DEBKAfile's military sources point in particular to the work of two eminent experts on Iran's nuclear program, Anthony Cordesman and American-Jordanian Abdullah Toqan for the Washington Institute for Strategic Affairs, who report the belief in some American military circles that "…nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground or in tunnels…"
The quote was embodied in a 208-page report published Friday, March 26 under the heading: Options in Dealing with Iran's Nuclear Program. They explain that because of the limited scale of its air and missile forces, Israel would resort to "using these [nuclear] warheads as a substitute for conventional weapons, given the difficulty its jets would face in reaching Iran for anything more than a one-off sortie."
The White House has waved off suggestions that President Barak Obama was "embarrassed" to be photographed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, amid questions over the minimal media coverage of their meeting in Washington this week.
"We were very comfortable with the coverage for last night's meeting," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. But media-savvy critics have posted their own commentary on the matter, with video clips like this emerging on You Tube:
When asked in a press conference on Wednesday whether he saw "any contradiction at all when the Secretary of State goes before AIPAC and says that the U.S. has no stronger, no closer ally than Israel - and then the President won't even allow a photograph of him and the Israeli Prime Minister", Gibbs responded: "No, I don't see a contradiction at all." (Ha'aretz)
The high-stakes conversations Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu held in Washington with President Barack Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton on March 23-24 only deepened the crisis marring relations between the two governments, DEBKAfile's Washington sources report.
Netanyahu, defense minister Ehud Barak and their aides, received a strong impression that the White House's hand was behind certain European steps to drive Israeli into a corner on the points at issue. For example, even if the British government needed no encouragement to pick a fight with Israel over an unproven link with the forged passports used by the Dubai killers, Washington knew about the British plan to expel an Israeli diplomat. Its silence was taken by London as a go-ahead and a signal to the Netanyahu government that punishment could be coming from Washington too and that Israel could pay for defying the Obama administration with broad international isolation. France is also considering lining up behind this campaign.
President Obama showed his displeasure with the Israeli government's failure to cave in to his demands - especially after Netanyahu's declaration that Jerusalem is no settlement but "our capital" to the AIPAC conference Monday - by ordering all the Israeli prime minister's meetings in Washington to take place without statements, news coverage or the cameras which normally record smiles and handshakes between friendly leaders.
The warm public bipartisan welcome he received on Capital Hill was followed by the cold, peremptory shower given him at the White House.
"We in Congress stand by Israel," the Democrat leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said. "In Congress we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel."
"We have no stronger ally anywhere in the world than Israel," said the House Republican leader, John Boehner. "We all know we're in a difficult moment."
At their first 90-minute encounter, the president made clear what he expected the Israeli prime minister to do on Jerusalem, West Bank settlements and Iran and where he drew the line. Every effort by Netanyahu and, behind the scenes, Barak and their advisers, to ease the pressure fell on deaf ears.
As the tension climbed in the Oval Office, Netanyahu asked to consult privately with his staff and after an hour, asked to see Obama again. A second 35-minute conversation followed, after which the Israeli leader left without achieving any breakthrough on their differences.
DEBKAfile's Middle East sources report that this latest turn of events in US-Israeli relations makes naught of American leaders' constant affirmations of commitment to Israel's security. Iran, Syria, Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are acutely sensitive to the slightest crack in American support for Israel and ready with tactics for widening the rift. They will now drive hard to separate the Obama administration from America's historic military backing for the Jewish state. Debka also reports: Netanyahu flies home amid disagreement with Obama on key issues
US president Barack Obama kept on turning the screw on Israeli minister Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday, March 24, after their harsh conversation in the White House Tuesday: Netanyahu was told bluntly to issue a White House-dictated public pledge before leaving Washington for home to eschew further construction in East Jerusalem, or else face a US presidential notice condemning Israel and holding its government responsible for the failure to restart indirect Israel-Palestinian talks.
Reporting this, DEBKAfile's Washington sources add that Netanyahu's public renunciation of Jerusalem construction was required to include also the large Jewish suburbs of the city and remain in force for the duration of negotiations. He must also pledge further concessions to the Palestinians.
As part of the ultimatum, the US president warned the Israeli prime minister that he also intended formulating in detail for the first time the settlement the US government sought for solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
Netanyahu flew out of Wednesday night without reaching common ground with the president on the key points at issue. He and defense minister Ehud Barak spent their last hours in the US capital working on a statement that might satisfy the White House. Barak worked out of the Israel embassy with the president's special adviser Dennis Ross at the National Security Council's office at the White House. Middle East envoy George Mitchell shuttled between them in an effort to save his mission.
A high-ranking US official categorized the current crisis in US-Israeli relations as the most acute in 54 years, ever since 1956 when President Dwight Eisenhower gave David Ben-Gurion an ultimatum to pull Israeli forces out of Sinai - certainly more serious than the impasse over the Madrid conference between the first President Bush and Yitzhak Shamir in 1992.
A US presidential notice condemning Israel and predetermining the shape of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would be tantamount to a US diktat and put the lid on negotiations, direct or indirect, because Israel would be dragged to the table in handcuffs to face an Arab partner who would accept nothing less than the terms Washington imposed in advance on Israel.
Such a notice would put a clamp on the close dialogue which has historically characterized US-Israeli ties - to the detriment of Israel's international standing.
The Washington Post laid the blame for the crisis squarely on President Obama, whom it accused of treating Netanyahu "as if he were an unsavory Third World dictator, needed for strategic reasons but conspicuously held at arms length."
The WP went on to say: "Obama picked a fight over something that virtually all Israelis agree on, and before serious discussions have even begun.
"A new administration can be excused for making such a mistake in the treacherous and complex theater of Middle East diplomacy. That’s why Obama was given a pass by many when he made exactly the same mistake last year. The second time around, the president doesn’t look naive. He appears ideological -- and vindictive."
A DemoCast exclusive video: Prof. Alan Dershowitz gives a comprehensive (1 hr) exposition of his views about the Obama administration's direction of middle-east policies, its effect on Israeli security, Jewish safety, and global stability.
Presented by the Los Angeles division of Shmuley Boteach's This World: The Values Network, moderated by Arash Farin, chairman, at Sephardic Temple Tifereth.
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP via Yahoo News)– Attackers killed 12 people Wednesday morning in a small Christian village in central Nigeria, officials said, cutting out most of the victims' tongues in the latest violence in a region where religious fighting already has killed hundreds this year.
The attack almost mirrored the tactics used by those who carried out similar massacres in Christian villages last week when more than 200 people were slaughtered.
Under the cover of darkness and a driving rain, raiders with machetes entered the village of Byie early Wednesday, setting fire to homes and firing gunshots into the air to drive frightened villagers into the night, witness Linus Vwi said.
Vwi said he and about 20 neighbors rushed into the surrounding wilderness, cowering in bushes as they listened to screams.
He said the attackers spoke Fulani, a language used mostly by Muslim cattle herders in the region. Officials and witnesses blamed Fulani herders for the killings last week.
Fulani community leader Sale Bayari denied that Fulanis took part in those killings, though he said the community suffered a similar massacre recently.
Six people were wounded in the overnight raid and taken to a local hospital, said Mark Lipdo, leader of a regional Christian nonprofit group. He said attackers burned down 15 homes during the violence.
The dead included seven women, four children and one man, Lipdo said. Attackers removed the tongues of most of the victims, witnesses said.
It was unclear why attackers took the victims' tongues. In Nigeria, killers sometimes take body parts of their victims for black magic or "juju" rituals, later using them as charms.
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP via NY Times) -- A video posted on a militant Web site calls for Muslims in Nigeria to use ''the sword and the spear'' to rise up against Christians in Africa's most populous nation, according to a translation released Tuesday by a U.S. group that monitors militant sites.
The video on the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum, a Web site sympathetic to al-Qaida, comes in the wake of a series of religious massacres and riots in central Nigeria.
The video shows television news footage and graphic images of those killed as a narrator tells viewers ''the solution is jihad in the cause of Allah,'' according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group.
''Negotiations, dialogues and protests will not stop the advancement of the enemies and their massacres,'' the narrator says. ''Nothing will stop them but the sword and the spear.''
Daniel Pearl's father, Judea Pearl gave these remarks introducing Christopher Hitchens - 8th Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, Wednesday, March 3, UCLA "Thank you, Kal, Rabbi Seidler-Feller, our distinguished speaker, President of Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti, Friends of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, colleagues, students, ladies and gentlemen. Fifteen years ago, this city sent one of its sons as an emissary of goodwill to the Middle East and South East Asia. Eight years and 10 days ago, on February 21 2002, the world was shocked to witness the brutal murder of that emissary, our son Danny -- a writer, a musician, and a champion of humanity.
Today we came to pay tribute to Danny's legacy by listening to one of the greatest minds of our generation, Christopher Hitchens, who has graciously agreed to deliver the Eighth Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture and to discuss a key element in the hatred that took Danny's life.
In the past eight years our family has played down the antisemitic component of Danny's tragedy, and we have had good reasons for doing so.
First, we felt that the intensity of the cosmic shock that emanated from Danny's murder, and its universal significance as a warning call for the entire human race would somehow get attenuated, or diverted, if associated with parochial issues such as antisemitism.
Second, we felt that Danny's legacy has such an enormous potential to mobilize people toward
positive action and positive self awareness that it would be counter productive to dwell on the negative, deranged mindset behind the ideology of his murderers.
Finally,we felt that the choreographers of that ideology do not deserve the benefits of a hereditary disease such as classical anti-semitism.
The choreographers of modern day anti-semitism are not victims of a poisonous culture -- as was the case with Richard Wagner -- nor are they victims of alcoholic weakness -- as is the case with Mel Gibson. Their plan to dehumanize Israel out of existence is cold and calculated and we felt that the distinct immoral and dangerous character of this plan would be obscured, or diverted, if framed in terms of classical antisemitism.
More recently, however, we came to recognize that, if we want to be true to our mission of rolling back the tsunami of hate that is currently sweeping our planet, we must first map its undercurrents, analyze its anatomy, and understand its circuitry in full scientific details.
We are happy therefore that Christopher has chosen to address this subject in his lecture.
Thank you Councilman Garcetti for offering to introduce the speaker. Thank you Christopher for honoring Daniel with your lecture tonight, and thank you all for being with us today and honoring a legacy that mirrors everything that this university, this city and this community stands for."
Israel's U.S. Ambassador Michael Oren indeed had been “summoned” for a meeting last Friday with James Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state. The summons came as the controversy engendered by Israel’s announcement of new construction in eastern Jerusalem during last week’s visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden showed no sign of abating.
“It wasn’t a meeting,” Oren told the Washington Jewish Week in an interview at a fund-raiser for a Washington-area school on Sunday night. “It was a summoning. I was told it was the first time that any ambassador had been summoned at that level.”
Oren said he is “working hard to avert an escalation. We’re working very hard to get back to what we need to do to make peace and stop Iran from making the bomb. We have apologized publicly and privately profusely.”
The Obama administration, via Hillary Clinton, has harshly rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for Israel's announcement, during a trip there by Joe Biden, that it will build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem. The Washington Postreports that State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described the nearly 45-minute phone conversation between Clinton and Netanyahu in "unusually undiplomatic terms." In fact, a 45 minute phone conversation between parties at this level is unusual, in itself. And Clinton told CNN that "the announcement of the settlements on the very day that the vice president was there was insulting.
"Whether the administration was genuinely insulted is questionable. I suspect that it simply wishes to present itself as an injured party in order to push Israel for concessions. ...
As to the merits of Israel's building plan, Obama and Clinton have no case. Israel did agree to a 10-month building moratorium, but the moratorium plainly did not include East Jerusalem. And the White House's claim that the new construction will complicate a potential settlement of issues relating to East Jerusalem is garbage. As Rick Richman points out, "the area in question is one that will not be yielded to the Palestinians in any conceivable peace agreement (even one that would divide sovereignty between Jewish and Arab areas) because it is a longstanding Jewish community, not an Arab one."
In any event, there's no reason why Israelis should deny themselves housing while they wait for the Palestinian Authority to make peace. The potential beneficiaries of the housing would probably like to see the construction completed during their lifetime.
But this flap doesn't seem to be about the merits. More likely, it's about President Obama's antipathy for Israel and his desire to put Israel on the defensive.
AIPAC appealed to the Administration to reduce its pressure against Israel: "The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel, with whom the United States shares basic, fundamental, and strategic interests.
The escalated rhetoric of recent days only serves as a distraction from the substantive work that needs to be done with regard to the urgent issue of Iran 's rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors.
We strongly urge the Administration to work closely and privately with our partner Israel, in a manner befitting strategic allies, to address any issues between the two governments.
Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman held this colloquy on the topic on the Senate floor today.
Ambassador Michael Oren to Speak at the 2010 AIPAC Policy Conference, March 21-23
Amb. Oren will address more than 6,000 conference delegates.
The Honorable Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to the United States, has confirmed that he will address a plenary session at AIPAC Policy Conference 2010, which will be held March 21-23 in Washington, D.C. Oren joins a list of others who have confirmed their attendance, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Quartet Representatitve Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Col. Richard Kemp and Prof. Alan Dershowitz. View a full Policy Conference program and register for the pro-Israel community's pre-eminent annual event. Below, view DemoCast's original video of Amb. Oren withstanding antagonists from Univ of Calif Irvine's Muslim Students Union who marched out in the midst of his address.
No charges were filed against the students.
In an open letter published in the UCI student newspaper New University Mon 8 March, Amb. Oren has offered to fly to meet the students who interrupted him as long as the tone stayed civil. Here is an excerpt:
I was saddened by the loss of this opportunity to exchange ideas with those who disagreed with me and, at the very least, to introduce them to different perspectives.
Since then, videos of the incident at Irvine have proliferated on the Internet and attracted significant media attention. I have received heartfelt apologies from UC President Mark Yudof and Chancellor Drake. The response has been overwhelmingly favorable in defense of my right to free expression on campus and the students’ right to hear those remarks.
Still, I am not satisfied. I came to UCI for the opportunity to exchange ideas — a reasonable intention that was hijacked by a minority of students. The disruptive measures exhibited by these students only underscore the importance for dialogue, especially on the frontline of higher learning. I would willingly return to your campus and meet with those individuals whose views may not agree with mine as long as we respect the decorum of dialogue and free speech.
Netanyahu encourages Christian Zionists to stay the course
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday addressed a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit in Jerusalem and encouraged Christian Zionists around the world to stay the course in their defense of the Jewish state.
Netanyahu reiterated the amazing turn of events that the presence of Israel-loving Christians in the Jewish state represents after centuries of Christian persecution of Jewish minorities.
"Your presence here today represents a profound transformation in the relationship between Christians and Jews," said the prime minister. "This transformation has its roots in the 19th century when the early Christian Zionists came to the Land Israel and when they began exploring the land of the Bible, when they began to yearn for the Jewish restoration in this land, the restoration of our numbers, the restoration of our sovereignty."
Netanyahu noted the Christian Zionism actually preceded modern Jewish Zionism, and acted as a stepping stone for the reestablishment of Israeli sovereignty. In the same spirit as those 19th century Christian Zionists, Netanyahu said leaders like CUFI Director John Hagee are continuing to hold Israel aloft in both prayer and advocacy.
"Time after time, through thick and thin, you have stood shoulder to shoulder with our state, and I have come here tonight to thank you for your unwavering friendship," said Netanyahu. "I salute you, the people of Israel salute you, the Jewish people salute you."
The summit was attended by 1,000 Christian delegates and led by Hagee, who took the opportunity to reaffirm his support and the support of tens of millions of American Christians for Israel.
PM Netanyahu’s Address to the Christians United For Israel (CUFI) Jerusalem Summit. (Israel Today)
Full Transcript of Speech (Click Read More) Welcome to Jerusalem, the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
Your presence here today represents a profound transformation in the relationship between Christians and Jews. This transformation has its roots in the 19th century when the early Christian Zionists came to the Land Israel and when they began exploring the land of the Bible, when they began to yearn for the Jewish restoration in this land, the restoration of our numbers, the restoration of our sovereignty.
In fact, Christian Zionism preceded modern Jewish Zionism, and I think enabled it. But it received a tremendous impetus several decades ago when leading American clergymen, among them most notably, Pastor John Hagee, a dynamic pastor and leader from Texas, began to say to their congregations and to anyone who listened, it’s time to take a stand with Israel. It was time to take a stand with the sole democracy in the Middle East. It was time to take a stand against the lies and the slander and the vilifications. It was time to defend the Jewish state’s right to defend itself.
Today, Christians by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions, by the tens of millions – today they have heard this call, and they stand with Israel. I salute you, the people of Israel salute you, the Jewish people salute you.
Time after time, through thick and thin, you have stood shoulder to shoulder with our state, and I have come here tonight to thank you for your unwavering friendship. And today that friendship is more important than ever because Israel faces unprecedented challenges to its security and its legitimacy.
No security challenge is more important to our common future than preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. I have said before and I’ll say again, that the greatest threat facing mankind is the specter of a militant Islamic regime acquiring nuclear weapons, or the specter of nuclear weapons acquiring a militant Islamic regime. The first is dangerously close to happening in Iran, and the second may or may not happen in Pakistan. I believe that with the right policies both can be averted.
If Iran develops atomic weapons, the world would never be the same. We would witness a cascade of terrorism across the globe as terrorists would operate under an Iranian nuclear umbrella. Look at how much havoc, how much terror they sow now, when there is no such umbrella, and understand what can happen if Iran, their patron, sponsor, supplier and supporter, if that Iran had nuclear weapons. Equally, the region’s vital oil supplies could be severely threatened and efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East would collapse as one regime after another would rush to acquire nuclear weapons of their own. Worst of all, if nuclear weapons would be given to terrorists, or to terrorist states, a 65 year-old era of nuclear peace would be endangered for the first time.
Remember that for the tyrants in Tehran, Israel is only the little Satan. In their eyes, America is the Great Satan. America is their ultimate target. Yet for Israel, the threat from Iran could not be clearer. Iran’s leaders openly call for Israel’s destruction. They brazenly deny the Holocaust and they hope, and they say so just about every other day, they hope to wipe Israel off the map of the Middle East.
We must not allow such a regime to threaten the peace of the world, the peace and security of all humanity. All responsible members of the international community must do everything in their power to stop Iran from developing atomic weapons.
As we speak the United States is leading an international effort to impose sanctions on Iran. We believe those sanctions must have teeth. And to have teeth, they must bite deep into Iran's energy sector. Simply put, they should prevent Iran from importing gasoline and from exporting oil. I believe that such measures might convince the regime to choose between continuing the weapons program and between assuring the regime’s future. But there must be tough, biting sanctions.
I said that we face great challenges to our security, but we also face unprecedented challenges to our legitimacy. Now this assault on our legitimacy comes in many forms – it comes from the so-called human rights bodies in the UN which would deny Israel its legitimate right of self-defense, it comes by falsely charging Israel’s political and military leaders with imaginary war crimes, and it comes by the outrageous waging campaigns to boycott, divest and sanction Israel. You are all familiar with that.
But I think that there is an even greater assault on our legitimacy. I think it is the attempt to perpetrate one of the greatest lies of history -- to deny the connection between the people of Israel and the land of Israel; to cast the Jewish people as foreigners in the land of our forefathers. Make no mistake about it. The attempt to deny our history in this land is an attempt to deny our future in this land. That is why to defend our past is to defend our future.
I ask you all to join us in this battle to defend the truth. Remind them of Abraham and Isaac, remind them of Joshua and Samuel, remind them of David and Solomon. Remind the world that the land of the Bible is not in the heavens but right here on earth. And that the people of the Bible, are on the land of the Bible.
Let me tell you how I remind foreign officials of this connection of the Jewish people to our history and to this land. You see, they visit my office. And I say, Would you come and look at this little signet ring that I was given on loan from the Department of Antiquities? It was found next to the Wall of the Second Temple, but it dates back to the First Temple. It goes back some 2800 years ago, to the period of the Kings. It is a signet seal of a Jewish official, and it has a name written in ancient Hebrew, which I can read. The name is: Netanyahu. Netanyahu Ben-Yoash. I say, that’s my last name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back 1000 years earlier, to Benjamin the son of Jacob, who also walked these hills. That is our connection. And nobody can deny the connection of the Jewish people to the Jewish land.
Israel faces great challenges. We must prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. We must repel the assault on our legitimacy. We must find a way to achieve peace with our neighbors. We must all pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
After centuries in exile, I have come here to assure you, the people of Israel have come home and no force on earth will ever make us leave our home again.
JOS, Nigeria — Nigerian troops were patrolling villages near the northern city of Jos Tuesday after the massacre of more than 500 Christians there on Sunday 7 March that sparked international shock and outrage.
But survivors of the latest wave of inter-ethnic violence, in which women and children were hacked to death or burned alive in their homes, denounced the authorities for having failed to intervene in time.
Relatives of the dead meanwhile attended funerals Monday for the victims of the three-hour orgy of violence in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos.
Witnesses have blamed the massacre on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group, and according to media reports Muslims villagers were warned two days before attack via text messages to their phones.
The security forces said they had detained 95 suspects in the violence.
"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong.
"People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."
Around 200 people were being treated in hospital, said the information ministry.
The explosion of violence is the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups. In January 326 people died in clashes in and around Jos, according to police although rights activists put the overall toll at more than 550.
"The attack is yet another jihad and provocation," the Plateau State Christian Elders Consulatative Forum (PSCEF) said.
One survivor in the video relates, "Suddenly, I heard the window shatter and fire was thrown into our house - and I could hear the people screaming outside. I quickly doused the flames in the house and I heard them saying "an Infidel must be inside the house!" - AFP
The fact that the jihad in Africa is widely ignored in the west is not just a moral dereliction of duty. It is a refusal by the west to understand what it is actually up against. What is happening to Nigeria’s Christians makes a mockery of the frenzied western obsession with Israel. To understand the real cause of global tumult we should look carefully at Africa, and the appalling suffering of those upholding the religion that underpins the western world.
Please read: Nigeria: Religious Violence in Jos – The Christians Speak Out
Amidst international reports of the recent Christian-Muslim violence in Jos, the capital of Nigeria’s Plateau State, Nigerian Christians are presenting a different and disturbing picture
British TV's "Dispatches" series investigates a fundamentalist Islamic group in Britain, and evidences that it has placed its 'brothers' in positions of political power to advance an Islamist, revolutionary agenda.
Christopher Hitchens appeared Wednesday, March 3rd, before a packed audience at UCLA to portray anti-Semitism as "the godfather of (all other forms of) racism" and "the gateway to tyranny and fascism and war." Alternating between black humor, biting sarcasm and insightful analysis, Hitchens assumed the podium at Korn Convocation Hall to deliver the eighth annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA to an audience of more than 400 people, including Pearl's father, Prof. Judea Pearl, an emeritus professor of computer science at UCLA and president of a foundation formed to continue his son's mission of promoting cross-cultural understanding through journalism and music. Daniel Pearl, a prominent Wall Street Journal reporter and the paper's South Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. ... Before Hitchens began his remarks, Judea Pearl explained that in the initial years following his son's death, the family had not wanted to dwell on the "negative, deranged mindset behind the ideology of his murderers," but instead had concentrated on the positive aspects of Daniel's legacy. "But recently, we came to recognize that if we want to be true to our mission of rolling back the tsunami of hatred that is currently sweeping our planet, we must first map its undercurrents, analyze its anatomy and understand its circuitry in full scientific detail," Prof. Pearl said.
Prof. Pearl's Op/Ed at the time of last year's memorial was published in the Wall Street Journal:
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy? ... The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans. Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs. ... Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: "You did not die in vain."
'Reframe the Palestinian issue in humanitarian, rather than political terms," reasons Tel Aviv University Prof. Martin Sherman. He shows Palestinian leaders admitting their fabricated 'identity' is only a tactic in an Islamist crusade to reconquer Israel & re-dominate the world. In this video presentation, Prof. Sherman lays out the case that Arabs perpetuate the 62-year old "Palestinian-refugee" cause (and reject repeated Israeli offers for statehood) mainly to increase Islamist political capital around the world. Arab and Palestinian corrupt politicians, he demonstrates, created, exploit, and perpetuate refugee sufferage (which could have been resolved any day during the past 6 decades ago) - and Prof. Sherman proposes a humanitarian and pragmatic solution for the situation immediately. This approach takes into consideration the best interests of the Arab-rejected Palestinian refugees, the Arab-rejected Gaza Arabs, the intolerant West Bank Arabs, and the peace-seeking Israelis. Presented by Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Los Angeles - Cjhsla.Org.
