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May 1, 2005
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Ezer Weizman Photo Gallery (Maariv-Hebrew)
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 Putin Visits Israel and Tries to Allay Its Security Worries by Greg Myre
On the first visit by a Kremlin leader to Israel, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday tried to allay fears that Israel's security was threatened by Russia's nuclear assistance to Iran and missile sales to Syria. Mr. Putin's trip is a concrete sign of improved ties between Russia and Israel as they work to overcome a complicated and troubled relationship dating back decades. Yet their differences kept surfacing. (New York Times)
See also Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan Arrives by Efraim Inbar (Jerusalem Post)
Backlash May Put British Boycott of Israeli Universities in Jeopardy by Phil Baty and Helena Flusfeder
The British Association of University Teachers could be forced to abandon its boycott of two Israeli universities before it even gets off the ground. A move by anti-boycott campaigners to invoke obscure union rules to call a special council that could reverse the boycott decision within a month comes amid a growing international backlash against the boycott. Prominent international Jewish scholars have even called for a tit-for-tat boycott of UK academics in response to the AUT's move. The chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association, said: "Early indications are that (the boycott) would appear to run contrary to contractual law, race and religious discrimination law, and academic freedom obligations. (Times Higher Education-UK)
Rand Corporation Says Palestinian State Could Be Viable
A future Palestinian state could be viable but it would have to ensure security for its own citizens and Israelis and would require $33 billion in capital investment, according to a new report by the Rand Corporation. The centerpiece of the plan was construction of a new corridor from the northern West Bank to Gaza. The report ignored many of the political realities now pertaining in the region, notably the existence of an armed Palestinian resistance opposed to peace with Israel. (Reuters) See also Point-Counterpoint below.
Israeli Army Says Fighting Likely After Pullout by Joshua Brilliant
Top Israeli army officers warn that Palestinian militants are preparing to resume hostilities, possibly after Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank. A senior military source interviewed this week said that the militant Palestinian groups' leaders and operational commanders assume the calming-down period will not last long. Members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade want to resume fighting, and are arming, recruiting, training, and planning for the next round. (UPI/Washington Times)
 The End of a Generation by Yoel Marcus
Ezer Weizman's passing has left us with gloom because we have lost yet another leader of that dying breed known as the 1948 generation - a generation whose members have passed down the torch of leadership since the days of the founders, in the hope that someday Israel would be a country without wars, a country with recognized borders. In short, a normal country. (Ha'aretz)
Bridge the Gaps in Peace Process by David Makovsky
The United States needs to do more to consolidate the cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians and help coordinate a pullout from Gaza or else the current narrow window of opportunity, characterized by the leadership potential of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli plan for disengagement from Gaza, may close. The gap of expectations and the mistrust between the parties requires a third party to mediate and ensure that the violence will not erupt again. (Baltimore Sun)
Disarmament and Rule of Law in Palestine by Haim Malka
Abbas's courtship of Hamas as a political party avoided bloodshed in the near term, but he enhanced the militant organization's legitimacy without diminishing either its arsenal or its armed capabilities. He remains hostage to the whims of Hamas and the threat of its political veto: violence. If Palestinians are ever to achieve a viable independent state, they must first establish the rule of law, which includes a state monopoly on the use of force. (Christian Science Monitor)
The Sharon Doctrine by Naomi Chazan
The prime minister's pursuit of the withdrawal from Gaza has obscured what can now be termed the Sharon Doctrine. The explicit objective is to secure Israel as a democratic state with a Jewish majority through control of heavily populated Jewish areas and the exclusion of Palestinian population concentrations. The major shift in Sharon's recent thinking is that demography replaces geography as the basis for Israel's security. (Jerusalem Post)
Columbia: Search Committee for Israel Scholar Includes Two Harsh Critics of Israel by Jacob Gershman
Four Columbia trustees, David Stern, Mark Kingdon, Richard Witten, and Philip Milstein, have pledged $3 million to establish a chair in modern Israeli history, politics, and society. The New York Sun has learned that the search committee for the chair is composed of five faculty members, two of whom have portrayed Israel as a gross abuser of human rights and an obstacle to Middle East peace. Those members are the director of Columbia's Middle East Institute, Rashid Khalidi, and an anthropology professor, Lila Abu-Lughod. (New York Sun)
Columbia: LionPAC, Turath Work Together for Tolerance by Hitesh Maglani
"The climate on campus has been polarized since Columbia Unbecoming," said Dalit Ballen, the president of LionPAC, Columbia's pro-Israel political action group. To combat this polarization, she and Eman Bataineh, president of Turath, Columbia's Arab Student Organization, decided to try and bridge the perceived cultural and ideological divides between Jewish and Arab students through a joint fellowship program called Project Tolerance. (Spectator)
Harvard: Israel Divestment Debate Reignited by Daniel J. Hemel
Three representatives from the Presbyterian Church USA, which has announced plans to cut ties to firms that support Israeli soldiers and settlers on the West Bank and Gaza, outlined their denomination's controversial divestment policy before a crowd of 70 students and community members last week. Rami R. Sarafa '07, president of the Society of Arab Students, said that "at this time, we and our co-sponsoring organizations are not promoting divestment but are promoting discussion and debate about it." Harvard Students for Israel President Sunny Yudkoff '06 said afterwards that the event "was not a forum for dialogue, and those whose questions expressed dissenting opinions from the speakers were cut short." (Crimson)
Israeli Students Campaign to Protest UK Boycott by Moran Zelikovich
Israeli students have launched a public relations campaign in protest of Britain's main lecturers' union decision to boycott two Israeli universities. Students have started distributing leaflets in Jewish communities and university campuses worldwide in a bid to counterattack the academic boycott on Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities. The students' campaign is being lead by Shai Nir (pictured) of Sderot's Sapir College. "I thought it was advisable to respond to the absurd boycott of the bored British lecturers against Haifa University and Bar-Ilan University," Nir said. (Ynet News)
Marquette Two Sides, Two Peoples, One Hope for Peace by Amanda Sheaffer
It is possible to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, said three speakers looking to build commonality between Palestinians and Israelis in order to bring peace to the Middle East. Rafi Dajani, executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine, Daniel Levy, director of policy planning of the Geneva Campaign and Herzl Spiro, vice president of the Wisconsin chapter of American Jewish Committee, gathered last week to pledge their support for the "Two-State Solution" that would establish a separate Palestinian state near Israel. (Marquette Tribune)
Maryland: Zionism from the Left, New Student Group Formed by Eric Fingerhut
There were other pro-Israel groups at the University of Maryland, but sophomore Ben Meiselman did not think they represented his point of view. So he and a friend started a new one. The result is a College Park chapter of the Union of Progressive Zionists, a network of college students formed last year by the U.S. affiliates of the Israeli Labor and Meretz parties - Ameinu and Meretz USA - and their youth groups, Habonim Dror and Hashomer Hatzair. (Washington Jewish Week)
Montreal and Israel Students Play Passover Jeopardy by Amy Belasen
A group of enthusiastic Hillel Montreal representatives participated in a video conference with their Israeli Hillel peers at Ben-Gurion University. The video conference program was in the format of a mock seder and a virtual Jeopardy game inspired by the Passover tradition of asking questions. The Montrealers and the Israelis went head-to-head in a match of wits, answering Passover trivia questions to launch a discussion about the upcoming holiday, and share their experiences as young Jews. The meeting was part of a larger Jewish Agency for Israel project called Partnership 2000 (P2K), which links Jewish communities to cities in Israel. (Canadian Jewish News)
Oberland: Obies Demand Divestment by Rachel Decker
Among the more contested of the upcoming Student Senate referendum issues is that of divestment from the Israeli military. Students promoting this issue are calling upon the College to pull investments out of companies or organizations that hold contracts with the Israeli military. Students for a Free Palestine sponsored a forum last week where three panelists spoke to a group of approximately 20 students regarding the fundamental issues of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. (Oberlin Review)
Rhode Island: Scholar Celebrated for Building Non-Violence Center in Israel by Son Hoang
Bernard LaFayette Jr., a distinguished scholar in residence at URI, received a Lifetime Achievement Award for "his numerous roles in fostering advocacy for nonviolent social change," according to Dr. John McCray, vice provost. LaFayette said because of the support he has received from URI and the state, the first nonviolence center in Israel was just established and he is expecting to have the first nonviolence center in Palestine to open before the end of the year. (The Good Five Cent Cigar)
Rutgers: Groups Pitch Coexistence by Diana Pichardo
Middle Eastern groups can come together and work constructively, according to the message spread on campus last week. The Middle East Coexistence Project held its kickoff event, featuring two speakers who addressed the importance and possibility of cooperation between the various cultures located in the region. "Essentially we noticed that there is a lot of animosity between Arab and Jewish people on campus," sophomore Danielle Josephs, co-director, said. "We wanted to prove these groups can work together." Participating sponsors include Rutgers Hillel, the Islamic Society of Rutgers University and the Middle Eastern studies department. (Targum)
Wisconsin: Madison Defuses Israel Divestment by Leon Cohen
The continuing campaign to get the University of Wisconsin System to divest from companies doing business with Israel suffered another defeat last week, this time at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The campus' Teaching Assistants' Association, a union of some 1,800 voting members representing some 3,000 graduate students who are teaching assistants and project assistants, according to a member at the organization's office, voted to amend and reword a resolution that originally had called for divestment from Israel. (Baltimore Jewish Times)
Hypocrisy of the British Liberals - Editorial
The problematic element is not the constitutionality of the boycott, but its incredible harm to academic freedom and freedom of information and expression, which should be free of political shackles and cross borders, regimes and any other limits. (Ha'aretz)
Academic Terror Attack by Eitan Gilboa
The boycott of the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) on Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities is not a private matter - it is an academic terror attack against Israel. The initiative's ludicrous arguments are only meant to disguise the fact that the boycott is another bolt in the system aimed at deligitimizing Israel. In all modern international conflicts, academics attempt to bring the fighting parties to the negotiating table and encourage leaders to reach peace agreements. Only in the Arab world, and now in the British isle as well, members of the academia lead the resistance and boycott fronts. Gilboa is a professor of political science and communications at Bar-Ilan University (Ynet News)
See also Boycott Worries? Take A Number by Gerald M. Steinberg (Wall Street Journal/BIU)
UCLA: Israel's War Tough, But Worthy by David Keyes
Young soldiers of college age patrol the West Bank and Gaza not because they enjoy spending three or more years of their lives sitting in mud and trenches in the cold night. Rather, they recognize that war has been declared upon them. They know that each time a checkpoint is removed, a suicide bomber slips through; every time a closure is lifted, another cafe is blown up. Literally thousands of suicide bombings have been attempted and over 130 have succeeded in the past four years alone. (Daily Bruin)
Emory: Missing the Point in Healing the Mideast by Lee Pasackow
Jehan Sadat [the widow of President Anwar Sadat] discussed the important work she is doing in Egypt to promote women's rights and to help the disabled. She talked about the historic peace agreement that was signed between Egypt and Israel. It was very disappointing to hear her response to a question concerning Egyptian television's broadcast of the series "Horse Without a Horseman," which incorporated ideas from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Instead of condemning the broadcast she proceeded to say that Arabs are upset with the violence they see in Palestine, therefore implying that spreading lies and hatred is justified. (Emory Wheel)
Georgetown: Recognizing Israel's Arabs by Salomon Kalach
The Arab Culture Club's rejected an invitation to join the list of co-sponsors for last week's Bedouin Tent Party (co-sponsored by Georgetown Hillel and the Middle East Dialogue and Listening Initiative). The Students for Justice in Palestine decided to hold a similar event at the same time. This shows the real reason for the lack of peace between Israelis and Arabs in this 57-year old conflict: a total refusal to recognize and accept Israel as a rightful and genuine member of the Middle East. (Voice)
Pro-Israel Activism Flourishes in Heartland by Mitchell G. Bard
Pro-Israel students are winning the battles with their peers. Where the war on campus is being lost, however, is in the classroom, where anti-Israel faculty, often using pseudo-scholarship under the cloak of academic freedom, are poisoning thousands of young minds each year. To win that battle, we have to promote scholarship about Israel and the Middle East, and provide incentives for students with a passion for Israel to pursue academic careers. (Jewish News)
Texas Tech: Putin's Israel Interest Not in Interest of Peace by Seth Phillips
On Wednesday, a sitting Kremlin leader did something unprecedented - namely, visit Israel. But in light of recent domestic actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, one has to ask whether this really was a good will gesture or a political lightening rod. My biggest fear is this: That in its stumbling around, the Bear will leave Israel and Palestine only after having broken every dish in the china shop. The United States, however, will take the blame. (University Daily)
Israeli Scientists Find New Way to Improve Taste
Israeli scientists say that special heating of orange juice has proved to be a good way of improving the flavor quality of orange juice while extending sensory shelf life, Food Production Daily reports. The findings could point to a more efficient way of extending juice shelf life. The scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, have just published their findings in two reports in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, with early findings indicating that the sensory shelf life of orange juice could be extended to more than 100 days, doubling expectancy compared to pasteurization methods. (Israel21c)
39 Pounds of Love by Merav Yudilovitch
Israeli director Dani Menkin's "39 Pounds of Love" was awarded the best documentary prize at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. The film tells the story of 34-year-old Ami Ankilewitz, who weighs just 39 pounds. He was born with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy and is paralyzed in all four limbs, except for one finger. "The panel of judges unanimously agreed that the documentary film is worthy of being nominated for an American Academy of Film award," the festival's official website said. (Ynet News)
NYU: Volleyball Leaders Move On by Mallory Carra
Leeor Alon earned the nickname "Old Man River" from his teammates for being at 25, the oldest member of the Violets and the most experienced team member, on and off the court. In addition to playing volleyball since his freshman year of high school, Alon served three years in the Israeli Army before coming to the United States to attend college. He is a two-time American Volleyball Coaches Association All-American and will play volleyball for the U.S. team in the Maccabiah Games. (Washington Square News)
Israeli Writer Amos Oz Wins Goethe Award
Israeli writer Amos Oz has won the 2005 Goethe cultural award for his life's work. Oz, a noted peace activist, was honored for his novels and his "impressive moral responsibility," said Petra Roth, Frankfurt mayor and jury president. "I didn't even know I was a candidate," Oz said from Israel. "I am greatly moved for this is a very prestigious prize." (UPI/Monsters and Critics)
Megadeth to Join Phil Collins, Scorpions for Israel Concerts by Ronen Zomer
Metal giant Megadeth will play in Israel for the first time, marking the third top international performer to announce concert dates in Israel since Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas leaders declared an end to four years of violence. Megadeth will take part of Israel's annual Metalist Festival and play on June 22 at the Hangar 11 club in Tel Aviv. German rock group The Scorpions are scheduled to play in Israel in July and British pop artist Phil Collins will perform in the fall. (Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles)
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 - Can a Palestinian State Be Viable? | The Only Viability Problem Is National Will by Yossi Alpher
- Some detractors argue that Palestine, whatever its final configuration of borders, is bound to be non-viable because it is hopelessly overcrowded, bereft of natural resources, wracked by internal tensions, lacks national cohesion and "people-ness", and will be non-contiguous. Yet the only one of these criteria that has never been applied to prosperous and relatively stable countries like Singapore and, yes, Israel, is the contiguity problem.
- Lack of territorial contiguity is indeed a potential impediment to Palestinian national viability. Even if the borders are eventually configured so as to provide reasonable contiguity between the northern and southern West Bank, the Gaza Strip will still be separated from the rest of Palestine by forty-some kilometers of Israeli territory.
- Yet 40 kilometers is an easily bridgeable distance in the 21st century: by highway, railway, fuel and water pipes. Under conditions of peace and stability, Palestine's dis-contiguity looks problematic but manageable.
- This means that the future state of Palestine can be viable if it wants to be; if it has the national will. This is the true challenge for Palestinian "viability".
- Palestine has one of the best-educated citizenries in the Arab world. It can make up in human resources for whatever it lacks in natural wealth. The real test of its viability is whether it has the collective will to live at peace with Israel; to opt for pragmatic coexistence instead of insisting on demands, like the right of return, that are based on a narrative and a unilateral definition of "justice" that are totally incompatible with Israel's existence; to stop bargaining over that additional one percent of territory before there's nothing left to bargain over. In short, in national viability terms, to "grow up" and deal with the real world. (Bitterlemons.org)
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Not Viable by Yisrael Harel
- Only if Egypt and Jordan contribute territory to a Palestinian state will it be "viable".
- As everyone knows, the population density in the Gaza Strip is among the greatest in the world. The entire Strip comprises no more than 376 square kilometers. In Texas, Wyoming, certainly in Australia, there are ranches whose size substantially exceeds that of Gaza. And on this minimal piece of land there dwell today about one and a quarter million people, whose rate of natural growth is the highest in the world, some 4.5 percent per annum.
- In other words, every 17 to 20 years the Gazan population doubles itself. In 2020, for example, the population density in Gaza will reach about 6,650 persons per square kilometer. Barely enough room to stand! The Strip, which is already atrophied, will wallow further in its atrophy, with its principal product being children without a future: without proper education, without a health service worthy even of the third world, without an income and of course without a future. It will be one big jail. Worse, it will be a running sore, a giant blister destined to burst and take with it any agreement that has been reached--if, indeed, one has been reached.
- There is only one way out of the Gaza jail: south, to the empty, unpopulated but fertile land that is waiting to be developed and settled in northern Sinai.
- Lest I be misunderstood, I do not mean that we Israelis should, god forbid, transfer the Arabs of Gaza to northern Sinai. Not at all. Rather, when Egypt, in an act of generosity toward its Palestinian brothers and coreligionists, grants them a tiny portion of its land, say, 20,000 square kilometers in northern Sinai, those Palestinians who are being crowded out of Gaza can simply leave and move their homes a short distance away. (Bitterlemons.org)
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