one of the recent conference participants wrote to me arguing that I was unduly harsh on the Department of State. Some of the young'em are different. Here is proof that she is right. Click here and read 'Jewish lobby' is an anti-Semitic term, says US diplomat

That is the logical consequence of the recent American - West European fall out reports Yuriy Fedorov in the January 20, 2004 issue of Izvestia. This is the interesting part:

In view of the transatlantic differences that emerged in the course of the Iraq war and the development trends in European public opinion, partnership between Russia and the United States in ensuring security may prove more promising than the traditional military and military-political cooperation between the United States and Europe. Along with the United States, Israel, Turkey, and India, Russia is the chief target of Islamist international terrorism. This threat is driving Russia toward cooperation with the above-mentioned countries. It cannot be ruled out that they and Russia together will sooner or later form a relatively stable" coalition of the interested" that will become the main force opposing international terrorism.

The truth is difficult to discern as is the motivation of a woman who blows herself up."Erez bomber's family denies coercing her to suicide" By KHALED ABU TOAMEH tells an interesting story:

The family of suicide bomber Reem Salah al-Rayashi, the Gaza City mother of two who killed four in last week's suicide attack at the Erez crossing, on Sunday dismissed as lies reports that she had been forced to blow herself up after her husband discovered that she had been unfaithful.

Quoting military sources, Yediot Aharonot said that Rayashi was forced to carry out the suicide attack as punishment for cheating on her husband.

According to the paper, information that reached Israel regarding the circumstances that led Rayashi to carry out the attack suggests that she"was not a cold-blooded terrorist, steeped in faith and madness, who chose out of free will to turn her two young children into orphans – but instead a woman who was forced to carry out the act." According to military sources, Rayashi paid a cruel price for being involved in an illicit love affair and was forced to sacrifice herself in order to" clear" her name and the honor of her family.

The paper quoted IDF sources as saying that Rayashi's husband, Ziad Anwar, a Hamas activist, not only knew about his wife's plans in advance but even encouraged her to carry out the suicide attack.

The sources said the man chosen to recruit and equip Rayashi with the explosive belt was none other than the lover with whom she cheated on her husband. The Sunday Times reported that the husband even drove his wife to the Erez crossing.

The husband, however, strongly denied any knowledge of his wife's plan and denounced as lies the reports about the alleged love affair."These are lies spread by the Jews with the aim of defaming the family," he said."My wife is an honorable woman who sacrificed her life for the sake of Islam and Palestine." Awad said that he was proud of his wife, who"identified with the suffering of the Palestinians and felt pain when she watched the Zionist occupation crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people." He also described her as a devout Muslim and a good mother.

In an interview with the Saudi newspaper al-Jazeera, the husband, who works as a lifeguard in the Gaza City municipality, called on Palestinians to follow the example of his wife.

Rayashi's brothers reacted with outrage to the report in Yediot Aharonot and accused the Shin Bet of spreading lies against their sister.

One of the brothers, Ayman, said most Palestinians were proud of their sister and supported the attack on the Erez crossing. He claimed that his sister was motivated by her love for Islam and her homeland.

Another brother, Seif, denied rumors in Gaza City that that the family had"disowned" his sister because she had been unfaithful to her husband. Some journalists in Gaza City said Rayashi and her husband had been involved in a bitter dispute, the nature of which remains unclear. Some of them quoted the husband as saying that he had recently considered divorcing his wife.

Forwarded by Benny Eichorn: This 1899 article is Mark Twain's response to the anti-Semitism which was wide spread in the US. Large companies did not hire Jewish people. Universities either did not admit Jews or limited their numbers with strict quotas. 'Respectable' people like Ford and Edison expressed their anti-Jewish feelings openly. Mark Twain had an answer for them.

WRITTEN BY: MARK TWAIN - HARPER'S, SEPTEMBER 1899

"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science,art, music, finance, medicine, and obtuse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.

He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all the ages, and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it.

The Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, and faded to dream stuff and passed away.

The Greeks and the Romans followed and made a vast noise and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time. But it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.

The Jew saw them all. Beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains.

But the Price, oh, the Price!

I find this hard to believe, as a Russian born in St. Petersburg, Putine should be an Atlanticist. But that is not the impression he wished to give"during his last visit to Brussels by drawing a map on a napkin. In that worldview, Putin grouped Russia and China together, while lumping his European hosts in with (as he put it)"your American cousins". So doing, he mentioned in passing his view that the ongoing demographic Arabization of Europe was strongly analogous to the historical Africanization and contemporary Latin-Americanization of the United States population". (The source: Asia Times, January 14, 2004"Emerging triangles: Russia-Kazakhstan-China," By Robert M Cutler)

During the ninties the British tried to convince the Russians to follow the British model"as we know what it means to lose an empire." I suspect Putin prefers the Chinese model of building a Capitalist system with Russian characteristics.

The US needs help with dealing with Central Asia. A multipolar Asia led by China, India and Russia can be of enormous help.

By Michael Widlanski 14 January 2004

In an unprecedented show of support for a human bomb attack, Yasser Arafat's official radio greeted with elation the news of latest suicide assault in the Gaza Strip.

"Citizen Rim al-Riyashi was heroically martyred when she carried out an explosive operation at the Beit Hanoun Junction , killing four soldiers of the Occupation," declared Voice of Palestine Radio in its 4-PM newscast, about an hour after the attack in the Gaza Strip.

The style of the news item, which opened the afternoon news round-up, was more like a birthday greeting than a regular news report, stressing the woman's identity and"heroic martyrdom" (Arabic: istish-haad) repeatedly.

There was no mention that she was a member of the Islamic terror group known as HAMAS (Haraka al-Muqawwima al-Islamiyya: Islamic Resistance Front).

Arafat's VOP radio said Israel was to blame for the attack, and it offered no condemnation for the assault at the Gaza crossing point which also serves as a place of employment and access into Israel for Palestinian laborers.

(Michael Widlanski, who teaches at the Hebrew University's Rothberg School, is a former reporter for The New York Times, The Cox Newspapers, and The Boston Globe. He recently completed his doctoral dissertation on the political role of the Palestinian mass media.

For an enlightening argument on the possibility of turning SAARC into another EU read this hopeful editorial. It makes sense.

The moment Washington announced the transfer of power to Iraqis in June, the natural power struggle within that country began in ernest and it cannot be expected to end before June. The Sunnis minority is making clear to both Shia and Kurds that they are a force to contend with. If Iraq remains manageable, it is because the Shia and Kurdish leaders exercised the kind of leadership which demonstrated that they are ready for democracy.

But to sell democracy to the average Muhammad or Fatima, it is crucial to demonstrate to them that democracy means the ability to gain a say and a shore of the nation's resources: In the December issue of"Le Monde Diplomatique" David Baram bemoans the apathy of the Iraqi people (he would have liked them to fight for"their bastard") which he explains thus:

Outsiders find it almost impossible to understand why Iraqi expectations are so modest and pragmatic. The reason cam be summed up as:"OK, it's true that the American want to grab our oil: but we never benefited from it during Saddam's time, so provided they leave us a little . . ." So the slow progress of the occupying force has a disproportionate impact.

Trying to counter the absurd notion that the US came to grab oil, the administration announced that it will not privatize the industry. An understandable, if not economically valid, move PROVIDED that a system is set up to insure that a serious share of the oil revenues will reach each individual Iraqi and will then be counted towards the taxes he/she pay. That is the only real means to empower, galvanize and democratize Iraq. For it would replace arguments over religious laws with arguments over the appropriate way to spend the tax payers money and thereby cuting through divisive ethnic and religious lines.

I cannot think of a better idea than the one offered by the indefatgable, Max Kampelman. Create a Caucus of Democracies at the U.N.

Since the U.N.'s creation, millions have been killed, maimed, starved, tortured or raped by brutal rulers whose governments nevertheless wield great influence in the U.N. General Assembly and the Security Council. These facts clearly reflect the inadequacies and failures of the U.N. For example, North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong Il, has inflicted a holocaust on his people. Defectors and observers have estimated that more than a million people have starved to death in brutal Gulag-type camps. The resulting flood of refugees into China, where an estimated 360,000 North Koreans may now be hiding in an effort to escape brutality, has not produced action in the U.N., though the U.N. High Commission on Refugees is fully aware of this human catastrophe. China classifies these tragic human beings as"economic migrants" and"not refugees," while cynically embracing the refugee convention as the"Magna Carta of international refugee law" and thereby earning the applause of U.N. officials. The U.N. Human Rights Commission has become a travesty. Two years ago, the U.S.--which has worked diligently to make the commission an effective instrument--was replaced by Syria, a corrupt, totalitarian supporter of terrorism. This year, in spite of American efforts, Libya was elected to chair the commission, an egregious challenge to the commission's integrity considering Libya's rule by a militant tyrant responsible for the 1988 bombing of a U.S. civilian jet in Lockerbie in which 270 people were murdered. U.S. opposition to Libya was supported only by Canada and Guatemala; 33 countries voted for Libya, while our European"friends" conspicuously abstained from voting at all. In electing such states as Syria, Libya, Vietnam, China, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Zimbabwe to serve on the commission, the ostensible guardian of human rights, the U.N. has forfeited its commitment to those values.

If not now, when?