Bush Moves
Toward Martial Law

Frank Morales
October 26, 2006

Today a F/friend emailed to me the following disturbing news:
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision
which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually
encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so
by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the
President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The
Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the
Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict
prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With
one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of
2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on
October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the
President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere
in America and take control of state-based National Guard units
without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to
"suppress public disorder."

President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day
that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In
a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture
and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at
home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America.
Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement
control is precise; the term is "martial law."

Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the
Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is
entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies. "
Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and
Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces,
including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public
order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a
natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency,
terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or
possession of the United States, the President determines that
domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted
authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or
"fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any
State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or
conspiracy."

For the current President, "enforcement of the laws to restore public
order" means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the
objections of local governmental, military and local police entities;
ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement
mode; and set them loose against "disorderly" citizenry - protesters,
possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines
in the event of a bio-terror event.

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of
protesters, so called "illegal aliens," "potential terrorists" and
other "undesirables" for detention in facilities already contracted
for and under construction by Halliburton. That's right. Under the
cover of a trumped-up "immigration emergency" and the frenzied
militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being
constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who
resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

An article on "recent contract awards" in a recent issue of the slick,
insider "Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security
International" reported that "global engineering and technical
services powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January
2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an
Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event
of an emergency." "With a maximum total value of $385 million over a
five year term," the report notes, "the contract is to be executed by
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," "for establishing temporary
detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE
Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) - in the event of an emergency
influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid
development of new programs." The report points out that "KBR is the
engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton. " (3) So, in
addition to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon,
including a $70-billion "supplemental provision" which covers the cost
of the ongoing, mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other
places, the new law, signed by the president in a private White House
ceremony, further collapses the historic divide between the police and
the military: a tell-tale sign of a rapidly consolidating police state
in America, all accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions
of global domination, sold to an "emergency managed" and seemingly
willfully gullible public as a "global war on terrorism."

Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus
Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and
jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, "Whoever, except in cases
and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or
Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a
posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under
this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both," is the
only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed
against the American people under the cover of 'law enforcement. ' As
such, it has been the best protection we've had against the
power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an
executive intent on using force to enforce its will.

Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus,
along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it
will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this
horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of
abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.

Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has
been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our
elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator
Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007's Defense Authorization Act
contained a "widely opposed provision to allow the President more
control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection
Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use
the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the
nation's governors."

Senator Leahy went on to stress that, "we certainly do not need to
make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking the
Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities
goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can
easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having
to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never
visited their communities gives the orders."

A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy entered into the
Congressional Record that he had "grave reservations about certain
provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill
Conference Report," the language of which, he said, "subverts solid,
longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military's
involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the
President to declare martial law." This had been "slipped in," Leahy
said, "as a rider with little study," while "other congressional
committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to
comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals."

In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted
that "the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are
enormous". "There is good reason," he said, "for the constructive
friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations.
Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the
founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting
the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to
declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty. "

Senator Leahy's final ruminations: "Since hearing word a couple of
weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how Congress
could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the
Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and
the White House want it."

The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act,
accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal
authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.

The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even more direct role in
martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law, entitled, "Homeland
Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions," authorizes "the
Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer
Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense
(DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology
to federal, State, and local first responders."

In other words, the law facilitates the "transfer" of the newest in
so-called "crowd control" technology and other weaponry designed to
suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police units.
The new law builds on and further codifies earlier "technology
transfer" agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department
memorandum of agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4)

It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the
American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration;
with the president's polls at an historic low, growing resistance to
the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in
mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it
is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this
juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.

Source:

(1) http://leahy. senate.gov/ press/200609/ 091906a.html and
http://leahy. senate.gov/ press/200609/ 092906b.html See also,
Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, "The Use of
Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance: Legal Issues," by Jennifer K.
Elsea, Legislative Attorney, August 14, 2006

(2) http://www.govtrack .us/congress/ bill.xpd? bill+h109- 5122

(3) Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International,
"Recent Contract Awards", Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2, pg.8; See also,
Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention
Camps," New American Media, January 31, 2006.

(4) "Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed Weapons Detection",
National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995, pp.42-43.

Israel backs down on visas for Palestinians from US

By Harry de Quetteville in Ramallah
Last Updated: 1:39am GMT 30/10/2006



Israel may be forced to reverse a controversial policy of expelling Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza after a vigorous protest from America.


Sam Bahour was finally granted a new tourist visa


The U-turn, which marks a rare official dressing-down for Israel from Washington, comes after Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, raised objections to a policy that could have seen tens of thousands of Palestinian foreign passport holders driven from their homes in the Occupied Territories.

The territories are home to some 35,000 US citizens of Palestinian descent, many of whom returned during the mid-1990s after the more hopeful times of the Oslo peace accord, and have since married and started families.

They have, however, been unable to become permanent residents because Israel, which controls access to the territories, has refused to grant them residency.

While most have made do with tourist visas, Israel recently stopped issuing even these, forcing Palestinians with foreign passports to leave immediately or stay illegally and face forcible expulsion.

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"American Jews, indeed Jews from anywhere in the world, can come to Israel and be granted automatic citizenship. But Palestinians whose families have lived here for centuries do not enjoy the same right," said Sam Bahour, a US citizen of Palestinian descent who has led the campaign to reverse the policy.

He returned from America to his grandfather's home in the West Bank in the 1990s, and had been staying on tourist visas until last month when he was issued a final one-month permit and had to prepare to leave.

But after contacting influential American and Israeli friends and starting an internet movement to log victims of the policy, Mr Bahour was granted a new tourist visa after all.

The fact that Israel's about-turn has been achieved by talks rather than the gun has heartened weary observers of Israeli-Palestine relations.

A vigorous advocacy campaign by Palestinian-Americans in the US, echoing the kind more usually associated with Washington's pro-Israeli groups, is credited with getting America to bring pressure on Tel Aviv.

Mr Bahour's success will be welcome news for the likes of Enayeh Samara, who has had to renew her three-month tourist visa 125 times since returning to the Palestinian territories.


Adel Samara holds a photo of his wife Enayeh


After a recent trip to Jordan, she was barred from re-entering the West Bank by Israeli guards. She ended up having to return to Chicago, where she now speaks to her family in Ramallah daily on the telephone.

"I haven't seen her since May," said her daughter, Samara. "They told her she needed a residency permit but she has applied for 31 years and they didn't give her one."

At the US consulate in Israel, Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, a spokesman, said America was "very concerned" about current Israeli policy. "Lots of Palestinian Americans have told us they are facing this problem," she said.

Mark Regev, from the Israeli foreign ministry, said the refusal to extend tourist visas was purely a "bureaucratic" measure.

"There are foreign nationals with no legal status, living here as tourists while we turned a blind eye," he said. "A decision was taken that this was not a good situation."

But he admitted that Israel had failed to process residency permits, and that the new policy had drawn fire from foreign governments.

Publishers wishing to reproduce photographs on this page should phone 44 (0) 207 538 7505 or e-mail syndication@telegraph.co.uk



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Robert Fisk: Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb
Alarm over radioactive legacy left by attack on Lebanon
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

Published: 28 October 2006

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer - except for "marking" targets - even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991 - their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry - and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia - where DU was also used by Nato aircraft - were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets - in the case of Khiam, for example - were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best - if you can say that - it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam - site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war - was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer - except for "marking" targets - even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions." This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991 - their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry - and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia - where DU was also used by Nato aircraft - were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

"When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment," Dr Busby said yesterday. "They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is." Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets - in the case of Khiam, for example - were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best - if you can say that - it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

The soil sample from Khiam - site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war - was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

This summer's Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon's villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

Settlements grow on Arab land, despite promises made to U.S.
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent

A secret, two year investigation by the defense establishment shows that there has been rampant illegal construction in dozens of settlements and in many cases involving privately owned Palestinian properties. The information in the study was presented to two defense ministers, Amir Peretz and his predecessor Shaul Mofaz, but was not released in public and a number of people participating in the investigations were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. According to security sources familiar with the study, the material is "political and diplomatic dynamite."

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In conversations with Haaretz, the sources maintained that the report is not being made public in order to avoid a crisis with the U.S. government. Brigadier General Baruch Spiegel, assistant to the Defense Minister, retired earlier this month. Spiegel was also in charge of the various issues relating to the territories, which Dov Weisglass, chief of staff in prime minister Ariel Sharon's office, promised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in writing that Israel would deal with. These commitments included illegal settlement building, improvements in the conditions of Palestinian civilians, and a closer oversight over the conduct of soldiers at IDF roadblocks. One of Spiegel's tasks was to update the data base on settlement activities. During talks with American officials and non-government organizations such as Peace Now, it emerged that the defense establishment lacked up to date information on the settlements, which was mostly based on data provided by the Civil Administration in the territories. The lack of updated information stemmed from the fact that the defense establishment preferred not to know what was going on, but was also linked to a number of key officials in the Civil Administration actively deleting information from the data base out of ideological allegiance with the settlers. Spiegel and his team compared the data available from the Civil Administration to that of the Americans, and carried out dozens of overflights of the territories, using private aircraft at great expense, in order to complete the data base. The findings of the study, security sources say, show an amazing discrepancy between the Civil Administration's data and the reality on the ground. The data in Spiegel's investigation served as the basis for the report on the illegal outposts prepared by attorney Talya Sasson and made public in March 2005. "Everyone is talking about the 107 outposts," said a source familiar with the data, "but that is small change. The really big picture is the older settlements, the 'legal' ones. The construction there has been ongoing for years, in blatant violation of the law and the regulations of proper governance." Three years ago, in talks with the Americans, Israel promised that all new construction in the older settlements would take place near existing neighborhoods. The idea was that construction would be limited to meeting the needs of the settlements' natural growth, and bringing to an end the out-of-control expansion over territory. In practice, the data shows that Israel failed to meet its commitments: many new neighborhoods were systematically built on the edge of areas of the settlement's jurisdiction, which is a much larger territory than the actual planning charts account for. The data also shows that in many cases the construction was carried out on private Palestinian land. In the masterplans, more often than not, Palestinian properties were included in the construction planned for the future. These included Palestinian properties to which the state had promised access. However, exploiting the intifada and arguing that the settlers should not be exposed to security risks, Palestinian farmers were prevented access to their properties that were annexed by Israeli settlements. In many settlements, including Ofra and Mevo Horon, homes have been constructed on private Palestinian land. "The media is busy with the outposts, but how many of these are really large settlements like Migron? In most cases, it's a matter of a few mobile homes. Spiegel's study shows the real situation in the settlements themselves - and it is a lot more serious than what we knew to date," one of the sources said. A senior security official expressed concern that with Spiegel's retirement, the data base will not be updated and the data will be lost. "The [defense] establishment does not necessarily have an interest in preserving this information. It may cause diplomatic embarrassment vis-a-vis the Americans and cause a political scandal. It is not unlikely that there will be those who will seek to destroy the data," the senior officer says. Other relevant sources said it is necessary for an objective, external source, like the State Comptroller's office, to intervene in this matter. A statement issued by the Defense Minister's office in response said that "the matter is being examined internally and staff work will be completed soon, and the parts of the report that can be published will be made available. The Defense Minister will discuss the matter with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert." Meanwhile, construction in the new outposts has intensified. Sources in the Yesha Council say that since the Lebanon War, "Junior officers on the ground are in our favor and in many instances turn a blind eye regarding mobile homes in place."

Israel admits phosphorus bombing
Israel has for the first time admitted it used controversial phosphorus shells during fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon in July and August.
Cabinet minister Jacob Edery confirmed the bombs were dropped "against military targets in open ground".

Israel had previously said the weapons were used only to mark targets.

Phosphorus weapons cause chemical burns and the Red Cross and human rights groups say they should be treated as chemical weapons.

The Geneva Conventions ban the use of white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.

Hospitals

Mr Edery says he confirmed during a parliamentary session last week on behalf of Defence Minister Amir Peretz that the weapons were used in fighting.

"The Israeli army made use of phosphorus shells during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground," he said.

No information was given on when, where or how the shells were used.

Lebanon had accused Israel of using the weapons but at the time Israeli officials said they were only for marking.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said in late July: "According to the Geneva Convention, when they use phosphorus bombs and laser bombs, is that allowed against civilians and children?"

Doctors in hospitals in southern Lebanon had said they suspected some of the burns they were seeing were being caused by phosphorus bombs.

Israeli forces said the arms used in Lebanon did not contravene international norms.



Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/6075408.stm

Published: 2006/10/22 17:09:20 GMT


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The Latest Falsehood from the Advocates of Civilizational War
Not All Terrorists are Muslim
By M. SHAHID ALAM

"While it may be true--and probably is--that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim."

Dan Gillerman, Israeli Ambassador to the UN, March 7, 2006

Terrorism has long been the chief demonizing marker that Israel and the United States have used in their wars against Islamic states and peoples who have stood in the path of their imperial ambitions.

Israel has led the way in charting this course. With massive propaganda, the Zionists succeeded in equating the Palestinian resistance with terrorism. In no Western country did this propaganda encounter greater success--including Israel itself--than in the United States. Most liberal Americans--and a few leftists--argued that Palestinian terrorists threatened Israel's existence.

After the capitulation of Egypt at Camp David, Israel pursued more lofty ambitions. The original dream of a Pax Israelica, stretching from Morocco to Pakistan, now seemed within reach. Only the newly emerging Islamist forces in the region--notably, in Iran--now stood in its way.

The nascent Islamists offered both a challenge and an opportunity to Israel. If Israel could paint the Islamists as a civilizational threat to the very survival of the West, the American voters could be goaded into supporting Israel's war against the Islamists: or better still, make this war their own.

This is not to discount the lure of Middle Eastern oil for America's power elite. Although the US is the world's only superpower, its relative economic position has been declining for some time. Although the US may not reverse its economic decline, it could solidify its power by gaining control over the world's oil spigot in the Persian Gulf. Europe and China could be tamed if they knew that the US had its hand on the oil spigot.

This temptation was strong, but it also carried risks. In a democracy, moreover, there stands another obstacle. Public opinion in the United States would resist such a major and risky war. Americans, therefore, would have to be prepared for war by conjuring fears of new Islamic hordes gathering to attack and destroy the West, especially the United States.

Israel, the Zionists and their neoconservative allies in the United States began to work on these fears. It would not be too difficult to revive the West's old obsession about fanatical Muslims, forcing their religion upon infidels at the point of their swords. But these atavistic fears would have to be decked anew. The Zionist and neoconservative thinkers would go to work painting Islam as anti-modernist, opposed to freedom, and inimical to the rights of women and minorities. In other words, Muslims were the last remaining obstacle to the final and irreversible triumph of Western values and power.

This was not all. The Zionists also argued that the Muslims were an active and growing threat to the survival of the West. The new forces gathering under the Islamic banner were determined to attack the West. Israel was only their immediate target. After destroying Israel, they would go for the United States and Europe, their real targets. Their goal was nothing less than the imposition of Islamic law on Western Christendom. Most importantly, the Zionists warned repeatedly, the Islamists would use terror--the same tactics they had employed so long against Israel--to destroy the Western economies.

This strategy could scarcely fail to achieve its objective. On the domestic front, Americans were being told constantly of Islamic hostility to modernity, to the West and the United States especially. On the international front, the US and Israel together deepened their siege of the Islamic world, with open wars against Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Afghans, and threats of new wars against Iran, Syria and Pakistan.

Under these dire circumstances, small groups of Muslims--no more than a few hundred at first--broke away from the mainstream Islamist movements who were battling the repression and corruption of their own governments. These splinter groups advocated attacks against the United States, the 'far enemy' that they argued was the real power behind Israel and the indigenous tyrannies.

When these splinter groups began their terrorist attacks in the early 1990s, the Zionists, neoconservatives, and other assorted right-wing reactionary groups had gained what they waited for. Here was proof, they proclaimed, of the malevolent designs of the Islamic terrorists, the Islamic fundamentalists, nay, of the entire Islamic world. Wake up, the Zionists began telling the Americans. The Islamic terrorists who have been attacking us since 1948 have now attacked you. We face the same terrorist hordes. It is the Islamic world, stupid.

So, when the nineteen hijackers from al-Qaida attacked the Twin Towers, renewed efforts were launched to establish a definitive connection between Islam and terrorism. Some voices proclaimed that all Muslims are terrorists or at least potential terrorists. The US government was not going that far yet. It proclaimed that it was waging war against Islamic terrorists, not against Islam.

What the US government did after 9-11, however, sent exactly the opposite message. It launched a war against Iraq, a secular Arab government, opposed to the Islamists and with no known connection to the perpetrators of 9-11. It gave up its pretense of playing the honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians. It launched plans to effect 'regime change' in Syria and Iran. US intentions in the Middle East were summed up ominously in its plans to bring 'democracy' to the region. The real plan--long a part of Israel's strategic plan for the region--was to redraw the map of the Middle East.

The advocates of civilizational war in the United States were not yet resting on their laurels. They had not achieved quite what they wanted. They wanted all-out, open war against the Islamic world. They wanted the US to equate Islam with terrorism, and Muslims with terrorists. They wanted to deport Muslims who called the West their home, or shut them up in internment camps. They wanted to legalize the torture of Muslims, and their indefinite detention. Indeed, they were celebrating the loss of their own liberties as a necessary tool in the war against Islam.

Unremittingly, Israel, the Zionists and neoconservatives are pushing the United States to start the total war against Islam. They work openly, covertly and by deceit. On the ideological front, their goal is to define all Muslims as terrorist. This goal appears to be nearly in sight. They have persuaded many Americans that all terrorists are Muslims even if all Muslims are not terrorists.

A tenuous distinction indeed, if there was one. If all terrorists are Muslims, and we cannot tell the bad ones from the good ones, can we then afford to give 'good Muslims' the benefit of the doubt? Can the West risk its survival on so fine, so tenuous a distinction? Should the West risk its survival on this distinction?

The charge that all terrorists are Muslims is a scarcely concealed advocacy for war against all Muslims. It does not matter that this equation is false. The claim that Saddam Hussein had WMDs was also false; so was his connection with the 9-11 hijackers. But these lies were used to invade, occupy and devastate Iraq. If this new falsehood prevails, and it appears to be gaining ground, this is what will drive the war against Islam--the most deadly after the second World War. Duped into rage, Americans will stand four square behind the war of the twenty-first century to defeat the Islamo-fascists, to eradicate the Islamic terrorists. Once this is over, they can enjoy the glories of yet another American century.

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University, and author of Challenging the New Orientalism: Dissenting Essays on America's 'War Against Islam' (IPI Publications: 2006 forthcoming). He may be reached at alqalam02760@yahoo.com.

© M. Shahid Alam

Dear Mr. Alam,

My son has emailed me your fine
article, The Latest Falsehoods From the Advocates of
Civilization War. I wish to post it on my BLOG,
www.lettersfrompalestine.blogspot.com.

You did not mention in your article that Israel was
created by terrorism and has expanded its control over
territory and maintained its security by continuiing
state sponsored terrorism.

My husband, a chemist and an expert on refractory
bricks, died in February from silicosis. He had
breathed silica over the years while developing bricks
for the American steel industry. Other families who
have endured the same tragedy have been awarded
millions for wrongful death. We have not found an
attorney who will conduct a lawsuit because as one
attorney told me it will be very difficult to get a
jury to sympathize with an Arab, especially a
Palestinian.

Refractory bricks are used to line steel furnaces so
must be able to withstand very high temperatures. It
takes 2400 degrees fahrenheit to melt steel. The
government is telling us jet fuel, that only burns to
1400 degrees, melted the steel girders in the steel
towers. Witnesses of the event, at the time, described
the steel as molten and glowing red. I asked my
husband about it. He said it was a scientific
impossiblity.

There were no Arab names on the planes manifolds. An
autopsy by the US government of the victims in the
plane that flew into the Pentagon revealed no bodies
except the passengers. The evidence against the
government's story of what happened is endless.
Stories of the government's falsely blaming Arabs are
endless. Someday when I have the time I plan to write
an article entitled, The Arab as Scapegoat.

Regards,
Bronwin Peel

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w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Poll: 81% of U.S. Jews believe Arabs want to destroy Israel
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent

WASHINGTON - Eighty-one percent of American Jews believe that the real goal of the Arabs is the destruction of Israel and not the return of occupied land, according to the annual survey of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) on various issues.

While 54 percent said they supported the establishment of a Palestinian state, only 38 percent said Israel and the Arabs could solve the conflict peacefully. Another 56 percent said they believed the conflict could not be resolved.

According to the survey, a slim majority of American Jews do not believe that the United States should act militarily to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Fifty-four percent opposed such action and 38 percent supported it. However, 57 percent said Israel would be justified in taking military action against Iran, while 35 percent were opposed
to Israel's taking such action.

The polls's 958 respondents were asked about the recent war in Lebanon, both its justification and its management. Fifty-five percent of those polled said Israel acted correctly in going to war, and 35 percent said it did not. Only 24 percent believe Israel won the war against Hezbollah, while 15 percent believe Hezbollah won. Nearly half, 49 percent, said neither side could be considered the winner.

A little over half of those polled, 54 percent, identified themselves as Democrats and only 15 percent as Republican. Conservative and Reform Jews dominated the poll, comprising 33 and 31 percent of respondents respectively, with 8 percent identifying themselves as Orthodox.

Seventy-four percent responded that "caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew."




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Olmert Pal Seeks Tough-guy Regime
Dateline Jerusalem

Forward

Gershom Gorenberg | Fri. Oct 20, 2006



Avigdor Lieberman, head of the rightwing Yisrael Beitenu party, wants Israel to have a chief executive with broad new powers. And there’s little doubt about whom the Russian-born lawmaker would like to see in that job. Achieving that goal may elude him. But in recent days, Lieberman has been wielding inordinate power over the country’s political agenda.



His party planned to ask the Knesset to begin debate this week on his bill for a radical change in Israel ’s system of government. A preliminary vote to send it to committee is possible as early as next week. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised Lieberman his support for the legislation, as the first step toward bringing Yisrael Beitenu’s 11 Knesset members into his shaky ruling coalition. The first benefits to Olmert are already visible; intense public discussion has erupted over Lieberman’s proposal for what could be termed domestic regime change, and this has diverted attention from Olmert’s handling of the war last summer and the collapse of his foreign policy.



This is an opportune time to call for political reform, given the flood of corruption reports filling front pages daily. On Sunday, police investigators recommended indicting Israel ’s figurehead president, Moshe Katsav, on charges that include the rape of two former staffers and several lesser sexual offenses against other women, as well as fraud and illegal wiretapping. (See story on Page A4.) On Tuesday, two former justice ministers from Olmert’s Kadima party were in court: Haim Ramon was on trial for forcibly carrying out an indecent act — allegedly kissing a woman soldier against her will — and Tzahi Hanegbi began hearings on charges of fraud and breach of trust in a series of political appointments.



Under current Israeli law, the president is elected to serve seven years as a sort of constitutional monarch. Nominally the head of state, he has a largely ceremonial role but is expected to be a unifying figure who stands above partisan politics. Yisrael Beitenu’s proposed change, party director general Faina Kirshenbaum said, would create a true “presidential system.” But the bill still refers to the powerful chief executive as “prime minister” — perhaps in acknowledgement of the fact that the term “president” has been stained by months of risqué reporting on the investigation against Katsav.



Yet Yisrael Beitenu’s leaders see the country’s political flaws as running deeper than the immediate scandals, down to the basic structure of parliamentary democracy. “In the past 11 years, Israel has had five national elections, seven defense ministers, eight justice ministers, nine finance ministers and 10 foreign ministers,” Kirshenbaum said. By implication, other problems faced by the state result from this political instability.



Under Lieberman’s bill, the public would elect the prime minister directly. This would be in place of the current system by which the head of the largest faction in the Knesset becomes prime minister. The new presidential prime minister would appoint a Cabinet without need for parliamentary approval, and could establish or eliminate ministries of his own volition. Knesset members could not be ministers. The bill also allows the Knesset to declare a state of emergency under which the Cabinet could pass emergency orders with the power of law. And “if the prime minister sees that the Cabinet cannot be convened or that there is a pressing need to issue emergency orders, he may do so….”



While the bill acknowledges the existing Human Dignity and Freedom Law, a limited shield of human rights, it includes no further bill of rights.



The bill leaves in place the current proportional method for electing the legislature itself, in which a party receives seats in accordance with its share of the national vote. But it raises the minimum that a party must achieve to enter parliament to 10% from 2%. Ostensibly, that’s aimed at reducing the number of parties in the Knesset.



Critics, though, say that the change would eliminate Arab parties, whose combined strength has never quite reached 10%. That goal would fit Lieberman’s wider agenda (see sidebar, at right). He also has called for a law that would condition citizenship on taking a loyalty oath. What’s more, Lieberman has proposed a sort of territorial compromise plan that would redraw Israel ’s borders so that major Jewish settlements would be annexed — and Israeli Arab towns would be turned over to a Palestinian state. When he first raised the idea, he also spoke of “transfer” of Arab citizens from elsewhere in Israel to the new Palestinian state.



There’s one more key provision of the proposed political change: If no candidate for prime minister gets 50% of the vote, a runoff would be held. As used elsewhere — France , for instance — that electoral method allows more than one party on the same side of the spectrum to run a candidate, with the one doing best likely to enter the runoff. For Lieberman, that would open the way for a prime ministerial run without need for an alliance with the Likud.



But only if the bill passes in roughly its current form — and the odds of that are low. Labor, the second-largest party in the Knesset and in the coalition, opposes it. “As long as there’s no constitution, the presidential system is dangerous,” said a spokesman for Science Minister Ophir Pines-Paz, one of the most outspoken critics. Moreover, he noted, “direct elections for prime minister have already been tried” under a previous electoral reform that has since been rescinded. Instead of political stability, the system fractured major parties and led to the famously short-lived, ineffective governments of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Like most in Labor, Pines-Paz rejects bringing Lieberman into the coalition because of his views.



On the right, National Religious Party leader Zevulun Orlev also blasted Lieberman’s bill. “Israeli society is not built for 51% [of the electorate] imposing its will on 49%,” he said. “A parliamentary system, which is based on agreements and understandings” between groups in society, “is more suitable.” Orlev also accused Lieberman of selling out the right by seeking to join the government rather than to build parliamentary support to vote Olmert out of office.



Even Kadima, which plans to back the bill in its first parliamentary vote, expects to rewrite it totally in committee, offering a very different reform for final Knesset approval. So why support Lieberman’s proposal at all? Because “it sends the [message] that if there was a failure in decision making in the second Lebanon War, the system was at fault… rather than Olmert’s incompetence,” Hebrew University political scientist Yaron Ezrahi argued.



Lieberman, Ezrahi said, “knows there is no chance of the bill passing. But he is a smart politician. He knows he can blame whatever goes wrong on not accepting his plan.” The idea of a more authoritarian regime has public appeal, he said, because democracy means “institutionalized conflict” — while for many Israelis, “conflict among Jews is negative.”



Yet changing the political system will not eliminate disagreements — nor, for that matter, the potential for a politician to appoint cronies or to sexually assault a staffer. Nor, Ben-Gurion University political sociologist Lev Grinberg argues, will it solve the underlying weakness of the Olmert government: It was elected on the strength of Olmert’s plan for unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank , a program that the prime minister himself is now treating as irrelevant in the wake of the summer’s war. Yet, neither Olmert nor his opponents have offered a convincing substitute.



The immediate crisis points to the lasting dilemma that has undone Israeli coalitions and fractured parties for the past decade: how to deal with the future of the territories when both staying put and negotiating with the Palestinians for a withdrawal have appeared ever more difficult to Israelis. Lieberman’s proposals for changing the system of government will not resolve that dilemma. But they do help divert attention from it.

From: Rashid
Subject: Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks
From: Rashid
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:59:56 +0000

Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks
· Deaths caused by burning and internal wounds
· Jerusalem denies using experimental weapon

Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
Wednesday October 18, 2006

Guardian

Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and leave deep internal wounds, often resulting in amputations or death.
The injuries were first seen in July, when Israel launched operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries, there was no large shrapnel found in the bodies and there appeared to be a "dusting" on damaged internal organs.

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

In Gaza, Dr Saqa'a said the small pieces of shrapnel found in patients' bodies did not show up under x-ray. "We are used to seeing shrapnel penetrate the body making localised damage. Now we didn't see shrapnel, but we found the destruction," he said.

Most of the injuries were around the abdomen, he said. The doctors also found that patients who were stabilised after one or two days suddenly died. "The patient dies without any apparent scientific cause," he said.

At the Kamal Odwan hospital, in Beit Lahiya, the deputy director, Saied Jouda, said he had found similar injuries. "We don't know what it means - new weapons or something new added to a previous weapon," he said. He too found patients with severe internal injuries without signs of any large shrapnel pieces. "There was burning, big raw areas of charred flesh," he said. "This must be related to the type of explosive material."

Photographs of some of the dead from Shifa hospital showed bodies that had been melted and blackened beyond recognition. In several cases doctors amputated badly burnt limbs.

At least 250 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the latest military operations began and hundreds more have been injured.

Neither of the doctors could give exact figures for the numbers of patients suffering the new injuries, although both said that most of those brought in during July showed signs of these injuries.

Dr Saqa'a said the injuries occurred over six weeks beginning in late June, while Dr Jouda said he believed patients admitted even in recent days still showed signs of unusual injuries.

The health ministry in Gaza reported that these injuries came from an "unprecedented type of projectile," and also noted severe burning and badly damaged internal organs. It called for an investigation into the cause of the wounds.

"You have complete burns that lead to amputation. You find shrapnel entering the body and leaving very, very small holes. We have never seen this before," said Khalid Radi, a spokesman at the health ministry.

Tissue samples from patients in Gaza were given to journalists from the Italian television channel RAI. In a documentary shown last week, the channel said the injuries appeared similar to the effects of Dime. An Italian laboratory that analysed the samples reportedly said its results were compatible with the hypothesis that a Dime weapon was involved.

The weapon is new and in the US it is still in the early stages of development. It has a carbon-fibre casing and contains fine tungsten particles rather than ordinary metal shrapnel. It causes a very powerful blast, but with a much more limited radius than other explosives.

However, the Israeli military denies the use of Dime weapons.

"The defence establishment is investing considerable effort to develop weaponry in order to minimise the risk of injury to innocent civilians. With regard to allegations of the use of Dime weaponry, the Israel defence forces deny the possession or use of such weapons," the military said in a statement. "Due to operational reasons, the IDF cannot specify the types and use of weapons in its possession. In addition it should be emphasised that the IDF only uses weapons in accordance with the international law."

Some Israeli military experts have also dismissed the suggestion that a Dime weapon is involved.

Isaac Ben-Israel, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a retired Israel air force general who was involved in weapons development, had seen some of the photographs of the dead and injured and said he believed that the wounds came from ordinary explosives. "I can tell you surely that no one in Israel ever developed such a Dime weapon. It doesn't exist at all," he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors weapons used in conflicts, said it had heard reports of similar injuries from Gaza and was collecting information on the case. "We haven't come to any sort of conclusion about what kind of weapon it was," said Bernard Barrett, an ICRC spokesman.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006


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Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:59:56 +0000
Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks
· Deaths caused by burning and internal wounds
· Jerusalem denies using experimental weapon

Rory McCarthy in Gaza City
Wednesday October 18, 2006

Guardian

Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and leave deep internal wounds, often resulting in amputations or death.
The injuries were first seen in July, when Israel launched operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries, there was no large shrapnel found in the bodies and there appeared to be a "dusting" on damaged internal organs.

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

In Gaza, Dr Saqa'a said the small pieces of shrapnel found in patients' bodies did not show up under x-ray. "We are used to seeing shrapnel penetrate the body making localised damage. Now we didn't see shrapnel, but we found the destruction," he said.

Most of the injuries were around the abdomen, he said. The doctors also found that patients who were stabilised after one or two days suddenly died. "The patient dies without any apparent scientific cause," he said.

At the Kamal Odwan hospital, in Beit Lahiya, the deputy director, Saied Jouda, said he had found similar injuries. "We don't know what it means - new weapons or something new added to a previous weapon," he said. He too found patients with severe internal injuries without signs of any large shrapnel pieces. "There was burning, big raw areas of charred flesh," he said. "This must be related to the type of explosive material."

Photographs of some of the dead from Shifa hospital showed bodies that had been melted and blackened beyond recognition. In several cases doctors amputated badly burnt limbs.

At least 250 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the latest military operations began and hundreds more have been injured.

Neither of the doctors could give exact figures for the numbers of patients suffering the new injuries, although both said that most of those brought in during July showed signs of these injuries.

Dr Saqa'a said the injuries occurred over six weeks beginning in late June, while Dr Jouda said he believed patients admitted even in recent days still showed signs of unusual injuries.

The health ministry in Gaza reported that these injuries came from an "unprecedented type of projectile," and also noted severe burning and badly damaged internal organs. It called for an investigation into the cause of the wounds.

"You have complete burns that lead to amputation. You find shrapnel entering the body and leaving very, very small holes. We have never seen this before," said Khalid Radi, a spokesman at the health ministry.

Tissue samples from patients in Gaza were given to journalists from the Italian television channel RAI. In a documentary shown last week, the channel said the injuries appeared similar to the effects of Dime. An Italian laboratory that analysed the samples reportedly said its results were compatible with the hypothesis that a Dime weapon was involved.

The weapon is new and in the US it is still in the early stages of development. It has a carbon-fibre casing and contains fine tungsten particles rather than ordinary metal shrapnel. It causes a very powerful blast, but with a much more limited radius than other explosives.

However, the Israeli military denies the use of Dime weapons.

"The defence establishment is investing considerable effort to develop weaponry in order to minimise the risk of injury to innocent civilians. With regard to allegations of the use of Dime weaponry, the Israel defence forces deny the possession or use of such weapons," the military said in a statement. "Due to operational reasons, the IDF cannot specify the types and use of weapons in its possession. In addition it should be emphasised that the IDF only uses weapons in accordance with the international law."

Some Israeli military experts have also dismissed the suggestion that a Dime weapon is involved.

Isaac Ben-Israel, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a retired Israel air force general who was involved in weapons development, had seen some of the photographs of the dead and injured and said he believed that the wounds came from ordinary explosives. "I can tell you surely that no one in Israel ever developed such a Dime weapon. It doesn't exist at all," he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors weapons used in conflicts, said it had heard reports of similar injuries from Gaza and was collecting information on the case. "We haven't come to any sort of conclusion about what kind of weapon it was," said Bernard Barrett, an ICRC spokesman.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006


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The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

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Rice probes travel limits on Americans
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published October 13, 2006

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants the Israeli government to explain restrictions on Palestinian-Americans traveling on U.S. passports in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the State Department said yesterday.
"This was brought to the attention of the secretary, and it's something that she's looking into and she's going to raise with Israeli officials," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "There is more than a handful of these cases, and it's something that has got our attention. Talking about American citizens here."
Miss Rice raised the issue in a speech to the American Task Force on Palestine on Wednesday evening.
"I realize that the continuing problems of security are also a great challenge for many Palestinian-Americans living in Gaza and the West Bank -- and for so many others, including many of you, who travel there often, who work for greater tolerance and understanding, and who invest your time, and your knowledge, and indeed your capital in the Palestinian territories," the secretary said.
"People like you have a vital role to play in the Middle East, and I will continue to do everything in my power to support your good work, and to ensure that all American travelers receive fair and equal treatment," she said.
The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem have received numerous complaints from American citizens about recent curbs that affect their daily lives, officials said.
Some of those complaints are related to crossing between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza, while others have to do with residence issues.
The first types of restrictions were imposed because of security concerns about people who go in and out of the Palestinian territories, U.S. and Israeli officials said.
Although they affect almost all Palestinians, those who are U.S. citizens argue that they should be treated differently.
"We are aware of this issue, and we are looking into it at senior levels," an Israeli official said yesterday. "We are waiting to receive additional information from the administration."
The State Department warned in a travel advisory in February, which it said was still valid, that "during periods of heightened security restrictions, Palestinian-Americans with residency status in the West Bank or Gaza may not be allowed to enter or exit Gaza or the West Bank, even if using their American passports."
During her trip to the region last week, Miss Rice called on Israel to ease some travel restrictions on Palestinians and open certain crossings to help people go about their daily duties.
Many Palestinian-Americans also have been waiting for Palestinian residence permits for years. They have managed to stay there by renewing their tourist visas every three months, but now the Israeli authorities have warned them that no more renewals will be granted.
Members of the Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry, a group representing foreign passport holders in the Palestinian territories, met with the U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, Jake Walles, last week to discuss the issue, the group said.
Meanwhile, in Damascus, the Syrian capital, exiled Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal yesterday called for a Palestinian state to be built on the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967.
"I ask Arab and Palestinian leaders to hold a summit to ask for a Palestinian state to be built," Mr. Mashaal told Palestinian leaders during a meeting in the Syrian capital.

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Olmert's true colors
By Tom Segev

He embroiled Israel in a superfluous and failed war, and this week threatened to join up with the most Kahanist politician active in Israel since the death of Rehavam Ze'evi. What is happening to us, to our Ehud Olmert? Nothing. Olmert is coming back to himself.

A year and a half ago, it seemed that he stood behind Ariel Sharon's decision to dismantle the settlements in the Gaza Strip. Olmert grew up, they said then; he realized that the territories that Israel captured in the Six-Day War have caused it nothing but damage, and that the continued occupation endangers Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state. It was not unreasonable; after all, people really do grow up. A lot of good people embraced and welcomed him.

Olmert seemed at the time like a man who could be prime minister. Precisely because he's a professional politician in a business suit, not one of the giants of the founding generation, it appeared that he would be able to manage the conflict with the Palestinians. He promised to dismantle most of the settlements in the West Bank. Many people believed that it was the most daring and promising peace plan since the Six-Day War.

Less than six months after he became prime minister, it has become clear that Olmert was not new, but just a political mirage. Ultimately, Olmert is Olmert is Olmert. Someone will have to explain some time how it was that so many Israelis got caught up in the belief that Olmert offers a new hope. The interim answer is that many Israelis apparently needed the man he pretended to be, and primarily the promise he made: if not an agreement, then at least a unilateral withdrawal to the fence. So much naivete and hypocrisy and self-deception went into this belief, so little readiness and ability to recognize the truth: There is no unilateral agreement.

What has happened since then places the "new Olmert" somewhere alongside the forgotten image of the late Yigael Yadin, perhaps the father of all political disappointments. Yadin taught the public an important lesson, but he, too, has been forgotten for now. "Why didn't you take an interest in knowing who the real Yadin is before you elected me?" he once asked in an interview with Haaretz.

The real Olmert disappeared from sight for only a limited time, but is now returning and being revealed as the person he was since going into politics some 40 years ago. He prefers land to peace, because he doesn't believe in peace with either the Palestinians or the Syrians. He is completely closed off to the terrible humanitarian disaster underway in Gaza, and the horrors of the occupation in the West Bank are continuing as before. There is no basis for expecting Olmert to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank; the more he returns to himself, the more dubious it is that he ever planned to dismantle them. All the signs indicate that he has no intention of dismantling even those settlements classified as illegal outposts.

Olmert is not the first prime minister to miss a chance to make peace with Syria, in exchange for the Golan Heights, but Bashar Assad appears to be the first Syrian president since 1949 to be practically begging for peace. Olmert could have gone down in history as a Menachem Begin, who gave Sinai back to Egypt. Instead, he is reacting to Syria's offers of peace with contempt, loathing and threats: As long as he is prime minister, Israel will not give up the Golan Heights, he declared, and for a moment, it was possible to think that the results of the war in Lebanon assured a glorious victory over Syria. This is the familiar Olmert, the real one.

And the real Olmert is also the man now making nice to Avigdor Lieberman. Lieberman is talking about changing the government, about an inquiry committee, about civil unions; these are respectable issues. But Lieberman is also suggesting that several communities populated by Arabs be left out of the borders of the state, to leave the Jews a "solid majority." He suggests giving up Wadi Ara as part of an agreement to swap land with the Palestinians. Such a deal would revoke the Israeli citizenship of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and force them to become citizens of Palestine. It's taken for granted that their agreement won't be sought. This platform places Lieberman alongside the worst of the extremist right-wing parties active in Europe today.

It is said that talk of Lieberman's joining the government is meant only to frighten the Labor Party and Shas. But what this move shows about the ethical aspect of Olmert's worldview should frighten every decent person. Yes, Lieberman has already served as transportation minister and Rehavam Ze'evi was also part of the government, and in general, who's looking for ethics in politics anyway? But even in politics, there are moments that require society to take a break from its cynicism and recall the basic principles of democracy and human rights. A decent person should not even think about bringing into the government a man who wants to remove from the state one out of every five citizens, just because they are not Jewish. The real Olmert sees in this man a desirable partner.


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Al-Jazeera may transmit Islamist rhetoric,
but that's the Middle East's reality
By khalid Hroub
Tuesday, October 10, 2006


Future media historians in the Middle East will conceivably distinguish two distinct though related eras: pre- and post-Al-Jazeera. Few would dispute the station's impact on free _expression and the media in the region since its creation in 1996. However, despite its importance in the creation of an "Arab" public sphere, Al-Jazeera's contribution to political change is, at best, limited. This seeming paradox remains an enigma to many analysts.

The creation of a "regional media public sphere" has been central to Al-Jazeera's policy over the past 10 years. Motivated by the success of the Qatar-based station - envious too, no doubt - a number of trans-terrestrial Arabic-speaking television stations, chiefly Saudi, Egyptian and Lebanese, were established in competition. Most of these modeled themselves on Al-Jazeera, in style if not in substance: challenging existing political, social and religious systems became the name of the new media game. The newly created virtual sphere of free debate and news access effectively rendered old-style state-controlled Arab media obsolete.

Al-Jazeera's friends and foes span wide-ranging and geographically diffuse communities and players. It is the most popular news channel with Arab audiences, but also the media outlet most hated by Arab regimes. Empathy and enmity toward the channel are fluid and change with the climate of the day: today's friend could become tomorrow's foe and vice versa.

Many US officials hailed the channel in its early years as the beacon of Arab freedom, but since the war against Afghanistan in 2001, the standard official US line on Al-Jazeera has become unreservedly aggressive. On the other hand, Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street communications chief who complained bitterly about the station's coverage during the war in Iraq, later changed his mind; he became an admirer of the channel after visiting its headquarters in Doha and confessed "I was wrong about Al-Jazeera" in The Guardian.

In Arab circles, praise and blame, pros and cons are administered in fairly even doses by liberals, Islamists, leftists, pan-Arab nationalists and others, each of whom finds in it both what they seek and seek to avoid.

Even Israelis are in two minds about Al-Jazeera. It is the first Arab media outlet that ever gave them a platform on which to convey their views directly to Arab audiences. But it infuriates them, too, by transmitting live, often shocking images of the brutality of the Israeli occupation and its measures against the Palestinians.

Perhaps the only sectors of the general audience that remain unequivocally and enduringly hostile to Al-Jazeera are the Arab regimes. Its remorseless coverage of the incompetence of these regimes has been intolerable for Arab ruling elites. The channel has transmitted reports about almost every Arab country exposing government corruption, mismanagement, suppression of opposition, violations of human rights and the purchase of Western support to face down popular anger and discontent. Because of this, Al-Jazeera reporters have been, and are still, banned from reporting in and from many Arab countries: at certain periods, they have been barred from fully half the Arab states.

Its reporting from Afghanistan marked the turning point in the "internationalization" of Al-Jazeera. As the only media agency allowed by the then ruling Taliban to stay in the country in the run-up to and during the war, the channel was the exclusive source of media information and coverage from within Afghanistan once the country was invaded on October 7, 2001. Its coverage of the smart and not-so-smart US bombardments of Afghan targets, including the death of many civilians, visibly angered the Bush administration. It was accused of allowing the Taliban and Osama bin Laden to use it as a propaganda outlet.

With the rise of tension in the course of the war, Al-Jazeera's offices in Kabul were bombed by US forces on November 13, 2001. The US said it was not deliberate: many believed otherwise. Al-Jazeera's offices in Baghdad were also destroyed: on April 8, 2003 its offices were bombed and one of their journalists, Tareq Ayyoub, killed.

The Iraq war has further worsened the relationship between Al-Jazeera and the US and its Iraqi allies. As the conflict became bloodier following the allied invasion and the euphoria of the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue, Al-Jazeera continued to stream videotapes of kidnapped Westerners and detailed descriptions of attacks by the insurgency. It also transmitted speeches by bin Laden in person and other leaders of Al-Qaeda. Al-Jazeera argued that these materials were highly newsworthy and were always carefully edited to remove their propaganda aspects; US officials and their Iraqi allies who had assumed power in Baghdad remained critical. In August 2004, hostility to Al-Jazeera culminated in the closure of its Baghdad offices and a ban on its reporting.

In the course of its first decade, Al-Jazeera has hacked a successful if controversial course throughout uncharted terrain - an experience that has yielded various, and sometimes contradictory, outcomes. During the same period, the verbal cut and thrust around Arab democratization has been unprecedented. In the late 1990s, the number of Arab intellectuals, NGOs, political parties and associations advocating and campaigning for democracy were on the rise.

After September 11, 2001, and the US linkage between the "lack of democracy and the spread of terrorism," these were complemented by a "surplus" of democratic reform initiatives pressed on the region from outside. External initiatives such as the "Greater Middle East Project" have been countered by internal initiatives such as those launched by the Arab summit in Tunis in May 2004. Both initiatives underlined the role of the media in supporting or undermining the democratization process in the region. Al-Jazeera followed up by placing the promotion of democracy and human rights high on its new "code of ethics."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

No one disputes that the channel has changed the media landscape in the Arab world, pushing the boundaries of political debate, challenging taboos and raising the ceiling of free speech. This new media environment is still in the making. At the same time, the expectation that Al-Jazeera alone could have an equally powerful impact on the institutions of government and the lack of political freedoms was unrealistic. While Al-Jazeera speedily became the main platform for genuine political debate and the airing of grievances, it was not the direct actor in socio-political change many hoped it would be.

In the eyes of many Arabs desperate for change, the channel became the main force behind political change, a responsibility Al-Jazeera never took upon itself and which it recognized was not any part of the standard media brief. Political and social change is a more complex process that transcends the power of the media alone. For those who expected Al-Jazeera to effect such political change, any balance sheet of the channel's achievement has a negative look - an unfair assessment in the light of what can and should be expected from the channel. The lack of political change in the Arab world, or its frustrating slowness, must be attributed to many factors; the media, including Al-Jazeera, is merely one agent of change and must be measured against how it performs its duties as the "fourth estate," not on how well it fulfils those of the other three: the legislative, the judiciary and the executive.

However, the reason why this appropriation of responsibility has been shouldered onto a free media in the Arab world is the startling dysfunction of the separation of powers. In almost every Arab country, the legislative, judicial and executive powers have been fused into one sole authoritarian power: the executive. When the media - the fourth estate, the watchdog on those in power - functions with a significant degree of independence, it can raise the significant issues of the day and criticize the polity. It is the job of the rest of the polity - the legislative, the judiciary and the executive - to take up those issues exposed by the media and take them on to the next phase.

The fate of the matters raised by Al-Jazeera in the new "public sphere" is for them to fall into a political void. Between the single supreme conglomerate power on the one hand and the fourth estate on the other, there is an abyss, a vacuum into which all the initiatives and advances achieved by Al-Jazeera have fallen.

One major, if unintentional side effect of Al-Jazeera's commitment to offering an open platform to all the voices in the region is the radicalization of Arab public opinion. The dominant voices across the Arab world are those of the Islamists, the moderates as well as the fanatics. They have been key players in the major events that have affected the Arab world over the past few years: September 11, the war in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, the war in Iraq, the situation in Palestine, the rise of Hamas, etc. It has been virtually impossible for any credible media outlet to discount the views of these players, however radical and however resented in certain quarters.

The fundamental cause of the radicalization of the Arab street is Western, mainly US, policies in the Middle East. Under US President George W. Bush and the neoconservatives, those policies, whether vis-ˆ-vis Palestine, Iraq or the continuous support of Arab dictators, have greatly fed radical tendencies and created new ones. The end result is a poisoned atmosphere where radicalism and anger have swept public opinion. The introduction of an open platform, such as that provided by Al-Jazeera, into such an environment, has allowed radical discourse to reach a much wider audience. The option of silencing the voices of Islamist radicalism by depriving its spokespeople of a platform would not only betray the channel's own motto, but also ignore the principal actors in current Middle Eastern politics and present a distorted reality, precisely as the state-controlled media in the region did for decades.

Given the speed of events involving radical Islamists and radical Americans, Al-Jazeera was faced with a dilemma: be fair to all parties or succumb to pressure and silence the unwanted voices. A damage-control formula seemed difficult to reach. In many cases Al-Jazeera may have failed to maintain the delicate balance between the need to give the radical voices the chance to present their views and being indirectly used by them for rhetoric and propaganda. This is a form of "collateral damage" incurred in the course of a bigger project that has, by and large, been bound by the basic parameters of a free and objective media.

In a nutshell, any media outlet in or about the Middle East today would find it virtually impossible to convey objectively the realities of the region and the feelings on the Arab street toward Western-related policies without transmitting views and opinions that are loaded with Islamist rhetoric and propaganda. Al-Jazeera has reflected Arab anger, not created it..


Khaled Hroub is an Arab media specialist and director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project, University of Cambridge. This commentary first appeared at Index on Censorship, and is published by permission.

In N.Y., Sparks Fly Over Israeli Criticism
Polish Consulate Says Jewish Groups
Called To Oppose Historian
From: My Son
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 12:49:50 +0000

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 9, 2006; A03

NEW YORK -- Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate here last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.

The historian, Tony Judt, is Jewish and directs New York University's Remarque Institute, which promotes the study of Europe. Judt was scheduled to talk Oct. 4 to a nonprofit organization that rents space from the consulate. Judt's subject was the Israel lobby in the United States, and he planned to argue that this lobby has often stifled honest debate.

An hour before Judt was to arrive, the Polish Consul General Krzysztof Kasprzyk canceled the talk. He said the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee had called and he quickly concluded Judt was too controversial.

"The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure," Kasprzyk said. "That's obvious -- we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that."

Judt, who was born and raised in England and lost much of his family in the Holocaust, took strong exception to the cancellation of his speech. He noted that he was forced to cancel another speech later this month at Manhattan College in the Bronx after a different Jewish group had complained. Other prominent academics have described encountering such problems, in some cases more severe, stretching over the past three decades.

The pattern, Judt says, is unmistakable and chilling.

"This is serious and frightening, and only in America -- not in Israel -- is this a problem," he said. "These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen."

The leaders of the Jewish organizations denied asking the consulate to block Judt's speech and accused the professor of retailing "wild conspiracy theories" about their roles. But they applauded the consulate for rescinding Judt's invitation.

"I think they made the right decision," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "He's taken the position that Israel shouldn't exist. That puts him on our radar."

David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, took a similar view. "I never asked for a particular action; I was calling as a friend of Poland," Harris said. "The message of that evening was going to be entirely contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy."

Judt has crossed rhetorical swords with the Jewish organizations on two key issues. Over the past few years he has written essays in the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz arguing that power in Israel has shifted to religious fundamentalists and territorial zealots, that woven into Zionism is a view of the Arab as the irreconcilable enemy, and that Israel might not survive as a communal Jewish state.

The solution, he argues, lies in a slow and tortuous walk toward a binational and secular state.

He has, of late, defended an academic paper -- co-authored by professor Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and John J. Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago -- which argues the American Israel lobby has pushed policies that are not in the United States' best interests and in fact often encourage Israel to engage in self-destructive behavior.

These are deeply controversial views -- Foxman of the ADL and writer Christopher Hitchens, among others, have attacked the Walt and Mearsheimer paper as anti-Semitic. And Judt's advocacy of a binational state has drawn a flock of critics, the more angry of whom accuse him of "pandering to genocide" as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America put it. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum said Judt was pursuing "genocide liberalism."

Foxman has referred to Judt's views of Israel as "an offensive caricature."

The Mearsheimer and Walt paper, however, has drawn praise in some quarters in Israel, particularly on the left. So, too some Israeli writers, not least Israeli historian and social critic Amos Elon, have praised Judt's writings on Israel. Nor are Judt's arguments without historical precedent: Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky, who is Jewish, has advocated a binational solution in Israel, a view that three decades ago sparked such anger that police stood guard at his college talks. More recently, the ADL repeatedly accused DePaul University professor Norman G. Finkelstein, who is Jewish and strongly opposes Israeli policies, of being a "Holocaust denier." These charges have proved baseless.

"There is an often organized and often spontaneous attempt to marginalize anyone in the Jewish world who offers a critique of Israeli policy," said Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the liberal magazine Tikkun. "It's equated with anti-Semitism and Israel denial."

Foxman says such complaints are silly. "Nobody has called Judt an anti-Semite," Foxman said. "People who are critical of Israel and of the Jewish people often flaunt their Jewishness. Why isn't that an issue?"

Judt replies that he only reluctantly talks of his Jewishness, in no small part to inoculate himself against charges of anti-Semitism. "For many, the way to be Jewish in this country is to aggressively assert that the Holocaust is your identification tag," Judt said. "I know perfectly well my history, but it never occurred to me that my most prominent identity was as a Jew."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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