PALESTINIANS MUST RECOGNIZE ISRAEL, ITALIAN PRESIDENT SAYS
(ANSAmed Italian Press Agency) - JERUSALEM, NOVEMBER 27 -
"We must never let matters slide as considers the delegitimization of Israel," said Giorgio Napolitano [President of Italy] at the [Hebrew] University in Jerusalem, expressing his "concern" over the "harsh conditions in which people live in Gaza", but adding that this "can never obscure," for any Palestinian or Arab, "the issue of the full and unequivocal, consistent recognition of the state of Israel, its legitimacy, its right to exist and its security."
This part of his speech met with thundering applause in the auditorium. Immediately afterwards Napolitano left for Bethlehem where, this morning, he will be meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). On the subject of the delegitimization of Israel, Napolitano spoke once again of the condemnation of the negationist and threatening statements made by Iranian president Ahmadinejad (whose name he did not mention, but only referred to him as 'a head of state or government'). To these threats, said the Italian president, "we oppose the tormented history to which we have borne witness or have been active participants in, the ever-present duty of memory especially as concerns the tragedy of the Holocaust."
The duty of memory, said Napolitano, compels Italians to also remember the Italian Jews who are part of Italian history, since they were "among the leaders of the Risorgimento" and "suffered the vile persecutions in our country of the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation," as also Antonio Gramsci and Enzo Sereni and many other Italians who to the Jews "chose to give solidarity and assistance in the most dangerous moment."
Friday, November 28, 2008
A Memorial Service is being planned in Des Moines. Most likely for Tuesday evening. Details to follow.
Mumbai Terror: In cold blood
Nov. 27, 2008, THE JERUSALEM POST
The dreadful images coming out of Mumbai since late Wednesday night have stunned Israelis - and not just because the city's Chabad House was targeted along with a hospital, open market, the main train station, a popular restaurant and two posh landmark hotels. At least 125 people are known killed and some 327 wounded.
The bloodbath reminds us that, though Muslim extremism is often traceable to some local grievance, it's in essence part of a larger conflict between civilizations. Islamists are violently affronted when Hindus, Jews, Buddhist or Christians are sovereign over a Muslim minority.
AS WE try to make sense of the mayhem unleashed on Mumbai, a city of some 13 million souls, our thoughts naturally are with the family of Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. We are anxious, too, for the dozen or so other Israeli hostages. And we express our condolences to the people of Mumbai who have lost loved ones in this reprehensible assault.
Mumbai has been attacked six times since 1993, most recently in 2006 when 200 people were killed in a train-bombing. The nature of the latest attacks, however, with multiple terror teams hitting some 10 targets with explosives, automatic rifle-fire and grenades - in an operation that carried on from one day into the next - suggests a far higher level of coordination and training than anything seen before. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attacks were launched from outside India "with the single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country." Plainly, the terrorists are connected to elements in the failed state of Pakistan. At least some of them may have arrived by sea, landing across from the Taj Mahal hotel.
They hunted-down guests with US, British and Israeli passports to take as hostages. At the Chabad House, Indian neighbors nobly tried to fend off the attackers until they themselves were driven back by terrorists' bullets.
Israelis feel at one with the people of India, especially at times like these. Both countries are modern incarnations of ancient civilizations. We share common political values, overlapping security concerns and a growing commerce.
India was established in 1947; Israel in 1948. Both peoples rejected British rule, both faced Muslim opposition to their independence. The subcontinent was divided into the secular state of India and the Muslim state of Pakistan. In the Mideast, the Palestinian Arabs rejected the idea of two states for two peoples. Substantially, they still do.
Though much still needs to be done to draw India and Israel closer, enormous steps have been taken since New Delhi first recognized Israel in 1950 and finally established an embassy in 1992. Israel has actually maintained a consular presence in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, since 1952.
India is a genuine multicultural democracy. Among its 1.1 billion people are 150 million Muslims. Its former president, and father of New Delhi's nuclear program, is a Muslim.
NO ONE yet knows who carried out these attacks and speculation is rampant. Pakistan has in the past encouraged terrorism in Kashmir. Its doubtful India's unstable neighbor is explicitly responsible for the aggression (the government there denounced it), but Pakistan has multiple power centers and its intelligence service has previously been linked to the Taliban. Both they and al-Qaida have an interest in diverting attention away from the Pakistan-Afghan border. And coincidentally, Pakistani troops reportedly opened fire on Indian positions along their joint border on Thursday. Still, al-Qaida specializes in mega-attacks using suicide bombers, which was not the case here. Even if it turns out that this outrage was the handiwork of Lashkar-e-Toiba - or one of its front-groups - which wants to turn India into a Muslim state, that still doesn't unveil the real masterminds.
Whoever did this wanted to create panic, scare off foreigners, undermine India's economy and turn the country's people against one another.
ISRAELIS have long argued that no political grievance, no perceived injustice and no religious creed can ever justify waging war against civilians. Others have sometimes made excuses for "resistance" movements.
If any consolation can be derived out of the heartbreak in Mumbai, perhaps it will be that India will work ever more vigorously in international forums to isolate terrorists and the state's that sponsor them.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702350509&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Mumbai Terror: In cold blood
Nov. 27, 2008, THE JERUSALEM POST
The dreadful images coming out of Mumbai since late Wednesday night have stunned Israelis - and not just because the city's Chabad House was targeted along with a hospital, open market, the main train station, a popular restaurant and two posh landmark hotels. At least 125 people are known killed and some 327 wounded.
The bloodbath reminds us that, though Muslim extremism is often traceable to some local grievance, it's in essence part of a larger conflict between civilizations. Islamists are violently affronted when Hindus, Jews, Buddhist or Christians are sovereign over a Muslim minority.
AS WE try to make sense of the mayhem unleashed on Mumbai, a city of some 13 million souls, our thoughts naturally are with the family of Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. We are anxious, too, for the dozen or so other Israeli hostages. And we express our condolences to the people of Mumbai who have lost loved ones in this reprehensible assault.
Mumbai has been attacked six times since 1993, most recently in 2006 when 200 people were killed in a train-bombing. The nature of the latest attacks, however, with multiple terror teams hitting some 10 targets with explosives, automatic rifle-fire and grenades - in an operation that carried on from one day into the next - suggests a far higher level of coordination and training than anything seen before. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attacks were launched from outside India "with the single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country." Plainly, the terrorists are connected to elements in the failed state of Pakistan. At least some of them may have arrived by sea, landing across from the Taj Mahal hotel.
They hunted-down guests with US, British and Israeli passports to take as hostages. At the Chabad House, Indian neighbors nobly tried to fend off the attackers until they themselves were driven back by terrorists' bullets.
Israelis feel at one with the people of India, especially at times like these. Both countries are modern incarnations of ancient civilizations. We share common political values, overlapping security concerns and a growing commerce.
India was established in 1947; Israel in 1948. Both peoples rejected British rule, both faced Muslim opposition to their independence. The subcontinent was divided into the secular state of India and the Muslim state of Pakistan. In the Mideast, the Palestinian Arabs rejected the idea of two states for two peoples. Substantially, they still do.
Though much still needs to be done to draw India and Israel closer, enormous steps have been taken since New Delhi first recognized Israel in 1950 and finally established an embassy in 1992. Israel has actually maintained a consular presence in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, since 1952.
India is a genuine multicultural democracy. Among its 1.1 billion people are 150 million Muslims. Its former president, and father of New Delhi's nuclear program, is a Muslim.
NO ONE yet knows who carried out these attacks and speculation is rampant. Pakistan has in the past encouraged terrorism in Kashmir. Its doubtful India's unstable neighbor is explicitly responsible for the aggression (the government there denounced it), but Pakistan has multiple power centers and its intelligence service has previously been linked to the Taliban. Both they and al-Qaida have an interest in diverting attention away from the Pakistan-Afghan border. And coincidentally, Pakistani troops reportedly opened fire on Indian positions along their joint border on Thursday. Still, al-Qaida specializes in mega-attacks using suicide bombers, which was not the case here. Even if it turns out that this outrage was the handiwork of Lashkar-e-Toiba - or one of its front-groups - which wants to turn India into a Muslim state, that still doesn't unveil the real masterminds.
Whoever did this wanted to create panic, scare off foreigners, undermine India's economy and turn the country's people against one another.
ISRAELIS have long argued that no political grievance, no perceived injustice and no religious creed can ever justify waging war against civilians. Others have sometimes made excuses for "resistance" movements.
If any consolation can be derived out of the heartbreak in Mumbai, perhaps it will be that India will work ever more vigorously in international forums to isolate terrorists and the state's that sponsor them.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702350509&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The late Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. After hours of uncertainty, the Chabad shaliach and his wife are now reported to have been among those murdered in Mumbai by Islamist terrorists
News as of 8:30 am.
Five of the Jewish hostages had been murdered at Nariman House (Chabad Jewish Center) by their captors, including Chabad-Lubavitch emissary, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka. CNN-India reports continuing military action at Nariman House.
Zichronam l'Vracha.
Live coverage on IBNLive.com (CNN-India)
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Uncertainly about situation at Mumbai's Chabad House
Throughout the day we have been following news reports about the Islamist terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India's financial center. Our hearts go out to all who have lost loved ones or whose family members or friends have been injured.
Jewish community members may well be particularly concerned as to the whereabouts and well-being of Americans, Israelis and other Jews in Mumbai that have been specifically, it seems, targeted by the terrorists.
Our attention at present is focused on what is being referred to in the media as Nariman House, the residence of Chabad in Mumbai. Earlier reports indicated that the hostages held by terrorists in Nariman House had been freed. But more recent reports are not so clear. We are awaiting clarification of the situation. //Mark
Here is some background information.
(IsraelNN.com) ...The Chabad House was one of 10 sites that were struck by some 25 terrorists who apparently infiltrated into Mumbia by sea and then fanned out through the city. ...
In a statement released by Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky of Chabad World Headquarters in New York reads:
Once again, terrorism has reared its evil head, this time in Mumbai (Bombay) India. Our Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Community Center, located in Nariman House in the Colaba district, is still occupied by the terrorists.
As of Thursday (Nov. 27) evening, we have not yet heard from our representatives in Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, who head the center. The Holtzbergs’ 18-month old son, Moshe, was rescued early Thursday morning and is in the custody of trusted friends.
Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, through its global contacts, continues to vigilantly monitor this tragic situation as it develops.
We pray for the speedy, safe release of all the hostages and those yet missing, and for the healing and complete recovery of all those wounded. We express heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of each of those who have been brutally murdered in this senseless barbaric attack.
The Chabad couple's two-year-old son Moshe was taken out of the building by his babysitter shortly after the siege began Wednesday night.
There is also grave concern over the fate of at least two other Jews as well, both of whom had flown to India on business to serve as Kosher food supervisors in Indian plants that provide ingredients to kosher food companies in the U.S.
Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum of Jerusalem, the son of the Volover Rebbe of Boro Park and son-in-law of the head of the Toldos Avraham Yitzhak Chassidic sect, was in Mumbai and hasn't been heard from, as is the case with his co-worker Ben Tzion Korman of Bat Yam.
The public is being asked to pray for Gavriel Noach ben Freida Bluma and Rivka bas Yehudis, Aryeh Leibish ben Elta Nechama Maltshi and Ben Tzion ben Elka, as well as "anyone else affected by the tragedy." [Adpated from Israel National News report.]
The situation is being blogged as it happens by http://www.theyeshivaworld.com and covered by the Israel news sources such as http://www.ynetnews.com
Here is the present information from CNN as of 8:30 pm on Thursday.
Fighting erupts at Mumbai Jewish center
A gun battle broke out early Friday between government soldiers in a helicopter and terrorists holed up in a Mumbai Jewish center. Forces are also trying to find gunmen thought to be in two luxury hotels, more than a day after 125 people were reported killed in several coordinated attacks.
Throughout the day we have been following news reports about the Islamist terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India's financial center. Our hearts go out to all who have lost loved ones or whose family members or friends have been injured.
Jewish community members may well be particularly concerned as to the whereabouts and well-being of Americans, Israelis and other Jews in Mumbai that have been specifically, it seems, targeted by the terrorists.
Our attention at present is focused on what is being referred to in the media as Nariman House, the residence of Chabad in Mumbai. Earlier reports indicated that the hostages held by terrorists in Nariman House had been freed. But more recent reports are not so clear. We are awaiting clarification of the situation. //Mark
Here is some background information.
(IsraelNN.com) ...The Chabad House was one of 10 sites that were struck by some 25 terrorists who apparently infiltrated into Mumbia by sea and then fanned out through the city. ...
In a statement released by Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky of Chabad World Headquarters in New York reads:
Once again, terrorism has reared its evil head, this time in Mumbai (Bombay) India. Our Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Community Center, located in Nariman House in the Colaba district, is still occupied by the terrorists.
As of Thursday (Nov. 27) evening, we have not yet heard from our representatives in Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, who head the center. The Holtzbergs’ 18-month old son, Moshe, was rescued early Thursday morning and is in the custody of trusted friends.
Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters, through its global contacts, continues to vigilantly monitor this tragic situation as it develops.
We pray for the speedy, safe release of all the hostages and those yet missing, and for the healing and complete recovery of all those wounded. We express heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of each of those who have been brutally murdered in this senseless barbaric attack.
The Chabad couple's two-year-old son Moshe was taken out of the building by his babysitter shortly after the siege began Wednesday night.
There is also grave concern over the fate of at least two other Jews as well, both of whom had flown to India on business to serve as Kosher food supervisors in Indian plants that provide ingredients to kosher food companies in the U.S.
Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum of Jerusalem, the son of the Volover Rebbe of Boro Park and son-in-law of the head of the Toldos Avraham Yitzhak Chassidic sect, was in Mumbai and hasn't been heard from, as is the case with his co-worker Ben Tzion Korman of Bat Yam.
The public is being asked to pray for Gavriel Noach ben Freida Bluma and Rivka bas Yehudis, Aryeh Leibish ben Elta Nechama Maltshi and Ben Tzion ben Elka, as well as "anyone else affected by the tragedy." [Adpated from Israel National News report.]
The situation is being blogged as it happens by http://www.theyeshivaworld.com and covered by the Israel news sources such as http://www.ynetnews.com
Here is the present information from CNN as of 8:30 pm on Thursday.
Fighting erupts at Mumbai Jewish center
A gun battle broke out early Friday between government soldiers in a helicopter and terrorists holed up in a Mumbai Jewish center. Forces are also trying to find gunmen thought to be in two luxury hotels, more than a day after 125 people were reported killed in several coordinated attacks.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
"Critics seem to dismiss the basic cause-and-effect connection between Hamas-led violence and the plight of the Palestinians."
The Gaza Blockade A Fact Sheet
(November 24, 2008)
The State of Israel set up a blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2006 after the terrorist organization, Hamas, obtained control of the area. In recent months, in response to barrages of rocketfire from Gaza into Israel, sanctions and security around the area have been increased.
Although Israel has tolerated many months of rocket attacks on their cities, international outcry from the United Nations as well as worldwide media has focused almost entirely on the Palestinian plight in Gaza, which they assume to be a result of the blockade.
Despite the terror onslaught, Israel sends thousands of liters of fuel into Gaza every day, and electricity from Israeli power sources is not being witheld. Interestingly, Palestinian Authority sources maintain that there is not a shortage of fuel in Gaza. They accuse Hamas of stealing thousands of liters of fuel from local Gazan companies and then telling the media that there is no fuel left. Fatah members also claim that Hamas is lying about the fuel shortage "crisis" for propagandistic reasons. On November 24, 2008, Israel opened the crossings to the Gaza Strip and allowed through humanitarian supplies, including medicine, food and fuel.
Additionally, the Ministry maintains that commercial crossings between Gaza and Israel have been kept open - especially since the June 19, 2008, "state of calm" which allowed for a 50% increase of material goods into Gaza. The materials that are allowed into the terrority include medicine and medical supplies, food, some fuel and building materials. Gazans in need of medical assistance in Israel have continued to be allowed in. Even after the "state of calm" was broken by Hamas, those Gazans seeking medical treatment in Israel were still allowed to do so although they were chaperoned during the process. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs posesses daily delivery statements from Israel into Gaza since the June 19 agreement. These published statistics prove that the media and the High Commissioner for Human Rights are incorrect in reporting that the Israeli government has been preventing humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Indeed, Hamas is not only witholding supplies from the Palestinians in Gaza but the organization is also spending all of its resources on weapons of terror instead of material goods that a government is expected to provide for its citizens.
The relative peace in Israel for the last several months was broken in early November 2008 when Hamas again began to fire rockets into Israel in response to Israel's raid of an illegal militant tunnel from Gaza. Israel has maintained a "calm" front and has not retaliated to these rocket attacks with military measures. Instead, Israel increased security around the Gaza border on Tuesday which prompted criticism from the United Nations.
Later on November 18, 2008, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called for a stop to the Israel-enforced blockade of Gaza. Pillay declared that the situation in Gaza was one that impeded upon the humanitarian rights of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. The suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, she claimed, was the fault of the Israeli government. Only in Pillay's last sentence did she mention Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel - the sole reason for the imposed blockade.
The Israeli representative to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno-Yaar and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took strong offense at the High Commissioner's statement and her inaccurate assumptions. Pillay's blatant oversight of Palestinian violence towards Israel was especially outrageous because over 170 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel in the past ten days alone.
UN critics question why Israel did not open the Gaza blockade during the nearly six-month ceasefire and allow for supplies to be delivered to the Palestinians. The UN's assumption that Israel has not permitted the entrance of material goods into Gaza, however, is simply incorrect and has been formed out of Hamas-led media ploys.
Media critics and the United Nations have consistently ignored the terrorist attacks on Israel in favor of a focus on Palestinian suffering. As always, they seem to dismiss the basic cause-and-effect connection between Hamas-led violence and the plight of the Palestinians. Were Hamas and, for that matter, the PA willing to maintain a legitimate ceasefire, Israel would feel secure enough to dissolve the blockade of Gaza.
Sources:
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post
Yedioth Acharonot
The Gaza Blockade A Fact Sheet
(November 24, 2008)
The State of Israel set up a blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2006 after the terrorist organization, Hamas, obtained control of the area. In recent months, in response to barrages of rocketfire from Gaza into Israel, sanctions and security around the area have been increased.
Although Israel has tolerated many months of rocket attacks on their cities, international outcry from the United Nations as well as worldwide media has focused almost entirely on the Palestinian plight in Gaza, which they assume to be a result of the blockade.
Despite the terror onslaught, Israel sends thousands of liters of fuel into Gaza every day, and electricity from Israeli power sources is not being witheld. Interestingly, Palestinian Authority sources maintain that there is not a shortage of fuel in Gaza. They accuse Hamas of stealing thousands of liters of fuel from local Gazan companies and then telling the media that there is no fuel left. Fatah members also claim that Hamas is lying about the fuel shortage "crisis" for propagandistic reasons. On November 24, 2008, Israel opened the crossings to the Gaza Strip and allowed through humanitarian supplies, including medicine, food and fuel.
Additionally, the Ministry maintains that commercial crossings between Gaza and Israel have been kept open - especially since the June 19, 2008, "state of calm" which allowed for a 50% increase of material goods into Gaza. The materials that are allowed into the terrority include medicine and medical supplies, food, some fuel and building materials. Gazans in need of medical assistance in Israel have continued to be allowed in. Even after the "state of calm" was broken by Hamas, those Gazans seeking medical treatment in Israel were still allowed to do so although they were chaperoned during the process. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs posesses daily delivery statements from Israel into Gaza since the June 19 agreement. These published statistics prove that the media and the High Commissioner for Human Rights are incorrect in reporting that the Israeli government has been preventing humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Indeed, Hamas is not only witholding supplies from the Palestinians in Gaza but the organization is also spending all of its resources on weapons of terror instead of material goods that a government is expected to provide for its citizens.
The relative peace in Israel for the last several months was broken in early November 2008 when Hamas again began to fire rockets into Israel in response to Israel's raid of an illegal militant tunnel from Gaza. Israel has maintained a "calm" front and has not retaliated to these rocket attacks with military measures. Instead, Israel increased security around the Gaza border on Tuesday which prompted criticism from the United Nations.
Later on November 18, 2008, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called for a stop to the Israel-enforced blockade of Gaza. Pillay declared that the situation in Gaza was one that impeded upon the humanitarian rights of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. The suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, she claimed, was the fault of the Israeli government. Only in Pillay's last sentence did she mention Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel - the sole reason for the imposed blockade.
The Israeli representative to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno-Yaar and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took strong offense at the High Commissioner's statement and her inaccurate assumptions. Pillay's blatant oversight of Palestinian violence towards Israel was especially outrageous because over 170 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel in the past ten days alone.
UN critics question why Israel did not open the Gaza blockade during the nearly six-month ceasefire and allow for supplies to be delivered to the Palestinians. The UN's assumption that Israel has not permitted the entrance of material goods into Gaza, however, is simply incorrect and has been formed out of Hamas-led media ploys.
Media critics and the United Nations have consistently ignored the terrorist attacks on Israel in favor of a focus on Palestinian suffering. As always, they seem to dismiss the basic cause-and-effect connection between Hamas-led violence and the plight of the Palestinians. Were Hamas and, for that matter, the PA willing to maintain a legitimate ceasefire, Israel would feel secure enough to dissolve the blockade of Gaza.
Sources:
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post
Yedioth Acharonot
JCPA* Condemns U.N.'s Palestinian Solidarity Day
Group Finds Assembly President’s Remarks Troubling
[*The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, online at www.jewishpublicaffairs.org, is the umbrella group of Jewish community relations organizations nationally.]
NEW YORK – The United Nations’ endorsement of a day intended to decry Israel’s existence is a jarring reminder that the international body continues to be a generally hostile environment for Israel that impedes its ability to foster peace and reconciliation among all the states in the Middle East, says a leading Jewish advocacy group.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) condemns the UN’s observance of its annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which was once again marked Monday and today with events intended to mourn Israel’s 60 years of existence. JCPA also deplores UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua for remarks made on Monday comparing Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories to South Africa’s apartheid policies.
JCPA Chair Andrea Weinstein issued the following statement:
“It is terribly sad that the members of the UN General Assembly find it necessary to spend two days participating in programs criticizing a member state’s existence. It is even more abhorrent that the Assembly’s current president would seek to delegitimize Israel by comparing its policies to those of Apartheid South Africa. These programs and baseless rhetoric demonizing Israel do nothing constructive to find a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and instead harm these efforts by creating a toxic atmosphere.”
The UN General Assembly first called for the annual observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in 1977. This year’s events come despite positive developments in recent years such as Israel’s invitation to be part of the UN’s Western European and others regional group in 2000, the UN General Assembly’s adoption of an Israel-sponsored resolution in 2005 and intensified efforts to include Israeli professionals in UN projects.
Group Finds Assembly President’s Remarks Troubling
[*The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, online at www.jewishpublicaffairs.org, is the umbrella group of Jewish community relations organizations nationally.]
NEW YORK – The United Nations’ endorsement of a day intended to decry Israel’s existence is a jarring reminder that the international body continues to be a generally hostile environment for Israel that impedes its ability to foster peace and reconciliation among all the states in the Middle East, says a leading Jewish advocacy group.
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) condemns the UN’s observance of its annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, which was once again marked Monday and today with events intended to mourn Israel’s 60 years of existence. JCPA also deplores UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua for remarks made on Monday comparing Israel’s policies in the Palestinian territories to South Africa’s apartheid policies.
JCPA Chair Andrea Weinstein issued the following statement:
“It is terribly sad that the members of the UN General Assembly find it necessary to spend two days participating in programs criticizing a member state’s existence. It is even more abhorrent that the Assembly’s current president would seek to delegitimize Israel by comparing its policies to those of Apartheid South Africa. These programs and baseless rhetoric demonizing Israel do nothing constructive to find a resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and instead harm these efforts by creating a toxic atmosphere.”
The UN General Assembly first called for the annual observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in 1977. This year’s events come despite positive developments in recent years such as Israel’s invitation to be part of the UN’s Western European and others regional group in 2000, the UN General Assembly’s adoption of an Israel-sponsored resolution in 2005 and intensified efforts to include Israeli professionals in UN projects.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Holy Land Foundation trial ends in convictions
Jury finds American Muslim charity guilty in illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas
Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts
03:44 PM CST on Monday, November 24, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com; By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.
The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.
It was the second trial where the government attempted to convict the men and the now defunct Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation itself. It took the jury eight days of deliberations to reach its decisions — less than half the time it took jurors to deadlock end up with an almost complete mistrial last year on the first go-around.
“My dad is not a criminal!” sobbed one courtroom observer after the verdicts were read. “He’s a human!”
“It’s a sad day,” said Mohammed Wafa Yaish, Holy Land’s former accountant and himself a witness of the trial. “It looks like helping the needy Palestinians is a crime these days.”
Before he read the verdict, the judge had ordered all observers to remain civil and respect the proceedings.
In the trial’s second, overflow courtroom, reaction to the verdicts was subdued. Family and friends left quietly. Several said they didn’t want to talk.
One supporter of the defendants who identified himself as Adel said, “It’s politicized. I don’t think there is justice. I know these guys. I think everything is lies.”
John Wolf, a friend and member of the Hungry for Justice coalition, said he’d know the defendants for 12 years.
By 3 p.m. Monday, jurors had been sent back to the jury room to determine if Holy Land assets should be forfeited to the government because of several convictions on money laundering charges related to the case.
Opening statements at the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse in downtown Dallas began Sept. 22. Over the past two months, prosecutors attempted to prove that five former charity organizers used Holy Land, once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., to funnel an estimated $60 million to the militant group — most of it before 1995.
Hamas was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995, and the trial centered on the $12 million the government said Holy Land and supporters funneled to the group after that date.
Defense attorneys argued that the foundation was a legitimate, non-political charity that helped distressed Palestinians under Israeli occupation. They accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure to prosecute the charity, and of relying on old evidence predating the 1995 designation.
Holy Land was formed in the late 1980s, and was shut down by U.S. government regulators in December 2001. The case was indicted in 2004.
Last year’s trial of the same five defendants ended in a hung jury Oct. 22, 2007. Jurors deliberated for 19 days before they deadlocked.
Even before the verdicts were read, supporters on both side of the aisle were prepared to claim a moral victory.
Critics of the government case argued that even convictions would carry an asterisk noting that it took untold millions of taxpayer dollars, 15 years of investigation and two long, high-profile trials to finally convince a jury of the defendants’ guilt.
“I suspect that they will be viewed much the same way that Mandela was viewed by the black South African population — as freedom fighters who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of Palestine,” William Moffitt, the Virginia defense attorney who represented two former university professors, Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Sami Al-Arian, said before the Holy Land verdicts.
Mr. Ashqar and Mr. Al-Arian were acquitted in trials in Chicago and Florida on similar charges that they steered support to Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for refusing to testify for a grand jury about his Hamas ties. Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is being held on contempt charges for refusing to co-operate in another terrorism support investigation. But both are viewed as folk heroes by some in the Muslim community.
Mr. Moffitt said Holy Land and the other cases are “show trials” where the government attempted to use “events that happened over 10 years ago” as evidence of crimes well before statutes specifically outlawing terrorism support were enacted.
“I think that the purpose of these trials was to further, in the minds of the public, the so-called ‘war on terrorism,’” he said. “There are legitimate terrorist organizations out there. But we’ve tried to make every group that doesn’t agree with us like al-Qaeda.”
Mr. Yaish, the Holy Land accountant, said Monday that he was angry that the prosecution brought up the Taliban and al Qaeda during the trial. He called that a fear tactic.
“What does giving charity to the Palestinians in the refugee camps have to do with this?”
“They scared the jurors,” he said. “Fear is the No. 1 government tactic.”
But the Justice Department is likely to claim victory not only with the verdicts, but by trumpeting the shutdown of what prosecutors say was a robust and unsettling American network of terrorist funding.
Holy Land, regardless of the verdict, is defunct. And other international terrorism financing pipelines have been interrupted.
“The government has achieved an awful lot of success here,” said Dennis Lormel, who created the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and is now a security consultant.
“A lot of people will only look at the win/lose of the jury verdict,” said Mr. Lormel, of IPSA International Inc. “I’m looking at it from the perspective of the flow of funding through charities to terrorists. There’s been an incredible amount written and attention put out on this. That’s a deterrent to those who want to fund terrorism.”
Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts
03:44 PM CST on Monday, November 24, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com; By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.
The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.
It was the second trial where the government attempted to convict the men and the now defunct Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation itself. It took the jury eight days of deliberations to reach its decisions — less than half the time it took jurors to deadlock end up with an almost complete mistrial last year on the first go-around.
“My dad is not a criminal!” sobbed one courtroom observer after the verdicts were read. “He’s a human!”
“It’s a sad day,” said Mohammed Wafa Yaish, Holy Land’s former accountant and himself a witness of the trial. “It looks like helping the needy Palestinians is a crime these days.”
Before he read the verdict, the judge had ordered all observers to remain civil and respect the proceedings.
In the trial’s second, overflow courtroom, reaction to the verdicts was subdued. Family and friends left quietly. Several said they didn’t want to talk.
One supporter of the defendants who identified himself as Adel said, “It’s politicized. I don’t think there is justice. I know these guys. I think everything is lies.”
John Wolf, a friend and member of the Hungry for Justice coalition, said he’d know the defendants for 12 years.
By 3 p.m. Monday, jurors had been sent back to the jury room to determine if Holy Land assets should be forfeited to the government because of several convictions on money laundering charges related to the case.
Opening statements at the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse in downtown Dallas began Sept. 22. Over the past two months, prosecutors attempted to prove that five former charity organizers used Holy Land, once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., to funnel an estimated $60 million to the militant group — most of it before 1995.
Hamas was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995, and the trial centered on the $12 million the government said Holy Land and supporters funneled to the group after that date.
Defense attorneys argued that the foundation was a legitimate, non-political charity that helped distressed Palestinians under Israeli occupation. They accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure to prosecute the charity, and of relying on old evidence predating the 1995 designation.
Holy Land was formed in the late 1980s, and was shut down by U.S. government regulators in December 2001. The case was indicted in 2004.
Last year’s trial of the same five defendants ended in a hung jury Oct. 22, 2007. Jurors deliberated for 19 days before they deadlocked.
Even before the verdicts were read, supporters on both side of the aisle were prepared to claim a moral victory.
Critics of the government case argued that even convictions would carry an asterisk noting that it took untold millions of taxpayer dollars, 15 years of investigation and two long, high-profile trials to finally convince a jury of the defendants’ guilt.
“I suspect that they will be viewed much the same way that Mandela was viewed by the black South African population — as freedom fighters who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of Palestine,” William Moffitt, the Virginia defense attorney who represented two former university professors, Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Sami Al-Arian, said before the Holy Land verdicts.
Mr. Ashqar and Mr. Al-Arian were acquitted in trials in Chicago and Florida on similar charges that they steered support to Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for refusing to testify for a grand jury about his Hamas ties. Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is being held on contempt charges for refusing to co-operate in another terrorism support investigation. But both are viewed as folk heroes by some in the Muslim community.
Mr. Moffitt said Holy Land and the other cases are “show trials” where the government attempted to use “events that happened over 10 years ago” as evidence of crimes well before statutes specifically outlawing terrorism support were enacted.
“I think that the purpose of these trials was to further, in the minds of the public, the so-called ‘war on terrorism,’” he said. “There are legitimate terrorist organizations out there. But we’ve tried to make every group that doesn’t agree with us like al-Qaeda.”
Mr. Yaish, the Holy Land accountant, said Monday that he was angry that the prosecution brought up the Taliban and al Qaeda during the trial. He called that a fear tactic.
“What does giving charity to the Palestinians in the refugee camps have to do with this?”
“They scared the jurors,” he said. “Fear is the No. 1 government tactic.”
But the Justice Department is likely to claim victory not only with the verdicts, but by trumpeting the shutdown of what prosecutors say was a robust and unsettling American network of terrorist funding.
Holy Land, regardless of the verdict, is defunct. And other international terrorism financing pipelines have been interrupted.
“The government has achieved an awful lot of success here,” said Dennis Lormel, who created the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and is now a security consultant.
“A lot of people will only look at the win/lose of the jury verdict,” said Mr. Lormel, of IPSA International Inc. “I’m looking at it from the perspective of the flow of funding through charities to terrorists. There’s been an incredible amount written and attention put out on this. That’s a deterrent to those who want to fund terrorism.”
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sunday Nov 23, 2008
Rosner's Domain: A Great Opportunity?
Posted by SHMUEL ROSNER, on Jpost.com
Of the many nonsensical assertions included in the Brent Scowcroft-Zbigniew Brzezinski article from Friday morning's Washington Post, the most astonishing comes in the last paragraph. The rest of it is really nothing new: Israeli-Palestinian peace is important, it can make Arab governments more cooperative, we already know the parameters in which to solve it, etc. (Scowcroft and Brzezinski include the laughable idea that an international peacekeeping force should be the one responsible for preventing terror attacks from Palestinian territory. These guys, apparently, have never heard of Hezbollah and Lebanon.) But let me jump ahead to the amazing last sentence:
[I]n many ways the current situation is such that the opportunity for success has never been greater, or the costs of failure more severe.
Oh, really? How so?
The authors do not provide any proof from which to conclude that now, more than ever (to coin a phrase), success stands so close that the American government can simply reach out and grab it. How soon they forget! Bill Clinton went to Camp David thinking exactly the same. Condi Rice, similarly misguided, dragged dozens of leaders to Annapolis.
"Never been greater"? Why? Because Hamas controls Gaza and Abbas's Palestinian Authority can barely claim to represent a fraction of the Palestinian people? Or maybe because Iran is on the rise and is funding Palestinian terrorists? Or is it because Hezbollah has proved, in the past two years, that international monitoring is a bad joke? Or because both Israel and the Palestinians are undergoing severe leadership crises?
But they are not just saying that the opportunity is there for Obama to grab. They also threaten him with severe "costs of failure." And that's also interesting. As I suggested back in August, "[w]hen it comes to last chances in the Middle East, there is always good news and bad news. The good: the last chance for peace is rarely the real last chance. The bad: the last failure is also rarely the last."
But Scowcroft and Brzezinski make an ever graver mistake. By claiming that the consequences of failure will be more severe than ever, they pull the rug out from under their claim that opportunity "has never been greater." Opportunity can't be "great" when we already know that past attempts have failed, that circumstances are tricky (as the authors themselves note), and that possible failure will have "severe" costs. (Ask your banker and he'll tell you exactly the same.) What Scowcroft and Brzezinski describe is a risky investment, not a great opportunity.
Rosner's Domain: A Great Opportunity?
Posted by SHMUEL ROSNER, on Jpost.com
Of the many nonsensical assertions included in the Brent Scowcroft-Zbigniew Brzezinski article from Friday morning's Washington Post, the most astonishing comes in the last paragraph. The rest of it is really nothing new: Israeli-Palestinian peace is important, it can make Arab governments more cooperative, we already know the parameters in which to solve it, etc. (Scowcroft and Brzezinski include the laughable idea that an international peacekeeping force should be the one responsible for preventing terror attacks from Palestinian territory. These guys, apparently, have never heard of Hezbollah and Lebanon.) But let me jump ahead to the amazing last sentence:
[I]n many ways the current situation is such that the opportunity for success has never been greater, or the costs of failure more severe.
Oh, really? How so?
The authors do not provide any proof from which to conclude that now, more than ever (to coin a phrase), success stands so close that the American government can simply reach out and grab it. How soon they forget! Bill Clinton went to Camp David thinking exactly the same. Condi Rice, similarly misguided, dragged dozens of leaders to Annapolis.
"Never been greater"? Why? Because Hamas controls Gaza and Abbas's Palestinian Authority can barely claim to represent a fraction of the Palestinian people? Or maybe because Iran is on the rise and is funding Palestinian terrorists? Or is it because Hezbollah has proved, in the past two years, that international monitoring is a bad joke? Or because both Israel and the Palestinians are undergoing severe leadership crises?
But they are not just saying that the opportunity is there for Obama to grab. They also threaten him with severe "costs of failure." And that's also interesting. As I suggested back in August, "[w]hen it comes to last chances in the Middle East, there is always good news and bad news. The good: the last chance for peace is rarely the real last chance. The bad: the last failure is also rarely the last."
But Scowcroft and Brzezinski make an ever graver mistake. By claiming that the consequences of failure will be more severe than ever, they pull the rug out from under their claim that opportunity "has never been greater." Opportunity can't be "great" when we already know that past attempts have failed, that circumstances are tricky (as the authors themselves note), and that possible failure will have "severe" costs. (Ask your banker and he'll tell you exactly the same.) What Scowcroft and Brzezinski describe is a risky investment, not a great opportunity.
Friday, November 21, 2008
November 20, 2008
Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER New York Times
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.
Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.
“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”
Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many Western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.
While some Iranian officials have threatened to bar inspectors in the past, the country has made no such moves, and many experts inside the Bush administration and the I.A.E.A. believe it will avoid the risk of attempting “nuclear breakout” until it possessed a larger uranium supply.
Even so, for President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment, but that can also now credibly claim to possess enough material to make a weapon if negotiations with Europe and the United States break down.
American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015. A national intelligence estimate made public late last year concluded that around the end of 2003, after long effort, Iran had halted work on an actual weapon. But enriching uranium, and obtaining enough material to build a weapon, is considered the most difficult part of the process.
Siegfried S. Hecker of Stanford University and a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory said the growing size of the Iranian stockpile “underscored that they are marching down the path to developing the nuclear weapons option.”
In the report to its board, the atomic agency said Iran’s main enrichment plant was now feeding uranium into about 3,800 centrifuges — machines that spin incredibly fast to enrich the element into nuclear fuel. That count is the same as in the agency’s last quarterly report, in September. Iran began installing the centrifuges in early 2007. But the new report’s total of 630 kilograms — an increase of about 150 — shows that Iran has been making progress in accumulating material to make nuclear fuel.
That uranium has been enriched to the low levels needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. To further purify it to the highly enriched state needed to fuel a nuclear warhead, Iran would have to reconfigure its centrifuges and do a couple months of additional processing, nuclear experts said.
“They have a weapon’s worth,” Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, said in an interview.
He said the amount was suitable for a relatively advanced implosion-type weapon like the one dropped on Nagasaki. Its core, he added, would be about the size of a grapefruit. He said a cruder design would require about twice as much weapon-grade fuel.
“It’s a virtual milestone,” Dr. Cochran said of Iran’s stockpile. It is not an imminent threat, he added, because the further technical work to make fuel for a bomb would tip off inspectors, the United States and other powers about “where they’re going.”
The agency’s report made no mention of the possible military implications of the size of Iran’s stockpile. And some experts said the milestone was still months away. In an analysis of the I.A.E.A. report, the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington, estimated that Iran had not yet reached the mark but would “within a few months.” It added that other analysts estimated it might take as much as a year.
Whatever the exact date, it added, “Iran is progressing” toward the ability to quickly make enough weapon-grade uranium for a warhead.
Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms scientist, cautioned that the Iranian stockpile fell slightly short of what international officials conservatively estimate as the minimum threatening amount of nuclear fuel. “They’re very close,” he said of the Iranians in an interview. “If it isn’t tomorrow, it’s soon,” probably a matter of months.
In its report, the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna, said Iran was working hard to roughly double its number of operating centrifuges.
A senior European diplomat close to the agency said Iran might have 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by the end of the year. The report also said Iran had said it intended to start installing another group of 3,000 centrifuges early next year.
The atomic energy agency said Iran was continuing to evade questions about its suspected work on nuclear warheads. In a separate report released Wednesday, the agency said, as expected, that it had found ambiguous traces of uranium at a suspected Syrian reactor site bombed by Israel last year.
“While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use,” the report said, the building’s features “along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water, are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site.” Syria has said the uranium came from Israeli bombs.
Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER New York Times
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.
Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.
“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”
Iran insists that it wants only to fuel reactors for nuclear power. But many Western nations, led by the United States, suspect that its real goal is to gain the ability to make nuclear weapons.
While some Iranian officials have threatened to bar inspectors in the past, the country has made no such moves, and many experts inside the Bush administration and the I.A.E.A. believe it will avoid the risk of attempting “nuclear breakout” until it possessed a larger uranium supply.
Even so, for President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment, but that can also now credibly claim to possess enough material to make a weapon if negotiations with Europe and the United States break down.
American intelligence agencies have said Iran could make a bomb between 2009 and 2015. A national intelligence estimate made public late last year concluded that around the end of 2003, after long effort, Iran had halted work on an actual weapon. But enriching uranium, and obtaining enough material to build a weapon, is considered the most difficult part of the process.
Siegfried S. Hecker of Stanford University and a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory said the growing size of the Iranian stockpile “underscored that they are marching down the path to developing the nuclear weapons option.”
In the report to its board, the atomic agency said Iran’s main enrichment plant was now feeding uranium into about 3,800 centrifuges — machines that spin incredibly fast to enrich the element into nuclear fuel. That count is the same as in the agency’s last quarterly report, in September. Iran began installing the centrifuges in early 2007. But the new report’s total of 630 kilograms — an increase of about 150 — shows that Iran has been making progress in accumulating material to make nuclear fuel.
That uranium has been enriched to the low levels needed to fuel a nuclear reactor. To further purify it to the highly enriched state needed to fuel a nuclear warhead, Iran would have to reconfigure its centrifuges and do a couple months of additional processing, nuclear experts said.
“They have a weapon’s worth,” Thomas B. Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, said in an interview.
He said the amount was suitable for a relatively advanced implosion-type weapon like the one dropped on Nagasaki. Its core, he added, would be about the size of a grapefruit. He said a cruder design would require about twice as much weapon-grade fuel.
“It’s a virtual milestone,” Dr. Cochran said of Iran’s stockpile. It is not an imminent threat, he added, because the further technical work to make fuel for a bomb would tip off inspectors, the United States and other powers about “where they’re going.”
The agency’s report made no mention of the possible military implications of the size of Iran’s stockpile. And some experts said the milestone was still months away. In an analysis of the I.A.E.A. report, the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington, estimated that Iran had not yet reached the mark but would “within a few months.” It added that other analysts estimated it might take as much as a year.
Whatever the exact date, it added, “Iran is progressing” toward the ability to quickly make enough weapon-grade uranium for a warhead.
Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms scientist, cautioned that the Iranian stockpile fell slightly short of what international officials conservatively estimate as the minimum threatening amount of nuclear fuel. “They’re very close,” he said of the Iranians in an interview. “If it isn’t tomorrow, it’s soon,” probably a matter of months.
In its report, the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna, said Iran was working hard to roughly double its number of operating centrifuges.
A senior European diplomat close to the agency said Iran might have 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by the end of the year. The report also said Iran had said it intended to start installing another group of 3,000 centrifuges early next year.
The atomic energy agency said Iran was continuing to evade questions about its suspected work on nuclear warheads. In a separate report released Wednesday, the agency said, as expected, that it had found ambiguous traces of uranium at a suspected Syrian reactor site bombed by Israel last year.
“While it cannot be excluded that the building in question was intended for non-nuclear use,” the report said, the building’s features “along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water, are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site.” Syria has said the uranium came from Israeli bombs.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Hopefully a fatal blow to Holocaust Denial, once and for all.
Report: Plans for Auschwitz -- including a gas chamber and crematorium -- found in Berlin apartment
Head of Germany's federal archives calls copies of some of 28 plans for construction of Nazi extermination camp 'authentic proof of systematically planned genocide of Jews of Europe'
AFP
Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of Germany's federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called "authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe."
Bild gave no indication of where, when or by whom the plans were found.
It said they were dated between 1941 and 1943 and stamped, "Waffen-SS and Police Construction Directorate." Some were signed by senior SS officials and one initialed by the head of the Nazi ideological corps, Heinrich Himmler.
Kreikamp told the newspaper the documents were "extraordinarily important."
One plan, drawn by a detainee as early as November 1941, when experiments in eliminating prisoners were already under way, had a gas chamber clearly labeled, Bild said.
Another showed a crematorium with places for ovens marked, and storage space for bodies.
The "final solution to the Jewish question", namely the extermination of Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe in what became known as the Holocaust, was decided by officials of Adolf Hitler's regime in January 1942 at a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
More than one million Jews, gypsies and others deemed "subhumans" by the Nazis were killed at Auschwitz, near the Polish city of Kracow, out of a total six million slaughtered up to the fall of the regime in 1945.
Advancing Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz in January 1945, but camp authorities had blown up the gas chambers, and Holocaust deniers have claimed there was no proof of the camp's purpose.
Report: Plans for Auschwitz -- including a gas chamber and crematorium -- found in Berlin apartment
Head of Germany's federal archives calls copies of some of 28 plans for construction of Nazi extermination camp 'authentic proof of systematically planned genocide of Jews of Europe'
AFP
Original plans for the construction of the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz, including a gas chamber and crematorium, have been found in a Berlin apartment, a newspaper reported Saturday.
The daily Bild published copies of some of the 28 plans, which the head of Germany's federal archives, Hans-Dieter Krekamp, called "authentic proof of the systematically planned genocide of the Jews of Europe."
Bild gave no indication of where, when or by whom the plans were found.
It said they were dated between 1941 and 1943 and stamped, "Waffen-SS and Police Construction Directorate." Some were signed by senior SS officials and one initialed by the head of the Nazi ideological corps, Heinrich Himmler.
Kreikamp told the newspaper the documents were "extraordinarily important."
One plan, drawn by a detainee as early as November 1941, when experiments in eliminating prisoners were already under way, had a gas chamber clearly labeled, Bild said.
Another showed a crematorium with places for ovens marked, and storage space for bodies.
The "final solution to the Jewish question", namely the extermination of Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe in what became known as the Holocaust, was decided by officials of Adolf Hitler's regime in January 1942 at a conference in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
More than one million Jews, gypsies and others deemed "subhumans" by the Nazis were killed at Auschwitz, near the Polish city of Kracow, out of a total six million slaughtered up to the fall of the regime in 1945.
Advancing Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz in January 1945, but camp authorities had blown up the gas chambers, and Holocaust deniers have claimed there was no proof of the camp's purpose.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Fmr US diplomat, later a paid lobbyist for Palestinian Authority, testifies for the defense.
Defense rests case in Holy Land trial Friday, November 7, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys representing five charity workers accused of using the formerly Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas rested their case on a high note Thursday.
The defense finished its weeklong case Thursday with its fifth and most powerful witness, Edward Abington, the former United States consul general in Israel who also later served as the State Department's No. 2 intelligence officer.
He told jurors that while serving as chief U.S. envoy to the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 1997, he was never told in any of his daily government briefings that the terrorist group Hamas controlled a series of Palestinian charity groups.
The government contends those Palestinian charity groups, called zakat committees, were staffed by Hamas militants when Holy Land sent them more than $12 million after 1995, the year the U.S. designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis will confer today with prosecutors and defense attorneys on the jury's charge, or legal instructions. Closing arguments will likely begin Monday.
Much of the money that the government contends went to Hamas was raised at radical Islamist and anti-Semitic fundraisers in America in the late '80s and early '90s. Prosecutors say it was targeted to families of suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land – once the largest Muslim charity in the country – was legitimate and provided aid to Palestinian families living under oppressive Israeli occupation.
Mr. Abington lent credibility to those arguments Thursday, telling jurors that Holy Land had a good reputation in the region as efficient aid suppliers.
He testified that, as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinian territories, it was his job to know who controlled what in the region. He said he was aware of where Hamas exerted influence in the area because he had to avoid interacting with the terrorist group's representatives according to U.S. policy.
He said that far from being terrorist financial fronts, the zakat committees were staffed by pious Muslims who used Holy Land's money and other contributions to provide Palestinians much-needed aid. Some of the committees even received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Jacks questioned Mr. Abington on his objectivity, given that he became a paid lobbyist for the Palestinian Authority immediately after leaving his U.S. government service.
Mr. Jacks also got Mr. Abington to admit that he had little if any knowledge of which individuals worked on the zakat committees when he was serving in the region. When Mr. Jacks showed him examples of evidence of Hamas members serving on the committees, Mr. Abington said that there is a difference between Hamas being involved in the group's activities and outright controlling them.
Defense rests case in Holy Land trial Friday, November 7, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys representing five charity workers accused of using the formerly Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas rested their case on a high note Thursday.
The defense finished its weeklong case Thursday with its fifth and most powerful witness, Edward Abington, the former United States consul general in Israel who also later served as the State Department's No. 2 intelligence officer.
He told jurors that while serving as chief U.S. envoy to the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 1997, he was never told in any of his daily government briefings that the terrorist group Hamas controlled a series of Palestinian charity groups.
The government contends those Palestinian charity groups, called zakat committees, were staffed by Hamas militants when Holy Land sent them more than $12 million after 1995, the year the U.S. designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis will confer today with prosecutors and defense attorneys on the jury's charge, or legal instructions. Closing arguments will likely begin Monday.
Much of the money that the government contends went to Hamas was raised at radical Islamist and anti-Semitic fundraisers in America in the late '80s and early '90s. Prosecutors say it was targeted to families of suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land – once the largest Muslim charity in the country – was legitimate and provided aid to Palestinian families living under oppressive Israeli occupation.
Mr. Abington lent credibility to those arguments Thursday, telling jurors that Holy Land had a good reputation in the region as efficient aid suppliers.
He testified that, as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinian territories, it was his job to know who controlled what in the region. He said he was aware of where Hamas exerted influence in the area because he had to avoid interacting with the terrorist group's representatives according to U.S. policy.
He said that far from being terrorist financial fronts, the zakat committees were staffed by pious Muslims who used Holy Land's money and other contributions to provide Palestinians much-needed aid. Some of the committees even received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Jacks questioned Mr. Abington on his objectivity, given that he became a paid lobbyist for the Palestinian Authority immediately after leaving his U.S. government service.
Mr. Jacks also got Mr. Abington to admit that he had little if any knowledge of which individuals worked on the zakat committees when he was serving in the region. When Mr. Jacks showed him examples of evidence of Hamas members serving on the committees, Mr. Abington said that there is a difference between Hamas being involved in the group's activities and outright controlling them.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Iran-backed Terrorists Fire 35 Rockets at Southern Israel
From The Israel Project. [Excerpt]
On Wed. morning (Nov. 5), Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired 35 Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians in cities and communities in southern Israel. Two of the Qassams hit Ashkelon, a port city about nine miles (15 km) from Gaza; two women and a 13-year-old girl were treated for shock, but no other injuries were reported.
The attack wasn’t the first time Hamas breached the June 19 ceasefire with Israel; Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have fired more than 50 rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began. Additionally, rockets and mortar fire have killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 1,000 others since 2001, when Palestinian terrorists began firing rockets at Israel. The attacks have also caused thousands of Israelis to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Hamas’s latest rocket barrage followed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza Tues. night (Nov. 4) aimed at destroying a tunnel terrorists were digging just 820 feet (250 meters) from the Israel-Gaza border to abduct Israeli soldiers. During the operation and a subsequent Israeli air strike, six Palestinian terrorists were killed and four IDF soldiers were wounded.
An IDF spokesman stressed that the operation was limited and carried out specifically to remove the immediate threat the tunnel posed to IDF personnel inside Israel. There was no intention, he said, to disrupt the ceasefire which has held for the most part since it began, but emphasized that the construction of the tunnel so close to the border was “a blatant violation of the calm…The tunnel we uncovered was ready for imminent use, forcing us to act immediately.”
Iran-backed terrorists have fired more than 2,700 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in 2008 alone, and more than 5,800 since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in August 2005.
Iran provides $20 million - $30 million annually to Hamas in weapons and training.
From The Israel Project. [Excerpt]
On Wed. morning (Nov. 5), Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired 35 Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians in cities and communities in southern Israel. Two of the Qassams hit Ashkelon, a port city about nine miles (15 km) from Gaza; two women and a 13-year-old girl were treated for shock, but no other injuries were reported.
The attack wasn’t the first time Hamas breached the June 19 ceasefire with Israel; Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have fired more than 50 rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began. Additionally, rockets and mortar fire have killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 1,000 others since 2001, when Palestinian terrorists began firing rockets at Israel. The attacks have also caused thousands of Israelis to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Hamas’s latest rocket barrage followed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza Tues. night (Nov. 4) aimed at destroying a tunnel terrorists were digging just 820 feet (250 meters) from the Israel-Gaza border to abduct Israeli soldiers. During the operation and a subsequent Israeli air strike, six Palestinian terrorists were killed and four IDF soldiers were wounded.
An IDF spokesman stressed that the operation was limited and carried out specifically to remove the immediate threat the tunnel posed to IDF personnel inside Israel. There was no intention, he said, to disrupt the ceasefire which has held for the most part since it began, but emphasized that the construction of the tunnel so close to the border was “a blatant violation of the calm…The tunnel we uncovered was ready for imminent use, forcing us to act immediately.”
Iran-backed terrorists have fired more than 2,700 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in 2008 alone, and more than 5,800 since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in August 2005.
Iran provides $20 million - $30 million annually to Hamas in weapons and training.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Holy Land Foundation defense begins rebutting prosecution
Monday, November 3, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
KEY POINTS: HOLY LAND TRIAL
The allegation: The federal government says Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation and seven organizers illegally sent at least $12 million overseas to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The U.S. declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.
On trial: Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman; Shukri Abu Baker, former Holy Land CEO; Mohammad El-Mezain, the foundation's original chairman who became director of endowments; Mufid Abdulqader, a top fundraiser and a former city of Dallas public works supervisor; and Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative. Two others are fugitives.
Possible sentence: The counts carry from three to 20 years in prison, and each defendant faces multiple counts.
---------------
Last year, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case told jurors during closing arguments, "Don't get hung up on the names."
For the retrial, following a hung jury in the first case, the government has tweaked its message.
Prosecutors are taking great pains to make sure jurors absorb all the details – including the blizzard of unfamiliar Arabic names – central to their allegations that five charity workers used the former Richardson-based foundation to funnel money to Hamas after it was banned by the U.S. in 1995.
Among the changes:
•Adding new witnesses aimed at plugging holes in their case that were expertly exploited by defense attorneys last year.
•Drumming names and connections into jurors through often exhaustive repetition.
•Rolling out new and more learning aids and charts designed to help jurors access relevant documents – often down to the page number – during what is sure to be extended deliberations.
Prosecutors have been "much more mindful" of how they are "telling the story to the jury," said Donna Diorio, a pro-Israeli blogger who is a regular trial watcher.
"In my view, the prosecution has the defense on the ropes," Ms. Diorio said.
But for Holy Land supporters, it's still the same old evidence.
Noor Elashi, daughter of defendant and Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, regularly points out what she says is government anti-Muslim bias and juror boredom, on her blog, freedomtogive.com.
"Some jurors sighed, yawned and constantly glanced up at the clock," she wrote after a particularly tedious day of testimony.
This year, prosecutors added six witnesses to their lineup of 10 from last year. Still they managed to shave about two weeks from their presentation, which began the week of Sept. 22 and ended Friday.
Treasury official
Key among the new witnesses was Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees terrorist designation.
He testified that not every Hamas front group is individually outlawed and doesn't have to be for it to be illegal to send it money. This counters the defense argument that the defendants broke no laws because the Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, to which Holy Land gave more than $12 million from 1995 to 2001, are not individually labeled as terrorist affiliates.
A subtle change the government made from last year was recategorizing its more than 500 pieces of evidence, much of which details the defendants' often virulent anti-Semitism and connections to top Hamas officials.
Last year, documents, videos and bank records were identified by a series of numbers. This year, for example, evidence is referred to by the location in which it was found, such as the Holy Land offices, or by the name of the co-conspirator from which it was confiscated. This means names are repeated over and over throughout the case.
To aid jurors during deliberations, prosecutors and federal agents this year also crafted a series of charts to help jurors pinpoint evidence of the most crucial aspect of the case – Hamas control of the zakat committees.
Charity work
For their part, defense attorneys kept the pressure on government witnesses through aggressive cross-examinations.
They routinely elicited testimony from the government's witnesses about Holy Land's aid to desperate Palestinian families caught in the Arab-Israeli conflict, bolstering their points with photos of charity work and thank-you letters from aid recipients.
More than once, they have reminded jurors that much of the government's case dates to the early 1990s.
The defense began presenting its case Friday and has several new witnesses on its roster, too.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim group based in Plano, said that the government's tweaks mean little to Holy Land's backers.
"The prosecution this time around has presented its case in a more visually friendly and succinct manner. But at the core, there's still the same problem," he said. "The charges are much grander than the evidence is there to prove. What the government has presented, frankly, in the eyes of the [Muslim] community, are associations over past years," not crimes.
Monday, November 3, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
KEY POINTS: HOLY LAND TRIAL
The allegation: The federal government says Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation and seven organizers illegally sent at least $12 million overseas to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The U.S. declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.
On trial: Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman; Shukri Abu Baker, former Holy Land CEO; Mohammad El-Mezain, the foundation's original chairman who became director of endowments; Mufid Abdulqader, a top fundraiser and a former city of Dallas public works supervisor; and Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative. Two others are fugitives.
Possible sentence: The counts carry from three to 20 years in prison, and each defendant faces multiple counts.
---------------
Last year, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case told jurors during closing arguments, "Don't get hung up on the names."
For the retrial, following a hung jury in the first case, the government has tweaked its message.
Prosecutors are taking great pains to make sure jurors absorb all the details – including the blizzard of unfamiliar Arabic names – central to their allegations that five charity workers used the former Richardson-based foundation to funnel money to Hamas after it was banned by the U.S. in 1995.
Among the changes:
•Adding new witnesses aimed at plugging holes in their case that were expertly exploited by defense attorneys last year.
•Drumming names and connections into jurors through often exhaustive repetition.
•Rolling out new and more learning aids and charts designed to help jurors access relevant documents – often down to the page number – during what is sure to be extended deliberations.
Prosecutors have been "much more mindful" of how they are "telling the story to the jury," said Donna Diorio, a pro-Israeli blogger who is a regular trial watcher.
"In my view, the prosecution has the defense on the ropes," Ms. Diorio said.
But for Holy Land supporters, it's still the same old evidence.
Noor Elashi, daughter of defendant and Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, regularly points out what she says is government anti-Muslim bias and juror boredom, on her blog, freedomtogive.com.
"Some jurors sighed, yawned and constantly glanced up at the clock," she wrote after a particularly tedious day of testimony.
This year, prosecutors added six witnesses to their lineup of 10 from last year. Still they managed to shave about two weeks from their presentation, which began the week of Sept. 22 and ended Friday.
Treasury official
Key among the new witnesses was Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees terrorist designation.
He testified that not every Hamas front group is individually outlawed and doesn't have to be for it to be illegal to send it money. This counters the defense argument that the defendants broke no laws because the Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, to which Holy Land gave more than $12 million from 1995 to 2001, are not individually labeled as terrorist affiliates.
A subtle change the government made from last year was recategorizing its more than 500 pieces of evidence, much of which details the defendants' often virulent anti-Semitism and connections to top Hamas officials.
Last year, documents, videos and bank records were identified by a series of numbers. This year, for example, evidence is referred to by the location in which it was found, such as the Holy Land offices, or by the name of the co-conspirator from which it was confiscated. This means names are repeated over and over throughout the case.
To aid jurors during deliberations, prosecutors and federal agents this year also crafted a series of charts to help jurors pinpoint evidence of the most crucial aspect of the case – Hamas control of the zakat committees.
Charity work
For their part, defense attorneys kept the pressure on government witnesses through aggressive cross-examinations.
They routinely elicited testimony from the government's witnesses about Holy Land's aid to desperate Palestinian families caught in the Arab-Israeli conflict, bolstering their points with photos of charity work and thank-you letters from aid recipients.
More than once, they have reminded jurors that much of the government's case dates to the early 1990s.
The defense began presenting its case Friday and has several new witnesses on its roster, too.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim group based in Plano, said that the government's tweaks mean little to Holy Land's backers.
"The prosecution this time around has presented its case in a more visually friendly and succinct manner. But at the core, there's still the same problem," he said. "The charges are much grander than the evidence is there to prove. What the government has presented, frankly, in the eyes of the [Muslim] community, are associations over past years," not crimes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)