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{UnitedHinduFront} Terrorism not an option for hindus (Unitedhindufront@googlegroups.com)

2008-11-12T00:31:21Z

From: guruprasanth.ranipet@gmail.com Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008

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Terrorism is certainly not an option for hindus in India.Muslims and Hindus can not be compared at all.

1) Hindus however rich or poor send their children to school in the hope of better life.In case of muslims
it's not the case.Muslims however rich or poor do not believe that education can give them better life.

2) Hindus THROUGHOUT THE WORLD have adapted well in the country they live.They not only contribute
to the economy but also became outstanding and most important citizens in their country.They do not
create any problem for local people.The less said of muslims in this respect better it's.

3) In global scenario hindus are slowly and steadily becoming big in business.

4) In Space research too hindus are becoming influential.

So the only area where hindus are not doing good is politics in India.Even there Hindu politicians are doing good at the
cost of their religion.This trend has to be changed.

At this point of time Hindus should not take weapons and fight against the enemies.Instead they should goto
election boot and vote.Hindus taking weapon at this stage would affect Hindus world wide.The psedo-secular
hindus will start drifting away further.Fence sitting Hindus who sympathise with hindutva but do not publicly
support will not support hindutva cause.Fence sitting hindus are in large numbers.
Take over the government and then punish the terrorist.Hindus should use chanakya brain to defeat terrorist,missionaries,
etc.

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Gospel of Jesus; can you believe this?i) Holy Bible - New Testament, Luke 12; 51-53: Jesus said:"Do you suppose that I came to bring peace to the World? No, not peace, but division. From now on a family of five will be divided, three against two and two against three. Fathers will be against their sons, and sons against their fathers; mothers will be against their daughters and daughters against their mothers; mothers-in-law will be against their daughters-in-law, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law." ii)Holy Bible, New Testament, Luke 20; 27 : Jesus said: for those enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and kill them in my presence.

2008-11-12T00:24:10Z

Gospel of Jesus; can you believe this?
i) Holy Bible - New Testament, Luke 12; 51-53: Jesus said:
"Do you suppose that I came to bring peace to the World? No, not peace, but division. From now on a family of five will be divided, three against two and two against three. Fathers will be against their sons, and sons against their fathers; mothers will be against their daughters and daughters against their mothers; mothers-in-law will be against their daughters-in-law, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law."
ii)Holy Bible, New Testament, Luke 20; 27 : Jesus said: “for those enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and kill them in my presence.”

Tirukural - Chapter 62: Perseverance; Never say in weakness, "This task is too difficult." Perseverance will confer the ability to accomplish it. (Kauai_Hindu_Monastery@jnanadana.com)

2008-11-12T00:09:05Z

From: Kauai_Hindu_Monastery@jnanadana.com

Tirukural
A daily chapter from South Indian saint Tiruvalluvar's Tirukural, "Holy Couplets."

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Chapter 62: Perseverance

Kural 611
Never say in weakness, "This task is too difficult."
Perseverance will confer the ability to accomplish it.
Kural 612
Beware of leaving any work undone, remembering that the world
abandons those who abandon their work unfinished.
Kural 613
The pride of profuse giving dwells only
with the dignity of diligent effort.
Kural 614
Like the swordsmanship of an effeminate man, the philanthropy
of those who avoid hard work will end in failure.
Kural 615
Standing like a pillar, he who prefers work to pleasure
supports his family and sweeps away their every sad sorrow.
Kural 616
Perseverance generates prosperity,
and the lack of it engenders poverty.
Kural 617
They say the black ogress called Misfortune lurks in laziness,
while Goddess Fortune lingers in the laboring toils of active men.
Kural 618
To be destitute of good fortune is no one's disgrace, but shame
belongs to those devoid of wisdom and tenacity.
Kural 619
Though destiny decrees that one's deeds will fail,
the wages for determined work are always paid.
Kural 620
Those who strive with tireless exertion and remain undaunted
will live to behold the backside of retreating Fate.

Vedic Verses for 11/11/08 : If anything ails him during that third period, he should recite the following mantra: O ye pranas, ye Adityas, extend this my third libation to the full age. May I, who am a sacrifice, not disappear in the midst of the pranas, who are the Adityas. Thus he rises from his illness and becomes free of it. (Kauai_Hindu_Monastery@jnanadana.com)

2008-11-12T00:07:07Z

From: Kauai_Hindu_Monastery@jnanadana.com Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Vedic Verses
A daily collection of verses from the Vedas, Hinduism's revealed scripture

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Vedic Verses for 11/11/08

His next forty-eight years constitute the third oblation. The Jagati metre has forty-eight syllables and the third oblation is offered with Jagati hymns. The Adityas are connected with that part of the sacrifice. The pranas are the Adityas; for, verily,they take up (adadate) every-thing.

Sama Veda, Chandogya Upanishad III, XVI - Man as a Sacrifice (I), 5

If anything ails him during that third period, he should recite the following mantra: O ye pranas, ye Adityas, extend this my third libation to the full age. May I, who am a sacrifice, not disappear in the midst of the pranas, who are the Adityas. Thus he rises from his illness and becomes free of it.

Sama Veda, Chandogya Upanishad III, XVI - Man as a Sacrifice (I), 6

Mahidasa, the son of Itara, knew this and said addressing a disease: O you disease! Why do you afflict me? I shall not die of this pain He lived a hundred and sixteen years. He, too, who knows this lives on to a hundred and sixteen years.

Sama Veda, Chandogya Upanishad III, XVI - Man as a Sacrifice (I), 7

When a man hungers, thirsts and abstains from pleasures-these are his initiatory rites.

Sama Veda, Chandogya Upanishad III, XVII - Man as a Sacrifice (II), 1

When he eats, drinks and enjoys pleasures, he then participates in Upasadas.

Sama Veda, Chandogya Upanishad III, XVII - Man as a Sacrifice (II), 2

Vedic Verses for 11/11/08 : If anything ails him during that third period, he should recite the following mantra: O ye pranas, ye Adityas, extend this my third libation to the full age. May I, who am a sacrifice, not disappear in the midst of the pranas, who are the Adityas. Thus he rises from his illness and becomes free of it. (Kauai_Hindu_Monastery@jnanadana.com)

2008-11-12T00:05:54Z

Gospel of Jesus; can you believe this?) Holy Bible - New Testament, Luke 12; 51-53: Jesus said:"Do you suppose that I came to bring peace to the World? No, not peace, but division. From now on a family of five will be divided, three against two and two against three. Fathers will be against their sons, and sons against their fathers; mothers will be against their daughters and daughters against their mothers; mothers-in-law will be against their daughters-in-law, and daughters-in-law against their mothers-in-law."ii)Holy Bible, New Testament, Luke 20; 27 : Jesus said: for those enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and kill them in my presence.

2008-11-11T00:46:53Z

India to release 30 Pak prisoners on Nov 14 (pioneer)

2008-11-11T00:45:43Z

PTI | Islamabad

India will release 30 Pakistani nationals, who have completed their prison terms in the country, and will hand them over at the Wagah land border on November 14.

The Pakistan-India Judicial Committee on Prisoners recently recommended that prisoners who had completed their prison terms and whose nationality had been confirmed should be released from jail speedily.

Official sources here said PTI that the Indian Government would hand over the 30 Pakistani nationals to authorities at the Wagah land border. The Pakistani nationals had been arrested and jailed for various crimes.

The Judicial Committee on Prisoners visited jails in both countries and met Indian and Pakistani prisoners. The two countries have also exchanged lists of prisoners.

India has informed Pakistan that about 370 Pakistanis are currently detained in its jails. However, Pakistani officials claim over 600 Pakistanis are in Indian jails and over 150 have completed their terms.

PM of India wraps up maiden Gulf visit with security, investment deal. The highlight of the November 8-10, two-nation visit was the signing of defence and security cooperation agreement with Qatar that lays the framework for collaboration on maritime security, sharing intelligence and information on extremist threats, money laundering and smuggling of narcotics. New Delhi and Muscat also put together a $100-million fund for financing multi-sector projects in the two countries.

2008-11-11T00:45:09Z

From: dailypioneer date: 11.11.08

PTI | Doha

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday wrapped up his maiden visit to the Gulf on a successful note that saw him inking agreements for defence cooperation with Qatar and investments with Oman, and more crucially making a pitch for stepping up energy imports.

The highlight of the November 8-10, two-nation visit was the signing of defence and security cooperation agreement with Qatar that lays the framework for collaboration on maritime security, sharing intelligence and information on extremist threats, money laundering and smuggling of narcotics.

"The agreement is just short of stationing troops (in the region)," a top Indian official said.

India also sought an additional 5 million tons of liquefied natural gas from Qatar to meet its growing energy needs and has proposed to set up a gas-fired fertiliser plant in the Gulf nation to meets its urea needs.

"We had an excellent one-hour meeting. (Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al) Attiyah is a great friend of India and promised to look into our LNG needs," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.

At Qatar and earlier in Oman, Singh sought to leverage surplus funds in the region for investment in infrastructure sector to boost economic growth that is slowing due to the global financial crisis.

New Delhi and Muscat also put together a $100-million fund for financing multi-sector projects in the two countries.

The two sides also signed an agreement for protection of rights of about five lakh Indians working in Oman.

No cut in fuel prices till companies stop making losses: PM of India (Times of India)

2008-11-11T00:44:32Z

From: Times of India date: 11 Nov 2008

ON BOARD PM'S SPECIAL AIRCRAFT: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared to rule out cutting prices of petrol and diesel till oil companies stop
making losses on fuel sales.

Contending that there were "limits to which government can go on subsidising", Singh said it will wait till oil companies stop making losses before considering cutting petrol and diesel prices.

"When we see that the Indian oil companies are able to sustain a reduction, that will be the right (time for such a) decision," Singh told reporters late Monday night on way back to New Delhi from his three-day maiden visit to energy rich Gulf countries.
Oil companies have started making profit on sale of petrol but they continue to incur losses on diesel sales.

"Oil companies have to bear a very heavy burden (and) there are limits to which government can go on subsidising," he said.

Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum currently make a profit of Rs 4.12 a litre on petrol but lose Rs 0.96 per litre on diesel.

Together with domestic LPG and kerosene they are expected to lose Rs 128,135 crore in revenues this fiscal.

Defining Jew-hatred down at the UN (jihadwatch.org)

2008-11-11T00:43:39Z

From: jihadwatch.org date: 11.11.08

In "Defining Jew-Hatred Down: The curious response to Ahmadinejad at the U.N." in The Weekly Standard of November 17, Matthias Küntzel wonders at the spectacle of the Thug-In-Chief's genocidal and jihadist Jew-hatred having become so...fashionable. (Thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.)

It is a topsy-turvy world: At the United Nations--an organization born out of the struggle against Nazi Germany and intended to embody the lessons of the Holocaust--a head of state openly spouts anti-Semitic propaganda in an address before the General Assembly. Granted, he takes the trouble to denounce "Zionists" and avoid the word "Jew," but this dodge is transparent to any student of the Nazis. His speech is greeted with acclaim, and neither the U.N. secretary general nor any Western head of government bothers to object. The media are mostly silent.
It happened on September 23, and the speaker was Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A familiar figure at the U.N., Ahmadinejad has a history of using his turn at the rostrum to sermonize about his yearning for the return of the Shia messiah. This time, he went further, drawing inspiration also from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The Zionists, he told the assembly, are the eternal enemy of "the dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people" (this is the English translation of his remarks on the U.N. website). Although they are few in number, the Zionists "have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the United States in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner."

Indeed, so influential are the Zionists around the world that even "some presidential or premier nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support." In particular, even "the great people of America and various nations of Europe" are caught in the clutches of Jewish power: They "need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will."

Yet liberation is near. "Today," according to Ahmadinejad, "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse. There is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters." [...]

Ahmadinejad's performance elicited applause from his audience and a warm embrace from the president of the General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, a 75-year-old Catholic priest and holder of the Lenin Prize of the former Soviet Union. D'Escoto is a close friend of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, in whose government he served as foreign minister from 1979 to 1990. This is the same Ortega who, four weeks after the Tehran Holocaust deniers' conference, joined President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in welcoming Ahmadinejad to Latin America as a "a president willing to join with the Nicaraguan people in the great battle against poverty."

Equally noteworthy was the lack of reaction to Ahmadinejad's U.N. performance in Western capitals--with three exceptions. The German and French foreign ministers criticized Ahmadinejad's "blatant anti-Semitism," and Barack Obama expressed disappointment that the Iranian president had been given "a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views." Otherwise Ahmadinejad's misuse of the U.N. to spread anti-Semitic propaganda didn't even register as a provocation.

On September 23, the very day of his speech, Ahmadinejad was Larry King's guest on CNN. King offered the Iranian president an hour-long opportunity to hold forth as he pleased.

The next day, in an article for Salon, the Iran specialist Juan Cole of the University of Michigan took Obama to task for his comments on Ahmadinejad. Cole quoted a single sentence from the U.N. speech--one in which Ahmadinejad criticized the United States--while ignoring the anti-Semitic passages. "Larry King got at the true Ahmadinejad," Cole insisted, whereas Obama "fell into the trap of declining to make a distinction between anti-Zionist views and anti-Semitic ones."

Then on September 25, Ahmadinejad visited the New York Times. In the interview published the next day, he rehearsed his anti-Semitic notions without protest from interviewer Neil MacFarquhar. "Zionism," Ahmadinejad explained, "is the root cause of insecurity and wars. . . . What commitment forces the U.S. government to victimize itself in support of a regime that is basically a criminal one?"

This was in striking contrast to the Times's outrage in 2003 when Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia delivered an anti-Semitic speech. Back then the Times wrote:

It is hard to know what is more alarming--a toxic statement of hatred of Jews by the Malaysian prime minister at an Islamic summit meeting this week or the unanimous applause it engendered from the kings, presidents and emirs in the audience.
Not only that, but the Times concluded its editorial with a sharp rebuke to the European Union:

The European Union was asked to include a condemnation of Mr. Mahathir's speech in its statement yesterday ending its own summit meeting. It chose not to, adding a worry that anti-Semitism displays are being met with inexcusable nonchalance.
The Times is doing now what it so recently held to be "inexcusable."

Sixty-three years after Auschwitz, then, has anti-Semitism entered "acceptable" discourse? Or is the New York Times actually fooled by a rhetorical trick? Where Mahathir was crude enough to denounce the machinations of "the Jews," Ahmadinejad attacks only "the Zionists." He says, "Two thousand Zionists want to rule the world." He says "the Zionists" have for 60 years blackmailed "all Western governments." He says, "The Zionists have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors." Perhaps this is why he is hailed as an anti-imperialist star.

But the Iranian president uses the term "Zionist" in precisely the way Hitler used the term "Jew": as the embodiment of evil. Even if the Iranian regime tolerates the presence of a Jewish community in Tehran, whoever holds Jews responsible for all the ills of the world--whether calling them "Judases" or "Zionists"--is propagating a potentially genocidal creed....

U.K.: Abu Qatada was planning on fleeing country in plot hatched by Omar Bakri

2008-11-11T00:43:04Z

From: jihadwatch.org date: 11.11.08

Urgent questions for British authorities: Who are Bakri's followers in Britain? How many are there?

More on this story. "Bakri bid for pal’s breakout," by Tom Wells for The Sun, November 11:

Hate preacher Omar Bakri masterminded the plot to help extremist pal Abu Qatada flee Britain, The Sun can reveal.
Bakri, 50, gave the order to followers to hatch an escape plan just days after Qatada was freed from jail and placed under house arrest.
In an audio recording obtained by The Sun, the evil cleric instructed: “There are two ways to help (Qatada). One is maybe try to help him against the kuffar (non-believer) to remove all these restrictions. Or by smuggling him outside the country if you can find a way.”
He then adds: “Try to help him financially or socially – whatever way you can.”
Qatada, 47, was re-arrested in a dawn swoop on Friday after authorities received a tip-off about his escape plot.
Government sources believe Lebanon was his likely destination – where Bakri has lived since 2005. Qatada, once described by a judge as Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe, won his fight against deportation to Jordan five months ago.
Since then, he has spent 22 hours a day under virtual house arrest at his home in West London. The pair have been linked for a decade

More on the Muslim Claim to Jerusalem

2008-11-11T00:41:47Z

From: danielpipes.org date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001
updated Sat, 16 Aug 2008

This entry updates the central argument in "The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem," that Jerusalem's religious standing in Islam, depends on political needs.

An aerial view of the Temple Mount.

An article by Danny Rubinstein notes how Israeli Arabs have taken up the cause of Jerusalem because Muslims generally

cannot usually come to Al Aqsa, and the closure prevents even the 3 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank from coming to Jerusalem. Those remaining, aside from the Arabs of Jerusalem, are the Israeli Muslims, and they have taken upon themselves the historic role of defending the Islamic holy places in the city. The Al Aqsa Association of Sheikh Raid Salah from Umm al-Fahm, the principal Muslim leader in Israel, has for years been carrying out the restoration and renovation in the mosques of the Temple Mount. Hundreds of Muslims from Israel come on the weekends to work as volunteers at the mosques. The Islamic Movement also funds some of the transportation of Israeli Arab worshipers to Al Aqsa.

Rubinstein also paraphrases three important observations by Yitzhak Reiter, editor of a recent book in Hebrew, The Sovereignty of God and Man - Sanctity and Political Centrality on the Temple Mount (Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies):

since the beginning of Islam, the Temple Mount (al-Haram al-Sharif) has flourished during three periods, all of them times when control of Jerusalem passed into non-Muslim hands: the Crusader period, the British Mandate period, and the Israeli period after June 1967. …

although the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem are only in third place in terms of religious importance (after Mecca and Medina, located in Saudi Arabia), politically, they are in first place. This fact has received particular emphasis during the past year, since the failure of the Camp David summit in July 2000.

During those talks, when the final status of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount was discussed between then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and their associates, Israeli demands for sovereignty or some hold on the Temple Mount came up for the first time. Since then, Muslim spokesmen in general, and Palestinians in particular, have tried to deny any Jewish connection to the holy place.

(November 18, 2001)

May 15, 2002 update: In "Constructing a Counterfeit History of Jerusalem," I note burgeoning Palestinian attempts to deny any Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

June 21, 2002 update: The Scotsman informs us that the Al-Maktoun Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies officially opened last month at the University of Abertay in Dundee. The institute has three research centres, one of which is "The Centre for Islamic Jerusalem Studies," said (unsurprisingly) to be the only institution in the world offering an M. Litt course in Islamic Jerusalem Studies.

Aug. 5, 2003 update: An Egyptian government weekly, Al-Qahira, issued by the Ministry of Culture, published an article by one of its columnists, Ahmad Muhammad ‘Arafa, "Was the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey to Palestine or Medina?" in which ‘Arafa doubts that the Isra' was to Jerusalem.

Aug. 19, 2003 update: Two weeks later, the intrepid Ahmad Muhammad ‘Arafa questions the sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam. I discuss this at greater length in "The Prophet's Night Journey to Jerusalem."

Aug. 24, 2003 update: An Egyptian government website endorses the denial of a Jewish connection to Jerusalem, via the Jebusite thesis.

Nov. 26, 2003 update: Ghazi Y. Khankan, executive director of CAIR's New York office, writes a public letter to George W. Bush today listing ten reasons "why Jerusalem and Palestine are of the utmost importance to 1.2 billion Muslims in the world." One of them, for example, is a hadith that "Jerusalem's area of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Masjid Al-Haram in Makkah will be connected together at the end of time."

May 18, 2004 update: In "Why Jerusalem is Not Holy to Muslims," Leah Bat-Chaim makes arguments similar to mine.

Apr. 19, 2004 update: In an article about a game show on Al-Manar, the Hizbullah television station, Neil MacFarquhar explains how "The Mission" differs from others of its genre:

Contestants from around the Arab world compete each Saturday night for cash and the chance to win a virtual trip to Jerusalem. To heighten the drama, points won by the finalists translate directly into steps toward the holy city that are flashed onto a map of the region. The show is a novel way for Hezbollah to promote its theme - that all Arab efforts should be concentrated on reconquering land lost to Israel, especially Jerusalem. "Any program at this television station must present the idea that the occupation of Palestine must end," said Ihab Abi Nassif, a 28-year-old high school physics teacher who is the show's host. "That is the core issue, which is why we work day and night to keep it vivid in people's minds." …

"The Mission" follows a standard game show format, with contestants quizzed about history, literature, geography, science and the arts. But at least half the questions revolve around Palestinian or Islamic history, and at least one contestant is usually Palestinian. … Some questions do focus on the men who carried out suicide operations. "The martyr Amar Hamoud was nicknamed ‘The Sword of All Martyrs?' - true or false?" was one recent question. True. Mr. Abi Nassif, who never fails to address the subject of recapturing Jerusalem in his patter, went on to describe the man's exploits.

The prizes are not huge. Players who reach five million Lebanese pounds, or something over $3,000, earn the chance to double their winnings with one "golden question" worth the same amount. When the winner gains the 60 points necessary to reach Jerusalem, the song that is a staple of Hezbollah parades booms out. "Jerusalem is ours and we are coming to it," the chorus says in part.

Jun. 25, 2004 update: In The Qur'an, trans. by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 175, the translator identifies "the furthest place of worship" in footnote b as "In Jerusalem."

Aug. 4, 2005 update: Jordanian Jerusalem: Holy Places and National Spaces by Kimberly Katz arrived today and it has plenty of material confirming my points above about the 1948-67 era. In particular, see these passages:

"Jerusalem was a source of contention for many Palestinians, who claimed that the Holy City was being discriminated against, while Amman, the capital city, received a disproportionate share of political, economic, and infrastructure attention." (p. 81)

Yusuf Hanna wrote in 1954 that while Israel had made Jerusalem its state capital, in Jordan "we reduced Jerusalem from a position of preeminence to its current place that does not rise above the rank of a village." (p. 85)

"Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the government decided to relocate central ministries left from the mandate period to Amman at Jerusalem's expense. In a memo to the prime minister, Anwar Nusayba, member of parliament for the Jerusalem region, complained of discrimination toward the city." (p. 87).

Jan. 4, 2006 update: I dramatize today one of the implications of this article at "Offer: $1 million for Finding "Jerusalem" in the Koran."

June 6, 2006 update: "The Muslim use of Zion represents a more powerful force today than the Jewish love of Zion" concludes my article today, "Muslim Zionism," an edited verion of an award speech given in Jerusalem a week earlier.

Hassan Khader, founder of the "Al-Quds Encyclopedia."

Sep. 16, 2006 update: Ra'ad Salah, Israel's most radical Islamist leader, told 50,000 demonstrators at a rally yesterday in Umm al-Fahm that Israel's occupation of the Temple Mount will end soon and Jerusalem will becomne the capital of an Islamic state. For good measure, he added that former prime minister Ariel Sharon and current president Moshe Katsav (currently under investigation for alleged sexual misbehavior) are "paying the price" for the damage they did to Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Oct. 19, 2006 update: It's Ramadan and a good time for Palestinians to make new claims to Jerusalem. Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook document in "PA TV educational program: Jews have no historical connection to Western Wall – It's an Islamic site named for Muhammad's horse" what Hassan Khader, founder of the Al-Quds Encyclopedia, has to say on Palestinian Authority Television, in a program that has recently run three times in the course of a single week:

The first connection of the Jews to this site began in the 16th century.... The Jewish connection to this site is a recent connection, not ancient … like the roots of the Islamic connection.… Who would have believed that the Israelis would arrive 1400 years [after the Muslims], conquer Jerusalem and would make this wall into their special place of worship, where they worship and pray?

Ali Ünal, The Qur'an: with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English.

Jan. 1, 2007 update: In The Qur'an: with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, by Ali Ünal (Somerset, N.J.: The Light, 2007), p. 565, the translation of 17:1 reads "from the Sacred Mosque in Makkah to the Masjid al-Aqsa in Quds (Jerusalem)." Footnote 2 compounds the error by stating that "This surah was revealed in Makkah at a time when the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah had not yet been built and the Ka`bah was full of idols; therefore the Muslims turned to that Masjid in Jerusalem for their prayers." The Prophet's Mosque had not yet been built but Al-Aqsa had been? How interesting.

Mar. 15, 2007 update: Re-reading J.J.G. Jansen's 1997 book, The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism, I note this passage on p. 133:

in early 1990, a Muslim Brotherhood veteran, Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali, declared that once the Jerusalem Aqsa mosque was lost it would be the turn of the Ka`ba [in Mecca].

May 21, 2007 update: New Saudi currency shows Al-Aqsa Mosque on one side of a note and the Dome of the Rock on the other.

May 29, 2007 update: Shmuel Katz today quotes a nice contrast by the British historian Christopher Sykes:

To the Muslims it is not Jerusalem, but a certain site in Jerusalem which is venerated ... the majestic Dome of the Rock. To a Muslim there is a profound difference between Jerusalem and Mecca and Medina. The latter are holy places containing holy sites. Apart from the hallowed rock, Jerusalem has no major Islamic significance.

Aug. 13, 2007 update: Quran: A Reformist Translation, translated and annotated by Edip Yuksel, Layth Saleh al-Shaiban, and Martha Schulte-Nafeh, offers a stunningly different translation of 17.1:

Glory be to the One who took His servant by night from the Restricted Temple to the most distant temple.

Quran: A Reformist Translation, translated and annotated by Edip Yuksel, Layth Saleh al-Shaiban, and Martha Schulte-Nafeh..

What's so interesting here is that the translators understand masjid not in its technical Islamic meaning of mosque but in its generic pre-Islamic sense of temple. That conceptual breakthrough makes good sense to me.

Comment: I am quoted in this Qur'an endorsing it as follows:

I am not a Qur'an scholar and therefore am not in a position to judge the accuracy of your translation, and especially not the revisionist understandings of some controversial ayats. But I can say that the effort you and your colleagues have undertaken is very much in keeping with my sense of the process of modernization that the Qur'an itself and the Islamic religion more broadly must undergo. As such, I salute your work and hope it will be published and extensively discussed both in the United States and abroad.

Oct. 12, 2007 update: Comes news that, in anticipation of the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis meeting, the "Palestinians Want Western Wall as Part of Any Settlement." Adnan al-Husseini, adviser to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on religious affairs, says the PA wants "full control" over Jerusalem. "The Wailing Wall is a Muslim waqf , and therefore cannot be abandoned."

Oct. 25, 2007 update: Ikrema Sabri, mufti of Jerusalem in the Arafat days, has a history of outrageous statements and is at them again.

There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa and there is no proof that there was ever a temple. Because Allah is fair, he would not agree to make Al-Aksa if there were a temple there for others beforehand. … The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque. There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews.

May Jews ever pray on the Temple Mount?

It is not the Temple Mount, you must say Al-Aksa. And no Jews have the right to pray at the mosque. It was always only a mosque - all 144 dunams, the entire area. No Jewish prayer. If the Jews want real peace, they must not do anything to try to pray on Al-Aksa. Everyone knows that. Zionism tries to trick the Jews claiming that this was part of a Jewish temple, but they dug there and they found nothing.

Dec. 11, 2007 update: It's not clear when Harun Yahya (a pen name used by the Turkish writer, Adnan Oktar) wrote "Muslim Palestine," but it appears to date from late 2001. It offers the original argument that Jerusalem ought to be under Muslim control because, "In contrast to Jews and Christians, Muslims have made their regard for the sacredness of Palestine an opportunity to bring peace" to the city. Indeed, "peace and harmony lasted as long as Muslims ruled."

June 1, 2008 update: Rafiq Al Husseini, chief of staff to Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has declared that "Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Aqsa mosque and Haram ash-Sharif [Temple Mount] is 100 percent Muslim."

June 4, 2008 update: In a stunning exception to the usual hackneyed Palestinian/Islamist claims to Jerusalem, Al-Jazeera invited Bar Ilan University political scientist Mordechai Kedar to discuss the city. He pulled no punches, telling the show's host, Jimal Rian, that "This was our capital 3,000 years ago, and we were here when your forefathers were drinking wine, burying girls alive and worshipping pre-Muslim idols. This is our city and it will be our city forever." Arutz-7 recounts:

His reference to Muslims drinking wine, which is forbidden in Islam, infuriated the host. Rian wagged his finger in the air and said excitedly, "If you want to talk about history, you cannot erase Jerusalem from the Koran, and don't attack the Muslim religion if we want to continue talking." Dr. Kedar replied, "Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran. Jerusalem is a Jewish city." The Al Jazeera host responded by quoting a verse from the Koran in which he thought Jerusalem was mentioned by name, but stopped in the middle upon realizing that it only refers to "the farthest place." Dr. Kedar: "Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran even once. You can't rewrite the Koran on air on Al Jazeera."

The exchange can be seen on YouTube.

Aug. 14, 2008 update: Lela Gilbert of the Hudson Institute quotes Gabriel Barkay, a professor at Bar-Ilan University, on the origins of the exclusive Muslim claim to the Temple Mount, what she calls "Temple denial":

This denial of the historical, spiritual and archeological connections of the Jews to the Temple Mount is something new. There was always talk about the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem - called the "praise of Jerusalem" – in Arabic literature, in Islamic literature. This new idea of Temple denial is due to the Arabic fear of Jewish aspirations connected to the Temple Mount. It is part of something I call the "cultural intifada."

Barkay traces the change back to the 1990s:

In the Washington, DC think tanks surrounding President Bill Clinton, it was understood that the Temple Mount was the crux of the problem of the Middle East conflict. These think tanks decided that if there could be "split sovereignty" on the Temple Mount, then split sovereignty could also be achieved over the entire land of Palestine.

So they suggested that in a future agreement, the Temple Mount would be split horizontally. That is to say that whatever is above ground, the part that includes the shrines of the Muslims, would be under Palestinian sovereignty. Whatever is underground, which would include the remnants of the Temple of the Jews, would be under Israeli sovereignty.

It's a brilliant idea, an excellent idea, but totally idiotic from a practical point of view. You cannot have a building standing with its foundations in another country. You cannot have a building with the infrastructure and the plumbing in another country. And you cannot have sovereignty on the subground without having accessibility to the subground, because the accessibility is from above ground. The whole thing was stupid.

Sep. 15, 2008 update: Following his Al-Jazeera appearance (see the June 4, 2008 update, above), Bar Ilan University's Mordechai Kedar has written an article, "The myth of al-Aqsa: Holiness of Jerusalem to Islam has always been politically motivated," in Yedi`ot Aharonot. His argument closely follows the once I have been making since 1997.

He begins by noting the small importance of Jerusalem to Muhammad after the qibla was changed to Mecca. Only in 682, when Ibn az-Zubayr rebelled against the Umayyad rulers in Damascus and conquered Mecca, did the Umayyad caliph, who needed an alternative site for the pilgrimage, settle on Jerusalem which was under his control. To justify this change, Koran 17.1 was reinterpreted to refer to Jerusalem.

Kedar then considers the difficulties with placing "al-masjid al-aqsa" in Jerusalem.

For one, the people of Mecca, who knew Muhammad well, did not believe this story. Only Abu Bakr, (later the first Calif,) believed him and thus was called al-Siddiq ("the believer".)

The second difficulty is that Islamic tradition tells us that al-Aqsa mosque is near Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula. This was unequivocally stated in "Kitab al-Maghazi," a book by the Muslim historian and geographer al-Waqidi. According to al-Waqidi, there were two "masjeds" (places of prayer) in al-Gi'irranah, a village between Mecca and Ta'if - one was "the closer mosque" (al-masjid al-adna) and the other was "the further mosque" (al-masjid al-aqsa,) and Muhammad would pray there when he went out of town.

This description by al-Waqidi which is supported by a chain of authorities (isnad) was not "convenient" for the Islamic propaganda of the 7th Century. In order to establish a basis for the awareness of the "holiness" of Jerusalem in Islam, the Califs of the Umayyad dynasty invented many "traditions" upholding the value of Jerusalem, which would justify pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the faithful Muslims. Thus was al-Masjid al-Aqsa "transported" to Jerusalem. It should be noted that Saladin also adopted the myth of al-Aqsa and those "traditions" in order to recruit and inflame the Muslim warriors against the Crusaders in the 12th Century.

Kedar then interprets current events in this light, seeing that Yasir Arafat "did exactly what the Califs of the Umayyad dynasty did 1300 years ago: He marshaled the holiness of Jerusalem to serve his political ends." Kedar argues that because "the holiness of Jerusalem to Islam has always been, and still is, no more than a politically motivated holiness," Muslim leaders are limited in what they can do. Indeed, one who showed flexibility on this issue "would be putting his political head on the block should he give it up."

The essay ends with two questions:

Must Judaism and Christianity defer to myths related in Islamic texts or envisioned in Mohammad's dreams, long after Jerusalem was established as the ancient, true center of these two religions, which preceded Islam? Should Israel give up on its capital just because some Muslims decided to recycle the political problems of the Umayyads 1250 years after the curtain came down on their role in history?

Nov. 2, 2008 update: For some real background on the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem , see Rivkah Fishman-Duker's survey of ancient Greek and Roman pagan authors dating from the third century BCE to the third century CE, for all of whom "Jerusalem definitely was a Jewish city." The article is at "‘Jerusalem: Capital of the Jews': The Jewish Identity of Jerusalem in Greek and Roman Sources," Jewish Political Studies Review 20:1-2 (Fall 2008): 119-40. The quotes in turn can be found at Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1980).

Related Topics: Arab-Israel conflict & diplomacy, Jerusalem

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Jerusalem mayoral race offers alternate visions of future (jpost.com)

2008-11-11T00:40:20Z

From: jpost.com date: 11.11.08

In a race being hailed as a turning point in determining the city's character, Jerusalem elects a new mayor Tuesday amid increasing concerns over the capital's demographic makeup and economic future.

JERUSALEM MAYORAL candidates Nir Barkat, Meir Porush and Arkadi Gaydamak (seated, from left) are seen at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, which hosted a debate among them moderated by 'Jerusalem Post' editor-in-chief David Horovitz (seen at rear).
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski

Slideshow: Pictures of the week Voters will get to select both their choice for mayor and their preferred list for the city council, where 13 parties are vying for 31-seats.

The mayoral election is expected to be determined by the level of non-haredi turnout and the critical vote of the national-religious sector.

A candidate must garner at least 40 percent of the vote to win outright; otherwise, the two top vote-getters face a run-off election in two weeks.

Gaydamak entered unchartered territory in the campaign by avidly courting the city's Arab voters.

An eleventh-hour candidate, Dan Biron of the Green Leaf Party - which favors legalizing marijuana - rounds out the list, but he is expected to garner only a symbolic show of support.

More than 700 city polling stations open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. with nearly 530,000 people eligible to vote.

The number of actual voters is expected to be much smaller - five years ago only 180,000 people cast their ballot - since Arab residents of the city traditionally boycott the election so as not to "recognize" Israeli sovereignty over the city.

The Interior Ministry is operating a toll-free voter information center at 1-800-300-059, which offers both automated information and live operators speaking five languages, including English, for residents uncertain where their polling station is located or who have other election-related questions.

The official election results are expected early Wednesday morning.

The Jerusalem mayoral race comes at a time of growing concern among many secular residents over the increasingly haredi makeup of the city, the outward migration of young people, who leave in search of better jobs and more affordable housing, and the sharply contrasting level of services provided to Jewish and Arab neighborhoods of the city.

The race, according to polls, has split largely along sectoral lines: the haredi residents will vote nearly unanimously for Porush, while most of the secular and modern Orthodox residents are supporting Barkat.

Meanwhile, a still-unknown number of Arab residents who may defy warnings by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to boycott the vote are said to be backing Gaydamak.

To win, Barkat, who has presented detailed economic and educational working plans for the city, needs a strong turnout - and support - among secular and national-religious voters.

Only a third of non-haredi voters turned out to vote in the last elections, compared to 85% of the haredi public.

This year the turnout is expected to be significantly higher among the non-haredi public. Still, the fact that three secular candidates are running against one haredi candidate in a city where one in three voters is haredi could hurt Barkat's chances of victory, even though polls have consistently shown him to be the front-runner.

In the 2003 mayoral election, Lupolianski defeated Barkat by just over 15,000 votes, while nearly 10,000 votes went to four other secular candidates.

"Barkat is still leading, but it is not so certain," said political scientist Avraham Diskin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Porush is facing his own problems within the usually rock-solid haredi sector this year, with some Gerrer hassidim actively campaigning against him because they believe Porush offended their rebbe during his campaign, with a "secret plan" that would oust them from their central position in the haredi education system.

With a whopping 11% of the public still undecided in the last poll, both Barkat and Porush's campaigns believe that the national-religious vote could swing the election in either one's favor.

For the last two years, Barkat has been avidly courting the vote of the city's national-religious residents, breaking his former ties with the ruling Kadima Party to launch a public campaign with the likes of former minister Natan Sharansky against the division of Jerusalem.

The move, and his increasingly hawkish stance over the last year, seemingly endeared Barkat to the Right. But the far-Right and the Porush camp have played on his past association with Kadima, plastering placards on city billboards showing Barkat dividing the Western Wall, wearing a Kadima T-shirt.

To Barkat's dismay, the National Union-National Religious Party has remained decidedly neutral, despite the private murmuring of support for Barkat by various leading Zionist rabbis, who believe that the non-Zionist Porush could not effectively represent their community's interests.

In addition, Barkat's political views have lost him some of his erstwhile allies on the Left, with some Meretz supporters, who would generally oppose a haredi candidate, openly supporting for Porush rather than Barkat.

For his part, Porush has stumbled twice in the campaign during his effort to get out the non-haredi vote.

First, he suggested that the Temple Mount should be under Arab control, with Jews only retaining control of the Western Wall, only to backtrack shortly thereafter.

Then, in what was considered his biggest misstep of the campaign, he was taped telling a haredi audience that within 10 years there will be no more secular mayors in Israel, rekindling the fears among many non-haredi voters that Porush, as mayor, would implement policies that strongly favor the haredi sector.

Porush is expected to remain in the Knesset if he loses the race, while Barkat will likely return to the business world in the event of an election upset.

Militants raid Nato supplies, hijack 13 military trucks carrying supplies for NATO, near Pakistan-Afghanistan Border. (Dawn)

2008-11-11T00:39:25Z

From: Dawn date: 11.11.08

LANDI KOTAL, Nov 10: Militants hijacked 13 containers carrying supplies for Nato forces from the highway linking Pakistan with Afghanistan after a brazen attack on Monday, as paramilitary personnel watched from the nearby Jamrud Fort.

The containers were ambushed by dozens of heavily armed men from Wazir Dhand, Teddi Bazaar and Sur Qamar on the Peshawar-Torkham highway. Several Khasadar checkpoints are located nearby.

“It happened on the international highway and you can imagine the implications this can have for us,” an official told Dawn.

He said Taliban seized the containers on the road and emptied them “in clear view of paramilitary personnel” deployed at Jamrud Fort, but they did not take any action.

The militants were later seen driving around in Jamrud area of Khyber Agency, near Peshawar, in military vehicles taken away from the containers. They had hoisted flags and banners of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and its leader Baitullah Mehsud on the vehicles.

Local people said most of the militants in the group, including its leader, appeared to be from Afghanistan’s Nangrahar province and others from Mohmand and Waziristan.

The official said the local administration had been warning the government that Taliban were gaining strength in Jamrud and the issue had also been discussed during last week’s visit to Peshawar by the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Interior Affairs, Rehman Malik.

After desperate calls by the administration, helicopter gunships were sent to retrieve the goods, but by then the militants had managed to shift the merchandise, including wheat.

A 12-year-old schoolboy, Rahim Khan, was killed and six other people, among them two militants, were injured in a 15-minute attack by three helicopters in Ghundi Shaga area. The injured were taken to a hospital in Peshawar.

Officials said since paramilitary forces were deployed in strength to Bajaur and other areas, they did not have enough troops to combat the growing militancy in Jamrud.

Jamrud Political Tehsildar Bakhtiar Mohmand insisted that Khasadar personnel had fired at the militants to prevent the hijacking.

He alleged that Khyber Rifles did not help the Khasadars in preventing such attacks. Mr Mohmand said supporters of Baitullah Mehsud were involved in the incident. Local Taliban leader Mustafa Kamal threatened to retaliate if security forces did not stop shelling civilians in Khyber Agency.

Transporters of fuel and other supplies to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan expressed concern over increasing incidents of hijacking of their vehicles and sale of the stolen goods. They said the government had not compensated them for the losses suffered in such incidents.

Fuel shortages close Gaza plant (http://news.bbc.co.uk)

2008-11-11T00:38:46Z

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk date: 11.11.08

Gaza City plunged into darkness

The main power plant in the Gaza Strip has been forced to shut down because of a fuel shortage, plant officials say.

Residents said Gaza City was plunged into darkness as the plant's last two turbines were shut down late on Monday, a day after the other one was stopped.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak later agreed to allow minimal fuel shipments to Gaza to resume on Tuesday.

Supplies of industrial fuel mainly donated by the EU were halted by Israel last week after fierce border clashes.

The Israeli military staged an incursion into Gaza and sent air strikes, killing at least seven Palestinian militants, while militants fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.

We were told we would not be allowed in today

BBC reporter Aleem Maqbool

Gaza shut to fuel and journalists

Israel ordered border crossings closed after Palestinian militants fired a rocket on Sunday, which landed without causing casualties.

The Israeli defence minister decided on Monday night to allow a limited amount of fuel to be transferred into Gaza, after a request by Middle East Quartet peace envoy Tony Blair, Israeli officials said.

For all other purposes, the crossing would remain closed, they added.

Hospital fears

The Gaza City plant provides about a quarter of Gaza's electricity, and more than half the electricity used by the city itself.

Most of the rest of the supply to the territory of 1.5 million people comes directly via power lines from Israel.

Palestinian engineers had been implementing a system of rolling blackouts to different areas of Gaza City to prevent the lines from Israel becoming overloaded and cutting out.

Without a grid system, they have no way to divert power to essential utilities such as hospitals or sewage treatment works. Aid agencies had warned of a serious threat to public health if the plant went offline.

Oxfam said Gaza's seven largest hospitals had stocks of diesel to supply generators for about a week, although one of the smaller ones - al-Quds hospital - had only 36 hours' supply.

The aid agency said that the water utility had no stocks of fuel for generators, which meant the sewage disposal system would break down as soon as mains electricity was cut.

Nasa Mars mission declared dead (http://news.bbc.co.uk

2008-11-11T00:38:08Z

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk date: 11.11.08

The probe had surpassed its expected lifetime by more than two months
Nasa says its Phoenix lander on the surface of Mars has gone silent and is almost certainly dead.

Engineers have not heard from the craft since Sunday 2 November when it made a brief communication with Earth.

Phoenix, which landed on the planet's northern plains in May, had been struggling in the increasing cold and dark of an advancing winter.

The US space agency says it will continue to try to contact the craft but does not expect to hear from it.

"We are actually ceasing operations, declaring an end to operations at this point," Phoenix mission project manager Barry Goldstein said at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"However, since we've been surprised by the robustness of this vehicle, we're going to keep listening. As the orbiters fly overhead every two hours, we'll constantly turn on the radio and try to hail Phoenix to see if it is alive."

Fiery plunge

Launched from Earth in August 2007, the robot arrived on Mars on 25 May, landing further north than any previous mission to the Martian surface.

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Nasa's Lesley Tamppari on the mission’s success
To make it down, the probe had to survive a fiery plunge through the Red Planet's thin atmosphere, releasing a parachute and using thrusters to control its descent.

The mission was scheduled to last just three months on the surface, but continued to work for more than five months.

During its ground operations, the robot dug, scooped, baked, sniffed and tasted the Martian soil to test whether it has ever been capable of supporting life.

Phoenix's major achievement was in becoming the first mission to Mars to "touch water" in the form of the water-ice it found just centimetres below the topsoil. Chunks of ice were seen to vaporise before the lander's cameras.

"This was quite a thrill for everybody and it has been the study of that ice that has kept us busy for the last five months," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

"We've excavated ice, we know its depth, we know how it changes over the surface; we've seen different types of ice."

The spacecraft found the Martian soil to be mildly alkaline, quite different from the acidic soils seen by previous missions to other parts of the planet.

Other key results included the identification in the soil of calcium carbonate, which on Earth is a chief component of limestone rock.

Phoenix also detected sheet-like particles, which were probably clays of some kind.

The significance of both minerals is that they form only in the presence of liquid water - which could have supported life.

The lander also detected perchlorate (an ion containing chlorine and oxygen) which is an oxidising chemical and, on Earth, can sustain some microbes.

Phoenix even recorded snowfall; and took more than 25,000 pictures, from the panoramas of its Arctic landing site to the atomic scale images of dust grains delivered to its microscope.

"Phoenix has given us some surprises, and I'm confident we will be pulling more gems from this trove of data for years to come," said Peter Smith.
Perhaps the key achievement has been to touch the water-ice in the soil

Phoenix was never expected to be a long mission. At its high latitude (68 degrees North), it was always destined to be starved of light as the Arctic winter deepened.

In the end, though, the demise of Phoenix was hastened by a dust storm which obscured the Sun's precious rays still further.

With so little energy getting into its solar panels, the batteries on Phoenix would have gone flat, preventing the robot from heating any of its systems in temperatures that were heading down to minus 100C.

Nevertheless, Nasa says its Mars Reconnaissance and Odyssey satellites will continue to listen for Phoenix for a further three weeks, until Solar Conjunction, when the Sun moves between Mars and Earth.

Phoenix had risen from the ashes of two previous failures.

In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft crashed into the Red Planet following a navigation error caused when technicians mixed up "English" (imperial) and metric units.
The probe has sent back more than 25,000 pictures

A few months later, another Nasa spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander (MPL), was lost near the planet's South Pole.

Phoenix used hardware from an identical twin of MPL, the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, which was cancelled following the two consecutive failures.

Nasa's robot rovers, Opportunity and Spirit, continue to work at their equatorial landing sites five years after arriving at the planet.

The next mission to the surface of Mars is due to leave Earth next year. The Mars Science Laboratory is a "smart" rover that will be dropped on to the surface of the Red Planet by a rocket-powered "skycrane".

At almost three metres in length and weighing 850kg, MSL is considerably bigger than the current rovers.

Mandelson: banks meltdown could save post office networkMinister says 'trusted brand' could become major player in financial servicesAllegra Stratton, political correspondent. The move is likely to surprise Labour backbenchers and opposition politicians alike. They were convinced the government was resigned to managing the decline of the network, which has been making losses of £4m a week. The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008

2008-11-11T00:37:23Z

From: guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 11 2008

The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008

A post box outside a post office in London. Photograph: Nicholas Bailey/Rex Features

Lord Mandelson is urging the prime minister to save the Post Office network by allowing it to provide government services and financial products, according to a leaked letter seen by the Guardian.

Mandelson suggests that the current economic downturn and "recent events in the financial services" present an opportunity for the Post Office to take on a new range of tasks.

In the letter to Gordon Brown dated October 30 - sent less than a month after he rejoined the government - the business secretary says: "We should examine the prospects for POL [Post Office Ltd] becoming a much more significant player in financial services - offering a wider range of attractive products within easy reach of the whole population, available from an institution they can trust."

The move is likely to surprise Labour backbenchers and opposition politicians alike. They were convinced the government was resigned to managing the decline of the network, which has been making losses of £4m a week.

John McFall, chair of the Treasury select committee, welcomed the development. He said: "Previously we had a superficial look at the case for the Post Office. That it was a drain on resources. But they should look at the Post Office as a viable service provider with 95% reach.

"I'm glad to see that the government is considering the Post Office playing a part in providing financial services which will eventually allow the Post Office to stand on its own two feet."

Last year the government faced down massive opposition to scale back the network, enabling it to cut government subsidy from £150m to £110m. The decision was so unpopular that members of the government who had been in the cabinet when it backed the plans - including Jack Straw and Tessa Jowell - openly campaigned against closures in their own constituencies. More recently it was an issue in the Glenrothes byelection: Conservatives and Liberal Democrats campaigned against closures in Scotland.

At present, 2,500 post offices are due to close, and some have already shut.

The letter shows Mandelson to be mindful of how the remaining 11,500 will be funded after 2011 when the current funding package comes to an end, saying "we will need to explore our options".

The business secretary also talks up the "reassuring" nature of the Post Office, apparently suggesting that the government may defy expectations and return to it the £1bn contract for the post office card account (Poca).

The decision on Poca, delayed since earlier this year, is now due and speculation is mounting that the contract may go to the private company PayPoint. The postmasters' union has said such a move would lead to a further 3,000 office closures.

In his letter, Mandelson says: "POL has two real strengths. The first is the trusted 'post office' brand. The second is the fact that it offers direct physical contact across its widely accessible network with the 24 million people who visit a post office each week.

"As recent figures show, many savers have demonstrated their trust in the Post Office by moving their savings into accounts it offers. Similarly, the face-to-face contact which a post office offers is becoming an increasingly important and reassuring factor for many people - especially when many private companies, as well as many government agencies, are seeking to reduce their own face-to-face contact points."

The business secretary says there is a case for building up the Post Office's role as the primary contact point many people have with the government, raising the prospect of POL taking on new business. The Post Office is in discussion with a number of departments, local authorities and devolved administrations about new services that it can offer, including becoming involved in identity verification for driving licences and passports rather than just initial paperwork.

"Taken together I think all of these developments offer POL, with our support, a genuine opportunity to rebuild itself into a widely accessible, trusted provider of a broader range of financial services," Mandelson writes.

Essex county council has recently reopened 15 post offices by guaranteeing £1.5m for them to operate until 2011.

The proposed review by Mandelson would be separate from one about to report by Richard Hooper, the former chairman of the communications regulator Ofcom, who is conducting a review into the Royal Mail postal service.