Rubo

Dear Alla, technology does not exist yet to deliver a nuclear missile fired from Middle East to reach US shores. Us have been relying nuclear submarines to do that since they can get closer to enemy’s shores. With exception of Tony Blair kiss ass politics most European nations have shown no interests on new war on Iraq. Germany in particular and France have opposed this policy. Dear Hagarag Bush is pressed to act by powerful special interests, which also plays well in real politiks. Quick victory and win a reelection? You suspect? Wrong! Father Bush had the highest poll approval after the golf war and lost to Clinton. People care more about the economy and why should they not. I lost my job; my brother lost his business due to all the contracts going to India and China. In short this possible war on Iraq is totally unnecessary at best it is a diversion from what really takes place in Middle East and why US blindly supports Israel unconditionally. Think about this, If US made the annual three billion aids conditional to accepting peace terms then we would have had solved the situation in middle east long time ego instead of looking other way when Jewish fanatics were building illegal settlements for last twenty years. No US president can pressure Israel and expect to survive in office. Colen Powel has made it explicit that he does not support war on Iraq and he has been effectively sidelined.

The Israeli Lobby Is America's Third Party Over the course of the last five decades, the Israeli Lobby has grown in power to the extent that it now amounts to a third major party with a political program that rivals the agendas of both the Republicans and the Democrats. Like the other two contenders for political power, the party of the Israel Firsters has enhanced its stature by shifting alliances and wooing new constituents. AIPAC, the umbrella group of 'official' pro-Israeli pressure groups, is but a small component of this major third force in the American political process. What the Israel Firsters lack in terms of an actual demographic voting constituency, they make up for by having a major stake in influential media monopolies. Let us begin with the obvious links between the mass media titans and what is essentially an ethnic lobby. Mortimier Zuckerman, the President of Major American Jewish Organizations, publishes US World and News Report. William Safire of the New York Times publicly acknowledges doing public relations work for Ariel Sharon. Thomas Friedman has spent two decades sanitizing the criminal war record of both Begin and Sharon. Ted Koppel boasts of his personal friendship with Netenyahu. At CNN, Walter Isaccson appears to be coordinating coverage with the IDF. Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post likes to pose to the right of Netenyahu. Conrad Black, the Canadian media tycoon, publishes the Jerusalem Post, which reads like a semi-official publication of the IDF. During the Clinton years, the keys at the State Department were handed over to operatives straight from the Israeli Lobby. Martin Indyk, former head of AIPAC was made ambassador to Israel. Dennis Ross, the 'mediator', also had ideological roots in the lobby. Eagleburger, Holbrooke and Albright are all dedicated Israel Firsters. With the change in administration, a new batch of pro-Israeli activists moved into key positions. Ideologically, they pose as 'neo-conservatives'; a movement that even the New York Times reports is mostly Jewish. In fact, the proper definition of neo-conservative is an Israel Firster who wanted to be politically viable after the Reagan 'revolution'. To a large extent, the difference between 'neo' and the 'oldo' conservatives is the country they aspire to serve. The 'oldos' are America Fisters, while the 'neos' worship the 'old country', a mystical Yiddish supremacist apartheid state built on the ruins of Palestine on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. In the last two decades, the Israeli Lobby has expanded its constituency to include a major new base among right wing Evangelicals who believe that Israel is always right. According to this very new and very American branch of Protestant Christianity, the bible says Israeli goons can kill and maim Palestinians, steal their land and place them under a constant stage of siege. Among the followers of this 'new religion' is one Richard Armey, the House Majority Leader, who has publicly advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank. This new 'constituency for repression' believes that Israel has biblical sanction to administer collective punishment and torture, destroy personal and public property and generally make life miserable for the native people of the Holy Land. It makes little difference to these 'Zionist Christians' that the community they seek to 'cleanse' includes the oldest Christian community in the world. And it matters even less to the Israel Firsters that their doctrines also predict the mass conversion of Jews and the end of times. Today, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, ten million people are locked in a bitter struggle over land and destiny. Nearly half of the population between the river and the sea are native Palestinians. Their desperate cry for liberty is not only ignored by America, but tens of billions in United States tax revenues are spent to assist their tormentors. We have an American policy in the Middle East that serves the constituency of a third party that no American has ever voted for. It is an ethnic constituency that includes lunatic elements with visions of an apocalyptic end to our one common planet. In the aftermath of the criminal assaults on America, we are long due for an investigation of the real cause of all our troubles with radicalized elements in the Middle East. Why is our Congress investigating the CIA, the FBI and the INS, when the real focus should be on the State Department and a catastrophic foreign policy that amounted to the appeasement of a belligerent foreign state run by war criminals? Why do we have an Israeli Lobby so powerful that it acts like a major political party and constantly tampers with our foreign policy to align it with the dictates of the Likudniks in Tel Aviv? What vital American national interest is served by the continued repression of the Palestinian people? The deadly assaults against our shores on 911 could certainly have been avoided. But the notion that any American government would have sanctioned such an assault or been lax in attempting to stop it is a bit off the wall. Yet, the fact remains that both the Clinton and Bush administrations were arrogant enough to take foreign policy risks to appease the constituency of the Israeli Lobby, the phantom third party that has come to dominate public discourse on foreign policy. It was common knowledge that there would be a price to pay for the Gulf War, the Saudi military bases, the murderous economic blockade of Iraq and the humiliating occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan. If there was an intelligence failure, it was a failure to properly assess the potential cost of our errant foreign policies. Congress is now interrogating the intelligence community. I would rather that the intelligence community started interrogating Congress. Perhaps the INS should be called upon to sort out our governors and find out which ones deserve ID cards to properly identify them as members of the third party. But since Congress is the designated investigator, perhaps they should call for the State department to come clean with the American people. How did so many members of the Israeli Lobby end up in such prominent positions at Foggy Bottom during the Clinton years? How many have found new homes in the Bush administration? Did they serve American interests or align themselves with Sharon's agenda? What measures can be taken to protect the State Department from the fundamentalist theology of the third party? Do certain ethnic publishers have an inordinate say in tailoring our policies in the Middle East and beyond? If Safire works for Sharon, should he still get a fair hearing with Colin Powell? I am certain that John Foster Dulles would have given a very candid response to all questions regarding the third party. We are at a critical point in the history of the Republic and the world. It is essential that men of honor insist that proper scrutiny be paid to the third party. No rational discourse of the 911 disaster is possible without taking account of the ruthless nature of the operatives of the Israeli Lobby. Do not expect the New York Times, CNN or the Washington Post to instigate such a probe. They are very much part of the problem. It will be left to the brave voices of the alternative press to lead the charge and uncover some very basic truths about 911. The good news is that none of this is rocket science and the public record will eventually be set straight. Congress can investigate now or be investigated later. Distorting U.S. Foreign Policy: The Israel Lobby and American Power by Michael Lind Washington Report - On Middle East Affairs, May 2002 Today the Israel lobby distorts U.S. foreign policy in a number of ways. Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, enabled by U.S. weapons and money, inflames anti-American attitudes in Arab and Muslim countries. The expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land makes a mockery of the U.S. commitment to self-determination for Kosovo, East Timor and Tibet. The U.S. strategy of dual containment of Iraq and Iran pleases Israel-which is most threatened by them-but violates the logic of realpolitik and alienates most of America's other allies. Beyond the region, U.S. policy on nuclear weapons proliferation is undermined by the double standard that has led it to ignore Israel's nuclear program while condemning those of India and Pakistan. The debate that is missing in the U.S. is not one between Americans who want Israel to survive and those-a marginal minority-who want Israel to be destroyed. The U.S. should support Israel's right to exist within internationally recognized borders and to defend itself against threats. What is needed is a debate between those who want to link U.S. support for Israel to Israeli behavior, in the light of America's own strategic goals and moral ideals, and those who want there to be no linkage. For the American Israel lobby, Tony Smith observes in his authoritative study, Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy (Harvard), "to be a 'friend of Israel' or 'pro-lsrael' apparently means something quite simple: that Israel alone should decide the terms of its relations with its Arab neighbors and that the U.S. should endorse these terms, whatever they may be." The Israel lobby is one special-interest pressure group among many. It is a loose network of individuals and organizations, of which the most important are the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC: described by the Detroit Jewish News as "a veritable training camp for Capitol Hill staffers"-and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Israel lobby is not identical with the diverse Jewish-American community. Many Jewish-Americans are troubled by Israeli policies and some actively campaign against them, while some non-Jewish Americans most of them members of the Protestant right- play a significant role in the lobby. Even pro-Israel groups differ on the question of Israeli policies. According to Matthew Dorf in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: "The Zionist Organization of America lobbies Congress to slow the peace process. Their allies are mostly Republicans. At the same time, the Israel Policy Forum and Americans for Peace Now work to move the process along. Democrats are most sympathetic to their calls." The Israel lobby is united not by a consensus about Israeli policies but by a consensus about U.S. policies toward Israel. Most of the disparate elements of the pro-Israel coalition support two things. The first is massive U.S. funding for Israel. As Stephen M Walt writes in International Security (Winter 2001/02), "In 1967 Israel's defense spending was less than half the combined defense expenditures of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria; today Israel's defense expenditure is 30 percent larger than the combined defense spending of these four Arab states." Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other country-$3 billion a year, two-thirds in military grants (total aid since 1979 is over $70 billion). It is difficult to prove direct cause-and-effect connections between the power of a lobby and America's foreign policy positions. But, in the Middle East, it is hard to explain America's failure to pressure Israel into a final land-for-peace settlement-particularly since the Oslo deal in 1993-without factoring in the Israel lobby. The influence of the lobby may be easier to detect in the way U.S. positions have shifted on more specific totems of the conflict. For example, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories were regarded as illegal during the Carter administration. Under Reagan, they shifted to being an "obstacle" to peace and are now just a complicating actor. Similarly, East Jerusalem vas considered by the U.S. to be part of the occupied territories but recently its status has become rather more ambiguous. Stephen Steinlight, in an essay for the Center for Immigration Studies, describes how the Israel lobby uses donations to influence elected officials: "Unless and until the triumph of campaign finance reform is complete...the great material wealth of the Jewish community will continue to give it significant advantages. We will continue to court and be courted by key figures in Congress. That power is exerted within the political system from the local to national levels through soft money, and especially the provision of out-of-state funds to candidates sympathetic to Israel." Steinlight adds: "For perhaps another generation... the Jewish community is thus in a position to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions that support our agendas." Steinlight is the recently retired director of national affairs at the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Great article the rest http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/I...l_Lobby_US.html

Next time you get asked an annoying Indian question, answer it like this... Q. What does that red dot on women's forehead mean? A. Well, in ancient times, Indian men used to practice archery skills by target practicing by aiming at their wife's red dot. In fact, that is one of the reasons why they had many wives. You see, once they mastered the art of archery and hit the target.... Q. You're from India, aren't you? I have read so much about the country. All the wonderful places, the forests, the snake charmers, the elephants. Do you still use elephants for transportation? [note: This one we were actually asked in August '93 by a real estate agent when house-hunting in Boston.] A. Absolutely. In fact we used to have our own elephant in our house. But later, we started elephant-pooling with our neighbors, to save the air. You see elephants have an "emissions" problem..... Q. Does India have cars? A. No. We ride elephants to work. The government is trying to encourage ride-sharing schemes. Q. Are all Indians vegetarian? A. Yes. Even tigers are vegetarian in India. Q. How come you speak English so well? A. You see when the British were ruling India,they employed Indians as servants. It took too long for the Indians to learn English. So the British isolated an "English-language" gene and infused their servants' babies with it and since then all babies born are born speaking English. A variation to the above is a compliment --- "You speak very good English." Response: Thanks. So do you. Q. Are you a Hindi? A. Yes. I am spoken everyday in Northern India. Q. Do you speak Hindu? A. Yes, I also speak Jewish, Islam and Christianity. Q. Is it true that everyone there is very corrupt? A. Yes, in fact, I had to bribe my parents so that they would let me go to school. Q. India is very hot, isn't it? A. It is so hot there that all the water boils spontaneously. That is why tea is such a popular drink in India. Q. Are there any business companies in India? A. No. All Indians live on the Gandhian prinicples of self-sufficiency. We all make our own clothes and grow our own food. That is why you see all these thin skinny Indians -- it is a lot of hard work. Q. Indians cannot eat beef, huh? A. Cows provide milk which is a very essential part of Indian diet. So eating cows is forbidden. However in order to decrease the population of the country, the government is trying to encourage everyone to eat human meat. Q. India is such a religious place. Do you meditate regularly? A. Yes, sometimes I meditate for weeks without food and drink. But it is difficult to keep my job, because I have to miss work when I meditate like that. But the bosses there do the same thing. That is why things are so inefficient there. Q. I saw on TV that people there walk on burning coals. Why do they do that? A. We don't have shoes. So we burn the botton of our feet to make it hard so that we can walk. Q. Why do you sometimes wear Indian clothes to work? A. I prefer it to coming naked.

This one is from wacky Indian site There was once a Indian and an Pakistani who lived next door to each other. The Indian owned a hen and each morning would look in his garden and pick up one of his hen's eggs for breakfast. One day he looked into his garden and saw that the hen had laid an egg in the Pakistani's garden. He was about to go next door when he saw the Pakistani pick up the egg. The Indian ran up to the Pakistani and told him that the egg belonged to him because he owned the hen. The Pakistani disagreed because the egg was laid on his property. They argued for a while until finally the Indian said, "In my family we normally solve disputes by the following actions: I kick you in the balls and time how long it takes you to get back up, then you kick me in the balls and time how long it takes for me to get up, who ever gets up quicker wins the egg." The Pakistani agreed to this and so the Indian found his heaviest pair of boots and put them on, he took a few steps back, then ran toward the Pakistani and kicked as hard as he could in the balls. The Pakistani fell to the floor clutching his nuts howling in agony for 30 minutes. Eventually the Pakistani stood up and said, "Now it's my turn to kick you." The Indian said, "Keep the damn egg!"

hey t-bark, what is your real name? got something to hide, dude? I seen you making such provocative comments in the past too. That should be typical to the turks, huh? Hope you'll have guts to speak the expert that i mentioned. Listen Eduard, I am not here wasting time fighting…but your comment, the implication that TB might be a Turk is unrealistic and unfounded. Please read recent genocide thread and his responses to Ali and you will have no doubt furthermore it might teach you about patriotism which has many shades from borderline suicidal to contemplative productive.Please don’t expect everyone to be carbon copy of yourself. Originally posted by aurguplu: hagarag, was it you who had told me in a previous discussion under a different thread that you guys were not trying to carve up my country, or was it someone else, and if it was someone else, could i please get a coment from him about your posting? Hi Ali, I do not know if I am the “someone else” you had in mind, but I'll use the break I granted myself to pitch in anyway. First, "you guys" and "hagarag" are not synonymous, to say the least. "Us guys" (and there is really no such coherent entity as far as the issue is concerned) includes people who want nothing more than an acknowledgement (not even an apology) of history, and move on with their lives toward full assimilation into cultural oblivion, feeling good that their grandparents did not hallucinate the whole genocide thing. In fact, "us guys" includes those who want to drop the whole issue and move on, and pretend that Armenians are a "normal" nation, hoping that it could become one by declaring itself so. “Us guys" includes those who enjoy dreaming that a few of the provinces containing the most "significant" Armenian totems like Mt. Ararat and Aghtamar can become Armenian again. And of course "us guys" includes those whose wet dreams involve a "sea to sea" Armenian Empire. And then of course there is the "mainstream" Armenians, who are too busy with life to think much on such silly subjects one way or the other. I am sure you can make a similar categorization about "you guys", except that your "empire builders" are a lot more numerous, are on the ground (rather than in some faraway place a continent or two away, fully submerged in the safety and comfort of the eventual graveyard of their culture and identity), and have afrighteningly cosy relationship with the army, which happens to be the most powerful one in the region by far. As far as “carving up my country”, how melodramatic of you. You think hagarag will draw his sword made of celery, and throw bean-powered bombs to carve up “your” country? Even if the territory in question were granted to Armenians, it wouldn’t qualify as “carving up”. And in some unlikely scenario where Armenians re-populate their ancestral lands and proceed to demand independence, why do you think it would be such a tragedy? And do you think there are ways in which Turkey could prevent such a “tragedy”? If you don’t, then I suggest you think harder. And in case Turkey couldn’t prevent oh-such-a-melodramatic tragedy, you can take comfort from the fact that Czechoslovakia split into two pieces, and produced two stable and healthy countries, without the Czechs feeling the urge to wipe the Slovaks out of existence, or refusing to deal with Slovakia. And Canada has no immediate plans to punish Quebec into submission or send its residents to France. There is no question that Armenians have the moral right to live on their ancestral lands of many millennia, especially considering the circumstances of their “removal”. Now if you cannot make them happy after they come back, perhaps the land in question does not and should not belong to you. If Armenians do not bother to come back in significant numbers, then they forfeit their moral right to live on it except as tourists or “ordinary” Turkish citizens. In any event, I suspect that a country with the vision to invite back the few Armenians that would bother to come would also have the level of intellectual development that ensures a harmonious coexistence, with all the cultural freedoms and local governance. But don’t worry Ali, the paranoia and territorial obsession displayed by “the best and the brightest” of your society makes a true reconciliation seem like a distant dream that it probably is. Finally, it seems that it is not enough for us to say “we can’t imagine demanding lands from you, because you are too powerful” (paraphrasing Kocharian). You want to censor our thoughts and emotions, so we cannot even wish to live on those lands as Armenians without being accused of complicity in land-grabbing. You want us to tear away from our hearts the places that formed the main body of our nation. As an avid proponent of realpolitik thinking, you surely understand the polite position of “We don’t demand it because we know we cannot get it”. Leave it at that. When discussing matters related to genocide and ethnic cleansing, there is one overriding factor above all else: morality. It is morally hollow (to say the least) to “repent” and yet forbid the descendants from coming back to those lands. Once you fulfill your unavoidable and morally required task, it is then your responsibility to ensure that those that come back have no reason to ask for outright independence. If Turkey can’t imagine doing that, it need not bother the Armenians with silly displays of “Oh I am so sorry”. Here is one censorship (or perhaps self-restraint) homework for you Ali: until you feel in your heart and know in your mind that the land in question belongs as much to Armenians as to Turks and Kurds that now live on it, refrain from trying to sound so enlightened. Once you and the rest of the “best and the brightest” internalize that notion, the two nations can “play it again”, hopefully with much happier results this time for all involved. This may be news to you, but the ball is in your court. Regards, Twilight Bark

I swear I copied this joke as it is from a wacky Iranian site. Sip this one is especially for you just put the carpet down before rolling over it. Once there was a turk, working with something in his house, he calls his friend, and says " Hi, listen, I'm trying to fit a puzzle together, but I just cannot do it, it's impossible, can you help me?" The friend said, "Ok, What's it meant to be?" The turk said, "Well the picture at the front shows a tiger, it's really hard." The friend said, "Ok, I will come to your house and I will help you, ok?" So the friend arrived, and saw the puzzle on the table, and the turk showed the picture of the tiger, and the friend looked at the turk and said, "You fool, put the Kellog's Cornflakes back in the box...."

Hi Paul.Dick Gephardt is a friend to Armenian issues.His got my vote for sure.This is from an Azeri site. Note that most republicans are against Armenian caucus In sharp contrast to the Republican Congressional leadership's growing opposition to Armenian issues, the Democratic leadership has continued to broaden its outreach to Armenia and the Armenian American community. Last month, at the request of Adam Schiff, the Democratic Congressional candidate for California 27th District, Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt (Mo.)and Democratic Whip David Bonior (Mich.) were joined by the rest of the House Democratic Leadership in meeting with Armenian President Robert Kocharian during his visit to Washington. Also taking part in the hour-long meeting were Congressmen Martin Frost (Texas), Bob Menendez (NJ), Patrick Kennedy (RI), Frank Pallone (NJ), and Joe Hoeffel (Pa.). The House Republican leadership, according to sources on Capitol Hill, refused repeated requests to schedule a meeting with the visiting Armenian President. International Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gilman did take part in a group meeting with President Kocharian organized by the Armenian Caucus, but did not explain why he has decided against scheduling a Committee vote on the Armenian Genocide resolution (H.Res.398). ASSEMBLY CONGRATULATES CONGRESSWOMAN PELOSI ON NEW ROLE AS HOUSE MINORITY WHIP WASHINGTON - The Armenian Assembly of America today congratulated long-time supporter Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on her election as the new House Minority Whip. House Democrats chose Congresswoman Pelosi for the second highest position over fellow Armenia ally Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD). The election was held to replace outgoing Minority Whip Congressman David Bonior (D-MI) who plans to run for Governor of Michigan and will step down from his current post on January 15, 2002. Pelosi's victory makes her the House Democrats' chief vote counter and lieutenant to Minority Leader Congressman Dick Gephardt (D-MO). "We congratulate Congresswoman Pelosi on her election as the new House Minority Whip," said Assembly Government Relations Director Bryan Ardouny. "Congresswoman Pelosi has championed Armenian issues from leading the fight to maintain Section 907 to affirming the Armenian Genocide. During her tenure as the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, her leadership was crucial in ensuring robust funding for Armenia, aid to Nagorno Karabagh and the preservation of Section 907." The website will help expand the organization's outreach to the nation's increasingly active Armenian American community. Specifically, the site will be used to help spearhead the organization's "Take Back The House in 2002" campaign. "For the next 22 months leading up to the November 2002 elections, one of our key goals will be to help Minority Leader Dick Gephardt take the gavel from Speaker Dennis J. Hastert," said an AADLC spokesperson. "Our new website is a critical part of this effort." From Armenian democratic caucus. From Armenian democratic caucus. Note that speaker republican Dennis Hastert reversed his position on AG resolution which ultimately killed the bill.

If I didn't feel that the land belonged as much to the Armenians, Greeks and Kurds and others who lived on it for ages as it did to Turks, then what in the hell do you think I am doing here talking to you? Kudos to you Ali for the statement above! I am happy with that. I just hope lot of Turks think like you but I suspect you are in extreme minority perhaps due to your presents on this forum for two years and perhaps having education outside Turkey nevertheless it is nice to think that Turks like you are open to communal sharing of Anatolian lands. Let me know if you are planning to run for office, you got my vote.

I was cleaning the house and sorting through some old magazines when my eyes cought hold of AIM magazine April 02 issue. Leafing through the pages I came across the story titled “A killer walks free” with a sordid picture of a courtroom, a fat bold judge and rather innocent “butcher” demeanor Aghamal Harutiunian-known locally as Koko who was charged with killing Poghosian, a Georgian Armenian on the mission to get funds for a school. Koko was Robert Kocharian’s bodygourd who was present along with seven other bodyguards presiding to provide security for Kocharian at a nightclub. Poghosian friendly remark to Kocharian on the way out resulted koko and his bodyguards smashing Poghosian’s head repeatedly on the floor and killing him brutally and left in the toilet to die. There were eyewitnesses to this crime and the evidence against Harutiunian was overwhelming but regretfully Koko was charged for only two years for killing a human being and with good behavior, he could go free less then a year. WITNESS IN CAFE DEATH THREATENED. Andranik Poghosian ( victim’s brother) said on 21 January at the trial of Aghamal Harutiunian, a member of President Robert Kocharian's bodyguard accused of the manslaughter of Poghosian's brother Poghos, that he received a telephone threat three days earlier, according to Arminfo, as cited by Groong. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 22 January)First step towards democracy and transparency is to clean up the judicial system.This really angers me when these thugs get away with murder. This case pissed me up greatly then and still does now.

Dear Hagarag, you are displaying certain arrogance of an “expert” on these issues and yet the experts themselves, which I read most of their materials, are very unsure about their findings. Theory is not a theory unless proven and Jewish connection among Armenians is not proven. In short out of respect for this forum I politely suggest you to stay clear from making extravagant claims historical and science related without backing up with solid evidence. PS You are welcome on this forum since I firmly believe in democracy. I would like to stop discussing on this issue.

Originally posted by Paul bunyan: America, both Socrates and Plato would agree needs a monarchy NOT a Democracy which only allows stupid people to control policy via their superior massive numbers who are easily swayed by such idiots as Ronald Reagan and George Bush, senior, and junior. American foreign policy is controlled neither republicans nor democrats nor stupid people but special interest groups mainly powerful Jewish lobbies. Their power is so overwhelming that no candidate can even step closer to Washington without first wearing a traditional yamaka in a temple with a traditional oath of unconditional support of Israel. I read a survey recently that showed 75% of American takes face value whatever is heard through their politicians and news media, no wander ten million Jews control the foreign policy of two hundred seventy million population country. This is not anti-Semitic statement rather factual. Recent fervent Jewish lobby efforts are to push war on Iraq, the biggest worry country including Iran among the Jews. Welcome to real reality. This article gives you a glimpse of the situation /cgi-bin/forum/ultim...c;f=19;t=000280

History melts like a dripping honey Sweet emanating from its luscious countenance Attracts the bigots with gaping mouths After consuming its flesh and spirit They debate the death’s motives Endlessly to repugnant pity We are left with stanching bones News clips and horror tales Unearthed from the deep echoes of memory Where the victims wished buried undisturbed Relative merits of the known and unknown Overrides the memory Lost untold What merit shall there be? When conscious act unconscious RS

The New York Times (May 14, 2002). Excerpts: "The emerging genetic picture is based largely on two studies, one published two years ago and the other this month, that together show that the men and women who founded the Jewish communities had surprisingly different genetic histories.... A new study now shows that the women in nine Jewish communities from Georgia, the former Soviet republic, to Morocco have vastly different genetic histories from the men.... The women's identities, however, are a mystery, because, unlike the case with the men, their genetic signatures are not related to one another or to those of present-day Middle Eastern populations.... The new study, by Dr. David Goldstein, Dr. Mark Thomas and Dr. Neil Bradman of University College in London and other colleagues, appears in The American Journal of Human Genetics this month.... His [Goldstein's] own speculation, he said, is that most Jewish communities were formed by unions between Jewish men and local women, though he notes that the women's origins cannot be genetically determined.... Like the other Jewish communities in the study, the Ashkenazic community of Northern and Central Europe, from which most American Jews are descended, shows less diversity than expected in its mitochondrial DNA, perhaps reflecting the maternal definition of Jewishness. But unlike the other Jewish populations, it does not show signs of having had very few female founders. It is possible, Dr. Goldstein said, that the Ashkenazic community is a mosaic of separate populations formed the same way as the others.... 'The authors are correct in saying the historical origins of most Jewish communities are unknown,' Dr. [shaye] Cohen [of Harvard University] said. 'Not only the little ones like in India, but even the mainstream Ashkenazic culture from which most American Jews descend.'.... If the founding mothers of most Jewish communities were local, that could explain why Jews in each country tend to resemble their host community physically while the origins of their Jewish founding fathers may explain the aspects the communities have in common, Dr. Cohen said.... The Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA's in today's Jewish communities reflect the ancestry of their male and female founders but say little about the rest of the genome... Noting that the Y chromosome points to a Middle Eastern origin of Jewish communities and the mitochondrial DNA to a possibly local origin, Dr. Goldstein said that the composition of ordinary chromosomes, which carry most of the genes, was impossible to assess. 'My guess,' Dr. Goldstein said, 'is that the rest of the genome will be a mixture of both.'" The Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA's in today's Jewish communities reflect the ancestry of their male and female founders but say little about the rest of the genome... Noting that the Y chromosome points to a Middle Eastern Last time I checked Armenia is considered to be in Asia Minor

A study by Avshalom Zoossmann-Diskin, of the Department of Haematology and Genetic Pathology, School of Medicine, Flinders University of South Australia * Some useful markers were not used in the studies that should have been. * The Cohen modal haplotype is the most common haplotype among Southern Italians*1, Central Italians*2, Hungarians*3, and Iraqi Kurds*4, and is also found among Armenians*5 and South African Lembas*6. This calls into question the notion that the haplotype originated with the ancient Israelites and that it was found mostly among ancient Jewish priests. Many lines of historical and archaeological evidence, as summarized in the book "The Jews of Khazaria" by Kevin Alan Brook (Jason Aronson Inc., Northvale, N.J., 1999), indicate that Jewish populations around the world descend from a variety of maternal and paternal origins, including not only Israelites but also Berbers, Arabs, Khazars, Romans, Hittites, Idumeans, Persians, Ethiopians, Abayudayans, Germans, Slavs, and other groups. Preliminary genetic studies of mtDNA (from maternal ancestries) have already demonstrated the connections between Jewish populations and non-Jewish populations. There are additionally many hundreds of thousands of converts to Judaism living in the present time. The only common denominator binding all Jewish groups and individuals together is religion. Separately, legitimate doubts have been raised about the conclusions of Ariella Oppenheim et al. and Harry Ostrer et al. that Jews are most closely related to populations like the Palestinians and Lebanese and that they have only small amounts of descent from conversions and intermarriages. Historical, anthropological, ethnographic, and genetic evidence does not support the contention that Jews are a homogeneous ethnicity. It is hoped that additional studies will help to clarify these questions and to provide a more objective and accurate analysis of Jewish ethnogenesis. Once again I apoligize for talking about this on genocide thread.It is very abvious that nothing is conclusive thus far and dear Hagarag please refrain using "the state of the art...research..." again.

I am sorry that I am detoured from the original topic but it is prudent to dislodge the myths. On a different note most Jews that I encountered were predominantly mixture of the ethnic races of the country they inhabited even though they may have had only fraction of Jewish lineage they nevertheless claimed to be Jewish even without practicing Judaism. My friend Katia a Russian called me last week with noticeable excitement. She discovered that from her mother side her great grandmother was part Jewish and she claimed to be Jewish as well. When I politely mentioned that her Jewishness is a fraction of her heritage and no way that qualifies her to be Jewish, she frowned at me claiming it didn’t matter. That is peculiar most people like Canadians, Americans when asked about their linage they mentioned all of them but with Jews the fraction of the Jewish linage is enough to override the rest of the ethnic heritage. This goes along the logic of “chosen people” and race supremacy otherwise why would you choose one fraction of the linage against the majority of none Jewish linage? Russian Jewish Genetics A collection of abstracts and reviews of books, articles, and genetic studies Last Update: September 4, 2002 This page is the most comprehensive summary of Jewish genetic data. In recent years, advances in genetic technology and the broadening in scope of genetic studies to encompass more ethnic groups have allowed scientists to come to more accurate conclusions. Nevertheless, not all questions have been answered fully, and followup studies are necessary. At the present time, it is known that Eastern European Jews have a significant Eastern Mediterranean element which manifests itself in a close relationship with Kurdish, Armenian, Palestinian Arab, Lebanese, Syrian, and Anatolian Turkish peoples. At the same time, there are traces of European (including Western Slavic) and Khazar ancestry among European Jews. Ethiopian Jews mostly descend from Ethiopian Africans who converted to Judaism , but may also be related to a lesser extent to Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews descend from Arabs and Israelites. North African Jewish and Kurdish Jewish paternal lineages come from Israelites. Additional research is necessary, and it will certainly take several more years to sort it all out. All existing studies fail to compare modern Jewish populations' DNA to ancient Judean DNA and medieval Khazarian DNA, and many of them focus on paternal ancestries rather than maternal ancestries, so the extrapolations and assumptions made by geneticists may not necessarily be correct. Studies that do take into account mtDNA show that many Jewish populations are related to neighboring non-Jewish groups maternally.

Morning? Already? Ah Crap ... I sometimes wish days were 49 hours long What were you smoking! Give me some!Can’t do it alone

Good morning Sip! The Italian is not important what is important is Hagarag’s continued repeated use of this bogus genetic study to prove his biases. If one makes a repeated statements regarding Armenians then one should eventually get down and prove his theories otherwise it is annoying to find the same statements in just about every thread. By the way I am not fighting but debating. Regards

Dear Hagarag I find Dr. Levon Yepiskoposyan research to be highly dubious. I read all the articles on the net about this research and he does not publish his methods. His conclusions are extremely broad which does not say much. He is at best being speculative. If you can find hard data would you show it to the forum? Another important point, Mamikonian family was suspected to be Chinese descended and so what, does it make ten, twenty percent Armenians Chinese descended too? Hagarag> The Kingdom of Cilicia had an alliance with the Mongols, many of whom converted to Armenian Christianity and assimilated into the Armenians Please prove your theory with facts. This is a broad statement without substance. If again true, then what percentage was it? I suspect a small amount since logically I am yet to see an Armenian with Mongol eyes or any other feature to suggest our Mongol roots. Hagarag Armenia- unlike French, Germans, Russians who have large degree of assimilations from other races- relatively kept its identity intact which explains our survival through centuries without losing our identity. I can argue the opposite if anything Armenians for large part are ethnically and genetically predominantly homogeneous.

Hagarag I actually find you hilarious! If you have not done a DNA test on this “Italian” then how can you say the entire BS about the Armenians. Have you done a single DNA test on an Armenian? Please do not refer about the BS research done by Russian scientists about Jewish studies. That particular study had no real facts. How many Armenians, Kurds, Turks were tested and where did they picked their samples. There is no real conclusive evidence about your continued ascertains about Armenians. Nobody is saying we don’t have any none Armenian blood but you make it sound like our ancestors spread their legs to every bold, ugly invader. This is just not true and I question your self-hatred being an 75% Armenian. Why are you so eager to crap on Armenians? What exactly ticks you off other then politics republican etc. why do you embrace theories which has not been studied? Rational person waits until facts become clear and yet you already claim Armenians to be mixed fruit juice beyond original flavor. Cool off Haga and dust off your biases.

Dear Hagarag are you sure he was Italian and not 1/8 Persian, 2/9 Turk, 7/8 Mongol, 1/89 Jewish, 7/78 Irish 3/4 Arab, 1/15 Algerian? How can we be sure? It should not suprise you that he was a sadist piece of shit!

Nice story Kezza, you should not be surprised, our kids for most part work hard to succeed which reflects positively on our values: on a different note Armenian youth chess team has been taking first prizes on international competitions beating the German, Israeli, French kids. Last tournament in New York they took first, second, and third in short total sweep. "Many surprising things have happened in chess, but never have the representatives of one tiny nation swept so decisively such a diverse event as the 1998 New York Open, which was held from March 14 to March 22. In the final round, on board one, Artashes Minasian of Armenia defeated Kiril Georgiev of Bulgaria. On board two, Smbat Lputian of Armenia defeated Vadim Milov of Switzerland. On board three, Vladimir Akopian of Armenia defeated Suat Atalik of Turkey. On board four, Sergei Movsesian of Armenia could only draw Julio Granda-Zuniga of Peru. The event was won by Minasian with 8-1, followed by Lputian with 7.5-1.5, followed by Akopian" On adult level in world chess championship Armenia was a point and a half beyond Ukraine and end up third place beyond Russia. Armenia is a chess powerhouse for a tiny country and it continues to grow. Something else to be proud!

A Strange Kind of Freedom The biggest threat to liberty in the US may come from other kinds of fundamentalism: Jewish and Christian by Robert Fisk Inside the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, the Californian audience had been struck silent. Dennis Bernstein, the Jewish host of KPFA Radio's Flashpoint current affairs program, was reading some recent e-mails that he had received from Israel's supporters in America. Each one left the people in the church – Muslims, Jews, Christians – in a state of shock. "You mother-****ing-*******-self-hating Jewish piece of shit. Hitler killed the wrong Jews. He should have killed your parents, so a piece of Jewish shit like you would not have been born. God willing, Arab terrorists will cut you to pieces Daniel Pearl-style, AMEN!!!" Bernstein's sin was to have covered the story of Israel's invasion of Jenin in April and to have interviewed journalists who investigated the killings that took place there – including Phil Reeves and Justin Huggler of The Independent – for his Flashpoint program Bernstein's grandfather was a revered Orthodox Rabbi of international prominence but neither his family history nor his origins spared him. "Read this and weep, you mother-****er self-hating Jew boy!!!" another e-mail told Bernstein. "God willing a Palestinian will murder you, rape your wife and slash your kids' throats." Yet another: "I hope that you, Barbara Lubin and all other Jewish Marxist Communist traitors anti-American cop haters will die a violent and cruel death just like the victims of suicide bombers in Israel." Lubin is also Jewish, the executive director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, a one-time committed Zionist but now one of Israel's fiercest critics. Her e-mails are even worse. Indeed, you have to come to America to realize just how brave this small but vocal Jewish community is. Bernstein is the first to acknowledge that a combination of Israeli lobbyists and conservative Christian fundamentalists have in effect censored all free discussion of Israel and the Middle East out of the public domain in the US. "Everyone else is terrified," Bernstein says. "The only ones who begin to open their mouths are the Jews in this country. You know, as a kid, I sent money to plant trees in Israel. But now we are horrified by a government representing a country that we grew up loving and cherishing. Israel's defenders have a special vengeance for Jews who don't fall in line behind Sharon's scorched-earth policy because they give the lie to the charge that Israel's critics are simply anti-Semite." Adam Shapiro is among those who have paid a price for their beliefs. He is a Jew engaged to an American-born Palestinian, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement who was trapped in Yasser Arafat's headquarters in the spring while administering medical aid. After telling CNN that the Sharon government was acting like "terrorists" while receiving $3bn a year in US military aid, Shapiro and his family were savaged in the New York Post. The paper slandered Shapiro as the "Jewish Taliban" and demeaned his family as "traitors". Israeli supporters publicized his family's address and his parents were forced to flee their Brooklyn home and seek police protection. Shapiro's father, a New York public high-school teacher and a part-time Yeshiva (Jewish day school) teacher, was fired from his job. His brother receives regular death threats. Israel's supporters have no qualms about their alliance with the Christian right. Indeed, the fundamentalists can campaign on their own in Israel's favor, as I discovered for myself at Stanford recently when I was about to give a lecture on the media and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, part of a series of talks arranged largely by Jewish Americans. A right-wing Christian "Free Republic" outfit posted my name on its website, and described me as a "PLO butt-kisser" and asked its supporters to "freep" my lecture. A few demonstrators turned up outside the First United Methodist Church in Sacramento where I was to speak, waving American and Israeli flags. "Jew haters!" they screamed at the organizers, a dark irony since these were non-Jews shrieking their abuse at Jews. They were also handing out crudely printed flyers. "Nothing to worry about, Bob," one of my Jewish hosts remarked. "They can't even spell your name right." True. But also false. "Stop the Lies!" the leaflet read. "There was no massacre in Jenin. Fiske [sic] is paid big bucks to spin [lie] for the Arabs..." But the real lie was in that last sentence. I never take any payment for lectures – so that no one can ever claim that I'm paid to give the views of others. But the truth didn't matter to these people. Nor did the content of my talk – which began, by chance, with the words "There was no massacre" – in which I described Arafat as a "corrupt, vain little despot" and suicide bombings as "a fearful, evil weapon". None of this was relevant. The aim was to shut me up. Dennis Bernstein sums it up quite simply: "Any US journalist, columnist, editor, college professor, student-activist, public official or clergy member who dares to speak critically of Israel or accurately report the brutalities of its illegal occupation will be vilified as an anti-Semite." In fact, no sooner had Bernstein made these remarks than pro-Israeli groups initiated an extraordinary campaign against some of the most pro-Israeli newspapers in America, all claiming that The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle were biased in their coverage of the Middle-East conflict. Just how The New York Times – which boasts William Safire and Charles Krauthammer, those giants of pro-Israeli bias, among its writers – could be anti-Israeli is difficult to see, although it is just possible that, amid its reports on Israel's destruction in the West Bank and Gaza, some mildly critical comments found their way into print. The New York Times, for example, did report that Israeli soldiers used civilians as human shields – though only in the very last paragraph of a dispatch from Jenin. None the less, the campaign of boycotts and e-mails got under way. More than 1,000 readers suspended their subscriptions to the Los Angeles Times, while a blizzard of e-mails told pro-Israeli readers to cancel their subscription to The New York Times for a day. On the East Coast, at least one local radio station has lost $1m from a Jewish philanthropist while other stations attempting to cover the Middle East with some degree of fairness are said to have lost even more. When the San Francisco Chronicle published a four-page guide to the conflict, its editors had to meet a 14-member delegation of local Jewish groups to discuss their grievances. According to Michael Futterman, who chairs the Middle East strategy committee of 80 Bay Area synagogues, Jewish anger hit "boiling point" when the Chronicle failed to cover a pro-Israeli rally in San Francisco. Needless to say, the Chronicle's "Readers' Representative", Dick Rogers, published a groveling, self-flagellating apology. "The paper didn't have a word on the pro-Israel rally," he wrote. "This wasn't fair and balanced coverage." Another objection came from a Jewish reader who objected to the word "terror" being placed within inverted commas in a Chronicle headline that read "Sharon says 'terror' justifies assault". The reader's point? The Chronicle's reporting "harmonizes well with Palestinian propaganda, which tries to divert attention from the terrorist campaign against Israel (which enjoys almost unanimous support among Palestinians, all the way from Yasser Arafat to the 10-year-old who dreams of blowing himself up one day) and instead describes Israel's military moves as groundless, evil bullying tactics." And so it goes on. On a radio show with me in Berkeley, the Chronicle's foreign editor, Andrew Ross, tried to laugh off the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby – "the famous lobby", he called it with that deference that is half way between acknowledgement and fear – but the Israeli Consul General Yossi Amrani had no hesitation in campaigning against the Chronicle, describing a paper largely docile in its reporting of the Middle East as "a professionally and politically biased, pro-Palestinian newspaper". The Chronicle's four-page pull-out on the Middle East was, in fact, a soft sell. Its headline – "The Current Strife Between The Israelis And The Palestinians Is A Battle For Control Of Land" – missed the obvious point: that one of the two groups that were "battling for control of the land" – the Palestinians – had been occupied by Israel for 35 years. The most astonishing – and least covered – story is in fact the alliance of Israeli lobbyists and Christian Zionist fundamentalists, a coalition that began in 1978 with the publication of a Likud plan to encourage fundamentalist churches to give their support to Israel. By 1980, there was an "International Christian Embassy" in Jerusalem; and in 1985, a Christian Zionist lobby emerged at a "National Prayer Breakfast for Israel" whose principal speaker was Benjamin Netanyahu, who was to become Israeli prime minister. "A sense of history, poetry and morality imbued the Christian Zionists who, more than a century ago, began to write, plan and organize for Israel's restoration," Netanyahu told his audience. The so-called National Unity Coalition for Israel became a lobbying arm of Christian Zionism with contacts in Congress and neo-conservative think-tanks in Washington. In May this year, the Israeli embassy in Washington, no less, arranged a prayer breakfast for Christian Zionists. Present were Alonzo Short, a member of the board of "Promise Keepers", and Michael Little who is president of the "Christian Broadcasting Network". Event hosts were listed as including those dour old Christian conservatives Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who once financed a rogue television station in southern Lebanon which threatened Muslim villagers and broadcast tirades by Major Saad Haddad, Israel's stooge militia leader in Lebanon. In Tennessee, Jewish officials invited hundreds of Christians to join Jewish crowds at a pro-Israel solidarity rally in Memphis. On the face of it, this coalition seems natural. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League felt able to run an ad that included an article by a former Christian coalition executive director Ralph Reed, headlined "We People of Faith Stand Firmly With Israel". Christians, Reed claimed, supported Israel because of "their humanitarian impulse to help and protect Jews, a shared strategic interest in democracy in the Middle East and a spiritual connection to Israel". But, of course, a fundamental problem – fundamental in every sense of the word – lies behind this strange partnership. As Uri Avnery, the leader of Gush Shalom, the most courageous Israeli peace group, pointed out in a typically ferocious essay last month, there is a darker side to the alliance. "According to its [Christian Zionist] theological beliefs, the Jews must congregate in Palestine and establish a Jewish state on all its territory" – an idea that would obviously appeal to Ariel Sharon – "so as to make the Second Coming of Jesus Christ possible." But here comes the bad bit. As Avnery says, "the evangelists don't like to dwell openly on what comes next: before the coming [of the Messiah], the Jews must convert to Christianity. Those who don't will perish in a gigantic holocaust in the battle of Armageddon. This is basically an anti-Semitic teaching, but who cares, so long as they support Israel?" The power of the Israeli lobby in the United States is debated far more freely in the Israeli press than in American newspapers or on US television. There is, of course, a fine and dangerous line between justified investigation – and condemnation – of the lobby's power, and the racist Arab claim that a small cabal of Zionists run the world. Those in America who share the latter view include a deeply unpleasant organization just along the coast from San Francisco at Newport Beach known as the "Institute for Historical Research". These are the Holocaust deniers whose annual conference last month included a lecture on "death sentences imposed by German authorities against German soldiers... for killing or even mistreating Jews". Too much of this and you'd have to join the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC – to restore your sanity. But the Israeli lobby is powerful. In fact, its influence over the US Congress and Senate calls into question the degree to which the American legislature has been corrupted by lobby groups. It is to an Israeli voice – Avnery again – that Americans have to turn to hear just how mighty the lobby has become. "Its electoral and financial power casts a long shadow over both houses of the Congress," Avnery writes. "Hundreds of Senators and Congressmen were elected with the help of Jewish contributions. Resistance to the directives of the Jewish lobby is political suicide. If the AIPAC were to table a resolution abolishing the Ten Commandments, 80 Senators and 300 Congressmen would sign it at once. This lobby frightens the media, too, and assures their adherence to Israel." Avnery could have looked no further than the Democratic primary in Alabama last month for proof of his assertion. Earl Hilliard, the five-term incumbent, had committed the one mortal sin of any American politician: he had expressed sympathy for the cause of the Palestinians. He had also visited Libya several years ago. Hilliard's opponent, Arthur Davis, turned into an outspoken supporter of Israel and raised large amounts of money from the Jewish community, both in Alabama and nationwide. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz noted that among the names of the first list of contributors to Davis's campaign funds were "10 Cohens from New York and New Jersey, but before one gets to the Cohens, there were Abrams, Ackerman, Adler, Amir, Asher, Baruch, Basok, Berger, Berman, Bergman, Bernstein and Blumenthal. All from the East Coast, Chicago and Los Angeles. It's highly unlikely any of them have ever visited Alabama..." The Jewish newspaper Forward – essential reading for any serious understanding of the American Jewish community – quoted a Jewish political activist following the race: "Hilliard has been a problem in his votes and with guys like that, when there's any conceivable primary challenge, you take your shot." Hilliard, of course, lost to Davis, whose campaign funds reached $781,000. The AIPAC concentrates on Congress while the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO), made up of the heads of 51 Jewish Organizations, concentrates on the executive branch of the US government. Every congressman knows the names of those critics of Israel who have been undone by the lobby. Take Senator J William Fulbright, whose 1963 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee detailed how five million tax-deductable dollars from philanthropic Americans had been sent to Israel and then recycled back to the US for distribution to Organizations seeking to influence public opinion in favor of Israel; this cost him the chance of being Secretary of State. He was defeated in the 1974 Democratic primary after pro-Israeli money poured into the campaign funds of his rival, Governor Dale Bumpers, following a statement by the AIPAC that Fulbright was "consistently unkind to Israel and our supporters in this country". Paul Findley, who spent 22 years as a Republican congressman from Illinois, found his political career destroyed after he had campaigned against the Israeli lobby – although, ironically, his book on the subject, They Dare to Speak Out was nine weeks on The Washington Post bestseller list, suggesting that quite a number of Americans want to know why their congressmen are so pro-Israeli. Just two months ago, the US House of Representatives voted 352 to 21 to express its unqualified support for Israel. The Senate voted 94 to two for the same motion. Even as they voted, Ariel Sharon's army was continuing its destructive invasion of the West Bank. "I do not recall any member of Congress asking me if I was in favor of patting Israel on the back..." James Abu Rizk, an Arab-American of Lebanese origin, told the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee afterwards. "No one else, no average American, has been asked either. But that is the state of American politics today... The votes and bows have nothing to do with the legislators' love for Israel. They have everything to do with the money that is fed into their campaigns by members of the Israeli lobby. My estimate is that $6bn flows from the American Treasury to Israel each year." Within days, 42 US governors turned up in Sacramento to sign declarations supporting Israel. California governor Gray Davis and New York governor George Pataki – California has the largest Jewish population of any state except New York – arranged the meeting. Sometimes the support of Israel's loyalists in Congress turns into farce. Tom Delay – reacting to CNN founder Ted Turner's criticism of Israel – went so far out of his way to justify Israeli occupation of the West Bank that he blurted out on MSNBC television that the Palestinians "should become citizens" of Israel, an idea unlikely to commend itself to his friend Ariel Sharon. Texas Republican Richard Armey went the other way. "I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank. I happen to believe the Palestinians should leave... to have those people who have been aggressors against Israel retired to some other area." Do the people of Texas know that their representative is supporting "ethnic cleansing" in the Middle East? Or are they silent because they prefer not to speak out? Censorship takes many forms. When Ishai Sagi and Ram Rahat-Goodman, two Israeli reserve soldiers who refused to serve in the West Bank or Gaza, were scheduled to debate their decision at Sacramento's Congregation B'nai Israel in May, their appearance was cancelled. Steve Meinrath, who is chairman of the Israel Affairs Committee at B'nai Israel, remarked bleakly that "intimidation on the part of certain sectors of the community has deprived the entire community of hearing a point of view that is being widely debated in Israel. Some people feel it's too dangerous..." Does President Bush? His long-awaited Middle-East speech was Israeli policy from start to finish. A group of Jewish leaders, including Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz – who said recently that the idea of executing the families of Palestinian suicide bombers was a legitimate if flawed attempt at finding a balance between preventing terrorism and preserving democracy – and the AIPAC and CPMAJO heads all sent clear word to the President that no pressure should be put on Israel. Wiesel – whose courage permeates his books on the Holocaust but who lamentably failed to condemn the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut in 1982 at the hands of Israel's Lebanese allies, said he felt "sadness", but his sadness was "with Israel, not against Israel" because "after all the Israeli soldiers did not kill" – took out a full page in The New York Times. In this, he urged Bush to "please remember that Ariel Sharon, a military man who knows the ugly face of war better than anyone, is ready to make 'painful sacrifices' to end the conflict." Sharon was held "personally responsible" for the massacre by Israel's own commission of inquiry – but there was no mention of that from Wiesel, who told reporters in May that he would like to revoke Arafat's Nobel prize. President Bush was not going to oppose these pressures. His father may well have lost his re-election because he dared to tell Israel that it must make peace with the Arabs. Bush is not going to make the same mistake – nor does brother Jeb want to lose his forthcoming governorship election. Thus Sharon's delight at the Bush speech, and it was left to a lonely and brave voice – Mitchell Plitnick of the Jewish Voice for Peace – to state that "few speeches could be considered to be as destructive as that of the American President... Few things are as blinding as unbridled arrogance." Or as vicious as the messages that still pour in to Dennis Bernstein and Barbara Lubin, whose Middle East Children's Alliance, co-ordinating with Israeli peace groups, is trying to raise money to rebuild the Jenin refugee camp. "I got a call the other day at 5am," Bernstein told me. "This guy says to me: 'You got a lot of nerve going and eating at that Jewish deli.' What comes after that?" Before I left San Francisco, Lubin showed me her latest e-mails. "Dear Cunt," one of them begins, "When we want your opinion you ****ing Nazi cunt, we will have one of your Palestinian buddies **** it [sic] of you. I hope that in your next trip to the occupied territories you are blown to bits by one of your Palestinian buddies [sic] bombs." Another, equally obscene, adds that "you should be ashamed of yourself, a so-called Jewish woman advocating the destruction of Israel". Less crude language, of course, greeted President Bush's speech. Pat Robertson thought the Bush address "brilliant". Senator Charles Schumer, a totally loyal pro-Israeli Democrat from New York, said that "clearly, on the politics, this is going to please supporters of Israel as well as the Christian coalition types". He could say that again. For who could be more Christian than President George W Bush? © 2002 lndependent Digital (UK) Ltd

Dear Paul, sounds like you were in Artsagh recently. Would you share your impressions please.I never been there yet and I am eager to visit.I can't help you on tombstone. Regards

Dear Alpha I agree with many points you have raised and people who demonstrated in front of the opera house were not reactive but proactive. They wanted change. As for soviet times, it is no secret that people became corrupt because one had to be to survive. The clerk had to cheat, judges lied, managers stole in droves, policeman, politician, party bosses, professors, in short just about everyone, so the system fundamentally eroded the basic human values and therefore its residues are still felt in Armenia. It is no question that former corrupt party bosses etc. are today’s politicians and people in positions. Initially my outlook was from the center, being, individual projecting outwards the correct and productive attitude the reverse only compounds the individual, hence one spends relentless energy talking about things, blaming everything except taking responsibility to change the very things that bother them. Dear Sip In essence one does always act in self-interest regardless the cause. Call it altruism, greed, self-sacrifice in truth we do things to satisfy our deepest or shallowest needs. Religious person shows compassion because his religion told him so otherwise he wont go to heaven. My care things Armenian stem from the fact that as Armenian I want my people to win for a change, which makes me a winner. I have kids and I want my kids to be proud of being Armenian therefore my activities may look altruistic but in reality I have my motives to help my country. Sip there is also the element of human slavery to money, power, position etc. One who is slave to money like the guy in my example could not stand the risk of losing money in Armenia but perhaps someone like that is useless to Armenian cause in general anyway. To give back your success to your people is the spiritual law. One who shares their success gets double back. I will share an interesting example. Didn’t you wanted all your friends to see the one movie, which you thought, was great? Examine this in you. Didn’t you feel better that you got to share your enthusiasm and insight? Same with business success, truly developed people with personal success want to share that success since doing it makes them grow deeper, wiser as an individual after all one leaves everything beyond once dead. I bet if the opportunity aroused you may get greater self fulfillment if you shared your knowledge about programming in Armenia, perhaps a private school where people in know how can share their knowledge or even as a visiting guest speaker who can spend one week teaching Armenian kids about computers. I bet you will find much more gratifying on personal level, nothing is greater then sharing even love is sharing. Regards

Dear Sip, lets expand on it just for the fun of it. Global economy would not have happened if not because of greed: Greed for new markets and profits. McDonalds, Starbucks are not in China and God knows where for altruism or spread of democracy? From my experience in real life most people minus genuine nuns and priests are not motivated to do anything if there is no personal gain. (One can argue that even nuns and priests are motivated by spiritual greed) You can call it greed or any other lofty words, which if you dig deeper end result is still greed. In ART I do display certain raw idealism, but in real life I am sure the donkey would not move unless the grass is held in front of it. (Excuse me for crude example) You are on shaky grounds on “you are what you seem to be” verses what you think. I firmly believe and proven in real life that every action is a thought at first. What you carry with you and think daily is who you are. Hajoghutiuner