- Signs of the Times for Sat, 04 Mar 2006 -

Charles Sullivan is a furniture maker, photographer, and free lance writer residing in the eastern panhandle of West Virgina. He welcomes your comments at earthdog@highstream.net

This is where it is geologically pretty stable. It is also right next to the huge salt domes where much of the oil and gas is being extracted. A retired geologist, Mr. Jack M. Reed, theorized there has to be a hidden tectonic plate segment in this spot and it is not only geologically active but is responsible for triggering the New Madrid Quakes.

The New Madrid seismic zone in Missouri has long intrigued scientists because, according to conventional geologic theory, large earthquakes clustered in a tectonically quiet region are difficult to understand.

But at least one AAPG member is challenging the crowd.

New Orleans independent geologist Jack M. Reed believes the origin of the earthquakes lies beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

That\'s not all.

Reed, a retired Texaco geologist-geophysicist who has been studying the region\'s geology for over 40 years, says the accepted theory of a quiet geologic evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Basin is fundamentally flawed and needs to be revised.

According to him, the Gulf was and is tectonically active -- and it is the likely origin for not only the New Madrid seismic activity, but also for the Middleton Place-Summerville seismic zone near Charleston, S.C.

\"This northeast trending earthquake zone appears to connect with the northeast trending Monroe Uplift, the LaSalle Arch and, possibly, to an active seismic zone located in and around Sabine Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border,\" he said.

This complex of doming and seismic centers is similar to another Cretaceous age triple juncture located in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico Basin. Doming of the DeSoto Canyon High during the Jurassic to Cretaceous created this triple juncture, which includes the Cretaceous Shelf Edge, the Suwannee Strait and the West Florida Escarpment.

If the New Madrid seismic zone is indeed part of a triple juncture, he continued, there should be an expression of this limb trending along a line in a northeast direction.

So Reed conducted a study using data from the U.S. Geological Survey\'s National Earthquake Information Center and the USGS map \"Earthquakes in the Conterminous United States.\" He only studied earthquakes measuring at least magnitude 5, and found that while most of the earthquake centers are random with no alignment, there is a well-defined earthquake trend extending northeastward from the New Madrid seismic zone across the United States to Canada, where it joins with the St. Lawrence River seismic zone.

Within the boundaries of this earthquake alignment there are:

Sixty-one seismic points that have a magnitude of 5 and greater.

Several large earthquakes dating to the early 1800s, all measuring over magnitude 8, all occurring within a couple of months of each other, all centered in a northeast trending line.

The two 5+ earthquakes that occurred earlier this year in northern New York state and southern Indiana.

\"There is definitely some form of movement occurring along this trend,\" Reed said, \"and it appears to be active today.\"

There have been significant new discoveries (such as Great White, Trident, Chinook, St. Malo, and Cascade) in the ultra-deep waters of Walker Ridge and Alaminos Canyon. These discoveries open up a whole new geologic play with exciting potential.

Industry has made great technological achievements in recent years. Examples include polyester mooring, composite risers, cell spars, and 15,000-psi subsea trees.

There was a 51 percent increase in the number of producing deepwater projects over the past 2 years.

Deepwater production has risen more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) and over 400 million cubic feet per day (MMCFPD) each year since 1997. (Production volumes were only available through 2002 at the time of writing due to the production data lag.)

Subsea gas production has increased 90 percent since December 2000.

Since the start of 2000, new deepwater drilling has added over 4.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE).

Just onshore, in south eastern Texas and southern Louisiana, the flowage of salt domes has been the predominant mechanism for creating traps for oil. Salt of Jurassic age occurs here. When it is put under immense pressure by overlying rocks, this salt, which is less dense than the rocks surrounding it, will begin to flow upward. As it does so, it displaces, folds, and faults the rocks around it. In this way, traps can be created.

The Louann Salt is more than 200 million years old, and is located at great depths along the Gulf of Mexico\'s shoreline. In some places, however, this salt has moved due to the enormous pressure being put on it from the rocks above.

The central thesis of Beyond Chutzpah is that on crucial dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict little (if any) controversy remains among serious scholars and that what passes as controversy in public life is in reality a contrived discourse to deflect criticism of Israeli policy. Paradoxically Saperstein\'s review, although intended to refute my thesis, lends further weight to it:

(1) To demonstrate that I have misrepresented the conflict\'s history, Saperstein cites as his one and only example my claim that Israel "ethnically cleansed Palestine in 1948." Not only is this not true, according to Saperstein, but "the fact is the only ethnic cleansing that occurred in 1948 in Palestine was by Arabs of Jews from the West Bank and Gaza" (his emphasis). In my book I cite the research of Ieading Israeli scholars Baruch Kimmerling, Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe. (Each has used the descriptive "ethnic cleansing" in his respective writings on the topic.) An unimpeachably mainstream figure like Shabtai Teveth, who is Ben-Gurion\'s official biographer, acknowledged long ago that once the Arab armies attacked on 15 May "one may properly speak of expulsion by Israel" of the Palestinians ("Charging Israel With Original Sin," Commentary, September 1989). Indeed one might even cite former Israeli foreign minister and respected historian Shlomo Ben-Ami, who documents in his study Scars of War, Wounds of Peace (Oxford: 2006) that Palestinians were expelled in accordance with the Zionist "philosophy of transfer," which framed Ben-Gurion\'s "strategic-ideological" vision and "provided a legitimate environment for commanders in the field actively to encourage the eviction of the local population."

Against this wealth of research by leading Israeli scholars across the political spectrum, Saperstein cites not a single academic authority but rather the avowal of an Israeli novelist (Amos Oz). It is, or should be, cause for wonder that such a lone reference passes muster in a serious academic journal as scholarly rebuttal, and that the remarkable claim that no Palestinians--none--were expelled in 1948 passed editorial scrutiny. Will the editors now approve quotation of Leon Uris as a scholarly source? Saperstein can perhaps be excused since his area of expertise is ancient Jewish texts (he\'s apparently never written professionally on the Israel-Palestine conflict). But how did the explosion of scholarship on the birth of the Palestinian refugee question confuting the novelist\'s statement escape the notice of MEJ\'s editors? Saperstein\'s only other evidence that Palestinians weren\'t ethnically cleansed is that of the 900,000 Palestinians living in the areas Israel conquered 150,000 managed to remain in situ at war\'s end. Yet, apart from Holocaust deniers who would argue that Jews weren\'t subject to a genocide because of the 7,000,000 Jews living in the areas conquered by the Nazis 1,000,000 managed to survive at war\'s end? (For charity\'s sake I ignore Saperstein\'s argument that Israel couldn\'t have expelled Palestinians from the areas of Palestine it conquered in 1948 because they continued to live in areas of Palestine that Israel didn\'t conquer.)

(2) To demonstrate that I have grossly misrepresented Israel\'s human rights record in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Saperstein takes me to task for relying on mainstream human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and--what\'s yet more sinister in his view--Israeli human rights organizations like B\'Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), which he derides as "useful rhetorically." He further impugns the documentation I cite from these organizations as "facts" (his scare quotes) and waxes indignant that I didn\'t cast doubt on their judgments.

In researching Beyond Chutzpah I perused thousands of pages of mainstream human rights reports. One surprising conclusion I reached was how uncontroversial Israel\'s human rights record was. Although each of these human rights organizations has a fiercely independent research, legal and field staff, I came across only one instance over a 15-year period where two human rights organizations differed on a (tiny) point of fact. I then compared the uniform findings of these organizations with the claims of Professor Alan Dershowitz in his book The Case for Israel. More often than not Dershowitz either cites no source whatsoever or, as I document, fabricates a source out of whole cloth.

Consider torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees. In Beyond Chutzpah I cite the annual findings of Amnesty International over a ten-year period that "Palestinians were systematically tortured or ill-treated during interrogation"; the findings of a major Human Rights Watch report that "the number of Palestinians tortured or severely ill-treated while under interrogation during the [first] intfiada is in the tens of thousands"; and the findings of B\'Tselem that "[S]ome eight-five percent of persons interrogated by the GSS were interrogated by methods constituting torture." Against these findings I juxtapose Professor Dershowitz\'s unsourced counterclaim that Israel only "sometimes" employed what he calls a "modified form of non-lethal torture." Saperstein wonders why I regard the evidence and findings of human rights reports as valid. The obvious answer would seem to be that if all mainstream human rights organizations reach identical conclusions and no contrary evidence exists, there\'s no rational reason to infer that their reports are false--unless one accepts the faith-based counterclaim that Amnesty, HRW and B\'Tselem are part of a vast (anti-Semitic) conspiracy to malign Israel. Saperstein appears to belong to the latter school since he characterizes my evidence, culled overwhelmingly from mainstream human rights reports, as "every anti-Israel argument in the arsenal of its opponents." He wonders why I didn\'t engage in a "critical weighing of evidence on different sides of a controversial issue." Again, the obvious answer would seem to be that Dershowitz doesn\'t supply any evidence to weigh, and there\'s no controversy among mainstream human rights organizations to adjudicate. On a related matter Saperstein is appalled that I should treat as "self-evidently true" the allegation of all mainstream human rights organizations that Israel committed war crimes during its 2002 invasion of Jenin. Should I have doubted this uniform conclusion because a notorious apologist for Israel asserted without any evidence that it wasn\'t so?

The remainder of Saperstein\'s indictment can be more easily dispatched. He deplores that I treat with "scorn and sarcasm" the claims of New Anti-Semitism authors that "Western-based international human rights organizations," "Jewish feminists," Associated Press, Reuters, Time, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, BBC, NPR, CNN and ABC are all anti-Semitic; that the creation of Israel was a plot by European governments to concentrate all Jews in Palestine in order to exterminate them; that it\'s only a matter of time before "a loudspeaker goes off and a voice says, \'All Jews gather in Times Square.\'" Among scholars who base their findings on evidence and conclusions on reason the obvious retort would seem to be, Why shouldn\'t these ravings be treated with "scorn and sarcasm"? Saperstein wonders why I don\'t consider anti-Semitism in the Arab world. Yet, although surely a significant phenomenon it\'s also surely not new, while the burden of my first chapters was to analyze the so-called New Anti-Semitism that allegedly now permeates the Western world. Incidentally, Saperstein\'s recommendation of MEMRI as an objective source on the Arab world is of a piece with his recommendation of an Israeli novelist for the truth on the 1948 war.

Objecting to my comparison between the Nazi destruction of Lidice and Dershowitz\'s notorious policy prescription for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Saperstein states that the Nazis killed adult male inhabitants whereas Dershowitz merely advocated the destruction of "empty houses in a particular village." In my book I juxtaposed Dershowitz\'s deploring that "Hitler destroyed the entire Czech village of Lidice" with his own advocacy of the destruction of entire Palestinian villages. To dispute this comparison Saperstein introduces an element not mentioned by Dershowitz, that beyond destroying the village the Nazis also killed adult males at Lidice. However, is it even true that Dershowitz\'s proposal bears merely on "empty houses in a particular village"? Although you wouldn\'t know it from Saperstein\'s disingenuous gloss, here\'s what Dershowitz actually advocated: "[D]estruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings. The response will be automatic. The order will have been given in advance of the terrorist attacks and there will be no discretion." Dershowitz couldn\'t be clearer on the fate of residents who don\'t abandon their homes: "the response will be automaticthere will be no discretion." Saperstein also expresses perplexity that UCPress should have allowed me to document Dershowitz\'s plagiarism from a notorious hoax. It\'s unclear why a serious allegation of professional malfeasance shouldn\'t be reported especially since Saperstein doesn\'t dispute a single word of the 25 pages of evidence I assembled.

The "bottom-line" for Saperstein is that my book is the work of an "arrogant academic pit bull." Beyond Chutzpah is the product of twenty years of sustained reflection and what all reviewers (including Saperstein) agree was prodigious research. Saperstein consented to review the book although he\'s never written a single word on the main subject area. But I am the arrogant academic. Saperstein dismisses the accumulated research of Israeli historians by citing a statement of an Israeli novelist. But I am the arrogant academic. Saperstein mocks the cumulative findings of all mainstream human rights organizations as "facts" (his scare quotes). But I am the arrogant academic. In order to discredit my work Saperstein blots out existing scholarship, cites only preposterous sources, impugns the integrity of all human rights organizations and disingenuously quotes Dershowitz. But I am the pit bull. Saperstein accuses me of "getting carried away in his rhetoric" and of resorting to "outrageous ad hominems" and then labels me an "arrogant academic pit bull." On a related note, MEJ\'s stated policy prohibits the use of "intemperate or abusive language" in its pages, which must mean that the editors don\'t consider the phrase "arrogant academic pit bull" intemperate or abusive.

Saperstein wonders why University of California Press published my book. The obvious answer would seem to be that it both passed an unprecedentedly rigorous peer review process and met the press\'s rigorous publication standards. In a sane intellectual culture the only questions would be: Why did MEJ commission a review from Saperstein, and why did he agree to do it? His only qualification for reviewing my book would seem to be that for many years he sat on the Board of Directors of Harvard Hillel and was a colleague of Dershowitz. Readers of MEJ would have been better served if the editors had exercised minimum professional responsibility rather than let their pages be used for a transparent--not to mention slightly ridiculous--hatchet job.

Norman Finkelstein\'s most recent book is Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history (University of California Press). His web site is www.NormanFinkelstein.com.

\"Osama left Afghanistan in a party of 26 people,mostly his family members, on November 4 [2001]. He left from the \"south.\" [possibly southern Iran].

\"This may surprise you, but you must understand the nature of business. A business partnership is based on years of trust, and it is totally separate from political or national loyalties.\"

\"Osama, when he realized that he was trapped between the Northern Front and the US forces, called on an old business partner, who flew in his jetliner, and ferried Osama to Africa.\"

\"Osama was a rich man, a millionaire, but spend a lot on the Afghan war and reconstruction. While he was in Africa in exile, the Israelis approached him to take over the diamond business from the Lebanese in West Africa. (background: Muslims provide the strong arm for the raw diamond trade in West Africa, and it required a respected and tough Muslim like Osama to wrestle the trade away from the Shi\'ites from southern Lebanon. The Israelis could not stand the thought of their Antwerp diamond industry financing suicide bombers in south Lebanon).\"

\"With the diamond trade under his control, Osama became a billionaire (repeat), a billionaire . . . The diamonds were sent to the Russian mafiyah, who then sold to Antwerp.\"

(Antwerp, btw, was where the shoe bomber and countless other \"terrorists\" were financed and where AQ [Khan] money was being wired to New York via Hassidim diamond merchants.)

For building materials and equipment, Bin Laden\'s construction family routinely dealt with Jewish businessmen through Yemen. Since Saudis could have no direct dealings, the Bin Ladens used Yemenis, who lived alongside Jews in their Yemeni homeland. This is how Osama\'s father became so big.

\"Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban were not anti-Jewish because the Pashtun tribe are one of the \"lost tribes of Israel\". Our customs and names are identical to those of the Jews. So there was no problem in fighting the Soviet occupation and then Shiite enemy, and Osama led this fight.\"