From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Nov 1 05:52:56 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 21:52:56 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 10/31/2001 - "Israeli Extremists and Christian Fundamentalists: The Alliance" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny October 31, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: In light of recent developments, a timely piece, even though it was written more than a dozen years ago: [START] Israeli Extremists and Christian Fundamentalists: The Alliance By Grace Halsell December 1988 At the time I began my research for my book Prophecy and Politics, I discovered the average American I met in Washington, DC, and New York was not interested in TV evangelists and their link to Israel. Neither were book editors. I went to 25 top editors in New York with my book idea on religion and politics. Michael Korda of Simon and Schuster was typical. "Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? Who is interested in those crazies?" By the time my book came out those "crazies" were on the front page of every American newspaper and on every news channel. Of course, I didn't give them this instant fame, which extended throughout the world. Two of them earned it themselves by being in the middle of scandals. The press told us that Jim Bakker had committed adultery and that Jimmy Swaggart regularly visited a prostitute. A fellow marine said Pat Robertson never had to dodge bullets in Korea because he had used his father's influence as a senator to escape front line duty. But almost everyone ignored the biggest scandal of all: the peculiar mixture of prophecy and politics professed by these and other Christian Zionists. The Christian Zionists Message What is the message of the Christian Zionist? Simply stated it is this: Every act taken by Israel is orchestrated by God, and should be condoned, supported, and even praised by the rest of us. "Never mind what Israel does," say the Christian Zionists. "God wants this to happen." This includes the invasion of Lebanon, which killed or injured an estimated 100,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, most of them civilians; the bombing of sovereign nations such as Iraq; the deliberate, methodical brutalizing of the Palestinians-breaking bones, shooting children, and demolishing homes; and the expulsion of Palestinian Christians and Muslims from a land they have occupied for over 2,000 years. My premise in Prophecy and Politics is that Christian Zionism is a dangerous and growing segment of Christianity, which was popularized by the 19th-century American Cyrus Scofield when he wrote into a Bible his interpretation of events in history. These events all centered around Israel-past, present, and future. His Scofield Bible is today the most popular of the reference Bibles. Scofield said that Christ cannot return to earth until certain events occur: The Jews must return to Palestine, gain control of Jerusalem and rebuild a temple, and then we all must engage in the final, great battle called Armageddon. Estimates vary, but most students of Armageddon theology agree that as a result of these relatively recent interpretations of Biblical scripture, 10 to 40 million Americans believe Palestine is God's chosen land for the Jews. Has the power of the Christian Zionists diminished? I do not think so. Rather, we are seeing how the Christian Zionists, motivated by religious beliefs, are working hand in glove with politically motivated, militant Jewish Zionists around the world. It is the Christian support of Zionism that emboldens Zionists to believe they can dictate to relatively weak and dependent countries such as Austria, whom they may choose as their president. (...) It is the Christian support of Zionism that enables the militant Israelis to take over Palestinian homes surrounding the Al-Aqsa mosque in pursuit of their well-documented plan to destroy Jerusalem's most holy Islamic site, sacred to a billion Muslims around the world - one-fifth of humanity. Christian Zionists and the Iran-Contra Scandal Remarkably,it was this Christian cult of Israel that brought us the Iran contra scandal, perhaps the most self-destructive act in the history of the United States. Marine Col. Oliver North, the perpetrator of this misguided series of actions, is a Christian Zionist. A born-again charismatic figure, he endeared himself to the militant Israeli Zionists who plotted Iran-contra. "He is more Israeli," said one Jewish general, "than we Israelis." This is often the case. In his zealotry, the Christian Zionist can become more Zionist, more militant, than the Jewish Zionist. In the Iran-contra hearings, Sen. James McClure (R-ID) explained to North that the US had a stated policy of neutrality in the Iran-Iraq war. That policy differed radically from Israel's policy of selling arms to Iran. Yes, agreed North, the two policies were not the same. The question, to which McClure's efforts yielded no response, then becomes: Why would the US forego its American policy to pursue Israeli policy? The answer, unfortunately, lies in the belief system of Christian Zionists: They believe that what Israel wants is what God wants. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to give the green light to whatever it is Israel wants and then conceal this from the American people. Anything, including lies, theft, even murder, is justified as long as Israel wants it. Another perfect example of a Christian Zionist is Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI). Throughout the hearings on the Iran-contra scandal, the Hawaiian kept the focus on the contras and steered determinedly clear of any criticism of Israel. If, in answer to questions, witnesses sought to explain the seminal and continuing role of Israel, Inouye abruptly broke off the line of questioning that had led the hearings to this unwanted destination. Despite the political problems created by its lay practitioners and the scandals that rocked some of its TV ministries, this belief system-this cult of Israel-has not been diminished. Indeed, I hold that Christian Zionism threatens not just the lives of Palestinians and other Arabs, but the very existence of the United States. Because of the cult of Israel, we have become a nation that does not have its own Middle East policy, but the policy the government of Israel tells us to have. Despite the terrifying aspects of the alliance of militant Christians with militant Jewish Zionists, I find some encouraging developments. In my visits to colleges, clubs, and churches around the country, I have found strong support for the message and warning in Prophecy and Politics. It has come not only from liberal congregations, but from across the whole spectrum of Christianity, including those Christians who call themselves fundamentalists. These supporters see Christ as the bearer to humanity of God's message of peace, brotherhood, love, and reconciliation. These Christians do not endorse either the cult of Israel or its killIngs and beatings of Palestinians. I have found many such Christians in my frequent visits to my home state of Texas. There and all over this slowly-awakening land of ours, I have found a small but increasing number of ministers and lay people who are deeply alarmed by the cult of Israel and willing to stand up and speak out about it. ===== Grace Halsell's book,Prophecy and Politics. The Secret Alliance Between Israel and the US Christian Right Is available through the AET Book Club Catalog to readers of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. (This article was adapted by author Grace Halsell from her speech at the North American Regional Non-Governmental Symposium on the Question of Palestine held in June 1988 at the United Nations headquarters in New York.) http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1288/8812031.htm ===== Thought for the Day: "Nothing is worse than the cruelty of the good." (Sent to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Nov 2 03:39:35 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 19:39:35 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/1/2001 - "Israel is a very costly ally" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 1, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Read this and pass it on. [START] Israel Is a Very Costly Ally By Charley Reese Some people have asked for Web sites about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. I would suggest you start with PalestineChronicle.com. You will find extensive coverage of the issue, as well as links to other sites. There are several reasons why all Americans should be interested in this issue. First, it is embarrassing that the government of the world's so-called last remaining superpower plays the role of the tail that is wagged by Israel, a nation about the size of New Jersey. Israel's influence in both the executive and legislative branches of our government is so pervasive that Israeli politicians openly boast about it. A few years ago when Egypt threatened not to renew the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty unless Israel signed it, the Israelis told the Egyptians that if they didn't shut up about the issue, their American aid would be cut off. Now, please note: This is a foreign country telling another foreign country that it, not the United States, has the final say over American aid. Of course, it is also embarrassing (because of our silence) that the only nuclear power in the Middle East is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is Israel. The only country in the Middle East that refuses to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities is Israel. Yet all we hear from Washington is criticism of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain's weapons of mass destruction.  What weapons? He didn't use any in the Gulf war. Why is there never any criticism of Israel's weapons of mass destruction, which actually exist? And now we are getting down to the areas where the Middle East actually affects Americans. Israel, armed to the teeth thanks to American taxpayers, continues to occupy Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese lands. It, and it alone, is a threat to peace in that region, and regional war would inevitably affect America's real interest. Second, Israel is the most expensive ally  in the history of the human race. Depending on whose numbers you use, American aid to Israel has totaled $81 billion to $90 billion. There are so many monetary favors tucked away in the Defense Department budget that an accurate number is hard to come by. The $81 billion figure is the U.S. government's. I like the way the British express big numbers. Instead of saying 90 billion, they say 90 thousand millions. That gives you a better idea of how much is involved. Let's suppose we could build a new public school for $1 million. With the money that has gone to Israel, we could have built 90,000 brand-new public schools or restored 90,000 public waterworks or bridges or any number of other infrastructure needs. There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to tax the labor of the American people and hand over the proceeds to a foreign government any foreign government, much less one that has blown up our diplomatic facilities in Egypt and attacked one of our Navy ships in international waters. An ally like that ought to come a heck of a lot cheaper than Israel. Finally, our support of Israel's aggression and cruel treatment of the Palestinians is alienating not only the Arab world but the entire Muslim world. This hatred will eventually be expressed in the form of terrorism directed at Americans and at American interests. Terrorism is the poor man's way of waging war. America's blind support of Israel's gross violations of human rights and international law will not only cost billions of tax dollars but eventually American lives as well. No lobby for any foreign country should be allowed to jeopardize American interests and American lives just to serve the selfish interests of a foreign power. America's government has only one justification for existence to protect the lives and interests of Americans. It's time to start asking Americans, including our elected officials: Which country are you loyal to? [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "There is not any political force or group in the world who needed such kind of terrorist attack - as Israel: to provoke American retaliation against Israeli enemies. Before democracy has been completely shut down we must convince the American government to tell us the whole truth." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Nov 3 02:16:24 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 18:16:24 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/2/2001 - "Damage Control and Spin-doctoring :) " Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 2, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Fredrick Toben, Director of the Australian-based revisionist Website/Adelaide Institute, calls Jeremy Jones "Australia's leading Zionist racist veteran politician". In 1996, Jones initiated legal proceedings against the Adelaide Institute website under Australia's Racial Hatred Act, which Australia's Zionists were instrumental in formulating and enacting into law. Jones is known as being particularly ruthless and nasty in using "human rights" principles as cudgels to deprive politically incorrect opponents of their human rights. Jones was an Australian delegate to the UN World Conference Against Racism, and represented the World Jewish Congress at the NGO forum. Below you will find a first-hand account of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of wholesale rage and fury in Durban, South Africa. [START] Durban Daze: When antisemitism becomes 'anti-racism' By Jeremy Jones Face-off: Jewish activists besieged by anti-Israel protesters The week Big Brothermade its debut on South African television, an event with far more Orwellian overtones took place in the Indian Ocean port city of Durban. The UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR), preceded by an international conference of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) on the same theme, provided eye-openers, not only on racism but on the moral bankruptcy of many so-called human rights organisations and the cynicism which dictates the course of so much of international relations. For Australians, particularly Jewish Australians, the two conferences had the redeeming feature of reinforcing just how lucky we are to live in an open, democratic society which, for all its blemishes, treats international human rights seriously. The two main conferences were preceded by a Youth Summit, which in a sense set the scene for the following two weeks. Delegates were given free T-shirts that bore the official logo of the conference and a slogan identifying Israel as an evil regime that should be dismantled immediately. Youth Summit delegates, or more correctly the tiny minority of Youth Summit delegates allowed to have any say in the proceedings, rejected a proposal to support peace in the Middle East and Jewish students found themselves the targets of derision, insult and abuse. Non-Jewish members of the Australian contingent which participated in this conference told me repeatedly of their concern at the way in which the conference organisers had bullied, cajoled and even threatened any individuals who suggested that democracy had a place at the conference (or elsewhere). The early registrants at the NGO Forum were given a booklet of "political" cartoons which included some of the most obscene antisemitic stereotypes ever printed, including one which pictured a caricature of a Jew which a large hooked nose, claws and fangs dripping blood. All around Kingsmead Stadium posters and banners comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and to Apartheid South Africa were prominently displayed. A large number of NGO delegates came from countries where there are no organisations able to legally function unless they do the government s dirty work and these were supplemented by large and visible media contingents from countries that treat freedoms with complete contempt. During the opening ceremony, the conference chairperson railed against Israel but did not find time to refer to many, many victims of racism who had thought that this conference would provide a platform. On the first afternoon, as the business of the Forum commenced, parallel session after parallel session provided podiums for extreme anti-Israel propaganda, pointedly provided at the expense of any meaningful consideration of many different experiences by victims of racism. The session on Hate Crimes not only had a speaker whose thesis was that Israel s existence is a "hate crime", but witnessed the shocking scene of a person asking a question regarding the procedure during the session being greeted with shouts of "Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew" and another questioner, a woman with a South African accent, being heckled with the abuse "Israeli dog". By the second day of the Forum, participants were reporting that the notorious antisemitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was being sold in the exhibition tent, set up for the distribution of anti-racist materials. Regular reports of anti-Jewish intimidation, including assault, were streaming into the Jewish caucus and to the conference organisers, with the latter unwilling to take any action. After months of wrangling in the lead up to the conference, members of the Jewish caucus had secured the inclusion of a formal session on antisemitism, but by the third day of the conference, when it was scheduled to take place, there were genuine concerns for the safety of participants. When the session began it was clear that a large number of people present had come not to discuss antisemitism but to make sure that the Jewish caucus felt intimidated. It is probably worth noting at this point that one of the few rules under which the conference seemed to operate was that victims of a particular form of racism were not to have their telling of their own experience altered by outsiders. This procedure meant that any individual could stand up and personally lie, without fear of contradiction  a method used in much of the anti-Israel propagandising. In the session on antisemitism it became clear that those who had benefited from this policy elsewhere were planning on doing their utmost to overturn it should Jewish people not simply cave in to overt intimidation. After a series of papers given by experts from the US, Canada, Uruguay, Europe and Australia it became noticeable that the crowd at the only large entrance to the meeting tent was growing in its number and aggression. When the final resource person, a student leader from Israel, was speaking, the crowd started moving towards the area where most of the Jewish participants were sitting, yelling and threatening. Their hate, whipped up by individuals whose name tags identified them as coming from South Africa, Iran, Palestine and the US, was undisguised and virtually tactile. After the intervention of a few brave souls, including one prominent African National Congress figure, enough calm was restored for the meeting to reconvene, although the only way this could happen was through the formation of smaller working groups. Throughout these first three days there were a series of instances where a small group of Jewish students distributing material critical of the anti-Israel maximalism were confronted by a large group of noisy and aggressive protesters. Police had to intervene on a number of occasions and it is telling that, as all photographs and film footage reveal, all the offensive and threatening behaviour came from the anti-Israel side in the "confrontations". In response to the hostility, which resulted in many of the Jewish delegates hiding their name tags and even to some of the kippa-wearing male delegates wearing caps out of fear, the Jewish caucus convened a media conference, inside the media tent, as this was regarded as the least likely place in which Jewish delegates would be physically attacked. However, before the opening statements could be completed, a group of shouting, jeering, fist-waving, shoving demonstrators, including a number wearing media badges, forced the abandonment of what had been hoped would be a rare opportunity for Jewish voices to be heard. The situation had deteriorated to such a degree that a workshop that comprised a formal part of the program, on the subject of Holocaust Denial, had to be cancelled on security advice. While all this was going on, a group of Hamas supporters were parading about the conference centre and its environs with three members of the eccentric Jewish sect Neturei Karta, who purport to be the only "authentic" Jews and espouse the view that Israel s existence is a sin. Their commitment to Judaism was well illustrated by their decision to demonstrate against Israel, carrying placards, on the Sabbath, while the Jews they describe as "unauthentic" were attending synagogue services. The fact that these street performers found no problem with the distribution of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" or doing the dirty work for organisations which speak not only of their dream of destroying Israel but also of subjugating Jews was unfortunately of no interest to the media throng excited by the prospect of "dissident" Jews. Not too dissimilar in their actions during the conference were a number of "anti-Zionist" Jews, from Israel and South Africa, who also seemed to have no problem with the overt antisemitism, as long as they were still given a platform at the conference to give their views on why Israel should cease to exist. Given the conduct of the conference, it was hardly surprising that the final documents produced, as an alleged summary of the consensus views of the Forum, should be approved and adopted in a manner reflecting the corruption, dishonesty and racism of the conference organisers, supplemented by the cynicism and immoral pragmatism of conference participants. It was hardly out of step with the way the conference had proceeded that the final Declaration was not adopted until many NGO participants had left Durban. To her credit, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, refused to participate in a ceremony to accept the forum outcome documents. One of the saddest outcomes of the behaviour by the organisers and anti-Israel/antisemitic bully brigade was that many issues of real concern received very little airing, if any. Many fine human rights activists and brave spokespeople for victims of racism had come to the Forum in the hope that others would learn of some of their pain and work towards alleviating contemporary racism and the scars inflicted by previous practices of racism. The Dalits, the lowest rung on the caste ladder in India, were probably the only group which made itself heard above the intensive propagandising of the anti-Israel lobby. There were no "winners" in the NGO Forum. The organisers were responsible for a corrupt process and breaking their own rules as the days went on, which set the stage for what many have described as the most antisemitic international event in the post-war period. The anti-Israel campaigners may have achieved an insertion of hateful language in the final documents but lost an enormous amount of credibility through their bullying and inability to respond to the arguments of a small and ill-prepared group of Jewish activists. The tirade of antisemitism which so much of the so-called human rights community either promoted or tolerated is of great concern to Jews and to all who genuinely oppose racism. Victims of racism around the world lost after their forum was so crudely hijacked by the most fanatic of single issue propagandists. About the only people who left the conference with their dignity intact were the members of the Eastern and Central European caucus who showed a genuine concern for all victims of racism while lambasting the dishonesty and outrageous behaviour which marked so much of the Forum. Inside a racist 'anti-racism' conference As the NGO Forum was concluding, the UN conference was opening. With official delegations from over 150 countries, the formal atmosphere and the leadership from the secretariat was far different from that which prevailed in the NGO Forum, but the tension remained high. The Conference convened with only working drafts of the Declaration and Program of Action, which meant that a great deal of work had to be done at the conference itself. The issue of the participation by Israel and the US figured prominently in the minds of delegates, as did the issue of the way in which slavery and other "past" issues could be settled in any consensus manner. The opening speeches were marked with appeals, desperate appeals, for participants to not waste time throwing invective at Israel or other parties, but to concentrate on producing a blueprint for combating racism. Nevertheless, formal speeches at the plenary by member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and their totalitarian allies were replete with hate-filled anti-Israel invective. Leaflets on the desk where delegates collected their daily program included some referring to "Nazi-Israel Apartheid" but these paled into irrelevancy when compared to the formal speeches by some of the designated representatives of national governments. Two positive highlights of the plenary session were the dignified and thoughtful paper delivered by the Israeli representative Mordechai Yedid and the intervention by Australia in response to the Declaration of the NGO Forum. In the latter situation Australia s Ambassador to the UN, John Dauth, used his Right-of-Reply (a procedure used only sparingly during the conference) to point out that the Declaration was unacceptable and a discredit to all identified with it, due to sections which were "deplorable". While speech after speech took place in the plenary hall, national delegations were going through hundreds of paragraphs in the Declaration and the Program of Action, attempting to reach consensus on every sentence, word and punctuation mark. After a short time it became clear that Australia, Canada, the European Union, most Latin American and some Asian and African countries, were working to produce rational, positive and forward looking documents, while the Arab League, the other nations in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Cuba and a number of Caribbean and African states seemed hell bent on using the conference purely as a platform for promoting propaganda at the expense of any serious work against racism. As if the work in these sessions was not demanding and exhausting enough, slabs of paragraphs relating to the Middle East (and related subjects such as antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Holocaust), the Past (slavery, colonialism and the like) or those containing lists of victims or grounds of victimisation were referred to small groups of designated states. Lone hand: Jewish activists were grossly outnumbered by their antagonists The decision of Israel and the US to attend, at the very last moment, reminded serious delegations that the credibility of the Conference depended on it sticking to its aims, rather than being distracted or redirected by those who had come, as they were happy to tell anyone who would listen, to ensure that the Nazi Holocaust was not mentioned in the Conference documents, antisemitism was either excluded or had its meaning maliciously twisted and for Israel to be identified as the only country in this world which deserved to be singled out for alleged "racism". At the half way point of the Conference, the US and Israel determined that the fight against racism was best served if they were to leave. One will never know if their timing was optimal, if it would have been better if they had never arrived or if the process would have been expedited had they stayed. What can be said is that, after they left, the democratic nations of the world with Australia, the European Union and Canada in the lead, were steadfast in their refusal to allow the Holocaust to be denigrated, "antisemitism" to be twisted and contorted by antisemites or Israel to be treated as a pariah. At the time the Conference was scheduled to end, nothing approaching final documentation had achieved agreement. As the Conference clock ticked into overtime, agreement was reached on the way in which the Conference would describe the victims of racism, the grounds for racism, the legacy of past practices such as slavery and colonialism and, well after all had seemed lost, an unhappy compromise regarding the Middle East was achieved. In the matters which were not so contentious it is worth placing on record the leading, constructive role played by Australia, with experts from Canberra being responsible for some of the more logical, progressive and achievable aims in fields such as education, potential for NGOs to participate in decision-making and in international cooperation against trans-national racist activity. The outcome of the Conference was such that countries such as Israel and Australia were able to make it a far more successful exercise than seemed possible in the days, weeks and months leading to it. Although the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and their allies had been defeated in just about every one of their assaults on common decency, logic and truth, they still managed to distract attention from the many and numerous human rights abuses which they commit or promote. They also achieved an unhelpful mention of the Israel-Arab issue in documents on racism and even a pair of offensive paragraphs, which one can only hope are not allowed to undermine progress towards peace. In the Government Forum, Australia can hold its head high as a supporter of the highest democratic principles and for its willingness to often say things which needed to be said but which other countries may have chosen to leave alone. The European Union, Canada, Guatemala, Brazil and a number of other countries which may not have been as vocal but were similarly guided by a commitment to combat racism also showed dignity and strength. The host country, South Africa, was, to say the least, schizophrenic. Some of the South African delegates were part of that core working to try to achieve something valuable >from the Conference while others seemed more attracted to the pseudo-Marxist rhetoric of the one-party dictatorships. It is not possible at this point to assess whether the Conference will prove valuable or will have damaged the struggle against racism or, for that matter, resulted in something between these two poles but we can say that, if they surprise us all and indulge in some honest self-reflection, the anti-Israel claque will admit that they were, most deservedly, humiliated as a consequence of their disingenuousness and transparent dishonesty. [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "(Sharon) waxed poetic this week about his longing for the days of the paratroopers back then, when chop-chop, they'd finish things off over the border. But those days are gone. And even if, heaven forbid, there are more major terror attacks, from now on, Sharon will have to restrain himself. "Even he, who believes he can spit in the face of the President of the United States, knows there are limits to Bush's readiness to regard it as just a spot of rain. " (In today's Ha'aretz at http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=89982&contrassID=2&subCo ntrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=89425 ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Nov 4 03:22:42 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 19:22:42 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/3/2001 - "Israel shows United States how not to fight terrorism" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 3, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Charley Reese has penned another good one: "Israel shows United States how not to fight terrorism" which appeared in the Orlando Sentinel, October 26, 2001 - [START] Israel prides itself on its fight against terrorism - or at least what it calls terrorism - but in fact, it provides the world with a perfect example of how to do it the wrong way. This was brought home by the assassination of a Cabinet member, the minister of tourism, who was shot down outside his hotel room in East Jerusalem. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed credit. Why? Because a few months ago, the Israelis had assassinated the leader of that organization. Get it? Tit for tat. You kill, we kill, we all kill. Israel has recently assassinated more than two dozen Palestinian political leaders. These murders are not characteristic of a democratic government, much less one that shares American values. The people who share the values of our American forefathers are the Palestinians. The Israelis share the values of the old racist British Empire. But have all of these political murders by the Israelis ended the Palestinian uprising? No. Israel has been assassinating Palestinian leaders for nearly 50 years. Has it stopped terrorism? No. Israel has been engaging in bloody reprisal attacks, killing many innocents. Has that stopped terrorism? No. Israelis have been arresting people by the thousands during the past 30 years. Has that stopped terrorism? No. Israel tortures, confiscates people's land, demolishes their homes, bulldozes their olive orchards, places them under curfew, seals them inside their towns. Has that stopped terrorism? No. One thing Israel hasn=92t done is honestly address the issues that caus= e these attacks. Remember, anybody Israel decides to kill is automatically a "terrorist." Israelis are as promiscuous in their use of "terrorist" as the Israeli lobby is in its use of "anti-Semite." But as to the question of withdrawing from the territory it captured in 1967, Israel has one answer: "No." As to the question of letting refugees return or be compensated for the property the Israeli government stole from them, Israel has had one answer: "No." As for letting U.N. peacekeepers protect the Palestinians from Israeli violence, the answer is "No." As for obeying more than 60 U.N. resolutions directing Israel to comply with international law, the answer is "No." So, will there ever be peace in Palestine? No. The Israelis can continue to murder, imprison, isolate, torture, impoverish, brutalize and harass the Palestinians for the next 50 years, and for the next 50 years Palestinians, generation after generation, will resist the occupation of their land by any means they can. So, every time an Israeli shows up purporting to be an expert on terrorism, we ought to laugh the person right back home. The Israelis are pretty good terrorists themselves, but as anti-terrorists, they are a bunch of goofs. The only thing America can learn from Israel is how to manufacture a continuing supply of embittered enemies decade after decade. Neither Israel nor the United States, nor any other government, can ever rationalize an injustice by killing the people who protest the injustice. People will endure a lot, but not an injustice. It=92s like white phosphorous burning a man's soul. The best thing for the American people to do is to end all aid to Israel and withdraw the protection of the U.S. veto. If Israel is indeed a viable state, then it can survive without American taxpayers contributing nearly a tenth of its gross domestic product. [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "In the age of the Internet, trying to gag the messenger whose message may not be exactly kosher is like trying to capture a molecule in a droplet of water out of the torrent rusing over the Niagara Falls." (Sent to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Nov 5 03:43:14 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 19:43:14 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/4/2001 - "Interview with Udo Voigt of Germany" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 4, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Germany's Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) has been in existence for decades. It is generally described by the powers that be as the "far right" or the "extreme far right" and has frequently served as a convenient whipping boy. Noteworthy is that it is THE party that is attracting the young, whereas the more conventional parties are largely composed of the "middle-class Left" - described more colorfully below! This interview with Udo Voigt was recorded by a reporter of a nationalist British publication: [START] The following interview was conducted with Udo Voigt, the Chairman of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) since 1996, he is a forward looking, determined man, leading one of Europe's largest NR movements. 1. Can you tell our readers something about the formation of the National Democratic Party, including the difficulties of operating in Germany so soon after World War II? Udo Voigt: World War II ended with the military defeat of the Axis Powers, and the complete destruction of Germany. The high flown moral language of the then newly founded United Nations, a language which justified the war of annihilation against the German people, proved to be just so much hot air. The so-called "liberation" of Germany on May 8th 1945 cost the lives of another 3,000,000 Germans in the post-war period; Germany lost a third of her territory to Soviet, Czech and Polish Communists; and the victors staged a Court of Revenge in Nuremberg. It was the belief of this =18court =19 that crimes had only been committed b= y the Germans during the war. Thanks to this court, even today, it is impossible to raise the subject of Allied war crimes and the real war aims of the Democracies. Such an end to a war, which found no form in a Peace Treaty, carries within itself the makings of new injustice. As a response to this unacceptable situation, and to the CDU, SPD and FDP parties licensed by the Allies, the NPD was founded in November 1964 as a real and alternative national party. The NPD - like its precursor, the Deutsche Reichspartei - had to live with State repression. In complete contrast to the rules of other civilized countries in the world, Germany permitted, and still permits, members of "unacceptable parties" to be banned from professional life; even the propaganda war against the NPD is financed through public taxation. From the outset, the national television and newspaper networks worked furiously against the NPD - either through a media blackout or through pushing deliberate lies. To this day, there has been no serious analysis of the NPD =19s politica= l programme. The total exclusion of a nationalist party from the day-to-day political life of the Federal Republic - founded in May 1949 - is an indication of the unhealthy condition of this state. Germany badly needs solutions that will allow her to live normally, as many European states do at present. 2. The NPD is well known throughout Europe as a large, successful and yet still a "radical" or "national revolutionary" Movement. Why is this, given the pressures to become "soft" on matters such as Immigration, Zionism, Homosexuality or Freemasonry? Udo Voigt: The NPD is pledged as a movement to represent the German people in every aspect of their lives. In our day to day work, this means that we have to deal with aggressive fringe groups promoted by society on the one hand, and with State-sanctioned lawbreaking by many of society's institutions on the other. Thus, a "soft" line is not even open to the NPD! Nevertheless, we have to respect the rules of the Constitution and the laws of the present Republic, despite permanent and provocative pressure. Any other course, be it active or even merely written, would give the System a pretext for banning the party. When the day comes that government power will be held by the NPD, we shall solve this matter using the Constitution with great pleasure. 3. Your rallies in defence of the normal German soldier in the Wehrmacht made the newspaper headlines, even here in England. Can you tell us the background to this huge mobilization of the German people in defence of their fathers and grandfathers? Udo Voigt: Vae victis - "Woe to the defeated" says the bitter experience of those defeated on the battlefield in the ancient Greek and Roman Empires. The victors of World War II have perfected this saying using modern propaganda techniques and deliberate disinformation. Using the Nuremberg Trials as a basis, the phenomenon of the Third Reich is reduced to one of purely criminal causes. In Germany today, there is a man, Herr Reemtsma, of the vile tobacco industry, who has reserved to himself the right to portray the glorious Wehrmacht in a kind of Hollywood clich=E9. One day, the history books of this Republic will have to be rewritten in this respect. 4. In the magazine of the "English" Anti-Fascist Action (Fighting Talk), an organizer of the German "anti-fascists" admitted that their membership was mostly middle class, whilst the "fascists" attract huge numbers of working class youth. Would you care to expand on this? Udo Voigt: The anti-fascist subculture that can be seen today in Germany is made up of a number of tendencies: middle class elements that come from the Red Army Faction, the Young Socialists of the Social Democrats who adhere strictly to the pseudo-science of Marxism; and the majority of the have-nots from the violent squatter and anarchist scene. This subculture possesses an anti-capitalist view of the world, and views the NPD as an instrument of Capitalism. Such a view of the NPD is fundamentally wrong, and disregards the fact that the Movement will eliminate Capitalism which is so contemptuous of humanity. We will study the potential of the antifascists, and deal with it politically. 5. Aside from the rallies and street activities, what other forms of action does the NPD undertake? Udo Voigt: The NPD presents itself publicly in a number of ways. Apart from contesting elections at all levels, the NPD puts great effort into winning over the youth that has lost sight of the need to fight for Germany. In recent months, these efforts have been crowned with growing success. This success in the field of youth cannot be taken for granted because much of our youth, until now, have been raised to be politically apathetic or mere consumers. In the cultural field, we offer bands from the nationalist world the possibility of going before the public, thereby aiding the process of national integration. In addition, the NPD is active in the form of Citizens Initiatives and the mobilization of the masses, with the aim, at this stage, of creating an extra-parliamentary opposition which moulds public opinion and which exerts pressure on the ruling classes. Finally, the NPD is active in the German Employee Union, which is of a nationalist orientation. 6. Some of our readers have read about the Nationalist singer/songwriter, Frank Rennicke, and some of our people have seen him perform live. Has he managed to bring in a new kind of person to the NPD, or is he representative of young NPD activists? Perhaps you could give us a brief background to his style? Udo Voigt: The Young National Democrat, Frank Rennicke, stands in the old tradition of the "Liedermacher" (literally "songmaker") and the balladeers. A Liedermacher is an artist with instrument and vocal training who pillories the Establishment about particular political and cultural grievances, and this in an intellectual manner. As a stylistic means, irony and ridicule are used, occasionally with biting effect. The traditional instrument of the Liedermacher is the guitar. Thus, Rennicke =19s music does without technical effects or electronic noise, the simplicity of the music allowing listeners to concentrate upon the lyrics. Frank has shown considerable fighting spirit when faced with attacks from the Left and repression from the State. Thanks to his example, there are now numerous national Liedermachers to be found throughout Germany. 7. Outside Germany, many groups use pictures of the NPD - especially the large rallies - and say "our German Comrades". Some of these lunatic fringe and reactionary mainstream groups like to feed off the good name of the NPD. What would you say to them, and to the genuine National Revolutionaries of the Third Position? Udo Voigt: National Socialism, which incarnated itself in a =46uhrer-State, is a product of the history of the Twenties and Thirties. This historical uniqueness, born as a response to the Versailles Treaty after World War I, cannot be repeated. Every imitation of the NSDAP by small groups both inside and outside Germany are, therefore, doomed to fail because they are an enormous misinterpretation of the political realities of the Nineties. The NPD is a Movement of the People which will implement its programme of building a Third Power beyond Capitalism and Communism, thereby giving self-determination to the people. At the centre of our struggle is mankind and Nature. Thanks to our life-giving view of the world, we stand against foreign rule and domination, against foreign penetration, exploitation and oppression. We stand for German freedom, for the freedom of peoples, for a New Social Order in both Germany and Europe. 8. Much is made of the problems the German Establishment has in the former East Germany by the "English" media. Can you explain the real situation to us? Udo Voigt: During the period of Communist rule, the German Democratic Republic was fully integrated into the internationalist ideology of Soviet origin. Economically, the country was plundered by the Soviet power through the dismantling of existing industries and endless repressive measures. Compared to the capabilities of the German economy during the peaceful years of the Thirties, it was given a subordinate role as a satellite of the USSR. Nevertheless, in the final phase of the GDR, the basic economic requirements were met, there was an adequate medical system, and there was employment for all. Thus did the GDR become the leading economic power in the Communist economic bloc, COMECON. Of course, the yearning and desires of the Germans living in the GDR for national unity, freedom and prosperity were not fulfilled. The unification of East and West Germany in 1989 produced an initial euphoria, but this was destroyed by blunt and harsh realities. The "globalization of the economy", record unemployment at 25%, the exploitation of the people by speculators, the arrival of asylum seekers, criminals and profiteers from all corners of the world, as well as deep insecurity about their future, has led the young in particular to realize that the phoney parties of Bonn and the economic liberalism pushed by the Kohl government have pulled East Germany into a vortex of decline. The stirring of Nationalism, as a counter movement coming from the grassroots, has put fear into the ruling political class. This class senses its own uselessness and fears that a development will take place which will sweep it aside as quickly as was Erich Honecker's in 1989. Thus, the oligarchy in Bonn is seeking to restore control by criminalizing defiant national youth, by using politically motivated laws, and restricting free speech by, for example, a complete ban on public rallies. Such tranquillity, however, is merely the lull before the storm. 9. You have been working with the International Third Position for some time now. How do you view this co-operation? Udo Voigt: The youth wing of the NPD, the Young National Democrats (JN), issued a discussion paper some years ago in which a Third Way beyond Capitalism and Communism was promoted. The NPD mother party had already pledged itself in 1977 to National Liberation, and with that clearly renounced chauvinistic tendencies. The analysis of the enemy position, therefore, converges with the ideas of the International Third Position. We must, therefore, enrich the political culture of our organizations through mutual visits, and exchanges of thoughts and ideas about current ideological developments. The NPD looks forward greatly to this task. 10. German comrades are often present at Nationalist rallies around Europe, such as Diksmuide in Flanders, Madrid on November 20th in Spain and in Romania at Legionary celebrations. Given this and your co-operation with the ITP and other National Revolutionary groups, would you say that international co-operation is important to you as a Movement? Udo Voigt: International co-operation is very highly regarded by the NPD. The rule of multi-national capital, following the American declaration of a New World Order, cannot be eliminated on the national level alone. The peoples of Europe must together pursue an analysis of the political and economic situation, and in joint committees work out a transnational strategy for gaining political power taking into account individual national and historical interests. The aim is a Europe made up of National States, without the conflicts of past centuries, and which will be a counter pole to other centres of power on other continents. 11. Given that Nationalists believe in "No More Brothers' Wars", and that increasingly nationalities who could be considered as being historically hostile are forming allegiances to fight the New World Order (i.e., English and Irish militants co-operating as never before), what is your position with the Polish National Revolutionary movement, the NOP? Udo Voigt: Germany has a valid claim under international law to the return of certain Eastern Territories taken from her by Poland after World War II. A wrong does not become a right through the mere passage of time! However, the NPD believes that an armed solution to this problem, as was customary internationally in the past, is out of the question. Poland and Germany will, through embracing new economic solutions, find a peaceful way to secure justice and lasting peace. Our claims do not prevent the NPD from exchanging views with the Polish National Revolutionaries! Germany has in her history, many things in common with the ethnically-related peoples of the East. We would like to keep up good, old traditions, and we wish these peoples well in their endeavours to overcome the rudimentary structures of the Soviet period, and in their efforts to resist American imperialism. 12. How do you see the future of the NPD and the future of Germany? Udo Voigt: The NPD sees itself as a popular people's party that respects the principles of a constitutional state. This means in Germany the power to govern will lead from the streets to the Parliament. The "fight on the streets" has begun. The NPD is now able to mobilize tens of thousands of people. We must now begin the "fight for minds"! During this phase, we must use capable intellectuals from all levels in society so as to build our ideology of a New Order beyond Capitalism and Communism. In the third phase, we must aim to "fight for the Parliament" and take power. We are greatly concerned about the future of Germany and of Europe. The global threat to our nations by multi-national banks and companies working in harness with the ruling class is having a destructive effect on our peoples. The German example reveals clearly: * The German people, developed over the course of 2,000 years, is being replaced through the endless immigration of non-European immigrants. The conflicts caused by this already have disturbed social peace. The chief of the Verfassungsschutz, the German internal security service, has admitted in an interview that there already exists a parallel Islamic society. * The outstanding achievements of the German social system are being more and more replaced by minimal standards. * The intended elimination of millions of jobs and the creation of intolerable and permanent unemployment is driving large populations all around Europe into poverty and debt. * The dumbing of the education system is now destroying the hitherto good reputation for science and research. * The impact of serious crime, being organized internationally by gangs of criminals, is massive and striking at defenceless populations. * The NPD aims to replace those in power, so as to give the German People a secure future within the European Family of Nations! [END] From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Nov 5 18:42:35 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 10:42:35 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/5/2001 - "All kinds of terrorists." Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 5, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: The pleasure of having Ernst Z=FCndel at my elbow, so to speak, is that I ca= n reveal my ignorance in many matters without fear. After all, he has some 40 plus years of historical studies under his belt, whereas I, an apolitical novice, only started seeing a larger picture on the Net in 1995. So this morning, the following spirited exchange took place: "Ernst, is Uri Avnery a Jewish name? "Yes. Absolutely." "You mean you know who he is?" "Of course. He is a Jewish peacenick. When 'peace' broke out 'after Oslo', I even negotiated to buy his radio broadcast boat with which he sent peace message in Hebrew and Arabic. Poor fellow! His activism landed him in jail in Israel." "You're kidding!" "Well, no! Of course I didn't contact Avnery himself. It was another one of my 'Jewish buddies', the late Max Lipson, who went to the Israeli Embassy in Ottawa to see if he could lease the boat for me - naturally without mentioning my name. Tel Aviv beat me to it. They made a museum out of the boat, being perpetually in the museum mode, you understand." "You mean to say we could have had a floating Revisionist short-wave radio station?" "Yep! I had been working on that idea for decades. The rest of the story will be revealed as soon as Spielberg becomes a Revisionist and gets into the meat of the matter." "So is it safe to use Avnery in a ZGram?" "Depends on what he says. You can't even quote a Jew these days without double-checking!" Enjoy! [START] Uri Avnery All Kinds of Terrorists President Bush has declared a "war on terrorism". Indeed? Osama bin Laden is undoubtedly a terrorist. Killing 4800 civilians at the World Trade Center was a terrorist outrage. But the United States would have declared war on bin Laden even if he had been satisfied with killing American soldiers in Saudi Arabia or blowing up oil installations across the Middle East. It is not the methods of bin Laden that have caused this war, but his aim: to get rid of the United States and its satellites, the Arab kings and presidents, throughout the Middle East. In order to pursue its war, the United States has set up a world-wide coalition. Everyone joining it has been issued an American permit to call his enemies "terrorists": Putin in Chechnya, China in its Muslim regions, India in Kashmir, Sharon in the occupied territories - all are now fighting against "terrorists". Everyone and his bin Laden. Many years ago I coined a definition I am quite proud of: "The difference between freedom-fighters and terrorists is that the freedom-fighters are on my side and the terrorists are on the other side." I am glad that this definition has been adopted by my biggers and betters. Since the New York atrocity, it has become fashionable to talk about "terrorism". As a result, it has lost all precise meaning. "Terror" means extreme fear. The root of the word is the Latin "terrere" - to frighten or be frightened. The modern term was first used to describe the regime of terror instituted by the Jacobins, one of the factions of the French Revolution, to destroy their opponents by beheading them with the guillotine during the years 1793-4. In the end, their leader, Robespierre, suffered the same fate. Since then, the term has acquired a more general use. Terrorism is a method of attaining political goals by frightening the civilian population. It does not apply to the frightening of soldiers. The Japanese who attacked the American fleet in Pearl Harbor were not terrorists. Neither were the Jews who attacked the soldiers of the British occupation regime in Palestine. [ZUNDELSITE comment: That's not true! The non-uniformed Jews attacked British uniformed soldiers, who were there to enforce a League of Nations Mandate, hardly an occupation force, even though it might have felt so for the Jewish Partisans carving out a state from Arab-owned Palestine.] Clausewitz said that war is the continuation of politics by other means. That is true for terrorism, too. Terrorism is always an instrument for the attainment of political aims. Since these may be rightist or leftist, revolutionary or reactionary, religious or secularist, the term "international terrorism" is nonsense. Each terrorist body has its own specific agenda. There is hardly a liberation movement that has not used terrorism. Algerian woman put bombs in the cafes of the French settlers (some of them were caught and horribly tortured by French parachutists). Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in prison because he refused to order his followers to abstain from terrorism. The Maccabees were terrorists who went around killing Hellenized Jews. So were the Irgun fighters who in 1938 put bombs in the Arab markets of Jaffa and Haifa in retaliation for Arab attacks. Shlomo Ben-Josef committed a terrorist act when he shot at an Arab bus (and I joined the Irgun when he was hanged by the British). Generally, terrorism is the weapon of the weak. A Palestinian "terrorist" recently said: "Give me tanks and airplanes, and I shall stop sending suicide-bombers into Israel." But big powers, too, can use terror. Dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima was a terrorist act, designed to frighten the Japanese population into demanding that their government surrender. So was the Nazi blitz on London and the British bombing of Dresden. Churchill and Hitler were as different as day and night, but they used the same method. Israel has used this method from the day of its inception. In the early 50s the IDF committed "retaliation raids" designed to frighten the villagers beyond the border in order to induce them to put pressure on the Jordanian and Egyptian governments to prevent the infiltration of Palestinians into Israel. During the War of Attrition in the late 60s, Moshe Dayan terrorized half a million inhabitants of the Egyptian towns along the Suez Canal into fleeing, so as to put pressure on the Egyptian president to stop attacking Israeli strongholds along the Canal. In the 1996 "grapes of wrath" operation, Prime Minister Shimon Peres terrorized half a million inhabitants of South Lebanon by aerial bombardment into fleeing north, in order to pressurize the Beirut government into stopping the Shi=EDite guerrillas from attacking the Israeli occupation force and it= s mercenaries. It is the same method that is used in the army when a commander punishes all the soldiers in a company, so that they will turn against the one who made him angry. The trouble is, it does not work in conflicts between nations. Generally, it is counter-productive. The Taliban have not turned bin Laden over but have become more extreme in their opposition to America. The IDF blockade against Palestinian villages, which this week denied them water and food, does not isolate the "terrorists", but on the contrary, turns them into national heroes. The devastation caused by the Russians in Chechnya did not break - indeed, it strengthened - the opposing guerilla forces. Since terrorism is always a political instrument, the right way to combat it is always political. Solve the problem that breeds terrorism and you get rid of the terrorism. Solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the other flash-points in the Middle East, and you get rid of al-Qaida. It will wilt like a flower deprived of water. No one has yet devised another method. [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "Opinions are like elbows. Everyone has at least two of them." (-- The Iron Webmaster, 390) From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Nov 7 03:16:58 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 19:16:58 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/6/2001 - "Excerpt from EZ's October Power Letter" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 6, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Once a month, Ernst Zundel writes an informal, 8 page letter to his supporters in some 43 countries who have helped him in his legal battles spanning decades against the Holocaust Lobby. He has done so for more than twenty years. Over time, these letters have become ever more popular, especially so since "Nine-Eleven". His last three missives - # 270 and # 271 - have been in particular demand because they have been shared by many. We have had to reprint several times. However, these letters are not available by subscription. They are only sent as a courtesy to his regular, active supporters. So please don't write to me and ask for back issues because I cannot keep up with my mail. Today I thought I would ship you an excerpt - a "Leseprobe", as we say in German - from his October letter. [START] Looking at conspiracies within conspiracies Up until the WTC and Pentagon terrorist attacks, the word "conspiracy" was much derided. It was used as a cudgel, a bludgeoning verbal instrument - to be called a "conspiracy theorist" was deadly to one's reputation. The moment those planes hit, the whole world became one beehive of conspiracy theorists. Everybody from the president on down speculated on "Whodunit". Even the most highly paid employees of the most famous intelligence agencies like the CIA, the FBI, Britain's MI-5, the French Suret=E9 - all speculated, then analyzed the data to find out who was "behind the conspiracy". The media published reports about the number of "conspirators" involved. Later still, the FBI released pictures and sought the help of the public in finding more conspirators. The President and the Attorney General warned that there were many more conspirators out there, and that biological warfare was a very real possibility - all, of course, plotted by more conspirators at home and abroad. So now it's perfectly okay even for Revisionists to look at various "conspiracies"! Was there more than one conspiracy? We can start from the safe premise that somewhere in this world, for a considerable period of time spanning months, perhaps years, some still not identified, not tried and convicted, unapprehended people conspired and, in the end, brilliantly and devastatingly succeeded in deceiving the conventional intelligence services of the most powerful nation on earth - and successfully "bombed" vitally important and highly recognizable structures of great symbolic worth. Millions of words have been written about who it might have been. Nobody has yet been tried in a court of law for that dastardly crime, and nobody has yet been convicted by a judge or a jury. Regardless! The media and some politicians have simply declared one man, Bin Laden, to be "responsible" - without sharing with the world any real, tangible proof of his responsibility or guilt to date which would stand up in a properly constituted court. They might well come up with such proof in the future. They might even deliver a suspect or culprit - but that's all he would be, suspect until proven guilty! I feel particularly strongly about it, for I was for decades vilified, accused, tried and convicted by a vicious media campaign - and found to be "not guilty" by the highest court in the land! I want to make sure that my readers understand this, before we examine who might have had a hand in planning and executing this crime. My thoughts, too, only concern suspects until they might turn into convicted criminals of this most heinous crime. The first question on almost everybody's mind: "What role did Israel, and its fabled security agencies, among them the Mossad, play?" We already looked at that question in last months' newsletter. Let me recap for newcomers: The Israelis claimed they had warned the Americans that a "major assault on the US" was planned, according to the Jerusalem Post, September 17, 2001 and the Los Angeles Times two days later. Israeli Intelligence further claimed that they knew that "200 terrorists" were en route to the US. This claim itself is not surprising. Israel is ideally situated to electronically monitor the whole Central Asian area, i.e. the Middle East, and furthermore has hundreds of thousands of Jews who speak the native languages and even the arcane dialects of that complex region. Nobody but nobody has Israel's capability in that respect! This is why Israel should have known - and, if the press articles are to be believed, Israel did know that something big, terrible and nasty was going down! Israel's current prime minister would have been briefed by his intelligence services as a matter of fact about everything known to them about such a planned attack! If he was briefed that some major terrorist campaign - and not some Palestinian suicide bomber walking into a Tel Aviv pizzeria but an air strike half way around the earth against Israel's chief ally and economic, political and military benefactor, the USA - was planned, why did Sharon not make one of his apparently frequent telephone calls to President Bush and warn him point-blank in no uncertain terms? That might have been worth a couple of billions in aid to his country, which is forever holding out its hand! Was it because Sharon had also been informed that the new Bush administration was working on a very serious re-evaluation of American Middle East policy with a clearly spelled-out goal of granting the Palestinians statehood, an idea and promise given to the Arab Gulf War allies by Bush the father in 1990, and a demand that Israel withdraw from all conquered and occupied land and implement various UN resolutions to that effect? The media have since reported that Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was planning to make such a bombshell announcement at the end of September in an already scheduled public appearance - an announcement only postponed by the attack on September 11. With that policy change, Arafat would have achieved with American help what the Palestinians have not been able to achieve in half a century! If, however, Arab terrorists are the culprits who attacked the United States successfully, Sharon might have reasoned, America could not possibly make common cause with Arab leaders like Arafat, whom Sharon calls "Israel's own Bin Laden." Sharon undoubtedly knew that the new administration, without a single Jewish cabinet minister, was made up of people with strong links to what is generally called the military-industrial complex - in the Bush family's case heavily tilting toward the energy sectors of oil and gas. I think it is also important to recall here, and state for the historical record, that George Bush Senior was only able to put together his "Grand Military Alliance" against Iraq in 1990 by promising the participating Arab states that after the defeat of Saddam Hussein, he was going to lean on the Israelis to withdraw from the occupied territories and help in establishing a Palestinian state. As we know, Bush Senior ran afoul of the Israeli Lobby soon thereafter by not giving them a carte blanche US $10 billion loan guarantee. The remarks then by James Baker, a high-ranking Bush advisor and cabinet minister about the "eff..ing Jews not voting for us anyway" and the Jews always "being there when the cash register jingled" - or words to that effect - as well as the emotional, acrimonious debate which ensued in which Bush was called a "Nazi" and Baker worse by the Jewish Mayor of New York, Ed Koch - all this led to the dismal defeat of President Bush, who had counted on being re-elected to make good on his promise to the Arab coalition partners. President Clinton's administration, as soon the world found out, followed a totally different pro-Israel agenda. The Arab world felt naturally betrayed, as they had been betrayed by the British in World War I who, through Lawrence of Arabia, had promised them Arab independence if they helped the British defeat the Turkish-Ottoman empire, but who instead treacherously carved up the Middle East into French and British colonies. And to top it off, to add insult to injury, the British promised the Jews - infidels in the Moslems' minds - a Jewish homeland in their midst. According to news reports, this feeling of being double-crossed by Christians and Jews alike still rankles deep in Arab consciousness. Sharon and the Israeli ruling elite knew all this. The election of George W. Bush and the very pointed absence of Jewish cabinet ministers were visible proof that a new wind was blowing in Washington. Lately, some of the public statements, especially the one published in Ha'aretz of October 23, "Analysis: America is finally running out of patience with us" by Alif Benn, along with Bush's "unprecedented vehement demand" for the "immediate withdrawal of Israeli Defense Forces troops from Palestinian-controlled territories" to Sharon, also on October 23, are clear proof of the changed relationship! The Jerusalem Post, same day, likewise featured this terse item: "WASHINGTON - Fearing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, the US told Israel yesterday to withdraw immediately from Palestinian-controlled areas and never return." (Emphasis added!) Israel has nothing to offer Bush except grief! Israel is now being shunted aside, isolated and told to lay off and shut up - and far from being seen as a "strategic asset" as during the Reagan, Bush Senior and Clinton Administrations, Israel is now a serious liability. A writer in the British-based Guardian called Israel a "lethal liability"! Bin Laden's widely published and broadcast statements creating a direct linkage between Israel and the attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC did their part in dealing Israel a public relations nightmare, exacerbated by Sharon mouthing off that the US behaved like Chamberlain selling the Czechs out to Hitler - in other words, that Bush was selling Israel out to the Arabs. Spinning this thought backwards to before September 11, 2001, one can understand that Sharon would have been tempted to "cash in" on a sweetheart deal politically - if he knew about the conspiracy afoot against the USA and all the other factors outlined that an attack against America by Arab terrorists would unleash such a rage against the Arab side. With one mighty swoop, Sharon might have reasoned, Israel's enemies would also become America's enemies! This would have turned the tables and the anti-Israel tide! Instead of being a pariah, Sharon, who had just been widely called a "war criminal" on the BBC and in the world press and was even charged as that in Belgium, as if by magic, would become America's chief and only ally in the Middle East region! Is that so far-fetched? Look at Sharon's and the Israeli ruling establishment's policies and behavior pattern! Look at the USS Liberty Affair, the Lavon Affair, the Pollard spy case! As Israelis seem to perceive it, America is their own useful idiot - and their cash cow to boot! Israel has had a fifty year record of double-dealing, double-crossing the US, stealing its secrets, robbing it of its weapons research, selling the fruits of these robberies off to America's declared enemies and on the international arms market - all the while yammering about their "persecution status" and invoking the ever-handy "Holocaust"! In the past, America always caved in to Israel. Recently, a Hebrew Israeli radio station, Kol Yisrael, on October 3rd reported that during an argument in an Israeli cabinet meeting, Shimon Peres warned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that unless he would heed American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians, he could cause America to turn against Israel. In a fit of anger, Sharon responded to Peres: "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." Could one understand that a man, or a group of men around Sharon, might be persuaded to humiliate that hated Bush clan and the constituency and forces it represented, by allowing a lesson to be taught to that uppity upstart - or whatever else they might call the young President and his "gentile" Cabinet? Could that line of thinking also explain why Sharon's personal security advisor, General Uzi Dayan, delivered a detailed plan prepared by the Sharon government weeks before the event to "combat terrorism"? Would that also be the reason why the American media, within hours of the attack, was able to talk live to Israeli generals, diplomats, former prime ministers, at least one of whom, "Bibi" Netanyahu, said that the attack on the WTC was "very good" for Israel. Here is the exact quote, published in the New York Times on September 12, the day after the attack: "... when former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked about the bombing, he immediately blurted out, 'It's very good.' =1D Then realizing what he said, he edited his statement by saying, 'Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.'" Every one of these Israelis and the former Clinton Administration Jewish staffers, within hours of the attack - while victims were still dying in the rubble and ruins - were presenting the Bush Administration in the media with what sounded like a convenient shopping list of targets Israel would have loved for an angry American President to take out by massive air assault! At first it looked as though the young president would do just that when he angrily told the world: "You are either with us or against us". The Vice President, too, was pretty war-like in his language. Only Colin Powell, the man the media had come to deride, even ridicule and character assassinate in the weeks leading up to September 11, kept his temper under control and was obviously a steadying influence in the Cabinet. Largely thanks to him, cooler heads prevailed. Soon, Sharon was mouthing off in Israel like some disgruntled teenager because President Bush did not want him in his coalition against terrorism. Time and again, the Israeli press reported how peeved Sharon was - how Sharon was ignored, lectured by the young President and pressured to give in on concessions he would never have considered before the September 11 attack. If the circle around Sharon had thought that September 11 was good for Israel, so far it has not turned out that way. On the contrary! Israel's relations with the US have seldom been worse. Does President Bush know something about the "Nine-Eleven" conspiracy - and Israel's knowledge of it - that he has not shared with the rest of the country and the world? Make no mistake about it - if a link can or ever will be successfully made that Sharon or others around him, or even some of his people in the US, knew about the planned terrorist attack, or God forbid, had a hand in executing it - I shudder to think of the possible consequences! But remember: so far, there is no hard evidence! There is conjecture, circumstantial evidence at best - and lots of conspiracy theories! [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animated contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. "Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." (Samuel Adams) From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Nov 7 17:47:53 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:47:53 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/7/2001 - "Will tears buy bandages?" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 7, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I neglected to give you a reference about the Udo Voigt interview I ran day before yesterday. It was in FINAL CONFLICT, a quarterly magazine coming out of Britain. Their website is www.politicalsoldier.net My apologies! ===== On to the ZGram: This Truth-Seeking Missile was being sent by the indefatiguable Mackenzie Paine, and I am passing it on. It comes in two parts. The first, below the line, was evidently written by an upset Israeli. The second part is a summary by Dr. Majed Nassar, Health Work Committee Deputy Director at Beit Sahour Medical Center. This is a shocking document! [START] To Dr. Majed Nassar By Aharon Shabbetai Ha-aretz, Friday, 2 November 2001 The electronic mail was not silent for even a moment. For the past three days, a pogrom has washed over six cities like a muddy wave. A doctor from Beit Sahour collected portions of blood for the wounded of Bethlehem. But it is not possible to send them. The tanks are besieging the hospital Therefore a youth dead from sniper fire was brought to him from Manger Square. Dear Dr. Nassar, can words Cause the finger of the sniper to tremble? Will tears buy bandages? You stopped counting your wounded (you write today) Some of them are lying outside. Will you be comforted by the fact that these tanks that kill In my name are digging the deepest grave possible for my compatriots? ---------------------------------- The Israeli tanks left Bethlehem last week, leaving in their wake a trail of destruction. At the same time, another process of destruction was begun in numerous other places including Jabalia Refugee Camp, Beit Lahia, Tulkarem, and Nablus. The destruction continues, but unfortunately for the people living there, these places are not as famous as Bethlehem. The Bethlehem Municipality has estimated the damages caused by one week of Israeli brutality to be over US$ 15 million, not to mention the relatively high number of people killed and injured. Since the beginning of the Intifada just over a year ago, 791 Palestinians have been killed (as well as 190 Israelis).* Among the dead are 200 children, 4 physicians, 6 paramedics, 3 journalists, and 32 women. Twenty-five persons were killed by Israeli settlers. Ninety-three people were assassinated. Of the 31,139 persons injured, 7,500 are children and 1,400 are women. Ninety-eight ambulances have come under fire and were damaged or destroyed. One Palestinian ambulance was taken over by the Israeli army which used it in its invasion of Azzoun and Salfit where numerous villagers were arrested. In the month of October 2001 alone, 87 Palestinians were killed. Since January 2001, the Israeli government has begun 25 new Israeli settlements. More land was confiscated around Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Municipality approved the building of 270 new housing units. Eighteen hectares of land from Sheikh Jarrah and 12 hectares from Esawiyyeh in Jerusalem were confiscated in addition to 30 hectares near Ramallah and 14 hectares near Sammou/Hebron. One hundred new military posts were erected. Thousands of trees were uprooted (over 8,100 in October 2001). Settlers have poisoned and destroyed agricultural land in the area of Toubas. Water reservoirs and pipe systems were destroyed by bulldozers. In October 2001, a total of 467 houses were destroyed either partially or completely. In Hebron, seven homes were completely destroyed, and the Israeli army occupied 20 other houses and evacuated their inhabitants. In October, 328 Palestinians were detained and 342 cars were destroyed. Also due to the siege, ninety-two schools were completely closed. Several schools were shot at or raided. The economy continues to deteriorate. The unemployment rate is between fifty and seventy percent. Every day there is an increasing number of patients coming to HWC centers who cannot afford to pay even the minimal fees we charge for examination or medication. As many of the specialized doctors are unable to reach their working places, the number of patients receiving specialized services at our centers has dropped considerably. At the same time, we receive daily many applications for work, any work. The Health Work Committees is asking the international community for help and support, not only for its medical centers and programs but also for the entire Palestinian people. In January 2001, the Health Work Committees introduced an emergency plan outlining the necessary steps to be taken in order to ensure the health and coherence of Palestinian society. Unfortunately, only a few organizations have dealt with this strategy in a serious manner, although it was adopted by all attending governmental and non-governmental bodies. The following are the four major points that should be addressed in the short term: 1. Acquisition of funding to ensure that basic operating costs of all medical and health facilities are covered; 2. Acquisition of funding to ensure that necessary emergency and other medical equipment is upgraded and/or replaced according to need; 3. Assurance that medical personnel and outreach teams have free access to their workplaces; 4. Acquisition of funding to ensure ongoing medical and health care staff training, including training in basic mental health services; What has Israel gained through its invasion of Palestinian cities? If the aim was destruction, then Israel has most certainly succeeded. If the aim, however, is to crush the Palestinian resistance movement against Israeli military occupation, then the Israeli Government and Sharon have failed miserably, and will continue to fail in the future. As the poem above reminds us, it is never a comfort to see someone dying. It is never a comfort to dig graves. It is very sad, indeed, to see that the Israeli government is committing and repeating the same old mistakes that colonial powers committed ages ago. They can never win. It is time for Israel to let the Palestinians go. It is time for Israel to leave the occupied territories and not come back, except as friends with peaceful intentions. Dr. Majed Nassar HWC Deputy Director *All statistics are taken from the latest newsletter of the Palestinian Council for Justice and Peace (November 2001) Health Work Committees/Beit Sahour Medical Center POB 44, Beit Sahour, Palestine tel: 972-2-277-4444 fax: 972-2-277-5567 e-mail: bsmc@p-ol.com [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "Apply the cui bono principle." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Nov 8 16:04:45 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 08:04:45 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/8/2001 - "Sobran: Weighing the costs" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 8, 2000 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 8, 2000 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: There is one statistic that is buzzing around in my head like an obnoxious mosquito, and it is this: Allegedly, America has paid to Israel the grand amount of $90 billion - supposedly to help to get them on their feet after the "victimization" of the "six million gassed Jews" during Hitler's regime. I am simplifying, of course, because nobody knows the *real* amount that has been paid to Israel, thanks to America's largesse. No one knows how many Jews have died in World War II because that information is still under lock and key in Arolsen - while Revisionist research suggests, backed by forensic data, that not a single one of those dead Jews was gassed. But be that as it may - here is some grammar school arithmetic: $90 billion translates into $90,000 million. Divide a fictional 6 million victims into $90,000 million - what do you get? A hefty $15,000 MILLION for EACH unverified "victim"! And this is not counting all indirect aid such as grants, loans etc. It is not counting the money that post-World-War II Germans have paid in "guilt money" - amounts which surpass the help that America has given its "ally". Now most of us have never seen $1 million, but to give the stats above some boundaries, consider that to build one brand new, sparkling grammar school is estimated to cost about $1 million. 15,000 schools could have been built by the amount EACH so-called, non-verified "victim" has cost the American tax payers! With that in mind, read the Sobran column below - and try to keep your blood pressure from going through the roof. [START] Weighing the Costs | October 23, 2001 by Joe Sobran Weighing the Costs | October 23, 2001 by Joe Sobran One reason the Middle East has always baffled me is that we hear such contradictory things about the state of Israel. Israel's defenders make it sound like heaven; its detractors make it sound like hell. On the one hand, its citizens, including Arabs, enjoy liberties denied by most states in the region; on the other hand, it deals harshly and cruelly with non-Jews, especially in the occupied territories. A Christian has to be particularly disturbed by the recent killings of innocent Christians, including children, in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ. The exact circumstances are unclear, because our news media don't report much on the plight of Christians in the region; but it's hard to believe these violent deaths were unavoidable. Were they inflicted by weapons supplied by the United States? The question is not whether Israel is heaven or hell; it's neither. It's a deeply troubled country, and the real question, for Americans, is whether the fate of the United States should be tied to it. It's understandable that the Israelis should want U.S. support; but what is the cost to Americans? There is the monetary cost, in billions of tax dollars per year; there is the hatred of this country that is exacerbated, if not wholly caused, by the U.S.-Israel alliance; and that hatred has now cost thousands of American lives, with the toll rising. It would be one thing if Israel's American advocates frankly admitted the costs and argued that America has nevertheless gained more than it has lost by the alliance. But they don't. They talk as if the alliance has been all profit to this country, with no downside. They contend that the 9/11 attacks had little or nothing to do with the U.S.-Israel alliance. Some of Israel's advocates are even arguing, as former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu does, that Arabs hate Israel because of the United States, and not vice versa! Even by the standards of political propaganda, which assumes the stupidity of the masses, this is absurd. If it were true, the Israelis would end their ties to the United States in a flash. A decade ago, Patrick Buchanan was accused of anti- Semitism for referring to Israel's "amen corner in this country." But nobody denied that such an Amen Corner exists, including many journalists, Christian as well as Jewish, who constantly urge the U.S. to go to war against Israel's enemies -- especially, at the moment, Iraq. To acknowledge this is to incur the charge of raising "the canard of dual loyalty." Now it would be grossly unfair to accuse all American Jews of giving their chief loyalty to Israel. But that some Jews do it is beyond question. What is the pro-Israel lobby in this country seeking, if not at least the partial sacrifice of American interests to Israeli interests? That's what lobbies are for: sacrificing general interests to particular interests. Farmers' lobbies do it, labor unions do it, big corporations do it. They always pretend that what is good for the narrow interest is good for everyone, just as the pro-Israel lobby always argues that what is good for Israel is good for America. The pro-Israel lobby never acknowledges that there may be sharp divergences between the two countries' interests. Having read its literature for many years, I can't recall a single case when Israel's advocates have said: "Policy X would be to Israel's advantage, but it would hurt the United States, so it should be avoided." Even "dual" loyalty would sometimes put U.S. interests first. Worse than the pro-Israel lobby itself are the American politicians who constantly pander to it. They act on the assumption that Jewish voters and campaign donors place Israeli interests above American interests. And as long as they act on this assumption without putting it into words, nobody comments on the "anti- Semitic" implications of their behaving as if the "canard" were solid fact. Even when the Israelis kill American sailors or steal American military secrets, these fine Americans never express outrage or demand investigations. Nothing could better illustrate the sagacity of George Washington's warnings against the "foreign corruption" to which republics are susceptible. Israel has become so dependent on American aid that even to ask for candor about the interests at stake is to risk the charge of being "anti-Israel" -- as if seeking the unvarnished truth amounted to declaring war on Israel. Israel's defenders imply that Israel depends not only on America, but on false propaganda. Don't they ever listen to themselves? [END] This column is archived at http://www.sobran.com/columns/011023.shtml. To subscribe to the Sobran columns, see http://www.sobran.com/e-mail.shtml or http://www.griffnews.com for details and samples or call 800-513-5053 or write fran@griffnews.com. Copyright (c) 2001 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate, www.griffnews.com. All rights reserved. ===== Thought for the Day: "Even some Jews are waking up!" (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Nov 10 12:57:12 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 04:57:12 -0800 Subject: ZGram - November 9, 2001 - "A Question of Guts" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 9, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: More about Uri Avnery - unfortunately I was not given a reference where this fairly recent essay appeared. I'd appreciate receiving it if some of my readers might know. [START] A Question of Guts By Uri Avnery The United States is about to be entangled in Afghanistan. Gone is the idea that it is possible to vanquish the Taliban by aerial bombardment. Gone is the illusion that some tribal fighters, who were given the grandiose name of the "Northern Coalition", could put up a real fight, much as the Israelis lost the illusion that the Phalangists would really fight for them in Lebanon. Gone is the hope that local warlords would betray the Taliban and join the Americans. The Taliban can rely on three formidable sources of strength: tough Afghan patriotism that has in the past beaten the British Empire and the Soviet superpower; extreme Islamic fanaticism; and the tribal loyalty of the Pashtun, the largest group in the country. The very poverty of the mountainous country constitutes a forbidding obstacle to any invader. Afghanistan may turn out to be a second Vietnam. It may suck the American army in, causing it to sink into the morass of an exhausting war of attrition. The aim is too elusive, with no end in sight. And in the meantime Osama bin Laden - he or someone else of his kind - will exploit the growing sympathy for him in the Arab and Muslim world in order to commit more and more severe acts of terrorism in the vulnerable United States. In this situation, America will need even more to attract to its side the Arab masses and to fortify the pro-American Arab regimes that are needed for the war-coalition. That means: putting an end to the Israeli occupation that poisons the region and settling, once and for all, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arial Sharon has already shown that he is determined to sabotage this process. He openly challenges the Bush administration and tells him: Let's see who'll blink first. One could argue that this is direct help for the Taliban, spiking the wheels of the American war machine at a critical time. Sharon doesn't care. It is much more important for him to keep the settlements where he put them and to prevent the establishment of the Palestinian State Bush spoke about. Thus the Bush-Sharon contest joins the Bush-Taliban one. But perhaps the decisive contest will take place in America itself: between Bush and the pro-Israel lobby. This lobby is indeed a mighty force. It is enough to stay a few days in New-York and Washington to gain a healthy respect for its potency. Just as an illustration: last week I took part, as an Israeli peace-camp activist, in a press-conference arranged on Capitol Hill with the participation of members of Congress. The aim was to support the appeal by Israeli and American-Jewish peace organizations urging the US government to come forward with a resolute peace initiative for the Middle East, as a part of the war against terrorism. Dozens of Congressmen and Congresswomen had promised to attend, but in the end only four gave their support. The others were frightened off by the lobby. When I got to the place, I was astounded by the number of reporters who were there. A battery of TV cameras was focused on the podium, the representatives of some of the most important media had come, too. The press conference itself was not enough for them, they stood around for a long time afterwards, asking me questions. The same thing happened the next day. At the Press Club, journalists from almost all the important American newspapers and newspaper-chains came and questioned me at length about our analyses and proposals. What of all of this appeared in the media? You have guessed right: not a single word. The lobby has frightened the glorious, free American media, notwithstanding the fact that the subject concerns the basic national interest of their country at this critical juncture. That is Bush's real test: Does he have the guts to fight Sharon and his supporters in the Congress and the media? When I visited the State Department on the same day, I found that people there were skeptical. They all understood where the essential interest of the United States lie, but not all were convinced that Collin Powell's determined attitude would win the day. If Bush remains steadfast, he will perceive that all over the United states new Jewish peace groups have sprung up to challenge the lobby, demanding an American peace initiative. The voice of the Israeli peace movement is also attracting attention. But at the end of the day, there remains a simple question: Is there enough political courage in Washington for the start of a peace initiative that will serve the national interests of the United States, as well as the real interests of Israel and Palestine? October 31 2001 Uri Avnery is a peace activist and former member of the Israeli Knesset. [END] ===== Thought for the Day: A subtle divide is growing between the interests of the U.S. and Israel, its strongest ally in the Middle East. (Chicago Tribune, Nov 9, 2001, in "Going Separate Ways") From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Nov 11 01:28:26 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 17:28:26 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/10/2001 - "Stalinist Israel Firsters in Times of War" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 10, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Some of my readers have complained that I no longer write original commentary, as I used to do starting in 1996, and restrict myself to running other people's essays. The reason for that is two-fold: Time: Since we moved the revisionist outreach of the Zundel-Haus to Tennessee, I essentially do the office work and mailings that five full-time employees used to do. A day has only so many hours. Efficiency: It takes hours and much research and reading as well as peace of mind and proper focus to compose editorials. Why reinvent the wheel when it has already been done? In 1996, when I first introduced my ZGrams, only a handful of articles and op-ed pieces pertained to our struggle. It is very different now because many websites specialize in content-ordered links. Bear with me. There is only so much I can do - especially since the very abundance of quality writing on the Net needs to be spread rather than duplicated. Furthermore, as my supporters and "Lebensraum" newsletter readers know, I am regrouping and refocusing and want to spend more time editing rather than writing, condensing and repackaging our message that historical lies born as a result of wartime atrocity propaganda is having hurtful consequences all over the world - and that there is merit in cleaning up deceit and mind manipulation. Here is one readable article I found on a website called http://www.nilemedia.com/ It has any number of articles which, judged by their titles, seem worth perusing. Below is a noteworthy sample: [START] Stalinist Israel Firsters in Times of War By Ahmed Amr. - Editor of Nile Watch "Until 1948, there was no Israel. The United Nations took Palestinian land and gave it to a number of Jewish terrorists to rule -- Jewish terrorists who had bombed and killed Palestinians and others in an effort to force hands of power to see an Israel formed. Today's freedom fighter, in many cases, was yesterday's terrorist." Because of this quote in a Sept 19 editorial, the Oneida Daily Dispatch fired Managing Editor Jean Ryan and City Editor Dale Seth. And you thought it was a free country. It is, until you take on the Stalinist Israel Firsters. They immediatel mounted one of their campaigns and the result was that two courageous journalists were out of a job. Journalists, on the whole, don't make a lot of money. Like many other working class Americans, they live pay check to pay check. So, when their livelihood is threatened, not to mention their reputations, other journalists pay attention. If you want to move up to a major paper like the New York Times and the Washington Post, you need certain bona fides, including how to properly bow in the presence of the Israeli Lobby. They are the kind of Lobby that does not threaten to cancel subscriptions, but also can withdraw lucrative advertising contracts. The Zionists are control freaks on the boundaries of any debate relating to the Middle East. They want the first word, the last word and most of the middle. Individual journalists who resist their incessant harping about the greatness of everything Israeli, can find themselves labeled anti-Semites or worst. These Zionist media freaks see the world in black and white; you are either for Israel or you are for Auchwitz. What about the Palestinians? Well, they apparently were just rude enough to stand in the way of the 'Chosen People' returning from Polish and Russian exile to righteously dismember the ancient villages and towns of the native people of the Holy Land. Even today, as Israeli bombs and bullets wreak havoc in the streets of Palestine, CNN is reporting that the Israelis are 'patrolling' the birth-place of Jesus. The constant Yiddish din about Israeli democracy never fails to ignore that half the people living in historic Palestine are now classified as second-class Israeli-Arabs or have to endure endless humiliation from a despotic Israeli occupation army. And, if a journalist brings up 1948, well off with their heads. And so it has been, for fifty years. These days, our media lords, are especially sensitive to anything that might shed light on the history of the Palestinian people. If they start telling you the truth now, they will also be the need to explain the incessant lying they have force fed the American public, all in service to a foriegn state. One does not have to probe the last fifty years, when a single year will do. Reviewing the coverage of Ariel Sharon's reign of terror and how it was covered by the New York Times is very instructive. Sharon is a war criminal. Compared to him, Waldheim is a choir boy, Haider of Austria a saint and Senator Kerry's misdeeds in Vietnam a mere prank. Sharon is up there with Milosovic and Sadam Hussein. He is a serial mass murderer from Qibya to Sabra and Shatila. It is rumored that Sulzberger ceased hounding Senator Kerry and Haider, when the subject of Qibya was mentioned. At the New York Times, Qibya and Sabra and Shatila are unmentionable. So, why would a major 'American' paper, so initimately involved with Israel, where they have fully staffed news bureau, bury the atrocities committed by an Israeli head of state? Well, for the same reason journalists get fired for daring to question the manner in which 78% of Palestine was 'vacated' in 1948 to make room for a State as Jewish as England is English. But, that kind of history was supposed to have been already deeply buried in some obscure archives. The Israel Firsters never take kindly to anyone who challenges their fictional narrative of what exactly happened to the Palestinians in 1948. The State Department would do everybody a favor if it issued an official 'American' narrative of what happened in 1948. They have the documents. It was a Zionist agitator working at the State Department that actually drew the 'partition plan' of 1947 that allocated the choicest 56% to the Jewish State. Incidentally, this 'Jewish State' was gerrymandered to have a bare Jewish majority, since these recently arrived Jewish immigrants, armed to the teeth by the British, amounted to only a third of the population of Mandate Palestine. Those who argue against these figures, can refer to the partition plan itself and the associated documentation. There is also the myth that the Arabs refused the partition plan and moved against Israel in 1948. Well, that is not Ben Gurion's version. The Jews of Palestine had already conquered almost 50% of the area alloted to the Palestinian State by the time the first Arab soldier joined the battle. All these Israeli myths have been roundly debunked by Simha Flapan and other Israeli historians. Those who still parrot the official mythology are practicing a vile type of cruelty. Because basically they are telling the Palestinians that their 'expulsion' was a good thing. It was during this critical period that the Irgun and the Stern Gangs (Begin and Shamir) were involved in blowing up the King David Hotel, assassinating intermediaries, killing British soldiers and assaulting and deporting Palestinian civilians. So, did those two journalists deserve to be fired? Or is this the Stalinist Isaeli Lobby flexing its muscle to assure that no American journalist deviates from the Likudnik party Line? [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "The British are on a constant drip of anti German hate. WW2 is alive and well. Of course this is not 'revisionist' material but the constant drip, drip of this sort of material does colour peoples minds." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Nov 12 20:56:13 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 12:56:13 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/11/2001 - "...but is it good for the Jews?" Part I Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 11, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Here comes another five-part Zgram: The article below is an extraordinary document of Jewish special pleading, even in retreat. It is a document laying bare amazing guilt and Angst of the consequences of what this Jewish writer, and others, have caused to happen by their incessant meddling in American immigration matters. Its title is "The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy". It is written by Stephen Steinlight, who "... was for more than five years Director of National Affairs (domestic policy) at the American Jewish Committee." There is also a telling disclaimer at the end: "The views expressed in this essay do not reflect the current policy position of AJC with regard to immigration." Such a disclaimer is, of course, standard procedure. We may safely assume that the AJC wants to still milk its old alliances for every drop of political leverage it can get out of them. We may likewise divine that Steinlight's public venting of all his (personal?) astonishing fears, admissions of errors made, short term gain for long term pain, is what the moneyed Jewish elite is thinking! Let's not forget: The AJC is the old, landed Jewish gentry, the Old Money - not what the shrill, abrasive, in-your-face upstart Rabbi Hiers, Rabbi Coopers or shake-down con artists and ambulance chasers of the World Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Center etc. represent. When the AJC speaks, Power speaks! This document was posted on the website of an organization called Center for Immigration Studies, which explains itself as follows: "The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985. It is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of the economic, social, demographic, fiscal, and other impacts of immigration on the United States. "It is the Center's mission to expand the base of public knowledge and understanding of the need for an immigration policy that gives first concern to the broad national interest. The Center is animated by a pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted." What you have in what I am chopping up into a delectable five-part ZGram is a Jewish intellectual who is jumping ship, abandoning the old orthodoxy of open-arm immigration for safer ground, while there is time - and who is trying to ingratiate himself in the changing political mood and landscape by trying to redirect a horridly destructive immigration policy, devastating to Jewish power and influence in the USA, and attempting to carve out a different niche for his tribal brethren threatened to be overwhelmed by non-Jew immigration numbers. Angst written all over this one! Herewith Stephen Steinlight: [START] Preface: Challenging A Crumbling Consensus This piece is the fruit of an authentic and deeply felt conversion experience, but much as one hankers to grab the reader's attention with a dramatic retelling of a great and sudden epiphany, it didn't happen that way. My change of heart, of thought, came gradually, even reluctantly. It was the product of a long evolution, one that occurred incrementally and unevenly over the years I spent as an advocate in the immigration debate who came increasingly to doubt and now, finally, to disown his own case and cause. The conversion is also the result of the consumption of many books and monographs on many aspects of the issue, as well as my own reflections on the innumerable (and often interminable) coalition meetings and conferences I attended on the subject. Writing in the immediate wake of the nightmare America has experienced (I live in Manhattan and watched the second plane strike the World Trade Center), it must be added that the enormities committed by Islamist terrorists in my city, Washington, and Pennsylvania have given these thoughts greatly increased emotional urgency. But they developed unremarkably, slowly, steadily. Most of all, my conversion is the consequence of my contact over the years with Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and the Center's work. We dialogued and formally debated on several occasions, and I moderated public forums in which Mark took part. If dialogue has any meaning, if speakers actually listen to each other rather than close their ears and merely wait impatiently to say their say, then the possibility that one can change as a result of what one hears must be acknowledged. The Socratic method was alive and well in our exchanges, and I did. But, as I've noted, the change came slowly, the process recalling not St. Paul on the road to Damascus but the Latin proverb Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat, "constant dripping hollows out a stone." My thought was also significantly influenced by a superb conference on immigration, "Thy People Shall Be My People: Immigration and Citizenship in America," sponsored by the Robert R. McCormick Tribune =46oundation in July of 2000. Perhaps its principal contribution to challenging my point of view was having the opportunity to listen to my own side's thesis articulated by those willing to take it to its extreme, and their reductio ad absurdum made plain the very great dangers within it. In a rare experiment in candid public discourse about America's changing demography, American Jewry needs to toss reticence and evasion to the winds, stop censoring ourselves for fear of offending the entirely imaginary arbiters of civic virtue, and bluntly and publicly pose the same questions we anxiously ponder in private. The community should stop letting the thought police of the more extreme incarnations of multiculturalism squelch it, feel compelled to genuflect in their direction, or unconsciously internalize or be guilt-tripped into validating their identity politics that masquerade as pluralism. By liberating themselves from these inhibitions we will unavoidably profane the altars of some of our own politically correct household gods, including the present liberal/ethnic/corporate orthodoxy on immigration. We will also risk upsetting not a few old friends and allies, and some of the newer ones we're already cultivating. To whom, one and all, we will need to explain our concerns with patience and empathy. But we should ask the hard questions no matter what, recognizing that only straight talk will get us anywhere. We cannot consider the inevitable consequences of current trends - not least among them diminished Jewish political power - with detachment. Our present privilege, success, and power do not inure us from the effect of historical processes, and history has not come to an end, even in America. We have an enormous stake in the outcome of this process, and we should start acting as if we understood that we do. A people that lost one-third of its world population within living memory due to its powerlessness cannot contemplate the loss of power with complacency. We rightly ask, "If I am not for myself who will be for me?" It must be acknowledged from the start that for many decent, progressive Jewish folk merely asking such fundamental questions is tantamount to heresy, and meddling with them is to conjure the devil. But if we hope to persuade the organized Jewish community to adopt a new stance of enlightened self-interest with regard to the immigration debate, a debate that will surely become increasingly bitter, fractious, and politicized in the crudest partisan ways in the days ahead we have little choice. Of equal urgency, and inextricably linked to that debate, is the mission of finding ways to strengthen national unity and social cohesion in America by resuscitating patriotic assimilation under demanding, historically unprecedented circumstances. This is emphatically not a time for expending much energy worrying about political good manners and seeking to anticipate each and every qualm of our hypersensitive current political allies (I hope soon-to-be former allies), not to mention the reactions of some of our own flock. And we can't afford to continue putting our heads in the sand, appealing as that is. The problem - and there is a problem - is not going to go away. Unlike the case with earlier eras of immigration, there appears to be no hiatus in the offing. According to figures just pre-leased from the recent Census, the number of Mexicans who have come to the United States legally and/or illegally has doubled in one decade. Leaving Inviolate the Historical Holy of Holies It is critically important to state at the outset that this is neither to wax nostalgic (a culturally inconceivable stance) nor - Heaven forbid - to find redeeming features in the evil, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and Red Menace-based Great Pause in the 1920s that trapped hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe. My then-teenage father and his brothers, escaping the widespread bloody pogroms taking place throughout the Russian Empire during the civil war that followed the Revolution, were very nearly stranded by it and left to the tender mercies of General "Pogromchik" Petlyura's Russian and Ukrainian Nationalist army. They managed to ship out of Danzig, walking to that Baltic port all the way from a small village outside Kiev, and get in just under the wire before the door slammed shut. Anyone familiar with the national/ethnic quotas that formed the basis for U.S. immigration policy in the years that followed will note not only their vilely discriminatory attitude toward Eastern and Southern Europeans (Jews most prominently), but also that even the tiny quotas allotted these undesirables were rarely met. So extreme was the anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic restrictionist attitude. America's vast moral failure to offer refuge to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution, a story told so powerfully by David S. Wyman in his two books and that of many subsequent historians, can never be forgotten. The story is told in the permanent exhibition of the United States Holocaust Museum, but with less prominence than it deserves, no doubt out of concern for appearing overly critical of the nation on whose national mall the museum stands. While the U.S. administration was fully informed how and where millions were being murdered in Europe, only a handful were grudgingly granted safety here. The story of the ship the St. Louis is perhaps the most poignant and widely known instance of this monstrous policy, but scores of Jews seeking refuge could tell equally appalling tales of grotesque treatment. Along with the trade in African slaves and the institution of slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, America's abandonment of the Jews to Nazi annihilation is arguably the greatest moral failure in its history. This shameful, frightening history has formed, as it were, the sacred moral basis for mainstream Jewish support for generous legal immigration. But Jewish memories of the failure of U.S. refugee policy and a national-origins immigration policy abandoned some 36 years ago should no longer, can no longer, serve as the basis for communal thinking on this issue. We are, in the first instance, not speaking here of refugees from tyranny or oppressed minorities, but of vast numbers of immigrants seeking economic betterment, and, secondly, we are not advocating an anti-immigration position - far from it - but rather a sensible one that is consonant with the American dream. Put simply, what we are advocating is a pro-immigrant policy of lower immigration. Also, let's confess it: It would be ridiculous to mistake the organized Jewish community's hesitancy to address the subject of the great cultural transformation of America for genuine equanimity. We are, after all, standing on the edge of what is arguably the most profound social transformation in the nation's history. It is a demographic transformation that, most experts believe, will result in a majority non-white population sometime before the end of the new century. A new American nation is coming into being before our very eyes, and many in the Jewish world are worried about it; some are even terrified. For the most part we continue to mouth the traditional policy line affirming generous - really, unlimited - immigration and open borders, though our own constituency is deeply divided on the policy, supports it with diminished enthusiasm, and even our legislative advocates seem to do so without conviction. Doubt has been growing for some years now. For those familiar with the behavior of mainstream Jewish organizations within the landscape of Washington-based coalitions, or for anyone with any mother wit, it is a commonplace that Jews find themselves on the political right with regard to almost any issue one might name on cold days in hell. But this has been regularly the case for at least nearly a decade at meetings of the National Immigration Forum, the key lobbying group for large-scale immigration, a group in which the Jewish organizations present are often alone in opposing what is, in essence, a policy of open borders. Yet, for the time being, as if on automatic pilot, Jewish organizations repeat the familiar mantras and continue with their uncritical "celebration" of diversity. (Diversity meaning, of course, diversity of race and ethnicity but not opinion.) Like sleepwalkers, we instinctively plod along the corridors in the familiar patterns and pursue old-fashioned attempts at "dialogue" with the new constellation of groups while we attempt to get our arms around the New America. (Dialogue frequently being a one-way street where we strive to please our partners at any price, often reinforce stereotypes of Jewish money-grubbing and privilege by promising entrepreneurs of color entr=E9e to business insiders and frequentl= y ask for little in the way of concrete support for our own agenda in return.) Sometimes it also seems as if we're trying to look like value-free sociologists and not give the slightest outward signs of the intense vertigo we're experiencing or the least hint that we may be prepared to reconsider policy. Though we undoubtedly appear green around the gills to those who know us well. For a community that has long advanced an ambitious and unapologetic public agenda, and not infrequently in a rambunctious, in-your-face style, this hesitancy is striking and does not go unnoticed. If unchanged, in the long run it may also prove dangerous. Of course research and reflection are always necessary prerequisites to policy formation or revision, but does anyone seriously doubt that we also assume this meditative posture because it carries no immediate political risks? And this despite the fact that like Americans of all backgrounds, including a high proportion of fairly recently arrived immigrants, much now going on makes us profoundly uneasy, and we can't remain quiet for much longer. Our concern with not giving offense, for not getting precisely the press we want, should not be allowed to strangle our willingness to speak. There are questions of great moment to which we do not have answers, and we shall never find them if we are afraid even to pose them. Also, so long as we remain frozen in an attitude of unwise wise passivity, we treat the new realities as if they were inevitable. We fall into the trap of seeing the reconfiguration of the American sociological, cultural and, perhaps most important for us, political landscape as if it were being carved out by a glacial force of nature before which we were powerless. The Anti-Democratic Nature of the Determinists This tacit surrender to determinism - the belief that economically motivated, unceasing immigration on a vast scale is unstoppable because it is due to inexorable global market forces - makes us complicit in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such surrender also means, ominously, that we have, in effect, accepted the notion that something as momentous as immigration policy - and no public policy arena carries wider implications for the whole of American society - need not, indeed can not, be subject to the democratic will of the American people. Given the rising unpopularity of current policy on immigration and even reports of isolated violence against immigrants nationwide, cutting off democratic channels of redress raises the specter of serious social unrest. Surrender to the alleged inevitable also makes a mockery of the rule of law, as evidenced by President Bush's recent ill-conceived, transparently political, and ethnically divisive initiative to grant legal status to some or all of the three to four million Mexican illegal immigrants in the United States. Predictably enough, now comes word the president may compound the error and extend a policy of sanctuary for lawbreakers to illegal immigrants of all backgrounds to satisfy disgruntled new arrivals from other ethnic groups who feel aggrieved. We have come to live within a culture in which illegal immigrants have joined the roster of victims demanding rights, recognition, and recompense; in effect they wish to join the ranks of the only just ethnic recipients of affirmative action: African Americans. Many of the traditional "people of good will" not only find this astounding act of collective social gall appropriate, but also view the satisfaction of the demands of illegal aliens as if they constituted moral imperatives. To make matters even worse, not to be outdone by the president's deft pandering to Mexican-Americans, leading Democrats have proposed a significant extension "on humanitarian grounds" of family-reunification policy, a highly questionable approach to the selection of immigrants in the first place. Where, pray, will all this end? Astonishing data drawn from the 2000 Census indicates that there may be something like nine million illegal residents in the United States. Most people on earth have nothing; if they manage to make it to America they will have something. But do we really wish to construct immigration policy on the catastrophe of global poverty and chaos, and the breakdown of nation-states around the world that threatens to overwhelm all notions of separate nationhood and erode all borders? An appeal based on global misery can know no boundaries and can make no distinctions. And we must continually bear in mind that the Republicans and Democrats pushing these agendas do not do so out of genuine compassion (where were they during the Rwandan genocide?) but in a shabby public relations battle for the Latino, especially Mexican, vote. And no one imagines that we could afford such compassion economically, or that the American people would stand for such a policy if one were explicitly presented. [END] Tomorrow: "Abandoning the Field to Nativism and Xenophobia" =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "Today America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the world government." (Dr. Henry Kissinger, Evian-Les-Bains, France, 1991) From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Nov 12 21:04:08 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 13:04:08 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/12/2001 - "...but is it good for the Jews" - Part II Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 13, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I continue with Stephen Steinlight's essay, Part II< wherein he is pulling back from rampant immigration policies - almost entirely instigated and promulgated in the first place and to America's detriment by his yarmulke-wearing tribal brethren. In this part of his essay, he begs us to - guess what?! [START] Abandoning the Field to Nativism and Xenophobia Not far down the list of awful consequences, our unspoken acquiescence leaves the anti-determinist camp, with some notable exceptions (such as the thoughtful and moderate Center for Immigration Studies), largely in the hands of classic anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and racist nativist forces. The white "Christian" supremacists who have historically opposed either all immigration or all non-European immigration (Europeans being defined as Nordic or Anglo-Saxon), a position re-asserted by Peter Brimelow, must not be permitted to play a prominent role in the debate over the way America responds to unprecedented demographic change. Nor should the anti-immigrant demagoguery of some black leadership be permitted to go unchallenged. To allow this opens the door to inter-ethnic conflict and a potential white ethnic (and black) backlash of unimaginable proportions, including a potentially large, violent component, especially if the economy continues to sour, joblessness rises sharply, and anti-immigrant attitudes harden. In good conscience and out of self-interest we must not abandon immigration reform to those who would have kept our forebears out of America, including those sent away to be annihilated in the Holocaust. But our failure to adjust policy to radically changed and changing realities, our continued failure to distinguish refugee policy from immigration policy, and our continued support (at least on paper) of anachronistic and irrelevant positions cedes them center stage and a wide opportunity to do great mischief. We must be willing to revise our positions and re-enter and reinvigorate the debate. We need to rescue it from the influence of those who understand America not in terms of its abstract constitutional principles, not as embodied in the Bill of Rights, but rather in some Buchananite version of blut un boden. It was recently reported in the Tennessean that Buchanan's Reform Party has, unsurprisingly enough, made all-out anti-immigration a central plank of its platform, calling for a 10-year moratorium on all immigration. It must be admitted that this attitude clearly resonates with a majority of Americans. Every time representative samples of Americans are presented this option on opinion surveys of all sorts they support it, though usually it is couched in the context of a five-year moratorium. We are not advocating surrender to the thoughtless mob, but we are advocating the design of policy closer to where the American people actually are with regard to the issue, at the same time that we morally educate them to extend the parameters of their sense of community. Here is a good role for the church. Equally, and more politically awkward for many Jews, we must save the pro-immigration argument from its own most extreme and uncritical proponents. Especially from those who see unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico (in the 1990s the source of one-third of all immigration to the United States and fully 50 percent of illegal immigration) as a brilliant strategy in an undeclared, low-intensity, and thus far remarkably successful war of Reconquista. With over 8 percent of Mexico's population already here, and who knows what additional percentage on the way, the notion of a de facto Reconquista, especially in the Southwest where the Mexican share of immigration is astronomical, sounds less and less like nativist hyperbole. It should be added that immigration from the rest of Central and South America and the Caribbean accounts for an additional 23 percent, for a total Hispanic/Caribbean share of 1990s immigration of about 55 percent. Posing the Sphinx Questions What are some of those large vexing questions we would prefer not to speak aloud? Let's throw out a few and see how many sleepers we can awaken. The big one for starters: is the emerging new multicultural American nation good for the Jews? Will a country in which enormous demographic and cultural change, fueled by unceasing large-scale non-European immigration, remain one in which Jewish life will continue to flourish as nowhere else in the history of the Diaspora? In an America in which people of color form the plurality, as has already happened in California, most with little or no historical experience with or knowledge of Jews, will Jewish sensitivities continue to enjoy extraordinarily high levels of deference and will Jewish interests continue to receive special protection? Does it matter that the majority non-European immigrants have no historical experience of the Holocaust or knowledge of the persecution of Jews over the ages and see Jews only as the most privileged and powerful of white Americans? Is it important that Latinos, who know us almost entirely as employers for the menial low-wage cash services they perform for us (such a blowing the leaves from our lawns in Beverly Hills or doing our laundry in Short Hills), will soon form one quarter of the nation's population? Does it matter that most Latino immigrants have encountered Jews in their formative years principally or only as Christ killers in the context of a religious education in which the changed teachings of Vatican II penetrated barely or not at all? Does it matter that the politics of ethnic succession - colorblind, I recognize - has already resulted in the loss of key Jewish legislators (the brilliant Stephen Solarz of Brooklyn was one of the first of these) and that once Jewish "safe seats" in Congress now are held by Latino representatives? Far more potentially perilous, does it matter to Jews - and for American support for Israel when the Jewish State arguably faces existential peril - that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States? That undoubtedly at some point in the next 20 years Muslims will outnumber Jews, and that Muslims with an "Islamic agenda" are growing active politically through a widespread network of national organizations? That this is occurring at a time when the religion of Islam is being supplanted in many of the Islamic immigrant sending countries by the totalitarian ideology of Islamism of which vehement anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism form central tenets? Will our status suffer when the Judeo-Christian cultural construct yields, first, to a Judeo-Christian-Muslim one, and then to an even more expansive sense of national religious identity? It must be added that reliable data on the precise number of Muslims currently living in the United States is extremely difficult to come by. For reasons that appear simultaneously self-evident and self-serving, spokespersons from the organized Muslim community regularly cite the figure of six million Muslims. The number is chosen because it constitutes both a form of demographic riposte to the hated figure of the six million Jewish victims of Nazism that Muslims believe confers vast moral and political advantages on Jews and, secondly, it allows Muslims to claim they have already achieved numerical parity with American Jews. But many demographers and public opinion survey specialists find this figure specious, and place the number far lower. Lower estimates range from three and a half million to as few as two and a half million, with the bulk of the Muslim population being African-American converts to Islam, not immigrant Muslims. We will not chose among these radically differing figures, but only point out that even the lower estimates suggest that given high Muslim immigration Combined with low Jewish fertility and high levels of intermarriage, the rising Muslim population already represents a serious threat to the interests of the American Jewish community, and the danger will only increase with time. Does it matter that in a period of unprecedented immigration combined with modern technology (e-mails, phones, and fax) and cheap airfare reinforcing the link between immigrant communities and their homelands in ways inconceivable to previous generations of immigrants, little or nothing is being done in a conscious way to respond? That little or nothing is being actively undertaken to foster loyalty to the United States or a thoughtful adhesion to American values? Perhaps most important of all, will American constitutional principles and the culture of democratic pluralism - correctly understood by the organized Jewish community as the chief historic bulwarks protecting America's Jews - weather the ethnic and racial reshuffling and continue to guide the nation and maintain its social cohesion? The current answers to these earthshaking questions are a profound and resounding "maybe," and an equally penetrating and reassuring "Who knows?" We can no longer persist in constructing our policy on sheer ignorance, groundless optimism, upbeat mantras, and sentimental and largely mythological accounts of the acculturation of previous generations of Americans. These questions would be of enormous consequence at any given historical moment, but how much more than at present when the American Jewish community is arguably enjoying the high noon of its political power and influence, a high noon inevitably followed by a slow western decline. While other ethnic/religious groups grow by leaps and bounds, Jewish fertility is flat, its growth rate zero, and we continue to decrease both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the general population. We have a rapidly aging population; rates of intermarriage that run to nearly 50 percent; no effective strategies to harvest intermarried; a religious tradition that eschews the seeking of converts; and triumphant large-scale, full-throttle assimilation into the American cultural landscape is vitiating whatever remains of our separate sense of identity. Surveys also indicate that younger secular Jews are less and less enamored of or identify with Israel, and that Jewish affiliation with Jewish institutions, including synagogues and religious schools, continues to decline steadily. For many, even gastronomic Judaism is only a memory (sushi, burritos, and curry overwhelm deli). The Jewish content in the lives of most U.S. Jews consists of cheaply exploitative cinematic treatments of the Holocaust, gaudy, lavish and meaningless bar and bat mitzvahs that resemble sweet-16 parties, and television sitcoms in which ostensibly "Jewish" characters are universalized as if they were in witness protection programs. There is undeniably something of a renaissance among the growing Modern Orthodox community, especially young adults (and, yes, Jewish history has often worked through the "remnant of Israel"), but it is statistically insignificant in terms of the American Jewish future broadly considered. An intensification of Jewish religious identity and observance among an active but small subset does not offset the overall trend, especially within a community that according to every public opinion survey is the least "religious" in the United States. There is also no telling whether this spiritual renewal - which also affects other branches of Judaism and is part of a general religious revival across the spectrum in America - will prove to be enduring or ephemeral. Religious revivals in America frequently turn into short-lived fads. In his brilliant novel American Pastoral, Philip Roth plots the trajectory of Jewish acculturation through the transformation of Jewish male names over the generations: Sid fathered Stephen who fathered Sean. Roth forgot the next stage, however; a fair number named Sean have sons named Shlomo, but it is not so clear what Shlomo, son of Sean, will name his kaddish. Facing Up to the Gradual Demise of Jewish Political Power Not that it is the case that our disproportionate political power (pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America) will erode all at once, or even quickly. We will be able to hang on to it for perhaps a decade or two longer. Unless and until the triumph of campaign finance reform is complete, an extremely unlikely scenario, the great material wealth of the Jewish community will continue to give it significant advantages. We will continue to court and be courted by key figures in Congress. That power is exerted within the political system from the local to national levels through soft money, and especially the provision of out-of-state funds to candidates sympathetic to Israel, a high wall of church/state separation, and social liberalism combined with selective conservatism on criminal justice and welfare issues. Jewish voter participation also remains legendary; it is among the highest in the nation. Incredible as it sounds, in the recent presidential election more Jews voted in Los Angeles than Latinos. But should the naturalization of resident aliens begin to move more quickly in the next few years, a virtual certainty - and it should - then it is only a matter of time before the electoral power of Latinos, as well as that of others, overwhelms us. All of this notwithstanding, in the short term, a number of factors will continue to play into our hands, even amid the unprecedented wave of continuous immigration. The very scale of the current immigration and its great diversity paradoxically constitutes at least a temporary political asset. While we remain comparatively coherent as a voting bloc, the new mostly non-European immigrants are fractured into a great many distinct, often competing groups, many with no love for each other. This is also true of the many new immigrants from rival sides in the ongoing Balkan wars, as it is for the growing south Asian population from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. They have miles and miles to go before they overcome historical hatreds, put aside current enmities and forgive recent enormities, especially Pakistani brutality in the nascent Bangladesh. Queens is no melting pot! Currently struggling to find a foothold in America, to learn English and to master an advanced technological and pluralistic culture that is largely alien to them, they are predictably preoccupied with issues of simple economic survival at the low end of the spectrum. In terms of public affairs, they are, at most, presently competing for neighborhood political dominance, government subsidies, and local municipal services. Moreover, the widespread poverty of a high percentage of recent immigrants, an especially strong characteristic of by far the largest group, Mexican Americans, also makes bread and butter issues a far greater priority than a multifaceted public affairs agenda into the foreseeable future. No small consideration, it also arguably makes them a greater drain on the economy than a benefit, a subject of unending dispute between advocates of large-scale immigration and reduced immigration. While the Mexicans in particular have huge numbers on their side - we sometimes forget that the U.S.-Mexican border is the longest in the world between a first-world and a third-world country - they have little in the way of the economic resources to give them commensurate political clout. And communal wealth formation will be a long time in coming, considering that most Mexican immigrants are peasant class. Also, compared to previous generations of European immigrants, they have been slow to naturalize, largely because so many have illegal status, thus effectively barring themselves from becoming a force in electoral politics. But the sleeping giant will surely awaken, and the sort of amnesty contemplated by the Bush administration will make that happen all the sooner. And it is a giant. Advance Census data indicate that upwards of 8 percent of Mexico's population already resides in the United States, and the growth of that community shows no sign of abating; the opposite is true. It is simply astounding to contemplate the recent historical rise in Mexican immigration. In 1970, there were fewer than 800,000 Mexican immigrants; 30 years later the number is approaching 9 million, a 10-fold increase in one generation. For perhaps another generation, an optimistic forecast, the Jewish community is thus in a position where it will be able to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions that support our agendas. But the day will surely come when an effective Asian-American alliance will actually bring Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese, and the rest closer together. And the enormously complex and as yet significantly divided Latinos will also eventually achieve a more effective political federation. The fact is that the term "Asian American" has only recently come into common parlance among younger Asians (it is still rejected by older folks), while "Latinos" or "Hispanics" often do not think of themselves as part of a multinational ethnic bloc but primarily as Mexicans, Cubans, or Puerto Ricans. Even with these caveats, an era of astoundingly disproportionate Jewish legislative representation may already have peaked. It is unlikely we will ever see many more U.S. Senates with 10 Jewish members. And although had Al Gore been allowed by the Supreme Court to assume office, a Jew would have been one heartbeat away from the presidency, it may be we'll never get that close again. With the changes in view, how long do we actually believe that nearly 80 percent of the entire foreign aid budget of the United States will go to Israel? It is also true that Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry, theoretically a boon in terms of the formation of favorable public images of Jews and sensitizing the American people to issues of concern to Jews. But ethnic dominance in an industry does not by itself mean that these centers of opinion and attitude formation in the national culture are sources of Jewish political power. They are not noticeably "Jewish" in the sense of advancing a Jewish agenda, Jewish communal interests, or the cause of Israel. And television, the Jewish industry par excellence, with its shallow values, grotesque materialism, celebration of violence, utter superficiality, anti-intellectualism, and sexploitation certainly does not advance anything that might be confused with Jewish values. It is probably true, however, that the situation would be worse in terms of the treatment of Jewish themes and issues in the media without this presence. [END] Tomorrow: "Supporting Immigration by Reducing Its Scale" ===== Thought for the Day: "The hidden joker in the deck is the huge recession in the economy. Jingoism only takes you so far." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Nov 13 17:38:50 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 09:38:50 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/13/2001 - "...but is it good for the Jews?" - Part III Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 13, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Last night I reread this astounding document, and I admit I got more and more upset - especially about Part III of the Stephen Steinlight essay titled "The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy". It bears repeating that Steinlight, by his own admission, is a former pro-immigration activist who, riding on the "free pass" (his words) of the so-called "Holocaust", lent himself to helping wreck the social fabric of a largely homogeneous America which welcomed Jews with open arms and gave them lots of leeway to push their own agenda. Now he takes it blithely upon himself, again, to pull the brakes on rampant immigration because he realizes that what he and his ilk have imported are people who think with their blood - and thus follow their own inner drummer to fulfill their own agenda at the expense of America's Silent Majority. Particularly revealing for the ever-so-accommodating goyim world is Steinlight's admission that, in his formative years, he as a Jewish kid, along with other agemates, attended all-Jewish, apartheid camps. There he was indoctrinated in an "Israel First" ideology that included singing of a foreign national anthem, saluting a foreign flag, being taught an "us versus them", "we are superior" etc. mindset. There was thus shameless training as a virtual Fifth Column force to keep on milking the goodwill of the American goys for Israel. Now that it is expedient for his group, he once again remembers his "loyalty" to his host country and exhorts his brethren to please do the same - after all, the day might come when those in the Diaspora, confronted with Sharon's murderous behavior, so generously fortified with the billions of dollars, the sniper rifles, Apache helicopters, the tanks and even the handcuff, will have to face the wrath of those they persecuted for so long. [START] Supporting Immigration by Reducing Its Scale Before offering specific recommendations about immigration policy, we should immediately anticipate the predictable opposition and state emphatically what we are not advocating. We are not advocating an anti-immigration position. It would be the height of ingratitude, moral amnesia, and gracelessness for a group that has historically benefited enormously from liberal immigration - as well as suffered enormously from illiberal immigration policies - to be, or to be seen to be, suggesting that we cruelly yank the rope ladder up behind us. It is also, frankly, in our own best interest to continue to support generous immigration. The day may come when the forces of anti-Semitic persecution will arise once more in the lands of the former Soviet Union or in countries of Eastern Europe and Jews will once again need a safe haven in the United States. The Jewish community requires this fail-safe. We will always be in support of immigration; the question is whether it should be open-ended or not? The question is what constitutes the smartest approach to supporting immigration? We also believe that generous immigration has been and remains one of the greatest strengths of American life for a multitude of reasons, perhaps the chief source of the remarkable social, cultural, and intellectual vitality and continual revitalization that is the byproduct of the periodic reinvention of American society. Along with our constitutional principles, democratic values, ideal of equal opportunity, and free market economy, immigration and the cultural variety it produces is one of the principal engines of our creativity, genius for invention, impatience with outworn ideas, anachronistic social arrangements, and stifling cultural conformity. It is also main source of a deep-seated historic tolerance for diversity. Which is not to say that Americans are ever well inclined toward the present crop of immigrants. We tend to dislike them in present time and only appreciate their virtues in retrospect - usually primarily as foils to compare to the even more repulsive characteristics of the newly unwashed arrivals in a curiously insincere but useful form of social nostalgia. American history is replete with outbreaks of political xenophobia (from the anti-Catholic Know Nothing Party to the America First movement to Buchanan's Reform Party), and racism, in particular, has been our Achilles heel. But all in all, and especially in comparison to the more ethnocentric European and Asian societies, we have a comparatively excellent record with regard to welcoming strangers to our shores over time. Time is the key factor. We are, to use the well-worn clich=E9, a natio= n of immigrants, but acceptance only comes when a critical mass of what are perceived by ordinary Americans as characteristically American cultural norms and attitudes are imbibed and displayed by immigrants in their daily lives. Also, U.S. world leadership in virtually every area of science, high technology, in the learned professions, and in every sphere of artistic endeavor is the direct result of the vast range of sources of creativity that immigration provides. We are able to draw on distinctive modes of creativity and inspiration from across the entire earth and then liberate it in the free air of America to accomplish all it is capable of achieving. Immigration gives America intellectual, social, and artistic vitality unknown in equal measure anywhere else in the history of the world. Having made this sincere genuflection to the great good that has come of immigration, in light of unprecedented, ascending challenges, what changes might we contemplate with regard to Jewish advocacy on immigration and immigration-related issues? How should we think about acculturation, assimilation, and an old term we should not be ashamed to resuscitate - Americanization? For starters, we should give serious, immediate consideration to terminating our alliance with the advocates of open borders - we do not belong in their coalitions - and ally ourselves, instead, with pro-immigration advocates who favor immigration reform that includes moderate reductions in immigration, such as the Center for Immigration Studies. With them, and others, we should support an approach to immigration that restores its good name and helps immigrants make a successful, well-planned transition to American life. These goals are realistic only if the present stratospheric numbers are reduced, criteria for entry are rationalized, and legal and cultural processes of naturalization and acculturation are more efficient and deliberate. Successful immigration is defined in this context first of all as naturalization - acquiring citizenship - and, second, as striking a proper balance between ethnic/cultural group loyalty and a larger sense of national belonging. Immigration Policy and Identity Politics Our current policies encourage the balkanization that results from identity politics and the politics of grievance. The high percentage of new immigrants who are poor and uneducated, suffer linguistic handicaps, dizzying cultural disorientation, and possess no competitive skills for a postindustrial labor market remain effectively trapped within the underclass and/or the suffocating and meager support systems offered by their tight tribal enclaves. The numbers simply overwhelm available resources at the state and federal level. The new faith-based initiatives, so questionable from a First Amendment standpoint, potentially troubling in terms of generating sectarian strife over the pursuit of federal dollars, and capable of providing federal government sanction to discrimination, would also be utterly incapable of laying a glove on the problem. That is if - and it is a big if - the program survives the Senate and is found to be constitutional. Now, none of this would be a problem if we were willing to adopt the Chamber of Commerce/Wall Street Journal mentality. That worldview applauds an endless supply of immigrants as desirable in order to fill the bottomless demand for the wretched of the earth to occupy the bowels of the service sector, to suppress U.S. wages overall, and to further weaken the already marginalized American labor movement. But if we are interested in sustaining the American dream of upward mobility and social integration, that vision is both cynical and hopelessly inadequate. According to social analysts from the political left to the political right, the Alan Wolfe thesis tends to find substantial if not solid agreement. American social cohesion and the integrity of its democratic process are faring pretty well but the nation faces one paramount challenge: the growing chasm between the very rich and everyone else. With this large anxiety in mind, and with concerns about creating a workable pluralism in the face of an exploding and increasingly transient immigrant population, does it make sense for America to follow the European model and create a massive underclass of impoverished, alienated, and socially disconnected guest workers? It is hard to imagine that anyone who values social democracy could favor such a solution - but it is becoming a reality on the ground for three reasons: the misery of the world's desperately poor, employer greed, and the loss of control of America's borders. The inability of government to begin to cope with the scale of the problem (whether on the side of policing borders or providing adequate social services) also strengthens the role of the ethnic enclave in addressing it. And the resultant dependence on the religious and cultural institutions within the ethnic communities for sustenance often slows or blocks acculturation, and worse. Within those tight ethnic enclaves, home country allegiances and social patterns endure, old prejudices and hatreds are reinforced, and home-country politics continue to inordinately shape, even control, the immigrant's worldview. In many cases, ethnic communal support for new immigrants or patronage of their business establishments are subject to the blessings of atavistic, unassimilated, and anti-pluralistic communal and religious leadership that frequently has a political agenda fundamentally at odds with American values. This is certainly the case within the Pakistani immigrant community. In many cases, the Old World political party structures, replete with their targeted, self-serving meager handouts, remain powerful. Breaking these patterns of control exerted by the sending country and promoting acculturation that honors the immigrant's culture and origins but principally foregrounds and nurtures American values can be achieved only by reducing the present overwhelming scale of immigration that thwarts any effort to develop practicable solutions to these problems. As noted earlier, cheap air fares and overseas telephone rates, and the internet permits the home country to exert a strong continuing influence on immigrants that is substantially different from what was the case with previous generations of newcomers. Many new immigrants are and remain, in effect, primarily citizens of their home countries and resident aliens in America, here merely to benefit from American resources and return income to the home country before returning themselves. (There are even cases of immigrants to the United States that hold political office in their home countries!) The present tidal wave of immigration swamps all efforts to promote an active sense of civic partnership, dramatically slows the process of naturalization by taxing the INS and other institutions beyond their capacity to respond, and sustains a meaningless approach to naturalization and citizenship tests. (The citizenship tests with their intellectually lame content constitute a particular disgrace.) It also allows no time and space for one group to begin assimilating before the next wave comes crashing ashore. Though there has been some progress in recent times, the number of resident aliens not seeking naturalization is enormous. Contrary to popular mythology, it was not unusual for many immigrant European national groups in the great wave of immigration in the nineteenth century and at the turn of that century for large numbers to return home after only a brief sojourn in America. Something like half of the Italians who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 19th century returned to Italy. Now we have large groups remaining but not naturalizing. The time may have arrived to advocate a policy that determines that a legal prerequisite for immigration, in the first instance, is a sworn affidavit that the prospective immigrant will seek citizenship at the earliest practicable date, with timeframes rigorously enforced by deporting violators. The bottom line should be up or out. Needless to say, adequate funding must be provided to the INS to handle this process in an orderly and efficient manner. The goal of immigration should be citizenship, an acceptance of the rights and obligations of full participation in the national life, accompanied by an embrace of American political and social values; its goal should not be access to opportunities for better-paying jobs and public benefits, and nothing more. Trendy Postmodernism Skews the Debate There are, of course, within the opinion-making set, increasing numbers of trendy philosophical internationalists, mostly privileged academicians protected from real world pressures by tenure, who strenuously object to the notion that one must select and emphasize one aspect of the multiple cultural and national identities human beings possess. Though still a relatively small fraternity, one bumps into them more and more at foundation-sponsored conferences on immigration policy. According to their worldview, such hoary notions as citizenship or whole-hearted assimilation - God forbid patriotism - are historically outmoded, embarrassing concepts. In a shrinking, porous world with huge populations on the move, we are told, they have little to recommend them, and we should feel greater and greater comfort with multiple simultaneous identities, juggling conflicting national and cultural allegiances, and the attenuation of specific national loyalties. Such thinkers not only have no problem with multiple citizenship, but they see it as an ideal, the embodiment of a higher form of global consciousness, the ultimate expression of New Age cosmopolitanism. The great masses of ordinary humanity across the world have no such perspective: tragically for themselves and for those who are often victimized by them, they continue to be driven by various forms of tribalism, including the most violent and extreme sort. This is true from lethal interethnic clashes in soccer arenas in every continent, and from the mass killing fields of Africa, to the killing fields of the Balkans. Ethnocentrism and has proven remarkably enduring into the new millennium; those who counted it out, who thought humanity was ready for some higher notion of fraternity, have been shown to have been utterly mistaken in their predictions. Ethnocentrism is the undisputed world champion. The great masses, increasingly on the move, are also driven by economic necessity, especially the billions living in dire poverty. For better or for worse, these people have no coherent global ideology about supplanting the tribe or the nation; they don't have the luxury to sit back and expound on such themes. But there is a cadre of dilettantes with academic and law degrees who proffer a postmodern philosophy that sees the nation state, even open ones with pluralistic values, as an anachronism. They constitute an intellectual cheering section for the breakdown of law, historical notions of what makes for nation states and civil society, civic traditions, the violation of the sanctity of borders that once commanded unquestioned assent, and use a term like patriotism only jokingly. They lend the present crisis the veneer of a conceptual breakthrough. Jews and Identity Politics We Jews need to be especially sensitive to the multinational model this crowd (many of them Jewish) is promoting. Why? Because one person's "celebration" of his own diversity, foreign ties, and the maintenance of cultural and religious traditions that set him apart is another's balkanizing identity politics. We are not immune from the reality of multiple identities or the charge of divided loyalties, a classic staple of anti-Semitism, and we must recognize that our own patterns are easily assailed, and we need to find ways of defending them more effectively as the debate goes on. Much public opinion survey research undertaken in recent years continues to indicate that large numbers of Americans, particularly people of color, assert that Jews are more loyal to Israel than the United States. For Jews, it is at best hypocritical, and, worse, an example of an utter lack of self-awareness, not to recognize that we are up to our necks in this problem. This has been especially true once we were sufficiently accepted in the United States to feel confident enough to go public with our own identity politics. But this newfound confidence carries its own costs; people are observing us closely, and what they see in our behavior is not always distinct from what we loudly decry in others. One has to be amused, even amazed, when colleagues in the organized Jewish world wring their hands about black nationalism, Afrocentrism, or with cultural separatism in general - without considering Jewish behavioral parallels. Where has our vaunted Jewish self-awareness flown? I'll confess it, at least: like thousands of other typical Jewish kids of my generation, I was reared as a Jewish nationalist, even a quasi-separatist. Every summer for two months for 10 formative years during my childhood and adolescence I attended Jewish summer camp. There, each morning, I saluted a foreign flag, dressed in a uniform reflecting its colors, sang a foreign national anthem, learned a foreign language, learned foreign folk songs and dances, and was taught that Israel was the true homeland. Emigration to Israel was considered the highest virtue, and, like many other Jewish teens of my generation, I spent two summers working in Israel on a collective farm while I contemplated that possibility. More tacitly and subconsciously, I was taught the superiority of my people to the gentiles who had oppressed us. We were taught to view non-Jews as untrustworthy outsiders, people from whom sudden gusts of hatred might be anticipated, people less sensitive, intelligent, and moral than ourselves. We were also taught that the lesson of our dark history is that we could rely on no one. I am of course simplifying a complex process of ethnic and religious identity formation; there was also a powerful counterbalancing universalistic moral component that inculcated a belief in social justice for all people and a special identification with the struggle for Negro civil rights. And it is no exaggeration to add that in some respects, of course, a substantial subset of secular Jews were historically Europe's cosmopolitans par excellence, particularly during the high noon of bourgeois culture in Central Europe. That sense of commitment to universalistic values and egalitarian ideals was and remains so strong that in reliable survey research conducted over the years, Jews regularly identify "belief in social justice" as the second most important factor in their Jewish identity; it is trumped only by a "sense of peoplehood." It also explains the long Jewish involvement in and flirtation with Marxism. But it is fair to say that Jewish universalistic tendencies and tribalism have always existed in an uneasy dialectic. We are at once the most open of peoples and one second to none in intensity of national feeling. Having made this important distinction, it must be admitted that the essence of the process of my nationalist training was to inculcate the belief that the primary division in the world was between "us" and "them." Of course we also saluted the American and Canadian flags and sang those anthems, usually with real feeling, but it was clear where our primary loyalty was meant to reside. I am also familiar with the classic, well-honed answer to this tension anytime this phenomenon is cited: Israel and America are both democracies; they share values; they have common strategic interests; loyalty to one cannot conceivably involve disloyalty to the other, etc., etc. All of which begs huge questions, including an American strategic agenda that extends far beyond Israel, and while it may be true in practice most of the time, is by no means an absolute construct, devoid of all sort of potential exceptions. I say all this merely to remind us that we cannot pretend we are only part of the solution when we are also part of the problem; we have no less difficult a balancing act between group loyalty and a wider sense of belonging to America. That America has largely tolerated this dual loyalty - we get a free pass, I suspect, largely over Christian guilt about the Holocaust - makes it no less a reality. At the very least, as the debate over multinational identity rises, I hope the Jewish community will have the good sense not to argue in favor of dual citizenship and other such arrangements. I would also advocate that those who possess dual citizenship to relinquish it in order not to cloud the issue and to serve the best interests of the American Jewish community and of American national unity. The recent case of the Israeli teenager who committed a murder in suburban Maryland (his victim was a young Latino) and fled to Israel, where he was permitted to remain despite attempts at extradition by U.S. prosecutors, with considerable congressional support, must never be repeated. That incident inflicted serious damage on Israel's good name, and it shapes the public's perception of Jews as people in a special category with additional rights who have a safe haven where they can escape the reach of American justice. [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "Public opinion - not entirely reflected in the media - is increasingly seeing that Israel's (behavior) cannot be excused using endless Holocaust coverage." (Letter to the Zundelsite from England) From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Nov 15 03:48:28 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (Ingrid Rimland) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 19:48:28 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/14/2001 - "...but is it good for the Jews?" - Part IV Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 14, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I continue herewith with the Stephen Steinlight essay, "The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy". Two points need to be made about this segment: 1. There is, of course, nothing wrong with an appeal to patriotism per se, even though a wicked proverb has it that patriotism is always the last refuge of the rascal. However, if the first part of the socially useful suggestions below were offered by someone, say, like Jared Taylor of the American Renaissance or - Heaven forbid - a populist like Z=FCndel, suggesting to cut down on bilingua= l education, beefing up public schools' civics classes, even recommending Hitler-style "Volunteer Community Labor Services" by the young such as were practiced with great vigor and success in the Third Reich, immediately all sorts of Jewish shrieks would emanate protesting that such options "reek of xenophobia" - but if a Jewish community leader, who sees his tribal brethren's place at the trough threatened, comes up with these same goodies, well, then I guess it's okay! 2. The second part of this segment is hate-speech, raw and crass, against a group that has not yet been charged, much less been found guilty of the rampant, shrill but unsubstantiaed accusations now emanating from the Jewish camp against the Muslims. Why should a largely Christian America fear Islam more than Judaism? That having said, here goes: [START] Promoting Patriotic Assimilation and Reviving Civic Virtue In addition to greater Jewish self-consciousness of our standing, as well as stake, within the unfolding drama, there are specific programs and policies we should advance to promote patriotic assimilation, to see that in the scales that balance group loyalty with national allegiance, patriotism to America weighs more heavily. As part of our advocacy regarding the reform of public education, we should make a strong case for the revival of civic education as part of the core curriculum for all students, not only recent arrivals. Levels of political awareness among young people, just like levels of participation by adults in the electoral process, have become a scandal in the United States. For most Americans, truth to tell, were the Bill of Rights rescinded tomorrow, it would make no material difference in their lives. Freedom of choice and individual rights in America remain sacrosanct principles, but they appear to operate almost exclusively in the context of consumer choice; rather than political loyalties we have brand loyalty. All of America would benefit by a renewed education in civic values and participation, not simply the newcomers. We ought to know something about what we profess to believe in. Also in the interest of advancing the concept of E Pluribus Unum, Jewish organizations should cease their well-intentioned but groundless support for bilingual education, switch sides in the debate, and come roaring in as strong opponents. Our opposition to bilingual education ought to rest primarily on symbolic grounds rather than on educational ones, though common sense, as manifested in the huge majorities of Spanish-speaking parents polled on this question who wish their children to be mainstreamed into classes taught in English, should not be ignored. Data on the efficacy of bilingual education is inconclusive; clearly much of it is dreadful, though some programs in some locales appear to yield good results when they function as brief way stations on the road to integrating students into classes taught in English. But there is an overriding importance in sending the message that we have a lingua franca in the United States, and it is English. It is also the language of our great founding documents. It is particularly important to stress this point given the undeclared war of Reconquista that is being waged by Latino nationalists. Of course the usual separatist ethnic political leadership cadre that pretends to speak for their communities of origin supports bilingual education, largely for political reasons. The alleged embarrassment of recent immigrants and the emotional difficulties of school-age kids mask another agenda. That agenda is a mission to displace English as the cornerstone of a larger educational orientation towards Western/European civilization. They see that traditional orientation in paranoid fashion promoting an evil Anglo-Saxon, Euro-centric cultural hegemony at the expense of the cultures of people of color and indigenous people (also always of color). I find such claptrap beneath contempt, but it must be recognized that this is the essence of that debate from the standpoint of ethnic leadership. In addition to opposing bilingual education (I would stop, however, at making English an "official language" because most of those that promote it reek of xenophobia) there are other concrete steps to consider in an effort to build one nation at a time of unprecedented, culturally discordant immigration. It may be time to reconsider the institution of mandatory national non-military service, both to foster the social and cultural integration of all American young people who effectively live in a society of informal residential apartheid, and to rekindle a sense of service to the nation. The notion that Generation X young people are mostly selfish and acquisitive, and have shallow values and little sense of obligation to anything beyond their own pleasure and material advancement is so widespread as to constitute a body of credible received wisdom. It is also widely held - especially by the more politically active and selfless among the Generation X'ers - that most of their contemporaries have little or no sense of communal responsibility and little or no interest in current public issues. The ethical lapses of public figures widely reported in the press provide (they have always provided) the standard excuse for young people not to become involved. Frighteningly uninformed (few read newspapers, listen to news on television, or follow larger social trends), they express a cynicism born of nothing other than laziness and selfishness. And unlike the generation of the 1960s, they have no public issue that forcibly enters their lives and dictates some form of political response. At the same time, we live in an era when upwards of 17 percent of American children live in poverty and, for all the talk of educational reform, schools in many places, especially America's inner cities, are in disastrous shape. The elderly uninsured, numbering in the millions, lead lives of quiet desperation, and cutbacks in government social services have dumped hundreds of thousands of the mentally ill onto the nation's streets or into miserable single-room occupancy apartments where they live lives of excruciating loneliness and hopelessness. Across the nation, impoverished single mothers need help with child care, and school children, especially from single parent homes, need adult mentors and role models, especially males. And environmental degradation is a problem across the country. We could continue to enumerate the opportunities for service almost ad infinitum. These realities provide more than enough opportunity, not to mention a moral imperative, for young persons to devote one to two years of their lives helping their fellow Americans. From involvement in such programs, especially in the company of young new immigrants, native-born Americans would develop a greater sense of public spiritedness as they mature morally. And they would also have the opportunity to get to know new Americans and learn from the drive and persistence so many recent immigrants exhibit in the face of great odds. Promoting the Concept of Western Civil Society Within Immigrant Enclav= es Another initiative to consider is one aimed at developing concepts of Western civil society within the new immigrant communities. A major problem to address is the fact that the great majority of today's immigrants come from countries with no historical experience of democratic pluralism; instead, their homelands had authoritarian governments, strong traditions of ethnic and religious conformity, and little respect for the rights of ethnic, religious, and political minorities. And many come from societies with no tradition of church/state separation. While some immigrants are refugees from minority communities, most are members of the dominant culture. The new immigrants come to America not as freethinking individualists with open perspectives but as thoroughly socialized citizens who often unquestioningly reflect the norms and values of their native lands; they know no others. Many immigrants are past school age so that public education, including a proposed renewed emphasis on civic education, at present a reality for no one, would still bypass them. Certainly no one could make a credible argument that the absurdly random bits and pieces of knowledge (for the most part historical trivia) that immigrants must learn to pass a citizenship test constitute anything approaching a meaningful learning experience. The new immigrants did not learn American political and social values at home, and, for the most part, they remain within a cultural frame of mind that does not even recognize their importance. They do not feel its lack. They came to the Unites States primarily to escape economic privation, not to flee tyranny or religious persecution. Immigrants from politically corrupt and authoritarian Mexico, brutal, dictatorial China, and the police states and fascist theocracies that comprise virtually every society within the Muslim world all fall into this category. It is incumbent on government at the state and local levels, ideally with the generous support of the corporate and foundation sectors, to develop large-scale and long-lasting initiatives to build understanding of and respect for Western ideals of civil society in the new immigrant communities. Without such ambitious initiatives, it may take more than one generation to break the stranglehold of the Old World. The Special Problem of Muslim Immigration and the Rise of Islamism Apart from the loss of political power that will inevitably result over time from the sweeping demographic reconfiguration of the American social landscape, undoubtedly the greatest immediate threat to the well being of the American Jewish community and its interests stems from large-scale immigration from the Muslim world. The events of September 11 that have forever altered the nature of ordinary life in America, and have shattered the happy illusion of American invulnerability, make the current immigration policy supported by many Jewish organizations appear not merely as the height of irresponsibility, but as irrationally, almost criminally self-destructive. The special problem of large-scale Muslim immigration to the United States derives primarily from the worldwide ascent of Islamism (often referred to as "fundamentalism" and increasingly "Jihadism"), a totalitarian political ideology with strong theocratic and fascistic elements that is proving enormously compelling to millions of Muslims across the globe. It is without a doubt the most powerful ideological force in the Islamic world, including among Muslims in the United States. Islamism is profoundly hostile to pluralism, religious tolerance, democracy, secular civil society, Jews, Zionism, Israel, and to the United States, "the Great Satan." It is a movement that festers and spreads in the impoverished conditions within corrupt regimes, often in response to the venality, inhumanity, and tyranny of local "secular" regimes. It expresses itself through violent populist agitation, intolerant religiosity, irrational atavistic values, misogyny, large-scale terrorism, resentment toward and hatred of everything perceived as "foreign," and pie-in-the-sky theology. Certainly contemporary Islamism is, in part, a religious response to what many Muslims regard as the "catastrophe" of the founding of Israel. Going back further in time and viewing the movement more broadly, it is a deep-seated cultural reaction to Islam's sociopolitical, technological, and military defeat at the hands of the West. That defeat has been manifested in a variety of ways, but chiefly in the Islamic world's past conquest by Western and Russian colonialism and its loss of the race to modernity and prosperity. It has been left behind historically, underdeveloped and relatively powerless, while the West has developed mass democratic industrial, technocratic consumer societies. In short, Islamism is perhaps the most important and urgent example in the contemporary world of the politics of cultural despair. But while it has particular roots in the Arab Middle East (Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood being one of the first incarnations), the Islamist movement has spread to the far ends of the vast Islamic patrimony. Thus the movement expresses itself not only in the suicide bombers of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, or the Lebanese Hezbollah that targets Israelis, but also in the ideology of the Muslim insurgents in Southern Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The movement holds absolute power in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Iran (if with decreasing enthusiasm among the young), and is gaining steadily in Pakistan (whose intervention in Afghanistan is turning on itself, transforming Pakistan into an extension of Afghanistan). As a result of the strings attached to Saudi economic aid to impoverished Bangladesh, that nation born in blood with the aspiration to form a secular society, is becoming increasingly Islamist in orientation. The movement also poses a direct danger to the newly independent Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, has profited from the war in Chechnya, and has growing influence in Malaysia. It has represented a chronic historic threat to the Egyptian regime, and is in an almost inconceivably brutal contest for power in Algeria. While the Islamist movement is carefully monitored within "conservative" Saudi Arabia, which brooks no political opposition to the regime or potentially subversive religiosity, the Saudis, with untold oil wealth, are the major financial backers of this movement worldwide. It is not merely Osama bin Laden who uses his inheritance of $350 million to promote global fundamentalism, including the terrorism associated with it: it is the Saudi regime itself. And all the while Saudi Arabia presents itself as a "moderate" regime and historic friend of the United States. The great danger Islamism poses to the United States in particular, its savage hatred of America and American values, are impossible to overstate. Islamism is a monster capable of the most despicable and atrocious acts of violence against its perceived enemies. This reality has now been experienced and witnessed directly by the American people in the horrific events of September 11: the destruction of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon, and a failed attempt to blow up the White House, with a death toll topping 6,000. These crimes of mass murder, most probably the work of Islamist terrorists operating with state support in Islamist Afghanistan, is the worst single act of terrorism on American soil in the history of the United States. It is also one of the greatest single assaults on innocent human life in modern world history carried out in the name of religion. The tragic enormity beggars the imagination. Recently, the anti-Islamist Pakistani =E9migr=E9 newspaper Pakistan Today featured on its cover a group of Islamists, their faces covered, aiming rocket-propelled grenades and carrying a sign that read "America, we are coming." They have come; they are here among us. And there is no reason to believe these enormities are the last we will witness, even in the near future. [END] Tomorrow: Conclusion =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "It might be helpful to consider the following analogy: Anti-Americanism is the anti-Semitism of the 21st Century." (Ron Grossman in the Chicago Tribune, Sep 30, 2001) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Nov 16 03:22:16 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 19:22:16 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/15/2001 - "...but is it good for the Jews?" - Part V Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 15, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: This is the conclusion of the five-part ZGram gleaned from an essay by Stephen Steinlight on how the Jewish Diaspara community is expected to be negatively impacted by rampant, partly illegal immigation in America. It is certainly one of the most telling documents depicting the undercurrents of fear and anxiety the American Jewish leadership feels that power and even safety are slipping from Jewish communities, largely because of the presence of Muslims in the neighborhood who may not bear them well. [START] Also deeply troubling is the fact that the Islamist movement finds critical support in the United States through a series of organizations such as the American Muslim Alliance, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Council on America-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the American Muslim Council. These groups front as anti-discrimination organizations supposedly concerned principally with protecting the rights and sensitivities of Muslims and Muslim immigrants. Their main agenda, however, is to exert ideological control over the American Muslim community and to prevent its acculturation and assimilation. (It should be pointed out that while the plurality of American Muslims hail from the subcontinent - India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh - the leadership of these organizations tends to be Middle Eastern, often Palestinian or fellow travelers involved in the Palestinian struggle against Israel.) These organizations function as advocates, recruiters, fundraisers, and lobbyists on behalf of Islamist causes abroad, in recent times especially on behalf of their ilk in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Balkans, Central Asia, and in the ceaseless struggle to destroy Israel. It is their extremism that creates the very negative stereotypes of Muslims they decry and accuse others of foisting upon them. Their venom in response to outside queries and criticism, continual raising of the red herring of Islamophobia, orchestration of fatwas by foreign mullahs against independent Muslim thinkers (the case of the scholar Khalid Dur=E1n is a recent example), and their militant international agenda stereotype Muslims as violent, intolerant, and repressive. That Jewish groups should remain stout defenders of an uncritical immigration and visa policy that allows for the open-ended entry of Muslim fundamentalists to the United States and then provides government agencies no means of keeping track of them is self-defeating to the point of being suicidal. (It should be pointed out that many of the suspects recently arrested in association with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon entered the United States from Saudi Arabia with legal visas.) It must also be pointed out, regrettably, that to date, few American Muslims have come forward to challenge the self-proclaimed leadership role of these organizations, and there is thus no way to ascertain how representative these groups genuinely are. It must be admitted it is not easy to oppose them in the tight and often repressive world of immigrant communities, where economic survival is often achieved at the cost of political conformity, but change is beginning, although the new forces are at present no more than embryonic. Still, anti-Islamist Muslims are increasingly seeking and finding each other (the web is proving an excellent meeting place) and anti-Islamist organizations of Muslim independents and freethinkers are just beginning to spring up. But theirs is a long road, and they have only begun their work. It is also to be hoped that sometime in the future, the more pluralistic and spiritually open Muslim Sufi religious community, represented in hundreds of mosques across the United States, will find the courage to break openly with the current self-appointed leadership in the Muslim community. At the risk of being labeled the fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread, it must also be acknowledged that classic Islam itself, the traditional faith - and not the hideous political ideologies derived from it - is itself not unproblematic in its attitudes towards Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims. The religious education of traditional, non-Islamist Muslims - literalism in Koranic exegesis, theological straightjackets imposed on scriptual interpretation, the study of text without context, and the virtual absence of intellectual self-critique - is filled with anti-Jewish teaching as well as a theology of contempt for the followers of other faiths. It is the case that fellow monotheists have been historically accorded at least official second-class status (an advance over the treatment accorded others, such as Hindus, Buddhists, or Bahais, for example). But this condition is far removed from anything resembling authentic mutual respect and recognition of the equality of religious claims or commensurate spiritual authenticity. Powerful strains of religious triumphalism and religious supercessionism are central tenets of Islam. Such dangerous spiritual arrogance has been abandoned by many Christian denominations, largely as a product of Vatican II and years of interfaith dialogue and soul-searching encounter. Christian believers, from Roman Catholics to members of such liberal Protestant denominations as the Congregationalists and the United Church of Christ, have for example, adopted the view that God's covenantal relationship with the Jewish people remains unbroken and that the advent of Christianity neither erased nor cancelled it. (In the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention forms a sad exception to this changed perspective, as do the traditional attitudes of several Orthodox Christian national churches.) No parallel spiritual generosity exists in Islam. While Muslims are prepared to offer the passing genuflection to Jesus or prominent figures in the Hebrew bible, the tone is one of enormous condescension. Muslim friends reared in traditional Islam in such countries as Pakistan and Bangladesh tell me it is impossible for a Muslim who remains in the mainstream of his religious background not to be an anti-Semite. On a more hopeful note, it is not impossible that Islam itself, as well as its attitude toward Judaism, will undergo a profound change in America. In the United States, many religions have become more open, tolerant, and pluralistic - but the process will take time, it will be hampered by the continuing pull of homeland politics and culture, and it will require the emancipation of the Muslim community from its traditional leadership. At this point, the kind of radical reformation required with regard to Koranic interpretation makes any advocate of such a change an apostate, a marked man. Similarly, any advocate of Islam's spiritual equality with Christianity and Judaism, as opposed to superiority, would be seen as a heretic whose blood should be shed. In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, there have been countless exhortations from public figures ranging from President Bush to religious leaders, political figures, and police officials not to scapegoat all American Muslims and to protect them from reprisals. Of course such exhortations are timely and necessary. But far more questionable have been the continual references by politicians, clergy, and the self-proclaimed "people of good will" to "our common religious heritage," and the repetition, ad nauseum, of the mantra that "true Islam" does not practice or preach violence and hatred. As any one even vaguely acquainted with the Koran knows, numerous Surahs preach hatred and violence and call for ruthless war against unbelievers in the name of Allah. This is not a distortion of Islam; this is the language of its most sacred text. And it is but a short step from classic Islamic supremacism and supercessionism to hatred, a short step from the belief that one's own faith possesses absolute truth to the readiness to inflict violence, even death, on those who chose to stand outside it. For American Muslims, this should be a time of profound soul-searching, a time to re-evaluate the fundamentals of the faith in light of where they have tragically led the faithful. But one sees scant sign this is taking place. To the contrary, we are continually reassured by Muslim Jihadist supporters (who recently have cleverly toned down their strident websites) that Islam is a religion of peace and told by (mostly) well-meaning and ill-informed Christian partners in dialogue with Islam that we must not confuse Islamism with Islam. Authentic believers in and practitioners of inter-religious dialogue must now come forward and with rare courage and painstaking honesty call for a radical reformation of Islam's moral vision of the "other," while Muslims, religious leaders, and ordinary folk alike, must confront the spiritual arrogance that deforms their faith and begets violence. The Jewish community's role in confronting the rise of Islam in America is (at least) fivefold. We must (1) seek to expose the real nature of our Islamist enemies, (2) attempt to support the emerging free thinkers within the Muslim community, and (3) work assiduously against Islamist political agendas, even as we seek (4) to reduce prejudice against Muslim immigrants. But, again, (5) we should be seeking reductions in the number of immigrants from Islamist societies given their enormous antipathy to Israel, Jews, America, and the West in general. And we should be especially vigilant in opposing the admission of those Islamists seeking asylum from political repression in countries where secularist governments in such places as Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, etc. are struggling against attempts to overthrow them by Islamist religious fanatics. It is nothing less than monstrous that the planners of the first bombing of the World Trade Center and the would-be perpetrators of other terrorist acts often entered this country with refugee status. Does all this mean we should turn our backs on our longstanding commitment in favor of generous legal immigration or become pessimistic about America's ability to socialize the fresh crop of newcomers into acceptance of American norms and values? Does this mean that we favor one ethnic/racial configuration of American citizenry over another? The answer to both is a resounding no. What it does mean, however, is that our support needs to be more qualified, more nuanced, and that we should recognize that immigration that is unprecedented in its scale and unceasing intensity is neither good for immigrants nor good for the United States. The experience of the immigrant under present circumstances is often disastrous and American social cohesion and notions of economic justice are seriously challenged. We should bring the numbers down to more manageable levels, do far more to integrate immigrants into mainstream American life, and inculcate the values of American civil society in immigrant communities. As Jews we also have special concerns regarding the rising Muslim presence, particularly the ascent of Islamism, and we should be unashamed in pursuing our interests. The Ultimate Conundrum Finally, I confess that I suspect that MTV, for better of for worse, will prove more powerful with young Muslim immigrants than the mullahs, and that the remarkable material and cultural attractiveness of American life will cause the new immigrants to follow (mostly) in the footsteps of their predecessors. Free of Old World constraints, most new arrivals will in time choose individual freedom over subservience to outworn forms and will opt for the rights of individual conscience over traditional sources of religious and political authority. But the process will be more difficult, and internal and external resistance to the socialization of the new immigrants is and will remain far stronger than in the past. While we are right to remain hopeful in the long run, we should also be profoundly concerned about life in the short- and mid-term. It is reasonable to be generally optimistic that all will come right in the end, but we must acknowledge that this outcome is hardly a certainty. We have even noted that some "cutting edge" thinkers no longer accept that assimilation represents a desirable goal or that loyalty to one's country constitutes a positive virtue. That leaves plenty of room for doubt, far too much regarding a matter of such great moment, and certainly enough to cause us to consider major modifications in our immigration policy now. Conservative risk-assessment suggests, nay, it demands that we rethink major components of our current open-ended approach to immigration, and that we do so before we will have become complicit, through action or inaction, in a fait accompli that may have dire implications for Jews and for America. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Dr. Stephen Steinlight was for more than five years Director of National Affairs (domestic policy) at the American Jewish Committee. For the past two and a half years he has been a Senior Fellow at AJC. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Fractious Nation: Race, Class and Culture in America at the End of the Twentieth Century (UC-Berkeley Press), and he has recently been appointed editor of South Asia: In Review.The views expressed in this essay do not reflect the current policy position of AJC with regard to immigration. [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D (Source: http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1301.html ) =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle." - George Orwell=20 From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Nov 17 02:56:51 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 18:56:51 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/16/2001 - "Curtailment of Freedom Challenged" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 16, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: I am so overwhelmed with mail, I only saw this now. Of interest to all of us: [START] Leahy 'Deeply Troubled' About Monitoring Of Conversations Between Detainees And Their Attorneys; Asks Answers From Attorney General Ashcroft Following is the text of the letter sent today by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to Attorney General John Ashcroft about DOJ's new policy on the monitoring of attorney-client conversations involving detainees. Leahy also spoke today by phone with the Attorney General about this issue - November 9, 2001 The Honorable John Ashcroft Attorney General United States Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530 Dear Attorney General Ashcroft: Since September 11, I have worked closely with you and with the Administration to ensure that the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies have all the tools necessary to effectively combat 21st Century terrorism. In working together to craft the USA PATRIOT Act, we had intense and frank discussions about how to meet our shared objective of keeping Americans safe without sacrificing the freedoms which, as the President eloquently said last night, are the defining characteristic of our society. Nowhere in that legislation or in our discussions was there any mention by you or any Administration representative that you intended to move unilaterally and immediately to claim authority to monitor confidential lawyer-client communications. Since we provided you with new statutory authorities in the USA PATRIOT Act, I have felt a growing concern that the trust and cooperation Congress provided is proving to be a one-way street. You have declined several requests to appear before the Committee to answer questions and have not responded to requests to provide information on such basic points as the number of people -- according to some Department of Justice reports, more than a thousand -- currently detained without trial and without specific criminal charges under your authority. Today, I read in the newspapers that the Administration has decided that it will now provide even less information than before regarding detentions. No one has explained to me how national security compels withholding from Congress and the public - with appropriate protections, if warranted - basic information regarding people who have been detained, arrested and imprisoned. Today I also learned through the press of another troubling development: Your unilateral executive decision to authorize interception of privileged attorney-client communications between detained persons and their lawyers. As I noted to you this morning, after having worked closely with the Department to equip Federal and State law enforcement to combat terrorism and after having received no request from you for statutory authorization to take this controversial step, and with no warning that you were contemplating such a step, I am deeply troubled at what appears to be an executive effort to exercise new powers without judicial scrutiny or statutory authorization. As fellow prosecutors, you and I both know that the rule of law is essential to our American freedoms, and the right to a lawyer with whom one can communicate candidly and effectively is essential to the adversary process by which the rule of law operates in America. There are few safeguards to liberty that are more fundamental than the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to a lawyer throughout the criminal process, from initial detention to final appeal. When the detainee's legal adversary -- the government that seeks to deprive him of his liberty -- listens in on his communications with his attorney, that fundamental right, and the adversary process that depends upon it, are profoundly compromised. For this reason, it has long been recognized that the essence of the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel is privacy of communication with counsel, and law enforcement practice throughout our history has recognized that subject only to the most narrow and judicially-scrutinized exceptions, attorney-client communications are immune from government interception. See Coplon v. United States, 191 F.2d 749 (1951) (government interception of private telephone consultations between the accused and her lawyer denies the accused her constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel); Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 306 (1966) (affirming holding in Coplon); Shillinger v. Hayworth, 70 F.3d 1132, 1141 (10th Cir. 1995) (purposeful intrusion on the attorney-client relationship "strikes at the center of the protections afforded by the Sixth Amendment"). I continue to recognize, as I did in leading efforts in the Senate to pass the USA PATRIOT Act, that these are difficult times. Trial by fire can refine us, but it can also coarsen us. The public's response already has given the world uncounted examples of Americans at their finest. The government and its leaders face equally demanding challenges, to appeal to the better angels of our nature, and to respond in ways that are prudent, effective, measured, and respectful of the freedoms that we are fighting to preserve and protect. The history of the detentions of Japanese Americans without trial during the Second World War and the unauthorized phone taps during the Vietnam era teach that there is a need for law enforcement to open itself to the maximum public, congressional and judicial scrutiny that the interests of national security allow when the lives and freedoms of Americans are under threat. As the Supreme Court wrote in United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 264 (1967): [T]his concept of "national defense" cannot be deemed an end in itself, justifying any exercise of ... power designed to promote such a goal. Implicit in the term "national defense" is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties . . . which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile. I appreciate our conversation this morning, but as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I need answers to the grave concerns raised by your new policy. Please provide answers to these questions: (1) On what basis are the interceptions of privileged attorney-client communications authorized by your new policy constitutional, and what are the constitutional limits on such interceptions? (2) What statutory authority supports such interceptions? (3) What opportunity for prior judicial authorization and judicial review will there be of the legality of such interceptions? (4) What criteria will you use in deciding whether to certify that "reasonable suspicion exists to believe that an inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to further or facilitate acts of violence or terrorism," and in how many cases have you made such a certification? (5) Your new regulation states that "specific procedural safeguards" will be employed to prevent abuse. Please provide a detailed description of the procedural safeguards that you will make available in all cases. (6) Did you consider building upon current procedures and seeking court approval for monitoring in those circumstances where it may be justified by the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege and, if so, why did you reject the process of court-supervised monitoring? (7) When did you first begin monitoring lawyer-client conversations? Given the grave importance of this matter and its implications for basic civil liberties, I would appreciate a response to these questions by no later than November 13. I would also respectfully suggest that full and responsive answers to my earlier letters of October 25 and 31 and November 7 and 8, 2001, be provided without further delay. I expect the Senate Judiciary Committee will be holding prompt hearings on these matters. Very truly yours, PATRICK LEAHY Chairman Senate Committee on the Judiciary [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "Why did our rulers call for minutes' silence in memory of the people killed in the attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, when we only have two minutes for the millions who died in two world wars?" (Letter to the Editor of the British publication Spearhead, November 2001 issue) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Nov 18 02:47:14 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 18:47:14 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/17/2001 - "Yet one more courageous Letter to the Editor" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 17, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Below you will find a courageous, politically incorrect Letter to the Editor that actually got printed. If you appreciate the fact that the Maine Times had the courage to publish it and would like to let them know, their email address is: mainetimes@mainetimes.com [START] To the Editor: The Maine Times' October issues have illustrated what seems to be an unfortunate and growing ethnic distrust in North America between Jews and gentiles because of two related matters. The first is the question of what really caused the Sept. 11 attack on the WTC: was it America's foreign policy in the Middle East, consisting of direct support of Israel and, in recent years, its dealings with Israel's neighbors pretty much as Israel would like? Or was it something to do with Arab envy of democracy, a method of sharing power among citizens which is not unique to the US and which is never a guarantee of justice toward anyone (as illustrated by "democratic" Israelis' abuse of Palestinians). Second, we have the panicky effort being made by many Jews to limit what is discussed in all this (e.g., Wayne O'Leary's lucid column [MT Oct. 4] being labeled by our "professional historian" at the University of Maine [MT Oct. 11] as "bordering on anti-Semitism" and worthy of "a failing grade as a mere undergraduate paper", etc.). Jews are understandibly horrified that anyone might reflect on the primal fact that most of Israel's territory was stolen from Arabs. As long as we don't think about that, we don't object to Jews calling Palestinians "terrorists" rather than people simply trying to get their land back in a world of realpolitik. So long as their Orwellian (as in "Animal Farm") manipulation succeeds, Americans will feel a common cause with Israel in defending against all those supposedly irrational "terrorists" who attack us both. But if it doesn't work, Israel and Jews generally will be seen as having brought the wrath of Palestinians down upon themselves. And, along with the US government's misguided foreign policy, they will be seen as a major ultimate cause of the September 11th "War on America". I suggest that Jews throughout N. America and the US government dissociate themselves from and put a stop to predatory Israeli policies before anti-Semitism gets out of hand. Anthony Hilton Weld, Maine & Montreal Anthony Hilton Psychology Department (Ret.) Concordia University Montreal, Quebec [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "Anti-Semitism and Jewish chauvinism can only be fought simultaneously." --Israel Shahak, holocaust survivor and Israeli Peace Activist From irimland@zundelsite.org Mon Nov 19 01:48:01 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 17:48:01 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/18/2001 - "American Zionism: The Real Problem" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 18, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: This article was originally from the Sept. 21-27, 2000 issue of the Al-Ahram Weekly No.500, but the ideas remain relevant. Al-Ahram is an influential Arab language paper, often closely reflecting the thoughts of Egypt's governing elite. It is read all over the Arab world. Professor Edward Said lives in America and is American-educated, frequently seen on American TV over the years. His thoughts deserve attention and reflection. [START] American Zionism: The Real Problem by Edward Said This is the first article in a series on the misunderstood and misjudged role of American Zionism in the question of Palestine. In my opinion, the role of organised Zionist groups and activities in the United States has not been sufficiently addressed during the period of the "peace process," a neglect that I find absolutely astonishing, given that Palestinian policy has been essentially to throw our fate as a people in the lap of the United States without any strategic awareness of how US policy is in effect dominated, if not completely controlled, by a small minority of people whose views about Middle East peace are in some way more extreme than even those of the Israeli Likud. Let me give a small example. A month ago, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz sent over a leading columnist of theirs, Ari Shavit, to spend several days talking with me; a good summary of this long conversation appeared as a question-and-answer interview in the August 18 issue of the newspaper's supplement, basically uncut and uncensored. I voiced my views very candidly, with a major emphasis on right of return, the events of 1948, and Israel's responsibility for all this. I was surprised that my views were presented just as I voiced them, without the slightest editorialising by Shavit, whose questions were always courteous and un-confrontational. A week after the interview there was a response to it by Meron Benvenisti, ex-deputy mayor of Jerusalem under Teddy Kollek. It was disgustingly personal, full of insults and slander against me and my family. But he never denied that there was a Palestinian people, or that we were driven out in 1948. In fact he said, we conquered them, and why should we feel guilty? I responded to Benvenisti a week later in Ha'aretz: What I wrote was also published uncut. I reminded Israeli readers that Benvenisti was responsible for the destruction (and probably knew about the killing of several Palestinians) of Haret Al-Magharibah in 1967, in which several hundred Palestinians lost their homes to Israeli bulldozers. But I did not have to remind Benvenisti or Ha'aretz readers that as a people we existed and could at least debate our right of return. That was taken for granted. Two points here. One is that the whole interview could not have appeared in any American paper, and certainly not in any Jewish-American journal. And if there had been an interview the questions to me would have been adversarial, hectoring, insulting, such as, why have you been involved in terrorism, why will you not recognise Israel, why was Hajj Amin a Nazi, and so on. Second, a right-wing Israeli Zionist like Benvenisti, no matter how much he may detest me or my views, would not deny that there is a Palestinian people which was forced to leave in 1948. An American Zionist for a long time would say that no conquest took place or, as Joan Peters alleged in a now-disappeared and all but forgotten 1984 book, From Time Immemorial (that won all the Jewish awards when it appeared here), there were no Palestinians with a life in Palestine before 1948. Every Israeli will readily admit and knows perfectly well that all of Israel was once Palestine, that (as Moshe Dayan said openly in 1976) every Israeli town or village once had an Arab name. And Benvenisti says openly that "we" conquered, and so what? Why should we feel guilty about winning? American Zionist discourse is never straight out honest that way: it must always go round and talk about making the desert bloom, and Israeli democracy, etc., completely avoiding the essential facts about 1948, which every Israeli has actually lived. For the American, these are mostly fantasies, or myths, not realities. So removed from the actualities are American supporters of Israel, so caught in the contradictions of diasporic guilt (after all what does it mean to be a Zionist and not emigrate to Israel?) and triumphalism as the most successful and most powerful minority in the US, that what emerges is very often a frightening mixture of vicarious violence against Arabs and a deep fear and hatred of them, which is the result, unlike Israeli Jews, of not having any sustained direct contact with them. For the American Zionist, therefore, Arabs are not real beings, but fantasies of nearly everything that can be demonised and despised, terrorism and anti-Semitism most specially. I recently received a letter from a former student of mine, who has had the benefit of the finest education available in the United States: he can still bring himself to ask me in all honesty and courtesy why as a Palestinian I let a Nazi like Hajj Amin still determine my political agenda. "Before Hajj Amin," he argued, "Jerusalem wasn't important to Arabs. Because he was so evil he made it an important issue for Arabs just in order to frustrate Zionist aspirations which always held Jerusalem to be important." This is not the logic of someone who has lived with and knows something concrete about Arabs. It is that of a person who speaks an organised discourse and is driven by an ideology that regards Arabs only as negative functions, as the embodiment of violent anti-Semitic violent passions. As such, therefore, they are to be fought against and if possible disposed of. Not for nothing was Dr Baruch Goldstein, the appalling murderer of 29 Palestinians who were quietly praying in the Hebron mosque, an American, as was Rabbi Meir Kahane. Far from being aberrations that have embarrassed their followers, both Kahane and Goldstein are revered today by others like them. Many of the most zealous far-right settlers sitting on Palestinian land, remorselessly speaking about "the land of Israel" as being theirs, hating and ignoring the Palestinian owners and residents all round them, are also American-born. To see them walking through the streets of Hebron as if the Arab city was entirely theirs is a frightening sight, aggravated by the defiance and contempt they display openly against the Arab majority. I bring all this up here to make one essential point. When after the Gulf War the PLO took the strategic decision -- already settled on by two major Arab countries before the PLO -- to work with the American government and if possible with the powerful lobby that controls discussion of Middle Eastern politics, they had made the decision (as had the two Arab states before them) on the basis of vast ignorance and quite extraordinarily mistaken assumptions. The idea, as it was expressed to me shortly after 1967 by a senior Arab diplomat, was to surrender in effect, and say, we are not going to struggle any more. We are now willing to accept Israel and also to accept the US's determining role in our future. There were objective reasons for such a view at the time, as there are now, as to why continuing the fight as the Arabs had done historically would lead to further defeat and even disaster. But I firmly believe that it was a mistaken policy simply to throw Arab policy into the lap of the US and, since the major Zionist organisations are so influential everywhere in the United States, into their lap as well, saying, in effect, we won't fight you, let us join you, but please treat us well. The hope was that if we conceded and said, we are not your enemies, as Arabs we would become their friends. The problem is with the disparity in power that remained. From the viewpoint of the powerful, what difference does it make to your own strategy if your weak adversary gives up and says I have nothing further to fight for, take me, I want to be your ally, just try to understand me a bit better and then perhaps you will then be fairer? A good way of answering this question in practical and concrete terms is to look at the latest turn of events in New York's senatorial race, where Hillary Clinton is competing with Republican Ric Lazio for the seat now held by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D), who is retiring. Last year Hillary said that she favoured the establishment of a Palestinian state and, on a formal visit to Gaza with her husband, embraced Soha Arafat. Since entering the senatorial race in New York she has outdone even the most right-wing Zionists in her fervour for Israel and opposition to Palestine, even going so far as to advocate moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and (more extreme) advocating leniency for Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli spy convicted for espionage against the US and now serving a life sentence. Her Republican antagonists have tried to embarrass her by depicting her as an "Arab-lover" and by releasing a photograph of her actually embracing Soha. Since New York is the citadel of Zionist power, attacking someone with such labels as "Arab-lover" and "friend of Soha Arafat" is tantamount to the worst possible insult. All this despite the fact that Arafat and the PLO are openly declared American allies, recipients of US military and financial aid, and in the security field the beneficiaries of CIA security support. In the meantime, the White House released a photo of Lazio shaking hands two years ago with Arafat. One blow clearly deserves another. The real fact is that Zionist discourse is a discourse of power, and Arabs in that discourse are the objects of power -- despised objects at that. Having thrown in their lot with this power as its surrendered former antagonist, they can never expect to be on equal terms with it. Hence the degrading and insulting spectacle of Arafat (always and forever the symbol of enmity to the Zionist mind) being used in an entirely local contest in the US between two opponents who are trying to prove who of the two is the most pro-Israeli. And neither Hillary Clinton nor Ric Lazio is even Jewish. What I shall discuss in my next article is how the only possible political strategy for the US so far as Arab and Palestinian policy are concerned is neither a pact with the Zionists here nor one with US policy, but a mobilised mass campaign directed at the American population on behalf of Palestinian human, civil and political rights. All other arrangements, whether Oslo or Camp David, are doomed to failure because, put simply, the official discourse is totally dominated by Zionism and, except for a few individual exceptions, no alternatives to it exist. Therefore all peace arrangements undertaken on the basis of an alliance with the US are alliances that confirm rather than confront Zionist power. To submit supinely to a Zionist-controlled Middle East policy, as the Arabs have done for almost a generation now, will neither bring stability at home nor equality and justice in the US. Yet the irony is that there exists inside the US a vast body of opinion ready to be critical both of Israel and of US foreign policy. The tragedy is that the Arabs are too weak, too divided, too disorganised and ignorant to take advantage of it. I shall discuss the reasons for that as well in my next article since my hope is to try to reach a new generation that may be both puzzled and discouraged by the miserable, denigrated place in which our culture and people are now located, and the constant sense of indignant but humiliating loss that all of us experience as a result. [END] This article originally appear in the 21 - 27 September 2000 issue of Al-Ahram Weekly ( No. 500). ===== Thought for the Day: "We fight not to enslave but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in." (Thomas Paine, 1737-1809) From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Nov 20 03:25:16 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:25:16 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/19/2001 - "Breaking..." Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 19, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: This seems to be a breaking story. It came to me without a reference, but Le Soir is mentioned, and the internet stringer who sent it to me is reliable. Keep toes and fingers crossed that the court date of November 28 will take place as planned. It would be a huge first step in the right direction to help the world define exactly what "terrorism" looks like - and who the perpetrators are! [START] Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being summoned to a Belgian court to answer questions over his role in the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres, say Belgian media reports. Two separate claims against Mr Sharon are being brought under a 1993 Belgian law, which allows war crimes and genocide to be tried in Belgium, even if the events took place elsewhere, and even if none of the victims was Belgian. A hearing has been set for 28 November, and Mr Sharon is expected to be issued with summons documents by the Belgian ambassador to Israel, says Le Soir newspaper. Belgian magistrate Patrick Collignon has been investigating the two cases, initially to determine whether he has jurisdiction in the case. The first case, charging Mr Sharon with responsibility for the deaths, was lodged by a group of Palestinian, Lebanese, Moroccan and Belgian nationals. The second suit, which alleges crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, was filed by 23 survivors of the massacres and five eyewitnesses. The massacres took place in two refugee camps in Lebanon which were home to thousands of Palestinians. Three months after after Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in 1982, the camps were stormed by Christian militiamen. Sharon resigns They shot and killed an estimated 800-1,500 of the refugees. Mr Sharon was Israeli defence minister at the time. An Israeli investigation in 1983 found him indirectly but "personally" responsible for the deaths, and he was forced to resign. Le Soir says the two separate summonses have been left with the Belgian ambassador, Wilfried Green, but are expected to be delivered shortly. The case has left the Belgian administration walking on eggshells, the paper says. Belgian diplomacy At the same time as preparing to serve the summonses, Belgium - as European Union president - is spearheading a new diplomatic effort to restore the peace process. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt is heading a senior EU delegation on a Middle East tour which has included top-level talks in Israel. The delegation, which left Israel on Monday, has held separate talks with Mr Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. At the court hearing on 28 November, a Belgian grand jury is scheduled to decide whether the court has jurisdiction in the case. Mr Sharon's Belgian lawyer is challenging the court's right to be involved, and the Belgian investigation has been suspended in the meantime. The Mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, has angrily attacked the Belgian Government over the affair, accusing Mr Verhofstadt of heading a "government of bastards". [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "No lie you can speak or act but it will come, after longer or shorter circulation, like a bill drawn on Nature's Reality, and be presented there for payment - with the answer, No effects! (Thomas Carlyle in The French Revolution, 1837) From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Nov 21 02:47:38 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:47:38 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/20/2001 - "With justice for some, not all?" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 20, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Today's Zgram is a Commentary / Opinion from the November 20, 2001 edition of the Christian Science Monitor, written by Rogers M. Smith, titled "With justice for some, not all?" [START] PHILADELPHIA - President Bush's executive order authorizing military commissions to try foreign nationals suspected of terrorism is a shocking imposition of martial law that goes well beyond any measure previously upheld by US courts. Though championed on security grounds, it really relies for its dubious legal foundation on one of the ugliest themes in American jurisprudence: the denial that aliens are persons with rights. The administration's plan is clearly intended to provide a mechanism by which Osama bin Laden could be quickly tried and executed by US military officials overseas, instead of turning him over to an international judicial tribunal for a prolonged public trial that might make him a martyr. Whatever the wisdom of that grim policy, the order goes much further. It allows military officials within the United States to arrest aliens on mere suspicion of terrorism, without having to show probable cause; to try them entirely in secret; to use any evidence against them that military officials judge to have "probative value," even if it is mere hearsay or illegally obtained; to convict them on simple preponderance of such evidence, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt; to convict them by a vote of two-thirds of the military judges, without a requirement of unanimity, much less trial by jury; and to sentence them to death, without appeal to the civilian courts. This is a grotesque Magna Charta for a new Star Chamber. Bush officials have defended the order by citing the US Supreme Court's approval of President Roosevelt's decision in World War II to have Nazi saboteurs, captured as they sought to smuggle explosives into Florida, tried and sentenced to death by a secret military tribunal. But there are fundamental differences in the two cases. Congress had declared war on Germany, making Germans "alien enemies" as a matter of law. And these alien enemies were entering the country illegally, with illegal weapons. They were properly tried as foreign combatants engaged in acts of war. Today, Congress has not declared war against any nation, nor was it even consulted about the administration's plan to impose martial law. The president bases his authority for this order only on his own previous executive order proclaiming a state of emergency. And these military courts can try not just persons legally recognized as "alien enemies," but also lawfully admitted, long-time resident aliens from countries at peace with the US. They can do so, moreover, on the basis of evidence far more flimsy than the government had against the Nazi agents. These steps go well beyond what the Supreme Court has endorsed. It is true that during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln imposed martial law even in areas of the country far removed from actual combat. The Supreme Court, however, found those actions unconstitutional. The administration "distinguishes" that case because the defendant was a US citizen, and these measures apply only to foreign nationals. That argument shows that the real basis on which the Bush officials seek to defend these measures is not the power to wage war. Again, we are not legally at war. They appeal instead to what are longstanding, albeit repugnant, judicial rulings holding that aliens have no meaningful rights that can restrain the US government. The logic is that aliens are guests, invited on terms that we can change. If they don't like what we're doing, they can leave. Or we can make them leave. That analogy may have some appeal, but the decisions that wrote this reasoning into law do not. Judicial denials of rights to aliens originated in response to the US claim in the late 19th century that it could prevent the return to the US of formerly resident Chinese aliens to whom it had guaranteed the right to reentry. Legislators and courts defended this on racist grounds: People so different could be kept out regardless of their apparent rights. The notion that noncitizens really had no meaningful rights was further underscored after the Spanish-American War, in which the residents of the new US colonies were deemed ineligible for constitutional protections. Again, the legislators and courts held they were too racially distinct and inferior to merit such guarantees. That sort of racism is, fortunately, disavowed today. But the repugnant legal doctrines denying even basic rights to aliens remain. Hence Attorney General John Ashcroft believes he can reason in similar ways. He has declared that the people who would be tried in the new military courts do not "deserve" constitutional rights. But perhaps the most admirable feature of the US Constitution is that it defines most of the fundamental rights it delineates as rights of "persons," not of citizens. "Persons," not citizens, are entitled to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, against losses of liberty without due process, against denials of equal protection. Persons can forfeit some of those liberties, but only as the result of governmental proceedings in which their constitutional rights are protected throughout. There are no provisions for executive officials to decide unilaterally, in advance of any proof of guilt, which people are and are not "persons" who "deserve" to have such rights. There are no such provisions for a very good reason: The US began committed to the principle that all persons were endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that governments were created to secure these rights. The founders of this country had a name for executive officials who decided, on their own authority, that some persons actually had no claim to such inalienable rights. They called them tyrants. So should our courts, and so should we, today. _________ Rogers M. Smith is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. E-mail this editorial! [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint." (Daniel Webster) From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Nov 22 03:36:43 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 19:36:43 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/21/2001 - "The Craven 89" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 21, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Virginia Abernethy of Nashville is doing what citizens in a democracy ought to do: She asks for an accounting of those elected civil servants who are more concerned with pleasing Israel than with looking out for American interests. In this Open Letter to President Bush, sie asks which ones of the Senators asked "not to hamper Israel." A worthy question - because it also tells the voters who the eleven are who still remember that they have a spine. [START] Subject: the craven 89 Eight-nine senators sent an AIPAC-directed letter to Pres. Bush asking him to get out of Israel's way in Palestine. ========== Open Letter to President George W. Bush, Dear President Bush, Please release the names of the 89 U.S. Senators who signed a letter asking you to not "hamper Israel" (NYT,Nov. 17, 2001, p.1)in its military actions against the Palestinian people. Senators are elected representatives of their States. When their actions are likely to be controversial or contrary to constituents' security and economic interests, they must be exposed. These 89 Senators have chosen sides in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict even though Americans as a people do not bear a grudge against Palestinians. Many who know the history of Zionism and Israel see the Palestinians' struggle as legitimate. Some see it as akin to America's own fight for liberty in 1775. We doubt that the Palestinians' weapons of choice would be thrown rocks or self-annihilation with hidden bombs if they had other means of pressing claims to their homelands. Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem advance even, or especially, as world attention focuses on the "peace process." The Palestinians "pay" for negotiations by agreeing to forgo violence, only to see further confiscation of their lands occur under cover of the negotiations. Half of the 200,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank came after initiation of the 1993 Oslo Peace Agreement (Washington Post, Sept. 16, 2001). The West Bank is now like a Swiss cheese: Israeli settlements linked by militarized Israeli-controlled roads and checkpoints that Palestinians can traverse only after delay and humiliation. If few Americans have strong views about the Mid-East struggle, it is because they are not well informed. The big media see to it that Israel's atrocities are covered lightly if at all. Most Americans do not know that Palestinians in the West Bank sometimes go days at a time without running water because Israelis shut off the taps. Or that Palestinian water consumption (including agricultural uses) is 60-90 liters per capita per day compared to 280 liters per capita per day for Israelis on the West Bank (New York Times, p. wk9, Sept. 2, 2001). That Israelis have filled in Palestinian wells, have uprooted their groves of ancient olive trees, and have bulldozed down houses and barns, crushing farm animals and all else before them. Americans recognize, nevertheless, that they have both an ethical and a security interest in arriving at a just peace in the Mid-East, and they are surprisingly united in assessing why they came under attack at the World Trade Center on September 11. A poll released in early October by Reuters Israel but not reported in America shows that 46% of Americans want to "rethink" the United States' relationships with Israel -- ending military and economic aid, and ending U.S. support for that state. According to the poll, 58% of Americans saw U.S. ties to Israel as "a major" cause of the attacks on New York and Washington, and "Forty-six percent said the United States should consider changing its Middle East policies to reduce the violent backlash against it." In the United States, Americans who doubt the media spin about the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 9-11 may believe that they are alone. They are not. Many think it is common sense to credit what terrorist who attacked us say about their own motives. The terrorists say that the United States' reflexive support for Israel is one of three major causes of the attacks. Why not believe those who voluntarily tell you why they commit a crime? Who would know better than the terrorists themselves why they perpetrate atrocities? But the big media tell us they know better. The big media have a dog in this fight and tell the American people that we are hated for our democracy, our liberty, our success! Not satisfied with assaulting our common sense and sense of justice in the Israeli/Palestinian struggle, the big media are now preparing the public for wider U.S. military involvement. For example, "The Beltway Boys" (FOX News channel, November 17) speculated on the military agenda after mop-up operations in Afghanistan; one trickster jovially asked, "What next?" and was answered, "Iraq." American boys and girls should not be used to fight Israel's dream war. Israel has long desired that the United States would annihilate its enemies, especially Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon. And the second tier, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. The 89 Senators who press President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to favor Israel in the Mid-East conflict will not rest. The U.S. military is next to be enlisted in the service of Israeli goals. The approximately $3 billion annually in economic assistance and $4 billion in military support from American taxpayers to Israel is apparently not sufficient! The letter in which Senators urged President Bush "not to restrain Israel from retaliating fully against Palestinian violence and to express his solidarity publicly with Israel soon... stemmed from a meeting two weeks ago between leaders of the American Jewish community and key senators.... Particularly active in providing advice on the letter was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC], the principle lobbying group for Israel" (NYT, Nov. 17) President Bush, please release the names of the craven 89 Senators who put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests, integrity, and security of the American people. We need to know. Sincerely Virginia Abernethy Nashville, TN 37205 ===== Thought for the Day: "We must build a new world, a far better world - one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected." (Harry S. Truman) From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Nov 22 10:01:57 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 02:01:57 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/21/2001 - "The Craven 89" In-Reply-To: <014701c17301$77736fa0$172078d8@papurec> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20011122014829.00a82700@pop.interaccess.com> At 06:47 PM 11/21/01 -0800, you wrote: I will appreciate if you will be so kind and sent me a copy of President's response to the letter of Virginia Abernethy Wojciech Wlazlinski [...}"President Bush, please release the names of the craven 89 Senators who put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests, integrity, an security of the American people. We need to know." From irimland@zundelsite.org Thu Nov 22 20:41:33 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 12:41:33 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/22/2001 - "Thanksgiving Thoughts: More Relevant Than Ever!" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 22, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: MacKenzie Paine, who writes and/or sends her searing Truth-Seeking Missiles (to subscribe, write to natalie@tadp.org) has found George Washington's first Thanksgiving Speech somewhere on the Net. In light of what is happening, this speech can really bring tears to your eyes. I borrow the text from her and add only one important item - the names of the 11 US Senators who *refused* to bow to the Israeli Lobby and would not sign what is called the "The Bond/Schumer Letter for Strong Support of Israel". As I understand it, this document was asking President Bush to make yet another concession by toning down General Colin Powell's long-awaited speech on giving the Palestinian a state of their own and the dignity these tormented people have longed for and deserved. These courageous senators are: Joseph Biden Jeff Bingaman Robert Byrd Thad Cochran Judd Gregg Chuck Hagel James Feffords Patrick Leahy Richard Lugar Patty Murray Pat Roberts These senators deserve the thanks of all freedom-loving Americans on this Thanksgiving Day. If, later in the day, someone on my list will take the time ferret out their e-mails, I will send them to you in a separate e-mail. Here is the Thanksgiving Speech by the most extraordinary of the Founding Fathers of the American Republic, its first President, George Washington. I also include a bit of historical background: [START] From Spark's Washington, Vol. XII, p. 119 The following background information was submitted by Wayne Winters of Pocatello, Idaho. Shortly after the Thanksgiving Proclamation was written it was lost for over a hundred years. It was apparently misplaced or attached to some private papers in the process of moving official records from one city to another when the capital was changed. However, it happened the original manuscript was not in the official archives until 1921 when Dr. J. C. Fitzpatrick, then assistant chief of the manuscripts division of the Library of Congress "found" the proclamation. It was at an auction sale being held at an art gallery in New York. It was written in long hand by Wm. Jackson, secretary to President Washington and was signed by George Washington. Dr Fitzpatrick purchased the document for $300.00 for the Library of Congress, where it now resides. ===== The Speech Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:" Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best. Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789. G. Washington [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "They're [a Mexican activist group] are so sick of the ADL, et al, that they're now more interested in saving America than taking it over." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sat Nov 24 02:00:38 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 18:00:38 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/23/2001 - "You Can't Nuke Anthrax!" Message-ID: ===== ===== ===== Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 23, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Yesterday I promised you the emails of the eleven senators who did not sign "The Bond/Schumer Letter for Strong Support of Israel". Several of my scouts lent a hand. I have not found the time to double-check if these emails are actually active, but in any case the web-page that lists them is at http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm and you may verify and double-check them for yourself. It would be an excellent idea to bookmark the Senate web page for future use regarding issues where you would like to have a voice. Remember the Rule of Thumb: Every letter from a constituent is counted by staff as 1,000 letters representing exactly your point of view. Think of all the postage you can save! Therefore, please send a ***brief*** note of thanks for their courageous stand to the following senators: Joseph Biden senator@biden.senate.gov Jeff Bingaman senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov Robert Byrd senator_byrd@byrd.senate.gov Thad Cochran senator@cochran.senate.gov Judd Gregg mailbox@gregg.senate.gov Chuck Hagel chuck_hagel@hagel.senate.gov James Jeffords Vermont@Jeffords.Senate.gov Patrick Leahy senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov Richard Lugar senator_lugar@lugar.senate.gov Patty Murray senator_murray@murray.senate.gov Pat Roberts http://www.senate.gov/~roberts/email.htm If you want to shame the 89 US senators who sold out to the pressure of the Israeli Lobby - the disgraceful Bond/Schumer Letter - no one is going to stop you. But please remember: Revisionists have class! Refrain from offensive language! That's the preferred modus operandi of our enemies! You can always tell who's who and what's what by what comes out of their mouths! ===== Moving right along, here is another thought-provoking column by Joe Sobran : [START] What Is "Defense"? November 6, 2001 by Joe Sobran For the first time in living memory, Americans have to think about defense. Most of us (I include myself, until fairly recently) have assumed that our government was defending us. We equated military spending in staggering sums -- sustaining heavily armed soldiers, sailors, and pilots around the world -- with defense. And we thought that meant safety. It didn't. Now we know better. All that military spending was making us enemies all over the earth. As a result, we have to worry about people who were no threat to us a few years ago -- cruel, cunning men who have found methods of by-passing traditional military forces. After World War II the Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense to soften its image. "Defense" sounded nicer than "war." Yet the United States military has been less and less oriented to what the Constitution calls "the common defense of the United States." Its offensive power has become stupendous, and globally ubiquitous, but its actual defensive power turns out to have been seriously flawed. It was designed to deter attacks by rival states, but other kinds of attacks were hardly imagined. An enemy state can be destroyed with overwhelming force; a loose affiliation of guerrillas, saboteurs, or terrorists is another matter. Nuclear weapons, which a few of our more hairy- chested pundits are recommending now, are useless when you have to defend -- really defend -- every post office, airport, and shopping mall. You can't nuke anthrax. The nuclear option is being urged out of sheer frustration at a shadowy, dispersed, elusive enemy. Some people feel that our ultimate weapons must prevail, if only we use enough of them. But in this case, "enough" would mean genocide. Virtually the entire populations of several countries would have to be annihilated in order to kill a few scattered terrorists. And that's assuming that the terrorists would be close enough to the nuclear targets, rather than hiding in remote areas. Speaking of targets, I've read several newspaper columns urging nuking, but none of them have specified a target. They can't. The whole idea of nuclear weapons is strategic: to destroy major targets, especially big cities. But nobody knows where the relevant targets are, or why nuclear weapons would be any more effective than conventional explosives. In essence we are being told: "Don't just stand there -- nuke something!" The old model of a centralized enemy state doesn't apply here. The would-be nukers seem to forget that all the atrocities the enemy has committed so far have been the work of men who were and are already within U.S. borders. If Osama bin Laden, sitting in an Afghan cave, had a change of heart tomorrow, he might be unable to call off further strikes. The notion that bin Laden exercises close central control of the terrorist forces may be an optimistic assumption. It allows our government to feel it can win by targeting him -- or can at least justify its efforts to us. The politicians only have to make us feel they're achieving something with their "defense" forces, even if they aren't really getting an inch closer to victory or are actually doing more harm than good. This can be seen as a war between the public and private sectors. As usual, the public sector -- the U.S. Government, in this case -- is outspending the private sector -- the terrorists -- by a huge margin. And as usual, the massively organized and centralized public sector is wasting a colossal amount of wealth, while the decentralized private sector is getting far more bang for its buck. Conservatives and libertarians have long argued that the private sector is far more efficient than the public sector, but this isn't exactly the kind of demonstration we had hoped for. We'd rather Bill Gates made the point than Osama bin Laden. Not that it will sink in with our government either way. The lesson will be lost on believers in the megastate, as the calls for nuking the terror network illustrate. Talk about defense spending. This time it's not just our government that's paying; all of us are bearing the enormous cost of anticipating attacks on every conceivable target. And apart from the expense, there is the awful anxiety and fatigue. Welcome to the real world of defense. [END] ===== Thought for the Day: "A Constitution is a terrible thing to waste." (Letter to the Zundelsite) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Nov 25 03:39:04 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2001 19:39:04 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/24/2001 - "Our living martyrs" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 24, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Just a few words re today's missive. Samah Jobr, a young Palestinian physician, speaks in this essay about "Our living martyrs", his people's political prisoners, by drawing a comparison between them, all but forgotten behind their prison bars, and Nelson Mandela who never lost his inner bond with the people on whose behalf he suffered. There is a difference here - a poignant one. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned by an enemy who still obeyed an inner code of honor. That is not true of Israel. Mandela's suffering and sacrifice, real though it was, can't be compared with what the poor tormented Palestinians still have to endure in a country where torture was legal until just a few years ago and is still being practiced, according to global Human Rights voices. Herewith yet another small, heart-rending story in the grand design of thing= s: =20 By Samah Jabr =20 WHEN I meet the mother of a Palestinian killed in this conflict, I don't cry with her or ask her to show artificial pride and strength. Instead I say, "Your beloved is in God's hands, where life is more just and fair than ours." Many times, my words have been effective. =20 But when I meet a mother of a Palestinian political prisoner, I don't know what to say. I choke with the words dead in my throat. =20 A month ago, I went to Neve Tirza to stand in solidarity with a group of women political prisoners inside the jail who were on a hunger strike. There were only about 50 of us in the protest, a meager group compared to the massive crowds that usually follow the funeral of a martyr or the hundreds who line up outside universities to holler out their positions and announce a strike in protest. =20 Standing there looking at the meager showing, I imagined that some who might have joined us had been stopped at checkpoints. Certainly others had to make use of a day in which Israeli travel restrictions had relented to see what food they could find. Perhaps some hurried to their offices in hopes of getting a little work done before the mid-afternoon rush hour, then racing to get home before a new closure took affect. But despite my efforts to make the best of things, the sight of the small group made me think of the sad words of Mahmoud Abu Al Sukkar, a Palestinian man who spent 26 years of his life in jail because he dared express dissent when Zionists came to take his land. "I used to think that if you call Palestinians to stand in solidarity with their prisoners, the streets would be full of the thousands. But that was my fantasy and imagination," he lamented in his loneliness. =20 Abu Al Sukkar's expression of isolation nudges me to remember how our Palestinian negotiators have neglected and disregarded the thousands of freedom fighters who spent and are still spending the best years of their lives behind bars. What if the greatest among us are in these prisons, waiting and holding out for their chance to lead? =20 I lament the lack of care we appear to express for these prisoners. Except for the prisoners' own families who have longings and fears for their loved ones' safety, few among us recreate the greatness of our prisoners outside the walls that encircle them. Think, for example, how Nelson Mandela made prison his platform, supported by his community outside. Israel is notorious for its political prisons - Neve Tirza, Abu Kbeir, Dimona, and others. While the government of Israel keeps captives as young as 14 in these jails, few Israeli human rights organizations speak out consistently against the inhuman conditions and physical and psychological torture endured by the captives. That no one in the Palestinian Authority moves to improve conditions in these prisons is proof of the current void between the Palestinian power structures and morally concerned people within and without Israel's iron walls. Palestinian and Israeli peace activists alike lament the situation. "Where," wrote one concerned Israeli, "where in the world do you put 14-year-old girls in prison for being politically active? Only in Israel!" =20 In South Africa, Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in prison. He was tough, refusing to capitulate to his captors' demands, rejecting opportunities for freedom and waiting instead for the moment that he would gain freedom not only for himself, but for all his people. He had the strength of character to be a man of the people and the people were ready to engage the leadership he offered. Mandela never forgot his people and, they, in turn, did not forget him. =20 Standing outside Neve Tirza, I know the names of some of the prisoners. But there are so many. Whom have we forgotten? When our prisoners leave their cells, will we Palestinians be ready to embrace the sacrifices they made and open to them the avenues of leadership? Given that we are all virtually prisoners in our own homes, are we even able to see potential for leadership among ourselves? Could it be dormant,lying in front of our very eyes, unrecognized, but ready just the same? =20 Since the beginning of Intifada II more than one year ago, Israeli (and now Palestinian) prisons have swelled, occupied by those who would not follow the rules. Given that half of the Palestinian population is under the age of l8, it isn't surprising that many of the prisoners are in their prime: youthful, willful, wanting more from life. What do we say to the parents and grandparents of our young prisoners, especially when some of these have been captured by their own police and put away, out of sight and out of mind? We bend, abashed, like the animals in George Orwell's "Animal Farm." In Orwell's satire, the leaders of the animals are pigs. It is a sad day when the lowly citizen-animals open the doors of their leaders' inner sanctums and discover that those they trusted are eating ham. Saddened, the animals take the ham and give it a decent burial. =20 Will we gain freedom at last only to cringe in resentment for those who used our youth not to win our freedom, but to feed themselves? Or will we bow in reverence to those great and small who sacrificed themselves for our well-being? =20 If any place on the globe has witnessed conflict as wearing as that in Palestine, it is Africa and yet, look at the men who have risen from the depths of African despair: Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu and, now, Kofi Anan, the new winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. =46or us, the young people of Palestine, the future is ours. Either we will succumb to self-pity or we can bury our dead, hold our heads high, turn away from our prison walls and lead. =20 While I felt that our protest in front of Neve Tirza was disappointingly small, I'm glad I stood with 50 people on that day. It was my way of remembering, and of sharing in initiative. Mother Teresa wrote, "Don't wait for leaders, do it alone, person to person." So, I and the 49 others who made our presence known gave credence and visibility to the women inside the Israeli government had hoped would slip into oblivion (along with the rest of us). We may not have a Nelson Mandela among us, but perhaps we have better. We have thousands of political prisoners willing to sacrifice freedom and happiness for Palestinian independence. Whether hidden inside Israeli or Palestinian prisons or locked away through house arrest or community bantustans, none of us are giving in. We stand broken but not bowed, troubled but not humiliated, by Israel's expression of might. =20 Mandela stands out as one leader whom prison could not quell. The other great rule-breaker of our time, Mahatma Gandhi, died in 1948, the same year Zionists occupied the first part of Palestine. But those were different times for those seeking independence. Now, governments of the "civilized" world manufacture conflicts that reverberate like the movie "Star Wars." Here in dusty Palestine, we're not thinking of Star Wars. We've seen the missiles come and go with flares and sprays of light. We've felt billy clubs on our heads, endured the kick of soldiers' heavy boots and resisted the bullets of contempt. We need to stand tall, not dissolve in flames of hateful conflagration. =20 If we fail to honor our living as well as our dead, I worry that our national liberation will not be what we expect. I am troubled that we may succumb to the humiliation of our own silence and remain captives, unable to take control of our own destinies. I honor our prisoners of war; I pray that they will not be forgotten at the negotiation table and I await the day when we, the young people of Palestine, can show the world what leadership means. =20 Published 7/11/01 =A9Palestine Report Samah Jabr is a Physician and a life long resident of Jerusalem. [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "He might as well have written about Rudolf Hess." (Ernst Zundel, after reading this essay, with tears in his eyes) From irimland@zundelsite.org Sun Nov 25 17:27:51 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 09:27:51 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/25/2001 - "The Captive Boy" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 25, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: This small story, and the pictures that go with it, need to be taken to every Christian church on earth. Together, they are more powerful than all the platitudes the Israeli Firsters can come up with. [START] The Captive Boy, A David or a Goliath? C.E Carlson http://www.whtt.org/011123pw.htm THE CAPTIVE BOY photo and article of October 7, 2001, (http://www.whtt.org/010725pw2.htm) has been widely circulated and seems to have hit a nerve among Israelis partisans and patriots. It has aroused enraged replies, and thanks to an Israeli partisan website, you may now see a photo of the boy throwing the rock that earned him eight hours in an Israeli torture unit and a broken throwing arm! See how small Kamal is, and note also the vehement response of the partisans and their bitter contempt in refering to this frightened boy, "piss(ing) his pants" http://www.israeli-truth.org/english/sinema.html The Israelis do not deny that they beat Kamal Ali As'idah and broke his arm for throwing rocks. They even admit they tortured him! Instead they chose to justify their acts on the acknowledged fact that the boy threw rocks, and they produced an excellent picture of him doing it. However, they don't deny this occurred in the boy's hometown, on his own turf---where they are the intruders. We correctly stated in our story that 10-year-old Kamal did indeed throw rocks and we even surmised that he probably got caught because he was too small to throw very far. Torture of children is appearently Israel's version of "AN EYE FOR AN EYE"(Exodus 21: 24). Over 53 years this policy has been "a broken arm, or much worse, for throwing a rock, never mind that you live here and we are the invaders." Under this Pharisaic system of "justice" thousands of children and teen-age men have been killed and maimed for life under "AN ARM FOR A ROCK" justice. American taxpayers pay for it, as we have shown time and time again. "We Hold These Truths" leadership is mostly made up of followers of Christ. What amazes and mystifies us is that this banal brutality is blindly upheld by professing Christians! Apparently it reinforces their idea of Christian "tough Love," but it has gotten twisted in the Israeli spin cycle. We wonder what these would say if it were their own child in Kamal's place? Here is the boy, throwing the rock, compliments of an Israeli partisan website. (http://www.israeli-truth.org/english/sinema.html) END. ===== Thought for the Day: "Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ears, it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul." (Francis Thompson) From irimland@zundelsite.org Tue Nov 27 02:44:16 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 18:44:16 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/26-2001 - "Lots of revision of history in this one!' Message-ID: =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny 11/26/2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Pat Buchanan is known to all of us. He was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party's candidate in 2000. Now a commentator and columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national televison shows, and is the author of six books. His current position is chairman of The American Cause. http://www.theamericancause.org His newest book, "Death of the West," will be published in January. Pat Buchanan in "No more undeclared wars": [START] =46DR "lied us into war because he did not have the political courage to lea= d us into it," Rep. Clare Luce blurted out in 1944. The target of Luce's accusation was a president who by then had entered the pantheon alongside Lincoln and Washington. FDR's courtiers savaged the lady for maligning the Great Man, but few could credibly deny the truth of what she had said. No matter the justice and nobility of America's cause in World War II, FDR had lied us into war. Even as he soothingly reassured the mothers and fathers of America ("I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars"), he was stoking war, and provoking Germany and Japan. =46DR lied about the secret war he had ordered U.S. warships to conduct against German U-boats. He lied about who fired the first shots when the U.S. destroyers Greer and Kearney were attacked. He lied about having discovered Hitler's plans for the conquest of South America and the Nazification of Christianity. No such plans existed except in the fertile and creative minds of British intelligence. =46DR sent picket ships out into the path of the Japanese fleet in the hope they would be sunk. He gave Lord Halifax secret, but unconstitutional, assurances America would defend His Majesty's colonies in the Pacific. He spurned a secret peace offer from Japan's Prince Konoye and issued a secret ultimatum to Tojo's regime on Nov. 26, 1941. As Secretary of War Henry Stimson wrote in his diary two weeks before Pearl Harbor, "We should maneuver them into ... firing the first shot." FDR was guilty of impeachable high crimes. But as Field Marshal Moltke told Admiral Tirpitz, as he ordered the German army to invade neutral Belgium in 1914, "Success alone justifies war." And America succeeded absolutely. And with FDR's death on the eve of total victory in the "Good War" in 1945, people no longer cared how the war had begun. Yet, our politics were poisoned by Roosevelt's mendacity, as it would be by Truman's undeclared war in Korea ("a police action") and by Vietnam, when senators learned they had been deceived in the Tonkin Gulf incident. Today, America is being stampeded into a new undeclared war, against Iraq. Thus it is a time for truth =F1 a time for Congress to do its duty, and debate and decide on war or peace. We do not need to have our politics poisoned for yet another generation by the mutual recriminations of a War Party and a Peace Party in the aftermath of yet another undeclared war. Questions need answering. Was Saddam involved in the massacres of Sept. 11? Was he behind the anthrax attacks? Is he harboring terrorist cells of al-Qaida? Is he preparing nuclear or bio-terror weapons to attack us? If the answer is "Yes," let Congress lay out the evidence before the nation and empower the president to take us to war. Henry Hyde and Joe Biden, chairmen respectively of the House and Senate foreign relations committees, should assume their duty to the nation and history, and assert Congress' rightful role in the decision on war or peace. Both have said that they oppose a war on Iraq. But that is not enough. On Sunday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice seemed to assert that President Bush had the justification and right to take us to war against Saddam, should he so choose. But where did he get this authority? When did Congress cede it to him, or authorize U.S. attacks on the other Arab states on the War Party's enemies list? While the United States could launch air strikes on Iraq at any moment, the ground troops needed for an invasion are not in place. And given the halving of U.S. forces since Desert Storm, it would take months before they are ready to march =F1 time enough for reasoned debate. Indeed, the semi-hysteria of the War Party suggests it does not have the evidence to convict Saddam of Sept. 11, and a war on Iraq is but the next move on the little chessboards of empire they carry about in their book bags. But a war on Iraq could ravage our relations with Britain, Russia and NATO; shatter the Afghan war coalition; inflame the Arab street; and destabilize our Arab allies, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Should the Saudi monarchy fall to a revolution as a result of an attack on Iraq, Bush would have lost the oil storehouse his father went to war to defend in 1991. It's time for Congress to debate again Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Is it to be containment or war? If it is to be war, we have a right to know why, and to hold accountable those who take us into war. No more Munichs, no more Yaltas, Bush said. Right he is. But let us add: No more undeclared wars. No more presidential wars. [END] =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D The source for this article is: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=3D25424 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Thought for the Day: "Who would have thought that we would come to rely upon Pravda to give us honest news." ( Letter to the Zundelsite ) From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Nov 28 02:22:00 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 18:22:00 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/27/2001 - "Ashcroft's Silence" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 27, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: It seems that the forces are gathering to ask a few questions that are overdue: [START] Ashcroft's Silence Exacerbates Hill, White House Tensions By Noelle Straub and Melanie Fonder The chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee are increasingly frustrated by the failure of Attorney General John Ashcroft to respond to any inquiries concerning his broad new powers in dealing with accused terrorists. Underscoring rising tensions between the White House and Congress, the committee has demanded that Ashcroft appear as the lone witness at a hearing next week. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Judiciary chairman and ranking member, respectively, sent a terse three-sentence letter sent to their former colleague on Friday. "We suggest Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001, and ask that you make yourself available for several hours," the senators wrote. The committee staff and Department of Justice staff are negotiating the exact date, according to Leahy spokesman David Carle. Lawmakers want information about the more than 1,000 people detained in the criminal investigation, changes allowing law enforcement to listen in on lawyer-client communications in some cases, what law enforcement might have done to prevent the attacks, and how to ensure civil liberties under sweeping anti-terrorism legislation signed into law. Leahy has sent six letters to Aschroft and has signed two with other lawmakers. Ashcroft personally has yet to respond to any of them, but Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant responded to one issue on Nov. 14. The letters -- sent between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16 -- even include personal notes from Leahy such as "Looking forward to your response," and, "Many people are concerned about this -- I do need the questions answered." Susan Dryden, a Justice Department spokeswoman, failed to return several phone calls from The Hill. "Given the grave importance of this matter and its implications for basic civil liberties, I would appreciate a response to these questions by no later than Nov. 13," Leahy wrote on Nov. 9. "I would also respectfully request that full and responsive answers to my earlier letters of Oct. 25 and 31 and Nov. 7 and 8, 2001, be provided without delay." Leahy, who included in the letter a list of seven questions he wanted answered, was especially critical of the provision allowing the government to listen to conversations between inmates and their lawyers in certain situations. He has expressed anger that he was not consulted before that decision. Leahy had pointed criticism for Ashcroft's lack of response to the many questions raised by lawmakers since Sept. 11. "They tend to ignore us over here once they've been confirmed," Leahy told The Hill. But Hatch was more willing to give Ashcroft the benefit of the doubt. "I'm always concerned about the appropriate utilization of law enforcement techniques," Hatch said. "On the other hand, I don't want to interfere with properly utilized law enforcement that may be protective of our American citizens." Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), the only senator to vote against the increased investigative powers included in the anti-terrorism legislation signed into law last month, has been a key ally on the issue, as has Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). In the House, conservative Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) joined a group of liberal Democrats on Friday calling for hearings as well. Carle said Ashcroft testified once during consideration of the anti-terrorism legislation but refused to return for two subsequent hearings. "There's a feeling on both sides of the Hill and both sides of the aisle that the lack of consultation is becoming a problem," Carle said. Leahy made his displeasure known in most of his letters. "I have felt a growing concern that the trust and cooperation Congress provided is proving to be a one-way street," Leahy wrote in the Nov. 9 letter. "You have declined several requests to appear before the committee to answer questions and have not responded to requests to provide information on such basic points as the number of people S currently detained without trial." Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen said he supported Congress holding hearings on his top concern -- an executive order allowing for military tribunals to try suspected terrorists. "No matter how well-meaning any government is, and no matter how much trust we have in individuals, over a period of time, that power, once granted, can be seriously abused," Cohen told The Hill. "So I think it's important that Congress play a major role, start holding hearings, give the public an opportunity to really speak about it as well." The American Civil Liberties Union and American Bar Association have also registered their complaints concerning similar issues. A broad coalition of human rights organizations, including the ACLU, the First Amendment Foundation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to try to obtain answers from the Justice Department specifically on the detainees. The ABA, the nation's largest lawyers' organization, said the monitoring provision runs "squarely afoul" with the Fourth and Sixth amendments. The ACLU released a similarly critical statement and labeled the move an "unprecedented power grab." [END] (Soruce: http://www.truthout.com/11.28D.Ashcroft.Silence.htm) ===== Thought for the Day: "Character is much easier kept than recovered." (Thomas Paine) From irimland@zundelsite.org Wed Nov 28 18:52:06 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 10:52:06 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/28/2001 - "Perhaps the truth at last!" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 28, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: We should all be following this developing story very closely, as placed by Robert Fisk in the Independent today: [START] 28 November 2001 "...after 19 years, perhaps the truth at last. Chilling new evidence suggests that more than 1,000 Palestinian survivors of the Sabra and Chatila camp massacres in Beirut were "disappeared" within 24 hours of the slaughter, often in areas under direct Israeli military control. The testimony - which describes in detail how the victims were last seen by their families in the hands of Israeli troops and Israel's militia allies - will be among the material to be considered by a Belgian judge, who could decide today whether the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, should be prosecuted for the slaughter. Mr Sharon was judged "personally responsible" for the massacre by the Israeli Kahan Commission in 1983. Its report concluded that hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were all butchered between 16 and 18 September in 1982. But among the female witnesses cited by lawyers in Belgium, who are seeking the indictment against Mr Sharon, are at least five who claim that more than 100 men were detained by the militiamen and handed over to the Israelis alive. They were never seen again. Separately from the court action,film taken by a television crew at the time, which has recently come to light, appears to show Israeli officers in the presence of Phalangist gunmen - long after the Israelis knew their Phalangist allies had carried out the massacre, which caused worldwide outrage and led Mr Sharon, then Defence Minister, to resign. There has always been a discrepancy between the number of bodies found in Sabra and Chatila - up to 600 - and the number of civilians registered as missing - more than 1,800. Until now, it was assumed that all the victims had been murdered by Phalangists and that many had been secretly buried. If accepted by the court, the new evidencecould hold disturbing implications for both the Israeli army and for Mr Sharon, particularly if the Israelis continued their collaboration with the Phalange after the murders in the camps and if they permitted the Phalange to take away more prisoners. ===== (Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=107173 ) ===== Thought for the Day: "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." (Shakespeare) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Nov 30 02:44:41 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 18:44:41 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/29/2001 - "EU considers plans to outlaw racism" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 29, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Of today's news, this one is probably the most significant for our struggle. It will be interesting to see how the Brits will take to freedom of speech restrictions the rest of Western Europe has chafed under for some time. And for this they fought a war? [START} Thursday 29 November 2001 telegraph.co.uk EU considers plans to outlaw racism By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 29/11/2001) RACISM and xenophobia would become serious crimes in Britain for the first time, carrying a prison sentence of two years or more, under new proposals put forward by Brussels yesterday. Holocaust denial or "trivialisation" of Nazi atrocities would be banned, along with and participation in any group that promotes race hate. The plans, drafted by the European Commission, define racism and xenophobia as aversion to individuals based on "race, colour, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin". Ordinary crimes would carry heavier penalities if they are motivated in any way by racism or xenophobia, or if the culprit is carrying out "professional activity", such as a police officer. Some of the crimes listed are, broadly speaking, offences under British law already, such as public incitement to violence. But the list also a covers a wide range of activities that sometimes fall into the sphere of protected political speech, such as "public insults" of minority groups, "public condoning of war crimes", and "public dissemination of tracts, pictures, or other material containing expressions of racism of xenophobia" - including material posted on far-Right internet websites. It was not clear yesterday how the law would affect radical Islamic groups that openly promote anti-Semitic and anti-Christian views. Nor was it clear how it would apply to political parties opposed to mass immigration, such as Austria's Freedom Party, Belgium's Vlaams Blok, and the Danish People's Party, all of which have become serious political forces. The law could potentially cover many stand-up comedians, and even Anne Robinson, who, during an appearance on BBC television this year, described the Welsh as "irritating". The proposals, which will require the unanimous backing of all 15 states, are aimed at ending the patchwork of different laws across the European Union and establishing a common definition that can be used by all judges. The commission appears to have adopted the most restrictive code - Germany's - as the basis for the rest of the EU. Leonello Gabrici, the Commission's judicial spokesman, denied that there was any intention of curbing political expression. "This totally respects free speech. It will be up to judges to decide where the balance lies" he said. The United Kingdom Independence Party said yesterday that it could be targeted by the new rules, noting that the Oxford English Dictionary definition of xenophobia is "a morbid fear of foreigners or foreign countries". Nigel Farage MEP, the party's chairman, said: "I'm morbidly xenophobic about this new country called the European Union, so if that is covered by this law then I'm most certainly xenophobic and I could be extradited anywhere. So I'm going to make sure my overnight bag is packed and ready." ===== (Source: news.telegraph.co.uk ) ===== Thought for the Day: "Liberty of thought is the life of the soul." (Voltaire) From irimland@zundelsite.org Fri Nov 30 17:28:07 2001 From: irimland@zundelsite.org (irimland@zundelsite.org) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 09:28:07 -0800 Subject: ZGram - 11/30/2001 - "Who wants this war and why" Message-ID: Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny November 30, 2001 Good Morning from the Zundelsite: Gilbert Blythe is the pen name of a Washington-area journalist. The essay below is posted on The Last Ditch web site: http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch The title of this very fine, beautifully crafted and argued piece of writing is: WHO WANTS THIS WAR AND WHY [START] In the October 29 issue of The Weekly Standard, a leading neoconservative magazine, William Kristol and Robert Kagan write that "when all is said and done, the conflict in Afghanistan will be to the war on terrorism what the North Africa campaign was to World War II: an essential beginning on the path to victory." After what they call "but an opening battle," they predict a war that will "spread and engulf a number of countries" and that "could well require the use of American military power in multiple places simultaneously." In the turmoil that would follow, Kristol and Kagan think it likely that Israel could reoccupy the West Bank and depose Yasser Arafat; that several moderate Arab governments could be overthrown; and that America's war against terrorism could "resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid." They add that in a conflict of such scale, some countries might use biological or chemical weapons. Though they do not say so explicitly, they are telling us to prepare for World War III. What is most remarkable about the essay is its unruffled tone. The authors could be offering advice on brands of toothpaste rather than urging us into a war that could cause incalculable destruction. How many people do they think we should be prepared to kill? Five thousand? Five hundred thousand? A million? Not even small wars end predictably. War on the scale Kristol and Kagan envision, in an age of weapons of mass destruction, could have catastrophic consequences, but they tell us that such a war is necessary in defense of "the West." They are hardly alone in calling for all-out war. Charles Krauthammer, Norman Podhoretz, William Safire, Morton Kondracke, Don Feder, Ben Wattenberg, and Mona Charen have all done so as well. In the Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz is the most prominent advocate of a multi-front war. Let us state it plainly: All these people are Jewish. Not all Jews are as eager as these are to shed Muslim blood, and a few non-Jews are equally eager, but Jews have unquestionably distinguished themselves in their ardor for war. Why is it necessary to point this out? In any passionate conflict, there is a difference between neutral observers and partisans. Participants in any fight -- as well as their relatives -- can seldom be objective about who is wrong or right. That is why we would not expect to hear the whole truth about the Indo-Pakistani conflict if we asked only Indians or only Pakistanis. When it comes to the events of September 11, Jews are not neutral observers; they are partisans. That is because Israel, and our relations with the Jewish state, are central both to the terror attacks themselves and to the way in which we should respond to them. It is no secret that American Jews have a passionate commitment to Israel, so it would be foolish not to evaluate what they say in light of that commitment. On issues related to Israel, many Jews have understandably strong interests that are different from those of non-Jews, but the country as a whole should be careful not to be swept up in such partisan passions. Excessive concern for narrowly Jewish interests could damage broader American interests. Jews with access to the official media have taken a virtually unanimous view of the events of September 11 in insisting, first of all, that American support for Israel has nothing to do with why so many Arabs hate us, or why 19 fanatics were willing to die trying to kill as many of us possible. They prefer to divorce the deaths of nearly 5,000 Americans from our alliance with Israel because they worry -- with good reason -- that gentiles might rethink that alliance if large numbers of Americans should begin to die because of it. Most Jews have instead argued that Arabs attacked the United States not because of anything America has done but because it is a symbol of freedom and democracy. David Harris of the American Jewish Committee is entirely typical when he says, "From the moment that the World Trade Center toppled, I think Americans understood that this was an attack on all of us. If Israel didn't exist, it still would have happened." Norman Podhoretz even wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Arabs dislike Israel only because Israel is friendly with the United States, and not the other way around! Shortly after the attacks, Elie Wiesel was reported as saying, "What happened had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Israel, and America knows that." Such a categorical -- even defensive -- statement suggests that Wiesel may not be entirely convinced of his position. And, indeed, a Zogby poll taken about the same time as his remarks showed that 73 percent of Americans thought the attacks were inspired, at least to some degree, by U.S. policy in the Mideast. Widespread though this view obviously is, it almost never appears in print, and it certainly has not led to public discussion about the connection between terrorism and our support for Israel, or the wisdom of that support. Jewish spokesmen have promoted the view that terrorists attacked the United States because it is a beacon of freedom. For example, Roberta Goldstein, who will be the next national chairman of Israel Bonds, says that "we are dealing with lunatics who are opposed to a free society." There is no evidence for that argument, and that fact only highlights its partisan quality. No bin Laden spokesman or known terrorist has ever said he hated America because it is "free" or democratic. Bin Laden has a list of specific grievances against the United States, one of which is American support for Israel. In his statement immediately after the United States began bombing Afghanistan, he gave that reason special prominence, warning that Americans would not live in security until Palestinians lived in security. But even that blunt statement had little effect on most Jewish commentators, some of whom simply claimed bin Laden was lying. However, a terrorist generally has no reason to lie about his motives, because if he has a purpose in resorting to terror, that purpose cannot be achieved if he keeps it a secret. If Arab hatred for America really did have nothing to do with our support for Israel, and the terrorists really had launched an attack against freedom and democracy -- if Arabs had, in effect, already begun the "clash of civilizations" Kristol and Kagan say they want to avoid -- then there might be some justification for the multi-front war The Weekly Standard wants us to fight. But al Qaeda is not at war with "the West." It has announced no quarrel with Europe, which epitomizes "the West" and was for centuries the traditional enemy of Islam. Al Qaeda has shown itself to be a practical organization that thinks it can use criminal violence to change certain policies in the Middle East. It is we who will set alight a civilizational conflagration if we do the bidding of many Jews and expand the war. Another common Jewish argument -- Kagan and Kristol make it in The Weekly Standard-- is that Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Ladin are perfect parallels, and that Israel is no less justified in killing Arafat than America is in killing bin Laden. That is a remarkable non sequitur, coming, as it usually does, from people who have just told us Arabs hate America, not for anything we have done but because of the ideals we stand for. One cannot possibly believe that and then claim Arafat and bin Laden are moral equivalents. Jews and Arabs have not been fighting for 50 years because of metaphysical disagreements about "freedom" or "democracy." The bloodshed is over a very concrete question: =Who owns the land?= Every single death can be traced back to that entirely ordinary but intractable disagreement. But if, as Jewish commentators would have us believe, the United States was quietly promoting domestic tranquillity only to be suddenly attacked by crazed Arabs, there is no parallel between Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden. Palestinian violence has a well-recognized origin and cause, whereas the nearly unanimous Jewish view is that al Qaeda's violence against America is utterly unprovoked. That spurious parallel has the purpose of portraying Palestinian violence as pure, unprovoked evil that justifies the harshest forms of suppression. And where will this Americo-Israeli fight against pure evil lead? Kristol and Kagan calmly predict that an inevitably broader war against terrorism could unseat the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Jordan, with their possible replacement by radical Islamic regimes. The implications for America would be "enormous," they explain (of course, it is the implications for Israel that would be "enormous," but this they leave unsaid); and they add that "American intervention in some form would be a near certainty." American intervention? We don't know how to organize a plausible successor to the Taliban, a band of outcasts and eccentrics that had diplomatic relations with only two countries. And yet The Weekly Standard expects us to march into Cairo, the heart of the Arab world, and impose a government on the Egyptians! It is folly even to imagine such a thing. The struggle of good against evil that many American Jews are promoting just happens to be a war against Israel's enemies. Kristol and Kagan want us to destroy the military capacity of Iraq, Syria, and perhaps Iran, and forcibly install pliant governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. They want us to fight a major, multi-front war that would root out conservative Islam and smash every nation that has ever threatened Israel. Maybe that would be good for Israel, but what about us? A long, bloodthirsty campaign on that scale, even if it appeared successful for a time, would cost the lives of countless Americans and ensure for us the everlasting hatred of the world's Muslims. It would raise up a dozen new Osama bin Ladens, who would think of ever more clever and sickening ways to seek revenge. America would become a constant battleground. This view of the conflict -- in which our support for Israel plays no role, in which al Qaeda's objectives are metaphysical rather than practical, and which requires years of bloodshed that would have the effect of making the Middle East safe for Israel -- is very damaging to American interests. But it greatly advances a certain view of Israeli interests, which is why it is important to examine the motives of those who are promoting it. If China and India were to go to war, as they have done in the past, no one would expect Chinese-Americans or Indian-Americans to take an objective view that reflected strictly American interests. They would do everything they could to make us pick sides and back their old homeland, even if it were not in our interest. They would also try to convince us that choosing sides =was= in our interest, and that staying out of the fight would be a betrayal of American values. That is natural and to be expected. What Jewish-Americans are doing is also natural and to be expected. They are dressing up a narrowly partisan interest in red, white, and blue, and some non-Jews will mistake it for an American flag. But those of us who are not Jews or Arabs, who are not partisans in their decades-long fight, must realize that cousins of combatants are not neutral observers. Jews have much more influence in this country than Arabs and have skewed the debate about how to respond to terrorism in a direction that serves Jewish and Israeli interests more than American interests. It is legitimate and necessary to point that out. Jews have every right to try to encourage the use of American military might in ways that suit them, just as every other group has, but we should not be blind to their motives. Unless the rest of us understand those motives, we could find ourselves mired in an unwinnable war against all of Islam, and under constant attack at home from Arabs whom we have given every reason to hate us. It is vitally important that we understand what has caused this war. The longer it goes on and the more countries it involves, the more it will take on a life of its own and the more obscure its origins will become. In every war, as casualties mount, revenge and blood lust are increasingly what drive the killing, and what may have been strictly political disagreements that prompted the conflict recede into irrelevance. The more Muslims we kill, the more likely it is that other Muslims will see the war as an assault on all of Islam, whether we mean it that way or not. And as Muslims manage to kill more of us in return, Americans will increasingly see the conflict in the same religious and civilizational terms. What response to the terror of September 11 would be in American interests? We cannot let murderers go unpunished, so we must take action against them. However, it is folly to pretend that Palestinian grievances have nothing to do with the rejoicing that swept the Muslim world when the twin towers collapsed. Virtually every nation in the world -- except for the United States and Israel -- believes that peace and justice require that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. Instead, in violation of repeated Security Council resolutions, Israel continues to build settlements on conquered land. The United States is the only country that finances, arms, and backs that process, which, to Arabs, is a campaign of perpetual aggression. The United States is the only power that can persuade Israel to accept a settlement that appears just in the eyes not only of the Palestinians but of the entire world. If Israel returns the land it conquered in 1967, Palestinians and other Arabs will lose their greatest reason to hate us, and peace may finally come to a region that badly needs it. We could have cordial relations with all nations in the region. A few senior members of the Bush administration understand this, and that is why they oppose a multi-front war, and emphasize the need for a Palestinian state. And that is why some of them, Colin Powell in particular, have been the targets of bitter criticism from Jews. If we do not bring about a solution that is acceptable to the majority of Muslims, the war on terrorism will never end and we will never win, no matter how long and hard we fight. We cannot root out Islamic terror unless we root out its causes. We will never even recognize its causes if we fail to understand the motives of those who obscure those causes, and who no doubt believe they speak for America but whose counsels are not in our best interests. A broad, enormously destructive conflict can be avoided only if we carefully limit our military targets. Al Qaeda and its direct supporters cannot be permitted to plot further violence against us, and it may [be] necessary -- with the support of the international community -- to take further measures to prevent Iraq from developing nuclear weapons. However, we must make all decisions of that kind with a strict eye to what is good for the United States. President Bush tells us that this is a war against terrorism. Whether he realizes it or not, Arab terrorism will stop only when the Palestinians have a satisfactory state. American Jews will use their considerable influence to direct American policies to other ends, but our leaders must recognize that in this conflict, satisfying Jewish interests will endanger American interests and cost the lives of many Americans. [END] ===== (Source: http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch) ===== Thought for the Day: "Theirs was a giant race, before the flood." (John Dryden)