Berkeley Newspaper Victim of Zionist Vendetta

In a Home to Free Speech, a Paper Is Accused of Anti-Semitism

By JESSE McKINLEY

BERKELEY, Calif. - For the last six years, The Berkeley Daily Planet has published a freewheeling assortment of submissions from readers, who offer sharp-elbowed views on everything from raucous college parties (generally bad) to the war in Iraq (ditto).

John Gertz, editor of dpwatchdog.com, a site containing what it calls anti-Semitic writings published in The Planet. He says his goal is not to close the paper.

But since March, that running commentary has been under attack by a small but vociferous group of critics who accuse the paper's editor, Becky O'Malley, of publishing too many letters and other commentary pieces critical of Israel. Those accusations are the basis of a campaign to drive away the paper's advertisers and a Web site that strongly suggests The Planet and its editor are anti-Semitic.

"We think that Ms. O'Malley is addicted to anti-Israel expression just as an alcoholic is to drinking," Jim Sinkinson, who has led the campaign to discourage advertisers, wrote in an e-mail message. He is the publisher of Infocom Group, a media relations company. "If she wants to serve and please the East Bay Jewish community, she would be safer avoiding the subject entirely."

Ms. O'Malley denies any personal or editorial bias, and bristles at the suggestion that she should not publish letters about Israel in a city like Berkeley, which has a sizable Jewish community and a populace - and City Council - that often weigh in on Middle East and international affairs.

"Frankly, the term that crossed my mind was 'protection racket,' " Ms. O'Malley said. "I think that is unusual to say the least that anybody would think that they could dictate a whole area of the world that is simply off limits for discussion."

Whether right or wrong, Mr. Sinkinson's campaign has left The Planet - a weekly already hammered by the recession - gasping for breath. Advertising sales revenue is down some 60 percent from last year, Ms. O'Malley says. In October, the paper trimmed its skeleton crew of full-time reporters to one from three, and has begun a fund-raising drive to keep publishing.

Still, she says she has no intention of stopping the publication of submitted letters, citing a commitment to free speech that is a legacy of the city where the Free Speech Movement was born in the 1960s.

"I have the old-fashioned basic liberal thing of believing that the remedy for speech you don't like is more speech," said Ms. O'Malley, 69, a veteran local journalist who bought the paper in 2002 as a retirement project with her husband, Michael, now 72. "If somebody says something you don't like, say what you think. And I felt it a privilege here in my middle age to be in a position to make that happen."

The paper has published unpopular opinions on other subjects, including a commentary from a local activist arguing that the murder of four Oakland police officers - none of whom were black - by an African-American parolee in March was "karmic justice" for past police killings of civilians. But such pieces are in a section of the paper that clearly states they "do not necessarily reflect the views of the Daily Planet."

Mr. O'Malley, the paper's publisher, said he thought The Planet's critics were confusing letters from unaffiliated writers - the paper says it prints anything that is not libelous or obscene, with a preference for local writers - with official editorial positions.

"We publish things from people that we can barely stand to be in the same room with," he said.

In addition to the letter-writing campaign, the paper has faced online criticism from dpwatchdog.com, a site that contains pages of what it calls anti-Semitic writings published in The Planet. The site's editor, John Gertz, says his goal is not to close the paper, but "reform" it.

"The object is not to attack the press," said Mr. Gertz, the president and chief executive of Zorro Productions, which owns the trademark and copyrights on the Zorro franchise. "The object is to turn the press into something responsible."

Mr. Gertz complains that The Planet does not fact-check reader submissions, something Ms. O'Malley says is well beyond its resources.

"We make a serious effort to get most words spelled right in the headlines, which we don't always achieve," Ms. O'Malley said. "And we of course never knowingly print something that we know to be untrue. But, frankly, there are things we don't know."

The campaign against the paper has taken a financial toll.

Mr. Sinkinson, whose company publishes The Bulldog Reporter, a media guide, first took aim at The Planet in March, in a letter to advertisers likening the paper to a "publication that praises the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan."

"In these tough economic times, is it really a good investment to continue advertising in a paper, one of whose main purposes seems to be the defamation of Jews and the state of Israel," stated the letter, which included a cancellation notice advertisers could send to the paper as well as reader submissions published in The Planet that Mr. Sinkinson described as "hate-speech." Among those was a letter printed in 2006 from an Iranian student then living in India, Kurosh Arianpour, who suggested that the Jews had brought historical persecution - including that by the Nazis - on themselves.

Mr. Arianpour's letter brought a sharp rebuke from local civic and Jewish leaders, and two weeks later, a published explanation from Ms. O'Malley, who wrote that the letter's content was "very nasty" and amounted "to untrue racist generalizations of the worst sort."

But, she wrote, "I still don't think that keeping sentiments like this out of The Daily Planet will make him or people like him go away."

The fight has gotten personal on occasion, with one of Mr. Gertz's earliest complaints centering on a 2005 letter responding to a letter he had written to The Planet. In that response, a Planet reader said Mr. Gertz wore the "funniest-looking" yarmulke.

On his Web site and in a written report he has assembled, Mr. Gertz has called Ms. O'Malley "brutish," "a second-rate intellect" and "ungifted" and suggested she may have learned what he calls anti-Semitic views while growing up in a largely non-Jewish community in Pasadena, Calif.

"It never occurred to me, frankly, till somebody submitted the research to us about her background, to begin to ask the question of, well, 'Maybe she learned this stuff on her daddy's knee,' " Mr. Gertz said. He also attacked a regular Planet contributor as a Stalinist and called The Planet's readership "aging radicals" who would be "of only marginal interest to most would-be advertisers."

Wars of words are not uncommon in Berkeley, particularly regarding the Middle East, a contentious topic that the City Council occasionally addresses though it has no sway over foreign policy.

Councilman Kriss Worthington, who condemned the Arianpour letter but was still singled out by Mr. Gertz as a "gullible politician," said he tried about a decade ago to devise a moderate council policy toward Israel. He failed.

"It was the only council item I ever wrote that got no support from either side," Mr. Worthington said.

Local Jewish leaders, meanwhile, seem wary of getting involved in the campaign against The Planet. The Anti-Defamation League's regional director in San Francisco, Jonathan Bernstein, said that while the paper had published some "divisive and hateful" material, Mr. Sinkinson's and Mr. Gertz's efforts were their own.

"I don't think anyone in the organized Jewish community is involved in this in any way," Mr. Bernstein said.

Both sides met recently to discuss possible resolutions to their dispute, but it was unclear if progress had been made.

Ms. O'Malley said the paper would abide by its mission to publish diverse opinions, trusting what she called "the self-correcting process" of open debate.

She also offered a possible two-entity solution to the conflict, saying of her critics, "They could start their own paper."

Published: November 27, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/media/28paper.html?_r=1&ref=us

Israeli Rabbi Advocates Killing Gentile Babies

QUOTE: in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents."

COMMENT: what irritates the reporter is that this rabbi is getting money from the Israeli government, i.e. from the American taxpayer.

Guess who is funding the rabbi who endorses killing gentile babies?

By Akiva Eldar

Right-wing spokesmen, including some elected officials, rushed to place Yaakov "Jack" Teitel in the fringe group alongside Yigal Amir, Eden Natan Zada, Eliran Golan, Asher Weisgan, Danny Tikman and a few other "political/ideological" murderers.

True, they acknowledge, there are among us several lunatic rabbis who agitate to violence. Really, just a handful; even a toddler could count them.

The more stringent will note that unlike the Hamas government, our government does not pay the salaries of rabbis who advocate the killing of babies.

Is that so? Not really.

For example, government ministries regularly transfer support and funding to a yeshiva whose rabbi determined that it is permissible to kill gentile babies "because their presence assists murder, and there is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us ... it is permissible to harm the children of a leader in order to stop him from acting evilly ... we have seen in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents."

Lior Yavne, who oversees research at the Yesh Din human rights organization, checked and found that in 2006-2007, the Ministry of Education department of Torah institutions transferred over a million shekels to the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.

The Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated over 150,000 shekels to the yeshiva since 2007, scholarships for students with financial difficulties studying there. And what can they learn with the help of public funding from the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira? According to selected items published last week in the media, the boys can learn that Teitel is not only innocent, but also a real saint.

Their spiritual leader stated in his book, "Torat Hamelekh" that "a national decision is not necessary in order to permit the shedding of blood of an evil kingdom. Even individuals from the afflicted kingdom can attack them."

A brochure distributed in Judean and Samarian communities stated that "needless to say that nowhere in the book does it state that these remarks are aimed only at gentiles in ancient times."

The commandments in the book do not suffice only with gentiles; you can also find in them approval to attack leftist professors: every citizen in the kingdom opposing us who encourages the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their actions is considered a pursuer and his killing is permissible," wrote the rabbi and adds, "and also considered a pursuer is someone whose remarks weaken our kingdom or have a similar effect."

Not long ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that he would ask European Union countries to halt their support for the Breaking the Silence organization because he was displeased with their publications.

The minister surely has reservations about the rabbi's publications.

He is invited to approach his colleagues at the Ministry of Education and at the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Last update - 03:41 17/11/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1128767.html

Israel Collaborating with Al Qaeda in Lebanon?

Israel has worked with nasty people in the past -- Idi Amin, Apartheid South Africa, the Shah of Iran for example. This could be total propaganda, but if true it might explain why the US and West have not made great complaints about the rockets in Lebanon. Furthermore, Israel would benefit greatly by having an excuse to attack Lebanon and damage Hezbollah.

Lebanon source: Israel working with Islamists to hurt Hezbollah

By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent

A senior Lebanese defense source said Friday that militants allied with Al-Qaida are working in collaboration with Israel against Hezbollah, A-Sharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.

According to the official, the Lebanon-based Fatah al-Islam fired a Katyusha rocket at northern Israel last month precisely so that the finger of responsibility could be pointed at Hezbollah.

This is not the first claim from within Lebanon regarding collaboration. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman last month suggested that Israel had arranged for collaborators in his country to fire Katyusha rockets at the Galilee earlier this week, in a bid to keep tensions high in the area.

According to the Lebanese newspaper A-Sapir, Israel's declarations that it would not cease its intelligence activities on Lebanese territories validate Suleiman's accusations.

A panel of inquiry established by the Lebanese Army found that the rockets, fired from Houla in southern Lebanon, were launched from the home of the village's mayor.

The mayor was not present in his home, according to the panel, and has no connection to the rocket.

Last update - 13:28 08/11/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126407.html

Zionists Bring Politics to Baseball

Organizations from US, Palestine & Israel call on baseball's NY Mets to cancel Hebron settlers` fundraiser

By: Adalah-NY

4 November 2009

Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East

Eleven Organizations Demand that Mets Cancel Citi Field Fundraiser for Israeli Settlers

New York, NY, November 4, 2009 - Eleven organizations from the US, Palestine and Israel have called on baseball's New York Mets to cancel a November 21st dinner at the Caesars Club at Citi Field for the Brooklyn-based Hebron Fund. The dinner is a fundraiser for Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank City of Hebron. In a letter sent to the Mets on November 3rd, the groups said, "The New York Mets will be facilitating activities that directly violate international law and the Obama administration's call for a freeze in settlement construction, and that actively promote racial discrimination, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes in Hebron." Seven hundred Israeli settlers, living amidst 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron, are expanding their hold on the historic old city by driving out the Palestinian residents.

The groups added that "It would be a tragic irony for an event funding Israeli settlers' violent actions and discriminatory policies against Palestinians to be held at Caesars Club which, according to the Mets, "sits directly on top of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda," which was named "in honor of Jackie Robinson, the... great American who broke baseball`s color barrier." The Mets and Major League Baseball promote Robinson's legacy, including Robinson's value of "Justice: Treating all people fairly, no matter who they are." Mets owner Fred Wilpon has explained in the past that, as a 16 year-old, meeting Jackie Robinson was an experience that never left him. "As a kid, a nothing, he treated me with all of that dignity that he treated everyone else in his life."

On the Hebron Fund webpage, clicking on the symbol which says "Give to Hebron" leads to a donations page on the website for the Jewish Community of Hebron which says, among other things, "keep Hebron Jewish for the Jewish people." In a report on Hebron, the Israeli human rights organizations B'Tselem and ACRI have labeled the demands of Hebron's settlers as "racist." Hebron settlement leader Moshe Levinger, praised in a Hebron Fund dinner video, has been quoted saying,"The Arabs know to behave like good boys around us." Hebron Fund Executive Director Yossi Baumol also made very derogatory comments about Arabs in a 2007 interview.

The signers of the letter include Adalah-NY, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Brooklyn For Peace, Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel), CODEPINK Women for Peace, Gush Shalom (Israel), Jews Against the Occupation-NYC, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (Palestine), US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and WESPAC Foundation. The letter was cced and sent to Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Middle East Envoy George Mitchell, who has a history of involvement with Major League Baseball, and Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson's wife.

The letter explains that reviewing last year's and this year's Hebron Fund dinner shows that some dinner honorees support violence and terrorizing Palestinians. In 1990, Noam Arnon, who is to be honored at the dinner, called three Israelis who were convicted of killing three Arabs and maiming two Palestinian mayors in car bombings "heroes." In a video on the Hebron Fund website, 2008 dinner honoree Myrna Zisman pays tribute to Hebron settler Yifat Alkoby. Alkoby became famous worldwide in 2006 when she was videotaped in Hebron terrorizing and calling a Palestinian woman and girl "whores" who were caged inside their own home as protection from settler attacks. In another video featuring 2008 dinner honorees, three children who appear to be the honorees' children are briefly shown holding guns and smiling.

All Israeli settlements violate international law, according to a broad international consensus. The Hebron Fund's dinner invitation says, "Join us in support of Hebron and in protest of today's building freeze in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]." In a September, 2008 radio interview, the Hebron Fund's Yossi Baumol explained, "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius recently highlighted the Hebron Fund and noted that, "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns. A search of IRS records identified 28 U.S. charitable groups that made a total of $33.4 million in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007." The Hebron Fund has been the subject of complaints to the I.R.S. regarding its tax-exempt status. The complaints request investigations of allegations that it raises funds for the development of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli organization Gush Shalom recently urged the National Lawyers Guild, an American organization, to encourage American tax authorities to strip US non-profits that support Israeli settlements of their tax-exempt status.

The letter to The Mets: http://adalahny.org/index.php/letters-a-statements/17-letters/327-mets-hebron-cancel

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=36533

Lebanon 2006: Hezbollah Humbled the Mighty Israeli Army

The Israelis are soooo good at fighting when they fire from their jet planes and helicopter gunships supplied by American taxpayers. On the ground it's quite a different story. What's amazing is that their Merkava tanks, the most heavily armored ones in the world, could not stand up to the poorly armed men of Hezbollah, who have only their faith and courage to armor their bodies.

QUOTE: According to Israeli military reports, after the first and last tanks were hit by rocket fire or mines, killing the company commander, the 24 tanks were essentially trapped inside a valley, surrounded on all sides and pinned down by mortars, rockets and mines. Eleven tanks were destroyed and the rest partially damaged and Israel lost at least 12 soldiers.

Hezbollah gears up for new war

Fighters rearm and reinforce positions in valleys amid fears that Israel is about to launch attack on Islamic group

Mitchell Prothero Peter Beamont, The Observer [London]

Hezbollah is rapidly rearming in preparation for a new conflict with Israel, fearing that Benjamin Netanyahu's government will attack Lebanon again prior to any assault on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Last week, Israeli commandos seized a ship in the Mediterranean loaded with almost 400 tonnes of rockets and small arms - which Israel claimed was being sent from Iran to its Hezbollah allies. In dramatic further evidence of growing tensions, the Observer has learned that Hezbollah fighters have been busy reinforcing fixed defence positions north of the Litani river.

Having lost many of its bunkers in the south, Hezbollah is preparing a new strategy to defend villages there.

Although the organisation denied last week that the weapons were intended for its use, senior commanders have done little to disguise the scale of rearmament. "Sure, we are rearming, we have even said that we have far more rockets and missiles than we did in 2006," said a Hezbollah commander, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel began after an ill-advised operation by to kidnap two Israeli soldiers, prompting a massive Israeli response that lasted 34 days and killed more than 1,000 people.

"We had to blow up or leave some of our bunkers and fighting positions, but we still have plenty of capabilities in the south. We expect the Israelis to come soon, if not this winter, then they will wait until spring, when the ground isn't too soft for their tanks."

It was expected that the ceasefire would neutralise Hezbollah military efforts along the Lebanon-Israel border, as a newly bolstered United Nations peacekeeping force and the Lebanese army took up positions. Instead, based on dozens of interviews and multiple trips into the country's south, it is clear that Hezbollah believes it would face different challenges.

It has been forced to abandon the line of deeply entrenched static positions on the border with Israel and withdraw most of its men and weaponry to clusters of Shia villages.

"It's clear that Hezbollah no longer controls the border, due to the presence of Unifil [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] troops," said Andrew Exum, a military expert on Hezbollah at the Centre for New American Security. "They appear to be hardening the villages for this next round of fighting, while pushing their fixed positions north away from Unifil to protect the approaches to Beirut and the Bekaa Valley."

Israel and the United States have long assumed that any military action against Iran's nuclear programme would draw a muscular response from its close allies in Hezbollah. According to Israeli military and intelligence analysts, any move against Iran would require a move first against Hezbollah's capability to disrupt life in northern Israel with its rockets.

Tel Aviv seems unlikely to commit the same mistakes it did in 2006, when the plan was for air strikes to disrupt and confuse Hezbollah's military command, while minimising the use of ground troops. Israeli military sources have said that they are preparing for a potential new conflict.

Cruising through the serene green wadis that connect south Lebanon to the Litani river to the north, the commander explains what happened at the end of the last war. "We knocked out three of their tanks on the first day, as they tried to enter," he explained at a turn-off by the village of al-Qantara. "But after they entered the wadi, we knew they were going for the river and had to be stopped. So we called out to all the special forces anti-tank teams in the area. And they all swarmed the wadi. Boys would set up and wait for the tanks, fire off their rounds and then pull back. Then they would pull back a kilometre or so down the wadi and wait for them again."

According to Israeli military reports, after the first and last tanks were hit by rocket fire or mines, killing the company commander, the 24 tanks were essentially trapped inside a valley, surrounded on all sides and pinned down by mortars, rockets and mines. Eleven tanks were destroyed and the rest partially damaged and Israel lost at least 12 soldiers.

As unlikely as the Israelis might be to repeat these mistakes, they must figure out how to get their heavy armour past the Hezbollah teams that still lurk in the hills and valleys in the next round of fighting, if and when it comes.

* The Observer, Sunday 8 November 2009

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/08/hezbollah-rearms-against-israel

US Says Israel an Intolerant Society

QUOTE: The report makes it clear that practices that have become routine in Israel are considered unacceptable in enlightened countries and should be corrected. Among other examples, the report notes that more than 300,000 immigrants who are not considered Jewish under rabbinical law are not allowed to marry and divorce in Israel or be buried in Jewish cemeteries.

U.S. State Department: Israel is not a tolerant society

By Akiva Eldar

Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society, according to a new report from the U.S. State Department.

Despite boasting religious freedom and protection of all holy sites, Israel falls short in tolerance toward minorities, equal treatment of ethnic groups, openness toward various streams within society, and respect for holy and other sites.

The comprehensive report, written by the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, says Israel discriminates against groups including Muslims, Jehova's Witnesses, Reform Jews, Christians, women and Bedouin.

The report says that the 1967 law on the protection of holy places refers to all religious groups in the country, including in Jerusalem, but "the government implements regulations only for Jewish sites. Non-Jewish holy sites do not enjoy legal protection under it because the government does not recognize them as official holy sites."

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At the end of 2008, for example, all of the 137 officially recognized holy sites were Jewish. Moreover, Israel issued regulations for the identification, preservation and guarding of Jewish sites only. Many Christian and Muslim sites are said to be neglected, inaccessible or at risk of exploitation by real estate entrepreneurs and local authorities.

The report makes it clear that practices that have become routine in Israel are considered unacceptable in enlightened countries and should be corrected.

Among other examples, the report notes that more than 300,000 immigrants who are not considered Jewish under rabbinical law are not allowed to marry and divorce in Israel or be buried in Jewish cemeteries.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126286.html

Be Glad this Nutcase Moved from Florida to Israel

QUOTE: . . .in 2004 placed bottles of poison-laced juice in a Palestinian village . . . he placed a bomb bear the monastery at Beit Jimal near Beit Shemesh, which injured a Palestinian tractor driver because he "heard that the monks there were enticing Jewish children with candy." . . . Tytell allegedly put an explosive charge in Purim candy he placed near the home of the Ortiz family in Ariel. A 15-year-old boy was seriously injured in the attack.

U.S.-born Jewish terrorist suspected of series of attacks over past 12 years

By Amos Harel and Chaim Levinson

The authorities have arrested a resident of the West Bank settlement of Shvut Rachel for suspected murder and a role in a string of murder plots, according to details of an investigation revealed Sunday after a gag order was lifted.

Yaakov (Jack) Tytell, who was arrested last month, is suspected of involvement in the murder of two Palestinians and the rigging of a bomb that seriously injured a boy from a Messianic Jewish family in Ariel. He was allegedly involved in two other bombings, which lightly injured Prof. Zeev Sternhell and a Palestinian. The police say Teitel has confessed to these acts.

Some of his actions were allegedly motivated by hatred for gays and lesbians; Tytell was also questioned about possible involvement in the murder of two people at a gay youth club in Tel Aviv last August. He initially claimed responsibility for those murders, but investigators say he did not commit them.

Tytell, 36, moved to Israel from the United States nine years ago. He and his wife Rivka, who married in Israel, have four children. The police detained Mrs. Tytell for questioning, but she exercised her right to remain silent.

Her husband had been involved in the past with the extreme right wing, but he says he carried out his attacks alone and no one else knew about them, according to investigators. The Shin Bet security service and police are still examining this claim, but have so far not discovered accomplices.

Police found many weapons and explosives at his home and another concealed location.

Tytell was arrested on October 7 in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof after posting signs around town praising the attack on the Tel Aviv gay center. He was apprehended in possession of a loaded gun.

He was remanded and interrogated for about three weeks without being allowed to see a lawyer, a step that was approved by various courts, including the High Court of Justice.

A native of Florida

Tytell was born in Florida and lived in Israel for extended periods in the 1990s. He came to Israel in 1997, he said, to take revenge on Palestinians for suicide attacks that decade. He told investigators that in 1997 he murdered a Palestinian taxi driver in East Jerusalem.

A few months later, he allegedly murdered another Palestinian near the settlement of Carmel in the South Hebron Hills. He said that in both murders he used a gun he had taken apart and smuggled aboard his British Airways flight to Israel.

Tytell said he hid the gun at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Police searched the area with Tytell but did not find the gun. Shortly after the second murder, Tytell returned to the United States, where he remained for three years.

During that time, he had several run-ins with the law. When he returned to Israel he was questioned based on an intelligence tip by the Shin Bet and police on the Carmel murder; he denied involvement.

Despite his arrest, he obtained a gun license in Israel; he also had six rifles and three pistols, which he allegedly smuggled into Israel from the United States in a shipping container.

Police found the weapons buried in his yard in Shvut Rachel in what they said was "excellent" condition. One pistol was buried at the nearby outpost of Adei-Ad. Tytell reportedly said his main stockpile had been discovered and he had to go into hiding.

Tytell allegedly maintained a room in his home where he experimented with explosive charges. The police said he became proficient at making bombs. Tytell, however, has never served in the Israel Defense Forces or the U.S. military, as some media outlets had reported.

According to the Shin Bet, Tytell placed four improvised anti-personnel mines near the Arab Israeli town of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem. They say in March 2003 he placed a bomb near the home of a Palestinian in the village of Sajur near Ramallah, and in 2004 placed bottles of poison-laced juice in a Palestinian village near the settlement of Eli. No one was injured in those cases.

Tytell reportedly told the police that in 1997 he stabbed an Arab in Jerusalem's Independence Park after he suspected that the man was offering him sex.

On November 2, 2006, Tytell allegedly embarked on a series of attacks to deter police from providing security for the Gay Pride Parade that was to be held in Jerusalem. He allegedly placed an improvised but potentially lethal explosive charge at the police station in Eli, which was found by a police sapper.

Tytell told the police that on April 20, 2007, he placed a bomb bear the monastery at Beit Jimal near Beit Shemesh, which injured a Palestinian tractor driver because he "heard that the monks there were enticing Jewish children with candy."

On May 15 that year he allegedly placed a bomb that exploded near a police car in Jerusalem, and a month later he set off another explosive charge near a patrol car in the capital. There were no injuries in those cases.

On March 20, 2008, Tytell allegedly put an explosive charge in Purim candy he placed near the home of the Ortiz family in Ariel. A 15-year-old boy was seriously injured in the attack. Tytell reportedly said the family were "missionaries who intended to entrap weak Jews."

On September 25, 2008, Tytell allegedly struck for the last time, with the bomb outside the front door of Sternhell's house.

The last two attacks brought the police closer to Tytell. They said the breakthrough came in March 2008 when a security camera outside the Ortiz home caught Tytell climbing the staircase and putting the explosive device down. Tytell apparently knew of the camera and covered his face, but the police were still able to identify him.

After the attack on Sternhell, the commander of the police's West Bank Central Unit, Chief Superintendent Eli Makmal, suspected links with other cases. The Shin Bet profiled the suspect as an American who hated various groups. DNA was also found at the scene of the attack on Sternhell. By the end of August this year the police suspected Tytell and began 24-hour surveillance.

A senior Shin Bet official said Sunday that although Tytell had been under surveillance, he was very careful about his activities, which made it hard to collect evidence against him. He did not commit any other attacks during the surveillance, the police say.

Yesha Council condemns attacks

"Acts of the kind allegedly committed by Yaakov Tytell are grave, prohibited and unacceptable. The security forces should be congratulated for discovering him," Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, said Sunday.

"Any person of conscience in Israel must rise up in indignation against such acts, as well as against any despicable attempt to use them to gain political capital by blaming an entire community that is not connected - and is in fact vehemently opposed - to such actions," Dayan added.

Ne'emanei Torah Va'Avodah, a liberal religious-Zionist movement, said that it "condemns any kind of violence. There is no justification for these heinous acts in the Torah, which espouses kindness and peace. However, we ask that people avoid pointing fingers and casting blame on an entire community because of the acts of one person."

Said radical right-wing activist Itamar Ben Gvir: "I don't support violence, certainly not against Jews, but people like [Prof. Zeev] Sternhell need to take a good look at themselves. His statements and recommendations to Arabs to attack 'only' settlers constitute a provocation that has led to violence."

Last update - 09:42 02/11/2009

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125254.html

Not so Smart After All?

Other stories have bemoaned Israel's "brain drain" and lack of achievement in academics (except Nobel prizes, where they have done very well), as well as other education problems. Maybe it they spent more money on education and less trying to take land away from the Palestinians they could perform better.

Chinese ranking puts Hebrew University in 64th slot in world

Shanghai Jiao Tong University lists Jerusalem institution among top 100 schools worldwide, fourth overall for Asia-Pacific. Other Israeli universities included in top 500 list

Yaheli Moran Zelikovich

The Hebrew University in Jerusalemhas been included in China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University's top 100 academic institutions worldwide.

The Israeli university ranked 64th in Jiao Tong's annual review of the top 500 universities in the world. The ranking is considered one of the most objective ones in the world of academics.

The parameters used to determine ranking include the number of scientific publications, which account for 40% of the ranking, the number of Nobel Prize laureates (30%), the number of scientists quoted in 21 difference [sic] disciplines (20%) and the number of academic achievement in ratio to the university's size (10%).

The list also ranks the Hebrew University's computer science programs in 25th place and further ranks it among the top 75 schools for business and economics.

The university ranked fourth overall for the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian National University ranked third, Japan's Kyoto University ranked second and topping the list for Asia-Pacific was the University of Tokyo.

Topping the top 100 list were the American Harvard, Stanford and Berkley universities.

Other Israeli universities were included in Jiao Tong's extended list, ranking 101 to 500: Tel Aviv University and the Israel Institute of Technology were ranked among the top 151 schools in the world, the Weizmann Institute of Science was ranked among the top 200, and the Bar Ilan and Ben-Gurion universities ranked among to top 400 universities worldwide.

Published: 11.02.09, 13:35 / Israel News

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