As most readers are aware, the main purpose of the Signs of the Times page is to uncover and present the truth - to as great an extent as we can uncover it - about our world, the nature of the people that inhabit it, and the many and varied groups involved in attempting to control it. In the interests of objectivity and a deeper understanding of the dynamics at work, it may be useful for us, at this particular point in time, to stop for a minute and consider the state and nature of human existence on our planet at present.

There are approximately 6 billion of us on this planet. The lives and fortunes of this 6 billion people are directed in various ways by a relatively small group of elected or unelected individuals who, together, make up what is called "government".

No individual or group alive today can lay claim to having come up with the idea that an individual or a small group should be in charge of everybody else. All of us were born into a world where some form of government or another already existed, including those individuals who, during their lifetime, became part of the ruling class. There is obviously a power - a "line of force" - behind these governments, but we will leave that aspect of the question aside for the moment. For now, we want to look at very specific issues.

There are two possible explanations as to why some form of government or another - a ruling class vis a vis the masses of humanity - has existed now for many generations.

The first explanation is the argument that it is fundamental to human nature to look to a leader or leaders to take and enact decisions on behalf of the larger group. The argument goes that, due to another fundamental aspect of human nature - the tendency towards service to self - leadership by an individual or small group is necessary to ensure that a structured society, even the most primitive, can succeed without descending into anarchy, violence and survival of the fittest, and that even those humans who wish that it were not so, innately understand this and therefore willingly embrace a hierarchy as a necessary evil. Leadership, or government, then, is a structure that is put in place essentially to protect the people from themselves while maintaining the structure of society for the benefit of all, and places power into the hands of the few who present themselves as most able to do the job.

Let us notice this important fact: by and large in recent history, those that have presented themselves, or have been presented by others, as being fit for the job of leadership, have been elected or selected as a result of their own claims, or the claims of others, as to their competence rather than due to any stunningly evident leadership qualities. That is to say, society is too large for direct contact and intimate knowledge of the leaders by the people, so we end up having to trust their claims or the claims of their pals.

This, of course, leads to the question of who will protect the people from the leaders and regulate their actions if such a need arises?

This issue does not seem to be provided for in any practical or rational way, and the 'governees' are left to paradoxically hope that the leaders somehow possess, or will develop, the benevolent qualities befitting those who aspire to positions of power.

The paradox is, of course, in the fact that the lack of these benevolent qualities in humans in general, including the leaders, is what creates the need for leaders in the first place!

The second explanation, while accepting that human beings tend towards self service, proclaims that it is not by any means a 'black and white' issue and that there exists also an altruistic aspect to human nature, if only in potential. Furthermore, it is proposed that the degree to which self centeredness and altruism are manifested can vary greatly from person to person. It is further argued that there exists the possibility that, if the human potential for altruism were to be cultivated, a very different social structure might have a chance to develop. With this as its basis, the second explanation asserts that the concept that a few must naturally govern the many is not necessarily true and, in fact, is most often promoted by those in whom the service to self nature is strongest.

Indeed, it can be convincingly argued that, for those people of a predominantly self-serving nature, the first explanation is in fact very true, but only for them, and it is in this idea that a foundational problem of our existence arises.

In a world where some people possess the potential for service to others, and some do not, those that do not will, by their very nature, be able to provide false evidence that the first explanation is the truth, that anarchy does indeed result from a lack of leaders, which then precludes the possibility that anything other than a hierarchical structured society can ever exist. Furthermore, and again as a result of their predominating service to self nature, we see that it is from the ranks of these people that the few that rule the many are most often drawn. Some might also call such a scenario "catch 22".

Another strategy is to agree that mankind is able to evolve and develop the altruistic seed within, and then propose that this is best done by a small elite who knows best what altruism really means. Synarchy is one form of this strategy.

By the beginning of the 21st century, the process of electing leaders and governing the masses by the few has become so refined as to be virtually an automated procedure (the 2000 US presidential elections being a case in point). Those predisposed to self-serving ideals join and rise up through the ranks of the existing leaders and continue the job of governing the many. A natural and closed clique among the leaders results, and today's citizenry, whose ancestors long ago relinquished power to what has today become a self-perpetuating organism, must simply sit, wait, hope, and ultimately lie to themselves in order to believe that their leaders will act in the best interests of all.

Having said that, the "best interests of all" from the point of view of the leaders, is to maintain the status quo, the status quo being that the many continue to believe that their leaders really are acting for the good of all, even when their innate human nature leads them to act only in their own interests. This naturally forces those in government to resort to acts of deception in order to maintain the illusion as they go about the job of serving their own interests.

The people however are not completely denuded of any resources to search for and uncover the truth about the real intention of their leaders. Deception is only an attempt to hide an already existent truth, it does not wipe out the existence of the truth. As such, those citizens of a diligent and truth-loving disposition can, with enough effort and desire, still discover evidence to corroborate the truth of the idea that was lost to our ancestors - that those who actively seek and attain political or government office are, by their nature, generally unfit for it. Democracy merely enlarged the pool from which psychopaths and self-centered people could be brought into the ruling elite.

We see these games of deception going on every day in the news. The invasion of Iraq and the lies used to justify this act - criminal under international law - are but one example. The stories told by the Israelis to justify the murder of Palestinian children is another horrifying example.

Now that we are all happily unburdened by the indecision over whether or not our leaders "would do that", and are abundantly furnished with the proof of logical reasoning which shows that, by their very nature, they would indeed and always have "done that", we can confront objectively the events of September 11th, 2001 and it's aftermath.

There exists copious amounts of evidence which strongly suggests that the WTC and Pentagon attacks were but one more deceptive act in a long history of deceptive acts by our leaders. That evidence is available for all to see on this and other sites. However, we understand that some of our readers, being in some respects still under the sway of government propaganda, will not yet be ready to put their faith in the writings of "conspiracy theorists".

For this reason, today we will present verified, historically accurate, evidence which shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that leaders and governments have time and again carried out attacks against their own citizens and those of other coutries in order to further their own self-serving goals, and that they have subsequently done all in their power to cover up the evidence.

In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods.

Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”

Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear.

"American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression", announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964.

That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and 'certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin."

But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam -- no "renewed attacks against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War.

A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.

The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.

The truth was very different.

Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force.

"The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam...had taken place," writes scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were "part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964."

On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam.

But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.

Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat."

One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power."

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

But Johnson's deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, "went to the American people last night with the somber facts." The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities."

An exhaustive new book, The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."

Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" -- as well as "reluctance to question official pronouncements on 'national security issues.'"

Daniel Hallin's classic book The "Uncensored War" observes that journalists had "a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats."

What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time."

In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam -- sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only "no" votes.) The resolution authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."

The rest is tragic history.

Nearly three decades later, during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney Schanberg warned journalists not to forget "our unquestioning chorus of agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident."

Schanberg blamed not only the press but also "the apparent amnesia of the wider American public."

And he added: "We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."

On November 25, 1941 Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto sent a radio message to the group of Japanese warships that would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. Newly released naval records prove that from November 17 to 25 the United States Navy intercepted eighty-three messages that Yamamoto sent to his carriers. Part of the November 25 message read: “…the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow…”

One might wonder if the theory that President Franklin Roosevelt had a foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack would have been alluded to in this summer’s movie, Pearl Harbor. Since World War II many people have suspected that Washington knew the attack was coming. When Thomas Dewey was running for president against Roosevelt in 1944 he found out about America’s ability to intercept Japan’s radio messages, and thought this knowledge would enable him to defeat the popular FDR. In the fall of that year, Dewey planned a series of speeches charging FDR with foreknowledge of the attack. Ultimately, General George Marshall, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded Dewey not to make the speeches. Japan’s naval leaders did not realize America had cracked their codes, and Dewey’s speeches could have sacrificed America’s code-breaking advantage. So, Dewey said nothing, and in November FDR was elected president for the fourth time.

Now, though, according to Robert Stinnett, author of Simon & Schuster’s Day Of Deceit, we have the proof. Stinnett’s book is dedicated to Congressman John Moss, the author of America’s Freedom of Information Act. According to Stinnett, the answers to the mysteries of Pearl Harbor can be found in the extraordinary number of documents he was able to attain through Freedom of Information Act requests. Cable after cable of decryptions, scores of military messages that America was intercepting, clearly showed that Japanese ships were preparing for war and heading straight for Hawaii. Stinnett, an author, journalist, and World War II veteran, spent sixteen years delving into the National Archives. He poured over more than 200,000 documents, and conducted dozens of interviews. This meticulous research led Stinnet to a firmly held conclusion: FDR knew.

“Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” was Roosevelt’s famous campaign statement of 1940. He wasn’t being ingenuous. FDR’s military and State Department leaders were agreeing that a victorious Nazi Germany would threaten the national security of the United States. In White House meetings the strong feeling was that America needed a call to action. This is not what the public wanted, though. Eighty to ninety percent of the American people wanted nothing to do with Europe’s war. So, according to Stinnett, Roosevelt provoked Japan to attack us, let it happen at Pearl Harbor, and thus galvanized the country to war.

Many who came into contact with Roosevelt during that time hinted that FDR wasn’t being forthright about his intentions in Europe. After the attack, on the Sunday evening of December 7, 1941, Roosevelt had a brief meeting in the White House with Edward R. Murrow, the famed journalist, and William Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services. Later Donovan told an assistant the he believed FDR welcomed the attack and didn’t seem surprised. The only thing Roosevelt seemed to care about, Donovan felt, was if the public would now support a declaration of war. According to Day Of Deceit, in October 1940 FDR adopted a specific strategy to incite Japan to commit an overt act of war.

Part of the strategy was to move America’s Pacific fleet out of California and anchor it in Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Richardson, the commander of the Pacific fleet, strongly opposed keeping the ships in harm’s way in Hawaii. He expressed this to Roosevelt, and so the President relieved him of his command. Later Richardson quoted Roosevelt as saying: “Sooner or later the Japanese will commit an overt act against the United States and the nation will be willing to enter the war.”

Comment: Three and a half years ago, what percentage of American citizens would have wanted nothing to do with a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention an endless "war on terror" leading, inexplicably, to a clamp down on civil liberties at home? After 9/11, of course, they had no choice, they were "victims" of an "unprovoked" and "surprise" attack by "Arab terrorists", just as American citizens were "victims" of an "unprovoked" and "surprise" attack by the Japanese.

The TWA Flight 800 Independent Researchers Organization, FIRO, has taken the unusual step of filing a petition with the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, asking for reconsideration of the findings on the probable cause of the crash of TWA Flight 800. Such petitions are entertained only if new evidence has been found or a showing that the NTSB findings were erroneous. FIRO claims that some evidence that the NTSB kept secret and which has now become available for public scrutiny is new evidence that shows that the official findings were erroneous.

Their petition cites as one important example metals of "unknown origin" that were found in the bodies of many of those who died in the crash on July 17, 1996. The FBI asked the Brookhaven National Laboratory to analyze pellets found in the bodies. They contained zirconium and barium, indicative of an incendiary device foreign to a Boeing 747airliner. The NTSB acknowledges that the source of these pellets is unknown and that the FBI did not try to determine the source.

The Suffolk County coroner, Dr. Wetli, found shrapnel in 89 of the bodies he examined. The FBI compiled a secret eight-page list describing the metal found in each of the bodies. FIRO has sued under FOIA to obtain this list. The court ordered the FBI to release it, but they are trying to get that reversed on privacy grounds, claiming it invades the privacy of the dead. That is a spurious argument because the dead have no privacy rights, but FIRO is not arguing that point. It says it is not interested in the names of those in whose bodies the shrapnel was found. What it wants is its description of the metal found in each of those bodies. It is believed that a lot of it will be pellets.

Retired Brigadier General Benton Partin, who helped design missiles for the Air Force, has said that the Brookhaven Laboratory’s analysis of the composition of the mysterious pellets suggests to him that they came from a missile.

Excerpts from his book: The Gun and the Olive Branch, 1977, 1984, Futura Publications

In July 1954 Egypt was plagued by a series of bomb outrages directed mainly against American and British property in Cairo and Alexandria. It was generally assumed that they were the work of the Moslem Brothers, then the most dangerous challenge to the still uncertain authority of Colonel (later President) Nasser and his two-year-old revolution. Nasser was negotiating with Britain over the evacuation of its giant military bases in the Suez Canal Zone, and, the Moslem Brothers, as zealous nationalists, were vigorously opposed to any Egyptian compromises.

It therefore came as a shock to world, and particularly Jewish opinion, when on 5 October the Egyptian Minister of the Interior, Zakaria Muhieddin, announced the break-up of a thirteen-man Israeli sabotage network.

The trial established that the bombings had indeed been carried out by an Israeli espionage and terrorist network. This was headed by Colonel Avraharn Dar --alias John Darling-- and a core of professionals who had set themselves up in Egypt under various guises. They had recruited a number of Egyptian Jews; one of them was a young woman, Marcelle Ninio, who worked in the offices of a British company. Naturally, the eventual exposure of such an organization was not going to improve the lot of the vast majority of Egyptian Jews who wanted no-thing to do with Zionism. There were still at least 50,000 Jews in Egypt; there had been something over 60,000 in 1947, more than half of whom were actually foreign nationals.

The welfare of Oriental Jewry in their various homelands was, as we have seen, Israel's last concern. And in July 1954 it had other worries. It was feeling isolated and insecure. Its Western friends-let alone the rest of the world-were unhappy about its aggressive behaviour. The US Assistant Secretary of State advised it to 'drop the attitude of the conqueror'.53 More alarming was the rapprochement under way between Egypt, on the one hand, and the United States and Britain on the other. President Eisenhower had urged Britain to give up her giant military base in the Suez Canal Zone; Bengurion had failed to dissuade her. It was to sabotage this rapprochement that the head of Israeli intelligence, Colonel Benyamin Givli, ordered his Egyptian intelligence ring to strike.

On Givli's instructions, the Egyptian network was to plant bombs in American and British cultural centres, British-owned cinemas and Egyptian public buildings. The Western powers, it was hoped, would conclude that there was fierce internal opposition to the rapprochement and that Nasser's young regime, faced with this challenge, was not one in which they could place much confidence. Mysterious violence might therefore persuade both London and Washington that British troops should remain astride the Canal; the world had not forgotten Black Saturday, 28 January 1951, in the last year of King Farouk's reign, when mobs rampaged through downtown Cairo, setting fire to foreign-owned hotels and shops, in which scores of people, including thirteen Britons, died.

The first bomb went off, on 2 July, in the Alexandria post office. On 11 July, the Anglo-Egyptian Suez negotiations, which had been blocked for nine months, got under way again. The next day the Israeli embassy in London was assured that, up on the British evacuation from Suez, stock-piled arms would not be handed over to the Egyptians. But the Defence Ministry activists were unconvinced. On 14 July their agents, in clandestine radio contact with Tel Aviv, fire-bombed US Information Service libraries in Cairo and Alexandria. That same day, a phosphorous bomb exploded prematurely in the pocket of one Philip Natanson, nearly burning him alive, as he was about to enter the British-owned Rio cinema in Alexandria.

His arrest and subsequent confession led to the break-up of the whole ring-but not before the completion of another cycle of clandestine action and diplomatic failure. On 15 July President Eisenhower assured the Egyptians that 'simultaneously' with the signing of a Suez agreement the United States would enter into 'firm commitments' for economic aid to strengthen their armed forces.55 On 23 July --anniversary of the 1952 revolution-- the Israeli agents still at large had a final fling; they started fires in two Cairo cinemas, in the central post office and the railway station. On the same day, Britain announced that the War Secretary, Antony Head, was going to Cairo. And on 27 July he and the Egyptians initiated the 'Heads of Agreement' on the terms of Britain's evacuation.

The trial lasted from 11 December to 3 January. Not all the culprits were there, because Colonel Dar and an Israeli colleague managed to escape, and the third Israeli, Hungarian-born Max Bennett, committed suicide; but those who were present all pleaded guilty. Most of them, including Marcelle Ninio, were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. But Dr Musa Lieto Marzuk, a Tunisian-born citizen of France who was a surgeon at the Jewish Hospital in Cairo, and Samuel Azar, an engineering professor from Alexandria, were condemned to death. In spite of representations from France, Britain and the United States the two men were hanged. Politically, it would have been very difficult for Nasser to spare them, for only seven weeks before six Moslem Brothers had been executed for complicity in an attempt on his life. Nevertheless Israel reacted with grief and anger. So did some Western Jews. Marzuk and Azar 'died the death of martyrs', said Sharett on the same day in the Knesset, whose members stood in silent tribute. Israel went into official mourning the following day. Beersheba and Ramat Gan named streets after the executed men. Israeli delegates to the Egyptian-Israeli Mixed Armistice Commission refused to attend its meeting, declaring that they would not sit down with representatives of the Cairo junta. In New York there were bomb threats against the Egyptian consulate and a sniper fired four shots into its fourth-floor window.56

This whole episode, which was to poison Israeli political life for a decade and more, came to be known as the 'Lavon Affair', for it had been established in the Cairo trial that Lavon, as Minister of Defence, had approved the campaign of sabotage. At least so the available evidence made it appear. But in Israel, Lavon had asked Moshe Sharett for a secret inquiry into a matter about which the cabinet knew nothing. Benyamin Givli, the intelligence chief, claimed that the so-called 'security operation' had been authorized by Lavon himself. Two other Bengurion proteges, Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres, testified against Lavon. Lavon denounced Givli's papers as forgeries and demanded the resignation of all three men. Instead, Sharett ordered Lavon himself to resign and invited Bengurion to come out of retirement and take over the Defence Ministry. It was a triumphant comeback for the 'activist' philosophy whose excesses both Sharett and Lavon had tried to modify. It was con-summated, a week later, by an unprovoked raid on Gaza, which left thirty-nine Egyptians dead and led to the Suez War Of 1956. 57

When the truth about the Lavon Affair came to light, six years after the event, it confirmed that there had been a frame-up-not, however, by the Egyptians, but by Bengurion and his young proteges. Exposure was fortuitous. Giving evidence in a forgery trial in September 1960, a witness divulged on passant that he had seen the faked signature of Lavon on a document relating to a 1954 'security mishap'.58 [...]

But Lavon was not the only real victim. There were also those misguided Egyptian Jews who paid with their lives or long terms of imprisonment. It is true that when, in 1968, Marcelle Ninio and her colleagues were exchanged for Egyptian' prisoners in Israel, they received a heroes' welcome. True, too, that when Miss Ninio got married Prime Minister Golda Meir, Defence Minister Dayan and Chief of Staff General Bar Lev all attended the wedding and Dayan told the bride 'the Six-Day War was success enough that it led to your freedom'.61 However, after spending fourteen years in an Egyptian prison, the former terrorists did not share the leadership's enthusiasm. When Ninio and two of her colleagues appeared on Israel television a few years later, they all expressed the belief that the reason why they were not released earlier was because Israel made little effort to get them out. 'Maybe they didn't want us to come back,' said Robert Dassa. 'There was so much intrigue in Israel. We were instruments in the hands of the Egyptians and of others ... and what is more painful after all that we went through is that this continues to be so.' In Ninio's opinion, 'the government didn't want to spoil its relations with the United States and didn't want the embarrassment of admitting it was behind our action'.62

But the real victims were the great mass of Egyptian Jewry. Episodes like the Lavon Affair tended to identify them, in the mind of ordinary Egyptians, with the Zionist movement. When, in 1956, Israeli invaded and occupied Sinai, feeling ran high against them. The government, playing into the Zionist hands, began ordering Jews to leave the country. Belatedly, reluctantly, 21,000 left in the following year; more were expelled later, and others, their livelihood gone, had nothing to stay for. But precious few went to Israel.

NOTES

49. Jerusalem Post, 12 December 1954.
5O. 13 December 1954.
51. 13 December 1954.
52. Berger, op. cit., p. 14.
53. love, Kennett, Suez: The Twice-Fought War, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1969, P. 71.
54. Ibid., p . 73.
55. Ibid., p. 74.
56. Love, op. cit., P. 77.
57. See p. 198.
58. New York Times, 10 February 1961.
59. Ibid
60. Jewish Chronicle, London, 17 February 1971.
61. Ha'olam Hazeh, 1 December 1971
62. Associated Press, 16 March 1975.

Comment: Right here, dear readers, we have concrete evidence that the concept of a "false flag" operation formed a central part of Israeli intelligence operations over 50 years ago. Yet even before that, certain factions within the movement known as "Zionism" were already selling out their "own people" while maintaining that they were acting in the best interests of all.

"Zionism has no illusions about the difficulty of the Jewish condition, which consists above all in an abnormal occupational pattern and in the fault of an intellectual and moral posture not rooted in one's own tradition. Zionism recognized decades ago that as a result of the assimilationist trend, symptoms of deterioration were bound to appear, which it seeks to overcome by carrying out its challenge to transform Jewish life completely.

"It is our opinion that an answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural and moral renewal of Jewry--indeed, that such a national renewal must first create the decisive social and spiritual premises for all solutions.

"Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values, must also take place in the Jewish national group. For the Jew, too, origin, religion, community of fate and group consciousness must be of decisive significance in the shaping of his life. This means that the egotistic individualism which arose in the liberal era must be overcome by public spiritedness and by willingness to accept responsibility."

Comment: In the above three paragraphs, the "Zionists" are essentially stating that they agree with Hitler's stance on the Jewish question, and in veiled language are proposing a "renewal" or rebirth of Jewish society and identity. It was a clear reference to the Zionist desire to create a Jewish "homeland" in Palestine and their intention to co-operate with the Nazi regime in creating the "conditions" that would facilitate this. One of those "conditions", of course, was the understanding among Jews that Europe was an extremely hostile environment for them, and that they should flee or accept deportation to their new "homeland". One has to wonder in this case just where and with whom the "Jewish question" originated.

By 1936, the Post ran a news flash, "German Zionists Seek Recognition":

"A bold demand that the German Zionist Federation be given recognition by the Government as the only instrument for the exclusive control of German Jewish life was made by the Executive of that body in a proclamation today. All German Jewish organizations, it was declared, should be dominated by the Zionist spirit."

Zionist factions competed for the honor of allying to Hitler. By 1940-41, the "Stern Gang," among them Yitzhak Shamir, later Prime Minister of Israel, presented the Nazis with the "Fundamental Features of the Proposal of the National Military Organization in Palestine (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation of the NMO in the War on the Side of Germany."

Avraham Stern and his followers announced that

"The NMO, which is well-acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, is of the opinion that:

1. Common interests could exist between the establishment of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German concept, and the true national aspirations of the Jewish people as they are embodied by the NMO.

2. Cooperation between the new Germany and a renewed folkish-national Hebraium would be possible and,

3. The establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East.

Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side."

They hanged people all over Europe after WW II for notes to the Nazis like these. But these treasons against the Jews were virtually unknown in the run up to the creation of the Zionist state in May 1948

For openers, Brenner showed how the Zionists had a long history of shameless cooperation with the Nazis, especially after the dictator Adolph Hitler had came to power in 1933. The Zionists were also in bed, to some extent, with the other members of what later became known as WWII’s “Axis of Evil,” that included Benito Mussolini’s Italy, and Tojo Hideki’s Japan. For example, on March 29,1936, Zionists praised Il Duce, and his regime, at the opening of a maritime school, funded by the Fascist government, at Civitavecchia. This is where a Zionist youth group, the “Betar,” trained its sailors for the future Revisionist state. The speakers ignored the fact that on Oct. 3, 1935, Italian troops had invaded Abyssinia.

The Zionist also had a trade plan with the Berlin government by which German Jews could redeem their property in Nazi goods exported to then British-occupied Palestine. And to top it all off, the infamous SS-Hptscharf. Adolf Eichmann, had visited Palestine, in October, 1937, as the guest of the Zionists. He also met, in Egypt, with Feivel Polkes, a Zionist operative, whom Eichmann described as a “leading Haganah functionary.” The chain-smoking Polkes was also on the Nazis’ payroll “as an informer.”

Brenner isn’t the first writer to address the mostly taboo subject of how the Zionist leadership cooperated with the Nazis. Rolf Hilberg’s seminal “The Destruction of European Jews”; Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem”; Ben Hecht’s “Perfidy”; Edwin Black’s “The Transfer Agreement”; Francis R. Nicosia’s “The Third Reich and the Palestine Question”; Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic’s “I Cannot Forgive”; and Rafael Medoff’s “The Deadening Silence: American Jews and the Holocaust,” also dared, with varying public success.

After the Holocaust began in 1942, Eichmann dealt regularly with Dr. Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian Jew, whom he considered a “fanatical Zionist.” Kastner was later assassinated in Israel as a Nazi collaborator. At issue then, however, was the bargaining over the eventual fate of Hungary’s Jews, who were slated for liquidation in the Nazi-run death camps. Eichmann said this about Kastner, the Zionist representative, “I believe that [he] would have sacrificed a thousand or a hundred thousand of his blood to achieve his political goal. He was not interested in old Jews or those who had become assimilated into Hungarian society. ‘You can have the others,’ he would say, ‘but let me have this group here.’ And because Kastner rendered us a great service by helping keep the deportation camps peaceful. I would let his groups escape.”

Readers, too, will be surprised to learn, that after the Nuremberg Anti-Jewish Race Laws were enacted in Sept., 1935, that there were only two flags that were permitted to be displayed in all of Nazi Germany. One was Hitler’s favorite, the Swastika. The other was the blue and white banner of Zionism. The Zionists were also allowed to publish their own newspaper. The reasons for this Reich-sponsored favoritism was, according to the author: The Zionists and the Nazis had a common interest, making German Jews emigrate to Palestine.

Comment: Those tasked with the job of leading the people seem to believe that the very fact that they find themselves in a position of power, proves that they "deserve" or possess some innate right to be in such a position - a self-fulfilling prophecy if you will, and it matters not what they had to do to get there. In fact, the "resourcefulness" that they exhibited to climb the ladder of success is simply further proof that they are eminently deserving of their position.

By this thinking, it follows, then, that, if the "great unwashed" find themselves in a position of powerlesness, then they also "deserve" to be there. It is an ideology based on survival of the fittest, or, rather, the most ruthless. In short, the scum always rises to the top.

The Mossad realized that it had to come up with a new threat to the region, a threat of such magnitude that it would justify whatever action the Mossad might see fit to take.

The right-wing elements in the Mossad (and in the whole country, for that matter) had what they regarded as a sound philosophy: They believed (correctly, as it happened) that Israel was the strongest military presence in the Middle East. In fact, they believed that the military might of what had become known as "fortress Israel" was greater than that of all of the Arab armies combined, and was responsible for whatever security Israel possessed. The right wing believed then - and they still believe - that this strength arises from the need to answer the constant threat of war.

The corollary belief was that peace overtures would inevitably start a process of corrosion that would weaken the military and eventually bring about the demise of the state of Israel, since, the philosophy goes, its Arab neighbors are untrustworthy, and no treaty signed by them is worth the paper it's written on.

Supporting the radical elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad's general plan for the region. An Arab world run by fundamentalists would not be a party to any negotiations with the West, thus leaving Israel again as the only democratic, rational country in the region. And if the Mossad could arrange for the Hamas (Palestinian fundamentalists) to take over the Palestinian streets from the PLO, then the picture would be complete.

The Mossad regarded Saddam Hussein as their biggest asset in the area, since he was totally irrational as far as international politics was concerned, and was therefore all the more likely to make a stupid move that the Mossad could take advantage of.

What the Mossad really feared was that Iraq's gigantic army, which had survived the Iran-Iraq war and was being supplied by the West and financed by Saudi Arabia, would fall into the hands of a leader who might be more palatable to the West and still be a threat to Israel.

The first step was taken in November 1988, when the Mossad told the Israeli foreign office to stop all talks with the Iraqis regarding a peace front. At that time, secret negotiations were taking place between Israelis, Jordanians, and Iraqis under the auspices of the Egyptians and with the blessings of the French and the Americans. The Mossad manipulated it so that Iraq looked as if it were the only country unwilling to talk, thereby convincing the Americans that Iraq had a different agenda.

By January 1989, the Mossad LAP machine was busy portraying Saddam as a tyrant and a danger to the world. The Mossad activated every asset it had, in every place possible, from volunteer agents in Amnesty International to fully bought members of the U.S. Congress. Saddam had been killing his own people, the cry went; what could his enemies expect? The gruesome photos of dead Kurdish mothers clutching their dead babies after a gas attack by Saddam's army were real, and the acts were horrendous. But the Kurds were entangled in an all-out guerrilla war with the regime in Baghdad and had been supported for years by the Mossad, who sent arms and advisers to the mountain camps of the Barazany family; this attack by the Iraqis could hardly be called an attack on their own people. But, as Uri said to me, once the orchestra starts to play, all you can do is hum along.

The media was supplied with inside information and tips from reliable sources on how the crazed leader of Iraq killed people with his bare hands and used missiles to attack Iranian cities. What they neglected to tell the media was that most of the targeting for the missiles was done by the Mossad with the help of American satellites. The Mossad was grooming Saddam for a fall, but not his own. They wanted the Americans to do the work of destroying that gigantic army in the Iraqi desert so that Israel would not have to face it one day on its own border. That in itself was a noble cause for an Israeli, but to endanger the world with the possibility of global war and the deaths of thousands of Americans was sheer madness.

The previous august (1989) a contingent of the Maktal (Mossad reconnaissance unit) and several naval commandos had headed up the Euphrates, their target was an explosives factory located in the city of Al-Iskandariah. Information the Mossad had received from American intelligence revealed that every thursday a small convoy of trucks came to the complex to be loaded with explosives for the purpose of manufacturing cannon shells. The objective was to take position near the base on Wednesday August 23rd and wait until the next day when the trucks would be loaded. At that point, several sharpshooters would fire one round each of an explosive bullet at a designated truck while they were in the process of loading, so that there would be a carry on explosion into the storage facility.

The operation was quite successful and the explosion generated the sort of publicity the Mossad was hoping for in attracting attention to Saddam's constant efforts at building a gigantic and powerful military arsenal. The Mossad shared its "findings" with the Western intelligence agencies and leaked the story of the explosion to the press.

Since this was a guarded facility Western reporters had minimal access to it. However, at the beginning of September, the Iraqis were inviting Western media people to visit Iraq and see the rebuilding that had taken place after the [Iran-Iraq] war, and the Mossad saw an opportunity to conduct a damage assessment.

A man calling himself Michel Rubiyer saying he was working for the French newspaper "le figaro", approached Farzad Bazoft, a thirty one year old reporter freelancing for the British newspaper the Observer. Rubiyer was in fact Michel M. a Mossad agent.

Michel told Farzad that he would pay him handsomely and print his story if he would join a group of journalists heading for Baghdad. The reason he gave for not going himself was that he had been black-listed in Iraq. He pointed out the Bazoft could use the money and the break especially with his criminal background. Michel told the stunned reporter that he knew of his arrest in 1981 for armed robbery in Northhampton England. Along with the implied threat he told Bazoft that he would be able to print his story in the Observer as well.

Michel told Bazoft to collect information regarding the explosion ask questions about it get sketches of the area and collect earth samples. He told the worried reporter that Saddam would not dare harm a reporter even if he was unhappy with him. The worst the Saddam would do was kick him out of the country, which would in itself make him famous.

Why this particular reporter? He was of Iranian background and would make punishing him much easier for the Iraqis and he wasn't a European whom they would probably only hold and then kick out. In fact, Bazoft had been identified in a Mossad search that was triggered by his prying into another Mossad case in search of a story involving an ex-Mossad asset Dr Cyrus Hashemi who was eliminated by mossad in 1986. Since Bazoft had already stumbled on too much information for his own good - or the Mossad's for that matter - he was the perfect candidate for this job of snooping in forbidden areas.

Bazoft made his way to the location as he was asked and as might be expected was arrested. Tragically, his British girlfriend, a nurse working in a baghdad hospital was arrested as well.

Within a few days of his arrest, a Mossad liaison in the US called the Iraqi representative in Holland and said that Jerusalem was willing to make a deal for the release of their man who had been captured. the Iraqi representative asked for time to contact Baghdad, and the liaison called the next day, at which point he told the Iraqi representative it was all a big mistake and severed contact. Now the Iraqis had no doubt that they had a real spy on their hands, and they were going to see him hang. All the Mossad had to do was sit back and watch as Saddam proved to the world what a monster he really was.

On March 15th 1990 Farzad Bazoft, who had been held in the Abu Gharib prison met briefly with the British Ambassador to Iraq.

A few minutes after the meeting he was hanged.

The world was shocked, but the Mossad was not done yet. To fan the flames generated by the brutal hanging, a Mossad sayan in New York delivered a set of documents to ABC television with a story from a reliable Middle Eastern source telling if a plant Saddam had for the manufacturing of uranium. The information was convincing and the photos and sketches were even more so.

It was time to draw attention to Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Only three months before, on December 5, 1989, the Iraqis had launched the Al-Abid, a three-stage ballistic missile. The Iraqis claimed it was a satellite launcher that Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist, was helping them develop. Israeli intelligence knew that the launch, although trumpeted as a great success, was in fact a total failure, and that the program would never reach its goals. But that secret was not shared with the media. On the contrary, the missile launch was exaggerated and blown out of proportion.

The message that Israeli intelligence sent out was this: Now all the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together. This maniac is developing a nuclear capability (remember the Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor in 1981) and pursuing chemical warfare (as seen in his attacks on his own people, the Kurds). What's more, he despises the Western media, regarding them as Israeli spies. Quite soon, he's going to have the ability to launch a missile from anywhere in Iraq to anywhere he wants in the Middle East and beyond.

After the arrest of Bazoft, Gerald Bull, who was working on the Iraqi big gun project called Babylon, was visited by Israeli friends from his past. The visitors (two Mossad officers) had come to deliver a warning. They were both known to Bull as members of the Israeli intelligence community. The Mossad psychological department had studied the position Bull was in and analysed what was known about his character. It arrived at the conclusion that, even if threatened, he wouldn't pull out of the program but would instead carry on his work with very little regard for his personal safety.

Ultimately, Bull's continuing with the program would play right into the Mossad's hands. Through the bullet riddled body of Gerald Bull the world would be made to focus on his work: the Iraqi giant gun project. The timing had to be right though; Bull's well publicised demise had to come right after an act of terror by the Baghdad regime, an act that could not be mistaken for an accident or a provocation. The hanging of the Observer reporter on March 15 was such an act.

After the reporter's execution in Baghdad, a Kidon (Mossad assassination) team arrived in Brussels and cased the apartment building where Bull lived. It was imperative that the job be done in a place where it would not be mistaken for a robbery or an accident. At the same time, an escape route was prepared for the team and some old contacts in the Belgian police were revived to make sure they were on duty at the time of Bull's elimination so that, if there was a need to call on a friendly police force, they'd be on call. They weren't old of the reason for the alert, but would learn later and keep silent.

When Bull reached the building at 8.30pm, the man watching the entrance signaled the man in the empty apartment on the sixth floor (Bull's floor) to get ready: the target had entered the building. The shooter then left the apartment and hid in an alcove.

Almost immediately after the elevator door closed behind Bull, the shooter fired point blank at the man's back and head. The shooter then walked over to Bull and pulled out of his tote bag a handful of documents and other papers, which he paced in a paper shopping bag he had with him. He also collected all the casings from the floor and dropped the gun into the shopping bag.

In the following weeks, more and more discoveries were made regarding the big gun and other elements of the Saddam war machine. The Mossad had all but saturated the intelligence field with information regarding the evil intentions of Saddam the Terrible, banking on the fact that before long, he'd have enough rope to hang himself.

It was very clear what the Mossad's overall goal was. It wanted the West to do its bidding, just as the Americans had in Libya with the bombing of Qadhafi. After all, Israel didn't possess carriers and ample air power, and although it was capable of bombing a refugee camp in Tunis, that was not the same. The Mossad leaders knew that if they could make Saddam appear bad enough and a threat to the Gulf oil supply, of which he'd been the protector up to that point, then the United States and its allies would not let him get away with anything, but would take measures that would all but eliminate his army and his weapons potential, especially if they were led to believe that this might just be their last chance before he went nuclear. [...]

Comment: The above account of covert operations needs little comment other than to mention that government sponsored agencies have been conducting operations of this kind for many years. In doing so, they are able to shape not only global public opinion but incite and provide justification for wars, leading to the deaths of many millions of people. The events of 9/11 and the endless war that they have given rise to, fit very well into the government covert operation category.

In their dealings with Nasser (Egyptian Prime Minister 1952-1970) the British used any means necessary, including espionage, diplomacy, bribery and even direct military might to retain control over Egypt and the Suez Canal. The newly founded CIA also became interested in Egypt when Nasser showed signs of tilting to the Soviet Union. Aburish explains h ow this new avenue of intrigue evolved.

"According to CIA agent Miles Copeland, the Americans began looking for a Muslim Billy Graham around 1955... When finding or creating a Muslim Billy Graham proved elusive, the CIA began to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim mass organization founded in Egypt but with followers throughout the Arab Middle East... This signalled the beginning of an alliance between the traditional regimes and mass Islamic movements against Nasser and other secular forces." (1)

The CIA was following the example of British Intelligence and sought to use Islam to further its goals. They wanted to find a charismatic religious leader that they could promote and control and they began to cooperate with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. With the rise of Nasser the Brotherhood was also courted more seriously by the pro-Western Arab regimes of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. They needed all the popular support that they could muster against the rise of Nasser-inspired Arab nationalism to keep their regimes intact.

The Muslim Brotherhood was an obvious ally against Nasser, because he had abolished it from Egypt after it was involved in a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1954. The Brotherhood rejected Nasser's policy that, for the most part, kept religion out of politics. Officially the Brotherhood was an outlawed organization, but it remained influential and active within Egypt working against the secular regime, often hand-in-hand with British Intelligence. In June of 1955 MI6 was already approaching the Brotherhood in Syria to agitate against the new government that showed strong left-wing tendencies and a desire to merge with Egypt (2). The Brotherhood became an even more important asset after Nasser announced the Egyptian takeover of the Suez. Author Stephen Dorril documents how this move was viewed from Britain,

"On 26 July in Alexandria, in a calm speech, but one that was described by London as hysterical, Nasser made his nationalisation announcement, which from a strictly legal point of view was no more 'than a decision to buy out the shareholders.' That night in Downing Street, [British Prime Minister] Eden's bitterness at the decision was not concealed from his guests... Eden summoned a council of war, which continued until 4 a.m. An emotional Prime Minister told his colleagues that Nasser could not be allowed, in Eden's phrase, 'to have his hand on our windpipe.' The 'muslim Mussolini' must be 'destroyed.' Eden added: 'I want him removed and I don't give a damn if there's anarchy and chaos in Egypt.'" (3)

Former Prime Minister Churchill had fueled Eden's fire by counseling him about the Egyptians, saying, "Tell them if we have any more of their cheek we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter, from which they should have never emerged." (4)

Sir Anthony Nutting, a member of the Foreign Office at the time, recalls an irate phone call from Eden who was upset at the slow pace of the campaign against Nasser. Eden raged, "What's all this poppycock you've sent me? ... What's all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or "neutralizing" him, as you call it? I want him destroyed, can't you understand? I want him murdered..." (5)

To prepare the way for the desired coup the British Information Research Department (IRD) was called into action. They ratcheted up their efforts to control radio broadcasts into Egypt and they planted false stories in the BBC, the London Press Service and the Arab News Agency. Forged documents were created that suggested that Nasser was planning to take over the entire Middle East oil trade, and a bogus report was disseminated that alleged that Egyptian dissidents were being sent to a concentration camp manned by ex-Nazis. (6)

Comment: We hope that the above historical data presents enough evidence to convince even the most skeptical reader that the process of leading or governing, or rather controlling, the people and resources of this planet by a select and inherently self-serving minority has always involved deceit and manipulation.

Coming back to the present, we can now consider the following two stories in a different light perhaps...

Nuclear equipment - and in some cases whole buildings - have vanished in Iraq, the UN’s nuclear watchdog is warning, amid fears that the material could be used to make nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised concerns “about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq’s nuclear programme”, since coalition forces wrested power from Saddam Hussein.

Satellite imagery has revealed the disappearance of entire buildings which housed high-precision, "dual use" equipment, as well as the removal of materials from open storage areas, warned Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the IAEA, in a letter to the UN Security Council on 1 October. Dual use equipment has commercial uses but could also be harnessed to manufacture nuclear arms.

Their disappearance, along with materials such as high-strength aluminium “may be of [nuclear] proliferation significance", says ElBaradei.

Eye in the sky

The IAEA has been required to give six-monthly reports verifying Iraq’s nuclear capabilities since April 1996. However, since the beginning of the war in March 2003 and despite the overturning of Hussein’s regime, IAEA inspectors have not been able to return to Iraq. As a result, they have been unable to resume on-site monitoring. Instead, they have been tracking locations of interest through commercial satellite imagery.

Iraq is obliged to inform the IAEA of any changes at these sites, but the agency says it has “received no such notifications" from any nation involved.

"There’s clearly a problem because the IAEA has flagged it up," says John Eldridge, editor of Jane’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence. A “sinister aspect” to the disappearance of dual use equipment is that there is a terrorist market for them, he says.

“Even if it isn't going somewhere directly it may well end up as somebody’s bargaining chip. There’s a huge amount of collusion between terrorist organisations,"he says. [...]

The claim will be backed by detailed evidence of the large-scale collaboration by the two countries to develop their nuclear arsenals, an activity that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) is specifically designed to prevent.

The claim comes from the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a think tank based in London and Washington DC. Although the UK and the US cooperated on nuclear matters throughout the Cold War, the extent of their collaboration since then has never been documented. [...]

Accusations of hypocrisy

The UK Ministry of Defence insists that the Mutual Defence Agreement is "fully compatible" with the NPT. Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear policy expert who used to advise President Clinton, thinks that the agreement does not violate the NPT.

"However, there can be no denying that the US-UK nuclear cooperation undercuts the moral position of both as they work to prevent other countries from seeking nuclear weapons," he says.

The accusation comes at a difficult time for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is due to be reviewed in 2005. "The accusations of hypocrisy are harder to deflect as non-nuclear weapon states' resentment intensifies," says Chamberlain.

The company commander, whose identity was not revealed, shot 13-year-old Iman al-Hams as she was on her way to school in Rafah. A few minutes later he riddled her body and head with 15 to 20 bullets to make sure she was dead.

The practice, known as verification of killing, is used widely in the Israeli army after shootings of Palestinians.

Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon on Friday concluded that the platoon commander acted properly and that no action should be taken against him.

In a briefing to the Israeli cabinet last week, Yaalon argued that the officer should be given the benefit of the doubt, saying he suspected she could have been used by Palestinian fighters to divert soldiers' attention and lure them from their positions.

Witnesses

However, soldiers serving under the officer's command gave damning evidence, suggesting he killed the girl in cold-blood before "emptying his entire magazine to her head".

"We saw her from a distance of 70m," one of the soldiers is quoted as saying.

"She was fired at and shot from the outpost. She tried to flee but was wounded badly. I understand she was dead.

"The commander walked toward her, he shot her two additional bullets before returning to the outpost. Then he returned to the girl, put his weapon on the automatic mode and emptied his entire magazine."

"Our hearts ached for her - just a 13-year-old girl. How can anyone spray a girl from close range? The commander was hot for a long time to take out Arabs and shot the girl to relieve pressure."

The Israeli army radio, Gali Tzahal, on Thursday quoted another soldier as saying that the commander was "waiting impatiently to see an Arab pass by to kill him".

Changing story

When the incident occurred nearly 10 days ago, an Israeli army spokesperson said the girl might have been carrying a bomb in her school bag, and that she had to be killed to rule out any risk to troops.

It was also said that she might have tried to lure out soldiers so Palestinian snipers could shoot them.

The Israeli army later said the girl entered a closed military zone and had to be killed.

Since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli military occupation more than four years ago, the Israeli army and paramilitary Jewish settlers have killed an estimated 600 to 700 Palestinian children and minors.

Civilian victims

Since the beginning of October alone, the Israeli army has killed at least 124 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the bulk of them civilians.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem, up to 30 children were among the victims, including nine-year-old Ghadir Mukhaimar who was shot by an Israeli sniper last week while sitting in her class in Khan Yunis, south of Gaza City.

Israeli army spokespeople normally explain child fatalities as happening in "crossfire" or "in vague circumstances".

However, Palestinian officials and human rights groups argue that the killing of Palestinian children and civilians is carried out "knowingly and deliberately".

"Do you think all these kids were killed by mistake?" said Muhammad Yusuf, head of the disaster management unit at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza.

"The fact that a disproportionate number of Palestinian civilians are killed by the Israeli army in this unequal conflict shows there is a deliberate and conscious Israeli policy to kill civilians."

Trigger happy

He told Aljazeera.net Israeli troops often fire artillery shells at crowded streets and neighbourhoods, aware that the shells will kill and maim children and civilians.

Asked why he thought the army would target civilians, he said: "Criminality toward the Palestinians is an old and intrinsic instinct in the overall Israeli mentality.

"They are taught to kill the Palestinians when they are very young. They are taught that another holocaust could happen if they don't destroy their enemies. That is why Israeli soldiers murder our kids without the slightest guilt."

And the Israeli media does little to deny that the army is occasionally light on the triggers.

Indeed, the newspaper Haaretz quoted a high-ranking officer earlier this month as saying: "Our troops will not be meticulous about the direction of their bullets."

Moreover, it is clear that the Israeli army views the killing of Palestinian civilians as an integral part of the losses Palestinians must incur as punishment for their uprising against occupation.

One Israeli soldier was quoted as saying on Thursday: "We have erected 100 mourning tents for them," alluding to the killings in Gaza during the past two weeks.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered a Palestinian refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip early Sunday, firing machine-guns at nearby homes, witnesses said.

No injuries were reported.

The witnesses said 10 tanks and three bulldozers entered the Rafah refugee camp just after midnight. They said there were no injuries.

The Israeli military said its troops were engaged in an operation aimed at rooting out weapons smuggling tunnels in the area.

Rafah, abutting the Egyptian border, has been a frequent hotbed of friction between Palestinian militants and the Israeli army.

The move came a day after Israeli officials said a broad offensive into the northern Gaza Strip had struck a heavy blow to Palestinian militants who have fired rockets into southern Israel.

But the officials conceded the operation was unlikely to halt the rocket attacks altogether and stressed the army was prepared to move back into the area.

The 17-day campaign, launched after a deadly rocket strike on the Israeli border town of Sderot, ended after nightfall Friday, when Israel withdrew tanks and ground forces from populated areas in northern Gaza.

At least 110 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, were killed, making it the bloodiest offensive in northern Gaza in four years of fighting. Five Israelis died in the Sderot attack, including two preschoolers.

Palestinians awoke to a scene of heavy damage Saturday, sifting through rubble in search of belongings. Dozens of homes were destroyed, farmland was uprooted and roads and infrastructure were torn up. Residents accused the army of wanton destruction.

A military official said the offensive "managed to dramatically reduce" the ability of militants to fire rockets, although the threat of future attacks remains.

The official, who requested anonymity, said the operation had eliminated many militant cells, adding civilian casualties were regrettable.

In a television interview, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said while Israeli forces had pulled back in northern Gaza, troops remain committed to battling the rocket threat - a strong hint Israel believes more will be launched.

"We are continuing to fight against the Qassams," he said, referring to the homemade Palestinian rockets.

Throughout the fighting, Palestinian militants managed to fire rockets toward southern Israel, although the frequency and intensity of the attacks decreased.

The Israeli operation focused on the Jebaliya refugee camp and the towns Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, the main launching grounds for hundreds of Qassam rockets in the last four years.

Much of the fighting took place in densely populated areas of the refugee camp. Residents accused the army of causing unnecessary damage, saying the narrow alleyways made it impossible to launch rockets.

"There wasn't a single rocket fired from here," said Abdel Hadi Daher, a 52-year-old resident of Jebaliya.

"Their real intention was to humiliate us."

The army has accused militants of using civilian areas for cover and said soldiers only destroyed buildings used to stage attacks.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza said at least 80 homes were demolished during the offensive, including 60 in Jebaliya and 20 in Beit Lahiya. The group said dozens of homes, shops and public buildings were damaged.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia called the offensive "part of a series of planned Israeli attacks to bring our people to their knees but this will never happen."

In the eastern part of Jebaliya, at least 45 homes and a partially built mosque were razed. On the ground floor of the mosque, which had been in use for the last five months, carpets and holy books were covered in sand.

Latife Abu Oudeh, 55, was sitting on a pile of rubble as her daughter-in-law carried mattresses, children's clothing, a pink teddy bear, silverware and a bag with cosmetics and perfume from the ruins of their house.

Abu Oudeh's seven-year-old grandson, Ahmed, looked at the teddy bear and said: "It looks very dirty. We need to wash it."

He took the toy and ran away.

Abu Oudeh said her four-room house, home to 16 people, was destroyed at the beginning of the offensive. She said the family received no warning and was sleeping when a bulldozer approached before dawn.

Many Palestinians in northern Gaza have criticized the rocket attacks, saying they provoke harsh Israeli reprisals.

However, Abu Oudeh said her heart is now set on revenge.

"I am happy rockets were fired and I want more to be fired," she said bitterly.

The fighting in northern Gaza has complicated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip next year.

Sharon said the withdrawal, which is to be accompanied by a pullback from four small settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River, will boost Israel's security after four years of fighting with the Palestinians. He said the continued occupation of Gaza, where 8,000 Jewish settlers live amid 1.3 million Palestinians, is untenable.

Ten minutes stroll northward from the lively alleyways of the Old City and its renowned Golden Dome lays one of the Holy Land's smallest parishes; the Anglican Church, with its neo-gothic St George Cathedral. The massive towers and defence-walls give the impression of an impregnable bastion, while inside one finds a green oasis of tranquillity. In the inner yard, surrounded by grapes, almonds, olives, pomegranates, sage, narcissus, cypress, oleander, roses and all other imaginable and unimaginable biblical plants, lays a Guesthouse. Here, weary Jerusalem pilgrims rest their sore feet after a long day in the Holy City. And here for the past four months, a fellow-Anglican, the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has taken his refuge.

A technician at the Dimona nuclear weapons production plant, he blew the whistle, and revealed the Israeli nuclear arms program to the nation and the world; a revelation that would cost him dearly. After being kidnapped Israeli Mossad agents in Rome, Vanunu was sentenced at a secret trial to 18 years of jail, 12 years out of them he served in solitary confinement

In the solitude of the jail, he wrote:

I am your Spy. I am the clerk, the technician, the mechanic, the driver. They said: Do this, do that, don't look left or right, don't read the text. Don't look at the whole machine. You are only responsible for this one bolt. For this one rubber-stamp. This is your only concern. Don't bother with what is above you. Don't try to think for us. Go on, drive. Keep going. On, on.

"I refused to be a bolt in the deadly machinery", Vanunu says after his release in an exclusive interview. After receiving death threats from Jewish extremists and being placed under surveillance and travel restrictions by the