Here is a much-reduced version:
To give you an idea of how large the full picture is; here is a small slice:
If you want to download the full gigantic picture, it is here (sorry, filehost.to is no longer working - EoZ) It is over 3 MB.
Enjoy!
To give you an idea of how large the full picture is; here is a small slice:
If you want to download the full gigantic picture, it is here (sorry, filehost.to is no longer working - EoZ) It is over 3 MB.
Enjoy!
Ever since the Palestinians began to manufacture and launch locally produced missiles, about four years ago, most of the casualties they have inflicted - dead and wounded - have been Palestinian, and not Israeli.
At the height of Israel's disengagement, Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, said that from the Palestinian perspective the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza signifies the collapse of the Zionist outlook and is "a sign of the final battle that will decide the conflict."
"It is a defeat for Israel, which did not find an answer to the Kassam rockets or the war of the tunnels or to suicide attacks."
Zahar expressed confidence that the disengagement will lift the morale of the Arab and Islamic world and will affect the battle for Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We are part of the great world plan whose name is the world Islamic movement.
"We do not recognize the State of Israel nor its right to control any of the land of Palestine.
"Palestine is holy Islamic land that belongs to Muslims the world over," he emphasized.
Country/region | Population | Area (km2) | Density |
| 449,198 | 25.4 | 17,685 |
| 32,409 | 1.95 | 16,620 |
| 4,425,720 | 692.7 | 6,389 |
| 6,898,686 | 1,092 | 6,317 |
| 27,884 | 6.5 | 4,290 |
| 1,376,289 | 360 | 3,823 |
Tags: Middle East, Palestine, Israel
France has threatened to halt financial and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority unless a French journalist who was kidnapped in Gaza City earlier this week is freed unharmed.
PA officials said the threat was delivered to the PA on behalf of French President Jacques Chirac, who is 'extremely disturbed' by the abduction.
The journalist was identified as Muhammad Ouathi, an Algerian Muslim with French citizenship who was working as a soundman for French Television Channel III.
More than 80 non-governmental organizations on Tuesday called for the immediate release of Ouathi. They also urged the PA to arrest the kidnappers and bring them to trial.
Police, militants clash in Gaza
By MICHAEL MATZA, DION NISSENBAUM AND MARTIN MERZER
Knight Ridder Newspapers
NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip -- Clashes erupted Tuesday between Israeli authorities who stepped up the use of force and militant supporters of the Israeli settlers who faced a midnight to leave their homes in Gaza.
Hundreds of protesters were arrested or detained and several injuries were reported during a sporadic series of shoving matches. Extremists also torched several vehicles, tossed rocks at authorities and threw acid and other caustic agents at them.
The speed and effectiveness with which American military trucks were equipped with armor in Iraq had a lot to do with Israel’s war with Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists. For over a decade, Israeli troops have had to drive trucks through areas containing Islamic terrorists. The ambush methods of these terrorists were similar to those encountered in Iraq, and it was from this experience that Israeli firms developed kits for armoring trucks. These kits included 10mm steel plates, cut and shaped to fit a particular type of truck, plus bulletproof glass for the windshield and windows, and brackets and other hardware needed to attach the armor. Thus when thousands of American military trucks had to get armored in 2003, the Israeli firms had kits already designed. Thus many, if not most, of the American armored trucks in Iraq got that way because of Israeli designed, and often Israeli manufactured, armor kits.
GAZA, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen abducted an Algerian Muslim journalist working for a French television station on Monday, his TV crew said, the latest in a string of kidnappings of foreigners in the Gaza Strip.
Mohamed Ouathi, a soundman for France 3 Television, was walking back to his hotel in Gaza City with his television crew when three unmasked men armed with rifles threatened him, pulled him into their vehicle and drove away.
[...]
Palestinian militants have kidnapped several foreigners in the past in a sign of growing chaos in Gaza, caused mainly by those opposed to reforms President Mahmoud Abbas has carried out in his Fatah group and those protesting against alleged corruption in his government.
On Sunday in Gaza City, Hamas strung blazing green banners: 'Resistance wins,' read one, 'so let's go on.' Around the corner was a banner from the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by a more secular faction, Fatah. 'Gaza today,' it read, 'the West Bank and Jerusalem Tomorrow.' A tag line said the banner was paid for by the United Nations Development Program.Nice to know that the UN is spending its money so wisely. I guess there are no longer any Palestinians who need food or jobs.
Dozens of members of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, some of them armed, stormed into a government building in the West Bank on Saturday to demand jobs, witnesses said.
The incident in the town of Qalqilyah was another sign of growing lawlessness and frustration at lack of economic opportunities in the Palestinian territories.
'We belong to Fatah. We ask you to leave your offices. The offices will be closed until our demands for employment are met. Our protest is peaceful so far,' one of the Fatah members told the employees, who complied immediately.
The Fatah men then closed the offices with chains and locks and departed, leaving several members of the group behind to guard the building. Police did not intervene.
[Abbas] promised during the presidential campaign to boost employment and recruit into PA institutions gunmen who have confronted Israeli forces during a four-and-a-half year uprising. Promised jobs are yet to materialize.
Researchers have developed a pocket-sized device for detecting sub-milligram quantities of peroxide-based explosives such as those reportedly used in the recent bomb attacks in London.
‘We’ve prototyped and tested the peroxide explosives detector (PET) in our laboratories, as well as in field experiments, and it works,’ said PET’s patent holder, Ehud Keinan of Israel’s Haifa Technion. ‘Now it’s ready for commercialisation and use by all law enforcement agencies and anyone dealing with security.’
There is strong interest from some of the world’s top security organisations, Keinan told Chemistry World, although London’s Metropolitan Police counter terrorism unit declined to comment. The new device is the size of a large fountain pen and costs less than £15 per unit.
The PET ‘pen’ shows a strong colour change when any peroxide-based explosive is detected. Suspect material is collected or swiped with a silicone-rubber test pad and inserted into the pen. Three test chemicals are then sequentially injected into the transparent chamber: a suitable organic solvent; followed by an aqueous solution of strong acid, which decomposes any putative explosive and releases hydrogen peroxide; and finally a mixture of a dye and a peroxidase enzyme.
If a peroxide-based explosive is present in the original sample, the solution turns a deep blue-green in about three seconds. Sub-milligram quantities of an explosive can be detected by this pronounced colour change.
‘The simplicity of the chemistry...is beautiful,’ said Andrea Sella, of University College London. He warns, though, that it is probably not suited to the high throughput screening needed by airport security.
Last week the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. announced it would pursue "progressive engagement" with five companies whose activities, in the church's view, contribute "to the ongoing violence that plagues Israel and Palestine." So let's see how evenhanded the church is in its ramped-up activism toward the Middle East.He is of course right, but he misses the fantastic investment opportunities being handed to us by the PCUSA. Based on the Presbyterians' track record, you may want to invest in these four Israel-linked stocks. PCUSA originally targeted Caterpillar in June of 2004, and check out what happened since then (compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average):
Four of the companies - United Technologies, Motorola, Caterpillar and ITT Industries - sell equipment or technology to Israel. The fifth, Citigroup, reportedly transferred money from charities that turned out to be fronts for terrorist groups, a charge Citigroup describes as an "outrage."
In short, the Presbyterian Church will address Palestinian violence by demanding that one company stop doing something it may not even be doing, and which it certainly wouldn't want to do, while it will address Israeli behavior by seeking to strip that country of material essential to fighting and defeating terrorists.
By the church's own description, United Technologies provides helicopters "used in attacks in the occupied territories against suspected Palestinian terrorists." Suspected? Was the Hamas leader Shaikh Ahmad Yasin only "suspected" of engineering terrorism, for example, when Israeli gunships caught up with him last year in Gaza?
The church's anti-Israel position is grounded in the belief that the font of violence in that region is the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, together with Jewish settlements. A 2003 resolution by the church general assembly actually says that "Since the war of June 1967 . . . (the Israeli-Palestinian) conflict has generally been characterized by violence" - as if the period from 1948 to '67 weren't just as bloody.
In the wake of 9/11, there's simply no excuse for misconceiving the ambitions of the Islamic extremists who compose a nontrivial portion of Israel's sworn enemies. It's time for Presbyterian congregations around the country to pull their leadership back from the edge of this moral crater.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -
President Bush says a planned pullout of Jewish settlers from occupied Gaza "will be good for
Israel."
Bush's remarks, in an interview given to Israel's Channel One television and aired on Thursday, appeared to be an attempt to boost Prime Minister Ariel Sharon against Jewish rightists seeking to thwart the withdrawal due to start on Aug. 17.
"I believe the decision that Prime Minister Sharon has made and is going to follow through on will be good for Israel," Bush said, interviewed at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Asked why he thought Israel's "disengagement" from the occupied land would help Israeli security, Bush replied:
"First of all the previous system wasn't working. There was an intifada (Palestinian uprising), there was death, there was killing. And if you notice, there's been a calm in attacks."
Palestinian militants have generally observed a ceasefire since February.
The Israeli reporter asked Bush whether he understood critics who argue the withdrawal will bring more Palestinian violence rather than calm it.
"Oh absolutely, I understand. And I can understand why people think this decision is one that will create a vacuum into which terrorism will flow," Bush replied.
"I happen to disagree. I think this will create an opportunity for democracy to emerge and democracies are peaceful."
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!