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1. Technion Scientists Create Breath Test for Cancer Detection
by Maayana Miskin
Scientists at the Technion in Haifa have created a device that they hope will be able to detect cancer with a simple breath test. In an initial trial, the “breathalyzer” test was able to detect lung cancer with 86 percent accuracy.
The new device was revealed this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Researchers hope the test will provide a simple, cost-effective and non-invasive method of detecting cancer. In addition, the test is capable of detecting cancers that are not yet large enough to show up on X-rays or CT scans, allowing for earlier diagnosis that could save lives.
The system works by testing for chemicals that tend to be present in lungs affected by cancer but not in healthy lungs. The Technion team decided to test for four such chemicals: ethylbenzene, decane, heptanol and trimethylbenzene.
Patients' breath is sent over a circuit made of silicon embedded with gold nanoparticles. If the breath contains the organic compounds common to cancer sufferers, the circuit's electrical resistance will change.
The research team was led by Hossam Haick. The team had developed a similar test in the past, using carbon nanotubes. The silicon-gold combination was found to be superior, they said. Unlike the device that used carbon nanotubes, the latest development is not sensitive to the water vapor found in lungs.
In addition, the latest version of the test works even on patients who have recently ingested alcohol, food, coffee or tobacco. Previous versions required patients to abstain before the test in order to avoid false results.
Haick and his team have patented their device, but will continue to work to perfect it. The device must pass further clinical trials before being put to use, at which point scientists will face the challenge of creating versions of the test that are simple and inexpensive enough to be used in day-to-day practice in hospitals and clinics.
2. PA: Ramadan Cash for Terror
by Maayana Miskin
The Palestinian Authority has voted to allocate one million shekels – more than $250,000 – for presents for terrorists imprisoned in Israel. The money will be distributed in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The gifts were announced at a time when PA leaders say they are facing a severe budget crisis, and have turned to international backers to provide funds. The PA gets billions of dollars a year in international aid, primarily from the United States and the European Union.
The Ramadan gifts will be an addition to the normal monthly PA aid to prisoners serving time in Israel. Support is given not only to PA Arabs serving time, but also to Israeli Arabs convicted of security-related offenses, or in PA terms, “fighting the Israeli occupation.”
Prisoners are given between 1,000 and 4,000 shekels a month, with more money going to those serving the longest sentences. Prisoners get payments made to a pension plan as well, and after release, those who served longer sentences are given preference for government jobs.
PA Media: Terrorists as 'Political Prisoners'
The PA's attitude towards terrorist prisoners is reflected in reports in PA-backed media outlets such as Palestinian News Network and Maan News. PA media frequently refers to terrorists in Israeli jails as “political prisoners.”
The arrests of PA Arabs suspected of terrorist activity are described as “abductions.”
'Israel Making Prisoners Sick'
During the PA vote, the PA official in charge of prisoner affairs, Issa Qaraqi, accused Israel of conducting medical experiments on prisoners and of making them sick. He called on international health organizations to intervene.
Qaraqi, who has a history of praising PA Arab terrorists, said the fact that several PA Arab prisoners have been diagnosed with cancer and other illnesses while serving time in prisons “indicates the decline in Palestinian prisoners health... and the lack of minimal medical care.” He accused Israeli guards of deliberately withholding treatment from cancer patients.
3. First Israel-PA Meeting Under Netanyahu
by Maayana Miskin
Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom met Wednesday morning with Palestinian Authority Minister of National Economy Bassem Khoury, in the first meeting between senior Israeli and PA representatives to take place since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took office.
Shalom and Khoury met in Jerusalem to discuss ways in which Israel can help boost the PA economy. The two met privately for about a half hour, then continued the meeting along with representatives from the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, and Finance Ministry, as well as PA officials.
The meeting was described as “positive,” and Shalom and Khoury agreed to meet again every four to six weeks. They also agreed to establish committees that will be in more frequent contact.
Among the issues named in the meeting as important to “economic peace” were entry permits for PA businessmen, the export of dairy products from PA towns to Israel, the import of meat to Judea and Samaria, and medical treatment in Israel for PA Arabs.
Also discussed were a planned industrial zone in Jenin and a planned Christian pilgrimage site along the Jordan River.
Prior to the meeting, Shalom expressed satisfaction that the PA had reversed its decision to freeze all meetings until Israel agreed to concessions in Judea and Samaria. “I'm glad that the Palestinians understand that boycotting talks with the Israeli government was harmful primarily to them,” he said. “As I've said, our goal is economic peace, and that does not impede political dialogue, but rather helps it along.”
Request for Care Follows PA Libel
Khoury's request that Israel provide medical treatment to PA Arabs follows on the heels of accusations from another senior PA official that Israeli doctors deliberately make PA Arabs sick. PA Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqi accused Israel of conducting medical experiments on PA prisoners held in Israel.
Qaraqi also claimed that the fact that roughly 0.25 percent of PA Arab prisoners in Israel have been diagnosed with cancer proves that Israel keeps the prisoners in substandard conditions that lead to illness. He accused Israeli guards of deliberately withholding medical treatment.
4. Barak to Students: Don't Whine About Shalit
by Maayana Miskin
Defense Minister Ehud Barak talked tough on Tuesday as high school students demanded to know why kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit remains in captivity. “Don't whine, and don't lose your spine,” Barak said.
"I suggest that we all keep looking for ways to bring back Gilad Shalit. I do not suggest that every young person in the country start thinking in terms of whining and moaning and losing their backbone,” he added.
Barak's remarks were made during a visit to a school in Israel's south in honor of the first day of classes. During the visit, he was confronted first by a group of students, and then by several protesting mothers, regarding Shalit's situation.
One student suggested that Shalit's plight would cause potential soldiers to fear that the state cannot protect them. “Can the state guarantee my safety when I enlist, if I fall into enemy hands?” he challenged.
Barak's answer was blunt. “The state cannot even guarantee that you will stay alive in the army. The state of Israel is in a region where there is no pity for the weak and there are no second chances for those who cannot defend themselves... There are no guarantees.”
However, Barak said, “When you enlist in a combat unit, you'll be with those who, like yourself, are prepared to risk their lives to save you.”
The state of Israel is willing to do anything to free kidnapped soldiers – but not at any price, Barak said. “We will not bring [Shali back 'at any price,' but we will use any method,” he said. Israel is engaged in serious efforts to secure Shalit's freedom, he assured his listeners. However, he said, the state must take into account not only Shalit's circumstances, but the nation's future.
"I urge anyone who wants Shalit back 'at any price' to think that option through,” he added.
The Shalit family responded to Barak's talk with students with a statement urging “less talk and more action.”
An Entire State Falls Prey to Emotional Obsession
Also on Tuesday, Channel 10 reporter Raviv Drucker lamented over Israel's “emotional obsession” with Shalit. “There is no nice way to say it: we've gone crazy when it comes to Gilad Shalit,” Drucker said.
"An entire country has fallen prey to an emotional obsession. Our national agenda includes just one line – release Gilad, and to hell with the price,” he continued.
Drucker expressed sympathy with Gilad's family. “It's true that if I were Gilad's father, I'd be willing to overturn the entire country, but that's exactly the difference between the interests of a single family and the interests of a state.”
He rejected complaints that Israel has not done enough to free Shalit. “Don't talk to me about a state's responsibility to its soldiers. There's no country on earth that has invested more than Israel invested in trying to return Shalit.” As a comparison, he said, “I can guess what the American president would say if Al-Qaeda kidnapped a soldier and demanded that the September 11 terrorists be released.”
5. Christian Gathering in Jerusalem Led by Suspected Cult Leader
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
The Government Press Office (GPO) announced Monday that thousands of Christians are due to attend a multicultural 
His controversial claims and behaviors have led to his church being ousted from Korean church organizations.
festival and prayer rally in the Israel Convention Center in Jerusalem (Binyanei HaUma) next week. While the GPO praises the event, which will be attended by the mayor of Jerusalem and the Minister of Tourism, anti-missionary activists note that it will be led by a pastor whom even other Christian groups label a "cult leader". The Binyanei HaUma building will accommodate more than 3,000 Christians attending the event from 36 different countries this coming Sunday night. According to the GPO, the festival will include Far East dance troupes and choirs, followed by "a special prayer for the health and for the blessing of Israel and her people."
The GPO said that this will be the first time in nine years that Jerusalem hosts an international convention of this proportion. The Ministry of Tourism and the Municipality of Jerusalem "attach great importance to the event and to the visit of thousands of pilgrims to the capital."
Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat will both be attending the gathering, to be broadcast live to millions of viewers worldwide. The festival and prayer service will be led by Dr. Jaerock Lee, senior pastor of the Manmin Joong-ang Church in Seoul, South Korea.
Although leading the large, international event in Jerusalem, Dr. Lee is considered by many within mainstream Christian organizations to be a cult leader. His controversial claims and behaviors have led to his church being ousted from Korean church organizations and to denouncement by many Korean-American pastors. However, Lee's Manmin Church claims over 8,000 branches in Korea and abroad.
Ellen Horowitz of Jewish Israel, an Israeli grassroots countermissionary organization, believes that the Manmin-led event is connected with the launching of a Russian-language missionary television station in Israel, TBN. Lee's sermons are televised on TBN in Russia, according to Horowitz, and the president of TBN boasted that they would be celebrating with Mayor Barkat, Knesset members and other dignitaries from September 3-10, 2009.
Lee, who already visited Israel in June in preparation for the event and met, amongst others, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, announced that his choice to hold the convention in Jerusalem is an expression of solidarity with the Jewish people, the State of Israel and its leaders. Participants in the Jerusalem event will also take part in a mass Jewish National Fund tree-planting in the Yad Kennedy forest, visit Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, and pay their respects to holy sites around the country. Lee also claimed, according to a GPO press release, that his organization has assisted new immigrants to Israel and will continue to do so in the future.
Aside from the religious aspect of the trip and gathering, Lee expressed his wish to strengthen cultural ties between Israel and South Korea. He is planning to invite Israeli cultural and spiritual leaders to Korea, as well.
The Manmin Church runs its own TV station, directed by Johnny Kim, which will be producing the Jerusalem event. Jewish Israel's Horowitz noted that Kim is "heavily into pyrotechnics and laser shows," and quipped that she hopes "Jerusalem doesn't get a giant cross in the sky over the Old City - compliments of our 'best friends'."
6. Survivors Reenact Holocaust Train Ride to Safety
by Maayana Miskin
More than 200 people are taking the train from Prague to London this week in a reenactment of the dramatic rescue of hundreds of children during the Holocaust. The children, most of them Jewish, were saved with the help of British businessman Nicholas Winton.
The reenactment will mark 70 years since the outbreak of World War II.
Winton, a 30-year-old stockbroker with no connection to the Jewish community, traveled to Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, on a mission to save local children. His own government, and others to which he turned, refused to help, claiming that his fears for the children's safety were groundless.
Winton refused to give up. With the help of friends, he funded trips to England for 669 children in one summer. In England, he put out advertisements looking for families to take in the children, and managed to find homes for each of them.
The 2009 train trip is taking place using a replica of a World War II steam engine train. The 1,300-kilometer (808 mile) trip will take four days; the travelers are scheduled to arrive in London on Friday.
Two hundred and eighteen of the passengers are relatives of the children saved by Winton, and 22 were among the original group of 669 who he saved. The survivors and their family members are joined by politicians and other public figures.
Upon their arrival in London, the passengers will be greeted by Winton, now 100 years old. Winton is now Sir Winton, having been knighted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth seven years ago in honor of his Holocaust rescue activities. Prior to that, Winton had kept his role in the rescue a secret for 50 years.
7. Passage Found, May Have Been Used by Abraham
by Hillel Fendel
A Jerusalem walkway from the times of the Patriarch Abraham, protected by a wall of large rocks, has been discovered, and will be displayed to the public on Thursday.
The double-wall was uncovered in a dig run by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and sponsored by the City of David Association. Prof. Roni Reich of the University of Haifa, who is directing the dig together with Eli Shukrun of the IAA, told Israel National News, "Based on clay pottery fragments found at the site, it is assumed to have been built by the Canaanites some 3,700 years ago, during the period known as the Middle Bronze Age."
The Patriarch Abraham met with "Malki-Tzedek, King of Shalem" - later known as Jerusalem - during this period, according to Biblical chronology and Genesis 14,18.
The fortifications are eight meters (over 26 feet) high, and served to protect those walking down to a spring in what is now the National Park, around and at the foot of the walls of Jerusalem. Some 24 meters of the double wall’s length have been uncovered, but it is apparently even longer, waiting to be uncovered in the future.
“This is the most massive wall ever discovered in the City of David," Reich said. "It is tremendously large in terms of its dimensions, thickness, and size of the rocks used. It appears that they protect a walk-way used to walk down from some tower atop the hill towards the spring.”
The protected passage is designed to solve an inherent paradox in the need for a spring, Reich explained: “On the one hand, water is necessary, especially in times of crisis, but its source is located in a spring, in the lowest and most vulnerable spot in the area. Thus the need to build such a protected passage, even though it involved great effort.”
A small part of the fortifications was first discovered exactly 100 years ago by a British archaeologist, but now it has become clear that these were just part of a very large double-wall. “This is the first time we have found such massive building in Jerusalem from before the period of King Herod,” Reich said.
Fortifications on such a massive scale indicate that Jerusalem became, at this time, a city-state of its own that was able to deploy and gather the resources to build them. “A small village would not have been able to build such a structure,” Reich said.
“This discovery shows that our picture of Jerusalem’s eastern fortifications, and of its water supply, from these periods is far from complete,” Reich said. “Though so many people have dug this hill, there is still a strong chance that large architectural elements are still well-hidden and waiting to be discovered.”
The fortifications will be opened to the public for the first time on Thursday during the 10th annual City of David Research Conference. Other discoveries will be on display as well, and tours of the area – 17 different routes! - will be provided as well.
