Tongues of Deceit

Facts about the Claims on Jerusalem
by Jews and Palestinians

From an article: "Tongues Of Deceit"

Presented by: A Time To Speak (speak@actcom.co.il)

15 August 2001

"They speak treachery, with tongues of deceit in their
mouths." Micah 6:12

"They conceive mischief and bring forth evil and their
heart prepares deceit."

Job 15:35

There is a Hebrew term "lashon ha-ra" (the bad tongue).
Since the Children of Israel came back to the land of their fathers, the
bad tongue has been one of the sharpest weapons used against them. This
tongue has three forks, that:

        * invent deceits
to forward an ambition or a spite.

        * spread deceits
because they are preferred to the truth.

        * spread deceits
that in ignorance are mistaken for the truth.

For instance: According to Pope John Paul II, "A sad condition
was created for the Palestinian people who were excluded from their homeland.
These were facts everyone can see." When this sentence is parsed by standards
of evidence and logic, not one single "fact" can be seen in it.

Among the relentlessly repeated deceits:

1. There was a flourishing Arab nation in Arab-Palestine,
subjugated and ruined by the intrusion of alien Jews who have no history
or roots there.

The nation known at stages of its history as "Israel"
"Judah" or "Judea" is the only sovereign nation-state that ever existed
in the land now known by the Greco-Roman geographical designation of "Palestine".
The Israelite-Jewish presence goes back some 3,500 years and has never
been broken. The Jews were deprived of their ancient political independence
by the Roman conquest in the year 70 CE, but never lost their attachment
to the Land of Israel or their conviction that they would one day redeem
it.

Both Jews and Christians dwelt in the land when it was
seized by military forces from Arabia in the Seventh Century. There was
no Arabic name for this region, so the conquerors adopted the Greco-Roman
"Palestina", that they pronounced "Falastin". This region became the neglected
province of one foreign empire after another. [See further: A Time to Speak
I:2]

2. The Arabs of Palestine had been a nation in the
land since remote antiquity.

The Arab military invaders themselves left few descendants
in the land, but some of the local population converted to Islam and adopted
the Arabic language. For 1,200 years thereafter, peoples of many origins
came into the land at one time, and left it at other times, while nomads
wandered in and out. These peoples came from throughout the Middle East,
Egypt, North Africa, Turkey, the Balkans, Armenia, and Central Asia.

In a census of 1931, the non-Jewish population of Mandate
Palestine named 24 different countries as their places of birth. They were
never an indigenous or homogeneous population, and they never formed a
distinct national identity, society or polity. The claim that there is
a "Palestinian people" or "Palestinian nation" has a history of decades,
not millennia. It was concocted only after the Six-Day War of 1967, avowedly
as a device to forward the goal of the destruction of Israel.

"Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity
serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a
new tool in the continuing battle against Israel."  -- PLO Military
Department head, 1997.

3. There was a flourishing Arab society in Palestine
before the intrusion of the Jews.

At the start of the Jewish resettlement -- in the 1870s-1880s
-- Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, ruled by the
Sultan in far-off Istanbul. The entire non-Jewish population west of the
Jordan River was about 140,000, including nomads who moved in and out and
even roving bandits. That population had been stagnant or in decline for
centuries.

The land was depopulated, deserted, impoverished and barren.
Western travellers, who knew from the Bible of the beauty, fertility and
vitality of ancient Israel, came to visit and found not the Land of Milk
and Honey but an empty wilderness of ruin and desolation.

A British consul reported in 1857 that the land was not
cultivated,  villages had disappeared, and that "The country is in
a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore the greatest need
is that of a body of population".

Mark Twain rode through just a few years before the start
of Jewish resettlement and saw only ". . . the kind of solitude to make
one dreary."  The Galilee was "unpeopled deserts . . .  rusty
mounds of barrenness" where he "never saw a human being on the whole route".
He concluded that "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes . . . desolate
and unlovely." --  From Innocents Abroad, 1867.

At about the same time, a British Christian clergyman
came to the Holy Land and wrote: "But where are the inhabitants? This fertile
[coastal] plain which might support an immense population is almost a solitude.
. . . The denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the
very letter - 'The land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants.'"
- Reverend Samuel Manning, These Holy Fields, 1894.

By the early Nineteenth Century it was perceived, especially
in the United States and Great Britain, that the only hope for the restoration
of Palestine was in the return of the only people who loved it and would
care for it. Those who seriously espoused the idea of the Return of the
Jews included U.S. President John Adams, British Prime Minister Disraeli, 
British Foreign Minister Lord Palmerston, and writer George Eliot.

This had indeed been the sustaining hope of the Jews themselves
for two millennia, and it became an active movement by the 1870s-1880s,
even before Theodor Herzl organized Zionism as a worldwide movement.

4. The Jews displaced and dispossessed the Arabs.

Jews had always "come up to the Land". Now pioneers began
to come, perhaps

a dozen or a score at a time, calling themselves Hovevei
Tzion (Lovers of Zion), or BILU - an acronym for the Hebrew Beth Ya'akov
Lecha Venelecha (House of Jacob Let Us Rise Up and Go 0, that echoes The
Lord's first command to Abraham: Lech lecha . . .  (Rise up and go
. . . to a land that I will show you).

They did not take any land away from Arabs, or displace
any Arabs. They went into areas long uninhabited and abandoned. The Ottoman
Turkish government sternly restricted purchase of land by Jews. An effendi
who could claim or contrive ownership of a bit of wasteland would be paid
an exorbitantly inflated price for it. On the wasteland, the pioneers drained
swamps and irrigated deserts, tilled soil untilled for centuries and built
where nothing had been built for centuries. Many died of malaria and other
diseases, and many more were murdered by bandits.

They did not create the "sad condition" of the papal lament,
Rather, they created conditions that attracted and drew Arabs from other
countries and regions, who came to seek the work, wages and a better conditions
found only in the vicinity of the new Jewish settlements. Within decades
of the start of Jewish resettlement, the Arab population in those areas
grew far beyond the limits of natural increase. If the Jews had not come,
the Arabs would not have come either.

"Around 1910, my family was staying at a hotel in Switzerland,
where we met a very rich Arab. One of the other guests said to him, 'You
Arabs are making a mistake in letting Jews come into Palestine. You should
throw them out while you can.' "The Arab laughed and said, 'Oh, no. Palestine
is one of the poorest and most backward places in the world. There's nothing
there. The Jews will come and fill it with farms and orchards and towns. 
They'll build factories and schools and hospitals and railways. Then we
Arabs will throw them out and keep it all for ourselves.'"  -- Carrie
Nora Isaac, New York

Malcolm MacDonald, a British Secretary of State hostile
to the Jews,  admitted in 1938: "The Arabs cannot say that the Jews
are driving them out of their country. If not a single Jew had come to
Palestine after 1918, I believe that the Arab population of [Western] Palestine
today would still have been around the ….. it had been stable under Turkish
rule."

5. The British Mandate to establish a Jewish National
Home in Palestine was a crime against the Arabs.

According to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the League
of Nations Mandate of 1921, "Palestine" included all of the land east as
well as west of the Jordan River in the Jewish National Home to be open
for "close Jewish settlement".

In 1922, the British detached the entire region east of
the river,  depriving the Jewish National Home of a full 75 percent
of Mandate Palestine. This they did in order to provide a puppet kingdom
for their protégé Emir Abdullah, after he was driven out
of Arabia. Since there was no historic name for such a kingdom, it was
called after a biblical river.  From that day to this, the Kingdom
of Jordan has permitted no Jew within its borders, and when it seized control
of Judea and Samaria (1948-1967) it killed or drove out every Jew there
as well.

The British progressively limited the areas open to Jews
west of the Jordan River. They slammed and bolted the gates of the Jewish
National Home at the very time when Jews most desperately needed a haven.
The British obsessively counted and recounted the number of Jews, with
a view to barring their entry or deporting them. At the same time they
permitted a massive influx of Arabs from other countries and regions, technically
illegal but never hindered.

These newly arriving Arabs took the places meant for the
Jews, and so charmed or intimidated the British that the Jews they displaced
were consigned to the death camps of Europe, or left to drown on their
way to the Promised Land. Shortly before the start of World War II, the
British Foreign Office actually requested the government of Nazi Germany
to prevent the escape of Jews, and a few years later admonished the U.S.
State Department not to encourage the escape of Jews, because nobody wants
them.

"So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded
into the country and multiplied until their population has increased more
than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population." -- Winston
Churchill, 1939

"If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather
than the Arabs." -- British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, 1937

"If we must have preferences, let me murmur in your ear
that I prefer Arabs to Jews." -- British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden,
1943

The Jews who succeeded in reaching the Jewish National
Home were confined to only 17 percent of Mandate Palestine, which became
the State of Israel in 1948. That the Arabs were not granted 100 percent
is what they ever since constantly proclaimed to be the Crime of the Century,
to be undone by any means.

6. Jerusalem is a holy city of Islam, where Jews have
no history, rights or claims.

Jerusalem has been the heart of Israel and of world Jewry
for
3,000 years, and there has been a virtually unbroken Jewish presence there
for all that time. When modern statistics are on record, they show Jews
as the majority in the city:

        * 1860: 
11,000 Jews, 6,500 Muslims, 4,500 Christians

        * 1906: 
40,000 Jews, 13,000 Christians, 7,000 Muslims

        * 1999: 
633,000 Jews,  200,000 Mulsims and Christians

Jews around the world turn toward Jerusalem when they
pray. Muslims turn toward Mecca. Jews and Christians make religious pilgrimages
to Jerusalem. Muslims make religious pilgrimages to Mecca.

Jerusalem is not mentioned at all in the Koran. It does
not appear on lists of Muslim holy cities. Caliphs and sultans ruling from
afar paid little or no heed to Jerusalem; it dwindled to a dirty, dilapidated
and poverty-stricken village -- scarcely to be expected in any city that
is loved or revered.

Arabs built little in Jerusalem, with the exception of
the Dome of the Rock, that a caliph built in the Seventh Century -- on
the site of the First and Second biblical Temples. It is now being alleged
that those Temples never existed, and while one might suppose this too
preposterous to require rebuttal, the historically illiterate minions of
the news media may repeat it with quite serious mien.

During the Jordanian occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem,
the Jewish residents were killed or driven out. For 19 years, Jews of all
nationalities were banned from their holy places and historical sites,
while ancient synagogues and cemeteries were wrecked or crudely desecrated.
Now, the Muslim religious authorities still permitted to administer Temple
Mount are relentlessly unearthing and destroying every relic of the Temples
they say never existed -- a program dubbed "archaeological terrorism".

7. Judea, Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza are Palestinian
territory, unlawfully occupied by Israel. Israeli settlements there are
illegal under international law.

Israel is not occupying Palestinian territory because
there is not and never has been any such thing. "Occupied Palestine", like
"Arab East Jerusalem", as a diplomatic and journalistic stock epithet that
melts away under analysis.

The status of Judea, Samaria and Gaza are still fixed
by the Mandate for the Jewish National Home, while the other parts of the
Mandate lands have become the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan.
In 1948, Jordan launched a war of destruction against Israel during which
it seized control of these areas. In 1967 it launched another war of destruction
against Israel during which it lost that control. Since then, the areas
have been under Israeli administration, as is quite lawful. Israeli settlements
in that land are also quite lawful, regardless of the juridical rulings
of

radio-TV broadcasters.  [See further A Time to Speak
No. I-6, June 2001]

Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel has turned
over administration of some cities and areas to the PLO, but it was not
a grant of sovereignty nor is it irrevocable. It is conditional on PA/PLO
fulfillment of its own undertakings in those Accords -- a fulfillment that
it never began. Israel retains responsibility for security in those areas,
and the right to take action against terrorism or any other threat to its
security that emanates therefrom. The mantras of the news media notwithstanding,
Israeli actions for security and/or self-defense are not attacks against
or incursions into "Palestinian territory".

8. The Palestinians seek only to free themselves of
occupation and regain the lands taken from them.

As noted above, lands were given to them by Israel, not
taken from them. Since Israel's voluntary withdrawals after the Oslo Accords,
some 98% of the Arabs resident in Judea, Samaria and Gaza now live under
the rule of the PLO.

When the PLO was founded in 1964, it adopted a charter
defining its purpose as the total destruction of Israel, to be achieved
by terrorism and war. This was before the Six-Day War of 1967, when the
lands the PLO now purports to liberate were still held by Jordan and not
by Israel. It therefore cannot rationally be argued that the terrorism
is caused by or excused by the "occupation".

The Oslo Accords demanded the cancellation of this Charter,
but that has never been done. Despite public relations flimflam to the
contrary, the goal of the destruction of Israel is still in effect. The
pretense that the Palestinians yearn only for a state in these areas, side-by-side
with Israel and at peace with it, is belied by PLO-officials themselves:

In 1974, the PLO adopted its Plan of Stages: First take
control of any territory that it can trick Israel into yielding. Then use
that territory as the springboard for the war to destroy Israel. That Plan
of Stages is also still in effect.

After signing of the Oslo Accords, Yasser Arafat announced:
"This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which
had been signed between our Prophet Muhammad and Koraish." [Note: Two years
after Muhammad signed the treaty with the tribe of Koraish, he attacked
and annihilated it.]

In a speech in Sweden, he promised to: ". . . eliminate
the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make
life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion.
Jews won't want to live among us Arabs."

Faisel al-Husseini, scion of one of the most powerful
Arab families, and PLO "Minister for Jerusalem" defined the PLO program:

"[We will] continue to aspire to the strategic goal: namely,
Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea. Whatever
we get now, cannot make us forget this supreme truth."  April 2001

"If we agree to declare our state over . . . the West
Bank and Gaza, our ultimate goal is the  liberation of all historic
Palestine from the River [Jordan] to the Sea [Mediterranean]. We distinguish
the strategic, long-term goals from the political phased goals, which we
are compelled to temporarily accept due to international pressure." 
June 2001

PLO Minister of Communications, 1999: "Our people have
hope for the future, that the occupation state [Israel] ceases to exist."

9.  The Moslem "claim" to Jerusalem is unfounded.

The Moslem "claim" to Jerusalem is based on what is written
in the Koran, which although Jerusalem is not mentioned even once, nevertheless
talks (in Sura 17:1) of the "Furthest Mosque": "Glory be unto Allah who
did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the
Furthest Mosque." But is there any foundation to the Moslem argument that
this "Furthest Mosque" (Al-Masujidi al-Aqtza) refers to what is today called
the Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem? The answer is, none whatsoever.

In the days of Mohammed, who died in 632 of the Common
Era, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem
was captured by Khalif Omar only in 638, six years after Mohammed's death.
Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a church
stood on the Temple Mount, called the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian,
built in the Byzantine architectural style.

The Aksa Mosque was built 20 years after the Dome of the
Rock, which was built in 691-692 by Khalif Abd El Malik. The name "Omar
Mosque" is therefore false. In or around 711, or about 80 years after Mohammed
died, Malik's son, Abd El-Wahd - who ruled from 705-715 - reconstructed
the Christian- Byzantine Church of St. Mary and converted it into a mosque.
He left the structure as it was, a typical Byzantine "basilica" structure
with a row of pillars on either side of the rectangular "ship" in the center.
All he added was an onion-like dome on top of the building to make it look
like a mosque. He then named it El-Aksa, so it would sound like the one
mentioned in the Koran.

Therefore it is crystal clear that Mohammed could never
have had this mosque in mind when he compiled the Koran, since it did not
exist for another three generations after his death.  Rather, as many
scholars long ago established, it is logical that Mohammed intended the
mosque in Mecca as the "Sacred Mosque," and the mosque in Medina as the
"Furthest Mosque." So much for the Moslem claim based on the Aksa Mosque.

With this understood, it is no wonder that Mohammed issued
a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that
had been tolerated only for some months in order to lure Jews to convert
to Islam. When that effort failed, Mohammed put an abrupt stop to it on
February 12, 624. Jerusalem simply never held any sanctity for the Moslems
themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain.  [By
Dr. MANFRED R. LEHMANN - who is a writer for the Algemeiner Journal. Originally
published in  the Algemeiner Journal, August 19, 1994.]

Source: Tzemach News Service (TNS)

tzemachnews@tzemach.org

Palestinians Urge Saddam To Lob Missiles At Israel

Ah...those peace-loving Palestinians

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians marched in pro-Iraq rallies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday, calling on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to launch missiles at Israel, reports said. In the largest demonstration, organized by Hamas, some 30,000 protestors flooded into the streets in Gaza City after noontime prayers. In the West Bank town of Nablus, some 4,000 demonstrators cheered as effigies of President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were hanged and burned. Elsewhere in the West Bank, another 16,000 Palestinians demonstrated their support for Saddam. "Our beloved Saddam, hit Tel Aviv," the people chanted. During the 1991 Gulf War, Palestinians danced on their rooftops as Israel - primarily Tel Aviv - was hit by dozens of Iraqi Scud missiles. On Friday, Israeli police restricted entry to the Temple Mount to holders of Israeli identity cards over the age of 40 after intelligence reports suggested there would be trouble there after noon prayers. Jerusalem police had to use tear gas and concussion grenades after last Friday's prayers to disperse pro-Iraqi demonstrators who tried to block the road in eastern Jerusalem. While expressing its opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Palestinian Authority officials have tried to downplay any support for Saddam. This week, 21 families of Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers received $10,000 each from the Iraqi leader.

Palestinian Leadership Farce

by Rachel Neuwirth

March 26, 2003

Even the Nazis, who were bent on the extermination of the Jewish people, did
not resort to suicide bombing. To eliminate the scourge of Nazism, the Allies
followed a policy of seeking total, unconditional defeat and surrender. It is
necessary for Israel and the US to take a similar policy regarding the current
Arab-Palestinian leadership.

The only way to bring about a peaceful solution is to totally defeat the Arab-Palestinians'
current leadership, including all terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, DFLP, Tanzim and the al-Aqsa Brigades, who exploit the Arab-Palestinian
people, including their children.

Arafat and his cronies have now appointed a "new" prime minister:
Mahmud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, Holocaust denier, Arafat's No. 2 for the last
30 years, and co-founder of Fatah, a terrorist organization set up to destroy
Israel in 1959. Does anyone really believe that an old dog can learn new tricks?

Mahmud Abbas is no better than Yasser Arafat. Arafat’s mentor is none
other than Haj Amin al-Husseini who sided with Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany.
From 1929, Haj Amin repeatedly called on the Arabs who lived the British Mandate
in Palestine to carry out "Itbach al-Yahood " -"Slaughter the
Jews!" This call still echoes today as it is etched in the hearts and minds
of many Arab-Palestinians.

Rewarding the Arab-Palestinian leadership, whose complicity in terrorism is
beyond dispute and who broke all the agreements they signed with Israel, is
against rational thinking. Moreover, how can anyone in the international community
now legitimize a regime that continues to teach children to be suicide bombers?

In 1999, the French news agency, Agence France Presse, reported that Adolph
Hitler's Mein Kampf was at number six on the Palestinian Authority's best-seller
list. Middle East Media and Research Institute (www.memri.org) released more
details on the sale of Mein Kampf in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian autonomy.
The cover of the book features a picture of Hitler, a swastika, and the title
in both German and Arabic. Following are some excerpts of the introduction by
translator Luis al-Haj:

"Hitler was a man of ideology who bequeathed an ideological heritage whose
decay is inconceivable. This ideological heritage includes politics, society,
science, culture, and war as science and culture...

"National Socialism... did not die with the death of its herald. Rather,
its seeds multiplied under each star...

"This translation of the book My Struggle has never been presented to
Arabic speakers. It is taken from the original text of the author, Adolph Hitler.
The text was untouched by the censor. We made a point to deliver Hitler's opinions
and theories on nationalism, regimes and ethnicity without any changes, because
they are not yet outmoded and because we, in the Arab world, still proceed haphazardly
in all three fields..."

Arafat's regime-controlled newspaper, Al-Hayat Al- Jadida, said, on the day
of the barbarity of 9/11: "The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors
of their noble predecessors... the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the
US Marines a tough lesson in [Lebanon]... These suicide bombers are the salt
of the earth, the engines of history... They are the most honorable among us."
(Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 9/11/2001)

On the morning of October 12, 2000, two Israeli reservists, Yosef Avrahami
and Vadim Norzesche, where lynched by Palestinian Authority "policemen"
who then threw their corpses out a window to a mob, which then pelted their
dead bodies with stones, fire and metal bars. One of the bodies was set on fire
and then dragged by car through the town, to a cheering crowd.

Days later, the Arab-Palestinians further celebrated their "victory"
by dressing a donkey in a Jewish prayer shawl and painting the star of David
and a swastika on its snout.

The bodies of Kobi Mandel, 14, a US citizen, and Yossi Ishran, also 14, were
found bludgeoned to death in a Haritoun cave, on the hills of Tekoa. When they
chose to skip school to go on a hike and enjoy nature, the nature they faced
was ferocious.

About 120 suicide-bombings were committed within two-and-a-half years, in pizza
and ice cream parlors, discos, supermarkets, Hebrew University, buses, malls,
and at Passover dinners and Bar Mitzvah parties.

Appointing Mahmud Abbas, who has been there for more than three decades, won't
accomplish the goals set out by President Bush in his September 24, 2002 speech.
All it will do is reward terrorism and violence, which Mahmud Abbas has always
advocated. Hanan Ashrawi, on the appointment of Mr. Abbas, said, "It's
the beginning of a transition - it is certainly a turning point and a qualitative
shift in the political culture. Now we have power-sharing that is clearly spelled
out."

What quality are you talking about, Ms. Ashrawi? You have ignored the reality
of who Abbas is. The Arab-Palestinian leadership must stop blaming Israel and
the US for the misery of their people. Instead, they should examine their core
beliefs, and until they change those, Israelis can never rely on the Palestinian
Authority to be a true partner for peace.

--------------------------------------------------------

Rachel Neuwirth is a Los Angeles-based analyst associated with the American
Jewish Congress and Stand With Us.

News from Saddam's Mini-Me:

---

Palestinians in Ramallah are celebrating Iraq's capture of American and British soldiers.

A policeman at Yasser Arafat's battered headquarters today said the news made it a "big day for the Iraqi people and all the Arabs and Muslim," the Jerusalem Post reported.

"Everyone here was happy ... to see pictures of American soldiers in Iraqi custody," the officer said. "This is a big blow for Bush and Blair. I don't believe they will be able to continue with the war now that many of their soldiers are being killed or taken prisoner."

The Post said one of the policeman's colleagues in Arafat's presidential guard, Force 17, said the news made him so happy that "I felt like kissing all the people around me."

"Saddam has once again proven that he is a great leader, a defender of Arab rights," he said. "His men are brave. They have been able to teach the American and British dogs an unforgettable lesson."

The Iraqis, he said, "are much better at war because they have more experience."

"The American and British soldiers are cowards and spoiled kids," the Force 17 officer said.

'Oh beloved Saddam, bomb Tel Aviv'

The Jerusalem paper described the mood in central Ramallah's Manarah Square as euphoric.

"They have just shot down two Apache helicopters," an excited merchant shouted hysterically as he ran out of his shop. "This is unbelievable. The Americans are losing the war. Iraq is going to be Bush's Vietnam."

Adorned with Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam, the square has been the scene of daily demonstrations, the Post said. The streets were deserted this morning, however, when locals gathered in front of TV sets – many in the shops and cafes – to watch the broadcast of a defiant speech by Saddam.

Shortly after the speech was aired, about 50 girls in green and white school uniforms marched toward the square with signs denouncing U.S. "aggression" on Iraq, the Jerusalem paper reported.

The girls were greeted by shopkeepers and others with "Allahu Akbar" [God is great] as they chanted, "Oh beloved Saddam, bomb, bomb Tel Aviv."

Some of the girls, who were younger than age 10, urged the Iraqi leader to destroy Israel.

"Oh Saddam, we love you, why don't you annihilate all the Jews."

They also had a message for President George W. Bush and pro-Western Arab leaders.

"Bush, soon Saddam will bury you,"and "[King] Abdullah [of Jordan], your people don't want you, we hope you will follow your father."

'Only dictator is Bush'

A Palestinian journalist said the capture of coalition soldiers brought a sense of pride to Palestinians after morale had been dampened in the first few days of the war.

"Until yesterday, the feeling here was bad," he told the Post. "But when the pictures of the American prisoners and bodies of soldiers were shown on TV, there was a lot of excitement. It's very moving to watch Arab soldiers … defeating American and British soldiers and killing them."

The journalist added that "Saddam is now more popular than ever."

"The people here adore him," he said. "The feeling here is that Saddam has restored Arab confidence and dignity."

Footage of elated Iraqi villagers and militiamen waving their rifles next to an Apache helicopter stirred Zuhair Karajeh, a 42-year-old laborer, as he ate in a diner.

"The Iraqis are very brave and we are proud of them," he said. "An old man with a rifle was able to shoot down one of the world's most advanced helicopters. Did you see Bush's face when he was talking about his prisoners last night? It was great to see this big devil almost breaking into tears."

Karajeh does not see Saddam as a dictator.

"I would like to see Saddam as the leader of the Arab and Muslim world," he said as others in the café nodded in agreement. "The only dictator is Bush, who has waged a war against the Arabs and Muslims."

Hasan Kamleh, 37, a hotel receptionist, says he expects the war to end soon because of the U.S. and British casualties.

"The Americans and the British can't put up with the losses," he said. "They will have to end the war ahead of time because they are losing too many soldiers. Honestly, I didn't believe that Saddam stood a chance, but when I saw the bodies of the American soldiers, I understood that this is a war which the Arabs could win."

Palestinian Authority media also reflected the euphoria expressed on the street.

"On the fourth day of the war, Iraq has presented to the Arabs and all the peoples of the world proof that it is possible to defeat the U.S.," said Hasan al Kashef, a respected columnist and senior PA official.

"On this day, the Arabs and the rest of the world have come to learn that the U.S. is not the almighty superpower that is capable of doing anything anytime," he said. "Iraq has proved that surrendering to the will of the U.S. is the result of impotence, miscalculation and a lack of will."

The largest Palestinian daily, Al Quds, ran a cartoon today that depicted a coalition pilot hiding in bushes next to the wreckage of his plane. The Post said the panicking pilot in the cartoon radios Bush to tell him that he sees a thousand Iraqis holding Kalashnikov rifles, but none of them have brought him roses and gifts.

Another cartoon in the PA's official organ al Ayyam bears the message that American soldiers will return from Baghdad only in coffins. It portrays a frightened American soldier reluctantly marching toward Baghdad with a coffin draped with the U.S. flag.

Grim Fairy Tale:

Palestinians claim they are decendents of ancient Canaanites

 

To bolster their claim to the land that Israel now occupies,
the Palestinians have been circulating a new mythology that
says modern-day Palestinians are the direct decendents of
Canaanites -- the ancient people who inhabited Sodom and
Gemorrah. Now, originally, they tried to trace their lineage to
Philistines, but since the Philistines were of Greek origin,
lived along the Aegean Sea, and disappeared after the late
seventh century B.C., Palestinians decided to go with the
Canaanites.

The Canaanites were the most degenerate society on the face of the
Earth at the time. The brutality, lust and abandon of Canaanite
mythology was without equal in the ancient world. Given that Canaanite deities
had no moral character whatsoever, that fact alone must have brought out the
worst traits in their devotees and entailed many of the most
demoralizing practices of the time, such as child sacrifice (some
of it by fire), incest, bestiality, homosexual practices and
cultic prostitution--both male and female (www.theology.edu/canaan.htm).

Nothing like picking the historical scum of the Earth as your
ancestors. However, we have a little conundrum here:
Palestinians are Arabs who claim lineage from Abraham's son
Ishmael. The Qur'an identifies that G-d promised the land to
Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, not Ishmael. In fact, the Qu'ran
itself states "And when Moses said to his people: 'O my
people, call in remembrance the favour of God unto you, when he
produced prophets among you, made you kings, and  gave to
you what He had not given to any other among the peoples. O my
people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and
turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to
your own ruin.'" [Qur'an 5:20-21]

Abraham was 75 years old when he entered the land of Canaan.
He was 86 years old when Ishmael was born. Abraham was a
Chaldean, not a Canaanite. In other words, Canaanites existed
well before Ishmael.

The term “Palestine” or “Palestinians” to
designate any geographic location or people does not exist
anywhere in the Torah (Jewish "Bible"), the Christian
Bible, or the Qur'an. The historian Josephus never use these
terms in his major works, Antiquities of the Jews and Wars of
the Jews. These relatively recent terms cannot change
history.

In 135 A. D., the Roman Emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius
Hadrianus) renamed Jerusalem after himself and the god Jupiter
Capitolinus—Aelia Capitolina. Some historians feel that this
period was most likely the time that the Romans renamed Judea as
Palestina (or Palestine). Others believe the change occured about
a century or so later, after Constantine established the eastern,
or Byzantine, part of the Roman Empire. In any event, Palestine
was, in fact, Judea.

Not only is the term “Palestine” found to originate
as late as the Byzantine era, the Arabs who call themselves
“Palestinian” did not lay claim to the Holy Land until
about the tenth century A.D.

On the other hand, given the current bloodlust of Palestinians
who have regularly sacrificed their children by making them
homicide bombers, and who wholeheartedly support Saddam
and his sadistic regime, maybe they are like Canaanites after all.