The Mystery of the Insurgency

By JAMES BENNET

WASHINGTON — American forces in Iraq have often been accused of being slow to apply hard lessons from Vietnam and elsewhere about how to fight an insurgency. Yet, it seems from the outside, no one has shrugged off the lessons of history more decisively than the insurgents themselves.

The insurgents in Iraq are showing little interest in winning hearts and minds among the majority of Iraqis, in building international legitimacy, or in articulating a governing program or even a unified ideology or cause beyond expelling the Americans. They have put forward no single charismatic leader, developed no alternative government or political wing, displayed no intention of amassing territory to govern now.

Rather than employing the classic rebel tactic of provoking the foreign forces to use clumsy and excessive force and kill civilians, they are cutting out the middleman and killing civilians indiscriminately themselves, in addition to more predictable targets like officials of the new government. Bombings have escalated in the last two weeks, and on Thursday a bomb went off in heavy traffic in Baghdad, killing 21 people.

This surge in the killing of civilians reflects how mysterious the long-term strategy remains - and how the rebels' seeming indifference to the past patterns of insurgency is not necessarily good news for anyone.

It is not surprising that reporters, and evidently American intelligence agents, have had great difficulty penetrating this insurgency. What is surprising is that the fighters have made so little effort to advertise unified goals.

Counter-insurgency experts are baffled, wondering if the world is seeing the birth of a new kind of insurgency; if, as in China in the 1930's or Vietnam in the 1940's, it is taking insurgents a few years to organize themselves; or if, as some suspect, there is a simpler explanation.

"Instead of saying, 'What's the logic here, we don't see it,' you could speculate, there is no logic here," said Anthony James Joes, a professor of political science at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and the author of several books on the history of guerrilla warfare. The attacks now look like "wanton violence," he continued. "And there's a name for these guys: Losers."

"The insurgents are doing everything wrong now," he said. "Or, anyway, I don't understand why they're doing what they're doing."

Steven Metz, of the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, said the insurgency could still be sorting itself out. Yet, he said, "It really is significant that even two years in there hasn't been anything like any kind of political ideology or political spokesman or political wing emerging. It really is a nihilistic insurgency."

He warned that this hydra-headed quality could make the insurgents hard to crush, even as the lack of unity makes it unlikely they will rule Iraq. "It makes it harder to eradicate the insurgency, but it also makes it more difficult for insurgents to gain their ultimate objective - if that is to control the country," he said.

That no one knows if that is the objective is, by historical standards, one of several remarkable, perplexing features of this fight.

A clear cause - one with broad support - is usually taken for granted by experts as a prerequisite for successful insurgency.

But insurgents in Iraq appear to be fighting for varying causes: Baath Party members are fighting for some sort of restoration of the old regime; Sunni Muslims are presumably fighting to prevent domination by the Shiite majority; nationalists are fighting to drive out the Americans; and foreign fighters want to turn Iraq into a battlefield of a global religious struggle. Some men are said to fight for money; organized crime may play a role.

This incoherence is something new. "If you look at 20th-century insurgencies, they all tend to be fairly coherent in terms of their ideology," Dr. Metz said. "Most of the serious insurgencies, you could sit down and say, 'Here's what they want.' "

In Iraq, insurgent groups appear to share a common immediate goal of ridding Iraq of an American presence, a goal that may find sympathy among Iraqis angry about poor electricity and water service and high unemployment.

Average Iraqis may distinguish among the groups within the insurgency and their tactics. Still, the insurgents haven't publicly proposed a governmental alternative, and their anti-American message has been muddied by their attacks on civilians and by the election of an Iraqi government that has not asked the Americans to leave.

If the insurgency is trying to overthrow this regime, it is contending with a formidable obstacle that successful rebels of the 20th century generally did not face: A democratically elected government. One of the last century's most celebrated theorists and practitioners of revolution, Che Guevara, called that obstacle insurmountable.

"Where a government has come to power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality," he wrote, "the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted."

The insurgents' choice of adversary is unusual. But the recent surge in violence at least follows a time-tested pattern. The insurgents are apparently trying to swamp any progress toward stability with evidence and images of chaos. The killing in that time of at least 250 policemen, soldiers and recruits also fits a pattern, since insurgents have customarily made targets of accused collaborators to isolate a regime. Less obvious is the goal in the killing of some 150 civilians.

The relationship between insurgents and the general population is always complex. Mao Zedong famously postulated that guerrillas move among the people as fish move through water. But he also warned that "a revolution is not a dinner party," and many insurgents, including the Vietcong, effectively used terror - often selectively applied - against civilians to compel segments of the population into at least passive support.

From his experience fomenting Arab revolt against the Turks, T. E. Lawrence concluded that insurgents needed only 2 percent active support from the population, and 98 percent passive support.

What is curious about the Iraqi tactic is that it appears aimed at creating active opposition. The insurgency is powered by Sunnis; the civilians they have killed have been overwhelmingly Shiites and Kurds. The goal appears to be to split apart the fragile governing coalition and foment sectarian strife.

Yet if the insurgents achieve all-out civil conflict, the likely losers are the Sunnis themselves, since they are a minority. Having governed for decades in Iraq, Sunnis are accustomed to the whip hand and may simply assume they will be able to regain control. Or perhaps they are betting that chaos will lead to partition, allowing Sunnis to govern themselves.

David Galula, author of a systematic 1964 study, "Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice," noted the effectiveness of force and intimidation as tools of an insurgency. But he added a crucial caveat: "There is, of course, a practical if not ethical limit to the use of force; the basic rule is never to antagonize at any one time more people than can be handled."

That was one of several mistakes that the Communist rebels made in Greece in the late 1940's. Once the country was liberated from the Germans, the Communists had no majority cause, and they chose to confront a democratically elected government. Lacking much industry, Greece had few proletarians, and the peasants were not particularly restive.

Not that the Communists cared. They had contempt for the peasants and alienated them further by extorting food and reinforcements through threats and executions. They burned villages in hopes of making the peasants a burden on the American-backed government and crippling the Greek economy.

THE guerrillas benefited from support from the Communist dictatorships to Greece's north. Then, in July 1949, Tito shut the Yugoslav border, eliminating Yugoslavia as a sanctuary. But Professor Joes argued that, by then, the insurgents were doomed anyway. "They had already shot themselves in the feet and both knees," he said. In Iraq, American and Iraqi troops have embarked on an offensive in the west partly in hopes of cutting off what the military command says is a flow of foreign fighters and matériel across the Syrian border. But military experts say that without stationing thousands of troops along the border, the military has little chance of closing it off.

If the immediate objective of the insurgents is relatively limited - not to topple the government and drive the Americans out now but to pin them down and bleed them - that at least would have solid precedents. As the counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman noted in a paper for Rand last year, "For more than 30 years, a dedicated cadre of approximately 200 to 400 I.R.A. gunmen and bombers frustrated the maintenance of law and order in Northern Ireland, requiring the prolonged deployment of tens of thousands of British troops." Yet the I.R.A. is still far from its larger goal: to drive the British out.

Among Iraq's insurgents, the jihadists are one group that has suggested a sweeping goal. They want to establish a new caliphate - a religious regime with expansive boundaries. For them, the destruction and chaos in Iraq may represent creative forces, means of heightening the contrasts among sects, religions and whole civilizations. Searching for parallels, several experts compared the insurgents in Iraq to the violent anarchists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That movement took root among the alienated and uprooted who could find no place in modern society.

Yet it may prove to be one of history's humbling lessons that history itself fails to illuminate the conflict under way in Iraq. No one really knows what the insurgents are up to.

"It clearly makes sense to the people who are doing it," said Dr. Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute. "And that more than anything else tells us how little we understand the region."

Cool

In Unusual Agreement, 'Post-Dispatch' Will Remain Liberal Under Lee

By Mark Fitzgerald

Published: May 13, 2005 3:10 PM ET
CHICAGO When Lee Enterprises Inc. agreed to purchase Pulitzer Inc. for $1.46 billion, it also agreed that the flagship St. Louis Post-Dispatch will keep its longstanding liberal editorial slant for at least the next five years, according to the purchase agreement mailed to Pulitzer shareholders Friday.

"For a period of at least five years following the Effective Time, Parent (Lee Enterprises) will cause the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to maintain its current name and editorial page platform statement and to maintain its news and editorial headquarters in the City of St. Louis, Missouri," the agreement states.

The Post-Dispatch platform statement, adopted in 1911, includes the pledge that the newspaper "will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

Over the years, the paper's editorials have taken a reliably Democratic or liberal view of issues, positions some worried would change under Lee's ownership.

Lee had previously told employees that it has "has always been cautious about making changes to longstanding editorial positions of the newspaper." In a question-and-answer sheet distributed soon after the January announcement of the purchase, Lee said it lets "local publishers and editors ... decide what positions are best for their communities."

Putting a condition like that in the actual purchase agreement, however, is unusual, said one broker, who demanded anonymity. "First off, why would they be worried about Lee taking the paper out of St. Louis?" the broker said. "But the editorial viewpoint, I think that's been mentioned in some of the deals we've done...but it is not typical at all."

The agreement, included in proxy materials mailed to shareholders for a special June 3 meeting to approve the purchase by Lee, also provides that Pulitzer will have a say in the appointment of an new editor if Post-Dispatch Editor Ellen Soeteber "is replaced within five years following the Effective Time, whether by reason of her resignation or removal or for any other reason." Lee, the agreement states, "will not appoint or allow to be appointed a new editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch without the prior consultation" with a person designated by Pulitzer.

The proxy materials also state that Pulitzer expects that Lee will continue to employ the Post-Dispatch's publisher and president, Terrence C.Z. Egger, who is also a Pulitzer senior vice president. Also staying, Pulitzer said, is Matthew G. Kraner, the newspaper's general manager and a Pulitzer vice president.

Pulitzer President and CEO Robert C. Woodworth will be "terminated," the proxy materials say, though he may also be retained as a consultant. Pulitzer said Woodworth will be paid $8,804,132 in severance payment.

The formal vote on Lee's all-cash $64 per share purchase will be held at 9 a.m. June 3 at the New York Palace Hotel in New York City.

U.S. Anglicans eyeing divestment criticize Israel

Thu May 12, 2005 04:55 PM ET

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. Episcopal Church, considering a review of investments in companies that do business with Israel, said on Thursday a high-level fact-finding team came back deeply disturbed after visiting the West Bank and nearby areas.

"Israel has a right to defend itself. But it appears that, in the name of security, injustices are being done to the Palestinians that amount to collective punishment," said Jacqueline Scott, a member of the Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns.

She was part of a delegation that also included members of the church's Social Responsibility in Investments committee and Phoebe Griswold, wife of Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the 2.3 million-member church.

The investments committee is scheduled to issue a report to church leaders later this year on whether the Episcopal Church is profiting from its investments in corporations that help support Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories or that may be harmful in general to Palestinians.

It is not known how much of the church's roughly $3.6 billion portfolio might be affected or what companies could be involved, but the issue is heating up in America where the Presbyterian Church USA also has a study under way that could lead to divestments. The latter, with 2.4 million members, has a portfolio valued at $8 billion.

In addition, the World Council of Churches, the main body uniting non-Catholic Christians, encouraged its members earlier this year to sell off investments in companies that make money from the Israeli occupation.

"What the commission members found the most shocking of all was that the Wall or Separation Barrier or Fence, as it is variously called, is perceived by all parties as being almost entirely underwritten by the American taxpayer," said Michele Spike, another member of the commission.

The wall, which Israel said it had to erect as a security measure, "invades Palestinian fields, dividing grazing lands -- including the valley of the shepherds at Bethlehem -- and, at times, encircling Palestinian cities," she added.

Any action on possible divestment by the Episcopalians would first be considered by the church's annual general convention in 2006.

The report issued by the church on Thursday said the divestment issue is complex and more work is needed.

Kim Byham, a member of the church's Executive Council and that group's liaison to the investments panel, said a period of "active engagement" with targeted companies would come before any divestment. He told Reuters that divestment "is not something that's on the horizon nor is it automatically ruled out."

He said the task of finding exactly which companies are involved and whether they are reflected in the church's investment portfolio is a complex one.

He was part of the team that visited the area earlier this month, and said he found that the occupation was "taking its toll on both sides."

---

UK film at Cannes says terror fears exaggerated

By Erik Kirschbaum

CANNES, France (Reuters) - A British documentary arguing U.S. neo-conservatives have exaggerated the terror threat is set to rock the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, the way "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred emotions here a year ago.

"The Power of Nightmares" re-injected politics into the festival that seemed eager to steer clear of controversy this year after American Michael Moore won top honors in 2004 for his film deriding President Bush's response to terror.

At a screening late on Friday ahead of its gala on Saturday, "The Power of Nightmares" by filmmaker and senior BBC producer Adam Curtis kept an audience of journalists and film buyers glued to their seats and taking notes for a full 2-1/2 hours.

The film, a non-competition entry, argues that the fear of terrorism has come to pervade politics in the United States and Britain even though much of that angst is based on carefully nurtured illusions.

It says Bush and U.S. neo-conservatives, as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, are exaggerating the terror threat in a manner similar to the way earlier generations of leaders inflated the danger of communism and the Soviet Union.

It also draws especially controversial symmetries between the history of the U.S. movement that led to the neo-cons and the roots of the ideas that led to radical Islamism -- two conservative movements that have shaped geopolitics since 1945.

Curtis's film portrays neo-cons Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld as counterparts to Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in the two respective movements.

"During the Cold War conservatives exaggerated the threat of the Soviet Union," the narrator says. "In reality it was collapsing from within. Now they're doing the same with Islamic extremists because it fits the American vision of an epic battle."

ILLUSORY FEAR OF TERROR

In his film, Curtis argues that Bush and Blair have used what he says is the largely illusory fear of terror and hidden webs of organized evil following the September 11, 2001, attacks to reinforce their authority and rally their nations.

In Bush's government, those underlings who put forth the darkest scenarios of the phantom threat have the most influence, says Curtis, who also devotes segments of his film to criticize unquestioning media and zealous security agencies.

He says al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has a far less powerful organization than feared. But he is careful to avoid suggestions that terror attacks won't happen again. Included are experts who dismiss fears of a "dirty bomb" as exaggerated.

"It was an attempt at historical explanation for September 11," Curtis said, describing his film in the Guardian newspaper recently. "Up to this point, nobody had done a proper history of the ideas and groups that have created our modern world."

But Curtis said there were worlds of difference between his film and Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which won the "Golden Palm" and gave the festival a charged political atmosphere that prompted this year's return to a more conservative program.

"Moore is a political agitprop filmmaker," he said. "I am not. You'd be hard pushed to tell my politics from watching it."

"The Power of Nightmares" was a three-part documentary aired in Britain and won a British film and television industry award (Bafta) this year.

Message to Melaine Phillips and our little friends - The whole world is bored with you. Zzzzzzzz.

Wal-Mart To Apologize For Ad in Newspaper

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 14, 2005; E01

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.

The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.

The accompanying text read "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The bottom of the advertisement announced that the ad was "Paid for by Protect Flagstaff's Future-Major Funding by Wal-Mart (Bentonville, AR)."

The ad, which ran May 8 in the Arizona Daily Sun, was "reviewed and approved by Wal-Mart, but we did not know what the photo was from. We obviously should have asked more questions," said Daphne Moore, Wal-Mart's director of community affairs. She said the company will also issue a letter of apology to the Arizona Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL, members of Congress and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union criticized the company for the advertisement.

"It's not the imagery itself. It trivializes the Nazis and what they did. And to try to attach that imagery to a municipal election goes beyond distasteful," said Bill Straus, Arizona regional director for the ADL.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has given about $300,000 to Protect Flagstaff's Future to help defeat Proposition 100, a local ordinance that would restrict stores of more than 75,000 square feet that devote more than 8 percent of their floor area to groceries. The proposal is one of a number around the country to regulate the size and design of big-box stores, particularly Wal-Marts. The vote on Proposition 100 is scheduled for Tuesday.

After a decade of near silence in the face of criticism and lawsuits, Wal-Mart is mounting a public relations counteroffensive to regain control of its image. In keeping with the public relations push, Wal-Mart will run a full-page apology in this weekend's Arizona Daily Sun to respond to the negative reaction to the book-burning ad.

Though the ad includes no apparent Nazi insignia or imagery, Straus said it's a well-known image among people "with any kind of knowledge of the Holocaust." It was bought to his attention by a Flagstaff college professor who Straus said was "extremely upset" at its use in a campaign about shopping.

Straus contacted Wal-Mart on Friday, and Moore told him an apology would be issued.

The advertisement also spurred action by Wake Up Wal-Mart, a campaign funded by the UFCW. The group contacted the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, and wrote a letter to Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. urging the company to "immediately end the company's support for this group and its media campaign. You must publicly condemn this group and you should offer a public apology on behalf of Wal-Mart making clear you would never support -- directly or indirectly -- a media campaign that uses Nazi imagery." Wake Up Wal-Mart also contacted members of Congress.

The group that created the advertisement said the ad was one of a series opposing Proposition 100. Other ads included a picture of a child praying and a person with duct tape over her mouth. "We wanted people to think about the freedoms we enjoy in America. The intent was wholly honorable and good," said Chuck Coughlin, president of Highground Inc., a Phoenix consulting company that created the advertisement. "We will not back away from substance of the ads . . . We will apologize for the use of imagery."

"People make mistakes. They move on," he said.

'“They charge us with anti-Semitism – i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry. False. The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a ‘passionate attachment’ to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what's good for Israel is good for America.” - Pat Buchanan

Jane Fonda, a great American. 

FONDA ON FAITH AND POLITICS

Jane Fonda

By LIZ SMITH

'TRYING TO define yourself is like try ing to bite your own teeth," said Alan Watts.

And here we continue our talk with the incredible Jane Fonda.

LIZ: Jane, many people are interested in your having become a Christian after being an agnostic most of your life. What kind of church do you go to in Atlanta?

Jane: I am searching for one, but have not found one yet. And, Liz, I am a feminist Christian.

Liz: So maybe you see Christianity in a broader sense than the fundamentalists?

Jane: I don't want to offend anyone. But I believe people have different ways of approaching The Word. For me, it's metaphor, written by people a long time after Christ died. And interpreted by specific groups. I read the gospels that aren't included in the Bible. These make me feel good about calling myself a Christian. What we are seeing today are policymakers who say they're Christians.

Budgets are a religious matter. War is. Poverty is. Health care is. Jesus said, "Look after the least of us." But there is a separation between professed faith and the practice, and I'm not seeing too many policies coming out of Washington that are, in my opinion, informed by the teachings of Jesus."

Liz: It seems Jesus surrounded himself with women and depended on them.

Jane: Real women . . . and prostitutes. Samaritans and outcasts.

Liz: Yes, publicans and sinners. Or was that Republicans and sinners?

Jane: (Laughter) I was at the White House correspondents' dinner the other night, and Laura Bush was really funny. Her approval rating is way up, as it should be.

Liz: Did you see the president's press conference before that; I thought he was floundering.

Jane: No, I thought he was very impressive. I don't know him, but I have always thought if I were alone in a room with him, I would really like him.

Liz: Well, many people do like him, and he has an informal appealing quality, they say. Jane, let's get back on you. What do you think of today's theory that the Vietnam war turned today's Vietnam into a flourishing Asian market economy Western style. Is that any excuse for the war that you protested?

Jane: I read that the other day. No, it's not an excuse. The tragedy is, the so-called enemy is running the country and we lost 3 million Vietnamese lives and 58,000 American lives. It never had to happen because they were offering this same kind of peace before the war started. But some Americans felt we had to fight to keep the "domino theory" from happening. No, I still protest the war. But if you could meet some of the veterans I meet in touring with this book . . . They are so great. They are amazing men.

Liz: The incident of your sitting on the gun, which you have apologized for — are you aware that even though it outraged a lot of people, it did not really affect your film career!

Jane: Not my career. It affected my heart. But I notice when I do radio shows, the interviewers tell the listeners that we're not screening calls. And I swear to you, all of the calls seem to be positive.

Liz: Jane, are you financially secure? Do you have to work and do movies to survive?

Jane: I'm OK, but I work to endow my organizations in Georgia. The Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, a statewide idea to help children against sexual abuse, poor parenting, school failure. Half my salary from "Monster-in-Law" went to that. If people want to help, the Web site is www.gcapp.org.

Liz: Will you do more movies?

Jane: Yes. I don't want to do a lot, but I will do some — both for money and because it is fun.

Liz: Would you ever act on the stage again?

Jane: I don't think so. I don't want to be away from my children.

Liz: With Jay Leno, he said to you that you walked like a movie star, and you answered, "I wonder why." It was a great line. But do you think of yourself as a film star?

Jane: I think starring in films is one of the things I do. (Laughter) But it's not who I am. I am, among other things, a grandmother, an activist; I work with kids; acting has always been just a part of what I do.

Liz: Will you stay in Atlanta?

Jane: It's manageable; it's a real place. People are very friendly. I have a life there with my work and my children. I'm very happy there. I spend other time in New Mexico at my ranch, and I like to fly fish. And I ride; I have eight horses. I like visiting New York. I like visiting L.A., but I wouldn't go back to live in Hollywood for anything.

Liz : So now you're a Southern girl?

Jane: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yep.

DNA Study Yields Clues on First Migration of Early Humans

By NICHOLAS WADE

By studying the DNA of an ancient people in Malaysia, a team of geneticists says it has illuminated many aspects of how modern humans migrated from Africa.

The geneticists say there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa; that it took a southern route to India, Southeast Asia and Australia; and that it consisted of a single band of hunter-gatherers, probably just a few hundred people strong.

Because these events occurred in the last Ice Age, when Europe was at first too cold for human habitation, the researchers say, it was populated only later, not directly from Africa but as an offshoot of the southern migration. The people of this offshoot would presumably have trekked back through the lands that are now India and Iran to reach the Near East and Europe.

The findings depend on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material inherited solely through the female line. They are reported today in Science by a team of geneticists led by Dr. Vincent Macaulay of the University of Glasgow.

Everyone in the world can be placed on a single family tree, in terms of their mitochondrial DNA, because everyone has inherited that piece of DNA from a single woman, the mitochondrial Eve, who lived some 200,000 years ago.

There were, of course, many other women in that ancient population. But over the generations, one mitochondrial DNA replaced all the others through the process known as genetic drift.

With the help of mutations that have built up on the one surviving copy, geneticists can arrange people in lineages and estimate the time of origin of each lineage.

With this approach, Dr. Macaulay's team calculates that the emigration from Africa occurred 65,000 years ago, pushed along the coasts of India and Southeast Asia and reached Australia by 50,000 years ago, the date of the earliest known archaeological site there.

The Malaysian people whom the geneticists studied are the Orang Asli. The term means "original men" in Malay.

They are probably descended from this first migration, because they have several ancient mitochondrial DNA lineages that are found nowhere else.

These lineages are 42,000 to 63,000 years old, the geneticists say. Subgroups of the Orang Asli, like the Semang, have probably been able to remain intact because they adapted to the harsh existence of living in forests, said Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer, the member of the geneticists' team who collected blood samples in Malaysia.

Some archaeologists theorize that Europe was colonized by a second migration that traveled north out of Africa. This fits with the earliest known modern human sites, dating from 45,000 years ago in the Levant and 40,000 years ago in Europe.

Dr. Macaulay's team says there could have been just one migration, not two, because the mitochondrial lineages of everyone outside Africa converge at the same time to the same common ancestors. Therefore, people from the southern migration, probably in India, must have struck inland to reach the Levant and, later, Europe, the geneticists say.

Dr. Macaulay said it was not clear why just one group succeeded in leaving Africa. One possibility is that because the migration occurred by continuous population expansion, leaving people in place at each site, the first emigrants may have blocked others from leaving. Another is that the terrain was so difficult for hunter-gatherers, who carry all their belongings with them, that only one group succeeded in the exodus.

Although there is general but not complete agreement that modern humans emigrated from Africa in recent times, there is still a difference between geneticists and archaeologists about its a timing. Archaeologists tend to view the genetic data as providing invaluable information about the interrelationship between groups, but they place less confidence in the dates derived from genetic family trees.

There is no evidence of modern humans outside Africa earlier than 50,000 years ago, said Dr. Richard Klein, an archaeologist at Stanford. Also, if something happened 65,000 years ago to allow people to leave Africa, as Dr. Macaulay's team suggests, there should surely be some record of that in the archaeological record in Africa, Dr. Klein said. Yet signs of modern human behavior do not appear in Africa until 50,000 years ago, the transition between the Middle and Later Stone Ages, he said.

"If they want to push such an idea, find me a 65,000-year-old site with evidence of human occupation outside of Africa," Dr. Klein said.

Geneticists counter that many of the coastline sites occupied by the first emigrants would now lie under water, because the sea level has risen more than 200 feet since the last Ice Age. Dr. Klein expressed reservations about that argument, noting that people would not wait for the slowly rising sea levels to overwhelm them but would build new sites farther inland.

Dr. Macaulay said genetic dates had improved in recent years, now that it is affordable to decode the whole ring of mitochondrial DNA, and not just a small segment.

But he said he agreed "that archaeological dates are much firmer than the genetic ones" and that it was possible his 65,000-year date for the African exodus was too old.

Dr. Macaulay's team has been able to estimate the size of the population in Africa from which the founders descended. The calculation indicates a maximum of 550 women. The true size may have been considerably less. This points to a single group of hunter-gatherers, perhaps a couple of hundred strong, as the ancestors of all humans outside of Africa, Dr. Macaulay said.

Melanie Phillips

Melanie Phillips is a woman who I simply cannot stand. Get over it, Melanie and at least try to join the civilized world.

MelaniePhillips.com

U.S. ineffective in pressuring N. Korea to dismantle weapons
	The United States has apparently been running out of effective cards to play in forcing North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, especially as it finds little cooperation from China, a major ally to the communist state, analysts said. China is reportedly unfazed by U.S. appeals to apply economic or political sanctions on North Korea to press the communist state to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Considering stability in the neighboring country, which is a precondition to its economic developments, Beijing has refrained from using pressure, analysts said. Though Washington has been discussing with China and Russia taking North Korea`s nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council, it is unlikely to happen as China, one of U.N. council`s permanent seat members, has indicated it would veto the attempt. Fears have mounted recently over North`s nuclear weapons program, with the country reportedly preparing a nuclear explosion test. It declared in February that it manufactures atomic bombs and will increase its deterrence against "U.S. hostility." In the latest raising of the stakes in the escalating nuclear tension, North Korea announced Wednesday that it had completed removing spent nuclear fuel rods from a reactor, a procedure which enables it to obtain weapons-grade plutonium. "The United States holds no cards now to effectively prevent North Korea from going nuclear unless Washington revises its fundamental notion about the North," said Paik Hak-soon, director for the Center of North Korea Studies at the Sejong Institute. Washington looks to Beijing and others to take a decisive role in persuading North Korea to return to the six-party denuclearization talks, which have been in a stalemate since last June. Various reports, however, said China rebuffed the U.S. request to cut off fuel supplies to North Korea, while U.S. authorities refuse to confirm it whether it asked China to do so. A Chinese diplomatic source in Seoul told reporters Tuesday that pressure could also involve invisible measures as well as visible ones, when asked whether China considers pressing its neighbor. Fundamental distrust among the participating counties in the six-nation discussion runs deep in taking diplomatic steps, Paik said. North Korea believes that Washington aims not only to remove its nuclear capabilities, but change its regime, which spurs the North to increase its nuclear capabilities. Paik said China shares the North`s view, which means if the distrust is not cleared, U.S. intentions to make "one international voice" in pressing the North will not be effective at all, as the North prioritizes its survival of the regime. "Beijing is willing to press Pyongyang as it wants a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula for the economic prospects, but the interests could dramatically change if China believes Washington wants to change the Kim Jong-il regime, sparking insecurity in Northeast Asia," Paik said. Experts said increasing inter-Korean trade volumes, and that of China and North Korea, are the obstacles that contradict Washington`s intention to increase pressure on the communist state. North Korea imports about 70 percent of its energy needs from China. According to Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, North Korea has been almost entirely dependent on its oil imports from China since 1990. According to Korea International Trade Association, the North has maintained an annual average 30 percent of its total trade with China since 2000, compared to 15.9 percent with Korea, and 8.6 percent with Japan. The inter-Korean trade volume in the first quarter of 2005 increased 58 percent year on year to $165 billion due largely to the Mount Geumgang tour, Gaesong industrial park project, and continuous commercial trades. Sending the North Korean issue to the U.N. Security Council is also not an easy task, experts say. "China places the stability in the North Korean regime as its top priority, so that it will be the first to oppose U.S. pressure on the North," said Jun Bong-geun, director of the privately-run Institute for Peace and Cooperation. Professor Koh Yu-hwan of Dongguk University said it is too early for the United States to look to the council for pressure. "Washington will try to sound out North Korea`s intent to return to the table first through various channels, including the so-called New York channel," Koh said in an interview. The New York channel is an unofficial medium of communication between North Korea and the United States. U.S. State Department acknowledged that the channel exists and it will discuss issues when needed. The pre-emptive strike, which might be one of Washington`s many considerations, is not feasible, analysts said. The Pentagon recently deployed B-2 stealth bombers and F15E fighter jets in Guam, which could be used to conduct a surgical strike on Pyongyang`s nuclear facilities. But the strike could easily turn into all-out warfare, incurring casualties not only from U.S. troops and Japanese. South Korea made clear its opposition to a possible U.S. pre-emptive strike on North Korea without Seoul`s consent, in the event of no breakthrough being made in the multilateral talks. (smjoo@heraldm.com) By Joo Sang-min

Protestors say mission conference is gay communist plot

Organisers of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism taking place near Athens, Greece, addressed the 600 participants today about the small but vocal protests taking place outside the Agios Andreas resort. They urged calm and respect.

On Monday, when representatives were arriving from 105 countries and many different churches and confessions, a lone demonstrator carried a placard proclaiming “Orthodoxy or death”.

Yesterday afternoon a group of protestors carried signs and shouted slogans accusing church and mission leaders taking part in the historic event of being part of a communist and homosexual plot. “You are going to hell!” they yelled.

One participant from a church with a peace tradition talked to Ekklesia this morning about his own attempts at conversation with those verbally abusing him.

“I wanted to offer them my love and prayers and to try to find out why they were so hurt and offended by our presence,” he explained. “It was difficult to be heard, but I believe we have to seek the face of Christ in each other, perhaps especially when there is anger and misunderstanding in the air,”

Today the Rev Ruth Bottoms, UK Baptist pastor and Moderator of the World Council of Churches’ Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, said that the organizers of the assembly recognized that demonstrators should be free to speak their minds. But likewise participants should be free to confer without threat.

Most of the protestors are members of organizations that claim to speak for the ‘true’ Orthodox faith. They oppose the involvement of the Orthodox Church of Greece, which is hosting the event for the WCC alongside Catholics and Protestants on the local reception committee.

But a spokesperson for the Church of Greece made it clear that such aggressive, antagonistic behaviour is not representative, although it is acknowledged that some members of the Church oppose both ecumenism and the presence of the conference in Athens.

Many of those involved in the demonstrations have joined a breakaway Orthodox body not recognized by the Church.

Those taking part in the world mission conference, probably the most widely constituted Christian gathering of its kind, say that the Greek Orthodox Church has been very open to them.

His Beatitude Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and all Greece welcomed the delegates on Tuesday morning. He has spoken of the vital need for “dialogue with love in Christ for our Christian brothers and sisters and with respect for them.

This is the first major ecumenical event of the 20th and 21st centuries to take place in a majority Orthodox context – and one not without its own differences.

The handbook for participants stresses the need for sensitivity: “Greece is a country with a long and rich Christian tradition”, it says. “For those of you who come from completely different contexts, use this week to try to understand the specificities of the Greek churches and culture.”

Conference participants are also asked to respect the hospitality of the Church of Greece, and to “refrain from any word or action that may offend our hosts, in particular on issues of church life and theology.”

It goes on: “If you see or experience things which seem difficult to you… let people with local knowledge explain the significance of practices, rituals, buildings, images or statements.”

The aim of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism is to provide an opportunity for practical exchange about the future of global Christian mission. Many participants have travelled from the world’s hotspots to discuss how the Gospel can help overcome violence and witness to a culture of peace made possible in Christ.

Was World War II worth it?

By Patrick J. Buchanan
2005 Creators Syndicate Inc.

In the Bush vs. Putin debate on World War II, Putin had far the more difficult assignment. Defending Russia's record in the "Great Patriotic War," the Russian president declared, "Our people not only defended their homeland, they liberated 11 European countries."

Those countries are, presumably: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Finland.

To ascertain whether Moscow truly liberated those lands, we might survey the sons and daughters of the generation that survived liberation by a Red Army that pillaged, raped and murdered its way westward across Europe. As at Katyn Forest, that army eradicated the real heroes who fought to retain the national and Christian character of their countries.

To Bush, these nations were not liberated. "As we mark a victory of six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox," he said:

For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end the oppression. The agreement in Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. ... The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs in history.

Bush told the awful truth about what really triumphed in World War II east of the Elbe. And it was not freedom. It was Stalin, the most odious tyrant of the century. Where Hitler killed his millions, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot and Castro murdered their tens of millions.

Leninism was the Black Death of the 20th Century.

The truths bravely declared by Bush at Riga, Latvia, raise questions that too long remained hidden, buried or ignored.

If Yalta was a betrayal of small nations as immoral as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, why do we venerate Churchill and FDR? At Yalta, this pair secretly ceded those small nations to Stalin, co-signing a cynical "Declaration on Liberated Europe" that was a monstrous lie.

As FDR and Churchill consigned these peoples to a Stalinist hell run by a monster they alternately and affectionately called "Uncle Joe" and "Old Bear," why are they not in the history books alongside Neville Chamberlain, who sold out the Czechs at Munich by handing the Sudetenland over to Germany? At least the Sudeten Germans wanted to be with Germany. No Christian peoples of Europe ever embraced their Soviet captors or Stalinist quislings.

Other questions arise. If Britain endured six years of war and hundreds of thousands of dead in a war she declared to defend Polish freedom, and Polish freedom was lost to communism, how can we say Britain won the war?

If the West went to war to stop Hitler from dominating Eastern and Central Europe, and Eastern and Central Europe ended up under a tyranny even more odious, as Bush implies, did Western Civilization win the war?

In 1938, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain refused. In 1939, Churchill wanted Britain to fight for Poland. Chamberlain agreed. At the end of the war Churchill wanted and got, Czechoslovakia and Poland were in Stalin's empire.

How, then, can men proclaim Churchill "Man of the Century"?

True, U.S. and British troops liberated France, Holland and Belgium from Nazi occupation. But before Britain declared war on Germany, France, Holland and Belgium did not need to be liberated. They were free. They were only invaded and occupied after Britain and France declared war on Germany on behalf of Poland.

When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war with 50 million dead?

The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling not British and French. Understandably.

Yes, Bush has opened up quite a can of worms.

Ariel Sharon's Book
of Bedtime Verses

This collection of quotations
was compiled by Michael Santomauro,
Editorial Director of Reporters Notebook,
and is republished here with his permission.

Why is there anti-Semitism?

The reasons for anti-Semitism is found in its intellectuals and their leaders.

"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories." Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, tells students at Bar Ilan University, From the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.

David Ben-Gurion, one of the father founders of Israel, described Zionist aims in 1948 thus: "A Christian state should be established [in Lebanon], with its southern border on the Litani river. We will make an alliance with it. When we smash the Arab Legion's strength and bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo... And in this fashion, we will end the war and settle our forefathers' account with Egypt, Assyria, and Aram"

"Zionist colonization must either be terminated or carried out against the wishes of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, be continued and make progress only under the protection of a power independent of the native population - an iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native population. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs..." Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, 1923.

"[The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, 'Begin and the "Beasts"', New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."Golda Maeir, March 8, 1969.

"We must expel Arabs and take their places." David Ben Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the future. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else-or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE!... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important... to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am through with playing at colonizing." Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism (precursor of Likud), The Iron Wall, 1923.

"Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country. We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries - all of them. Not one village, not one tribe should be left." Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department in 1940. From "A Solution to the Refugee Problem" Joseph Weitz, Davar, September 29, 1967, cited in Uri Davis and Norton Mevinsky, eds., Documents from Israel, 1967-1973, p.21.

"The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.

"We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters" Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From "The Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryas.

"...if people become accustomed to the large figure and we are actually obliged to accept the return of the refugees, we may find it difficult, when faced with hordes of claimants, to convince the world that not all of these formerly lived in Israeli territory. It would, in any event, seem desirable to minimize the numbers...than otherwise." Israeli official Arthur Lourie in a letter to Walter Eytan, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (ISA FM 2564/22). From Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-49", p. 297.

"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.

One of the most enduring and deceptive slogans of Zionism was coined by Israel Zangwill almost 100 years ago: Palestine was a "land without people for a people without land."

After paying a visit to Palestine in 1891, the Hebrew essayist Achad Ha-Am commented:" Abroad we are accustomed to believe that Israel is almost empty; nothing isgrown here and that whoever wishes to buy land could come here and buy what his heart desires. In reality, the situation is not like this. Throughout the country it is difficult to find cultivable land which is not already cultivated."

The removal of Arabs bodily from Palestine is part of the Zionist plan to "spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment...Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried away discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.

In 1899, Davis Triestsch wrote to Herzl: " I would suggest to you to come round in time to the "Greater Palestine" program before it is too late... the Basle program must contain the words "Great Palestine" or "Palestine and its neighbouring lands" otherwise it's nonsense. You do not get ten million Jews into a land of 25,000 Km2".

Vladimir Jabotinsky (the founder and advocate of the Zionist terrorist organizations): "Has any People ever been seen to give up their territory of their own free will? In the same way, the Arabs of Palestine will not renounce their sovereignty without violence." Quoted by Maxime Rodinson in Peuple Juif ou Problem Juif. (Jewish People or Jewish Problem).

David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): " If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 "We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return." Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes, "The old will die and the young will forget."

Also Ben Gurion stated " The present map of Palestine was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults should strive to fulfill -- From the Nile to the Euphrates."

"Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party (Herut), a political party closely akin in its organization, method, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties." [Begin, and Yitzhak Shamir who were members of the party became Prime Ministers.] Albert Einstein, Hanna Arendt and other prominent Jewish Americans, writing in The New York Times, protest the visit to America of Menachem Begin, December 1948.

Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the moral character of the state of Israel with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949: "We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion; we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora."

" It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire." Moshe Dayan (Israel Defense and Foreign Minister), on February 12 1952. Radio "Israel."

Aba Eban (the Israeli Foreign Minister) stated arrogantly: " If the General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor of "Israel" returning to the armistice lines-- (pre June 1967 borders) "Israel" would refuse to comply with the decision." New York Times June 19, 1967.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don't blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, .The Arab villages are not there either. Nahal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibat; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kfar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al Shuman. There is not one single place that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan's address to the Technion, Haifa (as Quoted in Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969).

"There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969.

"The only solution is Eretz Israel [Greater Israel], or at least Western Eretz Israel [all the land west of Jordan River], without Arabs. There is no room compromise on this point ... We must not leave a single village, not a single tribe." Joseph Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged with acquiring Palestinian land, Circa 194. Machover Israca, January5, 1973 p.2.

"Hitler's legal power was based upon the 'Enabling Act', which was passed quite legally by the Reichstag and which allowed the Fuehrer and his representatives, in plain language, to be what they wanted, or in legal language, to issue regulations having the force of law. Exactly the same type of act was passed by the Knesset [Israeli's Parliament] immediately after the 1067 conquest granting the Israeli governor and his representatives the power of Hitler, which they use in Hitlerian manner." Dr. Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, and a survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Commenting on the Israeli military's Emergency Regulations following the 1967 War. Palestine, vol. 12, December 1983.

I see "many similarities in the oppression of Blacks in South Africa and of Palestinians." Dennis Goldberg, a Jewish South African sentenced to life imprisonment for "conspiring to overthrow the apartheid regime," is released through the intercession of Israeli officials, states on arrival in Israel, March 1985. He called for a total economic boycott of South Africa, singling out Israelas a major ally of the apartheid regime. Pledging never to stay in Israel, Goldberg moves to London.

"It is forbidden to sell apartments in the Land of Israel to Gentiles." Mordecai Eliayaho, the Israeli Chief Rabbi commenting on an attempt by a Palestinian to buy an apartment owned by the Jewish National Fund in East Jerusalem. Ha'aretz January 17, 1986. The same situation was repeated many times, and that decision is legalized now by the Israeli Supreme Court.

"Jewish blood and a goy's [gentile's] blood are not the same." Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, Inferring that killing isn't murder if the victim is Gentile. Jerusalem Post, June 19,1989.

"I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa." Archbishop Desmond Tuto, observes during Christmas visit to Jerusalem, December 25, 1989. From Israeli daily Ha'aretz, cited in Palestine Perspectives, January/February 1990.

"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya [immigration], and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country." Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Avivmemorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.

The Balfour Declaration to Baron Rothchild, on the 2nd of November, 1917: "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyedby Jews in any other country."

"In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country" Lord Balfour in private memorandum to Lord Curzon, 11 August 1919.

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, 'What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'" Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979; Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet.

"We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

"There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here [Palestine] to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe should be left." Jospeh Weitz, Davar, 29 September 1967 from "My Diary and Letters to the Children", Massada, 1965, III, p. 293.

"When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

"When we [followers of the prophetic Judaism] returned to Palestine...the majority of Jewish people preferred to learn from Hitler rather than from us." Martin Buber, to a New York audience, Jewish Newsletter, June 2, 1958.

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Berlin unveils Holocaust memorial. World War II was about far more than the fate of Jews in Europe. They would be well advised to get over it!

From CNN's Chris Burns

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- Berlin has unveiled a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, ending 17 years of charged debate over how Germany should remember that grim period of its history.

The tribute to the six million European Jews killed by the Nazi government more than 60 years ago is a stone's throw from the buried ruins of Adolf Hitler's bunker.

In the heart of Berlin, near the Reichstag and Brandenburg gate, Berlin's newest and most powerful reminder of the Final Solution will ensure that no Jews murdered by the Third Reich are forgotten.

From outside, the 2,711 dark gray slabs form a gentle wave, ankle-high in some places, designed to give visitors a sense of groundlessness, of instability, a loss of orientation.

While the memorial will be greeted by many Germans it may attract vandals, said the politician who unveiled it Tuesday.

"I believe it will be accepted by the younger generation, but surely not by everyone," Wolfgang Thierse, speaker of the Bundestag parliament, told German radio.

"There will be opposition, indifference, denial."

But its Jewish American architect Peter Eisenman says even though the memorial will be open around the clock, he is not worried about graffiti.

The architect even opposed an official decision to coat the slabs with a chemical making it easier to remove any tagging.

And that was not because the chemical was made by Degussa, makers of the Zyklon B gas used in the gas chambers during the war, a controversy in itself.

''I didn't want the graffiti coating, because I think vandalism is an expression of the city. We have it in American cities, and I think in a certain way it's positive. It's an outlet," Eisenman says.

Under the memorial are the stories of holocaust victims, like the Haberman family from the polish city of Borislaw.

Like tens of thousands of other Jews, mother Sala died in the Belzec concentration camp.

The father Fischel and their children were sent to a labor camp, most of them murdered. But one child, Sabina, survived.

Critics of the long-debated project say the memorial should be for all victims of the Third Reich, not only Jews. But the designer disagrees.

''They were the only people singled out for extermination. There was a plan to exterminate the race," Eisenman says.

Now, 60 years after Germany's Jewish population was virtually eliminated, their memory has a clear and indelible mark on the country's heart.

The Biology of Attraction

By: Helen E. Fisher

Summary: Much of courtship and mating is choreographed by nature.

The Biology of Attraction

In an apocryphal story, a colleague once turned to the great British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane, and said, "Tell me, Mr. Haldane, knowing what you do about nature, what can you tell me about God?" Haldane replied, "He has an inordinate fondness for beetles." Indeed, the world contains over 300,000 species of beetles. I would add that "God" loves the human mating game, for no other aspect of our behavior is so complex, so subtle, or so pervasive. And although these sexual strategies differ from one individual to the next, the essential choreography of human courtship, love, and marriage has myriad designs that seem etched into the human psyche, the product of time, selection, and evolution. They begin the moment men and women get within courting range--with the way we flirt.

In describing these strategies, I make no effort to be "politically correct' " Nature designed men and women to work together. But I cannot pretend that they are alike. They are not. And I have given evolutionary and biological explanations for their differences where I find them appropriate.

FLIRTING

Women from places as different as the jungles of Amazonia, the salons of Paris, and the highlands of New Guinea apparently flirt with the same sequence of expressions.

First the woman smiles at her admirer and lifts her eyebrows in a swift, jerky motion as she opens her eyes wide to gaze at him. Then she drops her eyelids, tilts her head down and to the side, and looks away. Frequently she also covers her face with her hands, giggling nervously as she retreats behind her palms. This sequential flirting gesture is so distinctive that [German ethologist Irenaus] Eibl-Eibesfeldt is convinced it is innate, a human female courtship ploy that evolved eons ago to signal sexual interest.

Men also employ courting tactics similar to those seen in other species. Have you ever walked into the boss's office and seen him leaning back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, elbows high, and chest thrust out? Perhaps he has come from behind his desk, walked up to you, smiled, arched his back, and thrust his upper body in your direction? If so, watch out. He may be subconsciously announcing his dominance over you. If you are a woman, he may be courting you instead.

The "chest thrust" is part of a basic postural message used across the animal kingdom--"standing tall." Dominant creatures puff up. Codfish bulge their heads and thrust our their pelvic fins. Snakes, frogs, and toads inflate their bodies. Antelope and chameleons turn broadside to emphasize their bulk. Mule deer look askance to show their antlers. Cats bristle. Pigeons swell. Lobsters raise themselves onto the tips of their walking legs and extend their open claws. Gorillas pound their chests. Men just thrust out their chests.

"COPULATORY" GAZE

The gaze is probably the most striking human courting ploy. Eye language. In Western cultures, where eye contact between the sexes is permitted, men and women often stare intently at potential mates for about two to three seconds during which their pupils may dilate - a sign of extreme interest. Then the starer drops his or her eyelids and looks away.

No wonder the custom of the veil has been adopted in so many cultures. Eye contact seems to have an immediate effect. The gaze triggers a primitive part of the human brain, calling forth one of two basic emotions--approach or retreat. You cannot ignore the eyes of another fixed on you; you must respond. You may smile and start conversation. You may look away and edge toward the door. But first you will probably tug at an earlobe, adjust your sweater, yawn, fidget with your eyeglasses, or perform some other meaningless movement--a "displacement gesture"--to alleviate anxiety while you make up your mind how to acknowledge this invitation, whether to flee the premises or stay and play the courting game.

BABOON LOVE

Baboons gaze at each other during courtship too. These animals may have branched off of our human evolutionary tree more than 19 million years ago, yet this similarity in wooing persists. As anthropologist Barbara Smuts has said of a budding baboon courtship on the Eburru cliffs of Kenya, "It looked like watching two novices in a singles bar."

The affair began one evening when a female babooon, Thalia, turned and caught a young male, Alex staring at her. They were about 15 feet apart. He glanced away immediately. So she stared at him--until he turned to look at her. Then she intently fiddled with her toes. On it went. Each time she stared at him, he looked away; each time he stared at her, she groomed her feet. Finally Alex caught Thalia gazing at him--the "return gaze."

Immediately he flattened his ears against his head, narrowed his eyelids, and began to smack his lips, the height of friendliness in baboon society. Thalia froze. Then, for a long moment, she looked him in the eye. Only after this extended eye contact had occurred did Alex approach her, at which point Thalia began to groom him--the beginning of a friendship and sexual liaison that was still going strong six years later, when Smuts returned to Kenya to study baboon friendships.

AT THE BAR

Could these courting cues be part of a larger human mating dance?

According to David Givens, an anthropologist, and Timothy Perper, a biologist, who spent several hundred hours in American cocktail lounges watching men and women pick up each other up, American singles-bar courtship has several stages, each with distinctive escalation points. I shall divide them into five. The first is the "attention getting" phase. Young men and women do this somewhat differently. As soon as they enter the bar, both males and females typically establish a territory--a seat, a place to lean, a position near the jukebox or dance floor. Once settled, they begin to attract attention to themselves.

Tactics vary. Men tend to pitch and roll their shoulders, stretch, exaggerate their body movements. Instead of using the wrist to stir a drink, men often employ the entire arm, as if stirring mud. The normally smooth motion necessary to light a cigarette becomes a whole-body gesture, ending with an elaborate shaking from the elbow to extinguish the match.

Then there is the swagger with which young men often move to and fro. Male baboons on the grasslands of East Africa also swagger when they foresee a potential sexual encounter. A male gorilla walks back and forth stiffly as he watches a female out of the corner of his eye. The parading gait is known to primatologists as bird-dogging. Males of many species also preen. Human males pat their hair, adjust their clothes, tug their chins, or perform other self-clasping or grooming movements that diffuse nervous energy and keep the body moving.

Young women begin the attention-getting phase with many of the same maneuvers that men use--smiling, gazing, shifting, swaying, preening, stretching, moving in their territory to draw attention to themselves. Often they incorporate a battery of feminine moves as well. They twist their curls, tilt their heads, look up coyly, giggle, raise their brows, flick their tongues, lick their upper lips, blush, and hide their faces in order to signal, "I am here."

Some women also have a characteristic walk when courting; they arch their backs, thrust out their bosoms, sway their hips, and strut. No wonder many women wear high-heeled shoes. This bizarre Western custom, invented by Catherine de Medici in the 1500s, unnaturally arches the back, tilts the buttocks, and thrusts the chest out into a female come-hither pose. The clomping noise of their spiky heels helps draws attention too.

KEEPING TIME

Body synchrony is the final and most intriguing component of the pickup. As potential lovers become comfortable, they pivot or swivel until their shoulders become aligned, their bodies face-to-face. This rotation toward each other may start before they begin to talk or hours into conversation, but after a while the man and woman begin to move in tandem. Only briefly at first. When he crosses his legs, she crosses hers; as he leans left, she leans left; when he smoothes his hair, she smoothes hers. They move in perfect rhythm as they gaze deeply into each other's eyes.

Called interactional synchrony, this human mirroring begins in infancy. By the second day of life, a newborn has begun to synchronize its body movements with the rhythmic patterns of the human voice. And it is now well established that people in many other cultures get into rhythm when they feel comfortable together. Our need to keep each other's time reflects a rhythmic mimicry common to many animals. Chimps sometimes sway from side to side as they stare into one another's eyes just prior to copulation. Cats circle. Red deer prance. Howler monkeys court with rhythmic tongue movements. Stickleback fish do a zigzag jig. From bears to beetles, courting couples perform rhythmic rituals to express their amorous intentions.

WOOING MESSAGES

Human courtship has other similarities to courtship in "lower" animals. Normally people woo each other slowly. Caution during courtship is also characteristic of spiders. The male wolf spider, for example, must enter the long, darker entrance of a female's compound in order to court and copulate. This he does slowly. If he is overeager, she devours him.

Men and women who are too aggressive at the beginning of the courting process also suffer unpleasant consequences. If you come too close, touch too soon, or talk too much, you will probably be repelled. Like wooing among wolf spiders, baboons, and other creatures, the human pickup runs on message. At every juncture in the ritual each partner must respond correctly, otherwise the courtship fails.

THE DINNER DATE

Probably no ritual is more common to Western would-be lovers than the "dinner date." If the man is courting, he pays--and a woman instinctively knows her partner is wooing her. In fact, there is no more widespread courtship ploy than offering food in hopes of gaining sexual favors. Around the world men give women presents prior to lovemaking. A fish, a piece of meat, sweets, and beer are among the delicacies men have invented as offerings.

This ploy is not exclusive to men. Black-tipped hang flies often catch aphids, daddy longlegs, or houseflies on the forest floor. When a male has felled a particularly juicy prey, he exudes secretions from an abdominal scent gland that catch the breeze, announcing a successful hunting expedition. Often a passing female hang fly stops to enjoy the meal - but not without copulating while she eats.

"Courtship feeding," as this custom is called, probably predates the dinosaurs, because it has an important reproductive function. By providing food to females, males show their abilities as hunters, providers, worthy procreative partners.

ODOR LURES

Every person smells slightly different; we all have a personal "odor print" as distinctive as our voice, our hands, our intellect. As newborn infants we can recognize our mother by her smell. Both men and women have "apocrine glands in their armpits, around their nipples, and in the groin that become active at puberty. These scent boxes differ from "eccrine" glands, which cover much of the body and produce an odorless liquid, because their exudate, in combination with bacteria on the skin, produce the acrid, gamy smell of perspiration.

Today in parts of Greece and the Balkans, some men carry their handkerchiefs in their armpits during festivals and offer these odoriferous tokens to the women they invite to dance: they swear by the results.

But could a man's smell actually trigger infatuation in a woman? This possible link between male essence and female reproductive health may provide a clue to attraction. Women perceive odors better than men do. They are a hundred times more sensitive to Exaltolide, a compound much like men's sexual musk; they can smell a mild sweat from about three feet away; and at midcycle, during ovulation, women can smell men's musk even more strongly. Perhaps ovulating women become more susceptible to infatuation when they can smell male essence and are unconsciously drawn toward it to maintain menstrual cycling.

A woman's or a man's smell can release a host of memories too. So the right human smell at the right moment could touch off vivid pleasant memories and possibly ignite that first, stunning moment of romantic adoration.

But Americans, the Japanese, and many other people find odors offensive; for most of them the smell of perspiration is more likely to repel than to attract. Some scientists think the Japanese are unduly disturbed by body odors because of their long tradition of arranged marriages: men and women were forced into close contact with partners they found unappealing. Why Americans are phobic about natural body smells, I do not know. Perhaps our advertisers have swayed us in order to sell their deodorizing products.

LOVE MAPS

A more important mechanism by which human beings become captivated by "him" or "her" may be what sexologist John Money calls your love map. Long before you fixate on Ray as opposed to Bill, Sue instead of Ceciley, you have developed a mental map, a template replete with brain circuitry that determines what arouses you sexually, what drives you to fall in love with one person rather than another.

These love maps vary from one individual to the next. Some people get turned on by a business suit or a doctor's uniform, by big breasts, small feet, or a vivacious laugh. But averageness still wins. In a recent study, psychologists selected 32 faces of American Caucasian women and, using computers, averaged all of their features. Then they showed these images to college peers. Of 94 photographs of real female faces, only four were rated more appealing than these fabrications.

As you would guess, the world does not share the sexual ideals of Caucasian students from Wyoming. Despite wildly dissimilar standards of beauty and sex appeal, however, there are a few widely shared opinions about what incites romantic passion. Men and women around the world are attracted to those with good complexions. Everywhere people are drawn to partners whom they regard as clean. And men in most places generally prefer plump, wide-hipped women to slim ones. Looks count.

So does money. From rural Zulus to urban Brazilians, men are attracted to young, good-looking, spunky women, while women are drawn to men with property or money. Americans are no exception.

These male/female appetites are probably innate. it is to a males' genetic advantage to fall in love with a women who will produce viable offspring; it is to a woman's biological advantage to become captivated by a man who can help support her young. As Montaigne, the 16th-century French essayist, summed it up, "We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say; we marry just as much or more for our posterity."

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Could this human ability to adore another within moments of meeting come out of nature? I think it does. In fact, love at first sight may have a critical adaptive function among animals. During the mating season a female squirrel, for example, needs to breed. It is not to her advantage to copulate with a porcupine. But if she sees a healthy squirrel, she should waste no time. She should size him up. And if her looks suitable, she should grab her chance to copulate. Perhaps love at first sight is no more than an inborn tendency in many creatures that evolved to spur the mating process. Then among our human ancestors what had been animal attraction evolved into the human sensation of infatuation at a glance.

INFATUATION FADES

Alas, infatuation fades. As Emerson put it, "Love is strongest in pursuit, friendship in possession." At some point, that old black magic wanes. Yet there does seem to be a general length to this condition. Psychologist Dorothy Tennov measured the duration of romantic love, from the moment infatuation hit to when a "feeling of neutrality" for one's love object began. She concluded, "The most frequent interval, as well as the average, is between approximately 18 months and three years" John Money agrees, proposing that once you begin to see your sweetheart regularly the passion lasts two to three years.

Psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz suspects that the end of infatuation is also grounded in brain physiology. He theorizes that the brain cannot eternally maintain the revved-up site of romantic bliss. As he sums it up, "If you want a situation where you and your long-term partner can still get very excited about each other, you will have to work on it, because in some ways you are bucking a biological tide."

HAREM BUILDING

Only 16 percent of the 853 cultures on record actually prescribe monogyny, in which a man is permitted only one wife at a time. Western cultures are among them. We are in the minority, however. A whopping 84 percent of all human societies permit a man to take more than one wife at once--polygyny.

Men seek polygyny to spread their genes, while women join harems to acquire resources and ensure the survival of their young. If you ask a man why he wants a second bride, he might say he is attracted to her wit, her business acumen, her vivacious spirit, or splendid thighs. If you ask a women why she is willing to "share" a man, she might tell you that she loves the way he looks or laughs or takes her to fancy vacation spots.

But no matter what reasons people offer, polygny enables men to have more children; under the right conditions women also reap reproductive benefits. So long ago ancestral men who sought polygyny and ancestral women who acquiesced to harem life disproportionately survived.

MAN IS MONOGAMOUS

Because of the genetic advantages of polygyny for men and because so many societies permit polygyny, many anthropologists think that harem building is a badge of the human animal. But in the vast majority of societies where polygyny is permitted, only about five to 10 percent of men actually have several wives simultaneously. Although polygyny is widely discussed, it is much less practiced.

Whereas gorillas, horses, and animals of many other species always form harems, among human beings polygyny and polyandry seem to be optional opportunistic exceptions; monogamy is the rule. Human beings almost never have to be cajoled into pairing. Instead, we do this naturally. We flirt. We feel infatuation. We fall in love. We marry. And the vast majority of us marry only one person at a time.

Pair-bonding is a trademark of the human animal.

UNFAITHFULLY YOURS

Although we flirt, fall in love, and marry, human beings also tend to be sexually unfaithful to a spouse. Americans are no exception. Despite our attitude that philandering is immoral, regardless of our sense of guilt when we engage in trysts, in spite of the risks to family, friends, and livelihood that adultery entails, we indulge in extramarital affairs with avid regularly.

A survey of 106,000 readers of Cosmopolitan magazine in the early 1980s indicated that 54 percent of the married women had participated in at least one affair, and a poll of 7,239 men reported that 72 percent of those married over two years had been adulterous.

Why? From a Darwinian perspective, it is easy to explain. If a man has two children by one woman, he has, genetically speaking, "reproduced" himself. But if he also engages in dalliances with more women and, by chance, sires two more young, he doubles his contribution to the next generation. Those men who seek variety also tend to have more children. These young survive and pass to subsequent generations whatever it is in the male genetic makeup that seeks "fresh features," as Byron said of men's need for sexual novelty.

Unlike a man, a woman cannot breed every time she copulates. In fact, anthropologist Donald Symons has argued that, because the number of children a woman can bear is limited, women are biologically less motivated to seek fresh features.

SEXUAL VARIETY

Are women really less interested in sexual variety? My own modest proposal is that during our long evolutionary history most males pursued trysts to spread their genes, while females evolved two alternative strategies to acquire resources: some women elected to be faithful to a single man in order to reap a lot of benefits from him; others engaged in clandestine sex with many men to acquire resources from each. This scenario roughly coincides with common beliefs: man, the natural playboy; women, madonna or whore.

In a recent study by Donald Symons and Bruce Ellis, for example, 415 college students were asked whether they would have sex with an anonymous student of the opposite sex. In this imaginary scenario, participants were told that all risk of pregnancy, discovery, and disease was absent. The results were those you would expect. Males were consistently more likely to say yes, leading these researchers once again to conclude that men are more interested in sexual variety than women are.

But here's the glitch. This study takes into consideration the primary genetic motive for male philandering (to fertilize young women). But not the primary motive for female philandering--the acquisition of resources.

There is no evidence whatsoever that women are sexually shy or that they shun clandestine sexual adventures. Instead, both men and women seem to exhibit a mixed reproductive strategy: monogamy and adultery are our fare.

PARTING

We all have our share of troubles. But probably one of the hardest things we do is leave a spouse. From the tundras of Siberia to the jungles of Amazonia, people accept divorce as regrettable--although sometimes necessary. They have specific social or legal procedures for divorce. And they do divorce. Moreover, unlike many Westerners, traditional peoples do not make divorce a moral issue. The Mongols of Siberia sum up a common worldwide attitude, "If two individuals cannot get along harmoniously together, they had better live apart."

Why do people divorce? Bitter quarrels, insensitive remarks, lack of humor, watching too much television, inability to listen, drunkenness, sexual rejection--the reasons men or women give for why they leave a marriage are as varied as their motives for having wedded in the first place.

Overt adultery heads the list. Sterility and barrenness come next. Cruelty, particularly by the husband, ranks third among worldwide reasons for divorce. I am not surprised that adultery and infertility are paramount. Darwin theorized that people marry primarily to breed.

THE FOUR-YEAR ITCH

Hoping to get some insight into the nature of divorce, I turned to the demographic yearbooks of the United Nations. Divorce generally occurs early in marriage--peaking in or around the fourth year after wedding--followed by a gradual decline in divorce as more years of marriage go by. The American divorce peak hovers somewhat below the common four-year peak. Purely as a guess, I would say that this may have something to do with American attitudes toward marriage itself. We tend not to marry for economic, political, or family reasons. Instead, as anthropologist Paul Bohannen once said, "Americans marry to enhance their inner, largely secret selves."

I find this remark fascinating--and correct. We marry for love and to accentuate, balance out, or mask parts of our private selves. This is why you sometimes see a reserved accountant married to a blond bombshell or a scientist married to a poet. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the American divorce peak corresponds perfectly with the normal duration of infatuation--two to three years. If partners are not satisfied with the match, they bail out soon after the infatuation wears off. So there are exceptions to the four-year itch.

DIVORCE IS FOR THE YOUNG

Another pattern to emerge from the United Nations data regards "divorce with dependent children." Among the hundreds of millions of people recorded in 45 societies between 1950 and 1989, 39 percent of all divorces occurred among couples with no dependent children, 26 percent among those with one dependent child, 19 percent among couples with two, 7 percent among those with three children, 3 percent among couples with four young, and couples with five or more dependent young rarely split. Hence, it appears that the more children a couple bear, the less likely they are to divorce.

This pattern is less conclusively demonstrated by the U.N. data than the first two. Yet it is strongly suggested and it makes genetic sense. From a Darwinian perspective, couples with no children should break up; both individuals will mate again and probably go on to bear young--ensuring their genetic futures. As couples bear more children they become less economically able to abandon their growing family. And it is genetically logical that they remain together to raise their flock.

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE OF THE PAIR BOND

Marriage dearly shows several general patterns of decay. Divorce counts peak among couples married about four years. And the longer a couple remain together, the older the partners get, and probably the more offspring they produce, the less likely spouses are to leave each other.

This is not to say that everybody fits this mold. George Bush, for example, does not. But Shakespeare did. Etched in Shakespeare's marriage and in all these other divorces recorded from around the world is a blue print, a primitive design. The human animal seems built to court, to fall in love, and to marry one person at a time; then, at the height of our reproductive years, often with single child, we divorce; then, a few years later, we remarry once again.

Adapted from Anatomy of Love; The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce, by Helen E. Fisher. Copyright C 1992 by Helen E. Fisher. Reprinted by arrangement with W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.