Friday, May 2, 2008

Israel Update 5/2/08

This is a season of contradictory feelings for those who care about Israel. We recently commemorated Yom Ha’Shoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day – and next week we will commemorate Yom Ha’Zikaron – Israel’s Memorial Day. As solemn and mournful as those days can be, Memorial Day in Israel is followed immediately by Yom Ha’Atzmaut – Israel’s Independence Day – a day of rejoicing that reminds us of the blessing and the hope that is the modern State of Israel. This Thursday, on Israel’s 60th birthday, I encourage everyone to do something to celebrate: hang a flag on your window, watch an Israeli movie, listen to Israeli music!


QUICK READING LIST
- Desalinated water grows a city in Israel's desert, Margaret Coker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 4/6/08: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/05/iswater.html
- Puppet child on Hamas TV "kills" US President Bush in revenge, AP / IHT, 3/31/08: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/31/africa/ME-GEN-Palestinians-Bush.php (View a link to the video clip at the end of the article)
- Rights Council hears from Jewish refugee, Paul Lungen, Canadian Jewish News, 3/27/08: http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14325&Itemid=86
- See also: The Forgotten Refugees: http://www.theforgottenrefugees.com/
- The Care and Feeding of an Angry Territory, Jonah Goldberg, National Review, 3/7/08: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjNkNTE1YzFiZGY5YmY4YTNkZmVlYzFjZDUwYWRmY2M=
- Living in the most heavily bombed place in the world, Phillip Jacobson, Daily Mail (UK), 2/15/08: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/live/live.html?in_article_id=514681&in_page_id=1889
“Because of its proximity to the border and the concentration of Hamas-led amateur bomb-makers on the other side, Sderot has a unique civic claim: on a rocket-per-head-of-population basis, it is the most targeted town in Israel, indeed the world.”
- A conversation with Israel’s legendary startup guru, Stacy Perman, Business Week, 1/2/08: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jan2008/sb2008012_744161.htm?chan=smallbiz_smallbiz+index+page_top+small+business+stories


IN HONOR OF ISRAEL’S 60TH BIRTHDAY
- Sign Hillel’s birthday card for Israel: http://www.hillel.org/israel/israel60/default
- Israel@60: http://standwithuscampus.com/?page_id=135
- Israel at Sixty: http://www.60israel.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Focus+Areas/60Israel
- Israel at 60, by Yossi Klein Halevi: http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/Israel_at_60.asp


QUOTE OF THE DAY: SOME ISRAELI ACHIEVEMENTS
“The country is so much more than the narrow lens that we see through the media…Israeli engineers are on the cutting edge of solar energy technology…In a medical breakthrough, a pill taken internally and containing a tiny camera allows Houston-area doctors to make a diagnosis with visual information and data... Scientists from Israel and Jordan are learning to transplant coral in the Red Sea into artificial reefs to save it from destruction…An Israeli-developed system for generating rain in desert regions has interested Texas officials who hope that it can be useful to increase agricultural production in Texan deserts.”
- http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5639801.html


VIDEO: TERROR ON THE WEB
Watch this interesting short video clip, exposing how the Hamas and Hezbollah terror organization spread their hateful messages on the internet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miTP6DkwhsM
- See also: http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_may2007.htm#b280507, with links to Hamas TV clips on YouTube


RESOURCE: HUMANITARIAN AND INTERNATIONAL AID
View these links, highlighting Israel’s humanitarian and international aid to developing countries and those in need: http://standwithuscampus.com/?page_id=132 and http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=3918015&ct=5161913


2ND QUOTE: PALESTINIANS’ MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
This one is particularly apropos this month:

Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, comes to the painful acknowledgment of an opportunity missed. Looking back to the U.N. partition plan of 1947, which envisaged Jewish and Palestinian states living side by side in peace, he laments: "After 60 years, we are struggling for what we could have had in 1947. We have missed many historic opportunities."
- http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/14/africa/ME-FEA-GEN-Palestinian-Old-Guard.php