U.S. tightens information security in wake of WikiLeaks report

White House orders restricts access to classified documents; U.S. Attorney General says probe into the source behind leak of thousands of secret cables ongoing.

By News Agencies

The White House made its first reported policy change in wake of Sunday's massive WikiLeaks report, directing government agencies on Monday to tighten procedures for handling classified information.

The new procedures would ensure "that users do not have broader access than is necessary to do their jobs effectively, as well as implementation of restrictions on usage of, and removal of media capabilities from, classified government directives," according to a directive from the Office of Management and Budget released on Monday.

Also on Monday, a top U.S. law enforcement officer said a U.S. investigation into the source behind the leaking of thousands of secret U.S. military and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks was ongoing.

"We have an active, ongoing criminal investigation with regard to this matter," Attorney General Eric Holder said, adding the probe was being carried out with the Department of Defense.

Holder added that WikiLeaks used the information it had obtained irresponsibly, as opposed to members of the press and news agencies.

“I think there's a real basis… to believe that crimes have been committed," he said.

U.S. military authorities detained Army Private Bradley Manning and in July transferred him from Iraq to the United States in connection with leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. He was charged with unauthorized use and disclosure classified material relating to videos published by WikiLeaks.

He remained a person of interest in the WikiLeaks publication of tens of thousands of Afghan war-related documents.

Authorities have not said whether he is the suspect behind the publication of nearly 400,000 Iraq war military documents, or the release of more than 250,000 State Department cables WikiLeaks began publishing Sunday.

Manning was working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq at the time of his arrest and reportedly had access to classified material. Reports said the military had obtained evidence from his computer showing he had downloaded secret information.

Manning was reportedly able to access the documents following reforms after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, that made it easier for classified information to be shared across government agencies.

WikiLeaks has refused to identify any sources. A spokesman for WikiLeaks, Kristinn Hrafnsson, defended the release against charges that it could endanger lives around the world.

"We have gone to great lengths to scrutinize the information ... in order to redact the names of individuals who actually may be harmed by exposure," he told CNN.

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IRS Asked to Revoke AIPAC's Tax Exemption

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the Internal Revenue Service received a 1,389 page filing demanding that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC's) tax exempt status be retroactively revoked. The filing, submitted by the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, spans nearly 60 years, from the moment AIPAC's founder left the employment of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the present.

Two core charges are:

False Charitable Purpose. AIPAC has been investigated several times by the FBI and is currently in a civil suit over the ongoing acquisition and movement of U.S. government classified information. The filing argues that such activities reveal AIPAC does not function as a bona fide "social welfare" organization.
Fraudulent Application for Tax Exempt Status. AIPAC's original application for tax exempt status contains fraudulent representations and omissions. It fails to mention that AIPAC's parent organization, the American Zionist Council (AZC) was shut down by a U.S. Department of Justice Foreign Agents Registration Act order in 1962. AIPAC incorporated six weeks later and applied for tax exempt status, but failed to reveal that the majority of its startup funding came from Israel, funneled through the AZC.


Members of the public, state charity watchdogs and the law enforcement community may download and review the complaint summary at: http://www.IRmep.org/IRSAIPAC.pdf. For a DVD of the full IRS complaint and appendix, send an email and official surface mail address to info@irmep.org .

IRmep director Grant F. Smith and callers grilled IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman on National Public Radio January 1, 2010 over lax IRS enforcement toward some Israel-related nonprofits committing illegal acts overseas and violating U.S. tax laws. Shulman assured America that, "If a charity is breaking the tax law, is engaged in activities that they are not supposed to be engaged in, we certainly will go after them. Every year we pull 501(c)(3) charity status from a number of charities. We've got thousands of audits going on regarding charities, and so we don't hesitate to administer the tax laws and make sure that people are following the rules."

According to Smith, "By publicly filing this 13909 complaint with the IRS, we encourage concerned Americans and misled donors to monitor whether the IRS takes appropriate action. The clock is ticking."

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Israeli War Criminals

The following information was received anonymously; presumably from a member of the Israeli Military. It was presented as follows:

Underlining the following people is an act of retribution and affront. They are the direct perpetrators, agents for the state of Israel that in Dec.- Jan. 2008- 2009 attacked scores of people in the besieged Gaza. The people listed here held positions of command at the time of the attack therefore not only did they perform on behalf of a murderous state mechanism but actively encouraged other people to do the same. They bear a distinctive personal responsibility. They range from low-level field commanders to the highest echelons of the Israeli army. All took an active and direct role in the offensive.

In underlining them we are purposefully directing attention to individuals rather than the static structures through which they operate. We are aligning people with actions. It is to these persons and others, Like them, to which we must object and bring our plaints to bear upon.

This information was pirated. We encourage people to seek out other such similar information, it is readily available in the public sphere and inside public officials' locked cabinets. This is a form of resistance that can be effectively sustained for a long while.

This project for one, has only just begun, do your bit so that this virtual list may come to bear upon the physical.

Disseminate widely.

The List

The Path to Peace in the Middle East

by Michael R. Burch

The ongoing conflict between Israeli Jews and Palestinians seems to be irresolvable; therefore the current "wisdom" has become that "those people" are full of "hatred" for each other and have been "fighting for thousands of years," so there is "no hope for peace." But before we wring our hands or throw them up helplessly in the air we need to consider two very important things:

(1) People who don't like each other can live together in peace, if everyone is governed by fair laws and courts. During the Holocaust, Nazis enslaved, brutalized and murdered millions of Jews in the most despicable fashion imaginable. However, once Germany lost the war and came under a system of much fairer laws and courts, Jews were able to live there safely, even though there was no sudden outpouring of affection between Germans and Jews. The same is true for the descendents of black American slaves and white slaveowners. After the United States finally abolished Jim Crow laws and kangaroo courts, millions of white Americans soon came to the conclusion that the main problem had been racism and injustice on the part of whites, not "inferiority" or "intransigence" on the part of blacks. If Israel were to establish fair, nonracist laws and courts, something very similar could happen within a relatively short period of time.

(2) Jews and Palestinians have not been "constantly at war" with each other. The New Testament records what life was like in Israel/Palestine during the first century AD, when Roman laws and courts (the famous Pax Romana) governed everyone in the region. The Bible doesn't mention any major hostilities between the Jews and Palestinians back then. Furthermore, during the Jewish Diaspora (which lasted almost 2,000 years) there were always Jews who continued to live in Palestine. For the most part, they lived in peace with their neighbors. As the great Jewish scientist and humanitarian Albert Einstein pointed out, Arabs had historically treated the Jews much more tolerantly than European Christians had. It was only when Jews began to arrive in Palestine in ever-increasing numbers, in the early 1900s, that tensions began to mount, nerves began to fray and both sides (not just the Arabs) began to get violent. And let's be honest: if millions of Jews had emigrated to Texas en masse, informing Texans that eating bacon and driving to football games on Saturday would soon be illegal, all hell would have broken loose there too.

If we consider historical facts, it is justice that leads to racial peace, not love. And this makes sense, because fair laws and courts make it too expensive to practice racism, as lawbreakers face fines, civil damages and prison terms. Once fair courts have been established, the people willing to obey just laws can live together in peace, while everyone else ends up in jail, or broke. Wherever fair laws and courts do not exist, the result is invariably racial violence on both sides, with the greater violence being on the part of the people in power (because the law and courts are skewed to favor and protect them). This is clearly the case in Israel/Palestine today. As Nobel Peace Prize laureates Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu and more than 200 Jewish humanitarian organizations have repeatedly pointed out, Palestinians have been subjected to a system of large-scale, systematic, grinding racism, injustice and apartheid. But there is hope, if only we can persuade Israel to do what Americans, Germans and South Africans did: establish justice. If we want peace with the least amount of violence possible, the first step is to establish fair laws and courts.

But how?, you may asking. Sure, it makes sense to say that fair laws and courts are necessary for peace, but what can anyone do, to encourage the leaders of Israel to do what Americans, Germans and South Africans did? I'm glad you asked! I think the answer is surprisingly simple. In fact, it can be stated in a single sentence:

We need a new U.N. resolution requiring Israel to unconditionally establish equal rights, fair laws and fair courts for every human being under its jurisdiction, whether civil or military, without exception; the courts should be subject to peer review by judges appointed by the U.N., and they should be able to set legal precedents.

Any member nation of the U.N. can submit a new resolution, so we don't have to depend on Israeli or American politicians to "do the right thing." This is the beauty of this initiative. Unfortunately to date many Israeli and American politicians have only paid lip service to their stated ideals of equal rights, freedom, justice and self-determination for all human beings. Why? Because politicians are by nature political creatures whose greatest talent "lies" in getting elected (pun intended). They are much better at saying the right things, than at doing the right things. Doing the right things in this case would cost them votes and campaign contributions, so they do what is politically expedient, rather than what is right. But my idea takes this unfortunate political reality into account and operates through the U.N., bypassing American and Israeli politicians in the early going.

The U.S. Security Council veto has blocked past efforts by the U.N. to bring peace and justice to the region. But how can the U.S. veto the American Creed of equal rights, fair laws and fair courts? So the key is a new U.N. resolution based on the American Creed.

If Israel complies, then peace through justice becomes possible, and fair courts can settle disputes over land and water "organically" over time, even if politicians can't arrive at solutions diplomatically.

If Israel does not comply, the U.N. can impose economic sanctions and in due course Israeli voters will "vote their pocketbooks" (a worldwide democratic phenomenon) and peacefully elect new leaders more amenable to peace through justice. But hopefully economic sanctions will not be necessary, once Israeli voters and politicians understand their new reality.

Yes, the problems are complex, but the correct path, the right path, the just path is obvious. And while American politicians may never voluntarily do the right thing, we really don’t need them, and they won’t have to risk their jobs. The reform of Israel must come from within, just as it did in the U.S. With my plan, one way or another the needed reforms will come. Hopefully Israel will see the "writing on the wall" and voluntarily choose to establish equal rights, fair laws and fair courts. But even if Israel has be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, just as many Americans had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century, the results will be the same. One way or another, every nation—in order to be considered civilized—has to establish equal human rights and justice. Israel is not a "special case." The Jews are not a "special case." The Palestinians are not a "special case." And no, Americans, are not a "special case." Americans need to practice what they preach abroad, as well as at home. When we do, peace through justice will become possible, and when every nation has established fair laws and fair courts, world peace will become possible.

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IS THE AMERICAN PUBLIC ABOUT TO TOSS ISRAEL?

Some opinion analysts, like the 2009 Zogby International poll of American attitudes toward Israelis and Palestinians, express surprise with what they are learning from the American public and detect significant changes in American public attitudes favoring US disengagement from Israel

Franklin Lamb
Beirut

Exclusive to Al Manar
Ever so slowly over the past two decades, and gaining momentum since the April 2002 Israeli destruction of the West Bank town of Jenin, American attitudes toward Israel appear to be changing according to some public opinion analysts.

The American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy polling unit, that works on behalf of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations has argued that the American opinion shift accelerates with each perceived Israeli outrage such as the saturation bombing of much of south Lebanon and south Beirut during the July 2006 war, the massive civilian slaughter, more than one-third women and children in Gaza during the winter of 2008/9, the May 2010 murders and carnage committed against the Mavi Marmara, including the assassination of 19 year old American Furkan Dogan, and the cumulative effect of a half century of Geneva Convention and international law violations by Israel against occupied Palestine and Lebanon.

Some opinion analysts, like the 2009 Zogby International poll of American attitudes toward Israelis and Palestinians, express surprise with what they are learning from the American public and detect significant changes in American public attitudes favoring US disengagement from Israel.

Such changes in attitudes are not yet evident in Congress or in the Office of the Vice President. But then, as one of Biden’s Democratic Congressional colleagues from Cleveland Ohio, just recently reelected and now planning to force a Congressional vote on withdrawing from Afghanistan noted this week, “Joe’s a nice fella but a God awful slow learner! Cracks and fissures are shooting around and inside Joe’s great American pro Israel public opinion vase etched in gold with the words: ‘US Support for Israel Must Continue Forever!”

The NYT’s Tom Friedman seemed to concur during meetings in Israel recently: “US support for Israel could shatter like Humpty Dumpty– and it could get ugly…You are losing the American people who believe me, are fed up with the Mideast in general. But they’re also fed up with Israel. When they see their president working hard to try to tee up an opportunity. …” And you say ‘No, first pay me – let Jonathon Pollard out of jail, have Abu Mazen sing Hatikva in perfect Yiddish, and then we’ll think about testing.’ It rubs a lot of Americans the wrong way.”

Changes of US citizens attitudes toward Israel are evident in Lebanon also. Hundreds of Americans and other foreigners have visited Shatila and other Palestinian refugee Camps in Beirut in the past few years according to the Sabra Shatila Foundation that conducts tours of the camp. Many visiting Americans have been surveyed by various firms and the results mirror recent surveys from the States. Several explanations are being offered by pollsters for the developing American public opinion shift away from support for Israel.

One is the growing perception that Israel, despite its consistent claims of self defense and accidents, when it attacks and kills civilian populations, is in fact the aggressor and lacks respect for non Jewish lives.
Growing American revulsion at the increasing incidents of verbal assaults on Arabs and Muslims, and racist hate speech graffiti by the Israeli public , internet defamation by elements of the US Israel lobby, and seeming encouragement by Israeli officials and some Rabbi’s ensconced among the more than 100 illegal colonies in occupied Palestine.

Two often mentioned examples are:
1) The followers of the late Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu who regularly broadcast his calls that: “All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts”.

2) And Rabbi Yizhak Shapiro, who lately published the book The King’s Torah, in which he detailed the “jurisprudence” sanctioning the killing of Palestinian infants and children. The White House has reportedly been surprised by the number of Americans objecting to, or even knowing about, these kinds of outrageous and immoral US funded extremists that has been going on for half a century.

Americans are becoming weary of Israel constantly moving the goal post in the “peace negotiations ” and Israeli officials undercutting the American President and flaunting their power in Congress and using the US-Israel lobby and media juggernaut to ridicule him. When Obama condemns Israeli settlement building and calls for suspension, within days, Israel often announces more settlement construction, often claiming mere coincidence.
A growing belief among the American public that Israel takes the US for granted and is only interested in its own economic and military benefits at American expense. Just this week, President Obama criticized Israel for announcing another stage in the approval process of 1,300 housing units in the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Pisgat Ze’ev and Har Homa. He warned: “This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations. I’m concerned that we’re not seeing each side making the extra effort involved to get a breakthrough.”
Israel’s reaction was immediate, condemnatory and harsh. Knesset Members as well as AIPAC staff attacked President Obama, saying that he is ignoring the reality of Israel’s needs in Jerusalem.

MK Avi Dichter, told the Jerusalem Post that the American people are smart enough to “understand that there is no chance that Jerusalem will return to the 1967 borders. But they are either not smart enough or still don’t understand that the most sensitive part of the negotiations is Jerusalem. For their President to deal with Jerusalem at the beginning of negotiations is a recipe for failure.”

Bar Ilan University professor Ehud Gilboa added that he does not think Obama will “lay off” Israel in the near future. “I believe he has an obsession with Israel. He will want to get the talks between Israel and the Palestinians going only because he wants to be remembered in history as the one who is signed on the peace agreement. We expect him to be a one term President and I don’t think he warrants being taken seriously.”

More Americans appear to be tiring of Israeli officials telling them they don’t understand how to view Israeli land confiscations, ethnic cleansing and use of American cash and weapons.

One poll conducted during October 2010 of Americans living in Beirut asked about Israeli PM Netanyahu calling the United Nations’ Goldstone Report “a modern day blood libel.”

Only 4% of the Americans believed this. But 85% believed that Israel manipulates this term and also the Nazi crimes against Jews during WW II to justify its occupation and treatment of Palestinians.

Opinion analysts at Rasmussen Polls Delaware believe changes in US public attitudes are also due to the collapsing American economy. The US public is getting angry, loud and distressed. Perhaps always a little paranoid, it is more despondent and pessimistic.

Americans have generally believed in the country’s capacity for regeneration, that a new awakening is possible at any time. Now, 63 percent of Americans don’t believe that they will be able to maintain their current standard of living. American companies like Apple and Coca-Cola, Google and Microsoft are putting their money, not in the US but in Asia, where labor is cheap and markets are growing. The US government’s debt now exceeds 90 percent of the gross domestic product and more than half of all Americans don’t believe that the America Dream is still realistic but rather that their country is dysfunctional and its Congress corrupt.

It is not sure how the Tea Party will ultimately view Israel being given annually a total of approximately $ 5 billion and then investing approximately 60% of it in interest bearing accounts while every penny of the US taxpayer money it gets must be borrowed by Washington with US taxpayers paying the interest on cash gift to Israel.

Isolationism and xenophobia are on the rise with growing numbers of Americans unhappy with what they see as Israeli “shenanigans at US taxpayer expense”, according to a Congressional staffer recently warned about speaking out against US aid to Israel to fellow staffers during a recent ‘brown bag’ lunch in the Cannon Congressional House Office building cafeteria.

The same source explained: “ We’ve got two criminal wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, that have cost this country, in real terms more than two trillion. The government debt continued to grow, from 57 percent of GNP in 2000 to 83 when Obama got elected and the national debt of $13.8 trillion and growing by the hour. That amounts to 94 percent of GNP, and in two years it will exceed 100 percent. We can’t afford Israel financially and never could afford them morally, politically or what they have done with American weapons!”.

Likely Republican Majority leader Eric Cantor, one of the three key leaders of the Israel lobby in Congress is reportedly terrified that the Tea Party will insist, as rumored, on enacting Legislation that terminates foreign aid of all kinds if the U.S. unemployment level rises above 4-percent. Consideration would be given to restarting foreign aid when the unemployment level drops below 4-percent and remains below 4-percent for 12 months. Cantor must figure out how to protect Israel’s cash with having the Tea Party come after him. It may be recalled that Cantor is floating an AIPAC scheme to take US funds of Israel out of Foreign Aid and call it “Homeland Security” expenditures, “ in order to save it from foreign aid cutting zealots.”

Public opinion analysts are increasingly seeing that the American public wants to distance itself from Israel. But it is unlikely that Congress will, in the short term, follow the public’s lead. This conclusion is supported by the just passed congressional amendments that authorized the increase of U.S. weaponry, ammunition and war supplies stored in Israel to a record $1.2 billion, Defense News reported this week.. The value of U.S. weapons to be prepositioned in Israel will reach $1 billion in 2011, with another $200 million added in 2012.

Once the weaponry arrives, the amount of U.S.-owned materiel available for Israel’s emergency use will have jumped threefold since 2007. Over the past two years, logisticians and war planners from U.S. European Command and the Israel Defense Forces elevated war stocks to the then Congressionally authorized threshold of $ 800 of equipment. Ready for Israel’s next war against Lebanon or Syria or Iran-or all three countries.

One pro-Israel group dismayed by the shift in American public opinion is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which sounded the alarm this week at the Canadian governments sponsored Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA) held at Parliament in Ottawa “to inspire parliamentary action against anti-Semitism around the world.”

Fifty countries from six continents sent delegations to help combat what ADL’s Abe Foxman, claims is a dangerous softening of US public opinion for Israel. The conference adopted an Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism — building on the 2009 London Declaration on Combating Anti-Semitism of 2009, which has built on more than 50 similar initiatives over the past 98 years since ADL was launched in 1913. ADL’s current focus, according to Christopher Wolf, who chairs ADL’s Internet Task Force on “cyber hate”, is” to take the lead and show the American public why they must stick with Israel during these days of Islamist terror against Americans and their only reliable ally, Israel.”

One of Abe Foxman’s problems is that many Americans are distancing themselves from ADL’s nonstop “fear and smear” campaigns. Another is that history, along with the American public, is accelerating its rejection of the Zionist colonial enterprise in Palestine.

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In Motion: The Plot To Destroy The United States

“The 2010 election had one purpose, war with Iran, even if the risk is world conflict and the real loser, no matter what happens on the battlefield is the United States.”

Plans are in motion for a “false flag” attack on America. Iran will be blamed, everyone knows that and Iran will be totally innocent. This is the last thing Iran would ever want. The most likely scenario is a nuclear attack. Two bombs are missing, bombs built by Israel in South Africa and lost long ago. These were supposedly Saddam’s bombs. Now we are told Iran has them. Israel has had them all along and the fear, they may be inside the United States already.

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Israel re-arrests West Bank Deputy, Mahmoud Al-Ramahi

At dawn this morning (10.11.2010), Israeli forces arrested the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr Mahmoud Al-Ramahi, from his West Bank home in the City of Al Bira. According to sources, heavily armed forces surrounded Al-Ramahi's home in the pre-dawn hours before storming it and taking him into custody.

The arrest has been widely condemned by both the Reform and Change bloc of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.

The Islamist Deputies of the Council released a statement in which they stressed that Israel's actions against the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people is a testament to their sincerity and that they would continue to represent a thorn in the Occupier's side. The arrest occurs in the context of Israel's continued efforts to combat democracy and reject the outcome of Palestinian parliamentary elections. The statement went on to assert that the Occupation would achieve nothing through its re-arrest of Al-Ramahi which signifies a foolish return to a failed policy, particularly in light of the increase in popular unity and solidarity with the Deputies.

On its part, Hamas has condemned the arrest as a crime and placed full responsibility for Al-Ramahi's life and safety on the Israeli authorities. They also called for an end to the security co-ordination, which provides cover to Israel in its continued perpetration of these crimes.

The Islamist Deputies asserted that the arrest aimed at creating an atmosphere of confusion given the growing momentum for national reconciliation which would mend the rift in the fabric of the nation and unite the Palestinian people in challenging the Occupation's schemes.

They called on the international community to take an official position to limit Israel's impunity in violating the rights of the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people by criminalising the Occupation and thereby force the immediate release of the arrested Deputy as well as stop the deportation order which currently threatens four other Deputies in Jerusalem.

They also called on the Palestinian people to remain steadfast and to unite behind their legitimate representatives who remain undeterred by the Israeli practices which seek to rob them of their rights and continue to perform the office they were appointed to defend.

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Jewish Extremists Try to Kill Chilean Tourist, Mistaken for Palestinian

Jerusalem – PNN - Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth published a report on Monday about the attempted murder of a Chilean tourist in Jerusalem by eight Jewish extremists who mistook him for an Arab.

Jose Dominus Nolido, 43, came to Israel to celebrate the wedding of his son’s Jewish friend and visit holy sites. As he returned to his hotel, Nolido said he was accosted by youths.

“I decided to return to my room and I went through Independence Park,” Nolido explained. “Suddenly a youth attacked me. I thought he was a soldier, since he had on Israeli army pants. I tried to flee, but I ran into seven others. I fell on the ground and couldn’t get away from the blows. Then I lost consciousness. I was convinced they wanted to kill me because I looked like an Arab.”

Nolido was taken to a Jerusalem hospital, bleeding from the head and eyes. Doctors said they feared loss of vision in his right eye.

“They said I looked like an Arab,” he said. “I didn’t think that would cost me my life.”

Israeli police said that the assault had a “nationalist character” and that the Jewish attackers took him for an Arab or Palestinian. Five of the suspects were settlers from ultra-Orthodox areas of Jerusalem.

“I don’t think I’ll come back to Israel,” said Nolido. He explained that he knew the Israeli-Palestinian conflict well, but never thought he would be attacked because of his appearance.

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JEWISH SETTLERS BURN OLD CHURCH IN JERUSALEM

Group of extremist Jewish settlers set a one hundred year old Christian church on fire in Jerusalem on Friday causing substantial damage to its first floor.

Zakaria Al-Mashriqi, a leader in the church, denounced in a press release the “sinful crime” that targets destabilizing relations among heavenly religions and inciting strife in addition to expelling Palestinians from the holy city through such repeated attacks on citizens and their property.

He added that the church was built in Jerusalem in 1897, and housed the Palestinian Bible College until 1948, when parishioners were pushed out by Jewish armed gangs during the violence accompanying the creation of the state of Israel.

He said that right-wing Israeli settlers broke a number of windows of the two-storey church and hurled Molotov cocktails inside it completely burning the first floor.

Mashriqi appealed for urgent intervention to protect the holy places in Jerusalem and called on the Israeli government to act responsibly and condemn the attack, and work on investigating the attack to find out who was involved and file charges in the case.

The world community must shoulder its responsibility toward protecting the holy shrines and Palestinians in the city, he said, calling for shunning violence and for dialog among religions.

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