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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for October 5, 2008 - ו' תשרי תשס"ט
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What can save Israel and Iran from destroying each other? Only the seeds of peace lying dormant in both countries. These seeds lie in the Iranian and Israeli people. They need to be cultivated with civil society exchanges – between students and intellectuals, scientists, doctors, engineers, university professors, and even clerics – where both sides share their experiences in fighting common challenges.
WASHINGTON – On its 60th anniversary, Israel is still concerned about survival. Even with nuclear weapons and the strongest military in the Middle East, the Jewish state remains anxious. Iranian leaders are similarly concerned about the future of their administrations, even as the country approaches the 30th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution.Israel fears any potential threat, whether it comes from Hamas, Hezbollah, or political Islamic groups. Israel also has begun to fear its shifting demographics, where birth rates are significantly higher among Palestinians than Jews. But above all, Israel perceives a threat from Iran
In a similar vein, Iran is threatened by an outside force that would roll back its revolution. The religious conservatives in Iran are resistant to perceived reformists, which at various times have been supported by the United States, and stands alone as one of the only Shia majority countries in the region.
Yet the conservatives of Iran, heirs to Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution, also face the possibility of seeing their regime replaced by the followers of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.
Iran and Israel share a sense of isolation: Israel is comprised of an ethnic and religious minority (Jewish) in a largely Arab and Muslim Middle East. Likewise, Iran’s government is an ethno-religious minority (Shi’a Persians) surrounded by Sunni countries. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Islam, Judaism, Middle East, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 5, 2008 - ו' תשרי תשס"ט at 10:39 am
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By Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21C, October 02, 2008
The cost of housing in Israel’s capital city Jerusalem is soaring, the disparity between rich and poor is growing wider, while the trust between Arabs and Jews remains thin.
The issue of poverty is especially dire for Jerusalem’s poorer Orthodox Jews and religious Muslims who are gearing up for major holidays at this time of the year. The Jews are already making advance preparations for the Jewish New Year in late September, while the month-long half day of fasting - and then feasting - for the Muslim holiday of Ramadan is underway.
Like in America during Thanksgiving and Christmas time, it’s easy to see in Israel how the poor suffer during holiday time. There are reports of food insecurity in the local newspapers and food banks beg for donations. Charitable acts take on a deeper meaning for those that have the means to give - and they do give. But what about the rest of the year? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Recent Posts on October 2, 2008 - ג' תשרי תשס"ט at 9:50 am
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If Israel is not Zionist, it won’t be Jewish; if it’s not Jewish it won’t be democratic
By Martin Sherman, YNet News, August 11, 2008
"In my understanding, the concept "Post Zionism" is - at the ideological level - a demand for democratization of the state - i. e. a call for a liberal democratic state in the Western mode." -Prof. Uri Ram — from "The Anti Zionist Congress" Israel Radio (Reshet Bet) 27-4-2008
This quote from one of the leaders of the post-Zionist school in Israeli academia is representative of the moral hypocrisy, intellectual shallowness and pompousness, and grossly misplaced self-righteousness that characterize the adherents of this self- contradictory philosophy.
For it takes only the most elementary analytical skill to identify the glaring flaw in the logic of post–Zionist positions which - allegedly in the name of enlightened liberal values - call for the conversion of Israel from a "Jewish State" to a "state of all its citizens." It requires no extraordinary intellect to grasp the fact that should such a change indeed take place, the resulting realities would in fact be the exact antithesis of the values invoked for making it.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 11, 2008 - י' אב תשס"ח at 4:47 pm
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Published for Tisha B’Av 5768.
See Also: Jews, Go Away!
By Richard L. Cravatts, History News Network, August 4, 2008
“You fund Middle Eastern Studies centers on university campuses and use them as anti-Israel, anti-American “think tanks” where scholarship is tainted with ideology and singularly focused on the Palestinian cause. You fund the active and vocal Muslim Students Association on campuses across the country that hold “Israel Apartheid Week” and “Holocaust in the Holy Land” festivals at which propaganda, Jew-hatred, apologies for terrorism, and further demonizing of Israel takes place.”
As part of evaluating the competitive landscape of the popularity of nations, in a process referred to in marketing circles as ‘place branding,’ Israel, to no one’s great surprise, comes up short in brand likeability, ranking last out of 35 nations included in an August 2006 survey conducted by nation branding expert Simon Anholt, even less attractive to respondents than Indonesia, Estonia, and Turkey.
How could this have happened to a country that is the Middle East’s only thriving democracy and enjoys a remarkably robust economy that has spawned some 1000 startup high tech companies, for example, second only to the U.S.? How, in short, would you go about making the world hate Israel?
Even after 60 years of its existence, you question the fundamental right of Israel to even exist and regularly, though falsely, condemn it for being created “illegally”—through the “theft” of Palestinian lands and property—and thus decide, because of its original sin, it has no “right to exist.” You accuse the government of a “brutal,” illegal “occupation” of Palestinian lands, especially Gaza and the West Bank (but for many, all of Israel), of being a “colonial settler state,” a Zionist “regime” or “project,” a land-hungry nation, a usurper of property that was lived on and owned by a Palestinian “people” “from time immemorial.”
You describe the very existence of the country as being the “greatest threat to world peace,” the core cause of all Muslim anger toward the West, the root of all of the Palestinians’ suffering and economic plight, and describe Israel as a nation that has even been referred to publicly as a “shitty little country” by the French ambassador to Britain.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 5, 2008 - ד' אב תשס"ח at 8:37 am
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by Asaf Romirowsky, Washington Times, August 4, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/article/1965
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict long ago spilled over into America’s departments of Middle East studies. In an attempt to appear balanced in the face of charges of anti-Israel biases, some departments or programs of Middle East studies have added Israeli scholars to their ranks—a move that at first glance appears welcome.
Yet many of these Israeli academics have built their reputation on scholarship that is harshly critical not only of Israeli policy, but of Israel’s very existence. Anti-Israel scholars who hail from Israel are cited favorably by the entire range of Israel’s critics, from pro-Palestinian groups like PSM, the Committee to Stop Demolition of Houses in Palestine, the Committee to Stop Torture, and Breaking the Silence to Jewish anti-Zionist groups like the American Council for Judaism, from neo-Nazis to Islamists.
The international standing of such scholars received a boost in the mid-1980s with the rise of the so-called “new historians” in Israeli universities. These scholars sought to debunk what they claim is a distorted “Zionist narrative” in Israeli historiography. In practice, they twisted the history of Israel’s rebirth by, among other tricks, dismissing the efforts of the Arab states to destroy the new-born Jewish state as a Zionist myth, and claiming that Israel is built on ethnic cleansing and brutality towards the Palestinians.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education Report, Judaism, Middle East, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on August 4, 2008 - ג' אב תשס"ח at 10:21 am
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Israel Today Staff
A leader of Israel’s Druze Arab community on Wednesday said that the events surrounding a second bulldozer terrorist attack in Jerusalem a day earlier was evidence of the sect’s ongoing loyalty to the State of Israel.
Tuesday’s attack, which left at least 16 people wounded when a Jerusalem Arab plowed into traffic with an earth-moving bulldozer, came to an end when an armed Israeli civilian and a Druze Border Police officer attacked the terrorist.
The armed civilian, Yaakov Asael, was reportedly the first to fire, with Border Police officer Amal Ganem quickly joining the fight with his assault rifle. After initially firing from skewed angle, Ganem moved to another side of the still-rampaging bulldozer and opened fire again, this time killing the terrorist.
Druze community leader Sheikh Muafiek Tarif told Ynet that “the Druze sect has shown its loyalty to the State of Israel for years now. Today, the resourcefulness of Amal Ganem, a Druze community member, proved our loyalty to the State of Israel.”
Tarif continued by calling Ganem, “who acted quickly and without hesitation in order to prevent further casualties,” a “model to thousands of young Druze who have acted and are acting on behalf of the State of Israel.”
The Druze, whose religion lies somewhere between Islam and Judaism and reveres Moses’ father-in-law Jesse as its patriarch, are usually fiercely loyal to whatever nation in which they reside, including the Jewish state. Following the establishment of State of Israel, Druze leaders insisted that the Israeli army impose mandatory military service on their community’s young men just as it does on Israeli Jews.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Judaism, Middle East, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on July 23, 2008 - כ' תמוז תשס"ח at 12:01 pm
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By Daniel Gordis , Israel Insider, July 19, 2008
The challenge that Israel faces is not to move towards peace. Peace can’t be had. No - the challenge facing Israel is to learn how to live in perpetual, never-ending war, and in the face of that, to flourish, and to be a country that our kids still want to defend. And that is what we did this week.
For some strange reason, I remember the scene with clarity. I was in the kitchen, early on a Friday afternoon about a month ago, cooking Shabbat dinner. Micha, our youngest, now 15, was hanging out in the living room. The radio was on in the background, and on the hour, the news came on. It was over in minutes, and then the music returned.
I hadn’t really paid attention to the news, but Micha apparently had. “Do you think we’re ever going to get Gilad Shalit back?” he asked. Without even looking at him, I said, without even thinking, “Of course we are. Definitely.”
“You don’t know that,” a different voice piped in. Now, I looked up. Avi, his older brother, was unexpectedly home. “We may get him back, and we may not. How can you possibly say that we definitely will?” But the conversation was over. Micha, overjoyed to see Avi, had quickly followed his brother upstairs, and I was left alone in the kitchen. So I never got to answer Avi.
But had he pressed, and had Micha not been around, I would have said to him, “Why did I say that? Because when he hears the news each and every day, the only thing that your brother thinks about is the fact that you’re about to get drafted. And he’s beyond worried; he’s panicked. Because he worships the ground you walk on. And he needs to believe, to know. He needs to believe that you’re going to be OK. And he wants to know that though he lives in a country that asks its kids to do everything, to commit everything, that country also knows that it owes them everything in return. And getting them home — no matter what has happened to them - is part of that.”
I never said any of that to Avi, but I recalled that conversation several times during this agonizing week of prisoner exchanges, of returned coffins, of funerals expected but still tear-stained, of Hezbollah celebrations and of all the columnists who insist that the trade was a terrible idea, that you don’t trade Samir Kuntar for two dead bodies, that they were “deeply ashamed to be an Israeli [and] not very proud of being a Jew either,” that we’ve weakened our bargaining position in the future, and, according to Rabbi Menachem Froman, that we’ve even made peace more difficult to attain, that Israel is committing suicide, and that we have now officially given the Hezbollah the crown of victory in the Second Lebanon War.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 21, 2008 - י"ח תמוז תשס"ח at 12:41 am
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By Ted Belman, Israpundit, July 16, 2008
See Also: What Happened to Jewish Pride
When I attended High School in Galt, Ontario, a city of 14,000, in the early fifties I was as normal as any other kid except that I happened to be Jewish and proud of it. That singular fact of being a Jew permeated my entire life.
My father was born in Poland in 1906 to orthodox parents and he had a normal Jewish upbringing in that he learned to read and write Hebrew and studied Chumash i.e. the Pentateuch. By the time the twenties rolled around he and his siblings were committed Communists having been galvanized by the Communist Revolution next door in Russia. This revolution was driven by Jewish messianism and activism. They fought for a better life and the end of antisemitism. This fight got my father and his sister jail time for distributing pamphlets. My father was let out almost within days as he was given the choice between jail and joining the Polish Army. One anecdote stands out for me regarding my father’s army experience. He was looked up to by his fellow soldiers who in the main were Polish peasants, because he could sign his name.
Fortunately for his entire immediate family, and for me, they emigrated in the late twenties to Canada. Polish Jews had immigrated to the US until about 1920 when the US closed its doors to them. Thereafter they all came to Canada. My mother’s family also came from Poland to Canada at that time. They were committed Zionists.
My parents married in the early thirties and like everyone one else, struggled through the depression. Even so, my fathers family remained active Communists and fought for workers rights. I was born in 1937.
I clearly remember the last years of the war and particularly the celebrations on V-Day when the whole town danced in the streets, while waving the Union Jack and embracing everyone in sight. Euphoric. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 17, 2008 - י"ד תמוז תשס"ח at 5:56 am
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By Joel Greenberg,Chicago Tribune,July 8, 2008
JERUSALEM — Inon Schenker, an AIDS prevention specialist, pulled out a medical logbook from a shelf and opened it to a page filled with handwritten entries.
The notations, from 1993, recorded ritual circumcisions performed on Jewish men from the former Soviet Union at the height of the wave of Immigration to Israel from Russia and neighboring republics.
The entries showed 32 circumcisions by a single doctor in a day’s work, an assembly-line rate that Schenker believes shows the potential in Israel for helping combat AIDS in Africa, where recent studies have shown male circumcision to be a significant protective measure against the disease.
In the heyday of Russian Immigration to Israel in the 1990s, about 1,000 adult male circumcisions a month were performed on newcomers in hospitals and clinics, in accordance with Jewish law.
“Israel is the only country with such experience in mass adult-male circumcision, and it can respond to a very important humanitarian challenge,” said Schenker, director of Operation Abraham, a project launched last year that dispatched Israeli surgeons to teach circumcision in Africa.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Health Sciences, Judaism, Men's Health, Middle East Report, Recent Posts on July 9, 2008 - ו' תמוז תשס"ח at 2:38 pm
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By Bradley Burston, Haaretz, July 2, 2008
“I, for one, would like to ask for proof of what it is that Palestinians really want. I no longer believe that it’s as simple as wanting statehood.
This is what I don’t yet want to admit: that for all these years, in 2008 no less than in 1902, what a critical mass of Palestinians want most, perhaps even more than statehood, may be as simple as the vile thrill of vengeance, as straightforward as nothing more than seeing Jews dead and gone.”
JERUSALEM - What, exactly, is a decent person supposed to think?
On a quiet and clear morning in Jerusalem, a woman is driving toward the heart of the city, her infant with her in the car. There is nothing to fear.
It is not a military area, it is not a sector of occupation, it is not a settlement - Jews have lived and worked here for more than a century. Jewish doctors and nurses were treating Arab infants, women, the elderly and the infirm here as early as 1902, when Shaare Tzedek Hospital opened across the street.
There is nothing to fear.
Except for the man behind the wheel of a bulldozer, who has taken it upon himself to kill Jews. Not Israeli security force personnel, not occupation troops, not the Shin Bet. Jews. Women and children and the elderly and the infirm. Jews who may be in favor of an independent Palestinian state. Jews who have nothing against Arabs. Jews who may work to end the occupation. Jews.
When the killing starts, the woman behind the wheel does what Jews have learned to do since the Holocaust, and for 2,000 years before that: Save your child. Whatever it takes.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 2, 2008 - כ"ט סיון תשס"ח at 10:57 am
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