Ax Wax Arafat Pols Say. New York Post. May 16, 2001
"More than 50 state lawmakers are demanding Madam Tussaud's [wax museum] yank a statue of a smiling Yassar Arafat from an exhibit of world leaders ..."

Emotions Run High After Poetry Reading Turns Political.
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California. May 18, 2001
"As an Israeli, I'm used to hearing people angry, but this was really extraordinary," recalled [Israeli poet Chana] Kronfeld, "I was really shocked and offended by the reaction. I really couldn't believe that in a place like Berkeley [California, home of the "free speech" movement] or wherever there is a Jewish community that values open speech that a five-minute statement could cause that kind of rude, vocal disruption."

Freud, Zionism, and Vienna, by Edward Said. Counterpunch. March 16, 2001
"What in their appalling pusilanimity the Freudian gang did not say publicly was that the real reason for the unseemly cancellation of my lecture was that it was the price they paid to their donors in Israel and the United States ... After 50 years of Zionist censorship and misrepresentation, the Palestinians continue their struggle."

Censorship 2001. By Moshe Negbi. The Jerusalem Report. May 31, 2001
"I said that in Israel, as in other democracies, 'The state is not the only menace threatening the uninhibited flow of information and ideas to the public. It seems that the all-powerful censors are no longer government offices, but enemies within -- the people who own the media and therefore enjoy tremendous power to control its editorial content ... Ofer Nimrodi, the owner of Ma'ariv -- the [Israeli] daily paper which I have been a columnist and legal commentator for eight years -- has been convicted of illegal wire tapping and obstruction of justuce. Now he is standing trial on charges that include conspiracy to murder ... [After writing about all this] I received a dismissal notice by registered mail ... Ninety percent of the Israeli media are in the hands of three families.'"

Answers Overdue on USS Liberty, by Charley Reese. Orlando Sentinel. June 3, 2001
"June 8, 1967, is a day that really ought to live in infamy. On that day, Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the U.S. Navy intelligence ship, the Liberty, in international waters. Thirty-four Americans were killed and 171 wounded ... This cover-up continues. Alone among the maritime disasters and attacks, the attack on the USS Liberty, clearly marked and sailing in calm sea under clear skies, is the only one that Congress has never made the subject of a public inquiry."

Failed Auction of Anti-Semitic Book Causes Controvery in British Jewry.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency. June 6, 2001.
"A controversial Victorian manuscript widely described as anti-Semitic failed to sell this week when it was put up for auction at Christie's in London. The result of Wednesday's auction was both disappointing and humiliating for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the umbrella organization that sought to sell the document after suppressing it for nearly 100 years. The board's decision to auction the manuscript, 'Human Sacrifice Among the Sephardine [sic] or Eastern Jews,' by the 19th-century explorer Sir Richard Burton, provoked a furious reaction from leading members of Britain's Jewish community."

Family Dictionary Eradicates Verb 'Jew.' Moment, June/July 2001
"At 156 years old, the verb 'jew' is one of the oldest slanders in the book. Now, after protests from a national Jewish leader, the editors of the world's largest-selling English language dictionary are taking the anti-Semitic slur out. The Chicago-based World Book Publishing Company-publishers of the World Book Dictionary, a CD-ROM dictionary, and other learning resources-recently deleted the word 'jew' as a transitive verb from all its publications. 'This was a definition left over from the 60s, which we overlooked,' said Michael Ross, World Book's publisher. 'It's a slangy term, and it doesn't add anything to the body of human knowledge.' Perhaps the most high profile use of the slur came six years back, when pop icon Michael Jackson sang 'They Don't Care About Us' (HIStory) featuring the lyric, 'Jew me, sue me, everybody do me.' That line outraged many prominent Jews, and raised awareness of the slander to a new level. The decision to remove the word came after Murray Friedman, the American Jewish Committee's Mid-Atlantic director, addressed a letter to World Book: 'Your World Book CD-ROM dictionary defines the word 'jew' in an entirely inappropriate and offensive manner,' Friedman wrote. He objected to World Book's listing for "jew" (phonetically spelled "jü"), which states: '(Slang) to bargain with overkeenly; beat (down) in price (used in an unfriendly way).' Friedman urged World Book to label the verb 'deeply offensive.' 'We would have been happy with that as an amendment,' Friedman told Moment. 'But they went beyond us and struck it down.'"

Book Burning Matters. Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], July 13, 2001
"A few days after Limor Livnat was appointed [Israeli] minister of education, she banned a high-school history textbook called 'A World of Changes,' edited by Danny Yaakobi in consultation with seven scholars from four universities. A committee established by the Education Ministry before Livnat assumed office found that the book was in need of certain corrections. Public criticism of the book was largely political: Its critics wanted a more patriotic textbook.The book was published by the Ministry of Education in an edition of about 12,000 copies. Most of them were distributed to schools, a few remained in the ministry's warehouses. Apparently the Education Ministry continued to view the existing copies of the book as a serious hazard to the Zionist soul of the country's youth, as toxic material -- so it decided to destroy them. The ministry's decision was cited in a letter written by the director of the curriculum planning and development department, Nava Segen, to one of the book's scientific consultants, Haim Saadon. The Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha'Ir, which carried a report on the subject last week, headlined it 'Where books are destroyed,' and accompanied it with a photograph from the textbook that is going to be destroyed -- of the burning of books in Nazi Germany. The paper's reporter, Neta Alexander, quoted the response of the Education Ministry: Books that are not going to be used and contain 'sacred material' are sent to storage; books that do not contain 'sacred material' are sent to the shredder."

The Conformist: Right is Still Right. New York Press, Vol.14, Issue 30
"An uncomfortable moment at a Southampton dinner party: Norman Podhoretz nearly refused to shake my hand. The formidable former editor of Commentary, a man I had admired tremendously during the 80s and 90s when I wrote for his magazine, was taking his seat across from me. I had known him for years, never well, but had liked and trusted him enough to once spill my heart out in the Commentary offices about my own self-doubts as a writer. Such was my regard for his magazine and for him that when my politics changed a bit, I had hoped to avoid a real breach. The other Friday evening, Norman was standing across a round table from me, looking older and frailer (and thus in a way sweeter). When I approached him, hand extended, his distaste in putting forth his own was palpable. 'I always liked you Scott. But you wrote an anti-Israel piece, and I’m very ideological on that subject' ... To be charged with writing an 'anti-Israel' column is no small thing–it has been known to get people fired ... In political Washington (as at some Hamptons dinner parties), life may go more smoothly if one doesn’t do or say anything that irritates right-wing Zionists. As my encounter with Norman reminded me, the consequences of speaking out sincerely can be quite unsettling. But it is still the right thing to do."

The Black Arts Leave Writers Riled. Guardian [London], March 16, 2001
"An intellectual pillow fight between Conrad Black and a clutch of distinguished writers from his prestigious publications has exploded into a titanic battle of egos. After accusing the Spectator columnist Taki Theodoracopoulos of anti-semitism for criticising Israel's role in the Middle East conflict, the press baron is in the dock himself - accused of stifling reasoned debate. Three prominent writers - all of them past contributors to Mr Black's Telegraph group - have signed a letter to the Spectator accusing him of abusing his responsibilities as a proprietor. Such is the vehemence with which Mr Black has expounded his pro-Israel views, they say, no editor or reporter would dare write frankly about the Palestinian perspective. 'Readers have been warned. There may be many good things in Black's newspapers, but for balanced reporting from the Middle East, they must now, sadly, turn elsewhere.'"

John Sack. Dictionary of Literary Biography.
"Two years before the book version of Company C was released [John] Sack published what is arguably his most controversial book, An Eye for an Eye (1993). In fact, its subject was so politically and emotionally sensitive that seven years elapsed from the project's inception to the point that a publisher, Basic Books, would print it. In An Eye for an Eye Sack reports that at the end of World War II between sixty thousand and eighty thousand German civilians, including women and children, died in Polish prisons and concentration camps that were run by Jews ... The book's publication travails were not restricted to the United States. Facing vocal criticism, Piper Verlag, a Munich publisher, canceled the German-language version in February 1995 and destroyed the 6,000 copies which already had been printed. (Kabel Verlag would ultimately publish it.) The Polish edition was also accepted, then canceled, by one publisher before a second finally produced it."

BBC Staff Told Not to Call Israel Killings "Assassination."
The Independent [Great Britain], August 4, 2001
"In a major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure, BBC officials in London have banned their staff in Britain and the Middle East from referring to Israel's policy of murdering its guerrilla opponents as 'assassination.' BBC reporters have been told that in future they are to use Israel's own euphemism for the murders, calling them 'targeted killings.' BBC journalists were astonished that the assignments editor, Malcolm Downing, should have sent out the memorandum to staff, stating that the word 'assassinations' 'should only be used for high-profile political assassinations.' There were, Mr Downing said, 'lots of other words for death.' Up to 60 Palestinian activists – and numerous civilians, including two children killed last week – have been gunned down by Israeli death squads or missile-firing Israeli helicopter pilots. The White House has gently chided Israel about these attacks, but already this week the BBC has been using the phrase 'targeted attacks' for the policy of murder. The Palestinian killing of Israelis, however, is regularly referred to – accurately – as 'murder' or 'assassination.'

Tony Martin. Incident at Wellesly: Jewish Attack on Black Academics. blacksandjews.com [Martin in a professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College since 1973]
"The Jewish Onslaught [a book by Martin] was published as a response to the unprincipled attacks, defamatory statements, assaults on my livelihood and physical threats directed against me for several months. These emanated principally from the Jewish community and its agents and were triggered by my classroom use of a work detailing Jewish involvement in the African slave trade. In The Jewish Onslaught I sought to put my subjective situation into the context of deteriorating Black-Jewish relations of recent decades. I also attempted to evaluate the tactics used against me in the context of the well-documented dirty tricks that the Jewish groups have used against me in the context of the well-documented dirty tricks that the Jewish groups have used against Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, David Dinkins, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Len Jeffries, Black parents in Ocean Hill-Brownsville (Brooklyn) and any number of Euro-American individuals and organizations. The Jewish Onslaught is a book of analysis supported by normal scholarly documentation. There is not a single 'stereotype' or generalization in it that is not buttressed by evidence, either from my personal experience of the last year or from the historical record."

American Library Association Buries Israel Censorship Issue.
Washington Report on Mideast Affairs. Sept/Oct 1994
"A four-year battle within the 56,000-member American Library Association (ALA), in which B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League took a leading role in activating thousands of Jewish librarians to attend conventions and revoke a resolution condemning Israeli censorship of Palestinian libraries, appears to have ended at this year's annual conference in Miami. The ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) Action Council voted 17 to 1, with 1 abstention, in a 30-minute closed meeting, to abolish the Israeli Censorship and Palestinian Libraries Task Force (ICPLTF), and to prevent Action Council member David Williams from serving out his three-year term. The vote at the June 24-29 ALA conference followed accusations that the Chicago librarian used the organization as a platform for "anti-Semitism" and harassment of other Action Council members ... Williams first forced the issue of Palestinian intellectual freedom onto the ALA's agenda in 1990, when he was attacked by members of the Chicago Jewish community, including B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League, over a bibliography he had compiled for the Chicago Public Library about the Arab-Israeli conflict. At the ALA's June 1992 convention in San Francisco, after receiving extensive documentation (including Information Freedom and Censorship: World Report 1991, co-published by the Article 19 organization and the American Library Association) detailing the existence of censorship and other human rights violations in the Israeli-occupied territories, the ALA Council took a stand. It adopted a resolution that "calls upon the government of Israel to end all censorship and human rights violations in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza, and in Israel itself; encourages the Israeli and Palestinian peoples in the quest for a peaceful and just solution of their conflict; and encourages ALA members to develop ways to support librarians, journalists, educators and others working for peace, human rights and freedom of information and expression in the Middle East ... For whatever reason, at its 1993 conference in New Orleans, the ALA Council, in an unprecedented action, revoked the 1992 resolution condemning Israeli censorship. The decision certainly was influenced by representatives sent to the convention by the ADL, Hadassah (a Zionist women's group), CAMERA (a Likud-oriented press monitoring organization) and the Jewish Federation."

In Defense of Michael Lopez-Calderon. Palestine Media Watch
"Michael Lopez-Calderon, a member of Palestine Media Watch, was dismissed on March 2, 2001, from his position as teacher at the Rabbi Alexander S. Gross Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach, Florida, for his involvement with Palestine Media Watch and his support of the Palestinian cause. Mr. Lopez-Calderon was accused by anonymous monitors of the Palestine Media Watch mailing list of endorsing violence against Israelis when he stated in one of his emails that Palestinians have the right to resist the Israeli Defense Forces through violence when necessary. (See Statement from Michael Lopez-Calderon for the full account.) Palestine Media Watch is shocked and deeply saddened by this development. It is extremely troubling that personal political opinions expressed outside of one's professional setting could result in punitive actions against the individual expressing those opinions. It is the definition of discrimination on political grounds, and it is shocking and shameful that such discrimination would occur here in the United States of America, where freedom of speech and expression are basic rights. Moreover, it is highly troubling that Mr. Lopez-Calderon's accusers chose to surreptitiously monitor a subscriber-only mailing list and to make their accusations under the cover of anonymity. Mr. Lopez-Calderon's remarks, when read in their proper context, express the obvious: that in a situation where an army is shooting at civilians under occupation, those civilians have the prerogative to exercise their internationally enshrined right to resist by any means."

He Wants to Rid Bible of Dark Interpretation of Jews. San Diego Union Tribune [from Knight Ridder News Services], August 17, 2001
"'The Jews.' It is a term that appears 195 times in the New Testament. And ever since the early Christian era, Jews striving to comprehend their persecution by Crusaders, Cossacks, Nazis or village thugs have lamented their New Testament portrait as Christ-killers. But unlike the millions who have shrugged off -- or suffered under -- the New Testament image of 'the Jews,' Irvin J. Borowsky is on a campaign to rid the Good Book of its dark depiction of his people. A retired magazine publisher and founder of the Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, Borowsky has for 19 years been urging Bible publishers to find other ways to translate the Greek hoi Ioudaioi -- literally, 'the Jews.' The New Testament was written in Greek. Hoi Ioudaioi (pronounced hoy yu-dye-yoy) appears 151 times in John and Acts, often referring to enemies of Jesus."

Concordia Nixes Plans for Palestinian Rally,
Canadian Jewish News, August 30, 2001
"A planned anti-Israel rally that organizers claim will attract more than 20,000 people has been delivered a setback after Concordia University denied permission for the event to be based on university land. Concordia rector Frederick Lowy said the administration was concerned by 'the risk of confrontation and possible violence' associated with an event of this size. The Sept. 15 event, organized by the campus group, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), was to have begun with a 'bazaar' on the vacant lot at the corner of Guy Street and de Maisonneuve Boulevard. From this point, demonstrators were to later march to the United States Consulate on St. Alexandre Street and the Israeli Consulate on René Lévesque Boulevard to denounce 'Israeli colonialism.' They will then return to the starting point. In a statement, which he acknowledged may result in some public controversy, Lowy said the land is too small to accommodate so many people ... SPHR says the event will take place as scheduled at the same place and that it is 'shocked by the unilateral decision' made by the university. The organization says it believes the decision is politically and perhaps racially motivated, noting that the administration has been 'under pressure from pro-Zionist individuals and groups for the past year to reign in Palestinian human rights activity ... More recently, [SPHR] succeeded in getting the Post-Graduate Society of McGill University to condemn Israel for violation of Palestinian rights and, specifically, the closure of Birzeit University.'"

Per the above article, just for starters, note Concordia's September 23, 1999 "Thursday Report" announcement, entitled Jewish Congress Makes Handsome Donation [to Concordia]: "CJC [Canadian Jewish Congress] president Moshe Ronen said, 'We are pleased to be donating Samuel Bronfman House to Concordia University, a distinguished institution of higher learning with a strong commitment to Jewish Studies. We believe that these new arrangements, which retain our national presence in Montreal, enhance our capabilities in Quebec and consolidate our Ottawa operations, will benefit the Canadian Jewish Congress and the entire Jewish community."

The Middle East's War of Words, by Sam Kiley,
Evening Standard [London], September 5, 2001
"Last week The Independent's Robert Fisk accused the BBC of buckling to Israeli pressure to drop the use of 'assassination' when referring to Israel's policy of knocking off alleged 'terrorists' ... Few belligerents have been so good at hijacking language to its own cause than Israel. The Jewish state has deliberately set out to bend English to serve its own ends ... More than two score Palestinians have been bumped off over the past year on suspicion that they have, or might be, planning to kill Israelis. These operations have been described by the European Union and Britain as 'assassinations' and 'extra judicial killings.' Human rights groups call them murders by death squads. The Israelis call them 'targetted killings' ... No newspaper has been so happy to hand over the keys of the armoury over to one side than The [London] Times, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's International. Murdoch is a close friend of Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister ... So, I was told, I should not refer to 'assassinations' of Israel's opponents, nor to 'extrajudicial killings or executions.' The professional Israeli hits in which at least four entirely innocent civilians have been killed were, if I had to write about them at all, just 'killings,' or, best of all -- 'targeted killings.' The fact that the Jewish colonies in the West Bank and Gaza were illegal under international law because they violated the Geneva Convention was not disputed by my editors -- but any reference to this was 'gratuitous.' The leader writers, meanwhile, were happy to repeat the canard that Palestinian gunmen were using children as human shields" ... No pro-Israel lobbyist ever dreamed of having such power over a great national newspaper. They didn't need to. Murdoch's executives were so afraid of irritating him that, when I pulled off a little scoop of tracking down and photographing the unit in the Israeli army which killed Mohammed al-Durrah, the 12-year-old boy whose death was captured on film and became the iconic image of the conflict, I was asked to file the piece 'without mentioning the dead kid.' After that conversation, I was left wordless, so I quit."

Differences of Opinion: The Greg Felton Case,
Thunderbird Magazine (University of British Columbia), April 3, 1999
"According to a recent BC Press Council ruling in favor of newspaper owner [non-Jewish pro-Zionist] David Black, columnists – or any editorial staff for that matter – can be told by newspaper owners not to write about certain issues. This is in line with property rights protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Newspaper owners, just like any business proprietor, can and should be allowed to do what they want with their investments. This is all fine, but the freedom of expression is also protected under the Charter. Hence the conundrum. What happens when one right is incompatible with another? Might wins, according to David Radler, Chief Operating Officer of Hollinger Inc., Canada's mega-media corporation which owns Southam Inc. ... The [Vancouver] Courier's owners told editor Mick Maloney not to publish any anti-Israel commentary, thus silencing [reporter Greg] Felton ... 'Crap' is how David Radler, Black's right-hand man, describes Felton's work. The silencing of Felton directly affects other columnists' rights to express diverse opinions. It is disappointing, but not surprising, that journalists have not drawn attention to this issue. Disappointing because cases like Felton's bring up important issues – such as freedom of speech - that should be debated in public. Not surprising because of journalists' fears of censure from above. Radler says he doesn't interfere with editorial content, but he has the power to if he should so desire. And he has definite opinions of his own on certain issues."

John Adams. The Death of Klinghoffer (a play in two acts -- 1990-91), Earbox
"The story [which this opera performance was based upon] was of the 1984 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists and their eventual murdering of one of the passengers, a retired, wheelchair-bound American Jew named Leon Klinghoffer. People who dismissed [opera performance] Nixon in China as a farce or as an operatic version of Pop Art were even faster to prejudge The Death of Klinghoffer as a hectic attempt to cash in on a garish and ghoulish public event in hopes of getting the public’s immediate attention. The term 'docu-opera' began to stick to these pieces like a burr. The Death of Klinghoffer started eliciting opinions even before a note of it had been heard outside my studio. Alice Goodman’s second libretto was disturbing for many, not only because the clarity and simplicity of her Nixon in China libretto had given way to a rhythm and utterance that echoed in density and depth the Koran and the Old Testament, but also because in her text, she gave voice to the sufferings of both Jews and Palestinians. The very words of the Exiled Palestinians that open the opera were to some listeners not a simple statement of fact, but rather a provocation. My father’s house was razed/ In nineteen forty-eight/ When the Israelis/ Passed over our street. ... When The Death of Klinghoffer played six performances at the San Francisco Opera in the fall of 1992, it was the second most attended opera of their season, and each performance was picketed by a Jewish information group who also wrote letters of condemnation to the local press. Shortly after, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, one of the work’s co-commissioners, cancelled its planned series of performances without any explanation. Since then the opera has not been produced in an American opera house."

Weir Calls Coverage One-Sided,
Daily Northwestern (Northwestern University, IL), November 12, 2001
"An American journalist who has reported from the Middle East said on Sunday that U.S. news coverage of the region is biased toward Israelis, often ignoring the country's discrimination and violence toward Palestinians. Alison Weir, a freelance reporter who lived in Afghanistan for more than a year and spent a month reporting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, told about 100 students and Evanston residents in Harris Hall that the biased reporting was 'consciously contrived manipulation of news.' She called it a 'cover-up' of a region of the world that seems distant, confusing and irrelevant to most Americans' daily lives. 'This is the most censored story I've ever encountered, Weir said. Weir has been a freelance reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and Rolling Stone magazine, and was an editor at Women Sports Magazine. She also was an editor at the Marin Scope newspaper in Sausalito, Calif., and was associated with founding the Center for Investigative Reporting."

Jewish Journalists Grapple with 'doing the write thing,'
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, November 23, 2001
"Do Jewish journalists have more obligations than others? Are they responsible first to their communities, and do they need to represent Israel in their newspapers? These questions and others were raised by the 50 participants of 'Do the Write Thing,' a special program for student journalists sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities held here last week ... 'On campus there is already so much anti-Israeli sentiment that we have to be careful about any additional criticism against Israel,' said Marita Gringaus, who used to write for Arizona State University's newspaper. 'This is our responsibility as Jews, which obviously contradicts our responsibilities as journalists.' Gringaus explained her position by saying that in the campus media, 'groups are set against each other rather than as objective views.' Uzi Safanov, a writer at the Seawanhaka newspaper of Long Island University in New York, agreed. 'I'm a Jew before being a journalist, before someone pays me to write,' he said. 'If I find a negative thing about Israel, I will not print it and I will sink into why did it happen and what can I do to change it.' Safanov said that even if he eventually wrote about negative incidents that happen in Israel, he would try to find the way 'to shift the blame.' Others among the participants felt uncomfortable with these suggestions."

Journal Axes Genes Research on Jews and Palestinians,
Observer, [London] November 25, 2001
"A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal. Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away. Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma. 'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.' ... The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East. In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited ... But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this year, now claims the article was politically biased and was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the journal Nature last week that she was threatened by mass resignations from members if she did not retract the article."

Selling Mein Kampf, Toronto Globe and Mail [Editorial], Novembe 30, 2001
"It is entirely within Heather Reisman's province to order her Chapters and Indigo bookstores to stop selling Mein Kampf, just as she could order them to stop selling Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. She runs the merged chains, and is ultimately in charge of what books they do or don't stock and will or won't order for customers. Was she right to do it? Not in our opinion ... Hitler's textbook for what became the Holocaust may appeal to a few warped neo-Nazis, but it is also essential reading for students of the Third Reich, of the Holocaust and of the climate and reasoning that can produce such horrors ... . To dismiss it as nothing more than hate literature, as Ms. Reisman did, is to sell short the importance of knowing the enemy, and history. Ms. Reisman's edict has another effect. It reminds Canadians of how important it is to have competition for a monolith such as Chapters/Indigo. Independent bookstores, which have had a particularly hard time of it in the shadow of Chapters and Indigo, offer an important alternative to the book barns. But given the dominance of the Reisman empire, the federal government should also look at easing its Canadian cultural laws to allow foreign companies such as Amazon.com to set up warehouses in this country, to increase competition and choice. As Ms. Reisman made evident this week, choice is not something we can count on her for."

Paper Fires Two Involved in Editorial, Syracuse Post-Standard, October19, 2001
"The two top editors at The Oneida Daily Dispatch were fired this week over an editorial that some readers deemed anti-Semitic. The paper Thursday printed an apology, saying the Sept. 19 editorial about the reasons behind the World Trade Center attack was 'offensive, poorly reasoned and based on flawed facts.' Fired Wednesday were Associate Editor Dale Seth and Managing Editor Jean Ryan. Seth, who had worked at the paper for 13 years, declined to comment. Ryan said in a statement that she did not write the editorial. 'I am not working at the Oneida Daily Dispatch as of yesterday because of repercussions from allowing the Sept. 19 editorial to be published,' she wrote Thursday. 'I am not anti-Semitic, and anyone who knows me knows that. I did not write the editorial. I have always enjoyed a reputation for working hard to improve the papers for which I worked and for being fair and evenhanded.' Publisher Ann Campanie would not discuss the paper's apology or the firing of the two editors ... The original editorial quoted an unidentified Pakistani as saying Jews were responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. One section of the editorial read: 'Until 1948, there was no Israel. The United Nations took Palestinian land and gave it to a number of Jewish terrorists to rule - Jewish terrorists who had bombed and killed Palestinians and others in an effort to force hands of power to see an Israel formed. Today's freedom fighter, in many cases, was yesterday's terrorist."

Fiasco Behind the Firings, Poynter Institute, November 2, 2001
"[Jean Ryan] still seems flabbergasted by the charge. "I would never have printed anything that was intentionally anti-Semitic," she said. "I saw this as an attempt to get people to see the innocent people over there [in the Middle East] ... [Jewish attorney Randy] Schaal was joined by two representatives from the Jewish Community Federation of Mohawk Valley, and a retired military engineer. Pukanecz and Campanie offered their apologies, and showed the retraction and apology to the visitors. Minor changes were made to the copy. The final version went much further than the original clarification. 'We understand many felt [the editorial] expressed anti-Semitic sentiments,' it said. 'We will not further offend our readers by attempting in any way to justify what was written; we can only assure readers that The Dispatch is not anti-Semitic and that we acknowledge the editorial should not have been published.' After the meeting, Campanie summoned Ryan and Seth into her office and fired them. Ryan said she was told that the newspaper 'no longer trusted my judgment.' Seth declined to comment for this story and Campanie would not discuss the firing, so it is unclear what reason was given for Seth's dismissal. The Oneida Daily Dispatch had just lost its two top editors." [The objectionable "anti-Semitic" article is posted at this link]

Israel Backers Show Dual Loyalty, Congressional Aide Says in Letter,
[Jewish] Forward, December 7, 2001
"An aide to a Democratic congresswoman from Georgia resigned under fire last week after declaring that Jewish members of Congress have divided loyalties between America and Israel. It was not, however, the first time the aide had aired such views. Before signing on with Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Atlanta in September, Raeed Tayeh worked for two organizations that reportedly are linked to the Islamic terrorist group Hamas. Mr. Tayeh's comments appeared in a letter to the editor in the November 28 issue of The Hill, a Washington weekly. 'What is more disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause,' he wrote, identifying himself as a member of Ms. McKinney's staff. 'The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress,' he added. The letter drew strong condemnations. Mr. Tayeh's accusations recalled 'the most vile anti-Semitic canards that have been invoked against Jews throughout the ages,' said Ira Forman, director of the National Jewish Democratic Council." [Tayeh's Letter to the Editor is below].

McKinney Aide: Some Jewish Members Have Divided Loyalties,
The Hill, [Washington DC], December 6, 2001
"To the Editor: Regarding your Nov. 21 article ('Jewish lawmakers blast Bush on Palestinian statehood position'), I find it disturbing that the members quoted seem to care more about Israel than human rights and American values. They keep asserting that President Bush has rewarded Yasir Arafat with support of a state. But Arafat isn’t the only Palestinian in the world; there are 8 million others, half of whom are refugees Israel refuses to repatriate, despite United Nations resolutions. U.N. resolutions have been passed over three decades, in vain, calling on Israel to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, and its building of illegal Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land. President Bush did nothing more than finally take the courageous step to recognize that another people live on the holy land, that they are the indigenous inhabitants of the land, and that they deserve what every other colonized people have achieved — freedom. Finally, these members continue to refer to the 'great deal' that Arafat walked away from. What he walked away from was an offer for a Swiss cheese state with no sovereignty, no rights in Jerusalem, and no rights for refugees to return to their homes in Israel. You can see for yourself what he was offered by going to the website of an Israeli peace group called Gush Shalom at www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html. What is more disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause. The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress. -- Raeed Tayeh. Office of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.)."

The Contrary Son, by Beth Pinsker, The Independent (magazine)
"The Believer [by Jewish director Henry Bean is] a daring debut film about a yeshiva student who turns into a neo-Nazi ... Bean welcomes controversy, but the way his film has been received is something different. The Believer won the grand jury prize at Sundance and then catapulted the director into a Hollywood maelstrom that has left Bean without a major theatrical distributor. The process started normally enough. After Sundance, Bean went to Los Angeles to sell the film and he showed it to the staff at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, curators of Los Angeles’ Museum of Tolerance. This kind of screening has become more than a courtesy in the entertainment world ... Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the assistant dean of the Wiesenthal Center, didn’t like The Believer ... This self-hating or even just bare exploration of religion happens to be one of the most touchy subjects in American Judaism today. Bean’s film takes it to an extreme, but if Danny Balint had merely gone from being a yeshiva student to eating bacon cheeseburgers --- while expressing the same ambivalent emotions about his upbringing and God --- the filmmaker might have enraged the same groups of people. The character gets deep into this debate throughout the movie. At one point, he’s arguing with an old classmate at synagogue. Avi, who doesn’t know Danny really is a skinhead, calls him a Jewish Nazi because he thinks Jews are wimps. Danny fires back that Zionists are Nazis. 'They’re racist, militaristic, and act like storm troopers in the territories,' Danny says. An older woman standing with them sizes up the situation in a snap and asks Danny pointedly, 'Do you hate them because they’re wimps or because they’re storm troopers? Or do you just hate them?' In just one exchange, Bean has riled up about seven different ongoing theological and moral debates within the Jewish community --- self-hatred, the treatment of the Palestinians in Israel, the goals of Zionism, assimilation, ultra-Orthodoxy, Holocaust, obsession, and talking in synagogue."

The CanWorld Chill: 'We Do Not Run in Our Newspaper Op Ed Pieces that Expression Criticism of Israel,' Electronic Intifada, December 11, 2001
"The 7 December 2001 broadcast of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's As It Happens [online link included] uncovered a disturbing example of corporate and political interference in freedom of the press. The program reported on a new editorial policy directive from CanWest Global, a leading Canadian media conglomerate, that impairs readers' ability to make up their own minds about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other issues. As It Happens reported that over two dozen journalists at the Montreal Gazette have pulled their bylines to protest a new policy imposed by the newspaper's owners, Southam Newspapers Inc, which is owned by CanWest Global. The new policy requires the company's main local newspapers to run editorials written at headquarters in Winnipeg by Southam Editor-in-Chief Murdoch Davis. Bill Marsden, an investigative reporter at the Montreal Gazette, noted that up to 156 times a year -- about three times a week -- the editorial would be imposed and that the remainder of locally-written editorials would be required to reflect the viewpoints and stances taken by the paper's corporate headquarters ... ...[O]n July 31, CanWest announced its acquisition of all of the major Canadian newspaper and Internet assets of Hollinger Inc., including the metropolitan daily newspapers in nearly every large city across Canada and a 50% partnership interest in the National Post." [The owner of CanWest Global, which owns a huge percentage of Canadian newspapers, and the second largest Canadian TV network (as well as some media venues in Ireland, New Zealand, and other countries), is avid Zionist Israel Asper].

[Montreal] Gazette Reporters Protest National Editorials,
Straight Goods, December 14, 2001
"For two days last week, many reporters at The Gazette in Montreal removed their names from the articles they wrote. It was a protest against the decision by Southam News to force all of its 12 major metropolitan newspapers to run 'national editorials' written at the Winnipeg corporate headquarters of parent company CanWest Global Communications Corp. The first was published last week. Another is to run next Thursday. Credibility is the most precious asset a newspaper possesses. When the power of the press is abused, that credibility dies. We believe this is an attempt to centralize opinion to serve the corporate interests of CanWest. Far from offering additional content to Canadians, this will practically vacate the power of the editorial boards of Southam newspapers and thereby reduce the diversity of opinions and the breadth of debate that to date has been offered readers across Canada. CanWest's intention is initially to publish one national editorial a week in all major Southam newspapers. This will eventually become three a week. More important, each editorial will set the policy for that topic in such a way as to constrain the editorial boards of each newspaper to follow this policy. Essentially, CanWest will be imposing editorial policy on its papers on all issues of national significance. Without question, this decision will undermine the independence and diversity of each newspaper's editorial board and thereby give Canadians a greatly reduced variety of opinion, debate and editorial discussion. Editorial boards at each newspaper exist to debate public policy issues, reach a consensus and then present the reasoning to the public. They are designed to be largely free of corporate interests. This crucial process of journalistic debate is undermined by editorials dictated by corporate headquarters. We believe this centralizing process will weaken the credibility of every Southam paper. Last week's first editorial, for example, calls on the federal government to reduce and eventually to abolish capital-gains taxes for private foundations. Who would blame a reader for thinking the editorial simply serves the interests of the foundation run by the Asper family, owners of CanWest and Southam?"

French Envoy to UK: Israel Threatens World Peace,
Jerusalem Post, December 20, 2001
"The diplomatic career of French Ambassador to Britain Daniel Bernard was said to be in jeopardy yesterday, after he was quoted as having referred to Israel as 'that shitty little country' which threatens world peace. The undiplomatic remarks were made at a private gathering at the London home of Lord Black of Crossharbour, chairman of The Jerusalem Post's parent company Hollinger Inc. They were referred to - anonymously - in a column published in the Daily Telegraph on Monday by Black's [Jewish] wife, Barbara Amiel. In her column, which laments that anti-Semitism has become a respectable sentiment at London dinner tables, Amiel noted the ambassador of a major European Union country 'politely told a gathering at my home that the current troubles in the world were all because of 'that shitty little country Israel.' 'Why,' she quoted him as saying, 'should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?' Amiel did not name Bernard, a former French government spokesman said to be a close confidant of French President Jacques Chirac, but he was quickly unmasked by the media as the unnamed 'ambassador of a major European country' and his career was said to be 'under threat.'"

Now You See It, Now You Don't, by Justin Raimondo,
Anti-War (antiwar.com), December 22, 2001
"For the past week or so, I have been writing about the ominous implications of Carl Cameron's four-part Fox News exposé of Israeli intelligence operations in the US. My most recent column on the subject was posted today (December 21). Cameron's reports are, of course, key to understanding the context of these columns: without them, there is no way to understand either the context or the content of what I have written. We provided links to these reports in the column, and fully expected the links to remain valid, as Fox usually keeps its stories up for a month or so. But not this time…. The news that Fox had pulled the Cameron reports from its website was, to me, quite surprising. Now, it could be a technical glitch, a mistake, or whatever: after all, one assumes the Fox News people want visitors to their website, and the more the merrier – right? Israel's amen corner in the US is vocal, well-organized, and not averse to censorship when it advances their agenda, and so outside pressure on Fox News to pull the series cannot be ruled out. As disturbing as it is to contemplate, it seems that censorship is indeed a strong possibility in this case – that is, Fox News is engaging in self-censorship, for reasons of its own."

French Jews Strike a Blow Against Denying the Holocaust,
JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), December 26, 2001
"French Jews have won an important victory in their struggle against Holocaust deniers. On Dec. 20, a coalition of five Jewish organizations — including the Union of French Jewish Students, or UEJF; the League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, known as LICRA; and Memory 2000 — reached an agreement with France´s most popular encyclopedia about its use of the work of Robert Faurisson, the father of French Holocaust denial. The Jewish groups had filed a motion in a Paris court to force the editors of Quid to remove its reference to Faurisson from future editions. The two parties managed to arrive at a settlement before the court could decide the issue. According to the arrangement, Quid will remove Faurisson´s account of the number of Jewish deaths at Auschwitz from all future print editions and from its Internet site. A former professor at the University of Lyon 2, Faurisson was condemned in a French court and removed from his post for disseminating scholarship radically minimizing the death count at Auschwitz and arguing that Jews there died of typhus and malnutrition, not at the hands of the Nazis. According to the arrangement, Quid will drop its mention of these ideas in its historical section on the Holocaust, but will continue to present Faurisson´s work in a more general description of Holocaust revisionism. However, the encyclopedia will include a reminder of Faurisson´s condemnation as an addendum. In addition to these revisions, Quid also must publicize the agreement by posting announcements in its 100 most important points of sale and in advertisements in the daily Le Figaro and in Le Monde de l´Education, a publication aimed at teachers and educational administrators."

Canadian Media Giant Censures Editorials Deemed Critical of Israel,
Arizona Daily Star, December 29, 2001
"Canadian newspaper readers are being warned not to expect a balanced opinion from their dailies after executive orders from the country’s largest media corporation were given to run a select number of national editorials and homogenize remaining editorials across the country so as not to, among other things, reflect negatively on Israel’s occupation of Arab land. Recently, media giant CanWest Global Communications Corp., owned by Israel (Izzy) Asper and family, announced that beginning Dec. 12 one, but eventually three, editorials a week would be written at corporate headquarters in Winnipeg and imposed on 14 dailies, which include the Vancouver Sun and Province, the Calgary Herald and the Montreal Gazette. CanWest also owns 50 percent of the nationally distributed National Post, which will be subject to the new directives as well. Furthermore, in addition to the imposed editorials themselves, all locally produced editorial column pieces will be forced to conform to reflect the viewpoints of the CanWest Global corporation. CanWest last year became Canada’s dominant newspaper chain when it purchased Southam News Inc. from Conrad Black’s holding company, Hollinger Inc., for a reported $3.2 billion Can. ($2 billion) The deal transferred ownership of the 14 metropolitan dailies and 128 local newspapers across the country."

A Conversation with Professor Norman Finkelstein. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Counterpunch, December 13, 2001
"[Norman Finkelstein] is best known as the author of four books, the most recent being The Holocaust Industry, which has catapulted him into the spotlight, due to its contention that American Jewry have ruthlessly exploited the Nazi holocaust for political and financial gain. Often lambasted for his intemperate approach, Finkelstein is unlikely to win popularity contests in America for the language he employs, as much as his arguments. Like his close friend and mentor Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein is not one to mince his words. In his eyes the mainstream Jewish organisations are 'hucksters', 'gangsters' and 'crooks'; Elie Wiesel (celebrity Holocaust survivor) is the 'resident clown' for the Holocaust 'circus'; reparations claims against Germany for Nazi era slave laborers are 'blackmail'; and he infamously dismissed Professor Goldhagen's critically acclaimed Holocaust bestseller 'Hitler's Willing Executioners' as the 'pornography of violence'. Small wonder then that he has few friends amongst the American Jewish establishment, with Elian Steinberg (World Jewish Congress Executive Secretary) stating on TV that 'Finkelstein is full of shit', and the literary editor of the pro Israeli New Republic describing him as 'poisonsomething you would find under a rock'. In its initial hardback edition, The Holocaust Industry was a tremendous success in many nations (selling 130 000 copies in a few weeks on its publication in Germany), but in America its sales were limited to a paltry 12000. This relative failure stateside is attributed at least in part by Finkelstein to a fatwah by the Jewish establishment--he notes indignantly that the New York Times book review was much more hostile toward The Holocaust Industry than it was even to Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'. Now the revised paperback edition has just been released many of these same periodicals are uncharacteristically silent, perhaps thinking they can kill it more effectively through lack of exposure rather than outright aggression."

Foreign Media Protest Vs. Israel, Newsday, January 15, 2002
"Foreign media organizations, including The Associated Press, jointly protested Tuesday the Israeli government's refusal to renew official press accreditations of most Palestinian staffers. Government Press Office press cards, which have been used to facilitate travel and gain access for journalists, expired Dec. 31. With few exceptions, Palestinians who work for international media have not received the new cards even though Israeli and foreign journalists were accredited. 'This has already resulted in significant difficulties for us in covering the important story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a fair and balanced manner,' said a statement signed by two dozen media representatives, including the bureau chiefs of AP, Reuters, Agence France-Press, CNN, ABC, CBS and the BBC. The signatories said they were 'deeply concerned' about the development. The statement noted some foreigners have also not received accreditation, mostly foreign television crews operating out of Israel."

An Open Letter to David Horowitz on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,
antiwar.com, January 15, 2002
"I've found in the past several months that when one disagrees with one's Jewish friends about Israel, one risks losing those friends. I would add that few things in my political and journalistic experience have been more personally dispiriting. Not long ago, I had, in the course of a long and wine-filled dinner, a spirited argument about Israel and the Mid East with a Jewish colleague from the NY Press. I commented afterwards that this 'Jewish-Christian debate,' so rare in New York, had been quite refreshing. He agreed, saying the problem was that there were generally 'not enough Christians' to carry their end. Odd as it might seem, he was right: most American Christians who have given some thought to the issues involved have views similar to mine – but given the rank hostility their expression can provoke from Jewish friends and colleagues, have learned to simply keep their opinions to themselves. In so doing they do a disservice both to their friends, and to their own interests as citizens. I am not inclined to follow their example."

Palestinian Radio Defies Israeli Attacks, BBC News, January 19, 2002
"The Voice of Palestine radio station is back on air - only hours after Israeli soldiers blew up the building in the West Bank town of Ramallah that houses its studios and administrative office. Broadcasting from a private facility, the radio quoted nationalist and Islamic forces calling on Palestinians to 'take to the streets, create human shields, and participate in the battle to defend the resistance, the intifadah, and the symbols of our national sovereignty.' Israeli troops supported by tanks had entered the Voice of Palestine television and radio headquarters before dawn to set explosive charges and evacuate the occupants ... . Israel accuses the Palestinian Authority of using its television and radio networks to broadcast propaganda that it believes fuel the uprising that began more than 15 months ago. The Palestinians say the network has simply been reporting the mood of the people. 'This is another Israeli crime against the Voice of Palestine and at the same time against the Palestinian Authority,' said Bassem Abu Somaya, head of the Palestinian Broadcast Centre."

US University Sacks Palestinian, Guardian [UK], January 15, 2002
"A Palestinian professor about to sacked by the University of South Florida on security grounds after expressing anti-Israel views on a television talk-show is fighting his dismissal, calling it an assault on academic freedom. Sami al-Arian, a computer science professor at USF for 16 years, described Israel as a source of terrorism in the Middle East when he was challenged on the Fox News channel on September 28 last year about radical statements he had made 15 years earlier. He subsequently received death threats, and some of the university's sponsors threatened to withdraw their support. He was suspended three days after the television appearance, and informed of his dismissal in December. The university president, Judy Genshaft, has said she considers him a security risk whose views had cost the university financial support. Prof Arian, who said he would take his dismissal to binding arbitration, founded a think-tank called the World and Islam Studies Enterprises, based at the university until the FBI raided it in 1995 and froze its assets on the grounds that it was supporting Middle Eastern terrorism. Yesterday he said he had not been charged with a crime, and denied having terrorist links. His case has become the focus of complaints by academics that the campaign against terrorism is being used to restrict academic freedom."

In 'Historic' Step, Tribunal Rules Shoah Denier Can't Run Web Site,
JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), January 22, 2002
"Jewish officials are praising a decision that will force Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to close down a Web site. Officials of the Canadian Jewish Congress hailed the 110-page decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal as a 'historic victory.' The Tribunal ruled that Zundel was breaking the law through his arm´s-length operation of a California- based Web site. Ed Morgan, a law professor at the University of Toronto and chair of Congress´ Ontario region, said the Tribunal´s clear acceptance of Holocaust denial as a form of hate propaganda could have significant implications internationally. 'A judicial finding of this nature will have an educative effect worldwide, as Holocaust denial can no longer hide under the cloak of scholarly debate or legitimate discourse,' he said. Morgan also asserted that the Tribunal´s cease-and-desist order against Zundel will be 'a strong deterrent against anyone who aspires to set up a hate site in' Canada. 'The Tribunal has in effect declared that Canada will not be a base for the transmission of hate via the Internet,' Morgan said. Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, also welcomed the ruling, which came after six years of hearings and deliberations. 'Hate messaging and propaganda have no place in Canadian society,' she said. 'The Tribunal has confirmed that this Internet activity is against the law and Canadians will not tolerate it.' The ruling demonstrates that the Internet 'is not a lawless zone and cannot be used to promote hate,' Falardeau-Ramsay said. 'This is all the more important in light of the tensions that have emerged since last September´s terrorist activity.' The lengthy case began after the Commission received complaints in 1996 from the mayor of Toronto´s Committee on Community and Race Relations and from a private citizen, Paula Citron, a Holocaust survivor. Both alleged that Zundel´s Web site would expose Jews to hatred or contempt."

International Press Body Slams IDF [the Israeli army] for Attack on PA Media Facility, Haaretz, January 24, 2002
"The International Press Institute (IPI) has strongly condemned the IDF's demolition of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation's headquarters, studios and offices in Ramallah. In a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the IPI also condemned the refusal by the Government Press Office to renew press cards that expired at the end of last year for some 450 Palestinian journalists and photographers, many of whom work for the foreign media ... 'These latest violations of press freedom appear to be part of a concerted strategy by the Israeli army to control reports on the surge in armed hostilities throughout the region,' the IPI wrote. The IPI said it regards the refusal as a 'gross violation of everyone's right to `seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,' as guaranteed by Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.'"

Canadian Publisher Raises Hackles, Washington Post, January 27, 2002
"Late last year, columnist Stephen Kimber says, the editing of his writing became more and more inexplicable. It wasn't so much dropped commas or the introduction of errors. Sometimes he would open the newspaper, the Halifax Daily News, and find that his opinions had been removed. 'I put up with that for a while, then I began to censor myself,' said Kimber. 'I would remember, 'No, I'm not supposed to write about that.' Kimber had been writing his column without such concerns for 15 years. But things changed, he said, after CanWest Global Communications took over his newspaper and 135 others last summer. In December, the company announced that all 14 of its big-city newspapers would run the same national editorial each week, issued from headquarters in Winnipeg, and sometimes written at CanWest papers around the country. Any unsigned editorials written locally at the 14 papers, the company said, should not contradict the national editorials, which covered such subjects as military spending, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and property rights. The decision provoked immediate complaints from journalists across Canada, who say its effect goes far beyond the editorials, imposing control on columnists and reporters as well. In the United States, the National Conference of Editorial Writers, whose members include Canadians, joined in, saying the decision was 'likely to backfire with readers who are accustomed to editorials on national and international subjects that take account of the diversity of views in their communities.' Many journalists say the company is breaking age-old traditions that keep reporters and columnists independent of the publications' owners. CanWest and its owners, the [Jewish] Asper family, deny that the policy restricts freedom of expression in this way. All they are doing, they say, is exercising the legitimate prerogative of owners to influence a limited part of their publications, the editorials ... CanWest controls a major newspaper in every major city outside of Toronto."

US Groups Oppose Europe Limiting Online Hate Speech,
Yahoo! (from Reuters), February 6, 2002
"More than a dozen business and civil liberties groups said on Wednesday that a proposed amendment to an international computer-crime law could limit free speech and expose high-tech firms to legal liability. Groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a letter to Bush Administration officials that they objected to a proposed amendment to the Council of Europe Convention on Cyber-Crime that seeks to place limits on racist or xenophobic speech. 'While we abhor both xenophobia and racism, this Protocol raises a number of fundamental procedural and substantive concerns to U.S. industry and public interest groups,'' the letter said. South Africa, the United States, Canada, and Japan joined nearly 30 European countries in signing the agreement last fall to fight Internet-based crime, from hacking and child pornography to life-threatening felonies. But negotiators failed to agree on hate-speech laws. Unlike the United States, which guarantees free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution, many European countries have laws against inciting racial hatred. Under a compromise, hate-speech provisions are being negotiated in a separate side agreement. But even if the United States does not sign the agreement, U.S. business and citizens could find their rights threatened online, the groups said. U.S. Internet users could find themselves forced to comply with the hate-speech laws of other countries, while Internet providers could be forced to monitor their customers for possible violations, the groups said."

Schools Remove Donated Books, Los Angeles Times, February 7, 2002
"Los Angeles city school officials have pulled nearly 300 translations of the Koran from school libraries after learning that commentary in the books was derogatory toward Jews. Copies of 'The Meaning of the Holy Quran' were donated in December to the Los Angeles Unified School District by a local Muslim foundation, said Jim Konantz, director of information technology for the district. Konantz said the books, offered as a goodwill gesture in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were distributed to the schools last week without the usual content review. The reasons for skipping the review were unclear, but the donor was known as a supportive community member. On Monday, Konantz received a complaint from a history teacher who concluded some of the book's footnotes were anti-Semitic. After reviewing the book, Konantz instructed principals to secure all copies in their offices until the district determines what to do with them. 'It's not an issue of whether the Koran should be available in the library,' Konantz said. 'It's like any other research volume. But these interpretations are certainly in question.'" [Conversely, note the way Arabs/Muslims are freely treated with abuse in American society, for example by the National Review with their cover entitled "Desert Rats."]

WCBM Bans Host for Anti-Israel Talk,
Jewish Week, February 22, 2002
"When WCBM-AM 680 radio talk-show host Tom Marr asked a friend to fill in for him on the air during his morning time slot Feb. 11-12, listeners got an unexpected jolt. A longtime advocate of Israel and favorite among Jewish listeners, Mr. Marr turned the microphone over to free-lance writer John Lofton for those two days. Mr. Lofton proceeded to infuriate some listeners by effectively calling Israel a terrorist state and questioned the Jewish state's actions in the current Palestinian uprising. In the wake of a flood of irate calls, Mr. Lofton, who denies that he is anti-Israel, was banned for life from appearing on WCBM's airwaves ... Mr. Marr was mad, too. When he returned to the airwaves Feb. 13, he promptly apologized to his listeners and excoriated Mr. Lofton. Specifically, he described Mr. Lofton's criticism of Israel as 'outrageous,' something that was scraped from the 'bottom of the barrel.'"

Union Files Grievance on Behalf of UCLA Librarian Suspended for Message about Terrorism,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 2001
"A University of California clerical union has filed a grievance with the University of California at Los Angeles on behalf of a university librarian who was suspended last month for sending out a mass e-mail message that criticized U.S. foreign policy in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The librarian, Jonnie A. Hargis, works in the reference- and instructional-services department of the Young Research Library. Reached by telephone Tuesday, he said he had been suspended from September 17 to 21 after replying to a colleague's mass e-mail message to library workers that sought to bolster U.S. patriotism. Administrators said Mr. Hargis's response violated a university policy that bars mass distribution of unsolicited electronic communications. Mr. Hargis's message, which went to the recipients of the original message, accused the United States and Israel of waging their own terrorist campaigns against civilian Iraqis and Palestinians. 'U.S. taxpayers fund and arm an apartheid state called Israel, which is responsible for untold thousands upon thousands of deaths of Muslim Palestinian children and civilians,' Mr. Hargis wrote ... Lorraine Kram, head of the department, reprimanded Mr. Hargis in a September 14 letter. She wrote that his message 'demonstrated a lack of sensitivity that went beyond incivility and became harassment.' 'Your comments contribute to a hostile and threatening environment' for your colleagues with ties to Israel and 'for your other co-workers,' the letter continued."

Toronto Star Under Fire for Mideast Ad,
Canadian Jewish News, December 21, 2000
"A Muslim-led coalition is angry at the Toronto Star for requiring changes to an ad that called for an end to Israeli 'aggression' and 'occupation' in Gaza and the West Bank. The Canadian Coalition for Peace and Justice attempted to place the $14,000 ad in the Star about two weeks ago, but was told by the Star's advertising department that several changes would first have to be made. 'This is an attempt to censor a paid ad,' said Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress and a member of the coalition ... The ad asserts that 'peace will be achieved for all when Israel upholds international law, implements UN resolutions...stops human rights violations, withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories...' It cites '300 Palestinian dead' and 'more than 10,000 wounded' and asks for support for a 'global peace campaign to stop human rights violations in Palestine and end the Israeli occupation.' According to Elmasry, the Star's advertising department requested he remove the reference to the Israeli occupation, remove references to the number of Palestinian casualties, delete sentences asking Israel to uphold international law and UN resolution 242, as well as stop human rights violations."

Angle's Radio Show Cut After Remarks,
Morning Call, March 5, 2002
"Ron Angle's radio show Saturday on Allentown's WAEB-AM 790 turned out to be his last, and the NAACP wants his term on Northampton County Council to be over as well. The station canceled the councilman's call-in show Monday, two days after he reportedly made racist and anti-Semitic remarks on the air. 'We feel it's in the best interest to cancel the show,' WAEB Operations Director Brian Check said, citing negative publicity and the possible loss of advertisers. 'This isn't based on what was said or wasn't said ... A caller described the reparations controversy as a 'media-created issue.' Angle then reportedly asked, 'Who controls the media? And who controls the financial world in America?' 'The Jews definitely dominate,' the caller said, according to the newspaper. 'Thank you,' Angle replied. 'The Jewish community controls the media and financial institutions …' Angle said, according to The Express-Times. 'That will incite a riot' ... 'A great deal of the media is controlled by people of Jewish descent,' he told The Morning Call. 'A great deal of the entertainment industry has been controlled by people of Jewish descent.' He later said, 'I can hold my head high. There was nothing I said on that show that was wrong.'''

Adversaries Go Inside ADL's Spying Operation,
San Francisco Examiner, April 4, 2002
"Locked in a nondescript computer database, a shadowy operative named Roy Bullock kept file upon file on liberal San Francisco Jews who disagreed with Israeli policies. The files included Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, addresses, phone numbers and group memberships. Some of the information was sold to foreign governments, including Israeli and South African intelligence groups. Shockingly, Bullock was in the employ of a civil rights group whose motto is 'fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism': the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Numerous targets of the ADL -- who drew parallels to COINTELPRO, the FBI's tainted domestic surveillance program -- say the profiling and covert activities continue to this day. 'They are continuing to gather facts,' said Abdeen Jabara, a Manhattan attorney and former president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. 'That, of course, is a euphemism for what we say is private spying.' Not only were liberal Jews a target, but information also was kept on labor unions, pro-Palestinian organizations, anti-apartheid groups, American Arabs and anti-Semites. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke the case in 1993, a number of these targets filed suit against the ADL. The last lawsuit was recently settled. The settlement in February marked the first time any of the organization's victims were allowed to speak out. Usually, the ADL demands plaintiffs keep quiet as a condition of any settlement. Without those constraints, victims Jeffrey Blankfort, Steve Zeltzer and Anne Poirier are revealing the underbelly of an organization that previously had successfully shielded itself from condemnation. They are using the ADL's own spy as a fulcrum ... Groups have been saying for years that the ADL isn't the civil rights organization it claims to be, but no one has been listening. Mostly, it's because those groups have been thinly-veiled anti-Semites, such as the Liberty Lobby, or hate groups such as White Aryan Resistance and the KKK. But, as vile as some of these groups are, there is a significant amount of evidence that their vitriol is not unfounded. For at least four decades, the ADL continuously has tracked and spied on groups it considers not only a threat to the Jewish community, but to the state of Israel. Hussein Ibish certainly thinks so. Ibish is the spokesman for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee -- an organization that is, in many ways, the Arab counterpart to the ADL. Though certainly at odds with many Israeli policies, the ADC is not anti-Semitic, and plays a rather moderate role. 'Was the ADL spying on people?' asked Ibish, quickly answering his own question. "Certainly in San Francisco they were. We know they were engaging in illegal activities to gain information. They, and their operatives, were working hand-in-glove with South African intelligence and Israeli intelligence."

The Israel Lobby, by Taki, New York Press, Vol 15, No. 15 (April 2002)
"Over on these shores, it is not unusual to charge anti-Semitism against those who oppose the brutality of Israeli occupation. Norman Podhoretz is among the first to do so, an act I find not only unfair, but obnoxious and abhorrent. In fact it’s the oldest trick in the book. Israel’s interests and those of the United States are not necessarily one and the same. Also, in Henry Kissinger’s words, as long as there are 3.5 million Palestinian refugees, they will always have a vested interest in the destruction of Israel. And taking into account what Bill Buckley called 'inherited distinctive immunities' about Israel and the Jews, I nevertheless believe that [Israeli prime miniser Ariel] Sharon has been a disaster for Israel and the region, that his plan of 'Eretz Israel' means to cleanse it of the local population and to cover it with settlements, and that although Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, depriving people of the right to equality and freedom, and keeping them under occupation, is hardly a democratic act. Although Israel cannot look like it’s giving in to terrorism, it also cannot kill every Palestinian. The unqualified support it gets from the punditocracy for Sharon’s provocative gambles will only exasperate matters. Just as the harassment of certain individuals like myself from some Jewish groups will only make me more determined to write the truth the way I see it."

Fear and Learning in America, by Robert Fisk,
Counterpunch, April 16, 2002
"And there were the little tell-tale stories that showed just how biased and gutless the American press has become in the face of America's Israeli lobby groups. "I wrote a report for a major paper about the Palestinian exodus of 1948," a Jewish woman told me as we drove through the smog of downtown LA. "And of course, I mentioned the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin by the Stern Gang and other Jewish groups - the massacre that prompted 750,000 Arabs to flee their homes. Then I look for my story in the paper and what do I find? The word 'alleged' has been inserted before the word 'massacre'. I called the paper's ombudsman and told him the massacre at Deir Yassin was a historical fact. Can you guess his reply? He said that the editor had written the word 'alleged' before 'massacre' because that way he thought he'd avoid lots of critical letters." By chance, this was the theme of my talks and lectures: the cowardly, idle, spineless way in which American journalists are lobotomising their stories from the Middle East, how the "occupied territories" have become "disputed territories" in their reports, how Jewish "settlements" have been transformed into Jewish "neighbourhoods", how Arab militants are "terrorists" but Israeli militants only "fanatics" or "extremists", how Ariel Sharon - the man held "personally responsible" by Israel's own commissioner's inquiry for the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of 1,700 Palestinians - could be described in a report in The New York Times as having the instincts of "a warrior". How the execution of surviving Palestinian fighters was so often called "mopping up". How civilians killed by Israeli soldiers were always "caught in the crossfire". I demanded to know of my audiences - and I expected the usual American indignation when I did - how US citizens could accept the infantile "dead or alive", "with us or against us", axis-of-evil policies of their President. And for the first time in more than a decade of lecturing in the United States, I was shocked. Not by the passivity of Americans - the all-accepting, patriotic notion that the President knows best - nor by the dangerous self-absorption of the United States since 11 September and the constant, all-consuming fear of criticising Israel. What shocked me was the extraordinary new American refusal to go along with the official line, the growing, angry awareness among Americans that they were being lied to and deceived. At some of my talks, 60 per cent of the audiences were over 40. In some cases, perhaps 80 per cent were Americans with no ethnic or religious roots in the Middle East - "American Americans", as I cruelly referred to them on one occasion, "white Americans", as a Palestinian student called them more truculently. For the first time, it wasn't my lectures they objected to, but the lectures they received from their President and the lectures they read in their press about Israel's "war on terror" and the need always, uncritically, to support everything that America's little Middle Eastern ally says and does."

Readers Protest Times,
Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2002
"Nearly 1,000 Los Angeles Times subscribers have ordered suspension of home delivery for a day or more to protest what they call inaccurate, pro-Palestinian reporting of the unrest in the Middle East. The protest reportedly was organized in the local Jewish community and was timed to correspond with Wednesday's 54th anniversary of Israeli independence. Times officials said they could not provide precise figures on the number of delivery suspensions, but said the orders amount to less than one-tenth of 1% of the paper's total daily circulation of slightly more than 1 million. They said the newspaper began receiving multiple calls about Middle East coverage Monday. About 900 calls were received Wednesday, but not all of them requested suspensions. Dr. Joe Englanoff, a physician at UCLA Medical Center, said talk about staging the protest against The Times' Middle East coverage began circulating through Southern California's Jewish community several weeks ago. 'Thousands have been contacted, mostly by e-mail,' he said. 'There's a feeling in the community that The Times clearly has been one-sided and biased in its reporting about the Middle East. People in the Jewish community want to express their anger.'"

Saudi Ads Nixed By Cable Nets,
emoline, 2002
"At least nine national cable networks have turned down a potentially lucrative -- though controversial -- ad schedule from the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. No national cable networks are known to have accepted the ads. The 10-day flight is an image campaign from the Arab nation. The tagline for the spots is "The People of Saudi Arabia -- Allies Against Terrorism." National cable networks that have passed on the Saudi spots include A&E, AMC, Bravo, History Channel, Lifetime, USA Network and The Weather Channel. In total, the Saudis plan on spending more than $10 million on image advertising. 'We had a raging debate,' said a senior marketing executive at one of the cable networks approached to run the two 30-second spots. 'I looked at the tapes. I thought they were tastefully done,' said this executive, who, citing the issue's sensitivity, asked for anonymity. 'I didn't like the end line, '[Allies] Against Terrorism.' This network ended up walking away from a buy that was worth approximately $300,000 to $400,000, the executive said."

Officials Refuse Stance Against UC Berkeley Protesters,
bayarea.com (Contra Costa Times), May 1, 2002
"Pro-Palestinian students were arraigned Tuesday on charges stemming from a sit-in at UC Berkeley last month, but they say that is the least of their worries. The university suspended their group, Students for Justice in Palestine, and have threatened individuals with academic suspensions of up to a year. The students contend the university has tried to silence them by reacting with uncharacteristic harshness. "It's a political tactic to silence a major pro-Palestinian group on this campus," senior Bahar Mirhosseini said. "This has no precedence." On Thursday, the students will protest at Sproul Plaza over what they consider a foreboding shift in Cal's stance on free speech ... "We were somewhat surprised the DA wants to go through with these charges," said Hoang Phan, a graduate student and member of Students for Justice in Palestine. "Usually they drop misdemeanor trespassing charges." The university's reaction has drawn criticism from some faculty who consider it unprecedented in its severity. Linda Williams, head of the film studies program and a Berkeley student during the 1960s, said civil disobedience does have repercussions but that possible yearlong suspensions seem out of line with the students' actions. 'They didn't do anything violent. I can see throwing the book at them if they were violent,' Williams said, adding that the university's reaction surprised her: 'I can conjecture it had something to do with the American tendency to favor Israel and ignore the plight of the Palestinians, but I don't know that for sure.'"

On Target: Banning Songs, Burning Books,
Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2002
"We [Israelis] are out of our minds. We are committing suicide, letting hysteria take over, letting fear-driven panic, leading to despair, run our lives. How else can you explain the bloodthirsty and furious reactions to any expression of a different opinion, any word of criticism against the government's policy and the IDF's operations? This can only mean we are willing to give up our main source of fortitude - our moral strength as a democratic, enlightened, open and liberal society - and become a dark bunch of narrow-minded, violent fascists. Several people who dared express views opposed to the sacred consensus were crucified this week. Anyone who dared punch a hole in the unity blanket with words of heresy was pilloried. Yaffa Yarkoni, an esteemed singer and Israel Prize laureate, a celebrated woman, spoke out against the operation suffered by the Palestinians, and since then her life has been a shambles. Her whole artistic and perhaps even historic value went down the drain ... And there you have the new emerging image of the Jew in the 21st century, and what a disgrace it is ... WE ARE demolishing ourselves. This McCarthyism is expanding and grinding us. People, apparently horrified by the terrible, murderous attacks, have just stopped thinking, and the darkest and most extreme demons have come out of their holes. We will not be toppled by our differences of opinion and our doubts about what is being done to the Palestinians. We might, though, by the chilling chorus of denouncers, boycotters and cursers."

Embattled Israel Clamps Down on Dissent,
Independent (UK), May 5, 2002
"Israel is becoming increasingly intolerant of dissent as war, and the perception that it is under collective threat, hardens attitudes. New rules have been issued for journalists working on the state-controlled Voice of Israel radio station. Israel's army are now referred to as "our forces"; its Arabic division has reportedly issued orders that Palestinians are not to be referred to as "assassinated", but "killed", and that the armed forces do not "take over" cities, they "enter" them. The once vibrant and diverse Israeli media has become markedly more nationalistic and less willing to broadcast criticism. Ishai Menuchin, chairman of Yesh Gvul – an organisation representing Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories – says that he can barely attract any news coverage. Issues that used to command acres of space – such as the fact that the number of Israeli "refuseniks" in prison rose to 68 last month – now barely merit a few paragraphs, he says. Aides to Yossi Beilin, the former Israeli justice minister and peace negotiator, say requests for interviews with the politician, renowned for his liberal views, have shrivelled to nothing after Ariel Sharon launched a massive military offensive in the West Bank in the aftermath of the Passover suicide bombing. When academics at Ben-Gurion University discovered that Mr Beilin was to deliver a lecture there, 43 of them signed a petition trying to get it stopped. (They failed.) The latest, and most unlikely, target is the septuagenarian Yaffa Yarkoni, Israel's "singer of the wars". A national heroine, the khaki-clad chanteuse whose patriotic songs once carried Israel forces into battle caused shock and anger when she recently castigated Israel's army, comparing its conduct in Jenin with the Nazis. "When I saw the Palestinians with their hands tied behind their backs, I said, 'It is like what they did to us in the Holocaust,'" she told Army Radio. "We are a people who have been through the Holocaust. How are we capable of doing these things?" It was as if Vera Lynn had appeared on the BBC and denounced the conduct of British troops in Northern Ireland. Reprisals swiftly followed. A ceremony where she was to receive a lifetime award was cancelled. Israeli youth organi- sations declared they would boycott her songs. She was denounced by ministers, and told by one town – Kfar Yona – that she would no longer be welcome to perform at its Memorial Day event."

Anti-Israel Drawings Under Fire,
National Post, May 23, 2002
"The Toronto District School Board has reprimanded an Arabic language program that rents space in a public high school for displaying drawings by young children of an Israeli jet bombing a Palestinian village. A series of drawings made by elementary school children marked with the Arabic caption, 'Allah is great over Israel. Allah is great,' were hanging on the walls of Winston Churchill Collegiate Institute the Monday morning after the private group used the building for a weekend class. On the advice of a psychologist, the students were told to add colour to pre-produced, connect-the-dot drawings as a means to express their emotions about the war in Israel and the Palestinian territories, said Jennifer McIntyre, a school board spokeswoman ... The high school principal removed the drawings and held a meeting with the Arabic teachers to express her dismay over the artwork, as well as offer them advice from public school social workers on how to come up with a balanced forum for talking about the war."


CENSORSHIP:
THOUGHT POLICE DEPARTMENT

Foxman Slams Israeli Media Monitoring as 'Undemocratic.' Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], July 27, 2001
"The Israeli government's decision to upgrade its monitoring of the international media is 'undemocratic' and 'unbecoming to a democratic state,' Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman said in an interview with Anglo File this week. 'I am uncomfortable with the fact that the prime ministry has announced it will be monitoring the media [more closely] and lodging complaints if something doesn't sit well with it,' said Foxman, who is in the midst of a two-week visit to Israel. 'Media-monitoring is something we [the ADL] do, that lots of organizations do. Democratic governments do not do this. I find it more than a little strange.'"

Jewish Group, Police Team Up Against Hate,
Los Angeles Times, February 14, 2002
"The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday announced a new partnership with law enforcement agencies to help deal with hate crimes and extremists. The group's Law Enforcement Advisory Committee, which includes representatives of 13 law enforcement agencies, was established as a way for the Jewish anti-discrimination organization and police to keep each other informed about the crimes and patterns prevalent among hate groups ... For much of its history, officials said, the Anti-Defamation League has worked with law enforcement to combat bias and hate crimes, but the creation of the committee formalizes this relationship and brings more agencies together. 'In the past we would develop training programs for police officers and take it to law enforcement; now we're asking them what they need,' said Nancy Volpert, the group's associate director."

Blair Shies Aways from EU Law on Holocaust,
Telegraph (UK), March 4, 2002
"Britain is opposing European moves to make denying or trivialising Nazi atrocities a criminal offence. Proposals by Brussels would make racism and xenophobia serious crimes in Britain for the first time, carrying a prison sentence of two years or more. Europe wants to harmonise laws before a new arrest warrant comes into force in 2004. This will allow police to send citizens of the 15 member states for trial anywhere in the EU without old-style extradition procedures. Among the crimes for which the warrant would be issued are racism and xenophobia. But these do not exist as specific offences in Britain or in some other EU states. The draft plans define racism and xenophobia as an aversion to individuals based on 'race, colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin.' An offence of 'public denial or trivialisation of the crimes dealt with by the international military tribunal established in 1945' is also proposed. Holocaust denial laws are in place in seven countries, including Germany, France and Austria. But they would be a big departure for Britain, where a risk of fomenting public disorder is needed before a thought becomes a crime."

Why Does John Malkovich Want to Kill Me?, by Robert Fisk,
Independent (UK), May 14, 2002
"In 26 years in the Middle East, I have never read so many vile and intimidating messages addressed to me. Many now demand my death. And last week, the Hollywood actor John Malkovich did just that, telling the Cambridge Union that he would like to shoot me. How, I ask myself, did it come to this? Slowly but surely, the hate has turned to incitement, the incitement into death threats, the walls of propriety and legality gradually pulled down so that a reporter can be abused, his family defamed, his beating at the hands of an angry crowd greeted with laughter and insults in the pages of an American newspaper, his life cheapened and made vulnerable by an actor who – without even saying why – says he wants to kill me. Much of this disgusting nonsense comes from men and women who say they are defending Israel, although I have to say that I have never in my life received a rude or insulting letter from Israel itself. Israelis sometimes express their criticism of my reporting – and sometimes their praise – but they have never stooped to the filth and obscenities which I now receive ... The attacks on America were caused by "hate itself, of precisely the obsessive and dehumanising kind that Fisk and Bin Laden have been spreading," said a letter from a Professor Judea Pearl of UCLA. I was, he claimed, "drooling venom" and a professional "hate peddler". Another missive, signed Ellen Popper, announced that I was "in cahoots with the archterrorist" Bin Laden. Mark Guon labelled me "a total nut-case". I was "psychotic," according to Lillie and Barry Weiss. Brandon Heller of San Diego informed me that "you are actually supporting evil itself". It got worse. On an Irish radio show, a Harvard professor – infuriated by my asking about the motives for the atrocities of 11 September – condemned me as a "liar" and a "dangerous man" and announced that "anti-Americanism" – whatever that is – was the same as anti-Semitism. Not only was it wicked to suggest that someone might have had reasons, however deranged, to commit the mass slaughter. It was even more appalling to suggest what these reasons might be. To criticise the United States was to be a Jew-hater, a racist, a Nazi."

The Expulsion of Pappe from Haifa University," by Ian Pappe,
oznik.com, May 12, 2002
"I have received today an invitation to stand for a trial in my [Israeli] university, the university of Haifa. The prosecution, represented by Haifa Dean's of humanities demands my expulsion from the university due to the positions I have taken on the Katz affair. It calls upon the court 'to judge Dr. Pappe on the offences he has committed and to use to the full the court's legal authority to expel him from the university". These offences are in a nutshell my past critique of the university's conduct in the Katz affair, the MA student who discovered the Tantura massacre in 1948 and was disqualified for that. The reason the university waited so long is that now the time is ripe in Israel for any act of silencing academic freedom. My intent to teach a course on the Nakbah next year and my support for boycott on Israel has led the university to the conclusion that I can only be stopped by expulsion. Judging by past procedures this is not a request, but already a verdict, given the position of the person in question in the university and the way things had been done in the past. The ostensible procedure of a 'fair trial' does not exist and hence I do not even intend to participate in a McCarthyist charade. I do not appeal to you for my own sake. I ask you at this stage before a final decision has been taken to voice your opinion in whatever form you can and to whatever stage you have access to, not in order to prevent my expulsion (in many ways in the present atmosphere in Israel it will come now, and if not now later on, as the Israeli academia has deiced almost unanimously to support the government and to help silence any criticism). I ask those who are willing to do so, to take this case as part of your overall appreciation of, and attitude to, the preset situation in Israel. This should shed light also on the debate whether or not to boycott Israeli academia."

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

Senate OKs FBI Net Spying, wired.com, September 14, 2001
"FBI agents soon may be able to spy on Internet users legally without a court order. On Thursday evening, two days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the Senate approved the 'Combating Terrorism Act of 2001,' which enhances police wiretap powers and permits monitoring in more situations ... Warrantless surveillance appears to be limited to the addresses of websites visited, the names and addresses of e-mail correspondents, and so on, and is not intended to include the contents of communications. But the legislation would cover URLs, which include information such as what Web pages you're visiting and what terms you type in when visiting search engines."