Thursday, January 31, 2008
From Richard Baehr
1. Continuing our recent tradition at American Thinker of avoiding
controversial subjects (yeah, right), my article today on the Gang
of 14. As with every other article I have written about John McCain,
the reaction to it in the blogosphere makes clear that for some in
the conservative movement, it is inappropriate to say the word McCain
without adding the word devil. I am not that kind of conservative.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/
the_base_is_wrong_about_the_ga.html
2. Melanie Phillips laces into supposedly "moderate" PA leader
Mahmoud Abbas for his eulogy of mass murdering arch-terrorist
George Habash
http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/melaniephillips/475716/by-their-
eulogies-shall-ye-know-them.thtml
3. an interview with the author of : In Praise of Prejudice
http://www.www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=3981B41E-
F815-4501-A38C-A8DBA5AAD8E9
4. David Hornik on the jihadist threat in Sinai. Leslie Susser on
Israeli options in Gaza. Zvi Mazel on Egypt's options. Daniel Pipes
says give Gaza to Egypt.
http://www.www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=99876960-
D122-4D5C-963C-5CF1A0B83D33
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/200801280128gazabreach.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?
cid=1201523779756&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5426
5. Judea Pearl talks about his son
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120165176905126961.html
6. Palestinians can be industrious. At making bombs.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,531578,00.html
7. Michel Oren on Israel's disaster in Lebanon
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120165463197727075.html
8. Ali Abunimah, founder of the electronic intifada, tells us what
Palestinian haters of Israel want to see in our next President. .
They want Obama, if he adopts the views he held a few years back on
the issue. This latest Obama initiative- a summit with the Muslim
nations, seems pretty naive, reinforcing the not ready for prime
time angle. . Get one American in the room with 56 Muslim leaders
(Ahmadinejad too?) ,and guess who will dominate the conversation with
their grievances?
http://thehollytree.blogspot.com/2008/01/amy-goodman-interviews-ali-
abunimah.html
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iho31eK2sCNwapi-grMGurJ_bfrg
9. My favorite story on what happened in Gaza/Sinai: The Palestinians
bought a lot of goods from the Egyptians with play money. I like the
idea- let us make sure that all future international aid to the PA
and Hamas is also play money.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=37908
controversial subjects (yeah, right), my article today on the Gang
of 14. As with every other article I have written about John McCain,
the reaction to it in the blogosphere makes clear that for some in
the conservative movement, it is inappropriate to say the word McCain
without adding the word devil. I am not that kind of conservative.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/
the_base_is_wrong_about_the_ga.html
2. Melanie Phillips laces into supposedly "moderate" PA leader
Mahmoud Abbas for his eulogy of mass murdering arch-terrorist
George Habash
http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/melaniephillips/475716/by-their-
eulogies-shall-ye-know-them.thtml
3. an interview with the author of : In Praise of Prejudice
http://www.www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=3981B41E-
F815-4501-A38C-A8DBA5AAD8E9
4. David Hornik on the jihadist threat in Sinai. Leslie Susser on
Israeli options in Gaza. Zvi Mazel on Egypt's options. Daniel Pipes
says give Gaza to Egypt.
http://www.www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=99876960-
D122-4D5C-963C-5CF1A0B83D33
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/200801280128gazabreach.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?
cid=1201523779756&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5426
5. Judea Pearl talks about his son
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120165176905126961.html
6. Palestinians can be industrious. At making bombs.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,531578,00.html
7. Michel Oren on Israel's disaster in Lebanon
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120165463197727075.html
8. Ali Abunimah, founder of the electronic intifada, tells us what
Palestinian haters of Israel want to see in our next President. .
They want Obama, if he adopts the views he held a few years back on
the issue. This latest Obama initiative- a summit with the Muslim
nations, seems pretty naive, reinforcing the not ready for prime
time angle. . Get one American in the room with 56 Muslim leaders
(Ahmadinejad too?) ,and guess who will dominate the conversation with
their grievances?
http://thehollytree.blogspot.com/2008/01/amy-goodman-interviews-ali-
abunimah.html
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iho31eK2sCNwapi-grMGurJ_bfrg
9. My favorite story on what happened in Gaza/Sinai: The Palestinians
bought a lot of goods from the Egyptians with play money. I like the
idea- let us make sure that all future international aid to the PA
and Hamas is also play money.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=37908
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
View this page at www.dailyalert.org
Subscribe RSS-XML
DAILY ALERT Wednesday,
January 30, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To contact the Presidents Conference:
click here
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In-Depth Issues:
Muslim "Charity Worker" Planned to Kidnap British Muslim Soldier and Behead Him - John F. Burns (New York Times)
Parviz Khan, 37, from Birmingham, England, has pleaded guilty to plotting to behead a British soldier.
Khan, who described himself as a Muslim charity worker, was heard in covert recordings made by Britain's security services outlining a plan to kidnap a soldier from Birmingham's nightclub district and have him beheaded.
Prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said Khan planned to videotape the killing and release the tape "to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and wider public."
Three other men, all Muslims, have admitted offenses in the case. Khan was said to have shown the other men videos of terrorist beheadings in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Egypt's Hard Choices on the Gaza Border Debacle - Zvi Mazel (Jerusalem Post)
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has issued strict orders to his security services to closely monitor the stream of Palestinians coming into Egypt, who must on no account be allowed to cross the Suez Canal and reach the mainland.
Hamas terrorists must be prevented from making contact with Sinai Bedouin hostile to the regime and must also be prevented from crossing back into Israel from Sinai to carry out terror attacks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UN Envoy: Women in Gaza Feel Coerced to Cover Their Heads - Barak Ravid (Ha'aretz)
The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, says women in Gaza have recently felt coerced into covering their heads, while Christians there have faced rising intolerance.
"Women seem to be in a particularly vulnerable situation and bear the brunt of religious zeal. I was informed about cases of honor killings carried out with impunity in the name of religion," she said.
She faintly praised Israel, saying: "During my talks with members of religious minorities in Israel, my interlocutors have by and large acknowledged that there is no religious persecution by the state."
"Within the Israeli democracy, I would like to emphasize the important role that the Supreme Court has played in the past and can play for safeguarding freedom of religion or belief."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Israeli Battlefield Management System for Netherlands Army (Defense News)
Elbit Systems of Israel will supply Enhanced Tactical Computers to the Royal Netherlands Army's (RNLA) Ground Forces.
The systems, to be installed in more than 1,800 vehicles, including tanks and armored vehicles, will provide an integrated and actual view of the situation in the operation area, improving operational effectiveness of the forces.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search
Key Links
Media Contacts
Back Issues
Fair Use
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Publications:
Israel Campus Beat
G-Alert (Hebrew)
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Egypt-Hamas Tensions Rise Over Border - Salah Nasrawi
Egyptian state-owned newspapers were filled with harsh criticism of Hamas, blaming it for violating Egypt's border and undermining its security. One newspaper, Rose El Youssef, contended that Hamas had used the breach to smuggle weapons and explosive-laden suicide belts into Egypt. (AP/Washington Post)
See also Report: Egypt Thwarts Suicide Terror Attack Against Israel - Yoav Stern
Five Palestinian
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
View this page at www.dailyalert.org
Subscribe RSS-XML
DAILY ALERT Wednesday,
January 30, 2008
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To contact the Presidents Conference:
click here
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In-Depth Issues:
Muslim "Charity Worker" Planned to Kidnap British Muslim Soldier and Behead Him - John F. Burns (New York Times)
Parviz Khan, 37, from Birmingham, England, has pleaded guilty to plotting to behead a British soldier.
Khan, who described himself as a Muslim charity worker, was heard in covert recordings made by Britain's security services outlining a plan to kidnap a soldier from Birmingham's nightclub district and have him beheaded.
Prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt said Khan planned to videotape the killing and release the tape "to cause panic and fear within the British armed forces and wider public."
Three other men, all Muslims, have admitted offenses in the case. Khan was said to have shown the other men videos of terrorist beheadings in Iraq and Afghanistan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Egypt's Hard Choices on the Gaza Border Debacle - Zvi Mazel (Jerusalem Post)
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has issued strict orders to his security services to closely monitor the stream of Palestinians coming into Egypt, who must on no account be allowed to cross the Suez Canal and reach the mainland.
Hamas terrorists must be prevented from making contact with Sinai Bedouin hostile to the regime and must also be prevented from crossing back into Israel from Sinai to carry out terror attacks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UN Envoy: Women in Gaza Feel Coerced to Cover Their Heads - Barak Ravid (Ha'aretz)
The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, says women in Gaza have recently felt coerced into covering their heads, while Christians there have faced rising intolerance.
"Women seem to be in a particularly vulnerable situation and bear the brunt of religious zeal. I was informed about cases of honor killings carried out with impunity in the name of religion," she said.
She faintly praised Israel, saying: "During my talks with members of religious minorities in Israel, my interlocutors have by and large acknowledged that there is no religious persecution by the state."
"Within the Israeli democracy, I would like to emphasize the important role that the Supreme Court has played in the past and can play for safeguarding freedom of religion or belief."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Israeli Battlefield Management System for Netherlands Army (Defense News)
Elbit Systems of Israel will supply Enhanced Tactical Computers to the Royal Netherlands Army's (RNLA) Ground Forces.
The systems, to be installed in more than 1,800 vehicles, including tanks and armored vehicles, will provide an integrated and actual view of the situation in the operation area, improving operational effectiveness of the forces.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search
Key Links
Media Contacts
Back Issues
Fair Use
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Publications:
Israel Campus Beat
G-Alert (Hebrew)
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Egypt-Hamas Tensions Rise Over Border - Salah Nasrawi
Egyptian state-owned newspapers were filled with harsh criticism of Hamas, blaming it for violating Egypt's border and undermining its security. One newspaper, Rose El Youssef, contended that Hamas had used the breach to smuggle weapons and explosive-laden suicide belts into Egypt. (AP/Washington Post)
See also Report: Egypt Thwarts Suicide Terror Attack Against Israel - Yoav Stern
Five Palestinian
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
latest from Aipac
www.aipac.org January 29, 2008
Bush Condemns Iran for Sponsoring Hamas and Hizballah
World Powers Agree on New Draft Iran Sanctions Resolution
Despite Hamas Terrorism, Israel Vows to Send Supplies to Gaza
United States Acts to Keep Spare F-14 Parts from Iran
Top State Department Official Holds Strategic Dialogue in Israel
Palestinian Authority Honors Terror Mastermind
Save the date
AIPAC Policy
Conference 2008
June 2-4, 2008
Washington, DC
For more information: www.aipac.org/pc2008
(202) 639-5363
Take action
To take action on pending legislation and to receive more information and analysis, visit our Web site at www.aipac.org
Bush Condemns Iran for Sponsoring Hamas and Hizballah
In his final State of the Union address, President Bush on Monday told the Iranian regime to verifiably suspend its illicit nuclear program, stop internal oppression and cease its support for terrorism worldwide. "[W]herever freedom advances in the Middle East, it seems the Iranian regime is there to oppose it," Bush said. "Iran is funding and training militia groups in Iraq, supporting Hizballah terrorists in Lebanon and backing Hamas' efforts to undermine peace in the Holy Land. Tehran is also developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon." The State Department consistently lists Iran as the world's leading state sponsor of international terrorism.
World Powers Agree on New Draft Iran Sanctions Resolution
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany have agreed on a new draft of an Iran sanctions resolution that will propose restrictions on cargo to and from Iran, as well as travel bans and asset freezes for people involved in the program and monitoring of Iranian financial institutions, The New York Times reported. The new sanctions resolution would, for the first time, authorize inspections of air and sea cargo going in and out of Iran. The
Bush Condemns Iran for Sponsoring Hamas and Hizballah
World Powers Agree on New Draft Iran Sanctions Resolution
Despite Hamas Terrorism, Israel Vows to Send Supplies to Gaza
United States Acts to Keep Spare F-14 Parts from Iran
Top State Department Official Holds Strategic Dialogue in Israel
Palestinian Authority Honors Terror Mastermind
Save the date
AIPAC Policy
Conference 2008
June 2-4, 2008
Washington, DC
For more information: www.aipac.org/pc2008
(202) 639-5363
Take action
To take action on pending legislation and to receive more information and analysis, visit our Web site at www.aipac.org
Bush Condemns Iran for Sponsoring Hamas and Hizballah
In his final State of the Union address, President Bush on Monday told the Iranian regime to verifiably suspend its illicit nuclear program, stop internal oppression and cease its support for terrorism worldwide. "[W]herever freedom advances in the Middle East, it seems the Iranian regime is there to oppose it," Bush said. "Iran is funding and training militia groups in Iraq, supporting Hizballah terrorists in Lebanon and backing Hamas' efforts to undermine peace in the Holy Land. Tehran is also developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon." The State Department consistently lists Iran as the world's leading state sponsor of international terrorism.
World Powers Agree on New Draft Iran Sanctions Resolution
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany have agreed on a new draft of an Iran sanctions resolution that will propose restrictions on cargo to and from Iran, as well as travel bans and asset freezes for people involved in the program and monitoring of Iranian financial institutions, The New York Times reported. The new sanctions resolution would, for the first time, authorize inspections of air and sea cargo going in and out of Iran. The
Monday, January 28, 2008
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com/
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com/
The intersection of faith, culture and politics
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
THE WORST OF ALL NEGATIVE TRAITS
What it is, its source and how to vanquish it.
A 6-minute "Godcast" by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., author of over
50 books and an internationally acclaimed master of the spirit and mind
http://jewishworldreview.com/jwisdom/twerski.php3
**<>**<>**<>**<>****<>**<>**<>**<>**
[ J E W I S H L I V I N G ]
---> outlook
The Jewish Ethicist
By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir
Q: How far must one go to return a lost object?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jewish/ethicist_lost.php3
---> machlokes/controversy!
Will Venezuela Be 'Judenrein'?
By Mona Charen
Why has the organized Jewish community, for the most part, abandoned
co-religionists under attack?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen012808.php3
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
[ D A I L Y I N S P I R A T I O N ]
NOW IN ARTICLE FORM!
"Conversations with Yourself: A practical guide to greater happiness,
self-development and self-empowerment"
The quality of your life is the quality of your on-going self-talk!
Most people unconsciously engage in internal self-talk, and in this
series, best-selling author Rabbi Zelig Pliskin guides the reader to
achieve conscious awareness of meandering mental chatter and to
transform it into a steady stream of purposeful thought.
TODAY: Self-Conversations of a Master Salesperson
http://jewishworldreview.com/inspiration/conversations.php3
[ JWisdom.com --- Awesome Audio ]
TODAY: Lights Along the Way by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.: Antidote
to Idleness
Laziness and indolence are natural to the human condition. The Torah
bids us to a state of energized living --- to fulfill a life mission
that is nothing short of super-natural
RUN TIME: 7 minutes
http://jewishworldreview.com/jwisdom/twerski.php3
The intersection of faith, culture and politics
Monday, Jan. 28, 2008
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
THE WORST OF ALL NEGATIVE TRAITS
What it is, its source and how to vanquish it.
A 6-minute "Godcast" by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., author of over
50 books and an internationally acclaimed master of the spirit and mind
http://jewishworldreview.com/jwisdom/twerski.php3
**<>**<>**<>**<>****<>**<>**<>**<>**
[ J E W I S H L I V I N G ]
---> outlook
The Jewish Ethicist
By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir
Q: How far must one go to return a lost object?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jewish/ethicist_lost.php3
---> machlokes/controversy!
Will Venezuela Be 'Judenrein'?
By Mona Charen
Why has the organized Jewish community, for the most part, abandoned
co-religionists under attack?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen012808.php3
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
[ D A I L Y I N S P I R A T I O N ]
NOW IN ARTICLE FORM!
"Conversations with Yourself: A practical guide to greater happiness,
self-development and self-empowerment"
The quality of your life is the quality of your on-going self-talk!
Most people unconsciously engage in internal self-talk, and in this
series, best-selling author Rabbi Zelig Pliskin guides the reader to
achieve conscious awareness of meandering mental chatter and to
transform it into a steady stream of purposeful thought.
TODAY: Self-Conversations of a Master Salesperson
http://jewishworldreview.com/inspiration/conversations.php3
[ JWisdom.com --- Awesome Audio ]
TODAY: Lights Along the Way by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.: Antidote
to Idleness
Laziness and indolence are natural to the human condition. The Torah
bids us to a state of energized living --- to fulfill a life mission
that is nothing short of super-natural
RUN TIME: 7 minutes
http://jewishworldreview.com/jwisdom/twerski.php3
Sunday, January 27, 2008
from Richard Baehr
Martin Kramer evaluates the options on Gaza. Hillel Neuer, again
tells the UN Human Rights Commission the truth of the matter. Con
Coughlin looks at how Israel can respond to rocket attacks. More
terror attacks are coming- that much is certain.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/01/gaza_into_egypt/
http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?
c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=4972179
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/01/25/
do2504.xml
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948051.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/24/content_7490937.htm
tells the UN Human Rights Commission the truth of the matter. Con
Coughlin looks at how Israel can respond to rocket attacks. More
terror attacks are coming- that much is certain.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/01/gaza_into_egypt/
http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?
c=bdKKISNqEmG&b=1313923&ct=4972179
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/01/25/
do2504.xml
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948051.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/24/content_7490937.htm
Friday, January 25, 2008
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
Subject: News from Israeli Consulate
Israel Update
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
In This Issue:
The Situation in Sderot and Gaza
Upcoming Events
Israel
Situation in the Palestinian Territories
Egypt
Iran
Lebanon/Hezbollah
Business News
Israel...A Light Unto The Nations
Culture
Israeli Blog
Quick Links
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Israel21c
The Situation in Sderot and Gaza
Supply of Electricity to Gaza Continues
The supply of electricity to Gaza from the Israeli and Egyptian power grids has continued uninterrupted, representing about 75% of Gaza's electricity needs. While the fuel supply from Israel into Gaza has indeed been reduced, due to the Hamas rocket attacks, the diversion of this fuel from domestic power generators to other uses is wholly a Hamas decision - apparently taken due to media and propaganda considerations. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Story Behind the "Situation" in Gaza
The Enemy Within
-
Editorial
(Chicago Tribune)
As always, Gazans look around, see how terrible conditions are, and point fingers. Many blame Israel. Or they blame the U.S. Or they blame Fatah, rival to Hamas. If things are to improve in Gaza, then that reflexive attitude is one of the first things that must change. Until most Gazans fix the blame for their miserable living conditions where it belongs - on their elected leaders of Hamas - Gaza will remain poised on the brink of crisis, sending rockets into Israel and then complaining bitterly when its foe retaliates.
Blame It on Hamas
- Editorial
(Globe and Mail-Canada)
Last week, 100 rockets rained down on Israel's southern towns. Israel could have defended itself against the attacks launched by militants in Gaza by responding with a bombardment of its own, endangering civilians. It could have sent the Israeli Defense Forces into Gaza, endangering civilians. Instead, Israel opted to enforce a blockade of Gaza to put pressure on Hamas. As Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni aptly put it, "Israel is the only country in the world that supplies electricity to terror groups which in turn fire rockets at it." If life in Gaza is to return to what passes for normal in the terrorist statelet, all Hamas needs to do is call off its dogs and end its attacks. The truth is, Hamas prefers it the way it is.
Hamas Spent Months Cutting through Gaza Wall in Secret Operation
- James Hider
(Times-UK)
A Hamas border guard, Lt. Abu Usama of the Palestinian National Security, said the Islamist group had been involved for months in slicing through the heavy metal wall along the Gaza-Egypt border using oxy-acetylene cutting torches. That meant that when the explosive charges were set off in 17 different locations, the 40-foot wall came tumbling down. Asked whether he had reported the cutting operation to the [Hamas] government, he replied: "It was the government that was doing this."
See Also: Hamas' Strategy: Disconnect Gaza from Israel, Connect to the Arab World - Pinhas Inbari (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs-Hebrew)
Hamas Staged Some of the Gaza Blackouts - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
On at least two occasions this week, Hamas staged scenes of darkness as part of its campaign to end political and economic sanctions against Gaza, Palestinian journalists said Wednesday.
Situation in Sderot
Israeli Town in Trauma from Palestinian Rockets
- Rebecca Harrison
(Reuters)
When the siren sounds, the residents of Sderot, an Israeli town just a mile from Gaza, drop everything and run for cover. They have 15 seconds to reach a bomb shelter and face an almost daily barrage of Palestinian rockets. "We are living in a war zone," said Hava Gad, a 42-year-old mother of three. Sderot's streets, many of them cratered by rockets, are dotted with bomb shelters. Bigger concrete shelters decorated with colorful murals stand outside schools and community centers.
Rockets Keep Raining Down on Sderot
- Dina Kraft and Andrew Friedman
(JTA/Washington Jewish Week)
After seven years of rocket fire from nearby Gaza and no end in sight, Sderot residents are weighing whether or not to stay, as crippled businesses survive on hope and loans. Home prices have fallen by 50%, said Yakov Levy, a realtor in town. "It gets to you. You think about it all the time," said Atara Orenbouch. "You are always thinking: If there were an alarm now, where would the safest place be to hide?"
See Also:
Video: Israeli News Crew Targeted by Palestinian Snipers (Israel Channel 2 Television/YouTube)
An Israeli TV news crew reporting from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha near Gaza on Jan. 15 was attacked and pinned down by Palestinian snipers shooting from Gaza.
UPCOMING EVENTS
JUST ANNOUNCED:
Hadag Nachash at the House of Blues Chicago
February 18th
8:00 p.m.
329 N. Dearborn, Chicago
To purchase tickets, click here.
January 26th-28th:
February 5th:
February 10th and February 11th:
February 15th-17th:
For more events, please visit:
* January Events
* February Events
* Israeli House Events
While some of Israel's neighbors choose to teach their children hatred, the children of Israel are taught unity and peace.
Click here to see how US President George W. Bush was greeted on his recent trip to Israel.
********************************
Please forward this publication to anyone who shares your interest in Israel.
The articles in this newsletter (with the exception of Israeli Government statements) reflect the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs website - Click for the latest news, official statements, videos, and presentations relating to the current conflict as well as views of the Israel behind the headlines.
Israel
Israel: We Will Defend Our Citizens - Even at the Price of Condemnation - Roni Sofer (Ynet News)
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Herzliya Conference Tuesday: "Israel should not have to apologize for its existence and it will continue to defend the lives of its citizens, even at the price of condemnation....It is inconceivable for Palestinians to fire rockets on Israel and then ask for our help." "We are not heading towards a new cooperative Middle East, but rather parting consensually for the good of our children and ourselves, and so that we may preserve our sense of independence," she said.
On Iran, Livni said: "It is important to understand that the Iranian threat is unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will not change if we solve this conflict. We're in a bad neighborhood where you either stand up to the local bully or you join him. Any hesitation is immediately seen as a sign of weakness and therefore the world cannot allow itself any weakness on the Iranian matter."
The Gaza "Blackout" and the Laws of War - J. Peter Pham (National Review)
Although the so-called "Gaza blackout" was instigated by the Hamas terrorists who run the enclave as a sort of cynical publicity stunt, it has drawn the usual dire warnings of impending humanitarian crisis and protests from neighboring Arab countries and the EU. What tends to be forgotten in moments like this is that even if Israel, which supplies more than 75% of the terrorist enclave's power, did cut off the flow, it would not only be morally but also legally justified in doing so.
Israel: Breached Gaza-Egypt Border a "First-Class Security Risk" - Hanan Greenberg (Ynet News)
IDF officials on Wednesday described the situation at the breached Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as "a first-class security risk." According to a military source, "The free passage of Palestinians into Egypt and back significantly increases the security threat coming from Gaza." "It's clear that each time civilians cross the border, terror activists are also there, taking advantage of the situation for their own needs," said an Israeli defense official. Israel recently expressed its anger over a similar incident, when hundreds of Palestinian pilgrims, returning from Saudi Arabia, entered Gaza unsupervised.
See Also:
Israel Wants to Sever Connections with Gaza (Reuters)
See Also: 2008 Herzliya Conference on Israel's National Security (Institute for Policy and Strategy, Lauder School of Government, IDC Herzliya)
View the conference sessions - January 20-23, 2008
Deep Inside the Plucky Country - Greg Sheridan (The Australian)
Alongside the territories is a much under-reported but fascinating and unique country. It's called Israel. The world media makes a mistake by using the same reporters to cover the Palestinian territories as well as Israel. They cover the territories and they only cover Israel as a brooding and malign presence in the territories. Naturally the reporting is one-sided. But it is worse than that. It omits from the equation Israel and the Israelis, and all the countless enthralling and diverse aspects of Israeli politics and society.
After a three-week visit I left Israel profoundly optimistic about the morale of the society and the resolve of the people, but profoundly pessimistic about the peace process. If there were peace, any compromise on borders might be possible. But too many Arab leaders, and too many Palestinian leaders, are playing for the very long term and still believe that in time they will wipe Israel off the map. The writer is the foreign editor of The Australian.
See Also: More Jerusalem Arabs Seek Israeli Citizenship - Dion Nissenbaum (McClatchy)
Diplomacy
Israel's Statement to the Security Council: The Situation in Gaza and Sderot - Charge d'Affaires Gilad Cohen (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
The situation in the region today did not develop overnight. It is the consequence of many choices, repeatedly the wrong choices, made by the Palestinians to adopt terrorism and violence over peace and negotiations with Israel. The Palestinians in Gaza did not choose to engage Israel in dialogue and reconciliation to advance the two-state vision. Rather, they chose Hamas who uses terrorism and violence to advance its vision to destroy Israel.
Peres: UN Must Denounce Hamas, Not Israel - Aviram Zino (Ynet News)
The UN Security Council must denounce Hamas rather than Israel, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Tuesday. "The Council must ask Hamas why it is firing on children and women in Israel." "We have no interest in seeing Gaza's residents suffer. They are not our enemies, but Gaza's residents must complain to Hamas. They are the only ones who can bring down Hamas and they must demand that Hamas stop firing on Israel."
"In this case, there is no doubt who started and there is no doubt that Hamas is constantly firing missiles, and this cannot remain unanswered. The responsibility for the situation in Gaza lies unequivocally on Hamas' shoulders. There is not one state in the world which will be fired on without retaliating. There is no excuse for the fire and no justification to ignore it."
See Also: EU Official: Gaza Siege Not a War Crime - Dana Zimmerman (Ynet News)
See Also: Dutch Foreign Minister: Israel Unfairly Singled Out for Criticism by UN - Cnaan Liphshiz (Ha'aretz)
See Also: Israeli Mission in NY Displays 4,200 Balloons, One for Each Kassam Rocket (Ha'aretz)
Palestinians
Prominent Arab Editor, PA Officials Blame Hamas for Gaza Crisis - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
Abdel Rahman Rashed, a Saudi national serving as general manager of the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya news channel, said Hamas was responsible for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Writing in the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat, Rashed questioned the wisdom of firing rockets and mortars at Israel which, he said, was only increasing the suffering of the Palestinians.
PA officials in Ramallah have also blamed Hamas for the crisis in Gaza. PA Information Minister Riad al-Malki said the latest crisis was the result of Hamas' "insistence on creating an Islamic republic in Gaza." A top PA official in Ramallah accused Hamas of ordering bakery owners to keep their businesses closed for the second day running to create a humanitarian crisis. "Hamas is preventing people from buying bread," he said. "They want to deepen the crisis so as to serve their own interests." The official said that, contrary to Hamas' claims, there is enough fuel and flour to keep the bakeries in Gaza operating for another two months. "Hamas members have stolen most of the fuel in Gaza to fill their vehicles," he said.
Breach in Gaza: Hamas Blockades the Peace Process - Editorial (Washington Post)
Hamas provided a dramatic illustration of its ability to disrupt any movement toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as tens of thousands of residents of the Gaza Strip surged across the border into Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak announced that Gazans would be allowed to shop in Egypt because they "are starving due to the Israeli siege." In fact, as Mr. Mubarak well knows, no one is starving in Gaza.
The First "Core Issue": Incitement - Elihu Richter (Jerusalem Post)
Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that it was words, not machinery, that produced Auschwitz. Incitement and hate language are early warning signs of genocidal intent by their perpetrators. If the rocks, daggers, guns, suicide bombs, Kassams and long-range missiles are the hardware of today's terror threats to Israel, it is the incitement that is the software.
See Also: Hamas Leader: Struggle Will Continue "Until Liberation of All of Palestine" (UPI)
Egypt
Open Border with Egypt Allows Free Flow of Terrorists and Weapons into Gaza (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
The uncontrolled movement of crowds of Gazans in and out of Egypt means that Hamas can now smuggle terrorist operatives and weapons into Gaza with almost no interference.
Hamas' goal is to force the Egyptians to renege on its participation in the Crossings Agreement of August 2005.
Egypt Closes Suez Canal Bridge to Keep Gazans from Cairo (Maan News-PA)
Egyptian authorities closed the As-Salam Bridge over the Suez Canal to stop tens of thousands of Gaza Strip residents from going on to Cairo after they crossed the Sinai Peninsula.
Iran
Iran Leader Under Fire for Gas Shortages - Ali Akbar Dareini (AP)
Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei Monday reversed a decision by President Ahmadinejad and ordered him to implement a law supplying natural gas to remote villages amid rising dissatisfaction with the president's performance. Ahmadinejad's popularity has plummeted amid rising food prices and deaths due to gas cuts during a particularly harsh winter. Both reformists and conservatives are increasingly asking why Iranians are dying from the cold while sitting on massive gas fields.
Radical Left Challenging Authority in Iran - Nazila Fathi (New York Times)
In early December at Tehran University, 500 Marxist students held aloft portraits of Che Guevara to protest President Ahmadinejad's policies. Political protest has been harshly suppressed under the current Iranian government, but the radical left has been permitted relative freedom. Analysts say this may be because, like the government, it rejects the liberal reform movement and attacks the West.
The Source of Instability
Iranian Opposition Delayed Indian Launch of Israeli Satellite - Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
Israel's TecSar satellite, launched on Monday from India, was supposed to be launched in September but was delayed for months by Iranian pressure on the Indian government applied through Indian opposition parties, particularly the Muslim and Communist political factions.
Further Sanctions?
A Message for Tehran - Editorial (Boston Globe)
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, agreed this week on a third, relatively mild round of sanctions on Iran if it goes on refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium. China and Russia, major commercial partners of Iran, would sign on only for vigilant monitoring of Iranian financial and military institutions, not for the tough financial penalties sought by the Bush administration.
Without this third sanctions resolution, Ahmadinejad could go on pretending that the rest of the world accepts his claim that Iran's nuclear file is closed. The compromise tells the people of Iran that the outside world does not accept Ahmadinejad's propaganda line; that having hidden suspicious activities in its nuclear program for 18 years, Iran now must show good faith by suspending uranium enrichment while negotiating an agreement that guarantees it a supply of non-weapons-grade uranium for power generation. Meanwhile, the new sanctions tell Iran's leaders that they are not fooling anybody in the international community.
See Also:
France: NIE Makes it Difficult to Impose Tough Sanctions on Iran (AKI-Italy)
See Also:
Russia: No Harsh Sanctions on Iran - Vladimir Isachenkov (AP)
See Also: Iran Gets Fourth Batch of Nuclear Fuel from Russia (Reuters)
See Also:
UK: NIE Does Not Change Our Concerns about Iran - Sir Nigel Sheinwald (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
Lebanon/Hezbollah
Beirut Bomb Kills Ten
A powerful bomb targeting a security convoy in a Christian area of Beirut on Friday killed at least 10 people, including a senior official, Captain Wissam Eid of the Internal Security Forces. (AFP)
Business News
Unemployment Drops to 10-Year Low - Adrian Filut (Ynet News)
Israel's unemployment rate dropped to 6.6% last November - a 10-year low - down from 8.1% in November 2006, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported.
Israel...A Light Unto the Nations
Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars - Steven Erlanger (New York Times)
The Israeli government has announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between an American-Israeli entrepreneur and Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company.
Gazan Hearts Saved in Israel as Conflict Rages
With violence along Israel's southern border escalating, a hospital in Israel offers a ray of hope for a handful of seriously ill Gazans. "This child would have died without surgery," said Dr. Alona Raucher-Sternfeld, looking at the small Palestinian baby, Jamal, and the echo machine checking his heart. Six-month-old Jamal came with his grandmother from Dir al-Balah in Gaza to get a check-up on Jan. 15 at Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv. Jamal was operated on there when he was two months old, suffering from two heart defects.
The surgery, hospital stay and logistics in bringing him out of Gaza were coordinated and partially funded by Save a Child's Heart, an Israeli humanitarian organization, with some EU donations. In 2007, 128 Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza, all suffering from heart conditions, were treated by the program. Col. Nir Press, head of the Israeli coordination and liaison administration in Gaza, said the number of permits to Israel issued for medical reasons had risen 50% in 2007. (ReliefWeb-UN)
Hundreds of Israeli Bedouin Women Attend University - Jessica Shepherd (Guardian-UK)
The education of Israeli Bedouin girls is going through an unprecedented and dramatic transformation.
For the last decade, non-governmental organizations and Ben-Gurion University have coached bright girls in the skills they need to secure a university place and then offered them scholarships.
Culture
* Music
Shiri Maimon, the second place winner of Israel's first season of Kochav Nolad, Israel's version of American idol, has released her first single from her new album. Click here to view the music video for "Better to Forgive."
* Food
Meat Rolls with Pine Nuts
2 medium onions, peeled and grated
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 kilo lean lamb, minced very finely (can substitute beef)
salt and pepper to taste
4 Tbsp. pine nuts
1 1/2 Tbsp. each margarine and olive oil, melted together
chopped parsley and lemon slices for garnish
Preheat oven to 1800 Celsius.
In a mixing bowl combine the onions, egg and lamb. Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix well. Knead the mixture vigorously by hand or in a food processor, making sure that it is very soft and pasty.
Divide the mixture into six equal portions and flatten each on a board into a rectangular shape. About 1 cm. from the edges of the longer sides of each rectangle place a row of pine nuts and then roll each rectangle into a fat sausage shape, starting from the edge lined with pine nuts.
Arrange the six rolls in an ovenproof dish just large enough to hold all of them side by side. Brush the rolls with the melted margarine and oil mixture, sprinkle with about 3 Tbsp. of water and bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes or longer, depending on the thickness of the rolls. Transfer the meat rolls to a preheated serving dish, garnish with chopped parsley and lemon slices and serve hot, accompanied by rice or sauteed potatoes.
ISRAELI COMMERCIAL OF THE WEEK:
This week we bring you a commercial from Israel's Yes Network! So, how do they promote their HDTV? Click here to find out!
Israeli Blog
Don't forget to check out the Israeli Blog:
www.isrealli.org
We hope you enjoyed this week's Israel Update!
Shabbat Shalom,
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
Israel Update
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
In This Issue:
The Situation in Sderot and Gaza
Upcoming Events
Israel
Situation in the Palestinian Territories
Egypt
Iran
Lebanon/Hezbollah
Business News
Israel...A Light Unto The Nations
Culture
Israeli Blog
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Israel21c
The Situation in Sderot and Gaza
Supply of Electricity to Gaza Continues
The supply of electricity to Gaza from the Israeli and Egyptian power grids has continued uninterrupted, representing about 75% of Gaza's electricity needs. While the fuel supply from Israel into Gaza has indeed been reduced, due to the Hamas rocket attacks, the diversion of this fuel from domestic power generators to other uses is wholly a Hamas decision - apparently taken due to media and propaganda considerations. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Story Behind the "Situation" in Gaza
The Enemy Within
-
Editorial
(Chicago Tribune)
As always, Gazans look around, see how terrible conditions are, and point fingers. Many blame Israel. Or they blame the U.S. Or they blame Fatah, rival to Hamas. If things are to improve in Gaza, then that reflexive attitude is one of the first things that must change. Until most Gazans fix the blame for their miserable living conditions where it belongs - on their elected leaders of Hamas - Gaza will remain poised on the brink of crisis, sending rockets into Israel and then complaining bitterly when its foe retaliates.
Blame It on Hamas
- Editorial
(Globe and Mail-Canada)
Last week, 100 rockets rained down on Israel's southern towns. Israel could have defended itself against the attacks launched by militants in Gaza by responding with a bombardment of its own, endangering civilians. It could have sent the Israeli Defense Forces into Gaza, endangering civilians. Instead, Israel opted to enforce a blockade of Gaza to put pressure on Hamas. As Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni aptly put it, "Israel is the only country in the world that supplies electricity to terror groups which in turn fire rockets at it." If life in Gaza is to return to what passes for normal in the terrorist statelet, all Hamas needs to do is call off its dogs and end its attacks. The truth is, Hamas prefers it the way it is.
Hamas Spent Months Cutting through Gaza Wall in Secret Operation
- James Hider
(Times-UK)
A Hamas border guard, Lt. Abu Usama of the Palestinian National Security, said the Islamist group had been involved for months in slicing through the heavy metal wall along the Gaza-Egypt border using oxy-acetylene cutting torches. That meant that when the explosive charges were set off in 17 different locations, the 40-foot wall came tumbling down. Asked whether he had reported the cutting operation to the [Hamas] government, he replied: "It was the government that was doing this."
See Also: Hamas' Strategy: Disconnect Gaza from Israel, Connect to the Arab World - Pinhas Inbari (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs-Hebrew)
Hamas Staged Some of the Gaza Blackouts - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
On at least two occasions this week, Hamas staged scenes of darkness as part of its campaign to end political and economic sanctions against Gaza, Palestinian journalists said Wednesday.
Situation in Sderot
Israeli Town in Trauma from Palestinian Rockets
- Rebecca Harrison
(Reuters)
When the siren sounds, the residents of Sderot, an Israeli town just a mile from Gaza, drop everything and run for cover. They have 15 seconds to reach a bomb shelter and face an almost daily barrage of Palestinian rockets. "We are living in a war zone," said Hava Gad, a 42-year-old mother of three. Sderot's streets, many of them cratered by rockets, are dotted with bomb shelters. Bigger concrete shelters decorated with colorful murals stand outside schools and community centers.
Rockets Keep Raining Down on Sderot
- Dina Kraft and Andrew Friedman
(JTA/Washington Jewish Week)
After seven years of rocket fire from nearby Gaza and no end in sight, Sderot residents are weighing whether or not to stay, as crippled businesses survive on hope and loans. Home prices have fallen by 50%, said Yakov Levy, a realtor in town. "It gets to you. You think about it all the time," said Atara Orenbouch. "You are always thinking: If there were an alarm now, where would the safest place be to hide?"
See Also:
Video: Israeli News Crew Targeted by Palestinian Snipers (Israel Channel 2 Television/YouTube)
An Israeli TV news crew reporting from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha near Gaza on Jan. 15 was attacked and pinned down by Palestinian snipers shooting from Gaza.
UPCOMING EVENTS
JUST ANNOUNCED:
Hadag Nachash at the House of Blues Chicago
February 18th
8:00 p.m.
329 N. Dearborn, Chicago
To purchase tickets, click here.
January 26th-28th:
February 5th:
February 10th and February 11th:
February 15th-17th:
For more events, please visit:
* January Events
* February Events
* Israeli House Events
While some of Israel's neighbors choose to teach their children hatred, the children of Israel are taught unity and peace.
Click here to see how US President George W. Bush was greeted on his recent trip to Israel.
********************************
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The articles in this newsletter (with the exception of Israeli Government statements) reflect the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs website - Click for the latest news, official statements, videos, and presentations relating to the current conflict as well as views of the Israel behind the headlines.
Israel
Israel: We Will Defend Our Citizens - Even at the Price of Condemnation - Roni Sofer (Ynet News)
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Herzliya Conference Tuesday: "Israel should not have to apologize for its existence and it will continue to defend the lives of its citizens, even at the price of condemnation....It is inconceivable for Palestinians to fire rockets on Israel and then ask for our help." "We are not heading towards a new cooperative Middle East, but rather parting consensually for the good of our children and ourselves, and so that we may preserve our sense of independence," she said.
On Iran, Livni said: "It is important to understand that the Iranian threat is unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will not change if we solve this conflict. We're in a bad neighborhood where you either stand up to the local bully or you join him. Any hesitation is immediately seen as a sign of weakness and therefore the world cannot allow itself any weakness on the Iranian matter."
The Gaza "Blackout" and the Laws of War - J. Peter Pham (National Review)
Although the so-called "Gaza blackout" was instigated by the Hamas terrorists who run the enclave as a sort of cynical publicity stunt, it has drawn the usual dire warnings of impending humanitarian crisis and protests from neighboring Arab countries and the EU. What tends to be forgotten in moments like this is that even if Israel, which supplies more than 75% of the terrorist enclave's power, did cut off the flow, it would not only be morally but also legally justified in doing so.
Israel: Breached Gaza-Egypt Border a "First-Class Security Risk" - Hanan Greenberg (Ynet News)
IDF officials on Wednesday described the situation at the breached Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as "a first-class security risk." According to a military source, "The free passage of Palestinians into Egypt and back significantly increases the security threat coming from Gaza." "It's clear that each time civilians cross the border, terror activists are also there, taking advantage of the situation for their own needs," said an Israeli defense official. Israel recently expressed its anger over a similar incident, when hundreds of Palestinian pilgrims, returning from Saudi Arabia, entered Gaza unsupervised.
See Also:
Israel Wants to Sever Connections with Gaza (Reuters)
See Also: 2008 Herzliya Conference on Israel's National Security (Institute for Policy and Strategy, Lauder School of Government, IDC Herzliya)
View the conference sessions - January 20-23, 2008
Deep Inside the Plucky Country - Greg Sheridan (The Australian)
Alongside the territories is a much under-reported but fascinating and unique country. It's called Israel. The world media makes a mistake by using the same reporters to cover the Palestinian territories as well as Israel. They cover the territories and they only cover Israel as a brooding and malign presence in the territories. Naturally the reporting is one-sided. But it is worse than that. It omits from the equation Israel and the Israelis, and all the countless enthralling and diverse aspects of Israeli politics and society.
After a three-week visit I left Israel profoundly optimistic about the morale of the society and the resolve of the people, but profoundly pessimistic about the peace process. If there were peace, any compromise on borders might be possible. But too many Arab leaders, and too many Palestinian leaders, are playing for the very long term and still believe that in time they will wipe Israel off the map. The writer is the foreign editor of The Australian.
See Also: More Jerusalem Arabs Seek Israeli Citizenship - Dion Nissenbaum (McClatchy)
Diplomacy
Israel's Statement to the Security Council: The Situation in Gaza and Sderot - Charge d'Affaires Gilad Cohen (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
The situation in the region today did not develop overnight. It is the consequence of many choices, repeatedly the wrong choices, made by the Palestinians to adopt terrorism and violence over peace and negotiations with Israel. The Palestinians in Gaza did not choose to engage Israel in dialogue and reconciliation to advance the two-state vision. Rather, they chose Hamas who uses terrorism and violence to advance its vision to destroy Israel.
Peres: UN Must Denounce Hamas, Not Israel - Aviram Zino (Ynet News)
The UN Security Council must denounce Hamas rather than Israel, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Tuesday. "The Council must ask Hamas why it is firing on children and women in Israel." "We have no interest in seeing Gaza's residents suffer. They are not our enemies, but Gaza's residents must complain to Hamas. They are the only ones who can bring down Hamas and they must demand that Hamas stop firing on Israel."
"In this case, there is no doubt who started and there is no doubt that Hamas is constantly firing missiles, and this cannot remain unanswered. The responsibility for the situation in Gaza lies unequivocally on Hamas' shoulders. There is not one state in the world which will be fired on without retaliating. There is no excuse for the fire and no justification to ignore it."
See Also: EU Official: Gaza Siege Not a War Crime - Dana Zimmerman (Ynet News)
See Also: Dutch Foreign Minister: Israel Unfairly Singled Out for Criticism by UN - Cnaan Liphshiz (Ha'aretz)
See Also: Israeli Mission in NY Displays 4,200 Balloons, One for Each Kassam Rocket (Ha'aretz)
Palestinians
Prominent Arab Editor, PA Officials Blame Hamas for Gaza Crisis - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
Abdel Rahman Rashed, a Saudi national serving as general manager of the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya news channel, said Hamas was responsible for the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Writing in the London-based daily Asharq Alawsat, Rashed questioned the wisdom of firing rockets and mortars at Israel which, he said, was only increasing the suffering of the Palestinians.
PA officials in Ramallah have also blamed Hamas for the crisis in Gaza. PA Information Minister Riad al-Malki said the latest crisis was the result of Hamas' "insistence on creating an Islamic republic in Gaza." A top PA official in Ramallah accused Hamas of ordering bakery owners to keep their businesses closed for the second day running to create a humanitarian crisis. "Hamas is preventing people from buying bread," he said. "They want to deepen the crisis so as to serve their own interests." The official said that, contrary to Hamas' claims, there is enough fuel and flour to keep the bakeries in Gaza operating for another two months. "Hamas members have stolen most of the fuel in Gaza to fill their vehicles," he said.
Breach in Gaza: Hamas Blockades the Peace Process - Editorial (Washington Post)
Hamas provided a dramatic illustration of its ability to disrupt any movement toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as tens of thousands of residents of the Gaza Strip surged across the border into Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak announced that Gazans would be allowed to shop in Egypt because they "are starving due to the Israeli siege." In fact, as Mr. Mubarak well knows, no one is starving in Gaza.
The First "Core Issue": Incitement - Elihu Richter (Jerusalem Post)
Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that it was words, not machinery, that produced Auschwitz. Incitement and hate language are early warning signs of genocidal intent by their perpetrators. If the rocks, daggers, guns, suicide bombs, Kassams and long-range missiles are the hardware of today's terror threats to Israel, it is the incitement that is the software.
See Also: Hamas Leader: Struggle Will Continue "Until Liberation of All of Palestine" (UPI)
Egypt
Open Border with Egypt Allows Free Flow of Terrorists and Weapons into Gaza (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
The uncontrolled movement of crowds of Gazans in and out of Egypt means that Hamas can now smuggle terrorist operatives and weapons into Gaza with almost no interference.
Hamas' goal is to force the Egyptians to renege on its participation in the Crossings Agreement of August 2005.
Egypt Closes Suez Canal Bridge to Keep Gazans from Cairo (Maan News-PA)
Egyptian authorities closed the As-Salam Bridge over the Suez Canal to stop tens of thousands of Gaza Strip residents from going on to Cairo after they crossed the Sinai Peninsula.
Iran
Iran Leader Under Fire for Gas Shortages - Ali Akbar Dareini (AP)
Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei Monday reversed a decision by President Ahmadinejad and ordered him to implement a law supplying natural gas to remote villages amid rising dissatisfaction with the president's performance. Ahmadinejad's popularity has plummeted amid rising food prices and deaths due to gas cuts during a particularly harsh winter. Both reformists and conservatives are increasingly asking why Iranians are dying from the cold while sitting on massive gas fields.
Radical Left Challenging Authority in Iran - Nazila Fathi (New York Times)
In early December at Tehran University, 500 Marxist students held aloft portraits of Che Guevara to protest President Ahmadinejad's policies. Political protest has been harshly suppressed under the current Iranian government, but the radical left has been permitted relative freedom. Analysts say this may be because, like the government, it rejects the liberal reform movement and attacks the West.
The Source of Instability
Iranian Opposition Delayed Indian Launch of Israeli Satellite - Yaakov Katz (Jerusalem Post)
Israel's TecSar satellite, launched on Monday from India, was supposed to be launched in September but was delayed for months by Iranian pressure on the Indian government applied through Indian opposition parties, particularly the Muslim and Communist political factions.
Further Sanctions?
A Message for Tehran - Editorial (Boston Globe)
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, agreed this week on a third, relatively mild round of sanctions on Iran if it goes on refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium. China and Russia, major commercial partners of Iran, would sign on only for vigilant monitoring of Iranian financial and military institutions, not for the tough financial penalties sought by the Bush administration.
Without this third sanctions resolution, Ahmadinejad could go on pretending that the rest of the world accepts his claim that Iran's nuclear file is closed. The compromise tells the people of Iran that the outside world does not accept Ahmadinejad's propaganda line; that having hidden suspicious activities in its nuclear program for 18 years, Iran now must show good faith by suspending uranium enrichment while negotiating an agreement that guarantees it a supply of non-weapons-grade uranium for power generation. Meanwhile, the new sanctions tell Iran's leaders that they are not fooling anybody in the international community.
See Also:
France: NIE Makes it Difficult to Impose Tough Sanctions on Iran (AKI-Italy)
See Also:
Russia: No Harsh Sanctions on Iran - Vladimir Isachenkov (AP)
See Also: Iran Gets Fourth Batch of Nuclear Fuel from Russia (Reuters)
See Also:
UK: NIE Does Not Change Our Concerns about Iran - Sir Nigel Sheinwald (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
Lebanon/Hezbollah
Beirut Bomb Kills Ten
A powerful bomb targeting a security convoy in a Christian area of Beirut on Friday killed at least 10 people, including a senior official, Captain Wissam Eid of the Internal Security Forces. (AFP)
Business News
Unemployment Drops to 10-Year Low - Adrian Filut (Ynet News)
Israel's unemployment rate dropped to 6.6% last November - a 10-year low - down from 8.1% in November 2006, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported.
Israel...A Light Unto the Nations
Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars - Steven Erlanger (New York Times)
The Israeli government has announced its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between an American-Israeli entrepreneur and Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company.
Gazan Hearts Saved in Israel as Conflict Rages
With violence along Israel's southern border escalating, a hospital in Israel offers a ray of hope for a handful of seriously ill Gazans. "This child would have died without surgery," said Dr. Alona Raucher-Sternfeld, looking at the small Palestinian baby, Jamal, and the echo machine checking his heart. Six-month-old Jamal came with his grandmother from Dir al-Balah in Gaza to get a check-up on Jan. 15 at Wolfson Medical Center near Tel Aviv. Jamal was operated on there when he was two months old, suffering from two heart defects.
The surgery, hospital stay and logistics in bringing him out of Gaza were coordinated and partially funded by Save a Child's Heart, an Israeli humanitarian organization, with some EU donations. In 2007, 128 Palestinian children from the West Bank and Gaza, all suffering from heart conditions, were treated by the program. Col. Nir Press, head of the Israeli coordination and liaison administration in Gaza, said the number of permits to Israel issued for medical reasons had risen 50% in 2007. (ReliefWeb-UN)
Hundreds of Israeli Bedouin Women Attend University - Jessica Shepherd (Guardian-UK)
The education of Israeli Bedouin girls is going through an unprecedented and dramatic transformation.
For the last decade, non-governmental organizations and Ben-Gurion University have coached bright girls in the skills they need to secure a university place and then offered them scholarships.
Culture
* Music
Shiri Maimon, the second place winner of Israel's first season of Kochav Nolad, Israel's version of American idol, has released her first single from her new album. Click here to view the music video for "Better to Forgive."
* Food
Meat Rolls with Pine Nuts
2 medium onions, peeled and grated
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 kilo lean lamb, minced very finely (can substitute beef)
salt and pepper to taste
4 Tbsp. pine nuts
1 1/2 Tbsp. each margarine and olive oil, melted together
chopped parsley and lemon slices for garnish
Preheat oven to 1800 Celsius.
In a mixing bowl combine the onions, egg and lamb. Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix well. Knead the mixture vigorously by hand or in a food processor, making sure that it is very soft and pasty.
Divide the mixture into six equal portions and flatten each on a board into a rectangular shape. About 1 cm. from the edges of the longer sides of each rectangle place a row of pine nuts and then roll each rectangle into a fat sausage shape, starting from the edge lined with pine nuts.
Arrange the six rolls in an ovenproof dish just large enough to hold all of them side by side. Brush the rolls with the melted margarine and oil mixture, sprinkle with about 3 Tbsp. of water and bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes or longer, depending on the thickness of the rolls. Transfer the meat rolls to a preheated serving dish, garnish with chopped parsley and lemon slices and serve hot, accompanied by rice or sauteed potatoes.
ISRAELI COMMERCIAL OF THE WEEK:
This week we bring you a commercial from Israel's Yes Network! So, how do they promote their HDTV? Click here to find out!
Israeli Blog
Don't forget to check out the Israeli Blog:
www.isrealli.org
We hope you enjoyed this week's Israel Update!
Shabbat Shalom,
Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations daily alert
Prepared for the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
View this page at www.dailyalert.org
Subscribe RSS-XML
DAILY ALERT Friday,
January 25, 2008
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In-Depth Issues:
Warning: Palestinian Terrorists Seek to Kidnap Israelis in Sinai and Bring Them to Gaza (Prime Minister's Office)
Warnings of terrorist attacks in Sinai have recently intensified. Terrorists in Sinai are working to abduct Israelis in Sinai and convey them to Gaza.
The currently open border between Gaza and Sinai makes it easier for terrorists to move back and forth.
Therefore, Israel's National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau on Thursday called on Israelis to avoid visiting Sinai and any Israelis currently there should leave forthwith.
See also Palestinian Terrorist Groups Planning Attacks from Sinai - Amir Oren (Ha'aretz)
Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza have used the newly open border with Egypt to send numerous terrorists into Sinai over the last two days with the goal of reaching Israel to commit attacks, Israeli defense officials said Thursday.
Defense officials said the terrorists in Sinai are most likely to try to strike immediately, and almost certainly within the next two weeks.
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Open Border with Egypt Allows Free Flow of Terrorists and Weapons into Gaza (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
The uncontrolled movement of crowds of Gazans in and out of Egypt means that Hamas can now smuggle terrorist operatives and weapons into Gaza with almost no interference.
Hamas' goal is to force the Egyptians to renege on its participation in the Crossings Agreement of August 2005.
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Hamas Began Cutting Border Wall Four Months Ago to Ambush Israeli Forces - Mark MacKinnon (Globe and Mail-Canada)
Abu Uday, 23, of Hamas, said the systematic effort to weaken the base of the border wall began four months ago in order to ambush Israeli forces.
"We did these things so that if Israel entered the Philadelphi Corridor [a narrow stretch of no-man's land between Gaza and Egypt] it would be easy to enter and attack them," he said.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said, "We don't need Israel. If the border is open, we can bring anything in from Egypt."
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"Nobody Needs Tunnels Anymore": Open Border a Nightmare for Palestinian Smugglers - Mark MacKinnon (Globe and Mail-Canada)
Mahmoud Mohammed is a smuggler, one of the hundreds of young Palestinian men who - until Wednesday - made their living crawling deep underground through the maze of tunnels that link Gaza with Sinai.
Mohammed said he was 17 meters below the surface, digging a new tunnel that was almost complete, when the ground above him started to shake with the first of more than a dozen early morning explosions set off by militants affiliated with Hamas that brought most of the iron wall that separated Gaza and Egypt crashing to the ground.
He said that when he got out, his boss told him to quit digging because "nobody needs tunnels anymore."
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Palestinian Forces Enter Jordan under U.S. Training Program - Adam Entous (Reuters)
The first battalion of nearly 700 U.S.-screened Palestinian recruits crossed into Jordan on Thursday to begin what officials called "law and order" training under a U.S. program projected to graduate 2,000 men in 2008.
The eventual plan is for a nearly 50,000-member PA gendarmerie in the West Bank.
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Tehran, Havana and Caracas - Editorial (Washington Times)
One of the most troubling threats in America's backyard is the emerging axis of Cuba's Communist regime and the Iranian government, assisted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Relations concerning "dual-use" biotechnology (material with both military and civilian uses) have flourished since September 11.
The possibility of Tehran-Havana biological-warfare activities also bears watching. In August 2006, the State Department imposed a two-year sanction against Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology for carrying out unspecified transfers of technology and equipment to Iran.
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Britain Unveils Terror Law Proposals - D'Arcy Doran (AP)
The British government revealed sweeping plans Thursday to toughen terrorism laws, including a proposal to hold suspects for up to 42 days without charge.
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Yad Vashem Launches Arabic Website (AP/Ha'aretz)
The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Thursday launched an Arabic version of its website, including vivid photos of Nazi atrocities and video of survivor testimony, to combat Holocaust denial in the Arab and Muslim world.
Last year, Yad Vashem presented a similar version of its website in Persian, aimed at Iran.
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An Israeli Scholar in Malaysia - Erika Fry (Bangkok Post-Thailand)
Dr. Ben Mollov, a professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, has made the study of managing and mediating conflict through cultural and religious dialogue the basis of his life's work.
Mollov was in Bangkok last week en route to a conference in Malaysia, where despite the lack of Israel-Malaysian diplomatic relations (Malaysian passports read "valid in every country but Israel"), he was invited to speak about moderating intercivilizational conflict.
He also spoke there in 2005, when, in his first visit to the country, he was pleasantly surprised to be received by audience applause, a prominently displayed Israeli flag, and inter-faith bonding with Muslim conference participants over the troubles in finding Halal and Kosher food when traveling.
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More Jerusalem Arabs Seek Israeli Citizenship - Dion Nissenbaum (McClatchy)
Though many Arabs in Jerusalem want to see an independent Palestinian state, they don't want to be part of it.
The number of Arab residents of Jerusalem applying for Israeli citizenship more than doubled in 2007, according to the Israel Interior Ministry. 500 residents of eastern Jerusalem requested Israeli passports, up from 200 in each of the previous three years.
There's an uncomfortable acknowledgment, especially among the Arab middle class in Jerusalem, that their lives could get substantially worse under Palestinian rule.
Eastern Jerusalem Arabs receive Israeli social security and health benefits. They're allowed to vote in local elections. They have the freedom to travel throughout Israel without special permits.
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Latest Jerusalem Population Figures - Peggy Cidor (Jerusalem Post)
According to the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies research team headed by Dr. Maya Choshen and Israel Kimhi, the population of Jerusalem at the end of 2006 was 733,300, or 10% of the nation's population.
469,900 were Jewish, 239,800 Muslim, 12,400 Christian Arab, 2,600 non-Arab Christian and 8,500 unaffiliated.
The 3.5% rate of unemployment in the city in 2006 was among the lowest in the country.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Rice Calls on Egypt to Control Border with Gaza
Secretary of State Rice called on Egypt Thursday to control its border with Gaza. "It is an international border, it needs to be protected, and I believe that the Egyptians understand the importance of doing that." Palestinians swarmed into Egypt for the second day Thursday after militants blew open the border. Rice again pinned the blame on the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement for provoking the Israeli blockade. "This problem has come first and foremost out of the security situation created by Hamas in Gaza, their unwillingness to stop" firing rockets into Israel, Rice said. (AFP)
See also Egypt Fires Water Cannons at Palestinians at Border
Egyptian forces fired water cannons at Palestinians trying to force their way across the Gaza-Egypt border on Friday. Egyptian forces began placing barbed wire near the collapsed steel border wall early on Friday, and witnesses said Palestinians threw stones at Egyptian forces, who responded by beating some Palestinians with clubs. (Reuters)
See also Egypt Sets Friday Deadline for Gaza Border Closure (AFP)
See also Poverty-Stricken Gazans Spent $130 Million in Egypt in Two Days
Rami Abdou, an economic analyst, estimated that Gazans spent $130 million in less than two days, a princely sum for the poverty-stricken territory. (AP)
Israel Says It Wants No Ties with Gaza
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Thursday that Israel wants to relinquish all responsibility for the Gaza Strip, including the supply of electricity and water, now that the territory's southern border with Egypt has been opened. "We need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it. So we want to disconnect from it." (AP)
See also Egypt Won't Take Control of Gaza
Hossam Zaki, the official spokesman for Egypt's foreign ministry, said Thursday of Israeli hints that it was thinking of giving up all responsibility for Gaza now that its border with Egypt is open: "This is a wrong assumption." "The current situation is only an exception and for temporary reasons," Zaki said. "The border will go back to normal." (Jerusalem Post)
Israel Raises Alert Level near Israel-Egypt Border
Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter on Thursday ordered to increase the state of alert near the border between Israel and Egypt. Yediot Ahronot's website quoted Dichter as saying that the higher alert level is necessary due to "the swarms of people who left Gaza towards Sinai and the terror alerts indicating a terror attack against Israel may originate from Sinai." (Xinhua-China)
See also Egypt Raises State of Alert after Palestinians Pour into Sinai (Xinhua-China)
See also Egypt Closes Suez Canal Bridge to Keep Gazans from Cairo
Egyptian authorities closed the As-Salam Bridge over the Suez Canal to stop tens of thousands of Gaza Strip residents from going on to Cairo after they crossed the Sinai Peninsula. (Maan News-PA)
UN Human Rights Council Rebukes Israel on Gaza - Stephanie Nebehay
The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday demanded Israel lift its week-long blockade of Gaza. The 47-member council adopted a resolution presented by Arab and Muslim states by a vote of 30 in favor and one against (Canada) with 15 abstentions, and one delegation absent. Britain, France, Germany and Japan were among countries to abstain. China and Russia backed the resolution. Western countries abstained in bloc after criticizing the text as unbalanced for failing to even mention the rockets launched into Israel from Gaza by Palestinian militants. The Israeli army estimates about 250 rockets and mortar rounds have pounded Israel since last week.
U.S. Ambassador Warren Tichenor warned that the Council session and its "one-sided resolution" would only stoke tensions and erode chances for peace. "The Human Rights Council has far too often been used simply as a platform from which to single out Israel, while too often ignoring the other human rights situations. This unbalanced approach has squandered its credibility." (Reuters)
See also UN Security Council Debates Condemnation of Israel over Gaza - Michal Lando
As the UN Security Council discussed a draft presidential statement about the situation in Gaza Thursday for the third day in a row, Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the mere occupation of the council with this matter was "unjustified" and played into the hands of Hamas. "By engaging, they are rewarding terror, doing Hamas' work, and doing what Hamas wants, which is undermining Abbas and the peace process." "There is no way to balance terrorists and killers and a country trying to defend itself," he said. (Jerusalem Post)
See also Israeli Mission in NY Displays 4,200 Balloons, One for Each Kassam Rocket (Ha'aretz)
Reformists Purged from Iran Ballot - Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi
When Iranian voters go to the polls on March 14 to select members of Parliament, they may be able to choose only between conservative candidates and other conservative candidates, leaders of Iran's main reform party said Wednesday. With more than 7,200 candidates registered to run for 290 seats in Parliament, officials of the Islamic Participation Front said 70% of reformist candidates had been disqualified. Two members of Parliament were disqualified as well, including one of Ahmadinejad's most outspoken critics, Akbar Alami, who has already served two terms. (New York Times)
Beirut Bomb Kills Ten
A powerful bomb targeting a security convoy in a Christian area of Beirut on Friday killed at least 10 people, including a senior official, Captain Wissam Eid of the Internal Security Forces. (AFP)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Israeli Border Policeman Killed in Terror Attack at Jerusalem Checkpoint - Amos Harel, Yuval Azoulay, and Yair Ettinger
Border Policeman Rami Zohari, 20, was killed and a policewoman was seriously wounded in a terror shooting attack Thursday night at the northern entrance to Shoafat, north of Jerusalem. Two Palestinian terrorists had approached on foot, fired at the Israelis, and fled the scene. Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. (Ynet News)
Palestinian Terrorists Infiltrate West Bank High School, Wound Three - Amos Harel, Yuval Azoulay, and Yair Ettinger
Two Palestinians armed with knives and a pistol infiltrated the Mekor Haim yeshiva high school in Kfar Etzion, not far from Jerusalem. They entered a library and attacked the students and their counselors, who fought back. During the battle, one student was moderately wounded and two of the counselors were lightly wounded. One of the counselors grabbed the pistol from the terrorist and shot the intruders, killing them both. Witnesses said the terrorists were wearing uniforms of soldiers or security guards. (Ha'aretz)
See also Terrorists Who Attacked Kfar Etzion Released from Prison Last Week - Ali Waked and Efrat Weiss
The two terrorists who were killed Thursday after breaking into a high school in Kfar Etzion were released from an Israeli prison last week, Palestinian sources in Hebron said. (Ynet News)
Five Palestinian Rockets Fired at Sderot on Thursday - Shmulik Hadad
Palestinian terrorists fired five Kassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot Thursday evening. (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Israel Under Palestinian Rocket Fire
The Kassam Rocket as Collective Punishment - Bradley Burston
Imagine a situation in which thousands and thousands of people, many of them children and the elderly, are plunged into a reality in which they must fear for their lives day in and day out, in which their livelihoods are crippled, with their schools and even pre-schools under siege. Entire communities are trapped, paralyzed. Whole childhoods are spent in a state of post-traumatic stress. They are the victims of collective punishment. And they live in Israel. (Ha'aretz)
See also The Source of Gaza's Pain - Editorial
Left conspicuously unspoken is the collective punishment meted out by Hamas, which controls Gaza, against the Israeli citizens of Sderot - who have absorbed as many as 50 rocket attacks in a single day for the past seven years. The "cycle of violence" would end soon enough were Hamas to halt its attacks on the innocents of Sderot. It won't, sadly, as long as the international community continues to play the terrorists' game. (New York Post)
The Town that Measures Life in 15-Second Intervals - Mary Dejevsky
Life in Sderot is measured in intervals of 15 seconds. That is how long people have between the sounding of the sirens and the inevitable explosion. Civic life is almost non-existent. People are on edge, unwilling to plan anything in advance, and fearful of dropping their children at school, lest it is the last time they see them. Shula Sasson explains that 15 seconds is not long enough for anyone except the most agile to get to the safer downstairs from upstairs. "If you have to carry a small child, you haven't a hope." So the upstairs of their house is hardly used. Everyone - seven people - now sleeps in the living room. (Independent-UK)
Sderot: Life Under Rocket Bombardment - Joshua Mitnick
In Sderot, Israel, the rocket alert was drowned out by the noise from the children's party. By the time the first kids dashed to the bomb shelter at the Parent and Child Community Center, it was too late. The Kassam rocket thundered overhead, accompanied by a subtle tremble. "You heard that boom," asked Dalia Yosef, the director of the Sderot Resilience Center, which focuses on easing the psychological toll of the rockets. "It's not that far away." "The worst problem is the lack of certainty. The body and mind are always in survival mode," explained Yosef, a native of Sderot whose parents still reside in the town. "All of the threads of life are being broken," Yosef says of the rocket-induced trauma. "It's hurting a lot more than it seems."
Katy Cohen spoke of sleeping in the safe room of her apartment with her three children. Holding her 2-year-old son, Cohen said that he wakes up in the middle of the night imagining a Kassam attack. "Every little noise he hears he thinks is a Kassam," said Cohen. "He knows what the 'Color Red' alert is and he knows to go into the shelter." (New York Jewish Week)
"This Is Really Not What We Hoped For" - Daniel Ben Simon
Moshav Netiv Ha'asara, a cooperative farming village a stone's throw from the Gaza border, was founded 25 years ago by evacuees from the Yamit settlement area of northern Sinai. "People said it would be a paradise," Nahum Yosefi recalls. "We had a great dream." "Even though the moshav is beautiful, the dream my friends and I had turned into a nightmare. If I'm afraid to let my grandson walk along the path next to my house, what more is there to say?"
In the past few days and weeks, the residents of Netiv Ha'asara have felt as if they are living in a battlefield. The volleys of screaming rockets mix with the whirring of the attack helicopters sent in to eliminate the squads firing the rockets. The media has focused largely on Sderot, but dozens of communities in the "Gaza envelope" have also come under relentless attack. (Ha'aretz)
The Gaza-Egypt Border
The Enemy Within - Editorial
As always, Gazans look around, see how terrible conditions are, and point fingers. Many blame Israel. Or they blame the U.S. Or they blame Fatah, rival to Hamas. If things are to improve in Gaza, then that reflexive attitude is one of the first things that must change. Until most Gazans fix the blame for their miserable living conditions where it belongs - on their elected leaders of Hamas - Gaza will remain poised on the brink of crisis, sending rockets into Israel and then complaining bitterly when its foe retaliates.
This really isn't all that complicated. It's quiet for quiet. If the Palestinians stop lobbing rockets into Israel, there will be no retaliation. This is not a matter of the "cycle of violence." Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. That was supposed to end the "provocation" of the settlements and stop the rocket fire. But it hasn't. There's also no doubt Hamas could stop the rockets. Unfortunately, the leaders of Hamas find it to their political and economic advantage to allow their people to suffer while they smuggle arms and money from Iran and elsewhere to continue the campaign of terror against Israel.
As long as Hamas is in power, Gaza will be driven further into misery, further from the path that would lead to an independent state. For Gazans, the real enemy is within. (Chicago Tribune)
A Farewell to Gaza? - Editorial
What some see as a problem may also be an opportunity because it could be a first step in getting the world to perceive that many of the residents of Gaza are Egyptians rather than Palestinians. They'd rather be in Egypt than in Gaza, as they showed by voting with their feet these past days. They speak Egyptian Arabic. They have closer family ties to Egypt than they do to the West Bank, where many of them have never visited.
Rather than forcing the Gazan Arabs to join with the West Bank Arabs into a state of "Palestine" that has never existed, why not let Gaza revert to its pre-1967 status as part of Egypt? Egypt, at least, is a country with which Israel has a peace treaty and diplomatic relations. If the plan of letting Gaza merge into Egypt works, it could be a model for allowing Jordan, another country with which Israel has a treaty of peace, to accept responsibility for parts of the West Bank. In the crisis along the Egypt-Gaza border could lie the seeds of a just resolution to the so-called Palestinian question. (New York Sun)
Smugglers Join Gaza Border Crowds - Tim Butcher
The wall between Gaza and Egypt was blown away in at least eight different places and through the breaches swept a tide of Palestinians. First came the curious teenagers, then came the smugglers. Fertilizer, broken down into half bags for lugging through the many tunnels that arms smugglers normally use for delivery into Gaza, was to be seen as it was manhandled overland. It was white, oily, and crystalline. Gaza militants use it to make explosives. "Hey, hey, hey," shouted a man as I took a photograph of a pile of fertilizer half bags. His aggressive tone jarred with the mood of the crowd as he grabbed my camera lens firmly.
For most of the thousands of Palestinians who flooded through the border breaches, it was the Eastern Mediterranean version of the British Booze Cruise to Calais. They made their way to shops in nearby Egyptian communities and bought as much as they could carry of things not available so competitively priced in Gaza. (Telegraph-UK)
Gaza into Egypt - Martin Kramer
"This may be a blessing in disguise," an Israeli official said of the destruction by Hamas of a chunk of the border barrier separating Gaza from Egypt. An open border effectively absolves Israel of responsibility for the well-being of Gaza's population, and may prompt Israel to sever its remaining infrastructure and supply links to Gaza. A large part of the responsibility for Gaza would be shifted from Israel to Egypt.
There were 350,000 Palestinians in Gaza in 1967. Now there are 1.3 million, who are pushing against the envelope of Gaza's narrow borders with growing force. Israel has the power and the resolve to push back. Egypt just doesn't, which is why the envelope burst where it did. (Middle East Strategy at Harvard)
Israel's Choices in the Face of Rocket Attacks - Con Coughlin
By maintaining its constant barrage of rocket attacks against Israel, the Hamas leadership could hardly be credited with working in the best interests of the civilian population it claims to represent. The dilemma facing the Israelis is how they respond to the endless acts of provocation from Hamas, for whatever action the authorities in Jerusalem take seems to provoke international condemnation. The recent closure of Gaza to all but essential humanitarian supplies was heavily criticized by aid agencies, which were less keen to condemn the Israeli casualties caused by Hamas rocket attacks. Given that the Palestinians are in no position to rein in Hamas' excesses, it seems almost inevitable that it will fall to Israel to deal with the existential threat the terror group poses. To make peace in the Middle East, it is often necessary first to make war. (Telegraph-UK)
Other Issues
A Message for Tehran - Editorial
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, agreed this week on a third, relatively mild round of sanctions on Iran if it goes on refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium. China and Russia, major commercial partners of Iran, would sign on only for vigilant monitoring of Iranian financial and military institutions, not for the tough financial penalties sought by the Bush administration.
Without this third sanctions resolution, Ahmadinejad could go on pretending that the rest of the world accepts his claim that Iran's nuclear file is closed. The compromise tells the people of Iran that the outside world does not accept Ahmadinejad's propaganda line; that having hidden suspicious activities in its nuclear program for 18 years, Iran now must show good faith by suspending uranium enrichment while negotiating an agreement that guarantees it a supply of non-weapons-grade uranium for power generation. Meanwhile, the new sanctions tell Iran's leaders that they are not fooling anybody in the international community. (Boston Globe)
The Case Against Moral Inversion
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, addressed the UN Human Rights Council on Jan. 24: "It is, after all, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations, who deliberately fire rockets - over 200 in the past week alone - at innocent civilians in Sderot and other Israeli towns....It is they who reject the very notion of a distinction between combatants and civilians."
"Israel risks the lives of its own soldiers to avoid harming civilians. To Israel, causing a civilian casualty is an unintended tragedy; to Hamas, it is a cause for celebration. The world knows this. The supporters of those who fire rockets at nursery schools summoned us here to accuse Israel of violating international humanitarian law." (UN Watch)
Weekend Features
Deep Inside the Plucky Country - Greg Sheridan
Alongside the territories is a much under-reported but fascinating and unique country. It's called Israel. The world media makes a mistake by using the same reporters to cover the Palestinian territories as well as Israel. They cover the territories and they only cover Israel as a brooding and malign presence in the territories. Naturally the reporting is one-sided. But it is worse than that. It omits from the equation Israel and the Israelis, and all the countless enthralling and diverse aspects of Israeli politics and society.
After the 1967 war, when Israel was attacked by a coalition of its Arab neighbors, Israel took territory in eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Some of this, Israelis argue, is necessary for security. It has since left Gaza. Israel is constantly urged to go back to its 1967 borders, but the two places where it has done that, in southern Lebanon and Gaza, the result has been disastrous. It was subject to thousands of rocket attacks from southern Lebanon and now every day Kassam rockets are fired from Gaza at nearby Israeli civilian towns, especially Sderot.
After a three-week visit I left Israel profoundly optimistic about the morale of the society and the resolve of the people, but profoundly pessimistic about the peace process. If there were peace, any compromise on borders might be possible. But too many Arab leaders, and too many Palestinian leaders, are playing for the very long term and still believe that in time they will wipe Israel off the map.
The most powerful image I saw in Israel was in a small office in the Knesset (parliament) building in Jerusalem. I had gone to see Ephraim Sneh, a white-haired veteran Labor Party politician and soldier, a former cabinet minister and a former general. He points to a picture on the back wall of his office. It is of two Israeli F-15 fighters flying over Auschwitz. "When we didn't have F-15s, we had Auschwitz," he says. His grandparents, he tells me, were killed by the Polish farmers they had paid to shelter them. You learn the lessons of trusting other people with your security. Israel will certainly make compromises. But it will not commit suicide. The writer is the foreign editor of The Australian. (The Australian)
In Korczak's Orphans' Twilight, Memories of a Doomed Utopia - Dina Kraft
They are in their 80s now, the last living links to Janusz Korczak, the visionary champion of children's rights who refused to part with his young charges even as they were herded to the gas chambers. When they speak of him, the old men are young again: transported to their days in his orphanage, a place they remember as a magical republic for children as the Nazi threat grew closer. Korczak's ideas for a declaration of children's rights were posthumously adopted by the UN, and dozens of Korczak associations exist worldwide. (New York Times)
Truth So Stark Even Deniers Would See It - Oakland Ross
They should persuade Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, to take a stroll through Israel's hauntingly magnificent Holocaust Museum. No one, not even the president of Iran, could tour the museum at Yad Vashem and yet remain under any illusion that the Holocaust - the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II - is not an historical fact. What is perhaps most impressive about the museum is the steady accumulation of minute, quotidian details that quietly illuminate the genuine experiences of individual people, human beings whose only crime, in the eyes of the Nazis, was to be Jewish.
Beneath four panes of thick glass embedded in the floor in one gallery lies a mute and yet eloquent exhibit - shoes, hundreds of pairs of men's and women's shoes all piled together without a word of explanation, for no explanation is needed. (Toronto Star)
Observations:
Breach in Gaza: Hamas Blockades the Peace Process - Editorial (Washington Post)
Hamas provided a dramatic illustration of its ability to disrupt any movement toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as tens of thousands of residents of the Gaza Strip surged across the border into Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak announced that Gazans would be allowed to shop in Egypt because they "are starving due to the Israeli siege." In fact, as Mr. Mubarak well knows, no one is starving in Gaza.
Israel closed its border with Gaza and disrupted power supplies in response to a massive escalation of Palestinian rocket launches from Gaza at nearby Israeli towns - between Tuesday and Saturday last week, some 225 rockets were aimed at the town of Sderot, where more than 20,000 Israelis have been relentlessly terrorized.
Those who say their priority is an Israeli-Palestinian settlement ought to be trying to stop Hamas' disruptions. Egypt's obligation as a law-abiding state is to restore order on the border and prevent the ongoing and massive smuggling of armaments into Gaza. That would go a long way toward stopping the rockets.
The Bush administration and European governments should act to stop the ongoing farce at the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, which have ignored months of daily rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians but now rush to condemn a partial, three-day disruption of Gaza's power supplies. Hamas, and the people of Gaza, should get a consistent message that relief lies not in blowing up international borders but in ending attacks on Israel and allowing a peace process to go forward.
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Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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January 25, 2008
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In-Depth Issues:
Warning: Palestinian Terrorists Seek to Kidnap Israelis in Sinai and Bring Them to Gaza (Prime Minister's Office)
Warnings of terrorist attacks in Sinai have recently intensified. Terrorists in Sinai are working to abduct Israelis in Sinai and convey them to Gaza.
The currently open border between Gaza and Sinai makes it easier for terrorists to move back and forth.
Therefore, Israel's National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau on Thursday called on Israelis to avoid visiting Sinai and any Israelis currently there should leave forthwith.
See also Palestinian Terrorist Groups Planning Attacks from Sinai - Amir Oren (Ha'aretz)
Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza have used the newly open border with Egypt to send numerous terrorists into Sinai over the last two days with the goal of reaching Israel to commit attacks, Israeli defense officials said Thursday.
Defense officials said the terrorists in Sinai are most likely to try to strike immediately, and almost certainly within the next two weeks.
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Open Border with Egypt Allows Free Flow of Terrorists and Weapons into Gaza (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center)
The uncontrolled movement of crowds of Gazans in and out of Egypt means that Hamas can now smuggle terrorist operatives and weapons into Gaza with almost no interference.
Hamas' goal is to force the Egyptians to renege on its participation in the Crossings Agreement of August 2005.
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Hamas Began Cutting Border Wall Four Months Ago to Ambush Israeli Forces - Mark MacKinnon (Globe and Mail-Canada)
Abu Uday, 23, of Hamas, said the systematic effort to weaken the base of the border wall began four months ago in order to ambush Israeli forces.
"We did these things so that if Israel entered the Philadelphi Corridor [a narrow stretch of no-man's land between Gaza and Egypt] it would be easy to enter and attack them," he said.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said, "We don't need Israel. If the border is open, we can bring anything in from Egypt."
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"Nobody Needs Tunnels Anymore": Open Border a Nightmare for Palestinian Smugglers - Mark MacKinnon (Globe and Mail-Canada)
Mahmoud Mohammed is a smuggler, one of the hundreds of young Palestinian men who - until Wednesday - made their living crawling deep underground through the maze of tunnels that link Gaza with Sinai.
Mohammed said he was 17 meters below the surface, digging a new tunnel that was almost complete, when the ground above him started to shake with the first of more than a dozen early morning explosions set off by militants affiliated with Hamas that brought most of the iron wall that separated Gaza and Egypt crashing to the ground.
He said that when he got out, his boss told him to quit digging because "nobody needs tunnels anymore."
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Palestinian Forces Enter Jordan under U.S. Training Program - Adam Entous (Reuters)
The first battalion of nearly 700 U.S.-screened Palestinian recruits crossed into Jordan on Thursday to begin what officials called "law and order" training under a U.S. program projected to graduate 2,000 men in 2008.
The eventual plan is for a nearly 50,000-member PA gendarmerie in the West Bank.
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Tehran, Havana and Caracas - Editorial (Washington Times)
One of the most troubling threats in America's backyard is the emerging axis of Cuba's Communist regime and the Iranian government, assisted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Relations concerning "dual-use" biotechnology (material with both military and civilian uses) have flourished since September 11.
The possibility of Tehran-Havana biological-warfare activities also bears watching. In August 2006, the State Department imposed a two-year sanction against Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology for carrying out unspecified transfers of technology and equipment to Iran.
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Britain Unveils Terror Law Proposals - D'Arcy Doran (AP)
The British government revealed sweeping plans Thursday to toughen terrorism laws, including a proposal to hold suspects for up to 42 days without charge.
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Yad Vashem Launches Arabic Website (AP/Ha'aretz)
The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on Thursday launched an Arabic version of its website, including vivid photos of Nazi atrocities and video of survivor testimony, to combat Holocaust denial in the Arab and Muslim world.
Last year, Yad Vashem presented a similar version of its website in Persian, aimed at Iran.
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An Israeli Scholar in Malaysia - Erika Fry (Bangkok Post-Thailand)
Dr. Ben Mollov, a professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, has made the study of managing and mediating conflict through cultural and religious dialogue the basis of his life's work.
Mollov was in Bangkok last week en route to a conference in Malaysia, where despite the lack of Israel-Malaysian diplomatic relations (Malaysian passports read "valid in every country but Israel"), he was invited to speak about moderating intercivilizational conflict.
He also spoke there in 2005, when, in his first visit to the country, he was pleasantly surprised to be received by audience applause, a prominently displayed Israeli flag, and inter-faith bonding with Muslim conference participants over the troubles in finding Halal and Kosher food when traveling.
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More Jerusalem Arabs Seek Israeli Citizenship - Dion Nissenbaum (McClatchy)
Though many Arabs in Jerusalem want to see an independent Palestinian state, they don't want to be part of it.
The number of Arab residents of Jerusalem applying for Israeli citizenship more than doubled in 2007, according to the Israel Interior Ministry. 500 residents of eastern Jerusalem requested Israeli passports, up from 200 in each of the previous three years.
There's an uncomfortable acknowledgment, especially among the Arab middle class in Jerusalem, that their lives could get substantially worse under Palestinian rule.
Eastern Jerusalem Arabs receive Israeli social security and health benefits. They're allowed to vote in local elections. They have the freedom to travel throughout Israel without special permits.
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Latest Jerusalem Population Figures - Peggy Cidor (Jerusalem Post)
According to the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies research team headed by Dr. Maya Choshen and Israel Kimhi, the population of Jerusalem at the end of 2006 was 733,300, or 10% of the nation's population.
469,900 were Jewish, 239,800 Muslim, 12,400 Christian Arab, 2,600 non-Arab Christian and 8,500 unaffiliated.
The 3.5% rate of unemployment in the city in 2006 was among the lowest in the country.
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Rice Calls on Egypt to Control Border with Gaza
Secretary of State Rice called on Egypt Thursday to control its border with Gaza. "It is an international border, it needs to be protected, and I believe that the Egyptians understand the importance of doing that." Palestinians swarmed into Egypt for the second day Thursday after militants blew open the border. Rice again pinned the blame on the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement for provoking the Israeli blockade. "This problem has come first and foremost out of the security situation created by Hamas in Gaza, their unwillingness to stop" firing rockets into Israel, Rice said. (AFP)
See also Egypt Fires Water Cannons at Palestinians at Border
Egyptian forces fired water cannons at Palestinians trying to force their way across the Gaza-Egypt border on Friday. Egyptian forces began placing barbed wire near the collapsed steel border wall early on Friday, and witnesses said Palestinians threw stones at Egyptian forces, who responded by beating some Palestinians with clubs. (Reuters)
See also Egypt Sets Friday Deadline for Gaza Border Closure (AFP)
See also Poverty-Stricken Gazans Spent $130 Million in Egypt in Two Days
Rami Abdou, an economic analyst, estimated that Gazans spent $130 million in less than two days, a princely sum for the poverty-stricken territory. (AP)
Israel Says It Wants No Ties with Gaza
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Thursday that Israel wants to relinquish all responsibility for the Gaza Strip, including the supply of electricity and water, now that the territory's southern border with Egypt has been opened. "We need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it. So we want to disconnect from it." (AP)
See also Egypt Won't Take Control of Gaza
Hossam Zaki, the official spokesman for Egypt's foreign ministry, said Thursday of Israeli hints that it was thinking of giving up all responsibility for Gaza now that its border with Egypt is open: "This is a wrong assumption." "The current situation is only an exception and for temporary reasons," Zaki said. "The border will go back to normal." (Jerusalem Post)
Israel Raises Alert Level near Israel-Egypt Border
Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter on Thursday ordered to increase the state of alert near the border between Israel and Egypt. Yediot Ahronot's website quoted Dichter as saying that the higher alert level is necessary due to "the swarms of people who left Gaza towards Sinai and the terror alerts indicating a terror attack against Israel may originate from Sinai." (Xinhua-China)
See also Egypt Raises State of Alert after Palestinians Pour into Sinai (Xinhua-China)
See also Egypt Closes Suez Canal Bridge to Keep Gazans from Cairo
Egyptian authorities closed the As-Salam Bridge over the Suez Canal to stop tens of thousands of Gaza Strip residents from going on to Cairo after they crossed the Sinai Peninsula. (Maan News-PA)
UN Human Rights Council Rebukes Israel on Gaza - Stephanie Nebehay
The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday demanded Israel lift its week-long blockade of Gaza. The 47-member council adopted a resolution presented by Arab and Muslim states by a vote of 30 in favor and one against (Canada) with 15 abstentions, and one delegation absent. Britain, France, Germany and Japan were among countries to abstain. China and Russia backed the resolution. Western countries abstained in bloc after criticizing the text as unbalanced for failing to even mention the rockets launched into Israel from Gaza by Palestinian militants. The Israeli army estimates about 250 rockets and mortar rounds have pounded Israel since last week.
U.S. Ambassador Warren Tichenor warned that the Council session and its "one-sided resolution" would only stoke tensions and erode chances for peace. "The Human Rights Council has far too often been used simply as a platform from which to single out Israel, while too often ignoring the other human rights situations. This unbalanced approach has squandered its credibility." (Reuters)
See also UN Security Council Debates Condemnation of Israel over Gaza - Michal Lando
As the UN Security Council discussed a draft presidential statement about the situation in Gaza Thursday for the third day in a row, Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the mere occupation of the council with this matter was "unjustified" and played into the hands of Hamas. "By engaging, they are rewarding terror, doing Hamas' work, and doing what Hamas wants, which is undermining Abbas and the peace process." "There is no way to balance terrorists and killers and a country trying to defend itself," he said. (Jerusalem Post)
See also Israeli Mission in NY Displays 4,200 Balloons, One for Each Kassam Rocket (Ha'aretz)
Reformists Purged from Iran Ballot - Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi
When Iranian voters go to the polls on March 14 to select members of Parliament, they may be able to choose only between conservative candidates and other conservative candidates, leaders of Iran's main reform party said Wednesday. With more than 7,200 candidates registered to run for 290 seats in Parliament, officials of the Islamic Participation Front said 70% of reformist candidates had been disqualified. Two members of Parliament were disqualified as well, including one of Ahmadinejad's most outspoken critics, Akbar Alami, who has already served two terms. (New York Times)
Beirut Bomb Kills Ten
A powerful bomb targeting a security convoy in a Christian area of Beirut on Friday killed at least 10 people, including a senior official, Captain Wissam Eid of the Internal Security Forces. (AFP)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
Israeli Border Policeman Killed in Terror Attack at Jerusalem Checkpoint - Amos Harel, Yuval Azoulay, and Yair Ettinger
Border Policeman Rami Zohari, 20, was killed and a policewoman was seriously wounded in a terror shooting attack Thursday night at the northern entrance to Shoafat, north of Jerusalem. Two Palestinian terrorists had approached on foot, fired at the Israelis, and fled the scene. Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. (Ynet News)
Palestinian Terrorists Infiltrate West Bank High School, Wound Three - Amos Harel, Yuval Azoulay, and Yair Ettinger
Two Palestinians armed with knives and a pistol infiltrated the Mekor Haim yeshiva high school in Kfar Etzion, not far from Jerusalem. They entered a library and attacked the students and their counselors, who fought back. During the battle, one student was moderately wounded and two of the counselors were lightly wounded. One of the counselors grabbed the pistol from the terrorist and shot the intruders, killing them both. Witnesses said the terrorists were wearing uniforms of soldiers or security guards. (Ha'aretz)
See also Terrorists Who Attacked Kfar Etzion Released from Prison Last Week - Ali Waked and Efrat Weiss
The two terrorists who were killed Thursday after breaking into a high school in Kfar Etzion were released from an Israeli prison last week, Palestinian sources in Hebron said. (Ynet News)
Five Palestinian Rockets Fired at Sderot on Thursday - Shmulik Hadad
Palestinian terrorists fired five Kassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot Thursday evening. (Ynet News)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Israel Under Palestinian Rocket Fire
The Kassam Rocket as Collective Punishment - Bradley Burston
Imagine a situation in which thousands and thousands of people, many of them children and the elderly, are plunged into a reality in which they must fear for their lives day in and day out, in which their livelihoods are crippled, with their schools and even pre-schools under siege. Entire communities are trapped, paralyzed. Whole childhoods are spent in a state of post-traumatic stress. They are the victims of collective punishment. And they live in Israel. (Ha'aretz)
See also The Source of Gaza's Pain - Editorial
Left conspicuously unspoken is the collective punishment meted out by Hamas, which controls Gaza, against the Israeli citizens of Sderot - who have absorbed as many as 50 rocket attacks in a single day for the past seven years. The "cycle of violence" would end soon enough were Hamas to halt its attacks on the innocents of Sderot. It won't, sadly, as long as the international community continues to play the terrorists' game. (New York Post)
The Town that Measures Life in 15-Second Intervals - Mary Dejevsky
Life in Sderot is measured in intervals of 15 seconds. That is how long people have between the sounding of the sirens and the inevitable explosion. Civic life is almost non-existent. People are on edge, unwilling to plan anything in advance, and fearful of dropping their children at school, lest it is the last time they see them. Shula Sasson explains that 15 seconds is not long enough for anyone except the most agile to get to the safer downstairs from upstairs. "If you have to carry a small child, you haven't a hope." So the upstairs of their house is hardly used. Everyone - seven people - now sleeps in the living room. (Independent-UK)
Sderot: Life Under Rocket Bombardment - Joshua Mitnick
In Sderot, Israel, the rocket alert was drowned out by the noise from the children's party. By the time the first kids dashed to the bomb shelter at the Parent and Child Community Center, it was too late. The Kassam rocket thundered overhead, accompanied by a subtle tremble. "You heard that boom," asked Dalia Yosef, the director of the Sderot Resilience Center, which focuses on easing the psychological toll of the rockets. "It's not that far away." "The worst problem is the lack of certainty. The body and mind are always in survival mode," explained Yosef, a native of Sderot whose parents still reside in the town. "All of the threads of life are being broken," Yosef says of the rocket-induced trauma. "It's hurting a lot more than it seems."
Katy Cohen spoke of sleeping in the safe room of her apartment with her three children. Holding her 2-year-old son, Cohen said that he wakes up in the middle of the night imagining a Kassam attack. "Every little noise he hears he thinks is a Kassam," said Cohen. "He knows what the 'Color Red' alert is and he knows to go into the shelter." (New York Jewish Week)
"This Is Really Not What We Hoped For" - Daniel Ben Simon
Moshav Netiv Ha'asara, a cooperative farming village a stone's throw from the Gaza border, was founded 25 years ago by evacuees from the Yamit settlement area of northern Sinai. "People said it would be a paradise," Nahum Yosefi recalls. "We had a great dream." "Even though the moshav is beautiful, the dream my friends and I had turned into a nightmare. If I'm afraid to let my grandson walk along the path next to my house, what more is there to say?"
In the past few days and weeks, the residents of Netiv Ha'asara have felt as if they are living in a battlefield. The volleys of screaming rockets mix with the whirring of the attack helicopters sent in to eliminate the squads firing the rockets. The media has focused largely on Sderot, but dozens of communities in the "Gaza envelope" have also come under relentless attack. (Ha'aretz)
The Gaza-Egypt Border
The Enemy Within - Editorial
As always, Gazans look around, see how terrible conditions are, and point fingers. Many blame Israel. Or they blame the U.S. Or they blame Fatah, rival to Hamas. If things are to improve in Gaza, then that reflexive attitude is one of the first things that must change. Until most Gazans fix the blame for their miserable living conditions where it belongs - on their elected leaders of Hamas - Gaza will remain poised on the brink of crisis, sending rockets into Israel and then complaining bitterly when its foe retaliates.
This really isn't all that complicated. It's quiet for quiet. If the Palestinians stop lobbing rockets into Israel, there will be no retaliation. This is not a matter of the "cycle of violence." Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. That was supposed to end the "provocation" of the settlements and stop the rocket fire. But it hasn't. There's also no doubt Hamas could stop the rockets. Unfortunately, the leaders of Hamas find it to their political and economic advantage to allow their people to suffer while they smuggle arms and money from Iran and elsewhere to continue the campaign of terror against Israel.
As long as Hamas is in power, Gaza will be driven further into misery, further from the path that would lead to an independent state. For Gazans, the real enemy is within. (Chicago Tribune)
A Farewell to Gaza? - Editorial
What some see as a problem may also be an opportunity because it could be a first step in getting the world to perceive that many of the residents of Gaza are Egyptians rather than Palestinians. They'd rather be in Egypt than in Gaza, as they showed by voting with their feet these past days. They speak Egyptian Arabic. They have closer family ties to Egypt than they do to the West Bank, where many of them have never visited.
Rather than forcing the Gazan Arabs to join with the West Bank Arabs into a state of "Palestine" that has never existed, why not let Gaza revert to its pre-1967 status as part of Egypt? Egypt, at least, is a country with which Israel has a peace treaty and diplomatic relations. If the plan of letting Gaza merge into Egypt works, it could be a model for allowing Jordan, another country with which Israel has a treaty of peace, to accept responsibility for parts of the West Bank. In the crisis along the Egypt-Gaza border could lie the seeds of a just resolution to the so-called Palestinian question. (New York Sun)
Smugglers Join Gaza Border Crowds - Tim Butcher
The wall between Gaza and Egypt was blown away in at least eight different places and through the breaches swept a tide of Palestinians. First came the curious teenagers, then came the smugglers. Fertilizer, broken down into half bags for lugging through the many tunnels that arms smugglers normally use for delivery into Gaza, was to be seen as it was manhandled overland. It was white, oily, and crystalline. Gaza militants use it to make explosives. "Hey, hey, hey," shouted a man as I took a photograph of a pile of fertilizer half bags. His aggressive tone jarred with the mood of the crowd as he grabbed my camera lens firmly.
For most of the thousands of Palestinians who flooded through the border breaches, it was the Eastern Mediterranean version of the British Booze Cruise to Calais. They made their way to shops in nearby Egyptian communities and bought as much as they could carry of things not available so competitively priced in Gaza. (Telegraph-UK)
Gaza into Egypt - Martin Kramer
"This may be a blessing in disguise," an Israeli official said of the destruction by Hamas of a chunk of the border barrier separating Gaza from Egypt. An open border effectively absolves Israel of responsibility for the well-being of Gaza's population, and may prompt Israel to sever its remaining infrastructure and supply links to Gaza. A large part of the responsibility for Gaza would be shifted from Israel to Egypt.
There were 350,000 Palestinians in Gaza in 1967. Now there are 1.3 million, who are pushing against the envelope of Gaza's narrow borders with growing force. Israel has the power and the resolve to push back. Egypt just doesn't, which is why the envelope burst where it did. (Middle East Strategy at Harvard)
Israel's Choices in the Face of Rocket Attacks - Con Coughlin
By maintaining its constant barrage of rocket attacks against Israel, the Hamas leadership could hardly be credited with working in the best interests of the civilian population it claims to represent. The dilemma facing the Israelis is how they respond to the endless acts of provocation from Hamas, for whatever action the authorities in Jerusalem take seems to provoke international condemnation. The recent closure of Gaza to all but essential humanitarian supplies was heavily criticized by aid agencies, which were less keen to condemn the Israeli casualties caused by Hamas rocket attacks. Given that the Palestinians are in no position to rein in Hamas' excesses, it seems almost inevitable that it will fall to Israel to deal with the existential threat the terror group poses. To make peace in the Middle East, it is often necessary first to make war. (Telegraph-UK)
Other Issues
A Message for Tehran - Editorial
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany, agreed this week on a third, relatively mild round of sanctions on Iran if it goes on refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium. China and Russia, major commercial partners of Iran, would sign on only for vigilant monitoring of Iranian financial and military institutions, not for the tough financial penalties sought by the Bush administration.
Without this third sanctions resolution, Ahmadinejad could go on pretending that the rest of the world accepts his claim that Iran's nuclear file is closed. The compromise tells the people of Iran that the outside world does not accept Ahmadinejad's propaganda line; that having hidden suspicious activities in its nuclear program for 18 years, Iran now must show good faith by suspending uranium enrichment while negotiating an agreement that guarantees it a supply of non-weapons-grade uranium for power generation. Meanwhile, the new sanctions tell Iran's leaders that they are not fooling anybody in the international community. (Boston Globe)
The Case Against Moral Inversion
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, addressed the UN Human Rights Council on Jan. 24: "It is, after all, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations, who deliberately fire rockets - over 200 in the past week alone - at innocent civilians in Sderot and other Israeli towns....It is they who reject the very notion of a distinction between combatants and civilians."
"Israel risks the lives of its own soldiers to avoid harming civilians. To Israel, causing a civilian casualty is an unintended tragedy; to Hamas, it is a cause for celebration. The world knows this. The supporters of those who fire rockets at nursery schools summoned us here to accuse Israel of violating international humanitarian law." (UN Watch)
Weekend Features
Deep Inside the Plucky Country - Greg Sheridan
Alongside the territories is a much under-reported but fascinating and unique country. It's called Israel. The world media makes a mistake by using the same reporters to cover the Palestinian territories as well as Israel. They cover the territories and they only cover Israel as a brooding and malign presence in the territories. Naturally the reporting is one-sided. But it is worse than that. It omits from the equation Israel and the Israelis, and all the countless enthralling and diverse aspects of Israeli politics and society.
After the 1967 war, when Israel was attacked by a coalition of its Arab neighbors, Israel took territory in eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Some of this, Israelis argue, is necessary for security. It has since left Gaza. Israel is constantly urged to go back to its 1967 borders, but the two places where it has done that, in southern Lebanon and Gaza, the result has been disastrous. It was subject to thousands of rocket attacks from southern Lebanon and now every day Kassam rockets are fired from Gaza at nearby Israeli civilian towns, especially Sderot.
After a three-week visit I left Israel profoundly optimistic about the morale of the society and the resolve of the people, but profoundly pessimistic about the peace process. If there were peace, any compromise on borders might be possible. But too many Arab leaders, and too many Palestinian leaders, are playing for the very long term and still believe that in time they will wipe Israel off the map.
The most powerful image I saw in Israel was in a small office in the Knesset (parliament) building in Jerusalem. I had gone to see Ephraim Sneh, a white-haired veteran Labor Party politician and soldier, a former cabinet minister and a former general. He points to a picture on the back wall of his office. It is of two Israeli F-15 fighters flying over Auschwitz. "When we didn't have F-15s, we had Auschwitz," he says. His grandparents, he tells me, were killed by the Polish farmers they had paid to shelter them. You learn the lessons of trusting other people with your security. Israel will certainly make compromises. But it will not commit suicide. The writer is the foreign editor of The Australian. (The Australian)
In Korczak's Orphans' Twilight, Memories of a Doomed Utopia - Dina Kraft
They are in their 80s now, the last living links to Janusz Korczak, the visionary champion of children's rights who refused to part with his young charges even as they were herded to the gas chambers. When they speak of him, the old men are young again: transported to their days in his orphanage, a place they remember as a magical republic for children as the Nazi threat grew closer. Korczak's ideas for a declaration of children's rights were posthumously adopted by the UN, and dozens of Korczak associations exist worldwide. (New York Times)
Truth So Stark Even Deniers Would See It - Oakland Ross
They should persuade Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, to take a stroll through Israel's hauntingly magnificent Holocaust Museum. No one, not even the president of Iran, could tour the museum at Yad Vashem and yet remain under any illusion that the Holocaust - the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II - is not an historical fact. What is perhaps most impressive about the museum is the steady accumulation of minute, quotidian details that quietly illuminate the genuine experiences of individual people, human beings whose only crime, in the eyes of the Nazis, was to be Jewish.
Beneath four panes of thick glass embedded in the floor in one gallery lies a mute and yet eloquent exhibit - shoes, hundreds of pairs of men's and women's shoes all piled together without a word of explanation, for no explanation is needed. (Toronto Star)
Observations:
Breach in Gaza: Hamas Blockades the Peace Process - Editorial (Washington Post)
Hamas provided a dramatic illustration of its ability to disrupt any movement toward peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as tens of thousands of residents of the Gaza Strip surged across the border into Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak announced that Gazans would be allowed to shop in Egypt because they "are starving due to the Israeli siege." In fact, as Mr. Mubarak well knows, no one is starving in Gaza.
Israel closed its border with Gaza and disrupted power supplies in response to a massive escalation of Palestinian rocket launches from Gaza at nearby Israeli towns - between Tuesday and Saturday last week, some 225 rockets were aimed at the town of Sderot, where more than 20,000 Israelis have been relentlessly terrorized.
Those who say their priority is an Israeli-Palestinian settlement ought to be trying to stop Hamas' disruptions. Egypt's obligation as a law-abiding state is to restore order on the border and prevent the ongoing and massive smuggling of armaments into Gaza. That would go a long way toward stopping the rockets.
The Bush administration and European governments should act to stop the ongoing farce at the UN Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, which have ignored months of daily rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians but now rush to condemn a partial, three-day disruption of Gaza's power supplies. Hamas, and the people of Gaza, should get a consistent message that relief lies not in blowing up international borders but in ending attacks on Israel and allowing a peace process to go forward.
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com/ news
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com/
The intersection of faith, culture and politics
Weekend of Jan. 25-27, 2008
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
WELCOME to the newsletter read by, among others, Washington power
brokers, editorial page editors, and society's most important and
influential citizenry. THEY'RE in great company!
**<>**<>**<>**<>****<>**<>**<>**<>**
[ J E W I S H L I V I N G ]
---> thought
Between Ten and Seven: A spiritual distinction
By Rabbi Hillel Goldberg
How to question and when to struggle with 'belief'
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/hillel/goldberg_yisro.php3
---> reality check
Hamas border takeover was about a lot more than rowdy Arabs
By Caroline B. Glick
Signal to Western leadership -- including Israel's -- are either being
missed or ignored
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0108/glick012508.php3
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
[ D A I L Y I N S P I R A T I O N ]
"Conversations with Yourself: A practical guide to greater happiness,
self-development and self-empowerment"
The quality of your life is the quality of your on-going self-talk!
Most people unconsciously engage in internal self-talk, and in this
series, best-selling author Rabbi Zelig Pliskin guides the reader to
achieve conscious awareness of meandering mental chatter and to
transform it into a steady stream of purposeful thought.
TODAY: Public Speaking Begins in Your Mind
http://jewishworldreview.com/inspiration/conversations.php3
[ JWisdom.com --- Awesome Audio ]
TODAY: Is There A Jewish Solution to Global Warming? by Rabbi
Mordechai
Becher
While many opinions -- some acrid -- collide over the threat of an
environmental meltdown, this "Godcast" demonstrates ancient Jewish
solutions for our modern mess
RUN TIME: 8 minutes
http://jewishworldreview.com/jwisdom/becher.php3
The intersection of faith, culture and politics
Weekend of Jan. 25-27, 2008
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
WELCOME to the newsletter read by, among others, Washington power
brokers, editorial page editors, and society's most important and
influential citizenry. THEY'RE in great company!
**<>**<>**<>**<>****<>**<>**<>**<>**
[ J E W I S H L I V I N G ]
---> thought
Between Ten and Seven: A spiritual distinction
By Rabbi Hillel Goldberg
How to question and when to struggle with 'belief'
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/hillel/goldberg_yisro.php3
---> reality check
Hamas border takeover was about a lot more than rowdy Arabs
By Caroline B. Glick
Signal to Western leadership -- including Israel's -- are either being
missed or ignored
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0108/glick012508.php3
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*
[ D A I L Y I N S P I R A T I O N ]
"Conversations with Yourself: A practical guide to greater happiness,
self-development and self-empowerment"
The quality of your life is the quality of your on-going self-talk!
Most people unconsciously engage in internal self-talk, and in this
series, best-selling author Rabbi Zelig Pliskin guides the reader to
achieve conscious awareness of meandering mental chatter and to
transform it into a steady stream of purposeful thought.
TODAY: Public Speaking Begins in Your Mind
http://jewishworldreview.com/inspiration/conversations.php3
[ JWisdom.com --- Awesome Audio ]
TODAY: Is There A Jewish Solution to Global Warming? by Rabbi
Mordechai
Becher
While many opinions -- some acrid -- collide over the threat of an
environmental meltdown, this "Godcast" demonstrates ancient Jewish
solutions for our modern mess
RUN TIME: 8 minutes
http://jewishworldreview.com/jwisdom/becher.php3
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Hamas Causing Chaos, Increasing Attacks on Israel
January 24, 2008 From Aipac.org
Hamas Causing Chaos, Increasing Attacks on Israel
Hamas created further chaos during the past week, stepping up its rocket attacks on Israel and destroying the fence separating Gaza and Egypt. The coordinated attack along the border allowed thousands to move unchecked in an area exploited by Hamas to smuggle weapons and explosives into Gaza. Despite the intensified rocket attacks, Israel is continuing to negotiate with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. At the same time, Israel has been forced to take increased measures to defend its citizens after demonstrating tremendous restraint in the face of the rising violence.
Learn more about the impact of rocket attacks on Israelis.
Read today's Washington Post editorial on the situation in Gaza.
Hamas is fomenting further chaos in Gaza and intensifying daily rocket attacks into Israel.
The premeditated action to destroy the fence along the border allows Hamas and other terrorists to increase their smuggling of cash, weapons, explosives and other materials to build the Qassam rockets used to attack Israel.
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have already fired more than 400 rockets and mortar shells into Israel during January. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, terrorists have fired more than 4,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli villages near the border with Gaza.
Rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have caused extensive damage in Israel, including this home in Sderot.
In addition to the crude Qassam rockets that have a range of five to seven miles, Hamas is also using more sophisticated weaponry. Earlier this month, terrorists fired a Katyusha rocket at Ashkelon from more than 10 miles away, marking the farthest north a rocket has ever been fired into Israel from Gaza.
Israel has demonstrated tremendous restraint in the face of continuing attacks, but must take action to defend its citizens.
Israel has demonstrated extreme restraint in the face of ongoing rocket attacks. However, like every other sovereign nation, Israel has the right and duty to defend its citizens from terror attacks.
While Israel is facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, it must take precautions in the face of continuing violence. IDF forces recently discovered more than two tons of fertilizer, which is used to construct explosives, in a humanitarian aid truck bound for Gaza.
Israel's military response has been carefully calibrated to reduce rocket fire and ensure the safety of Israeli citizens while at the same time making every effort to limit Palestinian civilian casualties.
Israel's actions have targeted Hamas operation centers, Palestinian rocket-launching devices, trucks carrying mass amounts of Qassam rockets, and vehicles carrying armed Palestinians.
The United States has consistently backed Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian attacks. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters Jan. 22: "When ... upwards of 150 rockets a day are landed on your territory and injuring or potentially injuring your citizens, you have a right to defend yourself. Imagine if that was happening here. We would certainly defend ourselves."
Israel continues to pursue peace efforts with the Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza despite increased terrorism by Hamas.
While Israel last week briefly limited fuel supplies to the Gaza power plant, it has continued to provide more than 70 percent of Gaza's electricity directly from the Israeli power grid. Rather than distribute the power equally across Gaza, however, Hamas chose to black out sections of northern Gaza to create a crisis.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak this week authorized the entry of supplies into the Gaza Strip, including cooking gas, 132,000 gallons of diesel fuel for generators, 581,000 gallons of industrial fuel for power plants and 50 loads of other forms of humanitarian aid.
Since early January, Israel has allowed more than 500 sick Palestinians and 450 companions to enter the Jewish state from Gaza to receive treatment in Palestinian hospitals.
Despite the incessant rocket and mortar attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and ongoing violence in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has continued to hold substantive talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, most recently on Dec. 27. On Jan. 14, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with top Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei.
The Arab states should take steps toward normalization with Israel as called for in Phase II of the Roadmap, which requires the Arab states to restore links to Israel cut off in 2000 and to revive engagement with Israel on key regional issues such as economic development. Israelis need to know that their state will be accepted in the region as the process unfolds.
Basic Facts Summary
Hamas is fomenting further chaos in Gaza and intensifying daily rocket attacks into Israel.
Israel has demonstrated tremendous restraint in the face of continuing attacks, but must take action to defend its citizens.
Israel continues to pursue peace efforts with the Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza despite increased terrorism by Hamas.
=
Hamas Causing Chaos, Increasing Attacks on Israel
Hamas created further chaos during the past week, stepping up its rocket attacks on Israel and destroying the fence separating Gaza and Egypt. The coordinated attack along the border allowed thousands to move unchecked in an area exploited by Hamas to smuggle weapons and explosives into Gaza. Despite the intensified rocket attacks, Israel is continuing to negotiate with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. At the same time, Israel has been forced to take increased measures to defend its citizens after demonstrating tremendous restraint in the face of the rising violence.
Learn more about the impact of rocket attacks on Israelis.
Read today's Washington Post editorial on the situation in Gaza.
Hamas is fomenting further chaos in Gaza and intensifying daily rocket attacks into Israel.
The premeditated action to destroy the fence along the border allows Hamas and other terrorists to increase their smuggling of cash, weapons, explosives and other materials to build the Qassam rockets used to attack Israel.
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have already fired more than 400 rockets and mortar shells into Israel during January. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, terrorists have fired more than 4,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli villages near the border with Gaza.
Rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have caused extensive damage in Israel, including this home in Sderot.
In addition to the crude Qassam rockets that have a range of five to seven miles, Hamas is also using more sophisticated weaponry. Earlier this month, terrorists fired a Katyusha rocket at Ashkelon from more than 10 miles away, marking the farthest north a rocket has ever been fired into Israel from Gaza.
Israel has demonstrated tremendous restraint in the face of continuing attacks, but must take action to defend its citizens.
Israel has demonstrated extreme restraint in the face of ongoing rocket attacks. However, like every other sovereign nation, Israel has the right and duty to defend its citizens from terror attacks.
While Israel is facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, it must take precautions in the face of continuing violence. IDF forces recently discovered more than two tons of fertilizer, which is used to construct explosives, in a humanitarian aid truck bound for Gaza.
Israel's military response has been carefully calibrated to reduce rocket fire and ensure the safety of Israeli citizens while at the same time making every effort to limit Palestinian civilian casualties.
Israel's actions have targeted Hamas operation centers, Palestinian rocket-launching devices, trucks carrying mass amounts of Qassam rockets, and vehicles carrying armed Palestinians.
The United States has consistently backed Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian attacks. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters Jan. 22: "When ... upwards of 150 rockets a day are landed on your territory and injuring or potentially injuring your citizens, you have a right to defend yourself. Imagine if that was happening here. We would certainly defend ourselves."
Israel continues to pursue peace efforts with the Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza despite increased terrorism by Hamas.
While Israel last week briefly limited fuel supplies to the Gaza power plant, it has continued to provide more than 70 percent of Gaza's electricity directly from the Israeli power grid. Rather than distribute the power equally across Gaza, however, Hamas chose to black out sections of northern Gaza to create a crisis.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak this week authorized the entry of supplies into the Gaza Strip, including cooking gas, 132,000 gallons of diesel fuel for generators, 581,000 gallons of industrial fuel for power plants and 50 loads of other forms of humanitarian aid.
Since early January, Israel has allowed more than 500 sick Palestinians and 450 companions to enter the Jewish state from Gaza to receive treatment in Palestinian hospitals.
Despite the incessant rocket and mortar attacks from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and ongoing violence in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has continued to hold substantive talks with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, most recently on Dec. 27. On Jan. 14, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with top Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei.
The Arab states should take steps toward normalization with Israel as called for in Phase II of the Roadmap, which requires the Arab states to restore links to Israel cut off in 2000 and to revive engagement with Israel on key regional issues such as economic development. Israelis need to know that their state will be accepted in the region as the process unfolds.
Basic Facts Summary
Hamas is fomenting further chaos in Gaza and intensifying daily rocket attacks into Israel.
Israel has demonstrated tremendous restraint in the face of continuing attacks, but must take action to defend its citizens.
Israel continues to pursue peace efforts with the Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza despite increased terrorism by Hamas.
=
PBS had my daughter's naming on
Last night the PBS special on Jews in America included a clip from my daughter Shoshana's babynaming May 30 1985.
Here it is if you want to see if, towards the end of this short video
www.pbs.org/jewishamericans/jewish_life/activism.html
The 8 day old baby is her. My Mother and sister are carrying her down the aisle in my first synagogue, Brooklyn's oldest, the Kane street synagogue.
Here it is if you want to see if, towards the end of this short video
www.pbs.org/jewishamericans/jewish_life/activism.html
The 8 day old baby is her. My Mother and sister are carrying her down the aisle in my first synagogue, Brooklyn's oldest, the Kane street synagogue.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Its Hamas' fault
U.S.: Israel "Defending Itself" Against Attacks
Following a sharp increase in Palestinian rocket attacks last week, Israel took steps to decrease the threat to its civilians and closed its border crossings with the Gaza Strip. The White House issued a statement supporting Israel's actions, calling it an act of self-defense, Agence France Press reported Tuesday. At the same time, Israel remained committed to maintaining humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, opening crossings to deliver diesel fuel, medicine and food stuffs. Even during the height of the attacks, only the Gaza power plant was affected by the fuel reduction, with remaining power sources continuing to provide 75 percent of Gaza's electricity needs. However, if the attacks continue, a chance remains that Israel will be forced to take military action to defend its citizens.
Rice: Hamas to Blame for Gaza Situation
Secretary of State Condoleezza placed responsibility for the situation in Gaza squarely on the terrorist group Hamas, noting that it has consistently rebuffed international demands to halt terrorism. "Ultimately, Hamas is to blame for this circumstance because if they were more responsible toward the international community, then there would be – Gaza would be connected to the outside world rather than cut off," Rice said on Tuesday in a press briefing en route to Berlin. Rice's statement comes as Hamas intensified its rocket attacks against neighboring Israeli cities, firing some more than 400 rockets in January. In 2007, terrorist groups in Gaza fired more than 1,500 rockets and mortar shells into Israel. Click here to learn more about the threat of Qassam rockets.
Following a sharp increase in Palestinian rocket attacks last week, Israel took steps to decrease the threat to its civilians and closed its border crossings with the Gaza Strip. The White House issued a statement supporting Israel's actions, calling it an act of self-defense, Agence France Press reported Tuesday. At the same time, Israel remained committed to maintaining humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, opening crossings to deliver diesel fuel, medicine and food stuffs. Even during the height of the attacks, only the Gaza power plant was affected by the fuel reduction, with remaining power sources continuing to provide 75 percent of Gaza's electricity needs. However, if the attacks continue, a chance remains that Israel will be forced to take military action to defend its citizens.
Rice: Hamas to Blame for Gaza Situation
Secretary of State Condoleezza placed responsibility for the situation in Gaza squarely on the terrorist group Hamas, noting that it has consistently rebuffed international demands to halt terrorism. "Ultimately, Hamas is to blame for this circumstance because if they were more responsible toward the international community, then there would be – Gaza would be connected to the outside world rather than cut off," Rice said on Tuesday in a press briefing en route to Berlin. Rice's statement comes as Hamas intensified its rocket attacks against neighboring Israeli cities, firing some more than 400 rockets in January. In 2007, terrorist groups in Gaza fired more than 1,500 rockets and mortar shells into Israel. Click here to learn more about the threat of Qassam rockets.
Ahava raba,Ahavat Olam, Michomocha
MORNING
< A-ha-vah ra-ba | a-hav-ta-nu,
A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu,
chem-lah g'do-lah vi-tei-rah cha-mal-ta a-lei-nu.
A-vi-nu mal-kei-nu,
ba-a-vur
a-vo-tei-nu she-ba-t'chu v'cha,
va-t'la-m'deim chu-kei cha-yim,
kein t'cha-nei-nu ut-la-m'dei-nu.
A-vi-nu < av | ha-av > ha-ra-cha-man ha-m'ra-cheim,
ra-cheim a-lei-nu, v'tein b'li-bei-nu,
l'ha-vin ul-has-kil , lish-mo-a,
lil-mod u-l'la-meid, lish-mor,
v-la-a-sot ul-ka-yeim,
et kawl div-rei tal-mud to-ra-te-cha b'a-ha-vah.
V'ha-eir ei-nei-nu b'to-ra-te-cha,
v'da-beik li-bei-nu b'mits-vo-te-cha,
v'ya-cheid l'va-vei-nu,
l'a-ha-va ul-yir-a et sh'me-cha,
< v'lo | l'ma-an lo > nei-vosh
l'o-lam va-ed.
Ki v'sheim kad-sh'cha ha-ga-dol
[ ha-gi-bor ] v'ha-no-ra ba-tach-nu,
na-gi-la v'nis-m'cha bi-shu-a-te-cha.
V'ra-cha-me-cha, A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu,
va-cha-sa-de-cha ha-ra-bim,
al ya-az-vu-nu ne-tsach se-la va-ed.
Ma-heir v'ha-vei a-lei-nu
b'ra-cha v'sha-lom m'hei-rah >
mei-ar-ba kan-fot [ kawl ] ha-a-rets, wagner[gather fringes here]
v'to-li-chei-nu m'hei-rah ko-m'mi-yut l'ar-tsei-nu.
Ki eil po-eil y'shu-ot a-ta,
u-va-nu va-char-ta mi-kawl am v'la-shon,
v'kei-rav-ta-nu l'shim-cha ha-ga-dol
se-la be-e-met ,
l'ho-dot l'cha ul-ya-ched-cha b'a-ha-vah
Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai,
ha-bo-cheir b'a-mo Yis-ra-eil b'a-ha-vah.
( A-mein. )
NIGHT
A-ha-vat O-lam
beit Yis-ra-eil a-m'cha a-hav-ta.
To-rah u-mits-vot, chu-kim u-mish-pa-tim,
o-ta-nu li-ma-d'ta.
Al kein A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu
b'shawch-vei-nu
u-v'ku-mei-nu
na-si-ach b'chu-ke-cha
v'nis-mach b'div-rei [ tal-mud ] to-ra-te-cha
u-v'mitz-vo-te-cha
l'o-lam va-ed.
[In some congregations, the Reader begins aloud here.]
Ki heim cha-yei-nu, v'o-rech ya-mei-nu
u'va-hem neh-geh yo-mam va-lai-la
V'a-ha-va-t'cha al ta-sir mi-me-nu l'o-la-mim.
Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai,
o-heiv a-mo Yis-ra-eil.
A-mein.
MI CHA-MO-CHA ba-ei-lim A-do-nai!
Mi ka-mo-cha ne-'dar ba-ko-desh!
No-ra t'hi-lot o-sei fe-le!"
< A-ha-vah ra-ba | a-hav-ta-nu,
A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu,
chem-lah g'do-lah vi-tei-rah cha-mal-ta a-lei-nu.
A-vi-nu mal-kei-nu,
ba-a-vur
a-vo-tei-nu she-ba-t'chu v'cha,
va-t'la-m'deim chu-kei cha-yim,
kein t'cha-nei-nu ut-la-m'dei-nu.
A-vi-nu < av | ha-av > ha-ra-cha-man ha-m'ra-cheim,
ra-cheim a-lei-nu, v'tein b'li-bei-nu,
l'ha-vin ul-has-kil , lish-mo-a,
lil-mod u-l'la-meid, lish-mor,
v-la-a-sot ul-ka-yeim,
et kawl div-rei tal-mud to-ra-te-cha b'a-ha-vah.
V'ha-eir ei-nei-nu b'to-ra-te-cha,
v'da-beik li-bei-nu b'mits-vo-te-cha,
v'ya-cheid l'va-vei-nu,
l'a-ha-va ul-yir-a et sh'me-cha,
< v'lo | l'ma-an lo > nei-vosh
l'o-lam va-ed.
Ki v'sheim kad-sh'cha ha-ga-dol
[ ha-gi-bor ] v'ha-no-ra ba-tach-nu,
na-gi-la v'nis-m'cha bi-shu-a-te-cha.
V'ra-cha-me-cha, A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu,
va-cha-sa-de-cha ha-ra-bim,
al ya-az-vu-nu ne-tsach se-la va-ed.
Ma-heir v'ha-vei a-lei-nu
b'ra-cha v'sha-lom m'hei-rah >
mei-ar-ba kan-fot [ kawl ] ha-a-rets, wagner[gather fringes here]
v'to-li-chei-nu m'hei-rah ko-m'mi-yut l'ar-tsei-nu.
Ki eil po-eil y'shu-ot a-ta,
u-va-nu va-char-ta mi-kawl am v'la-shon,
v'kei-rav-ta-nu l'shim-cha ha-ga-dol
se-la be-e-met ,
l'ho-dot l'cha ul-ya-ched-cha b'a-ha-vah
Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai,
ha-bo-cheir b'a-mo Yis-ra-eil b'a-ha-vah.
( A-mein. )
NIGHT
A-ha-vat O-lam
beit Yis-ra-eil a-m'cha a-hav-ta.
To-rah u-mits-vot, chu-kim u-mish-pa-tim,
o-ta-nu li-ma-d'ta.
Al kein A-do-nai E-lo-hei-nu
b'shawch-vei-nu
u-v'ku-mei-nu
na-si-ach b'chu-ke-cha
v'nis-mach b'div-rei [ tal-mud ] to-ra-te-cha
u-v'mitz-vo-te-cha
l'o-lam va-ed.
[In some congregations, the Reader begins aloud here.]
Ki heim cha-yei-nu, v'o-rech ya-mei-nu
u'va-hem neh-geh yo-mam va-lai-la
V'a-ha-va-t'cha al ta-sir mi-me-nu l'o-la-mim.
Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai,
o-heiv a-mo Yis-ra-eil.
A-mein.
MI CHA-MO-CHA ba-ei-lim A-do-nai!
Mi ka-mo-cha ne-'dar ba-ko-desh!
No-ra t'hi-lot o-sei fe-le!"
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
all my videos can be heard as podcasts at www.cybersynagogue.blip.tv/
all my videos can be heard as podcasts at www.cybersynagogue.blip.tv/
Monday, January 21, 2008
so Gaza stop the rockets!!!
Israel and Gaza's Hamas government were locked in a public relations battle over the depth of the hardship. An angry Hamas TV announcer shouted that "we are being killed, we are starving!" and Palestinian leaders pleaded for national unity, while Israel accused Hamas of fabricating a crisis to gain world sympathy.
Olmert said he would not allow a humanitarian crisis to unfold, but also warned that Gaza's 1.5 million residents won't be able to live a "pleasant and comfortable life" as long as southern Israel comes under rocket attack from Gaza."As far as I'm concerned Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn't let people in southern Israel live in peace," Olmert told legislators from his Kadima Party.
In addition to the fuel it receives from Israel to power its electrical plant, Gaza gets about 70 percent of its electricity directly from Israel — and that has not been stopped, Israeli officials said.
The power plant supplies most of the remaining electricity, and Israeli officials acknowledged that the fuel used to supply it has been stopped.
Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said a reduction of rocket attacks this week was not enough to lift the blockade. The army said five rockets were fired on Sunday, down from 53 in the two previous days.
Dror and other Israeli officials charged that Hamas was creating a false crisis and could resume the electricity if it wanted.
Hamas claimed that five people had died at hospitals because of the power outage. However, health officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were contradicting the official line, denied the claim. Daily rocket fire into its southern communities have virtually paralyzed life since a spike in fighting last week that followed a small Israeli ground operation in Gaza.
Olmert said he would not allow a humanitarian crisis to unfold, but also warned that Gaza's 1.5 million residents won't be able to live a "pleasant and comfortable life" as long as southern Israel comes under rocket attack from Gaza."As far as I'm concerned Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn't let people in southern Israel live in peace," Olmert told legislators from his Kadima Party.
In addition to the fuel it receives from Israel to power its electrical plant, Gaza gets about 70 percent of its electricity directly from Israel — and that has not been stopped, Israeli officials said.
The power plant supplies most of the remaining electricity, and Israeli officials acknowledged that the fuel used to supply it has been stopped.
Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said a reduction of rocket attacks this week was not enough to lift the blockade. The army said five rockets were fired on Sunday, down from 53 in the two previous days.
Dror and other Israeli officials charged that Hamas was creating a false crisis and could resume the electricity if it wanted.
Hamas claimed that five people had died at hospitals because of the power outage. However, health officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were contradicting the official line, denied the claim. Daily rocket fire into its southern communities have virtually paralyzed life since a spike in fighting last week that followed a small Israeli ground operation in Gaza.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Rice: Arabs should reach out to Israel
Rice: Arabs should reach out to Israel
By TERENCE HUNT and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers 10 minutes ago
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that Arab nations must do more to reach out to Israel, as a way to do their part to nudge a Mideast peace accord into being.
ADVERTISEMENT
Rice spoke from Saudi Arabia, at the side of its foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, giving her words and the U.S. position more weight. President Bush, traveling through the Mideast for eight days in part to build support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, made the same request from Jerusalem earlier in his trip.
She stepped gingerly around the sensitive question of whether the outreach should include Arab countries establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, their historical enemy. The only Arab nations that now have relations with Israel are Jordan and Egypt.
"Diplomatic relations, of course, is another matter and undoubtedly down the road," Rice said. "We hope that as progress is made between Israelis and Palestinians that there will be more efforts, that there will be more opportunity for outreach. But this will move at different speeds for different countries, we understand that."
The president views the support of Arab neighbors as crucial to the ability of Palestinian leaders to strike and sustain a final peace deal with Israel, which Bush wants done by the end of the year. He also sees Arab acknowledgment of Israel's place in the region as vital to the process.
But the U.S. request seemed a tall order. At Rice's side, Saud said "I don't know what more outreach we can give the Israelis," he said, referring to an Arab peace plan and the sentiment in the region that Israel hasn't been meeting its obligations under an internationally sponsored roadmap, and that the U.S. is too lenient on that point.
Saud said that Israel's continued Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian territories "cast doubt on the seriousness of the negotiations."
Another prime topic of conversation between Bush and regional leaders during his eight-day trip has been Iran.
By TERENCE HUNT and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers 10 minutes ago
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that Arab nations must do more to reach out to Israel, as a way to do their part to nudge a Mideast peace accord into being.
ADVERTISEMENT
Rice spoke from Saudi Arabia, at the side of its foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, giving her words and the U.S. position more weight. President Bush, traveling through the Mideast for eight days in part to build support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, made the same request from Jerusalem earlier in his trip.
She stepped gingerly around the sensitive question of whether the outreach should include Arab countries establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, their historical enemy. The only Arab nations that now have relations with Israel are Jordan and Egypt.
"Diplomatic relations, of course, is another matter and undoubtedly down the road," Rice said. "We hope that as progress is made between Israelis and Palestinians that there will be more efforts, that there will be more opportunity for outreach. But this will move at different speeds for different countries, we understand that."
The president views the support of Arab neighbors as crucial to the ability of Palestinian leaders to strike and sustain a final peace deal with Israel, which Bush wants done by the end of the year. He also sees Arab acknowledgment of Israel's place in the region as vital to the process.
But the U.S. request seemed a tall order. At Rice's side, Saud said "I don't know what more outreach we can give the Israelis," he said, referring to an Arab peace plan and the sentiment in the region that Israel hasn't been meeting its obligations under an internationally sponsored roadmap, and that the U.S. is too lenient on that point.
Saud said that Israel's continued Jewish settlement activity in the Palestinian territories "cast doubt on the seriousness of the negotiations."
Another prime topic of conversation between Bush and regional leaders during his eight-day trip has been Iran.
Monday, January 14, 2008
nice email
Rabbi Ginsburg,
First of all, I would like to thank you for all of the wonderful videos that you have posted on youtube! I'm a young Jew, and I love watching and learning more about my religion. I often find myself asking questions or having questions directed to me about Judaism and being Jewish. Most of the time I don't have enough information or the right words to give a strong response. Your videos have certainly helped me find answers to many questions, and continue to quench my endless thirst for knowledge of Judaism. I am a subscriber to your videos and always look forward to learning your thoughts about the wide variety of topics you discuss. I hope to see many more in the future! Now for my inquiry...
First of all, I would like to thank you for all of the wonderful videos that you have posted on youtube! I'm a young Jew, and I love watching and learning more about my religion. I often find myself asking questions or having questions directed to me about Judaism and being Jewish. Most of the time I don't have enough information or the right words to give a strong response. Your videos have certainly helped me find answers to many questions, and continue to quench my endless thirst for knowledge of Judaism. I am a subscriber to your videos and always look forward to learning your thoughts about the wide variety of topics you discuss. I hope to see many more in the future! Now for my inquiry...
In reference to my videos on modesty
Wrong kind of modesty
article on Ynet news
Growing modesty requirements in religious world have nothing to do with religious law
Uri Orbach Published: 01.14.08, 17:06 / Israel Opinion
In 10 years, the ultra-Orthodox will start missing the mixed-gender buses. You would be able to hear an old Orthodox man telling his wife: “you remember, Rivkah, that 10 years ago we could still ride the bus together?” And Rivkah would confirm: “Sure I remember. And we came out just as good as our children. But you know how it is. Everyone likes to invent new regulations.”
It will happen because a bunch of fanatics decided that what goes on in buses today is truly reckless. They did not make do with seeing Orthodox men refrain from sitting next to a woman on a mixed-gender bus. They wanted buses to be completely separate. Using pressure and enticement tactics, they started to organize special routes and to force everyone using them, at discounted subsidized prices, to sit at the front with the men, get out of there to the back of the bus if it’s a woman.
The Orthodox public sighed, and just like any other herd, it slowly started to reconcile itself to the new development. There aren’t enough brave Orthodox who would hit back at the fanatics who tell them not to sit next to their woman, or maybe the brave ones are traveling in their own mixed-gender cars. There are no Orthodox who has the strength to stand up to those who speak in the name of modesty, and God, and do it at half price. After all, everyone has children he wishes to see married.
And so, the silent majority that up until a moment ago traveled in mixed-gender buses easily gave in, and started obeying the “religious edicts” elicited from the leading rabbis (they too, you will be surprised to hear, do not have the courage and strength to stand up to their fanatic students.)
If this was only about religious law and modesty – I would remain silent. Yet we are not talking about modesty. We are talking about extroverted defiance against the world out there and also against the modern religious world, which is open and a little feministic. Our natural and normal commitment to religious law is being exploited in order to sell goods and habits that are not religious in nature, but rather, social, in order to define who “belongs”” and who doesn’t.
If you don’t believe it, take a look at old photo albums form the early 1970s and see how modest rabbis’ wives dressed only 20-30 years ago. The skirts are not as long as they are today, and the sleeves too, sorry for noticing it, are much shorter.
Reaction to secular permissiveness
The strict dress code is apparently a reaction to the permissive dress on the secular street. Indeed, permissiveness hit the secular street hard. So we, the religious community, decided on a ridiculous act of retaliation: For every centimeter that has been cut back in the secular skirt, we added two centimeters to the religious skirt. For every sleeve that was cut down in the secular world, we added another piece of cloth for religious women.
Modesty has value and purpose, and there are clear religious parameters for modest dress. The fear of permissiveness is also a justified fear, and this argument is not about the principle, but rather, about the extent and reason. The assumption that modest dress will safeguard the religiosity of girls is similar to the argument that the more umbrellas we have the more rain we shall see.
This is the case when it comes to dress code and separate buses, and also when it comes to the ban on women drivers and the complete gender-separation of some religious weddings. We are not talking about modesty, but rather, about the desire and possibility to force one’s worldview upon others. Those who speak out against it are immediately perceived as “not religious enough” or “defying religious law.” The attitude to the length of the skirt is becoming the supreme test of the level and type of religiosity.
Take a look at the old albums. Modesty reigned supreme back then, but not this kind of strict and exaggerated modesty. The dress was appropriate and in line with religious law, but it did not include the exaggerated need to display modesty; because defiant displays of modesty, and separate buses, and a dress craze are not about modesty.
article on Ynet news
Growing modesty requirements in religious world have nothing to do with religious law
Uri Orbach Published: 01.14.08, 17:06 / Israel Opinion
In 10 years, the ultra-Orthodox will start missing the mixed-gender buses. You would be able to hear an old Orthodox man telling his wife: “you remember, Rivkah, that 10 years ago we could still ride the bus together?” And Rivkah would confirm: “Sure I remember. And we came out just as good as our children. But you know how it is. Everyone likes to invent new regulations.”
It will happen because a bunch of fanatics decided that what goes on in buses today is truly reckless. They did not make do with seeing Orthodox men refrain from sitting next to a woman on a mixed-gender bus. They wanted buses to be completely separate. Using pressure and enticement tactics, they started to organize special routes and to force everyone using them, at discounted subsidized prices, to sit at the front with the men, get out of there to the back of the bus if it’s a woman.
The Orthodox public sighed, and just like any other herd, it slowly started to reconcile itself to the new development. There aren’t enough brave Orthodox who would hit back at the fanatics who tell them not to sit next to their woman, or maybe the brave ones are traveling in their own mixed-gender cars. There are no Orthodox who has the strength to stand up to those who speak in the name of modesty, and God, and do it at half price. After all, everyone has children he wishes to see married.
And so, the silent majority that up until a moment ago traveled in mixed-gender buses easily gave in, and started obeying the “religious edicts” elicited from the leading rabbis (they too, you will be surprised to hear, do not have the courage and strength to stand up to their fanatic students.)
If this was only about religious law and modesty – I would remain silent. Yet we are not talking about modesty. We are talking about extroverted defiance against the world out there and also against the modern religious world, which is open and a little feministic. Our natural and normal commitment to religious law is being exploited in order to sell goods and habits that are not religious in nature, but rather, social, in order to define who “belongs”” and who doesn’t.
If you don’t believe it, take a look at old photo albums form the early 1970s and see how modest rabbis’ wives dressed only 20-30 years ago. The skirts are not as long as they are today, and the sleeves too, sorry for noticing it, are much shorter.
Reaction to secular permissiveness
The strict dress code is apparently a reaction to the permissive dress on the secular street. Indeed, permissiveness hit the secular street hard. So we, the religious community, decided on a ridiculous act of retaliation: For every centimeter that has been cut back in the secular skirt, we added two centimeters to the religious skirt. For every sleeve that was cut down in the secular world, we added another piece of cloth for religious women.
Modesty has value and purpose, and there are clear religious parameters for modest dress. The fear of permissiveness is also a justified fear, and this argument is not about the principle, but rather, about the extent and reason. The assumption that modest dress will safeguard the religiosity of girls is similar to the argument that the more umbrellas we have the more rain we shall see.
This is the case when it comes to dress code and separate buses, and also when it comes to the ban on women drivers and the complete gender-separation of some religious weddings. We are not talking about modesty, but rather, about the desire and possibility to force one’s worldview upon others. Those who speak out against it are immediately perceived as “not religious enough” or “defying religious law.” The attitude to the length of the skirt is becoming the supreme test of the level and type of religiosity.
Take a look at the old albums. Modesty reigned supreme back then, but not this kind of strict and exaggerated modesty. The dress was appropriate and in line with religious law, but it did not include the exaggerated need to display modesty; because defiant displays of modesty, and separate buses, and a dress craze are not about modesty.
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