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Politics : World Affairs Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2442)	10/22/2002 3:37:32 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 3959

Judeofascists' nightmare: dividing Jerusalem. Israelis, Palestinians discuss dividing Jerusalem KHALED ABU TOAMEH Oct. 22, 2002 Israeli left wing activists and Palestinian officials met in Turkey over the weekend for a conference discussing ways of sharing Jerusalem. The meeting was organized by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information. The three-day conference, held in Antalia, was attended by two Meretz members of the Jerusalem Municipal Council, Meir Margalit and Peppe Alalo. Other Israeli participants included Dr. Menahem Klein of Bar-Ilan University, a former member of the human rights organization B'tzelem, and lawyer Dany Zeidman, who has defended Palestinians in Israeli courts. On the Palestinian side, the most prominent participant was Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, the PLO's man in Jerusalem, and several other Palestinian activists and Palestinian Authority officials. The Jerusalem Post has learned that the Foreign and Defense Ministries barred their representatives from attending the conference. IPCRI had invited Israeli government officials to the conference, which discussed the possibility of dividing Jerusalem between Israel and a future Palestinian state. There was a consensus at the conference on the need to divide the capital and hand over the Arab neighborhoods to the PA. They said this was the only way to achieve a just and everlasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This is the second conference of its kind to be held in recent months by IPCRI. Earlier this year, Israeli and Palestinian activists met in Cyprus to discuss ways of thwarting plans to build homes for Jewish families in east Jerusalem. The two parties also discussed the need to foil government plans to settle Jewish families in Ras el-Amud, an Arab neighborhood overlooking the Temple Mount. Some Palestinian activists in east Jerusalem yesterday scoffed at the conference, saying there was no need to go all the way to Turkey to discuss a solution for Jerusalem. "A lot of money is being spent on conferences which have no impact, because it's always the same group of people meeting each other," said one activist. jpost.com The media bamboozlement is perfect: one the right, we've got pro-Israel warmongers who claim the (eventual) war on Iraq is all about WMD and Iraq's "imminent" threat to the US vital interests.... and, on the left, we've got pacifist dupes who claim that the war is all about oil. And the truth is, both are wrong --it's a religious/irrational tug-of-love over Jerusalem and, incidentally, the balance of power between Judeo-Christianity and Islam... But then, how many Yanks are ready to die for Jerusalem? Gus

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2442)	10/25/2002 5:28:56 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 3959

NOW.... Rebels threaten hostages; 'Won't give in,' Putin says Peter Baker and Susan B. Glasser The Washington Post Friday, October 25, 2002 MOSCOW Chechen militants holding a theater audience captive in the heart of Moscow threatened Thursday to begin shooting hostages if the Russian government did not meet their demand to withdraw forces from the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Fitful negotiations yielded the release of five hostages Thursday afternoon, but as many as 700 remained inside the theater, guarded by up to 50 masked guerrillas armed with assault rifles and grenades. The authorities reported that a woman hostage was shot and killed Wednesday night when she defied her captors. Her body was brought out Thursday evening. Other sporadic shots and explosions have been heard throughout the crisis, but it remained unclear what was happening. President Vladimir Putin linked the hostage-taking to international terrorists. He canceled his plans to travel to Mexico for an Asian-Pacific economic summit this weekend. [...] iht.com ...AND THEN: The Reichstag fire by Soren Swigart The night of February 27, 1933 loomed dark and gray over the city of Berlin. The Reichstag, seat of parliamentary government in Germany had been in recess since December of the preceding year. New elections were scheduled for March 5th. The great building was quiet and except for a watchman, empty. At 9:05 that evening, a student passing by saw a man carrying a burning torch through the windows of the first floor but did not report it. Ten minutes later smoke was observed coming from the building and the first fire alarm was received by the Berlin Fire station. In less than ten minutes the firemen were on the scene but already flames were breaking out all over the building. At 9:30 there was a tremendous explosion and the great central chamber was totally enveloped in flames. The fire quickly raced out of control despite the efforts of the fire fighters and soon only the walls of the gutted building were still standing. Within minutes police arrested a half naked and seemingly dazed Dutchman, Marinus van der Lubbe, who was discovered at the scene. It wasn't long before Chancellor Hitler and Prussian Minister Göring arrived amid a flurry of reporters and photographers. Although he had just stepped out of his car, Göring at once accused the communists of setting the fire. The debate over who set the fire continues and may never be solved to everyone's satisfaction. Despite attempts to support the case against van der Lubbe, who was tried and executed for the crime, a great deal of evidence collected and analyzed by Walther Hofer of Bern points in the direction of a SA/SS Sondergruppe headed by Reinhard Heydrich and an official of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Kurt Dalüge. Less important than the cause of the fire however was the result. Before the sun rose on the morning of the 28th, over 4,000 communists and a miscellany of intellectuals and professional men who had incurred the wrath of the Nazi Party were arrested. A shaken President Hindenburg, 86 years old, was easily convinced that the nation was on the verge of a communist revolution, was induced by Hitler to sign an emergency decree suspending the basic rights of the citizens for the duration of the emergency. This decree also authorized the Reich government to assume full powers in any federal state whose government proved unable to restore public order, ordered death or imprisonment for a number of crimes including some newly invented such as resistance to the decree itself. The decree did not include any provision guaranteeing an arrested person a quick hearing, access to legal counsel, or redress for false arrest. Those arrested often found their detention extended indefinitely without legal proceedings of any kind. On March 2, Hitler was asked by a corespondent of the Daily Express whether the suspension of liberties was permanent. He answered in the negative saying that full rights would be restored as soon as the Communist danger was over. The reality was that the decree of February 28th established what would become the normal order of things under National Socialism - arrest on suspicion, imprisonment without trial, the horrors of the concentration camps. This condition would persist until the end of the Third Reich. Immediately after its promulgation the decree was turned against the real and fancied enemies of the Nazi Party. In the last weeks of the election campaign the Marxist press was silenced. The Social Democrats found it impossible to campaign effectively and even respected Center party politicians like former Reich Chancellor Heinrich Bruning had their meetings broken up by brownshirted SA thugs. Despite this the Nazi Party fell far short of the two thirds majority needed to change the constitution. Hitler now showed his contempt for the rule of law by turning the decree of February 28th against those states where significant opposition still existed. Using the argument that local authorities were unable to maintain order, which was in the main being disrupted by drunken brownshirts and SS members, the government replaced the legally constituted governments of Wurttemburg, Baden, Bremen, Hamburg, Lubeck, Saxony, Hessen and Bavaria. Soon, with the support of the Center, Catholic and Bavarian Peoples Parties, the Nazis gained the passage of the Enabling Act, and Adolf Hitler on the afternoon of March 23rd, became the supreme dictator of Germany, free from any restraint from his cabinet or the aged President Hindenburg and free to mold Germany into the nightmare state of his darkest dreams. worldatwar.net

To: Thomas M. who wrote (2442)	10/26/2002 6:09:14 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3959

Judeofascism... or "racism cloaked in religion". Defending the faith Christianity in the US has been hijacked by extremist fanatics, say Arab Christians. Omayma Abdel-Latif* reports* That remarks made by Jerry Falwell earlier this month describing the Prophet Mohamed as "a terrorist" would raise the ire of Muslims comes as no surprise. However, Falwell, an American Evangelical Christian who heads the right-wing Moral Majority Organisation, can count new enemies this week from among Arab Christians. Egyptian Coptic intellectuals and leaders of various Christian sects, including Catholic and Evangelical, who were participating in the conference of the Middle East Churches Council held in Beirut last week, reacted with anger to Falwell's remarks and expressed deep concern over what they described as "attempts by deviant Christians who ally themselves with Zionist movements to attack the Arabs". "We, as Christians, are extremely concerned about the language of enmity and bigotry used by the likes of Falwell. It is racism cloaked in religion. We felt the need to protest against the way the Christian faith is being hijacked by those groups," Milad Hanna, a prominent Coptic thinker told Al-Ahram Weekly. The resentment was translated into a statement of condemnation signed by 80 Coptic intellectuals, including renowned film directors Youssef Chahine, Dawoud Abdel-Sayed and Khairy Bishara, as well as a number of clergymen. The statement described the manner in which Falwell described the prophet of Islam as "an act of sheer racism and intellectual terrorism". It also described as "abhorrent" attempts by the Christian Coalition, a US umbrella organisation of right-wing Christian groups, to defend Israel at the expense of Arab rights in the occupied territories and Jerusalem. The statement accused the US Christian right of "invoking religious texts to serve political purposes by defending Israel". Such movements, said the statement, "promote religious myths that deviate from the true essence of Christianity and reflect the short-sightedness and intolerance of their leaders". For the past three decades, right-wing Christian groups have wielded influence over US policy. Since George W Bush was elected some two years ago, however, the influence of such movements on US foreign policy -- particularly with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict -- has been on the rise. Evangelical Christian leaders such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have caused a furor in the Islamic world with their inflammatory remarks on Islam and the Arab-Israeli conflict. During an interview broadcast by CBS television earlier this month, Falwell said, "I think Mohamed was a terrorist. I read enough of the history of his life, written by both Muslims and non-Muslims, [to know] that he was a violent man, a man of war." Al-Ahram Weekly sought a comment from Falwell via e-mail about the uproar caused by his remarks, but as of press time he had not responded. "Falwell has crossed all acceptable boundaries," says Samir Mourqus, an expert on the Christian Zionist movement who wrote the Coptic protest statement. "When he chose to slander Islam and its prophet in a mainstream media outlet, he was delivering a dangerous message in an unprecedented manner. Arab Christians felt that they had to respond to this particular incident." The statement, said an Egyptian Christian source, was an attempt by some Arab Christians to distance themselves from Christian groups in the United States whose rhetoric promotes the notion of a clash between Islam and Christianity. It also reflects Arab Christians' rejection of alliances with groups that have different views on the question of Palestine and Jerusalem. In the view of Reverend Yohanna Qulta of the Catholic Church, Arab Christians' response to Falwell's comments is highly significant. "It is a defence of Christianity against those who would portray it as a religion of intolerance and disrespect for other peoples' faith and rights." Qulta questioned the impact such statements would have on interfaith dialogue. The Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church has historically taken an uncompromising stand on the issue of Palestine and Jerusalem. Pope Shenouda has repeatedly denounced Copts who have gone to Jerusalem for pilgrimage while it remains under occupation. He has been quoted on many occasions saying, "We will enter Jerusalem with our Muslim brethren". Egypt's Christians during the past decade have been the target of several US attempts to meddle in their affairs under the pretext of defending the rights of religious minorities. According to Mourqus, politics is at the heart of the matter for extremist US Christian groups. "Part of their agenda targets domestic policies while another deals with foreign issues, and at the top of those is defending Israel's interests. They [right-wing Christian groups] are not just against Islam, they are against anybody who is against Israeli interests, and so they can count Arab Christians among their enemies." © Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved ahram.org.eg