FULL VERSIONS OF SOME OF THE ARTICLES SUMMARIZED ABOVE

"THOSE BRAINS AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE ALWAYS GET IT WRONG"

Lessons of history No 52: those brains at the Foreign Office always get it wrong
By Andrew Roberts
The Times (of London)
April 28, 2004

Tony Blair should be delighted that no fewer than 52 former diplomats have written to him to say that his Middle Eastern policy is "doomed to failure". Whenever a collective view has developed in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office it has been only a matter of time - and usually not long, either - before it has been proved spectacularly wrong.

In the superb new biography of Lord Palmerston by James Chambers, it is clear that the majority of Britain's mid-19th-century ambassadors heartily disapproved of his policy of extending liberal constitutions to anywhere that could sustain them; how those long-dead diplomats would have agreed with their successors' haughty statement that the creation of an Iraqi democracy today is "naive".

Similarly, Lord Salisbury saw the Foreign Office as the enemy for its continual pressure to end Britain's "splendid isolation". He disliked the process by which diplomats sometimes went native, telling Queen Victoria: "An occasional change of post increases the usefulness of a diplomatist. If he remains too long at one post he falls under special personal influences, or gets mixed up in local quarrels." Going native is notoriously true of the FCO's Arabist ambassadors, many of whom signed yesterday's letter.

Yet before the letter is taken to be indicative of general FCO feeling, we ought to check the small print. There are no former ambassadors to Washington among the signatories, no permanent under-secretaries, only two ambassadors to a great power and an awful lot of third-rankers. We have been treated to the views of our former ambassadors to very minor countries indeed, such as Switzerland, Chad, Cameroon, Colombia and Chile. Oh, and a former Governor of the Falkland Islands. Two of the countries - Luxembourg and the Vatican - are so small they could comfortably be carpeted over in Axminster by the Treasury without anyone noticing the cost. Even if we accept that these scores of CMGs and KCMGs somehow do represent mainstream FCO opinion, what of it? Zara Steiner's work shows how few of its supposedly first-class brains foresaw the cataclysm of 1914; the appeasement policy of the Thirties was directed from an FCO that agreed with Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax; its top echelons were keen on "dual-flag solutions" at the time of the Falklands.

Finally, and tellingly, the FCO has been the primary British engine for pushing Britain closer and closer towards a European superstate. The best collective noun for any group of British diplomats - let alone 52 of them - is "a cringe".

Many in the Foreign Office, with their happy memories of reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom at Oxbridge, cannot come to terms with the very existence of the State of Israel. The reference in their letter to "one-sided and illegal" actions which "cost yet more blood", for example, is not to Palestinian suicide-bombers but to the policies of President Bush and Ariel Sharon.

In 1948, the Foreign Office, with the same "long experience of the Middle East" that the co-signatories boasted of, advised the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the Israelis would lose the war of independence and be defeated by the (largely British-trained) Arabs. They estimated that the Arab-Israeli conflict "would be of relatively short duration and would eventually be checked somehow by the UN". Bevin put the timing at a fortnight, but then, as the High Commissioner in Palestine said, Bevin was "completely surrounded by Arabists". It is that group whose hands have finally, after half a century, been wrested from Middle East policy. The letter - signed by the former ambassadors to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Bahrain and the UAE - is merely a howl of rage at their present exclusion.

Some of my most depressing moments as a historian have been spent reading FCO minutes. The phrases are nicely turned, the writing is grammatically faultless, the historical allusions learned. Nonetheless, the FCO's Central Department was irritated in May 1944 that "unnecessary publicity" was being given to Jewish suffering, and stated: "The Allies resent the suggestion that Jews in particular have been more heroic or long- suffering than the other nations of occupied countries."

We shouldn't have listened to them then, and, after 60 years of the same kind of stuff, we certainly shouldn't listen to them now.

 

THE CAMELS WERE WRONG TO GET THE HUMP

The camels were wrong to get the hump
Leader
The Daily Telegraph
April 28, 2004

The Prime Minister could be forgiven for wondering what he has done to provoke 52 retired diplomats to publish a letter denouncing his Middle East policy. Virtually all the signatories have privately opposed intervention in Iraq; why, then, have they suddenly broken cover?

What seems to have precipitated this letter was not Iraq, but Israel. It was the endorsement by Mr Blair of President Bush's support for Ariel Sharon's decision to pull out of Gaza, while eliminating the leaders of Hamas and redrawing the Israeli-Palestinian border. For an older generation of Foreign Office "camels" (Arabists), this was the final straw. Not only had Mr Blair embarked on a Middle Eastern war in the teeth of Arab and European hostility; by aligning himself with Israel, he had humiliated the camels.

What did the ex-diplomats hope to achieve? They insist that they do not intend to damage Mr Blair, yet they released their letter to Reuters, maximising coverage abroad as well as at home. Opinion is bound to be divided about the propriety of a public protest by professionals who do not lack access in Whitehall. Since their views are probably shared by serving diplomats, it is in the public interest for them to be aired. The signatories are indeed officials of "long experience" who deserve to be taken seriously.

The letter accuses Mr Blair of "abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land", in favour of Israel's "one-sided and illegal" policies. What are these abandoned "principles"? Surely they cannot mean the Palestinian "right of return", which no Israeli leader could accept? Perhaps they mean that the "occupied territories" must be subject to negotiation. But with whom is Mr Sharon to negotiate?

The letter ignores the fact that the basis for a negotiated settlement was destroyed when Yasser Arafat turned down Ehud Barak's peace offer at Camp David four years ago. That event led to the Palestinian "intifada", the defeat of Mr Barak, the election of Mr Sharon, suicide bombings on an unprecedented scale and the erection of a barrier around Israel. Many people will share the diplomats' regret for the failure of the road map, but the cause lies, not in bad faith by America or Israel, let alone Mr Blair, but in the lack of a credible Palestinian interlocutor.

Turning to Iraq, the diplomats state that "to describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful". How would they prefer to describe those who have maimed, killed and dismembered not only hundreds of coalition troops and civilians, but also countless Iraqis? There is room for debate about which tactics are most effective in suppressing these insurgents, but suppressed they must be if Iraq is ever to govern itself.

The letter condemns as "naive" the notion that the coalition could create a democratic Iraq. What, though, do its authors propose? That the UN should "work with the Iraqis themselves, including those who are now actively resisting the occupation, to clear up the mess". After the oil-for-food scandal, after fiascos from Rwanda to the Balkans, to place such faith in the UN is a luxury that only armchair strategists can afford.

Mr Blair says, rightly, that he will study the letter and reply in due course. But the diplomats' parting shot is to advise Mr Blair that "there is no case for supporting policies that are doomed to failure". Does this mean that Britain should follow Spain and leave the Americans in the lurch? The Prime Minister should treat such an indecent proposal with contempt. Rather, he should give our troops the tools to finish the job.

 

BLAIR SHOULD LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS

Blair should listen to the experts
Lead article
Financial Times
April 28, 2004

In possibly the most stinging rebuke ever to a British government by its foreign policy establishment, 52 former ambassadors and international officials have written to Tony Blair telling him he is damaging UK (and western) interests by backing George W. Bush's misguided policies in the Middle East. It would be comforting to imagine that their comments will be heeded.

The signatories to the letter include many distinguished and experienced public servants. They extend beyond the "usual suspects" of well-known Arabists, and there is every indication that many more serving and retired diplomats, as well as army officers, harbour the same misgivings.

In any case, the notion that so-called Arabists - expert in the language, culture and politics of Arab countries - should be excluded from policy because of their alleged predilection to "go native" should be discredited by the way the Pentagon, which shut out anyone with actual knowledge of Iraq, has serially bungled the occupation.

The organisers of this most undiplomatic démarche are, moreover, Atlanticists. Yet, in essence, what they are telling Mr Blair is: if you really have influence with the Bush administration, now is the time to use it. If that proves "unacceptable or unwelcome" in Washington, they write, "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure".

The diplomats were shocked into action not just by gathering signs of implosion in Iraq but by US backing for the decision of Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, to keep most Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank - and Mr Blair's endorsement of this "one-sided and illegal" new policy. Downing Street insists it has not abandoned the principle of a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and the internationally underwritten "roadmap" to it. But Mr Sharon's strategy tramples on several United Nations Security Council resolutions, and Washington and London's support for it has inflamed Arab opinion to the point where it sees Palestine and Iraq as two fronts in a war of resistance against the west - the optimal outcome for the fanatics who follow Osama bin Laden.

In Iraq itself, the letter says, the indiscriminate use of force and heavy weapons "have built up rather than isolated the opposition", while there "was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement". The critique is trenchant and almost wholly accurate.

Detractors say the diplomats propose no alternative. But the problem is that the mishandling of Iraq (and Israel-Palestine) has gradually closed off any plausible path forward. What this letter warns is that this is an accelerating downward spiral with no brake - and that Britain's duty as an ally is to use such influence as it has in Washington as "a matter of the highest urgency". Though the letter does not say it, it is hard to see how that meagre influence would not augment, were London to co-ordinate its position more closely with its European partners.

 

DIPLOMATIC DIVIDE

Diplomatic divide
Lead Editorial
The Guardian
April 28, 2004

There are three big things to say about the robustly critical open letter to Tony Blair on Middle East policy from 52 former British diplomats published yesterday. The first is that its publication is a genuinely significant event. The word "unprecedented" is overused and has been much in evidence in the last 24 hours. In this case, though, its use is wholly justified. Attempts to liken the diplomats' letter to the open attack against Margaret Thatcher's policies signed by 364 economists in 1980 are wide of the mark. Economists are forever promoting their views in public.

Diplomats - even retired ones - are not. Discretion is implanted in their DNA from an early age. In extreme circumstances, they may send an internal note or, rarer still, ask for a private meeting. They do not do open letters to prime ministers. And they certainly do not do open letters using words like "dismay", "naive", "illegal" and "doomed" - and publish them in the press. That is a breach of the code. It signals the fact that this is an exceptional event that cannot be brushed aside or easily forgotten.

The second big thing is nevertheless to inject a note of contextual caution. Feelings are inevitably and rightly high about Israel-Palestine, about the crisis in Iraq, and about the prime minister's support for the US. But the diplomats do not speak for the whole of the foreign service - much of which is at least as strongly Atlanticist as Mr Blair- and nor are their views holy writ. Ask yourself how often the whole Westminster village embraces the views of the Foreign Office mandarinate with enthusiasm? Certainly not over the European Union, that is for sure. If 52 retired diplomats had published a letter calling for the adoption of the EU constitution, it is a fair bet that they would not get the lead slot on the BBC News, the splash in the Daily Telegraph or be rewarded with an approving leader in the Daily Mail. It is not impossible that they would find themselves denounced as an arrogant elite who have gone native and whose time has passed.

But the main thing to say about the letter is that the diplomats are overwhelmingly right. The three large points that they make are, first, that the US government has unilaterally committed itself to a one-sided policy in the Israel-Palestine conflict; second, that the US is now paying the price for having no effective post-invasion plan for Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and, third, that Britain has not exerted its influence to redress these dangerous policies.

The breaking-point for the organisers of the letter appears to have been the joint press conference given by George Bush and Mr Blair in the White House Rose Garden on April 16. This was a genuinely shocking event. Mr Blair made no effort either implicitly or explicitly to distance Britain in any way from the president's unilateral endorsement of the Sharon withdrawal plan on April 14. Nor did he give any hint of having qualms, or even anything independent to say, about US tactics and priorities in the increasingly bloody battles in Iraq. On the contrary. Mr Blair appeared to give his backing to both strategies. It was a disastrously complacent performance and it is not surprising that it outraged the diplomats, as it also outraged so many others.

Ever since then, it is true, Mr Blair and his officials have tried to repair the initial damage. They have portrayed the Sharon plan as an opportunity to return to the Middle East road-map, where all issues will be part of the final status negotiations. And they have emphasised that the Bush administration is working with the United Nations representative Lakhdar Brahimi in Iraq. But these are fig leaf efforts. The attempt to reconcile mainstream opinion in this country with the undisguised unilateralism of the underlying US positions is, as the diplomats said, naive and probably doomed.

 

BACKLASH BEGINS AGAINST "CAMEL CORPS" PLOTTERS

Backlash begins against 'camel corps' plotters
By Anne Penketh Diplomatic Editor
The Independent
April 28, 2004

It is known as the "school for spies". Britain's foremost Arabists have passed through the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies (Mecas) since the British Government opened the language school in Shemlan, outside Beirut, in 1947.

So have some of Britain's best-known spies, among them Sir David Spedding, a former head of MI6, and the traitors Kim Philby and George Blake.

It emerged yesterday that many of the 52 signatories of the searing letter criticising Tony Blair's Middle East policies are also alumni of the centre, who have become known as the "camel corps" because of their pro-Arab views.

"The 'camel corps' were obviously a factor," one recently retired ambassador said yesterday. "Many of my colleagues must be thoroughly frustrated."

Sir Marrack Goulding, the former United Nations head of peace-keeping who was among the prime movers behind the letter, graduated from Mecas after joining the diplomatic service in 1959. The Lebanon centre was closed in 1974.

Yesterday, he denied suggestions that the group was acting on behalf of diplomats still working for the Foreign Office and who cannot speak out. "Nobody came from the Foreign Office," Sir Marrack told The Independent. "It was spontaneous and generated by Tony Blair's visit to Washington."

The letter's signatories explain that the trigger for their action was the Rose Garden appearance by Mr Blair on 16 April when he stood at Mr Bush's side and appeared to tear up decades of internationally agreed Middle East policy.

"All of us who signed the letter had been concerned over the last year or so that Middle Eastern expertise in the Foreign Office had been ignored by No 10," one of the letter's authors said.

"What triggered it this week is not so much that we feel the Iraq adventure is a failed enterprise but we were horrified to see the Prime Minister next to Bush in the Rose Garden tearing up [UN resolutions] 242 and 338 and the whole diplomatic and political framework for Palestinian-Israel peace.

"This broke the camel's back," said the diplomat, only half-jokingly. "It made us all feel that we had to take action."

It appears that within the "camel corps", the group coalesced around former diplomats with official or unofficial links to Oxford - St Antony's College in particular - including Sir Marrack, Oliver Miles, the former ambassador to Libya, and Sir Bryan Cartledge, a former envoy to Moscow. But some of their former colleagues yesterday questioned the fact that they failed to muster signatures from ambassadors who had served in prestigious posts such as Washington, Paris or Nato.

"Look at the list - you can't find any grade-one ambassador who has retired in the past 10 years who is on that list," said one former envoy who was not contacted by the group.

Recently retired ambassadors, including the former UN ambassador Sir John Weston, are known to have reservations about the Iraq war and on the inadequacy of Britain's position on the Middle East peace process, but are critical of the letter writers' tactics. "I don't personally think that cohorts of retired diplomats engaging in the politics of gesticulation on a major issue of this kind is going to be helpful," said one.

A Foreign Office insider also noted, after running through the list of the letter's signatories, that "a lot of figures are marginal". The official said that "there is a problem with Arabism in the Foreign Office" and suggested it was time to look at the intractable problem of Middle East peace with a fresh eye. "God knows, you can be critical of Sharon, but in 37 years of diplomacy, what has been achieved?"

As the backlash intensified, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, accused the group of undermining Britain's relations with the US. "It is very important for us to try to work with the United States and not to have a polarisation that would weaken our influence and weaken the influence of Europe," he said in an interview on BBC2.

Asked why more prominent diplomats were not among the signatories, one of the group said that a "large number" of people were sent the first draft, but later felt that they did not want to sign. Some diplomats who had retired recently were hesitant because "this is a policy they had been defending in recent months".

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ON THE EX-DIPLOMATS' LETTER

British Ex-Diplomats Assail Blair on Mideast
By Patrick E. Tyler
The New York Times
April 27, 2004

In a rebuke of British and American policy in the Middle East, 52 former ambassadors and senior government officials signed a letter on Monday criticizing Prime Minister Tony Blair for his unflinching support for the Bush administration's approach to occupied Iraq and to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The letter, delivered to Mr. Blair's office and released to the news media, asserted that those policies were "doomed to failure."

Among those signing the letter were former ambassadors to Israel, Iraq and other Middle Eastern capitals, as well as senior British envoys to the United Nations.

They accused both governments of abandoning important principles of impartiality in the Holy Land, while engaging in poor planning and military overkill against Iraqi resistance forces in the Sunni Muslim areas west of Baghdad and in Shiite Muslim strongholds around Najaf.

"It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders," the letter said, adding, "Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition."

In the Holy Land, the diplomats said, the decision by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations to publish a "road map" to peace between Israelis and Palestinians had "raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the West and the Islamic and Arab worlds."

But instead of pressing ahead, the diplomats said, "Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence." They added, "Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain."

A spokesman for Mr. Blair defended the government's policies as energetic in the pursuit of peace and stability. He said the letter would be studied and a reply drafted. The pointed criticism from career diplomats, all Middle East specialists, who served both Labor and Conservative prime ministers, put Mr. Blair's government immediately on the defensive at a crucial moment of Iraqi crisis and diplomacy. In recent weeks, Mr. Blair's influence in Washington has been questioned as intensely as his influence in Europe, where Britain seeks to play a bridging role.

With political sovereignty in Iraq scheduled to be turned over to an interim government in nine weeks, Britain and the United States are being forced to bolster their occupation forces to take account of the withdrawal of 2,000 soldiers from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

A spokeswoman for the British Ministry of Defense appeared to confirm reports that as many as 2,000 more British troops might be dispatched to supplement the troops in Iraq now.

The spokeswoman said that "in light of recent events," discussions were under way "with coalition partners" on troop levels required to cope with a wave of instability that is expected to peak with the transfer of power on June 30.

The letter on Monday came as a surprise, and Mr. Blair's aides were seeking to reiterate his arguments that he believed that the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan might be enhanced by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to pull forces and Israeli settlers out of the Gaza Strip.

One long-serving Middle East envoy who did not sign the letter was Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who has just returned from a six-month tour in Iraq as Mr. Blair's representative in the occupation authority. He complained that his colleagues had failed to "prescribe any alternatives" to the current policies.

"Let's have a bit of persistence in finishing this job," he said in an interview. Nonetheless, Sir Jeremy added that he, too, expressed criticism in Baghdad of some policies because he believed that the "coalition had been careless about killing civilians" and that the initial phase of the military assault on Falluja "was not handled the way it should have been."

Still, he said, there is now a "clear political process" in Iraq, based on negotiation and a more precise use of force. The former diplomats, he said, "should be more balanced" in their assessment.

The diplomats said they shared Mr. Blair's view that Britain has an interest in working closely with the United States in order to exert "real influence as a loyal ally."

But now is the time, they said, to use such influence, and if it is unwelcome in the Bush administration, then "there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure."

 

THE EX-DIPLOMATS' LETTER

[The letter has been reproduced in dozens of newspapers and news websites as a comment article. Here is the version from The Guardian.]

Doomed to failure in the Middle East
Comment Article
The Guardian
April 27, 2004

A letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair

Dear Prime Minister,

We the undersigned former British ambassadors, high commissioners, governors and senior international officials, including some who have long experience of the Middle East and others whose experience is elsewhere, have watched with deepening concern the policies which you have followed on the Arab-Israel problem and Iraq, in close cooperation with the United States. Following the press conference in Washington at which you and President Bush restated these policies, we feel the time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental reassessment.

The decision by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN to launch a "road map" for the settlement of the Israel/Palestine conflict raised hopes that the major powers would at last make a determined and collective effort to resolve a problem which, more than any other, has for decades poisoned relations between the west and the Islamic and Arab worlds. The legal and political principles on which such a settlement would be based were well established: President Clinton had grappled with the problem during his presidency; the ingredients needed for a settlement were well understood and informal agreements on several of them had already been achieved. But the hopes were ill-founded. Nothing effective has been done either to move the negotiations forward or to curb the violence. Britain and the other sponsors of the road map merely waited on American leadership, but waited in vain.

Worse was to come. After all those wasted months, the international community has now been confronted with the announcement by Ariel Sharon and President Bush of new policies which are one-sided and illegal and which will cost yet more Israeli and Palestinian blood. Our dismay at this backward step is heightened by the fact that you yourself seem to have endorsed it, abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land and which have been the basis for such successes as those efforts have produced.

This abandonment of principle comes at a time when rightly or wrongly we are portrayed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as partners in an illegal and brutal occupation in Iraq.

The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement. All those with experience of the area predicted that the occupation of Iraq by the coalition forces would meet serious and stubborn resistance, as has proved to be the case. To describe the resistance as led by terrorists, fanatics and foreigners is neither convincing nor helpful. Policy must take account of the nature and history of Iraq, the most complex country in the region. However much Iraqis may yearn for a democratic society, the belief that one could now be created by the coalition is naive. This is the view of virtually all independent specialists on the region, both in Britain and in America. We are glad to note that you and the president have welcomed the proposals outlined by Lakhdar Brahimi. We must be ready to provide what support he requests, and to give authority to the UN to work with the Iraqis themselves, including those who are now actively resisting the occupation, to clear up the mess.

The military actions of the coalition forces must be guided by political objectives and by the requirements of the Iraq theatre itself, not by criteria remote from them. It is not good enough to say that the use of force is a matter for local commanders. Heavy weapons unsuited to the task in hand, inflammatory language, the current confrontations in Najaf and Falluja, all these have built up rather than isolated the opposition. The Iraqis killed by coalition forces probably total 10-15,000 (it is a disgrace that the coalition forces themselves appear to have no estimate), and the number killed in the last month in Falluja alone is apparently several hundred including many civilian men, women and children. Phrases such as "We mourn each loss of life. We salute them, and their families for their bravery and their sacrifice," apparently referring only to those who have died on the coalition side, are not well judged to moderate the passions these killings arouse.

We share your view that the British government has an interest in working as closely as possible with the US on both these related issues, and in exerting real influence as a loyal ally. We believe that the need for such influence is now a matter of the highest urgency. If that is unacceptable or unwelcome there is no case for supporting policies which are doomed to failure.

Yours faithfully,

Sir Graham Boyce (ambassador to Egypt 1999-2001); Sir Terence Clark (ambassador to Iraq 1985-89); Francis Cornish (ambassador to Israel 1998-2001); Sir James Craig (ambassador to Saudi Arabia 1979-84); Ivor Lucas (ambassador to Syria 1982-84); Richard Muir (ambassador to Kuwait 1999-2002); Sir Crispin Tickell (British permanent representative to the UN 1987-90); Sir Harold (Hooky) Walker (ambassador to Iraq 1990-91), and 44 others

[Full list of signatories: Brian Barder; Paul Bergne; John Birch; David Blatherwick; Graham Boyce; Julian Bullard; Juliet Campbell; Bryan Cartledge; Terence Clark; David Colvin; Francis Cornish; James Craig; Brian Crowe; Basil Eastwood; Stephen Egerton; William Fullerton; Dick Fyjis-Walker; Marrack Goulding; John Graham; Andrew Green; Vic Henderson; Peter Hinchcliffe; Brian Hitch; Archie Lamb; David Logan; Christopher Long; Ivor Lucas; Ian McCluney; Maureen MacGlashan; Philip McLean; Christopher MacRae; Oliver Miles; Martin Morland; Keith Morris; Richard Muir; Alan Munro; Stephen Nash; Robin O'Neill; Andrew Palmer; Bill Quantrill; David Ratford; Tom Richardson; Andrew Stuart; David Tatham; Crispin Tickell; Derek Tonkin; Charles Treadwell; Hugh Tunnell; Jeremy Varcoe; Hooky Walker; Michael Weir; Alan White.]

 

U.S. SAYS IT KILLED 64 IRAQIS TODAY: AP VERSION

64 Iraqis killed in fighting in Najaf
The Associated Press
April 27, 2004

US troops fought a gun battle with insurgents overnight near the southern holy Shiite city of Najaf, killing 64 gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents, the US military in Baghdad said Tuesday.

The fighting, which began Monday night and involved helicopter gun ships, lasted several hours, a military spokesman said.

The battles came as around 200 US forces made their first deployment inside Najaf, moving into a base that Spanish troops are vacating about six kilometers from the city's holy shrines near where a radical Shiite cleric is holed up.

US commanders have said they will not move against the shrines in order to capture Muqtada al-Sadr, whose supporters have launched attacks against the US-led forces.

Nine killed as fighting in Fallujah continues

Earlier Monday, US troops came under a heavy insurgent attack in Fallujah a day after US officials decided to extend a cease-fire rather than launch a full-scale offensive on that city. Eight suspected insurgents and one US Marine were killed.

US Marines battled Sunni guerrillas around a mosque in Fallujah's Jolan district, a poor neighborhood where insurgents are concentrated. US helicopter gun ships joined the battle, which sent heavy black smoke over the city. Tank fire demolished a minaret from which US officials said gunmen were firing.

The patrols are a key part of the US effort to establish a semblance of control over Fallujah without a wider assault, which would revive the bloody warfare seen earlier this month. The United States decided to try the patrols after US President George W. Bush consulted with his commanders over the weekend, and the cease-fire was extended in part to allow for patrols to be organized.

"We will take the time necessary to see if there is not a political solution," Secretary of State Colin Power said Monday. "But as you saw today, when our soldiers and our Marines are attacked, they will respond and they will respond with force to protect themselves."

 

U.S. SAYS IT KILLED 64 IRAQIS TODAY: REUTERS VERSION

U.S. Inflicts Heavy Losses on Iraqi Shi'ite Militia
By Khaled Farhan
Reuters

U.S. forces killed dozens of Iraqi fighters near Najaf overnight, hours after Washington issued an ultimatum to a radical cleric to clear his militia from mosques in the holy city.

Local television said Tuesday wounded people were dying for lack of blood and issued an urgent appeal for donors.

The clashes were the deadliest since Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia launched a brief revolt against the U.S.-led occupation three weeks ago. They may mark a new phase in American efforts to dislodge him from Najaf, where he has taken refuge among some of the holiest shrines of Shi'ite Islam.

About 64 militiamen were killed, U.S. military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference, 57 of them in a night-time air strike after U.S. forces spotted an anti-aircraft gun.

Another U.S. official said an AC-130 gunship -- a massive plane that can spew cannon fire and machinegun fire across wide areas -- was used.

Locals said aircraft had destroyed a militia checkpoint outside Kufa, 10 km (six miles) from Najaf, after a firefight. Kimmitt said guerrillas fired rocket-propelled grenades at a tank. Staff at two hospitals counted at least 23 dead and 34 wounded. Some of the casualties did not appear to be guerrillas.

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WHAT NUKE WHISTLEBLOWER DOESN'T KNOW SCARES ISRAEL

What nuke whistleblower doesn't know scares Israel
By Dan Williams
Reuters
April 16, 2005

With one newspaper interview, Mordechai Vanunu blew away Israel's cherished nuclear secrecy.

Now Israeli policy makers fear the 49-year-old whistleblower could emerge from prison with new claims about his work at the Dimona reactor and that fantasy may be as harmful as fact.

"Who will guarantee that he will only speak the truth? What is to stop him imagining things?" Shabtai Shavit, a former chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told Reuters.

"The main consideration should be his intent to go on causing damage to Israel," said Shavit, who took part in secret deliberations on keeping Vanunu under surveillance when he ends an 18-year jail term next week.

In statements made through relatives, Vanunu has said he has nothing to add to his 1986 disclosures to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper -- which led analysts to conclude Dimona had produced as many as 200 nuclear bombs and made Israel a military superpower.

A mid-level Dimona technician, Vanunu was fired in 1985 and converted to Christianity. After the Sunday Times interview, he was abducted by Mossad and tried as a traitor.

By all accounts, Vanunu is angry and distraught at his treatment and vowed to continue campaigning to expose Israel's non-conventional capabilities.

Israeli security veterans are worried by this mix of ideology and ire.

Some question the government's decision to keep Vanunu in the country, tap his phone and bar his access to the press for a probationary period after his release.

"I think it is a mistake to gag him," said David Kimche, a retired Mossad operative and Foreign Ministry chief of staff.

"It only bolsters Vanunu's supposed credibility and, in turn, pretty much anything he may choose to concoct about Israel."

Keen to ward off Middle East foes while avoiding regional arms races, Israel maintains a "strategic ambiguity" over its nuclear programme. The policy also allows it to skirt U.S. bans on supporting countries that proliferate non-conventional arms and thus receive $2.8 billion in annual aid from Washington.

The official Israeli reticence means a ready audience for individuals claiming to have been privy to national secrets.

Military censors are empowered by law to block reports that could be seen as a threat to Israel's security -- but only those containing bona-fide information, not invention.

Israeli officials say that is how false reports got into newspapers that Israel had tested nuclear-type missiles in the Indian Ocean and that it tried at one time to develop a bomb that could target Arabs based on their genes.

The legality of what Israel can do is also an issue with Vanunu, who according to security sources was so set on having his say that last year that he rejected early release because it would have meant promising not to discuss Dimona in public.

"Punishing a man who has spilled his secrets and done his time, on the assumption of a future guilt, seems little more than vindictive," said Vanunu's former lawyer Avigdor Feldman.

A Justice Ministry source allowed that, even within the generous parameters of emergency law, the case was problematic.

"There is no double jeopardy when it comes to treason. The non-disclosure contract Vanunu signed at Dimona is still in force. He can be prosecuted if he talks again," the source said.

"But as for him making things up -- our options are more limited. We hope he understands that the ban on him leaving the country is open-ended, and will be lifted based on him showing good faith. After that we can only hope for the best."

The last convicted Israeli traitor to go free was Marcus Klingberg, who was jailed for 20 years for passing the Soviet Union information about his research on biological and chemical weapons at a secret plant outside Tel Aviv.

Klingberg, 85, moved in with relatives in France last year and avoids the public eye.

By contrast, Vanunu has been disavowed by many family members and is far from retiring.

In prison letters, he has said he wants to emigrate, start a family, and lecture on American history. Many believe he will carry psychological scars from his incarceration, 12 years of which were spent in solitary confinement.

"Mordechai is not crazy, but he is very angry and sometimes suffers from notions that there is a vast Israeli conspiracy against him, all around," said Vanunu's brother, Meir.

Critics suggest Vanunu might be tempted to sell his story once outside Israel and maybe even embellish it.

As precedent, Kimche cited "By Way of Deception", a 1990 expose by former Mossad recruit Victor Ostrovsky. Israel went to court to try to stop its publication in Canada. That just boosted sales.

"We made that ridiculous book a best-seller," Kimche said. "Israel should not leverage Vanunu into a similar position."

When Ostrovsky came out with a sequel four years later, a leading Israeli political commentator, Yosef Lapid, called on Canadian Jews to kill him. That prompted international outcry.

Lapid is now Israel's justice minister, and a more moderate voice on Vanunu. Explaining why he talked security chiefs out of placing the whistleblower under house arrest after his release, Lapid said: "We must preserve Israel's democratic essence."

 

HISTORY CATCHES UP WITH MOSSAD SEDUCTRESS WHO TRAPPED VANUNU

History catches up with Mossad seductress who trapped Vanunu
How 'Cindy' the sex spy found a new life at an exclusive Orlando golf suburb. By Donald Macintyre
The Independent (UK)
April 21, 2004

She was the only missing player in the drama which ended in the 18-year incarceration of the man who first told the world Israel had nuclear weapons. But Cheryl Hanin, the agent who back in 1986 seduced Mordechai Vanunu in London, then lured him to Rome and into the hands of Mossad, who drugged him and smuggled him back to Israel, turns out to be alive, well, married and distinctly prosperous in Alaqua, Florida.

If the appetite of the Israeli public needed whetting for a story too improbable for fiction, the country's largest circulation daily has obliged.

On the eve of Mr Vanunu's release from an Israeli prison this morning, Yedhiot Arhronot yesterday painted, in the brightest of colours, a portrait of the woman who persuaded Mr Vanunu she was an American tourist called Cindy and sprang the trap from which Mr Vanunu will escape only when he emerges from Shekma prison in Ashkelon to a welcoming party of wellwishers and the world's press.

Then, she was an attractive, apparently open, and to Vanunu at least, very friendly 26-year-old. Lyrically, the paper described yesterday how 18 years on: "Cheryl, her husband and daughters live today in a private home in the middle of a green and manicured golf course. Cheryl drives in a blue town and country van, her husband drives a shiny Chevy Impala. In the pastoral landscape, white golf carts carrying the residents of the prestigious neighbourhood move about quietly.

"This is a dream residential compound for golf lovers, 25 minutes drive north of Orlando. Several hundred homes are spread out in the neighbourhood land, among artificial ponds and dense tropical growth."

To many Israelis, particularly in the defence and security establishment, Ms Hanin is a heroine who did her patriotic duty by ensnaring in a honeytrap the man who betrayed the country's defence secrets. To Vanunu's many supporters in the international anti-nuclear movement she is the Mata Hari who destroyed the life of an idealist who thought he was acting in the higher cause of world peace.

Understandably perhaps, Ms Hanin - Yedhiot calls her by the married name of Bentov which she apparently prefers not to use - has a bad case of media shyness. "For me this is a black story and I just want to erase it and forget it," the paper quotes her telling a friend in Israel.

She has a history of moving on when confronted by the press. When The Sunday Times, who first published Mr Vanunu's sensational revelations of the secrets of the Dimona nuclear plant, discovered her living quietly in the northern Israeli town of Netanya in 1988, she left Israel for her native United States.

Since then, Yedhiot says, she and her family have not returned to Israel, although they still maintain a home in Kochav Yair, which, in effect, is their only link to Israel. She was "rediscovered" by the press a decade later and moved within Florida. Even her new life in Florida is not exactly a Yedhiot scoop. Last month the St Petersburg Times in Florida unearthed her again, and published a lengthy story which differed in some details from Yedhiot's.

It had her driving "a red Cutlass convertible" and estimated that her house was worth just more than $500,000 (£330,000) rather than the $1m value attributed to it by the Israeli paper.

Neither Ms Hanin nor her husband were keen to be interviewed. When approached by the American newspaper "the burly Ben Tov", dressed in khakis and a maroon knit shirt, declined a request for an interview, and when a reporter visited the firm's headquarters in downtown Orlando. "So long, see you later," he said, and quickly retreated to his office. When the American paper reached a woman last month by telephone, she replied: "I have no interest in talking." And hung up.

Yedhiot quotes a close friend in Florida as explaining: "She left Israel to flee the media and the people who burrowed into her life. This bothered her a lot. She was terrified about journalists who came into her home and asked her questions. She felt a need to run. Since this affair Cheryl wants only one thing: a normal, quiet life."

This is a very different life from the one which prepared her for her last major assignment. Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon's Spies, the Secret History of Mossad, wrote: "She was sent on practice missions, breaking into an occupied hotel room, stealing documents from an office.

"She was roused from her bed in the dead of night and dispatched on more exercises: picking up a tourist in a nightclub, then disengaging herself outside his hotel. Every move she made was observed by her tutors." After her training, Ms Hanin joined the Mossad unit that worked with Israeli embassies, where she apparently posed as the wife or girlfriend of other agents.

Her last mission began when she engineered a meeting with Vanunu in Leicester Square and suggested a coffee, saying she was a beautician on holiday. Next day they met in the Tate gallery and began to see more of each other.

Peter Hounam, the Sunday Times journalist who had debriefed Vanunu, warned him that she could be a Mossad agent, but Vanunu insisted: "She is just a tourist who is critical of Israel. I think you would like her."

There were plans for Mr Vanunu to bring his new girlfriend to Mr Hounam's house but he cancelled because he "going out of the city". The trap, in other words, had been set.

Ms Hanin has until recently worked as an estate agent, as does her husband, also a former Mossad operative. Their daughters, aged 12 and 16, speak Hebrew, and according to Yedhiot, go every year to "the prestigious Scouts' camp in Atlanta, which teaches Zionism and has Israeli counsellers, to which Jewish children from all over the US come. The Bentovs are among the generous donors to the camp".

The paper adds that the person closest to Cheryl Bentov, whom she trusts unconditionally, is her mother, Riki Hanin, who lives close by and works as a property agent in Orlando and is very active in the Jewish community.

Yedhiot quotes one unnamed acquaintance as saying she has "exposed and shaky nerves. It was enough for her to suspect that her friends were talking about her big secret, for her to immediately cut off contact. Even relatives who talked about her found themselves banished from the family. She moves between discretion and paranoia".

In particular, the paper suggests, she is apprehensive that Vanunu, who is forbidden to go abroad for at least a year, will somehow make trouble for her after his release. The paper asks whether such seemingly unlikely fears are justified and remarks that "at least according to what Mordechai told his brother recently, he has no plans to get even with her".

 

ISRAEL FREES NUCLEAR WHISTLEBLOWER

Israel Frees Nuclear Whistleblower
The Associated Press
April 21, 2004

A defiant Mordechai Vanunu walked out of prison on Wednesday after serving 18 years for spilling Israel's nuclear secrets, saying he was proud of his actions and complaining he was treated cruelly by his jailers.

Vanunu, dressed in a checkered shirt and black tie, flashed victory signs and waved to hundreds of cheering supporters as he walked into the sun-splashed courtyard of Shikma Prison in the coastal town of Ashkelon. Dozens of counter-demonstrators booed and shouted epithets.

In the courtyard, Vanunu, 50, held an impromptu news conference, his brother Meir by his side. Vanunu said he was given ``very cruel and barbaric treatment'' by Israel's security services.

"To all those who are calling me traitor, I am saying I am proud, I am proud and happy to do what I did," Vanunu said in accented and at times broken English. He refused to answer questions in Hebrew because of restrictions Israel has imposed, including a ban on speaking to foreigners.

Vanunu, who converted to Christianity in the 1980s, said he was mistreated because of his religion. He also said there is no need for a Jewish state and demanded that Israel open its nuclear reactor in Dimona to international inspection.

"I said, Israel don't need nuclear arms, especially now that all the Middle East is free from nuclear weapons," he said.

He left the prison in a gray Mazda van as police dispersed a large crowd. His first stop was St. George, an Anglican church in Jerusalem's Old City. More than a dozen cars and motorcycles followed Vanunu's vehicle to Jerusalem, and a helicopter flew low overhead.

Israeli authorities have imposed a series of travel restrictions and other constraints on Vanunu, saying he still possesses state secrets. But Vanunu said he has no more secrets to reveal. ``I am now ready to start my life,'' he said.

Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, he was mobbed by reporters as the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal, escorted him into the church. Other clergy members embraced Vanunu, and a tearful Peter Hounam, the journalist who wrote the 1986 article that led to Vanunu's imprisonment, hugged him.

In 1986, Vanunu leaked details and pictures of Israel's alleged nuclear weapons program to The Sunday Times of London. Based on his account, experts said at the time that Israel had the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The revelations undercut Israel's long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying its nuclear capability. He was abducted by Israeli secret agents before the article was printed and subsequently convicted of treason in a closed trial.

Vanunu said Israel's Mossad spy agency and the Shin Bet security services tried to rob him of his sanity by keeping him in solitary confinement for nearly 12 years. "I said to the Shabak (Shin Bet), the Mossad, you didn't succeed to break me, you didn't succeed to make me crazy."

Asked if he was a hero, he said "all those who are standing behind me, supporting me ... all are heroes."

"I am a symbol of the will of freedom," he said. "You cannot break the human spirit."

Hundreds of supporters and opponents squared off in shouting matches outside the prison ahead of his release. Supporters chanted "Mordechai is free," while counter-demonstrators held signs calling him a traitor and shouted curses.

"He won't get out of here alive," opponents screamed as Vanunu's adopted parents, Minnesota couple Nick and Mary Eoloff, arrived at the prison. Vanunu said he hopes to settle in the United States and study history.

While the crowds were vocal, there was no violence.

Anti-nuclear weapons activists from around the world had gathered at Shikma in recent days. Among his supporters, was British actress Susannah York and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland.

But Vanunu is widely detested in Israel.

"He's hell-bent to do as much harm as he can," Justice Minister Tommy Lapid told The Associated Press. "We will keep an eye on him, we will watch him ... We want to know where he is and we want to know whom he may or may not divulge state secrets."

Vanunu will not be allowed to travel abroad for at least a year, speak with foreigners or approach Israeli ports or borders. He also is barred from discussing his work at Israel's nuclear reactor. Vanunu was given a map of Israel marking the areas off-limits to him, the Defense Ministry said.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi said security services have confiscated several tapes and notebooks with Vanunu's writings. In Hebrew and English, Vanunu wrote a detailed account of places, processes and areas of the nuclear reactor, she said, adding that he has an "excellent memory."

"It was a lot more than a personal diary. To us this showed an intention and ability to make future use of it," Niedak-Ashkenazi said.

Vanunu said the papers were personal and had been written in 1991.

Vanunu's family and Yoav Loeff, of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which is representing the nuclear spy, have said they are concerned about his safety.

But Lapid said no precautions or special security measures are planned. "He's surrounded by at least 100 radicals who are worshipping him so I'm sure they'll take care of his safety,'' he said.

Vanunu will live in a luxury apartment complex in Jaffa, an old seaport and today part of Tel Aviv. Jaffa has both Arab and Jewish residents. Vanunu, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, converted to Christianity in the mid-1980s.

The Andromeda Hill complex has 170 apartments, and tenants include both wealthy foreigners and local residents. It was unclear who is paying for Vanunu's apartment.

Richard Caseby, managing editor of the Sunday Times, said the newspaper was giving Vanunu "some assistance," but declined to elaborate. He said Vanunu was not paid for the original story.

FULL ARTICLE

ISRAEL PUTS TEENAGE WOULD-BE BOMBER ON TRIAL

Israel Puts Teenage Would-Be Bomber on Trial
Reuters
April 18, 2004

Israeli prosecutors indicted a teenage would-be suicide bomber Sunday whose globally televised surrender last month brought condemnation of Palestinian militants.

Sixteen-year-old Hussam Abdu had a bomb strapped to his body when soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. TV footage of the bewildered-looking boy trying to remove the bomb belt was shown around the world.

According to the charge sheet, Abdu told investigators that he was recruited by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news -web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) movement.

They gave him the explosives belt with which he was meant to carry out the attack on March 23, it said.

Abdu will be tried in a military court, starting on July 8. If found guilty, he could face a maximum of life in prison. But military sources said his youth could be a mitigating factor.

Abdu was arrested the day after Israel's assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Palestinian factions have vowed to avenge his killing and that of his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, Saturday.

There was a surge of anger among Palestinians that militants would send someone so young to carry out an attack. "I'm angry at those who recruited him and angry at Israel because its measures lead to all this," said Abdu's father Bilal.

Suicide bombers have killed hundreds of Israelis during the 3-1/2-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israel.

FULL ARTICLES

"WILL THE BRITISH FM EXPLAIN WHY THE KILLING OF UDAY AND QUSAY HUSSEIN WAS JUSTIFIED AND 'PRODUCTIVE,' BUT THE KILLING OF ABDEL AZIZ RANTISI WAS NOT?"

Justified and productive
Editorial
The Jerusalem Post
April 19, 2004

* "They had the opportunity to hand themselves to justice and answer for their crimes. They refused to do this. It goes without saying that we would have much preferred this, but the news that Saddam's sons are no longer a threat to the security of Iraq will be a reassurance to the Iraqi people."

-- Jack Straw, July 22, 2003, on the killing, by US troops, of Uday and Qusay Hussein

* "One has to treat such claims and proposals by al-Qaida with the contempt they deserve. This is a murderous organization which seeks impossible objectives by the most violent of means."

-- Jack Straw, April 16, 2004, on the proposal, by Osama bin Laden, to arrange a truce with Europe

* "Unjustified and counterproductive."

-- Jack Straw, April 18, 2004, on the killing, by Israeli forces, of Abdel Aziz Rantisi

WILL THE British foreign minister explain why the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein was justified and "productive," but the killing of Abdel Aziz Rantisi was not? All three are, or were, leaders of what the British government defines as terrorist organizations.

Will the minister also explain why it is unthinkable for European countries, including Britain, to negotiate with al-Qaida, while it is not only thinkable, but necessary, for Israel to negotiate with a Palestinian regime implicated in Hamas's terrorism? All bin Laden asks of Europe is what Europe asks of Israel, which is to get out of Arab lands. If that demand is reasonably made of Israel, why is it any less reasonably made of Europe?

And will the minister tell us why, in June 2002, after describing suicide bombers as "misguided and depressed," he went on to say that "behind those people are some very evil terrorist leaders who do not put their own lives on the line when they are making sure that others' lives are ended." Was this not a description of people like Rantisi and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, whose killing last month Straw also condemned in the strongest possible terms?

At least former French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin was consistent when he warned that the killing of Uday and Qusay would contribute to the cycle of violence in Iraq. That's a foolish view, but it is not a hypocritical one. Straw's view, however, is hypocritical. It is also foolish and at variance with his previous statements.

The minister says Israel may act against the likes of Rantisi, but only within the parameters of international law. That suggests that Rantisi ought to have been arrested and tried, not killed.

Well then: Arrested how, and by whom? Maybe we have missed the minister's calls for the Palestinian Authority to meet its responsibilities under the road map to "undertake visible efforts... to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning attacks on Israelis." But if the minister has in fact issued such calls, he hasn't made them with the force and indignation of his denunciations of Israeli action.

Maybe the minister will allow that Rantisi may lawfully be arrested by Israel. But wouldn't that require an unlawful entry by Israeli troops into Gaza City? And would it not also have entailed a much larger loss of life? And possibly the use of military components supplied by Britain? This last the minister is on record as strongly opposing.

To follow the minister's pronouncements to their logical conclusion, Israel may take no measure in its self-defense except to arrest suicide bombers when they reach Israeli soil, which is as good as no defense at all. Alternatively, he believes Israel must resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, notwithstanding the failure of the PA to take steps against terrorist organizations and the evidence that it is deeply implicated in terrorist activity.

This is foolishness. Either the minister accepts Israel's right to take what efforts it thinks necessary against terrorism, or he must demand the PA do the same and make it pay a price if it doesn't. So far, the minister's government does neither.

It is noteworthy that after Saturday's killing of Rantisi, Hamas would not name its new leader. The bravado is gone. They are afraid. This will not prevent future attacks on Israel. But it puts paid to the lie that attacks on Hamas only embolden it. In that sense, Saturday's strike has served a purpose.

 

JENNY TONGE DOES IT AGAIN: UK MPs HOLDS MINUTE'S SILENCE FOR YASSIN

(This is an update to the dispatch of January 26, 2004, titled For and against: the British MP who would be a suicide bomber.)

Jenny Tonge does it again
Lib Dem MP in fresh Israel storm
The Daily Telegraph, London
April 8, 2004

Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge was sacked from her party's front bench in January, for saying that, in different circumstances, she might consider becoming a suicide bomber.

Three months down the line, the Richmond Park MP is embroiled in a new row over her sympathy for the Palestinian cause after chairing a meeting in Parliament last week on "The Crisis in the Middle East".

The meeting, which followed the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin, was supported by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and had Left-wing MPs George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn in attendance.

So far, so unsurprising.

But towards the end of the meeting, Tonge agreed to hold a minute's silence in Yassin's memory.

Her apparent show of support for a terrorist - in the Houses of Parliament of all places - has created a stink among Britain's Jewish community.

"I cannot think of anything more inappropriate than a Member of Parliament chairing a silence in memory of the creator and leader of a terrorist body responsible for hundreds of murders," says Lord Janner, vice-chairman of the British-Israel parliamentary group.

Asked by the Daily Telegraph to explain herself, Tonge said yesterday: "One speaker got up and asked for a minute's silence. I asked the meeting whether they wanted to do it and they backed it by a majority of about two to one."

Was this not insensitive to Hamas's victims? "We don't want to get into that debate here. There are victims on both sides. What was I supposed to do?"

FULL ARTICLES

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE

Google Says It Doesn't Plan to Change Search Results
By Laurie J. Flynn
New York Times (Technology section)
April 13, 2004

Google Inc., the leading Internet search engine, said Monday that it had no plans to alter its search results despite complaints that the first listing on a search for the word "Jew" directs people to an anti-Semitic Web site.

The dispute points to one of the most difficult challenges that has plagued Web search engines: what to do when the results of a search are offensive to some, but legal?

In this case, the first listed site on a search for "Jew" is "Jewwatch .com," which promotes itself as "Keeping a close watch on Jewish communities and organizations worldwide" and offering references to anti-Semitic research, documents and organizations.

A Web site calling itself "Remove JewWatch.com from the Google search engine!" is circulating a petition asking Google to remove the site from its listings. Google search results rely on a complex set of algorithms that ranks sites based on the number and quality of the links to them.

The company, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., said it had no plans to remove the site from the search results list because it trusts its automated program to rank Web sites accurately. The search engine has been listing "Jewwatch.com" as the first-ranked site for three years.

"We find this result offensive, but the objectivity of our ranking function prevents us from making any changes," said David Krane, a spokesman for Google, adding that an exception is made only in cases where a site is illegal. Mr. Krane said the company has, for example, removed sites from its rankings that promote pedophilia, which is illegal.

For example, until February 2003, a user searching for a guide to the English city of Chester would have been presented with "Chester's guide to molesting young girls" as the second entry. After officials from Chester complained, Google removed the site.

But offensive material is often a matter of opinion, not legality. Conduct a search on Google for "George W. Bush," for example, and the fifth and sixth sites are critical of the president.

Because Google's search results are determined in part by the number of links to a given page, as well as the number of times the search term appears near a link, even sites criticizing the "Jewwatch" site may be contributing to its high-ranking simply by linking to it. The top Google ranking for Jewwatch.com was discovered recently by a Google user, Steven Weinstock, who began the petition drive to force Google to remove the site from its listings.

In a letter posted on its Web site on March 30, the Anti-Defamation League explained that the ranking is "in no way a conscious choice by Google," but rather the result of an automated system.

"The longevity of ownership, the way articles are posted to it, the links to and from the site, and the structure of the site itself all increase the ranking of 'Jewwatch' within the Google formula," the letter said.

Over the years, some Web site developers have learned to manipulate the automated system by building links to make a site appear even more popular than it may be. And some commercial Web site developers have become quite adept at using this practice to raise the ranking of their businesses.

Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, a newsletter based in Darien, Conn., said Google was in a difficult position because it cannot be seen as treating material differently because it is offensive.

"Google would certainly come under fire if they were to choose to change it," Mr. Sullivan said.

 

REUTERS ARTICLE

Google Says Anti-Semitic Site Offends, But to Stay
By Lisa Baertlein
Reuters
April 13, 2004

Google Inc., under fire for refusing to exclude an anti-Semitic Web site from Internet search results, on Tuesday said it cannot deny users access because that would betray a vow to deliver unbiased information -- no matter how it detests the site's message.

The offending Web site, Jewwatch.com, shows up as the first search result when users type "Jew" into Google's popular Internet search engine.

The site, which says its mission is to keep "close watch on Jewish communities and organizations worldwide," includes links to numerous hate groups and other anti-Semitic information.

"I certainly am very offended by the site, but the objectivity of our rankings is one of our very important principles," Sergey Brin, who started Google with fellow Stanford University graduate student Larry Page in the late 1990s, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"We don't let our personal views -- religious, political, ethical or otherwise -- affect our results," said Brin, who added that he is Jewish.

Several weeks ago, a New York-based real estate investor started an online petition urging Google to remove the site.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the petition -- at www.removejewwatch.com -- had collected more than 50,000 signatures.

Brin, who has received numerous e-mails from friends who oppose the site, said the decision to continue including it in search results is about maintaining editorial integrity at Google.com, where results are determined by complex computer algorithms. "We do not want to have people involved in showing the results for a query," Brin said.

JEWISH GROUP SUPPORTS GOOGLE

He added that most people searching for information about Jewish people or organizations use the term "Jewish" in their queries as opposed to "Jew," which is often used in an anti-Semitic context. A Google search using "Jewish" as a search term did not turn up hate sites in the top results.

Prior to the current flap, the key word "Jew" showed up in about one of every 10 million queries, Brin said.

"There are 100 times as many now," he said, mostly due to curiosity related to the controversy.

The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate groups and anti-Semitic activity, has come down on the side of Google.

"The ranking of Jewwatch and other hate sites is in no way due to a conscious choice by Google, but solely is a result of this automated system of ranking," the Anti-Defamation League said in a March 30 letter on its Web site.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York has a different view and has sent Google a letter asking that it change its algorithm to make the site less prominent in its search results, a spokesman for Schumer said.

In the past, Mountain View, California-based Google has removed sites dealing with illegal activity, such as pedophilia, or sites that "maliciously" attempt to manipulate search results.

 

TWO OTHER ARTICLES ON REMOVEJEWWATCH

Anti-Semitic 'Jew' site top of Google search
By Michael Mylrea
March 31, 2004

What is a Jew? Those hoping to find out from a Google search are in for an unpleasant surprise. The first of 1.75 million entries that appear when you type "Jew" into the search engine is an anti-Semitic site.

This discovery by a New York real-estate developer, among others, has sparked a cyberspace showdown, and a bid to alter the situation by a small band of Internet experts.

While surfing the Web from his New York home, real-estate investor Steven Weinstock was shocked to find Jew Watch, filled with propaganda similar to that used by the Nazis.

"At first I felt surprised, and then those feelings turned to shock," he said.

What upset him most is not that hatemongers might be publishing such lies, but that any person looking to find out about Judaism would be offered choices such as the "Jewish Controlled Press," "Jewish World Conspiracies," "Jewish Media Lies," and "Jewish Banking and Financial Manipulations." Under one of the categories, titled "Revisionists - 6,000,000 Jews DID NOT DIE," there are dozens of links to articles dedicated to Holocaust revisionism.

Weinstock has been working to get rid of the site. Last Saturday, he launched his own Web site, called Remove Jew Watch, containing a petition which received more than 3,000 signatures in its first 48 hours - 1,500 on Monday alone. He also wrote an e-mail to Google, demanding that it remove the site.

In an e-mail response, Google refused: "Unfortunately, no computer can assess the morality, tastefulness, or honesty of a site's content. Results are determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query."

Emboldened by Google's refusal, Daniel Sieradski, editor of the Jew School, a site devoted to Jewish fringe culture, decided to take matters into his own hands. Using a method called Google bombing, which exploits a quirk in Google's algorithms, he hoped to raise another site to the No. 1 rank.

"I decided to issue a call to arms on my Web site," Sieradski said. "Within a week, my proposal caught the attention of other Jewish bloggers [keepers of Web-based diaries] in the US, Canada, and Israel."

Sieradski's efforts paid off. The Wikipedia encyclopedia listing for "Jew," which just a week ago held no rank on Google, rose to the fourth-highest entry. But Sieradski is still not satisfied.

"Our work is not yet done," he said. "We've got quite a way to go before we reach No. 1, and then start to push Jew Watch completely off the first page."

Jew Watch's founder, Frank Weltner, did not respond to enquiries from the The Jerusalem Post.

Jew Watch's description of itself is bland: "Archive of essays, articles, and on-line books about a perceived international Jewish conspiracy: Keeping a Close Watch on Jewish Communities & Organizations Worldwide."

Inside, a dozen or so articles suggest that Jews are living out The Protocols of The Elders of Zion - a forgery that has fueled Jewish persecution for more than a century.

Perversely, the site also has links to Jewish community and civil rights organizations such as B'nai B'rith, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, but lists them as "Jewish Hate Groups."

"If it means hating extremists, racists, and anti-Semites, then this title is well deserved," said Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem. "Not to fight against these groups increases their potential to poison the minds of millions."

There is an inherent danger when a hate site masquerades as an academic resource, said Brian Marcus of the civil-rights division of the Anti-Defamation League.

"One of our major concerns is that children unable to discern what is true will stumble onto these hate sites," he said. "There have been many cases where children unknowingly turn in school reports that contain anti-Semitic and racist remarks."

Stopping hate sites has been difficult, said Zuroff. "What is going on is really outrageous; they can get away with saying the worst things: lies, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and racist remarks. And yet all of our efforts to date to get these sites off the Web have been unsuccessful because the First Amendment enables people to make racist and anti-Semitic remarks."

Another factor is that censorship laws in America focus on sexual content, said Lee Tein, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group dedicated to preserving on-line civil liberties.

"For American censors, sex has always been the big issue," said Tein. "The First Amendment tends to be understood as being especially protective of political speech, and that puts racist or hate speech in a different realm."

Education is the best form of defense, said Laura Kam Issacharoff, co-director of the Anti-Defamation League office in Jerusalem. "We have long been proponents of educating the American public about hatred on the Internet, though as representatives of a minority, we prefer to adhere to the democratic values opposed to censorship."

 

GOOGLE CAUGHT IN ANTI-SEMITISM FLAP

Google caught in anti-Semitism flap
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 7, 2004

Search site Google has been drawn into a controversy during the week of Passover over a search listing that directs viewers to an anti-Semitic site when they enter the keyword "Jew."

The dispute began several weeks ago, when Steven Weinstock, a New York real estate investor and former yeshiva student, did a Google search on "Jew." The first site returned was Jew Watch, a site filled with short articles focusing on alleged Jewish conspiracies and other anti-Semitic topics, with headings such as "Jewish Controlled Press" and "Jewish Mind Control Mechanisms." The administrator of Jew Watch did not respond to an e-mail message requesting comment.

Weinstock has launched an online petition, asking Google to remove the site from its index. He said if Google receives 50,000 requests to remove the site, it will comply. As of late Tuesday, the petition had about 2,800 signatures.

"Google is the No. 1 search site, and the fact that the first search result would yield an anti-Semitic site is all too common in a growing era of increased anti-Semitism," he wrote in his introduction to the petition.

The petition site appeared to have been hacked on Wednesday, however. Clicking on links to view or sign the petition brought up pages with pornographic images, plus the message, "This guestbook is for The most LAMEST petition ever."

Google spokesman David Krane said the company's search results are determined by a complex set of algorithms that measure factors such as how many sites link to a given page. The company can't and won't change the ranking for Jew Watch, regardless of how many signatures the petition attracts, he said.

"Google's search results are solely determined by computer algorithms that essentially reflect the popular opinion of the Web," he said. "Our search results are not manipulated by hand. We're not able to make any manual changes to the results."

Krane said the ranking for Jew Watch is largely based on changing vocabulary patterns. "Jew" has been used less and less in mainstream society since Word War II, replaced by less culturally loaded terms such as "Jewish person." Google searches for "Jewish," "Jewish person" and "Jewish people" are all topped by pro-Jewish sites, including a number of Jewish dating services.

That's still not good enough for another online organization, however, which has launched its own effort to push Jew Watch off Google via "Google bombing," a technique that exploits Google's search methodology of basing rankings on how many sites link to a given page. Daniel Sieradski, through his influential Web log Jewschool, is urging visitors to pepper any sites they control with links to the entry on "Jew" in online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Numerous other Google-bombing campaigns, ranging from pranks to a serious attempt to raise awareness of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, have emerged, since Google began dominating the search market.

Krane said he wasn't familiar with the Jewschool campaign but that Google typically discourages such tactics to manipulate search results.

 

JEWWATCH AND TIME WARNER

[I attach this note forwarded to me by a major hate-watch organization.]

Petitions to Google may or may not have an effect. But Google is in any case only one of many search engines. Those wishing to have the site removed may be more effective if they write a letter to Time Warner. (See below)

Here is the owner of jewwatch.com

Weltner, Frank
cpotato1941@yahoo.com
6936 Bruno
St. Louis, MO 63139
314-644-2025
abuse@yahoo.com

hosted by:
Everyones Internet, Inc.
Randy Williams admin@ev1.net
Valarie Stinson admin2@ev1.net
abuse@ev1.net
2600 Southwest Freeway, Suite 500
Houston, TX 77098
1-713-400-5400

Which connects to the internet through:
Time Warner Telecom
abuse@twtelecom.net

and:
SAVVIS Communications Corporation
1 SAVVIS Parkway
Town and Country, MO 63017
1-888-638-6771
ipadmin@savvis.net abuse@savvis.net

and registered through:
networksolutions
abuse@networksolutions.com

 

DISPATCH OF FEBRUARY 4, 2004 [SUMMARY ONLY]

* Google News and 'Palestinian commandos'

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach below a summary of a dispatch from HonestReporting.com concerning Google News, the portal which has recently become one of the most influential sources of world news.

SUMMARY

The Google search engine is now the most popular method in the world for finding information online, handling more than 200 million requests a day.

One of the websites that Google News consider a legitimate Mideast news source is "Jihad Unspun," whose articles appear prominently on searches for Israel-related topics on Google News.

Among articles from Jihad Unspun:

* "Zionist Intelligence Engineered Istanbul Blasts" (in reference to the recent suicide bombings at Istanbul synagogues)

* "Resistance Fighters Attack Zionist Vehicles" (i.e., terror attacks on Israeli civilian cars)

* "Zionist Chief of Staff Promises More Suffering for Palestinians"

* "Zionist Terrorist Forces Demolish More Palestinians Homes, Mosque"

* Other conspiracy theories presented on Jihad Unspun include the lie that 9/11 was a Zionist plot.

* All of Israel is referred to as "occupied territory" on Jihad Unspun and all Israelis are "settlers". For example, a report on the closing of the Sbarro pizzeria, site of a suicide bombing in western Jerusalem in August 2001, in which a number of Israeli children were murdered, reads:

"Owners of a Zionist restaurant in central occupied Jerusalem have failed to convince customers to frequent it anew. Clients deserted the 'Subaru' restaurant after a Palestinian commando blew himself up in it about three years ago, killing 17 settlers and wounding tens others."

* Jihad Unspun publishes the writings of the anti-Semite Edgar J. Steele, including an article with passages such as:

It wasn't Arabs who forged the Anne Frank "diary" - it was jews.
It wasn't Arabs who lied about gas chambers at Dachau and Auschwitz - it was jews.
It wasn't Arabs who demolished the World Trade Center - it was jews.
It wasn't Arabs who had Jesus Christ crucified - it was jews.

* The owner and publisher of Jihad Unspun is Khadija Abdul Qahaar, whose original name is Bev Kennedy. Ms Kennedy converted to Islam after 9/11.

[To write to Google News news-feedback@google.com, comments@google.com]

FULL ARTICLES

HUNGARIAN POLICE FOIL TERROR PLOT

Hungarian police foil terror plot :
Three suspects held during visit by Israeli president

By Nick Thorpe in Budapest
The Guardian
April 14, 2004

A possible plot to blow up a new holocaust museum in Budapest appeared to have been foiled yesterday when detectives arrested three men, a Palestinian and two Syrians, on suspicion of planning an attack.

Although police refused to specify which building had been targeted, officers said the men were being held because of fears they were going to attack a Jewish museum. The Holocaust Memorial Centre is due to open tomorrow.

Early reports suggested the attack was intended to coincide with the visit of the Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, who arrived in Hungary yesterday on a three-day state trip which will climax with the opening of the centre.

His office in Jerusalem initially said the attack had been timed to coincide with his visit to the centre.

"Police in Hungary arrested three suspects on suspicion they tried to kill the president," Mr Katsav's aide Moshe Mizrahi told the Associated Press.

But this was denied by the Hungarian police.

According to Attila Petofi, the deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigations, the evidence consisted of intercepted telephone calls during which the suspect asked others to obtain explosives and detonate them at the museum.

Late yesterday Mr Petofi said one suspect had been charged with being involved in "preparation for a terrorist attack". The two others were charged "with preparations for a crime against property".

Police gave no further details of the suspects, but local media reports said the prime suspect was a 42-year-old Hungarian citizen of Palestinian origin, working as a dentist in the city. Two Syrians were also detained for questioning.

The three men are believed to be associated with a small mosque or prayer room on Bartok Bela street.

The mosque, founded three years ago, has been active in recent years in trying to improve the image of Islam in Hungary.

In the past year posters have appeared across the city inviting visitors to attend daily talks on Islam at the mosque. After Friday prayers a small group of Muslims usually gathers on the pavement outside. No one answered the phone at the mosque yesterday.

The community keeps a low profile in the city. One Muslim who attends the mosque, who asked not to be named, said only one of the worshippers he had met there over the years could be described as a fundamentalist.

Estimates of the number of Muslims in Hungary vary but rarely exceed a few thousand. Some are doctors who studied medicine in Budapest during the socialist years then stayed on and married.

A likely target of the alleged plot is the newly converted synagogue in the city.

The previous, conservative government in Hungary proclaimed April 16 Holocaust Day in memory of the 600,000 Hungarians who were deported by the Nazis and murdered in concentration camps in 1944. At least 500,000 were Jews, and 80,000 Roma.

The memorial centre is a state project designed to commemorate all victims.

Next door the synagogue has been carefully restored in a blaze of white, blue and gold, copied from the original 1920s design. But a high stone wall around the buildings indicates security concerns that increased after last November's bomb attacks on synagogues in Istanbul.

The first exhibition will display photographs of one family, taken before and at Auschwitz. A live television link-up is to take place between Budapest's memorial centre, the Holocaust Museum in New York and the barracks at Auschwitz where most Hungarians lived before they were taken to the gas chambers.

The Hungarian government was an enthusiastic supporter of the US-led invasion of Iraq, and a transport brigade of 300 soldiers is based there. There has only been one previous attack on an Israeli target in Hungary.

In 1991 suspected members of the German radical group the Red Army Faction detonated a bomb on the road to Budapest airport as a coach containing 31 Russian Jews about to emigrate to Israel was passing.

The bomb missed the bus but hit an accompanying police car, injuring one officer. A German citizen, Andrea Klump, is now on trial in Stuttgart, accused of that attack.

 

BUDAPEST: PALESTINIAN IMAM PLANNED TO BOMB HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

Budapest: Palestinian Imam planned to bomb Holocaust museum
The Associated Press / The Jerusalem Post
April 13, 2004

Police arrested the spiritual leader of a small Islamic community in Budapest Tuesday during a visit President Moshe Katsav and suggested he was planning to bomb the city's Jewish museum. Two Syrians also were detained on related charges.

Israeli officials and diplomats had earlier spoken of three Arab suspects arrested in the Hungarian capital on suspicion they were planning to kill Katsav.

But senior law enforcement officials in Hungary denied that Katsav was the target of the planned attack. "During my meting with the Hungarian President, they told me that I may have been the target, but afterwards the information became clearer," President Katsav told Channel 2 Tuesday night.

"There is no connection whatsoever between today's official visit by the Israeli president and the police action taken this morning," said National Police Commissioner Laszlo Salgo.

Tibor Pal, a senior Interior Ministry official, also said that Katsav's presence in the Hungarian capital "has nothing to do with the police action taken today."

Police identified the suspect as a 42-year-old dentist of "Palestine origin" and said he was the spiritual leader of a small Islamic community in Budapest. He is a naturalized Hungarian citizen.

The suspect, whose name was not released, was charged with being involved in "preparation for a terrorist attack," said Police Lt. Col. Attila Petofi.

The two Syrians were charged "with preparations for a crime against property," Petofi said without elaborating.

Police officials said investigations leading to the arrest had revealed "no date named for the attack and no (named) target facility."

But monitored phone calls of the suspect revealed that he had asked acquaintances for explosives "to blow up a Jewish museum," said Petofi.

The only permanent Jewish museum in the capital is the Holocaust Memorial Center to be inaugurated Thursday by Katsav. The timing of the police sweep thus appeared linked to Katsav's planned visit to the museum.

Hungarian police named no link to Hamas, who vowed to kill Israeli leaders following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Petofi added there was no immediate link to al-Qaida, although police were not ruling out that possibility.

"We do not yet know what the motives of the act were," he said. "We could not afford to wait ... for the preparations to turn into a real crime."

The suspect began making phone calls in November to friends "to get explosives," said Petofi. On one occasion "he asked an acquaintance to use the explosive to blow up a Jewish museum," he added.

The investigation had turned up no explosives or weapons so far, said police.

Earlier, Israeli and Hungarian media reported that an assassination attempt on the life of Katzav had been thwarted. The plot reportedly involved blowing up Budapest's new Holocaust museum during its inauguration by President Katsav.

No group has taken responsibility for the alleged plot.

Katsav arrived in Budapest Tuesday for a three-day offical visit to open the new Holocaust Museum of Budapest on Thursday.

Hungarian police said that the Arab nationals planned to blow up the museum in Budapest during its opening ceremony, Hungarian media reported. Hungarian media also report that foreign security agencies tipped off their Hungarian counterparts some weeks ago regarding a threat on the Israeli president's life.

Israel's embassy in Budapest denied Hungarian media reports that President Katsav's schedule in Hungary was changed four times following numerous warnings about threats to his life. Hungarian media report that the Arabs arrested arrived in Hungary last week.

Ynet reported that Budapest police had arrested the three Arab nationals after keeping them under surveillance and searching their homes.

A spokeswoman in Katsav's office in Jerusalem said the president was told that he had been the target. She had no information on the nature of the attack or how close the suspect got to carrying it out.

Israeli security officials say they had no prior warning of intended attacks against the president, but security around him is very tight. Since the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, they say, security around all leading Israeli figures has been tightened. Channel One TV reported that Israeli security agencies Mossad and the Shin Bet heard about the assassination plot "from the media". Both agencies are responsible for the protection of Israeli dignitaries abroad.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Hungarian Jews. More than 600,000 Hungarian Jews lost their lives in the last years of the WWII.

A senior Budapest police official said security forces had bolstered their presence in the Hugarian capital in anticipation of terror attacks and President Katsav's visit.

Yosef Herring, an Israeli journalist speaking on Israel Radio from Budapest said that Hungarian police helicopters are circling the city, pointing to other Hungarian media reports that police may be looking for other suspects. The new Holocaust museum on Pavoh Road is next to the old synagogue in Budapest on Dohan Road, Herring said.

Katsav's office said he would continue with his visit according to schedule. In his first reaction to the report, President Katsav said he "trusted completely" in the abilities of the Hungarian and Israeli security services. "I jokingly told President Madl that it would be better if he stays three steps away me," Katsav told reporters.

Embassy officials denied reports that Katsav's schedule in Hungary had been altered several times because of the threat of a terrorist attack.

Katsav is scheduled to meet with Hungary's foreign minister and President in the coming days. He is also scheduled to meet with the heads of Hungary's Jewish community.

 

HUNGARIAN HOLOCAUST MUSEUM TO BE OPENED THURSDAY

Hungarian Holocaust museum to be opened Thursday
The Jerusalem Post
April 13, 2004

The Holocaust Museum and Documentation Center, which will showcase photos, artwork and artifacts, will open in a former synagogue in downtown Budapest on April 15.

The renovated synagogue was built in 1923, transformed into a factory during World War II and later abandoned. Since the old synagogue will be used for exhibits and conferences, a small, new synagogue is being built on the premises for the neighborhood's Jewish community.

The opening ceremony will take place simultaneously with events at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem. A temporary exhibition will consist of photographs of Hungarian victims arriving to Auschwitz from the northeastern village of Bilke, which is now part of Ukraine.

Controversy surrounded the building of the museum, its location criticized due to its location outside the ghetto, its inaccessibility and its nondescript surroundings. Moreover, the museum lacks a permanent exhibit, save a memorial wall displaying the names of 40,000 known victims, due to lack of space.

Hungary has eastern Europe's largest Jewish population, estimated at 60,000-100,000. But its history regarding Jews is not a happy one.

In 1920, the "numerus clausus" law restricted the admission of Jews to universities - the first anti-Jewish law passed in Europe ahead of the war. Nazi-allied Hungarian authorities started rounding up more than 437,000 Jews in April 1944. An estimated 600,000 Hungarians perished in the Holocaust, most of them Jews.

 

HUNGARY: JEWISH MUSEUM BOMB PLOT, KATSAV TRIP NOT LINKED

Hungary: Jewish museum bomb plot, Katsav trip not linked
By Haaretz Service and Agencies
April 13, 2004

Hungarian police said Tuesday afternoon they had detained a Hungarian citizen of Palestinian origin who had planned to blow up a Jewish museum in Budapest and two Syrian men also suspected of links to the plot.

Police also said there was no connection between the arrests and the current visit to Budapest by President Moshe Katsav, who is set to inaugurate the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest on Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the day Hungary's pro-Nazi regime started rounding up Jews to confine them in ghettos.

Police Lt. Col. Attila Petofi, deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation, told a news conference there was substantial information that the 42-year-old Palestinian-born dentist planned to blow up "a Jewish museum." He did not say whether it was the new Holocaust museum, as officials had earlier suggested.

Police said the Palestinian suspect was the spiritual leader of a small Islamic community in Budapest. He is a naturalized Hungarian citizen.

The suspect, whose name was not released, was charged with being involved in "preparation for a terrorist attack," said Petofi.

Police said they had also arrested two Syrian men. They said the Palestinian man had wanted to buy explosives from one of these two, and had wanted to commission the other to blow up the Jewish museum.

The Syrian suspects were charged "with preparations for a crime against property," Petofi said, without elaborating.

"There is no connection whatsoever between the Israeli president's visit and the particular police action taken today," Laszlo Salgo, chief of the national police, told a news conference Tuesday.

But a spokeswoman at the president's Jerusalem office said earlier Tuesday that Katsav had been told he was the target of an attack. She added, however, that the president's three-day state visit would continue as planned.

"They're all right. That's what we're concerned about," she said of the president and his wife, Gila, who arrived in Hungary on Tuesday morning.

Katsav told reporters after a meeting with Hungarian President Ferenc Madl that he was aware of the police actions but was confident in the security arrangements for his protection.

During his visit, Katsav will also meet with the Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy and the foreign minister. A number of meetings with leading Hungarian businessmen are also scheduled.

"I trust in the Hungarian security forces and I trust in the Israeli security forces," Katsav said. "I jokingly told President Madl that it would be better if he stays three steps away me."

The Shin Bet security service said that it had not been aware of any terror threat ahead of the trip, Army Radio reported.

'We could not afford to wait'

Hungarian police officials said investigations leading to the arrest had revealed "no date named for the attack and no [named] target facility."

But monitored phone calls of the suspect revealed that he had asked acquaintances for explosives "to blow up a Jewish museum," said Petofi.

"We do not yet know what the motives of the act were," he said. "We could not afford to wait... for the preparations to turn into a real crime."

The suspect began making phone calls in November to friends "to get explosives," said Petofi. On one occasion "he asked an acquaintance to use the explosive to blow up a Jewish museum," he added.

The investigation had turned up no explosives or weapons so far, said police.

Museum 'must be a place for learning'

The museum Katsav is due to inaugurate Thursday will be the first Holocaust museum in central Europe.

Located on a narrow street in Budapest, the memorial center is built on the site of a pre-war synagogue which had served as an internment camp for Jews during World II.

An estimated 600,000 Hungarians perished in the Holocaust, most of them Jews.

French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is of Hungarian descent, is also expected to attend the inauguration.

"More than a museum, this must be a place for learning, especially for the young who must not only know of the Holocaust but make it part of their lives so that they will never allow it to happen again," museum director Andras Daranyi said.

The museum is the fifth state-funded Holocaust museum in the world according to its organizors, after ones in Jerusalem, Washington D.C., London and Berlin.

It will open with a temporary exhibition showing photographs of Hungarian victims arriving to Auschwitz from the northeastern village of Bilke, which is now part of Ukraine.

In the courtyard, the names of those who perished in the Holocaust are put on a memorial wall. Some 40,000 names are known and new ones are added as research discovers the identities of the victims.

The museum has, however, been criticized in Hungary, which has eastern Europe's largest Jewish population, estimated at 60,000-100,000.

Historians have said the museum should have been built in the countryside, where most of the Jews lived in pre-war times, or in the former area of the ghetto in the capital.

The current location in a nondescript neighborhood with narrow streets not only lacks historical significance but is also difficult for cars and tourist buses to reach, critics charge.

But the most stinging criticism is that there will not be a permanent exhibition documenting the Holocaust in place at the opening and, some argue, there is not even enough space for it on site.

"It's a slap in the face to the Holocaust and its victims," Laszlo Karsai, one of the museum's curators, told Nepszabadsag newspaper last month in protest of the limited space.

The museum's directors argue, however, that opening the museum even without a permanent exhibition was a moral obligation to educate Hungarians, for whom the participation of Hungary's collaborationist government in the deportations remains a sore topic.

"We want to be a springboard for debate in society about the Holocaust," Daranyi said.

The emphasis on education also resonates in Hungary, where the so-called "numerus clausus" law of 1920 restricting the admission of Jews to universities was the first anti-Jewish law passed in Europe ahead of the war.

"How did this degenerate into deportations and murder 20 to 25 years after the first anti-Jewish law was enacted? And how come so few raised their voices against this?" asked Daranyi.

"We don't want to give answers, we want to pose questions," Daranyi said.

 

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL OPENS AS HUNGARY FACES UP TO PAST

Holocaust memorial opens as Hungary faces up to past
By Adam LeBor
London Times
April 13, 2004

A new museum in Budapest is deliberately 'discordant and uneasy', aiming to educate its visitors

Hungary will confront its darkest era on Thursday with the opening of its Holocaust Memorial Centre, the first such complex in a former Soviet European country. Built around a restored synagogue on Pava Street, in the working-class ninth district of Budapest, the £5.2 million site includes exhibition halls, lecture rooms, a library and an archive research unit.

Supporters hope that the centre will make Hungarians address the active participation of their compatriots in the deaths of more than half a million Jews after the Nazis occupied the country in March 1944. Between May and July 1944, more than 430,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Tens of thousands more died in forced labour, or were killed by the notorious Arrow Cross militia, the footsoldiers of the Hungarian Nazi party.

Balint Molnar, the centre's spokesman, told The Times: "For 60 years, there has been no debate about the responsibility of Hungarian society for the Holocaust. Under communism, everything was blamed on the Germans and a handful of Hungarian extremists. There was no discussion over the role of the wartime Hungarian authorities, the lack of resistance and the wholesale looting of Jewish property.

"The Holocaust in Hungary was not the private tragedy of the Jews," he said. "It is part of Hungarian history, as much as the revolutions of 1848 or 1956. Even now it is hard to comprehend the profound damage that has been done to Hungarian society."

Hungary's four surviving post-communist prime ministers are expected to attend the centre's official opening ceremony, together with President Katsav of Israel and Nicholas Sarkozy, the French Finance Minister, who is of Hungarian descent. France contributed £270,000 towards the centre, which has otherwise been paid for out of public funds.

The event marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the deportation of Hungary's Jews, when the Pava Street synagogue was used as an internment camp.

The centre's design is partly inspired by Daniel Liebeskind's controversial Jewish museum in Berlin. Its angled walls and narrow windows are intentionally jarring, Mr Molnar said: "The Holocaust was an event with no reason, so we wanted the space to be discordant and uneasy."

For Holocaust survivors such as Robert Ligeti, 74, the opening is an overdue recognition of Hungary's central role in the deportation and murder of its own citizens. He told The Times: "Without the help of the Hungarian authorities, the Germans would not have been able to eliminate the Jews of the countryside. The Hungarian Government drew up the lists of Jews. The Hungarian gendarmerie put the Jews in ghettos and on the train to send them to the camps."

The worst massacres on Hungarian soil were carried out not by Germans, but Hungarian Arrow Cross troopers. Most nights during the winter of 1944 and 1945 they marched dozens of Jews to the banks of the Danube before shooting them into the water.

Hungary joins the European Union on May 1 and after years when the main political parties failed to take a firm line against anti-Semitism, they are keen to present a modern vision of the country.Hungary is home to about 80,000 Jews.

The centre also draws links between the genocide of the Jews and the racism suffered now by Hungary's Roma minority, such as educational segregation. One exhibition portrays the Roma Holocaust, known as the Poramus or "devouring". There are plans for every Hungarian secondary school pupil to visit the centre.

Andras Daranyi, the director of the centre, said: "The Holocaust is not a closed historical episode. We want to educate young Hungarians, not just about the genocide of the Jews, but also about civic courage."

 

A FORGOTTEN PEOPLE, A TERRIBLE ORDEAL

A Forgotten People, a Terrible Ordeal
By Tom Gross
The Wall Street Journal,
January 19, 2000

THE NAZI PERSECUTION
OF THE GYPSIES
By Guenter Lewy
(Oxford Univ. Press, 306 pages, $30)

THE HOLOCAUST IN ROMANIA
By Radu Ioanid
(Ivan R. Dee, 352 pages, $30)

By Tom Gross

To say that the Gypsy people have been ignored by historians, politicians and the media would be something of an understatement. The Gypsies - or Roma, as they are more properly known - are to be found in almost every European country, and in a good many other places too, including the U.S. Numbering at least eight million in Europe alone, they now constitute the continent's largest minority without a state of its own. And today they are arguably the most consistently persecuted minority as well, enduring everything from segregated schools and ghetto compounds in the Czech Republic to pogroms in Kosovo. Yet the international community has, for the most part, turned a blind eye to their plight.

Why should this be so? Well, when outright racism is not a cause, unthinking hostility and astonishing ignorance often are. Many people still think of "Gypsies" in crude stereotypes - as thieving vagrants, fortune-tellers or, at best, picturesque figures out of Bizet's "Carmen." They are, in fact, a distinct people who have preserved their own language and culture since migrating to Europe from India in the 10th century. Even so - to take but one example - the Times Atlas of World History in the early 1990s contained no entry for Roma (or Gypsies) in the section charting the movement of peoples.

This neglect is at its most shocking in regard to the fate of the Roma in Hitler's holocaust, in which they were the second most populous victims. Thus Guenter Lewy's "The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies" is especially welcome. Mr. Lewy's account is the most comprehensive and accurate treatment of the subject in English to date. (It surpasses Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon's admirable 1972 book, "The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies," which Mr. Lewy wrongly denigrates.)

Inevitably, Mr. Lewy takes us back before the Nazi era, since official modern prejudice against the Roma originates in the 19th century. In 1885, Bavaria issued measures aimed at controlling Gypsies and gathering information about them. In 1899, a Central Office for Gypsy Affairs was established by the Munich police; from 1911 it began fingerprinting any Gypsies it could lay its hands on. Other states supplied names and photos, and by 1925 this data bank included more than 14,000 names from all over Germany.

In the 1920s, states and municipalities throughout Germany approved measures for combating "Gypsies, Travelers and the Work-Shy." In 1929, the city council of Frankfurt was the first to set up what was officially called a "concentration camp for Gypsies." Yet this did not resemble the deadly concentration camps of later years. Though fenced in, camp inhabitants could enter and leave at will, and there was no permanent guard.

When Hitler assumed power in 1933, Germany's Roma constituted a small minority of about 26,000. They were of no particular interest to the Nazi leadership, whose racial policies were directed almost exclusively against the Jews. "Mein Kampf," for example, does not mention the Gypsies, and in his 12 years as Führer, Hitler mentioned them only twice, in brief remarks on their military service.

Yet, as Mr. Lewy explains, this indifference changed, largely as a result of pressure from below. Local communities that regarded Gypsies as asocial and criminal felt there was little place for them in a new social structure that placed excessive emphasis on law and order. By 1938, measures of control and harassment against Roma began to assume an explicitly racial nature. Decrees "for combating the Gypsy plague" made mention of their alleged racial inferiority.

From 1943, persecution turned into partial genocide, and a special "Gypsy camp" was established at Auschwitz, in which 20,000 Roma would die. Yet, as Mr. Lewy shows, Nazi policies toward the Gypsies remained inconsistent. Some types were targeted for extinction; others (though often treated very badly) were spared death. For this reason Mr. Lewy, like most historians before him, makes a distinction between the murder of Roma and the Nazi campaign to kill every single Jew.

Estimates by reliable historians of European Gypsies killed in World War II range from 90,000 to 196,000, out of a prewar population of several million. Although Mr. Lewy never gives a figure himself, he is dismissive of a new generation of Roma activists who, desperate to draw attention to the dire situation of their people today, vastly exaggerate the number of Roma victims of the Nazis.

Even so, the actual numbers were bad enough. It is worth noting that the Roma were the only other group subjected to anything approaching full-scale genocide, and some Roma-notably the children on whom Mengele "experimented" -were subjected to horrific treatment.

Given the discrepancy in the scale of genocide, Radu Ioanid's "The Holocaust in Romania" naturally concentrates on the fate of the Jews. Relying on hitherto inaccessible archives, Mr. Ioanid recounts in chilling detail the savage persecution of the Jews under the Nazi-allied regime of the heinous dictator Ion Antonescu. At least 250,000 died.

The book's account of the Roma outlines how almost 25,000 Romanian Gypsies-approximately 2.5% of the country's Gypsy population-were deported to Transnistria (now in Ukraine). All but 1,500 of these died there with the Jews.

Mr. Ioanid's book is especially timely since, amazingly, Antonescu is undergoing a rehabilitation in Romania today: streets are being named for him, statues erected and minutes of silence observed in his memory. What this perverse homage does to the memory of his victims is almost beyond reckoning.

(Mr. Gross, the Middle East correspondent of the London Sunday Telegraph, served as a special adviser to the United Nations on Czech Roma from 1992 to 1995.)

FULL ARTICLES

TOP SHIITE ASKS KUWAIT TO SHOW 'PASSION'

Top Shiite Asks Kuwait to Show 'Passion'
The Associated Press
March 27, 2004

A top Shiite cleric on Saturday urged Kuwait to let Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion of the Christ," be shown in this conservative Muslim state because it "reveals crimes committed by Jews against Christ."

"We have called on the information minister to show this movie," Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Mehri told The Associated Press. He heads the congregation of Shiite clerics in Kuwait.

Movie theaters in this small oil-rich state are owned by a state company, and the Information Ministry has to censor and approve films to be screened. It is not known if the movie company had approached the ministry for permission to screen it.

Al-Mehri said Sunni Muslims, who control Kuwaiti politics, do not approve of personalizing prophets in movies, but many senior Shiite clerics do not object.

It was not immediately clear if the Kuwaiti government had banned the movie from Kuwaiti cinema screens. Kuwaiti officials were not immediately available for comment.

Religious Christian films are not shown in this traditional Muslim country, but pirated copies of Gibson's latest movie, which depicts the last hours Jesus' life, are being circulated.

Al-Mehri said he has seen the movie and believes it is "good and there is nothing wrong with it."

Jewish organizations, however, have denounced the film as anti-Semitic and expressed fears that it would cause attacks on Jews.

Muslims view Jesus as a prophet, not as a messiah.

 

GIBSON FILM "PASSION OF THE CHRIST" STIRS RELIGOUS CONTROVERSY IN KUWAIT

Gibson film "Passion of the Christ" stirs religious controversy in Kuwait
AFP
March 29, 2004

Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" has stirred a religious controversy in Kuwait between majority Sunni Muslims who oppose the movie and the emirate's Shiite Muslims who call for showing it.

The authorities, meanwhile, have not decided either way.

The dean of the local Islamic college, Mohammad al-Tabtabai, said in a fatwa, or religious edict, Monday that parts of the controversial movie contradict the Muslim faith, in addition to its depiction of Jesus.

Tabtabai went so far as to outlaw the film's screening by any Muslim country and prohibited Muslims from watching it, saying anyone who has seen the movie must "repent".

But the emirate's leading Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Muhri said there was nothing wrong in showing the film and called on the authorities to approve it.

"It's a good opportunity to reveal the crimes committed by Jews against the Christ and many other (religious) prophets," Muhri told AFP.

"We sincerely respect the Jewish religion and Jews, but not the Jewish Zionists, and we believe in Jesus and Moses like we believe in our own prophet," he added.

Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet like the Prophet Mohammad but, contrary to Christians, they believe God saved him from crucifixion.

They also believe Jesus will return to earth before the Day of Judgement to guide the faithful.

Kuwait, where all forms of art production must be censored by the information ministry, has not yet decided whether to publicly screen the film or not. Kuwaiti law bars scenes or images depicting prophets, Muslim caliphs and revered figures.

Several Arab countries, including the Gulf Arab states of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have already given the film the green light.

The state national cinema company, which has a monopoly over all cinemas in Kuwait, has not purchased the film and is apparently waiting for a decision from the information ministry.

The film is, however, already being sold on the black market.

The movie, which depicts the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life in often graphic and brutal detail, has drawn a storm of criticism as it reaches cinemas worldwide after its release in the United States.

Gibson's film, shot in Latin and Aramaic using little-known actors, has been a huge box-office hit in North America.

 

"THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST" A HIT IN BEIRUT, DAMASCUS

"The Passion of the Christ" a hit in Beirut, Damascus
AFP
March 27, 2004

Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion of the Christ," accused by some Jewish organizations of encouraging anti-Semitism, is drawing a sizeable if unexceptional audience here while apparently touching an emotional nerve in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

"Coming out of the theater ... I saw a lot of people in tears," reported Fayez Wehbe, who saw the film -- with Arabic sub-titles -- in Damascus.

Certain sequences are in Aramaic, the language that was dominant in the Holy Land at the time of Christ and which can still be heard in certain towns in Syria, notably Maalula and Saadnaya near Damascus.

"Some members of the audience could not conceal their astonishment on hearing some expressions -- such as Ya Illah (My God) -- that are close to Arabic," said Wehbe.

Added another Syrian cinema-goer: "The fact that this film is being shown in the current Middle East context, which opposes Israel and the Arabs, explains part of its success."

Given its popularity in Damascus a fourth showing has been added to the three that had been initially offered, with people often buying tickets in the morning to be sure of getting a place.

The film has spawned reams of commentary because of its unflinchingly graphic portrayal of Christ's crucifixion. In some quarters it has been seen as promoting anti-Semitism by a negative depiction of Christ's fellow Jews, while that view has been strongly rejected in others.

Here in Beirut, the film has been warmly received. Lebanon's Maronite church has described it as "impressive" and found it not to be anti-Semitic.

"It is very sad, extremely impressive," commented Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the spiritual head of the Maronite church.

"We don't see any anti-Semitism there."

An official from one of Beirut's larger movie houses said "the public has come in strong numbers to see 'The Passion' but it has not been an exceptional rush."

North of the capital, in the heavily Christian Junieh region, the film is selling well, although it is off limits to youths under the age of 15.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat saw the film at his headquarters in Ramallah on the West Bank and pronounced it "moving."

"The Passion of the Christ" will also be shown in Cairo, where it is likewise forbidden to minors because of its violent scenes, starting March 31, and has been available to movie goers in the Gulf state of Qatar since last Sunday.

"We submitted 'The Passion of the Christ' to the censorship committee, which had no objection to its screening" in Qatar, said Abdul Rahman Mohsen, the director general of a private Qatari cinema company.

The committee usually censors scenes or images depicting prophets from the holy books.

The film is being shown three times a day in a cinema in Doha and will be screened for at least one month, Mohsen said.

Three other Gulf states are currently still reviewing the film, he said.

The movie will be shown to the public in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) beginning March 31 after having been given the green light by the ministry of culture and information, the UAE's Gulf News reported Sunday.

 

BOOTLEG COPIES OF THE PASSION HIT MIDDLE EAST

Bootleg copies of the Passion hit Middle East
Ekklesia
March 25, 2005

www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_040325pass.shtml

Pirated DVDs of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ" have hit the streets of the Middle East and are selling like hot cakes, according to street vendors.

The film, which is released in the UK this week, and has faced charges of anti-Semitism, is already being sold outside of supermarkets, and out of the trunk of cars for the price of SR 30 or less. A copy obtained by Arab News was reportedly of high quality.

A street vendor said on condition of anonymity vendors underestimated demand for the movie because the dialogue is in Latin and ancient Aramaic rather than English. "My customers don't like subtitled movies, but they are buying this one."

"A majority of these DVDs come from the Far East by way of GCC states," he said. "Pirated CDs and DVDs of latest movies are often available in Jeddah weeks before the films are even released in the United States."

Mel Gibson's movie company, Icon, is suing a Hollywood post-production company claiming bad security allowed three employees to copy the film.

The bootlegs eventually turned up online and on the black market.

According to the 2003 International Intellectual Property Alliance report, "Saudi Arabia should remain on the watch list. The piracy situation in Saudi Arabia continued to improve for most sectors in 2002 ,with cooperation from the Ministry of Information and sustained raiding that has eaten into piracy rates for the motion picture and business software industries."

 

GIBSON'S NEXT FILM WILL BE A BIBLE 'WESTERN'

Gibson's next film will be a Bible 'western'
By John Harlow and Maurice Chittenden
London Sunday Times
March 21, 2004

As The Passion of the Christ bursts on to 300 British cinema screens this week Mel Gibson, its writer, producer and director, is heading for a row with the Jewish community over his next project.

He is planning to film the story of the Maccabees, a tribe that led the Jews in revolt against their Syrian overlords 165 years before Jesus was born. Their victory in reconsecrating the temple of Jerusalem is celebrated every December in the festival of Hanukkah.

Jewish leaders fear that Gibson, who may postpone a fourth Mad Max film to make The Maccabees, has likened them to ranchers from the Wild West.

"They made war. They stuck by their guns and they came out winning. It's like a western," Gibson said last week.

Abraham H Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League which was set up in America in 1913 to fight anti-semitism, said: "Thanks for trying to make it up to us, but no thanks. The last thing we need is Jewish history turned into a western. In his hands we would probably lose."

Gibson has been at odds with Jewish activists since he refused to break with his 85-year-old father over the latter's anti-semitic remarks. Hutton Gibson had claimed in February that the Jews had fabricated the Holocaust and were planning to take over the world.

Gibson has been accused of promoting anti-semitism because the film shows Jews conspiring to kill Jesus. He denies this and says he removed a New Testament line from a Jewish priest that the "blood of Christ be on us and all our children".

There was further controversy last night after the film was seen by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. Later, an aide compared the Palestinians' pain during their fighting with Israel to the suffering of Christ.

A member of a Catholic fundamentalist splinter group, Gibson has problems as a result of his own faith. Last month he said he expected Robyn, his "saintly" London-born wife and the mother of his seven children, to go to hell because she belonged to the Church of England. "It's not fair, but that's a pronouncement from the chair," he said. "I go with it."

Two years ago Hollywood studios refused to fund The Passion of the Christ, fearing it would be a box-office flop. Gibson put up £20m of his own money to shoot it in Rome last year. He is expected to make a profit of up to £500m.

The film is already more than a blockbuster. Americans queued before dawn for the first shows and some went into hysterics during the prolonged whipping scenes. A Kansas woman died of a heart attack and a bank robber gave himself up after seeing the film in Florida.

The explicit violence of The Passion has led to widespread discussion on websites run by teenage horror film fans. In American high schools it is regarded as a challenge for girls to watch it without shutting their eyes.

The film's distributors decided not to hold a gala premiere in Britain. Zak Brilliant, its British publicist, said: "It doesn't lend itself to having a big party of VIPs walking down a red carpet. It would be in bad taste."

In America the film took more money than The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King during its five-day opening weekend. More than a dozen churches in Britain are giving away tickets.

Some church leaders have criticised the decision to give the film an 18 rating in Britain. Sue Clark of the British Board of Film Classification said: "We did look to see if we could make an exception but all there is is pain and suffering. There was never any question of Mel Gibson accepting cuts."

Cosmo Landesman, who will review the film in next week's Sunday Times, said: "It's a bloody feast, like a human pizza. It's really horrible. You have to be mad or a Christian fundamentalist who is moved by the spectacle of Christ suffering, or you are going to find it difficult to watch."

 

FRENCH SCHOOLS TO SCREEN SCHINDLERS LIST AND THE PANIO TO COMBAT ANTI-SEMITISM

France tells its schools to screen Schindlers List and The Piano to combat a rising tide of anti-Semitism
By Kim Willsher in Paris
London Sunday Telegraph
March 28, 2004

The French government has told schools and colleges to screen films such as Schindler's List, Sophie's Choice and The Pianist to combat growing anti-Semitism.

After a 10-fold rise in attacks and threats against Jews in France in the past decade, Luc Ferry, the education minister, said it was vital to fight racism among young people.

"For the first time since the Second World War, anti-Semitism is now more widespread than racism that is not directed against Jews," he said last week. "We cannot act as if this didn't exist. We cannot not respond to it."

The advice is included in a government guide, The Republican Idea Today, that will be sent to 300,000 schools and colleges teaching "civil education" classes as part of the national curriculum.

The guide also recommends visits to former Nazi concentration camps, books such as The Diary of Anne Frank and documentaries depicting the Holocaust.

Mr Ferry said: "When you see a film like Schindler's List you are clearly very moved. You understand much better the reality of racism and anti-Semitism than if you're asked to read, for example, the Declaration of the Rights of Man."

The government has linked the surge in attacks on Jews over the past three years with the deteriorating situation in the Middle East.

Last week, arsonists set fire to a Jewish centre in Toulon, shortly after Israel assassinated the Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. It was the latest in a series of attacks on Jewish sites, including synagogues, graveyards and lycees.

France has the largest Muslim population - estimated at between 4 million and5 million - in Western Europe.

Mr Ferry said teachers had reported being abused by young Muslims while trying to teach about the Holocaust. He described how one teacher asked a class of 13-year-old pupils about their likes and dislikes. One child wrote: "I like football, I don't like Jews."

One prominent rabbi has advised Jewish schoolchildren in Paris who received abuse and threats from Muslim youths to wear baseball hats to cover their skullcaps.

Mr Ferry said that young people used racist insults such as "dirty Jew" or "dirty wog" as frequently as other people said "idiot" or "fool".

He added: "It's extremely serious. These words have become banal, light as feathers, when in fact they have a very serious history. The sole purpose of this guide is to give weight back to these words; to make pupils understand that these insults have killed."

He said the guide was intended to make pupils reflect on racism, the Second World War, crimes against humanity, battles for the dignity of man, and social conflicts.

The minister said that extreme racism and anti-Semitism had infected only five per cent of schools in France, but that in society as a whole, there had been a dramatic rise in recent years.

During the 1990s, about 10 violent anti-Semitic attacks and 60 verbal threats were reported against Jews every year. By 2002, these figures had risen to 193 attacks and 731 threats, the worst in France since the 1940s.

Mr Ferry blamed tensions between Muslim and Jewish pupils. "If we have such a rise in anti-Semitism in France it is because some children identify with the Palestinian cause and others with Israel," he said.

The guide also includes details of the laws that teachers can refer to when confronted with racist acts. "It is necessary to intervene in the slightest incident - even a verbal attack - and not let any of these things pass without punishment or explanation," said Mr Ferry.

 

'PEACE RELIGION' ISLAM RAPES / KILLS CHRISTIANS

'Peace Religion' Islam Rapes / Kills Christians
By J. Grant Swank, Jr.
Michigan News
March 22, 2004

"All houses as well as a market and a health center were completely looted and the market burnt," UN coordinator Mudesh Kapila said. "Over 100 women were raped, six in front of their fathers who were later killed.

"This is ethnic cleansing, this is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis, and I don't know why the world isn't doing more about it," he told BBC Radio 4's Today program.

According to WorldNetDaily, Islam killers supported by Khartoum's vicious Muslim politic "raped more than 100 woman in an attack in western Sudan."

The village of Tawila suffered 75 humans slaughtered in the blood letting.

One hundred fifty women plus 200 youngsters were kidnapped while the villages were leveled.

Over one hundred thousand fled from Sudan to nearby Chad, leaving their belongings behind. Still, the enemy crossed the borders and ravaged the victims.

Kapila appealed to the world for aid, immediate assistance, hoping to see an end to the carnage.

And who are these attacked, raped, murdered, set fleeing in hope of safety? They are mostly Christians. The "cleric-backed National Islamic Front regime in the Arab and Muslim north" sought out the Christians for the slaughter.

Go back to 1983. Since then, over 2 million people have died because of battle and starvation. Nearly 5 million have lost their homes, accounted as refugees.

Before Christian women were raped, they were called on to deny their faith. Even then, they were gang-raped, sometimes slain. The rapists were a part of the Khartoum regime.

Kapila reported that he lived through the Rwanda slaughter, but what's happening to the Christians put him in "total shock."

10. [I attach this as an example of how a leading paper can make Yassin sound like a nice guy. This is the full article.]

CHARISMATIC ISLAMIST WHOSE HARDLINE STANCE WON HIM A POPULAR FOLLOWING

Charismatic Islamist whose hardline stance won him a popular following
By Sharmila Devi
Financial Times
March 23, 2004

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was one of the most recognisable Palestinian figures after Yassir Arafat, possibly enjoying even more popularity than the veteran leader as the Palestinian Authority became mired in allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

Hamas has carried out hundreds of attacks since Yassin co-founded the movement in 1987 to further the struggle against Israel and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinian support for the group has grown in parallel with the PA's seeming impotence, with many attributing it to the charisma of a man who was a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic, and almost deaf.

Yassin was born near the port city of Ashkelon, now in Israel. He became a refugee after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and moved to Gaza, where the vast majority of the 1.3m Palestinians are also refugees. A sporting accident at the age of 12 left him paralysed but he married and fathered 11 children.

As a student in Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and was arrested during a sweep of activists after an attempted coup against President Gamal Abdel-Nasser in 1965. Back in Gaza, Yassin had by 1968 become one of the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood figures.

At the start of the first intifada, or uprising, in 1987, he helped to establish Hamas, which in Arabic is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement and means zeal.

The group was a blend of Palestinian nationalism, Islamic ideology and a network of welfare institutions. In 1988, Yassin directed the group's expansion into the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Israel did not formally outlaw the group until 1989, having previously backed its inception as a counterweight to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. But the group's espousal of violence led to Israel arresting Yassin and about 200 other Hamas members.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment for ordering attacks on Israeli soldiers and Palestinians suspecting of collaborating with Israel. But an embarrassed Israel was forced to release Yassin in 1997 in exchange for two Mossad agents held by Jordan's King Hussein after a failed assassination attempt on another Hamas leader in Amman.

By the time Yassin returned to Gaza in 1997, Israel had signed the Oslo accords and handed over parts of the occupied territories to the PA. Hamas opposed the accords and carried out a number of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s, which killed dozens of Israelis.

Disillusionment with the PA's ability to liberate and rule their lands drew more Palestinians to agree with Hamas' hardline stance, upheld by Yassin as spiritual leader. However, he hinted at a possible compromise in recent years when he said Hamas might temporarily accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and let following generations try to win more.

Thousands of Palestinians flowed into the streets of Gaza yesterday to express their grief for a man who they felt best expressed their aspirations.

"The Palestinian people do not have Apache helicopters or F-16s or tanks or missiles," Yassin said in 2002. "The only thing they have is themselves to die as martyrs."

FULL ARTICLES

WHY THE UPROAR?

Why the uproar?
Christians, Muslims are defending themselves with the very same measures, moral values as Israelis
By David Pryce-Jones
The Jerusalem Post
March 25, 2004

"Blood will have blood" is the grim observation Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Macbeth. Unlike that character, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin did not kill in person, but he organized murder, a great deal of it. He strove all his life to make a reality of the mind-set of the Muslim Brotherhood, in which good Muslims everywhere at last assert their deserved supremacy over irredeemably bad Christians and Jews. Compromise is excluded. The only available options are victory or martyrdom.

An unlikely figure with several severe physical disabilities, wheelchair bound all his adult years, Yassin nonetheless founded Hamas and thereby gave himself responsibility for the Palestine sector of the wider Islamist struggle. Palestine, he believed, was a land exclusively reserved by God for Muslims. With a consistency that has to be acknowledged, he rejected the existence of Israel in any shape or form and led jihad to eliminate it. His specialty was the recruiting and dispatching of suicide bombers. He wanted to kill Jews and didn't mind how many Muslims died in the process. Israel,he prophesied in a recent interview, would finally collapse in 2007. For him, then, peace meant war, and so he was the victim of his own violence. Blood will have blood.

Far and wide, from Morocco to Indonesia and Nigeria, personalities exactly in his mould are struggling in their sectors to implement the Muslim Brotherhood mind-set. For the likes of Osama bin-Laden, Ayman Zawahiri, and al-Qaida, compromise also means surrender, and peace means war.

At the very moment when an Israeli helicopter was targeting Yassin, American and British special forces, with Pakistani soldiers in support, were engaged in a fire-fight against a substantial unit of al-Qaida on the Pakistan-Afghan border. President George W. Bush has repeated several times that he would like to capture al-Qaida leaders dead or alive. If the opportunity were to arise for any or all of these special forces, Western or Pakistani, to kill bin-Laden or Zawahiri as expeditiously as Yassin was killed, they would take it without hesitation.

Both Christians and Muslims, in other words, are defending themselves with the very same measures and moral values as Israelis. What, then, explains the uproar of indignation and condemnation released by the killing of Yassin? Can British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw really believe that his description of Yassin as "an old man in a wheelchair" is a necessary or sufficient definition? The EU foreign ministers in collective session have declared that the killing "undermines the concept of the rule of law." Did that concept have any meaning either for Yassin or for those who attacked the Madrid railway station? Will observance of the concept be enough to thwart further terror attacks anywhere in Europe?

Beyond the usual humbug of diplomatic discourse, there seems to be an anxiety to pretend to Arabs and Muslims that all is well when evidently it is not. It is as if Arabs and Muslims were children who mustn't hear the truth; that assorted Islamists are destabilizing Islamic countries and dragging them by the scruff of the neck into suicidal wars with the neighbors.

The absolute rulers of the Arab and Muslim world make it difficult for themselves, it is true, by playing to the street in the hope of earning popularity. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt says that the killing of Yassin is a "completely meaningless and miscalculated Israeli action." In 1998 Yassin had just been released from an Israeli prison after a botched Mossad assassination attempt on another Hamas organizer (and both the attempt and the release really were miscalculated actions). He then toured Arab states collecting millions of dollars for Hamas. At the time, Mubarak had been energetically suppressing his Islamists, hanging them by the hundreds, and he made sure to refuse Yassin an entry visa. His current fury is a pretense.

Similarly, King Abdullah of Jordan speaks of the crime of killing Yassin; but, like his father, he has taken every measure to throttle Hamas in his own country. As for Arafat, he and his men have often shot it out with Hamas and engaged in kidnapping, illegal imprisonment, and other skulduggeries in what amounts to subterranean civil war. In spite of the three days of mourning he has decreed, Arafat is freed, at no cost to himself, from the main rival to his monopoly of power. President Pervez Musharraf is on the front line for the time being because Islamists have several times come close to murdering him, and he knows that he has to kill them before they kill him.

Hamas rhetoric promises to open the gates of hell, and of course it is possible that the death of Yassin will activate the Palestine sector of the Islamist struggle to frenzies of revenge and suicide bombings. Ariel Sharon and most of his government evidently decided that this was a risk worth taking. The implication must be that Israel will indeed be withdrawing soon from the Gaza Strip, to shelter as best it can in isolation behind its fences while the Palestinians sort their society out. The previous withdrawal from southern Lebanon was certainly another miscalculation, not in itself but because it was carried out with slipshod haste. Palestinians jumped to conclude that Israel was on the run, and might run further.

As Sharon resorts to his time-honored tactic of showing strength in the face of violence, Hamas is in no position to claim with any plausibility that withdrawal from Gaza is another step towards Sheikh Yassin's goal of victory through the elimination of Israel. Nor is there anyone of equivalent authority or credentials to succeed Yassin. At least one report of his funeral mentioned a surprising atmosphere of depression in Gaza, partly because of the suspicion that some informer must have provided crucial information to Israeli intelligence and partly out of a general sense that the intifada has run its course.

The Arab and Muslim world is caught between a past that will not release its grip and a future not quite able to come to birth. Sheikh Yassin had no solution to this dilemma. His inhuman passion could only ensure that blood will have blood. Everyone, Palestinians first and foremost, is better off without him.

(David Pryce-Jones is senior editor of National Review. His book The Closed Circle is about to be published in Hebrew by Zmora Bitan.)

 

PAKISTAN: MORE THAN 50 TERRORISTS KILLED

Pakistan: More than 50 terrorists killed
By Munir Ahmad
The Associated Press
March 25, 2004

More than 50 terrorists have been killed in Pakistan's largest military operation yet against suspected al-Qaida fighters and local sympathizers in its tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a top official said Thursday.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat vowed that the operation in South Waziristan, which began 10 days ago, would continue until the "complete elimination" of terrorists holed up there.

"Over 20 terrorists have been killed in the operation so far and it is expected that 30 to 35 more dead bodies of terrorists will be recovered as the operation concludes," Hayyat told lawmakers in a National Assembly debate. He did not identify the terrorists or say whether they were foreigners or local tribesmen.

Meanwhile, Brig. Mahmood Shah, chief of security in Pakistan's tribal areas, said Thursday that authorities were interrogating 163 captured suspects, but were yet to determine their identities. He acknowledged that some terrorists might have escaped at the start of the operation.

His comments further fueled speculation that a "high-value" terrorist suspect said by some officials last week to be al-Qaida No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri had escaped.

In the National Assembly, opposition lawmakers chanted slogans and staged a walkout to protest the operation, the largest since Pakistan threw its support behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism in late 2001. Lawmakers protested the government had not "taken Parliament into confidence" over the operation.

"We have plunged into a such a war which has no end," said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of the hardline religious coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal. "The whole country is in the grip of uncertainty."

On Thursday, a 30-member delegation of tribal elders were on a peace mission in the battle zone, near the main South Waziristan town of Wana, seeking the release of 14 Pakistani troops and officials taken captive by hundreds of militants who have been fighting thousands of army forces.

The elders, who left on their mission on Wednesday, were also trying to convince local supporters of al-Qaida to turn over foreign terrorists to the government to avoid a "massive military onslaught," residents and officials said.

Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan said he had no information on whether the mission had succeeded. "We have not received any response from them," he said.

Pakistan's military had set a Thursday 10 a.m. deadline for the al-Qaida fugitives to surrender themselves and free the hostages. However, there was no fighting reported in the area immediately after the deadline passed, and Shah said the deadline could be extended.

He also told GEO television network that the government was expecting a positive response from the tribal elders. "People should not take these deadlines so seriously. We can extend it," he said.

It was not clear what authorities would do if their demands were not met, although a senior military official involved in the operation said on condition of anonymity that the army would start "a massive onslaught."

The operation in South Waziristan has angered local tribesmen who resent the military's presence in the region. At least two dozen civilians are believed to have died in army firing on vehicles. The military has declined to give full details about its casualties, but officials says at least 30 soldiers have been killed.

 

SHED NO TEARS OVER THE KILLING OF THE SHEIKH OF HATE

Shed no tears over the killing of the sheikh of hate
By Michael Gove
The Times (London)
March 23, 2004

Sixty-two years ago the British Government pulled off one of its most daring wartime coups in the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe. A team of four agents, backed by the Czech Government in exile and trained by MI6, succeeded in assassinating Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia whose brutal rule had earned him the title, "the Butcher of Prague". In January 1942 he had presided at the Wannsee Conference which initiated the Holocaust. But on May 27, 1942 he was ambushed by Czech fighters as he drove out of Prague. The Nazi state accorded Heydrich a magnificent funeral and Hitler mourned a soulmate whom he considered "irreplaceable". The Germans then inflicted a terrible revenge, making an example of the Czech village of Lidice, killing every male over the age of 16.

Targeted killings are, as you can see, morally fraught. The assassination of Heydrich deprived the Nazi killing machine of one of its spiritual leaders. But that strategic gain was secured at the price of a backlash, in which innocent lives were lost.

The assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin raises its own moral questions. Like Heydrich, the Sheikh was the intellectual organiser of a mass murder campaign directed against Jewish civilians. The organisation he set up in 1988, Hamas, has been responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths, including the killing of at least 20 young people outside the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv in June 2001, the murder of 15 people at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001 and the bombing of a commuter bus in Jerusalem in June 2003 which claimed another 15 lives.

These killings have been in pursuit of an ideological agenda as uncompromisingly anti-Semitic and as spiritually dedicated to violence as National Socialism itself. Hamas believes that Israel has no right to exist, Palestine must be purged of the Zionists from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea and a fundamentalist Islamic state erected on its territory. The Hamas covenant proclaims: "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours." The covenant also makes clear who are to be targeted, the Jews, who are held responsible, inter alia, for both world wars, control of the world media and the creation of "Zionist organisations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups, and others".

Yesterday, the BBC correspondent, Zubeida Malik, described Sheikh Yassin on The World At One as "polite, charming and witty, a deeply religious man". On the same programme the Arab journalist Abdul Bari-Atwan, editor of the influential newspaper Al-Quds, memorialised him as "a moderate man in his way".

Some people in the BBC may consider it witty to call for the elimination of the Jewish people from their homeland. Others might consider it the charming hallmark of a deeply religious man to recruit, incite and inspire young men to kill civilians. And clearly it is no bar to success in Arab journalism to define as "moderate" someone who thought the Jews started both world wars and continue to run the globe through their manipulation of the media and the all-powerful Rotary International. I may therefore risk putting myself out on a limb in the media community saying this, but I'm afraid I find the ambition to wipe Israel off the map repellent, the worship of death indefensible and efforts made to halt Hamas's uncompromising campaign of terror completely understandable. I can no more mourn Sheikh Yassin's death, in all conscience, than a Briton could have shed an honest tear for Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.

But what will the consequences of Israel's actions be? Might this assassination lead to a backlash that could be avoided? It is a question that should weigh heavily on Israel's Government, and on all of us who have a moral stake in fighting fundamentalist terror.

I'm inclined to agree with the view Jack Straw outlined in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday. The Foreign Secretary argued that weakness in the face of fundamentalist outrages was more provocative than a strong counter-attack. Referring to al-Qaeda's activities throughout the 1990s he said, "the evidence was very clear that Osama bin Laden was becoming increasingly emboldened by the lack of reaction". Mr Straw now concludes that "we should have hit al-Qaeda sooner".

The evidence from the Middle East reinforces the point. Whenever Israel has been perceived as irresolute, as when Ehud Barak withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, the terrorists have drawn the conclusion that their violence is working. Perceived Israeli weakness led to an escalation of Palestinian violence, with Yassir Arafat's launch of the second intifada a few months later.

Now that Ariel Sharon is withdrawing forces from the Gaza Strip, the risk is that a similar conclusion, that Israel is weakening and violence is working, will be drawn. In such circumstances the best means of ensuring that terrorists do not feel emboldened is to make sure that those who organise the terror campaigns lose by their actions. And that prompts a final question. What would have been more likely to hearten Heydrich's comrades in arms at his funeral in June 1942? International condemnation of reckless British action and a global demand that Winston Churchill resume talks to tackle Germany's longstanding grievances? Or an implacable commitment to fight democracy's enemies until those bent on genocide laid down their arms?

 

ISRAEL IS NOT ALONE IN PICKING OFF ITS ENEMIES

Israel is not alone in picking off its enemies
By Marcus Gee
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
March 26, 2004

Within hours of the Israeli missile attack that killed Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin this week, scolding fingers began to wave. Germany, France, the European Union, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and a host of Arab countries all condemned Israel's decision to kill the terrorist leader. Even Washington, Israel's greatest backer, said it found the attack on Sheik Yassin, whose organization is blamed for 52 suicide bombings that have killed 288 Israelis, "deeply troubling."

That was a classic example of chutzpah – unmitigated effrontery. For the fact is that many of the countries now admonishing Israel have themselves targeted their worst enemies for death in time of war or in fighting terrorism.

Among the first to chide Israel was Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary. As Mr. Straw is perfectly aware, the British security forces often hunted down agents of the Irish Republican Army during their long years of struggle with the IRA. In the most famous incident, 16 years ago this month, the elite Special Air Service anti-terrorism unit shot down three unarmed IRA agents in Gibraltar. Going back further, to 1942, four British-trained agents backed by the Czech government-in-exile assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia, who was one of the architects of the Holocaust.

Extrajudicial killings, as the EU called Sheik Yassin's, are clearly out of bounds in peacetime. But at times of armed conflict, warring nations have always considered it within their rights to do away with enemy commanders. During the Second World War, Germany shot down a plane it thought contained Winston Churchill, and the United States shot down the plane carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbour. He was killed.

There are much more recent examples. In November, 2002, the United States killed a senior al-Qaeda agent in Yemen using missiles fired by a Predator drone aircraft, a targeted killing if there ever was one. The Yemen operation closely resembled the attack on Sheik Yassin, who was also done in by a missile fired from a distant aircraft, in his case a helicopter.

Ever since Yemen, Washington has been careful what it says about Israel's targeted killing of Palestinian terrorists, attacks that it used to denounce routinely. This week, American spokesmen would only say that the U.S. position on targeted killing is clear, declining to restate what that policy actually is. It also made clear that it regarded Sheik Yassin as a terrorist, responsible for the murder of many Israelis.

After all, it is clear that the United States would kill Osama bin Laden in a blink if it had the chance. It has tried in the past. After terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, then president Bill Clinton ordered a cruise-missile attack on a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. Washington would have liked to finish off Mr. bin Laden then and there, but failed.

As the commission studying the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks reported this week, Washington often considered killing Mr. bin Laden after that, but always pulled back, either because it feared civilian casualties or because it thought the attempt would fail. In one case, CIA director George Tenet advised that U.S. forces could kill Mr. bin Laden legally only if his death occurred during an attempt to capture the al-Qaeda leader.

Those qualms now look misguided. Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism official whose commission testimony has been grabbing headlines, [says he] urged his masters to launch an assault on al-Qaeda before it killed hundreds of Americans. They didn't listen. We know the result. How much better it would have been for the world if Washington had killed Mr. bin Laden before he unleashed his horrors.

Israel argues that Mr. Yassin was their Osama bin Laden. He may not have ordered every suicide bombing, but his role as the guiding hand of the ongoing war against Israeli civilians made him a legitimate target.

It is hard to argue with that. Mourned now as a "spiritual leader," a frail holy man confined to a wheelchair, he was in fact the founder of a movement whose purpose was to erase the state of Israel from the slate of history. His glorification of martyrdom and demonization of Israel helped create the cult of death that now drives Palestinians to strap explosives to their bodies and climb on Israeli buses.

Whether it was wise to kill him now is another question. The risks of creating a martyr and provoking revenge attacks are obvious. But Israelis don't need other countries preaching to them about how to fight terrorism.

If those countries were in Israel's place, they might well do exactly the same thing. Some of them already have.

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EXCERPTS: 'AL-QAEDA TAPE' THREATENS ATTACKS

Excerpts: 'Al-Qaeda tape' threatens attacks
BBC
April 6, 2004

Here are excerpts of a taped message purporting to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Jordanian-born al-Qaeda suspect, threatening attacks on US commanders in Iraq. The recording appeared on an Islamist website.

To my dear nation, the best nation brought to mankind, may the peace and blessings of God be upon you...

God honoured us and so we harvested their heads and tore up their bodies in many places:

The United Nations in Baghdad; the coalition forces in Karbala; the Italians in Nasiriya; the US forces on Khalidiya Bridge; the US intelligence in Al-Shahin Hotel and the Republican Palace in Baghdad; the CIA in the Rashid Hotel; and the Polish forces in Al-Hilla.

The speaker claimed responsibility for the Mount Lebanon Hotel attack
And last but not least the Israeli Mossad in the Mount Lebanon Hotel. There is more and more; in fact, there is a long list of them.

We challenge the dishonest US media to reveal the real damage and big losses sustained by their forces...

There will be more rounds of fighting, God willing.

If John Abizaid escaped our swords this time, we will be lying in wait for him, for Bremer, for their generals and soldiers and their collaborators...

Call for action

They [Shias] are the ones who killed the mujahidin, assassinated refugees and are the eyes and ears of the Americans...

They raped women and violated sanctities and are now killing and liquidating Sunni preachers, ulema and men of learning...

Unfortunately, all this is taking place while the Sunnis are asleep due to lies told by their so-called wise men and ulema that drugged the nation and let it down...

Hero mujahidin... God has honoured you and by your hands, the greatest power throughout history has been forced to submission.

Be resolute, kneel down before God, sharpen your swords and burn the land under the feet of the invaders.

Let them taste the bitter defeat and throw them into hell.

 

PLANS SET FOR UN MEETING ON ISRAEL'S CONSTRUCTION OF WALL

Plans set for UN meeting on Israel's construction of wall in occupied territory
April 6, 2004
UN.org

www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=10332&Cr=palestin&Cr1=

A United Nations committee in New York today approved preliminary arrangements for a UN-backed meeting on the consequences of Israel's construction of a barrier in and around the West Bank, set to open next week in Geneva.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People adopted a provisional programme and accredited 12 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to participate in the two-day forum, which is scheduled to run from 15 to 16 April.

The Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Qurei, might address the meeting's opening session, Committee Chairman Paul Badji of Senegal told participants today as plans for the "International Meeting on the Impact of the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Territory, Including in and around East Jerusalem" moved forward.

According to the current plan, a representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to be among those speaking at the opening meeting. A plenary discussion will then address the scope of the wall's construction and its affect on the humanitarian situation. The views of both Palestinians and Israelis as well as those of the wider international community will be heard at that event.

On the second day, discussions will focus on the international legal implications of the wall as well as the fate of the political process towards a two-State solution to the conflict, with emphasis on the Road Map plan for achieving this sponsored by the diplomatic Quartet - the Russian Federation, the United States, the European Union and the UN.

 

IRAQI CHRISTIANS FEAR MUSLIM WRATH

Iraqi Christians fear Muslim wrath
By Willis Witter
The Washington Times
April 7, 2004

BAGHDAD - Two tear-shaped drops of blood remained on the living-room floor, days after Muslim fanatics shot their way into a home and executed two children because the family is Christian.

Now, some Iraqi Chaldean Christians say they fear that militants will attack churches in Baghdad on Easter Sunday.

Chaldea was the name 2,000 years ago of a portion of Iraq, then part of the Persian Empire. Chaldean Christians broke from the early Christian church over the question of Jesus' divinity but were reunited with the Roman Catholic Church in the 1670s.

"Our people are afraid of some sort of massacre on Easter. Four churches have come to us to ask about how to hire security," said Isoh Barnsavm, an officer in the Bethnahrain Patriotic Union, one of several political parties that represent segments of Iraq's million-strong Christian minority.

"Neighbors are now receiving threatening letters. Some of the threats are from unknown groups," Mr. Barnsavm said. "Others are from Ansar al-Islam," a group linked with al Qaeda that was targeted by U.S.-led forces during the war.

"They say, 'You have to be a Muslim, or else we will kill you.'"

Late last month, the family of the two murdered children received a note warning that they would be killed and "doomed to hell."

The next day, the gunman came and killed the two children, each with an AK-47 rifle shot to the head that left blood flowing across the living room. Their mother and several other children in the house were allowed to live, presumably to tell others.

Some blood remains on the floor and wall, where a framed picture of the Virgin Mary with a golden halo looks out over the room.

Sleepless nights

Two uncles have since moved in to protect the family.

One of the men, disheveled after another sleepless night spent clutching his own AK-47, pleaded with a visiting reporter for help as his eyes filled with tears.

"How can you guarantee we won't be killed? We can't sleep. We can't go out to work. We're so scared that we are carrying our guns all the time. It all happened in less than 10 seconds," the uncle said.

The mother, rail thin beneath her black mourning dress, sat quietly with her surviving children.

Mr. Barnsavm said: "There have been hundreds of attacks. Every day we hear of a new attack." He estimated that up to 200 Iraqi Christians have been killed by Muslim extremists since the war began last year.

Many have been killed while working as interpreters for the coalition, in attacks that had no apparent religious motive.

But Mr. Barnsavm says he is especially worried about incidents in which people are targeted simply because they are Christian.

In the killing of the two children, the warning was written on a computer, printed and reproduced on a photocopier. It was signed Ansar al-Islam. It accused the family of selling "narcotic liquid," an apparent euphemism for alcoholic beverages. In Iraq, only Christians are permitted to buy or sell alcohol.

Officials at the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority declined to comment for this article.

A public information officer said the case of the murdered children was a matter for the Iraqi Interior Ministry to take up as a "police case, such as breaking and entering or murder."

An officer at the U.S. Consulate, asked by e-mail for information on how a family would go about applying for political asylum, said she was not authorized to talk to the press.

Members of the Bethnahrain party say they have no access to anyone in the coalition.

"They won't even allow me into the CPA building because I have no badge," said one senior party official, who asked not to be named.

Chaldean minority

Chaldean Christians are said to number about 600,000 in Iraq, with at least twice that many having emigrated to the United States, Western Europe and Australia over the years. A large Chaldean community thrives in Southfield, Mich.

"We have one family who has been threatened with a note: 'If you visit a church, we will kill you,'" said the senior Bethnahrain party official, who is also a history professor and well-known writer.

In Iraq, the Chaldeans are particularly upset because they are not represented on the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which was appointed by the chief U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer.

The one non-Muslim member of the council, Yonadam Kanna, represents Assyrian Christians, the smallest of three main Christian groups. A third group, Syriac Christians, is divided into Catholics loyal to Rome and Orthodox members with a patriarch.

Iraq's interim constitution was accepted by the Iraqi Governing Council. But 12 of 25 members did so under protest and demanded there be changes after June 30, when the document takes effect.

The constitution proclaims Islam the state religion.

Elsewhere, it mentions Turkmen and Chaldo-Assyrians as examples of minorities whose rights are to be protected.

"It doesn't say what a Chaldo-Assyrian is. We never heard the term before. Is it a nation? Is it an ethnic group, a religion?" asked Nahrain Kohoshaba Toma, leader of the Bethnahrain Free Woman's Union of Iraq.

"We need to work with coalition forces to provide some sort of security for Christian families. Arab have clans. They have security from their clans. Kurds have clans.

"Christians don't have clans. They need security, and it starts with the law. Read the new constitution; it does not even say that Christians exist in Iraq," Miss Toma said.

Mr. Barnsavm said a religious war is already under way in Iraq. He sometimes uses the terms "clash of cultures" and "clash of civilizations" terms that U.S. officials avoid.

"On one side there's globalization, the borderless world, the concept of democracy, culture that flows across borders. Now the central power against this new system comes from the Middle East, from the Islamic fanatics and a tribal culture.

"This is not just the Muslims against Christians. It's the fanatical Islamists striking the West. The Kurds near the Iranian border are being attacked by Ansar al-Islam, which says they are not real Muslims.

"But the fanatics see us as part of the West, so we become the first target inside the country," Mr. Barnsavm said.

Saddam Hussein's government gave a measure of protection to Christians and other religious minorities. None among dozens of Christians interviewed in the past month suggested they miss him.

"We are quite happy that Saddam is gone, to end the rule of such a dictator," Mr. Barnsavm said. "The attacks that are happening to us are the price we pay for a new system, ending a dictatorship and building a new system.

"We paid for these kinds of changes throughout history with our blood, every time in history there was a conflict between East and West."

Much of the blood spilled by Muslim fanatics in post-Saddam Iraq has been from Mandeans, a Biblical sect known for its white robes, river baptisms and devotion to the teachings of John the Baptist.

"After the war, we have documented 49 kidnappings, killings and rapes against Mandeans in different parts of Iraq," said Karam Majeed, who is creating an organization to preserve Mandean culture.

Shortly after the war, a senior Muslim cleric based in southern Iraq published a fatwa, or religious edict, on his Web site: "When we consider Mandeans, we don't know much about their religion, but they are unclean."

Said Mr. Majeed: "This is a very dangerous order because it means a Muslim cannot have contact with a Mandean. It also means that Muslims have the right to attack Mandeans. They don't consider it a crime to attack someone who is 'unclean.'"

He read from a dossier of attacks during the past year:

In Sadr City, a vast Shi'ite slum that houses more than half of Baghdad's 5 million people, gunshots were fired into shops owned by Mandeans and the words "your day is coming" were written on a wall.

A woman in Baghdad was handed a note that read: "You are a Mandean, so you must pay 1 million Iraqi dinars , or we will kill your three daughters."

In Falluja, the stronghold of Sunni Muslim insurgence a city now sealed off by U.S. Marines after the murder-mutilation of four Americans last week Mandean families have been forced to convert to Islam.

If they refuse, they must leave Falluja or be killed.

In the city of Kut, five houses owned by Mandeans were blown up, one last April and four in June.

Police efforts

The police are typically of little help, and little effort is made to differentiate between common crime and attacks motivated by religion.

When people are kidnapped for ransom a crime that has become commonplace but was unheard of in Saddam's time police often tell families of whatever religious faith to pay the kidnappers because there is nothing they can do.

As for crimes with a clear religious motive, the situation is even worse, said Mr. Majeed. "We can't even go to the Interior Ministry. They won't even admit there is Islamic persecution of minority religions. The only people who can do anything about this are the Americans."

The spiritual leader of the Mandeans, Satar Jabar, who has a long white beard, has written several letters to Mr. Bremer but received no response.

"We don't have representation in the Governing Council or any of the ministries. They didn't ask us for anything," Mr. Jabar said.

As for the family of the two murdered children, an aid group took the father to Amman, Jordan, and two uncles moved in to guard the wife and children, whose shy smiles belie their recurring nightmares of the attackers coming back.

 

ANOTHER SUSPECT GUNNED DOWN IN RIYADH

Another suspect gunned down in Riyadh as hunt for Islamic militants goes on
AFP
April 6, 2004

Saudi security forces have gunned down another suspected militant in their ongoing crackdown against presumed Al-Qaeda sympathizers, but with authorities giving little away, initial signs were that he did not figure on a most-wanted list.

A terse statement by the interior ministry on a car chase in an eastern district of Riyadh late Monday that left one man dead and another wounded also left the door open to contradictory accounts about the incident.

Policemen at the site and several newspapers Tuesday said the pair were not on the list of 26 most wanted suspects, which has gone down to 22 since it was issued in December following a series of suicide bombings targeting residential compounds that killed 52 people here last May and November.

The interior ministry said only that it was trying to establish the identities of the two men, whom it did not even describe as wanted militants.

Instead, security forces had been on the lookout for the car "with stolen license plates" in which they were traveling, and the shootout occurred when security men caught up with them after they resisted orders to stop, opened fire and sped away.

Witnesses said special forces were dispatched to reinforce security patrols which cordoned off the site in Al-Rawdah district, and their accounts of a siege of a villa in the area was backed up by some newspapers Tuesday.

However, while one report said the wounded man fled to the villa and was captured there, another spoke of a third man who was suspected of having taken refuge in the house.

The incident was the latest in a series of similar gunbattles which have taken place, chiefly in Riyadh, since the May 2003 bombings.

Security measures have since been tightened around government institutions, foreign embassies grouped in a so-called "diplomatic quarter," and other facilities, such as hotels, considered potential terrorist targets.

Many suspects, as well as security personnel, have been killed in the clashes.

Hundreds more presumed Islamist extremists have been rounded up across the vast kingdom, and authorities have reported seizures of huge caches of weapons and explosives, including hundreds of explosive belts.

The biggest catch for authorities came on March 15 when security forces shot dead a Yemeni national who was subsequently described as Al-Qaeda's head of operations in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf.

Khaled Ali bin Haj, who ranked third on the most-wanted list, was suspected of having ordered the attacks on residential complexes, according to Saudi security sources.

Two other men on the list had earlier been killed in clashes with security forces -- one of whom had been only wounded but was left to die by his comrades, according to authorities -- while a third man turned himself in.

One of the claims made during Monday night's episode, which lasted some four hours, was that security forces were besieging the number one on the list, Abdul Aziz al-Megren, in an uninhabited villa in Al-Rawdah.

The claim fueled the rumor mill that usually accompanies and follows such incidents.

It also showed that authorities still have some way to go to end the terror threat despite their unrelenting pursuit of suspects that has earned plaudits even from Washington, which once accused Riyadh of being lenient toward terrorists.

The Saudi government has tried to enlist the help of the public in tracking down militants believed linked to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s Al-Qaeda, posting rewards of up to 1.9 million dollars for information that would thwart a potential attack or lead to the capture of one or more suspects.

But officials have not ruled out the possibility of further attacks.

And they have yet to find a vehicle rigged with explosives which, according to an interior ministry statement issued on February 13, has been wandering around in the Saudi capital.

 

QATAR BEGINS TRIAL OF RUSSIANS ACCUSED OF KILLING CHECHEN LEADER

Qatar begins trial of Russians accused of killing Chechen leader
Text of report by Russian Mayak radio on
April 6, 2004

Russian diplomats have gone on trial in Qatar, Qatari Foreign Minister Shaykh Hamad Bin-Jasim Bin-Jabr Al Thani has said. He added that he was not sure if the trial would take account of a recent law introducing the death penalty for terrorism.

Three Russian citizens, who were on a business trip to Qatar, were arrested in Doha in the early hours of 19 February. They are accused of involvement in the assassination of Chechen separatist [leader] Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev [on 13 February 2004].

[Russia has said that it is making every effort to free its citizens, the Russian RIA agency (Moscow, in Russian 0601 gmt 6 Apr 04) reported. "Russia is continuing to make every possible effort to bring our citizens back to Russia," a Russian official said, according to the agency.]

FULL ARTICLES

40 DEAD AS US BOMBS FALLUJAH MOSQUE

40 dead as US bombs Fallujah mosque
ABC Australia News
AFP/Reuters
April 7, 2004

www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1083525.htm

US Marines pressing an offensive in Fallujah, west of Iraq capital Baghdad, have bombed a mosque in the centre of the town and killed up to 40 insurgents inside, a Marine officer said. The attack came from a jet aircraft at a high angle to minimise the impact, the officer said.

"We wanted to kill the people inside," said Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne.

The officer said a Cobra helicopter gunship fired a Hell Fire missile at the mosque and then an aircraft dropped a laser-guided precision bomb.

Fallujah residents confirmed that the Abdulaziz al-Samarai mosque was hit along with the building of the Islamic Scholars' Association.

The officer said the marines carried out the raid as precisely as they could because there are people living nearby.

US forces say the insurgents, who are fiercely opposed to the US-led occupation of Iraq, were using mosques to fire on marines and to hide weapons.

Earlier on Wednesday, all the city mosques called for a "jihad" (holy war) against occupation forces amid intense bombardments and aircraft overflights, an AFP correspondent said.

The insurgents claimed in a communique to have shot down three US helicopters, destroyed two jeeps and two armoured vehicles.

They also claimed they were still in control of the city and had put US forces to flight.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Byrne said the Marines advancing from the south reached the centre of Fallujah amid fierce fighting on the third day of "Operation Vigilant Resolve" to flush out insurgents who killed four American contractors here last week.

"The Marines are now at the centre of the city," he told AFP.

It was not immediately clear if Marines advancing from the north had also reached the centre of Fallujah.

Meanwhile, the US army says one of its helicopters has been hit by small arms fire north of Baghdad, but landed safely with no reports of casualties.

A US spokesman says the helicopter landed near Baquba, 65 kilometres north of Baghdad.

In the town of Balad, one US soldier was killed and one wounded during a skirmish with insurgents.

Iraqi police in the town of Kerbala say Polish troops have killed the head of militant Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's office in the city.

And near Kirkuk, eight Iraqis have been killed when clashes broke out between US troops and demonstrators voicing support for Sunni resistance to the US-led occupation.

 

US MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
The Associated Press
April 6, 2004

As of Tuesday, April 6, 619 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq (news - web sites) last year, according to the Department of Defense (news - web sites). Of those, 429 died as a result of hostile action and 190 died of non-hostile causes.

The British military has reported 58 deaths; Italy, 17; Spain, eight; Bulgaria, five; Ukraine, four; Thailand, two; Denmark, El Salvador (news - web sites), Estonia and Poland have reported one each.

Since May 1, when President Bush (news - web sites) declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 481 U.S. soldiers have died 320 as a result of hostile action and 161 of non-hostile causes, according to the military.

 

IRAN, HEZBOLLAH SUPPORT AL-SADR

Iran, Hezbollah support al-Sadr
By Rowan Scarborough
The Washington Times
April 7, 2004

Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Iraqi Shi'ite cleric who ordered his fanatical militia to attack coalition troops, is being supported by Iran and its terror surrogate Hezbollah, according to military sources with access to recent intelligence reports.

Sheik al-Sadr's bid to spark a widespread uprising in Iraq comes at a particularly pivotal time. The United States is conducting a massive troop rotation that leaves inexperienced troops in some locations, including Fallujah, which is west of Baghdad and where Sunnis have mounted another series of rebellions.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that he will consider more U.S. forces for Iraq if his top commander there, Gen. John Abizaid, requests them. There are about 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and the force strength is scheduled to shrink by 15,000 once the rotation is completed.

"The commanders are using the excess of forces that happen to be in there because of the deployment process," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters. "They will decide what they need, and they will get what they need."

Sheik al-Sadr, who has traveled to Iran and met with its hard-line Shi'ite clerics, is an ardent foe of the United States who wants all foreign troops to leave.

The United States suspects that his goal is to create a hard-line Shi'ite regime in Iraq modeled after Tehran's government. Military sources said Sheik al-Sadr is being aided directly by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which plays a large role in running that country, and by Hezbollah, an Iranian-created terrorist group based in Lebanon.

One of the sources said these two organizations are supplying the cleric with money, spiritual support and possibly weapons. "Iran does not want a success in Iraq," the source said.

"A democratic Iraq is a death knell to the mullahs." Sheik al-Sadr upped the ante during the weekend by calling for his 3,000-strong militia, the Army of the Mahdi, to begin attacking coalition forces. His fiery words touched off attacks throughout southern Iraq.

The Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad announced on Monday that an Iraqi judge months ago had issued an arrest warrant for Sheik al-Sadr on a charge of murdering a moderate Shi'ite cleric.

The question for U.S. commanders is how to arrest Sheik al-Sadr without further enraging his small but violent group of followers. "Let the Iraqis kill him," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney. "We should not kill him, but we may have to. He's trying to create an uprising. This is their Tet offensive. We're going to kill a lot of them just like we did at Tet."

John Hillen, a former Army captain who fought in Operation Desert Storm during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, said the first step should be to try to discredit the cleric, using the condemnation of moderate Shi'ite leaders, before arresting him.

"You need to defuse the situation," Mr. Hillen said. "You need to make it Iraqi versus Iraqi. You've got to discredit him by his own people and find legitimate sources on our side. Make this as much a Shi'ite-to-Shi'ite issue as opposed to the Americans versus Sadr."

The U.S. military is trying new tactics to try to quell insurgents in Fallujah, avoiding time-consuming house-to-house sweeps in favor of targeted raids based on hard intelligence. When the 82nd Airborne Division first tried to subdue Fallujah in the summer, units went block by block to locate insurgents. Now, in the second intense battle for the city of Saddam Hussein loyalists, intelligence collection has improved and U.S. Marines can target specific dwellings.

"The plan is not to go house to house, street to street. We are trying to get insurgents," Capt. Ed Sullivan told Agence France-Presse.

Mr. Hillen said such precision operations mean that the Marines are getting good intelligence. "If you have good intelligence beforehand, which is the key to the whole Fallujah-type operations, you can at the same time be precise and overwhelming. We've been in and around Fallujah for quite some time, and I'm sure we have some pretty good intelligence sources there."

Mr. Rumsfeld said part of the intelligence resources are photographs of Iraqis who participated in the killings and mutilations of four American contractors. The former military commandos were serving as security staff in Fallujah and moving on a main road frequently traveled by coalition personnel when they were ambushed.

"They have photographs of a good many people who were involved in the attacks against the individuals, and they have been conducting raids in the city against high-value targets," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "They've captured a number of people over the past 36 hours. The city is isolated. A number of people have resisted and been killed. And it will be a methodical effort to find the individuals who were involved."

 

UKRAINE TROOPS LEAVE IRAQI CITY IN HANDS OF RADICAL SHIITES

Ukraine troops leave Iraqi city in hands of radical Shiites
AFP
April 7, 2004

Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Iraqi city of Kut, south of the capital Baghdad, after heavy fighting with supporters of radical Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr who now control the city, the defence ministry said.

"At the request of the Americans, and to preserve the life of our military, the commander of the Ukrainian contingent decided to evacuate the civil administration staff and Ukrainian troops from Kut," the ministry said in a statement.

"The operation began at dawn on Wednesday... under escort from attack helicopters," the ministry added.

Members of the Iraqi civil defense forces already on Tuesday had said that Sadr's militia controlled Kut, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of Baghdad, but this was denied by the Ukrainian military.

According to the Ukrainian defence ministry, fighting lasted for around 24 hours and left several dozen Iraqis dead and one Ukrainian soldier -- the first to be killed in combat in Iraq.

The Ukrainian soldiers retreated to their base outside Kut in the Iraqi province of Wasit. "The situation is calm and under control in the rest of the province," the defence ministry said.

Ukraine has some 1,650 troops in Iraq, part of a 9,000-strong Polish-led force controlling a swathe of the country south of Baghdad.

Last month Kiev said it was not planning to pull out its troops despite Spain's decision to recall its 1,300 soldiers from the war-torn country by the end of June unless they come under UN command.

The Spanish troops also serve in the Polish-led sector.

 

60 IRAQIS KILLED IN FALLUJAH FIGHTING

60 Iraqis Killed in Fallujah Fighting
By Bassem Mroue
The Associated Press
April 7, 2004

Fighting overnight between U.S. forces and Iraqi insurgents killed 60 Iraqis and wounded more than 130, hospital officials said Wednesday, as mosques called for holy war against Americans and women were seen carrying weapons in the streets.

Marines and gunmen were engaged in heavy battles in the Dubat neighborhood on the eastern side of the besieged city and in other parts in the center, witnesses said. U.S. warplanes opened fire on groups of Iraqis in the street.

Rocket-propelled grenade fire set a U.S. Humvee ablaze, injuring soldiers inside, witnesses said.

Among the dead were 26 people including 16 children and up to eight women killed when warplanes struck four houses late Tuesday, said Hatem Samir, head of the clinic at Fallujah Hospital. Others were killed in street battles before dawn and into the day Wednesday.

Messages from mosque loudspeakers called for "jihad," or holy war. Some gunmen in the street were seen carrying mortars, and some women carried automatic weapons.

Hundreds of U.S. Marines and Iraqi police have surrounded Fallujah, west of Baghdad, since Monday in a largescale operation aimed at uprooting Sunni Arab guerrillas behind attacks on Americans.

Also Wednesday, U.S. troops battled with insurgents in two central Iraqi towns a day after up to a dozen Marines, two more coalition soldiers and scores of Iraqis were killed in the most extensive fighting since President Bush (news - web sites) declared the war over in May.

Fighting was spreading in several directions at once, with Shiite militiamen attacking coalition troops and taking control of several southern cities.

Marines this week launched a major operation to root out Sunni Muslim guerrilas from one of their strongest bastions, the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. But on Tuesday, the insurgents opened a new front with a bloody attack on Marines in the nearby town of Ramadi.

Gunmen hiding in Ramadi's main cemetery opened fire on U.S. patrols, sparking a gunbattle in alleys and near the governor's palace, witnesses said, reporting at least two Iraqis were killed. "A significant number" of Marines were killed, and initial reports indicate it may be up to a dozen, a senior defense official said from Washington.

New fighting erupted in the same Ramadi neighborhood on Wednesday, witnesses said.

In the south, Shiite militiamen attacked coalition troops in five cities Tuesday in battles in a revolt sparked by a U.S. crackdown on their leader, radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr urged Iraqis to rise up against the U.S. occupation and vowed to die rather than be captured by U.S. forces. "America has shown its evil intentions, and the proud Iraqi people cannot accept it," he said in a statement. "They must defend their rights by any means they see fit."

Depending on the number of Ramadi deaths, Tuesday's casualties could have brought the total since Sunday as high as about 30 Americans and more than 150 Iraqis killed in the fighting.

Clashes continued overnight between militiamen from al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army and coalition troops in Kut, Karbala and the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad. At least 12 Iraqis were killed in Kut and four in Baghdad, along with two Iranians caught in the crossfire in Karbala, according to doctors.

The al-Mahdi Army appeared to be in control of Kut and Kufa, occupying government buildings and roaming the streets, as Iraqi police stood aside. Witnesses reported that a British civilian working for a private security company was killed when militiamen took over the company's office in Kut.

Signs were emerging of growing sympathy between Sunni Muslim insurgents and al-Sadr's Shiite movement. In mainly Sunni Ramadi, portraits of al-Sadr were posted on government buildings, schools and mosques, along with graffiti praising him for his "heroic deeds" and "valiant uprising against the occupier."

 

AT LEAST 36 IRAQIS KILLED IN FALLUJA - DOCTORS

At Least 36 Iraqis Killed in Falluja - Doctors
Reuters
April 7, 2004

Fighting in the Iraqi town of Falluja has killed at least 36 civilians over the past day, doctors said on Wednesday, including 25 killed in a house destroyed in an attack that locals blamed on U.S. forces.

Witnesses said the house in the Sunni Muslim town, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, was hit by rockets fired by a U.S. helicopter on Tuesday night. A U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she had no information on the incident.

The house was reduced to rubble in the attack. Locals said four families had been sheltering there and that some victims were still buried in the debris.

Witnesses said fighting raged in several parts of the town on Wednesday.

U.S. Marines who took charge of the tense Sunni cities of Falluja and Ramadi last month have begun an operation aimed at hunting down guerrillas in the area.

"Operation Vigiliant Resolve" follows the killing of four U.S. private security guards in Falluja a week ago. After they were killed, a crowd of Iraqis set the bodies ablaze, mutilated them and hanged two of them from a bridge.

U.S. troops were stationed mostly along the perimeter of Falluja, which has been paralyzed by the fighting, witnesses said.

"We want the Arab League and international organizations to pressure the Americans to end this brutal siege," said Falluja resident Samir Muhammad.

"The (Iraq (news - web sites)'s) Governing Council are a bunch of traitors. They should tell the Americans to end this."

Falluja residents said they were also suffering from electricity and water shortages. Main roads leading out of the town are closed off, they said.

In Ramadi, around a dozen Marines were killed in fighting on Tuesday, U.S. officials said. On Monday, five Marines were killed in al-Anbar province that includes Ramadi and Falluja.

 

IRAQIS IN AL-FALLUJAH CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION

raqis in Al-Fallujah call for international intervention - TV
Text of report by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 7 April

The people of Al-Fallujah, who assembled at the city's old cemetery today to bury those who were killed in the US bombardment, have made an appeal to all Iraqis and Arabs and to the international forces to intervene to lift the US siege on Al-Fallujah and stop the ongoing US shelling of the city. At the same time, they reiterated their determination to continue the fight which was imposed upon them as they put it.

[Abd-al-Wahab al-Qaysi, identified as a notable in the city, - recording] We have to hold out, fight and struggle. This is our land. We did not attack America. It is America that attacked us. It travelled thousands of kilometres across the oceans to attack us. We have to hold fast to our religion, men, Islam and mosques.

[Video shows Iraqis assembling at cemetery, speaking to Al-Jazeera correspondent]

Source: Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic 0805 gmt 7 Apr 04

 

AL-JAZEERA REPORTS "FIERCE BATTLES" IN AL-FALLUJAH

Al-Jazeera reports "fierce battles" in Al-Fallujah
Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic
April 7, 2004

Al-Jazeera TV's correspondent in Al-Fallujah reported "fierce battles" in the Iraqi town on 7 April. In a live broadcast from the town, correspondent Ahmad Mansur said that there were unconfirmed reports that two US helicopters had crashed in the area.

Battles had been continuing in several areas of the eastern side for the last one and a half to two hours, the reporter said, including Al-Askari quarter, Al-Dubbat quarter, the industrial quarter and the Nazzal area. Mansur added that "fierce battles are now taking place in the Julan area in the northwest of the city".

There were unconfirmed reports of two US helicopters crashing in the area, Mansur said.

"Eyewitnesses have confirmed to us that two US helicopters crashed near Al-Anbar school. We are trying to confirm this report and we sent some people to that place," he said.

US forces were engaged in a "real street fight" with the "defenders of the city", Mansur commented.

"The US forces combed Al-Dubbat quarter and arrested some people there. The people defending the city are trying to repel the US attacks. They are firing rockets. The US forces withdraw or retreat a little and then return. Dozens of marines have entered some streets on foot in the industrial area, the Al-Julan and Nazzal quarters," Mansur reported.

Commenting on the humanitarian situation in the town, Mansur said there was a shortage of food supplies. People were sticking together and were "determined to defend the city", he added.

"The mosques are broadcasting calls of Allahu Akbar [Arabic: God is Great] in all directions," the correspondent said.

"It is very difficult to move around in the city. Barricades fill the streets. Smoke is rising from the industrial area after many shops were hit. Some houses are on fire in the areas around the industrial quarter," Mansur added.

"The people of Al-Fallujah are appealing to the international community to intervene to end this siege on 300,000 civilians, mostly women and children," Mansur reported.

 

BRITAIN SENDS REPLACEMENT TROOPS TO IRAQ

Britain Sends Replacement Troops to Iraq
April 6, 2004

Thousands of troops will fly out to Iraq this week to relieve British forces already serving there, the Ministry of Defense said Tuesday.

The 4,500-strong 1st Mechanized Brigade will take over from 20 Armored Brigade in southern Iraq, a spokesman said, adding that the deployment was starting this week and would take about 10 days. Britain has some 8,700 troops stationed in Iraq.

The latest British contingent didn't amount to additional troops, a spokesman said.

"They are not additional," he said. "It is one brigade taking over from another.

"We always keep things under consideration and review but there are no plans in the pipeline at the moment to send out additional troops."