Subject: BFP: Update from Jerusalem
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 00:16:21 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
From: Bridges for Peace <100274.2306@compuserve.com>
Subject: Update from Jerusalem
TO: Friends (and friends of friends) of Bridges for Peace
FROM: Clarence H. Wagner, Jr., International Dir. - Jerusalem
RE: Weekly News Update from Israel
BRIDGES FOR PEACE
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE FROM ISRAEL
Week Ending: 30 January, 1998
Week Ending: 30/1/97
1. WELCOME FOR NETANYAHU IN WASHINGTON
2. NEW DEVICE FOR COMPANY MANAGERS
3. PEACE: QUOTE FROM NETANYAHU
4. RED HEIFER BECOMES UNFIT
5. SATELLITE FAILURE BEING STUDIED
6. POPE PROMISES VISIT
7. GROWING HATRED ON THE WEB
8. JEWISH LEADERS TO JOIN CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ALLIANCE
9. ARAFAT LETTERS TO BLAIR AND CLINTON INCONSISTENT
10. PERES WANTED PALESTINIAN STATE SINCE 1967
11. ARCHAEOLOGIST SAYS MOSQUE MAY FALL
12. PA MAY DECLARE STATE EARLY
1. WELCOME FOR NETANYAHU IN WASHINGTON
In America, a large welcome rally greeted Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu in Washington on Monday night at the beginning of his visit to
the Capital.
The event was sponsored by the National Unity Coalition for Israel, a
network of over 200 Jewish and Christian organizations whose combined
membership exceeds 40 million Americans, and the Middle East Political
Forum. Bridges for Peace is very active in the leadership of this
organization. Buses brought the people from as far as New York and
Cleveland to show support for a strong stance by Netanyahu against American
pressure.
The Prime Minister addressed the participants in a Washington hotel,
followed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Congressman Paul Gillmor (R-Ohio),
and Morton Klein of Zionist Organizations of America. E. Reece
2. NEW DEVICE FOR COMPANY MANAGERS
An Israeli firm has developed a computer device by which company
managers can detect when their computer staff is wasting time on Internet
games and sites. (ouch!) Several American companies including Flight
Safety purchased the system. The program is called "Session Wall 3" and
was developed by Abirnet of Yokneam. Abirnet Manager, Ziv Dascalu, says
the Israeli system also detects "hackers" attempting to break into the
company computer system. (Arutz 7)
3. PEACE: QUOTE FROM NETANYAHU AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB
"The victory in the Six-Day War made the physical conquest of Israel
virtually an impossible feat. It made the peace treaty with Egypt possible.
It made the peace treaty with Jordan possible. It made the peace with the
Palestinians possible. It will make the peace with Syria and with Lebanon
possible as well, because an Israel that cannot be conquered, that cannot
be overrun, is an Israel with which the Arabs make peace. For lack of a
credible war option, the peace option is the only thing on the table."
4. RED HEIFER BECOMES UNFIT
Residents of the northern community of Kfar Hassidim announced with
sorrow recently that the red heifer that they had been raising had become
unfit for ritual use. Hairs on its tail were found to be whitening,
rendering it not totally red, and therefore unfit to be used in the
purification process for service in a future Holy Temple. The residents
are hopeful that the cow will bear red calves that will be able to be used
for this purpose. (Arutz 7)
5. SATELLITE FAILURE BEING STUDIED
Arab affairs correspondent, Yehoshua Meiri, reports that the Arab news
gave wide coverage over the weekend to the failed launching of the Israeli
satellite Ofek-4 last Thursday. This will be a great blow to Israel's
ability to learn of Arab troop movements, the Arab papers report.
Iran's Al- Keyhan devoted its front page to a picture of the launch
and a lengthy article, and wrote that Ofek was to track Iranian and Iraqi
military deployments. The Israeli defense establishment is seriously
worried about the failure satellite launch. The Israel Aircraft Industries
space administration has been working since the failure, unsuccessfully so
far, to identify its cause. Although the launch began successfully,
something went wrong at some point - which the authorities are keeping
secret - and the satellite fell into the sea hundreds of kilometers away
from the Israeli coast. No date has yet been set for another launch.
(Arutz 7)
6. POPE PROMISES VISIT
"A trip to Jerusalem is on my horizon," Pope John Paul II told Tourism
Minister Moshe Katsav last Friday, but he made no commitment about a date.
"If his horizon is one year or two, we don't know," said Katsav.
Katsav was in Rome to coordinate preparations with the Vatican for some
five million pilgrims expected to arrive in Jerusalem from Rome over the
next three years. (In Jerusalem)
7. GROWING HATRED ON THE WEB
There is a growing web of hate clinging to the Net. An address book of
hateful, anti-Semitic or racial web sites is being compiled by the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles in an attempt to stem the eruption of this
evil on the World Wide Web. Internet service providers (ISP's), it is
hoped, will take cognizance of these groups and weed them out.
There has been an increase of about 300% in the number of hateful web
pages put out by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and terrorism schools,
according to the SW Center.
The Anti-Defamation League is being assisted by America On-Line who is
providing them with technical support to develop software designed to block
hate sites. The Massachusetts software firm, The Learning Company, is
compiling a list of sites for it's filtering program called Cyber Patrol.
AOL and the League both have web sites from where this product will
soon be available free of charge.
8. JEWISH LEADERS TO JOIN CHRISTIAN-JEWISH ALLIANCE
Esther Levens, President of the National Unity Coalition for Israel
(NUC), called on Jewish leaders to join her Jewish-Christian alliance. The
NUC, which rallied for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday in
Washington, is a coalition of over 200 Jewish and Christian organizations
who support a strong and secure Israel. "It's time to stop bickering, and
get on with the business of defending the Jewish state," she said.
Levens was referring to the criticism by some establishment Jewish
leaders of the notion that Jews should work with Christian Evangelical
groups whose opinions on social issues often differs from Jewish mainstream
opinion.
Levens said, "Member organizations encompass a broad philosophical
spectrum. Our organization includes people of divergent opinions. That's
coalition politics: you agree on some things, and agree to disagree on
others. Our members differ on issues of Zionist policy. They disagree on
abortion, on the death penalty, on the roles of men and women, and yes, on
if the Messiah once walked upon this Earth. But on one thing we stand
united: we will do everything in our power to promote a U.S. policy which
backs a strong and secure Israel. And at this critical time, to Jews and
especially Jewish leaders, that should be the principle focus of concern."
9. ARAFAT LETTERS TO BLAIR AND CLINTON INCONSISTENT
A comparison of the Arafat letters to Prime Minister Tony Blair and to
President Clinton finds that the letter to Clinton lists five more
Palestinian Covenant articles which he claims have been nullified or
modified by the Palestine National Council than those listed in the letter
to Blair. Among the articles not mentioned as nullified in the letter to
Blair is a reference to the armed struggle for liberation.... (Aaron Lerner
- IMRA)
10. PERES WANTED PALESTINIAN STATE SINCE 1967
"Haaretz" newspaper correspondent, Tom Segev, revealed in a column
which appeared in the 26 January, 1998 issue that while he was traveling in
Belarus with former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Peres told him that "ever
since 1967 he has supported the idea of a Palestinian state...[but that]
the idea of a Palestinian state could not be sprung upon the Israeli public
without a long preparatory maturing process. I [Segev] commented that Uri
Avneri had had the courage to talk about that idea thirty years ago and
Peres said that this was precisely the point. Left wing activist, Uri
Avneri, found himself thrown into the sidelines of Israeli society and was
viewed as someone who was representing the Arab, and not the Israeli side.
By not voicing his views, Peres was able to do a few other things in the
meantime." (Aaron Lerner - IMRA)
11. ARCHAEOLOGIST SAYS MOSQUE MAY FALL
Vast water reservoirs underneath the Al Aksa Mosque compound are in
danger of collapse, a British archaeologist warns. Other experts dispute
that the compound might be in imminent danger. The risk goes beyond the
prospect of a natural disaster: A calamity in the most sensitive spot in
the Israeli-Arab conflict could trigger widespread violence. Today, 49
cisterns and 43 underground passages crisscross below the compound. Many
have been abandoned and blocked for decades with water trapped inside.
There are plans to survey the network of cisterns -- which can hold 10
million gallons of water -- and pump them dry later this year, the Islamic
Trust's chief engineer at Al Aksa, Issam Awad, said a cistern described in
most detail is called "The Great Sea," which is as big as the Dome of the
Rock mosque and can hold 2 million gallons of water. (AP)
12. PA MAY DECLARE STATE EARLY
The Palestinian Authority is seriously considering declaring an
independent state as early as the end of 1998. Leading PLO figure Ahmed
Abdel Rahman, a long-time close associate of Arafat, told the PA newspaper,
Al Hayat el Jadida, that there is nothing preventing such a declaration at
the scheduled end of the interim stage at the end of this year. Arutz-7
correspondent Haggai Huberman reports that until now, the PA had intended
to wait until the end of the five-year period stipulated in the Oslo
agreement. Huberman says that during the Arafat-Clinton meeting last week
in Washington, Clinton did not agree to recognize a Palestinian state even
if it would be declared after the five-year period. (Arutz 7)
=================================================================
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Thanks to Glen Haines for his assistance in collating and editing
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