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By Israel Zwick, CN Publications, October 30, 2007
Written in commemoration of Kristalnacht
Author’s Note: The following story is the third in a series of episodes about Israeli intelligence agent, Mikhail Abramovitch. The series was inspired by the novels of Daniel Silva. The first article in the series was titled Prisoner Exchange and the second was titled Iran’s Biological Weapons. Both can be found on the website, www.cnpublications.net in the category “Zwick’s Picks.” Though the following story is fictitious, it is based on actual events and actual demographic data.
Time: Late summer, 2007, Petach Tikvah, Israel.
Setting: A table in a bare room. There is one overhead light. Seven young Russian men, around age 20 are seated at the table. Mikhail, who is in his early 40’s, is seated near the head of the table. There is a bottle of Russian vodka, some glasses and a plate of pastry on the table. The young man at the head of the table begins to speak.
LEADER: Comrades, we are gathered here today to consider the application of a new member to our group, Mikhail Abramovitch. We will ask him questions, and then discuss whether we should admit him. I will ask first. Mikhail, with a name like “Abramovitch,” how can we know that you’re not one of them, another dirty zhid? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Zwick's Picks on October 29, 2007 - י"ז חשון תשס"ח at 10:40 pm
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People’s Daily Online, October 29, 2007
A ceremony was held in Beijing on Monday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of MASHAV’s Activities for International Cooperation and the 15th Anniversary of Fruitful Cooperation between MASHAV and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) in China. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on October 29, 2007 - י"ז חשון תשס"ח at 1:40 pm
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By John R. Regier, Boston Herald, October 27,2007
http://www.bostonherald.com | Op-Ed
Increasingly over the years mainline Protestant and Catholic church leaders have tired of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. The situation in the Balkans may be complicated. The tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir may be complicated. But the situation in Israel/Palestine is simple: There are Palestinian victims and there are Jewish oppressors.
Boston is about to witness this script playing out yet again this weekend, as Old South Church hosts a conference sponsored by North American Friends of Sabeel entitled “The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel” and headlined by Episcopal Archbishop Desmond Tutu. There will be no effort to be fair to both sides. Sabeel’s choice of the hateful word “apartheid” in the conference title is clearly designed to inflame rather than to elucidate.
Today will mark the second of two days of nonstop bashing of Israel. Israel will be portrayed as a colonialist oppressor. Palestinian national aspirations will be celebrated; Jewish national aspirations will be ignored, if not denigrated. The endless wars waged by Arabs seeking to wipe out the Jewish state will be characterized as aggressive wars provoked by Israel. There will be no mention of suicide bombings, except possibly to justify them as understandable expressions of rage. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Christianity, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 28, 2007 - ט"ז חשון תשס"ח at 9:06 am
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The work of Herm Weaver almost seems to contradict the very heart of the world’s religions: reaching out to end religiously motivated violence and to replace it with a culture of peace, justice and healing.
It’s a tall order, of course, but one that seems to fit in with the life’s work of this 49-year-old man, who’s spent the last year living in Nederland, his home base for a day job as the Mountain States conference minister for the Mennonites - a sort of administrative job over Colorado’s 21 congregations and a couple in New Mexico and Texas.
The organization for which he has a keener passion is the United Religious Initiative, a seven-year-old bridge-building organization headquartered in San Francisco. The group says it includes thousands of members in more than 65 countries representing more than 100 religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions.
“We try to find and build good people of any religious background and bring the best out of them and their religious traditions and scriptures to build peace,” Weaver said.
“There doesn’t have to be a conflict among any of the world’s genuine religions . . . their holy books and mandates all call for peace, loving and respecting each other. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Monotheistic Religions, Recent Posts on October 27, 2007 - ט"ו חשון תשס"ח at 8:47 pm
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By Yoginder Sikand, October 22, 2007
Meera and Rafi Shaikh run the Centre for Development in Ahmedabad. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand they reflect on the communal situation in Gujarat and talk about their own work.
YS: In the aftermath of the devastating violence in 2002 how do you look at inter-communal relations in Gujarat today?
M&R: The situation is still very tense. The victims of the carnage are yet to get justice and most Muslims are still living in tremendous fear. Fascist forces are so deeply-entrenched now that no one can rule out a repeat of the gory events of 2002. The problem is not just of communalism or communal tension, however. There are so many other structural problems that are connected to communal conflict, such as mounting poverty and unemployment as a result of privatization and ‘globalisation’, unchecked plunder by multinational corporations, growing caste contradictions and the lack of educational opportunities for the poor, problems that are increasing by the day. This situation is easily exploited by Hindutva groups to engineer clashes and riots between different communities, particularly between Dalits and Muslims. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, News Articles, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 25, 2007 - י"ג חשון תשס"ח at 9:35 am
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By LiveScience Staff, 23 October 2007
Nuclear power has a bright future globally, according to a report released today by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The annual report makes two projections, one assuming all nuclear capacity currently under construction or firmly in the development pipeline gets completed and attached to the grid, but no other capacity is added. In this low projection, there would be growth in global nuclear capacity from 370 gigawatts at the end of 2006 to 447 gigawatts by 2030. (A gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts).
In the high projection, which adds in additional reasonable and promising projects and plans, capacity is estimated to rise to 679 gigawatts by 2030, for an average growth rate of 2.5 percent per year.
“Our job is not so much to predict the future but to prepare for it,” explains the IAEA’s Alan McDonald, Nuclear Energy Analyst. “To that end we update each year a high and low projection to establish the range of uncertainty we ought to be prepared for.”
Nuclear power’s share of worldwide electricity production rose from less than 1 percent in 1960 to 16 percent in 1986, and that percentage has held essentially constant in the 21 years since 1986, the agency reported in a statement today. Nuclear electricity generation has grown steadily at the same pace as overall global electricity generation. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Nuclear Energy, Recent Posts on October 24, 2007 - י"ב חשון תשס"ח at 9:36 am
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Abbas says yes to two states solution, but wants 1967 territory
Jakarta Post, World News, October 23, 2007
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is in Indonesia as part of his Asian tour to rally support ahead of U.S.-sponsored Palestine-Israel talks due to take place in Annapolis in the U.S. state of Maryland in November. He spoke to representatives of local media on Monday evening. Excerpts:
Question: Could you explain your mission in visiting Indonesia, and tell us how this visit relates to your upcoming talks with Israel?
Answer: We have had a very close relationship with Indonesia for a long time. Of course we believe that the Indonesian people are very eager to know everything about the Palestinian people as we are Muslims. That’s why I go to Malaysia, Indonesia and then Brunei.
As far as we know, Indonesia will be invited to the (Palestine-Israel) conference, and then we should have more and more consultations with the President (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) and Foreign Minister (Hassan Wirayuda) to go there with a unified position.
The second goal is of course, we are trying to convey our internal condition and the suffering in our economic and social life because of the (Israeli) occupation. So, it is very necessary for us to come here
What do you expect from the international conference in Annapolis?
The conference will handle and solve the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, or at least address the major issues, which are stipulated in the Oslo Accord.
The major issues are Jerusalem, refugees, the settlement of borders, security and water. Now we are negotiating these issues with the Israelis. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on October 23, 2007 - י"א חשון תשס"ח at 9:58 am
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By Gwynne Dyer, Arab News, October 23, 2007
“We are at the beginning of a process,” said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after her four-day tour of the countries closely involved in the Arab-Israeli confrontation. But the “peace process” really began with the Oslo accords in 1993, and it died when Ariel Sharon became prime minister of Israel in 2001. The last nail was hammered into its coffin with the takeover of the Gaza Strip this year by Hamas, which flatly rejects the idea of Palestinian and Israeli states living side by side. Rice can make the corpse twitch, but she cannot make it walk.
Faced with almost universal cynicism about her proposed Middle East peace conference in the state of Maryland next month, she protested that “I have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo-op.” Nevertheless, the suspicion lingers that this is just a last-minute legacy project to salvage President George W. Bush’s reputation.
The “two-state solution,” the basis of the Oslo deal, assumed that Israelis would settle for the four-fifths of former Palestine that was already within their legal borders, and that Palestinians would settle for the remaining fifth. It was not unrealistic at the time, for Palestinians were very tired after a quarter-century of military occupation and most Israelis had concluded that they could not afford to hold down the occupied territories forever. But it never quite happened. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 23, 2007 - י"א חשון תשס"ח at 9:48 am
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A short guide to Bazaar negotiations
(Dedicated to those obsessed with peace)
By Professor Moshe Sharon, Professor of Islamic History
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Excerpted from his book, Jihad, Islam Against Israel and the West
Everybody says that his donkey is a horse.
There is no tax on words.
(Two Arab proverbs)
This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammad and Quraysh, and you remember [that] the Caliph Umar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce. Arafat in Johannesburg on May 10, 1994, following the signature of the “peace” of Oslo.
Sadat’s observation
On December 25th 1977, at the very beginning of the negotiations between Israel and Egypt in Ismailia, I had the opportunity to have a short discussion with Muhammad Anwar Sadat the president of Egypt. “Tell your Prime Minister, he said, that this is a bazaar; the merchandize is expensive.” I told my Prime Minister but he failed to abide by the rules of the bazaar. The failure was not unique to him alone. It is the failure of all the Israeli governments and the media.
On March 4, 1994, I published an article in the Jerusalem Post called “Novices in Negotiations” The occasion was the conclusion of the “Cairo Agreement.” A short time later, Yasser Arafat, proved yet again that his signature was not worth the ink of his pen let alone the paper to which it was attached, and his word was worth even less. Then, as in every subsequent agreement Israel was taken aback when her concessions had become the basis for fresh Arab demands. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion on October 21, 2007 - ט' חשון תשס"ח at 12:06 am
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KHIRBET JABARA, 17 October 2007 (IRIN) - Renewed cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank allowed for what both sides described as a “joyous occasion”, when this small town of about 300 Palestinian residents was connected on 16 October to the main power grid.
“This is going to make life here much better,” said Farouq Awad, a member of the local council. “I hope we can now have an industrial zone, open factories and create more jobs.”
Given the declining Palestinian economy, long-term job creation is desperately needed, Israelis and Palestinians agree.
Khirbet Jabara is located between Israel’s barrier and the pre-1967 border known as the Green Line in the Tulkarem District. Palestinians say this severely curtails their freedom of movement, but Israel says it grants permits and allows the residents to travel as they need. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on October 19, 2007 - ז' חשון תשס"ח at 9:13 am
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