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MURDERED IN HOLIDAY HORROR

Murdered In Holiday Horror
By Uri Dan Mideast Correspondent
New York Post
September 27, 2003

A Palestinian gunman burst into a West Bank home last night - as settlers were celebrating a holiday dinner for the start of the Jewish new year - and killed a man and infant girl before he was slain.

Two others at the Negahot settlement near Hebron were wounded in the attack.

Israeli security had been raised to a high level because of 40 "hot alerts" of likely attacks during the high holy days, which began last night with Rosh Hashana.

Initial reports of the attack said a gunman penetrated the settlement and knocked on the door of one home.

Although terrorists have repeatedly struck at settlers in the Hebron area on Friday nights, a family member - who apparently relaxed his guard because of the holiday atmosphere - opened the door.

The gunman immediately opened fire, killing the family's 7-month-old girl and a 30-year-old man who was visiting.

The intruder was fatally shot - but not before wounding two others, authorities said.

Israeli officials hinted at retaliation. "This shows again the ugly face of Palestinian terrorists," said a government spokesman, Jonathan Peled.

"It shows they are totally oblivious to the sanctity of life, the sanctity of religion."

Meanwhile, the Mideast "quartet" yesterday appeared to blame the Palestinians for the breakdown of the peace process.

Representatives of the United States, Russia, United Nations and European Union issued a statement calling "on the Palestinians to take immediate and decisive steps against individuals and groups planning violent attacks."

The quartet's statement did not address Israel's controversial decision to "remove" Yasser Arafat at some point in the future.

 

GUNMAN KILLS TWO AS FAMILY CELEBRATES JEWISH NEW YEAR

Gunman Kills Two as Family Celebrates Jewish New Year
By Greg Myre
New York Times
September 27, 2003

A Palestinian gunman killed two people, one of them a baby girl, and wounded two more when he opened fire tonight on an Israeli family celebrating the Jewish New Year at their home in a settlement outside the West Bank town of Hebron. Israeli troops rushed to the scene and fatally shot the attacker.

Israeli authorities expressed outrage at the attack, which occurred as Jewish families were holding the traditional feast at the beginning of the new year's holiday, Rosh Hashana, which began at sundown tonight.

"This terrorist knew people would be sitting down to dinner at this time," Capt. Jacob Dallal, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said of the shooting, which occurred about 9 p.m.

In the West Bank, the gunman, who had an M-16 automatic rifle, knocked on the door of a home in the Israeli settlement of Negohot, Captain Dallal said. A man who was a guest at the home opened the door and was gunned down. The baby girl, who lived at the home, was also shot and killed, the captain said. The girl's parents were wounded before a nearby military unit shot the attacker.

The military said it did not have the girl's age, but Israeli news reports said she was less than a year old.

Palestinian gunmen in the Hebron area have carried out repeated attacks on Friday nights, when Israeli families gather for large family meals, Captain Dallal added.

No group immediately claimed responsibility. Israeli military forces, however, have carried out many raids in Hebron in recent weeks, killing several militants from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad factions, which vowed to strike back.

Tonight's attack immediately prompted comparisons to a Palestinian suicide bombing at the beginning of the Passover holiday in March last year. That attack killed 29 people at a hotel dining room in the coastal city of Netanya and was followed two days later by a major Israeli incursion into the West Bank.

Israel's security forces were out in large numbers today to guard against a possible attack as the holiday approached. In the hours before it began, Israel imposed a full closing of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which kept all Palestinians from those areas from entering Israel.

The measure was introduced to cover the holiday period, which lasts until sunset on Sunday.

It is more difficult, however, for the security forces to guard against attacks in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where more than three million Palestinians live. Israel has nearly 150 settlements in these areas, and Negohot is relatively small and remote.

In other developments today, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview that it would be difficult to seize Yasir Arafat without harming him, and that American objections to such action would have to be taken into account.

Mr. Sharon's government has faced strong international criticism for its decision in principle to oust the Palestinian leader. Israel has raised several possibilities, like exiling Mr. Arafat or even killing him. No action appears imminent.

"It is very hard to promise that if we seize and take him, that he won't be hurt," Mr. Sharon told Yediot Ahronot, a leading Israeli daily. "We must take the Americans into account. It could be that their assessment, that this would cause problems in the Middle East, is correct. Their main interest is Iraq."

Mr. Sharon has refused to deal with Mr. Arafat and has repeatedly accused the Palestinian leader of failing to stop suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli civilians by Palestinian factions.

The Palestinian leader has been confined to his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, just north of Jerusalem, for much of the past two years. Israel has besieged the compound on several occasions but has stopped short of moving directly against Mr. Arafat.

The Palestinian leader is calling for a cease-fire, but the Israeli leadership says such an arrangement would be meaningless unless the Palestinians broke up the factions responsible for the attacks against Israel.

The Palestinians have accused Mr. Sharon of undermining a recent summer truce by pressing ahead with Israeli military raids in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

They also charge that Mr. Sharon is not serious about peace negotiations to end the three years of fighting and resolve the Middle East conflict.

In the latest Israeli operation, troops arrested 25 suspected Hamas members overnight in a sweep in Ramallah, the military said.

On another matter, Mr. Sharon cited American objections as the reason Israel had agreed, at least temporarily, not to route the barrier it is building to include the Jewish settlement of Ariel. The barrier, a network of fences, walls, trenches and other obstacles, is aimed a preventing Palestinian attackers from entering Israel. But incorporating Ariel, one of the largest settlements, would have sent the barrier about 12 miles into the West Bank.

 

MUSLIM MILITANT KILLED MAKING BOMB; ISRAEL ON ALERT

Muslim militant killed making bomb; Israel on alert
By Mohammed Assadi
Reuters
September 27, 2003

A Palestinian militant was killed when a bomb he was making blew up on Saturday as Israel maintained a high alert over a New Year holiday weekend coinciding with the third anniversary of a Palestinian uprising.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops arrested four more alleged militants in overnight raids in the West Bank after a Palestinian gunman infiltrated a Jewish settlement and killed a seven-month-old girl and a man of 30 who opened the door to him.

The gunman, who was shot dead later, also wounded the baby's mother and father in the assault inside the enclave of Negohot near Hebron on Friday night as Israelis sat down to festive family dinners marking Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year.

Intractable violence has stymied a U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan and international mediators meeting in New York on Friday put the onus on Palestinians to revive the process by subduing militants hostile to co-existence with Israel.

But the settlement attack could provoke a harsh response.

Ahmed Hassan, a member of the militant Islamic Jihad, died in Saturday's blast in the Gaza town of Rafah when a bomb he was assembling or handling detonated prematurely, sources in the group told Reuters. One other militant was wounded.

Israel clamped a general ban on Palestinian travel within and out of the West Bank and Gaza, except for humanitarian reasons, until Rosh Hashanah ends at sunset on Sunday.

Hundreds of masked militants firing assault rifles in the air marched in the Gaza city of Khan Younis to mark the uprising anniversary, vowing to keep fighting Israel.

Some held up pictures of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, whose mainstream Fatah national movement includes one of the three leading militant groups.

Other demonstrators burnt effigies of Fatah leaders involved in creating a new reform-oriented government led by a prime minister as called for by the U.S.-led "Quartet" of mediators.

FAMILIAR RECRIMINATIONS OVER VIOLENCE

Israeli officials again blamed what they called the Palestinian Authority's failure to crack down on militants for the settlement attack and the latest breakdown in peacemaking.

Palestinian officials again blamed Israel's continued pursuit of militants despite a unilateral truce they declared in June -- and later cancelled amid vows of vengeance.

Palestinian Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qurie discussed a proposed cabinet with Fatah's central committee in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday and was likely to submit the list to parliament for approval in the coming week, officials said.

Qurie's predecessor Mahmoud Abbas, who had pledged to rein in militants and democratise governance to advance the peace plan, resigned after what he called obstruction by Arafat and military operations by Israel's rightist government.

Israel accuses Arafat of inciting violence, a charge he denies, and its cabinet has decided in principle to "remove" the former guerrilla leader, without saying when or how.

Arafat has since renewed calls for a ceasefire. But Israel spurned this as a ploy for militants to regroup, and the leading Islamic faction Hamas ruled out reinstating a truce in any case.

The "road map" lays out steps toward a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and since settled by 220,000 Jews.

But the plan was imposed on each side and does not stipulate who should do what first or how it is to be enforced, yielding only deadlock so far.

 

ELTON JOHN PROMOTES DANIEL PEARL MUSIC DAY

Elton John promotes Daniel Pearl Music Day
The Associated Press
September 27, 2003

Elton John is appearing in a public service announcement on television and radio promoting next month's Daniel Pearl Music Day.

"Join me and thousands of music lovers around the world carrying on his mission of connecting people through words and music," the 56-year-old singer says. "Participate in Daniel Pearl Day promoting harmony for humanity."

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in February 2002. He also was a violinist, fiddler and mandolin player.

The second annual Daniel Pearl Music Day will be celebrated Oct. 10, on what would have been Pearl's 40th birthday, in countries throughout the world, according to the Daniel Pearl Foundation.

An honorary committee formed on behalf of the event includes John, Herbie Hancock, Yo-Yo Ma, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, Ravi Shankar, Barbra Streisand and John Williams.

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THE END OF 'ARAFAT'

The End of 'Arafat'
Even if he lives, the idea of him must die.
Editorial
The Wall Street Journal
September 17, 2003

Reflecting the views of Israel's Cabinet, Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said publicly over the weekend that "killing" Yasser Arafat was "one of the options." Secretary of State Colin Powell of course had to say that exiling or executing Arafat would incite Arab rage, that it would be most unhelpful to the peace process, etc., etc.

The truth is that Yasser Arafat's moment in history has ended. The world would do well to think hard about how it came to pass, after so many years and so much talk and blood, that the era of Arafat arrived at this endpoint--with Israel saying that it may be worth the trouble simply to kill him. How far we've come from the Rose Garden in 1993.

It is a fine irony that Mr. Powell spoke of the need to soldier on with Yasser Arafat while the Secretary himself was standing in Baghdad for the first time. Mr. Powell is in Baghdad because President Bush concluded after September 11, and after the political failure of the first Gulf War, that the years of Western self-delusion about the nature of global terror must be brought to an end. Similarly, the delusions about Arafat also must now end.

"Arafat" should enter history not merely as the name of one autocratic man, but as the name we assign to an entire Western phenomenon of false thinking. "Arafat," we now see, has come to represent the act of self-delusion on a massive, international scale. "Arafat" is about refusing to believe that an adversary is simply irredeemable. Most importantly at this particular moment, "Arafat" is about allowing barbarism, or its techniques, to challenge the political tenets of civilized life.

For years the Western nations that emerged from World War II and the Cold War have been playing with fire by pretending that their world and the alternative world of "Arafat" could somehow coexist. More than anything, this impossible notion reflected political and moral fatigue. Thus in the 1990s, the world came very close to letting "Arafat," this time in the person of Slobodan Milosevic, achieve its logical end on European soil, again. But the United States intervened and Milosevic is on trial for crimes against civilized humanity. George W. Bush's decision to go to war against the regime of Saddam Hussein was the opposite of "Arafat" thinking; it was a decision to refute "Arafat."

If you look at the Nobel Prizes' own biography of Yasser Arafat, you find this remarkable sentence toward the end: "Like other Arab regimes in the area, however, Arafat's governing style tended to be more dictatorial than democratic." That is to say, Arafat by his own choice of governance--dictatorship over democracy--bears individual responsibility for the legacy he leaves.

That legacy includes: the contemporary crime of hijacking and blowing up civilian-filled airliners; the attempted destabilization of Jordan and Israel and the successful destruction of Lebanon as a formerly sovereign nation; and decades of violated international agreements, culminating in the collapse of Oslo. Last year, in a perfect storm of bad faith, Arafat was caught paying for the shipment of arms from Iran to the Palestinian territories aboard the Karine A.

Across these years, the West, mainly the European nations, accomplished the post-World War II feat of pretending that crime is not crime, so long as the motives and politics for the crimes are moralized. The U.S. and Israel participated as well in the pretense, bringing Arafat out of exile in Tunis. The world has learned since that this apologetics (and much direct funding) has made possible any crime, culminating in the anti-moral act known as suicide bombers. Arafat most recently threw over Mahmoud Abbas, and the fatigued West barely sighed in complaint.

This past September 3, in an article published in the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam, the Palestinian writer Tawfiq Abu Bakr wrote: "It is difficult to find a greater and more deeply rooted culture of self-deception than that in our Arab and Palestinian arena." But we in the West fomented that culture of self-deception, by perpetuating the conceit that Yasser Arafat--"Arafat"--was the singular vessel of peace for the Palestinians. He manifestly is not.

The Israelis are in the best position to know what to do at this point, though no option--seclusion, exile, trial or killing him--is particularly attractive. But Israel has to live (or die) with Arafat. The U.S. for its part, rather than sustain the Arafat conceit as it is doing now, should say it is no longer going to be associated with Arafat and what he stands for. As for the Palestinians and Arabs, the President of the United States has said many times that he supports a Palestinian state. Now they too have to decide whether the moment has arrived to get past "Arafat."

For those who will scream that this is more "unilateralism," we would say that for some 30 years there were crucial breakpoints, most recently the Oslo concessions and the Abbas opening, where credible pressure on Arafat from important players in the West and Middle East might have avoided arriving at where we are now. It never came. Not once.

Where Yasser Arafat spends the rest of his life is not important. What matters is for the world to recognize that it is time to get rid of "Arafat."

 

IMF: ARAFAT DIVERTED $900M TO ACCOUNT

IMF: Arafat diverted $900M to account
By Sam F. Ghattas
The Associated Press
September 20, 2003

An audit of the Palestinian Authority revealed that President Yasser Arafat diverted $900 million in public funds to a special bank account he controlled, an International Monetary Fund official said Saturday.

Most of the cash, which came from revenues in the budget, went into some 69 commercial activities located in Palestinian areas and abroad, said Karim Nashashibi, IMF resident representative in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hanan Ashwari, a Palestinian lawmaker and onetime Arafat spokeswoman, acknowledged there had been incidents of misuse of funds in the past but that the release of the information was an attempt to discredit the Palestinian leader.

"There is nothing innocent about the timing," she said. "This is a campaign against the president and the (Palestinian) Authority."

Nashashibi did not elaborate on the types of businesses the Palestinian Authority was involved in, but Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad has said its interests range from cement to telecommunications holdings in Algeria and Jordan.

Nashashibi disclosed the Arafat account and figures to reporters at a news conference on the economic situation in the West Bank and Gaza. He said the information provided by the Palestinians were an example of the openness and transparency in Palestinian finances under Fayad.

However, Nashashibi did not rule out the possibility that a portion of the funds were misused. He said he believes an accounting of the rest of the money will be conducted "at some point, but we're taking it all a step at a time."

"What we're trying to do is have a level of disclosure and transparency so that future or present misuse does not happen ... At least there is a followup, there is disclosure," Nashashibi said

Nashashibi did not say which public monies were involved.

There have been charges of corruption and mismanagement and money-skimming in the Palestinian Authority, including some complaints from ordinary Palestinians, which officials have denied.

In a special annual issue of Forbes Magazine earlier this year, Arafat was reported to control $300 million.

U.S. and European governments have complained for years that the Palestinian financial structure is not transparent and does not allow donors to follow their money to projects for the benefit of the people.

Official Palestinian figures show that investment in the Palestinian private sector amounts to about $300 million. The money was funneled in the past through a fund operated by Arafat's financial adviser, Khaled Salam.

Nashashibi said that authority was involved in commercial activities, both at home and abroad, worth an estimated $700 million in today's market prices, "which probably in '99 were $900 million."

Nashashibi said Fayad, the Palestinian finance minister who was the resident representative of the IMF in the Palestinian territories in 2000, told Arafat at that time that the account must be disclosed.

Finance ministers from the wealthy industrialized nations who met here Saturday and spoke with Fayad also praised his efforts "to improve transparency in the budget and the operations of the Palestinian Authority," according to a statement issued afterwards.

As part of restructuring the way the Palestinian Authority deals with money, Fayad last year announced the creation of the Palestinian Investment Fund and said that all Palestinian Authority funds would pass through the new holding company.

Nashashibi said he thinks the authority wants to "get out of all these commercial activities."

The Palestinian economy has contracted by 30 percent because of the Palestinian-Israeli violence over the last three years and IMF officials said it needs an injection of about $1.2 billion in assistance.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian finance minister won a promise of additional assistance Saturday with the finance ministers of major industrialized nations as a World Bank official urged donors to help the troubled Palestinian economy, according to a statement issued by the group.

No figure of assistance was given, but an IMF official said Saturday the Palestinians would need "in the neighborhood" of $1.2 billion.

 

IMF SAYS £560M WAS DIVERTED TO ARAFAT ACCOUNT

IMF says £560m was diverted to Arafat account
By David Blair in Jerusalem and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
September 25, 2003

Yasser Arafat diverted £560 million from the Palestinian Authority budget into a special bank account under his personal control, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The disclosure infuriated Mr Arafat's Palestinian critics and prompted the European Commission, once a generous donor to his administration, to seek clarification last night from the IMF about which funds had been diverted.

Mr Arafat's chaotic handling of Palestinian finances has been widely condemned in the past but the IMF statement was the result of the first authoritative investigation.

Karim Nashashibi, the IMF's representative in the West Bank and Gaza, told journalists in Dubai that an audit had uncovered the "diversion of revenue from the budget to a special bank account controlled by President Arafat".

Mr Nashashibi said the sum involved was £560 million in a five-year period between 1995 and 2000.

Most of the money had been disclosed and was invested in 69 commercial enterprises linked to the Palestinian Authority.

Asked if there was a possibility of misuse of funds, Mr Nashashibi said: "In any system, you can always have a possibility of some misuse. What we are trying to do is raise the level of disclosure and transparency so that future or present misuse does not happen."

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said the disclosure was an attempt to discredit Mr Arafat. "There is nothing innocent about the timing," she said. "This is a campaign against the president and the authority."

But Mr Arafat's Palestinian opponents believe that corruption is widespread inside his administration.

Abdul Jawad Saleh, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said: "At a time when the Palestinian people are starving and the universities are bankrupt, they transfer these sums."

The Palestinian Authority said the money diversion came to light because of financial reforms and rigorous auditing imposed by foreign donors.

Salam Fayad, the new finance minister who is widely respected abroad, said the money came from tax revenues collected by Israel and passed on to the Palestinian Authority. The EU stopped funding Mr Arafat's budget last December. A spokesman said the commission was in touch with the IMF.

"As far as we know, this money came from Israeli tax transfers but we're seeking clarification from the IMF. Our money never passed through the budget."

Encompassing everything from casinos to cement companies and Algerian telephones, the Palestinian Authority's tangled financial web is enough to baffle the most able accountant.

Yasser Arafat's chaotic administration boasts a 30 per cent stake in the Jericho Casino. Official monopolies of the supply of crude oil, tobacco and cement in Palestinian-run areas bring in a steady stream of revenue.

His administration may have a budget of only £750 million this year but it employs 120,000 people and still has difficultly accounting for the relatively modest sums at its disposal.

Mr Arafat can raise only £130 million from his own sources this year and his budget relies on outside donors and tax receipts transferred from Israel.

There is no suggestion that Mr Arafat profited personally from the funds transfer. He has always led a spartan life. But he clearly saw control of the purse strings as a crucial lever of power.

 

THE PRICE OF ARAFAT

The price of Arafat
Editorial
The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)
September 25, 2003

The agenda of a little-noticed press briefing in Dubai last Saturday was, first, the impact of the al-Aqsa intifada on the Palestinian economy, and, second, financial reforms undertaken during that period. The impact was severe but less than expected and the reforms were outstanding for that part of the world: those were the conclusions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), at whose annual conference the briefing took place.

An interesting but not particularly riveting story, one might conclude. However, the new fiscal openness revealed that, between 1995 and 2000, about £560 million of revenue was diverted from the budget to a special account controlled by Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority. Karim Nashashibi, the IMF's resident representative in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said most of the money had been invested in assets still owned by the authority, but did not rule out the possibility that the remaining funds could have been misused. Thus a press briefing called to praise the Palestinians for their economic resilience and commitment to reform inadvertently provided further confirmation of their leader's gross misrule.

In 1997, a Palestinian internal audit revealed that £200 million out of a budget of £490 million had disappeared. Two years later, a report funded by the European Union, a major aid donor, pointed to egregious venality, overstaffing, incompetence and misuse of funds. One member of the Palestinian Legislative Council said he was worried that if anything happened to Mr Arafat they would not know where the money was, so tight was his control over it. In this, Mr Arafat was acting in typically autocratic fashion, using cash for political leverage, dispensing personal patronage and tolerating corruption to ensure future loyalty.

Thanks largely to Salam Fayad, the Palestinian finance minister and Mr Nashashibi's predecessor in the IMF job, the authority has moved on. All revenues now come into the Single Treasury Fund; investments have been consolidated in the Palestinian Investment Fund. However, these changes, while welcome in themselves, underline the tragic anomaly of Mr Arafat's position. A man incapable of rising above the role of revolutionary and guiding his people to statehood remains their leader. He has completely forfeited the trust of the Israelis and Americans as an interlocutor. He is subjecting Palestinians to enormous economic and emotional strain. Progress, such as that achieved by Mr Fayad, has been made in spite of him. At bay in his headquarters in Ramallah, Mr Arafat is determined to keep the revolutionary cause alive. But in so doing he betrays his people.

 

ARAFAT'S PIGGYBANKS

Arafat's piggybanks
The Washington Times
September 18, 2003

Following the collapse of the U.S. road map for Middle East peace, the Bush administration, as it should be, seems more determined than ever to go after terrorist organizations like the Damascus-based Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Unfortunately, the administration has yet to demonstrate the same degree of energy in working to mobilize the international community (particularly the Arab world) to cut off funding for the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a shadowy terrorist group affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization.

Given the facts - A) over the past three years, the Al Aqsa group has carried out several dozen suicide bombings against Israel; B) captured financial records show that Mr. Arafat has authorized payments to its members to subsidize the violence; and C) the State Department lists it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization - one would think that the administration would be eager right now to defund the group. Instead, its public stance thus far has been lethargic. Repeated calls yesterday to the State and Treasury Departments, asking what they are doing to cut off the Al Aqsa group, were not returned. If early press reports are any indication, Treasury Secretary John Snow, who arrived in Israel yesterday, may spend more time discussing the Israeli budget deficit than talking about defunding the Al Aqsa Brigades.

It's long past time for Washington to challenge its allies to arrive at a plan for defunding Mr. Arafat's terror network. The challenge is immense. On the positive side, the PA's new finance minister, Salam Fayyad, was trying to clean up PA finances, cutting off much of Mr. Arafat's cash flow for terror and political graft in the process. Mr. Arafat is worth an estimated $300 million, Forbes Magazine wrote earlier this year, and much of that money is hidden in Swiss banks. But the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported yesterday that, despite Mr. Fayyad's efforts to reform the way the PA does business, little has changed. An Arafat loyalist - not Mr. Fayyad - controls every new appointment in the PA, including the security services, which have been implicated in scores of attacks on Israelis. Mr. Fayyad has been blocked from implementing a new civil service law, apparently by Mr. Arafat, who remains free to pack the bureaucracy with his henchmen.

For the sake of Mideast peace, the Bush administration needs to come up with a means to strip Mr. Arafat of the capability to finance his shadowy terrorist network.

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CELEBRITIES COME TO SALUTE PERES'S 80TH

Celebrities come to salute Peres's 80th
By Greer Fay Cashman
The Jerusalem Post (news section)
September 21, 2003

Israel started rolling out the red carpet on Friday for some 400 celebrities from around the world, who will on Sunday evening salute former prime minister Shimon Peres on his 80th birthday.

Many of the countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations are sending their foreign ministers. A more limited number of presidents, prime ministers, and former heads of state and government along with international captains of industry, world famous entertainers, and eminent figures from the spheres of science and culture will also attend.

All of this lends credence to the traditional Jewish belief that a prophet is not heard in his own city. Indeed, Peres was the subject of much criticism in local media reflections on the tenth anniversary of the Oslo Accords.

But if some Israelis will not tolerate his views and often heckle him when he talks of his vision of the new Middle East that will evolve in the aftermath of peace with the Palestinians, others outside Israel hang on to every word as if it were coming straight from Mount Sinai.

Most of the dignitaries will fly in Sunday, just in time to participate in the cornerstone-laying ceremony of the Peres Peace Center in Jaffa.

At the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv, dignitaries will be greeted with a trumpet fanfare on arrival, and the flags of their countries will be displayed in the lobby in addition to those hoisted on the exterior flagpoles of the building.

The visitors will be bused to Jerusalem this afternoon, where they will be given a briefing by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, after which they will attend a reception at Beit Hanassi hosted by President Moshe Katsav.

From there, they will be driven to the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv for a diverse program of speeches, songs, and a "This is Your Life" production, highlighting the milestones in Peres's career of more than 60 years of public service.

Those who can stand the pace will continue on to Herzliya Pituah for an extended celebration hosted by business tycoon Yossi Maiman, who is a long-time supporter of a variety of projects in which Peres takes a keen interest.

There will be little time for sleep. The more intellectual aspect of the state-sponsored event will take place on Monday at Tel Aviv University, by way of a multi-track international conference.

Peres said he perceives the attendance of so many high-powered global personalities more as a tribute to Israel than a tribute to him.

More than 1,200 security personnel will be on duty to protect the safety of the participants.

Conspicuous by her absence will be Sonia Peres, the man of the hour's wife of well over half a century. While always ready to provide moral support on the home front, Sonia Peres had no desire to share her husband's public life.

Peres's actual birthday last month was celebrated in the bosom of his family.

 

A TEARFUL, BITTERSWEET EVENING

A tearful, bittersweet evening
By David Landau
Ha'aretz
September 22, 2003

It was Bill Clinton who stole the show last night at the Mann Auditorium. The waves of love that lapped around him were almost palpable. But it was his predecessor, George Bush Sr., who in his recorded message of congratulations to Shimon Peres encapsulated the significance of the evening.

"We do it," Bush said of himself and the dozens of other world figures who attended personally or sent greetings to Peres, "because we know what he stands for."

Peres, for those in the world that wish Israel well, and for the thousands of his own friends and well-wishers who thronged the hall last night, stands for peace. And the fact that he failed to attain it, and that it seems so far off now, added to the poignancy of the moment.

"You are a light unto the nations," Clinton told him, homing in to the heart of our national discomfort. "In hard times it's so easy to give in to despair - so hard to think about tomorrow."

Almost everyone seemed to cry at some point during the emotion-filled evening. The wide-eyed little Ethiopian boy sitting on Peres' lap in a huge photograph drew a smile and a sigh. When the same face - now atop the uniform of an IDF officer - smiled down from the stage and wished Peres happy birthday, people choked up. When a young Russian immigrant, badly wounded in the Dolphinarium bombing, urged Peres to keep on fighting for peace, the tears flowed freely.

But it wasn't just these scenes that brought on the sadness. Rather, it was the haunting sense that the celebration of Peres' longevity was also, inevitably, the marking of his inability, despite his now-waning years of trying, to make the longed-for breakthrough. It was almost an admission of Israel's inability to reach peace. After all, Mr. Peace himself, for all his indefatigable efforts, could not deliver it.

In this spirit, perhaps a bit maudlin but nonetheless authentic, Ariel Sharon won his warmest applause when he suggested, at the end of a warm and generous speech, that the two of them, old friends for half a century, could get together again to work for those two desperately elusive goals - peace and security.

Clinton, suddenly serious and focused in a speech full of humanity and humor, recalled that the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, and Shimon Peres had together crafted a peace plan before. That plan was still workable, Clinton urged. "A few miles from here there are Palestinians living who are not so different from you, who hate terror as you do, who are afraid too, who are exhausted too." A partnership between Israelis and Palestinians, he added, "could turn the whole world away from the wretched curse of terror."

It was a motley assortment of past and present statesmen - more past, in fact, than present - that took the trouble to come to Tel Aviv to pay Peres homage. Peres pointed to the special common denominator that bound together the most prominent among them. "These are world leaders who made history," he said. He was referring to Gorbachev, to de Klerk, to David Trimble - men who changed the flow of events in their own countries. Peres sees himself as one of them. His admirers, here and abroad, also see him as a rightful member of that select company. But those same admirers know - and hence the tinge of sadness in yesterday's proceedings - that the history Peres sought to make is yet unmade.

 

PERES TELLS GUESTS: PEACE - 'WE CAN DO IT'

Peres tells guests: Peace - 'we can do it'
By Yossi Verter
Ha'aretz
September 22, 2003

As he celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday with around 3,000 guests, including Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, former prime minister and Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres said he still believed peace was possible with the Palestinians.

Peres's birthday wish for peace was shared by many of those invited to the celebrations, such as the former U.S. president who sang an impromptu duet of the John Lennon classic "Imagine" with an Israeli teenager.

"We can renew the hope for peace," Peres said in his speech during the evening of music and dance, parts of which were broadcast live on Israeli television. "It could be much closer than you think and even closer than I believe. We can do it."

Despite the current violence, Peres said in his address to his guests that he remained dedicated to his belief that Israelis and Palestinians could one day live in two separate states side-by-side in peace.

The evening was, without doubt, one of the most grandiose and successful productions ever seen on an Israeli stage. It was moving, funny, thrilling and sad all in one. It was schmaltz at its finest; and at the end of the night, the birthday boy appeared, for the first time in his life, truly emotional.

"I thank you for your vision of the new Middle East ... That we seem so far from that dream today does not lessen its power," Clinton said in his speech.

Peres, who currently serves as leader of the opposition Labor Party, sat next to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a long-time friend as well as political foe, during the ceremony.

At the end of his address, Peres directed his words to Sharon, "Don't despair," he called to the prime minister.

Security was tight at the gala concert, whose guests included former Soviet president Gorbachev, former South African president F.W. de Klerk, Hollywood actress Kathleen Turner, former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke and a bevy of Israeli cabinet ministers and glitterati. Leaders from around the world who could not make the ceremony sent messages congratulating Peres on his birthday.

But one leader who was absent from the celebrations was fellow Nobel laureate Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Organizers said the Palestinian leader, who has been confined by Israeli troops to his West Bank headquarters for over a year, was not invited to the party.

 

PERES, AT 80, IS PRAISED BY FRIENDS AND A FOE

Peres, at 80, Is Praised by Friends and a Foe
By Greg Myre
New York Times
September 22, 2003

For his 80th birthday celebration, the world came to Shimon Peres.

Bill Clinton serenaded him. Mikhail S. Gorbachev saluted him. And the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, in a video greeting from his home, suggested that Mr. Peres extend his peacemaking horizons beyond the Middle East, to include "the Far East, and here, in East Hampton."

The elder statesman of Israeli politics and the country's leading dove, Mr. Peres has a world-class set of friends. From Austria to Angola, they flew in to join several thousand Israelis for the birthday event.

Mr. Peres's friends even include his political enemies.

"We've always maintained our friendship, even when we were bitter enemies," said Ariel Sharon, the hard-line prime minister, who was seated between Mr. Peres and Mr. Clinton for the program. "We both envision the same thing: Israel living in peace and security."

While Mr. Peres was embraced by all inside the auditorium, some of his right-wing critics took to the streets outside, saying his peace efforts left Israel vulnerable to violence.

Members of one group drove through surrounding neighborhoods with a billboard showing Mr. Peres hugging Yasir Arafat during more optimistic times. One sign read, "1,384 victims of Peres's peace plan will never celebrate another birthday."

Mr. Peres, whose actual birthday was on Aug. 16, has always been more popular internationally than at home. He contested national elections five times and never won outright. His idealistic vision of a "new Middle East" is seen by many as hopelessly naïve amid the bloodshed.

The left-leaning Labor Party, which he heads, is the official opposition in Parliament, but is toothless at a time when many Israelis want tough military action against the Palestinians.

Tonight's slickly produced program resembled a show-business awards ceremony. Video testimonials came from Henry A. Kissinger, Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen.

Presentations included children singing peace songs, parodies of Mr. Peres and tearful testimonials from terror victims.

Mr. Clinton, who is wildly popular among many Israelis, received a standing ovation whenever he was introduced. He reviewed Mr. Peres's lengthy résumé, which includes two stints as prime minister, and almost every senior cabinet post. Mr. Peres was the architect of Israel's nuclear program in the 1950's, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his role in the first Israeli-Palestinian peace deal a year earlier.

Later, a young man badly injured in a Palestinian suicide bombing two years ago walked on stage to commend Mr. Peres.

"I was so badly wounded my mother did not identify me when she passed by me," said the man, Faik Kolayev. "I came to tell Shimon Peres to keep struggling for peace."

The appreciative audience was in contrast to much of the Israeli news media.

"The gala event will show the yawning gap between the world we occupy and the world occupied by Peres," Caroline B. Glick wrote in The Jerusalem Post. "In the world we live in, every promise of peace and a New Middle East has not only been broken, but has blown up in our faces."

No prominent Palestinian or Arab figures were present, though Mr. Peres has many longstanding relationships in the Arab world. But 80 schoolchildren, half of them Jewish, half of them Arab, came on the stage to sing John Lennon's "Imagine."

When Mr. Peres finally took the stage at the end of the program, he sounded as optimistic, and idealistic, as ever.

"Together we can renew the hope for peace," he said. Then he turned to Mr. Sharon, and said, "It's closer than what you think and what I believe."

 

NAOMI, BONO, AND THE GLITTERATI

Naomi, Bono, and the glitterati,
By Sarah Honig
The Jerusalem Post (Opinion article)
September 18, 2003

Way back when I was a young cub reporter, Golda Meir took a shine to me and shared some reflections over a glass (not a fancy cup) of steaming hot tea.

Lighting yet another cigarette, she acknowledged that abroad her name is always accompanied by such adjectives as "intransigent," "inflexible" or "hard-line." Whenever a foreign correspondent got within shouting range of her, out would pop the penetrating question: "Why are you so uncompromising?"

She wasn't taken aback. "It's easy to win the world's love," she intoned. "Just do as they wish. If you don't, they'll hate you." She didn't, and was indeed harshly diagnosed as inexplicably and inexcusably afflicted with the Masada Complex.

"What can I do?" she shrugged, "The world out there isn't enamored with the Jewish national cause. The more you insist on Jewish interests, the less popular you'll be, and vice versa."

Over the years her nemesis Shimon Peres kept proving her point with a vengeance. His New Middle East earned him accolades from enlightened international circles. His Oslo project and concomitant Noble Peace Prize made him the darling of the world's trendiest and most beautiful people.

He might have been a political flop back home, but out in the warmth of European cosmopolitan broadmindedness Peres is a leading luminary, wined and dined and eagerly courted. Just a few weeks ago he broke bread in a sumptuous Lake Como villa with no less than the Austrian, Spanish and Turkish premiers and a host of assorted nabobs. While Peres reassured all present that his futuristic vision of a Mid-Eastern utopia is ever-vibrant, supermodel Naomi Campbell entered, clad in a baby-blue original Valentino gown.

To hear Peres groupies, she is one of them. By their account she gushingly revealed she'd heard Peres's birthday was coming up - his 80th - and said she'd "love to come." Upon being told that she was invited to the big September 21 bash - in the Mann Auditorium, no less - she hesitantly inquired if she could bring a friend along, U2 soloist Bono.

See how popular Peres is? It's not just venerated elder statesmen who crave his company. Affirmative RSVPs have already arrived from Ariel Sharon (the guest of honor), Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela, as well as from the presidents of Germany, Poland and the Ivory Coast, to name just a few. But Naomi and Bono will doubtless add glamor and glitz, showing all and sundry how cool and hip youthful Shimon is. That can be a real asset considering the furious Labor speculation that he hasn't quite given up on yet another prime-ministerial nomination.

What a long way this socialist has come from the humble wooden-hut lodgings of Israel's second president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, or the similar Sde Boker residence of Peres's purported idol David Ben-Gurion. On the other side of the political divide, Menachem Begin made do with two modest rooms in a ground floor walk-in.

It's hard to imagine any of them celebrating a birthday in the flashy and gaudy ambiance of the international in-crowd.

But pleasing world opinion has its perks. Peres's popularity is perhaps the only remaining fringe benefit still accrued from the Oslo process, whose 10th anniversary coincided with hectic preparations for its progenitor's festive shindig.

Oslo's unhappy birthday is more like a yahrzeit; it's hardly cause for celebration with the jet-set who's who. That's why recordings of Peres's optimistic rhetoric from his golden age of Israeli magnanimity and generous concessions aren't likely to be played back for his lofty birthday guests.

This would be no occasion to give the lie to the presumption, pretense and preposterous prophecies of September 1993. It's unlikely most celebrants would welcome reminders of the folly the birthday boy inspired.

Yitzhak Rabin's rosy prediction on the White House lawn comes to mind: "In the alleys of Khan Yunis and the streets of Ramat Gan, in Gaza, Hadera, Rafah and Afula, a new reality is born. The 100-year-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict is ending."

It's not like no one saw what was coming. Some of us cautioned and warned, only to be ridiculed and denigrated as Hamas collaborators. We were unadulterated anathema to Peres's swanky overseas set, due to assemble here and fete him in a couple of days.

Even less than an admission of egregious error would do in lieu of an apology. Mild soul-searching and an admission that Oslo is dead would suffice. But it's unrealistic - even now - to expect moral stocktaking and intellectual honesty from the bumbling bamboozlers who inflicted Oslo upon us.

At most they're willing to beat Binyamin Netanyahu's breast and blame his policy of "reciprocity" for their fabulous plan's breakdown. Additionally, they lay guilt on Sharon's doorstep for not having yet encircled Israel with Wall-of-China-like fortifications to protect it from bloodthirsty peace partners.

Likewise, they assert that things would have turned out brilliantly had settlers been removed and the IDF unilaterally pulled back to pre-1967 lines. More recently it's been owned up to that co-Nobel Peace laureate Arafat isn't a nice guy, but he's in charge. Everyone is at fault, though not the birthday boy's basic conception that creative solutions can be imposed on insoluble problems; that dangerous gambles are preferable to stalemate.

The Oslo high-rollers imported Yasser Arafat from Tunis, along with his lieutenants and 40,000 henchmen, whom they armed. They imparted to the citizenry a sense of a nothing-to-lose emergency. Peres waived no opportunity to remind Israelis that time was against them.

"What's the alternative?" he ceaselessly inquired whenever challenged, insisting repeatedly that, at worst, Oslo was the least of the evils menacing us.

That was patent misrepresentation, and not only in the light of hindsight. Israel wasn't beset by mortal existential perils in 1993. Nothing mandated surrender. The PLO leadership resided luxuriously abroad and world opinion had grown accustomed to the fact. Tampering with it was incomprehensibly rash.

We're still paying for Peres's devil-may-care adventurism. His "peace" harmed Israel incalculably more than the so-called occupation he bemoans with European sanctimoniousness, as if he had become a visiting stranger himself, a bit distant from our reality.

Nothing of the sort could ever be said of our last pre-Oslo prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. International glitterati loved him even less than they loved Golda, and for precisely the same reasons. Like Golda, Shamir made no effort to curry their favor.

Nothing for him took precedence over Jewish national interests. He never glorified himself, never indulged in pipe dreams, he kept his feet solidly on the ground and cared diddley about popularity ratings. In his last year in office (1992), 25 Israelis were murdered by terrorists. The grim tally for 2002 was 450. Our economy is in the pits due to the Peres doctrine of any deal being better than no deal.

Israel's reputation among Peres's beloved Europeans is in equally dire straits. In pre-Oslo days there was less call for targeted killings, numerous roadblocks, security fences and similar image-tarnishing measures. Oslo turned everything sour, except for Peres's ever-sparkling celebrity.

When Shamir turned 80, eight years ago, no one made a fuss. There were no ostentatious gala affairs. Naomi and Bono didn't ask to be invited.

 

LETTER FROM NAOMIN RAGEN ON THE OCCASION OF PERES BIRTHDAY

Letter from Naomi Ragen, one of Israel's best-selling novelists, on the occasion of Shimon Peres' birthday:

I'd like to wish Mr. Peres a happy birthday, and to thank him for his continuing contributions to the people of Israel:

Thank you, Mr. Peres, for bringing back Yasir Arafat from Tunis, and for writing your book The New Middle East, to convince the Israeli public to put their lives into Arafat's hands.

Thank you, Mr. Peres, for again, and again, and again, backing up Yasir Arafat each time a terrorist attack killed our people, helping to convince Israelis, and the world, that Arafat wasn't responsible.

Thank you, for contributing more than any other person, to the ability of terrorist organizations to evade responsibility, to set up shop in Israel, causing the death of over eight hundred men, women and children, and the injury of thousands more.

Thank you, Mr. Peres, for paying Roed Larson, over $100,000, a prize from the Peres Center for Peace, for helping you to get a Nobel Prize. Before, during and after getting his prize, Mr. Larsen was notorious for his wonderful contributions to our area, including non-stop incitement against the Israeli people, government and armed forces.

Thank you, Mr. Peres, for being a true quisling, in a nation that has many; for never visiting a terror victim, for never taking responsibility for Oslo's disasters, for preening and congratulating yourself on your many achievements at the expense of our lives.

Because of you, thousands in Israel will never reach the age of eighty. Because of you many families will never be able to celebrate a loved one's birthday.

Those who would like to express their appreciation and good wishes to Mr. Peres, can join the demonstration opposite his party in Tel Aviv, on Sunday, September 18 organized by opposition groups who were right all along.

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THE NEW ANTI-SEMITISM

Ayoon wa Azan (The New Anti-Semitism)
By Jihad Al Khazen
Al-Hayat
October 8, 2003

www.english.daralhayat.com/column/08-2003/Article-20030810-eb8fb214-c0a8-01ed-0054-c054600bc4c1/story.html

Jews around the world complain about the rise of a new wave of anti-Semitism. While many attribute this campaign to what is going on in the Middle East, seldom do I ever read any Jewish person denouncing Israeli practices against the Palestinians - practices that reach the level of Nazism.

Ariel Sharon government's crimes, radicalism and racism do not justify this new anti-Semitism, which must be clearly denounced without any "ifs" and "buts." A government comprised of war criminals in Israel explains the rise of anti-Semitism in every country.

In France for example, which hosts six million Muslims and 600,000 Jews, the highest number of Muslims and Jews in any European country, anti-Semitic attacks have significantly increased since the second Intifada end of September 2000, thus confirming a relation.

According to Jewish sources, anti-Semitic incidents have increased six-fold between 2001 and 2002, and reached over 550 incidents since the second Intifada. French Jews claim that young North African people are responsible for the majority of these attacks, which also target Jews of North African origin.

The Arab Muslim immigrant from Algeria or Morocco knows what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and is trying to take revenge. At least, he has a reason, even though we are strictly against all aspects of anti-Semitism, no matter what the reason is. However, there are neo-Nazis, radical rightists and fools of every kind who attack Jews in a terrible way. They form the majority that stands behind such attacks, which have undermined the peace process in the Middle East. The war criminal Ariel Sharon came to kill, destroy and harm the reputation of Jews in all countries, in addition to exposing them to dangers they could have very well done without.

In parallel to the escalation of the wave of anti-Semitism, the memoirs of President Harry Truman, dated 1947, about the Jews, was published and raised a new controversy. The Arabs know Truman as an American president who facilitated the establishment of Israel and quickly recognized it. They suppose he supported Jews and admires them a lot. However, his sayings that were discovered after more than half a century give a totally different image of his opinion about them. He literally said that Jews are very selfish, and do not care about people from Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Poland, Yugoslavia and Greece who are being killed, mistreated and expatriated, as long as the Jews are being treated in a special manner. When they enjoy physical, financial or political strength, Hitler and Stalin don't come close to them in mistreating the weakest party. If the weak person becomes strong, it will not matter then if he is Russian, Jewish, black, a manager, a worker or a Baptist. Power will give him delusions, and rare are those who remember their past when their situation improves.

I wrote several times in this column that Israel is practicing on the Palestinians what the Nazis used to practice against the Jews. It seems that this was also the opinion of Harry Truman, kept secret since 1947, and that he expected Israel to treat the Palestinians the way they are doing, before anything happened.

Truman recounts how Henry Morgenthau, the former Secretary of Treasury, asked him to facilitate the entry of Jews into Palestine. Truman says Morgenthau had absolutely no right to call him. Truman says that the Jews do not know their limits and do not know how to assess international developments. Henry brought 1,000 Jews to New York in order to remain there temporarily, but all of them remained.

Every day, I find examples about selfishness and misevaluation. I was reading Truman and reading about Rachel Fisch, who graduated from Harvard and presented a research, accompanied with a petition to the university requesting it to return a 5.2-million-dollar donation by the Zayed International Institute, claiming that the center promotes advertisements hostile to the U.S. and the Jews.

This issue translates a double arrogance, for the Jews are trying to convince others that the U.S. and Jews are one, although Israel harmed U.S. interests as no other country in the world did, and turned 2.1 Muslims and Arabs into its enemies. Sheikh Zayed, which institute carries the name, is the president of UAE. He built a unit to foster peace in his region and took his country on a path to development jump starting from the 19th century to the 21st century. I refuse to compare him to the leaders of Israel, but I say that the Jewish researcher should examine Israel's crimes and reasons for anti-Jewish hatred in the world. Harvard is quasi-occupied due to the presence of Jews in its administration, academic body and students, who are hundreds of times more than the Americans themselves. However, Europeans are more free and far from this "occupation." I was reading that a professor at Oxford University rejected the application of an Israeli student because of his nationality. Professor Andrew Wilkie told the Israeli PhD student Amit Duvshani that he couldn't teach an Israeli student because of the "huge human rights abuses" Israel is inflicting on Palestinians.

Israel is a shame to the Jews everywhere. Everyone who supports it is a partner in the crime, for it has been transformed from a country for the survivors of the Nazism to a new Nazi state that is practicing what Truman predicted over half of century ago.

Anti-Semitism is refused for any reason whatsoever, even if the reason is Israel. However, it did not come out of a vacuum, but out of Israel's practices. Fighting it does not begin with denying the reason but in fighting the violations of the government of the war criminals in Israel, for most Jews in the world are liberal and moderate. Hence, Sharon's government does not represent them. If the Palestinians and Israelis were able to reach a peaceful compromise, despite Ariel Sharon and not thanks to him, the main reason for the return of anti-Semitism would disappear. Only the known radical organizations, from neo-Nazis and others would remain, and they would have no respect or credibility, just like university professors who boycotted Israel before Professor Wilkie, and denounced its behavior in a way that was never adopted before.

 

GIRL, 15, FACES LASHES

Girl, 15, faces lashes
Gulf Daily News
August 18, 2003

The UAE supreme federal court has rejected a 15-year-old expatriate girl's plea to reverse a Muslim court sentence of 90 lashes for adultery, reports said yesterday. The court also sentenced the man she had "illicit relations" with, but the reports gave no details. The court in Abu Dhabi said the girl, who also faces deportation, was not classified as a juvenile because, under Sharia law, a girl is deemed an adult when she reaches puberty.

 

TEENAGE GIRL TO GET 90 LASHES, TO BE DEPORTED

Teenage girl to get 90 lashes, to be deported
By Shireena Al Nowais, Staff Reporter
Abu Dhabi
August 18, 2003

www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=95354

A 15-year-old expatriate girl living in Abu Dhabi will be flogged 90 times before being deported from the UAE for committing adultery.

The sentence was handed down by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court and supported by the Supreme Federal Court. The girl was charged by the criminal court with committing adultery at the age of 15.

The Prosecution claimed the girl was involved in an illicit relationship with a man and said she should be punished according to the Shariah Law. The court also sentenced the man involved with her.

The girl went to the Appeal Court which reconfirmed her sentence. She also appealed before the Supreme Federal Court on the grounds it was against the law to convict her since she is a teenager.

She said she was well below the legal permissible age of 18 when she committed the crime, implying the court should consider her case as a juvenile.

Her appeal was turned down by the federal court which supported the sentence and said the Shariah courts are solely responsible for applying Shariah laws for punitive crimes, blood money, drugs, juvenile delinquencies and others.

The court said according to the Shariah law, in contrast to the Civil Law, the girl has already reached adulthood by reaching puberty as confirmed by a medical doctor at Corniche Hospital.

Therefore she should be punished for adultery under the Shariah law which views that the girl deserves the punishment and should not be regarded a juvenile.

FULL ARTICLES

ISLAMISTS TARGET MOROCCO'S JEWS

Islamists target Morocco's Jews
By Giles Tremlett
The Guardian
September 15, 2003

Violent Islamists have murdered two members of Morocco's shrinking Jewish community in the past four days and look set to drive out most of the remaining members of a community whose history stretches back centuries.

The stabbing to death of 75-year-old Elie Afrat as he left his house in Meknes, 90 miles east of Rabat, to go to the synagogue on Saturday has finally shattered what the Moroccan authorities had always held up as a model of coexistence between Muslims and Jews.

The killing of Mr Afrat, one of just 120 Jews left in Meknes, came two days after a similar murder in Casablanca. On that occasion the victim was Albert Revivo, 55, a timber trader in the city's Lakria market.

The authorities and community leaders first claimed that Mr Revivo's murder was connected to the black market and smuggling trade that goes through Lakria. But the killing of Mr Afrat, whose unidentified assailant ran off, drove home the message Islamist militants first sent when they bombed a Jewish centre in Casablanca on May 16.

A series of suicide bombings that day, which killed 45 people in Morocco's first experience of Islamist terror, also targeted a restaurant in the city owned by a Moroccan Jew.

Serge Berdugo, general secretary of Morocco's Jewish association, said: "These are all acts of terrorism aimed against us, and through us against all Morocco."

A Jewish woman told the Spanish newspaper El Pais yesterday: "We must leave, not just for own security but for that of our children. What future do [Jews] have left if they must live in hiding?"

Although Morocco's monarchs, including the current king, have traditionally sworn to protect the country's Jews, the community has fallen from 350,000 to 3,500 in half a century. Most young Jews have emigrated either to Europe or to Israel, where some 700,000 people claim Moroccan origin.

Morocco held local elections last Friday, in which the country's main legal Islamic party, the Justice and Development party, made modest gains, despite a campaign against it by Moroccan authorities and the pro-government press, which have accused it of "moral responsibility" for the May 16 attacks.

Jews claim to have been present in the Maghreb since the synagogue at Djerba, Tunisia, was founded around 586BC. Their numbers were multiplied many times over when Spanish Jews were expelled from their country in 1492.

The Jewish community in Tunisia, reduced from 100,000 to 2,000 in 50 years, has also been attacked. The Djerba synagogue was attacked by a suicide bomber who killed 21 people in April 2002.

 

SECOND JEWISH MAN MURDERED IN MOROCCO SINCE THURSDAY

Second Jewish man murdered in Morocco since Thursday
The Jerusalem Post
September 13, 2003

An elderly member of Morocco's small Jewish community was stabbed to death Saturday, the second killing of a Jewish citizen in days, security officers said.

The 75-year-old man, Eli Afriat, was stabbed as he was leaving his home in Meknes, a northern city in the largely Muslim North African kingdom, the officials said.

Serge Berdugo, the secretary-general of a council for Morocco's Jewish community, said he had no further information.

The attack was not thought to be anti-Semitic.

However, there was still concern, as Moroccan Jews buried on Friday a member of their community shot dead by two unidentified gunmen and said the murder was a terrorist attack aimed at their community.

Wood merchant Albert Rebibo, 59, was killed by two men wearing balaclavas who sprayed him with automatic weapons fire at point-blank range in broad daylight in Casablanca on Thursday as he was closing his shop, the first attack of its kind against a Jewish citizen in the North African Muslim kingdom.

Witnesses said members of the public pursued the attackers, who ordered a passing driver out of his car and drove off in it, the Moroccan MAP news agency said.

Police said that their investigation early on could not determine "if it was carried out by an organization or was a settling of scores," the news agency reported.

Serge Berdugo, the head of the Moroccan Israelite Community association, said the timing of the shooting was no coincidence, and said it was an act of terrorism aimed at Morocco's Jewish community.

"The hour when this despicable murder was committed September 11 at 12:45 GMT or the exact time when the first of the Manhattan (World Trade Center) towers was hit point to several hypotheses and one signature," he said in a speech at Rebibo's burial ceremony, attended by hundreds of people.

Morocco's Jewish community was targeted by 12 Islamist suicide bombers last May in Casablanca in attacks that killed 33 other people.

No Jews were killed in the attacks, but a Jewish social club, empty at the time, a restaurant run by a Jew and a Jewish cemetery were among the targets.

Following the attack, Moroccan officials vowed to protect the country's Jewish community.

Until the 1950s, Morocco was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Muslim world.

Moroccan Jews now total less than 5,000, after a massive exodus to Israel. Some 700,000 Israelis are believed to be of Moroccan descent.

 

MALAYSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER JUSTIFIES ATTACKS ON ISRAELI CIVILIANS

Malaysian opposition leader justifies attacks on Israeli civilians
Albawaba.com
September 12, 2003

The leader of Malaysia's opposition Islamic party told his supporters Friday the United States was an enemy of Islam and voiced support for Palestinian suicide bombers.

Abdul Hadi Awang, president of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, called the United States and its allies "imperialist powers who are finding ways to be confrontational with Islam."

"The United States and its allies must stand trial before the conscience of the world for unilaterally destroying other nations, all under the rubric and pretext of war against terrorism," Abdul Hadi said, according to the AP.

Abdul Hadi claimed the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan because "they hate Islam and they are after the oil and to protect the Zionist Israeli state."

Abdul Hadi described Israel as the "biggest terrorist and criminal" and declared his party would continue to support Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Later, Abdul Hadi told a news conference: "All Israeli civilians are soldiers and all of Israeli territory is a battlefield."

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