Israel strikes after general slain

USA TODAY, Mar 1, 1999

Matthew Kalman

Israel launched fierce air, land and sea attacks on suspected guerrilla hideouts in southern Lebanon late Sunday hours after two bombs in the region killed an Israeli brigadier general and three others.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the retaliatory raids against Hezbollah after the Muslim militia group claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the most serious against Israelis in southern Lebanon in years.

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Israelis take to bomb shelters ahead of Lebanon attacks

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
March 1, 1999

Matthew Kalman

ISRAEL is in a deepening crisis after a day of bombings and air attacks on Hezbollah guerrilla positions in southern Lebanon.

Israeli troops are moving across the border into southern Lebanon as the Israeli cabinet convened this morning to discuss plans for a major military operation against Hezbollah guerrilla positions.

Israeli residents in the north spent the night in bomb shelters and were instructed to remain there during the day. Schools and businesses stayed closed and police vehicles patrolled the streets of Kiryat Shemona near the border with Lebanon, reminding residents through loud-hailers to stay in their shelters. The commander of Israel's forces in southern …

Israeli commander, 2 lieutenants killed in south Lebanon

USA TODAY, Feb 24, 1999

Matthew Kalman

The commander of Israel's elite paratroop unit and two of his lieutenants were killed and five soldiers were wounded Tuesday in an ambush by Islamic guerrillas in south Lebanon.

Maj. Eitan Balahsan, 30, commander of the Sayeret Salhanim paratroopers, was one of the most senior Israeli officers killed in the 8-mile-wide buffer zone that Israel has occupied in south Lebanon since 1985.

The ambush occurred near the village of Birkit Jabbur in a no-man's-land separating the eastern sector of Israel's self-declared "security zone" from the southern Bekaa plain, which is a Hezbollah stronghold under Syrian control.

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Depressed? Blame your parents for divorcing

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
February 22, 1999

Matthew Kalman

CHILDREN of divorced parents are up to seven times more likely to suffer depression in adult life than people whose parents did not separate, a new study has found.

The loss of a parent through divorce is more likely to cause depression than loss through death, and separation from a mother or both parents is more likely to cause depression than separation only from a father, says a report to be published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Children who were under nine when their parents divorced were found to be seven times …

Children of divorce inclined to depression

USA TODAY, Feb 17, 1999

Matthew Kalman

Children of divorced parents are seven times more likely to suffer from depression in adult life than people of similar age and background whose parents have not divorced, says a psychiatric study on factors leading to depression.

The Israeli study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Molecular Psychiatry, indicates that the loss of a parent through divorce is more likely to cause depression than loss through death. And separation from a mother or from both parents, whether through divorce or desertion, was more likely to cause depression than separation only from a father.

Researchers Bernard Lerer and Ofer Agid of the Biological Psychiatric Unit at Hadassah Hospital focused on children whose parents divorced before the child was 9.

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Court ruling divides Israelis

Ultra-Orthodox, secular Jews demonstrate in power struggle

USA TODAY, Feb 15, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- More than a quarter million Israelis paralyzed the major arteries of Jerusalem Sunday in two massive demonstrations over the political power of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the country.

The largest gathering was of more than 200,000 Orthodox Jews, who came to the main entrance of the city to recite Psalms and prayers led by the country's senior Orthodox rabbis. Dressed mainly in black, with men and women separated, the demonstrators spilled over a large area, blocking off the highway into the city.

They were protesting recent decisions of the Supreme Court on matters affecting the role of religion in Israel that allowed a greater role for non-Orthodox Jews on religious councils and in matters of conversion.

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Syrian leader tries to build up Jordan ties

USA TODAY, Feb 10, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- Syrian President Hafez Assad's unexpected arrival in Amman for talks with King Abdullah and President Clinton have thrust him once more to the forefront of Arab diplomacy.

Assad's uncharacteristic decision to travel to King Hussein's funeral has prompted speculation that he hopes to divert the foreign policy of the newly named king away from peace with Israel.

Tuesday, Syria's government-controlled Tishrin newspaper hinted at such pressure, denouncing "Israel's repeated bids to fish in troubled waters in order to destroy Arab ties on the basis of divide and rule . . . nothing threatens Jordan but Israel and its greedy expansionism."

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HUSSEIN IS LAID TO REST AS THE WORLD MOURNS

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
February 8, 1999

Matthew Kalman

KING HUSSEIN of Jordan was buried today alongside his father and grandfather at the Hashemite burial ground in Amman after a 10-mile procession through the streets of the Jordanian capital.

Heads of state from all over the world flew in to Amman to pay their respects to the king who ruled Jordan for nearly half a century, transforming the desert kingdom of Bedouin tribes and uprooted Palestinians into a unified, stabilising force in the Middle East.

Tony Blair and Prince Charles led the British delegation, while President Clinton was accompanied by three former presidents George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Boris Yeltsin, who is being treated in a Moscow sanatorium for …

Sacked minister: I'll oust Netanyahu

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
January 25, 1999

Matthew Kalman

ISRAELI defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai, dismissed from the cabinet at the weekend by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has emerged as the new leader of a fledgling centre party.

Mr Mordechai pledged to "leave no stone unturned" in his determination to remove Mr Netanyahu from power. He will join former military chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, former finance minister Dan Meridor and former Interior Minister Roni Milo at a Press conference today to formally announce the founding of the party, which does not yet have a name. Israelis …

Midnight at the Oasis

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
January 18, 1999

MATTHEW KALMAN samples the Holy Land's most incongruous new attraction: the Oasis casino, Jericho's answer to Sun City

GAMBLING is not an activity traditionally associated with a trip to the Holy Land. The pursuit is illegal in Israel and throughout much of the Muslim Middle East.

Not so in Jericho, now governed by the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat. Thousands of years after the biblical prostitute Rahab helped Joshua tear down the walls of the most ancient city on earth, the streets of Jeri-cho are ringing with the cries of religious leaders warning against lewd behaviour and whoring.

The object of their concern is the Oasis, a $50 million complex which opened …

Man charged over Miss World 'rape, torture and murder bid'

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
January 14, 1999

Matthew Kalman; Theodore Levite

A MAN has been arrested and charged with the rape and attempted murder of Miss World, Linor Abergil.

The alleged attack took place in Italy before Miss Abergil, 19, was crowned and while she was on a modelling assignment in Milan.

Shaul Nur, a Jewish convert from Islam who has joint Egyptian- Israeli citizenship and lives in Israel, was arrested on Sunday as he flew into Tel Aviv to visit his family. Nur, 43, claims to be a former agent for the Shin Bet Israeli secret service. He now runs a travel business in Milan. A reporting ban on the case was lifted today at Miss Abergil's request by judge Uri Goren, president of the Tel Aviv District Court, allowing the details to be …

Mideast 'Wonder Boy' has leaders' ears

USA TODAY, Jan 12, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- On the final day of the Middle East peace talks in October outside Washington, a teen-ager from Jericho received an urgent call on his mobile phone.

"He was calling to tell me my prophecy had come true. The Israelis and Americans were at loggerheads, and Netanyahu was threatening to walk out." Prophecy? Meet Moussa el-Moghrabi, fortuneteller, faith healer and unofficial spiritual adviser to Palestinian leaders.

"Moussa is a phenomenon. I don't hesitate to consult him whenever I can," the minister says. He consulted with Moussa regularly before the peace talks in Washington, and the faith healer gave him a good-luck charm.

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Novices enticed to seek office in Israeli election

USA TODAY, Jan 8, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- Widespread voter disenchantment with the main parties on the left and right is drawing novice politicians into the electoral arena and driving many veterans toward the center before the May 17 Israeli election.

This was underscored this week when Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a popular general with no political experience and no party organization, announced he will run for prime minister

At the same time, Dan Meridor, widely regarded as the spiritual heir to Israel's first right-wing prime minister, Menachem Begin, announced last month he was quitting Likud, the governing party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to form a new centrist party and run for the top job.

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Israeli task force tries to avert millennial madness

USA TODAY, Jan 5, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- The month-long surveillance and arrest of members of a Denver-based Christian cult was the first public operation of an Israeli task force set up to deal with the expected influx of extreme Christian groups for the turn of the millennium.

Israeli officials fear that extreme Christian groups, like the Concerned Christians who were arrested Sunday, will perform acts that they believe will hasten the second coming of Jesus as the year 2000 approaches.

"Better late than never, the security and intelligence authorities have woken up and dealt with this group," said Rabbi David Rosen, director of the Jerusalem office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and an expert on Jewish-Christian relations. "Had there been good intelligence, they would never have got into the country in the first place."

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Israel deports 11 cults members

USA TODAY, Jan 5, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- Eleven suspected cult members who call themselves the Concerned Christians were ordered to leave Israel Monday.

A statement by the Israeli Interior Ministry released Monday said the cult members believe their deaths will hasten the second coming of Christ.

The ministry said cult members arrived in separate groups in September 1998. They lived in two houses in Mevasseret Zion and Motza, two affluent suburbs on the western approach to Jerusalem.

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Corruption in the Palestinian Authority

British aid used to house Arafat elite

Aid scandal: the misuse of housing cash will embarrass Tony Blair and Yasser Arafat

The Sunday Times, London
November 29 1998

by Stephen Grey

Additional reporting: Chris White and Matthew Kalman

BRITISH aid earmarked for poor Palestinians has been used by the
European Union to finance luxury flats - with Italian granite-fitted
designer kitchens - for rich supporters of Yasser Arafat.

The scandal has benefited a general, a police chief and other acolytes
of the Palestinian leader. The millions of pounds involved have been
written off by Brussels.

"In effect, $20m [12m pounds] has been spent without any economic
controls and is not recoverable," admit the EU's own auditors. At least
2m pounds of this sum was contributed by Britain.

The money had been targeted for cheap housing in the desperately poor
and overcrowded Gaza Strip and the West Bank areas controlled by the
Palestinians. Instead, according to a secret EU internal financial
control report, it was used for flats designed with "elegance and
luxury".

Ten of the apartment blocks were built opposite a refugee camp at
Nussairat, eight miles south of Gaza city. Each apartment is more than
100 square metres in size, with three bedrooms, a kitchen fitted with
polished wooden cupboards and granite work-surfaces, and a bathroom
complete with a large bath and shower area, decorated with either pink
or blue ceramic tiles. Satellite television dishes sprout from the
walls. The car parks are tightly packed with military vehicles and
expensive civilian cars bearing red number plates, which are issued only
to officials.

Palestinian sources said 90% of the EU flats had been given to
"returnees" - loyalists who had been in exile with Arafat and now served
in his administration. Three have been taken over by a Palestinian
brigadier-general, Mazan Iss Did. Another was taken by a police chief,
Tala Abo Zaidi. The Palestinian ministry of industry also controls two
flats.

The housing project was part of a 60m pound aid package for the
Palestinians announced after the Oslo peace accords with Israel. It has
been administered by the Palestinian housing authority, which has
refused to meet the EU auditors, according to their secret report.

The original plan was for a self-sustaining building programme: cheap
housing association mortgages would be available for Palestinians on
modest incomes, whose payments would then finance further construction.

Instead, building costs rose to 33,000 pounds for each apartment, 80%
more than planned, due to split-level construction, entry phone systems
and expensive lifts. This made them "inaccessible to the layer of
population for which they were planned and has instead allowed
well-to-do people, who were not targeted, to benefit from EU aid", said
the auditors.

Compounding the scandal, some of these affluent beneficiaries made low
down payments - as little as 1,000 pounds, instead of the 20% required -
and many are not keeping up their mortgage payments. "The degree of
repayment of the loans on the part of the buyers in the Gaza Strip is
zero," said the auditors.

The aid programme is under the control of Manuel Marin, the Spanish
commissioner for EU relations with the Middle East, who is already
facing widespread criticism over his handling of fraud allegations in
the EU's humanitarian aid budget when he was aid commissioner.

The scandal has emerged as Britain prepares to announce in Washington
tomorrow a doubling of aid to the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Derek
Fatchett, the Foreign Office minister, will announce that more than 105m
pounds will be spent over the next three years, half through EU
programmes. More than 1.2 billion pounds has been given by all
international donors to the Palestinians in the past five years.

Fatchett said Britain had already voiced concerns to Arafat about
corruption involving aid and planned to use tomorrow's announcement to
demand much greater accountability and openness from the Palestinians.

"Anyone going to Gaza is struck by its poverty and disadvantage. It is
very important to ensure that the aid reaches those in the greatest
need," he said.

The Palestinian Authority's own auditors have already embarrassed Arafat
with an inquiry which showed that nearly 40% of his administration's
budget was misused or stolen through "kickbacks." The EU auditors warn
the same corruption could apply to money in its projects and demanded
"extreme vigilance".

They are also critical of EU funding for a new hospital in Gaza, which
was "not conceived correctly or run according to the principles of
efficiency". More than 14m pounds was handed over to build a "luxurious"
clinic which was far too lavish for local needs. "The cost of
maintaining and using this hospital will be well over the financial
means of this country," said the report.

British support for Palestine

Foulkes finds room at Gaza inn

GLASGOW HERALD November 5th, 1998

By Matthew Kalman

GEORGE Foulkes gave a significant boost to the growing momentum for a Palestinian state last night when he became the first British Government Minister to stay overnight in the Palestinian Authority.

Mr Foulkes, MP for Carrick, Cumnock, and Doon, was on a three-day visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in his capacity as Under- Secretary in the Department for International Development.

Speaking during a whirlwind tour of the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, Mr Foulkes announced £9m in grants for projects designed to help the Palestinian Authority and ease the lives of under-privileged Palestinians.

Read full story HERE

Millennium kosher blues

A party is just not kosher

GLASGOW HERALD  July 31st, 1998

By Matthew Kalman

In Jerusalem Israeli officials and frustrated hoteliers are struggling with a cruel twist of calendrical fate: New Year's Eve 1999 falls on Friday evening, the Jewish Sabbath, when no music or entertainment is allowed. As the rest of the world, including mainly Muslim and Christian East Jerusalem, marks the countdown to the millennium in what promises to be the greatest party on earth, the Israeli rabbinate have decreed that predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem will be an island of tranquillity in the mad sea of celebration.

"They are talking about the possibility of millions of tourists coming here for the year 2000 but, because they will not be able to celebrate the most exciting holiday of the millennium in a public hall or a hotel in Jerusalem, where will they go to celebrate?" asks Mr Dvir. ''Bethlehem? Amman?"

Only in Jerusalem do the orthodox rabbinical authorities exercise such an iron grip on the observance of the Sabbath. Outside the Holy City, the rabbinate are content to monitor the kosher food served in hotels and restaurants while turning a blind eye to desecrations of the Sabbath such as discotheques. Elsewhere in Israel, Jews and non- Jews alike are expected to join the millennium madness. But in Jerusalem, any eaterie or public venue wishing to retain its kosher licence must adhere to strict Sabbath observance and agree not to mark any non-Jewish holidays, including New Year's Eve. The coincidence of December 31, 1999, with Friday night has left kosher hoteliers with little choice.

Full story HERE

ISRAEL AT 50

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR
May 1, 1998

This sponsored section was prepared by the Special Projects Department at Institutional Investor and written independently by Avi Machlis and Matthew Kalman, journalists based in Jerusalem. Cover artwork courtesy of Bank Hapoalism.

A NEW ERA OF OPENNESS

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, the founding fathers envisaged a centralized economy based on agriculture and inspired by socialist Zionism. Today, however, many trademarks of the early economy have been swept away. Israel's high-tech sector is now driving economic growth, while privatization and reforms are transforming Israel into a free market economy. "We will continue to break down monopolies and deregulate," says Finance Minister Yaakov Neeman. "This will encourage growth, attract foreign investment, and benefit the Israeli public."

In the early 1990s, Israel enjoyed rapid growth, fueled by a wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union and by the Oslo peace process, which began in 1993. GDP climbed by an average of 6 percent between 1990 and 1995. The rate slowed to 4.5 percent analysts expect sluggish growth in 1996, 1.9 percent last year, and analysts expect sluggish growth in 1998.

Even though the peace process has been stalled for more than a year, foreign investment increased from $2.8 billion in 1996 to $3.7 billion in 1997. Recent terrorist attacks, however, have severely damaged Israel's tourism industry, which accounts for 3 percent of GDP, and sonic analysts warn that if diplomacy collapses, investors may disappear. Still, Israel's government remains upbeat. "Foreign investment will continue to flow," Neeman declares.

Foreign interest has focused on the financial services and technology sectors. According to the Bank of Israel, of total direct foreign investment of more than 100,000, some 46 percent was invested in financial services and another 36 percent in technology.

Investors did not seem deterred by last year's slowdown. The government blames the by downturn on the high budget deficit left its predecessors, which compelled it to rein in spending and the Batik of Israel to …

BANK HAPOALIM

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR
May 1, 1998

This sponsored section was prepared by the Special Projects Department at Institutional Investor and written independently by Avi Machlis and Matthew Kalman, journalists based in Jerusalem. Cover artwork courtesy of Bank Hapoalim.

ISRAEL'S LEADING PROVIDER OF FINANCIAL SERVICES FOR Investors

Bank Hapoalim -- Israel's largest banking group, with 10 commercial banks, 364 branches and offices worldwide, and more than 50 subsidiaries active in all aspects of financial services -- is the country's leading supplier of services to foreign and domestic institutional investors, financial intermediaries, private investors, and issuers. In 1997 the Bank reported the largest …