Michael Santomauro: 

Should Jews Receive Compensation For Properties And Wealth Left in Iraq?

Peter Myers:

(1) ADL Extends Vendetta against Prof. to College of San Mateo
(2) Former NY Mayor Ed Koch attacks Thomas Friedman for saying Sharon
controls Bush
(3) An Alliance of Insecurity--Indian and Israel
(4) Powell: US to Impose Sanctions on Syria
(5) Falls Church News Press - Bush, not CIA to Blame
(6) Minister of Tourism Benny Elon to honor Pat Robertson in North
Carolina

Should Jews Receive Compensation For Properties And Wealth Left in Iraq?

When you consider the fact that Zionists forced more than 750,000
Palestinians to flee Palestine in 1948 and leave all their possessions and their lands to
be stolen by Jews never to be returned to the Palestinians, one wonders why
the Zionists can't see themselves when they talk of reparations from Iraq. 

The
Zionists caused Jews to flee Islamic countries leaving much of their wealth
behind. This is very much the same as what they did in Palestine. They already
got all of the abandoned wealth and properties of the Palestinians. 

Now they
want the Americans to get reparations for them for the abandoned wealth and
properties that Jews left in Iraq. Hey, the gall of some people!

There is a good deal of evidence to show that Mossad had a hand in forcing
Jews in Arabic countries take flight by planting bombs in Jewish neighborhoods
in those countries.

Naeim Giladi who is of Jewish descent and an Iraqi-American (former Israeli)
documents this in his book Ben Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah & the
Mossad Eliminated Jews.

---------------------------------------------------------

Excerpts from Giladi's book:

I write this article for the same reason I wrote my book: to tell the
American people, and especially American Jews, that Jews from Islamic lands did not
emigrate willingly to Israel; that, to force them to leave, Jews killed Jews;
and that, to buy time to confiscate ever more Arab lands, Jews on numerous
occasions rejected genuine peace initiatives from their Arab neighbors. I write
about what the first prime minister of Israel called "cruel Zionism." I write
about it because I was part of it.

David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, told a Zionist Conference in
1937 that any proposed Jewish state would have to "transfer Arab populations
out of the area, if possible of their own free will, if not by coercion."
After 750,000 Palestinians were uprooted and their lands confiscated in 1948-49,
Ben Gurion had to look to the Islamic countries for Jews who could fill the
resultant cheap labor market. "Emissaries" were smuggled into these countries to
"convince" Jews to leave either by trickery or fear.

In the case of Iraq, both methods were used: uneducated Jews were told of a
Messianic Israel in which the blind see, the lame walk, and onions grow as big
as melons; educated Jews had bombs thrown at them.

A few years after the bombings, in the early 1950s, a book was published in
Iraq, in Arabic, titled Venom of the Zionist Viper. The author was one of the
Iraqi investigators of the 1950-51 bombings and, in his book, he implicates the
Israelis, specifically one of the emissaries sent by Israel, Mordechai
Ben-Porat. As soon as the book came out, all copies just disappeared, even from
libraries. The word was that agents of the Israeli Mossad, working through the
U.S. Embassy, bought up all the books and destroyed them. I tried on three
different occasions to have one sent to me in Israel, but each time Israeli censors
in the post office intercepted it.

In September 1949, Israel sent the spy Mordechai Ben-Porat, the one mentioned
in Venom of the Zionist Viper, to Iraq. One of the first things Ben-Porat did
was to approach el-Said and promise him financial incentives to have a law
enacted that would lift the citizenship of Iraqi Jews.

Soon after, Zionist and Iraqi representatives began formulating a rough draft
of the bill, according to the model dictated by Israel through its agents in
Baghdad. The bill was passed by the Iraqi parliament in March 1950. It
empowered the government to issue one-time exit visas to Jews wishing to leave the
country. In March, the bombings began.

Sixteen years later, the Israeli magazine Haolam Hazeh, published by Uri
Avnery, then a Knesset member, accused Ben-Porat of the Baghdad bombings.
Ben-Porat, who would become a Knesset member himself, denied the charge, but never
sued the magazine for libel. And Iraqi Jews in Israel still call him Morad Abu
al-Knabel, Mordechai of the Bombs.

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed that it is easier for the world to accept
a simple lie than a complex truth. Certainly it has been easier for the world
to accept the Zionist lie that Jews were evicted from Muslim lands because of
anti-Semitism, and that Israelis, never the Arabs, were the pursuers of
peace. The truth is far more discerning: bigger players on the world stage were
pulling the strings.

These players, I believe, should be held accountable for their crimes,
particularly when they willfully terrorized, dispossessed and killed innocent people
on the altar of some ideological imperative.

I believe, too, that the descendants of these leaders have a moral
responsibility to compensate the victims and their descendants, and to do so not just
with reparations, but by setting the historical record straight.

That is why I established a panel of inquiry in Israel to seek reparations
for Iraqi Jews who had been forced to leave behind their property and
possessions in Iraq. That is why I joined the Black Panthers in confronting the Israeli
government with the grievances of the Jews in Israel who came from Islamic
lands. And that is why I have written my book and this article: to set the
historical record straight.

We Jews from Islamic lands did not leave our ancestral homes because of any
natural enmity between Jews and Muslims. And we Arabs-I say Arab because that
is the language my wife and I still speak at home-we Arabs on numerous
occasions have sought peace with the State of the Jews. And finally, as a U.S. citizen
and taxpayer, let me say that we Americans need to stop supporting racial
discrimination in Israel and the cruel expropriation of lands in the West Bank,
Gaza, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights. -Naeim Giladi (former Israeli now US
citizen of Jewish-Iraqi descent)

www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html

---------------------------------------------------------

Israel bombed Beirut's only Synagogue during its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

[Israel claimed] that [only] 40 buildings were destroyed in the Beirut
bombings...one of these was Beirut's only synagogue...(NYT, p. A17, 8-12-82)
Despite considerable effort, representatives of the World Zionist
Organization were unable to convince the Jews of West Beirut to immigrate to Israel.
"'Why should we leave,' they asked? Here are our houses and our friends."' (Yediot
Ahronot 7-19-82)
-Noam Chomsky
The Fateful Triangle

----------------------------------------------------------

Lebanese Jewish leader grateful to Arafat and rejects Israeli claims that
Lebanese Jewish community is threatened (they were probably far more under threat
from Israel's random bombardment of Beirut in which Israel destroyed Beirut's
only Synagogue.)

The following is from Edward C. Corrigan
www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal/9012_corrigan.asp

Two little-known facts are that the PLO helped protect the Beirut Jewish
community (and also the American embassy) during the Lebanese Civil War,124 and it
was the Israelis who destroyed their synagogue during the siege of
Beirtut.125 Nor has it been widely publicized that nine Palestinian Jews were among the
victims of the Sabra and Shatila massacre.126

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/07/1625056.php

"Strive as in a race to achieve the
 goal of excellence in all that you do."

For real insights visit:

http://www.geocities.com/mewatch99/

Regards,
Nashid

===================
Professor F. Littell has said "You can't discuss the truth of the holocaust.
That is a distortion of the concept of free speech. The United States should
emulate West Germany, which outlaws such exercises."--Mind-boggling! Don't you
think?
http://64.143.9.197/jhr/v11/v11p365_Bennett.html
+++++++
"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the
Jews - reminds us who we are." --Jay Lefkowitz (NYT Magazine. 12 F. 1995, 65) Jay
Lefkowitz is now Deputy assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. A
sick man! Don't you think?
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace is patriotic!
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
253 West 72nd street #1711
New York, NY 10023
http://www.RePortersNoteBook.com
Available for Talk-Radio interviews 24hours 212-787-7891
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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(1) ADL Extends Vendetta against Prof. to College of San Mateo

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:13:21 -0800 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

http://www.smdailyjournal.org/article.cfm?issue=02-12-04&storyID=28061

Thursday February 12, 2004

Rights group investigating professor's news interview

By Yunmi Choi, Daily Journal Staff

A political science professor who sparked a firestorm of controversy
with what some say were anti-Semitic remarks at Foothill College could
now be getting heat at the College of San Mateo, where he also teaches.

The Anti Defamation League was unaware until contacted by the Daily
Journal Tuesday that Leighton Armitage also teaches at CSM, said
spokesman Jonathan Bernstein. Now Bernstein said the ADL plans to
contact CSM officials to find out if Armitage's attitude is affecting
the campus atmosphere there.

The controversy was set in motion when Armitage comments were printed in
Foothill's student paper Jan. 28. In an interview with the Sentinel,
Armitage said of Israeli treatment of Palestinians, "And what they're
doing with Palestinians every day? They're killing them. They're walling
them in, they're essentially doing the same thing that was done to them
... It's exactly what Hitler did to the Jews."

The ADL has been getting calls from faculty and students for more than a
year about the intolerant political atmosphere at Foothill, Bernstein
said.

"People there feel they can't be open about their Jewish background or
their support for Israel," Bernstein said.

That's why the ADL wrote Foothill President Bernadine Chuck Fong a
letter several months ago asking her to meet with the group. Only after
the Armitage incident blew up did she recently agree to meet with ADL
representatives, he said.

"We're taught this lesson over and over again," Bernstein said. "If
these things are not addressed directly and openly, they fester."

And the problem isn't just isolated to Foothill.

"We're primarily focused on Foothill, but the same things could be going
on in San Mateo," Bernstein said. "We're going to look into the San
Mateo situation."

Intolerance has become such a widespread problem on college campuses
nationwide that the ADL has even developed a manual to help school
officials deal with the problem, Bernstein said.

"We want to create an environment that allows all viewpoints to be
expressed," he said.

Foothill College spokesman Kurt Hueg said a protest by the Muslim
Student Association about a year and a half ago also caused some
concerns. Other than that, however, Hueg said he can't recall any other
incidents that might indicate there's an anti-Semitic atmosphere on
campus.

School officials at Foothill are "reviewing" how the situation went
down, said Hueg. That means Fong is meeting with Armitage,
representatives of the student paper and the faculty advisor.

In the meantime, he said Armitage will continue to teach at Foothill.

Over at the College of San Mateo, school officials haven't even heard of
the matter.

Regardless, Director of Human Resources Harry Joel said the district
doesn't comment on personnel matters.

(2) Former NY Mayor Ed Koch attacks Thomas Friedman for saying Sharon
controls Bush

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:21:54 -0800 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0204/koch_2004_02_12.php3?printer_friendly

Jewish World Review Feb. 12, 2003 / 20 Shevat, 5764

Yes, Jews do engage in anti-Semitic behavior

By Edward I. Koch

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Of all the anti-Semitic slurs, one of
the most outrageous is that Jews secretly control the world.

This false and foolish accusation has been heard many times. In March,
1997, the black Muslim cleric, Louis Farrakhan, said on CNN's "Evans and
Novak" that Jews "meet once a year or so in Hollywood or in Park Avenue
to look at the trends of America and the world. And if there are trends
they do not like, then they write scripts, they write movies, they write
books. They do things to influence the trends. And that is why I intend
to stay on this path until there's some change made. Black people are
going to be free of Jewish control."

Farrakhan's fabrication about Jewish power and secret conspiracies is an
updated version of the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a
forgery created by the Russian Czar's secret police to incite pogroms -
organized massacres against Jews. Even Henry Ford used the "Protocols"
to support his well-financed rant against Jews during the days when he
was rising to prominence through the production and sale of his Model-T
Ford.

A comparable attack on Jews was made by Pat Buchanan in 1990, when he
referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory." On "The
McLaughlin Group," Buchanan said, "There are only two groups that are
beating the drums for war in the Middle East - the Israeli defense
ministry and its 'amen corner' in the United States" with a litany of
Jewish names.

Last week we heard yet another version of the same old lie, this time
from Tom Friedman in his February 5th column in The New York Times.
Friedman, alleging that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney
are secretly controlled by Jews, wrote, "...Mr. Sharon has the
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat under house arrest in his office in
Ramallah, and he's had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval
Office. Mr. Sharon has Mr. Arafat surrounded by tanks, and Mr. Bush
surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice
president, Dick Cheney, who's ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates."

There are those who say it's paranoid to accuse a fellow Jew of an
anti-Semitic remark. I don't think so. Let me cite another example: Bob
Novak, a Jew by birth who converted to Catholicism and now defines
himself as a "cultural Jew." Over the years Novak's constant attacks on
Israel have been, I believe, thinly disguised attacks on Jews.

To cite but one example, on his Nov. 24th show, Novak went ballistic on
Israel. While discussing the Israeli assassination of Mahmoud Abu
Hanoud, a senior military leader of Hamas who was directly responsible
for dozens of Israeli civilian deaths, Novak denounced Prime Minister
Sharon for ordering his execution. Novak's colleague, Margaret Carlson,
called Hanoud a terrorist, and Novak defended him as a freedom fighter.
Carlson responded, "Bob, ...you're the only person who would call Hamas
freedom fighters." Novak rejoined with, "Oh, no; people all over the
world do."

Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, put it well when he stated,
"Those who only find fault with the Jewish people, the Jewish State and
the actions of the Jewish sovereignty and never find anything that is
positive are anti-Semites under the guise of anti-Zionism and
anti-Israel."

Now comes Tom Friedman, often proclaimed as an expert on the Mideast.
When President Bush, Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and, to a lesser
extent, Secretary of State Colin Powell, come to the conclusion that it
is in the national interest of the United States to support Israel, it
must be, according to Friedman in his column of last week, because they
have been brainwashed by "Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is so powerful, according to
Friedman, that Cheney is "ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates."
Ridiculous. Dick Cheney is a man of enormous competence and intellectual
ability with an established record of achievement and service to the
nation. To suggest, as Friedman does, that he is selling out the country
is an enormous disservice to Mr. Cheney and indeed to any public
servant.

Did Friedman think President Bush was a puppet of the Arabs when,
according to The New York Times, his father "telephoned Crown Prince
Abdullah to assure him that his son's 'heart is in the right place' and
that he was 'going to do the right thing' when it came to the Middle
East?"

Tom Friedman, who is full of himself, believes he can resort to the
anti-Semitic slur of secret Jewish control, and avoid criticism because
he is a Jew. In reality, Friedman disgraced himself and his newspaper.
His false words, coming at a time when anti-Semitism is skyrocketing
worldwide, are particularly irresponsible and repulsive. If he is
capable of feeling shame, I hope he feels it now.

(3) An Alliance of Insecurity--Indian and Israel

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:58:00 -0800 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=17820

An Alliance of Insecurity

Amitabh Pal, AlterNet February 11, 2004

Viewed on February 12, 2004

When Ariel Sharon traveled to India last September, it was the first
visit of an Israeli Prime Minister since the two nations achieved
independence more than 55 years ago. Although his plans to commemorate
Sept. 11 on Indian soil were cut short by suicide bombings back home,
the trip indicated the burgeoning love affair between the two countries.

In recent years, the two nations have been sharing intelligence and
cooperating over military affairs at an unprecedented level. India's
second-largest arms supplier is Israel, which provided between an
estimated $1.5 billion to $2 billion worth of military hardware to India
in 2002. India is Israel's best customer, representing roughly half of
its total sales in 2002. So it is no coincidence that ten out of thirty
members of Sharon's delegation to India were executives of Israeli
defense corporations. In addition, Israel has provided extensive
counterterrorism training to the Indian military in the recent past. The
Jerusalem Post reports that nearly 3,000 Indian soldiers were sent to
Israel for training last year.

A big reason for the new-found intimacy is the Indian government's
desire to solidify its friendship with the United States. Indian
officials have been bending over backwards to ingratiate themselves with
the pro-Israel lobby in Washington in order to work Congress and to gain
access to the neoconservatives who dominate the Bush administration's
foreign policy.

India's National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra first announced
Sharon's visit in May at the annual dinner of the powerful American
Jewish Committee. In words designed to please his hosts, Mishra extolled
the "common vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity" shared
by India, Israel and the United States. His speech also clearly
delineated the shifting alliances created by the war of terror. The
three countries, he declared, "have to jointly face the same ugly face
of modern-day terrorism" and that "such an alliance would have the
political will and moral authority to take bold decisions in extreme
cases of terrorist provocation." The speech must have undoubtedly been
effective since the committee now plans to set up a liaison office in
New Delhi.

They're not alone. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
(JINSA) organized a conference bringing together security experts from
the United States, India and Israel, in New Delhi last year, and is set
to do another such conference this month in Israel.

A group of neoconservatives, drawn from rightwing pro-Likudnik outfits
such as the Center for Security Policy and JINSA, are setting up a
think-tank to bring India and the United States closer. According to
foreign policy analyst Conn Hallinan, the move to create the U.S. -India
Institute for Strategic Policy has the support of Bush administration
officials like Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Last
July, the U.S.-India Political Action Committee, the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee and the American Jewish Committee organized a
reception on Capitol Hill together.

"The Indian community is learning very well from its colleagues within
the Jewish community how to penetrate ... through the solid wall of the
political processes here," Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) told the
Gannett News Service. "On the Jewish side of the equation, right now,
Israel could use a billion new friends."

The courtship of Tel Aviv has already begun to yield tangible benefits.
Last July, Israel and India joined together to successfully lobby the
House to require the Bush administration to regularly report to Congress
on Pakistan's moves to halt cross-border infiltration of militants and
stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. They also worked
together to persuade Washington to lift its objections to Israel's plans
to sell India an early-warning airborne radar system.

The clout on foreign policy is also translating into a greater
willingness to influence U.S. domestic politics. Indian-American groups
campaigned alongside Jewish-American organizations to defeat Rep.
Cynthia McKinney in 2002 due to her supposedly pro-Pakistan and
anti-Israel positions.

The U.S. government has publicly given its blessings to the India/Israel
alliance. Commenting on Sharon's India visit, State Department
spokesman, Richard Boucher, said, "(W)e're always glad when our friends
make friends with each other and work together." On Jan. 12, President
Bush announced plans to lift a number of restrictions on sharing
technology with India, provided India strengthened controls on access to
such information. And if all went well, as Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) put
it on a recent visit to India, the United States could very well "make
India a strategic partner, much like Israel."

This marriage of convenience against the "Islamic peril" may make
intuitive sense to a layperson, but it actually represents a dramatic
about-face for the Indian government. For much of its post-independence
history, India has been less than friendly towards Israel, viewing it as
yet another religious state like Pakistan. The Indian government under
Jawaharlal Nehru tended to side with the underdog in international
affairs, making it a vocal opponent of apartheid and the first non-Arab
country to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Additionally, Indian leaders were unwilling antagonize its own large
Indian Muslim population (currently 140 million) and key oil suppliers
in the Arab world.

Since the early '90s, however, successive Indian governments have moved
a great distance away from the nation's original ideals of secularism,
Fabian socialism and non-alignment. As part of this ideological
transformation, India established full diplomatic relations with Israel
in 1992. The current ruling coalition, headed by the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), espouses a Hindu-oriented nationalism and sees a natural
affinity with Israel. In their view, both countries are fighting the
common enemy of Islamic terrorism funded by hostile Muslim countries.
Even though there has been a dramatic thawing in India-Pakistan
relations in recent months -- with peace talks scheduled for
mid-February -- it has had little effect on the deepening embrace of
Israel. Many on the Indian right admire Israel's willingness to be
ruthless in its dealings with the Palestinians.

Apart from the superficial and short-run benefits, the downside of this
realignment is considerable. Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid
Mehmood Kasuri, expressing alarm at the India-Israel defense
relationship, vowed to "do whatever is required to make sure that the
minimum credible balance (with India) is maintained." -- words that
suggest an acceleration of an already ruinous subcontinental arms race.
Pakistan test-fired a missile on Oct. 2, reportedly in reaction to the
India-Israel radar deal. Arnaud de Borchgrave reports in The Washington
Times that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are forging nuclear ties partly in
response to Pakistan's fears about the burgeoning India-Israel alliance.
Furthermore, a U.S.-India-Israel entente may also complicate India-China
relations, which have improved recently.

On the domestic front, the warm welcome extended to Sharon has added to
the grievances of Indian Muslims, already seething at the anti-Muslim
genocide that was carried out last year in the state of Gujarat. Such an
alliance could also make precarious the position of more than 3 million
Indian emigrants working in the Middle East, as well as India's oil
supplies.

More importantly, India's camaraderie with Israel will encourage the
equation of Hindus with Jews in the minds of Muslims around the world,
making India the target for global jihadi groups, as former Indian
government official B. Raman has pointed out. Does India really want the
world to equate the status of Kashmir with that of Palestine?

The reality is that even in purely realist terms it is unwise for India
to get any closer to its newfound buddy. But try telling that to the
Indian government, which seems to determined to sacrifice the nation's
security to expedience and bigotry.

Amitabh Pal is managing editor of The Progressive magazine.

(4) Powell: US to Impose Sanctions on Syria

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 22:02:24 -0800 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

Latest from Israeli occupied Washington.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=

JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1076559707378

US to hit Syria with sanctions

Janine Zacharia Feb. 13, 2004

The US plans to impose sanctions on Syria in accordance with the Syria
Accountability Act, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate
panel on Thursday. During the hearing, Powell also placed the burden for
moving peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the
Palestinians.

Asked whether the US intends to begin implementation of the Syria
Accountability Act sometime in the near future, Powell told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, "Yes. We're examining now what sections of
the act we want to use."

That the administration has been reviewing which sanctions might be
imposed within the next few months has been known in Washington.

But it was the first time a senior US official stated publicly that
sanctions would definitely be imposed.

The president has the ability to waive sanctions if he deems it in US
national security interests.

The act, signed in December by President George W. Bush, directs the
president to ban US sales of weaponry and dual-use items ? items that
could be used for civilian or military purpose ? unless Syria abandons
its support for terrorism, removes its troops from Lebanon, stops the
flow of terrorists into Iraq, and abandons its pursuit of
nonconventional weapons.

It also calls on the president to impose two or more sanctions from a
list of six: an export ban; ban on US businesses operating in Syria;
restrictions on Syrian diplomats in the US; exclusion of Syrian-owned
aircraft from US airspace; a reduction of diplomatic contacts with
Syria; or freezing of Syrian assets in the US.

Powell said during the hearing that Syria had not yet closed the offices
of Palestinian terrorist groups or expelled Palestinian terrorist
leaders from Damascus as the US has demanded.

He also said he could not confirm or deny whether a Syrian plane had
brought back weapons for Hizbullah from Iran after an earthquake-relief
mission there.

On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Powell said that this week, through
European intermediaries, he urged the Palestinian Authority leadership
to "come forward with a security plan to start taking action against
terrorists in a very significant and decisive way." He urged Israel not
to enact a disengagement plan that would preclude long-term stability in
the region.

"The Israelis are now making some unilateral moves. We don't want to see
a solution that is so unilateral that it doesn't really provide the kind
of stability that we're looking for. But the Palestinians must move, and
we've made it clear to them," Powell said.

Powell said the US was "very closely" following Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's proposal to evacuate Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip.

"And we've said to the Israelis, that's interesting, we want the
settlements closed, we want to know exactly how... that's going to be
done and where will those settlers go, and how does it affect settlement
activity in the West Bank," Powell added.

In a radio interview Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage said "the majority of the blame has to be on the Palestinians
who have not completely and totally eschewed terrorism as an instrument
of policy." Armitage called Israel's pronouncement that settlers would
be evacuated from Gaza "a step in the right direction."

In his testimony, Powell also said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is
inspiring anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and affecting US
reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

"We fully understand that this conflict between the Palestinians and the
Israelis is the source of a great deal of the anti-American feelings
that exist in that part of the world, and does affect what we're doing
in Iraq, and that part of the world," he said.

Powell was attempting to reassure senators that resolving the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a "matter of the utmost urgency" for the
United States, even though he skipped over the issue in his opening
remarks outlining foreign priorities for the coming year, and the
president ignored the conflict totally in his State of the Union speech
in January.

US envoys from the State Department and the White House National
Security Council are due to travel to Israel next week.

This article can also be read at
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=

JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1076559707378

(5) Falls Church News Press - Bush, not CIA to Blame

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 22:09:09 -0800 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

http://www.fcnp.com/349/comm2.htm 

2 Intelligence Experts Assert Bush, Not CIA, to Blame

White House Report

By Nicholas F. Benton (nfbenton@fcnp.com)

At a National Press Club briefing Tuesday, two former Central
Intelligence Agency and State Department experts lashed out at the Bush
administration for trying to pin the blame on the intelligence community
for misinformation on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Melvin Goodman was division chief and senior analyst at the Office of
Soviet Affairs for the CIA and a senior analyst at the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Larry Johnson is a former Deputy Director of the State Department's
Office of Counter Terrorism and received Exceptional Performance awards
for his work at the CIA. He is a registered Republican who contributed
financially to Bush in 2000 and voted for him.

Both blasted Bush and his administration for their relentless campaign
to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people and the world
through distortions and lies that were at odds with official
intelligence estimates.

Goodman focused on how Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld "falsified
intelligence" by creating the position of Undersecretary for
Intelligence and the Office of Special Plans to falsify intelligence and
leak it to the press.

He said that Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous Feb. 5, 2003
speech to the United Nations "documenting" the presence of weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq was "wrong in all its particulars," and that
the Kaye report, one by one, demonstrated that by finding all 29 charges
in the Powell speech false.

He attacked Bush's assertion in his State of the Union message that
"Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism" as contrary to all U.S.
intelligence assessments. Terrorism is the product of Islamic
fundamentalism, which could never get a hold in Iraq. "Saddam might have
been bad, but he was no fundamentalist," Goodman said, "and the entire
U.S. intelligence community knows it."

But now, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has, ironically, created "a
self-fulfilling prophecy" for Bush. Since the U.S. invasion and
occupation, terrorist forces have now moved into Iraq and are in
proximity of U.S. military targets, objectives and 130,000 U.S. troops
in ways that were never possible for them before.

"They are now capable of launching a full-scale civil war with the U.S.
military caught in the middle," he said.

Goodman decried the unwillingness of the U.S. Congress to call the Bush
administration to account on this, and joined his voice to that of such
groups as the web-based MoveOn.Org and Win Without War to call for a
Congressional censure of the president.

"Congress was willing not only to censure, but to impeach President
Clinton for covering up an extramarital affair," he said. "There is no
comparison, in terms of its consequences for vital U.S. interests,
including the lives of hundreds of U.S. soldiers and thousands of
innocent Iraqi civilians, between what it impeached Clinton for and what
Bush must be held accountable for now."

Johnson's assertions were equally compelling against the president,
especially since they came from a former loyal Bush supporter with an
intelligence background that qualifies him to know what he's talking
about. He also attacked Bush's assertions of ties between Hussein and
Osama bin Laden.

"By April of last year," he said, "I was beginning to pick up grumblings
from friends inside the intelligence community that there had been
pressure applied to analysts to come up with certain conclusions.
Specifically, I was told that analysts were pressured to find an
operational link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. One
analyst, in particular, told me they were repeatedly pressured by the
most senior officials in the Department of Defense."

Johnson added, "In an e-mail exchange with another friend, I raised the
possibility that `the Bush administration had bought into a lie.' My
friend, who works within the intelligence community, challenged me on
the use of the word, `bought,' and suggested instead that the Bush
administration had created the lie."

"I have spoken to more than two analysts who have expressed fear of
retaliation if they come forward and tell what they know," he added. "We
know that most of the reasons we were given for going to war were wrong.
My goal in appearing today is to call for accountability...I am still
enough of a dreamer to believe that there are Republicans committed to
finding the truth and holding leaders accountable."

(6) Minister of Tourism Benny Elon to honor Pat Robertson in North
Carolina

Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 22:30:04 -0800 From: Jeff Blankfort
<jblankfort@earthlink.net>

Israeli Tourism Minister Elon to Present Award to Pat Robertson at NRB
Feb. 10 2/10/04 9:34:00 AM

Contact: Sagiv Rotenberg, 212-499-5644

NEW YORK, Feb. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Israeli Cabinet Member and Minister
of Tourism Benny Elon will be available for interviews from the United
States from Feb. 11-17. He will be in New York on Feb. 11-12 and in
North Carolina from Feb. 13-17 for the National Religious Broadcasters
(NRB) conference, at which the Ministry of Tourism will honor Rev. Dr.
Pat Robertson and present him with an honorary Ambassadors Award.

Elon has sparked international headlines, for his recent comments to a
Christian missionary organization where he said "Go to mosques and bring
the light to the Muslims. Remind all the Muslim killers that thou shall
not kill. Make them good Christians and good people."

He is expected to repeat that message to thousands of Christians who
will be present at the (NRB)annual convention, which will be held at the
Charlotte Convention Center, in Charlotte, N.C.

Elon will also be available to discuss Prime Minister Sharon's plan to
remove Jewish settlements from Gaza, to which he is opposed.

"There is no occupied "West Bank" or "Gaza" -- It is all Jewish and
belongs to us and it is forbidden to give up one inch to Palestinian
Arab terrorists," stated Elon. "Our Christian evangelical friends
understand quite clearly what we are fighting against, and we will not
remove settlements or make concessions as our stay in Judea and Samaria
(The West Bank) is not temporary, and we will not permit the creation of
a terrorist state in our biblical heartland. I am also pleased to honor
Dr. Robertson's continued great work, which emanates from an
understanding of the land of the Bible, and a commitment to a strong
State of Israel."
------
Editors: To arrange interviews with Elon during his visit to the US,
contact Sagiv Rotenberg at 212-499-5644.

http://www.usnewswire.com/
/© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
--
Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602, Australia
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers          ph +61 2 62475187
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