Daily Alert

Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:51:09 +0200
Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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DAILY ALERT Thursday,
March 20, 2008


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In-Depth Issues:


Iran Indoctrinating Children in Islamic Supremacism - Eli Lake (New York Sun)
A new Freedom House report, "Discrimination and Intolerance in Iran's Textbooks," finds that the Islamic Republic is teaching its children to embrace Islamic supremacism, preparing them to enter a political system that discriminates against women and non-Muslims.
"The discourse of the textbooks has not been written with the concept of equality of all human beings, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," the study concludes.
"In the textbooks' reasoning, human beings cannot be equal with one another on this earth....Some individuals are born first-class citizens, due to their identity, gender, and way of thinking, while others become second- and third-class citizens."
"In the Farsi textbooks of Grades 1 through 11, 31 lessons discuss martyrdom and death for the sake of religious or political beliefs," the study notes.



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Hamas Funds Gaza Regime with Taxes, Help from "Islamic Friends" - Daniel Williams (Bloomberg)
Gaza's Hamas government is funding its bureaucracy and rocket-launchers through fees on license plates, birth certificates and the like; taxes on smuggled cigarettes and other items; and aid from Islamic and Arab allies.
Cigarettes smuggled through tunnels are taxed at $3 a pack, increasing the price to $5.
Hamas also charges a levy of $3,000 from each of 150 underground- tunnel operators.
Hamas has also taken over sales of one thing that dune-abundant Gaza has plenty of - sand. Construction companies, which use sand for cement, used to harvest it free. Now, Hamas sells it.



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Saudi Clerics Back Death for Liberal Writers (Reuters)
Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, the leading independent authority of Saudi Arabia's hardline version of Sunni Islam, often termed Wahhabism, said in a fatwa last week that two columnists should be tried for apostasy for "heretical articles" and put to death if they do not repent.
The two had questioned the view that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers.



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Trial of Jihadist Recruiters Opens in Paris (Reuters)
Six French men and one Algerian went on trial in Paris on Wednesday accused of involvement in a network smuggling Islamist fighters to Iraq.
Prosecutors accuse the main suspect, preacher Farid Benyettou, 26, of recruiting "jihadists" from worshippers at a mosque in northern Paris and organizing their transfer to Iraq via radical establishments in Syria and Egypt.




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