"Thu Mar 13,11:16 AM ET An Israeli policeman looks at the car in which two Israeli armed guards were killed by Israeli soldiers in an friendly-fire incident near the West-Bank settlement of Pnei Hever March 13, 2003. Israeli soldiers and a helicopter gunship shot dead the two Israeli armed guards in the West Bank after mistaking them for Palestinian gunmen, the army said." [Reuters, March 13, 2003]

[This is how Palestinians are indiscriminately slaughtered. Once determined to be a "terrorist," they are finished. Not a terrorist? Oh, sorry. We thought you looked like one.]
Aerial hunt for fleeing suspect cannot be justified,
Haaretz (Israel), March 16, 2003
"Thursday's incident east of the Zif junction, in which two Israeli security guards were killed by IDF fire from the air and the ground, have been avoided? This tragic incident most probably could have been prevented, had the troops and their commanding officers been made aware of the fact that two armed guards were present in the area. The preliminary investigation into the deaths has so far failed to determine whether the soldiers in the field were furnished with this information by the divisional headquarters in Hebron. If they did have this information, some measure of doubt would have crossed the minds of the officers who ordered their soldiers to open fire, and the minds of the soldiers who were so quick to fire volley after volley of lethal shots at who they assumed were terrorists. It may also be the case that the order to open fire violated the standard rules of engagement, governing troops' behavior when faced with terror suspects fleeing the scene ... The worst aspect of Thursday's event is that, from the moment the erroneous operation began, the two security guards became fleeing quarry that had no chance. They were not given any opportunity to identify themselves. After one of the guards, Yehuda Ben-Yosef, was killed next to his car, a helicopter fired a missile at his colleague, Yoav Doron. It is safe to assume that Doron saw the helicopter and realized that it was an Israeli force. The fact that he continued to run indicates that he understood that he had wandered into the middle of a terrible mistake ... But there has never been a case like Thursday's, when an Air Force helicopter hunted down an Israeli fleeing for his life. Even a high state of alert on account of reports of a terrorist infiltration cannot justify the aerial shooting of a lone figure in an open field."

UK envoy `proud' of critical comments made against Israel,
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 15, 2002
"The British ambassador to Israel, Sherard Cowper-Coles, says he is 'proud' of his comments that were published Monday and in which he described the West Bank and Gaza Strip as 'the biggest detention camp in the world.' In the report, Cowper-Coles is attributed with accusing Israel of contravening the Geneva Convention and the Israel Defense Forces of displaying a 'lack of professionalism,' during a leaked conversation last week with IDF Major General Amos Gilad, coordinator of government activities in the territories. Cowper-Coles told Ha'aretz Monday that the comments, reported in the Yedioth Ahronot daily, were 'exaggerated, but broadly true.' The ambassador also criticized Israel for continuing to build settlements, for 'the unnecessary humiliation and harassment' of the local civilian population at checkpoints, unnecessarily uprooting trees and making life difficult for the international welfare organizations, according to the report. Cowper-Coles says he did not regret his comments, which were made 'in the spirit of friendship.' He said he was 'very shocked' by what he has seen in the territories, 'as anyone else who visited there would be.'"

Lions of Judah ponder the power of the purse,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 16, 2002
"Women plus wealth equals potential to better the Jewish world. This equation underlay much of the International Lion of Judah Conference held this week in Washington. Themed as 'Power Philanthropy: Dare to Dream,' the biennial gathering drew some 1,000 'Lions,' donors of $5,000 or more to the United Jewish Communities National Women’s Constituency, from as far as Israel and Argentina and as near as the District itself. 'What do the stubs in your checkbook say about you?' Carole Solomon of New York, UJC Financial Resource Development Pillar chair, asked audience members at a Monday morning plenary on Israel, paraphrasing feminist Gloria Steinem. 'Do they reflect the values and issues you care about?' Summing up the conference, Greater Washington Lion of Judah chair Jocelyn Krifcher cited the Jewish state as a central concern for many. 'Foremost on our minds is to demonstrate the power of women’s philanthropy and to demonstrate our undivided and unified support for Israel,' said the Potomac resident ... . A keynote address on Sunday evening by Canadian parliamentian, professor and human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler brought a standing ovation. In a wide-ranging address on the state of world Jewry, Cotler warned of a 'new, virulent, globalizing, even lethal anti-Jewishness without parallel since the Second World War.'”

B'tselem report: 80% of Palestinians killed in curfew violations are children,
Jerusalem Post, October 16, 2002
"Israeli human rights group B'tselem on Wednesday accused the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] of frequently using gunfire to enforce curfews in Palestinian cities in the West Bank, and said 12 of at least 15 Palestinians killed for apparent curfew violations in the past four months were under the age of 16. 'Curfew is no longer a tool to meet specific security needs, but a sweeping means of collective punishment,' according to the report, 'Lethal Curfew,' issued Wednesday by B'Tselem. 'The prolonged curfew has made Palestinian life in the West Bank intolerable.' The report said that at least 15 Palestinians had been killed and many more wounded for being out of their houses during curfews since mid-June, when Israel occupied seven West Bank towns in response to a series of deadly suicide bombings. Twelve of those killed were under the age of 16, constituting 80 percent of those killed."

Bush, Sharon Discuss Protection of Israel,
Fox News, October 16, 2002
"President Bush said that he would expect Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to defend his nation if it were attacked by Iraq in the near future ... Earlier, Bush had asked Israel to refrain from retaliating against Iraq if it attacks the Jewish nation in response to a U.S. offensive against it. After the meeting, White House officials stressed that the United States still wants restraint from Israel if the U.S. does engage in military action against Iraq ... During his stay, Sharon also met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and was scheduled for talks with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and congressional leaders before heading for home on Thursday. At the White House, he praised Bush for his commitment to Israel. 'We never had such cooperation in everything as we have with the current administration,' Sharon said ... The president also said that he is happy to hear that Sharon is willing to return some of the Palestinian taxes collected to the Palestinian people, something that had been in doubt prior to the meeting. 'I appreciate so very much the fact that the prime minister ... cares about the human condition of the Palestinians ...," Bush said."

"Israel Should Be Attacked,"
Jerusalem Post, October 16, 2002
"Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad told a news conference yesterday in Kuala Lumpur that Israel should be attacked for seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, the Malaysian National News Agency reported. Referring to the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and the likelihood of an American attack on Iraq, Mohamad said, 'One of the things that I do know is that there is no pressure on Israel to do away with their nuclear weapons, but there is so much pressure on other countries'. Alleging that Iraq was the target of 'unilateral actions' based solely on 'the possibility' that it was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, Mohamad added, 'If you attack a country because of possibilities, then every country is going to be attacked. They should attack Israel,' he said."

Success of "Jewish Leadership" in Likud party raises concerns,
Israel Insider, October 17, 2002
"Security officials and political analysts are carefully following successful efforts by a new right-wing political organization to enter the ranks of the Likud Party in significant numbers, Yediot Aharonot reported. The Jewish Leadership faction (Manhigut Yehudit) within the Likud, headed by former Zo Artzeinu ('This is Our Land') civil disobedience group chairman Moshe Feiglin, managed to elect about 100 of its members onto the Likud's central committee, consisting of 3000-plus party members selected in nationwide balloting this week ... The faction also calls for strong measures to free Jonathan Pollard, convicted by the U.S. for passing classified documents to Israel ... The Jewish Leadership bloc... will affect decisions on such things as the makeup of the Likud Knesset list and will directly influence governmental decisions,' Yediot Aharonot reported. Some of the new members elected this week to the Likud's central committee are former members of the 'Jewish underground' or have connections to the outlawed Kahane Hai organization. Jewish Leadership candidates in Jerusalem included Old City resident Shaul Nir, convicted during the 1980s of being part of the Jewish underground group that orchestrated attacks on Arabs, including shooting and throwing grenades at students at Hebron's Islamic College in 1983. Nir served seven years in prison before receiving a presidential pardon. Another candidate for Likud committee membership was Baruch Kahane, son of assassinated Kach leader Rabbi Meir Kahane and brother of Binyamin Zeev Kahane, who was shot and killed with his wife in a terrorist shooting attack south of Ofra on December 31, 2000. Unnamed security officials told Yediot Aharonot they believed the activists were attempting to circumvent the prohibition of right-wing extremist groups such as Kahane Hai. 'These are not real Likud people,' an unnamed veteran party member told Yediot Aharonot. 'They have entirely different beliefs. If they manage to get their representatives into the Knesset, they will, sooner or later, break off into a splinter political party. This would be the first extremist right-wing party since Kahane's movement.'"

Sharon Has To Read Between The American Lines,
Israel National News, October 2002
"Arutz-7's Haggai Segal asked Yoram Ettinger, Israel's former liaison to the U.S. Congress and an expert on Israeli-U.S. relations, if it is true that Bush is the best American president for Israel. Ettinger: 'There is no doubt that at present this is true. I emphasize 'at present' because this window of opportunity may become smaller or even close altogether after the war with Iraq. A-7: 'What happened? You usually sound much more optimistic!' Ettinger: 'I am always optimistic, as long as we make the right choices… I still say that essentially and from a strategic standpoint, Bush is the most positive president for Israel. His Vice President and his Defense Minister are extremely pro-Israel… A-7: "But Bush has been urging Sharon to employ self-restraint during this pre-war period?" Ettinger: "Bush says different things at different times, because he must maneuver himself politically… But he has hinted many times that Israel has a right to self-defense... He is probably wondering why we interpret his 'green light' as a yellow or even a red light. His talk of a Palestinian state is based on the influence of the State Department and of top Israeli leaders themselves who say that such a state is inevitable. But Bush himself expects that we should act against terror and against those who don't fulfill agreements, the same way the US does."

Survey: 10% favor pardoning Yigal Amir,
Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2002
"Seven years after the murder of [Israeli] prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, a survey has revealed that one in every 10 Israelis is in favor of a pardon for his [far-right wing Jewish] assassin, Yigal Amir. The findings of the poll, conducted on behalf of Israel Radio's daily morning program 'Inyan Aher' (another matter) and broadcast on Thursday, brought a scathing response from Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit. 'It is truly shocking. I don't understand how people have, apparently, not learned anything... Obviously, I oppose this strongly,' he said. 'I want to calm feelings and make clear that something like this cannot happen, and I have no doubt that Yigal Amir will serve the life sentence.' Foreign Minister Shimon Peres warned that incitement is again rife in the country, as it was in the days prior to Rabin's assassination. 'There was a short period in which people expressed regret, and now there is the same phenomenon of wild incitement. And there are those people who call themselves rabbis who are the among the greatest inciters of the nation,' he said. He maintained that if Rabin had not been assassinated, the Oslo Accords would have led to peace between Israel and the Palestinians."

Canadian Jews are incensed as Quebec union calls to boycott Israel,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Oct. 25, 2002
"Members of a Quebec labor union who recently visited the West Bank and Gaza Strip have denounced Israel as an 'apartheid regime' and called for a boycott of Israeli products. The Centrale des syndicats du Quebec, a major union representing teachers, healthcare and social service workers and other labor groups, sent 10 members on a 12-day fact-finding mission to Palestinian areas. The group did not meet with any Israeli government representatives or Israeli colleagues from the Histadrut trade union federation. The delegation prepared a blistering report on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, outlining a litany of Palestinian suffering that they blamed on Israel’s military presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip ... Incensed, Montreal’s Jewish leadership is striking back. At a press conference Thursday, representatives of Canadian Jewish Congress’s Quebec region, the Canada-Israel Committee’s Quebec region, the Communaute Sepharade du Quebec and Federation CJA condemned the union’s report."

Maxwell Killed by Mossad: New Book,
New York Post, October 25, 2002
"'Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy,'" to be published in December by Carroll and Graf, claims Mossad decided to get rid of Maxwell because he was threatening to expose his knowledge of Israeli secrets unless he received Israeli help in propping up his failing businesses. Maxwell's sudden death at sea in November 1991 off the Canary Islands brought about the collapse of his worldwide publishing empire and triggered theories ranging from suicide, murder or accident. Maxwell - who owned the Daily News at the time - disappeared overboard just as the complex web of financial deals keeping his businesses afloat was beginning to unravel and a few weeks after U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a book claiming Maxwell had close ties with the Israeli secret services. The new book, by British thriller writer Gordon Thomas and Irish journalist Martin Dillon, is based on interviews with former Mossad agents and chiefs."

Academic accused of promoting anti-semitism,
Guardian (UK), October 25, 2002
"A row has broken out between a Birmingham University lecturer and Jewish groups over a personal website which the Jewish groups say promotes anti-semitism. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, has written to the university demanding that they remove links between Ms Blackwell's official university website and her personal pages. They say links from the site take you to images glorifying suicide bombing and comparing Israel with Nazi Germany. Sue Blackwell, an English lecturer, today defended her site saying: 'I would not link to a terrorist organisation - there is no link to a Hamas website. If I've inadvertently linked to something that glorifies suicide bombers I would remove it immediately. Nobody has yet told me which one leads to these images. I think these allegations are groundless and malicious.' A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies said: 'Over the past year, Jewish students have felt increasingly threatened by anti-Israel and anti-semitic propaganda on campus which has directly resulted in an increase in campus anti-semitism. As an academic, Ms Blackwell has a responsibility to the truth and it is sad that she has allowed herself to become a mouthpiece for recognised anti-Israel groups.'" [Here is Susan Blackwell's web site]

Smearing the Antiwar Movement. Neocon Thought Police on the Prowl,
by Justin Raimondo, Etherzone, October 28, 2002 issue
"As if to confirm what some opponents of this war have been saying – but not too loudly – about this being a war for Israel, the Bush administration is now 'weighing an Israeli proposal for a joint operation in Iraq's western desert to disarm Iraqi missiles before they could be launched against Israel.' That this war has always been about Israel is a matter of simple geography. For all the President's palavering about the 'threat to Americans' posed by Iraq, those 'weapons of mass destruction' Saddam supposedly has couldn't even reach Europe, let alone the U.S. But Tel Aviv is well within range. Indeed, the prospect of Iraqi missiles raining down on Israel has been one of the chief deterrents against a move by Israel's far-right Likud government to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs – a plan that is increasingly popular among Israelis – and/or move the IDF back into Lebanon. The U.S. occupation of Iraq will eliminate that deterrent – and set up Israel to deal with Hizbollah the Syria in the regional conflagration to follow. The oddly showy attempts by U.S. government officials to downplay the extent of U.S.-Israeli collaboration have never been too convincing – if they were, you see, the Israeli lobby in the U.S. would be outraged, and that would be the end of that. But who's kidding whom? The coming war in the Middle East will be a joint operation between Washington and Tel Aviv in every sense, not only militarily but also on the political and diplomatic fronts. In the blockbuster second issue of The American Conservative, Paul W. Schroeder, professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, disdained the Oedipal explanation for the origins of the President's war plans, writing: 'Much more plausible is the suggestion that this plan is being promoted in the interests of Israel. Certainly it is being pushed very hard by a number of influential supporters of Israel of the hawkish neoconservative stripe in and outside the administration (Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, and others) and one could easily make the case that a successful preventive war on Iraq would promote particular Israeli security interests more than general American ones.'"

Arab legislators aren't equal,
International Herald Tribune, October 29, 2002
"Israel calls itself the only democracy in the Middle East, a description readily accepted in the West. Only critics in the Arab world and a handful of radical Israeli academics have challenged this orthodoxy, observing that the country is really a democracy only if you are a Jew. Azmi Bishara, a former philosophy professor and now an Arab member of the Knesset, calls Israel a 'tribal democracy.' Not included in the tribe, he says, are the country's million Arab citizens, a fifth of the population. Although they have the vote, they have long complained that they are excluded from participation in the government. Since the mid-1990s they have campaigned for the Jewish state to become a state of all its citizens. The Jewish Israeli public and political establishment angrily oppose such reforms, claiming that they would destroy Israel as a Jewish democratic state. However, a new report, 'Silencing Dissent,' commissioned by Israel's Arab Association for Human Rights, challenges the view that Israel can extol its virtues as a democracy while defining itself as a state for Jews. Our research throws up disturbing facts about the operation of Israel's parliamentary democracy that are little appreciated outside Israel ... The special treatment meted out to the Arab legislators has every appearance of being designed to intimidate and silence them. In fact, new pieces of legislation passed by the Knesset this past summer will do just that. Israel's election committee will now be able to ban any party from running which implicitly denies that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state."

Before Jewish fascism takes over,
by Yossi Sarid, Ha'aretz (Israel), October 29, 2002
"They're putting the historical cart before the horses, to drag the horses after them down the slippery slope until we once again crash, for the third time; they are enlisting history into the cause to make sure the zealots of our day can once again bring us to destruction ... Gush Emunim's path to their heaven and our hell is paved with violence and brutal expressions of refusal and rebellion, always supported by Ariel Sharon (all the quotes are in the archives), who to this day, now as prime minister, is playing a double game together with his good friend, the most important man in the territories, that one from the Jewish Underground, Ze'ev Hever, also known as Zambish. Together, Sharon and Zambish are zambushing Fuad Ben-Eliezer and Shimon Peres. And the Yesha Council leaders will continue denying their paternity over the 'hilltop youth,' while the sanctimonious, self-righteous politicians who prepared the groundwork for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin will continue using their saccharine rhetoric about 'the unity of the nation' warning about 'civil wars' and 'baseless hatred.' If today's zealots continue on the path of their ancestors, I'm not sure the opposing camp will continue the tradition of surrender and panic exhibited by the moderates of the Second Commonwealth. We have the right of self-defense from the likes of Effi Eitam, his rabbis and pupils, before they bring down the horrors upon us, before Jewish fascism runs over us all."

No Respite for West Bank Locals,
National Geographic, October 2002
"The latest news from the West Bank, occupied by Israel since June 1967, differs from earlier reports only in that the situation for the vast majority of inhabitants has grown even worse. Take, for example, one of the most fundamental human requirements: water. The drought that has been ravaging the entire Middle East for several years hit Israel hard, and Palestinians, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, have been undergoing 'a severe water shortage.' Two hundred thousand Palestinians on the West Bank found themselves without any access to a water pipeline network and therefore had to rely in part on supplies brought in by tanker, which cost them three to five times as much as piped water. However, the tankers often come from areas that are under Israeli curfew (meaning that all outside movement is forbidden.) They therefore have to wait until the curfew is lifted before filling up and setting off to make deliveries. The roughly 8,500 people living in the town of Bayt Furik, for example, totally depend in water brought in from the city of Nablus, which has been frequently under curfew for most of the day since May. The Israeli military authorities allow tankers to enter Bayt Furik only between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. In consequence, each of the 13 tankers serving the town can make only one delivery a day, as opposed to the four or five daily deliveries that they usually made before the present disturbances, known as the Al Aqsa intifada, began in September 2000. The effect of this severe reduction in summer water supply on the town’s beef and chicken industry has been predictably severe, just one more reason why some 70 percent of the inhabitants of the occupied territories are living on $2 a day or less."

Judge Labels U.S. 'Irrational' In Fearing Int'l Crimes Court,
[Jewish] Forward, October 18, 2002
"The first chief prosecutor at the tribunal set up to adjudicate claims of war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia is saying that American 'fear' of the International Criminal Court 'is completely unjustified,' and 'borders almost on the irrational.' In a visit to the Forward offices, South African Justice Richard Goldstone said that the court 'has been seriously weakened in attempts to get the United States on board.' Goldstone said that unlike the United States, 'Israel has good cause to be suspicious of international organizations' including the United Nations — although he believes it is in Israel's best interest to join the International Criminal Court. 'I think Israel is being treated partially by the United Nations,' said Goldstone, who sits on South Africa's Constitutional Court and is president of World ORT Union, a Jewish-led international technical and technology-training organization. 'While a lot of criticism of Israel at the United Nations has been in my view justified, it's been absolutely partial and many countries have done far worse things and nothing's said' ... The court, which sits in the Dutch city of The Hague, will have jurisdiction over war crimes, genocide and other 'crimes against humanity' committed after July 1, 2002. The United States and Israel are among the 138 countries that signed the treaty creating the court but both have declined to ratify it; the United States withdrew its signature in May ... According to Goldstone, Israel doesn't 'seem to be following the United States in taking any active action against the ICC; they're not likely to because, I guess, politically they don't want to antagonize more than necessary the rest of the world.' Goldstone noted that the 'United States and Israel are the only democracies not to have ratified the criminal court treaty.' 'I would have thought that Israel would have wanted to be part of a movement to put a stop to impunity for war criminals,' he said, citing the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the Nuremburg tribunals. 'As I said, they are obviously scared and backing off because they don't want the court to be used against them.'"

8 Palestinians killed, including 3 children,
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 18, 2002
"IDF tank shelling killed eight Palestinians, including three children, and wounded some 40 others in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian sources said. Rafah residents said that five tanks shells hit several houses. Dr. Ali Mussa of al-Najar hospital in Rafah said the dead included a 70-year-old woman and at least three children aged 13, 12 and nine. About ten of the injured were in serious condition, he said."

U.S. considers Israeli plan for joint operation to neutralize Iraqi missiles,
nj.com, (The Associated Press), October 18, 2002
"The Bush administration is considering an Israeli proposal to send U.S. special forces into Iraq's western desert to knock out Iraqi missile sites in the event of war, a U.S. official said Friday. In a joint operation, Israel would furnish the United States with intelligence about the sites and how to disarm them early in the conflict, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Israel's aim is to sharply reduce the risk of an Iraqi missile attack. Israel presented the proposal during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's talks this week in Washington with President Bush and senior White House, Pentagon and State Department officials."

Settlers attack Palestinian olive pickers in West Bank,
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 18, 2002,
"Dozens of [Jewish] settlers prevented the residents of the West Bank villages of Akrabeh, Inabus near Nablus from picking olives Saturday, firing in the air and demanding that the Palestinians leave the area ... Six Palestinian families set out Friday from the village of the West Bank village of Hirbat Yanun, leaving it completely abandoned. Once home to 25 families, members of the Sobih clan said they were fleeing after four years of worsening attacks by settlers who have set up illegal outposts on nearby hilltops. The attacks have become increasingly frequent in recent months, they said. Groups of masked settlers have charged into the village, coming at night with dogs and horses, stealing sheep, hurling stones through windows and beating the men with fists and rifle butts, Palestinian residents told the Associated Press. An electricity generator has been scorched by fire, knocking out power to the village. Three large water tanks were tipped over and emptied, the residents said. Palestinians complain bitterly of land lost over the past decades of Middle East conflict. Yanun is believed to the first time in recent years that Palestinians have abandoned an entire village due to the conflict ... An IDF spokesman, who did not want his name used, said soldiers try to prevent conflict between settlers and Palestinians, but that forces are primarily in the area to protect Israelis from attacks by Palestinian militants."

Israel, Iraq and the US,
by Edward Said, Counterpunch, October 19, 2002
"[Ariel] Sharon is now Israel's prime minister, his armies and propaganda machine once again surrounding and dehumanising Arafat and the Palestinians as 'terrorists'. It is worth recalling that the word 'terrorist' began to be employed systematically by Israel to describe any Palestinian act of resistance beginning in the mid-1970s. That has been the rule ever since, especially during the first Intifada of 1987-93, eliminating the distinction between resistance and pure terror and effectively depoliticising the reasons for armed struggle. During the 1950s and 60s Ariel Sharon earned his spurs, so to speak, by heading the infamous Unit 101, which killed Arab civilians and razed their houses with the approval of Ben-Gurion ... The main difference between 1982 and 2002 is that the Palestinians now being victimised and besieged are in Palestinian territories that were occupied in 1967 and where they have remained despite the ravages of the occupation, the destruction of the economy, and of the whole civilian infrastructure of collective life. The main similarity is of course the disproportional means used to do it, eg, the hundreds of tanks and bulldozers used to enter towns and villages like Jenin or refugee camps like Jenin's and Deheisheh, to kill, vandalise, prevent ambulances and first-aid workers from helping, cutting off water and electricity, etc. All with the support of the US whose president actually went as far as calling Sharon a man of peace during the worst rampages of March and April 2002. It is significant of how Sharon's intention went far beyond 'rooting out terror' that his soldiers destroyed every computer and then carried off the files and hard drives from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Education, of Finance, of Health, cultural centres, vandalising officers and libraries, all as a way of reducing Palestinian collective life to a pre- modern level."

UN concerned about poverty among children in Israel,
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 21, 2002
"The commission responsible for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, has expressed its concern over 'the very high percentage of children living in poverty, particularly those living in large families, in single-parent families and Arab families,' in Israel and in the territories. 'The committee is concerned that discrimination persists in [Israel] and that non-discrimination is not expressly guaranteed constitutionally. In particular the committee is concerned about discrimination against girls and women, especially in the context of religious laws; inequalities in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights of Israeli Arabs, Bedouin, Ethiopians, children with disabilities and children of foreign workers.' The commission 'encourages the state party to take all possible measures to reconcile the interpretation between religious laws with fundamental human rights.' The panel expressed its 'deep concern' about 'inhuman and degrading practices' and 'torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children by police officers... [and] encourages the state party to take all possible measures to reconcile the interpretation between religious laws with fundamental human rights.'"

Commander charged with torturing Palestinian boy,
Guardian (UK), October 22, 2002
"An Israeli army commander has been relieved of his post after being charged with torturing a young Palestinian boy in Bethlehem while interrogating him as to the whereabouts of his father. Lieutenant Colonel Geva Saguy is awaiting a court martial on several charges, including ordering the boy to strip naked, holding a burning paper under his testicles, threatening to ram a bottle into his anus and threatening to shoot him. The boy's name and age have not been revealed. A military court was told that Lt Col Saguy was trying to obtain information about the boy's father - described as a 'wanted Palestinian' - during the army's invasion of Bethlehem in April. Lt Col Saguy was charged with extortion, behaviour unbecoming an officer and exceeding his authority to the point of endangering human life. He was relieved of his post on the orders of the military court after it turned down a request for the charges to be thrown out. The army had resisted the move for several months. A sergeant is accused of translating Lt Col Saguy's threats into Arabic and of beating the youth."

Home PM plans to ask U.S. for aid that could top $10 billion,
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 22, 2002
"An inter-ministerial team headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau chief, Dov Weisglass, is working on a proposal requesting American economic assistance that could top $10 billion. The team includes representatives from the treasury, the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry. A government source said the reason for the aid request stems from the United States' expected campaign against Iraq coupled with the American desire that Israel not interfere with Washington's plans or use IDF troops against Iraq. Sources at the Prime Minister's Office said yesterday that American readiness to provide economic assistance has not been made in concrete terms. However, a number of ideas have cropped up in Jerusalem over the type of aid Israel could use: cash, guarantees for low-interest bank loans from American banks, direct state-to-state loans from the U.S. treasury, and the conversion of some American defense aid into shekels. Currently, Washington provides Israel $2.1 billion a year that must be spent in the United States on defense supplies. One proposal is for $2 billion to be converted to shekels and used to purchase defense equipment from Israeli manufacturers in the hope that it would invigorate the Israeli economy."

Rights groups: Israel is waging a campaign to silence Arab MKs,
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 23, 2002
"Israel is carrying out at a 'campaign for silencing Arab members of Knesset [the Israeli Parliament],' and has adopted a 'strategy aimed at denying the [Arab] minority its voting rights, contrary to its international obligation,' organizations representing Arab minority rights said in two ground-breaking reports presented to the Knesset yesterday. According to reports prepared by the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) and the Mussawa Center, Israel's nine Arab MKs have been targets of a concerted policy of physical attack by security forces and their freedom of movement has been restricted. There are also a number of legal and legislative processes in the works aimed at neutralizing their political activity, the reports note. Since the current Knesset was convened in May 1999, eight of the Knesset Arab MKs have been physically hurt in 11 attacks carried out by military police, according to the rights organizations; most of the MKs were attacked more than once, and in seven cases medical treatment was required. 'In most of the cases, security forces knew who they were attacking,' the HRA report claims. According to both reports, no proceedings were taken against the attackers, despite complaints filed by the MKs."

Settlers defying Israeli law Actions spark fear in the region,
Boston Globe, October 23, 2002
"Jewish settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories have suddenly broken into open defiance of the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on multiple fronts, threatening the stability of the ruling coalition and creating an environment that some Israelis compare to that which led to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Across the rocky, rolling hills of the northern West Bank, which the settlers call by the biblical name Samaria, settlers are attacking Palestinians attempting to harvest their olives - a major ritual of Palestinian society and an important source of income for the impoverished rural population. Olive harvesters have been beaten, shot at, wounded, and, in one case, killed... In the past week alone, a Palestinian was found crawling through the groves near an Itamar outpost after allegedly being beaten severely by residents, Palestinian villagers fled their homes after a settler rampage, and numerous olive harvesters were threatened. The injured man had three broken fingers, and was burned and bruised all over his body, according to the doctor in Nablus who treated him. A relative who took him to the hospital said the man told him settlers hung him upside down in a tree, with his hands tied behind his back, while beating him. In other Samarian settlements, Israeli police said, armed, masked settlers torched seven cars owned by Palestinians after the Palestinians refused to leave their olive groves."

Israeli embassy told to move,
Aftenposten, (Norway), October 24, 2002
"Closed streets, barricaded sidewalks and heavily armed guards just behind Norway's royal palace have taken their toll on Oslo officials' patience. After years of neighbor complaints over security measures at the Israeli embassy, city authorities now agree the embassy must move within four years. The Israeli embassy on Parkveien in Oslo has been a security nightmare for local officials. Fears of terrorist attack have led to security demands from the Israeli embassy that city and state politicians have tried to meet. The city has paid for round-the-clock police patrols at the embassy, agreed to block off the street it sits on (earlier one of busiest in the city) and allowed the embassy to violate building codes by erecting such things as a steel fence around the gracious old rented mansion that the embassy leases. Now city officials agree that the very threat of terrorist attack means the embassy must be re-located. They now think its current site, across the street from the palace where both King Harald and Queen Sonja live, is a threat to the entire area."

World press freedom ranked,
BBC (UK), October 23, 2002
"This is the first time press freedom has been ranked The international journalism pressure group Reporters Without Borders has published a list judging 139 countries on their respect for press freedom. At the top of the list are Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands. North Korea, China and Burma are at the other end of the scale. There are some surprises for Western governments - the United States ranks below Costa Rica and Italy scores lower than Benin ... The US' 17th place was lowered because of the number of journalists arrested for refusing to reveal their sources, the report says ... Elsewhere, the organisation places the Palestinian Authority (82) higher than Israel (92) in terms of press freedom. Israel's ranking was hurt by what the pressure group claims are 'a large number of violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights' in the West Bank and Gaza." [Iraq is listed at the bottom, at 130]

Academics' statement: Israeli gvmt may be contemplating crimes against humanity, by Jacob Katriel, indymedia, Sep 22, 2002 jkatriel@tx.technion.ac.il
"Members of Israeli academe are invited to add their name to the statement presented below by sending an email to jkatriel@tx.technion.ac.il Urgent warning: The Israeli government may be contemplating crimes against humanity. We, members and friends of Israeli academe, are horrified by US buildup of aggression towards Iraq and by the Israeli political leadership's enthusiastic support for it. We are deeply worried by indications that the 'fog of war' could be exploited by the Israeli government to commit further crimes against the Palestinian people, up to full-fledged ethnic cleansing. The Israeli ruling coalition includes parties that promote 'transfer' of the Palestinian population as a solution to what they call 'the demographic problem'. Politicians are regularly quoted in the media as suggesting forcible expulsion, most recently MKs Michael Kleiner and Benny Elon, as reported on Yediot Ahronot website on September 19, 2002. In a recent interview in Ha'aretz, Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon described the Palestinians as a 'cancerous manifestation' and equated the military actions in the Occupied Territories with 'chemotherapy', suggesting that more radical 'treatment' may be necessary. Prime Minister Sharon has backed this 'assessment of reality'. Escalating racist demagoguery concerning the Palestinian citizens of Israel may indicate the scope of the crimes that are possibly being contemplated. We call upon the International Community to pay close attention to events that unfold within Israel and in the Occupied Territories, to make it absolutely clear that crimes against humanity will not be tolerated, and to take concrete measures to prevent such crimes from taking place. add your comments 187 Signatories, so far. by Jacob Katriel 11:30am Sun Sep 29 '02 Dr. Issam Aburaiya, Jerusalem Prof. Zach Adam, Rehovot Dr. Amotz Agnon, Jerusalem Prof. Colman Altman, Haifa Dr. Janina Altman, Haifa Tammy Amiel-Houser, Tel Aviv Chaya Amir, Tel Aviv Dr. Shmuel Amir, Tel Aviv Prof. Daniel Amit, Jerusalem/Rome Elinor Amit, Tel Aviv Prof. Yali Amit, Chicago Dr. Yossi Amitay, Kibbutz Gvulot Dr. Meir Amor, Montreal, Canada Dr. Yonathan (Jon) Anson, Beer Sheva Dr. Ariella Azoulay, Tel Aviv Dr. Riva Bachrach, Tel Aviv Dr. Rachel Tzvia Back, Tel Aviv Prof. Shalom Baer, Jerusalem Prof. Ron Barkai, Tel Aviv Dr. Anat Barnea - Givat Chaim Ichud Prof. Dan Bar-On, Beer Sheva Dr. Avner Ben-Amos, Tel Aviv Tammy Ben-Shaul, Haifa Prof. Zvi Bentwich, Jerusalem Prof. Matania Ben-Artzi, Jerusalem Prof. Linda Ben-Zvi, Tel Aviv Avi Berg, Tel Aviv Dr. Louise Bethlehem, Hod Hasharon Prof. Anat Bilezki, Tel Aviv Uri Bitan, Beer Sheva Prof. Elliott Blass, Cambridge, MA Prof. Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Jerusalem Dr. Yair Boimel, Haifa Prof. Daniel Boyarin, Berkeley Prof. Haim Bresheeth, London/Jerusalem Ido Bruno, Jerusalem Prof. Victoria Buch, Jerusalem Shula Carmi, Jerusalem Smadar Carmon, Toronto Raz D. Chen-Morris, Jerusalem Ilan Cohen, Pordenone, Italy Dr. Nicole Cohen-Addad, Tel Aviv Dr. Mike Dahan, Jerusalem Dr. Uri Davis, Sakhnin Athena Elizabeth DeRasmo, Haifa Ronit Dovrat, Firenze Dr. Avishai Ehrlich, Tel Aviv Dr. Hala Espanioly, Nazareth Prof. Aharon Eviatar, Tel Aviv Dr. Zohar Eviatar, Haifa Debbie Eylon, Jerusalem Dr. Ovadia Ezra. Tel Aviv Prof. Raphael Falk, Jerusalem Moris Farhi, London, UK Prof. Emmanuel Farjoun, Jerusalem Prof. Raya Fidel, Seattle Pnina Firestone, Jerusalem Prof. Gideon Freudenthal, Tel Aviv Dr. Elizabeth Freund, Jerusalem Meir (miro) Gal, New York Prof. Chaim Gans, Tel Aviv Gadi Geiger, Cambridge, MA, USA Dr. Amira Gelblum, Tel Aviv Prof. Avner Giladi, Haifa Prof. Rachel Giora, Tel Aviv Dr. Snait Gissis, Tel Aviv Dr. Daphna Golan-Agnon, Jerusalem Dr. Anat Goldrat-First, Netanya Dr. Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni, Tel Aviv Dr. Neve Gordon, Beer Sheva Dr. Yerah Gover, New York Prof. Charles W. Greenbaum, Jerusalem Dr. Lev Grinberg, Beer Sheva Prof. Yossi Guttmann, Haifa Ran HaCohen, Tel Aviv Prof. Uri Hadar, Tel Aviv Jeff Halper, Jerusalem Shoshana Halper, Jerusalem Prof. Galit Hasan-Rokem, Jerusalem Dina Hecht, Jerusalem Dr. Sara Helman, Beer Sheva Prof. Hanna Herzog, Tel Aviv Prof. Ze'ev Herzog, Tel Aviv Prof. Hannan Hever, Jerusalem Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass, Jerusalem Shirly Houser, Tel Aviv Tal Itzhaki, Haifa Prof. Eva Jablonka, Tel Aviv Andrea Jacobs, Austin, Texas Prof. Sabre Kais, Nahif/Purdue USA Dr. Devorah Kalekin-Fishman, Haifa Aya Kaniuk, Tel Aviv Prof. Jacob Katriel, Haifa Prof. Tamar Katriel, Haifa Prof. Uri Katz, Haifa Prof. Baruch Kimmerling, Jerusalem Dr. Gady Kozma, Rehovoth Prof. Richard Kulka, Jerusalem Dr. Haggai Kupermintz, Boulder, Colorado Judy Kupferman, Tel Aviv Dr. Ron Kuzar, Haifa Dr. Idan Landau, Beer Sheva Dr. John Landau, Jerusalem Dr. Ariela Lazar, Evanston Dr. Ronit Lentin, Dublin Prof. Micah Leshem, Haifa Erez Levkovitz, Jerusalem Prof. Rene Levy, Lausanne Prof. Shimon Levy, Tel Aviv Prof. Joyce Livingstone, Haifa Prof. Yosefa Loshitzky, London/Jerusalem Dr. Orly Lubin, Tel Aviv Dr. Ivonne Mansbach, Jerusalem Prof. Uri Maor, Tel Aviv Dr. Ruchama Marton, Tel Aviv Dr. Anat Matar, Tel Aviv Dr. Nina Mayorek, Jerusalem Prof. Paul Mendes-Flohr, Jerusalem Rahel Meshoulam, Cambridge, MA Dr. Uriel Meshoulam, Cambridge, MA Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, Jerusalem Jo Milgrom, Jerusalem Menucha Moravitz, Ramat-Gan Susy Mordechay, Giv'ataim Dr. Pnina Motzafi-Haller, Ottawa, Canada Prof. Ben-Tzion Munitz, Tel Aviv Dr. Dorit Naaman, Kingston, Ontario Regev Nathansohn, Tel Aviv Prof. Adi Ophir, Tel-Aviv Omer Ori, Jerusalem Prof. Avraham Oz, Haifa Dr. Ilan Pappe, Haifa Prof. Yoav Peled, Tel Aviv Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA Prof. Igor Primoratz, Jerusalem Amos Raban, Tel Aviv Tali Raban, Tel Aviv Shakhar Rahav, Berkeley Dr. Haggai Ram, Beer Sheva Dr. Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Beer Sheva Prof. Zvi Razi, Tel Aviv Prof. Tanya Reinhart, Tel Aviv Prof. Fanny-Michaela Reisin, Berlin Dr. Nira Reiss, New York Dr. Rivki Ribak, Haifa Prof. Freddie Rokem, Tel Aviv Dr. Avihu Ronen, Tel Hai Prof. Henry Rosenfeld, Haifa Dr. Maya Rosenfeld, Jerusalem Ouzi Rotem, Philadelphia Hava Rubin, Haifa Itai Ryb, Jerusalem Amalia Sa'ar, Haifa Dr. Dalia Sachs, Haifa Dr. Hannah Safran, Haifa Tami Sarfatti, UCLA Dr. Nita Schechet, Jerusalem Hillel Schocken, Tel Aviv Dr. Zvi Schuldiner, Jerusalem Uri Segal, Louisville, KY Ruben Seroussi, Tel Aviv Dr. Erella Shadmi, Mevasseret Zion Prof. Nomi Shir, Beer Sheva Dr. Miriam Shlesinger, Tel Aviv Aharon Shabtai, Tel Aviv Dr. Rann Smorodinsky, Haifa Orly Soker, Sapir-Jerusalem Dr. Yehiam Soreq, Tel Aviv Nurit Steinfeld, Jerusalem Dr. Eva Teubal, Jerusalem Prof. Gideon Toury, Tel Aviv Dr. Dudy Tzfati, Jerusalem Roman Vater, Tel Aviv Dr. Roy Wagner, Tel-Aviv Prof. Bronislaw Wajnryb, Haifa Prof. Pnina Werbner, Keele Dr. David Wesley, Tel Aviv Elana Wesley, Tel Aviv Tamar Yaron, Montreal & Kibbutz Hazorea Dr. Mamoud Yazbak, Haifa Dr. Michael Yogev, Haifa Kim Yuval, Tel Aviv Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, Jerusalem Prof. Nahla Abdo-Zoubi, Nazareth/Ottawa Nava Zuckerman, Tel Aviv Dr. Moshe Zuckermann, Tel Aviv Michal Zweig, Herzelia

Power Bloc Turkey and Israel Lock Arms,
Third World Traveler (from The Progressive magazine), December 1998
"Last December, when Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz visited the White House, a coalition of human-rights and arms-control groups urged President Clinton to confront him about Turkey's pervasive human-rights violations and its ongoing repression of the Kurds. Not all members of the American human-rights community were so critical, however. On December 17, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent Jewish organization that seeks to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination, presented Yilmaz with its Distinguished Statesman Award and honored him at a gala dinner attended by the leaders of several major American Jewish organizations. 'Turkey stands as a country committed to democracy and the promotion of tolerance,' proclaimed ADL director Abraham Foxman in a press release distributed at the time. According to the ADL, its Distinguished Statesman Award goes 'to those leaders who exhibit an extraordinary dedication to regional and world peace, and who possess a special commitment to promoting human and civil rights.' Such high praise for Turkey and its head of state prompted a sharply worded rebuttal from the Washington Kurdish Institute. Yilmaz's treatment of the Kurds, the group wrote to Foxman, 'amount[s] to little more than ethnic cleansing." ... So why would the ADL and other Jewish leaders lavish such praise on Yilmaz? The reason is Turkey's burgeoning military partnership with Israel. In February 1996, Turkey and Israel signed a historic military training agreement, followed six months later by an arms-industry cooperation pact. Since that time, military and economic ties between the two countries have blossomed. Both nations now fly and train in one another's airspace, share sophisticated intelligence information, enjoy extensive trade relations, and cooperate on joint security and weapons projects.

Rabbi in Hebron Says Annihilation of Non-Jews Acceptable, Palestine Chronicle, November 16 2002
"A prominent Israeli rabbi with thousands of followers said during a Sabbath homily in the settlement in Kiryat Arba'a Saturday that halacha, or Jewish religious law, 'essentially supported the annihilation of non-Jews in Israel.' The rabbi, Rav Leor, said most rabbinic authorities 'of the past and the present accepted the opinion that the lives of non-Jews don't' enjoy the same sanctity as the lives of Jews.' 'Hashmadat goyem' (the extermination of non-Jews), he said was an established principle in Jewish theology. The rabbi is affiliated with the messianic Jewish movement known as Gush Emunim which is represented in the Israeli Knesset by seven Knesset members. The movement is represented in the Israeli government by Minister without portfolio Ed Eifam of the National Religious Party (NRP) ... IAP NEWS (iap.org). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).

Middle East: The West Bank: A Dustbin for Israeli Industrial Waste?,
Demographic, Environmental and Secuirty Issues Project,
May 2001
"Some Palestinian West Bank towns have become 'dustbins' for Israeli industrial wastes -- including toxic wastes -- raising cancer rates 5 to 10 times normal according to local Palestinian doctors and politicians. Dr. Abdul-Rahmen Abu-Hanih, who has been practicing medicine in the area for the last 11 years, has 'witnessed a tenfold increase in the incidence of cancer -- mainly leukemia, prostate cancer and Hodgkin’s disease' in the town of Azzun reports the Manchester Guardian Weekly. (August 2, 1998, 'Palestinians pay price for Israel's toxic waste,' by Julian Borger in Azzun, the West Bank) The Guardian reporter explains that the town is 'a victim of its political geography...[It] is only 30 km from the industrial conurbation of Tel Aviv, but since it lies in the occupied West Bank, under army jurisdiction, Israeli waste-disposal laws are not fully enforced. So every few nights trucks appear from the west and empty their cargo on Azzun's doorstep.' It is a pattern repeated in the nearby Palestinian towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarm -- forming a triangle of ecological desolation ... Environmentalists say the West Bank is suffering the overspill effects of a profound Israeli ecological crisis. The seriousness of the situation was brought home in July 1997 when a bridge over the polluted Yarkon river collapsed during an international sports event. Four Australian athletes died, two of them from simply swallowing the toxic water ... As Israel tries to curb pollution, whole factories are on the move to cheaper, under-policed sites."

Israel Masada Now U.N. Heritage Site,
Newsday, October 31, 2002
"Hundreds of Israelis climbed this ancient hilltop fortress Thursday, where Jewish rebels chose suicide over capture by Roman troops, to celebrate its addition to a U.N. list of cultural treasures. The Judean mountain promitory overlooking the Dead Sea is where where a last group of Jewish holdouts sought refuge from Roman legions who had already destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers now come here at the start of their military training to swear an oath to protect the country. Boys celebrate coming-of-age rituals here. Many come to pray. Masada and the ancient Mediterranean port city of Acre in northern Israel were included in the World Heritage list of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization last year -- the first two Israeli sites to make it onto the UNESCO list. A plaque commemorating the Masada site was unveiled Thursday as dancers and musicians performed for diplomats, Cabinet ministers and nearby residents. The listing puts it on a par with the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Egypt ... Israelis have vowed not to let Masada fall again. If challenged, Israel will not commit suicide but will fight to the death, said Avia Oann, 55, standing among the pillars. 'We must learn from it, not to make the same mistake,' she said." [The Masada story of Jewish heroism is not true. It is fabrication]

`Now we have only hostility in our hearts.' Jenin residents tell the story of Operation Defensive Shield,
By Goel Pinto, Ha'aretz (Israel), October 31, 2002
"'In memory of Iyad Samoudi, producer in charge of `Jenin, Jenin,' who was killed by IDF bullets, after the completion of filming on 23.6.02, in the village of Al Yamoun.' This is the opening caption of Mohammed Bakri's documentary film, 'Jenin, Jenin.' The film, to be screened tonight at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and tomorrow night at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, portrays Jenin residents' perspective on Operation Defensive Shield. This week, right-wing politicians called for the cancellation of the screenings. MK Yuri Stern of the National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu faction argued that the film amounted to incitement. The Likud faction representative in the Tel Aviv city council, Yeshayahu Drori, contacted Mayor Ron Huldai and asked him to reprimand Alon Garbouz, the director of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, or remove him from his job. These requests are surprising, given the fact that Stern and Drori did not see the film and based their remarks solely on rumors. Had they bothered to ask the director for a copy of the 50-minute film, they would not have made fools of themselves. 'Jenin, Jenin' is not a shocking film and the testimony heard in it is familiar to anyone who has ever watched foreign television reports about events in Jenin. Nevertheless, it is a sad film that shows Israel, as a democratic and enlightened state, in a miserable light. Even those who explain the horrors of war as stemming from an existential need, cannot silence its victims ... Israeli television viewers will also not see this film. Only a few will have the chance to see it at the Cinematheques. But those who see it will not forget the words of one witness: 'Children can be given birth to, houses can be built and even a wife can be replaced, but our feelings cannot be changed. Now we have only hostility in our hearts. How will they bring back the days when we were calm and agreed to live with them?'"

The Strategic Function of U.S. Aid to Israel,
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, by Stephen Zunes, October 31, 2002
"Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel's often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel's annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest. In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country." [U.S Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact Summary Benefits to Israel of U.S. Aid Since 1949 (As of November 1, 1997): "Foreign Aid Grants and Loans $74,157,600,000. Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid) $9,047,227,200. Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments $1,650,000,000. Grand Total $84,854,827,200. Total Benefits per Israeli $14,630"]

No War with Iraq,
The Nation, November 4, 2002 issue
[Compilation of links to articles and web sites against a war with Iraq]

Attack of the Oxymorons. Israel Goes Fascist? It Could Happen,
by Justin Raimondo, Etherzone, November 2, 2002
"For if recent political developments are any indication, [Israel] is on the road to fascism, and worse. Far worse…. Whenever anyone invokes God, or His will, as a rationale for action, the specter of violence and bloodshed looms large. It's only natural, therefore, that it should loom even larger in that part of the world designated 'the Holy Land,' most of which is today the nation of Israel. It should also come as no surprise to anyone that Israel is witnessing the rise of a politicized form of fundamentalism, what I have called Israel's Taliban. Its political expression has been not only the meteoric growth of the Likud party, and of that party's extreme right wing, which is now grasping for power, but also the development of a'"settler' movement of right-wing extremists who are the successors to the outlawed Kach movement founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. If you thought Ariel Sharon was an extremist, take a look at his probable successor [Benjamin Netanyahu ... This underscores the ideological essence of the man, rooted, many believe, in the mindset of his famous father, Benzione Netanyahu, a Israeli historian. As a 1997 PBS News Hour profile pointed out: 'The elder Netanyahu has written that Israel owes its independence from the British in 1948 not so much to diplomacy but to the armed attacks, sabotage, and bombings carried out by Israel's underground, called the Irgun.'"

What Did You Do in the Internet War, Daddy?
by Edgar J. Steele, conspiracypenpal, November 2, 2002
"'I worry about my child and the Internet all the time, even though she's too young to have logged on yet. Here's what I worry about. I worry that 10 or 15 years from now, she will come to me and say 'Daddy, where were you when they took freedom of the press away from the Internet?' ----Mike Godwin, Electronic Frontier Foundation.' Indeed. And many are wondering where I am right now. My web site (www.conspiracypenpal.com) is down and my email accounts have all been suspended. My (soon-to-be-ex) domain hosting ISP, FeaturePrice.com, refuses even to talk to me about it. Things finally got too hot for them, you see. Saturday night, I posted http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/y2k2.htm to my web site after sending it out to this list. Included in it was a link to a video showing Israeli soldiers dragging an unarmed Palestinian out of a shop, then shooting him in the back as he attempted to walk away. I uploaded the full video clip, all 2mb of it, to my site since it had been sent to me via email. Within 24 hours, my web site was taken down. I keep a local duplicate of the entire site, of course, and have already uploaded everything to a new web hosting ISP that promises not to censor my site or my email. We'll see. It takes a day or so for DNS pointers to be redistributed over the Internet, but shortly you should be able to visit my web site again, at the same address, of course. More importantly, you will be able to download the video that has somebody in such a dither: http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/images/israelistreetjustice.wmv "
Sharon eyes 'Samson option' against Iraq,
The Scotsman (Scotland), November 3, 2002
"In Biblical times, the Israelites relied on God to triumph over their enemies. These days the Israeli government puts its faith in the godlike power of its formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons to annihilate its foes. The alarming prospect of Israel unleashing its weapons of mass destruction is high on the list of concerns of strategic planners and analysts as the United States prepares to attack Iraq as part of its ‘War on Terror’. According to experts, a retaliatory nuclear strike against Baghdad in the event of a chemical or biological weapons attack against Israel has never been more likely - particularly with Ariel Sharon in power ... Many believe Sharon would be prepared to use his deadly arsenal. As Israel’s most respected military affairs commentator, Ze’ev Schiff, put it: 'If Iraq strikes at Israel with non-conventional warheads, causing massive casualties among the civil population, Israel could respond with a nuclear retaliation that would eradicate Iraq as a country.'"

Israel reportedly helping with U.S. war preparation,
by John Diamond, USA TODAY, November 3, 2002
"Israel is secretly playing a key role in U.S. preparations for possible war with Iraq, helping to train soldiers and Marines for urban warfare, conducting clandestine surveillance missions in the western Iraqi desert and allowing the United States to place combat supplies in Israel, according to U.S. Defense and intelligence officials. The activities are designed to help shorten any war with Iraq and keep Israel out of it. But working with Israel on the war effort is highly sensitive. It could undercut already shaky support for an invasion among friendly Arab states. Because Israel's activities are classified, they have drawn little attention or criticism in the Middle East ... Israeli infantry units with experience in urban warfare during the Palestinian uprising helped train U.S. Army and Marine counterparts this summer and fall for possible urban battles in Iraq, a foreign defense official says. The Israelis have built two mock cities, complete with mosques, hanging laundry and even the odd donkey meandering down dusty streets. A defense official said the sites far surpass U.S. facilities. The location of the training centers is classified. The Pentagon has beefed up stocks of ammunition, fuel and other basic military staples at six storage depots in Israel over the past year, U.S. Defense and intelligence officials say. The material is not part of normal U.S. military aid to Israel but would be held in reserve for possible use by U.S. forces in combat contingencies, such as a threat to Israel by a neighboring state or commando missions into western Iraq by U.S. forces."

Foreign Ministry hauls Belgian diplomat over the coals,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 4, 2002
"The Belgium ambassador to Israel, Wilfred Geens, says his comments published yesterday, in which he was quoted as calling Infrastructure Minister Effi Eitam 'a fascist,' were 'twisted and fabricated,' but a senior Foreign Ministry official said that the comments reflect a trend of foreign ambassadors 'crossing red lines' in their willingness to criticise Israel in public. Geens is said to have described the territories as 'the biggest detention camp in the world,' and labelled the 'humiliation of Palestinians' by Israeli soldiers at roadblocks as 'an unacceptable collective punishment contrary to international law and also contrary to human values,' in a interview published on Friday in the Arabic weekly newspaper, Kulal Arab. The comments echoed those attributed to British ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles last month in a leaked conversation with IDF Major General Amos Gilad, coordinator of government activities in the territories."

Attack Iran the day Iraq war ends, demands Israel,
Times Online, November 4, 2002
"Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete. In an interview with The Times, Mr Sharon insisted that Tehran — one of the 'axis of evil' powers identified by President Bush — should be put under pressure 'the day after' action against Baghdad ends because of its role as a 'centre of world terror'. He also issued his clearest warning yet that Israel would strike back if attacked by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons, no matter how much Washington sought to keep its controversial Middle Eastern ally out of any war in Iraq."

11% of women have been beaten at home in a widening cycle of violence,
by Ruth Sinai, Ha'aretz (Israel), November 4, 2002
"R.K. is one of 214,000 battered Israeli women - 11.2 percent of the women in the country - who have been assaulted by their husbands. About 142,000 of them were beaten this year, 40,000 required medical treatment and 15,000 were hospitalized. Some 146,000 women were raped at least once and 2 percent of these were threatened with murder in the past year, according to the most comprehensive report to date on domestic violence in Israel. The report was compiled by the Minerva Center for youth research in Haifa University with the participation of 2,841 women and 510 men. It was released by Labor and Welfare Minister Shlomo Benizri. The findings on child abuse are even worse than those on violence against women. Some 417,000 children up to the age of five (57 percent of the children this age) have suffered moderate corporal punishment such as being shaken, pushed or slapped, while 46,000 - 6.3 percent - suffered more harsh punishment including blows from fists or being beaten with a stick or belt. Of the six to 18 year olds, more than 550,000 - 39 percent of all the children - suffered moderate violence in past year, while 115,000 (8 percent) suffered severe violence. Professor Zvi Isikovitz and Professor Gidon Fishman, who conducted the research, say the use of harsh violence toward children increases with age. Isikovitz says he was less shocked by the findings about the scope of violence than the willingness of the victims to justify it." ... Benizri asked Education Minister Limor Livnat to increase education about violence from a very young age, and especially to make children understand that women are not a punch bag for men, and to undermine the tendency of women to justify violence against them."

Amnesty report accuses Israeli military of war crimes,
New Zealand Herald, November 4, 2002
"Amnesty International has accused the Israeli military of crimes against humanity and war crimes in its operations in the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus earlier this year, in a report published today. The report comes after Britain's Scotland Yard opened an investigation into Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, who was head of the Israeli army until his retirement in July, on allegations of war crimes. Lt-Gen Mofaz over the weekend accepted a new job as Defence Minister in Ariel Sharon's government. The charges of war crimes are not going away, despite repeated attempts by the Israeli authorities to brush them under the carpet. Today's report includes detailed evidence that Israeli soldiers unlawfully killed Palestinians civilians, blocked medical access to the wounded, used Palestinians as human shields, tortured prisoners, and unnecessarily destroyed civilian houses. Many of these crimes are not isolated incidents, says Amnesty, but 'committed in a widespread and systematic manner, in pursuit of government policy', which means they can be prosecuted as crimes against humanity under the statute of the newly formed international criminal court. The report calls on the international community to bring those responsible to justice. Though it was Jenin that grabbed the world's attention after Israeli army bulldozers levelled an entire neighbourhood of more than 100 civilian houses, the city was not unique. In addition to the already widely known witness accounts of atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Jenin in April, Amnesty's report describes similar crimes committed at the same time in another West Bank city, Nablus. Among the dead were eight members of a single family, the al-Shu'bis, who were buried alive when Israeli soldiers bulldozed their house on top of them, including three children, their pregnant mother and their 85-year-old grandmother. The soldiers continued to demolish the house even though neighbours told them people were inside. The report quotes Ahmad al-Najjar, who told Amnesty: 'I saw the house tilt over. Without even thinking I yelled to the soldier in the bulldozer, 'Let the residents leave the house.' At this point the soldier came out of the bulldozer, took his weapon and started to fire in my direction.'" [The Amnesty International report may be found here]

US warns companies over Israel boycott,
BBC, November 5, 2002
"The United States has threatened to fine US companies that take part in an Arab lead economic boycott of Israel. 'The US government is strongly opposed to restrictive trade practices or boycotts targeted at Israel,' said Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Kenneth Juster. 'The Commerce Department is closely monitoring efforts that appear to be made to reinvigorate the Arab boycott of Israel and will use all of its resources to vigorously enforce US anti-boycott regulations.' Mr Juster's threat came after 18 of the 22 members of the Arab League agreed to 'reactivate' a half-century-old ban on trade with Israel last week. US laws ban the participation by US nationals and companies in unsanctioned foreign government trade boycotts, especially the Arab League's boycott of Israel. The Department of Commerce has issued more than $26m (£16.7m) in fines and turned down export licences to those found violating the law."

Jewish board condemns 'sensationalist' doccie,
Indepenent Online, November 07 2002
"The South African Jewish Board of Deputies has slammed e.tv for the screening of a hard-hitting documentary on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, highlighting abuses of innocent Palestinians by Israeli troops. Palestine is Still the Issue was broadcast on the current affairs programme 3rd Degree on Wednesday night. It was produced by John Pilger, a columnist for the UK Daily Mirror, and was, he said, aimed at being 'pro-justice, not pro-Palestine' ... But Israeli Rami Elhanan, who was interviewed for the documentary, would have disagreed. Elhanan, whose 14-year-old daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997, said: 'If you think from the head and not the guts, if you look at what has made these people do this, people with no hope, who are desperate enough to commit suicide, you have to ask yourself if you have contributed in any way to this despair and craziness. It did not come out of the blue.' He was not the only Israeli interviewed on the documentary who took a critical view of the situation. Others, including historians and former Israeli soldiers, spoke harshly of the way Palestinians are oppressed and humiliated. Palestinian Mona al-Farra, also interviewed for the documentary, said: 'Our destiny is not in our hands. They (Israelis) are controlling every detail of our lives.'"

Leader of Turkey's winning party slams ''terrorism of Sharon'',
Al Bawaba, November 7, 2002
" The leader of Turkey's winning party refused Wednesday to commit to allowing U.S. warplanes to use Turkish bases in any war with Iraq and declined to say whether his country's close military ties with Israel will be maintained. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party said Turks consider Israeli policies toward Palestinians to be 'terrorism,' but added that Turkey would not link its close economic ties with Israel to popular anger. 'The whole Turkish population is very critical of what is going on in Palestine,' Erdogan said. 'Our public does not view this as anything anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic. They see it as the terrorism of Sharon.' 'Turkey has to play a more active role,' he added."

A new, worrying phenomenon in religious Zionism,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 8, 2002
"Yitzhak Meir, a member of the National Religious Party's executive, was very surprised to hear some of the songs that were sung during the recent Simhat Torah celebrations at his synagogue in Kochav Yair. In the midst of the familiar texts, he suddenly discerned new words: Samson's prayer from the book of Judges (16:28) - 'O Lord God! Please remember me, and give me strength just this once, O God, to take revenge of the Philistines, if only for one of my eyes.' The chose of these words, expressing the desire for revenge, troubled Meir. While arguing about this text with some of his friends at the synagogue, Meir heard another unfamiliar song - an upbeat tune about the young Moshe slaying the Egyptian taskmaster: 'He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.' (Exodus 2:12) ... Meir began to ask some of his young acquaintances about these new songs and learned that the music for the song about Samson was composed by Dov Shurin, who is associated with the outlawed Kach movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane ... Meir also discovered that in some of the places where this song of vengeance is popular, the young people dance to the song while waving knives ... Rabbi Aviner, who heads the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem, referred Meir to a legal (halachic) ruling he wrote in response to someone who complained that the words to the song about Samson 'seem to be unethical.' In his ruling, Rabbi Aviner wrote in praise of vengeance and noted that the prohibition against taking vengeance does not apply to serious cases like lethal attacks. The rabbi emphasized that there is a value in vengeance in the national realm as an expression of deterrence."

Israelis fear war crimes arrests,
Guardian (UK), November 12, 2002
"The Israeli government has ordered an urgent assessment of whether its politicians and soldiers could face arrest and trial for war crimes while travelling abroad. The move follows a report by the justice ministry that singled out Britain, Spain and Belgium as the most likely to prosecute Israeli officials who breach international law. But the government fears there is a growing trend towards global justice that could see Israelis effectively barred from visiting a host of states. 'We are building a map of all those countries that might give us a headache,' said Ra'anan Gissin, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon."

FROM WAR ON TERROR TO PLAIN WAR. Israel: walled in, but never secure,
by Matthews Brubacher, Le Monde diplomatique, November 2002
"Israeli government funding for settlements in the occupied territories has long been condemned by the United Nations. Now it has provoked resignations from the government resulting in new elections in Israel. But the real tragedy of what is happening there can be seen in the security barrier that Israel is building around the West Bank and Jerusalem, which is twice as long and three times as high as the Berlin Wall. A new 360km security wall is being built by Israel around the West Bank and Jerusalem, and it will radically change both the geographical and political landscape of the Middle East. By putting up a wall that is three times the length and twice the height of the Berlin Wall, Israel will unilaterally annex a substantial part of the West Bank and tighten military cordons around Palestinian population centres, effectively imprisoning their residents. A security wall was originally established in Gaza during the first intifada (1987-1993) when Israel enclosed it behind a sealed electrical fence. This fence allowed Israel to control its 16 settlements in the Gaza Strip, as well as all Palestinian movement. Today Israel still controls about 50% of Gaza, and 1.2m Palestinians remain confined to an area less than twice the size of the city of Washington DC. Building a wall around the West Bank means that the Palestinians living there will soon share a similar fate to those Palestinians who live in Gaza. The first stage of the wall will separate most of the northern West Bank from Israel. This wall is being built inside the 1967 Armistice line, annexing many settlements, surrounding several key Palestinian areas and dissecting others. Palestinian areas, such as Qaffin, will be deprived of 60% of their agricultural land, while other areas, such as Qalqiliya, will be both deprived of land and be cut off from the West Bank and Israel. The wall in these areas is costing Israel over a million dollars for every kilometre: it is fortified with eight metre-high cement walls, and guard towers every 300m with a two metre-deep trench, barbed wire and a security road. The first stage of this northern wall will run almost 100km from Salem to Kufr Kassem and will mean annexing 1.6% of the West Bank, including 11 illegal Israeli settlements and over 10,000 Palestinians. Israel intends to incorporate this area into Israel in such a way that, when the final status negotiations resume, the cost of reversing these actions will be so high they will be considered irreversible. ... Unlike the medieval fortress-like construction in the north, these "walls" [in the Jerusalem area] will be built with electric wire fencing and a security road, at points combined with trenches, cement walls and motion detectors. The two walls are like a necklace, as the security wall will act as a thread to connect existing Israeli settlements and military sites ... When the wall from the northern West Bank to Jerusalem is completed, Israel will have annexed over 7% of the West Bank, as well as 39 illegal Israeli settlements with 270,000 settlers, and also 290,000 Palestinians; 70,000 of these do not have Israeli residency and so have no right to travel or get services from Israel, although Israel is depriving them of their livelihoods in the West Bank. These Palestinians are extremely vulnerable and will probably be gradually forced to emigrate from these areas."

The Israeli Spy Ring Scandal,
(Reproduction of the infamously censored Carl Cameron Fox News TV stories. Links to the original Fox News site say: "This story no longer exists."]

Theft of a Nation,
by William Baker,
" The Jewish state idea is not in my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with narrow-mindedness and economic obstacles. I believe it is bad. I have always been against it." Albert Einstein- 1948
"The cause of unrest in Palestine, and the only cause, arises from the Zionist movement, and from our promises and pledges in regard to it." Sir Winston Churchill- June 14, 1921, House of Commons
"A Zionist state in Palestine can only be installed and maintained by force and we should not be a party to it." President Franklin Roosevelt- March 5, 1945

State Dept. official: All U.S. aid to Arab world under review,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 16, 2002
"The United States is reviewing all its aid to the Arab world to see how much it can redirect to programs that promote democracy and the rule of law, a State Department official said on Friday. The review includes all assistance to Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel and one of Washington's best friends in the Arab world, he said ... But the Egyptian government has upset the United States at least twice this year, first by jailing prominent Egyptian-American sociologist Saadeddin Ibrahim and more recently by allowing state television to broadcast a series which American Jewish groups say is anti-Semitic. U.S. diplomats in Cairo have been watching the series, 'Knight without a House', as it unfolds during the fasting month of Ramadan and have concluded that they do not like its treatment of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 'We are very disappointed that the Government of Egypt TV station would air a program that includes scenes treating the so-called Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery, as fact,' the U.S. official said. "This broadcast does great harm to Egypt's reputation. We will continue to express to the government of Egypt our serious concern over this matter. This kind of program does not contribute to the climate of mutual understanding and tolerance that the Middle East so needs,' the official added. Egypt and the United States have also been at odds this year over U.S. threats to attack Iraq ... U.S. officials say they believe that antagonism toward the United States in the Arab world is based on ignorance, misunderstanding or propaganda by Arab governments. Arabs say their main problem is with U.S. policies."

US Aid to Israel. Feeding the Cuckoo,
Counterpunch, November 16, 2002
"Since Sept. 11, Americans have thought of themselves as the target of terrorists, emanating mainly from the Middle East. It may thus surprise them to learn that their own actions are in large part responsible for their problems and resentment in the Middle East. In particular, we argue that the massive aid flows and armaments transfers to Israel are largely responsible for the problems between Israelis and Palestinians today. The repercussions of this conflict reverberate everywhere in the region to the great detriment of the rights of the people in the area, but remarkably, also to the detriment of the US's long-term interests. Americans by nature tend to look closely at their government's expenditures, to trim the fat wherever they can find it--welfare, social security, health care, education 85 all except when it comes to Israel. A valuable exercise for any American would be to examine the huge handouts given to Israel, which may reveal shocking facts and motivate them to a take closer look at what is done in their name. Here is a quick overview of US aid flows to Israel ... Take the Jewish population of Israel (5.24m)--the primary beneficiaries of the aid, and one obtains a $540 per capita benefit just for 2001--four times as much as the touted Tax Cut of 2001 to Americans! Now, if the hard-working American families ever find this out, what can one suppose they would think of it?"

The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel,
by Richard H. Curtiss, sianews.com, November 17, 2002
For many years the American media said that 'Israel receives $1.8 billion in military aid' or that 'Israel receives $1.2 billion in economic aid.' Both statements were true, but since they were never combined to give us the complete total of annual U.S. aid to Israel, they also were lies--true lies ... Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that 'Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.' That's true. But it's still a lie. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000. One can truthfully blame the mainstream media for never digging out these figures for themselves, because none ever have. They were compiled by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. But the mainstream media certainly are not alone. Although Congress authorizes America's foreign aid total, the fact that more than a third of it goes to a country smaller in both area and population than Hong Kong probably never has been mentioned on the floor of the Senate or House. Yet it's been going on for more than a generation. Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don't. The same applies to the president, the secretary of state, and the foreign aid administrator. They all submit a budget that includes aid for Israel, which Congress approves, or increases, but never cuts. But no one in the executive branch mentions that of the few remaining U.S. aid recipients worldwide, all of the others are developing nations which either make their military bases available to the U.S., are key members of international alliances in which the U.S. participates, or have suffered some crippling blow of nature to their abilities to feed their people such as earthquakes, floods or droughts. Israel, whose troubles arise solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in return for peace with its neighbors, does not fit those criteria. In fact, Israel's 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300. All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and volunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world. The lobby that Israel and its supporters have built in the United States to make all this aid happen, and to ban discussion of it from the national dialogue, goes far beyond AIPAC, with its $15 million budget, its 150 employees, and its five or six registered lobbyists who manage to visit every member of Congress individually once or twice a year. AIPAC, in turn, can draw upon the resources of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a roof group set up solely to coordinate the efforts of some 52 national Jewish organizations on behalf of Israel. Among them are Hadassah, the Zionist women's organization, which organizes a steady stream of American Jewish visitors to Israel; the American Jewish Congress, which mobilizes support for Israel among members of the traditionally left-of-center Jewish mainstream; and the American Jewish Committee, which plays the same role within the growing middle-of-the-road and right-of-center Jewish community. The American Jewish Committee also publishes Commentary,one of the Israel lobby's principal national publications. Perhaps the most controversial of these groups is B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League. Its original highly commendable purpose was to protect the civil rights of American Jews. Over the past generation, however, the ADL has regressed into a conspiratorial and, with a $45 million budget, extremely well-funded hate group." ... America's $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Or, put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli. It would be interesting to know how many of those American taxpayers believe they and their families have received as much from the U.S. Treasury as has everyone who has chosen to become a citizen of Israel. But it's a question that will never occur to the American public because, so long as America's mainstream media, Congress and president maintain their pact of silence, few Americans will ever know the true cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers."

Subject: Amazon.Com & Israel,
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002
[Letter of protest circulated over the Internet] "Dear Amazon, I have been shocked to get an e-mail from Prof. Mona Baker of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology which indicated that your company advertises itself in the Israeli press via a logo which reads: 'Buy Amazon.Com and Support Israel' and which displays an Israeli flag ..."

Learning the Hard Way,
Sobrans, November 19, 2002
“'The Israelis now possess all the nuclear secrets of the United States.' This is the conclusion of Sean McDade, an investigator with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, after studying a sophisticated Mossad computer theft operation against the United States two years ago. Evidently the Mounties don’t spend all their time riding horses. 'Compared to this espionage coup,' McDade added, 'it can be categorically stated that the Jonathan Pollard case is insignificant.' McDade’s memorandum is quoted in Gordon Thomas’s recent book Seeds of Fire (Dandelion Books), which also deals extensively with Israel’s secret dealings with the Chinese government. Since China sees the United States as its enemy, U.S. nuclear secrets would be a precious bargaining chip for the Israelis. McDade surmised that this story, 'if made public,' might cause a 'major scandal.' That depends on whether the American media and American politicians want to make an issue of it. And when it comes to our Israeli 'allies,' they are very, very forgiving. The Israelis have never paid a penalty for Pollard’s spying, though they still refuse to return, or even to identify, the stolen documents. So the full damage still can’t be assessed. And the Israelis keep pressing American presidents for Pollard’s release from prison! Israel, we are told, is 'our only reliable ally in the Middle East.' It’s bad enough having Israel’s friendship, but we also get its enemies into the bargain. All this for a mere five billion bucks a year! What a deal!"

Israel Eyes Up to $10B in U.S. Aid advertisement,
Washington Post, November 21, 2002
"Israel will ask the United States for loan guarantees aimed at jump-strating its economy which has been damaged by two years of violence and the request will total between $8 billion and $10 billion, a senior government official said Thursday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the Finance and Defense ministries are finalizing the request and would forward it to the United States in the coming days. The request for guarantees on foreign bank loans would be in addition to the $2.9 million in direct loans and grants that Israel receives annually from the United States, the official said. Israel, which receives the largest U.S. aid package of any country, relies on the loan guarantees to borrow at lower interest rates ...The United States guaranteed $10 billion in loans for Israel a decade ago to help it absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Angry over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, then-President George Bush held up the guarantees until the hard-line Yitzhak Shamir was replaced as Israeli prime minister by more moderate Yitzhak Rabin, who signed an interim peace treaty with the Palestinian Liberation."

Israel's Choice,
The Nation, November 21, 2002
"Returning to Israel after an extended absence can be a disturbing experience. On the way back from the airport to my Jerusalem apartment, I noticed new posters tacked onto utility poles and bridges along the highway. They read: Transfer= Peace and Security. The meaning was unambiguous: Israel must expel the 3 million Palestinians living in the occupied territories--and perhaps even its own Palestinian citizens--in order to achieve peace and security. While racist slogans have become pervasive in Israel, it was this particular message--the notion of expulsion as a political solution--that unhinged me. One does not need to be a Holocaust survivor to recognize the phrase's lethal implications ... After more than two years of armed conflict, which has left close to 2,500 people dead--including 300 Palestinian and eighty Israeli children--most Israelis see the situation as hopeless, a view that is, ironically, shared by many Palestinians ...Not surprisingly, the Palestinian economy has also collapsed--a recent Israeli military report states that between 60 and 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Israelis on the left and right now realize that the conflict cannot be resolved under the current conditions, regardless of the amount of military force Israel employs ... If Israel's next leader is to overcome the current crisis, he will have to decide whether to abandon the notion of a Jewish state, employ a policy used by the darkest regimes (not least the Third Reich) or dismantle the settlements and bring the Jewish settlers back home. Each of these options negates certain elements of the Zionist project, suggesting that the settlements constitute a contradiction; they are now destroying the very project that initiated and upheld them. They have come back to turn the Zionist dream into a nightmare."

IDF: British UNRWA worker in Jenin mistakenly shot by soldier,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 24, 2002
"An initial IDF investigation into the death of Iain Hook, a British UNWRA [United Nations] official who was killed Friday during a gunfight between soldiers and Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin, revealed that he was mistakenly shot by an IDF soldier. Israel Radio reported that Hook was shot by accident after emerging from a caravan during the gunfight holding a mobile phone, which was mistaken by the soldier for a grenade. Great Britain is demanding that Israel fully investigate the death of the 50-year-old Hook, the first foreign UN official to die in over two years of fighting .. In the Jenin shootout, Hook was killed while trying to evacuate staff from the small UN compound, made up of mobile trailers, in the Jenin refugee camp during a prolonged clash between IDF soldiers and Palestinian gunmen, a UN statement said ... A UN statement said IDF soldiers refused immediate access for an ambulance to take Hook to the hospital, and that it wasn't known whether the delay caused Hook's death ... Hook was a senior manager in UNRWA, the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees, and was in charge of a $27 million project to rebuild the Jenin camp, which Israel has targeted frequently in search of militants responsible for attacks against Israelis. Two local Palestinian workers for UNRWA were killed previously ... UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was 'greatly disturbed' that the army prevented the ambulance from getting through immediately, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York. Elsewhere in the camp in different shooting incidents, an 11-year-old Palestinian boy was killed and an Irish national wounded."

UN rejects Israeli account of British official's killing,
Independent (UK), November 25, 2002
"The United Nations dismissed as 'not credible' yesterday an Israeli army claim that Palestinian gunmen fired from inside a UN compound in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday before its soldiers shot dead Iain Hook, a 52-year-old British relief worker. Paul McCann, a spokesman for the UN relief agency, said: 'Our preliminary findings are completely contrary to what the Israeli army said. The compound is quite small. At no point did we lose control of the site. There were no militants on the site. I am very sad and angry that the man was shot dead while working in a clearly marked UN compound.' A security expert from UN headquarters in New York began immediately to investigate in greater depth how Mr Hook, who was heading a £17m project to rebuild the Jenin refugee camp razed in an Israeli invasion in April, met his death. He was transferred last night to an Israeli forensic medicine laboratory near Tel Aviv, but UN officials were awaiting his family's decision on where to hold a post-mortem examination. Palestinians showed up in big numbers with flowers when the dead man was put into a UN ambulance for transfer to Jerusalem ... Although Israel apologised for the 'error', the shooting provoked a crisis in its relations with the UN and Britain. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, demanded a full investigation ... Elsewhere on the West Bank, Israeli troops yesterday barred worshippers from attending services in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. They reoccupied the city of Jesus Christ's birth on Thursday after a Hamas suicide bomber killed 11 Israelis on a Jerusalem bus. Thursday's bus bombing provoked a series of attacks by angry Jews against Arabs and their property in Jerusalem."

Rice to present U.S. response to Israel's $14 billion aid request,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 26, 2002
"U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was expected to give her country's response to Israel's request for 14 billion in aid following a White House meeting Monday with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau chief Dov Weisglass, Treasury Director-General Ohad Marani, and Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon. Marani informed Rice of Israel's economic situation and requested $10 billion in loans and $4 billion in special military aid, to be spread over the course of several years. President George Bush is expected to quickly approve the request with minor changes, Israeli sources said."

Israel rejects new technology proliferation code of conduct,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 26, 2002
"Israel announced Monday that it would not join a new International Code of Conduct aimed at blocking proliferation of ballistic missile technology, saying the new ICOC does not meet the needs of the Middle East. The ICOC members met Monday night in The Hague, Holland, without Israeli representatives present. The ICOC calls on member countries to adopt 'confidence building measures' and behave transparently in matters of missiles and satellite launches. Every member-country is required to report on missile systems in its arsenals, provide advance notice of any missile or satellite launch, and issue an annual report on launches."

UNRWA: Hook was killed by a single bullet to the back,
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 26, 2002
"The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has rejected Israel's version of the events leading to Friday's fatal shooting by Israeli troops of Iain Hook, a British consultant who was working on a British government contract with the agency. An UNRWA spokesman in Geneva said Tuesday that Hook was hit in the back by a single buller, at a time when there was no military action in the area of the UNRWA compound. UNRWA also denies that Palestinian gunmen were in the UN compound from which Hook, 53, emerged and was shot dead and has termed Israel's version of the events 'incredible.' The UN agency said Hook was armed only with a cellphone he was using to try to evacuate UN staff while a gunbattle raged in the area. Hook was killed inside the UNRWA compound at the Jenin refugee camp. Paul McCann, a UN spokesman, said the army's claim that gunmen were inside the compound was wrong. 'Our preliminary inquiry does not agree with the statement that firing could have come from the UNRWA compound. In fact, it is quite clear from our inquiry so far that this report of firing from the compound is totally incredible,' he said. He said that 'the compound is very small and at no stage did we lose control of it. There were no Palestinian militants in the compound.'"

Israelis Flock to Buy Guns, Pack Heat at Services Up in Arms,
Village Voice, November 27 - December 3, 2002
"Unemployment and inflation are skyrocketing in Israel, but fear and paranoia are also soaring, and so business is booming for gun dealers and security companies. Israeli society is becoming so militarized that hosts of weddings and bar mitzvahs sometimes can't attract guests unless they reveal the number of armed guards that will be on hand and even what firm they're from. It's not just rightists and settlers who are arming themselves. At the Magnum Gun Store in West Jerusalem, a first-time buyer waits in a line that runs out the door and down the block. A 40-year-old lawyer, David moved from Chicago several years ago. 'I vote Meretz [the Left-wing party], and so do most of my friends,' he says with a shrug, referring to one of the country's more left-leaning parties. 'But to be honest, I think I'm the last person I know to finally get a gun.]" A balding man next in line is growing noticeably impatient with such dovish sentiments. He wears a T-shirt emblazoned with an F-16 jet streaking across the front, and the message 'Don't Worry, America, Israel Will Protect You' ... Security-technology companies are reporting record profits, and in Tel Aviv there are waiting lists to buy hidden cameras. No one, however, has done as well as the gun dealers. Some Jerusalem stores have been extending their hours to accommodate the overflow of customers ... Even while praying. David Lau, rabbi of Tze'irei Modi'in synagogue and son of Israel's chief Ashkenazi rabbi, drew wide attention with his reinterpretation of religious law in which he argued that due to the current climate, Jews could now remain holstered even on Shabbat. Historically, it was strictly forbidden within Orthodox doctrine to work, handle money, or carry weapons on the Sabbath, but Lau ruled that, based on the religious tenet of pikuach nefesh (saving a life), the faithful could now carry them. 'It was a deviation from our tradition,' Lau admitted to The Jerusalem Post. In less Orthodox circles, guns have been present, and even encouraged, in synagogues for some time. At Shitblach Synagogue in West Jerusalem there is a large sign pasted on the bulletin board that reads: 'Worshippers who have firearms are requested to bring them to prayer service.' B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, points out that there are countless incidents of Israeli civilian attacks on unarmed Palestinians and of settlers using their weapons to coerce farmers off their land. But many Israelis worry more about the potential harm to one another."

Palestinian shot dead in Bethlehem,
Ha'aretz, November 28, 2002
"Palestinian sources reported Wednesday evening that IDF troops killed 33-year-old Ataf Abiya in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Earlier Wednesday, IDF troops shot dead a Palestinian as he was banging a drum to announce the beginning of the Ramadan fast in a refugee camp near the West Bank town of Nablus, hours after senior local Hamas and Fatah military commanders were killed in the Jenin refugee camp in what security sources said was an Israeli assassination ... IDF troops opened fire on Jihad a-Natour, 24, as he was going from alley to alley in the camp to announce the beginning of the dawn-to-dusk fast. Military sources told Israel R