So Many Reasons to Love Muslims...

"We don't go to war with Islam or with Muslims,
but with the evildoers who perpetrated this act..."
--Pres. Geo. W. Bush

Read these articles, all compiled from news sources on the Internet,
and form your own opinion on this forward-thinking, "peace-loving religion."


(Above) An American Muslim shows the world his love. REUTERS/Mark Dye

From Yahoo!
Egypt Anchor Makes U.S. Barbs
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - When Egypt's most popular television commentator, Hamdi Qandil, called for a boycott of U.S. goods, which his government opposes, it got past the censor. But he was stopped from repeating it.

The first time he said on his program ``Editor-in-chief'' that Americans were dropping food to Afghans so that they could ``fatten them up before they slaughter them,'' it was cut - but he slipped it in the following week.``We are playing a cat-and-mouse game. I don't always win, but I'm surprised at what I've gained so far,'' he said.

Mohamed El-Wakil, who doubles as Qandil's censor and director of news for Egyptian TV, said sometimes cuts are necessary because Egyptian television, after all, ``is owned by the government, and the Egyptian media is executing Egypt's foreign policy.''

But El-Wakil also insisted Qandil was free to project ``the Egyptian, Arab and international media's pulse.'' The thin, elegantly dressed 65-year-old Qandil is unapologetic - his views make his weekly program among the most-watched on Egyptian television.

``It's my pleasure if my program is responsible for more than 50 percent of anti-Americanism in Egypt,'' Qandil said with his famous smile and deep voice. ``The fact that my views are identical with my audience's is God's greatest gift to me.''

Qandil says he hates America's policies, not its people. He was bashing the United States even before it started its military campaign against Afghanistan, targeted for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington. He saves his bitterest barbs for the U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he and many Arabs see as pro-Israel.

Since the Palestinian-Israeli clashes broke out last year, a black-and-white keffiyeh, a checked scarf worn by Palestinians, has become part of his studio decor, draped over a chair. He often refers to Israelis as ``the lowest of the low.''

During an interview, Qandil flipped over the lapel of his own jacket to reveal a German designer label - proof, he said, that he rejects American products as he has counseled viewers to do. His apartment is furnished with pieces from Italy and France. He quit Marlboros for German cigarettes and drives a Jaguar.

During one recent show, he mused: ``I won't be terribly sad if one or six of (America's) planes plunged, if one or sixteen of its soldiers are captured, because what we are witnessing in Afghanistan is terrorism.''

Foreign observers, particularly Americans, have questioned whether the Egyptian media shouldn't present a more balanced view. El-Wakil, the news director, says it is Israeli action and American policy that creates hostility, not what's said in the media. But some Egyptians are concerned.

``I find programs like Hamdi Qandil's to be extremely destructive, as the dose of anger is excessive,'' said political commentator Tareq Heggy, who believes Qandil's program should be balanced ``by a counter podium by people who might not have the same charisma but certainly (would be) capable of more rational dialogue.''

Elham Makhlouf, a 51-year-old Cairo housewife, says she tries never to miss Qandil. ``I like his cynicism while addressing serious issues,'' she said. ``He is a very eloquent and attractive presenter. His program is captivating.''

Qandil's program, started in 1998, is shown at 10:30 p.m on Mondays in Egypt, and on Tuesdays on Egypt's satellite channel, which reaches viewers worldwide.

He starts each 90-minute show with a review of the week's headlines and a monologue on the week's most important events. Then he interviews his guests or moderates a panel discussion before wrapping up with a recitation of newspaper comment.

He spends at least 12 hours daily reading, and still finds time to contact each potential guest himself. Qandil helped run Egyptian television 40 years ago for President Gamal Abdel Nasser. After Nasser's death, Qandil, an avowed leftist, clashed with the new leadership. He stopped presenting programs for a quarter-century, spending most of that time in Europe working for the United Nations and gaining expertise in Western media operations, particularly satellite broadcasting, and perfecting his English and French.

Qandil returned just as traditionally staid Egyptian TV was having to compete with livelier Arabic broadcasters like Al-Jazeera or Future. Qandil's program helps Egyptian TV appear to be opening up, but his shows are still prerecorded and reviewed.

From www.paknews.com, the Pakistani Government News Service
Mossad behind Sep 11 attacks: Report

RIYADH, Nov 4 (PNS): A Saudi newspaper charged Saturday that the Israeli secret service Mossad was behind the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington that killed thousands of people.

The mass-circulation Okaz said in an editorial that an attack on such a scale could not have been carried out with such accuracy and precision without the help of parties inside the United States or with strong links in Washington.

"Six Israelis suspected of involvement in the attacks on New York and Washington were arrested in the US, to be later released. This confirms our strong suspicions about the involvement of Israel's Mossad in the ugly crime," Okaz said.

"If we look carefully into this matter, we can find no more influential sides in the US than the Israeli Mossad agents, who have the ability to penetrate and the capability to execute with high efficiency," the daily said.

The paper said there was not sufficient evidence that Arabs and Muslims were behind the attacks, but it did not rule out the possibility that Mossad may have recruited some Muslims to carry out the atrocities.

"The main purpose of the conspiracy (attacks) is to undermine ties between Arabs and Muslims, especially moderate states, on the one hand and the US on the other, and to turn the Muslim and Christian civilizations against each other and incite hatred between their adherents," it said.

The positive change in Washington's policy on Middle East peace and its support for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state confirms that the United States has laid its hands on important leads indicating a direct role by the Mossad in the attacks, the paper asserted.

"We don't think we will wait too long before (the United States) reaches this result. This crime should not pass without knowing its actual masterminds, instead of focusing on 'stupid' tools," Okaz said.


A picture released by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) June 27, 2002 shows what they allege to be a photo of a Palestinian baby dressed like a suicide bomber. The IDF said they found the photo during a search in a house of a wanted Palestinian man from Hebron, where Israeli army tanks and helicopter gunships have been poundeding a Palestinan police building. REUTERS/HO/Israel Defence Forces

From the New York Post
Bombs 'R' Us
By BILL HOFFMANN

December 11, 2001 -- This shocking photo shows a little Palestinian boy, who should be playing with toys, being cruelly robbed of his childhood. He and other kids - as young as 4 and no older than 8 - are fitted with fake explosives as they are taught how to become suicidal terrorists by members of the Palestinian terror group Hamas.

These classes of hate, which were held over the weekend, were part of the 14th anniversary celebration of Hamas in Ain El Helweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon.

Hamas has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings in Israel that have claimed 25 lives.

Followers say it's an honor to die as a martyr to their cause- an ideal drummed into their heads at a very early age. That's evident in these exercises, in which about 40 boys were lined up and fitted with empty explosives canisters.

Then, hooded Hamas members - many of them the boys' fathers - showed them the proper way to detonate the canisters to turn themselves into human bombs.

Just as American boys play enthusiastically with G.I. Joe, the Palestinian kids happily practiced over and over again. Next, the youngsters changed into camouflage fatigues and were given toy rifles to allow them to get comfortable holding and operating firearms.

In one task, the boys were ordered to crawl across a field on their bellies, with guns drawn and ready to fire. In another, they were instructed on how to conceal their weapons until reaching their targets.

Some of the youngsters made gunshot noises as they pretended to blow away their enemies. Those who had a hard time getting through the drills had to go back and do them again. Of course, none of these kids would be asked to sacrifice their lives now, at such a tender age. According to Hamas, that opportunity must wait until they are at least 18.

But many of the pint-sized soldiers-to-be couldn't seem to contain their glee at the thought of violence.

Later, as they watched more than 1,000 Palestinian adults firing their rifles into the air to celebrate Hamas' birthday, the boys wildly cheered and applauded like kids at a World Series game. And they excitedly spoke with each other about growing up to be fearless Hamas soldiers.

With the warping of young minds being so easy, it was not surprising to hear last night that the Lebanon head of Hamas has vowed more suicide attacks.

Osama Hamdan also warned Palestinian President Yasser Arafat against heeding U.S. and Israeli calls for a crackdown on militants. "The resistance continues as long as the occupation does," a defiant Hamdan told crowds in Ain el-Hilweh.

In Lebanon, where the Hamas boys were training, more than 350,000 Palestinians are registered as refugees. Denied the right to work legally or own property, many are vocal supporters of Hamas, which rejects the idea of a negotiated peace with Israel.

Hamas has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and was forged in 1987 during the "Intifada," a violent uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinian terrorists applaud use of chemicals in bombs
By the Associated Press, Dec. 12, 01

JERUSALEM – The military wing of Hamas today gleefully reported a blow to Israeli morale it says was caused by the planting of poisonous chemicals in bombs its activists have detonated of late.

The Izzadin Kassam Web site, citing Israeli media reports of public consternation at the prospect of Palestinian chemical warfare, said its militants now had a new weapon which had created "a situation of fear in the Zionist security services." The group did not say what chemicals it might have in its possession.

The Ministry of Health revealed this week that nails and bolts packed into explosives detonated by a Hamas sucide bomber December 1 in a Jerusalem pedestrian mall had been dipped into rat poison. The report unnerved many Israelis who already live with the fear of a biochemical attack from Iraq.

Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said that since 1994 traces of various toxic chemicals had been found in at least five Palestinian bombing attacks, but is was unclear if they had been deliberately introduced to enhance the bombs' lethality or if the explosives used had been transported in containers which had previously contained other substances.

The Health Ministry has said that so far, the blasts have destroyed the poisons' potency, and no victim of a bomb that contained the substances has been harmed from the chemicals.

Kleiman said that police and others called upon to work at bomb scenes had been issued with protective overalls, for use when necessary, but the chemical threat was really a minor one, compared to the blast of a bomb, typically packed with nails or bolts to enhance their killing power. "It's the bombs that do the damage, not any poisons that may be in them," he said.

An aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the development was cause for concern but not panic. "Its not that what was discovered was in any way alarming," said Sharon spokesman Rannan Gissin. "But if Hamas and Islamic Jihad are going to escalate their terror campaign it is obviously something of which we have to take note."

Due to concerns over the use of chemicals, hazardous waste experts responded to the scene of a suicide bombing in the port city of Haifa on Sunday, which killed the bomber and wounded 29 people. No traces of chemicals were found at the site.

The Health Ministry said that in the event that bomb casualties are contaminated with toxic substances, hospital staff have sufficient training and are well equipped with the necessary protective gear and medicines.

Palestinian groups have not been able to concoct bombs with more toxic chemicals – like nerve or mustard gas – whose effect is not destroyed by the blast itself. Security officials still consider the actual explosion the greatest threat, and not the prospect that the device might contain substances.

Iraq fired missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. They turned out not to be carrying a biochemical payload, but most Israelis still have gas masks and self-injection kits holding an antidote to nerve gas, ready for the next scare.

Baghdad has hinted it would bombard Israel again if it is attacked by the United States as part of its global anti-terror campaign. Israeli experts say Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might order use of chemical or biological weapons if he thought his regime was about to be toppled.

Wednesday December 12
Iran Judiciary Closes Newspapers

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's hard-line judiciary said it ordered the closure of more than 50 newspapers ``for the sake of God,'' the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Wednesday. Abbas-Ali Alizadeh, head of the judiciary administration in the capital, Tehran, said the closures were a service to the nation.

``One of our greatest glories is closure of offending newspapers. Based on our assessments, by doing this, we have done the greatest service to the people,'' IRNA quoted him as saying.

``When you do a job for the sake of God, defeat is meaningless,'' the agency quoted Alizadeh as saying in a speech in Damavand in the suburbs of Tehran Tuesday evening.

The newspaper closures began after hard-liners lost control of the Majlis, or parliament, in elections last year. The hard-liners are locked in a power struggle with liberal supporters of President Mohammad Khatami. Khatami's allies also continue to be jailed and harassed by the hard-liners, who control unelected key institutions, including the judiciary and police.

Deputy Culture Minister Shaban Shahidi was quoted Monday as saying that the closure of 56 newspapers and magazines over the past 20 months was a ``disaster.'' Nearly all of the publications closed down by the hard-liners backed a pro-democracy initiative began by Khatami in 1997.

Some Muslims view tape with skepticism

CNN.com--KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia --There was
heavy skepticism in Arab and Muslim communities around the world about the veracity of the released videotape of Osama bin Laden discussing the September 11 terror attacks.

The tape, released Thursday by the Bush administration, was dismissed as U.S. propaganda by Malaysia's Muslim opposition. Leaders of Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), the country's biggest opposition party, said they were still not convinced bin Laden was behind the September 11 attacks.

"It is still not a proven case that he directed it, he planned it or he funded it," said Kamaruddin Jaafar, a senior PAS leader, told Reuters news service. "It's not a proven case despite this tape," he said.

Most Muslim governments, including Malaysia's, were quiet on the topic of the tape. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has criticized the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and called for an end to civilian casualties.

But Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States calls Osama bin Laden a "murderous criminal" in a statement released Thursday, according to Reuters news agency.

"The tape displays the cruel and inhumane face of a murderous criminal who has no respect for the sanctity of human life or the principles of his faith," the report quoted Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz as saying.

Skeptics
After the tape aired, some skeptics expressed the belief that the tape may have been doctored.

In Egypt, café goers who had watched the tape on the al-Jazeera television network found bin Laden's apparent confession of knowledge of the attacks hard to believe.

"Islam forbids killing innocents -- the tape doesn't prove anything," one man told CNN. "Don't forget the United States supported bin Laden in fighting Afghanistan."

Another man said that the United States was merely using the tape to ratchet up pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. "This is U.S. propaganda in an attempt to make use of the situation in Palestine," he said. He faulted the United States for taking Israel's side in its attacks on Palestinian Authority targets.

On CNN's "NewsNight with Aaron Brown" on Thursday, Raghida Dergham, the senior diplomatic correspondent for London's "Al-Hayat" newspaper said the Arab reaction to the tape is not universally skeptical. Dergham held up the Friday front page of her paper, with a headline reading "Bin Laden Confesses That he Planned for the Attacks."

"There is more than one voice," she said. "You'll have the skeptics, they will remain skeptics. But I think those who have been in denial ... will have to change their minds and will change their minds and will be empowered by the tape that was released today."

Call for independent examination
In Indonesia, the world's most-populous Muslim nation, there were calls for an investigation into the tape's veracity.

"The videotape has not been independently examined. You know, that the Americans have all the technology. Making up a videotape is so easy for them," Muhammad Rizieq, leader of the radical Islamic Defenders Front, told Reuters.

"I am the number one person who does not believe in things coming from the U.S. I am sick with its propaganda to cover up their war crimes in Afghanistan," Rizieq said.

But in Pakistan, which had strong ties to the now defunct Taliban regime in Afghanistan, official said the tape reinforced President Pervez Musharraf's alliance with the United States.

They said the tape showed that Pakistan made the right decision in supporting the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has allowed the use of its airspace and some airbases in the campaign. It also closed down the Taliban embassies in Pakistan, the last nation to cease diplomatic relations with the former Afghan-rulers.

Bin Laden's guilt?
In the U.S., the tape reinforced already-polarized views of bin Laden. Many Americans said they did not need to see the tape to be convinced of bin Laden's guilt. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the tape showed that bin Laden was the "personification of evil."

American officials say the grainy, amateur-quality tape was discovered in a house in the city of Jalalabad. They say the hour-long tape was shot in Kandahar on November 9.

Experts who have viewed it suggest it may have been intended for internal use within bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. The Bush administration has called in four outside experts to review the tape, to defuse claims that it has been doctored or inaccurately translated.

Saudi princess is sued by maid
By Susan Clary-Sun-Sentinel Staff Writer-December 20, 2001

A woman who filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court on Wednesday against the Saudi Arabian princess she waited on for three years described the relationship to her Winter Park attorney as one of slave and master.

In addition to cooking, cleaning and laundering clothes, Ismiyati Memet Suryono said she stayed by Princess Buniah al-Saud 24 hours a day. She stood at the shower to open and close the curtain when the princess bathed, she said, and was not allowed to close her bedroom door at night in case the princess needed her.

"Whatever in the world the princess wanted, she had to do," said attorney Russell Troutman. "Whenever the princess had a whim, she had to comply."

Al-Saud, the niece of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, was arrested Monday night on charges she beat Suryono on Friday and pushed her down a flight of stairs. On Tuesday, the princess was accused of stealing from her former driver and selling his TV and other property for $6,000.

Suryono, 36, who had been named in police reports as Memet Ismiyati, is seeking more than $15,000 in damages for the emotional and physical abuse she alleges she suffered at the hands al-Saud, and for back pay she said the princess owes her, court records show. She has requested the case be heard by a judge rather than a jury.

Al-Saud was released Tuesday after posting $5,000, and Russell Crawford, the criminal defense attorney who represented her at her bond hearing, thinks she has left for Washington. An Orange County judge had given her permission to travel there. The princess had been living in Orange County while attending the University of Central Florida to learn English through the ASPECT International Language Academies. Troutman said Suryono had not told him whether she attended classes with her or waited outside. Bud Bennington, al-Saud's civil attorney, did not return calls Wednesday.

Troutman said late Wednesday that he hired an investigator to track down the princess to serve her with the lawsuit, which uses her full name, Her Royal Highness Princess Buniah Bint Saud Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. She is the daughter of one of the Saudi Arabian king's brothers.

Through an Indonesian interpreter, Suryono told Troutman Wednesday that she worked for the princess in Saudi Arabia, where she was paid the equivalent of $160 a week. The princess raised her salary to $200 a week when they moved to Central Florida but deducted for some meals and other things, Suryono said.

On a 911 tape released Tuesday by the Orange County Sheriff's Office, Suryono, who has an 18-year-old son in Indonesia, told an interpreter that she was promised $400 a month before they left for America. On the tape, she told the interpreter she had to pay for her own meals when they ate at Olive Garden and when they stayed in a $400-a-night hotel in Orlando, the princess made her pay for things she could not afford.

The 911 tape is more than two hours long and reveals the frustration of language and cultural differences. Dispatch operators and deputy sheriffs had a difficult time understanding the situation, and Suryono, who was upset, had a hard time explaining. Troutman said that for these reasons, he was shielding his client from the media. He said she is shy and he wants to protect her.

According to a complaint filed Wednesday, the princess beat Suryono during a period of months, culminating in the assault on Friday at the Towne Place apartments in Hunter's Creek, where the women shared an apartment. Suryono was transported to Florida Hospital in Kissimmee, where she was treated and released. She is said to be staying with a friend now, after being counseled by a victim's advocate.

The lawsuit claims Suryono had not been paid wages for several months, she did not speak English, she had no place to go but to "continue to endure repeated if not daily acts of violence." The lawsuit said Suryono, at 4 feet, 11 inches tall and 100 pounds, could not defend herself.

"I have never seen such a submissive, sublimating woman," Troutman said. "She was ignorant of our system and no one told her there was a remedy."

'Sexual orientation' executions condemned--9 January, 2002, Amnesty International

Amnesty International is taking action following the recent execution of three men in Saudi Arabia, possibly solely for their sexual orientation.

The three men - ’Ali bin Hittan bin Sa’id, Muhammad bin Suleyman bin Muhammad and Muhammad bin Khalil bin ’Abdullah, all Saudi Arabian nationals, were publicly beheaded in Abha, Asir province, on 1 January 2002.

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior issued a statement announcing that the three were convicted of homosexual acts, adding vaguely-worded charges of "luring children and harming others" without providing any further details. The trial proceedings - like most in Saudi Arabia - remain shrouded in secrecy. Director of Amnesty International UK Kate Allen said: "The execution of these three men is yet another gesture of defiance of international standards by the Saudi Arabian government.

Widespread revulsion at these killings has led Amnesty International members to urgently contact the Saudi authorities expressing concern that these men may have been executed primarily because of their sexual orientation and seeking clarification of the exact charges and evidence brought against them." No detailed information regarding the trial proceedings for these individuals is yet known. Amnesty International is now also seeking urgent clarification of the names of any further prisoners under sentence of death due to their sexual orientation and calling for the commutation of their sentences.

This case is not an isolated case of people in Saudi Arabia being punished for alleged same-sex sexual relations. In April 2000 it was reported that a Saudi court had sentenced nine young men to prison sentences and up to 2,600 lashes each for 'deviant sexual behaviour'. Six men were executed in July 2000 on charges partly relating to their sexual orientation and Amnesty International feared that these six may in fact have been among the nine men sentenced to the flogging and prison sentences. Like the recent executions, these six death penalties were carried out in Abha, Asir province. This latest action by Amnesty International follows the publication last year of a report - Crimes of hate, conspiracy of silence – revealing that over 70 countries continue to criminalise same-sex relations, with some such 'offences' incurring the death penalty.

Six killed in Hadera terror attack - By David Rudge- January, 18 2002

HADERA (January 18) - At least six people were killed and dozens wounded when a terrorist burst into a bat mitzva reception in the middle of Hadera last night, opening fire from an M-16 assault rifle.

Northern region police chief Cmdr. Ya'acov Borovsky said celebrants at the reception pounced on the terrorist, pushing him outside, and it was not clear whether he was shot dead by guests or by the police, who arrived quickly.

Yossi Elbaz, the owner of the hall, said guests overcame the terrorist, and the head of the Hadera detective squad arrived on the scene and shot the terrorist dead.

Police sealed off the area as fleets of Magen David Adom ambulances and paramedics raced to the Armon David banquet hall and started to treat and evacuate the wounded.

Ch.-Insp. Haim Ponimuski, a police spokesman, said a single terrorist wearing an explosive belt opened automatic fire into the crowded reception hall. He said six people had been killed by the terrorist and more than 30 wounded, at least four of them critically.

The six bat mitzva celebrants killed in the attack are: Aharon Ben Yisrael-Alis, 32, of Ra'anana; Dina Binayav, 48, of Ashkelon; Edward Bakshayev, 48, of Or Akiva; Anatoli Bakshayev, 63, of Or Akiva; Avi Yazadi, 25, of Hadera; Boris Melihov, 56, of Sderot.

MDA paramedic Haim Rokah, in charge at the scene, said some were seriously wounded and one was critical. The wounded were taken to Hadera's Hillel Yaffe Hospital, which opened a hot line at (04)125-5166. As the wounded were being evacuated, police and border police launched a wide-scale search throughout the North for the person or persons believed to have brought the terrorist to the scene.

On Wednesday, Insp.-Gen. Shlomo Aharonishky said police had been on high alert since the Monday death of Raed Karmi, Fatah-Tanzim military commander in Tulkarm. He said police had received warnings of pending attacks inside the Green Line and as a result security measures had been intensified.

A staff member at the reception hall said he had heard the shooting. "I was near the management offices, not far from the entrance to the hall, where a bat mitzva reception was taking place," said Uriel. "Suddenly somebody charged through shouting and immediately began to start firing. I don't know how many people were in the hall at the time, because it was toward the end of the reception," he said.

Uriel said he was almost certain he heard the man shouting in Arabic before the firing began. He said he had helped usher some of the people up the stairs and away from the firing, where they stayed until police arrived and they were able to come out safely.

Elbaz, the owner of the Armon David, said there were about 180 guests at the bat mitzva. He said the terrorist entered the hall at about 10:45 p.m., just as the guests were about to leave. He said guests killed the terrorist. The hall is on Rehov Hanassi 75 in the center of Hadera.

"A man entered the hall and opened fire. Dozens of people were hit," an ambulance worker told Channel 2. Hadera has been the scene of several Palestinian bombings in recent months.

In Tulkarm, Palestinian gunmen were reported to have gone out onto the streets and celebrated by firing in the air as a sign of joy. The Aksa Brigades, linked to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group said that Abed Hassouna, from Beit Imrin, a village near Nablus, carried out the attack to avenge the death of Karmi.

Somalis cheer at 'Black Hawk Down' screening--1/22/02--From Jeff Koinange, CNN

MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) --Somalis watching a bootleg video of "Black Hawk Down" on Monday cheered as helicopters crashed and U.S. servicemen were killed in the new movie.

Just days after the film's widespread release in the United States, hundreds of Somalis crowded into an outdoor playground Monday to watch one of the first bootleg copies to reach Somalia.The film, which was No. 1 at the U.S. box office over the weekend, depicts the ill-fated 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in which 18 American soldiers were killed.

The United States was in Somalia to try to capture powerful Somali warlord Mohammed Aidid from his stronghold in the war-torn capital and take him to a ship anchored off the nearby coast. But by the end of the 16-hour battle in which commandos tried to seize several of Aidid's top lieutenants, 18 elite Army Rangers and hundreds of Somalis lay dead in the streets of Mogadishu.

At the screening, Somalis paid the equivalent of 10 U.S. cents to watch the movie, less than a mile from where a real Black Hawk helicopter went down.

Audience members seemed to take delight in scenes of U.S. defeat. Each time an American chopper went down in the film, the audience cheered. Every time an American serviceman was killed, the audience cheered some more.

Ahmed Abdullah said he witnessed the actual battle and saw the movie as more fiction than fact."It's not fair what the U.S. is trying to do," he said. "What I saw that day was different from what I see in the film today. It's not accurate."

Others said the movie brings back disturbing memories of a day they'll never forget. "I felt very sad watching the film," one woman said.

Some in the audience said they were proud of the way Somalis were portrayed in the film. They said they believe they were defending their country and their pride against what they considered U.S. military aggression.

U.S. officials have said they are concerned that members of al Qaeda, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden, could try to regroup in Somalia so the country may be a possible next target in the war on terrorism.

But some audience members had a warning for the United States. "As you can see, Somalis are brave fighters," one man said. "If the Americans come back to fight us, we shall defeat them again."

Said another, "Let them try again. They'll be making more films about us when we defeat them like we did that day."

Saudis ask U.S. to reduce forces, W. House admits
(CNN) --Saudi Arabian officials have asked the United States to
reduce its military presence in their country, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told CNN on Sunday.Last Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed newspaper reports the Saudis had asked the United States to withdraw its nearly 5,000 troops from the nation.

Osama bin Laden has cited America's military presence in his native country as a core grievance in his self-proclaimed holy war against the United States. Fifteen of the 19 suspected hijackers in the September 11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia.

Anti-American and pro-bin Laden sentiment has been strong in some parts of the kingdom, home of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and many Saudis do not support the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan. Card said planning for a pullback has been in the works for some time and was not a recent development. "Ever since the Gulf War ended, we've been working to try to minimize the amount of time and the size of the footprint that U.S. forces have in Saudi Arabia," Card said. "They've been asking a long time, and we've been working with them for a long time -- not just during this administration but during previous administrations -- to reduce the footprint. "I think it's been a long-term interest of both countries," he said.

Asked when the United States might begin reducing its presence, Card said, "It will happen over time. It would be wrong for me to speculate on what the Defense Department feels is in the best interests of the national security of this country and the security of the region," said Card.

The United States helped build military installations in Saudi Arabia during the 1980s and sent hundreds of thousands of troops to the Middle Eastern nation during the Gulf War. The U.S. has maintained a significant, albeit much smaller, military presence since, mostly Air Force personnel charged with enforcing no-fly zones over southern Iraq.

The planes fly out of remote Prince Sultan Air Base, where a U.S.-built command and control center directs the air war in Afghanistan and patrols over Iraq.

Under rules imposed by the Saudis, U.S. warplanes cannot launch attacks and can respond with force only in self-defense. Even with a reduction, the United States needs a presence in the region to enforce the Iraqi no-fly zone, a mission in part geared to protect Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein's forces, Card said.

"There is a valuable reason for us to be in that region, but we are looking to reduce the footprint within Saudi Arabia, consistent with America's interests and consistent with the interests of Saudi Arabia," he said. U.S. forces operate out of bases in several other countries in the region, including Turkey, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. U.S. warplanes stationed at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey, for instance, patrol the no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

Some U.S. military officials have hinted the Saudi royal family would be best served by keeping U.S. forces in the region, given the growing threat of terrorism and reports bin Laden hopes to take over the kingdom.

Several U.S. congressmen have criticized the Saudis for accepting U.S. protection but doing little in return to fight terrorism. Card, echoing comments from other Bush administration officials, called the Saudis "wonderful allies in this war against terrorists."

Muslim Woman Sues Florida Over Veil-By Associated Press-January 30, 2002, 7:52 AM EST

WINTER PARK, Fla. -- A Muslim woman has sued the state for suspending her driver's license after she refused to remove her face-covering veil for the photograph. Sultaana Freeman, 34, said she was allowed to wear her veil, which only reveals her eyes, for her license photo in Illinois and for a Florida license issued in February.

But state officials demanded Freeman pose without her veil in November, following checks of records prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Freeman filed suit earlier this month in Orange County. "I don't show my face to strangers or unrelated males," Freeman said.

Florida law states that license applicants be issued "a color photographic or digital imaged driver's license bearing a full-face photograph." Robert Sanchez, a spokesman for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said his agency had to enforce that law.

But civil rights lawyer Howard Marks said the law is vague. He pointed to another Florida law stating the "government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion."

LA Schools Remove Korans with Anti-Semitic Notes
Thu Feb 7, 2:35 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Some 300 translations of the Koran, donated to Los Angeles schools by a local Muslim foundation to promote religious understanding after Sept. 11, have been removed because of an accompanying anti-Semitic commentary, school board officials said on Thursday.

The book, "The Meaning of the Holy Koran," is a 1934 translation of the Muslim holy text, which includes footnotes dating from that era which
describe Jews variously as "arrogant" "illiterate" and "men without faith."

They were donated to schools by the Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation in Los Angeles to promote religious tolerance and understanding after the suicide plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, blamed on Muslim extremists.

But the Los Angeles Unified School District said they were pulled from library shelves this week after a history teacher noticed the derogatory remarks in the footnotes. One passage in the commentary calls Jews "men without faith". Another footnote says of Jews, "Many of them, even if they could read, were no better than illiterates for they knew not their own true scriptures, but read into them what they wanted, or at best their own conjecture."

Dafer Dakhil, director of external affairs at the Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation, on Thursday regretted that the gift had been found offensive. "We do not condone anything that is detrimental to understanding. If the books are offensive, they should be removed," Dakhil told Reuters.

Dakhil and the Foundation have worked cordially with the school board on other projects for several years. School board officials said they would convene a committee made up of history teachers, Jewish leaders and Foundation officials to review the books.

Majority of Muslims polled view U.S. unfavorably
PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) --A
majority of people interviewed in nine Muslim countries had unfavorable opinions of the United States and President Bush, according to a new Gallup poll. Most respondents also said they think the U.S. military action in Afghanistan is morally unjustified.

Researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with 9,924 residents of Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to gauge public opinion in those countries following the September 11 attacks on the United States. About half of the world's Muslim population lives in those nine countries. In the survey, 53 percent of the people questioned had unfavorable opinions of the United States, while 22 percent had favorable opinions.

A favorable opinion of the United States was highest in Lebanon, at 41 percent, and Turkey, at 40 percent, and lowest in Pakistan, at 5 percent. Twenty-eight percent of Kuwaitis, 27 percent of Indonesians, 22 percent of Jordanians, 22 percent of Moroccans, 16 percent of Saudi Arabians and 14 percent of Iranians surveyed had a favorable view of the United States.

On Bush, 58 percent of those surveyed had unfavorable opinions, compared with 11 percent who had favorable views. Of those surveyed, 67 percent saw the September 11 attacks as morally unjustified, while 15 percent of the respondents said they were morally justified.

But an even greater number -- 77 percent -- said the U.S. military action in Afghanistan was morally unjustified compared with 9 percent who said it was morally justified.

The survey also found that 61 percent said they did not believe Arab groups carried out the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Of those surveyed, 18 percent said they did believe Arab organizations were responsible.

The interviews were conducted between December and January. The respondents were randomly selected and did not know a U.S. firm was sponsoring the poll. Gallup said the sampling error was plus or minus 1 percentage point for questions asked in all nine countries and plus or minus 4 percentage points for questions broken down by individual nations.

Five Egyptian Gays Sentenced
The Associated Press/Monday, March 11, 2002; 3:14 PM

CAIRO, Egypt –– Five Egyptian men were sentenced Monday to three years in prison with hard labor for engaging in gay sex, judicial officials said. The men had pleaded guilty to debauchery and running a house for gay sex parties. The Nile Delta Misdemeanor Court handed down their sentence, which also includes three years of probation.

Islam prohibits homosexuality and, although not explicitly referred to in the Egyptian penal code, a wide range of laws covering obscenity, prostitution and debauchery are applied to homosexuals. Gay cases have shocked conservative Egypt, while prompting international attention and support from gay rights activists.

Last year in Cairo, 52 men were tried by an Emergency State Security Court on charges of immoral behavior and contempt of religion after police raided a Nile boat restaurant and accused them of taking part in a gay sex party. Twenty-three were convicted and sentenced to up to five years in prison. The rest were acquitted.

The identities of those convicted Monday were not revealed. Officials said the group included two government employees who used to invite gay youth to their house in Damanhur, about 90 miles northwest of Cairo, for sex parties.

Most Palestinians Support Suicide Attacks - Poll
By Lamia Lahoud, March, 07 2002, JERUSALEM (March 7) - More than
60 percent of Palestinians support the continuation of the violence and suicide attacks against Israelis, according to a poll released yesterday by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion. The poll also showed strong support for Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 2.47%, was conducted between February 25 and March 3 in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and east Jerusalem. Of the 571 people selected at random, 66.5% said they support the continuation of the intifada, and 64.3% favored suicide attacks. Supporting Arafat were 66.1%; 51.3 percent believe the intifada serves their interest, while 34.2% said it harms it.

In early February, Fatah scored low support in the poll. The movement, which once represented close to 50% of Palestinians, only scored 23%, while Hamas received 21%.

The new poll does not show the degree of support for Fatah, but Palestinians are saying its popularity has sharply increased since it started to carry out attacks against IDF checkpoints and suicide attacks inside Israel. They said Arafat also gained popularity through Fatah's involvement in these attacks. Many Palestinians had been angered by the PA's refusal to let its security officers get involved in the confrontation.

German TV report: Palestinians Likely Killed Gaza Boy By Allison Kaplan Sommer and Herb Keinon March, 20 2002

JERUSALEM (March 20) - A German documentary producer who thoroughly investigated the killing of a Palestinian boy a year-and-a-half ago said yesterday it is "much more likely" 12-year-old Muhammad ad-Dura was killed by Palestinian gunmen, and not by Israeli soldiers.

Dura was shot to death in a Gaza Strip crossfire on September 30, 2000, while crouching for safety with his father. The incident was filmed by the France2 television network, and the pictures had a dramatic impact on the public perception of Israel's use of force, with the IDF widely accused of killing the boy.

The video footage of Dura and his father crouching in an alley as bullets whizzed passed them, and then the bleeding dying boy cradled in his father's arms provoked international outrage when it was broadcast. The documentary aired Sunday night on the German television station ARD.

In an interview with IBA English News, producer Esther Shapira said the purpose of the series was to "understand the truth behind the pictures we see on television." She said that going into the project initially, "I thought it was clear it was an Israeli who fired the shot since we were talking about a Palestinian boy."

She said that the questions she meant to ask was why Israeli soldiers were killing children and how deliberate the shooting had been. But as she began to delve into the incident, serious doubts were raised as to whether it had been Israeli and not Palestinian gunfire that killed the boy.

She said forensic evidence showed Dura had been shot either from in front or from above, the direction from which the Palestinian gunmen had been firing. For it to have been IDF fire that killed him, the shot would have had to enter from the side.

"According to our findings, it is much more likely it was a Palestinian bullet, not an Israeli bullet, that killed him," Shapira said. Israel expressed its regrets for the tragic incident, though an IDF investigation did not prove conclusively who shot Dura.

The documentary also did not unequivocally conclude one way or the other, but did ask enough questions to leave the viewer with doubts about the conventional wisdom.

Among the questions raised were who had an interest in killing the boy; whether France2, which filmed the incident, released all the footage in its possession; whether it was possible to hit Dura from where the soldiers were positioned; where are the bullets taken from the boy's body; why did the Palestinians not investigate the incident; and who ordered the footage broadcast continuously on Palestinian television.

Daniel Shek, director of the Foreign Ministry's European Division, said the documentary is "very significant" because it leaves doubt.

"I have all along had a problem with the unbearable certainty of some who had no doubt who was responsible. I think doubt is healthy, and that even if you have a camera on the spot, you can not be sure you are seeing everything," he said.

Shek said he is "modest in his expectations" of whether this documentary will change the way people view Dura's death. "Muhammad ad-Dura will remain part of the intifada's mythology, and it will not matter what kind of proof you bring to the contrary," he said. "I hope this will impact a little on the self righteousness of some media organizations, and give journalists room for some self-questioning."

Nigeria Woman Wins Appeal in Court
Mon Mar 25, 2002 8:19 AM ET / By GLENN McKENZIE, Associated Press Writer

LAGOS, Nigeria - A Muslim appeals court on Monday acquitted the first Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for sex outside wedlock, ruling there was insufficient evidence to justify the harsh punishment under Islamic law.

Tambari Usman, one of four judges sitting on the panel in the northern city of Sokoto, said an alleged confession by Safiya Hussaini was inadmissible because prosecutors and police had not adequately informed the 35-year-old mother of five of the nature of the crime of adultery and its seriousness under Shariah, or Islamic law.

Hussaini was sentenced in October to be stoned to death while buried in sand after an Islamic court convicted her of conceiving a child with a married neighbor.

Hussaini, a Hausa-speaker, did not understand Monday's court verdict as it was read in Arabic but smiled broadly and said softly, "thank you, thank you," after the ruling was translated to her by well-wishers. Her lawyers quickly whisked her out of the courtroom.

The case stirred outrage well beyond this troubled West African nation, where opposition to the imposition of Islamic law, or Shariah, in the north has resulted in Muslim-Christian violence that has killed thousands since early 2000.

International rights organizations, women's groups, European Union parliamentarians and U.S. lawmakers all had condemned Hussaini's stoning sentence.

President Olusegun Obasanjo's government and human rights groups provided lawyers for Hussaini's defense. Last week, the Nigerian government for the first time declared Shariah punishments such as executions and amputations "unconstitutional" although northern state governments have vowed to uphold the Islamic laws.

Anti-Semitism Is Deepening Among Muslims-NY Times-4/30/02
By SUSAN SACHS
Stay in a five-star hotel anywhere from Jordan to Iran, and you can buy the infamous forgery "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Pick up a newspaper in any part of the Arab world and you regularly see a
swastika superimposed on the Israeli flag.

Such anti-Semitic imagery is now embedded in the mainstream discourse concerning Jews in much of the Islamic world, in the popular press and in academic journals. The depictions are not limited to countries that are at war with Israel but can be found in general-interest publications in Egypt and Jordan, the two countries that have signed peace agreements with Israel, as well as in independent religious schools in Pakistan and Southeast Asia.

Arab leaders, for their part, have long rejected the accusation that their state-controlled press, universities and television stations promulgate anti-Semitic views. Islamic history, they say, contains nothing like the anti-Semitic horrors that occurred in Christian Europe, and Islam as a religion accepts many of the revelations embodied in Judaism.

The use of Nazi imagery, the newspaper caricatures of Jews with fangs and exaggerated hook noses, even the Arab textbooks with their descriptions of Jews as evil world conspirators — all of that, Arab leaders often insist, reflect a dislike for Israelis and Zionism but not for Jews and Judaism.

Yet in many Muslim countries the hatred of Jews as Jews, and not only as citizens of Israel, has been nurtured through popular culture for generations. Take for instance an official Jordanian government textbook for high school students. It describes Jews as innately deceitful and corrupt. "Up to the present," it states, "they are the masters of usury and leaders of sexual exhibitionism and prostitution."

In the view of many scholars of Islam, such texts are a sign that the Arab-Israeli conflict has been transformed in Muslim culture from a political, nationalist and territorial battle into a cosmic war between religions and, indeed, between good and evil.

The length of the Middle East conflict has contributed to this shift. "You see a certain level of anti-Semitism that you look at and think, how can smart people really believe this?" said John L. Esposito, a professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University. "Part of the explanation is that they grew up with this, but part is also that they grew up in a confrontational situation. You make the world into `us and them,' and therefore you buy into every possible caricature of the other."

Both Jews and Muslims engage in hatemongering based on skewed readings of their holy books, said Professor Esposito, author of the recent book "Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam." Islamic fundamentalists frequently refer to Jews as either the sons or the grandsons of apes and monkeys. These sorts of descriptions can sometimes be heard in sermons at mosques in the Palestinian territories as well as from some Saudi religious leaders.

The reference is drawn from a verse in the Koran that, taken in context, refers to Jews and Christians who break the Sabbath and who mock the early Muslims for their beliefs. The Koran says that God made those people as despicable as monkeys, pigs and idol worshipers.

"In all faiths, more exclusivist or militant verses are taken out of context by some and amplified in popular culture," Professor Esposito said. The Koran also contains complimentary verses about law-abiding Jews, at one point saying that the "believers and the Jews" who do right will be rewarded by God.

Islamic doctrine concerning Christians has also been reinterpreted in recent decades in an effort to forge a bond between Muslims and Christians against the Jews.

Literal Islam recognizes Jesus as a prophet but does not believe that he was crucified. The Koran says that Jews tried to crucify him, but that God rescued Jesus and that the Jews instead killed only a likeness of Jesus.

Yet a common charge from Muslims these days is that the Jews did indeed kill Jesus. When Pope John Paul II visited Damascus last year, President Bashar al-Assad greeted him with a speech accusing Jews of just that. Mr. Assad's minister of religion affairs, Muhammad Ziyadah, later embellished the remarks, saying, "We must be fully aware of what the enemies of God and malicious Zionism conspire to commit against Christianity and Islam."

The pope did not respond directly but called for reconciliation and peace. That Jews would be demonized by some Arabs, and Arabs demonized by some Jews may not be surprising after nearly a century of conflict over Palestine. Even in less enduring wars, nations have engaged in vicious and sometimes racist wartime propaganda against the enemy. And since Israel was founded as a Jewish nation, the issue of religion has always been an element in its relations, or lack of relations, with its Arab neighbors.

Still, the breadth and viciousness of the anti-Semitism is striking. Recent attacks on Jewish centers in France and an ancient synagogue in Tunisia have been attributed to Arabs or Muslim fundamentalists.

Last month the Saudi daily Al Riyadh published an article that accused Jews of consuming the blood of Christian and Muslim children during the holiday of Purim. The author, a lecturer at King Faisal University in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, called this medieval fiction a "well-established fact."

After the article was translated from the Arabic and publicized by an Israel-based group called the Middle East Media Research Institute, the editor of the newspaper repudiated the article, saying it was nonsense and should not have been published.

The recycling of such stories has become a fixture of Muslim discourse, said Bernard Lewis, a historian of Islam and the Middle East, who has called this trend the "Islamization of anti-Semitism."

Its literature, he has written, includes classic European anti-Semitic writings like "Protocols," introduced to the Middle East in the late 1800's and now easily available in Arabic throughout the region and in English. In recent decades this material has been supplemented by a home-grown body of work, ascribed to Islamic teachings, that describes what it calls the innate wickedness of the Jewish people throughout the ages.

Yet Jews were minor players in Islamic theological writing for centuries, Professor Lewis wrote in "Semites and Anti-Semites."

They figure in the Koran, which Muslims call the final and perfect revelation of God, as obstinate antagonists to the prophet Muhammad's efforts to bring Islam to the people of the Arabian Peninsula. Of the tribes he encountered, the Jews were the most hostile to his message. But in the end, the Jewish tribes were defeated, and the Koran refers to them as a people whose rebelliousness had always been punished by God.

In more modern Islamic teachings, which can be found in Arab textbooks and mainstream newspaper articles, the Koran's description of the Jews' opposition to Muhammad takes on monumental importance. The Jews corrupted the word of God from the start, the more recent interpretations say, and their scheming against the prophet was an expression of their innate wickedness.

"Some people confuse certain verses of the Koran attacking the Jews of that day, as an attack on Judaism," said Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University. "It's not innocent confusion. It's deliberate confusion, and it happens on both sides."

This is a modern development, less theological than emotional, and leaves as its casualty a long tradition of amity between Islam and Judaism, he added."If religious authorities in both religions put the demands of God above nationalistic and ethnic feelings," Professor Nasr said, "then maybe something can be done."

'Greedy monsters' ruled church THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The
Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity and later deported by Israel seized church stockpiles of food and "ate like greedy monsters" until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry.

They also guzzled beer, wine and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests' quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol.

The indulgence lasted for about two weeks into the 39-day siege, when the food and drink ran out, according to an account by four Greek Orthodox priests who were trapped inside for the entire ordeal that ended Friday.

About 30 priests, monks and nuns, and more than 150 Palestinian civilians, who ran inside on April 2 to escape a gunbattle between Israelis and Palestinians, remained inside the church with the armed militants for more than five weeks.

A church helper, who gave his name as Milad, said the quantity of food consumed by the gunmen in the first 15 days should have lasted for six months. As they feasted and boozed, Palestinian civilians subsisted on a meager diet, with barely enough for a single meal a day.

Conditions improved somewhat for the civilian refuge seekers when the governor of Bethlehem intervened and partially succeeded in reallocating food supplies, priests and others witnesses said.

Angry Orthodox priests yesterday showed two reporters about 20 empty bottles of whiskey, champagne, vodka, cognac and French wine on a kitchen shelf and on the floor of two rooms.

"They should be ashamed of themselves. They acted like animals, like greedy monsters. Come, I will show you more," said one priest, who declined to give his name. He gestured toward empty bottles of Israeli-brewed Maccabi beer and hundreds of cigarette butts strewn on the floor.

The priest then took the reporters to see computers taken apart and a television set dismantled for use as a hiding place for weapons. "You can see what repayment we got for 'hosting' these so-called guests," said Archbishop Ironius, another cleric, as he showed reporters the main reception hall of the Greek Orthodox Monastery. "All the media concentrated on the Franciscan [Catholic] quarter, where little damage was done," the archbishop said. "Why? The Franciscans actually let the gunmen in, then guided the gunmen to our rooms."

rchbishop Ironius showed onlookers where the militants had broken in to the monks' quarters by smashing locked doors while, he said, the monks were praying downstairs.

"The Franciscans then blocked their own rooms' doors with iron bars," Archbishop Ironius said.The 39-day siege ended Friday under a deal in which 13 Palestinian fighters were sent to exile in Europe and another 26 were sent to Gaza, where they were received as heroes.

While in the church, the top Palestinian gunmen slept on comfortable beds in the elegant apartment of Father Parathaious, while others rested on mattresses there and elsewhere under high-quality woolen blankets. The civilians slept on cold tile floors in the main church downstairs.

"It's a shame, the mess they made and the way they kept the food. I'm not proud of what they did, even though as a Palestinian I sympathize with their cause of a liberated homeland," said Milad, 15. The gunmen belong to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, part of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization.

Before Mr. Arafat visited the church yesterday, Palestinian security officials ordered a thorough removal of all debris and a total cleanup. But prior to Mr. Arafat's arrival, the reporters were shown the room belonging to Father Vasareillon, where a key Al Aqsa leader, Nabil Abayat, was fatally shot. While inviting the reporters inside, the priests refused to allow three young members of Mr. Abayat's extended family into the room, fearing they would insist it became a Muslim shrine to their fallen colleague.

The scene in the room was grim. Seven gunmen had sheltered there, said another young church helper, and Mr. Abayat had died when a bullet ricocheted off a radiator. Pools of his blood had stained the bed on which he had collapsed. Priests pointed to numerous bullet holes that appeared to have been fired from inside the room.

Wine bottles and a Johnny Walker Red Label whisky bottle lay empty on a bedside table with cooked rice splattered on the floor. Another top gunman from the militant Abayat clan was fatally shot 10 days ago close to a well that the Palestinians had used to hide their weapons. Another four gunmen died during the exchanges of fire and sniping, as well as a mentally retarded bell ringer who, the Israelis say, ran toward soldiers, ignoring orders to stop.

Several Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded in the exchanges of gunfire during the five-week siege. The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear.

"Their word was law," said one civilian, "and they told us civilians who left the church would either be shot by the Israelis or dealt with later by the gunmen's comrades."

Even in the Roman Catholic areas of the complex there was evidence of disregard for religious norms.

Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. "Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold," said a Franciscan, the Rev. Nicholas Marquez from Mexico. "We were told later that they gave them back." The gunmen and civilians who emerged on Friday went through metal detectors, revealing no stolen objects.

Jordan's first woman MP jailed (Filed: 16/05/2002)

Tujan Faisal, the first woman elected MP in Jordan, has been jailed for 18 months after being convicted of defamation and spreading information harmful to the reputation of the state.

Faisal, 53, a deputy from 1993 to 1997, shouted "unfair" from the court as the verdict was announced.

She was arrested in March after sending an email message to Jordan's King Abdullah II in which she accused Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb of having "benefited financially" from a government decision to double car insurance costs.

The sentence, against which there is no appeal, is the toughest under Jordanian law. The prosecutor, Colonel Mohannad Hijazi, had accused her of "using certain media, known for their hostility towards Jordan", to make false accusations. He also accused her of having made statements "capable of offending religious sentiment" during her imprisonment.

Faisal, who conducted her own defence, told the court: "Not only am I innocent of the accusations levelled against me, but I also devoted all my life to the service of the Jordanian people and to defending their interests against corruption and abuse of power."

Poll: Majority Palestinians See Israel's Elimination as Goal Tue Jun 11, 9:22 AM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A majority of Palestinians believe the aim of their 20-month-old uprising should be to eliminate Israel and not just end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip ( news - web sites), an opinion poll released Tuesday showed. The survey also showed almost half of all respondents believed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat ( news - web sites) would win elections he has proposed holding early next year and that more than half wanted reforms of his Palestinian Authority ( news - web sites).

The poll by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC) highlighted a radicalization of views as 20 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence worsens. The JMCC interviewed 1,179 people in the West Bank and Gaza in late May and early June. The poll had a three percent margin of error.

Fifty-one percent of people surveyed said the end result of the uprising should be "liberating all of historic Palestine," referring to British-mandate Palestine, part of which was recognized as Israel in 1948. Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war and these territories have since been the focus of internationally sponsored peace negotiations for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Forty-three percent of respondents said the aim of the uprising was to end Israeli occupation and establish a state only in the West Bank and Gaza. This compared with a poll taken in December in which 48 percent said the uprising's goal was to end the occupation compared with 44 percent who said the aim should be to eliminate Israel, the JMCC said.

BROAD SUPPORT FOR UPRISING

The uprising continued to have broad support. Seventy-nine percent of people surveyed said they back the revolt in some way and 68 percent said they approved of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, down slightly from 74 percent in December.

Fewer than half the respondents supported Arafat, despite Israeli attempts to isolate him by besieging his headquarters and restricting his movement. Some 41 percent of people surveyed gave Arafat favorable marks, compared with 29 percent who said he was a bad leader.

Most of the people polled said Israeli raids had reduced their support for the Palestinian Authority and its security forces, and also dented their support for holding peace talks with Israel.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said the Israeli raids had boosted their approval of the militant Islamic group Hamas, which opposes Israel's existence, and 66 percent said the army operations increased their backing for suicide bombings.

A large majority -- 58 percent -- said they supported domestic reform within the Palestinian Authority, and 42 percent said the best way to accomplish reform was through free democratic elections.

Arafat was expected to win elections by 48 percent of those surveyed. Overall, 25 percent of Palestinians said they trusted Arafat more than any other politician, followed by 24 percent who said they trust no one and nine percent who put their faith in Hamas' spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Saudi Arabia bans products bearing 'Star Of David'- Jun 26. 2002-Jerusalem Post
By MICHAEL FREUND

Saudi Arabia's Commerce Ministry has launched an investigation to determine why various products bearing a "Star of David" had been brought into the desert kingdom, the English-language Riyadh Daily reported yesterday.

The ministry, according to the report, had dispatched "inspectors of commercial fraud" to various parts of the country to confiscate items such as children's toys, candy, and laser discs because they bore the six-cornered symbol. The companies behind the products were ordered to withdraw them from the marketplace, the newspaper said.

Jun. 26, 2002
B'nai Brith: Syrian schools drenched in anti-Semitism
By MELISSA RADLER, NEW YORK
Virulent anti-Semitism, calls for Jihad and support for the
elimination of Israel are entrenched in every level of Syria's school system, according to a study released by B'nai Brith International of 68 Syrian school textbooks spanning grades 1-12.

Conducted by the New York-based Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, the 30-page study titled, "Jihad, Jews and Anti-Semitism in Syrian School Texts," found that Syrian children are taught to hate Jews and Israel with such ferocity that genuine reconciliation between the two peoples appears unlikely in the near future.

The study also highlights Syria's contradictory role in the international arena. Listed as one of seven sponsors of international terrorism by the US State Department, Syria also holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council and co-chairs its Human Rights Commission, based in Geneva.

Among the many examples of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment provided in the study, which looked at government-funded texts only, is an excerpt from a 10th grade social studies text that describes Zionism as "a racist-imperialist-colonialist-aggressive-expansionist political movement." In an 11th grade reader, Zionism is termed the "new Nazism" and a "model of racist evil."

Eighth-graders are taught that, "It is known that the Jews of today do not have any connection to Palestine," and sixth-graders learn that "The Prophet [Mohammed] knew about the treacherous intention harbored in the Jews' souls."

By age 15, Syrian children are read in their Islamic studies textbooks that Jews deserve to be liquidated: "Co-existence with them or having them as neighbors, is an enormous danger that threatens Islamic and Arab existence with destruction and extinction Their criminal intention should be turned against them by way of their elimination."

Calls for "martyrdom" and terrorism are also tracked in the study. An Islamic studies text for grade-5 students describes praises Palestinian youth for "rushing towards death, trying to reach it ahead of one another," and 6th-graders learn: "There is neither excuse nor forgiveness for the one who refrains from Jihad for the cause of God, for the purification of Palestine of the Jews."

B'nai Brith executive vice president Dan Mariaschin said that the study highlights the dim prospects for peace between Israel and Syria. "Without education for peace, not incitement, good relations between Syria and Israel are unlikely," he said.

Jun. 27, 2002
Palestinian newspaper slurs Rice as 'the dark-complexioned lady'
By MICHAEL FREUND

An article appearing this week in the Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, criticizes US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as "the dark- complexioned lady" whose policies have "dealt a blow to the image of the African-American in the eyes of the vast majority of the world's inhabitants."

Itamar Marcus, director of the Israeli Palestinian Media Watch, quotes the article published on Sunday as saying: "My enthusiasm for George Bush increased after he entered the White House and chose to appoint to his administration two people from among the colored, a first in the history of American administrations: Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

"We said then, both in private and in public, that these colored senior officials are a part of the Third World, even if only due to the color of their skin," Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Maqaleh writes in the Arabic-language daily, according to Marcus' translation, which he released on Thursday.

"But what happened after that was embarrassing and astonishing, especially what happened with the dark-complexioned lady, or, more accurately: black, the National Security Advisor," the article continues.

"What compounds the astonishment is that the Black Lady always makes a point, whether the opportunity presents itself or not, of denouncing the Palestinians to the point where her positions and statements have come to be nearly daily lessons to the American people and the world, causing regret to every Arab who was optimistic about her arrival on the political scene."

According to Marcus, the writer goes on to call Rice a "pitiful woman who has dealt a blow to the image of the African-American in the eyes of the vast majority of the world's inhabitants."

Marcus, writing for Independent Media Review Analysis, another Israeli group that monitors the Arab press, comments that "PA verbal attacks on the United States are returning to the frequency and style common before September 11, including personal insults and demonizing of the US."

These latest slurs against Rice indicate that "the PA has now returned to its previous open expression of anathema toward the United States, presenting the US to its people as an enemy of Arabs and of Islam," Marcus adds.

Court Upholds Stoning for Nigerian Mother, By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, August 20, 2002

FUNTUA, Nigeria, Aug. 19 — An Islamic high court in northern Nigeria rejected an appeal today from a single mother sentenced to be stoned to death for having had sex out of wedlock.

The woman's lawyers said they planned to file an appeal to a yet higher Islamic court. If that failed, they could appeal to the Supreme Court, where the case would force a showdown between Nigeria's constitutional and religious authorities.

The introduction of Islamic law, or Shariah, in a dozen northern states has sparked clashes between the country's Christians and Muslims.

In addition, President Olusegun Obasanjo's government has declared the unconstitutionality of Shariah punishments like beheadings, stonings and amputations. But some predominantly Muslim northern states, which began instituting Shariah shortly after civilian rule replaced military dictatorship in 1999, have accused him of meddling.

In court today, Amin Lawal clutched her baby daughter and burst into tears as the judge ruled.

Ms. Lawal, 30, was first sentenced in March, having given birth to her daughter more than nine months after divorcing. The man she identified as the child's father denied the accusation and was acquitted for lack of evidence last spring.

"We uphold the judgment from the lower court," Judge Aliyu Abdullahi said today on behalf of four judges at the Islamic high court at Funtua, in Katsina State, in northern Nigeria. Many of the 60 people who packed the small courtroom shouted, "God is great!" in the Hausa dialect, as Ms. Lawal wept.

The judges upheld the conviction on the ground that Ms. Laval admitted to having had sex outside marriage. But her legal team argued that she could not knowingly have made a confession because she did not understand the Arabic term for adultery, "zena."

The judge said the sentence would be carried out as soon as Ms. Lawal weaned her daughter from breast-feeding. In June, the court postponed her execution until January 2004 for that reason. She was given 30 days to appeal the ruling and was then released on bail.

Outside the court today, Ms. Lawal hid behind her lawyer, holding her baby up to shield her face from photographers. About 20 police officers armed with tear gas stood guard at the court entrance, but there were no immediate reports of violence.

Ms. Lawal is the second Nigerian woman to be condemned to death by Islamic courts for sex out of wedlock. The first, Safiya Hussaini, had her sentence overturned in March on an appeal. At least two other women have faced similar charges. One case was dismissed in January, and the other has been delayed until the woman is healthy enough to appear in court.

All the women are poor, uneducated, single mothers from rural villages. Most spectators in court on Monday welcomed the ruling. "This is a triumph of Allah's law against the enemies of Shariah," said Muhammad Radiu, 26, an Islamic studies student. "By this judgment, we are confident the government is serious about the implementation of Shariah." But church leaders and rights advocates were dismayed.

"The application of the Shariah is unconstitutional, and we must not tolerate it further," John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Archbishop of Abuja, told the Italian-based missionary news service, Misna.

Amnesty International said in a statement in London that stoning people to death was "the ultimate form of torture" and that the "sentence should not be carried out."

Arab Fashion Designer Under Fire - By Celean Jacobson - Associated Press Writer
Monday, August 26, 2002

JERUSALEM –– A young Arab fashion designer who has come under fire from Muslim leaders for a racy dress said Monday she will not apologize for her creation that is decorated with Allah's name.

Fida Naamneh, 23, from the town of Arrabe in the Galilee in the north of Israel, has been denounced in mosques as an infidel. She has been compared to Salman Rushdie and death threats have been made against her in her village.

But she says it was her love for Islam and a desire to promote Arab culture which inspired her creation. "I am proud of being Arab and Muslim and I don't understand why in my society some people think I did something wrong," she said.

The black dress, with its low cut front and back, is embroidered with three of the 99 "asma," or names, of Allah – "al-Kuddus," "al-Hakim," "al-Bari" meaning "the Most Holy," "the Wise" and "the Creator," respectively. The dress was part of a collection Naamneh designed for her final project at the college she was studying at in Tel Aviv where she was the only Arab student. Her work won her a prize and received coverage in the Hebrew press.

That was when her troubles started. A local Arabic newspaper criticized her and her design. Hurtful rumors began to fly around her village and some people demanded she apologize. Naamneh said she is determined to stand her ground and has her parents' support. "I don't think I did something wrong. That's why I don't think I should apologize for making what I did," she said. She said she was also not afraid of the threats against her.

"I am not afraid to go out. I am acting as usual but I also don't know how many people here will take this seriously and decide to do something," she said,

Her father, Mohammed, said some of the local religious leaders had come to see him and he explained that his daughter had not intended any harm. "I am very proud of my daughter. A lot of people ... really liked the collection that she designed and I think a lot of people should be proud of her.

"I knew about the designs and I supported her. If there is any religious man who think she was doing something bad he should come and explain to us his opinion and so we can discuss it but I don't like it when people just talk," he said.

Sheikh Kamal Khatib, a senior leader of the Islamic Movement, said it was wrong to put the name of Allah on a dress because it could be worn to inappropriate places. It was also wrong for a Muslim women to wear a dress like Naamneh designed because it was not modest enough, he said.

"It is all right to show that you are close to your religion and nationality but it is wrong to do it this way," he said.  

'Honor killings' rise in Pakistan from CNN.com

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan --'Honor killings' have risen in Pakistan, with 461 women murdered by family members in 2002 for immoral behavior ranging from adultery, being raped or even cooking poorly, the country's main human rights body says.

The figure is up 25 percent on last year's reported total of 372, with at least as many raped as killed in the past twelve months, the private Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said. Urging for greater protection of women, the commission called on the government to increase its commitment to fight the practice.

Most killings are carried out by men to protect their family's honor for so called immoral behavior such as sex outside marriage, talking to or dating men, being a victim of rape and even bad cooking skills, the commission said. The honor crimes are committed under the belief their actions would defend a family's reputation.

Explaining the high figure, the rights commission's Kamla Hayat told The Associated Press news agency the number may have risen because of an increased willingness to report the crimes as opposition to the practice grows in some regions.

Gang rape
Relying mainly on data collected from two provinces, the rights commission said over 300 honor killings took place in Sindh. In Punjab province, 161 women or girls were killed by relatives. Only 27 killers were arrested in that province.

Data on the rest of Pakistan, including the tribal rural areas, was not available, the commission said, as information is difficult to obtain from such regions. In June this year, the tribal council-ordered gang rape of a woman in Punjab sparked national and international outrage. The young woman, Mukhtiar Bibi, was raped as punishment for her brother having sex with a woman from another clan. Six men were convicted of attacking her and sentenced to death.

New Laws
But in most honor killings, those guilty are not punished. "Unfortunately, police in Pakistan either don't arrest such killers or they are not treated as murderers," Hayat told The Associated Press. Pakistan authorities say they are taking steps to reduce crimes against women and act when they are reported.

"The government has recently made some changes in the laws to give more protection to the women, and it will be unfair to say that the government is quiet on the subject," AP quoted Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, Director General of Pakistan's Interior Ministry, as saying.

Among other findings from the commission:

• In Punjab, 67 of the slain women were killed by their brothers, 49 by their husbands and the rest executed by other family members, including seven cases where sons killed their mothers.

• In November in the southern city of Faisalabad, a woman was hacked to death with an ax by close relatives on suspicion she was having "immoral relations" with a man. The man was also killed.

• During the same month, a widow was killed by her brother on suspicion she was living with a man outside marriage. In both cases, the perpetrators gave themselves up to police and are awaiting trial.

Below are very interesting articles that appeared in the New York Post

LYING ABOUT ISLAM
By STEPHEN SCHWARTZ --February 28, 2003

AMERICANS have a lot to learn about Islam - even in the aftermath of the horrors of 9/11. While the atrocities of that day provided a wake-up call about terrorism, our political and media elites continue to show us that they haven't done their homework on the religious background of al Qaeda - and are likely not to.

An exceptionally irritating example of this came to light when a USA Today "Q&A on Islam and Arab Americans" appeared as a mass mailing around the country. Although the flier bore the USA Today logo, a call to the newspaper elicited the claim that the logo was used without its permission, even though the content of the flyer appeared on the paper's Web site.

USA Today staffers doubtless thought they were doing Muslims and non-Muslims in America a favor by presenting a warm and fuzzy picture of the situation inside world Islam. But the leaflet was sent out by the "International Institute of Islamic Thought" (IIIT) in Herndon, Va., one of a group of Muslim organizations raided by federal authorities in an antiterrorism investigation last year.

IIIT advocates for the Wahhabi sect of Islam, the most extreme, separatist and violent trend in the faith of Mohammed. Wahhabism is the official religion in Saudi Arabia. Saudi oil royalties are spent to spread Wahhabism throughout the world - including right here in America.

We shouldn't be surprised, then, at how the newspaper, and the leaflet, answered the question, What is jihad? "Jihad does not mean 'holy war.' Literally, jihad in Arabic means to strive, struggle and exert effort. It is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for self-defense or fighting against tyranny or oppression."

Here we have the money quote: "Jihad does not mean 'holy war.' " A few lines later, however, jihad does include "struggle in the battlefield."

The truth is, military jihad cannot be written out of Islam. The prophet Mohammed himself led armies. This answer would be more honest if it said, "Jihad cannot be reduced to the idea of 'holy war.'" But IIIT seeks only to escape responsibility for the Wahhabi 'jihad,' which has been terroristic since the founding of the Wahhabi cult in central Arabia 250 years ago.

Wahhabism is murderous in its attacks on non-Wahhabi Muslims, especially the Shi'as who comprise a majority in Iraq and the oil-rich Saudi eastern province, as well as in Iran. Just last week, nine Shi'a Muslims were murdered in Pakistan. The finger of blame has been pointed at Lashkar i Janghvi, the same Wahhabi terror gang that killed American reporter Daniel Pearl. (Indeed, Pearl was among the few victims of Lashkar i Janghvi who was not a Muslim.)

The "Q&A" that first appeared in USA Today and has been recycled by IIIT is part of a not-so-sophisticated campaign to convince Americans that there is only one Islam, represented by Saudi-Wahhabism, that it has nothing to do with terror, and, above all, that other forms of Islam, such as Shi'ism or Sufism, the spiritual form of Islam, do not exist or are unworthy of notice in the West.

This is especially pernicious as the United States solicits allies among Shi'a Muslims in Iraq, who yearn for liberation from the bloody hands of Saddam Hussein. Over the weekend, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz met with Shi'a Muslims in Michigan who stressed their hatred of Saddam and their desire to see the United States take firm action. One said, "It is not a very good idea to wait much longer."

In New York, Shi'a Muslims will hold their annual religious procession on March 9. They will proclaim their loyalty to America and their hatred of Saddam, of Wahhabism and of terrorism.

In addition, I and others who work closely with dissident Saudi subjects increasingly hear that restive young people in the kingdom, rather than supporting Osama bin Laden as the Saudi rulers claim, are turning to the peaceful and meditative way of Sufism as a form of opposition to the extremist form of Islam that has a grip on their country.

But Shi'ism and Sufism are absent from the USA Today Q&A. It's bad enough that Saudi money has enabled Wahhabis to take over 70-80 percent of American mosques. But when major American media like USA Today cover for this, it's a disgrace - and a threat.

SLAUGHTER IN THE NAME OF ALLAH

November 24, 2002 -- The violent medieval intolerance of fun damentalist Islam was again on dis play in Nigeria at week's end - and again threatening to plunge that country into deadly sectarian civil conflict.

Savage fighting between Muslims and minority Christians had taken at least 100 lives in the city of Kaduna and spread to the capital city of Abuja. The riots were provoked by, of all things, the Miss World Contest, slated for Abuja on Dec. 7 - but now moved to London thanks to the disorders.

There had already been protests against the pageant by fundamentalists, who say it promotes promiscuity. But the violence began in earnest when Muslim youths burned the Kaduna offices of a newspaper after it ran an article apparently suggesting that the contestants were so desirable the prophet Mohammed would have taken one of them for his wife.

The Muslim youths then began attacking local Christians - who, in turn, made retaliatory attacks on Muslim targets.

There's more happening here than another Rushdie-style sense-of-humor failure on the part of local Muslims. Nigeria is in turmoil thanks to an Islamic fundamentalist campaign to impose Shariah law in the country's north - a campaign whose success was recently manifested by the sentence of death by stoning for the crime of bearing a child out of wedlock.

It's just another example of something that all the people who talk about the "victimization" of Muslims prefer to ignore, despite the bloody evidence coming in from all over the globe: Radical Islam may be the deadliest, most destabilizing force in the world today.

Islam may be a religion of peace. But that is surely no more comfort to the Christians being cut down in Nigeria than it was to the Christians killed in Pakistan in August. Or the Hindu pilgrims murdered in Kashmir last October. Or the Jewish children blown up on their way to school in Israel this Wednesday.


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