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From: Koch, Edward I.
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 9:36 PM
Subject: Letter to The New York Times

I thought you would be interested in the following letter that I sent to The New York Times. -- Edward I. Koch

September 21, 2004

Letter Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:

In today’s article reporting the decapitation by terrorists in Iraq of American civilian Eugene Armstrong, The Times reporter wrote:

"In the video of the beheading, an insurgent wearing a ski mask and surrounded by four men with assault rifles says the group is killing Mr. Armstrong because the American occupiers and the interim Iraqi government failed to meet the deadline. Much of the man’s long speech is addressed to President Bush, who is called a dog at one point."

Please note that the news article omitted an important part of the story which was the exact phrase uttered by the executioner at the time he cut Armstrong's throat and severed his head from his body. That phrase was, "Oh you Christian dog, Bush, stop your arrogance."

The reference to President Bush by the terrorist strengthens the belief of many that we are involved in a war of civilizations. Fanatic Islamists believe that Christians and Jews who do not recognize the supremacy of Islam should die. That awful message is part of the story and The Times erred in not carrying that quote which many other papers did.

Lee Hamilton, Co-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, has said in describing Muslim terrorists, "They want to kill us." Why? Because those making up western civilization and its ideas which Jihad is bent on destroying are overwhelming Christians and Jews. I believe it is President Bush’s faith that gives him the strength to stay with and implement the Bush Doctrine which is, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Your reporter refers to the spokesman for the murderers as an "insurgent." What would it take for The Times to call someone who has just participated in the beheading of an innocent civilian a terrorist? I am sure the public would like to know.

Sincerely,
Edward I. Koch

 

IRAQ WAR LEADS JEWISH VOTERS TO KERRY, POLL FINDS

Iraq War Leads Jewish Voters To Kerry, Poll Finds
By Alan Cooperman
The Washington Post
September 22, 2004

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is gaining support among Jewish voters as growing numbers disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, according to a poll commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.

If the election were held today, 69 percent of Jewish voters would support Kerry, 24 percent would back Bush and 3 percent would give their votes to Ralph Nader, the survey found. That's an increase of 10 percentage points for Kerry since December, when the previous AJC poll showed him with 59 percent of the Jewish vote.

But there is also a bright side of the survey for Bush. Though he has lost ground among Jewish voters since the beginning of the year, he is still five percentage points ahead of where he was in the 2000 election, when he received 19 percent of the Jewish vote, according to exit polls.

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,000 Jewish voters was conducted Aug. 18 to Sept. 1 and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Although Jews make up only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, they are a significant group in some battlegrounds, such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a major fundraising base for Democratic candidates.

The poll did not ask why voters support Bush or Kerry. But some of its findings suggest that the rising support for Kerry is connected to the war in Iraq, according to David A. Harris, executive director of the nonpartisan AJC. The survey found that 66 percent of U.S. Jews disapprove of the war, up from 54 percent in December; 57 percent think the threat of terrorism against the United States has increased as a result of the war.

"The president has not made any inroads among the middle-of-the-road Jewish voters, probably because, on issues like abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gun control and church-state issues, he has stuck with his most loyal conservative constituency and has not tacked toward the center," Harris said.

 

POLL: JEWS STILL FAVOR KERRY

Poll: Jews still favor Kerry
Jewish outreach leads to minor gains
By Matthew E. Berger
Jewish Telegraph Agency
September 21, 2004

www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=Poll%3A+Jews+still+prefer+Kerry&intcategoryid=3&SearchOptimize=Jewish+News

Preferences among presidential candidates, according to the AJCommittee's 2004 Survey of American Jewish Opinion.

A survey published less than two months before the presidential election shows a small bump for President Bush in the American Jewish vote, despite his campaign’s energetic outreach to the community.

The nonpartisan poll, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, found Jews backing Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over Bush by nearly a 3-to-1 margin.

Bush received 24 percent of respondents' support in the poll, just a 5 percent increase from his performance among Jewish voters in the 2000 presidential election. Kerry received 69 percent support among those polled in the new survey.

Democrats say the poll is another sign that Bush's messages to the Jewish community are not resonating, while Republicans say it shows Kerry lagging behind recent Jewish support for the Democratic Party’s candidate.

The annual poll of Jewish views showed a majority of American Jews disapprove of the U.S. government's handling of the war against terrorism and the war in Iraq.

It also found wide support in the Jewish community for Israel’s current policies in the Middle East, such as unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank security barrier.

Still, backing for Bush administration policy in the Middle East is not turning into votes for the president.

The Bush/Cheney campaign has been working hard to garner additional Jewish support this election season, capitalizing on support within the Jewish community for Bush’s policies on Israel.

But while many tout anecdotal shifts to the Bush camp among Jews, polling data continues to suggest that Jews will not change their traditional alliance with the Democratic Party in November.

Market Facts conducted the American Jewish Committee poll, in which 1,000 Jews were surveyed during the course of two weeks last month. Three percent of respondents backed independent candidate Ralph Nader and 5 percent were undecided.

The results of the poll, which has a 3 percentage points margin of error, are similar to other surveys of the Jewish vote done within the last year.

A National Jewish Democratic Council poll last month had Kerry garnering 75 percent to Bush's 22 percent, and last year's American Jewish Committee poll, taken before the Democratic primaries, had Bush getting 31 percent to Kerry's 59 percent in a theoretical matchup.

The American Jewish Committee polls did not seek likely or registered voters, only survey respondents. Market Facts maintains a pool of respondents who have said they are Jewish, and randomly dials from that pool to reach Jews. Democrats say the latest poll shows Jews remain loyal to the party.

"It looks pretty similar to our poll," said Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. He said he believes Kerry could accumulate more Jewish support as the candidate continues to define himself to voters and noted that incumbents rarely do well among undecided voters.

But Republicans see the numbers differently, touting Bush’s improvement in Jewish support from 2000.

"If these numbers hold, the president will do" significantly better than he did in 2000," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition. "Thirty percent movement is by any measure a significant measure."

And in an apparent change of strategy, Republicans are highlighting what they describe as Kerry’s relative weak support among Jewish voters, when comparing him to other Democratic presidential candidates of the last 12 years.

Vice President Al Gore garnered 79 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, and President Clinton won 80 percent in 1992 and 78 percent in 1996.

But the 1988 Democratic candidate, Michael Dukakis, got 64 percent of the Jewish support, and Walter Mondale won 67 percent in 1984.

Republicans have been engaged in a strong effort to woo Jewish voters. The White House published a 23-page booklet touting Bush’s support for Jewish issues and the party held events geared toward the Orthodox community at the Republican National Convention last month in New York.

In recent weeks, however, Bush backers have minimized expectations, acknowledging that Bush will likely not hit the 30 percent threshold some had predicted a year ago.

"We've never come out and said, 'We'll achieve X amount of the vote,'" Michael Lebovitz, Jewish liaison for the Bush/Cheney campaign, said Monday. "We have a long-term commitment."

The goal is now more focused on making a substantial dent in key states such as Florida and Ohio, where the race is close and there are a large percentage of Jews.

"The Republicans were never going to win a majority of Jewish voters," said Ken Goldstein, professor of political science and Judaic studies at the University of Wisconsin. "It was always going to be about trying to steal a few, and it matters where those eight, nine, 10 are coming from."

The poll shows Jews distancing themselves from Bush precisely on issues like foreign policy where the Bush campaign hoped to take traction.

A majority of respondents was not happy with the country’s foreign policy direction, with 52 percent disapproving of the handling of the campaign against terrorism, and 66 percent disapproving of the war in Iraq.

By contrast, the latest Gallup poll shows 57 percent of Americans believe the United States did not make a mistake in sending American troops in Iraq. In addition, 59 percent of Americans said they were at least somewhat satisfied with the United States' handling of the war in Iraq.

The AJCommittee survey found that 63 percent of American Jews support the Israeli government's handling of relations with the Palestinian Authority. The unilateral withdrawal plan had 65 percent support, and the security fence garnered 69 percent support.

Fifty-seven percent of Jews said they favored the creation of a Palestinian state, and 69 percent of respondents said Israel should be willing to dismantle all or some Jewish settlements in the West Bank to reach a permanent settlement.

On the issue of gay rights, three out of four Jews said they opposed an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. About half of those surveyed said they favored legal marriage for gay couples, while an additional 36 percent said they supported civil unions. Thirteen percent wanted no legal recognition.

A May CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey found 56 percent of Americans support civil unions, and 51 percent also support the proposed constitutional amendment.

Twenty-seven percent of those surveyed by the American Jewish Committee said anti-Semitism is a very serious problem in the United States, with an additional 67 percent saying it was somewhat a problem. Most respondents said they thought anti-Semitism in the United States would either increase somewhat or remain the same within the next several years.

 

KERRY FLIP ON WEST BANK WALL MAY COST VOTES

Kerry flip on West Bank wall may cost votes, some say
By S.V. Date
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
September 24, 2004

www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2004/09/24/a13a_kerry_0924.html

Efforts to secure part of the Democratic Party's Florida base may cost Sen. John Kerry support from a smaller, but possibly vital, constituency: Arab-Americans.

In a recent interview with The Palm Beach Post, Kerry reiterated his support for the Jewish state, including its right to built a security barrier through the occupied West Bank territory and its ability to buy advanced weapons, such as "bunker-busting" bombs.

Israel used such a bomb two years ago to assassinate a terrorist leader in the Gaza Strip, but the explosion also killed 15 civilians, including children.

Kerry also said that, although he would encourage movement toward a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians, he would not do so "at the expense of Israel's right to defend herself."

"Israel has to negotiate Israel's security, not the United States," Kerry said.

Kerry's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears virtually identical to that of President George W. Bush, whom Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called Israel's strongest supporter ever in the White House.

Republicans, who have been working to eat into the estimated 80 percent support that Jewish voters in Florida gave to the Democratic ticket in 2000, said it is too late to be shoring up votes from those who traditionally have supported the Democratic Party.

"Me-too leadership is not what the Jewish community is looking for," said state Rep. Adam Hasner, a Delray Beach Republican and Florida chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign's Jewish Outreach Coalition.

Kerry's position supporting Israel in its construction of a barrier — the 480-mile project includes trenches, barbed wire and concrete walls — goes against the international community, which has condemned it. The position also is a change from what Kerry told Arab-Americans at a conference last October, when he called the project a "barrier to peace."

"It certainly was a bit of a slap in the face to us," said James Zogby, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Arab American Institute. "It was embarrassing."

Taleb Salhab, head of the Florida Arab American Leadership Council and a Democratic activist in Orange County, conceded that Kerry's stronger pro-Israel line would make it tougher to persuade Arab-American voters to support him.

Still, he said Arab-Americans interested in seeing Palestinians getting their own state and bringing peace to the region would be better off with Kerry than with Bush, who Salhab said had essentially given Sharon carte blanche to do whatever he wanted.

During Bush's three years in office, "more Palestinians and Israelis have died than in any other three-year period in the last 30 years," Salhab said.

There are about 500,000 Jewish voters in Florida and about 120,000 Arab-American voters.

Michael Lebovitz, Jewish Outreach coordinator for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Kerry's changing position on the issue would help Bush win more than the 19 percent of the Jewish vote he received nationally in 2000.

"The president has been steadfast in his support for Israel and helping Israel remain safe and secure," Lebovitz said. "I contrast that with Sen. Kerry, who, depending on the audience he's talking to, says different things."

Zogby said he believes Kerry took some bad advice when he shifted his position. He said Jewish voters tend to be fairly liberal on social issues and the vast majority of them would have supported Kerry even with his original stance.

"At the end of the of the day, I don't think they gained five votes, but I think they lost many more than that," Zogby said.

He said he continues to support Kerry because he believes Bush has been uncritically supportive of Israel and unengaged in the conflict there.

Kerry, who spoke to The Post Wednesday after meeting with about 65 Jewish community leaders from Palm Beach and Broward counties, also said he would be better for Israel's security by fixing the "mess" in Iraq.

"I think President Bush has drawn terrorists to the region who weren't there previously," he said of the war in Iraq. Kerry also criticized Bush's close ties to Saudi Arabia's ruling family and promoted an energy policy focusing on alternative and renewable fuel sources.

"His sweetheart relationship with the Saudis... has not improved Israel's security," Kerry said. "That energy policy will really make Israel more secure, by letting us hold the Arab countries more accountable."

 

ARAB GUIDE TO THE 2004 ELECTION

Arab Guide to the 2004 Election
By Steven Stalinsky
Executive Director of The Middle East Media Research Institute
www.memri.org
July 29, 2004

Some critical info to keep in mind before casting your ballot

The Arab and Iranian press have increasingly discussed the upcoming American presidential election. Most journalists are pulling for a Kerry victory. Other commentators have said that the choice between the two is like "choosing between cholera and the plague."

The Iranian press has been particularly active in monitoring the elections. The editor of the Egyptian Al-Gil newspaper, Nagi Al Shihabi, was interviewed by the Iranian Al-Alam TV on June 13, and said: "The U.S. wants to eradicate our religious and Islamic identity. Bush declared a Crusader war following the events of 9/11... The U.S. established its country over the body parts of 120 million Indians. We must first define the enemy. The no. 1 enemy of the Arab and Islamic peoples is the U.S. and not only Israel... Bush, Allah willing, will go to hell in this coming November."

During his Friday sermon in the city of Qom, broadcast by Channel 2 of Iranian TV on June 19, preacher Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli called on Americans to vote against Mr. Bush: "We advise the people of America not to continue to tolerate this oppressing, ignorant, pillaging, criminal, and discriminating administration. In the future, do not vote for Bush and his ilk."

Writing in the Tehran Times on June 17, Kian Nader Mokhtari praised Senator Kerry, and hoped that he would triumph over the "neo-Nazis" of the Bush administration: "It has long been a tradition in U.S. politics for irresponsible gun-toting Republican presidents to pass on unresolved dilemmas to their Democratic replacements, and Bush will be no exception…Kerry is exactly what the U.S. needs… Kerry's sensible and methodical approach will no doubt go some distance in solving the stinking heap of a mess left over by Bush and his neo-conservatives — for a minute there I was going to type neo-Nazis!...He [Kerry] may be remembered as the president whose decisions saved the U.S..."

The Lebanese minister of information, Michael Samaha, also discussed the election on Syrian TV on March 30: "The most important thing that could happen in the coming American elections if Kerry wins is that the neo-conservatives leave. They have a complete ideology regarding their treatment of the world and specifically the Middle East and the Near East to which we belong. If they leave, the real American America will return."

In an article in Al-Ahram weekly on April 18, an Arab-Israeli member of Knesset, Azmi Bishara, called on Arab-Americans to "rethink their alliance with Bush" and "shift their votes from Bush to Kerry."

But not everyone in the Arab and Iranian press supports Mr. Kerry. In an interview with Al-Siyassah daily, Sheik Saud Al Nasser Al Sabah, who was Kuwait's ambassador to America from 1981 until 1992, said he hopes Republicans will stay in power: "If the American administration changes in November, it will be catastrophic... because those Democrats do not understand a thing about foreign policy, and they lack the determination to make decisions the way Bush made them in Iraq and elsewhere." He added, "Our only hope is that this administration will continue for the next few years..."

California State University professor Asad Abu Khalil was interviewed by the Iranian channel Al-Alam TV on June 23. The professor said: "I say that decision-making in American foreign policy is done by more than just one group. There is, of course, the neo-conservative group, but there is another group which is more important and that is the Christian fundamentalists — the Christian Taliban, which is influential in the U.S., to which the American president belongs...The nature of the American empire may change under John Kerry, but we shouldn't do what some PLO representatives in Western capitals did, when they opened champagne bottles when the Labor party replaced the Likud..."

The Saudi-owned Iqra TV hosted a political debate on March 24. The moderator asked the panel their opinions on voting for Mr. Kerry or Mr. Bush, "Sir, do you believe the American voter will vote for Kerry as a reaction to the position of Bush junior, who always supports Sharon? "A Palestinian politician and writer, Abd Al-Qader Yassin, said: "We need to choose between cholera and the plague."

As November approaches, it is interesting to note that four years ago the Arab and Iranian press was giddy about a Governor Bush victory over Vice President Gore, which was seen as an end to the Clinton administration's Middle East policy. The same press is again calling for a change in the White House.

PUBLISHED LETTER IN THE NATIONAL REVIEW FROM THE GLOBAL HEAD OF REUTERS, FOLLOWED BY MY PUBLISHED RESPONSE

Trouble in Reuterville
The National Review
September 2004

Tom Gross commits all the sins of journalism of which he accuses Reuters ("The Case of Reuters," July 26), with no proper evidence except comments from an unnamed and disgruntled former employee. That is hardly an impeccable source and its use breaches a cardinal rule of good journalism. Gross also failed to ask us for comment.

As he acknowledges, Reuters has a 150-year reputation that is synonymous with good, fair, and objective news-gathering. This reputation is maintained throughout the world, including in our coverage of the Middle East conflict.

All of our journalists are made fully aware that balance is essential in every story. They are also bound by a code of conduct that bars them from political activity. We have a no-tolerance approach to bias whether it concerns text, pictures, or television.

Reuters stories also go through a scrupulous editing process, both locally and on our central editing desk in London, to ensure that they are balanced and that no phrase could be misconstrued. Complaints about coverage from readers or viewers are taken seriously and dealt with swiftly and fairly.

Gross acknowledges in his article that Reuters stories do indeed contain the necessary context and background to explain this complex conflict, yet appears to hold Reuters responsible for the fact that our customers do not always publish those stories in full.

The most unpleasant aspect of Gross's article, however, is his vicious personal attack on Wafa Amr, again based on dubious references to evidence from "several" former Reuters staffers. Gross casts odious slurs on a respected correspondent, with little or no evidence except hearsay. Amr has worked commendably for Reuters for more than a decade – often braving violence and threats to report the news.

Finally, Gross incorrectly states that Amr and other Palestinians who work for Reuters are stringers. Some Palestinian journalists who work for us are indeed stringers, as are some Israelis. But Amr and very many of her Palestinian colleagues in Reuters are full staff members.

David Schlesinger
Reuters
London

Tom Gross replies: David Schlesinger obviously hasn't read my article very carefully. For example, I never say that Wafa Amr is a stringer. Quite the opposite: I state that she is a correspondent. I did not speak only to one "disgruntled former employee" but to a number of people familiar with Reuters. And so on. Reuters's problems in regard to the Mideast are well known among journalists in Jerusalem and beyond. This is why writers such as James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal call the agency Reuterville (since, when it comes to the Mideast, it lives in a world of its own), and why other commentators refer to it as al-Reuters, because they find it hard to distinguish its Mideast reporting from outlets such as al-Jazeera. It is regrettable that Reuters – if David Schlesinger is any indication – doesn't acknowledge that it has a problem.

 

NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS: CANWEST EDITORS WILL REFUSE TO USE REUTERS' EUPHEMISMS

Reuters asks a chain to remove its bylines
By Ian Austen
New York Times
September 20, 2004

www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/business/media/20reuters.html

Having their bylines appear in newspapers is an unexpected bonus for news agency reporters. But now Reuters has asked Canada's largest newspaper chain to remove its writers' names from some articles.

The dispute centers on a policy adopted earlier this year by CanWest Global Communications – the publisher of 13 daily newspapers including The National Post in Toronto and The Calgary Herald, which both use Reuters dispatches – to substitute the word "terrorist" in articles for terms like "insurgents" and "rebels."

"Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline."

Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.

"My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said.

According to Mr. Schlesinger, members of Reuters' sales staff in Canada have asked CanWest to remove writers' names to conform to its guidelines for the use of "terrorist." Reuters has also asked that CanWest add its name to that of Reuters as the source of revised articles and to display that information only at the end of the articles. Alternatively, Reuters suggests that its name not be used at all.

Scott Anderson, editor in chief of CanWest publications and an author of the policy, said Reuters' rejection of his company's definition of terrorism undermined journalistic principles.

"If you're couching language to protect people, are you telling the truth?" asked Mr. Anderson, who is also editor in chief of The Ottawa Citizen. "I understand their motives. But issues like this are why newspapers have editors."

Mr. Anderson said the central definition in the policy was that "terrorism is the deliberate targeting of civilians in pursuit of a political goal."

The policy has caused Mr. Anderson's paper to issue two corrections recently as the result of changes it made to articles provided by The Associated Press. On Thursday, The Citizen changed an A.P. dispatch to describe 6 of 10 Palestinians killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops as "terrorists," a description attributed to "Palestinian medical officials." The Associated Press had called those people "fugitives."

The Citizen published a correction on Friday declaring it to be it an editing error and describing the six dead as "militants." A week earlier, the newspaper inserted the word terrorist seven times into an A.P. article about the fighting between Iraqis and United States forces in the city of Falluja. Mr. Anderson called the two episodes "silly errors."

Late Friday, a spokesman for The Associated Press, Jack Stokes, issued a general statement about changes to its articles. "We understand that customers need to edit our stories from time to time," it said in part. "However, we do not endorse changes that make an A.P. story unbalanced, unfair or inaccurate."

Mr. Anderson said he did not know how CanWest would deal with the Reuters request. No one else at CanWest, The National Post or The Calgary Herald was available for comment.

In an editorial published on Saturday, however, The National Post said it would continue to follow its current policy.

"Mr. Schlesinger's broader implication – that the substantive meaning of his reporters' stories are being universally vitiated by our house style – is one we reject," it said. "The agency's use of euphemisms merely serves to apply a misleading gloss of political correctness. And we believe we owe it to our readers to remove it before they see their newspaper every morning."

 

JAMES TARANTO WRITES, ON THE ABOVE ARTICLE:

Reuters' slant must not be edited! Except, of course, when it's Reuters doing the slanting. Remember the story of Deanna Wrenn, the Charleston, W.Va., stringer whose dispatch on Jessica Lynch the "news" service editors turned into an anti-American screed? "I asked Reuters to remove my byline," she said. "They refused."

 

REUTERS ADMIT: OUR COVERAGE INFLUENCED BY THE INTIMIDATION OF TERROR GROUPS, AND THEIR SUPPORTING REGIMES (LIKE ARAFAT'S)

Reuters admits appeasing terrorists
HonestReporting bulletin
September 21, 2004
[For links in this bulletin, see www.HonestReporting.com]

HonestReporting has repeatedly denounced media outlets' categorical refusal to call terrorists 'terrorists' in news reports.

As Islamic terror continues to spread worldwide, one major news outlet decided that enough is enough it's time to call terrorism by its name. CanWest, owners of Canada's largest newspaper chain, recently implemented a new editorial policy to use the 'T-word' in reports on brutal terrorist acts and groups.

So when CanWest's National Post published a Reuters report on Sept. 14, they exercised their right to change this Reuters line that whitewashes Palestinian terror:

... the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. (Jeffrey Heller, 9/13 'Sharon Faces Netanyahu Challenge')

to this, more accurate line:

... the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel.

Reuters didn't like the adjustment, and took the unusual step of officially informing CanWest that if it intended to continue this practice, CanWest should remove Reuters' name from the byline. Why? The New York Times reported (emphasis added):

"Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline."

Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.

"My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said.

Schlesinger (right) with Reuters' news exec Stephen Jukes, who instructed editors not to call 9/11 'terror,' since 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.'

[Schlesinger repeated this statement in a recent radio interview with CBC, when he described the 'serious consequences' if certain 'people in the Mideast' were to believe Reuters called such men 'terrorists.']

This is a stunning admission Reuters' top international editor openly acknowledges that one of the main reasons his agency refuses to call terrorists 'terrorists' has nothing to do with editorial pursuit of objectivity, but rather is a response to intimidation from thugs and their supporters.

In every other news arena, western journalists pride themselves on bravely 'telling it as is,' regardless of their subjects' (potentially hostile) reactions. So why do editors at Reuters and, presumably, other news outlets bend over backwards to appease Islamic terrorists, using 'safe' language that deliberately minimizes their inhuman acts?

Scott Anderson, editor-in-chief of CanWest Publications, said that Reuters' policy 'undermine[s] journalistic principles,' and raised the key question: 'If you're couching language to protect people, are you telling the truth?'

An editorial in the Ottawa Citizen, one of CanWest's newspapers, spells out the issue in black and white:

Terrorism is a technical term. It describes a modus operandi, a tactic. We side with security professionals who define terrorism as the deliberate targeting of civilians in pursuit of a political goal. Those who bombed the nightclub in Bali were terrorists. Suicide bombers who strap explosives to their bodies and blow up people eating in a pizza parlour are terrorists. The men and women who took a school full of hostages in Beslan, Russia, and shot some of the children in the back as they tried to flee to safety were terrorists. We as journalists do not violate our impartiality by describing them as such.

Ironically, it is supposedly neutral terms like 'militant' that betray a bias, insofar as they have a sanitizing effect. Activists for various political causes can be 'militant,' but they don't take children hostage.

The CanWest/Reuters affair is remarkably similar to CNN's Iraqi cover-up from last year, when CNN's top news executive admitted that CNN's knowledge of murder, torture, and planned assassinations in Saddam's Iraq was suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau. We asked back then:

Now that this senior CNN executive has come clean, it leaves us wondering: In what other regions ruled by terrorist dictators do the media toe the party line so as to remain in good stead?

We now have our answer in the Palestinian region. Reuters admits to regulating its language to appease the terrorists and that's an open admission of pro-Palestinian bias.

 

THE CASE OF REUTERS

The Case of Reuters
A news agency that will not call a terrorist a terrorist.

[NR Editor's note: The following appears in the July 26, 2004, issue of the National Review, and is available on line now at www.nationalreview.com/issue/gross200407120846.asp]

By Tom Gross

Many people still think of Reuters as the Rolls-Royce of news agencies. Just as the House of Morgan was once synonymous with good banking, Reuters has long been synonymous with good news-gathering. In 1940, there was even a Hollywood film about Paul Julius Reuter, the German-Jewish immigrant to London who as early as 1851 began transmitting stock-market quotes between London and Paris via the new Calais-Dover cable. (Two years earlier he had ingeniously used pigeons to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels.)

His agency quickly established a reputation in Europe for being the first to report scoops from abroad, such as news of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Today, almost every major news outlet in the world subscribes. Operating in 200 cities in 94 countries, Reuters produces text in 19 languages, as well as photos and television footage from around the world.

Though it may report in a largely neutral way on many issues, Reuters's coverage of the Middle East is deeply flawed. It is symptomatic, for instance, that Reuters's global head of news, Stephen Jukes, banned the use of the word "terrorist" to describe the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks. Even so, such is the aura still surrounding Reuters that news editors from Los Angeles to Auckland automatically assume that text, photos, and film footage provided by Reuters will be fair and objective. Reuters and Associated Press copy is simply inserted into many correspondents' reports – even in papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post – without, it often seems, so much as a second thought given to its accuracy.

This has led to some misleading reporting from Iraq, and still worse coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The newswires are much more influential in setting the news (and hence diplomatic) agenda of that struggle than most people realize.

One veteran American newspaper correspondent in Jerusalem, eager to maintain anonymity so as not to jeopardize relations with his anti-Israel colleagues, points out that "whereas foreign correspondents still write features, they rarely cover the actual breaking news that dominates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In terms of written copy on the conflict, I would estimate that 50 percent of all reporting, and 90 percent of the attitude, is formed by these news agencies. The important thing about Reuters is that it sets the tone, and here spin is everything."

"If, for example, a Reuters headline and introduction say that Israelis killed a Palestinian, instead of saying that a Palestinian gunman was killed as he opened fire on Israeli civilians, this inevitably leaves a different impression of who was attacking, and who defending."

In a study last year, the media watchdog HonestReporting found that in "100 percent of headlines" when Reuters wrote about Israeli acts of violence, Israel was emphasized as the first word; also, an active voice was used, often without explaining that the "victim" may have been a gunman. A typical headline was: "Israeli Troops Shoot Dead Palestinian in W. Bank" (July 3, 2003). By contrast, when Palestinians attacked Israelis (almost always civilians), Reuters usually avoided naming the perpetrator. For example: "New West Bank Shooting Mars Truce" (July 1, 2003). In many cases, the headline was also couched in a passive voice.

Often it is a question of emphasis: Important and relevant information is actually contained in Reuters text, but buried deep down in the story. Many newspaper readers, however, never get beyond the headlines, and for space reasons many papers carry only the first few paragraphs of a report – often inserted into their own correspondents' stories. When the TV networks run only brief headlines, or Reuters news ribbon at the foot of the screen, the full text is never shown.

Sometimes, Reuters presents unreliable information as though it were undoubtedly true. Most people are unlikely to notice this. For example, Reuters will note that "a doctor at the hospital said the injured Palestinian was unarmed" – when in fact the doctor couldn't possibly have known this, since he wasn't present at the gunfight. But because he is a doctor, Reuters is suggesting to readers that his word is necessarily authoritative. Yet, Reuters headlines and text are used unchanged by newspaper editors because they assume it is professional, balanced copy, which doesn't need any further editing.

Reporters of course can't be everywhere at once. The increased speed of the Internet and the demand for instant, 24-hour TV news coverage means that the world's news outlets rely heavily on Reuters and the AP, which in turn rely on a network of local Palestinian "stringers." Virtually all breaking news (and much of the non-breaking news) on CNN, the BBC, Fox, and other networks comes from these stringers.

Such stringers are hired for speed, to save money (there is no need to pay drivers and translators), and for their local knowledge. But in many cases, in hiring them, their connections to Arafat's regime and Hamas count for more than their journalistic abilities. All too often the information they provide, and the supposed eyewitnesses they interview, are undependable. Yet, because of Reuters's prestige, American and international news outlets simply take their copy as fact. Thus non-massacres become massacres; death tolls are exaggerated; and gunmen are written about as if they were civilians.

As Ehud Ya'ari, Israeli television's foremost expert on Palestinian affairs, put it: "The vast majority of information of every type coming out of the area is being filtered through Palestinian eyes. Cameras are angled to show a tainted view of the Israeli army's actions and never focus on Palestinian gunmen. Written reports focus on the Palestinian version of events. And even those Palestinians who don't support the intifada dare not show or describe anything embarrassing to the Palestinian Authority, for fear they may provoke the wrath of Arafat's security forces."

One Palestinian journalist told me that "the worst the Israelis can do is take away our press cards. But if we irritate Arafat, or Hamas, you don't know who might be waiting in your kitchen when you come home at night."

Some of Reuters's Palestinian stringers are honest and courageous. But, according to several ex-Reuters staffers, they feel the intimidating presence of Wafa Amr, Reuters's "Senior Palestinian Correspondent." Amr – who is a cousin of former Palestinian minister Nabil Amr, and whose father is said to be close to Arafat – had this title specially created for her (there is no "Senior Israeli Correspondent," or the equivalent in any other Arab country) so that her close ties to the Palestinian Authority could be exploited.

As one former Reuters journalist put it: "She occupies this position in spite of lacking a basic command of English grammar. The information passed through her is controlled, orchestrated. Reuters would never allow Israeli government propaganda to be fed into its reports in this way. Indeed, stories exposing Israeli misdeeds are a favorite of Reuters. Amr has never had an expose on Arafat, or his Al-Aqsa Brigades terror group."

But things may well be improving. Lately, with a new Jerusalem bureau chief, Reuters has taken some steps to ensure greater balance. For example, it no longer claims Hamas's goal is merely "to set up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza" (which it is not), but instead writes that Hamas is "sworn to Israel's destruction" (which it is).

Reuters no longer carries the highly misleading "death tolls" at the end of each story that lumped together Palestinian civilians, gunmen, and suicide bombers. (Agence France-Presse continues to do this.) And, apparently, there are plans to relocate Wafa Amr by next year. Is it too much to hope that one day soon Reuters might actually call terrorism terrorism?

(Tom Gross is a former Jerusalem correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph of London.)

SHOWING "SHOAH" IN FRENCH SCHOOLS

France to distribute copies of 'Shoah' film in anti-hate drive
Reuters
September 16, 2004

France's Education Ministry is distributing DVDs with excerpts of the classic Holocaust film "Shoah" to its 5,500 lycees this week, in another step Paris is taking to fight growing anti-Semitism. Director Claude Lanzmann, whose nine-hour opus features interviews with Holocaust survivors and death camp guards, watched parts of the 1985 film with pupils and Education Minister Francois Fillon at a central Paris lycee yesterday.

The copies of "Shoah" – the word is Hebrew for Holocaust – will be accompanied by anthologies of texts pupils will be asked to read to better understand the problems of racism and anti-Semitism, Fillon said at the secondary school.

Lanzmann said Paris had to stress long-term education against hatred if it wanted to roll back a new wave of anti-Semitic attacks, which official statistics say have doubled to tripled over the past year.

"We've seen all too often that, when an anti-Semitic act is committed somewhere, the government immediately calls a meeting of the ministries involved, like a Pavlovian reaction, and everybody asks 'what should we do?'," he said. "This needs a much longer-term approach," he told France-Info radio.

 

HERALD TRIBUNE CARRIES PIECE SUGGESTING AMERICAN JEWS OF "POISONOUS" ATTITUDE IN CHARGES AGAINST FRANCE

Tom Gross adds in relation to the above item "France to distribute copies of 'Shoah' film in anti-hate drive":

Yesterday the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune ran as their top-of the page, main comment piece (with a large photo, giving it twice the space usually reserved for a comment piece), an article titled "A poisoned 'j'accuse' from America."

The piece, specially translated from French by the IHT, was written by Jean Daniel, the co-founder and director of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur. Earlier this year Daniel was presented with a special award for his contribution to "the Humanities."

The piece did not run in the New York Times, but does follow in a long tradition by the Jewish-owned (but often giving the appearance of Jewish-hating) family (some of whom have converted to other religions) that owns the New York Times of denigrating Jews and downplaying anti-Semitism. (The most notorious example being the downplaying by the New York Times of anti-Jewish measures in the 1930s and of the Holocaust in the 1940s. Over half a century later, the family that owns the New York Times offered a semi-apology for this cover-up.)

In his article, Daniel suggests that the idea that there is increasing and widespread anti-Semitism in France is due to "certain ultra-Zionist camps of French Judaism... [making] their concerns known in Tel Aviv and New York, where they were hijacked for use against France."

(Daniel neglects to mention that Jerusalem and Washington are actually the capitals of Israel and the US. He neglects to mention that a large increase in anti-Semitism throughout France has been admitted by French government ministers. He neglects to cite a single example of the hundreds of anti-Semitic attacks carried out in France in recent years. He neglects to mention that thousands of French Jews have fled to Israel, Canada, Florida, New York and elsewhere in the last four years.)

Daniel goes on to argue that the French population cannot be anti-Semitic because they only handed over one third of their Jewish population to their death in Nazi camps. (He neglects to mention that among these were thousands of young children.) "Two out of three!" he writes in his piece (the exclamation mark is his) in relation to those French Jews who didn't die, citing this as what he appears to consider to be a good record proving non-anti-Semitism.

"It was not a Frenchman who killed the great Yitzhak Rabin," he adds for good measure, as if this bore any relevance to French anti-Semitism.

Deliberately employing a word associated with WW2 Germany, he refers to the "Bush-Putin-Sharon axis."

With less news than usual emanating from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza at present, and with news dominated by particularly bloody clashes and beheadings in Iraq during recent days, as well as on-going massacres in Sudan, the IHT again chooses on its comment pages to instead lead with misinformation about Jews.

The abuses of reporting by the New York Times and even more by the International Herald Tribune about Israel and Jews are too numerous to cover on a daily basis.

For more details, see:
"All The News That’s Fit to Print? The New York Times and Israel"
www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gross031403.asp

 

PUTIN WISHES RUSSIAN JEWS A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Putin wishes Russian Jews a Happy New Year
The Jerusalem Post
September 15, 2004

The office of the Russian President presented the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar with a letter from President Putin on Wednesday, congratulating Russian Jews on the Jewish New Year.

"Today, Russia is experiencing difficult and dramatic times," the letter reads. "I am sure that the people of Russia must oppose the terrible threat of terrorism with unity, solidarity, civil responsibility and, of course, super-human spiritual values, revered by people of all nationalities and religions."

"During the days of Rosh Hashanah, it is usual to not only recall the year that has just passed, but also to look ahead with plans for the future. I want to extend a traditional wish to the Jews of Russia: Have a Happy and Sweet Year!"

 

NEW ZEALAND REFUSES DAVID IRVING ENTRY

New Zealand blocks Holocaust denier's visit
By DPA (German Press Agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur)
September 18, 2004

Holocaust denier David Irving was barred from boarding a New Zealand-bound Qantas flight in Los Angeles, the Dominion Post newspaper reported this morning.

Qantas staff told Irving he could not board without an entry visa from the New Zealand embassy in Washington. Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor said Irving had been refused entry because he was a prohibited person having been convicted of an immigration offense in Canada.

But Irving said that in denying him entry the New Zealand government was "stamping on free speech." The newspaper reported Irving as saying he would take legal action over his ban from New Zealand and that Prime Minister Helen Clark had made "a serious mistake."

Irving had planned to speak at the National Press Club in Wellington. He has been denounced by a British court as pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier, angering Jews by labeleing the Holocaust "a legend."

Tom Gross adds:

This item should be in particular been seen in the context of recent revived anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in New Zealand. See, for example, the articles titled "Second major anti-Semitic attack in New Zealand in 3 weeks" and "Who would have imagined New Zealand could change so much?" in the dispatch of August 6, 2004 titled New Zealand, France, Canada, Uzbekistan, Winston Churchill, & other items.

 

GERMANS DIVIDED OVER FILM SHOWING HITLER "WITH A HUMAN SIDE"

Germans struggle to digest new Hitler film
Reuters
September 17, 2004

Germans struggled to digest a powerful new film about Adolf Hitler that opened in cinemas on Thursday amid a raging debate about whether the dictator can be portrayed as anything less than the world's greatest evil.

"The Downfall" drew mixed reviews from German film critics and ordinary cinema-goers, with many applauding its gory depiction of the final 12 days of the Nazi regime but others objecting to some scenes showing Hitler having a human side.

"It's a masterpiece," wrote Bild, Germany's top-selling daily. "It's the film of the year, a German film about the eternal ghost of German history. Hitler: human, monster, mass-murderer. Confused, raging, insane."

Told from the point of view of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's secretaries in his Berlin bunker, "Der Untergang" as it is called in German is also based on eyewitness accounts from a book of the same name by leading German historian Joachim Fest.

"I think it's good that a German filmmaker is confronting Hitler, but I don't like the way Adolf comes off like such a human being," said Hans Joachim Drewell, 70, a Berlin pensioner. "It was too much to take. They should have showed more of his evil side, his fanaticism, and not so much of this human side."

Played superbly by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, Hitler's hypnotizing outbursts of rage at his generals' failure to stop the Soviet advance are mixed with scenes in which he is kind to his female staff, his fiancee Eva Braun and even his dog.

"We've seen Hitler before as a madman but twisting spaghetti around his fork or crying?" wrote Berliner Morgenpost film critic Hanns-Georg Rodek. "We've seen him as a clown before, but as a newlywed planting a kiss on the mouth of Eva Hitler?"

At one of the first screenings in Germany at Potsdamer Platz, just a few hundred meters from the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, many Germans wept at scenes showing Joseph Goebbels' wife icily poisoning their six children.

"Some parts were really creepy," said Marie-Louise Hellblau, 14, who saw the film with her classmates. "Hitler was totally brutal and evil. He only wanted everyone to die with him."

The film, one of the first German productions to wade into the darkest chapter of their own history, has received mass media coverage, with Hitler's visage making it onto the cover of both major weekly newsmagazines, Der Spiegel and Stern.

It was showing on 400 screens in Germany, one of the biggest releases of the year. Costing 13.5 million euros, "The Downfall" is one of the most expensive productions in German history.

"So close to Hitler – is that okay?" asked the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper. "Is it right to make a film in such detail about the dictator responsible for millions of crimes?"

An opinion poll by the Forsa institute said that 69 percent of Germans answered that question with "yes."

Phillip Boyes, a 19-year-old student from London and a Polish national, said the film was upsetting, though done well. "It shows Germans as the sufferers," he said. "It's hard to accept, portraying Nazis as human beings. It's hard to see."

A Chinese student studying in Berlin said he thought there was nothing wrong with Germans making a drama about Hitler. "It showed another perspective, that Nazis could be ordinary people too," said the student, aged 36. "Sixty years on, I think it's important that Germans can show another side of Hitler even if there's a danger some will say 'Hitler wasn't so bad after all.'"

 

YEMEN'S FIRST JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER

Yemen to open Jewish community center for first time
By Yoav Stern
Ha'aretz
September 17, 2004

Yemen is slated to open its first Jewish community center, part of a work plan drawn up by the Ministry of Labor and Welfare for this coming year.

The center will be established in the Amran district, located 110 kilometers north of the capital city of Sana'a. One of the center's objectives will be to train Jewish women in handicrafts such as sewing and embroidery as well as household planning.

Prior to 1948, one-third of Yemen's population was Jewish. Many of them immigrated to the newly-established State of Israel in Operation Magic Carpet between June 1949 and August 1950.

In the 1960s, Yemen's then-leader Imam Yehiyeh order the capital city's remaining Jews evicted to the Amran district. According to an Arabic-language website, some 750 Jews live in the Amran district.

Yemen's treatment of its remaining Jews has been a central issue for years between the southern Arabian Peninsula nation and the United States. Ties between the U.S. and Yemen have tightened in recent years.

Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih visited the U.S. this summer and met with President George W. Bush. The U.S. has in the past pressured Yemen to warm its relations with Israel. In the 1990s, Israel and Yemen had unmediated contact and Yemen permitted Israeli tourists to visit its territories.

 

FOUR ISRAELIS SUE JOHN ASHCROFT OVER 9/11 DETENTIONS

Four Israelis sue Ashcroft
By Tovah Lazaroff
The Jerusalem Post
September 14, 2004

Four Israelis arrested in the United States on September 11, 2001, have filed a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit in the US District Court in New York against United States Attorney-General John Ashcroft and wardens of the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The suit, filed Monday, alleges that their two-month detention was illegal and that during that time they were physically abused and their civil rights were violated.

The Attorney General's Office said it would only comment on the case in court.

According to their Israeli attorney, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Israelis Yaron Shmuel, Omer Gavriel Marmari, and Silvan and Paul Kurzberg were working for a New Jersey moving company when their truck was stopped by police near the George Washington Bridge. Upon seeing that they held foreign driver's licenses, the officer arrested them as suspects in the September 11 attack.

"The four plaintiffs claim that they were held incommunicado without access to attorneys or family, subjected to rough interrogations, physically assaulted, deprived of sleep and subjected to racist taunting by guards," said Darshan-Leitner.

In the post-September 11 panic, their basic rights were ignored even though they signed papers agreeing to immediate deportation and had plane tickets, said New York attorney Robert Tolchin. According to the complaint, some 1,200 men from the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere who were not US citizens and who appeared to be Arab or Muslim were held on suspicion of being terrorist.

Their detention was "often based on vague suspicions rooted in racial, religious, ethnic, and/or national origin stereotypes rather than in hard facts," according to the complaint. Non-Muslim or non-Israeli detainees were not treated so harshly.

"They were never charged with a crime, they were detained so that the FBI could investigate whether maybe they had done something," said Tolchin.

Four pages of the complaint list the abuses the four Israelis suffered in detention, including failure to be provided with adequate food, medical attention and toiletries. They were held in solitary confinement and denied religious expression.

"Plaintiffs were disciplined for attempting to pray in their cells. Plaintiff Yaron Shmuel was forced out of his cell, thrown against walls and placed in a cell without a mattress, sheets or blanket as a punishment for having prayed out loud," alleged the complaint.

"One of the defendant guards told the plaintiff Yaron Shmuel that he should commit suicide because 'we need to kill all the Jews.'

"The plaintiffs were often beaten by the defendant guards, including cuffing hands behind the plaintiff's backs, twisting arms, kicks to the ribs, and sitting on the plaintiffs while they lay on a metal bed," alleged the complaint.

"The plaintiffs were subjected to a game that the defendant guards called 'Ping Pong,' in which the guards would throw inmates between each other and against walls."

In this case, "the abuse started from the top," said Tolchin.

The suit blames Ashcroft for authorizing and condoning "the unreasonable and excessively harsh conditions under which the plaintiffs were detained" in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

According to the suit, the four should not have been held because Israel is a close ally of the United States. "As Israelis and as Jews, plaintiffs themselves are sworn enemies of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden."

A similar suit in the same court has been filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Ibrahim Turkmen and other Muslim men similarly held. Tolchin said their case is likely to be viewed in light of decisions made in the Turkmen case.

 

CHINA WELCOMES BACK JEWS, HOPING FOR PROSPEROUS TIES.

A home for Jews in China
By Mark Magnier
Los Angeles Times
September 21, 2004

Harbin welcomes back "smart, rich" former residents, hoping for prosperous ties. The visitors, now elderly, are drawn by nostalgia.

Esther and Paul Agran look over Harbin's rather dowdy Xinyang Square, see the mud and the snarled traffic, then count the buildings from the corner. "One, two, three – that's it!" says Esther, 80. "That's the building where we had our wedding reception! It was a beautiful building. I think it rubbed off – we've been together 56 years."

A half-century after most of the Jewish community fled Harbin, pushed out by an increasingly unfriendly Communist government wary of "imperialist capitalists," former residents are venturing back for a nostalgic look. Many were born and lived their early lives in this once-booming city in China's northeast.

Now, after years of not being welcomed, they are returning to a city that is eager to see them. Harbin recently announced a $3.2-million renovation of its main synagogue, and it is stepping up efforts to preserve other historically significant buildings and sprucing up the Jewish cemetery, Asia's largest.

For the Chinese, it's less a warm and fuzzy embrace of the old days than a fairly blatant bid to spur the struggling local economy. Last month, at an international conference on "Jewish History and Culture in Harbin" that was attended by nearly 100 former residents and their families, officials gushed about the "always smart" and "always good with money" Jews who might help return Harbin to its former glory.

"We haven't heard such compliments since the days of Moses," says Yaacov Liberman, 81, a Harbin native now living in San Diego. Liberman was on his first trip back since his family left China in 1948.

Although most people don't tend to associate Jews with China, Harbin was an enclave of relative tolerance in the first half of the 20th century, as chaos, war and revolution raged in a troubled world. Jews, mainly from Russia, came to see it as a sanctuary and a land of opportunity.

The first Jew reportedly arrived in Harbin around 1899, leading what would eventually be three waves of immigration, says Li Shuxiao, vice director of Jewish research at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences. The first group, in the early 20th century, came in search of opportunity after the opening of the Russia-China railroad. The second fled the 1917 Russian Revolution. A third sought to escape a Russia-China border conflict in 1929. The peak was around 1920, when the local Jewish population reached 20,000.

"Most Russian Jews came to China without money and worked hard," says Pan Guang, a history professor at the Institute of European and Asian Studies in Shanghai. "It paid off, and they became solidly middle-class."

Many of those now returning for a visit to Harbin, once known as the "little Paris of the East," recall a privileged life with Chinese and Russian maids, a whirl of social events and winters crossing the Songhua River on Russian telhai, sleds pushed by an attendant.

"It was 30 below zero," recalls Hannah Muller, who left China for Israel in 1949 and hadn't been back since. "It was wonderful. We were all wrapped up in bearskins."

Harbin wasn't always enthusiastic about having them come back. For much of the last decade, officials feared that the returnees would demand reparations for the factories, houses and personal effects that were expropriated after Mao Tse-tung came to power in 1949. But relations picked up after that didn't happen.

Fifty-seven people reportedly still have property claims not covered by bilateral treaties, which, theoretically, they could pursue. But most of those in their 70s and 80s who have recently returned say they can't be bothered.

"What's past is past," says Harbin-born Bernard Darel, 75, an import-export businessman now living in Tel Aviv whose family's button factory and apartment were taken over by the Communists in 1949. "It's a long time ago, a long way to Tipperary."

For most of the prosperous returnees, who were bantering in Russian, English and Hebrew, the real draw was the chance to catch up with long-lost friends and relive memories of what many see as a golden era.

For Esther and Paul Agran, Harbin is more than a hometown – it's the birthplace of their lifelong romance. Esther was popular and good-looking, from a wealthy family that owned a cosmetics factory just behind the synagogue. "In school she was unreachable," Paul recalls. "I didn't think I had a chance."

One cold November day, however, she came to his uncle's fur shop, and their eyes met. In a few months, they were married in a gala wedding with 400 guests.

"She had great legs in those days," says Paul, 82, looking at a black-and-white photo. "Hey, she still has great legs today."

On one rainy evening during the group's weeklong stay, Jack Lieberman weaves across Harbin's torn-up Tongjiang Street past head-high piles of sand and dirt and into a hulking, 70-year-old building housing a rail car manufacturer.

"What are you doing? This is a business!" a rattled security guard barks as Lieberman leads a stream of visitors past him.

It is anything but that to the group of foreigners from Israel, the U.S., Canada, Australia and other faraway places. They try to ignore the chipped green paint and harsh lights as they remake the interior in their minds.

"This was our synagogue," Lieberman says. "The men sat there. The women were up in the balcony there. The ark would have been up there, at the end and to the right," he says, referring to the place where the temple's Torah was kept. "It was a really beautiful place."

As he reminisces, Teddy Kaufman, an 80-year-old Harbin-born Israeli and an impetus to bringing the group together, walks by.

"Were these pictures originally here?" someone asks Kaufman, pointing at a dusty mural of bears cavorting in the wild. "There are no pictures in a synagogue," Kaufman responds emphatically, "especially none of bears."

Amid the grime and exposed wiring are hints of the building's former splendor. A once-grand chandelier still hangs in the entryway, its graceful, cut-crystal arcs now brown with smoke and stains. Worked into the window grilles and chipped floor are images of the Star of David.

"This was the second synagogue in town," says Paul Conway, 58, now a resident of Australia. "That's because Jews always have to say, 'Oh, that other synagogue, I wouldn't be caught dead there.'"

Across the street is a former mosque, a testament to a time when, at least in Harbin, the two communities coexisted peacefully.

"My father was Russian and Tatar, a Muslim, and my mother was Jewish," says Mara Moustafine, 50, who was 4 when the family immigrated to Australia in 1959, one of the last to leave. "That's the kind of city it was."

Harbin managed to prosper through much of the early 20th century under ever-changing authority. Czarist Russia, Nationalist China, imperial Japan, Soviet Russia and Communist China exerted control over this strategic, resource-rich area in the midst of the three countries. In general, most of the governments were relatively tolerant, even encouraging, of the Jewish enclave into the 1940s.

That changed after the Communists came to power.

"Rapid changes in China made it difficult to continue living here," says Xu Xin, a professor of Jewish studies at Nanjing University. "There was a huge exodus through the early 1950s."

For David Udovitch, 84, it came down to soup and labor unions. The former owner of a paint factory in Harbin recalls returning home from work in 1953 and learning that a union representative had stopped by, looked in the family's soup pot and asked why they were eating meat when workers hadn't had any in months.

"That's when I knew it was time to leave," he says, standing near his mother's grave in the Jewish cemetery.

A few hundred Jews, mostly those too old to leave or lacking overseas sponsors, lingered for a decade, with the last one, an elderly woman, reportedly dying in the mid-1960s.

Many are in the graveyard, moved to the outskirts of town in 1958. For the local government, the cemetery and the memories it holds are a potential gold mine, starting with tourism, it hopes, then spreading to trade and investment.

Many who left formed social groups in their new homes to help one another. Over the years, most retained strong emotional ties to China even though their lives in Harbin were often quite insulated from Chinese society.

"We were kosher, so I never even tried Chinese food until I was 17," says Leana Leibovitch, 81, who looked for her old house but learned that it had been demolished sometime after her 1948 departure for Australia. "Now, of course, I love it."

Kaufman, since the early 1970s the leader of the Tel Aviv-based Assn. of Former Residents of China, took the lead in arranging the rapprochement. When he approached Harbin's leaders in 1992 about building links, he recalls, they didn't even know what a synagogue was, let alone that there once were two of them in the city.

"For them, history started with the Communist revolution in 1949," he says. "They'd thrown away the pages" of history.

He got their attention on a return trip two years later by pointing out that Harbin lagged far behind Shanghai and Beijing, where foreigners were welcomed with more open arms and minds.

A trip to Israel by local officials a few years later – and the promise of Israeli aid for reconstruction to keep Jewish history alive – made them even more receptive.

"They're quite open about it – getting the rich Jews to invest," says Moustafine, author of "Secrets and Spies: The Harbin File," a book about her family's experiences.

"My view is, if we can preserve the buildings and get China to open up the archives while former residents are still alive, it's all for the good."

Now the government is on board from the top of Heilongjiang province on down, with Gov. Zhang Zuoyi welcoming returnees with a call to invest and set up joint ventures.

"Sure, it's public relations. Everyone understands that," Kaufman says. "The mention of rich Jews isn't meant as an insult. Many people in Asia think all Jews are smart and rich – and if you're rich, you must be a Jew."

There are limited signs that the Harbin strategy is paying dividends.

"I need to buy four or five containers of blankets, a few containers of diapers and I'm interested in buying some coal," Tel Aviv resident Darel, sporting a lapel pin with entwined Chinese and Israeli flags, tells his Chinese hosts.

"I don't need to do business here," he adds later. "In a lot of ways, it's easier in Guangzhou. But my memories are very good, and I feel like doing it because it's the old hometown."

(Magnier was recently on assignment in Harbin. Lijin Yin in The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.)