Levitt Letter Extra News

www.michellemalkin.com

Request seeks list of Muslim homes, businesses, mosques targeted under secret program

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today announced the filing of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all government records relating to a secret government program that monitored the radiation levels at more than 100 Muslim homes, businesses and mosques in the capital region and in other areas nationwide…

…The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed the FOIA request with the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and the Department of Energy.

In the request, CAIR asked for: 1) “Records concerning the authority of President Bush to delegate or personally authorize surveillance without obtaining a court order as required by FISA,” and 2) “Comprehensive lists and addresses of the over a hundred Muslim sites (including mosques, organizations, businesses, warehouses and homes) in Washington D.C., Chicago, Detroit, New York, Las Vegas and Seattle which have been targeted for radiological surveillance by this top secret program…”

By Pete Fisher www.mensnewsdaily.com

Talking with some Muslims recently, it was pointed out that the Bible foretells Mohammed. The passage they used was “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” Deut. 18:18.

I noticed instantly the term “from their brethren” as being a Jew as was Moses. The lineage of the Messiah, in both Judaism and Christianity is quite well known to descend from the line of King David, which means if the Muslims I discussed this with are correct, then by all means Mohammed would have to be a Jew.

But during my discussion I found no reference at all to Mohammed within the Old or New Testaments with exception that there would be false messiahs and false prophets walking around from time to time and that by using scripture as a basis, we could easily see the deception should it come along.

So here we see Moses having freed the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians using methods completely beyond the grasp of man. So it would make sense to me that anyone who was to be like Moses would exhibit at least the powers and abilities of Moses, and would also speak words not contrary to Moses’ words.

But I cannot see this with Mohammed. In fact, he seemed to be a walking contradiction to Moses and the prophets in many ways. Take this passage from the Quran for example: Koran 9:5,29 — pp102,111; cf. 2:256 — p32 where Mohammed commanded to use violence against anyone who rejected Islam, yet then said not to use religion as a means to violence. First forbidding the use of idols and images, he condoned it under being at the brink of starvation, and then once more condemned it. In fact, Mohammed changed his doctrines in the area of 50 times, and he also claimed to have been deceived by the devil in one passage, and changed his tune, something not seen in Jewish prophets. They may not have been well received, but they always stuck to their guns.

For in fact, if Mohammed arose after Moses, to further the message of Moses we would first have to see Mohammed being born of a Jewish mother and being able to trace his lineage back to King David. I never did find that connection anywhere I happened to look. Mohammed was describes as pale, almost china white in some tenets, and some even think he was Chinese or Aryan. He barely fits the description of any Semitic people when reading through the tales of his appearance.

However, I will give Mohammed and his followers the benefit of the doubt for a minute while I chew on some things here. Did Mohammed fulfill the prophecy of Moses? Then He must be a Jew.

Did Mohammed cry to God, as did Moses to spare the life of the Israelites and even offer to die on his own for them should God not forgive them? Then he must be a Jew.

Did Mohammed fulfill the promise of being the Messiah as the Bible says? Then Mohammed was a Jew.

Did Mohammed raise the dead, or bring a message of freedom to the Jews as the One Who would come after him do? Then Mohammed was a Jew.

Was Mohammed sold for thirty pieces of silver, die on a tree, and was he buried with the rich? Then Mohammed was a Jew.

Did Mohammed negate the old system of sacrifice to release the penalty of mankinds’ sins from their shoulders? Or did he enforce a worse one, i.e. Sharia?

Did Mohammed recognize Jerusalem as the Holy City of God? Then Mohammed was a Jew. Did Mohammed recognize the location and implication of the Jewish temple on the temple Mount? Then Mohammed was a Jew. And I can go on and on, but why? We can easily see that by trying to weakly squeeze Mohammed into the lineage of Moses and David, all that comes out is pulp. As in fiction, like the movie.

But who would think that God would send the Messenger to basically contradict all that Moses said and did? And why would God call His people Holy, and promise David that his lineage would never end, and have Mohammed enter the picture and order their obliteration? I could more easily comprehend that he simply tried to create a religion, and all 6,666 verses in the Quran could have been just that, another religion. But to claim to be the Messenger that God promised, without fulfilling any of the prophecies that came with the job, I really have a hard time accepting the fact that Mohammed was a Jew. Other than some dietary laws that were borrowed from the Jews, it seems Mohammed had little in common with them.

Maybe if I saw Islam fully embracing Israel and it’s people, and put an end to Sharia whereby men are made slaves, and waged a full scale Jihad against those who oppose the Quran by trying to steal Jewish lands via terror; I still could not accept Mohammed as a Jew.

But I would most definitely have a lot more respect for Mohammed and his followers.

www.tourism.gov.il

73 Per Cent Rise in First-Time Visitors to Israel; Incoming Tourism Revenues for First Half of Year Leap 23 Per Cent to $1.1 Billion

Israel’s Tourism Minister Avraham Hirchson: “We are in the midst of an economic revolution; Tourism is one of the main engines of growth.”

The Semi-Annual Israeli Inbound Tourism Survey released today shows that in the first six months of 2005, there was a 73 per cent increase in the number of first-time visitors to Israel-328,000 compared to 190,000 in the same period last year. The number of those arriving in the country for touring and sightseeing purposes more than doubled to 156,000 from 75,000 in the first half of 2004. Revenues from foreign tourism rose 23 per cent to $1.1 billion.

“The data show the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. Tourism is a major source of revenue for all sectors of Israeli society,” says Israeli Minister of Tourism Avraham Hirchson.

11,000 tourists were interviewed for the survey which is intended to provide a snapshot of foreign tourists to Israel. The survey outlines their expenses, length of stay, purpose of visit, where tourists stay and more.

According to the survey, in the first six months of 2005, the number of tourists identifying themselves as Catholic rose 91 per cent to 156,000, 104,000 described themselves as Protestant (+39 per cent), 104,000 as other Christian (+53 per cent), 371,000 as Jewish (+5 per cent) and 130,000 said that they had no religious affiliation (+27 per cent).

The number of tourists arriving in Israel for pilgrimage purposes doubled from 68,000 in the first six months of 2004 to 138,000 this year. A 36 per cent rise in the number of business travelers was also reported. Those arriving on organized tours numbered 181,600 in the first six months of 2005, up 40 per cent from 88,000 a year ago.

www.usatoday.com

An anti-terrorism campaign by a group that wants tighter restrictions on driver’s licenses has angered Arab-Americans who say that an image on a planned billboard — an Arab man holding both a grenade and a license — is racist.

The billboard is the work of the New York-based Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, which plans to post an ad with the controversial image this month near North Carolina’s state Capitol building in Raleigh. A second billboard is scheduled to be installed in late December or early January in Albuquerque, says coalition President Amanda Bowman.

She says the group is putting billboards in states it believes have particularly lax policies for scrutinizing applicants for driver’s licenses.

The campaign comes about seven months after Congress passed the Real ID Act, which calls for states to adopt a uniform way of authenticating documents that people use to obtain driver’s licenses. The measure was aimed at closing gaps in state driver’s licensing systems that have made it easy for illegal immigrants and others to get licenses by presenting fake IDs and fraudulent documents.

“I think it’s an important message to get out to North Carolinians that they have a driver’s license that is vulnerable to getting into the wrong hands,” Bowman says. “A driver’s license functions as the internal passport in the U.S.”

However, James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, says the billboard planned by Bowman’s group is “bigoted.”

The billboard shows a man wearing a traditional Arab head scarf called a kaffiyeh and holding a grenade and a driver’s license. The image planned for the Raleigh billboard is imposed over a North Carolina landscape with the slogan “Don’t License Terrorists” above it. The Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License is spending about $50,000 each in North Carolina and New Mexico to lease the billboards, spokesman Bill O’Reilly says.

“I think the motivation is anti-immigrant,” Zogby says. “They are creating fear … over Arabs. The message is very clear: ‘Arabs are dangerous, Arabs should not get driver’s licenses.’ ”

The coalition says it is targeting terrorism, not Muslims or Arab-Americans. The images adapted for the billboards came from Internet websites that sympathize with terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, says Bowman, who notes that North Carolina authorities broke up a cigarette smuggling ring that had alleged ties with Hezbollah. “The people who have objected to these billboards have attacked us at a very mean-spirited level,” Bowman says. “It’s an attempt to bully.”

Tuesday, the coalition removed Arabic writing from a draft version of the billboard after receiving what Bowman describes as “thoughtful letters that say the writing could be construed as inflammatory.”

“For us, the issue is terrorism. It’s certainly not about racism,” says Colleen Gilbert, the coalition’s executive director. “We’re trying to highlight the fact that the 9/11 hijackers had 60-plus driver’s licenses. It’s not about immigration for us. It’s about security.”

North Carolina did not issue any of the licenses that were obtained by the 19 hijackers in various states, and it has tightened up its licensing process during the past three years, says state Department of Transportation spokesman Ernie Seneca. He says the state now requires applicants to provide multiple forms of identification.

Seneca says his department objects to the billboard and has received complaints from people who find it offensive.

“It’s misleading, totally inaccurate and offensive,” Seneca says. “They’re entitled to their freedom of speech, but North Carolina is not the right place for its campaign. They ought to look elsewhere.”

Augusta Chronicle

It’s not about Israel. It’s not about the Palestinians. It’s not even about George W. Bush.

Muslim violence is about itself, and nothing else. It’s about a violent, virulent strain of Islam as bent on world domination as the communists ever were.

It’s not restricted to the Mideast and the maddening politics there. It’s in the Philippines and Thailand — and Indonesia, where yet another bombing on Bali has left 22 dead and more than 100 injured.

In October, three suicide bombers targeted crowded popular restaurants in coordinated attacks that had all the earmarks of Jemaah Islamiah, the al-Qaida-linked Muslim extremist group responsible for other attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than 200.

So what is behind it all, if not the oft-cited Palestinian “cause”?

“If they refuse to be under Islam, it will be chaos. Full stop,” said Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, in prison for the 2002 Bali bombing. “If (Westerners) want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.”

Some well-intentioned souls in the West, particularly in Hollywood, want to sell the idea of Muslim violence as a freedom fight by the Palestinians and — what, sympathy pains by other Muslims?

Bali belies all that. The truth, as the radical Indonesian cleric so candidly admits, is that this is a war for the soul of the planet. It’s an attempt by radical Muslims to drive out the unbelievers — one resort, one restaurant, one innocent diner at a time, if need be.

By Bob Egelko
www.sfgate.com

A Contra Costa County (Calif.) school was educating seventh-graders about Islam, not indoctrinating them, in role-playing sessions in which students used Muslim names and recited language from prayers, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit by two Christian students and their parents, who accused the Byron Union School District of unconstitutionally endorsing a religious practice.

“The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns,” the three-judge panel said, referring to the First Amendment ban on government sanctioning a religion.

During the history course at Excelsior School in the fall of 2001, the teacher, using an instructional guide, told the students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.

She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled in favor of the school district in 2003, saying that the class had an instructional purpose and that students had engaged in no actual religious exercises.

The appeals court upheld her ruling Thursday in a three-paragraph decision that was not published as a precedent for future cases, which generally is an indication that the court considers the legal issue to be clear from past rulings.

The court cited its 1994 ruling rejecting a suit by evangelical Christian parents in Woodland (Yolo County) who objected to elementary school children reading texts that contained tales and role-playing exercises about witches. In that case, the court said classroom activities related to the texts, which included casting a make-believe spell, were secular instruction rather than religious rituals.

The brevity of Thursday’s ruling “underscores the fact that what the district and its teachers did was entirely within the mainstream of educational practice,” said Linda Lye, attorney for the Byron schools.

Edward White of the Thomas More Center, the attorney in the case for the two children and their parents, said he will ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. He said the panel failed to address his argument that the district violated parents’ rights.

“What happened in this classroom was clearly an endorsement of religion and indoctrination of children in the Islamic religion, which would never have stood if it were a class on Christianity or Judaism,” White said.

www.yahoo.com

Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, who has battled parliament to force it to carry out fiscal belt tightening measures, has submitted his resignation ahead of legislative elections due in January.

Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund official, said on Saturday he wanted to step down because he was considering running in the polls, and turned in his resignation as required under Palestinian law.

Other officials who asked not to be named said his resignation was in protest against the government’s refusal to implement concrete fiscal reforms.

“Our election law requires that cabinet members considering running for parliament should resign two months before the election date, and I am one of those,” Fayyad told Reuters. He did not say whether he had made a final decision on running.

The aid-dependent Palestinian Authority is under pressure to carry out fiscal reforms, and Fayyad’s resignation followed threats by foreign donors in October to suspend direct budget support unless ballooning public wage costs were reversed.

There was no immediate word on whether Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie would accept the resignation, which comes as Palestinians are under increasing scrutiny over how they run the Gaza Strip — seen as a proving ground for statehood following Israel’s withdrawal after 38 years of occupation.

“His resignation is going to affect the Palestinian Authority very negatively,” political analyst Ali Jarbawi said. “He was trusted by the international community, and this trust will disappear when he goes.”

The World Bank has said boosting the Palestinian economy is crucial to peacemaking. Donors have given an average of $25 million a month this year in budget support for the Palestinian Authority, according to figures from an international envoy

Nation of Islam flyer calls for gangs to unite against cops
www.worldnetdaily.com

The Nation of Islam in Los Angeles is calling on the Crips and Bloods street gangs to stop fighting each other — and to unite in a jihad against the LAPD.

That’s the essence of a flyer obtained by KFI News and circulated in South Los Angeles, calling on members of two violent street gangs to start a “holy war” against the police department.

The telephone number listed for the Nation of Islam’s Los Angeles mosque near 87th and Vermont has been disconnected, but a check of a reverse directory reveals the phone number on the flyer is connected to the mosque at the same address, according to KFI.

The Nation of Islam’s L.A. leader, Minister Tony Muhammad, has claimed he was the victim of an unprovoked attack by LAPD officers at the scene of a vigil for a murdered gang member.

The LAPD last week released an audio tape of some garbled radio transmissions in which they say Muhammad can be heard challenging officers.

The photograph on the flyer appears to have been taken at a news conference held just after Muhammad was released from jail. Muhammad and the Nation of Islam have not returned calls for comment.

It’s unclear who created the flyer so the LAPD has declined to comment, other than saying officers have been aware of them for several days.

“This is deeply disturbing,” Los Angeles Police Protective League President Bob Baker told KFI. “Quite frankly, this is a case in which I hope our mayor, our police commission and our community leaders can step in to remind everyone of our shared priorities.”

by Shaikh Azizur Rahman (in Churachandpur)
www.scotsman.com

After almost three millennia in exile the Bnei Menashe Jews of India believe they are about to be returned to the Promised Land.

More than 7,000 mainly impoverished Indian Jews will convert to orthodox Judaism in the coming weeks, thereby gaining the right to live in Israel.

In April Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic chief rabbi, announced in Jerusalem that he accepted the Bnei Menashe, which means “Children of the Messiah”, as one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel.

A Beit Din, or rabbinical court, arrived in India last week on a mission to convert the Bnei Menashes of India’s Mizoram and Manipur states to orthodox Judaism, giving hope to thousands of a new life in Israel.

Despite his grinding poverty and occasional bouts of depression, David Haokip, a Bnei Menashe youth leader who embraced Judaism five years ago, remains a devout follower of his adopted religion and goes to nearby Beth Shalom synagogue to pray three times every day.

The 23-year-old goes before the Beit Din today. “The moment we knew that we were recognised by the Chief Rabbinate it was the happiest news of my life,” he said. “The Beit Din will change my life selecting me for the conversion, I hope.”

His devotion is without question. Each morning, he and his wife Shalomi with about 200 other members of his tribe attend a Hebrew school run by Shavei Israel in this dusty hill town in the north-east Indian state of Manipur. When he has no sewing to do, he sits at his machine and studies the Siddur — the Jewish book of daily prayers. At Sabbath gatherings at the synagogue he regularly urges young people to pray for return to Israel, “their long-lost homeland”.

Haokip said: “The conversion is the final step before the ‘Aliyah’ right to return to our homeland, ending our 2,726-year exodus.”

Shavei Israel, a Jerusalem-based organisation that has been trying to locate descendants of lost Jewish tribes around the world and bring them to Israel, believes that all Chins in Burma, Mizos in Mizoram and Kukis in Manipur — three prominent tribes of the region — are descendants of Menashe.

According to the organisation there are up to two million Bnei Menashes living in the hilly regions of Burma and north-east India.

After an Assyrian invasion in around 722BC, Jewish tradition says 10 tribes from Israel were enslaved in Assyria. Later the tribes fled and wandered through Afghanistan, Tibet and China.

In around 100AD, one group moved south from China and settled around north-east India and Burma. These Chin-Mizo-Kuki people, who speak Tibeto Burmese dialects and resemble Mongols in appearance, are believed to be the Bnei Menashes.

According to Shavei Israel, there are more than one million ethnic Bnei Menashes in India. Because they lived for centuries in north-east India, mingling with local people, many of their Jewish traditions became diluted. And after Welsh missionaries arrived in the area in 1894, nearly all Bnei Menashes, Kukis and Mizos were converted from their animistic beliefs to Christianity.

DNA studies at the Central Forensic Institute in Calcutta conclude that while the tribe’s males show no links to Israel, the females share a family relationship to the genetic profile of Middle-Eastern people.

Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, a dayan or rabbinical court judge who is leading the Beit Din conversion mission in India, said the decision to accept Indian Bnei Menashes as a lost Jewish tribe followed a careful study of the issue.

“After the conversion the Bnei Menashes can apply for immigration to Israel under the Law of Return, which grants the right of citizenship to all Jews,” said Birnbaum.

After Israel’s Interior Ministry allocated an annual quota of 100 immigrants from the Indian tribe in 1993, Shavei Israel helped about 800 Bnei Menashes convert and settle in Israel.

Bnei Menashes who migrated to Israel in the past mostly lived in settlements in Gaza. Their evacuation from that area last month has not affected the zeal of the Indian Bnei Menashes who are planning to emigrate to Israel.

Since Christian influence is strong in north-east India, only about 9,000 of the Bnei Menashe population — less than 1% of the total — have adopted Judaism in the past 30 years. But some tribal leaders expect more Christian Bnei Menashes are likely to convert.

“After they knew that they were recognised by Israel, many have started to feel an inner urge to return to their roots,” said Liyon Fanai, a Mizo Bnei Menashe leader in Aizawl, capital of India’s Mizoram state.

Since the landmark announcement, about 1,800 Christians in Mizoram and Manipur have been circumcised and adopted Judaism.

“More than 2,000 of them want to be converted in Manipur and now they are in touch with our synagogue leaders. We know many more Christians will surface in the society, willing to return to their original faith of Judaism soon,” said Tongkhohao Aviel Hangshing, a Bnei Menashe Jewish leader in the Manipur state capital of Imphal.

But some Christian leaders object to targeting Christians for conversion. “Acceptance of our people as Israelites is the work of Satan,” said Dr PC Biaksama, an ethnic Mizo and former government bureaucrat who now studies Christian theology.

“We don’t believe these people ever came from Israel. Christianity is at stake here, and we should never take what is happening now lightly.”

L Thanggur, a church leader in Churachandpur, believes the converts are just trying to escape poverty.

“They are economic refugees. If they had better employment and income prospects here, they would have never dreamt of going to Israel,” said Thanggur.

In Israel too, recognition of the Indian tribe by the Chief Rabbi has been attacked by some groups.

Social scientist Lev Grinberg said that right-wing Jewish groups were promoting conversion of distant people simply to boost the Jewish population in occupied territories claimed by the Palestinians.

New UN document refutes Palestinian claims
By Israel Zwick
israelinsider.com

In the fall of 2005, the UN Development Programme released its Human Development Report 2005. If carefully reviewed, this report has widespread implications for the Arab-Israeli conflict. While the UN is eager to condemn Israel for violating Palestinian rights, its own data suggests otherwise. The data disputes Palestinian claims that they are suffering as a result of a harsh Israeli military occupation. On the contrary, the Palestinians have actually benefited from their association with the State of Israel and their difficulties are the result of self-inflicted wounds.

Palestinian problems stem from their intolerance, hostility, violence, and corruption, not from Israeli occupation. Those in the world who are concerned about the “plight of the Palestinian refugees” should carefully review this report. They may want to reconsider their support for establishing a Palestinian state.

Two other reports from the UNDP, the Arab Human Development Report 2004, and HDR 2004, also raise serious questions regarding the wisdom of establishing a Palestinian State in lands currently controlled by Israel.

The mammoth 372-page report is titled Human Development Report 2005: International cooperation at a crossroads. The introductory material notes that 2.5 billion people in the world, which is 40% of the world’s population, are living on less than US$2 per day. About half of that population, 20% of humanity, is living on less than $1 per day (p.4, 24). The report emphasizes the significance of violent conflict as a barrier to progress: “Conflict undermines nutrition and public health, destroys education systems, devastates livelihoods, and retards prospects for economic growth… Part of the challenge posed by human insecurity and violent conflict can be traced to weak, fragile, and failing states. Compounded failures to protect people against security risks, to provide for basic needs and to develop political institutions perceived as legitimate are standing features of conflict-prone states.” (p.12).

The report observes that in 2003 there were 29 ongoing violent conflicts, down from 51 in 1991. In Sudan alone, the conflict has claimed two million lives and displaced 6 million people (p.153). Yet the focus of world sympathy and concern seems to be directed towards 3 million Arabs living in Israeli territories who are receiving the highest amount of aid in the world on a per capita basis.

The HDR 2005 views human progress through a human development index (HDI) which is a composite indicator of three dimensions of human welfare: income, education, and health. The HDI is a barometer for changes in human well-being and for comparing progress in different regions (p.21). The numerous tables include data for 175 UN member countries, along with Hong Kong, China (SAR), and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Countries and areas are ranked in descending order by their HDI value (p.211.) The report notes that “large gaps between wealth and HDI rankings are usually an indicator of deep structural inequalities that block the transmission from wealth creation to human development. They also point to shortcomings in public policy, with governments failing to put in place strategies for extending opportunities among poor, marginalized, or disadvantaged groups” (p.24).

While the world laments over the treatment of Arabs at Israeli checkpoints, almost 10 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. More than 850 million people in the world are suffering from malnutrition and its effects (p.24). The risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes ranges from 1 in 18 in Nigeria to 1 in 8,700 in Canada (p.32). Sub-Saharan Africa had almost 100 million more people living on less than $1 per day in 2001 than in 1990. In contrast, the share of people living on less than $1 per day in the Middle East and North Africa decreased from 5.1% in 1981 to 2.4% in 2001. The report observes that “Aid has not always played a positive role in supporting human development, partly because of failures on the side of aid recipients and partly because donor countries have allowed strategic considerations to override development concerns” (p.75).

The HDR chapter that is most relevant to the Arab-Israeli conflict is Chapter 5, dealing with violent conflict. The chapter opens with a quote from UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, “What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations.” The report notes that since 1990 more than 3 million people have died in armed conflict, mostly in developing countries. About 25 million people are currently internally displaced because of conflict or human rights violations (p.151). Yet the most international aid is still directed towards 3 million Arabs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the State of Israel is most often cited by the UN for human rights violations. The data provided by HDR 2005 suggests that the difficulties experienced by the Palestinian Arabs largely results from their own policies, not from oppression by the State of Israel.

The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are cited as an example of how human development is being reversed (p.158). In the 1990’s the OPT registered some improvement in human development but the second intifada beginning in Sept. 2000 resulted “in a sharp deterioration in living standards and life chances.” The poverty rate more than doubled from 20% in 1999 to 55% in 2003. The town of Nablus was cited as a prosperous commercial hub prior to September 2000. The intifada resulted in shops closing, workers selling their tools, and farmers selling their land (p.158). HDR observes that “violent conflict is one of the surest and fastest routes to the bottom of the HDI table” (p.154). “Violent conflict creates losses that are transmitted across whole economies, undermining the potential for growth. With fewer assets and less capacity to respond to losses in income and assets, poor people are especially vulnerable to the economic impact of the conflict” (p.155).

Much of the blame for the deterioration in human conditions is placed on government failures: “The collapse of effective authority in some countries has undermined capacity to prevent and resolve conflict. Governments lacking either the means or the will to fulfill their core functions, including territorial control, provision of basic services, management of public resources and protection of the livelihoods of the poorest people, are both a cause and consequence of violent conflict… In security terms, a cohesive and peaceful international system is far more likely to be achieved through the cooperation of effective states… than in an environment of fragile, collapsed, fragmenting or generally chaotic state entities” (p.162).

The most revealing data in HDR 2005 can be found in the tables beginning on page 211. The 177 countries in the HDI are classified into three clusters by achievement in human development: high human development with an HDI of 0.8 or above, medium human development with an HDI of 0.5 to 0.8, and low human development with an HDI of less than 0.5. The data is based on information from the year 2003. In these tables, Israel is listed in the high cluster with a rank of 23 and HDI of 0.915 (p.219). The Occupied Palestinian Territories are in the medium cluster with a rank of 102 and HDI of 0.729 (p.220). That means that there are 75 countries listed below OPT. Overall, the Arab states have an HDI of 0.679 which suggests that the Arabs living in OPT have better human conditions than their counterparts in other Arab-Muslim countries.

Even more revealing are the income and poverty tables (p.228). On the Human Poverty Index, the OPT is ranked seventh on a list of 103 developing countries. It is on par with Cuba, Singapore, and Colombia. The other Arab countries are ranked below the OPT. Wealthy Saudi Arabia is ranked 32. Egypt is ranked 55.

The table on page 281 lists the amount of official development assistance (ODA) received among the 177 HDI areas. OPT received 288.6 US$ per capita in 2003, which is the second highest amount in the entire list. Only Cape Verde received more, with 305.7 US$ per capita. Yet, because of violent conflict, the OPT experienced a decline in HDI. This suggests that all of this aid was not being used to improve human welfare in the OPT. On page 312, there is a table titled, “Gender inequality in economic activity.” The OPT has the lowest rate of female economic activity among the 177 countries, with a rate of 9.6%, or 14% of the male rate. This suggests that almost all of the aid money is going to provide employment for males. This may explain how the various militias in OPT are being funded. The implication is that the high amount of aid going to OPT is funding militias and promoting violent conflict instead of improving the lives of the population. Israel, as the occupying power, should be absolved of any blame because the area is controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Arabs are suffering from deep, self-inflicted wounds, not from Israeli occupation. The population would not benefit from the establishment of an independent state that would only continue a policy of intolerance, discrimination, corruption, and violence.

In the interest of brevity, this article is being divided into two parts. Part II, which will be released on Tuesday, Sept 20, will deal with the other two UNDP reports: the Arab HDR 2004, from April 5, 2005 and HDR 2004 from July 15, 2004. Interested readers are encouraged to obtain both reports from www.undp.org.