When Disaster Strikes Around the World - How Israel Responds
by Israel HighWay Staff

Israel has sadly become extremely adept in emergency situations. Unlike the hurricanes in the United States, the flooding in Central Europe or earthquakes in Turkey, Israel's threatened emergencies tend to be man-made. Israel has fought for her existence even before its founding, and has been in an almost permanent state of emergency. As a result, Israel has invested great financial and personnel resources into finding solutions to disasters or potential disasters.

Israel also has a code of conduct adopted already by its founding fathers that when disaster strikes somewhere in the world, Israel has to be ready to aid in any way possible. David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, established Israel's policy to help other developing countries. Many nations in sub-Saharan Africa benefited from Israeli expertise and were helped in the battles against hunger and drought. Many of the efforts were carried out by the Mashav Center for International Cooperation in the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

With this founding ethos and its expertise, Israel is always at the forefront of humanitarian missions worldwide. In purely financial terms, Israel's contribution of disaster aid for a country of its size is one of the greatest in the world. According to Israel's Foreign Ministry, the Israeli government invests 50 million shekels ($11.4 million) in humanitarian assistance each year, with ad hoc supplements in emergency situations.

Israel sends its assistance to the four corners of the planet. Israel has helped Mexico, Armenia and Turkey by sending earthquake rescue missions. Medical and relief teams were sent to Sri Lanka after the tsunami. Israel even offered to help Iran during its massive earthquake a few years ago, although the offer was rebuffed by the radical Islamist regime - the only offer turned down.

Issue of the Week is continued below.

Rice: Hamas Has to Be Disbanded, Eventually Disarmed

Answering questions at Princeton last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "Hamas is a terrorist group and it has to be disbanded, both for peace and security in the Middle East and for the proper functioning of the Palestinian Authority. After all, it is a roadmap obligation of the Palestinian Authority to disband militias and armed resistance groups. There are periods of time of transition in which one has to give some space to the participants, in this case the Palestinians, to begin to come to a new national compact. But I cannot imagine, in the final analysis, a new national compact that leaves an armed resistance group within the political space. You cannot simultaneously keep an option on politics and an option on violence. There simply isn't a case that I can think of internationally where that's been permitted to happen."

Hamas "stands for the destruction of Israel. [See Hamas poster] Hamas is an organization that asks Palestinian mothers and fathers to give their children up to make themselves suicide bombers. And it is a real detriment and block to further peace in the Middle East. We do, I think, need to give the Palestinians some space to try and reconcile their national politics, but they're going to eventually have to disarm these groups. They can't have it both ways." (State Department)

Israel's Population on Eve of New Year: 6.955 Million by Zeev Klein

On the eve of the Jewish New Year 5766, the State of Israel's population stands at 6.955 million. Israel's Jewish population is 5.3 million; the Arab population is 1.4 million (20%), and there are 299,000 persons classified as "other," for the most part, new immigrants and their families. There were 19,000 new immigrants in 5765, 46% from the former Soviet Union, 18% from Ethiopia, and 11% from France, Argentina, the U.S., and other countries. (Globes)

Buckeyes and Sabras: Agritech Brings Israel and Ohio Closer Together by David Brinn

It's almost become a clich? about how Israel has made the desert bloom. But the fact remains that Israel's agritech developments in the arid Negev region have revolutionized farming - and smart farmers worldwide keep track of the latest innovations coming out of southern Israel.

The Ohio-based Negev Foundation recently decided that it's about time that farmers in their home state learn the tricks of the trade from their Israeli counterparts.

Thanks primarily to the Ohio-Israel Agriculture Initiative spearheaded by the 13-year-old foundation, farmers and researchers in both locations are collaborating on projects ranging from developing mini-dairies to the latest in drip irrigation - all with the goal of promoting trade and sharing expertise between the Buckeye state and the land of milk and honey.

"Sometimes it seems as though Ohio farmers are still working in the 19th century - in terms of technique," according to Negev Foundation founder Sam Hoenig. "And Israel is definitely deep into the 21st century in it agritech and sciences. We were aware of so many opportunities, ways that Israel and Ohio could both benefit." (Israel21c)

First Temple-Era Seal Discovered in Temple Mount Rubble
by Etgar Lefkovits

A First-Temple-period seal has been discovered amidst piles of rubble from Jerusalem's Temple Mount in what could prove to be an historic find, Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay said last week. The small - less than 1 cm - seal impression, or bulla, discovered would mark the first time that a written artifact was found from the Temple Mount dating back to the First Temple period. The 2,600-year-old artifact, with three lines in ancient Hebrew, was discovered amidst the rubble discarded by the Islamic Wakf. Barkay and a team of archaeologists and volunteers are sifting through it on the grounds of a Jerusalem national park. The seal, which predates the destruction of the First Jewish temple in 586 BCE, was the first of its kind from the time of King David, Barkay said. (Pictured: other artifacts found) (Jerusalem Post)

Democracy in Israel Goes Online by David Brinn

Democracy in Israel is in good hands - as long as the Citizen's Empowerment Center in Israel is on its side. Next month, the Tel Aviv non-profit organization is set to launch its most ambitious project - creating a website which will contain the entire 'citizenship' curriculum and textbooks that every Israeli high school student must study in order to graduate.

"This is the first project of its kind ever undertaken in Israel - to take the 11th grade citizenship textbook and put it on the Internet," explained CECI director Adi Sterenberg.

"We're adding many extra features to make it more attractive - including illustrations, games, and interactive links. For example, when you come to Menachem Begin, you'll be able to click on his name and it will take you to a picture of the Altalena (the ship carrying weapons to supply Begin's Etzel militia which was sunk on the orders of the new prime minister David Ben-Gurion) and give an overview of his life. With Ben-Gurion, it will take you to the famous photo of the Declaration of Independence with some links from there.

"Even better, there'll be a direct video hookup to the Knesset - so teachers giving a lesson on the parliament will be able show the students exactly what's happening there in real time," Sterenberg said. (Israel21c)

Marathon Man Runs for Israel by Adam Michael Segal

When most people run for a charitable cause, it’s typically to raise funds for medical research. But for marathon enthusiast Alan Vinegar, the cause is actually a country. "Since I wanted to do something charitable for Israel, [why not combine it with]…my passion for running."

On Oct. 16, Vinegar, 48, will run in the Toronto Marathon as a representative of Running for Israel, an initiative that involves fundraising for charities that support Israel by taking part in an established marathon. "Every donation brings us a stride closer to living the reality of a peaceful Israel," trumpets the Running for Israel Web site. Although there are probably less than 50 people participating in the endeavor, they span the globe, running marathons in such cities as Miami, Los Angeles, Berlin and Tiberias. (Canadian Jewish News)

From Martyr's Daughter to Humanitarian

Nonie Darwish - an Egyptian woman who heads up a website called Arabs for Jews - is on a mission to spread a "message of reconciliation, acceptance and understanding", reports Robyn Cohen, who spoke to her during her recent visit to South Africa.

It would appear that Nonie Darwish would be the last person one would expect to be a supporter of Jews and Israel. Her father was assassinated in 1956 by the Israelis and became a national hero - a "Shahid (martyr) and a symbol of the resistance against the Zionist state". Darwish was born in Cairo and raised in the Gaza Strip in the 1950s in an "atmosphere of intense hatred of Israel." Her father was a big shot. As head of Egyptian Intelligence, he was sent by President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the Gaza war zone to head Fedayeen operations against Israel.

Her journey from the daughter of a martyr to an enlightened humanist was a gradual process. There were events which changed her perceptions but there were three key happenings which acted as catalysts in the shifting of her perceptions.

A Jewish businessman gave her a job - her first. He and his family were kind to her, a new arrival in America. "How can I hate Jews?" she wondered. Making new friends and mixing within cosmopolitan groups of people, she was perturbed at the hate speech amongst some of her Muslim acquaintances. "I heard them say - we'll never have peace with the Jews - Israel is gasping its last breath. Even if it takes a hundred years, we'll still throw them into the sea. "They used derogatory words which I don't like to mention because I am too polite."

Her Jewish acquaintances, on the other hand, spoke about "love, compassion and peace" and steered away from racist remarks. "I wanted to be amongst those who love and not hate," she says. (IOL)

'Let's Seize the Day' - Two 20-Somethings Create Pakistan-Israel Peace Forum by Eric Fingerhut

When Dror Topf came to the United States about 3 1/2 years ago from Israel and took a job at a consulting firm, he found himself sitting side-by-side with a employee from Pakistan. Topf was a little worried. He'd never met anyone from Pakistan, and that country did not recognize Israel. His new co-worker was not what he had expected.

Waleed Ziad "has more Jewish friends than I do," Topf quipped. And he was "kind of like my counterpart," said Topf, 29. Just as Topf can sympathize with the average Palestinian trying to get to work, but held up by checkpoints, Ziad, 25, can understand the average Israeli's worry that a suicide bomb might go off at any minute.

"Waleed is able to look [an Israeli] in the eye and see we're not evil," Topf said.

More than two years after that initial April 2003 meeting, the two friends and District of Columbia residents have joined together to form the Pakistan-Israel Peace Forum, an organization dedicated to promoting dialogue and establishing relations between Pakistan and Israel at the political, cultural, social and economic levels. Pictured: Foreign Ministers from Pakistan (left) and Israel meet on Sept. 1. (Washington Jewish Week)

School Textbooks Offer Window on Intentions of Mideast Regimes by Diane Ravitch

When governments take responsibility for publishing school textbooks, such books invariably reflect what the leaders of that society want children to believe. Nowhere is this issue more crucial than in the Middle East, where national and religious passions are a constant threat to world peace.

In 1998, the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP) was established to review the content of school textbooks in the region and to examine whether the books were encouraging the attitudes of mutual tolerance necessary for future peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

CMIP found that the Israeli textbooks actively promote education for reconciliation, tolerance and peace. They present Islam in a "positive light," with factual explanations of its doctrines. They describe the Palestinian cause as a national movement. They do not promote hatred or violence toward Arabs. Literature books for Israeli students include selections by Palestinian and other Arab authors. Some textbooks were so evenhanded that Israeli critics accused the Ministry of Education of endorsing "self-hatred."

The textbooks published by Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, however, use negative stereotypes to portray Jews. Their maps of the region do not include any mention of Israel; its territory is usually described as "Palestine." The Arab textbooks present Jews as treacherous usurpers throughout history, with no rightful claim to nationhood. They describe the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an authentic historical document. (Mercury News)

Palestinians and Jews in Missouri Build a House - and Maybe a Bridge
by Margaret Gillerman

Mazen Badra painted the white trim last week on the Habitat for Humanity house while his pal Larry Mass attached the stucco. But the two weren't there only to help build housing for low-income families and swap jokes.

Badra and Mass were in their own way - brush stroke by brush stroke, and nail by nail - helping to build peace. Badra is Palestinian. Mass is Jewish.

At a time when most headlines describe Jewish and Palestinian discord, and in a week when violence was escalating in Israel and Gaza, Badra and Mass were coming together to bridge the divide.

Last year, Badra, who lives in north St. Louis County, and Mass, who lives in University City, helped found a local Palestinian-Jewish dialogue group, with help from Rabbi Susan Talve. They call themselves the Children of Abraham. The Habitat project, in Hillsdale, was the group's first community service project.

"We have a message: that Palestinians and Jews can work together, can live together, can co-exist, can cooperate and can have peace - that there is another way than to kill each other," Badra said. (St. Louis Today)

Culture, Sports Unite Maccabians by Deborah Moon Seldner

Two Portland natives forged remarkable bonds to Israel this summer as part of a contingent of 7,700 athletes from 64 countries competing in the 17th Maccabiah Games, also known as the Jewish Olympics.

"I don't think you could go to Israel and not be affected by it," said Jacob Haas (pictured top at the Kotel) who ran in the 5,000-meter, the 4 x 4 100-meter relay and the half marathon.

"I would truly love to go back to Israel," said David Michaelis, who played on the bronze-medal winning Men's Basketball team. Michaelis (pictured at the Dead Sea said that as a player he got to see the games from a different perspective. He said he appreciated the hard work of all the people that make the games possible. (Jewish Review)

Engaging in the Disengagement by Alex Abels

As our bus pulls to a stop on this hot July day, I see my first real view of Jerusalem. Our madricha, Hebrew for counselor, quickly gives our group of 40 American teens a few reminders for our first day in Israel. Stay with a buddy, keep hydrated, be respectful - all things that I expect. But then she makes a request that I have not anticipated: "Please, for the next three weeks, do not wear any orange or blue."

I turn to my traveling companion, junior Jessie Hallberlin, to see if we are thinking the same thing. Sure enough, her puzzled face echoes my own uncertainty. In response to our reaction, our madricha briefly explains that we can't wear these colors because of the "disengagement." But we, along with others on the bus, are still confused.

Soon, we are told that "disengagement" is a term for the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip. The colors have come to represent the two sides of the argument in Israel: Orange stands for anti-disengagement, or support for continuing to occupy the Gaza Strip, while blue stands for pro-disengagement.

While satisfied with the explanation, I feel slightly ashamed. I have always considered myself politically active as well as highly involved in the Jewish community. How, then, could I be so uninformed of something so pivotal in Israel's struggle for peace?

But my B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) bus mates and I are not the only ones uneducated on this issue. According to an informal Silver Chips survey of 100 [Blair High School] Blazers on Sept. 14, a mere seven percent of Blazers recognize the term "disengagement" as having to do with Israel, and only 20 percent are aware that Israel has pulled out of the Gaza Strip at all.

Other Blazers who traveled to Israel this summer were thrown into the conflict of the disengagement just as Hallberlin and I were, and now that we have safely returned to the United States, we want others to understand the situation just as we do.

The author is a junior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md. (Silver Chips)

Balkan Beat Box

If you think you'll hear something akin to Rahzel and his vocal boom-bap acrobatics when you listen to Balkan Beat Box, think again. Ori Kaplan and Tamir Muskrat are a pair of Israeli-born musical masterminds who have stirred up their own concoction of Bulgarian, Turkish, Spanish, Israeli and Moroccan sounds into an eclectic multimedia dance party. They combine the sounds of traditional Jewish hymns, belly dancing rhythms and hip-hop production. (Indiana Digital Student)

What Israel Has to Do by Hirsch Goodman

The now tiresome refrain is that it's up to Israel to help Abu Mazen and the PA in its fight with Hamas, that Israel should release prisoners, ease things up at roadblocks, provide employment, encourage economic growth and take down its security barrier in the West Bank. All those gestures would be fine if they would have made even the slightest difference to the ability of the PA to gain the upper hand in containing those who still want to destroy Israel. Unfortunately, easing things at roadblocks and releasing prisoners cannot redeem Abu Mazen's PA; in a nutshell, the current leadership has proved to be not only disappointing but useless.

Israel should recommit itself to the road map, its willingness to recognize an independent Palestinian state, as Prime Minister Sharon has, and hope that a Palestinian leadership emerges than can accept the challenge and deliver. In the meantime, Hamas should be pulverized and punished. (The Jerusalem Report)

Our Own Refugees Deserve Some Attention and Assistance
by Lori Lowenthal Marcus

Tell American Jews about a disaster anywhere in the world, and they rush to respond. Whether it be the tsunami in Southeast Asia or the war in Kosovo, the Jewish community has always contributed resources out of proportion to its numbers.

And last month, we were presented with yet another horrific disaster. The response? Silence.

While Jews are falling over themselves to run collection drives for victims of Hurricane Katrina - and rightly so - I haven't heard of a single Jewish day school or synagogue raising money for our "disengagement" refugees who lost their homes when Israel abandoned the Jewish communities of Gaza. It's as if these Jewish victims wear a big scarlet letter 'A,' and are being shunned as were adulterers in Colonial America. Why? (Jewish Exponent)

One-Sided Giving Hurts Israel by Cal Thomas

So far, Israel has been the only party doing the giving and the Palestinian-Hamas-Fatah side has been doing the taking and the killing. Why should they stop when violence is giving them what they want? The frustrating part is that no one pays attention to the pronouncements of the terrorists. Hamas announced it would flood Gaza with its soldiers once Israel withdrew. Islamo-fascist clerics call for the annihilation of Israel and tell jihadists it is their religious duty to kill Jews and Christians. Our "friends," the Saudis and Egyptians, allow this rhetoric to flow unimpeded from their mosques and in their government-run media. (Sun News)

Israel's aid is not restricted to natural disasters. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, the Israel Defense Force assisted victims by sending food and medicines. In 1992, an Israel Air Force plane carried 13 tons of emergency supplies to Zagreb. During the crisis in Kosovo the IDF dispatched a field hospital to assist Albanian refugees from Kosovo.

When civil war broke out in Rwanda in 1994, the IDF flew a medical team comprised of doctors and medical staff along with medical supplies, food and clothing to assist the refugees. In the current war in Sudan, Israel surprised the Moslem locals by sending massive aid and assistance to the refugees in the Darfur region.

Another Israeli organization, ZAKA, deals with the recovery of human remains and is frequently the first on the scene after a terrorist attack. ZAKA has also been sent to disaster areas abroad and assisted in the recovery of bodies from the Twin Towers after 9/11. ZAKA also helped during the Synagogue bombings in Istanbul, the Columbia space shuttle tragedy, bombings in Mombassa and recently in terrorist attacks in the Sinai. In 2003, a British Member of Parliament recommended ZAKA for the Nobel Peace Prize.

When Hurricane Katrina recently devastated parts of the U.S., Israelis again offered their assistance. Magen David Adom has been collecting donations, funds, clothing and other equipment for the 400,000 New Orleans survivors left homeless. The Jewish Agency has also orchestrated a fund to help those, Jew and non-Jew, who need help.

Even when America declined international aid and assistance, Israel was ready to step up. IsraAid's 18-member team - which included physicians, mental health professionals, trauma specialists, logistics experts and a special unit of Israeli police divers - arrived in New Orleans's St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish on Sept. 10 and spent a week and a half assisting fire department search-and-rescue squads. The team administered first aid to survivors, rescued abandoned pets and discovered victims of the storm, which ravaged the Gulf Coast.

Despite constant threats by terrorists and terrorist states, Israel and its citizens have devoted time and resources to help other countries in need - regardless of their religion or political position. There are few countries in the world who incorporate tzedaka into their foreign policy in such a way. (The Israel HighWay)

Additional Reading:

Iraqi Girl to Be Treated in Israel, YNet News

Israeli Organizations Pitch in for Hurricane Relief, Cleveland Jewish News

Jewish Agency Urges New Orleans College Students to Study in Israel, Ha'aretz

Jewish Agency for Israel: Israel's Relief Efforts in Southeast Asia

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