[Aggregated from www.elderofziyon.blogspot.com]

Israeli Arabs wouldn't want to live anywhere else

Arabs might hate Israel but the ones who live there wouldn't trade their lives for anything else.

From a new study at Harvard Kennedy School: Coexistence in Israel




Other interesting findings include that most Israelis would like to see Arabic taught in Jewish schools, and an overwhelming majority of both Israeli Jews and Arabs agreed with the statement, "Israel should be a society in which Arab and Jewish citizens have mutual respect and equal opportunities."

Sounds just like apartheid-era South Africa, right?

Harsh report on Iranian nuclear program raises alarm
By Elaine Sciolino

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 International Herald Tribune [excerpt]

VIENNA: An unusually harsh report by the International Atomic Energy Agency ...
accused the Iranians of a willful lack of cooperation, particularly in answering allegations that its nuclear program might be intended more for military use than for energy generation.


The report also makes the allegation that Iran is learning to make faster, more powerful and more efficient centrifuges, the product of robust research and development that have not been fully disclosed to the agency.

That means that Iran may be producing enriched uranium - which can be used to produce electricity or to make bombs - faster than expected at the same time as it replaces its older generation of less reliable centrifuges. Some of the centrifuge components have been produced by the Iranian military, said the report, prepared by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the agency, which is the UN nuclear monitor.

"The Iranians are certainly being confronted with some pretty strong evidence of a nuclear weapons program, and they are being petulant and defensive," said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security. "The report lays out what the agency knows, and it is very damning. I've never seen it laid out quite like this."

The report makes no effort to disguise the agency's frustration with Iran's lack of openness. It describes, for example, Iran's installation of new centrifuges, known as the IR-2 and IR-3 (for Iranian second and third generations), and other modifications at its site at Natanz as "significant, and as such should have been communicated to the agency."

The agency also said that during a visit in April, it was denied access to sites where centrifuge components were being made and where research on uranium enrichment was being conducted.

The report does not say how much enriched uranium the Iranians are producing, but an official connected to the agency said that since December it was slightly less than 150 kilograms, or 330 pounds, about double the amount produced during the same period about 18 months ago.

Iraqi mothers deny their sick children Israeli heart operations
Ali Rifat in Amman and Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv

The parents of Iraqi babies with congenital heart problems are facing a dilemma: should they allow their children to be treated in Israeli hospitals when they have been brought up to believe that Israel is their mortal enemy?

Hostility towards the Jewish state in Iraq is so strong that many parents refuse to travel to Tel Aviv for free life-saving hole-in-the-heart surgery.

Some accept the offer but never reveal where their children were treated, even though the operation has not been available in Iraq since its leading cardiac clinic burnt down after the American-led invasion in 2003.

Other parents are seeking treatment elsewhere in the Arab world, despite prices of up to £15,000 for heart surgery in private clinics. They fear the stigma of being treated in Israel.

Aria, an 18-month-old baby from Kirkuk in northern Iraq, was waiting to return home last week after a successful operation at the Edith Wolfson medical centre in Tel Aviv, where 11 Iraqi children are being treated. The surgery is sponsored by Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a humanitarian organisation founded in Israel in 1996 and supported by private sources, including Christian charity groups.

Aria’s young mother, Paiman, paid tribute to the clinic and the surgeon, Dr Lior Sasson, saying: “He saved little Aria’s life.”

However, the parents of other Iraqi children in urgent need of surgery said they had rejected free treatment when they heard it would be performed in Israel.

Sara, 2, needs surgery for a defective heart valve. After taking her from Iraq to neighbouring Jordan for preliminary tests, her mother, Shatha, 37, turned down treatment at the Wolfson centre. She said she had had no idea before she left for Amman, the Jordanian capital, that the operation would be in Israel.

“We’ve been foes of Israel since before we were born. We firmly believe that they are our enemies. You can’t change this overnight,” she said.

She is now planning to have the operation performed in Algeria instead: its government agreed to pay for 14 Iraqi children to be treated there rather than be sent to Israel.

Shatha’s friend, an Iraqi Kurd from Kirkuk who was too afraid to give her first name, also travelled to Jordan so that her son, Ahmed, could be assessed for a heart operation. She too turned down the free treatment offered by SACH.

“Now I can sleep with a clear conscience. I’m able to hold my head up high and not be ashamed by having my son treated in Algeria,” she said.
The opposite view was taken by Mohammed, a 37-year-old Kurdish aid worker, whose daughter Souz, 22 months, needed urgent heart surgery. He borrowed thousands of dollars to pay for treatment in Iraq and Jordan, but the doctors there told him there was nothing they could do for her. When he heard she could be treated in Israel, he did not hesitate. She has now had surgery and is making a good recovery.

“I can honestly tell you that I didn’t worry for a moment about where or who will operate on my daughter,” he said. “Nor did I worry about the reaction of my family and relatives. Anyone who blames me should put themselves in my place and live for nearly two years watching his daughter die in front of his eyes, and then tell me what he’d have done.”

His wife, who accompanied Souz to Israel for the operation, added: “The doctors were helpful and understanding, and were sympathetic to our suffering.” She had not been charged anything and would be able to return home with the £1,000 given to her by her husband.

Apprehension about a hostile reaction in Iraq is common among families who opted for treatment in Israel.

The mother of Mustafa, 4, from Kirkuk, who has undergone two heart operations in six months, said: “My only fear, which spoils my joy at my son’s escape from death, is the revenge my family can expect when we go back to Iraq.”

Simon Fisher, the Liverpool-born executive director of SACH, said: “We welcome every child in need regardless of origin.”

(h/t: Elder of Ziyon)

Truce & consequences Editorial, Jerusalem Post, May 22, 2008

In the topsy-turvy world of the Middle East, Israel's apparent failure to reach a six-month truce with Hamas via Egyptian intermediaries may prove a blessing, while the Qatar-brokered deal resolving an 18-month political stalemate in Lebanon may turn out to be a curse.

Early Thursday morning, hours after the Hamas delegation returned from Egypt saying that the latest round of talks had failed, Islamic Jihad received the green light to detonate a truck laden with four tons of explosives at the Erez Crossing. The attackers simultaneously unleashed a mortar barrage and automatic rifle fire to cover an incursion aimed at capturing or killing Israelis.

Fortunately, the attack failed, though the blast from the exploding truck shattered windows a mile away. For the Islamists, this constituted a "successful martyrdom operation," and the 23-year-old bomber is presumed to be in heaven with his 70 virgins. We suggest he has been received elsewhere.

Paradoxically, this latest attack underscores Hamas's desperation for a truce. Though a more rational approach would be to stop attacking Israel, Hamas knows that intransigence has its rewards and it is looking - not at all irrationally - to Europe for deliverance.

Israel has no claims on Gaza and would be delighted if the Palestinians turned their energies to transforming the Strip into a Singapore on the Mediterranean. After all we uprooted our settlements and pulled the IDF out in August 2005.

The Palestinians replied, in January 2006, by giving Hamas control of their parliament. Six months later, terrorists crossed into Israel, killed two IDF soldiers and took Cpl. Gilad Schalit prisoner.

RATIONAL Palestinian leaders would have asked themselves whether the misery they have brought upon their people by this aggression has been worthwhile.

Since capturing Schalit, Gaza has suffered well over 1,000 dead. (Many of these were gunmen; but, regrettably, not a small number were civilians caught in the crossfire.) Most Hamas "parliamentarians" in the West Bank are now imprisoned in Israel. Gaza's economy is in tatters. More than 80% of Palestinians rely on humanitarian assistance, three quarters depending on UN food aid. The number of households earning less than $1.20 per person, per day is now 70%. Taxi drivers are using cooking oil to fuel their engines, ruining their cars and polluting the air; the sewage system is near collapse. Power shortages occur daily.

And still the regime siphons off food and fuel for itself while attacking the crossing points where humanitarian aid is transferred from Israel into Gaza. On Thursday afternoon thousands of Palestinian rioters were dispatched to the Karni crossing to confront IDF forces.

The Islamists' response to Israeli and international sanctions has been to accelerate the violence and demand the release of huge numbers of hardened terrorists.

EU OFFICIALS have been saying that isolating Hamas isn't working. It's an analysis that's symptomatic of a disturbing European mindset: Set a goal, and if your opponent doesn't meet it, move the goal-posts. That's why we see France, which assumes the EU presidency in July, flirting with Hamas. It's like Groucho Marx, who steadfastly declared: "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

It's a fact that anything the EU does to prolong Hamas rule, no matter how well-intentioned, will only intensify Palestinian suffering. Israel may well have to do some heavy lifting soon to bring Hamastan down.

And if the world wants to see what happens to a polity when Islamists reign supreme, let it cast an eye at poor Lebanon, where a truce has been "successfully" negotiated - along terms dictated by Hizbullah and its Iranian patrons.

What an extraordinary message of appeasement the Sunni-dominated Arab League has sent to the Shi'ites of Lebanon and their Persian backers. Control over the airport? A private communications network? A submissive cabinet? An independent army? A change in the election law to solidify future Islamist hegemony? Whatever Hizbullah wanted, it got.

Yet who can blame the League for lacking the resolve to stand up to Hizbullah when America and the EU have signed on to this ignominious arrangement?

Psychologists tell us the tendency to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid emotional suffering contributes to a person's neurosis. In international affairs, the tendency to avoid painful confrontation often leads to appeasement. In both instances, the underlying pathology comes back to haunt you.

May 15, 2008

Statement from the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines
regarding the Federal immigration raid in Postville, IA

Enforce the law humanely, Reform the system, and Ensure fair labor practices

Along with most Iowans, the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines has been following the accounts of the federal law enforcement raid in Postville very closely. The Federation believes the immigration laws must be enforced, yet we are vitally concerned with the wellbeing of the families affected. We join with those, including a majority of national Jewish communal organizations, who favor comprehensive immigration reform. The system, in many respects, is not working.

Our concern, however, is also directed to the kosher meatpacking company Agriprocessors whose plant was the target of the raid. Although all the details have yet to come out, it is alleged that Agriprocessors engaged in illegal and unethical practices. Unfortunately this is not the first time this company has been accused of alleged misdeeds. The company has been cited by the FDA for such matters as bribing federal officials and there is a case pending alleging unfair labor practices. If these charges are correct, the company would warrant the condemnation of the entire Jewish community of Iowa, and of Jews everywhere.


What makes the circumstance particularly egregious to the Jewish community is that this corporation, which serves as a religiously- based business, in producing kosher meat, has seemingly failed to adhere to both civil law and Jewish law.

We expect that the American legal system will fairly adjudicate all the legal matters involving the company and the workers charged with violating immigration regulations.
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This statement is authorized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines and issued on behalf of the Jewish Federation by the Jewish Community Relations Commission. JCRC@dmjfed.org

Israel @60 Day in Iowa and remarks from members of the Iowa Congressional Delegation

“Israel at 60 Day in Iowa” May 14, 2008


P R O C L A M A T I O N:

WHEREAS, 2008 MARKS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE MODERN JEWISH STATE OF ISRAEL; AND

WHEREAS, OFFICIALLY DECLARED AN INDEPENDENT NATION ON MAY 14, 1948, ISRAEL PLANS A SERIES OF EVENT TO CELEBRATE ITS DIAMOND JUBILEE; AND

WHEREAS, THE DESIRE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO ESTABLISH AN INDEPENDENT MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL IS THE OUTGROWTH OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE HISTORIC KINGDOM OF ISRAEL ESTABLISHED THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO IN THE CITY OF JERUSALEM AND IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL; AND

WHEREAS, IN ITS 60 YEARS OF EXISTENCE, ISRAEL HAS BECOME THE MOST SUCCESSFUL DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, PROTECTING, AMONG ITS FREEDOMS, THE FREEDOM OF RELIGION FOR ALL IN THE HOLY LAND, AND

WHEREAS, BORN IN THE ASHES OF THE HOLOCAUST, ISRAEL HAS FROM ITS INCEPTION FACED THE HOSTILITY, AND FREQUENTLY THE ARMED AGGRESSION, OF ITS NEIGHBORS; AND

WHEREAS, SINCE ITS ESTABLISHMENT SIXTY YEARS AGO, THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL HAS REBUILT A NATION, FORGED A NEW AND DYNAMIC SOCIETY, AND CREATED A UNIQUE AND VITAL ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, CULTURAL, AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE DESPITE THE HEAVY COSTS OF SIX WARS, TERRORISM, INTERNATIONAL OSTRACISM, AND ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS; AND

WHEREAS, ISRAEL CONTINUES TO STRIVE FOR PEACE WITH SECURITY AND DIGNITY FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS; AND

WHEREAS, IOWA BUSINESSES AND UNIVERSITIES PARTICIPATE IN TRADE AND RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH ISRAELI COUNTERPARTS:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, CHESTER J. CULVER, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF IOWA, DO HEREBY PROCLAIM MAY 14, 2008, AS “ISRAEL AT 60 DAY” IN IOWA.

_______

Remarks on the occasion of Israel’s 60th Anniversary of Independence (Excerpts)

Senator Charles Grassley – “The United States and Israel have maintained a special relationship for 60 years. … We share the same freedoms of religion and speech, love of democracy and entrepreneurial enterprise.

Israel is America’s strongest ally in the United Nations and as the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is a key strategic ally. The United States must do all that we can to sustain this important democracy. The futures of our two countries are linked in many important ways.

I congratulate and send my best wishes to the friends of Israel and the Israeli people as they celebrate this important anniversary.


Senator Tom Harkin – “ I am proud to be a friend and staunch supporter of Israel in the United States Senate. Israel and the United States share a special relationship based on shared democratic values and common strategic interests. We will always stand by Israel’s side.

Israel’s existence continues to be threatened in a dangerous region of the world. The United States of America must continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel.

On this 60th anniversary, Israel continues to build an advanced, entrepreneurial economy, and is firmly established as a world leader in high-tech research and development. Moreover Israel has established peaceful bilateral relations with two of its Arab neighbors, Egypt and Jordan. I am hopeful that Israel’s dream of living in peace with all of its neighbors will soon be realized.

Congressman Leonard Boswell (IA- 3rd District) - "Israel is the only democratic government in the region and a strong ally of the United States… I pledge my support not because it is a nice thing but the right thing."

Congressman Tom Latham (IA-4th District) - “As a strong supporter of the close and longstanding relationship between Israel and the United States, I offer my best wishes …on this notable occasion. I look forward to future opportunities to lend my support to Israel as we collectively strive for a prosperous and more peaceful Middle East and world.”

Breaking news: Olmert vows to resign if indicted [Jerusalem Post]

Barbecues, fireworks and blow-up hammers mark Israel's 60th. [Jerusalem Post] (Blow up hammers -- it's a local thing.)

From Elder of Zion:
Today, Yom Ha'atzmanut is being celebrated, but it is not the anniversary. The anniversary is on the fifth of the Hebrew month of Iyar, which is on Saturday. Since that is the Jewish Sabbath, the date was moved up to today to enable everyone to celebrate properly.

[Palestinian] Nakba ["The catastrophe'] events were originally slated to occur on May 15th, "Nakba Day," but the very idea that Israel was celebrating today irritates Palestinian Arabs so much that they needed to declare today a day of mourning...
[With reference to a Nakba poster, showing Israel within the Green Line along with Gaza and the West Bank as Palestine:]

The shape of "Palestine" (portrayed as a keyhole) betrays the fact that Palestinian Arab nationalism is wholly dependent on external factors. Historic Palestine looks nothing like this picture; and while it would be hard to draw as the borders were never set in stone, everyone would agree that the Negev is not a part of it and that significant parts of what are now Jordan would be included in it. The fact that Palestinian Arabs have abandoned any pretense of trying to reconstitute "historic" Palestine and are only interested in the areas that Israel happens to control, with national borders created by the British and French, shows that Palestinian Arab nationalism is not at all about building a state, but about destroying one.


From blog.z word Implications of a 1-state solutionToday’s LA Times marks the sixtieth anniversary of Israel’s independence with a report extolling the virtues of the so-called “one-state solution.” ...

If the European Union is the model for the one-staters, they would do well to remember that the member states of the EU are precisely that - member states. These states have not been asked to abandon their independence and their identity, nor have they been compelled to do so. Conversely, Israel is not being asked to join a regional community of states; it is being told to dissolve itself, and to do so in a neighborhood which exhorts the slogan “Kill the Jews!” with alarming frequency.

Moreover, those who would demand that Israel dissolve itself are hardly duplicating the notion of equal legitimacy which underlies the EU. To the contrary, they regard Israel as a colonial usurper, born in “original sin” - a citadel of “neo-Jews’, in the words of a recent inchoate rant published on the one-statist website, Counterpunch.

For such people, a single state is an opportunity for Israeli Jews to atone for the historic crime of forming their own state, rather than an instrument for them to live with their neighbours as equals.

What the LA Times piece inadvertantly demonstrates is that it is ideology, rather than concerns about viability, contiguity, resources, open border policies and so forth, which primarily drives the one-staters. Prominently featured in the article is Hazem Kawasmi, a former Palestinian Authority official who is now busily researching the implementation of the one-state formula, having abandoned two states.

Why did Kawasmi give up on the two-state solution? Because the Israeli peace activists he met with “…dismissed two cherished Palestinian aspirations. Like Olmert’s government, they wanted to avoid talk of giving Palestinian refugees and their families the right of return to homes in Israel that they fled in 1948 or of sharing Jerusalem as capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state…At that moment, Kawasmi said, he realized ‘there is zero chance’ for a two-state solution. He didn’t sleep well for months. Then he embraced the single-state option, which had been debated for several years among Palestinians living abroad, and set out to create a buzz for it in the territories.”

Given that the “right of return” is code for the elimination of Israel, it’s debatable whether Kawasmi actually supported the two-state solution in the first place. And what is fanciful is Kawasmi’s claim, made elsewhere in the piece, that by throwing their lot in with one-staters like him, the Jews of Israel will be spared the inevitable wrath of the Islamists. Sad to say, but imperative to repeat: Islamism, and its integral antisemitism, is not going to disappear overnight.

In addition, when Kawasmi talks about Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities living with equal rights, what does that mean, exactly? That Jews in Israel will cease to be a nation and become just a religion? That schools in the single state will teach the crimes of Zionism in the history curriculum? That the descendant of an Arab resident of Jaffa in 1948 takes priority over a Jew who is resident there now? None of this has been thought through - and yet Israelis, who listen to blood curdling rhetoric echoing around their region every day, are supposed to be comforted by a glib formula which views their national project as inherently illegitimate.


The Military Situation in BeirutBy Tony Badran
Fighting in Beirut has broken out between Hezbollah/Amal and Future Movement supporters. Here's a brief look at the military situation. ...
...
The armed clashes have included standards of the civil war: light and medium machine guns, grenades and RPGs (and, apparently, we're now seeing light mortars by Hezbollah in Ras el-Nabe' — also a staple of the 70s-80s), and sniping, which was/is a highly effective tool to control opposing movements and neighborhoods in built-up areas.

The nature of the fighting, again, typical of the 70s-80s, involves control/blocking of access routes (using bulldozers, landfills, etc.), main roads and highways, control of neighborhoods (esp. those that are mixed), and control of strategic tall buildings (for sniping).