Zionist Conspiracy

You recall Suha Arafat giving a public speech in which she claimed
Jews poison Palestinian wells, and Hillary Clinto applauded her? (See
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123594610114604391.html and
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/01/13/bill_clintons_policies_may_echo_at_hearing/?page=full
)

Well:

http://www.israellycool.com/2011/10/31/the-downfall-of-sewer-arafat/
(see attached photos on that page)

The Downfall of Sewer Arafat?
Aussie Dave | Oct 31, 2011 | 0 comments

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed at home

This little piggy had an arrest warrant issued against her..

Suha Arafat, widow of late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, is wanted by
officials in Tunisia for alleged corruption, AFP reported on Monday.

Tunisian Justice Ministry spokesman Kadhem Zine al Abidine told the
French news agency that a warrant was issued for the 48-year-old
Arafat, who was a citizen of Tunisia, until her citizenship was
stripped in 2007.

The allegations go back to a 2006 business deal, when Suha Arafat had
a fallout with former first lady of Tunisia over the establishment of
an international school in Tunis, AFP quoted Tunisian newspapers as
saying.

In 2007, Suha was declared persona non grata in Tunisia and had her
citizenship revoked, reportedly by presidential decree. Suha was
reported to be living in Malta, at least several months a year, where
she owns a home.

Since the ouster of former Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali,
a number of former regime officials have been charged with corruption.

# posted by Steven Plaut : 11:24 AM

Pino Jihada

Posted By Steven Plaut On October 31, 2011 @ 12:08 am In Daily
Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments

For those of us old enough to be AARP members, the name "Kent State"
conjures up memories of the killings of 4 Kent State students on May
4, 1970 in an over-reaction by Ohio State Guardsmen positioned on the
campus during anti-war protests.

This past week Kent State gained a new basis for international
notoriety and for a different sort of death, this time of academic
standards and decency. Kent State is home to one of the worst tenured
jihadists and pseudo-academic barbarians on the planet.

Julio Pino is a tenured pseudo-academic, teaching Latin American
history at Kent State. He was born in Cuba in 1960 and is a proud
Fidelista, although he seems to prefer the option of having three
square meals to eat in the heartland of American capitalism to living
in the workers' paradise. In 2000 he converted to Islam and adopted
the new name, Assad Jibril Pino. Since then he has been a
professional anti-Semite and rabble rouser against Israel. He
routinely denounces Israel for perpetuating "genocide" and Nazi-like
crimes. (He evidently has never found any crimes in Cuba committed by
the communists there, nor any human rights abuses of Muslims in Muslim
regimes.) He proudly admits to being a full-time indoctrinator of
his students at Kent State. He has referred to his students at Kent
State as his "little jihadists" and his "beloved Taliban." He insists
that the United States is "rapidly descending toward Christian
fascism, we need more Ward Churchills." In September 2000, Pino
declared a fatwa on the moderator of the "Marxism List," proclaiming
that those who dared to disagree with him were "hereby sentenced to
death." He routinely celebrates mass murderers and suicide bombers,
including the al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked the US on 9-11. The
Kent State student paper has had some biting satire to say about all
this.

Pino was in the news this past week for academic barbarism. An
Israeli diplomat was speaking at Kent State and Pino jumped up and
interrupted the talk by screaming "Death to Israel." Pino was upset
when the diplomat noted that that Israel had offered humanitarian aid
to Turkey, despite Turkey's recent behavior, and Pino insisted the aid
was really just profits from murdering Arab babies.

But there was more to this, in fact there was ultimate irony in it.
The diplomat speaking at Kent State attacked by Pino was an Israeli
Arab Bedouin and a Muslim. He is Ishmael Khaldi, an adviser to
Israel's Foreign Minister. So any whining from the tenured
Islamofascist Pino about Israel supposedly being an "apartheid regime"
was being debunked before the eyes of the Kent State students in the
very person who was being harassed by Pino.

The president of Kent State University, Lester A. Lefton, denounced
Pino for his behavior, but – as expected – refuses to do anything
about it nor to take disciplinary action against Pino. Lefton himself
is Jewish. But the very fact that Pino was granted tenured and still
holds a position at Kent State shows that academic standards have been
trashed at that university. He continues to use his university
position as a launching pad for the jihad against America and Israel.
It remains to be seen whether the Ohio governor and the Board of
Trustees at Kent State will have the courage to do something about
Pino. And we sure would like to hear why the FBI has never done
anything about the Pino problem.

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URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/31/pino-jihada/

2. Yesterday I posted the incorrect name of the Rector at Tel Aviv
University (I posted the previous one). SO those outraged by
terrorist cheerleader Anat Matar, please take a moment and write to
the new Rector, the correct contact being:

Rector: Prof. Aron Shai
E-mail address: aashai@post.tau.ac.il
Tel Aviv University

P.O. Box 39040

Tel Aviv 69978

ISRAEL

(apologies for posted wrong information)

3. While there has been debate since the "deal" in Israel and
abroad about what the consequences of it may bring in the future, as I
am writing this - the future is already here and we have a definitive
partial answer. Southern Israel was this week blitzed with dozens of
state-of-the-art rockets fired by the Hamas into Jewish civilian areas
of the Negev. To make things clear, the targeted areas are inside
Israel's pre-1967 borders and so are hardly "occupied territory."
The rockets have killed, and one Israeli school building suffered a
direct hit.

I think it is abundantly clear that the rocket barrage is a direct
consequence of the "prisoner exchange deal." The Hamas had been
relatively quiet in recent months in the anticipation that some deal
would be struck for Shalit and that it would gain a windfall political
profit from hundreds of its murderers being released from Israeli
prison. Once the deal was completed, however, the Hamas had no reason
for restraint. So any doubts anyone had about how the "deal" would
affect terrorism were blown to smithereens by Hamas rockets in the
Israeli south this week.

# posted by Steven Plaut : 2:19 AM

We have reported regularly on the antics and shenanigans of Tel
Aviv University's Anat Matar, one of the worst tenured extremists at
Tel Aviv University. She is violent and has been arrested for her
violence. She despises Israel and wants it destroyed. She is a
tenured faculty member in philosophy.

Well, Sister Matar is back in the news these days as a cheerleader
and open endorser of terrorist murders of Israelis. She is one of the
Israeli airhead leftists who held a celebration of the freeing of the
1000 plus terrorists in the "prisoner exchange deal" that purchased
the liberation of Gilad Shalit. But she was not celebrating because
Shalit was being freed, but rather because murderers of Jews were
being set free.

One of those released from Israeli prison was convicted terrorist
Muchlas Burjal. He had thrown a grenade at a bus with Jews inside,
except the grenade did not go off. Anat Matar has proclaimed him a
hero and participated in the welcoming celebrations when he returned
home. She organized a group of Israeli leftists to greet the
terrorist at his home, bedecked in PLO flags, joined by Arab fascist
members of the Israeli parliament.

Cited in Makor Rishon October 28, 2011, Matar says that Burjal is
a hero because he threw the grenade at a bus carrying Israeli soldiers
and not civilians, and such an attack is a legitimate form of
resistance. Oh, and not to worry, Matar's own son was not inside the
bus because he served time in prison for refusing to do army service
altogether. Matar is now lobbying for the release of another
convicted terrorist, one Walid Daka, who murdered Israeli soldier
Moshe Tamam. Matar insists that Daka is actually innocent because he
says he is. The court that convicted him disagrees. In an interview
with Makor Rishon, Matar expressed support for terrorist violence by
Palestinian against Israelis as resistance to "occupation."

Curiously, some of the other Israeli ultra-leftist academic
extremists are denouncing Sister Anat. For example, Alon Harel, a
radical professor of law at the Hebrew University, criticized her for
her celebrations of terrorism.

Are you concerned that a tenured member of the faculty at Tel Aviv
University is working as a promoter of murdering Jews and as an
enabler of terrorist atrocities? Why not tell the heads of TAU what
you think?:

Tel Aviv University:
President, Professor Joseph Klafter
Email klafter@post.tau.ac.il
Tel Aviv University
P.O. Box 39040
Tel Aviv 69978
ISRAEL
Tel: 972-3-6408254
Fax: 972-3-6406466

Rector: Prof. Dany Leviatan
Email: leviatan@post.tau.ac.il
and rector@post.tau.ac.il
Tel Aviv University
P.O. Box 39040
Tel Aviv 69978
ISRAEL

American Friends Offices of Tel Aviv University:
http://www.aftau.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_contact
Other "Friends of" Groups: http://www.tau.ac.il/friends-eng.html
Here are a few items that can tell you more about Anat Matar:
http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Anat%20Matar.htm
http://isracampus.org.il/Extra%20Files/IsraCampus.Org.il%20-%20Seth%20Frantzman%20-%20TAU%20Ivory%20Towers%20of%20Critique.pdf
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/TAU%20-%20Anat%20Matar%20-%20Gets%20Arrested.htm

Israeli Academics in the News – Part II

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/10/27/friends-of-raed-salah-ilan-pappe-says-the-blood-libel-isnt-anti-semitic

Friends of Raed Salah: Ilan Pappe says the blood libel isn't anti-Semitic
Lucy Lips, October 27th 2011, 2:39 pm
The Immigration Tribunal ruling upholding the Home Office's ban of
Raed Salah takes as established fact that the cleric said this in East
Jerusalem in 2007:
"We have never allowed ourselves, and listen well, we have never
allowed ourselves to knead the bread for the breaking of the fast
during the blessed month of Ramadan with the blood the children. And
if someone wants a wider explanation, you should ask what used to
happen to some of the children of Europe, whose blood would be mixed
in the dough of the holy bread. God Almighty, is this religion? Is
this what God wants? God will confront you for what you are doing."
There is no other interpretation as a matter of history or elementary
literacy for such a statement than the following: Raed Salah was
presenting the blood libel — i.e. the medieval conspiracy theory that
Jews bake bread with the blood of Gentile children — as legitimate.
"God Almighty, is this religion?" clearly refers to Judaism in this
context, not to Islam or to Christianity, as having incorporated
cannibalism or vampirism into its holy ritual, thereby distinguishing
beween such alleged barbarism and the purity of Islam ("We have never
allowed ourselves…").
Crucially, Raed Salah, the court tells us, seems to understand that
the blood libel is anti-Semitic and yet he somehow denies that this is
what he has advanced. His defence has argued, to quote from the court
ruling summary of the defence's case, that
The reference to the holy bread was a metaphor used to convey an
example of those who had falsely used religion to justify their
crimes. It refers to the actions of Israelis who use religion to
subject the Palestinians to oppression. The Appellant drew a parallel
with the crimes of the Spanish Inquisition. The Appellant's evidence
is supported by that of Professor Ilan Pappe who although describing
the Appellant's address as at times incoherent and emotive, said the
Appellant did not invoke the blood libel in this or any other speech,
and made a clear distinction between Jews as a race and the actions of
Israeli officials. The words used by the Appellant on this occasion
did not amount to blood libel because he did not refer to Jewish
bread; the message of the address was not anti-Semitic or even
anti-Zionist, but directed to the violation of Muslim rights in
Jerusalem.
***

For more stories of academic atrocities involving Israeli (pseudo-?)
academics, go to www.isracampus.org.il

# posted by Steven Plaut : 6:23 AM

'Ben Gurion a Greenhouse for Radical Left'

Zionist groups welcome decision to investigate professor for
incitement, call on universities to act.
Maayana Miskin
Zionist groups expressed satisfaction Friday over the decision to
investigate Professor Eyal Nir for incitement. Nir called on the
public to attack Zionist youth dancing in the streets on Jerusalem day
and "break their elbows."

The Land of Israel Legal Forum said the decision was a good one, but
questioned why prosecutors had waited several months to look into
Nir's statements. If a right-wing professor had called to attack
leftist demonstrators, it would have taken the Justice Ministry just
days to decide to open an investigation, Forum activists said.

"The wheels of justice turn slowly and with astonishing selectivity,"
said forum head Nachi Eyal.

The Im Tirzu student group warned that Nir is not alone. "Ben Gurion
University has been a greenhouse for the extreme left for some time,"
activists said, mentioning notoriously anti-Zionist professors Niv
Gordon and Oren Yiftahel among others.

The university has the responsibility to act immediately against
professors who use their publicly-funded positions to spread
extreme-left incitement, the group said. "A lecturer must not continue
to work in the university while inciting to murder."

MK Ofir Akunis (Likud) said the decision was a sign of a welcome
turn-around. "For years, the issue of leftist incitement against the
right has been ignored," he said. "It must be handled with the full
force of the law."

# posted by Steven Plaut : 5:06 AM

Posted By Dr. Yasser Dasmabebi On October 26, 2011 @ 12:00 am In Daily
Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments

I have come to realize just how difficult it may be to decipher news
about the Middle East, Islam, Israel, the Arab World, and all these
powerful and explosive issues of our times for those who rely on such
media stalwarts as The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times, the major television networks, cable news, etc. for
their information. For example, how is a person to ascertain whether
the slayer of a family is a terrorist or a militant or a gunman or an
assailant or an activist or a freedom-fighter?

So, purely as a public service, I have organized the following
glossary of the most pertinent terms and expressions, as typically
used in the above-mentioned news sources. I hope, insha'allah, the
reader will find it helpful to unravel the Gordian Knot of language
that is today's (and yesterday's and tomorrow's) Middle East!

Dr. Yasser Dasmabebi holds the Edward Said-Noam Chomsky Linguistics
Chair at Abdul Abulbul Amir University in Cairo.

************************************

Aggression: Killing people who are trying to kill you.

Al Qaeda: the terrorist group that, according to American security
sources, embodies the world-wide Islamist movement, and that is either
"significantly degraded" or is still "extremely dangerous," depending
on which government official is doing the talking.

Apartheid: The political/social system of the one and only country in
the Middle East that integrates Jews, Beduins, Arabs, whites, blacks,
Muslems, Ethiopians, Russians, Christians, Greek Orthodox, Russian
Orthodox, Bahai, et al.

"Apes & Pigs": See "Jew" below.

Arab Emir: Military dictator.

Arab King: Military dictator.

Arab President: Military dictator.

Arab Prime Minister: Military dictator.

Arab Spring: Replacement of one dictatorship with another, with the
help of Western money and media cheerleading.

Arab Street: Enraged mobs chanting and screaming their hatred,
determined to annihilate Israel and the Jews. They can often be seen
burning American and Israeli flags, passing out candies and firing
guns into the air in response to successful murders of Westerners
(closely related to):

Arab Humiliation: The pervasive feeling on the Arab street generated
by their failure to annihilate Israel and the Jews in several wars.
Many opinion-makers, Middle East experts and op-ed writers argue that
Arab humiliation is at the root of the Middle East conflict; i.e., "If
only the Jews would let themselves be destroyed, the Arab street would
feel better about themselves, and then there would be peace."

Ayatola: Persian dictator. Spiritual leader of that faith that desires
to ignite nuclear holocaust in order to bring about the arrival of the
Mahdi. (See "Mahdi" below.)

Bias: An expression of support for the existence of Israel.

Caliphate: The unification of lands ruled in the name of Islam, ruled
by a Caliph. (See "Arab King," "Arab President," etc. above.)

Compromise: To give something palpable, such as land, in return for a
promise not to keep on trying to annihilate you.

Developing Country: A country that is not developing.

Disproportionate Response: Winning.

Diversity: The condition in which all cultures are viewed as equally
and inherently virtuous, except for the culture of the West, which is
viewed as evil by virtue of imperialism, colonialism and endemic
racism (see "Racist" below).

Emergency Laws: The law.

Father of the Palestinian People: An Egyptian man, raised by his
uncle, Hitler's buddy, and one of the world's most successful
kleptocrats. (See "PLO" below.)

Fatwa: A pronouncement of a mullah that sanctions murder, but only of
disagreeable people, like inadequately covered women, Salman Rushdie,
etc.

Female Genital Mutilation: That ritual of which Western feminist
organizations seem, by virtue of their silence, to approve.

Hamas: The democratically elected government of Gaza whose founding
charter calls for genocide.

Hezbollah: The democratic group whose purpose is saving Lebanon from
Israeli aggression, and whose founding charter calls for genocide.

History: Having nothing whatsoever to do with what has actually
happened, but rather being what has come to be called "narrative,"
i.e., "storytelling." For one example, allusions to the "Ancient
Nation of Palestine;" and for another, almost all the Muslem
accomplishments President Obama enumerated in his momentous Cairo
speech (also see "Rewriting History" below).

Holocaust: That genocide that did not happen, but that the Jews
orchestrated in order to steal Arab land, and that of which the Jewish
presence in Palestine is worse than.

Honor Killings: The cultural imperative to murder one's
daughter/sister/niece for humiliating male members…(see "Shariah"
below).

Human Rights: The credo by which murder committed by a person from a
country which used to be called "Third World" (now considered racist
terminology) is good (see "Resistance" below); retaliatory killing by
a person who is either from a developed country, a white person or
most especially a Jew, is bad (see "Agression" above).

Human Shields: Integral part of Hamas & Hezbollah military strategy.

Islamic Republic: Military dictatorship.

Israel: Occupied territory (see "Zionist Entity" below).

Israeli Prime Minister: Hawkish, right-winger, hard-liner.

Jerusalem: City holy to Islam in which the Jews have no history.

Jew: The source of all decadence and evil in the world; descendent of
apes and pigs.

Jihad: The inner spiritual struggle for self-purification or the
bloody military struggle for world domination depending on to which
journalist and in what language one is speaking.

Judeo-Christian Values: The credo of that civilization which has lost
all its values, except for that racism is bad, and diversity is good.

Koran: The book that was revealed word-for-word to the Prophet
Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) by the Angel Gabriel…or not.

Leftist: Supporter of PLO (see "PLO" below) and Hamas (see "Hamas"
above) and Muslem Brotherhood (see "Muslem Brotherhood" below).

Mahdi: The Shia Messiah who has been hiding for centuries at the
bottom of a well.

Martyr: Someone who kills someone else while killing himself, said to
be rewarded for his martyrdom by the acquisition of 72 virgins upon
his arrival in Paradise, at least according to what the Prophet
Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) said the Angel Gabriel told him (see
"Koran" above).

Militant, Assailant, Gunman, Activist: terrorist.

Moderate Palestinian Leader: Former KGB operative, Holocaust denier,
and financier of Munich Olympic massacre.

Mosque: A place for the storage of armaments.

Muslem Brotherhood: A mostly secular and non-violent political party in Egypt.

Occupation: Jewish presence in disputed territory. (See "Israel" above.)

Peace: War of attrition.

Peace Process: The dismantling of Israel.

Peace Talks: The avoidance of peace.

PLO: Organization created in 1964 to end the 1967 occupation.

Palestinian Authority: The world's most successful kleptocracy.

Palestinian Hero: Murderer of children.

Palestinian Prime Minister: Moderate, bold (see "Arab Prime Minister" above).

Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The authentic Jewish playbook for
world domination.

Racist: A person who disagrees with or does not like or does not
support the reelection of President Obama.

Radical Islamic Movement: A group whose stated official goal is
genocide (see "Hamas" and "Hezbollah" above).

Recognition: A truce until the next time.

Refugee: Someone who has refused to take refuge, or who has not been
allowed to take refuge.

"Religion of Peace": That civilization with which the Judeo-Christian
civilization is locked in a war to the death.

Resistance: Randomly killing civilians, especially children.

Rewriting History: See "History" above.

Right: Demand to live in Israel by people who hate it and wish to destroy it.

of Return: By people very, very few of whom have ever actually been there.

Settlement: An illegal community made up of settlers. (See "Settler" below.)

Settler: Someone who builds his house in order to thwart any chance at
making peace between Jews and Palestinians.

Shariah: The Islamic system of jurisprudence which codifies and
dignifies rape, child marriage, specific classes of murder such as
honor killings (see "Honor Killings" above), etc.

Shia: People who are certain that Sunnis are not real Muslems, and are
in fact infidels, and should therefore be slaughtered.

Sunni: People who are certain that Shia are not real Muslems, and are
in fact infidels, and should therefore be slaughtered.

War Crime: Retaliation and defense. Any action whose intent is victory.

War on Terror: Pretense that the enemy of the West is made up of
small, shadowy groups motivated by childhood poverty (see "Al Qaeda"
above). ("We're depraved on account of we're deprived" — apologies to
S. Sondheim.)

Zionism: The ideology of the Jews who aspire to control, dominate and
take over the world.

Zionist: Someone who is worse than a Nazi.

Zionist Entity: That place that does not exist, as on Arab maps, but
that must be destroyed.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/26/guide-for-the-perplexed/

# posted by Steven Plaut : 2:59 AM

All around the Libyan Bush,
The rebels chased the weasel.
The monkeys thought the weasel would win, but
Pop! went the weasel.

I thought now would be an apt time to re-post this, from last Purim:

http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/47519/
RETURN LIBYA TO ITS RIGHTFUL RULERS!

By: Steven Plaut

Date: Wednesday, March 09 2011
The world is wringing its hands over the fate of Libya. Being a
helpful sort of guy, and what with Purim fast approaching, I know just
the proper solution.

Control of Libya should be returned at once to the natural and
rightful owners of Libya, the people who controlled it before it was
invaded and occupied by Arab military hordes.

Libya should be returned to the Jews.

Why the Jews? Well, because according to at least a few scholars, Jews
controlled Libya not only before the Khaddafi era but long before the
country was seized and occupied by the Arabs. And, according to at
least a few theories, Libya was governed by a Jewish Berber queen
known to history as Kahina.

In the spirit of Adar and Purim, let's accept those theories as
indisputable fact and proceed:

Before the birth of Muhammad, back when there were no Arabs at all in
North Africa, Libya and its surroundings were home to Byzantine
occupiers and indigenous tribes. The latter were the true natives of
the area.

The Romans called the tribes Berbers, from which they derived the
derogatory adjective "barbarian," but the Berbers called themselves
Imazighen, possibly meaning "free people" or "free and noble men."

Libya was Berber long before the Egyptians and their slaves built any
pyraminds. Cathaginians conquered the area and were evicted by other
conquerers, as were the Vandal tribes and the Byzantines.

But the natives consisted of Berbers. And Jews. The Jews
probably entered the area during the period of the Second Temple, and
Berber-Jewish ties were strengthened during the revolt against the
Romans in the Land of Israel that ended with the destruction of the
Temple.

North African Jews mixed with and influenced local Berber tribes. The
French historian Marcel Simon claims that Tripoli, the same Tripoli in
which Muammar Khaddafi suppressed his own people, was under the rule
of Jewish Berbers as early as the first century of the common era.

By the time the Arab imperialist armies entered Libya after the death
of Muhammad, Berbers in Libya and North Africa belonged to Christian
tribes (usually heretical heterodox Christians), pagan tribes, and at
least one large Jewish tribe. And the Jewish tribe was led by a woman.
No glass ceilings for her. She didn't need any Reform rabbis lecturing
her about egalitarianism in Judaism.

While known in most histories as the Kahina (from the root word kohen
for priestess), her actual name is given variously as Dahiyah, Dahia,
or Dhabba. Her tribe, known as the Jerawa, was based in the Aures
Mountains in eastern Algeria and Tunisia, and its control extended
into Libya. And she was a warrior queen.

The historian Charles-Andre Julien, in his History of North Africa,
calls her the Berber Deborah. Her most dramatic victories were over
the Arab imperialist invaders. She decided to resist the illegal
occupation of her homeland by Arab colonialists and kick them out with
force. She drove the first wave of Arab invaders out of Libya
altogether, though they later returned.

After the Arab general Hassan ibn al Numan took Carthage from the
Byzantines, the Kahina's forces defeated him on the battlefield. Alas,
he later turned the tables and defeated her. Most Berber tribes were
eventually Islamized, though they retained their penchant for
embracing theological heterodoxy even as Muslims.

The medieval Arab historian Ibn Khaldun writes at length about her
military campaigns. The great historian Edward Gibbon, author of the
classic history of Rome, mentions her. She was a figure of fascination
for the American writer Washington Irving, better known for his tales
of Rip van Winkle and Ichabod Crane.

As we see, when Muammar Khaddafi's ancestors were chasing camels
around what is now Saudi Arabia, Jewish roots were well entrenched in
Libya. So would not the most logical resolution of the current
political crisis in Libya be to restore it to its proper Jewish
rulers?

If the Arabs are thought to be entitled to 22 different states, why
should the Jews not have at least two - one in the Land of Israel and
one in Libya? Jewish high-tech know-how in agriculture would turn
Libya into a rain forest within a decade.

In fact, since Purim is coming and I'm in a good mood, I'll even
suggest that the Palestinians be moved to the southern part of Libya
near the Chad border and be allowed to set up their own state there.
Maybe even two states, one for Hamas and one for the PLO. They can
have a cut of Libyan oil revenue if they behave themselves there.

If a brief period of Arab rule over the Land of Israel is thought to
convey some sort of legitimate claim to parts of Israel for Arabs, why
should Jewish rule in Libya, older than the Arab conquest of
Palestine, not similarly confer natural rights of sovereignty?

The peace plan is simple. The illegal Arab colonial occupation of
Libya must end. All illegal settlements must be removed. The
legitimate Jewish rulers of Libya must be restored to power!

# posted by Steven Plaut : 12:58 PM

"Those released will return to armed struggle. It is a great national
achievement." Khaled Mashal, Chairman, Hamas Political Bureau,
Damascus, Syria

I think that the best definition of leadership is where a political
leader is willing to resist populist pressure to do "popular" things
whenever those "popular" things are harmful. A real leader is someone
capable of resisting the temptation to act as demagogue and play to
the crowd.

In the massive release of mass murderers about to take place (I am
writing this just before it goes ahead) to "buy" back from the Hamas
terrorists Israel's kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Bibi Netanyahu has
revealed himself to be the very opposite of a leader. He is a cheap
demagogue playing to the crowd for transient popularity. And the
people of Israel will pay the price for his theatrics.

The release of the Palestinian mass murderers is popular in Israel at
the moment, according to public opinion surveys. Netanyahu has a long
track record of doing whatever the caprices of the public happen to
favor at the moment. So I suppose in some ways it was not surprising
that he agreed to this atrocity. A man who does not have the backbone
to stare down and dismiss summer Woodstock-on-the-Yarkon "social
justice" protesters cannot be expected to resist the passionate
Israeli public desire to see Gilad Shalit released.

The release of the murderers is fleetingly popular this week.
Negotiating with Palestinians is also generally popular in Israel. So
are price controls on housing and raising the minimum wage. So is
(depending on wording of question) creating a Palestinian state.
Being a leader means refusing to create disasters just because the
public this week happens to feel that it is a nice idea to create
them.

There is a general and deeply-felt desire for Shalit's release among
all Israelis. The media have kept the plight of his family in the
headlines for five years. Shalit has been in captivity for longer
than the US soldiers who survived the Bataan death march in the
Philippines or British troops captured in Hong Kong and Singapore.

But it is now clear that the main effect of the organizations in
Israel drumming up support for "Let's get Shalit Released," and "We
demand Shalit's Freedom," was to increase the number of murderers
released in the exchange, from a couple of hundred to over a thousand.
It was obvious all along that the protests "on behalf of Gilad" had
no effect whatsoever on the Hamas other than persuading it to hold out
longer for greater and greater levels of appeasement. The protests
simply weakened the resolve of the already weak Israeli political
leadership to resist the extortion.

The first of the atrocious massive releases of terrorists by Israel
took place in 1985, when the National Unity Government of the Labor
Party and Likud released terrorists in the "Ahmed Jibril Deal," to the
PFLP terrorist leader Jibril. Shimon Peres was the Prime Minister at
the time (what a surprise!). 1150 prisoners were released in exchange
for three Israeli POWs, who had been captured during the first
Lebanese War. Many of the terrorists released resumed their careers
in terrorism and led the "First Intifada."

That moronic "deal" served as precedent. Thereafter Israel paid in
the currency of murderers in every "deal" in which captive Israelis
were taken, and even in exchange for the release of the corpses of
Israeli soldiers murdered by the terrorists. The massive release of
murderers naturally always served as incentive for the terrorists to
kidnap more Israelis. There is some serious doubt as to whether
Shalit would have been kidnapped in the first place had it not been
for those precedents.

In those repeated wholesale releases of terrorists, Israel always
attempted to maintain a figleaf of self-respect, setting some limits
on who could be released. There was Israeli reluctance to releasing
murderers of children, or those who had actually pulled the triggers
in killing civilians, or those involved in suicide bombings.

No longer.

The Netanyahu capitulation has at long last put an end to all
pretense. The very worst mass murderers of children and civilians are
about to be released. The litany of their crimes is too long and
horrendous to be reproduced here. You can see more details here:
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Details+Israeli+prisoner+swap+spark+outrage/5556176/story.html
But they involve those who murdered multiple members of the same
families, those who placed bombs in the Jerusalem Sbarro pizza
restaurant murdering children, those who lured a 15 year old boy into
the West Bank with internet flirting and murdered him, and too many
other murders. Some of the atrocities sound more like events that
took place in Nazi-conquered Europe than in the independent Jewish
state. A surviving member of the family destroyed in the Sbarro
attack is in the news this week for having vandalized the grave this
week of Yitzhak Rabin, whom he blames for the murders of his family
and the release of the murderers. (See
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148820)

As in all cases of mind-numbing stupidity being perpetrated by
Israel's government, Netanyahu came in right on cue and defended the
capitulation on grounds of "What choice was there?" Whenever Israeli
politicians choose the stupidest choice possible, they always insist
there is no other choice.

What choice was there? The choice was not to agree to the
capitulation. Just say no.

Of the terrorists released, many will revert to their careers of
murder, as did so many released terrorists before them. They will be
celebrated by the barbarians as heroes and role models. It should not
take long before the cost of saving the life of one Jew will turn out
to be the deaths of many Jews. The deal is popular because the
Israeli public is familiar with the faces of Gilad Shalit and his
family. The people who will now be murdered or kidnapped by the
terrorists newly inspired by the capitulation do not have faces. Nor
do THEIR families. Yet.

It was clear all along that there were other ways in which Israel and
its government could have dealt with the Shalit kidnapping and
captivity. Israel could have assassinated 30 terrorists a day and
announce that the targeting would continue every day until Shalit was
released. Or Israel could have kidnapped the family members of Hamas
leaders and held THEM in captivity until Shalit was free. Or Israel
could have executed 30 imprisoned terrorists inside Israeli prison
each day.

Better yet, Israel could have eliminated the terrorist "bait" that
drives kidnapping in the first place -- by executing terrorists. No
one has ever been murdered by a terrorist who has already been
executed. Every time anyone brings up the idea of capital punishment
for terrorism, Israel's politicians wring their hands and whine about
how "unethical" it is, how it violates Jewish ethics. All this coming
from politicians who do not have the slightest idea of what Jewish
ethics has to say about anything. Suffice it to say that capital
punishment is as fundamentally grounded in Torah and Jewish ethics as
are bans on incest and adultery. Jewish ethics explicitly prohibits
abandoning other randomly chosen Jews to be killed in order to obtain
the release of one Jew being threatened.

Netanyahu and his team may soon be learning how ephemeral "popularity"
is and how capricious the throng can be. It may not take long for
the Netanyahu cowardice to reap what it has sown, in the form of
busses exploding on Israeli streets or suicide bombing attacks on
Israeli restaurants. And those victims of Netanyahu's capitulation
will have faces and families.

# posted by Steven Plaut : 5:02 AM

Occupy Berkeley!

Posted By Steven Plaut On October 11, 2011

The focus of the country has lately been on the "Occupy Wall Street"
movement, or "OWS." You know, the people who claim to speak for the
99% of Americans who are not wealthy capitalists and who think they
can create social justice and equality by marching around the New York
Stock Exchange and other centers of capitalism, like Greenwich
Village.

Here is how the leaders of the leaderless OWS describe themselves on
their Web site: "Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement
with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one
thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer
tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the
revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the
use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants." They
go on to promise: "We are growing. Block by block – city by city. We
will see change in this country, in this world. It will happen sooner
than you can imagine."

Now it occurs to me that there is only one appropriate and sensible
response to the "Occupy Wall Street" anarchists and street urchins.
And that is to create a competing grassroots mass movement that will
challenge the attention OWS is receiving in the media, while offering
a rational and constructive alternative agenda for real social change.

I propose that the alternative mass movement be called "Occupy Berkeley."

OB will be a mass movement holding protests and street demonstrations
in Berkeley, California. Its first order of business will be to
occupy Telegraph Avenue. The slogan of OB should be, "We are the
other 99.999999%," referring to the fact that people who despise
Berkeley street hippies and "anarchists" represent exactly that
proportion of the general population.

OB will specialize in civil disobedience and street theater. Among
its initiatives will be a mass roundup of Berkeley hippies who will be
conducted to the central facilities of OB, where they will all be
given free baths. A special re-education campus will be set up in
Orange County, California, where all Bay Area communists and drug
users will be sent to learn about the disadvantages of communism.

OB will also rid Berkeley of those asking passersby for spare change.
Instead, OB will promote entrepreneurship for panhandlers and for
homeless youths. Anyone in the Bay area stopping passersby and asking
for spare change will be ordered to do pushups, where the first 40 are
unpaid but after that, payment will be made to the panhandlers at the
rate of 20 cents per pushup. Tax free. Pregnant panhandlers and
those over 70 will be permitted to do their pushups from the knees.

Telegraph Avenue will be renamed "Wall Street West" and Shattuck
Avenue will be renamed "Milton Friedman Boulevard." The area within 4
miles of the University of California (CAL) campus will be declared a
tie-dye-free zone, where no tie dyed clothing may be worn. Discounts
to the BART and other forms of public transit will be offered to
Berkeley residents wearing ties and jackets. All the "head shops"
selling drug paraphernalia along Telegraph Avenue will be converted
into barber shops and Bible stores. When not using public transit,
travel in SUVs will be not only permitted but made mandatory.

Special retreats will be held for Berkeley residents still believing
in communism. There they will be housed in Gulag barracks, woken up
at 5 AM, and ordered to do physical labor without getting paid.
Berkeley socialists can also be sent to the retreats, but they will
only be woken up to work at 5:30 AM. Non-competitive sports will be
prohibited during leisure time, only competitive sports allowed.
Afternoon breaks at the camp will be devoted to generating greenhouse
gases. On Saturday nights, "Dirty Harry" movies will be screened.
Attendance will be mandatory. Vegan foods will be absolutely
prohibited there.

Berkeley is of course only the beginning. After Berkeley is occupied
by masses of marching conservatives, it will be the turn of Madison,
WI; Amherst, MA; and of course San Francisco. Any city or state
approving of medical marijuana will next be targeted. Cities
undergoing occupation by OB will see reverse affirmative action
implemented, whereby anyone who was harmed in the past by affirmative
action programs will be entitled to preferences, compensation, and
reparations.

Occupy Berkeley is growing, town by town, block by block, taser by
taser. We are drawing bipartisan support from people sick and tired
of the selfish indulgence of leftwing radicals and hippies. Unlike
OWS, the only genders we represent are men and women. And we are
accepting donations because we believe in materialism and selfishness.

We chant: "The world is watching!"; "This is how democracy looks!";
"We are the ones we've been waiting for!"; and "It is never too late
for a spanking."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/11/occupy-berkeley/

# posted by Steven Plaut : 11:38 PM

The story begins with a woman named Yifat Alkobi, a married woman
from Kiryat Arba. She was arrested in 2007 for spitting and throwing
stones at a Palestinian she claims was harassing her, the accusations
against Alkobi being based on "testimony" from the radical anti-Israel
NGO Yesh Din. She has been in the news before, accused of spitting on
and cursing a Palestinian neighbor
(http://exmypar.wordpress.com/2007/01/22/yifat-alkobi/ ). She first
got sentenced to a fine and probation and was later acquitted of the
charges (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4042311,00.html).

But while being transported to prison she asked a Jewish
policeman conducting her there not to leave her alone with Arab
policemen. The Arab policemen were probably actually Druse or Bedouin
border patrolmen.

When word of her comment reached the Deputy Attorney General Shai
Nitzan, he ordered that she be charged with "insulting a public
servant," the favorite bludgeon of Nitzan to suppress the freedom of
speech of non-leftists. Shai Nitzan, you recall, is essentially a
Soviet-style official in charge of using the judicial system to
persecute the Israeli Right and suppress freedom of speech. He is
behind the campaign to arrest and indict anyone who recommends that
people read a controversial book that Nitzan considers to be racist.
He persecutes and harasses rabbis. He ordered a faculty member at the
University of Haifa to report to the police, KGB style, about comments
he made in his classroom, comments Nitzan considered bigoted but the
University administration did not.

This is the same Shai Nitzan who has never gotten around to
indicting any of the Israel far leftists who call for murdering
non-leftists and settlers, who endorse terrorism, and who call for
mass lawbreaking and refusal to serve in the military. This is the
same Nitzan who never indicts Arab public figures in Israel for
endorsing terrorism and murder. But when a Jewish woman asks not to
be left alone with Arab policemen, this was a transgression about
which Nitzan leapt into action. Had an Arab woman asked not to be
left alone in the company of Jewish men, Nitzan would never have done
anything at all. Alkobi never said she would object to being left
alone with Arab policeWOMEN.

But the affair did not end there. It turns out that a young
conscientious judge in the Jerusalem magistrate's court named Dov
Pollack spoke out against Nitzan's behavior. When the Alkobi case
came before him, Pollack ordered the police to explain in court how it
arrived at this charge against her. The police opposed the demand to
explain and demanded that Pollack recuse himself from sitting in the
case, claiming he was "biased" and had "expressed political opinions."
In addition, the police claimed that Pollack commented that Nitzan's
behavior was due to the fact that he enjoyed the backing of the
current Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, Dorit Beinisch.
Allegedly Pollack said that since Beinisch is due to retire in
February he would schedule the trial for March in order for
objectivity to be maintained. He also is alleged to have said that
this was hardly the first case of one-sided biased prosecution by Shai
Nitzan.

In response, the Attorney General Moshe Lador, the leftist boss of
Shai Nitzan, decided to file an official complaint against Judge
Pollack with the "Commissioner for Complaints against Judges." The
commissioner actually cannot fire a judge and the complaint is mainly
a nuisance tactic. Pollack fired back his own letter of response,
accusing Lador of improperly attempting to influence court procedures
and decisions. (Alkobi was acquitted of the charges by a different
judge, not Pollack.)

So here we have the spectacle of a biased leftist State
Prosecutor refusing to fire his own biased politicized deputy for his
years of anti-democratic actions and his assaults against freedom of
speech. And this same State Prosecutor is now attempting to suppress
the freedom of speech of a judge and harass that judge for daring to
question the political motives of Shai Nitzan in an obviously absurd
indictment of a woman for doing nothing more than ask not to be left
alone with Arab policemen.

Shai Nitzan should have been indicted for bigotry, not Mrs. Alkobi.

2. People outside of the academic world have a great deal of
difficulty believing how much of academia consists of sheep-like herd
behavior. Having spent much of my professional career at the
University of Haifa, I see the herd behavior all the time.

The latest outbreak of mass sheep-like herd behavior developed at
the University of Haifa in response to the recent vandalization of a
mosque in the town of Tuba Zangria in Israel's north.

First let me say that I am disgusted with any vandalization of
any mosque or any other site regarded by any religion as sacred. I
was revolted by the Florida preacher burning Korans. Civilized people
do not dishonor the objects and buildings regarded by other religions
as sacred.

Israel has seen several acts of vandalization of Moslem sites, in
most cases consisting of writing graffiti. A handful of youths,
mainly teenagers, calling themselves "Price Tag," are widely suspected
of being behind these, although I suspect the Kahanists. The "Price
Tag" people are hooligans who also curse and attack Israeli police and
soldiers and call them Nazis. I am all in favor of prosecuting them
and would have no objection to their undergoing intense spanking. The
vandalization of the Tuba Zangria mosque was probably the work of one
or a few of these. Two youths have been arrested. There have been
some other cases of vandalization this week, including graffiti at
Moslem and Christian cemeteries in Jaffa (not counting the torching of
a Jaffa synagogue by Arabs). I would not be surprised if these were
the work of the same two or three kids. To put this into perspective,
the incidence of mosque vandalization in Israel is small compared with
the US and parts of Europe, and probably only involves a handful of
kids.

(The police claim that some of the Jaffa mischief is related to
football/soccer hooliganism. In soccer games in Israel, Jews and
Arabs sometimes yell "Death to Jews" and "Death to Arabs" at each
other from the stands. One of the more popular soccer teams is the
all-Arab "Sons of Sakhnin," and the catcalls are common when it plays.
Soccer hooliganism is hardly an Israeli invention, of course, which
is one reason I have always favored all newspaper reporting about
soccer matches where hooliganism appears being printed in Talmudic
Aramaic.)

Let us note that there has not been a single Jewish public
figure in Israel from any part of the political spectrum who has
condoned the vandalizations. To the contrary, from Netanyahu on down
the vandalizations were universally condemned in Israel.

The matter became a University of Haifa obsession after the
campus "Jewish-Arab Center," headed by a Jewish professor, issued a
formal statement condemning the vandalization of the mosque. As your
humble curmudgeon pointed out on a campus chat list for professors,
condemning the mosque vandalization was all well and good, but the
statement by the "Jewish-Arab Center" was issued the day AFTER
Joseph's Tomb in Nablus was vandalized there by Palestinian
terrorists, who painted swastikas all over the structure. The
statement by the "Center" condemning what happened in Tuba Zangria
never so much as mentioned the incident at Joseph's Tomb. The Tomb
has been regularly vandalized by Palestinians every few weeks for many
years. Your humble curmudgeon asked if the Jewish-Arab Center was
only outraged by vandalization of Moslem shrines.

Several professors wrote me nasty responses, telling me I should be
ashamed of myself. Several other professors openly justified the
vandalizations of Joseph's Tomb as legitimate acts of resistance. You
can see one example posted at the top of http://isracampus.org.il/.
Professors justifying the swastika painting at Joseph's Tomb claimed
that it was not even a historical Jewish structure, that it was myth
that Joseph was buried there, that it was actually a Moslem shrine.
(The fact that the Moslem structures atop the Temple Mount are based
on historic myth has never been proposed as a reason to remove them.)
Never mind that local Arabs in Nablus all call it Joseph's Tomb in
Arabic. One professor insisted that it was nothing at all like the
mosque vandalization because the mosque vandals were motivated by
hatred, while the swastika painters on Joseph's Tomb were motivated by
a desire for peace and freedom and an end to occupation. Other
professors objected that since Nablus was "outside Israel," the
swastikas at Joseph's Tomb "do not count." I pointed out that there
have been countless acts of vandalization of synagogues and Jewish
cemeteries within Israel's Green Line 1967 borders, and of course
those praying at the Western Wall have often been attacked by Moslems
on the Temple Mount throwing things down at them, so there were plenty
of incidents against Jews that the Jewish Arab Center could condemn.

One professor told me I should be ashamed of making such
statements just before Yom Kippur and its calls for atonement and the
need for all Jews to atone for the vandalization. I responded that
the discussion on the professors chat list about the mosque incident
did indeed remind me of Yom Kippur, because of the part in the Yom
Kippur prayers in which humans are described as sheep in a herd.

This is not the first time the Jewish-Arab Center showed its
biases. This past summer the head of the center issued a special
greeting sent to everyone on campus wishing Moslems a happy Ramadan
and an "easy fast" (obviously not a traditional Moslem greeting but a
Jewish one). The statement was issued a few days before Tisha B'Av.
At the time I asked why no wishes for an easy fast were sent out by
the Center to Jews that week. Later, no doubt due to my jabbing my
finger in their eye, the Center would send Happy Near Year greetings
to Jews on Rosh Hashana, but again no "easy fast" for Yom Kippur.
Perhaps the "Jewish Arab Center" should be renamed the Arab Center.

In response to the statement by the Jewish Arab Center, large
numbers of University of Haifa faculty members issued calls to go the
Tuba Zangria to pay solidarity visits and to show the locals how
horrified they are of the vandalization of the mosque. Some
professors proposed using University funds to repair the mosque.
Dozens of professors issued herd-like endorsements on the professors
chat list of the calls to make pilgrimage to Tuba Zangria.

Lest this appear to be merely the herd response of bleeding
hearts and do-gooders, it should also be pointed out that many of
those joining the herd were the very same people who campaigned
against the singing of Hatikva at University of Haifa graduation
ceremonies. The initiator of the solidarity caravan had suggested
that the PLO "anthem" be sung at those ceremonies. Not a single one
of those joining the herd condemned the swastikas at Joseph's Tomb.
None of the professors proposed visiting the Jaffa synagogue that was
torched this week by Arabs.

Not a single one had ever issued a condemnation of Arab
vandalization or Arab terrorist attacks against Jews. Not a single
one of those joining the herd had denounced the massacre of children
at the Merkaz Harav yeshiva in West Jerusalem in 2008, and in fact a
few of the professors had justified that attack at the time. Those
who were so adamant about how religious sensitivities must be
respected spent Yom Kippur sending out email messages organizing a
caravan of cars to Tuba Zangria the next day, to show their
solidarity. It goes without saying that when their beloved
Palestinians have attacked synagogues, including when those synagogues
happened to have praying Jews inside (Paris and Istanbul come to
mind), not a single member of the academic herd condemned this on the
professors chat lists. So large numbers of University of Haifa
academics are horrified by cases of juvenile Jewish vandals damaging
Moslem (and occasionally Christian) sites, but consider vandalization
of Jewish holy sites and murdering Jews to be legitimate protest and
resistance.

I think the entire matter can be summed up nicely with this nursery rhyme:

Baaa Baaa Tenured Sheep, have you any wool,
Yassir, Yassir, two bags full,
One for the mosque, sir, and one for the church,
But none for that little shul they burned down the lane.

# posted by Steven Plaut : 2:37 AM

Well, it occurs to me that if you REALLY want to find a truly silly
idea, it is the idea of a French state.

I reprint here an older posting of mine:

http://www.meforum.org/62/land-for-peace-the-french-solution

Land for Peace: The French Solution
by Steven Plaut
Middle East Quarterly
June 2000, p. 96

http://www.meforum.org/62/land-for-peace-the-french-solution

On a recent trip to Israel, French prime minister Lionel Jospin urged
Israel to make concessions for peace. More interesting yet, in
documents relating to his visit, Jerusalem was called the "capital of
the Palestinian Authority." And what does he consider the capital of
Israel? Tel Aviv, of course.1 This trip followed by a few years one
made by President Jacques Chirac, who used the occasion of his visit
in 1996 to announce that "Syria has a moral right to demand return of
the Golan Heights."2

These French politicians may be on to something important. Never one
to back down from a challenge, I have prepared a set of proposals for
consideration by the French people, so they too can achieve a full,
lasting, and just peace with their historic opponents.

First, we all agree that territory must not be annexed by force.
Therefore, we can also agree that Germany has a moral right to demand
the return of Alsace-Lorraine, for the French aggression in 1945 and
its consequent occupation must not be rewarded. "A full withdrawal for
full peace" should operate here. Further, France must agree to the
return and rehabilitation of all ethnic Germans expelled from
Alsace-Lorraine after World Wars I and II, as well as all those they
define as their descendents.

But this, of course, is just the first step toward a solution, as no
aggression can be rewarded—and France has much other stolen territory
to return. It took Corsica from Genoa, Nice and Savoy from Piedmont;
as the successor state, Italy must get back all these lands. By
similar token, territories grabbed from the Habsburgs go back to
Austria, including Franche-Comté, Artois, and historic Burgundy. The
Roussillon area (along the Pyrenées) must be returned to Spain, its
rightful owner. And Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, and Gascony must be
returned to their rightful owners, the British royal family.

Not even this not enough for the sake of peace. Brittany and Languedoc
must be granted autonomy at once, recognizing the Breton and Occitan
Liberation organizations as their legal rulers. This leaves the French
government in control over the Île de France (the area around Paris).

That, however, still does not solve the problem of the Holy City of
Paris, sacred to artists, gourmets, and adulterers. The Corsicans
obviously have a historic claim to the Tomb of the Emperor Napoleon,
their famed son, as well as the Invalides complex and beyond. For the
sake of peace, is it not too much to ask that Paris be the capital for
two peoples? The French authorities must agree to prevent French
Parisians from even entering the sacred tomb area, lest this upset the
Corsicans.

The Saint Chapelle and the Church of Notre Dame of course will be
internationalized, under joint Vatican-art historical auspices.
Indeed, the French should consider it a compliment of the highest
order that so many people see Paris as an international city.

The French have nothing to complain of. They will enjoy the benefits
of peace and retain control of the Champs Elysées.

Actually, come to think of it, even the Champs Elysées may be too
much. Recalling the French position that Jerusalem is not the capital
of Israel, perhaps the true French capital is not Paris at all, but
Vichy.

Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa.
1 The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 24, 2000.
2 The Jerusalem Post, Oct. 23, 1996

# posted by Steven Plaut : 1:19 AM

From Israel's Bus 300 Affair to the Al-Awlaki Assassination

Posted By Steven Plaut On October 7, 2011

It is perhaps the ultimate irony that the Israeli "Bus 300" affair is
once again popping up in the media just days after the al-Qaeda
terrorist with the US passport, Anwar al-Awlaki, was liquidated by a
drone in Yemen. Many of the points being raised in debate over the
killing of al-Awlaki are the same as those long raised regarding the
Israeli "Bus 300 Affair." In both incidents terrorists were summarily
executed by the intelligence agencies of democratic nations, without
trial and "due process." Both cases are being exploited by the enemies
of those democracies to paint them as "inhumane regimes."

In the Bus 300 Affair, intelligence agents from Israel's Shin Bet
liquidated two terrorists captured after hijacking a bus full of
civilians, mainly women, and threatening to blow them up. The
al-Awlaki affair is far fresher in everyone's mind. Many on the Left,
joined by Ron Paul and some fringe members of the Right, are grumbling
about how al-Awlaki was liquidated "without proper due process and
trial." The eminent professor of law from Berkeley, John Yoo,
probably made the best case for the killing, writing in the Wall
Street Journal:

Yet, from the howls on the left, you would never know that President
Barack Obama had won another victory in the war on terror. Even as
details of the operation leaked out, critics claimed that our
government had "assassinated" an American citizen without due process.
… Worse yet, they get the rights of a nation at war terribly wrong.
Awlaki's killing in no way violates the prohibition on assassination …
[A]ssassination is an act of murder for political purposes. Killing
Martin Luther King Jr. or John F. Kennedy is assassination. Shooting
an enemy soldier in wartime is not. In World War II, the United
States did not carry out an assassination when it sent long-range
fighters to shoot down an air transport carrying the Japanese admiral
Isoroku Yamamoto. American citizens who join the enemy do not enjoy a
roving legal force-field that immunizes them from military reprisal.
President Abraham Lincoln confronted this question at the outset of
the Civil War.

Almost all of the commentators and bloggers who roll their eyes in
mock horror over the execution of the two terrorists in the "Bus 300"
affair refuse to report what actually happened there.

On April 12, 1984, four Arab terrorists who had entered the Israeli
Negev from Gaza commandeered an Israeli civilian bus filled mostly
with women commuters returning home to Ashkelon from their jobs in Tel
Aviv. There were pregnant women among the victims. The terrorists
seized the bus and attempted to drive it towards the Egyptian border.
They were armed with knives and explosives and threatened to blow up
the entire bus with its passengers if stopped. They crashed through
road blocks and were pursued by military jeeps. The bus eventually
was stopped near Gaza City.

The incident took place just a few years after the massacre of bus
passengers by terrorists in another incident along Israel's main
coastal road. Holding the Bus 300 passengers as hostages, the
terrorists demanded the release of 500 jailed terrorists, threatening
to murder the captives if their demands were not met.

The next morning, an Israeli SWAT team stormed Bus 300 and freed the
passengers. Two of the terrorists were killed in the operation. One
Israeli woman on the bus died in the crossfire and seven others were
injured. The Israeli military announced that all four terrorists had
died in the operation. Later it turned out that two of the four had
actually been captured alive and were executed by intelligence agents
on the spot. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
in Syria took credit for the attack, although Israel claimed that
Arafat's Fatah terror organization was responsible.

The incident turned into a "scandal" when an Israeli newspaper called
Hadashot (owned by the radical leftist Haaretz publishing house; it
has since closed), edited by one Yossi Klein, defied Israel's military
censor (which censors news reporting about some sensitive military
matters) and published a photo of one of the captured terrorists being
led away. (Originally published with faces of intelligence officers
blackened out.)

In the aftermath, several Israeli intelligence officers were indicted
for their roles in "covering up" the execution of the two captured
terrorists. All officers would be either exonerated in court or
granted presidential "pardon" before indictment. Careers were damaged
more by the negative publicity than from formal judicial actions. The
head of the Shin Bet at the time was forced to resign. One
intelligence officer named Ehud Yatom proudly boasted of his role in
eliminating the terrorists. He later served as a member of the
Israeli parliament (the Knesset).

An official commission of inquiry then examined activities and
procedures of the intelligence agency.

The Bus 300 affair continues to generate public debate in Israel. It
returns to the headlines whenever any of the figures involved are in
the news, such as when Yatom was to be appointed director of the
Israeli Parks Authority. There have been films, documentaries and
plays about the incident in Israel and elsewhere. The latest is a
Hebrew film recently released titled "A. – Liquidate them!" and it is
generating a lot of public debate.

The Israel far Left has long exploited the incident as a bludgeon
against the supposed "human rights abuses" by the intelligence
services. Yossi Klein, the same bloke who broke the law by running in
Hadashot the photo of the captured terrorist being led away, has been
exploiting the attention he is suddenly again getting and denounced
the Shin Bet for engaging in things that are "immoral and illegal," in
his opinion (Haaretz, October 4, 2011). He has been backed by some of
Israel's most seditious self-hating leftist extremists.

Both the al-Awlaki killing and "Bus 300" actually serve to illustrate
the underlying problem concerning the nature of terrorism.
Terrorists are not soldiers, do not behave as soldiers, and when they
are captured they are not protected by international treaties
regarding prisoners of war. They do not wear uniforms and they
explicitly target civilians for purposes of creating mass panic and
demoralization. By targeting civilians, they defy all norms of human
decency.

At the same time they are not civilian "criminals" and so are not
entitled to the protections and niceties of the judicial system, from
Miranda warnings and legal representation to due process in courts.
Terrorism is neither civilian "crime" nor is it military activity by
soldiers. It is something else, something unique, sui generis.

It is absurd for terrorists to be processed and treated like common
criminals, and it is just as absurd for them to be treated as
prisoners of war. That is why Guantanamo base, waterboarding,
kidnapping terrorists to third countries, and all the rest are methods
that are perfectly sensible parts of anti-terrorism policy, even if
they would be prohibited when dealing with common criminals and with
military prisoners of war.

To put it bluntly, terrorists should be summarily executed, unless
there is some special strategic reason not to kill them (such as
extracting intelligence). Try to imagine that some of the hijackers
involved in the 9-11 attacks had actually been overpowered and
captured by security personnel that fateful day and then the would-be
hijackers had been summarily executed. Or imagine that Osama bin
Laden had first been captured alive and only then executed by American
security forces, after intelligence was extracted from him. Captured
terrorists serve as open invitations to other terrorists to engage in
more terrorism in order to gain their release. John Wilkes Booth was
not read his rights nor provided with legal counsel.

Summary execution of terrorists makes a moral point, that by their
actions terrorists have forfeited any expectation of "due process" in
court and of ordinary protection due to military prisoners of war.
Just as we honor and proclaim publicly the merit of our heroes and
role models, so it makes perfect sense for us to exhibit our disgust
and revulsion with terrorists by liquidating them.

While executing terrorists theoretically risks situations where
innocent people could be killed in error, should proof ever emerge of
such a case occurring, those involved in the error or crime can be
indicted. But the burden of proof that an innocent person was so
killed in an anti-terrorism operation would be upon the prosecution.

The Shin Bet agents who summarily executed the two Bus 300 terrorists,
captured while threatening to blow up a bus full of civilians, behaved
properly. The terrorists involved indeed deserved to be summarily
executed. The agents should have been proclaimed heroes, promoted and
awarded medals.

Those who express "anguish" and "horror" at such extra-judicial
executions are people who prefer that terrorism thrive and flourish.
Execution of terrorists makes them feel squeamish and uncomfortable.
Their comfort is more important to them than preventing more 9-11s and
more mass murders of civilians by terrorists in the Middle East.

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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

URL to article:
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/10/07/from-israels-bus-300-affair-to-the-al-awlaki-assassination/

# posted by Steven Plaut : 12:11 AM