Archived news and commentary: May 13 - 19, 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 19, 2002

News and commentary:

"Bomb shatters Israeli calm" (BBC News, 2002/05/19)
"A suicide bomber struck in the Israeli resort town of Netanya on Sunday afternoon, killing at least two Israelis and himself in a market and wounding 56 others. ... The Authority's leadership has issued a collective statement declaring its "full condemnation for the terror attack that targeted Israeli civilians". Ashrawi sees double standards over suicide attacks. But one prominent member of the Palestinian parliament, Hanan Ashrawi, compared the bombing in Netanya to Israeli army attacks. "On our side, the people who do it are people who are individuals or small groups who are driven to desperation and anger by the Israeli activities, whereas when Israel does it, it does it as a matter of policy," she told the BBC."

"U.S. Intercepting Messages Hinting at a New Attack" (James Risen and David Johnston, The New York Times, 2002/05/19)
"American intelligence agencies have intercepted a vague yet troubling series of communications among Al Qaeda operatives over the last few months indicating that the terrorist organization is trying to carry out an operation as big as the Sept. 11 attacks or bigger, according to intelligence and law enforcement officials. ... United States intelligence officials said that they began to intercept communications among Qaeda operatives discussing a second major attack in October, and that they have detected recurring talk among them about another attack ever since. ... The intercepted communications do not point to any detailed plans for an attack, and even the messages mentioning mass casualties do not refer specifically to the use of weapons of mass destruction like chemical, biological or nuclear devices. Still, American officials say they believe the intercepts represent some of the most credible intelligence they have received since Sept. 11 about Al Qaeda's intentions."

"Bin Laden film vows revenge on the UK" (Dipesh Gader, The Sunday Times, 2002/05/19)
"An encrypted video containing previously unseen footage of Osama Bin Laden singling out Britain as a terrorist target has been obtained by The Sunday Times. The 40-minute propaganda film includes an interview with the Al-Qaeda leader, recorded after the start of the West's offensive in Afghanistan, in which he compares the conflict with the medieval crusade led by Richard the Lion-Heart. Another short section shows the terrorist warlord speaking about martyrdom against the backdrop of a fertile plain and hills that his supporters claim, was filmed just eight weeks ago. If true, it would provide the first evidence that Bin Laden survived the recent allied attacks on the Tora Bora mountain complex in Afghanistan. ... Bin Laden makes it clear that any country siding with Israel and America is a target for Islamic terrorists. "The war is between us and the Jews," he says. 'Any country that steps into the same trench as the Jews has only herself to blame.'"

"Thinkers trapped between two minds" (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz, 2002/05/19)
A report on a colloquium held recently by the daily Al Quds al Araby, which is based in London, in which the newspaper pondered the question of the role of Arab intellectuals in the current state of emergency: "Many of the responses the newspaper received were the usual banalities - namely, that intellectuals must come out against Israel in every context and at every opportunity and that they must launch attacks in the newspapers against the United States, which is nothing but a "Larger Israel" - a new expression in the Arab lexicon. ... Of course, the responses included the position that the military conflict was not really a war between Israel and the Palestinians but rather a culture war, the "Jewish Crusades" (yet another new expression) against the Islamic nation. ... "We talk a lot about democratic change and about fighting Israeli and American propaganda," says one Jordanian essayist, 'but at the same time we forget to call a spade a spade. ... Sharon today has become the alibi of all Arab intellectuals; he has become the reason for all the problems that have befallen the Arabs throughout history.'"

 

Saturday, May 18, 2002

News and commentary:

"Islamists triumph in landmark Bahrain poll" (CNN.com, 2002/05/18)
"Islamist candidates won all 50 seats in Bahrain's landmark municipal election, seen as a test for democratic reforms in the Gulf Arab state. The results of Thursday's second round vote, which were announced on Friday, decided 20 seats where there had been no outright winner in the May 9 first round of the election, the first in 32 years. ... The election was seen as a rehearsal for the parliamentary polls which will herald Bahrain's first elected assembly since 1975 - the year the last parliament was dissolved. ... Diplomats and other analysts said the Islamists were likely to win most if not all seats in the parliamentary polls."

"Time for an Investigation" (William Kristol and Robert Kagan, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/05/27 issue)
"Isn't it possible that some people should be reprimanded, or even lose their jobs, when 3,000 Americans are killed in a terrorist attack? For the past eight months the Bush administration has essentially been saying that everything and everyone worked just fine. That is absurd and unsustainable. ... Surely the first step in fixing the system - and thereby defending ourselves against the next attack - is to identify what went wrong or who performed badly. Isn't anyone troubled by the fact that if the failure stemmed partly from incompetence, then the incompetent people are still at their vitally important posts? Isn't President Bush troubled? If it was the system that failed, then should that same system be left in place because no one is willing to take a hard look at how and why it failed?"

"Report: al-Qaida claims Tunisia synagogue attack" (Haaretz/Reuters, 2002/05/18)
"Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network has made an apparent claim of responsibility for a deadly suicide attack at a Tunisian synagogue last month, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Abdelazzim al-Mohajer, described by the leading Arabic language daily Asharq al-Awsat as an al Qaida commander, told the paper the suicide bomber named by Tunisia as Nizar Nouar was a member of the militant group. Mohajer said Nouar also went by the nom de guerre of Seif, saying there were several others like him "scattered all over the globe". Mohajer's comments to the newspaper were the first apparent claims by al Qaida to involvement in the blast which killed 21 people, including 14 German tourists, near El Ghriba synagogue on the Tunisian resort island Djerba."

"The Terror of Islam" (Stanley Kurtz, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/05/27 issue)
"So the events of September 11 represent a political and intellectual crisis for [John L.] Esposito, who has long championed the view that the Islamic threat is phony or exaggerated: The West has falsely and prejudicially portrayed Muslims as radically other, the problems of the Islamic world are a legacy of Western colonial domination, and Muslim terrorism, however regrettable, is best understood as a reaction to America's one-sided support for Israel and the sanctions America has so cruelly imposed upon the people of Iraq. ...
With the publication of "Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam," Esposito seeks to breathe new life into his failed paradigm. ... This is a difficult dance, and the author trips over himself from the start. ...
Before September 11, Esposito rejected even the term "Islamic fundamentalism." That label, he said, conjures up the picture of a monolithic menace, even as it indiscriminately lumps American allies, like the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, with anti-American extremists like al Qaeda. Yet it turns out that nasty old essentializing label told the truth after all: Esposito spends a considerable amount of "Unholy War" detailing the role of the Saudi and Pakistani governments in spreading the movement that he now freely calls Islamic "fundamentalism." ... Islamic society may still adapt itself to democracy and capitalism. Yet at this point, to ignore the incompatibility between Islam and modernity is willful blindness." (See also: "The Scandal of Middle East Studies" (Stanley Kurtz, The Weekly Standard, from the 2001/11/19 issue))

"Parents of Arabia" (Ben J. Wattenberg, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/05/18)
"Israel, we have been told, is under the demographic gun. Palestinians bear twice as many children as Israelis, therefore making Israeli settlements in the West Bank "steadily less tenable," according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Historian Paul Kennedy, who specializes in wrongheaded history of the future, goes a step further, predicting a "demographic boiling-over" in the Arab world that will eventually "obliterate Israel or drive it to some desperate action." ... Truth is, fertility rates in Arab and Muslim countries have been falling rapidly in recent decades. Indeed, it would be remarkable were they not; it's been happening everywhere else. ... In short, in the next 25 years, Israel and Palestine will have grown into two countries of about 6 million to 8 million people each, living side by side, in peace or in war, one modern, one hopefully modernizing."

 

Friday, May 17, 2002

News and commentary:

"Mullah Omar warns US of war" (Badie Qarhani, Arab News, 2002/05/17)
"The former Taleban ruler of Afghanistan Mullah Muhammad Omar has warned that his war with the United States has only started and its flames would engulf the White House. In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, Omar also said that Osama Bin Laden is alive. Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, he said the "great actions" were significant historical events, which achieved their ends. These will be repeated if the United States does not remove their causes, Omar said. ... "As for Afghanistan, I can say that the war has just started, its fires have been kindled. That fire will reach the White House because it is the seat of all injustice and oppression and where they launched a war against Islam and Muslims without any legitimate reason....When the killing of the oppressed people increased in number we decided to withdraw from the land and start the phase of guerrilla war in the mountains so that the lives of people and the poor Mujahedeen may be spared," he said." (See also: "Taleban leader remains defiant" (BBC News, 2001/11/15))

"Mosque that thinks it's a missile site" (Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2002/05/17)
A report from Baghdad: "Looked at face-on, the minarets of the Umm al-Ma'arik mosque in Baghdad are much like any others in the Middle East. But seen side on, they resemble Scud missiles sitting on launch-pads. ... The huge blue-and-white mosque, completed in April last year in time for Saddam's birthday, is replete with references to the war and Saddam. Umm al-Ma'arik is translated by Iraqis as the Mother of All Battles mosque, Saddam's description of the 1991 Gulf war. Dahar Alani, a custodian of the Mother of All Battles mosque, said the Scud-style minarets were each 43 metres high to mark the "43 days of US aggression". Another minaret was 37 metres high, to represent the year of Saddam's birth, 1937. One of the most remarkable links with Saddam can be found inside the mosque, where 605 pages of the Koran are laid out in glass cases. The custodian said the entire text was written in Saddam's blood, which had been mixed with ink and preservatives, producing a red and brown colour with a tinge of blue. "He dedicated 24 litres of blood over three years," Mr Alani said."

"Obeying 'a holy duty' to kill" (Betsy Pisik, The Washington Times, 2002/05/17)
A report from Gaza City: "A mother lovingly dresses her 12-year-old son in the homemade costume of a suicide bomber, complete with small kaffiyeh, a belt of electrical tape and fake explosives made of plywood. "I encourage him, and he should do this," said the woman, the mother of six. "God gave him to me to defend our land. Palestinian women must have more and more children till we liberate our land. This is a holy duty for all Palestinian people." Her son, Abu Ali, joyfully marched in a mask on the day commemorating the Nakba, or "catastrophe," as Palestinians call the day of Israel's founding in 1948. "I hope to be a martyr," he said. 'I hope when I get to 14 or 15 to explode myself.'"

"No one knew enough" (John Podhoretz, New York Post, 2002/05/18)
"The Pearl Harbor intelligence failure has been a subject of intense study for six decades. The scope of the Sept. 11 intelligence failure is just now coming clear. But the parallels are remarkable. Both involve the inability of government officials to bring together information from different agencies that would have revealed the enemy's true purpose. And sadly, there's reason to believe that, like Pearl Harbor before it, 9/11 will give rise to noxious conspiracy theories blaming the government of the United States for the mass murder of its citizens. That's not surprising. What is surprising, and shocking, is that it appears Democrats on Capitol Hill are willing to encourage such despicable conspiracy theories for their own narrow partisan purposes."

"No Hint of Sept. 11 in Report in August, White House Says" (David E. Sanger and Elisabeth Bumiller, The Washington Post, 2002/05/17)
"Confronting a political uproar over its disclosure that President Bush was cautioned last August that Osama bin Laden might be planning a hijacking, the White House said today that the assessment was in a C.I.A. report that was not based on specific intelligence that terrorists were planning the Sept. 11 attacks. In a detailed briefing this afternoon, Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, said the government had received numerous reports of terrorist threats last summer, but she emphasized that the information seemed general and pointed toward potential attacks overseas."

"What Bush Knew Before Sept. 11" (CBS News, 2002/05/17)
"President Bush was told in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack U.S. passenger planes - information which prompted the administration to issue an alert to federal agencies - but not the American public. CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin says the warning was in a document called the President's Daily Brief, which is considered to be the single most important document that the U.S. intelligence community turns out. The document did not, however, mention the possibility of planes being flown into buildings." (See also:"'99 Report Warned Of Suicide Hijacking" (CBS News, 2002/05/17): "Exactly two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal report warned the executive branch that Osama bin Laden's terrorists might hijack an airliner and dive bomb it into the Pentagon or other government building. "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House," the September 1999 report said. The report, entitled the "Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?," described the suicide hijacking as one of several possible retribution attacks al Qaeda might seek for the 1998 U.S. airstrike against bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.")

Thursday, May 16, 2002

News and commentary:

"The case for Israel" (David Brudnoy, The Phoenix, from the May 16-23 2002 issue)
"Stop by enough Middle East "peace" rallies these days and you’ll feel like Churchill in the late 1930s, who wondered how much longer his countrymen would be swept up in pathetic attempts to rationalize Hitler’s behavior. ... It’s bad enough that rally-goers unthinkingly equate Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, a dictator, with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, a democratically elected leader. Even worse, with increasing enthusiasm they liken Sharon to Hitler. At least here in the United States this inane thinking is expressed with words. In Europe, the rhetoric has devolved into vile acts. There, proponents of "peace," aided by unruly mobs of Arab thugs, proclaim their peaceful urges in fine Orwellian style by burning synagogues, beating up Jewish kids playing soccer, and harassing old folks ambling along the streets. ... The predominant goal of the Arab dictatorships - and the only one safely expressed - is the total elimination of Israel. The European attitude is one of hostility to Israel and renewed hatred of the Jews. You don’t need a Mensa-level IQ to get these points clear in your mind. But they elude our "intellectuals" and "peace"-mongers."

"Hitler Is Dead" (Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic, 2002/05/16)
Wieseltier sees a "Jewish panic" in recent reactions to Palestinian terrorism and anti-Semitism: "In the discussion of the atrocities that the Palestinians have committed against the Israelis, the subject is Hitler. "I am convinced that we are facing a threat as great, if not greater, to the safety and security of the Jewish people than we faced in the '30s," the head of a national Jewish organization announced in February. In the New York Observer in April, Ron Rosenbaum warned of "the Second Holocaust": "It's a phrase we may have to begin thinking about. A possibility we may have to contemplate." Indeed, "there's likely to be a second Holocaust. Not because the Israelis are acting without restraint, but because they are, so far, acting with restraint despite the massacres making their country uninhabitable." George F. Will admiringly cited Rosenbaum in a column that he called "'Final Solution,' Phase 2." "Here in Washington, D.C., a few blocks away, is the Holocaust Museum," William Bennett told the rally in support of Israel at the Capitol on April 15. "What we are seeing today, what Israel is feeling today, was not supposed to happen again." On the same occasion Benjamin Netanyahu compared Arafat to Hitler, and also to Stalin. ("We don't have to be afraid that the international community doesn't see eye to eye with us," he proclaimed at the Likud Party conference this week. "Did the international community see the danger of the Holocaust?") "THE NEW KRISTALLNACHT," screamed the headline of a Jewish paper in New York about the Passover massacre in Netanya. "This is Kristallnacht transposed to Israel," wrote Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post." (See also, for example: "'Second Holocaust,' Roth's Invention, Isn't Novelistic" (Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer, 2002/04/15))

"Hostility to Arafat Grows Among the Palestinians" (Amir Taheri, Los Angeles Times, 2002/05/16)
"Many Palestinians still fear Arafat's "hit squads," which have established a tradition of assassinating political adversaries and potential rivals since the 1960s. Hence the reluctance of some to be quoted by name. Others, however, are prepared to take the risk, a sign that Arafat's hold on the Palestinians is loosening. "Arafat is running the areas under his control for the sole purpose of making money for his cronies and international glory for himself," said Yahya Ibrahim, a Palestinian businessman. So widespread is knowledge of the corruption Arafat presides over that he and his Cabinet of 40 ministers are routinely referred to as Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves. The European Union, the Arab states and Israel (in the form of customs income) have poured about $3 billion into Arafat's coffers since 1994. ... "Bush is naive if he thinks Arafat is the man to clean the mess," one Palestinian journalist said privately. "Arafat is at the center of a system of corruption. There can be no reform unless Arafat goes." Corruption is only one reason why more Palestinians do not want Arafat. Another is repression. Arafat refuses to arrest alleged terrorists wanted by Israel but has no qualms about jailing his opponents. Since 1994, an estimated 12,000 Palestinians have spent time in Arafat's jails. This is the equivalent of having more than 1.2 million political prisoners in the United States. ... He has lied and cheated his way through a tumultuous career that has made him one of the richest men in the Arab world."

"Last refuge of scoundrels" (Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/16)
"Anti-Americanism is a neurosis, both personal and cultural. It is a close cousin of anti-Semitism, and it is a cover for anti-Semitism. It is a mixture of a sense of betrayal, of envy, of exaggerated expectations born to collapse into cynicism, of a self-deception that turns, as it so often does, personal failure into political rage, and of what Friedrich Nietzsche rightly identified as the spirit of resentiment. It will remain with us, just as anti-Semitism will remain with us, so long as Americans and Jews exist on this earth, and it will have to be combatted if Americans and Jews are to remain on this earth."

"Arafat concedes making mistakes" (The Washington Times, 2002/05/16)
"Yasser Arafat, responding to pressure at home and abroad to overhaul his government, yesterday said he had made mistakes and called for sweeping reforms and new elections. But he gave few details and won only polite applause when he announced his plans to the Palestinian Legislative Council, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ruled out peace talks unless he cleaned up his "corrupt terror regime." ... The United States and the European Union welcomed the statement but said they were looking for action from the Palestinian leader to fulfill his promises, which, if carried out, could push the stalled Middle East peace process forward." (Note: IMRA points out the following part in Arafat's speech: "'Let us remember the Houdaibiyya Conciliation Accord out of our concern for the national and pan-Arab interest of our people and nation, and out of our concern for strengthening international solidarity with your people and your cause.' The Houdaibiyya agreement was a 10-year peace treaty between Mohammed and the tribe of Qura'ish. After two years, when Mohammed had improved his military position, he tore up the agreement and slaughtered the Qura'ish." ("Full Text of Arafat Speech - what the White House didn't read" (IMRA, 2002/05/16))

 

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

News and commentary:

"Terror, Lies And Videotape" (CBS News, 2002/05/15)
"Enemies of the United States are spreading on the Internet a gruesome piece of propaganda. It is a videotape of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered earlier this year in Pakistan. And it is being used by terrorists to recruit new soldiers for the cause. The tape is titled "The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl," and it as disturbing a piece of propaganda as you will ever see, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin. ... Interspersed with news clips, the video of Pearl's final hours is a cold-blooded recruiting poster for America's enemies, complete with Arabic subtitles. "The translation is in Arabic because the audience is Arabic," says Ali al-Ahmed, a dissident Saudi Arabian journalist, who found it on the Web a few days ago. ... What is perhaps most shocking is that some viewers do not find it repulsive. "The first place where they had it on most of the people who commented on the tape, they said, 'I wish I was there. I wish I had done it,'" says al-Ahmed. ... "My father's Jewish. My mother's Jewish. I'm Jewish," says Pearl. And that seems to be the real reason Pearl was murdered, not because he was a spy but because he was a Jew and an American. ... The tape ends with Pearl's beheading which no one needs to watch. But everyone needs to understand that this tape is a testament to the depth of the hatred against the United States, not just among terrorists but throughout much of the Arab world."

"Prospering in Wickedness" (John Derbyshire, National Review, 2002/05/15)
"[Leon Klinghoffer] was the 69-year-old disabled vacationer rewarding himself for a lifetime of hard work with a cruise on the liner Achille Lauro in 1985 when a gang of Palestinian terrorists decided to "send a message." They hijacked the ship and, in a moment of playfulness, shot Klinghoffer in his wheelchair as his wife looked on. Laughing and joking, they then dumped man and wheelchair overboard. Klinghoffer hadn't done anything to trouble them. He was just a Jew who happened to be handy - and unarmed and helpless, which is pretty much the only kind of opponent terrorists care to take on. ... The mastermind terrorist behind that bold operation on the Achille Lauro was Abu Abbas, a particularly nasty piece of work, even by Palestinian standards. ... He is now a respected politician, "rushing from meeting to meeting, lunching with officials of the new Palestinian National Authority, networking, listening and making suggestions"... Abu Abbas never suffered the slightest punishment - nor, so far as I can tell, even inconvenience - for his horrible crime. He is prospering in his wickedness and malice, with all possible assistance from that "international community" we hear so much about, and whose delicate sensibilities we are all supposed to defer to."

"The Culture of Martyrdom" (David Brooks, The Atlantic, from the June 2002 issue)
"Suicide bombing is a highly communitarian enterprise. According to Ariel Merari, the director of the Political Violence Research Center, at Tel Aviv University, and a leading expert on the phenomenon, in not one instance has a lone, crazed Palestinian gotten hold of a bomb and gone off to kill Israelis. Suicide bombings are initiated by tightly run organizations that recruit, indoctrinate, train, and reward the bombers. ... Suicide bombers go through indoctrination processes similar to the ones that were used by the leaders of the Jim Jones and Solar Temple cults. The bombers are organized into small cells and given countless hours of intense and intimate spiritual training. They are instructed in the details of jihad, reminded of the need for revenge, and reassured about the rewards they can expect in the afterlife. They are told that their families will be guaranteed a place with God, and that there are also considerable rewards for their families in this life, including cash bonuses of several thousand dollars donated by the government of Iraq, some individual Saudis, and various groups sympathetic to the cause. Finally, the bombers are told that paradise lies just on the other side of the detonator, that death will feel like nothing more than a pinch."

"Why They Fight - Because it works" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2002/05/15)
"The Israelis, in particular, are repeatedly advised about the futility of fighting terrorism by military means. This is again odd coming from the United States, which is doing precisely that in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Yemen and other places we have yet to learn about. Nonetheless, regarding Israel, it is a staple of received opinion. It is wrong. After the Passover massacre, Israel launched its offensive into Palestinian territory. The most dramatic effect has been a reduction in terrorism. It is no accident that while Israel suffered seven suicide bombings in the seven days of Passover, there has been but one successful suicide bombing in the past month. There will surely be others. But the frenzied wave of terror that pushed Israel over the edge has been stopped. ... The fire will cease in the Middle East not when a piece of parchment is signed (remember Oslo?) but when the Palestinians conclude that they are no longer winning, that the Israelis are not going to give up and go away, as they did from Lebanon. ... Looking at the ruin - moral and material - that terror has brought them, some Palestinians might begin thinking that the road to Palestine lies through an option they rejected at Camp David 22 months ago: peace."

"Nine Wars Too Many" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2002/05/15)
"I just attended an Arab media conference and was on a panel with Eric Rouleau, the Middle East correspondent of Le Monde, who said he had recently spoken to some French generals who told him that what Israel did in Jenin was worse than anything France did during the Algerian war. One million Algerians were killed in that war and two million were made homeless. So far 60 bodies have been recovered in Jenin, many of them fighters. You do the math."

"'Greedy monsters' ruled church" (The Washington Times, 2002/05/14)
Compare this with Cole's "reporting" below: "The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity and later deported by Israel seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry. ... A church helper, who gave his name as Milad, said the quantity of food consumed by the gunmen in the first 15 days should have lasted for six months. As they feasted and boozed, Palestinian civilians subsisted on a meager diet, with barely enough for a single meal a day. ... The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear. "Their word was law," said one civilian, "and they told us civilians who left the church would either be shot by the Israelis or dealt with later by the gunmen's comrades." (See also: "Exiled Palestinian militants ran two-year reign of terror" (Sayed Anwar, The Washington Times, 2002/05/13))

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

News and commentary:

"A radio broadcast on 'the world's most dangerous terrorist'" (David Duke, Arab News, 2002/05/14)
It's interesting to note the similarities between some left-wing intellectuals and the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan regarding their opinions about the Middle East conflict (Duke quotes "the world-renowned British journalist" Robert Fisk four times). It's also very telling that the Saudi government controlled Arab News publishes this anti-Semitic tirade by an infamous white supremacist, in which everything from the hoax that Mossad was behind the September 11 attacks to lies about the "massacres" in Jenin is put to use: "As a loyal and patriotic American, my heart grieves at the support given by American traitors to the world's worst mass murderer and war criminal Ariel Sharon. Sharon has killed, maimed and tortured more people than Osama Bin Laden could only fantasize about. In fact, I will present to you compelling evidence that Sharon and the Mossad aided and abetted the horrible terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. By supporting Sharon and his criminal government in Israel, American traitors have not only supported Sharon's crimes against the Palestinian people, and have become accomplices in mass murder and torture, but they directly aided terrorists who have inflicted terrorism on America." (UPDATE 2002/05/16: It seems Arab News have had second thoughts about the transcript as it is down. Best of the Web Today has received an e-mail from Arab News: "Just a short note to let you know that Arab News immediately removed the David Duke article on Wednesday, May 15, lambasting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, after it was brought to our attention. Somehow the article made it onto our website. Rest assured that we DO NOT in any way support Duke's racist and Nazi views." Anyone interested in Duke's ramblings on this issue can read "How Israeli terrorism and American treason caused the September 11 Attacks" (David Duke, DavidDuke.com, 2001/11/21) instead. It's basically the same, minus the "Jenin massacre" lies.)

"Undercover Photographer" (Andrew Breitbart, National Review, 2002/05/14)
"Little critical attention has been given to the recent antics of Los Angeles Times staff photographer Carolyn Cole, who on May 2 joined a group of "peace activists" who had clandestinely entered Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, in solidarity with the Palestinian militants holding dozens of civilians and clergymen hostage. ... The Times, often accused of carrying an anti-Israeli grudge, confirmed many of its critics' suspicions by printing Cole's blatantly pro-Palestinian church dispatches. ... As talk-radio host and author Hugh Hewitt noted, 'Nowhere in the entire article, not even a single phrase, mentions that these priests are hostages. Their captors are described in glowing and even gentle detail. There is nothing of reporting about this at all. It is, quite simply, propaganda.'" (See also: "A Church From the 4th Century and a Stalemate From the 21st" (Carolyn Cole, The Los Angeles Times, 2002/05/09): "The Palestinians in the church are a family of sorts. Some are already planning a reunion - same time, next year. There was a wake recently when one man learned that his father had died. As the days drag on, many of them hold hands and stand with their arms around one another's shoulders. And they pace together along the sanctuary floor, fingering their prayer beads, hoping for a way out.")

"Gaza's Children Worship Martyrdom" (Hamza Hendawi, The Washington Post/AP, 2002/05/14)
"Life in the Gaza Strip leaves children with little chance not to think of violence. Funerals and rallies with gunmen firing in the air are almost daily events. Walls are covered with graffiti glorifying 'martyrs' killed in attacks on Israelis. Their faces stare from tens of thousands of posters, and mosque preachers exhort worshippers to emulate them. ... A March survey of 2,300 children between the ages of six and 13 showed that up to 73 percent in some parts of Gaza have taken part in violence and that 98 percent have witnessed events that frightened them. ... In Gaza's funerals for "shaheeds," or martyrs, and in rallies by Palestinian factions such as Arafat's Fatah or the militant Islamic group Hamas, children as young as three or four are outfitted with combat fatigues, masks and toy guns. Such occasions routinely attract hundreds of children, all accustomed by now to the deafening noise made by gunmen firing in the air. Children are sometimes symbolically wrapped in white sheets to suggest their desire for martyrdom - Muslims wrap their dead in white sheets before burying them - with participants around them shouting slogans glorifying martyrdom."

"Militants storm Kashmir army camp" (BBC News, 2002/05/14)
"At least 30 people have been killed in Indian-administered Kashmir after suspected separatists attacked an army camp. The dead include women and children as well as the three attackers. The militants, reportedly wearing army uniforms, also fired on passengers aboard a bus they had been travelling on before going into the camp. ... It coincides with a visit to Delhi by US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca aimed at cooling tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. ... "It is precisely this type of barbaric terrorism that the international war on terrorism is determined to stop", she was quoted as saying."

"Hooligans take their cue" (Evelyn Gordon, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/14)
"Is it just chance that all the hooligans are in Europe? Discounting this far-fetched thesis, the unavoidable conclusion is that Europe has somehow created a climate conducive to anti-Semitic violence, while the US has not. ... Though European governments also pay lip service to Israel's right of self-defense, in 19 months of conflict, there is not a single Israeli tactic that they have not unequivocally condemned. Closures are wrong and roadblocks are wrong, bombing is wrong and ground operations are wrong, even returning fire when shot at is wrong. The underlying message is clear: In reality, Israel has no right to self-defense – the only country in the world so circumscribed. ... European hooligans have in fact grasped perfectly the real message being broadcast by their governments, publics, and media: that anti-Jewish violence is "understandable." And as long as this is so, no amount of official condemnation of such attacks can absolve Europe of the charge of anti-Semitism."

"Arafat forced to cancel Jenin visit" (Mohammed Najib et al., The Jerusalem Post, 2002/05/14)
"Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's West Bank tour turned sour yesterday when he was forced to cancel a visit to Jenin's refugee camp, where inhabitants idealize Islamic militants. An Arafat aide cited security reasons for scrapping plans to visit the camp, where thousands had gathered to await him on the rubble left in the wake of last month's Operation Defensive Shield. But in an ominous sign for Arafat, a stage from which he was to speak was burned shortly before he set out on his first tour of the West Bank since the end of a 35-day siege of his headquarters in Ramallah. There were even rumors that someone had shot at Arafat's car near Nablus. Later in Ramallah, five masked assailants attacked Parliamentary Affairs Minister and Arafat confidante Hassan Asfour at the entrance to his home." (See also: "Arafat forced to cancel Jenin visit" (Stephen Farrell, The Times, 2002/05/14): "Shortly afterwards violence erupted as different militias vied for the glory of having "defended" the camp and traded accusations of cowardice and betrayal with members of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. As Mr Arafat's two Jordanian helicopters circled above, a gunman belonging to the military wing of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement took exception to a bystander's anti-Arafat diatribe and levelled his M16 automatic rifle. Amid shouts of "where were you during the battle?" a scuffle broke out and one man fell to the ground, a bullet in his leg.")

Monday, May 13, 2002

News and commentary:

"Why Israel's war on terrorism is working" (Jonathan Chait, Slate, 2002/05/13)
Chait takes on the theory "that Palestinians resort to terrorism out of despair.":
"For those who believe this - a group consisting of most liberal newspaper editors, the foreign policy establishment, and virtually the entire outside world - the case against Israeli military action (such as the recent one in the West Bank) is simply an a priori truth. ...
Palestinian terrorism does not result from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but from Israel's existence. Palestinian terrorism long predates the 1967 occupation... ...
Suicide bombings started only after the 1993 Oslo Accords, which provided Palestinians with their best opportunity for a state. They intensified massively after Israel withdrew from Lebanon and offered a series of generous territorial concessions. If anything, then, history suggests that Palestinian violence results not from desperation but from hope. ...
Denying the effectiveness of Israeli military action forecloses any debate over its morality. It allows you to ignore the difficult trade-offs between Jewish and Arab interests by pretending the two are in perfect alignment: If Israel would halt its military incursions and withdraw from the territories, Palestinians would stop their terrorism, leaving both sides more secure. This makes for a lovely and comforting syllogism. If only it were true."

"Anti-Semitic Pogrom at San Francisco State" (FrontPageMagazine, 2002/05/13)
A letter from Laurie Zoloth, Director, Jewish Studies Program at San Francisco State University: "I cannot fully express what it feels like to have to walk across campus daily, past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters of cans of soup with labels on them of drops of blood and dead babies, labeled "canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license," past poster after poster calling out "Zionism=racism, and Jews=Nazis." ... Yesterday, the hatred coalesced in a hate mob. Yesterday's Peace In The Middle East Rally was completely organized by the Hillel students, mostly 18 and 19 years old. ... As soon as the community supporters left, the 50 students who remained praying in a minyan for the traditional afternoon prayers, or chatting, or cleaning up after the rally, talking -- were surrounded by a large, angry crowd of Palestinians and their supporters. But they were not calling for peace. They screamed at us to "go back to Russia" and they screamed that they would kill us all, and other terrible things." (Note: Scott Armel-Funkhouser, a scientist at UC Berkeley, has reproduced the poster depicting "soup cans" labeled "Palestinian Children Meat." on his website: "This is perhaps the most grotesque and explicit incarnation of the "blood libel" observed in the free world since the Nazi Holocaust. ... It suggests (1)that Jews ingest the flesh and/or blood of children, and (2)that there are rites associated with the Jewish religion which detail how to perform this cannibalism. Note that this vicious racism is not directed specifically at Israel but at Jews, for it reads, 'slaughtered according to Jewish rites'".)

"Spies, or students?" (Nathan Guttman, Haaretz, 2002/05/13)
Haven't posted this story before as it seems to be in the same league as the "4,000 Jews"-hoax or the "Hunt the Boeing"-allegations: "It could be the biggest espionage scandal of the century, or the greatest journalistic non-starter in many a decade, but it's clear that the story of the Israeli art students in New York - dozens of alleged spies living in the United States - refuses to die down. ... According to reports of the scandal, around 120 young Israeli citizens, posing as art students and selling paintings door-to-door, have been arrested and deported from the United States. The door-to-door sale of art works, it is claimed, was a front for a sophisticated spy ring... ... According to some speculations, the Israelis' intelligence work enabled the spy ring to know in advance of the planned terror attack on September 11, without lifting a finger to prevent it. ... There is one source for all these stories and it is not an unreliable one. The source is the 60-page draft of an internal report by the intelligence division of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). ... According to the report's author, whose identity has never been published, DEA officials identified an increase in the number of incidents in which young Israelis, claiming to be art students, tried to sell them works of art. "It is entirely possible," said the report, 'that this is an organized intelligence-gathering activity.'"

"Bahrain bans Al Jazeera TV" (BBC News, 2002/05/13)
It must be very odd to live in a world where even Al Jazeera is "infiltrated by Zionists.": "Bahrain has banned the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera from reporting from inside the Gulf state, Information Minister Nabil al-Hamr said on Friday. According to a news bulletin on the Qatar-based channel, Mr al-Hamr said the ban was being imposed because the station was biased towards Israel and against Bahrain. ... Mr al-Hamr is said to have accused the station of being infiltrated by Zionists. "We believe (Al Jazeera) is suspect and represents the Zionist side in the region. We will not deal with this channel because we object to its coverage of current affairs. It is a channel penetrated by Zionists," he was quoted as saying."

"Jeningrad - What the British media said" (Tom Gross, National Review, 2002/05/13)
"The British media was particularly emotive in its reporting. They devoted page upon page, day after day, to tales of mass murders, common graves, summary executions, and war crimes. Israel was invariably compared to the Nazis, to al Qaeda, and to the Taliban. One report even compared the thousands of supposedly missing Palestinians to the "disappeared" of Argentina. ... On April 17, the Guardian's lead editorial compared the Israeli incursion in Jenin with the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11. "Jenin," wrote the Guardian was "every bit as repellent in its particulars, no less distressing, and every bit as man-made." ... Whereas the Guardian's editorial writers compared the Jewish state to al Qaeda, Evening Standard commentators merely compared the Israeli government to the Taliban. ... Other commentators threw in the Holocaust, turning it against Israel. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a leading columnist for the Independent wrote (April 15): 'I would suggest that Ariel Sharon should be tried for crimes against humanity … and be damned for so debasing the profoundly important legacy of the Holocaust, which was meant to stop forever nations turning themselves into ethnic killing machines.'"

"Uncle Sam, Made Ugly" (Sebastian Mallaby, The Washington Post, 2002/05/13)
"Here in Europe, you get a fresh view of the United States. It is a country "increasingly in thrall to a very particular conservatism"; it languishes in "the extraordinary grip of Christian fundamentalism"; its democracy is "an offense to democratic ideals." The aforementioned "overblown conservative rhetoric" sadly "prevents self-knowledge and intelligent self-criticism." Indeed, this "dominant conservatism is very ideological, almost Leninist." The U.S. economy, meanwhile, "rests on an enormous confidence trick." It is governed by "a Wall Street crazed by greed" with the result that "corporate America now no longer principally seeks to innovate." It produces "severe economic and social problems": There has been "a marked growth in American selfishness and introversion"; "obesity has reached unprecedented levels." All that before you get to the "tenacious endemic racism" and the grim fact that "citizens routinely shoot each other." These quotes do not come from some marginal fringe nut. They come from "The World We're In," a new book by Will Hutton, a former editor of the London Observer, a traditional beacon of Britain's high-brow left."

"Exiled Palestinian militants ran two-year reign of terror" (Sayed Anwar, The Washington Times, 2002/05/13)
"Residents of this biblical city [Bethlehem] are expressing relief at the exile to Cyprus last week of 13 hard-core Palestinian militants, who they said had imposed a two-year reign of terror that included rape, extortion and executions. ...
"Finally the Christians can breathe freely," said Helen, 50, a Christian mother of four. "We are so delighted that these criminals who have intimidated us for such a long time are now going away." ...
The gang apparently used its ready access to guns and close ties with Mr. Arafat's Palestinian security forces to extort money, run guns, smuggle drugs and even demand that young women separate from their husbands. After one woman was reportedly raped by a gang member, the perpetrator was put in jail, but only briefly. His comrades reportedly forced the jailers to let him go. The gang's hostility toward Christians extended to a 17-year-old altar boy fatally shot during an Israeli incursion in October. A small stone monument the family erected in Johnny Talgieh's memory on the spot in Manger Square where he died was kicked and spat on by gang members, then toppled with ropes and cables and left smashed on the ground."

"Mubarak, Saudi crown prince end talks to coordinate positions" (Daniel Soberman, Haaretz, 2002/05/13)
"[Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince] Abdullah, speaking to Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, added that Israel would have to be open to discussion on the rights of return for Palestinian refugees. The prince, who held talks with Bush on the Middle East crisis last month, said that Arabs would not accept a partial Israeli pullout and Israel had to return all Arab land. "A withdrawal is not enough, there must be a return to the pre-1967 aggression lines and an end to the occupation of Jerusalem so that it becomes the capital of Palestine," said Prince Abdullah, the architect of a Middle East peace initiative that won Arab and international backing. "The return of refugees is also a must," he told the London-based paper."

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

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From the archives

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"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)

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