Islam,Islamic Terror,suicide bomber,Muslim,Jihad,Al Qeada Qaeda,pro-Israel Arab Muslims, beheading,

So - You WANT to see what is done to innocent civilians in the name of Islam - do you?

Well, have it - LOOK at it!
Then be sure to read the rest of this Page - and the rest of this Web Site if you are looking for Sense in Life

Is THIS Islam?

American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr. was beheaded on June 18, 2004 by his terrorist captors in Saudi Arabia

An image on an al-Qaida-related website shows Johnson lying on his stomach with his severed head resting on his back.

A statement on the Islamist website was signed by a group calling itself the Organization of al-Qaida. "The infidel (non-muslim) got his fair treatment," the statement said. "Let him taste something from what Muslims tasted who were long reached by Apache helicopter fire and missiles."

If any reader wishes to accuse this Web Site of instilling hatred against Muslims, then you should return to the sub-heading under the main title of this Page here above for our declaration of intent. You are also invited to read the several testimonies of Muslims on this Page which explode the popular myth and lie of the 'tyranny by Israel against Muslims' Thereafter there is an extensive list of Links at the foot of this Page, to many Muslim authored Web Sites, which denounce Islamic Terror and call on true Muslims to distantiate themselves from this evil indoctrination of fundamentalist Islam.

Digs, lies and the Mugrabi Bridge

By Nadav Shragai
HaAretz Daily Newspapers, Jerusalem

The Mugrabi bridge plan exposes the great Muslim denial - the denial of. the Jewish bond to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the Temple.

Who among us knows, for example, that the al-Aqsa Mosque, which according to contemporary studies was built some 1,400 years ago, is now claimed to have been built at the time of the world's creation, during the days of Adam or Abraham? And who is aware of the fact that increasing numbers of Muslim academics and religious leaders claim it existed even before Jesus and Moses and that Islam preceded Judaism in Jerusalem?

Today, thousands of Islamic rulings, publications and sources deny the Jewish roots in Jerusalem and its holy places. They claim that the Temple didn't even exist in Jerusalem but was located in Nab1us or Yemen. An Islamic legal pronouncement (fatwa) on tbe Jerusalem Waqf (Muslim religious trust) Web site says King Solomon and King Herod did not build the Temple at all, but merely refurbished an existing structure that had been there from the days of Adam. Today, many Muslims call the Temple "the greatest fraud crime in history" and many Muslim adjudicators attach the world "so¬called" to the word "temple."

Muslim religious figures attempt to portray the Jewish presence in Jerusalem as having been short-term. The Western Wall is a Muslim site, they argue, and say Jewish affinity for it was invented for political purposes and dates only to the 19th and 20th centuries. Their aim is to disprove the centrality of Jerusalem to Judaism. Above all they stress the "precedence and supremacy of Islam-over Judaism, which contaminates the city's Muslim character."

Muslim religious leaders, with at least partial academic backing, are today rewriting Jerusalem's history and introducing new terms and content into Muslim and Palestinian discourse. These terms are total nonsense, even according to known Muslim historians like al Makdessi' (who lived in the 11th century).

It is therefore easy to understand why the Muslims are so afraid of archaeological digs, not only on the Temple Mount itself but also around it, although these digs also shed light on Jerusalem's Muslim history. Muslims fear these excavations, not because they physically endanger al-Aqsa's foundations, but because they undermine the tissue of lies proclaiming that the Jews have no valid historical roots in the city and its holy sites.

Dec. 4, 2005

MUSLIM IN A JEWISH LAND

Copyright by Tashbih Sayyed, Ph. D. (The writer is editor-in-chief of Pakistan Today and Muslim World Today, California-based weekly newspapers, president of Council for Democracy and Tolerance and adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute.) (This article appears in the December 2, 2005 edition of www.MuslimWorldToday.com.)

As I boarded EL AL flight LY 0008 for Tel Aviv on November 14, 2005 with my wife, Kiran, my mind was busy arranging and re-arranging the list of things I intended to accomplish. I wanted to use my first visit to Israel to feel the strength of the Jewish spirit that refuses to give in to evil forces despite thousand of years of anti-Semitism. It was not Israel's suicidal sacrifices that I wanted to investigate but the foundations of Israeli determination to live in peace.

There are many things that I wanted to talk about with Israelis, the foremost among them being their reluctance to do something about the bad press that continues to paint them as villains. Although I understand why the media, which reasonably covers most events accurately, chooses to ignore all rules of ethical journalism when it comes to Israel, I could not fathom Israel's reluctance to challenge the negative press effectively. Media bias against Israel reminded me of the Nazi era German press that was recruited by Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels who picked up every hate-laden word against the Jews. Just like the German press who refused to print the truth about the gruesome atrocities in Europe's death camps - or claimed that it was all an exaggeration, the media today also ignores the Arab terrorism. I wanted to see if there was any truth in the media allegations that Israel was an apartheid state, undemocratic and discriminatory.

I knew that a true Jewish State could not be undemocratic since democratic concepts were always a part of Jewish thinking and derived directly from the Torah. For instance when in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, he was basically referring to Torah that said that all men are created in the image of God. I was confident that Israel cannot be racist or discriminatory since it is based on the idea of the covenant between God and the Israelites, in which both parties accepted upon themselves duties and obligations underlining the fact that power is established through the consent of both sides rather than through tyranny by the more powerful party.

My understanding of the Jewish State was confirmed when the entry form that I needed to fill before landing in Tel Aviv did not ask for my religion as is the law in Pakistan. Also, unlike Saudi Arabia, no one in Israeli immigration demanded from me any certificate of religion.

As the El Al approached the Promised Land, I continued to shuffle the list of charges made routinely against Israel by its enemies.

## Israelis live in a perpetual state of fear.
## Israel is undemocratic.
## Muslim Arab citizens of Israel do not have equal rights

From Tel Aviv to Tiberias, Jerusalem to Jezreel, and from Golan heights to the Gaza border, I could not find any evidence of fear. In fact the people felt so secure that none of the stores, gas stations, market places, or residences we went to, and where it was known that we were Muslims, deemed it necessary to either search or interrogate us. Especially when Kiran and I went to the Ben Yahuda Street in Jerusalem on a Friday evening, we found it bursting at its seams with people of all ages. The ground was shaking with music and young boys and girls were so busy having fun that they did not bother to even look around. Tourists were busy making deals and the whole crowd seemed to throb with the beat of the music.

I could not help but compare Israel's sense of security with the environment of insecurity that exists in Muslim countries. From Indonesia to Iran and from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, people are not sure of anything. In Pakistan's capital Islamabad, and the port city of Karachi, I was constantly advised not to make big purchases publicly for it encourages robbers to come after you. I did not hear news of any rape, honor killing or hold-up in Israel.

As a Muslim I am much more sensitive to the absence of democratic freedoms in any society. And I do not believe that anyone but a committed anti-Semite will deny that Israel is not a democracy. Democracy in Israel is proportional and representative, but democratic coalitions, necessary in order to effect any decision making also have its problems.

The very first day in Caesarea introduced us to the Israeli democracy. The air was full of political debate and discussion. Ariel Sharon's decision to leave the Likud and form a new political party dominated the hotel halls and underlined the problems caused by the necessity of having democratic coalitions. "The object of a free and democratic Israeli society is to reach satisfactory compromise but often the conclusions are less than satisfactory - especially for the majority. It involves coalitions and unity which are also checks and balances on any potential abuse of minority rights. It is a better system than the American representative Republican system - which is really a representation of power and special interests. In the U.S. you get a democracy for the few. In Israel you have a democracy for everyone."

I tried very hard to find any Muslim state that has true democracy and where religious minorities are accorded equal democratic rights, but failed. The map of the Muslim world is too crowded with kings, despots, dictators, sham democrats and theocratic autocrats and the persecution of minorities is an essential part of Islamist social behavior. But here, protected by Israel's democratic principles, the Muslim Arab citizens of Israel are afforded all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship. When the first elections to the Knesset were held in February 1949, Israeli Arabs were given the right to vote and to be elected along with Israeli Jews. Today, Israel's Arab citizens are accorded full civil and political rights entitled to complete participation in Israeli society. They are active in Israeli social, political and civic life and enjoy representation in Israel's Parliament, Foreign Service and judicial system.

The Israeli faith in democracy also explains their refusal to respond to Islamist terrorism in violent ways. Despite my being aware of the human weaknesses which allow anger to subjugate the best of intentions, I could not find Israelis acting in vengeance against their Arab compatriots. My experience as a Muslim was also instrumental in expecting the worst in human behavior; Muslims under the influence of radical Islam have been unleashing their terror against non-Muslims even when the charges of anti-Muslim offenses were determined to be false.

I thought that it requires a superhuman effort to ignore the atrocities meted out to you and remain free of vengeful emotions. In my experience of Muslim societies, minorities have never been allowed the benefit of the doubt. Hatred of non-Muslims and outbursts of violence against minority faiths among radical Islamists have remained a norm rather than an exception. As a non-Wahhabi Muslim I have personally faced their barbarism and have watched Christians, Hindus and other minorities being persecuted on false pretenses. I thought that if Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia can sentence a teacher to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes just for praising Jews, it will not be unreasonable on the part of Israelis to punish Palestinians for throwing stones at worshippers at the Western Wall and burning down the tomb of Joseph.

But even in this section, Israelis have proved the world wrong. Despite daily provocations, they have managed successfully not to descend to the same level of depravity as their Arab enemies. The world is used to daily violence that is unleashed against religious minorities in the Muslim world. Only a couple of days ago the Muslim faithful in Pakistan had broken through the walls of a Church, torching and tearing open its doors. They were reacting to a rumor that a Christian had desecrated their holy book, the Quran. They smashed the marble altar of the Holy Spirit Church and shattered its stained glass windows. They torched a Christian residence and the neighboring St. Anthony's Girls School. Within moments flames were licking the walls and black smoke filled the sky. For days the Wahhabi clerics kept on calling their Muslim followers to come out from their houses and defend their faith by unleashing a reign of terror against Christians.

I wondered if an Israeli may someday find it justified to copy what Wahhabis have been doing in Iraq and other places – abducting, murdering and beheading "infidels". Most recently, the body of a Hindu driver, Maniappan Raman Kutty, was found with his throat slashed in southern Afghanistan for no evident reason but his faith.

But there was nothing in history that could have substantiated my fears; Jews, despite being subjected to the most barbaric acts of terrorism have yet to react in vengeance against their perpetrators. And I concluded that my first visit to Israel will help me in untangling the knot of Israel's insistence on continuing to remain a target of Islamist terror.

As our air-conditioned bus negotiated the mountainous curves of the road to the heart of Galilee, I could not miss the rising minarets identifying a number of Palestinian Arab towns dotting the hillsides. The imposing domes of mosques underlined the freedoms that are enjoyed by the Muslims in the Jewish State. Large Arab residences, wide spread construction activity and big cars underlined the prosperity and affluence of Palestinians living under the Star of David.

On my way from the city of David to the Royal Prima hotel in Jerusalem, I asked my Palestinian taxi driver how he feels about moving to the territories under Palestinian Authority. He said that he could never think of living outside Israel. His answer blasted the myth spread by anti-Semites that Israel's Arab citizens are not happy there.

Another Israeli Arab informed me that Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights. In fact, Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. In contrast to the non-Israeli Arab world, Arab women in Israel enjoy the same status as men. Muslim women have the right to vote and to be elected to public office. Muslim women, in fact are more liberated in Israel than in any Muslim country. Israeli law prohibits polygamy, child marriage, and the barbarity of female sexual mutilation.

Moreover, I found out that there are no incidences of honor killings in Israel. The status of Muslim women in Israel is far above that of any country in the region. Israeli health standards are by far the highest in the Middle East and Israeli health institutions are freely open to all Arabs, on the same basis as they are to Jews.

Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel and underlines the tolerant nature of the Jewish State. All the street signs call out their names in Arabic alongside Hebrew. It is official policy of the Israeli government to foster the language, culture, and traditions of the Arab minority, in the educational system and in daily life. Israel's Arabic press is the most vibrant and independent of any country in the region. There are more than 20 Arabic periodicals. They publish what they please, subject only to the same military censorship as Jewish publications. There are daily TV and radio programs in Arabic. Arabic is taught in Jewish secondary schools. More than 350,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. At the time of Israel's founding, there was one Arab high school in the country. Today, there are hundreds of Arab schools. Israeli universities are renowned centers of learning in the history and literature of the Arab Middle East.

Aware of the constraints that a non-Wahhabi is faced with while performing religious rituals in Saudi Arabia, Kiran (my wife) could not hide her surprise at the freedoms and ease with which peoples of all religions and faiths were carrying out their religious obligations at the Church of the holy Sepulcher, Garden Tomb, Sea of Galilee, newly discovered Western Wall Tunnels, Western Wall, tomb of King David and all the other holy places we visited.

All religious communities in Israel enjoy the full protection of the State.
Israeli Arabs—Muslims, as well as many Christian denominations—are free to exercise their faiths, to observe their own weekly day of rest and holidays and to administer their own internal affairs. Some 80,000 Druze live in 22 villages in northern Israel. Their religion is not accessible to outsiders and Druze constitute a separate cultural, social and religious Arabic-speaking community. The Druze concept of taqiyya calls for complete loyalty by its adherents to the government of the country in which they reside. As such, among other things, the Druze serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Each religious community in Israel has its own religious councils and courts, and has full jurisdiction over religious affairs, including matters of personal status, such as marriage and divorce. The holy sites of all religions are administered by their own authorities and protected by the government.

A Hindu journalist who came to visit me talked about the openness that Jewish society represents. He told me that more than 20% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish of which approximately 1.2 million are Muslims, 140,000 are Christians and 100, 000 are Druze. Another non-Jewish Israeli told me that Christians and Druze are free to join even the defense forces of the Jewish State. Bedouins have served in paratroops units and other Arabs have volunteered for military duty.

The big houses owned by Arab Israelis and the amount of construction that was going on in the Arab towns exposed the falsity of propaganda that Israel discriminates against Israeli Arabs from buying lands. I found out that in the early part of the century, the Jewish National Fund was established by the World Zionist Congress to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement. Of the total area of Israel, 92 percent belongs to the State and is managed by the Land Management Authority. It is not for sale to anyone, Jew or Arab.

The Arab Waqf owns land that is for the express use and benefit of Muslim Arabs. Government land can be leased by anyone, regardless of race, religion or sex. All Arab citizens of Israel are eligible to lease government land.

I asked three Israeli Arabs if they face discrimination in employment. They all said the same thing; normally there is no discrimination but whenever homicide bombers explode and murder Israelis, some Israelis feel uncomfortable dealing with them. But that uncomfortable feeling is also very temporary and does not stay for long.

My first visit to Israel has not only consolidated my belief that Israel is vital for the stability of the region but has also convinced me that the existence of Israel will one day convince the Muslims of the necessity of reformation in their theology as well as sociology.

A journey through the Israeli desert brought another important aspect of life to light; Prophets are not the only ones who can perform miracles – people who believe in themselves can also perform unbelievable acts. Acres and acres of sand dunes have been transformed into the best possible fertile land; Wheat, Cotton, Sunflowers, Chickpeas, Groundnuts (Peanuts), Mangoes, Avocados, Citrus, Papayas, bananas and any other fruit and vegetable that Israelis want to consume is grown within Israel. In fact, Israelis have proved beyond any doubt why God promised them this land – only they could keep it green.

The land is described repeatedly in the Torah as a good land and "a land flowing with milk and honey". This description may not seem to fit well with the desert images we see on the nightly news, but let's keep in mind that the land was repeatedly abused by conquerors that were determined to make the land uninhabitable for the Jews. In the few decades since the Jewish people regained control of the land, tremendous improvement in its agriculture has been witnessed. Israeli agriculture today has a very high yield. Agriculture in Israel is very effective, and is able to cover about 75% of domestic needs, despite the limited land available.

Looking at the development and transformation that the land has gone through because of the Jewish innovative spirit, hard labor and commitment to freedoms for all times to come, I am convinced that it is true that God created this earth but it is also a fact that only an Israel can keep this earth from dying.

WASHINGTON – Walid Shoebat, born in Bethlehem, began attacking Israelis when he was 8 years old, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.

He was, Shoebat says now, an Islamic terrorist in the making – a product of his environment, including schools, media and mosques that preached hatred of Jews.

"I never actually met any Jews," he said. "But in school we were taught from the Quran that they were pigs and monkeys.''

By 15, he had already served time in a Jerusalem prison for participating in an anti-Israel riot. While there, he was recruited into the Palestine Liberation Organization.

At 16, he was chosen to take a loaf of bread, packed with explosives, to blow up the Bethlehem Bank Leumi. His instructions were to place it in a garbage can near the door of the building. But seeing Arab children playing nearby, he decided to throw the bread on the roof where it did little damage.

He was also involved in the near-lynching of an Israeli soldier. Though Shoebat and his friends took the soldier's gun and beat him, he managed to escape.

"I wanted to die as a martyr," said. "We were indoctrinated to look forward to heaven.''

Shoebat's parents, however, had something else in mind for their son. Fearing he would wind up dead or in prison, they sent him to the United States for college at the age of 18.

But that didn't stop Shoebat's anti-Israeli activism. He continued his recruitment for the PLO on campus. He was the representative for thousands of Palestinian students in Chicago, raising funds, purchasing military uniforms and sending students to fight in Lebanon.

His deep-seated revulsion of Jews and Israelis continued until he married a Christian woman in 1993. Though he was determined to convert her to Islam, Maria converted him instead.

"She challenged me to find any mistakes in the Bible," he recalls. "So I set out on a six-month journey to do that – to find the errors and convert her."

Instead, he says, after reading the Bible from cover to cover, he determined it was the truth. The computer programmer and his wife were baptized together.

It was an unlikely twist for the grandson of the mukhtar of Beit Sahour and a close friend of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, an associate of Adolph Hitler.

"I had still never talked to a Jewish Israeli," he said. "On the plane there, I sat next to a Jewish woman and talked to her. She began crying. I asked her why. She said that she loved her daughters and was worried about them serving in the military. I asked her how they felt killing Palestinians. She replied that they hated killing. I saw a sincerity there that touched me."

Now Shoebat has turned his activism in a completely different direction. He calls himself a Christian Zionist, giving speeches around the country and in Canada, where he made an appearance this week. His ultimate dream, he says, is to go to Israeli prisons to teach Palestinian youngsters Jewish history – a dream he understands is fraught with danger from the people who think as he once did.

"He still calls me at 2 o'clock in the morning and tells me I should be killed," he said. "He hates me."

Now Shoebat speaks at churches and synagogues and to radio talk-show hosts fascinated by his story. He is working on a book and maintains a website.

"That's my mission now – to go to Americans and churches and anywhere I can go and explain God's plan for the state of Israel, and how God intended Israel to be a light unto the nations, and how all of our hatred toward Israel is really evil," he says.

Shoebat grew up in the West Bank when it was under the control of Jordan. He recalls the 1967 Six-Day War vividly.

"The Jordanian and Egyptian radios were ordering all Arabs to leave because they were going to kill all the Jews," he says. "But we locked ourselves in our bathroom for the six days of the war. My father refused to leave because he thought that my mother's American passport would protect us.''

During the war, Shoebat's family listened to the Arab radio station announcing victory over the Israelis. They were amazed to find Israeli soldiers in place of Jordanian soldiers when they emerged from hiding.

Let us deal with the mother of all Middle East questions. No, not "Why do the Arabs hate Israel?" That one is easy. Israel's existence and military supremacy is a humiliation to Arab pride. Israel serves as a permanent reminder of Arab impotence and Islamic infirmity.

The Arabs still operate on a severely outdated view of human greatness, one predicated on mortal conquest rather than moral courage. To the Arab mind, strength and honor result from gaining the upper hand over an enemy, rather than extending the hand of friendship to a former foe.

The heroic action of overcoming age-old prejudices counts for little when placed alongside overcoming an adversary's tanks. So long as the Arabs continue to embrace a Homeric model of valor, where glory is won through the gore of terrorism and splendor through the spilling of blood, there will never be peace in the Middle East. When the day comes that the Arabs feel more embarrassed by having suicide bombers than having Israel in their midst, only then will they reclaim their former greatness.

Until that day comes, we have to contend with far more vexing questions: How is it that half a billion hostile Arabs have managed to successfully portray themselves as the victims of five million Israeli Jews?

How did more than a dozen Arab tyrannies successfully portray Israel, the region's lone democracy, as the bad guy in the Middle East? And how did the Palestinians, whose contribution to civilization is the suicide bomber, ever garner the sympathy of the world?

Many cite the world's ignorance of the Middle Eastern conflict as the solution to this riddle. Indeed, in a recent national assessment test, only 30 percent of American high-school seniors correctly identified NATO as a military alliance, and 87% couldn't locate Iraq on a map. In a world of such breathtaking ignorance, it is easy to see why continued Arab lies could gain credence.

When I debate the Middle East question with friends who are opposed to Israel and point out that the Arabs rejected, among others, the Peel Commission partition proposal of 1937 that would have given them a state three times Israel's size, the UN partition plan of 1947, and Ehud Barak's magnanimous (and reckless) offer of 97% of Gaza and the West Bank and a land swap within the Green Line for the rest, they are convinced that I'm pulling a fast one on them. They are also unaware that there has never been, in the history of the world, a Palestinian state.

What Israel has failed at utterly is framing the conflict with the Palestinians in moral terms. This is not a dispute over land. Rather, it is a conflict between good and evil, between democracy and tyranny, between those who sanctify life and those who glorify death. It is a conflict between those who believe in due process and those who believe in summary execution. In choosing the depravity of dismembering civilians, Palestinian murderers have cast off the image of God. While Israel has always been prepared to negotiate a settlement with the Arabs, they have instead made a pact with the devil.

INSPIRING murderers to blow up teenagers is not an abrogation of a treaty signed in Norway. It is the apogee of wickedness. Teaching schoolchildren that one goes to heaven for killing Jews is not irresponsible. It is evil. Blowing up teenagers outside a disco is not merely morally repugnant. It is satanic. And Palestinian leaders who justify these bestial means are not desperate, they are satanic.

Whatever grievances the Palestinians claim to have against Israel, choosing to settle
them by maiming and murdering innocent men, women, and children is a crime against God and a sin against humanity. The Jews were put into ghettos and turned into piles of ashes by the Nazis. But they never retaliated by machine-gunning German schoolgirls. More than a million Armenians were slaughtered by the Ottomans in World War I. But they never responded by blowing up coffeehouses. China completely overran and occupied Tibet. But the Dalai Lama never called upon his monks to bomb kindergartens.

Only the Palestinians have chosen this course and in so doing they have gone over to the dark side. But because my lines above cause discomfort among Jews is the
primary reason that we have failed to win over the decent people of the world to our side.

Many readers will tell me to crawl back into the synagogue with my religious simplifications of complex geopolitical issues which they maintain is utterly unrealistic. Religious language doesn't belong in political discourse. But when president Ronald Reagan wanted to sum up the differences between the United States and the Soviet Union, did he go into lengthy polemics about how the US is free while the septuagenarian tyrants of the Russian politburo ruthlessly rein over unwilling subjects? Or did he simply call them, in his most memorable speech, an evil empire?

When President George W. Bush wished to boldly declare to the world that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea pose a threat to the peace of the world, did he speak of their political corruption? Or did he label them an "axis of evil"?

Yet, not one Israeli prime minister has referred to Yasser Arafat, the father of
international modern terrorism, as simply being malevolent, wicked, and evil.

On the contrary, the most memorable thing that Ariel Sharon, to whom we are all
indebted as Israel's greatest warrior, said of Arafat was that he was "irrelevant." Is that a term that inspires clarity? Can one see Bush calling Kim Jong Il or Saddam Hussein "irrelevant"?

And would the president of the United States have galvanized the allies of the United States to join in a war against Iraq with such morally neutral terms?

The language of good and evil is utterly lacking from Israeli political discourse and
government pronouncements. How is it that we have lost the biblical tongue upon which our commonwealth was built? Where is the modern-day Amos exhorting us to "hate evil, and love good, and establish justice." Can the prophet's words not stream forth from a Jewish tongue? Imagine how the world would contrast our own religious calling to life and righteousness with the Muslim's modern call to murder and mayhem.

The writer, a rabbi and best-selling author, hosts a daily radio show syndicated across the United States on the Talk America radio network.

from an article "UNITED STATES STRIKES IRAQ, ISRAEL STRUCK"
by Micah Halpern, www.israelinsider.com

The Muslim and Arab world see the U.S. and Israel in cahoots. They even blame Israel and the CIA - I repeat, Israel and the CIA, as if they were co-workers, cohorts - for the bombing of the World Trade Centers and for the rest of September 11, 2001.

Israel's very existence is a threat to Islam and the Arab world. Israel represents what Islam has most difficulty tolerating. Non-Muslim success! The Arab and Muslim worlds are not capable of understanding that great societies can succeed in many ways. It is not a part of their moral, cultural or ethical lexicon. Arab and Muslim society cannot conceive that non-Muslims can culturally conquer the world. The world, they believe, was conquered by them many years ago and so, should still be, rightfully theirs.

Compound that with the reality of Muslim societies - poorly educated, wallowing in poverty and almost to a man, destitute. The result is a society that is culturally and physically and monetarily impoverished. Islam might be a religion, but it is also, perhaps predominately, a society. In the Arab world, even non-Muslims - Christians, Copts. Armenians - are treated to the same biases and hence, to the same lifestyle.

Hitting them in the face, right smack in the middle of all of this poverty is Israel, a Western success story. Israel is a democratic society that respects all citizens even and including women. The issue of women and women's rights must not be underestimated in the Muslim and Arab world. Theirs is a world in which the role of women is not even an agenda item.

There are practical and there are theoretical reasons for Saddam's attack against Israel, now compound that with the real reason. Envy. Envy is why Israel will be hit by rockets from Iraq.

Israel is seen as a mini-United States in the Middle East. In the eyes of Saddam Hussein and those like him, Israel is exactly what the United States is, a non-Muslim, Western, free democracy. Israel is a great success. Most of the Arab countries are dismal failures. In this little Western democracy the areas of high tech, medicine and agriculture flourish. The desert, literally, blooms. Most Arab lands are, for the most part, aside from palaces and hotels and casinos, wastelands.

There is one more reason - it's prejudice. Prejudice and hate wrapped-up in the guise of religion. Plain and simple, Israel is a state composed of a majority of Jews. That hurts Saddam Hussein and his co-religionists. More, it humiliates him.

BIBLE REVELATIONS Commentary - This hatred stems from an ancient family feud. Both Islam and Judaism claim Abraham to be their patriarchal 'father'. Abraham's son Isaac, had 2 sons Jacob & Esau. These 2 sons fought in their mother's womb even before birth. When in despair about this, Rebekkah consulted God in prayer and He declared: "These are 2 nations in your womb, (they) will be rival nations." The younger hated the elder and this strife would continue into the distant future. Refer Genesis ch 25 - 27. Further Prophecies predict the outcome of this 'family foid' to culminate in a destructive world War of nuclear proportions, pre-empting the establishment of the Kingdom of God in a new Dispensation on earth. The world stage at this moment, and for the first time in history, is now set for just such a scenario, Follow the Links below.

In the past two days, I have had the opportunity to speak personally - eye to eye - with three people intimately involved with Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem and Beit Jala. Their testimonies are appalling.

In Bethlehem and Beit Jala which have been under Palestinian rule for some time, the Palestinian Christians continue to suffer terribly at the hands of Arafat's terrorists. Shops in Bethlehem owned by Christians have been burned to the ground and the owners terrorized...by their OWN Palestinian 'brothers'. Young Christian girls have been taken and gang-raped; entire families terrorized. While many left the area earlier in the Intifada, those still there now have no recourse, it seems. Terrorists in Beit Jala seize their homes to use as firing positions to shoot into Gilo, (a suburb of Jerusalem), and the families living there have no voice.

You read yesterday that two 'suspected' collaborators were murdered (and hanged from their feet next to a large picture of Arafat) by Palestinians in Bethlehem without investigation or trial beforehand. You should see the pictures. It's horrific, outrageous....but where is the outcry from the 'human rights' groups? In the newspapers here, the photos of murdered Palestinians being dragged through the streets of Bethlehem by masked terrorists, right into Manger Square which many tourists would recognize, are absolutely revolting. Will ANY international TV news broadcast these photos for the rest of the world to see what the terrorist organizations are doing to their OWN people? Probably not; it's not 'politically correct' (in their estimation).

The Palestinian Christians are suffering terribly - right along with their Jewish neighbors. But let Israel go in to Bethlehem or Beit Jala with troops and tanks to take control - fully aware and deeply concerned about the suffering of the Christians there - and the world that DOESN'T know about it begins to shout 'Restraint' at Israel. One Jewish lady who has good friends in Bethlehem said to me through her tears, 'They are trapped, completely trapped. I asked them why they don't speak out, why they don't try to defend themselves and they told me it's impossible. If they do, their whole family will be tortured.'

This is not a political situation. This is some of the worst religious persecution in the world today.....like that in other countries where Islamic terrorists are murdering Christians, Jews and anyone who will not convert to Islam.

Boston Herald
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On the day last week when the Bush administration froze the assets of the
Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, I received an attractive booklet ("Discover Islam: The Reader") from the American Islamic Information Center.

Sadly, the publication's pleading was contradicted by developments here and abroad.

Lavishly illustrated with a rainbow spectrum of smiling faces, the reader answers such commonly asked questions as "How does Islam guarantee human rights and equality?" "How does Islam relate to Christianity and Judaism?" and (no kidding) "How does Islam elevate the status of women?"

The Reader neglects to explain the affinity of some Muslims for flying airliners into office buildings and detonating explosive devices. But the Holy Land Foundation takes up the slack. The foundation is America's largest Muslim charity, which raised $13 million last year. Its principal beneficiary was Hamas (responsible for suicide bomber attacks in Israel) “ which does uncharitable things to passengers on Israeli buses."

Mainstream Muslim groups were furious over the administration's move. The foundation is "a respectable Muslim charity that does good work", insisted Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (The council's former head once described the conviction of Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as a "hate crime against Muslims.")

At a 1995 Los Angeles event, where the foundation raised $207,000, a military leader of Hamas exhorted the faithful: "Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all!" Was this what Hooper meant by "good work"?

How exactly does Islam guarantee human rights and equality when democracy is
nonexistent in nations with Muslim majorities? The New York Times observes that in the Arab world (the Muslim heartland) "true democracy is scarcer than in any other part of the globe."

As for Islam's interaction with Christians, the State Department's annual survey of religious freedom is revealing. The latest report notes that in the past five years, over 1 million Christians have fled Muslim countries.

In Saudi Arabia, a dozen Christians are in jail for practicing their faith. The State Department matter-of-factly comments, "Freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia."

When Nigerian Muslims took to the streets to celebrate Sept. 11, 300 to 400 Christians died in one day alone. In May 2000, 200 were killed in the city of Kaduna, including Father Clement Ozi Bello (a Muslim convert to Catholicism), who was dragged from his car, blinded and slain. "Our people are being shot, butchered and roasted," pleads Kaduna Bishop Josiah Fearon.

In Pakistan, a number of Christians languish on death row for violating Section 295 (c) of the nation's penal code, which makes blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed a capital crime. On Oct. 28, in Bahawalpur, the Army of Omar related to Protestant churchgoers with automatic weapons, killing 16.

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, the Laskar Jihad has expanded its ethnic cleansing of Christians from Maluku (where 9,000 have died since 1999) to the neighboring province of Sulawesi. According to International Christian Concern, between Nov. 26 and Nov. 29, 600 homes and six churches were destroyed.

And in the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf spreads terror in the pursuit of an Islamic republic on Mindanao. Among last year's victims was Father Rhoel Gallardo, a kidnapped Catholic priest who was tortured and killed for refusing to say Muslim prayers.

For a religion that is said to respect human rights and equality, Islam does a rather thorough job of trampling the former and denying the latter, from Africa's west coast to East Asia. While they're voluble in demanding tolerance for their faith, when it comes to the suffering of minorities in Islamic countries, American Muslims are mute.

Nowhere is multicultural theory more starkly refuted by reality than here. President George W. Bush tells us of the contributions of American Muslims, the Postal Service issues a stamp honoring two Islamic festivals, and the American Islamic Information Center circulates its soothing booklet. At the same time, throughout the Third World, people are discovering Islam the hard way.

Ha'aretz Newspaper, Jerusalem -

The Islamic mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Akrameh Sabri, says that suicide bombings are justified and should be encouraged, according to a report published on Friday in the international Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. Sabri was appointed by PLO leader Yasir Arafat. During a visit to Abu Dhabi, Sabri criticized the Muslim religious leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia who issued an Islamic ruling (fatwa) against suicide attacks. According to Sabri, "We must not stand in the way of the intifada and Jihad [holy war]. Rather, we must stand at their side and encourage them."

BIBLE REVELATIONS COMMENTARY - It is Time that the Facts about Jewish or Palestinian Rights to Jerusalem and the Land be put straight! Read the astonishing facts by clicking here

Suicide bombers would have us believe that their actions constitute the highest level of bravery. They do not. They constitute the highest pinnacle of cowardice, since the suicide bombers know they will never see the pain they have caused and will not experience guilt and remorse for the lives they have wreaked.

Suicide bombers would have us believe that their acts constitute the highest levels of commitment. In a deeper sense this is not so. In fact, their acts constitute the highest levels of detachment. By knowingly killing people who are plainly innocent, they have externalised themselves from the world of the living. They are not so much inhuman as anti-human.

Suicide bombers would have us believe that their acts constitute the highest levels of sacrifice. Clearly they sacrifice themselves, but actually their acts constitute the highest levels of pointlessness, because they demonstrate so brutally the emptiness and vacuity of their beliefs.

Suicide bombers believe that their power consists in their ability to shock. In this they are absolutely correct - but not for the reasons they think. Their dedication is shocking, but what is really shocking, is their total lack of humanity. No one will be shocked that evil and cruelty exist. But it is shocking that in this day and age, there are still people dedicated to vacuity.

The cowardice of the killers is demonstrated precisely by the fact that their choice of tragets is so vulnerable. They are piercing the weak underbelly of the world's defences, and claiming bravery (and martyrdom - ed.) for doing so.

But, from the midst of the rubble of blasted bodies and physical devastation, it is impossible not to note too some critical changes. These changes demonstrate why the goals for which the bombers are dying, such as they are, will ultimately fail.

The aims of the bombers are doomed, because blowing people up (in distant places) cannot possibly build political support. Far from highlighting political grievances, it detracts from their legitimacy.

Wall St Journal Op Ed October 24, 2001 - Mr. Taheri, an Iranian author and journalist, is editor of the Paris-based Politique Internationale.

It is impolite (in the West today), not to say impolitic, to subject Islam to any criticism. Yet, to claim that the (spate of Islamic attacks across the world) have nothing to do with Islam amounts to a whitewash. It is not only disingenuous but also a disservice to Muslims, who need to cast a critical glance at the way their faith is taught, lived and practiced.

Even worse, the refusal to subject Islam to rational analysis is a recipe for further fanaticism. Unless we believe those who claim that the Sept. 11 was organized by Israel, we have to assume that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible. And since there is no mechanism for excommunication in Islam, bin Laden and his gang have every right to describe themselves as Muslims.

Bin Laden belongs to a prominent Yemeni-Saudi family that makes much of its Islamic credentials. He began his militant career in 1984 as a fund-raiser for Afghans fighting the communist regime in Kabul in the name of Islam. He had offices in a dozen Muslim countries, none of which regarded his activities as un-Islamic.

In 1993 bin Laden was divested of his Saudi passport but was warmly welcomed in Sudan where a fundamentalist regime is in power. Later, bin Laden was the star of an international conference of Muslim fundamentalists organized in Khartoum by the then-strongman Hassan al-Turabi. He was elected a member of the Supreme Council, whose task is to promote a radical brand of Islam throughout the world. That gave him the right to call himself a "sheik" and issue religious fatwas, or edicts. Again, since there is no clerical hierarchy in Islam, there was no reason why bin Laden could not claim such authority.

Once bin Laden was forced to leave Sudan (under U.S. pressure), he was welcomed in his ancestral homeland of Yemen, another Muslim country. From there he went to Pakistan, the world's second most populous Muslim nation, where he was welcomed not only by the army but also by virtually all of Pakistan's Islamic parties, which continue to support him.

From Pakistan, bin Laden shifted to Afghanistan, where the Taliban had established what they claimed to be "the only truly Islamic government." The Taliban continue to shelter bin Laden to this day, even in the face of U.S. attacks. To say that bin Laden has nothing to do with Islam and Muslims, therefore, requires a big leap of imagination.

When pressed hard, some Muslim leaders admit that bin Laden is "part of Islam," but try to minimize his place. Dalil Boubakeur, a French Muslim leader, says that bin Laden does not represent more than 1% of Muslims. Some comfort. That 1% means almost 13 million people.

Anyone familiar with textbooks in most Muslim countries would know the twisted view of the world they propagate and the hatred they promote. Anyone who follows the media in the Muslim world would know that the verbal version of the Sept. 11 attacks is an almost daily fare. Go to the Internet and check the editorials of virtually any Muslim paper on Sept. 10 and see what they were saying about the West in general and the U.S. in particular.

Anyone listening to a sermon in virtually any mosque, including many in the West, would be shocked by the vehemence of the anti-Western, especially nti-American, sentiments expressed.

It is both dishonest and dangerous for Muslims to remain in a state of denial. And yet a state of denial is what we have. When Iran's Khomeinists burned 600 people alive in a cinema, the whitewashers said that it had nothing to do with Islam. When the same gang took the American diplomats hostage in Tehran, again the whitewash party insisted that had nothing to do with Islam. And when the suicide bombings bloodied Beirut we were told that Islam had nothing to do with them.

The Muslim world today is full of bigotry, fanaticism, hypocrisy and plain ignorance -- all of which create a breeding ground for criminals like bin Laden. The principal victims of these criminals are Muslims, who are prevented from developing a modern political culture without which they cannot reform their societies and rebuild their economies.

What I am saying is not meant as critique of Islam as a belief system; that's an issue for theologians, and people should be free to believe whatever they like. What is needed is a critique of Islam as an existential reality. The Sept. 11 tragedies should trigger a rethink of the way Muslims live Islam. We should start with condemning those attacks without "ifs" and "buts." Sadly, the way we Muslims live Islam today is a far cry from the way our ancestors lived it in the golden age when Islam was a builder of civilization, not a force for repression, terror and destruction.

- All but one of the world's remaining military regimes are in Muslim countries.
- With the exception of Turkey and Bangladesh, there are no real elections in any Muslim country.
- Of the current 30 active conflicts in the world no fewer than 28 concern Muslim governments and/or communities.
- Two-thirds of the world's political prisoners are held in Muslim countries, which also carry out 80% of all executions each year.
- There is no mechanism for excommunication in Islam.
- There is no clerical hierarchy in Islam – hence, there was no reason why bin Laden could not claim the right to authorise himself as a "sheik" and issue religious fatwas, or edicts.

Source: BBC NEWS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1590000/1590350.stm

The statement was read by one of Osama Bin Laden's lieutenants Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a spokesman for Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda group, who has called on Muslims to join in a holy war against the United States. Below is the full text of the statement:

"We thank Almighty God, who said in his holy book: Ye who believe, take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjustly.

"May God's peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his companions, and those who followed his course.

"I address this message to the entire Muslim nation to tell them that the confederates have joined forces against the Islamic nation and the Crusader war, promised by Bush, has been launched against Afghanistan and against this people who have faith in God.

"We now live under this Crusader bombardment that targets the entire nation. The Islamic nation should know that we defend a just cause.

"The Islamic nation has been groaning in pain for more than 80 years under the yoke of the joint Jewish-Crusader aggression. Palestine is living under the yoke of the Jewish occupation and its people groan from this repression and persecution while no-one lifts a finger. The Arabian Peninsula is being defiled by the feet of those who came to occupy these lands, usurp these holy places, and plunder these resources.

"The Islamic nation must also know that the US version of terrorism is a kind of
deception. Is it logical for the United States and its allies to carry out this repression, persecution, plundering, and bloodletting over these long years without this being called terrorism, while when the victim tries to seek justice, he is described as terrorist?

"Let the United States know that the Islamic nation will not remain silent after this day on what it is experiencing and what takes place in its land, and that jihad for the sake of God today is an obligation on every Muslim in this land if he has no excuse.

"God Almighty has said: Then fight in God's cause, thou art held responsible only for thyself and rouse the believers. It may be that God will restrain the fury of the unbelievers, for God is the strongest in might and in punishment.

"US interests are spread throughout the world. So, every Muslim should carry out his real role to champion his Islamic nation and religion. Carrying out terrorism
against the oppressors is one of the tenets of our religion and Shari'ah.

"Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of God and your enemies.

"I would like to touch on one important point in this address. The actions by these young men who destroyed the United States and launched the storm of planes against it have done a good deed.

"They transferred the battle into the US heartland. Let the United States know that
with God's permission, the battle will continue to be waged on its territory until it leaves our lands, stops its support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi people who have lost more than one million children.

"The Americans should know that the storm of plane attacks will not abate, with God's permission. There are thousands of the Islamic nation's youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live.

"They should know that with their invasion of the land of Afghanistan, they have started a new phase of enmity and conflict between us and the forces of infidelity. We are confident that we will achieve victory thanks to our material and moral strength and confidence and faith in Almighty God. The Americans have opened a door which will under no circumstances be shut.

"I address Muslim youths, men, and women and urge them to shoulder their responsibility. They should know that the land of Afghanistan and the mujahidin there are really facing an all-out Crusader war which is aimed at eliminating this group which believes in God and fights on the basis of a creed and religion. Thus, the nation must shoulder its responsibility. It would be a disgrace if the Islamic nation fails to do so.

"Finally, I thank Almighty God who enabled us to engage in this jihad and fight this battle, which is a decisive one between infidelity and faith. I ask Almighty God to grant us victory on our enemy, make their machinations backfire on them, and defeat them.

President Bush visits the main Washington mosque and declares Islam a religion of peace. He urges Americans to publicly accompany and protect "women of cover" -- Islamic faithful wearing the shawl. He encourages American schoolchildren to find a Muslim pen pal. On Monday, he held the first White House Ramadan dinner -- "a way for the administration to publicly make the case that it is sensitive to Muslims." Indeed, the administration has put together an entire "Ramadan public relations offensive" to "highlight its sensitivity to Islamic tradition." (Washington Post).

Now, it is one thing for the president to affirm American religious tolerance and speak out sternly against anti-Muslim prejudice, as he did early and often after Sept. 11. That is honorable and very American. And in fact, one can only be astonished how few acts of anti-Islamic bigotry -- and how many acts of sympathetic understanding -- have occurred in a nation driven to grief and fury by a monstrous mass murder. But it is quite another thing to protest so much that, yes, we do respect Islam. Why the doubt? No country on earth has been more welcoming to Muslim immigrants. Which is precisely why the Sept. 11 terrorists could spend a year and a half in America going about their murderous business unmolested.

And why must we constantly repeat that we are not at war with Islam? We never declared war on Islam. It was Islamic fanatics who, killing 4,000 Americans in the name of God, declared war on us. Why, then, are we the ones required to continually demonstrate our religious tolerance and respect for others? Shouldn't that be the responsibility of the Islamic world, of those in whose name this crime was perpetrated?

Imagine if 19 murderous Christian fundamentalists hijacked four airplanes over Saudi Arabia and, in the name of God, crashed them into the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, destroying the holy Kaaba and killing thousands of innocent Muslim pilgrims. Could anyone doubt that the entire Christian world -- clergy and theologians, leaders and lay folk -- would rise as one to denounce the act?

And yet after Sept. 11, where were the Muslim theologians and clergy, the imams and mullahs, rising around the world to declare that Sept. 11 was a crime against Islam? Where were the fatwas against Osama bin Laden? The voices of high religious authority have been scandalously still. And what of Muslim religious leaders in America? At the solemn National Cathedral ceremony just three days after Sept. 11, the spokesman for the American Muslim community made no statement declaring the attacks contrary to Islam. There was no casting out of those who committed the crime. There was no fatwa against suicide murder. Instead, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, spiritual leader of the Islamic Society of North America, offered that to "those that lay the plots of evil, for them is a terrible penalty." Who are these plotters of evil receiving retribution? Did he mean the terrorists? Or did he mean that America had it coming? He never said.

The imam of the leading mosque in New York, the 96th Street Mosque, left no ambiguity: He published an interview in Egypt, to which he repaired after Sept. 11, claiming that it was the Jews who perpetrated the attacks. Hence that great post-Sept. 11 oddity: Deafening silence from the spiritual authorities of Islam, obsessive chatter from Americans, largely Christian, filling that silence with near apologetic professions of good faith and tolerance.

This is not just odd, it is demeaning. Who attacked whom? Who should be doing
the soul-searching and the breast-beating? Why are we acting as if we bear guilt for our own victimization? The United States is the most diverse and religiously tolerant society on earth. By far. As regards Islamic peoples, we have been singularly sympathetic. We waged three successful military campaigns in the 1990s. In every one we rescued a beleaguered Islamic people: Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo. And we have just liberated a fourth: Afghanistan.

Four thousand Americans lie dead in Washington and New York. Who should be
atoning? Who should be reaching out to show religious tolerance and acceptance? Who should be asking their children to find pen pals of another faith?

Sept. 11 was supposed to be a wake-up call to moral seriousness. Let's show it and stop acting like the guilty party.

Source: THE FREEMAN E-MAIL LIST
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A French court on Nov. 20, 2002, dismissed a request to ban "The Rage and the Pride," the best-selling book by [leftist] Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci that critics say incites hatred of Muslims. Oriana Fallaci, 73, is a former Resistance fighter and war correspondent best-known for her uncompromising interviews with world leaders.

I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swastika, incite people to hate the Jews. And who, in order to see Jews once again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the ovens of Dachau and Mauthausen and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen et cetera, would sell their own mother to a harem.

I find it shameful that the Catholic Church should permit a bishop, one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a saintly man who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to participate in that procession and plant himself in front of a microphone to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre the Jews in pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them "martyrs who go to their deaths as to a party."

I find it shameful that in France, the France of Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, they burn synagogues, terrorize Jews, profane their cemeteries. I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany and Denmark flaunt the kaffiah just as Mussolini's avant garde used to flaunt the club and the fascist badge.

I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-Semitism. That in Sweden they asked that the Nobel Peace Prize given to Shimon Peres in 1994 be taken back and conferred on the dove with the olive branch in his mouth, that is onArafat.

I find it shameful that the distinguished members of the Committee, a Committee that (it would appear) rewards political color rather than merit, should take this request into consideration and even respond to it. In hell the Nobel Prize honors he who does not receive it.

I find it shameful (we're back in Italy) that state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent anti-Semitism, crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones. I find it shameful that in their debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or kaffiah who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel Aviv.

I find it shameful that the press does the same, that it is indignant because Israeli tanks surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, that it is not indignant because inside that same church two hundred Palestinian terrorists well armed with machine guns and munitions and explosives (among them are various leaders of Hamas and Al-Aqsa) are not unwelcome guests of the monks (who then accept bottles of mineral water and jars of honey from the soldiers of those tanks).

I find it shameful that, in giving the number of Israelis killed since the beginning of the Second Intifada (four hundred twelve), a noted daily newspaper found it appropriate to underline in capital letters that more people are killed in their traffic accidents. (Six hundred a year).

I find it shameful that the Roman Observer, the newspaper of the Pope - a Pope
who not long ago left in the Wailing Wall a letter of apology for the Jews - accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the millions by Christians. By Europeans. I find it shameful that this newspaper denies to the survivors of that people (survivors who still have numbers tattooed on their arms) the right to react, to defend themselves, to not be exterminated again.

I find it shameful that in the name of Jesus Christ (a Jew without whom they would all be unemployed), the priests of our parishes or Social Centers or whatever they are flirt with the assassins of those in Jerusalem who cannot go to eat a pizza or buy some eggs without being blown up.

I find it shameful that they are on the side of the very ones who inaugurated terrorism, killing us on airplanes, in airports, at the Olympics, and who today entertain themselves by killing western journalists. By shooting them, abducting them, cutting their throats, decapitating them. (There's someone in Italy who, since the appearance of Anger and Pride, would like to do the same to me. Citing verses of the Koran he exorts his "brothers" in the mosques and the Islamic Community to chastise me in the name of Allah. To kill me. Or rather to die with me. Since he's someone who speaks English well, I'll respond to him in English: " **** you.")

I find it shameful that almost all of the left, the left that twenty years ago permitted one of its union processionals to deposit a coffin (as a mafioso warning) in front of the synagogue of Rome, forgets the contribution made by the Jews to the fight against fascism. Made by Carlo and Nello Rossini, for example, by Leone Ginzburg, by Umberto Terracini, by Leo Valiani, by Emilio Sereni, by women like my friend Anna Maria Enriques Agnoletti who was shot at Florence on June 12, 1944, by seventy-five of the three-hundred-thirty-five people killed at the Fosse Ardeatine, by the infinite others killed under torture or in combat or before firing squads. (The companions, the teachers, of my infancy and my youth.)

I find it shameful that in part through the fault of the left--or rather, primarily through the fault of the left (think of the left that inaugurates its congresses applauding the representative of the PLO, leader in Italy of the Palestinians who want the destruction of Israel)--Jews in Italian cities are once again afraid. And in French cities and Dutch cities and Danish cities and German cities, it is the same. I find it shameful that Jews tremble at the passage of the scoundrels dressed like suicide bombers just as they trembled during Krystallnacht, the night in which Hitler gave free rein to the Hunt of the Jews.

I find it shameful that in obedience to the stupid, vile, dishonest, and for them extremely advantageous fashion of Political Correctness the usual opportunists - or better the usual parasites - exploit the word Peace. That in the name of the word Peace, by now more debauched than the words Love and Humanity, they absolve one side alone of its hate and bestiality. That in the name of a pacifism (read conformism) delegated to the singing crickets and buffoons who used to lick Pol Pot's feet they incite people who are confused or ingenuous or intimidated. Trick them, corrupt them, carry them back a half century to the time of the yellow star on the coat. These charlatans who care about the Palestinians as much as I care about the charlatans. That is not at all.

I find it shameful that many Italians and many Europeans have chosen as their standard-bearer the gentleman (or so it is polite to say) Arafat. This nonentity who thanks to the money of the Saudi Royal Family plays the Mussolini ad perpetuum and in his megalomania believes he will pass into History as the George Washington of Palestine. This ungrammatical wretch who when I interviewed him was unable even to put together a complete sentence, to make articulate conversation. So that to put it all together, write it, publish it, cost me a tremendous effort and I concluded that compared to him even Ghaddafi sounds like Leonardo da Vinci. This false warrior who always goes around in uniform like Pinochet, never putting on civilian garb, and yet despite this has never participated in a battle. War is something he sends, has always sent, others to do for him. That is, the poor souls who believe in him. This pompous incompetent who playing the part of Head of State caused the failure of the Camp David negotiations, Clinton's mediation. No-no-I-want-Jerusalem-all-to-myself. This eternal liar who has a flash of sincerity only when (in private) he denies Israel's right to exist, and who as I say in my book contradicts himself every five minutes. He always plays the double-cross, lies even if you ask him what time it is, so that you can never trust him. Never! With him you will always wind up systematically betrayed. This eternal terrorist who knows only how to be a terrorist (while keeping himself safe) and who during the Seventies, that is when I interviewed him, even trained the terrorists of Baader-Meinhof. With them, children ten years of age. Poor children. (Now he trains them to become suicide bombers. A hundred baby suicide bombers are in the works: a hundred!). This weathercock who keeps his wife at Paris, served and revered like a queen, and keeps his people down in the squalor. He takes them out of the squalor only to send them to die, to kill and to die, like the eighteen year old girls who in order to earn equality with the fate of their victims. And yet many Italians love him, yes. Just like they loved Mussolini. And many other Europeans do the same.

I find it shameful and see in all this the rise of a new fascism, a new nazism. A fascism, a nazism, that much more grim and revolting because it is conducted and nourished by those who hypocritically pose as do-gooders, progressives, communists, pacifists, Catholics or rather Christians, and who have the gall to label a warmonger anyone like me who screams the truth. I see it, yes, and I say the following. I have never been tender with the tragic and Shakespearean figure Sharon. ("I know you've come to add another scalp to your necklace," he murmured almost with sadness when I went to interview him in 1982.) I have often had disagreements with the Israelis, ugly ones, and in the past I have defended the Palestinians a great deal. Maybe more than they deserved. But I stand with Israel, I stand with the Jews. I stand just as I stood as a young girl during the time when I fought with them, and when the Anna Marias were shot. I defend their right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. And disgusted by the anti-Semitism of many Italians, of many Europeans, I am ashamed of this shame that dishonors my Country and Europe. At best, it is not a community of States, but a pit of Pontius Pilates. And even if all the inhabitants of this planet were to think otherwise, I would continue to think so.

ISLAM AND THE WORLD'S DEAFENING SILENCE
Islam's response to the Kenya Massacre of Innocents

There's no haven for Jews. Not within Israel and not without. The earth is stained with their blood: From an El Al counter in Los Angeles to a beach resort in Mombasa.

Their children, their elderly, their scholars, their farmers, the diaspora of their tribe - all targets, at home and abroad. Shopping for food, riding a bus, strolling across a campus, dining as families in restaurants, dancing in clubs, worshipping in synagogues. Not a blessed place in all the world is safe.

The carnage in Kenya (Nov. 2002) is only the most recent atrocity but no doubt history will recall it as a defining moment in the modern-day Holocaust of Jews - a point where all buffers of presumed security were breached, when the war of attrition against Israelis went extra-territorial, crossing geographical borders and moral boundaries. Those shredded bodies of vacationers who believed themselves somehow beyond the reach of homicide bombers are sad testament to the reality of their predicament. And the poor victims who were not Jews, the Kenyan dancers welcoming new arrivals to a holiday hotel, they were but expendable bit-players, the collateral damage of Jew-hating terrorism.

Palestinians might revile Israelis as oppressors and occupiers, might bleat to the international community for redress of their political grievances. But Palestinians the world over aren't hunted down like dogs. Arabs the world over aren't targeted for extermination. Muslims the world over aren't murdered in packs. Humankind would not stand for it. The Pan-Arab alliance would not stand for it. Islamic countries would not stand for it.

Imagine, if Zionist terrorists armed with shoulder-held rockets had attempted to bring down a Saudi airplane, as unidentified militants had attempted to blast an El Al flight out of the sky over Kenya, simultaneous with the Mombasa bombing - a two-pronged attack suggesting sophisticated planning and a network of operatives, with the fingerprints of Al Qaeda all over it. The reverse scenario - Jew on Muslim - would be grounds for war, for a unified assault on Israel. And the West would be hard-pressed to interdict, to mollify.

I have been waiting, in the days since Thursday's abominable attack, for just one word of sympathy, of pity, from the Muslim world. One note of commiseration to emanate from inside the thousands of mosques, one hint of regret and empathy from commentators ever ready to assail any Israeli misstep and aggression. But the silence has been deafening.

Islam, that great religion of peace, has had nothing to say of more murdered Jews. That silent majority that disapproves of extremism, that argues the Muslim faith has been ill-served by militants who've twisted every article of the Islamic faith - not a murmur of renunciation of those who commit such travesties in their name. Where is the rage?

If little in the way of revulsion might have been expected from the hostile nations that surround Israel, then surely a word of consolation from moderate Muslims in the West might have been forthcoming. Yet I've heard nary an utterance from the very same agencies and organizations, purportedly representing Muslims and Arabs, that are so vigilant about pouncing on any perceived racism or intolerance against their people, even in this country. Nothing from the Canadian Islamic Congress, nothing from the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association, nothing from the Palestinian-Canadian Student Society, nothing from the Canadian Arab Friendship Association, nothing from the Canadian Society of Muslims. To name a few.

Only the beleaguered Palestinians themselves, in a poll taken before Thursday's tragic events, have expressed weariness with the whole campaign of violence aimed at Israel, this as one lone voice - a potential successor to Arafat - has declared that the intifadah must stop because it has done nothing to further the Palestinian cause.

It's impossible to disentangle the war against the Jews from the larger Islamist war against the West. Assuredly, the misery of Palestinians was not what motivated the terrorist agenda of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Bin Laden, preoccupied with routing America's presence in the Arab world, militarily and culturally, paid only passing lip service to the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories. At some point, they became a postscript to his anti-Western, anti-American screeds. But others quickly linked the micro-terrorism to the macro-terrorism, as if to invest Al Qaeda and like-minded terrorist networks to a more palatable cause. And in this they've been rather successful, with a rationalizing argument that offers endemic Islamic grievances on the one hand and Israeli truculence on the other. It is a sham of an argument, illogical at its core, but repeat a lie often enough and it will become the lingua franca of terrorism.

Israel, as it has learned from history, cannot depend on any other nation, any other alliance of nations, not even its great and steadfast friend America, to fight its battles, ensure its security or avenge its dead. In the same way Mossad tracked down and eliminated the freed perpetrators of the Munich Massacre in 1972, its counter-terrorist experts will likely, insofar as they are able, track down and eliminate those who committed Thursday's vile attacks. But this is a new generation of global terrorism and Israel's enemies - like the West's enemies - no longer stand out in a crowd. In many parts of the world, they are the crowd. Islamist pretenders, fomenting hatred in the masses, have made sure of that. And they are like cockroaches, scurrying out of the geopolitical cracks - in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, in East Africa, in the Philippines, in Indonesia, even in America and Canada.

They kill Jews. They kill Americans. They kill Australians who had the temerity to push rampaging Indonesian paramilitaries out of East Timor, a predominantly Catholic fledgling state. They kill Kenyan dancers and civil employees. They kill French engineers. They blow up skyscrapers and bring down airplanes. They do all this with Allah's name on their lips.

WorldNetDaily.com - The Editor and Chief Executive Officer, Joseph Farah, is an Arab-American journalist.

After praising the Sept. 11 skyjackers and threatening to commit major terrorist acts himself within the U.S., alleged sniper John Muhammad, along with 17-year-old Lee Boyd "John" Malvo, paralyzed the Washington metropolitan area for three bloody weeks in October. Yet since his capture, most in the media have been loathe to focus seriously on jihad as a motive.

In fact, the standard analysis of what makes Muhammad tick seems to include anything and everything except jihad – the personal spiritual mandate to engage in "holy war" against the "enemies of Islam," that is, non-Muslims, especially Americans, Jews and Christians.

Such violent directives, long central to militant Islamism, have grown exponentially in recent years, emanating not only from known terror leaders like Osama bin Laden, but from militant Islamic clerics worldwide, including some in the U.S. (Last month, Sheik Abu Hamza, affiliated with London's Finsbury Park mosque, was caught on film urging his followers to kill non-Muslims – particularly Americans – and to commit other acts of terrorism.)

Despite these eerie, medieval calls for the murderous purging of "unbelievers," jihad doesn't easily show up on the radar of the media elite, in spite of America's unwelcome crash course in radical Islam in the aftermath of 9-11.

Thus, the Los Angeles Times offered up no less than six possible motives for
Muhammad's killing spree, reports Daniel Pipes, an expert on militant Islam. They
included "his 'stormy relationship' with his family, his 'stark realization' of loss and
regret, his perceived sense of abuse as an American Muslim post-9/11, his desire to
'exert control' over others, his relationship with Malvo, and his trying to make a quick buck," said Pipes – "but did not mention jihad."

Is this see-no-jihad, hear-no-jihad, speak-no-jihad mindset unique to the sniper case? Far from it. On July 4, a cab driver named Hesham Hadayet walked into the Los Angeles International Airport and shot two people to death before being shot and killed by a security guard. Despite the fact that Hadayet was Egyptian and that he had chosen the Israeli El Al ticket counter as the site for venting his rage, any suggestion that Hadayet was carrying out his own personal jihad was immediately dismissed.

"Investigators … believe that Hadayet was simply an overstressed man who snapped," reported the Los Angeles Times. "He was known as a quiet, observant Muslim," added the Times, which explained away the killer's virulent anti-Semitism by saying: "While Hadayet occasionally mentioned a hatred for Israel, [one former employee] saw it more as a cultural perspective on Mideast politics than an emotion that would fuel violence."

One of the worst air disasters in recent history, Egypt Air Flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from New York in October 1999, killing 217.

Two-and-a-half years later, the National Transportation Safety Board finally reached the same conclusion last March that virtually everyone else had immediately after the crash – that the plane's Egyptian copilot, Gameel El-Batouty, had cut power to the engines and intentionally sent the plane plummeting into the ocean, killing all aboard.

But the government panel declined to suggest a motive, except to speculate that
El-Batouty might have "committed suicide."

From the Washington, D.C., sniper shootings (in which police wrongly profiled white males despite eyewitnesses who said they saw dark skin), to the anthrax murders, to the Oklahoma City bombing, to the downing of TWA Flight 800 (in which multiple eyewitnesses who claim they saw a missile hit the plane contradict the government's official conclusion of mechanical failure) – it is as if 9-11 never happened.

There is a strange aversion in both the administration and most of the press to investigate seriously the "jihad factor" in attack after attack that Americans are enduring.

Yet, the truth is that virtually all terrorist acts against the U.S. or its interests in recent years have been perpetrated by militant Islamists. Indeed, a glance at the headlines shows we are in the midst of what can only be described as a global Islamic jihad against America and Israel.

Thus, the official face of U.S. policy – that Islam is a religion of peace, that most Islamic nations are America's allies in the war on terror, and that terrorist groups like al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah aren't truly Muslim at all and, in any event, are supported by only a tiny fraction of the Muslim world – is increasingly at odds with reality.

Even after the resurgence of al-Qaida and the official confirmation that bin Laden is still leading the far-flung terror empire, as well as the recent mass atrocities in Bali, Moscow and elsewhere – all with direct ties to al-Qaida – the U.S. seems incapable of accurately defining its enemy.

John Muhammad's militant Islamic belief system has barely figured into the analysis of his motivations. Yet, beyond the question of whether he was part of a known terrorist organization is the equally important, and ultimately more frightening, possibility that he acted as an unofficial "freelance" member of the global jihad forces.

After all, bin Laden – whom Muhammad reportedly admires – has repeatedly and
publicly called for the wanton murder of Americans and Jews by all Muslims
everywhere, acting on their own.

In the world of Islamist terrorism, tiny, independent sleeper cells and "freelancers" are every bit as much a part of the global jihad force as are "card-carrying" members of al-Qaida and other known groups. It is in the nature of such groups to be highly decentralized and autonomous, held together despite long distances and minimal (or no) contact with leaders by their fervent religious convictions and intense hatred of a common enemy.

In the same way, the global Islamist jihad has its "organized militia" – members of terror groups like al-Qaida – and its "unorganized militia" – angry Islamists who hate America and Israel.

Even the distinction between a member of a terrorist group and a freelancer is illusory. Rather than a hard line, there's a continuum of participation representing every type and level of involvement, all bound together by a common hatred (of America and Israel) and a common justification (Allah and the Quran).

One such "freelancer" was American Jose Padilla (also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir), who, after training in Pakistan after 9-11, was arrested for allegedly plotting a dirty-bomb attack on U.S. soil. Another, Algerian Ahmed Ressam, was arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border and convicted of attempting to blow up the Los Angeles airport during millennium celebrations. Then there was Richard Reid, the British "shoe bomber" currently in U.S. prison for allegedly attempting to ignite a bomb hidden in his shoe aboard an American Airlines flight.

Yet, despite clear indications of a more decentralized and multi-faceted battle plan, heavily reliant on freelancers and loners inspired by their hatred of America and spurred on by the incendiary rhetoric of maniacal Islamic clerics calling for jihad – official Washington and, apparently, the mainstream press still don't get it.

And because they don't understand the new paradigm of war, they flail away at shadows, missing the enemy in our midst, while robbing precious freedoms from law-abiding citizens with new police powers and ever-more-intrusive surveillance capabilities.

The plain truth is that while sleeper cells, their supporters and fund-raisers are living undercover in America, many of the biggest and most "mainstream" Islamic groups in the U.S.A. have proven ties to terrorist groups like Hamas, and – most vexing of all perhaps – a lot of fund-raising, sustenance and networking for Islamist terrorism has taken place, knowingly or unknowingly, in American mosques, Islamic centers and charities.

But how are law enforcement authorities to deal with such a threat? America's very
identity as a bastion of liberty is based on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of
religion, speech and assembly. We don't imprison people for saying bad things, or even for assembling together to say bad things. Do we clamp shut all immigration of males from Muslim countries? Secretary of State Colin Powell certainly doesn't think so. Despite the fact that the government has reportedly allowed some 50,000 men from Muslim countries into the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, Powell is on a campaign to open the doors wider still. Extremism and violence, not radical Islam, are America's greatest enemies, said Powell, strongly criticizing major evangelical Christian leaders (including Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, although he didn't name them) for their recent criticisms of Islam.

An analysis by Mideast expert Daniel Pipes concludes that by not directly and publicly acknowledging militant Islam as the enemy, America is endangering its war on terror in the all-important areas of: Understanding the enemy's motives: A virtual taboo exists in official circles about Islam's role in the violence.

Defining war goals: The U.S. government's stated objectives in the war are operationally vague. Only by naming militant Islam as the enemy is it possible to see the goal of defeating and marginalizing this ideology.

Defining the enemy: Right now, it's just "terrorists," "evildoers," "a dangerous group of people" and other non-specific monikers. Naming militant Islam as the enemy reveals that the problem goes beyond terrorists to include those who in non-violent ways forward the totalitarian agenda – this includes its funders, preachers, apologists and lobbyists.

Defining the allies: Naming militant Islam clarifies the ideological dimension and points to the crucial role of Muslims who reject this radical utopian ideology. They can both help argue against it and then offer an alternate to it.

While the government and "mainstream" media avoid mentioning the Islamist elephant in the national living room, the nation is ripe for further recruitment.

How do we dare deal with the fact that some Islamic mosques in America – although thousands of decent, law-abiding Muslims worship there – have also been and no doubt still are being used as cover for terrorists?

And most importantly, how do we deal with this vexing and deadly problem while still respecting law-abiding Muslims' rights to fundamental freedoms, including freedom of worship, in America?

The solution will be difficult, but not impossible. And it must start – as solving all seemingly intractable problems must start – with telling the truth.

BIBLE REVELATIONS Commentary - It is Time that Peace loving Muslims stand up for Peace and turn their backs on that Islamic Faith which spews out hatred and death to those who wont join the blood thirsty plot presented under the banner of 'Islam'. It is time that Muslims realise that the Call of Bible Prophets to "Come out of Babylon" apply equally to Islam as it does to Christianity or any other Faith which does not conform to the requirements of Torah.

WorldNetDaily.com - Joseph Farah, is an Arab-American journalist, Editor and Chief Executive Officer of World Net Daily

President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have both recently sharply criticized those warning of the grave threat posed by Islamism. They characterized such warnings as "hate" speech.

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