The daughter of Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., a former mayor of Baltimore, Pelosi grew up in a Democratic family with Jewish neighbors and friends.

"She likes to say that, growing up in Baltimore, she went to a bar or bat mitzvah every Saturday," Amy Friedkin, a former president of AIPAC and a friend of Pelosi's for 25 years, wrote in an e-mail message to JTA.

Friedkin noted that there's even a soccer field in the Haifa area of Israel named after the lawmaker's family.

Really??? Wow. Impressive.

How many Catholic Americans do you think have israeli land dedicated to their families?

Well, now you know one.

While the Republicans had campaigned partly on the premise that support for Israel among Democrats has waned, exit polls from Tuesday's voting show that Democrats won an overwhelming majority of the Jewish vote.

With Pelosi as speaker, Jewish activists and officials are confident that the U.S. Congress will remain strongly pro-Israel.

"I've heard her say numerous times that the single greatest achievement of the 20th century" was the founding of the modern state of Israel, Friedkin wrote.

"She has been a great friend of the U.S.-Israel relationship during her entire time in Congress and is deeply committed to strengthening that relationship."

Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel activist in San Francisco, has known Pelosi for nearly 40 years. He was 5 years old when the Pelosis moved into his San Francisco neighborhood, he recalls. The two families lived on the same street.

"She's one of the classiest," most "straightforward people you could ever meet," Lauter said. "She's incredibly loyal."

I'm sure she is - the question is TO WHOM?

Lauter said the Pelosis used to attend the first night of the Passover seder at his parents' house.

"As far as the Jewish community is concerned, she feels our issues in her soul," he said.

To illustrate his point, Lauter told a Pelosi story that has become almost legendary in the Jewish community.

At an AIPAC members luncheon in San Francisco right after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Pelosi was speaking when an alarm sounded.

"Everybody started getting nervous, scrambling toward the door," Lauter recalled.

One person, though, was reading the words of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, above the din.

It was Pelosi.

"It actually calmed the crowd," Lauter said. "You could see people actually smiling, saying 'Wow.' "

This "wasn't something done purposefully to show everyone that Nancy Pelosi supports the Jewish community," he said. It "actually came from inside her."

You would think that being an American congresswoman in America, that if any anthem 'came from inside' this woman's heart, it would be an AMERICAN one.

But, according to AIPAC and clan, putting America first would be anti-semitic.

Rabbi Doug Kahn, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco [is] confident that Pelosi, as speaker, will be effective in persuading people with a broad range of views on the Middle East, the importance of maintaining bipartisan support for Israel.

When it comes to Israel, "she truly gets it," said Matt Dorf, a consultant to the Democratic National Committee. he gets "Israel's value and asset to U.S. security" and its "importance as the only democracy in the Middle East."

Jewish organizational officials also commend Pelosi's record on Jewish communal issues.

William Daroff, vice president for public policy for the United Jewish Communities, the federation system's umbrella group and a Republican himself, said the lawmaker has helped ensure federal funding of Jewish family service agencies and Jewish hospitals and has supported government programs and policies that Jewish organizations value, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

He also noted that Reva Price, Pelosi's liaison to the Jewish community for a year and a half, came from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella group of local community relations councils.

Bringing on board such an insider was "really a masterful stroke,"Daroff said.

Price, he added, has done a wonderful job of playing "traffic cop" with Jewish organizations and in making sure that Pelosi's agenda is in tune with that of the Jewish community.

She's been "a real champion of making sure the Jewish community is well served,"Daroff said of the lawmaker. "I'm sure she'll continue to be a champion."

Forgive me if what I'm about to say sounds a tad insensitive to the Jewish cause, but WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?!!

WHO WILL BE OUR CHAMPION IN FIGHTING FOR OUR RIGHTS TO SPEND OUR TAX MONEY AS IT BEST SERVES OUR INTERESTS???

HUH?? HUH??

DO TELL ME, please.

However, I should give credit where credit is due.

Pelosi isn't completely controlled by zionists. Occasionally, a sliver of inner conscience peers through the thick zionist exterior to catch a glimmer of daylight.

Some Republicans, in fact, questioned Pelosi's support for Israel this summer.

The congresswoman ended up removing her name as a co-sponsor from a House resolution supporting the Jewish state during its war with Hezbollah because it did not address the protection of civilians.

So, there is some hope, albeit very little.

God knows, I didn't hear her cry foul yesterday when 17 women and children were murdered in their sleep by israeli shells.

Maybe they weren't 'civilian' enough for her.

Political observers say it's no surprise that the congresswoman from San Francisco considers herself close to the Jews.

The daughter of Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., a former mayor of Baltimore, Pelosi grew up in a Democratic family with Jewish neighbors and friends.

"She likes to say that, growing up in Baltimore, she went to a bar or bat mitzvah every Saturday," Amy Friedkin, a former president of AIPAC and a friend of Pelosi's for 25 years, wrote in an e-mail message to JTA.

Friedkin noted that there's even a soccer field in the Haifa area of Israel named after the lawmaker's family.

While the Republicans had campaigned partly on the premise that support for Israel among Democrats has waned, exit polls from Tuesday's voting show that Democrats won an overwhelming majority of the Jewish vote.

With Pelosi as speaker, Jewish activists and officials are confident that the U.S. Congress will remain strongly pro-Israel.

"I've heard her say numerous times that the single greatest achievement of the 20th century" was the founding of the modern state of Israel, Friedkin wrote. "She has been a great friend of the U.S.-Israel relationship during her entire time in Congress and is deeply committed to strengthening that relationship."

Sam Lauter, a pro-Israel activist in San Francisco, has known Pelosi for nearly 40 years. He was 5 years old when the Pelosis moved into his San Francisco neighborhood, he recalls. The two families lived on the same street.

"She's one of the classiest," most "straightforward people you could ever meet," Lauter said. "She's incredibly loyal."

Lauter said the Pelosis used to attend the first night of the Passover seder at his parents' house. "As far as the Jewish community is concerned, she feels our issues in her soul," he said. To illustrate his point, Lauter told a Pelosi story that has become almost legendary in the Jewish community.

At an AIPAC members luncheon in San Francisco right after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Pelosi was speaking when an alarm sounded.

"Everybody started getting nervous, scrambling toward the door," Lauter recalled. One person, though, was reading the words of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, above the din. It was Pelosi.

"It actually calmed the crowd," Lauter said. "You could see people actually smiling, saying 'Wow.' " This "wasn't something done purposefully to show everyone that Nancy Pelosi supports the Jewish community," he said. It "actually came from inside her."

Lauter and others say Pelosi will have to draw on that inner strength as speaker, since Lauter predicted that she will hear from those in the Jewish community who argue that Democrats no longer support Israel the way they used to.

Some Republicans, in fact, questioned Pelosi's support for Israel this summer. The congresswoman ended up removing her name as a co-sponsor from a House resolution supporting the Jewish state during its war with Hezbollah because it did not address the protection of civilians.

While Pelosi's aides said she was not going to lend her name to a resolution that did not contain a word she had written, Republicans criticized the move.

"It highlights a real wave within the Democratic Party that wants a more 'evenhanded' approach on these issues, and that wants to view Israel through the same prism as we do Hezbollah," Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said at the time. "Watering down is not acceptable right now."

Brooks could not be reached for comment this week.

For his part, Lauter believes the argument about the Democrats and Pelosi is false.

For instance, he noted Pelosi's quick response to former President Carter's description of Israel's settlement policies as "apartheid" in a forthcoming book.

Pelosi publicly announced that Carter does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel. Rabbi Doug Kahn, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco, also applauded Pelosi's repudiation of Carter's position.

He has known Pelosi since she started representing his district in 1987. Kahn said his group has always had an excellent working relationship with her. And he praised her passion for issues that relate to equal opportunity, social justice and peace.

Kahn, echoing Lauter's point, said that Pelosi, coming from a city with such a liberal political reputation, will face challenges from the liberal segments of the Democratic Party that have criticized Israeli policies.

But he is confident that Pelosi, as speaker, will be effective in persuading people with a broad range of views on the Middle East, the importance of maintaining bipartisan support for Israel.

When it comes to Israel, "she truly gets it," said Matt Dorf, a consultant to the Democratic National Committee. She gets "Israel's value and asset to U.S. security" and its "importance as the only democracy in the Middle East."

Jewish organizational officials also commend Pelosi's record on Jewish communal issues.

William Daroff, vice president for public policy for the United Jewish Communities, the federation system's umbrella group and a Republican himself, said the lawmaker has helped ensure federal funding of Jewish family service agencies and Jewish hospitals and has supported government programs and policies that Jewish organizations value, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

He also noted that Reva Price, Pelosi's liaison to the Jewish community for a year and a half, came from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella group of local community relations councils. Bringing on board such an insider was "really a masterful stroke," Daroff said.

Price, he added, has done a wonderful job of playing "traffic cop" with Jewish organizations and in making sure that Pelosi's agenda is in tune with that of the Jewish community.

She's been "a real champion of making sure the Jewish community is well served," Daroff said of the lawmaker. "I'm sure she'll continue to be a champion."

The Hamas-led Palestinian government said the veto showed the United States backed Israel's action.

But U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the resolution -- backed by Arab, Islamic and nonaligned nations, and formally proposed by Qatar -- served "a one-sided political agenda" and included an unsubstantiated claim Israel had violated international law.

"We do not believe the resolution was designed to contribute to the cause of peace," she said in a statement.

Bolton's first veto, on July 13, 2006, killed a resolution reacting to an earlier Israeli incursion in Gaza.

The United States has cast 82 vetoes in the
United Nations' 61 years, and nine of the last 10 council vetoes, seven of which dealt with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The resolution defeated on Saturday would have called on the
Palestinian Authority to "take immediate and sustained action to bring an end to violence, including the firing of rockets on Israeli territory."

It would have urged the international community to take steps to stabilize the situation, revive the Middle East peace process and consider "the possible establishment of an international mechanism" for the protection of civilians.

It also would have condemned Israeli military operations in Gaza and called on the Jewish state to withdraw all troops from Gaza and end its operations in all Palestinian lands.

'MASSACRE'

Seven children and four women were among the dead in Wednesday's shelling of Beit Hanoun, for which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has apologized, calling it an accidental "technical failure" by the Israeli military.

Ghazi Hamad, the Palestinian Cabinet spokesman, said the veto was "a signal that the U.S. had given legitimacy to the massacres and a green light to Israel to ... carry out more massacres."

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Nabil Abu Rdaineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement: "The U.S. veto encourages Israel to continue with its aggression against the Palestinian people."

In comments later echoed by Rice, Bolton said Washington regretted the loss of life but was "disturbed at language in the resolution that is in many places biased against Israel."

He said the suggestion of a mechanism to protect civilians would raise false hopes, and he was disturbed the measure made no mention of the word "terrorism" or the Palestinians' elected Hamas government, which refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist or renounce violence.

Palestinian U.N. Observer Riyad Mansour said Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday would decide on the next steps following the measure's defeat. One option was to bring the measure to a vote in the 192-nation General Assembly, where Washington does not have veto power.

The U.S. veto sent the wrong message to both Israeli and Palestinian militants, Mansour told reporters. "Will that help extremist elements to take issues into their own hands on both sides? You bet!"

Governments that abstained said they were unable to support the text because it was unbalanced.

"I think if (Bolton) actually was able to get a vote in the full Senate, he would succeed ... I'm still hopeful that we can get him through," White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"He's been a good ambassador. He deserves confirmation, so we are following the rules," Bolten said.

The White House will try to build more bipartisan support for the nominee, Bolten said, instead of trying to sidestep Congress by keeping Bolton at the United Nations in a job that does not require congressional approval.

When originally faced with Democratic opposition, Bush put Bolton in the U.N. job in August 2005 with a temporary recess appointment that did not require congressional approval but expires in January.

Bush, now in an unfriendly political environment after Democrats swept last week's congressional elections, wants to see Bolton formally approved for the U.N. ambassadorship before Democrats take control of Congress in January.

Democrats have blocked confirmation of Bolton, a former undersecretary of state for nonproliferation, since he was first nominated in March 2005, charging he is ill-suited for the diplomatic workings of the United Nations.

"Mr. President, if you really mean it, that you really want to cooperate and have a bipartisan (support) -- play by the rules, Mr. President. ... Send somebody else," Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), a Delaware Democrat who is expected to head the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, said on "This Week."

Bolton has been a polarizing figure, not just among Democrats. Opposition from Sen. Lincoln Chafee (news, bio, voting record), a Rhode Island Republican who lost his seat in last week's elections, might also hurt Bolton's chance of confirmation.

'HE'S GOING TO LOSE'

The nominee "doesn't even have the votes of a Republican-controlled committee. ... He's going to lose," Biden said.

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), who will become the Senate majority leader, also indicated Bolton's chances were not good.

"Even before we took over, the Republicans didn't have enough votes to get the guy out of committee, so I think we should go to things we can work together on," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, another senior Democrat, told ABC that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has "not decided that he is the appropriate person for that job."

The White House's Bolten declined to confirm what course the White House would take if Bolton's nomination failed again.

He told CNN's "Late Edition" show that at least one lawmaker, Republican Sen. George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio, has reconsidered earlier opposition to Bolton. "We hope other members will see that," Bolten said.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett told "Fox News Sunday" that Bolton's record in the United Nations -- especially in building support for resolutions on North Korea and
Iran -- had proved naysayers wrong.

"He's done a good job. We believe that both senators from both the Republican Party and Democratic Party ought to give this man the opportunity to continue," Bartlett said.

In blocking Bolton's original nomination, Democrats said he manipulated intelligence to promote hawkish views in his previous arms control job. He also has been criticized for having a go-it-alone attitude toward foreign policy but supporters say he is a strong defender of U.S. interests.

"The main subjects will be the situation in the Middle East and the Iranian issue," Olmert told reporters, referring to Tehran's nuclear programme which the United States says could lead to the development of atomic weapons.

Israel, which is widely believed to be the only country in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons, fears that a nuclear Iran would pose a threat to its existence.

Iran, whose president has called for the Jewish state's destruction, says it intends to use its uranium enrichment programme for electricity generation.

Olmert told reporters traveling with him that Iran needed to fear the consequences of not heeding international demands over its nuclear programme.

"If someone wants to reach a compromise with Iran he must understand that Iran won't be ready to do so unless it is afraid," Olmert said.

"Israel has various options which I am not prepared to discuss."

Last month Olmert said there would be a "price to pay" if Iran rejected every compromise. He did not elaborate.

Iran said on Sunday its Revolutionary Guards would respond swiftly if Israel attacked the Islamic Republic.

"If Israel takes such a stupid step and attacks, the answer of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard will be rapid, firm and destructive and it will be given in a few seconds," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference.

PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

A mid-term U.S. election last week showing deep popular dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq has also raised speculation in Israel that Bush could try to cap his two-term presidency with progress on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Olmert heaped praise on moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last week, calling him "upfront, decent and against terror," in an apparent signal that he would be the focus of any new U.S. or Israeli peace efforts.

"The Palestinian issue is on the agenda. There is no way we can ignore it. We have to find the best partner," Olmert told Newsweek magazine in an interview published over the weekend.

But any moves on the Palestinian front would likely require a remake of the government headed by Hamas, an Islamist group that has rejected demands by the United States and other peace brokers to change dramatically its position toward Israel.

The group, which won Palestinian elections in January and ousted Abbas's Fatah faction, advocates Israel's destruction.

Hamas and Abbas have been trying to form a unity government of technocrats they hope can ease Western sanctions against the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Abbas said on Saturday he hoped the unity cabinet would be in place by the month's end.

Israeli media reports said Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had discussed ways for Israel to grab the diplomatic initiative in the stalled peace process.

In the Newsweek interview, Olmert said the recent inclusion of a far-right politician into his cabinet would not alter his position toward the Palestinians.

"... You can read my lips. I'm ready for territorial compromises, and I haven't changed my mind," Olmert said.

Olmert's U.S. trip takes place with tensions high in Israel and the Palestinian territories after 19 civilians were killed by Israeli artillery fire on a Gaza town on Wednesday.

Olmert has expressed sorrow over the deaths in what he described as a technical error by artillery firing toward an orange grove where militants had launched rockets at Israel.

Olmert also arrived with expectations that he could make small-scale moves on the Palestinian front, including the possibility of offering humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

On Sunday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar of the ruling Hamas group accepted an Arab proposal for a peace conference with Israel, diplomats said. The endorsement marks the first time Hamas, which refuses to renounce violence against the Jewish state, has indicated it would consider making amends with Israel.

Olmert had dinner Sunday evening with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli government or the U.S. State Department on the meeting.

Israel is worried by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls to destroy Israel and - like the United States - does not believe Tehran's claims that its nuclear program is intended solely to produce energy. Israel accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

While the United States has led international efforts to curb the Iranian nuclear program, Israelis are worried American policy might soften following the Democratic Party's victory in U.S. congressional elections last week.

The fear is that with American public opinion turning against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bush, a Republican, would be less likely to take decisive military or diplomatic action against Iran.

Olmert on Sunday repeated his view that Iran will not scale back its nuclear ambitions unless it fears the consequences of its intransigence, a spokeswoman said.

"They (the Iranians) have to be afraid of the consequences if there isn't a compromise," spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Olmert told journalists on the flight to Washington.

Olmert appeared, however, to play down a senior Israeli official's suggestion that Israel is preparing for a military strike against Iran's nuclear program.

Asked to comment on Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh's remarks, Olmert replied that on such matters, "we have to be very careful about what we say," Eisin said. Sneh said last week that he considered a pre-emptive strike a last resort, but added that "even the last resort is sometimes the only resort."

On Sunday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Iran's military would hit back with a "swift, strong and crushing" response to any Israeli military action against it.

Olmert arrived in Washington with a gutted diplomatic agenda. He took office promising to pull Israel out of much of the West Bank, but shelved that plan after Israel's recent war against Lebanese guerrillas left Israelis with little enthusiasm for territorial concessions. A recent poll put his approval rating around 20 per cent.

But this isn't just a matter of "the IDF," "the government" or "Israel" bearing the responsibility. It must be said explicitly: The blame rests directly on people who hold official positions, flesh-and-blood human beings, and they must pay the price of their criminal responsibility for needless killing. Attorney Avigdor Klagsbald caused the death of a woman and her child without anyone imagining that he intended to hit them, but nevertheless he is sitting in prison. And what about the killers of women and children in Beit Hanun? Will they all be absolved? Will no one be tried? Will no one even be reprimanded and shunned?

GOC Southern Command Yoav Galant will say with exasperating coolness that apparently there was "a problem with the battery's targeting apparatus," without moving a facial muscle, and will that be enough? Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh will say, "The IDF is militarily responsible, but not morally responsible," and will he thus exculpate himself?

And who will bear the responsibility for the renewal of the terror attacks? Only Hamas? Who will be accused of the tumble in Israel's status and its depiction as a violent, leper state, and who will be judged for the danger that hovers over world Jewry in the wake of the IDF's acts? The electronic component that went on the blink in the radar?

No one is guilty in Israel. There is never anyone guilty in Israel. The prime minister who is responsible for the brutal policy toward the Palestinians, the defense minister who knew about and approved the bombardments, the chief of staff, the chief of command and the commander of the division who gave the orders to bombard - not one of them is guilty. They will continue with the work of killing as though nothing has happened: The sun shone, the system flourished and the ritual slaughterer slaughtered. They will continue to pursue the routine of their daily lives, accepted in society like anyone else, and remain in their posts despite the blood on their hands.

A few hours after the disaster, while the Gaza Strip was still enveloped in sorrow and deep in shock, the air force was already hastening to carry out another targeted killing, an arrogant demonstration of just how much this disaster does not concern us.

Israel after the disaster was split: There were those who did their duty and "expressed sorrow," like the prime minister and the defense minister, and there were those who hastened with appalling insensitivity to cast the responsibility onto the Palestinians, like the "moderate" foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and the deputy defense minister from the Labor Party, Sneh. The silent majority did not bother to emerge from its yawning indifference. The entertainment shows on television continued to make people laugh, and one of the radio stations even broadcast, in a demonstrable lack of taste, Sarit Hadad's song "You're a Big Gun." Mourning, of course, did not descend on Israel, and there was not even a single manifestation of genuine participation in the sorrow. It did not occur to Israel to promise compensation to the families and it did not provide help, apart from transferring some of the wounded to hospitals in Israel. We provided more aid to the victims of the earthquake in Mexico, even though there we didn't have a hand in the disaster. For the most part, the media were not very disturbed by the killing and devoted less attention to it than to the Gay Pride parade.

A day or two after the disaster it was totally forgotten and other affairs are filling our lives. But it is impossible just to go on to the next item on the agenda. This disaster is not an act of God. There are people who are clearly responsible for it, and they must be brought to justice. The fact that the International Court of Justice in The Hague still looks very far from Israel, and the various "Halutzes" and "Galants" can still move around freely in the world, because in Israel they forgive nearly everything, does not mean that war crimes are not being committed here.

The IDF may well be a big gun, but an army that is responsible for needless killing in such large dimensions, as in recent months in Lebanon and in Gaza, is a failed and dangerous army that must urgently be repaired. The Defense Forces are not only killing Arabs for no reason, they are also directly endangering Israel's security, disgracing it in the world and embroiling it again and again.

The heedless and arrogant reaction to such deeds contains a dangerous moral message. If it is possible to dismiss mass killing with a wealth of technical excuses, and not take any drastic measure against those who are truly guilty of it, then Israel is saying that, as far as it is concerned, nothing happened apart from the faulty component in the radar system or the glitch in balancing the sights. But what happened at Beit Hanun, what happened in Israel on the day after and what is continuing to happen in Gaza day after day is a far more frightening distortion than the calibrating of a gun sight.

Last week, Doron Almog, a retired general who headed an investigation into that incident, informed Hirsch - a rugged former paratrooper who was considered a rising military talent - that he would recommend Hirsch be fired when he presented his report Sunday.

Almog's report criticized Hirsch's unit for not properly preparing its troops for the scenario of a Hezbollah attack aimed at kidnapping soldiers, Israel Radio said.

Hirsch's letter of resignation pre-empted Almog's recommendation by hours. The chief of staff had yet to accept his resignation, the army said Sunday.

Hirsch, 42, is the second high-profile military figure to lose his job over the summer's Lebanon war, which ended in stalemate and is widely seen by Israelis as a costly failure.

Udi Adam, who headed the army's Northern Command and was shunted aside by the army's chief of staff while fighting was still going on, resigned in September, a month after the war ended in a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.

The "explosive remnants of war" pact, clinched three years ago, has been ratified by more than the 20 states needed to become legally binding.

It requires the cleaning up of deadly debris such as unexploded shells, grenades, cluster submunitions, mortars and rockets which lie in wait after the end of hostilities.

"This is the first international agreement to require the parties to an armed conflict to clear all unexploded munitions that threaten civilians, peacekeepers and humanitarian workers once the fighting is over," the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement.

"Its entry into force, finally, is a milestone," Philip Spoerri, ICRC's director of international law, told Reuters.

The humanitarian agency -- hoping to minimise death, injury and suffering from Asia to Africa -- was behind the initiative to address unexploded ordnance in 2000.

Under the pact, warring parties must mark contaminated areas after a conflict ends and warn civilians of the risks until the ordnance has been cleared.

"It creates an obligation to clean up the mess on the battlefield even if a party doesn't control the territory anymore," Mark Hiznay, of the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

El Salvador and Liberia, which have emerged from conflicts, are among 26 states to have ratified the treaty so far.
President Bush has sent it to the Senate.

It is a protocol to the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its entry into force comes midway in a two-week review conference where momentum is building to address the issue of deadly cluster bombs, aid agencies say.

SENSE OF URGENCY

Cluster bombs are air- or ground-launched canisters holding up to 650 submunitions, which often fail to explode on impact. Designed for use against infantry and tanks, they sink into the ground or lie on the surface and become virtual landmines.

Israel's use of cluster bombs in its month-long war against Islamist Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon has brought a sense of urgency to halting their firing against military targets located in heavily populated areas, aid agencies say.

More than 20 people have been killed by cluster bomblets since the August 14 ceasefire in Lebanon, where experts estimate that an unusually high 40 percent failed to explode on impact.

"A new treaty is needed urgently to prohibit cluster munitions, weapons that have caused documented and unacceptable harm for over 40 years. The devastation in Lebanon is just the latest example," Angelo Simonazzi, director-general of the Brussels-based Handicap International, said in a statement.

The ICRC has called for a ban on the use of cluster bombs in populated areas, where it says they cause "severe and disproportionate impact" on civilians, a call echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Nearly 20 states at the Geneva meeting back an attempt by Sweden to seek the launch of negotiations on some form of treaty, according to the ICRC's Spoerri.

The grim figures come from the first global assessment of the impact of cluster bombs, released on 2 November by the UK-based support group Handicap International (HI). It is timed to precede talks this week in which Sweden, supported by Austria, Mexico and New Zealand, will propose a ban on cluster weapons to members of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Cluster weapons are bombs or shells that contain dozens of "submunitions" designed to scatter over a wide area and then explode. An estimated 10 per cent fail to detonate and remain lurking until someone stumbles across them, sometimes years after a conflict is over. One-third of the casualties are children.

Campaigns to ban cluster weapons have been hindered till now by a lack of reliable figures. HI's assessment reports 11,044 confirmed casualties in the 23 countries where cluster munitions have been used. "Today we can add another 800 to that number," HI researcher Katleen Maes told New Scientist, as new reports have come in from Iraq.

These figures are a gross underestimate, she says, as most countries do not separate submunitions casualties from those due to other "explosive remnants of war". On this basis, HI puts the true number of killed and wounded at around 100,000.

From issue 2577 of New Scientist magazine, 11 November 2006, page 6

There's the crucial word: generation. When you talk about a "generation" you're broadly defining a set of people born around the same time, men and women who share the same broad tastes and influences. Their generation games can last for 10 years or 20. The term can embrace baby boomers and MTV addicts, see generation X turn to generation Y. But it is as long - and as useless - as a piece of string at telling us when a taste for nightmares will end, or how "sustained campaigns" of fear can be brought to a close.

Does Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller truly believe that the cult of Osama is some passing, youthful fad that will one day be gone, like David Cassidy's fan club? Will it somehow be swept away by new boy bands or iPods? Not exactly, it seems. We must all stand up for our core values, "equality, freedom, justice and tolerance", she says. We must therefore confront "the powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the globe, presenting the west's response to varied and complex issues, from longstanding disputes such as Israel/Palestine and Kashmir to more recent events, as evidence of an across-the-board determination to undermine and humiliate Islam worldwide".

Code-crackers will note that she lists those issues and disputes alphabetically. "Afghanistan, the Balkans, Chechnya, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Kashmir and Lebanon are regularly cited by those who advocate terrorist violence as illustrating what they allege is western hostility to Islam." They should also note that she goes way back before 9/11, which means before Baghdad and Kabul, too - to the 1990s, when al-Qaida was blowing up Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and killing hundreds of innocent Africans. So these "roots" go very deep.

And where, in any meaningful sense, can they be reckoned to start? Not in Kashmir, against a Hindu enemy; nor in Chechnya, unless Putin has become an honorary pillar of "the west". Did Washington dismember Yugoslavia? Is Tony Blair about to sabotage the birth of a Muslim Kosovo? No, the loose threads of this tapestry lead inescapably back to what she calls "Israel and Palestine". Maybe bringing peace to the Middle East after over half a century of vicious strife wouldn't bring total generation shift, the lessening of a fury, the erasure of hatred. But it would be a beginning, a symbol, a chance to start afresh.

Dame Eliza, essentially, is talking solutions with a grim fervour and logic - for how else, another 10 or 20 years on, do we suppose that succeeding generations in Bradford, Barnsley or Slough will begin to think afresh? MI5 and Scotland Yard can't do it with knocks on the door. Deportations and bans on turbulent priests won't do it, either.

There is some fresh thinking around, to be sure. "The source of the conflict here is not territory, not occupation, not settlers. It is a clash between two people and two religions. Anywhere in the world where there are two peoples and two religions, whether it's in the former Yugoslavia, or the Caucasus, or Northern Ireland, there is conflict."

But these are the malign thoughts of the new power kid on the block, Avigdor Lieberman, deputy prime minister of Israel and passionate advocate of ethnically cleansing his adopted land. Meanwhile, dozens more Palestinians die while the enfeebled government that needs Lieberman inside the tent shells Gaza day after day. Whoops! Nineteen more women and children killed by accident. So sorry ... Let's talk equality, freedom, justice and tolerance.

We pretend that withdrawing from Afghanistan or Iraq will do the hearts-and-minds trick. We pretend (with America's triumphant Democrats as the worst offenders, alas) that Israel can somehow be set to one side while the al-Qaida terror debate rages. We kid ourselves that a Middle East solution - permanent, guaranteed and enforced - is separate and optional. It isn't.

"None of this can be tackled by my service alone," says Dame Eliza. Others "must tackle the causes". And - coded or not - we damn well know where those causes lie.

...Many women are lured to work in Israel under false pretense and are then forced into the sex industry. While many are reportedly aware that they will be working as sex workers, they are not aware they will be subject to violent and exploitative environments, working seven days a week and up to 18 hours a day for extremely low salaries or no salaries at all. Many are subjected to other serious human rights violations, including rape, deprivation of their liberty, and debt-bondage. Women forced to work as sex workers are reportedly also frequently subjected to threats of abuse and even murder. Half the women interviewed by the Hotline for Migrant Workers were effectively incarcerated by their "pimps" and, according to a 2003 survey, almost half of all women "sold" to pimps reported that policemen were among their clients.

According to a report by the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry on the Trafficking in Women (Summary Report) issued in early 2005, some 3,000 to 5,000 women are brought annually into Israel and forced to work as sex workers and some 10,000 were estimated to be currently in the country...

Most of the women known to have been trafficked into Israel are from Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, and Russia, and are brought into Israel through the Egyptian-Israeli border. In the course of their journey, many are reportedly raped before traffickers sell them for $8,000-$10,000... 1

Jewish Michael Specter, in his article, "Slave Traders Lure Slavic Women," confirms Amnesty's report:

[In Israel] police officials estimate that there are 25,000 paid sexual transactions everyday. Brothels are ubiquitous...Once they [the women] cross the border [into Israel] their passports will be confiscated [by pimps], their freedoms curtailed, and what little money they have taken from them...The Tropicana in Tel Aviv's bustling business district, is one of the busiest bordellos. The women who work there, like nearly all prostitutes in Israel today, are Russian. Their bosses, however, are not. 'Israelis love Russian girls,' said Jacob Golan, who owns this and two other clubs, '....They are blond and good-looking and different than us...And they are desperate. They are ready to do anything for money.' 2

Israel: Slow to Correct Problem

Prostitution and white slavery constitute a billion-dollar-a-year industry in Israel that expands virtually unrestrained.

About two to three thousand women from FSU (Former Soviet Union) countries annually enter Israel's brothels. The US State Department, in its 2001 Trafficking in Persons Report, described Israel as among the very worst international offenders in allowing white slavery. They classed Israel in Tier 3, a group described as "not making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with the standards of the Dictums of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000." Israel was grouped with Albania, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, and Pakistan, who also received an "F" for failing to protect human rights.

After this scathing 2000 report, Knesset finally passed a law criminalizing white slavery. 3 Enforcement programs and lesser statutes have been enacted, with increased police attention to the problem. In 2004, the courts actually handed down 28 convictions to white slavers. Such efforts caused the US State Department to elevate Israel's offender status to Tier 2. 4

However, recent reports by Amnesty and the state department are full of criticisms of Israel: While laws against sex slavery are now on the books, Israel shamelessly neglects to protect and encourage ex-prostitutes in their attempts to testify against their oppressors. Victims are largely denied full legal education, rights, services, and protection against vengeful pimps. Without victims' testimony, laws against white slavery can't be enforced.

Amnesty says,

The authorities-and in particular the police-still overwhelmingly considered trafficked sex workers simply as "criminals" who violated the Entry into Israel law, rather than victims of grave human rights violations who should enjoy the effective protection and assistance from state institutions. Consequently, the authorities have focused their activities on deporting trafficked women instead of protecting their rights and addressing their needs.

In addition, the Israeli authorities do not carry out any risk assessment of the possible dangers which trafficked women who have testified against their traffickers face after being deported back to their countries, leaving them and their families vulnerable to further human rights violations, including reprisals and retrafficking. 5

If a woman files a complaint against her Jewish slave master, as an illegal alien she will be imprisoned. As a result, an infinitesimal number of ex-prostitutes testify against their pimps. Consequently, very few slavers are convicted.

As a result of Israel's anemic response to the problem of white slavery, most slavers are able to mock anti-prostitution laws and white slavery continues to expand.

The government of Israel claims great difficulty in combating this problem. But Knesset hasn't even made organized prostitution a crime. The sex trade enriches Israel yearly by perhaps hundreds of millions of tax dollars. This may be part of the reason the government seems in no great hurry to clean up the industry.

History of Oppression

Four hundred years ago, Jewish slave traders dominated the lucrative business of shipment and sale of African slaves to the new world. 6 For at least the last 125 years, Jews have also overwhelmingly controlled organized prostitution and white slavery in Europe, the United States, and South America.

Jewish historian Edward Bristow, in his book Prostitution and Prejudice: the Jewish Fight against White Slavery, 7 says:

Rooted largely in Eastern and Central Europe where they "dominated the international traffic out of the area," (p. 2) Jews were involved in prostitution rings that networked, wrote Arthur Mora (of London's Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women) in 1903, "to almost all parts of North and South Africa, to India, China, Japan, Philippine Islands, North and South America, and also to many of the countries of Europe." (p. 1)

Jewish criminals trafficked women under their control virtually anywhere, also including the major cities of Bulgaria, Bosnia, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Ceylon, Manchuria, South Africa, Rhodesia, and Mozambique. (p.181)

"By 1900," says Bristow, "Jewish commercial vice was largely incorporated in underworld elements and many of its participants were predators of the poor. (p. 89)

Jewish pimps, procurers, and traffickers, preyed mostly on non-Jewish women but even large numbers of Jewish women were a part of their stables. In 1872, for example, Jewish prostitutes in Warsaw numbered 17 percent of the known prostitution population, in Krakow, 27 percent, and in Vilna, 47 percent. (p. 23)

Within the Jewish community itself, it was not uncommon for recruiters to marry innocent Jewish young women and "deposit them in foreign brothels."(p. 25)

Many of the Jewish criminal underworld figures apparently saw no gap between their day-to-day activities and their religious lives, often maintaining their religious obligations. A Warsaw thug, Shilem Letzsky, organized a small synagogue for "Jewish prostitutes, madams, pimps, and thieves." This criminal community even had a rabbinical court "to settle disputes between pimps." (p. 60)

Other authorities say:

In Constantinople, prostitutes contributed money to "have their pimps called to Torah on holidays." 8

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Jewish pimp organization, called the Varsovia Society, "...ostensibly functioned as a neutral aid society...In fact, the Varsovi, consisted of pimps who wanted to maintain their businesses and still live a religious life...Varsovia associates established their own synagogues on Guemes Street in the midst of the traditional bordello district." 9

Tradition of Prostitution Continues

In Israel today, the sale of human flesh continues. Jewish pimps and brothel-owners bring FSU girls to Israel to turn tricks in the thriving bordellos of Haifa and Tel Aviv.

Many of these women, though fair-haired, are undoubtedly Jewish "Ashkenazim." They may well have taken advantage of airlifts of Jews out of the FSU, such as Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein's Wings of Eagles ministry, funded by idealistic evangelical Christians.

Most, however, are Gentiles. They may also have hitched a free ride to Israel on Wings of Eagles. The US State Department says: "In a new trend, traffickers in Ukraine reportedly have begun exploiting an Israeli law that allows all Jews to immigrate to Israel by providing victims with false identity documents." 10

Specter's article says "elderly Jewish women in the Ukraine" were responsible for forging passports for Gentile prostitutes going to Israel. Presumably, these Jewish women received kickbacks from Jewish slavers in Haifa and Tel Aviv. With an FSU prostitute bringing in up to $100 thousand dollars annually, one suspects many of the "Jews" who are "ransomed" by gullible evangelical Christians are actually headed for white slavery in Israel.

The majority of FSU women who do not have the advantage of being labeled Jewish arrive in Israel through Cyprus and Egypt. Israeli customs police allow them to travel unhindered to slave auctions. Many are raped by pimps (testing the goods) and bought for $6 to $20 thousand dollars. In about 250 Israeli brothels, mostly in major cities, they satisfy the lust of Jewish businessmen, soldiers, tourists, etc. Servicing an average of 15 customers per girl per day, even a small brothel can make more than $8 thousand dollars per month from each woman. 11

Now virtual slaves to their Jewish pimps, these women pocket only a tiny percentage of their proceeds, most of which often go to support their families back in eastern Europe or Eurasia.

Double Standards

How can such vice and human bondage exist in what Christians consider God's "Holy Land?" How can Orthodox Judaism, the official position of the state of Israel, tolerate such egregious human rights violations?

In my latest e-alert, "Talmud: Wellspring of Jewish Pornography Industry," I document how the Talmud, the highest religious authority for observant Jews, sanctions adultery with Gentile "bondmaids" or slave girls. The Talmud gives Jewish men the right to rape them if they are found sleeping, or while they are awake if the rape is performed in a perverted manner, or if withdrawal occurs before climax is finished.

Judaism's loopholes for adultery are nothing new. Both Christ and St. Paul accused the Pharisees and their followers of claiming to uphold God's laws against sexual sin, yet violating them at the same time. (Matt. 12:39, Romans 9:22)

Judaism and Islam: Darkened Religions

Does Judaism alone among the world's great religions provide moral exceptions to God's laws against sexual vice? Of course not. Islam gives similar license. Many Moslems believe they can be "married" for as short as a minute or as long as 99 years. The brothels of Tehran are daily filled with "righteous" Moslem men involved in 20-minute "marriages" and "divorces" with prostitutes! 12

But there's a big difference between religiously excused sex trades in Iran and in Israel: Islam does not claim to be part of the hallowed "Judeo-Christian" moral tradition. Most evangelicals believe rabbinic Judaism shares Christianity's essential ethics. Indeed, it is their confidence in shared moral values that prompts their unconditional support of Zionism.

They have been massively deceived. Orthodox Judaism's values could not be more distant from Christianity's. In the streets of Israel's major cities, sex slaves are brazenly flaunted and their pimps and slave masters go virtually unprosecuted. Why? The Talmudic ethics underlying the state of Israel endorse such degeneracy, especially with "goyim" women. The Talmud and Zohar regard Gentile women as chattel for Jewish men; they are "beasts of the earth," not fully human. 13 (See, "Have You Read the Talmud Lately?")

Talmudic denial of the humanity of Gentile women causes many Orthodox men in Israel to take advantage of the Talmud's rationalization that sex with the Gentile "shiksa" (whore, abomination) is morally neutral.

Moment magazine, the "Magazine of Jewish Culture and Opinion," says paid sex with blond Russian girls is a "national institution." Even rabbis, says Moment, visit these "shiksas" in whorehouses.

A good percentage of the customers or johns, in the lingo, are ultra-Orthodox Jews, pious men whose lives are guided by halaka (religious law), which tells them when they can or cannot have sex with their wives. So, on Thursday afternoons (boys' night out in Israel), busloads of Orthodox Jews travel from Jerusalem, Haifa, and points beyond, to Tel Aviv, for a few precious moments of passion in a massage parlor, behind a sand-dune, or in an alleyway. Other customers are accountants, lawyers, policemen, and politicians. "The entire spectrum of Israeli society is keeping the hookers in business," claims detective Shackar, a cynical veteran of the Tel Aviv vice detail... 14

Israel does not vigorously enforce its new law against white slavery for a simple reason: The Talmud repeatedly upholds the right of rabbis to sexually violate their "designated bondmaids" or sex slaves, free of punishment or moral guilt. The government of Israel can't effectively enforce a law forbidding what the Talmud permits.

Without strong, vehement, righteous indignation against prostitution (such as true Christian activism provides) the government of Israel, from Supreme Court to local police, remains largely powerless to stop the burgeoning sex slave industry.

What's Next?

I've described the past and present of the harlot Israel. What of her future?

The book of Revelation tells us Israel, the great harlot, will continue her spiritual and physical whoredom, until, through Jewish control of world media, government, finance, and commerce, she dominates not only the Mideast but the world. Ultimately, she will enter a "covenant" of spiritual marriage with her false messiah, the one-world leader, anti-Christ (Daniel 9:2). The "beast" is a substitute husband for her true spouse, Jesus, whom she crucified 2,000 years ago.

The harlot will ruthlessly persecute Christianity, being "drunk with the blood of the saints of Jesus" (Rev. 17:6). The beast will continue such onslaught against the church, given power to "make war with the saints and to overcome them..." (Rev. 13:7).

Yet at the apex of Israel's power, the beast will throw Jerusalem off his back, and with his confederation of world armies, kill at least two-thirds of world Jewry (See, "Bible Prophecy Made Simple"). A remnant, however, will survive until Christ's coming in glory. Christ, from the heavens, will judge the nations who attempted to destroy the Jews. Realizing how Christ has saved them from extinction, a beleaguered, astonished remnant will at last understand the magnitude of their father's apostasy. They will "look upon me (Christ) whom they have pierced" (Zech. 12:10). In national repentance and mourning, they will turn at last from their harlotry.

Thirty-five hundred years ago, Christ rescued Israel from the garbage heap of Egyptian bondage, choosing her as His bride and washing her of her blood and uncleanness. In the same way, someday, Christ will purify these repentant Jewish survivors. He will spiritually remarry Israel, joining her with His other spiritual bride, the Christian church. These Jews, at last giving Christ the obedience He demands, will finally be allowed to legitimately dwell in the land promised to the obedient descendents of Abraham. It will be a truly holy land.

At that time, He says, "You shall not play the harlot...but afterward the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king (Christ) and they will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days" (Hosea 3:5).

Endnotes:
1 Amnesty International, Israel: Briefing to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, June 2005
2 Michael Specter, New York Times News service p. 1, January 11, 1998
3 "In 2000, the Israeli Penal Code was amended to explicitly criminalize traffickers in persons for the purpose of prostitution..." Amnesty, 2005 Report
4 US State Dept. 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report
5 Amnesty International, 2005 Report
6 Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 13, in its article on "Jews," p. 57, says, "In the Dark Ages, the commerce of western Europe was largely in his [the Jew's] hand, in particular the slave trade." A History of the Jews from Babylonia Exile to the End of World War Two, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, says, "Jews were among the most important slave dealers [in European society]." Marc Raphael's Jews and Judaism in the United States: a Documentary History states, "Jewish merchants played a major role in the slave trade. In fact, in all the American colonies...Jewish merchants frequently dominated." These are only a few of many reputable sources establishing Jewish predominance in the American slave trade.
7 Edward J. Bristow, Prostitution and Prejudice. The Jewish Fight against White Slavery, 1870-1939, Schocken Books, New York, New York, 1983
8 Susan Wheidman Schneider, Jewish and Female: Choices and Changes in our Lives Today, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1984, p. 225
9 Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 1989, p. 22
10 US State Department, op cit p. 1
11 Jerusalem Post, Jan. 13, 1998
12 New York Times, Oct. 4, 2000
13 Zohar, Bereshith 47a says, "....'living soul' refers to Israel, who have holy living souls from above, and 'cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth' to the other peoples are not 'living soul'..."
14 Moment, "Hookers in the Holy Land," April 1998, p. 45-78
www.truthtellers.org/alerts/israelwhorehouse.html

Not only Vice President Dick Cheney, but also UN Ambassador John Bolton, former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board-to name just a few big Bush administration names-have all been associates of JINSA.

University of Pennsylvania Prof. Edward Herman has described JINSA as "organized and [run] by individuals closely tied to the Israeli lobby and can be regarded as a virtual agency of the Israeli government."

What first appears as commentary in JINSA's Journal often leads to very real policies carried out by the Bush administration alone and sometimes in concert with Capitol Hill which some critics have been known to cynically call "Israeli occupied territory."

The JINSA call for a witch-hunt came in the context of a series of commentaries on "21st Century Allies . . . and Adversaries" for the United States and Israel, which two nations, of course, are seen in the JINSA world view as virtual extensions of one another.

Zionist publications regularly assert that "anti-Israel" sentiments must automatically be seen as "anti-American" and even as "anti-Christian" in nature, a theme first loudly propagated by the American Jewish Committee's Commentary magazine.

The commentaries, not surprisingly, named such countries as Iran, Syria, Russia and Venezuela, as possible "adversaries" for the U.S.-Israel Axis. However, it was an article by Walid Phares-who is associated with a Zionist lobby front known as the Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies-which made the suggestion that there are very real "adversaries" on American soil, at high levels in the American military and intelligence establishment. In his article "Future Terrorism-Mutant Jihads," Phares asked:

"How deeply have jihadist elements infiltrated the U.S. government and federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and various military commands, either through sympathizers or via actual operatives?"

Although posed as a loaded question, Phares's implication was clear: he believes such a "threat" exists. The JINSA writer then proclaimed the need for a "national consensus" that requires "confronting these forces" based on "knowledge of their ideologies, objectives and determination."

Since there are few Muslim Americans or even Arab Americans in any substantial numbers in the FBI, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, etc, the suggestion that "jihadist" elements have "infiltrated" our government might seem silly to the average American.

But in the fevered minds of JINSA and hard-line Zionist elements, the real concern is that there are growing numbers of people high up in the FBI and the CIA and in the military who are getting "fed up" with Zionist power in America. Top military leaders openly dismissed the need for war against Iraq and Iran, both wars of which have been long-time policy plans of the Zionist lobby. And all of this, in the view of the JINSA sphere, constitutes effective collaboration with and sympathy for the dreaded "jihadists."

For example, on May 11, 2005, the New York-based Forward, a leading Jewish community newspaper, reported that Barry Jacobs of the Washington office of the American Jewish Committee said he believed there are high-ranking officials inside the U.S. intelligence community who are hostile to Israel and are waging war against pro-Israel lobbyists and their neo-conservative allies in the inner circles of the Bush administration.

Citing the ongoing FBI investigation of espionage by officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading pro-Israel lobby group, Forward reported that Jacobs believes, in Forward's summary, that "the notion that American Jews and Pentagon neo-conservatives conspired to push the United States into war against Iraq, and possibly also against Iran, is pervasive in Washington's intelligence community."

Obviously, with such thoughts running rampant in pro-Israel circles, it is inevitable a leading pro-Israel policy group such as JINSA would raise the specter of "infiltration" by those who are seen as "sympathizers" and suggest that they be purged from their positions in government agencies.

So the threat of a witch-hunt happening is real. Despite differences between the Bush administration and its Democratic foes, both come together in one realm: satisfying the Israeli lobby which funds both Democrats and Republicans alike through a network of political action committees and exercising its clout on Capitol Hill through pressure groups such as the APIAC, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League.

It is ironic that JINSA should be the source of a demand for an investigation of foreign agents and sympathizers inside the American government. The founder of JINSA, Stephen Bryen, a former Senate aide on Capitol Hill, faced certain indictment on charges of espionage for Israel until pressure on the Justice Department forced Justice to back off.

Not only Bryen, but several others in the JINSA sphere were under FBI investigation on similar charges relating to their possible misuse of American defense and intelligence information on Israel's behalf. They include:

- Richard Perle, investigated in the 1970s when he was a top aide to then-Sen. Henry Jackson;

- Douglas Feith, who-although later promoted to a high post in the Bush administration in 2001-was fired from the National Security Council of President Ronald Reagan; and

- Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank and former deputy secretary of defense in the Bush administration, investigated in the 1970s by the FBI on suspicion of passing classified information to Israel.