Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 08, 2006

Gibberish in the Yemen Times

Either there's some secret message here to the mujahedeen or the Yemen Times will print whatever gibberish comes its way as long as it appears to be anti-Zionist and anti-American.

After reading it a few times, it seems that the author (getting a doctorate in the Arab world is apparently pretty easy) is saying that Jews created Al-Qaeda sometime during the Clinton administration, and tried to get him to kill all American Muslims or something like that. When he balked, the Jews created the Monica Lewinsky scandal to punish him and then convinced Bin Laden to lead their Zionist movement, deceiving him.

The upshot is, as usual, it is all the Jews' fault. As always. Those Jews are so damn smart that only an illiterate Arab PhD is capable of unscrambling their nefarious plans!

Was Bin Laden deceived?
Dr. Abdullateef Al-Adham

“But they worked their plan, and their plan was before God, and their plan was such as would move the mountains”

(Surat Abraham 14-46)

God had depicted the extent to which deception may reach at times. Mountains may diminish under its intensity; leave alone a weak creature like the human being.

We all witnessed on the 11th of September the collapse of one of the buildings of the International Trade Towers in New York, which was followed, by the second one, shortly afterwards. They became just a trace of ruins. They became a rebel that was lately removed. The site of the destroyed towers was given the name ‘ground zero’. We also witnessed the direct impact, which rocked the whole world, with the Islamic world, who was immediately accused, on top.

In fact, what happened on that day was a model to which the conspiracy might amount. What happened was the result of the theory of “civilizations conflict”, which was fabricated by the Zionists’ mind, whose leaders thought that the opportunity of dominating the world had ripened following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yet they think that the only obstacle that hiders their plans is Islam. They attribute this to the significant populace, and civilization. They think of the necessity of directing a destructive blow to it.

The American and British decision makers were convinced with the civilizations conflict theory and its advantages was circulated. The Zionist cupidity was not understood. The Al-Qaeda organization was formed, and some Muslim youth were lured to join it, to carry out some operations that were attributed to it. This was accompanied by exaggerated media campaigns of the role of the organization and its leader Bin Laden.

However, President Clinton’s hesitation, especially in executing an immense attack inside America, hindered a great part of the Zionist project. He was punished for that with the scandals and the shameful prosecutions. Bush agreed to do what Clinton had rejected. He set out to take a number of measures, including the provocation of China and the withdrawal from Durban Human Rights Conference and others. He carried out the 11 September attack, and incidents continued. But Gods prodigy was observing their actions. He disclosed their conspiracy and the theory of conflict of civilizations failed. Yet was Bin Laden aware of the Zionist cupidity? There is a possibility that he was deceived, like the others, but the fact remains that he is a part in a serious crime, engineered by the Zionism. However, God will hinder their intrigue.

Another Nazi-Arab connection

YNet yesterday published a fascinating article about German Nazis arming Palestinian Arabs before World War II, seeing in the Arabs a natural ally:

Historical documents in Britain’s National Archives in London show that Nazi Germany attempted to ship arms to Palestinian forces in the 1930s.
A British Foreign Office report from 1939 reports of “news of a consignment of arms from Germany, sent via Turkey and addressed to Ibn Saud (king of Saudi Arabia), but really intended for the Palestine insurgents.” Britain’s chief military officer in Mandatory Palestine also noted reports “regarding import of German arms at intervals for some years now.”
British documents from the same period, and German records photographed by an American spy and sent to the British government, said that a number of Nazi agents were sent to Mandatory Palestine, in order to forge alliances with Palestinian leaders, and urge them to reject a partition of the land between the Jewish and Arab populations.
German documents photographed and sent to Whitehall by an American spy revealed that in 1937, German officials had calculated that “Palestine under Arab rule would… become one of the few countries where we could count on a strong sympathy for the new Germany.”
“The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great sympathy for the new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy whose value is particularly

high as it is based on a purely ideological foundation,” a Nazi official in Palestine wrote in a letter to Berlin in 1937. He added: “Most important for the sympathies which Arabs now feel towards Germany is their admiration for our Fuhrer, especially during the unrests, I often had an opportunity to see how far these sympathies extend. When faced with a dangerous behaviour of an Arab mass, when one said that one was German, this was already generally a free pass.”

Even more troubling was the fact that Britain decided not to save 20,000 Jewish lives in a shortsighted attempt to stay on the Arabs' good side in Palestine:

The records also show that the news of increased Nazi-Arab cooperation panicked the British government, and caused it to cancel a plan in 1938 to bring to Palestine 20,000 German Jewish refugees, half of them children, facing danger from the Nazis.

Documents show that after deciding that the move would upset Arab opinion, Britain decided to abandon the Jewish refugees to their fate.

“His Majesty’s Government asked His Majesty’s Representatives in Cairo, Baghdad and Jeddah whether so far as they could judge, feelings in Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia against the admission of, say 5,000 Jewish children for adoption… would be so strong as to lead to a refusal to send representatives to the London discussions. All three replies were strongly against the proposal, which was not proceeded with,” a Foreign Office report said.

“If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side,” Britain’s Minister for Coordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.

Britain chose to let thousands (and ultimately, millions) of Jews die rather than upset their Arab "friends" - who were naturally sympathetic to Hitler.

There have been other connections shown between Arabs and Nazis, here and elsewhere. But this story sheds new light on this topic and it has more than just theoretical historical importance.

I would not expect this story to create major headlines around the world, but a search through Google finds that not a single other news outlet has published this story, a full day after Yediot Aharonot uncovered it. Not in England, not in Germany, not in any Arab news source.

More hypocrisy from Dhimmi Carter, Terror Apologist

Jimmah is at it again, showing his clear preference for murderous Palestinian Arab thugs to Israeli Jews.

In his latest execrable piece written for the International Herald Tribune, he writes an insane series of idiotic ramblings to the effect that by not paying Hamas all the money it wants, the world is punishing innocent Palestinian Arabs who only want peace. It "deprives them of their basic human rights" - apparently, paying terrorists is a basic human right according to Carter. He bends over backwards and sideways and inside-out to portray Hamas as a misunderstood group of people who are honorably holding up their end of a cease-fire.

His astonishing ability to ignore explicit Hamas statements praising terror and reading deeply into side comments that could be construed as possibly being less-than-terroristic is perhaps the worst case of wishful thinking trumping reality ever witnessed:

With all their faults, Hamas leaders have continued to honor a temporary cease-fire [really?] , or hudna, during the past 18 months, and their spokesman told me that this "can be extended for two, 10 or even 50 years if the Israelis will reciprocate." Although Hamas leaders have refused to recognize the state of Israel while their territory is being occupied, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed approval for peace talks between Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. He added that if these negotiations result in an agreement that can be accepted by Palestinians, then the Hamas position regarding Israel would be changed.

The upshot of the article is that exerting economic pressure on Hamas is immoral.

Interestingly, Carter has in the past argued that exerting economic pressure on Israel is desirable:

There are two existing factors that offer success to American efforts at persuasion.
One is the legal requirement that American weapons are to be used by Israel only for defensive purposes...
The other persuasive factor is approximately $10 million daily in American aid to Israel.

So here we have it in black and white - Jimmy Carter prefers Hamas terrorists to Israeli Jews.

Could it because the Nobel Prize recipient is also the recipient of millions of Arab dollars?

Crocs vs. Zeeba

In the brilliant (and twisted) Pearls Before Swine comic strip by Stephan Pastis, it seems that the artist has a little symbolism going on with his series of a bunch of crocodiles trying to kill their neighbor, the zebra.

The main themes are that Zebra is very smart, the crocodiles are usually dumb, and often the crocs end up either killing themselves or otherwise failing spectacularly.

The comics can be appreciated more when you realize that almost certainly (but perhaps subconsciously on the artist's part), Zebra represents Israel and the crocodiles are Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Here is a recent series that demonstrates this (notice the punchline at the end):

The idea that the artist is passionately pro-Israel and anti-terror is apparent from this uncharacteristically somber strip from December of 2003:

Stephan Pastis, for his part, does not divulge any symbolic meaning to the crocs. But to my mind at least, the battle is remarkably consistent the Palestinian Arab war against Jews. Today's strip even includes the religious dimension of the terrorists:

Even if I'm wrong (and I don't think I am), it adds a bit to my enjoyment of the strip.

The precarious state of Iranian Jews

From the Scotsman:

FOR the dwindling Jewish community in Iran, a sacred ritual is observed at 6.30 every evening as shortwave radios are switched on to listen to the daily Farsi broadcast from Israel.

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power last June, life for Iran's 25,000 Jews has become even more precarious as the president defiantly pursues a nuclear policy while declaring Israel should be "wiped off the world map".

Israel has long identified Iran as its biggest threat, and these concerns have grown amid repeated calls by its hard-line president for Israel's destruction.

Last Thursday, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert issued a strongly worded warning that the Jewish state took seriously Iranian threats to wipe out Israel and would defend itself against a country the West suspects of seeking nuclear weapons.

His remarks also came as Western powers sought action by the United Nations to curb Iranian uranium enrichment and other key nuclear processes. "It is becoming a serious matter of concern for Iranian Jews should there be any military action between Iran and Israel," said Israeli broadcaster Menashe Amir.

"The Iranian regime says it does distinguish between Judaism and Zionism, but the local Jewish community knows that is a lie since it has been frequently written by extremists in religious circles that 'every Jew is a Zionist'."

While it is still the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel, a vast number of the population have fled Iran.

The first major movement came in 1948 when the state of Israel was established and the number of Jews in Iran stood at about 150,000. The Islamic revolution in 1979 prompted another movement.

"Every Iranian Jew who had the financial possibility or courage has already left, but there's still a small but flourishing community," said Amir, who moved to Israel from Iran at the age of 20 in 1959. He has been broadcasting for 46 years in Farsi for Israeli state radio.

He is all too familiar with the precarious position of Iranian Jews who are called on by the government to declare their public support for the country's nuclear policy.

"Not to mention, every time Iran publicly condemns Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories, the Jewish community is expected to issue a statement of support," he said.

Even though the regime officially recognises Judaism as an official religious minority and the Jewish community is even allocated a seat in the Iranian parliament, the reality on the ground is different.

Jewish leaders are reluctant to draw attention to incidences of mistreatment of their community, due to fear of government reprisal, along with fear of being arrested or accused of being spies. In 1999, 13 Jews were arrested in the city of Shiraz and charged with spying for Israel. While eventually all were pardoned, it exposed the fragile position of the country's Jewish community.

"While there are Jewish schools, the principals and most of the teachers are Muslim, the Bible is taught in Farsi, not in Hebrew, and the schools are forced to open on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath," Amir said, as he played Hebrew music for his listeners.

"So while the regime declares that there is freedom of religion, it is all just for the sake of appearances."

Any resemblance is purely coincidental

Gaza City rally for Hamas:

Nuremburg rally for Nazism:

Let's see:
They both want to pretend to be oppressed by powerful Others.
They both want to replace democracy with a totalitarian state.
They both want to place the entire world under their control.
They both glamorize death.
They both like that cool salute.
They both spend a lot of time on organized rallies to brainwash their populations.
They both rely on repeating lies over and over again.
They both regard the free world as their enemy, while they want to get as much money as they can from that same capitalistic society.
They both want to slaughter every Jew alive.

All just a coincidence, I'm sure.

6M African Muslims convert to Xtianity annually

A fascinating translation of an interview at Al-Jazeerah in 2003 (original Arabic no longer on the site.) (Hat tip American Thinker via Iris.)

It looks like the "fastest growing religion" may have been overstating the case, and there is panic in the Muslim world as to the huge number of African Muslims converting to Christianity.

Maher Abdallah:
Dear viewers, peace of Allah be upon you, greetings and welcome to a new episode of the program Islamic Law and Life.

Our topic this evening will be Christianization in the Dark Continent ... Africa. For after Islam was the religion of the majority, the great majority of that continent, the number of Muslims now is no greater than a third of the population. This is taking into consideration, of course, that a large portion of this group are Arab Muslims. No doubt that the missions of evangelization and Christianization played a great role in this demographic shift of Muslims in the continent.

To discuss this topic, it is my pleasure to introduce today a man who is an expert on the issue of evangelization and Christianization in Africa, even though he will concentrate on the issue of Christianization first and foremost…. Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani; the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, which is an institution specializing in graduating imams and Islamic preachers.

Sheikh Ahmad, welcome to you on the program.

Ahmad Al Katani:
Greeting to you.

Maher Abdallah:
If we start by inquiring about your strict stance against the Christian missions in Africa, don’t the followers of every religion have the right to seek new converts, exactly as you train and graduate young Muslims to propagate Islam?

Ahmad Al Katani:
I seek refuge in Allah the Seer, the Knower, from the stoned devil. In the name of Allah the Merciful the Beneficent. Thanks to Allah the One, the Only, the Permanent One, who did not give birth nor was born, to whom no one was equal. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah who has no partners, and I bear witness that our master Muhammed – Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him - is his messenger and seal of prophets; Allah prayers be upon him and his brothers the prophets and messengers and their families.

The question that you pose is a result of not comprehending the difference between the concept of Christianization and the concept of evangelism.

The concept of evangelism: is inviting the non-Christians to the Christian or Nazarene religion, and this is the right of every Christian and the right of every believer to call others to his faith. However, we are talking about a different matter; which is Christianization. Christianization means the following: preparing plans, and executing these plans and evolving these plans to change Muslims into Christians by taking advantage of the ignorance and poverty (of the people) and whatever necessitates from similar circumstances.

So, we are faced with the issue of taking advantage of circumstances, taking advantage of humanitarian needs, taking advantage of the lack of education for example, that these people (missionaries) use to take Muslims out of their religion.

Maher Abdallah:
Fine. This is a big and dangerous phrase. Taking advantage of poverty, of ignorance, of lack of education, of some need is something that a Muslim can also be accused of. So if you don’t back up what you say with examples, with references, your words remain in the air without much weight to them.

Ahmad Al Katani:
The reality is that these words say a lot less than they should. As we said in the beginning, everyone has the right to invite others to his religion; this is what is known as evangelism (or proselytizing). As for Christianization, no one has the right to take Muslims out of their religion, and you asked for references and the references are too numerous.

Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa. So in the section of Africa that we are talking about, the non Arab section, the number of Muslims does not exceed 150 million people. When we realize that the entire population of Africa is one billion people, we see that the number of Muslims has diminished greatly from what it was in the beginning of the last century. On the other hand, the number of Catholics has increased from one million in 1902 to 329 million 882 thousand (329,882,000). Let us round off that number to 330 million in the year 2000.

As to how that happened, well there are now 1.5 million churches whose congregations account for 46 million people. In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed …..

It is a long transcript including questions from callers. One Christian caller was lectured as to how Christianity is more bloodthirsty than Islam.

The problem with the BBC

The BBC just completed a third-party study on how impartial its coverage is of the Israeli/Palestinian Arab conflict.

There seems some disagreement as to what the conclusions are (the Times claimed the study concluded that BBC coverage favored Israel, which does not seem to be quite true.) There was one welcome recommendation that the BBC use the word "terrorism" when appropriate.

From reading the report itself, it is obvious that the authors tried very hard to ensure that the BBC's coverage was "balanced." In fact, that was one of the purposes of the report:

...[T]he BBC [is] committed, as our terms of reference make clear, to fairness, impartiality and balance. (While fairness and impartiality are legal requirements, balance is a concept adopted by the BBC in seeking to give effect to them.)

And much of the report details suggestions on how exactly to get balanced reporting out of an asymmetrical conflict.

The problem is that the premise is wrong.

Israel's legitimacy is not a valid topic for a balanced debate any more than that of Great Britain. Terrorism's legitimacy is similarly not a valid topic for debate. Any sensible person makes reasonable assumptions that the fundamental moral basis of the reporter is somewhat similar to the reader. These moral absolutes make "impartiality" in itself immoral.

To give a specific example, the report mentions that BBC coverage favors multiple Israeli deaths in terror attacks compared to multiple Palestinian Arabs killed in Israeli attacks (in terms of time given and percentage of incidents reported). The point is that this imbalance needs to be addressed.

That is absurd. There is a huge difference in motive for the killings, and that difference is the difference between morality and immorality. If motive is not important, one would expect the BBC to cover every auto accident in England with as much airtime as an assassination of a Prime Minister. Nobody but the far Left and Arab terror apologists claim that Israel targets civilians, while the Arabs themselves celebrate the murder of Israeli and Western civilians. The very idea that the coverage of both events deserve the same sympathy is in itself immoral.

Nobody is saying that the BBC should not provide in-depth analysis of the conflict, nor that it shouldn't cover anything from the Palestinian Arab viewpoint. But "balance" is immoral.

A more basic premise that is wrong in this report is that the conflict is between Israel and Palestinian Arabs. If the conflict is framed in such terms, it is easy to make Israel look like the big bully with the huge advantage in strength. This idea is so ingrained in the world psyche that even the BBC, striving for impartiality (and it truly appears to be trying) cannot see the forest for the trees.

It is not a conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israel. It is a conflict between the entire Arab world and Israel. (One can plausibly argue that it is a single battle in the conflict between Islam and the West as well.)

The Palestinian Arab people are not in great shape, but the idea that they have been pawns in the geopolitical and military power play between the entire Arab world and Israel is not addressed by most news outlets. The basic question of whether the Arabs want independence for their Palestinian brethren, or the destruction of Israel, is not addressed. When framed this way, the "conflict" can be seen in an entirely new, and more accurate, light.

But the world has been brainwashed into accepting the idea of a Palestine-centric conflict, and this fundamentally affects how the news is reported. If the BBC and other news outlets truly want to be fair, accurate and balanced, they need to look beyond the incorrect framing that is implicit in the BBC report itself.

If you cannot define the issues correctly to begin with, you cannot dream to cover them accurately.

Humanitarian crisis, part 6

Buried in an article about the brewing civil war between Hamas and Fatah comes this small item:

Hamas recently bought a black market shipment of 100,000 bullets after outbidding Fatah, according to one official involved in the negotiations.

According to this article, last fall after the Israeli abandonment of Gaza black-market AK-47 bullets there were going for a little less than a dollar apiece.

Once again, the poor Palestinian Arabs are forced to forgo food and medicine just to be able to afford the real necessity of life - ammunition. Human rights organizations and NGOs must go in immediately and make sure that they can get food, medicine and bullets.

(Part 5 here.)

Another Fatah training pic

Recruits for Fatah drill how to act when they are caught by IDF soldiers.

Reuters' fawning coverage of Hamas

Today, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal gave a speech at Damascus University.

Reuters made it look like he was considering peace with Israel, as long as certain conditions are met, with Israel's response seeming irrational and hardline:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) By Khaled Yacoub Oweis - Hamas could reciprocate Israeli moves toward peace if the Jewish state agrees to withdraw from all lands occupied in 1967 and acknowledges Palestinian rights, the group's political leader Khaled Meshaal said on Wednesday.

But Israel's president reiterated that talks with the Hamas-led Palestinian government could not commence unless it renounced violence, recognized the Jewish state and interim Palestinian peace deals with it.

"If Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem, acknowledges the right of return, lifts its siege, dismantles the settlements and the wall and releases the prisoners, then it is possible for us as Palestinians and Arabs to make a serious step to match the Zionist step," he said.

Meshaal, who is in exile in Syria, told a packed auditorium at Damascus University that there was "no chance for a compromise" unless Israel fulfilled such conditions and because it was unlikely to do so in the near future, the Palestinians had no option but to resist occupation.

The further you read the article, the more that Reuters' grudgingly admits that Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction and was behind many terror attacks. But in newspapers, the first couple of paragraphs are the important ones, and Reuters chooses to whitewash Hamas in the lead.

Reuters' duplicity does not end there. Meshaal made another couple of interesting statements during the same speech at the university, but apparently Reuters did not consider these other topics newsworthy.

AFP highlighted part of the speech that escaped the Reuters' reporter's attention:

Hamas supremo [sic] Khaled Meshaal has defended Palestinian suicide bombings as a "natural right" while denouncing what he called Washington's ambitions to dominate the Middle East.

"Our enemies ... don't understand that a suicide operation ... is a natural right," the exiled leader told students in Damascus, adding that Palestinians live "under Israeli occupation and have the right to fight and defend themselves".

Philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries defined a number of natural rights, like life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Meshaal the supremo's addition to that list seems worth mentioning.

UPI also attended the same speech, and found another item to put in the lead of the story:

DAMASCUS, Syria, May 3 (UPI) -- Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal deplored the financial blockade averting payment of salaries to Palestinian Authority employees as a "real holocaust."

The Damascus-based Meshaal told a gathering at Damascus University Wednesday that "the Arab League and the Palestinian government are trying to coordinate the transfer of the salaries of some 164,000 employees through private accounts without success."

He said he had told a foreign diplomat in the Syrian capital that what is happening to the Palestinians in the occupied territories "is the real holocaust and a crime taking place in broad daylight."

So we have three news agencies attending the same speech. Two of them clearly imply that the speaker's opinions are off-the-wall insane, while one of them makes him look like a risk-taker for peace - and ignores any part of his speech that would give one the opposite impression.

Proud to be a Zionist (5766 edition)

I wrote an essay a few years ago that I posted here last year called "Proud to be a Zionist." For this Yom Ha'Atzmaut, I thought it is time to update it.

In prayers every morning Jews say a phrase praising G-d, describing Him as המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית - He who continually renews the act of Creation. In other words, the Jewish concept of G-d has him in an active role keeping the universe running, and as such it is appropriate to praise Him.

It is a little hard to conceptualize this idea, that the very laws of physics, of the world turning and revolving around the sun is not automatic, but only occurs due to the constant will of G-d. But perhaps it is easier to understand this phrase if we apply it to the modern state of Israel.

Every single day that the Jewish state continues to exist cannot be explained adequately with historical or social or military reasons. Which means that we are witnessing a miracle every day.

This was a hard year for Zionists. It was an especially hard year for religious Zionists. Yet when we step back and look at the big picture, Israel remains something to be very proud of.

Yes, I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, just like any other country.

I am proud of how the IDF is conducting itself during the current war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet, save the US, that would try to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened and murdered in cold blood. We may argue whether the IDF's moral standards end up being counterproductive, but what other army could one even have this discussion about?

I am proud of how the IDF is performing doing the most difficult type of battle, that of looking house to house for terrorists, while maintaining amazing professionalism under fire and minimizing its own casualties. I defy anyone to find any other nation who has performed as well -- and as ethically -- as Israel has done during the current conflict.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while in a constant war situation. Any other nation, again besides the US, would have imposed martial law to maintain peace.

I am proud of how Israeli citizens are going through their day to day lives, even while knowing that a despicable terrorist can still make it in to their hometowns.

I am proud of how many terror attacks have been thwarted by the Israeli police and citizens, and how many lives have been saved. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous.

I am proud that Israel will investigate any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keep trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the Palestinian people. And over the years of the "intifada" we can see that the number of civilians killed accidentally by Israel has gone down dramatically. I challenge anyone to find an example of a country that was as restrained under these circumstances as Israel has been.

I am proud that Israel takes steps to stop vigilante actions from its own citizens living in impossible conditions.

And, of course, I am proud of Israel's many accomplishments in building up a desert wasteland into a thriving and vibrant modern country, with its many scientific achievements, world class universities and culture. In a short period of time Israel made itself into a strong yet open nation that its neighbors can only dream of becoming.

I am proud that the vast majority of Americans support Israel as I do, and that the rabid terror-lovers we see on the Internet are the aberration.

Right after the Jewish prayer phrase I quoted above is this one: מה רבו מעשיך ה , "How great are Your works, O G-d." It is easy to find faults but in the big picture, the accomplishments are remarkable and need to be highlighted.

There is a right and a wrong in this conflict, and I am proud that Israel is in the right.

Good news: Israeli breakthrough in solar power

More good news....

As the world continues to become more and more dependent on fossil fuels, with the US alone consuming 17 million barrels each day, the question of the future looms larger every day: What is the world going to do when oil runs out?

Solar power has usually been dismissed as a possible answer to the problem because of its high cost and relatively low efficiency. But a new type of solar power cell being developed in Israel by one of the world's foremost experts in the field promises to change that.

In Professor David Faiman's world of concentrator photovoltaic cells (CPV cells), solar power just might be the answer to the fuel dilemma.

"Traditional photovoltaic cells do two things: collect sunlight and generate electricity from it," said Faiman of Ben-Gurion University's Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research in Sde Boker. "What we've done is simply split those two functions, so that the sunlight is collected and concentrated by a dish-shaped mirror, and a small number of concentrator cells generate electricity from that highly concentrated sunlight. Photovoltaic material is far too expensive to waste on something that can be accomplished with cheap glass and steel."

Faiman's apparatus, which resembles an enormous satellite dish, rises high above his modest offices in the middle of the Negev desert. Each of the dish's mirrors can concentrate the sun's energy by a factor of about 20 before reflecting it up to the solar cells that hang suspended over the apex of the dish. When all 50 of the mirrors used for the project are uncovered (sometimes only one or two are used for testing purposes), the cells are on the receiving end of the light of a thousand suns.

The dish, which weighs about 10 tons, is wheel-mounted onto a rotating base so that it can turn around, following the sun over the course of a day. The dish's motors move it using a minute amount of the power that it generates.

A recent Faiman research paper analyzed the weather conditions in California and the southwestern United States, concluding that the economics of building concentrator solar power plants there were nothing short of phenomenal. The paper was published in a journal called Energy Policy instead of Faiman's usual Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells because he thought that "there's more of a chance Governor Schwarzenegger will pay attention to a journal with the name Energy Policy."

"This kind of power plant will cost a little less than $1,000 per kilowatt to build, which is exactly the same as the cost of current fossil fuel plants - except that you wouldn't have to buy any fuel," Faiman told ISRAEL21c. "If the electricity were sold at Israel's going rate of nine cents per kilowatt-hour, the profit margin would be such that the entire investment in solar energy infrastructure could be paid off within twenty years. And all that while, the country could be building more solar power plants using some of the profit from existing ones."

Time for good news for a change...

It was the largest, most impressive port in the Roman Empire when it was inaugurated in 10 BCE. And some 2,016 years later, the ancient port of Caesarea - along the Mediterranean coast of Israel - was inaugurated again last week, this time as the world's first underwater museum.

Divers can now don their wet suits and tour the sign-posted remains of the magnificent harbor built by King Herod to honor his Roman patron, Caesar Augustus. The site has been excavated over the last three decades by a team led by the late Prof. Avner Raban of the University of Haifa's Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies.

It's not your ordinary museum tour. Visitors float from one 'exhibit' to the next, marveling in silence at the untouched remains of a once-glorious harbor: a Roman shipwreck, a ruined lighthouse, an ancient breakwater, the port's original foundations, anchors, pedestals.

"It's a truly unique site," said Sarah Arenson, a University of Haifa maritime historian and participant in the project. "This port was built as the state-of-the-art port of the Roman Empire, and made the other ports of the time, including those of Rome, Alexandria and Piraeus, look small and out-of-date by comparison."

Arenson notes that the port is also unique today: "There are no other ancient ports in the world that are accessible to ordinary divers," she told ISRAEL21c. Some such ports are restricted to authorized scientists. Others may be open to any diver, but would be meaningless to such visitors "because," explains Arenson ,"all you would see is a bunch of stones."

At Caesarea, divers view some 36 different sign-posted sites along four marked trails in the sunken harbor covering an area of 87,000 sq. yards They are given a water-proof map which describes in detail each of the numbered sites along the way (currently maps are in English and Hebrew; within a few months they will be available in six additional languages.) One trail is also accessible to snorkelers. The others, ranging from 7 to 29 feet below the surface, close to the beach, are appropriate for any beginner diver.

And what does the visitor see?

In a sense, an abrogated history of this once prominent port town - from its entrance at sea (about 350 feet from the current shoreline) to the Roman shipwreck that signaled the demise of the port, probably due to an earthquake, about a century after its construction, researchers believe. And, in between, divers can view the remnants of the original foundations that made this harbor one of the wonders of the Roman Empire.

Time for a new look

I think it needs some tweaking but I was getting sick of the old layout.

Any feedback is appreciated.

UPDATE: Back to the drawing board! It looks like I had optimized it for something like 1280x1024 :) So I went back to the old layout, changed to a sans-serif font, and put up a different masthead for now.