Remembering the Wannsee Conference and the Liberation of Auschwitz

This article is posted by participants of the January 27, 2005, BlogBurst (see list at end of article), to remember the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, sixty years ago, on January 27, 1945.

On January 20th, we marked the anniversary of the 1942 Wannsee Conference. In the course of that Conference, the Nazi hierarchy formalized the plan to annihilate the Jewish people. Understanding the horrors of Auschwitz requires that one be aware of the premeditated mass-murder that was presented at Wannsee.

Highlighting these events now has become particularly important, even as the press reports that '45% of Britons have never heard of Auschwitz' (Jerusalem Post, December 2, 2004).

The Holocaust, symbolized by Auschwitz, the worst of the death camps, occurred in the wake of consistent, systematic, unrelenting anti-Jewish propaganda campaign. As a result, the elimination of the Jews from German society was accepted as axiomatic, leaving open only two questions: when and how.

As Germany expanded its domination and occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, the Low Countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, parts of the USSR, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Italy and others countries, the way was open for Hitler to realize his well-publicized plan of destroying the Jewish people.

After experimentation, the use of Zyklon B on unsuspecting victim was adopted by the Nazis as the means of choice, and Auschwitz was selected as the main factory of death (more accurately, one should refer to the “Auschwitz-Birkenau complex”). The green light for mass annihilation was given at the Wannsee Conference, January 20, 1942, and the mass gassings took place in Auschwitz between 1942 and the end of 1944, when the Nazis retreated before the advancing Red Army. Jews were transported to Auschwitz from all over Nazi-occupied or Nazi-dominated Europe and most were slaughtered in Auschwitz upon arrival, sometimes as many as 12,000 in one day. Some victims were selected for slave labour or “medical” experimentation. All were subject to brutal treatment.

In all, between three and four million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles and Red Army POWs, were slaughtered in Auschwitz alone (though some authors put the number at 1.3 million). Other death camps were located at Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec (Belzek), Majdanek and Treblinka.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, sixty years ago, after most of the prisoners were forced into a Death March westwards. The Red Army found in Auschwitz about 7,600 survivors, but not all could be saved.

For a long time, the Allies were well aware of the mass murder, but deliberately refused to bomb the camp or the railways leading to it. Ironically, during the Polish uprising, the Allies had no hesitation in flying aid to Warsaw, sometimes flying right over Auschwitz.

There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the public opinion polls taken in Europe, which single out Israel as a danger to world peace; or the divestment campaigns being waged in the US against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence. The complicity of the Allies in WW II is mirrored by the support the PLO has been receiving from Europe, China and Russia to this very day.

If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.

The meeting at Wannsee established the mechanism for "the final solution" -- shipment of Jews to eastern labor and death camps -- as the official policy of the Third Reich. Ever efficient and unashamed, the Nazi kept a record of the meeting, which were discovered in 1947 in the files of the German Foreign Office.

The conference addressed every aspect of Nazi genocide in chillingly ordinary logic and language, e.g., " Europe will be combed through from West to East," "forcing the Jews out of the various spheres of life of the German people." Ever efficient, the participants foresaw that, "[i]n the course of the final solution and under appropriate direction, the Jews are to be utilized for work in the East in a suitable manner. In large labor columns and separated by sexes, Jews capable of working will be dispatched to these regions to build roads, and in the process a large number of them will undoubtedly drop out by way of natural attrition."

The minutes reflect an intention to dispose of "roughly eleven million Jews." This figure was derived after a horrifyingly detailed discussion of those with only partial Jewish ancestry, sparing some only a quarter Jewish, and magnanimously exempting others from evacuation only if "sterilized in order to prevent any progeny . . . Sterilization will be voluntary, but it is the precondition for remaining in the Reich."

Many conference participants survived the war to be convicted at Nuremberg. The conference, and the bureaucratic sounding murderous minutes, provide a prototypical example of Hannah Arendt's Banality of Evil.

To see a list of sites participating in this commemorative blogburst, click here.

Mitchell Bard: Myth & Fact #164

MYTH #164

“Israel must help Mahmoud Abbas improve his standing among Palestinians to facilitate the peace process.”

FACT

The death of Yasser Arafat, who remained unwilling to make peace with Israel until the end of his life, has stimulated hope that a new Palestinian leader will emerge with the courage and vision of Anwar Sadat and King Hussein, who is prepared to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state that will live in peace beside Israel.

The Palestinians have chosen Mahmoud Abbas to lead them, and now the Israelis are waiting to see if he is prepared to take the necessary steps to advance the peace process. Abbas is someone who is well-known to the Israelis, because he was involved in past negotiations. They have welcomed his election and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon immediately announced his desire to meet with Abbas.

No one should have any illusions about Abbas. He was the number two person in the PLO and a co-founder of the Fatah terrorist organization [with Arafat].

It is possible to find many irredentist statements made in the past by the new President, some of which were uttered during his recent campaign. His uncompromising position on the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees, for example, bodes ill for negotiations. On the other hand, he also demonstrated the courage to publicly criticize the intifada, has said that violence has not helped the Palestinian cause, and declared a readiness to make peace with Israel.

Some suggestions are being made that Israel must make gestures to Abbas to help him consolidate his power; however, Israel owes him nothing. It is Abbas who must show that he has both the will and ability to reform the Palestinian Authority (PA), to dismantle the terrorist networks, and to end the violence. Words are insufficient; he must take action. The agreements signed by the Palestinians are unequivocal about what is required of them; they cannot evade their responsibilities with conciliatory statements to the press in English or cease-fires with groups such as Hamas that remain committed to Israel’s destruction.

The terrorists’ identities and locations are known. The PA has an estimated 40,000 policemen and multiple security services. Abbas must use the resources at his command to disarm and arrest anyone who illegally possesses weapons and threatens or engages in violence.

Though it has no obligation to do so, Israel has taken steps to show its goodwill, including facilitating the Palestinian elections (which international observers reported were unfettered by Israel [Jerusalem Post, January 11, 2005]), releasing prisoners, and withdrawing troops from parts of the territories. Israel has also said it is prepared to negotiate the disengagement rather than act unilaterally. A unity government was formed in January 2005 that now includes the Labor Party, which increases the flexibility Sharon will have to negotiate in the future.

The immediate hope for a negotiated settlement of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians now rests on the shoulders of Abbas. The early days of his regime were not encouraging, as two terrorist attacks were perpetrated (one of which killed six Israeli civilians, two of whom were Arabs) in what either were direct challenges to his leadership or an indication that he has not abandoned the two-track policy of Arafat; namely, to talk about peace with the Western media while calling for jihad in Arabic and orchestrating a terror campaign against Israel.

Coexistence is impossible unless Palestinian violence stops. There can be no attacks on Jews anywhere, no mortars or rockets fired into Israel, and no incitement to violence. This is not a case of giving extremists a veto over negotiations; Israel has not said that Abbas must stop 100 percent of the incidents before it will talk, but Israel does insist that he demonstrate a 100 percent effort to stop them.

This article can be found at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf22.html#mmm
Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard, http://www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org. To order a copy of the paperback edition of Myths and Facts, click HERE. Myths & Facts is also available in Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Swedish.

Naomi Ragen: The Last Ten Minutes of My Life

If you would like to know what life is like in Israel today, read this powerful and brief account.

Plaut in IsraelInsider: 20 Unfashionable Facts

This is a nice summary. Even the comments from a detractor and the responses from supporters are enlightening. Thanks, Professor Plaut.

Prof. Paul Eidelberg via Women in Green: "The Poodles Among Us"

In his 2002 foreword to Raphael Patai’s 1973 classic, The Arab Mind, Norvelle B. de Atkine writes: “This book … forms the basis of my cultural instruction, complemented by my own experiences of some 25 years living in, studying or teaching about the Middle East.”

De Atkine notes that “officers returning from the Arab world describe the cultural barriers they encounter as by far the most difficult to navigate, far beyond those of political perceptions.  Thinking back on it, I recall many occasions on which I was perplexed by actions or behavior on the part of my Arab hosts—actions and behavior that would have been perfectly understandable had I read The Arab Mind.”

To speak of Arabs is to speak of Muslims, for Arab culture is permeated by Islam.  Islamic hatred of America and of Israel is more intense and more widespread today than it was in 1973. American pop culture and commercial imperialism constitute a threat to the Arab’s tradition-based society, and Muslims see Israel as America’s vanguard in the Middle East.

Patai, says de Atkine, does not deny the virtues of Arab culture.  “The hospitality, generosity, and depth personal friendships common within the Arab world are rarely encountered in our more frenetic society.  The Arab sense of honor and of obligation to the family—especially to the family’s old and young members—can be contrasted to the frequently dysfunctional family life found in our own society…”

But such is the burning hatred Arabs bear toward Jews that many willingly use their own children as human bombs, while the Arab street cheers such self-immolation. Hatred trumps love.  Arab hatred was not born with the Balfour Declaration or the establishment of the State of Israel.  It precedes Muhammad and remains deeply ingrained in Arab culture.

Patai quotes Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), the greatest historian ever produced by the Arabs.  Khaldun’s portrait of Arab national character is that of a historian who could look back upon seven centuries of Arab history.  The Arabs, he says, “are people who plunder and cause damage.”  The civilizations they conquer are “wiped out.”  “Places that succumb to the Arabs are quickly ruined.”   “The reason for this is that [the Arabs] are a savage nation, fully accustomed to savagery …”  “Savagery has become their character and nature.  They enjoy it because it means freedom from authority and no subservience to leadership.  Such a natural disposition is the negation and antithesis of civilization.”

Again, “because of their savagery, the Arabs are least willing of nations to subordinate themselves to each other, as they are proud, ambitious, and eager to be the leader.”  (Recall Genesis 16:12 on the character of Ishmael: “He will be a rebel.  His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him.”)

The Arab’s sense of honor is notorious.  Any insult or injury, let alone defeat in war, must be avenged.  The Yom Kippur War was nothing less than an act of revenge for Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War—and that is why the war was launched on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Any bellicose people are well-practiced in deception; as for the Arabs, however, one must add they are unequaled in the art of ingratiation.  Khaldun’s disciple, Taqi al-Din Ahmad al-Maqrizi (1364-1442), an Egyptian, writes that Egyptians “are extremely inclined to cunning and deceit, from their birth they excel in it and are very skillful in using it, because there is in their character a basis of flattery and adulation which makes them masters in it more than all the peoples who have lived before them or will live after them.”

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s campaign of deception before the Yom Kippur War is documented in my book Sadat’s Strategy.  But he was also a master of ingratiation.   He constantly referred to Secretary of State William Rogers, whom he had met for the first time, as “Bill.”  When Secretary Kissinger replaced Rogers, he became “dear Henry” just as quickly.

Countless pundits have been deceived by Sadat. A few quotes may dispel their naiveté. In an interview with al-Anwar on June 22, 1975, Sadat said:  “The effort of our generation is to return to the 1967 borders.  Afterward the next generation will carry the responsibility.”

In a New York Times interview dated October 19, 1980, he boasted:  “Poor Menachem [Begin], he has his problems ... After all, I got back ... the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got?  A piece of paper.”

A year after signing the March 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Sadat ominously declared:  “Despite the present differences with the Arab 'rejectionist' rulers over the Egyptian peace initiative, the fact remains that these differences are only tactical not strategic, temporary not permanent.”

By the way, in his Knesset speech of November 20, 1977, Sadat used the name of God 10 times in his first ten sentences.  Surely a man of God would not lie about his desire for peace—a word he used 95 times in his 50 minute performance!

With astonishing insight, Ibn Khaldun points out that “The Arab can obtain authority only by making use of some religious coloring, such as prophecy or sainthood, or some great religious event in general.

Patai’s 1973 classic, says de Atkine, “has not aged at all.  The analysis is just as (prescient and on-the-mark now [in post-September 11, 2001]) as on the day it was written.  One could even make the argument that, in fact, many of the [Arab] traits described have become more pronounced.”

Israeli politicians and diplomats are children compared to the likes of PLO-Palestinian leaders like Abu Ala and Abu Mazen.  And sending Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom to negotiate with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would be laughable if it did not have tragic consequences.

Despite its overwhelming military power vis-à-vis its Arab neighbors, Israel is retreating toward its indefensible 1949 borders.  Even a Machiavellian like Ariel Sharon has become a poodle of the Arabs.

A terror victim speaks

Please go to this site and read the full text of this speech given recently by Arnold Roth, the father of 15-year-old Sbarro victim Malki Roth. This man's articulate love, compassion, and good sense are, I am proud to say, thoroughly representative of the very best in Judaism.

Dear reader, if you have bought into the "moral equivalence" lie (Israel = "Palestine") of the media, please see if you can find a morally equivalent statement by an Arab leader, anywhere. Then reconsider whether or not your picture of the situation is valid.

Honig in JPost: Lost Chicken-Sense

by Sarah Honig

Among the junk mail that clogs my postbox daily, I found a Gush Shalom leaflet calling on me to fulfill my "national duty and the duty of every peace-loving person" to help remove all settlements.  How do I pitch in? By boycotting anything that's settlement-made. To facilitate my task, I was supplied with a list of brands to be shunned. In case of unmarked agricultural produce, I must grill the retailer to make sure he's not selling me forbidden fruit. Moreover, I was urged to disseminate said blacklist amongst friends and relations, post it on neighborhood billboards and in my workplace.

Lastly, should I feel a tad discomfited, I was advised to ignore counterarguments that I collaborate in "depriving Jewish brethren of their livelihood." Most settlers, I was assured, anyway "aren't productive citizens but live off the public. This is why they had so much free time to participate in the violent demonstrations that preceded the Rabin assassination. "While most Israelis worked for a living, the settlers blocked roads and burned tires. Settlements constitute the chief obstacle to a historic rapprochement between Israel and Falastin."

I finally realized who's responsible for our collective distress and insecurity. I forgot about the Arab genocidal penchant for throwing us into the sea - long before any occupation or beyond-the-Green-Line settlements existed. I never asked about all the available time Gush Shalom altruists have to protest against the security fence and IDF roadblocks (which keep me and them alive). I was too reviled by the use settlers make of the right to free assembly and speech. I discovered who the parasites feeding off my honest toil were and was reminded of the dastardly mischief they were up to, which invariably led to Rabin's slaying. There's no telling what existential disaster they could drag us into. They make my skin crawl.

In ordinary times I'd quickly return to my senses and identify this as the post-Zionist fringe's self-destructive variation on entrenched anti-Semitic themes. These, however, aren't ordinary times. Ever since Ariel Sharon's epiphany, demonizing settlers is no longer an exclusive far-Left prerogative. Arik gave settler-bashing unprecedented respectability. Now that he no longer loves them, it's bon ton to vilify those freeloaders who infest our surroundings, endanger our perfect peace, dare dissent and protest against Arik's designs, and who may now be plotting the next assassination.

REINFORCED BY Tnuva's chairman, I can finally enjoy the coziness of the mainstream. It's good being in league with those who gang up on Public Enemies. It's good being on the same side as Arik, now King of the Enlightened Ones. It's good to enjoy the security of running with the majority flock, like the flock of hens that loomed large in the homespun childhood recollections Arik was once excessively fond of recounting.

Growing up in Kfar Malal, young Arik astutely observed the chickens on his family's farm. He noted that the hens clucked harmoniously most of the time; but if one took ill, its mates suddenly and ferociously turned on it, pecking, scratching, and clawing their victim to death. It was then the future general concluded that weakness encourages aggression. Those who can't defend themselves are terminated viciously. Those who don't deter, invite their own destruction. That's how it is in nature, in the barnyard, in Israeli politics, and in the Mideast. When Arik grievously injured the settlers, he must have realized he was turning them into fair game, not only for Gush Shalom's serial predators and Tnuva's chairman. Confused ordinary folk prefer being among the assaulting fowl rather than associating with pitiful pariah pullets everyone rips into.

That's why the projected construction of prison camps for entire settler families and of mock-settlements for destruction drills evoke not a grassroots murmur. Fearful folks are glad it's not happening to them and rationalize why the others have it coming. Arik counts on that. Manipulating mass psychology will win him support. It's elementary, but not without risks. The delegitimization, blackballing, and ostracism visited on slandered settlers could become the sad lot of us all.

One flock's top hen is another's ravaged prey. Arik seems to have conveniently relinquished his once-reliable chicken-sense. By retreating and dismantling veteran villages, he signals the rest of the world that Israel is weakening. He thereby turns Israel into the enfeebled chicken of this savage region and of the heartless world.

He weakens our moral claim to any part of this land in an international environment where it's already increasingly trendy to dispute Israel's very right to exist. He may be intent on dismantling some settlements. Enemies and their overseas sympathizers focus on all settlements, first outside the Green Line and later within. Like it or not, Arik, we're all in the same chicken coop.

=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow  (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org

Amazing letter from Pollard to chief IDF rabbi

To: Brigadier General Rabbi Israel Weiss, Chief Rabbi of the IDF

From: Jonathan Pollard, 09185-016; FCI Butner, Butner NC, USA

Dear Rabbi Weiss,

As you know, our tradition teaches that a Jew does not sin unless he is afflicted by temporary insanity, a "ruach shtut". How else are we to understand why a G-d -fearing Jew like yourself, the Chief Rabbi of the IDF, would declare his support for orders to uproot thousands of Jews from their homes in the Land of Israel? I refer to your recent comments on IDF Radio supporting the evil disengagement plan and identifying secular military commanders and state officials as the ultimate authority which soldiers must obey. "Refusal to carry out orders is liable to bring about the collapse of the army and the end of the People of Israel's task," you said. "The army, the state is the authority." "We can't allow a soldier to do whatever he wants. This will bring a danger that the army will end its function and this nation will end its task," you declared.

With all due respect, Rabbi, it is difficult to imagine that you truly believe that it is the state and the army alone which protect us and ensure our viability as a People! The Jewish People lived for 2000 years without a state and without an army, under the grace of G-d Almighty - it is only because of His loving kindness and His will expressed as through the Laws of Torah, that we live in the Land today and continue to thrive as a People. When you visited with me 2 months ago, I told you that HaRav Mordecai Eliyahu, shlita, is my father. You replied joyfully, "We are sons of the same father! He is my father too!" You said that you consider HaRav Eliyahu to be your superior in Torah, and that before issuing any important Halachik ruling for the army, you first consult with him.

Surely you are aware that HaRav Eliyahu has unequivocally declared that it is forbidden for G-d -fearing soldiers to obey orders to uproot Jews from the Land! HaRav Eliyahu has ruled that it is better for soldiers to sit in prison than to take part in the expulsion of Jews from their homes. Rabbi Weiss, in light of your apparent disregard for the psak Halacha of your own rabbinic superior, how can you expect thousands of soldiers to rely on you?

In my dealings with Jewish leaders over the past 20 years, it is clear to me that often Heaven raises a man up to a position of power and authority not as a reward, but as a test. It is obvious that in this lifetime, G-d has placed you, of all men, in the unique position of being able to single-handedly defeat the immoral disengagement plan. You, amongst all men, can say "No!" to disengagement, and in so doing, support thousands upon thousands of soldiers to do the same! No other rabbi living in the Land today, is in such a powerful position as your are, in regard to this issue.

Just as good government never depends on laws, but upon the moral character of those who govern, so too an army depends not upon specific orders, but upon the personal qualities (midot) of its leaders. The functioning of the army is always subordinate to the will of those who administer it. The most important element of an army is who its leaders are. And Torah is the software that transforms it into a Jewish army. Without our divine software, we are nothing but machines and uniforms.

Rabbi Weiss, it appears that you are now being tested as both soldier and rabbi. You must now choose between your officer's commission and the yoke of Torah; between serving G-d or serving man.

Your choice will set the model for all G-d -fearing soldiers. It will also determine whether your name is revered for all generations as the rabbi who stood up to secular power in defense of the Land; or, G-d forbid, remembered as the rabbi who betrayed Jewish soldiers into defaming Torah and desecrating the Land.

Therefore, I plead with you to retract your statements regarding the disengagement plan! It is imperative that you issue a new ruling in harmony with the psak Halacha of HaRav Mordecai Eliyahu. Retracting now, especially since it is Chanukah, would be a great kiddush HaShem, in the best tradition of Mattityahu HaMaccabee himself.

I implore you to act now in the tradition of Gideon, of Yehoshua Bin Nun, and of Yehuda HaMaccabee! Be a Jewish warrior in defense of the Land! Say "No!" to disengagement! Kavod HaRav, by retracting your previous position and openly encouraging soldiers not to participate in uprooting Jews from the Land, you will create a powerful model of Tshuva not only for the soldiers but for all of Israel. You will bring relief to the Nation and honor to the Israel Defense Forces.

As it is written in Tehillim: "Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses; but we rely solely upon Hashem, our G-d!" As upholders of Torah we know that G-d and G-d alone is the ultimate authority for a Jew.

Respectfully,

Jonathan Pollard

Thanks, WIG!

Amen!

Remember: WE are the good guys!

In Column One: Leaving the Hall of Mirrors, Jerusalem Post columnist Carolyn Glick writes one of her most insightful and level-headed analyses ever. Thanks, Carolyn! (and thanks, Naomi, for pointing this out.)

You have to register with Jpost to read it, but it’s free.

Amir Taheri in Jerusalem Post: What if it's not Israel they loathe?

This article makes the point that Muslims don't care about Palestinians as "brother Muslims"; they're just another excuse for hating the US and the West in general. The arguments are clearly made and supported--and widely ignored by the press and politicians.

israelinsider: Culture: Rafael "Raful" Eitan drowns in Mediterranean

This article, while far from the depth of eulogy the man deserves, really says it all.

Farewell, Raful. The memory of your life will continue to serve as an example.

Different Worlds, Different Values

Remarks of Brigitte Gabriel to be delivered at the Duke University Counter-Terrorism Speak-out
October 14, 2004
(via Naomi Ragen)

I'm proud and honored to stand here today as a Lebanese speaking for Israel--the only democracy in the Middle East. As someone who was raised in an Arabic country I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon, where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians City after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17 without electricity eating grass to live and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon . My mother was wounded by a Moslems shell and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room I was shocked at what I saw. They were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christian Lebanese and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they helped.

For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital, those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government about the Jews and Israel that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that if I was a Jew standing in an Arab hospital I would be lynched and thrown over to the grounds as shouts of joy of "Allahu Akbar"-- "God is great"--would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers. One such family member wasRina, whose only child was wounded in his eyes.

One day I was visiting with her and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started waking out of the room, and this mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me. She holds me crying and says: "It is not your fault." We just stood there, crying, holding each other's hands.

What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old only child, and still able to love me the enemy, and between a Moslem mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians!

The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil.

Once upon a time there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle." However, once such behavior is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized every where in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York , from Moscow to Madrid , from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation" Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent. On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel 's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem . Fifty-four people were killed and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" or "occupation," but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up and support and defend the state of Israel , which is the front line of the war against terrorism.

Thank you.

Joel adds: If you were to translate the songs played by the Israeli Army band mentioned above, or any songs played or sung in Israel at any time, you would not find A SINGLE ONE calling for death of Arabs, or of any enemy. Even in today's secular Israel, all the music, all the art, and the longing of all hearts, is about peace and love.

Check it out if you don't believe me. And ask yourself: Do I have the right understanding of this conflict?

MYTH #153: “Israel was responsible for the 1973 war.”

FACT On October 6, 1973 — Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar — Egypt and Syria opened a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe were mobilized on Israel's borders (Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, NY: Random House, 1984, p. 230.).1 On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders were attacked by 80,000 Egyptians.

Thrown onto the defensive during the first two days of fighting, Israel mobilized its reserves and eventually repulsed the invaders and carried the war deep into Syria and Egypt. The Arab states were swiftly resupplied by sea and air from the Soviet Union, which rejected U.S. efforts to work toward an immediate cease­fire. As a result, the United States belatedly began its own airlift to Israel. Two weeks later, Egypt was saved from a disastrous defeat by the UN Security Council, which had failed to act while the tide was in the Arabs' favor.

The Soviet Union showed no interest in initiating peacemaking efforts while it looked like the Arabs might win. The same was true for UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

On October 22, the Security Council adopted Resolution 338 calling for "all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately." The vote came on the day that Israeli forces cut off and isolated the Egyptian Third Army and were in a position to destroy it (Herzog, p. 280).

Despite the Israel Defense Forces' ultimate success on the battlefield, the war was considered a diplomatic and military failure. A total of 2,688 Israeli soldiers were killed.

Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard, http://www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org.

MYTH #152: “The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel.”

FACT: A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back.

In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years.

The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises:
1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land;
2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people;
3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and
4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham.

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.

The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century — years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement — more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel (Dan Bahat, ed. Twenty Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy Land, Jerusalem: The Israel Economist, 1976, pp. 61-63.).

The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.Israel's international "birth certificate" was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel's admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel's people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.

“Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its 'right to exist.' Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement.... There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its 'right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession.”

— Abba Eban, New York Times, (November 18, 1981)

Source: Myths & Facts Online -- A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard, http://www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org. To order a copy of the paperback edition of Myths and Facts, click HERE. Myths & Facts is also available in Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese and Swedish.

Ali Sina: Eradicate Islam

In this amazing blog piece, former Muslim Ali Sina argues for the adandonment of Islam by its followers; that it is an illogical occult cult that cannot be fixed. I'm with him.

Naomi Ragen: Who is the Enemy?

I have not been able to recover from the terrorist attack in Beslan. Terrorism is not the enemy. Terrorism is a tactic of the enemy. Who, then, is the enemy that fights all those who identify with the civilized world -- the world in which children and their mothers are cherished and protected, even in war? The world in which school buildings, and ambulances, and hospitals, and holy places are respected and left out of armed conflicts as neutral zones? The world in which children are taught to love thy neighbor, even if he is different and follows another religion? A world in which there can be no excuse for wiring a school building with explosives, starving children and shooting them and their mothers in the back when they cry, and finally blowing up the roof over their heads, burying hundreds in rubble?

The enemy is the man who shot Tali Hatuel when she was nine months pregnant and then shot her four little girls in the head at point blank range. The enemy is the man who blew up elderly Holocaust survivors at their Passover Seder in Netanya. The enemy is the man who blew up the nightclub in Bali, who laid the bombs on the train tracks in Madrid. The enemy is the political framework that train this man and rewarded him. The enemy is the country or countries that financed the political framework. The enemy is the leader of these countries.

The enemy is the religious leaders of these countries, who did not teach their people right from wrong. The enemy is the congregations who sat through the hate-mongering sermons. The enemy is the head of the family who went home and beat his wife, and strapped suicide belts on his sons, and slit the throats of his daughter and sister for supposed violations of the family honor. The enemy is the child who grows up in such a culture and becomes one of its perpetrators.

The enemy is the Western nations who turn a blind eye, looking to excuse this behavior so it will not have to do anything about it. The Sunday Telegraph, Le Monde, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Bild, all claiming the problem is that the Russian government has brought this on itself by angering the Chechans. It is the victim who is to blame. Just as Israelis deserve what they get. Tali Hatuel deserved what she got. Her little girls. The little children of Beslan. The only way to stop the murderers of children from murdering is to give into their demands, these newspapers claim [http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/09/06/202.html]

I disagree. The only way to stop murderers from murdering is to destroy them.

And if you say this is impossible, I say: think back sixty years. The Thousand Year Reich is the dust of history. We destroyed their leaders, their governments, their buildings, their youth movements, their philosophy. We destroyed it all. We didn't negotiate. We didn't appease. We didn't try to show them our softer side. We uprooted the evil from mankind, because no negotiations, no fence, no signed agreement,no borders, no words were effective against them.

Long before September 11, I wrote to this list: If an Israeli grandmother and her grandchild are not safe in a playground, than no grandmother and no grandchild anywhere in the world are safe in a playground.

If the children of Beslan were not safe in their school, then no child and no school is safe anywhere in the world. Until this enemy is destroyed root and branch, without mercy or equivocation.

The breakdown in morality which we witness everyday is finally engulfing us. Those in the Western news media who call armed terrorists, men who wire schools with explosives and murder women and children, "hostage-takers" and "militants" are setting themselves up to mourn their own children.

A generation ago, fifty million people died because the reaction of their governments and their religious leaders and their press came too late. The Neville Chamberlains saw to that. Too late. And for us, who have our Shimon Peres', and our Yossi Beilins, and our Chiracs, and our Kofi Anans, and Michael Moores and John Kerrys will it also be too late?

For the children of Beslan, the answer is yes. And for your children?

Copyright Naomi Ragen, 2004.

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John Loftus on the origins of Al Qaeda

This is a "must read"; long, but eye-opening.

John Loftus Speech Yom Ha Shoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day2004 Jewish Community News, August 2004

It always seems a little strange to have an Irish-Catholic talking about Yom Ha Shoah. I had an unusual education in the Holocaust. When I was working for the Attorney General, I was assigned to do the classified research about the Holocaust, so I went underground to a little town called Suitland, Maryland, right outside Washington, D.C. and that's where the US Government buries its secrets - - literally. There are twenty vaults underground and each vault is one acre in size. Anyone see the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark"? The last scene of that movie is what the underground vaults are really like, only not as organized as they are in the movie. And in those underground vaults I discovered something horrible. I learned that many of the Nazis that I had been assigned to prosecute were on the CIA payroll, but the CIA didn't know they were Nazis because the British Intelligence Service had lied to them. What the British Intelligence Service didn't know was that their liar was Kim Philby, the Soviet communist double agent - - a little scandal of the Cold War. But our State Department swept it all under the rug and allowed the Nazis to stay in America until I was stupid enough to go public with it.

What do you do when you want to go public with a story like this one? You call up 60 minutes. We had a great time. Mike Wallace gave me 30 minutes on his show. For a long time, it was the longest segment that 60 minutes ever did. When the episode about Nazis in America went on the air back in 1982, it caused a minor national uproar. Congress demanded hearings, Mike Wallace got the Emmy award, and my family got the death threats. It was a great trip.

Then a funny thing happened. Over the last 25 years, every retired spy in the U.S. and Canada and England all wanted me to be their lawyer, for free of course. So I had 500 clients, they paid me $1 apiece. So I am the worst paid lawyer in America, but among the better employed.

Let me give you an example. This year a friend of mine from the CIA, named Bob Baer wrote a very good book about Saudi Arabia and terrorism, it's called "Sleeping with the Devil". I read the book and I got about a third of the way through and I stopped. Bob was writing how when he worked for the CIA how bad the files were. He said, for example, the files for the Muslim Brotherhood were almost nothing. There were just a few newspaper clippings.

I called Bob up and said, "Bob, that's wrong. The CIA has enormous files on the Muslim Brotherhood, volumes of them. I know because I read them a quarter of a century ago." He said, "What do you mean?" Here's how you can find all of the missing secrets about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and you can do this too. I said, "Bob, go to your computer and type in two words into the search part. Type the word "Vanna," V-a-n-n-a. He said, "Yeah." Type in "Nazi." Bob typed the two words in, and out came 30 to 40 articles from around the world. He read them and called me back and said,"Oh my God, what have we done?"

What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western Intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al Qaeda. Here's how the story began.

In the 1920's there was a young Egyptian named al Bana. And al Bana formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Bana was a devout admirer of Adolph Hitler and wrote to him frequently. So persistent was he in his admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930's, al Bana and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi Intelligence. The Arab Nazis had much in common with the new Nazi doctrines. They hated Jews; they hated democracy; and they hated the Western culture. It became the official policy of the Third Reich to secretly develop the Muslim Brotherhood as the fifth Parliament, an army inside Egypt. When war broke out, the Muslim Brotherhood promised in writing that they would rise up and help General Rommell and make sure that no English or American soldier was left alive in Cairo or Alexandria.

The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man - - The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the "Handjar" Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler's new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa - - grand dreams.

At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service. Then a horrible thing happened. Instead of prosecuting the Nazis - - the Muslim Brotherhood - - the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Britain was not alone. The French Intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel. What the British did then, they sold the Arab Nazis to the predecessor of what became the CIA. It may sound stupid; it may sound evil, but it did happen. The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis, to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim brotherhood on our payroll. But the Egyptians became nervous. Nasser ordered all of the Muslim Brotherhood out of Egypt or be imprisoned, and we would execute them all.

During the 1950's, the CIA evacuated the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia. Now when they arrived in Saudi Arabia, some of the leading lights of the Muslim Brotherhood like Azzam, became the teachers in the Madrasas, the religious schools. And there they combined the doctrines of Nazism with this weird Islamic cult, Wahhabiism. Everyone thinks that Islam is this fanatical religion, but it is not. They think that Islam - the Saudi version of Islam - -is typical, but it's not. The Wahhabi cult was condemned as a heresy more than 60 times by the Muslim nations. But when the Saudis got wealthy, they bought a lot of silence. This is a very harsh cult. The Wahhabiism was only practiced by two nations, the Taliban and Saudi Arabia. That's how extreme it is. It really has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a very peaceful and tolerant religion. It has always had good relationships with the Jews for the first thousand years of its existence. For the Saudis, there was a ruler in charge of Saudi Arabia, and they were the new home of the Muslim Brotherhood, and fascism and extremism were mingled in these schools. And there was a young student who paid attention- - and Azzam's student was named Osama Bin Ladin. Osama Bin Ladin was taught by the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood who had emigrated to Saudi Arabia.

In 1979 the CIA decided to take the Arab Nazis out of cold storage. The Russians had invaded Afghanistan, so we told the Saudis that we would fund them if they would bring all of the Arab Nazis together and ship them off to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. We had to rename them. We couldn't call them the Muslim Brotherhood because that was too sensitive a name. Its Nazi cast was too known. So we called them the Maktab al Khidimat il Mujahideen, the MAK. And the CIA lied to Congress and said they didn't know who was on the payroll in Afghanistan, except the Saudis. But it was not true. A small section CIA knew perfectly well that we had once again hired the Arab Nazis and that we were using them to fight our secret wars.

Azzam and his assistant, Osama Bin Ladin, rose to some prominence from 1979 to '89, and they won the war. They drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. Our CIA said, "We won, let's go home!" and we left this army of Arab fascists in the field of Afghanistan. Saudis didn't want to come back. Saudis started paying bribes to Osama Bin Ladin and his followers to stay out of Saudi Arabia. Now the MAK split in half. Azzam was mysteriously assassinated apparently by Osama Bin Ladin himself. The radical group - - the most radical of the merge of the Arab fascists and religious extremists - - Osama called that al Qaeda. But to this day there are branches of the Muslim Brotherhood all through al Qaeda. Osama Bin Ladin's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, came from the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the results of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There are many flavors and branches, but they are all Muslim Brotherhoods. There is one in Israel. The organization you know as "Hammas" is actually a secret chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. When Israel assassinated Sheik Yassin a month ago, the Muslim Brotherhood published his obituary in a Cairo newspaper in Arabic and revealed that he was actually the secret leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. So the Muslim Brotherhood became this poison that spread throughout the Middle East and on 911, it began to spread around the world.

I know this sounds like some sort of a sick fantasy, but go to your computer and type in the words "Vanna," V-a-n-n-a and the word "Nazi," N-a-z-i, and you will see all of the articles come up. Those are all the pieces of information that the CIA was trying to hide from its employees. It did not want them to know the awful past.

So, in 1984, when I was exposing European Nazis on the CIA payroll, at the same time they were trying to hide from Congress the fact that they had Arab Nazis back on the payroll to fight the Russians - - a stupid and corrupt program.

So, when Bob Baer studied his files, he was just stunned. A whole generation: the current CIA people know nothing about this. And believe me, the current generation CIA are good and decent Americans and I like them a lot. They're trying to do a good job, but part of their problem is their files have been shredded. All of these secrets have to come out. So, of course, my clients in the intelligence community said, "Well, what are you doing?" They gave me an example. They said, "Here's how the Saudis finance these groups. The Saudis have established a group of charities on a street in Virginia. It's 555 Grove St., Herndon, Virginia." So I said,"OK, the Saudis are terrorists, so what?" These charities fund Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda. The Saudis are getting tax deductions for terrorism. They have set up front groups so all the terrorists groups in the U.S. and the front groups get the Saudi money as a charitable donation.

I said, "You're kidding me." Nope. And they told me that right near where I lived in Tampa, Florida was one of the leading terrorists in the world. There were these two professors at the University of South Florida. One had just left - - and he was now in Syria - - and he was the world head of Islamic Jihad. His number two, the head of Islamic Jihad in the Western Hemisphere, was Dr. Sami al-Arian, who is still employed as a professor at the University of South Florida. You've got to be kidding. This can't be true. Yes, these guys are raising money all across America and shipping it to Syria to go down to Palestine, the Palestinian areas, and hire suicide bombers to kill Jews.

They sent me the video tapes. There was Professor al-Arian on stage and one of his friends gets up and says, "Now, who will give me $500 to kill a Jew? There are people standing by in Jerusalem who will go out in the street and stab a Jew with a knife, but we need $500." And he said, "All of this money will go to the Islamic committee for Palestine." And that is the front group in the United States for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

So I had all my friends in the FBI and CIA send in these files. I said, "Why haven't you prosecuted this guy? You've known about him since 1989." "We'd love to. We've tried to prosecute him but we were told we couldn't touch him because he gets all of his money from the Saudis, and we are all under orders not to do anything to embarrass the Saudi government." I said,"I don't mind embarrassing them."

You know what I did? I donated money to the charity that was the terrorist fund, because under Florida law, that gave me the right to sue the charity to find out where my money was going. It was hilarious. In early March, 2002, I drafted a long lawsuit exposing Professor Sami al-Arian, naming all the crimes he'd committed, all the bombings in Israel, the fundraising in America with terrorism. I mentioned how his money got to him from the Saudis and how the Saudis had convinced our government not to prosecute him for political reasons. Because of my high-level security clearances, everything I write is sort of classified material and has to be sent back to the government before publication, for censorship. So I sent my long lawsuit complaint to the CIA, and they loved it. They said, "Oh, great.We don't like the Saudis either. Go sue them." Three days later two FBI Agents showed up at my door, saying, "You know, there are only 21 people in the U.S. government that knew some of this information, and now you're 22. How did you find out?" I said, "I'm sorry, I can't tell you, attorney-client privilege." That's why my clients pay me $1.00 each.

The day before I went to file the lawsuit, I got a frantic phone call from the United States Department of Justice. They said, "John, please don't file the lawsuit tomorrow. We really are going to raid these Saudi charities. We're going to close them down. Just give us more time." "Oh yeah, you're going to raid them. That's what you told me in January - -and again in February, and now it's March. You want more time? I'll give you until 4:00 o'clock tomorrow. I'm filing my complaint at 10:00 a.m., so that at 4:00 p.m., I'm going to release the address of the Saudi charities. Back tomorrow. I filed my lawsuit at 10:00 o'clock, and told the press. I was going to hold something back for a little bit. At 10:15, the U.S. Government launched Operation Greenquest, a massive raid on all the Saudi charities in homes and businesses, and in one hour we shut down the entire Saudi money- laundering network in America.

From March 20, 2002 to the present, the government has found more and more evidence seized in those archives on that single raid that day. The evidence was so compelling that Professor al-Arian is no longer giving his speeches. He is now in federal prison awaiting trial. His accomplice, Hammoudeh, has also been indicted. Some 32 different people have been indicted in the United States as a direct result of these efforts.

But not the Saudis - - not the Saudis. A month after I filed my lawsuit against al-Arian, I did it: I caused some trouble. I invited some 40 of the top trial lawyers in America to come down to St. Petersburg, Florida. Boy, did I have a deal for them. I wanted them to put up millions of dollars of their own money - I'm poor, I had no money to give them - - but I wanted to do something for America. These are lawyers like Ron Motley that had won billions of dollars in their lawsuits against the tobacco industry and the asbestos industry. I said, "What I want you to do is look at the evidence I've collected. It's the same Saudi banks and charities that funded Sami al-Arian that also funded al Qaeda." I said, "I want you to bring a class action in Federal Court in Washington on behalf of everyone who died on Sept. 11th. I'm going to work for free and collect all the evidence, introduce you to the experts, provide all the exhibits and documents. and we have to do this for America." The lawyers studied all the documents I collected, and on August 15, 2002, they filed the largest class-action lawsuit in American history in the Federal District Court in Washington D.C., asking for one trillion dollars damages against the Saudis.

The lawsuit said essentially that all these Saudi banks had one thing in common. They were bribing Osama bin Ladin 300 million dollars a year to stay out of Saudi Arabia and go blow up someone else. Well, on 911, we found out we were someone else, and the Saudis had to pay for their negligence. So that lawsuit is coming along very well. And more and more people in the CIA and FBI are sort of using me as a back channel to get our information. So, believe it or not, they've actually given me my own TV show now on Sunday mornings on FOX TV nationwide. I'm on at 11:20 eastern standard time. And ABC Radio has given me a national radio program, but I'm on at 10:30 at night and it's past your bedtime.

What I've become in my old age is a teacher. Twenty-five years ago I was a lot younger, a lot thinner, but now every day I get 500 to 1,000 e-mails from honest men and women around the world from the intelligence community. And we have to end the evil in this world. We have to recognize that al Qaeda simply didn't spring up on its own. The evil route was Nazism. The al Qaeda Doctrine is the same as the Arab Nazis held. They hated Jews, they hate democracy, and they hate Westerners for Western culture. Al Qaeda is nothing more than the religious expression of Arab Fascism. We allowed this branch of the Nazi trunk to survive, to flourish, and it has come back to haunt us.

We must do a better job. Look at these children. They are our legacy. If we are to keep our children safe, we must teach them the lessons of the past. Every generation should know what these candles mean. Not only that one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the world really happened, but the evil that caused it - - Nazism - - survived because we didn't fight hard enough. We didn't finish the job. But we must tell our children that in every generation the men and women of America have stood side by side with our Jewish, Christian, and Moslem brothers. We have risen up together against hatred. America is united now. We will win the war on terror, and we will finish the job that these soldiers and survivors started more than a half century ago. We must set the standard that to teach a child to hate is the worst form of child abuse. We must work together to end racism in our children's lifetime. We must teach our children to remember the Holocaust and be proud, so proud of those who survived and inspired us with their courage. In their name, in their honor, let us go forward and fight together.

NEVER AGAIN.

An Arab Living in Israel

Circulated by Naomi Ragen

I am A Lucky Arab
by Anonymous

I am a lucky Arab. My grandfather, Mohammed, travelled on foot from his home in Iraq in the early part of the last century looking for work.

Jews had come to British-controlled Palestine in the thousands, joining the Jews that had always been here, buying up land from absentee Turkish Muslim owners, and they needed many workers to help them build the land. He married,raised a large family, worked hard, and lived quietly.

I live in Haifa in Israel. In 1948 when Israel declared its independence, Arab armies from surrounding Arab states attacked with the intention of destroying the new state. I was about 15 years old and remember well the radio broadcasts from Arab states telling us to leave our homes and move eastward 'temporarily' while the advancing Arab armies wiped out the Jews. They told us we would then return in triumph to our homes and would have the joy of taking over all the Jewish assets-their homes, farms, shops, cars, and bank accounts.

My father, Ibrahim, was a very wise man, a learned man, and a man of peace. We had good relationships with our neighbors, Christian, Jew, and Muslim. He gathered the entire family and explained why he did not believe it wise to flee, that he did not believe the Jews would mistreat us. We stayed put. We are still here.

Today I still live in my father's old stone house with my wife and the youngest of our eight children. My older children and my many grandchildren all live nearby. We have never been mistreated, and we are much better off than those Arabs who fled and who ended up in miserable refugee camps being supported by the UN and charities.

I want you to know what my life is like as an Arab citizen of Israel. I was educated in Israeli schools and universities. I became a pharmacist and worked in a large pharmacy in Haifa. I was paid the same salary, and received the same benefits as Jewish colleagues. Now I'm retired. I receive two pensions; one based on the investment plan to which my company belonged and I contributed. The other comes from the Israeli government National Insurance plan.

I have eight children. Every month I received child allowance paid from the government until each became 18. I know of no other country where this happens, certainly not any Arab nation.

Our entire family is covered by the National Health Plan which provides good medical care. All my children were born in hospital, my wife received excellent ante and postnatal care. All medical and surgical is covered from the first Shekel from birth to death, and when we die even the cost of burial is covered!

My children went to school with Jewish children, they were members of the same sports clubs and the community center, and they all received university educations, some with state scholarships.

I pray in a Mosque, which was built on land donated by the Jewish National Fund. I am a citizen, I have a passport, can travel anywhere, anytime. I vote in local and national elections, and we have a number of Arab members in Parliament.

I have a very good life, and so has my family. I feel for those forced to live under Arafat, for they are being used and abused badly. I long for the day that Arafat is no more, that a real peace treaty can be negotiated with Israel, so that the Palestinian Arabs can have a better life also.

I long for the day I can travel to visit cousins in Ramallah without fear of being called a collaborator and executed. I thank Allah my grandfather came here. I thank Allah my father didn't leave in 1948. I thank Allah my children were raised here, in the only free country in the Middle East.

We are very lucky Arabs.

[Name withheld for security reasons]

Stay Quiet and You'll be OK

By Robert Spencer

FrontPageMagazine.com | June 23, 2004

Here's a new slogan for the zeitgeist: stay quiet and you'll be OK. This was the message, according to the tapes released last week, that Muhammad Atta gave to the passengers on the ill-fated airplane that he and his fellow terrorists had commandeered.

Stay quiet and you'll be OK. Don't mention that a Saudi imam who spoke at the opening of a large new Islamic center in London once preached a sermon in which he called Jews "evil offspring, infidels, distorters of [others'] words, calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers... the scum of the human race 'whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs," and "an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption." AP noted that in London he said that Islam's history was "the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony." The BBC called him "one of Islam's most renowned Imams" and reported his praise for British Muslims for having "taken great steps towards achieving community cohesion."

Neither said anything about his hate speech.

Stay quiet and you'll be OK. Have you heard about the churches destroyed in Kosovo? "To keep the Serbs from claiming this area as part of their national heritage," says Mikhael de Thyse of the Council of Europe, "some Albanians are attacking their churches." In March, the cathedrals in Pristina and Prizren, Kosovo's two main cities, were burned to the ground. Others that have been destroyed include the Holy Archangels Monastery, a charming and, of course, irreplaceable jewel dating from the fourteenth century. The local bishop has had harsh words for NATO peacekeepers, who he says have done little or nothing to protect the churches. But the media establishment has kept mum. Jihad in Kosovo? Come on. Everyone knows the Balkan Muslims are the victims, not the perpetrators!

Stay quiet and you'll be OK. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan went to Harvard to give the commencement speech and receive an honorary degree. The intrepid Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group was ready for him, saying at a rally the day before: "Kofi Annan does not need to come to Harvard tomorrow, he needs to go to Sudan. ... He needs to go to the North, and he needs to tell Khartoum to free the slaves. There are tens of thousands of slaves like Francis Bok, still serving their masters in Sudan. Kofi Annan needs to tell the truth:
For a decade Khartoum wages ... what they call a Jihad against Christians and tribalists in the South. Kofi Annan never once said that the war was a Jihad.
It's not diplomatic to say...but it's the truth. Two million people died because of this war. Tens of thousands were enslaved. Arab militias storm African villages, kill the men and capture the women and children like Francis Bok. Kofi Annan needs to tell the world about Jihad slaves. It's not diplomatic...but it's the truth."

Stay quiet and you'll be OK. In Saudi Arabia, a young Indian Catholic, Brian Savio O'Connor, has been imprisoned and tortured by the religious police, the mutawa. Says L'Osservatore Romano: "Officially the Mutawa has accused O'Connor of using drugs and praying to Jesus Christ, accusations which imply he runs the risk of being punished with the death penalty. The family says that the proofs of his use of drugs have been fabricated by the police, while it does not deny that Brian is a good Christian." Where is the outcry? Why haven't you read about Brian O'Connor in the New York Times? Why hasn't 60 Minutes gone to Riyadh to put a Saudi official or two on the hotseat?

As Ralph Peters has had the courage to declare, "It's time to end the politically correct baby-talk insisting that Islam isn't the problem. In the decaying Arab world, Islam is the problem - because of the way bitter old men interpret and deform its more humane precepts while embracing its cruelest injunctions." It's time to end the baby talk, and the silence. For whatever combination of political correctness, fear, and indifference has made for the silence on these stories and others like them, it does nothing but play into the hands of those who would destroy us.

Stay quiet, and the jihad will continue to advance: in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Israel, and Indonesia, and Nigeria, and the Philippines, and Western Europe, and elsewhere - and if you think we will not feel its impact here, just remember where Atta was when he said those words, and what happened next.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of Onward Muslim
Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (Regnery Publishing), and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter Books).

Liat Ben David mourns Naomi Shemer (from the Jewish Agency site)

Last night, when I heard that Naomi Shemer had died, I felt as if music itself had died. What hasn't she given us? Her songs are the melodies of everything we know and hold dear:

The joy of our childhood songs - "We went on a hike/ and found an anemone/ on the grass-filled hill/ in the west", a childhood filled with simple, naive symbols: "The mail has arrived today/ in a red car/ and it brought me a letter/ a letter with a stamp".

The bitter-sweet longing of the songs that lovers sing - "The wind, the darkness and the water/ told me that you walked here barefoot", and "On the path, in the field/ a couple is walking alone/ and her hand is held in his/ as a blessing of Shalom".

The beauty of our country - "The daffodils are blooming in the nature reservations/ fields of flowers are blossoming along the shores"

The special culture we are building here, filled with colors of different voices - "So eat and drink, and enjoy the wine/ today you are young, tomorrow you will be old..."

Her songs are filled with our reality - "In our garden, every summer/ guests come from all over the world/ and each one of them has his own language/ and his own way to say "shalom" - and her spirit has given us the great songs that have become the milestones of our most challenging times, with the compassion of "all that we shall ask - let it be", the sensitivity of "Over all these/ please keep guard/ my dear lord", and the greatest prayer of all, the immortal "Jerusalem of gold".

So much longing, happiness, joy and and pure love Naomi Shemer has introduced into our lives. She has written the soundtrack of our modern history. She was the undefeated queen of Israel's best poetic yearning. She has left us with a legacy that will continue to be part of the core of our identity for many generations to come. She will be gravely missed, and today we are all mourning. But tomorrow - tomorrow we will take comfort in the legacy she has left behind - as she has told us in her own words:

"To wake up tomorrow morning
with a new song in our heart
to sing it with all our might,
to sing it with pain,
to hear the flutes playing in the free wind -
and to start all over again."

Liat Ben David