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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for May 30, 2008 - כ"ה אייר תשס"ח
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By Caroline B. Glick, Jewish Press, May 28, 2008
Between the Labor Zionists’ attempts to destroy Religious Zionism politically, and the non-Zionist rabbinic leadership’s attempts to demonize it religiously, Religious Zionism has been under tremendous pressure in recent years. One can only hope its leaders will have the wisdom to persevere. Israel and the Jewish people need Religious Zionism more than anyone will ever admit.
Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza was presented to the world as a strategic bid to enhance prospects for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Proponents of the move argued that removing all Israeli civilians and military personnel from Gaza would take away the source of Palestinian grievances. Once fully appeased, the Palestinians would be forced to behave responsibly, abjure terrorism and build their state – first in Gaza, and then in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem as well.
This was the pretext of Israel’s withdrawal. But it wasn’t the subtext. The subtext of the withdrawal – telegraphed to both Israelis and the international community – was that the withdrawal would cause the demise of Religious Zionism at the hands of the leftist progeny of Labor Zionists. That is, the operation wasn’t about peace with the Arabs. It was about cultural supremacy within Israel.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on May 30, 2008 - כ"ה אייר תשס"ח at 8:27 am
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By Israel Zwick, CN Publications
Commemorating the liberation and unification of Jerusalem in June, 1967
Author’s Note: The following story was inspired by the Yiddish comedy routine of Dzigan and Shumacher titled “The Psychiatrist,” and by the Yiddish purimspiel, “The Megillah of Itzik Manger.”
SETTING: psychiatrist’s office in Tehran
CHARACTERS:
Dr. Abdul Shaqoury, psychiatrist
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran
Security Guards
Ahmadinejad: Doctor, I’m so happy you could see me today, I really need to talk with you. Usually you make me wait about three weeks to get an appointment so when your secretary told me that you had a cancellation today, I grabbed it right away.
Shaqoury: Yes, I know, she gave you the appointment before I could stop her.
Ahmadinejad: Are you suggesting that you don’t want to see me, I really need to talk, and you’re the only one who understands me.
Shaqoury: I’m not suggesting, I’m telling you straight out, read my lips, “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
Ahmadinejad: But you’re my therapist, you’re supposed to make me feel better and improve my self-confidence, you’re not supposed to give me feelings of rejection, abandonment, and isolation, that would only exacerbate my condition, not improve it.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Fun Stuff, Humor, Islam, Judaism, Middle East, Middle East Report, Opinion, Zwick's Picks on May 29, 2008 - כ"ד אייר תשס"ח at 2:23 pm
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Media manipulation has become strategic Arab weapon against Israel
By Danny Seaman, YNet News, May 29, 2008
A French court has acquitted Philippe Karsenty of libel charges over his claim that TV network France 2’s news report from the Netzarim junction in September 2000 was staged. The ruling constitutes an achievement in the effort to expose the truth around the incident that has become known as the Muhammad al-Dura affair. However, this is just the first stage in the struggle against international media coverage of the Middle East, which has been biased for many years now.
The revelations of the deceit in the al-Dura affair are a result of intense work by physicist Nahum Shahaf. He was followed by many good people from academia and the world of journalism who exposed the methods used by the Palestinian industry of lies to produce images that are etched in the collective memory via global media. This was succinctly defined by American Professor Richard Landes as “Pallywood.”
The al-Dura affair is the most conspicuous and blatant of the phenomenon of media manipulation undertaken by Palestinian workers employed by international media outlets. These employees stage, produce, and edit events and photos in a bid to slander Israel in the world. Media reports and photos such as the al-Dura case affect global public opinion and governments. The stages events undermine Israel’s ability to conduct itself within the conflict and affect our ability to maneuver and secure targets in times of emergency.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on May 29, 2008 - כ"ד אייר תשס"ח at 12:27 pm
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Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27 May 2008
Experts from Israel and abroad will gather in Israel to discuss ways to reduce global poverty and to improve health, education, community development and the status of women in underdeveloped rural areas.
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York, and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals, will be the keynote speaker at the International Conference on Israel and the African Green Revolution, which will take place on Sunday, June 1, 2008, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem. Prof. Sachs is a leading figure in the fight against poverty in underdeveloped areas of the world.
The main goal of the African Green Revolution is to help impoverished smallholder communities to make the transformation from subsistence farming to a mixed rural economy of commercial farming and small-scale industry and services. This transformation will raise incomes, reduce poverty and hunger, and unleash self-sustaining private-sector-led economic growth. It should occur as part of other broad changes in society, including a dynamic urban economy, the development of national-scale infrastructure, the scaling up of public health and education, and the increased resilience and adaptation to climate change. The conference will explore Israel’s contribution to this global challenge.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Middle East Report, Recent Posts on May 29, 2008 - כ"ד אייר תשס"ח at 8:30 am
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By Joel Leyden, Israel News Agency , May 28, 2008
Jerusalem —– May 28, 2008 ……. Sometimes with not more than just a few hours notice, the volunteer members of Israel Flying Aid find themselves on unmarked airplanes heading out from Israel for disaster stricken nations. Many of these countries have no political relations with Israel. Some declare themselves as enemies.
Israel Flying Aid members sit cramped for hours on cargo planes, with their heads resting on food, water, medicine, tents, beds and emergency electric generators for those who would starve if not for their brave and humanitarian efforts.
Israeli Flying Aid (IFA) is a non-for-profit, non governmental aid organization which provides life saving aid to people affected by natural and man made disasters in developing countries worldwide. Israel Flying Aid provides assistance to all who are in need by distribution of relief items, medical assistance and any other life saving methods.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Recent Posts on May 29, 2008 - כ"ד אייר תשס"ח at 6:45 am
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Foreign Ministry, May 28, 2008
Tonight a third Israeli relief team will departure from Israel to the
affected regions of Cyclone Nagris in Myanmar. The team will consist of
medical personnel, training specialists and logisticians who would continue
IsraAID’s relief efforts in the field.
Earlier in the week an IsraAID member joined Israel’s Ambassador to Yangon
both attending the ASEAN-UN Donor conference which was held to raise funds
needed to help in the disaster zone. An estimated 51 countries participated
in this conference.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Middle East, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on May 28, 2008 - כ"ג אייר תשס"ח at 8:34 am
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From The Sunday Times
May 25, 2008
Aria, an Iraqi toddler, had successful heart surgery in Tel Aviv
By 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.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on May 27, 2008 - כ"ב אייר תשס"ח at 8:26 am
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Israel has become an official member of the international CLS clearing system.
By Zeev Klein, Globes Online, May 26, 2008
From this week, the shekel is a convertible currency on capital and money markets worldwide, after Israel was made an official member of the international currency clearing system operated by CLS Bank International. From now on, the Israeli currency is legal tender internationally, meaning that it can be used in trading on markets overseas, with banks everywhere converting shekels into other currencies, and Israeli companies and firms now able to settle payments in shekels either by check or bank transfer to the accounts of their customers overseas.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report on May 26, 2008 - כ"א אייר תשס"ח at 11:44 am
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By ROBERT W. GEE, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 05/25/08
GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP — The fish are no longer safe to eat, beaches are empty, and an expanding sewage crisis in the Gaza Strip threatens Israel’s shores.
Shortages of fuel and spare parts have crippled Palestinian sewage treatment facilities, already strained by the fast-growing population, forcing officials to divert constant streams of raw and semi-treated sewage into the Mediterranean Sea.
“It’s a matter of regional concern, not just a Gaza concern,” said Mahmoud Daher, head of the Gaza office of the United Nations World Health Organization.
“Because the sea current is going to the north, what is done to the Gaza beach will certainly reach Ashkelon and Tel Aviv, or Haifa even,” he said, referring to Israeli coastal cities.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Middle East Report, News Articles on May 26, 2008 - כ"א אייר תשס"ח at 11:30 am
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By Chris Powell, Journal Inquirer, May 24, 2008
As much as the dislocations arising from Israel’s re-establishment obsess certain people today, they are tiny compared to dislocations that are hardly noticed anymore.
Much of the world has disparaged Israel’s celebration of its 60th year of independence (renewed independence, actually) by claiming, as one Connecticut newspaper columnist did the other day, that the country “was built over the debris of 400 destroyed villages and the sorrows of 750,000 people, both Christians and Muslims, expelled from their land.”
Yes, Israel’s re-establishment in 1948 had its dislocations, Jews going here, Muslims going there, and Christians caught in the middle. But not all these dislocations were expulsions. And if the whole Middle East is counted, there have been far more expulsions of Jews than of anyone else. In any case complaints about the dislocations in Israel’s re-establishment presume that the planet was delivered to humanity straight from the factory with its national borders already marked on it and that the return of Israel was a smudge on the natural order of things. In fact, of course, most of today’s national borders were established either by war or colonialism. Some make sense now; many still don’t.
Even though its re-establishment in 1948 involved war, Israel can claim far more legitimacy than most countries. For unlike most countries today Israel was re-established by resolution of the international organization, the United Nations. Israel’s neighbors refused to accept the U.N. resolution and immediately went to war against the new country, and then twice more, in 1967 and 1973, always to deny Israel’s legitimacy. But unlike most nations victorious in war, Israel has either given back or has been looking for safe ways of giving away most of the territory it conquered.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on May 26, 2008 - כ"א אייר תשס"ח at 8:13 am
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