Spielberg hasn't finished his movie about the Mossad, but there's already criticism

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Monday, August 1, 2005

Matthew Kalman, Dan Baron, Special to The Chronicle

Jerusalem -- Israeli spymasters have hit out at Steven Spielberg's new
movie about the Mossad, disputing its accuracy and its main theme.
"Munich," starring Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush and Daniel Craig, follows the
Mossad agents who hunted down the Palestinian terrorists responsible for
the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
More than 20 Black September terrorists were assassinated over a period of
at least two decades, but the Palestinian mastermind and one of the
original gunmen remain at large.
Yigal Eyal, a former Mossad agent, said: "The Munich massacre galvanized
Israel into deciding that if other countries could not guarantee its
citizens' safety, it would do so itself -- by whatever means."
Ilana Romano, the widow of Josef, the first Israeli athlete killed,
agreed, adding that the feeling Israel had to act on its own increased
when the West German government agreed to release three gunmen involved in
the Olympic massacre after Palestinians hijacked a suspiciously empty
Lufthansa flight in October of that same year.
"That was when reprisals really began," she said
She said she received a phone call after each killing of the Black
September team.
The movie is being filmed amid tight secrecy in Malta and other locations
around the world.
It is largely based on "Vengeance," a version of the Mossad missions by
George Jonas, which has been discredited by Mossad officials and Israeli
espionage experts.
According to Jonas, Israel largely abandoned its agents midmission in
Europe, where several were hunted down and killed by Palestinian
counterespionage teams.
Zvi Zamir, who headed Mossad at the time, said the version of events told
by Jonas was "not true."
"I am surprised that a director like him has chosen, out of all the
sources, to rely on this particular book," said Zamir of Spielberg's
project.
Spielberg has said his movie would show Israel's response "through the
eyes of the men who were sent to avenge that tragedy."
"By experiencing how the implacable resolve of these men to succeed in
their mission slowly gave way to troubling doubts about what they were
doing, I think we can learn something important about the tragic standoff
we find ourselves in today," said Spielberg.
"It's about how vengeance doesn't ... work -- blood breeds blood," actor
Daniel Craig told Empire magazine.
But Mossad operatives said in interviews that agents never suffered last-
minute pangs of conscience or balked at carrying out their duties.
"I know of no case of an intelligence agent backing out in the middle of
an operation for reasons of conscience," said Gad Shimron, a former Mossad
agent who was not involved in the Munich reprisals. "Before or after,
perhaps, but never midmission. The idea of an agent violating his contract
because he finds a mission morally problematic is pretty much unheard of.
These are dedicated professionals who invariably have proven their worth
in Israel's elite military units and fully realize the tough nature of the
business they are entering."
One of the Mossad assassins involved in the Black September missions said
there were serious inaccuracies in Jonas' book.
He said the code name Wrath of God attributed to the assassinations was a
fable. Each mission had a separate code name generated by clerks. Nor was
there a fixed team as described in the book. The personnel changed
according to each mission, with agents being seconded from other Israeli
units. He said the actual triggermen were only on the ground for a very
short period of time and required little preparation.
"The exposure of the hit team -- those with their fingers on the trigger,
rather than the various support agents -- is kept to an absolute minimum,"
he said. "You can expect to be flown out to the target at a couple hours'
notice, do the job and be back home by nightfall. There is no special
training needed for a mission that involves shooting; these things take
place at close range, usually with light handguns, and there is no mystery
about that."
The assassin said that the most famous scene in the book, where Prime
Minister Golda Meir summons the head of the hit team to give him her
personal blessing, was pure myth.
"It is unthinkable for the prime minister to summon a field agent for a
personal request that he undertake a mission. It's just not done," said
the agent.

Matthew Kalman is a member of the Chronicle Foreign Service; Dan Baron is
a Jerusalem-based writer and the co-author with Itay Gil of "The Citizen's
Guide to Stopping Suicide Attackers: Secrets of an Israeli
Counterterrorist."

Hamas, Fatah face off over Gaza

With imminent Israeli pullout, Palestinian factions vying for future control over area to be evacuated

GLOBE & MAIL
Friday, July 15, 2005

By MATTHEW KALMAN

Special to The Globe and Mail

JERUSALEM -- With only six weeks left until Israel begins its unprecedented pullout from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian political factions are jockeying for position to see who can reap the most benefits.

They are also vying for physical control over the land to be evacuated -- more than 30 per cent of the Gaza Strip, including settlements, army outposts and access roads -- and, by extension, control of the entire area.

Yesterday, Hamas and soldiers of the Palestinian Authority waged fierce gun battles in northern Gaza, Reuters reported, after militants launched a rocket from the area that killed an Israeli woman.

The fighting was the worst in years among Palestinians in the occupied territory, underscoring the tough challenge Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas faces to consolidate his control in Gaza before the Israeli pullout.

Observers had already started questioning whether the security forces -- who are hand-picked for their loyalty to the mainstream Fatah grouping of Mr. Abbas -- are up to the job of controlling Gaza.

"I don't see that the Palestinian Authority has the intention or the capability to take control of the areas to be evacuated," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. State Department official with special responsibility for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

Politically and militarily, the main rival to Fatah is the Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement, which appears to be partly shedding its terrorist past in favour of a new-found political pragmatism.

Hamas is now poised to play a major role in the government of the Gaza Strip after the Israeli pullout, a period which many observers see as a test of whether the Palestinians can run their own affairs in an area free of Israeli occupation.

The Palestinian leadership and Hamas are locked in a complex political dance over whether and how to share power in post-occupation Gaza, and what implications such an arrangement might have for the future of Palestinian politics.

Hamas has proposed the establishment of a "national-Islamic committee" to run Gaza, while the Palestinian Authority has invited Hamas and other factions to join the existing administration. Each side has rejected the other's proposal, for fear of ending up as the junior partner.

For decades, Fatah has been the dominant force in Palestinian politics. Recent surveys by leading pollster Khalil Shikaki suggest they would still romp home with 44 per cent of the vote if parliamentary elections were held tomorrow.

But Hamas, which has boycotted previous elections because it rejects the recognition of Israel implicit in the Oslo accords, took a strategic decision this year to enter politics, emerging as a potent political opposition.

Mr. Shikaki predicts Hamas would win 33 per cent in parliamentary elections.

In recent municipal elections Hamas won about 50 per cent of the vote in Gaza, while Fatah remained dominant in the West Bank.

The growing popularity of Hamas poses a potential threat to the traditional hegemony of Fatah, and also presents Israel and the international community with the dilemma of how to talk to a group that remains committed to the destruction of Israel and the perpetration of suicide-bomb attacks against civilians.

"The call [for coalition] is a result of a crisis within Fatah and the Palestinian Authority," said Ghazi Hamad, head of the Islamic Salvation Party and editor of the pro-Hamas weekly Al-Risala.

"I think Hamas will be very wary about getting involved, as they have no interest in solving Fatah's problems. Hamas does not want to be pushed into a government which is facing a crisis and which has problems."

Page 12

Jerusalem's gay pride marchers attacked

3 participants stabbed, 13 protesters arrested as ultra-Orthodox crowd tries to halt parade

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

San Francisco Chronicle Friday, July 1, 2005

Jerusalem - Violence marred the annual gay pride parade for the first time Thursday when an ultra-Orthodox man broke through heavy security and stabbed three of the participants, leaving them with light to moderate wounds.

Other protesters, most of them religious Jews, lined the mile-long route of the "Love Without Borders" march through central Jerusalem. Some held placards that read "You are corrupting our children" while others shouted insults. One placard read "Jerusalem is not San Francisco."

Thirteen protesters were arrested, including one man who threw a soiled diaper at the marchers then attacked a photographer trying to record the scene.

Outside the Great Synagogue, where about 100 protesters shouted anti-gay slogans behind a thick police cordon, two members of the Knesset (parliament) tried to stop the march by sitting in the middle of King George V Street, the city's main thoroughfare. They were eventually dragged away by police.

The violence -- in stark contrast to the peaceful events of previous years -- came after attempts by the ultra-Orthodox mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, to ban the march.

That decision was overturned by a Jerusalem court Sunday, when a judge ordered the municipality to provide the relevant permits, decorate the route with rainbow banners and pay $13,000 in damages to Jerusalem Open House, which organized the march. The mayor also was ordered to pay damages out of his own pocket.

Earlier, a rare coalition of Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders had urged the cancellation of a separate event called World Pride, originally scheduled to be held in Jerusalem in August. After consultations with police, the organizers delayed that celebration until next year because it coincided with the date of the planned Israeli pullout from Gaza.

The controversy seemed to increase support for Thursday's event, which attracted about 8,000 people, about twice as many as last year. The procession through the city center ended with a large open-air dance party in a city park.

Hundreds of police escorted the marchers under the personal command of Jerusalem City Police Chief Ilan Franco. In an unprecedented security operation, armed paramilitary border police standing every 5 yards cordoned off the streets surrounding Liberty Bell Park to allow revelers to dance undisturbed into the night.

Jerusalem Open House director Hagay Elad blamed the violence on the mayor.

"What we saw here today is a direct result of the incitement that took place during the past few weeks against the homo-lesbian community," Elad said. "This is not the first time we have seen how incitement in Israel leads to physical violence, which begins with Mayor Uri Lupolianski and his associates. "

David Bernstein, 23, a real estate broker wearing the black hat, frock coat and side-curls of the ultra-Orthodox, watched the parade in silence but did not hide his disapproval.

"I don't believe there is such a thing as homosexuality," said Bernstein. "It's simply not natural. I think the mayor was right to try and stop this march, particularly here in the holy city of Jerusalem."

Beneath a banner identifying his group as "Proud diplomats in the foreign service," Ziv Nevo-Kulman, 35, a former Israeli cultural attache in Tokyo, said it was important for gays and lesbians to be able to express their identity openly in the nation's capital.

"It's still easier to be gay in Tel Aviv, but things are improving," Nevo- Kulman said. "The Israeli civil service is very liberal when it comes to granting equal rights for gay couples. When I was posted to Tokyo, my partner was with me and he enjoyed full rights as if he were a spouse."

A 30-year-old Palestinian chef who declined to give his name said he had to come to predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem to express his sexuality. "It's not possible to be openly gay in Palestinian society," he said.

In stark contrast to other gay pride events around the world, even in Tel Aviv, only a handful of drag queens and very little exposed flesh were on view. Dafna Stromza, spokeswoman for Jerusalem Open House, said the gay and lesbian community in Jerusalem wanted to be accepted into the cultural mosaic of the city and so purposely toned down public expressions of their sexuality.

"The message is one of tolerance and acceptance and pluralism," she said. "Many of the participants are religious or conservative. We hold tolerance in Jerusalem to be of the utmost importance. What the marchers are expressing is not their sexual identity, but their belief in pluralism and diversity."

Annessa Kernberg, a 17-year-old high school student from San Francisco, cheered the parade from the window of the hostel where she was staying with a group of teenagers on a United Synagogue Youth tour.

"It's something that's been suppressed in the Jewish religion, and I think it's something we should embrace," she said. "It feels like home."

Wronged royal wife ...or£32bn queen of the gold diggers?

‘It’s not about the money’ says wife of billionaire Saudi king after launching unprecedented legal action in British courts seeking £50million maintenance

MAIL ON SUNDAY
26 June 2005

By Elizabeth Sanderson in London and Matthew Kalman in Ramallah

THE woman inside the elegant town house in fashionable Rutland Gate, Kensington, just off Hyde Park, wanted to make certain facts clear to me.
She said she was sick of all the lies being told about her. She wanted to put the record straight.
Her enemies, friends of her husband, the billionaire King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, were engaged in a dirty war against her to blacken her name, she believed.
Saudi sources in London have suggested that she is a fan of plastic surgery and has had a number of nips and tucks at Harley Street; that she is a devotee of Scientology, whose followers believe that humans are temporary vessels for immortal souls called Thetans; that she is addicted to gambling and blew hundreds of thousands of pounds on the blackjack tables in London’s casinos; and, most damning of all, that she was unfaithful and has had relationships with a variety of men.
At the root of all this, of course, is money, namely the £50 million she is asking from him as a divorce settlement. So, I asked her, what is the truth of it all? Janan Harb decided it was time to hit back. Sometimes indignant, sometimes on the verge of tears, she said: ‘People say things about me. They tell lies. I don’t know why, maybe they are jealous. Yes, I am a Scientologist but I haven’t given hundreds of thousands of dollars to them like people say.’
Speaking in the clipped tones of an upper-class English lady, with only the slightest hint of her Palestinian roots, she continued: ‘And yes, I’ve had my nose done but that doesn’t mean I have lots of plastic surgery all the time. That’s just not true. And yes, I used to go to casinos but what is wrong with that?’
Certainly, it is not a crime. But the moment Janan decided to take on the might of the Royal House of Saud, her lifestyle was inevitably going to be subject to intense scrutiny. For in an unprecedented and astonishing manoeuvre, Janan, 58, is suing King Fahd through the British courts for what she calls ‘proper maintenance’.
Eighteen months ago, when she filed for maintenance under Section 27 of the Matrimonial Causes Act, the king tried to claim ‘sovereign immunity’. The then president of the High Court family division, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Schloss, agreed to the king’s anonymity and even went as far as listing the action as Maple v Maple.
But the Court of Appeal thought differently and ruled, last month, that the king’s identity was relevant.
A hearing is now expected in November, much to the dread of King Fahd, who is in hospital with pneumonia and breathing problems.
It is not the money that is the issue here. What obsesses the king is keeping secret the details of life within the Saudi kingdom. As always with stories regarding Saudi royals, there are lurid allegations of abusive behaviour.
In 2001, Janan was paid a substantial sum for entering into a binding deed of confidentiality covering all aspects of her past relationship with the king. So why the need for the court case?
Janan says it is not about the money but the principle. She feels bitter that she was discarded by the king and believes she deserves better treatment.
She said: ‘It is about taking responsibility for someone who lived with you. You don’t just leave people when you want. I myself take responsibility for a lot of people. It is my duty.’
But she doesn’t blame King Fahd personally for the dispute. ‘It is his advisers. He is sick. If it were up to him, he would not go to court.’
So who exactly is Janan Harb and what has brought her to London to carry out what appears, superficially at least, to be an act of sheer madness?
Due to the exotic nature of their marriage and the vast amount of money involved in the break-up, myth and legend have inevitably sprung up around a woman who, until a month ago, wasn’t even known outside the rarefied world of a dozen or so wealthy Arab women who flit between Europe and the Middle East
BUT certain facts are indisputable. Janan has lived on and off in London for at
least 30 years and is now considered westernised.
Perhaps in readiness for her court battle, she obtained a British passport six months ago. She lives alone in Knightsbridge in a lovely street where the houses are worth up to £10million each and has one maid in a small flat on the top floor. She does not own the property but rents for about £4,000 a month. She is in close touch with one of her daughters, Rania Bouiez, and her own mother, Jihan, who live in nearby Chelsea.
She once had an aerobics franchise in London with outlets in Europe and the Middle East and has an interest in a wide range of alternative therapies.
But much about Janan remains an mystery. Born a Palestinian Christian, she converted to Islam for her husband’s sake, before embracing Scientology. She claims to be still married to King Fahd although under Saudi marriage law, a man can divorce a woman without telling her.
Janan herself has added to the mystery as she refuses to discount stories that she has enjoyed a number of other relationships.
She is an elegant, intelligent woman who enjoys gambling in Mayfair’s exclusive casinos such as Aspinalls and The Ritz. One friend told me: ‘She always said Fahd had taught her how to gamble.
‘Blackjack is her game of choice and she thinks nothing of making a bet of two or three thousand pounds a time. She had credit facilities of £100,000 at all the major casinos in town. And she could easily do two or three casinos on any given night.’
Perhaps the contradictions in her life can be explained by her difficult childhood in the Middle East. Janan was born in Haifa in 1946 to George Harb, a restaurateur and Jihan, a seamstress from Nazareth.
When the Israeli War of Independence began in 1948, the Harbs moved to Bisa’an, now Bet She’an, in the Jordan Valley, then to Nazareth in Northern Israel and then to Jericho. After nine hard years they moved to Ramallah, then under Jordanian rule, with Janan, her older brother Jalal and her younger sister and brother, Jawana and Jawwad.
Janan’s mother, who still keeps a small apartment in Ramallah, confirmed the hardships. She said: ‘We had to keep moving home and we lost everything. We became refugees four times over.’
But the couple did manage to set up a modest, though successful, seven bedroom hotel and restaurant in an acre of land. The family lived in a small second-floor apartment next door.
Jihan said: ‘My daughter was a bright, happy, carefree child. Even though we were refugees and had very little, she was still happy. She was very good at her studies and very popular. She always had lots of friends. The hotel
was small, but we had a big garden with a very good restaurant which became famous for its food.’
It was here, at the Hotel Harb, that Janan first glimpsed a world far removed from her own.
Despite the modesty of their establishment, George and Jihan managed to attract an elite clientele from the wealthy Gulf states. The garden became one of the town’s favourite spots for music and parties, which neighbours still remember would sometimes last all night.
The parties and free-flowing alcohol set the Christian Harb family apart from the more traditional residents of Ramallah, particularly the growing Muslim community.
By the time Janan graduated from the Friends Girls’ School in Ramallah in 1967, the year the Israeli occupation began, she and her younger sister Jawana already had a reputation for being party girls. Janan was renowned for her beauty. Tall, olive-skinned, with lustrous dark hair and enormous brown eyes, one of the town’s photographers displayed a large portrait of her in his shop window.
One friend from Ramallah who knew the girls well said: ‘They wore modern clothes and went dancing.
‘They were very open and there were always lots of boys trailing after them. Ramallah, in those days, was a very old-fashioned society. Even other Christians didn’t really approve.’
Janan quickly found the town limiting. She had seen how the wealthy Arabs lived and in her late teens she left for the American University in pre-civil war Beirut, then a cosmopolitan city hailed as Paris of the Middle East.
What happened to her studies remains unclear as from there she moved to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, took a job with Yardley cosmetics and was spotted by Fahd, then still a prince.
They were married in secret in 1969. By the time Janan told her parents, she was already installed in the vast, gilded world of the Saudi royal family. But for all its privilege it was not a happy time.
Saïd K. Aburish, journalist and the respected author of The Rise, Corruption And Coming Fall Of The House of Saud, said: ‘She would have had a very difficult time if she had remained a Christian. Even the staff would have given her a hard time.
‘In fact, some of the servants may have refused to serve her. Janan would have lived in the women’s quarters of the palaces which are completely cut off from the outside world.’
Due to the obsessively secretive nature of the Saudi court no one even knows the names of all of Fahd’s wives, let alone just how many there have been over the years.
Aburish said: ‘There are probably only three or four people in the world who know that.
‘Fahd could marry 500 times but he can only have four wives at a time and if he wants another he has to get rid of one of the four. He is also obliged to treat them all equally in every sense.
‘Of course, in reality, he decides on the ranking and obviously has his favourites. He would give some more money than others, some are allowed to breed and others are not. It’s up to him.
‘If Janan was got rid of as his wife, and that seems the most likely scenario, he could have done it even without her knowing.’
The bizarre nature of the break-up means that no one can be sure when it ended, although it is believed to have been sometime in the early Seventies.
JANAN’S post-Saudi life becomes decidedly sketchy – and possibly for very good reason. Members of the royal family are generous with the women in their life but their total loyalty is expected in return.
Aburish said: ‘With their support come responsibilities. She would have had to listen to them about how she lived her life.’
Perhaps this is why Janan refuses to be drawn on the subject of relationships with people other than the king. But friends and family agree that she has shared her life with other men – indeed she has a daughter to prove it.
Sources in Ramallah claim she married a wealthy American and went to live with him on Lake Michigan, but they were soon divorced.
And friends told me of at least two more relationships. An acquaintance of 30 years standing, said: ‘One was with a German baron. It didn’t work out because he was apparently not a baron at all and took all her money.’
Whatever the nature of these relationships, one thing is certain – the full details will inevitably come out in court – if things go that far.
But according to seasoned Saudi watchers, Janan need not be unduly worried.
For, as she knows only too well, the royal family will pay almost any price to keep their affairs private.
One royal insider said: ‘I very much doubt there will be an appeal in an open court and certainly no maintenance hearing.
‘The Saudis hate publicity and now that the British courts have decided the case can go ahead and in King Fahd’s name, they will almost certainly make a deal in private.
‘I doubt very much if King Fahd’s name will be mentioned in a British court connected with this again.’
Similarly, one imagines, the name Janan Harb is unlikely to be uttered again in the Saudi royal court.

Seed of extinct date palm sprouts after 2,000 years

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Sunday, June 12, 2005

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

The ancient Hebrews called the date palm the tree of life. "Methuselah," shown here, was planted Jan. 25; the seed was discovered during an excavation of Herod's palace. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to the Chronicle

Kibbutz Ketura, Israel -- It has five leaves, stands 14 inches high and is nicknamed Methuselah. It looks like an ordinary date palm seedling, but for UCLA- educated botanist Elaine Solowey, it is a piece of history brought back to life.

Planted on Jan. 25, the seedling growing in the black pot in Solowey's nursery on this kibbutz in Israel's Arava desert is 2,000 years old -- more than twice as old as the 900-year-old biblical character who lent his name to the young tree. It is the oldest seed ever known to produce a viable young tree.

The seed that produced Methuselah was discovered during archaeological excavations at King Herod's palace on Mount Masada, near the Dead Sea. Its age has been confirmed by carbon dating. Scientists hope that the unique seedling will eventually yield vital clues to the medicinal properties of the fruit of the Judean date tree, which was long thought to be extinct.

Solowey, originally from San Joaquin (Fresno County), teaches at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura, where she has nurtured more than 100 rare or near-extinct species back to life as part of a 10-year project to study plants and herbs used as ancient cures.

In collaboration with the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Center at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, named in honor of its Southern California- based benefactor, Solowey grows plants and herbs used in Tibetan, Chinese and biblical medicine, as well as traditional folk remedies from other cultures to see whether their effectiveness can be scientifically proved.

In experiments praised by the Dalai Lama, for example, Borick Center Director Sarah Sallon has shown that ancient Tibetan cures for cardiovascular disease really do work.

The San Francisco Chronicle was granted the first viewing of the historic seedling, which sprouted about four weeks after planting. It has grown six leaves, but one has been removed for DNA testing so scientists can learn more about its relationship to its modern-day cousins.

The Judean date is chronicled in the Bible, Quran and ancient literature for its diverse powers -- from an aphrodisiac to a contraceptive -- and as a cure for a wide range of diseases including cancer, malaria and toothache.

For Christians, the palm is a symbol of peace associated with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The ancient Hebrews called the date palm the "tree of life" because of the protein in its fruit and the shade given by its long leafy branches. The Arabs said there were as many uses for the date palm as there were days in the year.

Greek architects modeled their Ionic columns on the tree's tall, thin trunk and curling, bushy top. The Romans called it Phoenix dactylifera -- "the date-bearing phoenix" -- because it never died and appeared to be reborn in the desert where all other plant life perished.

Now Solowey and her colleagues have brought this phoenix of the desert back to life after 2,000 years.



Researchers Elaine Solowey (left) and Sarah Sallon show off seedling, whose DNA is being studied. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to the Chronicle

The ancient seeds were found 30 years ago during archeological excavations on Mount Masada, the mountaintop fortress on the shore of the Dead Sea where King Herod built a spectacular palace. When the Romans conquered Palestine and laid waste to the Temple in Jerusalem, Masada was the last stand of a small band of Jewish rebels who held out against three Roman legions for several years before committing mass suicide in A.D. 73.

Archaeologist Ehud Netzer found the seeds, which were identified by the department of botanical archaeology at Israel's Bar-Ilan University. Then they were placed in storage, where they lay for 30 years until Sallon heard about the cache.

"When we asked if we could try and grow some of them, they said, 'You're mad,' but they gave us three seeds," she said.

Sallon took the seeds to Solowey, who has cultivated more than 3,000 date palms and rarities like the trees that produce the fragrant resins frankincense and myrrh. Solowey admits she was skeptical about the chances of success with this project.

"When I received the seeds from Sarah, I thought the chances of this experiment succeeding were less than zero," said Solowey, cradling the precious seedling in a specially quarantined section of her nursery on the kibbutz. "But Dr. Sallon insisted and I took this very seriously. Lotus seeds over 1,000 years old have been sprouted, and I realized that no one had done any similar work with dates, so why not give it our best shot -- and we were rewarded."

The three seeds were long and thin, grayish-brown in color. Solowey soaked them in warm water, and then added gibberellic acid, a potent growth hormone used to induce germination in reluctant seeds. Next, she added a special rooting hormone for woody plants called T8 and an enzyme-rich fertilizer to supplement the natural food inside it. She then planted it in sterile potting soil on the Jewish festival of trees, which this year fell on Jan. 25.

Solowey placed the pots in her nursery and tended to them each day for a month, not expecting anything to happen.

"Much to my astonishment, after five weeks, a small little date shoot came up," she says. "It was pale, almost whitish green. The first two leaves were abnormal-looking. They were very flat and very pale. The third leaf started to have the striations of a normal date plant. Now it looks perfectly normal to me.

"The only difference between this date seedling and any other date seedlings I've seen come up is the length of the third leaf. This is very unusual," she said, pointing out one very long, thin leaf growing out of the pot.

"It's certainly the oldest tree seed that's ever been sprouted. Wheat seeds from pharaohs' tombs have been sprouted, but none of the plants have survived for very long. Before this, the oldest seed grown was a lotus from China, which was 1,200 years old," she said. "I'm very excited. I wasn't expecting anything to happen. I'm really interested in finding out what the DNA testing is going to show. I know that date seeds can stay alive for several decades. To find out that they can stay alive for millennia is astonishing."

Date palms are either male or female, but it's too early to tell the sex of Methuselah. Normally, female trees begin to bear fruit after about five years.

"We have to figure out where we can put it so it can grow to maturity. Then we'll hope that it grows up and flowers so we can figure out whether it's male or female, and then it has offshoots and seeds so we can propagate it. It's very exciting to think that maybe someday we can eat 2,000-year-old dates, but there's a 50 percent chance that it's a male, in which case that won't happen," she said.

Sallon trained as a pediatrician and gastroenterologist, and she once worked with Mother Teresa at the Sisters of Charity orphanage in Calcutta. She founded the Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Center 10 years ago and is a world-renowned expert on the medical properties of plants. "It feels remarkable to see this seed growing, to see it coming out of the soil after 2, 000 years. It's a very moving and exciting moment," she said.

The two researchers hope the reborn tree will provide valuable information about the Judean economy and society at the time of Jesus.

Once the seed sprouted, samples of seeds excavated from the same cache on Masada were sent to the University of Zurich for radio-carbon dating. The results came back last week, showing the samples were 2,000 years old, plus or minus a margin of error of 50 years, placing them during or just before the Masada revolt.

"Perhaps one of our ancestors was sitting there on the battlements of Masada eating his dates while the Roman armies were preparing for the final siege and perhaps nonchalantly spitting out a pip," said Sallon. "Two thousand years later, here I am at Kibbutz Ketura and it's grown."

The sixth leaf has been sent to the Volcani Centre, Israel's agricultural research institute, for DNA testing by date palm expert Yuval Cohen.

"I find it remarkable," said Cohen. "Two thousand years ago, during the Roman Empire, Israel was known for the quality of its dates. They were famous throughout the Roman Empire. But date growing as a commercial fruit export stopped at the end of 70 A.D., when the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. From then, the tradition was lost.

"It's an interesting question what were the ancient dates like. We hope by genetic analysis, we can learn more about the character of the ancient date population."

When the Romans invaded ancient Judea, thick forests of date palms towering up to 80 feet high and 7 miles wide covered the Jordan River valley from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the shores of the Dead Sea in the south. The tree so defined the local economy that Emperor Vespasian celebrated the conquest by minting the "Judea Capta," a special bronze coin that showed the Jewish state as a weeping woman beneath a date palm.

Today, nothing remains of those mighty forests. The date palms in modern Israel were imported, mainly from California. The ancient Judean date, renowned for its succulence and famed for its many medicinal properties, had been lost to history.

Until now.




This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Bethlehem's star-crossed lovers

Christian girl runs off with young Muslim -- Vatican, U.S., Palestinian president intervene after street violence erupts

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

San Francisco Chronicle May 15, 2005



Bassem Sabat and his family received an apology from the family of the Muslim man who romanced his daughter, an 11th-grader. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to the Chronicle

Bethlehem -- A love feud straight out of "Romeo and Juliet" has erupted in the West Bank over the clandestine romance of a 16-year-old Christian schoolgirl and a wealthy Muslim eight years her senior.

As with the Capulets and Montagues, there was fighting in the streets and intervention by both church and state. But unlike Shakespeare's tale of star- crossed lovers, this modern-day version ended Saturday with thwarted marriage plans and an apology.

Adriana Sabat, an 11th-grader at St. Joseph's School in Bethlehem, disappeared from her home on May 6, two days after her family learned she had a secret sweetheart, 24-year-old Fadi Omar, and warned her to stop seeing him.

The incident -- the second elopement in less than a week involving an underage Christian girl and an older Muslim man -- brought to the surface simmering tensions between Muslim Palestinians and the dwindling Christian community in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

Under Palestinian law, buttressed by strong social customs in this still- traditional society, girls under 18 cannot marry without their parents' formal consent. Young women rarely leave home without a chaperone, and Western-style boyfriend-girlfriend relationships are virtually unknown.

When Adriana's father attempted to bring her home from her hiding place in a village near Hebron early the next morning, he was rebuffed by armed men threatening to kill him. Violent demonstrations erupted in Bethlehem as young Christians vandalized homes and businesses owned by the Omar family. At least 15 Christians were injured when Palestinian police opened fire on the crowd. Two of them were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and Christians complained that the police used undue force.

After two days of frantic searching and diplomatic negotiations involving Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Vatican and the U.S. State Department, a convoy of armored vehicles from the U.S. consul-general and the Catholic Patriarchate in Jerusalem swept into Hebron on May 7, picked up the girl and put her and her mother on a plane to the United States.

They are now staying with relatives in Michigan while Adriana's father, Bassem Sabat, a 43-year-old history teacher and tour guide, tries to piece his family back together and avoid more bloodshed.

In Bethlehem, the local governor has deployed armed police to protect Omar's home, and a gas station and two furniture stores owned by his family that were firebombed during two days of riots last weekend.

The governor ordered Omar to apologize to the Sabat family. For their part, Adriana's parents demanded that the young man be prosecuted for abducting their daughter and sought a guarantee that she will be protected from further advances if she returns to the West Bank.

At a sulha (reconciliation) ceremony held on Saturday, the Sabat family reportedly demanded the huge sum of 150,000 Jordanian dinars -- more than $200,000 -- and a public apology. This compares with the usual payment in the case of a killing of less than 50,000 dinars. The sulha was held in private, but Palestinian officials said the Sabats were persuaded to drop their monetary demand and accept the Omar family's apology.

Fadi Omar and his relatives refused to comment on the affair.

"I don't want to inflame intercommunity feeling, but someone has to tell the truth," Bassem Sabat told The Chronicle last week, in his first interview since the elopement rocked the city. "These Muslim men are preying on Christian girls because they are forbidden from going anywhere near Muslim girls. If this had been the other way round -- a Christian man running off with a Muslim teenager -- both of them would be dead within hours, and the man's family would have to leave the country."

Sabat was not exaggerating the passions such relationships set off. A few days earlier, an east Jerusalem man strangled two of his sisters in an "honor killing" -- a traditional Muslim punishment for girls whose morals appear to have been compromised. And on May 2, a Christian father in Ramallah killed his 22-year-old daughter after she told him she wanted to marry a Muslim man, triggering demonstrations by both Christian and Muslim women in that city.

Zahira Kamal, the Palestinian minister for women's affairs, has called for a new law allowing women over 18 to marry without the consent of their parents. She has also demanded increased sentences for men found guilty of killing female relatives. Under present law, Palestinian men convicted of "honor killings" serve only six months in prison.

In Bethlehem, tensions have been rising since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994 brought an influx of Muslims into the mostly Christian city and its adjoining middle-class towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. Christians accuse Muslims of taking over land and jobs and forcing them out of political power. Earlier this month, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both militant Muslim groups, won municipal elections over the secular Fatah party for the first time in Bethlehem's history.

Fadi Omar, son of a wealthy local businessman, was known around town for his lavish lifestyle and his sports car. He apparently spotted Adriana as she was coming home from school one day and obtained her cell phone number. A telephone romance blossomed.

On May 4, Bassem Sabat was summoned to the office of a local Palestinian security chief, where he found Fadi's older brother, Rami.

"He told me his brother loved my daughter and he was going to marry her," said Bassem. "He said she phones him every day. He said, 'Why not accept the love story and let them get married, across the different traditions?' "

But Sabat refused to bless the union.

"There are few enough Christians left in Bethlehem as it is," he said. "If she were older, it would be a different story. But she is still a young girl, and I cannot believe she understands the implications of the cultural tensions that she is stepping into."

Sabat said he reacted like any father concerned for the welfare of his teenage daughter.

"We took away her cell phone and grounded her," he said. "We sent her to stay with her grandmother, who lives in an apartment upstairs from ours, to protect her from outside influences. But last Friday morning (May 6), she told her grandmother she was going downstairs to collect some clothes, left the apartment and never came back."

The next time Sabat saw his daughter was more than 24 hours later. He said she was in a "safe house" in the village of Shayoukh near Hebron and was covered from head to toe in traditional Muslim garb.

"She told me she had come there of her own free will and that she wished to marry this young man, but the law is very clear that she cannot do so without the consent of her parents," said Sabat.

Because Adriana, who was born in Louisiana, has U.S. citizenship, her parents asked the Roman Catholic patriarch in Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, to contact U.S. authorities. Sabbah contacted the Vatican, which alerted the U.S. State Department and the U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, officials at Sabbah's patriarchate told The Chronicle. Meanwhile, the Bethlehem governor contacted Abbas, the Palestinian president, who ordered Adriana to be returned to her family. She was driven from the safe house to the office of the governor of Hebron, where the diplomatic caravan picked her up and took her to the airport.

Within hours, U.S. and Vatican diplomats were on their way to Hebron to pick up the girl and put her on a midnight flight to stay with relatives in Michigan. The caravan stopped en route at the patriarch's Jerusalem headquarters to receive tickets from the U.S. consul-general.

Christian community leaders at the Al-Amal Catholic Social Club in Bethlehem last week, before Saturday's sulha, expressed their fury at the incident and the refusal of the local Palestinian police to arrest the young man.

"I am not in charge anymore," said Bassem Sabat. "The young men of our community do not want to see their Christian sisters with Muslim men. We are paying the price for this man's actions while he walks free. My family has been split up and my daughter's honor has been compromised. I don't want anyone to be hurt or killed, but I do want to see this man prosecuted. He should pay a price for what he did."

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Militants' patience for cease-fire is wearing thin

Militants Munif Remawi (left) and Mahmoud Remawi (right) had no objection to giving their real names or being photographed. Photo by David Blumenfeld, special to the Chronicle

United, ready: 2 fighters back truce -- but only to a point

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Page A - 3

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Ramallah, West Bank -- Mahmoud Remawi was a year away from a law degree when his university career was interrupted. Munif Remawi was studying sociology.

The two cousins still look like the carefree students they once were, chatting animatedly in a Ramallah cafe. But the pistols tucked into their waistbands beneath their baggy tops as they snatch a rare hour in the fresh air betray their new lives. Both are in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah party that dominates the Palestinian government.

Unlike many of their comrades, the Remawis have no objection to giving their real names or being photographed. "Our names and faces are known to the Israelis. They are already trying to kill us. It makes no difference," says Munif, 27, with a shrug and a half-smile.

For security reasons, their sojourn in the cafe is too brief for them to order lunch. But their message is clear: Time is running out for new Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"The current cease-fire is for a limited period only," says Munif. "Unless the political dialogue produces real results from Israel, the intifada will resume."

Until last month, the two Remawis were hidden away with about two dozen of their Al-Aqsa comrades in a crumbling building in the Mukata, the presidential compound in Ramallah, where they enjoyed the protection of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then Abbas. They emerged, usually under cover of darkness, to attack Israeli settlers and soldiers before fleeing back to the Mukata for safety. Many of them have been hunted down and arrested or killed by Israeli security forces.

But after several Al-Aqsa gunmen smashed up a restaurant frequented by the Palestinian leadership and fired shots at Abbas' office building, the Palestinian president ordered them out of the compound.

Al-Aqsa supported the candidacy of Abbas and the tahdiyeh (calm) proclaimed in March after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit between Abbas and the leaders of Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

"I signed a document declaring that I submit to the authority of the Palestinian Authority and whatever agreement it makes with Israel or any other country," says Munif. "We all signed this document to prove that we are trying to be positive, that we are suspending attacks on Israel. But the Israelis are continuing with their policy. They are continuing to kill us, arrest us and grab our land to build the wall and the settlements." He was referring to the barrier Israel is erecting to divide Israel from Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and the announced expansion of Jewish settlements close to Jerusalem.

"We are united behind our leaders," says Mahmoud, 26. "If the politicians succeed in making the necessary progress toward independence, the liberation of our capital in Jerusalem and the right of return for the refugees in exile, there will be no reason to continue the intifada. But if there is no progress, the intifada will be resumed."

The two young men say they would like to go back to their studies and their lives, but feel compelled to continue the struggle as long as the Israeli military dominates the Palestinian territories.

Mahmoud, who is from the village of Beit Rima north of Ramallah, says he saw his family recently for the first time in three years. He has been engaged for four years to a woman from Jenin but has been unable to visit her, let alone get married.

"It's impossible for us to lead a normal life and get married as we want to," says Mahmoud. "The families of our fiancees keep finding reasons to postpone the wedding. They'd rather keep their daughters from becoming widows."

They refuse to talk about the specific operations in which they have been involved, and their only sign of discomfort is when asked if they approve of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"Most revolutions in the world might have made mistakes, and it is right to see the results of the actions and correct them," says Mahmoud. "But for Palestinians who see their families cut down in their own homes, we have no other way to fight the Israeli Apaches (attack helicopters) and F-16s (fighter jets). These attacks restore the balance of fear, so Israeli civilians will put pressure on their government to stop the military attacks against our people."

In fact, the opposite happened. The worst month of suicide attacks -- March 2002, when dozens of Israeli civilians were killed, culminating in the suicide bombing that killed 29 people attending a Passover seder in Netanya -- triggered an all-out Israeli invasion of West Bank cities and a monthlong siege of Arafat's headquarters.

As the brief encounter ends, Mahmoud, the student-lawyer-turned-gunman who wants to get married, delivers a more hopeful message.

"Our struggle is not in order to die. It is in order to live in freedom and make a future for our kids," he says.

Hope dims for school pushing Mideast peace

Both sides hassle Palestinian project that bridges conflict

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Page A - 1
Saturday, April 16, 2005

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

El-Khadr, West Bank -- Amid stirrings of hope that Israelis and Palestinians can negotiate a peaceful settlement to their decades-long conflict, a school that has battled to promote peace and coexistence among children in the area faces extinction.

The Hope Flowers School, near Bethlehem, has survived threats from Palestinian bureaucrats and shells from Israeli tanks since its founding. Its programs promoting dialogue and contact between Israeli and Palestinian students have attracted worldwide attention and a visit in 1998 from then- first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Hope Flowers now faces a demolition order from the Israeli government, and its education license has been frozen by the Palestinian Authority.

Perched in a valley between the village of El-Khadr south of Bethlehem and the sprawling Israeli settlement of Efrat, Hope Flowers has tried for years to bridge the gulf between Israelis and Palestinians through classroom projects and encounters between its Palestinian students and children from the other side.

"The idea of the school is to create a new generation of Palestinians and Israelis who believe in peace and coexistence," said school Principal Ibrahim Issa, 31, whose father, Hussein, was its founder. "We believe that by bringing many children together from both sides, we can create a new generation who will find a peaceful resolution to our conflict."

However, Israeli roadblocks erected after the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000 have prevented students from reaching the campus. Armed attacks by Hamas militants against Israeli soldiers and settlers in March 2002 triggered such heavy exchanges of fire that the campus had to be evacuated with the assistance of the Red Cross and the U.S. Consulate.

Fewer students

The violence has taken its toll. Enrollment fell from a high of 500 students in 1998 to just 120 last year. Since the uprising, or intifada, Hope Flowers has been forced to close its high school and now offers classes only for students age 12 and younger. This year, enrollment has grown to 180, and Issa is determined to keep it rising.

Now that Palestinian and Israeli schoolchildren in the area are unable to visit each other, however, Hope Flowers is carrying on its outreach through a program sponsored by Building Bridges, an Israeli-German-Palestinian program.

The school's philosophy of nonviolence and neighborliness has attracted support from donors in the United States and Europe. The largest single donor to the meager annual budget of $275,000 is the Orange County Middle East Peace Fund, which donates $35,000 to $55,000 in funds from individual donors each year.

The U.S. consul general intervened to save Hope Flowers when Israeli officials issued a demolition order in 1999, saying the school was constructed without the required permit, as many of the buildings in the area are. Issa says his father, who died in 2000, hoped the area would be transferred to Palestinian control before the Israeli order could be implemented, but then the intifada broke out, and the peace process ground to a halt.

Now, the demolition order has been renewed. Issa believes that the Israelis want to demolish the cafeteria and claim the land to build a section of the West Bank security barrier dividing Israel from Palestinian-controlled areas. He says plans for the barrier show it would cut to within 130 yards of the school cafeteria, well within the 164-yard no-man's-land required on either side of the wall. Maps issued by the Israeli government are not precise enough to show whether the fence will cut through the campus, as Issa fears.

A spokesman for the Israeli Civil Administration, which issued the demolition orders, said the order "has no connection whatsoever to the building of the security fence."

He added that officials were not aware that any of the buildings scheduled for destruction were part of a school. "If it is part of a school, it's possible that the Civil Administration will reconsider the demolition order," he said.

However, demolishing even the school cafeteria also would mean destroying the school's water system, which lies beneath it. Replacing the system would cost about $120,000 -- well beyond the school's means, Issa said.

The water is used in the school's greenhouses, whose crops help fund scholarships for poor students. Hope Flowers needs the money because the Palestinian Ministry of Education provides no financial support to the school. The ministry froze the school's license in September, saying a retaining wall above the schoolyard needed repair.

'They don't toe the line'

"They know we haven't got the $70,000 needed to repair the wall," he said. "It is just a pretext."

Palestinian officials declined to answer questions about the school.

Ruth Shapin, secretary of the Orange County Middle East Peace Fund, says the Palestinian Authority withholds support from the school "because they don't toe the line. They teach peace and democracy, including cooperation with people of goodwill on the Israeli side."

"It behooves the international community to protect this little school," she added.

But four years of pressure from all sides have taken their toll, even on erstwhile supporters.

An example to live by

Benjamin Waxman, a marketing consultant from Delaware who now lives in the neighboring settlement of Efrat and helped the school build a computer laboratory, was a longtime supporter.

"They were the genuine item, not faking it,'' said Waxman. "I'm convinced that whether we have one state or two states, we have to learn to live together."

Christina Cody, 25, of Ashland, Ore., volunteers at Hope Flowers, helping to organize trauma training sessions for teachers and counselors at nearby schools.

She witnessed the school's work during a Building Bridges session with German exchange students.

"There came a point when it was clear the Palestinian students had pro- Nazi feelings against Jews," she said. "The German students got involved and helped them to take a deeper look at those feelings by drawing on their own experiences in Germany. Even though they were only teenagers, they were able to help the Palestinian students understand where such anti-Jewish feelings could lead."

Palestinian gunmen shoot up restaurant favoured by PA

Posh eatery had played host to Canadian ministers and other visiting dignitaries

GLOBE & MAIL
Friday, April 1, 2005 Page A15

By MATTHEW KALMAN

Special to The Globe and Mail

RAMALLAH -- Until the gunmen opened fire on Wednesday night, Darna was the smartest restaurant in Ramallah. Daylight yesterday revealed piles of broken furniture, shattered glass and bullet holes in the sparkling stainless-steel kitchen.

This week, Darna played host to Ken Dryden, the Minister of Social Development. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler was there a couple of months ago. Other visitors pictured on the kitchen wall include Kofi Annan, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

The attack on the prestigious restaurant, a favoured watering-hole for Palestinian ministers and socialites that opened in December of 2003, was carried out by angry members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the terrorist wing of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's mainstream Fatah group.

Officially, the Brigade denied any involvement, but the gunmen wore no masks and were easily identified by eyewitnesses as the fugitives who fled to the Mukata presidential compound in Ramallah under the protection of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to escape arrest or assassination by Israel.

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Mr. Abbas has been conducting intensive talks with the fugitives, ending with a request for several of them to leave the compound.

They refused, and instead went on a rampage through Ramallah, firing shots at Mr. Abbas's office and wrecking several restaurants. Across town, their supporters burned tires and threatened Palestinian police officers.

A Palestinian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the security forces ordered six of the fugitives to either hand over their weapons or leave the compound after "they were involved in kidnappings, blackmailing, harming people, shooting them."

"They were warned many times to stop their behaviour and actions," the official said.

Another security official warned that the security forces were "considering taking harsh steps against them."

"They have crossed the red line. They attacked the presidential headquarters. They are defying the Palestinian Authority and now we have to take harsh steps against them, otherwise they will control the city and spread chaos," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The fugitives were still reeling from the death of Mutasen Al-Aqra, 26, a leader and founder of the al-Aqsa Brigade who had been living in the Mukata for three years. He was killed in a mysterious car crash on Tuesday.

"We didn't do it," said Ramzi Abeid, a Mukata fugitive identified by many of those present at Darna as the leader of the rampaging gang.

"We are Fatah, we take our orders from Abu Mazen," he insisted, using Mr. Abbas's popular nom de guerre.

Off the record, the Brigade said the sacking of Darna was supposed to send a message to the Palestinian leadership not to ignore them. The venue was chosen as a place where senior officials routinely spend hundreds of dollars entertaining their friends, as a warning to end the still rampant corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

Darna's proprietor, Osama Khalaf, gazed forlornly at the wreckage and quietly cursed those responsible.

"I hope this means the end of those gunmen," Mr. Khalaf said. "They are playing against their own people. The Palestinian Authority should take measures."

As visitors went by to express sympathy and young men toting Kalashnikov rifles stood guard outside, Mr. Khalaf said he would not be intimidated.

"I built this place," he said. "I invested during a very critical time: the invasions, the closures, the checkpoints. The Israelis didn't frighten us, so those people won't frighten us either. We will continue and become even more successful."

Yesterday, the dozen or so fugitives still living in the Mukata had disappeared. Green-uniformed paramilitary police patrolled the city in a show of strength.

The incident demonstrated the fragile nature of Mr. Abbas's attempt to dissuade the gunmen from the path of terrorism and incorporate them into his security services. He has been paying them 800 shekels a month (about $200 U.S.) and offered them jobs with the security forces, but they are demanding more money and a more specialized role that recognizes their patriotism in fighting Israel.

The confrontation with the Brigade is while Mr. Abbas tries to defuse the militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, bringing them all under the political banner of an expanded Palestine Liberation Organization.

Key to the Sepulchre

Muslim family holds key to sacred sepulchre

For centuries, their ancestors have opened door to church where Jesus believed buried

Matthew Kalman, 

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, Sunday, March 27, 2005

Wajeeh Y. Nuseibeh, Custodian and Door-Keeper of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre opens the door of the church every day. Photo by David Blumenfeld/Special to The Chronicle Photo: David Blumenfeld/Special To The Chronicle

Jerusalem - Every morning at 4 a.m., Wajeeh Nuseibeh walks through the walled Old City of Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the most revered shrine in Christendom. He takes an ancient 12-inch iron key, climbs a small ladder and opens the huge wooden doors to the place that most Christians believe is the site of the crucifixion, tomb and resurrection of Jesus.

Every evening at nightfall, after three raps of an iron doorknocker spaced out over half an hour, Nuseibeh closes up and places the key in safekeeping.

He inherited the job from his father and grandfather, in a chain stretching back more than 1,300 years. But surprisingly, Nuseibeh, doorkeeper of the site of the crucifixion, is, like his ancestors, a Muslim.

"It goes from father to son, from one generation to the next," said Nuseibeh, a small, dapper 55-year-old man in a suit and tie. "I was 15 when I first opened the church. I thought it was fun. As I grew up I realized it is a big responsibility."

This weekend, thousands of Christians flock to the Holy Sepulchre for Easter services, processions and the ancient ceremony of the Holy Fire, in which Nuseibeh plays a central role. The ceremony, held on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter, symbolizes the resurrection of Christ.

Worshipers pack into the church, trying to get as close as possible to the marble-clad tomb, or sepulchre, where they believe Jesus' body was laid. The oil lamps inside the mausoleum that contains the tomb are extinguished, and a huge stone is rolled across the entrance, which is then sealed shut by Greek Orthodox priests.

"If there are no oil lamps lit, the tomb will be sealed with wax. I am the witness. I put my stamp, the name of the family, in the wax on the tomb," Nuseibeh said.

What happens next looks like a miracle. The Orthodox patriarch begins to pray, and a bluish Holy Fire begins to emanate from within the tomb, lighting the lamps and sometimes flying around the church over the heads of the assembled worshipers and even lighting the candles of believers. Nuseibeh has been the official witness at this ceremony for more than 20 years.

The church is a major attraction for both pilgrims and tourists. A vast warren of chapels, tunnels and caves, with architectural remnants that date back to the 4th century, it spans a broad range of traditions, from the westernized cathedral of the Catholics to the icons of the Orthodox churches. It houses the final stations on the Via Dolorosa -- the last journey of Jesus to the crucifixion.

The church is jealously managed by five competing and often disputatious Christian denominations -- Roman Catholic (also called Latin here), Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Coptic and Syrian Orthodox (sometimes called Jacobite). There also is a small Ethiopian Orthodox chapel on the roof. Sometimes the tensions over the right to clean or to pray in a particular area of the church spill over into violence. Nuseibeh's family has helped keep the peace between them since Caliph Omar Ibn Kattab first conquered Jerusalem for the Muslims in 638. The only gap was during 88 years of Crusader rule in the 12th century.

According to family history, when Salah A-Din recaptured Jerusalem in 1191, he promised English King Richard the Lion Heart he would invite the Nuseibeh family to resume their role as custodians.

Since that time, the Judeh family, also Muslims, have been given the key for safekeeping overnight, but only the Nuseibehs serve as doorkeeper.

Once a year, the three biggest denominations -- Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian -- publicly renew their request to Nuseibeh to be the "custodian and doorkeeper," as written on his business card and multimedia Web site (www.nuseibehfamily.com).

About 100 years ago, the key was stolen. Although it was eventually recovered, a spare now is kept in a locked room inside the church.

For his hereditary labor, Nuseibeh receives $15 every month, an income he supplements by giving tours of the church. But the ancient honor is worth more to him than the token payment. When tensions boil over between the denominations, Nuseibeh is the one who calms the waters.

"Like all brothers, they sometimes have problems. We help them settle their disputes. We are the neutral people in the church. We are the United Nations. We help preserve peace in this holy place," he said.

Nuseibeh said he still becomes anxious before the big ceremonies or when important visitors arrive. "I realize there are thousands of people waiting to go into the church, and they are waiting for me to open it, and I start to imagine what will be happen if the lock will be broken or the key is damaged and I can't open the door."

But that has never happened in the 20 years since he took over from his father. He hopes that one day his son Obadah, now 21, will step into his footsteps, but that's not certain. "He is at college, studying to be a sports trainer," Nuseibeh said. "Maybe he will not follow me, and then my brother or my cousin will take over."

Nuseibeh said he is deeply touched by the Christian rituals and feels a close affinity with the church, but he does not pray there.

"I know every stone. It is like my home," he said. "But I go to pray at the Omar Mosque next door."

Canadians observe Israeli security

GLOBE & MAIL
Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - Page A12

By MATTHEW KALMAN

BET HORON POLICE TRAINING BASE, WEST BANK -- Commissioner Gwenneth Boniface of the Ontario Provincial Police looked on as a battered white Peugot appeared from the hills near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Seconds later, two Israeli police jeeps screeched to a halt, blocking it front and rear.

"Put your hands out of the window and throw the keys on the roof," the police ordered through a loudspeaker as armed officers took up their positions, their M16 rifles trained on the vehicle.

One by one, the suspects were ordered out of the car on the side nearest the police and told to lift their shirts, turn around and lie on the ground. The second suspect was wearing a zip-up jacket. He removed it, revealing a suicide bomb belt strapped around his torso. Suddenly, he produced a pistol and began running toward the Israeli jeep, firing as he ran. The police opened fire, cutting him down.

Fortunately, it was just a demonstration for the benefit of Commissioner Boniface and 20 colleagues from her police force and the Ontario government.

The Canadians were spending the day as observers at Beit Horon, a training base for the Israeli border police, but earlier in the day, they got closer than they might have liked to the real thing. They were visiting the emergency room at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital when two ambulances screamed to a halt outside and medics rushed in, carrying two border policemen wounded by a Palestinian sniper in the West Bank city of Hebron.

It was the last day of a week-long Israeli visit by the Canadian law-enforcement officials, headed by Ontario Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Monte Kwinter and former Toronto police chief Julian Fantino, who has been appointed as the province's new head of emergency response. The trip took them from the Golan Heights to the Dead Sea, and from an Israeli correctional facility to a briefing with the Palestinian security adviser to the Middle Eastern peace negotiations.

Their Israeli hosts, whose battle gear and assault rifles lay thrown over chairs in their office, seconds away in case needed for action, initially thought the Canadians looked too smart to be serious in their full-dress royal blue uniforms, medals and shiny-peaked caps. But the visitors said they learned some useful lessons.

Commissioner Boniface, the most senior commander on the trip, said she hopes Toronto will never witness scenes such as the ones acted out at Beit Horon, but she noted that behind the scenes there is "a paramilitary structure in policing in Canada," with special units similar to the Israeli fighters.

"The type of skill and specialization would not be on a par, but in the same range," she said. "What is important is to understand what is happening around the world so when you watch the operation of your own people, you watch it in that context."

Mr. Fantino said he was most impressed by the "seamless" co-ordination of Israeli security and emergency services at the scenes of attacks, and said he hopes the same can be achieved in Canada. Everything has changed since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, and Canadians need to be prepared for the worst.

Israeli teens impress Garneau with project

GLOBE & MAIL
Saturday, March 5, 2005 - Page A17

By MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

TEL AVIV -- Canada's first astronaut Marc Garneau has seen a lot of things most ordinary mortals never will. But even he was taken aback by the school project of a group of Israeli teenagers this week.

Mr. Garneau could hardly believe it when 15-year-old Tal Pritzker and his fellow students in the Space Technology group at the Meyerhoff Technical School in Tel Aviv showed him their latest project: a satellite and earth-tracking station that should be ready for launch in about two years.

"I'm amazed by what you've done," he told them. "I'd like to hire you all. It was very impressive. I don't think I've ever met youngsters who are so well informed."

"I was bowled over," he said in an interview. "There is a school named after me, the Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute, where we teach space sciences, but they've never actually built a satellite."

Mr. Garneau, president of the Canadian Space Agency, is leading a week-long trade mission to Israel to sign a co-operation agreement with the Israel Space Agency on Earth observation, small satellites and encouraging young people to learn about space.

It is both his and the agency's first visit to Israel. He is accompanied by representatives of six Canadian companies that are active in space technology and eager to explore commercial projects for the first time with their Israeli counterparts.

"Space gives us a unique perspective on our world. Seen from space, the Earth is one tiny, fragile, blue planet in an ocean of infinity. It's clear we need to work together and to help each other if we're going to preserve this planet," he told the students.

During his first flight, Mr. Garneau said he watched with alarm as a pall of smoke covering one million square kilometres settled in the upper atmosphere from the burning of the Amazonian rain forests. As the shuttle continued on its orbit, he saw evidence of man-made disasters across the globe.

Over Kazakhstan, he saw the dried-up Sea of Aral, once the fourth-largest body of inland water in the world, drained by the Soviets for irrigation. "It had terrible effects. It dried up, then the minerals in the dried-up areas blew over the land and essentially sterilized it."

Mr. Garneau said that Canadian scientists are working on programs triggered by space observation and exploration to tackle these and other environmental problems, including climate change and the depletion of the ozone layer.

The five-year, $5-billion budget for space research just announced by the government will keep Canada at the cutting edge, he added.

"We've learned a great deal about computer technology by rising to the challenge of sending rockets into space," he said. "The technology that we developed to build the robotic arm for the U.S. space shuttle, the Canadarm, in the early '80s, is now being used to perform robotic surgery."

Canadian medical scientists have gleaned vital information on bone loss from osteoporosis which occurs at 10 times the normal rate in astronauts because of weightlessness. A direct result has been the development of a new type of fake bone, Skelite, that can be used to help people heal faster after surgery.

Future uncertain for the living and the dead

Fate of a tiny cemetery in the Gaza Strip preoccupies loved one facing eviction

GLOBE & MAIL
Friday, March 4, 2005 - Page A10

By MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

GUSH KATIF CEMETERY, GAZA STRIP -- On the eve of the 12th anniversary of his son's death, Shlomo Yulis sat by the grave in this hilltop cemetery and looked out over the sand dunes at the sun sinking into the blue waters of the Mediterranean.

If all goes to plan, Mr. Yulis and his family will be evicted from their homes in July when Israel withdraws from the Gaza Strip. They have received no official information about what compensation they will receive or where they will go. Their fears have been increased by the fact that no one has told them what will happen to the grave of Etai, who died in 1993 at the age of 14 after a three-year battle with leukemia.

As the 7,000 residents of the Gush Katif settlement prepare to fight a last-ditch political battle to save their homes and jobs, fears for the fate of the 46 dead lying in the community's tiny cemetery is adding to the pain of the living.

"He wanted to be buried here, because this was where he was born and lived all his life," said Mr. Yulis, a retired teacher.

"Just before he died, there was talk of moving us out and he hesitated, thinking of the pain it would cause us to have to move his grave. But in the end he decided he wanted it to be here. I can't believe that they will come and put 46 families through this suffering. It's wicked."

The cemetery was established in 1987, when a young local boy died of an illness. The residents believed it was an act of faith that their presence in the area would be permanent and peaceful. But the second grave they dug was for the local rabbi, killed in a terrorist attack at the entrance to his settlement. Four other local terror victims are buried alongside him.

Eliezer Orbach, director of the Gush Katif Religious Council, which supervises the cemetery, said the burials continued even after the talk of disengagement began last year.

"A few months ago, a soldier called Eli Lutati was killed in an attack on an army outpost nearby," Mr. Orbach said. "We asked the father where his son should be buried, because there was already talk about what [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon was planning. He said it didn't interest him. He said we live here, he will be buried here and God will help us."

Mr. Orbach said there were religious objections to moving the dead once they were buried in the Holy Land, but they were not insurmountable. But he added that no plans have been prepared because no one from the Israeli government or army has contacted the settlers directly.

Gush Katif residents said this week they do not believe the planned disengagement will ever occur. In a place where more than 5,400 mortar shells and other missiles have landed in the past four years and only one person has been killed, it is not surprising to hear the religious members of the community speak of miracles.

Mr. Orbach has been told by at least two revered rabbis that the disengagement plan will be reversed before July.

Mr. Yulis, who was born in the ultra-orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood in Jerusalem, said his faith remains strong. "God wouldn't have done all these miracles for us in the past four years if He meant us to leave."

Battling against his faith is the thought of his son's remains being shipped from place to place or, even worse in his view, being left to their fate.

"They cannot leave my son here so those animals will come and defile his grave as they defiled the cemetery on the Mount of Olives," he said, referring to the ancient Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem that was systematically desecrated under Jordanian rule until 1967.

The "animals," he said, are not the local Palestinians, with whom Mr. Yulis and the other settlers of Gush Katif have enjoyed amiable relations for 10 years. He said he was referring to the "people from Tunis" who arrived with the late Yasser Arafat, who was the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, after the Oslo accords in 1994, and turned the place into "a bad dream."

"When we arrived, there was nothing here -- no green, no buildings, just sand," Mr. Yulis said.

"The locals thought we were crazy wanting to live here, but they welcomed us. We gave them work and it built the local economy. We went shopping in Khan Younis and Dir Al-Balah. The prosperity grew. Then Arafat and his men came and spoiled everything.

"The settlements support 3,000 families from Khan Younis. They don't want this either. What for?"

Mr. Yulis, 66, and his wife, Udi, moved to this deserted patch of the Gaza Strip beachfront between the Arab town of Khan Younis and the sea in 1982. The area, occupied by Egypt in 1948, was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

A lifelong member of Mr. Sharon's Likud Party and its various predecessors, he said he feels betrayed by his own leader. "He took my vote and did the precise opposite of what he promised before the election. I feel as though he has spat in my face."

Palestinians keep the peace in Gaza

Calm has returned as security forces show their determination to stop militants

GLOBE & MAIL
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 - Page A11

By MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

KHAN YOUNIS, GAZA STRIP -- From September, 2000, Palestinian militants in Khan Younis launched daily mortar attacks at the Israeli settlement of Neve Dekalim, only a few hundred metres away.

They sent suicide bombers to attack settlers and soldiers, fired at their houses and cars with Kalashnikovs, drove bomb-laden jeeps into their buses and tunnelled beneath their fortifications to detonate explosives.

In response, the Israelis ringed the city with concrete and barbed wire roadblocks. Soldiers' guns poke out from between the sandbags of fortified positions. Israeli troops have invaded the outskirts of the town, razing homes and buildings that could be used to fire on the soldiers and settlers. They have uprooted olive groves and orchards, "shaving" the land to deprive the militants of cover.

Now, after four years of bloody violence, Khan Younis is quiet. And Major Mahmoud Massoud, who commands a patrol of the Palestinian National Security Forces in a neighbourhood called Hayal al-Amal, wants to keep it that way.

"The people here want calm," Major Massoud said, reflecting on the climate of hope that has spread through Gaza since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made clear his determination to withdraw from the territory and dismantle Jewish settlements there."After four years they are tired. They also want Israel to do the same thing, to stop the fighting and withdraw.

"We all accept the new policy of our government, and we welcome the Israeli decision to withdraw from Gaza. People are happy now. They want to feel freedom and liberty, an end to occupation."

Major Massoud, whose police station was destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 2001 after a Palestinian terror attack, runs his operation from a rundown shack of cinder blocks and corrugated iron.

His men patrol a half-kilometre stretch where the 170,000 residents of Khan Younis face Neve Dekalim, the largest settlement in Gaza with 2,700 inhabitants.

This is where Israeli tanks used to rumble into town, and where masked Palestinians used to pour out of jeeps to fire off a hasty mortar round before diving back into the crowded streets.

Major Massoud's force has grown from three to 30 men since last month's summit meeting between Mr. Sharon and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. They have new Mitsubishi jeeps and now patrol 24 hours a day.

They would like a real police station to replace their tatty shack, and radios to use instead of their own cellphones. But orders from Mr. Abbas to halt the attacks by militants are already being put into effect.

Last week, a car full of masked men pulled up after midnight with a mortar ready to launch at the settlement. Major Massoud said his men were on the scene in seconds.

"We went to them and talked to them," he said. "We said we are in a period of tahdiyeh [calm], and their actions will affect the peace process. They got back in their car and drove away. I don't know what happened after that.

"Our orders are to talk to them, to stop anyone trying to launch missiles. If they don't listen, our orders are to call our commanders and they will deal with them.

"But we would use force if we have to, even if I have to shoot at them."

Major Massoud, 56, was born in the Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City. He left for Lebanon in 1967 and joined guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization, returning to Gaza in 1994. After decades of struggle, he said, it was time to stop the fighting.

Jamil Bakr, an 18-year-old student from the neighbourhood, said the local people support the security forces. "They keep us safe," he said. "This will help us to gain our freedom."

South of Khan Younis, along a road that passes through the fields and white-domed greenhouses of the Morag settlement, is a favourite spot for mortar and gun attacks. This sector is under the command of Lieutenant Rami Kandil, who is 22 years old and a contemporary of the militants. He and his men have been on 24-hour patrol here since the summit.

"We were out on patrol near Gadid settlement one night last week when we found a group trying to launch a Kassam rocket," Lt. Kandil said. "We confronted the group and confiscated their weapons. They ran away.

"Our obligation is to stop the rockets and missiles. If I have to arrest them, I will, but I won't shoot at them."

He added: "We feel we are protecting the agreements reached by our political leaders. We are sometimes criticized by our friends who ask why we want to protect the Israelis, but this is the way we can achieve security."

With his young colleagues nodding in agreement, Lt. Kandil continued: "After four years of fighting, everyone is tired. The people want to start a new stage in their lives."

In the town's security headquarters, Colonel Jamal Kayed, commander of the Palestinian National Security Forces for the southern Gaza Strip, fingered a set of wooden prayer beads and offered coffee to his guests.

He has been in the job just two weeks. Mr. Abbas fired his predecessor and dozens of senior officers last month for failing to halt the mortar fire.

"We are under strict orders to prevent infiltration to the Israeli side, to stop the firing of missiles and stop the firing of mortars," he said. "But we must also see something from the Israelis so the people feel that the situation has really changed and they can live peacefully in their own homes."

Col. Kayed was born in 1958 in Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon. He fought with the PLO and attended military training schools in Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, India and Pakistan before returning to Gaza with the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1994.

He said he and the 2,451 men he commands would preserve the fragile calm until Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza in July. Then he plans to lead them as they take control of the newly liberated lands.

Time is running out, militant warns

Fragile calm will shatter if Mideast peace process stalls, Fatah fighter says

GLOBE & MAIL
Tuesday, February 22, 2005

By MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail

GAZA CITY -- Abu Thaer is a hunted man. He wears a hood and carries a Kalashnikov assault rifle. He meets at secret locations through trusted intermediaries. He says his proudest moment was a deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem in January of 2004, in which 10 bus passengers were killed.

Abu Thaer commands the Ayman Judeh cell, the Gaza City chapter of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the militant wing of Fatah, named after a former leader who was killed in an Israeli helicopter missile strike in January, 2004.

For now, the group has agreed to a period of "calm" so that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas can try to restart the Middle East peace process. But time is running out. Abu Thaer accuses Israel of violating the fragile ceasefire and says his patience is nearly ended.

"We committed to continue the calm for four to six months, on condition that the Israeli government is committed to calm the situation on all fronts," he said in an exclusive interview at a Gaza City safe house.

"The Israelis are breaking this commitment, daily and continuously. We are not going to be very patient if they continue doing this. It's impossible to see the blood of our people and to remain silent."

Men like Abu Thaer and his colleagues will determine the future of the fragile new calm, and probably also the fate of Mr. Abbas's administration. If they decide the Israelis or their new leader are not moving fast enough and renew their mortar, rocket and suicide attacks on Israel, the new-found hope in the Middle East could unravel quickly.

Israel denies it has violated the ceasefire, hammered out at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit two weeks ago. On the contrary, Israeli officials say, hundreds of Palestinian workers and merchants are once again being allowed across the border to work in Israel, and yesterday, 500 Palestinian prisoners were released amid scenes of widespread joy.

Ten of the released prisoners went home to Gaza, where they were escorted by a convoy of cars flying the yellow flags of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and trucks crowded with men firing their Kalashnikovs into the air in celebration.

Israel plans to release another 400 prisoners and has begun preparations to withdraw all settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip in July.

But Abu Thaer wants more.

"We have given Abu Mazen a chance to calm the situation and we have laid down conditions so in the future we will be able to achieve a hudna or ceasefire," he said, using Mr. Abbas's popular nom de guerre.

Those conditions include the formal announcement by both sides of a ceasefire, which Israel has not yet made, and a commitment to release all 7,500 Palestinian prisoners still held in Israeli jails.

"We have accepted what Abu Mazen has done in small steps and welcomed it, but we want the release of all prisoners. I repeat: all of them," he said.

The Palestinian leader will have to persuade Israel that the release of all the prisoners will not swell the ranks of the militants. But that is not the only fight on his hands. Mr. Abbas must also persuade his own people, including men like Abu Thaer, that he is a strong leader.

Abu Thaer and his men say they voted for Mr. Abbas because of his promise to reform the corruption-riddled Palestinian Authority and they will insist on those reforms if he is to retain their support.

But yesterday, Mr. Abbas failed to win approval for his new cabinet after the Palestinian Legislative Council argued that several "corrupt" ministers remained after an extensive government reshuffle.

Mr. Abbas has also proposed that militants from the al-Aqsa Brigades and their counterparts in Hamas and Islamic Jihad be incorporated into the official Palestinian security services who are now deployed throughout the Gaza Strip, with the specific mission of halting attacks by those groups.

But a straw poll of Abu Thaer and six of his comrades showed little support for that option. While the men said they support the deployment and the new sense of security it has brought to ordinary Palestinians, only three of the seven said they would join the official security forces, and then only after a final peace treaty was signed with Israel.

"Resistance will continue as long as the occupation continues," said Abu Thaer, insisting that Israel must also quit the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

"We are brothers, we are partners in our homeland. If the Israeli violations continue, a son of the Palestinian Authority will not stand against the sons of the people here. He will stand beside the resistance, to defend the sons of his people."

But Abu Thaer said that for the first time, he saw some hope of peace emerging after four years of violence and bloodshed.

"I heard [U.S. President] George Bush say he has a vision for peace of two states. We hope that he will achieve what he is talking about. It's up to the Israeli government. If they are serious about peace, they have to evacuate all settlements and withdraw completely from all Palestinian land.

"We do see a change in the Israelis. We do not know how far this change goes, but we are hopeful. Maybe it will lead to peace, to George Bush's vision."