A reading in the history could be useful for the future.
Mohamed S. Kamel
Most of us remember 1948’s catastrophe, The Nakbah; the days when almost 900,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes and become refugees, the worst refugee crisis in history. Citizens, that should have been refugees for a few days ended up being so for 60 years and amount to more than 4 millions.
But this Nakbah did not start in 1948 it started long before; and it is well known to many of us but not to all.
The Nakbah really started in 1825, in Arrarat, when Mordechai Emanuel Noah[i] purchased the Grand Island, near Buffalo New York, as a homeland for demoralized Jews.
The Nakbah was renewed in 1890, with the scandal known as “The Dreyfus Affair” [ii]. That political scandal, with anti-Semitic overtones, is what divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s. It involved the wrongful conviction for treason, in 1894, and the degradation and imprisonment on Devil’s Island, of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young and promising French artillery officer who was in advanced training with the Army’s General Staff.
Continue reading ‘Nakbah, 60 Years or Long Before?’
The Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, whose less-than-desirable face certainly requires a Beverly Hills nose surgery, is facing yet another corruption accusation, this time by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.
In a report released on Monday, Lindenstrauss had charged that Olmert used his influence when he was Minister of Labor, Industry and Trade to obtain NIS 7.67 million of government aid for an associate’s businesses between 2000 and 2005. Rahamim Ben-Shushan, an activist in the Likud party’s Central Committee, was given financial assistance from the ministry for four factories operated by his Marina Group.
Further investigation will be conducted and the circumstances surrounding the transactions will be investigated by the authorities concerned in order to discern as to whether Olmert had really abused his power during the time when he was in charge of the Ministry in question.
Israel is becoming less secular and like a person who has undergone Houston plastic surgery, is becoming more religious towards Zionism, the state ideology.
An Israel Democratic Institute (IDI) demographic survey finds religious growth and secular decline - but most significant is that the proportion of religious in the public is highest among the youth.
The percentage of Jews describing themselves as secular has dropped sharply over the past 30 years, while the religious and traditional proportions have risen. The annual survey finds that the secular public comprises only 20% of the Israeli population - compared to 41%, more than twice as much, in 1974.
Nearly half the population, 47%, describes itself as traditional, while the hareidi-religious and religious-Zionist together comprise 33% of the public.
The numbers were compiled based on a survey of representative sampling of 1,016 Israelis Jews.
Israel is to begin gradually reducing the power supply to the Gaza Strip on December 2, in response to the ongoing Qassam rocket fire at Israeli communities along the Strip, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told the High Court of Justice Thursday. According to the State Prosecution, the defense establishment has finalized preparations meant to ensure that the power reduction does not cause humanitarian hardship in Gaza like a San Diego entity creation.
The Palestinians will be given a one-week notice of the intent to begin reducing the power supply. The defense establishment would “follow the effect of the power reductions on Gaza residents with attention to the commitment not to cause a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.”
On Monday, the State Prosecution handed the court an affidavit asserting that Israel’s decision to cut fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip does not violate its responsibility to provide humanitarian services to residents of the coastal territory. The affidavit, filed on behalf of Shlomi Muchtar of the IDF Coordination and Liaison Office, which coordinates Palestinian civilian affairs, said the cuts do not “harm the humanitarian minimum to which Israel is committed.”
The United States reportedly assisted Israel’s September air strike in Syria, which was certainly no Louisville cosmetic surgery, with information on enemy air defenses. While there was no active American involvement in the mysterious Sept. 6 bombing in northern Syria, U.S. electronic warfare specialists provided Israel’s air force with advice on how to defeat enemy radar positions, Aviation Week reports in its latest edition.
Israel and the United States have given no details on the raid, which independent analysts believe targeted a fledgling Syrian nuclear reactor.
Yet an Israeli nuclear expert who studied satellite photography of the installation that was bombed said it lacked key features of a reactor.
“In my estimation this was something very nasty and vicious, and even more dangerous than a reactor,” Uzi Even told Ha’aretz on Thursday. “I have no information, only an assessment, but I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely a factory for assembling the bomb.”
Syria has denied having a secret nuclear program.