Wizo Publication

June 2009

No. 55

WIZO'S PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT

NEWS FROM ISRAEL (that your media does not report) www.wizo.org/newsletter

“Seize this Chance for Peace?”

Last month’s meeting between the President Barak Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was subjected to the media’s intense scrutiny. Certainly here in Israel journalists and commentators were vying to offer their interpretation of the first meeting between our respective elected leaders.

On June 12th the people of Iran will be going to the polls to elect their President. Although some 475 have registered as candidates it would appear that four are serious contenders with the sitting incumbent projected to win. Ahmadinajad, Holocaust denier, who has utilized every opportunity and international forum to state that Israel should be eliminated, is favored to win this election.

Whilst these threats resonate with Israel and its population, they do not appear to have registered deeply with the leadership of the free world. How else can we explain President Obama’s statement that a dialogue with Iran that would continue until the end of 2009? As we go to press China is negotiating with Teheran to build 20 nuclear power stations over the next decade. Exiled Iranian writer Amir Taheri states “With no international control over what happens to the spent fuel generated by those stations, Iran could end up with enough material to make hundreds of bombs.” Time is not on our side!

President Obama linked peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with the Iranian threat.

“Seize this chance for peace” he told Netanyahu. Whilst we in Israel do not do everything “right” it is difficult to comprehend how we can reach a peaceful solution with the Palestinians when they have two separate leaderships. Egypt has tried (without success) to bring together the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist – a clause to this effect exists within its charter - whilst the Palestinians continue to talk about the right of return for the Palestinian refugees – a demographic means of destroying the one Jewish state. Both continue to preach hatred towards Israel through their education systems, the media and the Mosques. Israel left Gaza in August 2005 and shortly after Hamas took control. Palestinian surveys suggest that if elections were held tomorrow in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) Hamas would win.

The people of Israel long for peace. In 1947 we accepted the United Nations’ partition plan which was rejected by the Arabs. In 2000 Prime Minister Barak, President Clinton and Arafat were in serious negotiations – again the Palestinians rejected peace and instead started four and a half years of suicide bomb attacks against the citizens of Israel.

Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are the surrogates of Iran. Iran supplies these terrorist organizations with the means to attack our men, women and children. Israelis take Ahmadinajad’s threats very seriously. We do not believe that the world can wait until the end of the year to see if the Iranian leadership is prepared to engage in a meaningful dialogue with President Obama. Israel’s leaders are prepared to continue peace negotiations with the Palestinians but recognize that peace will not be possible until the free world acknowledges that the Iranian threat is the priority.

Brenda Katten

Shlomo Avineri

At first glance there is nothing in common between Pope Benedict XVI's visit and the Palestinian Nakba. But one thing links the two: relations with the Jewish people. For generations the Catholic Church advanced the idea that Jesus' gospel had its roots in Jewish scripture, but that the New Testament annulled the original covenant between God and the Jewish people, which refused to recognize its messiah and thereby lost the legitimacy to exist.

This traditional theological approach underwent a revolutionary change in the Second Vatican Council in the early-to-mid 1960s. It not only absolved the Jewish people of collective guilt for crucifying Jesus, but recognized the continuing covenant between God and the Jews, paving the way for recognizing the legitimacy of their existence. This transformation enabled the Vatican's recognition of the State of Israel. During his visit to Jerusalem, John Paul II demonstrated tremendous magnanimity when in the note he placed in the Western Wall he asked the Jewish people's forgiveness for the injustice brought on them by the church for generations. The fact that Benedict chose Mount Nebo to emphasize the deep link between Christianity and Judaism testifies to his awareness of the Jewish people's ties to the Land of Israel.

Such soul-searching is entirely absent from the way the Palestinians treat every May 15, marking the pain of what befell them in 1948. As Jews and Israelis we cannot be indifferent to this pain, as the Nakba is tied to the founding of the State of Israel. However, it could be expected that the Palestinians recognize that their refusal to accept the UN partition plan and instead to respond to it with force - is part of the reason for what happened to them. None of this appears in the Palestinian narrative, which contains only the injustice committed against them.

It could all have been different. Had in 1948 the Palestinians accepted the partition plan as did the Jews (albeit grudgingly), two states would have been born and hundreds of thousands of people would not have been uprooted from their homes and become refugees. Arab and Palestinian literature and public relations completely lack this self-criticism. Even today, when the idea is raised of matching Israeli recognition of a Palestinian nation state with Palestinian recognition of Israel as the home of the Jewish people, the moderates in the Palestinian Authority respond with unqualified refusal. This is not a tactical rejection, it is deeply rooted in Palestinians' unwillingness to recognize that in 1948 they made an enormous, tragic mistake; even today they are unable to accept the principle of partition.

The Palestinians are willing to talk about two states, but not for two nations, since that would imply recognition of the Jews as a people. Maybe it is too much to ask the Palestinians to demonstrate awareness of the other side's rights. But while the finest Israeli writers - from S. Yizhar to Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman - confront the moral challenge of upholding the justice of the Zionist enterprise while understanding the Palestinians' pain and rights, we hear no comparable moral voice on the other side. To this day, no intellectual has arisen who is willing to recognize the Jewish people's struggle and link to the Land of Israel.

We can hope that the pope's visit will lead to Palestinian soul-searching similar to the church's. If the church is able to recognize its mistakes, it's possible the Palestinians, too, will begin opening up to the voice of the other - the Jew, the Israeli. Without such a willingness, it's difficult to hope that the principle of partition - two states for two peoples - will ever be realized. (Haaretz.com) Shlomo Avineri is a Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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My own humanitarian crisis Amnon Hardly a day passes without mass media and NGOs reporting about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The siege of Gaza has become a major subject in international human rights discourse. Indeed, the hardship of the people of Gaza - an abject and dependent enclave - is authentic and painful, even if we disregard the casualties and destruction caused by the latest war. Stories about alleged killings of civilians by IDF soldiers exacerbate Israel's public image - Oliphant's cartoon likening a soldier carrying a lethal Star of David to a goose-stepping Nazi is just one abhorrent manifestation of this phenomenon and should move Israel to an open investigation to be conducted by an independent judicial body, without concealing anything.

The suffering of the people of Gaza is the suffering of human beings - even if this tragedy is brought about by a leadership that they elected. It really does not matter that the hardship can disappear overnight if Gaza were governed by leaders who prefer life and peace to death and war.

Beside this Gaza crisis, there is also an Israeli humanitarian crisis, and alongside the siege of Gaza, there is also a siege of Israel. A large chunk of this tiny country is exposed to brutal shelling from Gaza and the psychological effects of this exposure are felt by every Israeli. True, Gaza is smaller than Israel, but Gaza has a border with Egypt - not merely an Arab state, but the self-proclaimed mother of all Arabs and a staunch defender of Palestinian causes. Israel has no border with a kin state and even in the two countries - Jordan and Egypt - which are at peace with it; Israelis do not feel welcome, especially in Egypt, whose media carries out a hate barrage against their country.

While Gaza's official border with Egypt is virtually closed, this can change if the rulers of Gaza stop using an open border as a means to smuggle in arms and missiles for use against the Jewish state.

Conversely however, Israelis see no chance of lifting the virtual siege against their country - the hate and rejection which they meet when they cross their borders only increases by leaps and bounds.

This siege is enhanced not only by closed borders but also by the fact that most Israelis live close to hostile Palestinian areas. Some view the existence of Jewish settlements as one of the major causes for their resentment and pessimism. These Palestinian areas - a short drive from the homes of most Israelis are closed to Jews. Any Israeli taken prisoner by terrorists there will not enjoy any human right accorded under international law, his relatives and friends will not know anything about him, no human rights organization - including the Israeli ones - will utter a word of protest or demand that the International Red Cross be allowed to visit the prisoner.

Our humanitarian crisis consists of a constant anxiety surrounding our captured men. The anxiety which engulfed the whole country when we were uncertain whether our two soldiers - Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser - would be returned alive or dead from Lebanon is of no interest to the human rights NGOs abroad or at home. A Palestinian POW can always appeal against maltreatment to the High Court of Justice, but every Israeli knows that if he ventures into hostile Palestinian territory he may disappear, or be lynched in broad daylight. This too is part of the siege of Israel.

The hate campaign against Israel and the Jews has reached heights equivalent to the pre-Holocaust Nazi propaganda - that this campaign is aided by Jewish and Israeli academics does not make the crisis any easier. Whilst the country should never compare itself with Arab regimes, this does not detract from the daily burden of our own humanitarian crisis. One more little item, which the human rights NGOs - at home and abroad - tend to ignore, is the constant Iranian threat to obliterate Israel with nuclear weapons.

This threat, made publicly by a rich and powerful nation, is somehow not considered an infringement of human rights, and this fact too is part of my own humanitarian crisis. (jpost.com) The writer is a professor of law at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a former minister of education and MK, and the recipient of the 2006 Israel Prize in Law. 3

'Young scientists' win top prizes in international science fair Israeli teens who won top prizes in the Intel Israel Young Scientists Competition last March have now won second and fourth prizes at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair competition. The competition, held in Nevada, US, hosted 1,500 participants from over 50 countries. Shira Ahissar researched logical thinking in people with schizophrenia and took second place in the behavioral science category. Shahar Gvirtz and Yadid Algawi who used a home microwave oven and dried Fistia and Salvinia aquatic plants to remove most of the lead contaminants from water - came in fourth place in the category of research teams. (Jpost.com) Yad Vashem now on the web Holocaust Remembrance Authority now offers a number of ways for people from all over the world to educate themselves on the Shoah, including a YouTube video channel, websites in Farsi and Arabic. The Arabic websites provide academic articles translated into Arabic, testimonies of Holocaust survivors, maps, archived documents, multi-media slideshow of images from the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the stories of Righteous Gentiles, including Muslims from Turkey and Albania. The Farsi version is intended to educate Iranian citizens who may be influenced by Iranian President Ahmadinejad's continuous PR attempts against the State of Israel. (Ynet)

TAU creates bionic nose Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a bionic nose capable of detecting weak traces of microscopic molecules found in cancer cells, explosives, and water pollutants. Like a bionic nose, the new technology can "sniff out" the trace molecules using molecular techniques in nanotechnology and amplify them tenfold, making them noticeable for doctors and crime fighters. The prototype is ready, and developers plan to use it to "amplify" problems around the world and improve healthcare, safety, and security. (esciencenews.com) Antibiotic may repair genetics disease Israeli research found that a common antibiotic has the power to repair genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis, cancer and muscular dystrophy. Researchers at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology have modified a common antibiotic, one without toxic effects, and which is programmed to fix "nonsense" mutations in genetic diseases. Nonsense mutations are mutations in a sequence of DNA which causes it to prematurely stop reading the RNA, resulting in an incomplete and nonfunctional protein being created. (Israel21c) Israeli startup uses NASA technology to transform ER diagnosis Medical technology designed for use in outer space may soon enable doctors to make critical therapeutic decisions about Emergency Room patients within minutes. Using a handheld device known as a flow cytometer, doctors can diagnose life-threatening conditions within 20 minutes instead of the several days required for a lab culture diagnosis. The technology, being developed by LeukoDx, was originally initiated by the NASA with the goal of developing a small, self-contained tool for detecting infections in astronauts. The portability and low-cost of the device also makes it especially suitable for monitoring diseases such as AIDS. (Israel21c) 4

Israeli researchers find ways to avoid re-blockage of heart arteries Israeli researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new technique that could help patients avoid re-blockage of arteries. The majority of people who undergo angioplasties and stents maintain unclogged arteries however, a small few experience re-blocking of those blood vessels, and even restenosis. The technique developed by the HU scientists, employs the biophysical phenomenon of irreversible electroporation (IRE). IRE penetrates the cell membranes, and destroys cells within seconds, using very short electric field pulses. It causes no damage to structures other than the cells themselves. It was used recently for the first time on humans in Melbourne, Australia, for the treatment of prostate, liver and lung tumors. (Israel21c)

Israeli solar company launches first 'cost-effective solar energy plan Concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) solar company, ZenithSolar, launched its first commercial generating system last month in the presence of President Shimon Peres and other government ministers. According to CEO Roy Segev, "What is unique about our system is that we will be able to produce energy at around $0.08 per kilowatt/hour without a government subsidy, which is comparable to the cost of electricity from fossil fuel." ZenithSolar installations consist mostly of plastic, glass and steel, which drive down costs, as does its unique manufacturing process, which relies on molds to mass produce plastic backing for the mirrors. According to the company's web site, 95% of the system is recyclable, including the dish and its mounting. (Jpost.com) New projection module helps you see the 'bigger picture' While you can store pictures, video clips, and documents in your cellular phone, it's difficult to view them without a companion handheld or embedded projection device. Israeli company, Explay has created the smallest mobileprojection module. At less than five cubic centimeters, Colibri, is the highest resolution and most energy efficient module in the industry, enabling full-color, speckle-free projection of any multimedia content onto any flat or curved surface. "Think about laying your handset on the desk and projecting any content from your phone on the wall or on the ceiling.

Seeing the big picture is going to be part of our life," according to Explay CEO Daniel Oleiski.

(Israel21c) Israeli trees can text message their farmers when thirsty Israeli scientists have developed a new device that taps into the stem of a tree and when water levels are low, the tree can text a message, email the farmer, or turn on the irrigation tap to water itself. The device measures electric conductivity inside the tree, a parameter of water stress. The device, still without a name, will save farmers up to 30 to 40 percent in water use. The product, shaped like a small hammer, is in development but inventors say the cost will be very affordable for most farmers and only one probe will be needed to reflect the water content in about every 500 trees.

(Israel21c) Keeping track of your vehicle with Israel's Pointer Named after a species of tracking dog, Pointer Telocation has developed a range of hightech security solutions that use sophisticated wireless communications technology, for vehicles on the move. With Pointer's small black devices concealed in a vehicle or container, bulldozers can no longer be snatched off construction sites, fewer crates of goods will go bump in the night, and even speeding wheels of stolen cars will be arrested to immobilization point. The company works with two main sections of vehicle management and security - automatic vehicle location (AVL) and stolen vehicle recovery (SVR). ( Israel21c) 5

Zalman Shoval During his last visit, US envoy George Mitchell disclosed that the Obama administration looked to the "Arab peace plan" (the Saudi initiative) of 2002 as a starting point for peace between Israel and the Arab world, including the Palestinians. Mitchell's statement reflected a policy approach which is gathering steam in Washington these days - as evidenced by US President Barack Obama's statements and answers in his joint press conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

In general terms Netanyahu also prefers a regional approach. Both leaders discussed ways and means to buttress the Israel-Arab peace tracks with a participation of others in the Arab world, as Netanyahu put it: "I would like to broaden the circle of peace to include others in the Arab World."

Obviously this regional approach to tackling the Palestinian issue has been reinforced by the common threat from a nuclearizing Iran, though the failure of the Annapolis process has also played a part in the thinking of both the US and Israel about new ideas. Unfortunately, the "contents" of this "plan" in its present form are not particularly encouraging. The focus of the original document was not on peace nor was there any room for negotiations; it was an ultimatum that Israel must accept in its entirety. If Israel rejected it, violence or as Saudi King Abdullah put it, "steadfastness and struggle" would continue. In addition to the outright demand for a full withdrawal from all the "territories" including east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights (all the way to the Sea of Galilee, i.e. areas which Syria had grabbed illegally), the "plan" also unequivocally called for the "return" of Arab refugees.

Prof. Asher Susser of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, explained in an article in Haaretz, "the concluding statement accompanying the publication of the 'peace plan' makes it clear that the Arab leaders adhere to the 'right of return' for the Palestinian refugees, and this was to be the only way to put UN General Assembly Resolution 194" into practice.

In other words, not only would Israel have no right to agree or disagree to the settling of the refugees, it must see this stipulation as the one and only approved version of the pertinent UN resolutions. The "plan" abounds in distortions, presenting UN Security Council Resolution 242 as if it called for an unconditional Israeli withdrawal from all the lands it had seized as a result of the Arab aggression in 1967 - not mentioning that said resolution had made withdrawals subject to security considerations. If this plan were to be realized, Israel would have lost its ability to properly defend itself.

What stands out clearly is that its authors ignored the principle that compromise was a two-way street and that not only Israel would have to make concessions.

The US administration, aware of the many shortcomings and negative aspects of the "plan" in its present form, consequently has taken steps with Arab leaders to introduce changes. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated recently "that the Arabs must through words and deeds show that the spirit of the peace initiative can begin to govern attitudes towards Israel now," while President Obama, in his press conference with the king of Jordan, indicated that though the Arab initiative could be seen as a "constructive beginning," the Arab countries should "demonstrate their commitment to the peace process." After his meeting with Netanyahu, he called on Arab states to "normalize" relations with Israel. A similar statement was made by Vice President Joseph Biden and The New York Times wrote last week that "Mr. Obama should challenge Arab leaders to respond, perhaps by initiating openly acknowledged diplomatic contacts and trade with Israel."

Unfortunately, the Arab peace plan of today has yet to convince Israel that we have a real partner for peace in our region. If the Arabs were ready for genuine, unconditional, negotiations with the object of peace, things could take a turn for the better. (Jpost.com) The writer is a former ambassador to the US. 6

Shlomo Avineri Recently,, more and more voices have been heard saying that the only way to reach an Israeli-Palestinian accord is by talking to Hamas. These voices are not only in Europe but also in the United States. New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, for example, and Brent Sowcroft, who was national security adviser to the first president Bush, have said that without a dialogue with Hamas there will be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And if Israel refuses to do so, the Europeans or the Americans should begin a dialogue with Hamas. Similar statements can also be heard in the margins of Israeli politics.

I believe they are right, but not for the reasons they cite. The question is what to talk to Hamas about.

Israel indeed does speak with them indirectly - about freeing kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit and achieving calm. I believe we must talk to Hamas about other things too, like about what is written in their founding covenant. Most Israelis, as well as the Europeans and Americans, know that Hamas espouses the destruction of Israel. What most of them do not know is that Hamas' founding document includes a much more comprehensive attitude, not merely to Israel and Zionism, but to the Jews.

The prologue to the covenant states that Hamas' aim is a war against the Jewish people at large, since the Jews, and not merely Israel and Zionism, are the enemies of Islam. In order to remove any doubt, the entire chapter 22 is devoted to detailing the iniquities of the Jews.

According to Hamas, the Jews are responsible for all the ills of modern society - the French Revolution; the Communist revolution; the establishment of secret associations (Freemasons, Rotary and Lions clubs, B'nai B'rith) designed to help them gain control of the world by secret means. They control the economy, press and television; they are responsible for the outbreak of World War I, which they initiated in order to destroy the Muslim caliphates (the Ottoman empire), to get the Balfour Declaration and set up the League of Nations with the aim of establishing their state. They also initiated World War II in order to make a fortune from selling war materials; they use both capitalism and communism as their agents. Sound familiar? Yes, some of it is taken directly from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and some, particularly the parts dealing with the world wars, is original.

Don't tell me that these are merely words and Hamas must not be judged only on the basis of its covenant. Would anyone dare say that if a similar movement were to arise in Europe or America and, in addition to statements like these, was busy killing Jews? Compared with what is written in the Hamas covenant, Austria's Joerg Haider and Jean-Marie Le Pen in France are moderates.

It is clear that if a movement like this were to come out of Europe, no one would even imagine proposing that negotiations be held with it, or that it be asked to join a government. It would not merely be declared illegal but denounced by humankind. An abomination like that has no place in any political discourse.

Nevertheless, perhaps it is worthwhile talking to Hamas - not about its contribution to peace but rather about what is stated in its covenant - this would be far more relevant. I am certainly curious to know what those who think Hamas is the key to peace in the Middle East will say about these things.

Perhaps they are actually correct, perhaps Hamas is the key. If that's the case, it's difficult to expect that peace can be established in our region. (haaretz.com) Shlomo Avineri is a Professor of Political Science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Please visit the WIZO website at www.wizo.org Suggested link: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs www.mfa.gov.il, Palestinian Media Watch www.pmw.org.il, Middle East Info Website www.middle-east-info.org, www.teachkidspeace.com/flash.php We welcome your feedback. Please email us at Brendak@wizo.org

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Daniel Taub

A short while ago I met with a group of eminent jurists here on a fact-finding mission, examining Israel's military operation in Gaza. After listening to their concerns and criticisms, I asked them: "Considering the rocket attacks launched against Israel by terrorist groups in Gaza, what in your view would have constituted a lawful response?" The answer was total silence. The notion that international law has no practical advice for a state facing terrorist attacks other than to grin and bear it is increasingly pervasive. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories, issued eight reports on Israel's responses to terrorism and never found a single measure adopted by Israel to be lawful or proportionate. His successor, Richard Falk, recently issued a report that goes one remarkable step further. In the conditions existing in Gaza, he asserts, any Israel military response would be "inherently unlawful." According to Falk, Israel has no right whatsoever to defend itself.

Contrary to these expert's impressions, international law is not a suicide pact - it offers practical guidance to a state seeking to respond responsibly to threats to the lives of its civilians. International law does not require that a state refrain from attacking a missile launcher or a weapons stockpile solely because it has been placed in the heart of a civilian area. This would encourage terrorist organizations to operate from within kindergartens and hospitals. However, it requires an armed force to assess the proportionality of its actions, by measuring anticipated military advantage against civilian harm. This is a tough calculation at the best of times. All the more so when, as in Gaza, Hamas, in clear violation of the humanitarian principle of distinction, booby-trapped civilian areas and concealed its missiles, weapons factories, and headquarters within hospitals, schools, and mosques.

When Hamas chooses to turn densely populated civilian areas in Gaza into their battlefield, Israeli forces make remarkable efforts to act in accordance with international law. These included the dropping of thousands of leaflets, making tens of thousands of phone calls to warn civilians of impending attacks, as well as prefacing attacks with non-lethal weaponry to urge non-combatants to leave. When, in the cynical calculus of Hamas, such warnings were used to round up hundreds of women and children and herd them onto the roofs of terrorist headquarters and weapons factories, the dilemmas became yet more excruciating. On numerous occasions Israel aborted planned attacks against known terrorists because they no longer met the test of proportionality. These are intricate and fateful calculations. Inevitably lessons are to be learned and Israel has launched a series of investigations into various aspects of its operations. Calculations should be made by commanders in the field and not by dispassionate observers. As the Committee Established to Review NATO Bombings in Yugoslavia noted: "It is unlikely that a human rights lawyer and an experienced combat commander would assign the same relative values to military advantage and to injury to non-combatants‌ the determination of relative values must be that of the 'reasonable military commander."

Colonel Richard Kemp CBE, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, interviewed during the Gaza operation and gave his assessment of Israel's performance: "I don't think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza."

In stark contrast to the painful balancing exercise that international law requires of soldiers and legal advisers alike, a group of legal "experts" remains unwilling to grapple with the complexities of conflict situations such as Gaza. There may indeed be attractions to maintaining a pristine ideal of international law, but in practice, it offers a simplistic and unworkable legal model. It absurdly posits that the more irresponsible, illegal, and morally reprehensible the actions of terrorists, the less a state is permitted to do in response. Ultimately the greatest casualty of such an approach will be international law itself.

(Boston Globe) Daniel Taub is a senior legal adviser in Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Editor: Brenda Katten Assistant Editor: Liron Milbar