Report: Iraqi gov’t unsure what to do, as destroying a Koran forbidden, but “to write it in blood is haraam [forbidden],” says Sunni sheikh.

A Koran etched in the blood of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been hidden away in a vault in a Baghdad mosque for the past three years, reported the British newspaper the Guardian on Tuesday.

According to the report, over the course of two years Saddam Hussein sat regularly with a nurse and Islamic calligrapher to transcribe the Koran in his blood.

Since the fall of Baghdad almost eight years ago, the Koran has remained mostly out of sight, along with other artifacts of the ousted dictator. The current government does not know what to do with it.  The reason for this, cites the Guardian, is that on the one hand the newly created Shia-led regime is very sensitive to the re-emergence of symbols that might glorify  the former Ba’athist regime and serve as an icon for the remaining loyal supporters. On the other hand the Sunnis themselves are fearful of retribution if they reveal this version of the Koran which some would view as sacriligious, cites the report.

“What is in here is priceless, worth absolutely millions of dollars,” said Sheikh Ahmed al-Samarrai, head of Iraq’s Sunni Endowment fund to the Guardian.

“It was wrong to do what he did, to write it in blood,” says Sheikh Samarrai. “It is haraam [forbidden].”

Nevertheless Samarrai acts as the document’s guardian, holding one of three keys necessary to remove it from the vault.

Samarrai told the Guardian that, “I knew this would be much sought after and we made the decision to protect it. But to see this now is not easy. There are three keys and none of them are held in the one place.”

In 2005, the government formed a committee to oversee the removal of symbols linked to Saddam.

Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the prime minister, Nour al-Maliki, said “we should keep this as a document for the brutality of Saddam, because he should not have done this.

“It says a lot about him. It should never be put in a museum though, because no Iraqi wants to see it. Maybe in the future it could be sent to a private museum, like memorabilia from the Hitler and Stalin regimes,” cited the report.

Holocaust museum chair: In the past decade we have succeeded in adding about 1.5 million victims’ names to the Names Database.

Yad Vashem announced on Tuesday that it has identified two-thirds of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, a total of 4 million names thus far.

Chairman of Yad Vashem Avner Shalev said, “In the past decade we have succeeded in adding about 1.5 million victims’ names to the Names Database, increasing by some 60% the information we had.

“The Germans sought not only to destroy the Jews, but to obliterate any memory of them.  One of Yad Vashem’s central missions since its foundation, the recovery of each and every victim’s name and personal story, has resulted in relentless efforts to restore the names and identities of as many of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices as possible.”

In 2004, Yad Vashem launched the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names on its website.  At the same time, a new project to recover unknown names was initiated.  Names are recovered via Pages of Testimony, special forms filled out in memory of the victims by people who remember them, and by combing archival lists and documentation for names.

Of the 4 million names currently known, some 2.2 million (about 55%) come from Pages of Testimony and the remainder from various archival sources and postwar commemoration projects.

Alexander Avraham, Director of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem said that, “during the last five years we have concentrated our names recovery efforts in areas where most of the names remain unknown.

“We have made great progress.  In 2005, we knew the names of some 20% of Jews murdered in Ukraine, today we know 35%; in Belorussia the figure has risen from 23% to 37% today, Poland (1938 borders) from 35% to 46%, Hungary from 45% to 65%, and Greece from 35% to 70%.”

While in Western Europe there were often lists kept of the Jews and deportation, making identification easier, in countries of Eastern Europe and the areas of the former Soviet Union, as well as Greece, much information was still lacking.

Concluded Avner, “We will continue our efforts to recover the unknown names, and by harnessing technology in the service of memory, we are able to share their names with the world.”

The term “1967 borders,” the Arab world’s mantra for the borders of a PA state, never existed, says former Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker in a research paper for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Ever since neighboring Arab countries attacked Israel in 1948 as it became an independent country for the first time in 2,000 years, there were no borders, only temporary military lines defined by the 1949 “Armistice Lines” that ended, at least formally, the War for Independence.

However, the Arab world has repeated the term “1967 borders” so much that it has been adopted as fact by mainstream media and most international leaders. The term refers to the 1949 ceasefire line from which Israel military forces advanced at the beginning of the Six-Day War on June 4, 1967 and should  be called  “pre-1967 War Armistice Lines” or “1949 Armistice Lines”. INN, it should be noted,  has used those accurate terms consistently..

Even Brazil, which recently decided to “recognize” the Palestinian Authority based on the supposed 1967 borders, stated during a United Nation debate on Resolution 242 in 1967 calling for negotiations for boundaries, “Its acceptance does not imply that borderlines cannot be rectified as a result of an agreement freely concluded among the interested States. We keep constantly in mind that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East has necessarily to be based on secure permanent boundaries freely agreed upon and negotiated by the neighboring States.”

Baker (pictured) noted that Jordan, which also has adopted the fallacy of “1967 borders,” said in the same debate, “There is an Armistice Agreement. The Agreement did not fix boundaries; it fixed a demarcation line. The Agreement did not pass judgment on rights political, military or otherwise. Thus I know of no territory; I know of no boundary; I know of a situation frozen by an Armistice Agreement.”

Although the “1967 borders” denote lines of separation, they have no basis in history, law, or fact,” Baker explained. “The 1949 armistice agreements specifically stated that such lines have no political or legal significance and do not prejudice future negotiations on boundaries,” he continued.

“There are no provisions in any of the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians that require withdrawal to the ‘1967 borders.’ There were never any geographic imperatives that sanctify the 1967 lines.”

The “Armistice Lines” of 1949 were determined in agreements signed by Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. They  were not borders, Baker pointed out. “The armistice demarcation line represented nothing more than the forward lines of deployment of the forces on the day a ceasefire was declared…. The line was demarcated on the map attached to the armistice agreement with a green marker pen and hence received the name ‘Green Line.’

“The Security Council in its resolution stressed the temporary nature of the armistice lines that were to be maintained ‘during the transition to permanent peace in Palestine.'”

The Armistice Agreement stated, “The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Lines is to delineate the lines beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move. The provisions of this article shall not be interpreted as prejudicing, in any sense, an ultimate political settlement between the Parties to this Agreement.

“The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in…this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.”

Baker quoted Judge Steven Schwebel, former President of the International Court of Justice, who stated in 1994, “The armistice agreements of 1949 expressly preserved the territorial claims of all parties and did not purport to establish definitive boundaries between them.”

The current Arab campaign for recognizing the Palestinian Authority according to the supposed “1967 borders”  ironically is often based on the oft-quoted UN Resolution 242.  This is the resolution which Baker noted emphasizes in its very first paragraph the “…respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

The Palestinian Authority has accepted in previous agreements the concept that borders will be negotiated, but the Arab world’s “diplomatic war of attrition” has virtually erased this perception in the media and in the international community. A 1993 agreement signed by Arafat states that there are, “…remaining issues, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest.”

The PA in the past several months has called for “negotiations” but in reality has demanded that Israel accept the so-called “1967 borders” without negotiation, lines which Baker’s research paper shows havs no legal or historical foundation as borders.

Welcome to the Holy Land: Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi in Hebron, Bilal Ibn Ribah mosque in Bethlehem and Al-Burak Wall.

Recently the Palestinian Authority sanctioned a research project aiming at denying any connection between the Western Wall and the Second Jewish Temple destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. The project, approved by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, is only one among several that have already been carried out.

When about a year ago the Israeli government announced that it would include the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem as part of a comprehensive plan to preserve Israel’s national heritage and religious sites, the reaction of the Arabs of Palestine was furious. This has once again showed the real essence of the “Arab-Israeli conflict,” which actually is the “holy war” that Arabs had proclaimed against the Jews.

Any conflict can be resolved if the conflicting parties recognize each other’s right of existence. It becomes basically irresolvable if one of parties refuses to recognize the other. The key questions of borders, the status of Jerusalem and refugees are difficult but could be resolved in case Arabs recognized the right of the Jews to live in their land.

Arabs do not recognize it. All their policy, strategy, ideology is directed to depriving the Jews of any connection with the land of Israel: virtually, and then physically to uproot the Jews from the history of the Holy Land. Jews have neither antiquities nor holy sites, they have no past. In other words, they do not belong to this land and have no right to exist at all.

This approach is characteristic of Islam and extends to all other religions, not only to Judaism. The idea consists in depriving other cultures of their spiritual base to achieve total physical domination over them.

The famous Belgian orientalist Koenraad Elst in his book “Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam” writes: “In all the lands it conquered, Islam has replaced indigenous places of worship with mosques. In Iran, there are no ancient Zoroastrians or Manichean shrines left. In Central Asia, there are no Buddhist temples left. Similarly, in India (except the far South where Islam penetrated rather late) there are practically no Hindu temples that have survived the Muslim period (over 10,000 destroyed). But there are thousands of mosques built on the foundations of Hindu temples (for example, the Ayodhya temple).” Nowadays, the same policy is being carried out towards the Jews. The ignorance, hypocrisy and soullessness of the Western world make the problem easier to overcome.

Jerusalem has never been a holy Muslim place. Statements about the city being “the third holy place of Islam” appeared in the thirties of the last century. First they were announced by notorious Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini. He aspired to stir up religious fanaticism among apathetic local population. Al-Husseini worked vigorously to raise Jerusalem’s status as an Islamic holy center. He renovated the mosques that had fallen into complete disrepair on the Temple Mount while conducting an unceasing campaign regarding the imminent Jewish “threat” to Muslim holy sites.

(It is a well-known fact that Hussein collaborated with Hitler in the “final solution of the Jewish question”. Less known is that he was appointed to the post of the High Commissioner by a Jew Herbert Samuel). Earlier all Arabian historians and scientists referred to Jerusalem and, first of all, the Temple Mount, as the Jewish holy site only. In the 13th century an Arab geographer Yakut said: “Mecca is holy to Moslems and Jerusalem to the Jews.”

On the Temple Mount ”triumphant soldiers of Islam” behaved in the same way as they did everywhere where they appeared: destroyed local holy sites and replaced them with their own. When Caliph Omar entered the city of Jerusalem there was only one holy site on the Temple Mount at that time: the Byzantine Church of Saint Mary of Justinian. Caliph
Abd El Malik built here the Dome of the Rock that is still incorrectly called “Omar Mosque”. 20 years later his son, Abd El-Wahd, reconstructed the Church of Saint Mary and converted it into Al-Aqsa mosque.

Historian Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann wrote: “With this understood, it is no wonder that Mohammed issued a strict prohibition against facing Jerusalem in prayer, a practice that had been tolerated only for some months in order to lure Jews to convert to Islam. When that effort failed, Mohammed put an abrupt stop to it on Feb. 12, 624. Jerusalem simply never held any sanctity for the Moslems themselves, but only for the Jews in their domain.”

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran
. The myth about Jerusalem being “the third holy place of Islam” began to spread quickly after 1967. Muhammad is believed by all Muslims to have ascended into heaven alive at the site of the Dome of the Rock. Earlier this legend was not considered to be basic in Muslim mythology. Rabbi Joseph Katz wrote that the present Arabian name of Jerusalem “el-KuDS” is abbreviation for another Arabic name used for Jerusalem until the last century, “bet el-maKDeS”. Under the Arab rule, in the 10th century Jerusalem was always called “bet el maKDeS” The name “BeT el-MaKDeS” is a translation of the Aramaic and Hebrew “BeiT ha-MiKDaSH”, which means Temple.”

As mentioned earlier, Jerusalem became the holy city of Islam thanks to Haj Amin Al-Husseini. In 1947 the Saudis published “Fatwa” (a religious ruling) calling for “rescuing the Temple Mount from the Jews.” After 1967 Yassir Arafat used this slogan to transform the conflict with Israel to a religious war.

Today Arabs do not recognize that there was the Temple here, or that Jerusalem has ever had any relation to the Jews. What’s more, the existence of the Jews, as a religious and ethnic community is also denied. The PA Mufti, Ikrima Sabri, appointed by Yassir Arafat, said that there was no such thing as the Western (or “Wailing”) Wall. He claimed that it was “part of the walls of the Al Aqsa mosque” and called it “Al Burak Wall.”

For decades the Jerusalem Waqf has been destroying unique Jewish antiquities on the Temple Mount under different pretexts. Thousands of tons of dirt full of artifacts were carted away and dumped. If it goes like this, there will soon be no traces of the Jewish presence on the Temple Mount.

That was the Jerusalem story.

Now about Me’arat HaMachpela and Rachel’s Tomb. Genesis Chapter 23 tells us that Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs to bury his wife Sarah. Genesis 35, 19 records that Rachel “died and was buried on the road to Efrata which is Bethlehem.”

It had happened about two thousand years before Islam appeared. Now we learn that Me’arat HaMachpela and Rachel’s Tomb have always belonged to Arabs. According to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas the Israeli cabinet’s decision is a “serious provocation that may lead to religious war.” USA, EU and UN have urged Israel to exercise restraint.

We also learn that both sites have no connection to the Jews. One of them is named the Sanctuary of Abraham (Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi), and the second Bilal Ibn Ribah mosque. By the way, Bilal Ibn Ribah mosque was built by the Muslims only a thousand years ago.

All of this without any doubt is a “continuing Israeli provocation.” It can cease only in one case: with the disappearance of Israel and its citizens. In the same way as Zoroastrians and Manichees ceased to exist. As Hindu and Buddhist temples disappeared. As the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian is gone from the Temple Mount and the “Wailing Wall” got its “real” name: “Al Burak Wall.” During the centuries everything that became part of “Dar Al-Islam” (“Land of Islam”) has ceased from existence.

On December 9, 1949, the U.N. General Assembly voted to implement the resolution to internationalize Jerusalem, according to the Partition Plan passed on November 29, 1947, which stipulated that Jerusalem was to become an internationalized city. Haaretz reported that as soon as the results of the vote were publicized, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said that “Jerusalem is an integral part of Israel and its eternal capital. No United Nations vote can change such a historical fact.”

Moshe Sharett, who was foreign minister at the time, also reacted to the announcement saying that the United Nations had no way of implementing such a resolution. The Haaretz correspondent reported that “in a speech he delivered before the vote, Sharett said that the Israeli government would be willing to accept the Dutch-Swedish plan for international supervision of the holy sites as a basis for discussions. The Jews of Jerusalem, he warned, left no doubt in the hearts of anyone regarding their intentions and determination to reject the internationalization plan. They will not recognize any foreign government in the city other than the Israeli government.”

After the vote, Sharett said: “This is a black day for the United Nations. Those who initiated this resolution took upon themselves serious responsibility for the moral authority of the United Nations.” After the declaration establishing the State of Israel (5 Iyar 5708 / May 14,1948 ), the government and the Knesset set up base in Tel Aviv. At the end of the War of Independence, infrastructure work started that would enable their offices to be moved to Jerusalem, and on December 13, 1949, Ben-Gurion delivered a formal statement to the Knesset announcing the move, which received the following coverage in Haaretz: “The government of Israel and the Knesset will move to a permanent seat in Jerusalem after the Knesset last night approved, with no objections, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion’s declaration in which he repeated his statement of last week regarding Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel.”

Haaretz’s correspondent described the festive session. “At 5, the prime minister entered the hall, where all the seats were filled as were all the chairs of the cabinet members,” he wrote. “A dramatic silence descended on the room. Three knocks on the gavel, and Mr. Sprinzak opened the session in an emotional voice.” The prime minister said: “In the heat of the war, when Jerusalem was under siege, we were compelled to establish a temporary seat for the government in the Kirya, near Tel Aviv. But the State of Israel has had and will have only one capital, eternal Jerusalem. This was the case 3,000 years ago, and so it shall be, as we believe, until the end of time.” After Ben-Gurion’s remarks, “a thundering silence resonated through the room. What will be now?”

Not all the Knesset factions supported the prime minister’s unilateral approach. Haaretz’s correspondent reported that the opposition factions, as had been agreed, presented brief notices stating their positions on the prime minister’s announcement. For the most part, they supported the move, but each one of them highlighted the government’s accountability for the situation that emerged with the passage of the U.N. resolution.” At the end of the session, the Knesset speaker declared, “the Knesset’s sessions after the Hanukkah holiday will reconvene in Jerusalem.”

The day after the declaration, a Haaretz editorial stated “in the Knesset sessions yesterday it was possible to find both positive and negative elements. It was undoubtedly an encouraging sight that despite the sharp disagreements dividing the Knesset, all the factions, except for the Communists, found a way to support the proposal Mr. Ben-Gurion presented in the name of the government. Less encouraging was the fact that the common denominator which enabled this unity among the coalition and opposition factions was the widespread willingness to agree to the not well thought out demand of many [members] for an aggressive ‘response’ to the U.N. resolution to internationalize Jerusalem.” On the same day, Haaretz’s Jerusalem correspondent reported that “the prime minister came to Jerusalem and began to work on the practical aspects of transfering the government and the Knesset to the national capital. He was received at the city entrance by the mayor, the district supervisor and the commander of the Jerusalem police.” (Yael Gruenpeter )

* Horses, battles and street theater as Iran marks anniversary of imam’s death Iranians took the streets of Noushabad, 233 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, on Friday, to mark the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most beloved saints.

* Israel orders envoys: Take urgent action against Palestinian efforts at UN Palestinians have been pushing for a UN resolution to recognize unilateral declaration of statehood and pressure Israel to freeze settlements; classified cable to diplomats abroad warns such efforts are “not effective or constructive”.

* Erdogan: Israel is to blame for failed peace talks Turkish PM also says Israel must “apologize to the Turkish republic” for the “murder” of 9 Turkish citizens on Gaza flotilla raid.

* Public Pressure Works: YouTube Allows PA Watchdog Massive public pressure via ‘Tweets” and e-mails have convinced YouTube to reinstate the Palestinian Authority watchdog site Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which had been accused by YouTube of spreading incitement.

* ‘Tis not the season to be jolly in Iraq Iraqi Christians will not have a “merry little Christmas” as many flee the country out of fear for their safety and lives.

* Ramallah: 10 EU states to upgrade Palestinian missions The Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, has said that 10 EU member states are ready to upgrade the status of the occupied territories’ representative offices in their capitals.

* Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki delays unveiling new government Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has not unveiled his new cabinet, which was expected on Monday, amid ongoing disputes among Iraq’s rival factions.

* The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom “Net neutrality” sounds nice, but the Web is working fine now.

* North Korea “will not hit back” over Yeonpyeong drills North Korea says it will not retaliate despite “reckless provocations” from the South, which held live-fire drills on the flashpoint island of Yeonpyeong.

* Space laser spies for woodpeckers US scientists are developing techniques to monitor woodpeckers from space.