For your information
For your information
The BBC makes many good programs when it comes to drama, comedy, sport, and science. But its enormous news division ˜ by far the world's biggest ˜ is another story. Using lavish public funding (courtesy of the British taxpayer) and an unprecedented worldwide news reach (its radio service alone, broadcasting in 43 languages, attracts over 150 million listeners daily), it is ˜ in blatant breach of its own charter ˜ virtually conducting its own anti-American and anti-Israeli foreign policy. Anyone who doesn't agree with its policies (Tony Blair, for example) finds himself at the mercy of BBC news coverage.
The Fatah Central Council has decided to form a special committee to study the demands of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades militia. The committee will consist of senior Fatah officials and cabinet ministers. It is the first time that the Palestinian leadership has acknowledged its responsibility for the armed group. The decision to form the committee follows complaints by the leaders of the militia that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Fatah leadership have abandoned them and were no longer paying them their salaries.
Earlier this week, several members of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank and Gaza Strip embarrassed the Palestinian leadership by threatening to break away from Fatah. The gunmen also accused the Palestinian leadership of corruption.
In late March 04, the IDF struck and killed Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder and leader of Hamas.
Fatah Tanzim activists in Nablus attempted to use an 11-year-old boy to smuggle a bomb through an IDF roadblock, and tried to detonate the bomb when soldiers stopped him.
'We are an Al Qaeda family." So spoke one of the Khadrs, a Muslim Canadian household whose near single-minded devotion to Osama bin Laden contains important lessons for the West.
After an uphill struggle, Israel has withdrawn a resolution on protecting Israeli children from terrorism, with its ambassador accusing the United Nations of hypocrisy, duplicity and double standards.
November 03. In the last three months, British litigation lawyer Trevor Asserson's Web site, www.bbcwatch.com, recorded one million hits. It contains his three well-documented reports systematically demonstrating the BBC's anti-Israel bias. A few days ago the BBC suddenly created a senior editorial post to advise on its Middle East coverage.
The question is why you are so frustrated? And the answer in one word is: envy. Not only has Western civilization advanced as dramatically as it has; in recent years non-Western Japan, China, and India, as well as semi-Western Russia and Latin America have also joined the future. Most Muslim countries, at the same time, have not only stagnated, but in fact backtracked, seeing the gaps between them and much of the rest of the world grow even deeper than they were a century ago.
Given the standing ovation that Mahathir received at the conference, as well as the daily diet of anti-Semitism broadcast and published throughout the Islamic world, it seems safe to say that the views he enunciated are more or less mainstream in the Islamic world today. Because of this, it is important to understand the "road map" set out by Mahathir in his address and assess its ramifications for Israel's future.
RAMALLAH, West Bank, July 13 &emdash; A mob attacked an eminent Palestinian political scientist today as he prepared to announce a striking finding from a regionwide survey of Palestinian refugees: Only a small minority of them exercise a "right of return" to Israel as part of a peace agreement. The mob's statement carried the letterhead of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
ISRAEL broke all contact with the BBC yesterday in protest at its repeated "demonisation" of the country and showing on BBC World of a critical documentary on Israel's nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal. The move will involve a refusal to put up official spokesmen for BBC interviews. There will be visa restrictions, not imposed on other news organisations in Israel, to ensure that the bureau chief is rotated every few months and to make it hard for BBC staff to report.
The pattern developing in the Palestinian media since the road map is strikingly similar to the pattern that evolved under the Oslo process. During the years 1993-2000, when the PA was not actively involved in terror and, in English, was expressing the desire for peace, its leaders indoctrinated their people with horrific hatred of Jews and Israel. (...) Today it is essential that Israel judge the Palestinians' compliance based on the only proven reliable indicator: their Arabic language media and education.
(...) we want to share with you our deep concerns about your well-intentioned road map leading to the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. President, it would be morally reprehensible for the United States to be evenhanded between democratic Israel, a reliable friend and ally that shares our values, and the terrorist-infested Palestinian infrastructure that refuses to accept the right of Israel to exist at all.
...it is now the leader of the Arab/Muslim world. Israel has to know France is its main enemy. The United States has to understand they have nothing to expect from today's France except nastiness, treason, and cheating.
A growing chorus says there are, and it is beginning to he heard. But a number of scholars of UN resolutions say there are important differences between the ones involving Israel and those against Iraq...
At the heart of Al Qaeda's school of thought stands an Egyptian philosopher named Sayyid Qutb. He wrote a book called ''In the Shade of the Qur'an'' which became a classic manifesto of the terrorist wing of Islamic fundamentalism. Qutb blames Christianity's modern legacy and he blames the Jews. The Jews occupy huge portions of Qutb's Koranic commentary -- their perfidy, greed, hatefulness, diabolical impulses, never-ending conspiracies and plots against Muhammad and Islam. Qutb was relentless on these themes. He looked on Zionism as part of the eternal campaign by the Jews to destroy Islam.
Tel-Aviv attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner alleges that the European Union is still funding Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians, despite assurances by Brussels that all financial aid to the Palestinian Authority is being carefully scrutinized. The lawyer accuses EU Foreign Minister Chris Patten of covering up the fact that Arafat has diverted hundreds of millions of euros in monthly "humanitarian aid" payments to his Fatah Tanzim and Martyrs of al-Aqsa terrorist organizations.
"Not a day goes by that I don't read a headline stating that a rabbi's car was set on fire, or that yeshiva children have been beaten on the way to school. Some are so blatantly anti-Semitic that I can only shake my head in wonderment at their rabid comments. The latest is how the French are now refusing to recognize wedding ceremonies, including those performed in pre-1967 Israel, where the presiding rabbi just happens to be a resident of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. The French Consulate in Jerusalem has refused to certificates of marriage to those French who want to marry an Israeli. "
You probably missed it in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper and offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. But Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
Taking Care Of His Friends. Chirac has a 25-year friendship with Saddam, and helped arm him. The French President's championing of peace might have more to do with covering his own past misdeeds than any personal or ideological commitment to preventing war.
By 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000 acres. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the Mandatory Government; 30,000 were bought from various churches and 387,500 were purchased from Arabs. Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin . Those who sold land included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa. As'ad el-Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and father of PLO chairman Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land. Even King Abdullah leased land to the Jews. In fact, many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim Supreme Council, sold land to Jews.
An article by Brian Mulroney. "This latest anti-Semitism (...) forms part of a historical continuum that was only briefly interrupted, if at all, following the Second World War. Where did it all come from, what makes it so resistant to suppression--and will it ever end?"
The European members of Parliament should launch a probe into the longstanding claim that the Palestinian Authority has misused European taxpayers' money to finance terrorist attacks. Documents discovered by the IDF in 2002 that have been authenticated by the U.S. and German authorities prove that terrorists who carried out attacks on Israeli civilians have been on the Palestinian Authority's payroll and were paid with checks ordered personally by Yasser Arafat and issued by the Ministry of Finance. The EU monthly budgetary assistance of euro 10 million is specifically designated to cover the salaries of PA civil servants and given to the Ministry of Finance.
In (the book) "The Rage and the Pride", Ms. Fallaci compares Islam to a "mountain which in one thousand and four hundred years has not moved, has not risen from the abyss of its blindness, has not opened its doors to the conquests of civilization, has never wanted to know about freedom and democracy and progress. In short, has not changed." She warns that "from Afghanistan to Sudan, from Palestine to Pakistan, (...) from Saudi Arabia to Somalia, the hate for the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. And the followers of Islamic Fundamentalism multiply like protozoa of a cell which splits to become two cells then four then eight then sixteen then thirty-two. To infinity."
Neil Macdonald, the Mideast correspondent for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), forged a plot this week to publicly embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. (...) now that Neil Macdonald has been exposed as waging a personal vendetta against the Israeli Prime Minister, his credibility as a journalist has been reduced to zero.
Last week, Israeli security forces discovered the mutilated and incinerated remains of Massoud Mahlouf Elon, a 72-year-old Israeli who drove into the Jordan Valley to donate clothes to poor Bedouin tribes people. He is believed to have been stoned to death. His face had been bashed beyond recognition. The Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an Arab terrorist group under the command of Yasser Arafat, immediately began circulating leaflets taking responsibility for the murder.
"(,,,) the U.N. (has a) practice of lavishing more than a quarter of a billion bucks a year on special, long-term care for the Palestinians, darlings of every despot in the Middle East, while abandoning utterly a large group of refugees who are far hungrier, more dispossessed and mortally in need of urgent help: the North Koreans. "
Muslim terrorists recently fired shoulder-launched missiles at an Israeli civilian aircraft, in an attempt to murder its 260 passengers, as it took off from an airport in Kenya. If a Palestinian Arab state is created, its western border will be just a few miles from Israel's central airport and terrorists carrying shoulder-launched missiles will be able to take aim at every plane taking off or landing at Ben-Gurion Airport.
Once again, we're hearing that awful word again in the context of the Middle East debate. "Settlements." That's what the conflict is all about, we're being told. That's why the Arabs are mad at the Israelis. That's the root of the violence, the terrorism, the hatred. (...) The "settlement" issue is a canard. It's a propaganda ploy to suggest that only Jews are newcomers to the region. The truth is there are lots of "settlers" and would-be "settlers" in the area - including Arafat and his friends.
For the second consecutive year, PLO chief Yasser Arafat was banned by Israel from attending Midnight Mass in Bethlehem, (...) As a Muslim, (...) it must be deduced that Arafat's primary interest in Bethlehem's Midnight Mass lies in the glittering PR opportunity it affords him. For during the holiday season, the eyes of much of the Christian world turn to Bethlehem, providing Arafat with a broader than usual audience before which he can vilify his archrival - Israel - and present himself as the defender of not only Muslim, but also Christian rights in the Holy Land.
As Christmas approaches, American Christians might take note of the intolerance here. Their sacred shrines -- and some belonging to Judaism -- are under threat from the Islamofascists of the Palestinian Authority. What is more, the Christian population of the West Bank is not being treated as hospitably by Yasser Arafat's colleagues as, say, the Muslim population of Detroit is being treated.
Last June, President Bush laid out a vision for a post-Oslo resolution of the conflict. The so-called quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- has worked to develop a road map for moving from the current situation of conflict to Bush's two-state solution. Following the logic of Bush's speech, the road map is supposed to be built on performance. Unfortunately, the road map that quartet members are presenting today is flawed, making performance unlikely and the president's goals unachievable. The map has three basic failings. ...
In theory, the UN Charter proclaims the equality of all persons, and of all nations large and small. When the victims are Jews or the Jewish state, UN practice is quite different.
New York Times reporters, (...) routinely explain that Hamas's goal is not to end the occupation, but to eliminate the Jewish state. For months, I've been weighing CBC arguments against labelling them "terrorists." (...) Here's how I see it. Your reporters have not been known to question whether the Sept. 11 attacks were anything other than terrorism; nor has any disputed that the murderers of Aussies, Britons and two Canadians in Bali were terrorists. So, when our government listed Hamas as a terrorist organization, I thought the CBC had an opportunity to change tack. Nothing doing. Apparently, it's still for impressionable young viewers to make up their minds whether they'd prefer to join the Boy Scouts or an organization that's illegal in Canada and blows up babies in Jerusalem.
Dennis Miller, (or is it Larry Miller?) went on a rant about the situation: "The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."
As of November 20, 2002, there had been a total of 15,298 Palestinian terror attacks against Israel since the start of the "intifada" in September 2000. The number increased by one a day later, on November 21, when a Palestinian bomber blew up a bus filled with elderly women and young children in Jerusalem. Not surprisingly, the world has likely taken more angry notice of Israel's defensive actions to prevent further terror than of the grotesque cowardice of Palestinian terrorism. Murdered Jews, after all, are an old story.
A few months ago, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, gave a posthumous award for "constructive dissent" to Hiram Bingham, IV. (...) In defiance of his bosses in Washington, (Bingham) granted over 2,500 USA visas to Jewish and other refugees, including the artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst and the family of the writer Thomas Mann. He also sheltered Jews in his Marseille home, and obtained forged identity papers to help Jews in their dangerous journeys across Europe. He worked with the French underground to smuggle Jews out of France into Franco's Spain or across the Mediterranean and even contributed to their expenses out of his own pocket.
Alan Dershowitz says the US campus remains a rumpus room or anti-Israel campaigning - and he knows why. (...) Dershowitz, who has made a career out of being a civil libertarian, had no defenders. (...) "There is no more cowardly group in the world than American academics," said Dershowitz (...). "They hide behind their tenure, they want to be loved by all their students and they're unwilling to engage in controversial stances," he said.
The assertion by the Palestinian delegate to Ireland that Israel's presence on the disputed territories amounts to an "illegal occupation" is unsound. "Occupation" means the presence of a state's army in another sovereign state's territory. No sovereign state had title to the West Bank or Gaza when Israel captured them in 1967. In 1948, Arab states tried to liquidate the nascent Israel. Egypt and Jordan seized Gaza and the West Bank, respectively. This annexation was illegal. In 1967 the Arab states tried again to liquidate Israel. In self-defence Israel took control of these stateless territories. Israel has a right to hold these lands until its enemies sign a final treaty of peace.
Pervasive anti-Israel bias in the media is a "cancer" that is destroying much of the media's credibility and eroding support for the Jewish state, CanWest Global founder Israel Asper says. In a hard-hitting denunciation of media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Asper charged that "much of the world media ... have abandoned the fundamental precepts of honest reporting."
Israel's Government Press Office Director Danny Seaman knows exactly why the State of Israel looks so bad on television screens around the world. "At the direct instruction of the Palestinian Authority, the offices of the foreign networks in Jerusalem are compelled to hire Palestinian directors and producers. Those people determine what is broadcast. The journalists will certainly deny that, but that is reality." (...) "The most senior (offices) are the Associated Press and Reuters, which provide information to hundreds of millions of people around the world. On the second level are the major television networks, CNN and the BBC, and the American stations, ABC and CBS."
Rampant anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, from schools to press, TV and internet, not only makes Middle East peace impossible, but makes us all targets now. (...) Fanaticism has been bred into the suicide murderers and millions of young people throughout the Arab nations with scant attention by media, governments, academia and churches in the civilized world.