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Dear Maariv Newspaper Editor, Please Publish... The following is a translation of a letter written in the Online Forum of one of Israel's major newspapers, Maariv, by a female reader named  Rachel. The letter was in response to the major online headline about The Bodies of the Six Soldiers that had died in a Gaza security offensive and how their remains had been defiled by the Palestinian terror groups. See: Palestinians Parade Israeli Soldiers’ Remains (DEBKAfile) (05/11/04) http://www.debka.com/article_print.php?aid=843 This letter  may be one of the most popular letters ever written in this widely read forum receiving unanimous and unequivocal...

<p>In the last few weeks, CNN has suffered a series of embarrassing incidents calling into question its news judgment and ability to meet the most basic standards of fairness in reporting on Israel. CNN boss Ted Turner made the following statement about the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. "I would make the case that both sides are engaged in terrorism," he told the Guardian newspaper. Although Mr. Turner subsequently apologized for suggesting that Israel was behaving this way, the damage had been done.</p>

Arafat's $Billions in Assets and Investments (Mideast Newswire Archive) Arafat's Wife's Spends Millions While Palestinian Children Starve (Irish Blog Via FR Forum) (02/11/04) ------------------------------------------------------------- On the eve of the famous "hand shake" on the White House lawn which rewarded Rabin and Arafat with the Nobel Prize for Peace, the PLO made Britain's most dangerous terrorist/criminal organizations list. The British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) also reported that the PLO had world-wide assets approaching $10 billion and an additional annual income of about $1.5 to 2 billion, generated from illegal activities. Surprisingly, the report was not picked up by the media....

ALSO SEE: Arafat's Wife on a Luxury Trip NY DAILY NEWS (11/06/03)---------------------------------------------Last week we were told that "Malnutrition in the Gaza Strip and West Bank is as bad as in sub-Saharan Africa because the Palestinian economy has all but collapsed under Israeli restrictions." (Irish Times February 6, 2004) A report by the cross-party International Development Select Committee also called on Britain to press the European Union to impose trade sanctions on Israel until it lifts its restrictions on Palestinian trade. The World Bank said last year that the Palestinian economy was in steep decline after the Israeli army blockaded and...

CommentsTHE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT TRY to play a "neutral arbiter" in the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. We should, in fact, be doing our best to make the Palestinians suffer until they change their ways, because, to put it bluntly, they are our enemies. Read this to see how they feel about America. And read this piece by Amir Taheri on the Iraqi "resistance," which notes Palestinian terror connections by the Iraqi insurgents, and features a Palestinian "journalist" egging them on. These folks are our enemies, and deserve to be treated as such. They don't deserve a state of their own. It's...

The author is a professor of law and director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. With the simple press of a button, the pilot of an Israeli helicopter gunship unleashed three missiles, instantly killing Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder of Hamas, as he was being driven home from prayers at his local mosque in the Gaza Strip. Yassin had not been sentenced to death by any court, nor was he on a battlefield in any conventional sense. Seven others died in the attack. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made no apologies,...

JERUSALEM — Israel's response to Palestinian violence after a pullout from the Gaza Strip would be even harsher than it is now, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Tuesday. Interviewed on Israel's Channel 10 television for Israel's independence day, Sharon defended his "unilateral disengagement" plan, including a pullout from the Gaza Strip. Members of his Likud Party vote on the plan in a referendum Sunday. After a pullout, Palestinians could no longer explain violence by saying that Israel was occupying their land, Sharon said, "and Israel's responses (to violence) would be much harsher." He refused to give specifics beyond noting...

The top figures in the militant group Hamas after the assassination Sunday of its leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi. _Mahmoud Zahar: A Hamas spokesman, the 53-year-old Zahar is considered a hard-liner. Zahar was the personal physician of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who was killed by the Israelis on March 22. Zahar served as Hamas' liaison with the PLO in the mid-1990s but now opposes compromise with the Palestinian Authority. Zahar has been imprisoned by Israel and has been jailed repeatedly by the Palestinian Authority. _Ismail Hanieh: A top aide to Yassin and like Zahar he is a member of Hamas'...

TEL AVIV - Even though he had been targeted for death since last fall, Israeli defense officials say the assassination of Abdel Aziz Rantisi became an urgent priority only in the last month, after he became the head of Hamas and began upgrading Iranian involvement in the organization. Rantisi, 54, was killed April 17 by an Israeli helicopter gunship near his Gaza home, just 26 days after he took over Hamas following the assassination of his predecessor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. During the few weeks that he headed the organization, defense officials say Rantisi invited the Iranians and their Lebanese...

"IT was Bush." The verdict was near unanimous amid the rage on Palestinian streets last night after Israel assassinated Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi in an air strike the Arab world blamed on the new alliance between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the US President. "Bush has Rantissi's blood on his hands," Khamis Saadi cried as he joined the tens of thousands who swept into Gaza's shabby streets for Dr Rantissi's funeral. "All doors to hell should be opened against the Israelis and against the Americans." Dr Rantissi's body was carried aloft on a stretcher draped in a green...

By Nidal al-MughrabiGAZA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of mourners cried out Sunday to avenge the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi by Israel ahead of its planned U.S.-backed pullout from Gaza. Reuters Photo   The Hamas military wing pledged "100 retaliations" for Rantissi, a 56-year-old firebrand who was the second Hamas leader Israel killed in Gaza in less than a month. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin died in a missile attack on March 22. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) praised the army for Saturday's helicopter strike on Rantissi, the Palestinian Muslim group's political leader in Gaza, and...

THE European Union on Sunday condemned the assassination by Israel of Hamas chief Abdelaziz Rantissi, as well as the earlier Palestinian suicide bombing on the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state. In a statement on behalf of the EU presidency, Ireland's Foreign Minister Brian Cowen "expressed deep concern at the ongoing and seemingly endless cycle of retaliatory violence involving Palestinian groups and the Israeli Defence Forces". Cowen "condemned yesterday's assassination Hamas leader Abdelaziz Rantissi by Israeli forces and the suicide bombing at the Erez crossing earlier in the day" and "called for an immediate end to...

Japan slams assassination of Rantissi as `thoughtless and unjustifiable` (Reuters)

HE never used mobile phones and slept in a different house every night. But all the security precautions proved in vain last night as Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, leader of Hamas in Gaza for less than a month, was killed when his car was struck by two Israeli missiles, forcing the militant Palestinian group to start the search for a successor all over again. Israeli security sources said last night Rantissi was assassinated because fresh intelligence had emerged of an imminent massive terror attack by Hamas. The plot, they claimed, had been hatched in retaliation for the killing last month of...

HAMAS political leader Abdul Aziz Rantissi, who today survived an Israeli attempt on his life in Gaza City, urged Palestinian militant groups to target Israeli politicians. "I am asking all Palestinian militant groups to kill Israeli political leaders, because all of them are killers," he told reporters from his hospital bed in Shifa hospital. Rantissi was lightly wounded and underwent surgery on his leg after Israeli helicopters fired several missiles on his car, killing one of his bodyguards and two bystanders, including a five-year-old girl, and wounding more than 20. "Not a single Jew in Palestine is safe from now...