(no subject)
New journal; yes I make too many; I know. Oh well.
Read this if you care at all about the war.
>WE ARE IN WORLD WAR III This article is one of the best explanations of what
>is happening that I have read !! It is long but well worth reading,
> You can find more info on Haim Harari on the web.
>
>HAIM HARARI, a theoretical physicist, is the Chair, Davidson Institute of
>Science Education, and Former President, from 1988 to 2001, of the Weizmann
>Institute of Science.
>
>During his years as President of the Institute, it entered numerous new
>scientific fields and projects, built 47 new buildings, raised one Billion
>Dollars in philanthropic money, hired more than half of its current tenured
>Professors and became one of the highest royalty-earning academic
>organizations in the world.
>
>
>Throughout all his adult life, he has made major contributions to three
>different fields: Particle Physics Research on the international scene,
>Science Education in the Israeli school system and Science Administration
>and Policy Making.
>
>
>
>A View from the Eye of the Storm
>
>
>
>Talk delivered by Haim Harari at a meeting of the International Advisory
>Board of a large multi-national corporation, April 2004:
>
>
>As you know, I usually provide the scientific and technological
>"entertainment" in our meetings, but, on this occasion, our Chairman
>suggested that I present my own personal view on events in the part of the
>world from which I come. I have never been and I will never be a Government
>official and I have no privileged information. My perspective is entirely
>based on what I see, on what I read and on the fact that my family has lived
>in this region for almost 200 years. You may regard my views as those of the
>proverbial taxi driver, which you are supposed to question, when you visit a
>country.
>
>I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and some personal
>thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, I will touch upon it only
>in passing. I prefer to devote most of my remarks to the broader picture of
>the region and its place in world events. I refer to the entire area between
>Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly Arab, predominantly Moslem, but
>includes many non-Arab and also significant non-Moslem minorities.
>
>Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood? Because Israel
>and any problems related to it, in spite of what you might read or hear in
>the world media, is not the central issue, and has never been the central
>issue in the upheaval in the region. Yes, there is a 100 year-old
>Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main show is.
>
>The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel.
>The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime
>is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel.
>The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilian
>in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel.
>Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered
>his own people because of Israel. Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen
>in the 60's because of Israel.
>Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own citizens in one
>week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel.
>The Taliban control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do
>with Israel.
>The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing to do with Israel,
>and I could go on and on and on.
>
>The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally
>dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and would have been so even if
>Israel would have joined the Arab league and an independent Palestine would
>have existed for 100 years. The 22 member countries of the Arab league, from
>Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of 300 millions,
>larger than the U.S. and almost as large as the EU before its expansion.
>They have a land area larger than either the US or all of Europe.
>
>These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a
>combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and equal to half
>of the GDP of California alone. Within this meager GDP, the gaps between
>rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the rich made their money
>not by succeeding in business, but by being corrupt rulers. The social
>status of women is far below what it was in the Western World 150 years ago.
>
>Human rights are below any reasonable standard, in spite of the grotesque
>fact that Libya was elected Chair of the UN Human Rights commission.
>According to a report prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and
>published under the auspices of the U.N., the number of books translated by
>the entire Arab world is much smaller than what little Greece alone
>translates. The total number of scientific publications of 300 million Arabs
>is less than that of 6 million Israelis. Birth rates in the region are very
>high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the cultural decline. And
>all of this is happening in a region, which only 30 years ago, was believed
>to be the next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which
>developed, at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in
>the world.
>
>It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground for
>cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders
>and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region
>blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western
>Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except
>themselves.
>
>Do I say all of this with the satisfaction of someone discussing the
>failings of his enemies? On the contrary, I firmly believe that the world
>would have been a much better place and my own neighborhood would have been
>much more pleasant and peaceful, if things were different.
>
>I should also say a word about the millions of decent, honest, good people
>who are either devout Moslems or are not very religious but grew up in
>Moslem families. They are double victims of an outside world, which now
>develops Islamophobia and of their own environment, which breaks their heart
>by being totally dysfunctional. The problem is that the vast silent majority
>of these Moslems are not part of the terror and of the incitement but they
>also do not stand up against it. They become accomplices, by omission, and
>this applies to political leaders, intellectuals, business people and many
>others. Many of them can certainly tell right from wrong, but are afraid to
>express their views.
>
>The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which have
>always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present upheaval in
>the region. These are the four main pillars of the current World Conflict,
>or perhaps we should already refer to it as "the undeclared World War III".
>
>I have no better name for the present situation. A few more years may pass
>before everybody acknowledges that it is a World War, but we are already
>well into it.
>
>The first element is the suicide murder.
>
>Suicide murders are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if
>I may use this expression, only lately. Even after September 11, it seems
>that most of the Western World does not yet understand this weapon. It is a
>very potent psychological weapon. Its real direct impact is relatively
>minor. The total number of casualties from hundreds of suicide murders
>within Israel in the last three years is much smaller than those due to car
>accidents. September 11 was quantitatively much less lethal than many
>earthquakes. More people die from AIDS in one day in Africa than all the
>Russians who died in the hands of Chechnya-based Moslem suicide murderers
>since that conflict started. Saddam killed every month more people than all
>those who died from suicide murders since the Coalition occupation of Iraq.
>
>So what is all the fuss about suicide killings? It creates headlines.
>
>It is spectacular. It is frightening. It is a very cruel death with bodies
>dismembered and horrible severe lifelong injuries to many of the wounded. It
>is always shown on television in great detail. One such murder, with the
>help of hysterical media coverage, can destroy the tourism industry of a
>country for quite a while, as it did in Bali and in Turkey.
>
>But the real fear comes from the undisputed fact that no defense and no
>preventive measures can succeed against a determined suicide murderer. This
>has not yet penetrated the thinking of the Western World. The U.S. and
>Europe are constantly improving their defense against the last murder, not
>the next one. We may arrange for the best airport security in the world..
>
>But if you want to murder by suicide, you do not have to board a plane in
>order to explode yourself and kill many people. Who could stop a suicide
>murder in the midst of the crowded line waiting to be checked by the airport
>metal detector? How about the lines to the check-in counters in a busy
>travel period? Put a metal detector in front of every train station in Spain
>and the terrorists will get the buses. Protect the buses and they will
>explode in movie theaters, concert halls, supermarkets, shopping malls,
>schools and hospitals. Put guards in front of every concert hall and there
>will always be a line of people to be checked by the guards and this line
>will be the target, not to speak of killing the guards themselves. You can
>somewhat reduce your vulnerability by preventive and defensive measures and
>by strict border controls but not eliminate it and definitely not win the
>war in a defensive way And it is a war!
>
>What is behind the suicide murders? Money, power and cold-blooded murderous
>incitement, nothing else.
>
>It has nothing to do with true fanatic religious beliefs. No Moslem preacher
>has ever blown himself up. No son of an Arab politician or religious leader
>has ever blown himself. No relative of anyone influential has done it.
>Wouldn't you expect some of the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to
>talk their sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of religious
>fervor? Aren't they interested in the benefits of going to Heaven? Instead,
>they send outcast women, naive children, retarded people and young incited
>hotheads. They promise them the delights, mostly sexual, of the next world,
>and pay their families handsomely after the supreme act is performed and
>enough innocent people are dead.
>
>Suicide murders also have nothing to do with poverty and despair. The
>poorest region in the world, by far, is Africa. It never happens there.
>There are numerous desperate people in the world, in different cultures,
>countries and continents. Desperation does not provide anyone with
>explosives, reconnaissance and transportation. There was certainly more
>despair in Saddam's Iraq then in Paul Bremmer's Iraq, and no one
>exploded himself.
>
>A suicide murder is simply a horrible, vicious weapon of cruel, inhuman,
>cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard to human life, including the
>life of their fellow countrymen, but with very high regard to their own
>affluent well-being and their hunger for power.
>
>The only way to fight this new "popular" weapon is identical to the only way
>in which you fight organized crime or pirates on the high seas: the
>offensive way. Like in the case of organized crime, it is crucial that the
>forces on the offensive be united and it is crucial to reach the top of the
>crime pyramid. You cannot eliminate organized crime by arresting the little
>drug dealer in the street corner. You must go after the head of the
>"Family".
>
>If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many are afraid of it
>and some try to explain it away by poverty or by a miserable childhood,
>organized crime will thrive and so will terrorism. The United States
>understands this now, after September 11. Russia is beginning to understand
>it. Turkey understands it well.
>
>I am very much afraid that most of Europe still does not understand it.
>Unfortunately, it seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide
>murders will arrive in Europe in a big way. In my humble opinion, this will
>definitely happen. The Spanish trains and the Istanbul bombings are only the
>beginning. The unity of the Civilized World in fighting this horror is
>absolutely indispensable. Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be
>achieved.
>
>The second ingredient is words, more precisely lies.
>
>Words can be lethal. They kill people. It is often said that politicians,
>diplomats and perhaps also lawyers and business people must sometimes lie,
>as part of their professional life. But the norms of politics and diplomacy
>are childish, in comparison with the level of incitement and total absolute
>deliberate fabrications, which have reached new heights in the region we
>are talking about. An incredible number of people in the Arab world believe
>that September 11 never happened, or was an American provocation or, even
>better, a Jewish plot.
>
>You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. Mouhamad Said
>al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US forces were already inside
>Baghdad Disinformation at time of war is an accepted tactic. But to stand,
>day after day, and to make such preposterous statements, known to everybody
>to be lies, without even being ridiculed in your own milieu, can only happen
>in this region. Mr. Sahaf eventually became a popular icon as a court
>jester, but this did not stop some allegedly respectable newspapers from
>giving him equal time.
>
>It also does not prevent the Western press from giving credence, every day,
>even now, to similar liars. After all, if you want to be an antisemite,
>there are subtle ways of doing it. You do not have to claim that the
>Holocaust never happened and that the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem never
>existed. But millions of Moslems are told by their leaders that this is the
>case.
>
>When these same leaders make other statements, the Western media report them
>as if they could be true.
>
>It is a daily occurrence that the same people, who finance, arm and dispatch
>suicide murderers, condemn the act in English in front of western TV
>cameras, talking to a world audience, which even partly believes them. It is
>a daily routine to hear the same leader making opposite statements in Arabic
>to his people and in English to the rest of the world. Incitement by Arab
>TV, accompanied by horror pictures of mutilated bodies, has become a
>powerful weapon of those who lie, distort and want to destroy everything.
>
>Little children are raised on deep hatred and on admiration of so-called
>martyrs, and the Western World does not notice it because its own TV sets
>are mostly tuned to soap operas and game shows. I recommend to you, even
>though most of you do not understand Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera, from time
>to time You will not believe your own eyes.
>
>But words also work in other ways, more subtle. A demonstration in Berlin,
>carrying banners supporting Saddam's regime and featuring three-year old
>babies dressed as suicide murderers, is defined by the press and by
>political leaders as a "peace demonstration". You may support or oppose the
>Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat or Bin Laden as peace
>activists is a bit too much. A woman walks into an Israeli restaurant
>in mid-day, eats, observes families with old people and children eating
>their lunch in the adjacent tables and pays the bill. She then blows herself
>up, killing 20 people, including many children, with heads and arms rolling
>around in the restaurant. She is called "martyr" by several Arab leaders and
>"activist" by the European press. Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her
>bereaved family and the money flows.
>
>There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is called "the military
>wing", the one who pays him, equips him and sends him is now called "the
>political wing" and the head of the operation is called the "spiritual
>leader". There are numerous other examples of such Orwellian nomenclature,
>used every day not only by terror chiefs but also by Western media.
>
>These words are much more dangerous than many people realize. They provide
>an emotional infrastructure for atrocities. It was Joseph Goebels who said
>that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. He is now
>being outperformed by his successors.
>
>The third aspect is money.
>
>Huge amounts of money, which could have solved many social problems in this
>dysfunctional part of the world, are channeled into three concentric spheres
>supporting death and murder. In the inner circle are the terrorists
>themselves. The money funds their travel, explosives, hideouts and permanent
>search for soft vulnerable targets.
>
>They are surrounded by a second wider circle of direct supporters, planners,
>commanders, preachers, all of whom make a living, usually a very comfortable
>living, by serving as terror infrastructure. Finally, we find the third
>circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which
>actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but
>brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle
>operates mostly through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments
>but also through inciting electronic and printed media. It is this circle
>that makes sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable
>and that exposure to the outside world is minimal. It is also that circle
>that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the
>miseries of the region.
>
>Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, which makes sure
>that the people look and listen inwards to the inner circle of terror and
>incitement, rather than to the world outside. Some parts of this same outer
>circle actually operate as a result of fear from, or blackmail by, the inner
>circles. The horrifying added factor is the high birth rate. Half of the
>population of the Arab world is under the age of 20, the most receptive age
>to incitement, guaranteeing two more generations of blind hatred.
>
>Of the three circles described above, the inner circles are primarily
>financed by terrorist states like Iran and Syria, until recently also by
>Iraq and Libya and earlier also by some of the Communist regimes. These
>states, as well as the Palestinian Authority, are the safe havens of the
>wholesale murder vendors. The outer circle is largely financed by Saudi
>Arabia, but also by donations from certain Moslem communities in the
>United States and Europe and, to a smaller extent, by donations of European
>Governments to various NGO's and by certain United Nations organizations,
>whose goals may be noble, but they are infested and exploited by agents of
>the outer circle.
>
>The Saudi regime, of course, will be the next victim of major terror, when
>the inner circle will explode into the outer circle. The Saudis are
>beginning to understand it, but they fight the inner circles, while still
>financing the infrastructure at the outer circle.
>
>Some of the leaders of these various circles live very comfortably on their
>loot. You meet their children in the best private schools in Europe, not in
>the training camps of suicide murderers. The Jihad "soldiers" join packaged
>death tours to Iraq and other hotspots, while some of their leaders ski in
>Switzerland. Mrs. Arafat, who lives in Paris with her daughter, receives
>tens of thousands Dollars per month from the allegedly bankrupt Palestinian
>Authority while a typical local ringleader of the Al-Aksa brigade,reporting
>to Arafat, receives only a cash payment of a couple of hundred dollars, for
>performing murders at the retail level.
>
>The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total breaking of
>all laws.
>
>The civilized world believes in democracy, the rule of law, including
>international law, human rights, free speech and free press, among other
>liberties. There are naive old-fashioned habits such as respecting
>religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and hospitals for acts of
>war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and not using children as human
>shields or human bombs.
>
>Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was there such total
>disregard of all of the above as we observe now.
>
>Every student of political science debates how you prevent an
>anti-democratic force from winning a democratic election and abolishing
>democracy. Other aspects of a civilized society must also have limitations.
>
>Can a policeman open fire on someone trying to kill him?
>Can a government listen to phone conversations of terrorists and drug
>dealers?
>Does free speech protect you when you shout "fire" in a crowded theater?
>Should there be death penalty, for deliberate multiple murders?
>
>These are the old-fashioned dilemmas. But now we have an entire new set.
>
>Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage?
>
>Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital?
>
>Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests
>hostages?
>
>Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances
>to reach their targets?
>
>Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a
>suicide bomb on her belly?
>
>Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately
>behind a group of children?
>
>Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital?
>
>Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to
>another, always surrounded by children?
>
>All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you
>do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.
>
>Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that someone would openly stay in a
>well-known address in Teheran, hosted by the Iranian Government and financed
>by it, executing one atrocity after another in Spain or in France, killing
>hundreds of innocent people, accepting responsibility for the crimes,
>promising in public TV interviews to do more of the same, while the
>Government of Iran issues public condemnations of his acts but
>continues to host him, invite him to official functions and treat him as a
>great dignitary. I leave it to you as homework to figure out what Spain or
>France would have done, in such a situation.
>
>The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions about the
>rule of law in a totally lawless environment. It is trying to play ice
>hockey by sending a ballerina ice-skater into the rink or to knock out a
>heavyweight boxer by a chess player. In the same way that no country has a
>law against cannibals eating its prime minister, because such an act is
>unthinkable, international law does not address killers shooting from
>hospitals, mosques and ambulances, while being protected by their Government
>or society.
>
>International law does not know how to handle someone who sends children to
>throw stones, stands behind them and shoot with immunity and cannot be
>arrested because he is sheltered by a Government. International law does not
>know how to deal with a leader of murderers who is royally and comfortably
>hosted by a country, which pretends to condemn his acts or just claims to be
>too weak to arrest him. The amazing thing is that all of these crooks demand
>protection under international law and define all those who attack them as
>war criminals, with some Western media repeating the allegations.
>
>The good news is that all of this is temporary, because the evolution of
>international law has always adapted itself to reality. The punishment for
>suicide murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not during and
>not after. After every world war, the rules of international law have
>changed and the same will happen after the present one. But during the
>twilight zone, a lot of harm can be done.
>
>The picture I described here is not pretty. What can we do about it?
>
>In the short run, only fight and win. In the long run? only educate the next
>generation and open it to the world. The inner circles can and must be
>destroyed by force. The outer circle cannot be eliminated by force. Here we
>need financial starvation of the organizing elite, more power to women, more
>education, counter propaganda, boycott whenever feasible and access to
>Western media, internet and the international scene. Above all, we need a
>total absolute unity and determination of the civilized world against all
>three circles of evil.
>
>Allow me, for a moment, to depart from my alleged role as a taxi driver and
>return to science. When you have a malignant tumor, you may remove the tumor
>itself surgically. You may also starve it by preventing new blood from
>reaching it from other parts of the body, thereby preventing new "supplies"
>from expanding the tumor. If you want to be sure, it is best to do both.
>
>But before you fight and win, by force or otherwise, you have to realize
>that you are in a war, and this may take Europe a few more years. In order
>to win, it is necessary to first eliminate the terrorist regimes, so that no
>Government in the world will serve as a safe haven for these people. I do
>not want to comment here on whether the American-led attack on Iraq was
>justified from the point of view of weapons of mass destruction or any other
>pre-war argument, but I can look at the post-war map of Western Asia.
>
>Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist
>states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony.
>Perhaps Sudan should be added to the list. As a result of the conquest of
>Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by
>territories unfriendly to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the
>Gulf States, Iraq and the Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union.
>Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. This is a
>significant strategic change and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist
>countries.
>
>It is not surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a Shiite
>uprising in Iraq. I do not know if the American plan was actually to
>encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation.
>
>In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world today is Iran and
>its regime. It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and to expand in
>all directions. It has an ideology, which claims supremacy over Western
>culture.
>
>It is ruthless.
>
>It has proven that it can execute elaborate terrorist acts without leaving
>too many traces, using Iranian Embassies.. It is clearly trying to develop
>Nuclear Weapons. Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own
>virtuoso version of the "good-cop versus bad-cop" game. Iran sponsors Syrian
>terrorism, it is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully
>funding the Hizbulla and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic
>Jihad, it performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America
>and probably also in Uzbekhistan and Saudi Arabia and it truly leads a
>multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players, Syria,
>Lebanon and certain Shiite elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most European
>countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the
>clear signals.
>
>In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry the financial resources
>of the terror conglomerate. It is pointless to try to understand the subtle
>differences between the Sunni terror of Al Qaida and Hamas and the Shiite
>terror of Hizbulla, Sadr and other Iranian inspired enterprises. When it
>serves their business needs, all of them collaborate beautifully.
>
>It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of the outer circle,
>which is the fertile breeding ground of terror. It is important to monitor
>all donations from the Western World to Islamic organizations, to monitor
>the finances of international relief organizations and to react with
>forceful economic measures to any small sign of financial aid to any of the
>three circles of terrorism. It is also important to act decisively
>against the campaign of lies and fabrications and to monitor those Western
>media who collaborate with it out of naivete, financial interests or
>ignorance.
>
>Above all, never surrender to terror.
>
>No one will ever know whether the recent elections in Spain would have
>yielded a different result, if not for the train bombings a few days
>earlier. But it really does not matter. What matters is that the terrorists
>believe that they caused the result and that they won by driving Spain out
>of Iraq. The Spanish story will surely end up being extremely costly to
>other European countries, including France, who is now expelling inciting
>preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq.
>In the long run, Spain itself will pay even more.
>
>Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free
>elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system,
>civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to
>international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against
>defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of
>worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution.
>
>If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the most fanatic
>regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the
>most inflammatory. We have seen it already in Algeria and, to a certain
>extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if the ground is not prepared very
>carefully On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan,
>may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real
>thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not
>work in Russia and would not have worked in China.
>
>I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But the longer it
>takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more costly and
>painful the victory will be. Europe, more than any other region, is the key.
>Its understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of World War II,
>may cost thousands of additional innocent lives, before the tide will turn.
If you read all that, I appreciate your interest in this topic. I like to be up to date with this information.
Oh yeah; add me if you like. ♥
Read this if you care at all about the war.
>WE ARE IN WORLD WAR III This article is one of the best explanations of what
>is happening that I have read !! It is long but well worth reading,
> You can find more info on Haim Harari on the web.
>
>HAIM HARARI, a theoretical physicist, is the Chair, Davidson Institute of
>Science Education, and Former President, from 1988 to 2001, of the Weizmann
>Institute of Science.
>
>During his years as President of the Institute, it entered numerous new
>scientific fields and projects, built 47 new buildings, raised one Billion
>Dollars in philanthropic money, hired more than half of its current tenured
>Professors and became one of the highest royalty-earning academic
>organizations in the world.
>
>
>Throughout all his adult life, he has made major contributions to three
>different fields: Particle Physics Research on the international scene,
>Science Education in the Israeli school system and Science Administration
>and Policy Making.
>
>
>
>A View from the Eye of the Storm
>
>
>
>Talk delivered by Haim Harari at a meeting of the International Advisory
>Board of a large multi-national corporation, April 2004:
>
>
>As you know, I usually provide the scientific and technological
>"entertainment" in our meetings, but, on this occasion, our Chairman
>suggested that I present my own personal view on events in the part of the
>world from which I come. I have never been and I will never be a Government
>official and I have no privileged information. My perspective is entirely
>based on what I see, on what I read and on the fact that my family has lived
>in this region for almost 200 years. You may regard my views as those of the
>proverbial taxi driver, which you are supposed to question, when you visit a
>country.
>
>I could have shared with you some fascinating facts and some personal
>thoughts about the Israeli-Arab conflict. However, I will touch upon it only
>in passing. I prefer to devote most of my remarks to the broader picture of
>the region and its place in world events. I refer to the entire area between
>Pakistan and Morocco, which is predominantly Arab, predominantly Moslem, but
>includes many non-Arab and also significant non-Moslem minorities.
>
>Why do I put aside Israel and its own immediate neighborhood? Because Israel
>and any problems related to it, in spite of what you might read or hear in
>the world media, is not the central issue, and has never been the central
>issue in the upheaval in the region. Yes, there is a 100 year-old
>Israeli-Arab conflict, but it is not where the main show is.
>
>The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel.
>The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime
>is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel.
>The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilian
>in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel.
>Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered
>his own people because of Israel. Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen
>in the 60's because of Israel.
>Assad the Father did not kill tens of thousands of his own citizens in one
>week in El Hamma in Syria because of Israel.
>The Taliban control of Afghanistan and the civil war there had nothing to do
>with Israel.
>The Libyan blowing up of the Pan-Am flight had nothing to do with Israel,
>and I could go on and on and on.
>
>The root of the trouble is that this entire Moslem region is totally
>dysfunctional, by any standard of the word, and would have been so even if
>Israel would have joined the Arab league and an independent Palestine would
>have existed for 100 years. The 22 member countries of the Arab league, from
>Mauritania to the Gulf States, have a total population of 300 millions,
>larger than the U.S. and almost as large as the EU before its expansion.
>They have a land area larger than either the US or all of Europe.
>
>These 22 countries, with all their oil and natural resources, have a
>combined GDP smaller than that of Netherlands plus Belgium and equal to half
>of the GDP of California alone. Within this meager GDP, the gaps between
>rich and poor are beyond belief and too many of the rich made their money
>not by succeeding in business, but by being corrupt rulers. The social
>status of women is far below what it was in the Western World 150 years ago.
>
>Human rights are below any reasonable standard, in spite of the grotesque
>fact that Libya was elected Chair of the UN Human Rights commission.
>According to a report prepared by a committee of Arab intellectuals and
>published under the auspices of the U.N., the number of books translated by
>the entire Arab world is much smaller than what little Greece alone
>translates. The total number of scientific publications of 300 million Arabs
>is less than that of 6 million Israelis. Birth rates in the region are very
>high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the cultural decline. And
>all of this is happening in a region, which only 30 years ago, was believed
>to be the next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which
>developed, at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in
>the world.
>
>It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground for
>cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders
>and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region
>blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western
>Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except
>themselves.
>
>Do I say all of this with the satisfaction of someone discussing the
>failings of his enemies? On the contrary, I firmly believe that the world
>would have been a much better place and my own neighborhood would have been
>much more pleasant and peaceful, if things were different.
>
>I should also say a word about the millions of decent, honest, good people
>who are either devout Moslems or are not very religious but grew up in
>Moslem families. They are double victims of an outside world, which now
>develops Islamophobia and of their own environment, which breaks their heart
>by being totally dysfunctional. The problem is that the vast silent majority
>of these Moslems are not part of the terror and of the incitement but they
>also do not stand up against it. They become accomplices, by omission, and
>this applies to political leaders, intellectuals, business people and many
>others. Many of them can certainly tell right from wrong, but are afraid to
>express their views.
>
>The events of the last few years have amplified four issues, which have
>always existed, but have never been as rampant as in the present upheaval in
>the region. These are the four main pillars of the current World Conflict,
>or perhaps we should already refer to it as "the undeclared World War III".
>
>I have no better name for the present situation. A few more years may pass
>before everybody acknowledges that it is a World War, but we are already
>well into it.
>
>The first element is the suicide murder.
>
>Suicide murders are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if
>I may use this expression, only lately. Even after September 11, it seems
>that most of the Western World does not yet understand this weapon. It is a
>very potent psychological weapon. Its real direct impact is relatively
>minor. The total number of casualties from hundreds of suicide murders
>within Israel in the last three years is much smaller than those due to car
>accidents. September 11 was quantitatively much less lethal than many
>earthquakes. More people die from AIDS in one day in Africa than all the
>Russians who died in the hands of Chechnya-based Moslem suicide murderers
>since that conflict started. Saddam killed every month more people than all
>those who died from suicide murders since the Coalition occupation of Iraq.
>
>So what is all the fuss about suicide killings? It creates headlines.
>
>It is spectacular. It is frightening. It is a very cruel death with bodies
>dismembered and horrible severe lifelong injuries to many of the wounded. It
>is always shown on television in great detail. One such murder, with the
>help of hysterical media coverage, can destroy the tourism industry of a
>country for quite a while, as it did in Bali and in Turkey.
>
>But the real fear comes from the undisputed fact that no defense and no
>preventive measures can succeed against a determined suicide murderer. This
>has not yet penetrated the thinking of the Western World. The U.S. and
>Europe are constantly improving their defense against the last murder, not
>the next one. We may arrange for the best airport security in the world..
>
>But if you want to murder by suicide, you do not have to board a plane in
>order to explode yourself and kill many people. Who could stop a suicide
>murder in the midst of the crowded line waiting to be checked by the airport
>metal detector? How about the lines to the check-in counters in a busy
>travel period? Put a metal detector in front of every train station in Spain
>and the terrorists will get the buses. Protect the buses and they will
>explode in movie theaters, concert halls, supermarkets, shopping malls,
>schools and hospitals. Put guards in front of every concert hall and there
>will always be a line of people to be checked by the guards and this line
>will be the target, not to speak of killing the guards themselves. You can
>somewhat reduce your vulnerability by preventive and defensive measures and
>by strict border controls but not eliminate it and definitely not win the
>war in a defensive way And it is a war!
>
>What is behind the suicide murders? Money, power and cold-blooded murderous
>incitement, nothing else.
>
>It has nothing to do with true fanatic religious beliefs. No Moslem preacher
>has ever blown himself up. No son of an Arab politician or religious leader
>has ever blown himself. No relative of anyone influential has done it.
>Wouldn't you expect some of the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to
>talk their sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of religious
>fervor? Aren't they interested in the benefits of going to Heaven? Instead,
>they send outcast women, naive children, retarded people and young incited
>hotheads. They promise them the delights, mostly sexual, of the next world,
>and pay their families handsomely after the supreme act is performed and
>enough innocent people are dead.
>
>Suicide murders also have nothing to do with poverty and despair. The
>poorest region in the world, by far, is Africa. It never happens there.
>There are numerous desperate people in the world, in different cultures,
>countries and continents. Desperation does not provide anyone with
>explosives, reconnaissance and transportation. There was certainly more
>despair in Saddam's Iraq then in Paul Bremmer's Iraq, and no one
>exploded himself.
>
>A suicide murder is simply a horrible, vicious weapon of cruel, inhuman,
>cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard to human life, including the
>life of their fellow countrymen, but with very high regard to their own
>affluent well-being and their hunger for power.
>
>The only way to fight this new "popular" weapon is identical to the only way
>in which you fight organized crime or pirates on the high seas: the
>offensive way. Like in the case of organized crime, it is crucial that the
>forces on the offensive be united and it is crucial to reach the top of the
>crime pyramid. You cannot eliminate organized crime by arresting the little
>drug dealer in the street corner. You must go after the head of the
>"Family".
>
>If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many are afraid of it
>and some try to explain it away by poverty or by a miserable childhood,
>organized crime will thrive and so will terrorism. The United States
>understands this now, after September 11. Russia is beginning to understand
>it. Turkey understands it well.
>
>I am very much afraid that most of Europe still does not understand it.
>Unfortunately, it seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide
>murders will arrive in Europe in a big way. In my humble opinion, this will
>definitely happen. The Spanish trains and the Istanbul bombings are only the
>beginning. The unity of the Civilized World in fighting this horror is
>absolutely indispensable. Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be
>achieved.
>
>The second ingredient is words, more precisely lies.
>
>Words can be lethal. They kill people. It is often said that politicians,
>diplomats and perhaps also lawyers and business people must sometimes lie,
>as part of their professional life. But the norms of politics and diplomacy
>are childish, in comparison with the level of incitement and total absolute
>deliberate fabrications, which have reached new heights in the region we
>are talking about. An incredible number of people in the Arab world believe
>that September 11 never happened, or was an American provocation or, even
>better, a Jewish plot.
>
>You all remember the Iraqi Minister of Information, Mr. Mouhamad Said
>al-Sahaf and his press conferences when the US forces were already inside
>Baghdad Disinformation at time of war is an accepted tactic. But to stand,
>day after day, and to make such preposterous statements, known to everybody
>to be lies, without even being ridiculed in your own milieu, can only happen
>in this region. Mr. Sahaf eventually became a popular icon as a court
>jester, but this did not stop some allegedly respectable newspapers from
>giving him equal time.
>
>It also does not prevent the Western press from giving credence, every day,
>even now, to similar liars. After all, if you want to be an antisemite,
>there are subtle ways of doing it. You do not have to claim that the
>Holocaust never happened and that the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem never
>existed. But millions of Moslems are told by their leaders that this is the
>case.
>
>When these same leaders make other statements, the Western media report them
>as if they could be true.
>
>It is a daily occurrence that the same people, who finance, arm and dispatch
>suicide murderers, condemn the act in English in front of western TV
>cameras, talking to a world audience, which even partly believes them. It is
>a daily routine to hear the same leader making opposite statements in Arabic
>to his people and in English to the rest of the world. Incitement by Arab
>TV, accompanied by horror pictures of mutilated bodies, has become a
>powerful weapon of those who lie, distort and want to destroy everything.
>
>Little children are raised on deep hatred and on admiration of so-called
>martyrs, and the Western World does not notice it because its own TV sets
>are mostly tuned to soap operas and game shows. I recommend to you, even
>though most of you do not understand Arabic, to watch Al Jazeera, from time
>to time You will not believe your own eyes.
>
>But words also work in other ways, more subtle. A demonstration in Berlin,
>carrying banners supporting Saddam's regime and featuring three-year old
>babies dressed as suicide murderers, is defined by the press and by
>political leaders as a "peace demonstration". You may support or oppose the
>Iraq war, but to refer to fans of Saddam, Arafat or Bin Laden as peace
>activists is a bit too much. A woman walks into an Israeli restaurant
>in mid-day, eats, observes families with old people and children eating
>their lunch in the adjacent tables and pays the bill. She then blows herself
>up, killing 20 people, including many children, with heads and arms rolling
>around in the restaurant. She is called "martyr" by several Arab leaders and
>"activist" by the European press. Dignitaries condemn the act but visit her
>bereaved family and the money flows.
>
>There is a new game in town: The actual murderer is called "the military
>wing", the one who pays him, equips him and sends him is now called "the
>political wing" and the head of the operation is called the "spiritual
>leader". There are numerous other examples of such Orwellian nomenclature,
>used every day not only by terror chiefs but also by Western media.
>
>These words are much more dangerous than many people realize. They provide
>an emotional infrastructure for atrocities. It was Joseph Goebels who said
>that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. He is now
>being outperformed by his successors.
>
>The third aspect is money.
>
>Huge amounts of money, which could have solved many social problems in this
>dysfunctional part of the world, are channeled into three concentric spheres
>supporting death and murder. In the inner circle are the terrorists
>themselves. The money funds their travel, explosives, hideouts and permanent
>search for soft vulnerable targets.
>
>They are surrounded by a second wider circle of direct supporters, planners,
>commanders, preachers, all of whom make a living, usually a very comfortable
>living, by serving as terror infrastructure. Finally, we find the third
>circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which
>actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but
>brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle
>operates mostly through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments
>but also through inciting electronic and printed media. It is this circle
>that makes sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable
>and that exposure to the outside world is minimal. It is also that circle
>that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the
>miseries of the region.
>
>Figuratively speaking, this outer circle is the guardian, which makes sure
>that the people look and listen inwards to the inner circle of terror and
>incitement, rather than to the world outside. Some parts of this same outer
>circle actually operate as a result of fear from, or blackmail by, the inner
>circles. The horrifying added factor is the high birth rate. Half of the
>population of the Arab world is under the age of 20, the most receptive age
>to incitement, guaranteeing two more generations of blind hatred.
>
>Of the three circles described above, the inner circles are primarily
>financed by terrorist states like Iran and Syria, until recently also by
>Iraq and Libya and earlier also by some of the Communist regimes. These
>states, as well as the Palestinian Authority, are the safe havens of the
>wholesale murder vendors. The outer circle is largely financed by Saudi
>Arabia, but also by donations from certain Moslem communities in the
>United States and Europe and, to a smaller extent, by donations of European
>Governments to various NGO's and by certain United Nations organizations,
>whose goals may be noble, but they are infested and exploited by agents of
>the outer circle.
>
>The Saudi regime, of course, will be the next victim of major terror, when
>the inner circle will explode into the outer circle. The Saudis are
>beginning to understand it, but they fight the inner circles, while still
>financing the infrastructure at the outer circle.
>
>Some of the leaders of these various circles live very comfortably on their
>loot. You meet their children in the best private schools in Europe, not in
>the training camps of suicide murderers. The Jihad "soldiers" join packaged
>death tours to Iraq and other hotspots, while some of their leaders ski in
>Switzerland. Mrs. Arafat, who lives in Paris with her daughter, receives
>tens of thousands Dollars per month from the allegedly bankrupt Palestinian
>Authority while a typical local ringleader of the Al-Aksa brigade,reporting
>to Arafat, receives only a cash payment of a couple of hundred dollars, for
>performing murders at the retail level.
>
>The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total breaking of
>all laws.
>
>The civilized world believes in democracy, the rule of law, including
>international law, human rights, free speech and free press, among other
>liberties. There are naive old-fashioned habits such as respecting
>religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and hospitals for acts of
>war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and not using children as human
>shields or human bombs.
>
>Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was there such total
>disregard of all of the above as we observe now.
>
>Every student of political science debates how you prevent an
>anti-democratic force from winning a democratic election and abolishing
>democracy. Other aspects of a civilized society must also have limitations.
>
>Can a policeman open fire on someone trying to kill him?
>Can a government listen to phone conversations of terrorists and drug
>dealers?
>Does free speech protect you when you shout "fire" in a crowded theater?
>Should there be death penalty, for deliberate multiple murders?
>
>These are the old-fashioned dilemmas. But now we have an entire new set.
>
>Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage?
>
>Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital?
>
>Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests
>hostages?
>
>Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances
>to reach their targets?
>
>Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a
>suicide bomb on her belly?
>
>Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately
>behind a group of children?
>
>Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital?
>
>Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to
>another, always surrounded by children?
>
>All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you
>do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.
>
>Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that someone would openly stay in a
>well-known address in Teheran, hosted by the Iranian Government and financed
>by it, executing one atrocity after another in Spain or in France, killing
>hundreds of innocent people, accepting responsibility for the crimes,
>promising in public TV interviews to do more of the same, while the
>Government of Iran issues public condemnations of his acts but
>continues to host him, invite him to official functions and treat him as a
>great dignitary. I leave it to you as homework to figure out what Spain or
>France would have done, in such a situation.
>
>The problem is that the civilized world is still having illusions about the
>rule of law in a totally lawless environment. It is trying to play ice
>hockey by sending a ballerina ice-skater into the rink or to knock out a
>heavyweight boxer by a chess player. In the same way that no country has a
>law against cannibals eating its prime minister, because such an act is
>unthinkable, international law does not address killers shooting from
>hospitals, mosques and ambulances, while being protected by their Government
>or society.
>
>International law does not know how to handle someone who sends children to
>throw stones, stands behind them and shoot with immunity and cannot be
>arrested because he is sheltered by a Government. International law does not
>know how to deal with a leader of murderers who is royally and comfortably
>hosted by a country, which pretends to condemn his acts or just claims to be
>too weak to arrest him. The amazing thing is that all of these crooks demand
>protection under international law and define all those who attack them as
>war criminals, with some Western media repeating the allegations.
>
>The good news is that all of this is temporary, because the evolution of
>international law has always adapted itself to reality. The punishment for
>suicide murder should be death or arrest before the murder, not during and
>not after. After every world war, the rules of international law have
>changed and the same will happen after the present one. But during the
>twilight zone, a lot of harm can be done.
>
>The picture I described here is not pretty. What can we do about it?
>
>In the short run, only fight and win. In the long run? only educate the next
>generation and open it to the world. The inner circles can and must be
>destroyed by force. The outer circle cannot be eliminated by force. Here we
>need financial starvation of the organizing elite, more power to women, more
>education, counter propaganda, boycott whenever feasible and access to
>Western media, internet and the international scene. Above all, we need a
>total absolute unity and determination of the civilized world against all
>three circles of evil.
>
>Allow me, for a moment, to depart from my alleged role as a taxi driver and
>return to science. When you have a malignant tumor, you may remove the tumor
>itself surgically. You may also starve it by preventing new blood from
>reaching it from other parts of the body, thereby preventing new "supplies"
>from expanding the tumor. If you want to be sure, it is best to do both.
>
>But before you fight and win, by force or otherwise, you have to realize
>that you are in a war, and this may take Europe a few more years. In order
>to win, it is necessary to first eliminate the terrorist regimes, so that no
>Government in the world will serve as a safe haven for these people. I do
>not want to comment here on whether the American-led attack on Iraq was
>justified from the point of view of weapons of mass destruction or any other
>pre-war argument, but I can look at the post-war map of Western Asia.
>
>Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist
>states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony.
>Perhaps Sudan should be added to the list. As a result of the conquest of
>Afghanistan and Iraq, both Iran and Syria are now totally surrounded by
>territories unfriendly to them. Iran is encircled by Afghanistan, by the
>Gulf States, Iraq and the Moslem republics of the former Soviet Union.
>Syria is surrounded by Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Israel. This is a
>significant strategic change and it applies strong pressure on the terrorist
>countries.
>
>It is not surprising that Iran is so active in trying to incite a Shiite
>uprising in Iraq. I do not know if the American plan was actually to
>encircle both Iran and Syria, but that is the resulting situation.
>
>In my humble opinion, the number one danger to the world today is Iran and
>its regime. It definitely has ambitions to rule vast areas and to expand in
>all directions. It has an ideology, which claims supremacy over Western
>culture.
>
>It is ruthless.
>
>It has proven that it can execute elaborate terrorist acts without leaving
>too many traces, using Iranian Embassies.. It is clearly trying to develop
>Nuclear Weapons. Its so-called moderates and conservatives play their own
>virtuoso version of the "good-cop versus bad-cop" game. Iran sponsors Syrian
>terrorism, it is certainly behind much of the action in Iraq, it is fully
>funding the Hizbulla and, through it, the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic
>Jihad, it performed acts of terror at least in Europe and in South America
>and probably also in Uzbekhistan and Saudi Arabia and it truly leads a
>multi-national terror consortium, which includes, as minor players, Syria,
>Lebanon and certain Shiite elements in Iraq. Nevertheless, most European
>countries still trade with Iran, try to appease it and refuse to read the
>clear signals.
>
>In order to win the war it is also necessary to dry the financial resources
>of the terror conglomerate. It is pointless to try to understand the subtle
>differences between the Sunni terror of Al Qaida and Hamas and the Shiite
>terror of Hizbulla, Sadr and other Iranian inspired enterprises. When it
>serves their business needs, all of them collaborate beautifully.
>
>It is crucial to stop Saudi and other financial support of the outer circle,
>which is the fertile breeding ground of terror. It is important to monitor
>all donations from the Western World to Islamic organizations, to monitor
>the finances of international relief organizations and to react with
>forceful economic measures to any small sign of financial aid to any of the
>three circles of terrorism. It is also important to act decisively
>against the campaign of lies and fabrications and to monitor those Western
>media who collaborate with it out of naivete, financial interests or
>ignorance.
>
>Above all, never surrender to terror.
>
>No one will ever know whether the recent elections in Spain would have
>yielded a different result, if not for the train bombings a few days
>earlier. But it really does not matter. What matters is that the terrorists
>believe that they caused the result and that they won by driving Spain out
>of Iraq. The Spanish story will surely end up being extremely costly to
>other European countries, including France, who is now expelling inciting
>preachers and forbidding veils and including others who sent troops to Iraq.
>In the long run, Spain itself will pay even more.
>
>Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free
>elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system,
>civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to
>international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against
>defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of
>worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution.
>
>If democracy is just free elections, it is likely that the most fanatic
>regime will be elected, the one whose incitement and fabrications are the
>most inflammatory. We have seen it already in Algeria and, to a certain
>extent, in Turkey. It will happen again, if the ground is not prepared very
>carefully On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan,
>may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real
>thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not
>work in Russia and would not have worked in China.
>
>I have no doubt that the civilized world will prevail. But the longer it
>takes us to understand the new landscape of this war, the more costly and
>painful the victory will be. Europe, more than any other region, is the key.
>Its understandable recoil from wars, following the horrors of World War II,
>may cost thousands of additional innocent lives, before the tide will turn.
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