CONTENTS
1. The case of The Guardian, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and New York mayor Ed Koch
2. British journalist speaks of her “Brother al-Zarqawi”
3. Giant mosque planned for 2012 London Olympic Games
4. Tesco removes anti-Semitic books from its shelves
5. Ken Livingstone: “the most odious man in Britain”?
6. “Mass murder” by “cowardly terrorists”
7. Ken Livingstone, told he may be Jewish, says: “I could be a self-hater, couldn’t I?”
8. A tale of two mayors: Rome and London
9. “From Palestine to London to everywhere”
10. “London mayor: Israel caused bloodshed” (Yediot Ahronot, Nov. 17, 2005)
11. “A tale of two cities” (Yediot Ahronot, Nov. 21, 2005)
12. “Ziauddin Sardar – on the culture of martyrdom” (New Statesman, Nov. 28, 2005)
GIANT MOSQUE PLANNED FOR 2012 LONDON OLYMPIC GAMES
The Sunday Times of London has reported on its front page that there are plans to build a massive mosque holding 40,000 worshippers next to the forthcoming Olympic complex in London.
It is envisaged that the mosque will open in time for the London Olympic Games in 2012. The mosque and its surrounding buildings will hold a total of 70,000 people, only 10,000 fewer than the Olympic stadium.
According to the Sunday Times, Tablighi Jamaat, a worldwide Islamic missionary group, is proposing that the mosque serve as its new world headquarters. “It will be something never seen before in this country. It is a mosque for the future as part of the British landscape,” said Abdul Khalique, a senior member of Tablighi Jamaat.
Two years ago, according to The New York Times, a senior FBI anti-terrorism official claimed Tablighi Jamaat was a recruiting ground for al-Qaeda.
It is also alleged that the mastermind of the July 7 London bombings, Mohammad Sidique Khan, had attended the current headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in Leeds.
TESCO REMOVES ANTI-SEMITIC BOOKS FROM ITS SHELVES
The website of British supermarket Tesco has withdrawn several anti-Semitic and far right publications from its online bookstore following complaints from an anti-Fascist magazine.
Searchlight magazine discovered titles such as “The Hitler We Loved and Why,” “The International Jew” and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” on the Tesco website.
Tesco.com describes itself as “the largest grocery homeshopping service in the world.”
It is ironic that Tesco, which is now one of the world’s leading supermarkets chains with branches all over the world, was originally founded by a British Jew named Jack Cohen who had just returned from serving in the Royal Air Force in World War One. It is now a public company.
Mark Gardner, director of communications for the Jewish Community Security Trust, (and also a subscriber to this email list), said it was “inexplicable and shameful” that Tesco would sell such material.
KEN LIVINGSTONE “THE MOST ODIOUS MAN IN BRITAIN”
During the 1980s, London Mayor Ken Livingstone was famously described by The Sun newspaper as “the most odious man in Britain.”
Several of Livingstone’s harshest comments have been reserved for British Jews and for the state of Israel. For example, last February, in an unprovoked remark as he was leaving a reception at City Hall, Livingstone compared Oliver Finegold, a reporter for London’s Evening Standard newspaper (whom the mayor knew was Jewish), to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
Livingstone (who continues to receive widespread support among British Muslims and left-wingers) continues to refuse to apologize for these statements, even though the London Assembly passed a unanimous vote asking Livingstone to apologize. Livingstone has stood by his comments saying “the form of words I have used are right. I have nothing to apologize for.”
The Standards Board for England (which monitors English local government standards) has now referred the case against Livingstone to the “Adjudication Panel for England.” Sanctions against Livingstone could range from a censure to a five-year ban from public office. The matter will be addressed for two days on December 13-14, 2005.
“MASS MURDER” BY “COWARDLY TERRORISTS”
Following the July London transport bombs, Livingstone described the attacks as “mass murder” by “cowardly terrorists”. Yet when asked on BBC Radio 4’s influential “Today” programme about the British suicide bombers in Tel Aviv in 2003, he said it “was wrong to brand a British Muslim boy a terrorist if he got involved in Palestinian violence against Israel.”
In comments which some fear are likely to provoke further attacks by British Muslims against British Jews, Livingstone also suggested that “Jewish boys in Britain” had contributed to the “slaughter” of Palestinians.
In March of this year, writing in The Guardian, Mayor Livingstone branded Ariel Sharon a “war criminal” and condemned Israel for “ethnic cleansing.”
KEN LIVINGSTONE MAY BE JEWISH
Now, in a run up to the December 13 hearing, Livingstone has decided to try and defend himself to his Jewish constituents not by giving an interview to, for example, the Jewish Chronicle (which might have asked him some tough questions) but by granting an interview to the obscure website Somethingjewish.co.uk. In the interview, which has also been republished on the Israeli portal Ynetnews, Mayor Livingstone entertains the notion that he is Jewish.
Livingstone says that “there’s no evidence of where my maternal grandmother came from, she was called Zona. And I remember a couple of times when I was a kid, she would say to me, ‘don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re Jewish.’ Which made me think we must be, otherwise why would she raise this?”
“I COULD BE A SELF-HATER, COULDN’T I?”
After mentioning that he could be Jewish, Livingstone goes on: “I could go and stand for the Knesset, couldn’t I? In Israel I could be elected, no problem.” And then he adds: “I could be a self-hater, couldn’t I?”
Livingstone’s fascination of the possibility of his being a “self-hater” may stem from the way some sections of the British media have eagerly promoted, even glorified, a small band of very vociferous extremely anti-Israel (and in some cases anti-Semitic) Jews, some of whom have made a name for themselves slandering Jews. For example, on Monday, Norman Finkelstein, an American Jew, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s flagship “Today” program, and given carte blanche to demonize fellow Jews.
Attached below is an extract from Ken Livingstone’s interview. (I am not including the full version because it is too long.) In the interview, he compares the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to American and British armed forces. He also compares the former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was democratically elected and gave up substantial chunks of the West Bank when in office, to Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel.
He also says the present Israeli government is “the worst Israel has ever had – there was a chance of peace but Sharon has relentlessly ground down everybody else.”
(For previous dispatches on Livingstone, see:
* London’s mayor still refuses to apologize for “Nazi remark” (February 18, 2005)
* Egypt state TV blames Israel for Sinai bombings (& more on Mayor Livingstone) (July 27, 2005).)
A TALE OF TWO MAYORS: ROME AND LONDON
In the dispatch Tehran Times today: The phenomenal lie of the “Holocaust” (& Ha’aretz’s dangerous misreporting) (November 10, 2005), in a note titled “A tale of two mayors: Rome and London,” I pointed out the differences between the reactions to the Iranian president’s speech calling for the annihilation of Israel, of Livingstone (who did nothing) and of Rome’s mayor, Walter Veltroni (who led an estimated 10,000 Italians in a torchlight protest outside the Iranian embassy in Rome, protesting President Ahmadinejad’s comments).
A new article in the Israeli publication Yediot Ahronot by Yaakov Lappin (who is a subscriber to this email list) takes up this theme. In the article (attached below), Lappin speaks of “a tale of two cities, London and Rome, facing a similar threat from the direction of Islamic terror but being led in radically different directions.”
“FROM PALESTINE TO LONDON TO EVERYWHERE”
A note in the dispatch The real apartheid: Saudi teacher to be flogged for 15 weeks for praising Jews (November 17, 2005) called for “moderate Muslims to raise their voices.”
The New Statesman, which only recently ran a special Israel issue with articles by anti-Israel writers Avi Shlaim, Robert Fisk and Chris McGreal, carries an article in this week’s issue by a moderate Muslim, Ziauddin Sardar.
In his piece (attached below), Sardar examines the motivation of Mohammad Sidique Khan and questions why Mayor Livingstone’s frequent guest Sheikh Qaradawi “finds it difficult to condemn Palestinian suicide bombers.”
This article makes some claims about Islam that are rarely voiced by Muslims writing for leftist publications like The New Statesman: for example, that suicide is “a cardinal sin in Islam” and that “suicide bombers are not heroes but murderers, pure and simple... – in Palestine as elsewhere.”
-- Tom Gross
AN INTERVIEW WITH LONDON MAYOR KEN LIVINGSTONE
(EXTRACTS ONLY)
London mayor: Israel caused bloodshed
In interview with a British Jewish website, Ken Livingstone answers critics on range of issues, from his clashes with Board of Deputies of British Jews to his views on Israel; says, ‘I think Zionism is like every other form of nationalism. It can be inspiring or it can have a dark side; it’s perfectly valid to question creation of Israel’
By Leslie Bunder
Yediot Ahronot
November 17, 2005
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3170452,00.html
Q. You are often outspoken about the Israeli government and in particular its prime minister Ariel Sharon. How do you feel when the Board of Deputies of British Jews denounces you for that?
Ken Livingstone: The Board of Deputies – and the Jewish Chronicle is their mouthpiece – have this idea that anyone who’s critical of Israel gets denounced as being anti-Semitic, so as a result the average spineless politician never says anything about the Middle East again.
I just think this is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, I mean when you look at how rude I have been about Mrs. Thatcher’s government, or any successive American one there’s nothing out of line that strengthens my criticism on the Israeli government.
I didn’t notice anyone complaining when I said the Saudi royal family should be hanging from lampposts. The Foreign Office did, and the Saudi ambassador did, but governments need good criticism. I stood in front of Mrs. Thatcher in the House Of Commons and accused her of being an accomplice to treason. I’ve been this rude about governments and I think it is good for them, but there’s this huge sensitivity around this.
I’ve been offering to go and meet the Board of Deputies for at least a generation, and I would love nothing better than to go and have a real and honest debate about what is and isn’t wrong. But I’m not in the position to broker a Middle East peace deal. If I was, I would. The main player is America, if they prop up Sharon’s government; it’s going to do what it wants.
Q. When the name Ken Livingstone is mentioned to many Jewish Londoners, and indeed Jewish groups such as the Board of Deputies, it incites very strong feelings. Why do you feel there are such negative feelings towards you, from certain sections of the Jewish community?
K.L: I remember the defense committee of the Board back in the mid-80s said I was the biggest threat to British Jewry since Oswald Moseley and I thought that’s a smidgeon over the top. Perhaps some might believe it; I don’t think most of them do.
Because when I became leader of the GLC in London we worked with Arab groups, as we work with any other group, and the Board of Deputies also asked me to give them a veto over Jewish groups we funded.
They didn’t want me funding the Jewish socialist group, the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Group – and we said no. The Board of Deputies is probably the biggest single strand of opinion in Judaism in Britain, but it’s not unanimous. I mean, lovely old lady came in, when I reaching up to buy my copy of the Jewish Chronicle in Waitrose, and said, “they don’t speak for all of us,” and it’s so true.
If you actually look at the vote last summer for Mayor, 18 months ago, you will find that you were six per cent more likely to vote for me if you were Jewish than if you were non-Jewish.
And I’ve had 25 years of demonization and being denounced as anti-Semitic, and of course half the population in London – I get more of the Jewish vote than Tony Blair – people were 12 per cent more likely to vote for me if they were Jewish than to vote for Tony Blair’s government – and they must be one of the most pro-Israeli that we’ve had.
So yes, while there are a lot of people who hate my guts because of the position I take on the Middle East, equally there’s a huge body of Jewish Londoners who have watched me for 25 years and they know it’s crap to denounce me as anti-Semitic.
I am just critical of the state of Israel, but then so are they. I think for people who aren’t Jewish they think the Board speaks for Judaism, but they no more do that than the Muslim Council of Britain speaks for Muslims. They’re strands, and they are important.
I have to say though, when my predecessors on the British left in the 1930s - the socialists and the communists and trade unionists – were all campaigning and calling for a boycott of Nazi Germany; the Board of Deputies opposed it. They are one strand of opinion, they’re often wrong, sometimes they’re right, but they don’t speak for the community any more than I speak for London. Some Londoners agree with me, some don’t, but I never wander round saying “I am the voice of London,” I’m just me, I get elected.
Q. Talking about the incident with the reporter from the Standard, do you think that was a witch-hunt against you?
K.L: It was quite clearly orchestrated, I mean here was Brian Coleman (London Assembly Member), who was the driving force, and then it turned to Tim Donovan (BBC London), and was overheard by Nicky Gavron the Deputy Mayor, saying this is all theatre, and of course that’s exactly what it was.
And three things came together – the Board of Deputies wanted me to keep quiet, so I thought “big attack on Ken Livingstone, better keep my head down for a couple of years.”
Then the Tory Party at the time was trying to run this ridiculous campaign that Labor’s deeply anti-Semitic – that Fagin poster.
And of course the Standard’s very nervous about the fact that I will shortly be able to let the contract for the rival evening paper. So all these things came together to be able to put the boot in for Ken Livingstone, and I have to say it was really stupid.
Imagine if, in December, the Board of Deputies case results in my removal from office. Can you imagine? I mean people have an opinion about whether or not I was rude to a reporter and that’s justified, but the Board of Deputies could use this mechanism to remove me from office someone they disagree with me politically…it would be very damaging for the Board’s reputation but also every anti-Semitic fantasist around the world would say “The Board removed the Mayor of London who was automatically replaced by a Jewish Mayor.”
Someone would find it was all written down in the protocols of the elders of Zion by the time the day’s finished, you know? I think they should have thought it through. You don’t set out on something that you then are not in control of…
The mayors of London and Rome seem, at first glance, to have much in common. Both Ken Livingstone and Walter Veltroni are in charge of major European capitals, which face concrete threats of Islamic terrorist attacks. London has already been attacked last July, while Rome has been threatened on numerous occasions by al-Qaeda and associated jihad groups.
Both Livingstone and Veltroni began their careers on the far Left; Livingstone is known in London as “Red Ken” for his diehard socialist views, and today occupies the radical fringe of the Labour party (from which he was temporarily ejected), while Veltroni kicked off his political life in the Italian Young Communist Federation, before joining the Left-Wing Democrat party.
This, however, is where the similarities end. On November 3, following a statement by Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” Veltroni participated in a large-scale pro-Israel demonstration in Rome, attended by 20,000 people, and senior Italian politicians from the Left and the Right.
“My presence here is natural,” Veltroni told the Italian crowds who came to rally against Iran’s menacing stance, “because the statements by Iran’s president should be taken seriously. It is only natural that a city that advocates peace and dialogue object to any kind of intolerance,” he added.
Two weeks later, in an interview with the UK’s SomethingJewish website, Ken Livingstone said that questioning the morality of Israel’s foundation was “a perfectly valid thing to say after so many wars.”
In London, the far Left has joined forces with the most curious of bed fellows, Islamists. Socialist groups work alongside the UK’s Muslim Brotherhood branch to build political blocs. Delegitimization and demonization of Israel is neither rare, nor do they cause public uproar in the British capital.
In 2004, Livingstone invited, as a personal guest of honor, the Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood hard line cleric, Sheikh Yousuf Qaradawi, who publicly advocates the execution of gays, wife beatings, and suicide bombings in Israel. Livingstone, who provided Qaradawi with a red carpet treatment, defends him as a “progressive.”
Qaradawi, on his London visit, told the BBC of his view of Palestinian suicide bomb attacks: “I consider this type of martyrdom operation as an evidence of God’s justice.”
“Here is the force that we need to engage with if we are to actually get a dialogue,” said the London mayor about Qaradawi.
In 2003, before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Iraqi dictator’s deputy, Tariq Aziz, visited the Italian capital. Aziz refused to take a question from an Israeli journalist at a press conference, saying: “It was not in my agenda to answer questions by the Israeli media.”
Although Aziz was scheduled to meet with Veltroni, Rome’s mayor wrote to Aziz:: “I wish to inform you that I find myself obliged to cancel our meeting. The reason is because of your refusal to answer a question posed to you by an Israeli journalist at a news conference held at the Foreign Press Association. Rome, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, has always had absolute respect for dialogue and the civil exchange of ideas, not to mention, obviously, freedom of opinion and free access to information.”
He continued: “I cannot accept that a public figure like yourself, the representative of another country, can set a veto and discriminate against someone, denying them the right to express themselves, creating vetoes and discrimination.”
This, then, is a tale of two cities, London and Rome, facing a similar threat from the direction of Islamic terror but being led in radically different directions. London, a rich multi-cultural metropolis, is being betrayed by a mayor in deep embrace with dubious and sinister figures, entrenched in the camp of the most radical fundamentalist movement of the 21st century. Livingstone not only wants to appease those who threaten his capital - he also genuinely shares some of their attitudes.
Rome, on the other hand, is being led by a man with the moral courage to stand up for the enlightened values of universal human rights and pluralism. Its ever vigilant mayor denounces and confronts poisonous bigotry, wherever he finds it.
For now, that bigotry is festering in London, under the shadowy watch of its mayor.
“DESPAIR IN ISLAM IS A CARDINAL SIN”
On the culture of martyrdom
By Ziauddin Sardar
The New Statesman
November 28, 2005
www.newstatesman.com/200511280014
If suicide killing was a viable weapon of just war, then the Prophet Muhammad would have used it
What are we to make of a semi-literate teaching assistant exhorting young British Muslims to commit suicide? Mohammad Sidique Khan, who blew himself up at Edgware Road in London on 7 July, has sent a message from the grave. In a video recorded just before his death, Khan calmly addresses his audience. “Muslims,” he says to the camera in a distinctly Yorkshire accent, “I strongly advise you to sacrifice this life for the hereafter.”
Blowing yourself up in the middle of a crowd is an act of ethics in the name of Allah, according to Khan. His head covered by a red-and-white checked keffiyeh, the uniform of choice for would-be suicide bombers, the 30-year-old murderer rants against British Muslim leaders. It is “a sin”, he announces, not to declare “jihad” on the west.
It is easy to dismiss Khan as an immature, self-deluded and dangerous imbecile. He saw himself as a hero in a Shakespearean tragedy and killed, and was killed, in playing out his fantasy. But where did Khan acquire his logic and rhetoric? Did he learn all this simply from his patrons in al-Qaeda?
I think the initial draw, the impulse that drove Khan to the bosom of al-Qaeda, is to be found elsewhere. It lies in the sick culture that glorifies “martyrdom” and projects young suicide bombers as heroes. Al-Qaeda may have capitalised on this culture, but it has been intrinsic in certain segments of Muslim societies for at least two decades. Those who may be attracted to Khan’s message are fascinated not so much with what he says as with the heroic image that he portrays.
The origins of this culture lie in the Iranian revolution. Martyrdom has always been important for Shia Muslims, but the designation of “martyr” has conventionally been reserved for historic figures who fought for ethical goals through ethical means - and never harmed an innocent person. The revolution, as I discovered when I visited Iran immediately after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, debased the currency of martyrdom. Martyrs were two a penny. Every town in the country, big or small, now has at least one “Martyrs’ Square”.
Then in the Eighties came the Iran-Iraq war. During the eight-year conflict Iran freely used teenage conscripts as cannon fodder. A whole generation of young people was sacrificed on the battlefield. All of them, naturally, became martyrs. And fountains of “blood” - actually coloured water - gushed forth in Martyrs’ Squares throughout Iran. I found the whole spectacle truly obscene.
The Iranian revolutionaries exported the culture of “martyrdom operations” first into Lebanon and then into Palestine. In Palestine there is now a thriving culture of celebrating suicide bombers as “martyrs”, expressed most extensively as poster art. Posters plastered all over Gaza and the West Bank depict suicide bombers in heroic modes.
This culture is embraced by people who ought to know better. The Egyptian scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a frequent visitor to London, finds it difficult to condemn Palestinian suicide bombers. Various prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain have condemned suicide bombing elsewhere but have supported its use in Palestine.
Their argument is simple. The sheer helplessness and despair of the Palestinians justify the use of the human body as a weapon. They have little else to fight with. And killing civilians in a bus or a restaurant is also considered OK - the Palestinians are only taking revenge for what is done to them.
I have four things to say to those who, however reluctantly, support suicide bombings in Palestine. One, if suicide killing was a viable weapon of a just war, however conceived, then the Prophet Muhammad himself would have used it. He had ample opportunity to do so. Two, a Muslim community cannot really be in a state of despair - however bad its situation. Indeed, despair in Islam is a cardinal sin. As classical Muslim scholars have repeatedly pointed out, despair signifies rejection of God’s mercy and abandonment of hope. The very raison d’etre of Islam is to provide hope. Three, suicide is also a cardinal sin in Islam. Life is the ultimate gift of God: nothing signifies ingratitude more than taking your own life - whatever the cause. According to Islam, suicide is one thing that God may never forgive. Four, taking one innocent life is, according to the Koran, like murdering all humanity. Indeed, even in a fully fledged state of war, killing innocent women and children is forbidden. You can fight only against those who fight against you on a battlefield.
The great and good scholars who support suicide bombings in Palestine know all this better than I do. Which makes their position even more perverse. They practise double standards: it is OK there but not here. And they provide legitimacy for the likes of Khan to take an inductive leap - from Palestine to London to everywhere.
Khan, as many Muslim leaders in Britain have rightly pointed out, is an anomaly. But the only way to prevent recurrence of such incongruity is to stand up unambiguously against all suicide bombings everywhere - in Palestine as elsewhere. And to denounce, loudly and clearly, the vile culture of martyrdom. Suicide bombers are not heroes but murderers, pure and simple.
CONTENTS
1. BBC Governors: Plett’s crying over Arafat “broke BBC rules”
2. BBC News chiefs: Plett’s reporting was “fair, accurate and balanced”
3. BBC extends period for public to submit to its Mideast review
4. BBC bias continues
5. Saeb Erekat, fibbing again
6. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade leader wins big
7. “Hitler” running in Fatah primaries
8. Killer of Rehavam Ze’evi to run in PA poll
9. Palestinian gunmen steal lion from Gaza zoo
10. Former Jewish towns in Gaza now terror “training camps”
11. Palestinian gunmen ransack Gaza newspaper office
12. Hamas financier detained
13. “How did we forget that Israel’s story is the story of the West?” (By Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 26, 2005)
14. “BBC sanctions reporter who cried over Arafat” (Reuters, Nov. 25, 2005)
SAEB EREKAT, FIBBING AGAIN
The International Herald Tribune published an op-ed on Friday by Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, who sees the Rafah crossing opening as a “small but important step on the path to Palestinian-Israeli peace”.
In the second paragraph of his article, Erekat claims that Israel boasts the “fifth-largest military in the world.” Israel’s army is not even the fifth largest army in the Middle East.
Erekat famously lied during the Israeli incursion into Jenin in 2002 when he spoke first of 3,000 Palestinian dead and then of 500. He has since admitted in public forums that this was the only “mistake” he has ever made.
Perhaps a Palestinian Authority spokesman that did not twist the truth would be a “small but important step on the path to Palestinian-Israeli peace.”
For more on the international media’s favorite Palestinian spokesman please see the dispatch “CNN & Saeb Erekat: ‘Why TV news loves a liar’” (May 5, 2002).
The International Herald Tribune is owned by The New York Times. (For more on The New York Times, see “All the news that’s fit to print? The New York Times and Israel”.)
AL-AQSA MARTYRS BRIGADE LEADER WINS BIG
The European and American press have been quick to trumpet Marwan Barghouti, following his strong showing in the Fatah primaries in the West Bank, ahead of Palestinian elections due to be held on January 25, 2006. Barghouti came first out of 45 candidates, with 96% of the votes, which were announced on Friday evening.
Barghouti is currently serving five consecutive life terms in an Israeli jail for the murder of four Israeli civilians and a Greek monk. Although the Israeli attorney general only brought proceedings against Barghouti for these five murders, Barghouti is believed responsible for the murder of dozens of other Israeli men, women and children in gun and other attacks in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
Barghouti’s wife Fadwa told Agence France Presse that the primary results were an endorsement of the intifada.
In an interview on Israel Radio yesterday, Sharon loyalist, transport minister Meir Sheetrit, hinted that Barghouti may be pardoned. Sheetrit has said he will join Sharon in his new party. By contrast, Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, who will stay in the Likud, told Israel Radio yesterday that it was “out of the question” that Barghouti would be released because he is “a murderer with blood on his hands and was duly sentenced by a court.”
Barghouti’s release is strongly favored by left wing Israeli politicians, a number of whom are being courted by Sharon to join his new party. Meretz leader Yossi Beilin yesterday called Barghouti a “moderating and positive influence” who should be set free. Israeli President Moshe Katsav said this morning on Galei Tzahal radio that he would not pardon Barghouti.
“HITLER” RUNNING IN FATAH PRIMARIES
Another successful Fatah candidate in the Jenin primary was Jamal Abu Rob, a member of the terrorist group, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, who says he proudly gave himself the nickname “Hitler”.
In an interview with Abu Rob in February 2005, John Vause described him on CNN as “a father of five, accountant by trade”. There was no mention in this CNN interview of Abu Rob’s self-proclaimed nickname, even though The Associated Press has mentioned it.
Abu Rob is wanted by Israel both for the murder of Israelis and the murder of moderate Palestinians.
KILLER OF REHAVAM ZE’EVI TO RUN IN PA POLL
Ha’aretz reports that the man Israel believes responsible for the 2001 assassination of government minister Rehavam Ze’evi plans to run in the Palestinian Authority elections in January. Ahmed Sa’adat, the jailed head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, will run in the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. “It’s a tool of pressure, if you like, in order to get released,” the PFLP official said of Sa’adat’s bid to stand for election.
Results in the Palestinian elections in January are likely to be unreliable. Palestinian gunmen, firing in the air, this morning again stormed into several polling stations while the Fatah party was holding primary elections and forced them to close. It is not known what was then done with the voting slips, but there are reports of some being burned.
PALESTINIAN GUNMEN STEAL LION FROM GAZA ZOO
In an apparently well-planned operation, masked gunmen kidnapped a lion from the Gaza Zoo, Palestinian media reported yesterday. Zoo manager Saud al-Shawwa has offered a $1,000 reward for anyone who provides information that could help find the lion and two Arabic-speaking parrots that were also stolen in the 30-minute heist.
Palestinian media reports suggest that at least four gunmen stole the lion (throwing a blanket over its head) and two white and gray parrots that speak a little Arabic; they failed to steal a second lion that showed fierce resistance.
The four Palestinian gunmen armed with Kalashnikov semi-automatic rifles broke into the zoo and shot the guard. Palestinian sources speculated the lion was taken by a militant gang who wanted the animal as a trophy “show of force”.
FORMER JEWISH TOWNS IN GAZA NOW TERROR “TRAINING CAMPS”
The former Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim, in Gaza, has been turned into a Hamas “martyr training camp”. Neve Dekalim was the largest Jewish town in Gaza prior to Israel’s withdrawal in August.
(For previous pictures of Neve Dekalim see the “Exodus from Gaza” photo gallery on this website.)
An official Palestinian Authority dossier on the recent visit to Gaza by Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yousef, said “The Minister Nasser Yousef toured the newly liberated areas of Gaza, parts of which are used by the Palestinian groups as training camps.”
On Friday, one man was shot dead in a battle between rival Palestinian gunmen for control of parts of land near the former settlement of Neve Dekalim. Meanwhile violence against Israel continues. An Israeli taxi driver who was transporting Palestinian passengers was shot by one of them on Friday. Yesterday an Israeli student was seriously injured by a knife-wielding Palestinian in Jerusalem.
PALESTINIAN GUNMEN RANSACK GAZA NEWSPAPER OFFICE
A group of Palestinian gunmen ransacked the office of the online newspaper Donia al-Watan in Gaza City yesterday. They threatened to kill the editor-in-chief, Abdallah Issa, and destroyed his equipment.
The independent newspaper has recently been reporting on corruption and lawlessness in the Palestinian Authority. A statement by the Palestinian National Initiative group called the attack “an assault on the freedom of expression”.
HAMAS FINANCIER DETAINED
Ahmed Saltana has been detained by Israel and charged with funneling millions of dollars in donations from abroad to support terror activity against Israel, as well as making payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and prisoners.
Saltana, also known as Abu Asama, is the head of the Hamas charity funds committee. The committee collected money from donors in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Arab countries for “sick and poor Palestinian families”.
Among non-profit organizations used as a conduit were two British charities, Human Appeal International and Interpal, the French charity CBST, the Italian charity ABSPT, and the Al-Aqsa Foundation, which operates in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden.
Among the receivers of this money were relatives of the terrorist who carried out the suicide bombing in the Sbarro restaurant, in Jerusalem, on August 9, 2001, in which 15 Israelis (mainly children) were murdered and 107 wounded. (For more on the victims of the Sbarro bomb see the dispatch “Zionists ‘secretly control’ both Al-Jazeera and the National Geographic” (December 15, 2004). Victims included the 15-year-old daughter of Arnold Roth, a long-time subscriber to this email list, and the grandchildren of Dutch-born Auschwitz survivor Elisheva Schijveschuurder, aged 2, 4 and 14.)
The Israeli army this week, found a large bomb factory in Jenin (where most of the money collected by Saltana went) stocked with explosives, mortar shells and bomb-making materials.
While this misuse of Palestinian funds has been mentioned dozens of times on this list over the years, today the Independent newspaper of London (one of the most-anti Israeli papers in Europe) finally ran a story about it, headlined “Charity Cash for Palestinian Poor Was Siphoned to Suicide Bombers.”
“HOW DID WE FORGET THAT ISRAEL’S STORY IS THE STORY OF THE WEST?”
As well as a Reuters report on the BBC governors’ decision, I attach below an article by Charles Moore from Saturday’s Daily Telegraph. Moore compares the State of Israel with the Roman republic, “Some would see Sharon as Milosevic, but might he not be Caesar?” He questions why Israel is seen as “the greatest problem of all.”
Charles Moore is a highly distinguished former editor of the Daily Telegraph, and before that editor of the Sunday Telegraph and of the Spectator magazine. He was handpicked by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to be her official biographer and is presently working on that biography. He is a recent subscriber to this email list.
Although the Daily Telegraph under Moore’s editorship was much less critical of Israel than other European newspapers, it was still often biased in its news coverage. For example, on April 15, 2002, the paper’s correspondent, David Blair, took at face value what he called “detailed accounts” by Palestinians that “Israeli troops had executed nine men.” Blair quoted one woman telling him that Palestinians were “stripped to their underwear, they were searched, bound hand and foot, placed against a wall and killed with single shots to the head.” This report was completely untrue. Neither the Daily Telegraph nor other Western newspapers have yet properly apologized for these kinds of untruths in their news reports.
There is a summary of the article first for those who don’t have time to read it in full.
-- Tom Gross
“ARE YOU SURE THAT THE FATE OF ISRAEL HAS NO BEARING ON YOUR OWN?”
“How did we forget that Israel’s story is the story of the West?” (By Charles Moore, The Daily Telegraph, November 26, 2005)
If you had followed the British media, particularly the BBC, with average attention over the past 25 years, you would have concluded that Sharon was an intransigent, murderous, semi-fascist. So you would have been perplexed by his sudden announcement this week that he is to leave the “Right-wing” (favoured Western terminology) Likud party and form a “centrist” party of his own. Suddenly, Sharon becomes visionary, peace-seeking. Little would have prepared you for it.
And that is the trouble. Little prepares the post-Christian European audience to understand Israel. By “understand”, I partly mean sympathise with, and partly, just comprehend…
… Once upon a time, the word “Palestinian” had no national meaning; it was simply the description on any passport of a person living in British-mandated Palestine. During the 19 years to 1967 when Jordan governed the West Bank, the people there had no self-rule, and no real name. UN Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to leave territories it occupied in 1967, does not mention Palestinians; it speaks only of “Arab refugees”. Palestinian nationality came along, as it were, after the fact, a nationality largely based on grievance.
Since then, the story has grown and grown. Israel, which was attacked, has come to be seen as the aggressor. Israel, which has elections that throw governments out and independent commissions that investigate people like Sharon and condemn him, became regarded as the oppressive monster. In a rhetoric that tried to play back upon Jews their own experience of suffering, supporters of the Palestinian cause began to call Israelis Nazis. Holocaust Memorial Day is disapproved of by many Muslims because it ignores the supposedly comparable “genocide” of the Palestinians…
Well, some will say, that is the way it is: Israel has abused power, and is reaping the whirlwind. I don’t want to argue today about the rights and wrongs of Israel’s actions, though I think, given its difficulties, it stands up better than most before the bar of history. All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world’s fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilisation even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is “the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance,” the world of the West. He is busy building his country’s nuclear bomb.
“HOW DID WE FORGET THAT ISRAEL’S STORY IS THE STORY OF THE WEST?”
How did we forget that Israel’s story is the story of the West?
By Charles Moore
The Daily Telegraph
November 26, 2005
www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=LI5P4XYBJYLJ1QFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/opinion/2005/11/26/do2602.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/11/26/ixportal.html
Sometimes Private Eye runs a spoof “Apology - printed in all newspapers”, which says something like: “We used to say that X was a disgusting, brutal pig, unworthy to hold public office. We now recognise that X is a living saint.” Such a volte-face has just taken place about Ariel Sharon.
If you had followed the British media, particularly the BBC, with average attention over the past 25 years, you would have concluded that Sharon was an intransigent, murderous, semi-fascist. So you would have been perplexed by his sudden announcement this week that he is to leave the “Right-wing” (favoured Western terminology) Likud party and form a “centrist” party of his own. Suddenly, Sharon becomes visionary, peace-seeking. Little would have prepared you for it.
And that is the trouble. Little prepares the post-Christian European audience to understand Israel. By “understand”, I partly mean sympathise with, and partly, just comprehend.
Sharon’s career is a good place to start, because it spans the history of the Jewish state. He was 20 when it began in 1948, and had been serving in the Jewish Haganah militia since the age of 14. He fought in the War of Independence, and in 1956, and in the Six-Day War of 1967, and in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when he crossed the Suez Canal and, effectively disobeying orders, advanced to cut the supply lines of the Egyptian Third Army. He became a popular hero.
Then Sharon entered full-time politics. As defence minister, he masterminded the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which succeeded in breaking up the PLO infrastructure there. On his watch, Lebanese Christian Falangists entered the Sabra and Chatila Palestinian refugee camps. There they massacred several hundred people: Sharon was officially condemned for this, and forced to resign.
He bounced back, however. As housing minister, he built settlements. Later he was foreign minister, then leader of Likud. In 2001, he became prime minister, swept to power by fear of the new intifada. He ordered the assassination of many Palestinian terrorists. He began the security wall that divides Israel from much of the West Bank. He also ordered Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza strip, the first unilateral withdrawal it has ever made. And soon he will contest elections as leader of a party he has just invented.
If one stands back from the moral argument that rages round Israel, and just looks at this as a story, it reminds one intensely of that of ancient Israel’s enemy, the Roman republic. An austere nation builds its power in the face of enemy neighbours. It does so by great feats of arms, and so its soldiers often become its political leaders. The commitment those leaders must give to the nation is absolute, lifelong, life-threatening. The deeds done in the nation’s defence are frequently brave, sometimes appalling. Some would see Sharon as Milosevic, but might he not be Caesar?
But there’s also an important difference from Rome: the purpose of victory has been more about security than conquest for its own sake. Israeli politics for the past dozen years has been the attempt to reconcile extrication from territory with security. That is what Sharon thinks about all the time, as did his Labour predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak.
In the history of the West, such a narrative used to command fascination and respect. Many could apply it to their own people. British people whose convict cousins had built Australia out of their barren exile could understand; so could Americans, who had overcome hostile terrain and hostile inhabitants, and forged a mighty nation. So could any country formed in adversity, particularly, perhaps, a Protestant one - with its idea of divinely supported national destiny and its natural sympathy for the people first chosen by God. The sympathy was made stronger by the fact that the new state was robust in its legal and political institutions, free in its press and universities - a noisy democracy.
Anti-imperialists and the Left also found much to admire. They admired people whose pioneer spirit kept them equal, who often lived communally, who fled the persecution of old societies to build simpler, better ones. If you read Bernard Donoughue’s diaries, just published, of his life as an adviser to Harold Wilson in the 1970s (a much better picture of what prime ministers are like than Sir Christopher Meyer’s self-regarding effort), one difference between then and now that hits you hard is Donoughue’s (and Wilson’s) firm belief that the cause of Israel is the cause of people who wish to be free, and that its enemies are the old, repressive establishments.
As a boy, I loved this narrative. I cheered as Israeli courage swept away the outnumbering Arabs who tried to destroy it again and again. I bought books about the Six-Day War, many of which carried pictures of glamorous female Israeli soldiers.
But then a different narrative supervened. People called “the Palestinians” began to be mentioned. Once upon a time, the word “Palestinian” had no national meaning; it was simply the description on any passport of a person living in British-mandated Palestine. During the 19 years to 1967 when Jordan governed the West Bank, the people there had no self-rule, and no real name. UN Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to leave territories it occupied in 1967, does not mention Palestinians; it speaks only of “Arab refugees”. Palestinian nationality came along, as it were, after the fact, a nationality largely based on grievance.
Since then, the story has grown and grown. Israel, which was attacked, has come to be seen as the aggressor. Israel, which has elections that throw governments out and independent commissions that investigate people like Sharon and condemn him, became regarded as the oppressive monster. In a rhetoric that tried to play back upon Jews their own experience of suffering, supporters of the Palestinian cause began to call Israelis Nazis. Holocaust Memorial Day is disapproved of by many Muslims because it ignores the supposedly comparable “genocide” of the Palestinians.
Western children of the Sixties like this sort of talk. They look for a narrative based on the American civil rights movement or the struggle against apartheid. They care little for economic achievement or political pluralism. They are suspicious of any society with a Western appearance, and in any contest between people with differing skin colours, they prefer the darker. They buy into the idea, now promoted by all Arab regimes and by Muslim firebrands with a permanent interest in deflecting attention from their own societies’ problems, that Israel is the greatest problem of all.
Well, some will say, that is the way it is: Israel has abused power, and is reaping the whirlwind. I don’t want to argue today about the rights and wrongs of Israel’s actions, though I think, given its difficulties, it stands up better than most before the bar of history. All I want to ask my fellow Europeans is this: are you happy to help direct the world’s fury at the only country in the Middle East whose civilisation even remotely resembles yours? And are you sure that the fate of Israel has no bearing on your own? In Iran, the new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the link. The battle over Palestine, he says, is “the prelude of the battle of Islam with the world of arrogance”, the world of the West. He is busy building his country’s nuclear bomb.
[This is the second of two dispatches today primarily dealing with the way in which Muslim extremism is increasing across the globe]
(For more details, please see the Reuters report below, at the start of the “full articles” section.)
NO WORD FROM THE AUT IN SUPPORT OF CONDEMNED SAUDI EDUCATOR
So far there has been no condemnation of the Saudi authorities from the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) who continue to spend much of their time considering how to get their proposed boycott of Israeli teachers implemented.
It is also ironic that presently two Israelis, one Jewish and one Arab, are touring the UK to urge an academic boycott of Israeli universities together with Dr Nur Masalha, a Palestinian Muslim, now a British citizen.
The Israeli Jew, Ilan Pappe, is a professor at Haifa University, whilst the Israeli Arab, Omar Barghouti, completed his doctorate at Tel Aviv University, and the British Muslim studied at the Hebrew University. They are living evidence of the lie that Arabs are denied education in “apartheid Israel,” yet they have abused the education Israel gave them to further demonize the Jewish state in countries like Britain where there has been a rise in anti-Semitism recently.
TAINTED SAUDI TEACHING MATERIAL USED IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS
A special investigation by the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) has discovered that Saudi-backed teaching materials, replete with bias and distortions about Israel, America and Islam, are penetrating classrooms across the U.S.
For example, the “Arab World Studies Notebook,” which is provided to American schools to correct misconceptions about Islam and the Arab world, contains no mention of the existence of Israel in its country-by-country section, and refers only to Palestine. It also suggests that the Koran “synthesizes and perfects earlier revelations,” meaning those ascribed to by Christians and Jews.
This notebook also suggests that Jews have “undue influence on U.S. foreign policy.” The two organizations behind the book are the Arab World & Islamic Resources and the Middle East Policy Council, both of which receive funding from Saudi Arabia.
A recent New York Sun editorial commented that “the House of Saud gets its hands on American public school textbooks. The results aren’t pretty.”
AL-QAEDA THREATENS THE ENGLISH QUEEN
In a video message justifying the July London transport bombings, Al-Qaeda has named Queen Elizabeth as “one of the severest enemies of Islam”.
The 27-minute video, partly broadcast on Al-Jazeera, denounces the Queen as an enemy of Muslims. Appearing in the video is Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden along with the ringleader of the London bombings Mohammad Sidique Khan.
In Britain the video has been posted on the website Tajdeed, run by the London-based Saudi extremist Muhammad al-Massari. (Further details in the article below.)
NEW ISLAMIST GROUP TO LAUNCH THIS WEEK IN LONDON
Anjam Choudry a lawyer and the former leader of al Muhahjiroun, an extremist organization which disbanded itself in October 2004, told the Saudi-owned paper Asharq al Awsat yesterday that he had invited the group’s 700 ex-members to unite under the banner of “Ahl al Sunnah and al Jamaa” (the community following the teachings of the Prophet).
Choudry also expected several students of Omar Bakri Mohammad, the spiritual guide of the banned al Ghurabaa group who currently lives in Beirut, to attend the launch. The new group aims to unite British Muslims under one roof, away from more secular organizations.
INDIA STEPS UP WORK ON SECURITY FENCE TO KEEP OUT TERRORISTS
The third article below reports that India is accelerating the construction of a 2,500 mile fence to seal its border with Bangladesh. Explosions in Bangladesh this year have killed 30 people.
So far there has been no outcry about the Indian “apartheid wall” whilst no international activists have arrived to protest the Indian security fence.
The fence will be built in response to 30 deaths whilst Israel, a much smaller and more vulnerable country, is building its security fence in response to over a thousand deaths.
Where is the resolution from the General Assembly of the United Nations in which it requires the International Court of Justice to “urgently render an advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by India…”?
FRANCE EXTENDS ITS STATE OF EMERGENCY FOR THREE MONTHS
In response to the riots across France, the government has approved a bill to extend the country’s state of emergency for another three months.
Last night, French police said that only 163 vehicles were burned, down from 215 the previous night. This drop is seen as indicating an “almost normal situation everywhere” in France. A total of 8,973 vehicles have been set fire to since the violence began.
The French parliament gave final approval to extending the state of emergency for three months on Wednesday.
For an interesting article on the way the American media have (mis)covered the French riots, please see the dispatch “Elections imminent as Shimon Peres ousted (& items on French riots, NY Times, Islam)” (November 10, 2005).
200,000 ISRAELIS MARK 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF RABIN’S DEATH
Around 200,000 Israelis gathered in Rabin square last Saturday night to mark the 10-year anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s murder. Among the participants was former U.S. President Bill Clinton. This was the biggest peace rally in Israel since the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
… BUT ONLY 1,500 PALESTINIANS MARK FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF ARAFAT
According to Reuters, the Rabin rally was “a huge contrast to the modest memorials Palestinians held in Gaza and the West Bank this week to mark the first anniversary of the death of Arafat.”
1,500 people attended the Arafat memorial ceremony on Saturday night in Ramallah, in the Mukata, marking the first anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s death.
To see some of my previous articles on Arafat please refer to www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArafatArticles.html. And for a topical photographic reminder of the continuing shadow that Arafat casts over efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace exactly one year after his death see www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArafatEducation.htm
SINGAPORE NATIONAL LIBRARY REMOVES ARAFAT EXHIBIT
Following a number of complaints, the Singapore National Library has removed an image of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Kwa Chong Guan, a consultant to the government-backed terrorism exhibition at the National Library, explained in a letter published in The Straits Times newspaper that Arafat’s picture was used in a montage of 24 faces to “attract visitors to the exhibits.”
Guan went on to say that “We received feedback from visitors that if one looked at the montage without looking at the exhibition in totality, the faces displayed were open to many different interpretations.”
CALLS FOR MODERATE MUSLIMS TO RAISE THEIR VOICES
The final two articles on this dispatch both contain calls for moderate Muslims to make themselves heard.
Walid Salem, a Palestinian, questions whether Islamist political propaganda spouted by Iranian President Mohammed Ahamdinejad is useful for the Palestinian cause. (To read more on the international reaction to the calls by Ahmadinejad for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” please see the dispatch “Israel receives surprisingly strong international support over Ahmadinejad comments” (November 1, 2005).)
Salem also urges moderate Muslims to “be vociferous against blind strategies, and instead should call for a real and intensive discussion about the Jewish question and about Israel’s position in the Middle East.”
Dennis Prager in the Los Angeles Times (article below) asks five questions of law-abiding Muslims. The second of his questions is “Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?” The fifth and final question asks “Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?”
I attach seven articles below.
-- Tom Gross
Al-Madina newspaper said secondary-school teacher Mohammad al-Harbi, who will be flogged in public, was taken to court by his colleagues and students.
He was charged with promoting a “dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer,” the newspaper said.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, strictly upholds the austere Wahhabi school of Islam and bases its constitution on the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. Public practice of any other religion is banned.
A U.S. State Department report criticized Saudi Arabia last week, saying religious freedoms “are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam.” The newspaper said Mr. al-Harbi will appeal the verdict.
A similar case was cited in the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report for 2004. “During the period covered by this report, a schoolteacher was tried for apostasy, and eventually convicted in March of blasphemy; the person was given a prison sentence of 3 years and 300 lashes. The trial received substantial press coverage,” the report said.
A 2003 report by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the world’s only government-sanctioned entity to investigate and report religious-freedom violations, named Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest violator of religious liberties.
The commission took the country to task for “offensive and discriminatory language” disparaging Jews, Christians and non-Wahhabi Muslims found in government-sponsored school textbooks, in Friday sermons preached in prominent mosques, and in state-controlled Saudi newspapers.
For example, in 2003, Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah reacted to the killing of six Westerners by terrorists in Yemen by saying he thought Zionism was behind them.
In Saudi Arabia, the public practice of any religion other than Islam is illegal; only Muslims can be Saudi citizens; one of the Saudi king’s titles is “custodian of the two holy mosques”; proselytizing for any religion other than Sunni Islam is barred; and Mecca, Islam’s holy city, is forbidden to all non-Muslims.
For years, Saudi Arabia also imposed restrictions, or persuaded the U.S. government to impose restrictions, on American troops defending the country during and after then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait.
For example, U.S. postal and customs officials have barred mailing materials “contrary to the Islamic faith,” including Bibles. The U.S. military also has required female service members to wear a long, black robe called an abaya when traveling off base in Saudi Arabia. Both regulations were rescinded or clarified after public outcry based on reporting in the U.S. media.
Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’
By Abul Taher
The Sunday Times (of London)
November 13, 2005
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1869849,00.html
Al-Qaeda has threatened the Queen by naming her as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message to justify the July bombings in London.
The warning has been passed by MI5 to the Queen’s protection team after it obtained the unexpurgated version of a video issued by Al-Qaeda after the 7/7 attacks. Parts of it were broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite channel.
In the video, Ayman al- Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden, targets the Queen as ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” and denounces her as an enemy of Muslims.
A senior Whitehall official said: “MI5 is aware that there are some pieces of that video that have not been aired. They are aware of the bit of al- Zawahiri talking about the Queen and they have notified the relevant authorities.”
The Sunday Times has obtained the full 27-minute video, which is circulating on secure jihadist websites in the Middle East used to recruit and inflame prospective terrorists. In Britain it has been posted by Muhammad al-Massari, the London-based Saudi extremist, on his website Tajdeed.
It also contains inflammatory material from Mohammad Sidique Khan, ringleader of the London bombings which killed 52 commuters. He is urging Muslims to take part in jihad and seek martyrdom.
Khan, 30, incites British Muslims to ignore the moderate Islamic leaders who want integration with British society. “Our so-called scholars of today,” he said, “are content with their Toyotas and semi- detached houses” in their desire for integration. The message is believed to be the first of its kind in which a British suicide bomber calls on fellow UK Muslims to follow his example.
The attack by al-Zawahiri prompted intelligence officers to alert Buckingham Palace that the Queen had become a specific target of Al-Qaeda. Her security had already been upgraded after September 11, 2001.
In the video al-Zawahiri not only labels the Queen as one of Islam’s “severest enemies” but also sends a warning shot to British Islamic leaders who “work for the pleasure of Elizabeth, the head of the Church of England”.
He said those who followed her were saying: “We are British citizens, subject to Britain’s crusader laws, and we are proud of our submission . . . to Elizabeth, head of the Church of England.”
In a possible reference to the role of the Muslim Council of Britain, which had issued instructions to mosques to inform on potential terrorists, he criticised “those who issue fatwas, according to the school of thought of the head of the Church of England”.
In the previously unseen footage, Khan, from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, said: “It is very clear, brothers and sisters, that the path of jihad and the desire for martyrdom is embedded in the holy prophet and his beloved companions.
“By preparing ourselves for this kind of work, we are guaranteeing ourselves for paradise and gaining the pleasure of Allah.
“And by turning our back on this work, we are guaranteeing ourselves humiliation and the anger of Allah. Jihad is an obligation on every single one of us, men and women.”
Khan’s message was condemned by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the Muslim Council’s secretary-general, as a “perverse interpretation of Islam”.
“The victims of Sidique Khan were innocent people . . . It’s clearly inciteful. It’s trying to incite people to commit murder,” he said.
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1869575,00.html
India is accelerating the construction of a 2,500-mile fence to seal its border with Bangladesh amid growing fears that its Muslim neighbour could become “a new Afghanistan”. Indian officials and western diplomats have been alarmed by an increase in terrorist attacks by militant groups linked to Al-Qaeda and by the Dhaka government’s failure to crack down on them.
One group said to have links with the government claimed responsibility for 500 synchronised explosions in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts in August.
India’s cabinet has decided to speed up work on the 8ft security fence, which is intended to keep out terrorists and arms smugglers. The fence, which cuts a swathe through some of India’s densest rainforests, will be finished by the end of next year and patrolled by a border security force. Key stretches are being electrified.
The initiative follows attacks by two groups related to Al-Qaeda — Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Harakat-ul- Jihad-ul-Islami (Bangladesh), which was among 15 organisations that were banned in Britain last month.
Grenade and bomb explosions across Bangladesh have killed 30 and injured hundreds in the past year. Two Awami League opposition leaders were among those killed and the British high commissioner was targeted in a grenade attack.
It was the August 17 blasts that caused the most alarm. Although only two people died, they showed a new level of sophistication. There were 28 bombs in Dhaka alone and the targets included the prime minister’s office, the police headquarters and the supreme court.
Leaflets found at the bomb sites declared: “It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh” and “Bush and Blair be warned and get out of Muslim countries”.
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh is led by “Bangla Bhai”, a former vigilante who once fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. Opposition leaders and diplomats believe the government has failed to act against Bangla Bhai and other terrorists because they have connections with the governing coalition.
There are two Islamic fundamentalist parties in the coalition, which is led by Begum Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist party: the Jamaat Islami (JI), which has 10% of the vote, and the Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ).
The JI is increasingly respected by ordinary voters for its social welfare work, lack of corruption and the operations of its bank, the most profitable in Bangladesh. “You don’t have to pay a bribe to get a loan from them,” said a western observer.
Senior members of the IOJ have declared themselves to be “for the Taliban and for Osama (Bin Laden)”. “There’s a reluctance to acknowledge there’s a problem here,” said one diplomat, who described the IOJ as “real wackos”. He added: “These are the ones going after an anti-American armageddon. Some of the people charged with the bombings have had linkages with the main party.”
Sabir Hossain Chowdhury, an opposition leader who was detained for three months after complaining about Islamic militants linked to the government, said Bangladesh was being subjected to a campaign of intimidation and the government was guilty of complicity. “Bangladesh is probably the only government in the world that includes a group which is committed to jihad and sharia,” he said.
The country was undergoing creeping “Islamicisation”, he added. “If you look at state TV, more presenters are wearing beards. On the radio they’re reciting more and more from the Koran. The most notable example is at Dhaka airport where signs are now in Arabic but no one speaks it.”
All the partners in the government coalition deny condoning political oppression or terrorism or failing to act. They point out that they have banned two of the main terrorist groups and made high-profile arrests.
Western diplomats are caught between fear and denial. “Our impression is that the government here has the ability to crush these guys if they want to,” said one. “All the ingredients for trouble are here.”
France’s State of Emergency to Be Extended
The Associated Press
November 15, 2005
France’s Cabinet on Monday approved a bill to extend the country’s state of emergency for three months to crack down on a wave of arson attacks and riots, the government said.
The government declared a 12-day state of emergency Wednesday, empowering regions to impose curfews and conduct house searches. The measures were set to expire next Sunday if not extended. The bill to prolong the state of emergency must now go before parliament.
“It’s a measure of protection and precaution,” President Jacques Chirac said at a Cabinet meeting, quoted by government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope. “It’s a strictly temporary measure that will only be used where it is strictly necessary.”
Speaking earlier on Europe-1 radio, Cope said the bill would leave open the possibility of ending the state of emergency if order is restored.
“I think that given all that has just happened, it is important for regional officials to have the means to act during a period that is limited, but long enough to ensure the serious attacks on public order that we have seen in the past days don’t happen again, ” he said.
About 200,000 Israelis and foreign dignitaries gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Israel’s biggest peace rally since its Gaza pullout.
Holding signs with slogans such as “The path to peace will never be killed,” the crowd stood for a moment’s silence and sang memorial songs in Rabin square, where Rabin was killed in 1995 and which has since seen numerous peace rallies.
Rabin was shot dead by an ultranationalist Israeli Jew who opposed his 1993 interim peace deal with the Palestinians, for which he shared a Nobel Peace Prize with late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton joined dozens of foreign dignitaries at the rally. Clinton, who helped broker the 1993 peace accord, said he had loved Rabin and urged Israelis see his work through.
“If he were here, he would say, ‘... If you really think I lived a good life, if you think I made a noble sacrifice in death, then for goodness sakes take up my work and see it through to the end,”’ Clinton said.
The demonstration, which organizers said was about 200,000-strong, was the biggest peace rally in Israel since its Gaza pullout on September 12.
Violence has worsened since Rabin’s death, especially during the past five years of a Palestinian uprising in which more than 3,400 Palestinians and almost 1,000 Israelis have been killed.
In recent violence, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man near the Gaza border fence with Israel, Palestinian medics said. The Israeli army said troops fired at three men trying to plant an explosive device in the area, hitting two.
One of the men who was wounded in the incident told Palestinian medics he and his friends were unarmed and planned to sneak across the border to look for work.
MODEST MEMORIALS FOR ARAFAT
The Tel Aviv rally was a huge contrast to the modest memorials Palestinians held in Gaza and the West Bank this week to mark the first anniversary of the death of Arafat.
Israel and the United States accused Arafat of fomenting violence, a charge he had always denied.
The demonstration was also a major show of strength by Israel’s left, which wants peace talks to resume and opposes Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plans to strengthen Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
But Tamir Abraham, 59, said Sharon had “taken a step in Rabin’s legacy” by carrying out his pullout plan, saying: “Peace is a process and the process has begun with us leaving Gaza.”
Also attending the memorial was new Israeli Labor Party chief Amir Peretz, who ousted Shimon Peres in a Thursday poll.
The rioting in France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam’s sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.
Here are five of them:
(1) Why are you so quiet?
Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week’s protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.
There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country’s moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?
(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.
(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world’s 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world’s “not free” states. And of the 10 “worst of the worst,” seven are Islamic states. Why is this?
(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?
Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims – in the name of Islam – murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in “honor killings.” And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.
(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?
No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan’s Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.
Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a “Christian terrorist.” As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.
As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam, have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.
Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, “Yes, we have real problems in Islam.” Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better – for you and for the world – than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.
We await your response.
This is the first of two dispatches today dealing primarily with the way in which extremist Muslim violence is increasing across the globe while at the same time general global violence is on the wane. Please note that moderate Muslims are often the victims of such extremist Muslim violence and the items included below should not in any way be construed as being anti-Muslim. The problem is the fundamentalist version of Islam which continues to threaten everybody else, and due to political correctness is still not reported on properly in the mainstream western media – Tom Gross
In the article attached below, Shahbaz Bhatti, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, says “No Christian burned copies of the Quran. No Christian even can think of doing it. We have maximum regard and respect for the Quran and Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.”
ARRESTS MADE OVER BEHEADINGS OF FIVE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLGIRLS IN INDONESIA
The Vatican has described the grisly beheadings of three Christian schoolgirls in Poso, Indonesia as “barbaric.” Most press in Europe and America have yet to comment in any substantive way on the grisly beheadings.
Whereas the killing of a single al-Aqsa terrorist by Israel in a gunbattle is placed as the very first story on BBC World Service News (as it was last week, for example), such an inhuman act against innocent schoolgirls merely because they were Christian is buried in the news, if reported on at all.
According to Indonesian police, six people with masks killed the teenage girls with machetes. Poso is a predominantly Muslim seaside town. About 85 percent of Indonesia’s 220 million people are Muslim. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderates, but there has been an increasingly active extremist minority in recent years.
The article (attached below) also reports that two other girls (a Muslim and a Christian) were killed by a gunman on a motorbike whilst sitting in their homes in downtown Poso.
To read about similar persecutions of Christians in Egypt, please see the recent dispatch “Red Cross: Persecution of Christians ‘outside our area of expertise’ (& other items)” (November 3, 2005).
ORPHANS OF KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS “ADOPTED” BY TERRORISTS
A leading human rights organization in Pakistan, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, have said that Islamic terrorist groups have taken orphans from the recent earthquake-devastated areas in Kashmir and placed them in Jihad training camps.
Following the earthquake which killed as many as 87,000 people on October 8, the so-called militants were among the first groups to arrive with aid. Some Pakistani government officials are also suspected of passing children to some of the Jihadist groups.
Fahad Burney, of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, said “We have heard from very reliable sources and seen with our own eyes that orphaned and lost children are being taken by jihadi organisations in northern Pakistan to be trained.” (Full article, from the Times of London, below).
TERRORISTS USING UNSENT E-MAIL “DRAFTS” TO CO-ORDINATE ATTACKS
Some of the Kashmiri orphans may also end up receiving expert computer training in these camps. The Singapore-based New Paper has reported that e-mail is becoming a growing terrorist battle front.
Terrorists are using free email accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail to pass each other messages without ever sending an actual email. If a group of people in different locations have the same email ID and password they can all log on and write messages for each other by leaving them in the unsent drafts section of an email account (for example hotmail) without being tracked.
There will be no record of a message being transmitted, and the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of the correspondents will not help in tracking down the messages or the location of senders.
U.N. SAYS GLOBAL VIOLENCE HAS DECREASED; INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM ON THE INCREASE
The penultimate article below cites a new United Nations Human Security Report which says armed conflicts have declined by 40 per cent since the end of the Cold War in 1989. The report gives much of the credit for the decrease in armed conflict to the United Nations. But it does concede that there has been an increase in international terrorism (without specifically mentioning it is almost all because of Muslim fundamentalism).
A study earlier this year by the Rand Corporation concluded that the U.N. is successful in 66 per cent of its peace efforts. A second report in 2006 will focus on the indirect cost of warfare. (Perhaps a report on the varied effects of terrorism or the rise in suicide bombers would have been more useful.)
DESPITE IRAQ, PALESTINIANS STILL COMPRISE LARGEST GROUP OF SUICIDE BOMBERS
According to a report by Tel Aviv University, Palestinians comprise the largest group of suicide bombers. The study cited 400 Palestinian suicide attackers to date compared to 376 Iraqi suicide bombers.
The report said that in the period from 1983 to mid-September 2005 there have been more than 1,323 suicide bombers worldwide. Suicide strikes have been carried out by thirty groups and were pioneered by Hizbullah in Lebanon in the 1980s.
U.N. CONTOL OF THE INTERNET MAY PROVE DISASTROUS
The final article below concerns the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, which opened yesterday in Tunis.
Award-winning journalist Claudia Rosett (who is a subscriber to this email list) argues that “a U.N. unable even to audit its own accounts or police its own peacekeepers has no business making even a twitch toward control of the Internet.”
SILVAN SHALOM RETURNS TO TUNISIA
The Conference will also be attended by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and Communications Minister Dalia Itzik. Shalom, who was joined on the trip by his mother, is making his first trip to Tunisia, the place of his birth, since leaving at the age of one.
An “Israir” plane carrying Shalom to Tunisia, marks the first direct flight from Israel to the North African Arab country. For other signs of improving relations between Israel and various Arab states, please see the dispatch “Small signs of improving Arab-Israeli relations (despite today’s suicide attack)” (October 26, 2005).
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom held two meetings in Tunis yesterday. The Israelis described the meetings, held on the sidelines of the conference, as “unscheduled.”
I attach six articles, in full, below.
-- Tom Gross
NEAR POGROM AGAINST CHRISTIAN HOLY SITES IN PAKISTAN
Muslim Crowd Burns Two Pakistan Churches
By Asif Shahzad
The Associated Press
November 12, 2005
Hundreds of Muslims attacked and burned two churches in Pakistan on Saturday after reports that a Christian man had desecrated Islam’s holy book. No one was injured in the blazes.
A school, student hostel and the home of a priest were also torched by the crowd of about 1,500 Muslims near the town of Sangla Hill, about 80 miles northeast of Lahore, said police official Ali Asghar Dogar. The attacks were being investigated. About two dozen people had been arrested, Dogar said.
The fires came a day after a local Muslim resident accused a Christian of burning a one-room Islamic school along with copies of the Quran. Dogar said the allegations were apparently leveled by people who lost money while gambling with the Christian man on Friday, but police had detained him and were investigating.
Shahbaz Bhatti, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance which promotes the rights of minorities in mainly Muslim Pakistan, denied the charges and condemned the attacks on the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.
“No Christian burned copies of the Quran,” he told The Associated Press. “No Christian even can think of doing it. We have maximum regard and respect for the Quran and Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.” Bhatti accused local Muslim leaders of using mosque public-address systems to urge Muslims to attack the churches.
Non-Muslims comprise just 3 percent of Pakistan’s 150 million-plus population. The country’s Christian minority generally coexists peacefully with the Muslim majority, but there have been occasional attacks on churches and Christian clergy by Islamic extremists railing against Western influence in Pakistan.
Thousands of Pakistanis joined angry street protests this spring over the alleged desecration of the Quran by interrogators at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo, Bay, Cuba. Desecration of the holy book carries the death penalty in Pakistan.
FIVE TEENAGE CHRISTIAN GIRLS BEHEADED IN INDONESIA
Five held over beheading of Indonesia schoolgirls
Reuters
November 9, 2005
Indonesian officers have detained five people, including a former soldier, over the beheading last month of three teenage Christian girls in the volatile eastern region of Poso, security officials said.
A spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the attacks, as well as a separate incident on Tuesday evening when unidentified gunmen shot and critically wounded two schoolgirls, were an attempt to reignite religious violence in the area.
The grisly beheadings, which occurred a few days before a major Muslim holiday, triggered an outcry across Indonesia as well as in Poso, a regency on Sulawesi island where sectarian fighting raged from 1998 to 2001.
“The role of these five people is still being investigated by police officers,” said deputy national police spokesman Soenarko Artanto, adding no suspect has been named in the case.
He refused to clarify whether the army is holding the five. The military have claimed credit for capturing four of them. “Four people have been captured by members of battalion 714 and they will be handed over to the police. Three of them are civilians while another is a former military policeman,” said Major General Kohirin Suganda, the Indonesian military’s chief spokesman, referring to the Poso-based infantry unit.
Suganda said the capture took place a few days ago. Police have said up to six people dressed in black outfits and masks killed the teenage schoolgirls with machetes near downtown Poso and labeled the perpetrators “terrorists.”
The army, playing an increased role in Indonesia’s fight against terrorism, recently created anti-terrorism desks at all levels of its so-called territorial command structure, which reaches down to village level. The Vatican described the killings as “barbaric.”
Most of the previous communal violence in the large but sparsely populated Poso regency, 1,500 km (930 miles) northeast of Jakarta, happened around the predominantly Muslim seaside town of Poso and the hilltop Christian town of Tentena.
Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso regency killed more than 2,000 people between 1998 and 2001, when a truce was reached. While the worst violence abated after the peace deal, there have been sporadic outbreaks since, including market bombings last May in Tentena that killed 22 people.
In the latest attack on Tuesday, gunmen on a motorbike shot the two teenage girls -- a Muslim and a Christian -- as they were sitting together near their homes in downtown Poso.
President Yudhoyono had ordered security forces to find the perpetrators, his spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said. “From the first case, we have made progress and identified the perpetrators,” Mallarangeng told reporters, without elaborating on whether he meant the same four detained.
“(The attacks) did not come from one religion but had people from different religions. It seems the purpose is to provoke religious emotions among Poso residents so that there will be chaos,” he said.
About 85 percent of Indonesia’s 220 million people are Muslim. But in some eastern parts, Christian and Muslim populations are about equal. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderates, but there has been an increasingly active militant minority in recent years.
ORPHANS OF KASHMIR EARTHQUAKE “ADOPTED” BY TERRORISTS
Quake orphans ‘adopted’ for jihad
The Sunday Times (of London)
November 13, 2005
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1869841,00.html
Children orphaned by the Kashmir earthquake are being “adopted” by terrorist groups that hope to train them to fight in the jihad, or holy war, writes Dean Nelson.
Pakistan’s leading human rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, said jihadi groups fighting the Indian government were taking orphans off the streets and putting them in training camps.
The organisation said it also had evidence that sympathetic government officials were passing children on to the jihadis to be looked after. The popularity of the Islamic militants has risen sharply since the earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 87,000 people.
The militants were among the first to arrive with aid at some of the worst affected villages. Their organisation and ability to commandeer lifting equipment and tents have generated significant new support. But according to human rights campaigners they are using their new popularity to smuggle weapons and recruit the young and vulnerable.
“We have heard from very reliable sources and seen with our own eyes that orphaned and lost children are being taken by jihadi organisations in northern Pakistan to be trained,” said Fahad Burney, of the trust.
Jamaat-ud Dawa, one of the largest jihadi groups in Pakistan, has called openly for orphans to be handed over for an “Islamic education”.
Pakistan moved quickly following the quake to ban adoptions after aid agencies warned of child trafficking.
Another hazard facing children is pneumonia, which is taking its toll among the 750,000 survivors living in tent camps. Action Against Hunger said it was now seeing one or two cases every day, and was aware of some children dying from the illness.
(Additional reporting: Mohammad Shehzad)
TERRORISTS USING E-MAIL TO CO-ORDINATE ATTACKS
Terrorists turning to e-mail
United Press International
October 31, 2005
Terrorists around the world are turning to e-mail to coordinate their attacks.
A manual posted on the Muntadiyat al-Farouq forum, a Muslim hard-liner’ forum, warns against using hand phones to coordinate operations because of stricter controls introduced by governments. But the next battle front may be e-mail, the Singapore-based New Paper reported Monday.
Jeffrey Pool, a research consultant with Washington-based think-tank Jamestown Foundation, told The New Paper that militants have been exploiting “single-use free e-mail accounts through Hotmail or Yahoo.”
“In such a scenario, they will not actually send an electronic message. Instead, they will compose a message and then save it as a draft,” Pool said. “The intended recipient is given the login information through another e-mail account (or another medium entirely). He then logs in and views the saved message draft.”
A group of people can have the same e-mail ID and password so that they can log on and read messages without sending any.
There will be no record of a message being transmitted, and the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of the correspondents may be useless.
U.N. SAYS GLOBAL VIOLENCE HAS DECREASED; BUT INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM ON THE INCREASE
Global Violence Has Decreased, U.N. Says
The Associated Press
October 18, 2005
Armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the world, according to a new study.
The first Human Security Report paints a surprising picture of war and peace in the 21st century: a dramatic decline in battlefield deaths, plummeting instances of genocide, and a drop in human rights abuses.
The only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse is international terrorism, a serious threat but one that has killed fewer than 1,000 people a year on average over the past 30 years. Tens of thousands were killed annually in armed conflicts during that time, said the report, which was financed by five governments and released Monday.
Despite the dramatic improvements in global security, the report warned against complacency, noting that 60 wars are still being fought around the world, including serious conflicts in Iraq and Sudan’s western Darfur region.
“The post-Cold War years have also been marked by major humanitarian emergencies, gross abuses of human rights, war crimes, and ever-deadlier acts of terrorism,” it said. “The risk of new wars breaking out – or old ones resuming – is very real in the absence of a sustained and strengthened commitment to conflict prevention and post-conflict peace building.”
Nonetheless, the report said there also was no cause for pessimism.
Andrew Mack, a professor at the University of British Columbia who directed the study, said the end of the Cold War eliminated tensions between capitalism and communism, cut off U.S. and Russian funding for proxy wars, and most importantly liberated the United Nations.
“With the Security Council no longer paralyzed by Cold War politics, the U.N. spearheaded a veritable explosion of conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict peace-building activities in the early 1990s,” the report said.
A Rand Corp. study earlier this year concluded that the United Nations was successful in 66 percent of its peace efforts, but even the 40 percent success rate some believe is more accurate would be an achievement considering that prior to the 1990s “there was nothing going on at all,” Mack said.
“We think the United Nations, despite the many failures, has done in many ways an extraordinary job ... very often with inadequate resources, inappropriate mandates, and with horrible politics in the council,” said Mack, who was the director of strategic planning in U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s offic