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Richard on Hamas Occupies Palestinian Lands.
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Indeed, the speed of Israel’s changing status is impressive. Just this week Turkey announced it would be suspending all military cooperation and agreements with Israel, worth $7.5 billion. Fear of reprisals has kept Israeli tourists out of Turkey, and Israeli army officers have been instructed not to visit there. The UN has insisted on an independent inquiry into events around the Gaza flotilla, and not the one Israel proposes. Israel’s hitherto unfettered control over Gaza is further under threat by the European Union’s call for an end to the Gaza blockade and its intention to set up a monitoring mechanism of Gaza’s land and sea crossings so that more humanitarian aid can enter the Strip unimpeded. Even Israel’s staunchest ally, the US, has called the Gaza siege “unacceptable”, and its automatic veto of any criticism of Israel, so routine in the past, can no longer be relied on.
Relations between Israel and several Western states, already strained by the January killing in Dubai of the Hamas leader, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, and the associated stealing and use of a number of passports of these states, worsened. In January, Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat in reaction to the illegal use by Mossad agents of British passports. Australia did the same in May, and Ireland is about to follow suit. In Poland, authorities arrested a Mossad agent accused of involvement in the Al-Mabhouh killing. Britain, France, Spain and Italy have demanded firm action over the flotilla attack. On 14 June, Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, cancelled a trip to the Paris Arms Show, warned that pro-Palestinian groups would seek his arrest. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on June 30, 2010 - י"ח תמוז תש"ע at 11:33 am
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June 28, 2010
Key Points
Introduction
Whilst much of the world’s principal concerns with regard to Gaza relate to flotilla incident, and the question of the blockade, on the fourth anniversary of the capture of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli discourse is overwhelmed by questions relating to securing his release. The Israeli soldier has been held hostage in Gaza for the past four years and negotiations to secure his release through a prisoner exchange have repeatedly failed.
The campaign to release Gilad, led by his parents Noam and Aviva, was renewed with vigour in the last few days. The recent relaxation of the restrictions on the border crossings has added a sense of urgency to their campaign, with the fear that as the pressure is being eased on Hamas, their son has been left out of the equation. They aim to push the Prime Minister to reach an agreement that will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners involved in terrorism in return for their son.
The desire to bring home Shalit unites Israelis, but underneath that unity lie vexed questions. Should terrorists be released to bring Shalit home? Does public campaigning for Shalit’s release play into the hands of Hamas? And does making a deal with Hamas contribute to a creeping legitimisation of the Hamas regime in Gaza? This analysis examines the debates currently taking place in Israel around these question. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on June 30, 2010 - י"ח תמוז תש"ע at 11:12 am
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By YAAKOV LAPPIN, Jerusalem Post, June 29, 2010
The online jihadi presence has once again sent its long tentacles into Israel, using the Internet to circumvent 20th century border controls to exert its lethal influence on a group of Arab Israeli men.
At least seven suspects from Nazareth and the surrounding area declared their allegiance to al-Qaida and its global holy war thanks to online indoctrination, according to security services.
The process was made possible by the array of jihadi Web sites that indoctrinate recruits and provide them with tips on how to operate weapons and assemble explosives.
Al-Qaida’s main point of access into Israel is via the Web, just as the Internet has opened the door to international jihadi doctrines and incitement to violence in dozens of other Western states. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on June 29, 2010 - י"ז תמוז תש"ע at 3:24 pm
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By Navit Zomer , YNet News, June 29, 2010
The IDB Group, through its Elron subsidiary, plans to invest NIS 8 million (about $2 million) in the Carticure start-up company from the NGT incubator in Nazareth, Yedioth Ahronoth’s economic supplement Mamon has learned.
NGT is a technological incubator run by Jewish and Arab businessmen. The majority of funding for its projects comes from the Chief Scientist’s Office and the incubator’s investors.
Carticure was founded four years ago by Dr. Gila Maor as part of the NGT incubator. Its technological platform generates original hyaline cartilage-producing cells to be transplanted into damaged joints, replenishing small and large lesions in the articular cartilage. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on June 29, 2010 - י"ז תמוז תש"ע at 3:16 pm
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by Hana Levi Julian, Arutz Sheva
(Israelnationalnews.com) A team of scientists at Tel Aviv University is working on a project that involves implanting a computer chip into the brain in order to treat conditions such as depression and Parkinson’s disease.
Professor Matti Mintz, a member of the Psychobiology Research Unit at the Department of Psychology, is part of a European consortium that is working on issues relating to neurophysiology, human behavior and mental health.
TAU colleague Professor Yossi Shaham-Diamond is also involved, working on the issue of adding sensors while miniaturizing the size of the deep brain electrodes used to deliver the stimulation. Two other TAU scientists, Professor Hagit Messer-Yaron and Dr. Mira Kalish, are also involved in the project as well as partners from Spain, Austria and England. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Mental Health, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on June 29, 2010 - י"ז תמוז תש"ע at 9:41 am
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By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 29, 2010; Washington Post, A19
It’s a pity that Israel, while substantially loosening its grip on Gaza, will continue to enforce a blockade when, with just a little imagination, it could insist on a deal with the activists once again steaming its way: You can proceed to Gaza if, once you get there, you demand that Hamas cease the persecution of women, institute freedom of religion, halt the continuing rocketing of Israel, release an Israeli hostage, ban torture and rescind an official charter that could have made soothing bedtime reading for Adolf Hitler. This may take some time.
In fact, these demands would never be met. Gaza is a mean and brutal place with a totalitarian government steeped in a cult of violence and death. This hardly means that the government does not have a measure of popular support and did not, as some of the activists naively point out, come to power by democratic means. So did the Nazis.
The term “Islamic fascism” gets thrown around a lot. I initially recoiled from it because I prefer to reserve fascism for fascists. The term is too loosely employed — New York City cops were called fascists by Vietnam-era peace demonstrators — but Paul Berman, in his new book “The Flight of the Intellectuals,” makes a solid case that it can, with justice, be applied to Hamas. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on June 29, 2010 - י"ז תמוז תש"ע at 8:46 am
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By Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21C
June 28, 2010
Despite the latest tensions, two companies – one Palestinian and one Israeli – are integrating wind turbines together in the West Bank and beyond.
A bridge of peace: The team from Israel Wind Power and Brothers Engineering Group.
A path toward peace may be blowing in the wind, if a new wind energy project between a Palestinian and an Israeli company succeeds. The two companies, Israel Wind Power based in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv and Brothers Engineering Group from Bethlehem in the West Bank, have just announced their intention to cooperate in the building and selling of wind turbines in the West Bank region and beyond.
Most significant, they are undeterred by the latest tensions between Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and world powers in the wake of the recent Turkish-led flotilla incident that occurred near Gaza.
Brothers Engineering Group was founded by Dr. Mohammed Salem, a pharmacist, businessman and social entrepreneur with Engineers without Borders. Salem, the company’s CEO, has been in the wind business since 2006 and employs 15 people in Bethlehem. His company supplies wind turbines and solar solutions to the West Bank region.
"Business collaboration in the area of wind energy is something which will be for the benefit of everyone. It will serve as a bridge of peace for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Salem declares.
"We will be one company, together," Salem tells ISRAEL21c, adding that: "The plan is from yesterday not tomorrow." The two companies plan on cooperating in marketing, manufacturing and installation of wind turbines to generate electricity on a scale of 50 kW to provide wind power for factories, offices and private homes.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Climate Change, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on June 28, 2010 - ט"ז תמוז תש"ע at 9:32 am
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In September, world leaders will meet at the UN for a summit to discuss strategies for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In the meantime, the UN is kicking into high gear with a number of events, reports and behind-the-scenes politiking over the MDGs. (And rest assured, we are planning some special coverage of all the MDG action on UN Dispatch this summer). Yesterday, Ban Ki Moon kicked off what I am calling the summer of the MDGs with a report taking stock of progress–and sometimes lack thereof–on achieving each of the eight goals.
The report shows that there are a number of verifiable successes, particularly in cutting by half the number of people living in extreme poverty, acheiving universal primary school enrollment, and fighting infectious diseases: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on June 26, 2010 - י"ד תמוז תש"ע at 5:33 pm
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As the US is struggling to advance the “peace process,” there are three words that are wholly responsible for impeding the development of peaceful relations between Israel and its Arab population. These words are: “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” These pernicious words have led many in the world to believe that Jews came to Palestine after World War II, drove out the indigenous Arab population, and have continued to occupy their lands. Until this malicious fabrication is dismissed and the international community acknowledges that Jews are indigenous to the region and have every legitimate right to reclaim and settle land anywhere within the borders of the former British Palestine Mandate, there will never be peace between Israel and the Arab population.
Compiled by Israel Zwick, CN Publications, June 24, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_territory
Occupied territory is territory under military occupation. Occupation is a term of art in international law; in accordance with Article 42 of the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Fourth Hague Convention); October 18, 1907,[1] territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised. At the end of a war, usually the victorious side is in possession of territory previously possessed by another state. This territory is known as occupied territory. Acquisition of occupied territory is incidental to a war, where the military forces of the occupying power come into the possession of territory previously held by another state. Occupation is usually temporary; and under the subsequent articles of the Hague convention (articles 43, 44, and etc.), and the Fourth Geneva Convention the status quo must be maintained pending the signing of a peace treaty, the resolution of specific conditions outlined in a peace treaty, or the formation of a new civilian government.[2]
Examples of occupied territory include Germany and Japan by the Allies in the aftermath of World War II; Cambodia by Vietnam from 1979 until 1989; Iraq by the United States and its allies after the 2003 invasion, and the territories occupied by Israel after the Six-Day War of 1967.
The Israeli-occupied territories are the territories which have been designated as occupied territory by many international organisations, governments and others to refer to the territory captured by Israel from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. They consist of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and much of the Golan Heights and, until 1982, the Sinai Peninsula. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are also referred to as Palestinian territories or Occupied Palestinian Territory. Palestinian Authority and numerous international bodies consider East Jerusalem to be part of the West Bank, a position disputed by Israel.
The use of the terms “occupied” for these territories has been disputed. Paul S. Riebenfeld, an international lawyer, who represented Jewish interests at the League of Nations, argued that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip do not belong to any other sovereign state, are part of former Mandate Palestine, and therefore fall legitimately within Israel’s jurisdiction. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, News Articles, Opinion, Recent Posts, Zwick's Picks on June 25, 2010 - י"ג תמוז תש"ע at 3:13 pm
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by Daniel Greenfield – SultanKnish.blogspot.com , June 23, 2010
This week Turkish forces invaded Iraq and its warplanes bombed 7 Kurdish villages killing a teenage girl and wounding her mother and 3 year old sister. A week ago Iran had done the same things, killing a 14 year old girl and a 45 year old woman. There are no shouts of protest. No worldwide demonstrations. The Obama administration and the media did not deliver any lectures on disproportionate force. Not even when Erdogan vowed to drown the Kurdish rebels “in their own blood”.
Instead Ambassador James J. Jeffrey slavishly rushed to assure Turkey’s Thug in Chief Erdogan that the PKK was also America’s enemy and promised to “urgently” review any request for help against them. No such help was offered to the Kurds, whose villages were being bombed from the sky using planes sold to Turkey by the United States. Despite the fact that Iraqi Kurds, unlike Turkey, supported the US liberation of Iraq. Because that’s what friends of the United States get from the Obama Administration. A kick in the face. And what our enemies get is a slobbering kiss on the cheek.
The PKK is a terrorist organization, but it is not our enemy and it does not have anything to do with us. Any reason for providing aid to Turkey against the PKK ended with the Cold War. Especially considering Turkey’s shakedown of the US during the Kosovo operation and its refusal to support US forces in the liberation of Iraq. The United States has no reason to provide military assistance to a regime that is not willing to do the same. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on June 25, 2010 - י"ג תמוז תש"ע at 1:59 pm
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