Friday, February 27, 2009

Identity Theft, Fraud To Be Discussed Live On PalTalk TechNow Interactive Social Networking Series

Identity Theft, Fraud To Be Discussed Live On PalTalk TechNow
Interactive Social Networking Series

By Helen Levy
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem --- February 27, 2009...... Paltalk, a pioneer in live interactive, global social networking video chat applications, will be hosting a program dedicated to identity theft, risk and fraud. The show, to be broadcast on March 3 at 3 p.m. EST, will be a part of PalTalk's new TechNow series dedicated to informing the Web 2.0 community to the latest developments in high tech.

“Your Digital Identity – Manage it or Lose it”, will be moderated by two leading figures in the hi-tech industry, Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO of Comodo and Internet commentator and CEO of Silicon Alley Insider, Henry Blodget. The PalTalk video chat show program will focus on the various measures that Internet surfers should be aware of in what can be done to lower the risks of online identity theft.

Based on recent US Federal Trade Commission and security data, the scope of online identity theft and fraud has become epidemic. In 2007, every minute of every day another 28 people in the United States became victims of identity theft. Fully one third of all consumer complaints reported to the FTC in 2008 were related to identity theft. This represents by far the single largest complain area.

“Paltalk has been serving the Web community for over 10 years,” said Judy Shapiro, Paltalk’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. “Paltalk is vividly aware of the real and growing risk of identity theft on the Net. We will do all that we can to protect the members of our on-line community and millions of others on other Web 2.0 communities such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. We hope to serve as an example to other leading Web 2.0 applications on the Net in providing solutions to prevent this epidemic crime."

PalTalk's platform powers the largest collection of video based communities on the Internet. Paltalk has continued to expand since it was launched in 1998. Paltalk now today has over 4 million active members from New York, London and Paris to Chicago, Tel Aviv and Tokyo with nearly 100,000 people simultaneously chatting in Web 2.0 rooms engaged in lively dialogues, meeting new friends, breaking news, trading stock tips, politics, dating, sports, business, singing karaoke, and attending family and school reunions.

“Identity theft cost U.S. businesses and consumers $56.6 billion in 2006,” said Shapiro. “Paltalk will be part of the solution in addressing identify theft through an effective and powerful awareness campaign.”

Catalogers, the second largest complaint category represents only 8 percent of all consumer complaints. In addition that same year, data breaches of lost consumer data increased dramatically by 47 percent! Fraud perpetrated within online interactions (versus stealing information in the real world) now accounts for a third of all identity theft issues broken down as follows (Javelin Research): 19 percent while conducting a transaction, 11 percent in online activity, and 11 percent in data breach. Sadly, most ID theft is never reported to police: 65 percent of victims did not file a police report, 27 percent of victims did file a police report which was accepted by local law enforcement, and 8 percent of victims tried to file a police report and it was not accepted.

"Identity theft has become a very serious problem for the commercial, governmental and home personal use of the Internet," said a security analyst to Israel's Ministry of Defense."It is relatively easy today to secure personal information such as birth dates and addresses of individuals from a variety of Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. And then to compound the problem you have professional hackers using a system called Phishing which is implemented the use illegal use of fraudulent e-mail or instant messaging. Phishing links often direct users to enter details at fake websites whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Email masquerading to be from popular social web sites such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, auction sites such as eBay, online banks - Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase) and online payment processors such as PayPal are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting surfer.

The marked increase in identity theft complaints is significant in that the number of these reports had stayed mostly flat from 2006 to 2007, says Tom Rusin, president of Affinion Security Center, which provides personal data security services for consumers and businesses. Rusin says the jump may be due to several factors, including the high number of enterprise breaches last year, as well as fallout from the financial crisis. "As banks consolidate today, consumers expect to get more information [electronically] from their bank," Rusin says. "That's an opportunity for identity thieves to do Internet phishing attacks."

In 1998 the US Congress created a new federal offense of identity theft.

As the US and global economy continue to enter deeper into a recession, thieves are turning a large profit. Criminals are taking advantage of the fact that many are looking for work or losing your homes. They prey on your mail, hacking into your Internet, and even stealing your debit card information.

"There is a scam going on right now where they are sending out notification that there is a stimulus package offer available to them and to qualify for it they have to give certain information. Well, that's a scam," said US ID theft investigator Wayne Ivey.
Investigators say technology is making the problem worse. In Las Vegas, there has been a 20-percent increase in the last quarter of identity theft cases. One of the biggest problems in town is skimming. Thieves are attaching devices to ATM's and gas station pumps that steal your debit card information.

Restaurants are another hot spot where thieves are hard at work. But the easiest method for grabbing one's identity remains the Internet where personal details are common and false links lead to a hacker hijacking your hard drive and credit card details.

Another area to be wary of is having your laptop stolen. Containing your personal details, one's social security number and passwords to on-line banking accounts has created nightmares for thousands. Social Security numbers are the keys to the kingdom of financial fraud. There are more than 15 million victims of identity theft in the US every year. Identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the US, and it shows no sign of abating.

And as the identity theft crimes increase, many courts are striving hard to keep up and interpret the many varied methods. According to the New York Times, a federal identity-theft law that had become a favorite tool of the government in immigration prosecutions appeared imperiled last Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard arguments about it.
Prosecutors have relied on the law to seek or threaten two-year sentence extensions in immigration cases against people who used fake Social Security numbers that turned out to belong to real people.

“There’s a basic problem here,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.. “You get an extra two years if it just so happens that the number you picked out of the air belonged to somebody else.” Kevin K. Russell, a lawyer for a defendant, said that ordinary usage requires the government to prove that people accused of identity theft under the law knew the numbers they used belonged to someone else.

To make matters ever worse for the victims of identity theft, several US Supreme Court justices appeared persuaded on Wednesday that the identity-theft law was at least ambiguous enough that the “rule of lenity” ought to apply. That rule, as Justice Antonin Scalia summarized it from the bench, is that “the tie goes to the defendant.”

At least some relief appears to be on the way for the general public as many insurance companies are now willing to provide insurance policies for identity theft.
Identity theft is now becoming a big business for both criminals and commercial institutions. And the legal industry is also taking in a huge profit, with attorneys from both sides securing lucrative case retainers.

Those who are 20 to 39 year-olds still bear the brunt of identity theft fraud, with around 49 percent of complaints from this demographic, according to the FTC report. This is a trend that has been consistent during the past three years. Interestingly, 65 percent of identity theft victims last year did not contact the police. "This just shows that most people don't know where to turn," Rusin says.

“Identity theft cost U.S. businesses and consumers $56.6 billion in 2006,” said Shapiro. “Paltalk will be part of the solution in addressing identify theft through an effective and powerful awareness campaign.”

As a pioneer in Web 2.0 social networking, Paltalk has taken the lead in introducing a new paradigm of digital community interaction.

In addition, Paltalk delivers original programming geared to the interests of the community. Paltalk Interactive events have hosted entertainment personalities including William Shatner and radio personalities Opie and Anthony. Paltalk supports both IM pals on AOL, Yahoo, and ICQ and is available as a free download.

To join the show on any show date, simply go to TechNow.Paltalk.com. For more information on the show, please visit TechNow.Paltalk.com/Crashdummies

The above news content was edited and SEO optimized in Israel for the Internet by the Leyden Communications Internet Marketing SEO Group - Israel, London, New York.

Monday, February 23, 2009

CIA: Britain, England, UK - Largest Terror Threat To US, Western World

CIA: Britain, England, UK - Largest Terror Threat To US, Western World

Lord Ahmed - a trojan horse in Parliament? Ahmed supports Hamas and wants British Jews who support the Israel Defense Forces arrested.Ahmed threatened Parliament with an Islamic army of 10,000 if Dutch MP Geert Wilderswas allowed to enter England and speak about Islamic Jihad. The English government caved in and sent Wilders back to Holland.


Special to the Israel News Agency
Jerusalem --- February 23, 2009...... The CIA have told the new American administration that Great Britain, England is now the number one threat to the national security of the American homeland.

They have stated that the next Al Qaeda inspired terror attack to hit their shores, will most likely have its origins in the Islamic community, living in Britain, and that because of the seriousness of the threat, they now have 4 out of 10 of their spies working upon British shores, protecting their domestic national security interests.


Any British readers of this post please take a step back and think about the gravity of what this claim by the CIA means to the present national security within our own mainland borders. What it means to the future life of our nation, the place where the lives of our children, grandchildren and future generations born, or yet to be born, reside, and what the wider world must think of Great Britain when looking on from afar, now that we have been classed as the No.1 Islamic terror threat to the American homeland.


Think about it; Great Britain, ‘us – you and me’ the closest ally of the American people, and nation which is the Earth’s only super power, now being the most serious, credible, and imminent threat to the their domestic national security from amongst all other nations on Earth.
Our nation, the nation our forefathers fought and died for on the battlefields of the World, to hand to us, their descendents, is now the greatest threat to our greatest friend, in our generation!!!


As an heir of the British Isles, and someone whose forefathers fought and died for Queen and country, how does that make you feel about what your Nation has become? About those Moslem guests, now living amongst us who have pushed us into this position, in our own ancestral homeland, and destroyed OUR nation’s standing in the World?


The Liberals in society can deny all of this and proclaim ‘Islam means peace’ and that moderate Moslems are not our enemies, because this reality is not in their daily reality. But war is war whichever way you want to look at it, or dress it up as something it is not, and it is upon our shores now.

War against the infidel is a fundamental truth at the core of the Islamic religion that all religious Moslems must follow if they are good Moslems. Although our present leaders would like to pretend it is not war, that it is just criminality and has nothing to do with Islam. Mohamed, his conduct, his teachings and his lifestyle are every Moslems highest example to follow in this life. All you have to do is a little research based upon the truth about Mohamed to find out that he was a bloodthirsty warmonger, and this is the one they follow.


Osama Bin Laden, this generation’s leader of the military Jihad, who is now sitting in his cave in Afghanistan; has conquered Britain by proxy, with an army of trained radical Moslems and ideological supporters on the ground, spread throughout the land, pushing his modern Jihad forward upon our shores on every level of life, which is the Cultural and Social Revolution that is happening in British society now.

They are recruiting and radicalising their Moslem brothers and sisters to the greatest Jihad in the history of their religion, “The Global Jihad” with Moslems aligned to Al Qaeda now infiltrated into the heart of the nation, and threatening, not only our national security, but that of the American people too.


Hard to conceive but true. Many prefer to live in denial, even though; this is a statement coming from the CIA to the new President of the United States.


You couldn’t make this stuff up, and because this doesn’t affect the majority of people who sit glued to their TV screens, being entertained by celebrities, who are out of touch with every day reality, they have no concept of what this truly means to our national preservation and the preservation of our allies. What do you think the CIA, MI5 or MI6, not excluding all other international intelligence agencies like Mossad etc, know about the state of affairs on the ground here in Britain in relation to Al Qaeda and all other militant Islamic groups that are in our midst, and their agenda to destroy our Civilisation from within and without, that we, as ignorant peasants, do not?


”The Unseen War”
Must be more than pretty serious don’t you think? There is, and has never been, something as serious as this, emanating from these shores, ever, in our recent history. For the CIA to go on record, stating that Britain is now the biggest threat to the national security of their country, with 4 out of 10 operatives working in the field here.


The question has to be; what has our Government and the national security infrastructure they preside over, been doing to allow such an irreversible state of affairs to occur on the ground within mainland Britain? A state of affairs, that is now beyond human political management? Chucking millions of tax payer’s money at the problem is not going to change it. It is just feeding it financially as it grows upon our soil, at the detriment of all other communities. It is like throwing petrol onto the fire rather than water.


A 21st Century urban guerilla ‘Civil War’ is the only predictable outcome now, unless the British people, at some point in the future, hand their country over to the Islamic religion and become Dhimmis and live as second class citizens under Sharia law. The Islamic State might not be here tomorrow morning but it is definitely arising in our midst now, and if present conditions are allowed to fester and grow, then it is only a matter of time until it arrives, a time in the future where your future descendents reside.


What must our Christian Queen and heirs to the throne, on which she sits, think, when they look out of their castle windows, thinking that their country, and the people they presently rule over, are now the most serious threat to the ‘peace and stability’ of the Western World, and posing a direct threat to the American homeland?Shame on their ancestor’s memory that is embedded upon the history of that throne on which they sit I should think. A shame which motivates the future heirs to action in ‘Defence of their Realm’ from those who want to remove them. Those who throw their loyalty to that ancient Crown and all that is enshrined in it, (to which we all in Britain belong) in their faces with contempt and disdain, threatening to murder and remove them as they seek to take the country over.


The Queen’s kingdom has almost been conquered because Islam has been born upon our shores. It has been allowed to grow of its own accord, given its own autonomy with the land, with the newly introduced Islamic legal system of Sharia Law under the guise of multiculturalism, with it now taking over the control and functioning of society through the power of the ‘race card’ and the ‘power industry’ that has been created to protect those who control that card in society.


It is only a matter of time now, before the whole land becomes Islamic at this rate, because it is quite clear, that the presiding Government have absolutely no control over the military wing of the religion in Britain and would rather give in to them and their political, religious, and cultural demands than stand up to them and defend the British ‘Way of Life’. That is of course, unless the indigenous people of these isles rise up and revolt against their neighbours from the so called ‘religion of peace’ and defeat those from amongst them whose aim is one of religious war and conquest against our entire Judeo/Christian civilisations, (that is the Civil War that is predictable).

It is those Muslems who are motivated by the core military teachings of their religion and the example of religious conquest against the infidels and their lands that their false, warmongering prophet Mohammed set for them in the 7th Century.


Knowing the reality of what our nation now faces at the hands of the Islamists waging Jihad against the West, is it any wonder that the British homeland is flooded with spies from many different nations? I should expect many are here just sitting back watching and learning about their future fate at the hands of the Islamic religion in their midst. Some actually aiding and abetting the enemy for geo-political purposes as things unfold on the ground. While these spies watch the ‘unseen war’ against the British State unfold, those hostile intelligence agencies that are here, are robbing the loot that is left unattended and unsecured because of the over-stretched domestic security services, for their own national interest.


Once the dust settles after this War that has been declared against the Western civilisations by Osama Bin Laden, there will be a New World Order and all Governments know this, just like after the Cold War. There can only be one winner at the end. That is a basic fundamental truth to war. And Osama Bin Laden has declared war on us. It is them or us, no middle ground now, only one side will arise victorious at the end, and because of our present Liberal Left Wing leaders who deny reality, we are losing the war, so no wonder other nations are robbing the loot while they can, for their own national interests as the country and its society implodes, at the hands of the Jihad (Holy War).


Sad state of affairs considering it is my, our homeland, but a true state of affairs.
Britain is ripe for the picking and everyone is heading our way now. It’s a free for all, with the weak, gullible British people sitting back, allowing it to happen and allowing their children and grandchildren’s futures to be destroyed through their cowardice and inaction. They are unwilling to believe that Islam is not a ‘religion of peace’, but that it is a ‘religion of war’, and all religious Moslems, moderate (non violent), or extreme (violent), each have the mandate of their religion at the core of their being which is the conversion of the infidels and their lands to submission to Allah, which is the driving force of the Islamic religion just like the conversion of non-Christians to Christians is the driving force of Christianity.


Stealing our military and business secrets is nothing less than war booty, looted from the conquered nation. The Liberals in society who defend the ‘multicultural dream’ through their own weakness and guilt are just not able or willing to see the reality of what is unfolding so as to change their stance in society and defend their national interests for the sake of the future. Instead they rubbish and condemn people like me, who are speaking about this threat, as racists and fear mongers. A threat that is based upon information being released into the public domain by those who are fighting this ‘Unseen War'.

A war, that the majority in society, cannot yet see, unless the violent actions of Moslems in our midst, is on the news. Apart from that, life goes on and there are millions of Moslems living their daily lives upon our streets and in our society, who are carrying out the Jihad contained within their religion, against us.


Imagine what those military analysts in think tanks like RUSI think when they sit back contemplating about the future national interest of the British homeland, from a military perspective, based upon all of the present intelligence facts they possess.
Ask yourself if Al Qaeda is here amongst the British Islamic community? If the answer is yes; then ask yourself what that means?


If things are as bad as the CIA believe, based upon their intelligence, I wonder how long it will be before the Generals of the British armed forces take over the running of State behind the scenes, so as to force their will upon the national political process for the sake of national security, international security and the future life of the nation on behalf of our Queen, who they serve?
War is war, even if it is dressed up as peace.


I wonder what it would take for the Queen to dissolve Parliament because it is no longer fit for purpose. What it will take for ‘reality’ to be too much to deny anymore? When dire action has to be taken for the sake of the future life of the nation because ‘inaction’ is no longer an option? Just like Queen Elizabeth when she knew the Spanish Armada was off the English coast. The thing being now though is that the enemy is not soon to arrive upon our shores. It is already here. Those within the Trojan horse have disembarked, they have built their base camps up and down the country, established their infrastructure and networks linking them all and are now carrying out 21st Century warfare.


This isn’t about racism, as the Liberals and their defenders of the doomed ‘multicultural society’ scream, so as to silence all who oppose the growth of Islam in Britain. This is about harsh reality, just like the harsh realities our forefathers were forced into before and during the Second World War against Hitler and the Nazis. Thankfully our forefathers came through that one to the other side, victorious, for the sake of us, their descendents. Let us hope and pray that we, as a people, come through this modern war, for the sake of our future descendents, that place in the future we cannot see but are walking towards on a daily basis.


I should think that Left and Right Wing party politics must take a back seat when the life of the nation is on the line. We are all one, after all, aren’t we? This is our ancestral homeland, and we, whose forefathers have lived here for hundreds of years, have no place to return to if the British Isles is conquered by this insidious religious force that is at war from within and without, seeking to force the land and people to submit to the Islamic religion.


Sink or swim, this is our land, and it is not an Islamic State and never will be, no matter what travails we pass through upon these shores. There are 55+ million of us and 3 – 6 million of them, with much history engraved on our psychological DNA, and some big people who are defenders of the homeland out there in society. The question is though; what are we going to have to go through as a people?


The present cabal of Left Wing politicians of NU Labour with their ideology of ‘multiculturalism’, those who control the functioning of State obviously have absolutely no clue as to what they are doing with the nation they are in control over as this present dire, (and at one time unthinkable) situation with America, our closest friend and ally proves. Instead, they would prefer to cover up this reality on the ground across our nation, by ignoring the truth, by not addressing the reality of the threat Islam poses, manipulating peoples perceptions, by lying about the threat, creating laws to protect those who would destroy us, and silencing the truth about them from being told by arresting and trying to prosecute and imprison people like me, who are speaking about this reality under the guise of ‘hate crimes’.


If there was no threat from Moslems, and they were not making our nation a threat to the peace and stability of the Western World then we would not be speaking about them and their conduct amongst us, for others to read and learn about, like, for example, Sikhs and Hindus, and then being arrested for ‘hate crimes’. These hate crime laws are laws that have been brought in to protect Moslems from the criticism of wider society, making them and their conduct untouchable in our midst (the protected species in modern British life), as an analogy, it is just like protecting the Nazis if they had of invaded our shores during the Second World War. It is no wonder we are now the biggest threat to the Western World, and it is our present leaders who have led us into this position.


Sir Winston Churchill: Islam is like rabies.
Another weapon to silence truth and reality from being told by Islam and all their Left Wing ‘multicultural defenders.’ is to call anyone who speaks about Moslems by raising questions about them and their conduct, ‘racist, Islamaphobic Right Wing bigots’. This silences all debate because nobody who is on a guilt trip over the racism issue in the modern ‘multicultural society,’ wants to talk to people who are labeled such things because they know the venom unleashed against those people, so its better to stay away than agree with them and feel the fury.


The thing is, is that those on the TV might not want to talk about these issues for wider society to learn about this aspect of reality because of how detrimental it is to their large salaried careers and standing within their social order. But ordinary people in society, in the streets of the land, are listening and learning the truth about what is unfolding around them because they cannot escape reality, unlike the those highly paid ‘tax paid’ Establishment pawns on our TV screens, who know to toe the line and spew their own hatred against those on the right of this political issue.


It is a national folly, enforced upon us, by the architects of the ‘multicultural society’. Those who are the ones that control the functioning of State and how that influences society and peoples perceptions, that we cannot challenge Islam or Moslems in Britain without fear, especially when they place US and our nation in the position of being the No.1 threat to America and her people, those who are our closest friends and Allies on Earth – Family


It is not the British people who have a belief in a non-violent religion or no religion who place us in this position. It’s the Islamic community, living upon our shores, whose lives revolve around the Koran, those second and third generation children of Moslem guests who arrived here from their own ancestral homelands over the past 50 years who now believe the British Isles to be their land, and now also those from the Islamic World who have descended on what has become the Worlds Asylum centre with its free bank (social security) social housing for all, and weak society in which to conduct Jihad. (If you don’t live near and know what goes on around an Al Qaeda enclave, then you cannot pass an opinion on this matter).

It is these who are now actively engaged in taking our Country over from within and threatening the international community.


Britain is the greatest active field for Jihad in the Western World thanks to the likes of Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri and Amjem Choudry. It is a stepping stone, and launch pad, into America, the greatest battlefield of the 21st Century. The place the entire Islamic World has its sights set on, to bring down, because if America falls at the hands of Islam and Moslems, then the whole world will fall into line, under Islamic supremacy through fear.


Using terror as a weapon in any form is a fundamental sanctioned tactic of warfare in Jihad.
The American homeland is where the real battle between Islam and our Western World lays. If America can be destroyed on her own shores, then who will ever want to fight the military wing of the Islamic religion that is led by this generations Anti-Christ Osama Bin Laden?

They will have conquered the Judeo/Christian civilisation, with everyone forced back through fear, as the Caliphate is established on the ground from one end of the Earth to the other, and linked from nation to nation. You, reading this, may not be able to perceive what I am saying here, but that doesn’t mean it is not real, it is just that you have no concept of this truth and the end time goal of Islam. There are those who will agree with me though, and that includes the whole of the Islamic religion who behind closed doors, believe it is their (false) religious destiny. Al Qaeda and the Taliban defeated the Russian Super Power in Afghanistan 20+ years ago, so in the religious minds of Moslems, based upon their holy books, why can they not achieve the same again in modern times against America, who the Islamic world believes to be the Great Satan that is the ultimate opposition to their religion?


Same war (Holy War,) just different warfare and tactics, with those of us living in the West, being the ones who are now on the receiving end of it, surrounded by millions of Moslems who carry the reality of their religion at the core of who they are, that you don’t know because you do not think like them because you are not one of them.
Just because religious Moslems smile at you does not mean they carry a benign attitude towards you, which is played out on different levels. To Islam, you are the dirty kuffar after all, no matter which way you look at it.


Christianity motivates people to act differently in society based upon the teachings of Christ, compared to non-Christians, and the same goes for Moslems based upon the teachings of Mohamed.


Chalk and cheese. Britain is a short plane journey across the water, and then your there, landed in the greatest battlefield for the Jihad on Earth ‘America’ (The Great Satan.) In Britain the Government is handing out passports like sweets, to Moslem immigrants and asylum seekers who have arrived upon our shores. Enabling those militant Moslems from amongst them to land upon American soil, under the radar, because of the Queens Crown stamped on their passports.

The Crown that was, at one time, a sign of ‘solidarity and friendship’ with the American people, which has now become the most serious threat from amongst the family of Nations.
The 21st Century reality of the World we in Britain and America are now living in.
Osama Bin Laden and the Islamic Worlds War against America and the West being fought by-proxy by our own nations and those living within them.


Wake up! Decide whether you are standing yet, where you stand, and who you stand with, because we are all walking towards the future reality and all that it contains.
Those of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, never started this. You can blame it on the Moslem extremists who are willing to carry out the violent commands of Mohamed, to enforce their religious will on others, which is submission to Islamic supremacy at all costs. It is the Koran that religiously sanctions this violence against non-Moslems, as part of its mandate, so moderate Islam and violent Islam is one and the same thing because Mohamed and the Koran are both at the root of their religion, which cannot be changed or altered. They just have different approaches.


Not everyone in life is violent. They haven’t got it in them to be. It’s not a part of their make up. But they will sit back, allow and support those who are, because their religious agenda is the same. They know in their hearts and in their minds, that they work together, because they are both different aspects of the Ummah. It’s only the Liberals who know nothing about the religion Islam that don’t know this and deny it, as they defend their Moslem masters like the good Dhimmis that they have become.


The clock ticks on the next Islamic terror attack to hit British or America shores, the questions are; when, where and how big?
The CIA has a very good idea and they have briefed their Commandeering Chief.


The above news content was edited and SEO optimized in Israel for the Internet by the Leyden Communications Internet Marketing SEO Group - Israel, London, New York.


Saturday, February 21, 2009

Germany To Iran: Stop Lying About Holocaust, It's Fact

Germany To Iran: Stop Lying About Holocaust, It's Fact

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
http://www.israelnewsagency.com/iranmahmoudahmadinejadgerhardschroedergermanyholocaustdenialjewsjewishhistoryfactadolfhitlerarabsisraelpalestinegenocide48022209.html


Jerusalem --- February 21, 2009...... It's my country, my history and my nation's past collective crime. These were the brave words behind former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder statement in Iran today when he declared that the "Holocaust is a historical fact".

Schroeder was in Iran speaking to the Iran Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Teheran. Schroeder added that it did not make sense to deny "this unparalleled crime for which Adolf Hitler is responsible."

The former Germany leader met with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today against a wide protest by German Jewish leaders. Schroeder was on an unofficial tour of Iran to inaugurate a neuroscience center co-founded by a Germany - based Iran specialist.
German politicians and Jewish community leaders spoke out against Schroeder for his meeting with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Schroeder, who is a senior manager at the Russia energy giant Gazprom, arrived in Tehran on Thursday.

By meeting with Ahmadinejad, "Schroeder has harmed the image of the German government and of the whole of Germany," said Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

But many see Schroeder's visit as an effective protest against Iran's campaign to turn the Holocaust into a myth. His visit was also seen as a bridging attempt between the new US administration and Iran's Islamic leadership. The former chancellor called for opening direct talks between Iran and the US.

In 2005, "Ahmadinejad stated: "They (the Jews) have created a myth (Holocaust) today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets."
On live TV, he called for Europe or North America - even Alaska - to host a Jewish state, not the Middle East.

Israel swiftly denounced the president's comments.
"We hope these extremist comments will make the international community open its eyes and abandon any illusions about this regime," former Israel foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev told AFP news agency.

Ahmadinejad's declaration echoed comments he made one week earlier, in which he said territory should be "provided" in Germany or Austria to establish Israel "if European countries claim that they have killed Jews in World War II".

Ahmadinejad who in the same breath denied that the Holocaust ever took place declared that Israel should be "wiped off the map".

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was asked by MSNBC anchor Brian Williams why he described the Holocaust as a myth. Ahmadinejad responded that he was an academic and had great knowledge. Ahmadinejad questioned Williams as to why people only talk about the 6 million Jews when over 50 million died in the second world war. Williams responded without hesitation."Because of the difference that human kind differentiates between warfare and genocide."

Ahmadinejad had no response to this answer as then spinned into "if" the Holocaust did occur then why did the Palestinian people have to suffer. Ahmadinejad made no mention of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Ahmadinejad made no mention that as modern Israel was created in 1948, the Palestinians were offered a nation of their own but refused it to join the invading Arab armies to destroy the new born Jewish state with the promises of being given more land.

The Iran government has sponsored many Holocaust denying conferences and even a Holocaust cartoon contest whose aim was to discredit the Holocaust.

Denial of the Holocaust has become a serious crime in several Western nations including Germany, England and the US. The Pope recently told Jewish leaders from the US that it is unacceptable to deny or minimize the Holocaust.

Essential elements in discrediting the Holocaust are the rejection of that the Nazi government had a policy of deliberately targeting Jews and people of Jewish ancestry for extermination as a people; that between five and seven million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis and their allies; and that genocide was carried out at extermination camps using tools of mass murder, such as gas chambers.

Holocaust deniers do not accept the term "denial" as an appropriate description of their point of view, and use the term Holocaust revisionism instead.

Holocaust denial claims imply, or openly state, that the Holocaust is a hoax arising out of a deliberate Jewish conspiracy to advance the interest of Jews at the expense of other peoples.

The Holocaust (also called Shoah in Hebrew) refers to the period from January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, to May 8, 1945 (V­E Day), when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe were subjected to progressively harsh persecution that ultimately led to the murder of 6,000,000 Jews (1.5 million of these being children) and the destruction of 5,000 Jewish communities. These deaths represented two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of world Jewry. The Jews who died were not casualties of the fighting that ravaged Europe during World War II. Rather, they were the victims of Germany's deliberate and systematic attempt to annihilate the entire Jewish population of Europe, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution” (Endlosung).


For more information about the Holocaust, please enter the Yad Veshem Holocaust Memorial Web site.


The above news content was edited and SEO optimized in Israel for the Internet by the Leyden Communications Internet Marketing SEO Group - Israel, London, New York.

Former German chancellor to Iran: Holocaust is a fact

Former German chancellor to Iran: Holocaust is a fact



Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said in Iran on Saturday that the Holocaust is a historical fact, contradicting the Iranian president's previous assertions that the event is a myth.

Addressing the Iranian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Teheran, Schroeder added that it did not make sense to deny "this unparalleled crime for which Adolf Hitler is responsible."

Schroeder also called for dialogue between Teheran and Washington, saying President Barack Obama's election has provideda new opportunity and that the chance "for a new policy must be taken now."

The former German chancellor, who was expected to meet Ahmadinejad later in his visit, was on an unofficial tour of Iran to inaugurate a neuroscience center co-founded by a Germany-based Iranian specialist.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Israel Internet SEO PR Cyber Warriors - London, New York - Leyden

Israel's Cyber Warriors


By Lucy Tobin
The Jewish Chronicle
February 12, 2009

Many people heard about last month’s pro-Israel rally in
Trafalgar Square via social networking site Facebook

When Joel Leyden speaks about Israel, 89,000 people listen.
His name may not be familiar, but if you have ever used Google to look up anything on the Middle East, then you have probably had your search results influenced by him. And if you are one of the 150 million users of the social networking website Facebook, then it is likely that you have read something written by him. You might even be one of the almost 100,000 members of his group called “I support the Israel Defence Forces in Preventing Terror Attacks from Gaza.”

Leyden is one of the new breed of campaigners who use the internet to put across the Israeli perspective to a huge and growing audience. Their activities are diverse.

A week after Operation Cast Lead began in Gaza, more than 10,000 users around the world had signed up to Qassam Count, an IT application invented by 26-year-old French-Israeli Dan Peguine. The free program invites users on sites like Facebook and its rival, Twitter, to keep a running total of the terrorist rockets landing in southern Israel. That message is then visible to millions of surfers.

Grassroots activism is the most important form of campaigning, according to Leyden, 52, who describes himself as an “internet marketing pioneer”. Dividing his time between London, Israel and New York, he runs the Israel Government-approved Israel News Agency (www.israelnewsagency.com) IsraelPr.com and London SEO Marketing but spends the rest of his “18-hour days” organising pro-Israel groups on comment and blogging sites like Digg (www. digg.com) and FreeRepublic (www.freerepublic.com).

“The Internet has become the place to organise and protest,” he says. “When the Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest [the 2006 competition sponsored by an anti-Zionist Iranian newspaper] was announced, we used search engine optimisation [directing search engine results], to successfully bury the Iran content, and added text inserts into their cartoons which explained the facts of the Holocaust.”

Leyden points out that to be truly effective on the Internet, advocates of Israel’s cause need not only to master PR and SEO but to master language, too.

“We need to communicate in Arabic if we want to be understood and respected by the Arab world. We need to let the world know in local dialects that Israel seeks peace. The internet is making the world a smaller place, so it is up to us to use these new digital tools to create respect, tolerance and understanding.”

Leyden’s work has left him a victim of personal attacks. One group established last week called “Joel Leyden is an enemy of Facebook” has superimposed graphic swear words on top of a picture of him. He responded by sending out a message alerting people to the group.

Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice chair of the Zionist Federation, confirms that the Internet is playing an increasing role for defenders of Israel’s image.

“There are many who challenge the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and the vast majority of them can be found on the internet,” he says.

“Fortunately there are many good websites where the cyber-warrior can find information. The main sites are well-known but there are also a number of excellent lesser-known niche sites.”

One of the best, he says, is Zionism On The Web (www.zionismontheweb.org) created by Australian Dr André Oboler, who also combats antisemitism on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, and describes writer Paul Bogdanor’s personal site (www.paulbogdanor.com) as a “wonderful” resource for “material to combat every type of antizionism and antisemitism.”

“In short,” he concludes, “no-one can reasonably complain that there is too little information. On the contrary, very soon the budding cyberwarrior realises that the problem is one of excess.”

Unsurprisingly, it is the generation that has grown up with social networking sites that is particularly active in countering anti-Zionist propaganda. Newly impassioned teens and twentysomethings are using their networks of online friends to advance Israel’s cause.

Ben Winton, a 17-year-old A Level student at Immanuel College, North London, was inspired to become an online campaigner by Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip.

“When Israeli troops moved into Gaza, I did my best to spread the videos and emails that people needed to see, setting up [Facebook] groups to organise masses to attend rallies,” he says.

“There was a very good response. An attempt to get people to attend [last month’s pro-Israel] Trafalgar Square rally led to 1,118 people responding that they would attend, with almost a thousand others ‘maybe attending’. There’s no way of knowing how many people kept to their word, but they did have an awareness of the cause. Nothing spreads quicker than the internet.”

For 19-year-old Emma Stone, who is in her first year of a degree in marketing at University College Birmingham, the internet is one of the main places she can advance her pro-Israel perspective.

“I spend a lot of time online replying to comments made underneath articles on sites like the BBC,” she says. “People write ignorant things about Israel, and one of the best things about the net is you have the ability to correct them.

“Plus, the Internet is amazing for organising events and campaigns — it’s the way forward. I use it as part of my work as president of JSoc at Birmingham. I definitely feel part of a growing set of young people who use the net as a tool to promote Israel — and I feel proud that I can reach so many people in this way.”

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Internet Advertising PR, SEO - Surviving UK London Credit Crunch Recession

Internet Advertising PR, SEO - Surviving UK London Credit Crunch Recession

February 12, 2009

Internet Advertising PR, SEO - Surviving UK London Credit Crunch Recession

LONDON (United Kingdom News Agency) 02/12/09
—- In the current global economic meltdown, Internet advertising and Internet PR have become one of the key, most potent solutions for business to business and business to consumer promotion for 2009.

While the general and financial media continue to drive the self fulfilling prophecy of recession, professional SEO, Internet advertising and PR companies have been working these trends and have become, in effect recession proof.

“For Internet advertisers and marketing professionals, the essential advantages are stickiness-reader retentiveness and greater return on investment of marketing, advertising and PR budgets, ” says Joel Leyden, a pioneer in Internet advertising, SEO and PR, and president of London SEO Marketing.com.

Leyden has long been aware of the economic and demographic benefits of Internet advertising over classical print and broadcast advertising and has been securing a substantial increase in the amount of businesses approaching his agency in London, New York and in Israel for targeted Internet advertising packages.

Leading newspapers and magazines are reporting significant downturns in the annual spend on print advertising and this is set to continue, as businesses look to make more cost-effective use of their advertising, PR and marketing budgets during the recession.

Philip Stafford and Tim Bradshaw of the UK Financial Times revealed this week that investment in Internet, wireless services and software had the greatest growth in the UK for 2008, taking £279m, up 66 percent since 2007, with software up by 41 percent, to £223m. Investment by venture capitalists in UK, England and Irish technology companies, last year reached the highest level since 2001.

With few financial institutions readily lending money to commercial operations, the UK, England and Ireland have seen a recent increase in venture capitalist and angel investors, choosing to invest in Internet based companies. The decline in market confidence in the traditional London High Street retail sector and the growth in online, digital businesses has encouraged venture capitalists to look at other ways to invest. VC companies and investors from London, New York and Tel Aviv to Paris, Frankfurt and Tokyo are reluctant to allocate funds to companies they have not already committed to and are topping up investments in Internet companies in which they have already invested. VC companies want to avoid making exits in the current economic climate.

Europe’s telecommunications and mobile telephone companies are still investing billions of Euros into the continent’s Internet system, creating and sustaining jobs and allowing more people to have access to what has become the communications channel of choice.

Angel investors, who again have benefitted from the current lack of availability to businesses of traditional bank funding, have also looked at Internet companies as a secure option. They stand to benefit from longer term growth since their investment is often greater than VC companies and at the start-up stage of companies’ business activities.

Internet advertising spending is now larger than established print displays, classifieds, and regional newspapers. The recent findings from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the UK online advertising trade body, carried out in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC), revealed a continued healthy growth, despite the recession, as Internet advertising looks set to overtake spending on TV advertising by the end of 2009.

Retail brands are now using Internet advertising and search more intelligently, focussing on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to gain maximum exposure for their business on the Internet. Search Engine Optimisation is the process used to ensure the companies’ Website is designed to entice the search engines, and can easily be found by searching using targeted key words, most relevant to the desired product or service. This ensures maximum traffic to the Website without having to use expensive Pay Per Click campaigns (PPC) where each click onto the Website costs the company money.

Classic print and broadcast advertising has become an expensive alternative. Advertising in print has a limited life span, whereas advertising on the Internet gains maximum and longer lasting exposure for the advertiser. Access to their product online is constantly available and, used in conjunction with SEO, Internet advertising accurately targets specific consumer groups. Using Internet display advertising, with video and interactive Web content targets a mass reach through networks, vastly increasing interest in the marketers’ Website.

The UK – from London, Manchester and Birmingham is now at an all time high for online activity, according to recent figures from analysts Mintel. Seventy percent of adults and young people over sixteen have access to the Internet, which is an increase from fifty percent five years ago. Internet advertising is predicted to continue to be a high growth area over the next ten years, despite what many are predicting will be a long and deep recession.

The ability to utilise already established online outlets as a way to promote businesses has become highly sophisticated. As with any form of advertising, those using the Internet know their market and are able to monitor response from the Internet with far greater accuracy than traditional print advertising. Using the analytics of the Website to monitor the results of the optimisation ensures complete control over spending on marketing the Website, which is essential for companies now wanting maximum return on limited marketing budgets.

“Despite the recession, there has never been as better time to start an online business. Niche markets and a focused Website can ensure visibility which can far exceed that of a traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ outlet,” says Leyden.

“Online social networking has encouraged service providers and retail businesses to use cost-effective Internet advertising, public relations and Web 2.0 viral marketing to reach huge audiences. By 2013, we can safely predict that an estimated 52% of Internet users will be regular social network visitors.”

“The steady stream of Web 2.0 social networking updates and digital news is now a weekly—or even daily—habit for many online users,” says Leyden. “That stickiness is good news for social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, PalTalk, Twitter, Skype, Google and Yahoo groups.”

The future is bright for the Internet. Those who use it have immediate 24/7 access to global services, products and information. Those who use the Internet for advertising their business or organizations reach an audience far greater than ever previously possible. The ability of Internet advertising and digital PR companies to provide a lower cost service to companies across the commercial spectrum will ensure their longevity and that of their clients during the current economic crisis.



Contact information:

Monique Lester
London SEO Marketing Ltd.
moniquelester393@gmail.com

Monday, February 9, 2009

Can you guess what this is?



Internet PR, SEO Defies UK, US Economy Recession

Venture capital in £1bn UK and Irish tech push

By Philip Stafford and Tim Bradshaw
Published: February 9 2009 02:00 Last updated: February 9 2009 02:00

Venture capital investment in UK and Irish technology companies last year hit the highest level since the dotcom boom ended in 2001, apparently shrugging off the pressures of the economic downturn.

Ascendant, an adviser to smaller companies looking to raise money, has calculated that just over £1bn was invested in the sector last year - up 15 per cent on 2007 - in 253 deals, compared with 242 deals in 2007.

But the reasons behind the volume of investment are sparking scepticism about the prospects for this year. Many of last year's fundraisings were follow-on financing rounds for companies in which VCs had already invested.

With little chance for VCs to exit their investments via flotations on London's dried-up junior Aim market, many felt obliged to top up their commitments. The scant availability of bank funding amid the credit crunch compounded the situation for many VC companies.

"Because it is a terrible environment for exits, a lot of VCs have reallocated more money to portfolio companies to protect them," said Fred Destin, partner at Atlas Ventures, a prominent technology VC.

Stan Boland, chief executive of Icera, which makes chips for mobile phones and raised £67m in two rounds last year, said: "VC firms were not going to invest in companies they were not already committed to."

Figures for VC financing activity in the fourth quarter of last year - when the number of deals tailed off - support the theory that 2008 was a blip.

Balderton Capital and Accel Partners were among the most active in the market late last year. Overall, however, there was nervousness, executives say.
Icera was among 2008's largest fundraisings, followed by SpinVox, which raised £50m, and Arts Alliance Media, which raised £39m.

Internet, wireless services and software had the greatest growth, taking £279m, up 66 per cent, while software investments rose 41 per cent to £223m.
However, clean technology investments dropped 37 per cent.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Why Anglos Leave Israel, Why Aliya Fails

Why I'm heading back to the US



(Comment by Joel Leyden: David never truly became an Israeli. Over 90 percent of Anglos return to their native countries. But even if David had culturally adapted, the job market in Israel is smaller than Long Island .... and wages are about two thirds less than in the States or the UK.
Solution:
Work in both the States, the UK and Israel. Don't blame the Israelis - blame yourself!)

When I made aliya in December 2002, I thought a guy with years of Silicon Valley experience, an MS in computer science and an MBA could be of use to this country's burgeoning hi-tech industry. Next month, I'm heading back to the US.

The biggest existential risks to the nation don't come from the Muslim world. They come from Israelis' own minds. Look at how little our leaders think about aliya: Three heads of absorption in two years, as nobody seems to want the job and the Knesset underfunds or kills programs for successful absorption.

There's a saying that most olim quickly learn in ulpan: "Israel loves aliya, but Israelis hate olim." That's a problem in an immigrant nation. The way it shows in my case is simple: I can't find a job using my skills.

I have serious sympathies for the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and other places, who must take menial jobs, receiving lower than subsistence wages, because even that's better than where they came from and they have nowhere else to go. Compared to them, I have it easy. However, that's only in comparison.

A BIG PROBLEM is the lack of understanding of the change in Western aliya. The memories are all of the last big period of Western immigration. In the 1970s and '80s, many kids straight out of high school and college came here. The nation was set up to handle them. Many layers of Hebrew ulpan existed, the youths served in the army, lived on kibbutzim and, as a cohort, helped each other immigrate into the society. Today, there are primarily two categories of Western olim. First, religious Jews who move into segregated societies and often don't appear in mainstream jobs and areas. Second, mid-career olim the same age as the last bulk of Westerners.

The problems we in that second category have are multiple. First there's the absorption process. We're lucky if there's even one other English speaker in ulpan, making it hard to study and practice. To make matters worse, the government just killed almost all uplanim as just not being important to the country's interests.

There's the problem of job hunting. One of the first phrases most olim learn is "Vitamin P," or protekzia. This means groups of Israelis working to protect each other in the job arena, with the government bureaucracy and in so many other areas of life. "Protect" against whom? In the case of Western olim, it's usually against us.

I have had more than one veteran immigrant tell me that it'd be hard to get a technology marketing job here because anyone who can speak English can do the job, so companies will choose someone who knows Hebrew. There are problems with that rationalization. Native English speaking might help, but here's a lot more to technology and marketing than that. Heblish has always worked, with educated Israelis able to work with me to create appropriate collateral.

As importantly, how is our Hebrew to improve without spending time in the workforce? Marketing skills are in short supply here, and it's much easier to work on Hebrew than gain those.

Veteran olim also don't wish to admit times change. During the big aliya of the '70s and '80s, they were primarily kids right out of high school and college. They came in groups, went through ulpan and the army in groups and helped each other start from the beginning, low-level jobs and then to rise, forming their own protexia.

Modern Western olim are more likely to be mid-career, middle aged and parents. We are too old to serve in the army, usually the only English speakers in our ulpanim and have strong sets of skills that could immediately help the country.

THEN THERE'S the sabra syndrome. There's an old hi-tech problem called the "not built here" syndrome, where developers don't want to look at or integrate software they haven't created on their own. Extend that to a national level. When I can have a company fly me back to the San Francisco Bay area for a job interview, while I can't get a call back from a company only a kilometer away, it's hard to blame anything other than a problem in acknowledging olim might have something to offer. I've looked for more than five years for jobs that matched my skills, and I can't get any serious interviews. Meanwhile, as I've mentioned, I have interest from 8,000 miles away.

Even without such a job, I've tried to make it work. The same groups who rationalize that I should go back in my career because I've moved to a new country are the first to throw away my CV when I do apply to such jobs. Why? Because I'm overqualified. They assume I can't figure that out. Either they think I'll want too much money, or they'd just rather find someone who's underqualified. No educated Western oleh comes here thinking we'll make the same money as we did back there. We've made a Zionist choice. However, modern Israelis think that's foolish, and that's another negative in their eyes

THERE'S ALWAYS the consulting option. But this is where a major cultural problem comes most in focus. One of the biggest insults here is to call someone a frier, i.e. someone who treats a business partner, client or supplier honestly, looking for the win-win rather than trying to steal from him. Israelis are much worse than Americans at paying bills on time. Too many demand ridiculously low wages or fees.

Over the summer yet another client treated me in typical Israeli fashion that would be considered grossly unprofessional in an advanced nation. I had to spend almost NIS 1,000 for a lawyer to get the "professional" to pay what he should have paid without question.

Another client, with whom I had good working relations, couldn't get me paid. Even though we signed a net 30-day payment agreement, her accounts payable department consistently decided I should only be paid net 90 days and, as of this writing, I haven't been paid my final invoice in close to six months.

That shouldn't have to happen. As Jerusalem Post articles have mentioned, Israel suffers from a brain drain. Educated Israelis are being frightened away from hi-tech. If you can't even keep people here, shouldn't you be that much happier when people freely chose to come?

Israeli start-ups claim they are trying to change from quickly creating a technology and selling it to a foreign company to trying to create a going concern. That takes experience and expertise. A company that advertises for someone who knows the global market, understands technology and can create real marketing messages and yet still treats that employee the same way as in an older economy shows a bad combination of ego and naiveté.

To those recent olim who have made it: Mazal tov. I'm am truly happy for you.

To those Israelis afraid of the wider world, relax. Now that the Jewish Agency, which worked with all Jews, has handed over North American aliya to Nefesh B'Nefesh, focused on Orthodox Jews, you should see many fewer secular Jews with experience coming over.

I'm a Zionist. I came here because I thought I could help Israel move forward. However, the nation said it doesn't want me. Luckily for me, and unlike many other immigrants, I have a choice. I can go back. I don't want to, but Israelis have removed all other choices. So back I head.

The writer has worked in hi-tech since 1980 and has been a Zionist even longer.

David Harris: Hypocrisy from a Norway diplomat who equates Israel with Nazis

Dear Ms. Trine Lilleng,

You were an unknown Norwegian diplomat till this month.

No longer.

As first secretary in the Norwegian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, you recently sent out an email on your office account in which you declared: "The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany."

Accompanying your text were photos, with an emphasis on children, seeking to juxtapose the Holocaust with the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza.

Clearly, you are miscast in your role as a diplomat, all the more so of a nation that has sought to play a mediating role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In fact, you're desperately in need of some education.

Let's begin with your current posting. You've been in Riyadh since 2007.

If you're so anguished by human rights violations, perhaps you could have begun by devoting some of your attention - and email blasts - to what surrounds you.

Or were your eyes diplomatically shut?

Have you failed to notice the many legal executions, including beheadings, going on in your assigned country?

Have you ignored the often abysmal treatment of foreign workers, many from Asia, who also happen to be disproportionately counted among the victims of Saudi capital punishment?

Have you neglected the gender apartheid that surrounds you? Did you ever look out of your car to notice that Saudi women are proscribed from driving, and that's hardly the worst of it?

Have you checked the skyline of Riyadh or Jeddah lately to count the number of church spires or other non-Muslim houses of worship?

Have you bothered to inquire about the fate of homosexuals?

Okay, you were AWOL on those issues. Maybe you just didn't want to offend your hosts by speaking the truth, or maybe you're suffering from that diplomatic disease known as "localitis" or "clientitis."

But surely a woman like you, with such capacity for empathy for those in far-away places, and especially for children in danger, couldn't remain silent about other human rights transgressions, could she?

After all, could an individual so deeply moved by the plight of Palestinians in Gaza remain silent about what a New York Times columnist earlier this month described as "hell on earth" - Zimbabwe? Could a person so anguished by the fate of Palestinian children stay mum about a country where a girl's life expectancy at birth is 34, much less than half that of her Norwegian counterpart, and where the health care sector has vaporized, all thanks to the one-man rule of Robert Mugabe?

Could such a dedicated humanist possibly avert her eyes from the deadliest conflict since the Second World War, which has killed over five million people, many of them children, in the Congo in the past decade - not to mention the documented and widespread use of torture, rape, and arbitrary detention?

An observer of such acute sensitivity could hardly hold her tongue while Afghan girls attempting to go to school have been doused with acid by those who wish to deny young women access to education, reminiscent of the five years of Taliban rule, could she?

In neighboring Pakistan, where you served in the Norwegian embassy for three years, the beleaguered human rights community must have been fortunate to have such an impassioned voice for all that's wrong in this failing state. Or was that voice, perhaps, on mute?

The children of Sderot, the Israeli town near the Gaza border, have been in desperate need of just such a spokesperson as you for the past eight years.

After all, their town has been in the crosshairs of literally thousands of missiles and mortars fired from Gaza. Those Israeli children live with all the signs of trauma, knowing that, with only 15 seconds warning, they could be hit at any time in their schools, their parks, or their beds. Yet, during my visit there last week, for some reason, those children and their parents had yet to hear you speak out for them. What a pity!

And the children of Iran could use your help as well. According to human rights groups, Iran has no compunction about executing children or those who were children when their crimes were allegedly committed.

Oh, and by the way, your compassionate help would also undoubtedly be welcomed by others under the gun in Iran, including women's rights activists, union organizers, student protesters, independent journalists, reformist politicians, and religious minorities. And let's not forget, once again, the children of Israel, who, according to the Iranian president, don't have a right to live.

But wait! A Google search about you reveals nothing, not a single word, regarding your views on Zimbabwe, Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sderot, or Iran. Or, for that matter, Burma, Darfur, Syria. Shall I go on?

Only Israel, faced with those who wish to destroy it, manages to prompt your impassioned correspondence and righteous indignation. Why?

No less, your stunning lack of education extends beyond the contemporary world to 20th century history, specifically the Holocaust.

Your invocation of the Holocaust to describe what's taken place in Gaza is, frankly, nothing short of obscene.

Your claim that the grandchildren of the survivors are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them goes beyond any norm of decency, much less honesty.

Approve or disapprove of the Israeli military operation, but there is no basis whatsoever for such a comparison.

When Israel entered Gaza in a war of self-defense in 1967, the population was 360,000. After Israel withdrew totally from Gaza in 2005, it was estimated at 1.4 million.

Would that the Jewish population under Nazi rule had quadrupled!

When Israel entered Gaza in 1967, life expectancy for women was 46. When it left Gaza, it was 73.

Shall we even bother to discuss life expectancy for Jews under Nazi occupation?

The Second World War in Europe lasted from September 1, 1939 to May 8, 1945 - 68 months in all. That means an average monthly extermination rate of nearly 90,000 Jews.

Compare that to the total number of victims in Gaza over three weeks - roughly guesstimated at more or less 1,000 - and recall that the majority were armed fighters committed to Israel's destruction, who used civilians, including children, as human shields, mosques as arms depots, and hospitals as sanctuaries.

Believe me, Ms. Lilleng, if the "grandchildren of the Holocaust survivors" had wanted to do exactly what the Nazis did to their grandparents, they would have unleashed their full air, land, and sea power. They would have thrown the Israel Defense Forces' ethical guidelines to the wind, kicked out the UN and Red Cross personnel on the ground, stopped humanitarian transports of food, fuel, and medicine, prevented media reporting, and left absolutely nothing - and no one - standing.

Unless, of course, they needed slave labor, in which case they would have carted off the able-bodied to work in Auschwitz replicas until they dropped. Or material for ghoulish medical experimentation, in which case, in the spirit of Mengele, they would have kept Palestinian twins alive temporarily.

But Israel didn't do any of these things. It's a peace-seeking democracy dedicated to the rule of law - unlike so many of the countries whose horrific sins you blithely choose to overlook.

What are we to make of your selective moral outrage and rank hypocrisy?

You ought to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why Israel, and only Israel, makes your blood boil and leads you to speak out, even at the risk of grossly distorting both reality and history.

The answer, Ms. Lilleng, should be painfully obvious.


David Harris is Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).