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Hiroshima Comes Home, By Route of Israel
"Home Grown" article, September 15, 2001

THREE CONTEXTS TO THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, ATTACKS ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND THE PENTAGON, AND THE AFTERMATH:

1) Who runs U.S. foreign policy?
2) Israel.
3) Mass Media.

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WHAT IS THE STATED GRIEVANCE OF THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ENEMY?

Talking with Terror's Banker,
ABC News, June 9, 1998 [an interview with Osama Bin Laden]
"BIN LADEN: It does not worry us what the Americans think. What worries us is pleasing Allah. The Americans impose themselves on everyone who believes in his religion and his rights. They accuse our children in Palestine of being terrorists. Those children that have no weapons and have not even reached maturity. At the same time they defend a country with its airplanes and tanks, and the state of the Jews, that has a policy to destroy the future of these children. Clinton stands after Qana [in Lebanon] and defends the horrible massacre that severed the heads of children and killed about 100 persons. Clinton stands and claims Israel has the right to defend itself. We do not worry about American opinion, or the fact the place prices on our heads. We as Muslims believe that our fate is set. If the whole world decides to get together and kill us before our time has come, we will not die, our livelihood is set ... They are the ones who used the bombs against Nagasaki. Can these bombs distinguish between infants and military? America does not have a religion that will prevent it from destroying all people. Your situation with Muslims in Palestine is shameful, if there is any shame left in America. In the Sabra and Shatilla massacre [in Lebanon], a cooperation between Zionist and [Phalangist] Christian forces, houses were demolished over the heads of children. Also, by testimony of relief workers in Iraq, the American led sanctions resulted in the death of over 1 million Iraqi children ... The American government, we think, is an agent that represents the Israel inside America. If we look at sensitive departments in the present government like the defense department or the state department, or sensitive security departments like the CIA and others, we find that Jews have the first word in the American government, which is how they use America to carry out their plans in the world and especially the Muslim world. The presence of Americans in the Holy Land supports the Jews and gives them a safe back. The American government, in a time where there are millions of Americans living on the street and those living below the standard of living and below the poverty line, we find the American government turning toward helping Israel in occupying our land and building settlements in the Holy Land."

Interview with Osama Bin Laden, PBS [from ABC], May 1998
"BIN LADEN: The Western regimes and the government of the United States of America bear the blame for what might happen. If their people do not wish to be harmed inside their very own countries, they should seek to elect governments that are truly representative of them and that can protect their interests. ... The enmity between us and the Jews goes far back in time and is deep rooted. There is no question that war between the two of us is inevitable. For this reason it is not in the interest of Western governments to expose the interests of their people to all kinds of retaliation for almost nothing. It is hoped that people of those countries will initiate a positive move and force their governments not to act on behalf of other states and other sects. This is what we have to say and we pray to Allah to preserve the nation of Islam and to help them drive their enemies out of their land ... The leaders in America and in other countries as well have fallen victim to Jewish Zionist blackmail. They have mobilized their people against Islam and against Muslims. These are portrayed in such a manner as to drive people to rally against them. The truth is that the whole Muslim world is the victim of international terrorism, engineered by America at the United Nations. We are a nation whose sacred symbols have been looted and whose wealth and resources have been plundered. It is normal for us to react against the forces that invade our land and occupy it."

Transcript of Osama Bin Laden Interview by Peter Arnett, CNN, March 1997 [cached here at www.ishipress.com; CNN has taken down its own posting of the interview; it can also be found at a "jihad" Muslim site that supports alleged mass murderer Bin Laden and calls him a hero of Islam.]
"BIN LADIN: Regarding the criticisms of the ruling regime in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian peninsula, the first one is their subordination to the US. So, our main problem is the US government while the Saudi regime is but a branch or an agent of the US. By being loyal to the US regime, the Saudi regime has committed an act against Islam ... We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet's Night Travel Land (Palestine). And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The mention of the US reminds us before everything else of those innocent children who were dismembered, their heads and arms cut off in the recent explosion that took place in Qana (in Lebanon). This US government abandoned even humanitarian feelings by these hideous crimes. It transgressed all bounds and behaved in a way not witnessed before by any power or any imperialist power in the world. They should have been considerate that the qibla (Mecca) of the Muslims upheaves the emotion of the entire Muslim World. Due to its subordination to the Jews the arrogance and haughtiness of the US regime has reached, to the extent that they occupied the qibla of the Muslims (Arabia) who are more than a billion in the world today ... A reaction might take place as a result of US government's hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600 thousand Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them. So, the US is responsible for any reaction, because it extended its war against troops to civilians. This is what we say. As for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places and its support of its agent regimes who filled our prisons with our best children and scholars."

Talks with Osama Bin Laden, The Nation, September 21,1998
"When [Bin Laden] brought his 9,000 Arab fighters to support the Afghans in their conflict against the Soviet occupation army, hacking out the mountain trails with his construction equipment, building hospitals and arms dumps, he became a war hero. Some of his current Afghan fellow fighters had been trained earlier by the CIA in the very camps that were the target of the recent US missiles--but whereas they had been called camps for 'freedom fighters' when US agents set them up in the early eighties, now they had become camps for 'terrorists' ... 'The explosion [against US service personnel] at Khobar [in Saudi Arabia] did not come as a direct result of American occupation but as a result of American behavior against Muslims,' he said. 'When sixty Jews are killed inside Palestine, all the world gathers...to criticize the action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children [because of the US sanctions] did not receive the same reaction. Killing those Iraqi schoolchildren is a crusade against Islam.... Resistance against America will spread in many, many places in Muslim countries. Our trusted leaders, our ulema, have given us a fatwa that we must drive out the Americans.' Because of America's refusal to acknowledge any reason for the US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania--hatred of America, per se, is the usual explanation--few chose to point out that they occurred on the eighth anniversary, to the very day, of the arrival of the first US troops in Saudi Arabia in 1990. When I last saw bin Laden, he was still obsessed with the Israeli massacre of 107 Lebanese refugees sheltering at the UN camp at Qana in April 1996. Israel claimed it was a 'mistake,' the UN conceded otherwise and President Clinton called it only a 'tragedy'--as if it was a natural disaster. It was, said bin Laden, an act of 'international terrorism.' There must be justice, he said, and trials for the Israeli perpetrators. Clinton used almost exactly the same words about bin Laden and his supporters in August. But the deaf, as usual, were talking to the deaf."

Understanding Osama Bin Laden,
alternet.org [Pacific News Service], September 12, 2001
"The United States risks a severe miscalculation in dealing with the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon on Tuesday. This event is not an isolated instance of violence. This is not an 'act of war.' It is one symptom of a cancer that threatens to metastasize. The root cause is not terrorist activity, as has been widely stated. It is the relationship between the United States and the Islamic world. Until this central cancerous problem is treated, Americans will never be free from fear ... The chief suspect is the Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden, or his surrogates. He has been mischaracterized as an anti-American terrorist. He should rather be thought of as someone who would do anything to protect Islam ... The State Department has theorized that if the people of a rogue nation experience enough suffering, they will overthrow their rulers, or compel them to adopt more sensible behavior. The terrorist actions in New York and Washington are a clear and ironic implementation of this strategy against the United States ... Palestinian members of his group see Americans as supporters of Israel in the current conflict between the two nations. In the Palestinian view, Ariel Sharon's ascendancy to leadership of Israel has triggered a new era, with U.S. government officials failing to pressure the Israeli government to end violence against Palestinians. Palestinian cell members will not cease their opposition until the United States changes its relationship with the Israeli state."

Borderless Network of Terror, Washington Post, September 23, 2001
"Abdul Hakim Murad washed his hands, and broke a basic rule of bombmaking. When the water mixed with chemical residue in the kitchen sink of unit 603 in the Dona Josefa Apartments here [in the Phillipines] in 1995, it set off an eruption that would reveal the inner workings of a clandestine terrorist cell allied with Osama bin Laden. It also revealed a plan that gave a chilling preview of the attack in New York and Washington on Sept. 11. Arrested and tortured by Philippine intelligence agents, Murad told the story of 'Bojinka' -- 'loud bang' -- the code name bin Laden operatives had given to an audacious plan to bomb 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and fly an airplane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. -- all after attempting to assassinate Pope John Paul II. The plot in the Philippines, which was recounted to U.S. investigators at the time, appears to be a model of the methods, aims and structure of the network that bin Laden's followers have assembled in dozens of countries around the world ... The plotters also included in their plans the motives for the mission, in a manifesto recovered by investigators: 'The U.S. government gives military aircraft to the Jewish state so the Jews can continue fighting and killing. All of this is a result of the U.S. government's financial and military support of the Jewish state. All people who support the U.S. government are our target.'"

Religion Isn't the Sole Motivation of Terror,
Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2001
"What would motivate anyone to crash airplanes into buildings with thousands of people inside? Attributing religious motivations to the 50 or so people federal authorities report may have been involved in this operation is too simplistic. Similarly, describing the attackers as crazy does not appreciate the character of their twisted logic. They operated according to a way of thinking that we neither approve nor fully understand, but it made sense to them. An examination of the motives of the conspirators who sought to bring down the World Trade Center towers in 1993 may offer some insight. After the bombing in 1993, the bombing conspirators wrote to the New York Times. They justified their attack as a way to transfer the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians to the American homeland and argued that Americans would only diminish their support for Israel when they suffered in the same way as Palestinians and other people like them in moderate Arab countries. The bombers argued that 'the American people must know that their civilians who got killed are not better than those who are getting killed by the American weapons and support.'"

Symbols of Oppression, Guardian [London], September 12, 2001
"Why does the US continue to be a target for Islamist attacks? ... President Bush and secretary of state Colin Powell gave their own take yesterday. They blamed extremists bent on damaging democracy and western civilisation. Disturbingly, their views will likely wash with an audience whose grasp of international affairs is so dumbed down as to prevent them separating loaded representation from reality. But much as the attacks on civilian structures might suggest otherwise, democracy is not the intended target here, and neither is freedom. Inside America, the Trade Centre, the Pentagon, Camp David, and Capitol Hill are all seen as symbols of global US power and prestige, of the triumph of democracy. Outside, in the Muslim world, they are popularly regarded as symbols of terror and oppression ... Since 1991, American-led sanctions against Iraq and the effects of depleted uranium have killed 1m children. Who knows if the attackers intended all flights inside the US to come to a halt, but for a day at least they succeeded in turning the tables on the no-fly zone in force over Iraq. Since the Palestinian uprising started last September, American Apache helicopters, F-16s and M-16 rifles have been responsible for killing 700 Palestinians and injuring 25,000 more. Since CNN isn't there, by design rather than accident, to capture every smashed skull and charred corpse, westerners remain ignorant of US terrorism. These are only the more visible examples of US abuses in Muslim lands. As it waves the flag of democracy in one hand, Washington pours billions of dollars into upholding totalitarian regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, among others, to make sure its people are prevented from exercising their collective will. The US Fifth Fleet sails menacingly around the Gulf in a warning to dissidents that it will use force to protect its client rulers and an uninterrupted supply of oil. And the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia cocks a snook at Muslim sensibilities about their holy places."

The Unknown Enemy, by Joseph Sobran, Sobran's, September 11, 2001
"It was predictable. For years I’ve been writing that the U.S. Government has been making more enemies than Americans really need, all over the globe, and that one of these days some of them would have a nasty surprise for us ... Who has reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million people — Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others whose countries have been hit by U.S. bombers. Imagine hating a country so much that you were willing to cross an ocean and carry out an elaborate revenge against its people, killing yourself in the process ... Foreigners aren’t quite real to Americans, and most Americans are unaware of how profoundly their government antagonizes much of the human race. We are easy-going people who generally have no idea how bullying we seem to foreigners. Until now, we have had no experience of what the U.S. Government has so often inflicted on others. Now, at least, we have an inkling of what it feels like."

Explaining Arab Anger, by Jim Muir, BBC, September 19, 2001
"The man standing beside me in the crowd was sobbing his heart out. Along with dozens of other people, his wife and children lay crushed beneath the rubble of the collapsed building we were looking at. It had been brought down quite scientifically by two big explosions. The multi-storey apartment block was demolished because somebody thought Yasser Arafat was there. He wasn't. Many people in and from the region had a deep gut feeling that decades of accumulated poison somehow found expression on 11 September 2001. It was destroyed by two Israeli jets which flashed out of the sky on that Friday summer morning in Beirut during the Israeli siege of 1982. They were acting on the orders of then Israeli Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon. Now, he is Israel's prime minister, and he's eagerly signing up to take part in America's new crusade of good against evil. The above was one of many such incidents during Israel's adventure in Lebanon, in which uncounted thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians were killed. They died unmourned and largely unnoticed by the American public, whose largesse - financial, military and political - made it all possible."

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5 Israelis Detained for 'Puzzling Behavior' After WTC Tragedy,
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], September 17, 2001
"Five Israelis who had worked for a moving company based in New Jersey are being held in U.S. prisons for what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has described as 'puzzling behavior' following the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York last Tuesday. The five are expected to be deported sometime soon. The families of the five, who asked that their names not be released, said that their sons had been questioned by the FBI for hours on end, had been kept in solitary confinement for three days, and had been humiliated, stripped of their clothes and blindfolded ... She said that the five had worked for the company, which is owned by an Israeli, for between two months and two years. They had been arrested some four hours after the attack on the Twin Towers while filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their company's building, she said. It appears that they were spotted by one of the neighbors who called the police and the FBI ... The mother [of one of the detained] said that the families and friends of the five in Israel had known nothing of the men's whereabouts for a number of days. 'When they finally let my son make a phone call for the first time to a friend in the United States two days ago, he told him that he had been tortured by the FBI in a basement,' the mother said. 'He was stripped to his underwear; he was blindfolded and questioned for 14 hours. They thought that because he has citizenship of a European country as well as of Israel that he was working for the Mossad [Israel's secret service] ... The [Israeli] Foreign Ministry said in response that it had been informed by the consulate in New York that the FBI had arrested the five for 'puzzling behavior.' They are said to have had been caught videotaping the disaster and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery.'"

Hundreds of Israelis Missing in WTC Atttack, Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2001
"The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attack."

The Blame Game. Economist, September 12, 2001
"Arabs have good reason to worry. Already, Israel appears to be taking advantage of the world’s distraction to press its military campaign against the Palestinians. The temporary occupation of the West Bank town of Jenin, begun on Monday, has lasted much longer than the Israeli army’s three previous incursions into Palestinian-controlled cities. At least 12 Palestinians have died in the operation, but America’s media have hardly noticed ... Many Arabs, though appalled by the atrocity, do believe that America deserves some sort of comeuppance for its seeming disregard of the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and of Iraqis under UN sanctions. The Bush administration’s apparent disengagement from the peace process, coupled with Israel’s use of sophisticated American weaponry to attack Palestinians, has instilled a sense that America is no longer just Israel’s distant benefactor, but an accomplice in Israeli 'crimes.' Bloody bombings and street battles have become so common in the dirt-poor and despairing refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, in particular, that many residents have become entirely insensitive to violence ... Many Arabs ... hold America itself responsible for the spread of fundamentalist terror. After all, many of the suspects in Tuesday’s attacks are veterans of the American-funded war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, including Mr bin Laden ... America’s Arab allies will feel jittery, and clamp down harder on legitimate dissent, thereby stoking Islamic extremism. A spirit of sheer defiance might inhibit America from softening its policy on Iraq or cajoling Israel into concessions in the peace process, with the same result. The upshot of the tragedy in America could well be further tragedy in the Middle East, and more recruits to extreme Islamic terror."

Bush Is Walking Into a Trap, by Robert Fisk,
Independent [London], September 16, 2001
"Retaliation is a trap. In a world that was supposed to have learnt that the rule of law comes above revenge, President Bush appears to be heading for the very disaster that Osama bin Laden has laid down for him. Let us have no doubts about what happened in New York and Washington last week. It was a crime against humanity. We cannot understand America's need to retaliate unless we accept this bleak, awesome fact. But this crime was perpetrated – it becomes ever clearer – to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the US military is preparing. Mr bin Laden – every day his culpability becomes more apparent – has described to me how he wishes to overthrow the pro-American regime of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and moving on to Egypt, Jordan and the other Gulf states. In an Arab world sunk in corruption and dictatorships – most of them supported by the West – the only act that might bring Muslims to strike at their own leaders would be a brutal, indiscriminate assault by the United States ... the Americans need look no further than Ariel Sharon's futile war with the Palestinians to understand the folly of retaliation. In Lebanon, it was always the same. A Hizbollah guerrilla would kill an Israeli occupation soldier, and the Israelis would fire back in retaliation at a village in which a civilian would die. The Hizbollah would retaliate with a Katyusha missile attack over the Israeli border, and the Israelis would retaliate again with a bombardment of southern Lebanon. In the end, the Hizbollah – the "centre of world terror'' according to Mr Sharon – drove the Israelis out of Lebanon. In Israel/Palestine, it is the same story. An Israeli soldier shoots a Palestinian stone-thrower. The Palestinians retaliate by killing a settler. The Israelis then retaliate by sending a murder squad to kill a Palestinian gunman. The Palestinians retaliate by sending a suicide bomber into a pizzeria. The Israelis then retaliate by sending F-16s to bomb a Palestinian police station. Retaliation leads to retaliation and more retaliation. War without end. And while Mr Bush – and perhaps Mr Blair – prepare their forces, they explain so meretriciously that this is a war for "democracy and liberty'', that it is about men who are "attacking civilisation''. "America was targeted for attack,'' Mr Bush informed us on Friday, "because we are the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.'' But this is not why America was attacked. If this was an Arab-Muslim apocalypse, then it is intimately associated with events in the Middle East and with America's stewardship of the area. Arabs, it might be added, would rather like some of that democracy and liberty and freedom that Mr Bush has been telling them about. Instead, they get a president who wins 98 per cent in the elections (Washington's friend, Mr Mubarak) or a Palestinian police force, trained by the CIA, that tortures and sometimes kills its people in prison. The Syrians would also like a little of that democracy. So would the Saudis. But their effete princes are all friends of America – in many cases, educated at US universities."

MP Warns of Creating '10,000 Bin Ladens, Guardian [London], September 14, 2001
"Parliament's most outspoken critic of the US today made an impassioned speech, warning the west that it risked creating '10,000 Osama bin Ladens' in the Middle East. George Galloway, the Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin who has made several trips to Iraq in the last decade as part of the campaign against sanctions, said the 'monumental double standards' were behind the reaction to the US terrorist attacks. He said: 'I have walked in the ashes of cities under aerial attack, buildings under aerial attack. People being crushed by falling masonry and steel or incinerated by fire from aerial attack look, sound and smell exactly the same whether they are in Beirut, the West Bank, Baghdad or Manhattan ... 'If 5,000 people have died in Manhattan, even if 10,000 people have died in Manhattan and Washington and Pittsburgh, that represents less than two months of the number of children who have died in Iraq every single month of every single year for 11 years, according to the United Nations themselves,' Mr Galloway said. 'The Muslims don't believe you care about that. Today as we are speaking they don't believe that you care about them, in some respects they are right.'"

Former Israeli Owns Retail Lease for World Trade Center,
Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2001
"Australian businessman Frank Lowy, who emigrated to Australia from Israel in 1952, owns the 99-year lease for the 425,000 square foot retail portion of the destroyed World Trade Center. Lowy is the chairman and founder of Westfield Holdings, the manager of Westfield America Trust, which has a 57 percent stake in Westfield America Inc ... Westfield said today that it has insurance cover against terrorist attacks and its earnings will not be materially affected. In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange the retail chain said that 'investment in the retail component of the World Trade Center is fully insured for both capital and loss of income,' adding 'the insurance cover includes acts of terrorism' ... Today [Lowy] is the second wealthiest man in Australia and was recently ranked as the 209th wealthiest man in the world by Forbes magazine. Westfield is the fourth-largest shopping mall owner, with operations in Australia, the US, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Lowy is philanthropically involved in the Jewish community in Sydney as well as Israel, including sponsoring the Overseas Students School of Tel Aviv University which is endowed in his name and being associate international chairman of the Israel Democracy Institute."

America: The New Israel, Jewish Week, September 15, 2001
"The attack could have huge implications for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Some may blame American support for provoking the terrorists, while others may conclude that it is time for Washington to drop its attempts at neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and come down firmly on Jerusalem’s side ... 'There is a danger of people saying, if we didn’t support Israel, those people would have no reason to dislike us, [special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Shoshona] Bryen said. 'We have to make the case that that’s not true; they don’t like us because of who we are' ... Making sure that message penetrates the anger and anxiety most Americans feel in the wake of the terror onslaught will be a top challenge for Jewish leaders in the difficult days ahead, [ADL director Abraham] Foxman said ... Short-term, Jewish leaders say, the terror will bring Israel and the United States closer together ... Other analysts say the attack could add to the options available to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as he tries to subdue the yearlong surge of Palestinian terrorism."

Sharon Puts Arab Support for US at Risk,
Guardian [London]l, September 17, 2001
"Israel emerged as an early stumbling block to Washington's plans to recruit Arab states to a broad war coalition yesterday as the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, rebuffed US calls for ceasefire talks, and ordered the third invasion of a Palestinian-ruled city in less than a week. European countries, including Britain, fear that Israel is using the international focus on events in the US as a cover for punitive actions against the Palestinians that contravene international law. Last week the foreign office protested to the Sharon government after the Israeli assault on the West Bank city of Jenin ... On the political front, too, Mr Sharon has toughened his stance. Yesterday he set new conditions for ceasefire talks that appear practically impossible for the Palestinian leader to meet. The standoff could jeopardise Washington's efforts to secure the support of Arab and Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for military reprisals for last week's attacks. It has also triggered one of the most serious crises in Mr Sharon's national unity coalition."

The Cost of Israel to the American People, by Richard Curtiss,
Al-Hewar Center
"Between 1949 and 1998, the U.S. gave to Israel, with a self-declared population of 5.8 million people, more foreign aid than it gave to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, all of the countries of Latin America, and all of the countries of the Caribbean combined – with a total population of 1,054,000,000 people ... If you add its foreign aid grants and loans, plus the approximate totals of grants to Israel from other parts of the U.S. federal budget, Israel has received since 1949 a grand total of $84.8 billion, excluding the $10 billion in U.S. government loan guarantees it has drawn to date. And if you calculate what the U.S. has had to pay in interest to borrow this money to give to Israel, the cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers rises to $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis had received from the U.S. government by October 31, 1997, cost American taxpayers $23,241 per Israeli. That’s $116,205 for every Israeli family of five. None of these figures include the private donations by Americans to Israeli charities, which initially constituted about one quarter of Israel’s budget, and today approach $1 billion annually. In addition to the negative effect of these donations on the U.S. balance of payments, the donors also deduct them from their U.S. income taxes, creating another large drain on the U.S. treasury ... In a recent vote on a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling upon Israel to curb further encroachments on Palestinian lands by Jewish settlers, only the United States and Micronesia voted with Israel. Of the 185 U.N. member nations, all of the others, without exception, voted against Israel or abstained. Yet Americans seem oblivious to such examples of how their Israel-centered Middle East policies are isolating the United States in the world."

Some Advisors Seek Sweeping U.S. Response,
Miami Herald, September 18, 2001
"As he weighs retaliation for last week's terrorist attacks, President Bush is receiving conflicting advice from his top aides, some of whom want to go beyond a military strike on terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan and topple states that have long threatened the United States, particularly Iraq. The split between civilian officials at the Pentagon and Secretary of State Colin Powell, confirmed Monday by current and former U.S. officials, goes to the heart of Bush's proposed new war on international terrorism. Powell, seeking to build and hold an international coalition against terrorism that includes many Muslim nations, is urging caution, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman wants to limit military strikes to bin Laden's Afghan redoubts and to use other means -- diplomacy, law enforcement and financial pressure -- to shut down terrorist networks elsewhere. That view is not shared by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and others have argued strenuously in inter-agency meetings for a far more sweeping U.S. response, including a strategic bombing campaign and aid for Iraqi opposition groups to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the officials said."

If Bush Wants an Invasion, It Could Be More Costly Than Vietnam,
Independent [London], September 18, 2001
"President Bush is talking about a 'crusade'' ­ it would be difficult to find a word more likely to enrage Muslims ­ but if he plans to wage it in Afghanistan, the United States faces a military campaign more fraught and potentially even more costly than Vietnam. Ground troops may be necessary to seize Osama bin Laden but they will be entering a country containing one tenth of the world's land mines, left by Soviet occupation forces across 80 per cent of the land. Besides, anyone who wants to invade Afghanistan needs friends. The Russians had the communist government of Babrak Karmal. But, with the murder of the only serious opponent of the Taliban, Shah Masood, by Arab suicide bombers nine days ago, the United States hasn't a single friend in that cemetery of foreign armies ... Even if the Americans penetrated Afghanistan, their shells would only plough over the ruins. The Russians tried to destroy the Taliban's predecessors with 10 years of bombing, destroying whole villages, with their people, farm animals, fields, trees and mud huts. And still they could not get rid of the mujahedin, still they could not ­ to use Mr Bush's inappropriately folksy phrase ­ 'smoke them out of their holes.'"

In the Death Zone, by Tom Carew, Guardian [London], September 19, 2001
"As fighting terrain, [the Hindu Kush area in Afghanistan] is an absolute nightmare. It's a natural fortress. You can't get very far with vehicles; you get bogged down and the passes are too steep. The Russians had a bloody awful time. They really got stuck. It's one thing to put in your infantry, but you've got to keep them within range of your artillery and your mortars. With bad mountain passes, this is almost impossible. None of this matters to the Afghans: they have it all organised, moving from one village to the next, where they have bases stocked with food. This is how they have fought and won wars for the past 200 years, with little bases all over the place and holes in the ground where everything is buried ... If it comes to a ground war, I believe the western forces will have a very slim chance of victory. The last army to win in Afghanistan was that of Alexander the Great; everyone else has got mauled and pulled out. The CIA made an awful lot of maps when they were there, but a map is only as good as the person using it, and there is no safe way to get troops in. The Afghans are a formidable enemy. I should know. We in the west pointed them in the right direction and with a little bit of training, they went a long way."

International Poll Shows Opposition to US Strike,
Yahoo!News [from Reuters], September 21, 2001
"International public opinion opposes a massive U.S. military strike to retaliate for suicide attacks on America by hijacked aircraft, according to a Gallup poll in 31 countries whose results were released on Friday. Only in Israel and the United States did a majority favour a military response against states shown to harbour terrorists, the survey found. People questioned elsewhere preferred to see suspected terrorists extradited and put on trial. 'Around 80 percent of Europeans and around 90 percent of South Americans favour extradition and a court verdict. By European comparison, calls for a tough military response were above average among the French (29 percent) and the Dutch (28 percent),' said Swiss polling firm Isopublic, which conducted the survey in Switzerland. Seventy-seven percent of Israelis backed military action, while 54 percent of Americans were in favour, it said."

Rabbi Helps Recover Jewish Victims of Pentagon Hit,
Jewish Times, September 21, 2001
"'There were four confirmed Jewish fatalities on American Airlines Flight 77 [that struck the Pentagon],' continued Rabbi [Menachem] Youlus. 'I identified one with a Magen David around his neck. He was on the manifest of the airplane, and he was in the right seat' ... The rabbi estimated that 30-40 Jews died in the Pentagon of 190 feared dead." [Jews represent 2.5% of the American population. 64 of those killed were on American Airlines Flight 77. According to the above estimate, of the remaining 126 slain people working in the Pentagon, 26-36 were Jewish -- somewhere around 20-30%].

A Rabbi Ministers to the Many Faithful at Ground Zero,
[Jewish] Forward, September 21, 2001
"The World Trade Center had crumbled into a pile of rubble two days before. Thousands of rescue workers had come to help. The National Guard had been mobilized to protect the area. And Rabbi [Jacob] Goldstein, a Lubavitcher rabbi, career city employee and National Guard reservist, was administering to them all as chief chaplain of the Guard's mission to New York City. Rabbi Goldstein is in charge of chaplains of all faiths — 30 teams, each comprising a chaplain and a chaplain's assistant. As the crisis continues, he said, the number of teams deployed to the area will grow. 'I'm on call indefinitely,' said Rabbi Goldstein, a fit 53 with a long white beard and boundless energy. Dressed from head to toe in fatigues, he wore a camouflage yarmulke beneath his helmet. 'Until further notice I am the lead chaplain for the entire mission.'" [The Lubavitcher movement is also known as Chabad; some of its troubling tenets may be noted in the blue column to the left, there in the context of Ari Fleischer, apparently a member of the Chabad movement and press spokesman for president George W. Bush.]

Akamai: Co-Founder Dies in WTC Plane Crash, by Daniel Sieberg,
CNN, September 11, 2001
"Daniel Lewin, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) at Akamai Technologies Inc., is said by his company to have died Tuesday as a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11. The Boeing 767, originally bound for Los Angeles from Boston, crashed into the World Trade Center in New York ... In July, Lewin was named one of the Top 10 people of the Enterprise Systems Power 100, a list of industry leaders chosen for their effect on the IT (information technology) landscape and for their ability to influence the industry's direction ... Born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in Jerusalem, Lewin is an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, having served in the country's military for more than four years."

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THE FOLLOWING IS THE WINNER OF JTR'S
"MIND-BOGGLING JEWISH HYPOCRITE OF THE WEEK" AWARD:

Arab Americans Have to Choose. It's War Now -- Divided Loyalties Aren't Acceptable, by Ze'ev Chafets, New York Daily News, September 16, 2001.
"[Many public officials have declared that] not all Arabs are terrorists, and not all Muslims are enemies ... Japanese-Americans were herded into confinement camps during World War II ... They were, we can see in hindsight, victims of guilt by association. Nobody wants this to happen again. But guilt by association cuts both ways ... Since Tuesday, [Muslim] community spokesmen have gone on TV to denounce the sneak attack on New York and Washington ... The blasts that blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade towers ... also demolished this kind of Arab double-talk. We are in a moment of extreme moral and political clarity. After Tuesday, Americans know precisely who their enemies are. There are apologists for Islam who say that a great religion has been tarnished and perverted by a few zealots. But Islam, like communism and every other mobilized ideology, can be judged only by its actions."

CONTEXT: The "actions" by which to judge another group of people, American Jews, who overwhelmingly support Israel, may be examined for comparison here. The author of the above article, Ze'ev Chafets, was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan. Overcome with the Zionist spirit, he moved to Israel as a young adult and became a high-level press official in the Israeli government. Like many Jewish Americans, he has both Israeli and American citizenship. [Chafets, Z., Heroes and Hustlers, Hardhats and Holymen. Inside the New Israel, William Morrow, NY, 1986] Chafets even wrote the following in an article in 1996 about the Jewish "fundamentalist" equivilant of "fundamentalist Muslims": "Rabbi Meir Kahane began preaching that Arabs are dogs and the penalty for a Muslim man marrying a Jewish woman shoud be death" ... Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz "said a schoolbus full of kids was hit by a train because God was angry that the movie theatre in their town was open of Friday nights" ... The Lubavitcher [Chabad] rabbi "allowed his followers to declare him the Messiah" ... Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri ... "the world's greatest kabbalist [Jewish mystic] ... put a hex on a Jerusalem office building that blocked his view" ... Rabbi Dov Lior "declared it kosher to kill gentile women and children in wartime" ... "20,000 yeshivah [Jewish religious school students] gathered to stone and threaten Israeli archeologists" ... Rabbi Moshe Maya "arose in the Knesset and said that the halalkhic [Jewish religious law] penalty for homosexuality is death" ... Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, "universally considered one of the great Torah sages of the age, was quoted as ruling that the faithful should refuse transfusions from gentiles and nonobservant Jews because they have dangerously treif [forbidden] blood which might cause all manner of un-Jewish behavior" ... Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu believes that "Jewish blood is inherently pure and therefore incapable of defiling Jewish recipients." [Chafets, Ze'ev, Real Torah Judaism, Jerusalem Report, 1-25-96, p. 18]

There have even been repeated plans by Jewish fanatics in terrorist cells to blow-up Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site -- a mosque -- in Islam. In the 1980s Israeli police uncovered such a plan which included officers in the Israeli army reserve. As Aviezer Ravitzky notes: "It was a mystical attempt to cut ff the forces of impurity, the 'husk of Ishmael [Arabs],' from the source of their vitality on the holy mountain. For some, however, it was also an apocalyptic move to bring about a historic turn, to force the hand of the Master of the Universe by bringing a catastrophe. By precipitating a great holy war against Israel, they would 'oblige' the Redeemer to wage a great and terrible campaign on their behalf. By facing the End below, they would activate the higher powers above." [Ravitzsky, A. Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism. University of Chicago Press, 1996, p. 133]

Dual Muslim loyalty? In a 1978-80 survey of 443 American Jews in a "leadership training" program at the United Jewish Appeal, 70% of respondents reported that they were more emotionally moved by listening to Israel's national anthem (the Hatikvah) than the Star-Spangled Banner (another 7% "weren't sure" about it). Particularly noteworthy was the Jewish leadership response to the statement "The primary loyalty of American Jews must be to the United States and their fellow Americans." Over 50% (58, 52, and 56 percent in three distinct groups) DISAGREED. Coupled with the "not sure" response, 77, 67, and 71 percent of these future Jewish polity leaders DID NOT agree with this statement of "primary loyalty" to their fellow Americans. [Woocher, J., Sacred Survival. The Civil Religion of American Jews. Indiana University Press, 1986, p. 131-132]

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Poll: After U.S. Terror Attacks, More Americans Support Israel,
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], September 25, 2001
"There has been a significant increase in the percentage of Americans who support Israel in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States, while support for the Palestinians has fallen significantly, according to a survey carried out by Gallop for CNN and USA Today. Some 55 percent of the American public currently supports Israel rather than the Palestinians, the largest ever margin since the outbreak of the Gulf war in 1991. Last month, only 41 percent of people responded that they support Israel when asked 'Do you support Israel or the Palestinians?' Only 7 percent said that they support the Palestinians in the latest survey, down from last month's 13 percent. The increase in support for Israel can be explained by more people identifying with Israel as a country frequently attacked by terrorists and by the anti-Arab wave currently engulfing the U.S. ... Only 1 percent felt that the U.S. should adopt a pro-Palestinian stance, unchanged from last month."

Braced for Backlash, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, September 21, 2001
"The media war over Israel, running hot and heavy in the months before Sept. 11, took a dangerous turn following the tragic terrorists attack on America. In the hours and days following the attack, sources cited by American print and electronic media, and American media itself, asserted that this country fell victim to these outrages primarily because of its support for Israel. These and other reports have led some American Jews to suggest that blaming Israel has, or is in the process of becoming, an integral component of the current drumbeat resounding in much of the earlier broadcast coverage. The Journal took a thorough and considered look at the first three days of special-coverage output by CBS, ABC and NBC news ... The network news anchors and their field reporters generally refrained from overzealous pursuits of potential Jewish and Israeli culpability in the attacks, and for the most part provided a fair and accurate context for the place and significance of Arab and Islamic anti-Israeli sentiment ... Jewish jitters at the prospect of a possible anti-Israel and anti-Jewish backlash, though not groundless, may have been ratcheted up a few notches by the community’s difficulty in grappling with questions intended not as damning so much as provocative. Many taking umbrage at questions regarding Israel’s alleged culpability failed to recognize that such questions were indeed inevitable, and that dispensing with them early in the game offered invaluable opportunities to reframe the discussion."

Straw's Trip to Teheran Infuriates Israelis,
Telegraph [London], September 25, 2001
"Jack Straw, the [British] Foreign Secretary, was denounced from both ends of the Middle East political spectrum yesterday as he prepared for a landmark visit to Iran. Hours before he was due in Teheran for the first visit by a British Foreign Secretary since the fall of the Shah 22 years ago, Israeli officials accused Mr Straw of 'sticking a knife in Israel's back' by visiting one of its most vehement enemies. He was also criticised by Israel for a 'despicable' article he wrote in the Iranian press arguing that anger over the Palestinian situation had helped to breed terrorism. Baton-wielding riot police outside the British embassy in Teheran broke up a demonstration by dozens of Iranian hardliners who chanted: 'Death to America, death to Britain' ... Mr Straw hopes his trip will help secure Iran's support for an international coalition against terrorism, and for strikes against Osama bin Laden and his Afghan hosts."

Taliban Could Be Allies to the West: Filmmaker,
Canadian Jewish News, September 28, 2001
"Filmmaker Simcha Jacobivici has been to the Khyber Pass, the narrow gorge that links Afghanistan and Pakistan. He's sat with the Pathan people of Afghanistan and been embraced by them as a brother. And he has a word of advice for the U.S.-led coalition out to punish the Taliban, Afghanistan's radical Islamic party, for harbouring Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden. 'I think the Pathans could be allies of the West, not enemies,' he said. 'They're being approached as hostile Muslims when what they are is closet Israelites.' Jacobivici's fascinating claim, that the Pathans are really descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel forced into exile by Assyrian invaders in 722 BCE, was first made by him in a documentary film, Quest for the Lost Tribes, about two years ago. It is his contention that the Pathans, who call themselves Pushtuns, still maintain some fragile links to their ancient heritage, and are, in fact, the Jews' long-lost, distant cousins."

Washington Hawk Trains Sights on Iraq, Guardian [London], September 26, 2001
"[Jewish Deputy Defence Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz's admirers and detractors agree on one thing - 'hawk' is too timid a description of the outspoken deputy defence secretary trying to persuade President Bush to bomb Iraq. 'Hawk doesn't do him justice,' said one awed former colleague from academia. 'What about velociraptor?' In Washington, deputy defence secretaries rarely play starring roles, but Mr Wolfowitz, due to put the US case to Nato defence ministers in Brussels today, was an exception even before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Since that disastrous morning, he has been a major player, often overshadowing his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, as the leading proponent of a wider war against suspected state sponsors of terrorism, particularly Iraq ... In the wake of the suicide attacks on New York and Washington, Mr Wolfowitz has emerged as the loudest voice calling for a comprehensive multi-front war on terrorism which would include strikes on suspected WMD production and storage sites. His comments triggered a rare open debate inside the rigidly disciplined Bush administration. The secretary of state, Colin Powell, hardly bothered to veil his contempt for Mr Wolfowitz's 'ending states' suggestion ... Mr Wolfowitz, a native of Brooklyn, is untroubled by shyness. Soon after his appointment, he interrupted a New York Times interviewer to remind her that in Indonesia, where he was once ambassador, 'I am a major international figure.' Indonesians, he pointed out, 'still have my picture on the walls.'"

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism, by Bernard Wasserstein,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 28, 2001
"A century ago, anti-Semitism was called 'the socialism of fools.' Now something similar threatens to become rampant: anti-Americanism. Psychologically, it fulfills some of the same functions as anti-Semitism. It gives vent to a hatred of the successful, and is fueled by envy and frustration. It attributes responsibility for all the ills of the world to one primary source. It ascribes to a supposed ruling clique of the despised group an ambition to control and exploit humanity. This new conspiracy theory has been embraced by large sections of the thinking classes in many countries. Like historical anti-Semitism, it transcends ideological boundaries and brings together economic, social, religious, and national animosities in a murderous brew. Americans are advised by many abroad (and by some at home): 'Ask yourselves why you are so hated.' It might be worth remembering that similar questions were put to Jews in the 1930s. And to recall that, as Victor Klemperer recorded in his diaries of the war years in Dresden, some Jews internalized the worldview of their enemies and persuaded themselves that such violent hatred must, indeed, have had a rational source in their own behavior ... To some, the Israeli/Jewish hand is detected behind, controlling, the American leviathan. Perry Anderson (a British historian teaching at the University of California at Los Angeles), for example, writes in the latest New Left Review: 'Entrenched in business, government and the media, American Zionism has since the sixties acquired a firm grip on the levers of public opinion and official policy towards Israel.'" [Anderson's New Left Review article, linked here, is called Scurrying Towards Bethlehem; the above Anderson quote is from page 11; PDF file]

Father of Neutron Bomb: Use It on Osama, Newsmax, September 25, 2001
"Top officials in the Bush administration and in Congress have been urged to use a small neutron bomb to wipe out Osama bin Laden in a quick first strike in the war on terrorism. Sam Cohen, the scientist who invented the neutron bomb, has outlined for these officials his plan to 'do in' the Taliban and terrorist Osama bin Laden, and do it quickly. That, says Cohen, would go right to the core of the terrorist threat and at the same time satisfy the typically American impatience. The neutron bomb has a limited blast and causes little collateral damage or lasting radioactivity while killing its intended targets. 'My offhand guess is that the majority of Americans couldn't care less how we 'do in' the Taliban and bin Laden and company, provided we get it done and [quickly],' he told NewsMax.com in a phone interview from his West Coast home. Cohen, whose views were often accepted by President Reagan, agrees with President Bush regarding the need for the American people to resolve to hunker down for the long term. The global terrorist threat is indeed 'going to go on for years,' Cohen agrees, but he is telling policy-makers in Washington, 'the name of the game right now is Afghanistan [and] bin Laden.'"

The CNN of the Arab World Deserves Our Respect, Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (originally published in the Los Angeles Times), October 22, 2001
"Among the more remarkable developments since Sept. 11 is that the Western monopoly on global news production has met its first serious challenge from a Third World source. The improbable upstart is Al Jazeera, a 24-hour Arabic language satellite news channel from the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar ... . Since almost all hard news coming from the war zone comes from Al Jazeera, its coverage is often cited, but generally with the proviso that this information 'cannot be independently confirmed,' as if there were any question about its credibility. There is more than a hint of racism in this double gesture of simultaneously relying on and undermining Al Jazeera's reporting. Among the pots calling the kettle black, the New York Times opined that Al Jazeera 'often slants its news with a vicious anti-Israel and anti-American bias' and 'deeply irresponsible reporting [that] reinforces the region's anti-American views.' Dan Rather questioned whether there was 'any indication that Osama bin Laden has helped finance this operation.' Britain's Daily Telegraph called the station 'Bin Laden TV,' while NPR warned listeners that Al Jazeera's coverage should 'come with a health warning.' All this from people who understand not a word of Arabic."

Harvard's Own Bin Laden, Washington Times, October 29, 2001
"If there was any question about how Harvard really feels about America, including New York City, the school's recent behavior has removed all doubt. For several years now, the school has received millions in three separate endowments from the bin Laden family for the Harvard Law School and their School of Design. Moreover, Harvard has been in association with a Cambridge-based biomedical firm, Hybridon, whose investors include Osama bin Laden's brother, Yahia bin Laden and Abdelah bin Mahfour, a relative of the family suspected of funding bin Laden's operatives. In the wake of Sept. 11, Harvard has nonchalantly brushed off any criticism of the practice of taking money from the bin Ladens. Instead, showing the courage of its convictions, the school has deleted references to the bin Laden law school scholarships from its web site. Indeed, in a letter to the students and faculty on Oct. 16, former Clinton administration official and now Harvard President Lawrence Summers [Five of the eight Ivy League college presidents are Jewish] wrote what could only be described as the most breathtakingly self-absorbed communication since Bill Clinton last made an entry into his diary. Rather than denouncing the terrorists, praising the New York City firefighters and police officers, or calling for support for President Bush, the letter goes into great detail about how Harvard will help Harvard to get through this crisis including 'Harvard's commitment . . . to thoughtful inquiry'" Mr. Summers also thoughtfully created an informal advisory group of Harvard faculty to 'advance our paramount interest in the well-being of all members of the university.' Well, at least that's out of the way. Having accepted millions from the bin Laden family, Harvard was called upon recently in a resolution passed by the Cambridge City Council to donate money for compensation for the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A figure of $5 million was suggested. No dice. Harvard told Cambridge to tell New York City and America to 'drop dead.'"

FBI Suspects Israelis of Nuclear Terrorism, Jerusalem Post, November 1, 2001
"With America on top security alert, the FBI was hunting yesterday for six men carrying Israeli passports and plans of a nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline who were picked up by police in the Midwest US over the weekend but then released, The Times reported. The incident is thought to be connected with the latest FBI alert and senior intelligence officials are furious that the men were set free before they could be fully questioned. The men were travelling in two groups of three in white cars when they were pulled over by police officers in the Midwest. Security officials have refused to disclose further details."

FBI Fury as Men with Nuclear Plans Escape,
Times [of London], November 1, 2001
"With America on top security alert, the FBI was hunting yesterday for six men of Middle Eastern appearance carrying plans of a nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline who were picked up by police in the Midwest over the weekend but then released. The incident is thought to be connected with the latest FBI alert and senior intelligence officials are furious that the men were set free before they could be fully questioned. The men were travelling in two groups of three in white saloon cars when they were pulled over by police officers in the Midwest, according to the Knight Ridder News Service. Security officials have refused to disclose further details. The men were searched and questioned and the state officers discovered detailed plans and photographs of a nuclear power plant in Florida, along with box cutters — the weapons used in the September 11 attacks — and other equipment. The men, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin and held Israeli passports, were then interviewed by immigration officials. When their passports and visas were found to be in order the officers, who were not aware of the country’s imminent security alert, let the men go without first calling in the FBI to question them more thoroughly."

Survey: Jewish Support Up for Israel, If Not Its Policies,
[Jewish] Forward, November 2, 2001
"American Jews express more attachment to Israel than they did before September 11, and almost half say they are 'more in touch' with their 'identity as a Jew,' according to a new survey of American Jewish opinion commissioned by the Forward. But that increased identification with Judaism and Israel does not necessarily translate into increased support for Israeli policy ... While the proportion of American Jews who say they identify with the hawkish wing of the Israeli political spectrum has surged in recent months — rising from 39% last January to 49% this week — the views they express on Israeli-Palestinian relations have become markedly less hawkish, the study found ... The proportion of Jews who say they are 'somewhat' or 'very attached' to Israel rose from 72% in January to 82% this week. The proportion saying they are 'not attached' to Israel dropped from 27% to 18%."

New ADL Poll Shows No Anti-Semitic and Blame Israel Fallout from Sept 11 Attack, Press Release, ADL [Anti-Defamation League], November 2001
"The American people overwhelmingly reject the notion that the close U.S.-Israel relationship was to blame for the September 11 terrorist attack on America, according to a new poll released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). There is also no evidence suggesting that anti-Semitism has increased in the U.S. as a result of the attacks. The survey found that 63 percent of the American people believe that Osama bin Laden's attack on America occurred because 'the terrorists don't like our values or way of life, not because of our relationship with Israel.' Only 22 percent believe the attack would not have occurred if the U.S. were not such a close ally of Israel. Responses to a series of questions on Americans' attitudes toward Jews showed no increase in anti-Semitism from previous surveys. In fact, there was a decline in one classic ADL measure of anti-Semitism: 25 percent of those surveyed thought that the statement, 'Jews are more loyal to Israel than America' is probably true, a 6 percent decline from ADL's 1998 survey. 'This survey shows the good sense of the American people is not buying into the outrageous charge that America's relationship with Israel was the cause of the attacks,' said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. 'They clearly understand that the blame lies with Osama bin Laden and the terrorists and not U.S. foreign policy.'"

Who Wants This War and Why, by Gilbert Blythe [pseudonym],
Thornwalker [Last Ditch], November 17, 2001
"War [on terrorism] on the scale [Irving] Kristol and [Robert] Kagan envision, in an age of weapons of mass destruction, could have catastrophic consequences, but they tell us that such a war is necessary in defense of 'the West.' They are hardly alone in calling for all-out war. Charles Krauthammer, Norman Podhoretz, William Safire, Morton Kondracke, Don Feder, Ben Wattenberg, and Mona Charen have all done so as well. In the Bush administration, Paul Wolfowitz is the most prominent advocate of a multi-front war. Let us state it plainly: All these people are Jewish. Not all Jews are as eager as these are to shed Muslim blood, and a few non-Jews are equally eager, but Jews have unquestionably distinguished themselves in their ardor for war. Why is it necessary to point this out? ... When it comes to the events of September 11, Jews are not neutral observers; they are partisans. That is because Israel, and our relations with the Jewish state, are central both to the terror attacks themselves and to the way in which we should respond to them ... Excessive concern for narrowly Jewish interests could damage broader American interests. Jews with access to the official media have taken a virtually unanimous view of the events of September 11 in insisting, first of all, that American support for Israel has nothing to do with why so many Arabs hate us, or why 19 fanatics were willing to die trying to kill as many of us possible. They prefer to divorce the deaths of nearly 5,000 Americans from our alliance with Israel because they worry — with good reason — that gentiles might rethink that alliance if large numbers of Americans should begin to die because of it."

His Grasp of Spin is Chilling ..., Telegraph [Great Britain], November 16, 2001
"I am a Jewish twenty-something from New York ... This is a great propaganda film - the kind that you can't get out of your head. Bin Laden's story of Muslim subjugation turning to resistance is so effective that I barely need my transcripts. He uses the most sophisticated western film-making techniques: it's as if Guy Ritchie, Sylvester Stallone and Spielberg have banded together to make jihad, the movie ... Bin Laden's film crew must have studied Schindler's List, because a five-minute orgy of Israelis brutalising women and children is like a replay of scenes from the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. In Spielberg's film, the camera panned to the body of a little girl in red; in this, the climax is the murder of Mohammed al-Durra. As in Schindler's List, children and women sing slowly and movingly. And this is the point at which I burst into tears. I hardly realise that I have been visually and aurally manipulated until I study the clip in detail. In slow motion, and in time to the music, Israeli soldiers beat two women with sticks, until one falls to ground. The soldiers carry off screaming men, as if they are so much rubbish. Then, they strike a little boy with such force that he crumples to the ground. These images, and similar ones, are repeated over and over, until the violence seems unending. But, hang on aren't these the same three incidents, shot from different angles? Bin Laden has simply cut up full-length 'news' sequences and scattered them about, fooling me with the frenzied graphics and sound effects."

Brotherly Enmity. No Love Lost Between Afghanistan's 'Last Two Jews,'
ABC News, December 2, 2001
"Yitzhak [Levy] and the Taliban, they're the same," said Simanto [Zebolan], 41, pressing the tips of two fingers together to make the point. Across the courtyard of a crumbling apartment building on Flower Street that used to be home to a community of some 30 Jewish families, Levy is just as bitter about his neighbor. The building has no glass in its windows, no running water and two synagogues, one that Simanto climbs into through a window frame and another that Levy keeps under lock and key. 'All my problems are because of Zebolan,' said Levy, a squat man with a flowing white beard and battered sheepskin Astrakhan hat, who gave his age as 60. He recites a litany of woes capped by accusations that the only other Jew in Kabul had denounced him to the Taliban as a spy for Israel and landed him in jail five times ... Levy and Simanto, it seems, are all that is left of a Jewish presence in Afghanistan that stretches back 800 years. All the other Jews left when communist-backed rule collapsed in 1992, many of them for Israel where Levy and Simanto both say their wives and children now live."

The Businessmen Behind David Horowitz and the Libertarian War Front, by Bill White, Pravda [Russia], November 23, 2001
"David Horowitz [is] the radical neo-conservative Zionist who runs the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and who publishes the web zine FrontPageMag.com. Since the 9-11 attacks, Horowitz has been a blizzard of hatred blowing against anyone he considers to be a 'Fifth Columnist,' whether it be a lowly university professor preaching love and peace, or a Congresswoman asking uncomfortable questions about the Bush administration’s new security state. In one ranting response to a letter from a reader he shouted: 'Thirty Muslim states, thirty states without a democracy. Until the Muslim world gets past theocracy and learns tolerance, the Jews need to be armed to the teeth and much more ruthless with their enemies than they have been, since when it comes to Jews fear is the only kind of respect the Arab world will give them' ... Many Libertarians viewed that statement as a blank check for the war Zionists like [Jewish U.S. government officials] Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle were demanding against Israel’s, not America’s, enemies. The Libertarian Party itself was thrown into turmoil."

Easiest Word, The Sun [London], December 2001
"Terrorism is now, without doubt, the greatest scourge of the free world. It has to be fought with utter determination wherever it threatens us. As we are seeing in Afghanistan this is not a pleasant task. When the Americans turn their attentions to Iraq — as they must — it will get even more unpleasant. And when the Israelis defend themselves — as they must — it will not be pleasant either. But if we have learned anything from the New York attacks, we should have learned this: WE ARE ALL ISRAELIS NOW." [Emphasis in original text]

This Terrible Conflict Is the Last Colonial War, by Robert Fisk,
Independent [London], December 4, 2001
"The reality is that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the last colonial war. The French thought that they were fighting the last battle of this kind. They had long ago conquered Algeria. They set up their farms and settlements in the most beautiful land in North Africa. And when the Algerians demanded independence, they called them 'terrorists' and they shot down their demonstrators and they tortured their guerrilla enemies and they murdered – in 'targeted killings' – their antagonists. In just the same way, we are responding to the latest massacre in Israel according to the rules of the State Department, CNN, the BBC and Downing Street. Arafat has got to come alive, to get real, to perform his duty as the West's policeman in the Middle East. President Mubarak does it in Egypt; King Abdullah does it in Jordan; King Fahd does it in Saudi Arabia. They control their people for us. It is their duty. They must fulfil their moral obligations, without any reference to history or to the pain and the suffering of their people ... One day, I suspect, Mahmat's relatives [who lost innocent family members to U.S. bombings in Afghanistan] may be angry enough to take their revenge on the United States, in which case they will be terrorists, men of violence. We may even ask if their leaders could control them. They are not bin Ladens, Mahmat's family said that – 'We are neither Taliban nor Arab' – but, frankly, could we blame them if they decided to strike at the United States for the bloody and terrible crime done to their family. Can the United States stop bombing villages? Can Washington persuade its special forces to protect prisoners? Can the Americans control their own people?"

Suspected Israeli Spies Held By U.S., Fox News, December 12, 2001
"Some 60 Israelis, who federal investigators have said are part of a long-running effort to spy on American government officials, are among the hundreds of foreigners detained since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Fox News has learned. The Israelis, a handful of whom are described as active Israeli military or intelligence operatives, have been detained on immigration charges or under the new Patriot Anti-Terrorism Law. Federal investigators said some of them failed polygraph questions inquiring about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. There is no indication the Israelis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it. A highly placed investigator told Fox News there are 'tie-ins,' but when asked for details flatly refused to describe them. 'Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified, I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information,' the source said."

FBI Arrests Two JDL Members in Bombing Plot,
Washington Post (from Associated Press), December 12, 2001
"The chairman of the Jewish Defense League and a follower have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up a Los Angeles mosque and the office of an Arab American congressman, federal authorities said Wednesday. Irv Rubin, 56, and a member of the group, Earl Krugel, 59, both of Los Angeles, were arrested Tuesday night after the last component of the bomb – explosive powder – was delivered to Krugel's home, U.S. Attorney John S. Gordon said. Other bomb components and weapons were seized at Krugel's home. Authorities said the plot targeted a mosque in Culver City and the office of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. Issa is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants. Rubin and Krugel were expected to appear in court later Wednesday. The complaint against them quotes Krugel as making a comment during a meeting that Arabs 'need a wakeup call.' Authorities were tipped off by a government source about a series of meetings where the scheme to bomb the King Fahd Mosque and Issa's office was hammered out, Gordon said. The original target was to be the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, but the target was changed during a meeting last weekend."

Et Tu, Israel? antiwar.com, December 14, 2001
"When the news first broke that not only Arabs are being held in the wake of 9/11, to my knowledge I was the only columnist to deal with the subject of the mysterious Israelis in custody: 'Israel and 9/11 – Feds holding 60 Israelis in connection with 9/11 – Why?' While the Washington Post assured us that the Israeli detainees were only 'observing a time-honored tradition in their country – touring the world after their mandatory service in the Israeli military,' I was more than a little skeptical: 'Something tells me these guys are no ordinary tourists, but since the US Government is keeping mum about everything connected with this investigation, we just don't know.' THE PLOT SICKENS. Ah, but now some government officials are talking, and we know a lot more. We know that some of the detainees have been identified as Israeli military or intelligence agents, and that some failed polygraph tests when asked whether they had engaged in covert operations 'against and in the United States.' We also know, courtesy of Fox News, that as many as 140 Israeli agents may have been rounded up in the US before 9/11: the extent of Israel's covert action operation is described as 'sprawling.'"

Carl Cameron Investigates, Part 1, Fox News, December 14, 2001
"Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before Sept. 11 ... Since Sept. 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are 'tie-ins.' But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, 'evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information.'" [Note: This article (and four others by Cameron) were censored from Fox News' web site within the week. See Justin Raimondo for an article, and links, about it all. In an Orwellian sentence, the link to Fox said: "This story no longer exists" until that too was taken down. Also see an Israel National News' article about Cameron's story]]

Oy, McVey, Village Voice, December 19-25, 2001
"Mainstream Jewish groups were quick to condemn the JDL [Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel and their plot to blow up a mosque]