Archived news and commentary: April 29 - May 5, 2002

2002/06/24 - 2002/06/30
2002/06/17 - 2002/06/23
2002/06/10 - 2002/06/16
2002/06/03 - 2002/06/09
2002/05/27 - 2002/06/02
2002/05/20 - 2002/05/26
2002/05/13 - 2002/05/19
2002/05/06 - 2002/05/12
2002/04/29 - 2002/05/05
2002/04/22 - 2002/04/28
2002/04/15 - 2002/04/21
2002/04/08 - 2002/04/14
2002/04/01 - 2002/04/07

Sunday, May 5, 2002

News and commentary:

"Church officials allege Bethlehem cover-up" (Lauren Gelfond, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/05)
"High-level Christian clerics covered up the real goings-on in the Church of the Nativity standoff, a church official involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations said Friday. "It is not true that all the clergymen are staying in the church of their own free will and that everyone inside is getting along," a Jerusalem-based cleric told The Jerusalem Post. "But propaganda is all that is heard, in part because of many cover-ups by the Christians who don't dare to speak up. They are cowards." Fear of Muslim militants silences those in the church and their communities, he said. "They are afraid and prepare for good relations after the siege instead of shouting at the gunmen to stop violating our holy site." ... "We [Christians] are a small minority with little rights left, so it's obvious you have to be cautious with what you say. But I would have preferred silence rather than saying that everything is okay. We are worse than cowards, we are lying." Though he spoke of "horrible" conditions and "unpleasant incidents," he said that some Franciscan clergy and seminarians are there by choice. Among them are two friars, who are Christian Arabs."

"Enlisting Data Seized in Raids, Israel Widens an Effort to Implicate Arafat in Terrorism" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2002/05/05)
"As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon heads for Washington today, Israeli officials are presenting documents and other material seized in recent raids of Palestinian installations on the West Bank as evidence of what they call Yasir Arafat's direct role in supporting and sponsoring terrorism. One Israeli official said he recently showed a senior American diplomat in Tel Aviv a videotape that demonstrated techniques for making homemade bombs to blow up buses. It was found at an Islamic elementary school in the West Bank city of Nablus in a file marked "Palestinian cultural heritage," this official said. ... Israel blames Al Aksa for most of the attacks against Israeli civilians carried out since November and says documents support its assertion that the brigades are sponsored and financed by Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Several documents provided by Israelis support this claim, though their authenticity could not be independently confirmed. Suicide bombings are praised in several documents. In one memo dated Feb. 6, 2002, the head of Palestinian intelligence in the Tulkarm district calls the activities of the squad that carried out the attack in Hadera "qualitative and successful." The official also notes that the squad members 'maintain ongoing coordination and contacts with us.'"

"An Eminence With No Shades of Gray" (Michael Powell, The Washington Post, 2002/05/05)
An interview with Ayatollah Noam Chomsky: "Today Chomsky is fond of analogies between American and Nazi attempts to rationalize state violence in pursuit of international aims. "Of course the U.S. claims it has reasons," Chomsky says. "And the Nazis had reasons for gassing the Jews. Everyone has reasons. The question is whether they're justified." ... His favorite, of late, is to compare the terror attacks to the American bombing of a Sudanese chemical factory in 1998. President Clinton claimed, erroneously, that this factory produced chemical weapons. A security guard died in that attack. The factory was Sudan's chief source of pharmaceuticals and pesticides. And Chomsky argues - with the use of some elastic math - that tens of thousands of Sudanese perished as a result. Still, you ask, isn't there a moral difference between an act of terror that directly claims 3,000 lives and a mistake that directly claims one life? The Sudan bombing, Chomsky replies, was worse. "The Americans didn't even think about the outcome of the bombing," he says, 'because the Sudanese were so far below contempt as to be not worth thinking about.'"

"A campaign of hatred" (Yair Sheleg, Haaretz, 2002/05/05)
"Professor Dina Porat, who heads Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, says the new anti-Semitism is not only derived from the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but also from the socioeconomic conflict around the globalization issue. "One of the most striking aspects of the new anti-Semitism is its connection to the anti-globalization movement. Jews are prominent in the top tiers of world economic activity and since Jews have always been identified with financial control and cosmopolitan ideology, the enemies of globalization and the critics of privatization and unemployment created by globalization makes it easy to focus the blame on the Jews." Porat points to the strange link between radical leftists, particularly in Europe, with representatives of Islamic fundamentalism, who found a common enemy that threatens to destroy their very different worlds: global capitalism invented by Jews."

"Peace processes" (Thomas Sowell, The Washington Times, 2002/05/05)
"If Middle East negotiations - endlessly described as "the peace process" - actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be one of the most peaceful places on Earth. ... When will peace come to the Middle East? When neither side has anything more to gain by war. That is when peace comes everywhere. ... If Mr. Arafat realizes he cannot exterminate Israel, he may also realize that other Palestinians may exterminate him if he permanently calls off the war against Israel. The much discussed "Arab street" may not be willing to have peace with Israel - at least not until they have tired of repeatedly suffering painful and devastating consequences from continuing the war. But so long as "world opinion" repeatedly intervenes to spare them the full consequences of their own aggression, that day can be postponed indefinitely."

"Mideast peace by the piece process?" (Steven Chapman, The Washington Times, 2002/05/05)
"If you have a pair of twins conjoined at the hip who are always fighting, you could let them fight in the hope that one twin will eventually subdue the other. Or you could try to mediate their differences and encourage them to seek common interests. But eventually, you would come to the obvious conclusion that surgery could be a big help. A similar realization has come over Israelis. They couldn't reach an acceptable peace deal with the Palestinians. They haven't been able to stamp out the Palestinian resistance. The Oslo peace process turned out to be a prelude to the worst wave of terrorism in Israel's history - to which the current military campaign offers no more than a temporary solution. So those sponsoring a rally in Jerusalem in February offered a third way: "Separate from terror." Unilateral separation is suddenly popular across the political spectrum. The idea is for Israel to abandon some West Bank settlements, pull back to defensible lines, build a security wall, and then bid farewell to the Palestinians."

Saturday, May 4, 2002

News and commentary:

"Palestinians agree with Israel shock horror" (Mark Steyn, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/05/04)
"In contrast, the other day the Independent's Phil Reeves criticised "the Palestinian leadership, who, instantly and without proof, declared that a massacre had occurred in which as many as 500 died. Palestinian human rights groups made matters worse by churning out wild, and clearly untrue, stories." They obviously weren't quite so clearly untrue a week and a half earlier, when a presumably entirely different Phil Reeves wrote about Israeli "atrocities committed in the Jenin refugee camp, where its army has killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians". ... None the less, in recognition of my colleagues' spectacularly inept record since September 11, I am proud to announce the inauguration of the British Press Award For Total Fantasy. Journalists can enter as many of their reports as they wish. Can't decide whether that story based on a Hamas press release is more risible than that dispatch based on the Radio Taliban lunchtime news? Hey, send us both! Winners will receive a grand prize of FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS!!!! However, in keeping with traditional Fleet Street standards of numerical accuracy, when the cheque eventually shows up a month later it'll be for £8.47."

"The Overseers of Jenin" (Dov B. Fischer, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/05/13 issue)
"For Americans, perhaps our attention should focus more on underlying questions: Why is the United Nations running refugee camps for people who claim to be living in their own land? How could a refugee camp under U.N. auspices become a world center for recruiting and training suicide bombers? And why is the United States essentially bankrolling these camps when wealthy Arab oil sheikhdoms barely contribute? ... It also is odd that a "refugee camp" under United Nations auspices has emerged as a terror center where Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, and Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade terrorists ran wild, stocking arms, building bomb-making factories, and recruiting and training children educated at UNRWA schools to detonate themselves. Perhaps oddest of all is the American role as chief bankroller. With Washington now scouring its outlays in the face of projected budget deficits, it is remarkable that America continues to pump scores of millions into a U.N. program that has institutionalized dependency among four generations of Arabs - while the oil princes barely contribute. It is remarkable, too, that the refugees and their descendants are still living in squalor half a century after the helping hand first was extended."

"Israel Has Nothing to Hide" (Yuval Steinitz, The New York Times, 2002/05/04)
"Yet the United Nations committee was asked to examine the Israeli Defense Force's actions in Jenin and the suffering of Jenin's inhabitants without reference to the earlier terrorism coming out of the Jenin camp that had triggered the Israeli action. In short, the committee would evaluate Israel's war on terrorism without any reference to terrorism. Imagine a team sent to investigate American military action in Afghanistan without reference to the attacks of Sept. 11 or Osama bin Laden's boasts that he would destroy America. ... Stripped of that context, the United States would inevitably be found guilty of having assaulted one of the poorest and most backward countries on the face of the earth and of inflicting unnecessary harm on the civilian population. ... But this kind of distorted result is exactly what the United Nations' noncontextual fact-hiding strategy would have arrived at."

"U.N., rights group don't find massacre" (Betsy Pisik, The Washington Times, 2002/05/04)
"Human Rights Watch, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which has cared for Palestinian refugees for 54 years, said their research does not point to a massacre of civilians in the West Bank refugee camp. But the New York-based human rights group said it found that war crimes might have been committed during the battle. ... International efforts to determine what happened in Jenin won't make any difference to Abu Ali, who has spent his entire life in the refugee camp. "I know that 500 people died here, and [soldiers] took the bodies away before they left," he said while sitting in a tent in the center of a field of rubble that used to be home to 4,000 Palestinians. He said no report would change his mind, as the half-dozen men lounging around him nodded yesterday. ... Jenin's anger and misery have been broadcast around the world, fanning hatred of Israel and support for the Palestinian Authority. But reports that a massacre did not occur have received scant attention in the Western news media."

Friday, May 3, 2002

News and commentary:

"Jenin: The Truth" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2002/05/03)
"The "Jenin massacre" is more than a fiction. It is a hoax. ... And yet for weeks the world has been seized with the question of the "Jenin massacre." The U.N. Security Council called emergency meetings. The secretary general appointed a special investigating committee (now disbanded). The European press published the most lurid allegations. To say nothing, of course, of al-Jazeera TV. All this for a phantom massacre. Yet this same Middle East conflict yields no shortage of real massacres: April 27: Adora, Palestinian gunmen enter residential quarters shooting everyone, including a 5-year-old girl shot through the head in her bed. April 12: Jerusalem, suicide bombing at a bus stop, 6 murdered. ... These are massacres - actual, recent massacres. ... Where was the Security Council? Where was the Kofi Annan commission? ... The fact that such an undertaking is unimaginable is what has made the past several months so deeply, despairingly troubling. The despair comes from the bewilderment of living in a world of monstrous moral inversion. ... For the "international community," as embodied by the United Nations, such inverted moral logic is the norm. ... Where is the Churchill of today, the official of any government, prepared to tell the United Nations that its frantic hunt for a phantom massacre by Jews - while ignoring massacre after massacre of Jews - is grotesque and perverse?"

"How the Times Distorted Jenin" (Daniel Gordon, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 2002/05/03)
Gordon on the agendas of Sheila MacVicar of CNN and Tom Miller of the Los Angeles Times when reporting from Jenin: "One reservist sensed MacVicar's hostility. He was a soft-spoken man who approached her and introduced himself as the reserve unit's medical officer, Dr. David Zangen. He told her that when the fighting was over, they found photograph albums of children from roughly 6 years of age up through early and mid-teens. It was an album of photos of children who would be the next crop of suicide killers, with notations indicating when each of the children would be ripe. The reporter had no time for the doctor, however. "Perhaps you should ask yourself why," she said, dismissing him. "I do, madam," he said, "I ask myself why. I can't imagine it. I can't imagine sending one's child out to be a mass murderer who commits suicide to kill women and children." "Well, I can explain it," said the reporter. "For me it all comes down to one word, 'occupation.'" "But madam," the doctor said, "Jenin hasn't been occupied for nine years." MacVicar just turned and walked away."

"'Illegal occupation' highly misleading" (Harold Waller and Howard Gerson, The Star, 2002/05/03)
"Similarly, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, much has been made of Israel's alleged "illegal occupation" of the West Bank of the Jordan River, territory often referred to erroneously as "Palestinian lands." This fallacy remains in use notwithstanding the reality that Israel's administration of these disputed lands commencing in 1967 was neither an "occupation" as the term is understood legally, "illegal" under well settled international practice, nor exercised over "Palestinian lands." Still, the language of "illegal occupation" remains prominent and forms an integral part of a highly misleading discourse on the continuing conflict. More disconcerting is that this story continues to be uncritically received even in the period following Oslo, which witnessed an end to the Israeli military administration and the creation of a Palestinian Authority that was given complete administrative control over the most densely populated parts of the disputed lands."

"Washington won't let Israel win" (Caroline B. Glick, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/03)
"If the Times' report is true, (and the Times seems to have a knack for forcing events to follow its stories), it can be said that the Bush administration is quite simply following in the footsteps of all US administrations since Dwight Eisenhower’s – allowing Israel to beat Arab aggression militarily, but forcing it to lose the war politically. ... Throughout this history, the US has justified denying its democratic ally the fruits of its military victories against despotic aggressors "in the interests of peace." This policy has never brought peace, nor has it engendered stability. Rather, just as feeding the beast acts not to placate it but to strengthen it, so US placation of the Arab world at Israel's expense has legitimized Arab rejection of Israel. Never having to worry about losing irrevocably in their wars against Israel, rogue states like Syria, Iraq, and Iran ostentatiously build up non-conventional capabilities to destroy Israel. For their part, supposedly moderate regimes, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are free to inspire as much anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment as they wish, knowing there will never be a serious price to pay, even if this hatred foments a war they will lose."

"The Muslims' great mistake is to see the West as the enemy" (David Pryce-Jones, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/05/03)
"The EU gives [Arafat] uncritical moral and financial support. Such a policy depends on believing the worst of Israel. The destruction by Israel, during its recent operation, of EU projects costing about $20 million, has prompted furious demands in Brussels for compensation and embargoes. Received opinion there has it that the fighting at Jenin constituted an Israeli war crime, and France and Belgium voted for a resolution to that effect. Captured documents reveal Arafat's direct connection to smuggling arms and the authorisation of suicide bombing. The European taxpayer thus becomes the unwitting accomplice of the man who has brought violence down on his own people. The Vedrines and Pattens and such spokesmen are in the inexplicable position of lining Europe up with Saudi Arabia, Hamas and the Islamists against the rest of the West. This is an intellectual, and a moral, failure."

"Why TV news loves a liar" (John Podhoretz, New York Post, 2002/05/03)
"On April 17, when Israel completed its military action in Jenin, the Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "We have 1,600 missing men in this refugee camp. Mostly women and children, husbands and wives . . . How many people were massacred[?] We say the number will not be less than 500." Erekat just loves the number 500. A week earlier, he said on CNN: "I'm afraid to say that the number of Palestinian dead in the Israeli attacks have reached more than 500 now." ... But let's focus on Jenin. The Palestinians themselves say that, in 13 days of vicious urban warfare, some 22 civilians were killed. So here's a question for you: Why are U.S. television networks booking Saeb Erekat to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he has repeatedly used their air waves to spread lies and deception? When sources lie, don't you cut them off? When sources lie, don't you refuse to give them any more of your precious air time?"

"The Real War Crime" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2002/05/03)
"A terrible war crime has been committed in the West Bank. It will have far-reaching and heartbreaking consequences. But it has nothing to do with lies about an imaginary massacre in Jenin. The war crime - committed brazenly before a global audience - is the occupation of the Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, by Palestinian terrorists. Where is the outcry? International law forbids the parties to armed conflict from using churches, as well as hospitals, museums and monuments, for military activities. The Laws of Land Warfare are even stricter. The United Nations, which is ever quick to condemn Israel, has been silent about this violation, even though the Palestinian actions violate the UN's own rules. The church is even under UNESCO designation as a protected site. Even the ancient tradition of murderers, thieves and other criminals seeking sanctuary on holy ground denies them the right to take weapons into the sacred precincts. Under every single applicable code of law, as well as the custom of nations, every Palestinian who carried a gun into the Church of the Nativity, turning it into a fortress, is a war criminal. Not one voice has been raised to condemn them."

"Gunman killed in Bethlehem standoff" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/03)
When Arafat exclaimed yesterday that the ones responsible for the fires at the Nativity Church were "terrorists, Nazis and racists" it seems he meant his own militants: "Israeli security officials said yesterday the fires that broke out inside the church compound in the Orthodox and Franciscan living quarters early Thursday morning were purposely set by the gunmen, and were timed to coincide with prime time US TV coverage of the withdrawal of troops from around Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s Mukata building in Ramallah and his first statements to foreign press crews. Film footage taken by an IDF surveillance balloon over the compound clearly shows that the windows had been blown out due to the force of the heat, and the shattered glass lay on the ground below. If, as the Palestinians claim, soldiers had fired flares or bullets, the window glass would have been blown inside the room, army officials said Thursday."

"Barghouti tells investigators: Arafat approved terrorist funding" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/03)
"All those seeking financial assistance had to fill out a detailed form that [Barghouti] added his recommendation to and signed before giving it to Arafat. No matter how small the sum, each request needed Arafat's authorization, and then the money was allocated according to the instructions of Al-Hakam Balawi, secretary of the Fatah central committee. ... Abu Hmeid, one of the founders and senior commanders of the Aksa Martyrs Brigade, also told interrogators that he and those who worked with him received financial assistance and weapons from Marwan Barghouti’s assistant, Ahmed Barghouti. He also admitted that members of Arafat’s Force 17 presidential guard were involved in a number of terrorist attacks and that activists would go to Force 17 storerooms and receive ready-to-use bombs. Abu Hmeid said Marwan Barghouti was updated on all details of the terrorist attacks perpetrated by him and his people and that he was also privy to all details concerning the purchase of weapons used by cell members."

"U.S. joins effort to create Palestine" (Ben Barber and Bill Sammon, The Washington Times, 2002/05/03)
"The United States, Europe, Russia and the United Nations joined yesterday to sponsor a Mideast conference this summer with the goal of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. "The United States and the EU share a common vision of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace and security," President Bush told reporters at the White House after meeting with European leaders. ... The president also laid out his expectations for Palestinian statehood: "A Palestinian state must be achieved by negotiation of an end to occupation," he said. 'And such a state cannot be based on a foundation of terror or corruption. A Palestinian state must be based on the principles that are critical to freedom and prosperity: democracy and open markets, the rule of law, transparent and accountable administration and respect for individual liberties and civil society.'"

Thursday, May 2, 2002

News and commentary:

"Columnist for Egyptian Government Daily to Hitler: 'If Only You Had Done It, Brother'" (MEMRI, SD# 375, 2002/05/02)
Excerpts from a virulently anti-Semitic article by Fatma Abdallah Mahmoud titled "Accursed Forever and Ever," which recently appeared in the Egyptian government daily Al-Akhbar: "These accursed ones are a catastrophe for the human race. They are the virus of the generation, doomed to a life of humiliation and wretchedness until Judgement Day. ... Finally, they are accursed, fundamentally, because they are the plague of the generation and the bacterium of all time. ... With regard to the fraud of the Holocaust... Many French studies have proven that this is no more than a fabrication, a lie, and a fraud!! ... Hitler himself, whom they accuse of Nazism, is in my eyes no more than a modest 'pupil' in the world of murder and bloodshed. ... But I, personally and in light of this imaginary tale, complain to Hitler, even saying to him from the bottom of my heart, 'If only you had done it, brother, if only it had really happened, so that the world could sigh in relief [without] their evil and sin.'"

"How Saddam reaps illegal oil profits - Millions meant for food aid diverted by Iraqi regime" (Alix M. Freedman and Steve Stecklow, The Wall Street Journal/MSNBC, 2002/05/02)
"U.N. officials estimate that Iraq has levied illegal surcharges ranging from 20 cents to 70 cents on every barrel of oil it has sold through the oil-for-food program since late 2000 - adding up to as much as $300 million. U.N. diplomats say Mr. Hussein also smuggles about $1 billion worth of oil outside the oil-for-food program to Syria each year. In addition, Iraq smuggles huge quantities to Turkey and Jordan. All told, U.S. State Department officials believe Mr. Hussein reaps $2.5 billion a year in illicit oil revenue, which they say he uses to develop weapons of mass destruction and consolidate his power."

"Who's ugly now?" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2002/05/04 issue)
Steyn on which side of the Atlantic that proved to be "ugly" after September 11: "Though Rana Kabbani, writing from Paris for the Guardian, piously offered the hope that 'the painful lesson that Americans have had to learn is not drowned out by cowboy ravings about "getting the bastards"', it was more or less assumed that the Yanks' crude, xenophobic, redneck instincts would quickly reveal themselves. ... Well, sure enough, the crude, xenophobic rednecks did assert themselves. But not in America - in Europe. Muslims kill thousands of Americans in America, and there's a big anti-Muslim backlash ...in France! Oh, and also Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal and those other provinces of the land of sophistication where explicitly Islamophobic parties are now a significant part of the political calculus. ... Muslims killed thousands of Americans, but America doesn't have anti-Muslim political parties - just a goofy President who hosts a month of Ramadan knees-ups at the White House and enjoins schoolkids to get an Islamic penpal. ... Meanwhile, France has a presidential candidate who makes oven jokes, a foreign minister who believes in the international Jewish conspiracy, and a number-one bestseller which claims the plane that crashed into the Pentagon never existed. But look on the bright side: Europe may be 'mean-spirited and violent', but at least it's not American."

"Barghouti admits involvement in planning terror attacks" (Amos Harel, Haaretz, 2002/05/02)
"The head of the Fatah movement in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti, told Shin Bet security service interrogators Thursday that he had been involved in planning terror attacks, in which dozens of Israeli civilians were wounded or killed. ... According to Shin Bet sources, Barghouti explained how funds were channeled from Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to those carrying out the attacks. The Shin Bet said that by questioning Barghouti and other senior Fatah officials, it has become clear that Arafat authorized the transfer of monies to Fatah activists with the knowledge that it was to be used for terror attacks. Similarly, they said, PA weapons storage facilities were used to provide arms for the activists."

"Burying the truth" (Mathhew Gutman, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/02)
Gutman reports from Jenin: "But, just as the signs of a fight in this narrow room are clear, so, too, are the efforts of some Palestinians to paint even this skirmish as one pitting defenseless victims against the Israeli aggressors. Hopping in and around the mess, Amr, a 23-year-old Palestinian man, begins to tell the German journalist that the two fighters were actually civilians, murdered in cold blood by the soldiers. Despite the clear evidence of the bullet holes, obviously fired from inside the room at the gaping hole in the wall, Amr insists that the men were unarmed. Then, leading the small procession of translators, journalists and gaping children outside, Amr stops where buildings on both sides of the streets had collapsed onto the alley. It was there, he says, that 13 Israeli soldiers died when they were caught in an ambush between Palestinian gunmen with explosives strapped to their bodies. But even this account is not acceptable to Amr. It was not Palestinian gunfire and explosives that killed the soldiers, but friendly fire from their own side. "It was an Apache helicopter," he insists, pointing up to the sky. Revisionism, along with the elevation to martyrdom status of anyone who died in the incursion, appears one of the few things the wretched refugees can rally around."

"Arafat tours Ramallah, refers to Jenin battle as 'Jeningrad'" (Haaretz, 2002/05/02)
"Flashing V-signs and giving a thumbs-up, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat emerged from his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, hours after IDF troops withdrew from the compound and released the Palestinian leader from months of confinement. ... "I can't forget myself the peace of the brave which I had signed with my partner Rabin, who (was) killed by these fanatic groups who is in power now in Israel," he said. Arafat, citing the suffering of Palestinians and their resistance to IDF troops during the recent Israeli offensive in the West Bank, said that Jenin, site of the fiercest fighting, would now be called Jeningrad, a reference to the bloody Nazi siege of the Soviet city of Stalingrad during the Second World War." (See also: "Israel Lifts Siege as Arafat Yields Six Wanted Men" (James Bennet, The New York Times, 2002/05/02): "Before he knew that the gunfight had subsided relatively quickly and the church compound had only briefly been aflame, Mr. Arafat exploded in rage at the news from Bethlehem, shouting: "This is a crime! This is a crime!" and calling those who committed it 'terrorists, Nazis and racists.'")

"The Fall of the Libertarians" (Francis Fukuyama, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/05/02)
"Contrary to Mr. Reagan's vision of the U.S. as a "shining city on a hill," libertarians saw no larger meaning in America's global role, no reason to promote democracy and freedom abroad. Sept. 11 ended this line of argument. It was a reminder to Americans of why government exists, and why it has to tax citizens and spend money to promote collective interests. It was only the government, and not the market or individuals, that could be depended on to send firemen into buildings, or to fight terrorists, or to screen passengers at airports. The terrorists were not attacking Americans as individuals, but symbols of American power like the World Trade Center and Pentagon. So it is not surprising that Americans met this challenge collectively with flags and patriotism, rather than the yellow ribbons of individual victimization."

"Lessons from Operation Defensive Shield" (Yisrael Harel, Haaretz, 2002/05/02)
"Because those who today side with those who murder children in their beds saw on their screens the massacres at the Park Hotel, in which over 20 elderly people were slaughtered, at the Moment Cafe in Jerusalem, at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, and at all the dozens of other mass terror attacks. And if after seeing all these incidents, they are demonstrating in huge numbers in solidarity with the murderers wearing explosive belts and boycotting their Israeli colleagues, something very dangerous is twisting the minds of the Christian world."

"U.N. lynching prelude" (Arnold Beichman, The Washington Times, 2002/05/02)
"Of the 190 countries in the United Nations only one, Israel, has been singled out by a majority of the U.N. membership for extinction. I will document this statement with a catalogue of actions taken by the U.N. in the half-century of the its existence that will demonstrate: First, that no other U.N. member state has ever been so targeted; yes, not even apartheid South Africa. Second, no other U.N. member state has had its legitimacy so consistently questioned. Third, no other U.N. member state has been denied its right to self-defense against deadly attacks against its citizens."

"'Final Solution,' Phase 2" (George F. Will, The Washington Post, 2002/05/02)
"It is time to face a sickening fact that is much more obvious today than it was 11 years ago, when Ruth R. Wisse asserted it. In a dark and brilliant essay in Commentary magazine, she argued that anti-Semitism has proved to be "the most durable and successful" ideology of the ideology-besotted 20th century. ... Anti-Semitism's malignant strength derives from its simplicity -- its stupidity, actually. It is a primitivism which, Wisse wrote, makes up in vigor what it lacks in philosophic heft, and does so precisely because it "has no prescription for the improvement of society beyond the elimination of part of society." This howl of negation has no more affirmative content than did the scream of the airliner tearing down the Hudson, heading for the World Trade Center."

Wednesday, May 1, 2002

News and commentary:

"Useless Idiots" (Damian Penny, Fox News, 2002/05/01)
"Someone recently said that the individual idiocies of the world are morphing into a collective force. A survey of quotes and comments from recent news reports would suggest that process is well on its way. ... In a speech given in the U.S. and carried in the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu accused Israel of practicing apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians. ... Think about that for a second: Archbishop Desmond Tutu compared the "Jewish lobby" to Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin. And like many Palestinian sympathizers, he's upset about the "humiliating" checkpoints and roadblocks set up by the Israelis. Might I make the radical suggestion that the Israelis wouldn't need roadblocks if the Palestinians weren't sending so many suicide killers? Apartheid was based on racism. Israel's security policies are based on the fact that the Israelis are surrounded by 300 million people who want to kill them. Are you incapable of telling the difference, or do you simply not care?" (See also: "Apartheid in the Holy Land" (Desmond Tutu, The Guardian, 2002/04/29))

"Hearts, Minds, and the War Against Terror" (Joshua Muravchik, Commentary, from the May 2002 issue)
An article on the attempts to wage "a battle for hearts and minds" as part of the larger war against terrorism: "Take the one principal theme of our outreach efforts - that our enemy is not Islam but terrorism. ... The numbers who told Gallup they found our war against terrorism even "somewhat" justifiable amounted to 1 percent in Morocco, 2 percent in Indonesia, 4 percent in Pakistan, 9 in Iran, 17 in Kuwait, 19 in Turkey, and 20 in Lebanon; Saudi Arabia and Jordan once again refused to allow Gallup even to ask the question. ... For most Muslim states (Turkey again excepted), "terrorism" is a concept defined not by the nature of the act but by the cause in whose name it is undertaken, or by the identities of the perpetrators and the victims. Almost any military action by Israel is considered terrorism, almost any violence against Israel is resistance. For some large number of Muslims, the same would seem to apply if the term "United States" is substituted for "Israel." This widespread acceptance of terrorism is only one sign of a larger syndrome. The political culture of the Muslim Middle East is mired in tyranny, violence, fanaticism, bigotry, and fantasy. ... It is a cliché that you cannot kill an idea. But the defeat of an armed idea can indeed lead to its death. ... Just as we succeeded in imbuing Japan and Germany with liberalism and democracy after we had defeated them decisively on the battlefield, so the defeat of terrorism, which in practice means the defeat of the various regimes that sponsor terror and of the Islamist movement, may open the way to new thinking in the Middle East."

"Egypt can't afford a war - or much else" (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz, 2002/05/01)
"The article in the opposition newspaper [Al-Ahali] listed the government's failures in the economic sphere. These include overseas debts, which total about $40 billion, stagnation in the manufacturing sphere, and ailing exports (here, the situation is so bad that T-shirts are, after oil, Egypt's leading export, bringing in $100 million a year). At the start of the 21st century, such dismal economic performance has meant that Egypt has to generate half a million jobs each year for the unemployed. ... Out of a population of 18 million in Syria, 4 million are listed as workers. Out of this work force, 1.5 million are paid by the state - they are teachers, soldiers or public servants. This is a staggeringly high proportion of state workers; and the number of state workers poses an unbearably difficult challenge to the government. ... Past experience in Syria teaches that efforts to encourage small or large businesses are usually moot exercises in quixotic ambition. ... "In Syria, you need a special license to import any item," an Arab businessman explains. 'Labor laws make it difficult for investors to build efficient factories; thus, all the incentives and benefits cited in the law for investments do nothing to promote any single factory.'"

"Guilt and Arrogance - Understanding the European streets" (Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 2002/05/01)
"But, it seems to me, the main reason Europeans hate Israel is that they hate America; and the main reason they hate America is that they really hate themselves. ... Except in Germany, the collapse of empire has done more to shape the modern West European mind than the lessons of World War II did. The Dutch, the British, the French, the Belgians, the Spanish, the Portuguese: They all did terrible things in their colonies and they all paid a terrible price for it. Rather than fight - and probably lose - the various nationalist movements in their colonies and holdings, these societies opted for the convenience of white guilt. In all of these countries, Europeans decided to justify their withdrawal from empire as a moral epiphany rather than a surrender. Aren't we wonderful for admitting how wrong we were! This is not to say they weren't racist or conquerors. Of course they were. But what remains is a reflexive desire to side with their former subjects, to "understand" every atrocity and barbarity committed by the descendants of Rousseau's noble savages in its proper 'context.'"

"Jenin 'massacre' reduced to death toll of 56" (Paul Martin, The Washington Times, 2002/05/01)
When the "massacre" lie has become unsustainable Palestinian mythmakers simply fabricate new ones. Now the battle in Jenin was a "victory", stopping Israel from destroying the whole camp: "Palestinian officials yesterday put the death toll at 56 in the two-week Israeli assault on Jenin, dropping claims of a massacre of 500 that had sparked demands for a U.N. investigation. The official Palestinian body count, which is not disproportionate to the 33 Israeli soldiers killed in the incursion, was disclosed by Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank, after a team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reported to him in his Jenin office. [Two weeks ago, when European and particularly London newspapers were reporting estimates of "hundreds" massacred, Israeli sources in Washington said they expected the Palestinian toll to reach "45 to 55."] ... He no longer used the ubiquitous Palestinian charge of "massacre" and instead portrayed the battle as a "victory" for Palestinians in resisting Israeli forces. "Here the Israelis, who tried to break the Palestinian willpower, have been taught a lesson," Mr. Kadoura said. He insisted that Israel had tried but failed, thanks to the heavy fighting, to destroy the entire warren of homes in the camp that had housed 11,000 people."

"The Hidden Victims" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2002/05/01)
"In recent months, the explosion of Arab satellite TV stations and Web sites has had a profound impact on Arab public opinion by showing live, nonstop images of the Israeli crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank. ... The biggest victims of the West Bank war will not be Arab leaders, but Arab liberals — as fledgling democratic experiments are postponed, foreign investment reduced, security services given more leeway to crack down and all public discussion dominated by the Palestine issue. ... But with the Jordanian population so inflamed about events in the West Bank - "The most popular TV program here now is Hezbollah television, can you believe that?" said a Jordanian businessman — ministers cannot talk publicly, the way they need to, about the domestic reform agenda, the press isn't interested and the palace is rethinking whether to hold elections. It's worried that in the current mood, Islamists could sweep the day instead of progressives."

"Le Pen or le sword?" (Helle Dale, The Washington Times, 2002/05/01)
"You see the mote in your neighbor's eye, the Bible says, but not the beam in your own. Motes and beams are brought to mind by the stunned shock and horror that beset Europe last week, following the election results in France. ... The immediate question should have been whether Europe can be reconciled to the levels of immigrants living in its midst - France itself now has 4 million to 5 million Muslims... ... Paradoxically, however, the greater the level of support for xenophobic European political parties, the greater also the fury sparked by the Middle East crisis and charges of racism and human rights abuses leveled at Israel. It is as though taking up the cause of Palestinians serves for Europeans to establish a set of humanitarian credentials. For some, of course, it may simply mask a latent anti-Semitism. ... Rationalizations and excuses abound. ... And yet, Mr. Le Pen came away with a majority in more than one-third of France's departments, particularly along the southern and western borders of the country, areas heavily populated by immigrants, and in the industrial "iron-belt" around Paris. ... On one level, the reason is undoubtedly the transformation that has taken place as homogeneous populations in traditionally non-immigrant societies have faced massive changes in recent decades. In the French election, crime was the topic Number One, understandably so as the country now can boast crime rates exceeding those in the United States. ... Whatever the causes, Europe's political elites are obviously at fault for not having taken the warning signs of spreading malcontent seriously. It is time Europeans had an honest discussion about how much diversity their societies can bear, and, as well, how to contain and channel the backlash."

"FBI: Ill. Charity Hid bin Laden Ties" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/05/01)
"In a sweeping complaint that alleges Osama bin Laden's influence reached into middle America, officials accused a charity of lying about its ties to the al-Qaida leader and terrorists who tried to get nuclear weapons and plotted to bomb U.S. airliners. The charge came in a complaint Tuesday that made Benevolence International Foundation, based in suburban Palos Hills, the first charitable organization to be charged criminally in the war on terrorism. ... The affidavit cited alleged links between Benevolence and terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a plot to bomb U.S. airlines and a plan to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his 1995 visit to the Philippines. The FBI also said that members of al-Qaida have held positions within the charity, and that a man who tried to obtain uranium for bin Laden even listed the charity's Illinois address as his home."

Added one new theme in Themes:
"The U.N.'s Israel Obsession" - News and commentary on the U.N.'s anti-Israeli bias.

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

News and commentary:

"Arab Christian Clergymen Against Western Christians, Jews, and Israel" (MEMRI, IA# 93, 2002/04/30)
"Against the backdrop of the standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, several Arab Christian clergymen – including some heads of various churches - condemned Christians in the West, particularly those in the U.S., as well as Jews and Israel. ... Father Manuel Musalam, head of the Latin Church in Gaza, told Palestinian Authority television, "Had we lived in the days when the Church was a [real] Church that controls the world - a Crusader war crueler than the Crusader wars of the past would have been waged [against Israel]... ... We - and I say this brutally, because he who remains silent is Satan - are facing the filthy Christians of the West..." ... Father Manuel Musalam compared the armed Palestinians in the Church of the Nativity to Jesus on the cross: '...We kneel before the Palestinian in the besieged Church [of the Nativity]. ... The one who said 'I am hungry' when he was on the cross was our Lord Jesus himself… Our Palestinian people in Bethlehem died like a crucified martyr, on the rock guarded by the Israeli soldiers armed from head to foot who have no compassion, love, life, or tolerance...'"

"Beneath the Planet of the Anti-War Libertarians" (BrinkLindsey.com, 2002/04/30)
Lindsey has read the transcript of the recent anti-war event staged by the Independent Institute and found these remarks by the event's headliner, "the parody-proof" Gore Vidal: "These people are for the most part rip-off artists. Notice that they're all gas and oil men from Cheney, to the two Bushes; I think Rumsfeld also. And what this is really about is oil, and it's Central Asian oil, which is what we've got our eye on. We do have practical motives every now and then. It's not just for the sheer glory that we get into a war like the Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the entranceway to Central Asia and five republics that used to belong to the Soviet Union that are now the largest suppliers of gas, natural gas, and oil. He who gets his hands on that will really control the world for a while. ... It's a weird world. A mercenary army that is not to be hurt, blowing up innocent countries, relatively innocent, like Afghanistan. But we do it." (See also: "Understanding America's Terrorist Crises: What Should be Done?" (The Independent Institute, 2002/04/18) and "Pipe Dreams" (Seth Stevenson, Slate, 2001/12/06): "What's absurd about the pipeline theory is how thoroughly it discounts the obvious reason the United States set the bombers loose on Afghanistan: Terrorists headquartered in Afghanistan attacked America's financial and military centers, killing 4,000 people, and then took credit for it. Nope - must be the pipeline.")

"Annan considers scrapping U.N. Jenin team" (CNN.com, 2002/04/30)
"Frustrated by Israel's refusal to cooperate with a fact-finding mission to the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was mulling whether to disband the team, an aide to Annan said Tuesday. ... Israel's security Cabinet on Tuesday decided not to cooperate for now with the United Nations fact-finding team appointed to look into the conflict at the Jenin refugee camp. ... Israel has raised objections to the U.N. team's makeup, the scope of its mission and its operating rules."

"Arafat's Money Man a Focus in Tug of War" (Tracy Wilkinson and Robin Wright, The Los Angeles Times, 2002/04/30)
"Inside Yasser Arafat's wrecked headquarters, the man near the top of Israel's most wanted list is a pudgy, 62-year-old accountant. He is Fuad Shubaki, chief financial officer of the Palestinian Authority. ... "It's like 'The Untouchables,' " one U.S. official said. "How did they go after Capone? They went after the bookkeeper. ... In the Palestinian world, Shubaki is that bookkeeper. That's the role he's playing. But the goal is not Shubaki, [it's] Arafat." ... Israeli intelligence officials believe that Shubaki has controlled millions, if not billions, of dollars over the years - money that was used to equip Palestinian militias, before the founding of the Palestinian Authority, and security services afterward. ... More intriguing, he may have intimate knowledge of Arafat's private and extremely well-stocked bank accounts, intelligence officials say. ... "They want him as the smoking gun to definitely link the head of the PA, and to some extent the whole structure of the PA, to the whole structure of terror," said a second U.S. official. 'Israel wants to marry the two and create a seamless link so that they can eliminate the PA.'"

"Jericho's courteous jailer prepares for inmates" (Stephen Farrell, The Times, 2002/04/30)
"The governor was vague about when the last four prisoners left, around three months ago, saying only that "the law decided for them to leave." Courteous and astute, he did not reveal too many details about the number of guards or security arrangements at his prison. However, it became clear that the brigadier does not much like the Israelis, who have twice bombed his prison in the past eight months. Nor does he like the British: "The British and the Israelis, they are the same." As for the US: "They support the butcher Sharon, who occupies the land, kills and destroys and uses Apache helicopters and tanks." ... In fact, the only person Brigadier Abu Bakr does appear to like is Fuad Shubaki, the most senior among the six Palestinians he will now have to guard. "Fuad Shubaki is my friend," he said. Then he grinned. 'Fuad Shubaki is a friend of everybody because he is responsible for the money. It is his bad luck. But I have had friends in prison before. A military man implements instructions, orders and laws. Friendship has no role.'"

"IDF: Palestinians adding bodies from cemetery to Jenin mass grave" (Margot Dudkevitch, Haaretz, 2002/04/30)
"Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp are inflating the number of residents killed during Operation Defensive Shield by adding bodies of residents buried in a local cemetery to a mass grave that contains the bodies of 26 residents killed in the IDF operation, the army said yesterday. The IDF Spokesman said that Palestinians had begun removing bodies from a cemetery located near the government hospital in the camp to the mass grave, bringing the total number of bodies to 50. ... They have been instructed to erase any militant symbols and hide weapons, and refrain from taking any militant action while the UN teams are present. ... The IDF noted that since its pullout from the camp, 21 innocent residents have been wounded by explosive devices planted by Palestinian terrorists during the IDF operation."

"Stoning and Scripture" (Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 2002/04/30)
"The barbarity of the "hudud," or ancient Islamic punishments, raises a larger question: To what extent should Muslims turn to literal prescriptions in the Koran for guidance in the 21st century? This is critical, for one of the impediments to development in the Islamic world - and one reason for terrorism against the West - is that many people are struggling to hold on to literal interpretations of the Koran in a world in which that no longer makes sense. If Muslim countries are to modernize, they must find ways to update traditional religious doctrines about punishment, the role of women, the ban on interest payments that precludes modern banking and so on. Islamic countries simply cannot build 21st-century economies on seventh-century scripture, not least because that would exclude economic participation by half the population."

"Jenin's War Criminals" (Jerome Marcus, IMRA/The Wall Street Journal, 2002/04/30)
"Mr. Kosirnik and friends are right about one thing: International law was violated in Jenin, and the violations should be investigated. But the law was not broken by Israel, which has responded carefully and proportionately to the daily murder of its citizens. Under international law, the people violating the human rights of Palestinian noncombatants are Palestinian terrorists, who have hidden themselves and their weapons - without uniforms or other identifying insignia required by the laws of war - among the civilian population of the West Bank. ... Rather than "avoid unnecessarily siting military objectives near civilian dwellings," they hid such "objectives" almost exclusively in dwellings and other civilian buildings: The bomb factories Israel found throughout the West Bank were located in homes, schools and other civilian sites. And rather than "trying to separate, to the extent possible, from military objectives," the Palestinians went out of their way to hide military objectives behind, in, around and under civilian (and even humanitarian) objectives. ... The Palestinians used the civilian population like this, we know, because that is part of their strategy: make victims and then cry about victims. ... But the Palestinian terrorists, having planted themselves among civilians, have harvested a fresh crop of victims, which they are now using for public-relations purposes. The U.N. investigation in Jenin is the fruit of that PR campaign. What the Palestinians did to harvest that fruit, however is the real violation of the West Bank residents' human rights."

"A hypocritical divide" (Moshe Arens, Haaretz, 2002/04/30)
"The election of Syria as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council serves as an almost obscene example of such hypocrisy. ... In June, we will be treated to the spectacle of the Syrian delegate assuming the chairmanship of the Security Council. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to expect that the investigation initiated by the UN Security Council into the Israel Defense Forces' anti-terrorist operation in Jenin will be handled in an objective manner. ... But the chance to blacken Israel with this false accusation is too good an opportunity to be passed up by Israel-bashers. All thought of morality has been left behind, by politicians insisting that their only concern is for moral principles."

"Arafat's latest last chance" (New York Post, 2002/04/30)
"Yasser Arafat is now free to leave his besieged Ramallah compound, with President Bush expecting the PLO leader to "seize this opportunity to act decisively in word and in deed against terror directed at Israeli citizens." We're not holding our breath. And neither should the president. ... A similar deal may also be in the works at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, where hundreds of Palestinian gunmen remain holed up. But Americans should be under no illusions: The Palestinians do not want these men imprisoned. And groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have shown in Lebanon that they do not consider American uniforms to be sacrosanct."

"Israeli Army Raids the Largest City in the West Bank" (David Rohde, The New York Times, 2002/04/30)
"Israeli tanks and soldiers today seized control of Hebron, the West Bank's largest city, and killed at least eight Palestinians, hours after agreeing to an American proposal to end a four-month siege against Yasir Arafat. ... For today, Mr. Arafat, the Palestinian leader, remained sequestered at his headquarters in Ramallah, surrounded by Israeli tanks, even as American and Israeli officials said he was now free to move about. ... Israeli officials said tonight that their forces would withdraw from the compound only after both British and American observers arrived here to monitor the imprisonment of the six wanted men."

Monday, April 29, 2002

News and commentary:

"Does Poison Le Pen Auger Yet Another European Darkness?" (Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, 2002/04/29)
"But what we're seeing now, what the issue is now, is not criticism of Israel, it’s what you might call - to use a word popularized by a left-wing pundit - "reflexive" hostility to Israel. And at this point, when the Jewish state is being made uninhabitable by mass-murderers, a one-sided reflexive hostility that denies Jews the right to defend themselves effectively and focuses only on the damage caused by retaliation - that in effect tells them to sit back and let themselves get blown up in the hope that a "peace process" might develop somewhere down the line - this "reflexive" anti-Israel stance can be called, for all practical purposes, anti-Semitic." (See laso: "'Second Holocaust,' Roth’s Invention, Isn't Novelistic" (Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, 2002/04/15))

"Guilt Complex" (Michael Elliott, TIMEeurope, 2002/04/29)
"But undeniably, past European anti-Semitism has had a bitter effect on present European attitudes. Put at is crudest, most Europeans know very few Jews; they killed too many of them. In America, there is a thriving community for whom the survival of Israel is a passionate commitment; in Europe, there isn't. No number of school lessons or church sermons about the Holocaust can overcome that humdrum truth. So: Why do Europeans and Americans see the Middle East in such different ways? Above all, because the shadow and the shame of the Holocaust reaches out of the past and lays a cold hand on our present understanding. All the prayers in the world won't make that grim truth go away."

"Anti-Israel Events on Campus" (ADL, 2002/04/29)
A summary of recent anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents on the university campus in the U.S.: "April 15 - Muslim student groups at University of California - Berkeley and UC - San Diego posted fliers featuring fabricated, distorted and out-of-context quotations from the Talmud and other rabbinical literature. Many of these anti-Semitic "quotations" are easily found on extremist Web sites. Samples include: "A Jew is permitted to rape, cheat and perjure himself, but he must take care that he is not found out, so that Israel may not suffer." ... "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated." ... April 9 - An anti-Israel rally, staged as a follow-up to the April 8 demonstration by Arab and Muslim students at San Francisco State University, featured posters bearing a picture of soup cans reading "Made in Israel," on the label and listing the contents as "Palestinian Children Meat," and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as the manufacturer. A photo of a baby, with its stomach sliced open, was also on the can, following the words 'according to Jewish Rites under American license.'"

"Chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Association Offers Diagnoses: Bush Is Stupid; Perpetrating a Suicide/Martyrdom Attack is Life's Most Beautiful Moment; We'll Throw Israel Into the Sea" (IMRA, SD# 373, 2002/04/29)
Translation of an "open letter to President Bush" by and a TV interview with Dr. Adel Sadeq, chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Association and head of the Department of Psychiatry at Ein Shams University in Cairo. Remind me to not consult him: "Don't you understand, stupid, that when a girl of 18 springs blows herself up, this means that her cause is right, and that her people will be victorious sooner or later? ... When the martyr dies a martyr's death, he attains the height of bliss. As a professional psychiatrist, I say that the height of bliss comes with the end of the countdown: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And then, you press the button to blow yourself up. ... Anyone who thinks that peace will come, either now or in the future, has limited historical vision. Either we will exist or we will not exist. Either the Israelis or the Palestinians, there is no third option... There are no Israeli civilians. They are all plunderers. History teaches this. ... The real means of dealing with Israel directly is those who blow themselves up. According to what I see in the battle arena, there is no [other means] except for the pure, noble Palestinian bodies. This is the only Arab weapon there is, and anyone who says otherwise is a conspirator."

"Arafat's fiction still a Western best-seller" (Neill Lochery, National Post, 2002/04/29)
"Coming full circle, the problem for Israel remains Mr. Arafat and his lies. The world often forgets what Israel is dealing with here. Mr. Arafat, by wrapping himself in the flag of Palestinian nationalism, covers up the real truth. He is an old, cranky dictator who relies on the creation of myths in order to survive politically. The Palestinian population is suffering because of the lies he invents, and the casino-style risks he takes with their lives. The tragedy of Jenin is that it is just another sorry chapter in Mr. Arafat's book of fiction, one that the world continues to buy."

"Claims of massacre go unsupported by Palestinian fighters" (Charles A. Radin and Dan Ephron, Boston Globe, 2002/04/29)
"Palestinian Authority allegations that a large-scale massacre of civilians was committed by Israeli troops during their invasion of the refugee camp here appear to be crumbling under the weight of eyewitness accounts from Palestinian fighters who participated in the battle and camp residents who remained in their homes until the final hours of the fighting. In interviews yesterday with teenage fighters, a leader of Islamic Jihad, an elderly man whose home was at the center of the fighting, and other Palestinian residents, all of whom were in the camp during the battle, none reported seeing large numbers of civilians killed. All said they were allowed to surrender or evacuate when they were ready to do so, though some reported being mistreated while in Israeli detention."

"Osama's Brain - Meet Sayyid Qutb, intellectual father of the anti-Western jihad" (Dinesh D'Souza, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/04/29 issue)
"Islam, Qutb emphasizes, is not merely a moral code or set of beliefs; it is a way of life based upon the divine government of the universe. The very term "Islam" means "submission" to the authority of Allah. This worldview requires that religious, economic, political, and civil society be based on the Koran, the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and the sharia, or Islamic law. ... In short, Islam provides the whole framework of life, and in this sense it is impossible to "practice" Islam within a secular milieu. This is especially true in the West, whose institutions are antithetical to Islam. In Qutb's view, Western society is based on freedom, while Islamic society is based on virtue. Moreover, Qutb argued that Western institutions are fundamentally atheist, based on a clear rejection of divine authority. When democrats say that sovereignty flows from the people, this means that the people - not God - are the rulers. So democracy is a form of idol-worship, just as capitalism is a form of market-worship. Qutb contended that since the West and Islam are based on radically different principles, there is no way that Islamic society can compromise or meet the West halfway. Either the West will prevail or Islam will prevail." (See also: "Apocalypse then and now" (Mårten Barck, 2001/10/28), with links to works by Qutb.)

"Rage and reason" (David Remnick, The New Yorker, from the 2002/05/06 issue)
An interview with the moderate Sari Nusseibeh, chief representative for the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jerusalem: "One afternoon, I stopped in to see Nusseibeh again, and I mentioned to him that Abu Ala, a deputy of Arafat's who had done much of the negotiating for the Oslo agreement, had told Joshua Hammer, of Newsweek, that "there are a hundred thousand Palestinians willing to become kamikazes." Nusseibeh was once again smoking and working his worry beads. He seemed genuinely cast down by the comment; this was Arafat's ally, Abu Ala, not the head of Hamas. Then he sighed and said, ... "The break will not come - and this is the main point - unless somehow the Palestinians manage to develop a new pattern of thinking, a new state of mind among themselves, in the way they act with the Israelis." He stopped for a moment, as if to consider his language carefully. Then he shrugged and when he spoke he used a curious metaphor. "The Palestinians have to resurrect the spirit of Christ to absorb the sense of pain and insult they feel and control it, and not let it determine the way they act toward Israel," Nusseibeh said. "They have to realize that an act of violence does not serve their interest. This is a gigantic undertaking." It is indicative of Nusseibeh's elusiveness that his metaphor spoke at once of Palestinian martyrdom, the myth of Jewish violence against Jesus, and the need for a new culture of peace."

"Apartheid in the Holy Land" (Desmond Tutu, The Guardian, 2002/04/29)
Archbishop Tutu not only condemns Israel's defense against terrorism, but also raises the specter of a powerful Jewish lobby making Americans "scared" to say what they really think. Also, he might ponder over why the checkpoints are there in the first place: "I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. ... Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden? ... We condemn the violence of suicide bombers, and we condemn the corruption of young minds taught hatred; but we also condemn the violence of military incursions in the occupied lands, and the inhumanity that won't let ambulances reach the injured. ... People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. ... The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust."

"What We're Fighting For" (Brendan Miniter, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/04/29)
"'The problem with America,' a college professor told me recently, "is that it can't get over the idea that it is somehow special among nations." His name is Robert Jensen and he teaches journalism at the University of Texas, Austin. He's flat wrong. The problem with America and Western civilization in general is that it lost confidence in itself and started accepting relativist arguments. ... Global free trade isn't imperialistic; it's the spread of a natural right, economic freedom. Demanding that a country respect its people's basic rights isn't imperialistic, and neither is standing for an unfettered media. ... The West, not just America, is locked in a struggle with forces that question its foundation. Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and many others reject the fundamental ideals of Western culture: individual sovereignty, freedom of conscience, free interaction among men and the right to the fruits of one's own labor. They reject the Western intellectual framework that has permitted scientific, political and economic freedom and given the world the fruits of unparalleled creativity. These thugs hate Western success and religious plurality. ... Yet whatever its failures, the West is worth defending. Indeed, it is in rising above these shortcomings that give hope to the world, establish peace among men and spread freedom to lands that have known only tyranny. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Let's start acting like it."

"A Remedy for Radical Islam" (Ralph Peters, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/04/29)
"But the Arab world, rich and poor, is nearly hopeless. With a few, strategically unimportant exceptions, it has given itself over to the narcotic effects of hatred and blame. ... And there is nothing we can do about it. If the Arab world will not repair itself, no amount of indulgence will make a difference. We have wasted decades on governments and populations who need us as an enemy to justify their profound failures. When well-meaning officials, academics or pop singers assure us that Islam is not the problem, they are utterly wrong. Islam, as promoted by Saudi Arabia and practiced by fanatics elsewhere in the Arab world, is precisely the problem. ... Plenty of hope remains for non-Arab, Muslim-majority states to reward their citizens with progress and tolerance. Instead of wasting further efforts on the Middle East, where the military remains our optimal tool, we should work vigorously on the borders of the Islamic world, in those cultures where the fundamentalists have not yet been able to destroy all hope of a better future, and where Islam is still a developing faith, not merely a tomb for the living. ... By betting on the Arab states, we have been letting our best prospects slip away - abandoning global Islam to the apostles of terror."

"What is an outrage?" (The Jerusalem Post, 2002/04/29)
"In a world less surreal than the one we live in, the act of bursting into a random home and shooting a five-year-old child in the head would be the cause of some outrage. Multiply this act by hundreds and one might think it would rate an international investigation. Yet in the world in which we live, the party that is struggling not to be indicted for war crimes is Israel, for having the audacity to fight back. ... In the meantime, the Palestinians are not wasting time in their preparations for the UN team. According to a statement issued by the IDF, the Palestinians have dug up about 25 bodies buried near a hospital in Jenin before Operation Defensive Shield in order to add them to a mass grave of those killed in that operation."

"Armed troops enforce Saddam's happy birthday" (David Blair, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/04/29)
"Amid the throng of turbaned and moustached figures, Anne Fahey, 55, from Melbourne, represented the Australia Iraq Friendship Society. "I know from my own experiences here that the president is supported and loved by his people, contrary to the Western media propaganda," she said. Martha Roos, 66, a white South African from Pretoria, added her praise. "Saddam is an outstanding, strong person. I can't understand why Bush wants to get rid of him," she said. ... Then came 80 air force officers, marching in ragged form and comprising the sole military presence in the parade. A vast crocodile of tens of thousands of ordinary Iraqis followed them, streaming past the balcony and chanting: "God save Saddam, God keep Saddam." Once the marchers had passed the balcony, their chants died away almost immediately. Outside, the men with bamboo sticks and soldiers with AK47s ensured that male participants formed a loop around the block and repeated the circuit past the balcony a few more times.A ring of military checkpoints around Tikrit prevented anyone leaving the town before the end of the ceremony. The throbbing beat of helicopter gunships never faded."

"The findings are known in advance" (Ze'ev Segal, Haaretz, 2002/04/29)
"The commission investigating the events of the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps determined that the massacre was carried out by the Phalangists and that the State of Israel thus did not bear direct responsibility for it. In a note to the summary of their report, published in February 1983, the members of the Kahan commission said they were not deluding themselves into thinking that "the results of this inquiry would convince or satisfy those with prejudiced views and a selective conscience." About a year ago, the Belgian court hearing the case against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other senior Israeli officials was presented with a whole set of testimonies, which appeared to be well-coordinated and orchestrated, about atrocities allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers in the camps. A similar set of testimonies could also be the daily bread of the fact-finding committee appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to look into the events in the Jenin refugee camp. Palestinian sources, who are still making waves in international broadcasts, continue to claim there was a massacre in Jenin. This is the picture that will be presented to the fact-finding team by Palestinian witnesses, who will presumably speak with a single voice."

Added three new themes in Themes:
"Anti-Americanism: a new world power" - News and commentary on anti-Americanism and anti-westernism. Part 1: 2001/09/12 - 2001/10/06
"Occidentalism" - News and commentary on anti-Americanism and anti-westernism. Part 2: 2001/10/07 - 2002/01/16
"Among the Bourgeoisophobes" - News and commentary on anti-Americanism and anti-westernism. Part 3: 2002/01/20 -
"On the road from Durban..." - News and commentary on anti-Semitism. Part 1: 2001/09/12 - 2002/02/05
"Burning Synagogues" - News and commentary on anti-Semitism. Part 2: 2002/02/08 -
"The New Cold War" - News and commentary on moral equivalency and moral relativism. Part 1: 2001/09/12 - 2001/11/07
"Immoral equivalency" - News and commentary on moral equivalency and moral relativism. Part 2: 2001/11/08 -

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

Copyright © Watch 2001-2006. Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -



Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
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Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



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