by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, April 23, 2002 12:17 P.M. EDT

We Get Results
The Microsoft Network's "death2israel" online "community," whose existence we noted yesterday, was gone by last night. But MSN seems to be a magnet for hate groups:

• Dump Israel Now, which declares: "It truly is a JEWnited States of America."

• Antizionism, which promises to "use all the possibilities to advocate the Palestinian courageous resistance").

• Defenders of the Reich, which features a prominent picture of Hitler waving a Nazi flag.

• THE ELITE SS. Apparently not elite enough to afford lowercase characters, this features a charming essay that begins: "WHEN EVER THE JEW AND THEIR NON JEW CO-CONSPIRITORS MOVE THERE ARE ALWAYS 4 FACTORS."

• Aryan Action, whose members "follow the concepts of National Socialism" and aim for "a brighter and Whiter future."

We'll let you know if these survive the next 24 hours.

Great Moments in British Comedy
Drama teachers at an English community college told 15- and 16-year-old students that Osama bin Laden had nuked Britain, the Sun tabloid reports:

The teenagers were warned the end of the world was minutes away.

And they were even urged to ring home to say goodbye. But the attack was invented by drama staff to get them to act out how they would behave on doomsday.

The students had been warned that "anything that occured in the lesson would be fictitious," the paper says, but apparently the drama teachers put on a convincing performance. Says one local official: "In hindsight it was probably a mistake to choose such a scenario."

'Dirty Bomb'
"Abu Zubaydah, the senior al-Qaida field commander in U.S. custody, told his interrogators that the terrorist network knows how to build a 'dirty bomb,' a terror weapon capable of dispersing radioactivity over a wide area," the Associated Press reports. Officials say they aren't sure how seriously to take the claims and that Zubaydah could be lying or boasting. We've previously noted reports on al Qaeda's bomb-making information and materials that make us skeptical of the terror network's nuke capabilities.

Does it strike anyone else, though, that the term dirty bomb sounds more comical than serious? It's a bit reminiscent of "The Naked Gun" and makes us think of sex instead of violence. These bombs are designed to kill people, so maybe instead we should call them "homicide bombs."

'Slave of Allah'
Zacarias Moussaoui, the Muslim Frenchman accused of being the "20th hijacker," appeared in court yesterday demanding a Muslim lawyer. "They have no understanding of terrorism, Muslims, mujahadeen," Moussaoui said of his three current court-appointed lawyers. Moussaoui described himself as a "slave of Allah" and said he prays for "the destruction of the United States of America" and the "destruction of the Jewish people and state."

He added: "I want to fight against the evil force of the federal government." He almost sounds like Harry Browne.

Al Qaeda's Mailman
Then again, maybe the Libertarians have a point when they talk about privatizing the Postal Service. The New York Daily News reports that "a Staten Island mailman who was a follower of the blind terror sheik tracked down confidential addresses of FBI agents and prosecutors pursuing Al Qaeda." Ahmed Sattar also worked as a paralegal for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, and he was among the four suspects arrested two weeks ago, including lawyer Lynne Stewart, and charged with providing support to a terror group.

"The FBI knew in early 1993, shortly after the World Trade Center bombing, that an FBI informant named Emad Salem told the bureau that Sattar said he obtained the unpublished home address of a lead agent in the sheik's investigation," the News reports. "Nevertheless, he was allowed to continue delivering mail to a facility inside a restricted section at Kennedy Airport."

Krugman Watch
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman is supposed to be an economics columnist for the New York Times. Today, though, he tries his hand at political analysis, and the result is laughable. Krugman professes to see similaries between Sunday's French election and America's 2000 presidential race. In both cases, he says, a "slightly left-of-center" candidate lost, even though "in a rational world he would win easily." Instead, the left-wing vote is divided, leading to a victory for the "far right."

In truth, France 2002 could hardly be more different from America 2000. In France, 15 candidates got at least 1% of the vote. In America, only three candidates did. In France, the center-right and center-left candidates (Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin) got a mere 36% between them, whereas George W. Bush and Al Gore together took more than 96% of the vote. Ralph Nader arguably cost Al Gore the election, but only because it was so freakishly close. And America's far-right candidate, Pat Buchanan, got a piddling 0.43% of the vote, vs. about 17% for his French counterpart, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

According to Krugman, though, the "far right" actually won the 2000 election. He doesn't actually try to argue that Bush, the pro-immigrant "compassionate conservative," is equivalent of the nativist Le Pen. Here's what he says instead:

In the United States . . . the hard right has essentially been co-opted by the Republican Party--or maybe it's the other way around. In this country people with views that are, in their way, as extreme as Mr. Le Pen's are in a position to put those views into practice.

Consider, for example, the case of Representative Tom DeLay. Last week Mr. DeLay told a group that he was on a mission from God to promote a "biblical worldview," and that he had pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton in part because Mr. Clinton held "the wrong worldview." Well, there are strange politicians everywhere. But Mr. DeLay is the House majority whip--and, in the view of most observers, the real power behind Speaker Dennis Hastert.

And then there's John Ashcroft.

That last line is wonderful. To Krugman and his presumed readers, John Ashcroft is simply a demon. The mere recitation of his name is enough to evoke horror; no argument is necessary. And it's scurrilous to draw an equivalence between DeLay's "biblical worldview" and Le Pen's xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

It's true that there are some Republicans whom one could fairly characterize as "far right." Among them used to be Pat Buchanan. There are also Democrats on the far left, like Cynthia McKinney. That's the way things work in a two-party system; extremists have more influence at the margins by working within a party than by bolting. A third-party candidacy is an almost certain route to oblivion, as Buchanan discovered.

The only real similarity Krugman identifies between America and France is that both countries have a right wing. But unless a nation's politics are completely uniform, this is inevitable. Krugman apparently yearns to live in a sort of liberal Lake Wobegon, where everyone is left of center.

Three Hostages Escape
The Israeli Defense Forces have rescued three monks who were held hostage by Palestinian terrorists in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, the Jerusalem Post reports. "The monks told the IDF that Palestinian gunmen in the compound had beaten some of them last night, desecrated crosses and had stolen gold artifacts, army sources said."

USA Today reports that "Catholic leaders in Jerusalem are planning to file a lawsuit with the Israeli Supreme Court, perhaps today, to demand that Israel withdraw." Why don't they go to the Palestinian Supreme Court instead?

Don't laugh. Apparently there is such a thing. Ha'aretz reports that "the trial of the four Palestinians accused of the murder of right-wing Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze'evi began yesterday at Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's besieged Ramallah compound. The trial is apparently under the auspices of the Supreme Court for State Security." The defendants have no legal representation and could face the death penalty if "convicted"--which could prove convenient for Yasser Arafat, since it would prevent them from supplying the Israelis with any evidence of Arafat's complicity.

Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, meanwhile, lynched three more suspected "collaborators," this time in Hebron. "Hooded vigilantes shot the three alleged informers and dumped their bound and gagged bodies," the Jerusalem Post reports. "A mob strung up two of the battered, bullet-punctured bodies, and some brought their children to see the gruesome act of revenge."

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Reuters, which puts the word terrorist in quotes even when referring to Osama bin Laden, refuses to do the same thing with the word collaborator, notwithstanding the World War II baggage that word carries.

The War-Crimes Lie
So where are all the human-rights do-gooders when the Palestinians are holding military trials and summary executions? Need we ask? They're busy, as always, denouncing Israel. First they accused the Jewish state of conducting a "massacre" in Jenin. Trouble is, even Palestinian terrorists now effectively admit that charge was phony. Tabaat Mardawi, a captured Islamic Jihad member, tells CNN: "By my own standard, what happened there was a massacre. But if you are asking, 'Did I see tens of people killed?' Frankly, no. In my group, we were in an area with no other people. Three fighters with me were killed. Later when we started to move from place to place, we saw destroyed houses and could smell bodies."

The New York Post's John Podhoretz notes that the charge has now shifted:

Now it's that the Israelis have violated international law relating to war. According to the BBC on Thursday, "International officials say some actions by [Israel's] troops, there and elsewhere, would appear to have breached the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the protection of civilians in war or under occupation." . . .

The simple truth is this: International law relating to the conduct of the incursion exculpates the Israelis and convicts the Palestinian Authority. Period. . . .

The Palestinian intifada describes itself as an armed struggle, an uprising. The word that describes the leaders and planners of such an armed struggle, in legal parlance, is "combatants."

And international law could not be any more plain. On June 8, 1977, the Fourth Geneva Convention was updated. . . . Article 37 outlaws the use of civilian populations as a shield for military actions. It explicitly prohibits "the feigning of civilian, noncombatant status; and the feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict."

What the leaders of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and Islamic Jihad do is hide among civilian populations to make it as difficult as possible for their enemies to attack them. The Geneva Convention denounces this as "perfidy."

Why do Western institutions that are charged with upholding standards of civilized behavior hold the Palestinians to such a low standard and the Israelis to an impossible one? Mick Hume offers this perceptive explanation in a Times of London essay:

In the eyes of many today, Israel's crime is to be the most forceful expression of Western values. The Israeli state is seen as a beachhead of Western civilisation in a hostile world. That used to be its greatest asset. Today, however, Western civilisation has fallen into disrepute even within its own heartlands, and Israel's image has suffered accordingly.

Israel has never been able to accept completely such trends as political correctness, relativism and self-doubt. If it did so, the Israeli state would be finished. Today, however, Israel's unambiguous attitude of "we're right and you're wrong", and defence of national sovereignty against the intrusions of international bodies, are embarrassing reminders of the kind of conviction that Western elites no longer feel able to express.

Arafat Wins by a Knockout
Ha'aretz reports that "Arafat needs to face a couple of human punch bags just so he won't win this bout, as he always does, by a knockout in the first round." Relax, this isn't a pessimistic account of the siege at Ramallah, but a profile of an Israel Arab boxer named Fares Arafat.

Signs of Hope
Amazon.com has a U.N. "purchase circle," a list of books "uniquely popular at United Nations, as compared with the rest of the country." It's not quite what you'd expect: The first two books on the list are about Iraq ("Saddam's Bombmaker" and "The Greatest Threat"), Nos. 3 and 4 are pro-capitalism books ("A Future Perfect" and "The Mystery of Capital") and a pair of "Harry Potter" books round out the list.

Stupidity Watch
Joseph Berwanger, general manager of Detroit's WDTV, thinks seasonal variations in gasoline prices are a form of terrorism. Seriously. "We shouldn't be held hostage at the pump, but apparently that's not among the concerns of those who are fighting terrorism," he editorializes. "Life-threatening political terrorism is easy to identify. Too bad the same isn't true for domestic, economic terrorism like this."

You Don't Say
"Pope John Paul . . . told American Catholic leaders Tuesday that pedophilia was 'a crime' that had no place in the Church," Reuters reports.

The Littlest Mule
"A five-year-old girl travelling alone on a flight from Colombia was caught at John F. Kennedy International Airport with two suitcases containing more than a kilogram of heroin," the Associated Press reports. The girl was flying unaccompanied from Bogota, Columbia.

Tom Mabe, American Hero
"Comedian Tom Mabe went undercover at a telemarketing convention in the nation's capitol [sic] Monday to turn the tables on an industry he loves to hate," the Associated Press reports. "He was on the phone calling telemarketers in their hotel rooms before dawn Monday":

He called the conference attendees in the middle of the night offering to sell them a sleep aid and pretending he was calling on behalf of the "Telemarketers with Insomnia Foundation." None of the people who picked up the phone were amused, with most hanging up and calling him a jerk.

The Whine Spectator
Light, a Brazilian power company, has been running a public-service ad campaign urging people not to use illegal connections to the power grids. Such a connection is known as a gato, which is the Portuguese word for both "cat" and "thief." The campaign "featured meowing cats, calling to 'say no to the cat,' " Reuters reports.

Now an "animal rights" group is suing the company claiming--we're not kidding--that "the campaign is too 'aggressive' and could spur violence against cats."

Necessity's Newest Child
One Steven Olson of St. Paul, Minn., has been granted U.S. Patent No. 6,368,227, for "a method of swinging on a swing" in which "a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other."

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Michael Ledeen: Europe's left is left behind.
• Tom Bray: Is Tom Daschle the new Gingrich?
• Myron Magnet: A Sept. 11 memorial must honor our civilization as well as the victims' memories.