Hamas shows its true colors again - Holocaust denial and hatred of Jews

Hamas, the Holocaust-denying Islamist terrorist organization that runs Gaza, slams UN over "Holocaust classes" in Gaza.

Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews "a lie invented by the Zionists", the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools....Hamas said it believed UNRWA was about to start using a text for 13-year-olds that included a chapter on the Holocaust. In an open letter to local UNRWA chief John Ging, the movement's Popular Committees for Refugees said: "We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists."

Of course, the UNRWA schools currently do not teach anything about the Holocaust, and when asked if there were any plans to change that, the UNRWA spokesmen refused to answer.

UPDATE: Apparently, contrary to the article quoted above, UNRWA does have a new human rights curriculum for eighth graders that teaches the basic facts of the Holocaust.

Three teachers at U.N. schools said that according to the new program, basic information about the Holocaust was expected to be taught to eighth grade students as part of human rights classes.

Two of the teachers said they were told about the lesson plan by colleagues involved in the new syllabus. Another teacher said he attended a recent meeting with education officials where he was told to try to teach the new syllabus without offending parents' sensibilities.

All three said they had not received the syllabus for the human rights classes yet, even though the school year began in late August. They requested anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to reporters.

Madonna tours Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem

And on a happier note: Madonna tours Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem. She toured an ancient tunnel near the Western Wall. I presume this is part of the Kotel tunnels area. If one goes north of the part of the Western Wall that is open to worshippers, one comes first to a big archway in the men's section that leads into an inside area for prayer and study. Continuing northward, one walks underneath the Mamluk buildings that butt right up against the western wall of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. The area has been excavated since after the Six Day War, when the Old City came under Israeli control, and the whole length of the wall was opened to tourists in 1996, occasioning riots which led to the deaths of many Palestinians. The tunnel goes all the way to the Via Dolorosa. For more information, see The Western Wall Tunnels.

I found a couple of videos of part of a tour of the Western Wall tunnels -
Kotel Tunnel tour #1
Kotel Tunnel tour #2

Jerusalem news: still fighting over the parking lot

Haredim, seculars clash in Jerusalem.

I'm teaching a course about Jerusalem this semester (history, politics, religion, and architecture from biblical times to the present). From time to time I'll be blogging about what's going on in Jerusalem today - and the story of the day seems to be the continued riots over the Karta parking lot opening on the Sabbath. Haredi and secular people clashed, as well as the police and the Haredim.


This photo shows a policeman confronting a group of Haredi men. It's not clear to me where they are.

The Haredim were shouting "Shabbes" and "Nazis" at the policemen trying to keep them away from the parking lot.

Antiwar Movement Plans Fall Campaign on Afghanistan

The only good news in this story is that ANSWER isn't mentioned, although unfortunately the execrable Code Pink has jumped in:

Code Pink is trying to build opposition to the war among women’s groups, some of which argue that women will suffer if the Taliban returns. In September, a group of Code Pink organizers will visit Kabul to encourage Afghan women to speak out against the American military presence there.

Only "some" women's groups argue that women will suffer if the Taliban returns? As Barney Frank said recently in another context, what planet are these people on?

Although I eventually came to oppose the war in Iraq, it was not because I was persuaded by the anti-war movement, but because of my own judgment about horrendous things the U.S. has done there (especially the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, the lack of any evidence for WMDs, the evidence that the Bush administration consistently lied to us, etc.). The rhetoric of the anti-war movement repelled me, and continues to repel me. I have no respect for people like Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan. For them, the U.S. is always the villain, not any other nation or group of people. It will be entertaining, in a grimly repulsive fashion, to see how they excuse the Taliban for their crimes against their own people, especially Afghan women, and for their crimes against the people of the United States, in allying with Al Qaeda and providing a base for Osama bin Laden's jihadists. Maybe Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan have forgotten the September 11 attacks and where they came from, but I certainly haven't.