FULL ARTICLES

THE SPANISH DISHONOURED THEIR DEAD

The Spanish dishonoured their dead
By Mark Steyn
The Daily Telegraph (London)
March 16, 2004

"When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, naturally they will like the strong horse." So said Osama bin Laden in his final video appearance two-and-a-half years ago. But even the late Osama might have been surprised to see the Spanish people, invited to choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, opt to make their general election an exercise in mass self-gelding.

To be sure, there are all kinds of John Kerry-esque footnoted nuances to Sunday's stark numbers. One sympathises with those electors reported to be angry at the government's pathetic insistence, in the face of the emerging evidence, that Thursday's attack was the work of Eta, when it was obviously the jihad boys. One's sympathy, however, disappears with their decision to vote for a party committed to disengaging from the war against the jihadi. As Margaret Thatcher would have said: "This is no time to go wobbly, Manuel." But they did. And no one will remember the footnotes, the qualifications, the background - just the final score: terrorists toppled a European government.

What was it all those party leaders used to drone robotically after IRA atrocities? We must never let the bullet and the bomb win out over the ballot and the bollocks. Something like that. In Spain, the bombers hijacked the ballot, and very decisively. The Socialist Workers' Party wouldn't have won, except for the terrorism.

At the end of last week, American friends kept saying to me: "3/11 is Europe's 9/11. They get it now." I expressed scepticism. And I very much doubt whether March 11 will be a day that will live in infamy. Rather, March 14 seems likely to be the date bequeathed to posterity, in the way we remember those grim markers on the road to conflagration through the 1930s, the tactical surrenders that made disaster inevitable. All those umbrellas in the rain at Friday's marches proved to be pretty pictures for the cameras, nothing more. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the slain. In the three days between the slaughter and the vote, it was widely reported that the atrocity had been designed to influence the election. In allowing it to do so, the Spanish knowingly made Sunday a victory for appeasement and dishonoured their own dead.

And, if it works in Spain, why not in Australia, Britain, Italy, Poland? In his 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans", Bin Laden cited Washington's feebleness in the face of the 1992 Aden hotel bombings and the Black Hawk Down business in Somalia in 1993: "You have been disgraced by Allah and you withdrew," he wrote. "The extent of your impotence and weaknesses became very clear." To the jihadis' way of thinking, on Thursday, the Spaniards were disgraced by Allah; on Sunday, they withdrew. The extent of their impotence and weaknesses is very clear.

Or, as Simon Jenkins put it in a hilariously mistimed cover story for last Thursday's Spectator arguing that this terrorism business is a lot of twaddle got up by Blair and Bush: "Bombs kill and panic the panicky. But they do not undermine civilised society unless that society wants to be undermined." And there's no chance of that happening, right?

Jenkins's argument, such as it is, is that a bomb here, a bomb there, nothing to get your knickers in a twist about: that's one thing we Europeans understand. But what he refuses to address is the shifting facts on the ground.

Europe's home-grown terrorism problems take place among notably static populations, such as Ulster and the Basque country. One could make generally safe extrapolations about the likelihood of holding Northern Ireland to what HMG used to call an "acceptable level of violence".

But in the same three decades as Ulster's "Troubles", the hitherto moderate Muslim populations of south Asia were radicalised by a politicised form of Islam; previously broadly unIslamic societies such as Nigeria became Islamified; and large Muslim populations settled in parts of Europe that had little or no experience of mass immigration.

You can argue about what these trends mean, but surely not that they mean absolutely nothing, as Sir Simon and the Complaceniks assure us: nothing to see here, chaps; switch back to the Test and bring me another buttered crumpet; when Osama vows to avenge the "tragedy of Andalucia", it's just a bit of overheated campaign rhetoric, like Kerry calling Bush a "liar", that's all.

For the non-complacent, the question is fast becoming whether "civilised society" in much of Europe is already too "undermined". Last Friday, for a brief moment, it looked as if a few brave editorialists on the Continent finally grasped that global terrorism is a real threat to Europe, and not just a Bush racket. But even then they weren't proposing that the Continent should rise up and prosecute the war, only that they be less snippy in their carping from the sidelines as America gets on with it. Spain was Washington's principal Continental ally, and what does that boil down to in practice? 1,300 troops. That's fewer than what the New Hampshire National Guard is contributing.

The other day, the editor of Le Monde, writing in the Wall Street Journal, dismissed as utterly false the widespread belief among all Americans except John Kerry's campaign staff that France is a worthless ally: "Let us remember here," he wrote, "the involvement of French and German soldiers, among other European nationalities, in the operations launched in Afghanistan to pursue the Taliban, track down bin Laden and attempt to free the Afghans."

Oh, put a baguette in it, will you? The Continentals didn't "launch" anything in Afghanistan. They showed up when the war was over - after the Taliban had been toppled and the Afghans liberated. And a few hundred Nato troops in post-combat mopping-up operations barely registers in the scale against the gazillions of Americans defending the Continent so that EU governments can blow their defence budgets on welfare programmes that make the citizens ever more enervated and dependent.

The only fighting that there is going to be in Europe in the foreseeable future is civil war, and when that happens American infantrymen will want to be somewhere safer. Like Iraq. There are strong horses and weak horses, but right now western Europe is looking like a dead horse.

 

A WAR NOT OF OUR CHOOSING

A war not of our choosing
By Melanie Philips
Daily Mail (London)
March 15, 2004

On the videotape which purported to claim responsibility by al Q'aeda for the carnage in Madrid, one line in particular sounded an absolutely chilling and authentic note. 'You love life', said the speaker, 'and we love death'.

Last night, the shattered citizens of Spain threw out their government. They were angry that it had apparently cast suspicion on the Basque separatists Eta to avoid taking any blame itself for making Spain a target by supporting the war in Iraq.

But although we still don't know for sure, there are obvious pointers to al Q'aeda involvement. The sheer scale of the inhumanity which targeted so many Spanish innocents for death demonstrated what we understood on 9/11 -that we are up against an enemy of a kind we have not seen before.

This is not the IRA-style terrorism with which we are wearily familiar. In al Q'aeda and its associates we are dealing with a death cult, enemies of life and of humanity itself, who have said: 'We are not fighting for you to offer us something, but to eliminate you'.

Indeed, it is vital to grasp that - despite the tape's claims over Iraq and Afghanistan - those who say Madrid was targeted only because Spain supported America are grievously mistaken. The facts indicate we face something far bigger and more terrifying.

Months before the Iraq war, al Q'aeda issued a stream of pronouncements listing Turkey, Spain, Italy and Vienna for attack - because these were once Muslim fiefdoms and are now 'occupied territories'. Radical Islamists refer in their sermons to the 15th century loss of Muslim Spain to Catholicism- which is why the Madrid attack had such resonance.

These are people for whom historical defeats have the same salience as current events. So Osama bin Laden has even blamed Britain for destroying the Ottoman empire after World War 1. The purpose of the jihad is nothing less than to re-establish the Muslim empire which once stretched across much of the globe.

This means al Q'aeda's sights are set on Africa, Asia, India and China as well as large chunks of Europe. This is why it has supported Islamist terror in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other Asian provinces of the former Soviet Union; or in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, or against India in Kashmir.

For al Q'aeda is waging a war of religious conquest. Its fundamental aim is to purge the world of heretics and infidels, whom it defines as anyone who doesn't uphold the Islamic faith as laid down by itself.

As Rohan Gunaratna records in his authoritative book Inside Al Q'aeda, it started by attacking moderate Muslim countries. Only when these detained, tortured and killed its adherents and seized its finances did it start to target the western backers of these states.

Its long term strategy is to build an array of Islamic states to wage war on the US and its allies, in order to defeat the western values by which it feels mortally threatened. It is therefore an explicit attack on democracy. One of its key strategists, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, has said democracy is a new religion that must be destroyed by war, and anyone who accepts it is an infidel.

This is why the argument that Madrid was targeted because of Iraq is so profoundly off the mark. As Singapore's former Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew has observed, the inroads made by Islamist terror in his own country, where Muslims have prospered, demonstrate the fallacy of thinking that if the west never acted against any Muslim state, al Q'aeda would leave it alone.

Indeed, the jihad has attacked many countries -Morocco, Algeria, Malaysia, the Philippines - which had nothing to do with the decision to wage war on Iraq. Last week saw a human bomb attack on a Masonic lodge in Istanbul; the week before, Shia pilgrims were slaughtered in Karbala and Baghdad.

In 1995, associates of bin Laden plotted to murder Egypt's President Mubarak; in 1994, a plot was foiled to hijack an Air France jet and crash it into the Eiffel Tower. And so on, and horrifically on.

The video says Madrid was revenge for Afghanistan as well as Iraq. But we only fought the Taleban because they had promoted al Q'aeda which perpetrated 9/11. The 'revenge' argument is totally twisted. Al Q'aeda presents its own terrorist attacks as self-defence against an illusory threat by the west against Islam. So any attempt by the west to defend itself from such attacks is falsely characterised instead as another anti-Islamic onslaught.

The west was attacked long before it went into Afghanistan or Iraq. Indeed, for years it did nothing at all to combat the terror being waged against it. On 9/11, we saw where that approach had led us. That was why on that date everything changed.

For 9/11 demonstrated that, rather than being inflamed by western aggression, terrorism had been emboldened by evidence that the west had no stomach for the fight.

As Spain's foreign minister has said, however, terror is terror. It cannot be divided up into terror that is fought and terror that is appeased. Its sponsors form an intricate world-wide web, in which alliances transcend cultural divisions on the basis that my enemy's enemy is my friend.

The way to defeat it is by solidarity. The key intelligence effort will be greatly enhanced if we realise that all peace-loving, free people are in the direct line of attack: Christians and atheists, Jews and Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, believers and non believers.

We must also make new rules to deal with a phenomenon that doesn't correspond to either conventional terrorism or war. This is not easy; we must not allow our core values to be overturned, but at the same time we must not allow those values to bring about their own annihilation. For common-sense to be stymied at such a time by the alien 'human rights' culture is just plain crazy.

Even worse, 'Londonistan' - where Islamist extremists are still at liberty to disseminate propaganda, recruit and raise funds - is still the centre of terror; and through losing control over our borders, we have no idea who is entering or leaving the country. In short, we are still not taking this threat seriously enough.

But as Lee Kwan Yew also said, this war can ultimately only be won by moderate Muslims. Accordingly, America, Britain and their allies should do everything in their power to support and protect those enormously brave Muslims who are taking their lives in their hands to push their culture towards reform and defeat the tyranny that acts in their name.

Too many people, though, still don't grasp the nature of what we are all up against. Instead, they complain we are now no safer than before - which is a bit like blaming the Blitz on the fact that we went to war against Germany.

Despite the obvious differences, we are in a war now. It was declared upon us, and we must defend ourselves. It is not possible to sit it out on the sidelines. It can and must be won; but that will only happen if we all stand shoulder to shoulder, not just with the people of Spain but those of all countries and all faiths who are now under attack.

 

A WIN FOR TERROR

A win for terror
David Frum's diary
March 15, 2004

Terrorism has won a mighty victory in Spain. The culprits who detonated those bombs of murder on 3/11 intended to use murder to alter the course of Spanish democracy - and they have succeeded.

In the months since the attacks on the World Trade Center, we have all heard - and ourselves often repeated - much brave talk about how terror cannot prevail, how justice must inevitably win through, etc. etc. etc.

The news from Spain suggests how very wrong those hopes were.

People are not always strong. Sometimes they indulge false hopes that by lying low, truckling, appeasing, they can avoid danger and strife. Sometimes they convince themselves that if only they give the Cyclops what he wants, they will be eaten last. And this is what seems to have happened in Spain.

Unlike the 9/11 attacks in the United States - which were intended as acts of propaganda to influence the Arab and Muslim world - the 3/11 attacks against Spain were acts of propaganda aimed at the local market. And again unlike 9/11, this time the terrorists succeeded brilliantly. They helped to defeat a government committed to joining the war against them - and helped elect a government whose leading members not so quietly dream of a separate accommodation.

From a human point of view, the carnage of 3/11 is a tragedy without purpose or meaning. But from a political point of view, 3/11 was aimed at a result - and it achieved it. The new socialist government of Spain will be a far less willing ally of the United States. Indeed, this attack against Spain may well succeed in pre-emptively knocking Spain out of the war in the way that Pearl Harbor was intended - but failed - to knock out the United States in 1941.

Lesson: terrorism can work. Prediction: therefore expect more of it. Expect more terrorism aimed at the United Kingdom, against Australia, against Poland, and - ultimately - against the United States. For the terrorists must now wonder: If murder can influence elections in Spain - why not in the United States?

In the United States, the terrorists have to make a very fine calculation: Which would hurt President Bush, their supreme enemy, more - to attack or not to attack?

Those who know American politics well would probably answer: choice number two. The more time goes by without a terrorist attack, the less President Bush benefits from his prestige as a war leader - and the more the national conversation turns to new subjects on which President Bush holds less of an advantage. On the other hand, the terrorists may be less sophisticated. They may hope to defeat their enemy George W. Bush in the same way that they defeated their enemy Jose Aznar. In which case - brace yourselves.

 

SPAIN GOT THE POINT

Spain got the point -- By defaming the Spanish while Madrid weeps, the Bushites display a sneaking contempt for democracy

By Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian
March 17, 2004

Maybe they think it's payback time. In 2001, many American conservatives were appalled by the reaction in some European quarters to 9/11, a reaction crudely summarised as "America had it coming". They insisted it was grossly insensitive to attack the United States and its foreign policy while Ground Zero still smouldered. They were right and I took their side, urging people at least to pause a while before adding greater hurt to an already traumatised nation.

But look what's happening now. A matter of days after the event branded Europe's 9/11, and American conservatives - including some of the very people who were so outraged by the criticisms hurled at the US in September 2001 - have started whacking not just Spanish policy, but the Spanish people.

Witness David Brooks in yesterday's New York Times, outraged that the Madrid bombings prompted Spanish voters to "throw out the old government and replace it with one whose policies are more to al-Qaida's liking. What is the Spanish word for appeasement?" Rightwing blog artist Andrew Sullivan also raided the 1930s lexicon for the same, exhausted word: "It seems clear to me that the trend in Europe is now either appeasement of terror or active alliance with it. It is hard to view the results in Spain as anything but a choice between Bush and al-Qaida. Al-Qaida won." Not to be outdone, former Bush speechwriter David Frum, the man who coined "axis of evil", sighed at the weakness of the Spanish: "People are not always strong. Sometimes they indulge false hopes that by lying low, truckling, appeasing, they can avoid danger and strife ... And this is what seems to have happened in Spain."

Perhaps this is how the Bushites hope to avenge what they saw as European insensitivity two and half years ago, by defaming the Spanish even as Madrid still weeps. But this assault should not go unanswered if only because, if allowed to settle in the public mind, it will widen yet further the already yawning transatlantic gulf of misunderstanding.

Put aside the imprecision (and worse) that comes with the abuse of the word "appeasement": the menace of al-Qaida is real and serious enough without making hyperbolic comparisons to the Third Reich. Focus instead on the two grave errors that underlie this latest argument from the right. One is a misunderstanding of democracy, the other is a failure to make crucial distinctions.

The first mistake is the more surprising, for no word is invoked more often in support of the "war on terror" than democracy. Yet these insults hurled at the Spanish show a sneaking contempt for the idea. For surely the Spanish did nothing more on Sunday than exercise their democratic right to change governments. They elected the Socialist party; to suggest they voted for al-Qaida is a slur not only on the Spanish nation but on the democratic process itself, implying that when terrorists strike political choice must end.

It comes from the same mentality that prompted Republicans in 2002 to run TV ads against the Democratic senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in the Vietnam war, placing his face alongside those of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It is the same thinking that led one Republican congressman to quip recently that a vote in November for John Kerry will be a vote for Osama. It is a bid to reshape the political landscape, so that parties of the right stand on one side and all the rest are lumped in with al-Qaida. The tactic is McCarthyite, the natural extension of the bullying insistence that, in President Bush's own words, "You are either with us or you're with the terrorists". If that is the choice, then there is no choice: it is a mandate for a collection of one-party states.

But this is not the heart of the matter. The right's greater error is its failure to distinguish between the war against al-Qaida and the war on Iraq. About 90% of the Spanish electorate were against the latter; there is no evidence that they were, or are, soft on the former. On the contrary, there have been two mass demonstrations of Spanish opinion in the past few days: let no one forget that 36 hours before the election, about 11 million Spaniards took to the streets to swear their revulsion at terrorism. It takes some cheek to accuse a nation like that of weakness and appeasement.

The Spaniards showed they knew the difference between the struggle against al-Qaida and the conflict in Iraq. It is hardly a shock that this distinction is lost on the likes of Frum and company: the Bush administration worked tirelessly to conflate the two, constantly eliding Saddam and 9/11 even though the president himself has had to admit no evidence links the two.

The Spanish electorate were not voting for a cave-in to al-Qaida. On the contrary, many of those who opposed the war in Iraq did so precisely because they feared it would distract from the more urgent war against Islamist fanaticism. (Witness the US military resources pulled off the hunt for Bin Laden in Afghanistan and diverted to Baghdad.) Nor was it appeasement to suggest that the US-led invasion of an oil-rich, Muslim country would make al-Qaida's recruitment mission that much easier.

Of course, this is not to argue that if only the war had not happened then Bin Laden and his henchmen would have laid down their arms. Al-Qaida's leaders are murderous, guilty of the most wicked acts; nothing we can do will reach them. But that is not true of the many thousands, perhaps millions, drawn to the message of extreme Islamism; the people who would never plant bombs, but might cheer when they go off. These are the hearts and minds that have to be won over if the war on terror is ever to be won. To assert that the conflict over Iraq made that task harder is not a surrender; it is a statement of the obvious.

It may be comforting, but this struggle cannot be won by painting the world in black and white, with America as the good guy and everyone else cast as terrorists or their allies. It will require nimble, subtle thinking - constantly making awkward but essential distinctions.

So, yes, it is quite true that al-Qaida will be chillingly gratified by the Spanish result but, no, that does not mean that Spaniards voted for al-Qaida. Similarly, it is quite possible to be strongly opposed to the Iraq adventure and militantly in favour of the war against Bin Laden - indeed the two sentiments can be strongly linked. There is a difference, too, between appeasing men of violence and seeking to limit their appeal, just as the leaders of global terror must be separated from those who could become their followers. Islam is no monolith, nor is the west, and all the fine gradations within these categories matter enormously.

The world has never looked more like a complex knot, and it will take precision and patience to untangle it. Wrenching away at it in fury will only make the problem harder - and our lives more dangerous.

 

SETTLING CENTURIES-OLD SCORES

Settling centuries-old scores
NewsDay
By Mohamad Bazzi
Middle East Correspondent
March 16, 2004

Osama bin Laden's grudge against Spain goes back a very long time.

The al-Qaida chief has a penchant for historical symbolism, and in the Islamic world, few symbols are as resonant as the 15th-century downfall of the Muslim empire of Al-Andalus, which was centered in what now is modern-day Spain.

"He views the demise of the Caliphate in Spain as if it happened yesterday," said Diaa Rashwan, a leading expert on Islamic militants at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

The Caliphate was the political and religious authority carried by the men who succeeded the prophet Muhammad after his death in 632 as rulers of the Islamic state. As the Muslim empire expanded, there were competing dynasties based in Damascus, Baghdad and Granada, Spain.

In speeches and decrees, bin Laden has alluded frequently to the collapse of the Islamic Caliphate as the turning point for the world's Muslims. The Caliphate was not officially abolished until 1924, but to many scholars, its decline began with the fall of Al-Andalus.

"Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Al-Andalus would be repeated," bin Laden declared in a videotaped statement broadcast around the world Oct. 7, 2001, the day the United States began the bombing of Afghanistan.

At such a decisive moment in his own life, specialists say, bin Laden chose to highlight the story of Al-Andalus as a cautionary tale. To bin Laden and other militants, the Islamic empire in Spain collapsed because of infighting among rival Muslim princes and clans.

"To bin Laden, Al-Andalus represented the height of Muslim glory, and its downfall was a great betrayal," said Mohammad Salah, an expert on Islamic militants at the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. "He uses it often as a lesson for Muslims about the importance of remaining united."

In the 8th century, Moors from North Africa conquered the Iberian Peninsula and annexed it to the Muslim empire. They established a vibrant society centered around the cities of Granada and Cordoba and used Spain as a base from which to fight Christian armies in Europe and try to further spread the Muslim empire.

By the mid-1400s, Christian forces had pushed the Muslims out of much of Europe. In 1492, Granada was ceded to Ferdinand and Isabella, who later expelled all Muslims and Jews from their Kingdom of Spain.

To bin Laden, that was when the golden age of Islam ended.

"Bin Laden has a long list of historical grievances," Salah said. "Spain is near the top of that list."

Bin Laden has singled out Spain repeatedly for its backing of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and its crackdown on al-Qaida operatives since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In one audiotape broadcast last year on the Arabic TV network Al-Jazeera, bin Laden warned that Spain would be among six special targets.

In a letter claiming responsibility for last week's train bombings in Madrid, an al-Qaida-linked group hinted at a historical grudge.

"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," said the statement sent to a London-based Arabic newspaper. It was signed by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, a group named after al-Qaida's military commander killed in the 2001 bombing of Afghanistan.

Since the mid-1990s, officials say, Spain was home to several al-Qaida "sleeper" cells that played a logistical and funding role in the Sept. 11 attacks. The lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, reportedly held a summit there with other al-Qaida operatives two months before the attacks.

Last year, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon indicted 35 people, including bin Laden, for belonging to al-Qaida and plotting the Sept. 11 attacks, "partially in Spain."

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MAX HASTINGS' EXERCISE IN ARROGANCE

Max Hastings' exercise in arrogance
Letters
The Guardian
March 12, 2004

Max Hastings lectures Jews that Israel's policies are causing anti-semitism (A grotesque choice, March 11). He instructs them that their failure to reject these policies will aggravate the problem. This argument is perverse. Surely the reason for opposing Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem is that it is wrong, not that it provides a cover for anti-Jewish racism.

I do not recall Hastings or anyone else telling Africans that they are obliged to speak out against Mugabe's dictatorship in Zimbabwe on pain of contributing to anti-African prejudice. Nor is such "well-meaning" advice offered to Russians, Chinese or others with large diasporas, whose governments are involved in foreign occupations and significant human rights abuses.

Hastings is strangely quiet on the role that suicide bombing has played in dampening dissent both within Israel and among Jews in the diaspora. The British public reacted with similar defensiveness when confronted with terrorist bombings in Northern Ireland, even when many of them strongly disapproved of British policy in the province.

To inform a group of people that their acceptance depends upon their adopting correct political views is to grant legitimacy, even if inadvertently, to the very racism which one purports to deplore. Mr Hastings' fatuous mission to the Jews is an exercise in arrogance and double standards. It is part of the problem which it purports to address, rather than the solution.

Prof Shalom Lappin
King's College, London

Max Hastings complains that Zionists are demanding that people make a grotesque choice between Zionism and anti-semitism. He then falls into the Zionists' trap by complaining of the antics of "Jewish lobbies" and the lack of courage of "overseas Jews". He ends by demanding that the "world's Jews ... persuade" Israel to mend its ways.

Hastings makes the same mistake accidentally that the Zionists make deliberately. He should be focusing on Israel's ethnic cleansing, its apartheid laws and its relentless aggression towards the Palestinians; instead he focuses on its Jewishness.

Mark Elf
Dagenham, Essex

As one, albeit an atheist one, of "the growing number of Jews who express dismay about the behaviour of the Israeli government", I can only say thank God for Hastings' spot-on article. We need more on the same lines.

Brian Robinson
Milton Keynes, Bucks

 

ANTI-SEMITISM IS A VIRUS AND IT MUTATES

Anti-semitism is a virus and it mutates
To claim Jews cause their own suffering by failing to denounce Israeli policy is a revival of an old hatred
Comment
By Stephen Byers
The Guardian
March 15, 2004

As the agnostic child of practising Methodist parents, I have viewed with alarm the dramatic increase in anti-semitic attacks and asked myself if it is really the case that Jews must denounce the behaviour of the Israeli government in order to earn a European commitment to fight anti-semitism.

In 21st-century Europe, the rise in anti-semitic incidents is directly linked to renewed violence between Israelis and Palestinians. When tensions flare up in the Middle East, synagogues are burned, Jewish cemeteries are desecrated and Jews are attacked. Ethnically and religiously motivated hatred, violence and prejudice, wherever it occurs, should earn unconditional condemnation; sympathy and support for the victims should not be conditional on their behaviour or political convictions. Yet, because rage over Israel's policies can cause these attacks, condemnation is often too slow and increasingly conditional.

This is unacceptable. Of course, criticism of Israel's policy is not, of itself, anti- semitic. But it can become so when it involves applying double standards, holds all Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government or reveals a demonisation of Jews. It is clearly anti-semitism if it provides an excuse for anti-Jewish hatred.

If Chinese restaurants in London were firebombed by angry mobs, would it be right to withhold sympathy for the victims until they condemned China for its policies in Tibet? Should Russian students at British universities be harassed unless they publicly condemn their government's handling of the Chechen crisis? This way of thinking becomes an apology for mass murder.

Nobody should be asked to take a loyalty and morality oath as a precondition for protection against racism. No citizen should feel that their equality before the law is dependent on their embrace of political views that we approve of. This is a totalitarian logic that undermines the very foundations of freedom on which our society stands. Yet present-day anti-semites demand precisely that of Jews.

Acts of anti-semitism are justified by an increasing number of "respectable" commentators, who accuse Jews of being the cause of their own suffering. This logic borders on apology of hatred; worse, it is a veiled threat that if Jews fail to oblige, nobody will stand by them in the hour of need. Instead of sympathising with the victims, anti-semites exploit the Palestinian cause to side with the perpetrators. Around the world, only Israel and the Jews earn such contemptuous treatment.

When it comes to Israel, Jews are held collectively responsible. Their sin is not deicide any more, nor are they are accused of possessing sinister racial traits. In the modern world, the methods of the anti-semite are far more subtle. It is no longer the jack-booted Nazi; instead, it is anti-semitism with a social conscience, often based on human rights and the demand of a homeland for the Palestinian people. Today's Jewish "collective crime" is Israel.

Nothing is more dishonest and prejudiced than shrugging off responsibility for hatred by saying the victims deserved it. Muslims do not merit Islamophobia because of Osama bin Laden, but Jews are somehow blamed for anti-semitism on account of their alleged uncritical support for Israel. This is an attempt to rationalise anti-semitism. It is a warning sent to Jews not by people who care about them, but by bigots seeking to condone their prejudice.

Anti-semitism is not rational. It is, as Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, a virus and it mutates. It will not be defeated unless it is treated as an act of senseless hatred that has no logic, no reason and no justification. It lies dormant, based on embedded myths and wilful misconceptions which lead to stereotyping.

The calumny that Jews falsely manipulate the memory of the Holocaust to defend Israel is its most recent malignant manifestation. No Jew has ever said that I do not have the right to criticise Israeli policies because of the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust. It is not the Jews who abuse the memory of the Holocaust to shield Israel from criticism. It is the anti-semites who defile its memory by demonising Israel through baleful comparisons which are grotesque distortions of the truth and whose aim is Holocaust denial.

Nor is the accusation, most recently made by Max Hastings on these pages, that "overseas Jews are less brave than Israel's domestic critics" accurate. The Jewish world vociferously expresses a diversity of views on Israeli policies. The British Jewish community has been at the forefront of the campaign to demand a two-state solution. Peace Now is active in the British Jewish community. Many Jewish charities tirelessly promote dialogue and coexistence among Israelis and Palestinians.

The reason for the resurgence of an old hatred is simple. Anti-semites feel emboldened again. Their prejudice, suppressed out of guilt but lingering on in the past 50 years, is finding its way back to the mainstream. This cannot be ignored. Anti-racists everywhere have a responsibility to challenge and expose anti-semitism wherever it occurs.

• Stephen Byers is chairman of the Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism

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IRANIAN TOURISTS STONE ISRAELI POSITIONS

Iranian tourists stone Israeli positions
Daily Star (Lebanon)
March 5, 2004

Iranian tourists pelted Israeli positions with stones at the Fatima Gate border point during a visit to the Southern region Friday, having arrived in Lebanon on a trip from Syria by way of Western Bekaa.

On the opposite side of the border, scores of Israelis and foreign tourists were sighted moving around in a park at Metullah settlement, while soldiers manned their fortified positions.

The Iranians numbered about 90, among them lawyers and university professors, and included men, women and children. Their first stop over was in the former Khiam detention camp, once run by Israeli occupation forces or their allied militiamen.

Those looking after the notorious camp, which has since become an important landmark, explained to the visitors methods of torture once used against detainees, especially resistance fighters.

The tourists then moved to a spot facing Metullah and took some snapshots after having disembarked from two buses.

A university professor from Teheran, Hamdi Nazeri, said the group had come to Syria and from there to Lebanon on a tourist trip "to have a look at the border and see what happened to the Jews after their defeat in May 2000."

 

ISRAEL PLANNED TO STRIKE PAK NUKES

Israel planned to strike Pak nukes
The Times of India
March 8, 2004

Israel, which successfully destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, also considered a pre-emptive strike to destroy Pakistan's nuclear facilities, according to State Department papers released by the National Security Archive, a private research agency.

Newly declassified papers obtained by the Archive shows that at a Friday morning session on September 14, 1979 of the US General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament, Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Charles Van Doren discussed "apparent Israeli consideration of military action against Pakistan."

The United States itself, he said, had not discussed (with Israel) "pre-emption plans."

The declassified paper provides no further details but it is known that AQ Khan, Father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb , and others had described Pakistan's nuclear bomb as an "Islamic bomb" and rich Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Libya reportedly provided financing while China provided technical aid , nuclear materials and a design for the bomb.

Blueprints stolen by Khan from the Netherlands enabled Pakistan to build centrifuges to refine uranium to bomb-grade.

 

US TO KEEP REPORT ON AFGHAN RAID SECRET

U.S. to Keep Report on Afghan Raid Secret
By Stephen Graham
The Associated Press
March 10, 2004

The U.S. military on Wednesday said it would not release the findings of an investigation into an airstrike that killed nine Afghan children last year.

Spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said an officer who led the probe concluded that the military followed "appropriate" rules of engagement and rules of war in the botched attack, for which its commanders quickly apologized.

But, he said, the report was classified as 'top secret' because of "the intelligence involved and the targeting involved."

The children were killed Dec. 6 by an A-10 ground-attack aircraft in a field near a mountain village in Ghazni province. A man also was killed, but the military admitted the suspected Taliban militant targeted in the raid had gotten away.

The deaths - and those of six more children in a ground and air assault on a house in neighboring Paktia province the day before - drew strong protests from the Afghan government and the United Nations.

They were highlighted again in a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch, which accused the military of using excessive force to arrest suspects in residential areas.

The military has rejected that report, saying it failed to understand that Afghanistan was still a combat zone.

"You can follow all of the laws of land warfare and still, unfortunately, have tragic incidents," Hilferty said Wednesday.

The military has already said that it modified its rules of engagement after the December incidents, but has declined to give details.

Hilferty said that silence was to avoid helping militants, which the 13,000-strong U.S.-led force in Afghanistan has vowed to crush this year.

"If they know exactly what we're gonna do, they will have an advantage on us," he said.

 

ISLAM 'WILL BE DOMINANT UK RELIGION'

Islam 'will be dominant UK religion'
By Robert Smith
Gulf Daily News
March 10, 2004

Islam will be the most widely practised religion in the UK by 2020, according to British and Muslim magazine editor Sarah Joseph. She says mosque attendance is expected to outstrip church attendance over the next 16 years.

Estimates suggest that anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 people a year convert to Islam in the UK, which is currently home to approximately 1.8 million Muslims.

"We are the second largest faith in Britain and will be the largest practising faith in Britain by 2020 if you use church and mosque attendance as a measure," she told the GDN.

Mrs Joseph is editor of British magazine Emel, which was launched in September and specifically targets Muslim readers.

The English-speaking publication is described as a lifestyle magazine, which focuses on all aspects of Muslim life.

It is published every two months with a print-run of 20,000 copies per issue, but there has already been interest shown in going international.

"We have been asked to do an Emel America, Emel Middle East and an Emel Europe - we have lots of European subscribers," said Mrs Joseph. "We have also been asked to make an Emel TV show for Europe, but we still need to establish Emel in Britain."

Mrs Joseph is in Bahrain at the invitation of Discover Islam and has delivered a series of lectures on issues such as Islam in the Western media, challenges to Muslim women and how the war on terror affects European Muslims.

The mother-of three says people in the UK turn to Islam for different reasons.

However, despite the increasing Muslim community in Britain, Mrs Joseph warned that Europe is in danger of falling victim to what she called "secular fundamentalism."

One example of this is the French ban on Muslim girls wearing hijabs in school.

"It is the other extreme of what they are saying they are trying to fight," she said. "This secular fundamentalism is creeping through Europe - there is no room for God in political discourse.

"This for me is a particularly worrying trend. People with faith have to stand up and fight secular fundamentalism."

Mrs Joseph described the French ban on hijabs as a knee-jerk reaction - inferring it is a move designed to win support for President Jacques Chirac away from right-wing opponents such as national Front Party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Sentiment

But although Mrs Joseph described the UK as a more tolerant place for Muslims than other parts of Europe - she did report a growing anti-Muslim sentiment.

Such abuse has got worse since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but Mrs Joseph says problems have existed for over a decade.

Anti-terrorism legislation has also raised eye-brows among the Muslim community in Europe.

However, despite such difficulties - and the challenges that go with bridging Western culture with Muslim life - she says there is strong support in countries like Britain where religious freedom is possible.

She pointed to the two million people who took to the streets of London to demonstrate against the war in Iraq.

"People have to be aware that ordinary non-Muslim people did not support the war," she said.

"Just as all Muslims do not all think in the same way.

"The actions of the British government are not a reflection of the people of that nation.

"The vast majority of anti-war protesters were non-Muslim. They do care about the Israel and Palestine conflict, about issues that we care about.

"We need to build bridges with these people."

Mrs Joseph will return to the UK today after spending four days in the country. She concluded her series of talks in Bahrain with a lecture yesterday on women as the stakeholders of the future.

 

NO ISRAELIS TO ATTEND GRAND PRIX IN BAHRAIN

Reuters via AOL... note the highlighted language toward the end... sort of thing that would be ignored except for the few who follow FI racing...

Motor racing-Islamists eye Bahrain F1 race after Big Brother win
By Mehrdad Balali
Reuters
March 5, 2004

After forcing the cancellation of the "immoral" reality TV show Big Brother, Bahraini Islamists want to ensure there will be no champagne-spraying and scantily-dressed women at next month's Formula One grand prix.

Bahrain won the deal to stage the race despite competition from Dubai, Egypt and Lebanon as part of its drive to attract tourists and foreign investment.

Building work on the Sakhir circuit, venue for the April 4 race, is on schedule and organisers must now contend with cultural and religious restraints.

"We have raised these issues with organisers and they have promised there will be no naked women and no celebrations with champagne," said Adel al-Moawada, deputy chairman of Bahrain's parliament.

"This is an Islamic country and celebrations must conform to our traditions...I don't think organisers would want to ruin such a big, costly event for such a small thing," he said.

Grand prix winners traditionally spray champagne over the crowd after a race and lightly-clad models are a feature of Formula One. Champagne is expected to be replaced by non-alcoholic fizz in Bahrain.

There were no girls in bikinis at a 1999 race in Malaysia, another Muslim country which also holds grands prix.

Moawada led noisy protests which forced the Arab television channel MBC this week to stop its Arabic version of the hit reality show Big Brother, produced in Bahrain.

Big Brother had raised eyebrows in the conservative society for showing unmarried men and women living together in defiance of Muslim traditions. Bahrain's government denies any role in stopping the show.

The Big Brother issue provoked a debate between Islamists and other Bahrainis who favour a more liberal social climate to attract business to pro-Western Bahrain, the Gulf's banking hub and headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

"Who wants to invest in a country in the grip of a group of hardliners? Do we want to go in the same direction as Iran and Taliban in Afghanistan?" Bahrain's Akhbar al-Khaleej newspaper said in an editorial.

Islamists have vowed to eradicate all "immoral" aspects of Western culture from Bahrain.

Bahraini youth have in the past two years protested against Western-style concerts and other events they deemed obscene.

"We don't want economic growth at the expense of our youth's moral corruption. We don't want prosperity through sinful methods," MP Jassim al-Saeed told Reuters.

He warned Formula One organisers to make sure no Israelis attend the event. "If this happens we will confront it. We will pick up our pens and start writing until we stop it," he said.

Bahrain, which like many Arab countries has no ties with Israel because of its occupation of Arab land, does not allow anyone with an Israeli passport to enter the country.

(Additional reporting by Isa Mubarak)

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PASSIONATE PUBLIC KISS IN INDONESIA COULD MEAN JAIL

Passionate Public Kiss in Indonesia Could Mean Jail
Reuters
March 8, 2004

Couples caught kissing passionately in public in Indonesia could spend five years in jail.

Members of parliament in the world's most populous Muslim country have proposed an anti-pornography bill that includes a ban on kissing on the mouth in public.

"I think there must be some restrictions on such acts because it is against our traditions of decency," said Aisyah Hamid Baidlowi, head of a parliamentary committee drafting the bill.

Heavy kissing could carry a maximum penalty of five years in jail or a 250 million rupiah ($29,000) fine. Anyone caught flashing would face similar penalties.

The bill also proposes bans on public nudity, erotic dances and sex parties, with jail terms ranging from three to 10 years. Watching such shows could lead to two years behind bars.

Indonesians have long followed a moderate version of Islam, although an emphasis on Muslim practices and identification with Islamic traditions have grown stronger in recent years.

Public displays of affection are frowned upon by many, though prostitution is rampant in many parts of the archipelago.

 

PALESTINIAN PM CAME CLOSE TO WINNING NOBEL PRIZE

Palestinian PM came close to winning Nobel Prize
Reuters
March 9, 2004

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago for his work in negotiating the now-derailed Oslo peace accords, a former committee member said on Monday.

Breaking a 50-year rule of silence meant to keep committee deliberations secret, Kaare Kristiansen told Reuters that Qurie's inclusion in the controversial 1994 prize would have made it more balanced between Palestinians and Israelis.

Kristiansen resigned when Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was chosen to share the award with late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for what was at the time a landmark peace deal.

Qureia, also known as Abu Ala, had been one of the main negotiators of the accords in secret talks in Norway in 1993.

"Abu Ala was being discussed as a possible candidate," Kristiansen, a strongly pro-Israeli member of Norway's Christian People's Party, said on the eve of a two-day visit by Qureia to Norway.

"It would have been natural to pick two from each side but that was not possible," he said. The Nobel Peace Prize, set up in the will of Sweden's Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and the inventor of dynamite, can only be split three ways.

Kristiansen had regarded Arafat as a source of violence in the Middle East and he opposed awarding him the prize. But his objections were overruled by other members of the five-strong committee.

"It was meaningless to give the award to Arafat. It has become more meaningless with time," Kristiansen said. "It would have been less controversial."

The 1994 prize has been bitterly criticized from supporters of both sides in the Middle East conflict. The award, once made, cannot be withdrawn.

Two members of the committee quit in 1973 when U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shared the prize with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho for efforts to end the Vietnam War. And two resigned when the 1935 prize went to German Carl von Ossietzky, a jailed anti-Nazi journalist.

 

CHRISTIANS AXED TO DEATH

Christians axed to death
From correspondents in Cairo
The Herald Sun (Australia)
March 4, 2004

Egyptian police deployed several hundred men in a southern town today after a Muslim man axed to death two Christians, triggering fears of revenge acts and sectarian clashes.

The Muslim farmer hit the two Coptic Christians with an axe in a brawl that broke out when his donkey slipped on a wet dirt road outside their house in the town of Salamun, police said. The man was arrested and police beefed up their presence in the town near the city of Sohag, 500km south of Cairo.

The suspected murderer was "mentally ill", one officer said.

Such descriptions are frequently made by Egyptian authorities in similar situations in order to pacify the population.

The towns and villages of Sohag province are home to large Christian Coptic communities and there have been several sectarian clashes over the past few years.

The region was also a breeding ground for Islamist groups who conducted a campaign of violence in the 1990s.

Salamun, 460km south of Cairo, has about 40,000 inhabitants, including 15,000 Coptic Christians, according to police estimates.

In January 2000, 20 Copts and a Muslim were killed in clashes in Kosheh, a predominantly Christian town near Sohag. The fighting started after a quarrel between a Coptic merchant and a Muslim customer.

 

SYRIAN AUTHORITIES BREAK UP RARE PROTEST

Syrian Authorities Break Up Rare Protest
By Zeina Karam
The Associated Press
March 8,2004

Syrian authorities on Monday broke up a rare protest by human rights activists demanding political and civil reforms on the 41st anniversary of the ruling party's accession to power.

It was not clear how many of the approximately 20 activists were arrested. Witnesses speaking on condition of anonymity said several were seen taken away in buses by Syrian police.

Several news photographers and reporters were briefly detained and questioned and later released.

The protest outside Parliament, organized by the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, would have been the first of its kind in a country where political activity is tightly controlled.

The head of the group, Aktham Naisse, told The Associated Press a day earlier that he had been pressured by authorities to cancel the sit-in.

A close relative of Naisse, who did not want to be identified, said Naisse was among those arrested.

Before the protest, Syrian riot police and plainclothes security agents stood ready around the Parliament building in downtown Damascus.

When the group of around 20 protesters arrived, they were told to disperse. One man raised a banner that read: "Freedom for Prisoners of Opinion and Conscience." The banner was quickly torn up by agents, who snatched the notebooks of journalists gathered to cover the sit-in.

At one point, Naisse, a lawyer from the northern town of Latakia, told the activists to raise their hands in the air, which they did, and told them: "We're going to prison, we are not afraid."

Police then dispersed the protesters and angrily told reporters to leave.

Naisse helped found the human rights group in 1991 and spent seven years in detention until being pardoned in 1998 by late Syrian President Hafez Assad.

Naisse told AP on Sunday that he had been summoned by security agents repeatedly in the past few days and told indirectly to cancel the sit-in. He said he was told the protests were unnecessary and "served American interests at this time." Since the U.S.-led war on Iraq, Syria has been under pressure from the U.S. administration to reform and stop support for what the U.S. deems to be terrorist organizations in the region.

But Naisse said the protest would go on.

Syria on Monday marked the 1963 March Revolution, when a coup brought the Baath Arab Socialist Party to power. In Damascus, Syrian flags and large banners proclaiming support for President Bashar Assad filled the streets.

The rights group had declared Monday to be a national day of protest against the state of emergency imposed since 1963 and to call for political, social, cultural and economic reforms. Peaceful protests were also scheduled to take place outside Syrian embassies in London and Paris.

"(Monday) will be a test for all, especially pro-democracy activists who have a chance to prove that their demands are not just words on paper," Naisse said.

Naisse's group has circulated a petition, to be handed to Syrian authorities later this month, demanding political and economic reform. Naisse had hoped the petition, started in January, would collect a million signatures by March, but it so far only has 6,000.

Syria has a population of around 18 million.

The petition calls for the abrogation of emergency laws, the release of political detainees and return of all exiles.

President Bashar Assad, who took office when his father died in 2000, has taken limited steps to loosen Syria from the totalitarian system set up by his father. He released hundreds of political detainees and, initially, allowed political discussion groups to hold small gatherings indoors.

But in 2001, Assad began to clamp down on pro-democracy activists, raiding their meetings and jailing two lawmakers and other activists. They were convicted on a charge of trying illegally to change the constitution.

Assad, in a January interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, said reforms were already in place but made clear he rejected Western-style democracy. "We will not accept wearing clothes that are not tailored for us," he said.

He insisted there was room for criticism under his reign but, in a sign that there were limits to his willingness to tolerate dissent, he added: "You cannot respect those who do not respect their country."

 

SAUDI CLERICS FORBID MUSLIMS TO WATCH US ARABIC CHANNEL

Saudi clerics forbid Muslims to watch US Arabic channel
The Associated Press
March 8, 2004

It's un-Islamic to have anything to do with the Washington-sponsored station, one religious edict decrees

Clerics in Saudi Arabia are venting their anger at a new United States-funded television channel for Arab viewers, saying it was founded to fight Islam and Muslims are religiously forbidden to watch it.

Sheikh Ibrahim al-Khudairi, a cleric and judge in Riyadh, and Sheikh Mansour bin Ahmed al-Hussein, another government-appointed cleric in the Saudi capital, both slammed Al-Hurra. They said no one should work for the station, watch it or support it with advertising.

During his Friday sermon before thousands of worshippers, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, prayer leader of the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, said that Western satellite channels directed at Arab viewers were part of a 'war of ideas' against the Muslim world.

Al-Hurra, or The Free One, made its broadcast debut on Feb 14 with footage of windows being opened, symbolising freedom, and comments by US President George W. Bush praising Iraq's determination for democracy.

Al-Hurra is the latest US government effort to reach out to Arabs.

The others include the Arabic-language Radio Sawa, also overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors that runs Al-Hurra, and hi, a slick Arabic-English cultural and lifestyle magazine for youth.

In a written fatwa, or religious edict, Sheikh al-Khudairi said last week that Muslims were religiously forbidden to watch the station or have anything to do with it.

The channel was 'founded by America to fight Islam, and to propagate massive decay to Americanise the world', said the edict.

'It must be boycotted... not used for advertising, or written about in praise in a manner that would lure anyone to watch it.'

Sheikh al-Khudairi could not immediately be reached, and officials at the board which runs Al-Hurra declined to comment on the fatwa.

The channel will cost US taxpayers about US$62 million (S$107 million) in its first year, and US officials have said they hope to air balanced programming to counter what they say is anti-American 'hateful propaganda' in the Muslim world.

Sheikh al-Khudairi's edict was not endorsed by the Commission of Senior Clerics, which includes the Grand Mufti of the kingdom, meaning that it does not carry a government approval.

But it reflects a growing sentiment against the station in the kingdom.

'Satellite stations that claim to speak in the name of freedom and independence are sowing the seeds of doubt' about Islamic principles, the official Saudi Press Agency quoted Sheikh al-Sudais as saying.

Sheikh al-Hussein, who teaches Islamic law at a school in Riyadh, said there was a consensus among the religious authorities that Al-Hurra was founded with the sole aim of 'weakening the Islamic nation and sowing divisions between Muslim nations'.

Al-Hurra is broadcast from the Washington area but with facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad.

It has a largely Arab staff.

FULL ARTICLES

WHAT'S POPCORN IN ARAMAIC?

What's popcorn in Aramaic?

Its alleged anti-semitism isn't the only problem with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. There's also the small matter of it being in Aramaic. To help enrich your enjoyment, here is a handy glossary of useful terms

Compiled by Tim Dowling
The Guardian
March 1, 2004

B-kheeruut re'yaaneyh laa kaaley tsuuraathaa khteepaathaa, ellaa Zaynaa Mqatlaanaa Trayaanaa laytaw!
It may be uncompromising in its liberal use of graphic violence, but Lethal Weapon II it ain't.

Da'ek teleyfoon methta'naanaak, pquud. Guudaapaw!
Please turn off your mobile phone. It is blasphemous.

Shbuuq shuukhaaraa deel. Man ethnaggad udamshaa?
Sorry I'm late. Have I missed any scourging?

Aykaa beyt tadkeetha? Zaadeq lee d-asheeg eeday men perdey devshaanaayey haaleyn!
Where is the loo? I need to wash my hands of this popcorn.

Een, Yuudaayaa naa, ellaa b-haw yawmaa laa hweeth ba-mdeetaa.
Yes, I'm Jewish, but I wasn't there that day.

Demketh! Udamaa lemath mtaynan b-tash'eetha d-khashey?
I fell asleep! What station of the cross are we up to?

Ma'hed lee qalleel d-Khayey d-Breeyaan, ellaa dlaa gukhkaa.
It sort of reminds me of Life of Brian, but it's nowhere near as funny.

Ktaabaa taab hwaa meneyh.
It's not as good as the book.

Puuee men Preeshey, puuee!
Boo, Pharisees! Boo!

Etheeth l-khubeh 'almeenaayaa d-Maaran Yeshu Msheekhaa, ella faasheth metool Moneeqaa Belluushee!
I came for the everlasting love of our Lord Jesus Christ, but I stayed for Monica Bellucci.

Aamar naa laak dlaa yaada' naa haw gavraa. B-aynaa feelmaa hwaa?
I tell you I do not know the man. What's he been in?

Feelmaa haanaa tpeelaw! Proo' lee ksef dmaa!
This film is terrible. I want my blood-money back.

D-tetbuun deyn men yameen u-men semaal, la hwaat deel l-metal, ellaa l-ayleyn da-mtaybaa.
To sit at my right or my left is not for me to grant; it is for those to whom it has already been assigned.

Saabar naa da-mhaymen beh, ellaa la haymneth b-haw meemsaa d-beh.
I suppose I believe in Him, but I didn't believe him in it.

Saggee shapeer! Laa tsaabey naa d-esakkey l-mapaqtaa trayaanaaytaa.
Brilliant! I can't wait for the sequel (second coming).

Eeth lee 'ayney, ellaa layt lee d-ekhzey la-kteebaataa takhtaayaataa. Neqruuv leh?
I have eyes but I cannot see the subtitles. Can we sit closer?

Ayleyn enuun Oorqey?
Which ones are the Orcs?

Laa, haw Shem'uun Qooreenaayaa eethaw! Ezdar!
No, that's Simon of Cyrene! Pay attention!

Waay! Haw 'aalmeenaayaa hwaa!
Well, that was eternal.

Lebba deel daaleq, ellaa teezaa deel daamek.
My heart is on fire, but my bum is asleep.

Enaa mqatreg naa l-Ruumaayey.
I blame the Romans.

Tev attuun men qdaamaa!
Down in front!

B-zabnaa d-qeenduunos, tayyeb lkuun uurkhaa d-mapaqtaa.
In case of emergency, prepare ye the way of the exit.

Laa baakey naa-eeth gelaa b-'ayna deel.
I'm not crying; I've just got a mote in my eye.

Spreet mets'aayaa deelaak huu. [Or, if addressed to a woman, Spreet mets'aayaa deelek huu!]
Thine is the medium Sprite.

Peletaa kuullaah da-Qraabay Kawkbey.
It's all an allegory of Star Wars.

Shluukh kleelaa d-kuubayk, pquud. Laa meshkakh naa d-ekhzey l-ketaan tsuur-aathaa.
Could you take off your crown of thorns, please? I can't see the screen.

Baseem, ellaa saabar naa d-etstebeeth yateer b-Lebeh d-Gabaaraa!
Not bad, but I think I preferred Braveheart.

 

THE GORIEST STORY EVER TOLD

The Goriest Story Ever Told
By Jonathan Foreman
New York Post
February 24, 2004

Many of mankind's most beautiful and ennobling artistic achievements depict or were inspired by the crucifixion. Mel Gibson's "Passion," though well-acted, technically impressive and initially moving, is for the most part not beautiful and certainly not ennobling.

Indeed, it is overwrought, sadistic way beyond the point of overkill, and oddly, spiritually dry given its subject. But then, unlike the great Passions of the past, it is a product of a distinctly perverted sensibility.

In Gibson's crudely effective, blood-soaked epic "Braveheart," there was little compassion or feeling - but a great deal of savage brutality culminating in one of the torture scenes that Gibson has relished as an actor.

In "Passion," the relish for pain and bloody cruelty that has marked his career as both a director and an actor - a relish that would almost be sensual in the hands of a less vulgar artist - boils over into a full-blown fetish.

The relentless whippings, beatings and scourgings (the latter is barely mentioned in the Gospels but takes up a whole reel of film) start early and then intensify, in slow-motion and close-up, with the impact of each blow amped up like in "Rocky."

Eventually, "Passion" becomes a kind of pornographic catalog of Christ's suffering. And like pornography, it's initially powerful but eventually becomes numbing.

This would matter less if there was much else in the film besides blows and slashes accompanied by gasps of pain and ribbons of blood. (The procession to Calvary is a kind of orgy of savagery.)

What distinguishes the film from the long tradition of gruesome martyrology in religious art is its lack of any sense of the meaning or reason for Christ's sacrifice.

The message of Jesus' death is all but drowned in Gibson's morbid enthusiasm for shots of metal tearing flesh, as if Christ was crucified so that Gibson - along with his hard-working make-up and sound people - could indulge his obsession with torture.

The narrative begins in the Garden of Gethsemane (which looks like a German forest) with the arrest of Jesus (Jim Caviezel) and some of the disciples hiding out from the Temple authorities and ends with the Resurrection. (The arrest takes place after a brutal fight that uses so much slow motion and so many heavily amplified blows that it feels like you're watching a Hong Kong action movie.)

Some episodes from before then are shown in flashback, including moments from the Last Supper.

Though I'm not a Christian, I could see why many would find "Passion" moving if -and it's a big if - they could get past the gratuitous violence. Nor do I believe it will provoke pogroms, if only because the film is probably too slow to work as rabble-rousing propaganda, whatever the intentions of its maker.

Gibson's "Passion" generally sticks to the Gospels in the details of its narrative but, like the medieval Passion Plays it resembles, it cherry-picks among them so as to make the Jewish (as opposed to the Roman) role in Christ's death as dark as possible.

This is mostly a matter of little details: For instance, Barabbas, the criminal who is set free by thoughtful Roman governor Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) in place of Jesus, is depicted here as a crazed one-eyed murderer rather than a mere thief or bandit.

More reprehensibly - and this is where Gibson does seem motivated by anti-Semitic prejudice - the inexplicably, bottomlessly malevolent Jewish priests and crowds who call for his death are portrayed almost to a man by stereotypically Jewish-looking actors with large hooked noses, while all the good characters are not, like Pilate and the sympathetic Roman soldier Abenader (Fabior Sartor).

There is also a creepy anti-Semitic edge in the scene in which Judas and the high priest appear to haggle over 13 pieces of silver.

There are some decent Jews scattered about - one of the priests protests against Jesus' railroading and women in the crowd weep when he passes them - but several Romans, including some of the soldiers who brutalize Jesus, are shown as being moved by his suffering in way that isn't true of the Jews.

After Jesus' second or third brutalizing, the film seems to suggest not just that goodness corresponds with good looks, and badness with ugliness, but that you can tell what lurks in people's hearts by their teeth.

All the really horrible people in the film are snaggletoothed, while all the good people - Jesus, the apostles, Pilate and his wife - are blessed with a full set of pearly whites.

For a film that is so clearly intended to be true to the period (hence the dialogue in Aramaic and Latin) there are weird, wrong details, like the bread at the Last Supper which looks like an Italian loaf, not unleavened "matzoh" as it would have been.

And for a sense of the real power relations between Romans and Jews, this "Passion" gives the high priests and a small crowd of people in Jerusalem much more influence on their Roman overlords like Pilate (in real life a brutal tyrant) than they could possibly have exercised.

"Monty Python's Life of Brian" offers a more accurate guide. The film also feels strangely cramped. This is partly a result of the relentless close-ups of a fantastically bloodied Jesus and his agonized disciples and partly because the crowds and locations are surprisingly small.

During the film's few quiet moments, Caviezel, a handsome actor (best-known for his role in "The Thin Red Line"), suggests spiritual power as well as any actor who has played Jesus on the big screen, but he spends most of his screen time in almost mute agony.

 

NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD

Not Peace, but a Sword
By William Safire
New York Times
March 1, 2004

The word "passion" is rooted in the Latin for "suffer." Mel Gibson's movie about the torture and agony of the final hours of Jesus is the bloodiest, most brutal example of sustained sadism ever presented on the screen.

Because the director's wallowing in gore finds an excuse in a religious purpose - to show how horribly Jesus suffered for humanity's sins - the bar against film violence has been radically lowered. Movie mayhem, long resisted by parents, has found its loophole; others in Hollywood will now find ways to top Gibson's blockbuster, to cater to voyeurs of violence and thereby to make bloodshed banal.

What are the dramatic purposes of this depiction of cruelty and pain? First, shock; the audience I sat in gasped at the first tearing of flesh. Next, pity at the sight of prolonged suffering. And finally, outrage: who was responsible for this cruel humiliation? What villain deserves to be punished?

Not Pontius Pilate, the Roman in charge; he and his kindly wife are sympathetic characters. Nor is King Herod shown to be at fault.

The villains at whom the audience's outrage is directed are the actors playing bloodthirsty rabbis and their rabid Jewish followers. This is the essence of the medieval "passion play," preserved in pre-Hitler Germany at Oberammergau, a source of the hatred of all Jews as "Christ killers."

Much of the hatred is based on a line in the Gospel of St. Matthew, after the Roman governor washes his hands of responsibility for ordering the death of Jesus, when the crowd cries, "His blood be on us, and on our children."

Though unreported in the Gospels of Mark, Luke or John, that line in Matthew - embraced with furious glee by anti-Semites through the ages - is right there in the New Testament. Gibson and his screenwriter didn't make it up, nor did they misrepresent the apostle's account of the Roman governor's queasiness at the injustice.

But biblical times are not these times. This inflammatory line in Matthew - and the millenniums of persecution, scapegoating and ultimately mass murder that flowed partly from its malign repetition - was finally addressed by the Catholic Church in the decades after the defeat of Naziism.

In 1965's historic Second Vatican Council, during the papacy of Paul VI, the church decided that while some Jewish leaders and their followers had pressed for the death of Jesus, "still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today."

That was a sea change in the doctrinal interpretation of the Gospels, and the beginning of major interfaith progress.

However, a group of Catholics rejects that and other holdings of Vatican II. Mr. Gibson is reportedly aligned with that reactionary clique. (So is his father, an outspoken Holocaust-denier, but the son warns interviewers not to go there. I agree; the latest generation should not be held responsible for the sins of the fathers.)

In the skillful publicity run-up to the release of the movie, Gibson's agents said he agreed to remove that ancient self-curse from the screenplay. It's not in the subtitles I saw the other night, though it may still be in the Aramaic audio, in which case it will surely be translated in the versions overseas.

And there's the rub. At a moment when a wave of anti-Semitic violence is sweeping Europe and the Middle East, is religion well served by updating the Jew-baiting passion plays of Oberammergau on DVD? Is art served by presenting the ancient divisiveness in blood-streaming media to the widest audiences in the history of drama?

Matthew in 10:34 quotes Jesus uncharacteristically telling his apostles: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." You don't see that on Christmas cards and it's not in this film, but those words can be reinterpreted - read today to mean that inner peace comes only after moral struggle.

The richness of Scripture is in its openness to interpretation answering humanity's current spiritual needs. That's where Gibson's medieval version of the suffering of Jesus, reveling in savagery to provoke outrage and cast blame, fails Christian and Jew today.

 

AN OBSCENE PORTRAYAL OF CHRIST'S PASSION

An obscene portrayal of Christ's Passion
By James Carroll
Boston Globe
February 24, 2004

"The Passion of The Christ" by Mel Gibson is an obscene movie. It will incite contempt for Jews. It is a blasphemous insult to the memory of Jesus Christ. It is an icon of religious violence. Like many others, I anticipated the Gibson film warily, especially because an uncritical rendition of problematic Gospel texts which unfairly blame "the Jews" for the death of Jesus threatened to resuscitate the old "Christ-killer" myth.

But seeing Gibson's film convinces me that it does far worse than that. His highly literal representation of the Passion narratives, his visual presentation of material that, in the tradition, is meant to be read and heard, together with his prejudiced selection of details and his invention of dialogue and incidents, cause one serious problem, very much at the expense of Jews.

But the impact of his perverse imagination on a sacred story, coming at a time when the world is newly riven with primal violence in the name of God, threatens an even more grievous problem. The subject of this film, despite its title, is not the Passion of the Christ, but the sick love of physical abuse, engaged in for power.

Jews as presented in this movie are overwhelmingly negative. Roman soldiers brutally execute Jesus, but Pontius Pilate is a good man, who stands in dramatic contrast to Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest. Going well beyond anything in the Gospels, Gibson's film emphasizes Roman virtue and Jewish venality by inventions like these:

Pilate's wife Claudia is an actual heroine, who aligns herself with Mary. Mary, terrified for her son, appeals to benign Romans against the hostile Jewish crowd.

Claudia is the woman behind the Romans. Her dramatic counterpart, the woman behind the Jews, is none other than a female Satan.

Pilate kindly offers Jesus a cup of water. Pilate orders Jesus flogged, but only to satisfy the Jewish bloodthirst.

The Jews are expressly indicted by the Good Thief, who, after the crucified Jesus says, "Father, forgive them... ," tells Caiaphas that "He prays for you."

Jews are indicted by Jesus, who consoles Pilate by telling him, "It is he who has delivered me to you who has the greater sin."

The centerpiece of the film is a long sequence constructed around the flogging of Jesus. It is the most brutal film episode I have ever seen, approaching the pornographic. Just when the viewer thinks the flaying of the skin of Jesus can get no crueler, it does. Blood, flesh, bone, teeth, eyes, eye sockets, ribs, limbs -- the man is skinned alive, taken apart. In these endless moments, with the torturers escalating instruments and vehemence both, the film puts Gibson's decadent "Braveheart" imagination on full display.

On screen and in the theater, there is nothing to do but look away. Long after the filmgoer has had enough, even the Romans stop. And here is the anti-Semitic use to which this grotesque scene is put: Then Jesus is returned to the crowd of "the Jews," and then, as if they are indifferent to what the filmgoer has just been physically revolted by, "the Jews" demand the crucifixion of Jesus.

Not even the most savage carnage a filmgoer has ever seen is enough for these monsters. The scene, with the Jewish crowd overriding tender-hearted Pilate, is the most lethal in the Scriptures, but in Gibson's twist, "The Jews" are made to seem more evil than ever.

There is no resurrection in this film. A stone is rolled back, a zombie-Jesus is seen in profile for a second or two, and that's it. But there is a reason for this. In Gibson's theology, the resurrection has been rendered unnecessary by the infinite capacity of Jesus to withstand pain. Not the Risen Jesus, but the Survivor Jesus. Gibson's violence fantasies, as ingenious as perverse, are, at bottom, a fantasy of infinite male toughness.

The inflicting of suffering is the action of the film, and the dramatic question is: How much pain can Jesus take? The religious miracle of this Passion is that he can take it all. Jesus Christ Superstoic. His wondrous capacity to suffer is what converts bystander soldiers, and it is what saves the world.

In an act of perverse editing, Gibson has Jesus say, "I make all things new" as his torment approaches climax, as if cruel mayhem brings renewal. When Jesus cries out near the end, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" the film conveys not his despair, but his numb gratification. There's the film's inadvertent reversal, the crucifixion as a triumph of sadomasochistic exploitation. That triumph seems to be what Gibson's Jesus salutes when he says finally, "It is accomplished."

It is a lie. It is sick. Jews have every reason to be offended by "The Passion of The Christ." Even more so, if possible, do Christians.

 

NAILED

Nailed
By David Denby
The New Yorker
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
March 1, 2004

In "The Passion of the Christ", Mel Gibson shows little interest in celebrating the electric charge of hope and redemption that Jesus Christ brought into the world. He largely ignores Jesus' heart-stopping eloquence, his startling ethical radicalism and personal radiance

And against whom will the audience direct its hate? As Gibson was completing the film, some historians, theologians, and clergymen accused him of emphasizing the discredited charge that it was the ancient Jews who were primarily responsible for killing Jesus, a claim that has served as the traditional justification for the persecution of the Jews in Europe for nearly two millennia. The critics turn out to have been right. Gibson is guilty of some serious mischief in his handling of these issues. But he may have also committed an aggression against Christian believers. The movie has been hailed as a religious experience by various Catholic and Protestant groups, some of whom, with an ungodly eye to the commercial realities of film distribution, have prepurchased blocks of tickets or rented theatres to insure "The Passion" a healthy opening weekend's business. But how, I wonder, will people become better Christians if they are filled with the guilt, anguish, or loathing that this movie may create in their souls?

"The Passion" opens at night in the Garden of Gethsemane Gibson and his screenwriter, Benedict Fitzgerald, selected and enhanced incidents from the four Gospels and collated them into a single, surpassingly violent narrative I realize that the mere mention of historical research could exacerbate the awkward breach between medieval and modern minds, between literalist belief and the weighing of empirical evidence. "John was an eyewitness," Gibson has said. "Matthew was there." Well, they may have been there, but for decades it¹s been a commonplace of Biblical scholarship that the Gospels were written forty to seventy years after the death of Jesus, and not by the disciples but by nameless Christians using both written and oral sources. Gibson can brush aside the work of scholars and historians because he has a powerful weapon at hand

By contrast with the dispatching of Judas, the lashing and flaying of Jesus goes on forever, prolonged by Gibson's punishing use of slow motion, sometimes with Jesus' face in the foreground, so that we can see him writhe and howl. In the climb up to Calvary, Caviezel, one eye swollen shut, his mouth open in agony, collapses repeatedly in slow motion under the weight of the Cross. Then comes the Crucifixion itself, dramatized with a curious fixation on the technical details.

Mel Gibson is an extremely conservative Catholic who rejects the reforms of the Second Vatican council. He's against complacent, feel-good Christianity, and, judging from his movie, he must despise the grandiose old Hollywood kitsch of "The Robe," "The King of Kings," "The Greatest Story Ever Told," and "Ben-Hur," with their Hallmark twinkling skies, their big stars treading across sacred California sands, and their lamblike Jesus, whose simple presence overwhelms Charlton Heston. But saying that Gibson is sincere doesn't mean he isn't foolish, or worse. He can rightly claim that there's a strain of morbidity running through Christian iconography

What is most depressing about "The Passion" is the thought that people will take their children to see it. Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me," not "Let the little children watch me suffer." How will parents deal with the pain, terror, and anger that children will doubtless feel as they watch a man flayed and pierced until dead? The despair of the movie is hard to shrug off, and Gibson's timing couldn't be more unfortunate: another dose of death-haunted religious fanaticism is the last thing we need.

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LITHUANIAN HOOPS TEAM'S NAZI 'PRIZE': TEN JEWS TO KILL

Lithuanian hoops team's Nazi 'prize': ten Jews to kill
By Mike Lebowitz
The Jerusalem Post
March 2, 2004

In 1941, a Lithuanian basketball team was awarded a dubious prize for its victory over a team comprised of members from the occupying German military - each player was given the opportunity to shoot about 10 Jews.

Next week, the names of two suspected members of that Lithuanian team are expected be presented to a special prosecutor in Vilnius.

These events coincidentally come at a time when Israeli basketball teams travel to the Baltic nation in matches that, in the past, have been marred by expressions of anti-Semitism.

"It is so horrifying that the prize for winning a basketball game was to murder innocent men, women, and children," said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office. "This certainly does add a different dimension and a certain resonance to the games being played now."

Although exact information is not available for the public, Zuroff said the two suspects are brothers living in the US, with at least one of the siblings residing in Waterbury, Connecticut.

"They are both in their early 80s," Zuroff said. "You have to keep in mind that these men were very young when this crime occurred. I'm sure many, not all, but many people in Lithuania remember this. Who would have thought that 56 years later we would discover that the likely perpetrators are living in the US."

The events surrounding the basketball game were detailed in a 1948 book by Josef Gar, a Lithuanian.

The book describes how the champion-caliber Lithuanian team engaged in a contest against the Germans in a town near the capital of Vilnius.

After the match, the victorious team was told that it had won the right to kill some Jews. According to the book, each player accepted the prize. The team reportedly herded Jewish residents near a tower, where each player took their turn shooting about 10 people.

Statistics indicate that approximately 90 percent of Lithuania's nearly 220,000 Jews were killed during World War II.

After offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the prosecution and punishment of people suspected of murdering Lithuanian Jews, the Simon Wiesenthal Center received 198 names, and 144 were credible enough to pursue, including the two brothers, Zuroff said.

"A man who remembers the basketball game recently saw an interview in the Canadian/Lithuanian press and then tracked them down," he said.

Zuroff said Lithuania has not punished a Nazi-era criminal since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The only person convicted for the murder of Jews was Kazys Gimzauskas, last February, but he was not jailed because he has Alzheimer's disease. Gimzauskas's superior officer in those crimes died of a heart attack before his sentencing.

Still, Lithuanian prosecutor Rimvydas Valentukevicius maintained that a "historical justice had been done" and vowed to continue prosecuting the criminals.

To date, basketball and other sports continue to attract anti-Semitic rhetoric in Lithuania, often when local teams play clubs from Israel. For example, in March 2002, fans in Vilnius chanted "Jews get out" and other Nazi slogans as many waved Palestinian flags during a basketball game with an Israeli team. Similar reactions took place at two soccer matches in August 2001 between a Vilnius team and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

"These chants were even heard on TV, but still the security at the game did nothing," said Simonas Alperavicius, a Jewish community leader in Lithuania.

Lithuanian officials, responding to public rebukes from Alperavicius, said at the time that the commotion was caused by a "small number of fans" and that measures would be taken to avoid any more displays of anti-Semitism at sporting events.

The Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team is set to play next Tuesday night in Vilnius in a ULEB Cup match. Maccabi Tel Aviv is scheduled for a basketball game March 11 in the Lithuanian capital as part of the Euroleague tournament.

 

WOMEN FACES TRIAL FOR BOMBING BUS CARRYING SOVIET JEWS

Woman faces trial for bombing bus carrying Soviet Jews
The Associated Press
March 1, 2004

A suspected former Red Army Faction terrorist will go on trial next month on charges of helping plan and carry out a 1991 bomb attack on a busload of Soviet Jews in Hungary, a court in southwestern Germany announced Monday.

Andrea Klump is charged with 33 counts of attempted murder and setting off a bomb, and could face a life prison sentence if convicted. She already is serving a nine-year sentence in Germany for helping plan the failed 1988 bombing of a Spanish disco frequented by U.S. seamen.

Klump, 46, is accused of bombing the bus in Budapest, Hungary, on June 23, 1991 along with accomplice Horst Ludwig Meyer, who was shot and killed by police in Vienna, Austria in 1999, and at least one other unknown accomplice. The explosion injured two Hungarian police officers and four passengers on the bus, who were headed for a flight to Israel.

The trial will open April 22, the state court in Stuttgart announced. A verdict is expected in September.

Klump is accused of carrying out the bombing for a Palestinian group, "Movement for the Freedom of Jerusalem," which claimed responsibility for the attack. Investigators found DNA evidence in 2001 linking Klump to a Budapest apartment at the time of the attack.

Klump has denied the charges. She also has insisted that she never belonged to the RAF, which launched more than two decades of attacks against NATO and industrial targets in Germany until renouncing violence in 1992. The group declared itself disbanded in 1998.

 

SWISS PARDON WWII-ERA SMUGGLER OF JEWS

Swiss Pardon WWII-Era Smuggler of Jews
The Associated Press
March 3, 2004

The Swiss government on Wednesday pardoned a 79-year-old woman who was convicted of smuggling Jewish refugees into Switzerland during World War II.

Aimee Stitelmann is the first person to benefit from a new law that pardons anyone imprisoned or fined for helping Jews get into Switzerland during the war. The law does not allow for compensation to be paid.

Between 1942 and 1945, Stitelmann helped 15 refugees cross the border secretly from France to Switzerland to escape the Nazis. She would slip into France and return the refugees to Switzerland across an unguarded stretch of the border or by train with false papers.

Stitelmann was sentenced to 15 days imprisonment in 1945 for violating Switzerland's border laws.

Another 27 requests are pending under the law, said lawmaker Francoise Saudan, who heads the parliamentary commission that considers pardons.

Some 300,000 people were sheltered in Switzerland between 1938 and 1945, but many thousands more were turned away at the border. Helping rejected refugees to enter the country was a criminal offense.

The Swiss government has already apologized to Jews for its World War II policies.

 

NEW JEWISH MUSEUM SET TO OPEN IN COPENHAGEN

New Jewish museum set to open in Copenhagen
The Associated Press
March 1, 2004

A foundation created by the late pianist and satirist Victor Borge has donated $250,000 to the construction of a Jewish Museum in the Danish capital, museum director Janne Laursen said Monday.

The museum, to open June 8, will tell the history of Danish Jews through books, manuscripts, religious and everyday objects.

"According to his daughter Sanna Feirstein, Borge was thrilled with the idea of the opening of the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen," Laursen said.

The museum design was created by U.S. architect Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the master plan for the memorial World Trade Center site in New York.

The Danish Ministry of Culture has contributed 9 million kroner (US$1.5 million) to the museum, which is also supported by private foundations and donors.

Born in Copenhagen in 1909 as Boerge Rosenbaum, Borge graduated from the Danish Royal Academy of Music and studied in Vienna, Austria, and in Berlin.

He performed in several stage revues and four Danish movies before fleeing to New York in 1940 when Denmark was occupied by the Nazis.

In the United States, he gained fame for his witty satire and brilliant pianist skills.

He kept close ties to his motherland and his Jewish heritage until his death in 2000 at the age 91.

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HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS ARE "COMPLICIT IN MURDER"

Human rights groups are complicit in murder, says Trimble
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
The Guardian
January 29, 2004

The Nobel Peace laureate and Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble called human rights organisations a "great curse" yesterday and accused them of complicity in terrorist killings.

"One of the great curses of this world is the human rights industry," he told the Associated Press news agency at an international conference of terrorism victims in Madrid.

"They justify terrorist acts and end up being complicit in the murder of innocent victims."

His words drew an angry reaction from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, two of the world's biggest human rights groups, with about 200,000 members in Britain and more than a million worldwide. Steve Crawshaw, director of the London office of Human Rights Watch, said:"It is extraordinarily regrettable and disappointing that, above all, a man like that says something like this."

Mr Trimble was joint winner of with the former leader of the SDLP, John Hume, for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. He made his comment as one of the keynote speakers at the first international congress of terrorism victims, which ended in Madrid on Tuesday night. He backed another politician at the conference, the Colombian vice-president Francisco Santos, who said that human rights groups were hindering progress towards peace in his country. "For human rights organisations to call [the Colombian rebel group] Farc 'armed opposition groups' undermines the struggle of those who have decided to side with democracy," Mr Santos said. "That is not right. It is unacceptable."

The Madrid conference ended with a declaration which went some way to supporting Mr Trimble. It said:

"We call on NGOs and other civil organisations that stand for the defence of human rights to make a commitment to defend victims of terrorism and to identify terrorist acts for what they are, regardless of their cause or pretext and without striking balances or blurring the distinction between victims and executioners."

 

32 PARIS MOSQUES NOW UNDER THE CONTROL OF EXTREMISTS.

More Mosques in France Falling Under Sway of Radicals
CNSNews.com Correspondent
March 1, 2004

French officials have noted an increase in Islamic radicals taking over Paris area mosques in the last year, with 32 mosques now under the control of extremists.

According to a study by undercover police forces, the number of radical mosques has increased by 10 in the last year. Officials say there are a total of 373 mosques or prayer groups in Paris and its suburban areas.

The study was reported in the French daily Le Monde. Police officials have declined to comment further on the findings.

According to Olivier Roy, a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, the radicalization of mosques is a result of the growing Salafism movement.

This neo-fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, which uses doctrines from the Saudi Arabian Wahhabis, appeals particularly to young, second-generation Arabs.

The Salafist movement takes its name from the Arabic as-salaf as-salih (pious forebears), referring to the prophet Mohammed and his associates.

"Salafism, or radical Islam, addresses young people who do not have the culture of their grandparents associated with Moroccan Islam, Tunisian Islam and Pakistani Islam," Roy said.

"The radicals address young people who feel rejected by western society. Those who fall under the influence of Salafism are the second generation, who experience the double phenomenon of being alienated from traditional Islamic culture and also from French society."

The increase of this form of Islam is also common to other urban areas in France as well as across the Channel in Britain. In France, there are some five million Muslims, many of them immigrants and children of immigrants from North African Arab countries.

"Older generation imams [clerics], who have practiced a much more moderate Islam, become more isolated as radicals take over," said Roy.

"They do not have the support of authorities and if there is a conflict in the mosque, the one or two people or family who created the mosque can be expelled or forced to close it down."

Despite the creation last year of an official French Council of Muslims, mosques here often remain of the grassroots type, essentially prayer groups with no official status.

According to the police, extremists take over by first criticizing the older generation's interpretation of holy texts and then bringing up political issues such as the ban of Muslim headscarves in French public schools, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and discrimination against Arabs.

To maintain and increase community support, the radicals open day-care centers and nursery schools associated with the mosques and undertake the teaching of Arabic and the Quran.

Some Salafist radicals are believed to be linked to al-Qaeda and other terror groups and the increase of radical-controlled mosques is regarded as a threat to security in France and Europe.

Roy said it was important to note that "the large mass of the movement is purely religious but among these are the minority, who are known as jihadists or political activists who are proponents of a holy war."

"Not all Salafists are terrorists but all terrorists are Salafists," he added.

Roy said there was no foreign country behind the radicals.

"While religious radicalization is linked to Saudi Arabia political radicalization is not linked to the Saudis," he argued.

"The phenomenon is not linked to a country but it is a global one, and developing particularly strongly in Western Europe."