Boycott Israeli Goods

Friday, April 5, 2002 -- The suicide bombing that killed 27 Israelis at a Passover Seder last week, the worst slaughter of the 18-month-old intifada, has entered the lexicon of the Arab-Israeli conflict as the Passover Massacre. It is more than that. It was the beginning of the Passover Pogrom: seven days of Passover, seven suicide bombings, dozens of innocent Jews murdered, hundreds maimed.

This is Kristallnacht transposed to Israel. Like Kristallnacht, the Passover Pogrom takes the murder of Jews to a new level of fury and national purpose, in this case Palestinian national purpose: making "death to the Jews" not just a slogan but a strategy, a campaign to make Israeli life intolerable and to force Israel's surrender and ultimate abolition.

It was also Israel's Sept. 11, a time when sporadic terrorism reaches a critical mass of malevolence such that war is the only possible response. And as with the American attack on Afghanistan, Israel is going into Palestinian territory to destroy the terrorists and the regime that sponsors them.

American critics, beginning with the secretary of state, object to this goal of destroying Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. As The Washington Post explained in an editorial, we need the continued presence of "the leadership of the Palestinian Authority as well as its principal security services," because they have been "the only available instruments for stopping Palestinian terrorism."

Good God. Instruments for stopping terrorism? They are instruments for aiding and abetting, equipping and financing, supporting and glorifying terrorism, which they call "martyrdom operations." The question of capabilities is irrelevant. Of course they have the capability. But they have no intention of exercising it.

This is like arguing at the beginning of the Afghan war that we should not attack the Taliban because they were the only instrument in Afghanistan available for bringing al Qaeda to heel. Sure. But they were allied with al Qaeda, commingled with al Qaeda and shared al Qaeda's objectives. They had no intention of ever stopping al Qaeda.At what point do Western observers allow their Oslo illusions to yield to empirical evidence?

That situation is precisely the same in Palestine. The premise of the Oslo accords was that Israel would gradually withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, and allow Arafat to build security services so that, as he made peace with Israel, he would have the capability to stop the terrorists. It was a monumental swindle. Instead, he spent 8 1/2 years building a cult of death and a killing machine.

The majority of current suicide bombings are carried out by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a wing of Arafat's own Fatah movement. At Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah, Israel found an invoice (in shekels -- a nice touch) from the terrorists to the Palestinian Authority for five to nine bombs a week. At what point do Western observers allow their Oslo illusions to yield to empirical evidence?"What Arafat really wants is the destruction of the Israeli state," says the preeminent Arab-Israeli peacemaker Henry Kissinger.

What to do with Arafat? Isolating Arafat is no answer, because the isolation must end at some point. Killing Arafat is no answer, because that will make him a martyr. The important thing is to make him irrelevant by expelling him. Let us not hear any more ridiculous talk about Arafat's being the only man who can make peace. Can? He had 8 1/2 years to make peace. He has no intention of making peace. He was offered his peace, his Palestine, in July 2000 by Israel and then by the president of the United States. Like the Palestinian leadership of 1947, also offered their own state side-by-side with Israel, Arafat rejected the offer and started a war.

"What Arafat really wants is the destruction of the Israeli state," says the preeminent Arab-Israeli peacemaker Henry Kissinger. "He may be willing to make some sort of an interim agreement, which he will consider probably as a stage to the ultimate destruction of the Israeli state."

Why expel him? Because as long as he rules, the Palestinian answer to any offer of peace that genuinely accepts Israel is "No." And there will be no one in Palestine who will dare say "Yes." (If he does, he dies.)

The only hope for any kind of peace is a Palestinian leadership, whether national or local, ready to say yes. And that can only become possible when Arafat has been banished and his rejectionist police state dismantled.

There are reports that Morocco would accept him. Good choice. It is west of Tunisia and thus farther from Palestine. The symbolism will be apposite. He was rescued from his last exile in Tunisia by an Israel offering him the olive branch of Oslo. He then chose war instead.

President Bush yesterday offered Arafat yet another olive branch, yet another rescue. This will achieve nothing. This will only postpone the reckoning. If this fighting is ever to end, it must be shown that there is a price for violence, terror and duplicity. The price is Elba. No, St. Helena.

Why are honest questions erased? Questions such as Jordan in 1970, of Palestinians blowing up 3 airplanes, of the Munich Olympics, of Palestinian kids being suicide bombers, of Palestinians cheering and passing out candy when we were attacked on September the 11th?

Why so one sided? What happened to freedom of speech in Berkeley?

You must have made a good point. Free Speech isn't welcomed around here. Only speech that conforms to the dominant propagda paradigm. Trurth is reviled.

It isn't Berkeley. It's a website. The people who run it have the right to run it as they see fit. If you don't like the way they run it, leave. Go start your own site. Run it the way you see fit.

In the meantime, remember that you are a guest here. Behave accordingly. Show common courtesy. Otherwise, no one will ever respect you or anything you say. No one respects a boor.

JoJo Gunn is an obvious moron.

"Perhaps you ignore the image of someone falling to their Doom because of Muslim TERRORISTS who attacked America"

What does this have to do with Israel's brutality, JoJo?

"and you're gonna lecture me on respect, little Nazi Quisling?"

For an illuminating account of modern Nazism, see the 1982 interview witih Ariel Sharon widely posted on indymedia, in which Sharon frankly states he is a "Judeo-Nazi."

"How absolutely horrible that I've caused pee-pee to dribble down your leg from my disrespect for bloodthirsty DOGS."

This is so frankly infantile it barely deserves comment.

"Yeah, the previous poster hit the nail on the head. Freedom of speech is what the Politically Correct Fascist Left wants it to be. I dunno, maybe they're tired of constantly having to change their panties."

Gosh, that's illuminating, little invertebrate.

Now run along and find some more 9-11 propaganda to stir up anti-Muslim hatred so you can justify your noxious support of the Israeli regime that is raping, murdering, and torturing hundreds of innocent people as I write.

The Left concentrates on what the Israeli military is doing to the Palestinians. They always choose to ignore the fact that the military actions are a REACTION to violence and terrorism from the Palestinians. These crackdowns don't occur in a vaccum.

Israel has exercised a level of restraint that few other nations in the world would exercise.

Are the same people who complaned about our military action in Afghanistan *really* going to support SUICIDE BOMBERS? Are these people really that intellectually dishonest and completely hypocritical?

Palestinian terrorism is a reaction to Israeli terrorism. The Israelis started it. See:

http://resistance.jeeran.com/members/resistance/massacres/

http://www.iap.org/massacres.htm

http://www.deiryassin.org/op0010.html

How about Haj Amin's support of Hitler's extermination of the Jews?

How about the Palestinian riots in 1921, 1936 and 1939 where many Jews were killed?

How about the calls to drive the Jews into the sea and show them no mercy by Nasser?

History Buff, you'd do well to remember: History is not a one way street.

Open Letter to the World (by Ariel Ben Attar)

A timely and powerful letter to the world by an Israeli, Ariel Ben Attar.

Dear World, I understand that you are upset by us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry (Outraged?). Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset by us. Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians"; yesterday it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign.

It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily. Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we- the Jewish people - upset you. We upset a German people who elected Hitler and upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians and Romanians.

And we go back a long, long way in the history of world upset. We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us.

For centuries, we upset a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through inquisitions, and we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed anadmirable Christian ecumenical spirit.

And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish state. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you and thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home - to the same homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.

Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left you and your pogroms and inquisitions and crusades and holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state, we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the poor Palestinians.

You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The "radical" Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.

Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel. In 1920 and 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered tens of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron in 1929.

Dear world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots between 1936-39? Was it because Arabs were upset over 1967? And when you, world, proposed a UN Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a "Palestinian State" alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried "no" and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that "upset" caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of "upset" then?

The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who - when they had all the territories they now demand be given to them for their state - attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea. The same twisted faces, the same hate, the same cry of "itbach-al-yahud" (Massacre the Jew!) that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel.

What they failed to do yesterday, they dream of today, but we should not "repress" them.

Dear world, you stood by during the holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres. You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction.

And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians dream daily of thatextinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well - think of how many times in the past you bothered us. In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, hereis one Jew in Israel who could not care less.

Ariel Ben Attar, Israel

“Palestinians doubt Blair can deliver,” announces the BBC. “Four Palestinians die in West Bank,” reports CNN. “IDF demolishes building used by Palestinian gunmen,” announces Israel’s government run Channel 1 News. The modern media is filled with stories about the Palestinians, their plight, their dilemmas and their struggles. All aspects of their lives seem to have been put under the microscope. Only one question never seems to be addressed: Who are the Palestinians? Who are these people who claim the Holy Land as their own? What is their history? Where did they come from? How did they arrive in the country they call Palestine? Now that both US President George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (in direct opposition to the platform he was elected on) have come out in favor of a Palestinian state, it would be prudent to seek answers to these questions. For all we know, Palestine could be as real as Disneyland.

The general impression given in the media is that Palestinians have lived in the Holy Land for hundreds, if not thousands of years. No wonder, then, that a recent poll of French citizens shows that the majority believe (falsely) that prior to the establishment of the State of Israel an independent Arab Palestinian state existed in its place. Yet curiously, when it comes to giving the history of this “ancient” people most news outlets find it harder to go back more than the early nineteen hundreds. CNN, an agency which has devoted countless hours of airtime to the “plight” of the Palestinians, has a website which features a special section on the Middle East conflict called “Struggle For Peace”. It includes a promising sounding section entitled “Lands Through The Ages” which assures us it will detail the history of the region using maps. Strangely, it turns out, the maps displayed start no earlier than the ancient date of 1917. The CBS News website has a background section called “A Struggle For Middle East Peace.’’ Its history timeline starts no earlier than 1897. The NBC News background section called ‘’Searching for Peace’’ has a timeline which starts in 1916. BBC’s timeline starts in 1948.

Yet, the clincher must certainly be the Palestinian National Authority’s own website. While it is top heavy on such phrases as “Israeli occupation” and “Israeli human rights violations” the site offers practically nothing on the history of the so-called Palestinian people. The only article on the site with any historical content is called “Palestinian History - 20th Century Milestones” which seems only to confirm that prior to 1900 there was no such concept as the Palestinian People.

While the modern media maybe short on information about the history of the “Palestinian people” the historical record is not. Books, such as Battleground by Samuel Katz and From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters long ago detailed the history of the region. Far from being settled by Palestinians for hundreds, if not thousands of years, the Land of Israel, according to dozens of visitors to the land, was, until the beginning of the last century, practically empty. Alphonse de Lamartine visited the land in 1835. In his book, Recollections of the East, he writes "Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw no living object, heard no living sound…." None other than the famous American author Mark Twain, who visited the Land of Israel in 1867, confirms this. In his book Innocents Abroad he writes, “A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely…. We never saw a human being on the whole journey.” Even the British Consul in Palestine reported, in 1857, “The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population…”

In fact, according to official Ottoman Turk census figures of 1882, in the entire Land of Israel, there were only 141,000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. This number was to skyrocket to 650,000 Arabs by 1922, a 450% increase in only 40 years. By 1938 that number would become over 1 million or an 800% increase in only 56 years. Population growth was especially high in areas where Jews lived. Where did all these Arabs come from? According to the Arabs the huge increase in their numbers was due to natural childbirth. In 1944, for example, they alleged that the natural increase (births minus deaths) of Arabs in the Land of Israel was the astounding figure of 334 per 1000. That would make it roughly three times the corresponding rate for the same year of Lebanon and Syria and almost four times that of Egypt, considered amongst the highest in the world. Unlikely, to say the least. If the massive increase was not due to natural births, then were did all these Arabs come from?

All the evidence points to the neighboring Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. In 1922 the British Governor of the Sinai noted that “illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria.” In 1930, the British Mandate -sponsored Hope-Simpson Report noted that “unemployment lists are being swollen by immigrants from Trans-Jordania” and “illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material.” The Arabs themselves bare witness to this trend. For example, the governor of the Syrian district of Hauran, Tewfik Bey el Hurani, admitted in 1934 that in a single period of only a few months over 30,000 Syrians from Hauran had moved to the Land of Israel. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted the Arab influx. Churchill, a veteran of the early years of the British mandate in the Land of Israel, noted in 1939 that “far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied.”

Far from displacing the Arabs, as they claimed, the Jews were the very reason the Arabs chose to settle in the Land of Israel. Jobs provided by newly established Zionist industry and agriculture lured them there, just as Israeli construction and industry provides most Arabs in the Land of Israel with their main source of income today. Malcolm MacDonald, one of the principal authors of the British White Paper of 1939, which restricted Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel, admitted (conservatively) that were it not for a Jewish presence the Arab population would have been little more than half of what it actually was. Today, when due to the latest “intifada” Arabs from the territories under 35 are no longer allowed into pre-1967 Israel to work, unemployment has skyrocketed to over 40% and most rely on European aid packages to survive.

Not only pre-state Arabs lied about being indigenous. Even today, many prominent so-called Palestinians, it turns out, are foreign born. Edward Said, an Ivy League Professor of Literature and a major Palestinian propagandist, long claimed to have been raised in Jerusalem. However, in an article in the September 1999 issue of Commentary Magazine Justus Reid Weiner revealed that Said actually grew up in Cairo, Egypt, a fact which Said himself was later forced to admit. But why bother with Said? PLO chief Yasir Arafat himself, self declared “leader of the Palestinian people”, has always claimed to have been born and raised in “Palestine”. In fact, according to his official biographer Richard Hart, as well as the BBC, Arafat was born in Cairo on August 24, 1929 and that’s where he grew up.

To maintain the charade of being an indigenous population, Arab propagandists have had to do more than a little rewriting of history. A major part of this rewriting involves the renaming of geography. For two thousand years the central mountainous region of Israel was known as Judea and Samaria, as any medieval map of the area testifies. However, the state of Jordan occupied the area in 1948 and renamed it the West Bank. This is a funny name for a region that actually lies in the eastern portion of the land and can only be called “West” in reference to Jordan. This does not seem to bother the majority of news outlets covering the region, which universally refer to the region by its recent Jordanian name.

The term “Palestinian" is itself a masterful twisting of history. To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Canaanite tribe, the Phillistines, that died out almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Who is to know the difference? Given the absence of any historical record, one can understand why Yasser Arafat claims that Jesus Christ, a Jewish carpenter from the Galilee, was a Palestinian. Every year, at Christmas time, Arafat goes to Bethlehem and tells worshippers that Jesus was in fact “the first Palestinian”.

If the Palestinians are indeed a myth, then the real question becomes “Why?” Why invent a fictitious people? The answer is that the myth of the Palestinian People serves as the justification for Arab occupation of the Land of Israel. While the Arabs already possess 21 sovereign countries of their own (more than any other single people on earth) and control a land mass 800 times the size of the Land of Israel, this is apparently not enough for them. They therefore feel the need to rob the Jews of their one and only country, one of the smallest on the planet. Unfortunately, many people ignorant of the history of the region, including much of the world media, are only too willing to help.

It is interesting to note that the Bible makes reference to a fictitious nation confronting Israel. “They have provoked me to jealously by worshipping a non-god, angered me with their vanities. I will provoke them with a non-nation; anger them with a foolish nation (Deuteronomy 32:21).”

On second thought, it may be unfair to compare Palestine to Disneyland. After all, Disneyland really exists.

It is all about anti-Semitism, or more accurately, it is all about hating Jews. I'm not Jewish but I have a degree in history and I have travelled around the world. I have lived in other countries.

All your reasoned arguements are going to fall on deaf ears. People have scape goated the Jews for thousands of years. It is no longer fashionable to pick on blacks or Mexicans or _____ (fill in the blank). It is ok to Jew bash.

I feel hopeless because so many college kids and otherwise liberal people feel like it is a great thing to jump on the band wagon. It is like Germany in the 1930s.

To be anti-Nazi is not to be anti-German. To be anti-Zionist is not to be anti-Semitic.

Jews are not the problem. Israelis are not the problem Israel is the problem.

For starters, the Palestinian media has called for the killing of all Jews. In October 2000, after two Israeli solders were lynched in Ramallah, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya gave a sermon on official Palestinian Authority television:

Have no mercy on the Jews no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand by them... (translation by memri.org)

The betrayed Jesus Christ in the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.

Doesn't sound like purely a land battle to me. Let's look at Israel's neighbors. During the Pope's trip to Syria last year, President Assad said,

They (the Jews) tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ in the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad. (ADL, October 2001)

Maybe the moderate Saudis are a little more reasonable? In December 2001, the Saudi government-controlled newspaper, Al-Watan, published a report entitled, "The Jewish organizations are implementing their strategic and hellish plan to take over the world":

The Jews act by means of the control of the media, politics and the economy in order to weaken the non-Jewish groups and bring about their disintegration." (translation by memri.org)

In the Saudi government daily Al-Riyadh, columnist Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faysal University in Al-Dammam, wrote last week (March 10, 2002) on "The Jewish Holiday of Purim." The following are excerpts of the article:

Special Ingredient For Jewish Holidays is Human Blood From Non-Jewish Youth:

For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries. In other words, the practice cannot be carried out as required if human blood is not spilled!!

The Jews' spilling human blood to prepare pastry for their holidays is a well-established fact, historically and legally, all throughout history. This was one of the main reasons for the persecution and exile that were their lot in Europe and Asia at various times.

How the Jews Drain the Blood From Their Young Victims:

I would like to tell you how human blood is spilled so it can be used for their holiday pastries. The blood is spilled in a special way. How is it done? For this holiday, the victim must be a mature adolescent who is, of course, a non-Jew -- that is, a Christian or a Muslim. His blood is taken and dried into granules. The cleric blends these granules into the pastry dough; they can also be saved for the next holiday. In contrast, for the Passover slaughtering, about which I intend to write one of these days, the blood of Christian and Muslim children under the age of 10 must be used, and the cleric can mix the blood [into the dough] before or after dehydration. The Actions of the Jewish Vampires Cause Them Pleasure:

Let us now examine how the victims' blood is spilled. For this, a needle-studded barrel is used; this is a kind of barrel, about the size of the human body, with extremely sharp needles set in it on all sides. [These needles] pierce the victim's body, from the moment he is placed in the barrel.

These needles do the job, and the victim's blood drips from him very slowly. Thus, the victim suffers dreadful torment -- torment that affords the Jewish vampires great delight as they carefully monitor every detail of the blood-shedding with pleasure and love that are difficult to comprehend. (translation by memri.org)

Egypt, the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, recently ran a TV series called "Horseman Without a Horse," a 30-part series based on the anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Sheikh Muhammed Abd Al Hadi La'afi, responsible for Religious Teaching and Instruction in the Office of the Wakf, wrote in the official P.A. newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (May 18, 2001):

The battle with the Jews will surely come... the decisive Muslim victory is coming without a doubt, and the prophet spoke about in more than one Hadith and the Day of resurrection will not come without the victory of the believers [the Muslims] over the descendents of the monkeys and pigs [the Jews] and with their annihilation.

These hate-filled teachings proliferate even in America. The Washington Post reported (March 2002) on Muslim elementary and high schools in the U.S.:

[One] 11th-grade textbook, for example, says one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.' Several students of different ages, all of whom asked not to be identified, said that in Islamic studies, they are taught that it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shi'ite Muslims... [In addition,] maps of the Middle East hang on classroom walls, but Israel is missing.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Beyond the traditional anti-Semitic slurs, there is a new strategy that strikes at the heart of our Jewish heritage, seeking to deny our history. Remember the dismantling of Joseph's Tomb, the attack on Rachel's Tomb, and the ancient Jericho synagogue that was destroyed by the Palestinians? Their purpose was to turn Jewish history into a myth. The Mufti of Jerusalem has said of the Temple Mount:

"There is not the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past." (Boston Globe, April 2001)

The Mufti's comments have been echoed by Arafat's cabinet, and much of the official press of the Arab world. In some sort of kow-tow, even The New York Times described the Temple Mount as what "Israel claims to have been the site of the first and second Temples." The Temple is mentioned in the Jewish Bible, the Christian Bible, the Koran, and every history book of the past 3,000 years. But it is now just a claim. A poll found that 71 percent of Pakistanis believed there was a September 11 Jewish conspiracy.

And let's not forget how, throughout the Arab world, the World Trade Center attack was reported as a Jewish-led conspiracy.

At a meeting in Damascus in October 2001 with a delegation from the British Royal College of Defense Studies, Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass said the Mossad planned the ramming of two hijacked airliners into the WTC towers. He also told the British visitors that the Mossad had given thousands of Jewish employees at the towers advance warning not to go to work on September 11. (Jerusalem Post, October 19, 2001)

The slander took hold. Paknews.com, a sophisticated English-language news site based in Pakistan, found that 71 percent of its readers believed the report of a September 11 "Jewish conspiracy."The Mufti of Jerusalem personally recruited 20,000 Muslims in Bosnia to serve in the Waffen SS.

The Holocaust is another point to examine. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, lived in Berlin from 1941-45. He was in charge of supervising Axis propaganda to Muslims all over the world. When Jews fleeing Hitler's ovens were able to obtain emigration visas to Palestine, the Mufti was instrumental in getting those visa cancelled. He met several times with Hitler, and personally recruited 20,000 Muslims in Bosnia to serve in the Waffen SS. (See: http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/muftism.htm)

This tradition continues today. "Mein Kampf," previously banned by Israel, has been allowed by the PA and was sixth on the Palestinian best-seller list. A senior commander in Arafat's personal bodyguard is Fawzi Salem al-Mahdi (known as "Abu Hitler"), whose two sons bear the first names Hitler and Eichmann.

The official Arab mouthpieces are among the ranks of the most stubborn Holocaust deniers. And American neo-Nazi and white supremacist parties have found in Muslims a new audience to advance theories discredited in the west for more than 50 years.

BEYOND THE MIDDLE EAST

Anti-Jewish sentiments are spreading far beyond the Middle East. France has one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, and is also one of least hospitable to its Jewish residents. CRIF (an umbrella group of Jewish organizations in France) reported that between September 2000 and November 2001 there were 330 anti-Semitic incidents in metro Paris alone, nearly one per day. The study also reported that the perpetrators are primarily young Arab immigrants. (ADL, January 2002)

Britain's Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, has said that Jews of his country are suffering from the worst anti-Semitism since the Holocaust. The contributing factors of this anti-Semitism have been the rise in Islamic fundamentalists who use the Israeli-Arab conflict as an excuse to create open displays of anti-Semitism. (Simon Weisental Center, February 2002)

In December 2001, the largest neo-Nazi march since World War Two took place in Berlin.

At the world conference on Racism in Durban this past September, literature with hook-nosed Jewish caricatures were distributed inside while thousands of South African Muslims marched outside carrying banners saying that Hitler should have finished the job. (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, December 2001)

Copies of the libelous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are selling fast in Malaysia and Pakistan. "The Bulawayo Chronicle," which supports the government of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, recently published a 3,000-word article alleging Jewish responsibility for the ongoing economic problems facing the country. In America, 73 percent of all reported hate crimes on the basis of religion were against Jews, according to FBI figures.

America is not exempt, either. In the year 2000, 73 percent of all reported hate crimes on the basis of religion were against Jews, according to FBI figures.

The spreaders of hate have a strong ally in the press. Organizations such as the BBC, The New York Times and the once-proud CBS News, have subtly manipulated terminology and provided unbalanced reporting. When Israel suffers a terrorist attack and retaliates by targeting the terrorists, it is called the "cycle of violence" -- drawing a moral equivalency between civilians and terrorists, and dehumanizing civilian victims.

Let's not forget how the press uses the word "terrorist." If a military action is targeted toward civilians anywhere in world, it is "terrorism," but somehow when it targets Jewish civilians, it is "militancy," "activism," "freedom fighting," or as The New York Times prefers: "What Israel claims is a terrorist act."

CALL FOR ACTION

Make no mistake about it -- this is a war about much more than land. It is being waged by Islamic zealots who corrupt the name of religion to spread hate. The anti-Zionist rhetoric is just a front for deep anti-Semitism.

During an appearance at Harvard University, a student stood up and asked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to address himself to the issue of Zionism. The question was clearly hostile. King responded, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism." (San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 2002)Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: When people criticize Zionists, you're talking anti-Semitism.

We need to wake up before it's too late. Recognize what is going on and take action. Write your government; tell them to take action against anti-Semitism in your county. Take notice of what is being said in the media. Write letters about their inaccuracies and omissions -- not only in letters to the editor, but also to their advertisers. Sign up to http://www.honestreporting.com. Visit Israel or at least buy Israeli products; support the economy of our brethren who are on the front lines.

Prior to coming to power in Germany, Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" which outlined many of his plans, including a discussion of the "Jewish Problem." His horrible goals were laid out in black and white. Despite the forewarning, most people had their heads in the sand and were surprised when Hitler followed through on his plans.

Seventy years ago, we did not take Hitler at his word. Will we take today's anti-Semites at their word?

No one is going to read all this. Sure it makes sense but these people are not interested in the truth. Neither were the people so powerfully documented in _Hitler's Willing Executioners_. It's cool to hate Jews. It's hip to hate Israel. It's the last bastion of acceptible hate in polite society. And in impolite society it is a form of entertainment.

http://projectonesoul.com/

Nobody attacking Jews or Jewish religious institutions in France or in Berkeley is making that distinction between Zionism and Jews.

To wit, Lets just recap recent events:

Within the last 2 years in Berkeley,
Two Orthodox Jews got assaulted, because they looked Jewish.

Berkeley Hillel, the religious and cultural center for Jews had a cinderblock smashed against its window and "F-- the Jews" scrawled as grafitti.

Jews coming out of Yom Kippur services two years ago at I-House were egged.

A Jew was attacked during Simchat Torah observances at Bancroft and Telegraph last fall.

A Jew was followed from the Berkeley BART to College and Bancroft, by a youth, who confronted him and asked if he was Jewish. When he said yes, he was beaten. He wasn't asked if he was pro-Israel!

And in France

A Jewish soccer team was assaulted with crowbars, a Jewish cemetary was firebombed, a school bus of schoolkids was pelted with rocks, a couple including a pregnant Jewish woman were beaten by thugs, several synagogues have been attacked.
The common denominator:

All of the above were attacked because people or buildings were Jewish, regardless of whatever other ideological baggage the attackers had in mind.

Not to mention the two Orthodox Jews beaten by Middle Eastern men in Berlin after they answered affirmatively to the question of whether they were Jews.

Or the explosion at Tunisian Synagogue killing five Jews.

If you think this is merely anti-Zionist, what is going on right now, you are sadly deluded -- this is also a virulent anti-Semitic outbreak.

I am a liberal and a progressive on many issues. But I am ashamed at how much denial of blatant prejudice is being enabled and even encouraged by people on the left who I thought were supposed to be against prejudice and hatemongering of all kinds!

As you know not every Jew supports Israel. If this is not anti-Semitism then why is every Jew bearing the brunt of this for being a Jew? Or is it possible that some who should know better are stereotyping and stigmatizing Jews because they assume that all Jews support Israel?

And if Jews are attacked for being Jews then doesn't that make the case for Jews needing Israel in the first place? Of course the answer is affirmative, but then you'd have to answer that Israel and Zionism are not racist, but realist.

There has been numerous reports of Jews (possibly Sephardi --
Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern complexion?), Sikhs, Hindus,
etc., attacked in the US, Australia, etc., because people
who are angry at terrorists mistook them for Arabs and/or Muslims.


[enter satire]
Citizens fighting terrorists need to improve upon their profiling techniques.
In the meantime, please ask for verification prior to attacking what appears to be Arab.
The person attacked might be an innocent, righteous Jew.

The April 1 edition of Newsweek carried the ominous headline: How will Israel survive? Most of us thought we'd never have to hear the question again. But with psychopaths cashing in on Iraqi-sponsored life insurance policies at the expense of innocent Israeli civilians daily, the dramatic headline is more than fitting. The problem isn't the headline, however, it's that Newsweek answers its rhetorical question with cliches and historical misconceptions that have contaminated mainstream coverage of the Middle East for years.

Israel, one of the most technologically advanced and humane nations on earth, a marvel of postwar economic and scientific development, is under attack. A concerted Arab effort to encourage terror against Jews (Iraq's payment of suicide bombers' families would be enough for any sane nation to declare war), coupled with the rise Muslim fundamentalism puts Israel's existence into serious danger for the first time since 1973.Over the past decades the PLO, the world's leading terrorist organization, has morphed into the Palestinian Authority, but their goal remains the same: the destruction of Israel.

Palestinians, pawns in a regional push to eliminate Jews in the Middle East, have instigated a war against the civilian population of Israel -- a portion of which was previously sympathetic to their cause. Over the past decades the PLO, the world's leading terrorist organization, has morphed into the Palestinian Authority, but their goal remains the same: the destruction of Israel. Journalists have long overlooked the historical details of this conflict. The widow struggling to cross an Israel checkpoint, the boy throwing harmless rocks at an occupying Israeli tank, the story of a disenfranchised people is dramatic. It sells. Instead of factual reporting, the mainstream media has placed culpability on both parties, creating a perception of equal aggression, of a 'cycle' of violence.

Since the Arab world has transferred its failed military campaign against Israel into a diplomatic and public relations siege, they have used an underprivileged Palestinian population as their primary weapon against Israel. Jordanian King Hussein described this strategy as early as 1960 in an interview with an Associated Press: "Since 1948 Arab leaders have approached the Palestine problem in an irresponsible manner. They have not looked into the future. They have no plan or approach. They have used the Palestinian people for selfish political purposes. This is ridiculous and, I could say, criminal."

What King Hussein understood about his own people, American journalists are still oblivious to. Arabs have been negligent of Palestinian rights, many times prolonging their misery in effort to undermine Israel. This plan is bearing fruits now, as homicidal fanatics with little to lose, blow themselves up among women and children in Netanya, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

It all begins with the presumption that the West Bank and Gaza are 'occupied territory.' While most Israelis have come to terms with the fact some form of Palestinian autonomy is forthcoming, at the very least these lands should be considered 'disputed' territories. The phrase 'occupied territory' has become universally accepted, however, despite its historical complexity. Newsweek's recent coverage of Israel, for instance, uses the phrase countless times without even mentioning a challenging view.

Fact is, Jews have had a continued presence in Israel for 3,000 years and have never relinquished their claim. Arabs rejected the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947 calling for the establishment of two states in Palestine, with an all out war to eliminate Jews enacted by the Arab world. After the 1967 War -- another war of Arab aggression -- Israel recovered a small remnant (13% in whole) of what was promised to them by the UN -- eventually handing back the Sinai Desert for peace with Egypt in 1977.

Between 1948-1967, Jordan and Egypt, who governed the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, never offered to surrender those lands to form an independent Palestinian state. No Palestinian organization ever sought an independent state. No Arab country had even suggested its existence. An Arab Palestine has never been the name of any nation or state. 'Palestine' was a geographical term used only to identify administrative boundaries within larger empires, nothing more.

The purpose of a separate Palestinian State was defined faultlessly by the late Zoher Moessein, head of PLO bureau of military operation:


"There is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians and Lebanese; we are all members of the same nation. Solely for political reasons are we careful to stress our identity as Palestinians. Since a separate State of Palestine would be an extra weapon in Arab hands to fight Zionism with. Yes, we do call for the creation of a Palestinian state for tactical reasons. Such a state would be a new means of continuing the battle against Zionism, and for Arab unity."



An offshoot of the occupation myth is the 'refugee' fabrication. It states that a significant portion of the Arab population was driven out of Israel by force during the 1948 War. It makes for good copy, but it's false. Egyptian activist, Edward Said, the most famous of these "refugees," for example, has been exposed as a fraud, as has this revisionist history.

Mark Twain, a man, one would think, as devoid of 'imperialistic Zionist' intentions, wrote in 1867 that Palestine was "a desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds." Yet, Arabs have claimed that over a million refugees were forced from their homes during the 1948 War of Independence -- this number includes Arabs whose relatives entered Israel from 1946 onward. The number of Arab refugees is probably closer to 400,000, most of whom took it upon themselves to flee despite Jewish assurances that they would not be harmed. The contention that Arabs were removed by gunpoint is totally incorrect. Research by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestinians Studies in Beirut found that "the majority of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled and 68 percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier."

In her meticulously researched book, From Time Immemorial, Joan Peters proves that a roughly equivalent number of Jewish refugees were expelled from Arab nations during the same period -- 120,000 from Iraq alone. It is estimated that one million immigrants were integrated into Israel's society from 1948-1950.

None of them, on the other hand, were confined for life to refugee camps.

Children awaiting execution by the SS.

http://www.ushmm.org/

http://projectonesoul.com

justifies what is being done to the Palestinian people today. To even factor the Holocaust into the present day equation is duplicitous and manipulative. Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust. Israel exists because of Anglo-American imperialism. The Holocaust was merely an excuse. Israel is puppet, nothing more, leastof all a safe place for Jews. If the Allies had really cared about Jews, they would have bombed the rail lines and the crematoria, and they would have taken in Jewish refugees. They did not. What they did do was establish a client state, populated by pawns and ruled by fascist, racist stooges.

As a history major, I can tell you that the Holocaust was absolutely a factor in letting Jews form Israel. Western guilt about Jewish refugees, combined with the need to relocate a million or more Jewish survivors and the need of Jews for a safe haven absolutely were critical in the formation of Israel. And if it was such an imperialist act, then why did Latin America and the majority of countries in the UN approve of it? And the fact is, Arabs facilitated its sustenance by compounding the refugee problem by driving out 700,000 + more Jews from their countries.

Jews need a refuge. The anti-Semitic wave in Europe and even in America demonstrates that. You can repeat the canard that its all about imperialism till you are blue in the face, it just won't make it true.

One of the earliest, most riveting - and controversial photos to have emerged from the months of violence in Israel was that of a bloodied and dazed young man with an angry Israeli policeman standing behind him shouting. While the young man was first identified by the Associated Press (the photo's source) as a Palestinian, it soon became clear that he was actually Tuvia Grossman, an American studying in an Israeli yeshiva. The truth was that Tuvia had been a victim of the Palestinians, who had dragged him from a car, beaten and stabbed him. The policeman had been shouting at the Arab assailants to stop the terror attack.

The New York Times, which ran the photo and mistaken caption, published a subsequent correction and follow-up article.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY RUN-IN WITH ARAB HATRED

The "Palestinian" Yeshiva Boy
Reflects on His Near-Death Experience

by Tuvia Grossman for Am Echad

As the violence in the Middle East continues, we all have our opinions about the Arab uprising, the peace process and what might be done to halt the bloodshed.

There are many lessons we might learn from the events of the past weeks but an important one is the one I personally learned in a rather unwelcome way.

Shortly after the violence first broke out, I happened to be traveling in a taxi in Jerusalem with two friends when our car was attacked by a mob of Arabs who stoned it, forcing us to stop. The crazed mob then dragged us out of the vehicle and proceeded to severely beat and stab us. Somehow - miraculously is the only way I can understand it - we were able to break away and escape to an Israeli Army position down the road.

As a Jewish American student studying in a Jerusalem yeshiva, I had little experience with the hatred that so many Arabs seem to have for Jews. Indeed, I had conflicted feelings about the Arab- Israeli conflict. But none of that would have made any difference to those who assaulted me and my friends. They wanted, to put it simply, to kill Jews. What they ended up doing, though, was to put me on the path to a lesson I will never forget.

The first indication of the lesson came as I lay in my hospital bed, recovering from a stab wound in my thigh, multiple gashes to my head, and a broken nose. I started receiving phone calls from Jews all over the world, each offering support and compassion. Total strangers showed up at the hospital to visit me and asked what they could do to help me. What I began to realize then is what it is that characterizes us Jews as a nation. The Hebrew word is "achdut", which translates as "unity": a connection that binds us all. As I learned in yeshiva, the sages of the Talmud teach that "kol Yisrael areivim zeh lazeh," - all Jews are "intertwined" each with every other.

That concept includes not only all Jews alive today, but all who ever lived, a thought central to the holidays we Jews celebrate. On Passover we are required to imagine ourselves as redeemed from Egypt along with our forefathers; the matzos and bitter herbs we eat connect us - and have connected every Jewish generation - to the Jews who actually labored in and escaped ancient Egypt. On Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah, we rejoice with the same happiness as if we ourselves were standing at Mt. Sinai receiving the Torah today.

When my picture was published in The New York Times and countless other newspapers and magazines with the distorted caption identifying me as a Palestinian being beaten by the soldier who had actually saved my life, a powerful outpouring of complaints from Jews around the world compelled many of those papers, including The Times, to republish the photograph with a corrected caption and accurate story.

I feel that the overwhelming response to the photo that led to that correction was born of the very aspect of "achdut" that I first realized in my hospital bed. Jews around the world felt that the bond holding us together had been somehow violated by the misidentification of one of our people, and simply refused to allow it to go unchallenged. It was as if the misrepresentation of any Jew was the misrepresentation of every Jew.

That is the lesson I learned, the lesson I am still learning, the lesson all we Jews so need to learn. Even if we feel somewhat removed from the situation in Israel, we must all realize that the suffering of any Jew is the suffering of us all. The whole Jewish nation felt assaulted by my assault, and all of us must feel that we, not just our brothers and sisters in Israel, are under siege, threatened and despised. It is not, in other words, "what goes on in Israel"; it is what goes on in all of our hearts.

And as we share in each other's suffering, may we merit to share in common rejoicing as well.

Tuvia Grossman lives in Chicago and is planning to return to his studies in a Jerusalem yeshiva shortly.

Nessie,
Nothing justifies racism. If I said that a few bad Palestinians who want to slaughter all the Jews justified anti-Arab sentiment, I would be pounced upon in a New York minute.

You can't say that a few bad Zionists justify anti-Semitism. That's also like saying that because there were a few bad African-Americans slavery or segregation was just. You can't justify generalizations of treatment of a group because of a few bad apples in their midst.