A group of Israeli and foreign businessmen and bankers are finally ready to build a $3 billion canal between the Red and Dead Seas, desalinating the water, producing hydroelectric power and yielding profits, clean water, jobs and potentially unprecedented regional cooperation. The project could create work for a million Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians, draw eight million tourists a year to Israel, and produce a billion cubic meters of desalinated water.
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The incendiary hate language emanating from Ahmadinejad's Iran - in which Israel is referred to as "filthy bacteria" and a "cancerous tumor" and Jews are characterized as "a bunch of bloodthirsty barbarians" - is only the head wind of the gathering storm confronting Israel on its 60th anniversary. Indeed, we are witnessing, and have been for some time, a series of mega-events, political earthquakes...
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'A people without walls is a people without any choice." So writes Aristotle in The Politics. In modern parlance, we might say that a nation that does not adequately defend or define its borders subjects its citizens not only to military risk but to political danger. A country that cannot maintain its deterrent capability vis-a-vis its hostile neighbors rapidly loses strategic maneuverability...
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Imad Sa'ad is a 25-year old Palestinian Authority (PA) police officer who has been arrested by Mahmoud Abbas's forces for providing Israel with information about the whereabouts of four accused Palestinian terrorists. The PA had been unwilling to hand over to Israel the four men whom Sa'ad helped it locate. For this act, Sa'ad has been convicted as a "collaborator" in a PA court in Hebron by a judge belonging to Abbas's Fatah party and sentenced to death by firing squad.
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A "pretty strong degree of anti-Semitism" in Europe is at the root of the hostile coverage Israel receives in parts of the European media, Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation global media chief, charged on Thursday. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post following his appearance at Jerusalem's "Facing Tomorrow" presidential conference, Murdoch (pictured) said it was hard for Israel to obtain fair media coverage in Europe because it was forced to "start off behind."
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Border: A part that forms the outer edge of something... The line or frontier area separating political divisions. The Bush administration would like Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a border so that everything else - Jerusalem, settlements, the "occupation," refugees, whatever - can then fall into place. This presupposes that the Palestinians see their conflict with Israel as primarily a border dispute.
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