Levitt Letter Extra News

By Michael Schneider, www.IsraelToday.co.il

Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics has released the following figures for 2008:

1. 1,970 newborn boys and 515 girls were given the name Noam. Among girls, Noa continues to be the most popular name.

2. Young people in a young state: There were 2,453,140 Israelis under the age of 1—a third of the total population.

3. 156,900 babies were born.

4. Following Noam, which means “pleasant,” the most popular names for boys in Israel are: Itai, Daniel, David, Idan, Moshe, Yosef, and Yonatan.

5. Following Noa, the most popular names for girls are: Shira, Yael, Tamar, Maya, Talia, Hila, Michal, and Adi.

6. Arab boys are often called by variants of the name Mohammed: Mahmoud, Ahmad, Muhamed.

7. Popular names among Arab girls are Hala, Nur, and Miriam.

By Ben Harris, www.JTA.org

Israeli warplanes struck four targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket that landed near Ashkelon.

The Israel Defense Forces said the targets included several smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza, as well as a weapons manufacturing facility, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The January 7 night raid followed the firing of a Katyusha rocket at the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. The rocket caused no casualties.

Palestinians said one person was killed and two wounded in the strikes.

By Phyllis Chesler, www.PajamasMedia.com

Finally, at the midnight hour, some European governments have begun to fight back—not against the Islamification of Europe but against inhumane, even barbaric political practices in the name of religion that violate Western standards of universal human rights.

Thus, first France, but now Italy have called for a ban on the burqa. Italy’s Northern League proposal “aims at amending a 1975 law, introduced amid concern over domestic terrorism, which bans anyone wearing anything which makes their identification impossible.” The Northern League also has the backing of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party. The League’s Roberto Cota said: “We are not racist and we have nothing against Muslims but the law must be equal for everyone.”

When France’s President Sarkozy first called for a similar ban, a self-identified branch of al-Qaeda in Northern Africa threatened to attack France over this.

Predictably, center-left opposition MPs criticized the Italian proposal and said it was

“unconstitutional because it infringes on religious freedom and justifying it because of law and order is totally out of place.”

Not so fast.

Verily, we live in an age of miracles; thus, none other than Sheik Mohammed Tantawi, the leading religious figure of Al-Azhar, was, just the other day, “reportedly angered” when he toured a school in Cairo and saw a girl wearing “ niqab,” which means that her face was masked or possibly that she was wearing a full head, face, and body covering.

“Sheik Tantawi, regarded by many as Egypt’s Imam and Sunni Islam’s foremost spiritual authority, asked the teenage girl to remove her veil saying: “The niqab is a tradition, it has no connection with religion.” The imam instructed the girl, a pupil at a secondary school in Cairo’s Madinet Nasr suburb, never to wear the niqab again and promised to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against its use in schools. The ruling will not affect use of the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by most Muslim women in Egypt.

Following the imam’s lead, Egypt’s minister of higher education is to ban female undergraduates from wearing the niqab at the country’s public universities, Cairo’s Al-Masri Al-Yom newspaper reported.

Again, don’t rejoice too soon.

Even the very influential Sheik Tantawi has his fundamentalist detractors who have excoriated him for supporting France’s ban on hijab in public schools and for shaking hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres. And, clearly, the Egyptian government is unhappy about the gathering forces of Islamic fundamentalism that consistently manipulate women and women’s clothing as symbolic political statements. Some have even called for more severe Islamic clothing for women in which only one eye (Algerian style) can show. The Egyptian government understands that it is at risk vis-à-vis Islamic fundamentalists.

Now, some European politicians understand this too.

Follow the burqa. Where it goes, you will probably find normalized wife-battering, serious child abuse, including honor killings too—as well as polygamy, and a pathological hatred of Jews, Israelis, Hindus, Americans, and all other

“infidels.” There you may also find terrorist cells or supporters of terrorism. From this point of view—ban the burqa, and it may lead to an exodus of terrorists back to their fundamentalist-friendly home countries. But there is another point of view that interests me more, namely, the human rights/woman’s rights argument as grounds to ban the burqa. I have made that argument in these pages. I have found support from Muslim feminists, first at an international conference in Rome, and now in a new book on the subject.

I have been reading the most elegant and excellent book on the subject of the Islamic veil written by Marnia Lazreg. Questioning the Veil. Open Letters to Muslim Women is carefully reasoned and beautifully written. Lazreg is an Algerian Muslim feminist academic and her mother once wore the veil. She is respectful of Muslim women’s own feelings and of their religious desires. She argues that the veil (face, head, and full body covering) is not commanded in the Koran; that it is harmful to women’s physical and mental health; and that it is mainly a political statement about fundamentalism and misogyny. She has little patience for feminist academics who themselves are not forced to veil and who “play” at imagining or de-constructing the veil as “liberating” or as a statement of “resistance.” Of course, she is also on record as having objected to the “manner in which Muslim women have been portrayed in books as well as the media,” namely, in ways that focus on them only as oppressed victims.

In her last letter, Lazreg implores Muslim women to stop wearing the veil. “It is a symbol of inequality…it undermines faith… it objectifies women for (reasons of) political propaganda just like advertising in Western society does: one by covering, and the other by exposing women’s’ bodies.” Lazreg also views the veil as harming Muslim women’s employment because “hijab symbolically inserts her into a virtual domestic space” and affects how she is viewed and treated at work. She re-defines “modesty” as related to behavior and character rather than to appearance and opposes “the straitjacketing of a woman’s body. Removing or refusing to veil does not mean that a Muslim woman has succumbed to the West. She writes:

“Not wearing the veil is not a victory of the ‘West,’ it is women’s victory over a custom that inflects their thinking about themselves as human beings. Wearing the veil is not a strike against anti-Muslim prejudice…As long as states mandate or prohibit veiling, as long as political movements advocate for it, as long as organized networks with books, lectures, DVDs, and course packets promote it far and wide, a woman can never be sure she takes up the veil freedly…Ultimately, there is no compelling justification for veiling, not even faith…No one is entitled to turn the veil into a political flag.”

There’s more, much more, and I encourage you all to read this fine book.

The Muslim Canadian Congress just recently urged that the burqa be banned in Canada. Given Sheik Tantawi’s statement and the fact that the burqa is also forbidden at Mecca, the Congress argues that it should be forbidden in Canada too.

Rick Moran, www.AmericanThinker.com
With tens of thousands of police, Revolutionary Guards, and paramilitary Basij’s on the streets of Tehran, mass protests of the kind we saw earlier in the week are, for the moment, not possible.

Demonstrating very effective crowd control techniques — along with a brutality that shocked the world — the regime’s strategy apparently worked fairly well. Any area where people began to mass, they sent a flying wedge of riot police (probably Rev Guards dressed in police gear) straight into the people and beat as many as they could, as hard as they could, as long as they could. In this way, they prevented tens of thousands from forming in order to protest.

Estimates of police and Guards deployed range from 25,000 to 60,000 in Tehran alone. And the Basij were busy overnight, keeping the pressure on reformists by carrying off several high profile home invasions in richer neighborhoods while scouring hospitals for people injured during the clashes.

That latter activity is being enthusiastically carried out as there have been reports that they are dragging people out of the hospitals and taking them to the notorious Evin Prison where, as one wag put it, “waterboarding will be the least that they do.”

Hossein Mousavi has issued another letter, asking people to go on strike if he is arrested. He says he is “prepared for martyrdom” which, given Khamenei’s threat during his speech on Friday to hold him directly responsible for any blood spilled, might be a prescient statement.

So with no mass demonstrations possible at the moment, what next?

Look for a shocker coming out of the holy city of Qom where former President Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani has reportedly been holed up with what we might loosely refer to as a kind of Shia “college of cardinals” since early this week. (I admit it is not the best analogy but the I am trying to impart a sense of the religious influence these mullahs have on Shias.) This from Nico Pitney who has been doing a bang up job at Huffpo in liveblogging events:

6:00 PM ET — Where is Rafsanjani? “According to an online reformist news source Rooyeh, Rafsanjani has been in Qom meeting some members of Council of Experts and a representative of Ayatollah Sistani.

According to the source that asked to remain anonymous, during this meeting they recounted memories of the days of the Revolution.
A reasonable purpose of these meetings, according to the source, is that Rafsanjani is looking for a majority to possibly call for Ahmadinejad’s resignation.

As one reader points out, Sistani is “one of the most respected Grand Ayatollahs within Shia Islam in the world. He’s Iranian (from Mashhad, same city as Khamenei), but spends most time in Najaf/Karbala in Iraq.”

The Shia clerics are not a monolithic bloc. And the clerics in Qom may hold the key to breaking this situation wide open.

There is no love lost among many of the clerics in Qom and Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. The sticking point is the “Grand” designation for Khamenei’s clerical position. There are many clerics in Qom who believe the idea that Khamenei has that title — which denotes a piety and scholarly achievement that few attain — to be nonsense . Author and scholar Kamil Pasha points us to veteran Middle East reporter Robin Wright’s article up at Huffington Post:

The position of supreme leader has been controversial since it was created in the chaotic early days of the revolution to deal with internal squabbling. After his return from exile, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khameini had originally returned to the religious center of Qom, but was forced to move back to Tehran as disputes among the fractious coalition that ousted the last shah began to fall apart.

Many of the Shiite clerics in Qom never embraced the idea of either a supreme leader or a central role for clerics in the new Islamic republic. Iran’s revolution represented not just a political upheaval. It was also a revolution within Shiism, which for 14 centuries had prohibited a clerical role in politics. With clerics taking over government, many senior Shiite clerics feared that Islam would end up being tainted by the human flaws of the state.

The current crisis has effectively revived that debate — and deepened the divide between the government and the Shiite clergy as well as with the public. The government includes many clerical institutions, including the 12-member Council of Guardians, the 86-member Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council. But not even all of its members are happy with the election.

More importantly, senior clerics in Qom have noticeably failed to either endorse the election results or embrace Ahmadinejad, while long-time critics within the clergy used the crisis to encourage resistance to the supreme leader’s dictates.

The fact that Rafsanjani is in Qom could mean many things. He may be hiding out there, waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before leaping. Or, as Pitney reports, he may be trying to get these respected clerics in Iran’s holiest city to speak with one voice on the election fraud and Khamenei’s role in government. A strong, unified statement coming from Qom might spell curtains for both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.

While Rafsanjani himself has been absent from view, his daughter spoke out strongly for the reformists. He even rated some heavy criticism from his old friend Khamenei on Friday, although he stopped short of warning the powerful Rafsanjani.

A couple of Grand Ayatollahs in Qom have already come out in favor of the protests. Robin Wright:

Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, who was originally designated to become supreme leader until he criticized the regime’s excesses in 1989, dismissed the election results and called on “everyone” to continue “reclaiming their dues” in calm protests. He also issued a warning to Iran’s security forces not to accept government orders that might eventually condemn them “before God.”

“Today censorship and cutting telecommunication lines can not hide the truth,” said Montazeri. “I pray for the greatness of the Iranian people.”

Others have also bestowed legitimacy on the protests. Grand Ayatollah Saanei — one of only about a dozen who hold that position — pronounced Ahmadinejad’s presidency illegitimate.

Neither man weilds much political influence. But if Qom’s clerical leadership calls on Khamenei to resign (thus delegitimzing his role as “Supreme Leader” even more), this would cause a crisis in government — a near civil war — as the clerical establishment would likely be ripped in two. It would paralyze the government and perhaps even split the security forces.

Because of that — and because many of the clerics in Qom have shown a great reluctance to involve themselves too heavily in politics — such a strong statement might not be forthcoming. But don’t count Rafsanjani out. He has a lot of friends in very powerful places. If he decides to risk a confrontation with Khamenei (him being a candidate to replace him although the reformers would take a dim view of that), anything is possible.

So I would look to Qom for the next big story in the Iranian revolution. Whether the blood spilled yesterday is enough to convince the religious in Iran to replace Khamenei is a question that will probably be answered shortly. They will either issue a call for his resignation, or Rafsanjani will emerge empty handed.  The old revolutionary and kleptocrat will try to trim events to fulfill his ambitions. But in the process, he just may free Iran from the grip of the fascists.

UPDATE

AP is reporting the arrest of Rafsanjani’s daughter (mentioned above) and 4 other relatives of the powerful former president.

Um… they’re not being very subtle, are they? They know full well what Rafsanjani is up to and are making it clear to him that there will be consequences unless he ceases what he is doing.

by Gary Bauer
www.humanevents.com

It is time for those interested in peace between Muslims and Christians to face some cold, hard facts. This is not the first Jihad. This is not the first Holy War. And any road to peace and mutual understanding must first travel back in time to acknowledge the historical truths about how conflicts between radical Islam and the rest of the world have been resolved. In the meantime, hollow platitudes about �mutual understanding� and �conversation� must end.

In the early 8th Century, radical Islamists had been waging war for decades, imposing their faith on Christians throughout Europe. They had conquered Spain and parts of modern-day France and Germany. But, in 732, a one-day battle changed the course of history.

In the Battle of Tours, Charles Martel led a Christian army of Franks and Burgundians to a bloody and decisive victory against the invading jihadists — a victory that stemmed the tide of Islamic expansionism in Europe.

Martel prevailed at Tours because he recognized exactly what was at stake. He understood that his army could determine whether Christian civilization would continue or Islamic theocracy prevail throughout Europe. Thus Martel took decisive action, which, in the words of historian Edward Gibbon, �rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbors of Gaul [France], from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran.�

Western civilization again faces a defining moment in the struggle to defend itself against an enemy that seeks its demise. Sadly, however, many in the West today, including many Christians, fail to understand what�s at stake: the continuation of our way of life and even our very lives. This is not merely an �election� between two political parties with a common interest in the peace and prosperity of the world. This is an existential conflict in which one side says, �convert or die.�

Recently, over 300 evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders sponsored a letter seeking �reconciliation� and �common ground� with Islam. The letter, �Loving God and Neighbor Together,� was issued as a response to a similar letter written to Christians by 138 Muslim leaders last fall. The Christian letter expressed regrets for the Crusades and for excesses of the �war on terror,� acknowledged Allah as the God of the Bible and insisted that, �without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world.�

But while inter-faith dialogue can be useful, the letter failed to appreciate that a real conversation can take place only when both sides negotiate in good faith, in a spirit of mutual respect and with a willingness to address the truth of the disagreements at hand. One truth Christians must come to terms with is that Muslims are not looking to be one of many respected faiths active in the world. To the jihadists and their sympathizers, Islam�s place in the world is a zero-sum affair — they will impose Islam on the world or die trying — and pretending otherwise does no good in achieving understanding.

Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, explained why he signed �Loving God and Neighbor Together,� by stating that �not signing could be damaging to these Christian brothers and sisters who live among Muslims.� Which is precisely the problem. If by not signing a letter that acknowledges, and asks forgiveness for, Christian crimes but that remains silent on those of Muslims Anderson feels he may provoke a backlash against Christians in Muslim nations, then clearly reconciliation is illusory.

Christians living in Muslim countries often face discrimination, and those who practice openly can be thrown in jail and even killed. Last July, 23 Christian Koreans were taken hostage, and a number were killed, by the Taliban in Afghanistan. But these Christian missionaries weren�t even trying to spread their faith, only providing aid and medical care to poor Afghans.

Have the signers of �Loving God and Neighbor Together� forgotten what happened the last time a Christian leader tried to start a frank inter-faith discussion between Muslims and Christians? When Pope Benedict XVI attempted to engage Muslims in thoughtful dialogue, his remarks provoked a ridiculous and irrational response that led to violent public demonstrations, the calling for the pope�s head and the murder of a Catholic nun in Africa.

Christians need to come to grips with the deep culture of violence that pervades many Muslim societies. A 2005 study found that Muslim nations are two-and-a-half times more likely than non-Muslim nations to be considered �at the greatest risk of neglecting or mismanaging emerging societal crises such that these conflicts escalate to serious violence and/or government instability.�

What�s more, while it�s fashionable to refer to Islam as the �religion of peace,� the truth is that Islamic terrorists invariably cite faith as the motivation behind their deplorable acts. And when some Muslim leaders insist non-Muslims must �convert or die,� it�s clear that Muslims are not ready to negotiate in good faith. Even dedicated Muslim leaders like Benazir Bhutto pay with their lives when they are willing to talk candidly with Westerners about reaching a peaceful co-existence.

I caution against the false hope of letters like �Loving God and Neighbor Together.�
At the end of the day, an enemy committed to the total destruction of western civilization must be defeated. It is essential that Christians recognize that any attempts at finding �common ground� or �mutual understanding� with Muslims will be fruitless unless and until Muslims stand up to confront their co-religionists� use of faith to justify violence and the annihilation of the west.

By KAREN ROSEN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sidney Reed, 92, plays the violin with the choir at the New Beginnings United Methodist Church. ‘We get along as friends,’ he says.

Sidney Reed talks with Judy Munson after the service at New Beginnings United Methodist Church in Kennesaw.

Oh, and one other thing: He’s Jewish.

�He makes the melody kind of soar over the congregation,� said Amanda Graham Brown, the pianist and choir leader. �It’s a mutual blessing that we’ve given each other.�

The 200-member congregation at the New Beginnings United Methodist church in Kennesaw embraces Reed as one of its own.

�They know my background,� Reed said. �We get along as friends. Religion doesn’t interfere.�

Reed has been playing at the church for nearly 11 years. He accompanies the choir and often solos.

�It’s something to do in my old age,� said Reed, who’s fit as, well, a fiddle.

The church provides him with a social, as well as a musical, outlet.

Reed admits that he and his wife, Betty, 84, miss �the Yiddish thing� they had in Brooklyn, N.Y., but their synagogue, Kol Emeth, is more than half an hour away from where they live.

He finds fellowship at the church, where he also rehearses Wednesday nights.

�Even though we may not share the same faith, we’re his family, and he counts on us,� said Angela Clark, a choir member. �He’s become our adopted granddaddy. Everybody loves Sidney.�

The Reeds moved to Acworth in 1996 to share a house with their daughter and son-in-law. A sign at the door says �Shalom,� Hebrew for peace, hello and goodbye.

A neighbor who sings in the New Beginnings choir had heard Reed practicing when the sound carried through the window.

�She said, ‘Would you want to come to our church and play?’ � he recalled. �I said, ‘I don’t know.’ She said, ‘We have a very beautiful pianist.’ I said, ‘OK.’ And I’ve been going there every since.�

He’s even outlasted that pianist.

Reed recently segued from �Onward Christian Soldiers� to Mozart’s �Minuet in F,� followed by Handel’s �Minuet in F� and back to �Onward Christian Soldiers.� He also played �I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,� even though the hymn doesn’t follow his own religious beliefs.

�As he says, music is music no matter where you play it,� Betty Reed said. �They’ve treated him so well.�

For his 92nd birthday last August, the church held a recital in his honor. On Jewish holidays, they play traditional Jewish music. They’ve also played one of his favorite songs, �Yesterday,� by the Beatles.

Brown, who is married to pastor Scott Brown, said Reed is known for his improvisation. In one hymn, she said, �Sidney did a ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’ improv. People went crazy.�

Four of the boys in the congregation were inspired to take up the violin after watching Reed.

He was only 9 years old when he began playing. After a couple of years of instruction, the Depression hit and the lessons stopped.

�I just kept playing,� Reed said. �When I heard a song, I’d play it by ear.�

It was raining the day the family with nine children was evicted from its home in Brooklyn. A Steinway piano Reed’s father had bought for $1,000 was ruined, but the violin survived.

He took it with him to play summer jobs in hotels in the Catskill Mountains.

Did he make good money?

�Are you kidding? We were lucky just to get the food and board.�

In World War II, Reed was a sergeant with a tank destroyer battalion. His violin came with him.

�We had shows at the barracks,� he said.

After the war, he sold drugstore sundries and retired at 75.

What would the people in the old neighborhood in Brooklyn think if they saw Reed now?

�They’re all gone, I’m sure,� he said. �I don’t think they would think it’s a sin. They were liberal-minded.�

Brown told Reed that she gets emotional knowing that he won’t always be playing at her side.

�She’d be lost without me,� he said, �so I’m going to stay as long as I can.�

www.foxnews.com

Law enforcement officials and security experts are warning against the threat of homegrown terrorism as several cases involving alleged American jihadists enter the courts.

“The public is getting complacent,” New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tells FOX News. Kelly, who was the police commissioner during the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, has developed a task force of counterterrorism officers trained to spot jihadists.

Although there has not been a major terrorist strike in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, Kelley says the country cannot let down its guard.

“We can’t afford to be complacent in law enforcement, and I don’t think we are,” Kelly says in the new FOX News documentary, “Jihad, USA,” which will air at 9 p.m. ET on March 29.

Several terror-related cases now in the courts highlight this need for continued vigilance, experts say.

• In Florida, the retrial of six of the “Liberty City Seven” is coming to a close. The group members, who allegedly plotted to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago and swore allegiance to Al Qaeda on a secret FBI surveillance tape, were arrested in June 2006. Their first trial ended in a not-guilty verdict for one defendant and a mistrial for the other six.
• In Washington state, the murder trial has begun for Pakistani-American Naveed Haq, who is accused of opening fire in Seattle’s Jewish Federation Building in July 2006, killing one woman and wounding five others. Haq allegedly said he was mad at the Jews and how they are running the country.

Two other cases are to enter court next month.

• In Michigan, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Houssein Zorkot, a Lebanese-born medical student at Wayne State University in Detroit who posted on his Web site in September 2007 that he was launching a personal jihad. He was arrested that same day in a nearby park, wearing camouflage paint and holding a loaded AK-47.
• In South Carolina a trial is set for Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, two University of South Florida students who officials say had pipe bombs in their car when they were caught speeding near the Goose Creek weapons base.

Terror experts say these and other cases since Sept. 11 illustrate an emerging threat from homegrown terrorists, people who have been radicalized by extreme Muslim doctrine within the U.S.

“Al Qaeda is depending today upon the spontaneous emergence of these jihadist cells that are not tethered to the leadership of Al Qaeda by either telephone or e-mail,” terror investigator and author Steve Emerson told FOX News.

But others say the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism is overstated.

In “none of these cases brought in the United States did the government ever produce any evidence suggesting that someone had prepared a bomb,” says Jim Wedick, a former FBI agent. “Someone’s actual ability to do harm needs to be taken into the equation.”

Wedick consulted with the defense on the Liberty City Seven case.

“The solution is not to treat the whole Muslim community as a suspect community,” says Hussam Ayloush, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “This is not about ignoring a threat, but this … should not be about exaggerating any threat in a way that promotes certain political agendas.”

Kelly says the threat is real and the only way to combat it is through prevention.

“Just imagine if the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were arrested on Sept. 10,” he says. “How would that have been characterized?”

By Dennis Prager
www.JewishWorldReview.com

The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.

But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.

Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world’s oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.

Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, “Palestinian” had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, “Palestinian” and “Palestine” almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.

None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel’s creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known � since the Romans renamed Judea � as “Palestine.”

But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians’ deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans’ near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.

So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?

The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people � first Jews, and then anyone else � was the fastest way to garner world attention. They were right. On the other hand, as The Economist notes in its March 28, 2008 issue, “Tibetan nationalists have hardly ever resorted to terrorist tactics�” It is interesting to speculate how the world would have reacted had Tibetans hijacked international flights, slaughtered Chinese citizens in Chinese restaurants and temples, on Chinese buses and trains, and massacred Chinese schoolchildren.

The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs. The Palestinians have rich friends who control the world’s most needed commodity, oil. The Palestinians have the unqualified support of all Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and the support of the Muslim world beyond the Middle East. The Tibetans are poor and have the support of no nations, let alone oil-producing ones.

The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious. It is not possible that the unearned preoccupation with the Palestinians is unrelated to the fact that their enemy is the one Jewish state in the world. Israel’s Jewishness is a major part of the Muslim world’s hatred of Israel. It is also part of Europe’s hostility toward Israel: Portraying Israel as oppressors assuages some of Europe’s guilt about the Holocaust � “see, the Jews act no better than we did.” Hence the ubiquitous comparisons of Israel to Nazis.

A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.

A fifth reason is the world’s Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world’s media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.

The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it. China’s sponsoring of Sudan and its genocidal acts against its non-Arab black population, as in Darfur, goes largely unremarked on at the UN, let alone condemned, just as is the case with its cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and military occupation of Tibet.

The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities. No video, no TV news. And no TV, no concern. So while grieving Palestinians and the accidental killings of Palestinians during morally necessary Israeli retaliations against terrorists are routinely televised, the slaughter of over a million Tibetans and the extinguishing of Tibetan Buddhism and culture are non-events as far as television news is concerned.

The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted. And rarely more so than in its support for the Palestinians � no matter how many innocents they target for murder and no matter how much Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates their media � and its neglect of the cruelly treated, humane Tibetans

By Cal Thomas
www.JewishWorldReview.com

BOSTON � Following Sept. 11, 2001, a day of infamy on which nearly 3,000 died at the hands of terrorists, The New York Times began publishing the names and pictures of the dead. I made a deliberate effort to look at those pictures and to read the names and hometowns of each victim. I wanted to identify with them as much as possible.

Now the Times has published more pictures, names and ages, this time of American war dead. They are part of the 4,000 casualties to have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan since those wars began. They � and their families � deserve our gratitude.

Some politicians who oppose the war � mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans � offer obligatory and oblique references to “the troops” and their bravery, while undermining their sacrifice and objectives by calling for their immediate withdrawal. That is not a policy, unless one regards surrender and retreat only to fight a bloodier war another day policy.

What is remarkable is that America continues to produce the kind of young men and women who are willing to lay down their lives for a principle: the principle of freedom � for others and for us.

This is a characteristic that may not be uniquely American, but it is one this country has fully embraced, as time and time again it fights wars to liberate others and protect itself. As the excellent HBO series on the life of John Adams portrays, the notion of freedom was conceived in the hearts of our countrymen even before America became a nation. It is a story about sacrifice, separation from loved ones and the forsaking of familiar and comfortable surroundings in favor of misery and hardship. The fight for independence involved emotional and physical pain and unenviable loss. But it also produced gain for those willing to pay the price. “John Adams” tells another truth: freedom isn’t free. It must be bought and paid for by every generation and sometimes more than once within a generation.

Freedom is not a natural state � otherwise more people would be free. Tyranny, oppression, dictatorship and the denial of human rights are the norm for much of the planet. Mankind’s lower nature dictates that far too many seek to reduce others to servitude in order to elevate themselves. President Bush has repeatedly said that freedom is a G-d-given right that resides in the heart of every human. Maybe, but sometimes one must fight to extract it from the hardened hearts of others who want it exclusively for themselves.

Looking at the faces of those who have fallen and driving by Arlington National Cemetery, I am reminded of the cost of freedom. Those who died allow me to travel freely. Those who sacrificed everything invested in freedom for my family and yours so that we can all live our lives where we choose to live them and worship where, and however, we please. These are freedoms most of the world can only dream about.

It has been said that most of us no longer know anyone who is serving in the military and that’s too bad. Some college campuses (like Harvard) continue to ban the ROTC without acknowledging that Harvard might not exist were it not for soldiers willing to fight to preserve academic freedom.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose,” goes the Kris Kristofferson lyric. But that is a cynical view of freedom. In a city and a state that helped give freedom birth, there are constant reminders of those who were freedom’s midwives. If John Adams, his cousin Sam, Paul Revere and so many others from our past could speak today, they would remind us that freedom is never fully paid for and that its loss would exact a greater cost.

Folk singer Joan Baez plans to return to Cambridge this week to mark the 50th anniversary of Club Passim, where her career of singing mostly protest songs began. That she still has the freedom to sing those songs results from the sacrifices of the patriots who died for her right to protest. It would be nice if she sang a song honoring them, but that’s probably “just blowin’ in the wind.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Renault-Nissan ( RENA.PA) (7201.T) alliance on Monday signed a deal to begin mass producing electric cars as part of an Israeli-led project to develop alternative energy sources and slash oil dependency.

Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said the cars, with a range of about 100 km in city driving and up to 160 km on the highway, will accelerate from zero to 100 kph in 13 seconds and have a top speed of 110 kph — similar to many gasoline-powered cars.

Ghosn said a key reason why the company chose Israel to launch the project is because 90 percent of Israelis drive less than 70 km a day and all major urban centers are within 150 km of each other. For Israel the cars would mean less dependency on oil imports, mostly coming from Russia.

The cars, to be made in Europe, will run on a battery developed by Nissan and Japan’s NEC (6701.T) and will be available in 2011. A prototype is already on the road in Israel and various models will be sold by Renault and Nissan.

�It will be the most environmentally friendly mass-produced car on the market,� Ghosn said at a Fuel Free Transportation ceremony at the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, adding the main appeal of the cars is that they were as �normal as possible� while operating quietly.

He said the car would cost the same or less than comparable gasoline engine autos and would have a lifetime warranty.

Ghosn said Renault-Nissan will also market the cars in yet to be determined European countries and Asia and later to the United States.

�We expect this car to be successful,� Ghosn told reporters. �We want to make sure we mass market 10,000 to 20,000 cars a year in Israel … We are determined to make it a success.�

ENERGY SUBSCRIPTIONS

Israel’s government will offer tax incentives on the cars and Project Better Place, a venture-backed company, will set up a recharging grid using electricity from renewable sources.

�The state of Israel has set itself the goal of making our lives here better and cleaner, with less dependence on gasoline and petroleum,� Olmert said. �By the end of the next decade, we will be completely free of petroleum and its by-products as the fuel which powers transportation in Israel.�

Project Better Place is headed by former SAP ( SAPG.DE) executive Shai Agassi, who said Israel’s grid would be powered by 200 megawatts generated by wind and solar power sources.

�For the first time in history, all the conditions necessary for electric vehicles to be successfully mass-marketed will be brought together in a partnership between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Project Better Place in Israel,� the two sides said in a statement.

Consumers will buy their car and subscribe to an energy supply, including the use of the battery, on the basis of kilometers driven, similar to the way mobile phones are sold.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said he wanted Israel to push forward with the electric car plan because oil has become the �greatest polluter of our age and the greatest financier of terrorism.�

California-based Project Better Place said it will set up a network of 500,000 charging points in Israel. The car’s computer will indicate when recharging is needed and the nearest charging point.

The initial $200 million investment in Project Better Place is led by holding company Israel Corp (ILCO.TA) and includes investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N), venture capital firm Vantage Point and a group of private investors.

Israel Corp, which will invest $100 million, said it had signed agreements with the other investors. The Ofer family, which controls Israel Corp, will invest $30 million through a private firm while the other investors will put in $70 million.