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Guys, can we not make fun of posters who haven't posted to the thread yet? It's poor taste.
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“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
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This is how they got into Israel from Gaza. It looks like they may have used ISM events as a cover for moving around Gaza not much else.They coolly explained to the Israeli soldiers that they were tourists travelling with the Alternative Tourism Group, a company specialising in tours to "gain deeper insight into the difficulties facing grassroots peace initiatives in the Middle East".Comment
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Gnu makes some interesting points.
“As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
"Capitalism ho!"Comment
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Imran - you know he's gonna say it
gsmoove - Ok then. Still Israel thinks there are too much foreign people of whom we can't keep track of, who are running around in Israel / territoriesComment
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Its too bad, I had a couple of friends in the WBank I might have liked to visit a few years down the road(seriously). Gaza and the West Bank are places I'd like to see just because they've been reported on so much and they're at the center of so much trumoil. Gets my curisiosity running. Wouldn't want to be a human shield though.Comment
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Just promise you won't do silly stuff (carry bombs, hide wanted men) and we'll see what we can do
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Btw, how does everyone like my news feature - the avatar and the signature?
This way you can NEVER avoid a ME thread
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It annoys the Hell out of me, especially when I see it in my Globe thread.
I hope it doesn't become a fad.
Whats interesting is I have a friend who was a computer programmer and quit about a year and a half ago to study Islam in the hopes of becoming a full-time scholar. He studied Arabic in Egypt for 6 months but thankfully he is getting his masters in Chicago and not Syria. The article just reminded me of him.
Last edited by gsmoove23; May 2, 2003, 16:17.Comment
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Chicago?
Nation of Islam Chicago?No, I did not steal that from somebody on Something Awful.Comment
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A rather presigious university in Chicago. We josh him for being a terrorist all the time, I only hope we aren't the first targets.
He's actually black but not Nation of Islam. Very devout Muslim of the traditional Sunni variety.Comment
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U.K. police arrest 6 in connection with Tel Aviv suicide bombing
British anti-terror police said early on Saturday they had arrested six people in connection with a suicide bombing at the entrance to a Tel Aviv beachfront pub.
Three Israelis were killed and 55 wounded in the attack.
Officers arrested two men and two women in Derbyshire and another woman in nearby Nottinghamshire on Friday, police said. Early Saturday they arrested a man in London. The arrests were made under a special terrorism law, in connection with the bombing.
British citizen Asif Hanif, 21, blew himself up outside Mike's Place before dawn Wednesday in the first suicide bombing carried out by a foreigner in the 31-month-old intifada.
Israeli police are searching for another British citizen, Omar Sharif, 27, who they say was the bomber's accomplice and was also planning to blow himself up.
The attack was also the first in which the bombers crossed into Israel from Gaza rather than the West Bank, and Israel has tightened security to prevent further infiltrations.
Britain has pledged to help catch the fugitive Sharif and those who may have helped the pair. On Friday, Chancellor Gordon Brown ordered British banks to freeze the two men's accounts.
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A senior IDF officer told a briefing of military correspondents Friday that the bombing was most likely planned abroad and that the quality of the device used indicated that it was probably not made in the territories.
The officer said that the device was highly sophisticated, and contained parts not available in the territories.
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According to reports from London, British security and intelligence services might appeal to Damascus for clarification on what the two bombers had done in Damascus. Scotland Yard investigators and police officers Thursday visited the homes in England where the two resided, and questioned family members. According to the questioning, the two had been in Syria in recent months.
British sources predicted that an organization such as Hezbollah or an Al-Qaida branch are responsible for the attack. British intelligence services have vowed to support Israel in the fight again the perpetrators, and the British security establishment is working with Israel in investigating the incident.
"We utterly condemn terror in all its forms," said British Ambassador to Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles as he laid a wreath at the site of the attack. "There is and will be total cooperation between British security intelligence services and Israeli services. We will work fully to do all we can do bring those responsible for this terrible atrocity to justice."
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Powell rejects Syrian weapon proposal aimed at Israel
By The Associated Press
DAMASCUS - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday turned aside the idea of immediate U.S. support for an Arab-backed UN resolution on ridding the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction - a proposal obviously aimed at Israel.
Going into his meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Powell said clearing destructive weapons from the region is a longstanding U.S. goal, but now is not the time to address that matter. Syria introduced such a resolution in the UN Security Council on Friday.
After the meeting with Assad, Powell flew to Beirut Powell to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri before heading back to Washington.
"I think it is a goal that we have to pursue over time, and not ... at the moment of any particular declaration that might be put forward for political purposes, or to highlight the issue," Powell told reporters.
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Hezbollah TV ejected from Damascus Powell briefing
U.S. officials barred the crew of Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah television from a briefing by Powell in Syria, a TV crew member said on Saturday.
A diplomatic source confirmed that al-Manar, a Hezbollah mouthpiece, was not allowed to take part in the media briefing by Powell before his talks with President Bashar Assad.
One of the key goals of Powell's visit to Syria is to convince Damascus to stop its support for anti-Israel militant factions including Hezbollah and to conform to U.S. plans for the Middle East after the war in Iraq.
Washington deems Hezbollah a "terrorist" group and blames it for the 1983 suicide bombings on its Marines barracks in Lebanon and Beirut embassy as well as kidnapping Westerners in the 1975-1990 civil war.
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Powell was in Syria to help sell the road map, or blueprint, for negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians that hopefully can bring their 31-month violent conflict to an end. Saturday's talks are a prelude to a second Mideast trip by Powell next week for meetings with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister.
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"In every one of my previous meetings with the president of Syria, we've discussed the need for parallel tracks that may not move at the same time, the same rate, as the Palestinian-Israeli track, but it must be there," Powell said. "We are interested in a comprehensive solution that will involve creation of a Palestinian state and settling the outstanding issues between Israel and Lebanon, and Israel and Syria."
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But upon arriving in the Syrian capital on Friday, Powell said he had not forgotten that Syria deceived him by failing to deliver on a 2-year-old promise to cut off the flow of oil in a pipeline between Iraq and Syria. And future relations hinge on whether Assad's government takes sincere action in coming weeks and months toward becoming a partner in Middle East peace efforts.
Powell's agenda included a rack of U.S. allegations that Syria supports terrorism, that it sent technology and fighters to Iraq and gave haven to Iraqi officials as Saddam Hussein's rule dissolved. He also planned to call attention to the offices kept in Syria by several Palestinian factions, including the militant Islamic Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which the Bush administration has classified as terrorist organizations.
Powell said he would tell Assad that the talks the Bush administration hopes to launch between Israel and the Palestinians could blossom into wider negotiations involving Syria. One issue of importance to Syria is the fate of the strategically important Golan Heights.
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EU ministers agree to improve relations with Israel
By Haaretz Service and Agencies
European Union foreign ministers meeting in the Greek island of Rhodes agreed that ties with Israel must be improved and insisted that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat not be neutralized from participating in the renewed peace process, Israel Radio reported Saturday.
The 25 foreign minister of current and future said that Arafat was still an important figure on the Palestinian side, and that his removal from peace negotiations would jeopardize the legitimacy of the new PA government header by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
The foreign ministers also agreed to send senior diplomats back to Baghdad in an effort to push forward the reconstruction of Iraq, and said that the EU would also start to lobby neighboring states such as Syria and Iran to support the roadmap.
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British cameraman killed by IDF fire while filming in Rafah
By Arnon Regular and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies
Israel Defense Forces troops demolishing a home suspected of concealing an arms-smuggling tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip shot dead a British television cameraman late Friday, military officials and Palestinian witnesses said.
On Saturday, an IDF soldier was lightly wounded when Palestinians at IDF troops near the West Bank city of Jenin. Also in the West Bank, Palestinians threw an explosive device and Molotov cocktails at IDF troops near Tul Karm. There were no injuries.
James Miller, who was in the flashpoint refugee camp of Rafah making a documentary on how Palestinian children are affected by violence, was fired upon unprovoked, witnesses said. He died after being evacuated by Israeli forces for treatment.
"We got close to the area and filmed, but we couldn't leave because an (Israeli) tank was around 100 meters from where we stood," Abdel-Rahman Abdullah, a freelance Palestinian journalist who saw the night-time incident, told Reuters.
"We were very visible to the troops, with a white flag and 'TV' markings on our vests, but still the troops opened fire, hitting James Miller," he said.
The IDF denied troops targeted Miller, saying their operation was to uncover tunnels used by militants to smuggle in weapons from nearby Egypt for a 31-month-old armed uprising.
"Our forces found a tunnel at the house in question, when an anti-tank missile was fired at them. They shot back at the source of the attack," army spokesman Captain Jacob Dallal said.
"James Miller was apparently hit during that exchange. The Israeli military expresses sorrow at a civilian death, but it must be stressed that a cameraman who knowingly enters a combat zone, especially at night, endangers himself," Dallal said.
Rafah sees frequent Israeli incursions against the tunnels - eliciting gunfire from Palestinian militants protecting them.
But Abdullah said there were no exchanges of fire on Friday night. "We even called out to the Israeli troops in their armored vehicles and could hear them talking inside, before they started shooting," he said.
A spokesman for the British embassy in Tel Aviv said he was aware of the incident but declined to give details.
Dozens of foreign journalists have been hurt while reporting on the Palestinian uprising for independence in Gaza and the West Bank, which erupted in September 2000.
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