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Jerusalem News-756
Jerusalem News-756
Date 9th April 2008, 4 Nissan 5768
Contents:
1. The Sins of Switzerland Recalled as
Swiss Continue Terror Support
2. German firm helps Iran monitor Israel
3. US Christians 'morally' support Israel
1. The Sins of Switzerland Recalled as
Swiss Continue Terror Support
From: Yocheved Menashe
Subject: H-AS DUBA: Reuters: Swiss reject terror sponsor charge
From: "ursula duba"
Oh the lovely Swiss with their Alpine landscape, their yodeling, their
virtuous neutrality and their excellent PR job to gloss over their
duplicitous role during the Nazi regime when they asked the Nazis to stamp
passports of Jewish Germans with a large J and consequently denied those
marked to escape a sure death sentence; allowed trains filled with Jews
for annihilation to death camps to cross their neutral country, supplied
the Nazi regime with hard currency and thereby prolonged WWII by a good
measure and after WWII engaged in massive embezzlement by refusing to hand
over bank accounts to relatives of murdered Jews, because death camp
commanders weren't in the habit of issueing "death certificates" of
murdered Jews.
Ursula Duba
Independent Scholar
Author and Lecturer
Swiss reject terror sponsor charge by US
Jewish group
Reuters - Stephanie Nebehay
April 8, 2008
GENEVA - Switzerland rejected accusations on Tuesday by the U.S.-based
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that it could be financing terrorism after a
Swiss company clinched a multi-billion euro (dollar) deal to buy natural
gas from Iran.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry reiterated that the purchase did not violate
U.N. Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran over its
nuclear programme or U.S. domestic law.
The American Jewish group's full-page advertisement -- which follows a
complaint lodged by Israel with Switzerland over the deal -- appeared on
Tuesday in newspapers under the banner "Guess who is the world's newest
financier of terrorism? SWITZERLAND".
"The reproaches in this advertisement do not correspond to the facts,"
Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel said.
The ad -- which ran in the International Herald Tribune, the leading Swiss
financial daily Neue Zuercher Zeitung and Geneva daily Le Temps -- said
the deal's "likely result" was Hamas and Hezbollah "may get tens of
thousands of additional missiles".
Both Hezbollah, the Shi'ite Muslim movement in Lebanon, and the
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas which seized control of the Gaza Strip
last year, are pro-Iranian parties.
U.S. President George W. Bush has accused Shi'ite Muslim Iran of being
"the world's leading state sponsor of terror" and of undermining peace by
supporting Hezbollah and Hamas.
The United States has led international efforts to penalize Iran for
failing to allay suspicions that it is seeking nuclear weapons and has
been urging other countries to cut trade ties.
The ad said that the contract, signed during a Tehran visit last month by
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, would enable Iran to
accelerate and complete its nuclear programme.
"Terrorist cells in Europe, the Middle East and around the globe will have
access to new weapons and support," it said. "When you finance a terrorist
state, you finance terrorism."
The Swiss energy group Elektrizitaetsgesellschaft Laufenburg (EGL) has
said its 25-year deal with the National Iranian Gas Export Company was
worth between 10 billion euros ($15.73 billion) and 22 billion euros,
depending on several factors such as the price of oil.
Calmy-Rey, whose neutral country has worked in the past to find a
compromise in the nuclear row, said in Tehran that the deal was important
in the long term for both parties.
"This business transaction between the EGL and NIGEC is fully in line with
the U.N. sanctions against Iran as well as with the U.S. Iranian Sanctions
Act," Knuchel said on Tuesday.
Asked whether the deal might jeopardise neutral Switzerland's role in
handling U.S. interests in Iran, as it has done since the 1979 revolution,
he said a State Department spokesman had said last week there was no
change in U.S. policy.
The Swiss foreign ministry also pointed out that other powers including
the European Union (EU), China and Japan were doing business with the
Islamic Republic.
2. German firm helps Iran monitor Israel
Benjamin Weinthal, JPost correspondent in Berlin , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr.
8, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207649965979&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The Munich-based energy and electrical giant Siemens has with "high
likelihood" delivered sophisticated data surveillance systems to Iran, an
Austrian investigative journalist disclosed in a public broadcast ORF report
on Monday.
Speaking from Vienna, journalist Erich Moechel told The Jerusalem Post that
he was "99 percent certain" that "Monitoring Centers," used to track mobile
and land-line phone conversations, had been sent to Iran. These systems
could enable the Iranian intelligence service to document conversations
between Israel and Iran and "build a communication profile."
According to Moechel, the technology can show "how many telephone
conversations over the last 10 years between Israel and Iran" took place, as
well as the locations of the communications.
Moechel, a specialist in the field of data protection and surveillance, said
that he was highly certain that the Iranian regime had purchased
German-designed "Intelligence Platform" systems, which allow the Iranian
secret service to monitor "financial transactions and traffic and airplane
movements."
The Intelligence Platform would enable the Islamic Republic to amass complex
databases showing, for example, the activities of international companies in
Iran that also conduct business with Israel and other countries.
When questioned about the delivery of intelligence equipment, Wolfram Trost,
a Siemens spokesman, declined to confirm the sale of the Monitoring Centers
and Intelligence Platforms to Iran. Trost said Siemens "adheres to the
European Union, United Nations and German guidelines" covering restricted
trade with Iran.
The sale of "dual-use goods" - which can be applied for military usage and a
nuclear weapons program - to Iran is unlawful under EU and UN sanctions as
well as German export control regulations.
Trost referred the matter to Siemens's joint partner in the Iranian deal,
Nokia Siemens Network.
Telephone calls seeking a comment from the Nokia Siemens Network in Espoo,
the Finnish telecommunications partner, were not returned.
Moechel wrote in his article that the integrated intelligence devices were
used against persecuted minority groups and political dissidents in Iran. He
cited German and Austrian privacy experts who noted that these types of
machines would not be lawful within the EU.
The public prosecutor in Munich told the Post that Siemens was the subject
of an ongoing bribery scandal investigation. The company has acknowledged
that it spent E19 million to bribe Iranian officials in January.
Siemens, which conducts an over-$500-million trade relationship with Iran,
provides vital engineering and technological equipment for Iran's
infrastructure. American and Israeli critics have urged Siemens to sever its
business ties with Iran.
3. US Christians 'morally' support
Israel
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 9, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207649974559&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
More than 80 percent of American Christians say they have a "moral and
biblical obligation" to support the State of Israel, and half say Jerusalem
should remain its undivided capital, according to a survey released on
While evangelical Christians are the strongest supporters of the Jewish
state, strong pro-Israel convictions cut across all key Christian
denominations in the US, according to the poll carried out on behalf of the
Washington-based Joshua Fund, an evangelical organization.
Eight-two percent of respondents said they had a "moral and biblical
obligation" to love and support Israel and pray for the peace of Jerusalem,"
10% disagreed and 8% did not know.
Eighty-four percent of Protestants agreed with the statement (including 89%
of Evangelicals), compared to 76% of Catholics.
Half of the American Christians surveyed opposed Israel dividing Jerusalem
with the Palestinians in a peace agreement, 33% were unsure and 17% thought
it should be divided.
Fifty-three percent of Protestants supported a united Jerusalem, as did 44%
of Catholics.
Evangelical Christians were most supportive of a united Jerusalem, with 62%
in favor and 11% against.
A plurality of the US Christians (44%) surveyed said they did not know
whether a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would
be a peaceful moderate democracy or a terrorist state, 32% said that it
would be a terrorist state and 24% said that it would be a peaceful
democracy.
The survey found clear differences between Protestants and Catholics on the
issue.
Protestants were more likely to say a Palestinian state would be a terror
state by a 10-point margin; Catholics were evenly split. Evangelical
Protestants said a such entity would be a terrorist state by a 20-point
margin, but non-evangelical Protestants said it would be a peaceful and
moderate democracy by six percentage points.
The belief that a Palestinian state would be a terrorist state was strongest
among Republican and conservative Evangelicals.
Nearly half (49%) of American Christians surveyed were interested in
visiting Israel, including about quarter of both Catholics and Protestants
who were "strongly" interested.
Forty-seven percent of those polled were not interested in visiting.
There are 50 million-60 million evangelicals Christians in the US.
Two-thirds of respondents said that if Iran developed nuclear weapons, it
would eventually try to use them to attack Israel, 23% were unsure and 13%
said Iran would not attack.
Finally, 45% said they would be more likely to support a US presidential
candidate who would protect America from Islamic terrorism, protect Israel
from a nuclear attack from Iran, oppose the division of Jerusalem and refuse
to pressure Israel to make concessions on issues of national security,
compared to 29% who said such positions had no effect on their vote and 9%
who would be less likely to support such a candidate.
The survey will be officially released on Thursday at a conference at the
Jerusalem International Convention Center (Binyenei Ha'uma) organized by The
Joshua Fund that is expected to be attended by 2,000 evangelical Christians
from around the world.
The non-profit organization aims to raise more than $100 million over the
next three years to help Israeli victims of terrorism, and to fund
humanitarian projects in Israel in education, health, welfare and immigrant
absorption, and $20m. for Christians in the West Bank, Gaza, Iraq and Sudan,
said Joel C. Rosenberg, the group's founder and president.
"Our support for Israel is unwavering and unconditional," he said.
The survey, which was conducted by McLaughlin and Associates by a telephone
sampling of 1,000 American Christians last month, had a margin of error of
plus or minus three percentage points.
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