Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Kuwaiti Journalist: Kuntar Should Drink to Israel's Good Health
Hat tip: GS Don Morris, Ph.D. at Doc's Talk
Fuad Alhashem, a senior journalist at the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan, published an article on 21 July favorable to Israel, entitled "Prisoners of War – Ours and Theirs". The article points out that Samir Kuntar was incarcerated in an Israeli prison for 29 years and "they didn't cut off his ears, his hands weren't amputated, and he wasn't raped! He received three meals a day, watched television and read newspapers. He was given the chance to learn Hebrew, studied in the Open University in Israel and received a BA. The pictures published of him when he was released and returned to Lebanon showed him in good health. Now, he can see his mother and enjoy the various restaurants in Beirut, smoke a water pipe and get drunk and shout out loud: 'To the Israelis, who turned out better than Saddam and his party.'"In his article, Alhashem calls on Hizbullah and Kuntar's relatives to pray to the God that made Israel their neighbor and not Saddam's Iraq. If it had been otherwise, Kuntar would not have returned to his homeland walking on his own two feet and carrying 90 kg. of healthy weight. Instead, his body would have been returned in a little plastic bag – like the Kuwaiti prisoners who were returned from Iraq weighing three kilos each!
Alhashem reminds his readers that Saddam Hussein murdered 600 Kuwaiti POWs after they spent 24 months in prison. They were innocent and didn't spray Iraqi civilians with bullets like Kuntar did to the Israelis. Of course the Kuwaitis were tortured in the Iraqi prisons, ate bread harder than rock and drank polluted water. They were certainly not allowed to study in Iraqi universities, but were taken as a group to the desert, murdered using the Nazi method and buried in mass graves, without a trial and without a public appearance in the media.
Alhashem congratulates his brothers in Lebanon on Kuntar's release and also congratulates them on their proximity to the State of Israel. At the end of the article, Alhashem reminds his Arab readers that, according to the Jewish calendar, we are currently in the year 5768. In other words, the Jews have believed in God for 4000 years already, long before the Christians and the Muslims.
Fuad Alhashem, a senior journalist at the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan, published an article on 21 July favorable to Israel, entitled "Prisoners of War – Ours and Theirs". The article points out that Samir Kuntar was incarcerated in an Israeli prison for 29 years and "they didn't cut off his ears, his hands weren't amputated, and he wasn't raped! He received three meals a day, watched television and read newspapers. He was given the chance to learn Hebrew, studied in the Open University in Israel and received a BA. The pictures published of him when he was released and returned to Lebanon showed him in good health. Now, he can see his mother and enjoy the various restaurants in Beirut, smoke a water pipe and get drunk and shout out loud: 'To the Israelis, who turned out better than Saddam and his party.'"In his article, Alhashem calls on Hizbullah and Kuntar's relatives to pray to the God that made Israel their neighbor and not Saddam's Iraq. If it had been otherwise, Kuntar would not have returned to his homeland walking on his own two feet and carrying 90 kg. of healthy weight. Instead, his body would have been returned in a little plastic bag – like the Kuwaiti prisoners who were returned from Iraq weighing three kilos each!
Alhashem reminds his readers that Saddam Hussein murdered 600 Kuwaiti POWs after they spent 24 months in prison. They were innocent and didn't spray Iraqi civilians with bullets like Kuntar did to the Israelis. Of course the Kuwaitis were tortured in the Iraqi prisons, ate bread harder than rock and drank polluted water. They were certainly not allowed to study in Iraqi universities, but were taken as a group to the desert, murdered using the Nazi method and buried in mass graves, without a trial and without a public appearance in the media.
Alhashem congratulates his brothers in Lebanon on Kuntar's release and also congratulates them on their proximity to the State of Israel. At the end of the article, Alhashem reminds his Arab readers that, according to the Jewish calendar, we are currently in the year 5768. In other words, the Jews have believed in God for 4000 years already, long before the Christians and the Muslims.
Hero able to murder four-year-old and father, but loses bowel control when apprehended
I have just came across this first-hand account of Kuntar's arrest. Apparently, the hero feted last week in Lebanon and on Al-Jazeera (why are they still allowed to broadcast from Israel?) was unable to contain his bowels when he was caught. That much for shattering the myth of the invincible IDF soldier. 27 years later, Hezboloonies captured by IDF (I guess those released toghether with Kuntar included) also had a heavy package in their pants. Way to go boys, malign us as you like, you're still full of shit! Both figuratively but mainly literally! Besides, hero Kuntar was sexually abused and sodomized by his father (which might explain the expensive presents lavished on him, as well as the raging volcano beneath the "quiet, thoughtful child" appearance) and by his Palestinian handlers (no pun intended. Besides, Arafat was a notorious pederast, as may have been some of his cronies and rivals. Although Kuntar was not affiliated with Arafat's gangs, I wouldn't put it past the others - Jibril, Abu-Abbas, Habbash the pediatrician - to have indulged on occasion in what the Arabs view as a legitimate leisure activity - wives for reproduction, animals for relief and boys for pleasure. And that is probably why Kuntar and the others' sphincters may have lost some muscle tone by the time they were ready for a suicide operation in Israel).
Yaakov Marks, an American-born Israeli living in the northern town of Maalot writes about his first-hand encounter with Kuntar:
" As you have seen in news reports from Israel, the majority of Israelis would rather pay an exorbitant price and deal with despicable enemies such as Hezbollah and Hamas to retrieve those who have fought and died for their country since we honor our fallen and captive soldiers.
Now we must pray for "our" Gilad Shalit. But our despicable foes have upped their price since the "victory". So the final question is,"How much are we willing to pay?" "What will be the limit?" This dilemma is tearing us apart. How much would you give if it where your son or daughter? What would you do?
My wife and I suffer this dilemma every Sunday morning, and have been for ten long years as we drop off our third son at the train station in Nahariyah on his way back to his IDF base.
My question to those people of good conscience all over the world and especially those who gleefully attack Israel with their hate filled propaganda is, "Why has the Red Cross never been allowed to visitIsraeli prisoners, especially Gilad Shalit and Ron Arad?" Here is some information to consider.
As to the truth concerning Samir Kuntar, a Druse, born on July 20, 1962 in Abey, Lebanon, please allow me to relate from first hand experience exactly who their brave hero really is. I met the 16.9 year old hate-filled, sexually abused, wild-eyed youth that murdered Dani Harran and his four year old toddler, Einat that night April 22nd, 1979 on the beach in Nahariyah.
I had gone to do my nightly volunteer shift as amember of the Civil Guard in the Meona Police station near Ma'alot in northern Israel. It was a cool night and we could clearly hear the radio communications from Nahariyah. Around 11:30PM, myself andShabbati Alon, the ex-commander of the police in Meona who was now commander of the Civil Guard of Ma'alot, went to visit an Arab acquaintance to drink some strong Arabic coffee. Around 12:10AM we heard Eli Shachar Z"L answer the call for a robbery on Rechov Jabotinsky in Nahariyah. Suddenly there were frantic calls. Alon decided to go towards the scene to clarify what was going on. As an experienced officer and veteran of the 101 unit and an 18-year veteran of the Israeli police he felt that in those first moments his expertise as well as mine as a senior medic were needed, so we drove to the area.
When we arrived on the scene, I witnessed first hand how Samir Kuntar viciously murdered Danny and then grabbed Einat by the arm and hair as he used the butt of his rifle to smash her little skull on the rocks.
Once he had surrendered, sniveling after three of his comrades were killed, he was taken into custody along with his comrade, Ahmed AlAbras. AlAbras would later be freed by Israel in the Jibril Agreement of May 1985.
Standing near Kuntar, I saw how from abject fear of retribution he defecated on himself, whimpered, cried and begged. We could have shot him but the officers said no, he surrendered, leave him alone. Kuntar was pitiful. Later, in order to hide his embarassment, he claimed that since he had been shot he could not have murdered Danny or Einat. I never saw any wound on him.
During my many years in the IDF Reserves, I served as an EMT Master Sergeant of a Medical Unit, unarmed and dressed in a medical white coat, that administered medic care under Red Cross regulations. Our doctors and medics served honorably under the severest conditions of abuse and threats from the prisoners. We served according to the best tradition of the Hippocratic Oath and the motto of the medical corps, "To save Life".
In the routine briefing while reviewing the cases of our prisoners who needed continual treatment, it was recorded in Kuntar's files that during the required pre-imprisonment psychological exam it was determined that he had been a sexually abused and beaten child. He voluntarily admitted the information without any force upon him, how his own father had sodomized him and how as a new young recruit he had repeatedly been sodomized by his friends in the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) camp of Rashadiyah, Lebanon, near Tyre before the terrorist attack in 1979. Furthermore, we learned that as a young Lebanese Druse the Palestinians taunted him consistently as theyq uestioned his loyalty to the cause.
Later, while one of the doctors and I were administering treatment to Kuntar, he readily verified this information freely during treatment. His fair and conscientious medical care was in glaring contrast to how Israeli POWs are treated.
When we older reservists served in the prison we attempted to bring sanity to an insane situation. Many of us were against the occupation and the persecution of the Palestinians. From our code of treatment we were respected by the members of Fatah and the Democratic Front who argued and fought the Jihadists and Hamas. Many times they would warn us of attempts to harm us. We respected them and were respected inturn.
In the prison camps were we served there were cases of murder between rival gangs. Gang rape, brutal sodomy, torture and all forms of physical abuse by their own cellmates were a daily occurrence. Many times when homosexuals were discovered by their cellmates they would be abused and tortured to death, their screams muffled by socks filled with bread dough stuffed brutally down their throats by their torturers. The torturers comitted horrid atrocities against those they felt were spies. The worst was how they would treat young boys, just as they had done to Kuntar.
The hypocrites of Children`s Defense International (Palestine Section) imply that it is Israeli soldiers performing illegal acts and mistreating Palestinian prisoners. Just for their information, most of those guarding the Palestinians are reservists. If this human rights group had even the slightest knowledge of Israel they would know that 99.5%+ of all reservists are not interested in losing their personal freedom to even care about the Palestinians prisoners they are guarding. The reservists would sit in guard towers or patrol outside the fenced areas waiting to finish as soon as possible and go home.
The only ones allowed to touch prisoners were medics and doctors. Every week entire families would come to the prison to visit and bring food items. These same elementary rights that till today have always been denied our prisoners held by the Arabs, Hamas orHezbollah are a daily occurrence in Israeli prisons.
Let me state that many Palestinians in the camps suffered from multiple maladies before they were arrested. Many ofthem owe my medics and especially our doctors a deep debt of gratitude for the humanitarian care we gave them 24 hours a day, seven daysa week. We lived like them in the same sweltering conditions in the summer and in the freezing cold of winter. We treated and cared for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there where times where they even honoredus. So for these critics of Israel, they may tell their vicious lies that belittle me and my dedicated medical personnel. Yet it is these same doctors who in civilian life care for them and their families in our hospitals. These same hospitals in the area of Ashkelon in the south that have been threatened by Qassam rockets have unselfishly treated Gazans for years. Just like the hospitals in Nahariyah and Safed that treated Arab Israelis and Lebanese but were hit by Hezbollah Katyushas during the Second Lebanon War.
In conclusion, please note that though a captive in our Israeli prisons Samir earned a university degree, received medical care, Red Cross visits and privileges. He ate good food, as evidenced by his obesity and enjoyed his moments with his friends.
Years later, during another reserve duty stint I remember seeing the new hero of the Palestinians and Hezbollah. He was overweight, suffering from hyperuricema, diabetes mellitus, dyspnea and severe water retention from his hypertension. Some hero."
From: Yakov Marks, Maalot,E-Mail: big_yakov@bezeqint.net
Yaakov Marks, an American-born Israeli living in the northern town of Maalot writes about his first-hand encounter with Kuntar:
" As you have seen in news reports from Israel, the majority of Israelis would rather pay an exorbitant price and deal with despicable enemies such as Hezbollah and Hamas to retrieve those who have fought and died for their country since we honor our fallen and captive soldiers.
Now we must pray for "our" Gilad Shalit. But our despicable foes have upped their price since the "victory". So the final question is,"How much are we willing to pay?" "What will be the limit?" This dilemma is tearing us apart. How much would you give if it where your son or daughter? What would you do?
My wife and I suffer this dilemma every Sunday morning, and have been for ten long years as we drop off our third son at the train station in Nahariyah on his way back to his IDF base.
My question to those people of good conscience all over the world and especially those who gleefully attack Israel with their hate filled propaganda is, "Why has the Red Cross never been allowed to visitIsraeli prisoners, especially Gilad Shalit and Ron Arad?" Here is some information to consider.
As to the truth concerning Samir Kuntar, a Druse, born on July 20, 1962 in Abey, Lebanon, please allow me to relate from first hand experience exactly who their brave hero really is. I met the 16.9 year old hate-filled, sexually abused, wild-eyed youth that murdered Dani Harran and his four year old toddler, Einat that night April 22nd, 1979 on the beach in Nahariyah.
I had gone to do my nightly volunteer shift as amember of the Civil Guard in the Meona Police station near Ma'alot in northern Israel. It was a cool night and we could clearly hear the radio communications from Nahariyah. Around 11:30PM, myself andShabbati Alon, the ex-commander of the police in Meona who was now commander of the Civil Guard of Ma'alot, went to visit an Arab acquaintance to drink some strong Arabic coffee. Around 12:10AM we heard Eli Shachar Z"L answer the call for a robbery on Rechov Jabotinsky in Nahariyah. Suddenly there were frantic calls. Alon decided to go towards the scene to clarify what was going on. As an experienced officer and veteran of the 101 unit and an 18-year veteran of the Israeli police he felt that in those first moments his expertise as well as mine as a senior medic were needed, so we drove to the area.
When we arrived on the scene, I witnessed first hand how Samir Kuntar viciously murdered Danny and then grabbed Einat by the arm and hair as he used the butt of his rifle to smash her little skull on the rocks.
Once he had surrendered, sniveling after three of his comrades were killed, he was taken into custody along with his comrade, Ahmed AlAbras. AlAbras would later be freed by Israel in the Jibril Agreement of May 1985.
Standing near Kuntar, I saw how from abject fear of retribution he defecated on himself, whimpered, cried and begged. We could have shot him but the officers said no, he surrendered, leave him alone. Kuntar was pitiful. Later, in order to hide his embarassment, he claimed that since he had been shot he could not have murdered Danny or Einat. I never saw any wound on him.
During my many years in the IDF Reserves, I served as an EMT Master Sergeant of a Medical Unit, unarmed and dressed in a medical white coat, that administered medic care under Red Cross regulations. Our doctors and medics served honorably under the severest conditions of abuse and threats from the prisoners. We served according to the best tradition of the Hippocratic Oath and the motto of the medical corps, "To save Life".
In the routine briefing while reviewing the cases of our prisoners who needed continual treatment, it was recorded in Kuntar's files that during the required pre-imprisonment psychological exam it was determined that he had been a sexually abused and beaten child. He voluntarily admitted the information without any force upon him, how his own father had sodomized him and how as a new young recruit he had repeatedly been sodomized by his friends in the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) camp of Rashadiyah, Lebanon, near Tyre before the terrorist attack in 1979. Furthermore, we learned that as a young Lebanese Druse the Palestinians taunted him consistently as theyq uestioned his loyalty to the cause.
Later, while one of the doctors and I were administering treatment to Kuntar, he readily verified this information freely during treatment. His fair and conscientious medical care was in glaring contrast to how Israeli POWs are treated.
When we older reservists served in the prison we attempted to bring sanity to an insane situation. Many of us were against the occupation and the persecution of the Palestinians. From our code of treatment we were respected by the members of Fatah and the Democratic Front who argued and fought the Jihadists and Hamas. Many times they would warn us of attempts to harm us. We respected them and were respected inturn.
In the prison camps were we served there were cases of murder between rival gangs. Gang rape, brutal sodomy, torture and all forms of physical abuse by their own cellmates were a daily occurrence. Many times when homosexuals were discovered by their cellmates they would be abused and tortured to death, their screams muffled by socks filled with bread dough stuffed brutally down their throats by their torturers. The torturers comitted horrid atrocities against those they felt were spies. The worst was how they would treat young boys, just as they had done to Kuntar.
The hypocrites of Children`s Defense International (Palestine Section) imply that it is Israeli soldiers performing illegal acts and mistreating Palestinian prisoners. Just for their information, most of those guarding the Palestinians are reservists. If this human rights group had even the slightest knowledge of Israel they would know that 99.5%+ of all reservists are not interested in losing their personal freedom to even care about the Palestinians prisoners they are guarding. The reservists would sit in guard towers or patrol outside the fenced areas waiting to finish as soon as possible and go home.
The only ones allowed to touch prisoners were medics and doctors. Every week entire families would come to the prison to visit and bring food items. These same elementary rights that till today have always been denied our prisoners held by the Arabs, Hamas orHezbollah are a daily occurrence in Israeli prisons.
Let me state that many Palestinians in the camps suffered from multiple maladies before they were arrested. Many ofthem owe my medics and especially our doctors a deep debt of gratitude for the humanitarian care we gave them 24 hours a day, seven daysa week. We lived like them in the same sweltering conditions in the summer and in the freezing cold of winter. We treated and cared for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there where times where they even honoredus. So for these critics of Israel, they may tell their vicious lies that belittle me and my dedicated medical personnel. Yet it is these same doctors who in civilian life care for them and their families in our hospitals. These same hospitals in the area of Ashkelon in the south that have been threatened by Qassam rockets have unselfishly treated Gazans for years. Just like the hospitals in Nahariyah and Safed that treated Arab Israelis and Lebanese but were hit by Hezbollah Katyushas during the Second Lebanon War.
In conclusion, please note that though a captive in our Israeli prisons Samir earned a university degree, received medical care, Red Cross visits and privileges. He ate good food, as evidenced by his obesity and enjoyed his moments with his friends.
Years later, during another reserve duty stint I remember seeing the new hero of the Palestinians and Hezbollah. He was overweight, suffering from hyperuricema, diabetes mellitus, dyspnea and severe water retention from his hypertension. Some hero."
From: Yakov Marks, Maalot,E-Mail: big_yakov@bezeqint.net
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
My Enemies Walk Free (Samir Kuntar - part I)
At first sight one would be tempted to think that Samir Kuntar was an idiot, a cretin: evil spirit and bad genes are written all over him. To say nothing of his record. So when Ma'ariv first published fragments of an interview with him a few years ago I wasn't even curious. The pox on him and his ilk! Let the establishment read what he has to say and let him rot in jail until he dies a slow and painful death. Except the establishment has just let him go and no sooner does he walk free than he declares his love for us and his little heart's desire to come back and kill more of us.
That is why, this time I decided to read the transcripts of his conversations with Ma'ariv columnist Chen Kotes-Bar, because I need to know who the enemy is and what he wants from me. It was a spine-chilling read. I do hope the establishment also took the time to read it, I mean if they can take a second off patting themselves on their shoulders and basking in the glory of how morally superior we are by releasing more and more scumbag from our prisons. Not only are mine enemies allowed to walk free, our prisons are being blown to dust. The walls of ancient Troy…
After reading Kuntar's confessions I no longer think he is an imbecile. Much worse, he is a monster, a ruthless psychopath, a baby-killer who belongs in an off-limits mental establishment. I hope that if and when he decides to come back for another killing spree he gets shot on site. I mean not that we didn't know who he was when our courts decided to show him mercy instead of sending him off to meet his maker.
By the way, I hear that Nasr-al-shaytan wants him to run for the Lebanese parliament. I hope he gets elected. The Lebanese surely deserve him. Just as we deserve what is happening to us for voting into office the most incompetent Jews to walk the earth.
In his own words:
I, Samir Kuntar
Hen Kotes-Bar and Opher Lepler
Weekend, Ma'ariv supplement
July 18, 2008
My name is Samir Kuntar, prisoner number 562885 (I wonder whether it was tattooed on his arm in true Nazi fashion). I was born in the village of Abayeh on Mount Lebanon. My father worked as a chef for an international firm in Saudi Arabia. He was a famous, sought after chef. He would come home every two months or so, always loaded with presents: clothes, perfumes. For my last birthday celebrated at home my parents bought me a leather jacket and my father baked a tiered birthday cake for me (what, no "I grew up poor, hungry and oppressed"?).
My mother was a housewife. She was a very dominant figure. When she made up her mind about something, that was it. We were a prosperous secular Druze family, three brothers and five sisters. We had a beautiful house overlooking Beirut. We could see the airport from our balcony. One evening, in the winter of 1968, at about nine or ten o'clock, we heard loud explosions. Our house shook. We ran outside and saw large flames shooting up from the airport, lighting up the skies like fireworks. I just stood there and watched. I couldn't move. I had never seen anything like that before. It was an IDF raid (in December 1968 Israel retaliated against the attacks on El-Al planes – HKB). That was the first time I heard about Israel. I was six and a half years old.
I was a quiet, thoughtful child, an excellent student. I went to a private school. After school we used to go for walks or hunt birds with our slingshots (how cute!). Or go swimming in the river. When it snowed, in winter, we'd play outdoors and take pictures of ourselves. Sometimes my father took me to Beirut. When we got to the refugee camps just outside Beirut, I asked my father about them. He explained: "Son, these are Palestinians whom the Israelis drove out of their country and wouldn’t let them go back." We were fans of the Al-Nejmeh football team and of Fayrouz. I wanted to be a soldier when I grew up. I wanted to go the military academy and become an officer. In April 1975 my school closed because of the civil war. I stayed home and spent my time hanging out with my friends. We didn't talk about politics. I read a lot of comics. I even had a subscription, because I loved comics so much. I listened to the news on the radio. Then I joined the scouts, a branch of Kamal Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party. Jumblatt was revered in our home, my parents even had a picture of him in the living room. I went to the scouts meetings twice a week. There were only boys, divided in age groups. We did all kinds of social activities, harvested olives, and light physical training, which included mountain climbing, hiking and running.
I wanted to be a fighter. By then the streets were adorned with pictures of Arafat and posters of the Palestinian revolution. Palestinians were going from door to door for donations. I said to myself: "singing and day-tripping with other teenagers is not my cup of tea". So I went to see someone from the Socialist Party and told him that I wanted to go fight the Phalangists. He said I was too young. I was 13 and a half, loved action and was very motivated. Ahmed Jibril's PFLP - General Command activists were recruiting volunteers for training from our villages. I approached one of them and persuaded him to enroll me. Every day at 5 p.m. a minivan would picked me up from home and took me to the training camp, where I shot my first gun, a Kalashnikov. It was amazing.
My family knew nothing about it. A few days later my father found out. He was a peaceful man, who didn't want anything to do with war. He lacked the adrenaline. He saw that I was so taken with the idea that he suggested I travel abroad, to Amsterdam, where the company he worked for had an office. I told him: "Father, I'm not going anywhere." He didn't give up, he brought me some pictures from Amsterdam, but I still didn't change my mind. We started arguing at home. My parents told me that I was still too young and I should forget about it. My father promised to send me anywhere I wanted to and that he would look over me. I refused.
The training – I was the youngest.
The training lasted about a month and a half. We slept in tents, 60 young men to a tent, regardless of our affiliation. The Popular Front trained us all. Anybody was free to join. First we practiced crawling and rope climbing. The political officer in the camp taught us about ideology. He showed us movies about Israel in 1948 and 1967. We were high on Yom Kippur stories, on how we shattered the myth of the invincible Israeli soldier. We read brochures about terrorist raids on Kibbutz Shamir (June 13th, 1974, three women killed), Kiryat Shmone (April 11th, 1974, 18 people killed, among them eight children) and Ma'alot (May 15th, 1974, 27 killed among them 21 children). I felt deep admiration for them, but I did not want to be like them.
At the end of the course, the chief instructor told us that we could join the Popular Front if we wanted to. I asked to be admitted and I was referred to the admission committee. There were five members in the committee, all in military uniforms, but without ranks, because it was a Marxist ideological organization. There was no saluting. The questions were really annoying: "Do you believe in the suffering of the Palestinian people?", "Why do you want to join?" Still I provided them with answers. In the end they told me I was admitted. They promised to send me an official letter with instructions on where to report for weapons. They took a blood sample and gave me a military card, which bore the organization logo, two guns and the inscription "Palestine Popular Front". In it they wrote down my blood type, my personal ID and rank: combat soldier. Part of the resistance was choosing a nom de guerre. Mine was Nabil Ahmed Kassem, personal ID: 8053.
The group split in October 1976. Jibril stuck with the original name. We became the Palestine Liberation Front. Abu Abbas, who had been in charge of propaganda until the split, became the military commander. I was sent to an officer training course where I studied tactics, topography, use of weapons, engineering and communications. There was also "ideology training" by a commissar. His lectures soon became ideological indoctrination, as part of the philosophy of an organization sending troops to the battle field: boosting motivation, instilling hatred against the enemy, getting the troops to fight the enemy at all costs. For three months we wandered from place to place, in trucks, so that the Israelis wouldn't find us. Home visits were not allowed during the course. There were about 20 of us, because it was a small organization, 500 members or so.
I graduated seventh. I was the youngest, barely 15. The top three were presented with 9 mm handguns on graduation. I received "Ten Days that Shook the World", about the bolshevik revolution.
The failure - one year in Jordanian prison.
The plan was to hijack a bus: one gets on through the front door, the second one through the back door and the third stands guard outside the bus. I was supposed to deal with the driver: "Stop the bus! Stop driving! Don't move! Listen to my instructions!" in Arabic, of course. We were unit no. 9, the elite commando (reference to the Sayeret Matkal) under Abu-Abbas' direct command. Whoever made it to this unit was a candidate for an "operation" in Israel. I was admitted "on trial", because I was so young. I had begged them to take me.
We trained in an isolated camp on the outskirts of Tyre for a month and a half. We practiced shooting at buses and crossing rivers. We crossed the Litani in preparation for crossing the Jordan. The first member of the group crossed the river with a rope and a handgun. When he got to the other side he tied the rope so that the second one could hold on to the rope and transfer all the weapons to the other side. We also learned how to detonate explosive belts: each one of us was equipped with one in case negotiations with the Israelis failed.
We were to demand the release of 20 prisoners, among them Kozo Okomoto. The main part of the training was psychological prepping on how to conduct negotiations: how the Israelis would react, how they would try to stall for time. They brought in a specialist who taught us how to circumvent the Israeli attempts to drag us into long conversations.
We had our pictures taken and drew up our wills. On January 31st 1978 we traveled to Damascus via Beirut. In Damascus we took a cab to Jordan. According to the plan, we were supposed to meet someone in Rabat Ammon who would take us to the border. We were to cross the Jordan River and to come out of the water 4-6 km between Beit-Shean and Tiberias. There we would change clothes and walk until we came across a bus. But as soon as we reached Jordan, we were picked up by Jordanian security during passport control. They must have been tipped off. We were tortured and beaten to a pulp for 17 days. Then they took us to the Intelligence Bureau in Rabat Ammon and then to prison.
The Jordanians sentenced us to 11 months in jail. I was released on Christmas day. I went back to Beirut. Everyone at home was crying. My father told me to go anywhere in the world and to stop fighting. He tried everything in his power to stop me from rejoining the organization, but I wasn't listening. I was given an unlimited leave of absence from the organization. They told me to come back when I was good and ready. One week later I told them I was coming back. They suggested I join the infantry divisions and leave unit no. 9. They said I had done enough already. But I insisted to go back to unit no. 9. They told me to start preparing for the next mission, this time from the sea.
The commander – a maritime attack.
I chose three members for my crew: Abdel Majeed Asslan nicknamed Majed, Mhanna al-Muayed aka Muhammad Ali, and Ahmed al-Abras – Abu-Assad. I was the commander.
In the beginning of January 1979 we started to train at sea. The four of us were trained by two instructors, both of them Palestinians: one of them had taken a seafaring course in Pakistan, and the other one was a specialist in maritime warfare. First we learned how to swim really well. They took us out to sea, farther and farther, night and day. First we only had our clothes on. Then, all sorts of equipment were gradually added: weapons, backpacks, life jackets. I loved the sea, especially at night. At first I was afraid because it felt like I was inside a black ball. They take you out to sea, far from the shore, where the water is deep and you can't see the shore. When you are out there in a small dinghy you feel you are inside a globe of darkness.
When we had mastered swimming, we moved on to rowing: how to row as a foursome, how to steer, technical stuff. Everyday we increased the distance to be ready in case the engine broke down or if we had to switch it off. We had a light rubber boat. It took a while to sail it properly with all four of us in it plus the equipment. It kept capsizing all the time. We put the equipment in the middle and then sat down, two of us on each side. Then they installed seats, so we would be more comfortable.
Several infiltration attempts by Fatah failed at that time, so we also drilled fighting at sea. The instructors would throw large barrels into the sea and we had to shoot them while the boat was moving. They would encourage us: "If you don’t make it to Israel, at least you will be able to fight it out at sea. Do your best!"
We used to talk about the Israeli Navy all the time and their Daburs. We gathered intelligence on them at night. They would advance as far as Rosh-Hanikra, kill their engines and spy on Lebanon with binoculars. Every evening I'd summarize my observations in a report. On the first night I forgot to bring paper, so when I reached for my notebook, I realized I had only brought a pencil. But there were some paper bags filled with fruit, so I wrote my report on them. When I returned to shore in the morning I couldn't read anything I had written. I was admonished by my superiors. The following three nights I brought white sheets of paper and blue pens. All night long I took notes of what I saw. In the morning I would arrange the notes: patrols, when they arrived and when they left, if they fired flares, how many and how often. The Daburs were always out at sea. I suggested we better stay close to the shore, say 50-60 meters, because the Israelis were patrolling the deep waters and ignoring the shores. That way we wouldn't get caught.
The mission – to kill civilians.
An additional instructor joined us for the ground operation, to help us with our marksmanship. We practiced shooting at stationary and mobile targets, so we could target passing cars. The instructor would let a barrel roll downhill and we had to hit it with RPG fire. We practiced breaking into houses, how to go about it, how to secure a building. It was clear we were targeting civilians.
In March, while still drilling, we recorded our wills. Each of us wrote down what he wanted to say and the political instructor made technical corrections. I wrote: "To all my friends in the Palestinian organizations. Today I sacrifice myself for the Palestinian cause. I take my leave of you today and I ask that this will only escalate the struggle for our people and our freedom. We seek peace and this is the way to achieve the peace we believe in. I am going on a mission today on behalf of all the Palestinian mothers, their happiness and their future. I am going on a mission today on behalf of all the Palestinian fathers and I hope that my actions help them return to their motherland in the future, so that all Palestinian families can live and raise their children in peace. Peace to you all."
Two weeks before the action Abu-Abbas came to see us training. He took me aside and told me: "Your objective is Nahariya." I was supposed to kept it a secret even from my comrades. I traveled to the organization's war room in Beirut. Abu-Abbas brought me maps of Nahariya and a file containing everything I had to know about the place. "Land on the beach", he said, "and make sure your raid is a big one, with a lot of noise, kidnap someone and come back." We had tea together. He went into more detail. "In the initial stage of your mission you have to hit a car", he continued, "because the Israelis hit a car with our people from the General Command in 1978, as part of Operation Litani. Any vehicle that comes by, hit it! Next, you walk to a building, preferably a multiple storey one, secure it, take hostages and come back to Lebanon." It was obvious that we had to kill civilians. The term we used for it was "hurt Israelis". We considered every Israeli a soldier who is on leave for 11 months every year.
We talked at length about the operation, Abu-Abbas and I. He told me that chances were 99% that we would not return. The day before we were scheduled to leave, I went home. I arrived around 8 p.m. My father had just returned from Saudi Arabia and my mother had cooked a big dinner. We sat together and talked. I knew it was my last visit home, that I would not survive the mission. I didn't tell them anything. I went to my room. It was full of pictures from my school days. There were books, a tape recorder and comics. Then I went to the nursery. Bassem, my one-year-old brother, and Tamiss, my two-and-a-half-year-old sister, were asleep. I kissed them and went back to the living room. I kissed my mother, my father and my brothers. They walked me to the road. I got into the car and went on my way, to Beirut.
Nahariya – a multi-storey building.
The mission code name was al-Nasser, after the former Egyptian president. This was after Saadat had gone to Israel. We departed on the night between April 20th and 21st, 1979, at 8 p.m. We bid farewell to Abu-Abbas on the beach in Tyre. He hugged us. When we got to Rosh Hanikra the engine broke down. We rowed back. I went back to the beach and hollered: "What technician put the engine in this boat?" I was sure someone had snitched on us. Abu-Abbas calmed me down. I stayed on the beach with him. Abu-Abbas, the technicians and I. We took the engine apart and fixed the problem. It was something technical.
The following night we set out again, about 10 p.m. It was a cold and stormy night. We were at sea for about four hours. We advanced slowly, because if you go too fast the boat bounces and the wake can give you away. As we passed Rosh Hanikra we saw the Navy patrol boat with searchlights. I gave the order to duck and killed the engine. It was a critical moment. But they didn’t see us, so we moved on.
We arrived at 2 a.m. We looked for a dark spot for the landing. There were yellow lights everywhere. Finally I found a suitable spot, at the edge of town. I told my team to prepare for landing. Majed was the first off the boat. I threw him a rope and he tied it to the rocks on the beach. I jumped out after him. The other two stayed on the boat so we could unload the equipment. Each of us had a backpack. I covered Majed while he put his backpack on, then he covered me. Then the two of us covered the other two.
We drank some water. I inspected the other three, checked the equipment. Abd-el-Majid had the shoulder-held rocket-launcher, six grenades, ground rocket launcher, rockets, a Kalashnikov with four magazines, four hand grenades and a revolver. Ali had a Kalashnikov with ten magazines, five anti-tank grenades, five anti-personnel grenades, ten hand grenades and a revolver. Abras had the PK machine gun with 1,500 bullets and a hand gun. I had a Kalashnikov with ten magazines, ten hand grenades, a German Spiegel with a silencer and a hand gun. Each of us had an explosive belt. I also had a walkie-talkie.
We started walking along a dirt path. We were dressed as civilians and wore Palladium shoes. We had no idea where we were or what Nahariya was supposed to look like. At the end of the path we saw some trees and a road. Across the road there were some villas and a little farther away a three-storey building. We approached the road.
We waited for a car to drive by. A quarter of an hour passed but no car. We were wet and cold. I said: "Let's go knock on the door of the villa. People will suspect something is amiss and will call the police." There was a large villa not far from the road. Majed, my deputy, and I approached it. First we checked the license plates of the cars, to make sure they were yellow and that we were in Israel. A previous group had landed in Syria by mistake. We knocked on the door, in fact we pounded really loud. A woman answered the intercom, in Hebrew. I started talking with the others in Arabic, so she could hear us. We knocked some more, we wanted her to understand something was wrong.
A few minutes later we heard a car approaching. The woman must have panicked and called the police, just as we wanted. We went back to the road, my deputy and I. We stood there: Ahmed with the machine gun in the middle, between Muhammad Ali and Majid, and me in front of them. The auto stopped. Officer Eliahu Shahar got out of the car and fired two shots in the air. We started shooting at the car. I took careful aim, I wanted it to be perfect. I mean the thing we had to do about the vehicle. I fired some 30 rounds at the car alone. Then we launched an RPG. One grenade hit under the driver's door. There was a flash, then silence. The cop was dead. We didn't confirm the kill. I assumed that nobody could survive a hit like that. A bomb can melt a car. Later on we found out that there had been two more cops who managed to get out of the car, and another one who was wounded. We waited a little longer to make sure there was no sound from the car, then I said "Let's go!”.
During the briefing in Lebanon they told us not to go too far away from the boat. There were plenty of villas near the beach, South African immigrants, but we had been told to go for an apartment building. So I directed my men to the three-storey building I had seen before. Abras and Ali remained downstairs, near the entrance. Majed and I went up the stairs. I wanted to take two or three hostages. We could go up or down the stairs, but I decided to go up. It was like opening a road. We wanted to create "sterile areas". We started in the middle, on the second floor. We broke into the flat that was right in front of us. We kicked the door down and went into the flat. I told Majed to go to the right while I went to the left. Majed opened the bedroom door. Someone fired at him from inside the room, two shots in the forehead. Someone must have heard us shooting at the car and was ready for us. Majed managed to say "I was shot" and collapsed. I went to the bedroom and saw the man who had shot Majed, still holding his gun. He was an older looking man, with a long nose. I could tell he had just woken from his sleep. He was wearing pajamas (Samir says "sleeping clothes"). I pulled the trigger on my gun with the silencer, but nothing happened. I tried again, but it was jammed. I tried the Kalashnikov but the safety was on. That was one lucky man. I shouted to the men downstairs: "Come up here, one of you!” Ali came up. I told him to throw a grenade while I fixed the Kalashnikov. After the explosion the room was dark and the man was gone. I thought he was dead, but I fired into the room anyway, just to be sure. I didn't hear a sound. The stairway was dark, but I could see the lights were on in the flat downstairs. We went down the stairs and kicked the door open. That was were the Harans lived.
The murder – why we didn't kill ourselves.
We entered the room. The door was open. Dan Haran was standing there, staring. The little girl was there with him. When we walked in, he was sitting on the bed, as if waiting for someone. As soon as we were in, he stood up. He started talking to me in English. I didn't understand much, just a few words. He was trying to ask me not to hurt him. I told my comrade (in Arabic) not to shoot. I gestured to him to remain calm. I told him to come with me. He responded in English and Hebrew, mixing words. He grabbed his girl and held her tight. The girl was quiet, just a little girl. She was wearing pajamas. He held her in his arms, close to him. I tried to explain to him that I wanted him to leaver her there. He didn’t understand my Arabic. I tried to gesture. I signaled with my hands to put the girl down and come with me. He didn’t want to. I said to him: "Come!", but he didn’t want to. He just didn't want to. I understood that he was stalling for time, waiting for the Israeli forces to arrive. He was scared.
My colleague, Muhammad Ali, wanted to get it over with. Why wait? I tried to explain to Haran once more, in Arabic and sign language. Finally he understood, but he refused. I tried to pull the girl from his arms. There was already gunfire outside the building. I looked at my watch twice, it was almost 2:45 a.m. I said: "We're late because of him. I grabbed by the hand, but the little girl was clinging to him. I said: "Yaalla, emshi, emshi!" (c'mon, go, go!). We went out the building, the girl still in her father's arms.
We walked the two-three minutes to the beach. One of us was leading the way, Haran behind him, his little girls in his arms, then me, and the other one behind me, for cover. Haran was trying to delay us, he was talking all the time. He stopped walking and talked. We were supposed to go back to the boat. Our people were waiting for us in Lebanon. While we were walking I heard gunshots. I asked Abras where they were coming from. He couldn't tell. When we got close to the boat I heard voices, a commotion. They started shooting in our direction, but not quite at us. We could hear the bullets shrieking in the air, but their aim was poor.
Then we reached the rocks. I said to Ali: "Get the boat ready!" He got into the boat with Danny. Heavy gunfire was coming at us. I returned fire, but it was not enough. Ali and Danny got off the boat. I said to Ali and Ahmed: "Duck and hold your positions. We'll return fire." One of them turned to the south, the other south-west and I turned east. Danny was behind us, between us and the boat. His daughter was sitting next to him. Haran waved to the soldiers and shouted something in Hebrew. They lit the entire area. They kept shooting at us all the time. I lowered my head to switch magazines. Haran was waving, his hands up high, while the Israelis were shooting all around. Suddenly he was hit and fell to the ground.
The girl was screaming. We hadn’t heard her before. That's it. That's the last I remember. I was busy with the gunfight in front of me, not with what was happening behind me. When I was done exchanging magazines, I saw two of them standing two-three meters in front of me, behind the rocks, holding their guns. I got up, stood straight before them, sprayed them with bullets and ducked again. They fell next to each other. And that's how it went on until dawn, 5:30 a.m. or something like that. Ahmed was hit in the forehead, Ali got killed. I was hit five times and lost a lot of blood. I couldn't focus any more.
When the shootout started, I told everybody to get their explosive belts ready. When I checked, I saw that I had the lost my battery. Ahmed had his belt on and asked me: "What, you want to explode?" I said to him: "Not yet, let's wait for the soldiers to come closer. I don’t' want to go alone." I knew that if Ahmed detonated his vest we would all blow up. The soldiers came closer, but Ahmad still didn't detonate. I can't figure out why.
What happened to the girl? Later, during the interrogation, they told me I had to admit that I had killed the girl with my gun. I told them write whatever you want. I didn’t see or hear anything. The whole thing had been such a mess and I was really focused on the gun battle. I don't mind admitting to things I did, but I won't admit to what I didn’t do."
This is the first time Kuntar's version of what transpired on the night of April 22nd, 1979 is made public. It is not what Israeli civilians and members of the security forces testified.
According to the Israeli investigation, the dinghy reached Nahariya beach at 2 a.m., and the four terrorists started walking towards the city. They first reached the Sela residence at 50, Ma'apilim street, and buzzed the intercom. The family were waiting for their youngest son who was out partying with friends. Mrs. Sela thought her son was ringing the bell, but just before she opened the door, she saw four young men standing outside her house. The heavy backpacks they were carrying looked suspicious, so she called the police. Another witness claims the foursome were hoping to break into the Sela residence and take the family hostage. Since that plan failed, they went on to the building where the Harans were living.
Meanwhile the police arrived, and officer Eliahu Shachar got out of the car and fired two warning shots in the air. The terrorists opened fire and killed him. A young man who was sitting in the car got hit in the leg. He and two other policemen who were in the car hid behind the hedges. Despite Kuntar's claims, the RPG they fired hit an adjacent wall, and the police car windshield was smashed by shrapnel.
Charlie Shapira, the Harans' neighbor at 61, Jabotinsky street, heard gunshots and went down to search the area with yet another neighbor. They didn’t see anything suspicious, so they went back to their apartments. However, Shapira forgot to slam the main door behind him. The four terrorists came out of their hiding place and entered the building. One of them stood guard by the main door of the building while the other three made their way up. When they got to the second floor, Majed burst into Shapira's apartment, while Kuntar and the third terrorist broke into the Haran apartment. Shapira, who was waiting for them to come, grabbed Majed and shot him in the head point blank. Despite Kuntar's claims that he tried to shoot him but his guns were jammed, he didn’t try to shoot Shapira, not did he throw any hand grenades into his apartment.
During the attack, the terrorists came upon the two young girls of the family living on the third floor. The girls were making their way to the bomb shelter of the building. The terrorists tried to shoot them, but the lights went off, and the girls managed to get away.
Contrary to Kuntar's claims, Smadar Haran – who was hiding with her daughter Yael in a storage cabinet – does not remember Kuntar trying to persuade Danny to leave Einat, the elder daughter, behind in the apartment: "It was a terrible, eventful night, but I find it hard to believe that such a thing happened. I don’t recall hearing Kuntar talking to Danny and telling him to put Einat down."
While the terrorists were heading for the beach with their hostages, Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Zachor came out of his house. He had heard the shots and was hurrying to the scene. "I first saw the police car and officer Shachar lying next to it. I checked for his vitals, but he was dead" he recounts this week. "Then I heard someone calling from the hedges: it was the other two policemen who had been in the car and were hiding there. They told me the terrorists had gotten away. I asked them if they had fired at them, and they said no. I ran to the beach and called for help. Immediately soldiers from the Ben-Amy base joined me and we headed for the beach feeling sure that the terrorists had managed to get away with the hostages. When we approached the waterline, they started shooting at us and I was relieved: they hadn't gotten away. We stormed forward and I heard little girl crying in a terrible voice. My blood curdled. I shouted: "Stop!", and at the same time Kuntar rose from the rocks and started firing at me. Three bullets hit me in the chest and I fell. Eventually, he told his Shabak interrogators that he twisted the little girl's leg in order to make her cry and to stop us in our tracks. And this indeed what happened. After I collapsed, the gun battle raged on."
After Zachor was evacuated, the troops were joined by Brig. General Ephraim Hiram (Pihodka), commander of the 91st brigade, just back from Lebanon. "The first thing I asked was where the father and the child were", recalls Pihodka. "They told they were out there with the terrorists. I started shouting "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!'. I organized a group of young soldiers and told them that we had to storm forward without using our guns. I told them I was aware that this was an irregular command, therefore I would lead the force. Twenty minutes later we stormed them. When we reached the terrorists, they raised their hands and surrendered. Danny and Einat Haran lay dead next to each. This sight has been haunting me to this very day. Next day I was summoned to a debriefing by the Chief of Staff, Raful [Raphael Eitan], who scolded me for not shooting the terrorists. I explained that I did not want to place this kind of burden on the shoulders of young soldiers who had been instructed not to shoot those who surrender. Only twenty years later he told me he understood why I chose not to shoot the terrorists."
The wounded Samir Kuntar and Ahmed Abras were apprehended at 5:30 a.m. Mhanna al-Muayed was killed in the gun battle. During the trial Kuntar rejected the accusations that he had killed Danny and Einat Haran, despite the pathologist testifying to the fact that Einat Haran had died as a result of her head being bashed in by a blunt instrument – in all likelihood Samir Kuntar's pistol butt. As for Danny, a number of witnesses testified that they saw Kuntar shooting him in the back. The pathologist report confirms that a Kalashnikov bullet was extracted from Danny's body. Little Yael Haran suffocated to death while her mother, who was hiding with her and a neighbor in a tiny storage cabinet, was trying desperately to smother her sobs.
Excerpts from the court proceedings.
to be continued and updated with photographs
That is why, this time I decided to read the transcripts of his conversations with Ma'ariv columnist Chen Kotes-Bar, because I need to know who the enemy is and what he wants from me. It was a spine-chilling read. I do hope the establishment also took the time to read it, I mean if they can take a second off patting themselves on their shoulders and basking in the glory of how morally superior we are by releasing more and more scumbag from our prisons. Not only are mine enemies allowed to walk free, our prisons are being blown to dust. The walls of ancient Troy…
After reading Kuntar's confessions I no longer think he is an imbecile. Much worse, he is a monster, a ruthless psychopath, a baby-killer who belongs in an off-limits mental establishment. I hope that if and when he decides to come back for another killing spree he gets shot on site. I mean not that we didn't know who he was when our courts decided to show him mercy instead of sending him off to meet his maker.
By the way, I hear that Nasr-al-shaytan wants him to run for the Lebanese parliament. I hope he gets elected. The Lebanese surely deserve him. Just as we deserve what is happening to us for voting into office the most incompetent Jews to walk the earth.
In his own words:
I, Samir Kuntar
Hen Kotes-Bar and Opher Lepler
Weekend, Ma'ariv supplement
July 18, 2008
My name is Samir Kuntar, prisoner number 562885 (I wonder whether it was tattooed on his arm in true Nazi fashion). I was born in the village of Abayeh on Mount Lebanon. My father worked as a chef for an international firm in Saudi Arabia. He was a famous, sought after chef. He would come home every two months or so, always loaded with presents: clothes, perfumes. For my last birthday celebrated at home my parents bought me a leather jacket and my father baked a tiered birthday cake for me (what, no "I grew up poor, hungry and oppressed"?).
My mother was a housewife. She was a very dominant figure. When she made up her mind about something, that was it. We were a prosperous secular Druze family, three brothers and five sisters. We had a beautiful house overlooking Beirut. We could see the airport from our balcony. One evening, in the winter of 1968, at about nine or ten o'clock, we heard loud explosions. Our house shook. We ran outside and saw large flames shooting up from the airport, lighting up the skies like fireworks. I just stood there and watched. I couldn't move. I had never seen anything like that before. It was an IDF raid (in December 1968 Israel retaliated against the attacks on El-Al planes – HKB). That was the first time I heard about Israel. I was six and a half years old.
I was a quiet, thoughtful child, an excellent student. I went to a private school. After school we used to go for walks or hunt birds with our slingshots (how cute!). Or go swimming in the river. When it snowed, in winter, we'd play outdoors and take pictures of ourselves. Sometimes my father took me to Beirut. When we got to the refugee camps just outside Beirut, I asked my father about them. He explained: "Son, these are Palestinians whom the Israelis drove out of their country and wouldn’t let them go back." We were fans of the Al-Nejmeh football team and of Fayrouz. I wanted to be a soldier when I grew up. I wanted to go the military academy and become an officer. In April 1975 my school closed because of the civil war. I stayed home and spent my time hanging out with my friends. We didn't talk about politics. I read a lot of comics. I even had a subscription, because I loved comics so much. I listened to the news on the radio. Then I joined the scouts, a branch of Kamal Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party. Jumblatt was revered in our home, my parents even had a picture of him in the living room. I went to the scouts meetings twice a week. There were only boys, divided in age groups. We did all kinds of social activities, harvested olives, and light physical training, which included mountain climbing, hiking and running.
I wanted to be a fighter. By then the streets were adorned with pictures of Arafat and posters of the Palestinian revolution. Palestinians were going from door to door for donations. I said to myself: "singing and day-tripping with other teenagers is not my cup of tea". So I went to see someone from the Socialist Party and told him that I wanted to go fight the Phalangists. He said I was too young. I was 13 and a half, loved action and was very motivated. Ahmed Jibril's PFLP - General Command activists were recruiting volunteers for training from our villages. I approached one of them and persuaded him to enroll me. Every day at 5 p.m. a minivan would picked me up from home and took me to the training camp, where I shot my first gun, a Kalashnikov. It was amazing.
My family knew nothing about it. A few days later my father found out. He was a peaceful man, who didn't want anything to do with war. He lacked the adrenaline. He saw that I was so taken with the idea that he suggested I travel abroad, to Amsterdam, where the company he worked for had an office. I told him: "Father, I'm not going anywhere." He didn't give up, he brought me some pictures from Amsterdam, but I still didn't change my mind. We started arguing at home. My parents told me that I was still too young and I should forget about it. My father promised to send me anywhere I wanted to and that he would look over me. I refused.
The training – I was the youngest.
The training lasted about a month and a half. We slept in tents, 60 young men to a tent, regardless of our affiliation. The Popular Front trained us all. Anybody was free to join. First we practiced crawling and rope climbing. The political officer in the camp taught us about ideology. He showed us movies about Israel in 1948 and 1967. We were high on Yom Kippur stories, on how we shattered the myth of the invincible Israeli soldier. We read brochures about terrorist raids on Kibbutz Shamir (June 13th, 1974, three women killed), Kiryat Shmone (April 11th, 1974, 18 people killed, among them eight children) and Ma'alot (May 15th, 1974, 27 killed among them 21 children). I felt deep admiration for them, but I did not want to be like them.
At the end of the course, the chief instructor told us that we could join the Popular Front if we wanted to. I asked to be admitted and I was referred to the admission committee. There were five members in the committee, all in military uniforms, but without ranks, because it was a Marxist ideological organization. There was no saluting. The questions were really annoying: "Do you believe in the suffering of the Palestinian people?", "Why do you want to join?" Still I provided them with answers. In the end they told me I was admitted. They promised to send me an official letter with instructions on where to report for weapons. They took a blood sample and gave me a military card, which bore the organization logo, two guns and the inscription "Palestine Popular Front". In it they wrote down my blood type, my personal ID and rank: combat soldier. Part of the resistance was choosing a nom de guerre. Mine was Nabil Ahmed Kassem, personal ID: 8053.
The group split in October 1976. Jibril stuck with the original name. We became the Palestine Liberation Front. Abu Abbas, who had been in charge of propaganda until the split, became the military commander. I was sent to an officer training course where I studied tactics, topography, use of weapons, engineering and communications. There was also "ideology training" by a commissar. His lectures soon became ideological indoctrination, as part of the philosophy of an organization sending troops to the battle field: boosting motivation, instilling hatred against the enemy, getting the troops to fight the enemy at all costs. For three months we wandered from place to place, in trucks, so that the Israelis wouldn't find us. Home visits were not allowed during the course. There were about 20 of us, because it was a small organization, 500 members or so.
I graduated seventh. I was the youngest, barely 15. The top three were presented with 9 mm handguns on graduation. I received "Ten Days that Shook the World", about the bolshevik revolution.
The failure - one year in Jordanian prison.
The plan was to hijack a bus: one gets on through the front door, the second one through the back door and the third stands guard outside the bus. I was supposed to deal with the driver: "Stop the bus! Stop driving! Don't move! Listen to my instructions!" in Arabic, of course. We were unit no. 9, the elite commando (reference to the Sayeret Matkal) under Abu-Abbas' direct command. Whoever made it to this unit was a candidate for an "operation" in Israel. I was admitted "on trial", because I was so young. I had begged them to take me.
We trained in an isolated camp on the outskirts of Tyre for a month and a half. We practiced shooting at buses and crossing rivers. We crossed the Litani in preparation for crossing the Jordan. The first member of the group crossed the river with a rope and a handgun. When he got to the other side he tied the rope so that the second one could hold on to the rope and transfer all the weapons to the other side. We also learned how to detonate explosive belts: each one of us was equipped with one in case negotiations with the Israelis failed.
We were to demand the release of 20 prisoners, among them Kozo Okomoto. The main part of the training was psychological prepping on how to conduct negotiations: how the Israelis would react, how they would try to stall for time. They brought in a specialist who taught us how to circumvent the Israeli attempts to drag us into long conversations.
We had our pictures taken and drew up our wills. On January 31st 1978 we traveled to Damascus via Beirut. In Damascus we took a cab to Jordan. According to the plan, we were supposed to meet someone in Rabat Ammon who would take us to the border. We were to cross the Jordan River and to come out of the water 4-6 km between Beit-Shean and Tiberias. There we would change clothes and walk until we came across a bus. But as soon as we reached Jordan, we were picked up by Jordanian security during passport control. They must have been tipped off. We were tortured and beaten to a pulp for 17 days. Then they took us to the Intelligence Bureau in Rabat Ammon and then to prison.
The Jordanians sentenced us to 11 months in jail. I was released on Christmas day. I went back to Beirut. Everyone at home was crying. My father told me to go anywhere in the world and to stop fighting. He tried everything in his power to stop me from rejoining the organization, but I wasn't listening. I was given an unlimited leave of absence from the organization. They told me to come back when I was good and ready. One week later I told them I was coming back. They suggested I join the infantry divisions and leave unit no. 9. They said I had done enough already. But I insisted to go back to unit no. 9. They told me to start preparing for the next mission, this time from the sea.
The commander – a maritime attack.
I chose three members for my crew: Abdel Majeed Asslan nicknamed Majed, Mhanna al-Muayed aka Muhammad Ali, and Ahmed al-Abras – Abu-Assad. I was the commander.
In the beginning of January 1979 we started to train at sea. The four of us were trained by two instructors, both of them Palestinians: one of them had taken a seafaring course in Pakistan, and the other one was a specialist in maritime warfare. First we learned how to swim really well. They took us out to sea, farther and farther, night and day. First we only had our clothes on. Then, all sorts of equipment were gradually added: weapons, backpacks, life jackets. I loved the sea, especially at night. At first I was afraid because it felt like I was inside a black ball. They take you out to sea, far from the shore, where the water is deep and you can't see the shore. When you are out there in a small dinghy you feel you are inside a globe of darkness.
When we had mastered swimming, we moved on to rowing: how to row as a foursome, how to steer, technical stuff. Everyday we increased the distance to be ready in case the engine broke down or if we had to switch it off. We had a light rubber boat. It took a while to sail it properly with all four of us in it plus the equipment. It kept capsizing all the time. We put the equipment in the middle and then sat down, two of us on each side. Then they installed seats, so we would be more comfortable.
Several infiltration attempts by Fatah failed at that time, so we also drilled fighting at sea. The instructors would throw large barrels into the sea and we had to shoot them while the boat was moving. They would encourage us: "If you don’t make it to Israel, at least you will be able to fight it out at sea. Do your best!"
We used to talk about the Israeli Navy all the time and their Daburs. We gathered intelligence on them at night. They would advance as far as Rosh-Hanikra, kill their engines and spy on Lebanon with binoculars. Every evening I'd summarize my observations in a report. On the first night I forgot to bring paper, so when I reached for my notebook, I realized I had only brought a pencil. But there were some paper bags filled with fruit, so I wrote my report on them. When I returned to shore in the morning I couldn't read anything I had written. I was admonished by my superiors. The following three nights I brought white sheets of paper and blue pens. All night long I took notes of what I saw. In the morning I would arrange the notes: patrols, when they arrived and when they left, if they fired flares, how many and how often. The Daburs were always out at sea. I suggested we better stay close to the shore, say 50-60 meters, because the Israelis were patrolling the deep waters and ignoring the shores. That way we wouldn't get caught.
The mission – to kill civilians.
An additional instructor joined us for the ground operation, to help us with our marksmanship. We practiced shooting at stationary and mobile targets, so we could target passing cars. The instructor would let a barrel roll downhill and we had to hit it with RPG fire. We practiced breaking into houses, how to go about it, how to secure a building. It was clear we were targeting civilians.
In March, while still drilling, we recorded our wills. Each of us wrote down what he wanted to say and the political instructor made technical corrections. I wrote: "To all my friends in the Palestinian organizations. Today I sacrifice myself for the Palestinian cause. I take my leave of you today and I ask that this will only escalate the struggle for our people and our freedom. We seek peace and this is the way to achieve the peace we believe in. I am going on a mission today on behalf of all the Palestinian mothers, their happiness and their future. I am going on a mission today on behalf of all the Palestinian fathers and I hope that my actions help them return to their motherland in the future, so that all Palestinian families can live and raise their children in peace. Peace to you all."
Two weeks before the action Abu-Abbas came to see us training. He took me aside and told me: "Your objective is Nahariya." I was supposed to kept it a secret even from my comrades. I traveled to the organization's war room in Beirut. Abu-Abbas brought me maps of Nahariya and a file containing everything I had to know about the place. "Land on the beach", he said, "and make sure your raid is a big one, with a lot of noise, kidnap someone and come back." We had tea together. He went into more detail. "In the initial stage of your mission you have to hit a car", he continued, "because the Israelis hit a car with our people from the General Command in 1978, as part of Operation Litani. Any vehicle that comes by, hit it! Next, you walk to a building, preferably a multiple storey one, secure it, take hostages and come back to Lebanon." It was obvious that we had to kill civilians. The term we used for it was "hurt Israelis". We considered every Israeli a soldier who is on leave for 11 months every year.
We talked at length about the operation, Abu-Abbas and I. He told me that chances were 99% that we would not return. The day before we were scheduled to leave, I went home. I arrived around 8 p.m. My father had just returned from Saudi Arabia and my mother had cooked a big dinner. We sat together and talked. I knew it was my last visit home, that I would not survive the mission. I didn't tell them anything. I went to my room. It was full of pictures from my school days. There were books, a tape recorder and comics. Then I went to the nursery. Bassem, my one-year-old brother, and Tamiss, my two-and-a-half-year-old sister, were asleep. I kissed them and went back to the living room. I kissed my mother, my father and my brothers. They walked me to the road. I got into the car and went on my way, to Beirut.
Nahariya – a multi-storey building.
The mission code name was al-Nasser, after the former Egyptian president. This was after Saadat had gone to Israel. We departed on the night between April 20th and 21st, 1979, at 8 p.m. We bid farewell to Abu-Abbas on the beach in Tyre. He hugged us. When we got to Rosh Hanikra the engine broke down. We rowed back. I went back to the beach and hollered: "What technician put the engine in this boat?" I was sure someone had snitched on us. Abu-Abbas calmed me down. I stayed on the beach with him. Abu-Abbas, the technicians and I. We took the engine apart and fixed the problem. It was something technical.
The following night we set out again, about 10 p.m. It was a cold and stormy night. We were at sea for about four hours. We advanced slowly, because if you go too fast the boat bounces and the wake can give you away. As we passed Rosh Hanikra we saw the Navy patrol boat with searchlights. I gave the order to duck and killed the engine. It was a critical moment. But they didn’t see us, so we moved on.
We arrived at 2 a.m. We looked for a dark spot for the landing. There were yellow lights everywhere. Finally I found a suitable spot, at the edge of town. I told my team to prepare for landing. Majed was the first off the boat. I threw him a rope and he tied it to the rocks on the beach. I jumped out after him. The other two stayed on the boat so we could unload the equipment. Each of us had a backpack. I covered Majed while he put his backpack on, then he covered me. Then the two of us covered the other two.
We drank some water. I inspected the other three, checked the equipment. Abd-el-Majid had the shoulder-held rocket-launcher, six grenades, ground rocket launcher, rockets, a Kalashnikov with four magazines, four hand grenades and a revolver. Ali had a Kalashnikov with ten magazines, five anti-tank grenades, five anti-personnel grenades, ten hand grenades and a revolver. Abras had the PK machine gun with 1,500 bullets and a hand gun. I had a Kalashnikov with ten magazines, ten hand grenades, a German Spiegel with a silencer and a hand gun. Each of us had an explosive belt. I also had a walkie-talkie.
We started walking along a dirt path. We were dressed as civilians and wore Palladium shoes. We had no idea where we were or what Nahariya was supposed to look like. At the end of the path we saw some trees and a road. Across the road there were some villas and a little farther away a three-storey building. We approached the road.
We waited for a car to drive by. A quarter of an hour passed but no car. We were wet and cold. I said: "Let's go knock on the door of the villa. People will suspect something is amiss and will call the police." There was a large villa not far from the road. Majed, my deputy, and I approached it. First we checked the license plates of the cars, to make sure they were yellow and that we were in Israel. A previous group had landed in Syria by mistake. We knocked on the door, in fact we pounded really loud. A woman answered the intercom, in Hebrew. I started talking with the others in Arabic, so she could hear us. We knocked some more, we wanted her to understand something was wrong.
A few minutes later we heard a car approaching. The woman must have panicked and called the police, just as we wanted. We went back to the road, my deputy and I. We stood there: Ahmed with the machine gun in the middle, between Muhammad Ali and Majid, and me in front of them. The auto stopped. Officer Eliahu Shahar got out of the car and fired two shots in the air. We started shooting at the car. I took careful aim, I wanted it to be perfect. I mean the thing we had to do about the vehicle. I fired some 30 rounds at the car alone. Then we launched an RPG. One grenade hit under the driver's door. There was a flash, then silence. The cop was dead. We didn't confirm the kill. I assumed that nobody could survive a hit like that. A bomb can melt a car. Later on we found out that there had been two more cops who managed to get out of the car, and another one who was wounded. We waited a little longer to make sure there was no sound from the car, then I said "Let's go!”.
During the briefing in Lebanon they told us not to go too far away from the boat. There were plenty of villas near the beach, South African immigrants, but we had been told to go for an apartment building. So I directed my men to the three-storey building I had seen before. Abras and Ali remained downstairs, near the entrance. Majed and I went up the stairs. I wanted to take two or three hostages. We could go up or down the stairs, but I decided to go up. It was like opening a road. We wanted to create "sterile areas". We started in the middle, on the second floor. We broke into the flat that was right in front of us. We kicked the door down and went into the flat. I told Majed to go to the right while I went to the left. Majed opened the bedroom door. Someone fired at him from inside the room, two shots in the forehead. Someone must have heard us shooting at the car and was ready for us. Majed managed to say "I was shot" and collapsed. I went to the bedroom and saw the man who had shot Majed, still holding his gun. He was an older looking man, with a long nose. I could tell he had just woken from his sleep. He was wearing pajamas (Samir says "sleeping clothes"). I pulled the trigger on my gun with the silencer, but nothing happened. I tried again, but it was jammed. I tried the Kalashnikov but the safety was on. That was one lucky man. I shouted to the men downstairs: "Come up here, one of you!” Ali came up. I told him to throw a grenade while I fixed the Kalashnikov. After the explosion the room was dark and the man was gone. I thought he was dead, but I fired into the room anyway, just to be sure. I didn't hear a sound. The stairway was dark, but I could see the lights were on in the flat downstairs. We went down the stairs and kicked the door open. That was were the Harans lived.
The murder – why we didn't kill ourselves.
We entered the room. The door was open. Dan Haran was standing there, staring. The little girl was there with him. When we walked in, he was sitting on the bed, as if waiting for someone. As soon as we were in, he stood up. He started talking to me in English. I didn't understand much, just a few words. He was trying to ask me not to hurt him. I told my comrade (in Arabic) not to shoot. I gestured to him to remain calm. I told him to come with me. He responded in English and Hebrew, mixing words. He grabbed his girl and held her tight. The girl was quiet, just a little girl. She was wearing pajamas. He held her in his arms, close to him. I tried to explain to him that I wanted him to leaver her there. He didn’t understand my Arabic. I tried to gesture. I signaled with my hands to put the girl down and come with me. He didn’t want to. I said to him: "Come!", but he didn’t want to. He just didn't want to. I understood that he was stalling for time, waiting for the Israeli forces to arrive. He was scared.
My colleague, Muhammad Ali, wanted to get it over with. Why wait? I tried to explain to Haran once more, in Arabic and sign language. Finally he understood, but he refused. I tried to pull the girl from his arms. There was already gunfire outside the building. I looked at my watch twice, it was almost 2:45 a.m. I said: "We're late because of him. I grabbed by the hand, but the little girl was clinging to him. I said: "Yaalla, emshi, emshi!" (c'mon, go, go!). We went out the building, the girl still in her father's arms.
We walked the two-three minutes to the beach. One of us was leading the way, Haran behind him, his little girls in his arms, then me, and the other one behind me, for cover. Haran was trying to delay us, he was talking all the time. He stopped walking and talked. We were supposed to go back to the boat. Our people were waiting for us in Lebanon. While we were walking I heard gunshots. I asked Abras where they were coming from. He couldn't tell. When we got close to the boat I heard voices, a commotion. They started shooting in our direction, but not quite at us. We could hear the bullets shrieking in the air, but their aim was poor.
Then we reached the rocks. I said to Ali: "Get the boat ready!" He got into the boat with Danny. Heavy gunfire was coming at us. I returned fire, but it was not enough. Ali and Danny got off the boat. I said to Ali and Ahmed: "Duck and hold your positions. We'll return fire." One of them turned to the south, the other south-west and I turned east. Danny was behind us, between us and the boat. His daughter was sitting next to him. Haran waved to the soldiers and shouted something in Hebrew. They lit the entire area. They kept shooting at us all the time. I lowered my head to switch magazines. Haran was waving, his hands up high, while the Israelis were shooting all around. Suddenly he was hit and fell to the ground.
The girl was screaming. We hadn’t heard her before. That's it. That's the last I remember. I was busy with the gunfight in front of me, not with what was happening behind me. When I was done exchanging magazines, I saw two of them standing two-three meters in front of me, behind the rocks, holding their guns. I got up, stood straight before them, sprayed them with bullets and ducked again. They fell next to each other. And that's how it went on until dawn, 5:30 a.m. or something like that. Ahmed was hit in the forehead, Ali got killed. I was hit five times and lost a lot of blood. I couldn't focus any more.
When the shootout started, I told everybody to get their explosive belts ready. When I checked, I saw that I had the lost my battery. Ahmed had his belt on and asked me: "What, you want to explode?" I said to him: "Not yet, let's wait for the soldiers to come closer. I don’t' want to go alone." I knew that if Ahmed detonated his vest we would all blow up. The soldiers came closer, but Ahmad still didn't detonate. I can't figure out why.
What happened to the girl? Later, during the interrogation, they told me I had to admit that I had killed the girl with my gun. I told them write whatever you want. I didn’t see or hear anything. The whole thing had been such a mess and I was really focused on the gun battle. I don't mind admitting to things I did, but I won't admit to what I didn’t do."
This is the first time Kuntar's version of what transpired on the night of April 22nd, 1979 is made public. It is not what Israeli civilians and members of the security forces testified.
According to the Israeli investigation, the dinghy reached Nahariya beach at 2 a.m., and the four terrorists started walking towards the city. They first reached the Sela residence at 50, Ma'apilim street, and buzzed the intercom. The family were waiting for their youngest son who was out partying with friends. Mrs. Sela thought her son was ringing the bell, but just before she opened the door, she saw four young men standing outside her house. The heavy backpacks they were carrying looked suspicious, so she called the police. Another witness claims the foursome were hoping to break into the Sela residence and take the family hostage. Since that plan failed, they went on to the building where the Harans were living.
Meanwhile the police arrived, and officer Eliahu Shachar got out of the car and fired two warning shots in the air. The terrorists opened fire and killed him. A young man who was sitting in the car got hit in the leg. He and two other policemen who were in the car hid behind the hedges. Despite Kuntar's claims, the RPG they fired hit an adjacent wall, and the police car windshield was smashed by shrapnel.
Charlie Shapira, the Harans' neighbor at 61, Jabotinsky street, heard gunshots and went down to search the area with yet another neighbor. They didn’t see anything suspicious, so they went back to their apartments. However, Shapira forgot to slam the main door behind him. The four terrorists came out of their hiding place and entered the building. One of them stood guard by the main door of the building while the other three made their way up. When they got to the second floor, Majed burst into Shapira's apartment, while Kuntar and the third terrorist broke into the Haran apartment. Shapira, who was waiting for them to come, grabbed Majed and shot him in the head point blank. Despite Kuntar's claims that he tried to shoot him but his guns were jammed, he didn’t try to shoot Shapira, not did he throw any hand grenades into his apartment.
During the attack, the terrorists came upon the two young girls of the family living on the third floor. The girls were making their way to the bomb shelter of the building. The terrorists tried to shoot them, but the lights went off, and the girls managed to get away.
Contrary to Kuntar's claims, Smadar Haran – who was hiding with her daughter Yael in a storage cabinet – does not remember Kuntar trying to persuade Danny to leave Einat, the elder daughter, behind in the apartment: "It was a terrible, eventful night, but I find it hard to believe that such a thing happened. I don’t recall hearing Kuntar talking to Danny and telling him to put Einat down."
While the terrorists were heading for the beach with their hostages, Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Zachor came out of his house. He had heard the shots and was hurrying to the scene. "I first saw the police car and officer Shachar lying next to it. I checked for his vitals, but he was dead" he recounts this week. "Then I heard someone calling from the hedges: it was the other two policemen who had been in the car and were hiding there. They told me the terrorists had gotten away. I asked them if they had fired at them, and they said no. I ran to the beach and called for help. Immediately soldiers from the Ben-Amy base joined me and we headed for the beach feeling sure that the terrorists had managed to get away with the hostages. When we approached the waterline, they started shooting at us and I was relieved: they hadn't gotten away. We stormed forward and I heard little girl crying in a terrible voice. My blood curdled. I shouted: "Stop!", and at the same time Kuntar rose from the rocks and started firing at me. Three bullets hit me in the chest and I fell. Eventually, he told his Shabak interrogators that he twisted the little girl's leg in order to make her cry and to stop us in our tracks. And this indeed what happened. After I collapsed, the gun battle raged on."
After Zachor was evacuated, the troops were joined by Brig. General Ephraim Hiram (Pihodka), commander of the 91st brigade, just back from Lebanon. "The first thing I asked was where the father and the child were", recalls Pihodka. "They told they were out there with the terrorists. I started shouting "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!'. I organized a group of young soldiers and told them that we had to storm forward without using our guns. I told them I was aware that this was an irregular command, therefore I would lead the force. Twenty minutes later we stormed them. When we reached the terrorists, they raised their hands and surrendered. Danny and Einat Haran lay dead next to each. This sight has been haunting me to this very day. Next day I was summoned to a debriefing by the Chief of Staff, Raful [Raphael Eitan], who scolded me for not shooting the terrorists. I explained that I did not want to place this kind of burden on the shoulders of young soldiers who had been instructed not to shoot those who surrender. Only twenty years later he told me he understood why I chose not to shoot the terrorists."
The wounded Samir Kuntar and Ahmed Abras were apprehended at 5:30 a.m. Mhanna al-Muayed was killed in the gun battle. During the trial Kuntar rejected the accusations that he had killed Danny and Einat Haran, despite the pathologist testifying to the fact that Einat Haran had died as a result of her head being bashed in by a blunt instrument – in all likelihood Samir Kuntar's pistol butt. As for Danny, a number of witnesses testified that they saw Kuntar shooting him in the back. The pathologist report confirms that a Kalashnikov bullet was extracted from Danny's body. Little Yael Haran suffocated to death while her mother, who was hiding with her and a neighbor in a tiny storage cabinet, was trying desperately to smother her sobs.
Excerpts from the court proceedings.
to be continued and updated with photographs
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Us and Them
As I watched in horror the drama unfolding before our very eyes in Israel, and the malignant festival of necrophilia and necrophagia vampire's ball organized in the Dahya, Pink Floyd's poignant words came to mind:
Us, and them.
And after all were only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.
And then, in what must have been one of the saddest and painful moments in his life, Offer Regev, Eldad's eldest brother, stood by the freshly dug grave and eulogized his youngest brother, quoting from a Shalom Hanoch song:
A strange man, is your enemy – just like you
He suddenly wants to live – just like you
Suddenly, there he stands, in front of you,
Stubbornly alive.
You know that this man – just like you
Is in no hurry to kill himself – just like you
And it comes as no surprise that he too loves
And he too hates …
You and your enemy, us and our enemy, us and them. We who love and cherish life and they, Nassr-al-shaytan and Hezb-al-shaytan, who trade in bodies and body parts. We who need to bring our heroes home and bury them with honors, while they officiate a mass wedding between 200 odd mass murderers and a Mughrabian (Moroccan) creature. I guess in lieu of each and any one of those shaheeds getting their 72 houris, Dalal the cold-blooded murderess gets to enjoy an unknown number of bloodied and soiled terrorists. The high priests of this depraved voodoo ceremony were, no surprise, Samir Kuntar looking more and more like a force-fed Christmas pig and Nassr-al-shaytan scanning the skies for the Israeli jets zooming in on him. Kuntar and one of the other prisoners, whose names I could not be bothered to remember, look like they had been badly tortured by the Israelis – forced to shower every day, keep their hair nicely cut, and above all forced to eat chickpeas and steak, baklava and knafe.
Udi and Eldad, on the other hand, were treated fairly. Three of their fellow soldiers were killed on that fateful morning, with another two wounded in order to secure their kidnapping in a cross border attack. Five more soldiers from the rescuing force paid with their lives during the immediate attempt to retrieve them. What followed is what became known as the Second Lebanon War.
Udi and Eldad were killed during the attack or shortly thereafter. Kuntar was not only kept alive in the Nazi-like Israeli prison system, he was allowed to get married and divorced, meet his fellow terrorists from the Palestinian side of the "resistance" and obtain an academic degree. One has to admit this is torture. Udi and Eldad were unceremoniously buried. Twice. I don't think their bodies were mutilated in the sense that one perceives mutilation. But they were desecrated. Just as their coffins were dumped in front of the Red Cross ambulance meant to take them back to Israel, they were shoved into some hole in the ground, only to be dug up later and reburied. Then they were dug up again and turned over to Israel. Kuntar and the other Hezb-al-shaytans were forced to see the prison doctor before they were released. The doctor even made sure that Kuntar had received his medication. Now this is what I call torture.
I've been watching TV and reading the newspapers and I managed to put together a few things. I might be wrong, but then again I might be not.
Udi and Eldad were riding in the first Hummer. Udi was sitting next to the driver and Eldad was right behind him, on the right hand side of the vehicle. The driver, Razak Mu'adi, and Tomer Weinberg who was sitting behind him, on the left hand side of the vehicle, managed to jump out and hide behind some bushes, despite gunshot wounds sustained during the attack.
Initially, I mean about six months after the kidnapping, when he came to himself and began to talk, Razak who seems to have suffered from a severe case of shellshock, reported that when he jumped out of the vehicle, Udi and Eldad were alive. However, a friend of mine saw him sometime later him on TV (so this is hearsay, since yours truly cannot really vouch for the veracity of the report), and he in fact said that when the first RPG rounds hit the Hummer, someone's head landed in his lap. Which might explain why he went into shock for such a long time. His family reports very strange behavior which included loss of appetite, poor communication, and mostly inability to speak (no head injury, mind you). If indeed someone's head landed in his lap, whose was it? Did he not recognize it? Could this late-in-the-day testimony endorse what three independently writing forensic experts concluded three weeks after the kidnapping, namely that one of the abductees was mortally wounded and the other severely wounded? I mean one can't be much more mortally wounded than when one's head is blown off.
In any case, at one point during these two years, Nasr-al-shaytan gave some indication concerning the soldiers' fate and whereabouts: deep, deep inside Lebanon. The shaytanic look in his eyes and his vicious smile leave no room for interpretation, but at the time nobody wanted to listen and look. He may have been cynically gloating over his "exploit", but unfortunately he was telling the truth. Eldad and Udi were buried deep in Lebanese soil, in a secret location. This caused the abducted soldiers' families unimaginable anguish and only strengthened their will to push on for the swap. Unfortunately, the pain-stricken families began playing against each other.
Investigative journalist and author of several books, Ronen Bergman, disclosed in one of the shows he anchors, that based on his investigations and interviews held with relevant key figures in the affair (and I really have no idea who they are), he also came to the conclusion that one of the soldiers was dead. During a meeting with Karnit he told her about his conclusion, but she did not want to know who it was.
Eldad's father could not and would not believe the army (and not only) officials who were trying to insinuate that perhaps Eldad was no longer alive, because the families desperately wanted to believe that their loved ones were alive and would be returned to them if not safe and sound, at least in wheelchairs. But they would be reunited, and if heaven forbid, the loved one was incapacitated, then they would have the chance to shower all their love on him and take care of him and make good on all their broken promises, such as Karnit's pledge to fetch the moon from the sky for Udi, and Zwi Regev's plans to dedicate the rest of his life to Eldad, in order to compensate his youngest son, whose mother had been taken when he was barely 18. Nobody wants to believe their loved one is gone. Everybody wants a second chance to make amends. And Nasr-al-shaytan was toying with these people's hearts saying oh, perhaps they are both dead, or alive, or one of them is dead and the other is alive… To the point that these poor people were, how shall I put it, not hoping that the other one was dead, but at least hoping that their own one was alive. So they kept pushing on and on, even when it became certain that Samir Kuntar would be released in exchange. Even a few days prior to the swap, when the families were finally told the truth, Miki Goldwasser said that in a few days she would be hugging and kissing her son. In fact, the one who got to hug and kiss her son was Kuntar's mother. Poor Miki Goldwasser, all she got to hug was a coffin. Karnit could not contain her pain and bewilderment, and blurted a few words: "let me go home now and nurse my pain." Zwi Regev recounts a similar experience: when an officer from the Missing in Action unit of the IDF came to his house to ask for any particular marks Eldad might have, such as scars or birthmarks, he didn't understand the question. Even when he was asked to choose a burial place for his son (since the military cemetery in Motzkin where Eldad resided was closed), he refused to even consider the possibility that Eldad was gone. Even on that awful morning of Wednesday, July 16th 2008, two years and five days after the abduction, when he saw the first of the black coffins being slammed onto the ground he thought that was Udi, and Eldad was about to walk out of the black van. Or at least would be wheelchaired out. The Goldwassers must have felt the same: that's Eldad, now Udi is going to walk out of the van. Or at least will be wheelchaired out. Who can blame them? Who can give up on either of those beautiful men, young, smart, kind, educated, brave, healthy, gifted, one a young husband and a first born child, the other still a bachelor, a youngest son and brother. Who would give up their loved one to the blood-thirsty shaytan? Not me.
But then I don't think I would hold an entire country and people hostage either, and I would not have the guts Miki had to declare :"The State screwed up, the State must pay." Meaning what? That we should dismantle the state and give in and up? That we should perhaps cede Tel-Aviv to the Palestinians? Haifa to Hezb-al-shaytan?
I may sound bitter, and I really don't mean to be harsh with these people in what might be their darkest hour, but what did Miki mean when she said Hizb-al-shaytan had an interest to provide medical care for the abductees and keep them alive? Was she not in Israel when the bodies of Benny Avraham, Omar Sawayed and Avi Avitan were returned in their coffins? Nasr-al-shaytan knew he would get almost what he wanted for the mangled bodies of our soldiers, because we need to honor them in their death and give them a ritual burial. But does that really mean that we must open the door for Nasr-al-shaytan to provide more of us with graves? Maybe. I don’t really know. But I remember Haim Avraham campaigning for his son and the other abductees from the year 2000 claiming that we had to do everything to bring "our boys back". I agree, we must do everything short of suicide, because we choose life. Six million Holocaust victims do not lie in Jewish graves. Most of them were burned and blown in the wind. Did that not teach us anything? Apparently not. I saw Haim Avraham at the funerals. Did he for one second stop to think that had he perhaps campaigned less for the swap to secure his son's return, Udi and Eldad would still be alive? Not to mention the other 119 soldiers who died during that awful war. Not to mention the civilians. Not to mentions those who gave their legs and eyesight and sanity. Not to mention the destruction, the million people who took to the shelters. My 70-year-old friend in Haifa who had had to run for her life up and down two flights of stairs to the bomb shelter several times a day for 34 days.
So we let Kuntar and the other four bloodsuckers walk free. One of those four had taken part in the attack. He must have surely shot or even killed one of the fallen soldiers. Maybe even Udi or Eldad. He may have abused them, hit them, denied them medical care. More Palestinian vampires are to be released soon, to appease Banki Moonbat. Just like that. Invite more terrorism and bloodshed to our doorstep. Kuntar already misses us and wants to come back to "Palestine" and smash some more innocent heads, preferably young innocent children's heads. I hope this time he gets shot on site. Visa arrangements later.
So now we hear that Hamas is emboldened and has learned something from Hezb-al-shaytan: extortion works. But I would like Israeli officials to have the guts to speak out and tell Hamas that we too have learned something from this deal: that terrorist organizations cannot be trusted. So Hamas would have to really prove that Gilad Shalit is alive: not letters or audiotapes that could have been obtained before they killed him. How about a videotaped message of Gilad holding with today's paper in his hand? Or a message for the Regev and Goldwasser families? How about a visit from a Red Cross official (no Arabs please, make it a Swiss or German employee). Until then, we should really cut Gaza off: no food or water, no electricity, no fuel, no humanitarian cases. Nada. Zilch. No hudna, by the way. Declare open season in Gaza until a clear sign from Gilad is obtained. The international community you say? Who is the international community? Where were they when we were attacked?
This of course is idle day-dreaming coming from a despairing Israeli whose country is being pushed into non-existence by an increasing hostile world who cares naught about the real disasters and catastrophes plaguing this our world.
Us, and them.
And after all were only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.
And then, in what must have been one of the saddest and painful moments in his life, Offer Regev, Eldad's eldest brother, stood by the freshly dug grave and eulogized his youngest brother, quoting from a Shalom Hanoch song:
A strange man, is your enemy – just like you
He suddenly wants to live – just like you
Suddenly, there he stands, in front of you,
Stubbornly alive.
You know that this man – just like you
Is in no hurry to kill himself – just like you
And it comes as no surprise that he too loves
And he too hates …
You and your enemy, us and our enemy, us and them. We who love and cherish life and they, Nassr-al-shaytan and Hezb-al-shaytan, who trade in bodies and body parts. We who need to bring our heroes home and bury them with honors, while they officiate a mass wedding between 200 odd mass murderers and a Mughrabian (Moroccan) creature. I guess in lieu of each and any one of those shaheeds getting their 72 houris, Dalal the cold-blooded murderess gets to enjoy an unknown number of bloodied and soiled terrorists. The high priests of this depraved voodoo ceremony were, no surprise, Samir Kuntar looking more and more like a force-fed Christmas pig and Nassr-al-shaytan scanning the skies for the Israeli jets zooming in on him. Kuntar and one of the other prisoners, whose names I could not be bothered to remember, look like they had been badly tortured by the Israelis – forced to shower every day, keep their hair nicely cut, and above all forced to eat chickpeas and steak, baklava and knafe.
Udi and Eldad, on the other hand, were treated fairly. Three of their fellow soldiers were killed on that fateful morning, with another two wounded in order to secure their kidnapping in a cross border attack. Five more soldiers from the rescuing force paid with their lives during the immediate attempt to retrieve them. What followed is what became known as the Second Lebanon War.
Udi and Eldad were killed during the attack or shortly thereafter. Kuntar was not only kept alive in the Nazi-like Israeli prison system, he was allowed to get married and divorced, meet his fellow terrorists from the Palestinian side of the "resistance" and obtain an academic degree. One has to admit this is torture. Udi and Eldad were unceremoniously buried. Twice. I don't think their bodies were mutilated in the sense that one perceives mutilation. But they were desecrated. Just as their coffins were dumped in front of the Red Cross ambulance meant to take them back to Israel, they were shoved into some hole in the ground, only to be dug up later and reburied. Then they were dug up again and turned over to Israel. Kuntar and the other Hezb-al-shaytans were forced to see the prison doctor before they were released. The doctor even made sure that Kuntar had received his medication. Now this is what I call torture.
I've been watching TV and reading the newspapers and I managed to put together a few things. I might be wrong, but then again I might be not.
Udi and Eldad were riding in the first Hummer. Udi was sitting next to the driver and Eldad was right behind him, on the right hand side of the vehicle. The driver, Razak Mu'adi, and Tomer Weinberg who was sitting behind him, on the left hand side of the vehicle, managed to jump out and hide behind some bushes, despite gunshot wounds sustained during the attack.
Initially, I mean about six months after the kidnapping, when he came to himself and began to talk, Razak who seems to have suffered from a severe case of shellshock, reported that when he jumped out of the vehicle, Udi and Eldad were alive. However, a friend of mine saw him sometime later him on TV (so this is hearsay, since yours truly cannot really vouch for the veracity of the report), and he in fact said that when the first RPG rounds hit the Hummer, someone's head landed in his lap. Which might explain why he went into shock for such a long time. His family reports very strange behavior which included loss of appetite, poor communication, and mostly inability to speak (no head injury, mind you). If indeed someone's head landed in his lap, whose was it? Did he not recognize it? Could this late-in-the-day testimony endorse what three independently writing forensic experts concluded three weeks after the kidnapping, namely that one of the abductees was mortally wounded and the other severely wounded? I mean one can't be much more mortally wounded than when one's head is blown off.
In any case, at one point during these two years, Nasr-al-shaytan gave some indication concerning the soldiers' fate and whereabouts: deep, deep inside Lebanon. The shaytanic look in his eyes and his vicious smile leave no room for interpretation, but at the time nobody wanted to listen and look. He may have been cynically gloating over his "exploit", but unfortunately he was telling the truth. Eldad and Udi were buried deep in Lebanese soil, in a secret location. This caused the abducted soldiers' families unimaginable anguish and only strengthened their will to push on for the swap. Unfortunately, the pain-stricken families began playing against each other.
Investigative journalist and author of several books, Ronen Bergman, disclosed in one of the shows he anchors, that based on his investigations and interviews held with relevant key figures in the affair (and I really have no idea who they are), he also came to the conclusion that one of the soldiers was dead. During a meeting with Karnit he told her about his conclusion, but she did not want to know who it was.
Eldad's father could not and would not believe the army (and not only) officials who were trying to insinuate that perhaps Eldad was no longer alive, because the families desperately wanted to believe that their loved ones were alive and would be returned to them if not safe and sound, at least in wheelchairs. But they would be reunited, and if heaven forbid, the loved one was incapacitated, then they would have the chance to shower all their love on him and take care of him and make good on all their broken promises, such as Karnit's pledge to fetch the moon from the sky for Udi, and Zwi Regev's plans to dedicate the rest of his life to Eldad, in order to compensate his youngest son, whose mother had been taken when he was barely 18. Nobody wants to believe their loved one is gone. Everybody wants a second chance to make amends. And Nasr-al-shaytan was toying with these people's hearts saying oh, perhaps they are both dead, or alive, or one of them is dead and the other is alive… To the point that these poor people were, how shall I put it, not hoping that the other one was dead, but at least hoping that their own one was alive. So they kept pushing on and on, even when it became certain that Samir Kuntar would be released in exchange. Even a few days prior to the swap, when the families were finally told the truth, Miki Goldwasser said that in a few days she would be hugging and kissing her son. In fact, the one who got to hug and kiss her son was Kuntar's mother. Poor Miki Goldwasser, all she got to hug was a coffin. Karnit could not contain her pain and bewilderment, and blurted a few words: "let me go home now and nurse my pain." Zwi Regev recounts a similar experience: when an officer from the Missing in Action unit of the IDF came to his house to ask for any particular marks Eldad might have, such as scars or birthmarks, he didn't understand the question. Even when he was asked to choose a burial place for his son (since the military cemetery in Motzkin where Eldad resided was closed), he refused to even consider the possibility that Eldad was gone. Even on that awful morning of Wednesday, July 16th 2008, two years and five days after the abduction, when he saw the first of the black coffins being slammed onto the ground he thought that was Udi, and Eldad was about to walk out of the black van. Or at least would be wheelchaired out. The Goldwassers must have felt the same: that's Eldad, now Udi is going to walk out of the van. Or at least will be wheelchaired out. Who can blame them? Who can give up on either of those beautiful men, young, smart, kind, educated, brave, healthy, gifted, one a young husband and a first born child, the other still a bachelor, a youngest son and brother. Who would give up their loved one to the blood-thirsty shaytan? Not me.
But then I don't think I would hold an entire country and people hostage either, and I would not have the guts Miki had to declare :"The State screwed up, the State must pay." Meaning what? That we should dismantle the state and give in and up? That we should perhaps cede Tel-Aviv to the Palestinians? Haifa to Hezb-al-shaytan?
I may sound bitter, and I really don't mean to be harsh with these people in what might be their darkest hour, but what did Miki mean when she said Hizb-al-shaytan had an interest to provide medical care for the abductees and keep them alive? Was she not in Israel when the bodies of Benny Avraham, Omar Sawayed and Avi Avitan were returned in their coffins? Nasr-al-shaytan knew he would get almost what he wanted for the mangled bodies of our soldiers, because we need to honor them in their death and give them a ritual burial. But does that really mean that we must open the door for Nasr-al-shaytan to provide more of us with graves? Maybe. I don’t really know. But I remember Haim Avraham campaigning for his son and the other abductees from the year 2000 claiming that we had to do everything to bring "our boys back". I agree, we must do everything short of suicide, because we choose life. Six million Holocaust victims do not lie in Jewish graves. Most of them were burned and blown in the wind. Did that not teach us anything? Apparently not. I saw Haim Avraham at the funerals. Did he for one second stop to think that had he perhaps campaigned less for the swap to secure his son's return, Udi and Eldad would still be alive? Not to mention the other 119 soldiers who died during that awful war. Not to mention the civilians. Not to mentions those who gave their legs and eyesight and sanity. Not to mention the destruction, the million people who took to the shelters. My 70-year-old friend in Haifa who had had to run for her life up and down two flights of stairs to the bomb shelter several times a day for 34 days.
So we let Kuntar and the other four bloodsuckers walk free. One of those four had taken part in the attack. He must have surely shot or even killed one of the fallen soldiers. Maybe even Udi or Eldad. He may have abused them, hit them, denied them medical care. More Palestinian vampires are to be released soon, to appease Banki Moonbat. Just like that. Invite more terrorism and bloodshed to our doorstep. Kuntar already misses us and wants to come back to "Palestine" and smash some more innocent heads, preferably young innocent children's heads. I hope this time he gets shot on site. Visa arrangements later.
So now we hear that Hamas is emboldened and has learned something from Hezb-al-shaytan: extortion works. But I would like Israeli officials to have the guts to speak out and tell Hamas that we too have learned something from this deal: that terrorist organizations cannot be trusted. So Hamas would have to really prove that Gilad Shalit is alive: not letters or audiotapes that could have been obtained before they killed him. How about a videotaped message of Gilad holding with today's paper in his hand? Or a message for the Regev and Goldwasser families? How about a visit from a Red Cross official (no Arabs please, make it a Swiss or German employee). Until then, we should really cut Gaza off: no food or water, no electricity, no fuel, no humanitarian cases. Nada. Zilch. No hudna, by the way. Declare open season in Gaza until a clear sign from Gilad is obtained. The international community you say? Who is the international community? Where were they when we were attacked?
This of course is idle day-dreaming coming from a despairing Israeli whose country is being pushed into non-existence by an increasing hostile world who cares naught about the real disasters and catastrophes plaguing this our world.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Academic Jihad
Academic Jihad
Ben-Dror Yemini
Today, Ma'ariv supplement, April 15, 2008
Saudi funding is turning British academic institutions into hotbeds of hatred against the West. British academia, however, won't be confused by recent report.
Since the mid 1990's Muslims, mainly Saudis, have poured money into the British academia: 233.5 million pounds have been donated to eight major British universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. This is the largest foreign contribution to British institutions of higher learning. Although it is no secret, nobody wants to talk about it because of the academic freedom involved: not only is it permissible to teach any unfounded idea, but it is also acceptable to receive money from dark sources.
Still the relevant question remains: is there a connection between certain ideas that seem to be flourishing in the British academia and certain donations, some of them of the very dubious kind?
Members of the academia, those most benefiting from the donations, as well as those who teach, have been protesting for years: "Rubbish! There's no connection between the two." No amount of money will decide who will teach and what will be taught. No way! Money can only influence governments, not academia. Academics are angels.
So along comes a bad boy, Professor Anthony Glees, and applies himself to the task of examining the correlation between the enormous donations, the lecturers and the nature of the studies. Somehow, he concludes quite the opposite. He points out that starting with the mid 1990's, Centres for Islamic Studies have been opened in Britain, the majority of which, wonder of wonders, funded by Saudi donations. Naturally, these funds could have been put to better use, such as studying global warming, or developing new anti-malaria drugs. Not to mention finding cures for cancer or AIDS. But they didn't. Yet, members of the British academia will go on denying any association whatsoever between the money donated and the contents of the studies. Of course there is no association.
But what goes on in those prestigious institutions of higher education under the auspices of Saudi funding? Are they studying how Wahhabism is endangering the world at large and the Muslim world in particular? Are they learning about female oppression? How about the millions of innocent Muslims butchered in the name of political Islam? Seriously, let's not make the Saudis and the British academia laugh!
In order to avoid thinking that the Brits don’t believe in the marriage between money and ideology, we must now reveal that these donations had an official purpose, a political one. According to British spokespersons, the funds were meant to tackle Islam radicalisation, the one promoted by multi-culturalism. The one that allows mosques to promote hatred and terror. So what does one do? One sends all the young Muslims in the UK seeking to pursue their education to those academic centers and turns them into moderates. Therefore, Islamic money is welcome. In fact, money does not even smell. Or does it?
According to Prof. Glees' report, which is causing a bit of a stir in the UK, quite the opposite is true. And it is scary: these study centers located in the major British universities are in fact spreading anti-Western messages and hatred. Naturally, Israel must be included. And yes, the report claims that the two go hand in hand: hatred towards the West and hatred towards Israel. Radicalisation, the very thing they set out to combat, was in fact being groomed. Prof. Glees warns: "If it proceeds, it will create the very situation the Government wants to avoid: the development of self-imposed Muslim apartheid in the UK."
Officials and spokespersons of said universities are quick to retort that nothing is going to change: the donations will continue pouring in. British academia won't be confused by Prof. Glees' findings, severe as they may be. They need these tremendous amounts of money, in order to finance, among other things, studies on the nefarious influence of Jewish finances on world academic institutions.
It is interesting to note that these universities are the same ones that allowed hatred against Israel to take over their grounds to the extent that they are now supporting the anti-Israeli boycott. But there is no connection between Saudi funding and anti-Israeli feelings, or at least that's what the supporters of academic freedom of expression will have you know. Of course there isn't. And they will call for strengthening ties with the enlightened Saudi Kingdom, the very bastion of human liberties in general and women's rights in particular, while endorsing the motion to boycott Israel on the grounds of human rights violations. Those enlightened British academics will.
Ben-Dror Yemini
Today, Ma'ariv supplement, April 15, 2008
Saudi funding is turning British academic institutions into hotbeds of hatred against the West. British academia, however, won't be confused by recent report.
Since the mid 1990's Muslims, mainly Saudis, have poured money into the British academia: 233.5 million pounds have been donated to eight major British universities, including Oxford and Cambridge. This is the largest foreign contribution to British institutions of higher learning. Although it is no secret, nobody wants to talk about it because of the academic freedom involved: not only is it permissible to teach any unfounded idea, but it is also acceptable to receive money from dark sources.
Still the relevant question remains: is there a connection between certain ideas that seem to be flourishing in the British academia and certain donations, some of them of the very dubious kind?
Members of the academia, those most benefiting from the donations, as well as those who teach, have been protesting for years: "Rubbish! There's no connection between the two." No amount of money will decide who will teach and what will be taught. No way! Money can only influence governments, not academia. Academics are angels.
So along comes a bad boy, Professor Anthony Glees, and applies himself to the task of examining the correlation between the enormous donations, the lecturers and the nature of the studies. Somehow, he concludes quite the opposite. He points out that starting with the mid 1990's, Centres for Islamic Studies have been opened in Britain, the majority of which, wonder of wonders, funded by Saudi donations. Naturally, these funds could have been put to better use, such as studying global warming, or developing new anti-malaria drugs. Not to mention finding cures for cancer or AIDS. But they didn't. Yet, members of the British academia will go on denying any association whatsoever between the money donated and the contents of the studies. Of course there is no association.
But what goes on in those prestigious institutions of higher education under the auspices of Saudi funding? Are they studying how Wahhabism is endangering the world at large and the Muslim world in particular? Are they learning about female oppression? How about the millions of innocent Muslims butchered in the name of political Islam? Seriously, let's not make the Saudis and the British academia laugh!
In order to avoid thinking that the Brits don’t believe in the marriage between money and ideology, we must now reveal that these donations had an official purpose, a political one. According to British spokespersons, the funds were meant to tackle Islam radicalisation, the one promoted by multi-culturalism. The one that allows mosques to promote hatred and terror. So what does one do? One sends all the young Muslims in the UK seeking to pursue their education to those academic centers and turns them into moderates. Therefore, Islamic money is welcome. In fact, money does not even smell. Or does it?
According to Prof. Glees' report, which is causing a bit of a stir in the UK, quite the opposite is true. And it is scary: these study centers located in the major British universities are in fact spreading anti-Western messages and hatred. Naturally, Israel must be included. And yes, the report claims that the two go hand in hand: hatred towards the West and hatred towards Israel. Radicalisation, the very thing they set out to combat, was in fact being groomed. Prof. Glees warns: "If it proceeds, it will create the very situation the Government wants to avoid: the development of self-imposed Muslim apartheid in the UK."
Officials and spokespersons of said universities are quick to retort that nothing is going to change: the donations will continue pouring in. British academia won't be confused by Prof. Glees' findings, severe as they may be. They need these tremendous amounts of money, in order to finance, among other things, studies on the nefarious influence of Jewish finances on world academic institutions.
It is interesting to note that these universities are the same ones that allowed hatred against Israel to take over their grounds to the extent that they are now supporting the anti-Israeli boycott. But there is no connection between Saudi funding and anti-Israeli feelings, or at least that's what the supporters of academic freedom of expression will have you know. Of course there isn't. And they will call for strengthening ties with the enlightened Saudi Kingdom, the very bastion of human liberties in general and women's rights in particular, while endorsing the motion to boycott Israel on the grounds of human rights violations. Those enlightened British academics will.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
The Forgotten Refugees - 1,000,000 Jews Expelled
Nearly a million Mizrachi Jews were forced out of their ancestral homelands. Most of them are now living in Israel.
Jews were always at the mercy of the ruler.
The Jews are the dogs of the Arabs. Kill the Jews!
I was lucky to keep my Star of David.
The Jewish State is here to stay.
Jews were always at the mercy of the ruler.
The Jews are the dogs of the Arabs. Kill the Jews!
I was lucky to keep my Star of David.
The Jewish State is here to stay.
Israel's Message To The World
Are you sure that the "occupied territories" and East Jerusalem are the reason why there is no peace in the Middle East?
Palestine 1920/1930s?
Well, not quite the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis the "Palestinians" would have you believe.
Still looking for evidence of that vibrant society displaced by the "Nakba".
The Nakba of Arabic Jews
So you thought only "Palestinians" lost their homes when the State of Israel was created? Well, you were wrong. Besides, unlike Arabs who had to have resided in British Mandate Palestine for only two years prior to the Israel's Declaration of Independence (i.e. since 1946) in order to qualify as "refugees", Jews lived and thrived in what was to become the Arab/Muslim world for thousands of years before Islam was ever heard of.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
All in a Day's Work
On July 2, 2008, Hossam Dawyyat killed three Jews and injured another 70 in Jerusalem. All in a day's work.
By the way, he was shot to death by off-duty commando soldier Moshe Plesser.
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