December 28, 2005
December 05, 2005
The New Berlin Wall
The New Berlin Wall - New York Times
By PETER SCHNEIDER
Published: December 4, 2005
On the night of Feb. 7, 2005, Hatun Surucu, 23, was killed on her way to a bus stop in Berlin-Tempelhof by several shots to the head and upper body, fired at point-blank range. The investigation revealed that months before, she reported one of her brothers to the police for threatening her. Now three of her five brothers are on trial for murder. According to the prosecutor, the oldest of them (25) acquired the weapon, the middle brother (24) lured his sister to the scene of the crime and the youngest (18) shot her. The trial began on Sept. 21. Ayhan Surucu, the youngest brother, had confessed to the murder and claimed that he had done it without any help. According to Seyran Ates, a lawyer of Turkish descent, it is generally the youngest who are chosen by the family council to carry out such murders - or to claim responsibility for them. German juvenile law sets a maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment for murder, and the offender has the prospect of being released after serving two-thirds of the sentence
Hatun Surucu grew up in Berlin as the daughter of Turkish Kurds. When she finished eighth grade, her parents took her out of school. Shortly after that she was taken to Turkey and married to a cousin. Later she separated from her husband and returned to Berlin, pregnant. At age 17 she gave birth to a son, Can. She moved into a women's shelter and completed the work for her middle-school certificate. By 2004 she had finished a vocational-training program to become an electrician. The young mother who had escaped her family's constraints began to enjoy herself. She put on makeup, wore her hair unbound, went dancing and adorned herself with rings, necklaces and bracelets. Then, just days before she was to receive her journeyman's diploma, her life was cut short.
Evidently, in the eyes of her brothers, Hatun Surucu's capital crime was that, living in Germany, she had begun living like a German. In a statement to the Turkish newspaper Zaman, one brother noted that she had stopped wearing her head scarf, that she refused to go back to her family and that she had declared her intent to "seek out her own circle of friends." It's still unclear whether anyone ordered her murdered. Often in such cases it is the father of the family who decides about the punishment. But Seyran Ates has seen in her legal practice cases in which the mother has a leading role: mothers who were forced to marry forcing the same fate on their daughters. Necla Kelek, a Turkish-German author who has interviewed dozens of women on this topic, explained, "The mothers are looking for solidarity by demanding that their daughters submit to the same hardship and suffering." By disobeying them, the daughter calls into question her mother's life - her silent submission to the ritual of forced marriage. Meanwhile, the two elder brothers have papered their cell with pictures of their dead sister.
There is a new wall rising in the city of Berlin. To cross this wall you have to go to the city's central and northern districts - to Kreuzberg, Neukölln and Wedding - and you will find yourself in a world unknown to the majority of Berliners. Until recently, most Berliners held to the illusion that living together with some 300,000 Muslim immigrants and children of immigrants was basically working. Take Neukölln. The district is proud of the fact that it houses citizens of 165 nations. Some 40 percent of these, by far the largest group, are Turks and Kurds; the second-largest group consists of Arabs. Racially motivated attacks occur regularly in Brandenburg, the former East German state that surrounds Berlin, where foreigners are few (about 2 percent). But such attacks hardly ever happen in Neukölln. As Stefanie Vogelsang, a councilwoman from Neukölln, put it to me, residents talk about "our Turks" in an unmistakably friendly way, although they are less friendly when it comes to Arabs, who arrived decades after the Turks and often illegally.
But tolerance of Muslim immigrants began to change in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Parallel to the declarations of "unconditional solidarity" with Americans by the German majority, rallies of another sort were taking place in Neukölln and Kreuzberg. Bottle rockets were set off from building courtyards: a poor man's fireworks, sporadic, sparse and joyful; two rockets here, three rockets there. Still, altogether, hundreds of rockets were shooting skyward in celebration of the attack, just as most Berliners were searching for words to express their horror. For many German residents in Neukölln and Kreuzberg, Vogelsang recalled not long ago, that was the first time they stopped to wonder who their neighbors really were.
When a broader German public began concerning itself with the parallel Muslim world arising in its midst, it was primarily thanks to three female authors, three rebellious Muslim musketeers: Ates, who in addition to practicing law is the author of "The Great Journey Into the Fire"; Necla Kelek ("The Foreign Bride"); and Serap Cileli ("We're Your Daughters, Not Your Honor"). About the same age, all three grew up in Germany; they speak German better than many Germans and are educated and successful. But they each had to risk much for their freedom; two of them narrowly escaped Hatun Surucu's fate. Necla Kelek was threatened by her father with a hatchet when she refused to greet him in a respectful manner when he came home. Seyran Ates was lucky to survive a shooting attack on the women's shelter that she founded in Kreuzberg. And Serap Cileli, when she was 13 years old, tried to kill herself to escape her first forced marriage; later she was taken to Turkey and married against her will, then she returned to Germany with two children from this marriage and took refuge in a women's shelter to escape her father's violence. Taking off from their own experiences, the three women describe the grim lives and sadness of Muslim women in that model Western democracy known as Germany.
Reading their books brought to mind a forgotten scene from seven years ago. Every time my daughter, who was 14 at the time, invited her schoolmates for a sleepover, the Muslim fathers would be standing at the door at 10 p.m. to pick up their daughters. My wife, an immigrant herself, was indignant. I didn't like these fathers' dismissive, almost threatening posture, either, but I was a long way from protesting. Nor did I worry much when my daughter told me that one or another girl in her class was not taking biology or physical education and no longer going on field trips.
For a German of my generation, one of the most holy legacies of the past was the law of tolerance. We Germans in particular had no right to force our highly questionable customs onto other cultures. Later I learned from occasional newspaper reports and the accounts of friends that certain Muslim girls in Kreuzberg and Neukölln went underground or vanished without a trace. Even those reports gave me no more than a momentary discomfort in our upscale district of Charlottenburg.
But the books of the three Muslim dissidents now tell us what Germans like me didn't care to know. What they report seems almost unbelievable. They describe an everyday life of oppression, isolation, imprisonment and brutal corporal punishment for Muslim women and girls in Germany, a situation for which there is only one word: slavery.
Seyran Ates estimates that perhaps half of young Turkish women living in Germany are forced into marriage every year. In the wake of these forced marriages often come violence and rape; the bride has no choice but to fulfill the duties of the marriage arranged by her parents and her in-laws. One side-effect of forced marriage is the psychological violation of the men involved. Although they are the presumed beneficiaries of this custom, men are likewise forbidden to marry whom they want. A groom who chooses his own wife faces threats, too. In such cases, according to Seyran Ates and Serap Cileli, the groom as well as the bride must go underground to escape the families' revenge.
Heavily veiled women wearing long coats even in summer are becoming an increasingly familiar sight in German Muslim neighborhoods. According to Necla Kelek's research, they are mostly under-age girls who have been bought - often for a handsome payment - in the Turkish heartland villages of Anatolia by mothers whose sons in Germany are ready to marry. The girls are then flown to Germany, and "with every new imported bride," Kelek says, "the parallel society grows." Meanwhile, Ates summarizes, "Turkish men who wish to marry and live by Shariah can do so with far less impediment in Berlin than in Istanbul."
Before the murder of Hatun Surucu there were enough warnings to engage the Germans in a debate about the parallel society growing in their midst. There have been 49 known "honor crimes," most involving female victims, during the past nine years - 16 in Berlin alone. Such crimes are reported in the "miscellaneous" column along with other family tragedies and given a five-line treatment. Indeed, it's possible that the murder of Hatun Surucu never would have made the headlines at all but for another piece of news that stirred up the press. Just a few hundred yards from where Surucu was killed, at the Thomas Morus High School, three Muslim students soon openly declared their approval of the murder. Shortly before that, the same students had bullied a fellow pupil because her clothing was "not in keeping with the religious regulations." Volker Steffens, the school's director, decided to make the matter public in a letter to students, parents and teachers. More than anything else, it was the students' open praise of the murder that made the crime against Hatun Surucu the talk of Berlin and soon of all Germany.
During 50 years of continuing immigration, the Germans, most of the time under conservative governments, deluded themselves that Germany was not a country of immigrants. Suddenly, the obvious could no longer be denied. Alarmed by the honor killings, Germans began to investigate the parallel society: a society proud of its isolation; purist and traditional yet, in its own terms, creative, forward-looking and often contemptuous of the German host society. The recent riots in France have increased the sense of alarm. German politicians and experts lined up in the news media to point out why such riots are unlikely in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart or Hamburg. They claimed that young Muslims in Germany (although up to 50 percent of them are unemployed) had full access to the German welfare state and were not isolated in high-rise projects as in the suburbs of Paris. True, there were some cars set on fire in Berlin, but such incidents were interpreted as purely imitation crimes, nothing to be taken seriously. Yet in all these official declarations you sensed an undertone of panic. Germans' confidence that their nation can continue as it had been - integrating immigrants without an integration policy, remaining true to the traditional German identity, preserving the reassuring post-1945 chronology of advancing modernism - is on the line. It turns out that in the heart of German cities a society is growing up that turns modernity on its head.
How could this happen? The Turkish writer Aras Oren, who has been living in Berlin for 40 years, once told me about one of his first plane trips from Istanbul to Berlin. He was sitting next to a farmer from Anatolia, who had evidently never been in an airplane before. The man had no idea what to make of the seat belt, the overhead warning lights, the tray table - nor did he understand his neighbors' explanations. When Oren saw him sitting there, in his sandals, with his cap on his head and his prayer beads between his thick fingers, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that his fellow countryman was enclosed in an invisible time capsule he wasn't going to leave even after he landed in Germany. It made no difference whether the man was traveling to Istanbul or to Berlin. This farmer had never seen a city; he was living in the 18th or 19th century and would carry the customs and rites of his homeland with him to his living room in Berlin. And he would cling to them doggedly if the Western democracy where he was living and working did not make a determined effort to acquaint him with its rules and laws. For decades, Oren has been preaching that it has never been so much a question of multicultural sensitivity as of turning peasants into city dwellers.
After 1945, Germany, in the process of reconstruction, needed great numbers of workers and initiated recruitment campaigns in the poor countries of Europe and on the Mediterranean rim: in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco. The arrival of the 100,000th immigrant worker, in the 1950's, was cause for celebration; the exhausted man climbed out of a train at a German station and was immediately handed a check. But from the beginning, the invitation came with a certain reservation on the part of the host and the proviso, often repeated, that Germany was not really a country of immigrants, not a melting pot. It was no accident that the foreign workers were called gastarbeiter, guest workers. Guests are expected to leave after a while.
The first Muslim immigrants came without their families. They slaved away repairing streets or working below ground, generally slept in men-only dormitories and for the most part had the same expectations for themselves as their employers had for them: they would work for a few years, send as much of their earnings home as possible and then, if all went well, drive back to their villages in a used Mercedes with enough capital to buy a house.
Naturally, things did not work out as expected. The Swiss author Max Frisch recognized the contradiction early on: "Workers were called," he wrote, "and human beings came." These were people who wanted their families to join them, people who after a long, hard working life wanted to spend their remaining years in Germany, people who wished to provide their children with an education and a better future in that country. Germany did not give guest workers passports or the vote, but it did repay them by incorporating them into the social system and giving them the opportunity for social advancement. A result was the rise of a Muslim middle class - relatively broad in comparison with those in France or in England - contributing around 39 billion euros annually to the gross national product and billions to the national pension funds. But as the German economic miracle came to an end, the most important condition of this precarious idyll changed. Although active recruitment was stopped as early as 1973, more and more Turks and Kurds moved to Germany, in accord with a ruling on reuniting families. And these parents, wives, husbands and children took their traditional lifestyle onto the German streets. Whereas during the first years of immigration, Turkish women wore Western clothing, they now appeared in long flowery skirts, hand-knitted jackets and tightly bound head scarves. The plastic trunks in which they had brought sacks full of dry beans, bulgur wheat and chickpeas metamorphosed into Turkish grocery stands. And with the food and the family members, traditional celebrations in the Muslim districts gradually became more and more like those back home as well. In the back rooms of the vegetable stands and halal butchers, prayer rooms sprang up, and in time these rooms became mosques. The German-Turkish author Necla Kelek sums it up this way in "The Foreign Bride": "The guest workers turned into Turks, and the Turks turned into Muslims."
Growing unemployment in Germany (now 4.8 million people, roughly 12 percent of the work force) hit the Muslim immigrants doubly hard - especially the youth, who frequently drop out of school before obtaining a diploma. "Seventy percent of the newcomers," according to Otto Schily, a former minister of the interior, referring to the period since 2002, "land on welfare the day of their arrival." Whole enclaves sprang up consisting of extended families living on the dole.
Necla Kelek asked a group of "import brides" who had been living in Germany for years how they had actually prepared for their future in Germany. Their answer: incredulous laughter. Prepare? How and for what? "But how can you stand living here?" Necla Kelek went on. "You don't have anything to do with this country, you despise its culture and the way people live here." But we have everything we need here, was the answer; we don't need the Germans.
Those with no work and no future were looked after by the mosques, which increasingly became the most important place of communication. Inside their apartments, women resumed their traditional ways - apart from the "unclean" who ate pork, drank beer and let their daughters go unchallenged to parties and discos. Amid the German refrigerators, televisions and mobile phones, a rural culture was celebrating its resurrection, where Turkish was spoken, where people ate, prayed, fasted and celebrated according to custom, and where the surrounding local culture of unbelievers and the unclean was looked down upon. The riddle of the time capsule brought up by Aras Oren came to an unexpected solution. Some hundred thousand Muslim immigrants were able to take up, in Germany, the life of their ancestors in Anatolia. Indeed, maybe life in Anatolia was meanwhile more modern and secular than in the Muslim districts of Berlin.
Many sociologists attribute the growth of a Muslim parallel society to the discouraging social circumstances of the third Muslim generation of immigrants - high unemployment, high dropout or failure rates in public schools. But this explanation is incomplete, to say the least. It turns out that the Muslim middle class has long been following the same trend. Rental agencies that procure and prepare rooms for traditional Turkish weddings and circumcisions are among the most booming businesses in Kreuzberg and Neukölln.
Cem Ozdemir, a German deputy (of Turkish origin) to the European Parliament, tells two different stories concerning ritual circumcision. He himself grew up in the south of Germany; his own circumcision three decades ago was an absolute nightmare. It took place in a gymnasium, where six boys between 4 and 9 years old lay stretched out in six beds, and was performed by the local Turkish doctor, who took his instruments out of the tool case he'd brought along and started cutting away. He made a wrong cut on Ozdemir and sewed up the wound after the local anesthetic had worn off. To drown the child's deafening cries, a Turkish band started up with traditional music, and relatives danced in honor of the circumcised.
More recently - in other words, some 30 years later - Ozdemir took part in another, more modern type of circumcision, this time as a godfather. The parents had the operation performed by a doctor in a hospital. There was no ritual, and the patient went home the same day. Some days later, when the boy was fully recovered, the parents gave a party that, as Ozdemir explains, "really was for the circumcised, and not for the relatives." All the participants, the boy included, enjoyed themselves.
For Ozdemir, the difference in these two stories showed that Muslim immigrants can hold onto their rituals by transforming and modernizing them. But there is a third story unfolding today in the rented halls of Kreuzberg and Neukölln, a story that emphasizes separateness and a communal rejection of compromise. The technical standard of the circumcision might be of the highest order, but it will have to happen in the presence of family and friends. The father of the circumcised might carry a German passport and run a successful company; but he will also worry about how his son's circumcision is judged by his friends and neighbors.
This conservative, fearful trend is likely to guide the next generation. For more than 20 years the Islamic Federation of Berlin, an umbrella organization of Islamic associations and mosque congregations, has struggled in the Berlin courts to secure Islamic religious instruction in local schools. In 2001 the federation finally succeeded. Since then, several thousand Muslim elementary-school students have been taught by teachers hired by the Islamic Federation and paid by the city of Berlin. City officials aren't in a position to control Islamic religious instruction. Often the teaching does not correspond to the lesson plan that was submitted in German. Citing the linguistic deficiencies of the students, instructors frequently hold lessons in Turkish or Arabic, often behind closed doors.
Since the introduction of Islamic religious instruction, the number of girls that come to school in head scarves has grown by leaps and bounds, and school offices are inundated with petitions to excuse girls from swimming and sports as well as class outings.
There are no reliable figures showing how many Muslims living in Germany regularly attend a mosque; the estimates vary between 40 and 50 percent. Councilwoman Stefanie Vogelsang stresses that the majority of the mosques in Neukölln are as open to the world as they ever were, and that they continue to address the needs of integration. But the radical religious communities are gaining ground. She points to the Imam Reza Mosque, for instance, whose home page - until a recent revision - praised the attacks of Sept. 11, designated women as second-class human beings and referred to gays and lesbians as animals. "And that kind of thing," she says, fuming, "is still defended by the left in the name of religious freedom."
This is the least expected provocation of the three author rebels: a frontal assault on the relativism of the majority society. In fact, they are fighting on two fronts - against Islamist oppression of women and its proponents, and against the guilt-ridden tolerance of liberal multiculturalists. "Before I can get to the Islamic patriarchs, I first have to work my way through these mountains of German guilt," Seyran Ates complains.
It is women who suffer most from German sensitivity toward Islam. The three authors explicitly accuse German do-gooders of having left Muslim women in Germany in the lurch and call on them not to forget the women locked behind the closed windows when they rave about the multicultural districts.
German immigration policies (and liberal multiculturalism) are only one side of the problem. The other side is the active refusal of many in the Muslim community to integrate. It is an illusion to believe that a German - or French or Dutch - passport and full rights of citizenship are enough to make all Muslims loyal citizens. "The attacks in London," Seyran Ates says, "were in the eyes of many Muslims a successful slap in the face to the Western community. The next perpetrators will be children of the third and fourth immigrant generation, who - under the eyes of well-meaning politicians - will be brought up from birth to hate Western society." It's only a question of time, Ates says, before Berlin experiences attacks like those in London and Madrid. When we spoke, the riots in France had not yet happened.
It is encouraging that some Muslim residents of Germany are forcefully calling on Germans to defend our democratic achievements against Muslim traditionalists and fanatics who incite hatred of democracy under the banner of respect for cultural difference. "What I am asking of the Germans," Necla Kelek says, "is nothing more and nothing less than equal treatment. I'm entitled to the same rights as any German woman."
Merely citing "lessons from the German past," as Germans tend to do, does not guarantee that these lessons are correct. It is a perversion when, out of respect for the "otherness" of a different culture, Germans stand aside and accept the fact that Muslim women in Germany are being subjected to an archaic code of honor that flouts the fundamental human rights to dignity and individual freedom. This has nothing to do with Germany or the "guiding German culture" that German conservatives want to put through; it has simply to do with humanity, with the protection of basic human and civil rights for all citizens of all ethnic backgrounds.
Politicians and religious scholars of all faiths are right in pointing out that there are many varieties of Islam, that Islamism and Islam should not be confused, that there is no line in the Koran that would justify murder. But the assertion that radical Islamic fundamentalism and Islam have nothing to do with each other is like asserting that there was no link between Stalinism and Communism. The fact is that disregard for women's rights - especially the right to sexual self-determination - is an integral component of almost all Islamic societies, including those in the West. Unless this issue is solved, with a corresponding reform of Islam as practiced in the West, there will never be a successful acculturation. Islam needs something like an Enlightenment; and only by sticking hard to their own Enlightenment, with its separation of religion and state, can the Western democracies persuade their Muslim residents that human rights are universally valid. Perhaps this would lead to the reforms necessary for integration to succeed. "We Western Muslim women," Seyran Ates says, "will set off the reform of traditional Islam, because we are its victims."
Peter Schneider is a writer based in Berlin. This article was translated from the German by Philip Boehm.
December 5, 2005 at 12:35 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 25, 2005
Al-Qaeda leader may flee to Africa
Al-Qaeda leader may flee to Africa - World - Times Online
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor
BRITAIN and the United States are training border guards in the Horn of Africa in the expectation that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, may seek sanctuary there if forced to flee Iraq.
Major-General Douglas Lute, the director of operations for US Central Command, which is responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan, said yesterday that once Iraq was stabilised, al-Zarqawi might head for the Horn of Africa to find a “safe haven”. He listed Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia as “ungoverned spaces” where al-Zarqawi might seek sanctuary to run his terrorist operations.
Small US specialist teams, supported by British counterparts, are training border security guards and working with customs and immigration officials in the region, hoping that they will be ready to spot al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda leaders.
General Lute said: “We call this the long war, the fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Even though al-Qaeda is not state-based or sponsored, its leaders still require physical sanctuary — they still need somewhere to live.”
Al-Zarqawi, already being squeezed inside Iraq, would have little option but to leave once the country was politically stable and secure. “We think he might move to the Horn of Africa. It’s a vast space, which causes us concern,” General Lute said.
He gave a warning that al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda “franchised” groups were increasingly turning to “virtual safe havens” — internet websites — to plot their terrorist attacks.
August 25, 2005 at 12:33 AM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
August 06, 2005
Berlin Wall Timeline
Timeline - History of Berlin Wall
May 8, 1945
World War II is over and Berlin is divided into 4 sectors:
the American, British, French in the West and
the Soviet in the East
June 30, 1946 At the instigation of the Soviet Military administration the demarcation line between East and West Germany is safeguarded
October 29, 1946 A 30 day valid Interzonenpass is required to travel between the sectors in Germany
June 23, 1948 Currency reform in Berlin, Berlin is divided into two different currency zones
June 24, 1948 Begin of the Berlin blockade
June 25, 1948 Berlin Airlift begins
May 12, 1949 End of Berlin blockade
May 24, 1949 Federal Republic of Germany is founded
(West Germany)
September 30, 1949 End of Berlin Airlift
October 7, 1949 German Democratic Republic is founded
(East Germany)
May 26, 1952 Border between East and West Germany and between East Germany and West Berlin is closed. Only the border between East and West Berlin is still opened
June 17, 1953 Uprising of East Berlin building workers against the imposition of increased working norms, suppression by Red Army tanks
November 14, 1953 The Western Powers waive the Interzonenpass, the Soviet Union follows but East German citizen need a permission to travel to the West
December 11, 1957 Leaving East Germany without permission is forbidden and violations are prosecuted with prison up to three years
August 13, 1961 The Berlin sectorial border between East and West Berlin is closed, barriers are built
August 14, 1961 Brandenburg Gate is closed
August 26, 1961 All crossing points are closed for West Berlin citizens
June 26, 1963 President J. F. Kennedy visits Berlin and says: "Ich bin ein Berliner." ("I am a Berliner.")
December 17, 1963 West Berliner citizen may visit East Berlin the first time after more than two years
September 3, 1971 Four Power's Agreement over Berlin
visiting becomes easier for West Berliners
June 12, 1987 President Ronald Reagan visits Berlin and urges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
September 10, 1989 Hungarian government opens border for East German refugees
November 9, 1989 Berlin Wall is opened
December 22, 1989 Brandenburg Gate is opened
October 3, 1990 Germany is reunited
August 6, 2005 at 01:21 AM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
July 24, 2005
Map of Berlin (Cold War)
From Berlin Wall.org
July 24, 2005 at 01:39 AM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
December 22, 2004
al-Qaida Rallies to Strike Oil Resources
Yahoo! News - al-Qaida Rallies to Strike Oil Resources
Sun Dec 19,11:49 AM ET
CAIRO, Egypt - The Saudi branch of al-Qaida called for attacks against oil infrastructure in the Persian Gulf in a Web statement posted Sunday.
The statement came four days after al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) urged Islamic militants to stop Westerners from obtaining Middle Eastern oil, saying such a blow would be fatal to the West.
"Try your best to stop the biggest theft in history," bin Laden said in the Thursday tape, referring to the West's purchase of Arab oil.
Sunday's statement called on "all mujahedeen ... in the Arabian Peninsula" to target "the oil resources that do not serve the nation of Islam."
It was not possible to authenticate the statement, which was signed by the group Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. It was posted on an Islamic Web site known as a clearinghouse for al-Qaida statements.
The statement said the call came after "the infidels insisted on turning the land of Islam into a place where infidels and polytheists are free to roam everywhere."
It urged al-Qaida members and sympathizers around the Arab world to unite "to strike all the foreign targets in the Arabian peninsula and attack all the infidels' havens everywhere."
The Arabian Peninsula includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen
December 22, 2004 at 07:42 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
October 20, 2004
Berlin districts and sectors, 1986
General Berlin city map with Berlin Wall in 1985
Course of Berlin Wall: Red line
Berlin districts (1945-1990):
West Berlin
American Sector
I Kreuzberg
II Neuklln
III Tempelhof
IV Schneberg
V Steglitz
VI Zehlendorf
British Sector
A Tiergarten
B Charlottenburg
C Wilmersdorf
D Spandau
French Sector
a Reinickendorf
b Wedding
East Berlin
Soviet Sector
1 Mitte
2 Prenzlauer Berg
3 Friedrichshain
4 Pankow
5 Weissensee
6 Hohenschnhausen (from 1985)
7 Lichtenberg
8 Marzahn (from 1979)
9 Hellersdorf (from 1986)
10 Treptow
11 Kpenick
October 20, 2004 at 11:13 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
General Berlin city map, 1961
General Berlin city map with Berlin Wall in 1961
based on a map published in "Unser Berlin", Paul List Verlag, 1961
October 20, 2004 at 11:09 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
The Berlin Wall
Background
Because of dissatisfaction with the economic and political conditions (forced collectivization of agriculture, repression of private trade, supply gaps), an increasing number of people left the GDR. From January to the beginning of August 1961, about 160,000 refugees were counted. Also, the international political situation was tense. On 1958-11-27, the Soviets (Khrushchev) had delivered their Berlin ultimatum, demanding that the western allies should withdraw their troops from West Berlin and that West Berlin should become a "Free City" within six months. On 1959-02-17, the threat of settling a separate peace treaty between the USSR the GDR followed. The meeting between US President Kennedy and the Prime Minister of the USSR, Khrushchev, on 1961-06-03/04 in Vienna ended without any noticeable results.
Generally, measures of the government of the GDR were expected with the aim of preventing people from leaving the GDR. At an international press conference on June 15, 1961, Walter Ulbricht (the leader of the east German communist party, SED, and President of the Privy Council) answered to the question of a journalist: "I understand your question as follows: there are people in West Germany who want us to mobilize the construction workers of the GDR to build a wall. I am not aware of any such plans... No one has the intention of constructing a wall."
Construction of the Wall
Early in the morning of Sunday, August 13, 1961, the GDR began under the leadership of Erich Honecker to block off East Berlin and the GDR from West Berlin by means of barbed wire and antitank obstacles. Streets were torn up, and barricades of paving stones were erected. Tanks gathered at crucial places. The subway and local railway services between East and West Berlin were interrupted. Inhabitants of East Berlin and the GDR were no longer allowed to enter West Berlin, amongst them 60,000 commuters who had worked in West Berlin so far. In the following days, construction brigades began replacing the provisional barriers by a solid wall.
The reaction of the western allies was moderate, since the three essentials of the American policy regarding Berlin were not affected: presence of allied troops, free access to Berlin and the right of self-determination of the West Berliners.
After 1961-08-23, citizens of West Berlin were no longer allowed to enter East Berlin. On 1961-09-20, the forced evacuation of houses situated immediately at the border to West Berlin began. On 1962-08-17, Peter Fechter, an eighteen years old citizen of East Berlin, bled to death after he was shot down by East Berlin border patrol in an attempt to escape over the wall.
On 1963-06-21, the Minister of National Defense of the GDR gave orders concerning the installation of a border area at the frontier between the GDR and West Berlin. Afterwards inhabitants of East Berlin living within a distance of 100 m to the border had to register.
The GDR propaganda called the wall an "Anti-fascist protection wall".
Measurements
The border between West Berlin and East Berlin and the GDR had a total length of 166 km, and there was a deeply staggered system of barriers. There was a wall with a length of 107 km at this border. Finally, the border area looked about as follows: First, there was a wall which was made up of concrete segments with a height of 4 m, usually with a concrete tube on top of it. Behind it (at the "eastern" side) there was an illuminated control area (also called death area). Refugees who had reached that area were shot without warning. A trench followed which should prevent vehicles from breaking through. Then there was a patrol track, a corridor with watchdogs, watchtowers and bunkers, and a second wall.
The border cut through 192 streets, 97 of them leading to East Berlin and 95 into the GDR.
At least 100 people were killed at the Berlin Wall, the last of them was Chris Gueffroy (1989-02-06).
Fall
In the year 1989, there were dramatic events such as a massive flight of inhabitants of the GDR via Hungary and big demonstrations in Leipzig on Mondays. After weeks of discussion about a new travel law, the leader of East Berlin's communist party (SED), Gnter Schabowski, said on November 9, 1989 at about 7 p.m. in somewhat unclear words that the border would be opened for "private trips abroad". Little later, an onrush of East Berliner's towards West Berlin began, and there were celebrations at the Brandenburg Gate and at the Kurfrstendamm in West Berlin. On November 10, demolition works began with the aim of creating new border crossings. On November 12, a checkpoint at the Potsdamer Platz was opened, and on December 22, a checkpoint for pedestrians was opened at the Brandenburg Gate. So-called "wall woodpeckers" hammered pieces out of the wall, many of which were sold as souvenirs. A few larger segments were officially donated or sold.
On July 1 1990, an economic, monetary and social union between East and West Germany was formed, and all restrictions concerning travels were dropped. The wall had vanished almost completely by 1991; there are a few remainders at the Bernauer Strasse, the Niederkirchnerstrasse (near the building of the former Prussian parliament, now housing the parliament of Berlin) and as the 1.3 km long "East-Side-Gallery" near the railway station "Ostbahnhof".
On February 1997, a red line was painted on the pavement at the former "Checkpoint Charlie" to mark the course of the former Berlin wall. This line shall reach a length of 20 km and shall be replaced by two rows of paving stones.
Memorial
On August 13 1998, a wall memorial was inaugurated at the Bernauer Strasse (at the corner to the Ackerstrasse, city districts Wedding/Mitte). It consists of a remainder of the Berlin wall with a length of 70 m, provided with slits in the inner wall and steel sheets at the ends.
October 20, 2004 at 11:05 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
The role of the USSR
The Wall
fell as the combined result of both internal and external pressures. The evolution of the USSR played a crucial role in this process.
On his first official visit to West Germany in May 1989, Mikhal Gorbachev, whose ambition was to save his country from decline and ruin through an innovative policy based on restructuring (perestroka) and openness (glasnost), informed Chancellor Kohl that the Brezhnev doctrine had been abandoned ; Moscow was no longer willing to use force to prevent democratic transformation of its satellite states. This was the kiss of death for East Germany in the short-term, for her very existence had no justification apart from ideology.
Immediately, on 2nd May, Hungary decided to pull down the iron curtain and on 11th September she opened up her border with Austria. These measures led Germans to pour out of East Germany. Others sought refuge in the West German embassies in Prague and Warsaw. Within six months, over 220 000 East Germans had passed over to the West.
Meanwhile, opposition groups (New Forum, Democracy Now, Democratic Renewal), wishing to change East Germany from within, grew up in the shelter of the churches and protested against the authorities in power in East Berlin.
In Leipzig, the Peace Prayers and Monday demonstrations drew more and more non violent protesters, despite brutal police intervention : 1 000 demonstrators on 4th September, 120 000 on 16th October, chanting political slogans : " Free elections ", " We are staying here ", " We are the People "...
On 7th October East Germany celebrated its fortieth anniversary, but the celebrating turned into protest against the rgime which made over 1 000 arrests. As guest of honour, Gorbachev was welcomed in front of the Palace of the Republic by demonstrators pleas of " Gorbi, help us! ". He then announced that " whoever comes too late is punished by life " (Wer zu spt kommt, den bestraft das Leben). This warning was for the benefit of the SED leaders who immediately ousted Honecker, to be replaced on 18th October by the apparatchik Egon Krenz, in turn forced to resign, on 3rd December.
October 20, 2004 at 11:04 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
To prevent getting out
Contrary to the claim of East German propaganda, the Wall was not an " antifascist wall of protection " intended to avoid aggression from the West. It was entirely for domestic use, being designed not to stop people getting in but to prevent them getting out. In this way, on 21st June 1963, the East German Defence Minister issued a decree setting up a 30 to 100 metre wide border zone around West Berlin where residents were subjected to strict controls. This zone was placed under close surveillance and anyone entering it required a special authorization or face a heavy penalty. Also, the automatic firing systems were on the eastern side as well; they were dismantled in 1984, in exchange for two substantial loans granted to East Germany by the federal government.
As time passed, the Wall was gradually perfected and became more and more impassible. Altogether it was overhauled four times over. To begin with, it was made up of 12 kilometres (7.5 mi.) of concrete slabs and 137 kilometres (86 mi.) of barbed wire, covered from 116 watch towers, including 32 along the East-West Berlin border. After October 1964, it was gradually strengthened, doubled up and transformed into a " modern border " which took on its final appearance from around 1979-1980.
The Wall cut through 192 streets (97 between East and West Berlin and 95 between West Berlin and East Germany), 32 railway lines, 8 S-Bahn and 4 underground lines, 3 autobahns and several rivers and lakes. On the waterways, the Wall consisted of submerged railings under constant surveillance from patrol boats.
The Wall was an anomaly that gave rise to a number of peculiarities.
As it was mostly built a little back from the sector demarcation line, in places like Tiergarten, Kreuzberg and the south of the city, there was a sign to indicate exactly where the border was. In this way, anyone approaching the Wall from the west found themselves " on the other side " and were in danger of being arrested by East German guards coming through iron gates in the Wall.
The Wall cut off the small Berlin exclave of Steinstcken, located in East Germany but part of the American sector. This exclave received supplies and protection from US forces until a road was built in 1971. A similar situation was to be found at Eiskeller, an exclave in the British sector.
October 20, 2004 at 11:03 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
Operation "Wall of China" - The 1958 crisis
2 - Operation "Wall of China" (1)
From 27th November 1958, ten years after the blockade, Berlin was the scene of another international crisis when Nikita Khrushchev issued an ultimatum to the three western powers, giving them six months to turn West Berlin into a " demilitarized free city ", failing which he would sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany. This ultimatum marked the start of a long crisis which came to a head and to an end with the building of the Wall. Talks on Berlin between the Soviets and the West, first in Geneva (May-August 1959), then in Paris (May 1960) and finally in Vienna (June 1961), failed to produce results.
Meanwhile, tension continued to rise around Berlin, as refugees continued to flock out of East Germany, destabilizing the regime. Ulbricht repeatedly asked Khrushchev for permission to take radical steps. At the meeting of Communist Party heads in Moscow on 5th August, he finally got what he wanted closure of the border between East and West Berlin. Two days later, Khrushchev announced in a radio broadcast that this " handy escape route " via West Berlin absolutely had to be closed. This disturbing news instilled " fear of the closing door " among would-be escapees, and a further upsurge in the number of refugees over four thousand on 12th August alone!
Operation " Wall of China " was secretly decided on by Ulbricht and planned by Honecker. It actually began at around 4 p.m. on 12th August, when Ulbricht signed the orders to close the border and sent them on to Honecker. In preparation for this operation, 40 kilometres (25 mi.) of barbed wire and thousands of posts were stored in barracks. The police and workers militias set up in the wake of the June 1953 riots were mobilized. The Interior Ministry announced that East German citizens would now need a " special authorization " to enter West Berlin. At midnight, the security services were put on the alert; East Berlin was covered by army units (NVA); 25 000 armed militiamen and the Peoples Police (Vopos) armed with kalachnikovs were posted at six-foot intervals along the demarcation line. On 13th August 1961, a holiday Sunday, at 1.11 in the morning, the official East German press agency announced that the Warsaw Pact countries had asked the East German government to set up " effective controls " in and around Berlin. Within an hour, 67 of the 81 crossing points were sealed off, soon followed by another seven. All traffic was stopped between East Germany and West Berlin. The underground and the S-Bahn linking the two sections of the city were no longer in operation.
Under the watchful eye of the police and the army, barbed wire and wire entanglements were placed across access points to West Berlin.
Roads were dug up and barricades erected. Within a matter of hours, the entire border around West Berlin was under control.
Access to West Berlin was now barred to East Berliners and East Germans; then on 23rd August, it became impossible for West Berliners to visit the East without a residence permit.
October 20, 2004 at 11:01 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
The shared sky
Berlin
truly epitomized the Cold War in Europe. This was where it all started with the blockade
of 1948, and where 40 years on it all came to an end. Two dates, one dramatic, the other a
joyful occasion, mark the high points; 13th August 1961, when the
Wall went up ; 9th November 1989, when it came down.
The Berlin problem already lay between the lines of the Interallied documents drawn up at the end of the Second World War. Under the terms of the agreements of 1944-1945 signed by the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France, the defeated Germany was divided up into four occupation zones overseen by four commanders-in-chief, who together formed the Control Council. Based in the former capital of the Reich. Also divided up into four sectors headed by four military governors gathered in the Kommandatura, this partitioning left Berlin (883 km / 340 sq. mi.) stranded in the midst of the Soviet zone, 180 kilometres (110 mi.) from the border with the western zones. This unusual geopolitical situation became difficult to handle once Interallied relations began to deteriorate.
October 20, 2004 at 10:59 PM in Berlin | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home
March 30, 2004
British Broadsheet Links Mossad to 9/11
There was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes. Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.
Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.
After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for USA-Israeli relations. He said: Its very good. Then he corrected himself, adding: Well, its not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel from Americans]. If Israels closest ally felt the collective pain of mass civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists, then Israel would have an unbreakable bond with the worlds only hyperpower and an effective free hand in dealing with the Palestinian terrorists who had been murdering its innocent civilians as the second Intifada dragged on throughout 2001.
Its not surprising that the New Jersey housewife who first spotted the five Israelis and their white van wants to preserve her anonymity. Shes insisted that she only be identified as Maria. A neighbour in her apartment building had called her just after the first strike on the Twin Towers. Maria grabbed a pair of binoculars and, like millions across the world, she watched the horror of the day unfold. As she gazed at the burning towers, she noticed a group of men kneeling on the roof of a white van in her parking lot. Heres her recollection: They seemed to be taking a movie. They were like happy, you know they didnt look shocked to me. I thought it was strange.
Maria jotted down the vans registration and called the police. The FBI was alerted and soon there was a state-wide all points bulletin put out for the apprehension of the van and its occupants. The cops traced the number, establishing that it belonged to a company called Urban Moving. Police Chief John Schmidig said: We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side. Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down.
By 4pm on the afternoon of September 11, the van was spotted near New Jerseys Giants stadium. A squad car pulled it over and inside were five men in their 20s. They were hustled out of the car with guns levelled at their heads and handcuffed. In the car was $4700 in cash, a couple of foreign passports and a pair of box cutters the concealed Stanley Knife-type blades used by the 19 hijackers whod flown jetliners into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon just hours before. There were also fresh pictures of the men standing with the smouldering wreckage of the Twin Towers in the background. One image showed a hand flicking a lighter in front of the devastated buildings, like a fan at a pop concert.
The driver of the van then told the arresting officers: We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem. His name was Sivan Kurzberg. The other four passengers were Kurzbergs brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBIs Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section the bureaus anti-espionage squad.
A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firms Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. I was in tears, the man said. These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, Now America knows what we go through.
Vince Cannistraro, former chief of operations for counter-terrorism with the CIA, says the red flag went up among investigators when it was discovered that some of the Israelis names were found in a search of the national intelligence database. Cannistraro says many in the USA intelligence community believed that some of the Israelis were working for Mossad and there was speculation over whether Urban Moving had been set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists. This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them.
After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if theyd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel.
Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it. His lawyer said he was reluctant to take the test as he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.
Nevertheless, their lawyer, Ram Horvitz, dismissed the allegations as stupid and ridiculous. Yet USA government sources still maintained that the Israelis were collecting information on the fundraising activities of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Mark Regev, of the Israeli embassy in Washington, would have none of that and he said the allegations were simply false. The men themselves claimed theyd read about the World Trade Centre attacks on the internet, couldnt see it from their office and went to the parking lot for a better view. Their lawyers and the embassy say their ghoulish and sinister celebrations as the Twin Towers blazed and thousands died were due to youthful foolishness.
The respected New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported in March 2002, however, that it had received a briefing on the case of the five Israelis from a USA official who was regularly updated by law enforcement agencies. This is what he told The Forward: The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it. He added that the conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs, but the men were released because they did not know anything about 9/11.
Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment: The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event. But how can you document an event unless you know it is going to happen?
We are now deep in conspiracy theory territory. But there is more than a little circumstantial evidence to show that Mossad whose motto is By way of deception, thou shalt do war was spying on Arab extremists in the USA and may have known that September 11 was in the offing, yet decided to withhold vital information from their American counterparts which could have prevented the terror attacks.
Following September 11, 2001, more than 60 Israelis were taken into custody under the Patriot Act and immigration laws. One highly placed investigator told Carl Cameron of Fox News that there were tie-ins between the Israelis and September 11; the hint was clearly that theyd gathered intelligence on the planned attacks but kept it to themselves. The Fox News source refused to give details, saying: Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. Its classified information. Fox News is not noted for its condemnation of Israel; its a ruggedly patriotic news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch and was President Bushs main cheerleader in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.
Another group of around 140 Israelis were detained prior to September 11, 2001, in the USA as part of a widespread investigation into a suspected espionage ring run by Israel inside the USA. Government documents refer to the spy ring as an organised intelligence-gathering operation designed to penetrate government facilities. Most of those arrested had served in the Israeli armed forces but military service is compulsory in Israel. Nevertheless, a number had an intelligence background.
The first glimmerings of an Israeli spying exercise in the USA came to light in spring 2001, when the FBI sent a warning to other federal agencies alerting them to be wary of visitors calling themselves Israeli art students and attempting to bypass security at federal buildings in order to sell paintings. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report suggested the Israeli calls may well be an organised intelligence-gathering activity. Law enforcement documents say that the Israelis targeted and penetrated military bases as well as the DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, including secret offices and the unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel.
A number of Israelis questioned by the authorities said they were students from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, but Pnina Calpen, a spokeswoman for the Israeli school, did not recognise the names of any Israelis mentioned as studying there in the past 10 years. A federal report into the so-called art students said many had served in intelligence and electronic signal intercept units during their military service.
According to a 61-page report, drafted after an investigation by the DEA and the USA immigration service, the Israelis were organised into cells of four to six people. The significance of what the Israelis were doing didnt emerge until after September 11, 2001, when a report by a French intelligence agency noted according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells.
The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two of leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams. The pair had settled in Hollywood, Florida, along with three other hijackers, after leaving Hamburg where another Mossad team was operating close by.
Hollywood in Florida is a town of just 25,000 souls. The French intelligence report says the leader of the Mossad cell in Florida rented apartments right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi. More than a third of the Israeli art students claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town.
Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But thats not quite true. In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack outside the United States.
The Israeli embassy in Washington has dismissed claims about the spying ring as simply untrue. The same denials have been issued repeatedly by the five Israelis seen high-fiving each other as the World Trade Centre burned in front of them. Their lawyer, Ram Horwitz, insisted his clients were not intelligence officers. Irit Stoffer, the Israeli foreign minister, said the allegations were completely untrue. She said the men were arrested because of visa violations, adding: The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11.
Jim Margolin, an FBI spokesman in New York, implied that the public would never know the truth, saying: If we found evidence of unauthorised intelligence operations that would be classified material. Yet, Israel has long been known, according to USA administration sources, for conducting the most aggressive espionage operations against the USA of any USA ally. Seventeen years ago, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian working for the American Navy, was jailed for life for passing secrets to Israel. At first, Israel claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but the government later took responsibility for his work.
It has always been a long-accepted agreement among allies such as Britain and America or America and Israel that neither country will jail a friendly spy nor shame the allied country for espionage. Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Bostons Political Research Associates and an expert in intelligence, says: Its a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didnt do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always visa violation.
What we are left with, then, is fact sullied by innuendo. Certainly, it seems, Israel was spying within the borders of the United States and it is equally certain that the targets were Islamic extremists probably linked to September 11. But did Israel know in advance that the Twin Towers would be hit and the world plunged into a war without end; a war which would give Israel the power to strike its enemies almost without limit? Thats a conspiracy theory too far, perhaps. But the unpleasant feeling that, in this age of spin and secrets, we do not know the full and unadulterated truth wont go away. Maybe we can guess, but its for the history books to discover and decide.
Article courtesy of Scottish-based Herald Newspapers
March 30, 2004 at 09:44 PM in Berlin | Permalink | TrackBack (251) | Top of page | Blog Home