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RESPECT FOR THE INSTITUTION OF THE PRESIDENCY
By Avi Davis
 In September, 2005 I attended a concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles headlined by Crosby Stills and Nash. That concert brought back a lot of memories for me, particularly when the group delivered near perfect renditions of songs such as “Teach Your Children Well” and “ Carry On,” the sentiments of which seemed to still resonate after nearly 40 years. But the aging singers lost me half way through the concert. That was when Graham Nash, the composer of the first named song, launched into a long tirade against American policy in Iraq and then ended with a damning comment on the President himself: “Now I guess we know,” he said smugly,” what it means to have a monkey in the White House.” That sling at George Bush, greeted with confirming hoots of derision by the audience, sent a shiver of contempt through my bones. The American presidency, I realized, had been reduced to an utter laughing stock and the man who occupied that office, the acknowledged leader of the free world , practically dehumanized as a thinking individual. The placid acceptance of this assault on the dignity of the office, which would probably have been out of line even in CSN’s 60s heyday, made me realize that something had gone very seriously wrong with our reverence for the office of the presidency.
It wasn’t the first time I had been so floored by an attack on a living president. By 1998, the hatred for Bill Clinton had grown so pathological that the man could barely open his mouth without a Republican or conservative commentator pummeling him as a liar and cheat. Admittedly, the Monica Lewinsky scandal did much to bolster this image, but that event hardly explained the previous six year punitive anti-Clinton crusade that became known as Whitewater ( and the less well known Travelgate) – frivolous investigations into the Clintons’ personal history which were clearly aimed at stripping the couple morally naked - the better to reveal the rottenness of their souls.
OK - you might say – but, any man or woman who chooses to run for the Presidency knowingly sets themselves up as targets and should be prepared for the most acidulous attacks. True enough. But does that mean that we should forget that these individuals, for whatever their personal flaws and the extent of their ambition, are still human beings, who might often deserve empathy, rather than derision, for some of the taxing trials they must endure?
Often forgotten in the rancorous debate over policy is the reality that standing at the heart of government is a human being who must make decisions on enormously complex issues – often, it would seem, beyond ordinary mortal ability. The Presidents themselves have gone to great lengths, in their memoirs and recollections, to explain the unenviable burdens of office. Harry Truman ( 1944-53) described the job as the loneliest in the world, something he would not wish on his worst enemy. James K. Polk,( 1845-49) , the youngest man to hold the Presidency until that time, was so physically devastated by his experiences in Washington that he died within three months of leaving office; Woodrow Wilson’s tenure (1913-1921) was interrupted by a stroke he suffered at the age of 63 , which incapacitated him for the remainder of his term. His successor, Warren Harding, entered office fit and healthy in 1921, only to die three years later at the age of 57 from a heart attack. Franklin Roosevelt (1933-44), broken in health, died in office at the age of 61. Four of the 43 Presidents - Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy, were murdered (a higher rate of assassination than endured by any European state) and several Presidents have been on the receiving end of unsuccessful assassination attempts – the most recent ( and most potentially fatal) being John Hinckley’s attack on Ronald Reagan in 1981.
In other words, the job is hard; the risk to life is great and the pressures of decision making which weigh on a President can ruin his health. When one reads the accounts of such political isolation and personal loneliness, ( evident in the writings of many of the Presidents) one has to wonder why anybody would subject themselves and their families to the trials of the Presidency. The answer is that self sacrifice and a willingness to endure enormous personal suffering is a vital element in the character make up of any President. Laugh as much as you want at such a notion, the truth remains that for all the rewards of office, the potential for failure and eternal ridicule as a result of errors, failures or misjudgments, remains extremely high. Even myriad past successes in business, humanitarianism or government will not save a President’s reputation if he makes a significant mistake in office. Just ask Herbert Hoover – one of the most qualified men to ever serve as President, yet, by force of circumstance and his hapless response to historical events, one of the most reviled.
To understand what has happened to our respect for the institution of the Presidency, one need go back no further Watergate. The revelations of the Watergate investigation and subsequent drama played out between Richard Nixon, the Judiciary and Congress, has wrought a significant shift in the respect of ordinary Americans for the office of the Presidency. Every President since Watergate - Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton - has borne the weight of that particular transgression and all have suffered from 60’s flavored distrust for authority and a rising contempt for power and those who would wield it. That is as unfortunate as it is palpable because in the end, the effectiveness of a president is very much dependent on the respect he is able to generate among the members of Congress and ordinary citizens. Once respect disappears, so does a President’s ability to govern with steadfastness and clout.
Which all leads us back to the two men who stand today at the pinnacle of the American political establishment. Barack Obama is today feted, but soon enough he will learn that the honeymoon doesn’t last long and that respectful criticism, even among his own supporters, can abruptly explode into virulent opposition. It should be needless to comment that Obama deserves respect for his historic achievement just as he deserves the time and space to prove himself a President whose interests are broad enough to cover the welfare of all Americans, not simply his own constituency. George W. Bush, the most lampooned and disparaged president in American history, deserves the empathy and gratitude of a nation he has served in the face of withering assaults upon his character, virtue and policies - all despite his most impressive achievement – keeping the homeland safe after the gravest challenge to national security since the Second World War.
I was raised in a Commonwealth country where the school day always began with a song ( the national anthem) and a prayer in which the head of our government, the Queen, was raphsodized. It all seems so quaint today. Saying a prayer for the President – or even the members of the government, would appear as ludicrous as 19th Century Russians expressing filial feelings for their Tzar. There is a certain sadness in the realization that today our leaders have become, not figures of reverence, but objects of ridicule and that public comparisons of them to animals, criminals or deviants are taken for granted and pass without widespread objection.
Yet in order to fulfill his mandate, the leader of this country needs and deserves the respect of the U.S citizenry. As long as he maintains a personal record of propriety, that respect – for the dignity of his office and the role he plays as the leader of the free world, should be automatic. This doesn’t mean that the President is beyond criticism or censure, or that the checks and balances built into the U.S. Constitution should ever be compromised. But it does mean that we should accept that a President is elected to serve the people and that his willingness to fulfill that role, despite the toll it takes on his health, finances or family life, should be viewed with a certain amount of gratitude and not the wholesale cynicism and the disparagement that has become the lot of so many modern day American leaders.
Avi Davis is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance.
He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com
NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA
"This is a message to the European governments that they must accept Hamas"
 Hamas welcomes invitation to visit European Union assembly-Dina Kraft
Hamas has welcomed an invitation to Palestinian lawmakers, including Hamas, to visit the European Union assembly in Brussels this spring.
"It's a good sign," Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said. "It clarifies that the European Union Parliament respects the democratic process and Hamas as part of that democratic process."
The invitation, made Monday during a visit by an EU delegation to the Gaza Strip, seemed at odds with standing EU policy to boycott the militant Islamist Hamas. Along with the United States, the EU has said it will categorise Hamas a terrorist organisation as long as it refuses to recognise Israel and renounce violence. Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and a year and half later seized all of the Gaza Strip following a bloody power struggle with security forces aligned with Fatah, the secular Palestinian party led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.Most Western powers, the EU among them, focus their diplomatic efforts on Abbas and Fatah officials who are considered moderates. It was Kyriacos Triantaphyllides from Cyprus, the head of the EU parliamentary delegation which visited Gaza and the West Bank this week, who extended the invitation during a meeting with Ahmed Bahar. Bahar, a member of Hamas, is acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. "We don't care who they are as long as they are members of the Legislative Council," Triantaphyllides said. "We don't ask if they are members of Hamas or members of Fatah. "The PLC was elected in 2006 and it was democratically elected," he added. Barhoum said such sentiments encouraged him and his fellow Hamas members. "This is a message to the European governments that they must accept Hamas," he said. (Telegraph.co.uk)
'A child was victimised twice - first by the perpetrators of the rape and then by those responsible for administering justice.'
 Somali girl 'pleaded for mercy' before Islamists stoned her to death for being raped-David Williams
A girl of 13 begged for mercy moments before a mob buried her up to her shoulders and stoned her to death, it was claimed yesterday. The Somalian youngster is said to have pleaded 'Don't kill me, don't kill me' before her horrific execution in front of a 1,000-strong crowd. A boy is thought to have been shot dead amid the appalling scenes inside a football stadium in Kismayu, a rebel-held port. According to Amnesty International, the girl was 13 and had been raped by three men. Officials say she was 23 and had confessed adultery before an Islamic court. The stoning, which took place on October 28, is the first public killing in war-torn Somalia for two years. Convicting a girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under sharia law but the authorities said she had lied about her age. Print and radio journalists who were allowed to attend the execution put her age at 23. Amnesty and Unicef, the UN children's agency, said that the girl, identified as Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was raped while travelling to see a relative in Mogadishu, the Somalian capital. Her family is said to have tried to report the crime to the militia who control Kismayu, only for Aisha to be arrested and accused of adultery. None of the men she accused of rape was detained. David Copeman, Amnesty's Somalia campaigner, said: 'This was not justice, nor was it an execution. This child suffered an horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayu. 'This killing is yet another human rights abuse committed by the combatants in Somalia and again demonstrates the importance of international action to investigate and document such abuses, through an international commission of inquiry.' Amnesty said partway through the stoning nurses checked whether Aisha was still alive. They pulled her body out of the ground to ascertain she was still breathing before the stoning continued. (Dailymail.co.uk)
“The history of Europe selling Israel down the drain is a long and undistinguished one,”
Denmark threatens boycott of Durban II- Paul Lungen, Staff Reporter
Critics of the Durban II review conference may have found an ally in Europe.The foreign minister of Denmark warned last week that unless the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) removes a proposal to equate criticism of religion with racism, Denmark – and perhaps other European countries – will not attend the conference, the followup to the 2001 UN anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, that is slated to take place in April 2009 in Geneva. “If the OIC pushes through the draft resolution, they shall not expect European or western countries to be present at the table,” Foreign Minister Per Stig Meller said during a visit to Jerusalem. EuropeNews, citing Jyllands-Posten, reported the Meller made the same statement to Syrian and Egyptian foreign ministers during a recent swing through the Middle East. His remarks came shortly after the “Draft Outcome Document” was published at the second preparatory session as a proposal for the Durban II conference. Participants at the session include Libya, Iran and Cuba.Discussions at preparatory meetings have raised concerns that Durban II will reprise the anti-Israel agenda of Durban I, an international anti-racism conference that became notorious for singling out Israel as a racist state. UN Watch, a NGO that has been monitoring the preparatory conferences, said that “the dominant theme of the 88-page Durban II draft declaration (Draft Outcome Document) is that the United States, western Europe, Israel and the other liberal democracies – their principles, institutions, policies, respective histories and national identities – are singularly racist and discriminatory against Islam. Free speech, wealth, globalization, security measures to combat anti-western terrorism, all of these are attacked as causes of racism, discrimination and the ‘defamation of Islam.’” In a telephone interview from Geneva, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said the Draft Outcome Document repeats some of the language from a 2001 preparatory conference in Tehran that was introduced in Durban. It was moderated only after Israel and the United States walked out and the European Union threatened to do the same. “Only under the pressure of non-participation did the conference remove the most obscene language,” he said. (cjnews)
U.S. Treasury Department capitulates to Shariah banking
Frank J. Gaffney Jr: Treasury submits to Shariah
The U.S. Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah - the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy. As reported in this space last week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt set the stage with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. His stated purpose was to promote the recycling of petrodollars in the form of foreign investment here. Evidently, the price demanded by his hosts is that the U.S. government get with the Islamist financial program. While in Riyadh, Mr. Kimmitt announced: "The U.S. government is currently studying the salient features of Islamic banking to ascertain how far it could be useful in fighting the ongoing world economic crisis." "Islamic banking" is a euphemism for a practice better known as "Shariah-Compliant Finance (SFC)." And it turns out that this week the Treasury will be taking officials from various federal agencies literally to school on SFC. The department is hosting a half-day course entitled "Islamic Finance 101" on Thursday at its headquarters building. Treasury's self-described "seminar for the policy community" is co-sponsored with the leading academic promoters of Shariah and SCF in the United States: Harvard University Law School's Project on Islamic Finance. At the very least, the U.S. government evidently hopes to emulate Harvard's success in securing immense amounts of Wahhabi money in exchange for conforming to the Islamists' agenda. Like Harvard, Treasury seems utterly disinterested in what Shariah actually is, and portends. (Washingtontimes)
"Who should adapt to whom? For the hosts of Halal-TV, the answer is obvious. The handshaking majority in Sweden should adapt themselves to the Muslim-believing-non-handshaking minority"
 Sweden's new Halal-TV courts controversy
A new programme launched on Monday by Sveriges Television (SVT) featuring three young Swedish Muslim women has sparked a heated debate about cultural norms and integration. Controversy about Halal-TV erupted even before the first episode aired on Monday night when author and commentator Dilsa Demirbag-Sten, a Kurdish immigrant from Turkey who moved to Sweden at the age of six, pointed out that one of the show's hosts had previously said she thought that stoning a woman to death was an appropriate punishment for adultery. While the now 23-year-old Cherin Awad has since distanced herself from the comments she made five years ago, that didn't stop Demirbag-Sten from questioning SVT's decision to have Awad lead a programme about Muslim women in Sweden. "There are many ways for public broadcasting to use high standards of journalism to address the diversity issues which affect the Muslim part of the population without reducing the group to deeply faithful, headscarf bearing, homophobic teetotalers who believe that women should be virgins until they are married and support stoning for adultery," Demirbag-Sten wrote in a column published last week in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper. In addition to Awad, a lawyer, Halal-TV also features 22-year-old doctor-to-be Dalia Azzam Kassem and 25-year-old dental hygienist Khadiga El Khabiry, all of whom were born in Sweden, but who have roots in different countries in the Middle East and North Africa. (thelocal.se)
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
“Election eve is a time of fretting and anxiety for many people who get caught up in the spirit of partisanship. I’m sorry to say that scholars are not immune to these temporal excitements. Scholarship, which once prided itself on its detachment from the moment, now often prides itself on how deeply it can be in the moment.”
Election Eve-Peter Wood
“History, which ought to record truth and teach wisdom, often sets out with retailing fiction and absurdities.” Ah, for the good old days when fiction and absurdities were the only dangers that beset the reader in quest of a true account of past doings. That cheerful sentence was penned by William Robertson (1721-1793), author of History of Scotland 1542-1603. Or at least I think it was. I found it in a chapter of Scotland in Samuel Maunder’s The History of the World, Comprising A General History, Both Ancient and Modern, of All the Principal Nations of the Globe, Their Rise, Progress, Present Condition, Etc. (New York: Bill, Witter & Co, 1854). Maunder knew how to bulk out a 1,400-page paid-for-by-subscription history by including postal regulations and the populations of cities and towns. (Cincinnati grew from 46,382 in 1840 to 116,108 in 1850.) But he was not to be bothered with footnotes and bibliography. We can assume he knew his audience. Thomas B. Hewitt of North Stoningham, Co, whose name graces my copy of The History of World, read deep into the volume, marking his progress through Ireland, Scotland, France, and Spain with folded page corners. Alas, he never reached Persia, or Borneo, or the Nutmeg Isles. One of his descendents found new use for The History of the World by pressing oak leaves. Well, actually, this was an old use. The history of the world has been pressing leaves for a long time. I am flipping the pages of the aptly named Maunder to fill up the time until the American electorat writes the next chapter in the history of the world. Will it be the candidate who has no history at all? Or the candidate who is nothing but history? The National Association of Scholars, being a strictly non-partisan outfit, endorses neither. We take the long view. No matter which party swings Ohio, Pennsylvania, and every other contended state, American higher education will remain a deeply troubled institution, in need of our ministrations. Republicans have, by and large, treated the ideological capture of the university by the Left as a matter of small consequence, and contented themselves with the thought that, of those 18 million college students, most value the acquisition of a well-paying job over the opportunity to read Noam Chomsky or to delve into Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. (NAS)
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
"It is far better to use words people understand. Often people in power are using the words because they want to feel self important. It is not right that voters should suffer because of some official's ego."
Councils ban 'elitist' and 'discriminatory' Latin phrases-Chris Hastings, Public Affairs Editor
They are phrases that are repeated ad nauseam and are taken as bona fide English, but councils have now overturned the status quo by banning staff from using Latin terms, which they claim are elitist and discriminatory. Local authorities have ordered employees to stop using the words and phrases on documents and when communicating with members of the public and to rely on wordier alternatives instead.
The ban has infuriated classical scholars who say it is diluting the world's richest language and is the "linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing". Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas, meaning beauty and health, has listed 19 terms it no longer considers acceptable for use.
This includes bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum,etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata,quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.
Its list of more verbose alternatives, includes "for this special purpose", in place of ad hoc and "existing condition" or "state of things", instead of status quo. In instructions to staff, the council said: "Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult." (Telegraph.co.uk)
Humans Rights Commissions are hampering journalist’s free speech
Threat of prosecution hampers free speech, columnist tells forum-Elizabeth McMillan
Wente regrets use of word ‘savage’
From controversial descriptions of native Canadians to criticisms of Islam, the role of human rights commissions in policing the media was up for discussion Saturday at the University of King’s College in Halifax. "When I think of human rights, I tend to think of things like Nazi concentration camps, women being stoned to death by the Taliban. . . . The right not to have your feelings hurt is pretty far down on the list," said the keynote speaker, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente. The media’s right to offend was the topic of this year’s Joseph Howe Symposium, which about 150 people attended. Presenters discussed whether human rights commissions should hear complaints relating to opinions published in the media. They also debated what role journalists should have in presenting information. "There is a responsibility we have as journalists to be as accurate and as verified as possible," said Stephen Ward, director of the Centre for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin. Ms. Wente said journalists might not speak or write freely because of a concern with human rights tribunal complaints. "People in the real world are intimidated by the threat of prosecution and investigation," she said. "You can’t enjoy free speech or the government is going to come after you for perfectly legitimate activity." Before Ms. Wente spoke, an audience member, Asaf Rashid, loudly called her a racist before leaving the room. Ms. Wente came under fire this week about her Oct. 25 column, titled "What Dick Pound said was really dumb — and also true." She was responding to a comment by Mr. Pound, of the Canadian International Olympic Committee, that Canada was a land of savages before European settlement. Ms. Wente said she has received an equal amount of negative and positive feedback. She didn’t apologize for the column but said she should have avoided the word "savage." "Perhaps I tried to cover too much ground in that piece, and I may have done it in a way that inflamed rather than informed," she said. (thechronicleherald.ca)
Media Bias
“The professionals who constitute America’s mainstream news media – the reporters, editors, anchors, publishers, correspondents, bureau chiefs, and executives at the nation’s major newspapers, magazines, radio networks, and television networks – are leftists and Democrats in far greater numbers than they are conservatives or Republicans.”
In the Tank: A Statistical Analysis of Media Bias-John Perazzo
During the 2008 presidential election, even center-left observers have noted the unmistakable bias of the prestige news media toward Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party in general. As we shall reveal, the bias of the media is pervasive, ideologically motivated, and quantifiable: that is, it has been admitted, measured, and analyzed in statistical terms. Those results reveal a media doggedly out-of-touch with the political center and tilted decidedly leftward. One of the most striking aspects of the current presidential campaign is the news media’s assault on Sarah Palin. The Republican vice presidential candidate has been portrayed as a ditzy know-nothing; a Christian fanatic who uses her office to vengefully carry out personal vendettas and who may even have faked her motherhood of her son Trig. From the media coverage of Palin, readers and viewers would never know that she effectively ran an important state, or that she had the highest voter-approval ratings of any governor in the U.S. But the double standards of the media in their election coverage are as striking as their bias. Scant attention has been paid to the litany of idiocies that have flowed from the tongue of Palin’s vice-presidential opponent, Joe Biden. Some lowlights include the following:
a) Biden exhorted a wheelchair-bound state senator at a Missouri campaign rally to stand up and take a bow;
b) He told interviewer Katie Couric that in times of crisis, it was incumbent upon the U.S president “to demonstrate that he or she knows what they are talking about,” in the tradition of President FDR, whom he said “got on the television” to allay Americans’ fears “when the stock market crashed” in 1929. Of course, Herbert Hoover was president at the time (FDR would not take office until early 1933), and TV would not be introduced to the public until 1939; (Frontpagemag)
“It’s appalling to think that the press, an institution defended in the United States Constitution (The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press.") has squelched its own freedoms in order to help their candidate win – Barack Obama.”
America's irresponsible media-Evan Lips
A Republican bewails the lack of scrutiny applied to Barack Obama during the election campaign and attacks the 'liberal' tendencies of the US media
How I would have loved to have had my ear against the door outside of the Boston Globe’s conference room on the morning of October 30th.
“A British paper discovered that Barack Obama’s aunt is living in squalor in a slum in South Boston.”
“A British paper!?!?”
The Boston Globe, headquartered in South Boston, had the story in its back yard. Yet it was the Times Online that first broke the news that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s aunt is living illegally in the US despite being served a deportation order several years ago.
She has collected welfare while managing to contribute – illegally - $260 to her nephew’s campaign.
This issue might seem trite, given the millions that both candidates have amassed during months of campaigning. But it begs a bigger question – where are the priorities for the American media?
Reporting centered on emotion and not based on researching the facts is alarming. But it is nothing new to this presidential election. There have been several instances where the media – confronted with relevant news regarding Barack Obama – has decided simply to remain silent.
It’s appalling to think that the press, an institution defended in the United States Constitution (The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press.") has squelched its own freedoms in order to help their candidate win – Barack Obama. (Newstatesman)
ANTISEMITISM
New study documents the rise of antisemitism in Europe
European Anti-Semitism on the Rise-Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
According to a 2008 survey released this past week by the Pew Research Center, as part of its Global Attitudes Project, hatred of Jews and general xenophobia are on the rise in Europe. Pew also noted a strong correlation between anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. Spain displayed both the highest level and the most pronounced increase in anti-Semitism, doubling since 2005 to 46 percent of adults surveyed. Among European states, Britain had the lowest level of anti-Jewish sentiment, with fewer than 10 percent of those polled expressing negative views of Jews. Thirty six (36) percent of Poles and 34 percent of Russians expressed anti-Jewish sentiments, both figures representing increases since 2005. "Negative attitudes toward Jews are only slightly less common in Germany," the Pew reseachers wrote in a November-December edition of National Interest, "where one-in-four express an unfavorable view, and in France, where 20 percent say they have an unfavorable opinion. And in both countries, negative ratings have become somewhat more widespread since 2004."
Interesting Correlations Partially accounting for the rise in European anti-Semitism has been the views held by continental Muslims. "Though far-right groups have been responsible for the bulk of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe, in recent years, Muslim youth have also been increasingly involved in these acts," according to the Pew findings. "Negative attitudes toward Jews are quite common among European Muslims," Pew researchers concluded.
Another interesting correlation noted in the Pew Research Center's report is that "people who hold negative opinions of Americans are also especially likely to express negative attitudes toward Jews." In addition, the researchers found, respondents in the United States had the lowest levels of anti-Semitic attitudes from among twenty-four nations included in the 2008 survey (7 percent). Taking a bird's-eye view of the Global Attitudes Project, Pew researchers noted that anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe remains much less common than anti-Muslim views and that Europeans have far lower levels of anti-Semitism than people in Arab nations. Unfavorable opinions of Jews in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt reach levels of 95 percent or more. (INN)
"the propaganda impact of charging Israeli officials with war crimes and securing arrest warrants is enormous. It further delegitimizes the Jewish state. The threat of future lawsuits restricts the foreign travel of Israeli officials and strains diplomatic relations."
Lawfare Against Israel-Anne Herzberg
Israeli and Spanish officials engaged in a flurry of secret talks last month to avoid a diplomatic crisis. The reason? A Palestinian nongovernmental organization, or NGO, filed suit in Madrid, seeking arrest warrants against seven former Israeli officers allegedly involved in the 2002 targeted killing of Hamas leader Salah Shehadah in Gaza. Israel's foreign ministry warned the men against travel to Spain for fear of arrest while Madrid tried to defuse the tensions.
This lawsuit is just the latest front in the anti-Israel "lawfare" strategy -- the frivolous exploitation of Western courts to harass Israeli officials. The detractors of the Jewish state are increasingly using civil lawsuits and criminal investigations around the world to tie Israel's hands against Palestinian terror by accusing Jerusalem of "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity." In the process, the NGOs also subvert and interfere with the diplomatic relations of Western countries with Israel.
These lawsuits typically ignore the difficulty Israel faces in fighting terrorists who target Israeli civilians while hiding among their own civilian populations. The accusations also ignore the measures Israel takes to avoid civilian casualties, including the strictest rules of engagement for any Western army. While Israel is not the only country that has been subject to this sort of lawfare -- several prominent NGOs have filed similar suits against U.S. officials in France and Germany -- it is a primary target. (WSJ)
TERRORISM, INTERNET, JIHAD
"There is empirical evidence of a problem with postgraduate students becoming weapons proliferators."
 Terrorists try to infiltrate UK's top labs-Mark Townsend
The security services have intercepted up to 100 suspects posing as postgraduate students who aim to acquire weapons material and expertise Dozens of suspected terrorists have attempted to infiltrate Britain's top laboratories in order to develop weapons of mass destruction, such as biological and nuclear devices, during the past year. The security services, MI5 and MI6, have intercepted up to 100 potential terrorists posing as postgraduate students who they believe tried accessing laboratories to gain the materials and expertise needed to create chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, the government has confirmed. It follows warnings from MI5 to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that al-Qaeda's terror network is actively seeking to recruit scientists and university students with access to laboratories containing deadly viruses and weapons technology. Extensive background checks from the security services, using a new vetting scheme, have led to the rejection of overseas students who were believed to be intent on developing weapons of mass destruction. A Foreign Office spokesman said the students had been denied clearance to study in the UK under powers 'to stop the spread of knowledge and skills that could be used in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery'. He added: 'There is empirical evidence of a problem with postgraduate students becoming weapons proliferators.' The overseas students, a number of whom are thought to be from 'countries of concern' such as Iran and Pakistan, were intercepted under the Academic Technology Approval Scheme, introduced by universities and the security services last November. (Guardian.co.uk)
Jihadists being recruited by Iran to carry out anti-U.S. martyrdom operations
Iranian Group Recruits Iranian Volunteers for Anti-U.S. Martyrdom [Suicide] Operations to be Carried Out by Hizbullah-Memri
On November 1, 2008, the Iranian website Tabnak, which is identified with Expediency Council Secretary and former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai, reported that flyers have recently been circulated in Iran calling on the public, especially young people, to sign up for martyrdom operations to be carried out by the Lebanese Hizbullah. The flyer promises registrants that they will become "fighters in the worldwide front against the Global Arrogance [i.e. the U.S.]."
Following is a translation of the Tabnak report: [1]
"In the recent days and months, forms have been distributed in Tehran and in several of [Iran's] large provinces, titled "[Registration for] Membership in the Lebanese Hizbullah" and "Registration for Martyrdom Operations." [These documents] call on the public, and especially on young people, to join the 'world-wide front against the Global Arrogance [i.e. the U.S.]' by filling out the form and providing an address and [phone] number where they can be reached.
"The Hizbullah registration form bears a Tehran address, which has not yet been verified, but the martyrdom operations form bears the name of an organization [that is known to be] active in this sphere, as well as a phone number for further enquiries.
"It should be mentioned that this group - some of whose previous activities and [projects] were not without merit - has in the past recruited martyrdom squads [for operations in] Palestine, which generated a wave of [anti-Iranian] propaganda worldwide and branded Iran a terrorist [state]. [The same group] also produced a recent documentary on [the assassination of former Egyptian president] Anwar Sadat which aroused considerable protest in Egypt and prompted the creation of an anti-Islamic and anti-Iran film that insults the great leader of the [Islamic] Revolution [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini].
"The provision of specific personal information to unauthorized movements and persons by members of Iranian society can give rise to innumerable dangers and problems."
"It should be mentioned that an Iranian movement called the World Islamic Organization Headquarters for Remembering the Shahids has carried out several recruitment campaigns for volunteers for martyrdom operations in Iraq and Israel, [2] and has produced a film titled Assassination of a Pharaoh, on the assassination of Sadat. [3] (MEMRI)
“I have put TNT bombs around the US and Australian embassies”
 Bomb threats to embassies ahead of Bali executions-Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor
Western embassies received bomb threats yesterday as Indonesia braced itself for the execution by firing squad of the three men who bombed two Bali nightclubs in 2002, killing hundreds of people, most of them foreign tourists. Security around President Yudhoyono was also tightened after threats to his life were made on the internet. The US and Australian embassies in the capital, Jakarta, reported finding no bombs after a warning was sent to the Indonesian police. “I have put TNT bombs around the US and Australian embassies,” the mobile phone text message said. “I will pull the trigger if Amrozi and his friends are executed.” Security forces were on alert across the country after indications that the three Bali bombers – Amrozi Nurhashyim, Ali Gufron and Imam Samudra – could be executed any day now after the failure of their final appeal last month. The execution – by rifles aimed at the heart from close range – was expected to be announced early this morning. But the authorities may have decided to avoid potential embarrassment, and any security scares for a VIP guest, the Prince of Wales, who leaves Indonesia tomorrow after a five-day trip.Armed police and barbed wire were put in place at Cilacap, the port of embarkation for the prison island of Kambangan, where the three bombers are held in a high-security prison. (Timesonline.co.uk)
ENVIRONMENTALISM and Science
“When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared.”
 The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops-Andrew Malone
When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared.
The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbours prepared their father's body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home. As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low. Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide. Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years' earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out. There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on - they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless - as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting. Moaning, he crawled on to a bench outside his simple home 100 miles from Nagpur in central India. An hour later, he stopped making any noise. Then he stopped breathing. At 5pm on Sunday, the life of Shankara Mandaukar came to an end. As neighbours gathered to pray outside the family home, Nirmala Mandaukar, 50, told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead. 'He was a loving and caring man,' she said, weeping quietly. 'But he couldn't take any more. The mental anguish was too much. We have lost everything.' Shankara's crop had failed - twice. Of course, famine and pestilence are part of India's ancient story.But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops. Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead. Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts - and no income. So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops. (Dailymail.co.uk)
The new experiment of cloning tissue from a dead mouse brings the horror of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein ever closer to reality
 Cloning from the grave: Scientists create new life from a mouse that has been frozen for 16 YEARS- David Derbyshire
Scientists have created clones of a mouse that had been dead and frozen for 16 years. It is the first time they have been able to clone a frozen animal. The Japanese researchers say their work will benefit mankind - and could be used to bring back extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth or sabre tooth tiger. But ethical watchdogs branded the experiment disturbing. Critics say it brings the world closer to the day when people try to clone long- dead relatives stored in cryopreservation clinics. It could even lead to a macabre new industry - in which people leave behind 'relics' of their bodies in freezers in the hope that they could one day be cloned. The gullible might be persuaded that they themselves could be brought back to life, complete with their memories, even though a clone would be a different person in almost everything except appearance. The latest experiment comes more than 11 years after British scientists stunned the world with Dolly the cloned sheep. Although scientists have since cloned a host of different animals, using genetic material from single cells, they have always used living cells. It had been thought that ice crystals destroyed the DNA in frozen cells, making them unusable. But the Japanese team used brain cells and believe the high fat content of brains and the protection of the skull reduced the damage. Josephine Quintavalle, an expert on the ethics of fertility and reproduction, said the experiment pushed the boundaries of acceptable science even further. She said: 'This kind of research raises disturbing questions about what happens to our bodies - and any tissue we leave for medical science - after we die. (Dailymail.co.uk)
Society and CULTURE
A new film glorifies IRA terrorists
 Hunger: More pro-terrorist propaganda
Preposterously over-praised by critics and a depressingly predictable winner of awards at Cannes, Toronto, Flanders and Venice, Hunger - the first film by uber-trendy, Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen - adopts a supposedly 'experimental' structure to worship at the shrine of terrorism. It's the fluffy-headed Left's version of a medieval triptych.The first third establishes the UK judicial system as one of vicious, bullying oppression, aimed at torturing defenceless people for their principles. The middle is a lengthy dialogue between IRA terrorist Bobby Sands and a Catholic priest, during which Sands establishes his case for self martyrdom. The final section depicts Sands' subsequent suffering in the most gruelling detail since Mel Gibson's Passion Of The Christ. Like Terry George's 1996 movie Some Mother's Son, it is a love letter to Sands (played with commendable authenticity by Michael Fassbender) and the other nine men who died as a result of their hunger strike. Like George, McQueen - who was 11 when Sands committed suicide-by-hunger strike - simply takes it as read that convicted IRA terrorists were prisoners of war, not criminals and murderers. The bad guys are, as usual, the Protestants. We see a Protestant prison warder gunned down, but not before there has been plenty of footage to show he was guilty of torturing Catholic prisoners. It's impossible not to feel he deserves it. The false implication is that all IRA violence was in self-defence, and virtually every prison warder and policeman in Northern Ireland was a sadistic psychopath. There is footage of a young Protestant riot policeman weeping at the thrashing and kicking of prisoners, but he does nothing about it, and it is clear he is in a minority of one. (Dailymail.co.uk)
Porn stars enter the mainstream and become a hot Hollywood commodity
 Porn stars are the new crossover artists-Reed Johnson
They're landing legit work in movies such as 'Zack and Miri' and 'The Girlfriend Experience.' Meantime, they're also influencing pop culture.
There's a new breed of performer that's becoming a hot Hollywood commodity, and we're not talking about garrulous Chihuahuas. Once largely shunned as pariahs by the entertainment industry, porn stars are turning up with increasing regularity on shopping-mall movie screens and in prime-time television shows, underscoring pornography's steady migration over the last three decades from the pop-culture margins to the mainstream. Probably the most significant evidence of the trend so far is Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh's decision to cast Sasha Grey, a 20-year-old Sacramento native who began making hard-core movies when she was 18, in his upcoming feature film "The Girlfriend Experience." The movie is told from the perspective of a $10,000-a-night call girl. Grey has appeared in other non-pornographic films, including the Canadian low-budget horror flick "Smash Cut." "She's really good, totally fearless, very smart," says the director of "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich," who finished shooting the film last week. "It certainly didn't seem like there was anything I could suggest that she couldn't handle." The recent inroads made by porn into Hollywood are only one aspect of porn's broader effect on popular culture imagery, language, style and sensibility. Music videos teem with kama sutra-esque boasting and "is-it-real-or-isn't-it?" displays of bumping and grinding. Video games containing explicit sex scenes have been slapped with lawsuits and other restrictions to prevent them from falling into the hands of joystick-gripping adolescents. Top adult performers such as Jenna Jameson have become household names, their pulchritudinous likenesses adorning everything from bestselling books to ski boards to bobble head dolls, and a new“rock opera” about the late “Deep Throat” star Linda Lovelace is currently playing at L.A.'s Hayworth Theatre. (Latimes)
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