Abu Mazen's insistence he was never been involved in terrorism.

The Israeli group also notes the mastermind of the Munich attack, Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, or Abu Daoud, claims Abu Mazen provided the funds to carry out the Black September attack. Daoud made that charge in his 1999 French language memoir, "Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich," and again in an interview last August with Don Yaeger of Sports Illustrated magazine.

Abu Daoud said he was angered by the dozens of Palestinian terrorists allowed to return to the Palestinian territories as a result of the Oslo process while he remained persona non grata to Israel and the United States. Abu Mazen, Daoud complained, is now considered "respectable" even though he also was involved in the Munich attack. Abu Mazen, part of the Palestinian hierarchy for nearly four decades, has served as PLO executive committee chairman.

In his book Abu Daoud states: "After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. Do you think that would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation? I doubt it."

In the Sports Illustrated interview, he added: "Today, the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner 'uncompromised by terror,' yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell." Daoud also was interviewed about the Munich massacre for a film called "One Day in September," produced by John Battsek and Arthur Cohn for Sony Pictures Classics. Director Kevin Macdonald said Abu Mazen admitted Black September was merely the cover name adopted by Fatah members when they wanted to carry out terrorist attacks.

The PLO operative recalled how Arafat and Abu Mazen both wished him luck and kissed him when he set about organizing the Munich attack.

The Shurat Hadin letter to President Bush said: "Under your leadership the United States has declared that it will no longer conduct diplomacy with those tainted by terrorist pasts. It appears that the new Palestinian leader to which the United States and Israel are now pinning all their hopes, was also involved in murderous attacks perpetrated by the PLO's Black September. Abu Mazen's alleged role in the brutal killing of the Israeli athletes and American Citizen David Berger must also preclude his involvement in the negotiations between Israel and their Arab neighbors."

Abu Mazen also has been criticized for a 1983 book in which he suggested the figure of 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust was "peddled" by the Jews. In "The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement," he said the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews in a plot to gain sympathy for creation of the state of Israel.

Nevertheless, as one of the PLO architects of the Oslo Accords, Abu Mazen is regarded by Europe and the United States as the best hope to lead the Palestinians to renewed negotiations, known as the "Road Map" to peace.

His supporters also point to statements he has made against the Palestinian armed struggle, or Intifada, as evidence of his moderate credentials. However, analysts, such as the Middle East Media Research Institute, contend his position has been primarily pragmatic, based on strategic reasons.

 

THE MASTERMIND BEHIND THE MUNICH MASSACRE

The Mastermind: Thirty years after he helped plan the terror strike, Abu Daoud remains in hiding – and unrepentant
By Alexander Wolff
Sports Illustrated
August 26, 2002

Following the Oslo Accords of 1993, the mastermind of Black September's Munich attack enjoyed a certain respectability. Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, a.k.a. Abu Daoud, sat on the Palestinian National Council, where in 1996 he joined a majority in voting to revoke the clause in the PLO charter calling for Israel's destruction. Though Israel had long known of his role at Munich – Mossad was believed to have been involved in a 1981 assassination attempt in which he was shot six times – he even carried an Israeli-issued VIP pass that allowed him to shuttle between his home in Amman, Jordan, and the occupied territories.

All that changed in 1999 after Abu Daoud openly acknowledged his role in the Olympic attack, both in his memoir, Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich, published in Paris, and in an interview with the Arab TV network al-Jazeera. Germany issued an international arrest warrant on Abu Daoud, and Israel canceled his travel credentials, barring him from the Palestinian lands he had spent his adult life trying to liberate. In the U.S., former senator Howard Metzenbaum (D., Ohio) – who had watched the Munich crisis unfold on TV with his neighbors in suburban Cleveland, the parents of Israeli-American victim David Berger – led a campaign to keep U.S. bookstores from stocking Abu Daoud's memoir. (Arcade, which owns the U.S. rights, still hasn't set a publication date for an English-language version of the book.)

In late July, SI's Don Yaeger went to the Middle East to find the 72-year-old Abu Daoud. After five days in Syria, where he met with leaders of several Palestinian groups, including the Palestinian Authority, PA president Yasir Arafat's Fatah faction and the militant Hamas, Yaeger received a call from Abu Daoud, who said he was in Cyprus. Abu Daoud, who would not reveal where he resides – saying only that he lives with his wife on a pension provided by the PA – agreed to answer written questions. Among his claims, in his memoir and to SI, are these:

Though he wasn't involved in conceiving or implementing it, "the [Munich] operation had the endorsement of Arafat." Arafat is not known to have responded to the allegations in Abu Daoud's book. In May 1972 four Black Septembrists hijacked a Sabena flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv, hoping to free comrades from Israeli jails. But Israeli special forces stormed the plane, killing or capturing all the terrorists and freeing every passenger, leaving Arafat, by Abu Daoud's account, desperate to boost morale in the refugee camps by showing that Israel was vulnerable.

Though he didn't know what the money was being spent for, longtime Fatah official Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen could not be reached for comment regarding Abu Daoud's allegation. After Oslo in 1993, Abu Mazen went to the White House Rose Garden for a photo op with Arafat, President Bill Clinton and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. "Do you think that ... would have been possible if the Israelis had known that Abu Mazen was the financier of our operation?" Abu Daoud writes. "I doubt it." Today the Bush Administration seeks a Palestinian negotiating partner "uncompromised by terror," yet last year Abu Mazen met in Washington with Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The German assertion that the team's two senior commandos had infiltrated the Olympic Village in the weeks before the attack isn't true. Abu Daoud speculates that the Germans found this story useful, to make the attack seem like an inside job and divert attention from their poor security measures.

While he doesn't regret his role in the operation, Abu Daoud told SI, "I would be against any operation like Munich ever again. At the time, it was the correct thing to do for our cause. ... The operation brought the Palestinian issue into the homes of 500 million people who never previously cared about Palestinian victims at the hands of the Israelis." Today, he says, an attack on an event like the Olympics would only damage the Palestinians' image.

 

“MY CHILDREN WERE MURDERED BY A PLO TERRORIST...”

Elderly woman suing new Palestinian PM
By Julie Stahl
CNS News
May 1, 2003

An American-Israeli citizen is filing lawsuits in Israel and the U.S. against Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas because, she claims, he ordered the terrorist murder of her daughter and son-in-law.

Dina Horowitz and her husband Rabbi Eli Horowitz were murdered by Palestinian gunmen who burst into their home on March 7, 2003, as they sat at their dinner table celebrating the Sabbath in Kiryat Arba, just outside of the West Bank city of Hebron.

Dina and Eli were both born in the United States. Dina's mother Bernice Wolf, 78, is a dual American-Israeli citizen, who has lived here for 15 years.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Wolf said in a telephone interview. "My whole life is shattered."

Wolf said she wants to meet with President Bush "to ask him to explain to me why [Abbas], who ordered the murder of my daughter and financed the murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes, should come and be a peace negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians."

This week, news reports indicated that Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) had financed the PLO faction called Black September when the group attacked Israeli athletes and their coaches at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Eleven athletes and their coaches were killed, some during a botched German rescue operation.

Wolf noted that just days before her daughter and son-in-law were murdered, Abbas said in newspaper interviews that it was permissible to murder Jews who lived in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In an interview published on the website of the Arabic newspaper Al Sharq Alawsat on March 3, 2003, Abbas spoke about the Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire talks with all the Palestinian militant factions.

"On the basis of the talks held in Cairo [between the different Palestinian factions] we agreed upon the freezing of Palestinian military operations [terrorist attacks] for one year," Abbas was quoted as saying in translated excerpts, which appeared originally on the Israeli army's website.

"This, on the condition that the chief Egyptian mediators receive [Israeli] guarantees about an Israeli military cease-fire, a cessation of arrests [of Palestinian terrorists] and on the withdrawal [of the army] to their positions before September 28, 2000...

"We did not say, however, that we are giving up the armed struggle. It is our right to resist. The intifada must continue. It is the right of the Palestinian people to resist and use all possible means in order to defend its presence and existence. I add and say that if the Israelis come to your land in order to erect a settlement, then it is your right to defend what is yours...

"The restriction applies only to "shahada-seeking" [suicide] operations and going out to attack in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. There is no justification to go out [of the territories] to fight the army," he said.

Several days later, Palestinian Legislative Council member Qadura Fares confirmed in a radio interview that "resistance to the occupation" was legitimate and would continue until the Palestinians believed that serious negotiations to end what they consider the Israeli occupation were underway, according to the Independent Media Review and Analysis website.

Wolf delivered a letter on Thursday to the U.S. Consulate in eastern Jerusalem, which deals with Palestinian affairs, informing the U.S. government that she had filed a suit against Abbas in Israel.

"I have asked the Israeli government [to] indict Abu Mazen for the direct complicity in the cold-blooded murder of my daughter, Dina Horowitz and my son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Horowitz," Wolf wrote.

"My children were murdered by a PLO terrorist... four days after Abu Mazen declared that it was permissible to murder Jews who live in [the West Bank and Gaza Strip].

"I formally request that the U.S. government cut off all ties to Abu Mazen, since Abu Mazen continues to advocate the murder of Jews," she wrote.

In Israel, Wolf is asking that the Israeli government indict Abbas, as the head of the PLO Executive Committee, for incitement to murder.

In the U.S. Wolf plans to sue Abbas and the PLO for damages.

Abbas and his government were sworn in on Wednesday. On Tuesday, he denounced terrorism and pledged to collect illegal weapons in a speech before the PLC. Israeli officials have said they are waiting to see if he has the will and ability to stop terrorism before passing judgment.

 

JEWISH LAWYER TO DEFEND ERIC RUDOLPH

Jewish lawyer to defend Eric Rudolph
The Associated Press
Birmingham, Ala
June 8, 2003

Eric Rudolph, the accused Olympic bomber portrayed over the years as a rabid hater of Jews, now finds himself represented by a Jewish lawyer who says he's seen no evidence of anti-Semitism from his client.

In an interview Thursday on NBC's "Today" show, court-appointed defense attorney Richard S. Jaffe said he knew all about Rudolph's supposed beliefs but said his client didn't have a problem with his Jewish faith.

"There's been a public perception painted of Eric Rudolph that's far from accurate," said Jaffe, who specializes in death penalty cases and has helped get three Alabama inmates off death row.

Jaffe's rabbi at Birmingham's Temple Beth-El said he wasn't concerned about a member of his congregation representing a man who has been depicted as violently anti-Semitic.

"I myself detest Eric Rudolph," said Rabbi Brian Glusman. "I would certainly support the death penalty for him. But I also believe he's entitled to a good defense."

Rudolph, arrested Saturday behind a grocery store in rural western North Carolina, is accused of detonating a powerful bomb that exploded outside a Birmingham abortion clinic on Jan. 29, 1998, killing a police officer and critically injuring a clinic nurse.

He also is charged with setting off a bomb that killed one person and injured 150 others in a park in downtown Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics. Authorities also accused Rudolph in a pair of 1997 bombings in Atlanta at a lesbian nightclub and a building that housed an abortion clinic.

Rudolph's sister-in-law Deborah Rudolph, who worked with authorities to develop Rudolph's profile during his five years on the run, said her brother-in-law denied that the Holocaust had ever happened, and claimed that the Jews now control the media and the government. His derisive nickname for the television set was "the electronic Jew."

Meanwhile, in western North Carolina, federal agents and local authorities were working Thursday to piece together Rudolph's life as a fugitive. FBI Agent Chris Swecker said agents were still investigating whether Rudolph had help on the run.

Murphy police Chief Mark Thigpen and Cherokee County Sheriff Keith Lovin said they were checking whether Rudolph helped sustain himself by breaking into some of the uninhabited vacation cabins that dot the mountains.

They said they were going back over a list of break-ins in the region over the past five years, some of which resulted in the theft of such small items as canned goods, old boots, clothes, paper towels and soap.

"I went to one house yesterday where they ignored some items that I believe a burglar would have taken," Assistant Murphy Police Chief Jerry Trull said. "And items were missing like dry socks."

FULL ARTICLES

HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL MAY RETURN GIFT TO PRESIDENT OF UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Harvard Divinity School may return gift to President of United Arab Emirates
By Beth Mcmurtrie
Chronicle of Higher Education
May 13, 2003

The Harvard Divinity School is considering whether to return a $2.5-million donation to the president of the United Arab Emirates after questions were raised about his connection to a controversial Middle Eastern think tank.

The Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up – which was established "in fulfillment of the vision" of the president, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, according to its Web site – in recent years has been host to speakers and has published books with anti-Semitic and anti-American views.

Wendy McDowell, a spokeswoman for the divinity school, said that administrators have been aware of the possible ties since December, but that they have not yet been able to determine whether the center has received the president's blessing.

"From what we've been told, it's one of those things in that country where people say that everywhere," she said of the statement about fulfilling the president's vision. "There are people who start things in the name of the president all the time. It's like when we call things 'George Washington something.' It does not necessarily mean he's behind it or sponsors it or has given any money to it."

But Rachel Fish, a divinity student who met with Dean William A. Graham in March to share information she found on the center's Web site, said the connection was obvious and that she was distraught that the administration has taken so long to make a decision. Ms. Fish said the dean told her that the center's activities were "deplorable" and that he would form a research team to look into the possible connection.

"It was just puzzling and troubling to me how the institution could have accepted the money to begin with, when this connection was apparent," she said. "This wasn't secret information that I had access to."

President Zayed donated the money to Harvard in 2000 to create a professorship in Islamic religious studies, but the position has not yet been filled. The divinity school has put the search on hold "until all questions are resolved," Mr. Graham said in a statement.

The president is not listed on the Zayed Center's Web site as having a particular role there, but his deputy prime minister is chairman of the center. The organization states as its goal the promotion of "solidarity and cooperation among the Arab nations in the light of the principles and objectives of the League of Arab States."

The Zayed Center has drawn several high-profile speakers over the years, including former President Jimmy Carter, former Vice President Al Gore, and former Secretary of State James Baker.

It has also gained a reputation for serving as host to controversial lecturers and publishing their works. Last year, Thierry Meyssan, a French author whose book The Appalling Fraud claims that the U.S. military was behind the September 11 attacks, spoke at the center. The center published his book in Arabic. It has also published a book titled Those Who Challenged Israel, in which the ideas of Holocaust deniers David Irving and Roger Garoudy are highlighted.

On April 9, Umayma Jalahma, a professor of Islamic Studies at King Faysal University in Saudi Arabia, who has claimed that Jews use human blood in making pastries for the Purim holiday, was a guest lecturer, according to the Middle Eastern Research Institute. (The center's Web site does not list any speakers for that date.)

Last year, the Zayed Center was host to a conference on "Semitism," in which the center's executive director called Jews "the enemies of all nations," according to news reports.

The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-Semitism worldwide, has a page on its Web site about the Zayed Center. Topics of the center's lectures and publications include Jewish conspiracy theories, the league states.

In his statement, Mr. Graham called the Zayed Center's activities "repugnant and indefensible." The school has made inquiries to both the U.A.E. government and to U.S. government diplomatic officials in Abu Dhabi, he said. The independent researcher's report was delivered to Mr. Graham last week, and he said he plans to share it with faculty members before coming to a decision.

Ms. Fish eagerly awaits some action. "The divinity school is a moral voice of this institution," she said. "By accepting this money, or at least being complicit and complacent and not returning the money, you are bankrupting the divinity school of its moral voice."

 

HARVARD DONATION QUESTIONED

Harvard donation questioned
Transcript CBS Evening new (USA)
May 19, 2003

There are few places where religious tolerance is taken more seriously than Harvard's Divinity School.

But graduate student Rachel Fish says the school has so offended her both as a Jew and as an American, she's now taking on Harvard's top brass and a world leader: the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who gave Harvard $2.5 million to fund a chair of Islamic studies.

The problem: it's not the only thing founded in his name.

The Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, which is also named for the sheik has hosted speakers from Jimmy Carter to Neil Bush, the president's own brother.

CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports that when Fish dug deeper she discovered the center has also hosted some of the most hate-filled speakers imaginable.

An independent review of the Zayed Center found it offered programs such as "Zionist Collusion With the Nazis," and "Jewish Control of the American Government and Media." And its executive director began a symposium at the center, by calling Jews "the enemies of all nations."

When asked how she links what is being said at the center and on its Web site with the sheik himself, Fish says, "Because it's all being said in his vision."

Nobody disputes the fact the center has willingly granted a platform to those espousing anti-Semitism, even anti-Americanism. But what Harvard must now confront is just how much, if at all, the sheik's contribution is tainted by the actions of a center that bears his name.

"That's wrong, that smacks of a witch hunt," says James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute.

Zogby says the center does bear the sheik's name, but so do a lot of things in his country. Zogby believes the sheik did not know about it.

"There is no relationship between Sheik Zayed and the center," says Zogby.

"He knows who's there," says Fish. "There's no way he does not know."

Harvard refused our request for an on-camera interview, but in a statement, called some of the center's activities "repugnant and indefensible." It said it is "carefully investigating" any links with Sheik Zayed.

But that's not enough for Fish.

"I'm hoping that the institution will resolve the issue, the money will be given back, and I will be able to graduate and celebrate like all of my peers and colleagues."

And if not?

"We will see," said Fish.

After two years of hard work she may refuse her diploma. After all, she says, Harvard is an institution whose motto is truth.

 

HARVARD IS PRESSURED TO RETURN $2.5M GIFT

Harvard is pressured to return $2.5m gift
By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff
Boston Globe
May 11, 2003

Harvard Divinity School is poised to return a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates after questions recently surfaced about his ties to a controversial Arab think tank with alleged anti-Semitic and anti-American leanings.

UAE president Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan gave the money three years ago to fund a new professorship in Islamic studies, but in recent months several Divinity School students and faculty members have questioned his connection to the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, which champions unity between Arab nations.

A spokeswoman for the Divinity School's dean, William A. Graham, said he assigned a researcher to investigate ties between the Zayed Center and the UAE president after students brought the issue to his attention. Wendy McDowell, the spokeswoman, said the extreme views aired on the center's Internet site "upset (Graham) and the faculty greatly." The site's roster of speakers included a Holocaust denier and an author alleging the US government masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.

'We're prepared to return the money if we don't get the right answers,' she said.

The researcher's report was delivered to Graham last week; he intends to present it to faculty members within days. The professorship, which has never been filled, will remain on hold until questions are resolved, said McDowell.

In his opening remarks at a conference last year, the executive director of the Zayed Center – described on its website as "a fulfillment of the vision of the President of the U.A.E." – denounced Jews as "the enemies of all nations," according to press accounts of the event, triggering objections from the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish activist group.

Harvard theology student Rachel Fish was the first to raise the issue with Harvard administrators. "The university has the right and the responsibility to discriminate in where its funding comes from," said Fish, 23, whose Harvard studies have jointly focused on Judaism and Islam. "It wouldn't be a question if it was linked to the Ku Klux Klan or another racist group. I want to know why it's OK to accept this individual's money."

The episode is the latest in a string of donation controversies at Harvard, which, along with most other US universities, is facing greater scrutiny of its funding sources. Harvard most recently has faced questions about Greek billionaire Socrates Kokkalis, who gave $5 million to the Kennedy School of Government in 1997 and has since been charged with fraud and embezzlement in his native country. A $15 million donation to Harvard from A. Alfred Taubman, the former chairman of Sotheby's who was jailed for price-fixing, raised eyebrows, as did revelations of a $2 million gift from a half-brother of Osama bin Laden. The money had no known ties to bin Laden or terrorism. Harvard kept the money in all the cases, standard procedure for universities whose donors have become tarnished figures.

In March, Fish and two other students took their concerns about Sheik Zayed – and copies of pages from the Zayed center website – to Graham, and forwarded copies to Harvard president Lawrence Summers.

The $2.5 million informal contract creating the Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan Professorship in Islamic Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe, was signed in the summer of 2000 by the Harvard College provost, the chairman of the Divinity School's executive committee, and a representative from the office of Sheikh Zayed. The new chair was announced that fall, touted as a cornerstone of an expanded program in the study of Islam.

Sheikh Zayed offered the money "in recognition of the desire by the United Arab Emirates to promote a better understanding of Islam among the non-Muslim peoples of the world," according to a Divinity School statement in September 2000.

After first learning of the connection to the Zayed Center late last year, Fish said she conducted weeks of Internet research to learn more about the center. Established in 1997, its website describes its mission as the promotion of "solidarity and cooperation among the Arab nations in the light of the principles and objectives of the League of Arab States."

Speakers at its conferences have included Lyndon LaRouche, a perennial presidential candidate often accused of anti-Semitism, and Thierry Meyssan, author of a French best-seller that alleges the American government was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Publications sold from its website this winter included the Arabic translation of Meysann's book, "Those Who Challenged Israel," which, the site boasts, "sheds light on all the figures from around the world who have challenged Israel," and "Role of the Jews in Distorting Arab Images in the Western Culture."

Jimmy Carter has been criticized for his association with the Zayed Center, which published his autobiography in Arabic.

Last month, according to a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Zayed Center hosted Umayma Jalahma, a Saudi professor who made headlines last year when she claimed in an editorial in a Saudi newspaper that Jews use human blood to make pastries for the Purim holiday. On the center's website, however, the date she reportedly appeared, April 9, is missing from a day-by-day posting of events.

Robert Leikind, director of the Anti-Defamation League's New England office, said the center sponsors anti-Semitic speakers and those "profoundly hostile" to the West.

"On one hand, it's fair to say that not everybody who's donated to a university has been a saint," he said. "On the other hand, this is a divinity school ... It's a reasonable thing to ask, what were you thinking here, particularly given the nature of what the school teaches."

A Divinity School professor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said some faculty members share the students' concerns, and believe they are on the right track. "My guess is that since the donor was a head of state, they probably gave him a light once-over," the professor said.

To Fish and other Harvard students who have joined her cause, such an oversight is easily corrected: Give the money back.

"I want to leave being proud of this institution, and this makes it really hard for me to do that," she said.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.

 

HDS CONSIDERS DONATION RETURN

HDS considers donation return
By Wendy D. Widman
Crimson Staff Writer
Harvard Crimson
May 12, 2003

The Harvard Divinity School (HDS) may give back a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to alleged anti-American and anti-Semitic writings on the website of a center he founded. The Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, named for UAE President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nayhan, says on its website that it promotes the unification of Arab nations through historical and cultural education.

But students at HDS complained to HDS Dean William A. Graham in March about the alleged anti-American and anti-Semitic writings on the center's website. Graham said that the school has "no intention of keeping the gift if we find problems with the center."

Sheikh Zayed donated the money three years ago to create a professorship in Islamic studies, but the chair has not yet been filled.According to Graham, the divinity school is currently investigating the Zayed Center's association with anti-American and anti-Semitic writings. "We don't have all the facts yet, but we've been in touch with many people close to the UAE," said Graham.

Graham said that he first heard about the problems with the center indirectly in January.

Rachel L. Fish, a student at the divinity school, organized a panel on anti-Semitism in December of 2002. One of the speakers mentioned that HDS had received funding from the Zayed Center. After weeks of researching old articles and other information published on the center's website, she said that she found the website promoted anti-Semitic and anti-American speakers and publications. The website praises the works of French author Thierry Meyssan, whose works include Those who Challenged Israel, The Role of Jews in Distorting Arab Images in the Western Culture and The Appalling Fraud, a book that alleges that the U.S. staged the September 11, 2001 attacks. The website also contains the writings of Holocaust deniers and others who have been accused of anti-Semitism.

Fish said she was upset by what she found and discussed the issue with other Jewish students at the Divinity School. "Three of us met with the dean on March 19 and talked to him about our concerns," she said, "He said he'd have a research team look into it."

Graham said HDS has sent researchers to investigate the issue. "We're still trying to get all the facts," said Graham. "We do not have answers yet."

"I'm sure our dean will scrutinize this very carefully. He is an expert in this part of the world," said Lamont Professor of Divinity Paul D. Hanson. "Let's face it, no money that's generated by our modern world is not tainted, but we need to make sure that the money is constructive without entanglements. We need to do the moral thing."

Graham said that once he had all the facts he would reach a decision with the faculty and return the gift if they found the Zayed Center to be promoting anti-American and anti-Semitic positions. "We obviously do not want any association with a gift that is tainted by the kind of things on the website," he said. Both Graham and Hanson signed a petition last year calling for divestment from Israel in protest of Israel's counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Graham later removed his name from the petition.

In a morning prayers address at Memorial Church last fall, University President Lawrence H. Summers described the petition and other calls for the University to divest from Israel as anti-Semitic "in their effect if not in their intent."

Staff writer Wendy D. Widman can be reached at widman@fas.harvard.edu.

 

ENDOWING DENIAL

Endowing denial
By Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com
May 13, 2003

The Harvard Divinity School may return a $2.5 million donation from the United Arab Emirates ruler, Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, earmarked to fund a Professorship in Islamic Studies. Why? As reported by Boston Globe reporter Jenna Russell, the benevolent Sheikh openly espouses a virulent Judenhass. Moreover, his Zayed Center funds lectureships for noble, learned figures like perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, who opines on international Jewish conspiracies, Roger Garaudy, an "expert" Holocaust denier, Umayma Jalahma, a Saudi blood libel "scholar", esteemed for her authoritative claim that Purim pastries contain Gentile blood, and Thierry Massan, author of a runaway bestseller in France maintaining that the U.S. government orchestrated the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

The Globe report, however, completely missed a less sensational, but equally insidious thread related to this story: the attempt by the Zayed Center to negate and re-write the millennial history of brutal oppression of Mizrachi (Oriental) Jews under Arab Muslim rule. A June 2002 report in the Gulf News, highlighted the "findings" from a symposium sponsored by the Zayed Center, entitled ' The Jews in The Arab World '. The Goebbel's- like summary communique included such frank howlers as:

"... [the Oriental Jews'] situation in the Arab countries throughout the history of the Arab Islamic civilization...rendered an exemplary model of tolerance, understanding, peaceful living, religious and sectarian freedom, in addition to preservation of the rights to privacy..."

"... [the present] peaceful co-existence of Muslims and Jews in Arab Muslim countries, where Jews are treated equally and enjoy their fundamental rights and freedom, which they cannot under Israeli regimes... Arab Jews have always been denied their fundamental rights and freedom under Israeli regimes..."

Even more disturbing was the openly proclaimed agenda, based upon this obscene historical negationism:

"The participants also called upon Arab research centers to conduct studies and research focusing on the fact that the Jews have never enjoyed freedom and good treatment such as that provided under the Arab Islamic rule."

Primary source documents compiled by a serious, objective Middle East Studies scholar, Dr. Tudor Parfitt (a Gentile), characterize the plight (which had persisted for over a millennium) of 300,000 Moroccan Jews, until Morocco became a French Protectorate in 1912. Only then, in the early 20th century, was the discriminatory treatment of Jews under the Shari'a (Islamic Holy Law) abrogated by direct French control. Jews throughout North Africa, as well as in Yemen and Palestine, shared a similarly bleak fate under the Shari'a.

Professor Parfitt's essay, "Dhimma Versus Protection in Nineteenth Century Morocco", [Pp. 142-166, In: "Israel and Ishmael: Studies in Muslim Jewish Relations", edited by Tudor Parfitt, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000] contains a written appeal from the President and Vice President of the Anglo-Jewish Association in February, 1888 to Lord Salisbury, elucidating the horrific persecution of the Jews of Morocco. Their basic desire was abolition of the dhimma imposed on their Moroccan co-religionists. This pact (dhimma) by which Jews (and other non-Muslims) conquered by jihad wars were afforded their lives and some limited autonomy, in exchange for payment of the blood ransom poll tax (jizya), also entailed a host of discriminatory and humiliating regulations. These regulations created longstanding, serious disabilities for Moroccan Jews, twenty-seven examples of which were enumerated in this 1888 appeal:

Jews are compelled to live in the ghetto.

Jews are not allowed to ride outside the ghetto.

On leaving the ghetto, they are compelled to remove their footwear and remove their head covering. They are not allowed to use a walking stick although the old and sick are permitted to use a reed.

Moors frequently amuse themselves by throwing live coals, broken glass, old tinware and such things in thoroughfares traversed by Jews and enjoy the fun of seeing the latter smart under the burn or wound inflicted on their bare feet.

Jews are not permitted to build their houses above a certain height.

Jews are debarred from having stores or shops in the Muslim quarter.

The Jew is bound to pass the Moor on the left side and if he fails so to do he must retrace his steps.

Jews are forced to buy damaged Government property such as grain, or over-stocked provisions or poor items, at the normal price of undamaged goods.

Jews with their wives and daughters are compelled to undertake work for any Government official at all times (even on the Sabbath and on sacred festivals) and to receive payment far below the market rate of wages.

They are compelled to undertake work such as a Moor would consider degrading, e.g., the cleaning of sewers, carrying away carcasses of dead animals from Government stables etc. When the head of rebels or of criminals are sent to a town to be exposed at the town gate the Jews are made to salt them before they are exhibited.

Jews pay capitation tax to be exempt from military service but in paying this 'they submit to the humiliation of receiving a slap on the head.'

Jewish purveyors (butchers, grocers, bakers etc.) are bound to supply gratis all the requirements of various functionaries, otherwise their trade is cut off.

A Jew cannot appoint a Jewish attorney to plead before the Kadi against a Moor. Thus he must either conduct his case in person, or must appoint a Moorish Attorney, or suffer his case to pass undefended.

Jews are barred from the liberal professions.

Jews are disqualified from public office.

Jews are required to wear a special costume consisting of a black skull cap and black shoes.

Jews are not allowed to use public baths and 'are even denied the use of baths in the ghetto.'

Jews 'are not allowed to drink from the public fountains in the Moorish quarter nor to take water therefrom' as the Jews are considered unclean.

Jews are obligated to give gifts to public functionaries on special occasions – births, marriages and deaths – as well as on Jewish festivals.

Jews are not allowed to carry arms.

Jewish life is compensated for by the payment of £40: there is no other punishment of the murderer. Of this sum the authorities deduct a substantial proportion.

Jewish evidence is not heard.

A Muslim can always denounce a Jew, 'a thousand Jews' will fail to indict a Muslim.

'A Jew condemned to imprisonment or flogging has to pay the fees of all officials engaged in his punishment.' If he is without funds he stays in prison until such time as they are paid.

Jews are denied access to common quarters in the prisons.

If a Jew is suspected of immoral intercourse with a Moorish woman (though she be a prostitute) he is liable to imprisonment for an indefinite period. 'If he confesses, death is his punishment.'

If a Moor chose to assert that a Jew has abjured his faith he is compelled to become a Muslim 'and should he afterwards attempt to conform to the Jewish ritual, he would be liable to be stoned or burned to death.'

Well-healed, oil-money supported, pseudo-academic "think tanks", such as the Zayed Foundation, should not be allowed to promote their warped historiography, which negates the suffering of Oriental Jews, in Islamic Studies and/or Middle East Studies programs. Under the Shari'a in Morocco, into the early 20th century, the murder of a Jew by a Muslim could be "compensated" for by the payment of £40 . At the beginning of the 21st century, in a free and decent society like the United States, we must make clear to our academic institutions that no donation, whatever its sum, will permit the suppression of this sad, brutal historical legacy.

 

THANKS BUT NO THANKS

Harvard to Sheik: Thanks but no thanks
Weighs returning $2.5m gift from UAE President
By Julia Levy
The New York Sun
May 14, 2003

Harvard Divinity School is considering the return of a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates, after students raised concerns about the leader's link to a virulently anti-American, anti-Semitic think tank.

The UAE president, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, wrote Harvard a check about three years ago to endow a chair in his name for "Islamic Religious Studies."

But in March, a 23-year-old theology student from Tennessee, Rachel Fish, presented 70 pages of evidence to the divinity school's dean, William Graham, showing that Mr. Zayed might also support the controversial Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up in Abu-Dhabi.

Harvard claims it was already looking into the matter before Ms. Fish complained, but since then, it has postponed its professor search and hired an independent researcher to investigate.

Mr. Graham said the school takes the issue "extremely seriously." But he said Harvard isn't sure whether Mr. Zayed has links to the Zayed Center, which the dean called "repugnant and indefensible."

The center's Web site claims it was "established in fulfillment of the vision of His Highness Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan."

A spokesman for the UAE embassy in Washington refused to comment.

Despite uncertainties surrounding the nature of the connection between Mr. Zayed and the Zayed Center, experts said it seems like there is a pretty clear link.

"Nothing gets done in the United Arab Emirates that doesn't have the okay of the government," the director of the Middle East studies program at the University of Vermont, Gregory Gause, said. "You can't infer that everything they do represents his point of view, but it was established under his patronage."

Mr. Gause said he has visited many think tanks in the UAE, and he said the Zayed Center "is more willing to give a platform to very anti-American beliefs."

In the past few years, the center has hosted a wide range of anti-Western, anti-Semitic speakers.

One speaker was Umayma Jalahma, who wrote a two-part series in a Riyadh newspaper claiming that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish babies to prepare Passover Hamantaschen.

Another was Therry Meyssan, the French writer who wrote "The Appalling Fraud" about how the American military was responsible for orchestrating the September 11 attacks.

On September 11, 2001, it hosted Mohammed Ahmad Hussain of Cairo University, who said Jews invented the Holocaust as part of a "long term orchestrated campaign aiming at the perpetuation of the 'persecution' of the Jews or what they call the Holocaust."

The director of the New England office of the Anti-Defamation League, Robert Leikind, called the center a "clearing house for some of the worst forms of incitement and anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism."

He said Harvard should return the money unless Mr. Zayed has renounced all connections between himself and the center.

Ms.Fish called the Web site's content "shocking," and had a similar reaction to Mr. Leikind's.

"The divinity school prides itself on being a pluralistic and tolerant community," she said. "You shouldn't accept funds from an organization that is exactly the opposite."

A divinity school spokeswoman, Wendy McDowell, said Mr. Graham would decide
whether it would return the money before fall, when the school is scheduled to start using the funds.

 

FACT SHEET

Fact Sheet: UAE Ruler Sheikh Zayed and Harvard Divinity School

1971 – Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahayan becomes the president of the U.A.E. and rules uninterrupted until the present (no elections for president have ever been held).

1980 – present – Amnesty International criticizes the U.A.E. for lack of elections, corporal punishment of political prisoners, and trafficking in Bangladeshi child slaves for camel races.

January, 1998 – Sheikh Zayed's wife donates $50,000 to prominent Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

September, 1999 – The Arab League approves the establishment of the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, described on its website "as the fulfillment of the vision of Sheikh Zayed."Fact Sheet: UAE Ruler Sheikh Zayed and Harvard Divinity School

1971 – Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahayan becomes the president of the U.A.E. and rules uninterrupted until the present (no elections for president have ever been held).

1980-present – Amnesty International criticizes the U.A.E. for lack of elections, corporal punishment of political prisoners, and trafficking in Bangladeshi child slaves for camel races.

January, 1998 – Sheikh Zayed's wife donates $50,000 to prominent Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

September, 1999 – The Arab League approves the establishment of the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, described on its website "as the fulfillment of the vision of Sheikh Zayed."

July, 2000 – Harvard Divinity School accepts $2.5 million endowment from Sheikh Zayed for the Sheikh Zayed Al Nahayan Professorship in Islamic Religious Studies. The agreement with Harvard University Divinity School for the Zayed professorship is signed "for His Highness, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan."

September, 2000 – Harvard University Gazette announces the gift, quotes Professor William Graham saying, "This endowment is a most welcome gift... we are delighted with this encouraging development."

April, 2002 – Zayed Center hosts Theirry Meyssan, French author of The Appalling Fraud, which claims that the U.S. military staged the September 11 attacks. The Zayed Center translates Meyssan's book into Arabic, hails its publication, and widely advertises the book.

May, 2002 – Professor William Graham, then interim dean of the Harvard Divinity School, signs petition calling on Harvard to divest from Israel.

June, 2002 – Zayed Center hosts Lyndon LaRouche, prominent anti-Semite.

August, 2002 – Anti-Defamation League expresses outrage over Zayed Center's panel on Holocaust denial. Los Angeles Times quotes Zayed Center Director saying "the truth is that the Jews are the enemies of all nations." Zayed Center report states "the Zionists are the people who killed the Jews in Europe."

September, 2002 – William Graham becomes Dean of Harvard Divinity School.

March 19, 2003 – Harvard students meet with Graham to express concern over Sheikh Zayed's gift. Graham promises to research the issue and get back to the students within four to six weeks.

April, 2003 – Zayed Center hosts Saudi Professor Umayma Jalahma, who declares "the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare for holiday pastries."

July, 2000 – Harvard Divinity School accepts $2.5 million endowment from Sheikh Zayed for the Sheikh Zayed Al Nahayan Professorship in Islamic Religious Studies. The agreement with Harvard University Divinity School for the Zayed professorship is signed "for His Highness, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan."

September, 2000 – Harvard University Gazette announces the gift, quotes Professor William Graham saying, "This endowment is a most welcome gift ... we are delighted with this encouraging development."

April, 2002 – Zayed Center hosts Theirry Meyssan, French author of The Appalling Fraud, which claims that the U.S. military staged the September 11 attacks. The Zayed Center translates Meyssan's book into Arabic, hails its publication, and widely advertises the book.

May, 2002 – Professor William Graham, then interim dean of the Harvard Divinity School, signs petition calling on Harvard to divest from Israel.

June, 2002 – Zayed Center hosts Lyndon LaRouche, prominent anti-Semite.

August, 2002 – Anti-Defamation League expresses outrage over Zayed Center's panel on Holocaust denial. Los Angeles Times quotes Zayed Center Director saying "the truth is that the Jews are the enemies of all nations." Zayed Center report states "the Zionists are the people who killed the Jews in Europe."

September, 2002 – William Graham becomes Dean of Harvard Divinity School.

March 19, 2003 – Harvard students meet with Graham to express concern over Sheikh Zayed's gift. Graham promises to research the issue and get back to the students within four to six weeks.

April, 2003 – Zayed Center hosts Saudi Professor Umayma Jalahma, who declares "the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare for holiday pastries."