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Israeli papers disagree on the methods the government should use to free an Israeli soldier currently being held by Palestinian militants. Elsewhere in the Arab world, papers mix fierce criticism of Israel's actions with indignation at the West's reaction to the soldier's abduction. Some commentators accuse Israel of involvement in "ethnic cleansing", "genocide" and "racist extermination". ISRAEL'S HA'ARETZ For the advocates of battle and of 'landing the blow', it is best to remember that fighting in the Gaza alleyways, from house to house, basement to basement, while shooting into balconies, would translate into a far more terrifying operation than Operation...

Since elected to rule the Palestinians, the leaders of Hamas sound sometimes as though they are talking in different voices – depending on the place and occasion. While one appears to accept 1967 borders, another stands by the “right of refugees” (1948) to return” – another formula for Israel’s destruction, like the demand for a Palestinian state ranging from “the river to the sea.” The tactic is transparent: Hamas, a designated Islamic terror group whose politburo chief resides in Damascus hopes to disarm the more susceptible countries of the West by apparently confused signals to end its government’s isolation and...

PA chairman says he would not stay in office should entrance of Hamas into Palestinian parliament prevent him from influencing PA policy, advancing peace process. Bush reiterates United States' conditions to Hamas if the group wishes to be granted American aid; voices hope Hamas will adopt more pragmatic policyWASHINGTON - In an interview with NTV1 over the weekend Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that he would not stay in office should the entrance of Hamas into the Palestinian parliament prevent him from influencing PA policy and advancing the peace process. “If I will still be able to do something...

DEBKAfile’s political sources accuse acting prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni of doing too little, too late in their campaign to keep the Hamas Islamic terrorists from coming to power. Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov predicted correctly that other states will follow suit and favor contacts with Hamas now that the Jerusalem campaign heavily dependent on Washington has gone up in smoke. As he spoke, France jumped aboard. What this means is - 1. After failing to prevent the election although it was clearly preconfigured for a Hamas victory, the Israeli caretaker government should have struck hard...

Pallywood The material we show here constitutes a tiny fragment of a much larger phenomenon, raw footage from Palestinian photographers working for major western media outlets. From this material, our news agencies prepare news reports that shape our perceptions of what is happening in the Middle East Conflict. We think that a close analysis of this material defies all expectations of what such footage should resemble, and suggest that Palestinian photographers do not at all share the same production and journalistic values espoused by a free press. We leave the experience and the judgment to you: HERE’S THE EVIDENCE; YOU...

A relatively junior intelligence officer has been mandated to establish why Israeli intelligence missed predicting the Islamist terrorist Hamas takeover of Palestinian government by the ballot. Does the remit given him by chief of staff Lt-Gen Dan Halutz and military intelligence director Maj-Gen Amos Yadlin give him enough scope to get to the bottom of a monumental lapse? Hardly. His task has been limited to an internal intelligence probe rather than a broad inquiry. Within this limit, there is no way he can truly explain how Israel came to find itself face to face with a strategic calamity on the...

At least 19 Palestinians were killed and 85 injured when an explosive-packed car blew up during a rally organized by the militant group Hamas on Friday in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian interior ministry said. Thousands of Hamas activists and supporters took part in an armed parade to celebrate the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last week after 38 years of military occupation. Ismael Haneya, a senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, told the crowds who were waving Hamas green flags that the Palestinians should continue their armed struggle in order to force Israel...

Special Report: A State of Terror Jack Kinsella Israel - Middle East Thursday, June 09, 2005 Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor A reader took exception to my characterization of a Palestinian state as a 'terrorist state' and emailed me to tell me so. The Palestinians, he explained, were only using terror because they have no other weapon with which to fight against Israeli 'occupation' of Palestinian lands. The Israelis bring the terror upon themselves, argued my correspondent. Palestinian terror is the result of resistance to Israeli occupation. Remove the occupation and the resistance will end. Etc., etc., ad nauseam....

French Officer Killed by Israeli Shelling By HUSSEIN DAKROUB .c The Associated Press BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Israeli military fire killed a French U.N. peacekeeper shortly after a Hezbollah bomb attack claimed the life of an Israeli soldier in a day of violence near the border in southern Lebanon, Lebanese and U.N officials said. A Swedish officer also was wounded by the Israeli shelling on Sunday, Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL, said in a statement from the force's headquarters in the Lebanese border town of Naqoura. Hezbollah said one of its...

Inside the Asylum by Jed Babbin [a book published this week by Regnery, a sister company of HUMAN EVENTS] is essential reading for anyone interested in why international relations between the United States and much of the rest of the world appear to be so troubled, and it puts the blame squarely where it belongs: not on the United States but on the UN and several European allies, along with the despots running almost all of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Author Babbin presents convincing evidence that the UN acts as a hindrance to progressive change in the world...

Gordon Brown ordered British banks yesterday to freeze assets held in the name of the new Hamas leader in Gaza, Abdel Aziz Rantisi. Using anti-terrorism powers introduced after the September 11 attacks in America, the Chancellor acted to prevent Rantisi - who has succeeded the assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin - and four other Hamas leaders from gaining access to money held in British accounts.   He also instructed the Bank of England to freeze the assets of two Kurdish terrorist groups. Treasury officials refused to give details of the various accounts involved or what sums were involved. Mr Brown told...

The following article was penned several weeks before Israel's strike on Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin. In light of the strike, the article seems prophetic. -- The Editors.It has become vogue in many circles to represent Middle East savagery as part of some sort of "War of Civilization." It is not. In fact, Middle East is simply a war by barbarism against all civilization. It is also considered chic to represent Middle East conflict as a "cycle of violence", and as something fundamentally symmetrical between Arab terrorists and Israeli soldiers. It is not. The shallow appeal to a supposed "cycle of...

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — At the United Nations yesterday, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, because it made no mention of “terrorist atrocities” committed by Hamas. Also, 60 prominent Palestinians urged their people yesterday not to retaliate for Israel’s killing of the Hamas founder, but instead to transform the 3 1/2-year-old violent uprising into a peaceful protest for statehood. A call for restraint came from a second direction yesterday — relatives of a Palestinian youth caught with a suicide bomber’s vest at an Israeli roadblock demanded...

Nothing about Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, the Murder Inc. of the Middle East, was divinely inspired. Contrary to the descriptions, Yassin was not the Dalai Lama of Gaza. Yet this wicked bag of bones was – and still is – labeled as a "spiritual leader." To call him a "moderate" is no less of a misrepresentation, unless one is referring to unforeseen developments in theology. This (now gratefully) dead yahoo had deigned to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza – only if it were to be used as a temporary base to destroy Israel....

GAZA CITY, MARCH 25: Even as Israeli PM Ariel Sharon tried to win US backing for his plan to disengage from the Palestinians by pledging to evacuate six West Bank settlements along with a comprehensive pullout from the Gaza strip, the top leaders of the radical Hamas movement went into hiding today as the three-day mourning period for their assassinated spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin came to a close. The newly appointed chief for the occupied territories Abdel Aziz Rantissi, and political leaders Mahmud Al-Zahar and Ismail Haniya, had been receiving the condolences of thousands of Palestinians in a tent...

UNITED NATIONS -- The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution today condemning Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin. The veto came after Algeria, the resolution's sponsor, rejected a demand by the United States that the measure also condemn violence by Hamas and other militant groups, and that it identify them by name. The resolution "is silent about the terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said before the vote. He called the measure "unbalanced, one-sided." "Israel's action has escalated tensions in Gaza and the region ... but events must be considered in their context," Negroponte...

France voices objections to placing Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the European Union's list of terror organizations, ynet reported Monday. Diplomatic advisor to President Chirac, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, is quoted to have said to the Israeli ambassador in France, Nissim Zvilli, that there is no proof that these two organizations are terror groups. "If we find that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are indeed terror groups opposed to peace, we may have to change the EU's stand," said Gordo. "However, we must not limit ourselves to one, clear cut, position." Over the weekend, Zvilli met with Gordo, said to be Chirac's right-hand...

IsraelBehindTheNews.com 24th July, 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TV tapes of PA Awards Ceremony for the Families of Suicide Bombers Available through Israel Resource News Agency At a time when the tragedy of civilian casualties in the middle east is so widely discussed, and at a time when a good portion of world opinion and even Israeli public opinion has criticized the Israeli air raid in Gaza in which 14 Arab civilians were killed, you can imagine, if you would, what the reaction of the world would have been if the Israeli government had conducted an official awards ceremony to honor Israeli pilots...

Media coverage of the conflict in the Middle East has simplified the description of the major parties to the point that they are incorrect. They missuse the terms Arab and Palestinian. Unless we have a more precise understanding of the peoples of the Middle Esat and iof their histories, we cannot properly understand what is going on there. Since the nineteenth century, and particularily after WWI nationalism has been a motivating force in world events. President Woodrow Wilson advanced the right of self-determination in his 14 point. Briefly stated, this means that any people who have their own culture have...