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June 5, 2005
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Jerusalem Day - Commemorated on June 6 (The Knesset)
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 Israel Freed 400 Prisoners in Attempt to Boost Abbas by Amos Harel, Arnon Regular, and Yuval Yoaz
Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners on Thursday in what Prime Minister Sharon called an attempt to boost PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The prisoners, residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, included some members of the Islamic movements but the majority were Fatah activists. None of the prisoners had been convicted of attacks that killed or wounded Israelis, officials said. (Ha'aretz)
Abbas Wants to Appoint a Deputy
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, following a heart procedure last week in Jordan, said Friday that he plans to appoint a deputy after returning to the West Bank. "This is something very important. We consider it to be serious and in the near future it will be offered to the legislature and the Palestinian cabinet to discuss it and they will take the necessary decision," the 70-year-old leader said. (AP)
Halutz Takes Office as Chief of Staff by Arieh O'Sullivan
With modest flair, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz took over the IDF last week and was immediately cautioned by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of the complex mission facing him. But Halutz, the ranks of lieutenant general freshly pinned on his epaulets and outgoing chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon at his side, vowed to carry out the evacuation of Jewish settlements from Gaza with the "utmost sensitivity," adding there was no place for refusal. (Jerusalem Post)
See also The IDF: A New Vision by Chief of Staff Dan Halutz
The IDF spirit combines a sense of purpose with values and a moral code, one which sanctifies life and human dignity...since we know that humans were created in the image of the Almighty. Our moral code also calls for safeguarding the right to express an opinion and exercise discipline in action, flexibility of thought, and operational determination. It calls on us to take on responsibility, assume the initiative, espouse originality and constant renewal, and ensure an appropriate relationship between man and fellow man, his country, and progress. (Media Line)
Netanyahu to Battle Academic Boycotts by Talya Halkin
The AUT boycott of Israeli universities which was overturned last week constitutes "academic terror," Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said last week at a meeting to discuss strategies for battling academic boycotts against Israel. Netanyahu pledged his support to battling the deligitimation of Israel through attacks on its academic institutions. "Like other forms of terror," Netanyahu said, "What is at stake here is a totalitarian attempt to trample freedom of information, research and thought...we must fight to show the hypocrisy, lies and danger to free societies that such attempts constitute." (Jerusalem Post)
 Sharon Changes Course by Larry Weinberg
The predictability of the speeches is so high, that when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon spoke to AIPAC last week and departed from the usual and expected discussions of bi-lateral friendship, disengagement and the Iranian nuclear threat, to talk about Israel's extraordinarily high number of high tech startups, its impressive number of engineers per capita, its agricultural innovations that feed hundreds of millions of people around the world and the quality of the advanced medical research and care in Israel, I wanted to lead a standing ovation for him. (Israel21c)
A New New Middle East by Ari Shavit
On one of the upper floors of the Azrieli towers, Eival Giladi surprised yet again. He revealed another dimension to his indefatigable creativity: the Portland Trust. A foundation that aims to revive the Palestinian economy in order to strengthen Israeli-Palestinian stability in the post-disengagement era. (Ha'aretz)
The UN Cut by Aryeh Dayan
The series of lectures that concluded last week at Tel Aviv University was the first academic event of its kind in Israel. Few such events, if any, have taken place in academic institutions anywhere in the world. About 20 students convened once a week, for an entire semester, and heard lectures from the representatives of all the UN agencies that are active in Israel. This is especially noteworthy considering the blatantly negative attitude usually demonstrated towards the UN in Israel. (Ha'aretz)
Aliya Goes Academic with Launch of Immigration Institute by Sam Ser
The Ruppin Academic Center is to launch its Institute for Immigration and Integration next week, opening with a symposium at its Emek Hefer campus on "The Impact of Aliya on the State of Israel and Its Social Fabric." Myra Kraft, wife of Jewish philanthropist and owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft (pictured), is to be among the speakers at the symposium, joining academics, government officials and immigration absorption activists. (Jerusalem Post)
Israel Aims to Increase Study Programs by Mitchell Ginsburg
Israel announced the launch this week of an ambitious program to quadruple the number of Jewish students visiting Israel on long-term education programs. The program aims by 2008 to have 20,000 young adults each year, some one-fifth of all Diaspora Jews in the target age groups, attending half-year or yearlong study and volunteering programs in Israel. (Forward)
Stanford: Student Senate Discusses Israel Seminar by Sal Umberto Bonaccorso
Jack Rakove, professor of history and political science, and Amos Nur, director of the Stanford Overseas Studies Programs, have developed a curriculum for a new three-week Overseas Seminar in Israel called "Two Peoples in One Land: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Historical and Normative Perspective." However, because the State Department has placed a travel warning on Israel, university policy prohibits OSP from funding undergraduate trips to the country. But current trends suggest that the warning may be lifted in the near future. (Stanford Daily)
Ben-Gurion U: Egypt Prevents Writer From Entering Israel
Egyptian authorities prevented well-known Egyptian playwright and satirist, Ali Salem, from leaving Egypt last week to receive an honorary doctoral degree from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). The event was to be part of the university's 35th annual Board of Governors meeting. (Jerusalem Post)
Mississippi: Professor Visits Israel by Michael Atkins
Ole Miss law professor Ron Rychlak is in Israel this week participating in an academic fellowship program offered by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Titled "Defending Democracy, Defeating Terrorism," the program enables a group of university professors from across the country, including Rychlak, to have the opportunity to learn from and interact with fellow diplomats, military officials and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India and Turkey. The 10-day program is taking place at Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv. (Daily Mississippian)
Bar-Ilan: Faith in the Campus by Mati Wagner
Bar-Ilan University president, Professor Moshe Kaveh, had to fight the pro-Palestinian boycott against Bar-Ilan by the Association of University Teachers in the United Kingdom (AUT). "It's really heartwarming to see the tremendous support we're getting from professors from all over," said Kaveh. "The rector of the university, Prof. Yosef Yeshurun, opened an Internet site against the boycott and more than a thousand professors have declared 'we want to be boycotted along with Bar-Ilan.'" (Jerusalem Post)
A Little Louder, Please by Calev Ben-David
Last week's revote on the proposed boycott of Bar-Ilan University and the University of Haifa by the British Association of University Teachers (AUT) was preceded by debate within the UK Jewish community over how best to fight it. There's no easy answer to the question of whether a louder or softer approach is the better response when Jews as a community find themselves challenged. It depends, of course, on the specifics of the problem, the setting, the timing and the feasible result. (Jerusalem Post)
Florida: AIPAC Conference Offers New Hope for Disengagement in Israel by Christian Waugh
More than two dozen Gators attended the AIPAC's Annual Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. Ariel Sharon's risky political stratagem of disengagement is what really captured people's imaginations. The moment Sharon and Abbas grasp and seek to shape could turn into a beautiful dream or a terrible nightmare. Hopefully, the people of the Middle East will recognize that and seize the moment by making a breathtaking advance despite all they have come to know in their weary political world. The author is a first-year law student. (The Alligator)
When the Jews Take Washington by Eytan Schwartz
How do you organize a pro-Israel event that will attract not only Zionist Jews, but other students, too? Screen an Israeli movie on campus and launch a large-scale advertising campaign. Show the students that Israel has a movie industry, show them Israelis like to have a good time, that we also have bars and clubs. Let them know we have more to offer other than the conflict. In order to arouse empathy, you have to show your audience you are like them. Eytan Schwartz recently won Israel's reality TV show, "The Ambassador." (Ynet News)
Chicago: A Very Long Disengagement from Israel by Adam Weissman
While he may be well intentioned in his desire to create movement in a political arena that has fallen into stagnation, Sharon is fostering far more problems than he is purporting to fix. Disengaging - to use the highly sanitized political buzzword - at this point would create future headaches for both Israel and its Arab neighbors, and it would send the wrong signals to those who would choose terrorism over diplomacy and rule of law. The cardinal sin of the disengagement is that it is a unilateral move at a time when bilateral or multilateral negotiations should be taking place. (Chicago Maroon)
Open Sesame: Israel and Its Foes Work Together on Science Project by Gil Sedan
Iran and Israel, bitter enemies, need no "Open Sesame" magic to be able to cooperate on an advanced scientific project. In Alaan, a town just north of Amman, Jordan, representatives of the two countries are involved in developing SESAME, an acronym for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East. It's a rare and possibly unique example of scientific cooperation between Israel, Iran and other countries with which Israel has no ties, such as Pakistan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. (JTA)
U.S. Doctors Learn How to Deal with Terror from Hadassah by Daphna Berman
Like all terror drills at Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital, this week's practice involved frightening scenarios, a seemingly endless stream of victims and even a surprise non-conventional attack. But this week's practice run had another element: Joining the dozens of nurses, victims, doctors and social workers that crowded the halls of the newly inaugurated emergency medical center in Jerusalem was a team of medical and health professionals from the U.S., who used this week's drill to hone their own preparedness for possible terror attacks on American soil. (Ha'aretz)
Florida Atlantic: Owls Recruiting Player From Israel by Marcus Nelson
The Florida Atlantic men's basketball team is looking overseas to fill a roster spot. Or Sela, a 5-foot-10 point guard from Israel, made an unofficial visit to campus last week. Sela was a member of the Israeli junior national team this season. (Palm Beach Post)
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 - Two Views on Zionism and Israeli Nationalism | Is There Any Hope of Changing "Hatikva"? by Jeremy Maissel
- The anthem is anachronistic, chronicling the past yearnings, in the Herzlian heritage, of European Jewry for a Jewish state in the East. Even the intonation of the lyrics is Ashkenazi, without a stress on the last syllable as required by the accepted contemporary Sephardi pronunciation of Hebrew.
- Many Sephardi Jews didn't yearn eastward toward Zion. Orthodox Jews don't really need a national anthem to enhance their national identity; at times some religious Jews have favored the words of Psalm 126, "A song of Ascents."
- How can "Hatikva" minister to the needs of a loyal Arab citizen - to a Christian or Muslim, a Druze soldier or Beduin tracker? The Arab population, or anyone else who might not altogether subscribe to the Zionist narrative, finds "Hatikva" hard to accommodate as representing their own vision of Western liberal democracy.
- Our national anthem needs to be made accessible to the entire nation. The time has long passed when the Arab minority was not considered, or its feelings dismissed.
- My solution would be to add a second verse, stressing Israel as an open, modern, vibrant, liberal democracy promoting equality among all its citizens without prejudice based on religion, race, creed, age or sex.
- The Zionist and Jewish character of the state would be represented by the first verse. The second verse would articulate those sentiments we accentuate when Israel is being criticized, when we proudly compare Israel to its neighbors.
- Reading the line from "Hatikva" that expresses the longing to be "a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem," one asks oneself: Is this an anachronism, or can it be interpreted as an acutely insightful social comment - have we not yet achieved freedom?
- Perhaps we will all achieve true freedom when we acquire the self-confidence to step back and alter our anthem to allow all Israelis to identify with it equally; when all of us can sing it with pride. (Jerusalem Post)
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In Praise of Nationalism by Yosef Goell
- One would have thought that as Israel made its peace with the idea of a far from entirely peace-loving independent Palestine alongside it, more and more Israeli Arabs would be ready to bury the hatchet and make their peace with the prospect of living as a respected minority in a Jewish state.
- That, however, does not appear to be the intent of the overwhelming majority of the current generation of Israeli Arab leaders.
- What is not fashionable is to emphasize the painful historical fact that Israeli Arabs are not simply another run-of-the-mill minority. They are the third-generation remnants of an indigenous people whose leaders took them into murderous war against their neighboring Jews only 57 years ago and lost.
- The world of the 21st century is still organized around nation-states. There is no reason for Israelis to be ashamed of their own nationalism which has proven to be one of the most benign in two centuries of other bloodier and more xenophobic nationalisms.
- It is important for Israel's democratic character that we go some distance in extending real equality to those among our Arab minority who are ready to make their peace with the idea of living in a Jewish Israeli state.
- It is equally essential that, in the interests of peaceful coexistence between the Jewish majority and the Arab minorities, our leaders resist any temptation to deal with expressions of Israeli Arab collective identity.
- The recent insistence by local Arab leaders on marking Israel's Independence Day as nakba (catastrophe) day is not an innocent example of symbolic copy-catting but a public declaration of hope that the Arabs - and not the Jews - should have won that war in 1948.
- If that is what the Israeli Arab leadership considers the path of wisdom it should not be surprised at growing Jewish resistance to demands for Arab individual equality. (Jerusalem Post)
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