Gaza-based terrorists fired four Kassam rockets and some 25 mortar shells at Israeli towns in the western Negev Wednesday morning. hough ten shells fells short and landed within Hamas-controlled Gaza, others landed near the Kissufim and Erez crossings, and 11 of them fell in the Ein HaShlosha area. Kassam rockets landed near Or HaNer and Mefalsim, in the Sderot area, and near the border fence. No injuries were reported.
One of the shells landed in the water supply of one of the towns - left unnamed for security reasons - and caused damage. Kibbutz Kerem Shalom reports that hundreds of mortar shells have landed in and around the kibbutz in recent weeks.
7 Megawatt Hours Per Rocket
A military committee set up by Defense Minister Ehud Barak recommends, among other things, that Israel reduce the electricity it supplies to Gaza by seven megawatt-hours following every Kassam rocket attack. The recommendation follows the Cabinet decision of last week defining Hamas-run Gaza as a "hostile entity."
Other committee-recommended means of retaliation for rocket attacks include stopping the supply of mazut (a type of diesel fuel used to produce electricity), and - in the event of a rocket attack on a border crossing - closing the crossing for 48 hours.
Air Strike Response
IAF aircraft attacked a group of north Gazan terrorists Wednesday morning as they prepared to launch a rocket in the area of Beit Hanoun. Two terrorists were reported wounded in the attack.
Christians Under Attack in Gaza
The 2,500 remaining Christians in Gaza have been under attack of late. An 80-year-old Christian woman was recently robbed by a man demanding, "Where is the money, heretic?" Her family members said the "robber would never have dared to attack a Moslem woman that way." The attack followed a brutal break-in of a Christian church and school several weeks ago. Stocking-clad men hurling grenades blew open the entrances and stole computers and religious items. They also smashed many crucifixes in the buildings.
Counter-Terror Arrests
Seven wanted terrorists were arrested throughout Judea and Samaria overnight Wednesday. Four of the arrested were made in the Arab village of Atra, north of Ramallah, one in Ramallah itself and another in a small village west of the city. The seventh terrorist, apprehended in Shechem, was involved in the lynching of two IDF reservists in 2000.
Terrorists targeted in soldiers in Jenin with a bomb, and in Shechem’s Ein Beit Ilma slums, where the IDF has been operating for over a week, terrorists opened fire on troops. No injuries were reported in either incident.
On Tuesday, an Arab terrorist attempted to enter the Machpelah Cave (Tomb of the Patriarchs) in Hevron. The man was armed with a large knife and was apprehended by Border Police.
Closure for Holiday
In light of the many terrorist-attack intelligence warnings, IDF officials have announced a closure on Judea and Samaria during the week-long Sukkot holiday, which begins Wednesday night. Arab residents of the area who do not hold Israeli citizenship will not be allowed to enter Israeli towns for the next week.
Spokesmen explained that the closure was meant to reduce the chances of terrorist attacks in major Israeli cities. Judea and Samaria are often under closure during holidays, when terrorist groups increase their efforts to murder civilians.
As in last week's closure over Yom Kippur, however, there is a long list of exceptions, including several professions as well as all those employed by the United Nations and non-governmental aid organizations.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
MKs, Organizations Call On Olmert to Resign
Following the Attorney General's decision to open a criminal investigation against PM Olmert, calls are piling up for Olmert to step down "In no other normal country does a Prime Minister continue in office while under criminal investigations," stated MK Zevulun Orlev (NRP). "Instead of dealing with all sorts of gestures to the Palestinians and freeing terrorists, Olmert should wish the citizens of Israel a happy new year and suspend himself immediately."
On Monday, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a police investigation into the incident known as the Cremeiux Street apartment affair. A separate police investigation has already been ongoing for some eight months regarding suspicions that Olmert, when serving as Trade Minister, acted on behalf of two friends during the privatization process of Bank Leumi. These two investigations are in addition to two other sets of criminal allegations against Olmert, upon which Mazuz is set to hand down his decision soon.
Israel's Basic Law: The Government states that a criminal investigation against the Prime Minister may be initiated only with the Attorney General's approval.
Discount for Zoning Rule Relaxations?
The current suspicions against Olmert concern his purchase of a garden apartment in a refurbished building in a posh Jerusalem neighborhood, off Emek Refaim St. He reportedly bought the apartment in October 2004 for some $1.2 to 1.3 million, when the true value at the time was between $1.6 and $1.8 million.
In exchange, it is alleged that Olmert used his connections in the Jerusalem Municipality to obtain special zoning permits for the same building project that significantly increased its value. Olmert served as Mayor of Jerusalem for a decade before becoming Trade Minister.
The journalist who broke the story over a year ago, Yoav Yitzchak, passed his information on to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, who then recommended that the Attorney General begin an investigation.
Legal experts say that Olmert is under no legal obligation to resign or suspend himself.
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) called upon the police to expedite its investigation: "The police must complete the investigation process with all due speed, so that Ehud Olmert, the most corrupt Prime Minister Israel has ever had, will find himself where he deserves - on trial - and not spend his time gambling on the future of the State of Israel... The police must hurry and not allow the Prime Minister to evade judgment using his usual tricks."
MK Gideon Saar, the Likud's Knesset faction head, said, "The decision by the Attorney General to investigate Olmert is a slap in the face at the de-legitimization campaign that Olmert waged against State Comptroller Lindenstrauss and the law enforcement authorities. This is already the second time that the Attorney General has accepted the State Comptroller's recommendation to open a criminal investigation against Olmert. This shows that the Comptroller's research was to the point and well-founded."
The Ometz movement (Citizens for Good Government) congratulated Mazuz for his decision and called upon Olmert to resign. The organization released a statement calling upon Olmert to "cooperate with the police, and not use his usual stalling tactics."
The Land of Israel Legal Forum similarly said that the investigations against the Prime Minister do not allow him to function as Prime Minister. The Forum's director, Nechi Ayal, called on Olmert to seriously consider suspending himself until the conclusion of the investigations.
Professors for a Strong Israel issued a strong statement: "While Ehud Olmert continues to support the enemy and Holocaust-denier Abu Mazen [PA chief Mahmoud Abbas], and weave plans to give him the heart of our land, the ring of investigations around him is getting slowly tighter. Once again we see, "the deeper the planned uprooting [of Jews from Israel], the deeper the investigations!... He has no mandate to uproot Jews and give our homeland away; how much more so must he resign after having failed at his senior public positions."
On Monday, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a police investigation into the incident known as the Cremeiux Street apartment affair. A separate police investigation has already been ongoing for some eight months regarding suspicions that Olmert, when serving as Trade Minister, acted on behalf of two friends during the privatization process of Bank Leumi. These two investigations are in addition to two other sets of criminal allegations against Olmert, upon which Mazuz is set to hand down his decision soon.
Israel's Basic Law: The Government states that a criminal investigation against the Prime Minister may be initiated only with the Attorney General's approval.
Discount for Zoning Rule Relaxations?
The current suspicions against Olmert concern his purchase of a garden apartment in a refurbished building in a posh Jerusalem neighborhood, off Emek Refaim St. He reportedly bought the apartment in October 2004 for some $1.2 to 1.3 million, when the true value at the time was between $1.6 and $1.8 million.
In exchange, it is alleged that Olmert used his connections in the Jerusalem Municipality to obtain special zoning permits for the same building project that significantly increased its value. Olmert served as Mayor of Jerusalem for a decade before becoming Trade Minister.
The journalist who broke the story over a year ago, Yoav Yitzchak, passed his information on to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, who then recommended that the Attorney General begin an investigation.
Legal experts say that Olmert is under no legal obligation to resign or suspend himself.
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) called upon the police to expedite its investigation: "The police must complete the investigation process with all due speed, so that Ehud Olmert, the most corrupt Prime Minister Israel has ever had, will find himself where he deserves - on trial - and not spend his time gambling on the future of the State of Israel... The police must hurry and not allow the Prime Minister to evade judgment using his usual tricks."
MK Gideon Saar, the Likud's Knesset faction head, said, "The decision by the Attorney General to investigate Olmert is a slap in the face at the de-legitimization campaign that Olmert waged against State Comptroller Lindenstrauss and the law enforcement authorities. This is already the second time that the Attorney General has accepted the State Comptroller's recommendation to open a criminal investigation against Olmert. This shows that the Comptroller's research was to the point and well-founded."
The Ometz movement (Citizens for Good Government) congratulated Mazuz for his decision and called upon Olmert to resign. The organization released a statement calling upon Olmert to "cooperate with the police, and not use his usual stalling tactics."
The Land of Israel Legal Forum similarly said that the investigations against the Prime Minister do not allow him to function as Prime Minister. The Forum's director, Nechi Ayal, called on Olmert to seriously consider suspending himself until the conclusion of the investigations.
Professors for a Strong Israel issued a strong statement: "While Ehud Olmert continues to support the enemy and Holocaust-denier Abu Mazen [PA chief Mahmoud Abbas], and weave plans to give him the heart of our land, the ring of investigations around him is getting slowly tighter. Once again we see, "the deeper the planned uprooting [of Jews from Israel], the deeper the investigations!... He has no mandate to uproot Jews and give our homeland away; how much more so must he resign after having failed at his senior public positions."
Palestinian blood libel?
Joel Mowbray
In the seven years since the start of what the Palestinians call the “intifada,” perhaps no incident has inspired more Western criticism of Israel, nor generated as much terrorism against the Jewish state, than the supposed cold-blooded murder of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durra on September 30, 2000.
The video of a terrified Mohammed taking refuge behind his father before being shot and killed generated a firestorm of Western criticism, and the Israeli public was just as outraged. Palestinians, meanwhile, used the apparent murder as a rallying cry for murderous riots and terrorism.
But that video was released before the ascendancy of the blogosphere, back when the mainstream media rarely challenged stories aired by other outlets. In the intervening years, criticism of the original report has mounted, and some are even asking a rather shocking question: Did Mohammed al-Durra actually die?
Now, almost seven years later, a civil lawsuit is doing what other outlets should have done at the time, casting a critical eye on the validity of the original story, which was aired by the France 2 television network.
Although many bloggers have raised serious doubts about France 2’s reporting—none better than Boston University professor Richard Landes—full analysis has not been possible, since the network has never aired the 27 minutes of “rushes,” the raw, unedited footage shot that day by France 2 cameraman Tala Abu Ramah.
That’s finally about to change.
Last week a French appeals court ruled that France 2 must show, in an open courtroom later this fall, the entire 27 minutes of “rushes.”
The order represents a key procedural triumph for Frenchman Philippe Karsenty, who is appealing a verdict last year that found him liable for defamation against France 2 and reporter Charles Enderlin.
But not clear yet is how much of a victory Karsenty actually scored. Most observers of the case don’t believe that he will be able to take possession of a copy of the full 27 minutes of raw footage. It seems the likeliest outcome is that the “release” of the video will consist of it being played in court, and possibly also shown separately to experts chosen by the court.
While having the 27 minutes of unedited footage finally being subject to a public viewing is crucial for Karsenty, it would not be as powerful or beneficial as taking possession of a copy of the video. Without the ability to watch the outtakes as much as desired, Karsenty’s capacity for thorough critical analysis would be curtailed.
This result, though, isn’t completely shocking, as the French legal system in many ways barely resembles its U.S. counterpart. Unlike in American defamation lawsuits, French courts do not attempt to grant defendants maximum “discovery” of evidence held by plaintiffs.
The good news for Karsenty is that the trial court judge last year found significant evidence supporting the criticisms of France 2—and that was without the judge or Karsenty even viewing the raw footage. The network’s credibility is even shakier given that France 2 no longer stands by its original claim that Israeli soldiers were responsible for killing the boy.
Unfortunately for Karsenty, French law is stacked against him. The judge explicitly rejected at least one key claim made by Enderlin, and he did not endorse as true the entire contents of the original report—including the claim that the Israeli military killed the boy. Unlike in an American defamation case, though, a tie does not go to the defendant in France.
And not only did Karsenty bear the burden of proving the truth of what he had written, but he had to do so without the “rushes.” All he could do is rely on people who had seen the footage.
In the hopes of deflating the budding controversy, France 2 allowed three critics—though not Karsenty—to view the “rushes.” The result was that two of them continue to criticize the network and Enderlin, but now believe that Mohammed al-Durra did, in fact, die.
The third person present at that screening, however, Luc Rosenzweig, former editor in chief of Le Monde, under questioning from the court answered, “the theory of the set up [of Mohamed al Dura’s death] has a greater probability of being true than the version presented by France 2,” according to the trial court judge’s written opinion.
What led Rosenzweig to this conclusion was 23 minutes’ worth of footage that has never been available for public inspection. The unaired video “basically consisted of young Palestinians acting out fictitious war scenes,” according to the paraphrasing of his testimony, contained in the written opinion.
The other two people who attended the same screening, despite claiming that the boy’s death was not staged, nonetheless agree with Rosenzweig’s characterization of the secret footage.
So how is that anyone who has viewed footage, 85% of which ““basically consisted of young Palestinians acting out fictitious war scenes,” conclude that the only non-fictitious “war scene” was the shooting of Mohammed al-Durra?
Until the “rushes” are shown publicly, one can only speculate. Perhaps no one wants to suffer the same fate as Karsenty. Or perhaps it is out of fear of being branded an anti-Arab or Islamophobic conspiracy theorist.
Mohammed al-Durra’s dying image has become a powerful symbol across the Arab world. “Postage stamps bearing his crouched image have been issued in Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia, a street in Baghdad and a square in Morocco bear his name, while many schools across the Arab world are named after him,” notes Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America.
Recent Palestinian history certainly suggests a hoax is possible.
During an April 2002 funeral procession, the stretcher carrying the “victim” was dropped. Thankfully, the “victim” sprung up quickly and shook it off.
The West was fooled, though, for at least a few days earlier that month following an intense battle at the Jenin refugee camp, a known terrorist hotbed. Palestinians immediately accused the Jewish state of systematically committing war crimes, and the Western press parroted the claims uncritically. That no massacre actually occurred—even the United Nations found no evidence to suggest one had—received only a fraction of the earlier coverage.
Possibly to be added to that ignominious list is Mohammed al-Durra. But unless the unaired footage is released to the public—and available on the Internet—only people in the French courtroom may know for sure.
Joel Mowbray, who got his start with Townhall.com, is an award-winning investigative journalist, nationally-syndicated columnist and author of Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America's Security.
In the seven years since the start of what the Palestinians call the “intifada,” perhaps no incident has inspired more Western criticism of Israel, nor generated as much terrorism against the Jewish state, than the supposed cold-blooded murder of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durra on September 30, 2000.
The video of a terrified Mohammed taking refuge behind his father before being shot and killed generated a firestorm of Western criticism, and the Israeli public was just as outraged. Palestinians, meanwhile, used the apparent murder as a rallying cry for murderous riots and terrorism.
But that video was released before the ascendancy of the blogosphere, back when the mainstream media rarely challenged stories aired by other outlets. In the intervening years, criticism of the original report has mounted, and some are even asking a rather shocking question: Did Mohammed al-Durra actually die?
Now, almost seven years later, a civil lawsuit is doing what other outlets should have done at the time, casting a critical eye on the validity of the original story, which was aired by the France 2 television network.
Although many bloggers have raised serious doubts about France 2’s reporting—none better than Boston University professor Richard Landes—full analysis has not been possible, since the network has never aired the 27 minutes of “rushes,” the raw, unedited footage shot that day by France 2 cameraman Tala Abu Ramah.
That’s finally about to change.
Last week a French appeals court ruled that France 2 must show, in an open courtroom later this fall, the entire 27 minutes of “rushes.”
The order represents a key procedural triumph for Frenchman Philippe Karsenty, who is appealing a verdict last year that found him liable for defamation against France 2 and reporter Charles Enderlin.
But not clear yet is how much of a victory Karsenty actually scored. Most observers of the case don’t believe that he will be able to take possession of a copy of the full 27 minutes of raw footage. It seems the likeliest outcome is that the “release” of the video will consist of it being played in court, and possibly also shown separately to experts chosen by the court.
While having the 27 minutes of unedited footage finally being subject to a public viewing is crucial for Karsenty, it would not be as powerful or beneficial as taking possession of a copy of the video. Without the ability to watch the outtakes as much as desired, Karsenty’s capacity for thorough critical analysis would be curtailed.
This result, though, isn’t completely shocking, as the French legal system in many ways barely resembles its U.S. counterpart. Unlike in American defamation lawsuits, French courts do not attempt to grant defendants maximum “discovery” of evidence held by plaintiffs.
The good news for Karsenty is that the trial court judge last year found significant evidence supporting the criticisms of France 2—and that was without the judge or Karsenty even viewing the raw footage. The network’s credibility is even shakier given that France 2 no longer stands by its original claim that Israeli soldiers were responsible for killing the boy.
Unfortunately for Karsenty, French law is stacked against him. The judge explicitly rejected at least one key claim made by Enderlin, and he did not endorse as true the entire contents of the original report—including the claim that the Israeli military killed the boy. Unlike in an American defamation case, though, a tie does not go to the defendant in France.
And not only did Karsenty bear the burden of proving the truth of what he had written, but he had to do so without the “rushes.” All he could do is rely on people who had seen the footage.
In the hopes of deflating the budding controversy, France 2 allowed three critics—though not Karsenty—to view the “rushes.” The result was that two of them continue to criticize the network and Enderlin, but now believe that Mohammed al-Durra did, in fact, die.
The third person present at that screening, however, Luc Rosenzweig, former editor in chief of Le Monde, under questioning from the court answered, “the theory of the set up [of Mohamed al Dura’s death] has a greater probability of being true than the version presented by France 2,” according to the trial court judge’s written opinion.
What led Rosenzweig to this conclusion was 23 minutes’ worth of footage that has never been available for public inspection. The unaired video “basically consisted of young Palestinians acting out fictitious war scenes,” according to the paraphrasing of his testimony, contained in the written opinion.
The other two people who attended the same screening, despite claiming that the boy’s death was not staged, nonetheless agree with Rosenzweig’s characterization of the secret footage.
So how is that anyone who has viewed footage, 85% of which ““basically consisted of young Palestinians acting out fictitious war scenes,” conclude that the only non-fictitious “war scene” was the shooting of Mohammed al-Durra?
Until the “rushes” are shown publicly, one can only speculate. Perhaps no one wants to suffer the same fate as Karsenty. Or perhaps it is out of fear of being branded an anti-Arab or Islamophobic conspiracy theorist.
Mohammed al-Durra’s dying image has become a powerful symbol across the Arab world. “Postage stamps bearing his crouched image have been issued in Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia, a street in Baghdad and a square in Morocco bear his name, while many schools across the Arab world are named after him,” notes Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America.
Recent Palestinian history certainly suggests a hoax is possible.
During an April 2002 funeral procession, the stretcher carrying the “victim” was dropped. Thankfully, the “victim” sprung up quickly and shook it off.
The West was fooled, though, for at least a few days earlier that month following an intense battle at the Jenin refugee camp, a known terrorist hotbed. Palestinians immediately accused the Jewish state of systematically committing war crimes, and the Western press parroted the claims uncritically. That no massacre actually occurred—even the United Nations found no evidence to suggest one had—received only a fraction of the earlier coverage.
Possibly to be added to that ignominious list is Mohammed al-Durra. But unless the unaired footage is released to the public—and available on the Internet—only people in the French courtroom may know for sure.
Joel Mowbray, who got his start with Townhall.com, is an award-winning investigative journalist, nationally-syndicated columnist and author of Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens America's Security.
Manipulated by a despot
I do not recall any forum or prestigious institution in the United States inviting Adolf Hitler to provide an opportunity to speak about his policies in 1937. Then, no declarations of "freedom of speech" or "academic freedom" were invoked to justify giving a platform to a leader with an evil ideology and a dangerous world vision to convey his thoughts.
Like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hitler was actively and effectively pursuing his goals through vicious, cruel and inhuman policies. Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad espouses virulent racism and anti-Semitism designed to destroy the very foundations of democracy and our civilization. Cunning and manipulative, he will use this prestigious forum to "sweet talk" the ever-hopeful, peace-seeking peoples of the world. This Holocaust denier will buy himself time to prepare for another holocaust.
As he speaks at Columbia University, Iran is working to fulfill its rogue nuclear ambitions, which will also protect its worldwide network of terror, and hold the world hostage.
Hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University in 2007 weighs more heavily than would have inviting Hitler. Today, we have the benefit of our experience that appeasing, rather than confronting and isolating this hatred and belligerence, led to the murder of millions of people. By inviting such a vocal and aggressive champion of similar actions, not only is Columbia naively playing into his hands and giving him legitimacy, they are also defying historical lessons of enormous and grave consequence.
To those who call for academic freedom and free debate, it is important to emphasize that not everything is debatable. Democracies rightly insist on freedom of speech, but they must also protect themselves from sedition and incitement. A platform that allows criminals to gain stature and legitimacy should never be permitted.
As a virulent denier of the Holocaust who has unceasingly threatened the very existence of the Jewish state, Ahmadinejad has proven himself a sadistic despot and a dictator on par with the most loathsome figures of the past.
Today, under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is the center and root of most troubles in the Middle East, significantly in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The country's active support of terrorism, indoctrination of youth in hate and murder, and smuggling of military equipment to terrorists such as Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, are but a few examples of its destructive policies. In addition, it pursues an extreme ideology of undermining moderate regimes in the Middle East and aggressively building its nuclear capabilities in the face of unified worldwide opposition, in contradiction to all its obligations.
The country's troublesome policies extend to Venezuela, Nicaragua and the Islamic republics in Central Asia. For more than a decade, the international community has tried to reason with Teheran; every attempt was met with disappointment and failure.
Iran's intentions are no secret to the international community. We are very aware of their policies designed to drive the US out of the Middle East so they can mold the region and the world in their own image.
All of the above raises serious concerns as to why Columbia University would give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a platform. They should have followed New York City's lead when it denied his cynical request to appear at Ground Zero. For quite some time, he has tried to take advantage of his free entry to the US via the United Nations charter to manipulate world public opinion in a legitimate forum, whether at Ground Zero or at Columbia University. New York City had the decency to know better. Too bad Columbia did not.
The writer is a former ambassador to the United States and co-chairman of Nefesh B'Nefesh.
Like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hitler was actively and effectively pursuing his goals through vicious, cruel and inhuman policies. Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad espouses virulent racism and anti-Semitism designed to destroy the very foundations of democracy and our civilization. Cunning and manipulative, he will use this prestigious forum to "sweet talk" the ever-hopeful, peace-seeking peoples of the world. This Holocaust denier will buy himself time to prepare for another holocaust.
As he speaks at Columbia University, Iran is working to fulfill its rogue nuclear ambitions, which will also protect its worldwide network of terror, and hold the world hostage.
Hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University in 2007 weighs more heavily than would have inviting Hitler. Today, we have the benefit of our experience that appeasing, rather than confronting and isolating this hatred and belligerence, led to the murder of millions of people. By inviting such a vocal and aggressive champion of similar actions, not only is Columbia naively playing into his hands and giving him legitimacy, they are also defying historical lessons of enormous and grave consequence.
To those who call for academic freedom and free debate, it is important to emphasize that not everything is debatable. Democracies rightly insist on freedom of speech, but they must also protect themselves from sedition and incitement. A platform that allows criminals to gain stature and legitimacy should never be permitted.
As a virulent denier of the Holocaust who has unceasingly threatened the very existence of the Jewish state, Ahmadinejad has proven himself a sadistic despot and a dictator on par with the most loathsome figures of the past.
Today, under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is the center and root of most troubles in the Middle East, significantly in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The country's active support of terrorism, indoctrination of youth in hate and murder, and smuggling of military equipment to terrorists such as Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, are but a few examples of its destructive policies. In addition, it pursues an extreme ideology of undermining moderate regimes in the Middle East and aggressively building its nuclear capabilities in the face of unified worldwide opposition, in contradiction to all its obligations.
The country's troublesome policies extend to Venezuela, Nicaragua and the Islamic republics in Central Asia. For more than a decade, the international community has tried to reason with Teheran; every attempt was met with disappointment and failure.
Iran's intentions are no secret to the international community. We are very aware of their policies designed to drive the US out of the Middle East so they can mold the region and the world in their own image.
All of the above raises serious concerns as to why Columbia University would give Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a platform. They should have followed New York City's lead when it denied his cynical request to appear at Ground Zero. For quite some time, he has tried to take advantage of his free entry to the US via the United Nations charter to manipulate world public opinion in a legitimate forum, whether at Ground Zero or at Columbia University. New York City had the decency to know better. Too bad Columbia did not.
The writer is a former ambassador to the United States and co-chairman of Nefesh B'Nefesh.
Ahmadinejad Blasts Israel, Denies Existence of Iranian Gays During Columbia Speech
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday questioned why Iran can't have a nuclear program when the United States has one, repeated his inference that historical accounts of the Holocaust are myths, and denied that there are homosexuals in Iran. In animated remarks before students and faculty at a controversial speaking engagment at Columbia university, the Iranian leader also denied that Iran sponsors terror, and instead pointed the finger at the U.S. government as a supporter of terrorism.
"We don't need to resort to terrorism. We've been victims of terrorism, ourselves," he said. "Within six months, over 4,000 Iranians lost their lives, assassinated by terrorist groups. All this carried out by the hand of one single terrorist group. Regretfully, that same terrorist group now, today, in your country, is operating under the support of the U.S. administration, working freely, distributing declarations freely, and their camps in Iraq are supported by the U.S. government."
Ahmadinejad did not name the group to which he was referring.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger opened the program with a blistering introduction in which he lambasted Ahmadinejad for calling for the annihilation of Israel, denying the Holocaust and supporting the execution of children, and told the leader of Iran that he resembled "a petty and cruel dictator."
Bollinger levied repeated criticisms against Ahmadinejad, calling on him to answer a series of challenges about his leadership, blasting his views about the "myth" of the Holocaust as being "absurd," and saying that he doubted he "will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions."
"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial. "Will you cease this outrage?"
After sitting through Bollinger's rebuke, Ahmadinejad rose to applause, and after a religious invocation, opened his remarks by objecting to the scolding, saying it was insulting to be spoken about that way.
"At the outset, I want to complain a bit about the person who read this political statement made against me," Ahmadinejad said. "In Iran, we don't think it's necessary to come in before the speech has already begun with a series of complaints ... It was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here."
He said Bollinger's speech was full of "insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully," and accused Bollinger of offering "unfriendly treatment" under the influence of the U.S. press and politicians.
He did not address Bollinger's accusations directly, instead launching into a long religious discussion laced with quotes from the Koran before turning to criticism of the Bush administration and past American governments, from warrantless wiretapping to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He asked why the United States was allowed to develop nuclear weapons capabilities, but his country was not.
"How come you have that right and we don’t have it?" he challenged.
On the issue of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad said more "research" was needed on what took place, but he seemed to acknowledge that it did exist.
"I am not saying that it didn't happen at all. This is not that judgment that I am passing here," he said. "Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people? ... Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?"
And the Iranian leader denied that homosexuality exists in his country when asked to explain the execution of homosexuals in Iran.
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he said, to laughter and boos from the audience. 'In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."
Ahmadinejad began the first full day of his controversial New York City trip Monday--his third in three years-- amid mounting protests and air-tight security, with his first appearance beginning just after noon EDT via video before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. His highly publicized visit to Columbia University in New York City began at 1:30 p.m.
Bollinger, who was strongly criticized for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia, had promised tough questions in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's talk, but the strident and personal nature of his attack on the president of Iran was startling.
"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger said, to loud applause.
He said Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust might fool the illiterate and ignorant.
"When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous," Bollinger said. "The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history."
Ahmadinejad said he simply wanted more research on the Holocaust, which he said was abused as a justification for Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians.
"Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?" Ahmadinejad asked. He closed his prepared remarks with a terse smile, to applause and boos, before taking questions from the audience.
During the question and answer period, Ahmadinejad was taken to task on remarks he has made calling for the destruction of Israel, with the Columbia moderator accusing him of failing to answer the question.
"We love all nations. We are friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews living in Iran with security," Ahmadinejad said. "Our proposal to the Palestinian plight is a humanitarian and a democratic proposal. What we say is that to solve this 60-year problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself."
The moderator asked him to simply answer "yes" or "no" on whether or not he wanted to destroy Israel.
"Mr. President, I think many members of our audience would like to hear a clearer answer to that question," the moderator said. "The question is: Do you or your government seek the destruction of the state of Israel as a Jewish state? And I think you could answer that question with a single word, either yes or no."
"You asked the question, and then you want the answer the way you want to hear it. Well, this isn't really a free flow of information," Ahmadinejad retorted. 'I'm just telling you what my position is. I'm asking you: Is the Palestinian issue not an international issue of prominence or not? Please tell me, yes or no? There's the plight of a people."
The moderator told him the answer to his question was "yes," and the Iranian president thanked him for his cooperation.
"We recognize there's a problem there that's been going on for 60 years. Everybody provides a solution. And our solution is a free referendum," the Iranian president said. "Let this referendum happen, and then you'll see what the results are."
Ahmadinejad said he believes that the United States and Iran have the potential to be great friends.
"I think that if the U.S. administration, if the U.S. government, puts aside some of its old behaviors, it can actually be a good friend for the Iranian people, for the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said.
"If the U.S. government recognizes the rights of the Iranian people, respects all nations and extends a hand of friendship with all Iranians, they, too, will see that Iranians will be one of its best friends."
President Bush said Ahmadinejad's appearance spoke to the "greatness" of the United States of America.
"He's the head of a state sponsor of terror, and yet, an institution in our country gives him the chance to express his point of view, which really speaks to the freedoms of the country," Bush told FOX News on Monday ahead of the Columbia event. "I'm not so sure I'd offer the same invitation, but nevertheless, it speaks volumes about the greatness, really, of America. We're confident enough to let a person express his views. I just really hope he tells everybody the truth."
Bush said that while he's "not sure" he would have offered the Iranian leader a platform from which to outline his agenda, he thinks it's OK that Columbia University did invite Ahmadinejad to speak.
"This is a place of high learning and if the president (of Columbia) thinks it's a good idea to have the leader from Iran come and talk to the students as an educational experience, I guess it's OK with me," Bush told FOX News in an interview. "The problem is Ahmadinejad uses these platforms to advance his agenda, which I suspect in this case ... He doesn't want America to know his true intentions."
Before his Columbia appearance Monday, the Iranian leader, speaking via video from New York City to journalists at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., tossed aside a question about Israel by saying Iran doesn't recognize the "regime," accusing it of killing people and committing various other atrocities.
It was typical of many of Ahmadinejad's responses, which often started with laughing challenges to journalists in which he said, "That's not right," or asked, "Where are you getting that?"
The Iranian president started his speech at the Press Club by reciting some verses from the Koran. No one on the panel or seated in the audience applauded or reacted in any way when he was introduced.
On the Holocaust — which the Iranian leader has called a "myth" — he said that "if the Holocaust is a reality, why don't we let more research be done on it? ... Where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe, and given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced? Why should they give up their land?"
He also defended his request to visit Ground Zero--the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City--saying he wanted to "pay my respects." But, he claimed, the U.S. government and other politicians prevented that from happening.
"I was interested in expressing my sympathy to victims of tragedy," he said. "It's the responsibility of everyone to understand the root causes of 9/11."
His request to lay a wreath at ground zero was denied by city officials and condemned by politicians who said a visit to the site of the 2001 terror attacks would violate sacred ground.
Police cited construction and security concerns in denying Ahmadinejad's request. Ahmadinejad told "60 Minutes" he would not press the issue but expressed disbelief that the visit would offend Americans.
During the Press Club address, the Iranian president delivered some remarks through an interpreter and then answered questions from the moderator. A similar format was used at the Columbia event.
Ahmadinejad said the world needs to build a better future "based on peace and security of all humanity," and he spoke of a world full of love, kindness, beauty and allegiance to God as the ultimate goal.
"No one should prevent love and kindness from flourishing in mankind and turn it into hostility," the Iranian president said. "Family is the center of love and beauty."
He said people should follow God, who would lead them to a "sublime" state.
"When we take a look around us, we are not happy with what we see," Ahmadinejad said. "Threats of war have affected everyone. Continuous wars have in fact hurt the human spirit. If we look at the root cause of some of these problems, we will be able to think about how to build a better future, a more prosperous future based on peace and security of all humanity."
Ahmadinejad spoke of the importance of the press, in spite of the fact that Iran's media is state-run and criticized as tightly controlled by the government.
"The press plays a connecting role. It provides information and can serve as a channel for promoting current thinking," he said. "The role of the press is to disseminate moral behavior ... The press can be the voices of the divine prophets."
The Press Club moderator asked the Iranian leader about Iranian weapons and involvement in Iraq, about his views on whether religions other than Islam have a place in the world, and on his country's treatment of women and approach to the freedom of the press.
The Iranian president repeatedly asked where the moderator got his information and challenged the truth of his statements.
And when asked whether Iran was sending weapons into Iraq to fight against American troops, Ahmadinejad replied that "Iraq security means our security." When pressed, he denied that Iran was engaging in that kind of activity.
When asked whether he wanted to go to war, he said he did not.
"Why is there a need for war?" Ahmadinejad said. "Why should they threaten another country? Why should they create more insecurity? I think officials who talk this kind of talk should really be pressured and warn to know what to say and when not to say something."
Ahmadinejad said that the religions of "Christ and Moses" as well as Islam are "all brothers. They all want the same thing."
He defended Iranian women as among the most free in the world, and said they were involved in all walks of life in Iran.
Thousands of people jammed two blocks of 47th Street across from the United Nations Monday to protest Ahmadinejad's visit to New York. Organizers claimed a turnout of tens of thousands. Police did not immediately have a crowd estimate.
The speakers, most of them politicians and officials from Jewish organizations, proclaimed their support for Israel and criticized the Iranian leader for his remarks questioning the Holocaust.
"We're here today to send a message that there is never a reason to give a hatemonger an open stage," New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.
Protesters also assembled at Columbia. Dozens stood near the lecture hall where Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak, linking arms and singing traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood, while nearby a two-person band played "You Are My Sunshine."
Signs in the crowd displayed a range of messages, including one that read "We refuse to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and American imperialism."
Ahmadinejad said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press that Iran would not launch an attack on Israel or any other nation.
"Iran will not attack any country," Ahmadinejad told the AP. Iran has always maintained a defensive policy, not an offensive one, he said, and has "never sought to expand its territory."
Asked whether he believed the U.S. is preparing for war with Iran, he responded: "That is not how I see it ... I believe that some of the talk in this regard arises first of all from anger. Secondly, it serves the electoral purposes domestically in this country. Third, it serves as a cover for policy failures over Iraq."
In a 30-minute interview at a hotel near the United Nations, Ahmadinejad struck a soothing tone. He said Iranian foreign policy was based on humanitarian concerns and seeking justice.
He reiterated his call for a debate at the United Nations on world issues with President Bush.
Referring to fears of a military campaign against Iran, he said: "We don't think you can compensate for one mistake by committing more mistakes."
Ahmadinejad's scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday was to be his third time attending the New York meeting in three years. The New York City police and the U.S. Secret Service are charged with providing a security detail and protecting the Iranian leader along with dozens of heads of state arriving for the assembly.
The Iranian mission has not disclosed Ahmadinejad's specific itinerary.
FOX News' Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
"We don't need to resort to terrorism. We've been victims of terrorism, ourselves," he said. "Within six months, over 4,000 Iranians lost their lives, assassinated by terrorist groups. All this carried out by the hand of one single terrorist group. Regretfully, that same terrorist group now, today, in your country, is operating under the support of the U.S. administration, working freely, distributing declarations freely, and their camps in Iraq are supported by the U.S. government."
Ahmadinejad did not name the group to which he was referring.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger opened the program with a blistering introduction in which he lambasted Ahmadinejad for calling for the annihilation of Israel, denying the Holocaust and supporting the execution of children, and told the leader of Iran that he resembled "a petty and cruel dictator."
Bollinger levied repeated criticisms against Ahmadinejad, calling on him to answer a series of challenges about his leadership, blasting his views about the "myth" of the Holocaust as being "absurd," and saying that he doubted he "will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions."
"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial. "Will you cease this outrage?"
After sitting through Bollinger's rebuke, Ahmadinejad rose to applause, and after a religious invocation, opened his remarks by objecting to the scolding, saying it was insulting to be spoken about that way.
"At the outset, I want to complain a bit about the person who read this political statement made against me," Ahmadinejad said. "In Iran, we don't think it's necessary to come in before the speech has already begun with a series of complaints ... It was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here."
He said Bollinger's speech was full of "insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully," and accused Bollinger of offering "unfriendly treatment" under the influence of the U.S. press and politicians.
He did not address Bollinger's accusations directly, instead launching into a long religious discussion laced with quotes from the Koran before turning to criticism of the Bush administration and past American governments, from warrantless wiretapping to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He asked why the United States was allowed to develop nuclear weapons capabilities, but his country was not.
"How come you have that right and we don’t have it?" he challenged.
On the issue of the Holocaust, Ahmadinejad said more "research" was needed on what took place, but he seemed to acknowledge that it did exist.
"I am not saying that it didn't happen at all. This is not that judgment that I am passing here," he said. "Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people? ... Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?"
And the Iranian leader denied that homosexuality exists in his country when asked to explain the execution of homosexuals in Iran.
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he said, to laughter and boos from the audience. 'In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."
Ahmadinejad began the first full day of his controversial New York City trip Monday--his third in three years-- amid mounting protests and air-tight security, with his first appearance beginning just after noon EDT via video before the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. His highly publicized visit to Columbia University in New York City began at 1:30 p.m.
Bollinger, who was strongly criticized for inviting Ahmadinejad to Columbia, had promised tough questions in his introduction to Ahmadinejad's talk, but the strident and personal nature of his attack on the president of Iran was startling.
"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator," Bollinger said, to loud applause.
He said Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust might fool the illiterate and ignorant.
"When you come to a place like this it makes you simply ridiculous," Bollinger said. "The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history."
Ahmadinejad said he simply wanted more research on the Holocaust, which he said was abused as a justification for Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians.
"Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?" Ahmadinejad asked. He closed his prepared remarks with a terse smile, to applause and boos, before taking questions from the audience.
During the question and answer period, Ahmadinejad was taken to task on remarks he has made calling for the destruction of Israel, with the Columbia moderator accusing him of failing to answer the question.
"We love all nations. We are friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews living in Iran with security," Ahmadinejad said. "Our proposal to the Palestinian plight is a humanitarian and a democratic proposal. What we say is that to solve this 60-year problem, we must allow the Palestinian people to decide about its future for itself."
The moderator asked him to simply answer "yes" or "no" on whether or not he wanted to destroy Israel.
"Mr. President, I think many members of our audience would like to hear a clearer answer to that question," the moderator said. "The question is: Do you or your government seek the destruction of the state of Israel as a Jewish state? And I think you could answer that question with a single word, either yes or no."
"You asked the question, and then you want the answer the way you want to hear it. Well, this isn't really a free flow of information," Ahmadinejad retorted. 'I'm just telling you what my position is. I'm asking you: Is the Palestinian issue not an international issue of prominence or not? Please tell me, yes or no? There's the plight of a people."
The moderator told him the answer to his question was "yes," and the Iranian president thanked him for his cooperation.
"We recognize there's a problem there that's been going on for 60 years. Everybody provides a solution. And our solution is a free referendum," the Iranian president said. "Let this referendum happen, and then you'll see what the results are."
Ahmadinejad said he believes that the United States and Iran have the potential to be great friends.
"I think that if the U.S. administration, if the U.S. government, puts aside some of its old behaviors, it can actually be a good friend for the Iranian people, for the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said.
"If the U.S. government recognizes the rights of the Iranian people, respects all nations and extends a hand of friendship with all Iranians, they, too, will see that Iranians will be one of its best friends."
President Bush said Ahmadinejad's appearance spoke to the "greatness" of the United States of America.
"He's the head of a state sponsor of terror, and yet, an institution in our country gives him the chance to express his point of view, which really speaks to the freedoms of the country," Bush told FOX News on Monday ahead of the Columbia event. "I'm not so sure I'd offer the same invitation, but nevertheless, it speaks volumes about the greatness, really, of America. We're confident enough to let a person express his views. I just really hope he tells everybody the truth."
Bush said that while he's "not sure" he would have offered the Iranian leader a platform from which to outline his agenda, he thinks it's OK that Columbia University did invite Ahmadinejad to speak.
"This is a place of high learning and if the president (of Columbia) thinks it's a good idea to have the leader from Iran come and talk to the students as an educational experience, I guess it's OK with me," Bush told FOX News in an interview. "The problem is Ahmadinejad uses these platforms to advance his agenda, which I suspect in this case ... He doesn't want America to know his true intentions."
Before his Columbia appearance Monday, the Iranian leader, speaking via video from New York City to journalists at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., tossed aside a question about Israel by saying Iran doesn't recognize the "regime," accusing it of killing people and committing various other atrocities.
It was typical of many of Ahmadinejad's responses, which often started with laughing challenges to journalists in which he said, "That's not right," or asked, "Where are you getting that?"
The Iranian president started his speech at the Press Club by reciting some verses from the Koran. No one on the panel or seated in the audience applauded or reacted in any way when he was introduced.
On the Holocaust — which the Iranian leader has called a "myth" — he said that "if the Holocaust is a reality, why don't we let more research be done on it? ... Where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe, and given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced? Why should they give up their land?"
He also defended his request to visit Ground Zero--the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City--saying he wanted to "pay my respects." But, he claimed, the U.S. government and other politicians prevented that from happening.
"I was interested in expressing my sympathy to victims of tragedy," he said. "It's the responsibility of everyone to understand the root causes of 9/11."
His request to lay a wreath at ground zero was denied by city officials and condemned by politicians who said a visit to the site of the 2001 terror attacks would violate sacred ground.
Police cited construction and security concerns in denying Ahmadinejad's request. Ahmadinejad told "60 Minutes" he would not press the issue but expressed disbelief that the visit would offend Americans.
During the Press Club address, the Iranian president delivered some remarks through an interpreter and then answered questions from the moderator. A similar format was used at the Columbia event.
Ahmadinejad said the world needs to build a better future "based on peace and security of all humanity," and he spoke of a world full of love, kindness, beauty and allegiance to God as the ultimate goal.
"No one should prevent love and kindness from flourishing in mankind and turn it into hostility," the Iranian president said. "Family is the center of love and beauty."
He said people should follow God, who would lead them to a "sublime" state.
"When we take a look around us, we are not happy with what we see," Ahmadinejad said. "Threats of war have affected everyone. Continuous wars have in fact hurt the human spirit. If we look at the root cause of some of these problems, we will be able to think about how to build a better future, a more prosperous future based on peace and security of all humanity."
Ahmadinejad spoke of the importance of the press, in spite of the fact that Iran's media is state-run and criticized as tightly controlled by the government.
"The press plays a connecting role. It provides information and can serve as a channel for promoting current thinking," he said. "The role of the press is to disseminate moral behavior ... The press can be the voices of the divine prophets."
The Press Club moderator asked the Iranian leader about Iranian weapons and involvement in Iraq, about his views on whether religions other than Islam have a place in the world, and on his country's treatment of women and approach to the freedom of the press.
The Iranian president repeatedly asked where the moderator got his information and challenged the truth of his statements.
And when asked whether Iran was sending weapons into Iraq to fight against American troops, Ahmadinejad replied that "Iraq security means our security." When pressed, he denied that Iran was engaging in that kind of activity.
When asked whether he wanted to go to war, he said he did not.
"Why is there a need for war?" Ahmadinejad said. "Why should they threaten another country? Why should they create more insecurity? I think officials who talk this kind of talk should really be pressured and warn to know what to say and when not to say something."
Ahmadinejad said that the religions of "Christ and Moses" as well as Islam are "all brothers. They all want the same thing."
He defended Iranian women as among the most free in the world, and said they were involved in all walks of life in Iran.
Thousands of people jammed two blocks of 47th Street across from the United Nations Monday to protest Ahmadinejad's visit to New York. Organizers claimed a turnout of tens of thousands. Police did not immediately have a crowd estimate.
The speakers, most of them politicians and officials from Jewish organizations, proclaimed their support for Israel and criticized the Iranian leader for his remarks questioning the Holocaust.
"We're here today to send a message that there is never a reason to give a hatemonger an open stage," New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.
Protesters also assembled at Columbia. Dozens stood near the lecture hall where Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak, linking arms and singing traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood, while nearby a two-person band played "You Are My Sunshine."
Signs in the crowd displayed a range of messages, including one that read "We refuse to choose between Islamic fundamentalism and American imperialism."
Ahmadinejad said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press that Iran would not launch an attack on Israel or any other nation.
"Iran will not attack any country," Ahmadinejad told the AP. Iran has always maintained a defensive policy, not an offensive one, he said, and has "never sought to expand its territory."
Asked whether he believed the U.S. is preparing for war with Iran, he responded: "That is not how I see it ... I believe that some of the talk in this regard arises first of all from anger. Secondly, it serves the electoral purposes domestically in this country. Third, it serves as a cover for policy failures over Iraq."
In a 30-minute interview at a hotel near the United Nations, Ahmadinejad struck a soothing tone. He said Iranian foreign policy was based on humanitarian concerns and seeking justice.
He reiterated his call for a debate at the United Nations on world issues with President Bush.
Referring to fears of a military campaign against Iran, he said: "We don't think you can compensate for one mistake by committing more mistakes."
Ahmadinejad's scheduled address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday was to be his third time attending the New York meeting in three years. The New York City police and the U.S. Secret Service are charged with providing a security detail and protecting the Iranian leader along with dozens of heads of state arriving for the assembly.
The Iranian mission has not disclosed Ahmadinejad's specific itinerary.
FOX News' Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kadima MKs vow to fight Ramon's withdrawal plan
Four members of ruling party discuss ways to thwart vice PM's proposal to cede parts of Jerusalem as part of peace agreement with Palestinians Four Knesset members from the ruling Kadima party met in Jerusalem on Monday to discuss ways to thwart Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon's proposal to cede parts of Jerusalem as part of a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Following the meeting, which took place at the home of Jerusalem city council member Nir Barkat, MKs Otniel Schneller, Eli Aflalo, Ze'ev Elkin and Marina Solodkin announced the establishment of forum in support of a "unified Jerusalem".
Barkat said following the meeting that the forum would work toward "removing the issue of Jerusalem from the political agenda and emboldening the government's official position on the capital's unification".
MK Elkin said, "I would expect Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to reject the plan unequivocally, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. This plan is a deviation from the party's platform."
A number of cabinet ministers also slammed Ramon's proposal during a Kadima convention held last week.
"Jerusalem is not a piece of real estate, and no one has the authority to redivide it," Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said.
Following the meeting, which took place at the home of Jerusalem city council member Nir Barkat, MKs Otniel Schneller, Eli Aflalo, Ze'ev Elkin and Marina Solodkin announced the establishment of forum in support of a "unified Jerusalem".
Barkat said following the meeting that the forum would work toward "removing the issue of Jerusalem from the political agenda and emboldening the government's official position on the capital's unification".
MK Elkin said, "I would expect Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to reject the plan unequivocally, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. This plan is a deviation from the party's platform."
A number of cabinet ministers also slammed Ramon's proposal during a Kadima convention held last week.
"Jerusalem is not a piece of real estate, and no one has the authority to redivide it," Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said.
Columbias realpolitik
'Iran is an important country. And like it or not, we are going to have to deal with it," said Dean John Coatsworth of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, in defense of his school's speaking invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "We are not giving him a platform. He has plenty of platforms."
"We are going to have to deal with people like this in the real world," Coatsworth continued. "We need to know more about this guy and what he stands for. And we need to challenge him when we can."
Elsewhere, the same dean claimed that Columbia would have invited Adolf Hitler to speak, provided he was willing to be "challenged" by the school's faculty and students.
In addition to anger, it is hard not to react with sadness to one of America's great universities succumbing to the utter distortion of the hallowed value of free speech. While Columbia officials claim, in effect, that there are no limits to whom it would engage in polite argument, a moment's thought reveals this to be untrue.
We do not know if Columbia would have in fact invited Hitler to speak, had its officials known that he was presiding over mass murder, not to mention being at war with the US, at the time. We would like to think that such an august institution of higher learning would not.
But even if Hitler would have been, or Ahmadinejad is, welcome at Columbia, would an Egyptian tribal leader be invited to defend female genital mutilation, a practice the Egyptian government is finally trying to ban? What about the current president of Sudan, or the leader of the Janjaweed militia that is committing genocide in Darfur?
In Cuba, HIV-positive citizens have been quarantined as a health measure. In China, part of the government's one-child policy is support for forced abortions. Would Columbia be interested in hearing a defense of these policies from these governments?
To take some perhaps less extreme cases, would a tobacco executive, a fur coat manufacturer or a scientist who rejects the contention that global warming is man-made be given as respectful a hearing as the president of Iran will be?
This thought experiment would seem to demonstrate that it is not really free speech that is at issue, but the degree of legitimacy that Columbia is willing to grant, whether by inviting a speaker or by engaging that speaker in respectful dialogue. We would like to think, for Columbia's sake, that if it regarded the Iranian regime as guilty of incitement to genocide, a crime that the US is committed to punish as a signatory of the Genocide Convention, it would not have extended its invitation.
It should not be necessary to enumerate here the crimes of the Iranian regime - from supporting terrorism, to killing American soldiers, to denying the Holocaust, to opposing peace with Israel and seeking our destruction. By inviting a leader who embodies these crimes, Columbia is saying that it does not regard them as seriously as it does other international miscreants to which it would not dream of granting such a platform.
Columbia's message was, perhaps inadvertently, captured in Coatsworth's first point: that the Iranian leader is someone the US "has to deal with." In other words, once a leader reaches a certain level of power, perhaps through terrorism and potential nuclear blackmail, then moral considerations must be set aside.
Columbia is not standing up for free speech, but for realpolitik in its crassest form: might makes right. Or in this case, terror makes right.
It is a shame that the governor and police department of New York see no choice but to grant police protection for this visit, and that the US State Department would not restrict the Iranian leader's presence to the UN building itself.
It is unfortunate that the US and other signatory countries have not fulfilled their responsibilities to enforce the Genocide Convention, which is explicitly designed to prevent genocide, by making incitement to genocide a punishable crime. Such procedures should have been initiated against Ahmadinejad years ago. If they had, perhaps Columbia would have thought differently about extending its invitation, and perhaps the international sanctions campaign to force Iran to back down would have been more successful by now.
"We are going to have to deal with people like this in the real world," Coatsworth continued. "We need to know more about this guy and what he stands for. And we need to challenge him when we can."
Elsewhere, the same dean claimed that Columbia would have invited Adolf Hitler to speak, provided he was willing to be "challenged" by the school's faculty and students.
In addition to anger, it is hard not to react with sadness to one of America's great universities succumbing to the utter distortion of the hallowed value of free speech. While Columbia officials claim, in effect, that there are no limits to whom it would engage in polite argument, a moment's thought reveals this to be untrue.
We do not know if Columbia would have in fact invited Hitler to speak, had its officials known that he was presiding over mass murder, not to mention being at war with the US, at the time. We would like to think that such an august institution of higher learning would not.
But even if Hitler would have been, or Ahmadinejad is, welcome at Columbia, would an Egyptian tribal leader be invited to defend female genital mutilation, a practice the Egyptian government is finally trying to ban? What about the current president of Sudan, or the leader of the Janjaweed militia that is committing genocide in Darfur?
In Cuba, HIV-positive citizens have been quarantined as a health measure. In China, part of the government's one-child policy is support for forced abortions. Would Columbia be interested in hearing a defense of these policies from these governments?
To take some perhaps less extreme cases, would a tobacco executive, a fur coat manufacturer or a scientist who rejects the contention that global warming is man-made be given as respectful a hearing as the president of Iran will be?
This thought experiment would seem to demonstrate that it is not really free speech that is at issue, but the degree of legitimacy that Columbia is willing to grant, whether by inviting a speaker or by engaging that speaker in respectful dialogue. We would like to think, for Columbia's sake, that if it regarded the Iranian regime as guilty of incitement to genocide, a crime that the US is committed to punish as a signatory of the Genocide Convention, it would not have extended its invitation.
It should not be necessary to enumerate here the crimes of the Iranian regime - from supporting terrorism, to killing American soldiers, to denying the Holocaust, to opposing peace with Israel and seeking our destruction. By inviting a leader who embodies these crimes, Columbia is saying that it does not regard them as seriously as it does other international miscreants to which it would not dream of granting such a platform.
Columbia's message was, perhaps inadvertently, captured in Coatsworth's first point: that the Iranian leader is someone the US "has to deal with." In other words, once a leader reaches a certain level of power, perhaps through terrorism and potential nuclear blackmail, then moral considerations must be set aside.
Columbia is not standing up for free speech, but for realpolitik in its crassest form: might makes right. Or in this case, terror makes right.
It is a shame that the governor and police department of New York see no choice but to grant police protection for this visit, and that the US State Department would not restrict the Iranian leader's presence to the UN building itself.
It is unfortunate that the US and other signatory countries have not fulfilled their responsibilities to enforce the Genocide Convention, which is explicitly designed to prevent genocide, by making incitement to genocide a punishable crime. Such procedures should have been initiated against Ahmadinejad years ago. If they had, perhaps Columbia would have thought differently about extending its invitation, and perhaps the international sanctions campaign to force Iran to back down would have been more successful by now.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Governor Schwarzenegger Issues Statement on California’s Divestment from Iran
“California has a long history of leadership and doing what’s right with our investment portfolio. Last year, I was proud to sign legislation to divest from the Sudan to take a powerful stand against genocide. I look forward to signing legislation to divest from Iran to take an equally powerful stand against terrorism.”
AB 221 by Assemblymember Joel Anderson (R- La Mesa) creates the California Public Divest from Iran Act which prohibits CalPERS and CalSTRS from investing public employee retirement funds in a company with business operations in Iran. CalPERS, the state’s employee retirement fund, is the largest pension fund in the nation and CalSTRS, the state’s public education retirement fund, is the second largest pension fund in the nation.
AB 221 by Assemblymember Joel Anderson (R- La Mesa) creates the California Public Divest from Iran Act which prohibits CalPERS and CalSTRS from investing public employee retirement funds in a company with business operations in Iran. CalPERS, the state’s employee retirement fund, is the largest pension fund in the nation and CalSTRS, the state’s public education retirement fund, is the second largest pension fund in the nation.
JNF to tell court it will market land to non-Jews
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is expected to tell the High Court of Justice Monday that it will agree to market its lands to non-Jews in the near future, although it has long insisted that JNF lands should be used only for housing Jews.
comment: this is another intrusion by the courts-a huge defeat for Israel-we must stop these actions-or the flood gates of litigation will open. JNF to tell court it will market land to non-Jews
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is expected to tell the High Court of Justice Monday that it will agree to market its lands to non-Jews in the near future, although it has long insisted that JNF lands should be used only for housing Jews. This "tactical retreat" reportedly stems from the JNF's concern that the High Court will issue a precedent-setting ruling in the petition now before it. The petition was submitted in 2004 by a group of Arab citizens who were refused permission to bid on an Israel Lands Administration (ILA) tender for residential housing lots in Carmiel. The potential purchasers were told that the land belonged to the JNF, and was therefore intended only for Jewish use. Several Arab rights organizations joined the petition, as did the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The JNF's position received a blow in 2005, when Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ruled that the policy was discriminatory and he would not defend it in the High Court. Mazuz reiterated this stance to the High Court four months ago.
Several public figures, including Nobel Prize laureate Robert (Israel) Aumann and former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, will be joining the petition this morning as respondents, arguing that the JNF has a responsibility to its contributors to reserve the lands it purchased with their money for Jews only. At a meeting in Mazuz's office last Thursday, however, JNF and ILA representatives agreed to a proposal by Mazuz to market lands to any potential customer, without discriminating based on ethnicity. In exchange, any time JNF land is sold to a non-Jew, the ILA will compensate it with other land, thereby ensuring that the overall amount of Jewish-owned land remains the same. According to the state's response to the High Court, which was signed by the head of the Justice Ministry's High Court department, Osnat Mandel, the new arrangement will be in effect for three months. The brief asks the court to postpone the hearing during this time, which the JNF and the ILA will use to discuss ways for the JNF to preserve its original goals while obeying the law. The brief states that the JNF has not changed its original position, whereby "rights to the land it owns should not be awarded to those who are not Jewish," but the ILA, operating on the attorney general's instructions, recognizes its obligation to market lands, including those of the JNF, without discrimination. Nevertheless, the JNF has been persuaded to give in for the moment out of concern that the court might issue a ruling undermining the JNF's policy, similar to its precedent-setting ruling in 2000 in favor of Adel Kaadan, an Israeli Arab who successfully petitioned the court for the right to build a home in the Jewish community of Katzir. The JNF holds approximately 2.6 million dunams (some 650,000 acres) of land in Israel, which constitutes 13 percent of all state lands. The response to the High Court indicates that the JNF and the ILA view an exchange of lands as a long-term solution and are looking for a mutually acceptable way to apply it on a large scale. In the past, however, Arab organizations opposed this solution, arguing that it preserves a situation in which large amounts of land in Israel are not available for use by all of its citizens.
comment: this is another intrusion by the courts-a huge defeat for Israel-we must stop these actions-or the flood gates of litigation will open. JNF to tell court it will market land to non-Jews
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is expected to tell the High Court of Justice Monday that it will agree to market its lands to non-Jews in the near future, although it has long insisted that JNF lands should be used only for housing Jews. This "tactical retreat" reportedly stems from the JNF's concern that the High Court will issue a precedent-setting ruling in the petition now before it. The petition was submitted in 2004 by a group of Arab citizens who were refused permission to bid on an Israel Lands Administration (ILA) tender for residential housing lots in Carmiel. The potential purchasers were told that the land belonged to the JNF, and was therefore intended only for Jewish use. Several Arab rights organizations joined the petition, as did the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The JNF's position received a blow in 2005, when Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ruled that the policy was discriminatory and he would not defend it in the High Court. Mazuz reiterated this stance to the High Court four months ago.
Several public figures, including Nobel Prize laureate Robert (Israel) Aumann and former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, will be joining the petition this morning as respondents, arguing that the JNF has a responsibility to its contributors to reserve the lands it purchased with their money for Jews only. At a meeting in Mazuz's office last Thursday, however, JNF and ILA representatives agreed to a proposal by Mazuz to market lands to any potential customer, without discriminating based on ethnicity. In exchange, any time JNF land is sold to a non-Jew, the ILA will compensate it with other land, thereby ensuring that the overall amount of Jewish-owned land remains the same. According to the state's response to the High Court, which was signed by the head of the Justice Ministry's High Court department, Osnat Mandel, the new arrangement will be in effect for three months. The brief asks the court to postpone the hearing during this time, which the JNF and the ILA will use to discuss ways for the JNF to preserve its original goals while obeying the law. The brief states that the JNF has not changed its original position, whereby "rights to the land it owns should not be awarded to those who are not Jewish," but the ILA, operating on the attorney general's instructions, recognizes its obligation to market lands, including those of the JNF, without discrimination. Nevertheless, the JNF has been persuaded to give in for the moment out of concern that the court might issue a ruling undermining the JNF's policy, similar to its precedent-setting ruling in 2000 in favor of Adel Kaadan, an Israeli Arab who successfully petitioned the court for the right to build a home in the Jewish community of Katzir. The JNF holds approximately 2.6 million dunams (some 650,000 acres) of land in Israel, which constitutes 13 percent of all state lands. The response to the High Court indicates that the JNF and the ILA view an exchange of lands as a long-term solution and are looking for a mutually acceptable way to apply it on a large scale. In the past, however, Arab organizations opposed this solution, arguing that it preserves a situation in which large amounts of land in Israel are not available for use by all of its citizens.
King renews Jordan support for Jerusalem’s holy sites, residents
AMMAN - His Majesty King Abdullah said that looking after Jerusalem’s holy sites and supporting the steadfastness of its people are “at the centre of our attention” and are a duty for all Muslims. At a meeting with the Hashemite Fund for the Construction of Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock’s Board of Trustees, the King noted that the fund was launched mainly to institutionalise work for the holy city.
He urged the fund officials to do their utmost to stand up to the “multifaceted” challenges facing their work.
Announcing a JD1.113 million donation to the fund, His Majesty ordered a month’s salary to be dispensed to awqaf officials in Jerusalem, as a gesture of support.
The Monarch discussed with board members problems related to the fund’s work and called on all concerned parties to coordinate their efforts and consult over any hurdles blocking projects planned for the holy places.
Under the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace accord, the Kingdom enjoys a special status as the party in charge of the holy sites in Jerusalem, continuing a role the Hashemite leaders of the country have pursued since 1924.
The administratively and financially independent fund was established by the King last year. Yesterday’s meeting was the first by its board of trustees, chaired by HRH Prince Ghazi, after the law governing the institution went into force in April.
In his remarks at the meeting, Prince Ghazi stressed the need for coordination among parties concerned with Jerusalem’s holy sites.
Acknowledging that the three official bodies concerned with the holy city are coordinating well among each other, he said, however, that “there are funds raised in the name of Jerusalem [by other parties] that never reach Jerusalem”.
The other two organisations are Al Aqsa Restoration Committee and the Royal Commission for Jerusalem Affairs.
The Hashemite Fund’s mission, according to the law, is “to secure the necessary funding to look after Al Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and other Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem to ensure sustainable construction and maintenance”.
Prince Ghazi told the press following the meeting that the fund would be working to streamline fund-raising to ensure that money is used properly. The fund, he said, would serve as an umbrella body for all institutions concerned with Jerusalem affairs.
The Prince also called for supporting the residents of Jerusalem to enable them to resist Israeli attempts to evict them from their city.
He cited previous remarks by the King, expressing concerns that Jerusalem, due to the Israeli policies, might turn into a “museum” where the old sites and antiquities remain there, but without people.
“For 40 years, the Jerusalemites have been the ones who defended Jerusalem,” Prince Ghazi said, adding the fund will focus much of its efforts on supporting the Arab residents of the holy city.
At the meeting, Chief Islamic Justice Ahmad Hilayel warned of land sales in Jerusalem, saying the fund is expected to address this problem.
Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Abdul Fattah Salah briefed the King on the projects under way, including fire warning and extinguishing systems.
He also highlighted a plan to train Jordanians on restoration works in Italy, to join Italian experts fixing worn-out mosaic pieces and other artistic features of Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Local experts will be handling such restoration projects in the future.
Head of the restoration committee, Raef Najem, and awqaf assistant secretary general for Jerusalem affairs, Abdul Atheem Salhab, focused in their remarks on Israeli interference in the restoration plans.
Najem said the Israeli side has, since 2000, stepped up interference in maintenance works in a bid to abort the project.
The Israelis, he said, have come with a plan to construct a metal bridge that is likely to adversely affect the holy shrine. The committee and the Awqaf Ministry, he added, have come up with two separate alternative designs that will within days be presented to UNESCO, which “regretfully endorsed the Israeli design”.
The King said he has concerns over the behaviour of the Israeli authorities and directed concerned parties to update him with any development so that action be taken at the political level.
At a meeting with top clerics last Ramadan, King Abdullah announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for Al Aqsa, which was expected to cost JD400,000 to 500,000. He also donated a huge carpet to Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
He urged the fund officials to do their utmost to stand up to the “multifaceted” challenges facing their work.
Announcing a JD1.113 million donation to the fund, His Majesty ordered a month’s salary to be dispensed to awqaf officials in Jerusalem, as a gesture of support.
The Monarch discussed with board members problems related to the fund’s work and called on all concerned parties to coordinate their efforts and consult over any hurdles blocking projects planned for the holy places.
Under the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace accord, the Kingdom enjoys a special status as the party in charge of the holy sites in Jerusalem, continuing a role the Hashemite leaders of the country have pursued since 1924.
The administratively and financially independent fund was established by the King last year. Yesterday’s meeting was the first by its board of trustees, chaired by HRH Prince Ghazi, after the law governing the institution went into force in April.
In his remarks at the meeting, Prince Ghazi stressed the need for coordination among parties concerned with Jerusalem’s holy sites.
Acknowledging that the three official bodies concerned with the holy city are coordinating well among each other, he said, however, that “there are funds raised in the name of Jerusalem [by other parties] that never reach Jerusalem”.
The other two organisations are Al Aqsa Restoration Committee and the Royal Commission for Jerusalem Affairs.
The Hashemite Fund’s mission, according to the law, is “to secure the necessary funding to look after Al Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and other Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem to ensure sustainable construction and maintenance”.
Prince Ghazi told the press following the meeting that the fund would be working to streamline fund-raising to ensure that money is used properly. The fund, he said, would serve as an umbrella body for all institutions concerned with Jerusalem affairs.
The Prince also called for supporting the residents of Jerusalem to enable them to resist Israeli attempts to evict them from their city.
He cited previous remarks by the King, expressing concerns that Jerusalem, due to the Israeli policies, might turn into a “museum” where the old sites and antiquities remain there, but without people.
“For 40 years, the Jerusalemites have been the ones who defended Jerusalem,” Prince Ghazi said, adding the fund will focus much of its efforts on supporting the Arab residents of the holy city.
At the meeting, Chief Islamic Justice Ahmad Hilayel warned of land sales in Jerusalem, saying the fund is expected to address this problem.
Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Abdul Fattah Salah briefed the King on the projects under way, including fire warning and extinguishing systems.
He also highlighted a plan to train Jordanians on restoration works in Italy, to join Italian experts fixing worn-out mosaic pieces and other artistic features of Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. Local experts will be handling such restoration projects in the future.
Head of the restoration committee, Raef Najem, and awqaf assistant secretary general for Jerusalem affairs, Abdul Atheem Salhab, focused in their remarks on Israeli interference in the restoration plans.
Najem said the Israeli side has, since 2000, stepped up interference in maintenance works in a bid to abort the project.
The Israelis, he said, have come with a plan to construct a metal bridge that is likely to adversely affect the holy shrine. The committee and the Awqaf Ministry, he added, have come up with two separate alternative designs that will within days be presented to UNESCO, which “regretfully endorsed the Israeli design”.
The King said he has concerns over the behaviour of the Israeli authorities and directed concerned parties to update him with any development so that action be taken at the political level.
At a meeting with top clerics last Ramadan, King Abdullah announced a competition to design a fifth minaret for Al Aqsa, which was expected to cost JD400,000 to 500,000. He also donated a huge carpet to Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
An undercover Israeli Border Guard unit detains a Fatah terrorist on list of 180 amnestied by Israel two months ago
Fares Mansour, Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades activist, was detained in Kalil village outside Nablus, for violating the terms of his reprieve and reverting to terrorist activity. Found in his hideout were eight explosive devices, a rifle and a pistol.
No red lines at Columbia University
The invitation by Columbia University to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran beggars belief and brings one of America's foremost institutions of higher learning into disrepute Columbia's distinguished president, Lee Bollinger, defended the invitation as being in keeping with "Columbia's long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum of robust debate."
Of course, that is nonsense. Does anyone seriously believe that Columbia would invite a politician or scholar who denied that American slavery took place, or alleged that its effects on African-Americans was benign or exaggerated? Would Columbia host a Grand Wizard of the KKK who called for African nations to be wiped off the map?
And yet, Ahmadinejad is far worse. Not only has he denied the Holocaust and called repeatedly for Israel's destruction, he has gone beyond words and worked hard to put his plan into action.
Ahmadinejad's Iran is one of the world's foremost sponsors of international terror, especially the Hizbullah posse of killers, and he is now hell-bent on building thermonuclear weapons with which he might just accomplish what Hitler could not: the annihilation of half the world's Jews with the push of a single button.
Ahmadinejad is also directly responsible for the murder of untold numbers of American troops in Iraq, whose killers, according to reams of reports, he is arming and funding.
TWO YEARS ago, Harvard President Lawrence Summers lost his job for insinuating that women were not as intellectually competent in math and science as men. Yet Ahmadinejad presides over a government that brutally suppresses women, inflicting corporal punishment if they so much as go out in the street without a head covering. But none of this has prevented him from being feted by American academia.
When I read about the Holocaust, I often ask myself how the world allowed Hitler to rise to prominence. After all, humanity bore continuous witness to the hatred and venom that spewed from his evil tongue against Jews. Did the nations of the world not isolate him as soon as he began frothing at the mouth?
But in light of Ahmadinejad being invited, on his last visit, to address the Council on Foreign Relations, and to speak at Columbia University on this trip, I now get it. Whatever Hitler said, nobody took him seriously. They treated his rantings as a tasteless form of benign entertainment. They found him darkly amusing. It took the incineration of six million Jews and the destruction of much of Europe to discover that, ultimately, the joke was on us.
IN LIGHT of Columbia's invitation, it is fair to ask what, indeed, Ahmadinejad needs to do in order to be seen in his true colors? Stated differently, what evil must the president of Iran perpetrate in order to incur a much-deserved boycott?
Since calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state is not enough, one would assume that Bollinger would require him to actually kill a few Jews in order for the invitation to be rescinded.
But wait. He's already done that, and not just a few. Via his proxy, Hizbullah, he's killed a whole lot of Jews. So how many is the cutoff before Columbia denies him a platform? Ten thousand dead Jews, 100,000? Six million?
It is time for the world to boldly sound the clarion call of a new generation: No tolerance for intolerance. Any man or woman whose essential message is one of hatred, racism, or anti-Semitism will be isolated, boycotted and closely monitored. The perversion of freedom of speech to allow incitement to violence makes a mockery of all those who laid their lives down to protect this most important of all freedom's principles.
One can only imagine the thinking of America's brave soldiers in Iraq. There they are, dying for the freedom of complete strangers who don't even seem to appreciate their sacrifice. That's bad enough. But then they hear of how their most sworn enemy, the Iranian president who gives guns and explosives to terrorists who blow them up, is going to preach to American university students.
WE ALL remember how, during Vietnam, there was the vast disconnect between pampered students on campus who tried to burn their administration buildings down in protest against a war that poorer Americans who couldn't afford college were forced to fight. It strikes me that this is nearly as bad. Pampered Ivy League students will accord respect to a man who is silently killing American troops, rather than protesting his visit to the UN (which would bring these students real honor).
My father is currently in Iran (yes, you read correctly). He grew up in Isfahan and left in the early 1950s. Now in his seventies, he wanted to see his remaining family and his old boyhood haunts.
As for me, I would love to see the country where my ancestors lived for 2,500 years, from after the destruction of the First Temple. As a lover of antiquity, I would cherish viewing the great sites of one of the world's greatest civilizations.
But not while Ahmadinejad is president. Not while a country once so enlightened is now grown so dark. And not while a people who were once so authentically religious now blaspheme God and their great faith by electing a leader who is an abominable killer.
The writer is currently in Israel filming a new TV show, Shalom in the Holy Land. His upcoming book The Broken American Male is about to be released by St. Martin's Press. www.shmuley.com
Of course, that is nonsense. Does anyone seriously believe that Columbia would invite a politician or scholar who denied that American slavery took place, or alleged that its effects on African-Americans was benign or exaggerated? Would Columbia host a Grand Wizard of the KKK who called for African nations to be wiped off the map?
And yet, Ahmadinejad is far worse. Not only has he denied the Holocaust and called repeatedly for Israel's destruction, he has gone beyond words and worked hard to put his plan into action.
Ahmadinejad's Iran is one of the world's foremost sponsors of international terror, especially the Hizbullah posse of killers, and he is now hell-bent on building thermonuclear weapons with which he might just accomplish what Hitler could not: the annihilation of half the world's Jews with the push of a single button.
Ahmadinejad is also directly responsible for the murder of untold numbers of American troops in Iraq, whose killers, according to reams of reports, he is arming and funding.
TWO YEARS ago, Harvard President Lawrence Summers lost his job for insinuating that women were not as intellectually competent in math and science as men. Yet Ahmadinejad presides over a government that brutally suppresses women, inflicting corporal punishment if they so much as go out in the street without a head covering. But none of this has prevented him from being feted by American academia.
When I read about the Holocaust, I often ask myself how the world allowed Hitler to rise to prominence. After all, humanity bore continuous witness to the hatred and venom that spewed from his evil tongue against Jews. Did the nations of the world not isolate him as soon as he began frothing at the mouth?
But in light of Ahmadinejad being invited, on his last visit, to address the Council on Foreign Relations, and to speak at Columbia University on this trip, I now get it. Whatever Hitler said, nobody took him seriously. They treated his rantings as a tasteless form of benign entertainment. They found him darkly amusing. It took the incineration of six million Jews and the destruction of much of Europe to discover that, ultimately, the joke was on us.
IN LIGHT of Columbia's invitation, it is fair to ask what, indeed, Ahmadinejad needs to do in order to be seen in his true colors? Stated differently, what evil must the president of Iran perpetrate in order to incur a much-deserved boycott?
Since calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state is not enough, one would assume that Bollinger would require him to actually kill a few Jews in order for the invitation to be rescinded.
But wait. He's already done that, and not just a few. Via his proxy, Hizbullah, he's killed a whole lot of Jews. So how many is the cutoff before Columbia denies him a platform? Ten thousand dead Jews, 100,000? Six million?
It is time for the world to boldly sound the clarion call of a new generation: No tolerance for intolerance. Any man or woman whose essential message is one of hatred, racism, or anti-Semitism will be isolated, boycotted and closely monitored. The perversion of freedom of speech to allow incitement to violence makes a mockery of all those who laid their lives down to protect this most important of all freedom's principles.
One can only imagine the thinking of America's brave soldiers in Iraq. There they are, dying for the freedom of complete strangers who don't even seem to appreciate their sacrifice. That's bad enough. But then they hear of how their most sworn enemy, the Iranian president who gives guns and explosives to terrorists who blow them up, is going to preach to American university students.
WE ALL remember how, during Vietnam, there was the vast disconnect between pampered students on campus who tried to burn their administration buildings down in protest against a war that poorer Americans who couldn't afford college were forced to fight. It strikes me that this is nearly as bad. Pampered Ivy League students will accord respect to a man who is silently killing American troops, rather than protesting his visit to the UN (which would bring these students real honor).
My father is currently in Iran (yes, you read correctly). He grew up in Isfahan and left in the early 1950s. Now in his seventies, he wanted to see his remaining family and his old boyhood haunts.
As for me, I would love to see the country where my ancestors lived for 2,500 years, from after the destruction of the First Temple. As a lover of antiquity, I would cherish viewing the great sites of one of the world's greatest civilizations.
But not while Ahmadinejad is president. Not while a country once so enlightened is now grown so dark. And not while a people who were once so authentically religious now blaspheme God and their great faith by electing a leader who is an abominable killer.
The writer is currently in Israel filming a new TV show, Shalom in the Holy Land. His upcoming book The Broken American Male is about to be released by St. Martin's Press. www.shmuley.com
Abu Mazen: Olmert Agreed to Make Jerusalem Arab Capital
The chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), met with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice last week - and told her that Prime Minister Olmert agrees, finally, to turn eastern Jerusalem into the capital of a future state of Palestine. So reports the PA newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadeeda, quoting an unnamed "senior Palestinian source."
Abbas reportedly told Rice that Olmert had agreed to the demand in an Olmert-Abbas meeting a couple of days before. Another Olmert-Abbas meeting is planned for next week, the paper reports.
Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman reports on another PA media article. The Palestinian Press claims that Iran has given the order to Hamas and Islamic Jihad to reduce Kassam rocket attacks against Israel during the month of Ramadan, in order to reduce the suffering of Arab citizens in Gaza during this period. Hamas chief-in-exile Khaled Mashaal reportedly told Iran that though Hamas agrees to hold fire, Islamic Jihad does not.
Meanwhile, plans continue for U.S. President George Bush's international Middle East summit, scheduled for this November in Washington. Secretary Rice announced Sunday night that Syria and Lebanon will also be invited to take part, though they will have to commit themselves to help find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is not happy with the summit. "Without advance preparations and without an objective," he said, "I don't see what can come of it, and I don't see any reason to convene the summit."
High-level meetings of this nature are often accompanied by Arab violence and terrorism, and some fear that such violence this time will only intensify if the summit does not produce results favorable to the Arab side.
Abbas reportedly told Rice that Olmert had agreed to the demand in an Olmert-Abbas meeting a couple of days before. Another Olmert-Abbas meeting is planned for next week, the paper reports.
Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman reports on another PA media article. The Palestinian Press claims that Iran has given the order to Hamas and Islamic Jihad to reduce Kassam rocket attacks against Israel during the month of Ramadan, in order to reduce the suffering of Arab citizens in Gaza during this period. Hamas chief-in-exile Khaled Mashaal reportedly told Iran that though Hamas agrees to hold fire, Islamic Jihad does not.
Meanwhile, plans continue for U.S. President George Bush's international Middle East summit, scheduled for this November in Washington. Secretary Rice announced Sunday night that Syria and Lebanon will also be invited to take part, though they will have to commit themselves to help find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is not happy with the summit. "Without advance preparations and without an objective," he said, "I don't see what can come of it, and I don't see any reason to convene the summit."
High-level meetings of this nature are often accompanied by Arab violence and terrorism, and some fear that such violence this time will only intensify if the summit does not produce results favorable to the Arab side.
Columbia and Ahmadinejad: The New Woodward and Bernstein
This week the once-esteemed Columbia University will host another speaker in its on-going “Conversations with Islamo-Fascists" series.This is the second time that Columbia University has invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on their campus. His first speech was canceled because of security concerns. No, not security concerns over inviting a terrorist to an American university, but concerns that they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the terrorist.
Rest assured that Columbia doesn’t discriminate. In fact, they would also welcome European anti-Semitic mass murderers. Columbia Dean John Coatsworth told Fox News, “If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform in which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States. If he were willing to engage in debate and discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him.”
I can just imagine the hard-hitting questions the faculty will ask Ahmadinejad. I can think of at least one challenge that Columbia Professor Nicholas De Genova may have for him. At a 2003 “teach-in,” De Genova said, “I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus.” For the Columbia students that missed that lecture, De Genova was referring to the 1993 incident in which the bodies of American soldiers were dragged through the streets in Somalia.
De Genova would demand, "President Ahmadinejad, how many Mogadishus would you like to see? Answer the question!" If he says any number less than a million, he’s clearly a tool of Halliburton or Fox News. (I was never that good with following the radical left’s logic.)
It’s actually more likely that De Genova thinks Ahmadinejad is a hero. At the same teach-in, De Genova also said the “only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military.”
In response to criticism for giving Ahmadinejad a forum, Columbia President Lee Bollinger said it was part of “Columbia’s long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate.” The Ahmadinejad defenders tout the importance of free speech. Their defense is completely laughable because college campuses have become institutions with zero respect for free speech. This is like Sarah Brady touting the Second Amendment when she bought her 22-year-old son a rifle for Christmas.
The “free speech” defense doesn’t seem to extend to conservative speakers. In December 2001, three student groups at Columbia organized an independently-funded lecture by author Ann Coulter. I worked with the students in helping them schedule the lecture and secure funding. The day of the lecture, administrators changed the location of the room because of threats from liberal campus protestors. Nearly two-thirds of the audience didn’t find the room until after the lecture was finished. As the question and answer session began, protestors booed and shouted to the point where neither the speaker nor the questioner could hear one another. That’s the Left’s idea of a “dialogue.” It’s not enough that they not listen to opposing views, they must deny others the opportunity, too. Perhaps they should rename the department the Hugo Chavez School of Journalism.
Several weeks after the lecture, the student organizer called me in a panic because Columbia was threatening to withhold his degree because a bill for two security officers assigned to the lecture wasn’t paid. However, several witnesses, including the speaker, noted that there was not a security presence at the lecture. Perhaps campus security couldn’t find the new location either.
As any organization that sponsors conservative speakers on college campuses know, the security scam is a frequent dirty trick used by liberal administrators in order to intimidate students. As with Columbia, they tell the conservative groups that because our speakers are so “controversial,” the students must pay for additional security. Jason Mattera of Young America’s Foundation wrote about one of the most infamous cases of the security scam, “In 2000, when Charlton Heston was requested, student organizers were told they needed to pay for a bomb-sniffing dog, ten police officers, two full-body metal detectors, two metal detector wands, a paramedic team, and four pints of Mr. Heston’s blood type.”
Let’s not forget that the reason some conservative speakers need security is to protect them from violent liberals. In response to both Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza being invited to speak on campus by conservative groups, a writer for The Columbia Spectator wrote, “Crackpots like D'Souza and Coulter should be afraid to open their mouths on a campus with such a proud left-wing history.”
Obviously, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nothing to be afraid of when he speaks at Columbia. Later that day he’ll participate in a videoconference at the National Press Club. In case there was any doubt, he would be safe there, too.
It’s obvious that the Columbia University administrators didn’t bother to listen to Coulter’s December 2001 speech, “Terrorism and Its Left-wing Sympathizers.” They should also brush up on the classics and read Dante’s Inferno. Here's a place to start: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
.
Rest assured that Columbia doesn’t discriminate. In fact, they would also welcome European anti-Semitic mass murderers. Columbia Dean John Coatsworth told Fox News, “If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform in which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States. If he were willing to engage in debate and discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him.”
I can just imagine the hard-hitting questions the faculty will ask Ahmadinejad. I can think of at least one challenge that Columbia Professor Nicholas De Genova may have for him. At a 2003 “teach-in,” De Genova said, “I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus.” For the Columbia students that missed that lecture, De Genova was referring to the 1993 incident in which the bodies of American soldiers were dragged through the streets in Somalia.
De Genova would demand, "President Ahmadinejad, how many Mogadishus would you like to see? Answer the question!" If he says any number less than a million, he’s clearly a tool of Halliburton or Fox News. (I was never that good with following the radical left’s logic.)
It’s actually more likely that De Genova thinks Ahmadinejad is a hero. At the same teach-in, De Genova also said the “only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military.”
In response to criticism for giving Ahmadinejad a forum, Columbia President Lee Bollinger said it was part of “Columbia’s long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate.” The Ahmadinejad defenders tout the importance of free speech. Their defense is completely laughable because college campuses have become institutions with zero respect for free speech. This is like Sarah Brady touting the Second Amendment when she bought her 22-year-old son a rifle for Christmas.
The “free speech” defense doesn’t seem to extend to conservative speakers. In December 2001, three student groups at Columbia organized an independently-funded lecture by author Ann Coulter. I worked with the students in helping them schedule the lecture and secure funding. The day of the lecture, administrators changed the location of the room because of threats from liberal campus protestors. Nearly two-thirds of the audience didn’t find the room until after the lecture was finished. As the question and answer session began, protestors booed and shouted to the point where neither the speaker nor the questioner could hear one another. That’s the Left’s idea of a “dialogue.” It’s not enough that they not listen to opposing views, they must deny others the opportunity, too. Perhaps they should rename the department the Hugo Chavez School of Journalism.
Several weeks after the lecture, the student organizer called me in a panic because Columbia was threatening to withhold his degree because a bill for two security officers assigned to the lecture wasn’t paid. However, several witnesses, including the speaker, noted that there was not a security presence at the lecture. Perhaps campus security couldn’t find the new location either.
As any organization that sponsors conservative speakers on college campuses know, the security scam is a frequent dirty trick used by liberal administrators in order to intimidate students. As with Columbia, they tell the conservative groups that because our speakers are so “controversial,” the students must pay for additional security. Jason Mattera of Young America’s Foundation wrote about one of the most infamous cases of the security scam, “In 2000, when Charlton Heston was requested, student organizers were told they needed to pay for a bomb-sniffing dog, ten police officers, two full-body metal detectors, two metal detector wands, a paramedic team, and four pints of Mr. Heston’s blood type.”
Let’s not forget that the reason some conservative speakers need security is to protect them from violent liberals. In response to both Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza being invited to speak on campus by conservative groups, a writer for The Columbia Spectator wrote, “Crackpots like D'Souza and Coulter should be afraid to open their mouths on a campus with such a proud left-wing history.”
Obviously, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nothing to be afraid of when he speaks at Columbia. Later that day he’ll participate in a videoconference at the National Press Club. In case there was any doubt, he would be safe there, too.
It’s obvious that the Columbia University administrators didn’t bother to listen to Coulter’s December 2001 speech, “Terrorism and Its Left-wing Sympathizers.” They should also brush up on the classics and read Dante’s Inferno. Here's a place to start: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”
.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Arab propaganda-this is why they believe such nonsense
The following is from an Arab media-we share it to demonstrate the inflammatory language used (tactic) and the intentionally incorrect data points (lies) the Arab media uses to delegitimize the country of Israel. Please pay attention and do not be fooled.
Ehud Barak, the certified Zionist war criminal, is threatening to turn Gaza Strip into a full-fledged concentration camp.
Last week, the Israeli war minister who is believed to be responsible for the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children during the first few months of the Aqsa Intifada in 2000 and 2001, disclosed a new policy toward the Gaza Strip resembling very much the manner in which the Nazi authorities treated Jews in the course of World War II.
Barak said he would make sure that very little food and medicine will be allowed to reach Gaza. He also said that Israel would cut off electricity supplies to the hermetically blockaded costal enclave which already looks very much like a concentration camp.
For those who don’t know, Barak has a long history of criminality and murderousness toward the Palestinians. In 1998, when he wanted to impress the Israeli public to elect him as Prime Minister, he had to remind them of the most graphic details of one of his murderous missions in Beirut.
The ghoulish tactic worked, and the Israeli Jewish public gave him a certificate of good conduct.
Now Barak is planning to become Prime Minister once again, and his way to expedite and accelerate his plans in this regard is by murdering Palestinian children nearly on a daily basis.
On Thursday, 20 September, the Israeli occupation army murdered three additional Palestinian minors in the Gaza Strip. One of the boys was crushed to death by an American-supplied bulldozer. Graphic pictures of the badly-mutilated boy were shown all over the world, while Israeli boys and girls on talkback forums were busy congratulating themselves “on teaching Palestinians a lesson.!”
More than 20 Palestinian civilians, including 9 children have been murdered by the Israeli occupation army so far this month.
The Israeli army acknowledges rather reluctantly that civilians are killed when tanks fire their heavy artillery shells onto crowded Palestinian neighborhoods.
And every time Palestinian civilians are murdered, which happens routinely, the Israeli government says “sorry,” claiming that the victims are not targeted deliberately and the victims are merely “collateral damage.”
Well, one doesn’t have to be a great military expert to understand that when tanks fire their heavy shells onto crowded civilian neighborhoods, children and civilians will be killed and maimed.
In the final analysis, killing knowingly is killing deliberately, and when the killing happens on a daily basis and the number of civilian victims is in the hundreds or thousands, intent becomes irrelevant.
It is widely understood that one of the main reasons for the persistent and unmitigated pornographic killings of helpless and unprotected Palestinians is the disgraceful silence of the international community, especially the United States , toward Israeli criminality.
This is not a new behavior. The US always looked the other way whenever Israel indulged in murdering civilians, even when there is no question as to the deliberate targeting of civilians, as was the case during Israel’s genocidal campaign against Lebanon in 2006, as testified by Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations.
Of course, a country that killed or caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians under the false rubric of ridding Iraq of its non-existent weapons of mass destruction can’t be expected to behave morally.
After all, the last thing racist and Godless Ashkenazi Jews who hold the Bush administration by the throat, is matters of justice and morality.
But the world is not only America and Israel . There are millions of other peoples around the world who don’t accept America’s Nazi-like approach toward international politics, which is based on unilateralism, hegemony and coercion.
Today, the creeping Jewish genocide in Palestine takes many forms. These include starving millions of innocent Palestinians, barring Palestinians from accessing food and work, mainly by transforming their population centers into detention camps and constantly killing Palestinians, including children.
True, the scope of the daily killings has not reached the Auschwitz levels. But the fact that it hasn’t is not attributed to Zionist morality or magnanimity but rather to concerns about possible reactions by the international public opinions.
This means that Israel, a country that has much in common with Nazi Germany, wouldn’t hesitate to adopt a more daring approach toward the Palestinians if the world’s callous indifference toward the Palestinian plight continued.
In short, the world has to make its stand clear. Is it willing to allow Israel to commit a holocaust by killing and/or causing the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians?
Does the world believe that a holocaust against the Palestinians will be kosher just because Jews, not Germans, happen to be the perpetrators?
In the early 1940s, the world, or much of it, stood silent as the Gestapo, SS and the Wehrmacht were exterminating innocent people, Jews and non-Jews in order to fulfil the nefarious concept of “the Master race.”
Now, the world is passively watching Israel’s creeping genocide against the Palestinians, all in the name of Jewish nationalism and “the chosen people.”
Has humanity reverted to the age of cannibalism?
Comment: The bold words indicate the use of inflammatory language. The writer invokes terms used to describe actions against Jews and Israel but now turns them onto Israel and Jews. The author lies about "facts". Notice how the author blames even Americans, blames the outside world for the Palestinian problems-total ABDICATION of responsibility. This has been the tactic used for years to both invalidate Israel and Jews humanity and right to exist as well as to give the Palestinians a common enemy. The common enemy excuses their leaders from any responsibility for their current conditions and directs their anger to the Jews-if this was not so absurd, so arrogant, so untrue, it would be considered a wonderful technique to use and thus admired. I wish people would begin to read Arab words carefully and begin to understand the misdirection being delivered-time and again. Then I wish that these same people start calling the Arab media on their nonsense and stand up for honesty in reporting.
Ehud Barak, the certified Zionist war criminal, is threatening to turn Gaza Strip into a full-fledged concentration camp.
Last week, the Israeli war minister who is believed to be responsible for the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children during the first few months of the Aqsa Intifada in 2000 and 2001, disclosed a new policy toward the Gaza Strip resembling very much the manner in which the Nazi authorities treated Jews in the course of World War II.
Barak said he would make sure that very little food and medicine will be allowed to reach Gaza. He also said that Israel would cut off electricity supplies to the hermetically blockaded costal enclave which already looks very much like a concentration camp.
For those who don’t know, Barak has a long history of criminality and murderousness toward the Palestinians. In 1998, when he wanted to impress the Israeli public to elect him as Prime Minister, he had to remind them of the most graphic details of one of his murderous missions in Beirut.
The ghoulish tactic worked, and the Israeli Jewish public gave him a certificate of good conduct.
Now Barak is planning to become Prime Minister once again, and his way to expedite and accelerate his plans in this regard is by murdering Palestinian children nearly on a daily basis.
On Thursday, 20 September, the Israeli occupation army murdered three additional Palestinian minors in the Gaza Strip. One of the boys was crushed to death by an American-supplied bulldozer. Graphic pictures of the badly-mutilated boy were shown all over the world, while Israeli boys and girls on talkback forums were busy congratulating themselves “on teaching Palestinians a lesson.!”
More than 20 Palestinian civilians, including 9 children have been murdered by the Israeli occupation army so far this month.
The Israeli army acknowledges rather reluctantly that civilians are killed when tanks fire their heavy artillery shells onto crowded Palestinian neighborhoods.
And every time Palestinian civilians are murdered, which happens routinely, the Israeli government says “sorry,” claiming that the victims are not targeted deliberately and the victims are merely “collateral damage.”
Well, one doesn’t have to be a great military expert to understand that when tanks fire their heavy shells onto crowded civilian neighborhoods, children and civilians will be killed and maimed.
In the final analysis, killing knowingly is killing deliberately, and when the killing happens on a daily basis and the number of civilian victims is in the hundreds or thousands, intent becomes irrelevant.
It is widely understood that one of the main reasons for the persistent and unmitigated pornographic killings of helpless and unprotected Palestinians is the disgraceful silence of the international community, especially the United States , toward Israeli criminality.
This is not a new behavior. The US always looked the other way whenever Israel indulged in murdering civilians, even when there is no question as to the deliberate targeting of civilians, as was the case during Israel’s genocidal campaign against Lebanon in 2006, as testified by Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations.
Of course, a country that killed or caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians under the false rubric of ridding Iraq of its non-existent weapons of mass destruction can’t be expected to behave morally.
After all, the last thing racist and Godless Ashkenazi Jews who hold the Bush administration by the throat, is matters of justice and morality.
But the world is not only America and Israel . There are millions of other peoples around the world who don’t accept America’s Nazi-like approach toward international politics, which is based on unilateralism, hegemony and coercion.
Today, the creeping Jewish genocide in Palestine takes many forms. These include starving millions of innocent Palestinians, barring Palestinians from accessing food and work, mainly by transforming their population centers into detention camps and constantly killing Palestinians, including children.
True, the scope of the daily killings has not reached the Auschwitz levels. But the fact that it hasn’t is not attributed to Zionist morality or magnanimity but rather to concerns about possible reactions by the international public opinions.
This means that Israel, a country that has much in common with Nazi Germany, wouldn’t hesitate to adopt a more daring approach toward the Palestinians if the world’s callous indifference toward the Palestinian plight continued.
In short, the world has to make its stand clear. Is it willing to allow Israel to commit a holocaust by killing and/or causing the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians?
Does the world believe that a holocaust against the Palestinians will be kosher just because Jews, not Germans, happen to be the perpetrators?
In the early 1940s, the world, or much of it, stood silent as the Gestapo, SS and the Wehrmacht were exterminating innocent people, Jews and non-Jews in order to fulfil the nefarious concept of “the Master race.”
Now, the world is passively watching Israel’s creeping genocide against the Palestinians, all in the name of Jewish nationalism and “the chosen people.”
Has humanity reverted to the age of cannibalism?
Comment: The bold words indicate the use of inflammatory language. The writer invokes terms used to describe actions against Jews and Israel but now turns them onto Israel and Jews. The author lies about "facts". Notice how the author blames even Americans, blames the outside world for the Palestinian problems-total ABDICATION of responsibility. This has been the tactic used for years to both invalidate Israel and Jews humanity and right to exist as well as to give the Palestinians a common enemy. The common enemy excuses their leaders from any responsibility for their current conditions and directs their anger to the Jews-if this was not so absurd, so arrogant, so untrue, it would be considered a wonderful technique to use and thus admired. I wish people would begin to read Arab words carefully and begin to understand the misdirection being delivered-time and again. Then I wish that these same people start calling the Arab media on their nonsense and stand up for honesty in reporting.
EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE
HERE IS A GERMAN EDITORIAL
==================================
If any of you still feel that this war on terror is a mistake, here is an
opinion from an unexpected source. It's fascinating that this should come
out of Europe. Mathias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German publisher
Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT, Germany's
largest daily paper, against the timid reaction of Europe in the face of the
Islamic threat.
A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your family
name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because
it's so terribly true.
Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and
France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they
noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.
Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then
East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for decades,
inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the
ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.
Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even
though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated
and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans
had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our
work for us.
Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European Appeasement,
camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide
bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.
Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly
500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by
the self-righteousness of the peace movement, has the gall to issue bad
grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of
the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in
the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program.
And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How
is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic Fundamentalists
in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim
Holiday" in Germany?
I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our
(German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people,
actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will
somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists. One cannot help
but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the laughable treaty signed
by Adolph Hitler and declaring European "Peace in our time".
What else has to happen before the European public and its political
leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially
perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims,
focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and
intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.
It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great
military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy
that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually
spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be
taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness. Only two recent American
Presidents had the courage needed for Anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.
His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the
truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half
of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And
Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral
conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against Democracy. His
place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have
passed.
In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the
multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and
being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true
great powers, America and China.
On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those
"arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even
(Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why?
Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so materialistic, so
devoid of a moral compass.
For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of
additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe , Bush realizes what
is at stake - literally everything.
While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because they
seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social Welfare
systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather discuss
reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4 weeks of paid
vacation... Or listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to
terrorists. To understand and forgive".
These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands,
frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber
breaking into a neighbor's house.
Appeasement?
Europe, thy name is Cowardice.
---God Bless America,
==================================
If any of you still feel that this war on terror is a mistake, here is an
opinion from an unexpected source. It's fascinating that this should come
out of Europe. Mathias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German publisher
Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT, Germany's
largest daily paper, against the timid reaction of Europe in the face of the
Islamic threat.
A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your family
name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because
it's so terribly true.
Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and
France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they
noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.
Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then
East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for decades,
inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the
ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.
Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even
though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated
and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans
had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our
work for us.
Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European Appeasement,
camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide
bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.
Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly
500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by
the self-righteousness of the peace movement, has the gall to issue bad
grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of
the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in
the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program.
And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How
is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic Fundamentalists
in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim
Holiday" in Germany?
I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our
(German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people,
actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will
somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists. One cannot help
but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the laughable treaty signed
by Adolph Hitler and declaring European "Peace in our time".
What else has to happen before the European public and its political
leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially
perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims,
focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and
intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.
It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great
military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy
that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually
spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be
taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness. Only two recent American
Presidents had the courage needed for Anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.
His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the
truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half
of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And
Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral
conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against Democracy. His
place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have
passed.
In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the
multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and
being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true
great powers, America and China.
On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those
"arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even
(Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why?
Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so materialistic, so
devoid of a moral compass.
For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of
additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe , Bush realizes what
is at stake - literally everything.
While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because they
seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social Welfare
systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather discuss
reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4 weeks of paid
vacation... Or listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to
terrorists. To understand and forgive".
These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands,
frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber
breaking into a neighbor's house.
Appeasement?
Europe, thy name is Cowardice.
---God Bless America,
Condoleeza Rice and the Conference of Doom
Intelligence sources have issued “eight specific terror warnings and dozens of general warnings.” The threat is emanating mainly from towns like Jenin, Nablus, and Hebron in the West Bank, which is under at least the nominal rule of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. For the Jewish holiday season stretching from Rosh Hashanah (this year, September 13) to Simchat Torah (October 5), Israel’s security forces have been put on the highest alert level against terrorist attacks. Intelligence sources have issued “eight specific terror warnings and dozens of general warnings.” The threat is emanating mainly from towns like Jenin, Nablus, and Hebron in the West Bank, which is under at least the nominal rule of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Amid a welter of other incidents including nonstop rocket and mortar fire from Gaza, last Friday terrorists shot at an Israeli civilian vehicle in the West Bank and wounded two. It was the “military wing” of Abbas’s Fatah movement that openly took credit.
This week an extended Israel Defense Forces antiterror operation in Nablus, in which one soldier was killed, led to the arrest of a suicide-bombing cell and of two more Fatah terrorists.
Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice came to Israel for talks on the peace conference supposed to be held in November between Israel, the PA, and as many Arab states as can be cajoled into attending. In his speech on the Middle East last July 16, President Bush called on the Arab states to “end[. . .] the fiction that Israel does not exist, stop[…] the incitement of hatred in their official media, and send[…] cabinet-level visitors to Israel.”
Bush and Rice know that these words have had no effect and none of those things have been done. They also know that Abbas and his fellow alleged moderate, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, have done absolutely nothing to end genocidal anti-Israeli indoctrination in the PA, where anti-Israeli (and -Jewish) hatred runs so high that any Israeli who strays into a PA town is likely to be dragged out of his car and lynched by a mob.
But none of this has stopped Rice from continuing to try and arrange the November conference and get as many Arab parties as possible to come to it. For his part, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert now says he wants to issue only a “joint declaration” with Abbas instead of an “agreement of principles” in which Israel would agree to commit suicide by handing almost all of the West Bank, plus parts of pre-1967 Israel, to the fanatically jihadist PA.
In response to Olmert’s waffling, the PA has, not surprisingly, started to issue threats. Earlier in the week the left-wing Israeli daily Haaretz “quoted associates of Abbas” as telling the paper that he is planning not to attend the conference “unless Israel agrees to reach an agreement with the Palestinians there.” Otherwise, say these associates, the summit could “prove dangerous.”
Abbas’s office released a statement that “all issues of the permanent agreement—including jurisdiction of holy places, permanent borders and the question of Palestinian refugees—must be addressed in the agreement” and demanding a “timetable and mechanisms . . . for . . . implementation.”
An Abbas “senior adviser” told Haaretz that “We can live without the summit, but if it does take place and fail by producing nothing more than a joint statement, then it could prove to be a danger for the whole region.”
Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal added, in a briefing for reporters in Jeddah, that “If this conference will not discuss serious topics aimed to resolve the conflict . . . and oblige Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, this conference will not have any objective and will turn into protracted negotiations.” Egypt is also said to be reluctant to attend.
Not surprisingly, then, Israel and the Palestinians (backed by Arab states) view the conference differently. Olmert—whether merely because of pressure from the two most right-wing parties in his coalition, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas, or some awareness of his own of the actual disposition of the PA and the Arab states toward Israel—now seems to prefer a relatively vague “declaration” in which Israel would likely make major, reckless concessions but still short of outright committing to suicide. For the PA this is unsatisfactory and “dangerous”—by which they mean two things.
One is that a summit perceived as too nonchalant toward Israel would vindicate and strengthen Hamas, rival of the official West Bank PA. But the PA officials who spoke of “danger” to Haaretz, knowing they would be prominently quoted on both its Hebrew and English websites, were also using sheer intimidation by hinting at intensified violence.
Such bullying—a kind of verbal counterpoint to the already-simmering physical terrorism—is aimed at exploiting the latest U.S.-driven “peacemaking” to push Israel further toward submitting to the PA agenda. That agenda consists of: displacing Israel from the holiest Jewish sites; shrinking it back down to indefensible borders; and achieving its demographic dissolution by flooding it with “refugees.”
Now Abbas is further demanding, as a precondition for PA attendance, the release of hundreds more terrorists from Israeli prisons and the removal of dozens of security checkpoints in the West Bank. Olmert already plans to comply with the prisoner release. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has already told Rice that Israel will indeed be removing some of the checkpoints despite their key role in preventing West Bank terrorists from reaching Israeli cities.
If it sounds like playing with Israeli lives again, it is. It is not clear what U.S. interest is served by pursuing a fictitious peace process whose only practical outcome is to weaken and endanger a Western outpost surrounded by jihad threats. Ms. Rice appears fatally unable or unwilling to grasp that the PA is a violent regime and society that could not be less interested in peace.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
Amid a welter of other incidents including nonstop rocket and mortar fire from Gaza, last Friday terrorists shot at an Israeli civilian vehicle in the West Bank and wounded two. It was the “military wing” of Abbas’s Fatah movement that openly took credit.
This week an extended Israel Defense Forces antiterror operation in Nablus, in which one soldier was killed, led to the arrest of a suicide-bombing cell and of two more Fatah terrorists.
Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice came to Israel for talks on the peace conference supposed to be held in November between Israel, the PA, and as many Arab states as can be cajoled into attending. In his speech on the Middle East last July 16, President Bush called on the Arab states to “end[. . .] the fiction that Israel does not exist, stop[…] the incitement of hatred in their official media, and send[…] cabinet-level visitors to Israel.”
Bush and Rice know that these words have had no effect and none of those things have been done. They also know that Abbas and his fellow alleged moderate, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, have done absolutely nothing to end genocidal anti-Israeli indoctrination in the PA, where anti-Israeli (and -Jewish) hatred runs so high that any Israeli who strays into a PA town is likely to be dragged out of his car and lynched by a mob.
But none of this has stopped Rice from continuing to try and arrange the November conference and get as many Arab parties as possible to come to it. For his part, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert now says he wants to issue only a “joint declaration” with Abbas instead of an “agreement of principles” in which Israel would agree to commit suicide by handing almost all of the West Bank, plus parts of pre-1967 Israel, to the fanatically jihadist PA.
In response to Olmert’s waffling, the PA has, not surprisingly, started to issue threats. Earlier in the week the left-wing Israeli daily Haaretz “quoted associates of Abbas” as telling the paper that he is planning not to attend the conference “unless Israel agrees to reach an agreement with the Palestinians there.” Otherwise, say these associates, the summit could “prove dangerous.”
Abbas’s office released a statement that “all issues of the permanent agreement—including jurisdiction of holy places, permanent borders and the question of Palestinian refugees—must be addressed in the agreement” and demanding a “timetable and mechanisms . . . for . . . implementation.”
An Abbas “senior adviser” told Haaretz that “We can live without the summit, but if it does take place and fail by producing nothing more than a joint statement, then it could prove to be a danger for the whole region.”
Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal added, in a briefing for reporters in Jeddah, that “If this conference will not discuss serious topics aimed to resolve the conflict . . . and oblige Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, this conference will not have any objective and will turn into protracted negotiations.” Egypt is also said to be reluctant to attend.
Not surprisingly, then, Israel and the Palestinians (backed by Arab states) view the conference differently. Olmert—whether merely because of pressure from the two most right-wing parties in his coalition, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas, or some awareness of his own of the actual disposition of the PA and the Arab states toward Israel—now seems to prefer a relatively vague “declaration” in which Israel would likely make major, reckless concessions but still short of outright committing to suicide. For the PA this is unsatisfactory and “dangerous”—by which they mean two things.
One is that a summit perceived as too nonchalant toward Israel would vindicate and strengthen Hamas, rival of the official West Bank PA. But the PA officials who spoke of “danger” to Haaretz, knowing they would be prominently quoted on both its Hebrew and English websites, were also using sheer intimidation by hinting at intensified violence.
Such bullying—a kind of verbal counterpoint to the already-simmering physical terrorism—is aimed at exploiting the latest U.S.-driven “peacemaking” to push Israel further toward submitting to the PA agenda. That agenda consists of: displacing Israel from the holiest Jewish sites; shrinking it back down to indefensible borders; and achieving its demographic dissolution by flooding it with “refugees.”
Now Abbas is further demanding, as a precondition for PA attendance, the release of hundreds more terrorists from Israeli prisons and the removal of dozens of security checkpoints in the West Bank. Olmert already plans to comply with the prisoner release. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has already told Rice that Israel will indeed be removing some of the checkpoints despite their key role in preventing West Bank terrorists from reaching Israeli cities.
If it sounds like playing with Israeli lives again, it is. It is not clear what U.S. interest is served by pursuing a fictitious peace process whose only practical outcome is to weaken and endanger a Western outpost surrounded by jihad threats. Ms. Rice appears fatally unable or unwilling to grasp that the PA is a violent regime and society that could not be less interested in peace.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/. He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
CLINGING TO ILLUSIONS FOR DEAR LIFE
Phyllis Chesler
Let me state what is painfully obvious. Despite our most hopeful illusions, people are not really "good" nor do they really practice "peace". While power corrupts, absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely and there is no safe place, neither high nor low, for the most vulnerable of our citizens.
The world is always at war. People fight, it's what we do. We quarrel, often in deadly ways with other family members and we fight bitter, brutal battles with anyone who is "different" in terms of gender, class, race, ethnicity, tribe, religion, and ideology. The planet is perpetually plagued by civil and national wars. Not to be outdone, persecuted peoples internalize the prejudice and hatred leveled against them and unleash it against others like themselves.
Despite what has been learned about the European Holocaust, genocide has since become commonplace; it advances with arrogant impunity and is neither stopped nor punished by the "international community." (Think Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan). Rape and repeated, public gang-rape have become calculated weapons of war. It is no longer (merely) a spoil of war to which drunken, woman-hating soldiers feel entitled. An era of gender-cleansing has begun.
Even so: World wars, especially those which may involve nuclear weapons, outclass (so to speak) this chronic buzz of destruction.
We are poised on the precipice of just such a moment. Yeats's “rough beast" is Islamic fundamentalism and it, literally, "slouches toward Bethlehem," intent on destroying Judeo-Christian civilization.
Whether we conceive of this moment as World War Three or Four matters little. I happen to think that the Cold War never really ended since a Palestinianized Marxist-Leninism utterly hijacked the western campuses and media where it now functions as a fifth column arguing the barbarian's case. On the other hand, Norman Podhoretz is right: This is a new enemy, one who combines elements of fascism and totalitarianism but in fundamentalist religious form.
The Middle East and the Muslim world has, by and large, been judenrein for quite some time. It has also become increasingly Islamified. My friend, the Egyptian dissident, Tarek Heggy, recently wrote me about his recent visit to his hometown of Port Said. Now, he said, "women are everywhere sheeted and hate blares from every mosque around the clock." Gone are the Jews and the Christians and the non-religious Muslims; gone is the cosmopolitan splendor of the colonial-era Islamic East.
The Taliban (and Taliban-like ways) continue to plague the girls and women of Afghanistan, where I once lived. (By the way: My colleague, Rosanne Klass, has just re-issued her wonderful and beautifully written Memoir of her time in Afghanistan in the 1950s. It is titled "Land of the High Flags. Afghanistan When the Going Was Good" and I strongly recommend it. While Klass does not focus on Afghan women, she nevertheless paints a charming portrait of a Muslim country in a softer, gentler, and more hopeful time.)
Al-Qaeda continues to morph and everywhere remains at large--although the battle is joined in Iraq. Bin Laden continues his career in global video-production from some cave or rat-hole in No Man's Land along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Iran continues to call for the extermination of the Jewish state--and its President is about to be welcomed by the United Nations in New York City.
The Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, against whom Al Qaeda has issued a death warrant, has just been informed by his government that he is no longer safe in his home or his country. Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to flee Holland; the late, great Oriana Fallaci fled her native Italy; I have dear friends who are either trying to leave England, France, and Germany or who are documenting the mounting tide of Jew- and America-hatred among European and immigrant Muslims. (At the same time, I know many Muslim dissidents who have found safer refuge in Europe and many Muslim feminists who are trying to rescue women from being battered, mutilated, and murdered on European soil).
Still, both America and Israel remain the world's last best hope. American forces continue to engage the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq. On September 6, 2007 Israel apparently bombed nuclear weapons in Syria that were acquired from North Korea or Iran. For once, the Israelis are neither denying nor admitting anything--nor are the Syrians.
More: As former Ambassador Yoram Ettinger pointed out in a lecture at my synagogue, Orach Chayim, during this last, awful period of permanent Intifada against Israel, Israel's economy surged forward, Warren Buffett did not cancel his enormous investments in Israel just before the Lebanon war last summer--when he could have done so. Also, the demographic statistics have been greatly misunderstood. Based on Ettinger's research, "the Jewish-Arab fertility gap has been reduced to one child (down from a 6 children gap in the 1960s)!"
Like Nobel Laureate, Professor Aumann, (about whom I have written before), Ambassador Ettinger is also urging that we look at the larger picture, examine the infra-structure, be prepared for the long haul.
Still, I remain distressed, uneasy, not only because the lives of both soldiers and civilians are being lost but because so many educated Americans continue to deny that we are really at war and that fundamentalist Islam (not merely terrorism) remains our Number One clear and present danger. Too many Americans are clinging to their illusions for dear life.
Fall has come in early this year and it is a soft and beautiful one here in New York City. Construction is booming, huge, new skyscrapers appear almost overnight, the long-awaited Second Avenue subway line is being dug out of the concrete. New Yorkers seem to be enjoying the weather, lingering at outdoor cafes, walking down streets and through parks, enjoying all the rich cultural offerings that characterize this great city which is also the capital of the world.
We can lose this in a second. And, we can also lose it slowly, in many seconds, if we do not fight back and fight to win. Indeed, we must win or we are doomed. As Edmund Burke has pointed out, evil inevitably triumphs when good people do nothing. We must all do something--actually, everything--if we are to save our way of life and our very lives.
http://76.12.0.56/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=CLINGING-TO-ILLUSIONS-FOR-DEAR-LIFE.html&Itemid=147
Let me state what is painfully obvious. Despite our most hopeful illusions, people are not really "good" nor do they really practice "peace". While power corrupts, absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely and there is no safe place, neither high nor low, for the most vulnerable of our citizens.
The world is always at war. People fight, it's what we do. We quarrel, often in deadly ways with other family members and we fight bitter, brutal battles with anyone who is "different" in terms of gender, class, race, ethnicity, tribe, religion, and ideology. The planet is perpetually plagued by civil and national wars. Not to be outdone, persecuted peoples internalize the prejudice and hatred leveled against them and unleash it against others like themselves.
Despite what has been learned about the European Holocaust, genocide has since become commonplace; it advances with arrogant impunity and is neither stopped nor punished by the "international community." (Think Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan). Rape and repeated, public gang-rape have become calculated weapons of war. It is no longer (merely) a spoil of war to which drunken, woman-hating soldiers feel entitled. An era of gender-cleansing has begun.
Even so: World wars, especially those which may involve nuclear weapons, outclass (so to speak) this chronic buzz of destruction.
We are poised on the precipice of just such a moment. Yeats's “rough beast" is Islamic fundamentalism and it, literally, "slouches toward Bethlehem," intent on destroying Judeo-Christian civilization.
Whether we conceive of this moment as World War Three or Four matters little. I happen to think that the Cold War never really ended since a Palestinianized Marxist-Leninism utterly hijacked the western campuses and media where it now functions as a fifth column arguing the barbarian's case. On the other hand, Norman Podhoretz is right: This is a new enemy, one who combines elements of fascism and totalitarianism but in fundamentalist religious form.
The Middle East and the Muslim world has, by and large, been judenrein for quite some time. It has also become increasingly Islamified. My friend, the Egyptian dissident, Tarek Heggy, recently wrote me about his recent visit to his hometown of Port Said. Now, he said, "women are everywhere sheeted and hate blares from every mosque around the clock." Gone are the Jews and the Christians and the non-religious Muslims; gone is the cosmopolitan splendor of the colonial-era Islamic East.
The Taliban (and Taliban-like ways) continue to plague the girls and women of Afghanistan, where I once lived. (By the way: My colleague, Rosanne Klass, has just re-issued her wonderful and beautifully written Memoir of her time in Afghanistan in the 1950s. It is titled "Land of the High Flags. Afghanistan When the Going Was Good" and I strongly recommend it. While Klass does not focus on Afghan women, she nevertheless paints a charming portrait of a Muslim country in a softer, gentler, and more hopeful time.)
Al-Qaeda continues to morph and everywhere remains at large--although the battle is joined in Iraq. Bin Laden continues his career in global video-production from some cave or rat-hole in No Man's Land along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Iran continues to call for the extermination of the Jewish state--and its President is about to be welcomed by the United Nations in New York City.
The Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, against whom Al Qaeda has issued a death warrant, has just been informed by his government that he is no longer safe in his home or his country. Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to flee Holland; the late, great Oriana Fallaci fled her native Italy; I have dear friends who are either trying to leave England, France, and Germany or who are documenting the mounting tide of Jew- and America-hatred among European and immigrant Muslims. (At the same time, I know many Muslim dissidents who have found safer refuge in Europe and many Muslim feminists who are trying to rescue women from being battered, mutilated, and murdered on European soil).
Still, both America and Israel remain the world's last best hope. American forces continue to engage the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq. On September 6, 2007 Israel apparently bombed nuclear weapons in Syria that were acquired from North Korea or Iran. For once, the Israelis are neither denying nor admitting anything--nor are the Syrians.
More: As former Ambassador Yoram Ettinger pointed out in a lecture at my synagogue, Orach Chayim, during this last, awful period of permanent Intifada against Israel, Israel's economy surged forward, Warren Buffett did not cancel his enormous investments in Israel just before the Lebanon war last summer--when he could have done so. Also, the demographic statistics have been greatly misunderstood. Based on Ettinger's research, "the Jewish-Arab fertility gap has been reduced to one child (down from a 6 children gap in the 1960s)!"
Like Nobel Laureate, Professor Aumann, (about whom I have written before), Ambassador Ettinger is also urging that we look at the larger picture, examine the infra-structure, be prepared for the long haul.
Still, I remain distressed, uneasy, not only because the lives of both soldiers and civilians are being lost but because so many educated Americans continue to deny that we are really at war and that fundamentalist Islam (not merely terrorism) remains our Number One clear and present danger. Too many Americans are clinging to their illusions for dear life.
Fall has come in early this year and it is a soft and beautiful one here in New York City. Construction is booming, huge, new skyscrapers appear almost overnight, the long-awaited Second Avenue subway line is being dug out of the concrete. New Yorkers seem to be enjoying the weather, lingering at outdoor cafes, walking down streets and through parks, enjoying all the rich cultural offerings that characterize this great city which is also the capital of the world.
We can lose this in a second. And, we can also lose it slowly, in many seconds, if we do not fight back and fight to win. Indeed, we must win or we are doomed. As Edmund Burke has pointed out, evil inevitably triumphs when good people do nothing. We must all do something--actually, everything--if we are to save our way of life and our very lives.
http://76.12.0.56/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=CLINGING-TO-ILLUSIONS-FOR-DEAR-LIFE.html&Itemid=147
Confronting the Saudi lobby
The Walt and Mearsheimer book accusing Israel and its allies of dominating American foreign policy is out. Three developments so far:
First, the reviews aren’t good. The New York Times, for example, derided the book as a “prosecutorial brief.” On the other hand, academics who like the book will assign it for their courses, doing long-term damage to the minds of American students.
Second, thanks to a slip of banana peel proportions, which was caught by CAMERA’s brilliant analyst, Alex Safian, it’s clear the dynamic duo doesn’t believe a major part of their own thesis. While the book says Israel pressured the U.S. into war with Iraq, Mearsheimer instead curiously told an interviewer the truth: When it learned the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq, Israel argued that the Iranian situation was more dangerous and should be addressed first. So Mearsheimer knows his book is wrong. Israel did not push for, much less author, the Iraq war.
Third, and probably most important, Walt and Mearsheimer’s obsessive focus on Israel is causing critics from the right and the left to look carefully at the 800 pound gorilla of American Middle East policy, Saudi Arabia. With billions to burn, Saudi’s impact on the rest of the planet is well understood. Madrassas, Islamic “universities,” preachers and imams by the score have, among other things, moved Islam profoundly toward xenophobic and violent Wahhabi ideology. Yet most of the U.S. government carefully averts its eyes. Why?
Because Saudi Arabia buys influence and former American officials peddle it. These include former ambassadors to Saudi and Gulf states like James Akins, Edward Walker and John West, former CIA station chiefs and analysts like Raymond Close, and former congressmen like Paul Findley. They’re all on the Saudi payroll – either directly through business deals or indirectly through Saudi support for their think tanks and foundations.
In a masterful Wall Street Journal piece, Jeff Robbins, Mintz Levin lawyer and – full disclosure – attorney for the David Project, recounts how after Sept. 11, 2001, as president of the Boston chapter of the World Affairs Council, he was persuaded by a defense contractor to arrange a forum for Boston influentials to hear the Saudis expound on their enlightened, tolerant country. Multiply this by every major city and media market, factor in the PR firms and lobbyists, the defense contractors, the public officials and academics – Saudi recently gave Georgetown and Harvard $20 million each – and you begin to get the sense of the scale and dollars behind the Saudi lobby. We’re looking at tens if not hundreds of millions in the U.S. alone. But, Robbins noted, to Israel’s critics, there is “nothing wrong” in any of this.
Walt and Mearsheimer deny being anti-Semites. Yet, Robbins went on, since they are “content with foreign oil money being used to advance a pro-Arab position on the Middle East, but devote themselves to criticizing American Jews for lobbying their public officials in support of the Jewish state, one may legitimately wonder what phrase would apply.”
First, the reviews aren’t good. The New York Times, for example, derided the book as a “prosecutorial brief.” On the other hand, academics who like the book will assign it for their courses, doing long-term damage to the minds of American students.
Second, thanks to a slip of banana peel proportions, which was caught by CAMERA’s brilliant analyst, Alex Safian, it’s clear the dynamic duo doesn’t believe a major part of their own thesis. While the book says Israel pressured the U.S. into war with Iraq, Mearsheimer instead curiously told an interviewer the truth: When it learned the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq, Israel argued that the Iranian situation was more dangerous and should be addressed first. So Mearsheimer knows his book is wrong. Israel did not push for, much less author, the Iraq war.
Third, and probably most important, Walt and Mearsheimer’s obsessive focus on Israel is causing critics from the right and the left to look carefully at the 800 pound gorilla of American Middle East policy, Saudi Arabia. With billions to burn, Saudi’s impact on the rest of the planet is well understood. Madrassas, Islamic “universities,” preachers and imams by the score have, among other things, moved Islam profoundly toward xenophobic and violent Wahhabi ideology. Yet most of the U.S. government carefully averts its eyes. Why?
Because Saudi Arabia buys influence and former American officials peddle it. These include former ambassadors to Saudi and Gulf states like James Akins, Edward Walker and John West, former CIA station chiefs and analysts like Raymond Close, and former congressmen like Paul Findley. They’re all on the Saudi payroll – either directly through business deals or indirectly through Saudi support for their think tanks and foundations.
In a masterful Wall Street Journal piece, Jeff Robbins, Mintz Levin lawyer and – full disclosure – attorney for the David Project, recounts how after Sept. 11, 2001, as president of the Boston chapter of the World Affairs Council, he was persuaded by a defense contractor to arrange a forum for Boston influentials to hear the Saudis expound on their enlightened, tolerant country. Multiply this by every major city and media market, factor in the PR firms and lobbyists, the defense contractors, the public officials and academics – Saudi recently gave Georgetown and Harvard $20 million each – and you begin to get the sense of the scale and dollars behind the Saudi lobby. We’re looking at tens if not hundreds of millions in the U.S. alone. But, Robbins noted, to Israel’s critics, there is “nothing wrong” in any of this.
Walt and Mearsheimer deny being anti-Semites. Yet, Robbins went on, since they are “content with foreign oil money being used to advance a pro-Arab position on the Middle East, but devote themselves to criticizing American Jews for lobbying their public officials in support of the Jewish state, one may legitimately wonder what phrase would apply.”
Why are we a nation obsessed with the headscarf?
To most outside observers the scene must be looking pretty bizarre: Thousands of otherwise reasonable men and women in this country, who make up much of the social elite, are having panic attacks in the face of the possibility that Turkish universities might tolerate their students wearing the Islamic headscarf. Virtually everyday, bureaucrats, pundits and even university rectors lash out against the proposed article in the proposed constitution to set the headscarf free. "This will be the end of the secular republic," they passionately claim, without realizing that a secular republic that doesn't respect the rights and liberties of its citizens is called a secular tyranny.
I have repeatedly said what I think about this prohibition on the headscarf: It is a violation of human rights, and it is a shame on our democracy. I also have made a suggestion to make things more fair if this ban is going to last: The citizens who wear the headscarf should pay less taxes. They obviously don't get anything from Turkey's education system, and they should not be required to take a share in its finance. If they are second-class citizens, why should they pay the same rates with the folks in the first class?
Anyway, tyrannies are tyrannies and they don't bother about such details. And the story of our homegrown one is too broad a topic to discuss in a single column. That's why I rather want to focus on the origins of the obsession with the headscarf. While other Islamic practices such as the Ramadan fast is not a problem in Turkey, why is this one a huge bone of contention? Remembering the hat revolution: To find an answer, we have to go back to the Ottoman Empire, which underlies much of modern Turkey. In this multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, headgear was an important symbol because it specified a person's religious and thus legal identity. For a long time, the three “nations” of the empire — the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians — had their own distinct turbans. What you put on your head also said who you are. The person who changed that was Sultan Mahmud II, who, during his reign (1808-1839), brought in many modern concepts such as the rule of law, the limits of the state's powers and the idea of equal citizenship. Under Mahmud, Jews and Christians were granted equal rights with Muslims, and all of them were introduced to a new headgear called the “fez.” This red cylindrical cap was a novelty, which some conservatives did not like, but soon all Ottoman citizens, regardless of their creed, accepted it. Yet the real revolution would come about a century after Mahmud II, and this time the goal was not “Ottomanization” as he had aimed, but rather de-Ottomanization. Mustafa Kemal, Turkey's Westernist founder, took that bold step as early as 1925 with this famous “hat revolution.” For him, the fez symbolized everything that he wanted to save the Turks from, and the bowler hat represented everything that he wanted to turn them into. He showed up in the conservative city of Kastamonu in August 1925 with a bowler on this head. “This is called a hat gentlemen,” he said, “from now on, we will wear this.” Soon came the hat law, which outlawed all religious turbans and made it compulsory for civil servants to wear the “headgear of the civilized peoples.” Atatürk did not touch women's veils, but he systematically promoted the ideal “modern Turkish woman,” who was supposed to wear all the trendy clothes including those vintage swimsuits of the ‘30s. Atatürk and his followers were very enthusiastic about the bowler hats, and, at a time when much of the war-stricken Turkish society was in total destitute, they did not refrain from spending great sums of money to import them from various European countries. Yet not everybody was a great fan of this compulsory fashion. For many devout Muslims, the hat represented the Christian West and they perceived its imposition onto Muslim society as an act of forced self-denial. They saw in the bowlers even an implicit message of disobedience to God. It was impossible to wear this rimmed hat during the daily Muslim prayer, in which the believers put their foreheads to the ground as a sign of submission to the Almighty. So putting on the hat, for them, looked like abandoning worship. The victims of the bowler hat: Hence came the reactions to the hat revolution. In the northeastern coastal town of Rize the whole populace rejected the idea, sparking a rebellion that led Ankara to send the giant warship Hamidiye to the shores of the city in order to be persuasive. In Erzurum a group of 30 protestors were fired upon by the gendarmerie and several of them, including a woman, were shot. The most notorious episode would be the case of İskilipli Atıf, a “hodja,” i.e., a religious scholar, who wrote a treatise titled “The Hat and the Imitation of the Franks,” in which he objected to the idea by arguing that it would amount to the abandonment of Muslim culture.
Although he had written that 32-page tract before the revolution, at a time when the word was around but the law was not in practice, he was arrested by the authorities charged with treason. Soon he was tried by one of the “Independence Courts,” which were arbitrary revolutionary tribunals similar to the ones established by the French revolutionaries and later the Bolsheviks in order to eliminate the “enemies of the people.” In his defense, İskilipli Atıf said that he stood behind his views, and the court cold-bloodedly sentenced him to death. The old man was executed by hanging on Feb. 4, 1925. “Don't cry my child,” he said in his last hours to his daughter who was in tears. “Just recite the Koran for my soul.” İskilipli Atıf was only one of the many victims of the hat revolution.
Eight others were executed in Rize, seven in Maraş and four in Erzurum. According to the Turkish version of Encyclopedie Larousse, the number of people killed by the regime was as high as 78. Moreover, many others were sentenced to 10 to 15 years of imprisonment. Permanent revolution: More than 80 years have passed since the hat revolution and its victims. Yet the mindset of the revolutionaries has changed very little, if at all. Nobody wears hats anymore, and the male headgear is a non-issue. But now the focus is on the female headdress. The revolutionaries still want to do the same thing: They want to eradicate all traditional Islamic clothes. They would love to do it by employing revolutionary guards on the streets to rip the veils off, but that is not feasible. So they rather prefer to contain the veiled women by pushing them out of the “public square” and denying them the right to education. The ultimate aim is to make all of them “modern” by using coercive powers of the state.
What these revolutionaries fail to understand is that in the modern world, states have no right to interfere with the dress codes of their citizens, and that individuals have the right to live in whatever manner they choose. Actually if there is any version of “modernity” that they resemble, that is the way of Chairman Mao, whose Cultural Revolution traumatized a whole nation during the late ‘60s. Turkey's cultural revolution has been much less radical, thank God, but unlike Mao's now defunct tyranny, it still goes on.* Published in THE TURKISH DAILY NEWS on September 20, 2007.
I have repeatedly said what I think about this prohibition on the headscarf: It is a violation of human rights, and it is a shame on our democracy. I also have made a suggestion to make things more fair if this ban is going to last: The citizens who wear the headscarf should pay less taxes. They obviously don't get anything from Turkey's education system, and they should not be required to take a share in its finance. If they are second-class citizens, why should they pay the same rates with the folks in the first class?
Anyway, tyrannies are tyrannies and they don't bother about such details. And the story of our homegrown one is too broad a topic to discuss in a single column. That's why I rather want to focus on the origins of the obsession with the headscarf. While other Islamic practices such as the Ramadan fast is not a problem in Turkey, why is this one a huge bone of contention? Remembering the hat revolution: To find an answer, we have to go back to the Ottoman Empire, which underlies much of modern Turkey. In this multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, headgear was an important symbol because it specified a person's religious and thus legal identity. For a long time, the three “nations” of the empire — the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians — had their own distinct turbans. What you put on your head also said who you are. The person who changed that was Sultan Mahmud II, who, during his reign (1808-1839), brought in many modern concepts such as the rule of law, the limits of the state's powers and the idea of equal citizenship. Under Mahmud, Jews and Christians were granted equal rights with Muslims, and all of them were introduced to a new headgear called the “fez.” This red cylindrical cap was a novelty, which some conservatives did not like, but soon all Ottoman citizens, regardless of their creed, accepted it. Yet the real revolution would come about a century after Mahmud II, and this time the goal was not “Ottomanization” as he had aimed, but rather de-Ottomanization. Mustafa Kemal, Turkey's Westernist founder, took that bold step as early as 1925 with this famous “hat revolution.” For him, the fez symbolized everything that he wanted to save the Turks from, and the bowler hat represented everything that he wanted to turn them into. He showed up in the conservative city of Kastamonu in August 1925 with a bowler on this head. “This is called a hat gentlemen,” he said, “from now on, we will wear this.” Soon came the hat law, which outlawed all religious turbans and made it compulsory for civil servants to wear the “headgear of the civilized peoples.” Atatürk did not touch women's veils, but he systematically promoted the ideal “modern Turkish woman,” who was supposed to wear all the trendy clothes including those vintage swimsuits of the ‘30s. Atatürk and his followers were very enthusiastic about the bowler hats, and, at a time when much of the war-stricken Turkish society was in total destitute, they did not refrain from spending great sums of money to import them from various European countries. Yet not everybody was a great fan of this compulsory fashion. For many devout Muslims, the hat represented the Christian West and they perceived its imposition onto Muslim society as an act of forced self-denial. They saw in the bowlers even an implicit message of disobedience to God. It was impossible to wear this rimmed hat during the daily Muslim prayer, in which the believers put their foreheads to the ground as a sign of submission to the Almighty. So putting on the hat, for them, looked like abandoning worship. The victims of the bowler hat: Hence came the reactions to the hat revolution. In the northeastern coastal town of Rize the whole populace rejected the idea, sparking a rebellion that led Ankara to send the giant warship Hamidiye to the shores of the city in order to be persuasive. In Erzurum a group of 30 protestors were fired upon by the gendarmerie and several of them, including a woman, were shot. The most notorious episode would be the case of İskilipli Atıf, a “hodja,” i.e., a religious scholar, who wrote a treatise titled “The Hat and the Imitation of the Franks,” in which he objected to the idea by arguing that it would amount to the abandonment of Muslim culture.
Although he had written that 32-page tract before the revolution, at a time when the word was around but the law was not in practice, he was arrested by the authorities charged with treason. Soon he was tried by one of the “Independence Courts,” which were arbitrary revolutionary tribunals similar to the ones established by the French revolutionaries and later the Bolsheviks in order to eliminate the “enemies of the people.” In his defense, İskilipli Atıf said that he stood behind his views, and the court cold-bloodedly sentenced him to death. The old man was executed by hanging on Feb. 4, 1925. “Don't cry my child,” he said in his last hours to his daughter who was in tears. “Just recite the Koran for my soul.” İskilipli Atıf was only one of the many victims of the hat revolution.
Eight others were executed in Rize, seven in Maraş and four in Erzurum. According to the Turkish version of Encyclopedie Larousse, the number of people killed by the regime was as high as 78. Moreover, many others were sentenced to 10 to 15 years of imprisonment. Permanent revolution: More than 80 years have passed since the hat revolution and its victims. Yet the mindset of the revolutionaries has changed very little, if at all. Nobody wears hats anymore, and the male headgear is a non-issue. But now the focus is on the female headdress. The revolutionaries still want to do the same thing: They want to eradicate all traditional Islamic clothes. They would love to do it by employing revolutionary guards on the streets to rip the veils off, but that is not feasible. So they rather prefer to contain the veiled women by pushing them out of the “public square” and denying them the right to education. The ultimate aim is to make all of them “modern” by using coercive powers of the state.
What these revolutionaries fail to understand is that in the modern world, states have no right to interfere with the dress codes of their citizens, and that individuals have the right to live in whatever manner they choose. Actually if there is any version of “modernity” that they resemble, that is the way of Chairman Mao, whose Cultural Revolution traumatized a whole nation during the late ‘60s. Turkey's cultural revolution has been much less radical, thank God, but unlike Mao's now defunct tyranny, it still goes on.* Published in THE TURKISH DAILY NEWS on September 20, 2007.
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