In a scathing 4 page letter sent to the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and CC'd to major newspapers around South Africa, the Jewish Board of Deputies denounced the FXI as prejudiced against Israel and the institutions of the South African Jewish community.
Echoing our criticism of the FXI last week, the Jewish Board’s letter states
‘Over the past five years, the SA Jewish Board of Deputies has noted with mounting concern the consistently partisan and selective statements being issued by the Freedom of Expression Institute. We believe - and the evidence since at least 2002 bears us out - that however noble the motives of its founders might have been, your organisation has de facto evolved into a propaganda platform for those holding radical anti-Israel, anti-American and pro-Islamist viewpoints.’ … ‘An especially deplorable aspect of the FXI's anti-Israel campaign is how Jewish communal institutions, specifically the S A Jewish Board of Deputies, the SA Zionist Federation and, most recently, the S A Jewish Report, have been singled out for special attack. By contrast, the FXI's silence on cases where Muslim organisations and activists have suppressed freedom of expression has been truly deafening.’ |
The letter then details numerous instances over the past 5 years where Israel or the institutions of the South African Jewish community has been unfairly targeted by the FXI. From its response to the violent demonstration outside the Shimon Peres talk (a example raise previous by a reader on this blog); to the Broadcast Monitoring Compliance Commission hearing against ETV for its unashamed endorsement of John Pilger's documentary 'Palestine is still the Issue'; the South African Jewish Board’s legal battle against radio 786 for broadcasting blatant anti-Semitic hate speech and of course this latest SAJR-Kasrils saga, the FXI has constantly demonstrated its bias.
But even more telling is the FXI’s silence and even, at times support, for radical Islamist attempts to suppress views they find unpleasant. The letter cites the FXI’s hypocritical support for the censorship of the Mohammed cartoons in South Africa and its silence on the intimidation of Muslim moderates in South Africa (something that has since led to the emigration of such eminent clerics and academics as Ebrahim Moosa and Faried Esack). More recently, the FXI has failed to condemn the brazen attempt by its former chairman Salim Vally to prevent the Pogrund-Salem Palestinian-Israeli coexistence lecture tour.
This public condemnation from the umbrella body of the South African Jewish community has exposed the FXI for what they are—a propaganda vehicle for those with a transparently pro-Islamist and anti-Israel (as well as a general anti-Western) agenda.
Jane Duncan and the FXI have up until now have not responded to any of our criticism. We did and continue to extend to them an invitation to debate these issues with us on this blog.
Click Continue Reading to view the Jewish Board's letter.
Correction:
A reader has pointed out an error we made. We incorrectly said that former Minister of Transport Dullah Omar had emigrated when in fact he passed away in 1999 after suffering from cancer. He held his Minister of Transport post until the day of his death.
Dear Ms Duncan
Over the past five years, the SA Jewish Board of Deputies has noted with mounting concern the consistently partisan and selective statements being issued by the Freedom of Expression Institute. We believe - and the evidence since at least 2002 bears us out - that however noble the motives of its founders might have been, your organisation has de facto evolved into a propaganda platform for those holding radical anti-Israel, anti-American and pro-Islamist viewpoints.
All of us agree that the right to freedom of expression is one of the pillars of our democracy, and that any institution genuinely committed to upholding it deserves public support. The FXI's overall record in this area is by no means a bad one, but this record has been seriously marred by the growing number of cases of ideological bias that represent a betrayal of your organisation's mandate.
The stated mission of the FXI is to "protect and foster the rights to freedom of expression and access to information and to oppose censorship". Nothing is said about the organisation also being committed to pushing a particular political viewpoint or ideology. On the contrary, as Jewish Report editor Geoff Sifrin puts it in his latest editorial, the FXI "was intended to be an impartial organisation whose sole concern was to safeguard the right to freedom of expression, from whatever quarter. Impartiality and thoroughness were fundamental things expected of it".
Unfortunately, the FXI has fallen very far short of these worthy goals. What a range of previous FXI statements on Middle East issues have clearly demonstrated is that in fact your organisation is indeed pursuing a very definite political agenda. Its pronouncements have not merely affirmed the right of anti-Israel lobbyists to express their opinions, but have consistently simultaneously endorsed those often radical and certainly questionable views.
An especially deplorable aspect of the FXI's anti-Israel campaign is how Jewish communal institutions, specifically the S A Jewish Board of Deputies, the SA Zionist Federation and, most recently, the S A Jewish Report, have been singled out for special attack. By contrast, the FXI's silence on cases where Muslim organisations and activists have suppressed freedom of expression has been truly deafening.
In this regard, before I delve into the more distant past to highlight previous examples of FXI bias, I would refer you to the recent case in which a series of seminars on the Middle East situation to be run by Benjamin Pogrund and Walid Salem was cancelled after a concerted campaign by certain Palestinian activist groupings. What is especially shocking about this campaign against Mr Pogrund and Mr Salem, both of whom have impeccable human rights records and are seeking to promote dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, is that its ringleader, Salim Vally, is a former chairman of the FXI. In his letter to Messrs Pogrund and Salem, Vally resorted to threats that the event would be disrupted by demonstrations if it went ahead. As he wrote to Salem, "we suggest that you would not appreciate the embarrassment of facing a demonstration or picket...Perhaps the best option would be for you to cancel this trip completely".
To date, and even after the above matter was reported on at length in last week's issue of the Mail & Guardian, no statement whatever has been issued by the FXI condemning the blatant violation of the principle of freedom of expression that this incident unquestionably represents. Nor can the FXI claim to have been unaware of it since one of its senior staff members, Naeem Jeenah, is closely associated with Mr Vally and his Palestinian Solidarity Committee and would certainly have learned about the anti-Pogrund/Salem campaign long before this.
It so happens that Mr Vally was at the centre of one of the most overt previous displays of FXI bias. In September 2002, the FXI released a grossly one-sided statement on the clashes that had taken place between pro-Palestinian demonstrators, police and members of the Jewish community outside the Linder Auditorium, Johannesburg, where Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was speaking. The statement unquestioning took the demonstrators' line that a "peaceful" protest had been violently broken up and various participants, including Vally, wrongfully arrested, all at the instigation of the S A Jewish Board of Deputies. No attempt whatever was made by the FXI to reflect the other side of the issue, namely that far from the protest being peaceful, members of the Jewish community wanting to attend the lecture were subjected to verbal abuse, threats and physical harassment, including being jostled, having their vehicles blocked or parked in and even being pelted with bottles and other missiles. The message the FXI sent on that occasion was that the right of anti-Israel activists to demonstrate was sacrosanct but supporters of Israel had no corresponding right to attend a lecture of their choice free from harassment and intimidation.
A month after issuing this truly scandalous statement, the FXI (8 November, 2002) again exposed its lack of partiality when it condemned the alleged "aggressive attempts by the pro-Israeli lobby" to prevent the controversial John Pilger's documentary 'Palestine is still the Issue' from being screened on Etv. The FXI once more exceeded its mandate to promote freedom of expression without taking sides when it clearly aligned itself with the views expressed in Pilger documentary, stating that the latter "exposes pervasive Israeli atrocities in occupied Palestine and the deep humiliation and degradation to which the Zionist government has subjected innocent and defenseless Palestinians".
Mention should also be made of another FXI statement released in 2002, when the organisation decided to condemn the reputed death threats that Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Ronnie Kasrils had received because of his anti-Zionist views. Again, the FXI's overt support for those views was made all too apparent. Of course, if Mr Kasrils did receive death threats because of his views, that is unacceptable and it should be condemned. However, one finds no comparable statements of condemnation of the far more pervasive intimidation of Muslim moderates that has taken place in South Africa, something that has since led to the emigration of such eminent clerics and academics as Ebrahim Moosa, Faried Esack and Dullar Omar.
This year, the FXI took the part of the Muslim community radio station Radio 786 in its ongoing court battle with the S A Jewish Board of Deputies. Following a ruling by the Broadcasting Monitoring and Complaints Committee of ICASA upholding the SAJBD's complaint of antisemitic broadcasting by Radio 786, the FXI released a statement strongly criticising the decision. The FXI was of course perfectly entitled to take issue with the BMCC's decision, but what was not acceptable was the highly selective and misleading manner in which it portrayed the essence of the SAJBD's case against Radio 786. The entire substance of the SAJBD's complaint was reduced to whether or not denial of the Holocaust constituted hate speech. In fact, as has since been pointed out to you, denial of the Holocaust was only one component of an extended series of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, with Jews being portrayed as a malignant hidden hand in history, responsible for wars and economic upheavals the world over. The FXI's statement on this complex matter created the impression that the SAJBD's complaint revolved solely around a single comment querying the historical validity of the Holocaust, which had the effect of trivialising the seriousness of that complaint. The FXI, moreover, made no attempt to contact the SAJBD for its comments, as it had failed to do with regard to the Linder Auditorium incident as well.
The latest instance of the FXI weighing in against a Jewish organisation has been, of course, its intemperate attack on the S A Jewish Report for its refusal to publish an opinion piece by Minister Ronnie Kasrils. The FXI's statement was wholly unacceptable, both in tone and content. Yet again, no attempt was made to obtain a comment from the object of the institution's attack, namely the editor of the paper. Emotive references to "the Israeli state's policies of forced colonial occupation of Palestinian land" and charges that the Jewish Report represents "a mere extension of Zionism's repressive project" reveal all too starkly how far away the FXI has lurched towards the radical anti-Israel camp. As Jewish Report editor Geoff Sifrin puts it (24 November), "To an impartial observer it is obvious the FXI is not coming to this with impartiality, but rather with a malicious predisposition towards Israel".
The FXI could have salvaged much of its credibility had it taken an appropriately tough line in the matter of the Mohamed cartoon furore earlier this year. In this matter, as a direct result of an orchestrated campaign of intimidation by a section of the Muslim community, and even most seriously from a freedom of expression point of view of a court ruling embargoing publication, the cartoons were prevented from being disseminated in the mainstream media. Whether such material should be published at all is beside the point - it is the principle of free choice that was at stake, something the FXI is mandated to uphold.
If ever there was a case tailor-made for the FXI to take a strong, principled stand on, it was this one. However, in glaring contrast to the overheated and grossly partisan condemnations your organisation has issued against Jewish communal institutions over the years, the FXI was distinctly lukewarm in its approach to the matter. No official statement condemning the decision of the Johannesburg High Court proscribing the publication of the cartoons was issued by the FXI. It is true that Mr Jeenah was quoted as saying that editorial decision making should not be placed in the hands of the courts, but this fell short of saying that editors who chose to publish the cartoons had a right to do so. Moreover, in the Mail & Guardian of 10 February, Jeenah and Vally wrote that: "freedom of expression cannot be a carte blanche right to be used by racists and xenophobes to perpetrate violence". The inference would seem to be that propagating racist anti-Jewish conspiracy theories falls into the category of freedom of expression, but publishing material offensive to Muslim sensibilities does not. The inconsistency of this approach speaks for itself.
Taken as a whole, the FXI was inclined less to denounce the blatant censorship that was taking place than to instead take the line that the whole controversy should be seen as part of a global campaign of Islamophobia. I refer in this regard to the presentation you yourself made at the SA Human Rights Commission seminar of 14 March 2006, which was organised by the HRC in the wake of the cartoon controversy. Far from condemning the suppression of freedom expression that the cartoon controversy represented, you took obviously partisan, pro-Islamist lines throughout, claiming, for example, that the "ascendence of the Zionist interpretation of Judaism" was one of the main reasons for the alleged "denigration of other religious streams", in particular Islam, and that the jailing of the radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza for racist incitement in Britain was a result of sinister US pressure.
The facts, as reflected in the FXI's own statements over the past five years, are all too self-evident. In short, an organisation established to uphold the crucial democratic values of freedom of expression has instead been consistently exploited as a propaganda vehicle by those with a transparently pro-Islamist and anti-Israel (as well as a general anti-Western) agenda. As such, every opportunity has been seized to denigrate the Jewish community and its institutions while pointedly avoiding acting in far more blatant cases of press intimidation conducted by members of the Muslim community.
In summary, we believe that the Freedom of Expression Institute has a genuine case to answer for. I look forward to receiving your response to the points raised in this letter. In the meantime, given the seriousness with which we regard this issue, we will be communicating the contents of this letter to various newspaper editors so as to make our concerns more widely known.
Yours sincerely
DAVID SAKS
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Mike,
The chutzpah of the FXI would even impress Mr Orwell.
If we live in a democratic post modern world , perhaps George would conclude that South Africa has entered a post-totalitarian phase?
Posted by: THE DICTATOR / EMBITTERED CORRESPONDENT | November 30, 2006 at 12:17
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FROM OLIVE GROVE BOOKS
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio – THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, a genre spy-thriller by Robert Spirko, was fourth on the September best-seller list at Atlasbooks, Inc., a national book distributor.
Spirko will be the guest-author at a book-signing at Waldenbooks, South Park Mall in Strongsville, on Saturday, Dec. 2, from 1- 4 pm.
“It is time for the Israelis and Palestinians to return to the Camp David Peace Talks, resume where they left off and "freeze in place" the already-agreed-upon negotiating points,” Spirko says.
“The Iraq Study Group should make this recommendation a top priority before trying to put-in-place a new strategy for Iraq – mainly because ramifications of a peace agreement between both sides will resonate deeply throughout the Muslim world in the way Jews and Muslims interact toward each other. It could have a profound ripple effect including how the United States is perceived by Islamists.” he emphasizes.
“I have communicated that first step to the James Baker III and Lee Hamilton study group. It is important that both sides in the Middle East region are willing to come to their senses,” Spirko reiterates.
He uses the following analogy for peace. “The Camp David accords have precedent and continuity through previous agreements. It's like a marriage where both spouses in an argument storm away mad. They don't divorce and then try to resume their relationship; rather, they come back together, settle their differences, and resume the marriage where they left off. It must be the same for the Middle East Peace talks."
Spirko’s book predicted terrorism against the United States & Israel in his book which takes place in Lebanon. It is eerily similar to the Beirut War which took place last summer between Hezbollah and Israel.
Spirko says if these issues had been understood and discussed 18 years ago, perhaps two wars in the Persian Gulf, the Sept. 11th catastrophe and the new Beirut War would not have happened.
“That aside,” he says, “It is never too late for peace.”
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FROM OLIVE GROVE BOOKS
MEDINA, OHIO – The Palestine Conspiracy, a genre spy-thriller by Robert Spirko, was fourth on the September best-seller list from Atlasbooks, Inc., a national book distributor.
The spy-thriller predicted terrorism against the United States & Israel by Middle East terror groups. The novel takes place in Lebanon and is eerily similar to the Beirut War which took place only last summer between Hezbollah and Israel. The book can be purchased at book stores locally and nationally or through popular book sites like Amazon.com, Atlasbooks.com, Borders.com, Barnes&Nobles.com and local book sellers. Ingram Books, Baker & Taylor and Atlasbooks are the major distributors.
Spirko says if these issues had been understood and discussed 18 years ago, perhaps two wars in the Persian Gulf, the Sept. 11th catastrophe and the new Beirut War would not have happened.
“That aside,” he says, “It is never too late for peace.”
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TO BOOK EDITOR: press release
Hello,
We are writing to inform you about a book related to what is happening now in the Middle East released by Olive Grove Books entitled THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY. This book takes place in Beirut.
Because the region of Palestine and the repercussions it holds for peace in the Middle East between the PLO and Israel are critically important, the issues discussed via this spy-thriller makes it interesting and informative so that people all over the world can understand exactly how both sides think and how that thinking has led to continual violence in the Middle East.
If these issues had been understood and discussed 18 years ago, perhaps two wars in the Persian Gulf, the Sept. 11th catastrophe and this new Beirut War would not have happened.
That aside, it is never too late for peace.
With your consideration, we at Olive Grove Books hope you give THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY its rightful place in history and on your web site and store book shelves.
It is a book, which has come of age, and is so timely that it is a must read for everyone who wants to understand what is going on in the Middle East.
With appreciation and gratitude,
Sincerely, from the publisher,
THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY
Robert Spirko, author
ISBN: 0-9752508-0-9
Olive Grove Publishers
****INGRAM BOOKS IS THE MAJOR DISTRIBUTOR, ALONG WITH ATLASBOOKS, BAKER & TAYLOR AND OTHERS, 1-800-247-6553 OR 1-800-BOOKLOG
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
MEDINA, Ohio - When it comes to spy novels and Middle East intrigue, after 16 spell-binding years, the gripping story behind the Middle East quagmire - its issues of nuclear weapons and the quest for a Palestinian State - is finally being told in a ground-breaking new book entitled, THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY.
Author Robert Spirko created the work in such a way that every reader in the world will understand all the intricate issues in the Middle East and how close the region actually came to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Mr. Spirko has a unique way of holding the reader in his grasp as the plot of THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY unfolds. He literally takes you from your armchair and immerses you into the lifestyle of the Bedouin, the Israeli, the PLO and the mindset of the Middle-Easterner.
THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY is not just another spy-novel; it is the quintessential spy-thriller because it forces the reader to understand how both sides "think" and why that thinking ultimately led to repeated wars in the Middle East.
Spirko, a financial and geo-political analyst, turned his attention to the Middle East in 1987, after discovering several common elements related to the Middle East question. In working for peace, and after several frustrating years, he put down his analysis in writing and when he was finished, he not only had a solution to the quagmire, he had a story to tell.
But, nobody was listening.
Today, all that has changed, thanks to Olive Grove Publishers who decided to give his book a chance.
When the Palestinian question came to a festering crisis in 1990, he had already predicted several of the actual events before they occurred. For instance, Spirko predicted the Intifada and Persian Gulf War, missing the actual invasion date of Kuwait by only one week. He did this through spectacular supposition, analysis and prediction based on what he was "seeing" in the region.
When Spirko typed his manuscript, he set the work to fiction, about what he thought might occur soon in the Middle East involving weapons of mass destruction, nuclear proliferation, the Palestinian uprising before it occurred, and how the Palestinian question begged to be answered, little did he realize that every event he described in the book would eventually transpire.
His story of what was really happening behind the scenes in the Middle East is truly astounding and remarkable, and his contribution to the Camp David Peace Talks in 2000, formulated a solution to the Jerusalem question. When the BBC got wind of it, they termed it "as nothing short of brilliant" - Jerusalem becoming the simultaneous capitals of both Israel and Palestine in congruous or concentric zones.
Spirko originally copyrighted his book on October 20, 1987, in the U. S.
Library of Congress where intelligence agencies reviewed his work.
Today, finally, somebody is listening.
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PALESTINE-AD-1
Spirko feels that both sides must return to the Camp David Peace Talks and resume where they left off and "freeze in place" the already-agreed-upon negotiating points.
"It's like a marriage where both spouses storm away mad in an argument.
They don't divorce and then try to resume their relationship, they come back together, settle their differences, and resume their marriage. It must be the same for the Middle East Peace talks," Spirko says.
The story begins in Beirut, Lebanon, once a great financial capital of the Middle East, which lay in ruin, having been systematically blasted to rubble during 20 years of inexhaustible civil war and siege by Israel, the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah and Lebanese factions. Soon, the quest for a Palestinian State would be framed by these events; namely, the invasion of Kuwait by a neighboring rogue state, Iraq, with Saddam Hussein's goal of seeking nuclear parity with Israel.
In Mr. Spirko's story, Rick Waite, a forgotten UPI correspondent, and Adrienne Waters, a Pulitzer Prize journalist from the London Times, meet-up in Beirut with a PLO operative named Ahmed, who discovers a secret intelligence memo about a secret plan to destroy Israel.
In the ensuing chase to find the answer to this secret communiqué and what it means, a deadly race against time begins as the unlikely trio tries to halt the launch of a secret weapon from a hidden PLO base camp in the Syrian Desert. U. S. and British intelligence operatives have their own agenda, and attempt to stop whatever is going on to save the entire region from a nuclear holocaust.
Spirko weaves a tale of chilling duplicity and thrilling action, as the characters evade and devise a method to announce the discovery of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles to the rest of the world - all while United Nations' delegates bicker endlessly.
An executive at BookMasters, Inc., says, "The book is absolutely stunning in the manner in which Mr. Spirko, tells his tale. He is truly a master as an analyst, and it's totally unlike anything else we've ever read in a spy-thriller. It keeps you turning pages and won't let you quit - until the very end. And, what an ending it is! If you crave twisting plots, thrilling spy-action and intriguing characters, then this is the book for you."
Spirko, whose own background includes a stint in the U. S. Air Force and has given his advice to the National Security Council in Washington, D. C., has a degree in journalism and knows first-hand about the newsroom and what it takes to be an intelligence field agent. His knowledge of the trade makes the story real, daunting, and strikingly similar to "The Year of Living Dangerously."
"THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY drips with reality," quips a book reviewer from Olive Grove Publishers. "If books were rated by Siskel & Roeper, it would be given a two-thumbs up."
Not since, Casablanca, do characters as earthy as Rick Waite, or as beautifully mysterious as London Times reporter, Adrienne Waters, or as desperate as PLO operative, Ahmed, bring fresh characters to a story that will be remembered by readers for a long time.
The novel is a mass market paperback produced by Olive Grove Publishers, and can be purchased at area bookstores through Ingram Book Group, New Leaf Distribution, and Baker and Taylor, priced at $14.99, ISBN 0-9752508-0-9. THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY can also be ordered on the web at www.atlasbooks.com, or email orders from: [email protected], or from Barnes & Nobles, Border's, Dalton's, efollett.com & Follett bookstores at colleges and universities, WaldenBooks, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Target.com and other popular retail bookstores. Or, readers and store managers can call 1-800-BOOKLOG, or 800-247-6553 direct, to order.
For readers who want to know what was really going on in the Middle East prior to the Persian Gulf War, Sept. 11th, and Iraq War, THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, is a must read.
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=============================================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Warren, Ohio - When both sides walked away from the peace table at Camp David in 2000, Robert Spirko, author of THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY warned negotiators Ehud Barak of Israel and Chairman Yasser Arafat that they would descend into the abyss of hell.
"And, they did," Spirko says, "and, so have we." Spirko is a native of Warren and a former Tribune staff writer.
That warning came after both sides had already agreed upon Jerusalem as the simultaneous capital of both Israel and Palestine, according to Spirko.
"When both parties agreed on Jerusalem, an issue they both said they could never agree on, then left the peace table over reparations and the right of return, 8,000 lives were lost in the ensuing four years, including America's 9/11 catastrophe," Spirko reveals. "Chairman Arafat should have taken the deal. He had 90% of what he wanted. The Israelis offered to build upon that later if Arafat would stop the suicide bombers.
Chairman Arafat would take the same deal today if it was offered, but it may be too late."
He explains, "The failed talks were a catastrophe for both the Middle East, and the United States, and the only way out is to resurrect the peace talks at Camp David, freeze the already agreed upon points, and resume where both parties left off."
Spirko will be the guest author at a book signing, at Borders Books, near Eastwood Mall, on Saturday, Aug. 30, from 1 to 4 p.m.
Spirko has given his advice to the National Security Council in Washington, D. C. over the years, and is a 1965 graduate of the Kent State University School of Journalism. He studied for his MBA at Kent State University and currently analyzes geo-political trends as an investment advisor.
He wrote the book as a spy-thriller detailing what and how the quest for a Palestinian State turned into an ongoing disaster predicting Iraq and Iran would seek to develop weapons of mass destruction. The yet-to-be-resolved "right of return" and reparations were ignored by both sides at the 2000 Camp David Peace Talks. Those issues could have been negotiated later. Ideas presented by Mr. Spirko at those peace talks included letting both sides have the right to name Jerusalem as each nation's capital, an idea that the BBC in Great Britain termed as "brilliant.".
"The idea was to create simultaneous capitals for both countries-Palestine and Israel-with Jerusalem as the capital of each using congruous zones and a neutral governing district involving representatives from both sides with God as the central sovereign because they both believe in the same God, whether He is called Allah or Jehovah," Spirko reiterates.
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ad-1 Palestine
"As we speak, Israel’s Ariel Sharon lies in a coma and Yasser Arafat is dead. Israel agreed to a withdrawal from Israeli settlements in Gaza, and a partial withdrawal in the West Bank. That could have been achieved six years ago at Camp David. Now, Hezbollah and Hamas have thrown a monkey-wrench into the scenario which could lead the United States and the world into World War III.”
Spirko’s book takes place in Beirut, Lebanon. It details what he thought would occur in the Middle East before the actual events; namely, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, the Intifada, and other events leading up to Sept. 11. His analysis, written as a novel in 1987 and copyrighted in the U.S. Library of Congress that year, warned that the Middle East was heading toward nuclear Armageddon if a rogue Arab state, Iraq or Iran, obtained nuclear weapons. For 17 years publishers refused to publish the book because they told Mr. Spirko that the events he described in his book "couldn't possibly happen."
Mr. Spirko will be on hand to autograph books.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
MEDINA, Ohio - "The Middle East is heading toward a new World War if Syria and Iran continue to aid and abet terrorism and try to develop nuclear weapons to threaten both Israel and the United States," says Robert Spirko, author of THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, a book which predicted both wars in the region.
He says both Iran and Syria are treading on dangerous ground in their quest to continue the war in Palestine and in attempting to enrich uranium for use in an atomic bomb.
Spirko will be the guest author at a book signing on Saturday, Sept. 23, from 1-3 p.m. at Waldenbooks, in Great Northern Mall.
Spirko, a financial and geo-political analyst, turned his attention to the Middle East in 1987, after discovering several common elements related to the Middle East question. He wrote down his analysis, and when he was finished, he not only had a solution to the quagmire, he had a story to tell.
THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY predicted many of the events that occurred three years later, even the firing of missiles which hit Israel.
"The United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China will never allow them to obtain enough nuclear technology to construct weapons of mass destruction," says Spirko.
Spirko, whose book foreshadowed the Persian Gulf War by three years, and the resultant Iraq War following the Sept. 11 attack, warned the consequences would be catastrophic for those Muslim nations who insist on continuing down that nuclear path.
"The chief threat in the region I see right now is the threat to Saudi Arabia by Al Quaida. If Al Quaida were to overthrow the present royal family in Saudi Arabia, cutting off the oil supply to the western nations including Japan and China, it would bring down entire world economies.
France and Germany would be begging us to go to war to retake those oil wells. It would be World War III," he emphasizes.
If such a scenario were to occur, France and the European economies could collapse in a matter of weeks.
"And, it's all related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which I said back in 1987 that is the crux of my book. It always has been, and always will be until it's settled. That linkage is exactly what Osama Bin Laden stated in a taped message aired the weekend before the election in November. Whether you believe him or not is beside the point. That's what's he told us, and we'd better take that into account."
"We are again on the threshold of peace in the Middle East. But, we're also on the threshold of World War III. We better get it right this time, " Spirko emphasizes.
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Posted by: OLIVE GROVE BOOKS | November 30, 2006 at 17:31