The Anti

WASHINGTON, Mar. 28 (UPI) -- Calling secular Judaism's preoccupation with victimhood "liberalism with a circumcision," an Orthodox rabbi has given the "Our Own Worst Enemy Award" to [Abraham Foxman] the head of the Anti-Defamation League.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin is president of Toward Tradition, a group based in Mercer Island, Wa., that describes itself as "a coalition of Jews and Christians dedicated to fighting secular institutions that foster anti-Semitism, harm families, and jeopardize the future of America." The group bestowed the "award" upon ADL National Director Abraham Foxman on Wednesday.

"The award is given to a Jewish American who exemplifies those cultural forces that most endanger Jewish continuity, substituting unhealthy values for Judaism itself," Toward Tradition said. "Children thus grow up to dismiss Jewish identity as, for example, merely with an obsession with death and persecution, or as liberalism with a circumcision."

"I think Abe Foxman means well," Lapin said. "But he's deluded by liberalism, a worldview preoccupied by victimhood."

The rabbi called attention to Foxman's letter that appeared in the March 23 editions of the New York Times. In it, the ADL leader compared the newspaper ads by conservative activist David Horowitz -- who opposes monetary reparations to American blacks for being the descendants of slaves -- with Holocaust deniers.

The rabbi was referring to a March 21 New York Times story in which Foxman was quoted as saying: "Anti-Semitism is a disease, and we have seen a big eruption of that disease in New York." Foxman based his remark on an ADL survey that says anti-Semitic incidents rose by about 49 percent in New York City last year.

David Klinghofer, Toward Tradition's editorial director, questions the survey's validity. Many of the incidents recorded are not crimes, he said, but rather "anything anybody perceived as anti-Semitic." The ADL "gets paid (by contributors) according to how much anti-Semitism it finds," Klinghofer told United Press International Wednesday.

Toward Tradition said that Foxman's "tireless efforts" to convince American Jews that they are beset by "a phantom anti-Semitism," when their own experience suggests otherwise, "have helped to confirm many in the belief that being a Jew has to do mainly with being oppressed and hated."

The American Jewish Committee's annual study for 1999 reported that anti-Semitism is the main concern of 62 percent of American Jews, up 5 points from 1998. This belief pertains "notwithstanding the strength of democratic institutions and legal protections in the United States," AJC President Bruce M. Ramer said at the time.

The study, which was summarized in a June 9, 1999, story in the Washington Times, also revealed that American Jews give a low priority to religious observance and believe recalling the Holocaust is the key to being a Jew.

In its story, the Times quoted Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, humanities professor at New York University, who believes Jews are "absolutely free and equal" in America.

"I deplore the survey results," Hertzberg said. "When you say: 'Remember, we have enemies,' it simply feeds a neurosis. I maintain that Jewish life is not fear, but affirmation."

Toward Tradition's National Director Yarden Weidenfeld also said that traditional Judaism, as taught by Lapin, celebrates life. Foxman's approach constitutes the real threat to American Jewry, Weidenfeld told UPI in a Wednesday phone interview, because young American Jews who associate their religion with death and misery are more likely to marry Gentile partners. The real danger is assimilation, Weidenfeld said.

ADL Assistant National Director Ken Jacobson dismissed Toward Tradition and its positions. "At some level, I might not want to dignify the comments," he said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "I don't really think that Rabbi Lapin and his organization represent anything significant in the Jewish community."

But Jacobson quickly overcame his reluctance. He denied that Foxman's letter likened Horowitz to Holocaust-deniers because Foxman did not assert that Horowitz denied the existence of slavery.

"We were concerned about the denigration of blacks and the slave experience that was implicit in the Horowitz message" opposing reparations, Jacobson told UPI. "It's only like ... the Holocaust denial theme in the sense that, in both issues, there are things that were offensive, and a newspaper isn't obligated under the First Amendment to print every ad."

Jacobson was referring to student editors of campus newspapers. Of course, the First Amendment constrains only government, not newspapers or advertisers. In response, Weidenfeld said the students' ignorance of the Constitution "is their problem" and has nothing to do with Holocaust denial.

Toward Tradition said it picked Foxman "from among other representatives of the Anti-Semitism Industry" because of his role in former president Clinton's pardon of fugitive tax evader Marc Rich.

Citing Friday's Newsweek report, the group said: "After the ADL received a $100,000 check from the Rich Foundation, Foxman wrote to Bill Clinton urging the pardon." In doing so, Foxman "joined other leading Jewish liberals who had benefited from the billionaire's largesse. The ensuing scandal was a comfort to true anti-Semites who say that Jews buy and sell justice," Toward Tradition said.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Foxman said the previous day that he was wrong to have lobbied for Rich.

THE first snow of the season is falling on New York in big fluffy flakes, making the city look new again. The offices of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, located in U.N. Plaza, are stuffy, the windows steamed. Everyone appears a bit disheveled; rumpled clothes and flattened hat hair seem to be in vogue. Jordan Kessler, a handsome young man with a beard, sits at a computer terminal, talking about how he compiles his list.

Kessler is personally responsible for the ADL's HateFilter, a software program that blocks access to Web sites that, the ADL contends, contain bigoted or hateful speech. This 25-year-old Columbia grad has accepted the enormous task of seeking out and cataloging inflammatory language among the roughly 800 million Web pages available to the public. He has help, of course. The ADL, a group dedicated to securing "justice and fair treatment for all citizens alike," has 30 offices around the country tracking extremists of every different shade, and each office has Kessler's direct line.

Kessler assembles a list of all the groups his organization deems dangerous; it's a list that must be constantly updated because, he says, hatemongers have a tendency to mutate. To be deemed objectionable by the ADL, a site must be cleared by a committee of the organization's managers before it makes Kessler's list. He won't say how many people are on the committee, or reveal the names of the organizations he has labeled as dangerous.

Some of the groups he watches, Kessler says, also watch him. Some revel, just because their sites have been chosen by the ADL, he says. It's like making the big time. The Web designers for the white supremacist site World Church of the Creator, for example, actually promote their work with a quote taken out of context from a Kessler report in which he grudgingly complimented the graphics for that site.

"If their Web site gets blocked by the ADL, in their eyes they've made it," he says. "They think we are all-powerful, in control of the government and everything that stands in their way."

Kessler's screen displays a number of yellow file folders. One folder is titled "Gays," presumably a file on gay-bashers. Another is titled "Arabs," presumably a list of anti-Arab groups. He says he takes great care in reviewing a site before he brings it to the committee. Many sites may be offensive, he says, featuring anti-Semitic jokes or caricatures, but they won't make the list of those to be blocked by the ADL's HateFilter. On the other hand, he says, some sites might be recommended for the list based on what the ADL knows about the organization rather than the content of the site. His organization has been monitoring hate groups for more than 85 years, he says, bringing an expertise that stretches far beyond HTML or Java codes.

It is an organization with a unique mission, given that its existence is largely based on the continuance of racism and bigotry. If anti-Semitism had disappeared from the face of the Earth during the 20th century, the ADL might have withered away, too. But even five decades beyond the fall of Nazi Germany, the world continues to be a prejudiced place, and the organization still regularly denounces anti-Semitic statements made in print, over the airwaves, and, more recently, over the Internet.

The Web is a new frontier, presenting the ADL with fresh challenges and opportunities for growth. The medium has given every electronic pamphleteer the reach of a worldwide television broadcasting network, making it easy for anyone with a computer to spread his message, racist or otherwise. Because the Web is essentially unregulated, the ADL believes cyberspace is "a dangerous place for children," according to the organization's literature. "There are no parents or teachers standing by to guide and advise a child who has come upon a site that promotes hate. Without that guidance, there is a real chance children will simply accept what they read as fact."

In response to this supposed threat to young minds, the ADL has stepped up its own efforts to combat intolerance by introducing the HateFilter, which runs on Mattel's CyberPatrol, a software package that blocks a wide gamut of material on the Internet. Consumers who purchase the HateFilter receive all of CyberPatrol's features, including categories other than hate speech, among them graphic violence and pornography. But CyberPatrol purchased on its own does not include the HateFilter, because Mattel has its own version of what it considers hate speech, and does not market the filter, nor does it necessarily approve of what the ADL's HateFilter blocks, company officials say.

So far, the ADL HateFilter has been marketed as a service to be used in the home. But that may soon change. CyberPatrol is already in 15,000 private and public libraries, schools, and universities, and the ADL has not ruled out broadening the distribution of HateFilter software to public institutions. "Right now, the HateFilter is not meant to be used by the government, but over the next few months we will be discussing whether we will advocate for its use in schools and libraries," says Sue Stengel, an ADL attorney.

It appears, however, that the organization, which wields tremendous clout in Washington, has already begun to advocate -- at the highest levels. The ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman, met with President Clinton at least twice last year, once following the Littleton shooting in May, and again in the wake of an attack on a Jewish community center in Granada Hills in August. After the latter meeting, Malcolm Hoenlein, a top official in the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, told reporters that Clinton had agreed to take the lead in persuading Americans to install a "hate filter" on their computers. In October, Clinton again met with the ADL, and began his speech with a tribute to the organization's new software. "Thank you for your pioneering work to filter out hate on the Internet -- which, lamentably, was part of the poison that led to the tragedy at Columbine High School," Clinton said.

More recently, Elizabeth Coleman, the ADL's director of civil rights, was asked to participate in a panel discussion concerning a "family friendly" Internet at a conference for the National Association of Attorneys General a few weeks ago -- a conference where Attorney General Janet Reno gave the keynote address. Coleman demonstrated the filter for all the law enforcement officials in attendance. She said over lunch that the organization had also shown the filter to Vice President Al Gore, who "loved it."

If made explicit, White House support for the ADL filter could have a significant impact on the policy decisions of public schools and libraries across the country. Although decisions regarding school and library Internet filters are currently made at the local level, a bill before Congress spearheaded by Sen. John McCain, called the Children's Internet Protection Act, would require all schools and libraries receiving federal funds to install Internet filters on computers accessible to children. If the bill wins approval, even a mention by the White House, combined with the ADL's strong regional lobbying, could go a long way toward encouraging local jurisdictions to choose the HateFilter from the filtering software on the market.

"The Number 1 goal of the ADL is the protection of Israel," says Pete McCloskey, a former Republican congressman from San Mateo who regularly criticized Israel's policies. "Any group whose sole purpose is to protect a foreign nation should not have anything to say about what's said or written here in America."

On a number of occasions since the 1970s, the ADL has been caught distributing lists of its enemies, replete with detailed descriptions of "black demagogues" and "pro-Arab propagandists," including poet Amiri Baraka in the list of demagogues, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky under the propagandist label. Then, in 1993, a longtime ADL investigator admitted to working with a member of the San Francisco Police Department to illegally gather information on almost 10,000 people, including members of socialist, labor, and anti-apartheid groups.

Some of the targets of that information-gathering effort have gone to court in an attempt to gain access to their dossiers, currently in possession of the ADL, but the ADL has refused to release the files, claiming that its investigator was an "investigative journalist" whose unpublished reporting materials are protected against disclosure by the California shield law, which was originally adopted to help journalists keep confidential sources who reveal important public wrongdoing confidential.

Thus the ADL finds itself in a sticky position: While it advocates for a software product that limits access to the Internet's open exchange of ideas, the Anti-Defamation League is also hiding behind a law put in place to encourage people to speak freely.

The ADL recently added one episode to a videotape it uses in workshops that are meant to promote cultural understanding in schools. The vignette shows a boy, about 15 years old, surfing the Web in his school library. He comes across a page called the Zundelsite, with the headline "Did Six Million Really Die?"

"Hey guys, come here," the kid says to his friends. "Check this out. It says here the Holocaust was a bunch of bull. Like it never really happened like the Jews say it did."

Two blond students lean over his shoulder, as a dark-haired student listens to the conversation in the background. "Wow, big surprise. I hear they always lie," one boy says.

"I guess they just want us to feel sorry for 'em," says a girl, as they look at a page titled "Holocaust Myth 101."

"Well. They can lie all they want," says the boy who found the page. "Looks like we dug up the truth."

At this point, the instructor leading the workshop is supposed to stop the video and begin a discussion, using questions from an accompanying guide. On the whole, the questions are predictable classroom fare: "What happened?," "Has anyone ever experienced a similar situation?," and so on. But one question stands out: "Should the school have some kind of policy regarding what students can access on the Internet?"

In fact, many public secondary schools have Internet policies for minors, as do almost all public libraries. And both types of institutions are leaning toward the use of filtering software to limit what children can access on the Web. The San Francisco Unified School District, for example, employs a systemwide filter to block access to a variety of material, including "intolerance." School officials would not identify the name of the filter.

The policy discussions regarding the protection of minors on the Internet thus far have dealt almost exclusively with pornography. In the heated debate over First Amendment freedoms on the Web, smut has taken center stage because it has already been addressed and narrowly defined. The Supreme Court has ruled that "obscene" speech, meaning material appealing to a prurient or unhealthy interest in sex and lacking serious artistic, scientific, literary, or political value, can be regulated by the government.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the definition of "obscene" can take the age of the audience into account. Thus, for adults, pornographic films are, by and large, protected by the First Amendment. But the government may prohibit the sale of these films to minors by labeling the material "indecent," a much broader, generally ill-defined category.

In 1996, Congress tried to apply the court's broad definition of "indecent" in its passage of the Communications Decency Act, a law prohibiting the transmission of "indecent" material over the Internet. But in 1997, the Supreme Court struck down the law in Reno vs. ACLU, declaring that communications on the Internet cannot be limited to what is suitable for children. The landmark ruling prevents a library from installing porn filters on terminals intended for adult use. But it still allows schools or libraries to restrict a minor's access to smut.

A school or library may also limit children's access to hate speech, but for a different reason. Ordinarily, in a public forum, anything outside the narrow definition of "obscene" is protected by the First Amendment. But schools and libraries are not the same as the town square (or the Internet), where people can spout hateful rhetoric to their heart's desire. A library has only so much shelf space; thus a professional librarian has the right to choose which materials to include in a collection, and which to leave out. The same goes for schools, which have the right to set their own curriculums and base the selection of library books on those curriculums.

"That's why if you were to go to your local library in search of books on the Holocaust, you would probably find many," says Frederick Schauer, a First Amendment professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "But it's not likely you'll find any books that say the Holocaust didn't happen. And I think most people would agree that's appropriate."

Schauer says he believes the debate over allowing speech filters for minors into the public forum is only just beginning. Would it be possible for the ADL HateFilter to find a place in public libraries and schools? Yes, he says, although it would be challenged in court, and would probably be more likely to be allowed in secondary schools than in public libraries that serve all ages.

Some First Amendment lawyers find it curious that the ADL would even be getting into the business of speech filters. The Anti-Defamation League, after all, considers itself a civil rights organization. Judging from literature promoting the HateFilter software, it's clear the ADL is thinking about the apparent conflict between the civil right of free speech, and the limitation of speech inherent to Internet filtering software. Almost every page of HateFilter literature mentions the First Amendment, and explains that the ADL does not seek to censor or limit speech on the Internet. The HateFilter does not remove sites or censor their content, says ADL Director Elizabeth Coleman; it only blocks these sites from coming into the home at the parents' discretion.

Parents have good reason for wanting to keep these sites off their computers, Coleman says. Many extremist sites cater to children, she says. For example, the World Church of the Creator site has a special link for kids. Other sites, she says, are highly polished, presenting themselves as mainstream academic thought. This misinformation, she says, can lead to the kind of violence that has made headlines in recent years. Last August, for example, three teenagers firebombed a judge's house in San Jose, believing he was Jewish. (He was actually Catholic.) Investigators say two of the kids had used computers at school to access white supremacist Web sites. Also, Matthew and James Williams, brothers suspected of murdering a gay couple in Redding and setting fire to three synagogues in Sacramento, were reported to have been led astray by radical right philosophies ferried on the Internet. (Although at 31 and 29 years of age, the brothers would not have been constrained by an Internet filter aimed at minors.)

But critics of Internet filters wonder if they actually do more harm than good. A highly regarded study by Chris Hunter, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, found that the devices block an average of 21 percent of Web sites containing useful, legal information, while failing to block an average of 25 percent of sites containing "objectionable" content. (The ADL's HateFilter was not included in the study.)

Even organizations that have historically spoken out against racism and gay-bashing, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, object to Internet speech filters. Ann Brick, an attorney with the civil rights organization, says that one of the inherent risks of filters is that consumers never know the political or commercial biases of the filter's manufacturer. "The ADL is a partial organization, in that they have a point of view," she says. "And what they consider hate speech might be a complex exposition of the Israeli-Arab conflict."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, another civil rights organization that publishes its own annual list of extremists on the Web, is also unconvinced of the efficacy of filters. Joe Roy, director of the center's intelligence project, says his organization supports any effort to fight hatred, but would not endorse a speech filter because, in the organization's opinion, filters simply don't work.

The ADL's software manufacturer, CyberPatrol, has taken an especially hard beating from critics who say the filtering software has mistakenly blocked sites such as Creatures Comfort Pet Care Service and the MIT Project on Mathematics and Computations, for their explicit sexual content.

Because the HateFilter has a narrower scope, ADL officials say, it is more sophisticated than other filters on the market. "You're getting 85 years of knowledge and experience monitoring these groups," says Coleman. "Yet we want to be subtle. You can't use a sledgehammer in this endeavor."

And in a limited test run of the software, the HateFilter does appear to be more refined than its competitors. It doesn't block the Pat Buchanan Web site, though Buchanan has been critical of Israel and made controversial statements about Jews in the past. It does block a site called Radio Islam, which blatantly flaunts its hatred of Jews. It also blocks what appears to be a very thoughtful -- and hardly controversial -- site called Interracial Voice, containing a long list of essays describing the challenges of growing up with parents from different cultures.

Elizabeth Coleman says the ADL's block on the Interracial Voice page was an oversight.

In the early 1980s, for example, records show the organization circulated through college campuses a confidential list of pro-Arab sympathizers "who use their anti-Zionism as a guise for their deeply felt anti-Semitism." The report contained the names of respected professors from Georgetown University, Columbia University, and the University of California at Berkeley, among others, who had criticized Israel for its invasion of Lebanon. When the Middle East Studies Association discovered the document, and called for the ADL to disown it, a high-ranking ADL official was quoted in the New York Times blaming it on an "overly zealous student volunteer."

Francis Boyle, a professor of law at the University of Illinois, still has vivid memories of what it was like to be the recipient of the ADL's wrath. He says when he and a colleague began giving lectures critical of Israel's attack on the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon, the ADL and a local Jewish organization went far out of their way to silence them. Boyle says ADL members would sit in the front row during his lectures, simply to shout him down. The organizations also filed a complaint against him with the dean of the law school, he says. "I was really surprised. Here I thought the ADL was this great civil rights organization, and they're doing these things that are totally antithetical to what academic freedom is supposed to be about."

But Boyle says things were much worse for his Jewish colleague. When the colleague began speaking about the atrocities he had seen when he visited Lebanon in 1982, Boyle says the ADL organized for students to boycott the professor's classes and requested that the administration deny the professor tenure. "The ADL was far worse on Jews who criticized Israel than they were on Arabs. They treated them like traitors," Boyle says. "The ADL has turned itself into a dirty tricks organization for Israel."

Steve Zeltzer and Jeff Blankfort had already been active in Middle Eastern politics for many years when, in 1987, they founded an organization called the Labor Committee on the Middle East, a group that, by their description, was devoted to alerting American workers to the plight of laborers in all the Middle Eastern countries. It could hardly be called an organization, they say. It was really just a handful of like-minded people. Or so they thought.

The first meetings were held at Zeltzer's house in San Francisco. Those who attended were familiar with one another, except for a man named Roy Bullock. Blankfort says he had seen Bullock around the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "I recognized him and was a bit surprised to see him at our meeting. I wondered if he was really interested," Blankfort says.

But, Blankfort recounts, Bullock said he liked what they were doing and wanted to be a part of the gang, and, evidently, that was good enough for the other members. As is often the case with those who fashion themselves to be part of the radical left, the members chose as one of their first projects an event that had little to do with the group's core interest. They decided to organize a picket line at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, protesting a luncheon being held by an Israeli organization called Histadrut, which reportedly had financial interests in South Africa, then still in the grip of apartheid policies.

The guests of honor at the event were former California Assemblyman Richard Katz from Sylmar, and then-Speaker of the Assembly Willie Brown.

At the time, there was a growing anti-apartheid movement in the U.S., strongly supported by African-American organizations in the Bay Area, and if the public were to become aware of Histadrut's financial ties, Brown's participation in the event would not look good. Evidently he was aware of this, and sent a thoughtful, two-page response declining Zeltzer's request for him to pull out of the event.

The Labor Committee on the Middle East went forward with the protest, organizing about 60 people, including Roy Bullock, to picket in front of the Fairmont.

Not long after the demonstration, Blankfort received an anonymous envelope. Inside was a torn-out page from a newsletter published by the Institute of Historical Review, a Holocaust denial organization. Blankfort wondered why he would get something from a neo-Nazi group he despised. He was shocked to see it was an article accusing Roy Bullock of being a spy for the ADL.

But spies of one kind or another are not uncommon in radical circles, Blankfort says. "My father was a blacklisted writer, and the FBI was poking around for years," he says. "I'm used to it."

As it turns out, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was tracking Bullock's activities; the FBI, however, was concerned with Bullock because he was an operative for the South African government.

When Bullock was questioned in 1993, according to court records, he told FBI agents that he had been instructed by the ADL to gather information on anti-apartheid groups, a statement he would later recant. He told federal agents he had been working as a "fact finder" for the ADL since 1954, when he was asked to gather information on a Communist Party club in Indianapolis. In 1987, he said, he met Tom Gerard, an officer with the San Francisco Police Department, who began supplying Bullock with records such as motor vehicle registrations and criminal histories -- records that, by law, are to be used by police and prosecutors only in legitimate criminal investigations. Bullock also admitted to receiving approximately $16,000 from the South African government in exchange for information on anti-apartheid groups. He also admitted to turning over information to Israel. At the time, Israel and South Africa maintained loose diplomatic relationships, because both faced trade sanctions, Israel from Arab countries, and South Africa from a wide variety of nations opposed to its apartheid policies.

The ADL says Bullock was acting on his own while collecting information on anti-apartheid groups.

In an investigation by the city, San Francisco police seized 10 boxes of information from the offices of the ADL. A police officer testified that 75 percent of the material was illegally obtained from confidential government sources, according to court records. Police also examined Bullock's computer files, which contained information on 9,876 people, along with 1,394 driver's license numbers. The people were divided into four categories: "Arabs," "Pinkos," "Right," and "Skins." Zeltzer and Blankfort were listed under "Pinkos." Included in Zeltzer's dossier was a description of the protest at the Fairmont Hotel.

Although thousands of nonpublic documents were found in the possession of both Bullock and the ADL, the city offered a settlement agreement to the organization in November 1993. As a result of the deal, the ADL paid a $75,000 civil fine -- most of which went to charitable causes along the lines of the ADL's own interests, such as a Hate Crimes Reward Fund -- while denying all allegations of wrongdoing.

Since the city settled its civil case against the ADL, 17 people who had been subjects of the ADL's investigation have attempted to recover their files; they are represented in court by former Congressman Pete McCloskey, whose wife is one of the plaintiffs. So far, the ADL has blocked those efforts, claiming to be a news-gathering organization and invoking the need for journalists to protect their confidential sources. The California Court of Appeals has ruled that plaintiffs who were the target of illegitimate information-gathering that resulted in the transfer of information to a foreign government have a right to see what was transferred.

The lawsuit has certainly shed light on how the organization has gathered information. For example, the former director of the ADL's San Francisco office, Richard Hirschhaut, testified that he was aware that Bullock had prepared reports on hundreds of individuals and organizations. He also said that up to half of the ADL's activities in the seven years between 1986 and 1993 had been centered on discrediting political views that disagreed with the organization's support of Israel, rather than on the ADL's traditional efforts to counter bigotry and anti-Semitism.

The Internet has undoubtedly made it easier for children to access inappropriate information. Few would argue that a child has something to gain by reading the diatribes of the Farm Belt Führer, and, although hate crimes are actually on the decline in terms of numbers, the hate incidents that have occurred recently are conscience-shocking. Last year the country was introduced to Benjamin Smith, who went on a rampage in Indiana, wounding six Jews coming home from Sabbath and killing an African-American and an Asian-American before committing suicide. Buford Furrow Jr. became famous for shooting up a Jewish community center in Los Angeles. And of course there were Columbine's Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two teenagers wreaking bloody havoc on their classmates. Teenagers are laughing while they send bullets into their peers, and the World Church of the Creator has a special section for kids.

Who wouldn't be looking for ways to stop the haters? Potential presidents certainly are.

John McCain is stumping through New Hampshire with his Children's Internet Protection Act, a bill that would require all public libraries and secondary schools receiving federal subsidies for their Internet hookups to install filtering software on computers accessible to minors. Many experts say the bill is very likely to win approval from Congress. Al Gore's campaign Web site has a link to Internet Safety for Parents and Kids, complete with follow-on links to the filter sites Cybersitter and Netnanny.

Judith Krug, a law expert with the American Library Association, says she expects to see an avalanche of Internet filtering laws passed at the state level. (Some states, including South Dakota and Virginia, have already mandated Internet filters for library computers accessible to children.) "Without a doubt, schools have to find ways to protect children from inappropriate material," says CyberPatrol Vice President of Marketing Susan Getgood. "I see schools implementing filters in record numbers."

It seems that the ADL's pet project, HateFilter, couldn't have materialized at a better time. Throughout its long life, the ADL has spent vast amounts of money collecting information on the groups it considers threatening, all for a small number of ADL publications that few people would ever read. Now the organization has the opportunity to have a major impact on how young people view the world.

And without a list of sites the ADL has decided to block, parents won't ever know what their children are missing. Perhaps a lecture by Noam Chomsky on the mainstream media monopoly. Or a RealAudio spoken-word monologue by Amiri Baraka, formerly known as Leroi Jones. Or a detailed analysis of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

So far, nobody is connecting the dots in a public way: An organization with a history of ruthlessly silencing its critics is trying to dictate the Internet content available to the country's young minds. And when asked about the HateFilter, the White House offers this vague comment of apparent support: "The president certainly supports any tool that blocks hate and other inappropriate material on the Internet."

The Labor Committee on the Middle East fizzled out a few years ago, but Steve Zeltzer is still active in radical politics. His Victorian home in Bernal Heights is cluttered with tall stacks of videocassettes, material for the documentary television show he produces, Labor on the Job.

Zeltzer says he's still haunted by the paranoid feelings that began when he realized he was being watched. For the first couple of weeks after his confrontation with ADL "fact-finder" Roy Bullock, Zeltzer says, his phone rang repeatedly; when the answering machine came on, the caller began dialing random numbers, an apparent attempt to retrieve messages left for Zeltzer. Now, if he answers the phone and nobody's there, he can't help but wonder if he's still being targeted.

Zeltzer says he's not surprised that the ADL is creating an Internet filter. To him, it's an extension of what the organization has been doing for decades. "They have always had enemies lists, and they have always wanted to control the flow of information," he says. "The HateFilter is just an extension of that

THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE (ADL) has spearheaded efforts at censorship against all people who wish to express themselves in a way that by the ADL is seen as anti-Zionist or "anti-Semitic". The Director of the ADL Richard Gutstadt wrote to all periodicals he could find to censor the book, "The Conquest of A Continent". Mr Gutstadt brazenly writes, "We are interested in stifling the sale of this book".

The ADL was also instrumental in terrorizing St. Martin's Press into canceling their contract last year [1996] with David Irving. The ADL recently "hailed" the arrest and imprisonment of a German man who questioned the Holocaust.

The ADL tries to cover its anti-free speech activities by giving out a Free Speech "Torch of Liberty" award occasionally. The most prominent recipient is flesh peddler and woman denigrator Hugh Hefner. Obscene pornographer Larry Flynt is another supporter who has contributed 100,000's of dollars to the ADL.

In 1993 the San Francisco and Los Angeles offices of the ADL were raided for evidence of criminal wrongdoing in many spheres. The raids turned up evidence of the ADL's compliance in the theft of confidential police files stolen from California police departments. The ADL had been paying Roy Bullock a salary for decades to spy on people and steal police files. He stole files from SFPD through corrupt cop Tom Gerard. His illicit contact in San Diego was white racist sheriff Tim Carroll.

The ADL has been linked closely to organized crime, especially Las Vegas Mafia boss Meyer Lansky. Theodore Silbert worked simultaneously for the ADL and the Sterling National Bank (a Mafia operation controlled by the Lansky syndicate). As a matter of fact the granddaughter of the Mafia boss Lansky, Mira Lansky Boland herself is the ADL's liaison to law enforcement. (What a convenient arrangement! She used ADL money to treat Tim Carroll and Tom Gerard to an all- expense paid luxury vacation in Israel.)

Another Las Vegas gangster, Moe Dalitz was honored by the ADL in 1985. Another among the shady contributors to the ADL's supremacist activities is the Milken Family Fund, of "junk bond" fame. The ADL uses its well-oiled propaganda machine to protect their "friends" in the Mafia and pornography industry by shrieking "Anti-Semitism!" at the slightest movement of the law against these perverse interests.

The ADL has mastered the art of intimidation and blackmailing unlike any of the powerful Mafiosi they are associated with. The ADL has influential contacts in media and politics that can ruin a person or business if they don't follow ADL's agenda.

Already mentioned are instances of bad cops falling under the allure of the ADL, ones such as Tom Gerard and Tim Carroll. Yet now good cops and even freshmen cops are being "conditioned" for the type of anti-free speech, anti-cultural diversity, police state that the ADL would like for our country. Throughout the nation the ADL is threatening police departments with all kinds of retribution if they don't initiate state-funded lectures and seminars for law enforcement given by ADL spokesmen. The ADL rakes in large sums of money for these sessions, boosting their already overflowing coffers. Already ADL men have been seen at the scene of crimes ordering cops on how investigations are to be conducted.

Perhaps at no time in history has any other criminal organization, such as the ADL, been able to infiltrate and influence law enforcement to such an extent, and its tentacles are growing.

Freshmen sheriffs in San Diego are now being personally "trained" to respond to "crimes" by the Southwestern Director of the ADL, Morris Casuto.

The ADL is a very powerful, secretive racial/religious supremacist organization, with substantial ties to the underworld of crime and pornography. To burrow their way into the minds of children the ADL has created the "World of Difference" program designed to influence them at an early stage.

In a report to its few, but wealthy supporters in 1995, ADL boasts that it has reached more than ten million students and more are ready to be indoctrinated. The ADL hopes to make children susceptible to the world of crime and vice they and their criminal associates have in store for the USA.

"WHEN ISRAEL'S MOSSAD SET OUT TO BREAK ME, IT FOUND ITS HELPERS HERE AT HOME,"

by Victor Ostrovsky

Victor Ostrovsky published two books on his experiences as a former Intelligence agent working for the State of Israel: By Way of Deception and The Other side of Deception.

In these he recorded his personal observations made within Israel's external security service, The Mossad. He wrote an article on what subsequently happened to him for the authoritative journal, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (October/November 1997).

"WE WILL get to him by other means, we will break him economically," stated the chief of the Mossad, Israel's CIA, to a Knesset committee after the failure of the government of Israel's attempt to ban publication of my first book, By Way of Deception, in the U.S. and Canada. This statement, made on camera, was purposefully leaked to an Israeli reporter and printed in the weekend addition of Ma'ariv, Israel's leading daily newspaper, with the military censor's approval. Since that day, Israel's foreign intelligence agency has waged a war of attrition against me with the enthusiastic co-operation of its cabal of North American Zionist organizations.

For years as a Canadian-born, Israeli-raised former Mossad caseworker I was unwilling to accept the possibility of a wide conspiracy against me. After all, my book had finally been published. What more harm could I do to the country I had left in disgust to return to the land of my birth. Only hitting rock bottom has finally jolted me out of this state of innocence--and optimism that a change of luck is just around the corner. I'm now convinced that I am the target of a broad collusion between elements of the Israeli government and their gofers, mostly in the American Jewish community.

...Radio and television interviews that were scheduled by my publisher were canceled almost as soon as they were booked. A speaker's bureau in Toronto, which seldom had trouble arranging speaking engagements with student and other groups eager to have me as a speaker, found that the engagements were cancelled before I could appear. In fact, the cancellations occurred each time a local B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chapter got wind of them, and they always did.

But, of course, the less I spoke, the more time I had to write. In 1995, when my third book, The Other side of the Deception, another work of non-fiction, was published, the efforts against me were stepped up.

So, on Oct. 21, 1995, I was surprised to be invited by Canadian Television (CTV) producer Ron Fine to do a guest appearance on "Canada AM," the widely viewed Canadian version of "Good Morning America." Scheduled to appear on the same program, via satellite from Israel, was Israeli journalist Yosef Lapid, the former head of Israeli television.

...On cue, Lapid repeated, as I listened, his call for my assassination on the Canadian television show, but this time with a twist. He said that, since Israel's Mossad could not kill me in Canada without causing a diplomatic incident, "I hope that there would be a decent Jew in Canada who would do the job for us."

...A radio host named Tim Kern, from a station in Denver, Colorado, called me up for an interview. Several days later he sent a file on me he had received from the "Mountain state regional office of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith." The ADL communication suggested that the station drop the interview, claiming that I am an unreliable subject.* The sequence was repeated over and over at radio and television stations in the United States in the United States and Canada. Ironically, supposedly separate Jewish organizations around the United States kept coming up with the same wording in their efforts to shut me up.

The same people who presumably would praise someone from the CIA or the U.S armed forces who exposed serious wrong-doing in those institutions were now hard of work to smother my criticisms of an intelligence agency for a foreign country that, to put it a charitably as possible does not have America's best interest at heart.

...In an attempt to break the vicious cycle, I decided to sue in an Canadian Yosef Lapid for inciting my murder and "Canada AM" for airing his incitement to the public. I assumed that bringing this issue to public attention would expose the attempts of organizations in both the U.S. and Canada that in fact are agents of Israel to suppress the truth through intimidation and, if necessary, economic or physical terrorism.

After accepting a hefty retainer and completing the preparation for trial, my lawyer, Paul B. Kane of Perley-Robertson, Panet, Hill and McDougall in Ottawa, Canada, informed me that he could not continue with the case. His explanation was that the safety of his staff would clearly be jeopardized if he proceeded.

Then HarperCollins, my publisher, informed me it was keeping the last portion of my advance, some $46,000, against advertising. I pointed out that since this was not something that I had never agreed to, they had no right to do it. "Sue us," was their response.

In 1996, a new, New York based agent struck a light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. Regnery Inc., a Washington based publisher, signed a contract with me for a tongue-in-cheek guide to espionage called The Spy Game. They had some suggestions, however, for making the book more serious on the grounds that reader's don't regard spying as a laughing matter.

As I was in the final stages of the first draft, however, my house burned to the ground. The fire marshal's report declared it arson.

...So I wasted no more time and re-wrote The Spy Game, having kept my notes on Regnery's suggested revisions with me.

WASHINGTON - Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman [left] admitted he sought a presidential pardon for Marc Rich a month after his group accepted a $100,000 donation from the billionaire financier.

Foxman, leader of one of the nation's largest Jewish groups, wrote a letter to then-President Bill Clinton on Dec. 7, urging a pardon for Rich.

But Foxman didn't reveal Rich's donation until yesterday. An ADL official said it "probably" was made in November and added that the group has no plans to give the money back.

He said he'd been under the impression, after talking with Rich, that the feds were bent on jailing him if he returned to the country, denying him a chance to visit his daughter's grave.

Foxman was interviewed Monday by House investigators about Rich, an ultra-wealthy commodities trader who had been on the lam since his 1983 indictment on evading $48 million in taxes and trading with the enemy.

Foxman recommended to Azulay that Rich seek a pardon by using his ex-wife Denise Rich - a major contributor to the Clintons' campaigns and to Bill Clinton's library - as an intermediary.

Denise Rich ended up writing a letter to Clinton and pinning him down at a holiday party at the White House to press for the pardon.

The ADL said Azulay had "pledged" in January 2000, a month before the meeting in Paris, to make a contribution to the ADL.

But the actual transfer of that money, $100,000, "probably" occurred in November, said ADL spokeswoman Myra Shinbaum.

Shinbaum said Rich had given $150,000 to the ADL over a period of about 15 years, but, before last year, hadn't given any money in a few years.

Shinbaum also said the ADL, which annually budgets $50 million to fight anti-Semitism, won't return the money.

"Return the money? No. The money is used for the work of the ADL," Shinbaum said.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith claims it has the same right as a journalist to withhold records it gathered on leftist pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid activists.

The Jewish organization argued before an appellate court Wednesday that it should not have to comply with a judge's order to produce the documents to individuals who have sued the group for invasion of privacy.

The ADL is appealing a September order allowing 17 people to see material that the ADL gathered on individuals and organizations that supported Palestinian rights and opposed South Africa's former apartheid government.

The cases arose out of a 1992 seizure by San Francisco police of more than 10,000 ADL files. The ADL later paid $75,000 to settle a civil suit filed by the city accusing it of illegally obtaining confidential government documents.

A now-retired San Francisco police inspector, Tom Girard, also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of illegally accessing the information.

Girard's ADL contact, Roy Bullock, acknowledged selling information to the South African government, then Israel's ally. The ADL said he did it on his own, but admitted that some of its information was shared with the Israeli government.

Police, who returned the documents to the ADL after the settlement, notified the plaintiffs that their names were in the files. The 17 contend the ADL illegally obtained confidential records from the state and blacklisted them among the organization's supporters.

The ADL denies having a blacklist and says it was merely keeping tabs on hate groups and terrorists.

"Courts say a government employee may be punished for violating a duty to keep information private, but if you are a journalist, you may not be punished'" for receiving the information and sharing it with others, B'nai B'rith lawyer Stephen Bomse said Wednesday.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, former Congressman Pete McCloskey, said even if the ADL should be treated as a reporter, no journalist has the power "to invade privacy and transmit private records.''

Bomse said there was no evidence of lawbreaking that would justify invading the group's files.

"The reason there may not be a scintilla of evidence is that your client has it and won't disclose it,'' replied Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - At a moment when the popular mind-set once again links the words "Arab" and "Islamic" with all things retrograde and threatening-including terrorism (cue the new Charlie Daniels anthem and revel in the poetry: "This ain't no rag, it's a flag/And we don't wear it on our heads. . . . /We're gonna hunt you down like a mad dog hound")-it came as a surprise to some that the latest malefactors accorded POW status in the "War on Terrorism" turned out to be Jewish.

Arrested and charged last week with intriguing to do explosive little actions on a Culver City, California, mosque and the offices of Lebanese American U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, Jewish Defense League chief Irving David

Rubin and JDL member Earl Leslie Krugel were, according to FBI wiretap transcripts, anything but circumspect about their devices and desires: Though Rubin lamented the wanting state of technology in the JDL's possession (not good enough to "blow up an entire building"), Krugel was adamant that "Arabs need a wake-up call" and that the JDL needs to do something to one of their "filthy mosques"-which may explain the five pounds of gunpowder and pipe-bomb matériel found at his house. "If the people responsible for September 11 are the quintessence of evil genius, these guys are at the Keystone Kops end of the spectrum," says Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "The only reassuring thing about them is their absolute ineptitude and the fact that they were arrested."

Mainstream Jewish groups were quick to condemn the JDL as well: Characterizing the activities of the organization-founded in 1968 by Brooklyn's own, now deceased Rabbi Meir Kahane-as "contemptible," the Anti-Defamation League's regional director issued a statement "abhor [ing] and condemn[ing] the potential terrorist plot."

The American Jewish Committee said it "categorically condemns in the strongest possible terms the alleged JDL plot," and went so far as to follow up with a personal letter to Republican representative Issa, decrying "such wanton lawlessness," which is "so clearly contrary to the fundamental tenets of our faith, and to the basic principles of justice and liberty that brought our parents and grandparents to America's shores and that form the bedrock of our national values."

Yet some observers of the current Middle East crisis see more than a bit of disingenuousness and historical irony here. While both the ADL and the AJC have condemned the JDL, they've unequivocally backed Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's indiscriminate use of force against the Palestinians and the cutting of ties with Palestinian Authority president Yasir Arafat-neither of which is universally seen as a particularly constructive way to slow the cycles of violence across Israel and the Occupied Territories.

But what's even more vexing to others is the apparent inability or unwillingness to discern similarities between the current Palestinian milieu and Israeli operations of 50-plus years ago, which secured statehood from colonialist occupiers-as well as similarities between violent, internecine struggles among disparate underground groups.

"It's peculiar, it's paradoxical, that Sharon and Likud should be the ones who are trying to equate any authentic resistance in Palestine with some of the terrorist activities, as terrorism in Israel really started with Begin and Shamir and later Sharon," says Clovis Maksoud, the former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations. "It's a very valid question as to why they see no similarities between themselves under the British and the Palestinians under their occupation." Especially, he adds, as the Israeli government supports museums that honor assassins and terrorists-including one located on a street named for a terrorist.

The thoroughfare in question runs between Florentine and Emeq- Yisrael, and bears the name Stern Street-in honor of Avraham Stern, a 1920s Zionist and charter member of the Haganah, then a loose-knit Jewish militia organized as a self-defense mechanism against Arab violence. Finding the Haganah insufficiently proactive in realizing the goal of a Jewish state that would encompass "both sides of the River Jordan," erstwhile Mussolini follower and early-day ultra- nationalist Ze'ev Jabotinsky broke with the militia and formed the Irgun, which devoted itself to terrorist operations against the British. Once an enthusiastic Irgunist, Stern was appalled when the Irgun decided to make common cause with the British against the Nazis, and created the even more underground and more violent Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael, or Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), also known as the Stern Gang, which held there was no greater threat to the Jews of Palestine than the mandate's British administrators.

To this end, Stern actually made overtures to the Axis powers; September 1940 found him in dialogue with an emissary from Il Duce in Jerusalem, and in January 1941 he dispatched an agent to Vichy- controlled Beirut with instructions to convey a letter to representatives of the Reich. In it, Stern held that the "establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East. Proceeding from these considerations, [the Lehi] in Palestine, under the condition [that] the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side."

The Germans declined to take Stern up on the offer, but Stern held out hope as his organization continued to engage in terrorism against the British. After Stern died in a shoot-out with British police in 1942, his mantle was picked up by future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. Still, the Israeli underground focused on the British as the greatest of all evils, and on November 6, 1944, Lord Moyne, the British minister for Middle East affairs, was assassinated in Cairo by Eliyahu Beit-Tzuri and Eliyahu Hakim-both members of the Lehi, who were later arrested, convicted, and hanged.

After the state of Israel was established, the Lehi, displeased with what it considered the too pro-Arab views of the Swedish UN-appointed mediator for Palestine, assassinated him; on September 17, 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte-who, as a neutral diplomat in World War II, had saved thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps-was shot and killed by Lehi assassins, along with French colonel Andre Serot, the senior UN military observer, whose wife's life had been saved by Bernadotte.

The Bernadotte assassination was so outrageous that the nascent government of David Ben-Gurion had little problem disbanding the Lehi (though none of the assassins were ever brought to justice). Yet, despite this history of terror, the Israeli Ministry of Defense underwrites museums commemorating the Stern Gang and the Irgun- which, under Menachem Begin, bombed the British headquarters at the King David Hotel in 1946, leaving 90 dead and 45 wounded (with 15 Jews among the casualties). Like Lehi, it wasn't until 1948 that the Irgun was forced out of existence, after its arms-transport ship, the Altalena, was blown up by the provisional Israeli government-a point analysts like Ibish say bears remembering.

"There are streets named after the assassins of Moyne and Bernadotte. They are historical figures not disavowed by the rhetoric of the state of Israel, nor is there any reflection on the fact that two terrorist leaders later became distinguished leaders of the republic," Ibish says. "And now people are saying that Arafat must have his Altalena." Ibish adds that Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, "never moved against the Irgun and the Stern Gang until after the state was established and secured, which is definitely not true in the case of the Palestinian Authority. Essentially, the Israelis are asking the Palestinians to do something they themselves refused to do."

> This is an assessment of the world scene as it relates to the Jewish
> people, which I believed would never have to be pronounced after the
> Holocaust. We gathered two months after 9-11, as a national
> organization in the shadow of the trauma, trying to assess for
> ourselves what it means. We were very, very careful. We were very
> cautious. We were very hesitant. We felt it in our gut, we felt it in
> our soul, our antennae were quivering, and yet we hesitated. We
> talked about our fears, our anxieties, but we were not willing then
> to say what I am about to say now.
>
> Personally, because of the baggage that I carry, I had always hoped
> and believed that the world had learned something from the horror of
> a million and a half children being put to death solely for the crime
> of being Jewish. We had reason to believe that the world was
> changing, that there was a level of understanding. People were
> beginning to seriously grasp and grapple with the responsibility not
> only about the past, but about the future. We as an agency, and I,
> when I had the opportunity, would frequently say so. While it is
> criminal for us to be silent, it is responsible for us to speak out.
>
> Now that it is almost six months after 9/11, I feel it is
> responsible, it is mandated, it is necessary, and it is appropriate
> that we raise our voices. For what we are witnessing today is
> something, which I profess to you, I never thought I would witness
> again in my lifetime.
>
> The Old/New Anti-Semitism
> I have said that my greatest nightmare is that one day I would wake
> up and something terrible would happen in America and we, the Jewish
> people, Jews and Israel, will be blamed. It happened.
>
> Times are different we are told. The world is a different world. We
> communicate globally. We know each other better. Maybe. But history
> has taught us that in times of great stress, of great instability,
> and of anxiety and unpredictability, there is one thing that is
> predictable - anti-Semitism. When Europe was being decimated by the
> Plague, Jews were blamed and Jews were killed.
>
> Let me fast-forward a couple of hundred years, because it is
> illustrative of what we're talking about. Several years ago Malaysia
> had an economic crisis. Their currency fell and you know whose fault
> it was? World Jewry's. Millions of people were told by Malaysia's
> leader that they were suffering, because the Jews, who control the
> world, control finance, decided to punish them because they support
> Palestine. To this day millions of Malaysians believe it.
>
> Also, not too long ago there was an earthquake in Mexico, and
> buildings crumbled. Guess who was held responsible for the hundreds
> of deaths; the Jews. Because, they said, Jews controlled the building
> trade and were more interested in money than lives of the poor
> Mexicans that died.
>
> September 11 and The Big Lie
> When we first heard of the charge that Jews, Israel and the Mossad
> was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center
> and Pentagon, most of us chuckled. But it didn't take long for us to
> realize that it was not a joking matter that it wasn't anything to
> laugh about. Today you can travel the Arab world, Asia, and Europe,
> and read in newspapers and hear on radio and TV the big hideous lie
> that has become a truth --that Jews bring about a situation in their
> interest in order to put the blame on somebody else. How classically
> anti-Semitic! Now ministers of Arab government and even newspapers in
> Western Europe have bought into the big lie. It has become a fact, it
> is being taught in the schools, that perversion of recent and current
> history.
>
> I will say to you without hesitation that I am convinced we are
> facing a threat as great, if not greater, to the safety and security
> of the Jewish people than we faced in the thirties. Greater, because
> forty percent of the Jewish people are centered in one geographic
> tiny location, and the danger is greater today than it was in the
> 1930's. Then the venom and the hatred of Nazism, the venom and hatred
> of anti-Semitism, was in limited to Germany and Austria. True, the
> agents of Nazism wanted to fuel anti-Semitism throughout the world,
> but they were limited.
>
> Anti-Semitism in a Wired Universe
> Today we live in a different age. We live in what some call the
> global village. We live in the midst of a great technological
> revolution. On one hand it provides knowledge, information, education
> and enlightenment. On the other it provides a cheap vehicle, a
> superhighway for hate. Today, a sermon in Cairo travels across the
> globe within minutes, through the networks, the Internet, e-mail, and
> Al Jazeera. This globalization facilitates the incitement and hate
> that makes the message of anti-Semitism more potent and very real. It
> is now out there everywhere. You can download it; it comes into your
> home uninvited. It is protected of course, by our tradition of
> freedom of speech. But this technology has given anti-Semitism, hate
> and incitement a strength and a power of seduction that it has never
> had in history before.
>
> Anti-Zionism: Code Word for Anti-Semitism
> There is another element that we have been very careful about and
> have dealt with somewhat gingerly. And that is walking the delicate
> line between anti-Israel and anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism. We are
> always careful to say that not every criticism against the State of
> Israel is anti-Semitic. Yes, Israel is a state, a member of the
> community of nations, and it is subject to criticism as any other
> state. Therefore, if you criticize Israel, that doesn't make you an
> anti-Semite. That is still true today. But that is not what we're
> talking about.
>
> The Arab-Israel conflict, Palestinian-Israeli conflict, has been
> highjacked into this global network of anti-Semitism. It has provided
> a camouflage of semi-respectability. The attacks are not about a
> nation state, they are about Jews. A hideous and grotesque double
> standard exists.
>
> We have had to define for ourselves when anti-Israel and anti-Zionism
> is anti-Semitism. First, let me say anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,
> period. There is no debate about that. Remember what anti-Zionism is.
> Remember when it came out in the UN's Zionism is racism resolution.
> It is pure, simple, unadulterated anti-Semitism. What it says is what
> is okay, what is permissible, what is laudatory, what is universally
> accepted for all peoples in the world -- self-expression, self-
> determination, independence, sovereignty -- is not permitted to Jews.
> That is what it says. It doesn't say Irish nationalism is racist, or
> Rwandan nationalism or French or Palestinian nationalism. It says
> Jewish nationalism is racist. That is pure and simple anti-Semitism.
>
> Belgium today is trying to indict the Prime Minister of the State of
> Israel for crimes against humanity. That is anti-Semitism. It would
> not be if Belgium, the great cradle of international justice, set out
> to indict other leaders of the world; if it set a standard of justice
> for the rest of the world, but it is not. No one else is being
> charged, only the Prime Minister of the State of Israel.
>
> Denmark challenges the credentials of a new Israeli Ambassador
> because he once served in Israel's security. That is anti-Semitism.
>
> We also have the instance of the French ambassador to Great Britain
> who talks about "this s----y little country, Israel." He is basically
> saying if only this "s----y little country" didn't exist how
> wonderful it would be. In his view it is the occupation by the Jews
> of Palestinians that make "this s----y little country" such a problem
> for world peace and stability. You know what? If that ambassador
> would say that "s----y big country" China and its occupation of Tibet
> for fifty years is screwing up the world, or the Indian Hindus and
> their occupation of Muslim Kashmir are endangering world peace, I'd
> say okay. But no, It is only "that s----y little Israel." It is only
> the Jewish people.
>
> And if you ever had a doubt, listen to Osama bin Laden, who said it
> is the Jews, it is Israel. Just in case you missed it, it was on tape
> one, it was on tape four -- the Jews and Israel and the Americans who
> are controlled by the Jews.
>
> A Test For Israel's Critics
> There is always the question: is the newspaper anti-Semitic or anti-
> Israel; is the columnist anti-Semitic or anti-Israel, so I have
> developed a guideline to apply. For example, does a Pat Buchanan
> raise questions of moral behavior, of standards of decorum of
> nations? Does he raise those issues across the board? If he does,
> then it is OK to question Israel. Then you ask; in all of Pat
> Buchanan's writings has he found anything about the Jewish State that
> was worthy of praise? Those who only find fault with the Jewish
> people, the Jewish State and the actions of the Jewish sovereignty
> and never find anything that is positive are anti-Semites under the
> guise of anti-Zionism and anti-Israel.
>
> Branding Israel "Racist"
> What makes this so threatening, so dangerous, is the moral
> equivalency, the political expediency, and the silence of good
> people. I have said, that if not for 9-11, what would be on our
> agenda time and time again is Durban. Because the lesson of Durban is
> what makes what is happening throughout the world today so much more
> dangerous, so much more sinister. Durban was to be a magnificent
> expression of the world community's conscience and care of the
> future. At the turn of this millennium and this century, the nations
> of the world decided that, since the world has paid such a heavy
> price for racism, let the community of nations come together to set
> standards for dealing with racism. What a beautiful concept! It was
> symbolic that Durban, South Africa was chosen as the site, because
> that is where racism was so ugly, until so long ago. There was a
> necessary need for the world to set standards of behavior. Yet, they
> never got to talk about racism. They never got to set the standards
> or deal with the issues that so many of those who came from all over
> the world came to plead. One subject united them all-- the Jewish
> people and their Jewish "racism."
>
> We should not have been surprised. The moment a planning meeting was
> held in Teheran, we should have known the direction Durban would
> take. What was frightening was that aside from the U.S., and some
> belated statements from a very few countries, the world permitted the
> highjacking of that conference to delegitimize the Jewish people.
> Good people found it impossible to raise voices; To vote against it
> or to walk out.
>
> Another recent example was the convening of the Fourth Geneva
> Convention. You need to understand what that means. The Geneva
> Convention codified rules of war and behavior. That is why we can
> have international tribunals, because even in war there are certain
> standards. After the atrocities of the Holocaust and World War II it
> was realized that more defined standards were needed and they came up
> with the Fourth Geneva Convention. It stipulates how to deal with
> civilian populations in wartime, enmity, et cetera. And the keeper of
> the Convention is Switzerland. It has to be petitioned for the Geneva
> Convention to be called.
>
> From 1949 to 1999 nobody ever called that Convention into session.
> Nobody. Yet, from 1949 to 1999 there were certainly atrocities
> against civilians throughout the world, and yet nobody thought it
> would be possible or doable until 1999. So the Fourth Geneva
> Convention convened over what? The "atrocity" of Har HaHoma, a
> neighborhood in Jerusalem where Israel decided to build housing. It
> didn't matter that one-third was set aside for Palestinians.
> Bulldozers brought into session the Fourth Geneva Convention for the
> first time in history. To make sure that it not be a unique thing,
> four months ago the Fourth Geneva Convention met again. Guess what
> was the subject? Israel.
>
> Since the events of Sept. 11, we are being told that the world has
> changed. The fact that the United Nations continues to vote against
> Israel the way it does is another significant lesson that the more
> things change, the more they stay the same. 137 nations raised their
> hands to condemn Israel. Only the United States remains stalwart and
> a few Pacific islands who had the courage to vote NO.
>
> What if there is another calamity? What if there will be a greater
> price to be paid and will have to be paid? Who will stand with us, by
> us, for us, when the finger will again be U.S foreign policy vis-à-
> vis Israel?
>
> Anti-Semitism and Political Expediency
> Last week we wrote to President Jacques Chirac about the synagogues
> that are being burned in France; about the Jewish children that are
> being attacked. We are being told these events are the result of the
> Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Not so! It is anti-Semitism. It is
> politically expedient for Chirac and Jospin to keep quiet because
> they are heading into elections with several milion Arab votes at
> stake. So, they avoid calling the actions what they are -- anti-
> Semitism -- and put them under the guise of the Palestinian-Israeli
> conflict or simply crimes. The burning of a synagogue in France, or
> anywhere else, has nothing to do with the Middle East. It is pure
> anti-Semitism.
>
> I'll never forget the dialogue we had with President Hosni Mubarak
> when we raised the issue of anti-Semitism in the Egyptian media.
> Mubarak said it was anti-Israel. I told him he surely knew the
> difference between anti-Israel and anti-Semitism, and what we see and
> hear and read in Egypt is both anti-Israel and anti-Semitism.
>
> We can no longer tolerate those euphemisms because they are very,
> very dangerous. So what did we do? We do what we have always done. We
> tell the truth. We credibly expose those who condone anti-Semitism.
> We challenge leadership to stand up and say no, to stand up and say
> this is anti-Semitism and it is unacceptable. We must motivate good
> people, increase our efforts, and raise our voice. We must develop
> more creative response mechanisms because the crisis is here now and
> the danger is real.
>
> The Call to Jihad
> Finally, one last important point. I agree with President Bush in
> almost everything he has said and done regarding the war on global
> terrorism, fighting for democracy and mobilizing our nation and the
> world, except for one thing that makes the current anti-Semitism much
> more powerful, virulent and threatening. And that is the question of
> religion. I know why the President says this is not a religious war.
> I know why it is important for him to say it.
>
> But the fact is Osama bin Laden and his ilk say this is a religious
> war, a war against the infidels, the unbelievers, and they are the
> Jews and the Christians, the Christians and the Jews.
>
> What emanates from Radio Islam, Radio Cairo and Radio PA is in a
> religious context. It is a call for Jihad, and Jihad is a religious
> precept. It is a call of hate, an incitement to kill, urging suicide
> bombers to act in the name of God, and that adds a dimension of this
> anti-Semitism threat that did not exist before.
>
> We saw the rise of anti-Semitism in an anti-religious, anti-
> Christian, paganism. Now we have the religion element, and that is a
> dangerous element. My father used to say one should always be careful
> of God's Cossacks. Those who act in the name of God and believe they
> have the truth, the only truth. That is very dangerous. It makes this
> virulent epidemic of anti-Semitism that much more dangerous, that
> much more virulent and that much more threatening.
>
> We do not have the luxury to err on the side of caution because the
> signs are there to be read. What we do have is the will not permit
> history to repeat itself. Thank you.

The mundi club has just posted terra firm no.24: The Zionists Rise to World Domination™ which can be found at http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24a_f.html This contains the following 1. A Short History of Zionist Occupied Palestine http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24b_f.html#Short 2. Zionist Propaganda http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24c_f.html#00 3. The Zionists April 2002 Invasion of Palestine http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24d_f.html#00 4. The Global Zionist Conspiracy for World Domination http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24e_f.html#00 5. The Increasing Evidence of Zionists World Domination. http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24f_f.html#00 6. Addenda. http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf24i_f.html#00 It was mcbush's capitulation to ariel bin sharon over ariel bin sharon's invasion of the foreign country called palestine that confirmed suspicions about zionist dominance of the american government. When mcbush applauded the zionists invasion of palestine as being the second phase of the wart, he was basically confessing that the zionists had co-opted themselves onto the war against terrorism. It is now transparent that the zionists invasion of washington has been just as successful as their invasion of palestine. The normal reaction to sharon's humiliation of mcbush was voiced by a female rabbi friend of a guardian journalist, jonathan steele, The Israeli prime minister's humiliating refusal to heed the White House's call last month for an immediate halt to Israel's West Bank incursions should have prompted a debate on whether Bush or Sharon makes US foreign policy, she argued. john lynch ===== Carbonomics is a global Carbon audit of the Earth's Carbon spiral which can be used to determine countries' Carbon status. It can also be used to formulate a global Carbon budget to stabilize the Earth's climate. The Earth's Carbon spiral is used to develop a geocentric philosophy and politics - thus putting the Earth First! www.geocities.com/carbonomics/index.html

"WHEN ISRAEL'S MOSSAD SET OUT TO BREAK ME, IT FOUND ITS HELPERS HERE AT HOME," by Victor Ostrovsky

"WHEN ISRAEL'S MOSSAD SET OUT TO BREAK ME, IT FOUND ITS HELPERS HERE AT HOME,"

by Victor Ostrovsky

JDL Chairman Arrested in Bomb Plot