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Nine top Fatah gunmen from Nablus on Tuesday surrendered their weapons to the Palestinian Authority security forces out of fear of being targeted by Israel. The move was also made in the wake of growing discontent in the city over the gunmen's continued activities in the city - the main reason behind repeated IDF operations there. The decision followed a report in Sunday's The Jerusalem Post, which appears to have embarrassed the PA. According to the report, many Fatah gunmen were continuing to operate freely in the city despite the PA's claim that Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades,...

UNITED NATIONS — As an American-hosted Middle East summit approaches, Palestinian Arabs are hardening their positions: An aide to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday that the Palestinians will demand sole Arab control over Judaism's holiest site in Jerusalem, the Western Wall. Mr. Abbas's adviser on religious affairs, Adnan al-Husseini, made the new demand in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, sparking an outcry from many Israeli politicians who complained that recent reports about the Olmert government's proposal to transfer Arab-dominated neighborhoods in Jerusalem to the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state have led to further Arab demands....

Gaza on brink of civil war as cleric is killed By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 2:00am GMT 06/01/2007 An unarmed Muslim cleric was shot dead as he drove home from leading prayers yesterday, the latest victim of the Gaza Strip violence that is threatening to spiral into all-out civil war. The funeral of Col Ghayeb saw a huge display of Fatah firepower on the streets of Gaza City Witnesses said Adel Nassar, 50, was murdered because, during his sermon, he dared criticise the killers of a Fatah security chief and seven of his bodyguards. That attack, on Thursday,...

See photos from Bethlehem today at http://flickr.com/photos/jerusalemdiaries/ From: Judy Lash Balint, Jerusalem Every Christmas I make the 12-minute drive from my Jerusalem home to Bethlehem for a reality check on the beleaguered little town five miles away. This year, contrary to the customary gloomy reports from the international media, things were bustling in Bethlehem. Bright blue cloudless skies and comfortable temperatures help make things more pleasant than in previous years when a cold, grey drizzle dampened spirits. Driving up to the Rachel's Passage checkpoint in my car with Israeli plates, a quick check of my press credentials is all that's...

The open wound of Gush Katif By Nadav Shragai Last Friday when Makor Rishon's photographer, Miri Tzahi, saw the photo of First Lieutenant Amihai Merhavia, who was killed in the battle of Bint Jbail, it jogged something in her journalist's memory. She thought she had seen this face before. Tzahi, who is about publish the album, "Katif - Nine days in Av," featuring hundreds of photos of the "days of the expulsion," searched through her computer archive and found a series of photos from around four years ago, showing Merhavia during the violent evacuation of Havat Gilad (Gilad Farm) in...

To see this online, click here NGO Monitor ReportNGO Monitor Beit Milken 13 Tel Hai St. Jerusalem, 92107 Israelmail@ngo.monitor.orgwww.ngo-monitor.org     July 18, 2006: NGOs quick to exploit Lebanon crisis to attack Israel Background: On July 12, Hizbollah launched an attack across the Lebanese-Israel border, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two. In response to these blatant violations of international law, Israel launched a major military operation designed to push the Lebanese government to take control of the border and disarm Hizbollah. (In 2004, UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demanded that all Lebanese militia, including Hizbollah, be disarmed.) In the ongoing conflict,...

GAZA (Reuters) - A deadline set by Palestinian militants for Israel to free hundreds of prisoners in exchange for a captured soldier expired on Tuesday with the Jewish state rejecting any swap. Three factions in the Gaza Strip, among them the armed wing of the governing Hamas Islamist group, had given Israel until 6 a.m. -- threatening that it should respond by then if it valued the life of the captured soldier. No information was immediately available on the fate of 19-year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was captured in a raid across the border from Gaza on June 25, after...

GAZA CITY Palestinians surged triumphantly into demolished Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip early today, torching empty synagogues and firing shots into the air, as the last Israeli soldiers withdrew after 38 years of occupation. The troops' departure marked the final step in the government's decision to leave Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War, and opened an era laden with uncertainty for the coastal enclave's 1.3 million Palestinian residents. Having evacuated about 8,500 Jewish settlers last month and overseen the razing of their homes, the 3,000 Israeli soldiers moved out before sunrise in convoys of tanks...

TEL AVIV, September 2 (RIA Novosti, Ratmir Orestov) - Looting has been widespread in the abandoned Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, an official overseeing the demolishing operation said Friday. In a complaint to Israel's National Police, the official said computers, air conditioners, and even trashcans were being taken from buildings slated for demolition. He said Israeli security personnel deployed to prevent looting in the evacuated settlements were unable to check the identity of all those who had disguised themselves as volunteer workers to misappropriate settlers' property. Israeli police responded to the complaint by promising to increase security measures in...

JERUSALEM – It has spread like a fierce contagion. People wear it. Billboards shout it. Kids distribute in on the streets. See it dangling from cars, buses, baby carriages, backpacks. It's the color orange and it is everywhere. As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate the Jewish communities of Gaza and parts of the West Bank on Aug. 15 draws closer, grassroots anti-withdrawal campaigns have geared up exponentially. With the color theme of orange, signifying the citrus groves that thrive in Jewish Gaza, the plan is to have as many Israelis as possible drape the country in orange to...

Solidarity, Curiosity Sends Thousands of Israelis to Settlements By Julie Stahl CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief April 29, 2005 Homesh, West Bank (CNSNews.com) -- Thousands of Israelis, taking advantage of a warm, holiday week, flocked to the West Bank settlement of Homesh on Thursday, one day after an even larger gathering in the Gaza Strip's Gush Katif settlement bloc. The YESHA settlers' council organized the gatherings to protest Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan. Under the plan, the government will remove some 9,500 Israelis from all 21 Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank,...

CAIR and terrorism Posted: April 18, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joseph Farah © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com How many people do you know personally who have been convicted of supporting terrorism? How many people associated with your company have been convicted of supporting terrorism? How many people associated with organizations in which you are a member or a leader have been convicted of supporting terrorism? If you're like most Americans, the answer to all three questions is probably none. If you're like me and most other Arab-Americans, the answer is still probably none. What would you say about an organization linked...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union (news - web sites)'s anti-fraud office said Thursday it has found no evidence to back accusations that some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in EU aid to the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) was diverted to fund terrorist attacks or siphoned off by corrupt officials. But the independent European Anti-Fraud Office said its investigators found it was necessary to keep including financial safeguards in aid packages to the Palestinians to avoid funds being diverted. "The possibility of misuse of the Palestinian Authority's budget and other resources cannot be excluded due to...

Gunmen Break Up Fatah Party Meeting in Challenge to Abbas LeadershipBy Karin Laub Associated Press Writer Published: Mar 10, 2005 RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Masked Palestinian gunmen burst into a meeting of the ruling Fatah Party on Thursday, shooting into the air and forcing participants to disperse in a brazen challenge to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The incident cast doubt on his authority as he comes under increasing pressure from Israel to disarm militants. Despite the unrest, Abbas said Thursday that he's confident militants will agree to a formal cease-fire at a meeting next week in Egypt. Abbas and...

Two days from now, January 27th, marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army. Here is a brief chronology of the camp, and a moving virtual tour of the site can be found here. Commemorating the liberation of this place of horror seems like it would be a simple thing, but in today's world, nothing is ever simple. For starters, some Muslims are feeling rather left out: British Muslims will boycott a state ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz unless it also commemorates the "holocaust" of the Palestinian intifada. The...

Ailing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's health has deteriorated, Palestinian officials say. Mr Arafat is being treated at a military hospital in Paris for an undisclosed medical condition. Palestinian envoy Leila Shahid told the BBC that his health had suffered a setback, but gave no further details. Her statement followed rumours that Mr Arafat had been vomiting and lapsing in and out of consciousness, before being moved to intensive care. Blood tests have already revealed that 75-year-old Mr Arafat has a low count of platelets, which are needed for clotting, but doctors are unsure of what is causing the condition. Doctors'...

  Tuesday, August 03, 2004 Wall Sight Journal Jerusalem occupies space in the international headlines that is wholly incommensurate with its size. Big news, but a tiny city. We live on the southern side of the city, almost at the edge (Bethlehem would be a ten minute drive if we could get there at all), but can get to the northern edge of the city, if traffic isn't too bad, in just over fifteen minutes. As one heads north, to the Hebrew University campus for example, you pass the Old City, then a relatively upscale Arab neighborhood called Sheik Jarakh,...

This coming Monday night marks the beginning of Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, when we commemorate the torrent of tragedies that have engulfed our people over the millennia. From the destruction of the First and Second Temples in ancient times, to the expulsion from Spain in 1492, on through the outbreak of World War II, Tisha B'Av has always been a day filled with calamity, grief and sorrow. As the ninth day of the eleventh month on the Hebrew calendar, it is the Jewish 9/11, our people's national day of infamy. Then again, in our current...

The Sucker of Israel:Bodansky’s Revelations: Part I Israeli-born Yossef Bodansky has been the director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for more than a decade. His latest book, The Secret War of the Iraq War (Harper-Collins 2004), is the basis of this article. Indeed, I will quote extensively from Chapter 3 of his book and inject comments en passant. Chapter 3 refers to an investigation that had begun in the fall of 2002 in Israel, and which involved the intelligence services of more than six countries. “The investigators’ findings,” writes Bodansky, “provided the ‘smoking gun’...

    « Dhimmitude at the LA Times: "Beheading for Sake of Fear, Not Islam" | Main | Eurabia in action: Former French PM Calls Balfour Declaration "Historic Mistake" » June 23, 2004 Douce France, by Hugh Fitzgerald One of the most dispiriting things about the comments shutdown, which we are working to end as quickly as we possibly can, is that we have all missed out on remarks from our friend Hugh Fitzgerald, one of the most erudite and articulate anti-jihadists on the scene today. In fact, I can't think of anyone who tops him in either erudition...

How about some facts Posted: Thursday, May 20, 2004 - written by jerry golden Intelligence and I might add very good intelligence that weapons brought in from Iran and Saudi Arabia by Hizbullah are sitting near the Israeli Egyptian border ready to be brought in by tunnels into Rafah. Some of them still in a tunnel that goes under the Suez Canal near a town called El-Arish where they were unloaded from a ship. These weapons were to escalate the battle between the Terrorists groups controlled by Yasser Arafat to make it appear that the IDF was ran out...

The Losses That May Save UsDaniel Gordis When David Ben Gurion met the philosopher Isaiah Berlin in December 1950, the Prime Minister apparently didn't make much of an impression. Berlin, his biographer Michael Ignatieff reports, thought Ben Gurion a "peasant leader -- rough, ruthless, and cunning." And Isaiah Berlin, apparently, did not consider that description a compliment. In some ways, though, it's surprising that Berlin was so dismissive of Ben Gurion. After all, it was Berlin himself who pointed to the fact that in "real life," ideology and practice cannot always come together neatly. In Berlin's own words, "Some of...

Dr.Condoleezza Rice currently serves as President Bush ’s National Security Advisor. As a thirty-year-old assistant professor at Stanford Uni- versity, she addressed the graduates on Senior Class Day. She told them, "All you have to do with the large, huge, and very frightening problems that we face is to make a contribution. If you focus too much on solving that problem, rather than just making a contribution to its solution, I'm afraid that you will become paralyzed at the enormity of the task and unable to do anything at all.” That ’s what we are attempting to do in The...

If the “Road Map to Peace ”is not dead, it ’s making its last dying gasps. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Prime Minister, has resigned. He has been replaced by Ahmed Qureia, another clone of Yasser Arafat, who, in turn, has resurfaced as the real authority he always has been among the Palestinians. There is an escalation of terrorists’ bombing that will no doubt continue. Could it be that now is the time for Israel to give serious consideration to the inevitable “T ” time? I am not talking about Israelis and Palestinians setting a “T ”time and meeting for a...

The Pentagon has dropped its scheme to create a stock market for investors who want to trade in international disasters. Too bad. I was planning to make a bundle on Palestinian futures. Naturally, I intended to sell short. You can't go wrong betting on the Palestinian genius for self-inflicted disaster. Last week, on a visit to Jerusalem, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, described the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians as "paper-thin." That overestimates the durability of paper. All signs point to an outbreak of fighting by the end of the summer.

Mob attacks pollsters who found few Palestinians want their old homes in what is now Israel By Eric Silver in Jerusalem 14 July 2003 A mob of about 100 Palestinian refugees stormed the office of a Ramallah polling organisation yesterday to stop it publishing a survey showing that five times as many refugees would prefer to settle permanently in a Palestinian state than return to their old homes in what is now Israel.The protesters pelted Khalil Shikaki, the director of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, with eggs, smashed computers and assaulted the nine staff members on duty....

DETAILS OF THE IDF REPORT Following are some details about the terrorists who were arrested or killed during the aforementioned counter-terrorist operation, based on the IDF Spokesperson's report: Yousef (Hamsa) Muhammad Khalil Abu Rob, 40, the head of Islamic Jihad in Kabatiyah and senior Islamic Jihad terrorist in the Jenin area, was killed during a confrontation with a Golani Brigade force. The IDF-GSS-initiated counter-terrorist action continued for several hours, during which Hamsa fired and threw grenades at the Golani force, wounding four soldiers. Hamsa was responsible for bombing a factory at kibbutz Shaked, a bombing at Um el-Fahm Junction, various...

Group Says Attacks in Kenya to Aid Palestinians 6 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo! BEIRUT (Reuters) - A group calling itself the Army of Palestine said it carried out attacks on Israelis in Kenya on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the 1947 United Nations (news - web sites) resolution partitioning Palestine between Arabs and Jews. Reuters Photo In a statement faxed to Reuters, the previously unheard-of group said it had sent two groups of attackers to Kenya to "make the world hear once again the voice of Palestinian refugees, and to cast light...

<p>Was it an overcharged hate crime or a political payoff?</p> <p>That's the question being raised in the wake of San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan's decision last week to plead out a felony assault and hate crime case against the grandson of a very influential former state labor leader.</p>

A group of Jordanian advertising and media professionals have created an ad campaign for the Palestinians that purports to educate the West about Israel's "unjust" occupation of Palestinian land. The campaign, posted at Dying2Live.com, was created by volunteer Jordanian media and advertising specialists, graphic artists and Web designers. It attempts to "mobilize public opinion, to open the world's eyes to the various [Israeli] violations of basic human rights, in an effort to bring forth the plight of the Palestinians to the Western world in a language they understand." The campaign features still photographs of Palestinian children, in playful or rueful...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has put off deciding which countries will take in 13 Palestinian militants allowed by Israel to go into exile following a weeks-long siege in a Bethlehem church. European Commission President Romano Prodi said on Monday that the EU was not trying to shirk its political responsibility for the men, but said it needed more time to work out their precise legal status once they are taken in by various member states. "We have taken on this responsibility at a European level. Various EU countries have made themselves available. Now we have to decide how...

..... NEW POLL ON-LINE What do you think Israel should do with regard to the UN request to conduct an inquiry? Vote at www.scoogiespin.com

The most potent weapon of anti-Zionists is appeals to Palestinian suffering. At times, Israel's friends fall into this trap, by acknowledging the obvious without putting it into the proper context. When Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, representing the Bush administration, spoke at a pro-Israel rally in Washington last week, he noted that, besides Jewish victims of terrorism, "Palestinians are suffering and dying as well." Now, really. A deputy secretary of defense should know you can't fight a war without civilian casualties, not to mention the privation that comes from the destruction of homes and basic services. Civilized people try...

Last day to vote on the current poll .... How do you grade the Bush Administration's Middle East Policy? Take the poll at www.scoogiespin.com

Communiqué du Patriarcat Latin – Jérusalem (English Translation Included) Sunday, April 07 2002 @ 05:56 AM GMT (Samedi 6 avril 2002) La prière de ce dimanche 7 avril: Frères et sœurs, il est pénible que pour la première fois, pour raisons de guerre, la prière dans la basilique de la Nativité à Bethléem vous soit impossible. Nous aurions bien voulu pouvoir prier avec vous en ce dimanche. Mais cela nous est encore impossible. Nous appelons nos fidèles à Bethléem comme dans toutes les autres paroisses à prier quand même pour la paix dans les cœurs, pour la fin de cette...