Levitt Letter Extra News

By Daniel Pipes
www.frontpagemag.com

How does the Council on American-Islamic Relations (and others in the Islamist victimization industry) fare so well when it complains to a corporation? That’s the question Margaret Wente, the Globe and Mail’s star columnist, takes up in an insightful analysis fraught with implications.

Wente’s article looks at the high-profile case of Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist for the World Markets division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. In an April 5, 2005l 5, 2005
English: World English Bible - WEB


WP-Bible plugin, report to clients, he accurately predicted that oil prices would keep rising: The first two oil shocks [in the 1970s] were transitory, as political events encouraged oil producers to seize full sovereignty over their resources and temporarily restrict supply. This time around there won’t be any tap that some appeased mullah or sheik can suddenly turn back on.

In response to the phrase “some appeased mullah or sheik,” the executive director of CAIR’s Canadian branch, Riad Saloojee, protested to the CIBC.

We are gravely concerned that Mr. Rubin is promoting stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs in a CIBC publication. We request that Mr. Rubin and CIBC World Markets issue a letter of apology and undergo sensitization training regarding Muslims and Arabs.

In a later formulation, Saloojee put his grievance more simply: “Many Muslims felt the comments were inappropriate.”

Saloojee’s point is plain silly, as mullahs (in Iran) and sheiks (on the Arabian Peninsula) make the key decisions turning the oil spigot on or off. But that hardly mattered to CIBC, which quickly fulfilled Saloojee’s demands, issuing a public apology and requiring Rubin (called by the CIBC “one of Canada’s long standing premier economists”) to undergo cross-cultural diversity training.

Wente provides some interesting details on the latter, which was conducted by Laraine Kaminsky, executive vice president of Graybridge Malkam, diversity specialists based in Ottawa. Kaminsky devised a curriculum especially for Rubin, and CIBC paid a cool C$5,000 for her two-hour session with Rubin. (In the spirit of journalistic grit, Wente voluntarily submitted herself to the same curriculum as Rubin suffered through; she reports the information she picked up was a “combination of the anodyne, the obvious and the interesting.”)

Why this sudden retreat by CIBC, when Rubin had written an accurate and patently inoffensive passage? Why did the bank not stand by its star economist?

For that matter, why have so many other corporations capitulated to the demands of CAIR and its ilk? In 2000, I tallied up some major corporations (Anheuser-Busch, Burger King, Doubletree Hotels, Los Angeles Times, MasterCard International, Miller Brewing, and Seagrams) that had pulled advertisements found offensive by the Islamists. Disney has reined in two of its radio broadcasters, Michael Graham and Paul Harvey. Two clothing businesses, Liz Claiborne and Warehouse One, withdrew or discontinued women’s apparel that bore Arabic script. The worst of these appeasements took place in 1997-98, when, on the basis of a bogus complaint by CAIR, Nike accepted humiliation at its hands.

Wente gives several reasons for these cases of advanced corporate timidity. First, to resist the Islamists means absorbing a public relations hit: because image and reputation are so crucially important, big organizations are vulnerable to small interest groups with loud voices. No CEO wants his shareholders, his employees, his customers and his board of directors to pick up a newspaper and see a headline proclaiming that somebody is boycotting his company for being anti-Muslim.

Second (and conversely) touting one’s diversity virtues makes for positive publicity: On the same day this week that the CIBC posted a record third-quarter loss on account of the Enron debacle — $1.9-billion — it made room in its news release to remind people that in June, it celebrated Diversity Month for the 13th year.

Third, beyond the PR angle, looms the legal one. In the United States, where laws are strict and juries tough, companies that lose discrimination suits in court can be forced to pay out millions. “Better to call me first than call the lawyer later,” Ms. Kaminsky said with a smile.

Kaminsky is here alluding to the corrective dimension of her work. Wente notes that the session with Rubin is now formally documented in his personnel file, which gets the bank off the hook if anyone feels like suing later on, or invoking some hate law, or complaining to a human-rights commission.

Did the CIBC take corrective action with its offending employee? Is the CIBC truly sensitive to diversity issues? Yessirree! Wente concludes that the bank, in other words, “took the path of least resistance. It found a quick and dirty way to make the problem go away.”

Comments:
(1) Kenneth Timmerman shows in his book Shakedown how Jesse Jackson developed this racket from practices on the mean streets of Chicago. What began as street gangs intimidating local businesses ended up working with corporate boards and Wall Street. This practice has become a potent weapon in the United States and in other Western countries; Islamists are just getting started at it. Timmerman writes me that “Jackson turned the grievance industry into a lucrative money-maker for himself and his political machine; CAIR has clearly studied his tactics and is applying them with success.”

(2) In political terms, the top personnel in most corporations are conservative but their appeasing behavior makes them structurally liberal. However much they may bemoan in private the need to apologize and pay out, they do it.

(3) The marketplace places a premium on winning a positive reputation among every segment of consumers, and that points to grievance-mongers wielding power over corporations into the indefinite future. No matter how disreputable the mongers might be, as they often are, corporations would rather pull products, apologize, and pay than fight. This bonanza promises to keep the Islamist and other shakedown artists in both the money and the public eye. The worst of it is, I see no legislative or other means to change this dynamic.

Israel Insider

President George W. Bush says the Palestinians should follow through on Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza by establishing a peaceful government in the area as a starting point toward coexistence with the Jewish state.

“The world must hear that now,” Bush told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday at the start of one of only two meetings the president held between U.N. sessions marking the organization’s 60th birthday. The other was with staunch U.S. ally Tony Blair, the prime minister of Britain.

For Israel, it is a rare respite in a setting where the Jewish state routinely is criticized. “I am inspired by your courageous decision to give peace a chance,” Bush told Sharon. “I know it was hard to do.”

Turning to the Palestinian role, Bush said, “We condemned the desecrating of synagogues in Gaza that followed Israel’s withdrawal.”

“One thing is essential,” he said. “And the world must hear, that now is the time for Palestinians to come together and establish a government that will be peaceful with Israel.”

“Gaza is a good chance to start,” Bush said. “I know the Israeli government wants to see that to happen as well.”

Turning to Arab governments who have pledged massive assistance to the Palestinians but have been slow to follow through, Bush said, “Arab neighbors need to help the Palestinians develop an economy. Now is the time for people to step up.”

Bush again praised Sharon during their 35-minue meeting, Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said.

Sharon told the president “it is impossible to move forward unless the Palestinians address the issue of terrorism,” Jones said.

In a briefing with reporters, Sharon said it was his impression that the United States first wants to see what happens in the Gaza Strip before considering what should happen next.
“Gaza is the test,” he said. “That was spelled out.”

At the same summit, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani praised Israel’s pullout and said that all Arab nations should make a gesture toward Israel for having done it.

“I salute this step by Israel,” he said in a speech Wednesday at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations. “Arab countries must take a step toward Israel through an international meeting or a meeting between Arab states and Israel and the co-sponsors of peace, particularly the United States, in an attempt to come up with a clear vision to the period after Gaza.”

After returning to Washington, Bush, wearing a white yarmulke, admired a Torah rescued from the Holocaust that is now at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, an educational and community center for the Jewish community. He then attended a dinner at the National Building Museum organized to commemorate 350 years of Jewish life in America.

In remarks at the dinner, Bush called Sharon a “man of courage” and a “man of peace.” Bush said that in New York, he expressed to Sharon the U.S. commitment to defending the security and well-being of Israel and combating anti-Semitism in the United States and abroad.

By Daniel Pipes
www.danielpipes.org

The Jewish High Holidays this year fall in early October, and that’s when a massacre was planned against two Los Angeles synagogues, as well as other targets, according to an indictment just handed down against four young Muslim men.

Law enforcement traces the origins of this plot to 1997. That’s when Kevin Lamar James, a black inmate at New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento, California, founded Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS, Arabic for “Assembly of Authentic Islam”). JIS promotes the sort of jihadi version of Islam typical of American jails. As the indictment puts it, James, now 29, preached that JIS members have the duty “to target for violent attack any enemies of Islam or ‘infidels,’ including the United States government and Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel.”

James, serving a 10-year prison sentence for an armed robbery in 1996, recruited acolytes among fellow prisoners. Volunteers swore to obey him and not to disclose the existence of JIS. On release from prison, they promised to get directives from him at least every three months, recruit Muslims to JIS, and attack government officials and supporters of Israel.

Levar Haney Washington, 25, allegedly joined the JIS and swore allegiance to James just before his being released from New Folsom in November 2004, having served his six-year sentence for a 1999 assault and robbery. On getting out, Washington immediately began recruiting at his mosque, Jamat-E-Masijidul Islam in the Los Angeles area. “He regarded Osama bin Laden very highly,” reports one person whom Washington tried to recruit.

Two men, both 21 years old and without criminal records, did sign up: Hammad Riaz Samana, a lawful Pakistani immigrant and student at Santa Monica College, and Gregory Vernon Patterson, a black convert who had worked at a duty-free shop in Los Angeles International Airport. The three, plus James, now face up to life in prison for conspiring “to levy a war against the Government of the United States through terrorism.”

They did so in five ways. They conducted surveillance of U.S. government targets (military recruitment stations and bases), Israeli targets (the Los Angeles consulate and El Al), and Jewish targets (synagogues). The trio monitored the Jewish calendar and, the indictment notes, planned to attack synagogues on Jewish holidays “to maximize the number of casualties.”

They acquired an arsenal of weapons. To fund this undertaking, they set off on a crime wave, robbing (or attempting to rob) gas stations eleven times in the five weeks after May 30. They engaged in physical and firearms training. Finally, they tried recruiting other Muslims.

But Patterson dropped a mobile telephone during the course of one gas station robbery, and the police retrieved it. Information from the phone set off an FBI-led investigation that involved more than 25 agencies and 500 investigators. The police staked out Patterson and Washington, arresting them after they robbed a Chevron station on July 5. Washington’s apartment turned up bulletproof vests, knives, jihad literature, and the addresses of potential targets. Patterson was waiting to acquire an AR-15 assault rifle.

The JIS story prompts some worried observations.

Although Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales lavished praise on “the work of able investigators at all levels of government” in solving this case, law enforcement was as clueless about the JIS gang as was its British counterpart about the 7/7 bombers. If not for the lucky break of a dropped principal recruiting grounds for a criminal form of Islam. As Frank phone, the jihadis probably would have struck. It is extremely disturbing to see law enforcement pat itself on the back for ineptitude.

American prisons are comparable to the banlieues in France, the Gaffney observes, “The alleged New Folsom State plot had better rouse us out of our stupor.” Will it? Senate hearings in 2003 on prison jihadism yielded distressingly few results.

The emergence of a primarily African-American Islamist terrorist cell signals a new trend. Native-born Americans have taken part in terrorist operations before, but (again, as in London), this case this marks their first large-scale plot.

Terrorist plans that fail don’t make headlines, but they should. This was a near-miss. Home-grown radical Islam has arrived and will do damage.

Even though most Jews resist acknowledging it, the Muslim threat is changing Jewish life in the United States. The golden age of American Jewry is coming to an end.

www.worldtribune.com

Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, director of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Endowment’s research center, published an article titled “The Terrorist Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah, But Not an Adherent of Al-Qaeda.” the Aug. 31 edition of the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa.

Following are excerpts: “…As I watched the horrible sights of this wondrous storm, I was reminded of the Hadith of the Messenger of Allah [in the compilations] of Al-Bukhari and Abu Daoud. The Hadith says: ‘The wind is of the wind of Allah, it comes from mercy or for the sake of torment. When you see it, do not curse it, [but rather] ask Allah for the good that is in it, and ask Allah for shelter from its evil.’

“When the satellite channels reported on the scope of the terrifying destruction in America [caused by] this wind, I was reminded of the words of [Prophet Muhammad]: ‘The wind sends torment to one group of people, and sends mercy to others.’ I do not think — and only Allah [really] knows — that this wind, which completely wiped out American cities in these days, is a wind of mercy and blessing. It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire.

“But I began to ask myself: Doesn’t this country [the U.S.] claim to aspire to establish justice, freedom, and equality amongst the people? Isn’t this country claiming that everything it did in Afghanistan and Iraq was for truth and justice? How can it be that these American claims are untrue, when we see how good prevails in the streets of Afghanistan, and how it became an oasis of security with America’s entrance there? How can these American claims in the matter of Iraq be untrue, when we see that Iraq has become the most tranquil and secure country in the world?”

“But how strange it is that after all the tremendous American achievements for the sake of humanity, these mighty winds come and evilly rip [America’s] cities to shreds? Have the storms joined the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization?

“How sad I am for America. Here it is, poor thing, trying with all its might to lower oil prices which have reached heights unprecedented in all history. Along with America’s phenomenal efforts to lower the price of oil in order to salvage its declining economy and its currency — that is still falling due to the ‘smart’ policy America is implementing in the world — comes this storm, the fruit of Allah’s planning, so that [the price of] a barrel of oil will increase further still. By Allah, this is not schadenfreude.

“Oh honored gentlemen, I began to read about these winds, and I was surprised to discover that the American websites that are translated [into Arabic] are talking about the fact that that the storm Katrina is the fifth equatorial storm to strike Florida this year… and that a large part of the U.S. is subject every year to many storms that extract [a price of] dead, and completely destroy property. I said, Allah be praised, until when will these successive catastrophes strike them?

“But before I went to sleep, I opened the Koran and began to read in Surat Al-R’ad [‘The Thunder’ chapter], and stopped at these words [of Allah]: ‘The disaster will keep striking the unbelievers for what they have done, or it will strike areas close to their territory, until the promise of Allah comes to pass, for, verily, Allah will not fail in His promise.’ [Koran 13:31].”

By Caroline B. Glick
www.jewishworldreview.com

The intifada and Katrina — seeing is not necessarily believing when propagandists pose as objective chroniclers

They say that one picture is worth a thousand words. No doubt this is true. But what is the guarantee that those words are truthful?

On September 30, 2000r 30, 2000
English: World English Bible - WEB
Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin, The New York Times ran a photograph that, no doubt, for the photo editor, told the entire tale of the then two-day-old Palestinian terror war against Israel.

The picture showed a bloodied, frightened youth sitting in the foreground and an irate Israeli border guard, mouth agape, standing behind him, wielding a police baton. In the background, crimson flames and black smoke plumed upward behind cement blocks.

The photo editor never questioned what it is that he was looking at. Of course, the boy was a Palestinian. The assailant was the angry Israeli policeman. After all, as an enlightened man of the world, he knew what every right thinking person knows: the Palestinians are the victim. The Israelis are the aggressors. And so, the caption under the photograph told Times readers that indeed, what the photo editor assumed, was reality.

Sadly, the thousand words told by that photograph were a thousand lies. The bloodied youth in the foreground was a Jewish student from Chicago named Tuvia Grossman. He had been dragged out of his taxi in east Jerusalem by a Palestinian mob and was beaten and stabbed to the edge of death. With his last measure of strength, Grossman screamed and ran to the nearest Israeli security forces he could find. The border guard with the baton was protecting him from the mob.

Eventually, after receiving an angry letter from Grossman’s father in Chicago, the Times apologized for the error. Grossman spent 10 days in the hospital in Jerusalem and then was flown to his family in Chicago where he was confined to a wheelchair for five months as he recuperated from his many wounds.

The story told by that picture then, was the story of the prejudice of the Times’ photo-editor.

In much the same manner, the images we are broadcast from Hurricane Katrina tell us a certain story. The victims, in most of the pictures, are African Americans. And the story that has emerged from these images is one of racism. The white (and Republican) Federal government, we are led to believe, waited for an unforgivably long period of time in providing rescue and relief to the victims of the terrible storm, because of the color of their skin. The pictures, like the people who are asked to tell us the story, repeat over and over again that if these had been rich whites, rather than poor blacks, the National Guard would have been called in days before to restore order to New Orleans and to evacuate the victims.

It’s a wonderful story. It is easy to follow and allows angry people to feel justified in their hatred and prejudices against Republicans and against President George W. Bush. But like the picture of Tuvia Grossman, it has the singular problem of being untrue.

After the initial barrage of unfounded criticism was launched, the fact of the matter, that the city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana did not implement their own evacuation plans in spite of the fact that the authorities all knew that the below-sea-level city could not survive a category 4 hurricane like Katrina, began to emerge.

And yet, in the meantime, a myth was born that told the easy story of racism.

What both these examples show is that in spite of what we have been led to believe by our image-inundated world, images do not speak for themselves. They speak with the voice of their creators and their distributors. Every one of us attaches our pre-existing beliefs to what we see and each of us is influenced at some level, and often deeply by the interpretations that are given to the images by those who bring them to our attention.

In Israel, the challenge of imagery is perhaps the greatest challenge that we face. It is important to recognize this fact as we enter into the era where Palestine has been established in Gaza. If we simply glance at the images purveyed to us this week, we understand how massive the challenge remains and how dangerous is will become if we do not rise to meet it.

First of all, let us recall, 12 years ago, when then prime minister Yizhak Rabin embraced Yasser Arafat and the PLO and thus embarked on the Oslo peace process, he was able to convince security hawks of the value of his policy explaining that the Palestinians, not Israel, were about to be put under a microscope. Rabin argued that if the Palestinians did not abide by their commitments to end terrorism and live at peace with Israel, then the entire world would stand by Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel would re-enter the areas that it had transferred to PLO control and that would be the end of that. It was a risk, he said, but a calculated risk.

Unfortunately, events proved otherwise. The images purveyed to the world by the PLO propaganda machine were images of cruel Israeli “occupation forces” embittering the lives of the victimized Palestinians. The fact that billions of dollars in international aid were stashed in Swiss bank accounts was of no interest. The fact that the Palestinian security forces established by Arafat were twice their permitted size was cosmically boring. The fact that terror reached unprecedented levels just a year after that handshake on the White House lawn was interpreted not as proof of Palestinian duplicity, but as a justification for increasing calls for yet more Israeli land transfers and further strengthening of the wholly corrupt, and terror supporting Palestinian militias.

The same was the case when then prime minister Ehud Barak went to Camp David five years ago and begged Arafat to establish a state on all of Gaza, 95 percent of Judea and Samaria and in east Jerusalem, including Judaism’s most sacred site of the Temple Mount and then threw in land in the Negev for good measure.

After Arafat tore up Barak’s offer and went to war against Israeli civilians, Barak declared that now the Europeans and the Americans, and of course the Israeli Left, would accept the truth. Arafat and the PLO had been unmasked. As PA minister for Jerusalem affairs, Faisal Husseini admitted shortly before his death at the end of 2000, Oslo had been a “Trojan horse,” brought in to destroy Israel from inside.

All was known, and yet the image creators and their eager audiences from London to the State Department refused to budge. As the dozens of Israelis murdered became hundreds, and then topped 1,000, with thousands more wounded and maimed, the Palestinians remained the victims, and Israel remained the aggressor.

Now, as Israel approaches the final phase of the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria, we are told again, this is the test for the Palestinians. They have sovereign territory now in Gaza. They will be forced to instill order. They can no longer claim victim status. We are no longer there.

And yet the images this week tell us, again, that this is untrue. On Wednesday, Arafat’s nephew and security boss Moussa Arafat was murdered in Gaza by a mob of terrorists with automatic rifles and RPG. His son was kidnapped and is now assumed dead. The perpetrators were the Popular Resistance Committees. This is a terror group formed by Arafat in the months ahead of the war in the spring of 2000 that includes elements of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Members of the group also serve in the official Palestinian militias.

This challenge to the Palestinian Authority’s leadership was met with listless protestations by the likes of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei. In the same manner, Palestinian forces stood by on Tuesday as hundreds of young men and teenage boys descended on the ruins of Neveh Dekalim and threw stones and attempted to mount an IDF tank. It was an act of pure aggression, meant not to destroy the tank but to create an image of Israeli aggression on the one hand, and fecklessness on the other.

After one of the attackers was killed by the tank, the Palestinians launched rockets at civilians by Kibbutz Yad Mordechai which borders northern Gaza. The press explained the story as a cycle of violence. But there was no cycle of anything, just an escalation of Palestinian violence, from throwing rocks at a tank to shooting mortars at civilians.

For Europeans and leftists in Israel and America, no matter what the Palestinians do, the images emanating from here will be interpreted as justification for further Israeli land giveaways in light of continued Palestinian victimhood.

For Arab audiences, in Palestine — n e Gaza — in Judea and Samaria and throughout the Arab world, the pictures emanating from here will tell two stories. The first is of Jewish ruthlessness and cruelty that justifies the continued massacre of Israeli civilians. The second image is one of Israeli weakness in the face of constant terror — of Israel falling apart. This image sends a message which says that momentum is on the terrorists’ side. All they need to do to bring about the destruction of Israel is continue their terrorist war of attrition.

For most Israelis, the images tell a different tale completely. The images expose the transformation of Gaza into a new Afghanistan — replete with warlords who terrorize their people and their neighbors; a society embroiled in chaos; and a society where Islamic fascists have the upper hand over simply corrupt, secular murderers.

The great challenge of Israel is to meet the false images portrayed by those who cling to their mendacious “narratives” of the Palestinian war against Israel with truthful ones.

Tuvia Grossman made aliya (officially took up residence in the Holy Land) on Wednesday. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, he said, “You don’t realize how many people’s lives have been affected forever from terrorist attacks. Some people are wounded for the rest of their lives. Once I get settled in, I would love to assist victims of terror in any way I can.”

Grossman’s story, both his victimization and his stubborn loyalty and love for the Land of Israel that motivated him to return here and build a life of giving despite his terrifying experience, is the story of the Jewish people and of the Jewish state. It is this truth we must uphold and contrast against the barbarism of our enemies if we do not wish for their false images to become our reality.

Jerusalem Post
by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Monday defended the decision to demolish the synagogues in the Gaza Strip, saying they did not want to give Jews an excuse to ever think about returning to the area.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas visited the former settlement of Dugit in the northern Gaza Strip, where he declared that the Israel did not leave behind any synagogues. “There are no synagogues here,” he said.

“Israel left behind some empty buildings which that are likely to collapse. All the public buildings they left are in danger of collapsing,” he said.

According to Abbas, the PA would destroy all the empty structures, including the synagogues, to build homes for thousands of Palestinians.

Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said his movement would not allow the synagogues to exist for fear that they would be turned in the future into “Wailing Walls” for Jews. “We won’t allow any Wailing Walls on our blessed land,” he said.

Defending the decision to raze the synagogues, Haniyeh said Israel was trying to keep them to put pressure on the PA to protect them in the future. “These synagogues were built for political, not religious, reasons. They were built illegally and should go away with the occupation.”

Meanwhile, a number of armed groups in the Gaza Strip announced that they would continue to launch attacks on Israel until it withdraws from more territories.

The armed wing of Fatah announced that it was planning to launch attacks inside Israel “until all our lands are liberated.” Muhamemd Hijazi, commander of one of the Fatah- affiliated militias in the Gaza Strip, said his men were planning suicide attacks in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheba.

“We will continue our martyrdom operations inside Israel until all our lands are liberated, by God’s will,” he said. “Gaza is only part of historic Palestine. We won’t lay down our weapons as long as Jerusalem and the West Bank are under occupation.”

Islamic Jihad leader Muhammed al-Hindi said his group’s main task now was to liberate Jerusalem and the West Bank. “Today we are celebrating victory in the Gaza Strip, but we still have Jerusalem and the West Bank,” he said. “Today we have begun the march toward Jerusalem and all of Palestine.”

He said the pullout from the Gaza Strip did not mark the end of Israeli occupation “because Israel continues to control the airspace and border crossings.” He, too, declared that his group would not abandon its weapons following the disengagement.

Israel Today

After two days of chaos, Palestinian security forces appear to be restoring order in the abandoned Gaza settlements. Scavengers looted demolished buildings and mobs destroyed synagogues, but the settlements were largely deserted today. The looting included the destruction of greenhouses which were a gift to the Palestinian people. American Jewish donors bought the greenhouses from Israeli farmers for $14 million, with the aim of providing jobs and boosting the Palestinian economy. Thugs made off with hoses, pumps, electrical equipment and plastic sheeting. In impoverished Gaza, it’s each man for himself.

More chaos at Egypt-Gaza border
Security also broke down at Gaza’s border with Egypt, despite an agreement with Israel for the deployment of 750 Egyptian troops. These guards stood by as thousands of Palestinians tore down the fence and crossed into Egypt, buying up cheap supplies and appliances. It’s a security nightmare for Israel, which expected Egyptian forces to prevent weapons smuggling to Palestinian terrorists. Egyptian and Palestinian authorities have vowed to restore order, and at press time, it appeared that they were making progress on sealing the border. Egypt has had its share of terrorist shootings and bombings, so analysts say it’s in Cairo’s interest to secure the volatile frontier.

Huge Hamas ‘victory’ rally in Gaza
Tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza City, as the Islamic terrorist group Hamas claimed victory and took credit for driving the Israelis out. Leaders of the group vowed that holy war would continue until Israel is destroyed. “We are not going to rest until we raise the flag of Islam over the minarets of Jerusalem,” said Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar. He also rejected requests by the Palestinian Authority to disarm, as demanded by the internationally-backed “roadmap” peace plan. “These weapons will remain aimed at the chest of the enemy until we achieve liberation, Allah willing,” Zahar told the crowd. It’s bad news for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who wants to revive peace talks with Israel. It’s clear that he can control the multitudes of Hamas

jnewswire.com
By Ryan Jones

Despite Hamas’ unswerving dedication to Israel’s destruction, the international community is ignoring Israel’s pleas to block the terror group’s participation in upcoming “Palestinian” elections and a subsequent diplomatic role in the “peace” process.

The European Union officially classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization, and will not conduct official ties with the group. But that has not stopped the Europeans from meeting with Hamas members who will be candidates in the Palestinian Legislative Council election, or who have already won local elections, Israeli diplomatic sources told Ha’aretz.

US President George W. Bush similarly sees Hamas as a terrorist organization, but has declined, as primary sponsor of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, to make Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian Authority a sticking point in negotiations.

Bush doesn’t “think [Hamas terrorists are] going to get elected” anyway, because, according to the president, “Palestinian moms want their children to grow up in peace just like American moms want their children to grow up in peace.”

In other words, the extent of Hamas’ political role will be left to Palestinian Arab voters — the same public from which Hamas so successfully recruits “suicide” bombers.

For its part, Israel says it would accept Hamas running for election if the group first disarmed, and if it annulled its charter which calls for the eradication of the Jewish state through armed violence.

Last month, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas insisted that if Israel and the US truly believe in democracy they must accept Hamas as it comes.

“We believe in the principles of democracy. So if we want to build a democracy, we must accept the consequences of democracy” by allowing everyone to participate, Abbas told France’s La Liberation.

Hamas has repeatedly vowed it will not lay down its arms, will seek to slaughter as many Israeli Jews as possible in order to “liberate Palestine,” and will hold fast to its virulent charter.

The group’s participation in the January 21, 2006 PLC poll would violate Annex II, Article II of Israel’s Interim Agreement with the PA.

Israel Today

Israel’s Supreme Court has given a green light to the army to demolish 25 Gaza synagogues to prevent their desecration by Palestinian mobs. The court rejected an appeal by rabbis, who warned that destroying the synagogues is a violation of Jewish Law. “Even if they’re not praying there, these synagogues are holy,” said settler rabbi Haim Druckman. “It’s better for the Palestinians to desecrate them, than for Jews to do it.” The Cabinet will vote on demolishing the synagogues on Sunday. For the settlement movement, which is already reeling over the Gaza pullout, it’s another bitter pill.

Israel Today

Yasser Arafat’s doctor has renewed allegations that Israel poisoned the late Palestinian leader. “Israel gave Arafat the AIDS virus,” Dr. Ashraf al-Kourd told Israel’s Channel 2 Television. He was responding to published reports in Israel and the US that there is no evidence to back these allegations up. It’s “absolutely nonsense,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. “They are just trying to damage Israel’s image.” The reports in the Israeli newspaper “Ha’aretz” and the “New York Times” said Arafat died of a stroke, but it’s not clear what disease led to the deterioration of his health. The mystery surrounding Arafat’s death remains unresolved, and that’s a sure-fire way to keep conspiracy theories alive.