October 29, 2002

Eliahu Salpeter has an article in Ha’aretz examining the causes of the current upswing in Arab anti-Semitism. Examples include Egyptian TV’s planned mini-series "A Rider Without a Horse" which is based on "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and a book by Syrian Defense Minister promoting blood libel against the Jews. The author notes that because of the success of the State of Israel, Muslims are seeing Jews as a competitor, similar to the competition poised to Islam by Christianity. Now Jews are no longer seen as an inferior people that should be kept in inferior status and their lives protected but as enemies of Islam and must be obliterated. Fortunately few Jews need to depend on this "protection" any more. 11:15:01 PM

Police now believe that sniper suspect John Lee Muhammad may have used a borrowed handgun to shoot at a Tacoma, Washington synagogue. The shooting last May resulted in damage to several walls and the Temple’s Holy Ark. 11:14:24 PM

Two Ben-Gurion University professors who visited the Balkans have an article that examines the role of the United Nations in policing Kosovo and Macedonia to see if there are parallels with the Palestinian Areas and Israel. While there is not a total similarly, they suggest the experience can prove useful in understanding how a Palestinian state could be formed without it being a menace to its neighbors and its own people. 11:14:08 PM

Games, Games, Games Ensemble Studios has released the official playable demo for Age of Mythology, it includes some gameplay for the Zeus civilization. In more timewasting news, Infogrames has shipped the Play The World add-on for Sid Meier's Civilization III that includes three different Internet and LAN multiplayer modes including turnless modes. I cannot imagine how long it would take to play a game of Civilization with multiple human players, against the computer the endgame still takes hours. 11:13:47 PM