Just as crucial is to address the hatred and lies that are driving this violence. In particular, what must be combated with the utmost vigour is the Muslim culture of grievance, the belief that the West is engaged in a conspiracy to attack and destroy the Islamic world.
This delusion has meant that many Muslims misrepresent Islamist aggression as self-defence, and the West's attempt to defend itself as aggression. This double-think means that Britain is itself blamed for the attacks mounted upon it.
David Gilmour is bemused by Roger Waters' graffiti.Khilafah.com trots out yet another article saying that Muslims aren't anti-semitic, only anti-Zionist. Then they try to prove that Zionists have always been anti-Islam, using mostly fabricated and out-of-context quotes from Israel's founders. Yet all the pseudo-quotes talk about Arabs, not Muslims!
A must-read article about a reporter going undercover to a Jihad-infested suburb of Leeds, England.
But his kindness to me was coupled with a darker outlook on the wider world. I was shocked when one day at the Hamara centre he began explaining how the London bombers could be seen as martyrs.
“The western mind and the Muslim mind are two different psychologies,” he said. “The Muslim mind will see that this life means nothing unless I sacrifice myself for Allah.”
Inside I flinched, but outwardly I nodded with a look of sympathy. I did not want him to close up as much of the community had done after last summer’s attacks. I wanted him to speak honestly.
“My life means nothing, you know,” he continued. “I would give up this evil, two-seconds of a life.” Earthly experience, I think he meant, was but a moment compared with paradise to come.
Later he went on to eulogise Abdullah Faisal, a firebrand Islamic cleric who was imprisoned in 2003 for inciting the murder of Jews. Faisal, said to have been a strong influence on the 7/7 bombers, has advocated the spreading of Islam “by the Kalashnikov” and declared that one aim of jihad is to “lessen the population of unbelievers”.
To Ghani, the cleric was “one of the good ones” and he advised me where I might obtain recordings of his sermons.
Once again, I felt as if I had entered a strange bubble, a world where the reality I had known before had been suspended. Bham then asked me if I would ever blow myself up for Islam. I replied that the Koran says you should not harm innocent people.
“What Koran was that?” he countered. “Don’t fool yourself by saying jihad is a struggle within, to get on with life, to motivate myself to get up for prayers and that sort of thing,” he said. “That’s not jihad. Who told you that?”
Even after these experiences, the reporter looks atthis as merely a social problem. He doesn't seem to make the leap that the next 9/11 bomber is likely to come from a place like this, the middle of a Western town.
JAKARTA (AP): Indonesia has pulled out of a planned Fed Cup tennis match in Israel to protest against Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
"We are witnessing a military invasion by Israel and the arrest of scores of Palestinian officials," spokesman Desra Percaya said. "It is now impossible to play there," he said.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, earlier asked that the venue be changed to another country, because Jakarta has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
But in May, the Indonesian government said it would allow the team to travel to Israel to contest the tennis playoff, scheduled for July 15-16.
Indonesia strongly supports Palestine freedom from the Israel's occupation. The Zionist regime is supported unconditionally by the United States. The U.S. is Israel's main source of weapons being used to terrorize the Palestinians. (***)
I am fascinated by the last paragraph. While AP is credited for the story, clearly they didn't write the last paragraph. (Perhaps the three asterisks symbolizes that.) And if you look elsewhere for the story, lo and behold, we see much more information that the Jakarta Post did not bother to copy from the original AP article:
Indonesia has long supported Palestinian independence and suggestions that ties with the Jewish state be restored are routinely met by large street protests and criticism from religious leaders.
Israel and Indonesia have matched up in the women's Fed Cup twice -- in 1974 in Italy and in Japan in 1981. Israel defeated Indonesia both times.
Indonesia must win July's playoff to stay in World Group II.
An Indonesian tennis official said earlier this year that if the team did not play the match then it would be fined and banned from the competition for one year.
In London at Wimbledon, the International Tennis Federation said that it had not been officially informed of the Indonesian decision and would make no comment.
In 1997, Morocco refused to go to Israel to compete in a European-African zone Davis Cup match. Morocco was allowed to compete in the Davis Cup the following year after an ITF management committee said it took into account unrest in Israel at the time, which it said affected the Muslim community.
As a result of its withdrawal, Morocco had to forfeit its match against Israel and was relegated to a lower group in the zone.
Perhaps what was really bothering the Indonesians was this quote from Haaretz last month:
"The event is one of political importance, as a means of improving the relations between the two countries," Hefetz said.
An Iranian student holds a piece of stone to show solidarity with the Palestinian uprising during the demonstration in front of Palestinian embassy in Tehran July 4, 2006. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi (IRAN)
Well, if it wasn't for Reuters, I would have missed the stone.
Usually, wire service captions include at least one more sentence of clarifying or background material. You know, something like "The student is wearing the colors of the Hamas terror group."Or "Iranians often compare Zionism to Nazism at the same time that they deny any Nazi atrocities against Jews."
Or "The sign that takes up half of this photograph is irrelevant to the Reuters editors."
Kahira Sa'adi, a mother of four children, and Sanaa Shachada, 27 bought flowers in order to disguise themselves as civilians on Mother's Day when a terrorist blew himself up on King George Street in Jerusalem on 21.3.02 killing three Israeli civilians and wounding tens of others.
Kahira Sa'adi, 26 married and mother of four, resident of Al-Ram confessed in her investigation that she brought to Jerusalem the suicide bomber who executed the terrorist attack. Kahira mentioned in her investigation that Abad Al Karim Avis, one of the senior terrorists of the Fatah terrorist organization who was arrested in the Jenin refugee camp became acquainted with Kahira, and requested from her to exploit her western looks and smuggle a suicide bomber into Jerusalem.
She also confessed that after the terrorist attack on King George Street, she agreed to transfer another suicide bomber into Jerusalem with a larger explosive belt.
Sana Shachada, 27 from the Kalandia refugee camp confessed in her investigation that together with Kahira Sa'adi she was involved in the smuggling of a suicide bomber.
Sana also said in her investigation that she was a friend and supporter of Neazar Shavish, a senior terrorist of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Jenin. Shavish was arrested by security forces and was contacted in order to help in the smuggling of a terrorist into Jerusalem.
She also confessed that at a checkpoint to the entrance of the city she bought flowers, holding them in order to be assimilated better among those crossing, as it was Mother's Day the day of the attack. She also said in her investigation that before she entered the city with Shavish, Shavish stepped back at a distance of 50 meters from Kahira Saidi and the suicide bomber because she wore an Arab traditional garment and did not want to stir any suspicion.
Daah Jeyosi, a 21 year old student who smuggled a suicide bomber into the city of Netanya checked other possibilities of carrying out a terrorist attack in the area of the boardwalk and the mall, but finally selected the local market. The result was the murder of three Israeli civilians and wounding fifty nine civilians on 19.5.02:
Daah Jeyosi, a 21 year old student from Tulkarem, confessed in her investigation that she was asked by terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from Shechem to smuggle the terrorist who executed the suicide bombing. Daah mentioned that she was asked by a terrorist if she is ready to carry out a suicide bombing of her own. Daah refused to sacrifice herself but she did express readiness to participate in the implementation of a terrorist attack.
She also said to the terrorist that she is familiar with the city of Netanya and in particular the coastline.(She would drive there many times before the Intifada). Daah was asked to be escorted to the suicide bomber and tell him to appear as innocent as possible.
On day of the attack, Daah entered the city wearing a white tight shirt and tight pants, with sunglasses, carrying a brown purse and a ribbon tied to her hair. When arriving at the entrance to the market, Daah left the taxi and examined the place. Later in which, she requested from the driver that he wait at the entrance of the market. Daah requested from the taxi driver to wait about 5 minutes in order that she will be able to flee with the taxi and only after operating the explosive device that she carried in her purse. Daah returned to the taxi, and after a few minutes there was the explosion.
Arin Achmad, a 20 year old student wore tight pants and a stomach bearing shirt in an attempt to disguise her Palestinian Arab origin in order to help the suicide bomber, aged 17 execute a suicide bombing in Rishon Lezion on 22.5.02. In the terrorist attack, many civilians were murdered and many were wounded:
Arin Achmad, a 20 year old student from Beit Sahour, was supposed to take part in a suicide bombing that was carried out in Rishon Lezion. Together with Isa Badir, a 17 year old terrorist who in the end executed the attack, Arin brought to the area of the planned terrorist attack Ibrahim Sarachana and his wife Irana. The original plan was that Issa would blow himself up adjacent to the tables of backgammon where people sat around.
Arin Ahmed would wait on the other side of the road then explode herself with the explosive device on the people who will flee from panic alongside the other side of the street. The explosive devices were placed in the purses which Arin and Isa carried, each weighing about 35 kilograms. The explosive device was detonated by a switch where a stick in the purse was connected to strings.
Arin said that when she saw the place where she was to blow herself up, she changed her mind and requested to return back. Before she carried out the terrorist attack she wrote a departing letter to her family, purifying herself and prayed and was photographed by a video camera. In order to present herself as an Israeli in order not to stir any suspicion, she wore tight pants and a stomach bearing shirt.
Norah Anam, 16 attempted to stab an IDF soldier at the Taibeh checkpoint on 24.2.02:
Norah Anam,16, a resident of Tul Karem attempted to carry out a terrorist attack by attempting to stab an IDF soldier at the Taibeh checkpoint near Tulkarem. Norah Anam left her house during the evening hours of the night, without the knowledge of her children, and crossed the checkpoint in order carry out a terrorist attack and stab an IDF soldier.
The forces at the checkpoint opened fire in her direction in order to thwart the terrorist attack which ended in the death of the terrorist. The Fatah terrorist organization claimed responsibility of sending Norah to carry out the terrorist attack.
Imao Asah, 27, married and the mother of two children placed an explosive device in the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station on 3.8.01:
Iman Asah, 27 from Shechem, married and mother of two children placed an explosive device at the Tel Aviv central bus station on 3.8.01. The explosive device was discovered by security forces before it had the chance to explode. Iman consented to the request of her husband who was suspected of collaborating with Israel, to execute a terrorist attack of placing an explosive device in order to "clear his name", as well to improve his family relations.
Iman's brother, known as a Fatah terrorist was also behind the terrorist attack attempt. Iman and her husband were arrested by Israeli security forces after attempting to execute the attack.
Tahani Titi, 24 intended to commit suicide due to her disappointing life but was saved by terrorist organizations in order to carry out a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians in September of 2001:
Tahani Titi , 24 a graduate was detained by security forces after she attempted to execute a suicide bombing. In her investigation she said that in September 2001 she met Valid Tzabich, a wanted Tanzim terrorist from Bethlehem who was killed in an initiated activity by security forces.
The connection between Tahini and Valid was destined originally for the purpose of marriage but when she understood that he would run after women, Tahiti canceled the marriage proposal and maintained contact with him via telephone only. In June of 2002, Tahiti lost hope of her life at her father's home so she decided to put an end to her life.
Valid originally tried to motivate her not to act such and claimed that as long as she wishes to die, it would be preferable to do it for something good. Valid indicated to Tahiti to establish contact with two Tanzim terrorists in Ramallah who will help her execute a suicide bombing. After a number of days, it was discovered that the terrorists from Ramallah were arrested and so the suicide terrorist attack was postponed. At the end of June, Tahini tried to commit suicide by taking pills, but failed. She mentioned that she wanted to end her life not for nationalistic reasons, but on her father's account who repeatedly hit her and did not love her since she started university.
She also said that she did not hate Jews and her visits in Israel were all for the good and was impressed by how the Israelis lead free lives. The case of Tahini constitutes a classic example of the cynical abuse by terrorist groups of exploiting the young and innocent who have sensitive marital issues.
Teoraya Chamor, 26- her family refused her to marry and as a result she decided to execute a suicide bombing:
Teoraya Chamor, 26, from Jaba was arrested in Beit Dudata in Tulkarem while on her way to execute a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. In her investigation she said that four months before her arrest she knew Monir Chalava who asked her to marry him.
Teoraya's family had not allowed her to marry him and as a result she decided to commit suicide in a terrorist attack. Later she made contact with Tanzim terrorists from Jaba and Shechem who prepared her to carry out a terrorist attack. According to the plan she was to travel from Nablus to Tal from there to Kalandia and to east Jerusalem and eventually reach western Jerusalem and blow herself up in a crowded place. In the apartment in Shechem the explosive belt was measured which was used to dress the body and gave her a detailed briefing on how to activate the explosive belt and the explosive device that she would carry. Additionally, her operators decided to equip her with a purse full of nails which weighed 35 kilograms.
She learned how to press the button which operated the explosive device. Teoraya regretted carrying out the attack in the last moment and claimed that her operators gave her orders to dress in the modern provocative clothes similar to the Israeli woman among other things, such as scattered hair, heavy makeup and tight pants.
Shafa Alkadsi, a 26 year old and mother of a gilr planned to wear maternity clothing in order to conceal the explosive device she was to wear. She was arrested by security forces on 11.4.02:
Shafa Alkadsi, a 26 year old Tanzim terrorist from Tulkarem, a divorcee and mother was found on 11.4.02, a day after a withdrawal of IDF forces from Tulkarem (the end of the Defensive Shield Operation), by her parents' apartment when she was supposed to execute the next day a suicide bombing.
In her investigation, she confessed that she was supposed to execute a triple suicide bombing together with another young person. Shafa planned to wear on her body an explosive belt under the cover of a maternity dress in order not arouse any suspicion.
Together with her, another young person was supposed to wear an explosive belt and an explosive device which he was to conceal at the designated place before the attack. The plan was that Shafa would blow herself up first and later when there will be a cluster of people at the scene, the second bomber will then blow himself up subsequently detonating the explosive device.
Shafa even prepared a will and testament declaring her leaving her daughter and family. The arrest of Shafa by Israeli security forces thwarted her attempt to execute the suicide bombing and prevented fatalities and many injured people. Her brother was arrested in February of 2002 on his way to carry out a suicide bombing.
A 15 year old girl from Bethlehem turned to her uncle, manufacturer of explosive devices saying she was willing to execute a terrorist attack in Israel:
A 15 year old girl from Bethlehem, was arrested by IDF forces as they entered the city during the Defensive Shield Operation. She confessed that she was drafted to the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, an offshoot of the Fatah terrorist organization by her uncle, a senior Tanzim terrorist and manufacturer of explosive devices from Bethlehem.
Additionally, she said that she addressed her uncle and expressed her readiness to execute a suicide bombing in Israel. Her uncle promised her that he will take care of the explosive belt and requested from her to enlist additional girls for suicide bombings.
Her younger sister discovered her sister's plan and threatened to tell authorities. The two threatened the younger sister not to tell their father after she would leave school. The sister confessed and told the two that she made contact with Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorists. After a number of days, again her plan to commit suicide was discovered by her uncle, but explained to her that in the aftermath of the United States' proclamation of Tanzim as a terrorist group they will not willingly allow them to involve women in suicide attacks.
Iman Abu Chutza, 21, crawled across an Israeli community in Rafiah in order to injure Israeli guests on 25.4.02:
Iman Abu- Chutza, 21, resident of Jabalya departed on 25.4.02 to the Rafiah area, where she hid in a building and began crawling into a nearby Israeli settlement in order to blow herself up there. IDF soldiers discovered her and arrested her immediately. Iman joined two other Fatah terrorists from the Gaza Strip to carry out a suicide bombing. These 2 terrorists trained her on how to operate a hand grenade and fire a Kalashnikov rifle. Before her mission, Iman wrote a will and testament requesting forgiveness from her parents.
Lila Bachari, 26, aided a terrorist who executed a suicide bombing at the Maccabim checkpoint and planned to execute a terrorist attack of her own:
Lila Bachari, 26, a resident of Shechem was arrested on 1.7.02 after she expressed in February her readiness to execute a suicide bombing. Lila donned the suicide bomber terrorist with an explosive belt around the body of Darin Abu-Isa who executed the suicide bombing at the Macccabim checkpoint on 27.2.02
UPDATE 7/4:Tom Gross points out that a fawning BBC profile doesn't mention a fact about a woman terrorist:
Following the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit last week, the BBC ran an article on their “award-winning” website focusing on a Palestinian man, Walid al-Houdaly, who claimed that his wife and 18-month old son are being held in an Israeli prison. Separately, BBC correspondents have said Israel is taking an “exceptionally hard line” in refusing to talk about releasing these Palestinian prisoners.
The article, which reads like a propaganda statement for Islamic Jihad, is guilty of omitting some very important facts.
It states that al-Houdaly’s wife “headed a women’s organisation dedicated to providing health services for poor Palestinians.”
In fact, according to Palestinian media reports and pro-Palestinian campaigners for prisoner releases, Walid al-Houdaly’s wife is a member of Islamic Jihad, and was jailed for 10 years for attempting to detonate a car bomb in Jerusalem. These facts are simply omitted from the BBC’s report.
A thoroughly disgusting piece of fiction disguising itself as an editorial in the American Al-Jazeerah site (indexed as news, of course, by Google News.). Written by Mark Glenn, who runs a site called "Crescent and Cross" whose purpose is to say that Christianity and Islam are quite compatible - and only those Jews are the problem.
Here is only a small part of the article, entitled "American Independence Day":
“I have to get home to my mother, she will be so worried if I am not back soon.”
9 year-old Mona clutched at the gaping hole in her stomach, blood pouring out of her as if someone had turned on a faucet. There was something so terribly and indescribably out of place in her frail words, the colliding of two disparate worlds, that of a mother’s child, and that of a little girl facing down the ugliest of what life and humanity had to offer.
The man who was kneeling at her side however knew better. He was a trained medical professional, and in a war zone known as Gaza of all places. He had seen this scenario a thousand times before, and a thousand times too many as far as he was concerned. This child would not be going home, at least not her earthly home, given the fact that she had just been shot in the stomach at close range by a soldier wielding a machine gun, the bullets from which produced exit wounds on her tiny body that were as large as golf balls. Had she known that her insides had just been turned to mush, it is highly unlikely that she would have been as composed as she was at this moment.
Her gesture in worrying about her mother, about not wanting to cause a beloved parent any grief was partly genuine, and partly an attempt to distract herself from the fact that she knew something terrible had just happened to her. Indeed a child’s sweetness knows no bounds, irrespective of where such a child can be found in the world. As she lie in a bath of her own warm blood that increased with each passing second, while frantic adults attempt to effect that which they know is futile, all she can think is that her mother must be worried, and how she wishes she could be home with her now, if only for enough time to give her one final embrace, tell her of a daughter’s love, and to say goodbye.
In the end, it all came down to sweets, an indispensable part of any child’s life, even in places that have been torn apart by warfare for the last century such as this. Today, little Mona, despite having grown up in a world of bullets and mortars, allowed the carelessness of her childhood to overpower her reason just enough to persuade her towards venturing forth into that deadly world of never ending violence to buy some cookies at the corner store. The fact that Israeli soldiers were busy with their latest masterpiece in butchery nearby did not seem to arouse her concern. After all, when all things were considered, this was just another day in the life of someone who knew she had been born under a sentence of death and who had developed an intimacy of sorts with this fact as if it had been her own skin.
On her way back, humming something sweet and armed with nothing more dangerous than the cookies in her hand, she was indiscriminately shot by an Israeli soldier, who, like all the rest of his ilk, had been told by both political and spiritual leaders that it is the religious duty of all good Zionists, a mitzvah, to cleanse the promised land of any impurities that may be infecting it, a process of sterilization which included, if it can be imagined, slaughtering helpless Arab children. And so, this courageous and obedient soldier from among a group of people who fancy themselves as being a light among nations, without the slightest hesitation pulled the trigger, simultaneously swatting away at the shred of what remained of his conscience as if it were some species of annoying insect. For little Mona, it merely felt like a lit match touching her insides momentarily, and it was not until she began to feel the sensation of warm wetness on her dress that she began to panic. Her first instinct was that she might get into trouble for having gotten her new dress dirty, since the last thing her mother told her before leaving the house was to make sure not to get it messy. Thus is the mind of a child, even when facing the awfulness of eternity that their thoughts are always to be found firmly rooted in something trivial and sweet. Perhaps it was the panic stricken appearances on the faces of those around her who were trying to help that caused her to realize the seriousness of what it was that she was facing, or perhaps it was the unseen whisper into her soul from some divine messenger telling her to hurry up, since time was running out. Either way, no one really knows.
And so in that fifteen seconds before her spirit was liberated from the hellish existence that had been imposed upon her and upon the rest of the inhabitants of the Holy Land by the self-described ‘chosen people’, the little Palestinian child of 9 years forgot all about her cookies, as well as about every other item of what encompasses a child’s existence, grew up quickly, remembered everything she had been taught during the religion classes she had taken throughout her life, and made her last statement of faith. In her last words, there was no malice, no pulsa de nura--the infamous curses that rabbis and Orthodox Jews hurl daily at passing Christians or Muslims in Israel, no condemnations, no vows of revenge. Her composure, as she lie there in a pool of her own blood, was as graceful and as dignified as was that of any patriot or saint who has secured a rightly earned place in mankind’s memory as a result of having had his or her life cut short by the actions of men hell-bent upon doing evil to others. For Mona, it would be one simple statement, without any fanfare or drama, final words that will probably be remembered by few, short of those who loved her more than they loved themselves. The little girl whose life had been snuffed out like a candle, the last fragrance of this little Palestinian flower who had been cut down by the hatchet of Jewish supremacism had nothing more spiteful in her final curtain call other than “God is great.”
From a bird’s eye view, this was but one of several tragic scenes taking place on that day. A few miles away, a family of seven had just barely made it out of their home when the bulldozer crashed through where the living room was. There were no warnings that this demolition process was about to take place, and had it not been for the fact that 14 year-old Ismail went to the window to see what the noise was that was coming from outside, the entire family would most likely have been buried beneath the rubble. This was a common occurrence these days, of not ordering the evacuation of a home to be demolished, since the Israelis cared nothing about the lives of the filthy Arabs who were polluting their sacred land, and thus preferred that the entire mess be hauled away, home and dwellers included.
It gets worse, as the author trashes America and Israel and Jews with impunity.
There are no last names in this article, no dates - because all of the anecdotes he writes about are entirely made up.
But, as moonbats are quick to point out, it reflects a higher truth - the fact that it is a lie is of no consequence, as long as people "know" it is true.
Not surprisingly, this poor excuse for a human links to Holocaust revisionism sites as well as other anti-semitic sites like Jewish Tribal Review in his website. For all the whining of the far left about how they are not anti-semitic, you never hear a peep from them denouncing scum like this.
A SIGNIFICANT minority of British Muslims believe they are at war with the rest of society, the largest poll of Muslims in this country suggests.
The Populus survey for The Times and ITV News has found that more than one in ten thinks that the men who carried out the London bombings of 7/7 should be regarded as “martyrs”. Sixteen per cent of British Muslims, equivalent to more than 150,000 adults, believe that while the attacks were wrong, the cause was right.
The politically correct Times tries very hard in the rest of the article to play up the majority of British Muslims who seems to be against terror. But they fail to add up the numbers of those who aren't.
16% believe that the cause was right but the attacks were wrong. 13% say the attacks were right.
So that adds up to 29% of British Muslims who openly support jihad for a worldwide Muslim 'ummah.
This is hardly a "tiny minority" - but Great Britain is still acting as if it is.
I noticed tonight, thanks to a nudge from Smooth Stone, that my blogroll was horrifically incomplete. Blogs that I visit often were missing while blogs that haven't had any postings in months were listed.
So I apologize to those I had overlooked. By way of weak excuse, I generally do my own surfing from either Technorati favorites or from one of the JBlog aggregators, hardly ever from my own blogroll. What I didn't realize is that my not keeping it up-to-date had the potential of giving the wrong impression to people.
I have now updated my blogroll, and I apologize to those I had inadvertently snubbed. Iam probably still missing some but I'll try to be more aware in the future.
Those expansionist, violent Zionists keep plotting nefarious ways of taking over the world. Every single life they save creates another potential Zionist!
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Scientists at an Israeli university have found a promising new way to stop the growth and spread of cancer cells while carrying out research to boost the size of peaches and nectarines, the university said on Sunday.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists found that a protein similar to one researched in their project had the effect of blocking blood supply to tumors.
"By blocking the blood supply to the tumors, actibind halted the ability of malignant cells to move through the blood stream," the university said.
"Their approach has been shown to inhibit the malignant cells without affecting normal cells and without the severe side effects of traditional treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy," it said.
Imagine what it would mean for the world hunger problem if farmers could grow wheat and other crops on land considered unsuitable for agriculture.
That day may be coming soon, after Israeli researchers from the Institute of Evolution of the University of Haifa, have succeeded in isolating a gene that withstands salinity.
"The research will contribute to a significant increase in the amount of arable land available for agriculture," said the institute's director Professor Eviatar Nevo, who initiated and spearheaded the pioneering research.
Of the earth's 57 million square miles of land, approximately 12 million square miles are arable - meaning land that can be used for growing crops. However, arable land is being lost at the rate of over ten million hectares per year.
Nevo's research will make it possible to grow plants, including crops, in saline earth, a development that will contribute in the future to a true revolution in saline agriculture throughout the world.
Most people are only joking when they refer to "retail therapy" - as if shopping could truly cure what ails them.
But Israeli researchers have actually developed a virtual shopping center that helps stroke victims improve their cognitive functioning and recover strength in their upper bodies.
The "virtual mall", which was developed by University of Haifa Occupational Therapy student, Debbie Rand, who is studying for her doctorate, allows stroke patients to wander virtually through a range of stores, picking out and paying for purchases, just as they would on a real shopping trip.
The patient stands in front of a large TV screen, and a small camera set in front displays the person's image within the virtual environment. No other accessories are necessary.
"The patient operates the environment by moving his body," says 37-year-old Rand. "They move their arms and hands to take things from the shelves and put them in the basket. As they 'shop' they can watch themselves and receive feedback about their movements."
A little levity can go a long way, especially if you're a woman trying to conceive via in-vitro fertilization (IVF). That's the lesson that's been gleaned from a first-of-its kind study conducted in Israel that showed that using humor to alleviate the stress of the patients almost doubles their chances of conceiving from the treatments.
A team led by fertility expert Dr. Shevah Friedler at the Assaf Harofeh Medical Center studied 186 women aged 25 to 40 over 10 months, all of whom were undergoing embryo transfer treatment. While half were simply given the treatment and nothing else, the other group was entertained by a clown for up to 15 minutes as they recuperated in bed after the treatment.
The results? 33 of the women who 'clowned' around became pregnant, compared to only 18 women in the control group. For the 60,000 American women who undergo IVF treamtent annually, the message is: don't worry, be happy.
Israel has again moved to the forefront of a new chip revolution as Intel Corp., the world's largest maker of semiconductors, launched its server-oriented next generation microprocessor series, which offers increased performance with lower power consumption and promises to be the fastest ramping product in the company's history.
"Simply put, the Core microarchitecture is a technical marvel that is driving a new era of power efficiency without compromising on what can only be described as eye-popping dual-core 64bit performance," said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.
Intel said it expected this server family to be the fastest-ramping product in the company's history. More than 200 server and workstation models are planned from more than 150 manufacturers with initial orders starting Monday.
One reason I like to read Iranian news is to see angles of stories that the mainstream media miss or ignore. This article reveals two truths that are illuminating:
Representative of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon Abbas Zaki on Monday strongly criticized the silence of Arab communities and governments towards Israel's aggressions and the incidents in Palestine.
He told IRNA that the political systems of the Arab world do not show any reaction towards the latest developments in Palestine on account of their good relations with the US, adding that Washington is only concerned on protecting Israel's security in the Middle East.
Zaki underlined that the Palestinian people and combatants have the right to make use of all means to defend themselves against the aggressions of the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River.
In the latest Zionist attack on Gaza and West Bank, three Palestinians were martyred and more than 12 others wounded.
"As long as the Palestinian soil remains under Israeli occupation , according to international laws, the Palestinian combatants are authorized to use any possible means, including weapons, against the Zionist regime."
The first interesting comment is that Arab governments themselves are sick of the Palestinian Arab whining. They see what the Palestinian Arabs cannot - that they have nothing to show for their years of terror. Even where they gained, in the case of Gaza, they wasted it to make it worse.
The only people still supporting the Palestinian Arabs in any real fashion are the fundamentalist Islamists - in other words, the same people who support Al Qaeda.
The other interesting part of this article is that the official PLO representative to Lebanon is saying explicitly that the Palestinian Arabs should terrorize Jews - and that all the agreements from Oslo through the roadmap are pieces of paper to be ignored. Despite how the press likes to characterize Fatah as moderate, we have an official from Fatah in an official capacity revealing how Fatah really thinks: that terror is the way to get a state.
Although he has generally been saying the right things during the hostage situation, Olmert does not strike me as someone who believes a word he is saying. I am very uncomfortable with a PM who seems to be more a bullheaded technocrat than someone who is acting out of pure love of Israel.
I have never felt such a disconnect to an Israeli PM before. Even milquetoast Peres has occasionally staunchly defended Israel's position well in the international arena. But when I see something like this coming out of the Prime Minister's office, all I can think of is that he is full of it:
These are not easy days for the State of Israel but we have no intention of capitulating to blackmail. Everyone knows that capitulating to terrorism today means inviting the next act of terrorism. We will not do this.
Um, and isn't forcibly removing Jews from their homes capitulating to terrorism? Just as with previous releases of prisoners, the intent was never to capitulate to terror - but the effect is exactly that, leading it to become Hamas policy. Words that should be inspiring end up looking like hypocrisy.
Similarly, when he spoke at the 35th Zionist Congress to the residents of Sderot:
I want to take this opportunity, here and now, to tell the residents of the south, to the people of Sderot, to kibbutzim such as Yad-Mordechai and Nahal Oz and Kfar Aza and other communities: no one is more familiar with the level of the pain, anxiety and uncertainty which you are experiencing these days.
Two Palestinian women tear up an Israeli flag with their teeth during a protest against the Israeli military offensive in Gaza in the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, July 2, 2006. About 2,000 Palestinians protesting the Israeli military offensive in Gaza set fire to an Israeli flag and shouted 'Death to Israel' Sunday as they marched in Lebanon's largest refugee camp.
Since there is no shortage of Israeli flags in "refugee" camps, this should solve all those problems of starvation.
Just once, I'd like to see a mainstream media organization question exactly why Palestinian arabs are still forced to live in "refugee" camps - in Lebanon and Syria. Not to mention Gaza.
Finally, I am reminded of an incident that happened almost thirty years ago. I remember seeing the video on a Christian TV broadcast many years ago, but inexplicably I have never been able to find footage on the Internet. Here's the best description I have found:
To grasp the nature of Syrian barbarism, let me take you back to a ceremony which that regime celebrated on the tenth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. I watched that ceremony on Israel television, clips of which should now be shown throughout Israel. In that ceremony - and now I turn to its description in the October 21, 1983 issue of the JERUSALEM POST MAGAZINE -
"Syrian militia trainees [male and female] put on a show for Syrian president Hafez Assad. Martial music reached a crescendo as Syrian teenage girls suddenly bit into live snakes [some four or five feet long], repeatedly tearing off flesh and spitting it out as blood ran down their chins. As Assad applauded, the girls then attached the snakes to sticks and grilled them over fire, eating them triumphantly. Others [militiamen] then proceeded to strangle puppies and drink their blood."
Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, on Sunday threatened to attack infrastructure facilities inside Israel, including schools, hospitals and universities. The threat, the first of its kind since Hamas won the parliamentary election last January, was issued in response to continued Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip.
Hakeem Refuses to Play Against Israeli Saleh Fareed, Arab News
“I cannot play against a guy from a country that occupies the holy land of Palestine,” said Badr Hakeem. (AN photo)
JEDDAH, 2 July 2006 — Twenty-one-year-old Saudi, Badr Hakeem, winner of last year’s Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), has stepped down from participating in this year’s championship in protest against the Zionist state of Israel after he was drawn to play an Israeli gamer.
“Unfortunately, the draw put me against an Israeli player and due to our stand against the Israeli aggression and occupation of Palestine, I raised my voice and said there was no way I was going to play against this guy,” said Hakeem speaking to Arab News after making his decision at the end of the first round of the tournament.
The organizing committee accepted Hakeem’s decision.
One would think that they would dismiss the entire team for something like this, but - it's only "the Zionist state of Israel" he refuses to play.
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Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Elder of Ziyon
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