Passover Joy! "Matzo Man"

American Comedy Network Presents: Matzo Man

A true story by Nechama Goodman: "miracles do happen".

-
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 3:42 AM
Subject: Fw: What a story!
You must read this unbelievable, yet familiar-sounding story!

This true story, submitted by Nechama Goodman, is documented in "Monsey, Kiryat Sefer and Beyond" by Zev Roth.
------------------------------------------
On his way out from shul in Jerusalem, Dan approached a young man in Dungarees, backpack, dark skin, curly black hair -- looked Sephardi, maybe Moroccan.
"Good Shabbos. My name is Dan Eisenblatt. Would you like to eat at my house tonight?"
The young man's face broke in an instant from a worried look to a smile.
"Yeah, thanks. My name is Machi."
Together they walked out of the shul. A few minutes later they were all standing around Dan's Shabbos table. Dan noticed his guest fidgeting and leafing through his songbook, apparently looking for something. He asked with a smile, "Is there a song you want to sing? I can help if you're not sure about the tune."
The guest's face lit up. "There is a song I'd like to sing, but I can't find it here. I really liked what we sang in the synagogue tonight. What was it called? Something 'dodi.'"
Dan paused for a moment, on the verge of saying, "It's not usually sung at the table," but then he caught himself. "If that's what the kid wants," he thought, "what's the harm?" Aloud he said, "You mean Lecha Dodi.Wait, let me get you a siddur."
Once they had sung Lecha Dodi, the young man resumed his silence until after the soup, when Dan asked him, "Which song now?" The guest looked embarrassed, but after a bit of encourage-ment said firmly, "I'd really like to sing Lecha Dodi again."
Dan was not really all that surprised when, after the chicken, he asked his guest what song now, and the young man said, "Lecha Dodi, please." Dan almost blurted out, "Let's sing it a little softer this time, the neighbors are going to think I'm nuts." He finally said, "Don't you want to sing something else?"
His guest blushed and looked down. "I just really like that one," he mumbled. "Just something about it - I really like it."
In all, they must have sung "The Song" eight or nine times. Dan wasn't sure -- he lost count. Later Dan asked, "Where are you from?" The boy looked pained, then stared down at the floor and said softly, "Ramallah."
Dan's was sure he'd heard the boy say "Ramallah," a large Arab city on the West Bank. Quickly he caught himself, and then realized that he must have said Ramleh, an Israeli city. Dan said, "Oh, I have a cousin there. Do you know Ephraim Warner? He lives on Herzl Street."
The young man shook his head sadly. "There are no Jews in Ramallah."
Dan gasped. He really had said "Ramallah"! His thoughts were racing. Did he just spend Shabbos with an Arab? He told the boy, "I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. And now that I think of it, I haven't even asked your full name. What is it, please?"
The boy looked nervous for a moment, then squared his shoulders and said quietly, "Machmud Ibn-esh-Sharif."
Dan stood there speechless. What could he say? Machmud broke the silence hesitantly: "I was born and grew up in Ramallah. I was taught to hate my Jewish oppressors, and to think that killing them was heroism. But I always had my doubts. I mean, we were taught that the Sunna, the tradition, says, 'No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.' I used to sit and wonder, Weren't the Yahud (Jews) people, too? Didn't they have the right to live the same as us? If we're supposed to be good to everyone, how come nobody includes Jews in that? "I put these questions to my father, and he threw me out of the house. By now my mind was made up: I was going to run away and live with the Yahud, until I could find out what they were really like. I snuck back into the house that night, to get my things and my backpack.
My mother caught me in the middle of packing. I told her that I wanted to go live with the Jews for a while and find out what they're really like and maybe I would even want to convert.
She was turning more and more pale while I said all this, and I
thought she was angry, but that wasn't it. Something else was hurting her and she whispered gently, 'You don't have to convert. You already are a Jew.'
"I was shocked. My head started spinning, and for a moment I couldn't speak. Then I stammered, 'What do you mean?'
'In Judaism,' she told me, 'the religion goes according to the mother. I'm Jewish, so that means you're Jewish.'
"I never had any idea my mother was Jewish. I guess she didn't want anyone to know. She whispered suddenly, 'I made a mistake by marrying an Arab man. In you, my mistake will be redeemed.'
"My mother always talked that way, poetic-like. She went and dug out some old documents, and handed them to me: things like my birth certificate and her old Israeli ID card, so I could prove I was a Jew. I've got them here, but I don't know what to do with them.
"My mother hesitated about one piece of paper. Then she said, 'You may as well take this. It is an old photograph of my grand-parents which was taken when they went visiting the grave of some great ancestor of ours.' "Now I have traveled here to Israel. I'm just trying to find out where I belong."
Dan gently put his hand on Machmud's shoulder. Machmud looked up, scared and hopeful at the same time. Dan asked, "Do you have the photo here?"
The boy's face lit up. ""Sure! I always carry it with me." He reached in his backpack and pulled out an old, tattered envelope.
When Dan read the gravestone inscription, he nearly dropped the photo. He rubbed his eyes to make sure. There was no doubt. This was a grave in the old cemetery in Tzfat, and the inscription identified it as the grave of the great Kabbalist and tzaddik Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz.
Dan's voice quivered with excitement as he explained to Machmud who his ancestor was. "He was a friend of the Arizal, a great Torah scholar, a tzaddik, a mystic. And, Machmud, your ancestor wrote that song we were singing all Shabbos: Lecha Dodi!"
This time it was Machmud's turn to be struck speechless. Dan extended his trembling hand and said, "Welcome home, Machmud."

This true story, submitted by Nechama Goodman, is documented in "Monsey, Kiryat Sefer and Beyond" by Zev Roth.

Jerusalem Issues Brief: The Basis of the US-Israel Alliance

Jerusalem Issue Brief

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

founded jointly at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

with the Wechsler Family Foundation



Vol. 5, No. 20 – 24 March 2006





The Basis of the U.S.-Israel Alliance

An Israeli Response to the Mearsheimer-Walt Assault



Dore Gold





On December 27, 1962, President John F. Kennedy told Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir: “The United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to what it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs.”


The U.S. and Israel had a joint strategic interest in defeating aggressors in the Middle East seeking to disrupt the status quo, especially if they had Moscow’s backing. In 1970 when Syria invaded Jordan, given the huge U.S. military commitment in Southeast Asia at the time, it was only the mobilization of Israeli strength that provided the external backing needed to support the embattled regime of King Hussein. That same year, Israeli Phantoms downed Soviet-piloted MiG fighters over the Suez Canal, proving the ineffectiveness of the military umbrella Moscow provided its Middle Eastern clients.


In 1981, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, severely reducing Iraqi military strength. Ten years later, after a U.S.-led coalition had to liberate Kuwait following Iraq’s occupation of that oil-producing mini-state, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney in October 1991 thanked Israel for its “bold and dramatic action” a decade earlier.


In the 1980s, several memoranda of understanding between the U.S. and Israel on strategic cooperation were followed by regular joint military exercises, where U.S. forces were given access to Israel’s own combat techniques and vice versa. The U.S. Marine Corps and special operations forces have particularly benefited from these ties, though much of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship is classified.


Saudi Arabia has tried to tilt U.S. policy using a vast array of powerful PR firms, former diplomats, and well-connected officials, with the result being that America is still overly dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Given the ultimate destination of those petrodollars in recent years (the propagation of Islamic extremism and terrorism), a serious investigation of those lobbying efforts appears to be far more appropriate than focusing on relations between the U.S. and Israel.




A Special Relationship Spanning Decades



It was mid-morning on December 27, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy hosted the Foreign Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, in Palm Beach, Florida, for a heart-to-heart review of U.S.-Israel relations. Kennedy’s language was unprecedented. In the secret memorandum drafted by the attending representative of the Department of State, Kennedy told his Israeli guest: “The United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to what it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs [emphasis added].”1



According to a new paper prepared by two of America’s top political scientists, Professor John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Professor Stephen Walt from the Kennedy School at Harvard University, “neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America’s support for Israel.” The explanation for U.S. backing of Israel, according to these academics, is the “unmatched power of the Israel lobby.”2 Yet their analysis is not grounded in any careful investigation of declassified U.S. documents from the Departments of State or Defense.



What led Kennedy in 1962 to declare that the U.S.-Israel relationship was even comparable to America’s alliance with the British? Since the early 1950s, the U.S. defense establishment has understood Israel’s potential importance to the Western Alliance. Thus, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, assessed in 1952 that only Britain, Turkey, and Israel could help the U.S. with their air forces in the event of a Soviet attack in the Middle East.3 But against whatever Israel could tangibly offer the U.S., there was always a need to politically juggle America’s ties with Israel and its efforts to create strategic relations with the Arab states.



The first limited U.S. arms supply to Israel preceded Kennedy. During the Eisenhower years, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ plans for a Baghdad Pact collapsed with the 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, the U.S. began to upgrade its defense ties with Israel. Kennedy started his presidency trying to build on a new relationship with Egypt’s Nasser. But by 1962, Nasser intervened with large forces in Yemen, bombed Saudi border towns, and threatened to expand into the oil-producing areas of the Persian Gulf.


Israeli Actions That Served U.S. Interests

The U.S. and Israel had a joint strategic interest in defeating aggressors in the Middle East seeking to disrupt the status quo, especially if they had Moscow’s backing. This became the essence of the U.S.-Israel alliance in the Middle East. It would repeat itself in 1970 when Syria invaded Jordan. Given the huge U.S. military commitment in Southeast Asia at the time, it was only the mobilization of Israeli strength that provided the external backing needed to support the embattled regime of King Hussein.



In 1981, Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, severely reducing Iraqi military strength. Ten years later, after a U.S.-led coalition had to liberate Kuwait following Iraq’s occupation of that oil-producing mini-state, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney thanked Israel for its “bold and dramatic action” a decade earlier. Indeed, Cheney would add in an October 1991 address: “strategic cooperation with Israel remains a cornerstone of U.S. defense policy.”



During those years, Israel became one of the main forces obstructing the spread of Soviet military power in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1970 Israeli Phantoms downed Soviet-piloted MiG fighters over the Suez Canal, proving the ineffectiveness of the military umbrella Moscow provided its Middle Eastern clients in exchange for Soviet basing arrangements. When in the 1980s the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron made the Syrian port of Tartus its main submarine base, Israel offered Haifa to the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which had already begun to house U.S. ships in 1977. U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements in the 1980s over arms deployments in Central Europe increased the importance of NATO’s flanks – including its southern flank – in the overall balance of power between the superpowers.



This expanding cooperation was made concrete in the 1980s by several memoranda of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Israel on strategic cooperation, signed in 1981 and 1983. According to the Congressional Research Service, the strategic cooperation agreements were followed by regular joint military exercises, where U.S. forces were given access to Israel’s own combat techniques and vice versa. The U.S. Marine Corps and special operations forces have particularly benefited from these ties. The U.S. European Command took a particular interest in Israeli combat helicopter training ranges.



By 1992, the number of U.S. Navy ship visits to Haifa had reached 50 per year. Admiral Carl Trost, the former Chief of Naval Operations, commented that with the end of the Cold War and the shifting American interest in power projection to the Middle East, the Sixth Fleet’s need for facilities in the Eastern Mediterranean had actually increased.



Do U.S. and Israeli interests diverge sometimes? Like any two countries, such differences can be expected. During the Cold War, Israel needed U.S. security ties in order to increase its own capabilities to deal with hostile Arab states. But Israel did not seek to become a target of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, it signed an MOU with the U.S. in 1981 which singled out the USSR as a joint adversary of both countries. The MOU underscored that “the parties recognize the need to enhance strategic cooperation to deter all threats from the Soviet Union to the region.”4 In the 2003 Iraq War, most Israeli military leaders identified Iran as the greater threat to the Middle East at the time. Nonetheless, Israel certainly did not oppose the efforts of the U.S.-led coalition to topple Saddam Hussein.5



One complaint about the U.S.-Israel defense relationship has been the constraints Israel has put on it as a result of Israel’s firm commitment to its doctrine of self-reliance. As Carl Ford, the Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Bush (41) administration, confided to a Senate Caucus in October 1991: “Another limitation, of course, is the longstanding view on the part of Israel, one which I think most of us share the viewpoint on...that not one ounce of American blood should be spilled in the defense of Israel.” He suggested that changes needed to be introduced to make “our operations and interactions with Israel the same as they are with Great Britain and Germany.”



This comment was significant since detractors of the U.S.-Israel relationship like to insinuate that Israel seeks to get America to fight its wars for it. The truth is completely the opposite: while U.S. forces have been stationed on the soil of Germany, South Korea, or Japan to provide for the defense of those countries in the event of an attack, Israel has always insisted on defending itself by itself. If Israel today seeks “defensible borders,” this is because it wants to deploy the Israel Defense Forces and not the U.S. Army in the strategically sensitive Jordan Valley.


Much of the Relationship Is Classified

There are other issues affecting the public discourse on U.S.-Israel defense ties. Much of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship is classified, particularly in the area of intelligence sharing. There are two direct consequences from this situation. First, most aspects of U.S.-Israel defense ties are decided on the basis of the professional security considerations of those involved. Lobbying efforts in Congress cannot force a U.S. security agency to work with Israel.



Second, because many elements of the relationship are kept secret, it is difficult for academics, commentators, and pundits to provide a thorough net assessment of the true value of U.S.-Israel ties. Thus, Israel is left working shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S., and finds itself presented by outside commentators as a worthless ally whose status is only sustained by a domestic lobby. Nonetheless, what has come out about the U.S.-Israel security relationship certainly makes the recent analysis of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer extremely suspect.





Ask About the Saudi Lobby and U.S. Dependence on Middle East Oil

Does Israel have supporters in the U.S. that back a strong relationship between the two countries? Clearly, networks of such support exist, as they do for U.S. ties with Britain, Greece, Turkey, and India. There are also states like Saudi Arabia that have tried to tilt U.S. policy using a vast array of powerful PR firms, former diplomats, and well-connected officials. The results of those efforts have America still overly dependent on Middle Eastern oil with few energy alternatives. Given the ultimate destination of those petrodollars in recent years (the global propagation of Islamic extremism and terrorism), a serious investigation of those lobbying efforts appears to be far more appropriate than focusing on relations between the U.S. and Israel.



* * *



Notes



1. “Memorandum of Conversation, Palm Beach, FL, December 27, 1962, 10:00 a.m.,” in Nina J. Noring (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume XVIII: Near East 1962-1963 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1995), pp. 276-283.

2. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby,” London Review of Books, Vol. 28, No. 5, March 23, 2006, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html.

3. “Military Requirements for the Defense of the Middle East” (A Briefing by the Chairman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Deputy Secretary of Defense), JCS 1887/61, November 26, 1952, in Paul Kesaris (ed.), Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Part 2, 1946-53, the Middle East.

4. “U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding, October 30, 1981, Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the United States and the Government of Israel on Strategic Cooperation,” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/US-Israel+Memorandum+of+Understanding.htm.

5. Dore Gold, “Wartime Witch Hunt: Blaming Israel for the Iraq War,” Jerusalem Viewpoints #518, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, June 1, 2004.



* * *



Dr. Dore Gold, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in 1997-1999, heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.






This Jerusalem Issue Brief is available online at:

http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief005-20.htm

Dore Gold, Publisher; Yaakov Amidror, ICA Program Director; Mark Ami-El, Managing Editor. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Registered Amuta), 13 Tel-Hai St., Jerusalem, Israel; Tel. 972-2-5619281, Fax. 972-2-5619112, Email: jcpa@netvision.net.il. In U.S.A.: Center for Jewish Community Studies, 5800 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215; Tel. 410-664-5222; Fax 410-664-1228. Website: www.jcpa.org. © Copyright. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.



The Institute for Contemporary Affairs (ICA) is dedicated

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Is "the occupation" the problem (between Israel & the Palestinians)?

The 'occupation' is the problem
Arthur Cohn, THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 22, 2006

The Palestinian film Paradise Now, which sympathetically depicts the lives of two Palestinian terrorists, won the Golden Globe and was nominated by the Academy of Motion Pictures in Hollywood for the best foreign film Oscar. How is it possible, I ask myself, that such a film is acclaimed by people of culture? The main reason is that terrorists active against Israel are regarded by many as freedom fighters whose motives should be understood. One word has transformed Palestinian terrorists into sympathetic figures in certain quarters and has tainted all political discussion surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: That word is "occupation."

All land not part of Israel until 1967 is deemed "occupied territory." And in dealing with supposedly stolen land all means are justified. By these criteria there can be no negotiations about Gush Etzion or other settlement blocs, no discussion about a united Jerusalem. These areas are illegally occupied and have to be given back. The term "occupation" also reminds people of the German occupation of Europe during WWII. This allusion to Nazism makes Israel's transgression even worse. It is only a small step from the "occupation" to a full-scale comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany. In this context, who can deny the Palestinians the right to fight the "occupation"? Calling the West Bank "occupied" is irresponsible and unjustified. Let's remember that Israel didn't initiate the war in order to conquer land. Israel was attacked in 1967. Israel didn't take any land from a sovereign state. The West Bank and Gaza were illegally in the hands of Jordan and Egypt respectively. The disputed areas were promised for Jewish settlements by the League of Nations in 1922, and all the resolutions of this body were transferred to the UN under Article 80 of the UN charter.

THERE IS no parallel case in history that treats territories captured in a defensive war as occupied. Moreover, for most Arabs all the land of the state of Israel is stolen ("the occupation started in 1948") and those who speak now about "occupation" of the areas beyond the Green Line play into the hands of the Palestinians and their anti-Israel propaganda. The soft treatment by many in the international community we are now seeing of the soon-to-be Hamas-led PA - which declares that all Israel has to be "liberated" by terrorism from "occupation" - is the proof for that. All use of the misleading term "occupied territories" encourages the double standard whereby many nations treat the various terror groups such al-Qaida one way and the Palestinian terror groups another way.

IF THERE will come a time for a peace agreement between Israel and a reliable Palestinian partner, many concessions will have to be made. But to declare in advance that all these areas don't belong to Israel, that they are part of an illegal occupation, makes no sense. Does the Old City of Jerusalem, which was attacked in 1948, not belong to Israel? Are areas like Gush Etzion not part of the Zionist enterprise? Have the survivors of the Jews brutally killed in the Hebron pogroms no right to return to their historical Jewish center? Those who declare that great parts of Israel are occupied territories also indirectly support the Arabs' claim that the Jews really don't have any true roots in the Holy Land at all. One sixth-grade Palestinian school book put it this way: "The argument that the Jews have historical rights in Palestine is the greatest lie in human history."

The ugly efforts of the Arab propaganda to rewrite Jewish history, by saying for instance that the Temple never existed, are indirectly supported by those who speak flippantly about "occupied territories." By declaring that the West Bank is "occupied" we are also supporting the peculiar idea that they must become judenrein - free of Jews. If more than one million Palestinian Arabs live in Israel, why is it unthinkable that Jews would live under the Palestinian Authority? AS FOR the ownership of the land, almost all Jews who settled beyond the Green Line built their homes on public land and not on privately owned Arab property.

If Israel's demand for security lacks a basis in law, justice and morality, if Israel does not stress its rights in the Land of Israel, if it basically justifies the Arab position that large parts of Israel belong only to them and are forcibly stolen, the Jewish state and its supporters cannot wonder when we see so many students on American university campuses embracing the Palestinian propaganda narrative. We cannot be surprised that so many writers and media people speak out against Israeli policies; we cannot wonder when major churches tell their congregants they are divesting from Israel; and we cannot wonder when a prestigious award is given to a film that shows understanding, even a certain admiration, for anti-Israel terrorists.

The writer is the Academy Award-winning producer of numerous films, including The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and One Day in September.This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395658765&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The issue of individuals' ethnicity in day-to-day Australian life.

I have a long-held concern at the propensity by the Jewish community's only newspaper, the Australian Jewish News to highlight Jewish Australians' achievements, or their aspirations to achieve,- whether their ethnicity has anything to do with their work or not.

If the non-Jewish media would do that we would be screaming blue murder! Being proud of our co-religionists' achievements is one thing, but too often there is a rush to highlight their Jewishness in the AJN even before they reach their goals. We don't like the general press and media to refer to them as "the Jewish Professor, or "the Jewish doctor", or "the Jewish candidate" for this or that Party's preselection or election. So why label them in our Press?

I wonder if ethnic professionals or candidates for politics really like to be identified as "ethnics" in Australia,- or just as Australians?

We are very proud of our sole Jewish Parliamentarian Michael Danby MP, who is recognised for his unwavering support for Israel and our Jewish Community in Parliament and in the Press. He is someone deserving of public praise in the AJN. But when others try to gain pre-selection in seats where there is no "Jewish vote", what possible good is done for these individuals to be so openly identified as Jewish! If anti-Semites want to make capital out of it by calling them names, they could be labelled racists. But if our community lays claims to them, could not that become a negative for some people when religion and ethnicity should not be an issue at all?

Anyone standing for election or for pre-selection to a political Party, is not representing the Jewish community,- he/she is representing themselves. But by being written up in the Australian Jewish News the person could be seen as an endorsed representative of our ethnic community, which may not be the case at all!

But we don't only have high-achievers.There are some Jewish people of whom we are less than proud and even if their less salubrious activities hit the general press, they don't make it into our Jewish newspaper for obvious reasons. We don't like to idenify them as belonging to our community in Australia.

There are also some Jews involved in politics, the academia, the media and probably in other public affairs, who are quite antagonistic to the organised Jewish community and its representative leadership. These too are individuals representing themselves who happen to also be Jewish,- should we give them prominence through exposure in our Jewish News? The Letters-to-the-ed. pages are sufficient for that in my opinion, so that at least one can debate and rebutt them as appropriate for the information of everyone.

I feel that the AJN could concentrate its communal news-gathering more on the issues of the day,- issues of special concern to our community here and abroad, rather than honing in on the ethnicity of those who are trying to do their best at work in the general community, just like all Australians do. Once they have achieved prominence, as proud Jews they may also like to be identified as belonging to our tiny Jewish community within the wider multicultural society of Australia.

But until they have achieved their objectives, I don't see the point of stressing anyone's ethnicity, whether Jewish or belonging to some other religion, race or people.

MM.

World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in Seville, Spain.

The Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace, sponsored by Hommes de Parole, a peace foundation based in Paris, will be held in the Spanish city of Seville on March 19-22 under the auspices of King Juan Carlos and King Mohamed VI. The meeting brings together more than 150 Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders from Europe, Africa, America and Asia. (Guysen.Israël.News)
Israel's Chied Rabbi Yona Metzger, Israeli Ambassador Gadi Golan, and the spokesman for the Council of Palestinian Ulemas and Imams are to take part in the congress which will focus on education of peace and on the drafting of a plan of action. The first Congress was held in Brussels.

Irshid Manji: "HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE THE WALL"

How I Learned to Love the Wall
By Irshid MANJI
New York Times
March 18, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/opinion/18manji.html
New Haven
ON March 28, Israelis will elect a new prime minister to replace the ailing Ariel Sharon. But I'd bet my last shekel that I'll continue to hear the phrase "Ariel Sharon's apartheid wall." It's a phrase spoken — make that spewed — on almost every university campus I visit in North America and Europe.
Among a new generation of Muslims, this is what Mr. Sharon will be known for long after he leaves office: unilaterally erecting a barrier, most of it a fence, some of it a wall, that cuts Arab villages in half, chokes the movement of ordinary Palestinians, cripples local economies and, ultimately, separates human beings.
The critics have a point — up to a point.
They're right that Palestinians are virtually wailing at "the wall." When I went to see its towering cement slabs in the West Bank town of Abu Dis last year, an Arab man approached me to unload his sadness. "It's no good," he said. "It's hard."
"Why do you think they built it?" I asked.
The man shook his head and repeated, "It's hard." After some silence, he added, "We are not two people. We are one."
"How do you explain that to suicide bombers?" I wondered aloud.
The man smiled. "No understand," he replied. "No English. Thank you. Goodbye."
Was it something I said? Maybe my impolite mention of Palestinian martyrs? Then again, how could I not mention them?
After all, this barrier, although built by Mr. Sharon, was birthed by "shaheeds," suicide bombers whom Palestinian leaders have glorified as martyrs. Qassam missiles can kill two or three people at a time. Suicide bombers lay waste to many more. Since the barrier went up, suicide attacks have plunged, which means innocent Arab lives have been spared along with Jewish ones. Does a concrete effort to save civilian lives justify the hardship posed by this structure? The humanitarian in me bristles, but ultimately answers yes.
That's not to deny or even diminish Arab pain. I had to twist myself like an amateur gymnast when I helped a Palestinian woman carry her grocery bags through a gap in the wall (such gaps, closely watched by Israeli soldiers, do exist). It made me wonder how much more difficult the obstacle course must be for people twice my age, who must travel to one of the wider official checkpoints nearby.
I appreciate that Israel's intent is not to keep Palestinians "in" so much as to keep suicide bombers "out." But in the minds of many Palestinians, Ariel Sharon never adequately acknowledged the humiliation felt by a 60-year-old Arab whose family has harvested the Holy Land for generations when she has to show her identity card to an 18-year-old Ethiopian immigrant in an Israeli Army uniform who's been in the country for eight months. In that context, fences and walls come off as cruelly gratuitous.
For all the closings, however, Israel is open enough to tolerate lawsuits by civil society groups who despise every mile of the barrier. Mr. Sharon himself agreed to reroute sections of it when the Israel High Court ruled in favor of the complainants. Where else in the Middle East can Arabs and Jews work together so visibly to contest, and change, state policies?
I reflected on this question as I observed an Israeli Army jeep patrol the gap in Abu Dis. The vehicle was crammed with soldiers who, in turn, observed me filming the anti-Israel graffiti scrawled by Western activists — "Scotland hates the blood-sucking Zionists!" I turned my video camera on the soldiers. Nobody ordered me to shut it off or show the tape. My Arab taxi driver stood by, unprotected by a diplomatic license plate or press banner.
Like all Muslims, I look forward to the day when neither the jeep nor the wall is in Abu Dis. So will we tell the self-appointed martyrs of Islam that the people — not just Arabs, but Arabs and Jews — "are one"? That before the barrier, there was the bomber? And that the barrier can be dismantled, but the bomber's victims are gone forever?
Young Muslims, especially those privileged with a good education, cannot walk away from these questions as my interlocutor in Abu Dis did. If we follow in his footsteps, we are only conspiring against ourselves. After all, once the election is over, we won't have Ariel Sharon to kick around anymore. ______ Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale, is the author of "The Trouble With Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith."

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About Me
Name:Miriam M.OR MM
Location:Australia
I am a child-survivor of the Shoa.Passionate to dispel myths and propaganda about my people.
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Living on the Edge in Israel.
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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: Feminism:failure or success?
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2006-03-05
2006-03-12
2006-03-19

Living on the Edge in Israel.

(Living in Israel may be similar to living in a"pressure cooker", but it is amazing the vitality, the resilience and the enjoyment of life exhibited by most of its citizens. It is this zest for living which her Arab neighbours cannot bear! They prefer to continue living (and dying and killing) in misery as long as they can inflict their own miserable view of the world on those whom they so obviously envy to extremes! MM)

LIVING ON THE EDGE (in Israel)
Rabbi Dow Marmur

It doesn’t take much to destabilize us here. A mentally sick Jew, his Christian wife and their daughter set off firecrackers during a service in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth last night. The damage was minimal but in the mayhem thirteen worshippers and thirteen police officers were hurt, mercifully only lightly.
Politicians were quick to exploit the incident for their own purposes. Some pointed fingers at Jewish extremists. Arab members of the Knesset used the event to declare that the father should have been kept under lock and key, as he’s known to the police and in the past has threatened to blow up other churches. Arab politicians are always quick to say that the Israeli authorities are soft on Jews and hard on Arabs.
The Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, with his own anti-Israel agenda, stated that it was the xenophobic mood in the country that fostered this kind of behavior. The Prime Minister-designate of the Hamas led Palestinian Authority said that the incident is a reflection of the culture of hatred toward all Arabs that Israel fosters.
Catholics held a demonstration in Nazareth this afternoon to blame the Government of Israel for the incident. The Government, sensitive to such accusations, hastened to reassure the Vatican, immediately after the incident and before the demonstration, that all holy places are properly protected in Israel.
The deranged man told journalists that he didn’t want to harm anybody, only to draw attention to his plight of being poor and having his children taken into care because of their parents’ allegedly irresponsible behavior in the past. Enemies of Israel were disappointed that he wasn’t part of some cabal, still tried to suggest otherwise.
Imagine, God beware, if the three had managed to get up to the Temple Mount and detonated firecrackers there. We might have been on the threshold of a world war today. If stupid cartoons in an obscure provincial newspaper in Denmark can cause such upheaval in the world, what reaction could we have expected from an attack on one of Islam’s holy places? We still remember the deranged Australian who many years ago tried something similar in the Al Aqsa Mosque.
Living in Israel, indeed in the entire region, is living on the edge. It’s reflected in events such as this one as well as, for example, in the many traffic accidents and related clashes. Human fuses are very short, often manifest in open aggression, not only towards others but sometimes also towards oneself.
On one level, when you walk the streets of say Jerusalem or Tel Aviv – or Nazareth for that matter – life in Israel seems remarkably normal. The traffic is heavy but reasonably orderly, the shops are busy, the cafes and restaurants full of women and men having a good time, and others go about their business in matter-of-fact ways. But you only have to scratch the surface to encounter the raw vulnerability and the cynical attempts by politicians and others to exploit it.
If you manage to stay outside the fray, as we’re privileged to do, the lightly suppressed aggressiveness adds to the vitality and excitement of the country. But when you have to live and work here, the stress level is considerable. Psychotherapists of all kinds are busy, but many patients don’t seem to be helped enough. The man, his wife and their daughter in Nazareth sadly illustrate yet another failure.
Jerusalem, Motzaei Shabbat Trumah (4.3.06) Dow Marmur

The Commonwealth Games spirit in Oz!

The story below reflects a really positive advocacy story occurring in our own community between the children of Bialik College and The Gambia, a predominantly Muslim African country. This article was sent to media around the world by AAP.

By John Coomber, Senior Sports Writer MELBOURNE, March 13 AAP -

The president of The Gambia's Olympic and Commonwealth Games committees had never before heard a question quite like this one.
A small boy of about seven got to his feet during assembly at Melbourne's Bialik College and in a clear voice asked Alhaji Dandeh-Njie: "Are you a new Gambian?"

Taken aback, Alhaji Dandeh-Njie - a former dual international in soccer and cricket and a distinguished international figure - assured his inquisitor that he was indeed a "thoroughbred Gambian" and asked why such a question had been addressed to him.
"Because in some places in Australia it is very hot and people are black. But not everyone," said the boy, who was trying to explain the concept of "new Australians".

If you wanted an example of the Commonwealth Games fulfilling its stated charter of fostering international friendship and understanding, this one took some beating.
The Gambia, a tiny and not very prosperous Muslim nation in West Africa, has formed a remarkable bond with this Jewish private school in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.
Which is how the entire Gambian team and its officials, including the minister for Youth, Sports and Religious Affairs, Alhaji Samba Faal, came to be at the school assembly at Bialik College today.

They stood beneath the flags of Israel, The Gambia, Australia and the Commonwealth Games while the children sang Advance Australia Fair and the Hatikvah, the Israeli anthem.
In return, the Gambians played and danced to their own music, with light welterweight boxer Momodou Jammeh proving himself a star turn on the hand-drum.
The unlikely relationship is the brainchild of the Gambian team's chef de mission George Gomez, and Dr Ashley Kausman, a Melbourne businessman whose children are students at Bialik College.
Dr Kausman arranged for a gift of web cameras and headsets to be sent to schools in The Gambia so the children could see and speak to one another across the oceans.
The scheme created such excitement in The Gambia that it took a nationally televised ballot to decide which school should become twinned with Bialik.
Dr Kausman, who is attached to The Gambia for the Melbourne Games, was worried about the obvious difference in religions.
"I remember asking George Gomez whether it would be OK to be twinned with a Jewish school," Dr Kausman said. "He told me he was very sorry, but there are no Jewish schools in The Gambia (where 90 per cent of the population are Sunni Muslim)."

Once the confusion was sorted out, the relationship blossomed and reached full flower today. It was impossible not to be touched by the sight of large black African Muslim men saying "shalom" to small Jewish Australian kids, and sharing the simple joy of the occasion.
It might also have been instructive for headline hoggers like Jana Pittman, Tamsyn Lewis and Ron Walker to have been part of it.
They might have gained an insight into what the Commonwealth Games are really about. AAP jc/mg

So what's new in the 21st Century Islamic world of innovation?

Compare the following:

This week at ISRAEL21c Issue # 245 Week of March 13, 2006

Welcome to this week's edition of the ISRAEL21c newsletter - we hope our feature articles on Israeli advancements in health, technology and democracy will create a greater awareness about the vibrant Israel which exists beyond headlines of conflict.

* Israeli researchers close in on vaccine for autoimmune diseases.

Multiple sclerosis patients in Israel are being vaccinated with the very cells that trigger autoimmune diseases in revolutionary clinical trials launched to slow the deterioration brought on by the disease. "I'm kind of the hub of an international community investigating how we can use T-cell vaccination in a number of diseases," says Prof. Irun Cohen of the Weizmann Institute, who first initiated research in the field back in 1981. Initial findings and subsequent successful trials using animal models hold out hope for the entire range of autoimmune diseases from MS to arthritis, thyroid disease, lupus and diabetes.

* Jerusalem investor goes Hollywood, with animation.

One doesn't usually associate Israel with the glitter and glamour of show business. But the multi-million dollar Jerusalem Animation Lab might just change all that. The brainchild of Erel Margalit, managing partner of Jerusalem Venture Partners, the new Lab will combine advanced animation technology and Israel's reputation for ingenuity and creative thinking. With former Hollywood executive Max Howard on board to run the studio, don't be surprised to see the next animated blockbuster appearing with a 'Made in Jerusalem' seal.

* Israel's 'superwoman' takes flight to help others.

Gal Lusky, a former flight attendant, and the founder of the Israeli Flying Aid (IFA) renegade relief organization for disaster victims around the world, has truly earned her wings. Since founding the organization a year ago, Lusky and her team of volunteers have provided assistance to victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2005, and more recently to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The group aims to help those who need it most: people in far-flung locations around the globe that were either intentionally or unintentionally overlooked by most government or international aid organizations.

*Natural Israeli cosmetics bloom in the US.

Shiri Havkin believes in the unadorned beauty created by skin care products using only natural herbs. Produced by her Israeli company - Havkin Herbal Cosmetics - her line of products has taken Europe by a storm and are now finding new customers in the United States. The roots of her flourishing business lie in her late mother's herb garden - located the backyard of a 100-year-old stone house in the northern town of Rosh Pina - a piece of real estate so desirable that pop superstar Madonna has reportedly made an offer to purchase it. But Havkin is more intent on growing more herbs for her products.

*Johnson & Johnson looks to the future with Israeli science.

Hebrew University has a new and important partner - US healthcare giant Johnson and Johnson has cast a vote of confidence in the Israeli university's cutting edge scientific research, by placing a financial stake in its work. According to a J&J executive, "these guys are pushing the science and if we put them next to our guys who are pulling the science... the result will be synergistic. We are going to have a lot of fun."

In the Middle East, a kiss is not just a kissIf our little ones would someday enjoy peace, then all the sacrifices had not been in vain.Sharon Stone visited Israel this week and learned about a project at Sheba Medical Center to provide deaf Palestinian babies with cochlear implants.

Learn other interesting facts about Israel
Do you have a fact about Israel you'd like to share with our readers?
E-mail it to info@israel21c.org.
=========================================================================ZNN - There are no FAQS about anything good coming out of the rest of the ME!
Only bombs, more bombs, rockets, killings, threats of nuclear holocaust,- etc. etc. etc.
Only hopeful signs are those from the women who are prepared to speak out against "barbarity vs. civilization"! Hopefully they won't be silenced by the barbarians.
MM

Moslems speaking out about Moslems: time to support them!

Brave Moslems are starting to speak up. The shortcomings of their correligionists are
starting to be talked about openly by individual prominent Moslems in the world.
We are not doing the local Islamic community in Australia any favours by avoiding the issues which are uppermost
on our minds re what is happening overseas. Howard, Costello and other politicians are also putting the cards on the table.
Protecting their fellow Islamists who are the moderates should be paramount on the agenda of the Australian community. Mahathir's daughter is speaking up (see below) and Dr. Sultan who was interviewed on Al Jazeera (also on JewsRead). Their lives are threatened and unless everone really supports the right to free-speech here and stops avoiding the various issues
which confront Islam today, nothing will change for
a) their women in the Islamic world; b) the poor people who are citizens of Islamic countries or fighting the Islamists;
c)for us all confronting Islamic terrorists & terrorism.

See http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000016.html
: "Who are the moderate Muslims, and why do they not speak up?" They are out there, and they are speaking up now. Too often we have read, in the writings of Zionist advocates, that Islam and democracy are incompatible, and that "Muslims" are uniformly intolerant. Perhaps it is true of many Muslims. Surely it is not true of all. The "Muslim world" today, after all, comprises over a billion and a quarter people. That is about as many people as there were in the entire world 150 years ago, and they are spread all over the globe, living in a variety of societies.
Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose. ... "I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings," she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb.(Al Jazeera on MEMRI)
Dr. Sultan, who is 47, wears a prim sweater and skirt, with fleece-lined slippers and heavy stockings. Her eyes and hair are jet black and her modest manner belies her intense words: "Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."
ETC>
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-----------------------
IMO
Protecting the indefensible just propagates more victimhood in the world. Let's avoid it in Australia. I have seen the avoidance of speaking-up about our concerns when we mix with Moslems in our community groups, which only makes them feel that we have something to be ashamed of rather than vice-versa! When we at tried to protest about the stoning to death of a poor-woman in Saudi Arabia through the Women's Movement, the Islamic women went on the defensive and put it as coming from an "anti-Islamic" website and "the Jews"! It's OK for them to be "anti-Zionists" but not for us to protest about the Islamists?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marina Mahathir <>
Date: Mar 7, 2006 4:16 PM
Subject: My column tomorrow censored!
To: Marina <>

Dear all,
For the first time in some 17 years, The Star is refusing to publish
my column tomorrow which is International Women's Day.
they said that the powers-that-be there think it's too tough on the government and
it's not the right platform etc etc...
So am sending it to you. You can pass it on wherever you like.
cheers,
marina
Subject: FW: FW: Fw: Marina Mahathir's column censored!
Date sent: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 18:03:52 +1000
To:

Marina Mahathir for The Star (Not published)
In 1948, one of humankind’s most despicable ideas, apartheid, was made into law in South Africa where racial discrimination was institutionalized. Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of “white-only” jobs. Although there were 19 million blacks and only 4.5 million whites in South Africa, the majority population were forced to be second-class citizens in their homeland, banished to reserves and needing passports to travel outside them, even within their own country. It was only in 1990 that apartheid began to crumble and South Africans of all colours were finally free to live as equals in every way.
With the end of that racist system, people may be forgiven for thinking that apartheid does not exist anymore. While few countries practice any formal systems of discrimination, nevertheless you can find many forms of discrimination everywhere. In many cases, it is women who are discriminated against. In our country, there is an insidious growing form of apartheid among Malaysian women, that between Muslim and non-Muslim women.
We are unique in that we actively legally discriminate against women who are arguably the majority in this country, Muslim women. Non-Muslim Malaysian women have benefited from more progressive laws over the years while the opposite has happened for Muslim women.
For instance, since the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976, polygamy among non-Muslims was banned. Previously men could have as many wives as they wanted under customary laws. Men’s ability to unilaterally pronounce divorce on their wives was abolished and in its place, divorce happens by mutual consent or upon petition by either spouse in an equal process where the grounds are intolerable adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion of not less than two years, and living separately for not less than two years. Compare that to the lot of Muslim women abandoned but not divorced by their husbands.
Other progressive reforms in the civil family law in the late 1990s were amendments to the Guardianship Act and the Distribution Act. The Guardianship of Infants Act 1961 was amended to provide for equal guardianship for both father and mother, rather than the previous provision where only the father was the primary guardian of the children. In contrast, the Islamic Family Law still provides for the father as the sole primary guardian of his children although the mother is now allowed to sign certain forms for her children under an administrative directive.
The Distribution Act 1958 was also amended to provide for equal inheritance for widows and widowers, and also granted children the right to inherit from their mothers as well as from their fathers. Under the newly proposed amendments to the Islamic Family Law, the use of gender neutral language on the issue of matrimonial property is discriminatory on Muslim women when other provisions in the IFL are not gender-neutral. Muslim men may still contract polygamous marriages, may unilaterally divorce their wives for the most trivial of reasons (including by SMS, unique in the Muslim world) and are entitled to double shares of inheritance.
These differences between the lot of Muslim women and non-Muslim women beg the question: do we have two categories of citizenship in Malaysia, whereby most female citizens have less rights than others? As non-Muslim women catch up with women in the rest of the world, Muslim women here are only going backwards. We should also note that only in Malaysia are Muslim women regressing; in every other Muslim country in the world, women have been gaining rights, not losing them.
In this country, our leaders claim to stand for all citizens. Our Prime Minister is the Prime Minister of all Malaysians, our Ministers work for all Malaysians in their respective fields. There are two exceptions to this. The Minister for Islamic Affairs is obviously only for Muslims; even though some of the things he does affect others. While the Minister for Women purports to work for all Malaysian women, even though not all Malaysian women benefit from that work. Perhaps we should consolidate the apartheid of women in this country by having a Ministry for Non-Muslim Women which works to ensure that Non-Muslim women enjoy the benefits of the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a UN document which Malaysia signed and is legally bound to implement, and a Ministry for Muslim Women which works to gag and bind Muslim women more and more each day for the sake of political expediency under the guise of religion.
Today is International Women’s Day. Unfortunately only about 40% of the women in this country can celebrate. The rest can only look at their Non-Muslim sisters in despair and envy.
--ends—

Iranian rockets fired by Palestinians hitting Israelis?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.aspARTICLE_ID=49195

Friday, March 10, 2006
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Iranian rockets hitting Israelis?
Terror group's new 'Shahab' missiles dedicated to President Ahmadinejad
Posted: March 10, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com-->© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
JERUSALEM – The Palestinians have a new, improved rocket to fire at Israel named after the Iranian Shahab missile and dedicated to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "because of his courageous position toward the enemy," a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group told WorldNetDaily.
"I can say it is true that the inspiration concerning the name [of our new Shahab rocket] was taken from the Iranian rocket that is so terrifying to the enemy. On this occasion I can say that we have the honor to dedicate these new and more sophisticated rockets to the Iranian president because of his courageous position toward the enemy," said Abu Ahmed, a Gaza-based leader of the Brigades involved in coordinating the group's rocket network.
Ahmed told WND several "Palestinian Shahab rockets" have already been fired into Israel, including rockets fired this week toward Nahal Oz, an Israeli Negev community near Gaza.
He warned in the coming days the Al Aqsa Brigades will fire 200 of the new rockets at Jewish communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Israeli anti-terror operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Officials at the Israeli Defense Forces, informed of Ahmed's claims, told WND they were investigating whether any rockets fired from Gaza this week were different from the usual Qassam missiles aimed at Israeli Negev Jewish communities that border Gaza.
One senior IDF official suggested the group likely only changed the name of its already existing Qassam rockets.
Qassams are improvised steel rockets, about four feet in length, filled with explosives and fuel. They can travel between 1 and 4 miles depending on the sophistication of the particular rocket. Qassams lack a guidance system and are launched by terrorists who reportedly use the rocket's trajectory and known travel distance to aim at a particular Jewish community.
Ahmed declined to describe the makeup of his group's claimed new rockets.
"I can only tell you they are more improved in distance and in the rocket fuel, and we call them Shahab-1, Shahab-2 and Shahab-3. They will hit the enemy target much harder," said Ahmed.
Iranian Shahabs are a series of missiles constructed in part with Russian and Chinese technology. The Shahab-6 reportedly has a range of up to 5,600 kilometers and is capable of reaching Europe from Iran. Iranian officials have claimed to possess Shahab missiles that can reach the eastern seaboard of the Unites States.
Asked if the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades received any Iranian assistance in building its Shahab rockets, Ahmed replied, "We will not give the Israelis any hint about our activities. Let them work hard and investigate about the significance of the name Shahab. I will just say we welcome any help from any anti-Zionist element."
He said his group will launch what he called an "Ababil rocket campaign" and will soon fire 200 Shahab rockets into Israel. In the Quran, Ababil is the name of a stone Allah lobbed at infidels who approached to kill Muhammad.
Ahmed also told WND that Al Aqsa established a new rocket terror cell, the Hussein Abayat Unit, named after a member of his group previously assassinated by Israel.
Israeli security officials believe Abayat was the first Al Aqsa member to serve as a coordinating agent between the Al Aqsa Brigades and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.
Israel says Iran uses the Hezbollah as a conduit to channel funds to Palestinian terror groups, including Islamic Jihad, which took responsibility for every suicide bombing since several Palestinian groups agreed to a truce with Israel last year.
'Iran embassy' opens in West Bank
Israel is worried at what it says are increased signs of Iranian influence in the Palestinian territories.
This week, WND broke the story a West Bank Islamic Jihad operative opened what he referred to as an "Iranian ideological embassy" in the Palestinian territories to espouse Shia Muslim beliefs – including Islam's waging of a final, apocalyptic battle against "evil" – and to help spread Iranian theocracy and rule throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"We want the Palestinian people to be exposed to the Iranian heritage and Shia principles. [Our goal is] to reinforce the relations between the Islamic republic of Iran and the Palestinian people. We are part of the Iranian Islamic project in the Middle East," Muhamad Gawanmeh, director of Iran's new Shia Council in Palestine, said in an interview.
Gawanmeh opened the council's headquarters in Ramallah, and said there are plans to expand Iranian offices to several other major Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza with official sanctioning from Tehran.
Gawanmeh said Iran's Shia Council will not be involved in "military operations," but will promote Iranian theocracy to the local population and serve as a conduit for Tehran's interests in the area.
He said the council seeks to espouse Shia Muslim ideology in the Sunni-dominated Palestinian territories, including the belief in the return of the Twelfth Imam to lead an apocalyptic world battle against "evil."
Shia Muslims believe Muhammad's family – the 12 Imams – were the best sources of knowledge about the Quran and Islam and were the most trusted carriers and protectors of Islamic tradition. They believe in a dynasty of Islamic authorities and promote a hereditary class of spiritual leaders they believe have divine powers.
Sunni Islam in part follows the teachings of Islamic caliphs who proclaimed leadership after Muhammad's passing but were not blood relatives of the prophet. The caliphs interpreted important parts of Muhammad's hadith – or tradition – that Shias reject.
Sunni Muslims make up about 85 percent of Muslims all over the world. The largest sect of the Shias, called The Twelvers, believe there were 12 imams after Muhammad and that the last one, Imam Mahdi, still lives, but he cannot be seen until Allah determines it is time to prepare the faithful for Judgment Day.
The Twelvers count Iranian President Ahmadinejad among their faithful. They believe Imam Mahdi will return to lead the forces of righteousness against the forces of evil in a final, apocalyptic world battle.
Some Mideast analysts fear Ahmadinejad may be pursuing nuclear weapons in part to precipitate the final, Mahdi-led battle. In a speech in Tehran in November, Ahmadinejad reportedly said his main mission is to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance." His Cabinet has reportedly given $17 million to the Jamkaran mosque, site of a well at which Shia Muslims believe Mahdi disappeared over a thousand years ago.
Israel and the United States have been working with the international community to isolate Iran, accusing it of attempting to develop an illicit nuclear weapons program.
The council's Gawanmeh went on to credit Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's recent visit to Tehran with strengthening official Palestinian ties to the Iranian leadership and emboldening Iran to sanction the opening of its new Palestinian office.
Iran last week pledged financial support to Hamas to replace an expected halt of European and U.S. aid to the new Palestinian government.
Media reports said Iran would give as much as $250 million to the PA, but Hamas officials said no actual amount had been discussed.
Hamas chief Meshaal, in Tehran two weeks ago for a round of talks with Iranian officials, said Iran would have a more significant role with the PA now that his group has formed the new Palestinian government.
Related offers:
Definitive work on Mideast – available only here!
"Judgment Day! Islam, Israel and the Nations"
Previous stories:
Iranian ops infiltrated Jewish state?
PA investigates Iran 'embassy' after WND story
Iran opens 1st 'embassy' in Palestinian territories
Aaron Klein is WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, whose past interview subjects have included Yasser Arafat, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud al-Zahar and leaders of the Taliban.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: Feminism:failure or success?

The Failure of Feminism
By PHYLLIS CHESLER

Is feminism really dead? Well, yes and no. It gives me no pleasure, but someone must finally tell the truth about how feminists have failed their own ideals and their mandate to think both clearly and morally. Only an insider can really do this, someone who cares deeply about feminist values and goals. I have been on the front lines for nearly 40 years, and I feel called upon to explain how many feminists - who should be the first among
freedom- and democracy-loving people - have instead become cowardly herd animals and grim totalitarian thinkers. This must be said, and my goal in saying it is a hopeful one. We live at a time when women can and must make a difference in the world.

From the start, feminism has been unfairly, even viciously, attacked. I do not want to do that without cause here. The truth is that in less than 40 years, a visionary feminism has managed to challenge, if not transform, world consciousness.

For example, you can find feminists on every continent who have mounted brave and determined battles against rape, incest, domestic violence, economic and professional inequality, and local "cultural" practices such as Arab honor killings, dowry burnings, female genital mutilation, as well as against the global trafficking in women and children. I don't want to minimize or simplify what feminism has accomplished.

In some ways, feminism has also been inclusive. Feminists are Republicans and Democrats, right-wing conservatives and left-wing radicals; feminists are both religious and anti-religious, anti-abortion and pro-abortion, anti-pornography and pro-pornography, anti-gay-marriage and pro-gay-marriage. Feminists come in all ages and colors; belong to every caste, gender, class, and religion; and live everywhere.

Nevertheless feminists are often perceived as marginal and irrelevant; and in some important ways the perception is accurate.
Today the cause of justice for women around the world is as urgent as it has ever been. The plight of both women and men in the Islamic world (and increasingly in Europe) requires a sober analysis of reality and a heroic response. World events have made feminism more important - yet at the same time, feminism has lost much of its power.

To my horror, most Western academic and mainstream feminists have not focused on what I call gender apartheid in the Islamic world, or on its steady penetration of Europe. Such feminists have also failed to adequately wrestle with the complex realities of freedom, tyranny, patriotism, and self-defense, and with the concept of a Just War.

Islamic terrorists have declared jihad against the "infidel West" and against all of us who yearn for freedom. Women in the Islamic world are treated as subhumans. Although some feminists have sounded the alarm about this, a much larger number have remained silent. Why is it that many have misguidedly romanticized terrorists as freedom fighters and condemned both America and Israel as the real terrorists or as the root cause of terrorism? In the name of multicultural correctness (all cultures are equal, formerly colonized cultures are more equal), the feminist academy and media appear to have all but abandoned vulnerable peopleMuslims, as well as Christians, Jews, and Hindusto the forces of reactionary Islamism.

Because feminist academics and journalists are now so heavily influenced by left ways of thinking, many now believe that speaking out against head scarves, face veils, the chador, arranged marriages, polygamy, forced pregnancies, or female genital mutilation is either "imperialist" or "crusade-ist." Postmodernist ways of thinking have also led feminists to believe that confronting narratives on the academic page is as important and world-shattering as confronting jihadists in the flesh and rescuing living beings from captivity.

Itis as a feminist - not as an anti-feminist - that I have felt the need to write a book to show that something has gone terribly wrong among our thinking classes. The multicultural feminist canon has not led to independent, tolerant, diverse, or objective ways of thinking. On the contrary. It has led to conformity, totalitarian thinking, and political passivity. Although feminists indulge in considerable nostalgia for the activist 60s and 70s, in some ways they are no different from the rest of the left-leaning academy, which also suffers from the disease of politically correct passivity.

Is women's studies to blame for all this? Well, yes and no. Had the academy been slightly more hospitable to original, radical, and activist feminist energies and had money been plentiful, there might have been no need to ghettoize the study of gender. But that was not the case. In addition, with some exceptions, the kind of feminist faculty members who could survive in academe were, like their male counterparts, far too dutiful.

Today feminists are seen as marginal also because of their obsessive focus on "personal" body rights and sexual issues. This is no crime, but it is simply not good enough. It may shock some to hear me say this, but we have other important things on our agenda.
Women can no longer afford to navel gaze - not if they want to play vital roles on the world-historical stage, not if they want to continue to struggle for woman's and humanity's global freedom. And women in America can no longer allow themselves to be rendered inactive, anti-activist, by outdated left and European views of colonial-era racism that are meant to trump and silence concerns about gender.

Of course, not all feminists are passive. Many have been helping the female victims of violence in a hands-on way. However, this work is not often taught in women's-studies programs, nor does such hands-on work take place on the campus. Many law schools have domestic-violence clinics; most graduate liberal-arts programs do not. Anti-feminist professors in medical and graduate school do not often teach the pioneering work of feminist mental-health professionals.
Some might say that I am being unnecessarily harsh on women who have, indeed, been sounding the alarm about the global rise in fundamentalist misogyny. Perhaps I am. But I think we can really make a difference. I want more of us to put our shoulder to freedom's wheel.
For example, I know that many feminists enjoyed talking about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban; and why not? This tragedy proved that Feminism 101 was right all along, that men really did oppress women. But few of the televised feminist talking heads wanted to systematically sponsor Afghan women as immigrants or as political refugees. I know because I suggested, privately, that the anti-Taliban American feminists do so. Needless to say, these feminists did not want to launch a military invasion of Afghanistan on behalf of women either. I know. I raised this idea many times. All I got were pitying looks.

Some personal disclosures are now in order.

First, I am a feminist and an American patriot. Yes, one can be both. I am also an internationalist. There is no contradiction here. Finally, I am a religious Jew and am sympathetic to both religious and secular worldviews. Being religious does not compromise my feminism. On the contrary, it gives me the strength and a necessarily humbled perspective to continue the struggle for justice.

Second, Afghanistan matters to me; it has touched my life. Once long ago, in 1961, I was held captive there and kept in purdah for five months; some women were exceptionally kind to me. I will never forget them. I was the young bride of a Western-educated Afghan. My American passport was taken away, and I was thrown into (fairly posh) purdah in Kabul. The unexpected curtailment of my freedom was as awful as it was unexpected. I nearly died there - but I finally escaped.

I believe that my Western feminism was forged in that most beautiful and tragic of countries. And yes, I also understand that America has not yet done all that is necessary to build up the country, that ethnic warlords and drug lords continue to tyrannize civilians, that women are still imprisoned in chadaris and in brutal arranged marriages, with limited access to medical care, education, and employment.
Most academics and activists do not actually do anything; they read, they write, they deliver papers. They may not be able to free slaves or prisoners the way an entering army might, but they can think clearly, and in complex and courageous ways, and they can enunciate a vision of freedom and dignity for women and men. It is crucial, even heroic, that they do so.
Both women and religious minorities in non-Western and Muslim countries, and in an increasingly Islamized Europe, are endangered as never before. In 2004 the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was butchered by a jihadist on the streets of Amsterdam for having made a film, Submission, which denounced the abuse of women under Koranic Islam. However, the eerie silence both from feminists and film makers about van Gogh's assassination is deafening and disheartening. The same Hollywood loudmouths so quick to condemn and shame President Bush for having invaded Afghanistan and Iraq have, as of this writing, remained silent about the chilling effect that such an assassination in broad daylight can have on academic and artistic freedom.
Perhaps some of the very academics and mainstream feminists whom I am criticizing - but also trying to influence - will devalue what I am saying. Perhaps they will say that I am no longer a feminist - that I have betrayed feminism, not they. It will not change the truth of what I am saying. My hope is that this will resonate with people of all ages; men and women who are quietly doing feminist work within their profession, and there are many; feminists of faith, and there are also many; both Republicans and Democrats; educators, both here and abroad; and especially with the so-called ordinary people whose lives and freedom are at stake.
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Phyllis Chesler is an emerita professor of psychology and women's studies at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island, and is currently a board member of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and a columnist for FrontPage Magazine. This essay is adapted from the book The Death of
Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom. Copyright © 2005 by the author and reprinted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan.
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http://chronicle.com
Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 52, Issue 25, Page B12

THE JEWS:quotable quotes.

WISDOM FROM THE AGES
WHAT SOME FAMOUS PEOPLE HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT JEWS.
THE FOLLOWING QUOTES ALL COME FROM NON-JEWS:
*****
The Jews
"Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world." Winston Churchill (1)
**
"The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions." Leo Tolstoy (2)
**
"It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we opened up without their aid." A. A. Leroy Beaulieu (3)
**
"The Jew gave us the Outside and the Inside - our outlook and our inner life. We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact -- new, adventure surprise, unique, individual, person, vocation, time, history, future, freedom, progress, spirit, faith hope, justice -- are the gifts of the Jews." Thomas Cahill (4)
**
"One of the gifts of the Jewish culture to Christianity is that it has taught Christians to think like Jews, and any modern man who has not learned man to think as though he were a Jew can hardly be said to have learned to think at all." William Rees-Mogg (5)
**
"It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people.... This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singular! long time... For whereas the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold... My encounter with this people amazes me..."
Blaise Pascal (6)
**
"The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for humanity, both divine and man-made. The Jews, therefore, stand at the center of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose." Paul Johnson (7)
**
"As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration as to the people who had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest." Matthew Arnold (8)
**
Indeed it is difficult for all other nations of the world to live in the presence of the Jews. It is irritating and most uncomfortable. The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable.
They have become moral strangers since the day their forefather Abraham introduced the world to high ethical standards and to the fear of Heaven. They brought the world the Ten Commandments which many nations prefer to defy.
They violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks. They angered the world with their return to their homeland after 2000 years of exile and after the murder of six million of their brothers and sisters. They aggravated mankind by building, in the wink of an eye, a democratic State which others were not able to create in even hundreds of years. They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men.
They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their "savior". Jews taught the world not to accept the world as it is but to transform it, yet only a few nations wanted to listen. Moreover, the Jews introduced the world to one God, yet only a minority wanted to draw the moral consequences. So the nations of the world realize that they would have been lost without the Jews.
And while their subconscious tries to remind them of how much of Western civilization is framed in terms of concepts first articulated by the Jews, they do anything to suppress it. They deny that Jews remind them of a higher purpose of life and the need to be honorable, and do anything to escape its consequences. It is simply too much to handle for them, too embarrassing to admit, and above all too difficult to live by. So the nations of the world decided once again to go out of its way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews.
The goal: to prove that Jews are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as some of themselves are. All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when six million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them. And they found a stick.
Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews into a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues. When Jews look at the bizarre play, taking place in The Hague, they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews uniqueness.
It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them. "The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed them have written out their own curse." Olive Schreiner (9)
**
"If there is any honour in all the world that I should like, it would be to be an honorary Jewish citizen." NTA.L. Rowse (10)
**
ABOUT JEWS
By Mark Twain
If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor; then faded to dream-stuff and passed away: the Greeks and the Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

The above was written by Mark Twain and first published in HARPER'S magazine, September 1887.
-

The radicals behind the Anglican Church

The radicals behind the Anglican Church

http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000011.html

It is disheartening to see the Church of England being manipulated in support of false emotional and ethical stands.What do we call a country that had a 100,000 strong and prosperous Jewish community at the turn of the 20th century, that participated in all facets of its life, fully integrated in the political, social, business, industry and arts life, and factored in its progress far more than their numbers suggest; only to be reduced to less than 20 (all over 70 years of age) at the turn of the 21st century?We call that Modern day Egypt. It is a well known "fact" that 800,000 Jews from Arab countries have seen their numbers dwindle to less than 20,000 in the same period. And what do we call that, if not "Ethnic cleansing" of the worst kind.And in the article below, we see and read that it is Israel and her policies that are judged as "apartheid" and "racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing [and] acts of genocide." Israel, a country that allows its Arab citizens the right of suffrage, includes their own representatives in the Knesset and extends equal rights under the law to all its citizens.It is akin to libel when such inflammatory rhetoric is allowed to be aired and by responsible organizations, when the facts of the matter more than refute their stand. I guess saying it long enough and repeating it ad infinitum on the Internet gives that pap, unfortunately, legitimacy that should have been preserved for facts and not fiction.

Israel Bonan


Feb. 26, 2006 1:56 Updated Feb. 26, 2006 19:00

The radicals behind the Anglican Church
By SARAH MANDEL

Last week, British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks came out strongly against the Church of England for its vote for "morally responsible investment" (MRI) in Israel (a.k.a. divestment). In response church leaders stated that the vote was merely advisory. The archbishop of Canterbury, who heads the Anglican Church and supported the measure, claimed it was not a vote for divestment and that he remained committed to "a continued personal engagement with the Jewish communities in Israel and in the United Kingdom." If there is a lesson from this debacle, it is that attention must be paid to Palestinian NGOs, rather than assuming that such groups are too blatantly biased to influence mainstream institutions. The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, for example, spearheaded the international campaign for divestment. This group claims to pursue "a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation." But it is, in fact, an extremist Palestinian organization that pays lip service to a two-state solution while promoting the "right of return" for all Palestinians, which is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Led by Naim Ateek, Sabeel brands Israel as "an apartheid state." His 2001 Easter message continued with the language of demonization, such as decrying the "Israeli government crucifixion system... operating daily."Sabeel's activities are a clear example of the "Durban Strategy," a campaign to undermine and delegitimize the State of Israel by falsely comparing it with apartheid South Africa and pursuing boycotts and divestment as a response. This process began at the Durban World Conference against Racism in 2001, where NGOs adopted a declaration condemning Israel's "racist crimes against humanity including ethnic cleansing [and] acts of genocide."

Continued at http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000011.html where you may also comment. Posted at ZioNation Web Log http://www.zionism-Israel.com/log. Introduction copyright 2006 by the author. Jerusalem Post Article copyright 2006 by Jerusalem Post and Sarah Mandel. Please forward this article by email with this notice.

South Australian Attorney General wants racist website closed down.

Subject: ABC news item
SA Attorney-General wants racist website closed down


The World Today - Tuesday, 31 January , 2006 12:42:00
Reporter: Nance Haxton
ELEANOR HALL: In South Australia, Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has called on the state's police to investigate and close down a race hatred website based in Adelaide.The White Crusaders site attacks Jews and what it describes as "mud races" and asks for donations.And as Nance Haxton reports from Adelaide, the South Australian Attorney-General is asking the communications and media regulator to remove the website.WEBSITE AUDIO: Racial greetings my white brothers and sisters. Welcome to the White Crusaders of the Racial Holy War website. RAHOWA.NANCE HAXTON: This is the greeting that confronts people when they access the website that has caused so much concern to South Australia's Attorney-General Michael Atkinson. He says he wants it closed down.MICHAEL ATKINSON: The White Crusader website appears to be a mirror of an American web portal, although there is a contact here in Adelaide who's styled the Reverend Cole Campbell the Third. I don't know who that is. It may be being run by people in Adelaide. Its reasoning appears to me to be quite insane and I rather doubt that it will acquire a following.NANCE HAXTON: Nevertheless Mr Atkinson says he's referred the matter on to police who can investigate and prosecute the website owners under the state's racial vilification laws.MICHAEL ATKINSON: We have a law in South Australia against racial vilification enforced by the police. We have a national classification system to protect people against offensive material. I'm sure that that system operates sensibly. We have to balance free speech with our law to protect people from unsolicited offensive material. It's always a difficult question. I've read the material of the White Crusaders of the Racial Holy War. They appear to be quite mad. The degree to which the law should crack down on them is a fine judgement. It is undoubtedly offensive material. In a way, it's a pity that public attention has been drawn to it because the White Crusaders of the Racial Holy War will glory in the publicity, with a view to recruitment. NANCE HAXTON: The state's police Commissioner Mal Hyde says police will do all they can to prosecute the website's creators.MAL HYDE: Well, it depends on the circumstances and the general laws can apply, so that if racial vilification includes inciting violence or actually taking some sort of violent action, or offensive behaviour or something of that nature, we can take action there and if it includes a website, it may be that it offends against telecommunications legislation as well. We don't see a lot of racial vilification in South Australia but we do have particular groups who from time to time, raise their head. Often when they see that they're getting some sort of legitimacy in the community and they do raise their head. They're groups that we monitor if they have some sort of violence or inciting of violence or threatening of violence behind it, they're the sort of groups we monitor. ELEANOR HALL: That's South Australia's State Police Commissioner Mal Hyde ending that report from Nance Haxton.

Look on the bright side. (Morris Amitay, US)

israelinsider.com


Look on the Bright Side
By Morris Amitay
February 28, 2006


With all that seems to be going wrong both in the Middle East and here in Washington, doom and gloom should be the order of the day. But I recall that final scene from the Monty Python classic, "The Life of Brian". As they are being literally crucified, the main characters are cheerfully singing, "always look on the bright side of life". With a positive approach, you can see a bright side to what has been going on in Iran, Iraq, Israel, and even with the Hamas takeover and the port ownership and cartoon controversies. Iran President Ahmadinejad's pronouncements have been so over the top in calling for Israel's extermination and by challenging the world to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions, that even the Europeans are beginning to talk tough. If you add to this the increased spotlight on Iran's meddling in Iraq, and the administration's $75 million proposal to aid Iranian dissidents, we may be seeing a more focused U.S. policy toward Iran. In fact, there are even a few U.S. Senators who can now pronounce Ahmadinejad's name properly, which can only mean he is in serious disrepute here. And speaking of the U.S. Congress, there was the 419-1 roll call vote in the House (Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii distinctly in the minority), and a unanimous vote in the Senate calling for no U.S. aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian Administration. You can add to this good news the latest Gallup poll showing support for Israel by 68% of Americans. On the negative side, of course, there are still those in the State Department looking for moderates in all the wrong places -- but what else is new? Despite what the New York Times' reporters and columnists would have you believe about Iraq, troop morale there remains high, slow progress is being made in taming the insurgency, and so far, Al-Qaeda's attempt to instigate a full blown civil war have failed. But those "nattering nabobs of negativism" at the Gray Lady seem to grow shriller by the day in their denunciations of the U.S. role and their undisguised hatred of President Bush. While there is ample room for criticism of past conduct of the war, the Times' negative coverage has become boringly predictable. Perhaps the Times could have boosted its reported falling revenues if it had demonstrated the journalistic courage to print some of the Danish cartoons that ostensibly provoked deadly outrage in parts of the Muslim world. But how could one expect this paragon of political correctness to tread upon Muslim sensibilities? The cartoon controversy revealed the double standard that Islamists insist upon. While they can openly denigrate and wage religious war on "infidels" -- i.e. anyone not adhering to their brand of Islam -- any perceived slight or criticism of Islam is met with violent reactions. Sadly, too many who should know better continue to repeat the mantra of Islam as "a religion of peace", despite all the evidence of intolerance to the contrary. The cartoon issue has revealed the depth of this intolerance and had reinforced the validity of Huntington's "class of civilizations" thesis. In Israel, the good news is that terrorist leaders continue to be eliminated as a result of superb Israeli intelligence and pinpoint operations which are taking a toll of some really bad guys, with remarkably few civilian casualties. On the political front, the centrist Kadima party, which many predicted would fragment following the absence of Ariel Sharon, continues to hold a wide lead in the polls over its two major competing parties on both the right and the left. Should this political scenario hold up for the March 28 elections, there is the prospect of the formation of a broad based government and hence greater stability in the Israeli body politic. Such stability will be needed as Israel faces the challenge of confronting a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Fortunately for Israel, Hamas leaders seem to be more honest in publicly proclaiming their goal of Israel's destruction, than the Fatah thugs they are replacing. This should make it easier for Israel to take stronger measures against those sworn to its destruction. Here at home, the impeding takeover of port operations at a half-dozen major U.S. sites by a UAE-owned company has evoked outrage from a number of Democratic politicians not notable for their support of tougher security measures. This reaction could be seen as recognition by some Democrats that they have a real problem convincing the American public their party is serious about national security. While shameless political grandstanding in Washington is not new to either Democrats or Republicans, attempts to outflank the GOP on the right here, could actually lead to more muscular foreign policy positions being advocated in the future. Another positive development from the port security furor has been the attention given to the UAE's ties to terrorists at the same time it has cooperated with the U.S. Increased competition to prove who can be tougher on the perpetrators and abettors of terrorism can only be regarded as a positive development.

Taken all together then, the events cited above offer some reason for optimism that the glass may indeed be at least half full as a result. Besides, we owe it to ourselves as winter fades to look on the bright side.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.



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