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By Brigitte Gabriel
www.americanthinker.com

Universities, for those of us who lecture on campuses, are the battleground for the heart and soul of the next generation of leaders. They are the battleground where we must fight to win back the opinion and allegiance of American college students. This is made harder when Islamists in both the college and local communities try to intimidate us and deny our free speech on campuses in some of the least likely places.

We have grown to expect these things on the major East and West Coast cities “elite” university campuses that harbor radical professors and anarchist student and radical Muslim community activities. But not in the heartland where I recently spoke at the University of Memphis. This occurred in the South, in “Bubbaland” as my friends from the region call it.

I was invited to give a lecture sponsored by Professor David Patterson of the Judaic Studies Program. When news about my appearance spread, the Muslim community both on and off campus launched a full-scale campaign to stop my lecture. They demanded that Dr. Patterson cancel my speech. E-mails flooded the University of Memphis administration and Dr. Patterson from Muslim students on campus and Muslims in the community and mosques.

Here are some of their comments: People like Brigitte are plenty in the world; they are the true enemies of Islam. And despite their rubbish talks, the truth about Islam is spreading like a wildfire across Americas and across the globe (All Praise to Allah).” “Dr. Patterson, hosting of this lady is orders of magnitude worse than hosting of the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.” “Do you honestly think the scheduled lecture will serve any useful purpose other than inflaming the Muslims, insulting them and spilling poison in the community?”

It is interesting to see the reaction of the Muslim community to someone with Muslim shrapnel in her body who speaks against butchering innocent people in the name of Allah. If they would put the same energy into condemning the radical element within Islam and join us in saying that slaughtering people in the name of Allah is murder not Jihad, maybe we wouldn’t question their loyalty as American citizens.

Dr. Patterson refused to bow to their intimidation and insisted on going on with the scheduled speech. By the time I showed up at the amphitheater style lecture hall on campus, police officers were already standing at each entrance. Nearly half of the hall was filled with Muslims with their leaders dressed Osama Bin Laden-style sitting in the front two rows at eye level making “their point” — which was that I wasn’t going to get away with speaking freely.

Just as the program was about to begin, a Muslim student walked to the front and asked the crowd to raise their hands if they believed that this lecture was “undemocratic.” They complained that I would be taking questions on cards instead of allowing them to ask them publicly. Experienced in these settings, I knew they would make speeches, spew anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments and create chaos in the room during the Q&A. I decided that they were not going to do that.

The provocative Muslim student behavior before I even began my lecture proved my foresight. Dr. Patterson explained that taking questions from cards distributed to the audience was normal protocol at university speaking events like mine. Patterson tried to calm the unruly crowd but nothing was working.

Fed up, I went straight to the podium and ordered everyone to sit. I told them, this is my lecture and I run the show. If they didn’t like the way I conducted my lecture and my questions they could leave the room, now. Shocked at my behavior and authority they shut-up.

The non-Muslim members of the audience applauded. I finished, asked Professor Patterson to make introductory remarks and returned to my seat. Dr. Patterson introduced me by telling the audience what an eye opener this lecture had become because of the reaction. He stated that he never realized that here in Memphis a speaker should be threatened for his/her safety just to speak on a college campus. He introduced me and I delivered my speech with police officers on both sides as well as about eight others in the lecture hall and around the building.

Unknown to me, a Muslim student attending the University of Memphis was arrested weeks prior to my lecture for, among other things, possession of DVDs on pilot training and charts on the layout of the Memphis airport. They found links on his computer to sites associated with a radical Sunni Muslim organization in Iraq and searches for information on how guns and bombs can be smuggled past airport security.

After witnessing the Muslim reaction to my lecture and what happened at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when an Iranian Muslim student drove into, for Allah’s sake, innocent students gathering on university grounds, the Memphis police was not going to take any chances.

It is a sad state of affairs when any speaker on any American University campus has to be surrounded by police officers to protect his freedom of speech and person from intimidation and menace. America is the country where free speech is protected under our constitution. Who would have expected that in the home of the Beale Street Blues, W.C. Handy and Elvis, I would be confronted by Muslims trying to muzzle my free speech and perhaps all of us?

At the end of the lecture the Muslims immediately in front swarmed over me questioning and intimidating me. Police officers quickly moved in and pulled me out straight to the police cars as the enraged Muslims started shouting. Based on what happened to me in Memphis, I think its time for Americans to wake up as to what is occurring within their very midst. It is time to be energized and empowered to stand up and fight to take back our universities. Its incidents like this that spurs speakers like me to defend our civilization and everything for which it stands.

By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen
www.frontpageagazine.com

Humanitarian aid is universally understood to provide “assistance to victims of natural disasters, war situations or other catastrophic events.” However, now this definition is expanding to include aiding a terrorist regime. Under the guise of “humanitarian aid,” money is beginning to flow to the HAMAS government.

To date, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar have given the HAMAS led Palestinian Authority $192 million; the Saudis gave $92 million, and Qatar and Iran $50 each. Russia gave another $10 million, bringing total aid to the new PA administration to just over $200 million. The U.S. says it has authorized of $245 million for “Basic humanitarian assistance — including health, food and education.”

In addition, the U.S. “will also provide $42 million to strengthen civil society and independent institutions.” UNRWA will distribute most of this aid. Since when do “education” and “strengthen[ing] civil society and independent institutions” qualify as “Humanitarian aid”?

HAMAS clearly has a different view of education and civil society: Culture minister ‘Atallah Abu Sabah announced, on April 8, the HAMAS government “would “work to reinforce the culture of resistance [i.e., violence and terrorism directed against Israel] and to instill it in the hearts of our boys and girls so that they may continue down the same path to the liberation of the Palestinian lands.” Surely, this is not the kind of education that the Administration, or the American public should aid.

Moreover, according to Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) the daily international Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, reported on April 7, “the movement intended to continue operating its social, educational and charity institutions (the da’wah).” The da’wah, the most effective tool in inculcating and indoctrinating its worldview among the Palestinian people — is first and foremost, hate propaganda and incitement.

Despite the very clear HAMAS statements about its agenda, aid money continues to flow. It seems the international donor community learned from HAMAS how to speak out of both sides of its mouth. While saying they refrain from funding the “terrorist” regime, they funnel money through alternative routes to HAMAS, but call it “humanitarian aid.” But as Gertrude Stein said: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

Indeed, the terrorist organization Hamas, would not have won the election if, in the first place, the world community had refused to allow it to run. However, HAMAS was able to run because it addopted the name “List of Change and Reform,” just for the election. That was enough for the international community to allow HAMAS to run and to delude itself. Clearly they continue to do so.

The EU declared earlier this month that although $600 million of funds earmarked for the PA would be cut now that HAMAS has assumed control, some of that money “would now be channeled via humanitarian aid organisations.” French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, said on April 19, 2006, “It is absolutely out of the question … to cut off humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Territories,” And the French President Jacques Chirac declared that he supports “pursuing the aid on humanitarian grounds.”

Yet, the money, according to the Palestinian Minister for Detainees Affairs Wasfi Qabha, will be used not to feed the Palestinian people, but first to pay the salaries of the Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons. Many were sentenced to life for murdering Israeli civilians and organizing suicide attacks on Israel.

On April 19, 2006, Qabha announced plans for his office to transfer PA funds, first, directly to Palestinian prisoners. Moreover, he said that the salaries for all prisoners will be raised to the level of the highest-paid among them.

Further, Detainee Minister Qabha criticized PA treasury officials who, during the transition following the January PA election, transferred salaries to the Authority’s civilian workers before paying the prisoners. In addition, he declared that the new PA government is investigating means of raising international demands to liberate Palestinian prisoners.

Yet the ranks of those governments willing to delude themselves and fund the HAMAS-led PA continues to grow. The latest to step forward is Britain. As British foreign secretary Jack Straw put it in on April 19, “we would like to have normal relations with them.” He further stated that the U.K. is “looking for ways to ensure that all of Britain’s £56 million (over $100 million) contribution continued to reach Palestinians.”

On Wednesday morning, April 19, Zola Levitt left this world to be with the Lord.

Please go to http://levitt.com/zolastatus/ for details.

www.washingtontimes.com

Al Qaeda in Iraq and its presumed leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, have conceded strategic defeat and are on their way out of the country, a top U.S. military official contended yesterday.

The group’s failure to disrupt national elections and a constitutional referendum last year “was a tactical admission by Zarqawi that their strategy had failed,” said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps. “They no longer view Iraq as fertile ground to establish a caliphate and as a place to conduct international terrorism,” he said in an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Gen. Vines’ statement came as news broke that coalition and Iraqi forces had killed an associate of Osama bin Laden’s during an early morning raid near Abu Ghraib about two weeks ago. Rafid Ibrahim Fattah aka Abu Umar al Kurdi served as a liaison between terrorist networks and was linked to Taliban members in Afghanistan, Pakistani-based extremists and other senior al Qaeda leaders, the military said yesterday.

In the past six months, al Kurdi had worked as a terrorist cell leader in Baqouba. Prior to that, he had traveled extensively Pakistan, Iran and Iraq and formed a relationship with al Qaeda senior leaders in 1999 while in Afghanistan. He also had ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, formed while he was in Iran and Pakistan, and joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1989, the military said. He was killed March 27.

Gen. Vines said the foreign terrorists had made a strategic mistake when they tried to intimidate and deny Iraqis a way to vote. “I believe Zarqawi discredited himself with the Iraqi people because of his willingness to slaughter Iraqi people,” he said. Huthayafa Azzam, whose father was seen as a political mentor of bin Laden, told reporters in Jordan in early April that Zarqawi had been replaced as head of the terrorist fight in Iraq in an effort to put an Iraqi at the head of the organization.

Azzam said Zarqawi had “made many political mistakes,” including excessive violence and the bombing last November of a Jordanian hotel, and as a result was being “confined to military action.”

Gen. Vines, who from January 2005 to January 2006 led all coalition forces in Iraq, did not comment on those reports. But he did caution that although the foreign extremists were leaving Iraq “looking for more fertile ground,” they could come back. “The question now is what kind of government is going to be formed and is it going to be credible,” he said, acknowledging that Iran had significant influence over Iraq’s religious Shi’ite population.

“Iran wants us out, but not too soon — after a Shi’ite government friendly to Iran is established,” Gen. Vines said. “Iran’s view is that the current government is not strong enough, and if we pulled out now, there would be a low-level civil war.”

www.cnsnews.com

Israel has warned the international community not to delay in dealing with Iran after the Islamic republic announced that it had enriched uranium for the first time. The U.S. said Iran was moving in the “wrong direction.”

Both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Chairman of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that Iran had succeeded in enriching a small amount of uranium.

Enriched uranium can be used to fuel a civilian nuclear reactor, but if it is enriched to a higher degree, it is a key component for an atomic weapon. Experts have said that once Tehran possessed this technology, the nation would be well on its way to developing a nuclear bomb.

Oil-rich Iran says its nuclear program is intended for civilian energy production, but the Western world believes Iran has used its civilian program to conceal a clandestine program to develop an atomic bomb.

Israel said the announcements on Tuesday should prove the “true nature” of the Iranian program and spark concerns about the timeline.

“Iran’s announcement serves as a further example of the real danger in delaying concrete diplomatic measures in the face of the continuing Iranian refusal to comply with international demands to stop its nuclear activities,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

“Israel believes that the Iranian nuclear program should be confronted by a broad and determined international coalition,” Regev said.

The U.N. Security Council had given Iran until the end of the month to comply with a demand from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — the United Nations nuclear watchdog — that it fully suspend its enrichment research and activities.

In response to the news, Washington said that Iran was “moving in the wrong direction.”

This report “only further underscores why the international community has serious concerns about the regime’s nuclear ambitions,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

Rafsanjani told the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA that Iran had operated 164 centrifuges, producing the first stage of nuclear fuel.

IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei is due in Iran this week. Rafsanjani said that ElBaradei would see the new developments during his visit.

Ahmadinejad said that Iran had completed its first enrichment two days ago.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran’s nuclear program, said that Iranian scientists had succeeded in enriching uranium to a concentration of 3.5 percent.

Ahmadinejad, who is on a tour of Iran’s provinces, said on Tuesday that his country would soon join the world’s nuclear technology club. He declared that the “equation would change for the good of the Iranian people,” media reports said.

On Monday, the Iranian president said that the international community knew it could not “deprive the Iranian nation of its right by exerting political pressure.” He made it clear that Tehran would not “retreat” from what it considers to be its rights.

Dr. Ephraim Kam, deputy director of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, said the significance of the development is that Iran has “moved into a new stage,” which should concern the international community.

Iran has not produced enough fuel to make a nuclear bomb yet, Kam said. But if the nation’s rulers are telling the truth, they now control the technology to enrich uranium.

Kam estimated it would take several thousand centrifuges to make enough uranium for a bomb, but it is not complicated once they possess the technology, he said. Within two to three years, Iran could possess enough material to produce a bomb, he said.

The fact that they did not hesitate to make Tuesday’s announcement also reflects the new kind of leadership in Ahmadinejad and shows they don’t care what other countries think, Kam added.

By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) — Visitors are returning to the Holy Land in near record numbers this year, despite five years of violence in the region that continues to this day.

On Good Friday, Christian pilgrims from around the world crowded the alleys of Jerusalem’s Old City and packed the plaza outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Some 90,000 visitors are expected during this Passover/Easter week — up from 75,000 during this same week last year, the Tourism Ministry said.

In 2000, Israel expected a record number of tourists, in a year when Christians were celebrating the 2000th anniversary of Jesus’ birth. But the Palestinian uprising, which began in earnest in September 2000, sent tourism into a tailspin.

Last year, about 1.9 million tourists visited Israel: 43 percent were Jewish; 42 percent Christian; and five percent were Muslims or “other.” More than 2.6 million tourists are expected in all of 2006. That would be an all-time high, according to the Tourism Ministry.

(The Frommer’s travel guide people attribute the increase in tourism to a more aggressive visit-Israel marketing campaign and new, direct airline routes.)

Winding through the narrow streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, pilgrims mingled with local Arab Jerusalemites doing their Friday shopping.

Carrying a four-foot wooden cross, one group of Indonesians pressed through the streets singing Christian songs in their native tongue to guitar music. One man from the group stood out from the crowd, blessing Israel in a loud voice.

Another small group of pilgrims knelt to pray aloud on the stony street.

Thousands of pilgrims packed the square in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday, marking the day on which Jesus was crucified.

Patti Humble, 41, from Atlanta, Georgia, is here for the first time. “It’s a pilgrimage to see the Holy Land. It’s very special coming during Holy Week,” said Humble, referring to the week between Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, and Easter Sunday, when Christians believe he was resurrected from the dead.

“It was one of the things I wanted to do in my lifetime, and this was the opportunity,” said Humble’s mother, Marie Peters, 80, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Seeing the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was the highlight for her, she said. “Pictures just don’t do it justice. You can’t get the feeling,” she said.

Originally built in 330 A.D. by the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, the Church was built on the hill where Jesus was crucified and buried, according to some Christian traditions.

Andree Chicha, part of the same U.S. tour group, was also on a pilgrimage — her first trip to the Holy Land.

“I’m overwhelmed. It’s been absolutely fantastic. Last night was the most special. It was going from the Garden of Gethsemane procession up to where Jesus was imprisoned. Doing it on the same night that he was walking that path was overwhelming,” she said.

Chicha said she was not afraid to come. “I thought Holy Week in the Holy Land this I cannot miss… I thought that if something would happen to me here it was my time and it would be the right place for it to happen,” she said.

One Israeli couple, originally from Canada, said they were glad to see so many Christians visiting Israel again.

“It’s great to see also that people are not put off by the fear of what the press has to say about visiting the Holy Land or Israel. They’re coming here in droves for this special occasion. It’s great to see that people of faith will come and continue to come,” said the husband, who identified himself only as Stephen.

Just outside the church compound, Sam Atiah, who owns a souvenir shop, said he hopes the visitor influx will last.

“There [are] plenty of people coming, going in and out and I hope things [are] going to become better but we have to wait and see,” said Atiah. “I keep my fingers crossed,” he said. “I can’t tell you if business is picking up, but we see a lot of people going and coming, so we hope so.”

Not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, outside the Old City walls, is the Garden Tomb, which dates back to the first century and in which many believe Jesus could have been buried.

Ken Trestrail, 78, from Cornwall, England, has volunteered at the Garden Tomb on and off since 1981 as a “guide, comforter, whatever is needed,” he said.

The Garden Tomb, also known as the jewel of East Jerusalem, was established as a tourist site after an English general, Charles Gordon, discovered in 1884 a prominent rocky crag resembling a skull. According to the Bible, the place where Jesus was crucified was called Golgotha — the place of the skull. An ancient tomb was nearby.

On Friday morning, about 100 visitors came to the Garden Tomb for a Good Friday service. Many others entered the gardens for a day of meditation.

“The month of March is the third busiest March since 1990,” said Trestrail. “So tourism has grown considerably these past few months. We did have a very, very, very bad spell all through the intifadah period, but now it’s much, much better.”

Even when things were bad, the Indonesians kept coming, he said. (Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, has no diplomatic relations with Israel.) “Americans and Brits are coming more freely now, which is good. We missed them. Thus far we haven’t lost anybody in the intifadah period,” said Trestrail.

Joani and Ray Duncan from northern California said they came to visit despite relatives’ concerns. “[It's] totally safe. I recommend, especially to Christians, you’ve got to come. I mean, to be where Jesus was, it’s just the ultimate of being a Christian,” said Joani.

Donna DePerfia, originally from Chicago, said she drew inspiration from her tour guide.

“I was under the impression that we would have a Christian tour guide and we actually had a Jewish tour guide. I really wanted a Christian, but I think he made Jesus even more real as a person to us because Jesus was Jewish,” DePerfia said.

“I think every Christian should be here. I think non-Christians should be here, just because I think a lot of non-Christians don’t know anything about Christianity. I think it’s an eye-opener,” she said.

Joshua Loiloande is a Quaker teacher from Kenya, who is working at a Christian school in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

“I’ve come to join others in remembering the great day that Jesus died for our sins, to redeem the whole world for it is also great importance to come where I believe that His body was laid,” said Loiloande.

by Barbara J. Stock
www.chronwatch.com

People around the world are breathing a sigh of relief with the news that the possible execution of confessed Afghani Christian Abdul Rahman has been solved and he will now be free to return to his life. Most people also believe this is an isolated incident.

Mr. Rahman is like a snowflake in a blast furnace—he has no chance of survival in Afghanistan. If Mr. Rahman is not escorted out of Afghanistan by heavily armed American Marine bodyguards, he probably will not live 24 hours after being released from jail for his “horrible” crime. If this courageous gentleman is not given safe-haven away from Muslims, his life is over. Islam will not allow him to live as a Christian. Muslims that were his friends for years will tear him apart in their rage, fomented by Islamic leaders who have ordered his assassination. Allah must have his ration of blood.

“Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf. “The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled.” Raoulf went on to tell the Associated Press reporter, “We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left.”

Sharia law is very clear on the matter. Allah stated emphatically through Mohammed: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him.”

Frantically, the Afghani government tried to find a way to salvage Islam’s reputation by declaring this man “insane” and thus couldn’t be charged with any crime under Islamic law. Why would Mr. Rahman be considered insane? He dared to abandon Islam and turned to Christianity. In the mind of Muslims, this would be proof that he is insane. No sane person would commit such a horrible crime. The “insane” person is given three days to reconsider and remain Muslim. If he refuses, he is killed.

Of course, this insanity defense was not successful but yet another bloodthirsty aspect of Islam has been exposed to the world. Will the West realize that Islam has been hanging people since the days of Mohammed for the crime of escaping Islam? This is not new. The Quran demands it.

Then the Afghan government remembered that it had freedom of religion in its new constitution—sort of. Anything written in the Afghani constitution means nothing because Islamic law is always supreme. There are no exceptions.

Listening to many of the talking heads on television, one would believe that this behavior within Islam is new or only found in backwards Islamic countries. This simply isn’t true. Far left websites are blaming this barbaric behavior on Bush. The leftists seem to think that somehow, American “aggression” against Muslims has suddenly turned them into bloodthirsty and intolerant people. If not for the evil West, Islam would be peaceful and loving to all.

After all the free world has learned about the inner-workings of Islam, it still doesn’t get it. What the world is witnessing in Afghanistan IS Islam. Islam is the only known “religion” that orders a death sentence for anyone who dares to break the chains of domination and believe in any God other than Allah.

The God of Islam, Allah, is not the God of the rest of the world. One can use the terms Islam and Allah interchangeably. America, indeed the free world, must understand this about Islam if there is to be any chance of defeating this enemy.

Muslim scholars state that to leave Islam is an insult to Allah. If the God of the Jews and the God of the Christians is the same as the God as the Muslims, how then, could God be insulted as long as one continued to believe and worship the one true God? Leaving Islam is not an insult to God; it is an insult to Islam. It is an insult to their God, Allah, who demands that all living beings believe only in Islam…or is it Allah? It is very easy to confuse the two.

If there is not submission to Islam, there will death at the hands of Islam. This is the way Islam has been since Mohammed walked the earth and it remains that way today. For many Muslims, it is not devotion to Islam or Allah that keeps them going to mosque, it is fear.

The clerics and imams have been carefully schooled to maintain this fear and control over the followers. They know how to speak to crowds of men that are easily moved to near insanity and in this state of mind a raging mob will carry out any order that is given to them.

If this poor man, Abdul Rahman, is torn to pieces by the raging followers of the loving and peaceful “Allah” of Islam and dies for his belief in Christ as the Son of God, it would be almost romantic to call him a modern-day martyr. But Mr. Rahman is only one of many these days who are dying because they don’t believe in Allah. These people believe in a kind and loving God, not the bloodthirsty god of Islam. They die in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and Sudan. Christians and Jews are martyred nearly on a daily basis somewhere in the world.

Betrayed by his Judas wife, Mr. Rahman is a Christian in a sea of hateful and angry Muslims. No one knows better than he the fate that awaits him. His courage is similar to another man who abandoned the faith of his birth and believed in a new beginning for mankind. There are many Muslims like Mr. Rahman in this world. There will be more as the hate and intolerance that is Islam becomes unbearable. There will come a day when the fear will not be enough to hold them. Mr. Rahman is just the most visible for now. This brave soul will leave the jail with his head held high. Mr. Rahman states he has no fear. He stated: “The punishment by hanging? I will accept it gladly, but I am not an infidel. I am not a traitor. I am a follower of Jesus.” One man may die for his religion and others will kill him because their religion demands it. In today’s world, it is not hard to identify which religion is which.

Marchers say gringos, not illegals, have to go
Activists turn tables, offer no amnesty for ‘non-indigenous’ on ‘our continent’
www.worldnetdaily.com

While debates about guest-worker programs for illegal aliens take place in Washington’s corridors of power, in the streets of America’s big cities no amnesty is being offered by activists calling for the expulsion of most U.S. citizens from their own country.

While politicians debate the fate of some 12 million people residing in the U.S. illegally, the Mexica Movement, one of the organizers of the mass protest in Los Angeles this week, has already decided it is the “non-indigenous,” white, English-speaking U.S. citizens of European descent who have to leave what they call “our continent.”

The pictures and captions tell the story.

“This is our continent, not yours!” exclaimed one banner.

“We are indigenous! The only owners of this continent!” said another.

“If you think I’m illegal because I’m a Mexican, learn the true history, because I’m in my homeland,” read another sign.

“One of the more negative parts of the march was when American flags were passed out to make sure the marchers were looked on as part of ‘America,’” said the group’s commentary on the L.A. rally.

Both Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a proponent of tougher border security, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were caricatured as Nazis by the group on its posters and banners.

The group insists the indigenous people of the continent were the victims of genocide — a campaign of extermination that killed, according to one citation, 95 percent of their population, or 33 million people.

Another citation on the same website claims the toll was 70 million to 100 million.

The only solution, says the Mexica Movement, is to expel the invaders of the last 500 years, force them to pay reparations and return the continent to its rightful heirs.

The platform of the group illustrates the diverse — and sometimes extreme — agendas of those participating in the mass mobilizations that have been seen largely as protests against efforts to curb illegal immigration.

Some of those involved, including the Mexica Movement, have much bigger goals than stopping a piece of legislation before Congress.

A group called “La Voz de Aztlan,” the Voice of Aztlan, identifies Mexicans in the U.S. as “America’s Palestinians.” Many Mexicans see themselves as part of a transnational ethnic group known as “La Raza,”

the race. A May editorial on the website, with a dateline of Los Angeles, Alta California, declares that “both La Raza and the Palestinians have been displaced by invaders that have utilized military means to conquer and occupy our territories.”

Others in the coalition hope to see a “reconquest” of the American southwest by Mexico. This would not likely take place through military action, they say, but rather through a slow process of migration — both legal and illegal.

www.yahoo.com

Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, a German magazine reports in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.

The German magazine Cicero says that during the Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia in aircraft laid on by the oil-rich kingdom.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them took the opportunity to “disappear” from their hotel rooms, sometimes for up to three weeks, it quoted German security expert Udo Ulfkotte as saying.

According to Western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998 thanks to the work of the now-disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Cicero, which will appear on newstands on Thursday, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons “because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear programme”.

The magazine also said satellite images prove that Saudi Arabia has set up in Al-Sulaiyil, south of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles.

According to some Western security services, long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani-origin are housed inside the silos.

The main road that ran from Jerusalem’s City of David to the Temple Mount during the time of the Second Temple has been uncovered by Israeli archeologists, those involved in the dig said recently.

The road connected the Shiloah pool in the City of David to the Temple Mount compound. The 2,000-year-old road was discovered adjacent to the Shiloah pool during ongoing excavations at the site, said Israeli Antiquities Authority archeologist Eli Shukrun. He is directing the dig together with University of Haifa archeologist Prof. Ronny Reich.

The road was used by the tens of thousands of people who came to Jerusalem for the Jewish pilgrimage holidays during the Second Temple Period, who immersed themselves in the Shiloah pool before entering the Temple Mount, Shukrun said.

He said the road showed the centrality of both the Temple and the pool for life in the city at the time. Archeologists had previously discovered the other end of the 600-meter road near the Temple Mount, he said. The archeologists have not learned when the road was built, but they have determined that it was in use between the first half of the first century BCE and the destruction of the second Jewish Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.

“This was the main road of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period,” Shukrun said.

The archeologists also found large stones and boulders from the destruction of the Second Temple, burnt ashes, and an assortment of coins from the failed Jewish rebellion against the Romans.

The excavations at the site are being sponsored by the right-wing Ir David Foundation, which supports the reestablishment of Jewish communities in east Jerusalem. The latest finds in the City of David, located just outside the walls of the Old City, came two years after Israeli archeologists stumbled upon the 2,000-year-old pool while the city was carrying out infrastructure work for a new sewage line.

The waters of the Shiloah pool, which come from the nearby Gihon spring, were used in Jewish purification rituals carried out, among other times, before visits to the Temple.