Does Islam deserve its title as “one of the world’s great religions”? There are reasons these days to view it, especially here in Israel, as a source of terrorist bombings, murderous incitement against Jews, denials of Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and repression, especially of women – cruelty and crudity, fundamentalism and fanaticism. Nor does the American Muslim communities seem to demur very much.

So let me introduce you to Shaykh Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi, representative of an Islam that speaks in a loving voice and acknowledges its debt to Judaism – and who is, I suspect, on the verge of becoming a celebrity in the Jewish world.

Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi

Palazzi’s impeccable credentials as a Muslim cleric include a Ph.D. in Islamic Sciences by decree of the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and years of study with Islamic teachers in Cairo and Europe. A leader of the Muslim community in Italy, he currently serves as secretary-general of the Italian Muslim Association in Rome.

And he’s a Zionist.

Palazzi accepts Jewish sovereignty over the Holy Land (he says the Koran supports it as the will of God and, theologically, a necessary prerequisite for the Final Judgment). He accepts – even prefers – Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, if the rights of other religions are protected. He quotes the Koran to support Judaism’s special connection to the Temple Mount. “The most authoritative Islamic sources affirm the Temples,” he says, contradicting the current mufti of Jerusalem (the “pseudo-mufti,” he calls him, dismissing him as a political appointee). He adds that Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims because of its prior holiness to Jews and its standing as home to the biblical prophets and kings David and Solomon, all of whom are sacred figures in Islam, too.

Moreover, the Koran “expressly recognizes that Jerusalem plays the same role for Jews that Mecca has for Muslims” – the center toward which prayer is directed. Just as no one wishes to deny Muslims sovereignty over Mecca, he goes on, there is no sound Islamic theological reason to deny the Jews the same right over Jerusalem. “In the present situation,” he has said, directly contradicting Palestinian demands, “the only way to preserve religious freedoms for all three major religions is for Israel to be the single sovereign over the Old City.” Nor, according to Palazzi, is there any basis in Islam for prohibiting Jews from praying on the Temple Mount, as is currently the case.

So if that’s true Islam, what are we reading in the daily papers? In Palazzi’s view, Islam has been hijacked by the Wahabi movement in Saudi Arabia, a radical reformist movement which denies the traditional – that is, moderate – understanding of the Koran and has taken control of Mecca and Medina.

That in itself might have had only minor ramifications, but oil made the followers of the movement almost unbelievably rich. Usually, Palazzi muses, regions blessed with higher civilizations become wealthy and then assume wider cultural dominance. But in this case, the contrary occurred: money made a primitive and violent culture powerful over a wide area. And now, “they are reshaping Islam in accordance with their political issues.”

Palazzi says that Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and other moderate Arab countries restrict the Wahabi sect. But in European countries, where the commitment to religious freedom allows it to thrive, it has successfully claimed to represent Islam. (In the US, Palazzi claims, the movement trains Muslim chaplains for the US Army, and its members are invited to the White House.)

No network of Muslim scholars exists to oppose fundamentalism, and Saudi funding of ministries of religion in many countries keeps local imams from speaking out. Nonetheless, Palazzi believes that a new attitude is emerging among some Islamic thinkers. “Many of us are now ready to admit that hostility for Israel has been a great mistake, perhaps the worst mistake Muslims have made in the second half of this century.”

The Shaykh has no hesitation about promoting this stance. He serves in Israel as co-chair of the Root and Branch Association’s Islam-Israel Fellowship and Muslim chairman of the Association’s Jerusalem Embassy Initiative, which calls for “the nations of the world to move their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem, thereby recognizing Jerusalem as the eternal, exclusive and undivided capital of the Jewish People and the State of Israel, and as the spiritual center of mankind.”

The son of an Italian mother and a Syrian father, Palazzi in person is a bearish, good-humored man with a trimmed beard and close-cropped hair and wearing, the night I met with him, a crew-neck sweater, cargo pants, and no head covering. No robe, no turban. He is an extremely unassuming man.

Almost everyone to whom I mention Palazzi says something like, “Isn’t he afraid he’ll get killed?” That is itself a sign of how low Islam has allowed itself to sink in Western eyes. But Palazzi says he’s not afraid, because he is saying nothing that is not based in the Koran. Not living in the Arab world makes it easier for him to speak out, of course, but he names shaykhs even in the Palestinian Autonomy who he insists are largely in agreement with him.

His impact – aside from becoming the Muslim cleric best loved by Jews – remains to be seen. But at least he is helping to rescue the honor of Islam by representing it, not as a fanatical and murderous sect irrevocably bent on harm, but as a subtle and loving spiritual path, open to the world and glad to acknowledge its bonds of brotherhood with Judaism and Jews.

QUOTES:
Support for Nazism was not limited to the former Mufti. Here are some quotes from Arab leaders on Hitler, and Nazism:

“We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi literature and books . . . . We were the first who thought of [an Arab] translation of Mein Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to the Arab inclination toward Nazism,” recalled Sami al-Joundi, one of the founders of Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Party.

Indeed, a popular WWII song was heard in the Middle East featuring words: Bissama Allah, oria alard Hitler – in heaven Allah, on earth Hitler. Picking up the theme of the book, posters were put up in Arab markets and elsewhere proclaiming, “In heaven Allah is thy ruler; on earth Adolph Hitler.”

John Gunther of Inside Asia reported: “The greatest contemporary Arab hero is probably Hitler.”

In October 1933, pro-Axis Young Egypt Party was founded. Styling itself of its German ideal, the new party built a storm-trooper unit, marching with torches under the slogan “One folk, One party, One Leader.” Among the members was the young Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser’s brother, Nassiri, was the translator of Hitler’s Mein Kampf into Arabic, describing the Fascist despot in glowing terms.

Another future Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, was imprisoned during World War II for cooperating with Adolf Hitler’s regime. Towards the end of World War II, Sadat wrote to the Fuhrer: “My dear Hitler, I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. Even if you appear to have been defeated, in reality you are the victor. You succeeded in creating dissensions between Churchill, the old man, and his allies, the Sons of Satan. Germany will win because her existence is necessary to preserve the world balance. Germany will be reborn in spite of the Western and Eastern powers. There will be no peace unless Germany once again becomes what she was.”

A few years prior to writing this letter, Anwar Sadat contacted Muslim Brotherhood’s leader Hassan al-Banna, an ardent supporter of Nazi Germany. The meeting put Sadat in contact with Abd al-Munim Adb al-Rauf, who went on to become a leading member of the Free Officers and a chief propagandist and protagonist of the Brotherhood. Both men tried to join the pro-Axis fighters in Iraq, but failed. Sadat also met with Dr. Ibrahim Hasan, the second deputy of Ikhwan. The two gentlemen agreed that “salvation of the country could be assured only by a coup at the hands of the military” because of the King’s support for the Allies. On February 24, 1945, the Prime Minister of Egypt was assassinated by a member of the National Party as he was reading the declaration of war against Germany.

source: Nazi roots of Palestinian nationalism
Links on the Muslim/Nazi Connection

Grand Mufti, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini – excellent link describing the Grand Mufti’s efforts in recruiting Muslims from all over the world to fight with the Nazis

Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism
“On November 28, 1941 the former Mufti was officially received by Hitler, who agreed to establish a bureau for al-Husseini which was used to spread propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany, organize spy rings in Europe and the Middle East, and, most importantly, establish Muslim Nazi SS divisions and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia, the Balkans, North Africa and Nazi-occupied parts of the Soviet Union. After the meeting, the Mufti was also named SS gruppenfuehrer by Heinrich Himmler and referred to as the “Fuhrer of the Arab World” by Hitler himself.”

“The Mufti also made a particularly strong effort to recruit Soviet Muslims. “It was largely due to Haj Amin’s propaganda that on the arrival of German armies in the northern Caucasus in 1942, five indigene tribes – the Chechens, the Ingushes, the Balkars, the Karachais, and the Kabardines – welcomed them with bread and salt,” wrote Joseph Schechtman in The Mufti and the Fuhrer.”

“The Mufti`s hatred of the West was matched only by his hatred of the Jews. It is not a coincidence that Germany suddenly abandoned the policy of expelling Jews and adopted far harsher methods a short time after the Mufti arrived in Germany. When Haj Amin came to Germany again, the Nazis decided to execute the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.”

Arab/Muslim Nazi Connection
“Once in Berlin, the Mufti received an enthusiastic reception by the ‘Islamische Zentralinstitut’ and the whole Islamic community of Germany, which welcomed him as the ‘Führer of the Arabic world.’ ”

“On a visit to Auschwitz, [Grand Mufti] reportedly admonished the guards running the gas chambers to work more diligently. Throughout the war, he appeared regularly on German radio broadcasts to the Middle East, preaching his pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic message to the Arab masses back home.”

“After the war, Husseini fled to Switzerland and from there escaped via France to Cairo, were he was warmly received. The Mufti used funds received earlier from the Hilter regime to finance the Nazi-inspired Arab Liberation Arm”

“The Nazi-Arab connection existed even when Adolf Hitler first seized power in Germany in 1933. News of the Nazi takeover was welcomed by the Arab masses with great enthusiasm, as the first congratulatory telegrams Hitler received upon being appointed Chancellor came from the German Consul in Jerusalem, followed by those from several Arab capitals. Soon afterwards, parties that imitated the National Socialists were founded in many Arab lands, like the “Hisb-el-qaumi-el-suri” (PPS) or Social Nationalist Party in Syria. Its leader, Anton Sa’ada, styled himself the Führer of the Syrian nation, and Hitler became known as “Abu Ali” (In Egypt his name was “Muhammed Haidar”). The banner of the PPS displayed the swastika on a black-white background. Later, a Lebanese branch of the PPS – which still receives its orders from Damascus – was involved in the assassination of Lebanese President Pierre Gemayel.”

“These leanings never completely ceased. Hitler’s Mein Kampf currently ranks sixth on the best-seller list among Palestinian Arabs” Wow!

Nazi Germany Shipped Arms to Arabs
A British Foreign Office report from 1939 reports of “news of a consignment of arms from Germany, sent via Turkey and addressed to Ibn Saud (king of Saudi Arabia), but really intended for the Palestine insurgents.” Britain’s chief military officer in Mandatory Palestine also noted reports “regarding import of German arms at intervals for some years now.”

One Nazi agent, Adam Vollhardt, arrived in Palestine in July 1938, and was reported to have gained strong influence with Arab leaders, meeting with Palestinian leaders throughout 1938. Vollhardt held several meetings with leading Arab politicians and told them “that the Palestine question would be settled to the satisfaction of the Arabs within a few weeks,” adding that “it would be fatal to their (Palestinians’) cause if at this juncture they showed any signs of weakness or exhaustion.”

“Germany was interested in the settlement of the (Palestine) question on the basis of the Arabs obtaining their full demands,” Vollhardt was reported to say to Palestinian leaders, according to a report by the British War Office. Vollhardt also assured Arab leaders that “the Germans could continue to support the Palestinian Arab cause by means of propaganda.”

German documents photographed and sent to Whitehall by an American spy revealed that in 1937, German officials had calculated that “Palestine under Arab rule would… become one of the few countries where we could count on a strong sympathy for the new Germany.”

“The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great sympathy for the new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy whose value is particularly high as it is based on a purely ideological foundation,” a Nazi official in Palestine wrote in a letter to Berlin in 1937. He added: “Most important for the sympathies which Arabs now feel towards Germany is their admiration for our Fuhrer, especially during the unrests, I often had an opportunity to see how far these sympathies extend. When faced with a dangerous behaviour of an Arab mass, when one said that one was German, this was already generally a free pass.”

A second Nazi agent, Dr. Franz Reichart, was reported to be actively working with Palestinian Arabs by the British Criminal Investigation Division “to help coordinate Arab and German propaganda.” Reichart was also head of the German Telegraphic Agency in Jerusalem.

The Nazi Origins of modern Arab Terror
“The agenda and political faith of Saddam Hussein, Yasir Arafat, Osama bin Laden, Hamas and the rest of the international Islamic terrorists can be traced back to World War II and two key figures, Adolf Hitler and Amin al-Husseini, known as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.”

“The Nuremberg and Eichmann trials revealed that Nazi official Adolf Eichmann met with the British-appointed Mufti in Palestine in 1937. Following this meeting, the Mufti would become essentially an agent of Nazi Germany charged with the funding and organizing of pro-Nazi organizations in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Iraq.”

“The Mufti’s activities in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe would set the stage for today’s Islamic terrorism. On April 25, 1941, the Nazis sent the Mufti to Nazi-occupied Bosnia, where he assumed the title ‘Protector of Islam.’ On Feb. 10, 1943, Hitler ordered the creation of the Nazi SS Division Hanzar and approximately 100,000 Bosnian Muslims volunteered. The Mufti, serving as chief administrator, referred to these Nazi-Muslim brigades as ‘the cream of Islam.’ ”

“Nazi attitudes regarding Islam were perhaps best expressed by Himmler, who is reported to have stated: “I have nothing against Islam because it educates the men in this division for me and promises them heaven if they fight and are killed in action. A very practical and attractive religion for soldiers.”

More on the Muslim/Nazi Connection-
“On the surface there would seem to be little to unite the Aryan racialists of the neo-Nazi movement with the terrorists of radical Islam. To the neo-Nazis, Muslims are almost all members of “inferior“ races; and to the Islamic terrorists, the neo-Nazis are almost without exception either atheists or members of fringe quasi-Christian sects.”

“But the reality is that there has been close cooperation between Muslim extremists and Fascists ever since the founding of the Nazi movement in the 1920`s. For all of their differences, Muslim extremists and Nazis have always been united by a common group of beliefs and goals: hatred of Judaism (and conventional Christianity), hatred of democracy, and a desire for the destruction of Israel and the United States.”

“It should be pointed out that National Socialism had a profound impact on the political philosophies of many radical Islamic political organization, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in 1928), Nasser`s Young Egypt movement, the Social Nationalist Party of Syria founded by Anton Sa`ada, and the Ba`ath Party of Iraq. One of the main leaders of the 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Iraq was Khairallah Tulfah, the uncle and guardian of Saddam Hussein. When Saddam failed in his attempt to assassinate the Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim in 1959, he fled to Egypt where he was given protection by Grand Mufti- protégé Nasser and ODESSA-connected former Nazis.”

“The rise of Al Qaeda and the explosion of neo-Nazi activity in Germany and elsewhere coincided with the breakup of the USSR in the early 1990`s and the political vacuum created by the absence of the former Soviet behemoth. Neo-Nazis in both Europe and the United States began making overtures to Islamic terrorists and even to Louis Farrakhan`s Nation of Islam movement. The resulting admixture of Nazi and Islamicist ideologies is something that is termed the `’Third Position.’ ”

“Much of the coordination of neo- Nazi/Muslim terrorist activities is done in the United States. Since overt Nazi activity is outlawed in Germany and many other European countries, neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists have taken advantage of America`s First Amendment protection of almost all political activity. In fact, the headquarters today of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterrpartei is in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Internet and electronic banking make communication and the transfer of funds instantaneous.”

An Unholy Alliance-
“Couple of hours up the road from where some September 11 hijackers learned to fly, the new head of Aryan Nation is praising them — and trying to create an unholy alliance between his white supremacist group and al Qaeda.

[Aryan Nation Leader]: ‘You say they’re terrorists, I say they’re freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples’ heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah.’ ”

How a mosque for ex-Nazis became the center of Radical Islam-
“The Mosque’s history, however, tells a more-tumultuous story. Buried in government and private archives are hundreds of documents that trace the battle to control the Islamic Center of Munich. Never before made public, the material shows how radical Islam established one of its first and most important beachheads in the West when a group of ex-Nazi soldiers decided to build a mosque.”

Blair urged to cancel ‘holocaust day’ to avoid offending Muslims-
I wonder why the Muslims would feel offended by “holocaust memorial day”. They claim its because it doesn’t recognize other “genocides” of Muslims across the world. But could it be that they are offended because of their role in the holocaust? In the words of the Grand Mufti, “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world”

Iran’s Ties to the Third Reich
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shot to the forefront of Holocaust denial with his rabble-rousing remarks last month. But it’s more like self-denial. The president of Iran need only look to his country’s Hitler-era past to discover that Iran and Iranians were strongly connected to the Holocaust and the Hitler regime, as was the entire Islamic world under the leadership of the mufti of Jerusalem.

Iran’s axis with the Third Reich began during the prewar years, when it welcomed Nazi Gestapo agents and other operatives to Tehran, allowing them to use the city as a base for Middle East agitation against the British and the region’s Jews.

So intense was the shah’s identification with the Third Reich that in 1935 he renamed his ancient country “Iran,” which in Farsi means Aryan and refers to the Proto-Indo-European lineage that Nazi racial theorists and Persian ethnologists cherished.

Saudi Arabia
Religious Atmosphere:
93.4% of this country’s people are Muslim with 79% being Sunni, and the remaining 13.4% being Shiâ
€™ite. Hindus make up 0.7% while Buddhists make up 0.5% and non-religious/others make up 1.4%.
Christians make up 4% of the population but 98% of the Christian population are expatriates. The
sacredness of the area to Muslims makes for a rather strict and harsh attitude towards non-Muslims and
their religious activities.
Extremist Groups:
There are reports of religious vigilante groups who harass non-Muslims. The attitude and stance of the
government likely gives these groups personal justification for their activities.
Government:
Islam is the state religion and all citizens must be Muslims. The government believes it has a sacred
responsibility as the guardian of the two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina. As a result, they desire
to remove all non-Muslim influences. Towards this end, they have formed the Mutawwa’in, the religious
police.
      Â
Public and private practice of any non-Muslim religion is restricted. Non-Muslims can be arrested, lashed,
or deported for any religious activity that attracts the attention of the government.
       Â
The wearing of non-Muslim religious symbols is restricted.      Â
The printing, possession, importing, or distribution of any non-Muslim religious material is banned.
          Â
In April of 2000 Prince Turki ibn Muhammad Saud Al-Kabir, the assistant undersecretary for political
affairs in the Foreign Ministry, announced at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva that the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will form two human rights bodies, one independent and the other under the
government. These bodies will investigate allegations of torture, monitor the implementation of human rights
codes, and acquaint the public to the concept of human rights.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which imposes an official religion on the entire population. All
citizens of Saudi Arabia must be Muslim. Non-Muslims are allowed to enter Saudi Arabia only if they are
oil workers, or foreign diplomats. Otherwise it is almost impossible for a non-Muslim to obtain a visa to
enter Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Government website threatens non-Mulims with jail or deportation if they
fail to respect Muslim traditions, including ramadan or drinking alcohol in public. The few non-Mulims that
live in Saudi Arabia are regularly threatened and harrassed by extremist vigilantes, which are supported by
the Saudi government. Non-Muslims are not allowed to drive on certain roads or to be present in certain
cities or areas in which the government considers ‘holy’. Oil workers and foreign diplomats in Saudi Arabia
typically do not leave their neighborhoods or work areas out of fear of being arrested or attacked. A
non-Muslim can be subject to death if he/she steps foot on what is considered a ‘holy site’.
Saudi Arabia Arrests 40 Christians for Praying
Riyadh – Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the
Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than Islam is illegal, newspapers said on
Saturday.

A group of men, women and children were attending the service in the capital Riyadh when police raided
the house, Al Jazirah newspaper said.

It said authorities also found Christian tapes and books.

Another Saudi daily, Al Yaum, said the raid took place on Friday while a Pakistani preacher was
delivering a sermon. It was not clear what measures might be taken against the group.

Saudi authorities were not immediately available to comment.

There are around six million foreigners in the conservative kingdom, which has a population of 23 million,
including many Christians from Europe, North America, Asia and other Arab states.

In a rare official rebuke of a close ally last year, Washington accused Saudi Arabia of severe violations of
religious freedom.

“Freedom of religion is not recognized or protected under the country’s laws and basic religious
freedoms are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam,”
the State Department said in an annual report.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, which were carried out by mainly Saudis, the Gulf Arab state’s
religious establishment came under sharp criticism by the West for fostering militancy and intolerance of
other religions.
Saudi Arabia Blocks Religious Websites
The website of Abiding Faith Lutheran Church of Fort Worth, Texas, has little content on it other than a list
of service times, directions, and a brief statement of faith. Nevertheless, the government of Saudi Arabia
has prohibited its citizens from viewing the page.
…
For two weeks in May, researchers from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society surfed the
Web using Saudi Arabia’s servers to simulate Internet use in the country. The purpose was to identify
specific Web pages blocked by the government’s Internet Services Unit (ISU). The results show that the
nation filters sites about religion, politics, women, health, pop culture, and more.

“A look at the list beyond sexually explicit content yields some insight into the particular areas the Saudi
government appears to find most sensitive,” the report says. “The Saudi government maintains an active
interest in filtering non-sexually explicit Web content for users within the kingdom.”
…
“That government seems to view tolerance, understanding, and cooperation as great religious
evils,” Bruce Robinson, coordinator and webmaster for ReligiousTolerance.org, told CT. “On the other
hand, the Saudi censorship does not surprise us. Theirs is a closed society, with few religious freedoms,
and restricted human rights.”

Christian sites are not the only religious websites blocked by Saudi Arabia. The study found 45 Islamic
sites that are also restricted. In fact, Jochen Katz, webmaster of Answering-Islam.org, says the government
has also blocked the site’s main Islamic opponent, Islamic-Awareness.org.

From Wikipedia.org

Saudi Arabia forbids missionary work by any religion other than Islam. Officially all religions other than
Islam are banned and churches are not allowed. Unofficially the government acknowledges that many of
the foreign workers are Christian and on Aramco civilian compounds, foreign Christians are generally
allowed to worship in private homes or even hold services at local schools provided that it is not spoken of
in public. This is a degree of unofficial tolerance that is not given to Judaism, or Atheism.

In theory, the government can search the home of anyone and arrest or deport foreign workers
for owning religious icons and symbols, i.e. a Bible, or rosary. Yet, this generally does not occur on
the Aramco compounds and the most common policy for foreign Christians is similar to the United
States Armed Forces policy for homosexuals (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell). The government tolerates
the presence of Christian workers as long as they remain discreet and in the closet.

“Freedom of religion does not exist,” the U.S. State Department’s 1997 Human Rights Report
on Saudi Arabia states. “Islam is the official religion, and all citizens must be Muslims. The
government prohibits the public practice of other religions.” “It is absurd to impose on an individual or a
society rights that are alien to its beliefs or principles,” Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz declared at
the U.N. Third Millennium summit in New York City, New York on 6 September.

Foreigners must conform to local practices in public. Conservative dress is expected, especially for women
who travel to rural areas. Shops and restaurants close five times a day for prayer, and public displays of
foreign religious or political symbols are not tolerated. During Ramadan eating, drinking, or smoking
in public during daylight hours is prohibited. Foreign schools are often required to teach a yearly
introductory segment on Islam.

Saudi Jailed for Discussing Bible
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) — A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750
lashes for “mocking religion” after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper
reported yesterday.
Al-Madina newspaper said secondary-school teacher Mohammad al-Harbi, who will be flogged in
public, was taken to court by his colleagues and students.
He was charged with promoting a “dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were
right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer,” the
newspaper said.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, strictly upholds the austere Wahhabi school of Islam and bases its
constitution on the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. Public practice of any other
religion is banned.
….
A 2003 report by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom, the world’s only government-sanctioned
entity to investigate and report religious-freedom violations, named Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest
violator of religious liberties.
The commission took the country to task for “offensive and discriminatory language” disparaging Jews,
Christians and non-Wahhabi Muslims found in government-sponsored school textbooks, in Friday
sermons preached in prominent mosques, and in state-controlled Saudi newspapers.
…
In Saudi Arabia, the public practice of any religion other than Islam is illegal; only Muslims can
be Saudi citizens; one of the Saudi king’s titles is “custodian of the two holy mosques”;
proselytizing for any religion other than Sunni Islam is barred; and Mecca, Islam’s holy city, is
forbidden to all non-Muslims.
For years, Saudi Arabia also imposed restrictions, or persuaded the U.S. government to
impose restrictions, on American troops defending the country during and after then-Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein’s 1990-91 occupation of Kuwait.

For example, U.S. postal and customs officials have barred mailing materials “contrary to the Islamic
faith,” including Bibles. The U.S. military also has required female service members to wear a long, black
robe called an abaya when traveling off base in Saudi Arabia. Both regulations were rescinded or clarified
after public outcry based on reporting in the U.S. media.
Saudi Oppression of non-Muslims
Highway sign in Saudi Arabia
From Persecution.org
Saudi Arabia
Religious Atmosphere:
93.4% of this country’s people are Muslim with 79% being Sunni, and the remaining 13.4% being Shiâ
€™ite. Hindus make up 0.7% while Buddhists make up 0.5% and non-religious/others make up 1.4%.
Christians make up 4% of the population but 98% of the Christian population are expatriates. The
sacredness of the area to Muslims makes for a rather strict and harsh attitude towards non-Muslims and
their religious activities.
Extremist Groups:
There are reports of religious vigilante groups who harass non-Muslims. The attitude and stance of the
government likely gives these groups personal justification for their activities.
Government:
Islam is the state religion and all citizens must be Muslims. The government believes it has a sacred
responsibility as the guardian of the two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina. As a result, they desire
to remove all non-Muslim influences. Towards this end, they have formed the Mutawwa’in, the religious
police.
      Â
Public and private practice of any non-Muslim religion is restricted. Non-Muslims can be arrested, lashed,
or deported for any religious activity that attracts the attention of the government.
       Â
The wearing of non-Muslim religious symbols is restricted.      Â
The printing, possession, importing, or distribution of any non-Muslim religious material is banned.
          Â
In April of 2000 Prince Turki ibn Muhammad Saud Al-Kabir, the assistant undersecretary for political
affairs in the Foreign Ministry, announced at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva that the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will form two human rights bodies, one independent and the other under the
government. These bodies will investigate allegations of torture, monitor the implementation of human rights
codes, and acquaint the public to the concept of human rights.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which imposes an official religion on the entire population. All
citizens of Saudi Arabia must be Muslim. Non-Muslims are allowed to enter Saudi Arabia only if they are
oil workers, or foreign diplomats. Otherwise it is almost impossible for a non-Muslim to obtain a visa to
enter Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Government website threatens non-Mulims with jail or deportation if they
fail to respect Muslim traditions, including ramadan or drinking alcohol in public. The few non-Mulims that
live in Saudi Arabia are regularly threatened and harrassed by extremist vigilantes, which are supported by
the Saudi government. Non-Muslims are not allowed to drive on certain roads or to be present in certain
cities or areas in which the government considers ‘holy’. Oil workers and foreign diplomats in Saudi Arabia
typically do not leave their neighborhoods or work areas out of fear of being arrested or attacked. A
non-Muslim can be subject to death if he/she steps foot on what is considered a ‘holy site’.
Saudi Arabia Arrests 40 Christians for Praying
Riyadh – Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the
Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than Islam is illegal, newspapers said on
Saturday.

A group of men, women and children were attending the service in the capital Riyadh when police raided
the house, Al Jazirah newspaper said.

It said authorities also found Christian tapes and books.

Another Saudi daily, Al Yaum, said the raid took place on Friday while a Pakistani preacher was
delivering a sermon. It was not clear what measures might be taken against the group.

Saudi authorities were not immediately available to comment.

There are around six million foreigners in the conservative kingdom, which has a population of 23 million,
including many Christians from Europe, North America, Asia and other Arab states.

In a rare official rebuke of a close ally last year, Washington accused Saudi Arabia of severe violations of
religious freedom.

“Freedom of religion is not recognized or protected under the country’s laws and basic religious
freedoms are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam,”
the State Department said in an annual report.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, which were carried out by mainly Saudis, the Gulf Arab state’s
religious establishment came under sharp criticism by the West for fostering militancy and intolerance of
other religions.
Saudi Arabia Blocks Religious Websites
The website of Abiding Faith Lutheran Church of Fort Worth, Texas, has little content on it other than a list
of service times, directions, and a brief statement of faith. Nevertheless, the government of Saudi Arabia
has prohibited its citizens from viewing the page.
…
For two weeks in May, researchers from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society surfed the
Web using Saudi Arabia’s servers to simulate Internet use in the country. The purpose was to identify
specific Web pages blocked by the government’s Internet Services Unit (ISU). The results show that the
nation filters sites about religion, politics, women, health, pop culture, and more.

“A look at the list beyond sexually explicit content yields some insight into the particular areas the Saudi
government appears to find most sensitive,” the report says. “The Saudi government maintains an active
interest in filtering non-sexually explicit Web content for users within the kingdom.”
…
“That government seems to view tolerance, understanding, and cooperation as great religious
evils,” Bruce Robinson, coordinator and webmaster for ReligiousTolerance.org, told CT. “On the other
hand, the Saudi censorship does not surprise us. Theirs is a closed society, with few religious freedoms,
and restricted human rights.”

Christian sites are not the only religious websites blocked by Saudi Arabia. The study found 45 Islamic
sites that are also restricted. In fact, Jochen Katz, webmaster of Answering-Islam.org, says the government
has also blocked the site’s main Islamic opponent, Islamic-Awareness.org.

City Limites

A Mosque in Rome? Sure. A non-Muslim in Mecca? No.
BY JONATHAN V. LAST
If you judge by the pictures, the Makkah Hilton is a nice place to stay. There’s just one catch, as the Web
site notes. The five-star hotel “is exclusively sited within the Holy City which, by national and religious law,
is only accessible to visitors of the Muslim Religion.”

This law is something of a singularity among major religions, because it isn’t merely the Grand Mosque that
is off-limits to nonbelievers, the way, for instance, a Mormon Temple is. It’s a city–a major city with
hotels, supermarkets, schools and a population of 1.2 million people. (The city of Medina, population
700,000, also forbids non-Muslims.)

What are the roots of this apartheid? The Koranic revelations were given to the prophet
Muhammed in Mecca, which was then a pagan place. Soon after, he left Mecca and traveled to
Medina, where he assembled an army, returning to conquer Mecca in A.D. 630. “The Prophet
then ordered, on the basis of what he said was God’s command to him, that the environs around
Mecca should only be for Muslims,” explains Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor of Islamic studies at
George Washington University.

The custodians of Islam take the ban seriously, and they have constructed a large apparatus to
keep infidels out. In “The Saudis,” Sandra Mackey’s account of living in Saudi Arabia several
years ago, she recalls trying to drive near Mecca (with her husband at the wheel, of course):
“Billboard-size blue and white signs in both Arabic and English appeared along the road, warning
non-Moslems to turn back.” She saw religious authorities and Saudi policemen “lounging in a
small wooden building adjacent to the road.” Eventually, “we were forced off the road by one of
the angry policemen.” She was fined about $100 and turned away. (What’s the penalty for actually
being caught inside Mecca? The Saudi embassy refused to return calls.)
Ali Al-Ahmed, executive director of the Washington-based Saudi Institute, explains that these posts
“check your religion, basically.” He notes that, “if you’re a Saudi, of course, there is no problem. But if you
aren’t, your ID says what your religion is.” If you’re wondering why it’s not a problem if you’re a Saudi,
Ms. Mackey explains it best by quoting a passage from a Saudi hotel directory: “Islam is the official
religion of Saudi Arabia. Churches of other religious denominations do not exist in the kingdom.”

Mr. Nasr has a more benign view. When traveling to Mecca, drivers are stopped at a toll station,
he explains (the city has no airport): “Somebody comes forward and looks and says, ‘Are you all
Muslims?’ And the people will say ‘yes’ and they’ll say, ‘Go on.’” But “if the authorities become
suspicious because someone doesn’t look like a Muslim, they’ll say, ‘Recite the first chapter of
the Koran’ or some such thing which all Muslims know by heart.”

The ban sometimes creates logistical woes. Companies that rely on skilled workers often resort to using
auxiliary offices outside the city. Ms. Mackey tells of the building of a hotel designed by a Western
architect. The Saudis refused to allow him into the city and, she writes, “insisted that he stand on a hill
outside of town and direct the work through a telescope.”

Curious, daring souls have, of course, run the blockade for a long time. In the 19th century, a handful of
Orientalists disguised themselves as dervishes and made their way inside, the most notable being John
Lewis Burckhardt and Sir Richard Burton, who wrote of their experiences. (In 1917, T.E. Lawrence
snuck in for the sole purpose, it seems, of buying a gold dagger from a particular merchant.)

Even today, there are ways around the barrier. Occasionally nonbelievers will surreptiously enter the city in
the company of Muslim friends. One Muslim confides: “I have some Christian friends who have visited
Mecca in the last few years–also a Jewish friend.”
Officially, the U.S. is unfazed by this state-sponsored segregation. A State Department official tells me
that, while “Saudi Arabia is a candidate for designation as a ‘country of particular concern’ under the
International Religious Freedom Act,. . . the most acute problems that non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia face
concern the almost virtual prohibition on engaging in their own worship. We are not aware of many
demands by non-Muslims to visit Islamic holy sites.”

But even at the State Department, the ban rankles. “Every religion needs to have its own freedom of
assembly and be able to protect the integrity of its holy places,” said one State Department expert. “But it’s
just absurd that it goes to these great lengths. . . . Even if you don’t care about lofty ideals like religious
freedom or openness, we’re starting to see some real connections between religious intolerance and
terrorism.”

In 1995, incidentally, Saudi money funded the building of an enormous, $50 million mosque in Rome, just
a stone’s throw from St. Peter’s Square.

Who Killed Rachel Corrie?

by Judy Lash Balint
http://www.alisrael.com/rachel_corrie/whokilled.html

Jerusalem—Only one thing is certain about the circumstances surrounding the death of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) protestor Rachel Corrie: she died in Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.
But is Israel responsible for her death, or do the doctors at the Arab hospital where she was taken still alive after the accident bear any responsibility? What about the ISM that organizes protests in a closed military zone? How she died, exactly where she passed her last moments and who should take the blame for Rachel Corrie’s death are the questions that demand answers.

The congressional inquiry called for by Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) will have to sort it all out, but the inconsistencies in the eyewitness testimonies raise doubts about the simplistic conclusions already being drawn.

By all accounts, Rachel Corrie was one of a group of protestors attempting to disrupt the work of two IDF bulldozers leveling ground to detonate explosives in an area rife with terrorist activity. The bulldozers moved to a different area to avoid the protestors, and Corrie became separated from the group.  Some of the agitators stood with a banner, while Corrie picked up a bullhorn and yelled fruitlessly at the driver encased in the small cabin of the ‘dozer. This went on for several hours on the afternoon of March 16.  It’s the kind of activity favored by the young pro-Palestinian types who make up the ISM.

There wasn’t enough action for Corrie. According to a fellow Evergreen State College student, Joseph Smith, 21, who was at the site, Corrie dropped her bullhorn and sat down in front of one of the bulldozers.  She fully expected that the driver would stop just in front of her. “We were horribly surprised,” Smith told me by phone from Rafah the day after the incident. “They had been careful not to hurt us.  They’d always stopped before,” he said.

As the ‘dozer plowed forward heaping up a pile of dirt and sand, Corrie scrambled up the pile to sit on the top, screaming slogans at the driver. Smith says she lost her footing as the bulldozer made the earth move beneath her feet. “She got pulled down,” he says.  “The driver lost sight of her and continued forward. Then, without lifting the blade he reversed and Rachel was underneath the mid-section of the ‘dozer—she wasn’t run over by the tread.”

Capt. Jacob Dellal of the IDF spokesperson’s office confirms what Smith says about the driver: he lost sight of Rachel.  Inside the cab some 8’ off the ground, visibility is very restricted.  The protestors should have known that and kept within the driver’s line of sight to avoid getting hurt, Dellal asserts.

The strange thing about this part of the story is the discrepancy over the photos given to the press and posted on several pro-Arab websites.

As Smith describes to me his version of events, I ask about the series of photos printed in an Arab newspaper I picked up that morning in Jerusalem’s Old City. “They aren’t of the actual incident,” he states firmly.  “We’d been there for three hours already, we were tired—we already had a lot of pictures.”

Yet these are the pictures used on the ISM website, www.palsolidarity.org to document the before and after of Rachel’s interaction with the bulldozer.  The same pictures are featured as a photo-essay on the site of Electronic Intifada, (http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml) where they’re even attributed to Joseph Smith.

There are several shots of the back of a woman with a blond ponytail facing a bulldozer. She’s standing in an open field, wearing an orange fluorescent jacket, holding a megaphone.

Even Michael Shaikh, the ISM media coordinator, won’t confirm that these are pictures of Corrie taken the day she died. “I’m fairly sure” they’re of the incident, he tells me by phone from his Bethlehem office. In the same conversation, Shaikh asks me not to contact Joe, Greg or Tom, the Rafah ISM eyewitnesses again directly: “They’re still in trauma…”

The pictures should have raised all kinds of questions to photo editors, but all the major newspapers and wire services chose to run the photos regardless.  If there are pictures of Rachel before and after, why didn’t the same photographer consider it important to document the act of the bulldozer running her down?

Where is the mound of earth Rachel clambered up and was buried in?  The woman shown lying bleeding from her nose and mouth is lying on a flat piece of ground, and she’s not covered in sand.

So Corrie was either knocked down by the ‘dozer, or fell in front of it. ISMers assume that she was intentionally run over, but there’s no proof that was the driver’s intent.

The real issue is was Rachel alive when she was taken by Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital? In other words, where did she die?  Were adequate efforts made to save her in the hospital?

Again, there are conflicting stories.  Joseph Smith tells me in a telephone interview the day after the tragedy, “She died in the hospital or on the way to the hospital.” CNN also reported that Rachel died there. (“Israeli bulldozer runs over 23-year-old woman.” CNN, Monday, March 17, 2003)

In his account posted on www.arabia.com, ISMer Tom Dale has a slightly different story.  On March 17 he writes: “I ran for an ambulance, she was gasping and her face was covered in blood from a gash cutting her face from lip to cheek.  She was showing signs of brain hemorrhaging.  She died in the ambulance a few minutes later of massive internal injuries. “

But Dr. Ali Mussa, director of Martyr Mohammed Yousef An Najar Hospital where Corrie was taken isn’t so clear.   On the day of the event, Dr. Mussa tells AP Gaza reporter Ibrahim Barzak that Rachel died in the hospital. (“American Killed in Gaza” AP. March 16, 2003)

One week later, in a telephone interview with me, Dr. Mussa states definitively that Rachel died at the scene, “in the soil,” as he puts it. “The main cause of death was suffocation,” Mussa asserts. There were no signs of life, no heartbeat or pulse when she arrived at the hospital, he says. Mussa states that Rachel’s ribs were fractured, a fact determined by X-rays. (Is it normal procedure to X-ray a dead body?)

Doesn’t quite jive with the photo essay on the pages of the Electronic Intifada website for March 16, 2003. (Photo story: Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist by Nigel Parry and Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada, 16 March 2003. http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml)

A caption under one photo of doctors leaning over a female patient reads: “Rachel arrived in the Emergency Room at 5:05 p.m and doctors scrambled to save her. By 5:20 p.m, she was gone. Ha’aretz newspaper reported that Dr. Ali Mussa, a doctor at Al Najar, stated that the cause of death was “skull and chest fractures.”  Dr. Mussa told me he was one of the treating physicians—yet he alone maintains that Rachel was dead before she was put into the ambulance. To further complicate matters, on that same website, a report from the Palestine Monitor is cited.  Here, the writer says that Rachel fractured “both her arms, legs and skull. She was transferred to hospital, where she later died.”

Just who is Dr. Ali Mussa? Clearly a man in favor with the Palestine Authority hierarchy.  Dr. Mussa’s views are aired on the official website of the PA’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation: (January 27, 2003)

There, Dr. Mussa accuses Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “terrorist government” of “deliberately killing Palestinian children in Rafah.”

A few days after the incident, ISM Media Coordinator Michael Shaikh tells me by phone from Rafah that three ISMers, Tom, Alice and Greg were in the ambulance with Rachel. “She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” says Michael.   But Greg Schnabel, 28, who is quoted in numerous wire service and newspaper stories, never says he witnessed the death of his comrade in the ambulance. In his account published a few days later on the ISM website, he carefully states that she died twenty minutes after arriving at the hospital.

What happened to Rachel’s body after her death?  Depends who you ask. Dr. Mussa says it was kept for 24 hours at the hospital before a Red Crescent ambulance transported it “to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv,” via the border where an Israeli ambulance took over.  Michael Shaikh says “we lost track of it (her body) after she died.”  Three ISMers tried to escort the body, but only one was permitted on the ambulance on the Israeli side.  According to his account, the ambulance drove straight to the Israeli Forensic Institute at Abu Kabir, where an autopsy was performed.  “The Israelis are trying to say she died from a blow to the head by a rock,” Shaikh recounts.

Speaking about the autopsy, one of Rachel’s ISM trainers, Iowa native LeAnne Clausen, a fieldworker for the Christian Peacemaker Team based in Beit Sahour, tells me: “The general sentiment within ISM is that the Israelis are trying to suggest perhaps Rachel was on drugs.”

In reality, IDF spokesperson Dellal says that initial Israeli investigation results indicate that the cause of death was most likely a blow to the head and chest by a blunt object—possibly a chunk of cement dug up by the bulldozer.

In keeping with ISM sympathies, Rachel received a “shaheed” (martyr) procession in Rafah, the day after her death.  But here again, there’s confusion between reality and photo opp.   Some accounts noted that her coffin draped in an American flag was paraded through the streets.  Yet a picture on the site of her college town’s peace movement, the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (www.omjp.org/rachelphotos.html) shows Arab women holding a coffin covered by a Palestinian flag with the caption: Palestinian funeral for Rachel.

Confusion and obfuscation seem to be a trademark of the ISM.  Last May, a number of ISMers raced past Israeli soldiers into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where dozens of Palestinian terrorists had holed up to evade capture by the IDF outside. After an agreement was reached, the ISM members refused to leave the church, holding up the solution. Then they charged that they were mistreated by clergy, who claimed the ISMers desecrated the church by smoking and drinking alcohol.

Another revealing ISM action took place shortly before the Bethlehem incident, when a number of protestors managed to make their way past IDF barricades into Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound to “protect” the terrorist leader.

Last week’s Rafah activity falls into the same category of ISM defense of Arab terrorists.  IDF efforts in Rafah are concentrated on preventing the flow of arms and explosives over the border from Egypt into the terrorist’s dens that riddle the area.  Less than a week after Rachel died defending terrorists, Israeli tanks moved into Rafah , surrounded several houses, and arrested two Hamas members. IDF spokesperson, Dellal calls Rafah “the most dangerous area in the West Bank and Gaza, and decries the “provocative protests” of ISM. “There’s nothing wrong with civil disobedience, but these people crossed the line of what was safe for everyone,” Dellal says.

So, while the memorial services laud and remember Rachel Corrie as a “peace activist” “murdered by Israeli occupation forces,” the truth lies elsewhere.

An Israeli bulldozer injured Corrie as she tried to prevent it doing its job of protecting Israeli civilians, but she was alive when she was taken to An Najar Hospital, according to at least three eyewitnesses. Only Dr. Mussa, a man intent on accusing Israel of child killing, claims otherwise.  None of Rachel’s comrades have stated they were with her in the hospital when she died.

The Corrie episode in Rafah may end up being ranked with the “murder” of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura by Israeli forces in a firefight at nearby Netzarim in September 2000. Months after the event, the official IDF inquiry and a German TV report revealed that there was little doubt that al-Dura was hit by Palestinian fire. An independent French journalist, Gerard Huber, claims that the entire incident was fabricated for press consumption. (‘Contre-expertise d’une mise en scene,’ Editions Raphael, Paris).

Bring on the inquiry.

Click HERE for a printable version of this page

Contents of this Page
The Major Contradiction
Terror, Arab Hostility is because of Israel
Terrorism because of Israel
Arab/Muslim Hostility
U.S. Interests
Israel not a Loyal Ally
Democracy
Israel is not a Democracy
Apartheid
America Overthrowing Democracies, Supporting Dictatorships
Compensation for Past Crimes
Holocaust
1948 War
Jews Committing Terror?
Lobby Influence
the Israel Lobby
anti-Israel Lobby Groups
Techniques of Lobby Groups
Letter Writing
Campuses
The Great Silencer
Aipac Inaccuracy
Threats to Israel
Israel and Iraq War
Gunning for Syria
Iran
What about Saudi Arabia?
Israel Can Defend Itself
Hypocrisy of Writers (from Camera.org)
Influence of Study
Conclusion

The Major Contradiction
I know that many people are not going to sit and read through this lengthy analysis line by line. If you are only going to read one part of this page, make it be this one. This major contradiction in the report has the potential to eliminate the credibility of the writers. One of the main points of the study is that the Iraq war (and the current conflicts with Syria and Iran) are because of the pro-Israel lobby groups. The author says on page 34 of the report:

Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the U.S. military more directly involved in the Middle East, so it could help protect Israel.

The author repeats the claim that countries like Iraq, Iran, and Syria are targeted by the U.S. because they are a threat to Israel and Israel needs to be “protected” from them. But the authors contradict themselves on page 7 of the report when the authors discuss Israel’s nuclear capabilities:

Today, Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. Its conventional forces are far superior to its neighbors and it is the only state in the region with nuclear weapons. Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel and Saudi Arabia has offered to do so as well. Syria has lost its Soviet patron, Iraq has been decimated by three disastrous wars, and Iran is hundreds of miles away. The Palestinians barely have effective police, let alone a military that could threaten Israel. According to a 2005 assessment by Tel Aviv University’s prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, “the strategic balance decidedly favors Israel, which has continued to widen the qualitative gap between its own military capability and deterrence powers and those of its neighbors.” If backing the underdog were a compelling rationale, the United States would be supporting Israel’s opponents.

In this paragraph the authors clearly state that Israel can defend itself and that Iran, Iraq, and Syria are not threats to Israel. If this is the case, why would Israel feel the need to be “protected” from these countries? If these countries were not really a threat to Israel then why would it make sense for Israel to need the U.S. attack these countries? This directly contradicts their claims that the Iraq war was a war for Israel. With this one major argument shot down this weakens the thesis for the rest of the study. But we are only beginning.

Terror, Arab Hostility is because of Israel
Terrorism because of Israel
On page 5 of the study the author states:

More importantly, saying that Israel and the United States are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: rather, the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. U.S. support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question, for example, that many al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians.

Actually, many counter-terrorism officials believe otherwise. In a Fatwa (religious verdict) Al Qaida named 6 reasons why they carried out the 9/11 attacks and only one of them was because of Israel. The other 5 reasons, according to the fatwa, were:
The U.S.
# Plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula.
# Dictates policy to the rulers of those countries.
# Supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people.
# Has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries.
# Intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force.

The authors claims that U.S. has a terrorism problem because of its support for Israel. Yet they fail to explain why other nations in the world who do not support Israel also have terrorism problems. Saudi Arabia is as far from supporting Israel as you can get and they have a major terrorism problem. Morroco is no friend of Israel yet there was a major attack in Morroco in 2004. Indonesia does not support Israel, yet they have had their share of terrorist attacks. The point behind this is it is incorrect to state that U.S. has a terrorism problem because of Israel. Some may argue that Bin Laden doesn’t really care about the Palestinian cause. Yessir Arafat himself said “Bin Laden never helped us…he was working in a completely different area and against our interests.” So Al Qaida could not possibly be motivated by the “plight” of the Palestinians.

Arab/Muslim Hostility
On Page 5 of the study, the authors make the claim that our support for Israel is the prime reason for Arab/Muslim hostility:

Equally important, unconditional U.S. support for Israel makes it easier for extremists like bin Laden to rally popular support and to attract recruits. Public opinion polls confirm that Arab populations are deeply hostile to American support for Israel, and the U.S. State Department’s Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim world found that “citizens in these countries are genuinely distressed at the plight of the Palestinians and at the role they perceive the United States to be playing.”

Lets say the author was right and the Arab/Muslim world were “genuinely distressed” by the role of the U.S. in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This doesn’t mean that the U.S. is wrong for doing it. The Arab/Muslim world doesn’t get a fair and balanced picture of what is going on in the world. Many Arab media outlets display daily incitement and misinformation about the U.S. presence in Iraq and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The Arab media cannot be counted on to educate their viewers as to whats really going on. Most Arabs really believe that the U.S. is trying to kill innocent Iraqis and that Israel is trying to commit genocide against the Palestinians. It doesn’t matter what U.S. (or Israeli) policy really is, the Arab media outlets will always make it look bad. America should not change its foreign policy for the sole purpose of making a few fanatics happy.

Now lets go back to early February when the Arab/Muslim world began reacting to the Cartoons of Mohammed in the Danish newspapers. Denmark doesn’t support Israel nearly as much as the U.S. does. Yet we saw millions of Muslims burning Danish flags and attacking Danish embassies across the the middle east, all because of a cartoon. The Muslim world’s hatred of America and Israel is equally irrational. Some argue that Denmark has become the new Israel since Arabs finally found someone else to be mad at. The fact that an independently owned newspaper in Denmark published cartoons that were deemed offensive to Islam, did not justify the region wide furer against the whole country of Denmark.

Another question I have for the authors is, if Muslims care so much about Palestinian suffering, then why is there not the same outrage in other places where Arabs/Muslims are suffering more? There have been more than 20 times as many Chechnyans killed by Russia than Palestinians killed by Israel. There are (stateless) Kurds living under much worse conditions than the Palestinians. So why does the Palestinian “plight” cause so much “genuine distress” among Arabs, when the plight of other Arab/Muslim peoples dont create any anger at all? It is not the actual Israeli/Palestinian conflict that makes Muslims distressed, its the way they hear about it. Many Arab/Mulims get their information on this topic through the state controlled media, through hate-preaching mosques, and inflamatroy websites, none of which can be trusted to give an objective point of view of whats really going on. So it doesn’t matter what America or Israel’s policy is, the Arab/Muslim world will continue to be fed inciteful propoganda. The answer to this is not cutting off support to Israel, but instead giving the Arab/Muslim world a reliable source of news for the ones who want to listen.

U.S. Interests
Israel not a Loyal Ally
The authors attempts to make the argument that Israel isn’t a loyal ally of the United States. On page 6 of the study the authors state:

A final reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it does not act like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore U.S. requests and renege on promises made to top U.S. leaders (including past pledges to halt settlement construction and to refrain from “targeted assassinations” of Palestinian leaders). Moreover, Israel has provided sensitive U.S. military technology to potential U.S. rivals like China, in what the U.S. State Department Inspector-General called “a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorized transfers.”

In fact, Israel is one of the few countries in the world which gives the U.S. veto powers over its arms sales. In 2004 China sent weapons to Israel for an upgrade. U.S. got word of the deal and ordered Israel to confiscate the weapons from China. China pressured Israel to complete the upgrade. Instead Israel sent the weapons back to China without the upgrade. Both U.S. and the Chinese were furious with Israel for not listening to either one of them. Shortly after this affair the U.S. imposed Sanctions on Israel. These sanctions were not lifted until Israel signed an agreement with the U.S., allowing the U.S. the ability to veto Israeli arms deals with other nations. Israel has respected this agreement with the U.S. and this was proven in October 2005 when Israel respected a U.S. request to cancel an arms deal with Venezuela. On top of that the U.S. has sold weapons to Israel’s enemies in the past.

Israel has had other problems with the U.S. such as the Lavon Affair and the Jonathon Pollard incident, but there is no truth to the accusation that Israel is not a loyal ally. Israel has voted with the United States more consistantly than any other country in the world except Micronesia. Israel has backed America in every major world conflict even before they were an established country. The Jews living in current day Israel fought on the allys side in world war 1 and world war 2. They took America’s side during the cold war (the authors even admit this) and they are definitly on our side during this war on terror.

Democracy
Israel is not a democracy
Despite Israel being the only country in the region in which all citizens are guaranteed free speech and the right to vote for the head of their government, the authors of the study actually make a claim that Israel is not a democracy; a statement easily disproved by looking at any encyclopedia or history book. On page 8 of the study the authors state:

The “shared democracy” rationale is also weakened by aspects of Israeli democracy that are at odds with core American values. The United States is a liberal democracy where people of any race, religion, or ethnicity are supposed to enjoy equal rights. By contrast, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this conception of citizenship, it is not surprising that Israel’s 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a “neglectful and discriminatory” manner towards them.

The “blood kinship” that the author is refering to is Israel’s law of return for Jewish people. It is actually not a “blood” thing since converts to judaism are covered under it too reguardless of which religion they converted from. The law of return is seperate from Israel’s citizenship laws. A non-jew can get Israeli citizenship as well by simply fullfilling Israel’s citzenship requirements (which are not much different than most other country’s citizenship laws). The writer refers to Israel’s law of return as a racist law, but if Israel is racist for its law of return, then so is Germany, so is Russia, so is Finland, and so are many other Muslim countries who also have law of returns for displaced citizens.

Israel’s 1.3 million Arab citizens are considered full citizens of Israel and enjoy all the same rights as Jews, including the right to vote. Israel treats all its citizens equally. There is some discrimination against Arabs, but this is not unique to Israel. Every country in the world has suffered some form of discrimination against its minority citizens. Under the author’s logic America is technically not a democracy since we used to segregate blacks. France would not a democracy because of the discrimination against blacks and Arabs. Many European countries would not be democracies because some Europeans hold anti-semetic views. The fact people in a country hold racist views against a minority does not mean that country is not a demoracy.

Aparatheid
The authors say on page 8

Israel’s democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own. Israel controls the lives of about 3.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, while colonizing lands on which the Palestinians have long dwelt. Israel is formally democratic, but the millions of Palestinians that it controls are denied full political rights and the “shared democracy” rationale is correspondingly weakened.

The authors, later in the study, compare Israel to aparatheid South Africa.

This accusation is based on the fact that Israel doesn’t give full citizenship rights to Palestinians living in the Palestinian territories. This is because Palestinians are citizens of the P.A. Not citizens of Israel. It is kind of like calling America aparatheid because we dont give the same citizenship rights to people in Mexico. If Israel did give the Palestininians in the territories full citizenship rights they would have effectively annexed all of the Palestinian territories, which is what many of Israel’s opponents are fighting against. Israel should be under no obligation to grant citizens of the P.A. full Israeli citizenship. Israeli Arabs (Arab citizens living inside Israel), however, are given full citizenship rights including the right to vote. It is simply untrue to refer to Israel as aparatheid.

America Overthrowing Democracies, Supporting Dictatorships
On page 8 the authors state:

American backing is often justified by the claim that Israel is a fellow-democracy surrounded by hostile dictatorships. This rationale sounds convincing, but it cannot account for the current level of U.S. support. After all, there are many democracies around the world, but none receives the lavish support that Israel does. The United States has overthrown democratic governments in the past and supported dictators when this was thought to advance U.S. interests, and it has good relations with a number of dictatorships today. Thus, being democratic neither justifies nor explains America’s support for Israel.

Supporting Democracies
The “many democracies across the world” are not under the constant threat from non-democratic forces as Israel is. The only closer example in the world is South Korea. Democratic South Korea is under constant threat from communist North Korea and China. And we have thousands of troops stationed in South Korea for the sole purpose of protecting them. We may not be vetoing one sided resolutions for South Korea the same way we do for Israel, but this is because South Korea’s enemies dont have as much power in the U.N. as Israel’s enemies so there are no one sided U.N. resolutions to veto for South Korea. If South Korean interests were under constant attack from its enemies, the same way Israel’s are, we would be doing the same thing for democratic South Korea. Lets not forget how we “lavishly supported” western Europe during the cold with billions of dollars in reperation and the creation of NATO as well as many of our troops stationed across Europe. America is not giving Israel any special treatment. We have supported democracies across the world ever since world war 2, and Israel is no exception.

Supporting Dictatorships, Overthrowing Democracies
The authors make the claim that America has overthrown democracies in the past and currently supports dictatorships when its in our interests. It may be true that we have supported dictatorships (like Saudi Arabia) but just because we support their governments doesn’t mean we support their human rights violations. While we might support the Saudi royal family, we still privately critizise many of their oppressive ways (including their oppression of non-Muslims). As for the claim of overthrowing democracies, this is completely untrue. Never in the history of our nation have we overthrown, or helped overthrow another democracy. The only one incident that many anti-American individuals point to is the coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in early 2002. This is a flawed argument, however, because we didn’t participate in the coup. We did not directly fund Chavez’s opposition as so many people claim. America never helped overthrow another democracy, and this is just one of many examples of inaccuracies in the study.

Compensating for Past Crimes
Holocaust
In this section of the study the authors try to challenge the argument that the state of Israel should get special treatment because of the holocaust. Page 9 states:

There is no question that Jews suffered greatly from the despicable legacy of anti-Semitism, and that Israel’s creation was an appropriate response to a long record of crimes. This history, as noted, provides a strong moral case for supporting Israel’s existence. But the creation of Israel involved additional crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians.

The Palestinians were anything but innocent when it comes to the holocaust. The Grand Mufti of Palestine, Hajj Amin el-Hussein, in the 1930s was quoted “Our Fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world”. Many Palestinians and Arabs in the region shared the Mufti’s views. There were concentration camps in many Arab countries and one in the Palestinian territories. To this day Mein Kamph is a best-seller among the Palestinian population. The Final Solution was actually a Muslim idea, not a nazi one. Hitler didn’t begin his systematic extermination of Jews until he met and allied with the Grand Mufti of Palestine. (For more on this see the Muslim/Nazi Connection). The authors’ lack of knowledge on Arab involvment in the world war 2 makes me further question the credibility of this study.

1948 War
On page 9 the authors state:

The mainstream Zionist leadership was not interested in establishing a bi-national state or accepting a permanent partition of Palestine.

Also untrue. The Jews fully accepted the partition of two states, but the Arab world rejected it wanting to conquor ‘all of Palestine’. The 1948 war was launched by the Arab armies for the sole purpose of destroying the newly established state of Israel. Some ultra-nationalist Jews may have stated that they didn’t want the creation of an Arab state, but the mainstream population supported it.

Later on page 9 the study states:

To achieve this goal, the Zionists had to expel large numbers of Arabs from the territory that would eventually become Israel. There was simply no other way to accomplish their objective. Ben-Gurion saw the problem clearly, writing in 1941 that “it is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.” Or as Israeli historian Benny Morris puts it, “the idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has
accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century.”This opportunity came in 1947-48, when Jewish forces drove up to 700,000 Palestinians into exile.

It makes me wonder how two academic scholars could get the history so wrong. Most Arabs that left current day Israel left on their own free will. Only a small number (Deir Yassin) were forced out of their homes by Jewish terrorists. Israel’s opponents try to make it look like all of them were forced out that way. The fact is the majority of Arabs left on their own free will either out of fear of an upcoming war or to help the invading Arab armies destroy the newly established state. The proof of this is if Israel wanted to forcibly remove Arabs from their homes they would have removed all of them. Why would Israel have left at least 170,000 Arabs, which since has grown to 1.3 million? The Arabs that remained after the 1948 war were there because they CHOSE NOT TO LEAVE.

Jews Committing Terror?
The study makes an interesting analogy between current day Palestinian terrorism and the terrorism commited by the Jewish Haganah in pre-state Israel. Page 12 of the study states:

Finally, we should not forget that the Zionists used terrorism when they were in a similarly weak position and trying to obtain their own state. Between 1944 and 1947, several Zionist organizations used terrorist bombings to drive the British from Palestine, and took the lives of many innocent civilians along the way.

It is true that many Jewish terrorist groups in pre-state Israel used terrorism to gain their objectives. And in some ways the acts of these terrorist groups are similar to present-day Palestinian terrorism. But there is one major difference between the Zionist leadership in pre-state Israel and the Palestinian government of today. As soon as the state of Israel was created the Israeli government (led by Ben-Gurion) forcibily disarmed the Jewish terrorist groups, which were terrorizing Arabs, the British, and in some cases U.N. monitors. The Israeli government permanently disarmed the Haganah (which was once used to protect Jews in pre-state Israel, but began to resort to terrorist activities) and many other similar groups and the wave of Jewish terrorism was brought to a halt. The same thing cannot be said of the Palestinians. The P.A. has been allowing terrorist groups to attack Israel for many decades and it doesn’t look like they will stop anytime soon. Even as recently as March 2006, Palestinian Interior Minister was quoted saying that he would not arrest militants who attack Israel and not only that, and he offered to help “coordinate militant operations” against Israel.

Lobby Influence
The Israel Lobby
The core focus of this study is how the “pro-Israel lobbys” control America’s middle east policy. When the study refers to “the lobby” they are not necesarily talking about AIPAC. They are including all pro-Israel organizations. On page 13 the authors describe the “lobby” as:

We use “the Lobby” as a convenient short-hand term for the loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Our use of this term is not meant to suggest that “the Lobby” is a unified movement with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree on certain issues.

The study classifies “American Jews”, “Christian Evangilists”, and “neo-conservatives” as the main base of the “lobby”. I am living proof that this is untrue, since I dont fit into any of these three catagories, yet I approve of my goverment supporting the state of Israel. If the study considers “Israel’s lobby” as anyone who sticks up for Israel, or anyone who supports our government’s support for Israel than that makes the majority of the American population as “the Israel lobby”. Clearly the lobby groups such as AIPAC can not decide the foreign policy of a nation. The most recent Gallup poll states that the American public’s support for Israel has grown to an all-time high over the past year. Since America is a democracy, and the American public has clearly stated that they wish for their government to continue supporting Israel, then that is what should be done, since its the will of the people, not the will of a “lobby group”.

anti-Israel Lobby Groups
The study makes no mention of the at least 8 anti-Israel lobby groups (as well as the “Arab oil lobby”) actively working in congress to stop U.S. suppoort for Israel. In fact, on page 15 the authors incorrectly state:

pro-Arab interest groups are weak to non-existent, which makes the Lobby’s task even easier.

While major pro-Israel lobbies in congress consist of AIPAC, JINSA, NAPAC, and soon to be created CUFI (the so-called “Christian AIPAC”) very few know that there are at least 8 other anti-Israel lobby groups working in washington that work the same way as the pro-Israel lobby groups. These 8 groups include:

CAIR- (Council on American-Islamic Relations)
MPAC- (Muslim Public Affairs Council)
ADC- (American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee)
Al-AWDA – (The Palestine Right of Return Coalition)
Atlanta Palestine Solidarity
ISM- (International Solidarity Movement)
AAPER – (American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights)
NAAA – (National Association of Arab Americans)

There is no shortage of anti-Israel groups in Washington. So if America’s foreign policy were soley based on lobby groups, then America would be the most anti-Israel country in the western world.

Techniques of Lobby Groups
Groups like AIPAC work the same way that every other of the thousands of lobby groups work. They simply help the campaigns of politicians who support their views. Groups like the NRA work the same way by helping the campaigns of politicians who oppose gun control. The anti-Israel lobbies listed above help the campaigns of politicians who are more hostile to Israel. There is nothing unusual about the way groups like AIPAC function (I am not talking about the specific group AIPAC, which is currently involved in a government investigation for illegally mishandling classified information). However, the authors of this study attempt to argue that the influence of pro-Israel lobby groups goes above and beyong that of normal lobbying groups.

Letter Writing
On page 20 of the study the authors write:

To discourage unfavorable reporting on Israel, the Lobby organizes letter writing campaigns,
demonstrations, and boycotts against news outlets whose content it considers anti-Israel.

For one thing pro-Palestinian groups organize letter campaigns as well on media outlets that they consider to be “too pro-Israel”.There is nothing wrong with letter writing to the media. Many special interest groups do this to give another point of view of the program. Expressing ones point of view is part of living in a democracy. I get many emails about my website from people that don’t agree with me, and I always post those emails for all to see so everyone’s point of view is heard.

Campuses
On page 21 the authors state:

The Lobby has had the most difficulty stifling debate about Israel on college campuses, because academic freedom is a core value and because tenured professors are hard to threaten or silence.
…
The Lobby moved aggressively to “take back the campuses.” New groups sprang up, like the Caravan for Democracy, which brought Israeli speakers to U.S. colleges. Established groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Hillel jumped into the fray, and a new group—the Israel on Campus Coalition— was formed to coordinate the many groups that now sought to make Israel’s case on campus. Finally, AIPAC more than tripled its spending for programs to monitor university activities and to train young advocates for Israel, in order to “vastly expand the number of students involved on campus . . . in the national pro-Israel effort.”

First of all, the “lobby” does not wish to “stifle” debate on Israel. The pro-Israel groups which work on campuses simply wish to present a different point of view than the anti-Israel rhetoric which has become common on many college campuses. Similarly, groups like the Muslim Student association and other Arab/Muslim groups on campuses organize anti-Israel activities all the time and bring in Arab speakers as well. College students hear many speeches from Arabs and pro-Palestinian speakers, so I dont see anything wrong with someone balancing this with Israeli speakers. In fact not allowing Israeli speakers and pro-Israel groups on campuses would be a form of “stifling debate” in and of itself.

The Great Silencer
A key argument made by the writers is that anyone who criticizes any Israeli policy is labeled “anti-semetic” by the pro-Israel groups, and therefore legitamite debate is stifled. Page 23 notes:

Anyone who criticizes Israeli actions or says that pro-Israel groups have significant influence
over U.S. Middle East policy—an influence that AIPAC celebrates—stands a good chance of getting labeled an anti-Semite. In fact, anyone who says that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism, even though the Israeli media themselves refer to America’s “Jewish Lobby.” In effect, the Lobby boasts of its own power and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. This tactic is very effective, because anti-Semitism is loathsome and no responsible person wants to be accused of it.

The truth is NO ONE gets labeled “anti-semetic” for simply criticizing Israel’s policy. Israel is a country, and like any other country their policies can be criticized and debated. Many Israelis and Jewish leaders openly criticize Israel’s policies. This does not make one an “anti-semite”. The only times that Jewish groups will label someone “anti-semetic” is when that individual is obsessed with Israel-bashing, or if they hate Israel solely because it is Jewish state. Wheather the Jewish leaders are correct in assesing this charge or not is beyond the scope of this page and website. This wesbsite is living proof that no one calls mere criticisms of Israel “anti-semetic”. On my site I have criticized many Israeli policies, such as their espionage against the United States, their illegal settlement activity, and when then they illegally forged New Zealand passports and other times as well, and despite this NO ONE has emailed me saying that I was “anti-semetic”. Despite the many criticisms against Israel on this site NO ONE has labeled this an “anti-semetic” site. The same is true of the many others who criticize Israeli policy, including Bush. Bush has publicly opposed Israel’s continued settlement expansion and no one has labeled him “anti-semetic”. The charge of these authors that groups like AIPAC label all criticism of Israel as “anti-semetic” is a pure lie that is used to silence legitamate pro-Israel arguments.

AIPAC Inaccuracy
Another inaccuracy I noted while reading the study was on page 25 where the authors state:

In particular, it has worked successfully to convince American leaders to back Israel’s continued repression of the Palestinians and to take aim at Israel’s primary regional adversaries: Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
And then again on page 29
Maintaining U.S. support for Israel’s policies against the Palestinians is a core goal of the Lobby, but its ambitions do not stop there. It also wants America to help Israel remain the dominant regional power. Not surprisingly, the Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States worked together to shape the Bush Administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria, and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.

This is completely inaccurate and in fact the opposite is true. Look at AIPAC’s site. They atually encourage aid to the Palestinian people.
From AIPAC site:.
Aipac states their goal is to “Attach safeguards to aid to the Palestinian Authority to ensure that the assistance is spent helping the Palestinian people, not siphoned off by terrorist groups or corrupt officials.” No where on the AIPAC website do they wish any harm to the Palestinian people. Same goes for most other pro-Israel group

As for “shaping middle east policy” AIPAC does advocate the U.S. taking forceful action against Iran’s nuclear program, but NEVER did they directly support the Iraq war or direct confrontation with Syria or against any other middle east nation. This is a distortion by the authors that should make us furhter question their credibility on this issue.

Threats to Israel
Israel and the Iraq War
A key argument in the study was that the Iraq war was launched to ‘protect’ Israel. On page 29 the authors state:

Instead,the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.

The author uses quotes from Israeli leaders who supported the Iraq war to back up his argument. No matter how much someone wants to argue that Israel made the Iraq war happen, the simple fact is that Iraq was no major threat to Israel, and Israel in no way benefits from having Saddam Hussein removed. If it was up to Israel who we attacked we would have for sure attacked Iran. The authors even admit this on page 37:

Israelis tend to describe every threat in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous enemy because it is the most likely adversary to acquire nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons as an existential threat. As Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer remarked one month before the Iraq war: “Iraq is a problem …. But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq.”

It makes no sense to argue that Israel had anything to do with the war against Iraq. Sure Saddam funded Palestinian terrorists, but so does Iran and every other Islamic country in the world. Why would Iraq be singled out for that reason? And lets remember that Saddam Hussein had many other countries in the region who didn’t care for him, such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, among others.

Later on page 29 the autors state:

intelligence officials had given Washington a variety of alarming reports about Iraq’s WMD programs. As one retired Israeli general later put it, “Israeli intelligence was a full partner to the picture presented by American and British intelligence regarding Iraq’s non-conventional capabilities.”

Did the authors forget that Jordanian, Egyptian, Russian, and British intelligence also concluded that Saddam had WMD? Not to mention our own CIA came to that conclusion and many Iraqi dissidends also made that claim. Many believe Saddam pretended to have WMD just to scare other countries in the region.

Gunning for Syria
The study tries to make it look like Israel is trying to push the U.S. to attack Syria, or at least to “put pressure” on them. On page 36 the authors state:

Sharon and Shaul Mofaz, his defense minister, gave high profile interviews in different Israeli newspapers. Sharon, in Yedioth Ahronoth, called for the United States to put “very heavy” pressure on Syria. Mofaz told Ma’ariv that, “We have a long list of issues that we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians and it is appropriate that it should be done through the Americans.” Sharon’s national security advisor, Ephraim Halevy, told a WINEP audience that it was now important for the United States to get rough with Syria.

The author tries to make it sound like Israel is the only one country that wishes to put pressure on Syria. He forgets that it was only about a year ago when France was actually on our side calling for sanctions against Syria. After the assasination of Rafiq Harriri, most of the world joined together to force Syria towithdraw from Lebanon. Many Lebanese were also pressuring Syria to leave. Even the former Syrian vice President, Abdul Halim Khaddam, joined the international community to demand Syria stop controlling Lebanese affairs. This pressure against Syria had nothing to do with Israel.

Iran
The study argues that U.S. is putting pressure on Iran because Israel is afraid of their nuclear weapons. A nuclear armed Iran is not only a threat to Israel, but a threat to the rest of the world. If Iran obtains nuclear weapons, they could strike Israel, intimidate Saudi Arabia, target our troops in Iraq, and start an arms race with the surrounding Arab nations. Iran can target any European country once it has nuclear capabilities. It is rather unlikely Iran would directly target anyone, but what the world is more afraid of is Iran selling or giving away nuclear technology to Islamic terrorists. The authors attempt to downplay these fears on page 5:

Even if these states acquire nuclear weapons—which is obviously not desirable—it would not be a strategic disaster for the United States. Neither America nor Israel could be blackmailed by a nuclear-armed rogue, because the blackmailer could not carry out the threat without receiving overwhelming retaliation. The danger of a “nuclear handoff” to terrorists is equally remote, because a rogue state could not be sure the transfer would be undetected or that it would not be blamed and punished afterwards.

Iran doesn’t care about “overwhelming retaliation” or about “being blamed and punished afterwards”. If Iran really cared what the international community wanted they would be more willing to compromise with the west and Russia reguarding their nuclear ambitions. Besided, once Iran obtains nuclear weapons it would be impossible to “punish them aftewards”. They will be able to blackmail the world. The U.S. opposes a nuclear armed Iran, not because of Israel, but because it is in the world’s best interest.

What about Saudi Arabia?
The study goes on and on for pages about how the “Israel lobby” is “forcing” America to attack Israel’s enemies such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria. But nowhere does he mention one of Israel’s biggest threats, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis actively fund Palestinian terrorist groups and have a tendency to blame al qaida attacks against the kingdon on “zionists”. Saudi Arabia is one of the few Muslim countries that enforces the Arab League boycott of Israel. The Saudis are probably the biggest threat to Israel after Iran. Yet America has not started any conflicts with the Saudis. America’s conflicts with Iran, Iraq, and Syria have nothing to do with Israel. If Israel had anything to do with it, the Saudis would have been attacked too.

Israel Can Defend Itself
If Israel truly wanted to have its enemies attacked, they would do it themseleves. Page 34 of the study notes:

Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the U.S. military more directly involved in the Middle East, so it could help protect Israel.

Israel attacked an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1981, when it was believed Saddam was making a nuclear bomb. They did not make America do it. Israel has one of the strongest armies in the world. Plus it is believed that Israel has 100+ nuclear weapons. The idea that Israel needs America to fight its battles is laughable when Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself against such threats.

Hypocrisy of Writers
As we saw, the study repeatedly implies that the Iraq war was inflenced by the lobby group and that we were attacked on 9/11 because of Israel.Yet just a year and half ago co-author of the study, John Mearsheimer, was quoted naming completely different reasons for the Iraq war. As Camera.org has noted:
(from camera.org)
So their point could not be more clear: The United States went to war in Iraq largely in the interests of Israel, and thanks largely to the influence of pro-Israel administration officials, most of whom are Jewish and are tied to Israel’s Likud party.

It couldn’t be more striking then, to read Professor Mearsheimer stating in late December of 2004 almost exactly the opposite concerning the origins of the Iraq war. Interviewed on a website called American Amnesia, Prof. Mearsheimer stated clearly that administration officials went to war in good faith, expecting “in their heart of hearts” to find WMD and ties between Osama bin Laden and Saddam:

A number of [Bush administration officials] who were in favor of the war believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was joined at the hip with Osama Bin Laden. At the same time, I think that they were aware that we had no hard evidence to support either one of those contentions; but in their heart of hearts they believed that both suppositions would be proven true once we were in Iraq and gained access to the evidence. I believe that people like Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, were shocked that we found no WMD and no evidence of cooperation between Saddam and Bin Laden. I think that they expected to find that evidence.

So according to Mearsheimer, Wolfowitz and the other senior administration officials were actually acting in the interests of the United States rather than of Israel. The good professor continued:

What you often discovered when debating proponents of the war was that if they admitted that Saddam might not be an imminent threat, they would invariably fall back on the argument that this is actually the ideal time to attack him because he is not especially dangerous at the moment. Why wait until he is armed and a serious threat to the United States? Let’s get him when he is weak and vulnerable.

Note that according to Mearsheimer, for these supporters of the war it wasn’t Israel that was the issue, but rather that Saddam could well become “a serious threat to the United States.”

And in a long answer, Mearsheimer specifically attributed Wolfowitz’s support for the war not to any concern for Israel, but rather to his belief in the transformative power of democracy:

I think that Wolfowitz, who was the war’s principle architect, believes very strongly that the most powerful political ideology on the face of the earth is democracy and that every individual is hard-wired with a potent democratic impulse inside him or her. The only thing that prevents that democratic impulse from manifesting itself is the presence of a tyrant or an authoritarian regime like Saddam’s. Thus, I think he believed that once we decapitated the regime in Iraq, we would not have to worry much about what the replacement regime looked like, because that democratic impulse, once unleashed, would produce a democratic form of government that would not only be friendly to the United States, but would allow us to leave Iraq quickly and painlessly. I think that the model that Wolfowitz and other neo-conservatives had in mind was Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They believed that once Saddam was gone, once we got rid of the Ayatollahs in Iran, once we got rid of the Ba’athists in Syria, democracy would take hold in those places, because it is such a powerful and attractive ideology.

Notice especially that Mearsheimer says that he believed that Wolfowitz expected the new, post-Saddam Iraq would be “friendly to the United States” – with no mention of Israel.

Questioned as to whether Wolfowitz might have been lying about the reasons for going to war, Professor Mearsheimer responded with a firm “No”:

No, I don’t think this particular issue involves myth making or lying or deception or anything like that. One could call it self-deception. Wolfowitz had a particular view of international politics that he honestly believed in and that he was adept at articulating and defending. Nevertheless, I thought before the war, and I certainly think now, that his theory of international politics is deeply flawed.

So Wolfowitz acted in good faith, in the interests of the U.S., and based on perceptions that “he honestly believed in.”
(the above was directly copied from Camera.org)

Conclusion
While looking through this study we have found many inaccuracies and contradictions. It is very sad to see two academic scholars resorting to such attacks against poor little Israel. The study makes the claim many times that Israel is not really in danger and there is no threat to its existence or legitemacy. The very existence of this study proves that Israel’s legitamecy is under attack. The authors wish to break apart America’s support for Israel to further isolate them, against the will of the general American public. All people who care for democracy and justice should reject such inflammatory attacks as this study. Israel, like any other country, has its problems and should be proportionatly criticised for them. However nothing justifies the current level of hostility towards them. The Israelis need and deserve our support and as long as they remain a civilized democracy, as long as they continue to enforce the rule of law, and as long as they continue to support America’s interest in the middle east, Israel has my complete support.

Site Analysis This page is dedicated to analyzing the website www.IfAmericansKnew.org and pointing out and correcting all lies, inaccuracies, and distortions of the site.

NOTE: This page is NOT a personal attack against Alison. It is a critique of her website and her organization. This page encourages those who disagree with Alison and her organization to dispute the contents of her site in a civilized manner using the facts provided on this page, and STRONGLY DISCOURAGES any form of personal or physical attacks against Alison, anyone in her organization, or anyone supportive of her organization.

IfAmericansKnew is a site that exploits Palestinian suffering for purposes of demonizing Israel. IfAmericansKnew grossly misrepresents the situation in the middle east. In its mission statement the site says: “If Americans Knew is a non-profit organization whose mission is to inform and educate the American public on issues of major importance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media. Our current focus is the Israel/Palestine conflict” As we will see in this site analysis, IfAmericansKnew is actually the one unreporting, underreporting, and misreporting the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Contents of this Page

Alison Weir

Statistics

U.N. Resolutions

Aid to Israel/Palestine

History

The “Jewish-Only Roads”

Torture

Terrorist or Resistance Fighter?

Media Bias

Bulletin on Suicide Bombing

Prisoners Vs Hostages *NEW

IfAmericansKnew Influence

Weir’s Credibility

Reader Comments

Alison Weir, founder

of IfAmericansKnew.org

Click HERE to see a criticism of this analysis

Alison Weir
Alison is the founder if the anti-Israel site and organization, IfAmericansKnew. Alison spent one month in Gaza to observe the living conditions of the Palestinians. Alison had a first hand glimpse of the suffering that the Palestinians have been enduring, and she makes no hesitations in dramatizing it for propaganda. However, despite Alison’s extensive knowledge on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict she has failed to look deep enough into the conflict to understand why the Palestinians are suffering and living under miserable conditions. She blames Israel for the Palestinian’s suffering and totally disregards the Palestinians’ real enemies. Nowhere on her site does she mention the corruption of their former leader, Yessir Arafat. Alison makes no mention of the Palestinian terrorist groups who commit murder and terrorism against civilians in the name of the Palestinians which result in Israeli incursions into the territories. Weir makes no mention of the leaders of surrounding Arab nations that are fighting tooth and nail to keep the Israeli/Palestinian conflict going. She ONLY blames Israel for the Palestinians’ suffering. Alison is a very talented writer. It is too bad she has used her talent to promote bigotry and confusion on the middle east.

We are going to go through the many sections of the site to expose the inaccuracies and deceptions.

Statistics
Deaths
On the front page of IfAmericansKnew(ACCP) there are statistics such as “total Israeli/Palestinian deaths” and “total Israeli/Palestinian children killed” and “total Israeli/Palestinian houses demolished” etc. The statistics are meant to show that Palestinians are dying more and suffering more than the Israelis. They show that some 4100 Palestinians have been killed and “only” some 1020 Israelis have been killed. Or 943 Palestinian children killed and “only” 118 Israeli children killed (number of Israeli children killed actually dropped since March 2007 form 123).

This is directly from IfAmericansKnew:

1,023 Israelis and at least 4,160 Palestinians *have been killed since September 29, 2000.

*this used to say ‘Palestinians killed by Israelis’

118 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 943 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
*since last update, the number of Israeli children actually dropped from 123

Weir mentions the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians, but the numbers she is using are misleading. One reason being that the Palestinian deaths were not always caused by Israel. The numbers she is using includes Palestinians killed by Palestinians It is estimated that at least 13% of Palestinians killed were killed by other Palestinians. It would be more fair to only count the innocent civilians killed on each side. According to B-Tselem, It is estimated that 70% of the Israelis killed in those numbers were innocent civilians, and around 47% of the Palestinians in those numbers were innocent civilians. If we go to the Palestinian numbers and take out the suicide bombers, the Palestinians killed by other Palestinians, the armed combatants, the terrorist leaders and all other non civilians, the 4160 would drop to around 1,955. Now lets do the same with the Israeli side. During a time of war the soldiers can be considered legitimate targets. It is estimated that 30% of the Israelis killed were soldiers and about 70% innocent civilians. The 1023 drops to about 715 (give or take). So in reality 1955 innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed and 715 innocent Israelis have been killed. That’s still a lot, but a lot more in perspective than IfAmericansKnew tries to portray. Now lets take a look at the circumstances of those deaths. Most Israelis died from suicide bombings or other terrorist attacks, where the attackers INTENTIONALLY targeted Israeli civilians. The majority of Palestinian civilian deaths were caused by the crossfire between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants and they were NOT intentionally targeted by Israel. This is not to say there haven’t been any incidents in which individuals in the Israeli army have intentionally killed innocent Palestinians. One of the major reasons the Israeli deaths are lower is because the Israeli government takes measures to protect its people, while the Palestinian government goes out of its way to have as many civilians killed as possible to use the deaths as propaganda. The PA and Hamas have been known to put legitimate military targets, such as weapons factories, near civilian locations, even schools, so when the Israeli army comes to take those factories down they would inevitably end up killing innocent civilians. The truth is that the Palestinians benefit with a higher death rate because they can use it as propaganda against Israel. There are many incentives for the Palestinian government to try and increase Palestinian causalities and they make no hesitation in doing so. While Israel, on the other end, has nothing to gain, and everything to lose by having innocent Palestinians killed.
House demolitions
Another statistic that IfAmericansKnew puts on its front page is about the house demolitions.
This is from the IfAmericansKnew website:

0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 4,170 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since September 29, 2000.

IfAmericansKnew is referring to Israel’s policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian terrorists, their families, and houses used for terrorist purposes as a deterrent against terrorism. What Weir doesn’t mention on the site is the only time a Palestinian house would be demolished is when the house belongs to a terrorist or a family member of a terrorist or if the house was used to promote terrorism. (Israel does have a practice of demolishing homes that were built without a “permit”. This practice is wrong, but happens far less than IfAmericansKnew implies). Israel NEVER randomly bulldozes houses just for fun as this site implies and they NEVER bulldoze homes when people are inside. The ONLY purpose of this policy is to create a deterrent for would be suicide bombers and terrorists. This statistic seems to imply that the Palestinians have never ‘demolished’ an Israeli home. IfAmericansKnew doesn’t mention that Palestinians constantly launch kassams and missiles at Israeli homes, including homes in Israel-proper. The missiles may not cause as much damage as bulldozer, but many Israeli homes have been hit and one must also take into account the feeling of terror that Israelis never know when a missile is going to hit. Off course the Palestinians haven’t ‘demolished’ Israeli homes. They don’t have the means to. Imagine if Caterpillar gave the Palestinians bulldozers. Since many Palestinian fighters have no hesitation destroying houses of Israeli civilians with kassams and mortars, there can be no doubt that if they had bulldozers, they would take them into Israeli towns and bulldoze any house they can find with or without people in them. It is the intention that counts. If the Palestinians had the means to demolish homes, they would.

U.N. Resolutions
The front page IfAmericansKnew has a statistic about U.N. resolutions targeting Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel has been targeted by at least 65 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by none.

Take a look at some of the “65 resolutions” the site claims targeted Israel(source):

Jerusalem
9. Resolution 250: “..’calls’ on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem”
10. Resolution 251: “…’deeply deplores’ Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250″
16. Resolution 267: “…’censures’ Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem&”;
18. Resolution 271: “…’condemns’ Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem”;
22. Resolution 298: “…’deplores’ Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem
40. Resolution 476: …’reiterates’ that Israel’s claims to Jerusalem are ‘null and void’
Notice any repeats?

Lebanon
19. Resolution 279: …’demands’ withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon
20. Resolution 280: ….’condemns’Israeli’s attacks against Lebanon
21. Resolution 285: …’demands’ immediate Israeli withdrawal form Lebanon
23. Resolution 313: …’demands’ that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon
24. Resolution 316: ..’condemns’ Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon
26. Resolution 332: …’condemns’ Israel’s repeated attacks against Lebanon
27. Resolution 337: …’condemns’ Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty
28. Resolution 347: …’condemns’ Israeli attacks on Lebanon
29. Resolution 425: …’calls’ on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon
30. Resolution 427: …’calls’ on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon
33. Resolution 450: …’calls’ on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon
36. Resolution 467: …’strongly deplores’ Israel’s military intervention in Lebanon
45. Resolution 498: …’calls’ on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon
46. Resolution 501: ..’calls’ on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops
47. Resolution 509: …’demands’ that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon
49. Resolution 517: …’censures’ Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon
53. Resolution 587: ;..’takes note’ of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw
17 resolutions all saying the same thing: withdraw from Lebanon. I think they heard you the first sixteen times!

Settlements
34. Resolution 452: ..’calls’ on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories
35. Resolution 465: …’deplores’ Israel’s settlements and asks all member states not to assist Israel’s settlements program

Deportation
37. Resolution 468: ..’calls’ on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return
38. Resolution 469: …’strongly deplores’ Israel’s failure to observe the council’s order not to deport Palestinians;
42. Resolution 484: …’declares it imperative’ that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors.
56. Resolution 607: …’calls’ on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention
57. Resolution 608: …’deeply regrets’ that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians&”;
58. Resolution 636: …’deeply regrets’ Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians
59. Resolution 641: …’deplores’ Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians
61. Resolution 673: …’deplores’ Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations
62. Resolution 681: …’deplores’ Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians
63. Resolution 694: …’deplores’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return
64. Resolution 726: …’strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of Palestinians
65. Resolution 799: …’strongly condemns’ Israel’s deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.
a whopping 12 times they make the same resolution condemning Israel’s deportation of Palestinians!

Notice how after you take apart the 65 resolutions listed on the site you find that the resolutions are saying the same things over and over again. Therefore it is misleading to say “at least 65 resolutions” targeting Israel. There is also the issue of the U.N.’s marked bias against Israel at play here, but I will not go into it in this site analysis.

Aid to Israel/Palestine (this needs to be updated, check back soon)
IfAmericansKnew puts a statistic on the front page which is meant to represent U.S. aid to Israel and the Palestinians.
This is directly from the site:

The U.S. gives $15,139,178 per day to the Israeli government and military and $232,290 per day to Palestinian NGOs.

The site claims Israel receives $15 million a day! That comes to $5.5 billion a year! Their source for this was washington-report.org, which is a heavily bias anti-Israel and anti-American website. The TRUE amount of annual aid that Israel receives is currently $2.6 billion. That comes to $7.1 million a day. IfAmericansKnew misrepresents our annual aid to Israel by nearly doubling the true figure. One item about U.S. aid to Israel that IfAmericansKnew misreports is that Israel is required to spend 75% of all aid within the U.S. So our aid money ends up being recycled back into the country. I am kind of curious to know why they didn’t mention this important fact about the aid money. Another thing IfAmericansKnew does to misrepresent the numbers is they include loans, and loan guarantees into that huge number. Loans are paid back, so it is not fair to include this into the total aid numbers. As of right now, Israel has never defaulted on a loan to us, although there have been a couple of loans in which congress decided to turn into grants. Our loan guarantees to Israel, are simply guarantees to other countries in which Israel wants to borrow from. Some countries may not feel comfortable giving a small country like Israel a loan, and we agree to pay if Israel defaults. Israel has never defaulted on any of these loans with any of those countries, therefore this has cost us nothing, It is not fair for IfAmericansKnew to include these numbers into the aid figures. IfAmericansKnew also fails to mention why we give such substantial amount of aid to Israel. They attribute it to lobby groups such as AIPAC. They don’t mention it is because of Israel’s strategic importance to the U.S. and for Israel being a democracy. As for aid to the Palestinians, the site says they get $232,000 a day and that comes to about $85 million a year. However, according to the BBC, in 2005 the Palestinians received $400 million in aid from the U.S. IfAmericansKnew doubles our actual aid to Israel, but only mentions 1/5 of our actual aid to the Palestinians. IfAmericansKnew also misleads its readers by not mentioning that the Palestinians get billions of dollars of aid from the rest of the world, while at the same time Israel gets 0 in aid from any other country besides the U.S. (although Israel does receive donations from various Jewish groups). The Palestinians get at least an additional $600 million from the E.U., as well as aid from just about every country in the world (outside of the Arab/Muslim world). So annual assistance from the whole world to Israel and the Palestinians is not that much different, since the Palestinians get a huge chunk of aid from the rest of the world while Israel ONLY gets aid from the U.S.

History
In the ‘history’ section of IfAmericansKnew, they have a very incomplete and inaccurate assessment of the true history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Zionism
For example, the site states:

“… in the late 1800s a group in Europe decided to colonize this land. Known as ‘;Zionists’, this group consisted of an extremist minority of the world Jewish population. They wanted to create a Jewish homeland, and at first considered locations in Africa and South America, before finally settling on Palestine for their colony. … more and more Zionists immigrated to Palestine many with the express wish of taking over the land for an exclusively Jewish state…”

The truth is the first wave of Jewish immigration that the site is referring too (which started in 1870) was in no way politically or nationally motivated. It was a large group of Jewish refugees from various countries around the world attempting to escape persecution. At that time they had no intention of creating a state. In fact the concept of Zionism wasn’t even started until 1890, so it would have been impossible that the first wave of Jewish refugees into Palestine had intentions of building a state. Even during the second wave of Jewish immigration in the early 1900′s, most refugees simply wanted to escape persecution and start a new life. It is a total distortion to put it any other way. And even at that time it had very little following.

Current Conflict
IfAmericansKnew claims the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict, as we know it today, is being caused by:

“…First, there is the inevitably destabilizing effect of trying to maintain an ethnically preferential state, particularly when the exclusionist entity is of largely colonial origin.

“…Second, Israel’s continued confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza is being resisted by the Palestinian inhabitants.”

They are wrong by both counts. First of all, Israel is not an ethnically preferential state. Between 20-25% of Israel’s population is non-Jewish. There are many different ethnic and religious groups in Israel, such as Druze, Bedouin, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and even atheists . All citizens of Israel, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin are treated equally before the law and are given full voting rights. The law gives no preferential treatment to Jews. The ONLY advantage the state of Israel has for Jews is the law of return. Any Jew in any part of the world is guaranteed Israeli citizenship. This is no different then the law of return that many Muslim countries have, or that Germany had after world war 2 for its displaced German citizens, or the law of return that Russia had. This doesn’t mean a non-Jew can’t get Israeli citizenship, just that a Jew can get it easier.

As for the site’s second allegation about Israel’s occupation being the cause of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the Palestinians have been offered their own state many times throughout history. The first time, in 1937, the Peel Commission laid out a plan which would createa Jewish state the fraction of the size of Israel, and an enormous Arab state in Palestine. (see map HERE) The Zionists, while disappointed, accepted this plan, and the Arabs flatly rejected it. Again in 1947, UN Resolution 181 offered the Palestinians 45% of the land; the Jews accepted it, and the arabs rejected it. The Palestinians continue to reject resolution 181, which is meant to create their own state. Again in 1993, 2000, and 2003, the Palestinians screwed up every chance of statehood and autonomy on their own land. The Gaza pullout in 2005 offered the Palestinians a chance to make peace with Israel and eventually lead to a state, instead the Palestinians used Gaza as a launching pad for more attacks against Israel and kidnapping attempts. The Palestinians would have land and their own state if they would recognize Israel and stop terrorism.

The “Jewish-only Roads”
IfAmericansKnew makes many references to “Jewish-only” roads that are built on Palestinian land and supposedly is only allowed to be driven on by Jews. Here is one example from the site: “as [the Palestinians] are not allowed to live in Israeli settlements, drive on Jewish-only roads connecting these settlements” IfAmericansKnew makes reference to this “Jewish-only” road many times throughout the site. The Israelis have built roads on Palestinians territory in which the Palestinians are banned from driving on. (And for the record TheMiddleEastNow.com condemns Israel for this policy) However, the roads are NOT “Jewish-only”. People of all religions and ethnicities are allowed to travel on these roads as long as they are Israeli citizens or foreigners. While one may not condone Israel’s policy of banning Palestinians from driving on roads built on Palestinian land, it is not fair and downright inaccurate to claim that the roads are “Jewish-only” as IfAmericansKnew does.

Torture
IfAmericansKnew mentions at least a hundred times that Israel ‘tortures’ innocent Palestinians. Here is an example:

“…I talked to men who had been tortured…”

In past decades there have been many reports of Palestinians being tortured by Israelis. Israel has used interrogation techniques similar to that of Abu Graihb, such as hooding prisoners, shaking them, playing loud music, etc. These have been documented by many human rights groups and even admitted by the Israeli government. However in 1999 the Israeli supreme court issued a ruling making it illegal for Israel to use any form of torture against anyone for any reason even for purposes of attaining life saving information. All forms of torture including ‘pressure positions’, hooding, and sleep deprivation were outlawed. The supreme court acknowledged that this ruling would restrict interrogation techniques for interrogators and that, in turn, could cost the lives of Israeli citizens. This ruling made Israel the ONLY country in the world whose supreme court has specifically outlawed torture even when it might save lives. Not even America has done that yet. That’s in deep contrast to many of Israel’s neighbors who constantly engage in torture of even political prisoners! Even the Palestinian Authority regularly engages in torture against Palestinians!. Yet IfAmericansKnew, which is supposed to be a “pro-Palestinian” site, mysteriously makes no mention of Arafat and Hamas’ frequent torture of Palestinians. Since the 1999 supreme court decision, the abusive techniques used by Israel have been greatly reduced (there have been a few reports about violations). IfAmericansKnew, once again, misleads its readers by implying the torture techniques are continuing at the same or increasing frequency to this day. The site has a source for the above quote. http://www.ppsmo.org/ewebsite/Reports/Israeli%20Tourture%20July%202002.htm. First of all, this is a dead link now. Secondly the site belongs to a group calling itself “Palestinian Prisoner Society”. Judging by the dead link, it can be implied that many of the ‘stories’ on the site are old, perhaps before 1999. We should also remember that many (but certainly not all) Palestinian prisoners have been known to fabricate details of their imprisonment for purposes of propaganda. This fabrication practice is encouraged by Palestinian extremist groups and many others in the Arab world.

Terrorist or Resistance Fighter?
What is possibly the most disturbing aspect of IfAmericansKnew is they appear to condone Palestinian terrorism. They refer to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad as resistance fighters and glorify their deeds. The site has an article called “The Palestinian Resistance: Its Legitimate Right and Moral Duty” by Samah Jabr. The author of this article refers to the suicide bombings as resistance. Terrorism is defined as: “the unlawful use or threatened use of force by a person or an organized group against innocent people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons” If the Palestinians were attacking the Israeli soldiers that were enforcing the occupation, or the government of Israel, THEN their acts could be considered “resistance”. However since the majority of the Palestinian attacks directly target innocent Israeli civilians who have nothing to do with their government’s policies, and since their acts do nothing to end the occupation and are meant solely for intimidation, these acts cannot be classified as legitimate resistance and can only be viewed as terrorism. Lets go though this article line by line and point out its inaccuracies and distortions.

“The occupation of Palestine is based on a 19th century ideology that denied the very existence of the Palestinian people and pursued a colonial agenda asserting divine claims to a “land without a people.”

This claim is incorrect. Before 1948 there was no such thing as a Palestinian. And there was no national movement by the Palestinians until 1967. This analysis already established earlier that the creation Israel was not ‘colonial’ since when the Jews began immigrating to current day Israel in the 1870′s there was no idea of Zionism yet.

“International law grants a people fighting an illegal occupation the right to use “all necessary means at their disposal” to end their occupation”

Suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism do nothing to end the occupation or help the Palestinian people, and the militants know that. Their purpose is to coerce and intimidate the Israeli people. It was the so called “resistance” that brought the Israeli soldiers back IN to the territories to begin with. Whoever is organizing these attacks against Israel knows by now that they wont end the occupation or any other of the Palestinian’s problems by using terrorism.

“Armed resistance was used in the American Revolution, the Afghan resistance against Russia (which the U.S. supported), the French resistance against the Nazis, and even in the Nazi concentration camps, or, more famously, in the Warsaw Ghetto. Palestinian resistance arises out of a similarly oppressive situation.”

So this writer is actually comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis. One thing he is forgetting is in all those examples: never did the “oppressed peoples” intentionally kill civilians of the other side. During WW2 many Jews made attempts to fight the Nazi oppression. However not in ONE SINGLE CIRCUMSTANCE did a Jew EVER kill an innocent German civilian. Same thing with the French and Poles who were under Nazi oppression. During the American revolution, the colonists may have attacked British soldiers who were trying to rule them, but NEVER did a colonist attack a British civilian. This is unlike the Palestinian “resistance” groups who regularly target innocent Israeli civilians. It appears the author is either unaware of documented history or is making a blatant attempt to distort it.

“Violent resistance arises from an inhuman military occupation, one that levies punishment arbitrarily and without trial, denies the possibility of livelihood and systematically destroys the prospects of a future.”

He’s got it the other way around. It is the violent “resistance” by extremist groups that has caused the Palestinian’s suffering. Had this “resistance” not started in 2000 Israel would not have reoccupied the territories

Media Bias
The basic message that the site is trying to give is that they believe the American media is heavily bias towards Israel. They use the “bias media” to justify why Americans are “unaware” of the outrageous claims IfAmericansKnew makes against Israel. Weir claims in all her “media analysis’” that major news media outlets in America under-report Palestinian deaths and over-report Israeli deaths. She accuses the media of censoring news that could be considered critical of Israel. She claims that news reports on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict fail to discuss the history of the conflict. She goes even further to claim that Israel tries to intimidate journalists (truth is the other way around, see below) IfAmericansKnew does several media analysis’ on various media sources to observe reporting patterns on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. One such analysis was done on the New York Times. After reviewing her study, it was clear that there were some serious flaws in the way she conducted her research.

New York Times Study
The 2005 New York Times study claims “the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian deaths,” and that this discrepancy is “based on the ethnicity of the person killed.” It further purports that “Times reporting regularly gave readers the impression that equal numbers of people on both sides were being killed – or that more Israelis were being killed,” and that “the majority of Palestinian deaths … are never reported by the Times at all.”

The bulk of the study is based only on the headline and first paragraph – often just one sentence – of New York Times news reports, and completely ignores the remaining text of the articles. In other words, most of the news reports condemned by the study are not even read.

Only by ignoring most of the news coverage in this way can Weir reach her conclusions. Take, for example, the declaration that “Times reporting regularly gave readers the impression that equal numbers of people on both sides were being killed.” This claim is quickly disproved with a glance at the newspaper’s full coverage, since Times stories frequently cite casualty figures.

During the first year of violence (one of Weir’s “study periods”), Times readers were told:

At least 20 Palestinians and 10 Israelis have died in a cycle of violence that has barely abated since the cease-fire took effect on June 13. Since the Palestinian uprising began last September, at least 479 Palestinians, 124 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed. (“Israeli Tanks Shell Palestinian Police Posts in Response to Attacks”, 7/12/01)

The death toll in this conflict is nearing 700. Though figures are somewhat imprecise, the count is put at about 525 Palestinians, 155 Israeli Jews and 14 Israeli Arabs, whose casualties came almost entirely in the intifada’s earliest days. (“Israelis and Palestinians Prepare for a Long Struggle,” 8/17/01)

At least 580 Palestinians and 167 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian uprising began a year ago. (“More Violence, and Western Peace Efforts, in the Middle East,” 9/18/01)

Clearly, the Times does not mislead readers about the number of fatalities sustained by both sides. If anything, it would be more accurate to say that such casualty breakdowns downplay Israeli deaths – readers are informed that more Palestinians than Israelis have died, but are not told that most of the Israeli victims were non-combatants targeted by Palestinians, whereas Palestinian fatalities were overwhelmingly combatants or Palestinians killed by other Palestinians.

Weir also falsely states that most Palestinian deaths “are never reported by the Times at all,” again basing this contention only on the headline and first sentence or two of news stories. In fact, Weir’s own numbers belie this claim. In the one month sub-study where If Americans Knew did actually examine news stories from start to finish, the group found the Times reported 82 percent of Palestinians killed. That is, Weir’s statistics show that most Palestinian deaths are in fact reported in the newspaper.

Weir further manipulates the data by treating an attack mentioned more than once as more than one death. So when the Times mentioned the killing of a 3-year-old Israeli in front of his kindergarten both on a front page blurb and in a full story on page six, Weir counts this as the Times reporting on two deaths. And when the killing is mentioned twice in the following days’ stories about Israel’s reaction to the slaying, Weir then claims that the Times reported on “400 percent” of Israeli children’s deaths in this period of time.

Since Palestinian violence is often the immediate cause of Israeli counter-actions, the Times often reports the slaying of Israelis, and then mentions the attack again in a story about Israel’s reaction to the killing. For example, the opening paragraph of a Jan. 15, 2005 story stated:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered Friday that all government officials cut ties with the Palestinian Authority and that the Gaza Strip be sealed until Palestinian leaders moved to curb terrorism. He issued the order a day after Palestinian militants killed six Israelis at a checkpoint on the Gaza border.

Since the previous day’s report broke news of this attack on the checkpoint, the attack was cited twice by the Times. Weir’s study, then, misleadingly counts these two news stories, each referring to the killing of six Israelis, as having reported on the death of twelve Israelis.
(Source: Camera.org)

The above is just an example of how Weir distorts the actual articles to create the impression that the news medias are bias toward Israel. Weir uses similar techniques to manipulate data in many of her other media analysis’. She accuses the American media of distorting information to Israel’s benefit, when the reality is SHE is the one distorting and manipulating information. While Weir over reports Israeli “wrongdoings” she almost NEVER mentions Palestinian violence (unless she doesn’t view that as a wrongdoing). All the articles on her site are negative towards Israel, while not a single one is negative about the Palestinians. Nowhere on the site does she mention Palestinians who murder innocent Israeli women and children. Nowhere on the site does she mention the ruthless torture of Palestinians by the PA or Hamas. The site’s stated purpose is to: “inform and educate the American public on issues of major importance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media” And after all we’ve mentioned in this analysis of the site, who is the one unreporting, underreporting and misreporting? Does Weir really think she is fair and balanced? Does she really think she is giving both sides of the conflict? How is she any better than what she is condemning?

Intimidation

This coming soon… check back!

On one page of IfAmericansKnew.org this statement is written: “…we recommend that you visit the Independent of London, Ha’aretz Daily, or Al-Jazeera. All three of these international news sources provide more accurate depictions of the current situation in Israel/Palestine, although they still do not provide all the information that American readers need to know.” Is she serious? Weir is actually endorsing the partisan Al Jazeera. Not only is she endorsing it, she is even saying it is not anti-Israel enough! For those who don’t know, Aljazeera is an Arab-based cable station known for its one-sided anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric. The website of Aljazeera is filled with wacky conspiracy theories such as Zarqawi has already been caught and Nick Berg was killed by American forces as well as many others. Aljazeera glorifies attacks against our soldiers in Iraq and suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists. Many threatening Al Qaida video tapes get aired first on Aljazeera. To say that Aljazeera provides “accurate descriptions of the current situation” makes me further question Weir’s credibility on this issue.

Iran, unlike other bellicose regimes that have surrounded Israel since its incarnation, is non-Arab and Shi’ite. Iran has never had a modern claim to any land that Israel has ever occupied, and do not house any Palestinian refugees. Except for the recent funding of Hizbullah, Iran had never before gone to war with Israel, not even in 1948.

So why now? First, Israel was a chief supporter, along with the US, of Mohammed Reza Shah, the despised dictator overthrown during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Because Israel was pro-Shah and works so closely with the US, anti-Shah and anti-US sentiment were naturally combined into anti-Israeli sentiment. A major point of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei’s speeches was the embarrassingly close relations with Israel (in the eyes of Iran’s neighbors), which only made Iran more of an outcast in the Arab Middle East.

This leads us to the main reason for Iran’s hatred of Israel: acceptance into the Arab world. If one subscribes to Sam Huntington’s viewpoint, Iran is isolated culturally, racially, and historically. Reza Shah tried to imitate Ataturk and force Iran into a European mold, backed by the synthesis of Aryan racial theories, which failed.

Mohammed Reza Shah tried to identify with America and continue to suppress Iran’s Islamic heritage by stressing its connection to the pagan Persian Empire, which also failed. Khomenei’s revolution has now tried to identify Iran with the Islamic World. The experience of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Pan-Arabism is that the only matter that Arab States have been able to agree on his hatred of Israel, which is why Ahmednijad’s has chosen this platform to promote Islamic Unity.

What are the implications of this? First, the fissures in the jihadist alliance of Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran need to be exposed. Sunni Syrians and Palestinians are at best skeptical of an alliance with Shi’ite Iran and Hizbullah. Syria is secular, and Hizbullah operates in a country with a liberal culture that is wary of burkas and sharia. The problems of Arab Unity were ultimately exposed by war (the disunity of Arab armies in 1967), and ended by diplomacy (Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties).

The best way to deal with the current situation is diplomacy with the secular Syrians (spearheaded by the US, who is forcing Syria into the corner of outcasts by refusing to talk to them), diplomacy with Hamas, who is still a greater and more urgent problem than Hizbullah, and action against Iran. If real sanctions are implemented against Iran, and soon, this is the preferred way of testing Iran’s mettle. With a desire for acceptance being its only motivation, Iran will be forced to come around, provided that the US will in turn reopen diplomatic relations.

Unfortunately, Russia and China seem bent on preventing real sanctions in order to protect their economic interests. Aside from real sanctions, war is the only option, unless we want to set an example for how rogue nations can gain power and nukes while spurning world order.

Hamas secured a majority of seats in the latest Palestinian parliament, raising worldwide concerns about what the militant organization, considered by many nations to be a terrorist group, might do with governing power. By a 2-1 margin, Americans now say there will never come a time when Israel and the Arab nations will live in peace, according to the annual Gallup Poll on World Affairs, conducted Feb. 6-9. The 65% to 32% split compares with a roughly 50-50 split last year. The current reading on this “future peace” measure, along with one other reading from August 2001, represents the most pessimistic Americans have been since the question was first asked in 1997.

U.S. Policy Toward the Palestinians
The poll asked Americans what U.S. policy toward the Palestinians should be now that Hamas has political power. The U.S. government is currently reassessing its policies and has threatened to suspend aid to the Palestinians unless they renounce violence and recognize Israel.

Most Americans believe the United States should conduct diplomatic relations with the Palestinians, but of that group, the majority says relations should be continued only if Hamas recognizes Israel. All in all, 22% of Americans say the United States should deal with the Palestinians regardless of their stance toward Israel, and another 44% say the United States should engage in diplomacy with the Palestinians if the Hamas-led government recognizes Israel. One in four Americans say the United States should not conduct any relations with the Palestinians regardless of their official policy toward Israel.

Americans are much less willing to favor financial assistance toward the Palestinians than they are to favor a diplomatic relationship. Fifty-seven percent of Americans oppose giving any financial aid to the Palestinians while Hamas is in power, while 30% would give aid if the Palestinians recognize Israel. Five percent say the United States should give aid even if the Palestinians do not recognize Israel.

The more negative stance toward foreign aid for the Palestinians is consistent with Americans’ general views on the subject. Sixty-four percent of Americans say the United States spends “too much” on foreign aid, 23% say “about the right amount,” and 9% “too little.”

Increased Sympathy for the Israelis
Gallup’s long-standing trend question on the Middle East, first measured in 1988, asks Americans whether their sympathies in the conflict lie more with the Israelis or the Palestinians. As has typically been the case, Americans are much more likely to sympathize with the Israelis (59%) than with the Palestinians (15%), with the remaining 26% not taking either side or not having an opinion. The current figures represent one of the most lopsided margins in favor of the Israelis ever recorded by Gallup. The only other times sympathy has been this high were during the first Persian Gulf War in February 1991 (when Iraq was launching Scud missiles into Israeli territory) and shortly before the start of the second war with Iraq, in February 2003 (58%). In 2004 and 2005, sympathy toward the Palestinians, though still low, was as high as it has been historically (18%).

Republicans (77%) are significantly more likely to sympathize with the Israelis than are Democrats (50%) or independents (50%). Gallup also finds that Americans who say they follow news about world affairs “very closely” are more likely to sympathize with the Israelis (66%) than Americans who follow foreign news only somewhat closely (59%) or who do not follow it closely (52%).

Gallup’s World Affairs Poll also obtains basic favorable ratings of a variety of countries each year, including Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The new poll finds 68% of Americans saying they have a favorable opinion of Israel, including 21% who are “very favorable” toward it. Twenty-three percent view Israel unfavorably. Those numbers are essentially unchanged from last year, and are the most positive for Israel aside from a 79% favorable rating in February 1991 during the first Persian Gulf War.

In stark contrast, just 11% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Palestinian Authority, while 78% have an unfavorable view (29% say their view is “very unfavorable”). Last year, opinion was considerably more positive, with 27% favorable and 62% unfavorable. In fact, the current readings are the most negative Gallup has found since it began asking about the Palestinian Authority in 2000, while last year’s were the most positive.

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