Home » Levitt Letter » Levitt Letter Extra News

London Telegraph
By Toby Harnden, Chief Foreign Correspondent

Iranian state television has broadcast a cartoon that glorifies suicide bombings against Israelis, depicting a young boy blowing himself up after being told: “Go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine.”

The cartoon, one of a series shown by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on “Jerusalem Day” nine days ago, presents the actions of a boy who kills himself to strike back against Israelis as a noble example for children to follow.

The cartoon follows the story of Abd who dies in a suicide attack
More professionally produced and graphic than previous Iranian propaganda aimed at children, the cartoon appears to be part of a campaign led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to elevate the issue of the destruction of Israel. The day before the cartoon was shown, he declared at a World Without Zionism conference: “This stain of disgrace [Israel] will be wiped off the face of the world — and this is attainable.”

His comments were greeted with outrage in the West and prompted Tony Blair to suggest that military action might be required against Iran if progress towards a nuclear bomb continued.

At the start of the 10-minute animated film, translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), Abd al-Rahman, a Palestinian youth, watches as Israeli soldiers murder his family.

They are depicted laughing as they strike his mother in the face with a rifle butt and then shoot his father, whose blood splashes the oranges on the trees he cultivated.

Abd comforts his sister and weeps, declaring: “Oh God, I must take revenge upon these bloodthirsty aggressors, who murdered my father, mother and brother.” His cousin Karim introduces him to a neighbour’s son, Jassem, who is a member of a “resistance group”.

Jassem instructs the boys to take part in an attack against Israeli soldiers, applauding their “deep faith” and telling them that they “may become martyrs”. Abd’s aunt bids the boys a tearful farewell. “God willing, you’ll be successful,” she says. “Go, my children. Go and show the Zionists how brave and heroic are the children of Palestine.”

As he lies in wait, Abd ties a string of grenades around his waist. The convoy approaches and the cartoon shows satanic-faced Israeli soldiers sitting in a lorry around an ammunition box decorated with a Star of David.

Abd shouts, “I place my trust in God. Allah Akbar”, pulls the grenade pins and leaps onto the lorry. When the smoke clears, the bodies of Abd, the Israeli troops and the attackers are strewn around the road.

A young Palestinian boy then walks over to Abd’s body, takes his bloodstained keffiyeh head-dress, drapes it over his own shoulders and walks off into the sunset.

Dan Shaham, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London, said: “This phenomenon of inciting children to commit suicide attacks is revolting. It corrupts young minds and makes sure conflict continues. President Ahmadinejad is not only dangerous in the here-and-now but the Iranian extremist ideology is affecting future generations. Something needs to be done today.”

The Iranian embassy declined to comment. Last week, it emerged that Mohammad Hossein Adeli, Iran’s ambassador to Britain, was being recalled to Teheran in a worldwide purge of about 40 Iranian diplomats ordered by Mr Ahmadinejad.

Ali Ansari, an Iranian analyst at St Andrew’s University, said the cartoon was “gory stuff” and different from previous anti-Israeli propaganda. “It’s interesting they’ve gone to these lengths to develop a cartoon like this that is obviously directed towards kids.

“Anti-Zionism is one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic republic. But Ahmadinejad’s comments went beyond the standard ideological diet, because by implication they applauded suicide bombers and condemned anyone who makes peace with Israel.”

This was the equivalent of trying to be “more Catholic than the Pope”, he said, because the Palestinians now accepted that there must be a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict — in contrast to President Ahmadinejad’s policy of destroying Israel and replacing it with a new Palestinian state.

A spokesman for Memri said that the cartoon was one of 10 being translated. In another, Palestinian children throw aubergines at Israeli soldiers who think they are being attacked with grenades and flee.

Such naive propaganda fits in with Mr Ahmadinejad’s simplistic world view and is likely to alienate most ordinary Iranians who, as Shia Persians, rather than Sunni Arabs, are far from fixated on the Palestinian issue.

“Ahmadinejad is not a shrewd political operator,” said Dr Ansari. “Most Iranians want to focus on domestic problems and this [his anti-Israeli stance] is alarming the international community and creating huge anxiety in Iran.”

A British diplomat in London said: “The increase in anti-Israeli propaganda and Ahmadinejad’s dangerous rhetoric will only serve to alienate him from his people and further isolate Iran. For the West, as well as Israel, the prospect of this man having his finger on a nuclear button is truly horrifying.”

By Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com

There are very few things as amusing these days as watching the French grapple with their backyard intifada. The suburbs of Paris are now more dangerous than Jenin, and the French are getting their comeuppance for decades of snootiness, anti-American and anti-Israel agitprop, and decades of cowardice.

Paris is now being targeted by violent rioting hordes. For years the French accused American racism of having produced the race riots of the 60s and 70s in the US, as well as the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King business. And the French are sure that only Jewish cussedness and just plain Israeli evil lie behind the behavior of the Palestinian pogromchiki. The Gall of Dem Gauls!

Well, now that the French are experiencing their own intifada, we suggest that they resolve the problem using the very same plan that they have been trying for decades to impose upon Israel.

Yes, comrades, it is time to implement the Land for Peace Plan, Paris style. Here it is:

The French Solution: Land for Peace

So after leading the Solidarity-with-the-Baathists movement in Europe during the recent Gulf War, France now enjoys its own intifada by urban Moslem resistance fighters in suburban Paris! Of course, this is all on top of France’s long history of supporting Islamist fascism and Palestinian terrorism.

A few years back during a trip to Israel, French prime minister Lionel Jospin urged Israel to make concessions for peace. More interesting yet, in documents relating to his visit, Jerusalem was called the ”capital of the Palestinian Authority.” And what do the French consider to be the capital of Israel? Tel Aviv, of course. A few years later, French President Jacques Chirac used the occasion of his visit in 1996 to announce that ”Syria has a moral right to demand return of the Golan Heights.”

These French politicians may be on to something important. Never one to back down from a challenge, I have prepared a set of proposals for consideration by the French people, so that they not only can preserve peace in Parisian suburbia, but also can achieve a full, lasting, and just peace with their urban resistance opponents.

First, until this plan is implemented in full, we must insist that the French government acknowledge that there is no military or police solution to the problems of violence in its suburbs and only through recognizing the legitimacy of the demands of the murderers and rioters outside Paris can the problems be resolved.

Second, we all agree that territory must not be annexed by force. Therefore, we can also agree that Germany has a moral right to demand the return of Alsace-Lorraine, for the French aggression in 1945 and its consequent occupation must not be rewarded. ”A full withdrawal for full peace” should operate here. Further, France must agree to the return and rehabilitation of all ethnic Germans expelled from Alsace-Lorraine after World Wars I and II, as well as all those they define as their descendents.

But this, of course, is just the first step toward a solution, as no aggression can be rewarded and France has much other stolen territory to return. It took Corsica from Genoa, Nice and Savoy from Piedmont; as the successor state, Italy must get back all these lands. By similar token, territories grabbed from the Habsburgs go back to Austria, including Franche-Comte, Artois, and historical Burgundy. The Roussillon area (along the Pyrenees) must be returned to Spain, its rightful owner. And Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Gascony must be returned to their rightful owners, the British royal family.

Not even this is enough for the sake of peace. Brittany and Languedoc must be granted autonomy at once, recognizing the Breton and Occitan Liberation organizations as their legal rulers. This leaves the French government in control over the Ile de France (the area around Paris).

That, however, still does not solve the problem of the Holy City of Paris, sacred to artists, gourmets, and adulterers. The Corsicans obviously have a historical claim to the Tomb of the Emperor Napoleon, their famed son, as well as the Invalides complex and beyond. For the sake of peace, is it not too much to ask that Paris be the capital for two peoples? The French authorities must agree to prevent French Parisians from even entering the sacred tomb area, lest this upset the Corsicans.

The Saint Chapelle and the Church of Notre Dame, of course, will be internationalized, under joint Vatican-art historical auspices. Indeed, the French should consider it a compliment of the highest order that so many people see Paris as an international city.

The French have nothing to complain about. They will enjoy the benefits of peace and retain control of the Champs Elysees.

Actually, come to think of it, even the Champs Elysees may be too much. Recalling the French position that Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel, perhaps the true French capital is not Paris at all, but Vichy.

By Hal Lindsey
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

This week, Hamas announced it had no intention of keeping the informal truce with Israel it has maintained for the last nine months. The truce was informal” because Hamas reserved the right to attack — and did — but for the most part laid low and regrouped.

Having gained their second wind, they are ready to resume the war. “In the ace of this Zionist aggression, no one should dream about the renewal of his truce,” said a Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri.

Israel rejected a Palestinian Authority proposal that Israel stop targeting militants if they would lay down their arms. Israel insists on the dismantling of violent groups.

Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said, “We’re not going to pay with Israeli lives while they are experimenting in trying to reach understandings with terror organizations and they continue to carry out terror attacks against us.”

Israel’s rejection of the proposal did not sit well with Washington, which continues to urge Israel to show “restraint” in the face of unrelenting and unapologetic aggression linked back to most of the capitals of the Arab world.

It is important in understanding Israel’s true peril to recall the words of former Prime Minister Golda Meir, who famously (and accurately) observed: “The Arabs can fight, and lose, and return to fight another day. Israel can only lose once.”

While the rest of the world experiments with Israel’s security, if the experiment fails, the only loser will be Israel. Israel is as literally in a fight for her survival as America was in World War II, or — although the liberals don’t seem to care — as America’s current war against terror.

Iran’s president recently called for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth in a public speech. Since Iran is developing nuclear weapons capable of fulfilling the threat, urging Israel to show “restraint” is like urging it to commit suicide.

What would Washington do in Israel’s place? During World War II, in order to defeat the Nazi enemy, Washington ordered the firebombing of civilian cities, killing hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of civilian men, women and children in an effort to break the enemy’s will.

To defeat Japan and avoid the necessity of a costly invasion, Washington ordered a nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both civilian targets, following months of intensive conventional firebombing, also aimed at civilians, and intended to break the civilian population’s will to continue to fight.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Washington ordered the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the suppression of civilian rule (at least for a time), an ongoing military occupation of both nations with the permission of the (now) friendly governments, and a policy of unrestricted warfare against enemy combatants, wherever they may be found on earth. Washington justified its post-Sept. 11 actions by pointing to the existential threat posed to America’s continued existence should al-Qaida get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.

The identical justification exists (in spades) for an Israeli occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank, including unrestricted warfare against enemy civilians in an effort to break the Palestinians’ continued will to fight. If America’s existence is threatened by Islamic jihadists, Israel’s existence is threatened by every Arab government on earth — in addition to the Islamic jihadists who threaten America.

If America is justified in invading Afghanistan and Iraq, removing the existing governments, and setting up more U.S. friendly governments in their places, then Israel has the identical justification for invading Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia, deposing the existing rulers, and replacing them with more Israel-friendly regimes.

During World War II, nothing less than unconditional surrender of the Axis powers was acceptable. They were disarmed, occupied and re-educated. Their systems of government were replaced with U.S.-imposed democracies. Washington has proclaimed the same objectives regarding its Islamic enemies.

Nothing less than total surrender and disarmament, or the total destruction of al-Qaida is acceptable. President Bush has made it clear that there is no room for negotiation with terrorists. Until the terrorists disarm and disband, American forces will continue to hunt them down and kill them wherever they find them.

But when it comes to Israel, Washington urges restraint and negotiation by the Israeli side.

According to Bible prophecy, the world is divided into four main spheres of power in the last days — all of which are already in existence today. The Russian-Islamic bloc, the Asian “Kings of the East” the Organization of African Nation’s “Kings of the South” and the European Union’s revived Roman Empire, out of which Daniel says the antichrist will rise to power.

Israel is the main player in the Last Days’ drama, the preferred enemy and ultimate target of all four of these global power players. Israel is in place and in character for the role she was predicted to play.

Missing from the overall Big Picture is any mention of a fifth, overarching superpower resembling the United States. Where did it go?

Perhaps Washington took some of the advice it is now offering Israel.