As George Galloway put it, “we had to walk through the Rafah crossing and leave the brand new vehicles we bought with our own money, in Egypt, behind!”

Ehud Olmert officially tenders his resignation as Prime Minister of Israel and Tzipi Livni is expected to take his place. The “Butcher of Lebanon” is no more.

Olmert told his Cabinet yesterday morning that he would resign and followed that with a visit to the official Jerusalem residence of President Shimon Peres — both formalities in a process that began in late July, when Olmert caved under the pressure of multiple corruption probes and announced he would step down after the Kadima primary election.

“This decision was not easy, it was not simple, and it was not taken in an offhanded way,” Olmert said before the start of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. He pledged to help Livni, a longtime rival, form a new government.

“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented to me this evening his resignation as head of the government,” Peres said after the two met. Peres thanked him for his service. Olmert did not talk to reporters.

At stake is political stability in Israel as the clock winds down on a January target date for a peace accord with the Palestinians, set by Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at a US-sponsored peace conference last November.

Livni favours negotiations and making concessions to forge a peace agreement, but if she fails to form a coalition, elections would be called, and Israel might not have a new government until next spring. That could freeze peace efforts for months.

Olmert succeeded the popular and respected Ariel Sharon, who was felled by a stroke, and weeks later Olmert led Israel into a war with Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon. The decision to go to war and its inconclusive outcome, along with the damage wrought by almost 4,000 rockets fired at Israel by Hezbollah, decimated Olmert’s popular support.

Then old corruption allegations caught up with him. Police began pressing their investigations, and a key witness testified in a “trial” against Olmert though no charges had been filed. That led Olmert to step down, setting the search for a new leader in motion.

An article in a leading Norwegian newspaper last weekend lambasted Israel and Judaism and said Israel has lost its right to exist in its present form. Entitled “God’s chosen people,” the article by author Jostein Gaarder in Aftenposten is raising a storm in Norway. Gaarder, author of the book “Sophie’s World,” links the Israel Defense Forces’ acts in Lebanon to Jewish history and foresees the coming dismantling of the state as it exists today, with the Jews becoming refugees.

In an interview with Haaretz, Gaarder said Thursday that he was misunderstood. “As John Kennedy declared in Germany ‘I am a Berliner’ I say now ‘I am a Jew,’” he said.

The article compares Israel’s government, the Afghan Taliban regime and South African apartheid, and states, “We no longer recognize the State of Israel” and “the State of Israel in its current form is history. We call child murderers ‘child murderers,’ and will never accept that they have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages,” Gaarder writes.

“Shame on ethnic cleansing, shame on every terrorist strike against civilians, be it carried out by Hamas, Hezbollah or the State of Israel!”

Gaarder repeatedly refers to the role Judaism plays in Israel’s territorial aspirations, writing, “We don’t believe in the notion of God’s chosen people. We laugh at this nation’s fancies and weep over its misdeeds.”

He writes, “It is the State of Israel that fails to recognize, respect or defer to the internationally lawful Israeli state of 1948. Israel wants more; more water and more villages. To obtain this, there are those who want, with God’s assistance, a final solution to the Palestinian problem.”

The article has triggered off thousands of comments and dozens of stormy debates in the Norwegian media. It also has sparked off a debate about Gaarder’s alleged anti-Semitic tendencies and the right to criticize Israel. The Jewish journalist and music critic Mona Levin spoke out in public against Gaarder and said she was shocked by the Norwegian government’s silence. She blasted the cabinet for not denouncing what she described as “the most appalling thing I’ve read since ‘Mein Kampf.’”

“We’re dealing with an ignorant man, a hate-filled man who derides Judaism,” she said in an interview from Oslo. Levin said it was unacceptable that a man of such international repute (26 million copies of his book have been sold) could attack an entire ethnic group and that politicians would remain silent.

“This is a classic anti-Semitic manifesto, which cannot even disguise itself as criticism of Israel,” said Professor Dina Porat, head of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University.

“The writer does not address the conflict in its contemporary context but reaches back thousands of years to assert that the Jewish people have traits of cruelty that have remained unchanged and account for the current war,” she says.

Porat says that according to the European Union, denying Israel’s right to exist arguing that its existence is racist is an anti-Semitic statement.

She also finds in Gaarder’s text the use of classic anti-Semitic symbols, like infanticide.

“I’ve been head of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism for 15 years and it’s not every day that I get to read such a radical document, in terms of its content and rhetoric,” she said.

Gaarder writes, among other things, “We do not believe that Israel mourns 40 killed Lebanese children more than it has lamented for more than 3,000 years 40 years in the desert. We note that many Israelis celebrate such triumphs like they once cheered the scourges of the Lord as ‘fitting punishment’ for the people of Egypt.”

He writes that the first Zionist terrorists started operating in the days of Jesus.

Speaking to Haaretz on Tuesday, a day before he stopped talking to the media, Gaarder said he was misunderstood and emphasized that he is a friend of Israel and the Jews.

“I think what Hezbollah is doing is terrible,” he said, adding that he supports Israel’s right to exist as a national homeland for the Jews since 1948.

Gaarder said he does not question Israel’s right to exist, “but not as an apartheid state.” He said he could understand how his article could be interpreted as “anti-Jewish” and admitted that if he were to rewrite it, he would change a few things.

He is aware he has hurt the Jews in Norway, he said, adding that he would make sure the article is not translated into other languages. However, Gaarder refused to retract publicly his main theme.

Aftenposten’s political editor Harald Stanghelle said he saw no problem publishing Gaarder’s article.

“Of course I don’t agree with what he says,” he said. “But an open debate on the issue is better than a covert one.

“Gaarder’s voice is important in the Norwegian discourse and it was right to publish the article,” he said.

Meanwhile, the furor over Gaarder’s article coincides with a series of anti-Semitic incidents in Norway, including the desecration of an Oslo Synagogue and cemeteries and the assault and battery of a skullcap-wearing youngster.

1947. Information collected by the ADL in its spy operations on US citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL’s reports on suspected communists as “hearsay”.

1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department’s internal security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the second most active in the United States after the Soviets.

1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv.

1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attaché in Tel Aviv.

1954 “The Lavon Affair”. Israeli agents recruit Egyptian citizens of Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.

1965 Israel apparently illegally obtains enriched uranium from NUMEC Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, “US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.”)

1967 Israel attacks the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See “Assault on the Liberty,” by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House). In 2004, Captain Ward Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the investigation to conclude accident, even though the evidence indicates the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty’s lifeboats, the most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would have dragged the US into the war on Israel’s side.

1970 While working for Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Richard Perle is caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is done.

1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped. Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle.

1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a “Honey Trap”, using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl.

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, is indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: “Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won’t be Explored in Detail by Panels”

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc’s top-secret airborne spy-camera system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel in 1978, is serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant — with security clearance — on exports of sensitive US technology.

1992 “The Samson Option,” by Seymour M. Hersh reports, “Illicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, Ari Ben-Menashe recalled: “Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts.”

1993. The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco police. Data collected was sent to Israel and in some cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forces the city to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulates a memo warning US military contractors that “Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology.” The report stated that Israel obtains information using “ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties” of US citizens.

1996 A General Accounting Office report “Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors” found that according to intelligence sources “Country A” (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally.” The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, “Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country.” The report described “An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents.” The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was “a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel’s LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information.”

The GAO report also noted that “Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes.”

1996 An Office of Naval Intelligence document, “Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare” reported that “US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology.” Jane’s Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that “until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China.” The report noted that this “represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation.” (Flight International, 3/13/96)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, “inadvertently” gives classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as “Dov”, had commented that they may get the letter from “Mega”, the code name for Israel’s top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky’s phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI’s hunt for “Mega” is called off.

2001 It is discovered that US drug agents’ communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse. Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come. The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo, an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade Towers, receives an advance warning via the internet. The manager of the New York Office provides the FBI with the IP address of the sender of the message, but the FBI does not follow up.

2001 The FBI is investigating 5 Israeli moving companies as possible fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 JDL’s Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman. He dies before he can be brought to trial.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art students, have been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used to “deliver furniture.” The next day, police discovered traces of TNT and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that the tests that showed explosives were “false positived” by cigarette smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft stops a truck speeding through a school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public.

2003 Israel deploys assassination squads into other countries, including the United States. The US Government does not protest.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and the Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident submarines. The truck tests positive for explosives.

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.

The anti-Jewish sentiment that rocked the west from Europe to North America was the real reason behind the Nakbah and the real start. But the Nakbah practically started in 1897, when Theodore Herzl[iii] met with Mordechai Emanuel Noah and both converted the people’s yells in Dreyfus’ convection “Death to the traitor, death to the Jews” into a project of a Jewish state.

Herzl wrote: “A Jewish state” — this is the only solution to anti-Semitism. Herzl decided to work hard so that the Jews could have a state of their own. He hardly saw or spent any time with his family. His friends thought he was crazy. They did not believe it was possible to establish a state for the Jewish people. Orthodox Jews argued that it is forbidden to establish a Jewish state, because only Hashem will return the Jews to the land of Israel. The Jews were scared that if they began to desire their own state – this would lead to even more hatred. But Herzl did not give up.

They did not get the help they were looking for in the beginning. When Herzl met with important people, leaders and ministers of influential European countries (Germany, England, Turkey and Russia), he wanted them to help the Jews get a legal right (charter) to establish a state of their own.

Herzl invited representatives of the Jewish communities from all over the world to the first Zionist congress in 1897 in Basel (Bazel), Switzerland. The representatives at the congress decided that they wanted to establish a home land (state) for the Jewish people.

The British offered them what was commonly known as the “Uganda Project[iv]” before the Sixth Zionist Congress (Basel, August 1903), carrying the majority (295:178, 98 abstentions), then Argentina in 1904′s declaration, but both failed to be sold to the Jewish people.

While Herzl did not live to see the rejection of the Uganda plan or even the Argentina plan, his successor chose Palestine, where they can convince Jews to immigrate to the Promised Land.

In 1906, the Zionist congress decided that the Jewish homeland should be Palestine.

So Palestine was not the goal because of religious reasons but rather became the reason to reach a state.

They tried with the Sultan of Turkey, but the Sultan refused to cede Palestine to Zionists. They tried with Egypt to get Al ‘Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, adjoining southern Palestine, but failed yet again.

The Zionist movement started out secular then turned into a coalition between Jewish religious and seculars where the religious side attracts the Christian Zionist.

The opposition to Zionism from Torah leaders was initially almost universal. These authorities rejected Zionism as a heresy without genuine basis within Judaism, and in conflict with the teachings of the Torah. In 1892, Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, at that time the most representative Jewish personality in America, denounced, in a Montreal conference, the Zionist project as entirely antithetical to the spirit and letter of Judaic teachings:

“We totally disapprove of the initiative aiming at the creation of a Jewish State. Attempts of this type highlight an erroneous conception of the mission of Israel … that the Jewish Prophets were the first to proclaim … It aims at a Messianic time when men recognize belonging to one great community for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.”[v].

This movement is still alive and has it is own supporters[vi] even within the state itself[vii].

Because the establishment of the Jewish state would need the approval or the collapse of Ottoman Empire, European Jewish offered Europe their support in the WWI in return of their right in Palestine. So the result was the Balfour Declaration in 1917[viii]. That declaration was made in a letter from Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation. The “Balfour Declaration” was later incorporated into the “Sèvres Peace Treaty[ix]” with Turkey and the Mandate for Palestine.

Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”.

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely

Arthur James Balfour

In spite of all this, the immigration rate to Palestine was very low and they did not meet their real goal for the establishment of the state until the early thirties.

This era was marked by the raise of the Nazism movement and the threat from Germany’s new plan for an obligatory displacement of Jewish from Europe to Madagascar, where they can establish a Jewish homeland, in what is known as “Madagascar Plan”[x]. Such plan and all the discrimination against Jews in Europe was the success start of the mass immigration to Palestine.

The other problem faced by the Zionist’s plan was the Arab Jews, who were living a reasonable wealthy life in their countries[xi]. The Zionist movement is in real need for them for two reasons. First, the political argument for Jewish state will not be acceptable as long as there are Jews living a peaceful life in Arab countries. Second, the project needs finance and by them living in their native lands, the Arab countries, no finance would be wired to the new born state.

The huge example about this issue was the “Lavon Affair”, where a failed Israeli covert operation in Egypt known as Operation Susannah occurred, in which Egyptian, American, British and manly Jewish owned targets in Egypt were bombed in the summer of 1954[xii].

Some people might consider it a pro-Palestinian propaganda but it is the history and the reality. Even Zionists cannot deny it.

To recover from this Nakbah, we have to recognize the cause and work for justice. We have to remember that it is the Palestinian’s land. Still, at the same time, we have to recognize the reality.

Recognizing the reality does not mean giving up the land and the rights but struggling to achieve a real justice and long stand solution to the problem.

There is a big different between wishing and what could be done. In real life, there is no “Undo” but there is; let us do it.

Many of today’s Jewish recognize the grave mistake done on behalf of their name and we have to work with them hand in hand to return the golden era when Jews and other Arab were living side by side in harmony in peace and full citizenship. Let us promote the one state solution, the only solution by applying the South Africa model and live two people in one state [xiii].

So it is not 60 years it is long before, but is it going to stop here?

* Mohamed S. Kamel: is a Freelance writer, the editor of I.N. Daily http://indaily.net/, co-founder of the Canadian Egyptian for Democracy (CEFD), Alternative Perspective Media (APM-RAM) and the Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF), could be reached at mskamel@fmc-cmf.com

[i] Dreyfus Affair
[ii] ibid.
[iii] Theodor Herzl
[iv] British Uganda Program
[v] http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq30.html#_ednref32
[vi] http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
[vii] http://www.doublestandards.org/jaz1.html
[viii] Balfour Declaration of 1917
[ix] Treaty of Sèvres
[x] Madagascar Plan
[xi] Naiem Giladi, The Jews of Iraq
[xii] Lavon Affair and What Really Happened: Lavon Affair
[xiii] Jewish Opposition to Zionism and Are All Jewish Zionist?

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.

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.”

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.

“The government economist claims the demands are extravagant and would push Israel 20 to 30 years back economically, including a sharp drop in the standard of living.”

“The economist believes it is time for a civilian review of the tremendous defense spending in recent years, calling it inconceivable that with such large budgets, soldiers and reservists serving in Lebanon faced shortages of equipment, supplies, food and beverages.”

Expert: Defense budget demands could set back standard of living 20 years
27.8.06 | 08:32 By Moti Bassok

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Finance Minister Abraham irchson are to meet this morning to discuss defense establishment budgetary demands through 2010.

Defense officials are seeking NIS 30 billion, mostly in fiscal 2007 and 2008, for resupplying, reacquiring weapons systems damaged during the war and preparing for the next war based on the lessons of recent hostilities, including developing new arms. The defense establishment is working under the assumption the Israel Defense Forces needs to be prepared quickly.

However, according to a senior defense establishment official, cabinet compliance to the demand would subjugate the entire civilian establishment to military demands and constitute a mortal blow to civil budgets, including infrastructure and education.

“If the Defense Ministry demand for an additional NIS 30 billion in 2007 to 2010 is accepted, Israel will return to the ‘Lost Decade,” – 1974-85 after the Yom Kippur War, when defense budgets dwarfed civil budgets and hyperinflation ran in triple digits, the official said yesterday.

The government economist claims the demands are extravagant and would push Israel 20 to 30 years back economically, including a sharp drop in the standard of living.

The economist added that the defense establishment is already slated to receive NIS 2 billion additional funds, beyond the NIS 46 billion budgeted for 2006 and each year for the next several, but this is along way from the exaggerated demands presented in recent days.

He noted defense spending has not been cut back in recent years, in fact has increased several times beyond the approved budget through funding transfers for specific matters, such as during the second Palestinian intifada, construction of the separation fence and during disengagement from the Gaza Strip, all evident in a report by state comptroller Eliezer Goldberg.

The economist believes it is time for a civilian review of the tremendous defense spending in recent years, calling it inconceivable that with such large budgets, soldiers and reservists serving in Lebanon faced shortages of equipment, supplies, food and beverages.

The Prime Minister’s Office and treasury believe the defense establishment is under pressure in light of the repeated allegations in the media about its functioning during the war.

Convincing the rebels

Hirchson and Peretz will meet this afternoon with the Labor party rebels, MKs Avishay Braverman, Shelly Yachimovich and Orit Noked. Hirchson and Peretz hope to convince the three Finance Committee members to support a NIS 2 billion cut in the 2006 budget, scheduled for a vote tomorrow.

Hirchson will explain to the lawmakers that the cabinet decision to transfer NIS 2 billion from other items to the defense budget is critical for financing the war in Lebanon. He will also point out that Labor cabinet ministers supported this decision. Hirchson will reject charges that the NIS 2 billion cut will harm the underprivileged, noting that none of the money will come from social welfare ministries.

The Finance Ministry budgets division will also be represented.

It is likely that if the three refuse to vote in favor of the cabinet proposal in tomorrow morning’s committee vote, they will be replaced by MKs considered loyal.

CAIRO, Egypt – A state security court sentenced an Egyptian nuclear engineer to life in prison Monday after convicting him of spying for Israel, a court official said.

Two others, one Japanese and one Irish, who were tried in absentia on spying charges, also received life imprisonment, the court official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Younis explained, in a special interview with the International Press Center (IPC) at the State Information Services (SIS), that killing of number of citizens perpetrated by IOF in each of Rafah, Jenin and Ramallah, was neither the first incident nor the last, because there was a long series of premeditated murder and cold-blooded murder,

“I want to recall an incident that formed a very important to show lies of the Israeli internal security service relating to the issue of bus No. 300 in the year 1984, when IOF arrested two Palestinian militants, the Israeli internal security service claimed that all members of the Palestinian group were killed during the clashes, but later found that two of the resistance fighters were liquidated after having been arrested,” Younis explained.

The director of the center affirmed that this type of murder is considered as war crimes in accordance with the rules of international law.

“Here we are talking about a war crime. After the arrest of a person by an enemy, he deemed to be treated like a war prisoner in accordance with international conventions, so Israel has systematically violated all rules of international law, Therefore, we agree that the actions practiced by Israel are part of a series and rise to war crimes. ” he added.

Regarding the assassination operations by bombing and others, said Younis, it is similar in the description of the death outside the scope of law or fair trial and the judiciary, pointing out that such killings can not be justified in any form.

As for the international community and its role over the Israeli attacks, Younis said: “We believe that the international community accomplices in a large part of what happens, so that in the worst case, there is a political cover for the crimes committed by occupation, such as the United States of America through the voting in the Security Council in favor of Israel and through direct support and equality between the victim and the executioner. ”

“There is a conspiracy of silence towards what is happening, as everyone knew what is or was done by Israelis which is considered as war crimes, and we are not talking here only about the duties must be carried out by the international community and international law given by the international community, we must move to practice pressure on Israel to stop its aggression on the Palestinian people in accordance with the legal rules accepted by their adherence to international conventions,” he added.

For the role of international organizations, Younis said that there were international organizations had and still play an important role to expose the Israeli crimes, and practice pressure on the state of occupation and the international community to complete his legal and moral obligations to civilians in the Palestinian territories. He added: “The international civil society elated millions against the war on Iraq , but millions still stand in line for supporting the Palestinian people and their cause in many conditions.”

He pointed out that there is an enormous work will be carried out in very different parts of the world through solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In his reply over the role of the Palestinian institutions within the state of internal fighting between the Palestinian factions, Younis concluded that “there was an internal fighting, a state of lawlessness, a situation almost to the collapse of values and relations’ system in the Palestinian society, in addition to ongoing aggression on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, adding: “Since all these things have its effects on the Patriotism institutions, There is much work.”

“Where do we begin, what is the priority, the occupation, internal fighting or disturbance” Younis wondered.

Two Palestinian men crawl through an opening not much larger than a shoe box and descend a shaky ladder, into a space filled with the rank smell of urine and cigarette smoke.

This underground, unfinished mall near the junction of two Tel Aviv highways is home for dozens of Palestinian laborers who can’t get scarce work permits. It’s where they disappear each night, living out of sight of Israeli authorities to fill jobs offered by Israeli businesses.

“When you want to work, you are not afraid of anything,” said 23-year-old Abdul Jalil Hamad, who lights a candle on a concrete wall to shed light on his bed, a mattress that he found in the garbage.

To avoid discovery by police, Hamad and his friends send only those with the best Hebrew and cleanest clothes to buy food at a minimarket on a back street. When the police catch him, he returns home to the West Bank with empty pockets, to face 14 family members who rely on his pay.

Jerusalem. Israel may step up military strikes in the Gaza Strip in response to a surge of Palestinian cross-border rocket salvoes, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

“Until now, we have demonstrated restraint, but this situation is not a tolerable situation,” Livni told reporters after holding security consultations with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

Earlier on Wednesday, Israel destroyed a Hamas position in Gaza which it said had been used to plan rocket attacks. At least four Palestinians died in the air strike, which came as Hamas battled rivals from the Palestinian faction Fatah.