LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
March 08/08

Bible Reading of the day.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 7,1-2.10.25-30. After this, Jesus moved about within Galilee; but he did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him. But the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, he himself also went up, not openly but (as it were) in secret. So some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem said, "Is he not the one they are trying to kill? And look, he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Could the authorities have realized that he is the Messiah? But we know where he is from. When the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from." So Jesus cried out in the temple area as he was teaching and said, "You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me." So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.

Free Opinions, Releases, letters & Special Reports
Syrians and Saudis fight over Hariri, but it's the Lebanese who get beaten up-Daily Star- 07/03/08
Lost from Lebanon-Al-Ahram Weekly - 07/03/08
Full steam ahead-Al-Ahram Weekly- 07/03/08

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for March 07/08
Welch Attacks Syrian Regime, Says Damascus Working Against Peace-Naharnet
Manar: 'Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza' Responsible for Jerusalem Attack-Naharnet
Hobeish: No Election of March 11-Naharnet
PM Saniora: Lebanon to be Invited to Arab Summit after March 11-Naharnet
Fadlallah Calls Jerusalem Attack 'Heroic'-Naharnet
Aoun: Majority Wagering on War-Naharnet
Gemayel Says Syria Seeking to Control Lebanon, Laments Death of Arab Initiative-Naharnet
Moussa to Return when Time is Ripe, No Summit Invitation Before March 11-Naharnet
Liberal Lebanese Women Suffer Under Outdated Laws-Naharnet
Syria, Iran Want Their Relations to Be an Example for Arabs-Naharnet
Syria's Allies Escalate Attacks on Patriarch Sfeir-Naharnet
U.S. Embassy Renews Warning to Citizens amid Concerns Extremists Could Target Americans-Naharnet
Israel on alert after deadly Jerusalem attack AFP
Thousands of Israelis mourn eight students-AP
UN Dispels Rumors-Naharnet
Al-Qaida may be plotting to attack the U.S., general says-AP
Gunman kills eight at Jewish seminary in Jerusalem-AP
US Embassy warns American citizens in Lebanon to watch their steps-Daily Star
Sfeir voices hope that political crisis will fade away-Daily Star
UNIFIL dispels rumors of Blue Line violation by Israeli Army-Daily Star
Property sales in Lebanon soar despite ongoing political crisis-Daily Star
Israeli daily says Iran flies arms through Turkey to Syria for ...Daily Star
The folly of calling brothers enemies-Daily Star
The Lebanese people will not fight each other-Daily Star
Almost two-thirds' of compensation for damage from 2006 war paid out-Daily Star
Property sales in Lebanon soar despite ongoing political crisis-Daily Star
Local chapter of English Speaking Union meets in Beirut-Daily Star
Nahr al-Bared disaster wrecked local economy, too-Daily Star
Company denies blame for Sidon dump debacle-Daily Star
Moussa may return to Beirut for yet another mediation bid-Daily Star
Hezbollah-led opposition escalates attacks on Sfeir-Ya Libnan
Syria's Allies Escalate Attacks on Patriarch Sfeir-Naharnet
Syria-Iran Want Their Relations to Be an Example for Arabs-Naharnet
U.S. Embassy Renews Warning to Citizens amid Concerns Extremists Could Target Americans-Naharnet
Lebanon Crisis Elicits Fierce War of Words in Cairo-Naharnet
US says it steps up security for ships that have visited Syria-AFP
Arab summit saved, more troubles lie ahead-Middle East Times
Syria, Iran sign eight memorandums of understanding-Ha'aretz
Arab diplomacy The pro-Westerners feel stumped too-Economist
US Embassy in Lebanon Warns of Threat-The Associated Press
Gaza Pullout: It Didn't Work as Expected-Jewish Exponent
Shi'ite arrests stir sectarian fears in Kuwait-Reuters

Ex-MP: US plotting to kill Aoun
Press TV/Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:59:36
Nasser Qandil
Lebanon's ex-lawmaker, Nasser Qandil, vows retaliation against the US over an alleged plot to kill opposition figure Michel Aoun.
Addressing a news conference at his Beirut office on Wednesday, Qandil said that Washington, Riyadh, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea are plotting to assassinate Aoun. He revealed that they planned to kill Aoun using Tomahawk missiles fired from a US warship off the Lebanese coast that would target the Rabiyeh district where Aoun's residence is located. There would be simultaneous explosions of booby trapped cars to portray the attack as a suicide bombing and put the blame on extremist groups like Fatah al-Islam, he said. Qandil warned the Americans against "going ahead with this crazy plan, because the price would be an open war on US interests, 'not just in Lebanon but throughout the Arab world'. He charged that Geagea has left for the United States to make arrangements for the implementation of the plot. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=46077&sectionid=351020203

Welch Attacks Syrian Regime, Says Damascus Working Against Peace
Naharnet/U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch has accused the Syrian regime of blocking peace efforts in the Middle East and said he discussed with Arab League Chief Amr Moussa the organization's efforts to help Lebanon in electing a new president. "When we talk about peace we cannot mention Syria," Welch said after talks with Moussa in Cairo Thursday. "Syria's name is not associated with the word 'peace' since it doesn't work to achieve it," Egypt's Middle East News Agency (MENA) quoted him as saying. Welch expressed concern over "the situation of the Syrian people" living under the rule of the Assad regime. He also said he discussed with Moussa the situation in the region and the Arab League's efforts to "achieve peace in Lebanon" so that a new Lebanese head of state is elected. Moussa briefed Welch on the latest developments in Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, MENA quoted the top U.S. official as saying. Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 09:57

U.N. Dispels Rumors
Naharnet/U.N. peacekeepers in south Lebanon have said press reports about an Israeli cross over were untrue and that a bomb blast in the Kafarshouba area never took place, An Nahar daily quoted a U.N. spokeswoman as saying Friday. Spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) made it clear that the Israeli army did not across the U.N.-drawn Blue Line through the town of Ghajar, contrary to information that was circulated by the press on Thursday. In Lebanon, UNIFIL spokeswoman Yasmina Bouzianne said in a press release that "the Israeli army did not extend past its area of operations.""They are working in the area under their control," Bouzianne added. Okabe said media reports about a bomb explosion in the Kafarshouba area in south Lebanon were untrue and that the blast resulted from the disposal of unexploded ordnance by UNIFIL.U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq also told An Nahar that the world body was taking precautionary measures after the U.S., European and some Arab countries asked their nationals to exercise caution amid a deteriorating political and security situation. Asked by the newspaper why Hizbullah accused U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon of bias in his latest report on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701, Haq said the United Nations works with all sides with impartiality and objectivity. Hizbullah on Wednesday lashed out at Ban after he expressed concern over threats of open war against Israel by the group following the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah commander, was killed in a car bombing in Damascus on Feb. 12.(AFP photo shows U.N. peacekeeping troops based in southern Lebanon patrolling the border, as an Israeli military jeep drives along Israel's northern border) Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 07:56

Manar: 'Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza' Responsible for Jerusalem Attack
Naharnet/Hizbullah's Al Manar television said the deadly attack on a Jewish religious college in Jerusalem Thursday was carried out by the previously unknown "Phalange of Free Men of Galilee - Groups of the Martyr Imad Mughniyeh and Martyrs of Gaza."The claim, which was made on the TV's news bar at the bottom of the screen, could not be immediately verified. Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah commander, was assassinated in a Damascus car bombing on February 12.
Hizbullah has blamed Israel for the killing and threatened attacks in revenge. Israel, however, has denied any involvement in Mughniyeh's murder.
In Thursday's incident, a Palestinian gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session, killing eight people and wounding nine before he was slain, Israeli police and rescue workers said. It was the first major militant attack in Jerusalem in more than four years.
Hizbullah official Nawaf Moussaoui, reached by Agence France Presse, said he had no comment on the attack. Celebratory gunfire erupted in many of Lebanon's 14 Palestinian refugee camps on news of the attack. At the Beddawi camp near the northern port city of Tripoli, residents poured into the streets to celebrate, firing in the air and distributing sweets to passersby.(AFP-AP-Naharnet) Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 04:51

PM Saniora: Lebanon to be Invited to Arab Summit after March 11
Naharnet/Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has said he expected Lebanon to be invited to the Arab Summit in Damascus after March 11.
"Given the circumstances, I don't think parliament will convene on March 11 to elect a president," Saniora told the daily As Safir on Friday. He also denied reports that Lebanon received the invitation to the summit through its representative at the Arab League. "We haven't received any invitation yet. A Syrian minister is supposed to deliver it in Beirut as it is being done with all Arab states," he said. Saniora said that his government will choose Lebanon's representative to the summit if a president was not elected during a parliamentary session scheduled for March 11. He also said Arab League chief Amr Moussa will not return to Lebanon any time soon. "I don't expect Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa to return to Beirut soon," he told the daily.
However, he said he expected Moussa to send one of his assistants to Beirut to set a political framework to resolve the Lebanese-Syrian relations crisis.
"Moussa will follow up this issue personally later on," he added. Saniora told As Safir that there were no new developments with the Arab initiative, except for the matter of Lebanese-Syrian ties being raised. "It is an important matter, as it concerns both countries," he said. Saniora stressed the important role of Arab institutions, especially the Arab League. Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 13:40

Fadlallah Calls Jerusalem Attack 'Heroic'
Naharnet/A leading Lebanese Shiite cleric on Friday labeled the attack on a Jerusalem religious school a heroic act.
"The heroic operation in Jerusalem proved that the mujahedeen in Palestine are able to hit the Zionists hard," said Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah in his Friday sermon, referring to an attack by a gunman on a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem Thursday that left eight dead.
"It was a natural reaction to the barbaric Israeli violence in Gaza," he added in reference to an Israeli air and ground operation that has left more than 130 dead since last week. Fadlallah also slammed the U.S. administration for its unconditional support of Israel and its dispatch of a destroyer to international waters off the coast of Lebanon. "The dispatch of its warships to the Lebanese coast is an attempt to distract from its political and security failures in pressuring the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine," he said of Washington. "It is to reassert its complete support of the Zionist enemy in the massacres in conducts in Gaza and the West Bank," Fadlallah added. The USS Cole's deployment to waters off Lebanon signaled U.S. concern over a protracted political crisis in the country. The ship was replaced by two other warships on Wednesday.(AFP) Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 13:44

Aoun: Majority Wagering on War
Naharnet/Free Patriotic Movement leader Gen. Michel Aoun has accused the majority of wagering on civil war in Lebanon and slammed initiatives which he said aimed at eliminating the Hizbullah-led opposition. "I assure you there will be no war, but it seems the majority is wagering on war rather than its capabilities," Aoun told a delegation of FPM students at his home in Rabiyeh on Thursday. He said international and Arab initiatives "aim at eliminating the opposition" but "no one can eliminate us as long as we protect ourselves." Aoun denied his movement was part of the Syrian-Iranian axis and boasted that the FPM had good relations "with everyone." "We are proud of our friendship with everyone… because we are independent," he said. "Are the Syrians and Iranians meddling in our internal affairs? Are they the ones sending their warships to our shores and their warplanes to violate our airspace? Did they open fire on farmers?" he wondered. Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 11:58

Gemayel Says Syria Seeking to Control Lebanon, Laments Death of Arab Initiative
Naharnet/Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel has accused Damascus of seeking to re-impose its hegemony over Lebanon and said the Arab initiative aimed at electing a president has failed. Damascus "is dreaming to return its hegemony over Lebanon," the former president said Thursday.
"Some suggestions that have been recently circulating and which reportedly emanated from some officials in Syria…are an attempt to push the solution (to the Lebanese crisis) to meet Syrian interests," he said. Gemayel was referring to news reports that Syrian President Bashar Assad has come up with a new plan to end the prolonged political crisis in Lebanon. Arab diplomatic sources have said the plan was conveyed by Assad to Arab League chief Amr Moussa during a recent meeting in Damascus. The sources said Assad's proposal calls for electing army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman president on March 11 in return for the immediate formation of a transitional government to oversee early parliamentary elections based on the 1960 election law, a move that has been rejected by the pro-government ruling majority as well as Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. "The Arab initiative has reached a dead end, and all other initiatives have failed," Gemayel said. He added that Lebanon was living in a "vacuum of political and diplomatic initiatives." The country is witnessing an internal strife, he said, warning that some parties "want to overthrow the Taif and the constitution."Gemayel made his comments upon his return from Saudi Arabia. "King Abdullah stressed the need to elect a president for Lebanon and give this issue a priority" Gemayel said about his talks with the Saudi king. Beirut, 07 Mar 08, 10:45

Syria's Allies Escalate Attacks on Patriarch Sfeir
Naharnet/Syrian-backed political parties and personalities on Thursday accused Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir of deepening the political and factional split in Lebanon. The attack targeting the Maronite Church was made in a statement issued after a meeting by the pro-Syrian Hizbullah-led opposition factions at the offices of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, Lebanon's chapter of Syria's ruling organization. The parties said Sfeir's rejection of the 1960 election law aims at "deepening the factional split in the country and serves the majority."It said the majority is in a "critical condition, which led the United States to dispatch its destroyer Cole to boost their collapsing morale and protect them against the mounting influence of the opposition."The statement also congratulated Syrian President Bashar Assad "on the anniversary of the March 8 revolution in Syria."It also "valued the stands of the Syrian Command … its persisting support for the resistance and rejection of the American-Zionist agenda in the Middle East." eirut, 06 Mar 08, 20:09

Hobeish: No Election of March 11
By Dalia Nehme - Naharnet/
MP Hadi Hobeish said he is certain that a president would not be elected on March 11 due to alleged obstacles orchestrated by Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Hobeish, a member of the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc, also rejected attempts to dispatch two delegations, from the majority and opposition, to represent Lebanon at the forthcoming Arab Summit scheduled for March 29 in the Syrian capital of Damascus. "Certainly there won't be an election session on March 11, especially after the Bashar Assad initiative," Hobeish said in an interview with Naharnet. Lebanon, he added, should be represented at the Damascus summit by "the president of Lebanon, the Maronite President of Lebanon. Any other approach is non-constitutional.""Of course we won't accept or approve such a non-constitutional approach. Let us first elect a president and he would represent Lebanon," Hobeish added. He criticized attempts by the Hizbullah-led opposition to work out a "basket" deal involving future government structures saying such an approach would "topple the president's powers and would strike at the top Maronite post in the state. "We cannot claim to be working for consolidating this post while we strip it of its powers," Hobeish added.

He said outbreak of a civil war was unlikely.
Naharnet/"Lebanese politicians are convinced that war leads to nowhere, and yields no results. Both March 14 and March 8 have similar convictions in this regard," he added. He noted, however, that Israel has repeatedly attacked Lebanon "and the Lebanese should be together against any aggression provided we do not give this enemy a pretext" to attack Lebanon. "Would the Lebanese government be allowed to know that it is going to war or would it know that from the news? How would we build a state and modern institutions if the most important decision to the nation is not in the hands of the government?" he asked.
Hobeish said agreeing on the number of seats each faction gets in the forthcoming cabinet is "subject to discussion only if the state was allowed to be a partner to the war or peace decision." He criticized ex-MP Suleiman Franjieh for launching verbal attacks against Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir.
"If we disagree with Bkirki on any issue, then we should discuss it with the Patriarch … launching this campaign is in implementation of a Syrian decision to target the last bastion in Lebanon," Hobeish said. He reiterated adherence by the March 14 majority to a county-constituency general election law, saying the "counties today are different from what they were in 1960."However, he added, "we should agree on the status of Beirut which is, by administrative law, a county and March 8 wants it divided into five constituencies."
Beirut, 06 Mar 08, 17:53

Israelis mourn those killed at seminary
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Thousands of Israelis gathered outside a bullet-scarred Jerusalem rabbinical seminary on Friday to begin funeral processions for eight students killed by a suspected Palestinian gunman. A bearded rabbi recited Hebrew psalms line by line, the crowd repeating after him, in memory of the dead, one of whom was 26 and the rest between ages 15 and 19. People packed nearby balconies to observe the ceremony, after which the bodies were to be taken for burial.
Thursday's shooting, which also left nine wounded, was the first major attack in Jerusalem in four years and the deadliest incident in Israel since a suicide bomber killed 11 people in Tel Aviv on April 17, 2006. It came on the heels of a surge in fighting between Israelis and Palestinians and further threatened already faltering peace talks. Israeli defense officials have not identified the gunman — who was slain during the attack — but said he came from east Jerusalem, home to Palestinians who hold Israeli ID cards that give them freedom of movement in Israel, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
The gunman opened fire in the seminary's library, which was crowded for a nighttime study session. Students scrambled to flee the attack, jumping out of windows. Holy books drenched in blood littered the floor.
Afterward, the Jewish seminarians gathered outside the library and screamed for revenge, shouting, "Death to Arabs," while in Hamas-controlled Gaza thousands of Palestinians celebrated in the streets. Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian president with whom Israel is negotiating a peace agreement, condemned the attack. But by Friday morning some Israeli lawmakers called on the government to break off talks. "The government must immediately halt all negotiations and eradicate terrorism in every way possible," said David Rotem of the hardline Yisrael Beiteinu party. "Later, when we have someone to talk with, we can hold negotiations," he told Israel Radio.
Others rejected that call.
"It's the job of a responsible leadership, a logical leadership, to say in moments like these, looking at the blood, at the cries for revenge ... that we, at least we in Israel, will do everything we can in order not to be dragged into this cycle," dovish lawmaker Yossi Beilin told Israel Radio. Hamas militants, who have been battling Israel during a weeklong surge in violence in Gaza, praised the attack in a statement but stopped just short of claiming responsibility. "We bless the operation. It will not be the last," Hamas said in a statement. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attacker walked through the seminary's main gate and entered the library, where witnesses said some 80 students were gathered. He carried an assault rifle and pistol, and used both weapons in the attack. Rosenfeld said at least six empty bullet clips were found on the floor.
The seminary is the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a prestigious center of Jewish studies identified with the leadership of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank. It serves some 400 high school students and young Israeli soldiers, and many of them carry arms. David Simchon, head of the seminary, said the students were preparing a celebration for the new month on the Jewish calendar, which includes the holiday of Purim. "We were planning to have a Purim party here tonight and instead we had a massacre," he told Channel 2 TV. The gunman was killed by a seminary graduate who is an army officer and lives nearby, Simchon said Friday. The officer rushed into the seminary with his weapon and killed the gunman, he told Israel Radio: "He saw the terrorist shooting, and with amazing resourcefulness he went into one of the rooms and managed to kill him." Yehuda Meshi Zahav, head of the Zaka rescue service, entered the library after the attack. "The whole building looked like a slaughterhouse. The floor was covered in blood," he said. "The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood."
Witnesses described a terrifying scene during the shooting, with students jumping out windows to escape. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the Palestinian government must take steps against the extremists — not just denounce their attacks. "Tonight's massacre in Jerusalem is a defining moment," he said Thursday. "It is clear that those people celebrating this bloodshed have shown themselves to be not only the enemies of Israel but of all of humanity." There had been no decision about the peace talks, he said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who only on Wednesday persuaded Abbas to return to peace talks, called the attack an "act of terror and depravity." Abbas had briefly suspended talks to protest an Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed more than 120 Palestinians. At mosques in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, many residents performed prayers of thanksgiving — only performed in cases of great victory to thank God. About 7,000 Gazans marched in the streets of Jebaliya, firing in the air in celebration, and visited homes of those killed and wounded in the last Israeli incursion. In the southern town of Rafah, residents distributed sweets to moving cars, and militants fired mortars in celebration. The seminary shooting was the first major attack by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem since a suicide bomber killed eight people on Feb. 22, 2004. Between 2001 and 2004, at the height of Palestinian-Israeli fighting, Jerusalem was a frequent target of Palestinian attacks, including suicide bombings on buses.

Israel on alert after deadly Jerusalem attack
By: Marius Schattner
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel went on alert on Friday as crowds mourned eight teens killed by a Palestinian at a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem in an attack that threatened efforts to mend faltering peace talks. Police arrested more than 10 relatives and friends of the man suspected of spraying automatic gunfire at the students before being gunned down by security forces late on Thursday. The army said it sealed off the occupied West Bank and Israel police said they were on a "general state of alert." Israel's main ally, US President George W. Bush, led a global chorus of outrage, but the UN Security Council failed to agree on a condemnation after an emergency meeting. Eight students -- most of them 15 or 16 years old -- were shot dead late Thursday at the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, a seminary in predominantly Jewish west Jerusalem. Another nine were wounded.
Thousands of people, many clad in the traditional black attire of Orthodox Jews, long curls hanging down from their kippas, attended an emotional funeral ceremony at the school Friday. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" a rabbi cried out, choking with emotion and tears streaming down his face.
Students sobbed, rocked to and fro, and hugged each other as the rabbi read out the names of the dead.
A Palestinian from east Jerusalem had entered the school with an assault rifle and headed for the library, where he opened fire. The man, who carried several clips of ammunition, was shot dead by law enforcement officers, police said. The school is widely known as the centre of Israeli religious nationalism, where the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faith) settler movement was born after the 1967 Six Day War. "Those who planned, who sent and who carried out the terror attack can say today that they succeeded in striking a harsh blow to the very place from where the occupation sprung," the tabloid Maariv wrote.
Police have only said that the man suspected of carrying out the attack came from the Jabal al-Mukaber area of east Jerusalem. But relatives of Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, 25, said they were informed by police that he carried out the attack. Police said they were investigating several claims of responsibility for the first major attack in Jerusalem in nearly four years. Shortly after the attack, Hezbollah television in Beirut claimed those responsible were members of a previously unknown group called "Phalange of Free Men of Galilee -- Groups of the Martyr Imad Mughnieh and Martyrs of Gaza." Mughnieh was a top Hezbollah commander assassinated in a Damascus bombing on February 12 who had been wanted in a string of anti-Jewish attacks over the years. The Shiite movement blamed Israel, which denied any involvement, and threatened revenge.
Thursday's attack came after more than a week of escalated violence in and around the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, where more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in eight days. Three Israeli soldiers and one civilian were also killed in the same period. It also came as efforts gathered pace in Egypt to broker a truce between Israelis and Palestinians. Israel slammed the attack as aiming to end the chances for peace in the region and vowed to defend itself. In Washington, Bush assured Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the United States stands with Israel after the "barbaric and vicious attack." In New York, the Security Council failed to agree on a condemnation. "Most members wanted to condemn but Libya blocked it," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said after the emergency session late Thursday.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas denounced the strike.
"We condemn all attacks against civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli," his office quoted him as saying in a statement. But Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev insisted that "words in themselves are not enough" and that the Palestinian government must "do what needs to be done to fight terror." Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, hailed the attack as "heroic" as hundreds of people poured into the streets of Gaza to celebrate the shootings. Hamas spokesman, Taher al-Nunu, blamed the attack on the Israeli government and its deadly military strikes in the impoverished territory.

Commander warns of al-Qaida threat to US
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Al-Qaida terrorists may be plotting more urgently to attack the United States to maintain their credibility and ability to recruit followers, the U.S. military commander in charge of domestic defense said. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, also told reporters Thursday he has not seen any direct threats tied to the U.S. presidential elections. But he said it would be rash to think that such threats are not there.
"We need only to look at Spain and see that they're certainly willing to try to do something that is significant that could affect an election process," Renuart said. "I think it would be imprudent of us to let down our guard believing that if there's no credible threat that you know of today, there won't be something tomorrow."
While he said that U.S. authorities have thwarted attacks on a number of occasions, he said terrorist cells may be working harder than ever to plot high-impact events. He did not point to any specific intelligence that authorities have received but said the "chatter" they are hearing "gives me no reason to believe they're going to slow down" in their efforts to target the U.S. "If an organization like that is to maintain credibility and continue to grow more of its extremists, it has to show tangible results," Renuart said. "So I think there may be a certain sense of urgency among that organization to have an effect. So it would tell me that they're trying harder."
Asked about the terror threat, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said, "There continues to be no credible information telling us about an imminent threat to homeland at this time."In July, U.S. intelligence analysts, in a threat assessment, concluded that al-Qaida had rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The report said the terror network had regrouped along the Afghan-Pakistan border, but it also noted that officials knew of no specific credible threat of an attack on U.S. soil.
About the same time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff raised eyebrows when he said he had a "gut feeling" that the United States faced a heightened risk of attack. On Thursday, however, Chertoff said the U.S. has successfully lowered the risk of a large-scale domestic terrorist attack for the near future.
"We have significantly reduced the risk of a major attack in the short term," Chertoff told a group of editors at The Washington Post in a report posted online Thursday.
Chertoff said the U.S. effort was one of the reasons there has been an increase in attacks by Islamic extremists in Europe. Improvements in U.S. traveler screening and border security have shifted the focus of al-Qaida operatives and sympathizers to Europe, he said.
Renuart said that of the more than a dozen daily events that Northern Command responds to — ranging from natural disasters to threats — two or three may have the potential to be terrorist incidents. The chatter, which included public audio and video tapes released on the Internet by al-Qaida leaders, suggests that they are looking for a way to have a big impact again, he said. Pressed for details, he said the chatter was more common but "whether that's louder or more ominous, I'm not sure I'm ready to draw that conclusion."
He did, however, repeat his assertion — which he first made in July — that he believes there are al-Qaida cells or sympathizers within the United States.
President Bush, in a speech Thursday, also said the United States remained under threat from terrorists. Marking the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Homeland Security Department, Bush said that in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks "it was hard to imagine that we would reach this milestone without another attack on our homeland." Yet he said, "On this anniversary, we must also remember that the danger to our country has not passed. Since the attacks of 9/11, the terrorists have tried to strike our homeland again and again. We've disrupted numerous planned attacks — including a plot to fly an airplane into the tallest building on the West Coast and another to blow up passenger jets headed for America across the Atlantic Ocean."
Bush said the lesson is clear: "The enemy remains active, deadly in its intent — and in the face of this danger, the United States must never let down its guard."
___
AP White House Correspondent Terence Hunt and AP writer Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

Gunman kills 8 at Jerusalem seminary
 By ARON HELLER and STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Mar 6, 6:26 PM ET
JERUSALEM - A gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session Thursday, killing eight people and wounding nine before he was slain, police and rescue workers said. It was the first major militant attack in Jerusalem in more than four years.
Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the operation in a statement, and thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate.
The day's violence, which also included a deadly ambush of an army patrol near Israel's border with Gaza, was likely to complicate attempts by Egypt to arrange a truce between Israel and Palestinian militants. The U.S. is backing the Egyptian effort.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev and moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the shooting. But Regev said the Palestinian government must take steps against the extremists — not just denounce their attacks.
"Tonight's massacre in Jerusalem is a defining moment," he told The Associated Press. "It is clear that those people celebrating this bloodshed have shown themselves to be not only the enemies of Israel but of all of humanity."Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who only on Wednesday persuaded Abbas to return to peace talks with Israel, called the attack an "act of terror and depravity."
Israeli defense officials said the attacker came from east Jerusalem, the predominantly Palestinian section of the city. Jerusalem's Palestinians have Israeli ID cards that give them freedom of movement in Israel, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attacker walked through the seminary's main gate and entered the library, where witnesses said some 80 people were gathered. He carried an assault rifle and pistol, and used both weapons in the attack. Rosenfeld said at least six empty bullet clips were found on the floor.
Two hours after the shooting, police found the body of the eighth victim. Rescue workers said nine people were wounded, three seriously.
David Simchon, head of the seminary, said the students had been preparing a celebration for the new month on the Jewish calendar, which includes the holiday of Purim. "We were planning to have a Purim party here tonight and instead we had a massacre," he told Channel 2 TV.
Yehuda Meshi Zahav, head of the Zaka rescue service, entered the library after the attack. "The whole building looked like a slaughterhouse. The floor was covered in blood. The students were in class at the time of the attack," he said. "The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood."
Witnesses described a terrifying scene during the shooting, with students jumping out windows to escape.
One of the students, Yitzhak Dadon, said he shot the attacker twice in the head. "I laid on the roof of the study hall, cocked my gun and waited for him. He came out of the library spraying automatic fire," he said.
Police said an Israeli soldier in the area then shot the man dead. After the shooting, hundreds of seminary students demonstrated outside the building, screaming for revenge and chanting, "Death to Arabs."
The seminary is the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in the Kiryat Moshe quarter at the entrance to Jerusalem, a prestigious center of Jewish studies identified with the leadership of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank. It was founded by the late Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Hacohen Kook, the movement's spiritual founder, and serves some 400 high school students and young Israeli soldiers, and many of them carry arms.
"It's very sad tonight in Jerusalem," Mayor Uri Lupolianski told Channel 2 TV. "Many people were killed in the heart of Jerusalem."
Rabbi Shlomo Amar, one of Israel's two chief rabbis, led a prayer session at the seminary after the shooting. Students huddled together, and many sobbed uncontrollably. In Lebanon, Hezbollah's Al-Manar satellite TV station said a previously unknown group called the Martyrs of Imad Mughniyeh and Gaza was responsible for the attack. The claim could not immediately be verified. Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah commander, was killed in a car bomb in Syria last month. Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the assassination. Hamas stopped just short of claiming responsibility for the Jerusalem shootings. "We bless the operation. It will not be the last," Hamas said in a statement sent to reporters by text message.
At mosques in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, many residents performed prayers of thanksgiving — only performed in cases of great victory to thank God.
About 7,000 Gazans marched in the streets of Jebaliya, firing in the air in celebration, and visited homes of those killed and wounded in the last Israeli incursion. In the southern town of Rafah, residents distributed sweets to moving cars, and militants fired mortars in celebration.
Rice said she spoke with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to express U.S. condolences to the people of Israel and the families of the victims.
"This barbarous act has no place among civilized peoples and shocks the conscience of all peace loving nations. There is no cause that could ever justify this action," she said. Israel's Foreign Ministry condemned the "abominable" attack and urged the world to rally with it against terrorism. "Israel expects the nations of the world to support it in its war against those who murder students, women and children, by any means and with respect for neither place nor target," it said.
At his West Bank headquarters, Abbas condemned the attack. "The president condemned all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli," a statement said.
Abbas had briefly suspended talks to protest an Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed more than 120 Palestinians.
The attack came on the same day Egyptian officials were trying to mediate a truce between Palestinian militants and Israel. The proposal, backed by the U.S., would stop rocket fire on Israel in exchange for an end to Israeli attacks on militants and the resumption of trade and travel from Gaza.
An Israeli official confirmed that Israel is open to the idea of letting guards from Abbas' moderate Fatah movement oversee Gaza's borders — one of the main tenets of the truce idea. But the Israeli spoke before the shooting, and it was not immediately known whether his country's position would change.
The Egyptian proposal reflected a growing realization that Israel's current policy of blockade and military action has failed to weaken Hamas, which has proven its ability to disrupt a U.S.-sponsored drive to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal by the end of the year.
Still, a deal between Hamas and Israel was far from certain, with Israel fearing the militants will use any lull to rearm and Hamas raising tough conditions, such as a demand for Israel to stop targeting militants in the West Bank as well as Gaza.
Other militant groups are also likely to disrupt any attempts to restore calm. Early Thursday, Palestinian militants set off a bomb on the Gaza border, blowing up an Israeli army jeep and killing a soldier. Late Thursday, Israel said it shot a group of militants trying to plant a bomb in the same area. Palestinian officials said three militants were killed.
The seminary shooting was the first major attack by Palestinian militants in Jerusalem since a suicide bomber killed eight people on Feb. 22, 2004. There have been several attacks since then, and police and the military say they have foiled many other attempts. Militants have also hit other targets in Israel. Thursday's shooting was the deadliest incident in Israel since a suicide bomber killed 11 people in Tel Aviv on April 17, 2006. Between 2001 and 2004, at the height of Palestinian-Israeli fighting, Jerusalem was a frequent target of Palestinian attacks, including suicide bombings on buses.

Lost from Lebanon
By: Franklin Lamb*
The case of Brigitte Gabriel, anti-Muslim bigot and pro-Israel apologist, highlights the indignity of those that celebrate military aggression against ordinary civilians, writes Franklin Lamb*
"The difference, my dear Christian friends, between Israel and the Arab world is quite simply the difference between civilisation and barbarism. It's the difference between good and evil and this is what we're witnessing in the Arab and Islamic world. I am angry. They have no soul! They are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call 'Allah', which is very different from the God we believe in, because our God is the God of love." -- Brigitte Gabriel , speaking at John Hagee's Christians United for Israel Convention, 27 July 2007
"A strong person is not the person who throws his adversaries to the ground. A strong person is the person who contains himself when he is angry." -- the Prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him
One imagines that all Americans and people from every part of the globe and of sundry faiths would be touched emotionally upon encountering the natural beauty of the northern Biblical Holy Land that is South Lebanon. With its rugged vegetation-covered hills and valleys and more than 500 picturesque villages, many quite ancient and populated by warm, devout and peaceful people, the area is hypnotic.
So it is for this observer, visiting Marjayoun ("meadow of springs" in Arabic), one of Lebanon's most stunning towns and home of the historic Cathedral of Saint Peter as well as beautiful historic mosques. A lovely, modest, bucolic town of roughly 2,300 residents in winter and 3,500 in summer, Marjayoun sits majestically atop a hill facing Mount Hermon to the east, Beaufort Castle -- the 1,000-year-old Crusader castle above the Litani River -- and overlooking Mount Amel ( Jabal Amel ) to the west. Marjayoun's fertile plains, some of the richest in the region, extend southward into the Galilee and Syria's Golan Heights.
Shia and Sunni Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Maronite Christians, and Greek Catholics had lived in Marjayoun, mainly in peace, for more than 10 centuries until the invading Israeli forces in 1978 installed near the town centre their proxy militia, the so-called South Lebanon Army (SLA). The SLA and the Israeli army quickly constructed the notorious regional detention centre just down the road at Khiam, where systematic torture has been documented by many human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, until its 25 May 2000 storming and liberation by townspeople. Israel and its proxy army stayed in Marjayoun for nearly a quarter-century and as various local resistance forces rose to confront the occupation and the Israeli-funded (via US taxpayers) Saad Haddad/Antoine Lahad militia, Marjayoun, like scores of other villages, suffered from the fighting.
Marjayoun's most recent tragedy occurred on 11 August 2006, when Israeli forces took control of the town, following the announcement by the UN ceasefire agreement. Israel gave the UN and the Red Cross permission to evacuate a convoy of 3,000 people huddled in the town, providing a map of which exact roads they were to use and repeatedly guaranteeing safe passage to the terrified evacuees. Despite this, the Red Cross/UN convoy was targeted after dark by an Israeli air strike at Joub Jannine, killing eight and wounding 37, most of whom were Christian.
The convoy attack was the 12th such strike during the 33 days conflict for which Israel exonerated itself, stating that its air force "erred" owing to erroneous targeting data, while expressing regret in the wake of too-short-lived international outrage.
Despite its frequent problem with "targeting errors", Israel's air force earned the highest praise and commendation from last month's Winograd Commission Report for "its outstanding success, service and bravery" during the July 2006 war. This "finding" was based on the fact that Israel's air force suffered practically no casualties in its indiscriminate bombing campaign, which was conducted with American aircraft firing from an altitude of around 15,000- 20,000, and sometimes 25,000, feet and at a distance of as much as 10 miles from most of its 1,100 plus civilian victims, nearly one-third of whom were children.
The commission credited the coldness of what Colonel Dan Smith described as "a rational, cost effective, calculated, uninvolved, 'sanitised' unemotional killing of other humans from a far distance over the rather more unstable frenzy that requires facing an enemy close up which is considerably more dangerous for Israel's military."
Amnesty International has criticised the Winograd Commission Report because it fails to address the issue of war crimes against the civilian population in Lebanon, and "the indiscriminate killings of many Lebanese civilians not involved in the hostilities and the deliberate and wanton destruction of civilian properties and infrastructure on a massive scale."
In whitewashing Israel's killing of more than 1,100 innocent civilians, Winograd missed "another opportunity to address the policies and decisions behind the grave violations of international humanitarian law -- including war crimes -- committed by Israeli forces," said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Programme director, Malcolm Smart.
Yoav Peled, professor of political science at Tel Aviv University, shares Amnesty's criticism of the report. "The commission performed its expected role: to whitewash the disaster and get the politicians off the hook," he said following the release of the report.
THE BIGOT OF MARJAYOUN: Marjayoun has become notorious recently, in some circles, not just for decades of Israeli crimes, but also as the base from whence Miss Brigitte Gabriel, a local woman, appeared and launched a virulent strain of Islamophobia. Joining with the US- Israel lobby, she has been organising perhaps the most vicious hate campaign against Islam, Arabs and Muslims ever witnessed in America.
There is no shortage of people in Marjayoun with varying views of "what happened to Miss Brigitte" and how she became so hateful towards her countrymen and became an Israeli collaborator. "She always loved the Israeli occupation of Marjayoun and over time just came to dislike Arabs of all types, even though as a Lebanese she is totally Arab," one of her former neighbours explained.
Another disagreed, "Brigitte never really thought of herself as an Arab at all; rather she fantasised that she was 'Phoenician' and pointed out to her Arabs neighbours that 'Phoenicians were in Lebanon long before the Arabs invaded and it belongs to us!'" According to a former classmate, when she was in middle school, Brigitte preferred French and would announce to classmates in Arabic class, "I don't speak Arabic, I speak Lebanese!"
Before moving to Israel and eventually to the United States, Brigitte worked for Middle East TV, a Marjayoun-based station run by the SLA and funded by Israel. It moved to Cyprus for a period and was later purchased by Pat Robertson, who is now building a Christian Zionism Centre in Israel. After obtaining a green card by marrying an American, Brigitte set up a business selling her new country "insider information not available elsewhere" about the existential dangers posed by Islam and Arabs, based, she announced, "on my unique perspective having been nearly killed by them and rescued by Israel."
Regarding recent Lebanese affairs, according to her former neighbours in South Lebanon, Brigitte has been a close supporter of the Phalange militia and SLA since her teenage years. According to her office in Virginia Beach, Brigitte hopes to host Lebanese Forces warlord Samir Geagea -- five times convicted of murdering various Christian opponents and their children -- during his upcoming March visit to the US.
Previously denied a US visa following convictions for murder, Geagea has been forgiven by the US Embassy in Beirut and he will spend much of March discussing military aid to Lebanon and subjects of mutual interest to the Bush administration, Israel, and the Lebanese Forces.
CELEBRATION OF DESTRUCTION: One can forget about Israel's brutal military occupation of Palestine, the Bush administration's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and its threatening of much of the world. Brigitte sees a jihadist campaign against her adopted country going back to the very day America was founded. While Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington and James Madison considered the Barbary pirates, who had operated for centuries along the coasts of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, "nothing but petty tyrants" and "nests of banditti", Brigitte knows better.
In her view, the founding fathers were duped because the Muslim pirates were in fact serious jihadists using a promise in the Quran of paradise and virgins if they warred against infidels, and so they became pirates. Nor is Brigitte, who lives not far from Monticello, Jefferson's birthplace, impressed by Jefferson's liberal views about religion: "Where the preamble [to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom] declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment that was proposed for the insertion of the words 'Jesus Christ' into the preamble was specifically rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammadan, the Hindu, and Infidel of every denomination."
Jefferson might have had people like Brigitte in mind when he wrote: "But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." While religious tolerance did not pick Jefferson's pocket, the same legacy is filling Brigitte's as she panders to the uninformed, the bigoted, and the xenophobic.
Brigitte attracted the attention of this observer, who previously had not heard of her, when she posted her July 2006 'Thank You Israel!' letter expressing "heartfelt gratitude" for Israel's attack on Lebanon. According to a former colleague of hers, this was drafted in Virginia Beach while working on her suntan in a period during which much of her country of birth was being destroyed. Having arrived in Lebanon during the war, this observer was curious as to whether this Lebanese-born woman was somehow unaware of the carnage caused by more than 16,000 Israeli attacks on more than 7,400 targets, whose toll looks like this:
- More than 500 villages destroyed or damaged.
- 30,000 private homes totally destroyed.
- 32,000 homes with major damage.
- 70,000 homes with minor damage.
- 137 bridges and overpasses bombed.
- 26 fuel stations and three main fuel-storage tanks destroyed.
- 950 large businesses and 2,800 smaller ones obliterated.
- 23 large factories -- milk and candy producers among them -- destroyed.
- 330 main and secondary water distribution networks bombed.
- 186 purification, chlorination, storage and pumping stations bombed.
- 150 electrical transformers bombed.
- 50 healthcare facilities destroyed or severely damaged.
- 150 kilometres of coastline contaminated with oil.
- 350 schools damaged or destroyed.
- 950,000 of Brigitte's countrymen displaced.
- Almost 1,450 killed and 4,500 wounded.
- And, according to Amnesty International, as many as 40 people, including 27 civilians and 13 de-mining personnel, killed by Israeli-fired cluster munitions since the end of the war, with more than 240 injured.
WHAT BRIGITTE REALLY THINKS: Perhaps a good way to help inform ourselves about Brigitte's current views and concerns is to consider excerpts from her speeches and Act for America website ( actforamerica.org ) culled over recent months.
- "Thank you Israel!" Brigitte proclaimed in an open letter. "We urge you to hit Lebanon hard and destroy Hizbullah's infrastructure ... On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we also ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the [Lebanese] Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism."
- "As I watch what is happening in Lebanon, it is absolutely necessary to support Israel to kill the cancer that has spread and is killing the Lebanese body. Israel is not targeting civilians. Israel is targeting terrorists. Israel has launched 3,000 air strikes on Lebanon since the beginning of the operation and inflicted only 122 casualties. If Israel's intention were to kill civilians you would have seen many more civilian deaths than only 122. That is nothing. They are being extremely careful, even dropping flyers and urging civilians to leave before they bomb. No country meets Israel's high standards and Purity of Arms. These 'civilian casualties' are terrorists and terrorist families and terrorist sympathisers. Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists!"
- "I am speaking with the Lebanese Christians in Lebanon and they are all fine. Israel is not bombing them or their towns. Israel is bombing the Shia radical strongholds. This is what the news is not telling you. The airport was used to bring support to Hizbullah and that's why Israel bombed the infrastructure. It is also in Lebanon, in Hizbullah, where terrorists are developing the roadside bombs used on our marines and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those same terrorists have cells in America and are ready to unleash suicide bombing here in America within the hour if ordered to do so." (CNN, 18 July 2006)
- "Most Americans in Lebanon support Hizbullah and US taxpayer money should not be used to help them return home."
- Brigitte regularly complains to her audiences that: "Hizbullah's Shia extremists began multiplying like rabbits and are out-producing moderate Sunnis and Christians. Twenty-five years later they have produced enough people to vote themselves into 24 seats in the Lebanese parliament and now are a majority in Lebanon. Hamas is doing the same thing with the Palestinians as part of their 'resistance to occupation.' Yes, sex for them is simply a form of jihad. It all boils down to a war of Islamic Jihad ideology vs Judeo-Christian Westernism wherein our men are too stressed to do it much anymore. Muslims, who are now the majority of Lebanon's population, support Hizbullah because they are part of the Islamic umma -- the nation. Sex as jihad is the taboo subject everyone is trying to avoid but it needs to be exposed for what it really is. This is the same Hizbullah that Iran is threatening to unleash in America with suicide bomb attacks if America tries to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon to bomb Israel. They have cells in over 100 cities in the United States. Hamas has the largest terrorist infrastructure on American soil. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to evil for decades, hoping it will go away."
ISLAMOPHOBIA AND FEAR MONGERING: When asked for a source for her claims, Brigitte's Virginia Beach office replied: "It's common sense! Why can't you grasp that?"
Brigitte spoke as part of a lecture series organised by Duke University's Jewish community to provide "counter-programming" after the fourth Palestinian Solidarity Movement student conference was held there in October 2004. She angered many members of the crowd when she referred to Arabs as "barbarians" and Duke's Freeman Centre for Jewish Life later apologised for her comments. Recently Brigitte has been telling audiences about a Des Moines, Iowa, imam who not long ago offered the prayer to open the Iowa legislature. In this prayer the cleric made a plea for "victory over those who disbelieve", i.e., those who are atheists. That John Hagee and his ilk along with countless rabbis say the same thing every day does not appear to have dawned on Brigitte.
While reassuring her audiences "that Islamic terrorism is, of course, a serious, global threat that we must -- repeat, must -- defeat," Brigitte has recently been seeing another dark penumbra on the horizon: "But there is another threat to our safety, security and liberty that we must also defeat, and that is the increasing threat of cultural, social and civilisation jihad aided by the forces of American political correctness." She continues: "I am very troubled that in the name of tolerance and educating American children about the Muslim empire in history, liberal American teachers get away with giving [the] beginnings [of] Islamic teaching which may cause many to perhaps one day become Muslims. We have reports that in some classes teachers are allowing students to use calligraphy to copy parts of the Quran in Arabic as an enrichment activity. This has got to stop!"
Brigitte adds: "I am very concerned with books like History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond, published by the pro-Muslim Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI) in California. The upsetting part is not only do they go into the real history, which is OK, but they also teach Islam ... Moreover, the book's one page referencing Jews is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to Christianity. It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history -- and still today -- are Arab and Muslims. It gives four only one-liner references to the Jews being wrongly blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. How can the writers of this text get away with this?"
Bert Bower, founder of TCI, said not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California and many experts in California also reviewed it, and have approved it for use in public schools.
Undeterred, Brigitte tells whoever will listen: "Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to. The total time for annihilation takes centuries, but once Islam is ascendant it never fails. The host culture disappears and becomes extinct." And concluding, Brigitte has a message of duty and consequence: "We, as patriotic Americans must be willing to give up more liberties in this time of war against Islam -- non-Muslims are not frustrated by time- consuming, privacy-invading airport screenings, phone monitoring, surveillance, and other measures; only Muslims are affected by it, because they are the ones doing all the terrorism!"
440 MILLION TERRORISTS: Brigitte sees another danger: "I believe that the way Sharia will insinuate itself into our law would be through arbitration and mediation of domestic and financial disputes through an extra-judicial arbitration system condoned by our courts. That would entail setting up a separate Sharia law section of the American Arbitration Association overseen by Islamic law panels. Many agree with me, and this should be a warning to all about how Sharia will spread through the proverbial legal back door."
Brigitte urges Americans not to allow mosques to be built and suggests that if citizens observe one being constructed, it should be immediately reported to the FBI. Brigitte has joined Daniel Pipes and the thought policing and silencing actions of America Israel Political Affairs Committee and its Zionist affiliates and instructs students that, "if a college professor or public figure criticises US policies you have a patriotic duty to report this un-American activity to [your] dean, or alert the media and authorities."
During her talk at a Hillel House-arranged event, and without giving a source, Brigitte claimed that up to 25 per cent of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims are "radicals who have their eyes against the West, and are willing to become suicide bombers like Mohamed Atta."
One unconvinced young lady in the audience interrupted: "Holy cow, Brigitte, that's roughly, ah let me see... ah... 440 million Muslims suicide bombers coming after us! Could you help us just a little bit with a source for your claim when you get a chance?" Brigitte glared and refused to continue her talk until the hilarity that broke out among the audience subsided.
And then this: "We used to think Al-Qaeda the only problem; [that] Al-Qaeda is the only terrorist organisation that is causing problems for the rest of us. Well, I am telling you that way of thinking needs to be changed because Al-Qaeda is an umbrella organisation where many different organisations come underneath it, such as Hamas, such as Hizbullah, such as Fatah ... many different people that share the same ideology, and that is Islamofascism, have their eyes on the West."
That practically every schoolchild in Lebanon knows that Shia Hizbullah and Sunni Salafist Al-Qaeda are mortal enemies, with Hizbullah protecting UNIFIL's back from Al-Qaeda-inspired groups in South Lebanon is either lost on Brigitte or purposely concealed.
For her Valentine's Day message last month, Brigitte warns that, "we must start doing more than exposing or resisting the advances of Islamofascism -- we must go on the offensive to roll it back and fight for the bedrock values that made America the beacon of hope to the world... The only real question is: do we have the will to do what is necessary to stop Islamofascism, in whatever form it takes? Because, simply put, if we do, we will. If we don't, we won't. That's it. Bottom line."
Meanwhile, Brigitte exhibits little hesitancy in boldly lying to her audiences when pressed with inconvenient questions. For example, she is prominently displayed as a member of an arm of the Israeli propaganda ministry known as the Hasbara Fellowship Speakers Bureau, from whom she gets lucrative speaking engagements. Her photo appears just above the pictures of Dori Gold and Caroline Glick, well known Arab-phobes. However, during the question and answer session of a recent talk at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, she was apparently not prepared to be so easily and thoroughly exposed as a Zionist shill whose main loyalty is to Israel:
Gabriel: You cannot trust having a Muslim in office when he has to make a decision to either be loyal to the United States or be loyal to Islam.
Audience member: Maam, thank you. I'd like to point out that I'm an American soldier and practising Muslim, served the US Army for the past 19 years very proudly [a rebuttal to your previous point] ... Two questions: Are you a member of Hasbara Fellowship?
Gabriel: What's Hasbara Fellowship?
Audience member: A fellowship in Israel. [An] organisation ...
Gabriel: No. No.
LOOSE WITH THE TRUTH: Brigitte's writings and speeches are full of historical errors, including her recent statement that, "the world protected the Palestinians after the Palestine Liberation Organisaton [PLO] left from Lebanon in 1983," (she probably meant 1982 when the PLO evacuated Beirut only after repeated pledges by the US and Israel that Palestinian refugee camps would be protected). She denies that the pledges were not kept and that Israel organised the 16-18 September 1982 massacre at the Sabra-Shatila camp. She claims it has never been proven who caused "that greatly exaggerated incident, and we may never know. Muslims are always killing each other. Like, what's new, that is all they know."
Brigitte's book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America claims she spent 10 years in a bomb shelter until rescued by the Israeli army. Recently, she mentioned it was actually seven years. In a February 2008 update on her website, she writes: "As many of you know, I have a unique perspective on the threat we face. I lived for seven years in a bomb shelter in my home in Lebanon. I am a victim of Islamic terror. Most of my friends were killed by Islamic militants. I watched helplessly as we lost our beautiful country to radical Islam -- I am determined that nothing even approaching that tragedy happens to my adopted country."
Brigitte used to tell her audiences that Hizbullah was the group that terrorised her family for seven years, between 1975 and 1982, until people started to object pointing out that Hizbullah was formed after she left Lebanon with Israeli escorts following their 1982 invasion. Hizbullah was created as a resistance movement as a direct result of -- and to confront -- the Israeli occupation until it drove Israel from most of Lebanon by May of 2000. By then Brigitte was long gone and had never crossed paths with Hizbullah.
Her former neighbours in Marjayoun say she may have spent a few nights in her home's shelter at times, or more likely in her basement, as did many in Marjayoun, but to their knowledge Brigitte lived fairly normally in her family home, given "the situation" of the Israeli occupation.
BANKROLLING BIGOTRY: There can be little doubt that Brigitte Gabriel is on a rich roll with the Israeli lobby and various Zionist organisations as she spews anti-Arab and anti- Muslim venom, the likes of which America has never witnessed.
The Act for America and American Congress for Truth (ACT) sites packages its hate and scare tactics much like Ann Coulter and the right-wing anti-Islam Human Events website. According to Campus Watch, Brigitte is modelling her career after Ann Coulter, but she wants to specialise not in simply harassing "liberals" but to go after "real terrorists."
Claiming chapters for her ACT advocacy group in all 50 states and Israel, as well as affiliates in many countries, Gabriel is in the process of "going international". As part of her move to Europe, last month she reached out to endorse Susanne Winter, the extreme right-wing Austrian politician with the Freedom Party running for a city council seat in the city of Graz. Winter blasted Muslims a few weeks ago saying that "in today's system" the Prophet Mohamed would be considered a dirty "child molester", and that "child abuse is very common among Muslim men."
"In 20 or 30 years," she warned in an interview with the daily Osterreich, "half of Austria's population would be Muslim." Winter claims it is time that Islam was "thrown back out of Europe behind the Mediterranean," and alleges Mohamed wrote the Quran during "epileptic fits".
While Austrian prosecutors are looking into the possibility of filing charges against Winter for incitement, Gabriel heaps praise on her from across the Atlantic. On 12 February 2008, Brigitte e-mailed her subscribers what "may be the most important message I have ever e-mailed to you." She had decided to up the ante in order to maintain her position as the true Joan of Arc of the forces to liberate America from what God told her are the "Islamofascists".
INTRA-ZIONIST WARS: In addition to divine motivation, Brigitte has earthly concerns. Some of her friends are telling her that her "message" is getting stale from overuse and that many of her "facts" are being refuted (eg. Hizbullah bombed her house, when in fact the modest damage occurred before Hizbullah was formed in the area and those who shelled her house were likely either Israeli artillery personnel or their proxy Christian militia). Moreover, Brigitte's lucrative market share with her creators and benefactors in the Israel lobby is under threat.
New young-guns on the street corner who she claims are encroaching hustlers and phonies are giving Brigitte sleepless nights. The subjects of her wrath, who publicly she praises as "colleagues and kindred spirits", are Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani, whom journalist Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, refers to as Curly, Larry and Mo -- the three stooges.
Brigitte is livid! "Not only are these creeps Arabs, but two of them are Palestinians!" she explained to ACT staff during her appearance at the Christians United for Israel Conference in Washington, DC. And they are trespassing far too often into her private space, which primarily includes right-wing Christian audiences, Zionist gatherings, and American audiences with little knowledge of Islam, the Middle East, or the question of Palestine.
Proving Brigitte's claim that you can never trust an Arab ("Never! Never! Never!" she often adds for emphasis), these sneaky fellows have been ratcheting up their rants to get speaking engagements, some of which may have otherwise gone to Brigitte, and one of them is now telling audiences, according to Hedges, "that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world's population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims."
Shoebat, author of Why We Want to Kill You, recently chortled, "let the spoiled brat from South Lebanon top that!" following an appearance on Tovia Singer's radio show.
For his part, Shoebat, notes Hedges, also promises to explain in 2008 the many similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, and how "Muslim terrorists" invaded America 30 years ago and how "perseverance, recruitment and hate have fuelled attacks by Muslims."
The way Brigitte sees it, according to a former colleague at ACT, she has got to "refresh" her own niche because too many others are homing in and crowding the Islamic terrorism/ Islamofascism market. Brigitte has been running out of fresh material for her website and speeches. She has recently complained to friends that only a few months ago no fewer than 11 of the candidates for US president were trying to scare up votes using her Islamofascism material. Remember Giuliani, Richardson, Thompson, and the still running McCain ("the greatest threat facing the world is Islamic terrorism"), Clinton and Huckabee ("Islamofascism is the greatest threat this country has ever faced")?
A gifted if crude businesswoman, Brigitte knows a crowded market when she sees one and has recently increased her market share by moving into the Daniel Pipes Campus Watch territory, mining the juicy resources of colleges, religious institutions, state legislatures, and government agencies -- all the time endearing herself to the Israel lobby by tracking down supposed Islamofascists.
BANGING THE DRUM FOR CASH: In a recent post on actforamerica.org, Brigitte poses a question to would-be donors: "Do you want to see terrorists detonate weapons of mass destruction in America, killing tens of thousands of our people, destabilising our government and plunging our economy into a deep recession?... We are preparing to launch a series of projects that, combined together, will put us on the offensive against the infiltration of militant Islam in America in a way that no other organisation has ventured to even try... I'm asking you to make a choice, take action, make a contribution, and help us do what needs to be done. We are prepared to launch this offensive -- but we can't do it without your financial help."
The following wish list is truncated:
Legislative action
- Commission a nationwide public opinion poll to assess voter opinion regarding these proposals, as well as other issues relating to the advance of militant Islam. Cost: $40,000.
- Prepare a legislative agenda that we will take to our allies in Congress. Travel expenses and related costs: $5,000.
Grassroots action
- We have identified a powerful way to disrupt the communication, training and recruitment of terrorists. We want to announce this on a nationwide telephone town hall by 15 March, with a goal of at least 2,500 of you participating. Cost for the telephone town hall: $3,000.
- Educate and mobilise one million Americans... we can reach these Americans through a database of e-mail addresses that will cost us a minuscule fraction compared to what mail and telephone canvassing costs. Cost of this nationwide education and mobilisation programme: $100,000.
- To lobby Congress for our legislative agenda and achieve victory in the project described above, we have just printed 40,000 full-colour glossy informational brochures to ship to our chapter leaders for them to distribute... By 15 April we would like to print 150,000 more of these brochures. Cost: $17,500.
Congressional voting record research
- We are poised to commission an extensive research study of the voting records of members of the US House of Representatives and the Senate on issues relating to national security, terrorism, and the advance of Islamofascism ... The total cost for these programmes is $195,500. I know that sounds like a lot of money -- But if you think about it, it's a small price to pay for us to start rolling back the tide of Islamofascism...
BRIGITTE'S LEGAL TROUBLES: As Brigitte tallies her donations, she is facing a much more serious problem than three unconvincing Christian convert upstarts trying to crowd her marketplace of hate speech. She is facing the application of US libel laws with the distinct prospect of spending a lot of time in courtrooms in the coming years explaining to American juries why her patently malicious and false writings and rantings should be protected speech under American law.
Indeed, Brigitte has opened herself up to countless libel suits by her outrageously false and malicious statements and actions aimed at inciting hostility against Arabs and Muslims as well as their supporters in America. While Islamophobes like Eric Cantor and Tom Tancredo are said to adore her, some in Congress are pulling back and counselling Brigitte to "cool it a bit".
According to one source at ACT, who insists on anonymity because Brigitte "can be a little vindictive", Brigitte has been distressed about this problem for more than a year, especially since her new book is being delayed by the same New York publisher, St Martin's Press, who issued her first book, and she is counting on the fire in this book to restore her number one ranking in the war against "American Islamofascism".
Her editor has told her that the publisher is nervous about the possibility of a raft of lawsuits for defamation and that it's potentially a big problem. A natural at "legislative solutions", Brigitte contemplates a Congressional race in 2010. "Not to worry," Brigitte cheerily explained following a huddle with some of her advisors, "the solution was right in front of our noses all the time. Duh. We must change the law!" ACT's office manager replied, "no problem."
Along the same lines, supporters of Israel have done Brigitte and her publisher a huge favour when they had Assemblyman Lancman and Senator Skelos introduce into the New York State Legislature just what the doctor ordered. It is called the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act". According to Brigitte's website, act is as important as it is simple -- "protect New York authors like me and publishers from lawsuits filed in foreign court jurisdictions that are intended to intimidate and silence exposure of terrorism and enablers of terrorism." On her 8 February 2008, posting, Brigitte claims that, "our cherished rights of free speech and press are under assault by libel terrorism."
Moving forward, Brigitte has begun circulating a petition to pressure Albany lawmakers to approve the measure. As of 15 February, she claimed 6,500 signatures but writes, "it would be so great to get 10,000 by 5 March."
If "Brigitte's law" passes in New York, it is a done deal that the likes of Representatives Rita Lowery and Anthony Weiner will introduce it in Congress and try to make the law national.
WHAT'S NEXT? Preaching her repugnant idea of patriotism and American values, while condemning nearly 20 per cent of humanity as subhuman, Brigitte Gabriel appears oblivious to the fact that she is among the last people who should be lecturing America on subjects such as patriotism and loyalty to one's country given her collaboration with Israel during and since its occupation of Lebanon.
If anyone is a terrorist sympathiser -- if anyone is disloyal to her country for religious or ideological reasons -- surely it is Brigitte Gabriel, the dark maid from Marjayoun.
Her former neighbours could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps she suffers from a virulent form of Stockholm Syndrome wherein she identifies with and supports decades of Israeli terrorism against her country, her people, and her religion.
Her message of hate, ridicule, and incitement to action against Islam is akin to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, and constitutes egregious and contemptible hate speech. Her rants are fundamentally un-American, un-Lebanese, and un-Christian. Her campaign should be vigorously rejected by all people of goodwill, including those seeking explanations and solutions for the consequences of catastrophic Bush administration Middle East policy, which has caused so much death, destruction and desperation across the region.
* The writer is director of Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Washington, DC-Beirut, and is senior fellow at the Institute for Middle East Policy Dialogue.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Full steam ahead
By: Lucy Fielder
Washington's deployment of its infamous warship to Lebanon threw the country into further confusion this week, Lucy Fielder reports
Washington dispatched the USS Cole destroyer to Lebanon's shores late last week, a gesture that intensified fears of a coming war and deepened already sharp divisions between the US- supported government and the opposition led by Hizbullah.
US officials ironically said the move was aimed at regional stability, though it is clear to both sides of the political divide in Lebanon that the very opposite could well be the outcome. Many saw the deployment as a way to step up pressure on Syria, which the US and the Lebanese government blame for a political deadlock and three-month-old presidential vacuum, and force a resolution to Lebanon's political crisis that would favour its allies.
The opposition's most powerful component, Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbullah, said the decision to send the warship threatened stability in Lebanon and the region and highlighted US policy failures. Three weeks after vowing retaliation against Israel for the assassination of its military commander Imad Mughniyah, Hizbullah also promised not to be deterred by the US action.
Whether the government knew of its ally's move was a question subject to intense speculation this week. "We did not ask anyone to send warships," Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora said, adding that the ships would not be in Lebanese waters. But, asked whether it was true that there was no coordination between the two sides, White House national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe responded with what appeared to be a rebuttal. "No, I would say we have regular consultations with Prime Minister Al-Siniora and his government, as well as our allies, both in the immediate region, as well as in Europe, on the situation in Lebanon," he told a White House press briefing.
"I think it's a wasted, misguided gesture that nobody takes seriously as a military threat," said security analyst Timur Goksel, a former spokesman for the UNIFIL force in South Lebanon, who now lectures at the American University of Beirut. The only practical purpose of deploying the warship would be in case of an evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon, he said. "I see the US as a political force in Lebanon, not a combat force." Saudi Arabia last week urged its citizens to leave Lebanon, a step taken by many as a sign Lebanon was descending into war. The Arab state is a main backer of the government and is seen as playing a leading role in Lebanon.
The pro-opposition Al-Akhbar newspaper wrote that the United States sought a repeat of 1982, a reference to US involvement in Lebanon at the height of the civil war. The paper pointed out the irony of the deployment two weeks after the assassination of Mughniyah, whom the US accused of attacking its embassy and marine barracks in Beirut and thus forcing the US withdrawal. "This step comes at a time when clouds of war are looming over the region coming from the Israeli capital Tel Aviv, which is anxious for a new round with Hizbullah to restore some of the dignity that it lost in the previous rounds in the Lebanese south," the paper said.
Goksel played down the growing talk of war. "I don't subscribe to that civil war -- internal war -- regional war theory," Goksel said. "Wars don't happen that quickly." Despite Mughniyah's killing and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah's statement of willingness to engage in "open war" if that was what Israel wanted, Goksel did not see the time as ripe yet for another war between Israel and Hizbullah.
Al-Akhbar said the Cole deployment also coincided with "Arab incitement" against Syria, a reference to controversy surrounding the coming Arab summit, which is scheduled to be held in Damascus at the end of the month. Saudi Arabia has reportedly threatened not to attend the summit if a Lebanese president is not elected first, and both Riyadh and Cairo have blamed Syria for Lebanon's deadlock.
It is not clear whether Syria would invite Al-Siniora, whose cabinet has acquired presidential prerogatives during the vacuum, in the absence of a president. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the opposition Shia Amal Party, said in an interview last week that he would continue to view Al-Siniora's cabinet as illegal even if Al-Siniora attended. His side has disputed the cabinet's legitimacy since six ministers went into opposition in November 2006. "All the Arab brothers should attend the summit despite their disagreements," Berri told his party's NBN television. "I am not against inviting Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora to the summit, but I guess he will not attend."
Goksel was among many who believed the dispatch of the Cole was aimed first and foremost at pressuring Syria. "I think it's aimed at Syria, though why they decided to pressure Lebanon rather than sending the ship to the Syrian coast I don't know," he said.
MPs from the 14 March ruling anti-Syrian movement said Syria had provoked the battleship's deployment by meddling in Lebanese affairs. Hawkish Christian Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said the Lebanese should "thank" the Americans for "restoring some balance". But some supporters of the movement privately chafed at the move, which fuels opposition theories about heavy US involvement in Lebanon and accusations that the real decision-makers are in Washington.
Goksel said the deployment of the Cole was a blow to the government. "It puts the government in a very difficult position and has certainly provided strong ammunition for its opponents, no doubt about it," he said.
The opposition, which also includes popular Christian leader Michel Aoun, has long accused the United States of hegemonic plans for Lebanon and the region, a charge that the deployment of the destroyer did little to weaken. Since former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination three years ago, the country has split between those who blame Syria for Lebanon's political problems and a string of assassinations, and those who fear the US and Europe have harboured plans for greater involvement in Lebanon since Damascus pulled out its troops in 2005.
A parliamentary session to elect a president was delayed for the 15th time last week, until 11 March. Both sides have agreed on army commander Michel Suleiman as a consensus candidate, but remain locked in a dispute about power-sharing in any cabinet.
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