Levitt Letter Extra News

By Dennis Prager
www.worldnetdaily.com

It is a sad day for humanity when a people choose to elect terrorists as their leaders.

But for those of us who believe that clarity is the prerequisite to moral progress, the landslide victory of the terrorist organization Hamas in Palestine has a silver lining.

First and foremost, it proves what people who perceive reality have been saying for decades: The great majority of Palestinians – like the majority of Arabs elsewhere and like vast numbers of non-Arab Muslims – want Israel destroyed. Even granting legitimacy to the argument that the complete moral, financial and political corruption of Fatah was partly responsible for the Hamas victory, those who voted for Hamas did not find that organization’s terror, religious celebration of murder or charter calling for Israel’s destruction an impediment to their vote.

It is true that in 1933, some Germans who voted for the Nazis did so out of anger at the Versailles Treaty and because of the economic chaos that engulfed their country. Indeed, it is widely agreed among historians that Hitler played down anti-Semitism in the Nazis’ electoral campaigning. But every German voter was aware of the ferocity of the Nazis’ Jew-hatred. And, whatever the case in 1933 Germany, in 2006 Palestine, Hamas has never played down its anti-Semitism or its support for continuing terrorism.

So the Palestinian vote reveals the falsity of the worldwide Left’s view of the Palestinians as committed to peace. It likewise reveals the falsity of the Left’s belief that Palestinian terror is supported by only a small minority of the Palestinian population.

That is one reason why the Bush doctrine – we need to spread democracy everywhere possible, including, or even especially, in the Arab world – is so valid. You cannot deal with any problem in life – from the most personal to the most macro – by engaging in wishful thinking and denying reality.

Thanks to this election, the mask has been removed. When given the opportunity to express themselves, most Arabs and many Muslims elsewhere support terror and seek the annihilation of Israel. That is why the Hamas victory is such a defeat for the world’s Left – university professors, news media, socialist parties, the European Union, the United Nations, “peace” activists, editorial writers, and all other apologists for the Palestinians.

A personal anecdote will help illustrate this. Two years ago, thanks to the Hoover Institution at Stanford, I spent a week lecturing at the university. Coincidentally, Israel’s Independence Day fell during that same week, and pro-Israel students asked me to speak at their rally honoring Israel.

In my remarks, I mentioned that the primary reason for the Arab-Israeli conflict was that the majority of Palestinians wanted Israel destroyed.

A woman who introduced herself as “a peace activist” walked over to me afterward and said I was wrong, that, in fact, the majority of Palestinians wanted peace with Israel. I asked her to go over to the Arab students who were attending a counter protest against Israel and ask them if they accepted the right of a Jewish state of Israel to exist. I bet her $5 they would say “no.” She took the bet.

Fifteen minutes later, she came back to me.

“Well, who won the bet?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she responded.

“What do you mean you ‘don’t know’? What did they say?”

“They all asked me, ‘What do you mean?’”

Though not one Arab student answered “yes,” she still didn’t get it. This peace activist, like other “peace activists” and just about everyone on the Left, lives in a state of wishful thinking. As director Steven Spielberg, commenting on the Arab-Israeli dispute, recently told Time magazine, “The only thing that’s going to solve this is rational minds, a lot of sitting down and talking until you’re blue in the gills.”

On just about every issue, the Left lives in a childlike fantasy realm. Their views are expressions of what they wish for, not what actually is.

Here is a small sample:

• Support for terror represents a tiny sliver of the Muslim world.
• All cultures are essentially morally equivalent.
• The United Nations is a wonderful institution and the best hope of mankind.
• Men and women are basically the same.
• It makes no difference whether children are raised by a loving man and woman or by two loving parents of the same sex.
• Violent criminals in our society are pushed into crime by socioeconomic circumstances, not because of their own flawed characters and values.
• War is not the answer.

The list of leftist positions based on a rejection of reality is as long as a list of leftist positions.

That’s why it is often said that “a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.” But that, too, is wishful thinking. After some initial cognitive dissonance, the Hamas victory will have little or no impact on most leftists. The day after the Hamas landslide, the Los Angeles Times editorialized, “Most Palestinians, like most Israelis, want peace.” Sure they do. Just not with Israel.

Jerusalem Post

“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious…The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised…

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times…

It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine, for under the wing of Islam followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned…

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kassam and his brethren the fighters, members of Muslim Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Muslim Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1968 and after…

The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him…’

Resisting and quelling the enemy become the individual duty of every Muslim, male or female. A woman can go out to fight the enemy without her husband’s permission, and so does the slave: without his master’s permission…

There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with…

The day The Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies…

The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion… It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions…

We should not forget to remind every Muslim that when the Jews conquered the Holy City in 1967, they stood on the threshold of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and proclaimed that ‘Mohammed is dead, and his descendants are all women.’

Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Muslim people. ‘May the cowards never sleep.’”

By Will King
Our Man In Jerusalem

With the difficult conditions that have beset Israel in the last several years have also come overseas organizations, charities, and supporters who wish to help. Volunteers from almost every country and background imaginable, Jewish and non-Jewish, have descended upon Israel to give their comfort and support to the people. Many volunteers come to Jerusalem, not only for its spiritual significance, but also because Jerusalem is Israel’s largest and poorest city, meaning that the need here is greater than anywhere else.

Ordet og Israel (Bible and Israel) is a Danish movement active both in Denmark and Israel, with the mission to give the Jewish people the Bible’s view on Yeshua as Messiah, and to teach the church in Denmark about the Bible’s view on Israel. In Israel the organization runs a three month Bible school in Tiberias, and volunteers in Jerusalem help at local nursing homes, children’s special needs schools, and other locations in cooperation with the municipality. In Denmark, they actively teach churches on the prophecies and promises to the Jewish people, as well as work to counter the staunch anti-Israel bias in the media.

Ruben Bernhard, a full-time Jerusalem employee with Ordet og Israel, has spent the majority of his life serving God and helping others. One of five children of Danish missionaries to Africa, Ruben has himself spend some years in Africa, both in agricultural research and as a volunteer for a local church, as well as working for half a year in Australia with a drug rehabilitation program. His first trip to Israel was in 1985 when he and a friend volunteered on a kibbutz. Now in his 15th time to Israel, Ruben is here long term to help the Israeli people both spiritually and structurally.

Ordet og Israel has been blessed and is expanding in Israel, and for the past year and a half Ruben has co-lead an outreach called Yad va Lev (Hand and Heart). Based in Jerusalem, Yad va Lev helps some of the city’s poorest residents with practical help in the home, such as painting, yard work and small repairs. Jerusalem has also been a favorite target for terrorists, which adds an additional stress to the already poor financial situation that many residents face. Ruben explains that, “Our aim is through the work we do in their home to upgrade their living conditions, give them hope and be a witness of our Lord and Savior.” While the goal of the organization is to continuously reach out to the needy using the Gospel together with practical help, one is not dependant upon the other.

Since its beginning last year, Yad va Lev has already helped repair the hearts and homes for more than 50 needy families and individuals, as well as helping to fix-up a family counseling center in Jerusalem. The volunteers, all Danish, spend on average a week per project, which are financed primarily through donations from Believers in Denmark.

So far, the Yad va Lev team has been very well received by those they’ve helped. “We have been thanked, blessed and kissed after completing the renovations,” Ruben says. “Some of our clients have invited us to come and have coffee or food, and some have even joined us to a church service.” For the Yad va Lev volunteers, it’s not just about repairing homes, but also about building relationships with Jerusalem’s Jewish residents based on Messiah Jesus. Ruben explains that, “…our wish for these people that we are helping is to bring them the hope and good news of our – and their – Messiah, Yeshua.” In the end, if they don’t accept the message of Messiah, they at least see and know firsthand that there are Christians who truly love Israel and the Jewish people enough to come to Israel and work in their homes.

Although a relatively new program, Yad va Lev is presently facing few challenges to its operation. Unlike what has happened with some workers or volunteers with other Christian institutions, Ruben says that they have so far been able to obtain the necessary visas on time. As for Ordet og Israel, their greatest problem is due to their success and growth, and they are currently seeking a larger facility for their Bible school in Tiberias.

More information on Ordet og Israel can be obtained on their website at www.ordetogisrael.dk.

Gerard Baker
www.timesoline.co.uk

The unimabinable but ultimately inescapable truth is that we are going to have to get ready for war with Iran. Being of a free-speaking, free-thinking disposition, we generally find in the West that hand-wringing, finger-pointing and second-guessing come more easily to us than cold, strategic thinking. Confronted with nightmarish perils we instinctively choose to seize the opportunity to blame each other, cursing our domestic opponents for the situation they’ve put us in.

The rapidly intensifying crisis with regard to Iran exemplifies the phenomenon. On the right, it is said that the decision to let the Europeans play nuclear footsie with the mullahs in Iran for more than two years was a terrible blunder. Pacifist evasion is what the world has come to expect from continental Europe, but the decision by Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to become an enabler to their procrastinations was of a different order of strategic error. An emboldened Tehran seized the chance to play them all along while advancing its ambitions in great leaps.

On the left the hands are being wrung over Iraq. It is argued that the decision to invade the wrong country has made our situation intolerably worse. Iran was always the bigger threat. While we were chasing phantom nuclear weapons in Mesopotamia, next door Iran was busy building real ones. Now we are enfeebled, militarily and politically, our diplomatic tools blunted beyond repair by the errors in Iraq.

I tend to side more with the former crowd (though let it not be said that the latter do not have a point) but it is important for all of us to understand that this debate is now for the birds. All that matters now is what we do.

The unavoidable reality is that we now need urgently to steel ourselves to the ugly probability that diplomacy will not now suffice: one or way or another, unconscionable acts of war may now be unavoidable.

Those who say war is unthinkable are right. Military strikes, even limited, targeted and accurate ones, will have devastating consequences for the region and for the world. They will, quite probably entrench and harden the Iranian regime. Even the young, hopeful democrats who despise their theocratic rulers and crave the freedoms of the West will pause at the sight of their country burnt and humiliated by the infidels.

A war, even a limited one, will almost certainly raise oil prices to recession-inducing levels, as Iran cuts itself off from global markets. The loss of Iranian supply and the already stretched nature of production in the Arab world and elsewhere means prices of $150 per barrel are easily imaginable. Military strikes will foster more violence in the Middle East, strengthen the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, fuel anti-Western sentiment among Muslims everywhere and encourage more terrorism against us at home.

All true. All fearfully powerful arguments against the use of the military option. But multiplied together, squared, and then cubed, the weight of these arguments does not come close to matching the case for us to stop, by whatever means may be necessary, Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

If Iran gets safely and unmolested to nuclear status, it will be a threshold moment in the history of the world, up there with the Bolshevik Revolution and the coming of Hitler. What the country itself may do with those weapons, given its pledges, its recent history and its strategic objectives with regard to the US, Israel and their allies, is well known. We can reasonably assume that the refusal of the current Iranian leadership to accept the Holocaust as historical fact is simply a recognition of their own plans to redefine the notion as soon as they get a chance (“Now this is what we call a holocaust”). But this threat is only, incredibly, a relatively small part of the problem.

If Iran goes nuclear, it will demonstrate conclusively that even the world’s greatest superpower, unrivalled militarily, under a leadership of proven willingness to take bold military steps, could not stop a country as destabilising as Iran from achieving its nuclear ambitions.

No country in a region that is so riven by religious and ethnic hatreds will feel safe from the new regional superpower. No country in the region will be confident that the US and its allies will be able or willing to protect them from a nuclear strike by Iran. Nor will any regional power fear that the US and its allies will act to prevent them from emulating Iran. Say hello to a nuclear Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia.

Iran, of course, secure now behind its nuclear wall, will surely step up its campaign of terror around the world. It will become even more of a magnet and haven for terrorists. The terror training grounds of Afghanistan were always vulnerable if the West had the resolve. Protected by a nuclear-missile-owning state, Iranian camps will become impregnable.

And the kind of society we live in and cherish in the West, a long way from Tehran or Damascus, will change beyond recognition. We balk now at intrusive government measures to tap our phones or stop us saying incendiary things in mosques. Imagine how much more our freedoms will be curtailed if our governments fear we are just one telephone call or e-mail, one plane journey or truckload away from another Hiroshima.

Something short of military action may yet prevail on Iran. Perhaps sanctions will turn their leadership from its doomsday ambitions. Perhaps Russia can somehow be persuaded to give them an incentive to think again. But we can’t count on this optimistic scenario now. And so we must ready ourselves for what may be the unthinkable necessity.

Because in the end, preparation for war, by which I mean not military feasibility planning, or political and diplomatic manoeuvres but a psychological readiness, a personal willingness on all our parts to bear the terrible burdens that it will surely impose, may be our last real chance to ensure that we can avoid one.

by Steven Plaut
Arutz Sheva – IsraelNationalNews.com

Perhaps the best indication of the extent to which the world has been Orwellized is the toady news coverage of the Palestinian “election”, including in the Israeli media, itself largely the occupied territory of the far-left.

For months, the media were all in suspense over whether the victors in the “election” would be the Hamas terrorists or the PLO terrorists. As it turned out, Hamas evidently won the “election” by a huge majority.

The first part of the absurdity in the message daily inculcated by the Israeli political elite is that there is any significant difference between the PLO and Hamas. There is not. Both are equally dedicated to unlimited terror and violence, to genocide and the eradication of Israel in any form and in any borders. Both have conducted suicide bombings and in fact, if I am not mistaken, the PLO’s terror brigades carried out more such attacks than Hamas did over the past two years. The Kassam rockets are at least as much the initiative of the PLO as they are that of Hamas. The PLO proliferates anti-Semitic propaganda as much as Hamas and is just as allied with the Hizbullah, Syria and Osama Bin-Laden.

But the Israeli establishment has been repeating the empty “we have a peace partner in the PLO” mantra for so many years that they managed to fabricate artificial suspense over the Palestinian “election”. If the PLO were to win, then “Palestine” would be ruled by moderates, people with whom Israel could strike a deal, could do business – the pragmatists. Nice Nazis. Israel has been awash in speeches by politicians and mindless bumper stickers proclaiming: “We have a peace partner.”

Now, this may strike you as bizarre, but I have been arguing that the best thing that could happen in the Palestinian Authority “election” would be a strong Hamas victory. Let me explain.

A strong Hamas victory is the only thing that stands a chance of forcing Israelis to open their eyes and wake up. As long as the PLO is in charge, the gigantic game of make-pretend continues. When the Hamas is marching about with costumes of suicide bombers and with its swastikas and other paraphernalia, then there can be no delusions about the Nazification of the Palestinians. It is not that the Palestinians would really be any less Nazified with the PLO in charge. It is just that the Abu Mazen-type representatives at the Potemkin negotiations, and the make-pretend respectability of the PLO hoodlum chiefs, allow the politicians and the media to continue acting as if there is a peace process.

The Hamas victory – and I wish it had been stronger – puts the lie to the game of make-pretend. No longer can any intelligent Israeli pretend that there is any way to deal with the Palestinians other than war. The only way to stop the Kassams and suicide bombers is R&D – Re-Occupation and De-Nazification. And with the Hamas in charge, everyone in Israel is forced to acknowledge this.

Well, almost everyone. Haaretz and the far-left have actually been preparing the Israeli public for a Hamas victory in recent months, and they are spreading the new epistle: “We can do business with Hamas.”

Leftist after leftist proclaims that the solution is to negotiate with Hamas. After all, Hamas is as “genuine” and “representative” of Palestinians as the PLO, and it even wins “elections”. Some Hamas officials are encouraging the trend of self-annihilation in Israel by putting out duplicitous statements about how Hamas acknowledges that Israel exists (as an empirical reality that needs to be corrected, that is). Such statements recall Yasser Arafat’s duplicitous words.

So, get ready for new calls to enter into negotiations with Hamas. We can try to persuade them to have a salad bar on the cattle cars transporting Israeli Jews, and perhaps institute recycling and free tuition at the concentration camps Hamas is seeking to build. Israeli professors will soon be wearing their Hamas lapel pins. Hamas poetry will soon be taught to Israeli schoolchildren. Israeli schools will be screening films celebrating the heroism of Palestinian suicide bombers (like the University of Haifa screened Paradise Now this week).

And Second Shoah Now will be the fastest growing movement in Israeli society, holding mass demonstrations for peace in Rabin Square.

by Robert Spencer
www.frontpagemagazine.com

On January 5, 2005, a drug runner named Noel Exinia, who was engaged in transporting over five hundreds pounds of cocaine from Mexico to New York City, revealed in a telephone conversation that he was interested in other kinds of cargo as well. He spoke about twenty Iraqis, all between the ages of 25 and 33, who would pay $8,000 to get past the Mexico-U.S. border and into the United States. These Iraqis were, he said, in the Mexican cities of Monterrey, Chiapas and Puebla, and were ready to cross into Texas; ultimately, they hoped to get to the Northeast. According to Exinia, they were “la gente de Osama” — Osama’s people. What’s more, they were “dangerous…really bad people.” Even Exinia, with all his experience in the drug underworld as part of the Gulf Cartel, admitted he was afraid of them.

No one would have known any of this, at least until these Iraqis committed a terrorist act on American soil, had it not been for the fact that Exinia’s call was recorded. The recording was permissible under the U.S. Patriot Act.

And that, says Exinia’s lawyer, John Blaylock, is why no one should ever have heard anything about Exinia’s phone call. “This is an example,” he maintains, “of a lot of hot air with a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing….Terrorism is the flavor of the week. If they could have, they would have charged him with terrorism to justify the Patriot Act that is coming up for renewal.” However, Exinia’s previous lawyer, William May, said that he thought the terrorism allegations against his former client were true.

Meanwhile, Henry Crumpton, the State Department’s new counter-terrorism chief, has said: “I rate the probability of terror groups using WMD [to attack Western targets] as very high. It is simply a question of time. And it is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me. I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow.”

The FBI has declined all comment on the Exinia case; no one will even say whether “Osama’s people” made it into the United States or were headed off. But in any case, if any of them succeeded in carrying out a terrorist attack in the United States, particularly a nuclear or biological attack, would anyone be relieved that their rights had not been infringed by illegal wiretapping?

Apparently the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) would be, among others. With the five-week extension on the Patriot Act due to expire on February 3, they have filed suit against another, closely related and just as controversial element of President Bush’s anti-terror program: the recently-revealed program of domestic surveillance conducted without a warrant or other authorization. The names of the plaintiffs do not inspire confidence in the merits of the suit. The ACLU’s long-standing antagonism to America’s common defense is well documented; for its part, CAIR has had several of its officials arrested and convicted on various terrorism-related charges, and has never answered questions about where it really stands on jihad violence. The Fiqh Council of North America’s condemnation of terrorism that CAIR endorsed with much fanfare (and a great deal of mainstream media attention) was flawed, inadequate, and loaded with weasel words.

That such groups would come out against the Administration’s policies may be the strongest argument in their favor. However, thoughtful and patriotic Americans with a healthy understanding of the global jihad threat — notably Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation — have also expressed reservations about various aspects of the Patriot Act. Weyrich notes: “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, after 9/11, said if we gave up our way of life in order to catch terrorists the terrorists would have won.” Suspension of some civil liberties in wartime is nothing new: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus; during World War I, Woodrow Wilson had enacted numerous provisions that would make ACLU lawyers blanch today. But in this era of an ever-expanding and ever-encroaching federal government, Rumsfeld’s warning is not just empty rhetoric.

If Judge Samuel Alito is confirmed as expected and takes a seat on the Supreme Court so that the Court again has its full complement of justices, the High Court should consider questions regarding the Patriot Act and domestic wiretapping as quickly as possible. The proper balance must be found between Constitutional protections and national security, such that the plans of the men who made Noel Exinia afraid are discovered and foiled well before they have any chance to come to fruition, but not in a manner that compromises any legitimate Constitutional freedom. Otherwise, we would simply be opposing one tyranny with another. The struggle against global jihad, although few yet realize it, is a great struggle, perhaps the last great struggle, to defend and safeguard the principles of universal human rights and the equality of dignity of all people that have been one of the greatest gifts that Judeo-Christian civilization has given to the world. Upon those principles our defense must be founded, or all is lost.

This is an interesting take on the upcoming election. –Editor

By Micah Halpern
www.micahhalpern.com

I am here to say, loud and clear, plain and simple, that no matter what happens on January 25th, Hamas has already won in the Palestinian election.

If Hamas wins the 30 percent of the Palestinian electorate that they are expected to win, a percentage that puts them in a close race with the governing Fatah, it will be a big win. If Hamas wins even more than 30 percent of the electorate, if they outstrip Fatah, it will be an even bigger win.

Whatever happens, just being on the ballot, is a win for Hamas. Becoming the plurality is one of their dreams come true. Their other dream, of course, will never come true. That dream is the elimination of Israel.

So what happens if/when Hamas actually wins in the Palestinian elections scheduled for January 25th? The Palestinian people, as we have come to know them, will disappear. Hamas will create a new Palestinian culture, a more religious, less economically developed culture, a safer place for Palestinians to live, a more dangerous spot on the world map.

It sounds ridiculous, even absurd, it seems counterintuitive, even beyond belief, but in certain ways, a victory for Hamas also benefits those Palestinians who are non-Hamas supporters. Why? Because a victory for Hamas is a victory of extremists over corruption.

The Palestinian Authority, since its inception, has been a hotbed of corruption, ineptitude and greed. It is a legacy handed down by founding father Yasser Arafat and embraced by his successor Mahmoud Abbas.

Simply put, casting a vote for Hamas is voting to oust corrupt Palestinian political leaders. For the Palestinian voter this election is not about Israel, it is not even about a Palestinian state. Only Westerners think otherwise. For Palestinians, January 25th is a day devoted to very personal and very local issues. It is a day to say “ENOUGH” to monies that were misappropriated, to billions of dollars in foreign aid that never trickled down to the people, to leaders who stole and pocketed gargantuan sums intended for the people. It is a day of empowerment.

A vote for Hamas on election day is a vote to end the true legacy of Yasser Arafat.

A vote for Hamas on election day is a vote to censure the United States, Europe and all Westerners involved in policy decisions that ignored the people of the Palestinian Authority and, instead, trusted in Palestinian leadership.

The United States and her allies are truly to blame for much of the economic plight of the Palestinian people. Where were the bean counters? Where was the demand for fiscal accountability? The EU and the U.S. just threw money at an ephemeral entity called the Palestinian Authority and hoped that it would some how, some way find its way and do some good. Instead, it found its way under Fatah mattresses and into Fatah cookie jars.

Abbas has already said he will not run again. In truth, it does not matter one little bit what Abbas does. Abbas has been irrelevant from the beginning. Abbas has played little role in forging any change for the people he promised to protect.

A vote for Hamas on election day is a voting turning the Palestinian Authority into an entity akin to a Little Iran.

The biggest difference between true Iran and Little Iran is that Iran had educational, scientific and technological infrastructures in place before they had ruling religious leaders. The Mullahs did not rip down that infrastructure, and so a thriving economy continues. Palestinians have never reached that level of advancement.

So what will the Palestinian Authority look like after Hamas wins 30 percent or more of the Palestinian popular vote on January 25th? How will the Palestinian state be run?

• Educational institutions and curriculum will have no chance for reform. Israel will never be seen as a neighbor or written into texts
• Science and tech schools will be replaced with religious schools
• There will be no chance of economic growths and gains in the new generation
• Attitudes toward the West will grow ever more negative
• Religious police will be instituted, and anyone who does not conform to Shari’a will be punished publicly
• A female dress code will be instituted and enforced
• TV and radio will revert to Muslim-only programming
• PA culture will be exclusively Muslim
• There will be an exodus of wealthy, successful, future-oriented liberal Palestinians
• The nation will spiral downward
• Palestinians will get more safety on the streets and less corruption. There will be no more kidnappings. Anyone who breaks the law will be publicly humiliated or executed.

After the election there will be a proud public display of a change in policy and attitude toward Israel and the West.

And then there will be an inevitable attack. Israel will counter attack and search out terrorist leaders, even PA political leaders, and cut off major sections of this new state. Israel will react in the way they know best: they will cut the Palestinians off and protect themselves.

For Israel, Palestinians under Hamas will be more dangerous in the short run, but much more manageable. It will be much clearer for Israel to understand the new state of Palestinians and to create a strategic response to the new threat facing them. Actually, they have already worked out the scenarios. Israelis like security to be black and white, clear cut. A Hamas-led Palestine is the textbook example of a clear cut situation.

That is what will happen when/if Hamas wins the Palestinian election. And the United States will get the blame.

www.nysun.com

UNITED NATIONS – The American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, recently upped the ante in an escalating confrontation between America and Turtle Bay on the issue of Israel’s place at the world body. In a sharply worded letter to Secretary-General Annan, Mr. Bolton threatened to cut funding to the United Nations if it continues to promote anti-Israel events.

Mr. Bolton’s January 3 letter, which was seen yesterday by The New York Sun, is a response to a November event celebrating an annual “International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People.” At the event, which was attended by Mr. Annan and other top diplomats, a map that “erases the state of Israel,” as Mr. Bolton wrote, was displayed.

“Given that we now have a world leader pursuing nuclear weapons who is calling for the state of Israel to be wiped off the map, the issue has even greater salience,” Mr. Bolton wrote.

A photo of Mr. Annan standing below the map — several days after President Ahmadinejad of Iran made his statement – was carried last month on the Web site eyeontheun.org, creating a storm of criticism. The site also highlighted the seven-figure budget of U.N. bodies dedicated to promoting what Israel and America consider one-sided, anti-Israel propaganda in the guise of solidarity with Palestinian Arabs.

A U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Annan was “grateful” to Mr. Bolton and others who have alerted him to the map, and that he “much hopes” that the U.N. body that organized the annual event will “consider not displaying the map in the future.” Mr. Dujarric stopped short of saying that Mr. Annan would cancel his participation in future events that display such maps.

Mr. Dujarric said that Mr. Annan plans to answer Mr. Bolton, but 10 days after sending the letter, which contained very specific questions, Mr. Bolton’s spokesman, Richard Grenell, yesterday said, “We have not received an answer as of yet.”

“Who is the high-level official within the secretariat who approved use of the map for the event?” Mr. Bolton asked in the letter. “Does the United Nations intend to use the map in future U.N.-sponsored functions and events?”

Most ominously for the United Nations, Mr. Bolton wrote, “In light of prohibition under U.S. law to fund events such as this one, do you consider it appropriate for the United Nations to advertise and promote the event on its general Web site and other venues, which do in fact benefit from U.S. funds?”

Although America opposes funding for several U.N. bodies that one-sidedly promote Palestinian Arab rights, the threat to further cut its support for U.N. general advertising budgets is a matter of serious concern to Mr. Annan’s aides, who have been under intense pressure to reform the United Nations in the wake of last year’s scandals.

The Palestinian observer at the United Nations, Riad Mansour, defended the use of the map yesterday, telling the Sun that a pre-1948 date is clearly marked on it. “That map has been there for tens of years,” he said, adding that in 2004, one of the participants in the event was the American ambassador at the time, John Danforth.

Israel and America might object to funding for the pro-Palestinian Arab bodies, Mr. Mansour said, but the vast majority of member states “think they are useful” and vote annually to continue their activities.

Mr. Dujarric told the Sun that since 1977 the secretariat “has been mandated by the General Assembly” to promote the “Day of Solidarity.” He said in 1981, the “committee for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people” decided that the map and the flag of “Palestine as it existed in 1948″ should be displayed in the room. Disregarding an official objection by Israel’s then ambassador, Yehuda Blum, “the practice has remained unchanged ever since,” Mr. Dujarric said.

The fact that the map has been displayed at the United Nations for such a long time and was only noticed this year “only strengthens our position,” Israel’s deputy ambassador, Daniel Carmon, said. “You can’t have a U.N.-sponsored event that displays a map that obliterates a member-state.” He added that even if the issue of the map is resolved, the central problem remains: the existence of “automatic” anti-Israel resolutions that provide funds for one-sided bodies at the secretariat.

The organizer of the “solidarity” event is the Division for Palestinian Rights, which in the 2004-2005 U.N. budget received $5,449,600. Other bodies include the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories,($254,500); the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, ($60,800), and the Information Activities on the Question of Palestine ($566,000).

Similar funding has just been approved for the next biannual budget. America “strongly opposes the use of scarce U.N. resources to support the biased and one-sided political activities” of these bodies, America’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Anne Patterson, said in October as the General Assembly was discussing the current budget. With the exception of America, Israel, and some small Pacific nations, the General Assembly approved their funding.

By Hal Lindsey
www.worldnetdaily.com

Recently on FOX News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes” show, I mentioned that the more a Muslim becomes serious about the Koran, the more radical he becomes. I pointed out that there are approximately 109 verses in the Koran that some scholars have called “the war verses.” They are called this because they teach violence and aggression against the “infidels,” which means all people who do not accept Islam.

The Houston Chronicle reported Jan. 12 just how effectively those verses are used to radicalize Muslims:

Abu Hamza Masri, Britain’s most prominent radical Islamic cleric, preached at a London Mosque that Muslims had a “religious duty to kill” Jews and “nonbelievers,” a prosecutor told a jury here Wednesday. The trial is the first involving a high-profile imam since July’s deadly bombings on the London public transit system. Police said those attacks were carried out by young Muslim men who attended and became radicalized in British mosques.

Thank God the majority of Muslims do not become devout followers of all the Koranic verses. But with radical imams interspersed through the increasing numbers of mosques being built in Western countries, young Muslim men — particularly — become potential time bombs ready to be radicalized.

You may ask: “Just what do these ‘war verses’ in the Koran teach that has so radicalized Muslims in virtually every century from the beginning of Islam?” The following is a sample of these verses. They are quoted from a comparison of eight different officially recognized translations of the Koran, with the N.J. Dawood translation being the principle one used:

• “Strike off their [infidel's] heads. Strike off their finger-tips! … because they defied God and his Apostle [Muhammad].” (Sura 8:12-13)
• “Make war on them [infidels] until idolatry shall cease and God’s religion shall reign supreme.” (Sura 2:193)
• “Seize them and put them to death wherever you find them.” (Sura 4:89)
• “Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you.” (Sura 9:123)
• “When the sacred months [Ramadan] are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them; besiege them; and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent [convert to Islam] and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way.” (Sura 9:5)

If a Muslim begins to take these verses literally and seriously, as all good Muslims are supposed to do — since they are taught that every verse is directly handed down from Allah, then it is easy to see how they could incite violent behavior toward “nonbelievers.”

You may think there are no radical imams in America to be concerned about. Yehudit Barsky recently reported in the Jerusalem Post these disturbing facts:

The power of the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam in the United States was created with generous Saudi financing of American Muslim communities over the past few decades. Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States “have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence.” The people now in control of teaching religion to American Muslims are extremists.

Author Stephen Schwartz, in his book “The Two Faces of Islam,” said the same thing: “The Wahhabi sect, backed by Saudi Arabia, controls 70 to 80 percent of the mosques in the United States.” He went on to say, “These imams instruct, indoctrinate and certify the chaplains in the federal and state prison systems and in the military.” It is a fact that a disturbing number of inmates in our prisons are converted to Islam — Jose Padilla being one notable example.

I do not believe the majority of Muslims have been radicalized. But these imams of the Wahhabi sect look for the Muslims who show signs of increased devotion. These are discipled toward the “war verses.” Once radicalized, they encourage them to seek “advanced studies” in the training camps of such “devout groups” as al-Qaida.

I am increasingly concerned that a religion that has such a history of violent conquest and forced conversions at the point of the sword is being portrayed as basically a “peaceful religion that has been hijacked by a few radicals.”

As I said before, most Muslims are not radical and do not want to fight a jihad against America. But it is through no fault of what is taught in the Koran. It is just that they have not embraced all the violent verses that are contained therein … yet!

Artifacts from Iron Age fortress confirm Old Testament dates of Edomite kingdom

By MICHAEL VALPY
www.theglobeandmail.com

Canadian archeologist Russell Adams’s interest is in Bronze Age and Iron Age copper production. He never intended to walk into archeology’s vicious debate over the historical accuracy of the Old Testament — a conflict likened by one historian to a pack of feral canines at each other’s throats.

Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton’s McMaster University says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East — unearthing information that points to the existence of the Bible’s vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting widespread academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.

Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.

Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament’s narrative that Prof. Adams and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be true as well.

References to the Kingdom of Edom — almost none of them complimentary — are woven through the Old Testament. It existed in what is today southern Jordan, next door to Israel, and the relationship between the biblical Edomites and Israelites was one of unrelenting hostility and warfare.

The team led by Prof. Adams, Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities was investigating copper mining and smelting at a site called Khirbat en-Nahas, by far the largest copper-production site in the region.

They applied high-precision radiocarbon-dating methods to some of their finds, and as they say in the British journal Antiquities, “The results were spectacular.”

They firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th century BC and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century BC, supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200 years earlier than had been assumed.

What is particularly exciting about their find is that it implies the existence of an Edomite state at the time the Bible says King David and his son Solomon ruled over a powerful united kingdom of Israel and Judah.

It is the historical accuracy — the very existence of this united kingdom and the might and splendour of David and Solomon, as well as the existence of surrounding kingdoms — that lies at the heart of the archeological dispute.

Those scholars known as minimalists argue that what is known as “state formation” — the emergence of regional governments and kings — did not take place in the area until the imperialistic expansion of the Assyrian empire in the 8th century BC, so David and Solomon, rather than being mighty monarchs, were mere petty chieftains.

And because everything that takes place in the Middle East inevitably is political, the minimalist argument is seen as weakening modern Israel’s claim to Palestine.

In the biblical narrative, the Edomites are the descendents of Esau, whose blessing from his father, Isaac, was stolen by his younger brother, Jacob, ancestor of the Israelites. (Fans of the British satirical-comedy group Beyond the Fringe will recall how Jacob pulled off the theft by presenting himself as the hirsute Esau to their blind father, saying in an aside: “My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.”)

The Edomites are lambasted in the Bible for refusing to let the Israelites rest on their land as they flee Egypt. God declares obscurely: “Over Edom will I cast out my shoe.” The Israelites grumble enviously that there were kings of Edom before there were kings of Israel — a highly significant passage because it implies that state formation occurred in Edom before it happened in Israel.

Finally, there is the biblical account of David’s war against the Edomites, in which David and his general, Joab, kill 18,000 Edomites and establish military control over them by “putting garrisons throughout all Edom.”

Irish scholar John Bartlett, one of the world’s great experts on the Edomites, dates the battle at 990 to 980 BC, precisely when Prof. Adams and his colleagues date the fortress.

Says Prof. Adams: “This battle between the Israelites and the Edomites, although not possible to document, is typical of the sort of border conflicts between Iron Age states. And the evidence of our new dates at least proves that it may, in fact, be possible to place the Edomites in the 10th century [BC] or earlier, which now supports the chronology of the biblical accounts.

“It is intriguing that at Khirbat en-Nahas, our large Iron Age fort is dated to just this period, suggesting conflict as a central concern even at a remote copper-production site.”

He concludes: “We’re not out to prove the Bible right or wrong. We’re not trying to be controversial. We’re just trying to be good anthropologists and scientists, and tell the story of our archeological site.”