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1. Massive EU Aid to PA; US Omits Aid to Israel
by Hillel Fendel
First installment of massive European Union aid to the PA for 2011 is
announced, while US delays previously-pledged hundreds of millions of
dollars for Israeli defense.
European Union foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton announced on
Wednesday an initial 100-million-euro ($131.3 million) aid package to
the Palestinian Authority for 2011. Sixty million euros will enable the
Palestinian Authority "to cover wages and pensions for essential
civilian workers, particularly medical and teaching staff," Ashton said,
and the remainder will be channeled through United Nations relief
programs.
"This decision is a sign of the strong political and financial
commitment of the European Union to the Palestinian Authority and to
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's leadership in building a democratic and
viable Palestinian state," Ashton said, taking clear sides in the
ongoing debate as to whether a Palestinian state is desirable for a
peaceful settlement in the Middle East. “Palestinian statehood is
critical for any peaceful, workable and lasting solution to the
conflict."
The latest aid will be added to 696 million euros already given by the
EU to the PA, as well as another 265 million from individual EU member
states.
At the same time, a special three-month budget for the United
Stateshas been prepared – but is lacking promised funds for Israeli
defense that U.S. President Barack Obama earlier pledged. The short-term
budget is designed to keep the government afloat until a final budget
is prepared.
Specifically, a promised $205 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile
defense project has not been allocated. Similarly missing are increased
allocations for other missile defense programs that the House of
Representatives approved several months ago. U.S.officials said,
however, that the funding would appear in the final national budget.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said that he would work to wean Israelfrom dependence of U.S.foreign aid.
2. Family Dispatches Palestinian ‘Terrorist’ to Get Shot by IDF
by Hillel Fendel
A deranged Arab youth was dispatched by his family towards Beit El -
hoping he would be shot as a suspected terrorist by the IDF.
The residents of Beit El were ordered to remain in their houses last
night after an infiltration was detected. Two hours later, it turned out
the ‘terrorist’ was sent purposely by his family who thus wished to be
rid of him. The armed man who accompanied him was not found.
The incident began shortly after midnight when Beit El’s
around-the-clock security office was alerted to an infiltration via the
security fence in the northern neighborhoods. A beeper message went out
to the town’s residents, informing them of what of the suspected
presence of one or more terrorists and instructing them to lock their
doors and remain inside.
Within a short time, the security forces found and arrested an Arab who
appeared to be “confused.” He was not armed, but said that he was with
another man who was – and the residents were advised to continue to
remain in their homes until the second terrorist was found.
Following further investigation, it was ascertained that the arrested
infiltrator was actually mentally unbalanced, and that the armed man who
accompanied him was a representative of the family of the
“infiltrator.” The family thus sought to dispatch its unhealthy
relative to Beit El in the hope that he would be shot by IDF soldiers.
Beit El is located just south of Dura Al-Kara and west of Bitin. It has
been the target of rock attacks several times from outside, but
infiltrators managed only twice to attack within Beit El itself: On
Shavuot ten years ago, a terrorist stabbed the town's security officer
in the shoulder - the terrorist was killed shortly afterwards - and on
another occasion, Arabs chased away a mother and children and proceeded
to burn prayerbooks and destroy a makeshift synagogue on the site that
later became the Pisgat Yaakov neighborhood.
%InAd1%
3. Opinion: Is Pollard Caspar Weinberger's Revenge on the Jews?
by Prof. Phyllis Chesler
Why is this man still in jail? Why was this man forced to spend seven
years in solitary? Why is still confined, languishing, festering in jail
for a total of twenty five years?
Solitary confinement is the most barbaric of punishments. Few people
can withstand this form of torture without becoming very ill, both
physically and mentally.
Am I talking about the Soviet Gulag? Or about some hell-hole in Afghanistan or Iran?
Last year, The New Yorker
ran a piece about solitary confinement. The article concludes that this
punishment amounts to torture, that it can even induce “acute psychosis
with hallucinations.” The article describes the cases of two political
prisoners or prisoners-of-war: AP’s Middle East correspondent, Terry
Anderson, who was put into solitary by Hezbollah in Lebanon for six
years. Anderson “felt himself disintegrating”; his mind went blank; he
had hallucinations; he started to become “neurotically possessive about
his little space”; he felt his brain was “grinding down.” He also
describes Senator John McCain who said that “solitary confinement
crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more than any other form
of mistreatment. And he said that even though he had his arms broken
and was subjected to other forms of torture.”
Clearly, the New Yorker’s man, Atul Gawande, opposes this practice.
He does mention the cases of two unnamed inmates: one was convicted of
felony-murder and spent five years in isolation. After a few months he
began talking to himself, pacing back and forth, having panic attacks,
and hallucinating. After a year he was hearing voices on the television
who were talking to him. In another case, Gawande describes another
American man in solitary whose initial crime was armed robbery and
aggravated battery but who then “misbehaved” at a medium security prison
for which he was was put in solitary or in isolation for almost
fourteen years. This man stopped showering and began throwing his feces
around his cell. He became psychotic.
Even he was released after he served his sentence of fifteen years.
Gawande does not mention the man I have in mind, a man whose living
head is on a pike in the public square for all to see—a message, a
warning to us all—a man who killed no one.
I am talking about Jonathan Pollard.
What crime did he commit? Did he spy against American for the Soviets
or for the Chinese communists? Did he do so for money, sex, or for
ideological reasons? American Navy Seaman, Michael Walker, operated a Soviet spy ring; he was arrested in 1980, pled guilty, was sentenced to 25 years and released after 15 years.
CIA Agent David Barnett sold the Soviets the names of thirty American
undercover agents. He was arrested in the mid-1980s, sentenced to only
eighteen years, and paroled after only ten years. In 2001, John Walker
Lindh, who joined the Taliban and received training as a terrorist in
Pakistan, was captured and sentenced to 21 years. In the Abdul Kedar
Helmy, an Egyptian-born American, transmitted classified materials to
Egypt used in a joint weapons program with Iraq to vastly increase the
range of ballistic missiles, including Scud missiles, which were later
fired on U.S. troops during the Persian Gulf War.” In 2010,
Chinese-American engineer Dongfan “Greg” Chung operated as a spy for China against America for thirty years. He received a 15 year sentence.
What is “different” about Pollard? Unlike Walker, Barnett, Lindh,
Helmy, and Chung, Pollard is the only Jew. The others are Christians or
Muslims or atheists.
What else is different? Pollard is the only one who shared secrets with
an American ally with whom America was not and is not now at war.
Pollard shared information with Israel.
What else is “different” about Pollard? There is one more thing. Like
the Rosenbergs, Pollard was the proving grounds, the scapegoat, for
another man, also a Jew, but a Jew who did not like being mistreated as a
Jew, as a Jew who wanted to prove how tough the was or how hard he was
ready to be on another Jew and on the Jewish state.
The Rosenbergs, (who were guilty), had their Jewish judge who chose to
have them electrocuted. Pollard, poor Pollard, had Secretary of Defense
Caspar W. Weinberger whose paternal grandparents were Jews and whose
father was a Jewish lawyer. When Caspar was a boy, he was taunted for supposedly being Jewish. His mother was a Christian and he was raised as a Christian. When he visited Yad Vashem, the Memorial to the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, he said loudly:
“I am not a Jew.” He said this in response to the guard who told him
that “he, too, would have been murdered in the Holocaust.”
Weinberger submitted a forty page affidavit in which he insisted that
Pollard should be harshly sentenced. (In later years, he said that “the
Pollard matter was comparatively minor.” Weinberger is now dead and no
doubt roasting in Hell.
One wonders: What did he have over CIA head George Tenet (who
threatened to resign when President Clinton suggested pardoning
Pollard)?
What did Weinberger have over President Bush’s Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld, both of whom went along with Weinberger’s revenge?
Where are all the anti-torture activists on Pollard? How can it be that
our most prominent American political prisoner has never made it onto
their honor roll of causes with which to browbeat America?
Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally asked President
Obama to pardon Jonathan Pollard, at long last. I and all true believers
in democracy stand with him in this matter.
Update: Based on a recent article by Leo Rennert
which critique’s yesterdays’ coverage of the Pollard case in The New
York Times, “ it is now clear that Pollard, in failing health, has been
the victim of a CIA cover-up of a massive intelligence failure, with the
agency blaming Pollard for the damage caused by a real “mole” inside
the CIA who passed to Moscow the names of more than a dozen U.S.
informants in the Soviet Union — namely Aldrich Ames, the head of CIA’s
Soviet-Eastern Europe division, who fingered Pollard to keep the CIA
from discovering his own treachery.. The CIA did not discover Ames’ role
until well after Pollard was behind bars and it still isn’t willing to
acknowledge its mistake in blaming Pollard for Ames’s crimes.”
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D. is emerita professor of Psychology and Women’s
Studies at City University of New York. Well known author of fifteen
books, including Women and Madness (Doubleday, 1972), The Death of
Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005) and most recently, The New Anti-Semitism, she is the
co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National
Women's Health Network. Prof. Chesler is often on international media
and is a frequent contributor to INN as well as FOX News, Middle East
Quarterly and others.
4. EU Grants 10-Yr Duty-Free Status to PA Agro Products
by Chana Ya'ar
The European Union has given the PA in Judea, Samaria and Gaza a 10-year duty-free import trade status.
Palestinian
Authority business owners in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will be able to
sell fresh produce, oils and fish products in the European Union at an
attractive price.
The deal, signed Wednesday, will allow PA
farmers to export their goods in Europe duty-free for up to 10 years,
with a review and possible extension after the first five years,
according to a report posted on the EuroMed website.
According
to data released by the European Union, the agreement won't amount to
much at this point. Last year's exports to the EU were primarily soy and
sunflower seeds, oils and early potato shipments. The entire lot came
to a total of 6.1 million euros, around $8 million. In exchange, the EU
exported some 50.5 million euros' worth of goods to the PA.
Under
the current Interim Association Agreement, PA farmers are already able
to market their industrial goods and industrial products, duty-free, in
the EU markets. The new agreement was specifically mapped out to include
agricultural and fishery products under the framework of the Barcelona
Process, with negotiations conducted in accordance with the
Euro-Mediterranean Roadmap for Agriculture (Rabat roadmap).
Concern Over Jewish Goods
Reuters
reports that the EU issued a statement saying it expects exports from
the PA to further expand as the economy develops. What the EU's
executive commission does not want, however, and what it bluntly said it
was deeply concerned about, is the potential export of Jewish goods
from the same areas.
“We are aware that the true origin is a
potential problem, so we shall be watching that closely,” said Roger
Waite, spokesman for the Commission.
The European Union has made
no bones about the fact that it opposes Israel's presence in Judea and
Samaria, and is deeply committed to ending Jewish construction in those
regions.
According to the ENPI (European Neighbourhood
Partnership Instrument) Information Center, PA Arabs are “extremely
positive about their relations with the European Union, and have a
strong appreciation of EU projects. There is also a marked desire for
even more support.”
Data gleaned from a survey conducted by the
Opinion Polling and Research Project (OPPOL) to “generate better
information about awareness, understanding and perception of the EU and
the role it plays in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
EU De Facto Recognition of 'Palestine'?
Within the body of document, the text of the survey report refers repeatedly to “Palestine” when discussing the findings of the study conducted in the Palestinian Authority areas.
In
one section, the text actually refers outright to the entity as a
country, thus already conferring upon it a political status that does
not appear even to be close to being achieved by diplomatic
negotiations.
A tiny caveat on the right margin apologetically
claims, “This publication does not represent the official view of the EC
(European Commission) or the EU Institutions. The EC accepts no
responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to its content.”
Nevertheless, the entire document and the three-year survey effort that
produced the report was funded by the European Union.
Among
respondents, 92 percent said that relations between the PA and the EU
are good or fairly good, 86 percent said “the territory has benefited
from EU policies in the country,” and 76 percent agreed that relations
are good.
The report also noted a significant disparity between
the PA leadership and the grassroots population in the two groups'
perceptions of the EU's involvement.
While only 49 percent of
the PA general public felt the EU involvement in the PA is appropriate,
89 percent of its leadership supported the EU in that role. Similarly,
the report said 54 percent of the general public said it believed the EU
could help “bring peace and stability to the country,” but 83 percent
of “opinion leaders” held that belief as well.
The ENPI is the
main financial mechanism through which assistance is granted to the
European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Partner Countries, as well as
Russia. ENPI South grants funds to the Palestinian Authority as well as
to Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia.
%InAd2%
5. PUAH Institute Holds its Annual Conference
by Elad Benari, Rochel Sylvetsky & Yoni Kempinski
The PUAH Institute held on Wednesday its eleventh conference which
dealt with doctors, rabbis, and the connection between the two. This
year the conference was dedicated to the memory of the late Sephardi
Chief Rabbi, Rav Mordechai Eliyahu, who was the spiritual and halakhic
[Jewish legal] mentor of the institute and passed away this past June.
Since its establishment in 1990, PUAH Institute has helped thousands of
couples suffering from infertility. The organization deals with
fertility issues in a halakhic framework in a frank, warm, friendly and
highly professional manner, focusing on making couples feel cared about
and providing real breakthroughs. PUAH Institute combines caring about
women’s emotional and physical state with care for the wellbeing of the
couple.
Rabbi Gideon Weizman, head of the English Department of the PUAH
Institute, told Israel National News TV that the organization’s annual
conference, usually attended by close to 2,000 men and women, is the
pinnacle of the work of the PUAH Institute throughout the year. Renowned
rabbis such as Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, Dayan Rabbi Shlomo
Daichovsky, Rabbi YIsrael Meir Lau, the current Chief Rabbis and others
share the podium with heads of obstetrics, endocrinology, women's health
and other major hospital departments and research institutes on a large
variety of related issues.
“I think that in a very clear way the medical side and the halakhic
side not only do not contradict each other but in fact they complement
each other,” said Rabbi Weizman.
Dr. Shai Elitzur, IVF Unit Director at the Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv,
said that the connection which PUAH promotes between doctors and rabbis
is “extremely important. The couple seeks our medical advice but they
also seek the advice of the rabbis. It’s very important that we and the
rabbis work together and understand each other’s abilities and views,
and then we can give the couple the best advice to fit all their needs.”
“We have learned how to deal with the doctors; they’ve learned how to
deal with us. We’ve learned how to accept each other,” said Rabbi
Weizman. “We’ve also learned how to work together because really it’s
about creating relationships. The doctors understand that we’re on the
same side. We’re not doctors, we don’t give medical advice per se but we
give medical direction that informs couples about new treatments. All
of us are able to get them to relate to their doctors. Sometimes a
doctor doesn’t know how to speak to a religious couple, that’s where we
come in.”
Dr. Elitzur noted that in terms of fertility and reproduction, Jewish
Law is the most advanced and modern law compared to other religions.
Rabbi Weizman noted that the situation in Israel in terms of treatments
for infertility is excellent, since treatments are covered by the
national health insurance. “The availability of this treatment [in
Israel] is really giving us incredible advances," he said. “Israel is
very much a central and an important part of the fertility community
around the world.”
The rabbis, he said, attend conferences, keep up with literature, and
are in contact with experts and rabbis from around the world in order to
be up-to-date on the latest information. Another important role the
rabbis play is helping couples overcome their embarrassment and
explaining to them what treatments are available and that treatment for
infertility is halakhically permitted and encouraged. The late Rabbi
Mordechai Eliyahu, the halakhic guide for the institute, held that
the woman who actually gives birth is the halakhic mother of a child,
paving the way for certain fertility procedures.
Among the rabbis who spoke at Wednesday’s conference was Rabbi Yisrael
Ariel of the Temple Institute, who gave a PowerPoint presentation on
women's role in the Holy Temple, showing that they took active part in
bringing Passover and other sacrifices, the seder meal, and first
fruits, and had a special balcony for watching Sukkot celebrations so
that they could rejoice as well.
Rabbi Yoel Katan of Shaalvim Yeshiva, who has written halakhic papers
on fertility issues together with his obstetrician-gynecologist. wife,
Dr. Chana Katan, spoke about the use of elective artificial insemination
in halakha and of its possible use to allow a person categorized as a
“mamzer” (the offspring of a halakhically forbidden relationship such as
incest which continues for several generations) to have children who
are not categorized as such halakhically. Other rabbis disagreed with
this interpretation, leading to a lively discussion that ended the
conference.
PUAH Institute's informative website is http://www.puahonline.org/
6. Police: Fatal Attack on Christian Women was Terror
by Maayana Miskin
Police have imposed a gag order on the stabbing of two Christian women
near the city of Beit Shemesh on Saturday, but said Thursday they
believe the stabbing was a terrorist attack. Earlier police had said the
incident may have been criminally motivated.
No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the fatal attack.
The victims, both Christian missionaries, had been hiking in the
Jerusalem Forest when they were attacked by two Arab men bearing knives.
American Kristine Luken was killed, and an Israeli immigrant from
Britain, Kay Wilson, was badly hurt.
Wilson told police that she survived the brutal attack Saturday by
pretending to be dead. She was stabbed multiple times with a large
serrated knife.
At one point, she said, one of the Arab attackers ripped off a Star of
David necklace she was wearing and then stabbed her in the chest where
the star – which traditionally symbolizes Jewish identity – had lain.
After the attackers left she was unable to call for help, as her severe
injuries left her struggling for breath. However, she managed to stand
and walk toward a nearby town, and found two families near the road who
called for help.
A memorial will be held for Luken on Thursday in a church in the Old
City of Jerusalem. Luken, who will be buried in the United
States, worked as the head of the British branch of Church Ministry
among Jewish people (CMJ).
Doctors say Wilson is recovering, and may even be released from the
hospital by the weekend. She is an educator for Shoresh Tours, a CMJ
branch that runs tours in Israel.
%InAd3%
7. PA: Hamas Plans 'Civil War' in Judea, Samaria
by Gil Ronen
Seventeen rockets and two rocket launchers were recently seized from
the hands of Hamas men in Ramallah, a spokesman for the Palestinian
Authority security forces said Wednesday. Reports did not specify what
kind of rockets these were.
Adnan Damiri, spokesman for the security forces in Judea and Samaria,
told a news conference in Ramallah that the security forces discovered
Hamas arms caches and money in both Ramallah and Shechem in recent
weeks. These were not intended to be used against Israel, Damiri said,
but against the PA, in order to undermine its rule in Judea and Samaria.
Hamas was plotting to "start a civil war" in Judea and Samaria, he claimed.
Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said in statements from
Damascus Wednesday that the organization will not hold any talks with
Fatah before the release of Hamas prisoners held in PA jails.
"We cannot hold any reconciliation talks in light of the current
conditions in the Palestinian Authority " he said, according to a report
on EarthTimes. "Fatah and the PA have to release the prisoners who are
on hunger strike in its jails."
Damiri, on his side, said the Hamas prisoners have ended their hunger strike and were treated well.
8. China asks Israel to Help Fight Child Abuse
by Gil Ronen
Israeli expertise in combating the phenomenon of child abuse is being exported to China for the first time.
This week a team from the Jerusalem-based Haruv Institute, which
provides innovative training in identifying and fighting child abuse and
neglect, is holding a five-day seminar for a group of 40 pediatricians
from across China. The seminar is led by Dr. Yoram Ben Yehuda and Dr.
Gabriel Otterman. Sanford R. Cardin, the president of the Charles and
Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, which supports the Haruv Institute,
is also attending.
The seminar seeks to provide the pediatricians, who often serve as the
front line in identifying child abuse, with new tools and clinical
skills with a focus on early detection.
The training, which is taking place in Xi'an, a city of ten million in
central China, will also include methods for documenting and treating
cases of child abuse. Shaanxi Hospital in Xi’an invited Haruv's
physicians after hearing about their expertise.
The seminar includes lectures, workshops, an examination of case
studies, in-depth discussion and clinical, hands-on training. Some of
the Chinese physicians will travel to Jerusalem for further training at
the Haruv Institute.
Haruv said that this is the first time an Israeli delegation has been
invited to another country to train others on the subject of preventing
and treating child abuse and is "among the first times, if not the first
time, that a Chinese institute has asked for such outside expertise on
the matter."
The seminar's long-term goal is to train a core group of pediatricians
in China to become experts in detecting and treating child abuse. They
will then be able to transmit their knowledge and new tools to
colleagues throughout the country, which is home to one of the largest
populations of children in the world.
“The Chinese have recently realized that the role pediatricians play is
a very integral one in fighting child abuse, and that often they will
be the first place a child will go after being hurt,” said Professor
Hillel Schmid, Director of the Haruv Institute. “This innovative and
pioneering seminar aims to train these pediatricians with the necessary
skills and knowledge to detect when a child is in danger and,
furthermore, to have the resources and wherewithal to take the
appropriate action.”
According to Schmid, the Chinese invitation is evidence of the Haruv
Institute's growing international influence as leaders in providing
knowledge and training in the prevention and treatment of child abuse.
“Our goal is to expand our reach and to deepen our collaboration with
the professional community in China to share with them the knowledge and
skills we obtained in Israel to fight this phenomenon,” Schmid added.
The Haruv Institute, established by the Schusterman Foundation –
Israel, sees as its mission to establish, apply and disseminate new
standards of excellence in the field of child abuse and neglect for all
professionals and allied care-givers.
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