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Newsletter : 0fax0303.txt
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>JN March 3, 2000, Vol. 8, No. 141
Neo-Nazis Leave the Forest For Cities
By Alisha Ryu (VOA-Los Angeles)
A human rights coalition in the United States says white supremacist groups in the Pacific Northwest are moving from traditional rural communities to heavily populated urban areas. The coalition is worried about hate messages reaching a much wider audience.
For more than 20 years, parts of the rural Pacific Northwest have been a haven for hate groups. With more trees than people, they were ideal places to avoid detection while the groups worked to increase their membership.
But the executive director of the Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity, Terre Rybovich says hate groups in the region have changed tactics in recent years, becoming a visible presence in the area's largest cities, Seattle and Portland, that have a combined population of nearly 6 million people.
"What surprised us was that the vast majority of the groups we considered to be predominantly rural in Oregon and Washington were congregated along the western part of those states along what we call the I-5 corridor, that encompasses the Portland community and the Seattle community."
Interstate-5 is the main highway that runs north-south from California to Washington. Rybovich says the coalition's findings are documented in its first annual "Hate by State" report that tracked 52 white supremacist groups.
Seventeen of the groups, ranging from the Ku Klux Klan to neo-Nazi organizations, were in the state of Washington and 13 in Oregon. Rybovich says nearly all of them had a presence along Interstate-5.
"What we are seeing is an influx of a variety of kinds of people into these regions. That means people of color but also white supremacists. Our concern is that it will result in increasing number of white Americans being open to the message as it becomes more established."
The human rights coalition says the leaders of various hate groups are already targeting white Americans who feel left out of the region's high-technology led economic boom. Hate groups are also recruiting followers with increasing sophistication, combining hate-mongering with positive community work in nursing homes with the elderly.
Lebanon Won't Extradite Red Army Terrorists
By IsraelWire
Lebanon has announced it would be rejecting a Japanese request for the extradition of five Red Army terrorists currently in a Beirut jail. Government officials indicated that a request to grant them political asylum was being considered.
The council of ministers decided to adopt a report by the prosecutor general, in which he rejected the extradition of the five Japanese citizens for lack of the appropriate legal conditions, Information Minister Anwar Khalil told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
The five terrorists are Masao Adachi, Kozo Okamoto, Kazuo Tohira, Haruo Wako and Mariko Yamamoto. Okamoto participated in the 1972 attack on Lod International Airport in Tel Aviv which claimed 24 lives. He was released from an Israeli prison in a 1985 prisoner exchange deal.
Syria Says Withdrawal to 1967 Boundary is a Must
By IsraelWire
Syrian officials have reiterated once again that there can be no returning to the negotiating table without Israel agreeing to a withdrawal to the pre-June 4, 1967 border.
Despite Israel's insistence that there would be no acceptance of preconditions prior to returning to the negotiating table, Syria remains firm in its demand for an Israeli total and unconditional withdrawal to the border, as it existed prior to the Six Day War in June 1967.
The Golan Heights was liberated by Israeli forces during the June 1967 war and has since been annexed as an integral portion of the state of Israel. It is currently the home of approximately 18,000 Israelis living in 33 communities.
Palestinian Cave-Dwellers Banned
Israel Faxx Staff Report
Israel has banned some 700 Palestinians from living in caves in the hills of the southern West Bank, an Israeli human rights organization said. In the latest land struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, more than 100 Israeli soldiers descended on cave dwellings near the village of Jineba and removed the inhabitants' possessions.
In the past, the Israeli Army has declared the region a closed military area, to be used as a firing range, but the human rights group said "the true objective is to create facts on the ground prior to the final-status agreement" between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel and the Palestinians are negotiating a permanent peace deal,
and Palestinians have accused Israel of grabbing as much land as it
can before final borders are settled. Industry Minister Cohen: Gas
discovery could lead to improved
relations with PA and Egypt
Gas May Lead to Better Relations with Egypt and Palestinians
By IsraelWire
Minister of Industry and Trade Ran Cohen stated that should the discovery of large offshore gas deposits near Ashkelon, Gaza and Sinai be confirmed, it will have a positive effect on industry. He added that their exploitation would improve relations between Israel, the PLO Authority and Egypt.
If current figures regarding gas quantities are confirmed, they will provide Israeli industry with a more accessible source of energy, which in turn would have a positive affect on high energy-consumption industries.
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