We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Ber Lazarus, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: ber@isranet.wpsitie.com
Download a pdf version of today's Daily Briefing
Contents: Weekly Quotes | Short Takes | On Topic Links
Terra Incognita: The Racist Romance of the Arab Village: Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2013
Families of Israeli Terror Victims Express Outrage at Proposed Release of Palestinian Terrorists for Peace Talks: Zach Pontz, Algemeiner, July 23, 2013
Bionic Contact Lenses Turn Touch Into Vision: Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21c, July 23, 2013
"We are now making an effort to resume the diplomatic process. I see this as a vital strategic interest of the State of Israel….If it [an agreement] will be [reached], it will be put to a referendum….It must be put to the people for a decision….The goal is to prevent "the creation of a bi-national state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, alongside preventing the establishment of another Iranian-sponsored terrorist state….Our negotiating partners will also need to make concessions that will allow us to maintain our security and uphold our vital national interests….These will not be easy negotiations, but we will enter into them with integrity, sincerity and the hope that this process will be conducted responsibly, seriously and substantively, and …discreetly….Throughout this process, I will strongly uphold…the security needs of the State of Israel and other vital interests." — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to the Israeli Government Cabinet on Sunday [July 21] following the announcement by U.S. Secretary of State that negotiations were set to resume between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. (Prime Minister's Office, July 21, 2013)
“The Palestinian leadership's sense of responsibility towards its nation made it take political steps about 20 years ago (i.e., signing the Oslo Accords). Despite the controversy, despite much criticism and much opposition by some, it brought us to where we are today: We have a [Palestinian] Authority and the world recognizes the [Palestinian] state. All this happened through the wisdom of the leadership, conscious action, consideration, and walking the right path, which leads to achievement, exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, even though some opposed it….In less than two years, the Prophet returned and based on this treaty, he conquered Mecca. This is the example, this is the model." — Mahmoud Al-Habbash, PA Minister of Religious Affairs, in a sermon in front of Mahmoud Abbas, PA President as broadcast on official Palestinian Authority TV, July 19, 2013, just prior to the announcement of the resumption of peace negotiations. [The Hudaybiyyah peace treaty was a 10-year truce that Muhammad, Islam's Prophet, made with the Quraish Tribe of Mecca. However, two years into the truce, Muhammad betrayed the truce, attacked and conquered Mecca. – Ed.] (PalWatch, July 20, 2013)
"I do not adopt the theory of 'now or never,' we shall have to negotiate again, and I don't see any tragedy in it." — Menahem Begin z”l, former Prime Minister of Israel, in an interview during the difficult negotiations with Egypt in 1979, prior to the final signing of an agreement. (Elder of Ziyon, July 23, 2013)
“The campaign of delegitimizing the Jewish state – a campaign financed primarily by Arab oil – has gained momentum in recent years. The only thing that can stop it is the resumption of peace negotiations. In one fell swoop, the misguided folks [European Commission] in Brussels have emboldened the extremists, allowing them to triumphantly claim to Abbas: "You see, we were right all along. You must not negotiate. We don't have to do anything. The international community will do our job for us." The world shouldn't make things easier for extremists. It's challenging enough to pursue peace in this problematic neighborhood of ours. We do not need our friends overseas to make it even more difficult. The EU would do well to revoke its decision.” — Yair Lapid, Israel Minister of Finance, commenting on the decision of the European Union to prohibit grants and awards going to any organization operating in any of the territories captured by Israel in its defensive war in 1967. (New York Times, July 24, 2013)
"Anyone who thinks that in the center of the diplomatic, political and social tsunami that is shaking the Arab world it is possible to get a magical solution of comprehensive peace with the Palestinians does not understand…I am saying clearly that it is impossible to reach a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians. It is impossible to solve the conflict, it needs to be managed.” — Avigdor Liberman, Israel’s former Foreign Minister, reacting to the possible resumption of peace negotiations. (Jerusalem Post,July 23, 2013)
"It looks as if the [EU] decision [to blacklist Hizbullah] was written by American hands with Israeli ink. The EU only had to add its signature in approval" — Hizbullah, in a statement following the EU’s announcement that it would put the Hizbullah’s “military wing” on it’s list of terrorist organizations.(UPI. July 23, 2013)
"Hizbullah is a single large organization, we have no wings that are separate from one another. What's being said in Brussels doesn't exist for us." — Ibrahim Mussawi, a spokesman for Hizbullah, to Spiegel Online. (Der Spiegel-Germany, July 22, 2013)
"Syria is drawing thousands of global jihad activists and radical Muslims from the region and the world who are basing themselves in the country, not only to overthrow Assad, but also to promote the vision of an Islamic state. Right before our eyes a center of global jihad is developing on a scale that may affect not only Syria and the borders of the State of Israel, but also Jordan and Sinai." — Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi, chief of IDF Military Intelligenc, at an intelligence officers' graduation ceremony on Tuesday [July 23]. (Ynet News, July 23, 2013)
“The notion that Palestinians, whenthere are only a few dozen of them, always require an army of NGOs and Israeli activists with jeeps and hospitals and schools in order to survive plays on two stereotypes: First, an Orientalist view of Arabs as incapable objects in the landscape of the Bible, and second that only outsiders can save them and speak for them.” — Seth J. Frantzman, in an op-ed column: Terra Incognita: The Racist Romance of the Arab Village, in the Jerusalem Post.(Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2013
“Dozens of top American officials have called for [Jonathan] Pollard’s immediate release due to the values of justice and mercy. Jonathan did not murder anyone. His 28 years of service, including seven in solitary confinement, is an unprecedented sentence for the crime, so he should be released immediately without conditioning it on anything else [such as the release of Palestinian terrorists].” — the Committee for Pollard’s Freedom, in a statement issued in response to reports that Israel had asked the U.S to release Pollard in exchange for releasing Palestinian terrorists. (Jerusalem Post, July 23, 2013)
“We’re closer [to Iran] than the United States. We’re more vulnerable. And therefore, we’ll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does. But as the prime minister of Israel, I’m determined to do whatever is necessary to defend my country, the one and only Jewish state, from a regime that threatens us with renewed annihilation.” — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on CBS News’s Face the Nation. (Jerusalem Post, July 24, 2013)
“When we finally caught them [Iran] in the act of trying to kill Adel [al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US], we had a beleaguered attorney general, a fine man but beleaguered politically, stand up and give a legal argument that frankly I couldn’t understand . . . And we had what I would call a Zimmerman telegram moment . . . We caught them in the act, and yet we let them walk free….They’re like children balancing light bulbs full of nitroglycerin. You get the picture? One of these days they’re going to drop one, and it’s going to knock out the London stock exchange or Wall Street because we never drew a line and said, ‘You won’t do it.’ ” — Gen. James Mattis, former head of US Central Command which has responsibility for the Middle East, addressing the Obama administration policies toward Iran at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado. [The Zimmerman telegram was a secret message, intercepted by Britain, sent by Germany to Mexico before the outbreak of World War I inciting it to retake areas of the U.S. south with an eye to preventing the U.S. from entering the war in Europe on the side of Great Britain against Germany . —Ed ] (New York Post, July 23, 2013)
KERRY ANNOUNCES DEAL TO REVIVE MIDEAST TALKS —(Amman, Jordan) Israeli and Palestinian leaders have "established a basis" to resume direct peace negotiations for the first time in three years, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Friday. He said that if "everything goes as expected," Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator; Tzipi Livni, the Israeli minister in charge of the peace process; and Isaac Molho, Prime Minister Netanyahu's special envoy, would join him for talks in Washington "within the next week or so." On Saturday, Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio, "There will be some release of [Palestinian] prisoners," carried out in phases. According to Israeli news reports, both sides have agreed to negotiate for at least six months. (New York Times, July 20, 2013)
TOP AIDE TO PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT SAYS PATH TO A RESUMPTION OF MIDEAST TALKS STILL BLOCKED — (Ramallah) Nabil Abu Rudeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement Sunday that for actual peace talks to resume, Israel must first accept its pre-1967 war frontier as a baseline and halt settlement building. He said that Abbas agreed to send a delegate to Washington to continue lower-level preliminary talks with an Israeli counterpart about the terms for negotiations. The Washington talks are meant to "overcome the obstacles that still stand in the way of launching negotiations," he said. Palestinians say three issues need to be settled before talks can begin – the baseline for border talks, the extent of a possible Israeli settlement slowdown, and a timetable for releasing long-detained Palestinian prisoners. Israel has been insisting that peace talks resume without preconditions and that all issues should be resolved through dialogue. (AP-Washington Post, July 22, 2013)
ISRAEL TO RELEASE 85 PALESTINIAN PRISONERS — (Jerusalem) Israel has agreed to gradually release 85 Palestinian terrorists who were imprisoned prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords. The first phase of the release will take place in four to six weeks. The terrorists in question were convicted of multiple counts of murder and sentenced to more than one life sentence. All of them have so far served between 20 and 28 years of their sentences. (Israel Hayom, July 21, 2013)
FAMILIES OF ISRAELI TERROR VICTIMS EXPRESS OUTRAGE AT PROPOSED RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS FOR PEACE TALKS —(Jerusalem)
Expected concessions on the part of Israel aimed at inducing the Palestinian Authority to enter into peace talks are rankling many in the Jewish State. Israel has reportedly agreed to release at least 82 Palestinian convicts held since before the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. Many of the prisoners were jailed for violent crimes, and the families of their victims, as well as the family’s of others murdered in the interim, are voicing their displeasure at the prospect of the prisoners going free. (The Algemeiner, July 23, 2013)
EUROPEAN UNION ADDS HIZBULLAH TO TERROR LIST — (Brussels) EU foreign ministers Monday [July 22] added the “military” wing of the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hizbullah to a list of terrorist organizations. Sanctions are expected to include travel bans and asset freezes. The policy shift reflected their concern about Hezbollah’s suspected involvement in Europe-based bombings and its growing role in the Syria war. The immediate practical effects of the new designation were not clear, but symbolically at least they were an embarrassment to Hezbollah, the most important political organization in Lebanon. Many Lebanese expressed concern the designation would damage Lebanon’s international relations and worsen internal tensions, and Lebanon’s president, Michel Suleiman, asked the European Union to “re-examine its decision,” Lebanese media reported. (New York Times, July 23, 2013)
EGYPT'S OLD GUARD IS BACK — (Cairo) Egypt's new power dynamic, following the July 3 coup that ousted Morsi, is eerily familiar. Gone are the Islamist rulers from the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood. Back are the faces of the old guard, many closely linked to Mubarak's reign or to the all-powerful generals. And for a seemingly broad array of Egyptians, that's exactly the way they want it. In Egypt's new cabinet, Mubarak-era figures abound and Islamists are absent. Egyptians who once demanded punishment for the remnants of Mubarak's regime say that a year of disastrous Brotherhood rule has put everything in perspective. (Washington Post, July 19, 2013)
TWELVE DIE IN CLASHES IN EGYPT — (Cairo)A long night of political bloodshed in Egypt left at least 12 people dead on Tuesday and 86 wounded. In the latest fighting between supporters and opponents of ousted President Mohamed Morsi which began on Monday in several Cairo neighborhoods and north of the city, civilians were seen firing weapons during running battles near Cairo landmarks. Morsi's supporters have intensified their protests with daily marches in cities around Egypt, to publicize what they call a "putsch" by the army. (New York Times, July 23, 2013)
PALESTINIAN FAMILIES TO SUFFER FROM EU LABELING OF GOODS FROM JUDEA & SAMARIA — (Jerusalem) Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin on Tuesday told Elmar Brok, the chairman of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, that 20,000 Palestinian families stood to lose their livelihood if products from the settlements were labeled as such in Europe. He said Palestinian workers in agriculture or manufacturing could find themselves out of work if these businesses shut down due to a drop in exports to the EU. "You are trying to hurt Israeli enterprises that already exist and provide a respectable livelihood for tens of thousands of Palestinian families," Elkin told Brok. "This is simply bizarre." (Ha'aretz, July 23, 2013)
ISRAELI HOSPITAL TREATS WOUNDED SYRIANS — (Golan Heights) Four Syrians including an eight-year-old girl were brought to a hospital in Israel after they were wounded by fighting in the war-torn country, a medical source said on Tuesday. "Yesterday night an injured eight-year-old girl and her 48-year-old mother were treated for fractures to their arms and legs from shrapnel," said a spokesman for Ziv hospital, which is located north of the Sea of Galilee. "Another Syrian adult in his 20s arrived an hour ago… with a severe head injury and was treated in the trauma unit," he told AFP. A 15-year-old girl also arrived at the facility Tuesday morning with an amputated leg and wounds to her stomach, the spokesman said. The wounded were brought to the hospital by the Israeli army after being allowed across the ceasefire line with Syria, he said. A total of 45 Syrians have received treatment at Ziv since Syria's civil war broke out, and nine of those are currently in the hospital, including the eight-year-old girl admitted late Monday, he said. (Yahoo! News, July 22, 2013)
FORMER PA NEGOTIATOR SUING ABBAS IN THE HAGUE—(The Hague) Former senior PLO official Mohammed Dahlan is suing Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for malicious persecution. Dahlan, a personal nemesis of the chairman, was removed from all his positions in the organization two years ago. Now he claims that Abbas is after him for publicly exposing the corruption of the chairman and of his offspring. Dahlan is pushing an assortment of lawsuits in various European courts, according to Kol Israel, revolving around his charge that some $700 million are missing from the PA treasury. Dahlan, who used to be head of the PLO Gaza Preventive Security Force, and participated in earlier rounds of the “peace process” resides in Dubai, where, back in May, he met with Mossad head Tamir Pardo. On Sunday, Dahlan accused the PA Chairman of forcing “political suicide” on his nation by agreeing to renewing the talks with Israel. (Jewish Press, July 24th, 2013)
NEW SHOAH BOOK IS HIT AMONG NON-JEWISH IRANIANS — (Irvine, Calif.) Dr. Ari Babaknia, an Iranian Jewish doctor based in Southern California, spent 15 years working on what some viewed as a quixotic project: the first-ever history book about the Holocaust in Farsi. But now the four-volume work—which details the facts of the Holocaust from the rise of Nazism in Germany to the final days of World War II and eventually chronicles the other genocides of the 20th century that occurred in Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Sudan—is becoming a hit among the very audience Babaknia intended to reach: Iranian Muslims. “There are about 120 million-plus people in the world who speak Farsi, but there has never been a book written in their mother language about the Holocaust,” said Babaknia, an obstetrician-gynecologist by profession who said he wrote the first draft of the work by hand. (Tablet Magazine, July 23, 2013)
MCGILL UNIVERSITY RECEIVES $500,000 FROM ALLEGED IRANIAN FRONT — (Montreal) Two weeks after bestowing an honorary doctorate on a noted anti-Israel activist, controversy is once again brewing at McGill University, as the school has come under fire for continuing to receive funds from an alleged front for the Iranian government. McGill University has received about $500,000 since 1986 from the Alavi Foundation, a New York City-based non-profit organization. According to a civil complaint filed by United States federal prosecutors in 2009, the foundation’s income derives from a Manhattan property that was built in 1978 to handle Iran’s charitable activities in the United States. The Fifth Avenue property and foundation subsequently came under control by the new Iranian government following the Islamic Revolution. (Jewish Tribune, July 2, 2013)
ISRAEL'S FAST EVOLVING DEMOGRAPHY — (Jerusalem) In the first 12 years of the current century the number of Arab births in Israel has almost completely flat lined at around 40,000 per annum. This despite the growing size of the Arab population, which means that the Arab birth rate – births relative to population size – has fallen. Over the same period, Jewish births have risen from 95,000 to 130,000. In the first four months of 2013, the most recent period for which data is available, Jewish births were up 38 percent during the same period for 2001, and Arab births down 6%. This means that the Arab share of Israeli births, at a little over 22% of the total, is now not much higher than the overall Arab share of the population, at a little under 21% of the total, and well down from its peak of around 30%. The birth rates of Arabs and Jews in Israel are close to converging. (Jerusalem Post, July 21, 2013)
ISRAELI DEFENSE EXPORTS HIT RECORD HIGH — (Tel Aviv) Israel sold some $7.5 billion in defense products in 2012 – a record high – the Defense Ministry revealed on Tuesday, but officials voiced concerns that the coming year could see a slump in sales. Speaking to reporters at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shmaya Avieli, director of Defense Export and Defense Cooperation (known by its Hebrew acronym, “Sibat”), pointed to an ongoing economic downturn as one factor for decreased projected sales. He added that with the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq coming to a close, decreased demand for military products by coalition members will have a significant impact on the global defense industry. Additionally, Europe has a stated policy of preferring its own defense suppliers. “Israel is in the top 10 defense exporters in the world, if not the top five,” Avieli said. According to figures he unveiled, 25 percent of Israeli defense exports involve air defense systems, while sales of satellite platforms and radars collectively made up 24% of the revenue. (Jerusalem Post, July 24, 2013)
UN SAYS EGYPT CRACKDOWN CLOSES 80 PERCENT OF GAZA SMUGGLING TUNNELS — (United Nations) About 80 percent of tunnels used to smuggle goods and arms into the Gaza Strip from Egypt are "no longer functioning" due to a crackdown by the Egyptian military after it ousted President Mohamed Morsi this month, a UN official said on Tuesday. UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry told the UN Security Council that the Gaza Strip was experiencing "some serious shortages of fuel and basic building materials for which the tunnels had become the primary entry point due to severe restrictions on imports via the official crossings and the higher cost of fuel available from the West Bank and Israel." The tunnel crackdown has gathered pace since the Egyptian military removed Morsi from power earlier this month. "As a result of these actions against illegal activity, according to some estimates, 80 percent of the tunnels are no longer functioning," Serry said. (Jerusalem Post, July 24, 2013)
BIONIC CONTACT LENSES TURN TOUCH INTO VISION— (Tel Aviv) A new Israeli approach to providing sight to people with vision impairment uses a technique known as sensory substitution. Much in the way Braille allows people who are blind to “see” the written word, a bionic contact lens invented by Israeli researcher Prof. Zeev Zalevsky “presses” images onto the surface of the eye to help the brain decipher through touch what the wearer is looking at. The lens, still in a prototype stage, uses electrical signals sent to it from a small transponder, clipped to a pair of glasses or downloaded to a smart phone. A regular off-the-shelf camera, like the one inside a phone, “looks” at a crosswalk, items for sale in the grocery store, or at a loved one’s face, and transmits the encoded image via the lens to the wearer’s cornea. The image gets translated into a tactile sensation that can be interpreted visually. “The cornea has the highest density of tactile sensors in the human body,” the Bar-Ilan University professor tells ISRAEL21c. (Israel 21c, July 23, 2013)
Terra Incognita: The Racist Romance of the Arab Village: Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2013—This romance of the “primeval” landscape, juxtaposed with Israeli activists and European NGOs who tell their story and save the villagers, is a classic motif.
Families of Israeli Terror Victims Express Outrage at Proposed Release of Palestinian Terrorists for Peace Talks: Zach Pontz, Algemeiner, July 23, 2013—Expected concessions on the part of Israel aimed at inducing the Palestinian Authority to enter into peace talks are rankling many in the Jewish State. Israel has reportedly agreed to release at least 82 Palestinian convicts held since before the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.
Bionic Contact Lenses Turn Touch Into Vision: Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21c, July 23, 2013—A new Israeli approach to providing sight to people with vision impairment uses a technique known as sensory substitution. Much in the way Braille allows people who are blind to “see” the written word, a bionic contact lens invented by Israeli researcher Prof. Zeev Zalevsky “presses” images onto the surface of the eye to help the brain decipher through touch what the wearer is looking at.
Ber Lazarus , Publications Editor Canadian Institute for Jewish Research /L'institut Canadien de recherches sur le Judaïsme www.isranet.org Tel: (514) 486-5544 Fax: (514) 486-82843
Visit CIJR’s Bi-Weekly Webzine (current issue: “Israel’s Levy Report”: ISRAZINE.
CIJR’s ISRANET Daily Briefing is available by fax and e-mail. Please urge colleagues, friends and family to visit our website for more information on our Briefing series. To join our distribution list, or to unsubscribe, contact us at https://isranet.org/.
The ISRANET Daily Briefing is a service of CIJR. We hope that you find it useful and that you will support it and our pro-Israel educational work by forwarding a minimum $90.00 tax-deductible membership contribution [please send a cheque or VISA/MasterCard information to CIJR (see cover page for address or “Donate” button on Website)]. All donations include a membership-subscription to our respected quarterly ISRAFAX print magazine, which will be mailed to your home.
CIJR’s Briefing series attempts to convey a wide variety of opinions on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world for its readers’ educational and research purposes. Reprinted articles and documents express the opinion of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the Institute.
