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Hiroshima Comes Home, By Route of Israel
"Home Grown" article, September 15, 2001

THREE CONTEXTS TO THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, ATTACKS ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND THE PENTAGON, AND THE AFTERMATH:

1) Who runs U.S. foreign policy?
2) Israel.
3) Mass Media.

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WHAT IS THE STATED GRIEVANCE OF THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ENEMY?

Talking with Terror's Banker,
ABC News, June 9, 1998 [an interview with Osama Bin Laden]
"BIN LADEN: It does not worry us what the Americans think. What worries us is pleasing Allah. The Americans impose themselves on everyone who believes in his religion and his rights. They accuse our children in Palestine of being terrorists. Those children that have no weapons and have not even reached maturity. At the same time they defend a country with its airplanes and tanks, and the state of the Jews, that has a policy to destroy the future of these children. Clinton stands after Qana [in Lebanon] and defends the horrible massacre that severed the heads of children and killed about 100 persons. Clinton stands and claims Israel has the right to defend itself. We do not worry about American opinion, or the fact the place prices on our heads. We as Muslims believe that our fate is set. If the whole world decides to get together and kill us before our time has come, we will not die, our livelihood is set ... They are the ones who used the bombs against Nagasaki. Can these bombs distinguish between infants and military? America does not have a religion that will prevent it from destroying all people. Your situation with Muslims in Palestine is shameful, if there is any shame left in America. In the Sabra and Shatilla massacre [in Lebanon], a cooperation between Zionist and [Phalangist] Christian forces, houses were demolished over the heads of children. Also, by testimony of relief workers in Iraq, the American led sanctions resulted in the death of over 1 million Iraqi children ... The American government, we think, is an agent that represents the Israel inside America. If we look at sensitive departments in the present government like the defense department or the state department, or sensitive security departments like the CIA and others, we find that Jews have the first word in the American government, which is how they use America to carry out their plans in the world and especially the Muslim world. The presence of Americans in the Holy Land supports the Jews and gives them a safe back. The American government, in a time where there are millions of Americans living on the street and those living below the standard of living and below the poverty line, we find the American government turning toward helping Israel in occupying our land and building settlements in the Holy Land."

Interview with Osama Bin Laden, PBS [from ABC], May 1998
"BIN LADEN: The Western regimes and the government of the United States of America bear the blame for what might happen. If their people do not wish to be harmed inside their very own countries, they should seek to elect governments that are truly representative of them and that can protect their interests. ... The enmity between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted. There is no question that war between the two of us is inevitable. For this reason it is not in the interest of Western governments to expose the interests of their people to all kinds of retaliation for almost nothing. It is hoped that people of those countries will initiate a positive move and force their governments not to act on behalf of other states and other sects. This is what we have to say and we pray to Allah to preserve the nation of Islam and to help them drive their enemies out of their land ... The leaders in America and in other countries as well have fallen victim to Jewish Zionist blackmail. They have mobilized their people against Islam and against Muslims. These are portrayed in such a manner as to drive people to rally against them. The truth is that the whole Muslim world is the victim of international terrorism, engineered by America at the United Nations. We are a nation whose sacred symbols have been looted and whose wealth and resources have been plundered. It is normal for us to react against the forces that invade our land and occupy it."

Transcript of Osama Bin Laden Interview by Peter Arnett, CNN, March 1997 [cached here at www.ishipress.com; CNN has taken down its own posting of the interview; it can also be found at a "jihad" Muslim site that supports alleged mass murderer Bin Laden and calls him a hero of Islam.]
"BIN LADIN: Regarding the criticisms of the ruling regime in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian peninsula, the first one is their subordination to the US. So, our main problem is the US government while the Saudi regime is but a branch or an agent of the US. By being loyal to the US regime, the Saudi regime has committed an act against Islam ... We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet's Night Travel Land (Palestine). And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The mention of the US reminds us before everything else of those innocent children who were dismembered, their heads and arms cut off in the recent explosion that took place in Qana (in Lebanon). This US government abandoned even humanitarian feelings by these hideous crimes. It transgressed all bounds and behaved in a way not witnessed before by any power or any imperialist power in the world. They should have been considerate that the qibla (Mecca) of the Muslims upheaves the emotion of the entire Muslim World. Due to its subordination to the Jews the arrogance and haughtiness of the US regime has reached, to the extent that they occupied the qibla of the Muslims (Arabia) who are more than a billion in the world today ... A reaction might take place as a result of US government's hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600 thousand Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians. This is what we say. As for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places and its support of its agent regimes who filled our prisons with our best children and scholars."

Talks with Osama Bin Laden, The Nation, September 21,1998
"When [Bin Laden] brought his 9,000 Arab fighters to support the Afghans in their conflict against the Soviet occupation army, hacking out the mountain trails with his construction equipment, building hospitals and arms dumps, he became a war hero. Some of his current Afghan fellow fighters had been trained earlier by the CIA in the very camps that were the target of the recent US missiles--but whereas they had been called camps for 'freedom fighters' when US agents set them up in the early eighties, now they had become camps for 'terrorists' ... 'The explosion [against US service personnel] at Khobar [in Saudi Arabia] did not come as a direct result of American occupation but as a result of American behavior against Muslims,' he said. 'When sixty Jews are killed inside Palestine, all the world gathers...to criticize the action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children [because of the US sanctions] did not receive the same reaction. Killing those Iraqi schoolchildren is a crusade against Islam.... Resistance against America will spread in many, many places in Muslim countries. Our trusted leaders, our ulema, have given us a fatwa that we must drive out the Americans.' Because of America's refusal to acknowledge any reason for the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania--hatred of America, per se, is the usual explanation--few chose to point out that they occurred on the eighth anniversary, to the very day, of the arrival of the first US troops in Saudi Arabia in 1990. When I last saw bin Laden, he was still obsessed with the Israeli massacre of 107 Lebanese refugees sheltering at the UN camp at Qana in April 1996. Israel claimed it was a 'mistake,' the UN conceded otherwise and President Clinton called it only a 'tragedy'--as if it was a natural disaster. It was, said bin Laden, an act of 'international terrorism.' There must be justice, he said, and trials for the Israeli perpetrators. Clinton used almost exactly the same words about bin Laden and his supporters in August. But the deaf, as usual, were talking to the deaf."

Understanding Osama Bin Laden,
alternet.org [Pacific News Service], September 12, 2001
"The United States risks a severe miscalculation in dealing with the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon on Tuesday. This event is not an isolated instance of violence. This is not an 'act of war.' It is one symptom of a cancer that threatens to metastasize. The root cause is not terrorist activity, as has been widely stated. It is the relationship between the United States and the Islamic world. Until this central cancerous problem is treated, Americans will never be free from fear ... The chief suspect is the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden, or his surrogates. He has been mischaracterized as an anti-American terrorist. He should rather be thought of as someone who would do anything to protect Islam ... The State Department has theorized that if the people of a rogue nation experience enough suffering, they will overthrow their rulers, or compel them to adopt more sensible behavior. The terrorist actions in New York and Washington are a clear and ironic implementation of this strategy against the United States ... Palestinian members of his group see Americans as supporters of Israel in the current conflict between the two nations. In the Palestinian view, Ariel Sharon's ascendancy to leadership of Israel has triggered a new era, with U.S. government officials failing to pressure the Israeli government to end violence against Palestinians. Palestinian cell members will not cease their opposition until the United States changes its relationship with the Israeli state."

Borderless Network of Terror, Washington Post, September 23, 2001
"Abdul Hakim Murad washed his hands, and broke a basic rule of bombmaking. When the water mixed with chemical residue in the kitchen sink of unit 603 in the Dona Josefa Apartments here [in the Phillipines] in 1995, it set off an eruption that would reveal the inner workings of a clandestine terrorist cell allied with Osama bin Laden. It also revealed a plan that gave a chilling preview of the attack in New York and Washington on Sept. 11. Arrested and tortured by Philippine intelligence agents, Murad told the story of 'Bojinka' -- 'loud bang' -- the code name bin Laden operatives had given to an audacious plan to bomb 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and fly an airplane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. -- all after attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II. The plot in the Philippines, which was recounted to U.S. investigators at the time, appears to be a model of the methods, aims and structure of the network that bin Laden's followers have assembled in dozens of countries around the world ... The plotters also included in their plans the motives for the mission, in a manifesto recovered by investigators: 'The U.S. government gives military aircraft to the Jewish state so the Jews can continue fighting and killing. All of this is a result of the U.S. government's financial and military support of the Jewish state. All people who support the U.S. government are our target.'"

Religion Isn't the Sole Motivation of Terror,
Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2001
"What would motivate anyone to crash airplanes into buildings with thousands of people inside? Attributing religious motivations to the 50 or so people federal authorities report may have been involved in this operation is too simplistic. Similarly, describing the attackers as crazy does not appreciate the character of their twisted logic. They operated according to a way of thinking that we neither approve nor fully understand, but it made sense to them. An examination of the motives of the conspirators who sought to bring down the World Trade Center towers in 1993 may offer some insight. After the bombing in 1993, the bombing conspirators wrote to the New York Times. They justified their attack as a way to transfer the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians to the American homeland and argued that Americans would only diminish their support for Israel when they suffered in the same way as Palestinians and other people like them in moderate Arab countries. The bombers argued that 'the American people must know that their civilians who got killed are not better than those who are getting killed by the American weapons and support.'"

Symbols of Oppression, Guardian [London], September 12, 2001
"Why does the US continue to be a target for Islamist attacks? ... President Bush and secretary of state Colin Powell gave their own take yesterday. They blamed extremists bent on damaging democracy and western civilisation. Disturbingly, their views will likely wash with an audience whose grasp of international affairs is so dumbed down as to prevent them separating loaded representation from reality. But much as the attacks on civilian structures might suggest otherwise, democracy is not the intended target here, and neither is freedom. Inside America, the Trade Centre, the Pentagon, Camp David, and Capitol Hill are all seen as symbols of global US power and prestige, of the triumph of democracy. Outside, in the Muslim world, they are popularly regarded as symbols of terror and oppression ... Since 1991, American-led sanctions against Iraq and the effects of depleted uranium have killed 1m children. Who knows if the attackers intended all flights inside the US to come to a halt, but for a day at least they succeeded in turning the tables on the no-fly zone in force over Iraq. Since the Palestinian uprising started last September, American Apache helicopters, F-16s and M-16 rifles have been responsible for killing 700 Palestinians and injuring 25,000 more. Since CNN isn't there, by design rather than accident, to capture every smashed skull and charred corpse, westerners remain ignorant of US terrorism. These are only the more visible examples of US abuses in Muslim lands. As it waves the flag of democracy in one hand, Washington pours billions of dollars into upholding totalitarian regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, among others, to make sure its people are prevented from exercising their collective will. The US Fifth Fleet sails menacingly around the Gulf in a warning to dissidents that it will use force to protect its client rulers and an uninterrupted supply of oil. And the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia cocks a snook at Muslim sensibilities about their holy places."

The Unknown Enemy, by Joseph Sobran, Sobran's, September 11, 2001
"It was predictable. For years I’ve been writing that the U.S. Government has been making more enemies than Americans really need, all over the globe, and that one of these days some of them would have a nasty surprise for us ... Who has reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million people — Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others whose countries have been hit by U.S. bombers. Imagine hating a country so much that you were willing to cross an ocean and carry out an elaborate revenge against its people, killing yourself in the process ... Foreigners aren’t quite real to Americans, and most Americans are unaware of how profoundly their government antagonizes much of the human race. We are easy-going people who generally have no idea how bullying we seem to foreigners. Until now, we have had no experience of what the U.S. Government has so often inflicted on others. Now, at least, we have an inkling of what it feels like."

Explaining Arab Anger, by Jim Muir, BBC, September 19, 2001
"The man standing beside me in the crowd was sobbing his heart out. Along with dozens of other people, his wife and children lay crushed beneath the rubble of the collapsed building we were looking at. It had been brought down quite scientifically by two big explosions. The multi-storey apartment block was demolished because somebody thought Yasser Arafat was there. He wasn't. Many people in and from the region had a deep gut feeling that decades of accumulated poison somehow found expression on 11 September 2001. It was destroyed by two Israeli jets which flashed out of the sky on that Friday summer morning in Beirut during the Israeli siege of 1982. They were acting on the orders of then Israeli Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon. Now, he is Israel's prime minister, and he's eagerly signing up to take part in America's new crusade of good against evil. The above was one of many such incidents during Israel's adventure in Lebanon, in which uncounted thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians were killed. They died unmourned and largely unnoticed by the American public, whose largesse - financial, military and political - made it all possible."

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5 Israelis Detained for 'Puzzling Behavior' After WTC Tragedy,
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], September 17, 2001
"Five Israelis who had worked for a moving company based in New Jersey are being held in U.S. prisons for what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has described as 'puzzling behavior' following the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York last Tuesday. The five are expected to be deported sometime soon. The families of the five, who asked that their names not be released, said that their sons had been questioned by the FBI for hours on end, had been kept in solitary confinement for three days, and had been humiliated, stripped of their clothes and blindfolded ... She said that the five had worked for the company, which is owned by an Israeli, for between two months and two years. They had been arrested some four hours after the attack on the Twin Towers while filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their company's building, she said. It appears that they were spotted by one of the neighbors who called the police and the FBI ... The mother [of one of the detained] said that the families and friends of the five in Israel had known nothing of the men's whereabouts for a number of days. 'When they finally let my son make a phone call for the first time to a friend in the United States two days ago, he told him that he had been tortured by the FBI in a basement,' the mother said. 'He was stripped to his underwear; he was blindfolded and questioned for 14 hours. They thought that because he has citizenship of a European country as well as of Israel that he was working for the Mossad [Israel's secret service] ... The [Israeli] Foreign Ministry said in response that it had been informed by the consulate in New York that the FBI had arrested the five for 'puzzling behavior.' They are said to have had been caught videotaping the disaster and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery.'"

Hundreds of Israelis Missing in WTC Atttack, Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2001
"The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attack."

The Blame Game. Economist, September 12, 2001
"Arabs have good reason to worry. Already, Israel appears to be taking advantage of the world’s distraction to press its military campaign against the Palestinians. The temporary occupation of the West Bank town of Jenin, begun on Monday, has lasted much longer than the Israeli army’s three previous incursions into Palestinian-controlled cities. At least 12 Palestinians have died in the operation, but America’s media have hardly noticed ... Many Arabs, though appalled by the atrocity, do believe that America deserves some sort of comeuppance for its seeming disregard of the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and of Iraqis under UN sanctions. The Bush administration’s apparent disengagement from the peace process, coupled with Israel’s use of sophisticated American weaponry to attack Palestinians, has instilled a sense that America is no longer just Israel’s distant benefactor, but an accomplice in Israeli 'crimes.' Bloody bombings and street battles have become so common in the dirt-poor and despairing refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, in particular, that many residents have become entirely insensitive to violence ... Many Arabs ... hold America itself responsible for the spread of fundamentalist terror. After all, many of the suspects in Tuesday’s attacks are veterans of the American-funded war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, including Mr bin Laden ... America’s Arab allies will feel jittery, and clamp down harder on legitimate dissent, thereby stoking Islamic extremism. A spirit of sheer defiance might inhibit America from softening its policy on Iraq or cajoling Israel into concessions in the peace process, with the same result. The upshot of the tragedy in America could well be further tragedy in the Middle East, and more recruits to extreme Islamic terror."

Bush Is Walking Into a Trap, by Robert Fisk,
Independent [London], September 16, 2001
"Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity. We cannot understand America's need to retaliate unless we accept this bleak, awesome fact. But this crime was perpetrated – it becomes ever clearer – to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing. Mr bin Laden – every day his culpability becomes more apparent – has described to me how he wishes to overthrow the pro-American regime of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and moving on to Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf states. In an Arab world sunk in corruption and dictatorships – most of them supported by the West – the only act that might bring Muslims to strike at their own leaders would be a brutal, indiscriminate assault by the United States ... the Americans need look no further than Ariel Sharon's futile war with the Palestinians to understand the folly of retaliation. In Lebanon, it was always the same. A Hizbollah guerrilla would kill an Israeli occupation soldier, and the Israelis would fire back in retaliation at a village in which a civilian would die. The Hizbollah would retaliate with a Katyusha missile attack over the Israeli border, and the Israelis would retaliate again with a bombardment of southern Lebanon. In the end, the Hizbollah – the "centre of world terror'' according to Mr Sharon – drove the Israelis out of Lebanon. In Israel/Palestine, it is the same story. An Israeli soldier shoots a Palestinian stone-thrower. The Palestinians retaliate by killing a settler. The Israelis then retaliate by sending a murder squad to kill a Palestinian gunman. The Palestinians retaliate by sending a suicide bomber into a pizzeria. The Israelis then retaliate by sending F-16s to bomb a Palestinian police station. Retaliation leads to retaliation and more retaliation. War without end. And while Mr Bush – and perhaps Mr Blair – prepare their forces, they explain so meretriciously that this is a war for "democracy and liberty'', that it is about men who are "attacking civilisation''. "America was targeted for attack,'' Mr Bush informed us on Friday, "because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.'' But this is not why America was attacked. If this was an Arab-Muslim apocalypse, then it is intimately associated with events in the Middle East and with America's stewardship of the area. Arabs, it might be added, would rather like some of that democracy and liberty and freedom that Mr Bush has been telling them about. Instead, they get a president who wins 98 per cent in the elections (Washington's friend, Mr Mubarak) or a Palestinian police force, trained by the CIA, that tortures and sometimes kills its people in prison. The Syrians would also like a little of that democracy. So would the Saudis. But their effete princes are all friends of America – in many cases, educated at US universities."

MP Warns of Creating '10,000 Bin Ladens, Guardian [London], September 14, 2001
"Parliament's most outspoken critic of the US today made an impassioned speech, warning the west that it risked creating '10,000 Osama bin Ladens' in the Middle East. George Galloway, the Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin who has made several trips to Iraq in the last decade as part of the campaign against sanctions, said the 'monumental double standards' were behind the reaction to the US terrorist attacks. He said: 'I have walked in the ashes of cities under aerial attack, buildings under aerial attack. People being crushed by falling masonry and steel or incinerated by fire from aerial attack look, sound and smell exactly the same whether they are in Beirut, the West Bank, Baghdad or Manhattan ... 'If 5,000 people have died in Manhattan, even if 10,000 people have died in Manhattan and Washington and Pittsburgh, that represents less than two months of the number of children who have died in Iraq every single month of every single year for 11 years, according to the United Nations themselves,' Mr Galloway said. 'The Muslims don't believe you care about that. Today as we are speaking they don't believe that you care about them, in some respects they are right.'"

Former Israeli Owns Retail Lease for World Trade Center,
Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2001
"Australian businessman Frank Lowy, who emigrated to Australia from Israel in 1952, owns the 99-year lease for the 425,000 square foot retail portion of the destroyed World Trade Center. Lowy is the chairman and founder of Westfield Holdings, the manager of Westfield America Trust, which has a 57 percent stake in Westfield America Inc ... Westfield said today that it has insurance cover against terrorist attacks and its earnings will not be materially affected. In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange the retail chain said that 'investment in the retail component of the World Trade Center is fully insured for both capital and loss of income,' adding 'the insurance cover includes acts of terrorism' ... Today [Lowy] is the second wealthiest man in Australia and was recently ranked as the 209th wealthiest man in the world by Forbes magazine. Westfield is the fourth-largest shopping mall owner, with operations in Australia, the US, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Lowy is philanthropically involved in the Jewish community in Sydney as well as Israel, including sponsoring the Overseas Students School of Tel Aviv University which is endowed in his name and being associate international chairman of the Israel Democracy Institute."

America: The New Israel, Jewish Week, September 15, 2001
"The attack could have huge implications for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Some may blame American support for provoking the terrorists, while others may conclude that it is time for Washington to drop its attempts at neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and come down firmly on Jerusalem’s side ... 'There is a danger of people saying, if we didn’t support Israel, those people would have no reason to dislike us, [special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Shoshona] Bryen said. 'We have to make the case that that’s not true; they don’t like us because of who we are' ... Making sure that message penetrates the anger and anxiety most Americans feel in the wake of the terror onslaught will be a top challenge for Jewish leaders in the difficult days ahead, [ADL director Abraham] Foxman said ... Short-term, Jewish leaders say, the terror will bring Israel and the United States closer together ... Other analysts say the attack could add to the options available to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he tries to subdue the yearlong surge of Palestinian terrorism."

Sharon Puts Arab Support for US at Risk,
Guardian [London]l, September 17, 2001
"Israel emerged as an early stumbling block to Washington's plans to recruit Arab states to a broad war coalition yesterday as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, rebuffed US calls for ceasefire talks, and ordered the third invasion of a Palestinian-ruled city in less than a week. European countries, including Britain, fear that Israel is using the international focus on events in the US as a cover for punitive actions against the Palestinians that contravene international law. Last week the foreign office protested to the Sharon government after the Israeli assault on the West Bank city of Jenin ... On the political front, too, Mr Sharon has toughened his stance. Yesterday he set new conditions for ceasefire talks that appear practically impossible for the Palestinian leader to meet. The standoff could jeopardise Washington's efforts to secure the support of Arab and Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for military reprisals for last week's attacks. It has also triggered one of the most serious crises in Mr Sharon's national unity coalition."

The Cost of Israel to the American People, by Richard Curtiss,
Al-Hewar Center
"Between 1949 and 1998, the U.S. gave to Israel, with a self-declared population of 5.8 million people, more foreign aid than it gave to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, all of the countries of Latin America, and all of the countries of the Caribbean combined – with a total population of 1,054,000,000 people ... If you add its foreign aid grants and loans, plus the approximate totals of grants to Israel from other parts of the U.S. federal budget, Israel has received since 1949 a grand total of $84.8 billion, excluding the $10 billion in U.S. government loan guarantees it has drawn to date. And if you calculate what the U.S. has had to pay in interest to borrow this money to give to Israel, the cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers rises to $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis had received from the U.S. government by October 31, 1997, cost American taxpayers $23,241 per Israeli. That’s $116,205 for every Israeli family of five. None of these figures include the private donations by Americans to Israeli charities, which initially constituted about one quarter of Israel’s budget, and today approach $1 billion annually. In addition to the negative effect of these donations on the U.S. balance of payments, the donors also deduct them from their U.S. income taxes, creating another large drain on the U.S. treasury ... In a recent vote on a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling upon Israel to curb further encroachments on Palestinian lands by Jewish settlers, only the United States and Micronesia voted with Israel. Of the 185 U.N. member nations, all of the others, without exception, voted against Israel or abstained. Yet Americans seem oblivious to such examples of how their Israel-centered Middle East policies are isolating the United States in the world."

Some Advisors Seek Sweeping U.S. Response,
Miami Herald, September 18, 2001
"As he weighs retaliation for last week's terrorist attacks, President Bush is receiving conflicting advice from his top aides, some of whom want to go beyond a military strike on terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan and topple states that have long threatened the United States, particularly Iraq. The split between civilian officials at the Pentagon and Secretary of State Colin Powell, confirmed Monday by current and former U.S. officials, goes to the heart of Bush's proposed new war on international terrorism. Powell, seeking to build and hold an international coalition against terrorism that includes many Muslim nations, is urging caution, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman wants to limit military strikes to bin Laden's Afghan redoubts and to use other means -- diplomacy, law enforcement and financial pressure -- to shut down terrorist networks elsewhere. That view is not shared by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and others have argued strenuously in inter-agency meetings for a far more sweeping U.S. response, including a strategic bombing campaign and aid for Iraqi opposition groups to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the officials said."

If Bush Wants an Invasion, It Could Be More Costly Than Vietnam,
Independent [London], September 18, 2001
"President Bush is talking about a 'crusade'' ­ it would be difficult to find a word more likely to enrage Muslims ­ but if he plans to wage it in Afghanistan, the United States faces a military campaign more fraught and potentially even more costly than Vietnam. Ground troops may be necessary to seize Osama bin Laden but they will be entering a country containing one tenth of the world's land mines, left by Soviet occupation forces across 80 per cent of the land. Besides, anyone who wants to invade Afghanistan needs friends. The Russians had the communist government of Babrak Karmal. But, with the murder of the only serious opponent of the Taliban, Shah Masood, by Arab suicide bombers nine days ago, the United States hasn't a single friend in that cemetery of foreign armies ... Even if the Americans penetrated Afghanistan, their shells would only plough over the ruins. The Russians tried to destroy the Taliban's predecessors with 10 years of bombing, destroying whole villages, with their people, farm animals, fields, trees and mud huts. And still they could not get rid of the mujahedin, still they could not ­ to use Mr Bush's inappropriately folksy phrase ­ 'smoke them out of their holes.'"

In the Death Zone, by Tom Carew, Guardian [London], September 19, 2001
"As fighting terrain, [the Hindu Kush area in Afghanistan] is an absolute nightmare. It's a natural fortress. You can't get very far with vehicles; you get bogged down and the passes are too steep. The Russians had a bloody awful time. They really got stuck. It's one thing to put in your infantry, but you've got to keep them within range of your artillery and your mortars. With bad mountain passes, this is almost impossible. None of this matters to the Afghans: they have it all organised, moving from one village to the next, where they have bases stocked with food. This is how they have fought and won wars for the past 200 years, with little bases all over the place and holes in the ground where everything is buried ... If it comes to a ground war, I believe the western forces will have a very slim chance of victory. The last army to win in Afghanistan was that of Alexander the Great; everyone else has got mauled and pulled out. The CIA made an awful lot of maps when they were there, but a map is only as good as the person using it, and there is no safe way to get troops in. The Afghans are a formidable enemy. I should know. We in the west pointed them in the right direction and with a little bit of training, they went a long way."

International Poll Shows Opposition to US Strike,
Yahoo!News [from Reuters], September 21, 2001
"International public opinion opposes a massive U.S. military strike to retaliate for suicide attacks on America by hijacked aircraft, according to a Gallup poll in 31 countries whose results were released on Friday. Only in Israel and the United States did a majority favour a military response against states shown to harbour terrorists, the survey found. People questioned elsewhere preferred to see suspected terrorists extradited and put on trial. 'Around 80 percent of Europeans and around 90 percent of South Americans favour extradition and a court verdict. By European comparison, calls for a tough military response were above average among the French (29 percent) and the Dutch (28 percent),' said Swiss polling firm Isopublic, which conducted the survey in Switzerland. Seventy-seven percent of Israelis backed military action, while 54 percent of Americans were in favour, it said."

Rabbi Helps Recover Jewish Victims of Pentagon Hit,
Jewish Times, September 21, 2001
"'There were four confirmed Jewish fatalities on American Airlines Flight 77 [that struck the Pentagon],' continued Rabbi [Menachem] Youlus. 'I identified one with a Magen David around his neck. He was on the manifest of the airplane, and he was in the right seat' ... The rabbi estimated that 30-40 Jews died in the Pentagon of 190 feared dead." [Jews represent 2.5% of the American population. 64 of those killed were on American Airlines Flight 77. According to the above estimate, of the remaining 126 slain people working in the Pentagon, 26-36 were Jewish -- somewhere around 20-30%].

A Rabbi Ministers to the Many Faithful at Ground Zero,
[Jewish] Forward, September 21, 2001
"The World Trade Center had crumbled into a pile of rubble two days before. Thousands of rescue workers had come to help. The National Guard had been mobilized to protect the area. And Rabbi [Jacob] Goldstein, a Lubavitcher rabbi, career city employee and National Guard reservist, was administering to them all as chief chaplain of the Guard's mission to New York City. Rabbi Goldstein is in charge of chaplains of all faiths — 30 teams, each comprising a chaplain and a chaplain's assistant. As the crisis continues, he said, the number of teams deployed to the area will grow. 'I'm on call indefinitely,' said Rabbi Goldstein, a fit 53 with a long white beard and boundless energy. Dressed from head to toe in fatigues, he wore a camouflage yarmulke beneath his helmet. 'Until further notice I am the lead chaplain for the entire mission.'" [The Lubavitcher movement is also known as Chabad; some of its troubling tenets may be noted in the blue column to the left, there in the context of Ari Fleischer, apparently a member of the Chabad movement and press spokesman for president George W. Bush.]

Akamai: Co-Founder Dies in WTC Plane Crash, by Daniel Sieberg,
CNN, September 11, 2001
"Daniel Lewin, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) at Akamai Technologies Inc., is said by his company to have died Tuesday as a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11. The Boeing 767, originally bound for Los Angeles from Boston, crashed into the World Trade Center in New York ... In July, Lewin was named one of the Top 10 people of the Enterprise Systems Power 100, a list of industry leaders chosen for their effect on the IT (information technology) landscape and for their ability to influence the industry's direction ... Born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in Jerusalem, Lewin is an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, having served in the country's military for more than four years."

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THE FOLLOWING IS THE WINNER OF JTR'S
"MIND-BOGGLING JEWISH HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK" AWARD:

Arab Americans Have to Choose. It's War Now -- Divided Loyalties Aren't Acceptable, by Ze'ev Chafets, New York Daily News, September 16, 2001.
"[Many public officials have declared that] not all Arabs are terrorists, and not all Muslims are enemies ... Japanese-Americans were herded into confinement camps during World War II ... They were, we can see in hindsight, victims of guilt by association. Nobody wants this to happen again. But guilt by association cuts both ways ... Since Tuesday, [Muslim] community spokesmen have gone on TV to denounce the sneak attack on New York and Washington ... The blasts that blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade towers ... also demolished this kind of Arab double-talk. We are in a moment of extreme moral and political clarity. After Tuesday, Americans know precisely who their enemies are. There are apologists for Islam who say that a great religion has been tarnished and perverted by a few zealots. But Islam, like communism and every other mobilized ideology, can be judged only by its actions."

CONTEXT: The "actions" by which to judge another group of people, American Jews, who overwhelmingly support Israel, may be examined for comparison here. The author of the above article, Ze'ev Chafets, was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan. Overcome with the Zionist spirit, he moved to Israel as a young adult and became a high-level press official in the Israeli government. Like many Jewish Americans, he has both Israeli and American citizenship. [Chafets, Z., Heroes and Hustlers, Hardhats and Holymen. Inside the New Israel, William Morrow, NY, 1986] Chafets even wrote the following in an article in 1996 about the Jewish "fundamentalist" equivilant of "fundamentalist Muslims": "Rabbi Meir Kahane began preaching that Arabs are dogs and the penalty for a Muslim man marrying a Jewish woman shoud be death" ... Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz "said a schoolbus full of kids was hit by a train because God was angry that the movie theatre in their town was open of Friday nights" ... The Lubavitcher [Chabad] rabbi "allowed his followers to declare him the Messiah" ... Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri ... "the world's greatest kabbalist [Jewish mystic] ... put a hex on a Jerusalem office building that blocked his view" ... Rabbi Dov Lior "declared it kosher to kill gentile women and children in wartime" ... "20,000 yeshivah [Jewish religious school students] gathered to stone and threaten Israeli archeologists" ... Rabbi Moshe Maya "arose in the Knesset and said that the halalkhic [Jewish religious law] penalty for homosexuality is death" ... Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, "universally considered one of the great Torah sages of the age, was quoted as ruling that the faithful should refuse transfusions from gentiles and nonobservant Jews because they have dangerously treif [forbidden] blood which might cause all manner of un-Jewish behavior" ... Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu believes that "Jewish blood is inherently pure and therefore incapable of defiling Jewish recipients." [Chafets, Ze'ev, Real Torah Judaism, Jerusalem Report, 1-25-96, p. 18]

There have even been repeated plans by Jewish fanatics in terrorist cells to blow-up Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site -- a mosque -- in Islam. In the 1980s Israeli police uncovered such a plan which included officers in the Israeli army reserve. As Aviezer Ravitzky notes: "It was a mystical attempt to cut ff the forces of impurity, the 'husk of Ishmael [Arabs],' from the source of their vitality on the holy mountain. For some, however, it was also an apocalyptic move to bring about a historic turn, to force the hand of the Master of the Universe by bringing a catastrophe. By precipitating a great holy war against Israel, they would 'oblige' the Redeemer to wage a great and terrible campaign on their behalf. By facing the End below, they would activate the higher powers above." [Ravitzsky, A. Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism. University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 133]

Dual Muslim loyalty? In a 1978-80 survey of 443 American Jews in a "leadership training" program at the United Jewish Appeal, 70% of respondents reported that they were more emotionally moved by listening to Israel's national anthem (the Hatikvah) than the Star-Spangled Banner (another 7% "weren't sure" about it). Particularly noteworthy was the Jewish leadership response to the statement "The primary loyalty of American Jews must be to the United States and their fellow Americans." Over 50% (58, 52, and 56 percent in three distinct groups) DISAGREED. Coupled with the "not sure" response, 77, 67, and 71 percent of these future Jewish polity leaders DID NOT agree with this statement of "primary loyalty" to their fellow Americans. [Woocher, J., Sacred Survival. The Civil Religion of American Jews. Indiana University Press, 1986, p. 131-132]

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Poll: After U.S. Terror Attacks, More Americans Support Israel,
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], September 25, 2001
"There has been a significant increase in the percentage of Americans who support Israel in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, while support for the Palestinians has fallen significantly, according to a survey carried out by Gallop for CNN and USA Today. Some 55 percent of the American public currently supports Israel rather than the Palestinians, the largest ever margin since the outbreak of the Gulf war in 1991. Last month, only 41 percent of people responded that they support Israel when asked 'Do you support Israel or the Palestinians?' Only 7 percent said that they support the Palestinians in the latest survey, down from last month's 13 percent. The increase in support for Israel can be explained by more people identifying with Israel as a country frequently attacked by terrorists and by the anti-Arab wave currently engulfing the U.S. ... Only 1 percent felt that the U.S. should adopt a pro-Palestinian stance, unchanged from last month."

Braced for Backlash, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, September 21, 2001
"The media war over Israel, running hot and heavy in the months before Sept. 11, took a dangerous turn following the tragic terrorists attack on America. In the hours and days following the attack, sources cited by American print and electronic media, and American media itself, asserted that this country fell victim to these outrages primarily because of its support for Israel. These and other reports have led some American Jews to suggest that blaming Israel has, or is in the process of becoming, an integral component of the current drumbeat resounding in much of the earlier broadcast coverage. The Journal took a thorough and considered look at the first three days of special-coverage output by CBS, ABC and NBC news ... The network news anchors and their field reporters generally refrained from overzealous pursuits of potential Jewish and Israeli culpability in the attacks, and for the most part provided a fair and accurate context for the place and significance of Arab and Islamic anti-Israeli sentiment ... Jewish jitters at the prospect of a possible anti-Israel and anti-Jewish backlash, though not groundless, may have been ratcheted up a few notches by the community’s difficulty in grappling with questions intended not as damning so much as provocative. Many taking umbrage at questions regarding Israel’s alleged culpability failed to recognize that such questions were indeed inevitable, and that dispensing with them early in the game offered invaluable opportunities to reframe the discussion."

Straw's Trip to Teheran Infuriates Israelis,
Telegraph [London], September 25, 2001
"Jack Straw, the [British] Foreign Secretary, was denounced from both ends of the Middle East political spectrum yesterday as he prepared for a landmark visit to Iran. Hours before he was due in Teheran for the first visit by a British Foreign Secretary since the fall of the Shah 22 years ago, Israeli officials accused Mr Straw of 'sticking a knife in Israel's back' by visiting one of its most vehement enemies. He was also criticised by Israel for a 'despicable' article he wrote in the Iranian press arguing that anger over the Palestinian situation had helped to breed terrorism. Baton-wielding riot police outside the British embassy in Teheran broke up a demonstration by dozens of Iranian hardliners who chanted: 'Death to America, death to Britain' ... Mr Straw hopes his trip will help secure Iran's support for an international coalition against terrorism, and for strikes against Osama bin Laden and his Afghan hosts."

Taliban Could Be Allies to the West: Filmmaker,
Canadian Jewish News, September 28, 2001
"Filmmaker Simcha Jacobivici has been to the Khyber Pass, the narrow gorge that links Afghanistan and Pakistan. He's sat with the Pathan people of Afghanistan and been embraced by them as a brother. And he has a word of advice for the U.S.-led coalition out to punish the Taliban, Afghanistan's radical Islamic party, for harbouring Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden. 'I think the Pathans could be allies of the West, not enemies,' he said. 'They're being approached as hostile Muslims when what they are is closet Israelites.' Jacobivici's fascinating claim, that the Pathans are really descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel forced into exile by Assyrian invaders in 722 BCE, was first made by him in a documentary film, Quest for the Lost Tribes, about two years ago. It is his contention that the Pathans, who call themselves Pushtuns, still maintain some fragile links to their ancient heritage, and are, in fact, the Jews' long-lost, distant cousins."

Washington Hawk Trains Sights on Iraq, Guardian [London], September 26, 2001
"[Jewish Deputy Defence Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz's admirers and detractors agree on one thing - 'hawk' is too timid a description of the outspoken deputy defence secretary trying to persuade President Bush to bomb Iraq. 'Hawk doesn't do him justice,' said one awed former colleague from academia. 'What about velociraptor?' In Washington, deputy defence secretaries rarely play starring roles, but Mr Wolfowitz, due to put the US case to Nato defence ministers in Brussels today, was an exception even before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Since that disastrous morning, he has been a major player, often overshadowing his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, as the leading proponent of a wider war against suspected state sponsors of terrorism, particularly Iraq ... In the wake of the suicide attacks on New York and Washington, Mr Wolfowitz has emerged as the loudest voice calling for a comprehensive multi-front war on terrorism which would include strikes on suspected WMD production and storage sites. His comments triggered a rare open debate inside the rigidly disciplined Bush administration. The secretary of state, Colin Powell, hardly bothered to veil his contempt for Mr Wolfowitz's 'ending states' suggestion ... Mr Wolfowitz, a native of Brooklyn, is untroubled by shyness. Soon after his appointment, he interrupted a New York Times interviewer to remind her that in Indonesia, where he was once ambassador, 'I am a major international figure.' Indonesians, he pointed out, 'still have my picture on the walls.'"

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism, by Bernard Wasserstein,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 28, 2001
"A century ago, anti-Semitism was called 'the socialism of fools.' Now something similar threatens to become rampant: anti-Americanism. Psychologically, it fulfills some of the same functions as anti-Semitism. It gives vent to a hatred of the successful, and is fueled by envy and frustration. It attributes responsibility for all the ills of the world to one primary source. It ascribes to a supposed ruling clique of the despised group an ambition to control and exploit humanity. This new conspiracy theory has been embraced by large sections of the thinking classes in many countries. Like historical anti-Semitism, it transcends ideological boundaries and brings together economic, social, religious, and national animosities in a murderous brew. Americans are advised by many abroad (and by some at home): 'Ask yourselves why you are so hated.' It might be worth remembering that similar questions were put to Jews in the 1930s. And to recall that, as Victor Klemperer recorded in his diaries of the war years in Dresden, some Jews internalized the worldview of their enemies and persuaded themselves that such violent hatred must, indeed, have had a rational source in their own behavior ... To some, the Israeli/Jewish hand is detected behind, controlling, the American leviathan. Perry Anderson (a British historian teaching at the University of California at Los Angeles), for example, writes in the latest New Left Review: 'Entrenched in business, government and the media, American Zionism has since the sixties acquired a firm grip on the levers of public opinion and official policy towards Israel.'" [Anderson's New Left Review article, linked here, is called Scurrying Towards Bethlehem; the above Anderson quote is from page 11; PDF file]

Father of Neutron Bomb: Use It on Osama, Newsmax, September 25, 2001
"Top officials in the Bush administration and in Congress have been urged to use a small neutron bomb to wipe out Osama bin Laden in a quick first strike in the war on terrorism. Sam Cohen, the scientist who invented the neutron bomb, has outlined for these officials his plan to 'do in' the Taliban and terrorist Osama bin Laden, and do it quickly. That, says Cohen, would go right to the core of the terrorist threat and at the same time satisfy the typically American impatience. The neutron bomb has a limited blast and causes little collateral damage or lasting radioactivity while killing its intended targets. 'My offhand guess is that the majority of Americans couldn't care less how we 'do in' the Taliban and bin Laden and company, provided we get it done and [quickly],' he told NewsMax.com in a phone interview from his West Coast home. Cohen, whose views were often accepted by President Reagan, agrees with President Bush regarding the need for the American people to resolve to hunker down for the long term. The global terrorist threat is indeed 'going to go on for years,' Cohen agrees, but he is telling policy-makers in Washington, 'the name of the game right now is Afghanistan [and] bin Laden.'"

The CNN of the Arab World Deserves Our Respect, Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (originally published in the Los Angeles Times), October 22, 2001
"Among the more remarkable developments since Sept. 11 is that the Western monopoly on global news production has met its first serious challenge from a Third World source. The improbable upstart is Al Jazeera, a 24-hour Arabic language satellite news channel from the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar ... . Since almost all hard news coming from the war zone comes from Al Jazeera, its coverage is often cited, but generally with the proviso that this information 'cannot be independently confirmed,' as if there were any question about its credibility. There is more than a hint of racism in this double gesture of simultaneously relying on and undermining Al Jazeera's reporting. Among the pots calling the kettle black, the New York Times opined that Al Jazeera 'often slants its news with a vicious anti-Israel and anti-American bias' and 'deeply irresponsible reporting [that] reinforces the region's anti-American views.' Dan Rather questioned whether there was 'any indication that Osama bin Laden has helped finance this operation.' Britain's Daily Telegraph called the station 'Bin Laden TV,' while NPR warned listeners that Al Jazeera's coverage should 'come with a health warning.' All this from people who understand not a word of Arabic."

Harvard's Own Bin Laden, Washington Times, October 29, 2001
"If there was any question about how Harvard really feels about America, including New York City, the school's recent behavior has removed all doubt. For several years now, the school has received millions in three separate endowments from the bin Laden family for the Harvard Law School and their School of Design. Moreover, Harvard has been in association with a Cambridge-based biomedical firm, Hybridon, whose investors include Osama bin Laden's brother, Yahia bin Laden and Abdelah bin Mahfour, a relative of the family suspected of funding bin Laden's operatives. In the wake of Sept. 11, Harvard has nonchalantly brushed off any criticism of the practice of taking money from the bin Ladens. Instead, showing the courage of its convictions, the school has deleted references to the bin Laden law school scholarships from its web site. Indeed, in a letter to the students and faculty on Oct. 16, former Clinton administration official and now Harvard President Lawrence Summers [Five of the eight Ivy League college presidents are Jewish] wrote what could only be described as the most breathtakingly self-absorbed communication since Bill Clinton last made an entry into his diary. Rather than denouncing the terrorists, praising the New York City firefighters and police officers, or calling for support for President Bush, the letter goes into great detail about how Harvard will help Harvard to get through this crisis including 'Harvard's commitment . . . to thoughtful inquiry'" Mr. Summers also thoughtfully created an informal advisory group of Harvard faculty to 'advance our paramount interest in the well-being of all members of the university.' Well, at least that's out of the way. Having accepted millions from the bin Laden family, Harvard was called upon recently in a resolution passed by the Cambridge City Council to donate money for compensation for the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A figure of $5 million was suggested. No dice. Harvard told Cambridge to tell New York City and America to 'drop dead.'"

FBI Suspects Israelis of Nuclear Terrorism, Jerusalem Post, November 1, 2001
"With America on top security alert, the FBI was hunting yesterday for six men carrying Israeli passports and plans of a nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline who were picked up by police in the Midwest US over the weekend but then released, The Times reported. The incident is thought to be connected with the latest FBI alert and senior intelligence officials are furious that the men were set free before they could be fully questioned. The men were travelling in two groups of three in white cars when they were pulled over by police officers in the Midwest. Security officials have refused to disclose further details."

FBI Fury as Men with Nuclear Plans Escape,
Times [of London], November 1, 2001
"With America on top security alert, the FBI was hunting yesterday for six men of Middle Eastern appearance carrying plans of a nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline who were picked up by police in the Midwest over the weekend but then released. The incident is thought to be connected with the latest FBI alert and senior intelligence officials are furious that the men were set free before they could be fully questioned. The men were travelling in two groups of three in white saloon cars when they were pulled over by police officers in the Midwest, according to the Knight Ridder News Service. Security officials have refused to disclose further details. The men were searched and questioned and the state officers discovered detailed plans and photographs of a nuclear power plant in Florida, along with box cutters — the weapons used in the September 11 attacks — and other equipment. The men, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin and held Israeli passports, were then interviewed by immigration officials. When their passports and visas were found to be in order the officers, who were not aware of the country’s imminent security alert, let the men go without first calling in the FBI to question them more thoroughly."

Survey: Jewish Support Up for Israel, If Not Its Policies,
[Jewish] Forward, November 2, 2001
"American Jews express more attachment to Israel than they did before September 11, and almost half say they are 'more in touch' with their 'identity as a Jew,' according to a new survey of American Jewish opinion commissioned by the Forward. But that increased identification with Judaism and Israel does not necessarily translate into increased support for Israeli policy ... While the proportion of American Jews who say they identify with the hawkish wing of the Israeli political spectrum has surged in recent months — rising from 39% last January to 49% this week — the views they express on Israeli-Palestinian relations have become markedly less hawkish, the study found ... The proportion of Jews who say they are 'somewhat' or 'very attached' to Israel rose from 72% in January to 82% this week. The proportion saying they are 'not attached' to Israel dropped from 27% to 18%."

New ADL Poll Shows No Anti-Semitic and Blame Israel Fallout from Sept 11 Attack, Press Release, ADL [Anti-Defamation League], November 2001
"The American people overwhelmingly reject the notion that the close U.S.-Israel relationship was to blame for the September 11 terrorist attack on America, according to a new poll released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). There is also no evidence suggesting that anti-Semitism has increased in the U.S. as a result of the attacks. The survey found that 63 percent of the American people believe that Osama bin Laden's attack on America occurred because 'the terrorists don't like our values or way of life, not because of our relationship with Israel.' Only 22 percent believe the attack would not have occurred if the U.S. were not such a close ally of Israel. Responses to a series of questions on Americans' attitudes toward Jews showed no increase in anti-Semitism from previous surveys. In fact, there was a decline in one classic ADL measure of anti-Semitism: 25 percent of those surveyed thought that the statement, 'Jews are more loyal to Israel than America' is probably true, a 6 percent decline from ADL's 1998 survey. 'This survey shows the good sense of the American people is not buying into the outrageous charge that America's relationship with Israel was the cause of the attacks,' said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. 'They clearly understand that the blame lies with Osama bin Laden and the terrorists and not U.S. foreign policy.'"

Who Wants This War and Why, by Gilbert Blythe [pseudonym],
Thornwalker [Last Ditch], November 17, 2001
"War [on terrorism] on the scale [Irving] Kristol and [Robert] Kagan envision, in an age of weapons of mass destruction, could have catastrophic consequences, but they tell us that such a war is necessary in defense of 'the West.' They are hardly alone in calling for all-out war. Charles Krauthammer, Norman Podhoretz, William Safire, Morton Kondracke, Don Feder, Ben Wattenberg, and Mona Charen have all done so as well. In the Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz is the most prominent advocate of a multi-front war. Let us state it plainly: All these people are Jewish. Not all Jews are as eager as these are to shed Muslim blood, and a few non-Jews are equally eager, but Jews have unquestionably distinguished themselves in their ardor for war. Why is it necessary to point this out? ... When it comes to the events of September 11, Jews are not neutral observers; they are partisans. That is because Israel, and our relations with the Jewish state, are central both to the terror attacks themselves and to the way in which we should respond to them ... Excessive concern for narrowly Jewish interests could damage broader American interests. Jews with access to the official media have taken a virtually unanimous view of the events of September 11 in insisting, first of all, that American support for Israel has nothing to do with why so many Arabs hate us, or why 19 fanatics were willing to die trying to kill as many of us possible. They prefer to divorce the deaths of nearly 5,000 Americans from our alliance with Israel because they worry — with good reason — that gentiles might rethink that alliance if large numbers of Americans should begin to die because of it."

His Grasp of Spin is Chilling ..., Telegraph [Great Britain], November 16, 2001
"I am a Jewish twenty-something from New York ... This is a great propaganda film - the kind that you can't get out of your head. Bin Laden's story of Muslim subjugation turning to resistance is so effective that I barely need my transcripts. He uses the most sophisticated western film-making techniques: it's as if Guy Ritchie, Sylvester Stallone and Spielberg have banded together to make jihad, the movie ... Bin Laden's film crew must have studied Schindler's List, because a five-minute orgy of Israelis brutalising women and children is like a replay of scenes from the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. In Spielberg's film, the camera panned to the body of a little girl in red; in this, the climax is the murder of Mohammed al-Durra. As in Schindler's List, children and women sing slowly and movingly. And this is the point at which I burst into tears. I hardly realise that I have been visually and aurally manipulated until I study the clip in detail. In slow motion, and in time to the music, Israeli soldiers beat two women with sticks, until one falls to ground. The soldiers carry off screaming men, as if they are so much rubbish. Then, they strike a little boy with such force that he crumples to the ground. These images, and similar ones, are repeated over and over, until the violence seems unending. But, hang on aren't these the same three incidents, shot from different angles? Bin Laden has simply cut up full-length 'news' sequences and scattered them about, fooling me with the frenzied graphics and sound effects."

Brotherly Enmity. No Love Lost Between Afghanistan's 'Last Two Jews,'
ABC News, December 2, 2001
"Yitzhak [Levy] and the Taliban, they're the same," said Simanto [Zebolan], 41, pressing the tips of two fingers together to make the point. Across the courtyard of a crumbling apartment building on Flower Street that used to be home to a community of some 30 Jewish families, Levy is just as bitter about his neighbor. The building has no glass in its windows, no running water and two synagogues, one that Simanto climbs into through a window frame and another that Levy keeps under lock and key. 'All my problems are because of Zebolan,' said Levy, a squat man with a flowing white beard and battered sheepskin Astrakhan hat, who gave his age as 60. He recites a litany of woes capped by accusations that the only other Jew in Kabul had denounced him to the Taliban as a spy for Israel and landed him in jail five times ... Levy and Simanto, it seems, are all that is left of a Jewish presence in Afghanistan that stretches back 800 years. All the other Jews left when communist-backed rule collapsed in 1992, many of them for Israel where Levy and Simanto both say their wives and children now live."

The Businessmen Behind David Horowitz and the Libertarian War Front, by Bill White, Pravda [Russia], November 23, 2001
"David Horowitz [is] the radical neo-conservative Zionist who runs the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and who publishes the web zine FrontPageMag.com. Since the 9-11 attacks, Horowitz has been a blizzard of hatred blowing against anyone he considers to be a 'Fifth Columnist,' whether it be a lowly university professor preaching love and peace, or a Congresswoman asking uncomfortable questions about the Bush administration’s new security state. In one ranting response to a letter from a reader he shouted: 'Thirty Muslim states, thirty states without a democracy. Until the Muslim world gets past theocracy and learns tolerance, the Jews need to be armed to the teeth and much more ruthless with their enemies than they have been, since when it comes to Jews fear is the only kind of respect the Arab world will give them' ... Many Libertarians viewed that statement as a blank check for the war Zionists like [Jewish U.S. government officials] Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle were demanding against Israel’s, not America’s, enemies. The Libertarian Party itself was thrown into turmoil."

Easiest Word, The Sun [London], December 2001
"Terrorism is now, without doubt, the greatest scourge of the free world. It has to be fought with utter determination wherever it threatens us. As we are seeing in Afghanistan this is not a pleasant task. When the Americans turn their attentions to Iraq — as they must — it will get even more unpleasant. And when the Israelis defend themselves — as they must — it will not be pleasant either. But if we have learned anything from the New York attacks, we should have learned this: WE ARE ALL ISRAELIS NOW." [Emphasis in original text]

This Terrible Conflict Is the Last Colonial War, by Robert Fisk,
Independent [London], December 4, 2001
"The reality is that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the last colonial war. The French thought that they were fighting the last battle of this kind. They had long ago conquered Algeria. They set up their farms and settlements in the most beautiful land in North Africa. And when the Algerians demanded independence, they called them 'terrorists' and they shot down their demonstrators and they tortured their guerrilla enemies and they murdered – in 'targeted killings' – their antagonists. In just the same way, we are responding to the latest massacre in Israel according to the rules of the State Department, CNN, the BBC and Downing Street. Arafat has got to come alive, to get real, to perform his duty as the West's policeman in the Middle East. President Mubarak does it in Egypt; King Abdullah does it in Jordan; King Fahd does it in Saudi Arabia. They control their people for us. It is their duty. They must fulfil their moral obligations, without any reference to history or to the pain and the suffering of their people ... One day, I suspect, Mahmat's relatives [who lost innocent family members to U.S. bombings in Afghanistan] may be angry enough to take their revenge on the United States, in which case they will be terrorists, men of violence. We may even ask if their leaders could control them. They are not bin Ladens, Mahmat's family said that – 'We are neither Taliban nor Arab' – but, frankly, could we blame them if they decided to strike at the United States for the bloody and terrible crime done to their family. Can the United States stop bombing villages? Can Washington persuade its special forces to protect prisoners? Can the Americans control their own people?"

Suspected Israeli Spies Held By U.S., Fox News, December 12, 2001
"Some 60 Israelis, who federal investigators have said are part of a long-running effort to spy on American government officials, are among the hundreds of foreigners detained since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Fox News has learned. The Israelis, a handful of whom are described as active Israeli military or intelligence operatives, have been detained on immigration charges or under the new Patriot Anti-Terrorism Law. Federal investigators said some of them failed polygraph questions inquiring about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. There is no indication the Israelis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it. A highly placed investigator told Fox News there are 'tie-ins,' but when asked for details flatly refused to describe them. 'Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified, I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information,' the source said."

FBI Arrests Two JDL Members in Bombing Plot,
Washington Post (from Associated Press), December 12, 2001
"The chairman of the Jewish Defense League and a follower have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up a Los Angeles mosque and the office of an Arab American congressman, federal authorities said Wednesday. Irv Rubin, 56, and a member of the group, Earl Krugel, 59, both of Los Angeles, were arrested Tuesday night after the last component of the bomb – explosive powder – was delivered to Krugel's home, U.S. Attorney John S. Gordon said. Other bomb components and weapons were seized at Krugel's home. Authorities said the plot targeted a mosque in Culver City and the office of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. Issa is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants. Rubin and Krugel were expected to appear in court later Wednesday. The complaint against them quotes Krugel as making a comment during a meeting that Arabs 'need a wakeup call.' Authorities were tipped off by a government source about a series of meetings where the scheme to bomb the King Fahd Mosque and Issa's office was hammered out, Gordon said. The original target was to be the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, but the target was changed during a meeting last weekend."

Et Tu, Israel? antiwar.com, December 14, 2001
"When the news first broke that not only Arabs are being held in the wake of 9/11, to my knowledge I was the only columnist to deal with the subject of the mysterious Israelis in custody: 'Israel and 9/11 – Feds holding 60 Israelis in connection with 9/11 – Why?' While the Washington Post assured us that the Israeli detainees were only 'observing a time-honored tradition in their country – touring the world after their mandatory service in the Israeli military,' I was more than a little skeptical: 'Something tells me these guys are no ordinary tourists, but since the US Government is keeping mum about everything connected with this investigation, we just don't know.' THE PLOT SICKENS. Ah, but now some government officials are talking, and we know a lot more. We know that some of the detainees have been identified as Israeli military or intelligence agents, and that some failed polygraph tests when asked whether they had engaged in covert operations 'against and in the United States.' We also know, courtesy of Fox News, that as many as 140 Israeli agents may have been rounded up in the US before 9/11: the extent of Israel's covert action operation is described as 'sprawling.'"

Carl Cameron Investigates, Part 1, Fox News, December 14, 2001
"Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before Sept. 11 ... Since Sept. 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are 'tie-ins.' But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, 'evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information.'" [Note: This article (and four others by Cameron) were censored from Fox News' web site within the week. See Justin Raimondo for an article, and links, about it all. In an Orwellian sentence, the link to Fox said: "This story no longer exists" until that too was taken down. Also see an Israel National News' article about Cameron's story]]

Oy, McVey, Village Voice, December 19-25, 2001
"Mainstream Jewish groups were quick to condemn the JDL [Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel and their plot to blow up a mosque] as well: Characterizing the activities of the organization—founded in 1968 by Brooklyn's own, now deceased Rabbi Meir Kahane—as 'contemptible,' the Anti-Defamation League's regional director issued a statement 'abhor[ing] and condemn[ing] the potential terrorist plot' ... Yet some observers of the current Middle East crisis see more than a bit of disingenuousness and historical irony here. While both the ADL and the AJC have condemned the JDL, they've unequivocally backed Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's indiscriminate use of force against the Palestinians and the cutting of ties with Palestinian Authority president Yasir Arafat—neither of which is universally seen as a particularly constructive way to slow the cycles of violence across Israel and the Occupied Territories. But what's even more vexing to others is the apparent inability or unwillingness to discern similarities between the current Palestinian milieu and Israeli operations of 50-plus years ago, which secured statehood from colonialist occupiers—as well as similarities between violent, internecine struggles among disparate underground groups. 'It's peculiar, it's paradoxical, that Sharon and Likud should be the ones who are trying to equate any authentic resistance in Palestine with some of the terrorist activities, as terrorism in Israel really started with Begin and Shamir and later Sharon,' says Clovis Maksoud, the former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations. 'It's a very valid question as to why they see no similarities between themselves under the British and the Palestinians under their occupation.'"

Former Israeli prime minister (and former Irgun terrorist) Menachem Begin's Perspectives on Terrorism [from his book, The Revolt]

Hollywood screenwriter Ben Hecht's comments on his support of Jewish "terrorism" [from his book A Child of the Century]

U.S. Police and Intelligence Hit By Spy Network,
Newsmax, December 19, 2001
"In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, the FBI has stumbled on the largest espionage ring ever discovered inside the United States. The U.S. Justice Department is now holding nearly 100 Israeli citizens with direct ties to foreign military, criminal and intelligence services. The spy ring reportedly includes employees of two Israeli-owned companies that currently perform almost all the official wiretaps for U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement. The U.S. law enforcement wiretaps, authorized by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), appear to have been breached by organized crime units working inside Israel and the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad."

To Understand Bin Laden, Begin with Israel's Likud,
Houston Chronicle, January 18, 2002
"To understand that mind-set [of pro-Bin Laden Muslims] it is necessary to begin with the importance of Israel's far-right party, the Likud. Former Israeli Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that the long-standing military and financial support of America for Israel had had nothing to do with the terrorist attack on America. Moreover, he argued that the terrorist attacks on Israel were not due to anything Israel had done but rather were caused by Israel's long-standing friendship with the United States. Nice try, Mr. Netanyahu, but no cigar. In Israel, within a short walk of the Yad Vashem memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, is the site of Deir Yassin, where the Stern Gang/Irgun activists of Yitzak Shamir and Menachem Begin (later Likudist prime ministers of Israel) slaughtered all the men, women and children in that unfortunate Arab village on April 9, 1948. This was the beginning of a consistent policy of the extreme right-wing Israeli parties, which ultimately became the Likud, to see to it that the Palestinians would be terrorized into leaving the land of their forefathers or suffer the fate of the Canaanites of 3,500 years previous. The United Nations peace envoy of that time, Count Bernadotte, was assassinated by Sternists who feared that he might actually achieve a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Jews. The majority party during most of modern Israel's history, the Mapai, seriously advocated and continues to advocate peaceful coexistence among the inhabitants of the Holy Land. One of their leaders, Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, hero of the Six-Day War of 1967 and a major advocate of peace, was assassinated in 1995 by an extreme right-wing Israeli youth, for much the same reasons that Bernadotte was killed. Rabin's widow, Leah, never absolved the Likud leaders of their responsibility in creating the situation which led to her husband's murder. Israel has had four chiefs of state: Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu and Sharon who are members of Likud. Their implicit 'final solution to the Palestinian problem' is not something of which most Americans would approve."

From Rookie Reporter to Taliban Prison, Guardian [UK], December 3, 2001
"[Ken] Hechtman is the third western journalist to have been held and released unharmed since the United States declared war on the Taliban movement. But his drama was the worst as the Taliban are anxious and on the defensive, he comes from North America and, with his decision to grow a beard and wear local clothes, he was suspected of being a spotter who calls in American air strikes ... A computer programmer who has never been a journalist before, Hechtman had been in the region for six weeks. He offered to write for an alternative Montreal weekly, a free sheet which people pick up at tube stops. 'Foreign reporting isn't the kind of thing they ever do, or have a budget for. But I wanted to go. I got a lot of help from Pakistani journalists,' he said ... Disappointed he never got to Kandahar, Hechtman is furious with Le Journal de Montreal which mentioned in a piece last week that he was Jewish. 'That blows me. My cover was that I was Catholic. You can't be Jewish here. There are enough people around who can call up websites and read the piece. Now I have to leave. Otherwise I would have asked the Taliban, once they were convinced I was a reporter and not a spy, to let me go on to Kandahar,' he told us."

Daniel Was One of Us, Israel Insider, February 22, 2002
"[Wall Street reporter] Daniel Pearl [kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan] was an Israeli. His father Yehuda was a world-famous scholar, an expert in artificial intelligence, born in Tel Aviv, trained in Haifa's Technion. There he met his wife, Ruth, also an Israeli. Together they moved to Princeton, where Daniel was born. His sisters Michelle and Tamara are also Israeli citizens. Daniel Pearl was also an American. Born and raised in the United States, educated there, working there for one of America's premier publications. Many of his article were characterized by humor, and humanity. He saw his mission as facilitating cross-cultural understanding. The Israeli citizenship of the Pearl family was a fact they tried hard to cover up, fearing, correctly, that it would further endanger his life. In the end, it did not help ... Daniel Pearl was one of us. Although I did know know him, he was my brother in arms. May his wife raise their unborn child in a world where his or her identity need not be concealed. May Daniel's blood be avenged by our people, and by our God."

Pearl's Father's 'Israeli Connection' Could Hinder Investigation,
Haaretz (Israeli newspaper), February 24, 2002
"Professor Yehuda Pearl, father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, has told Ha'aretz that he fears that making public his son's Israeli citizenship could adversely affect investigative efforts by Pakistani police to apprehend the killers and track down the murdered reporter's body. In a telephone conversation from his Los Angeles residence, Professor Pearl expressed regret and anger over the revelation by the Israeli media of his family's 'Israeli connection.' The U.S. media, which was aware of the information, complied with the family's request not to make it public. The American media was asked to comply with this request after information was obtained that confirmed reports that the 38-year-old reporter was dead."

McGreevey Picks Israeli as Adviser on Security,
The Record (New Jersey), February 22, 2002
"[New Jersey] Governor McGreevey has tapped a foreign national and former campaign aide with limited experience in U.S. domestic security as his closest adviser on counterterrorism. Golan Cipel, 33, an Israeli citizen, occupies a second-floor State House office where he works as special counsel to the governor on homeland security. He was appointed to the newly created position without an official announcement or the extensive background checks that are routine for most top state officials ... Cipel is a former Israeli sailor and part-time poet with a background in public relations and politics. For the last 10 years, he has worked in a variety of jobs, including stints as a television news reporter and spokesman for the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan. The state's new domestic security adviser is a newcomer to New Jersey. Last year, he moved to New Jersey to take a full-time paid position with the state Democratic Committee. During the 2001 gubernatorial race, Cipel served as McGreevey's liaison to the state's Jewish community and as an informal adviser on security matters. His other duties included planning McGreevey's inaugural parade through the streets of Trenton."

The Plot Sickens, by Justin Raimondo, antiwar.com, February 27, 2002
"The other day I was talking with my webmaster, Eric Garris, about this [anthrax terrorism investigation] story, and remarking that the way it's being treated in the media is remarkably similar to the way the Fox News story on Israeli spying in the US was treated: i.e. in relation to its importance, and possible implications, the amount of attention it is receiving is negligible. Fox News reporter Carl Cameron's FBI sources told him that not only had Israel compromised supposedly secure US communications systems – the phone system of the Departments of Defense and State, as well as the White House – but they had also launched an effort to physically penetrate important US defense facilities in the months prior to 9/11. Surely this would include such facilities as the bioweapons lab at Ft. Detrick, and others around the country ... Israel not only has the means, but also the motive: certainly an anti-Arab backlash in the US would aid their cause, and make the American public much more amenable to wiping out their Arab enemies. Indeed, Israel's supporters in the US was quick to suggest that Iraq was behind the [anthrax] attacks, and such a prominent Israel Firster as Andrew Sullivan lost no time in calling on Bush to at least consider nuking Iraq in retaliation."

Friends Think Flight 11 Israeli was 'Executed,'
World Net Daily, March 2, 2002
"In another tragic irony of Sept. 11, three of the five Islamic hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 were seated next to an elite Israeli commando. And it may just have gotten that Jewish passenger killed before all the others. In fact, his friends and associates are now sure of it, after reading a secret government memo naming Israeli-American Daniel C. Lewin as a gunshot victim on the flight ... 'Danny was an officer in a secret unit of the Israeli army called 'sayeret matkal,' said Yehuda Schwartzberg, a childhood friend from Jerusalem. 'My guess is that he did something in some way to stand up against the hijackers, and was executed because of it.'"

U.S. Deports Dozens of Israelis,
Los Angeles Times (from Associated Press, March 6, 2002
"Authorities have arrested and deported since early last year dozens of young Israelis who represented themselves as art students in efforts to gain access to restricted buildings and homes, U.S. officials said. The Israelis tried to get inside sensitive federal office buildings and the homes of government employees, the officials said. A draft report from the Drug Enforcement Administration -- which first characterized the activities as suspicious -- said the youths' actions 'may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity.' Immigration officials deported the Israelis for visa violations; no criminal espionage charges were filed ... The arrests, made in an unspecified number of major U.S. cities from California to Florida, came amid public warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies about suspicious behavior by people posing as Israeli art students and 'attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings' ... The DEA report said a majority of the students questioned by U.S. investigators acknowledged having served in units of the Israeli military specializing in military intelligence, electronic signals interception or explosive ordnance. The DEA said one person questioned was the son of a two-star Israeli general, one had served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army and another served in a Patriot missile unit. Most Israeli men and women are conscripted into their nation's military service at age 18. A Justice Department official, who also asked not to be identified, said investigators have been aware of some 'alleged linkage' between the students and alleged espionage activities in the United States since early 2001, and said authorities have made arrests in Dallas, Chicago, San Diego and in south Florida."

An Enigma: Vast Israeli Spy Network Dismantled in the US,
antiwar.com (originally from Le Monde), March 5, 2002
"It is undoubtedly the largest case of Israeli spying in the United States – that has been made public – since 1986. In June 2001, an investigative report detailed the activities of more than one-hundred Israeli agents, some presenting themselves as fine arts students, others tied to Israeli high-tech companies. All were challenged by the authorities, were questioned, and a dozen of them are still imprisoned. One of their tasks was to track the Al-Qaida terrorists on American territory – without informing the federal authorities. Elements of this investigation, taken up by American television Fox News, reinforce this thesis: that Israel did not transmit to the United States all the evidence in its possession on the preparation of the September 11 attacks. The latest issue of the Online Intelligence Letter, a publication specializing in questions of information, has revealed that a vast Israeli spy network operating on American territory was dismantled. It is the biggest affair involving the Mossad (the Israel’s external security agency) in activity against the United States since Jonathan Pollard, an employee of the US Navy, was condemned to life in prison, in 1986, for spying for Israel’s benefit."

Fox News Series on Israeli Spying in the US, firefox, December 2001
"In mid December, Fox News Channel ran a blockbuster series on Israeli spying in the US contending that Israeli intelligence had advanced information about the Sept. 11 attacks before the fact. After significant pressure, Fox pulled the reports from their Website and went about deleting all references to the series of their's and other Websites. Fox has never given any explanation for this action. The original transcripts which appeared on Fox's Website are reprinted here."

The Texas Part of the Israeli Spy Ring,
Intelligence Online, March 2002
"Using documents in our position, we have pieced together the activities of the Israeli spy ring (See P. 1) as far as its branch in Texas is concerned. The same level of activity took place in California, Arkansas and Florida. Only the most important people figure on our chart. At present, the total number of persons involved in the ring is estimated at 120."

The Truth Comes Out,
antiwar.com, March 8, 2002
"The suggestion of an Israeli connection to the events surrounding 9/11 did not spring, full blown, like Minerva from the head of Zeus. It had been hovering in the background, implied in odd accounts such as the one about the group of Israelis picked by the FBI after they were spotted in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, laughing and giving each other high-fives as the World Trade Center burned on the other side of the river ... Then there was the story about the two employees of the Odigo Company, an Israeli-based 'instant-messaging' software company, with New York offices in the vicinity of the WTC, who received messages in the hours before disaster struck that the World Trade Center would be hit. I was so skeptical of this report, published in Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, that I wrote the author: he confirmed the contents of these mysterious missives and cited his sources ... On December 11, Fox News ran the first of a four-part series by Carl Cameron that offered yet more evidence to support my contention that the Israelis had some rather specific foreknowledge of the 9/11 atrocity. Citing sources in law enforcement, Cameron dropped a bombshell: 'A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are -quote –'tie-ins.' But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, – quote – 'evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified' ... The Fox News exposé also reported on the near-total penetration of US communications facilities by Israel, through two 'private' Israeli telecommunications companies, Amdocs, Ltd., and Comverse Infosys, which, together, handle virtually all the billing records and government wiretaps in the US. Indeed, many of the 'art students' not only had 'intelligence expertise,' but also worked for Amdocs 'or other companies in Israel that specialize in wiretapping.'"

Bombing Iraq to Protect Israel, by retired Brigadier General James David,
Media Monitors, February 22, 2002
"U.S. President George W. Bush last month accused Baghdad, along with Iran and North Korea, of making up an 'axis of evil' bent on backing international terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction. It seems that Senator Joseph Lieberman has convinced the President that Bagdad is a threat to the United States and launching a military attack seems to be the only alternative. Other close advisors such as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the Defense Chairman of the Advisory Board, Richard Perle, are also calling for the bombing of Iraq as the only sure method of destroying this threat. When Joseph Lieberman says that it's necessary to attack Iraq because Iraq is a threat to the United States, does he really think that smart Americans believe this? Does he really think that Iraq would attack the United States? ... So why did Senator Joseph Lieberman convince President Bush to focus on Iraq as a threat? I'll tell you why. It's not the United States that Senator Lieberman is concerned about. We know that Iraq is not a threat to the United States. Iraq is a threat to Israel. Senator Lieberman and other pro-Israelis in Washington don't want anyone else in the Middle East to own Nuclear weapons except Israel. It's Israel, not the United States, that Lieberman is concerned about. And he is willing to risk American lives and American money to insure that Israel is the super power in the Middle East. Isn't it odd that while Lieberman is pushing for a bombing of Iraq, it's the Israelis who are inflicting most of the casualties in Middle East with its current bombing campaign. In just the last 2 days the Israelis have killed 29 Palestinians, and most of them are innocent civilians including children. Iraq hasn't killed anyone since the Gulf War, and that's been 11 years ago. In just the last 17 months the Israelis have killed over 900 Palestinians and have demolished more than 300 homes causing more than 1500 children to become homeless. And the Israelis have been doing this with F-16 fighter jets, M1A1 Abram tanks, 155mm howitzers, Chaparral and Sidewinder missiles, and Apache and Cobra attack helicopters all supplied by the good 'ole United States."

The 'Israeli Art Student' Papers,
antiwar.com, March 21, 2002
[A series of links to articles that illustrate the massive Israeli spy ring discovered in America in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. The detailed U. S. DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) report (list of Israeli names, etc.) about the spy ring is also posted]

Experience, Reputation Make Israelis Hot Commodities for Homeland Security, ap.tbo.com - Tampa Bay (from Associated Press),
March 21, 2002
"Israelis with military or security experience seem to have the inside track with U.S. corporations and government agencies looking for anti-terrorism expertise. Boston's Logan Airport - which came under heavy criticism because it was the departure point for the jetliners that brought down the World Trade Center - hired a former security director for Israel's El Al Airlines in October. In New Jersey, where authorities were faulted for poor intelligence operations after it was learned that several suspected terrorists lived and worked in the state, Gov. James E. McGreevey recently appointed an Israeli as his special counsel on homeland security ... .In addition, security consulting companies formed by Israelis are aggressively marketing their anti-terrorism services to corporations and other U.S. clients. And the Israeli consulate in New York held a trade show last month to promote Israeli security businesses to U.S. customers. Experts say Israelis with military or security backgrounds provide an attractive combination of experience and mystique ... Isaac Levy, former director of security for El Al ... joined a security consulting business founded by Assaf Heffetz, former commissioner of Israeli Police Forces. The company said it has been hired to provide training for building managers and security officers at scores of office buildings and apartment houses in New York and other cities."

Israel to Avenge Pearl's Death,
Jane's, February 27, 2002
" Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, called in Ephraim Halevy, director of the foreign intelligence service - Mossad, last week and according to intelligence sources gave him a precise instruction to get the assassins of journalist Danny Pearl. There is speculation he was executed on account of his religion rather than nationality and this may explain Sharon’s orders to Mossad. The last time that such an order was carried out by an Israeli government was in 1972, after the massacre of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games. It took Mossad six years and one mistake to complete the job."

Paper's 'Terrorist' Policy Protested,
Yahoo! News (from Associated Press), April 2, 2002
"A group formed by Jewish leaders is protesting the [Minnesota] Star Tribune's policy on the word 'terrorist,' saying the newspaper's reluctance to apply the term to suicide bombings in Israel distorts public perception of the fighting in the Mideast. Minnesotans Against Terrorism took out a full-page ad Tuesday in the newspaper, the state's largest, imploring the Star Tribune to 'refer to those who intentionally kill Israeli civilians as terrorists.' The group enlisted support in the ad from the state's top political leaders, including Gov. Jesse Ventura, both U.S. senators and four of the state's eight House members. The ad also was signed by nearly 400 other Minnesotans, including two dozen Jewish clergy and Judy Yudof of St. Paul, who is president of United Synagogue, a national group representing 800 Conservative Jewish synagogues. Star Tribune Managing Editor Pam Fine said Tuesday that the ad misrepresented the paper's policy, which doesn't 'discriminate against Jews or anyone else.' The policy, explained by ombudsman Lou Gelfand in a Feb. 3 column, is generally to use more specific descriptions than 'terrorist,' such as 'suicide bomber' or 'gunman,' in its news stories. Gelfand said the paper takes 'extra care to avoid the term 'terrorist' in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.' But he added the paper permits the term in "circumstances in which non-governmental groups carry out attacks on civilians."

Terrorism's Common Denominator,
Washington Times, April 7, 2002
"Terrorist violence has been seen as a legitimate response to occupation in a wide variety of conflicts during the past 60 years. In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, the country's future president, and his Mau Mau terrorists launched terrorist attacks against white settlers and their black supporters. In 1953, Kenyatta was convicted of managing a terrorist campaign against British rule. Thousands were killed and independence finally came in 1964. In Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, the first terrorist attack in an eight-year war of terrorism against white settlers took place on Christmas Eve 1972 against a farming family outside the town of Centenary. Unmentionable acts of terrorist cruelty became the norm in ANC's war against apartheid in South Africa that was backed by governments and public opinion the world over. They were regarded as legitimate against white oppressors and fence-sitting blacks. During the Vietnam War, Viet Cong guerrillas wiped out entire villages, down to the last woman and child, as punishment for collaborating with the pro-American government in Saigon. Communist suicide bombers were also a common occurrence. The left wing the world over saw them as heroes in a war of national liberation. Palestinian suicide bombers and the carnage they wreak among innocent Israeli lives are an abomination. Seen in a wider context, however, terrorism has been the weapon of the weak against the strong from time immemorial .. After seeing the Israeli army roll into West Bank cities and losing the few creature comforts they still had, there will be no shortage of Palestinian volunteers to kill themselves killing innocent Israelis. Israeli intelligence believes 30 are ready for a suicide mission and another 100 in the pipeline. About 60 percent of Palestinian males are now jobless. The Israelis have doubtless dented the PA's infrastructure and Mr. Arafat's authority. But the best Mr. Sharon can hope for now is a brief pause. But there was no pause in the messages of hatred emanating from minarets all over the Muslim world where the U.S. and Israel are now interchangeable enemies."

Israelis and Indians, by Michael Neumann,
jerusalem.indymedia, April 9, 2002
"Palestinian tactics are often attacked or defended on dubious grounds. Whether these tactics are terrorist is irrelevant; some terrorism is defensible, some not ... The problem, as anyone will tell you, is that Palestinians deliberately kill civilians ... The scholastically fine distinction between deliberately killing civilians and knowingly killing civilians has become, it seems, a moral chasm. Sometimes, though, we treat the deliberate killing of civilians with reverence, or at least feel a special moral pride in our refusal to condemn it. The best examples are from American history. We have not forgotten that American Indians deliberately killed civilians, including children, and sometimes as a policy. But no one demands an apology from contemporary American Indian leaders; quite the reverse ... The Indians sometimes murdered innocent civilians, including children. These acts were right, wrong, or morally indifferent. Which were they? I can't see that they were morally indifferent, can you? Were they wrong? If so, they must have been awfully wrong, because they involved murdering children. Is that what we want to say? I suggest not. I suggest the acts were terrible, cruel, and ultimately justified. My reasons are familiar to everyone. The Indians' very existence as a people was threatened. More than threatened; their society was doomed without resistance. They had no alternative. Moreover, every single white person, down to the children, was an enemy, a being which, allowed to live, would contribute to the destruction of the Indians' collective existence. The Indians had no chance of defeating the whites by conventional military means. So their only resort was to hit soft targets and do the maximum damage. That wasn't just the right thing to do from their point of view. It was the right thing to do, period, because the whites had no business whatever coming thousands of miles to destroy the Indian people."

Terrorism By Israelis Is Major Roadblock to Peace,
Arizona Republic, April 14, 2002
" The tragic conflict in the Mideast will continue to escalate until the Bush administration does a U-turn and reconsiders its one-sided support for Israeli policies toward 3 million Palestinians living under occupation, especially its position on "terrorism." Terrorism involves the threat or use of violence to intimidate civilians or governments, and that includes actions by governments; that is to say, "state terrorism." But President Bush defines "terrorism" selectively so as to include Palestinian, but not Israeli, violence, and has repeatedly criticized Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat for not doing enough to stop terror bombings. But now with Israel's army rampaging through Palestinian towns and with Arafat, a virtual prisoner of Israel, reduced to clutching a cellphone, for Bush to expect Arafat to be able or willing to curb terrorism is a display of either cynicism or total ignorance of the situation ... For the U.S. criticism of Arafat to be effective and credible, Washington must equally condemn Israeli violence, condemn Israeli oppression of Palestinians, help Palestinians achieve their rights through nonviolent means, and use diplomatic and, if necessary, economic pressure on Israel to grant Palestinian rights. In opposing Israeli state terrorism, the United States should insist that Sharon arrest, jail and prosecute Israeli soldiers who, according to human rights groups, have used excessive force against Palestinian civilians, resulting in hundreds of unnecessary deaths, including scores of children."

Joan Rivers Jokes About 9/11 Victims,
imdb.com, May 1, 2002
"Controversial [Jewish] comedienne Joan Rivers has stunned British audiences by mocking the relatives of firefighters killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Rivers recently unveiled her new stand-up show Broke And Alone In London, but the British audience were left stunned when the American made fun of widows, whose firefighting husbands were killed in the attacks on New York and Washington DC. An audience member says, 'She said that they got paid $5 million each, and how disappointed they'd be if they were told, after all, that their husbands had been found alive.' Despite the controversy, Joan's spokesman insists that she, boldly, plans to continue to use the joke when she takes her show to America later this year."

Jews Love Their Suicide Terrorists,
Ukrainian Archive, May 2, 2002
"I caught a few minutes of CBC television's counterSpin on the evening of 01-May-2002, where I heard Brian Morris, immediate past Chairman of the Canada Israel Committee, instructing CBC viewers that when Dr. Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 worshippers in a Muslim prayer hall, including children, on 25-Feb-1994, and wounded many more, and sacrificed his life in the endeavor, then the reaction of Jews was opposite to that of Palestinians toward their own suicide terrorists. Jews, according to Brian Morris, roundly condemned Baruch Goldstein. The implication was that Jews are civilized and Palestinians are barbaric, and that if Palestinians only learned to regard their own suicide terrorists with the same disapproval that Jews regarded theirs, then the Middle East would be a happier place. However, in his chapter titled The Real Significance of Baruch Goldstein, Israel Shahak paints quite a different picture: '[W]ithin two days of the massacre the walls of religious neighborhoods of west Jerusalem (and to a lesser extent of many other religious neighborhoods) were covered by posters extolling Goldstein's virtues and complaining that he did not manage to kill more Arabs. Children of religious settlers who came to Jerusalem to demonstrate sported buttons for months after the massacre that were inscribed: "Dr Goldstein cured Israel's ills." Numerous concerts of Jewish religious music and other events often developed into demonstrations of tribute to Goldstein. The Hebrew press reported these incidents of public tribute in copious detail. No major politician protested against such celebrations.'"

[The Israeli Spy Network]
afrocuba.com
Good compilation of links to Internet articles about the Israeli spy network. "Here we track the interesting and under-reported story of Israeli spying in the US. A twisted tale... with Israeli gangsters settling in South Florida (where else?) and Israeli agents snooping across all US telecoms, backed by cadres of Israeli 'students.'"

We Are All Jews in Our Enemy's Eyes, by Richard Brookhiser,
New York Observer, May 4, 2002
"The defense of Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman of Moroccan origin who allegedly was meant to be the 20th hijacker, got off to a bad start in a Virginia courtroom last week ... For the first time, it struck me that Mr. Moussaoui might conceivably be innocent of the charges against him, for the rhetoric he employed is not a precise field marking. It is not a peculiarity only of Al Qaeda, or of other terrorists, but the common property of Middle Eastern newspapers and mobs. Their heroes may change—Osama bin Laden himself experienced at least a momentary loss of credibility when his Afghan allies went down to destruction—but the Jewish villain remains the same. We are now one with that villain. Only a minority of paranoids can believe in an omnipotent enemy who has, in raw numbers, but a marginal existence worldwide. So the typical Jew-basher has always looked for the powerful patrons, or agents, of his foe. In the 19th century, he saw them in the world capitals of finance—London and Paris. Henry Adams, as crazy as he was brilliant, remarked as the Spanish-American War approached that it would deal a stinging blow to French Jews. (Did he tell his friend Teddy Roosevelt to look out for them on San Juan Hill?) In the 20th century, Nazis and fascists saw the Jews pulling the strings in Moscow and on Wall Street, as well as in their older haunts. Now the aegis of Jewry is the United States. You may never have had a bris but, willy-nilly, you have been circumcised. Bards of American-Jewish friendship look for deep resemblances between the new nation and the old religion, and there are some. Jews live worldwide, and people from all over the world live here. America tolerates a variety of ideologies and creeds, and Judaism has shivered into many beliefs and unbeliefs. But it’s easy to push such abstractions too hard. The key point of our present ad hoc alliance is that the United States does not wish for the destruction of the Jews; therefore their enemies wish ours."

Surpise Best Seller Blames U.S.,
commondreams.org (from New York Times), May 4, 2002
"In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Noam Chomsky, the M.I.T. linguist and political provocateur, was constantly on the telephone, giving interviews to news organizations. In late September, he received an e-mail message from Greg Ruggiero, a senior editor of Seven Stories Press, a New York publisher. The editor of a series of political pamphlets for Seven Stories, Mr. Ruggiero had published several Chomsky pamphlets and said he wanted to publish something quickly about Sept. 11. During the next few weeks, Mr. Ruggiero edited several of the interviews Professor Chomsky had given, and supplemented them with his own questions. On Oct. 15, just as the war in Afghanistan was beginning, the resulting 125-page pocket-size paperback went to the printer. '9-11,' as the volume is titled, analyzes the attacks from the distinctive perspective that Professor Chomsky has honed in more than a dozen books. While the attacks were 'horrifying atrocities,' he writes, "we can think of the United States as an innocent victim only if we adopt the convenient path of ignoring the record of its actions and those of its allies." The United States, he asserts, is 'a leading terrorist state,' basing his opinion on actions like its interventions in Central America, its imposition of sanctions on Iraq, its support for General Suharto in Indonesia and its backing of what he calls 'Israeli atrocities' in the occupied territories."

Smart Bombs vs: Intelligent Bombs, The Suicide Bomb Hocus,
by C. E. Carlson, We Hold These Truths
"Israel is justifying its continuing assassination of Palestinian civilians and destruction of their property on grounds that Palestinian 'terrorist' bombers are intentionally killing innocent Israelis. What if, in fact, the human bombers attack military targets and not civilians...is this still terrorism? Though the rest of the world sees it the other way around, most Americans seem to be persuaded that the Israelis are the good guys and the Palestinians are the bad guys. According to recent polls, these beliefs are derived largely from the media, which uses the label 'terrorist' repeated day after day to describe Palestinians, while labeling Israeli actions as purely defensive ...WHTT thinks it is time to examine the one-sided use of the label 'terrorist,' and to ask whether there is any real difference between Israeli 'smart bombs' and Palestinian 'human bombs' that warrants one being called 'terrorist,' but not the other ... In Israel the buses are owned and subsidized by the government; each is a military transport, dropping the armed forces off at bus stops and duty stations along the way where jeeps and trucks sometimes wait ... [A]nyone who boards an Israeli bus is taking a military position, just as if you hitchhiked through town in one of the Army's jeeps. This answered a question I had often wondered about--why buses have been bombed so often during the years I have been reading about suicide bombings. Now I knew why: every bus is full of armed Israelis. Not one of the four buses I rode on for a total of over a thousand kilometers while in Israel was less than 25% military-occupied at any time, and most were well in excess of that. It occurred to me, why would a Palestinian bomber waste his life on a civilian target, when he could target a busload of armed soldiers on their way to or from attacks on Jenin or Ramallah? The answer was obvious--Palestinian guerillas do target buses, and they hit buses more often than any other target, perhaps more often than all other targets combined."

The Israeli 'Art Student' Mystery,
Salon.com, May 7, 2002 [full article reproduced at another web site here]
"For almost two years, hundreds of young Israelis falsely claiming to be art students haunted federal offices -- in particular, the DEA. No one knows why -- and no one seems to want to find out ... | In January 2001, the security branch of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency began to receive a number of peculiar reports from DEA field offices across the country. According to the reports, young Israelis claiming to be art students and offering artwork for sale had been attempting to penetrate DEA offices for over a year. The Israelis had also attempted to penetrate the offices of other law enforcement and Department of Defense agencies. Strangest of all, the "students" had visited the homes of numerous DEA officers and other senior federal officials. As a pattern slowly emerged, the DEA appeared to have been targeted in what it called an "organized intelligence gathering activity." But to what end, and for whom, no one knew. Reports of the mysterious Israelis with an inexplicable interest in peddling art to G-men came in from more than 40 U.S. cities and continued throughout the first six months of 2001. Agents of the DEA, ATF, Air Force, Secret Service, FBI, and U.S. Marshals Service documented some 130 separate incidents of "art student" encounters. Some of the Israelis were observed diagramming the inside of federal buildings. Some were found carrying photographs they had taken of federal agents. One was discovered with a computer printout in his luggage that referred to 'DEA groups.' In some cases, the Israelis visited locations not known to the public -- areas without street addresses, for example, or DEA offices not identified as such -- leading authorities to suspect that information had been gathered from prior surveillance or perhaps electronically, from credit cards and other sources. One Israeli was discovered holding banking receipts for substantial sums of money, close to $180,000 in withdrawals and deposits over a two-month period. A number of the Israelis resided for a period of time in Hollywood, Fla. -- the small city where Mohammed Atta and three terrorist comrades lived for a time before Sept. 11."

[Definition of the word 'terrorism,' by the Middle East Forum, an ecumencial, church-related organization]

The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?, Federal Research Division (U.S. government)
"Through the choice of their targets, which are often symbolic or representative of the targeted nation, terrorists attempt to create a high-profile impact on the public of their targeted enemy or enemies with their act of violence, despite the limited material resources that are usually at their disposal. In doing so, they hope to demonstrate various points, such as that the targeted government(s) cannot protect its (their) own citizens, or that by assassinating a specific victim they can teach the general public a lesson about espousing viewpoints or policies antithetical to their own ... This tactic is not new. Beginning in 48 A.D., a Jewish sect called the Zealots carried out terrorist campaigns to force insurrection against the Romans in Judea. These campaigns included the use of assassins (sicarii, or dagger-men), who would infiltrate Roman-controlled cities and stab Jewish collaborators or Roman legionnaires with a sica (dagger), kidnap members of the Staff of the Temple Guard to hold for ransom, or use poison on a large scale. The Zealots' justification for their killing of other Jews was that these killings demonstrated the consequences of the immorality of collaborating with the Roman invaders, and that the Romans could not protect their Jewish collaborators".

Six Israelis Arrested in Bomb Plot,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 19, 2002
"Israel's internal security agency, which usually searches for Palestinians deemed to be terrorists, now says it has uncovered a suspected Jewish network that apparently planned to bomb two or more Palestinian schools. The tale, which emerged last week as courts lifted publication bans, began in late April when police officers on routine patrol here witnessed the startling sight of two Jewish settlers in an Arab neighborhood on the Mount of Olives at 3 a.m. The men were driving a security car from the Bat Ayin settlement and had unhooked a trailer and placed it by the wall of a girls' school near the city's main Palestinian health center, the Makassed Hospital. When the police asked questions, they heard a stammering, evasive story about a flat tire. The police said they searched the vehicles and found two submachine guns and a powerful bomb, made of Israeli army-issued explosives, containers of oil and propane cooking-gas cylinders. A clock attached to the detonator was set for 7:35 a.m., when students would be arriving at school, the police said. So far, six people have been taken into custody, including two of the best-known voices of the religious far right: Noam Federman, a leader of the outlawed Kach movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, and Menashe Levenger, son of Rabbi Moshe Levenger, a founder of the Jewish settlement in Hebron."

The Lies Leaders Tell When They Want to Go to War,
by Robert Fisk, Common Dreams News Center, March 30, 2002
"How much longer can Ariel Sharon pretend that he's fighting in the "war against terror"? How much longer are we supposed to believe this nonsense? How much longer can the Americans remain so gutlessly silent in the face of a vicious conflict which is coming close to obscuring the crimes against humanity of 11 September? Terror, terror, terror. Like a punctuation mark, the word infects every Israeli speech, every American speech, almost every newspaper article. When will someone admit the truth: that the Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in a dirty colonial war which will leave both sides shamed and humiliated? ... Thus the rhetoric becomes ever more cruel, ever more revolting. Hamas calls its Jewish enemies 'the sons of pigs and monkeys', while Israeli leaders have variously bestialized their enemies as 'serpents', 'crocodiles', 'beasts' and 'cockroaches'. Now we have an Israeli officer – according to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv – advising his men to study the tactics adopted by the Nazis in the Second World War. 'If our job is to seize a densely packed refugee camp or take over the Nablus casbah, and if this job is given to an (Israeli) officer to carry out without casualties on both sides, he must before all else analyze and bring together the lessons of past battles, even – shocking though this might appear – to analyze how the German army operated in the Warsaw ghetto.' Pardon? What on earth does this mean? Does this account for the numbers marked by the Israelis on the hands and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners earlier this month? Does this mean that an Israeli soldier is now to regard the Palestinians as sub-humans – which is exactly how the Nazis regarded the trapped and desperate Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944? Yet from Washington comes only silence. And silence, in law, gives consent."

 

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