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1. Expose: USAID Funds PA Schools for Incitement
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The massive USAID program for the Palestinian Authority helps build schools where children learn incitement and that the State of Israel does not exist, investigative journalist David Bedein revealed to Arutz Sheva.
“This is a catastrophe,” he said. “The government of the United States prohibits Palestinian Authority incitement against Israel while it builds the infrastructure for continuing the incitement.”
He said that a USAID official told him that the agency does not examine the PA curriculum and does not check to see if any of the assistance ends up in the hands of terrorists.” Bedein asserted, “They teach children about ‘martyrdom', praise violent resistance and teach that the entire State of Israel does not exist.”
The USAID program has pumped $2.4 billion into the Palestinian Authority since 1994 for what it says are programs that “reduce poverty, improve health and education, create jobs and advance democracy.” USAID says it plans to invest another $153 million in 2010 for the development of PA infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.
Congressmembers visiting Israel this past summer were surprised to hear from Bedein about continuing incitement in PA textbooks, despite its specific prohibition in the American Roadmap plan.
As far back as six years ago, Bedein reported that the U.S. government funded an Arab lobby group in Jerusalem that “trains media professionals in the art of transforming the image of the Arab-Israeli struggle into an Arab David against an Israeli Goliath.”
2. State Dept: US Goal to Expel Jews in 'Occupied' Post-67 Lands
by Hana Levi Julian
A top State Department official spelled out on Tuesday that the goal of the United States in its negotiations in the Middle East is to pressure Israel into expelling Jews from Judea and Samaria in order to "end the occupation that began in 1967."
William J. Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, said in his address to the Middle East Institute Tuesday that he sees the U.S.mandate as one of "determined leadership" and that American must be straightforward about its intentions.
"Our goal in the region is clear," he said, "two states living side by side in peace and security; a Jewish state of Israel, with which America retains unbreakable bonds, and with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, that ends the daily humiliations of Palestinians under occupation, and that realizes the full and remarkable potential of the Palestinian people."
Although he made no mention of any demands upon the PA in order to achieve its goal of establishing a new Arab state within Israel's current borders, Burns was blunt about America's expectations of Israel.
"We do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements; we consider the Israeli offer to restrain settlement activity to be a potentially important step, but it obviously falls short of the continuing Roadmap obligation for a full settlement freeze," he said.
Further, he said, "We seek to deepen international support for the Palestinian Authority’s impressive plan to build over the next couple years the institutions that a responsible Palestinian state requires. And we also seek progress toward peace between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon, as part of a broader peace among Israel and all of its neighbors."
The highest ranking Foreign Service Officer in the United States, Burns served as Acting Secretary of State until the appointment of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001, and as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008.
The Under Secretary's remarks came barely 24 hours after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met at the White House with President Barack Obama for talks grudgingly scheduled just hours before he flew to the U.S. on Sunday.
The two leaders were accompanied for some of the one hour and 40-minute meeting, held Monday night, by their respective administrative and security teams. On the agenda were the issues of the Iranian nuclear threat, the paralysis in Israel's negotiations with the PA, and the claim by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run again for the leadership in PA elections on January 24.
Burns vowed the U.S. "will continue to work hard to bring about the early resumption of negotiations, which is the only path to the two state solution on which so much depends, not only for the future of Israelis and Palestinians, but for the entire Middle East."
"We have made limited headway," he claimed, " a shared understanding between the parties about a two-state objective; a shared interest in moving back to the negotiating table; wide international backing for this process; steady progress, in the face of very difficult odds, toward shaping reliable Palestinian security organizations and governmental institutions in the West Bank. Now we need to bear down, move ahead, fulfill our responsibilities for leadership, and challenge every other party to fulfill theirs."
3. Housing Minister: Netanyahu Hasn't Even Authorized One Building
by IsraelNN Staff
Despite all the talk about continued building in settlement blocs, Housing Minister Ariel Attias said Tuesday night that since becoming Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu has not authorized construction of one new home in Judea, Samaria, or neighborhoods of Jerusalem over the green line. "No tenders have been issued for building inside or outside the settlement blocs, nor in eastern Jerusalem," Attias said in a television interview.
Attias' comments contradict statements by Netanyahu, who claims that hundreds of homes in the settlement blocs are under construction. According to Netanyahu, Israel has not implemented a building freeze in the settlement blocs, and intends to complete construction of some 3,000 housing units that have already been approved.
In an interview last week with the Al-Hura, an Arabic-language news station operated by the U.S. government, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Netanyahu had, in a recent meeting, agreed to halt all construction over the green line. He also agreed not to issue new permits for construction.
Responding to queries by Israel National News to the Clinton interview, Netanyahu's office said that "the Prime Minister has stated his position on these matters many times since his Bar-Ilan University speech last June. The Prime Minister stresses that he is committed to ensuring a normal life for residents of Judea and Samaria. With that, he said that he was prepared to curb construction for a specific period in order to jumpstart the peace process with the Palestinians."
4. Conclusive Evidence Proves Iran Missiles on Weapons Ship
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Foreign Ministry disclosed Wednesday that examinations of weapons found on the ship stopped by Israel on the high seas two weeks ago prove that Iran is the source. “An examination of the munitions seized proves conclusively that the source of the arms was Iran. This is clear both from the shipping documents and the markings on the munitions themselves,” it stated.
The vessel, named the Francop, was a merchant ship flying the flag of Antigua and destined for a port in Syria, which has been the exit point for tens of thousands of rockets smuggled into Lebanon for Hizbullah terrorists.
The IDF photo on the left shows cases of 60mm mortar bombs with a packing list that claims the cargo in the container is AZ111-A2 fuses.
Israeli special naval forces boarded the boat without opposition, and further investigation showed that the ship’s crew had no idea they were carrying 500 of tons of weapons disguised as civilian goods.
After the ship was escorted to Ashdod, authorities counted 36 shipping containers with:
--Approximately 9,000 mortar shells;
--3,000 Katyusha rockets;
--3,000 recoilless gun shells;
--20,000 grenades;
-more than half a million rounds of small arms ammunition
“The Iranian Revolutionary Guards transfer their shipments over air, sea, and land routes, and do not hesitate to make use of civilian carriers, often without their knowledge," the Foreign Ministry added.
5. IDF: Hizbullah Rockets Can Strike Jerusalem
by Ilene Rosenblum
Hizbullah's missiles now have the capacity to reach Israel’s central region, including Jerusalem, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.Gen Gabi Ashkenazi said Tuesday in a briefing with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He also announced that a new operation designed to intercept Katyusha rockets is due to begin next year .
A small percentage of Hizbullah’s current arsenal of tens of thousands of missiles can reach almost 190 miles, Ashkenazi said, well over the distance from southern Lebanon to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile, the joint air defense exercise, Juniper Cobra, was completed on Tuesday to the satisfaction of all levels of command. Top brass in both the Israeli and U.S. armies called the exercise a great success. In the final operation, ten Patriot missiles were shot down by unmanned planes within a matter of hours. Approximately 1,400 personnel, each from the U.S. military and the IDF, took part in the fifth operation of the biennial exercise.
Major Omri Maost, an anti-aircraft commander in the South, sat in the control room during the launching and was directly responsible for some of the missiles that were launched. He said that the success of the operation boosted soldiers’ confidence.
6. ‘Start-up Israel’ Author: Anti-Zionist Boycott ‘Impossible’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
It is “impossible" for anti-Zionists to succeed in their attempt to boycott Israel because U.S. President Barack Obama will listen to Google’s Eric Schmidt before listening to the anti-nationalist J Street lobby, according to the co-author of Start-Up Nation.
Dan Senor, who along with Saul Singer, an American immigrant to Israel, wrote the book that is a best-seller in the United States, told the Atlantic Monthly that the boycott movement is a failure. “I don't want to oversimplify, but who do think is more important to Barack Obama: The head of J Street or Eric Schmidt at Google?" he said. "And if Eric Schmidt said that his company would be devastated if Israel came off-line -- and we interviewed Schmidt and he talked about the importance of Israel -- then I think I know the answer.”
The two-year-old J Street lobby, which bills itself as “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace,” is partly financed by Muslim groups.
Senor said that “it's impossible” for the boycott movement to succeed. "One person after another told us is that the one place in the world that it would be devastating for them to have shut down would be Israel, because they put so much of their mission-critical work and R&D in Israel,” he explained
Senor and Singer’s new book is a rare look at Israel without touching on politics and wars. The authors said they wanted to discover and reveal the ingredients behind Israel’s modern economic miracle that is illustrated by its being near the top of list in foreign countries with listings on the NASDAQ and in the number of new patents,
The nations’ personality offers one key to its success, according to Singer. "It's very Israeli to be constantly questioning, arguing and not accepting, but challenging authority. Israelis are not worrying about hierarchy and ranks,” he told Israel 21c.
Senor told the Atlantic that the United States can learn from Israel although there are some things in the Jewish state that simply cannot be copied elsewhere – such as Judaism and Jewish culture.
The authors also cite the close-knit society that serves in the Israel Defense Forces as providing the groundwork for characteristics of self-criticism, tolerance and encouragement that are behind the mind for innovations.
“[Presiden Shimon Peres told us that Jews have a tendency throughout our history to be dissatisfied. That's a big theme, so this is obviously a big part of IDF culture,” Senor stated. “It's a very entrepreneurial, start-up military. There are very few bosses.”
He noted that one of the reasons Israel survived and recovered so quickly from the global financial disaster last year is that Israelis say, "All right, we're not quitting. We'll figure it out, we'll get through this…Let's solve new problems and let's be resilient."
7. Israeli Geo-archeologist is Making Waves
by Rachel Rubin, INN Intern
Field work, laboratory work, writing reports, and teaching are all part of a day’s work for Dr. Beverly Goodman, an underwater coastal geo-archeologist of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa. For Goodman, this is the ideal career.
Goodman’s most recent finding is the first physical evidence of a tsunami on the coast of Israel, specifically in Caesarea. Her research team encountered the initial deposit by chance during their excavations of offshore shipwrecks at an ancient port in Caesarea. “(The team) had too much time left to call it quits and we didn’t have enough time left to go on to the next site. So we thought, okay, what are we? We are geo-archeologists, let’s keep digging. And it’s a good thing we did,” says Goodman.
A Tsunami deposit is made up of the debris the Tsunami picked up in its path. Afterwards, the debris falls out of the water column and leaves a signature behind. The appearance and contents of a Tsunami deposit vary based on the distance of the deposit from the shore. The deposit Goodman found was a meter thick and contained remnant of shell, rock and pottery.
“If I am doing coring, then sometimes we actually live on the research ship itself. It’s really nice because we wake up and we’re already at work,” Goodman says. Because she works underwater, there isn’t much time during the work day to discuss the team’s progress. The team wants the dive to go as smoothly as possible so the entire project is planned in advance so they can make the most of the field time.
Everybody on Goodman’s team has a high level SCUBA certification and extensive diving experience. “The diving we do isn’t standard recreational diving; we are working with some technical diving gear which allows us to work a lot longer and also gives us the freedom to work in deeper water,” says Goodman. Their gear includes cameras that allow the researchers to see what is happening underwater from above, and a radio communication system between the divers and the ship so they can report any problems.
Usually the field work lasts 2-4 weeks, and afterwards the team works on getting all the research to the lab and beginning the process of analyzing the data.
The analysis is a slow process, but the initial review of the cores is immediate. Once the cores are opened, Goodman can tell if there are any good layers to examine. Some of the sample is sent off to a lab to be analyzed by radio carbon dating, a process that can date organic material. Sometimes a sample can be dated by the pottery found in the core since certain types of pottery can give a more exact date.
Goodman uses a microscope to analyze the sediment, to see the character of the material. Remains of animals found in the samples can be an indication of the type of environment they lived in. “For example, there are certain types of animals that only live in the shallows. If you find them in a very deep position, you know that they have been moved there. These are some of the ways that we can identify tsunami events,” Goodman says.
“When you are putting all the results together, there is an incredible feeling of bringing together all these results and all this data. After all this work, seeing a nice clear four page article is also a very exciting part of my career. I really do love my job. It’s a lot of fun,” Goodman adds.
The locations for research are chosen based on information about what is on the coastline, either from historical texts or from archeological excavations. “I also love the mystery and the excitement when we first open up a core, and we don’t know what is in it or what we are going to encounter. A core is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get,” Goodman quips.
Goodman is going to continue working in Israel. She hopes to take a few more core samples in other areas that have a history in texts of tsunami events but no physical evidence. She will use this information to determine how big they were and whether they were local events, or if they affected the whole coast of Israel.
In the future, this research will be used to create models of this tsunami and compare it to the deposits left behind by modern tsunamis. Goodman’s research is supported by The Ministry of Infrastructure, Hebrew University, The Inter-university Institute for Marine Sciences, National Geographic, and the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at Haifa University.
The goal of Goodman’s research is to facilitate accurate predictions of the scope of the damage that can be expected in the event of a future tsunami.
Click here to download a recent interview with Dr. Beverly Goodman on Israel National Radio.
