As with past dispatches, I attach the following news items because the so-called mainstream media, from which the vast majority of opinion-formers and policy-makers obtain their news, have barely reported on them, if at all.

IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: “NO SUCH COUNTRY AS ISRAEL”

“There is no such country” as Israel, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, said yesterday. Mottaki was speaking at a ministerial meeting of the Nonaligned Movement held in the Malaysian city of Putrajaya. The Iranian foreign minister also declared that the United States was too tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan to be able to launch an attack on Iran.

ISRAEL SENDS GROUND FORCE INTO GAZA

In a pre-dawn raid this morning, Israel sent special forces ground troops deep into Gaza for the first time since it unilaterally withdrew from the territory last fall. The target was an Islamic Jihad Qassam rocket crew that was preparing to fire rockets into Israel from what used to be the Israeli settlement of Dugit. Since that time, Dugit has often been used as a base from which to launch rockets at Israeli towns and villages. The Israeli commandos waited for the Palestinian rocket crew to arrive and then tried to prevent them from launching Qassams. Three Jihadists were killed in the fierce gun battle that ensued. There were no injuries to the Israeli force, which left the Strip soon after the clash.

IRAN GIVES HIZBULLAH LONG-RANGE MISSILES

Iran has transferred to the Lebanon-based Hizbullah terrorist group much longer-range rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv and even Beersheba in southern Israel, Israel’s leading defense journalist, Ze’ev Schiff, reports.

Schiff, writing in the daily Ha’aretz, says the new rockets are called the Zelzal-2; its earlier model was called the Zelzal-1. Another Iranian name for the rocket is Nazeat. The weapons have doubled Hizbullah’s effective range, to about 125 miles (200 kilometers), putting all of Israel’s major urban centers within striking distance. The new missiles carry a 1300-pound (600- kilogram) warhead.

The rockets were first seen in a military parade in Teheran on September 2005, the first such event following the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Six Shehab-3 surface-to-surface ballistic missiles were also on display. In response to slogans written on the Shehab-3 rockets, calling for “Death to Israel” and “Death to the U.S.,” the military attaches of France, Italy, Greece and Poland, invited to the event, left the VIP platform.

Hizbullah fired a barrage of shorter-range Katyusha rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel on Sunday. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 demands that all armed militias in Lebanon disarm.

BRITISH NATIONAL ARRESTED FOR ASSISTING HAMAS

The Israeli government announced yesterday that a British national, Iyaz Ali, was arrested in Israel by Israeli police three weeks ago, on May 10, after a tip-off from Israeli intelligence. Ali, who was born in Pakistan, is accused of transferring funds and assistance to Hamas institutions and operatives, in violation of Israeli law.

Ali is an activist in the UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), which was established in 1984 in the British city of Birmingham, and has a branch in Gaza. It has NGO status in the U.K.

In addition to incriminating files about financial payments to Hamas found on Ali’s computer, also found were photographs of swastikas superimposed on the Star of David, photographs of senior German Nazi officials, of Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as many photographs of Hamas’ “military activities.”

Ali, 36, was released yesterday (Monday), with police restrictions placed on his movements within Israel. He will be deported from Israel in the coming days and will be barred from returning.

THE CONFISCATED MONEY WENT TO HAMAS AFTER ALL

Some 640,000 Euros confiscated from a Hamas official at the Rafah crossing earlier this month has been given to Hamas after all. Some of it will pay for a militia manned by Izaddin Al-Kassam terrorists.

The cash, the equivalent of $820,000, was discovered in the baggage of the Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, as he made his way into Gaza from Egypt. European Union inspectors confiscated the money, which was over 400 times more than the amount permitted to be imported without declaration.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had ordered the money transferred to the prosecution offices of the PA, and demanded an investigation into the Hamas spokesman and his activities.

However, Abu Zuhri announced to the Palestinian Information Center, thought to be the main media outlet for Hamas, that the money went to “the correct party.” It is thought that Abu Zuhri’s reference to the “correct party” is a reference to Hamas operatives.

PFLP TO JOIN HAMAS-LED GOVERNMENT

Representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), one of the most extreme Palestinian terrorist groups, announced on Sunday that they had agreed to join the Hamas-led government. They also said they would be willing to participate in the new Hamas security force.

IDF STOPS SUICIDE BOMBER EN ROUTE TO ATTACK IN ISRAEL

Israeli security forces intercepted a suicide-bombing attempt on Sunday morning. Military sources said the two Palestinians were a suicide bomber and his driver who were on their way to carry out an attack in Israel. Their bag was found to contain a belt packed with explosives, which was then safely detonated by IDF explosives experts. (For more on this, please see the articles below, from the Associated Press, and the excellent commentary by Hillel Halkin criticizing The New York Times’s coverage of the checkpoint issue.)

POLICE SEARCH FOR ATTACKER WHO STABBED BOY IN JERUSALEM

Israeli police are continuing their search for the Arab man who stabbed a 14-year old Jewish boy in the back in Jerusalem on Saturday night. It was the second stabbing in two days. On Friday, a Palestinian stepped out of his car to ask an Israeli man for water and stabbed him in the neck when he turned his back.

ISRAEL SET TO JOIN OECD BODY OF INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS

Israel expects to become a full member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the prestigious world body of 30 industrialized countries. Over the last 10 years of negotiations, Israel faced a number of hurdles. Some member states objected to the Jewish State’s inclusion because of its conflict with the Palestinians.

Efforts to join the OECD were launched in 1996 under then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Full membership will automatically improve Israel’s credit rating, widen Israel’s exposure to international bidders and lure foreign investors. Israel will also benefit from exchanging information and data in the economic and social fields with leading industrialized nations.

Member states will vote on the expansion of the body from 30 to 40 members, with Russia, India, Brazil, China and Chile also expected to now become full members.

The Israeli economy grew at a record 6.6% in the first quarter of 2006 – far above early forecasts and the growth rate for all of 2005, which was 5.2%. The standard of living has risen by 9% in the last year. These positive trends are thought to be the direct result of the pro-market policies implemented by the previous Likud-led government under the finance ministry of Benjamin Netanyahu.

POLISH CHIEF RABBI ASSAULTED AS POPE VISITS

As an update to the previous dispatch about the pope’s trip to Poland, Matthias Goering Goes Kosher (& Film shows suffering of Jews Britain sent to Outback) (May 24, 2006), the pope’s visit to Auschwitz was reported very prominently in media throughout Europe yesterday, with it being the lead story in several papers in France, Spain, Italy and elsewhere.

However, most papers failed to report on the anti-Semitic attack on Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, in central Warsaw on Saturday, a day before Pope Benedict XVI visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

Schudrich, who became chief rabbi of Warsaw in 2000 and of all of Poland in 2004, was attacked on the street by a man shouting “Poland is for Poles.” The assailant hit the rabbi and then sprayed him with what was believed to be pepper gas.

Both Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and President Lech Kaczynski called Schudrich following the incident and strongly condemned the attack. Presidential undersecretary of state Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka said Poland would not tolerate anti-Semitism.

Schudrich, 50, an American, oversees the small remaining Jewish community in Poland. Schudrich linked the attack to what he said was a rise of intolerance connected to a new governing coalition that includes the League of Polish Families, a small extreme right-wing party with ideological ties to a prewar anti-Semitic party.

IRAQI ATHLETES KILLED FOR WEARING TENNIS SHORTS

An Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were shot dead on Thursday in Baghdad because they were wearing shorts, Manham Kubba, secretary-general of the Iraqi Tennis Union, said Saturday, reporting the latest in a series of recent attacks attributed to Islamic extremists.

The triple-murder came only days after Islamic terrorists warned against dressing in shorts. Leaflets were distributed warning people in the mostly Sunni neighborhoods of Saidiyah and Ghazaliyah not to wear shorts “because it violates the principals of Islam,” police said

It was the second incident involving athletes in just over a week. Fifteen members of Iraq’s Olympic tae-kwan-doe team remain missing after being kidnapped west of Baghdad on May 17. A $100,000 ransom has been demanded.

ISLAMIST ORGANIZATIONS IN KASHMIR WARN WOMEN NOT TO USE CELL PHONES

Islamist organizations in Kashmir have issued pamphlets urging women to refrain from carrying mobile (cell) phones and warned them to stay away from public parks, according to the London-based, Saudi-owned daily al-Sharq al-Awsat.

The statement issued by the Islamic Jihad movement in Kashmir stated, “This is a warning to young women not to use mobile phones and stay away from public parks, and for fathers to look after their daughters. This is our final warning.”

Al-Sharq al-Awsat notes that another organization based in Kashmir, Badr, had issued a similar threat two weeks ago. The paper also adds that women carrying mobile phones have been violently attacked by Muslim extremists on Kashmiri streets in recent weeks.

The article in Arabic can be read at:
http://aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&issue=10045&article=365723.

U.S. POP SHOW VICTOR ATTRACTS MORE VOTES THAN ANY PRESIDENT

As another indication of increasing apathy about politics in the U.S. and elsewhere, Taylor Hicks last week won American Idol, the most popular talent contest in America, if not the world, with a record 63.4 million votes. The host of American Idol, Ryan Seacrest, announced with excitement that the figure was “more than any president in the history of our country has received.”

Hicks is a prematurely gray, chubby-faced 29-year-old singer from Alabama whose husky-voiced soul numbers and quirky dance moves won him an army of fans, according to media reports.

“It is getting to the point where the series has become a conduit for displaced political passion,” wrote Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. “It is an arena where young people feel that their vote counts.”

-- Tom Gross

This dispatch contains a variety of short items and observations on different matters.

JUST HOW DANGEROUS IS IRAQ?

Congressional Representative Steve King of Iowa this week offered some interesting figures on Iraq. According to Mr. King, the violent death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000 people per year. That may sound high, but not when you compare it to places like Colombia (61.7), South Africa (49.6), Jamaica (32.4) and Venezuela (31.6).

Challenging King’s figures, opponents of the Iraq war say the death rate in Iraq is in fact 31.03 per 100,000 – a higher rate but still considerably lower than many U.S. cities. New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina was 53.1. FBI statistics for 2004-05 put Washington at 45.9, Baltimore at 37.7 and Atlanta at 34.9.

DA VINCI UPDATE: NOW ALBINOS COMPLAIN

Not only Arab states, some Christians and most film critics are unhappy about the “The Da Vinci Code.”

The Associated Press reports that:

“Albinos are bothered that one of their own has yet again been depicted as a villain…

“Michael McGowan, an albino who heads the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, in the U.S., said ‘The Da Vinci Code’ will be the 68th movie since 1960 to feature an evil albino.

“Silas is just the latest in a long string,” McGowan said. “The problem is there has been no balance. There are no realistic, sympathetic or heroic characters with albinism that you can find in movies or popular culture.”

(For more, see: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12820726/, and “Da Vinci Code” movie banned by Egypt, Lebanon, Syria & Jordan (May 16, 2006).)

WILL ANYONE SPEAK UP FOR THE CHICKENS?

Among the victims of the ongoing (but virtually unreported by most western media) Katyusha rocket attacks fired from the Gaza Strip were 30 chickens that were blown to bits when a chicken coop in the farming community of Nativ Haasara in southern Israel was hit last week.

Fortunately, no human was killed or injured even though the Grad-type Katyusha Rocket carried six kilograms (13 pounds) of explosives.

But also of note is the lack of concern shown about the incident by PETA, a leading animal rights group. PETA infamously complained to Yasser Arafat about his Fatah group using donkeys to carry suicide bombs when one donkey blew up, but when asked by journalists, refused to condemn Arafat for killing Jews with those same bombs.

Please see the dispatch of Feb. 24, 2003, titled Donkeys more important than Israelis, suggests animal rights group.

PETA’s letter to Arafat can be found here: www.peta.org/feat/arafat/

TARGETED ASSASSINATIONS CONTINUE

Senior Hamas and Fatah “military” chiefs continue to be targeted for assassination in Gaza: several have been killed in recent days, along with civilian bystanders, by masked gunmen and roadside bombs. Those carrying out the assassinations are Fatah and Hamas.

When Israel killed some Hamas terrorists, this prompted worldwide outrage. Among those at the forefront of lambasting Israel was UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the European Union’s “foreign policy chief” Javier Solana, and former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. This time, there is virtual silence by the international community.

DAHLAN SAID TO BE ULTIMATE HAMAS TARGET

Fatah chief Mohammed Dahlan is believed to have become the leading target for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian security sources said Hamas has been steadily moving toward the elimination of Dahlan in its campaign to control the Gaza Strip. The sources said Hamas has assessed that killing or driving Dahlan into exile would terminate the Fatah threat to them.

“Dahlan, with U.S. money, controls about 3,500 armed, equipped and trained fighters,” a security source said. “He’s the only one Hamas fears.” Hamas’s ally, the Popular Resistance Committees, has threatened Dahlan with assassination. So far, Hamas’s attacks have targeted Dahlan’s allies.

A HUMANITARIAN GESTURE

When the Palestinian Authority Intelligence Chief, Tareq Abu Rajab, an ally of President Mahmoud Abbas, was seriously wounded by a Hamas bomb packed with metal pellets at his headquarters on Saturday, he was transferred to Tel Aviv for medical treatment, where Israeli doctors have saved his life.

Abu Rajab remains at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital, the same hospital where so many suicide bomb victims, including Danny Wultz, have died. That virtually no media outside Israel have reported on this is surprising.

GUARDIAN ANTI-SEMITISM WATCH

The Guardian’s much-touted blog “Comment Is Free” continues to allow itself to be used as a platform for anti-Semites to air their views.

Last week, for example, the following comment remained on The Guardian website for more than a day after repeated complaints by British Jews:

“There is no ‘global outcry’ because the global media is controlled by International Jewry... Jewish money has seen to it that the Israeli point of view is the dominant one... The Jews by their own grasping, cantankerous, uncompromising, dishonest nature will be the reason for their own destruction in Palestine.”

The Guardian’s reporting is bad enough as it is, with its constant inaccuracies and skewered stories, without now inviting readers of what is supposedly not a racist newspaper, to spread their hate.

British journalist (and subscriber to this email list) Stephen Pollard says some in Britain have dubbed The Guardian’s “Comment Is Free” blog, one of Britain’s most read blogs, “Anti-Semitism is welcome.”

The Guardian’s slanders against Israel, and some would say Jews, is unrelenting. Last week, a writer in The Guardian again compared Rachel Corrie to Anne Frank.

BBC AS ANTI-ISRAEL AS EVER

Following on from the dispatch “The BBC pro-Israeli? Is the Pope Jewish?” (& American teen Danny Wultz dies), May 15, 2006, it looks as if the BBC’s new chief Israel correspondent, Caroline Hawley, may not be that much better than her predecessors, Orla Guerin and Barbara Plett.

In her report on May 23, she questioned why the Israeli army had arrested its most wanted terrorist, Hamas “military” chief in the West Bank Ibrahim Hamad, after years of trying to locate him:

“Hamas has not carried out any suicide attacks for 15 months and Israeli military operations in the past few months have focused instead on the militant Islamic Jihad group, which has been responsible for most of the recent bombs.”

IN UNIVERSITIES AND CAFES AND ON THE BUS

Perhaps for Hawley it’s difficult to understand why Israel would want to arrest a man they have been after for years, who is behind the mass murder of Israeli citizens.

As I pointed out previously, the BBC this month triumphantly reported that its world service radio audience has now risen to 163 million worldwide. Tens of millions of others watch its various TV networks and read its online reporting.

Here, for Hawley’s benefit and for BBC listeners and viewers, are some of the crimes which Hamad, 41, is accused of masterminding (some of which he boasted about organizing):

* The murder of nine people (including five Americans) in a suicide attack in the cafeteria of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in July 2002

* The March 2002 suicide bombing of the Moment coffee shop in Jerusalem, in which 12 young Israelis including the waitresses were killed

* The attack on the Sheffield pool hall in Rishon Lezion in May 2002, which killed 16 people

* The double suicide bombing and simultaneous car bombing in central Jerusalem in 2001, in which 11 people were killed and dozens injured

* The double suicide bombing in September 2003, which killed a total of 17 people at the Hillel Cafe in Jerusalem’s German Colony, and at the Tsrifin junction

Hamad has boasted of his part in organizing the murder of dozens of civilians. That is why he has been arrested. Hawley might also have told her audience that the Israelis managed to locate Hamad in a building just yards from Mahmoud Abbas’s Ramallah HQ. Could it be that now that Hamas has turned its guns on Fatah, Abbas gave him up?

For more on Hawley, who says her “romantic memories of camels in deserts and starry nights” when she grew up in Oman, inspired her to study Arabic and Islamic studies at Oxford University, see the dispatch “Possibly the most maligned country on the planet is in the news again” (March 16, 2006).

FLORIDA TEEN’S DEATH CALLED “GIFT FROM ALLAH”

The death of Daniel Wultz, the Florida teenager critically injured in the Tel Aviv suicide bomb last month, who died last week, has been welcomed as a “gift from Allah” by Abu Nasser, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He said he was especially happy when American Jews died.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was set up by Yasser Arafat after he launched his Intifada. Much of its weaponry was bought with European Union aid money.

PROTECTION RACKET

Last week, in a leaflet issued in the Gaza Strip, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened to strike at European interests if the European Union didn’t give their parent party, Fatah, more money – a day later several European diplomats indeed called on the EU to rush another bundle of European taxpayers’ money to Fatah-related “non-government” organizations.

Only last week, yet another senior Palestinian official – Fuad Hejazi Muhammad Shubaki, from Gaza, admitted that international funds transferred to the PA were used to finance arms purchases. Shubaki, who was in charge of finances for the PA General Security service, said that from 2000 onwards, Arafat personally ordered him to use international aid money to purchase large quantities of weapons for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Instead of just continuing to give Palestinian gunmen money, could not the EU condition offer of future aid upon guns and rockets being handed in by Palestinians, in return?

Yesterday, Fatah and Hamas gunmen were engaged in a shootout at Gaza’s Shifa hospital. But most western media failed to report this and instead showed patients in Palestinian hospitals in an effort to try convince viewers that there are somehow more sick people in Gaza hospitals than hospitals elsewhere in the world.

ISRAEL SEIZES MORE EXPLOSIVES AT SEA

While the Palestinian Authority continues to tell gullible CNN journalists that they have no money, Israel continues to try and intercept the large quantities of weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

Last Sunday, for the second time in a week, the Israeli navy intercepted a shipment of explosives heading to Gaza. Again, the incident began when Israeli seamen spotted a Palestinian vessel crossing the Israeli-declared “no-sail zone” off the southern Gaza coast and into Egyptian waters. When the same vessel returned to the zone sailing in the direction of the Gaza coast, it was ordered by the Israeli navy to stop. Following the firing of warning shots and a sea-chase during which bags were thrown overboard, the boat was seized and searched. Several hundred pounds of high-grade explosives and parts of mines were discovered.

HAMAS PLANNING 9/11-STYLE ATTACK ON TEL AVIV SKYSCRAPERS

Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing, has threatened to attack Israel using small airplanes containing explosives to be flown into important targets in Israel. Palestinian security officials believe Hamas recently smuggled three small airplanes into the Gaza Strip.

Abdullah said: “The goal is to have these planes carry maximum quantities of explosives and that they will be able to hit the targets that are fixed for its operation at a high level of accuracy… We will choose precious targets and I do not want to speak about strategic or any other targets... We know that the enemy is building new and high buildings in Tel Aviv.”

ISRAELI GENERAL SKIPS UK TRIP OVER ARREST FEARS

Agence France Presse reports that the Israeli Army has scrapped plans to send one of its generals on a course at a British military academy over fears he could be arrested on war-crime allegations. General Aviv Kohavi, commander of the division which protects southern Israel from ongoing Palestinian rocket fire, had been due to attend the prestigious Sandhurst Royal Academy.

Last September, a retired Israeli soldier, Doron Almog, refused to leave a plane at London’s Heathrow airport after learning a warrant had been issued for his arrest over his time commanding troops in Gaza.

Almog was due to give a talk in Britain about a charitable project he is involved with in the Negev that helps Israeli Jews and Arabs with severe mental and physical disabilities. (Almog’s own child is severely disabled.) For more, see Islamic militant Hizb ut-Tahrir infiltrates Reuters (& Prince Harry apologizes) (Sept. 15, 2005).

INCREDIBLE DOUBLE STANDARDS

In March of this year, Major-General Salah Abdullah Gosh, the man accused of being one of the main instigators of the ongoing genocide in Darfur, visited Britain. The British Foreign Office, then headed by Jack Straw, granted him a visa despite UN sanctions against Sudan. During his stay Gosh received “medical treatment,” and also met with unnamed British government officials.

During the last week, over 300 people, almost all Afghans, have been killed in heavy fighting in Afghanistan. British troops were involved in the assault, which included British apache attack gunships. Is Britain also going to arrest its own military commanders for “war crimes”?

SHARON TO GO TO LONG-TERM CARE

Ariel Sharon is to be moved to a long-term care facility next week. The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reports that doctors believe there is no chance that the former Israeli prime minister, who was felled by a stroke in January, will regain consciousness.

Sharon is expected to be moved from the intensive care unit at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem to a coma ward at Shiba Hospital in Tel Hashomer. The Knesset Finance Committee last week approved state funding for the next five years of Sharon’s hospital treatment.

-- Tom Gross

A GERMAN POPE GOES TO AUSCHWITZ

Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI begins a four-day tour of Poland, his first since the German cardinal, a former Hitler Youth, acceded to the papacy. On Sunday he will visit Auschwitz after paying homage to the nearby birthplace of John Paul II, who died in April of last year. John Paul II visited the former death camp on his first visit to Poland as pope in 1979. Writing in the International Herald Tribune (article below) Timothy W. Ryback says: “If he was able to speak as a German to the dead Waffen SS soldiers in La Cambe two years ago, let’s hope Benedict XVI can do the same for Germany’s victims at Auschwitz.”

A church official said yesterday that Benedict will now walk into the Auschwitz death camp, dropping plans to enter by car, in order to honor the camp’s inmates, who also had to enter on foot. The pope had planned to drive under the infamous words “Arbeit macht Frei” – Work Sets You Free – in his popemobile, before the Polish organizers pointed out to him that Nazi commanders and troops drove through the gate in cars, while the inmates were forced to walk.

“THEY THINK I’VE GOT A SCREW LOOSE”

Partly to mark this occasion, I attach a series of articles relating to the Holocaust. Of particular interest may be the interview with Matthias Goering, a descendant of Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man. After 44 years of “despising Jews” Matthias Goering, a 49-year-old physiotherapist, has become “a full-on Israel lover.” He wears a skullcap, keeps kosher, celebrates the Jewish Sabbath, is learning Hebrew and is even considering converting to Judaism.

Goering, who now volunteers to work with the Israeli victims of suicide bombings, admits his family thinks he has “got a screw loose.”

Goering is not the only Nazi descendent to feel drawn to Israel. Katrin Himmler, the great-niece of SS commander Heinrich Himmler, is married to an Israeli. Last year she published a book denouncing her uncle’s war crimes.

THE DARKER SIDE OF BRITAIN’S FIGHT AGAINST NAZI GERMANY

The second article below concerns the horror experienced by Jewish and anti-Nazi outcasts shipped to the Australian Outback by the British Government during the war. It has been documented in a new Australian film that highlights the darker side of Britain’s fight against Nazi Germany. The filmmakers say the episode is well known in Australia, but in the UK it is still under embargo by Britain’s Official Secrets Act until 2040.

The 2,500 internees, including many scientists, academics and artists who had fled to Britain from Nazi Austria and Germany, were dispatched by ship from Liverpool in July 1940 on the orders of Winston Churchill.

They endured appalling conditions. According to the (London) Daily Telegraph, “They were stripped of their personal possessions, including documents and false teeth, many of which were thrown away [by the British troops guarding them]. They were beaten and insulted as ‘Jewish swine’ and forced to sleep on floors awash with human waste.”

“Their arrival in Australia was seen as the greatest injection of talent to enter Australia on a single vessel,” according to the Daily Telegraph. After the war most stayed in Australia, only a handful returned to Britain.

IN ITALY, SEPARATION FENCE COMPARED TO AUSCHWITZ

Other articles in this dispatch report on how the Italian Communist Party is refusing to apologize for an anti-Semitic caricature that shows Israel’s separation fence with a welcome sign paraphrasing Auschwitz’s “Work Liberates,” how French rappers are misusing the Holocaust, and new records that reveal greater collaboration than previously thought between Palestinian Arab nationalists and the Nazis.

ON TURKS, ARMENIANS AND BLAMING THE JEWS

On a separate note, I also attach a report: “More than 3000 Mountain Jews were killed by Armenians during 1918-1919,” and an anti-Semitic text in this week’s Turkish Weekly, falsely charging “that the Jews encouraged the Ottoman Turks to commit genocide against Armenians.”

There are summaries first for those who don’t have time to read the articles in full.

-- Tom Gross

SUMMARIES

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR ALABAMA ATTORNEY GENERAL EXPOSED AS A HOLOCAUST DENIER

“Ala. Democrats scramble to bounce Shoah denier from primary ballot” (By Jennifer Siegel, Forward, May 19, 2006, www.forward.com/articles/7814; Summary only)

A Democratic Party candidate for Alabama’s attorney general’s office has been exposed as a Holocaust denier less than a month before the state’s June 6 primaries. Larry Darby believes that there were no more than 140,000 Jewish deaths during World War II – most of them having been brought on by typhus – and that the historically accepted figure of 6 million killed is a lie promoted by the “Holocaust industry,” The Associated Press reported last week.

The revelation about Darby has sent the state’s Democratic Party scrambling to keep him out of the two-way primary, which also includes Mobile County’s district attorney, John Tyson Jr… Darby, a self-described Dixiecrat, reportedly favors the imposition of martial law to stop illegal emigration from Mexico. “Someone needs to speak up for the white man,” he told the Decatur Daily News. “It’s been a long time since someone took up that bat and took a swing for the white man.”

He also said that Alabama should recall its National Guard troops from Iraq because “they are fighting for Israeli interests and not for Alabama or United States interests.”

Although Darby’s antisemitism did not draw widespread attention until last week, the candidate was previously involved with prominent Holocaust deniers. One of them is David Irving, to whom he played host at a meeting last July…

Last weekend, Darby traveled to Elmwood Park, N.J., to attend a meeting of the New Jersey unit of the National Vanguard, including David Duke…

“THE GREATEST INJECTION OF TALENT TO ENTER AUSTRALIA ON A SINGLE VESSEL”

“Film shows suffering of Jews Britain sent to Outback exile” (By Kate Connolly, The Daily Telegraph, U.K., May 17, 2006)

The horror experienced by Jewish and anti-Nazi outcasts shipped to the Australian Outback by the British Government during the war has been documented in a new film that highlights the darker side of Britain’s fight against Nazi Germany.

The men, mainly scientists, academics and artists who had fled to Britain from Nazi Austria and Germany at the outbreak of the war, were considered a security threat after the fall of France. On the orders of Winston Churchill, they were dispatched from Liverpool on the Hired Military Transport ship Dunera in July 1940.

Their arrival in Australia – after a 57-day journey in appalling conditions – was seen as the greatest injection of talent to enter Australia on a single vessel.

They were taken to a detention camp in the Outback, where they set up an impromptu university to pass the time… Among the passengers were Franz Stampfl, the athletics coach to the four-minute-mile runner Roger Bannister, Wolf Klaphake, the inventor of synthetic camphor, and the photographer Henry Talbot.

… Watched over by 309 poorly trained British soldiers, the men endured horrendous conditions. They were stripped of their personal possessions, including documents and false teeth, many of which were thrown overboard. They were beaten and insulted as “Jewish swine” and forced to sleep below deck on floors awash with human waste. The hatches and portholes were battened shut…

Klaus Wilcynski, 86, author of The Prison Ship, recalled being told to walk on the deck in bare feet. “Soldiers had smashed beer bottles so people cut their feet.”…

MATTHIAS GOERING GOES KOSHER

“Matthias Goering goes kosher” (By Ruth Elkins, Der Spiegel, May 10, 2006)

Growing up with the name Goering wasn’t easy for the descendents of Hitler’s right-hand man Hermann Goering. One of them has now discovered a love for Israeli wine – and is considering converting to Judaism…

… Even so, it is very odd to be having lunch in a Jewish restaurant with a direct descendent of Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man. Matthias Goering, though, couldn’t be happier here. After 44 years of “despising Jews” and suffering the curse of his family name, the 49-year-old physiotherapist has become a full-on Israel lover. He wears a kippa, keeps kosher, celebrates Shabbat, is learning Hebrew and is even considering converting. His family thinks he has gone mad.

“They think I’ve got a screw loose,” grins the man who now works with the victims of suicide bombings. “But I know what has happened to me is completely and utterly real.”

Despite only having a distant tie to the Nazi Luftwaffe Chief – Matthias’s great grandfather’s brother was Hermann Goering’s grandfather’s brother...

Matthias Goering, with his bright blue eyes and Star of David necklace, is not the only Nazi descendent to feel drawn to Israel. Katrin Himmler, the great-niece of Heinrich Himmler, published a book last year exploring the SS commander’s war crimes and asking the question: What does it mean to be a Himmler? She married an Israeli, saying “it was as if we were predestined to meet.” Her book, “The Brothers Himmler”, is the latest in a flourishing genre in Germany of Nazi descendents trying to come to terms with the curse of their family histories…

Beate Niemann, daughter of feared SS Major Bruno Sattler, made a prize-winning film, “The Good Father” which documented her hopeless search for a man she could be proud of. Instead, she found herself seeking apologies from Jewish camp survivors in Eastern Europe after discovering her father was a mass murderer who ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Monika Goeth, daughter of Amon Goeth – the Plaszow Concentration camp commandant who would randomly shoot Jewish laborers from his villa balcony – has also spent years seeking rapprochement with those who survived her father’s crimes. “I am completely drawn to Judaism,” she said last year on the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. “Jews were the real heroes and I feel nothing but contempt for those who still idolize the Nazis.”

… “My parents seemed to have to lose any religious belief they had after the war,” says Goering. “When the other school children had religious instruction, my siblings and I were forced to sit alone out in the corridor.” Money was tight. “Our parents would always say to us: ‘you can’t have that, because all our money’s gone to the Jews,’” he says. “They became a symbol of everything we couldn’t have.”…

Goering now wants to write a book on his experiences. “The Israelis are so friendly to me,” he says. Even when they find out your name? “Yes, they say they’re so thankful I’ve made contact,” says Goering. “I used to feel cursed by having the name Goering,” he smiles. “Now I feel blessed.”

YAD VASHEM SUPPORTS POLAND’S BID TO RENAME AUSCHWITZ

“Yad Vashem for renaming Auschwitz” (The Associated Press, May 11, 2006; summary only, for space reasons)

Yad Vashem supports Poland in its attempt to officially rename Auschwitz to emphasize that German Nazis ran the death camp, but has asked for an additional change, the director of the Israeli Holocaust memorial said. Poland’s government requested in March that UNESCO change the official name of Auschwitz on its world heritage registry from “Auschwitz Concentration Camp” to “Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

Foreign media sometime refer to Auschwitz – a death camp located in occupied Poland where Nazi Germany killed more than 1 million people – as a “Polish concentration camp.” Such phrasing deeply wounds sensitivities in Poland, which was subjected to a brutal occupation by Adolf Hitler’s forces.

Avner Shalev, Yad Vashem’s director general, said his group supports Poland’s wish to see Nazi German guilt emphasized in the name, but also wants the word “extermination” added to underline that Adolf Hitler’s regime sought to wipe out European Jewry.

“You can’t skip the word ‘extermination,’” Shalev told The Associated Press during a visit to Warsaw. “This is important from the point of view of historical objectivity. Birkenau was the largest death camp that served as a major tool of the Final Solution. It was an industry and its purpose was the murder of the Jews in Europe until the very last person.”

… The matter would be decided at an annual gathering of member states this July in Vilnius, Lithuania.

A GERMAN POPE’S DUTY AT AUSCHWITZ

“A German pope’s duty at Auschwitz” (By Timothy W. Ryback, The International Herald Tribune, May 12, 2006)

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Auschwitz on his scheduled trip to Poland later this month. This will be his second Auschwitz visit. In 1979, when Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich, he accompanied Pope John Paul II to the former Nazi death camp, where they celebrated Holy Communion.

“It was a moving idea and a moving moment to look across these horrific fields of death in which four million human beings lost their lives, and to experience the resurrection as the only true and only adequate response,” he told a group of German priests afterward. There was no talk of personal remorse, no mention of German guilt. It was a singularly Catholic experience…

When Benedict XVI returns to Auschwitz [next week], a quarter century after his last visit, he will arrive not only as the leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics, but also as the most prominent moral spokesman for 80 million Germans. It will be an opportunity rich in symbolic and moral potential: a former Hitler Youth passing through the gates of a former Nazi death camp as one of the world’s leading spiritual authorities…

Let’s hope Benedict XVI brings his full moral authority, his eloquence and his insight, to help us better understand the historical and moral responsibilities of the German people 60 years after the Holocaust. If he was able to speak as a German to the dead Waffen SS soldiers in La Cambe two years ago, let’s hope he can do the same for Germany’s victims at Auschwitz this spring.

ANTI-SEMITIC CARICATURE PUBLISHED BY ITALIAN COMMUNIST PARTY

“Italy: Holocaust cartoon stirs row” (By Yossi Bar, Yediot Ahronot, May 14, 2006)

An anti-Semitic cartoon which appeared Friday in Liberzione, the journal of the Italian Communist Party, stirred a row among Italian Jews, the Israeli Embassy and parliament members.

The journal of the Rifondazione Communista party, set to be part of the coalition that will form the Italian government, published an anti-Semitic caricature showing the separation fence with a gate bearing the sign “Hunger Liberates,” similar to the welcome sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz extermination camp, which read “Work Liberates.”…

… However, Italian Lower Chamber Speaker Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Communist party, as well as other party members, did not apologize and failed to even respond to the cartoon publication.

“ARABS ADMIRE OUR FUHRER”

“Nazis ‘shipped arms to Palestinians’” (By Yaakov Lappin, Yediot Ahronot, May 7, 2006)

Historical documents in Britain’s National Archives in London show that Nazi Germany attempted to ship arms to Palestinian forces in the 1930s.

A British Foreign Office report from 1939 reports of “news of a consignment of arms from Germany, sent via Turkey and addressed to Ibn Saud (king of Saudi Arabia), but really intended for the Palestine insurgents.” Britain’s chief military officer in Mandatory Palestine also noted reports “regarding import of German arms at intervals for some years now.”…

One Nazi agent, Adam Vollhardt, arrived in Palestine in July 1938, and was reported to have gained strong influence with Arab leaders, meeting with Palestinian leaders throughout 1938. Vollhardt held several meetings with leading Arab politicians and told them “that the Palestine question would be settled to the satisfaction of the Arabs within a few weeks,” adding that “it would be fatal to their (Palestinians’) cause if at this juncture they showed any signs of weakness or exhaustion.”…

German documents photographed and sent to Whitehall by an American spy revealed that in 1937, German officials had calculated that “Palestine under Arab rule would… become one of the few countries where we could count on a strong sympathy for the new Germany.”

“The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great sympathy for the new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy whose value is particularly high as it is based on a purely ideological foundation,” a Nazi official in Palestine wrote in a letter to Berlin in 1937.

… The records also show that the news of increased Nazi-Arab cooperation panicked the British government, and caused it to cancel a plan in 1938 to bring to Palestine 20,000 German Jewish refugees, half of them children, facing danger from the Nazis…

BBC TO SCREEN “EPIC” DOCUDRAMA OF NUREMBERG TRIALS

“BBC to make Nazi trial epic” (By Leigh Holmwood, The Guardian, May 8, 2006)

The BBC is to mark the 60th anniversary of the trial of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg by screening an “epic” docudrama series telling the behind-the-scenes story. The Nuremberg Trial – Inside the Nazi Mind, which will be made in partnership with Discovery, will be based on trial transcripts and new sources unearthed by the production team.

… The docudrama will be the BBC’s major historical series this year and follows previous landmark programmes such as last year’s six-part history of the Auschwitz concentration camp and Nazis – a Warning from History.

“HOLOCOST” RAP DUO CONQUERS PARIS

“‘Holocost’ rap duo conquers Paris” (By Sefi Hendler, Yediot Ahronot, May 15, 2006)

A French rap duo calling themselves “Holocost” caused a stir in Paris recently after they pasted promotional posters up around the city announcing the release of their new album. The black posters with the word “Holocost” printed in yellow and an image of an automatic weapon were seen throughout the French city and its suburbs.

… The lyrics of Holocost’s songs express severe social criticism directed chiefly towards French society. In one of their songs they sings, “When the police come to my ghetto, it’s an Intifada, Palestine.” The album, which was released in mid-April, was well received in the rap community according to reviews in online rap websites and blogs.

… Saban noted that the suburban rap scene has also seen anti-Semitic songs in the past. “There was a rap song called ‘Screw the Jews’ a year or two ago. There was an investigation launched, but the clip was anonymous and no band took responsibility for it,” Saban said. Prominent figures in the Jewish community in Paris said that they have no intention of protesting the musical group. “Why should we give them free publicity?” they explained.

“MORE THAN 3000 MOUNTAIN JEWS WERE KILLED BY ARMENIANS DURING 1918-1919”

“‘More than 3000 Mountain Jews were killed by Armenians during 1918-1919’” (By Rovshan Mustafayev, Today.AZ, April 21, 2006)

… Semen Ikhiilov, Head of Mountain Jews’ community, writes to the Human Rights Institute of the National Academy of Science: “In 1980s I discovered unknown facts regarding to mass killings of Jews during the period of Azerbaijanis’ genocide in 1918-1919. According to the witnesses and some documents, together with Azerbaijanis more than 3000 Jews were killed. For the moment we identified 87 names. Each year on March 31st, on the day of Azerbaijanis’ genocide of 1918-1919, special requiem prayers for 87 killed Jewish children, women and men are being read in the synagogues. We continue the researches of other places of mass burial in the regions of our Motherland, Azerbaijan. This letter is accompanied with the list of victims, who were killed by monsters on 19th Iyar, 5679, in Guba city,” the letter says…

After we received the message from Jewish community the experts group was created for working with archives. We discovered this mass killings were committed by group headed by Amazasp under Stepan Shaumian’s command…

There will be a statue erected by Mountain Jews in memory of the victims and the names will be written there. That’s why the complete identification is needed…

“JEWS ENCOURAGED THE OTTOMAN TURKS TO COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST ARMENIANS”

“Armenians believe that Jews made Turks and Armenians hostile” (The Journal of Turkish Weekly, May 17, 2006, www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=31932
Summary Only.)

… Turkish journalist Mrs. Ece Temelkuran’s interviews from Armenia continue in Turkish daily Milliyet newspaper. In today’s part (17 May 2006) Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran met with Arsak Sarkisyan:

Sarkisyan argues that the Jews encouraged the Ottoman Turks to commit genocide against Armenians. Sarkisyan continues: “Talat Pasha was a Jewish. They made Turks and Armenians hostile. Turks would not have committed genocide. But all of the Jon Turks (Young Turks) were Jewish”.

IMPORTANT STORIES FROM AMSTERDAM, BOSTON, PAKISTAN AND RIYADH

[Note by Tom Gross]

This dispatch contains four significant and interesting stories about radical Islam and its spread across the globe. With the exception of the third piece, from the Washington Post about unchanged Saudi schoolbooks, they are unconnected to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

I attach these pieces because finally at least some articles are appearing in mainstream western media about the true cause of Islamic terrorism: radical Islam. (Most media, such as the BBC and The NY Times-owned International Herald Tribune continue on an almost daily to sell the lie that “western colonialism” or “poverty” are to blame.)

I believe it is a positive development that yesterday the (London) Sunday Times ran a piece about young Pakistani Christian children seized by Islamist slave traders. Buried among highly exaggerated reports of a supposed “humanitarian crisis” and “starvation” in the Gaza strip, at least one major mainstream media publication has finally run a report on the slave trade of Christian and other children. (Slavery is still widespread in several Muslim countries, not that you would know that if you only read the main headlines on CNN, The New York Times, and so on.) The depressing, shocking Sunday Times piece about children aged six to 12, is placed last below, because of its length.

“THE NETHERLANDS & MUCH OF EUROPE PREFER A TRADITIONAL MUSLIM WOMAN WHO KEEPS HER MOUTH SHUT”

Before that is an excellent editorial by Daniel Schwammenthal, a long-time subscriber to this email list, in The Wall Street Journal. (It was published in the U.S. on Saturday and in the Wall Street Journal Europe today.)

The Dutch treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has been living for years with death threats for her criticisms of radical Islam, including a five-page manifesto titled “Open Letter to Hirsi Ali” which was pinned to Theo Van Gogh’s chest by his murderer, should serve as a warning to us all.