Are You Opposed to the War in Iraq?
       If you are opposed to the war in Iraq, please be careful about who's protests you join, which organizations you donate to and support, who's petitions you sign, which e-mails you forward. 

       Unfortunately, some of the leading anti-war organizing groups are virulently anti-Israel (in addition to having on their agenda a wide variety of radical and anti-American causes) and many people who support those organizations have no idea that they are in fact joining with such an organization.  Although you may hear rabid chants against Israel at their rallies and read anti-Israel screeds in their literature, you are not likely to hear any criticism of Saddam Hussein; although they will scream about the casualties that will be caused to Iraqi civilians by a US bombing campaign, they will excuse or even support Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians.  You may well see signs and buttons that equate the Star of David with the swastika, George Bush and Ariel Sharon with Hitler.

       One such organization is ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).  Following are some excerpts from ANSWER's position paper on Israel:

The Commission of Inquiry [started by ANSWER] is being titled "The Other Apartheid" as a comparison to the apartheid policies faced by Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories and within the 1948 border of Israel, and to those faced in South Africa. This is clearly a policy that comes from the top levels of the Israeli government with the full support of the United States, just as the U.S. and Israel supported the now-overthrown apartheid regime in South Africa. 

Few people in the U.S. realize that the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation breaks dozens of international laws and human rights conventions.  Even fewer know of the dispossession of the Palestinian people to make way for the state of Israel, or of the long history of Palestinian resistance.

WHAT IS THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY?  The Commission of Inquiry is preparing an indictment charging the state of Israel and the United States with conspiring and acting in a common course of conduct to commit the most serious crimes of apartheid and crimes of occupation, war crimes and crimes against humanity in violation of all international norms and standards, and of U.S. law. They will stand charged before the jury of the world--including experts, communities and the people of all countries. After hearing and seeing evidence first hand of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace--and, very importantly, U.S. collusion in those crimes--a judgment will be issued in the name of the people.

Research will be gathered in many areas to support the charges of the Commission of Inquiry's indictment, including inhumane treatment of civilians and prisoners, deliberate destruction of the Palestinian economy, denying medical aid, the racist character of the Israeli state, and more. 

Go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/news/update/071802commission.html  to read it for yourself. The language used by ANSWER, some of which is highlighted above, shows that it is not merely critical of Israel, not merely supportive of the Palestinian side in the current conflict, but it opposes the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

       If you want to learn more about ANSWER and the varied causes it supports, spend a few minutes on its Web site, http://www.internationalanswer.com.  Among other things, click on and read the listings in its Links section, to see who its affiliated organizations are and the other causes it supports.

       Here is an excellent article about this serious problem in the anti-war movement -- the rabid anti-Israel position of the main anti-war organizing movements (as well as their embrace of other abhorrent causes).  The article tells how Rabbi Michael Lerner, a staunch critic of many of Israel's policies and a strong anti-war voice, has been forbidden to speak at protests that ANSWER is involved in organizing because, although a critic of Israel's policies, he also supports Israel's right to exist and condemns Palestinian terrorism.
   
      Click here: Salon.com News | Intolerance on the left

       http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/02/12/lerner_ban/index_np.html

(Please note -- to read the entire article you will have to watch a 15 second commercial.  No registration or personal information is necessary.)

       Here is another article describing the difficulties many Jewish students have in dealing with certain aspects of the anti-war movement, with links to full stories about the situations described and some advice for pro-Israel, anti-war activists:

       Click here: Caravan for Democracy - Activism: Anti-War or Anti-Israel?

         http://www.caravanfordemocracy.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=CFDPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWh    o=Activism%5El6&enZone=Activism&enVersion=0&

       Learn who these people are before you decide to support or endorse them -- or to forward e-mails that endorse them!  There are anti-war organizations that are not anti-Israel and do not espouse other radical causes.

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The New Palestinian Prime Minister

       Last week, the Palestinians named for the first time an independent Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, complying with a key demand of the United States and the "Quartet" (the US, the EU, the UN, and Russia) that power be vested in a person other than Yasir Arafat as a step on the way to peace.  News reports of the debates and conflicts among the Palestinians in reaching this decision, and of the significance of the move, have emphasized Abbas' vocal opposition to the violent nature of the current intifada and his role as one of the chief Palestinian architects of the Oslo accords. 

       However, it seems that no major media have reported on Abbas' views on the Holocaust.  In his 1982 doctoral thesis and a 1984 article, entitled The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement,  Abbas charged that the Zionists conspired and acted with the Nazis to destroy European Jewry,  in order to inspire Jewish emigration to Palestine.  He also claimed that the Zionists vastly inflated the number of Jews killed by the Nazis (to 6 million), and that the Zionist and Nazi philosophies are very similar.

       You can read excerts from Abbas's papers here:

       Click here: Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 95

       http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA9502#_edn4

       Abbas' writings are unfortunately consistent with a deep and broad Holocaust-denial anti-Semitism that exists in much of the Arab and Muslim world, an understanding of history that is taught to children and considered historical fact in those societies.  Read more about it here:

       Click here: AJC Publication - Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger

       http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=503&pid=1203

and here:
      
       Click here: The Development of Arab Anti-Semitism - An Interview with Meir Litvak

       http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-5.htm

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Litvak's interview:

       “Western research on the Middle East tends to suppress or diminish the significance of Arab anti-Semitism, presenting it as a marginal phenomenon. Bernard Lewis was one of the few scholars of the Moslem world who dealt with this challenge in his book "Semites and anti-Semites". This led to major criticism from the academic establishment in the United States despite the book's resonance in American non-academic circles....
       "Today anti-Semitism has become an integral part of the intellectual and cultural discourse of the Arab world. Much of Arab society believes it and it is much harder to uproot than was the case 30 or 40 years ago.
       "The Western public which reads articles with strong anti-Israel bias in the press can also peruse texts showing the Jews and Zionism in a positive light. This is not the case in the Arab world. What is presented about Israel and the Jews is totally biased and easy to digest. Why would they have any doubts when they are not exposed to anything else in the Arab media.”

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PETA asks Yasir Arafat to be Humane

       Upon learning of an incident in which Palestinians packed a donkey with explosives, sent it into an Israeli civilian area, and blew it up with a remote control trigger, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent a letter to Yasir Arafat, apologizing for adding to his burdens but requesting him to please not use animals in the battle with Israel.  PETA, which described the incident as "shocking people of all nationalities around the world", of course made no objection to the blowing up of civilian Israelis.  Read PETA's proud press release and the letter here:

       http://www.peta-online.org/search/news/row.asp?id=1848

       http://www.peta-online.org/search/news/row.asp?id=1848

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