Israeli company develops nano-lubricant - no more oil changes?

Imagine buying a new car and driving it for 10 years without once taking it for an oil-and-lube job. The engine won't even have a dipstick to check the oil. That's what the future holds if Rehovot-based ApNano Materials succeeds in marketing NanoLub.

NanoLub is the world's first synthetic lubricant to be based on spherical inorganic nanoparticles. As with other lubricants, its job is to reduce wear and friction between moving objects (like engine parts), enabling longer operation and higher efficiency. NanoLub dramatically outperforms every known commercial solid lubricant marketed today.

As its creator, ApNano Materials has just been selected by the US investing journal Red Herring as one of the top 100 innovators that will drive global markets in 2005.




The search for a perfect lubricant - that is, one that never requires replacement - is an old one. In the last century, synthetic additives extended the effectiveness of age-old lubricants like oil. ApNano's product is the result of the pioneering research performed by Professor Reshef Tenne, ApNano CEO Genut and others in the Department of Materials and Interfaces at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The advantage of NanoLub over existing solid lubricants is expressed in its description, "spherical inorganic nanoparticles." NanoLub spheres can roll over one another - like miniature ball bearings - staying cooler and maintaining their function longer. Their nanometer scale enables them to find their way into tinier places and reduces their agglomeration, resulting in dramatically increased coverage, even on rough surfaces. Finally, as inorganic material, NanoLub performs beautifully even in extremely harsh environments.

NanoLub has even been shown to improve lubrication efficiency for roughly-finished parts and surfaces, so that manufacturers can spend less time and money machining their parts. On the environmental side, using NanoLub reduces energy consumption and can decrease air pollution. Finally, NanoLub can be used as an additive, as an impregnated material, as a component in polymer or metal composites, or simply by itself as a powder.

ApNano is testing NanoLub in numerous maintenance-free systems, including aerospace, medical and marine industries, ultra-clean manufacturing environments, and in heavy machinery such as power plant turbines.
But perhaps the most exciting prospect that arises from NanoLub is the possibility that automotive engines can be sealed completely, without need for an oil change - ever.

Considering that heat and wear are among the primary causes of engine and transmission failure today, NanoLub may even raise the future reliability of these components to that of today's semiconductor chips.

In some of the trials performed with NanoLub, testers were simply unable to create enough friction in the lubricant to produce measurable damage - even when trial durations were increased severely beyond specifications.



Some see NanoLub as an upstart in the well-established lubricants industry. According to one research firm, extreme pressure/anti-wear additives make up only about $1 billion in annual revenues globally, as compared to $37 billion for the broader lubricants market.
But if NanoLub succeeds, the market could grow significantly and force larger producers like Shell, ExxonMobile and ChevronTexaco to develop more competitive technologies.

Another element of NanoLub's market appeal is that it provides a 'greener' alternative to many existing lubricants. Environmental concerns are a growing concern for big producers. "With all the green market trends - the demands of environmentalists, the need to extend fuel mileage - there is a need to look for alternatives, and our process is green and environmentally friendly. We're bringing them a very painless way to make the change."

Regarding competition, Fleisher noted that last week ApNano executives met with five separate companies. "Almost without exception, these companies spoke of being approached with other solutions based on nanomaterials, but that NanoLub is the only product they have seen that meets their criteria."

CEO Genut has stated that NanoLub's cost will be competitive with existing high performance synthetic lubricants.

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Terrorists for Abbas

A prominent West Bank gunman carried a smiling Mahmoud Abbas on his shoulders Thursday, endorsing the presidential candidate and prompting questions of whether Abbas is playing campaign politics or identifying with violent groups.

The highlight of Abbas' visit to the Jenin refugee camp next to the northern West Bank town of Jenin was his encounter with a group of gunmen led by Zakaria Zubeidi, the local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group with ties to Abbas' ruling Fatah party.

Zubeidi, who is idolized in the camp for his swagger and wanted by Israel for organizing attacks and sending suicide bombers into Israeli cities, took center stage in welcoming Abbas to the camp. Jenin was the scene of heavy fighting during an Israeli incursion in 2002 that followed one of the bombings.

Zubeidi and other gunmen hoisted aloft Abbas, who smiled and waved to about 3,000 Palestinians gathered around. Some in the crowd were armed.

Abbas won Zubeidi's ringing endorsement. After Abbas left the stage, Zubeidi, with gunmen firing in the air, warned that he would deal with anyone who tried to challenge the elected Palestinian leadership. Then Zubeidi escorted Abbas' car out of the camp.

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What Really Happened in 1948 by Sarah El Shazly

What Really Happened in 1948
By Sarah El Shazly
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 28, 2004

Ever since I was a child, I've heard a range of accounts of what happened to the Palestinians and Palestine. Everyone knows the Jewish version and the Arab version. But there is a third side, that of those who lived there and still do -- the Israeli Arabs.

Some Jews want us out of Israel, and some Arabs believe that we are an extension of the Zionists. Yet we Israeli Arabs keep our culture and traditions. Mahshy, or stuffed grape leaves, remains our favorite meal. We love Arabic music; we sing old folk songs, including "Wein aa Ramallah" about a famous Palestinian city, and songs from all over the Arab world. We are unique among the Arabs, though. We have vested interests on both sides -- and are angry at both sides.



Israeli Arabs have lived alongside Jews for as long as this generation can remember. We became Israeli citizens in 1948. Before that, the region wasn't quite as divided. Families lived in an area that includes the West Bank, Gaza, and Amman, and in other Arab cities in areas where borders were created later. We were divided by boundaries set by the Europeans, and those within the boundaries of Israel became "Israeli Arabs". Now, these Arabs are the unwanted, unloved, illegitimate, and have become the biracial step-child of the Middle East conflict. We have to apologize for our very existence.



Misinformation surrounds the story of 1948. Palestinians who fled their homes are angry, bitter and distraught. No one can blame them. Yet they seem to have been taught who they are supposed to hate, who is the guilty party and who should be punished for their problems. People's memories are so short. It is easier to focus on one enemy – especially an enemy who does not belong to the same "tribe" -- than to analyze a complex situation such as the Palestinian refugee disaster.



It is not my intent to discuss who belongs in that tiny region called Israel, but I will risk being shunned by my own community to set the record straight. The question is: why did Arabs flee the area that became Israel? After all, the ones who remained in their homes still live there today and prosper.



The fact is that the Arab world warned the Palestinians against staying with the Jews. They also warned them that Arabs were going in to fight the Zionists and that the Palestinians should leave to avoid getting hurt.



Many Palestinians trusted these Arab leaders and left as instructed. Those who had lived with Jews for a long time were not as easily convinced of the danger, and these Arabs stayed home. Among them was my family, which saw cars traveling the area. The cars contained Jews. They reassured Arabs that they would not be harmed. Thus, we had a situation where Jews begged Arabs to stay and live with them, while Arabs from foreign countries told them to leave right away.



Palestinians have gotten the short end of the stick in Arab society. It suits Arab leaders to keep this group in a state of poverty and conflict, and to channel all resentment toward the Jews. You don't believe me? Ask yourself why Jordan or Egypt or Syria never gave the Palestinians a country? If I hear another non-Palestinian, especially an American Muslim, repeat the phrase "over 50 years of the Zionist occupation," I'm going to burst. Can no one actually read history? It’s not ancient history, just 1948-1967. Who had that land? Even if Arabs want Palestinians to have "all" the land, this is no excuse for denying them an independent state. And yet, we blame Israel!



As a child, I watched a Syrian play about the war of October 1973. A famous Syrian comedian played a young man who fought in the war and was taken prisoner. After his release, he was detained by his own government. At one point, the guards slapped him and he started crying.



“Why are you crying?” asked a fellow prisoner, deeply puzzled. “That was only a slap. I've seen the enemies do much more to you, and you just laughed it off.”



The comedian replied, “The enemy is an enemy, and I expect that of them. Yes, a slap is only a slap -- but from a brother, it's a slap in the heart.”



Let's take this a step further. The Arab world pretends to care, watching a young Palestinian get killed by Israel on TV, justifying Jew-hatred right before they go to their cozy beds. This is the Arab world that has taught Palestinians to fight, and yet it will not give them citizenship. Where is that love -- or, for that matter, where is the passion used to justify the Palestinian issue?



Let's go to the refugees. Arab governments first used scare tactics, and then took whatever they could get from the United States and Israel. Finally, they stuck Palestinians in camps with deplorable living conditions. Why didn't they leave them alone in their homes? Why promise them refuge and reward them with nothing more than prison camps? And, most of all, why didn't they provide Palestinians with homes in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights when Arabs had control over them?



Please do not speak of money. Palestinian refugees receive aid from all over the world, and yet their living conditions don’t seem to improve. The "hosting" governments siphon off some money to line their pockets, and the Palestinian Authority -- or lack of it -- siphons off the rest … and the poor people get nothing.



As a Palestinian, I ask the world to please stop exploiting our issue. If you want a do a good deed, find your own. To the singers romanticizing Palestinian suffering, it is not romantic. There is nothing dreamy about it. Where’s the heroism in a small child throwing rocks at a tank? Either warn the child to stay away or just shut up! How dare you do this to our children? Does our suffering give you such good video footage and high ratings?



To the average Arab citizen, stop crying crocodile tears for us. We thank you for your kind feelings, but please, don’t offer us your pity. To the Arab and Islamic governments, fix your own problems. Do not use our misery to blind your subjects to domestic problems. Are you afraid that the people will wise up, and stop hating Israel, and turn on you? You, who have condoned so much hatred, may one day pay the price. You've created monsters, and you won't be able to handle them. Worry about creating jobs for your own poor people and educating the children, and leave us alone. In short, to all those invested in driving our children to die, please, stay away from us.

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800 Years Since Death of Maimonides

This coming Shabbath, the 20th of the Hebrew month of Teveth, will mark exactly 800 years since the death of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon - the Rambam (Maimonides).

The Rambam (1135-1204) was a religious scholar, physician, philosopher and writer. Born in Cordoba, Spain, he soon fled to Morocco after the Almohads conquered the area. He later lived in Morocco, the Land of Israel, and Egypt, where he served as Sultan Saladin's doctor. Maimonides is considered one of the most influential leaders and scholars in the history of the Jewish people. He wrote prolifically including most notably, the Mishneh Torah, a comprehensive code of Jewish Law; a commentary on the Mishna; and Guide for the Perplexed, on Jewish philosophy. His incredible stature is best summed up in the popular saying, "From Moshe [the Biblical Moses] to Moshe [Rambam], there arose none like Moshe."

70 at the time of his death, the Rambam was said to have been buried in the city of Tiberias, on the banks of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee). Rabbi Yitzhak Shilat, a Rambam scholar told Arutz-7 that the grave marking the Rambam’s burial place is indeed accurate. He said that the Rambam insisted on being buried in the northern city due to his belief that the Sanhedrin would be re-established there.

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London Arab paper praises Sri Lanka for refusing Israeli aid

The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi commented on Sri Lanka's refusal to receive an Israeli relief delegation to provide medical and financial assistance in the aftermath of the tsunami that killed thousands on the island in its editorial titled 'A lesson for the Arabs from Sri Lanka.' The independent Palestinian-owned daily said 'the paradox is that the Sri Lankan government insists on being more Arab than the Arabs and turns its back to normalizing with the Jewish state.' It said in the meantime, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was touring the Gulf, including Bahrain and Kuwait, to persuade them to establish diplomatic ties with Israel after signing agreements to establish joint industrial zones 'to open a big gap in the Egyptian economy with Israeli capital.' The daily, with pan-Arab nationalist trends, said that while Sri Lanka refused to deal with Israel, the 'future president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas declared yesterday that the Palestinian people should abandon armed resistance, that the Palestinians cannot defeat Israel militarily, and to return to the negotiations table because it was the only way to retrieve their rights and independent state.' The paper thanked the government and people of Sri Lanka, saying they 'reminded us there are countries that still possess the genes of dignity and humanity after most of our Arab governments forgot them, including most of those in our new Palestinian leadership.'

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Bigotry's Harvest

By CAROLINE GLICK

This week, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Doron Almog, who commanded the IDF's Southern Command from 2000-2003, wrote a paper for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs entitled "Lessons of the Gaza Security Fence for the West Bank." In his paper Almog explains that the fence around Gaza has blocked 30 percent of the attempted terror attacks on Israel, while IDF offensive operations inside the Strip have accounted for the other 70 percent of Israel's successes.

Although his paper is intended to be instructive for Judea and Samaria, his point raises the obvious question for Gaza: If the government goes through with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw, thereby ending the IDF's offensive operations in the area, how will such attacks be prevented? Furthermore, today the IDF has a defensive perimeter one kilometer long inside Gaza. According to Almog, this perimeter, along with monitoring equipment that can see six kilometers into Gaza, accounts for most of the success of the fence. Who will be manning the perimeter and maintaining the observation equipment if the IDF pulls out?

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya'acov Amidror, the former head of the IDF War Colleges and Military Intelligence analysis division, warned last week that in the absence of an Israeli military presence in Gaza, the area will become a focal point for global jihad. Just this week, the Shin Bet announced the arrest of Jordanian national Muhammad Abu Juyad in Tulkarm this past August. Abu Juyad was recruited by Fatah and Hizbullah. He received terror training twice in Syria and also took part in the terror war against American forces in Iraq before turning up here with a plan to recruit Israeli Arabs to blow up trains, kidnap soldiers and attack Israeli facilities in Jordan. Abu Juyad is emblematic of the global and regional face of the war. Luckily our forces are deployed in Judea and Samaria. If he or one of the thousands of terrorists like him were to come to Gaza after Sharon's proposed withdrawal goes through, who would arrest him?

More than 5,000 rockets and mortar shells have now fallen on Israeli communities in Gaza since the Palestinian terror war began. In anticipation of the proposed expulsion of their 8,000 Jewish residents, the Palestinians have dramatically increased their attacks. They want to make it look like we are running away. And the IDF is doing little to dissuade them. IDF incursions into Khan Yunis have been as ineffective as IDF operations against Hizbullah in southern Lebanon were in the months that preceded the withdrawal in May 2000. Like Hizbullah in Lebanon, the terrorists in Gaza will be viewed by the entire global jihad network as having defeated Israel. The price we paid for our precipitous withdrawal from Lebanon was the Palestinian terror war. What should we expect after we have Hamas, Fatah and Hizbullah terror cells operating openly five kilometers from the power station in Ashkelon?

THOSE WHO oppose the withdrawal have sought to make these arguments. But no one will listen. Ariel Sharon, the great military leader of yesteryear, says that it will be okay. And so, as we did when the late prime minister and former IDF chief of General Staff Yitzhak Rabin scoffed in 1994 at the notion that the Palestinians would use the territory he transferred to their control to shoot mortar shells and rockets at Israeli communities, we now believe that our lives will be better and safer if we eject Jews from their homes and farms and villages as our military withdraws to the 1949 armistice lines.

The residents of Gaza themselves are at their wits' end. Over the past several weeks they have been absorbing volley after volley of rockets and mortar shells, antitank shells and rifle fire. Their homes and synagogues have been bombed. Their children's nurseries and community centers have been hit. Their hothouses have been shelled. In a meeting Thursday in Netzer Hazani, residents spoke of the prospect of taking measures into their own hands with village residents manning any gun post that the IDF abandons. Speaking to Ynet, Yaki Yisraeli, treasurer of the community in Gush Katif, said, "If there isn't a suitable response to the mortar fire, people will start defending themselves. The residents serve in all the IDF units and the fear is that they will take the law into their own hands. If the IDF evacuates positions, the residents will take them over."

Aside from the fact that the IDF is clearly failing in its mission to defend them, the residents of Gaza have another problem on their hands. How are they to deal with the fact that the government and the Knesset seem determined to expel them from their homes? How are they to imagine that the lands they have cultivated, the communities they have built and the homes where they have raised their families are set to be turned over to the same people who are bombing them around the clock?

The moral dimension of the proposed destruction of Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria is one that has received scant attention over the past year since Sharon adopted the Labor Party's plan of retreat and expulsion as his own. Indeed, although it was one of the implicit assumptions of the 1993 Oslo process, the fact that a precondition for a final peace accord with the PLO was that all Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza would be ethnically cleansed has rarely been mentioned. As for Sharon's withdrawal plan for Gaza and northern Samaria, everyone from US National Security Council Middle East Adviser Elliott Abrams to Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak to British Prime Minister Tony Blair have all noted that the plan, if enacted, will provide a precedent for the destruction of all or most of the remaining Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria with their population of some 250,000 Israelis.

THIS WEEK, the public debate shifted its attention for the first time in 11 years to the question of whether it is moral to ethnically cleanse the territories of their Jewish residents and force all Israelis to live within the cease-fire lines from 1949. With the publication of an open letter from Binyamin Regional Council head Pinhas Wallerstein calling for mass civil disobedience against the proposed ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria, the question of the morality of the plan has exploded onto the public stage.

Wallerstein wrote, "The government of Israel has approved the first reading of the immoral law that paves the way for the crime of the displacement of Jews from their homes. The law does not provide those targeted for expulsion with even the minimal human right – to oppose their displacement from their homes. I call for the public to break the expulsion law and to be ready to pay the price of going to jail."

Wallerstein's call, which was adopted by the entire organized leadership of the Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, caused some dozen members of Knesset to sign a declaration stating that they will oppose the enactment of the law even at the price of losing their parliamentary immunity from prosecution and going to jail.

Gaza residents caused a public outcry when they taped orange Stars of David to their clothes this week. The hue and cry of the politicians on the Right and on the Left said that in using symbols from the Holocaust they were besmirching the memory of the victims of Europe's genocide of its Jews. It would seem that those who decried the residents' symbol have forgotten what a metaphor is. The point was not that Sharon is Adolf Hitler or that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is Adolf Eichmann. The point of the protest was that Israel is the first Western state to call for the forced removal of Jews from their homes,simply because they are Jews, since the Holocaust and that there is something morally atrocious about the notion that for peace to come –- to Israel and to those bombing Israel –- it is necessary for entire regions to be rendered Judenrein. And again, as leaders in Israel and throughout the world have stated, the expulsion from Gaza and northern Samaria is simply a preview of coming attractions for what awaits those who live in Judea and the rest of Samaria.

The security implications of the planned withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza and northern Samaria are entirely separate from the moral dimensions of the policy for what it means for Israel to be a free and secure Jewish state. But they share a common root. This root is to be found in those who are shooting off the mortars and rifles and rockets. It is found in Abu Juyad; it is found in the murder of Ariela Fahima outside her home near Beit Shemesh this week; and it is found in the attempted murder of an Israeli motorist who accidentally drove into Ramallah Monday night and had to be saved by the IDF as a lynch mob gathered around him. This common root is Palestinian rejection of Israel.

There would be no reason for the IDF to be operating in Gaza if the Palestinians weren't conducting a war against Israel from Gaza. And there would be no question about the right of Jews to live in Gaza or northern Samaria or anywhere else they have lived for thousands of years if Palestinian nationalism weren't predicated on genocidal anti-Semitism.

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Israeli Aid, Unreported

All major media outlets ignore Israel's massive humanitarian aid to South Asia - an indication of a national ethos of caring.

When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, Israelis can be counted on to help. So it's no surprise that within hours of the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the following humanitarian missions all departed from the tiny Jewish state:

● The Israeli organization Latet ('To Give') filled a jumbo jet with 18 tons of supplies.

● A medical team headed by four doctors from Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday night (Dec. 27), carrying medicine and baby food. The doctors specialize in rescue operations, trauma and pediatrics.

● An IDF rescue team is now on its way to Sri Lanka with 80 tons of aid material, including 10,000 blankets, tents, nylon sheeting and water containers, all contributed by the IDF.

● A ZAKA rescue-and-recovery team arrived in the disaster areas Monday night, armed with its specialized equipment for identifying bodies.

● A Health Ministry contingent left for Thailand on Monday night to aid in rescue efforts. The group includes doctors, nurses and four members of the IDF.

● Israel has also offered its assistance to India ― a search-and-rescue team from the Home Front Command, as well as consignments of food and medicine.

Yet, with the exception of UPI (as of this writing - Tues. 4pm EST), none of the major news outlets have dedicated an article to this remarkable Israeli humanitarian effort. This, despite the fact that the IDF sent all Israel-based journalists a press release Monday evening (Dec. 27), inviting them to the airport to cover the departure of one IDF group.

This is all the more surprising given the fact that the major news agencies have entire teams of reporters in Israel, who submit at least one 'Israel-article' each day.

So what did the Associated Press send out today to its 15,000 subscribing news agencies? A dreary story about the construction of a new IDF base near Jenin. AP sarcastically remarked in this 'news' story that the base's 'elaborate color scheme and landscaping shows that the army is not planning to pull its forces out of the area anytime soon.'

The lack of media interest in this Israeli humanitarian effort means that Israeli benevolence toward other peoples is not fairly conveyed to the western world. Perhaps if it were conveyed, observers would come to understand something else ― that Israel's response to Palestinian violence is also motivated by the highest ethical concern for all human life, and is not (as the media so often portray it) driven by an oppressive, mean-spirited national ethos.

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al-Reuters strikes again

Taking his campaign to succeed Yasser Arafat to the foot of Israel's West Bank barrier, interim
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says there will be no peace until Israel tears it down.

OK, this sounds like he is saying that the wall is causing such pain that Palestinians cannot accept it as part of a peace plan. More than debatable, but it sounds reasonable as al-Reuters says it.

'No (Middle East) peace can transpire with (Jewish) settlements and the wall,' Abbas said on Wednesday,

Oh, sorry. He is THREATENING Israel with more terror unless Israel tears down the wall meant to stop terror! That's much different! But Reuters has to tone that impression down, adding...

with his back to the towering concrete divide that virtually encircles the town of Qalqilya near the West Bank's boundary with Israel.

Threat? What threat? Only Israel threatens anyone, as al-Reuters knows well.

Then al-Reuters gives us helpful background information:

Israel says the barrier, a mix of electronic fences and walls that encroaches on West Bank territory by differing amounts over the 200
km (120 kms) built so far, is meant to keep suicide bombers out of its cities....

The World Court has called the barrier illegal for being built on captured land.

Thousands of farmers have been separated from fields and the barrier has hampered trade between villages and market towns like
Qalqilya, where 40,000 people are ringed by concrete except for one small outlet.


OK, three pieces of background info here. One is a "claim" from Israel on *why* they built the wall.

Second is the *fact* that the World Kangaroo Court condemned it.

Third is the "fact?" that THOUSANDS of Palestinian farmers have fields on the other side of the wall! Can you imagine? THOUSANDS???? No scare quotes, no source - just a al-Reuters "fact."

And somehow al- Reuters cannot seem to mention the fact that suicide bombings have been reduced fantastically in areas the wall was built.

More incredible objectivity from al-Reuters.

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US Christians fund bomb-detector for Israel buses

U.S. CHRISTIANS TO FUND EXPLOSIVES-DETECTION SYSTEM

FOR ISRAEL’S BUS AND TRAIN LINES

Bus and railway centers throughout Israel will be equipped with 86 metal-detector gates and six x-ray machines by February, Gideon Ezra, Israel’s minister of public security, announced yesterday.

His statement came at a ceremony that introduced the devices to the public and gave credit for their funding to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, headed by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein.

The security devices are the second phase of Operation Safe Bus, an initiative begun with a $2 million contribution from The Fellowship (Keren L’Yedidut in Israel) in February 2004. The initial phase provided 1,000 hand-held metal detectors operated by security guards at bus stops and terminals.

The new security measures are Israel’s response to an increase in threats against the country’s public transportation systems. “Let us not delude ourselves,” Ezra said. Although the actual number of attacks has fallen because of intensified security, the construction of the security fence and the effectiveness of the hand-held security devices, “The number of warnings we receive rises every day.”

Rabbi Eckstein said he and his organization’s primarily Christian donors were “privileged to work alongside Israel’s public security officials, transportation officials and police to improve and ensure the security of the people of Israel.” He added that The Fellowship will examine the possibility of raising an additional $5 million for expansion of the transportation-security project. “As Israel’s terrorism experts identify advanced technological systems for the detection and neutralization of explosive devices, we will do everything we can to support their lifesaving efforts.”

Public buses are the primary means of transportation in Israel, with as many as 1.7 million riders each day, including children traveling to school. Nearly 200 Israelis have been killed and some 800 wounded in bus bombings since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews was founded in 1983 to promote understanding and cooperation between Jews and Christians and to build broad support for Israel and other shared concerns. Based in Chicago and Jerusalem, The Fellowship in recent years has contributed more than $100 million toward Jewish immigration, resettlement and social welfare projects in Israel, as well as funding food, housing and social service programs for Jews in the former Soviet Union and other areas of poverty and distress.

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Qatar hosts forum on resisting Arab normalization with Israel

Qatar is hosting, for the first time, the Arab Gulf people's conference to resist normalization with Israel in its 4th edition, expected to begin Sunday.

Head of the conference-organising Arab Studies Center, Dr. Abdul-Rahman Al-Nuaimi said the two-day event will host 20 politicians and academicians from the Arabian Gulf states in addition to Egypt, Jordan and Palestine, KUNA reported.

They will review, he added, the future of the Arab boycott on Israel and consider six relevant work papers.

It should be noted that an Israeli consulate has been operating in the Qatari capital of Doha.

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Putin accuses Viktor Yushchenko of using 'anti-Russian, Zionist' slogans

In what might have been either a Freudian slip or an innocent mistake but was no doubt a diplomatic gaffe, Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday assailed Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko's campaign for using 'anti-Russian, Zionist' slogans.

His office later clarified via the Kremlin Web site that he had meant to say 'anti-Russian, anti-Semitic' slogans when answering a question at an end-of-the-year press conference in Moscow.

Yushchenko adversaries have accused some of his supporters of anti-Jewish sentiment. Putin has loudly supported rival candidate Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who favors strong ties with Russia.

Minister-without-Portfolio Natan Sharansky, responsible for Diaspora Affairs, accepted as true that Putin had made a slip of the tongue rather than expressed actual anti-Israel beliefs.

Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post he was 'surprised' when he first heard the reports of Putin's comment. The Russian leader, he said, has 'long been careful not to use this kind of rhetoric,' condemning the dangers of anti-Semitism and allowing Jewish life free rein under his regime.

He did note with interest, however, that when Putin sought to say something injurious about the pro-Western Yushchenko he used the word 'Zionist.'

'It's at the top of his unconscious that 'Zionist' is a negative word,' Sharansky said.

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Sharansky's Push for Democracy

I admire Sharansky and his theories quite a bit, but this is a good counterpoint. I would add as well the concern, which is addressed somewhat below, of what happens when a democratic state chooses a theological dictatorship to rule it? - EoZ

From 1948 to 1950, an Egyptian teacher and freelance writer named Sayeed Qutb, an admirer of the United States and the West, went to America to study educational curricula. What he saw there horrified him, and after his return to Egypt, he became a leader of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb was appalled at what he considered sexual license in America, even in those relatively innocent days of the mid-20th century.

One does not have to be a psychological genius to conjecture that much of what Qutb felt during his sojourn was fear. The degree of sexual freedom and equality that he observed, the sight of women going around in Western attire, working on jobs, interacting with men, profoundly disconcerted him and threatened his belief system, his notion of the proper place of things.

All this is relevant to a message that Minister Natan Sharansky has been propounding in his new book The Case for Democracy (New York, Public Affairs, 2004, with Ron Dermer), in articles and interviews, in meetings with influential figures, including President George Bush, and so on. Sharansky's message centers on a distinction between "fear societies" - dictatorships - and "free societies" - democracies. Sharansky's insistence that all societies, given the choice, will choose "freedom" over "fear" is the basis of his optimistic encouragement of the Bush administration's ambition to spread democracy to the Arab world.

Not surprisingly, Sharansky's paradigm of a fear society is the Soviet Union, whose dictatorship he heroically defied until being allowed to leave his Siberian prison cell for Israel in 1986. Yet his paradigm, as an instance of the transition from fear to freedom, is obviously problematic. Sharansky himself acknowledges this in his book:

"In fact, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, the setbacks on the road to democracy today - some of which are very troubling - leave many doubtful that democracy there will stand the test of time. ...But... compared to a Soviet Union in which millions worked for the KGB, millions were in prison, tens of millions lost their lives, and hundreds of millions lived in fear, present day Russia is a bastion of freedom. We must also remember that Russian democracy is in its infancy."

After a few more paragraphs in this vein, however, Sharansky reluctantly admits that this case remains open: "If the example of Russia leaves readers unconvinced, then Japan's transition to democracy should quell any doubts...."

In fact, Freedom House's new ranking of Russia as "not free" for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union strengthens doubts rather than quells them. Freedom House points to increased Kremlin control over television and other media, restrictions on local government, and elections that are neither free nor fair. Even granting that the situation remains much better than in the dark days of the Soviet Union, today's Russia is a weak reed on which to base Sharansky's optimism.

To be sure, democracy has made great strides over the past century and has spread to places and cultures once deemed impenetrable by it. Still, a glance at the world warrants a "half-empty, half-full" caution more than it does a strident optimism. Russia is no longer free and China, while making progress toward economic liberalism, remains a dictatorship and a severe human rights abuser. Democracy has made only scant inroads in Africa and has a fragile hold in an Indonesia threatened by Islamic radicalism. Mark Falcoff ("Latin American Crack-up?" Commentary, July-August 2004) has written about Latin America:

"[The] long season of democratic renewal has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many Latin American citizens. In a recent region-wide survey, nearly 55 percent responded that they would support a return to dictatorship if doing so would solve their personal economic problems.... There has been a strong reaction against market-based democratic reforms.... Along with nostalgia for strongmen decked out in epaulettes and brandishing swords, the dream of a nationalist-corporatist state... has likewise begun to reappear.... [T]he wretched performance of the elected leadership in much of the region has tarnished the whole notion of democratic governance."

And a recent poll found that 50 percent of Iraq's Shi'ites - currently viewed as the pro-American camp in that country - say they favor theocracy rather than democracy as their country's eventual form of government. This clouds the optimists' picture even further.

Perhaps what distorts Sharansky's perspective is his focus on only a certain kind of fear - the fear of political persecution felt by people living in totalitarian societies. But there are other kinds of human fear. There is fear of the new, fear of threats to traditional values, fear of the undermining of centuries-old social structures - indeed, fear of freedom.

Even if Sayeed Qutb's metamorphosis into the leader of an anti-Western terror organization is an extreme case, it, too, is paradigmatic. The mid-20th century America to which Qutb reacted with such horror was quaintly conservative compared to today's American and Western world, with its decadent pop culture, sky-high divorce rates, and so on. To believe that this world can convert the Muslim Arab Middle East to freedom and pluralism takes, indeed, a strong dose of optimism.

As an Israeli, I am uneasy about the message that one of my cabinet ministers, the admirable, influential Sharansky, is spreading both on the popular level and at the highest altitudes of power. His sanguine outlook embraces the whole Middle East, including Iraq and the Palestinian Authority, even at a time when realities on the ground in both places seem to rebuff optimism. Last November 25, in a Jerusalem Post op-ed, Sharansky posited four conditions that the Palestinians must meet to prove that they are democratizing: dismantling the refugee camps; ending anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic incitement; expanding economic opportunities; and fighting terror. If Sharansky was the one administering the test, I would trust him to do so responsibly. The trouble is that more general messages like the one Sharansky is purveying can encourage eager, impatient politicians into hasty, unwise moves that lead to further disaster.

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