Egypt recalls envoy to protest Israeli attacks

MATTHEW KALMAN

Special to The Globe and Mail

 Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2000

JERUSALEM — Egypt recalled its ambassador to Tel Aviv yesterday to protest against the "severity and aggression" of Israeli attacks on Palestinians, a dramatic move that increases the prospect of a full-scale regional crisis in the Middle East.

"This step expresses the extreme displeasure of Egypt for what is going on in the occupied territories against the Palestinians," Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said in Cairo, announcing the recall of Ambassador Mohammed Bassiouny for "consultations" with President Hosni Mubarak. "We deplore the severity and the aggression, the use of force . . . against a civilian population, against Palestinians in their territories."

The move took both Israelis and Palestinians by surprise, and increased diplomatic tensions after two months of clashes in which more than 280 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed.

Israelis fear that the move is the first step toward a complete severing of ties and even, possibly, war. Palestinians welcomed the display of support.

"This is a fateful message to the Arab people, the United States and the international community that Israel must pay a price for its violence," said Palestinian cabinet minister Hassan Asfour.

Apparently stunned by the announcement, Israeli leaders did not respond for several hours. Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel said officials were attempting to persuade Mr. Mubarak to change his mind.

"I would not exaggerate the immediate consequences of such a step, but of course we regret it," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. "Egypt plays an important role in the peace process and this move will not help her to fulfill that role."

The move followed Israel's fiercest attack yet on Palestinian security and communications facilities, which left one person dead and more than 130 injured in Gaza on Monday night.

The missile attacks were launched after the bombing of a school bus carrying Israelis. Israel said the bombing was the work of Palestinian security forces, an assertion the Palestinians denied.

Yesterday, violence raged unabated in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Four Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops and a fifth Palestinian died of wounds suffered in earlier fighting. An Israeli civilian died after he was shot by a Palestinian sniper near the scene of the bomb blast that killed two adults and wounded several children.

Egypt's recall of Mr. Bassiouny, the doyen of the diplomatic corps in Israel, is a low point in more than 20 years of often-tense diplomatic relations between Israel and its most populous Arab neighbour.

Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, has played a complex and important role as a mediator in the current crisis, and throughout the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

In recent weeks, Mr. Mubarak's refusal to break off relations with Israel or back an economic boycott of the Jewish state had sparked praise in Jerusalem and protests in the West Bank and Gaza.

"The Egyptian leadership has come under heavy pressure as a result of the expectations in the Arab world and in Egypt, as the leading Arab country, to cut off its ties with Israel," said Egyptian political analyst Nasser Abdel Rahman. "Monday's air attacks on Gaza were the straw which broke the camel's back and enabled Egypt to ignore U.S. pressure not to sever ties with Israel or recall its ambassador."

The last time Egypt recalled its envoy to Israel was in 1982, after the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut by Lebanese Christian militia allied with Israel.

Then-ambassador Sa'ad Mortada was also called home "for consultations," but never returned. Four years later, after the two countries reached agreement on a border dispute, Mr. Bassiouny became ambassador.

He has played a key role in Israeli-Arab mediation ever since, and is a popular figure with Israeli leaders and the foreign diplomatic corps. Three years ago, he became embroiled in scandal when an Israeli belly dancer accused him of attempting to rape her, but Israel's top court ruled that his diplomatic immunity protected him from prosecution.

The only other Arab country with full diplomatic ties with Israel is Jordan. The Jordanian envoy to Tel Aviv ended his posting in the summer; King Abdullah has postponed naming a replacement while the violence continues.

At a meeting with U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen yesterday, King Abdullah asked Washington to help defend the Palestinian people against "Israeli aggression."

There have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations in both Egypt and Jordan; authorities are concerned that such displays could turn into antigovernment protests. The situation in Jordan, home to more than 1.5 million Palestinians, is particularly volatile.

Israel's diplomatic isolation from the Arab world is the worst it has been for years.

Israeli representative offices in Morocco, Qatar and Tunisia have also been closed in recent weeks because of the violence in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel mourns Leah Rabin

Widow of assassinated prime minister to be buried among nation's heroes

GLOBE & MAIL
Wednesday, November 15, 2000

By Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM - As Leah Rabin is laid to rest today beside her husband, assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, many could be forgiven for wondering whether the Oslo peace process that he led and she championed is being buried with her.

Mrs. Rabin held no official position, but her status was such that her funeral in Jerusalem will be conducted with the trappings of a national event. Her body will lie in state in the Tel Aviv square where her husband was shot by a religious Jewish extremist five years ago.

The burial will take place on Mount Herzl, where Israel's national heroes are laid to rest. U.S. President Bill Clinton was visibly moved when he attended Mr. Rabin's funeral there along with other world leaders such as the late King Hussein of Jordan.

Just steps away from the Rabins' gravesite lie the remains of Theodore Herzl, the assimilated Jewish journalist who founded the Zionist movement in 19th-century Europe. His dream of a Jewish return to Zion was fulfilled, but it also became the Palestinian nightmare of displacement and exile.

The Oslo process, which was to have finally settled the century-old conflict, should have concluded this year. But just as Mrs. Rabin was being diagnosed with the skin cancer that ultimately killed her (she died on Sunday), the peace process was losing pace. As Mrs. Rabin entered hospital a few weeks ago, unable to fight the disease, Israelis and Palestinians lurched from peace talks to deadly confrontation.

Mrs. Rabin was one of the few notable Israelis who bridged the gulf between Israelis and Palestinians, even describing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as "almost one of the family."

He returned the compliment when he paid an unprecedented condolence call to her Tel Aviv home in the days after her husband's murder, doffing his black-and-white keffiyeh and revealing for the first time in public his balding pate.

But Mr. Arafat is likely to be the most conspicuous absentee from today's funeral. Tentative suggestions that he might attend were originally welcomed by Israeli officials, but the mood soured after more violence erupted this week.

Yesterday should have been an auspicious day, when the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization was to meet and declare an independent Palestinian state following the successful conclusion of peace negotiations.

Instead, four more Palestinians died in continuing clashes in the West Bank and Gaza. One of them was a middle-aged man who lost control of his car when it was stoned by Israelis, near the site of an ambush Monday by Palestinian gunmen north of Nablus, who shot dead a female teacher and two soldiers.

Israeli security forces have clamped a tight cordon around Palestinian towns and cities, allowing only food, medical and other essential deliveries.

"The closure is one way to prevent violence, because the alternative is to go after the terrorists and to enter cities, which is something we do not want to do," said Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami. "We want to stop any kind of escalation."

Other Israeli voices called for more punitive action against Palestinian gunmen. "The best way to deal with this reality is to track down these attackers and strike at them, and so reduce to a minimum the possibility that such acts will occur again," said Israeli chief of staff Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz.

But Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak should stop using force against the Palestinians.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said yesterday it would be "premature" to declare a Palestinian state.

Middle East conflict spills into cyberspace

USA TODAY
27 October 2000

By Matthew Kalman
JERUSALEM — Israeli and Arab Internet hackers went to war Thursday, paralyzing each other's Web sites with an arsenal of desktop weapons that managed to penetrate the most sophisticated defenses.
The Israeli Knesset Web site was frozen for hours after it was "spammed" — overloaded with hundreds of thousands of electronic messages. Similar attacks brought down the main Israeli government portal and the Foreign Ministry Web site for more than 30 hours. Attacks also continued through the night on the Israel Defense Forces Web site.
The Web site of the Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamic movement that captured three Israeli soldiers and an Israeli businessman in Switzerland two weeks ago, was successfully penetrated by a hacker who replaced its blistering anti-Israel rhetoric with a rippling Israeli flag and a soundtrack of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem. Sites belonging to other groups such as Hamas and the Palestinian Information Center were also targeted.
News from the e-world battle lines:
A Lebanese hacker, identified only as Walid, told the Beirut Daily Star newspaper of his plan to hack the Knesset server late Wednesday night. "We'll target and hack Israeli Web sites one by one. This will continue," he said. He warned that the cyberwar could intensify, with Israelis and Arabs trying to e-mail viruses that would destroy each other's systems.
The Israeli army hired AT&T on Thursday to reinforce its service and protect it from
crashing, an army spokesman said. Israeli security officials said they had traced the attacks to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and servers in Europe and North America.
Netvision, Israel's largest service provider, hosts the Knesset and Foreign Ministry Web sites.
The company's other services also were crippled, with private users unable to access their e-mail for much of the day.
"We are taking measures, which for obvious reasons we would rather not reveal, to prevent similar attacks," said Gilad Rabinovich, NetVision's general manager.
Arab hackers swapped information through Internet chat rooms and two sites, UmmahUnity and Tripod, offered advice and downloadable programs to assist anyone who wanted to join the cyberattack against Israeli sites.
As in the real-life clashes over the past month that have claimed more than 130 lives, most of them Palestinians, there was a dispute over who fired the first shot in the virtual war.
Lebanese hackers say the attack on the Israeli Web sites was a response to a call two weeks ago for pro-Israel users to flood the Hezbollah Web site with e-mails.

Boots uses sun's rays to power its stores

The Sunday Times
October 7, 2000

Matthew Kalman

BOOTS, the high-street chemist, is planning an investment in solar power to provide environmentally friendly energy for its stores. Boots executives plan to install several trial units made by Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli company. If the trial is successful, Boots will roll out the units across its stores.
The units trap sunlight in solar panels mounted on the roofs or walls. Solel says they are capable of providing 70% of a building's hot water and air-conditioning yet pose no environmental threat. Once the units have been installed, they do not consume fuel and have minimal maintenance costs.
Avi Brenmiller, chief executive of Jerusalem-based Solel, says the patented system is 50% more efficient than existing alternatives and is suitable for northern Europe, with its relative lack of sunshine.
Solel's Vac 2008 is four metres long with a heat-collecting element consisting of a stainless-steel tube suspended in a vacuum inside a tubular glass sheath. The element is mounted on a parabolic solar reflector coated with silver. This concentrates the sun's rays onto the metal tube, which is coated with a mixture of metal and ceramic particles in a secret process. Water passes through the tube and is heated by sunlight. The special coating and the vacuum insulate the tube so that once it is heated it retains 97% of the energy.
Temperatures inside the element can reach up to 400 degrees centigrade, enabling it to provide air-conditioning without using electricity. In sunny climates, Solel says its generators can produce enough electricity to power a hospital, office building or even a village. Brenmiller says: "It hasn't been possible until now to manufacture such efficient collectors to reach the temperatures needed to produce enough energy at a low-enough cost. The unique methods used to make the system mean it can be used even in climates without much sunshine, such as Britain."
Rionay, an Eastbourne company, distributes Solel systems in Britain.

Violence, death toll climb in Mideast

Israeli army uses helicopter gunships, missiles against civilian Palestinian targets

GLOBE & MAIL
Tuesday, October 3, 2000

By Matthew Kalman

GAZA CITY -- It was the moment 16-year-old Shadi Abu Dakka had been waiting for since his best friend was killed four years ago.

In 1996, Israeli soldiers shot Khaled Khattib dead as he tried to remove the Israeli flag from the top of a lookout post at the Netzarim army base in the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, Mr. Abu Dakka scaled the same flagpole and succeeded in removing the flag bearing the blue Star of David. But before he could replace it with the green, black, red and white colours of the Palestinian flag he was carrying, an Israeli sniper shot him in the leg.

"I fulfilled my dream and the wish of my best friend, Khaled," Mr. Abu Dakka said as he lay in the orthopedic ward at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. "Every time I passed near that base, the only thing I could think of was how to bring down the Israeli flag. There is no reason why an Israeli flag should be hoisted on Palestinian land."

He said he knew the risk he was taking and was prepared to sacrifice his life yesterday, the fifth day of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces throughout Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip that have left more than 50 people dead.

"I knew I could be martyred and I was prepared for that," he said. "Before me, five other kids tried to climb the 15-metre-high fence surrounding the lookout post, but they were all shot and wounded.

"When my turn came, the soldiers shot in the air at first, but I was not deterred. I continued climbing, carrying the Palestinian flag on my back. Although I was wounded in the leg, I tore down the Israeli flag and then quickly replaced it with the Palestinian flag. I jumped down and hid among some concrete barriers while the Israelis continued shooting. Then my friends came and rescued me."

His friends say they have appealed to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to give the youth an award.

Mr. Abu Dakka was one of the lucky ones. Hours later, the Israeli army used Apache helicopter gunships to fire missiles at Palestinian buildings and vehicles near the Netzarim base, killing two people and injuring about 50 more.

The helicopters were deployed for the first time Sunday in what Israeli army operations chief General Giora Eiland described as "a demonstration of the firepower at our disposal."

At least 10 people were killed yesterday, including three Israeli Arabs and one Israeli soldier, who was shot in the head at Beit Sahour near Bethlehem. Voice of Palestine Radio reported hundreds injured.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Mr. Arafat are to meet in Paris tomorrow with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in an effort to quell the violence.

Mr. Barak, who asked Israeli-Arab leaders last night to meet with him this morning for urgent talks, said all agreements and negotiations with the Palestinians on a long-awaited peace deal would be "shelved" until the current violence ended. "But it is too early to eulogize the peace process," he added.

Mr. Barak said Mr. Arafat was responsible for the violence and should order his officers to end their gun attacks on Israeli positions, but the Palestinian leader shrugged off the call.

"Stop shooting our soldiers, our old people, our youths, our women," Mr. Arafat said.

Yesterday, young Palestinian Fatah activists and police armed with automatic weapons joined stone-throwing demonstrators in clashes with Israeli troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Hebron. Israeli cars were stoned and set ablaze at various points throughout the West Bank and an Israeli man was shot dead south of Nablus.

Seven killed during riot in Jerusalem

Palestinian leaders call for general strike after clashes on eve of Jewish New Year

GLOBE & MAIL
September 30, 2000

By Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- At least seven Palestinian demonstrators were killed and 220 Palestinians were injured when Israeli riot police stormed the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem yesterday, leading the Palestinian Authority to call for a general strike today.

Forty-four Israeli police officers, including the Jerusalem chief, were hit by stones in the worst bloodshed in four years at the walled compound that is at the centre of the deadlock in Mideast talks.

Thousands of Muslims barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque as sporadic stone-throwing and violence spread through East Jerusalem and the West Bank on the eve of the Jewish New Year.

The violence quickly spread to Jerusalem neighbourhoods and the West Bank, further dimming prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said the situation was very serious and that Israel expected the Palestinian Authority and regional Muslim leadership, which supervises the Temple Mount, to restore calm. "Otherwise the Israeli police will have to get involved and act, even though we don't want to," Mr. Barak said.

Yesterday's disturbances began as thousands of Muslims leaving Friday prayers hurled bottles, masonry blocks and iron bars onto Jewish worshippers and police at the Western Wall 15 metres below. Israeli police struggled to clear the area by the wall, which was crowded with people offering prayers on the eve of the Jewish New Year, which began last night.

About 25 Israelis, including Jerusalem police Chief Yair Yitzhaki, were treated in hospital for head wounds after being hit from above.

The Muslim demonstrators then tried to break into the plaza around the Western Wall. Israeli riot police forced them back and tried to clear the Temple Mount compound. They opened fire on the demonstrators with rubber bullets, killing seven Palestinians and wounding more than 200 others, according to Palestinian medical officials.

The call for a general strike came from Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo over the Voice of Palestine radio, which said only official bodies, such as ministries, would be exempt.

The Voice of Palestine Radio reported that seven of those injured had lost an eye.

There were further outbreaks of violence as the afternoon wore on.

In Jerusalem neighbourhoods close to Palestinian areas, youths threw stones at Israeli cars and set fire to an Israeli ambulance. In Bethlehem, demonstrators threw stones at Israeli soldiers and burned tires. In Nablus, Israeli security forces moved out a group of religious students.

"We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for today's massacre," said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"On the instructions of President Arafat, we have asked the United States to intercede with Israel to stop this bloodshed."

Abu Ala, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, told the Voice of Palestine: "The Israelis have gone mad. What happened today could destroy the Middle East peace process. Israeli extremists are trying to derail the process."

The clashes, the worst in Jerusalem for four years, came the day after violence broke out during a controversial tour of the Temple Mount by hawkish Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon.

The Temple Mount is the key stumbling-block in peace talks that have dragged on between Israelis and Palestinians for more than seven years.

Each side wants control over the site, which Jews regard as the location of Solomon's Temple and Muslims believe is the place where Mohammed ascended to heaven.

The temple was destroyed by the Romans, and a mosque has stood on the site since the eighth century.

Earlier yesterday, a Palestinian police officer shot and killed an Israeli policeman during a joint Israeli-Palestinian security patrol in the West Bank town of Kalkilya.

Hussein gravely ill with cancer: newspaper

Takes steps to pass control to youngest son

GLOBE & MAIL
Monday, September 4, 2000

MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Jerusalem - Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is gravely ill with cancer of the lymph system and has set up a family council led by his youngest son to take control if the President were to become incapacitated, a leading Arabic newspaper reported yesterday.
Western newspapers have reported several times in recent years that the 63-year-old President has cancer, but the London-based Asharq al-Awsat went into considerable detail in its report.
The Saudi-financed publication quoted an Arab doctor "with an excellent reputation" as saying that a medical team of three French doctors, one German and one Swede is taking care of Mr. Hussein. The team had been brought together by a committee chaired by the President's personal secretary and confidant, Abed Hamoud, the daily said.
Western diplomats in the Middle East said they could not confirm the accuracy of the reports.
The death of Mr. Hussein could spark a succession crisis between his two sons, both of whom are known for their ruthless behaviour.
Mr. Hussein was last seen in public last month as he was driven through Baghdad in an open-air car with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
According to the unidentified Iraqi doctor who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat, Mr. Hussein is suffering from pains in his hip and lungs and has problems breathing. His sight has also been affected and he suffers temporary memory losses and is unable to concentrate, the doctor said.
The doctor said that Mr. Hussein had so far refused to undergo chemotherapy treatment.
The paper also said the President recently led a family meeting attended by his secretary Mr. Hamoud; his two sons, Udai and Qusay; and his three brothers, Barazan, Watban and Sabawi. They appointed a family council led by Qusay to run the affairs of Iraq in the event the President were unable to fulfill his duties or were to die suddenly.
Last month, the Arab media reported that Qusay had effectively been appointed his father's deputy and second-in-command. The reports said Mr. Hussein was seeking to change the constitution so 34-year-old Qusay could become president if needed; the legal age now is 40.
Qusay is known as the ruthless commander of the Special Security Organization, a key branch of the Iraqi security apparatus. In 1997, Qusay reportedly ordered the execution of 1,500 political prisoners, according to a United Nations report. Iraq denied the report, which said relatives were even ordered to pay for the bullets used to kill the prisoners before being allowed to retrieve their bodies for burial.
His older brother, Uday, 36, was badly injured in an assassination attempt in 1996 and is only just able to walk without assistance. He is a notorious playboy who made headlines in 1998 for clubbing his father's food-taster to death. He was considered the favourite to succeed his father until the attack. He still controls the official Babel newspaper and could mount a strong challenge for the leadership of Iraq when his father dies.

Barak's reform plans raise eyebrows among supporters, critics

GLOBE & MAIL
Wednesday, August 30, 2000

By Matthew Kalman

Jerusalem -- Prime Minister Ehud Barak's sweeping plans for religious and civic reforms have supporters and critics wondering whether he is launching a true crusade to repair Israel's splintered society -- or simply embarking on a populist campaign to win the next election.

Less than 10 days ago, Mr. Barak stunned his country by announcing a new "civic agenda" for Israeli society. He wants to draw up a written constitution; end the Orthodox Jewish monopoly on marriages and burials; make national service compulsory for all citizens, including Arab-Israelis and ultra-Orthodox Jews who are currently exempt; and dismantle the Ministry of Religion and its local religious councils.

Secular Israelis who worry about the growing strength of the Orthodox religious establishment hail the plan as a "secular revolution" and as a turning point in Israeli history.

But religious leaders accuse the Prime Minister of blatant electioneering in the wake of the collapse of his Labour Party's coalition government in June. Many subscribe to the view that the new plan was hatched solely to solve Mr. Barak's political woes.

"This whole constitution proposal by Barak is a bluff," said Moshe Gafni, an MP for the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party, which once supported Mr. Barak. "Everyone knows that if either we or Shas [another religious party] would call Barak tonight and offer to join the government, he would call off this whole program."

But Mr. Gafni also cautions that if Mr. Barak is serious in his plan, there could be trouble ahead.

"The question is whether the Prime Minister is leading a process that will change the state of Israel to a non-Jewish state," he said. "If this indeed true, we are talking about a world war."

The most perplexing question concerns Mr. Barak's timing and motivation. He has been trailing badly in opinion polls since his coalition collapsed, and has been saved from outright defeat only by the disarray of his opponents and the fact that the Knesset (parliament) is in recess until October.

Some observers suggest he is trying to deflect attention from the shaky state of peace talks with the Palestinians by focusing instead on sweeping domestic change, even though he has the support of only 42 MPs in the 120-seat Knesset.

"I can't imagine a worse time than this to draft a constitution," said Professor Avi Ravitsky, an expert on Jewish philosophy and a Barak supporter who declined an invitation to join the government.

"In a society which is so divided, it is not right to legislate a constitution with a slim majority -- which will just be overturned by the next government with its slim majority."

Others suggest Mr. Barak is merely trying to exert pressure on the religious parties, among them his former coalition allies, to support his peace initiatives by showing them what could happen to their power base if they remain outside the government.

The influential Maariv newspaper suggested the Prime Minister's new agenda is not quite as billed. "If it was clear that Ehud Barak and his government would unfurl the flag of the civil revolution not just in word but deed, then it would have to be welcomed," the paper argued.

Whatever his motive, Mr. Barak is forcing his country to consider key issues that have been largely ignored in favour of the peace process and the fight against terrorism.

As Avraham Burg, Speaker of the Knesset, put it: "There is a need for a new Zionist narrative not based on a shared external enemy or the ideology of settlement, but a social revolution that will resurrect the Labour Party and the Israeli people."

Mr. Barak's agenda also includes questions of pressing concern to Israel's one-million-strong community of Russian immigrants, who make up about 20 per cent of the electorate and have been tagged by experts as the key swing voters in the past five elections, including the one last year that brought Mr. Barak to office.

For example, many Russian immigrants are not Jewish according to Orthodox criteria, which means they cannot marry or be buried the way they want in Israel, which does not have civil marriages or funerals. The problem was intensified because the Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for such personal matters, was controlled by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party until last year.

Yisrael b'Aliyah, a Russian immigrant party headed by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, made opposition to Shas the basis of its election campaign last year, reflecting the widespread Russian dislike for the political and religious hegemony of the ultra-Orthodox.

The Russian community was dismayed when Mr. Barak took Shas into his coalition as the second-largest party in the government. But after a year of coalition crises and scandals, fuelled largely by the refusal of Shas to have its schools adhere to financing regulations, Mr. Barak seems to have washed his hands of the party.

Israelis killed in raid on Hamas leader

Three soldiers believed to have died from friendly fire; target flees

GLOBE & MAIL
Monday, August 28, 2000

By Matthew Kalman

Nablus, West Bank -- A botched raid on an Islamic militant's hideout ended yesterday with three Israeli commandos dead, apparently by friendly fire, and Palestinian officials upset about Israel's handling of threats to peace between the two peoples.

The target of the late-night Saturday raid was Mahmoud Abu Hunud, a fugitive at the top of Israel's most-wanted list, blamed for two 1997 bombings that killed at least 21 Israelis and injured hundreds.

Mr. Abu Hunud, a leader of the militant Hamas group, which is adamantly opposed to any peace deal with Israel, fled the shootout into Nablus, a nearby town under Palestinian control. There, he surrendered to Palestinian security forces for medical treatment and was being kept under heavy guard yesterday in a Nablus hospital.

Despite their failure to capture Mr. Abu Hunud, for whom they had been searching for years, Israeli officials praised Palestinian security forces and said his detention proved the effectiveness of Palestinian-Israeli security co-operation.

"It doesn't matter under whose custody he is," Carmi Gillon, a former head of the Shin Bet security service, told Israel radio. "He's out of commission."

A senior Palestinian security officer said the Palestinian Authority had no intention of handing Mr. Abu Hunud over to the Israelis.

Israel's military chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, set up a special commission of inquiry to find out what went wrong with the ambush and how the three Israelis were killed.

"There is a basis to believe that there was a serious operational error, which led to one of our units mistakenly shooting at their comrades," he said yesterday morning.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak also said it was possible the three Israelis had been killed by friendly fire.

"When three of our best sons are killed, it is hard to talk of success," said Israeli Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh, "but the operation has saved the lives of dozens of Israelis."

The Palestinians did their best to distance themselves from the botched operation.

"What the Israelis have done is a mistake that they committed on their own initiative, and it has nothing to do with the Palestinian Authority," said Colonel Jibril Rajoub, the top Palestinian security official in the West Bank. "They paid the price."

The area of the shootout is jointly controlled by Israel and the Palestinians, with ultimate security control in Israel's hands. Col. Rajoub suggested that it is time for Israeli forces to move out for good.

"It would have been more appropriate to have given the information to the [Palestinian] police to tackle the issue peacefully and without bloodshed," he said.

But Gen. Mofaz said Israel is not about to cede its West Bank operations.

Mr. Abu Hunud, 33, was tracked down late Saturday night by commandos from the crack undercover Duvdevan unit, who surrounded a relative's house in the village of Assireh al Shamalia, north of Nablus. But he apparently saw them and opened fire, launching a fierce gun battle that left him wounded and the three Israelis dead.

Palestinian security officials said he suffered at least three bullet wounds. His mother, Fatmeh, visited him yesterday and said he was in good condition.

Mr. Abu Hunud has been on the run from Israeli and Palestinian security forces since escaping from a Palestinian jail in 1996. He became commander of the Hamas military wing in 1998 after his predecessors were each assassinated by Israeli soldiers. He recruited suicide bombers and planned the attacks in Jerusalem in 1997 that sparked a major crisis in the peace talks.

Since then, he is believed to have been planning major terror attacks on Israeli targets. He managed to evade a nationwide search by never sleeping in the same place twice and rarely returning to his home village to see his parents.

Mr. Abu Hunud's younger brother, Mustapha, who works as a nurse at a hospital in Nablus, said he saw the attack from the start.

"We didn't even know Mahmoud was in the village, and we were very surprised," he said. "We had always thought that he was in Iran or somewhere else abroad. He apparently came to the village [Saturday] night to see my parents. Someone tipped off the Israeli security forces, who arrived immediately."

According to Mustapha, Mr. Abu Hunud was hiding in a house belonging to a relative. The Israeli commandos scaled a house opposite and waited on the roof.

"At around 9:15 p.m. I heard shots," Mustapha said. "When I looked out the window, I saw dozens of Israeli soldiers. Some of them were panicking, crying and shouting. I saw them carrying some of their own soldiers, who were bleeding. I left my house and people told me that Mahmoud had opened fire at the soldiers."

Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, Mr. Abu Hunud's escape from the soldiers was being celebrated by Hamas supporters, who consider him a hero of the Palestinian resistance.

Jewish refugees' seized assets may be used as bargaining chip

Israelis divided on whether their effects should square accounts with Palestinians

GLOBE & MAIL
Friday, August 11, 2000

By Matthew Kalman and Joshua Brown

Jerusalem - When Asher Yissachar left his native Iraq for Israel in 1951, he was allowed to take nothing with him except a few clothes. The watch and the ring he wore to the airport did not make it onto the plane with him.

Now, nearly half a century later, Mr. Yissachar hopes that the assets that he and his family left behind in Iraq will help Israel square its accounts with Palestinian refugees, to whom Israel owes billions of dollars.

Mr. Yissachar, a 66-year-old retired farmer, sees a symmetry between the estimated 600,000 Jews who left or were expelled from Arab countries when the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and the similar number of Palestinian refugees created at the same time.

"If the Palestinians can come and claim that they are refugees, then we are refugees, too," he said. "We are refugees just like they are refugees. They left, and we came."

He said it would have been impossible for Jews to remain citizens in countries such as Iraq after the founding of Israel. He recalled a day in Baghdad, before he moved to Israel, when he watched police stop every car that came their way.

"If it was being driven by a Jew, they just took the keys. In one half-hour I saw them confiscate 125 cars."

In 1951, the Iraqi parliament passed a law allowing its Jewish citizens to forfeit their Iraqi citizenship and move to Israel. More than 130,000 Jews applied. A year later, Iraq passed a law saying that property of those who went to Israel would be confiscated by the government, a move decried by the Israeli government as "legalized robbery."

Mr. Yissachar says that the Iraqi government still owes him money, but he is willing to give up the claim if Israel could use his lost assets as a bargaining chip against the claims of Palestinian refugees, a controversial plan the Israeli government has long supported.

The thousands of Jews from Arab countries who made their way to the new Israeli state were housed first in makeshift camps. Within a short period, they were given permanent housing and became fully absorbed into Israeli society.

Meanwhile, their displaced Palestinian counterparts had to live in refugee camps overseen by the United Nations. Today, Palestinian refugees and their heirs are numbered at about four million, with thousands dispersed in camps across the Mideast.

At last month's peace talks at Camp David, Md., Palestinian officials are reported to have claimed $40-billion (U.S.) in compensation for Palestinian refugees' lost property, now in Israeli hands.

After the summit, U.S. President Bill Clinton said that in addition to the establishment of an international fund to compensate Palestinian refugees, a peace accord might also call for the compensation of Jews from Arab lands.

The idea that Jews should be compensated for the property confiscated by Arab governments is not new. In the past, Israel has made intermittent efforts to register Jewish claims against the relevant governments.

Just how much property the Jews left behind in Arab countries is difficult to gauge. One estimate claims that the assets of the 100,000 Jews who abandoned property in Iraq, the wealthiest of the Jewish-Arab communities, are now worth $100-billion (U.S.). The most conservative figure places a price tag of $8-billion on the confiscated assets in Iraq.

The value of the Jewish property left behind in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen, while less than the Iraqi total, is also substantial.

But even if a compensation fund were set up, it is not clear that it would bring any direct benefit to the former owners and their heirs. Israel has long argued that the assets left behind in Arab countries should be used to cancel out some or all of the debt owed by Israel to the Palestinian refugees whose property it expropriated after the 1948 war.

In 1988, several organizations representing Jews from Arab countries, working with the World Jewish Congress, began compiling a registry of all Jewish-owned assets lost in the late 1940s and the 1950s in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen.

The registration forms ask respondents to list details of former communal property such as synagogues, schools, ritual baths and hospitals, as well as private assets including homes, bank accounts and jewellery. The questionnaire states: "The data will be used as the basis for a counterclaim to the Arab claims in the future final negotiations between Israel and the Arab states."

For Yehouda Shenhav, one of the founders of an Israeli political advocacy group for Jews from Arab lands, the notion that Israel might use his family's property to pay off its debts to the Palestinians is deeply disturbing.

A sociologist at Tel Aviv University, Professor Shenhav is the son of Iraqi-Jewish immigrants, and is a left-wing political activist. He objects to what he sees as the Israeli government's attempt to use his family's assets to reduce its debt to the Palestinians.

"These are not Palestinians who took their property, these are Arabs," he said. "Why do we include all Arabs in one box? They have nothing to do with each other. These are two different, separate issues. Why do we link them?"

What disturbs him most is that the Israeli government appears to be claiming the abandoned property for itself, without asking its former owners whether they agree to yield their ownership.

"If the government was fair, and [Prime Minister Ehud] Barak would say, 'Listen we want your help. There is no way you are going to get compensation. Are you going to give a hand?' -- that would be different," he said.

Prof. Shenhav is not alone in challenging Israeli attempts to use the abandoned Jewish property as a bargaining chip. These efforts are especially problematic to Jews from Arab lands living in Europe and North America.

Professor Heskel Haddad, an ophthalmologist in New York City, left Iraq with his family in the 1950s, leaving behind a great deal of property. That property, he says, belongs to his family, not Israel.

"It has no legal right to represent Jews from Arab countries living outside Israel, no legal right to link their claims to those of the Palestinians," he recently told the Jerusalem Report.

Defection not likely to deter Israeli PM

Barak says he expected Foreign Minister's exit

GLOBE & MAIL
Thursday, August 3, 2000

By Matthew Kalman

Jerusalem -- A calmly defiant Prime Minister Ehud Barak vowed yesterday to continue with Mideast peace efforts, despite the resignation of one of his senior ministers and a parliamentary move to call early elections.

As he surveyed the debris of his shattered government coalition yesterday and contemplated his future, the 58-year-old former soldier seemed deaf to the chorus of politicians and experts singing his political requiem.

The resignation of Foreign Minister David Levy -- who quit over what he said were concessions over the fate of Jerusalem made by Mr. Barak in last month's peace talks with the Palestinians -- left the Prime Minister exposed and isolated on the battlefield of Israeli politics, but he looked and sounded far from beaten.

Smiling calmly, Mr. Barak said he expected Mr. Levy's exit (the 10th minister to quit the cabinet in the past year) and regretted it, but "I am committed, first of all, to moving the state of Israel forward and averting the danger of war, strengthening the country through peace agreements."

He also insisted that he had not made concessions at last month's peace talks in Camp David, Md. "Until now we have not made any concessions, we have not agreed to anything, nothing is signed, nothing is on paper."

Yet he is convinced that a historic peace deal with the Palestinians will be concluded before the agreed mid-September deadline, and that the Israeli people will approve it -- and approve of him -- in an election he will call as a referendum on the peace pact.

Despite what appears to be an uphill battle, Mr. Barak has a bit of breathing room. The Knesset adjourned yesterday for a three-month recess after giving approval to first reading of a bill calling for early elections (it must be approved twice more to take effect). This gives Mr. Barak until late October to finish an agreement with the Palestinians.

He can also use the interval to patch together a new coalition and stop the unravelling of his government, which began after most of his coalition partners quit over his decision to go to Camp David.

A former army chief of staff and the most decorated warrior in Israel's history, Mr. Barak's critics accuse him of behaving as if he were still in uniform, making decisions alone and barking orders instead of participating in the collegial give-and-take of cabinet government.

Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the man he once commanded in the elite commando unit where they both served, suffered the same sort of criticism, which eventually led to his defeat at the polls to Mr. Barak. Mr. Netanyahu's demise began with the exact same overture -- the resignation of his foreign minister, the same David Levy, and the same vote by the Knesset in favour of early elections, at the same end-of-term session exactly two years ago.

But Mr. Barak insists that the comparison stops there.

"The Netanyahu government had effectively come to the end of its agenda and had lost the support of its most committed supporters on the extreme right," he said after the Knesset vote. "As a result, there was a feeling that it was there just in order to survive and the people decided to bring it down."

In comparison, he said, "This government is setting out on a tremendous push for profound changes, both in our political-security situation and on socio-economic issues."

But at a stormy meeting of his One Israel Party caucus, Mr. Barak was warned by colleagues that unless he can strike a peace accord, he will not be able to count on their support once the Knesset returns.

Leading the dissidents within his own party was Avraham Burg, the popular young Speaker of the Knesset, who refused to rule out a leadership challenge to Mr. Barak before the next election.

"The rosy picture which you are drawing is a black one," Mr. Burg told him. "You lack the qualities of leadership. If you want to pursue the process alone, you will find yourself alone. If you want other people with you, you must share your plans with them."

But Mr. Barak's critics cannot escape the fact that he won the last election, fulfilled his promise to withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon after a 22-year occupation, and has come closer than any of his predecessors to a final peace treaty with the Palestinians.

He has vowed that any treaty will include a promise that the Palestinians will have no more demands of Israel -- something Mr. Barak is betting most Israelis will find too tempting to reject.

But Tommy Lapid, a popular MP for the small Shinui Party, warns that Mr. Barak cannot focus on security and military issues alone.

"Mr. Barak must understand that he cannot survive politically only on the basis of negotiations with the Palestinians," said Mr. Lapid. "He must conduct negotiations with the people living in this country."

Villagers stand together against being divided

U.N. border for Golan Heights splits houses

By Matthew Kalman

USA TODAY, June 22, 2000

GHAJAR, Golan Heights -- Mapmakers from the United Nations, backed by the Lebanese government, insist that Mohammed Khatib's kitchen should be in Lebanon, but his living room and half his bedrooms should be across the border in the Golan Heights.

For the past two weeks, since U.N. officials tried to mark the frontier straight through the middle of three houses and up the main street, Ghajar has been on strike. The residents have kept a round-the-clock vigil at the village gate. They're armed with clubs and burning tires, ready to repel the mapmakers with force if necessary.

''We will not allow them to divide our village,'' says Hassan Fatali, 29, an English teacher at the village school. ''We will protect the village with our blood and our bodies. We will not allow them to divide one family into two.''

Residents says the tiny village has been around for more than 400 years, long before the British and French invented a country called Lebanon in 1923 and drew the international border on a map that now divides Ghajar.

If the U.N. prevails, the village school will be under Israeli control, but the clinic will be in Lebanon. Kasser Salman, a 30-year-old town worker, will be on the Israeli side, but his younger sisters, Najd and Majd, and his nieces and nephews, will be in Lebanon.

''We want to stay all united in one village, with one destiny,'' Salman says. ''They want to put two-thirds of the houses in Lebanon and cut them off from their land. What can a farmer do with a house and no land? If they do it, we'll just keep breaking down the fence. It's an impossible situation, and we'll never allow it.''

Ghajar is perched on a rocky promontory that plunges into a ravine where the fresh waters of the El Wizani Spring bubble into the Jordan River to the south. Its 1,700 villagers say the Hazbani River, 50 yards north, is the natural border and also the source of their water.

To add to the confusion, Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967. The residents of Ghajar insist they are proud Syrians. Some of them, such as Amar Khahamouz, even fought for the Syrians and still have army papers issued in nearby Kuneitra. But when Israel seized the area, villagers all took Israeli citizenship and have been living quietly since. They tend their cows and sheep, study in Israeli universities and work in nearby Israeli towns and kibbutzim.

''In 1967, when our people tried to cross the Hazbani River, they were beaten back by the Lebanese army,'' Fatali said. ''Israel thought Ghajar was Lebanese, but Lebanon wouldn't accept us. They said we were Syrians, which we are.''

''We have nothing against our Lebanese brothers, but we are a Syrian village occupied by Israel, and all our property is registered in Syria,'' village council leader Salman Khatib says.

On Wednesday, Khatib presented a protest letter to U.N. Undersecretary-General Kieran Prendergast. Addressed to SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan, the letter says, ''We are ready to die, sir, and you and the international community will be responsible for that.''

Annan said Wednesday in Jerusalem that his cartographers' ''blue line'' was based on ''historic material, both here in Israel and in Paris and in London,'' but the villagers were unimpressed.

''The United Nations should be uniting people, not dividing them,'' says Adel Shanadi, 42, a Hebrew teacher at the village school. ''In Berlin, they destroyed the wall. Here they want to build one. We have become the victims of the United Nations. As far as we are concerned, they have become the Dividing Nations.''

Lebanese leaders have insisted that Israel withdraw from a number of small Lebanese enclaves still controlled by Israel since its dramatic pullout last month after 22 years of occupation. They have threatened not to deploy any of their troops in the area until the Ghajar dispute has been settled.

The villagers say they don't mind where they end up, as long as they are united, together with their land. Israel is unlikely to cede control of this area to Lebanon.

On Wednesday, birds of prey with golden-tipped wings could be seen through the barbed-wire border fence, circling above the ravine outside the village. The residents of Ghajar, once renowned throughout the Ottoman Empire for their talents as soothsayers, were trying not to see them as an omen of diplomatic bone picking to come.

A tale of two mothers

Ultra-Orthodox leaders outraged at ruling that creates Israel's first two-mother family

GLOBE AND MAIL, Tuesday, May 30, 2000

MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Jerusalem -- In a controversial decision hailed by lesbians and gays and denounced in religious circles, Israel's Supreme Court has recognized the right of a lesbian spouse to be registered as the parent of her partner's biological child.

The court ruled yesterday that two lesbian partners can both be legally registered as the mothers of the same child, creating the country's first two-mother family and drawing outrage from ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders.

One ultra-Orthodox lawmaker accused the judges of imposing the norms of the Biblical city of Sodom.

The court ordered government officials to register Nicole and Ruti Barnea-Kadish, a lesbian couple living in Tel Aviv, as the legal parents of Ruti's four-year-old son, Matan -- which means gift in Hebrew.

"It is no longer possible to say that I am not his mother," a joyful Nicole said after the ruling, adding that there are dozens of lesbian and homosexual couples in Israel in the same situation.

"Matan is the only one with the security of having two parents by law," she said.

Lawyers for the state had argued that a child cannot have two mothers, but the court ruled 2-1 in favour of the couple.

"Biologically it is impossible, but legally there is no obstacle to having two mothers," the couple's lawyer, Hadas Tagari, said.

Religious parliamentarians attacked the ruling and said they would bring in legislation to strengthen traditional family values eroded by the decision.

"The message that arises from the ruling is the destruction of the family," said Rabbi Haim Druckman, a National Religious Party member of the Knesset.

Rabbi Abraham Ravitz, a legislator from the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, submitted a motion in parliament, expressing outrage over the court ruling.

"I know of a state which had laws like this," he said. "It was called Sodom. The judges are intelligent but they are cut off from their Jewish roots and from the true feelings of society."

The ruling was the second challenge to the orthodox religious establishment in less than a week. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that Jewish Reform women be allowed to conduct services at the Western Wall in Jerusalem using prayer shawls and reading from a Torah scroll.

The two women were represented by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which successfully argued that Israel had no choice but to recognize the California adoption. The judges ruled that the laws governing adoption in Israel are analogous to those governing marriage.

Under Israeli law, only marriages conducted by a religious authority are considered legal. It is technically impossible for a Jewish Israeli to marry a non-Jew in Israel -- but if the couple is married elsewhere, and forms a union legally recognized by that country, the marriage is recognized in Israel.

Many "mixed" couples get married in nearby Cyprus, or file for long-distance marriages by mail.

Six years ago, the two women celebrated a conservative Jewish religious "marriage" ceremony in California. Eighteen months later, with help from an anonymous sperm donor, Ruti gave birth to Matan. Taking advantage of a California law that allows the partner of a single parent, regardless of sex, to adopt the other partner's children, Nicole became Matan's second mother.

But when the couple, who hold joint American and Israeli citizenship, tried to register their son at the local Israeli consulate they were told that a child could not have two parents of the same sex in Israel. The women returned to Israel three years ago determined to fight the decision.

"He knows that he has two mothers," Nicole said of their son. "He calls us Mommy and Ima. I'm Mommy, because I speak to him in English and Ruti is Ima [Hebrew for mother] because she speaks to him in Hebrew."

Ilan Shainfeld, an Israeli poet and gay activist, hailed the court's decision. "They have moved the lesbian community in Israel one step forward," he said. "It has been this way throughout our entire history. Achievements of individual men and women who create legal precedents that enable us all to live better."

Investors cash in on Israel's Silicon Wadi

21 May 2000

High-tech start-ups are booming as former army commandos and computer 'geeks' adapt their skills to civilian use. Report by Matthew Kalman.
THEY call it Silicon Wadi.
It is Israel's booming high-technology sector.
For years American investors led the way in providing capital for Israel's burgeoning high-tech venture-capital scene but now British fund managers are getting in on the act.
That much is clear from the fact that Wellcome Trust is among several household names taking part in a $200m ( #135m) seed fund focused on early-stage Israeli internet and communications companies.
Horsley Bridge is the lead investor in Israel Seed IV. Its manager, Israel Seed Partners, says it is the country's largest fund devoted to providing high-tech seed capital.
Half the fund was raised in Britain from investors such as the London offices of Axa, Deutsche Bank and UBS Capital. American investors include IBM, America Online and the founders of Yahoo, eBay and Netscape.
Israel Seed's previous successes include Tradeum, a business-to-business net trading platform recently purchased by VerticalNet for $475m ( #340m).
Tradeum's co-founder is Zvi Schreiber, son of the British furniture millionaire David Schreiber. His brother, Daniel, runs Alchemedia, another Israel Seed company, which has patented a system that prevents the copying of pictures displayed on the web.
Both companies were founded less than two years ago, but once Alchemedia has floated, Zvi and Daniel will probably have amassed the same kind of fortune as their father took a lifetime to acquire.
Several more of Israel Seed's portfolio companies plan to go public in the next 18 months with a hoped-for return to early investors of more than 1,000%. They include DealTime, an online comparison-shopping site that has just begun operations in Britain.
Sandra Robertson, Wellcome's head of private equity, says Israel provides better opportunities for investors than anywhere in Europe. She says: "We find Israel particularly attractive because of the developments that have come out of there.
It really did mirror for us what has happened in Silicon Valley. I believe it's a hothouse of technological development."
Robertson argues that the venture-capital sector is more developed in Israel than in either Britain or continental Europe. "We have not invested very much money in Europe at all until this year in true venture capital," she says.
Graham Clempson, Deutsche Bank's co-head of European investment banking and head of European private equity, says Israel Seed Partners' previous fund is showing returns of more than 400%.
"We have more investments in Israel in the technology funds than we do in any of the European countries. In many respects it has stolen a march in terms of the kind of relationships between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs," says Clempson.
Israel Seed IV represents the latest wave in a rising tide of foreign investment in Israel's high-tech sector triggered by the start of the Israeli Palestinian peace process in 1993. Since then, hundreds of highly trained graduates of the Israeli army have founded dozens of start-ups based on the transformation of military know-how to civilian use. Instead of beating their swords into ploughshares, the young Israeli entrepreneurs have turned them into share options, attracting strong interest from the new net economy and delivering high returns for investors. Many have gone public on Wall Street.
There have been some spectacular deals in recent years. In 1998 America Online paid $287m for Mirabilis, the creator of ICQ software, which enables users to communicate with one another through the net. In 1999, Intel acquired DSP Communications for $1.6billion.
Last year venture-capital funds invested more than $1billion in more than 200 Israeli companies, up from $600m the previous year. In the first quarter of this year alone, more than $590m poured into Israel's venture-capital market.
"The Israeli army produces a rare mix of geeks and commandos," says Neil Cohen of Israel Seed Partners. "The geeks come from the army computer-training programmes and have the technical skill. The commandos go straight from elite units into marketing and management. It's an unbeatable combination."
London-born Cohen says the fund has targeted Britain and Europe to raise money, unlike many other Israeli companies, which usually go to America. One of Israel Seed's first investments was to put $700,000 into FoxCom Wireless, which makes communications hardware for domestic high-speed video and data. The firm, which began with three people in a workshop, is now worth at least $3.5m and may be worth far more when it floats.
Sasha van de Water, managing director of the European Fund of Funds for Axa, says such high-tech successes are very attractive to investors.
"You can say that past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance, but they've done it," says Van de Water. "Those kinds of stories tend to spread like wildfire among the entrepreneurial community."
Van de Water says Axa had invested $25m in three Israeli funds managed by two companies: "We have not committed that much capital to a country-specific venture-capital fund anywhere else in Europe."
Israel Seed Partners' strategy of concentrating on early-stage investment is now being followed by other local venture capitalists. Polaris, a Tel Aviv fund headed by Chemi Peres, son of the former prime minister Shimon Peres, is about to announce the largest-ever Israeli fund of $500m. It says it will also focus on seed capital, providing more funding as businesses grow.
"In the past 18 months most venture-capital funds have realised that to have a good return on investment they have to start early," says Ella Jacoby, high tech analyst for Globes, the Israeli financial daily.
"Israel Seed has a very good name but has yet to prove itself because the seed fund that was established a few years ago hasn't completed any really significant exits yet and that's the way to prove your investments and your reputation."
But such considerations leave Wellcome unruffled. "Venture capital is a long term game," says Robertson. "We don't expect a two-year turnround. What's happening at the moment is unusual. When we go into these funds, we regard it as a five-year investment cycle followed by a five-year harvesting cycle. If it happens sooner, it's great."

Camels may hold key to preventing famine caused by drought

Veterinary expert says animal's milk could alleviate hunger in the world's deserts

MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to the Globe and Mail
Tuesday, May 9, 2000

Negev Desert, Israel -- An Israeli veterinary expert is planning a camel farm in a joint venture with Jordan that he believes will prove that the animal can solve hunger problems in areas of the world plagued by drought.

Prof. Reuven Yagil of Ben-Gurion University Medical School in Beersheba has been working with camels for 30 years; travelling to places such as Kazakhstan, Kenya and China to help local farmers increase the milk yield of their camels.

"Camels are considered very primitive, but they thrive in areas where children are dying of hunger," he said. "I wanted to see if the camel could provide anything for humans in these areas."

In a small experimental farm on the border between Jordan and Israel in the Negev desert, Prof. Yagil is breeding a herd of 40 camels for their milk. He has increased their production from the standard one litre to 15 litres a day, and says they could provide even more if he had the staff to milk them more often.

One camel he calls Naim is 14 years old and will give milk until she is 25, much longer than a cow. Her yield has not been reduced by living in a corral instead of grazing across the desert plains.

Her calf suckles to get the milk going, and within 90 seconds Prof. Yagil and his wife have milked just under five litres of fresh milk. Drunk soon afterward, still warm and unpasteurized, it is similar to cow's milk, a little stronger in taste and thinner in texture.

"In these [arid] areas, the cows are not there, they die," said Prof. Yagil, adding that cows also need high-quality feed.

"We're feeding the camels the stuff they throw away from the farms. We feed them salt bushes, cacti leaves or peanut hay, so you cannot compare. Even if the camel is giving only 15 litres, the camel is much more economical."

The milk keeps up to nine days in a refrigerator. Unlike cow's milk, it does not separate when frozen and can keep for up to two years. Camel's milk cannot be made into cheese because it lacks the necessary fats, but it can be used for other purposes.

This summer, the Tel Aviv ice cream festival will feature Prof. Yagil's DromeDairy ice cream in strawberry, cherry and peanut butter flavours.

Camel's milk also has curative properties and is used in Arab society as defence against infection. Many children of wealthy families in the Gulf States are sent to live with Bedouin for a month every year so they can drink camel milk and strengthen their natural immune systems.

Prof. Yagil, a native of South Africa who now lives on a kibbutz in the Negev, is a professor of medicine and a former veterinarian for the Israeli Army Camel Corps. He claims to be the world's top expert on camels; his interest was sparked through a friendship with a Bedouin tribesman.

Discussions are well advanced to set up a joint Israeli-Jordanian camel farm in Moshav Tsofar, an Israeli farm in the Negev desert that has an enclave of land across the border with Jordan.

Prof. Yagil's work has sparked interest as far away as China. Prof. Shin Cui, head of Beijing University's veterinary department and the person responsible for developing the neglected areas of northwest China, visited Prof. Yagil's farm recently to see his methods firsthand.

"Prof. Yagil came to the Gobi Desert where we have hundreds of thousands of camels and spoke to local farmers about his ideas," said Prof. Cui. "We hope to implement some of his methods back in China."

In northern Kenya, where Prof. Yagil has been training camel farmers on the edge of the African desert, they are planning to set up farms that could produce up to a million litres of milk each day.

Israel will hand over Nazi memoirs - War criminal Eichmann's notes at issue

USA TODAY
February 28, 2000

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- Israel, acting on a request from lawyers in a British libel case involving claims that the Holocaust never happened, agreed Sunday to hand over contents of unpublished memoirs by convicted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann during his trial in 1962.

Lawyers for Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, a scholar in modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, sought the journals of thoughts, jottings and philosophical essays.

Right-wing British historian David Irving is suing Lipstadt and Penguin Books. Irving contends that a book by Lipstadt, published in 1995, caused irreparable harm to his reputation by calling him "a dangerous spokesman for Holocaust denial."

The book examines claims that the Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews never took place.

Irving denies that millions of Jews were systematically slain by the Nazis.

He claims that Hitler didn't know about the genocide until the final stages of World War II.

Richard Rampton, defense counsel for Lipstadt, asked Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein last week to send a copy of the notes to London for use in the trial, as proof that the Holocaust did in fact occur.

The journals have been locked away in state archives since Eichmann was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed in Israel in 1962.

Eichmann was snatched by an Israeli spy squad from his hideout in Argentina in 1960.

Scholars who have read the notes say they contain attempts by Eichmann to justify his role in the Nazi extermination policy in which as many as 6 million Jews and 4 million others were murdered, many in designated death camps.

In the notes, Eichmann repeats the blunt admission he made at his trial that the mass murder of Europe's Jews took place under the Nazis. However, he denied playing a major role.

In fact, historians say, Eichmann was the key Nazi official in charge of organizing the forced emigration of Jews from Germany, Austria and the Czech protectorate before the exterminations began.

Eichmann was put in charge of the mass transportation of Jews from western, central and southeastern Europe to the extermination camps after the mass murders began in 1941.

The Israeli authorities have refrained from publishing the notes because of questions about copyright. Eichmann's sons have demanded that the notes be returned to the family.

Yehuda Bauer of the Hebrew University, Israel's leading Holocaust scholar, was one of the experts called in to advise Rubinstein.

"The copyright issue has not yet been settled, but if there is a demand from the court in London, it has to be considered," he said. "Apart from the fact that he fully admits the murder of the Jews in all its details, which might be useful, there's nothing new in it. There is no historical significance to the notes, but they may be of significance in a trial at which somebody tries to show that there was no Holocaust. This is one of the major actors talking quite freely about the destruction of the Jews."

The Israeli Justice Department said Prime Minister Ehud Barak "agrees with the decision, which is in line with his policy of fighting Holocaust denial."

Cheated out of a fortune

The Guardian, Wednesday 9 February 2000

Jörg Haider, the far-right giant of Austrian politics, is the proud owner of a £10m country estate. But a Jewish professor is claiming the land was swindled from his family by the Nazis. Matthew Kalman reports

When Giorgio Roifer first set his eyes on the beautiful forest of Barental near Klagenfurt in the southern Austrian Tyrol, he thought he had found the perfect estate to expand his burgeoning timber business. The Russian-born Jewish entrepreneur, who had become a naturalised Italian, lived with his wife and three children in Pisa. They had servants, horses and two cars. He had timber and sawmill interests all over Italy and southern Austria, and when he acquired the 3,700-acre Barental estate at the age of 37, it seemed the ideal addition to his growing empire.

But his wife and children were destined never to see Barental. Less than a year after Roifer bought the estate in 1937, Hitler became the ruler of Austria under the Anschluss. When Roifer visited Barental in 1938, he found a sign on the door of the Moser Hotel where he used to stay in Klagenfurt. It said: "Dogs and Jews are not welcome."

The Nazis embarked on a ruthless policy of Aryanisation - forcing Jews to sell their property and leave the country. Roifer died that year, and soon after the land was sold to a man called Josef Webhofer, who left it to his son Wilhelm.

Today, it belongs to Jörg Haider, leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom party, who received it as a gift in 1986 from Webhofer, his great-uncle. Worth about £10m, the hunting, fishing, shooting and wood-logging estate is the basis of the vast fortune that has made Haider one of the wealthiest men in Austria. The original sale was, however, illegal. If Haider's family had not deceived Roifer's widow years after the war, the estate would still belong to her family.

Roifer's son, Alexander, who many believe is the rightful heir to Barental, lives today in a modest apartment in a middle-class Jerusalem suburb called French Hill, far removed from the grandeur of Pisa or the beauty of Barental. White-haired, bespectacled, a professor of Bible studies at the nearby Hebrew university, he seems bemused by the sudden interest in his family history and is reluctant to talk about Haider.

He tells the story of the estate in measured tones, despite the disturbing memories it stirs. Roifer says his mother, who died in 1995, was forced to sell the estate for a fraction of its real value, and never discovered that she had been tricked into giving it up until it was too late. "I am certainly not happy about what happened, but I do not wake up every morning angry about it," he says. "A man builds his life and fortunately I have found other things to keep me busy and interested. Of course I am sorry that the Roifer forest is now the Haider forest.

"The property was sold in October 1940 under duress. In the course of the sale an illegal act was committed, but the authorities in Karenten induced the sale in order to Aryanise the land. If you ask me, do we have a legal claim, the answer is no. If you ask if I think what has happened was morally right, I think it stinks.

"The acquisition was made in several stages and was completed in 1937. On August 26 1938 my father died of cancer."

Roifer was 38. His young widow, Matilde, and children Noemi, 10, Josef, 8 and Alexander, 6, fled to Palestine to escape the Nazis.

"In October 1939, we left Italy for Israel. My father, who was a Zionist, told my mother on his deathbed to take the family to Israel. It was almost impossible to get visas, but my mother wrote a letter which eventually got to [Israeli statesman] David Ben-Gurion, who made sure we got a visa.

"My uncle in Italy decided to sell the forest. There was all sorts of virulent anti-semitic propaganda in the press. He was under a great deal of psychological and physical duress. If we had been Austrian citizens and therefore citizens of the expanded German Reich, it would have been very simple. They would have said, 'Here are 10 Reichmarks, the forest is now ours.' But we were Italians and the Italian government would not allow that to happen."

Instead of the estate being confiscated, the family were able to sell it, but the price of 300,000 Reichsmarks - about £750,000 at today's prices - was only about one-tenth of the actual value of the property.

"The buyer was Josef Webhofer from Brunich in Southern Tyrol," says Roifer. "Hitler and Mussolini had signed an agreement about the region where he lived, a German-speaking area of Italy. The Germans living in Tyrol could either stay in Italy and become Italians, changing their names and losing the autonomy they enjoyed, or they could emigrate to the Third Reich. Josef Webhofer bought this land in order to have some stake inside the Third Reich and move there."

Matilde had not wanted to sell the estate and didn't even know of the sale until her brother-in-law wrote to her at the end of the war. Worse was to come. When the money finally reached Italy, it was frozen until after the war, by which time inflation had reduced its value to almost nothing.

In 1953, Roifer's mother went back to Austria to try to get a fairer sum from Webhofer. To their surprise, he agreed to pay another $100,000. "When she received that money, my mother signed a paper foregoing all future claims," says Roifer. "The indemnity was given under restrictive conditions. We were not permitted access to the documentation in the land registry office in Klagenfurt."

It was only years later that the family discovered why Webhofer had insisted on that condition and why he had been so willing to pay the extra cash. In 1989 papers were discovered at the land registry office in Klagenfurt which amazed the Roifers.

"The document said that the power of attorney granted by my mother, Matilde Roifer Galichi, to her brother-in-law, Dr Naphtoli Emdin, was not valid. But because it was desirable to Aryanise the land, the local officials decided to approve the sale anyway. In other words, there was no sale. Until 1953 the forest was legally ours. That is why Webhofer agreed to pay, because he knew that if this became known, the deal would be void."

PHOTOS SOLOWEY

Israel, Syria aim for peace

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
January 3, 2000

MATTHEW KALMAN

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, leaving for today's opening of talks with Syria in West Virginia, said Sunday that he is prepared to pay "a heavy price" for peace with Syria but warned that he wouldn't pay "any price."

The talks between Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al- Sharaa will be held in Shepherdstown, W.Va. President Clinton will open the talks in the state's oldest town, about 75 miles from Washington.

Barak said the talks would be difficult and complex but that he was determined to reach an agreement that would strengthen Israel.

He said Sunday that he felt the "burden of responsibility" to achieve an agreement within the year. "We don't …

Archaeologist Draws Fire for Doubting Biblical Accounts

Salt Lake City Tribune,
6 Nov 1999

By Matthew Kalman
USA Today

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli archaeologist is drawing fire for claiming that the biblical history of the Jewish people is probably fiction.

In an article last week in Ha'aretz newspaper, Ze'ev Herzog, a professor at Tel Aviv University argued that the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt probably never happened, the Ten Commandments were not given on Mount Sinai, and Joshua never conquered the land of Israel. Herzog said that if there was a King David, he probably was no more than a tribal chieftain. The same holds for King Solomon, Herzog said.

"The many Egyptian documents known to us do not make any reference to the sojourn of the Children of Israel in Egypt or the events of the Exodus," Herzog said. "Generations of scholars tried to locate Mount Sinai and the stations of the tribes of Israel in the desert. Despite all this diligent research, not one site was identified that could correspond to the biblical picture."

Herzog said there is no evidence that Joshua led the children of Israel into the Holy Land or brought down the walls of Jericho.

"Repeated excavations by various expeditions... have only yielded disappointments," he said. "During the period when the conquest would have taken place, there were no cities there, and of course no walls to bring down."

To many people in Israel, such claims smack of blasphemy, even though many scientists agree with Herzog.

"What did they expect to find? The bones from Pharaoh's dreams?" scoffs Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch, head of Maale Adumim Yeshiva and a former principal of Jews' College in London. "The fact of the matter is that details are very scant in the text. Frequently, we don't even really understand what it says. To say that archaeology can prove or disprove anything is ridiculous."

Not just religious leaders are angered. Many secular Israelis see the modern Jewish state as a revival of the biblical Hebrew kingdoms. To them, challenging the Bible means challenging the legitimacy of the modern Jewish claim to the land of Israel.

"I adhere to the view that the Bible is our basic starting point," said Tommy Lapid, leader of the avowedly secularist Shinui Party. "No other people in the world has a book like the Hebrew Bible, so why is Professor Herzog feeding us this nonsense?"

Herzog also has drawn fire from scholars. Adam Zertal, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa, has dedicated his life to mapping the biblical episodes in Samaria, including the entry of Joshua into the Holy Land.

"We found almost certain proof that the story of the entry into Israel is very believable," said Zertal, who has spent eight years excavating a site on Mount Ebol, where the Bible states Joshua set up his first altar to God. "The relevant materials are in the field. We only have to find them."

"Archaeology does not have the power to disprove the written record," said Avraham Malamat, a Jewish history expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "If you ask a good archaeologist, he will say that he cannot find out the entire truth."

Herzog is surprised at the criticism. "I don't think it is right to guess at motives, based on the results of scientific inquiry," he said.

"Archaeology has always been used in this society and used to point in one direction," he said. "Now I'm suggesting that perhaps it should be used to point in another direction."

Palestinian and European archaeologists accuse their Israeli colleagues of politicizing archaeology to bolster Jewish claims.

Palestinian archaeologist Hamdan Taha has been excavating Tel Es-Sultan, the ancient site of Jericho. "There is no proof of any wall from the assumed time of Joshua's invasion," Taha said. "Nothing has been uncovered here in the last 100 years of excavation. ... Archaeology must be viewed as a scientific enterprise and no more as an ideological means to prove or disprove modern political claims."

Many contemporary biblical archaeologists support most of Herzog's views.

It is a different story, however, for the Israeli public, which idolizes biblical heroes such as King David.

While conceding that the Bible probably glorified David and Solomon, Avraham Biran, head of archaeology at Jerusalem's Hebrew Union College, said an inscription he discovered at Tel Dan in northern Israel proves their prominence at the time. The Aramaic inscription, attributed to a king of Damascus, refers to a "House of David" and is believed to date from the ninth century B.C. -- 100 years after David.

"If an Aramaean king from the middle of the 9th century knew about the existence of David, why should an archaeologist say that he doesn't?"

Israeli dig finds traces of lost city of Abraham

Matthew Kalman,
The Sunday Times
July 4, 1999

ARCHEOLOGISTS believe they have found the heart of the ancient city of Hebron, where Abraham, the Hebrew patriarch, lived 3,700 years ago.

On the site of an Israeli settlement, in territory claimed by both Arabs and Jews, excavations have uncovered a 9ft-thick city wall and fortified tower that have been dated to the middle bronze period, circa 1700BC.

Scholars say this is about the time when, according to the biblical story, Abraham - who was ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith - came to the city.

Between the tower and the city wall, researchers have unearthed two stone-walled rooms that they believe also date back to the period of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose 12 sons became the founders of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel. Artefacts found in the rooms include silver jewellery, bronze axeheads, two scarabs and the handle of a dagger.

"You usually find such things in tombs because people were buried with their belongings, but to find them here on the floor gives us a more precise date," said Emanuel Eisenberg, in charge of the work. Royal seals from the period of the kings of Israel several hundred years later were found in another layer, clearly identifying the location as biblical Hebron. "This is the ancient city of Hebron - no doubt about it," said Eisenberg.

The archeological site is on the edge of Tel Rumeida, a mound across which scholars believe the city once stretched eight acres. By digging down through the tel, archeologists have been able to sift nearly 4,000 years of history.

Modern Hebron, however, has an uncertain future. Seven Israeli families have lived in temporary housing on Tel Rumeida since 1984. The enclave is one of three islands of Israeli settlement left in Hebron after Israel handed over control of most of the city, with its population of 120,000, to the Palestinians in 1996.

The archeological work was licensed two weeks before the Israeli general election in May as a "rescue excavation" to research the site before permanent homes are built there for the settlers. The Palestinians want all of Hebron to be handed over. They believe the city's 550 Israelis should leave.

Dr Hamdan Taha, director-general of the Palestinian ministry for archeology, said the excavation had been politically motivated. "We think the site should be protected as an archeological site without any ideological attempt to threaten and endanger a cultural heritage that represents the ancient history of Hebron," he said.

Officials at the Israeli antiquities authority privately agree. "If such a significant site were inside Israel proper, the law would prohibit anything being built on it," a senior Israeli archeologist said.

Persuading the settlers to go, however, will be difficult. David Wilder, spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron, said the excavation proved their right to live there.

"We always knew this was the site of the ancient city; now these excavations have found positive proof of Jewish presence from the time of the patriarchs," said Wilder. "In terms of Jewish roots and heritage, what more do you need?"

Arafat, Barak in accord on Jerusalem - Pact relies on concessions

By Matthew Kalman, USA TODAY

MAY 23, 1999

JERUSALEM - Israeli prime minister-elect Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have reached an outline of an historic agreement on the future of Jerusalem, senior Israeli and Palestinian officials told USA TODAY Sunday.

If a final text can be adopted by legislatures on both sides, it would remove one of the thorniest impediments to a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Arafat has declared his intention to establish a state with Jerusalem as its capital. Barak has vowed never to re-divide the city. The compromise means that each side could claim it has achieved its aim.

Under terms of the agreement, Arafat is prepared to give up his claim to large parts of Arab East Jerusalem in exchange for control of the 150,000 Palestinians living in the city, as well as several religious sites, the officials said.

Israel's new Labor government also would not oppose Arafat's intention to declare a Palestinian state by the end of this year with its capital in Abu Dis, a village two miles east of the Old City, the officials said. The area was handed over to the Palestinians in 1996.

Abu Dis lies just outside the municipal boundary of Jerusalem as defined by Israel since it captured the eastern half of the city from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.

But the Palestinians can also claim that Abu Dis is within the city of Jerusalem because it falls within administrative boundaries recognized by the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1917. Israel would agree not to challenge that interpretation.

But the deal is far from done. Barak still needs to form a coalition government that would present the plan to a new Israeli parliament, or Knesset. Only then, will the Knesset begin debating the plan.

Talks will begin Monday on forming a form a coalition from among the record 15 political parties who won seats in the Knesset.

The question of Jerusalem, with its holy sites sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims, has always been the most problematic issue in any potential peace agreement. Both the Palestinians and Israelis have vowed to have Jerusalem as their capital.

Senior Palestinian officials said the outline of the agreement means that they are closer than ever to fulfilling Arafat's goal to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.

The new Palestinian parliament building under construction now in Abu Dis includes an office for Arafat with a view to the Old City and the al Aqsa mosque.

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials confirmed that the two sides had agreed in principle that no land in East Jerusalem would be handed over to the Palestinians.

"Jerusalem shall remain the eternal and undivided capital of Israel," Barak said. "On this question there is no room for doubt, nor any political haggling. Jerusalem was, is, and will remain the united capital of our nation."

The White House Sunday refused comment on the report.

Under the plan, Israeli and Palestinian officials said that the Palestinian flag will be allowed to fly over several of Jerusalem's holy sites, which will effectively have the same legal status as foreign embassies.

It would also establish a safe passage corridor from Abu Dis through East Jerusalem so that Palestinians from the West Bank of the Jordan River can travel to the Old City of Jerusalem without having to pass through Israeli security checkpoints.

Palestinian and Labor party leaders worked out the agreement in secret meetings held in European capitals.

In marked shift, Hamas leader talks of a cease-fire

USA TODAY
May 17, 1999

By Matthew Kalman

(ABSTRACT)

In an interview, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the terrorist Islamic resistance movement Hamas, called last week for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for the first time suggested he might recognize Israel's right to exist. But he threatened to continue terrorist activity if there's no movement.

In a major departure from all previous statements of Hamas policy, Yassin said Thursday that the conflict could be ended if Israel withdrew from Gaza and the West Bank of the Jordan River. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Six-Day War. Yassin offered an immediate end to Hamas attacks on Israeli targets following such a withdrawal and said relations with Israel should be left to future generations to decide.

"We have to be realistic," he said. "We are talking about a homeland that was stolen a long time ago in 1948 and again in 1967.

"My generation today is telling the Israelis let´s solve this problem now on the basis of the 1967 borders. Let's end this conflict by declaring a temporary cease-fire. Let's leave the bigger issue for future generations to decide."

Until now, Yassin has vowed to continue the armed struggle until a Palestinian state was established in all of Palestine, effectively wiping the Jewish state off the map. Only last week, he told the Al-Ahram weekly in Cairo, Egypt, that the notion of Israel living in peace next to an independent Palestine was "a false idea."

Deadly Arab enemy offers hope of peace

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
May 17, 1999

Matthew Kalman

AS Israelis prepare to vote today in an election that may decide the fate of the Middle East peace process, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state has made an overture toward peace.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of the terrorist Islamic resistance movement Hamas, has called for an end to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and for the first time suggested he might recognise Israel's right to exist. But he threatened to continue terrorist activity if there is no movement.

In a radical departure from all previous statements of Hamas policy, Yassin said the conflict could end if Israel withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza. Israel captured both areas in the 1967 Six- Day War. In …

CONTROVERSY OVER SIGNING

Najwan won't make a stand

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
May 10, 1999

NAJWAN GRAYEB, Tottenham's £1million new signing, has been the subject of considerable controversy in Israel, Matthew Kalman reports from Jerusalem.

A Muslim arab from Nazareth, Grayeb, who joined Tottenham from Hapoel Haifa last week, is one of the few non-Jews to have represented Israel.

And if that was not enough to make him controversial, defender Grayeb admitted last month to a reporter that he did not know the words to the Israeli national anthem, that Israeli Independence Day was just for Jews and that he did not stand and observe the two minutes' silence on Israel's Memorial Day (on which the nation commemorates its fallen soldiers) unless he was in …

Jordan rejects Israeli plan for less water, cites '94 peace treaty

USA TODAY, Mar 15, 1999

Matthew Kalman

AMMAN -- Jordanian-Israeli relations were in crisis Sunday night after Israel said it would have to cut the amount of water supplied to Jordan this year because of a severe drought in the region.

Ben Meir says the Yarmouk, which flows into the Sea of Galilee, Israel's main reservoir, was at its lowest level since 1908. Water supplies for agricultural use inside Israel already have been cut by 25%, and further reductions will be announced in the coming days.

But Jordanian officials who met Ben Meir in Jerusalem Sunday rejected the proposal. Increased water supplies are one of the few concrete benefits Jordan has seen from its 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

(...)

Arab pop star: Foes barking up wrong tree

USA TODAY, Mar 15, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- A Lebanese pop star is struggling to save her life and career after Muslim fundamentalists decreed she should be put to death for reportedly naming her pet dog after the prophet Mohammed (Jamal).

Najwa Karam, 32, a Christian from the town of Zahlée in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, is one of the most popular singers in the Arab world. Her CDs, tapes and videos sell by the million and Arabic satellite TV has made hers a household name.

In Jordan, a leader of the country's Islamic Party called for the singer to be killed. Sheikh Abdel Munem Abu Zanet, a former member of the Jordanian parliament and a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, says she has defamed Islam and, if the story is true, she should be put to death.

(...)

Pope is expected to visit the Holy Land next spring

Pope is expected to visit the Holy Land next spring

USA TODAY, Mar 12, 1999

Matthew Kalman

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Excitement is building among Israeli and Palestinian leaders that Pope John Paul II will visit the Holy Land next year.

The Vatican has not issued a formal announcement, but both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have issued invitations to the pope to visit Nazareth, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Officials said his visit would be seen as the highlight of the millennium celebrations.

"The pope is very eager to come; it is his dream," Bethlehem Mayor Hanna Nasser said. "The Vatican is studying the ways and means (of) how to make this visit possible. The Holy See himself is very, very interested in coming."

(...)

Arab beauty is crowned Miss Israel

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
March 10, 1999

Matthew Kalman

A 21-YEAR-OLD legal secretary from Haifa was crowned last night as Miss Israel - the first Arab to hold the title.

Rana Raslan said she was "extremely proud" to take over the title from Linor Abergil, who went on to become Miss World …

Britain 'ignoring Bethlehem appeal'

LONDON EVENING STANDARD
March 9, 1999

Matthew Kalman

BRITAIN stands accused today of ignoring a massive international fundraising drive to renovate Bethlehem in time for the millennium.

Christian countries have contributed millions towards making the town fit to receive an expected four million visitors and pilgrims, plus heads of state, for the 2,000th anniversary of Christ's birth.

But Britain, despite promises, is said to have given only moral support. The Mayor of Bethlehem spoke today of his sadness and frustration at Britain's failure to contribute a penny to the celebrations. Mayor Hanna Nasser said he was doubly baffled by British tardiness, because Tony Blair has accepted an invitation to join the international …

Israeli court urged to rethink ruling on teen

USA TODAY, Mar 2, 1999

Matthew Kalman

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli Ministry of Justice has asked the Israeli Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to extradite an American Jewish teen-ager accused of a grisly murder in Maryland in 1997.

In a 3-2 decision last week, a panel of judges ruled that Samuel Sheinbein, 18, could not be extradited to stand trial in the United States because he is an Israeli citizen.

Irit Kohn, director of the international department of the Israeli Ministry of Justice, said that Sheinbein would be held without bail for 10 days while the Supreme Court considered the request for a new hearing.

(...)

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.

(...)

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 …