Believe it: Hamas target is Israel

NY Daily News:

While it is probably true that Hamas won the recent Palestinian elections not because it promised to wipe out Israel, but because it promised to pick up the garbage in Gaza City, it is also true that the prospect of increased violence did not deter the average Palestinian from voting for Hamas. History has seen this sort of thing before. The rule - the only rule - is to take zealots at their word.

If you would have asked a random German in, say, 1932 if he was voting for the murder of Jews, he would have said, "Nein!" What he really wanted was an end to the brawling in the streets and a big thumbs-up to traditional German culture.

I saved for this paragraph any reference to Hitler so as to postpone the reflexive outburst of "Nothing can be compared to the Nazis!" Normally, I agree, and I usually shy from such comparisons. But I am not likening Hamas or Islamist militancy to Nazism, I am only likening the mind of one sort of zealot to another.

They mean what they say. For the Nazi, it was all in their bible, "Mein Kampf," and in their rallies and speeches. It took some effort to overlook their stated intentions, but a considerable number of people managed to do so and later professed shock at what happened. They looked into the abyss, saw nothing that concerned them personally - and went back to sleep.

In due course we will be told that what Hamas has been insisting on for years - the utter destruction of Israel - is not really a serious goal. Hamas will be forced to moderate by the reality of governing. As for its truculent anti-Semitism - not to be confused in this case with anti-Zionism - it will be dismissed as without consequence. Hamas will have to deal with reality - and Israel, in the region, is the mightiest reality of them all. Yasser Arafat came to understand that.

But Arafat's Fatah movement was secular and nationalistic. Hamas, on the other hand, can be traced back to the Muslim Brotherhood and its 1928 declaration: "The Koran Is Our Constitution." It gleefully sends people off to their death as suicide bombers, spackling the walls of Tel Aviv restaurants with the flesh of the innocent while assuring the bombers a place in paradise. This is terrifying. That is the whole idea.

The continual mistake of the Bush administration is to think, based on not much thinking to begin with, that people are people - pretty much the same the world over. This is why the President extols democracy. It must be what everyone wants because it is what everyone here wants. But Toto knows the truth. The Middle East is not Kansas.

The leaders of Hamas brim with the word of God and the certainty of their cause. From here on they will lie about their ultimate aim and smilingly assure us that what they have always said they no longer mean. All over the world, people will believe them and urge the U.S. and Israel to do the same. Take my word for this. Anyone can see the future. It's all in the past.

Richard Cohen, a syndicated columnist for the Washinton Post, is a graduate of Far Rockaway High School and attended Hunter, NYU and Columbia. He was a four-time honorable-mention winner in Pulitzer Prize competitions (he doesn't know if that's a record, but says it's his personal best). Cohen splits his time between Washington D.C. and New York City.

Air Security's latest "F"

NY Post:

The latest bin Laden tape was a grim reminder that terrorists are still probing for our weaknesses. So last month's 9/11 Commission report giving airline passenger-screening an "F" is a kick to the gut.
Why do our airports remain vulnerable? It's not lack of resources: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) earned that "F" despite spending nearly its entire $5.5 billion budget last year on passenger and baggage screening.
Nor is screening the only problem area. Access to planes and the tarmac, either through the airport fence or by thousands of on-airport workers, remains a weak point. We still don't check most carry-on luggage for explosives. And the security measures we've added — baggage-inspection machines, more checkpoints — make for more crowds, a likely suicide-bombing target.
Reason Foundation's year-long assessment of airport security concluded that these holes, and others, are due to three fundamental problems with TSA.

First, TSA assumes all passengers are equally likely to be a threat. So all checked bags get the same costly screening; we all stand in the same endless lines, take off our shoes, etc.

Second, TSA is grossly over-centralized and unable to handle the wide diversity of circumstances at 450 different airports. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, calls it a "Soviet-style, command-and-control approach" that "has been unable to match the changing requirements."

Third, as both the provider of airport screening and its regulator, TSA has a built-in conflict of interest that allows it to grade and monitor its own performance. Here's the kind of thing that leads to: Shortly after it's creation, TSA paid a company to recruit new screeners; the taxpayers wound up spending $143,432 in recruitment costs for each screener — each screener — in the terrorism hotbed of Topeka, Kan. A bungling bureaucracy shouldn't police itself.

We can, and must, do better.

TSA should be reconceived as a rule-setter and enforcer, and get out of the business of providing security services. Individual airports (which already carry out other security functions, such as perimeter protection) should be given control of security, with strict TSA oversight and auditing. And our policies on airport security should become thoroughly risk-based, with more resources devoted to high-risk passengers and situations and less devoted to low-risk ones.

Israeli airports and 19 of the 20 busiest airports in Europe all use this risk-based airport-security model. Their governments don't provide screening services, but instead set and enforce strict standards that airports and their contractors must meet and adhere to — with severe penalties for failures.

A risk-based system would focus more resources on potential terrorists — where they should be focused. A computer program had flagged more than half the 9/11 terrorists as risks — but they weren't then exposed to tough enough questioning or security.

We need to concentrate time and resources on the highest threats — and toddlers and terrorists are not equal threats.

The forthcoming Registered Traveler program (scheduled for the summer), under which frequent flyers can opt to go through a background check and security clearance to gain access to fast-lane processing with a biometric I.D. card, is an important first step. This is one way to reduce the haystack, to better find the needles.

Sure, a terrorist could try to roll the dice and infiltrate the Registered Traveler system. But ask yourself this — are terrorists more likely to volunteer themselves for in-depth background checks and fingerprinting to get a Registered Traveler card (where they'll still have to go through security at the airport) or simply take their chances in the regular lanes, knowing that most carry-on bags and passengers don't even get screened for explosives?

Our reaction to 9/11 created an air-security policy that doesn't examine relative risks, costs or benefits. And that system is failing miserably. It shouldn't take another attack to make us fix its fundamental flaws.

Robert Poole is director of transportation studies at Reason Foundation and author of the new study "Airport Security: Time for a New Model." He was a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team in 2000-01 and advised the White House Domestic Policy Council and several members of Congress on airport security following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Palestinians fret about threatened aid cut off

Reuters:

Saleh Billo, a father of five who teaches at a Palestinian Authority school, is not sure where his next pay cheque will come from.

"If my salary stops then I will have a hard time buying food for my children," said Billo, one of 140,000 Palestinian Authority employees waiting anxiously to see whether the United States and the European Union will slash aid in response to last week's election victory by Hamas.

"I don't know what I will do. It will be disastrous for us," Billo, 48, told Reuters.

The Palestinian Authority is the biggest single employer in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But it is nearly bankrupt and highly dependent on foreign aid to stay afloat.

Last year, it received 500 million euros ($612 million) from the European Union and it was expecting a similar amount this year, as well as over $200 million from the United States.

Israel also transfers about $500 million annually of taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

But that money could soon dry up.

Israeli officials said on Tuesday that tax payments were likely to be frozen following the election victory of Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction.

On Monday, the United States and other major powers said Hamas must reject violence and recognise the state of Israel or risk losing vital aid when it forms a new Palestinian government.
Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in a suicide bombing campaign since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, has so far rejected international threats to cut off aid as "blackmail".

In a bid to keep aid flowing, Hamas leaders have suggested they might not have representatives in the government but rather put unaffiliated technocrats in the cabinet.

ECONOMIC SHOCK WAVES

Crunch time for Palestinian Authority employees, including more than 60,000 security men, will come on Wednesday when Israel is due to transfer about $55 million in taxes to the Authority.
If the transfer does not go ahead then the Palestinian Authority will probably not have enough money to pay salaries.

Palestinian Minister of Economic Affairs Mazen Sonnoqrot said withholding the money would be "irresponsible and grave".

"This is a message to our employees telling them 'you should feel economically insecure'," he said.

The international community does not want to assist a government led by Hamas -- which appears on the U.S. and EU list of terror groups.

But the quandary for the international community is that failure to send aid to the Palestinian Authority could cause a collapse of the local economy, resulting in chaos.

"If I get to the point where I can't feed my children then I might join a gang of brigands," said Abu Awad, a security man with two children from the West Bank city of Jenin.

Quartet gives Hamas time

Daily Telegraph:

The militant Palestinian group Hamas has won time from a wary European Union, Russia and the United States to wipe the blood off its hands, renounce violence and recognise Israel's right to exist before it forms the next Palestinian government.

Meeting in London in the wake of Hamas's stunning victory in last week's Palestinian elections, the diplomatic Quartet on Middle East peace – which also includes the United Nations – pledged to keep money flowing into Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas's interim caretaker administration.

"We do believe that Abu Mazen (Abbas) needs to be supported," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, ensuring that funds would be available to pay for Palestinian police officers and civil servants.

But the Quartet warned that the Palestinians' critical lifeline of foreign aid could be lost in the longer term unless Hamas – perpetrator of deadly suicide bomb attacks on Israelis – abandoned violence, recognises Israel and embraces the diplomatic "roadmap" to peace.
That blueprint to peace envisions an independent Palestinian nation living side by side with the Jewish state.

The Hamas movement swiftly rejected the quartet's demands which the radical group said served only Israel's interests.

"The conditions posed by the quartet constitute pressure which serves the interests of Israel and not the Palestinian people," Hamas MP and spokesman Mosheer al-Masri said.

The quartet, in a late-night statement said they believed "that the Palestinian people have the right to expect that a new government will address their aspirations for peace and statehood".

But the statement stressed that "future assistance to any future government would be reviewed by donors against the government's commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap."

With three months likely to pass before a new Palestinian government is formed, the quartet's stance amounts to a watch period for Hamas to change if it wants to be accepted as a serious partner in the peace process.

A senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, appealed earlier yesterday in Gaza City to the quartet to meet the radical Islamist organisation for "a dialogue without preliminary conditions and in a spirit of neutrality".

Israel meanwhile declared that it has decided to freeze funds to the Palestinian Authority, fearing the money could end up being used to attack and kill Israeli citizens.

Two million shekels ($46.82 million) – drawn mainly from sales tax revenues and customs duties on Palestinian-bound goods passing through Israel – were due to be handed over to the Palestinian Authority tomorrow.

Anarchy and chaos continue in Gaza

Reuters:

A military leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the Gaza Strip on Monday, local witnesses and medics said.

Khaled Abu Anza, a local leader of Hamas's armed wing was seriously wounded in the attack, according to medics. Another man travelling with him was also hurt, they said.

No claim was made for the shooting, but local Hamas leaders blamed rival group Fatah as responsible for the attack.

Terror Chief Taunts Bush

CBS/AP:

Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called President Bush a "butcher" and a "failure" in a videotape aired on Arab television Monday, his first appearance since an American airstrike that targeted him this month in Pakistan.

Al-Zawahiri, shown in the video wearing white robes and a white turban, said the Jan. 13 airstrike killed "innocents" and said the United States had ignored an offer from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for a truce. The video was aired on the Arab news network Al-Jazeera.

"Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation," he said, referring to Mr. Bush. "Bush, do you know where I am? I am among the Muslim masses."

The airstrike hit a building in the eastern Pakistan village of Damadola, killing four al Qaeda leaders. Thirteen villagers were also killed in the strike, angering many Pakistanis.

"My second message is to the American people, who are drowning in illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in frustrated adventures," he said, speaking in a forceful and angry voice.

"The lion of Islam, Sheik Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a decent exit from your dilemma. But your leaders, who are keen to accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you in battles and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and – God willing – on your own land."

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the new Zawahiri tape, CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports.

The video came in the wake of a Jan. 19 audiotape by bin Laden in which he warned that al Qaeda is preparing attacks in the United States but offered a truce "with fair conditions" to build Iraq and Afghanistan.

The tape – also aired on Al-Jazeera – was the first message from bin Laden in more than a year.

2,000-Year-Old Judean Date Seed Growing Successfully

Arutz Sheva:

A 2,000 year old date seed planted last Tu B’Shvat has sprouted and is over a foot tall. Being grown at Kibbutz Ketura in the Negev, it is the oldest seed to ever produce a viable young sapling.

The Judean date seed was found, together with a large number of other seeds, during archaeological excavations carried out close to Massada near the southern end of the Dead Sea, the last Jewish stronghold following the Roman destruction of the Holy Temple. The age of the seeds was determined using carbon dating, but has a margin of error of 50 years – placing them either right before or right after the Massada revolt.

The seeds sat in storage for thirty years until Elain Solowey of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies was asked to attempt to cultivate three of them. Solowey spoke with Israel National Radio's Yishai Fleisher and Alex Traiman about reviving the ancient date palm.

Solowey, who raised the plant, has grown over one hundred rare and almost extinct species of plants. Together with Hadassah Hospital’s Natural Medicine Center, she seeks to use the plants listed in ancient remedies to seek effective uses for modern medical conditions. The Judean date has been credited with helping fight cancer, malaria and toothaches. Solowey was skeptical about the chances of success at first, but gave it a try. “I treated it in warm water and used growth hormones and an enzymatic fertilizer extracted from seaweed in order to supplement the food normally present in a seed,” she said.

As this year’s Tu B’Shvat (The 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat, the Jewish new year for trees) approaches, the young tree that sprouted from one of the three seeds now has five leaves (one was removed for scientific testing) and is 14 inches tall. Solowey has named it Metushelah (Methusaleh), after the 969-year-old grandfather of Noah, the oldest human being recorded in the Torah.

Solowey said that although the plant’s leaves were pale at first, the young tree now looks “perfectly normal.” The Judean palms once grew throughout the Jordan Valley, from Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) to the Dead Sea. Those from Jericho, at the northern end of the Dead Sea, were of particularly notable quality. Though dates are still grown widely in the Jordan Valley, the trees come mostly from California.

The Judean date palm trees are referred to in Psalm 92 (“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree…”). The tree was also depicted on the ancient Jewish shekel and now appears on the modern Israeli 10-shekel coin.

It is too early to tell the sex of the tree, but if it is female, it is supposed to bear fruit by 2010, after which it can be propagated to revive the Judean date palm species altogether. “It is a long road to our being able to eat the Judean date once again,” Solowey said, “but there is the possibility of restoring the date to the modern world.”

U.S. Underestimated Hamas Strength

Here:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders. The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American policies and hopes in the Middle East.

"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."

Immediately after the election, Bush administration officials said the results reflected a Palestinian desire for change and not necessarily an embrace of Hamas, which the United States, Israel and the European Union consider a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction. But Ms. Rice's comments seemed to reflect a certain second-guessing over how the administration had failed to foresee, or factor into its thinking, the possibility of a Hamas victory.

Indeed, Hamas's victory has set off a debate whether the administration was so wedded to its belief in democracy that it could not see the dangers of holding elections in regions where Islamist groups were strong and democratic institutions weak.

"There is a lot of blame to go around," said Martin Indyk, a top Middle East negotiator in the Clinton administration, referring to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his Fatah party. "But on the American side, the conceptual failure that contributed to disaster was the president's belief that democracy and elections solve everything."

Ms. Rice pointed out that the election results surprised just about everyone. "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas's strong showing," she said on her way to London for meetings on the Middle East, Iran and other matters. "Some say that Hamas itself was caught off guard by its strong showing."

With increasing vehemence in the last few days, administration officials have defended their decision to back Mr. Abbas with American aid and to rebuff Israel when it warned that the election should not be held as long as Hamas participated while refusing to lay down its arms. Those officials continue to lay most of the blame on Mr. Abbas for not offering a positive alternative to Hamas.

American officials say they were never comfortable with Mr. Abbas's decision that the elections be held without the disarmament of Hamas, but they went along with it because there was no alternative. One official recounted how President Bush had personally but unsuccessfully appealed to Mr. Abbas at the White House last October to disarm Hamas before the elections.

"The fact is, Abu Mazen wouldn't do it," said the official, referring to Mr. Abbas. "He said he wouldn't do it, because he said he couldn't do it."

What Mr. Abbas instead offered at the White House was a plan to avoid a civil war among Palestinians by winning the election and only then disarming Hamas and folding it into the mainstream. The administration resolved, in turn, to support Mr. Abbas's political party with whatever diplomacy or resources it could.

Even while acknowledging the failure to foresee a Hamas victory, Ms. Rice said the American decisions were basically correct. Contrary to some reports that even Mr. Abbas wanted the elections delayed, she said a postponement was neither possible nor desirable.

"Our constant discussions with Abu Mazen suggested that he wanted to go ahead with the elections and go ahead with them on time," Ms. Rice said. "We had to support that. I just don't understand the argument that somehow it would have gotten better the longer it went on."

At another point, she said: "You ask yourself, Are you going to support a policy of denying the Palestinians elections that had been promised to them at a certain point in time because people were fearful of the outcome?"

Others noted that the Palestinian elections had been postponed once already, from last summer to January, to give Mr. Abbas and Fatah time to capitalize on the pullout of Israeli settlers from Gaza in August.To help Mr. Abbas, the United States and its European partners mobilized hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for the Palestinians to meet their payrolls, field their security forces, make welfare payments and build infrastructure.

The total outside assistance to the Palestinians runs to more than $1 billion a year. Now Ms. Rice will meet in London on Monday with top officials of Europe, the United Nations and Russia to call on Hamas to abandon its vow to destroy Israel and to disarm and negotiate a two-state solution in the Middle East, or risk having this aid cut off.

"You've got to hedge against the risk that elections are going to lead to precisely this result," said Mr. Indyk, the former Middle East negotiator. "The hedge is to build civil society and democratic institutions first. But this administration doesn't listen to that."

Many experts blame the Palestinians for most of their problems, particularly the corruption and mismanagement in Mr. Abbas's Fatah organization. Hamas, by contrast, capitalized on its image of integrity and its record of delivering services.

Mr. Abbas is widely described as bitter that he failed to strengthen his hand by getting American help in persuading Israel to curb settlement growth, release prisoners and lift the checkpoints and roadblocks choking off livelihoods in the West Bank. By all accounts, Mr. Abbas's frustration with the administration on this score was met with frustration on the American side that he was not doing enough to crack down on violence and root out corruption.

The administration was also under pressure from Europeans to try to coax Hamas into the mainstream, and it did not want to rebuff their advice at a time when it was trying to work closely with the Europeans on isolating Iran.

Administration officials said that even in the analysis of Israelis, Hamas's behavior in accepting a period of "calm" in the last year ceasing its attacks on Israeli civilians meant that it was willing to break with other groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli and American officials felt that such a trend was to be encouraged.

As for Mr. Abbas's position on disarming Hamas after the elections, an administration official said: "Our sense was that there was a certain logic to his presentation, and we did not see that we could force an alternative on him. But we were also skeptical."

The administration then immediately began working with European and other allies to set up "normative standards" for any group participating in the political process. Those standards are to be the focus of the talks in London, with the financing cutoff an implicit threat to Hamas. But a cutoff could force Hamas to turn to other sources, like Iran, for help.

Ms. Rice told reporters that she was convinced of the wisdom of instilling democracy in the Middle East. Elections have brought into office anti-American Islamic radicals in Egypt, Lebanon and Iran, but Ms. Rice said the alternative was trying to bottle up seething anger in the region that could lead to more terrorist attacks in the West."

There is a huge transition going on in the Middle East, as a whole and in its parts," she said. "The outcomes that we're seeing in any number of places, I will be the first to say, have a sense of unpredictability about them. That's the nature of big historic change. It's simply the way it is."

Hamas faces cash crisis, as Israel stops tax funds

Times Online:

The price of Hamas's victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections started to become clear today as Israel refused to hand over nearly £25 million in monthly tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority.

As unrest escalated on the streets - with 30 Fatah-supporting policemen briefly storming the parliament building in Ramallah this morning - the acting Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, said he would not transfer monthly customs duties to the Palestinian Authority because he feared it would finance terrorism.

"It must be made very clear, we are not going to transfer funds which could finance terrorist attacks against our civilians," he said. Hamas is responsible for more than 60 suicide bomb attacks against Israel.

Israel is due to hand over 200 million shekels (£24.4 million) in sales and income tax revenue to the Palestinian government on Wednesday. The monthly payment often covers salaries for public officials and security forces in the Palestinian territories.

The stand-off developed as European ministers met in Brussels to hammer out the EU's formal response to Hamas's landslide victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections last week.

Even though the Islamist group has yet to form a government, it has already been repeatedly warned by the US, Israel and the EU that the Palestinian Authority will face a crippling cut in international aid unless it renounces violence and recognises Israel's right to exist. Its leaders have so far refused.

Javier Solana, the EU Foreign Policy Chief, reiterated the warning this morning. Before the meeting he told reporters that the EU, the largest donor to the Palestinian territories, would not hand over €500 million (£343 million) in aid this year unless Hamas abandoned terrorism.

"They have been a terrorist organisation. They have to change their methods and they have to accept that violence is incompatible with democracy," he told AFP.

"They have to also recognise Israel, because in the end what we are trying to do is construct a two-state model and to do that, you have to talk to the other," he said.

Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, was visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories today to increase pressure on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, to adopt pressure the new ruling party to acceed to the European demands.

"The Palestinian President has a huge responsibility and I will tell him this when I meet him today," Ms Merkel said. "As a president, he should urge Hamas to respect certain principles."
After today's EU meeting, ministers from the so-called quartet of the UN, the US, Russia and the EU, charged with implementing the Middle East road map, will also convene to make a unified response to Hamas's victory. The Palestinian group won an outright majority in the 132-seat parliament, against 45 for Fatah, in its first elections.

The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, yesterday signalled the hard line that America expects its allies to take against a Hamas-led government.

"The United States is not prepared to fund an organisation that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses its obligations", said Dr Rice.

In the past, Hamas has disavowed negotiations as a way to resolve the Middle East crisis. The US gave more than $200 million (£113 million) in aid and $70 million (£39 million) in direct funding for the Palestinian Authority last year.

So far, Hamas has responded indignantly to threats to cut off international funding to the Palestinian population, calling it blackmail.

Today Mushir al-Masri, a spokesman for Hamas, hinted that the group would seek more funding from Arab nations: "Stopping international donations will not undermine the work of the government," he said.

But the Palestinian territories are buckled under widespread poverty and unemployment, as well as the strict border controls maintained by the Israeli government. The Palestinian Authority routinely runs at a $1 billion (£563 million) a year shortfall, which until now has been made up by international aid.

Marcel, My Brother

Washington Post:

By Charles Krauthammer

Place: Los Angeles area emergency room.

Time: Various times over the past 18 years.

Scene: White male, around 50, brought in by ambulance, pale, short of breath, in distress.

Intern: You're going to be all right, sir. I'm replacing your fluids, and your blood studies and electrolytes should be back from the lab in just a few minutes.

Patient: Son, you wait for my electrolytes to come back and I'll be dead in 10 minutes. I ran the ICU here for 10 years. I'm pan-hypopit and in [circulatory] shock. I need 300 milligrams of hydrocortisone right now. In a bolus. RIGHT NOW. After that, I'll tell you what to run into my IV and what lab tests to run. Got it?

Intern: Yes, sir.

This scene played itself out at least a half-dozen times. The patient was my brother, Marcel. He'd call later to regale me with the whole play-by-play, punctuated with innumerable, incredulous can-you-believe-its. We laughed. I loved hearing that mixture of pride and defiance in his voice as he told me how he had yet again thought and talked his way past death.

Amazingly, he always got it right. True, he was a brilliant doctor, a professor of medicine at UCLA and a pulmonologist of unusual skill. But these diagnostic feats were performed lying flat on his back, near delirious and on the edge of circulatory collapse. Marcel instantly knew why. It was his cancer returning -- the rare tumor he'd been carrying since 1988 -- suddenly popping up in some new and life-threatening anatomical location. By the time he got to the ER and was looking up at the raw young intern, he'd figured out where it was and what to do.

I loved hearing these tales, in part because it brought out the old bravado in him -- the same courage that, in the 1980s, when AIDS was largely unknown and invariably fatal, led Marcel to bronchoscope patients with active disease. At the time, not every doctor was willing to risk being on the receiving end of the coughing and spitting up. "Be careful, Marce," I would tell him. He'd laugh.

Friends and colleagues knew this part of Marcel -- the headstrong cowboy -- far better than I did. We hadn't lived in the same city since he went off to medical school when I was 17. What I knew that they didn't, however, was the Marcel of before, the golden youth of our childhood together.

He was four years older and a magnificent athlete: good ballplayer, great sailor and the most elegant skier I'd ever seen. But he was generous with his gifts. He taught me most everything I ever learned about every sport I ever played. He taught me how to throw a football, hit a backhand, grip a 9-iron, field a grounder, dock a sailboat in a tailing wind.

He was even more generous still. Whenever I think back to my childhood friends -- Morgie, Fiedler, Klipper, the Beller boys -- I realize they were not my contemporaries but his. And when you're young, four years is a chasm. But everyone knew Marcel's rule: "Charlie plays." The corollary was understood: If Charlie doesn't play, Marcel doesn't play. I played. From the youngest age he taught me to go one-on-one with the big boys, a rare and priceless gift.

And how we played. Spring came late where we grew up in Canada, but every year our father would take us out of school early to have a full three months of summer at our little cottage in the seaside town of Long Beach, N.Y. For those three months of endless summer, Marcel and I were inseparable, vagabond brothers shuttling endlessly on our Schwinns from beach to beach, ballgame to ballgame. Day and night we played every sport ever invented, and some games, such as three-step stoopball and sidewalk spaldeen, we just made up ourselves. For a couple of summers we even wangled ourselves jobs teaching sailing at the splendidly named Treasure Island day camp nearby. It was paradise.

There is a black-and-white photograph of us, two boys alone. He's maybe 11, I'm 7. We're sitting on a jetty, those jutting piles of rock that little beach towns throw down at half-mile intervals to hold back the sea. In the photo, nothing but sand, sea and sky, the pure elements of our summers together. We are both thin as rails, tanned to blackness and dressed in our summer finest: bathing suits and buzz cuts. Marcel's left arm is draped around my neck with that effortless natural ease -- and touch of protectiveness -- that only older brothers know.

Whenever I look at that picture, I know what we were thinking at the moment it was taken: It will forever be thus. Ever brothers. Ever young. Ever summer.

My brother Marcel died on Tuesday, Jan. 17. It was winter. He was 59.

Latinos discovering their Jewish past as marranos

LA Times:

Five hundred years ago, when it was still illegal for them to sail to the New World, hundreds, maybe thousands, of Sephardic Jews from Spain secretly found ways across the Atlantic.

Many were escaping the Inquisition, which eventually spread to the colony's capital, Mexico City.

In the late 1500s, facing the threat of arrest and death, some Jews in Mexico journeyed to the colony's northern frontier, eventually settling in what is now New Mexico. They were Jews in secret, or crypto-Jews. For generations, their Mexican American descendants have practiced Catholicism but retained customs suggestive of a Jewish past, such as observing the Sabbath.

This was the historical foundation established at the start of a conference this week that explored past, present and possible future connections between Jews and Latinos.

The conference, called "Latinos and Jews: A Conference on Historical and Contemporary Connections," brought together scholars, activists and people curious about their heritage.

The gathering, in a packed classroom at UC Irvine, focused on two major points of intersection for Jews and Latinos: the history of crypto-Jews and Jews in colonial Mexico, and the intermixing of Jews, Latinos and others in Boyle Heights, which scholars called Los Angeles' first multiethnic working-class neighborhood.

The example of New Mexico came up repeatedly — the two communities are linked, even if those links aren't always apparent.

"The fabric of Jewish history and heritage is so much richer than we thought," said Stanley M. Hordes, adjunct research professor at the University of New Mexico and author of "To the End of the Earth: The History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico." "There is not a mutual exclusivity between being Spanish and Jewish," he said.

The all-day discussion Monday was at turns spirited, humorous and contentious. At one point, a few participants had a brief but pointed exchange on the prevalence of anti-Semitism among Latinos and Catholics.

George Sanchez, a history professor at USC, has spent years interviewing former residents of Boyle Heights. His presentation centered on a period when the neighborhood's vibrant multicultural patchwork was evident in the makeup of Roosevelt High School, which was founded in 1923.

There was a point in the school's history, Sanchez said, quoting one of his many interviews, where "you could divide the sports activities by race, with varsity football dominated by huge Russians — and some Jews — Mexicans and blacks in varsity track and tall Slavics in basketball."

Many audience chortled to themselves, but everyone laughed when Sanchez finished: "Debating was mostly the Jewish students."

Young people back then, Sanchez said, saw beyond their ethnic differences to create a common culture. "In Boyle Heights, as elsewhere, youth often played a critical role in initiating inter-ethnic relations, be it in interracial marriage, political coalition-building, or multiracial dance venues," Sanchez said.

The conference, co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and the UC Irvine Center for Research on Latinos in a Global Society, comes at a critical point in the history of Jewish-Latino relations.

Only in recent years has interest rapidly grown in the possibility that innumerable Mexicans and Mexican Americans could add a bit of Jewishness to their often mishmash background of European, Indian and sometimes African, Arab and Asian heritage. In New Mexico, some Latinos are using DNA studies to determine whether they have Jewish roots.

Jewish and Latino advocacy organizations have begun round-table discussions about potential political and cultural alliances, with many noting the 2005 election of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as an example of such coalition-building. Polls showed that Villaraigosa captured 84% of the city's Latino vote and 55% of the Jewish vote.

Villaraigosa's election led some participants at the conference to recall the election in 1949 of Edward R. Roybal to the Los Angeles City Council. The first Mexican American elected to the council since 1881, Roybal represented a heavily Jewish electorate in his Eastside district.

As a few conference panelists and participants noted, Jewish activists have been far more proactive in reaching out to Latinos than the other way around. The backgrounds of those attending the conference proved the point.

When Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, asked those in the audience to raise their hands if they identified as Jewish, most of the room responded. When he asked for the Latinos to raise their hands, only a few did.

Still, participants and speakers said they were encouraged by the dialogue.

"[Latinos are] the emerging community in L.A. and the Jewish community has been slow to become aware of the richness of the Latino community, and the potential for conflict as well," said Steven Windmueller, director of the School of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

Boyle Heights was once home to the largest Jewish community west of Chicago. Most in the community were Ashkenazi Jews. The neighborhood is overwhelmingly Latino today and just south of Cesar Chavez Avenue — which used to be Brooklyn Avenue — the Breed Street Shul is waiting to be reopened.

Built in 1923, the home of Congregation Talmud Torah fell into disrepair as Jews moved to the Westside. The Jewish Historical Society of Southern California stepped in to prevent the demolition of the shul in the 1990s. Now a renovation effort is underway to make the building a neighborhood cultural center.The shul is an artifact of a rich cultural history that includes Jews, Latinos and many others, said Steve Sass, president of the historical society and director of the Breed Street Shul Project.

"What I understand is that people were used to living side by side, they were all immigrants, English was not their first language, there was a Depression," Sass said. "This was the other Los Angeles…. We need to learn from that, learn from before, when people lived in proximity and were learning about each other's culture."

Sass was joined at the shul Wednesday by Juaquin Castellanos, a longtime Boyle Heights activist and Mexican immigrant. Castellanos is a recent addition to the Breed Street Shul Project's board of directors. "And I'm learning a lot — holidays, things like that," he said.

He gestured toward busy Cesar Chavez Avenue, adding that, even among Latinos, "We still call it Brooklyn."

Iran Accuses US-Israel of causing Plane Crashes

Here:

Iran accused the United States, the United Kingdom and above all Israel of "playing a part in the latest two plane crashes which took place in the country."

Iranian Interior Minister Mustafa Purmohammedi, in a speech he made at a seminar Wednesday, said they have information that these three countries played a role in these crashes.
Purmohammedi claimed "US, British and Israeli secret services want to cause insecurity in Iran" though declining to elaborate further his accusations.

This allegation may increase the tension between Iran and the West, experts argued.
Iran made the accusation that "US and UK played a part" in the explosions in the town of Ahvaz where eight people died.

When a military aircraft fell in early January, 11 people died, including five generals; one of whom the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Ground Forces Ahmad Kazemi.

A C-130 type military cargo aircraft carrying journalists going to observe military exercises crashed into a building near the Tehran Mehrabad Airport in December 2005, 108 people died.

Don't deal with terrorists

USA Today:

As Hamas, the Islamist terror group, surges in the polls with a prospect of joining the Palestinian Authority or even running it, governments worldwide must decide on their responses.

An increasing number of voices are calling for Hamas to be recognized, arguing that the imperatives of governance would tame it, ending its arch-murderous vocation (it has killed about 600 Israelis) and turning it into a responsible citizen.

Even President Bush made this argument in early 2005: "There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, 'Vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America.' ... I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, 'Vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.' "

The historical record, however, refutes this "pothole theory of democracy." Mussolini made the trains run, Hitler built autobahns, Stalin cleared the snow and Castro reduced infant mortality - without any of these totalitarians giving up their ideological zeal nor their grandiose ambitions. Likewise, Islamists in Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan have governed without becoming tamed. If proof is needed, note the Iranian efforts to build nuclear weapons amid an apocalyptic fervor.

Hamas might have hired a spin doctor to improve its image in the West, but its leadership candidly maintains it has no intention of changing. Responding to a question on whether Bush is correct that U.S. engagement with Hamas would moderate the terror group, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas founder, laughed and declared that this tactic "will not succeed." In recent days, Zahar has publicly reiterated that Hamas still intends to destroy Israel.

Fortunately, U.S. policy remains steadfast: "We haven't dealt with Hamas, and we won't deal with Hamas members who are elected," says U.S. embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle in Israel. That is a good start; ideally, there should be no dealings at all with a Palestinian Authority that includes Hamas in its leadership.

It was a mistake to permit Hamas to compete in elections. Like al-Qaeda, Hamas should be destroyed, not legitimated, much less courted.

Thinking the Unthinkable About Iran

From Here:

This editorial is the opinion of it's author only and in no way reflects the views of this blog(ger).

By J.R. Dunn

Before the founding of the modern State of Israel, the anti-Semitic view of the historical role of the Jew was that of half-willing victim. Jews were supposed to wait patiently while the Poles, Tartars, and Cossacks threw the bones to see who got to burn down the village this time. Many of us thought this subjection ended in 1948 and would never again disgrace humanity.

Discussions surrounding the Iranian nuclear threat suggest this judgment may have been premature. Talks concerning Iranian nuclear programs between Iran on one hand and Britain, France, and Germany on the other exhibit the nature of a ritual shadow play, one that consistently overlooks what should be the most salient fact: that Israel itself possesses nuclear weapons.

You’d think this would lend some sense of urgency to efforts to defuse the crisis, but you’d be wrong. The Jews are once again expected to wait while the dice are being tossed, this time until Tel Aviv and Haifa vanish in blinding flashes of fire. Israel has a nuclear arsenal estimated at two hundred bombs. These have never been tested, but with the state of nuclear technology, that’s not a necessity. As Ted Taylor, the late senior U.S. bomb designer, once put it,
“No nuclear weapon ever designed has failed to go off.”

These bombs are evidently compact enough to be deployed on any of the fighter-bombers that comprise Israel’s Air Defense Force. A possibility also exists that Israel possesses long-range cruise missiles – the Israelis were pioneers in the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s). No nation has been more discreet in its possession of nuclear weapons than Israel, which has never acknowledged having any such weapons at all. Nor has it ever explicitly threatened any of its neighbors with the nuclear stick. Iran, on the other hand, has done little else in recent months. The behavior of the country’s rulers, both political and religious, has been such that it would cause alarm even without the nuclear capability. By now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s new president, has become a nearly iconic figure. Each succeeding item that comes to our attention about this man makes it difficult to believe there can be anything worse to come. But there always is. Consider his membership in Pasdoran, Iran’s version of Hitler Youth, whose uniform he still occasionally wears. Consider his commitment to Mahdaviat, which Daniel Pipes translates as, “belief in and efforts to prepare for the Mahdi.”

The Mahdi is the Twelfth Imam, supposed to return at the End of Days in the Shi’ite version of Revelations. The more fanatical “Twelvers” believe that they have a duty to create worldwide chaos to hasten the day of return.

Back in the mid-80s, it was common to come across distraught American Leftists convinced that Ronald Reagan had placed fundamentalist Christians in the Defense Department for the purpose of bringing about the Rapture. It would be nice to see something matching that level of concern today. Ahmadinejad’s commitment to Mahdaviat is easily gauged. While mayor of Tehran, he had a broad avenue built to welcome the Mahdi. As president, he began a railroad to the town of Jamarkan, where the Mahdi is alleged to be biding his time in a well awaiting the great day. He spent seventeen million for an elegant mosque in the same area. Pipes tells us Ahmadinejad also had his list of proposed cabinet members dropped into the well for the Mahdi’s approval. The story of Allah’s intervention at the UN is worth contemplating. According to Ahmadinejad,
“...I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink…. And they were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic.”

This is the man who repeatedly denied that the Holocaust ever occurred. Who has refused to curtail developments that can only be utilized to obtain nuclear weapons. Who has stated that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” (And not only Ahmadinejad – ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a supposed “moderate,” used exactly the same words a few months previously.) The criteria for a preventive nuclear war have never been codified, simply because such an alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. But the possible need for such an action is in little doubt. Few would argue against the necessity of a preventive strike against a nuclear-armed Hitler. In 1948, Bertrand Russell, godfather of the peaceniks, publicly suggested such a strike against Stalin’s USSR (he went to great pains in later years to deny ever saying any such thing, but the printed record doesn’t lie). For that reason, it’s difficult to say what factors are required to justify such an action. But the case of Iran – a demonstrable record of bloodthirstiness and callousness, an expansionist messianic ideology, a foreign policy based in large part on anti-Semitism, rule by a hallucinatory fanatic, explicit threats of a nuclear first strike – pushes any conceivable envelope. Taken alone, each of these factors would be a matter of concern. Together, they make it extremely difficult to deny that Israel is being forced up against the wall. The Europeans appear proud of the fact that they’ve muddled along for two years, as if diplomacy was simply a matter of delaying the inevitable. Now, with a nearly audible sigh of relief, they have handed the matter over to the UN. The UN of the “Zionism is racism” decree. The UN that welcomed an armed Yasser Arafat. The UN that abandoned its peacekeeping posts in the Sinai in 1967 at Egyptian demand – without notifying Israel. The UN whose head a few weeks ago sat beneath a huge wall map featuring a boldly labeled ‘Palestine’ without any sign of discomfort. These are not actions designed to defuse a crisis.

An acute observer might well think that everyone involved was trying to ease the way for a strike to be carried out – by the U.S. or Israel or both. It really wouldn’t matter so long as the EU and the UN were not involved. (The French nuclear threat only highlights this point – it’s best read as a statement intended to direct Iranian intentions elsewhere.) Israel, after all, does have a history of the coup de main, the all-or-nothing strike such as occurred in 1956, 1967, and 1981. Look at the situation from Israel’s point of view to grasp how far it may be forced to go. This is the state founded in the shadow of the Holocaust, as a lifeboat for oldest surviving nation on Earth. The only people the world ever consciously tried to destroy.

To the Israelis, a hostile Middle Eastern state gaining nuclear weapons renders the level of risk effectively infinite. They will be facing not defeat, not humiliation, but effective annihilation. Under these circumstances, any level of response is justified. In the past week, two prominent Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu and chief of staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, have both publicly stated that “the threat to Israel is existential.” On January 21st Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz went even further: the Iranian people face “havoc and destruction” if their government fails to stand down. They should be taken as meaning what they say.

Those words may be the only warning anyone ever gets. There was a point during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 when it appeared that the Egyptians had broken though Israeli lines in the Sinai at the same time the Syrians were about to drive across the Golan. Although never verified, it’s been reported on some authority that Moshe Dayan placed the Israeli nuclear strike force on full alert, the planes at the ends of the runways with their engines hot, their weapons armed, ready to head for their targets.

The “go” phrase was, “The Temple has fallen for the third time.” It didn’t happen then. And I think it can taken as a given that the Temple will not fall this time either. Apart from that, everything else is up in the air. Except for the jets – and they’re always ready to go.

Fatah estimates it won 46 pct, Hamas 30 - official

Reuters:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party estimated that it won 46 percent of the vote in Wednesday's parliamentary election, ahead of Hamas with over 30 percent, a Fatah official said.

The internal Fatah estimate was roughly in line with surveys ahead of the first parliamentary election in a decade. But pollsters have cautioned that their could be a large margin of error in their projections.

Hamas said it doubted the accuracy of the estimates and wanted to wait for the count.

The Palestinians' Crisis of Leadership

Washington Post:

By Aaron David Miller

More than 50 years after its creation, the Palestinian national movement -- in both its secular and Islamic guises -- lacks a coherent strategy and the means to realize Palestinian national aspirations. No matter what the outcome of tomorrow's elections, this will remain the central challenge confronting Palestinians and their politics.

At some point in the history of any national movement, its leaders (and followers) must be judged by their ability to carry out the goals they set for themselves. It is true that these goals can evolve over time, in some cases tailored by circumstances, in a more pragmatic direction. In the 1960s the Palestine Liberation Organization preached the destruction of Israel. In the 1970s it endorsed a secular democratic state for Arabs and Jews. In the 1980s and 1990s, Palestinians shifted -- under pressure, to be sure -- to a two-state solution.

Most Palestinians have grudgingly come to back a Palestinian state alongside Israel, provided it is based on 1967 borders, has its capital in East Jerusalem and offers a resolution to the refugee problem that includes some kind of right of return.

Sadly, however, history has no rewind button, and if such a solution was ever possible, it certainly seems unlikely now. Ariel Sharon had the power to move toward a conflict-ending solution, but he had no incentive to do so -- nor will his successors. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has the incentive but lacks the power. In any case, unilateral action, not bilateral negotiations, seems to rule the day and will probably be the course chosen by Sharon's successor.

The Palestinians deserve a large share of the responsibility for their tragic predicament. Simply put, their leaders have failed to outline a coherent strategy, to devise effective tactics or to condition their public for compromise. Instead, a political culture of grievance and avoidance of responsibility has been the Palestinians' operating software.

The hardware has also failed. Armed struggle as a tactic has been a disaster. And while Hamas boasts (with some justification) that it was the gun that forced the Israelis out of the Gaza Strip, the gun has also wreaked havoc on the Palestinian society and image. Suicide terrorism has not only alienated Israel and America but also pushed them closer together. And without Israel and America, a Palestinian state will be stillborn.

Gaza may be free, but it is also uncontrollable, and sooner or later Israel may reenter to stop the Qassam rocket attacks. As Palestinians look east toward the West Bank, they see settlements and roads crisscrossing Palestinian land, with Jerusalem more tightly under Israeli control than ever. Hamas, or even the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, may toy with the Hezbollah precedent and believe that the gun can liberate Qalqilyah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. But it will prove a fool's game that even Hamas may be clever enough not to play.

With Gaza a mess and their internal affairs in disarray, the Palestinians confront perhaps the deepest crisis and largest question for their nationalist hopes: how to maintain a monopoly on force. From its inception, the Palestinian national movement has never had its "Night of the Long Knives." Such a reckoning would have allowed Fatah -- its dominant faction -- to impose control and articulate a coherent national strategy. But Fatah, highly decentralized and ministering to its dispirited, dispossessed refugee constituency, chose to accommodate rather than confront. Indeed, it allowed smaller groups of varying political persuasions to undertake terrorism and violence that put the entire national movement in the dock.

Today that situation is worse than ever. Yasser Arafat's real transgression was not his unwillingness to accept what Ehud Barak offered at Camp David (no Palestinian leader could have done that and survived), it was his willingness to allow his monopoly over the forces of violence in Palestinian society to dissipate and to acquiesce in, if not encourage, terrorist attacks by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas. Abbas's effort to create "one authority, one gun" has morphed into no authority and many guns.

Israel and the United States may deserve much of the responsibility for not seizing the opportunity to empower Abbas in the wake of Arafat's demise, but the crisis facing Palestinians is largely one brought about by their own hand, and they must resolve it.

Perhaps this week's elections will bring the beginning of real politics and a parliament that will press for real reform, pragmatism and peacemaking. Given the cacophony of Palestinian voices and the inevitable competition between Fatah and Hamas, whatever change occurs is likely to be excruciatingly slow. And in the interim, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will grind on, inexorably eroding the possibility of a conflict-ending solution. But such is the fate reserved for peoples whose leaders, whether they be Palestinian, Israeli or American, bungle or pass up the rare moments of opportunity that history provides them.

The writer has been an adviser to six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations. He is now a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Bergen County approves Eruv after 5 years of legal battles

NY Times:

After five years of legal battles, the leaders of this Bergen County borough approved an agreement on Tuesday night that enables an eruv, a symbolic boundary for Orthodox Jews that allows them to do some work on the Sabbath, to remain in place.

The agreement, which the Borough Council approved by a vote of 5 to 0, with one abstention, reimburses the Tenafly Eruv Association for $325,000 in court costs. The association set up the eruv in 2000 by placing plastic strips on utility poles, incorporating most of the borough's 4.4 square miles, but ran into opposition.

The Borough Council voted to ban the eruv, citing an ordinance against putting posters or other objects on utility poles, and made plans to dismantle it. Council members feared that by allowing the association to put up the eruv, they would be seen as giving preferential treatment to a religious group, said William McClure, the borough attorney.

Moreover, although the eruv association had the permission of the county and the utilities, the borough had not given its approval, which is required by state law, Mr. McClure said. And Mayor Peter S. Rustin said residents were concerned that the eruv would cause an influx of Orthodox Jews into the community, which has a population of 13,806, including about 40 Orthodox families. Some residents have expressed concerns that Orthodox Jews would use private schools and change the character of the borough.

But the association sued in federal court, claiming discrimination, and obtained a restraining order to keep the eruv in place.

After a federal judge agreed with the borough in 2001, the association successfully appealed that decision, with three judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruling in 2002 that the eruv should remain. The appellate judges noted that the borough often ignored its own law about posting things on utility poles, and that it would be unfair to enforce the law selectively against Orthodox Jews. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the town's appeal in 2003.

No one from the association was at Tuesday night's meeting, and the deal was approved with no discussion. Several calls to the eruv association earlier Tuesday were not returned.

For Orthodox Jews, the eruv extends the realm of the home, allowing them to do some work on the Sabbath within its boundaries, like pushing a stroller or carrying keys. Eruvin have been placed in other communities with Orthodox populations, including Englewood, Teaneck, Paramus, Fair Lawn and Fort Lee in New Jersey; Park Slope and Williamsburg in Brooklyn; and even in the neighborhood that includes the White House in Washington. Many are next to impossible to spot, and have been set up without protest.

In the settlement, neither side admits liability. It requires the eruv association to advise the borough of any proposed extension of the eruv and "to safeguard the public in connection with the installation and future maintenance of the eruv." The borough's insurance will pay for a third of the court costs, Mr. McClure said.

Etzion Neuer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League's New Jersey office, said his group had always considered an eruv a religious accommodation. "We didn't agree with the claim that it was any type of violation of the separation between church and state," he said. "We hope that this will be the last chapter in this painful and divisive fight."

He said some residents objected on the ground that they were being made to live in someone else's religious domain because most of the borough is enclosed by the eruv.

But, Mr. Neuer said, "the only people this really affects are the people that follow the religious tenets."

Several residents were glad to see the battle coming to an end, although they were angry that it had ever been fought. "It's caused a lot of faction in this town and it's so unfortunate," said Barbara Rooney, carrying laundry from her car on Tuesday. "I'm glad it will be finished, one way or the other. The money spent has been spent in the worst way possible for both sides."

Sandra Divack Moss, walking with her son on Washington Avenue, said, "I think it's appalling that Tenafly, for all this time, has been fighting the eruv, and I felt that way from Day 1."

"The multiethnic tapestry of America is one we should celebrate, and as neighborhoods ebb and flow, that's part of the way it is," she said. "It's time for reconciliation."

Mother of 3 suicide bombers runs in Palestinian elections

ABC News:

Mariam Farahat, who is running as a candidate in Wednesday's Palestinian parliamentary elections, can work a crowd like a veteran politician — shaking hands and greeting supporters. When she gets on the stage at a Hamas rally, she is the star attraction. She is one of Hamas' most popular candidates.

In Gaza, Farahat is known as Um Nidal, or Mother of the Struggle — a mother who sent three of her six sons on Hamas suicide missions against Israeli targets.

"We consider it holy duty," she told ABC News. "Our land is occupied. You take all the means to banish the occupier. I sacrificed my children for this holy, patriotic duty. I love my children, but as Muslims we pressure ourselves and sacrifice our emotions for the interest of the homeland. The greater interest takes precedence to the personal interest."

She is most famous for being in a Hamas video that showed her 17-year-old how to attack Israelis and told him not to return. Shortly afterward, he killed five students in a Jewish settlement before he was killed himself.

Um Nidal's home has become a shrine to her dead sons, with admirers and other members of Hamas often dropping by.

Um Nidal is not your typical Hamas candidate, but she does represent an extreme wing of the party — one that is wildly popular despite being downplayed in this election.

"I had no desire to join the parliament or the political arena," she said. "It was enough … the pride of jihad, and I found that I have to complete my social and political duty."

Destroying Israel is not something Hamas has promoted much during this election campaign. But at the grassroots level in Gaza, where Um Nidal campaigns, most Palestinian supporters believe it was the violent attacks against Israel that forced them to pull out from the Gaza Strip last fall.

"This is our strategy," she said. "We are working on two parallel lines — the political and the jihadist."

Um Nidal is likely to win tomorrow with no set policy or platform. But she does have three sons who are still alive. If necessary, she says, they will follow in their brothers' footsteps.

Regarding the Lakewood internet ban

This is not your typical Hayom news tidbit. I saw this post and wanted people to read it, so file this under "other short stories"

I stumbled across this excellent post on eSefer regarding the Lakewood internet ban. Have a read. I like his predictions, especially this: "Another thing that will change is the way interaction happens between the Gedolim and the hamon am. Signing a poster doesn't work anymore. Saying a schmuess doesn't work anymore. There has to be an entirely new paradigm for communication".

That's 100% true in my opinion.

Knesset committee: Mofaz lied

Ynet:

Members of the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee blasted Shaul Mofaz in a meeting Tuesday over what they said was false information provided by the defense minister regarding the border crossings agreement with the Palestinians.

Committee members said they were shocked to learn, during Tuesday's meeting, that the Rafah crossings agreement was never actually signed – as Mofaz reportedly claimed - and a draft of the deal has not yet been approved by the Americans and the Palestinians.

"The defense minister lied and deceived the public and the Knesset by reporting that the agreement has already been signed," Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said.

Steinitz slammed Mofaz for "taking advantage of his position as defense minister for political purposes, even at the price of not telling the truth to the Committee."

The Committee chairman charged this was the most severe incident he encountered throughout his three years at the poast.

"This is a case of false pretense, since the defense minister was asked to report of the agreement, but did not take the trouble to inform the Committee the deal was not signed, and that at the moment there is only a controversial draft," Steinitz claimed.

"In some democracies, this would be considered a criminal felony," he added.

'Mofaz must resign'

Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed the subject and said politicians have an obligation to tell the truth when appearing before the Committee, let alone the public.

"I warned that the crossings agreement is full of holes, and now it's not even clear that there is an agreement to begin with," he added.

Other members of the Committee were also quick to blast Mofaz.

"A defense minister who lies must resign his post," MK Ran Cohen (Meretz) said, while former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer (Labor) said it turns out Mofaz did not provide the Committee with a "the truthful version."

"Mofaz should be summoned to the Committee in order for him to clarify what has happened. We need to ask the defense minister why he deceived us," Ben-Eliezer said.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, responding to the accusations said: "I'm very sorry that the Committee decided to attack me politically. The issue of the Rafah border crossing has been made very clear, and defense issues should not be used for political attacks."

Baby Boom In Borough Park

NY1:

The Department of Health found in 2004, the largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood welcomed more than 4500 babies, an average of almost 12 per day, by far the most in the city.

Statistics also show couples in Borough Park are marrying younger, and are having children quicker and more often than the average city couple.

Borough Park's birth rate is nearly 24.5-per 1000 residents. Bayside, Queens has seen the lowest birth rate of 6-per thousand residents.

Hamas sees indirect talks with Israel as a possibility

Reuters:

A Hamas leader raised the possibility on Monday of indirect negotiations with Israel, softening the Islamic militant group's stance ahead of this week's Palestinian election.

The shift by Mahmoud al-Zahar came on the final frenetic day of official campaigning before Wednesday's parliamentary vote, which could catapult the movement into its first role in Palestinian government.

"Negotiations are a means. If Israel has anything to offer on the issues of halting attacks, withdrawal, releasing prisoners ... then one thousand means can be found," Zahar told reporters in Gaza.

As an example, he cited contacts the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah held with Israel, via German mediators, for the release of Lebanese held in Israeli jails. Hamas has long rejected peace talks.

"Negotiation is not a taboo," Zahar said. "But the political crime is when we sit with the Israelis and then come out with a wide smile to tell the Palestinian people that there is progress, when in fact, there is not."

Israel and the United States have long refused any dialogue with Hamas. The group has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000 and its charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

A senior Israeli official, commenting on Zahar's remarks, said: "If they stop terrorism and if they rescind their covenant ... we will consider it (negotiations). Before that, it is worthless to talk about it."

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a monthly news conference it would be difficult for the West to negotiate or talk with Hamas "unless there's a very clear renunciation of terrorism".

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union's external relations commissioner, said in Brussels the EU would not rule out working with a Palestinian government that included Hamas, provided it sought "peace by peaceful means" with Israel.

Asked if her position could be seen as giving Hamas de facto recognition, Ferrero-Waldner replied: "We are not there at all.

"Hamas is on the terrorist list ... It is very important not to interfere with the elections, and also to uphold a series of principles. I don't think it is about parties, it's about principles," she told Reuters.

In an earlier move apparently aimed at improving its international image, Hamas omitted from its election manifesto its long-standing call to destroy Israel.

Some Israeli officials cautioned that an election victory for Hamas could herald an end to Middle East peacemaking.

A big win for Hamas could also prompt Washington to scale back contacts with the Palestinian Authority and possibly freeze direct financial assistance, U.S. diplomatic sources said.

Most opinion polls show Hamas trailing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement in Wednesday's election, but the margin has narrowed to a few percentage points.
Hamas has gained popularity among Palestinians not only for its attacks on Israelis during the uprising but also for its charity network and its corruption-free image.

Fatah has been weakened since Arafat's death in 2004 by a struggle between an "old guard" accused of graft and younger leaders and gunmen seeking greater power.

In preparation for the ballot, Israeli forces were instructed to permit free passage of Palestinian election vehicles through Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank.

The army planned to steer clear of Palestinian towns and avoid military raids "except in cases of ticking bombs" or an intelligence tip of an imminent attack, a military source said.

Western Wall area cleared due to fake bomb

Ynet:

Police officers cleared the Western Wall area of worshippers Sunday night after finding a suspicious object, which later turned out to be a fake bomb used by security guards during an exercise they held at the site.

It remains unclear why the guards left the fake bomb behind.

According to an initial investigation into the incident, the company in charge of security at the Western Wall held an exercise for its employees. At around 10:30 p.m. a tin can with wires protruding from it, which was left behind by one of the guards, was found in the men’s prayer section.

Worshippers were immediately evacuated and sappers were dispatched to the scene.

At first police officers believed the fake bomb was planted by right-wing activists, as was the case in similar incidents in the past, but this assumption was dismissed when no note was found near the bomb.

A half-hour later Border Guard sappers examining the device said the can was placed as a hoax, but a short while later it became evident that the can was left behind by the security guards.

Speilberg hits back

Here:

In an interview with the German news weekly Der Spiegel, Spielberg says Munich aims to reclaim the debate about the moral costs of the struggle against terror from "extremists".

"Should you leave the debate to the great over-simplifiers? The extreme Jews and extreme Palestinians who consider any kind of negotiated settlement to be a kind of treason?" he said.

"I wanted to use the medium of film to make the audience have a very intimate confrontation with a subject that they generally only know about in an abstract way, or only see in a one-sided way."

Munich, which hit US screens last month, depicts an Israeli campaign to hunt down and kill Palestinian radicals behind the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes and coaches during the Munich Olympics in 1972.

The drama ended in a massacre: 11 Israelis, five Palestinians and one German police officer were killed.

Munich has been attacked by some US Jewish commentators who have accused Spielberg of equating the Israeli assassins with the Palestinian militants.

Spielberg dismissed the charges as "nonsense".

"These critics are acting as if we were all missing a moral compass. Of course it is a horrible, abominable crime when people are taken hostage and killed like in Munich," he said.

"But it does not excuse the act when you ask what the motives of the perpetrators were and show that they were also individuals with families and a history.... Understanding does not mean forgiving. Understanding does not mean being soft, it is a courageous and strong stance."

IAF missile strike kills one in Gaza City

Haaretz:

Israel Air Force aircraft fired missiles at a car in the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon in an apparent targeted killing of Palestinian militants.

The missile strike caused an explosion that rocked the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

Mahmoud Abad Al A'al, a member of the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees umbrella group, was killed and six others were wounded in the air strike.

Earlier, the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees group admited its members had been traveling in the car but denied they had been hurt, claiming they managed to escape before the blast. A spokesman for the group said a bystander was killed.

IAF warplanes and drones were seen in the sky during the strike.

Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry, said an investigation into the incident was under way.

Earlier on Sunday afternoon, Palestinian militants opened fire on Israel Defense Forces soldiers patrolling Israel's border with the northern Gaza Strip. There were no casualties in that incident.

Tehran plans nuclear weapon test by March

UPI:

Tehran is planning a nuclear weapons test before the Iranian New Year on March 20, 2006 says a group opposed to the regime in Tehran.

The Foundation for Democracy citing sources in the U.S and Iran offered no further information.
The FDI quotes sources in Iran that the high command of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force have issued new orders to Shahab-3 missile units, ordering them to move mobile missile launchers every 24 hours in view of a potential pre-emptive strike by the U.S. or Israel. The order was issued Tuesday, Jan. 16.

The group says the launchers move only at night, and have been instructed to change their positions "in a radius of 30 to 35 kilometers." Prior to the new orders the Shahab-3 units changed position on a weekly basis. Advance Shahab-3 units have been positioned in Kermanshah and Hamadan province, within striking distance of Israel. Reserve mobile launchers have been moved to Esfahan and Fars province.

Some big talk from the bug cave

Washington Times:

This editorial is the opinion of it's author only and in no way reflects the views of this blog(ger).

By Wesley Pruden

That may be Osama bin Laden crying "uncle." Or it might be Osama crying out to make mischief. He might not make peace in the saloons, but he could make trouble in the salons.

The villain of September 11 threatens to attack Fortress America again, blowing hard about how he can huff, puff, sweat, strain and maybe even burp any time he wants to. The most interesting and perhaps revealing part of the audiotape, broadcast yesterday on Al Jazeera, was his convoluted feeler for "a long-term truce" with the Great Satan.

The White House replied with the hard-nosed reply everyone, perhaps even Osama himself, should have expected: "Clearly the al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists are on the run," the president's spokesman said. "They're under a lot of pressure. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business."

Even the top Democrat speaking ex-officio reacted semi-responsibly, briefly echoing the White House. "You don't negotiate with terrorists," Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told Fox News Channel. "These people have killed 3,000 Americans. There is no truce with al Qaeda, and there never will be. You can't trust them. I think we're doing exactly the right thing on the Pakistani border."

But Howard Dean being Howard Dean, the leader of the death-wish cult couldn't restrain his impulse to blow off a little partisan steam: "I do again point out, I wish we had not spent as much of our time and efforts in Iraq as we have, because the real battle against terror is in Afghanistan and the surrounding areas where al Qaeda is now holed up."

The vice president offered the view most popular in Washington. "I'm not sure what he's offering by way of a truce," Dick Cheney told interviewers. "I don't think anyone would believe him. It sounds to me like it's some kind of ploy."

Osama, though an archvillain who deserves whatever misery God, Allah and the U.S. Armed Forces deal to him, is not dumb, and he has demonstrated that he understands a little about how politics and public opinion work in the land of the big PX. The voice on the tape, which the CIA quickly identified as authentic, refers to dates and places calculated to reassure his followers that he may have diseased kidneys and maybe even a leaky bladder, but he's staying alive with the bugs and snakes in the bat cave somewhere on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

His blustery threats to inflict more mayhem on Jewish and Christian innocents seem aimed at encouraging his partners in crime, boasting that just because he hasn't inflicted evil since September 11 doesn't mean he can't do it when he wants to. "The proof of that," he says, "is the explosions you have seen in the capitals of European nations. The delay in similar operations happening in America has not been because of failure to break through your security measures. The operations are under preparation, and you will see them in your homes the minute they are through with preparations, with God's permission."

Wise men (so called) in the intelligence services warn against blowing off stuff like this as mere bloviation, however tempting that may be. Osama's boasts of coming carnage in America sound a lot like the defiance of the outlaw cornered by the patient Marshal Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit." When Rooster threatens to take Lucky Ned Pepper back to Fort Smith "to be hanged at Judge Parker's convenience," the old outlaw returns empty contempt and daring: "That's mighty big talk, Rooster, from a one-eyed fat man." We all know what happened to the not-so-lucky Mr. Pepper.

The latest from Osama may be aimed most of all at the anti-war left in America, the Democrats desperate to destroy the presidency of George W. Bush oblivious of the collateral damage inflicted on everyone else. Osama explains that he is directing his offer of a truce -- a "peace process," you might say -- because public-opinion polls show "an overwhelming majority of you want the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq but [Bush] opposes that desire."

But if Osama is as smart as a lot of people in the West think he is, he knows that a truce is the last thing the radical left, including a lot of Democrats in Congress, want. Such a truce, which would differ not at all from al Qaeda surrender, would redeem George W. overnight. His approval numbers would soar, and the blue states would turn to a deep shade of crimson.

Such a surrender would save the American lives the president's critics insist are their only concern, but at what cost? The prospects of restoring Democratic control of Congress would evaporate. So no truce, please. No peace. Not yet.

Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.

Israeli Hints at Preparation to Stop Iran

AP:

Israel's defense minister hinted Saturday that the Jewish state is preparing for military action to stop Iran's nuclear program, but said international diplomacy must be the first course of action.

"Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability and it must have the capability to defend itself, with all that that implies, and this we are preparing," Shaul Mofaz said.

His comments at an academic conference stopped short of overtly threatening a military strike but were likely to add to growing tensions with Iran.

Germany's defense minister said in an interview published Saturday that he is hopeful of a diplomatic solution to the impasse over Iran's nuclear program, but argued that "all options" should remain open.

Asked by the Bild am Sonntag weekly whether the threat of a military solution should remain in place, Franz Josef Jung was quoted as responding: "Yes, we need all options."

French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France could respond with nuclear weapons against any state-sponsored terrorist attack.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Saturday that Chirac's threats reflect the true intentions of nuclear nations, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
"The French president uncovered the covert intentions of nuclear powers in using this lever (nuclear weapons) to determine political games," IRNA quoted Asefi as saying.

Israel long has identified Iran as its biggest threat and accuses Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is peaceful.

Iran broke U.N. seals at a uranium enrichment plant Jan. 10 and said it was resuming nuclear research after a 2 1/2-year freeze. Germany, France and Britain said two days later that talks aimed at halting Iran's nuclear progress were at a dead end and called for Iran's referral to the U.N. Security Council.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, will meet Feb. 2 to discuss possible referral.

Israel's Mofaz said sanctions and international oversight of Iran's nuclear program stood as the "correct policy at this time."

In Germany, Jung called himself "confident that there will be a diplomatic solution in the case of Iran."

Israeli leaders have also repeatedly said they hope the crisis can be resolved through diplomacy, and they said any military action would have to be part of an international effort. They have denied having plans for a unilateral preventive strike.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Tehran might still agree to Moscow's offer to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, a step backed by the United States and Europeans as a way to resolve the deadlock.

Israel's concerns about Iran have grown since the election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said last year that Israel should be "wiped off the map."

On Friday, Iran's Students News Agency reported Friday that Central Bank governor Ebrahim Sheibani said Iran had begun moving its foreign currency reserves from European banks and transferring them to an undisclosed location as protection against possible U.N. sanctions.

Sheibani backed away Saturday from his statement that the transfers were already underway, and Iran's Central Bank said there had been no change in its currency policy.

Estimates put Iranian funds in Europe at as much as $50 billion.

Syria accuses Israel of assassinating Arafat

Reuters:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accused Israel on Saturday of assassinating former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the cause of whose death 14 months ago remains a mystery.

"Of the many assassinations that Israel carried out in a methodical and organized way, the most dangerous thing that Israel did was the assassination of President Yasser Arafat," Assad told a gathering of Arab lawyers.

"This was under the world's gaze and its silence, and not one state dared to issue a statement or stance toward this, as though nothing happened."

Arafat died in Paris on November 11, 2004 at the age of 75 after being rushed from his West Bank compound to a French military hospital.

Israel has denied being responsible for the deterioration in Arafat's health before his death and has denied poisoning him.

Israeli officials said he had access to medical treatment, food, water and medication during the two years he spent in his battered compound in Ramallah, which was besieged by Israeli troops for months in 2002.

French doctors denied rumors that Arafat was poisoned but have refused to publish his medical reports, citing strict privacy laws.

Arafat aides had quoted doctors as saying he had a low count of platelets, which help the blood to clot. They later said he had gone into a coma, suffered a brain hemorrhage and lost the use of his vital organs one by one. But no definitive cause of death was announced.

Palestinian killed in Gaza Strip

Reuters:

The Israeli army shot dead a Palestinian man and wounded two others in the north Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel on Saturday, local medics said.

The Israeli army confirmed the incident and said that troops had spotted three men crawling towards the border fence and had shot at them after they refused calls to stop, did not identify themselves and ignored warning shots fired in the air.

An army spokeswoman could not confirm whether the three men were armed or if their actions were hostile.

Palestinian medics said the three men had come from a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip but did not know whether they were militants.

Israel has declared areas close to the border fence in the northern part of the costal territory which militants have used to fire rockets into Israel as a no-go area for Palestinians and has used artillery and helicopter gunships to enforce this.

Palestinians have condemned the buffer zone as a re-occupation of land evacuated by Israel last year.

Krauthammer - The Iran Charade, Part II

Washington Post:

"It was what made this E.U. Three approach so successful. They [Britain, France and Germany] stood together and they had one uniform position."

-- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Jan. 13

Makes you want to weep. One day earlier, Britain, France and Germany admitted that their two years of talks to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program had collapsed. The Iranians had broken the seals on their nuclear facilities and were resuming activity in defiance of their pledges to the "E.U. Three." This negotiating exercise, designed as an alternative to the U.S. approach of imposing sanctions on Iran for its violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, had proved entirely futile. If anything, the two-year hiatus gave Iran time to harden its nuclear facilities against bombardment, acquire new antiaircraft capacities and clandestinely advance its program.

With all this, the chancellor of Germany declared the exercise a success because the allies stuck together! The last such success was Dunkirk. Lots of solidarity there, too.

Most dismaying was that this assessment came from a genuinely good friend, the new German chancellor, who, unlike her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder (now a wholly owned Putin flunky working for Russia's state-run oil monopoly), actually wants to do something about terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Ah, success. Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even more radical government, led by a president who fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse.

Ah, success. Having delayed two years, we now have to deal with a set of fanatical Islamists who we know will not be deterred from pursuing nuclear weapons by any sanctions. Even if we could get real sanctions. Which we will not. The remaining months before Iran goes nuclear are about to be frittered away in pursuit of this newest placebo.

First, because Russia and China will threaten to veto any serious sanctions. The Chinese in particular have secured in Iran a source of oil and gas outside the American sphere to feed their growing economy and are quite happy geopolitically to support a rogue power that -- like North Korea -- threatens, distracts and diminishes the power of China's chief global rival, the United States.

Second, because the Europeans have no appetite for real sanctions either. A travel ban on Iranian leaders would be a joke; they don't travel anyway. A cutoff of investment and high-tech trade from Europe would be a minor irritant to a country of 70 million people with the second-largest oil reserves in the world and with oil at $60 a barrel. North Korea tolerated 2 million dead from starvation to get its nuclear weapons. Iran will tolerate a shortage of flat-screen TVs.
The only sanctions that might conceivably have any effect would be a boycott of Iranian oil. No one is even talking about that, because no one can bear the thought of the oil shock that would follow, taking 4.2 million barrels a day off the market, from a total output of about 84 million barrels.

The threat works in reverse. It is the Iranians who have the world over a barrel. On Jan. 15, Iran's economy minister warned that Iran would retaliate for any sanctions by cutting its exports to "raise oil prices beyond levels the West expects." A full cutoff could bring $100 oil and plunge the world into economic crisis.

Which is one of the reasons the Europeans are so mortified by the very thought of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The problem is not just that they are spread out and hardened, making them difficult to find and to damage sufficiently to seriously set back Iran's program.

The problem that mortifies the Europeans is what Iran might do after such an attack -- not just cut off its oil exports but shut down the Strait of Hormuz by firing missiles at tankers or scuttling its vessels to make the strait impassable. It would require an international armada led by the United States to break such a blockade.

Such consequences -- serious economic disruption and possible naval action -- are something a cocooned, aging, post-historic Europe cannot even contemplate. Which is why the Europeans have had their heads in the sand for two years. And why they will spend the little time remaining -- before a group of apocalyptic madmen go nuclear -- putting their heads back in the sand. And congratulating themselves on allied solidarity as they do so in unison.

Mofaz: Iran, Syria behind Tel Aviv attack

Ynet:

Defense officials have gathered solid evidence in the hours following Thursday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv to show the attack was a direct result of cooperation between Iran, Syria, and Palestinian terrorists.

"The attack was funded by Iran, planned by Syria, and executed by the Palestinians," Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz charged during a meeting with top security officials in Tel Aviv following the bombing.

Security officials are intimately familiar with the phenomenon of terror attacks that originate outside Israel's borders. Various findings uncovered in the wake of past bombings showed that although the terrorists and explosive devices were local, a large overseas infrastructure financed attacks and pushed for their execution.

During Thursday's meeting, Mofaz said "we possess conclusive evidence that the attack is a direct result of the terror axis operating against Israel at all times." Defense officials were able to trace, based on "unequivocal evidence," the funding of the attack to Iran. Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus was the one to provide operative orders that resulted in the bombing, according to the evidence.

The execution of the attack was entrusted with an Islamic Jihad cell in the West Bank town of Nablus, where the suicide bomber originated.

Despite the charges of Iranian and Syrian complicity in the attack, defense officials do not intend to change the pattern of counter-terror operations at this time, particularly in light of the current sensitive junction and the upcoming Palestinian elections.

During Thursday's consultation, Minister Mofaz ordered the IDF and Shin Bet to continue operating against Islamic Jihad targets in the northern West Bank, tighten the siege around Nablus, and boost operations in areas where the security fence has not yet been completed.

Mofaz's declarations regarding Iranian and Syrian involvement in the attack come against the backdrop of a meeting between the two countries' leaders tonight. The defense minister characterized the Ahmadinejad-Assad summit as a "terror summit" and said the Iranian president is currently in the only place in the world where he's welcomed.

Security officials said remarks by the two leaders in Damascus overnight attest to their support of terrorism against Israel. Among other statements, Ahmadinejad and Assad said "the continued Palestinian resistance is the only way to regain the Palestinian nation's legitimate rights over the occupied Islamic territories."

Mofaz noted the Iranian-Syrian "terror axis" is not only Israel's problem and said he turned to American, European, and Egyptian officials in order to present to them the incriminating evidence, which he said leaves no room for doubt.