* Statement by Al-Quds University in Eastern Jerusalem: "We believe it is in our interest to build bridges, not walls; to reach out to the Israeli academic institutions, not to impose another restriction or dialogue-block on ourselves."
* UK academic leaders applauding the boycott: "Israel" is "a colonial apartheid state, more insidious than South Africa."
CONTENTS
1. Boycott of Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities passed
2. "Dangerous and Misguided" (Guardian, Letter by Melvyn Bragg, April 25, 2005)
3. "Lecturers to boycott two Israeli universities" (Independent, April 23, 2005)
4. "Haifa, Bar Ilan slam academic boycott" (Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2005)
5. "Anger as union bars Israeli academic" (Sunday Telegraph, April 24, 2005)
6. "Blinkered and ill-timed" (Times of London, April 25, 2005)
7. "Why Israel will always be vilified" (Guardian, April 24, 2005)
8. "Europe blinded by anti-Semitic bigotry" (By Arab-American commentator Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily, April 20, 2005)
Thank you to all those who have written concerning the "Forgotten Rachels" article sent out on this list yesterday. I regret I don't have time to reply to most of you individually.
The article continues to gain widespread coverage on websites and elsewhere. Andrew Sullivan yesterday recommended it to readers. David Frum called it "A brilliant piece of work." (For those who don't know, David Frum was a leading speechwriter for Pres. Bush and wrote "the axis of evil" speech, among others.) Julie Burchill praised the piece. And so on.
For those wishing to see photos of six Rachels murdered in terror attacks, please see www.take-a-pen.org/english/Articles/Art25041005.htm
The play "My name is Rachel Corrie" continues to receive glowing reviews. Here is an example of a review published since my article was written:
John Peter in the (London) Sunday Times "Culture" section, April 24, 2005: "Rachel Corrie ... who died in Palestine, crushed by an Israeli bulldozer, apparently in cold blood a cry of indignation by a brave, sensitive, thoughtful woman who wanted to help and bear witness. She wasn't some airhead, a saintly, self-admiring maniac: she had faith and purpose."
BOYCOTT OF HAIFA AND BAR ILAN UNIVERSITIES PASSED
[Note by Tom Gross]
Last Friday, Britain's Association of University Teachers (AUT) voted to boycott Israel's Bar Ilan and Haifa Universities. The Council of the AUT, a trade union and professional association representing over 48,700 UK higher education professionals, unanimously passed the two motions to boycott the institutions of higher learning.
The AUT claimed Haifa and Bar Ilan universities had undermined Palestinian rights and academic freedom. The union also asked its executive committee to consider a boycott against the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The boycott by Britain's main university teachers' union has angered Jewish students and administrators who said it could fan anti-Semitism.
Many non-Jews have also spoken out vociferously against the boycott and some have said they will refuse to comply with it. Here, for example, is the statement by Adam Logan, a lecturer in pure mathematics, at the University of Liverpool, who says he will resign from the University of Liverpool if they attempt to enforce the boycott: www.liv.ac.uk/~adaml/math/statement.html.
The Times of London (owned by Rupert Murdoch one of the few news proprietors to be sympathetic to Jewish concerns) editorialized that the AUT "actions are an echo of the Nazi ban on Jewish academics, and the general discrimination so common three generations ago."
A JOVIAL MEETING... WITH RAPTUROUS APPLAUSE
Last Friday, a jovial AUT executive union meeting heard unanswered orations by Sue Blackwell and Shereen Benjamin, both lecturers at Birmingham University. The academics labeled Israel as a "colonial apartheid state, more insidious than South Africa," called for the "removal of this regime" (which Blackwell clarified as meaning the state of Israel) and depicted Israeli universities as "repressing" academic freedom. The speeches were met with rapturous applause from the audience, before AUT executive president Angela Roger cut short the session and moved to deny a right of reply to opponents of the motions.
"LACK OF TIME" TO CHALLENGE THE MOTION
The session was then directed towards a vote, and a "lack of time" was cited as the reason preventing challenges to the motions from being heard. The executive passed by sizeable majorities two separate motions adopting boycotts against Haifa University for its allegedly restricting academic freedom and against Bar Ilan University for its college located in the town of Ariel, which lies just beyond Israel's 1967 borders. Israeli Professor Mina Telcher was barred from putting her view across to the Union.
EXTREME LEFTIST JEWISH SUPPORT FOR ATTACKING ISRAEL
Shereen Benjamin, the second speaker to advocate a boycott of Israeli universities, was unable to answer questions about the Palestinian union which signed a letter calling for the conference to boycott Israel and could not identify its membership. In her speech to the conference, Ms. Benjamin used a number of photographs, and later conceded that the images were obtained from "Electronic Intifada" (a pro-Palestinian propaganda website). Shereen Benjamin, like several of the vocal members of the AUT urging the boycott, is Jewish. She was joined in this campaign by Steven and Hillary Rose (both also Jewish) who had first led a campaign to boycott Israeli Universities in April 2002.
EXTREME ISRAELI LEFT: LETS BOYCOTT OURSELVES
The boycott has also received encouragement from some professors belonging to Israeli Universities. A message from Dr. Ilan Pappe, a political science lecturer at Haifa University, was distributed to every executive member at the conference, in which Pappe called on the conference to adopt a boycott of his own university, and alleged he was the victim of "restriction" and "harassment." It should be noted that at the present time Pappe is still a lecturer at Haifa University and is still receiving Israeli taxpayers' money to spread anti-Israel sentiment. Since the verdict, Ron Kuzar, also a lecturer at Haifa University, has called for a total embargo on Israel including a boycott of all Universities similar to the embargo placed upon the apartheid regime in South Africa.
IS IT LEGAL?
The British press is now debating whether the boycott is in fact legal, in light of the fact that the lecturers' trade union is forcing the universities to break contracts and cancel projects and conferences, and is preventing employment of people who have already been promised jobs. Moreover, boycotting individual students and lecturers because of their nationality is discrimination forbidden by university charters.
Not since 1930s Germany have Jews been the targets of an official boycott in a civilized country. Only recently leaders of Britain's 10,000 Jewish students complained of the presence of the "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" book being distributed on many campuses throughout Britain. Like many of the commentators in the articles attached below one has to ask where are the boycotts of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, China and countless other countries who are truly limiting academic freedom.
On Tuesday, April 26, Palestinians fired three Qassam rockets on the Israeli town of Sderot. UK university lecturers will probably not be condemning this latest attempt to murder Israeli civilians in southern Israel. In fact, given the UK media, they probably won't know it happened.
I attach six articles below. There are summaries of five of them first for those who don't have time to read them in full. I recommend in particular reading the last two articles, by David Aaronovitch and Joseph Farah.
-- Tom Gross (with thanks to Ben Green for his help in preparing this dispatch)
[Additional note by Tom Gross Over the last two weeks there have been a large number of letters published in British newspapers regarding the boycott. Below is one by Melvyn Bragg, a leading British broadcaster, writer and novelist, whose views carry some weight among the UK establishment.]
"DANGEROUS AND MISGUIDED"
Letters
Battle of the boycott
The Guardian
April 25, 2005
www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1469436,00.html
I write to express dismay and opposition to the decision taken by the AUT to sever links with Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities.
This boycott fails to recognise the continuous democratic processes and discussions within Israel, where brave voices are constantly raised against the actions in Palestine; it glides over the effects of the barbaric suicide attacks on the streets of Israel and the unremitting threats from Arab states that they will destroy Israel; it is wrong because it denies the hard-won freedom of international academic discourse; and, as far as Britain is concerned, it denies freedom of speech, which is a gift for extremists everywhere.
I have no doubt that the AUT's decision was sincerely taken, but I believe it is dangerous and misguided.
Melvyn Bragg
London
SUMMARIES
LECTURERS TO BOYCOTT TWO ISRAELI UNIVERSITIES
"Lecturers to boycott two Israeli universities"(by Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent, The Independent, April 23, 2005)
[Note by Tom Gross This three-paragraph article is the whole item the use of terms such as "alleged complicity with Israeli persecution" suggests that this Education Correspondent, like many journalists and readers in Britain, has come to believe the misinformation spread by Middle East reporters.]
education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=632238
University lecturers have voted to boycott two of Israel's eight universities over their alleged complicity with Israeli persecution of Palestinians.
The Association of University Teachers voted to sever links with Haifa University and Bar Ilan University, accusing them of colluding in a system of "apartheid" that victimised Palestinians and anyone who opposed the Israeli state.
There were cheers as the two motions were passed. But the 200-strong audience rejected a call to boycott the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which is accused of demolishing Palestinian homes in order to expand its campus. Delegates instead voted for a decision to be postponed to allow for an investigation.
AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY SHOWS ITS SUPPORT
"Haifa, Bar Ilan slam academic boycott" (The Jerusalem Post, By The Associated Press and Talya Halkin, April 25, 2005)
Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities targeted in a boycott by Britain's biggest university teachers' union condemned the decision on Monday, calling it shameful and a blow to academic freedom.
... In addition, Al-Quds University in eastern Jerusalem also came out against the academic boycott of Israel. "We are informed by the principle that we should seek to win Israelis over to our side, not to win against them," said the university, which is headed by Dr. Sari Nusseibeh.
"Therefore... we believe it is in our interest to build bridges, not walls; to reach out to the Israeli academic institutions, not to impose another restriction or dialogue-block on ourselves."
... Israel's Foreign Ministry over the weekend accused the British union of hypocrisy - saying Israel is the only Mideast country with complete academic freedom - and urged British academics to distance themselves from the boycott.
AUT REFUSES PERMISSION FOR ISRAELI PROFESSOR TO SPEAK AT CONFERENCE
"Anger as union bars Israeli academic" (Sunday Telegraph, By Julie Henry, April 24, 2005)
An Israeli professor has been refused permission to speak at a conference of British academics who were debating a motion to sever all links with her university.
... The revelation that Prof Mina Telcher, a leading mathematician, was denied the opportunity to put the Israelis' side of the story before the vote will heighten criticism of the AUT, which was already under fire for cutting short the debate on the controversial motion because of time constraints.
... The request to send a speaker to the conference was made on Tuesday by Prof Yosef Yeshurun, the rector of Bar-Ilan. He also asked if Prof Telcher could address the conference on Thursday, rather than Friday, to allow her to return home for the start of Passover yesterday. Prof Yeshurun was told that no external visitors were allowed to speak for or against motions and that the date could not be changed.
LONDON TIMES: AN ECHO OF THE NAZI BAN ON JEWISH ACADEMICS
"Blinkered and ill-timed" (The Times of London, Lead editorial, April 25, 2005)
The decision by the Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott two universities in Israel is a mockery of academic freedom, a biased and blinkered move that is as ill-timed as it is perverse.
... Their actions are an echo of the Nazi ban on Jewish academics, and the general discrimination so common three generations ago.
... The second reason why this boycott swiftly and rightly condemned by university vice-chancellors and principals is so dangerous is that it can quickly become an excuse for anti-Semitism. Many people, including the Jewish co-sponsor of the motion, are able to draw a proper distinction between criticism of Israel and racism; an increasing number, however, are not or, more despicably, choose not to see any difference. Many Jewish students at British universities are already suffering growing hostility, including intolerable abuse from extremists. The Union of Jewish Students argued that any of its members supporting Israel would not be equal in the classroom with an AUT member.
... How much academic freedom exists in Syria? Or Saudi Arabia? Why does the AUT not call for a ban on contacts in dozens of other countries inimical to human rights? If the reply is that building bridges achieves far more, that is all the truer of Israel. AUT members should defeat this pernicious ban by cultivating every contact available as soon as possible with the two Israeli universities.
WHY ISRAEL WILL ALWAYS BE VILIFIED
"Why Israel will always be vilified" (The Observer, By David Aaronovitch, April 24, 2005)
... So, according to the disclosed agenda, somehow or other, the boycott will make Israeli academics think again about their support for the system, thus strengthening the forces of progress and justice. It will make Palestinians feel better, it will make Sue Blackwell feel better, it will help.
... Meanwhile, back in Israel, you can easily imagine whose position is strengthened by the AUT boycott. And it isn't that of the academics most sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Look at the Europeans! Once again, they have singled Israel out for special treatment! Who can we trust but ourselves? In the United States, far more important to Israel than we will ever be, it will add grist to the arguments of those who want to support Israel at all hazards and under all circumstances.
... After the vote had been won, Blackwell, a former Christian fundamentalist turned revolutionary socialist, told the press how glad she was to be part of a union that was 'prepared to stand up for human rights'. The problem here, as she will have realised, is that if the AUT was to boycott places with bad human rights records, there'd be a whole lot of boycottin' goin' on
... There is a significant level of academic freedom and debate in Israel, flawed though it may be, compared with much of the rest of the world. Take just one country, Tunisia, which has a run-of-the-mill torturing authoritarian regime and no debate in its universities at all. Yet it wouldn't surprise me if many academics at Birmingham University have holidayed there, completely unhindered by Sue Blackwell. And then, of course, there's China.
... So the object of those wanting peace and justice in the Middle East is to bring about an end to that occupation, and enable the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. It is to persuade both sides that such a settlement is practical and to persuade both sides to make the difficult sacrifices that are necessary. It is to build confidence between Jews and Palestinians, and to strengthen, always, the hand of the peacemakers.
Unless, of course, you don't believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state at all within any borders. And this, as it happens, seems to be the view of Sue Blackwell, who describes Israel as 'an illegitimate state'. Unlike the United Nations, she does not believe it should have been set up and she would rather it disappeared. As she pointed out in 2003 to a previous AUT council: 'From its very inception, the state of Israel has attracted international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinian people and making war on its neighbours.' Or, to put it even more bluntly, everything is all the fault of the Israelis
WHY ARE THERE NO BOYCOTTS OF IRANIAN UNIVERSITIES?
"Europe blinded by anti-Semitic bigotry" (WorldNetDaily, By Joseph Farah, April 20, 2005)
... Let me give you my perspective on this action the perspective of an Arab-American. Israel is not a colonial state. It is not a racist state. The Arabs who live in Israel are among the freest Arabs in the world.
Every so-called "Palestinian" college has been created and funded by Israel. There were no Palestinian colleges or universities before 1967. And that is with good reason. Before 1967, there was no such thing as a Palestinian national identity. That notion was invented by Yasser Arafat and his allies post-1967 so they could pursue their plan to eradicate the Jewish state and the Jewish people of the Middle East by posing as victims rather than persecutors.
... In Israel, Arabs vote in free elections. They hold office. They protest. They freely publish newspapers attacking the government.
Arabs don't do this in any other state with the possible exception of newly liberated Iraq.
In Israel, Arabs are even permitted to teach their revisionist history lessons. They are free to teach the most vile kinds of hatred against Jews and Israelis even receiving subsidies for those lessons from the suicidal, self-loathing, politically correct and intellectually incorrect Israeli government.
... Europe is undergoing the kind of mass psychosis it experienced once before in the late 1930s If you doubt what I am saying, ask yourself the following questions:
Why are there no boycotts of Syrian universities?
Why are there no boycotts of Saudi Arabian universities?
Why are there no boycotts of Iranian universities?
Why are there no denunciations of the police state totalitarianism that is the norm throughout the Middle East with one notable exception Israel?
HAIFA, BAR ILAN SLAM ACADEMIC BOYCOTT
Haifa, Bar Ilan slam academic boycott
By The Associated Press and Talya Halkin
The Jerusalem Post
April 25, 2005
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1114395823246
Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities targeted in a boycott by Britain's biggest university teachers' union condemned the decision on Monday, calling it shameful and a blow to academic freedom.
University officials said they did not expect the boycott call by the 40,000-member Association of University Teachers to have any immediate effect.
Nonetheless, they said they would fight the decision and called on the worldwide academic community to reject it.
"This is a very unbalanced decision ... basically a shameful decision," said Bar-Ilan's president, Moshe Kaveh. "In academic spheres, one should not interfere between academic activity and research, and political decisions."
The union, which approved the decision at its annual conference on Friday, said the two Israeli universities had undermined Palestinian rights and academic freedom. It said it would soon issue guidance to its members on what the boycott would forbid.
Haifa University Vice President Ada Spitzer said she didn't expect the boycott to immediately effect academic collaboration.
"It's more symbolic than actual damage," she said. Still, she called it "an important symbolic act," since it is the first time an Israeli university has been subject to a boycott. "They are erecting a barrier to academic freedom," she said.
The British union said it targeted Bar-Ilan University for its links to the College of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.
Jewish AUT members have begun to secede from the union, and calls for mass resignations have been issued.
In addition, Al-Quds University in eastern Jerusalem also came out against the academic boycott of Israel.
"We are informed by the principle that we should seek to win Israelis over to our side, not to win against them," said the university, which is headed by Dr. Sari Nusseibeh.
"Therefore...we believe it is in our interest to build bridges, not walls; to reach out to the Israeli academic institutions, not to impose another restriction or dialogue-block on ourselves."
The AUT also accused Haifa University of threatening to fire an Israeli political science lecturer for supporting a student's research into allegations of killings by IDF troops.
Both universities on Monday said many elements of the allegations are false.
Kaveh said Bar-Ilan helps supervise standards of the college of Ariel, which awards a joint degree with Bar-Ilan, but that the 22-year-old West Bank college is largely autonomous and on the way to full independence. "We were like an incubator," he said.
Kaveh, a physics lecturer at Cambridge University for 35 years, said he is planning on doing research in Britain this summer and already has been assured by British colleagues that they would not honor the boycott.
Haifa University officials said they were baffled by the boycott call, saying it was based on an erroneous understanding of a dispute over a 5-year-old master's thesis.
In the thesis, the student claimed he had uncovered evidence that Israeli soldiers massacred 200 Palestinians during the 1948 war for Israel's independence. The university rejected the thesis after investigating the allegations and concluding the student had fabricated or distorted much of his evidence.
The student later apologized to an Israeli court and admitted to falsifying the story after soldiers involved in the case sued him.
However, Ilan Pappe, a Haifa University professor who helped the student, accused the school of suppressing academic freedom and called on colleagues in Britain and the US to boycott the university.
While Haifa faculty members have filed complaints against Pappe, the university said it has never taken any disciplinary action against him and he remains on the faculty.
Both Israeli universities said they are beacons of diversity in Israel, welcoming students and faculty of all religious, political and ethnic backgrounds. Haifa University, for instance, said 20 percent of its student body are Arab Israelis.
"We will continue our efforts to further Jewish-Arab reconciliation, despite politically motivated initiatives to muzzle free speech and the academic discourse," the university said in a statement.
In its decision, the British union also asked its executive committee to consider a boycott against the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for allegedly bulldozing Palestinian homes to make way for new buildings. The university was closed for a Jewish holiday Monday and officials did not return a message seeking comment.
Israel's Foreign Ministry over the weekend accused the British union of hypocrisy - saying Israel is the only Mideast country with complete academic freedom - and urged British academics to distance themselves from the boycott.
In 2002, hundreds of European academics called for a boycott of Israeli universities to protest the treatment of the Palestinians. The move led to the firing of two Israelis from British publications and prompted allegations of discrimination and intellectual censorship.
(Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report)
ANGER AS UNION BARS ISRAELI ACADEMIC
Anger as union bars Israeli academic
By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent
Sunday Telegraph
April 24, 2005
An Israeli professor has been refused permission to speak at a conference of British academics who were debating a motion to sever all links with her university.
The Telegraph has learnt that the Association of University Teachers (AUT) turned down a plea from Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv to send one of its most distinguished academics to Britain to rebut accusations of human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The AUT was accused of fuelling anti-Semitism after delegates at its annual conference voted on Friday to boycott all academic links with Bar Ilan and Haifa universities. The revelation that Prof Mina Telcher, a leading mathematician, was denied the opportunity to put the Israelis' side of the story before the vote will heighten criticism of the AUT, which was already under fire for cutting short the debate on the controversial motion because of time constraints.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews described the decision as "blinkered, irresponsible and dangerous".
The request to send a speaker to the conference was made on Tuesday by Prof Yosef Yeshurun, the rector of Bar-Ilan. He also asked if Prof Telcher could address the conference on Thursday, rather than Friday, to allow her to return home for the start of Passover yesterday. Prof Yeshurun was told that no external visitors were allowed to speak for or against motions and that the date could not be changed.
Delegates to the conference in Eastbourne were told that Bar-Ilan University had links with a college in what the union described as an "illegal settlement" in the occupied West Bank.
Ronnie Fraser, the chairman of the Academic Friends of Israel, said that the AUT had repeatedly manoeuvred to prevent an opposing voice being heard.
Lord Janner, the chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, condemned the union's decision. He said: "They obviously did not want to hear the other case. I am deeply shaken by the vote and the curtailment of reasoned debate. It is a setback for academic freedom."
Jonathan Whitehead, a spokesman for the AUT, said that the conference would become unworkable if outside speakers were allowed to comment on motions.
BLINKERED AND ILL-TIMED
Blinkered and ill-timed
The AUT boycott of Israeli universities is inimical to academic freedom
Leader
The Times of London
April 25, 2005
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1584297,00.html
The decision by the Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott two universities in Israel is a mockery of academic freedom, a biased and blinkered move that is as ill-timed as it is perverse. The vote at the AUT annual conference to forbid its 40,000 members to visit Haifa and Bar Ilan universities in protest at the alleged ill-treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories not only comes at the very moment when official Israeli-Palestinian relations are improving, but it also targets the very institutions in Israel that have been havens of political and racial tolerance and beacons of academic freedom.
The sponsors of the boycott maintain that Haifa University is threatening to sack a lecturer for supporting a student's thesis on an alleged Israeli massacre in 1948, and that Bar Ilan has links with a college based in a settlement in the West Bank. They say the academic boycott is a protest against discrimination, as valid as the widely supported ban by British universities on links with South African institutions during the apartheid years.
Such a claim is as laughable as it is inaccurate. Whereas many South African academics supported outside pressure on their government and almost all black students complained of discrimination, in Israel neither is true. In both universities, Jews and Arabs study together, and in Haifa especially there is a substantial number of Arab lecturers and students. Moreover, if Palestinian students themselves are not calling for a boycott, what is the point of such tokenism by the AUT?
In many British universities there are vocal critics of Israeli policies. Academics have expressed revulsion at the continued building of Israeli settlements and the occupation of Palestinian territories. They are fully entitled to the vigorous expression of their views. They can speak out in public, join protest marches and argue with pro-Israeli colleagues. What they are not entitled to do is to impose a trade union boycott that is inimical to academic freedom a principle fundamental not only to civilised society but the very basis of their professional life. Their actions are an echo of the Nazi ban on Jewish academics, and the general discrimination so common three generations ago.
The second reason why this boycott swiftly and rightly condemned by university vice-chancellors and principals is so dangerous is that it can quickly become an excuse for anti-Semitism. Many people, including the Jewish co-sponsor of the motion, are able to draw a proper distinction between criticism of Israel and racism; an increasing number, however, are not or, more despicably, choose not to see any difference. Many Jewish students at British universities are already suffering growing hostility, including intolerable abuse from extremists. The Union of Jewish Students argued that any of its members supporting Israel would not be equal in the classroom with an AUT member.
The issue of discrimination is more overtly political in the broader context of the Middle East. How much academic freedom exists in Syria? Or Saudi Arabia? Why does the AUT not call for a ban on contacts in dozens of other countries inimical to human rights? If the reply is that building bridges achieves far more, that is all the truer of Israel. AUT members should defeat this pernicious ban by cultivating every contact available as soon as possible with the two Israeli universities.
WHY ISRAEL WILL ALWAYS BE VILIFIED
Why Israel will always be vilified
It is convenient for many British liberals that Israel exists. It saves them from examining the manifest failings in their own actions
The Observer
Comment
By David Aaronovitch
April 24, 2005
observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1468969,00.html
Last Friday saw two examples of intelligent people behaving in a futile way. The first was the decision by the US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, to seek the death penalty for would-be suicide terrorist, Zacharias Moussaoui. Not only does such a sentence confer on Moussaoui precisely the heroic end that he was seeking (did Gonzales never read Brer Rabbit?), but it would also deprive the authorities of a potentially valuable source of information and psychological insight. All it does is make some Americans feel better.
And then there was the decision of the Association of University Teachers council in Eastbourne to boycott two (perhaps three) Israeli universities, the futility of which I now hope to prove.
Let us first look at the stated objectives of the boycott. What does it seek to achieve? The literature of the campaign suggests that these objectives, far from being focused, are many and nebulous. They are, according to the motion's prime mover, Sue Blackwell of the English Department of Birmingham University, variously to 'add to the pressure on the country's economy and dent its international prestige'; to send a 'message of support to students and colleagues in Palestine'; and to act as 'consciousness-raising' for British academics who, through the boycott, can be brought to realise how the world really is. A sort of speculum for their hidden political organs.
The boycott seems also to be simultaneously aimed at the Israeli system in toto, and at the specific misdeeds of particular institutions - Haifa University for political censorship, Bar-Ilan for having relations with the illegal settlements on the West Bank, and the Hebrew University for pulling down Arab houses to build student dormitories. The AUT executive is 'investigating' this last accusation, but the scope of these targets probably reflects the campaigners' need to maximise support for their motion.
So, according to the disclosed agenda, somehow or other, the boycott will make Israeli academics think again about their support for the system, thus strengthening the forces of progress and justice. It will make Palestinians feel better, it will make Sue Blackwell feel better, it will help.
But will it? On Friday morning, the participants in the council meeting may have read an article in the Guardian by the progressive Israeli writer, Etgar Keret. He recalled how the Manchester academic, Mona Baker, sacked his translator, Miriam Schlesinger, from the board of Baker's journal, the Translator. Keret reflected on the irony. Schlesinger was the former head of Amnesty International in Israel, as well as being a peace activist. Keret added: 'Baker was not the first to call for a boycott of [Miriam's] academic work. Israeli right wingers had been irked by her signature on some petition and had called upon students at Israeli universities to refrain from attending classes given by her and others of her ilk.'
If the AUT delegates read Keret's appeal, just over half of them ignored it. And now, if they have their way, the Schlesingers of this world will be routinely boycotted unless, according to the terms of the motion, they show sufficient individual zeal in the cause of justice of the Palestinians. Sufficient zeal as judged by whom? We have no idea.
Meanwhile, back in Israel, you can easily imagine whose position is strengthened by the AUT boycott. And it isn't that of the academics most sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Look at the Europeans! Once again, they have singled Israel out for special treatment! Who can we trust but ourselves? In the United States, far more important to Israel than we will ever be, it will add grist to the arguments of those who want to support Israel at all hazards and under all circumstances.
So why do something so obviously counterproductive? The AUT delegates will have been reminded of the intolerable conditions of many of those living under Israeli occupation. They will have felt the emotional tug of those stories of checkpoint humiliations, collective punishments and the shooting of civilians. They'll have seen pictures of the wall. The motion may make them feel better. Warmer.
After the vote had been won, Blackwell, a former Christian fundamentalist turned revolutionary socialist, told the press how glad she was to be part of a union that was 'prepared to stand up for human rights'. The problem here, as she will have realised, is that if the AUT was to boycott places with bad human rights records, there'd be a whole lot of boycottin' goin' on. She has tried in the past to finesse this difficulty, at one point arguing: 'You cannot talk about academic freedom and free debate in Israel in the same way you can talk about it in the UK, or in almost any other country in the world.'
This sunniness is rather obviously absurd. There is a significant level of academic freedom and debate in Israel, flawed though it may be, compared with much of the rest of the world. Take just one country, Tunisia, which has a run-of-the-mill torturing authoritarian regime and no debate in its universities at all. Yet it wouldn't surprise me if many academics at Birmingham University have holidayed there, completely unhindered by Sue Blackwell. And then, of course, there's China.
No, Israel's universities are not bad and Israel's human rights record is no worse than that of many other countries. So, inevitably, the tack shifts. Israel's universities are intrinsically racist, according to Blackwell, with 'Israeli academics routinely implicated in racist discourses against Arab students and Arabs in general'.
And that's because there is something utterly unique about Israel itself, which marks it out from the merely abusive North Koreas and Irans. It has become an apartheid state, as South Africa was. And it, therefore, should be treated in the same way, with boycotts and disinvestments.
This is a genuinely, grade-A stupid argument, whether it emanates from the lips of Professor Steven Rose or the more sacred ones of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In itself, Israel is not anything like South Africa, where a majority was denied all political and civic rights on the grounds of race. What is analogous, however, is Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, which bears comparison with South Africa's occupation of Namibia or, some might say, Serbia's occupation of Kosovo.
So the object of those wanting peace and justice in the Middle East is to bring about an end to that occupation, and enable the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. It is to persuade both sides that such a settlement is practical and to persuade both sides to make the difficult sacrifices that are necessary. It is to build confidence between Jews and Palestinians, and to strengthen, always, the hand of the peacemakers.
Unless, of course, you don't believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state at all within any borders. And this, as it happens, seems to be the view of Sue Blackwell, who describes Israel as 'an illegitimate state'. Unlike the United Nations, she does not believe it should have been set up and she would rather it disappeared. As she pointed out in 2003 to a previous AUT council: 'From its very inception, the state of Israel has attracted international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinian people and making war on its neighbours.' Or, to put it even more bluntly, everything is all the fault of the Israelis.
The problem is that many Jews understand very well that this is her view and, unfortunately, will believe that it is also the view of all her fellow campaigners. Consequently, there will now be a battle royal (of which this article is part) about the rights and wrongs of these particular tactics, and the bigger picture will inevitably be lost. Everyone will return to their trenches and take the tarpaulins off their heaviest and most inaccurate artillery.
However, there may be a saving grace. Two years ago, Blackwell predicted that Tony Blair would be ousted at the next general election over Iraq. But if not: 'Then it may well be time for international pressure to be brought to bear, since the British electorate will have failed in their moral duty'.
So, one last reason, perhaps, to vote Labour on Thursday week. To enjoy the sight of Sue Blackwell busily boycotting herself.
EUROPE BLINDED BY ANTI-SEMITIC BIGOTRY
Europe blinded by anti-Semitic bigotry
By Joseph Farah
WorldNetDaily
April 20, 2005
www.wnd.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43891
The Association of University Teachers in the United Kingdom is set today to begin blacklisting Israeli professors who refuse to condemn their country's policies toward Arabs.
The academics will debate today whether to boycott three of Israel's eight universities Haifa, Bar Ilan and Hebrew over their alleged complicity with the government's policies toward the so-called "Palestinians."
But the boycott will exclude "conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state's colonial and racist policies."
Let me give you my perspective on this action the perspective of an Arab-American.
Israel is not a colonial state. It is not a racist state. The Arabs who live in Israel are among the freest Arabs in the world.
Every so-called "Palestinian" college has been created and funded by Israel. There were no Palestinian colleges or universities before 1967. And that is with good reason. Before 1967, there was no such thing as a Palestinian national identity. That notion was invented by Yasser Arafat and his allies post-1967 so they could pursue their plan to eradicate the Jewish state and the Jewish people of the Middle East by posing as victims rather than persecutors.
You can see just how well that insidious plan is working among Europe's hateful, anti-Semitic pseudo-intellectuals. It's working to perfection.
The victim is being blamed for the crime.
The AUT's indictment of Israel is short on specifics with good reason. There simply is no case to be made that Israel is oppressing Arabs, that it is making life unbearable for them, that it is the worst place on earth for them.
In Israel, Arabs vote in free elections. They hold office. They protest. They freely publish newspapers attacking the government.
Arabs don't do this in any other state with the possible exception of newly liberated Iraq.
In Israel, Arabs are even permitted to teach their revisionist history lessons. They are free to teach the most vile kinds of hatred against Jews and Israelis even receiving subsidies for those lessons from the suicidal, self-loathing, politically correct and intellectually incorrect Israeli government.
Yet, none of this matters in the rarefied atmosphere of Europe's perverted academic culture.
It's about Arab nationalist chic. It's cool on campus in Europe and North America to wear the keffiyeh. Never mind the fact that it represents repression, dictatorship, murder of the innocents, terrorism. Jews aren't cool. Arabs are.
Some Arabs, that is.
Christian Arabs aren't cool, either. Europe is silent as they are persecuted, murdered and scattered to the four winds by the Islamic nationalists and the phony Palestinians.
Only Christians and Jews who denounce their beliefs, embrace their enemies and tormentors and who blame themselves for acts of violence against them are to be accepted and tolerated under the new European academic orthodoxy.
Sadly, if this brand of ethnic and religious hatred were limited to the academy, it would not represent a crisis. Unfortunately, what is happening today in the annual council of the Association of University Teachers in England is symptomatic of what is spreading like a cancer throughout Europe, Canada and other parts of the world.
It is the mental disorder of anti-Semitism. It is a disease. It is irrational. It defies explanation. And it is evil.
Europe is undergoing the kind of mass psychosis it experienced once before in the late 1930s.
This is how it started then. Self-delusion is a pre-requisite for the justification of holocaust, of genocide, of ethnic cleansing.
If you doubt what I am saying, ask yourself the following questions:
Why are there no boycotts of Syrian universities?
Why are there no boycotts of Saudi Arabian universities?
Why are there no boycotts of Iranian universities?
Why are there no denunciations of the police state totalitarianism that is the norm throughout the Middle East with one notable exception Israel?
This is an update to two previous dispatches on this subject.
SOLD OUT, WITH PLANS TO READ THE PLAY IN SCHOOLS
"My Name is Rachel Corrie," the new play that opened at the prestigious London theatre recently described by the New York Times as "the most important theatre in Europe," has sold out. It has become one of the fastest-selling plays in 50 years, and is probably on its way to the US, with plans to distribute the text of the play in schools.
The theatre at which it is playing (the Royal Court) was lavishly refurbished in 2000 with the help of large donations from Jewish benefactors.
"HER DELICATE AUDREY HEPBURN FACE"
The play is co-directed by "Harry Potter" and "Die Hard" star Alan Rickman and by Katharine Viner, the editor of The Guardian's weekend magazine.
In one article for The Guardian in 2001, Viner described the notorious PLO terrorist and airplane hijacker of the 1970s Leila Khaled, as such: "The gun held in fragile hands, the shiny hair wrapped in a keffiah, the delicate Audrey Hepburn face... the symbol of Palestinian resistance."
The new Rachel Corrie play has not only been praised in the British press, but beyond on Al Jazeera's website, for example, and in the Beirut Daily Star, and elsewhere.
Below, I attach my article on the subject from Monday's Jerusalem Post.
At the foot of this email, there is a note about websites and readers' comments on the article.
-- Tom Gross
The forgotten Rachels
The Jerusalem Post (Opinion Page)
By Tom Gross
April 25, 2005
"My Name is Rachel Thaler" is not the title of a play that is likely to be produced anytime soon in London. Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following the February 16, 2002 attack, when a suicide bomber approached a crowd of teenagers and blew himself up.
She was a British citizen, born in London, where her grandparents still live. Yet I doubt that anyone at London's Royal Court Theatre or most people in the British media, have heard of her. "Not a single British journalist has ever interviewed me or mentioned her death," her mother Ginette told me last week.
Thaler's parents donated her organs for transplant (helping to save the life of a young Russian man), and grieved quietly. After the accidental killing of Rachel Corrie, by contrast, her parents embarked on a major publicity campaign. They traveled to Ramallah to accept a plaque from Yasser Arafat on behalf of their daughter. They circulated her emails and diary entries to a world media eager to publicize them.
Among those who published extracts from them in 2003 was the influential British leftist daily The Guardian. This in turn inspired a new play, "My Name is Rachel Corrie," which opened this month at the Royal Court Theatre, one of London most prestigious venues. (The New York Times recently described it as "the most important theatre in Europe.")
The play is co-edited and directed by Katharine Viner, the editor of The Guardian's weekend magazine, and by film star Alan Rickman (of Die Hard and Harry Potter fame). Their script weaves together extracts from Corrie's journals and e-mails.
For those who don't recall the story, Rachel Corrie was a young American radical who burnt mock-American flags at pro-Hamas rallies in Gaza in February 2003. A short while later she died after jumping in front of an Israeli army bulldozer that was attempting to demolish a structure suspected of concealing tunnels used for smuggling weapons.
Partly because of the efforts of Corrie and her fellow activists in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the Israeli army was unable to stop the flow of weapons through these tunnels. Those weapons were later used to kill Israeli children in the town of Sderot in southern Israel, and elsewhere.
However, in many hundreds of articles on Corrie published worldwide in the last two years, most papers have been careful to omit such details. So have Rickman and Viner, leaving almost all the critics who have reviewed the play completely clueless about the background of the events with which it deals.
"Corrie was always a progressive with a conscience ... she went to work with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza," wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian last week, without a shred of explanation as to what the ISM actually is.
The ISM is routinely described as a "peace group" in the western media. Few make any mention of the ISM's meeting with the British suicide bombers Omar Khan Sharif and Assif Muhammad Hanif, who a few days later blew up Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv pub, killing three and injuring dozens - including British citizens. Or of the ISM's sheltering in its office of Shadi Sukia, a leading member of Islamic Jihad. Or of the fact that in its mission statement, the ISM said "armed struggle" is a Palestinian "right."
"'Israel' is an illegal entity that should not exist," wrote Flo Rosovski, the ISM "media co-ordinator," clarifying the ISM's idea of peace.
Unfortunately for those who have sought to portray Corrie as a peaceful protester, photos of her burning a mock American flag and stirring up crowds in Gaza were published by the Associated Press and on Yahoo News on February 15, 2003, before she died. But the play doesn't mention this.
So British reviewers are left to tell the British public that the play is a "true-life tragedy" in which Corrie's "unselfish goodness shines through" (Evening Standard).
"Corrie was murdered after joining a non-violent Palestinian resistance organization," writes Emma Gosnell in the Sunday Telegraph. ("Murdered" is a term that even Corrie's staunchest defenders have hesitated to use up to now.)
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph, talks of "Corrie's concern for suffering humanity... ones leaves the theatre mourning not only Rachel Corrie but also one's own loss of the idealism and reckless courage of youth."
Not surprisingly, the play has also been praised on Al Jazeera's website and in the Beirut Daily Star.
In one of the most astonishing comments, Michael Billington, the Guardian's critic, writes of the play: "The danger of right-on propaganda is avoided."
It is ironic to reflect that there have been several real victims of the Intifada called Rachel - and it is hard to believe that these critics have ever heard of them. All these other Rachels died within a few months of Corrie, but - unlike her - in circumstances that weren't disputed. They were deliberately murdered:
Rachel Levy (17, blown up in a grocery store), Rachel Levi (19, shot while waiting for the bus), Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband, son and father while at home celebrating a Passover meal), Rachel Charhi (blown up while sitting in a Tel Aviv cafe, leaving three young children), Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons aged 5, 13 and 16 while at home).
Katharine Viner, the co- director of the Corrie play, is certainly familiar with Palestinian terrorists. For example, in 2001, she described a Palestinian hijacker she interviewed in The Guardian as such:
"The iconic photograph of Leila Khaled, the picture which made her the symbol of Palestinian resistance and female power, is extraordinary in many ways: the gun held in fragile hands, the shiny hair wrapped in a keffiah, the delicate Audrey Hepburn face refusing to meet your eye. But it's the ring, resting delicately on her third finger. To fuse an object of feminine adornment, of frivolity, with a bullet: that is Khaled's story, the reason behind her image's enduring power. Beauty mixed with violence."
(Since that interview Viner has twice been named British Newspaper Magazine Editor of the Year.)
Only one critic (Clive Davis in the Times of London) dismisses parts of the play as "unvarnished propaganda." At one point Corrie declares "the vast majority of Palestinians right now, as far as I can tell, are engaging in Gandhian non-violent resistance". As Davis notes, "Even the late Yasser Arafat might have blushed at that one."
Rachel Corrie's death was undoubtedly tragic. But ultimately this play isn't really about Corrie, but about fomenting hatred of Israel. The production is now sold out and there is talk of it being staged in America. The Royal Court is also rushing out a printed edition of the play to give to schools.
(The writer is a former Jerusalem correspondent of The Sunday Telegraph.)
A NOTE ABOUT WEBSITES AND COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE ARTICLE
Dozens of websites and weblogs have cited this article since its publication on Monday, including those of commentators Melanie Phillips and Clive Davis of London, Prof. Steven Plaut of Haifa, and Charles Johnson (of Little Green Footballs) in northern California. (All are subscribers to this email list.)
Others commentators, such as Andrew Sullivan, have sent me encouraging personal notes about the article.
Readers' comments on this article have also been left at many sites and weblogs, for example at http://web.israelinsider.com/views/5396.htm
On Little Green Footballs alone, 244 comments have been left so far
(http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15604_The_Forgotten_Rachels#comments)
* I disagree with both the tone and content of many of these comments and would ask that anyone leaving comments do so in a considered and moderate manner.
For a photo of Corrie of the type not seen at the Royal Court Theatre, see http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0405/rachels.php3
* Jewish despair as Queen Elizabeth II set to honor the BBC's Orla Guerin with an MBE
[Note by Tom Gross]
The BBC's Jerusalem correspondent Orla Guerin (one of several the BBC keeps in the city) is regarded by many as the most anti-Israeli journalist reporting from Israel today.
Her revulsion for the state of Israel has been documented on several occasions and she has been criticized publicly by other British journalists for her partiality.
Referring to Guerin, Israeli government minister Natan Sharansky last year asked the BBC why they employed a correspondent whose reporting "smacks of anti-Semitism."
In 2002, a columnist in the (London) Daily Telegraph said Guerin and two other British correspondents in Israel were "doing the work of Goebbels without bothering to wear the brown uniform identifying their agenda."
HOW THE ISRAELIS STOLE CHRISTMAS
One of Guerin's reports later that year was titled "How the Israelis Stole Christmas."
The (London) Evening Standard, which interviewed Guerin in 2003, said she "questioned Israel's claim to be a democracy" and "compared its press freedom with Zimbabwe's."
Several times, the BBC has had to "clarify" Guerin's reporting after complaints.
According to a senior British journalist, after the Hamas leader in Gaza Dr Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi was killed by Israel last year, Guerin's report was removed from the BBC website after even the BBC regarded it as unduly favorable to Rantissi.
"OUTSTANDING SERVICE TO BROADCASTING"
Now, on the recommendation of Tony Blair's government, the British Queen is to honor Guerin with an MBE (Member of the British Empire) for her "outstanding service to broadcasting."
Dublin-born Guerin is an Irish national and it is rare for a foreigner to be given an MBE. A spokesman for the BBC said: "We are delighted that Orla will be awarded an honorary MBE."
A LABOUR PARTY CANDIDATE
Now living in Jerusalem, with her Arab husband, Guerin has covered the Middle East for four years. She recently said one of the most memorable moments of her career was Arafat's funeral
She stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Labour party in Dublin at the European elections in 1994.
Yesterday and today, Guerin and the BBC refused to answer questions about her award from Jerusalem Post journalists. I attach two items below.
-- Tom Gross
AN EXAMPLE OF GUERIN'S NEWS REPORTING
This is an extract from www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com concerning Guerin's reporting of the double suicide bomb in Tel Aviv in January 2003:
"The shameful Orla Guerin excelled herself on tonight's BBC News. Reporting on the murder of 22 people by Palestinian terrorists, she concluded her report thus: 'But for the Palestinians it never stops; 50 of them killed by the army each week'. So grotesquely biased is Ms Guerin that she is unable even to report on a clear, straightforward example of Palestinian terror without finding a way of including dubious at best Palestinian propaganda and insinuating that it Israelis are only getting their just deserts."
Israel 'shocked' at BBC reporter award
By Herb Keinon
The Jerusalem Post
April 21, 2005
Israeli officials expressed dismay this week that BBC reporter Orla Guerin, who has come under sharp attack for what some perceive as an anti-Israeli bias in her coverage, will receive an MBE honor from the British government for "outstanding service to broadcasting."
Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky, who last year wrote a formal letter of complaint to the BBC over Guerin's coverage, said it is a pity that a lack of anti-Semitism was not a criterion for the award.
If it were a criterion, he said, Guerin would not be receiving the honor. The MBE stands for Member of the British Empire, one of a number of honors issued each year by the Queen.
"It is very sad that something as important as anti-Semitism is not taken into consideration when issuing this award, especially in Britain where the incidents of anti-Semitism are on the rise," Sharansky said.
Guerin, when contacted Wednesday, would not speak without receiving permission from her home office in London. A phone query to the BBC offices in London, followed as requested by an e-mail with a short description of the line of questioning, did not yield a response from either the BBC or Guerin.
According to the Sunday Times, the 38-year-old Guerin will be presented the award by Baroness Symons, the minister of state for the Middle East in the British Foreign Office. According to this report, Guerin who has spent 10 years reporting from war-torn countries was to receive the honor last year, but the ceremony was postponed so she could report from Ramallah on Yasser Arafat's funeral.
In addition to Jerusalem, she has also reported from Kosovo, Grozny, Moscow and the Basque country.
One Israeli official, who responded to the news by saying he was "shocked," said Guerin is among the most anti-Israeli journalists reporting from Israel today.
According to this official, granting her an award fits into a pattern that began in 2003 when the United Kingdom's Political Cartoon Society awarded Dave Brown of the Independent its "cartoon of the year" award for a cartoon he drew depicting a naked Ariel Sharon biting off the bloodied head of a Palestinian child.
"It seems if you are anti-Israel, you will get an award," the official said.
Last year, in response to one of Guerin's dispatches about Israel's capture of a mentally challenged 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber, Sharansky wrote the BBC that it employs a "gross double standard to the Jewish state" that smacks of anti-Semitism.
Sharansky protested that Guerin, in her report, portrayed the event as "Israel's cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes." He said this "reveals a deep-seated bias against Israel. Only a total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups would drive a reporter to paint Israel in such an unflattering light instead of placing the focus on the bomber and the organization that recruited him."
The report, he said, "has not only set a new standard for biased journalism, it has also raised concerns that it was tainted by anti-Semitism."
In his letter, Sharansky quoted Guerin as describing to viewers how the IDF "paraded the child in front of the international media," then "produced" the child for reporters, "posed" him a second time for the cameras, and then "rushed him back into a jeep."
Likewise, the Evening Standard, which interviewed Guerin in 2003, wrote that she "questioned Israel's claim to be a democracy, compared its press freedom with Zimbabwe's and accused its officials of paranoia."
During that interview, Guerin - referring to a period that year when Israel refused to cooperate with the BBC - said "I can't imagine any other government thinking like that - Zimbabwe is the comparison. I'm absolutely stunned that they think it's appropriate."
"Israel talks regularly - at this point, in my view, with less justification - about being the only democracy in the Middle East," she said. "But how can you still be a democracy and try to harass the press? This is not how a democracy behaves."
* Hundreds of Jewish soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to get kosher Passover rations
* Passover seders to be held in Baghdad, Fallujah, Tikrit, Bahrain and Qatar
CONTENTS
1. "Abbas sends holiday greetings" (JTA, April 20, 2005)
2. "Jewish soldiers in Iraq get kosher Pesach rations" (Ha'aretz, April 21, 2005)
3. "530,000 passengers expected through Ben-Gurion during Passover" (Ha'aretz, April 21, 2003)
4. "Passover exodus floods airport" (Ynet news, April 20, 2005)
[Note by Tom Gross]
Palestinian Authority chairman Mohammed Abbas (also widely known in the Middle East by his 'nom de guerre' Abu Mazen) has sent Passover holiday greetings to "Israelis and Jews everywhere."
This is of some significance from a man who for years disputed the Holocaust.
His predecessor, Yasser Arafat, also routinely sent Passover greetings to Jews, but then on several occasions, such as in 2002, dispatched suicide bombers to kill them the next day. Israelis have higher expectations of Abbas.
The Jewish festival of Passover begins on Saturday night and lasts for seven days in Israel and eight days outside Israel.
Please note that in relation to the article below about Passover Seders being held in Iraq, this is under the protection of the US army. It is still not safe for a Jew to enter Iraq in a civilian capacity despite millennia of previous Jewish presence in the region.
I attach four articles below.
-- Tom Gross
ABBAS SENDS HOLIDAY GREETINGS
Abbas sends holiday greetings
Jewish Telegraph Agency
April 20, 2005
Mahmoud Abbas wished world Jewry a happy Passover.
"With the advent of the Passover festival, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the people of Israel, and Jews everywhere 'Chag Sameach, happy holiday,'" the Palestinian Authority president said during an interview Tuesday with Israel's Channel Two television, switching briefly from Arabic to Hebrew for the greeting.
"Passover is the festival of liberation. With your help, we Palestinians would also like to achieve liberation," he said, addressing the Israeli audience.
JEWISH SOLDIERS IN IRAQ GET KOSHER PASSOVER RATIONS
Jewish soldiers in Iraq get kosher Pesach rations
By Shlomo Shamir
Ha'aretz
April 21, 2005
www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=567681
The Jewish members of America's armed forces will again receive kosher K-rations this Pesach throughout the holiday, provided by the U.S. Defense Department.
Thousands of packages containing kosher for Pesach MREs (meals ready to eat) have already reached U.S. army and navy supply bases, with special shipments aimed at Jewish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Each kit contains 24 MREs, enough for three meals a day for the eight days celebrated in the Diaspora. The meals, prepared by a catering plant in Chicago and supplied by the Jewish Welfare Board's Jewish Chaplains Council, give soldiers a choice of three menus.
The Jewish Chaplains Council estimates that the number of Jews stationed in Iraq is between 500 and 600. Of the 30 Jewish chaplains on active duty around the world, eight chaplains are stationed in Iraq, including two female rabbis.
Each chaplain stationed in Iraq will hold two seders at base camps, with central seders taking place in Baghdad, Falluja and Tikrit. There will also be two seders at the army headquarters in Bahrain, and air force headquarters in Qatar. Jewish soldiers stationed in remote locations will be able to attend seders led by soldiers who received special training for that purpose.
530,000 PASSENGERS EXPECTED IN BEN-GURION DURING PASSOVER
530,000 passengers expected through Ben-Gurion during Passover
By Zohar Blumenkrantz and Amiram Barkat
Ha'aretz
April 21, 2003
(Summary only)
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/567966.html
Some 530,000 passengers on 3,553 flights are scheduled to pass through Ben-Gurion International Airport over the Passover holiday (April 17 to May 7), posing the first major challenge for the new Terminal 3.
The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) expects a 20 percent increase in passenger volume during this peak travel period compared to last year.
... The airport's busiest day will be May 1, the day following the second Passover holiday, with 286 departures and arrivals carrying 43,000 passengers.
The peak Passover season will end on Thursday, May 5, with 35,000 passengers on 235 flights.
THIS YEAR IN TURKEY
Pesach exodus floods airport
Tens of thousands of passengers, coming in and out of the country on hundreds of daily flights, are set to pack Ben-Gurion International Airport this Pesach, an increase over recent years
By Danny Sadeh
Ynetnews
April 20, 2005
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3075432,00.html
Israelis' traditional exodus from the country for their Pesach [Passover] vacation is more intensive this year than in recent years. At the same time, more travelers are expected to enter the country, as well.
More than 200 fully loaded planes are set to fly out of Israel Wednesday and Thursday. On average, this means one plane takes off every 12 minutes.
Israelis' favorite destination this year has not changed: 30 fully booked flights are scheduled to take wandering Jews to their seders in what many local travel agents like to call the second Israel, Turkey.
However, those who can spend more than $500 on a family vacation overseas will be heading to North America. Among the favorite destinations of an additional 30 packed flights taking off in the next couple of days are New York City, Orlando, Florida, and the West Coast.
The younger, more adventurous local crowd seems to be making amends for the mass departure from neighboring Egypt in Biblical times. As many as 15,000 Israelis are set to return to Sinai, despite repeated security warnings. However, this is still only about half of the number of Israelis who spent last Pesach there.
Incoming traffic
But there will be incoming traffic as well. An El Al official reported that the airline is flying 33 percent more visitors into the country this year than last year during Pesach. Other international airlines are reporting a significant increase in the number of arriving passengers, as well.
"We have no room for tourists wanting to come to Israel," said Ofer Kisch, CEO of Lufthansa Israel.
In total, 39,000 passengers are set to go through Ben-Gurion International Airport on Wednesday. Come Sunday, May 1, at the holiday's end, 286 flights are set to go through the airport, carrying 43,000 people in and out of the country.
All that jazz is set to conclude come May 5, with 35,000 passengers on 235 flights. That is, until next year.
CONTENTS
1. "Viagra ruled kosher for Passover" (BBC News, April 14, 2005)
2. "Bread is off the menu as safari park puts animals on kosher diet" (Independent, April 20, 2005)
3. "Zoo Keeps Gorillas Kosher for Passover" (AP, April 20, 2005)
VIAGRA GIVEN THE ALL-CLEAR
[Note by Tom Gross]
The Jewish festival of Passover begins on Saturday night and lasts for seven days in Israel and eight days outside Israel.
I occasionally try and send "lighter" articles on this, and attached below are stories from the BBC and the Associated Press.
* Viagra, which had been deemed not kosher since 1998 under strict dietary laws over the week-long Jewish spring holiday, has been given the all-clear by leading rabbis. A prescription for Viagra is issued in Israel on average once every minute, according to news reports.
* Accustomed to eating a slice of bread with cream cheese every morning, beginning Tuesday the gorillas and other animals at Ramat Gan safari have been fed matzo instead. Presumably the gorillas have not been prescribed Viagra too.
-- Tom Gross
VIAGRA RULED KOSHER FOR PASSOVER
Viagra ruled kosher for Passover
BBC News
April 14, 2005
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4444839.stm
A leading Israeli rabbi has ruled that the anti-impotency pill Viagra can be taken by Jews on Passover, reversing a previous ban. Viagra had been deemed not kosher since 1998 under strict dietary laws over the week-long Jewish spring holiday.
Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu said the pill can be swallowed if it is encased in a special soluble kosher capsule first. Viagra's Israeli manufacturers said they sought an answer after receiving queries from worried religious men.
The drug was previously prohibited because its coating was considered inedible over Passover, when contact with everyday ingredients, known as hametz, is forbidden under Jewish law.
In particular, Jews must dispose of any foodstuffs containing leavening agents, such as bread, cake or biscuits, or anything which might have come into contact with them in the production process.
The dietary laws are so strict that only drugs to treat life-threatening conditions may be consumed during the festival, which lasts for seven days in Israel and eight days for Jews in the rest of the world.
According to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Rabbi Eliahu, a former chief rabbi, said men can take Viagra if they purchase special capsules made from kosher gelatin in which to put the pill before the holiday starts.
Viagra's Israeli manufacturer, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals-Israel, said swallowing the capsule does not breach Jewish law because the Viagra would not come into direct contact with the body.
A prescription for Viagra is issued in Israel on average once every minute, the newspaper reports.
Since Viagra was introduced seven years ago, more than 23 million men have been prescribed the drug worldwide, Pfizer says. Annual sales are worth nearly $2bn.
PASSOVER LAWS (BBC)
Possession or consumption of foodstuffs containing leaven forbidden
Use of "koshered" crockery or cooking utensils
Consumption of specially approved food and household products
BREAD IS OFF THE MENU AS SAFARI PARK PUTS ANIMALS ON KOSHER DIET
Bread is off the menu as safari park puts animals on kosher diet
By Donald Macintyre
The Independent
April 20, 2005
news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=631167
Animals at a leading Israeli safari park are being given a fully kosher diet over this year's Passover, requiring a significant change in diet for creatures such as elephants and gorillas.
The Ramat Gan Safari - one of the country's most popular attractions - will be feeding its animals with matzos, the brittle unleavened bread customary over the religious holiday which begins on Saturday night. Workers have begun cleaning the animals' habitats and the new diet has started to ensure that as required under Jewish law for humans no chametz - leavened products - will be in the enclosures at Passover. Elephants and apes at the park normally eat large quantities of bread.
"We're doing a thorough cleaning just like in every Israeli home so that the safari is kosher," said Sagit Horowitz, a spokeswoman for the safari. "The animals will receive a kosher for Passover mix of food and matzos so that by the time Passover arrives there isn't even a single crumb of chametz left near the animals." The animals will have a kosher diet for seven days.
Ms Horowitz said the move was required by the rabbinate as some animal food comes from tithes, the tenth of crops given to priests and the poor.
But the park also took into account the sensitivities of its visitors. "Religious and Haredi visitors come to the safari, and it doesn't look good when the elephant eats bread right in front of them."
ZOO KEEPS GORILLAS KOSHER FOR PASSOVER
Zoo Keeps Gorillas Kosher for Passover
By Ami Bentov
The Associated Press
April 20, 2005
When Passover comes around, even gorillas in Israel keep kosher. In line with many other Israelis busy cleaning their homes to remove bread-related products for the Passover holiday that begins Saturday night, the Safari Park Zoo near Tel Aviv does the same.
Since the zookeepers and handlers cannot touch any leavened products during the weeklong holiday that marks the biblical Jewish exodus from Egypt, the gorillas and other animals are also fed matzo - the unleavened cracker Jews eat to remember that in their rush to flee slavery, the ancient Israelites' bread did not have time to rise.
Accustomed to eating a slice of bread with cream cheese every morning, beginning Tuesday the gorillas and other animals at the safari were fed matzo instead, said Emelia Turkel, the zoo's curator.
"This turns out to be an interesting time for the gorillas and for the other animals because they get a bit of a change in diet," Turkel said. "We call this environmental enrichment, Jewish style."
The zoo has always fed the animals matzo during the Passover holiday, Turkel said, but try to limit their intake to just one or two crackers a day to prevent them from suffering from the most common side-effect of matzo - constipation.
"If they eat too much it does cause stomach problems, so we hope that our public this week will not be feeding their own matzo to the animals," Turkel said.
Watching the zookeepers throw matzos to the excited gorillas - romping in the grassy area after the crackers - visitors to the safari laughed and joked about the holiday tradition.
"I think it's a good idea for them. They're influenced by the Jews here," said Moshe, a visitor to the safari who gave only his first name.
THE NEW POPE AND HIS STINT IN THE HITLER YOUTH
[An additional note by Tom Gross]
Following on from three dispatches about John Paul II that were sent on this list earlier this month, several people have asked me to send some of the articles that have appeared in the international media in the last two days about Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's having belonged to the Hitler Youth. These articles include "Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth" (The Sunday Times of London, April 17, 2005) and similar pieces in papers like the Times of India.
Ratzinger was appointed pope about an hour ago, and some are warning that his wartime past may return to haunt him. That past includes brief membership of the Hitler Youth, when he was aged 14, and wartime service aged 16-17 with a German army anti-aircraft unit, the workforce of which also included slaves from Dachau concentration camp.
Ratzinger may have many faults for his ultra-conservative social views and his nasty comments about other religions, such as the Russian Orthodox Church. But his Hitler Youth stint in 1941 was something that was compulsory and should not in and of itself be held against him.
Towards the end of the war, he was sent to Hungary, where he set up tank traps and saw Jews being herded to death camps. He deserted in April 1944 and spent a few weeks in a prisoner of war camp.
There is no suggestion that he was involved in any atrocities. His father, also called Joseph, was an anti-Nazi.
-- Tom Gross
This is an update to several previous dispatches on Al-Jazeera, and several on Iran
CONTENTS:
1. Al-Jazeera, doing a good job for once
2. "Iran bans al-Jazeera after riots (BBC News, April 19, 2005)
3. "Iran closes al-Jazeera offices (Guardian, April 19, 2005)
[Note by Tom Gross]
In the past, al-Jazeera has rightly been criticized for its highly slanted and incendiary coverage of the US and Israel. Regarding Israel in particular, Al-Jazeera has often simply made things up, such as the supposed existence of mass graves in Jenin and elsewhere in April 2002.
However in the case of Iran this week, it seems that Al-Jazeera has been unjustly punished for reporting on a genuine story. Just as Al-Jazeera has been praised for making some Arab governments more accountable, it should be praised for highlighting the anti-Arab moves of the Iranian government. (At least three people have died in Iran's south-west Khuzestan province over the past few days in ethnic riots, sparked by alleged plans to "change the area's ethnic makeup." Iran's Arabs, who are the majority in Khuzestan's capital Ahwaz, make up only 3% of the population of Iran.)
At the same time, by banning Al-Jazeera, the Iranian regime has again shown that it regards the media as little more than a tool for propaganda, and not as a check on bad governance.
I attach two articles from today, with summaries first for those who don't have time to read the articles in full.
SUMMARIES
IRAN BANS AL-JAZEERA AFTER RIOTS
"Iran bans al-Jazeera after riots" (BBC News, April 19, 2005)
Iran has suspended operations by the al-Jazeera television network, accusing it of inflaming violent protests by the country's Arab minority. Al-Jazeera described the action as "surprising and unjustified"... The television network - which is popular among Iranian Arabs - is reported to have been the first to broadcast news of the riots.
The Iranian government is launching an investigation into al-Jazeera's coverage of the rioting. "If it is proved that al-Jazeera committed a crime, it will be prosecuted," Mohammad Khoshvaght of the culture and Islamic guidance ministry told state television.
IRAN CLOSES AL-JAZEERA OFFICES
"Iran closes al-Jazeera offices" (By Stephen Brook, The Guardian, April 19, 2005)
The Iranian authorities have shut down the Tehran offices of al-Jazeera, accusing the broadcaster of inflaming ethnic riots in the south of the country.
Al-Jazeera said today it had been told to stop broadcasting in Iran and had appealed to the government to reverse its decision. "Al-Jazeera assures its audience that it will continue to cover Iranian affairs objectively, comprehensively and in a balanced way, and calls on the relevant Iranian authorities to reconsider the decision to suspend its bureau's activities," the broadcaster said.
... The unrest Iran's south-west Khuzestan province was also discussed on al-Jazeera's talkshows, prompting a government investigation into its coverage.
IRAN BANS AL-JAZEERA AFTER RIOTS
Iran bans al-Jazeera after riots
BBC News
April 19, 2005
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4459033.stm
Iran has suspended operations by the al-Jazeera television network, accusing it of inflaming violent protests by the country's Arab minority.
Three people have died in ethnic clashes in Iran's south-west Khuzestan province over the past few days.
The riots are thought to have been sparked by alleged plans - which the government denies - to change the area's ethnic makeup.
Al-Jazeera described the action as "surprising and unjustified".
It said it would maintain its "editorial policy of airing the full range of opinions and covering current affairs in Iran objectively and fairly".
The television network - which is popular among Iranian Arabs - is reported to have been the first to broadcast news of the demonstrations.
The government is launching an investigation into al-Jazeera's coverage of the rioting.
"If it is proved that al-Jazeera committed a crime, it will be prosecuted," Mohammad Khoshvaght of the culture and Islamic guidance ministry told state television.
Iranian MPs have criticised al-Jazeera, saying it portrayed the violence as a separatist unrest.
The Popular Democratic Front of Ahwazi Arabs in Iran, which is based in London, told al-Jazeera that it had called for peaceful demonstrations in Khuzestan to "to mark 80 years of Iranian occupation" but the government had opted to deploy military force.
Iran's Arabs, who are the majority in Khuzestan's capital Ahwaz, make up only 3% of the population of Iran.
Iran's interior ministry says the area is now calm.
IRAN CLOSES AL-JAZEERA OFFICES
Iran closes al-Jazeera offices
By Stephen Brook
The Guardian
April 19, 2005
media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1463288,00.html
The Iranian authorities have shut down the Tehran offices of al-Jazeera, accusing the broadcaster of inflaming ethnic riots in the south of the country.
Al-Jazeera said today it had been told to stop broadcasting in Iran and had appealed to the government to reverse its decision.
"Al-Jazeera assures its audience that it will continue to cover Iranian affairs objectively, comprehensively and in a balanced way, and calls on the relevant Iranian authorities to reconsider the decision to suspend its bureau's activities," the broadcaster said.
The Arabic news network was first to report the unrest in Iran's south-west Khuzestan province near the Iraq border, which has led to 200 arrests over the past few days.
The unrest was also discussed on al-Jazeera's talkshows, prompting a government investigation into its coverage.
"We suspended its activity in Iran to investigate the network's role in unrest in Ahvaz," Mohammad Khoshvaght of the culture and Islamic guidance ministry told state television.
"We expect the network to respect Iran's national integrity and security. If it is proved that al-Jazeera committed a crime, it will be prosecuted."
Al-Jazeera is popular among Iran's Arabs, who are the majority in Khuzestan's capital Ahwaz but make up only 3% of the country's population. Persians account for 51%.
Al-Jazeera, owned by the government of Qatar, has fallen foul of governments across the Middle East.
It was banned from reporting in Iraq last year and has angered authorities in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait for its policy of airing opposition views and criticisms.
The US government has also attacked the network for its coverage of the Iraq war.
This is an update to several previous dispatches on Hizbullah, Syria, and the manipulation of the media by extremists groups.
CONTENTS
1. Glorifying the father of suicide bombing
2. The ultimate lie: Hamas "spares children"
3. Banned in France
4. Another victim
5. "Israel's hand in 9/11 is clear"
6. "Hamas bombmaker star of Syrian produced TV series" (Arutz Sheva, April 18, 2005)
7. "Taliban take to the airwaves" (UPI, April 19, 2005)
8. "Bush refuses to talk to Assad" (Al-Jazeera, April 18, 2005)
[Note by Tom Gross]
According to the article below, a 12-part Syrian-produced series on the life of the "father of suicide bombings," Hamas bomb-maker Yihye Ayyash, has begun airing on the Lebanese-based Hizbullah satellite television station Al-Manar.
The new series, which is airing in prime time each evening in Lebanon and internationally, glorifies the master terrorist Ayyash and Hamas in general. Sinister music is played whenever a Jew appears on the scene.
THE ULTIMATE LIE: HAMAS "SPARES CHILDREN"
Ayyash is portrayed as a role model, and even a moral humanist. One scene depicts Ayyash urging terrorists under his command not to harm any Israeli children in an "operation." He says to them: "Never forget, we are superior to our enemy in our moral standards."
This is a lie worthy of neo-Nazis and Holocaust revisionists. On countless occasions, Ayyash and Hamas have deliberately targeted children.
"ISRAEL'S HAND IN 9/11 IS CLEAR"
This series is yet another reminder that Hizbullah holds back the Palestinians by not sending out a positive message to their Muslim brethren, but by praising the mass killers of Jews.
The series come only days after it was reported that the Arab League Ambassador to Britain, Ali Muhsen Hamid, told a gathering of the Foreign and Commonwealth Council at the British Parliament that "Israel's hand in the [9/11] matter is clear."
BANNED IN FRANCE
As reported on this email list, Al-Manar was recently banned in France for its previous incendiary broadcasts, such as the dramatic adaptation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which the French authorities finally admitted had helped stir up anti-Semitic violence in France. It is still broadcast in other European countries and is popular with Arab-speaking populations there.
The BBC World Service also continues to promote Al-Manar. Last week, for example, a leading Al-Manar journalist appeared for a full hour on a special BBC discussion program. In the course of the entire hour, the BBC, while reporting in bemused tomes that the US government have sought to have Al-Manar banned for encouraging terrorism, did not provide a single example of Al-Manar's extremist broadcasts, and left BBC listeners with the idea that Al-Manar was a legitimate form of journalism and the Bush administration's complaints were all imaginary.
ANOTHER VICTIM
Hizbullah almost certainly aided Syrian intelligence in the bomb that killed ex-Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in February. Yesterday, another former Lebanese minister (Basil Fuleihan, the economy minister) died from wounds sustained in that same attack.
Fuleihan, who had suffered burns to more than 90 percent of his body, succumbed to his injuries in a Paris hospital, leaving behind a wife and two young children. Fuleihan held a British passport, and was one of Hariri's top aides and was credited for the success of many of his economic policies.
-- Tom Gross
HAMAS BOMB-MAKER STAR OF SYRIAN PRODUCED TV SERIES
Hamas Bomb-Maker Star of Syrian Produced TV Series
Arutz Sheva
April 18, 2005
www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=80472
A 12-part series on the life of the "father of suicide bombings," Hamas bomb-maker Yihye Ayyash is set to be aired on the Lebanese-based Hizbullah satellite television station al-Manar.
Ayyash was born in 1966, near Shechem. He studied electrical engineering at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah and joined Hamas shortly afterward. His bombs killed at least 76 Israelis and injured more than 400 before Israeli intelligence succeeded in killing him, using a bomb installed in his cellular phone.
Ayyash is lauded as a hero in the Palestinian Authority and posters featuring his face, with the honorific nickname 'al-Muhandas' [the engineer], plaster the walls of many Arab towns in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
On January 5th, 1996, Israeli security agents succeeded in planting 1.7 ounces of explosives in his cell phone detonating it after he answered the phone and his voice was confirmed.
This is not the first anti-Semitic program to be aired on al-Manar. Aside from the laudatory news reports following any attack on Israeli civilians, the channel broadcast a series called 'A-Shatat' [Diaspora] in November 2003. The show was billed as an accurate depiction of modern Zionism, but was blatantly anti-Semitic in content and made repeated references to the forged anti-Semitic document "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".
Following that broadcast and the refusal of al-Manar to remove anti-Semitic programming, the channel was removed from the rosters of local satellite networks in the United States and France.
The series on Ayyash began airing in April, at prime time each evening. The series glorifies the terrorist and Hamas in general.
The Arab actors playing IDF soldiers of Israeli government officials speak Hebrew in the series, though with a thick Arabic accent. Sinister music is played whenever a Jew appears on the scene.
Ayyash is portrayed as a role model, and even a moral humanist. One scene depicts Ayyash urging terrorists under his command not to harm any Israeli children in an "operation." He says to them: "Never forget, we are superior to our enemy in our moral standards."
TALIBAN TAKE TO THE AIRWAVES
Taliban take to the airwaves
UPI
April 19, 2005
Afghanistan's overthrown Taliban regime has announced the start of a pirate radio station which will air anti-government programs.
Abdul Latif Hakimi, a Taliban spokesman, said the station known as Shariat Ghagh (Voice of Islamic Law) is back on the air and can be heard in four southern Afghan provinces. The station, which was active during the Taliban's time in power from 1996 to 2001, will use a mobile transmitter inside Afghanistan, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Web site reported Monday.
"The radios of the world, which are apparently free, are in fact slaves of others. That is why we have launched the radio, to make people aware about the Taliban's thoughts and objectives," Hakimi said, as quoted by the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times. An official with the U.N. World Food Programme also confirmed the start of the new station's broadcasts.
U.S. forces have predicted the collapse of the Taliban, saying there are roughly only 2,000 fighters still loyal to the Islamist movement. The radio station is an effort to strengthen their stand and expand their sphere of influence in the southern region of Afghanistan.
BUSH REFUSES TO TALK TO ASSAD
Bush refuses to talk to Assad
Al-Jazeera
April 18, 2005
According to the pan-Arab daily Al Sharq Al Awsat, U.S. President George Bush will not sit down and talk to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad a U.S. official was quoted as saying.
"The United States is not at all happy with Syria's policies," the unnamed official told the London-based paper. "Contact with the Syrian regime will remain at the lowest level and will not reach the point where President Bashar Al Assad finds himself at the same table as President George Bush."
Meanwhile, the Israeli daily Maariv on Thursday quoted U.S. officials as saying that "in private, American officials and in particular President Bush, say that Assad is a 'strange personality,' that he can't be trusted and that we must wait for him to leave the political arena."
"Even in Syria, people are conscious of what's going on in the world and around them" say the Americans. (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon has heard from his partners that the "Syrian regime is about to collapse and won't survive the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon," the Israeli paper said.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ali Tuygan called on Washington to cooperate with Syria and Iran in order to solve pending issues and to further avoid confrontations.
The Anadulu News Agency quoted Tuygan as saying, during a meeting at the Washington Institute, that the Syrian-Turkish relations gave Turkey the opportunity to understand the situation in the region.
Meanwhile, in Paris, the Chairman of the Arab- French Solidarity society Lucien Peterlein underlined the society's absolute solidarity with Syria in the face of the current pressures it is exposed to.
According to Peterlein, "We stand by Syria in the face of pressures and threats against that aim at obliging it to abandon its firm principles." The statement hailed Syria's wise and brave leadership towards the existing pressures, stressing that Syria has opted for the way of peace and what is right.
CONTENTS:
1. The BBC didn't believe their own reporter
2. Pictures of naked bodies with missing hearts and livers
3. Anne Frank, one of many thousands
4. Leftist newspapers less interested
5. "Tears as day of deliverance from Belsen recalled" (Scotsman, April 18, 2005)
6. "At last we can talk of our secret horror" (Daily Telegraph, April 18, 2005)
7. "Survivors mark liberation of Nazi camps" (AP, April 18, 2005)
8. "When Belsen was liberated, the Holocaust came to Britain" (Times of London, April 16, 2005)
THE BBC DIDN'T BELIEVE THEIR OWN REPORTER
Sixty years ago tomorrow, millions of people around the world became aware for the first time of the full horror of the Holocaust: on April 19, 1945, BBC radio broadcast details of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
But the BBC reporter on the scene, Richard Dimbleby, had actually compiled his report four days earlier on April 15, 1945, hours after he arrived at the camp with the British army unit which liberated Belsen.
His BBC bosses in London said they found it so hard to believe his report that for four days they refused to broadcast it.
Finally, on April 19, 1945, after Dimbleby one of the BBC's leading correspondents threatened to resign if the BBC didn't broadcast his account, the BBC broadcast it.
Dimbleby broke down five times while trying to record descriptions of the stench of decomposing flesh, the pyramids of starved and emaciated corpses, some still dying, others waiting to be buried, with arms and legs were like matchsticks, their bones poking through their skin.
PICTURES OF NAKED BODIES WITH MISSING HEARTS AND LIVERS
A few days later, British army film of soldiers bulldozing thousands of stick-like corpses into mass graves at the camp shocked the world and brought home the barbarity of the full Nazi regime for the first time. Some of the pictures showed naked bodies with missing hearts and livers, people alive with no teeth or hair. Until that stage of the war there had been no images of what had happened in the camps.
(Among the liberating British army soldiers was Chaim Herzog, later President of Israel.)
ANNE FRANK, ONE OF MANY THOUSANDS
The vast majority of the victims at Bergen-Belsen were Jews. They included well-known Holocaust victims such as Anne Frank and Simone Veil. In deference to the few orthodox survivors, services commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation were held not last Friday April 15, the Jewish Sabbath, but yesterday.
LEFTIST NEWSPAPERS LESS INTERESTED
As the (rightist) Daily Telegraph notes today: "Since that day 60 years ago, many in the West have preferred not to think about how a nation as apparently civilised as Germany could have come to treat human beings like this. It seemed more comfortable to dismiss Adolf Hitler and his followers as inhuman madmen aberrations of history than to accept that anything like the Holocaust could happen again. But all of history should warn us that it could happen again."
Many center-right newspapers have extensive coverage today, including front-page photos. But some left-leaning papers, such as the Independent (of London) and the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune, make almost no reference today to the ceremonies at Belsen yesterday and carried no photos. It is probably not a coincidence that these are the papers that are routinely hostile to Israel.
For example, the Independent today has a little story without a photo at the foot of page 21, in contrast to rightist papers like the Daily Express which carries a top-of-the-page photo of flowers being left yesterday at a grave for Anne and Margot Frank.
And the International Herald Tribune publishes a huge, side-angled photo of Ariel Sharon in his Jerusalem office, looking particular sinister, next to their story today (which is only three sentences long) headlined "Camp survivors mark anniversary of release."
-- Tom Gross
SUMMARIES
SHAUL LADANY, SURVIVING HITLER AT BELSEN, ARAFAT AND ABBAS AT MUNICH
"Tears as day of deliverance from Belsen recalled" (By Allan Hall, in Belsen, The Scotsman, April 18, 2005)
On a hot spring day in 1945 British soldiers stumbled on a dark secret of the Third Reich amid a dense German forest... Six decades on, Belsen is a serene oasis of greenery and remembrance stones, the huts which contained the "sub-human" enemies of Nazism long ago vaporised by army flame-throwers... 150 survivors - including Poles, Czechs, Canadians, Israelis, Americans and Slavs - who made it back to the hell from which they were rescued 60 years ago.
They were people like white-haired Lilliane Eckstein, now 77, who lost 82 members of her family in the Holocaust. Her mother died at Belsen, while she contracted typhus and only just survived. "I didn't want to. I survived in a world where everyone I loved had gone," she said.
With tears streaming down her face, the former Czech schoolgirl, now a pensioner living in New York, added: "I came here because I owe it to my family, to those wonderful British soldiers, to the dead. I hate this place. But I have a duty to be here."
Ruth Turek, 75, a Polish Jewish survivor who lost her entire family in the camps and who also now lives in the US, said: "My sister was gassed at Treblinka, my mother in Auschwitz. But I lived to say I would not forget them, and I won't. I remember the awful stink of the place and people lying around and dying, dying, dying. There is never a day that I don't think about what was done here."
Another survivor was Shaul Ladany, 69, from Israel, who was a young boy when the British arrived. He said God had "shone twice on me in this life" - in 1972 he was a marathon walker with the Israeli Olympic team in Munich and narrowly missed being kidnapped with other athletes by Palestinian terrorists and killed.
He and his sister Marta, 64, walked hand in hand upon the fields where huts once stood with people more dead than alive crammed into them... "You know what I really remember?" said Mr Ladany. "I remember being so hungry that I was in pain and seeing wild tomatoes growing in the forest on the other side of the barbed wire. And that tormented me more than anything."
... Major Dick Williams, 84, one of the first soldiers in the camp, will be there today to honour the dead and his comrades from long ago. He said: "It was an evil, filthy place, a hell on Earth. I hope that the younger generation can understand to truly prevent another Belsen from ever being built on this Earth again."
SKELETONS WALKING
"At last we can talk of our secret horror" (By Hannah Cleaver in Bergen-Belsen, Daily Telegraph, April 18, 2005)
She was a Polish Jew who, along with countless others, had been sent to Bergen-Belsen to die. She was unconscious when British troops finally entered the gates and discovered the horror.
He was a British military policeman, told that he had been "volunteered" to help with the concentration camp, drawing up lists of the survivors and helping to bury the tens of thousands of dead.
But Renee and Charles Salt did not meet 60 years ago when the camp was liberated. Soon after they did, a few years later, they married. "I was pleased that he had seen what I had seen," Mrs Salt, 76, said yesterday. "It meant that he could understand."
Yet this understanding took the form of an unspoken contract between the two not to talk about what they experienced; an agreement that remained in force for half a century. "It was too much, we could not talk about it," she said. "Of course we knew where we had both been during the war, but we never really talked about it."
Mrs Salt's journey to Bergen-Belsen took her from her home town of Zdunsk Vola, near Lodz in Poland, through ghettoes and even to Auschwitz. Even before reaching her destination, and still in her teens, she had been so kicked, beaten, starved and humiliated that there was little more to do but wait for death.
"By 1945 I had lost just about everything," she said. "Family, home, money, education, country, hair, even my teeth - it had all been taken away from me. I was left a skeleton with nothing."
Yet having become almost inured to the sight of death, the pain of beatings and the constant fear that a casual decision by a stranger might end her life, Renee was shocked when she got off the train at Bergen-Belsen.
"The scene that met our eyes was impossible to describe. Here we saw skeletons walking. Their arms and legs were like matchsticks, their bones poking through their poor skin.
"The bodies had their eyes open, they were all over the place, you couldn't tell who was who. Even in Auschwitz all that time there was a grain of hope. When we came to Belsen, I was just praying to die quickly" ...
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION AT RAVENSBRUECK
"Survivors Mark Liberation of Nazi Camps" (By Matt Surman, The Associated Press, April 18, 2005)
Hundreds of survivors of Nazi concentration camps on Sunday marked the liberation 60 years ago of three of the most notorious camps in the Third Reich's vast system: Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen.
Judith Sherman, 75, brought her two sons and grandchildren to Ravensbrueck so she could tell them the story of her struggle to survive. "I think of Ravensbrueck every time I feel hungry. I think of Ravensbrueck every time I feel cold," said Sherman, of Cranbury, N.J. "Every time my grandchildren cry, I think of Ravensbrueck."
Sherman was among 300 survivors from around the world who attended the ceremony at Ravensbrueck, 60 miles north of Berlin near the town of Fuerstenberg, which gained infamy as the Nazis' camp for female prisoners, though some men also were held there.
... From 1939 to 1945, at least 132,000 women and children and 20,000 men were deported to Ravensbrueck, where tens of thousands died from hunger, disease, exhaustion or medical experiments. Six thousand prisoners were killed in a gas chamber built at the end of 1944
"THAT WAS THE DAY I REALISED THE WORLD WAS NOT A NICE PLACE"
"When Belsen was liberated, the Holocaust came to Britain" (By Roger Boyes in Belsen, The Times (of London), April 16, 2005)
Ruth Turek blinked back tears in Belsen concentration camp yesterday and recalled the moment, 60 years ago, that the British Army moved in. "It was funny, just like today and the soldiers seem to come like angels," she said.
The day that the British saved the life of the 17-year-old Polish Jew was also the day that the Holocaust came home to Britain. The piles of corpses; the sweet stench of decaying flesh; the dazed, emaciated inmates: they became almost instantly part of the iconography of war crimes.
... Other camps had been liberated by April 15, but did not have such a raw impact on Britain. "For me as a British schoolboy in the 1970s, it was Belsen rather than Auschwitz which represented the Holocaust," said the historian Stephen Smith [a subscriber to this email list], who went on to head the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in Nottingham. "Not just because of the horrific skeletal pictures, but also because it was so connected to my own country."
The shock permeated first through the accounts of liberating soldiers, members of the Second Army who had seen some savage fighting. Most of the gritty photographs from the first days of liberation, as the British Army tried to make sense of the chaotic scenes much of the camp seemed to be dying of typhoid fever were taken by soldiers.
"And they didn't go back to barrack rooms cut off from the world; they returned to their homes in Glasgow, Manchester and Telford," Dr Smith said. "That sent a powerful word-of-mouth message and most of the Tommies were saying: 'Now I know what we were fighting for.'"
... "Soon after taking over at the Holocaust centre," Dr Smith said, "I was called to the home of an old soldier who said he needed to talk about Belsen after decades of silence. 'I feel almost guilty about it,' he said, 'so ashamed.'"
... Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor, turned to the camp commander, Josef Kramer and spat to an interpreter: "Tell him that when he hangs I hope he hangs slowly."
Correspondents poured into the camp. The Holocaust was on British kitchen tables. Army film units, with Alfred Hitchcock's involvement, produced stomach-curdling footage. The British at home, though battered, had no previous idea of how it looked to die of hunger. Some of the pictures emerging showed naked bodies with missing hearts and livers, clearly cannibalised.
... Although later Auschwitz was to take the central position in the narrative of the Holocaust, it was Belsen that provided the most immediate, the most graphic account. "When I talk to ordinary Britons who were 10 or 8 at the time of Belsen," Dr Smith said, "they will often tell me: 'That was the day I grew up and realised the world was not a nice place.'" ...
TEARS AS DAY OF DELIVERANCE FROM BELSEN RECALLED
Tears as day of deliverance from Belsen recalled
By Allan Hall at Belsen
The Scotsman
April 18, 2005
news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=403582005
On a hot spring day in 1945 a day much like yesterday British soldiers stumbled on a dark secret of the Third Reich amid a dense German forest.
Those who survived the horrors of the Belsen concentration camp to welcome the "angels in khaki" yesterday returned to the place where 70,000 people died.
This time there was no stench of decomposing flesh, no pyramids of emaciated corpses waiting to be buried.
Six decades on, Belsen is a serene oasis of greenery and remembrance stones, the huts which contained the "sub-human" enemies of Nazism long ago vaporised by army flame-throwers.
It was said that before Belsen was liberated many Britons did not know what they were fighting for. After its discovery no-one was in any doubt as to what they were fighting against.
It was an international brigade of some 150 survivors including Poles, Czechs, Canadians, Israelis, Americans and Slavs who made it back to the hell from which they were rescued 60 years ago.
They were people like white-haired Lilliane Eckstein, now 77, who lost 82 members of her family in the Holocaust. Her mother died at Belsen, while she contracted typhus and only just survived.
"I didn't want to. I survived in a world where everyone I loved had gone," she said.
With tears streaming down her face, the former Czech schoolgirl, now a pensioner living in New York, added: "I came here because I owe it to my family, to those wonderful British soldiers, to the dead. I hate this place. But I have a duty to be here."
Ruth Turek, 75, a Polish survivor who lost her entire family in the camps and who also now lives in the US, said: "They were our angels in khaki, the angels of the British army.
"They gave people food and some died because they were too weak to have such nourishment. But they rescued people like me, these healthy, happy- faced soldiers who were so very different from the brutal guards who abused us. My sister was gassed at Treblinka, my mother in Auschwitz. But I lived to say I would not forget them, and I won't. I remember the awful stink of the place and people lying around and dying, dying, dying. There is never a day that I dont think about what was done here."
Another survivor was Shaul Ladany, 69, from Israel, who was a young boy when the British arrived.
He said God had "shone twice on me in this life" in 1972 he was a marathon walker with the Israeli Olympic team in Munich and narrowly missed being kidnapped with other athletes by Palestinian terrorists and killed.
He and his sister Marta, 64, walked hand in hand upon the fields where huts once stood with people more dead than alive crammed into them.
They walked past the mass graves, one of them containing the remains of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose diary of her years in hiding became a beacon of hope for humanity in the years after the war.
"You know what I really remember?" said Mr Ladany. "I remember being so hungry that I was in pain and seeing wild tomatoes growing in the forest on the other side of the barbed wire. And that tormented me more than anything."
Among the Britons who arrived last night was Renee Salt. Her husband Charles was a military policeman involved in the liberation of Belsen whom she met much later in Paris.
Major Dick Williams, 84, one of the first soldiers in the camp, will be there today to honour the dead and his comrades from long ago.
He said: "It was an evil, filthy place, a hell on Earth. I hope that the younger generation can understand to truly prevent another Belsen from ever being built on this Earth again."
'AT LAST WE CAN TALK OF OUR SECRET HORROR'
'At last we can talk of our secret horror'
By Hannah Cleaver in Bergen-Belsen
The Daily Telegraph
April 18, 2005
She was a Polish Jew who, along with countless others, had been sent to Bergen-Belsen to die. She was unconscious when British troops finally entered the gates and discovered the horror.
He was a British military policeman, told that he had been "volunteered" to help with the concentration camp, drawing up lists of the survivors and helping to bury the tens of thousands of dead.
But Renee and Charles Salt did not meet 60 years ago when the camp was liberated. Soon after they did, a few years later, they married.
"I was pleased that he had seen what I had seen," Mrs Salt, 76, said yesterday. "It meant that he could understand."
Yet this understanding took the form of an unspoken contract between the two not to talk about what they experienced; an agreement that remained in force for half a century.
"It was too much, we could not talk about it," she said. "Of course we knew where we had both been during the war, but we never really talked about it."
Mrs Salt's journey to Bergen-Belsen took her from her home town of Zdunsk Vola, near Lodz in Poland, through ghettoes and even to Auschwitz. Even before reaching her destination, and still in her teens, she had been so kicked, beaten, starved and humiliated that there was little more to do but wait for death.
"By 1945 I had lost just about everything," she said. "Family, home, money, education, country, hair, even my teeth it had all been taken away from me. I was left a skeleton with nothing."
Yet having become almost inured to the sight of death, the pain of beatings and the constant fear that a casual decision by a stranger might end her life, Renee was shocked when she got off the train at Bergen-Belsen.
"The scene that met our eyes was impossible to describe. Here we saw skeletons walking. Their arms and legs were like matchsticks, their bones poking through their poor skin.
"The bodies had their eyes open, they were all over the place, you couldn't tell who was who.
"Even in Auschwitz all that time there was a grain of hope. When we came to Belsen, I was just praying to die quickly."
Having tracked down her dying mother in the same camp, the then 16-year-old collapsed into feverish unconsciousness and missed the next 10 days and the arrival of the British, among them her future husband.
"In the main camp there were just hundreds and thousands of bodies," said Mr Salt. "We got German civilians to dig trenches and we had to bury the bodies, but we also had to feed the survivors. What do you do?
"Some people were so desperate that they would find a tin or a piece of glass and open a body to eat the offal." Now 87, Mr Salt suffers from the gait and frailty of an old man and the weekend trip to Belsen from London was a long and tiring one for both him and his wife.
There were 23,200 bodies for Mr Salt and his fellow soldiers to deal with, as well as thousands of survivors, 13,000 of which were so starved and sick that they died soon after. Huge ditches were dug around the camp and up to 5,000 bodies were buried in each one.
Renee woke up 10 days after liberation in a delousing room. As she came to, someone was killing the fat black lice that had covered her since she entered Belsen.
"They gave me a quarter of a slice of bread with a teaspoon of stewed apple on it," she said. "That was the first thing I ate."
Two years later, having found the surviving two aunts out of 12 aunts and uncles in her family and like many other survivors suffered a nervous breakdown, she turned her back on Poland and moved to Paris.
There she met and fell in love with Charles, who decided to take Renee to London, where he went on to set up a delicatessen.
"We hadn't seen each other at Bergen-Belsen but we talked briefly about where we had been and realised we had been in the same place," said Mrs Salt.
She could not even tell her son and daughter, and only recently brought up the subject with her grandchildren. "For 50 years we didn't talk about it," she said. "We saw things on the television and then started to talk, putting it together piece by piece."
Mr Salt said yesterday: "It was so different when I was first here; there were huts all over the place. Now there is just grass. What they have done here with the memorial is great."
SURVIVORS MARK LIBERATION OF NAZI CAMPS
Survivors Mark Liberation of Nazi Camps
By Matt Surman
The Associated Press
The Washington Post
April 18, 2005
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61461-2005Apr17.html
Hundreds of survivors of Nazi concentration camps on Sunday marked the liberation 60 years ago of three of the most notorious camps in the Third Reich's vast system: Ravensbrueck, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen.
Judith Sherman, 75, brought her two sons and grandchildren to Ravensbrueck so she could tell them the story of her struggle to survive.
"I think of Ravensbrueck every time I feel hungry. I think of Ravensbrueck every time I feel cold," said Sherman, of Cranbury, N.J. "Every time my grandchildren cry, I think of Ravensbrueck."
Sherman was among 300 survivors from around the world who attended the ceremony at Ravensbrueck, 60 miles north of Berlin near the town of Fuerstenberg, which gained infamy as the Nazis' camp for female prisoners, though some men also were held there.
Pierette Pierrot, a French resistance fighter, was pregnant when she was captured and imprisoned by the Nazis in 1944. Pierrot, 88, said she was able to hide her pregnancy from the Nazis with her baggy prison clothes and the help of others.
"There was a lot of friendship ... and only through that could I keep my child," Pierrot said.
When her son, Guy, was born March 11, 1945, in the camp, she had to lean even more on others including a German camp nurse who knew her secret.
A month later, as the Third Reich crumbled, the SS allowed the Red Cross to evacuate 7,500 prisoners to Sweden.
Pierrot was one of those chosen to go and remembers bundling her son up in rags and stuffing him under a seat to smuggle him out with her. "I only really felt saved when we made it to Denmark," said Pierrot, whose son came with her for the ceremonies.
From 1939 to 1945, at least 132,000 women and children and 20,000 men were deported to Ravensbrueck, where tens of thousands died from hunger, disease, exhaustion or medical experiments. Six thousand prisoners were killed in a gas chamber built at the end of 1944.
Sachsenhausen, near Berlin, was liberated on April 22, 1945, by the Soviet army. One of the first Nazi concentration camps, it was initially meant mainly for political prisoners.
Bergen-Belsen, near Hanover, had by 1945 become a holding pen for the weak and sick. It was liberated on April 15, 1945.
WHEN BELSEN WAS LIBERATED, THE HOLOCAUST CAME TO BRITAIN
When Belsen was liberated, the Holocaust came to Britain
By Roger Boyes In Belsen, Northern Germany
The Times (of London)
April 16, 2005
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1571178,00.html
Ruth Turek blinked back tears in Belsen concentration camp yesterday and recalled the moment, 60 years ago, that the British Army moved in. "It was funny, just like today and the soldiers seem to come like angels," she said.
The day that the British saved the life of the 17-year-old Polish Jew was also the day that the Holocaust came home to Britain. The piles of corpses; the sweet stench of decaying flesh; the dazed, emaciated inmates: they became almost instantly part of the icon- ography of war crimes. Richard Dimbleby, the BBC reporter on the scene, broke down five times trying to record his account of the liberated camp.
The BBC demanded confirmation from other sources. Dimbleby threatened to resign. Eventually, on April 19, four days after the arrival of the troops, his account stunned Britain. "Behind the huts, two youths and two girls who had found a morsel of food were sitting together on the grass in picnic fashion, sharing it. They were not six feet from a pile of decomposing bodies."
Other camps had been liberated by April 15, but did not have such a raw impact on Britain. "For me as a British schoolboy in the 1970s, it was Belsen rather than Auschwitz which represented the Holocaust," said the historian Stephen Smith, who went on to head the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in Nottingham. "Not just because of the horrific skeletal pictures, but also because it was so connected to my own country." The shock permeated first through the accounts of liberating soldiers, members of the Second Army who had seen some savage fighting. Most of the gritty photographs from the first days of liberation, as the British Army tried to make sense of the chaotic scenes much of the camp seemed to be dying of typhoid fever were taken by soldiers.
"And they didnt go back to barrack rooms cut off from the world; they returned to their homes in Glasgow, Manchester and Telford," Dr Smith said. "That sent a powerful word-of-mouth message and most of the Tommies were saying: 'Now I know what we were fighting for.' "
Most of the liberators are now too old to travel. Charles Salt, 84 a military policeman who helped to arrest the vicious camp warden Irma Grese travelled to the camp yesterday with his wife, Renee, who had been an inmate. Belsen brought them tog