GIVING EAR - Co-Existence Project

BY BARRY DAVIS   MARCH 16, 2017

 Violins, not violence: The Nazareth-based Polyphony venture fosters musical and cultural harmony.

It has been mooted that the basic difference between discrimination and mutual acceptance is that, while in the former case, we see anyone different from us as inferior, possibly threatening and certainly unwanted, the latter entails the realization that, if someone is different from us, by the same token we are different from them.

Then again, there are always common denominators to be sought and found, and that can help to bridge discrepancies in cultural, religious and political lines of thought.

Nabeel Abboud-Ashkar certainly goes along with that ethos. Abboud-Ashkar is cofounder of Polyphony, which sprang into life in 2012 in Nazareth when he joined forces with Jewish American social entrepreneurs Craig and Deborah Cogut. The idea was, as the organization’s brochure has it: “to bring together Arab and Jewish youth in Israel by offering them equal opportunities in music.”

The venture title certainly fits the stated conceptual and artistic bill. The online font of vocabulary definitions, dictionary.com, describes polyphonic music as “having two or more voices or parts, each with an independent melody, but all harmonizing.”

That all sounds delightfully healthy and uplifting, and the project appears to be making waves across the upper echelons of the international music community.

The Polyphony Artistic Partners cross-disciplinary roster includes the names of such illustrious members of the global art world as conductors Zubin Mehta and Sir Andras Schiff, opera singer Renée Fleming, multimedia artist Yoko Ono, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis and Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza.

Marsalis was recently in Nazareth himself, to help a bunch of budding Arab and Jewish musicians progress with their instruments and spread the musical word in general. Schiff was also here a month or so ago. “Branford gave a workshop for the kids and a concert for the parents,” says Abboud- Ashkar. “That really helps.”

The professional supporter lineup is mightily impressive, and there appears to be an abundance of layman backing, too.

“There is great interest from the international musical community. There is also interest from the Jewish community in the US,” the director continues, “and there is, obviously, a strong interest in the Arab and Jewish communities of Israel for Polyphony to work.”

Getting youngsters to play and enjoy classical music, says Abboud-Ashkar, offers added value for all, and not just in the Middle East. “When you appreciate this kind of music, and are able to perform it, you immediately become part of a much larger and more international community.

Straightaway it makes you part of something much bigger than your immediate surroundings. So that, I think, makes Western classical music important for us. By us, I mean the Arab-Palestinian community of Israel, and Israeli society in general – both Arab and Jewish communities.”

The ostensibly extraneous nature of the art form, he feels, also helps to bridge cultural and personal gaps. “Because it is not coming from one side or the other, classical music being so international, it is a wonderful means for bringing people together.”

Then there are the rewards to be gained from engaging in an activity that is not only creative but also requires the participants to cooperate and to listen to each other in order to reach a pleasurable and quality end result.

The Nazareth-based initiative is clearly managing to provide young Jews, Muslims and Christians here with a bridge spanning sociopolitical and ethnic gaps that can sometimes appear to be entrenched and permanently divisive.

However, it wasn’t just about getting kids enthralled with the idea of producing harmonious sounds from their instruments. For the project to succeed, it needed the blessing and backing of the wider community, too. “Parents have become more and more aware of the importance of what we are doing, and the importance of music education.”

In Keshet Eilon, Abboud-Ashkar and his cohorts in the Nazareth-based program found a natural bedfellow. “We founded Keshet Eilon [at Kibbutz Eilon in the Western Galilee] in 1990,” says general manager Gilad Sheba. “We called the program ‘keshet’ because of the bow of the violin, but also in the sense of a bridge between cultures and people.

There are wider-reaching rewards. “When students come here from abroad they discover a different Israel from the one they see in the media,” Sheba adds. “They see the finer side of Israel – the culture and excellence. Don’t forget, we engage in people who chose a very competitive profession and one of our goals is to turn them into a family. Nabeel and Polyphony come into this context.”

Polyphony continues to go about its educational and enlightening business, which takes in joint ensembles with Keshet Eilon.

Abboud-Ashkar is conscious of the need for spreading the word as far and wide as possible, in addition to enabling youngsters to acquire precious musical skills, and then helping them to raise their game. Mother Nature precludes the existence of anything in a vacuum, and that applies equally to the social environment.

Polyphony duly invests in generating the requisite support group context, to create a healthy and encouraging environment for the kids to follow their natural artistic bent.

Internal Hamas Debate about Rethinking Its Policies

Yoni Ben Menachem – Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

See more at: http://jcpa.org/hamas-stocktaking/#sthash.4veJWWNE.dpuf

The results of the Gaza war have caused Hamas serious distress, something its leadership did not foresee before launching the war with Israel. The movement now appears to be in a process of stocktaking and reassessment in light of its situation, including the difficulties in rehabilitating the Gaza Strip, the bitter rift with the Palestinian Authority, and the deterioration in relations with Egypt. Among other things, Egypt has been constraining Hamas’s ability to arm itself.

To this must be added the effects of the weakening of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent-movement of Hamas, and of the strengthening of the Islamic State as an organization that, in the name of Islam, has been challenging Arab regimes and Western states as it acts to establish the Islamic Caliphate-the goal to which Hamas also aspires.

A recent conference at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah addressed the issue of “The Political and Strategic Status of the Gaza Strip.” Among the topics discussed were the difficulties Hamas is encountering in the domestic, national, and regional spheres and the need for a thorough rethinking of its tactics and strategy.

Dr. Khaled al-Hroub, a conference participant and researcher at Cambridge University, published in the newspaper Al-Ayam several ideas of Sheikh Ahmed Yusuf of Gaza, a prominent Hamas leader. In the framework of the conference, Sheikh Yusuf presented a study focusing on the outcomes of Operation Protective Edge and on the need for a new ideology and political strategy for Hamas.

Al-Hroub provides quotations from Yusuf’s article that harshly criticize the Hamas government in Gaza, claiming that it “was not on the level required of the movement and lacks vitality and innovation.”

Hamas Leader: Time to Rethink Policies

Yusuf asserts that “there is a need to rethink how it behaves in light of the local, Arab, and international changes.”

Yusuf’s words indicate that Hamas leadership in the West Bank and Gaza did not take part in the decision to go to war with Israel and that the movement’s decisions sometimes were not brought to the Hamas Shura Council for deliberation.

Yusuf emphasizes the need for a major revision of the movement’s aims, which, he says, were written down in December 1987 and are outmoded.

Al-Hroub presented several main points from Yusuf’s recommendations to the Hamas leadership:

- Military activity must be discussed, and a plan must be formulated to halt it for a limited period of up to five years and thereby enable the recovery and rehabilitation of Gaza and the attainment of a national consensus.

- Discussion of direct negotiations with Israel must be continued, in line with previous statements on this issue by Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy chief of the movement’s Political Bureau.

- Assessing relations with Egypt, Iran, and the Gulf states, and especially with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and bolstering ties with Qatar and Turkey.

- Give the highest priority to the achievement of stability and security in the Sinai Peninsula so that relations with Egypt can be improved.

- Hamas and Fatah will run in the coming elections on a single agreed list.

- In the next presidential elections, if Mahmoud Abbas decides not to run for the post, Hamas must support Dr. Salam Fayaed.

- Consideration must be given to changing the Hamas Charter of 1987, which is exploited by Israel, especially the articles that are viewed as “anti-Semitic” and are exploited by Israel to attack the valid Palestinian problem.

- Support for Mahmoud Abbas’s plan to join international conventions, while enhancing his legitimacy as leader of the entire Palestinian people and allowing him freedom of movement.

- Recalibration of the Hamas movement’s relationship with the West while distancing it from everything connected to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Sheikh Ahmed Yusuf’s positions are seen as courageous among Palestinians, especially their presentation in a document published in a Palestinian news outlet. They reveal the true condition of the movement and prescribe for Hamas leadership a real change and a way out of its current malaise.

It is doubtful whether Hamas leadership will adopt most of Yusuf’s proposals. Palestinian commentators, however, believe that the adoption of some of these 

  recommendations would probably improve the movement’s status both in the Palestinian street and from a regional standpoint.

See more at: http://jcpa.org/hamas-stocktaking/#sthash.4veJWWNE.dpuf

More Savagery in Jerusalem

What more needs top be said following the tragedy of another terror attack in Jerusalem- this from a friend who lives in Jerusalem. 

My granddaughter is doing her national service in this neighbourhood, I have to wonder what her thoughts will be.

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I wish to G-d I did not have to write this letter but write it I will because you need to know.

This morning in the religious neighborhood of Har Nof, Jerusalem, at 07:01, men were saying their morning prayers, prayer shawls about their shoulders and phylacteries on their foreheads as is commanded; two terrorists walked in to the synagogue armed with machetes and guns and hacked four Jews to death, maiming and injuring 13 others.The lives of 5 others hang in the balance including two policemen that rushed to the synagogue when they heard the gunshots.  So far there are 26 newly-orphaned Jewish children

The terrorists knew each and every one of the men they attacked. One was the janitor of the synagogue, one worked opposite in the convenience store; both were Israeli citizens, with blue Israeli ID's, both were incited to hatred by others and found themselves capable of the most horrific of all. Perhaps they saw the Da'esh broadcasts of beheadings because this is no different.

The immediate reaction of Hamas leader Khaled Mashal was to announce that Israeli Arabs are in the best position to slaughter Jews since they have freedom of movement. The terrorists were from Jabel Mukaber (next to Armon ha Natziv) and the UN HQ was just a tiny village with 10 houses and during the last Intifada while we were busy with exploding buses they built thousands of houses and imported residents from Hebron. 

The BBC barely mentioned it; CNN on line actually said 6 people died in an attack, 4 Israelis and 2 Palestinians after the suspected hanging of an Arab bus driver. The bus driver, a respected member of Egged, committed suicide but the Palestinian Authority spread a rumour he was killed.

Until the world wakes up to the horror of what these people do, that it has nothing to do with human rights or supposed stolen lands, that their single intent is to kill Jews, this will not stop. Thanks to the vast sums of "aid" and the evil UNWRA Hamas is currently the second wealthiest terror organisation in the world but they will not spread the wealth to provide succour to their people because then they will not be angry.

Israel does not release the names of the slain until their families have been informed and until now just two names have been released - Rabbi Meir Twerski, renowned and highly respected Rabbi and humanist. 

Reb  Avrohom Shmuel  Goldberg originally from Liverpool in the UK.

May their souls rest in peace; their families be consoled among the mourners of Zion. Baruch Dayan Emet.

  

Jerusalem is crying; Israel is crying; I am crying. Will no-one wipe my tears?

With love

Sheila

Hamas’s Financial Success

Jerusalem Post  16^th Nov. 

For full article see http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Hamass-riches-381890

Hamas, which rules Gaza, has been named as the world’s second-richest terrorist organization in the latest issue of Forbes Israel. It rakes in around $1 billion annually, outdone only by Islamic State which – with an annual income of some $2b. – tops the chart of terrorist moneybags.

Hamas’s financial success by far eclipses that of Hezbollah, Taliban and al-Qaida.

Hamas’s chief source of earnings, according to the exhaustive Forbes report, comes from skimming hefty sums off foreign NGO donations and putting the squeeze on ordinary Gazans – the very ones the NGOs ostensibly seek to aid.

Hamas taxes them to the hilt, imposes harsh penalties and fees, and trades in the black market. All provisions and material that enter the Gaza Strip fall under the control of Hamas gangsters who garner lavish profits from their distribution and/or sale.

Such supplies enrich Hamas such as their using cement earmarked for civilian construction to reinforce labyrinthine attack tunnels into Israel.

The Forbes data should, if nothing else, induce a sobering reassessment among donor organizations who, for all intents and proposes, are supporting the terrorist hierarchy that brings misery to Gaza and then pleads for overseas assistance to fix the damage.

The overlords who inflicted disaster on the population under their sway happen to be extremely affluent. Instead of going hat in hand to the international community, they might be asked to bankroll the reconstruction themselves. They have deep pockets. More than anything, Hamas uses cash from abroad to line its pockets further and underwrite its military capabilities.

The incontrovertible fact of the matter is that there is very little supervision over the foreign aid funneled into the Strip. Worse yet, the few token procedures that pass as pro forma oversight are sorely inadequate.

In December 2013, the European Court of Auditors could not account for a whopping €400 million of the aid the EU earmarked for the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, he noted. This money is missing, and it is anyone’s guess in whose hands it ended up and for what nefarious purposes.

Gericke added that this month the Court of Auditors found that 2.6 percent of the EU’s budget for “external relations, aid and enlargement” was misused. There’s no indication where the money is.

Gericke reckons that if this proportion is applied to the €450m. pledged to Gaza by the EU, it may plausibly (and quite conservatively) be deduced that in due course at least €11.7m. is likely to bolster Hamas’s coffers.

The international community, NGOs and assorted charities cannot insure fair play. They need to ask themselves whether they want their benevolent contributions to fall into the wrong hands. Do they want to prop up villainous fat cats instead of help the needy? The solicitation of contributions for the Hamas-run domain is part of an elaborate con. The international donors who promised $5.4b. to the Gaza regime in Cairo last month would do well to ascertain that they are not cast as dupes in a massive scam.

Misplaced generosity does far more harm than good.

Losing Control of the News Following Terror Attack

This article courtesy of Honest Reporting http://honestreporting.com/losing-control-of-the-news/ describes the emotions of a parent as reports of a terror attack unfold with rumours and more rumours until the facts unfold.

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. I was outside walking my dog when I got the call from my daughter.

“Dad, there’s been a terrorist attack at my school. The teachers told us all to call home.” “Where are you now?” I asked.

“We’re at the school and the Army and police are everywhere, but I don’t know what happened yet.”

“O.K., call me again when you know more.”

From my phone, I checked out a few websites of Israeli media. There were stories about the stabbing in Tel Aviv earlier in the day, but no breaking news of a local terrorist attack yet.

My eldest daughter and my youngest son go to schools in an educational complex (referred to as the “Matnas”) near the community of Alon Shevut. The complex houses two girls high schools, an elementary school, a swimming pool, basketball court, and the regional municipal offices. A couple thousand kids go to school there (including two of mine) and in the afternoon, they often walk over to the bus stop on the corner and take either an Egged bus or catch a ride with someone. Right down the road is the regional police station and an army base. People pick their kids up from there after school all the time.

The bus stop across from the school entrance is very close from the one where the three teenagers were kidnapped and murdered at the beginning of the summer. Yet the kidnapping took place at night long after the schools were closed for the day. Usually, with school in session and armed guards right at the entrance, it is considered a safe enough place.

Five minutes after my daughter’s call, my other daughter called me. This year she started school on the Golan, a few hours away. But many of her friends still attend school at the Matnas.

“Dad, I heard a girl from the school was just killed. She was 14.” I could hear the panic in her voice. She is 14.

“How did you hear?” I asked. “People are putting this on ‘WhatsApp” (a texting app)

I told her to hold on, that nothing official had appeared in the media yet.

At this point, the kids in the schools started posting all sorts of rumors. At one time, two school girls were reported killed, a 14 year old and a 17 year old. Even though I had just spoken with both my daughters, they happen to be 14 and 17. I furiously started checking out every website for more information.

At this point, the media knew there was a story. But since only minutes had passed, there was little concrete information available. So what did they do? Not wanting to risk missing the story, they started reporting some of the rumors spreading on the internet as facts. The Times of Israel ran a headline referring to a murdered 14 year old. Other articles said that the terrorist had been killed by soldiers.

Now that it was in the media, many people started posting the news reports on social media. Facebook and Twitter fed the media which in turn fed the social networks. It was a huge cycle of disinformation caused by an immense desire to know everything instantly. Something that is just not possible.

It took about 45 minutes for the full details to come to light. That is actually amazingly fast.

But it seemed to take forever.

A terrorist had driven his car into the bus stop, missing the people there. He then jumped out of his car and stabbed to death 26 year old Dalia Lemkus. He then turned his knife on another man waiting at the stop. A passerby saw what was going on, stopped his car, and tried to wrestle the attacker to the ground. While this was happening, one of the high school girls who was at the scene ran to the school gate and yelled for the guard. He responded immediately and ran about 50 meters to where he could shoot the terrorist. The girl who had called for help gave her version of events to other girls there. Within seconds, the schools were locked down, and the news was flying from the students’ phones.

It is an important lesson in the way we get information today. Sometimes stories are written that report inaccuracies because of the bias of the journalist. We certainly have seen our share of those, and it’s what we spend most of our time at HonestReporting fighting.

But other times, the nature of how information spreads these days and our need to know what happened instantly is what allows false information to be published.

I was standing outside with my phone, going from one site to another trying to figure out what had happened. While I knew the first reports would most likely be wrong, with my daughter so close to the scene, I was desperate for information. I did not want to wait those 45 minutes — and I’m someone who works with the media every day.

The proliferation of smart phones and other mobile internet devices means that not only can one be a consumer of news at any time, but also that anyone can be a journalist within seconds. Anyone who happens to be be close to where a news event occurs becomes a reporter. And the media take those reports as seriously as those filled by professional correspondents.

It’s just something to keep in mind that unless you have actually seen something in person, it would be best not to post on social media before the facts come to light. I am sure I was not the only one using every source I could think of at the time to learn what happened. Reporting news is a huge responsibility, and what you put on social media can spread further than you could imagine.

Israeli Plants Resistant to Climate Change

Ayalim Association http://ayalim.org/ was founded in 2002 with the goal of strengthening existing communities and social involvement in the Negev and Galilee. The Association’s role is to revive the former pioneering spirit  in the 21st century and with means to achieve this goal through the establishment of student and entrepreneur villages.

A recently published study by Ayalim shows that while Israel, like the rest of the world, is expected to be impacted by the effect of global warming, Israel’s plans are more resilient than other plant species when it comes to being able to withstand the stresses of global warming. The study took place over the course of a few years and included scientists from Israel, Germany and the United States.

They studied a variety of different plant species from around the world under conditions similar to those expected to occur due to climate changes.  The researchers assumed that different species of flora, including oats, barley and a range of flowering plants and clover would either die of or disperse their seeds in an attempt to find cooler locations with more rainfall.  When it came to these Israeli plant species, many did not.

The researchers explain that over the past 1000 years, these plan species have become increasingly resilient.  The results of this study are making climate researchers rethink the impacts of global warming on Israel and the surrounding region.  One of the researchers commented by saying that  “plant communities in the Holy Land can cope with climate change of ‘biblical’ dimensions.”

"Our plants are strong and so our the people of Israel!" says the spokesman 

The Situation on Jerusalem's Temple Mount:

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the two Jewish Temples were located, is the holiest site in Judaism. Called Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) by Muslims, the site now contains the Dome of the Rock as well as the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is considered to be the third holiest site in Islam.

The al-Aqsa Mosque is situated at the southern end of the Temple Mount plaza (esplanade), covering a relatively small part of its surface. Moreover, all evidence places the historical Jewish Temples on a different part of the Temple Mount than that now occupied by the mosque.

When Israel reunited Jerusalem in 1967, it decided to allow the Islamic Waqf to continue to administer the site. Israel also chose to uphold the existing status quo, according to which non-Muslims can visit the Temple Mount at fixed times, but are not permitted to conduct any prayers. Moreover, non-Muslims who visit the Temple Mount cannot enter the al-Aqsa Mosque itself and are limited to visiting other parts of the site, mainly the large open spaces.

It is very important to note that the Government of Israel is committed to maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount and will oppose all proposals to change it.

In the past few months, Palestinian radicals have been trying to breach the status quo by preventing Christians and Jews from visiting the Temple Mount. Palestinian rioters - incited by Hamas and the radical branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel - have attacked visitors as well as the police with stones and fireworks, using the al-Aqsa Mosque as their base of operations. The Israeli authorities have sought to contain these attempts by Islamist extremists to escalate the situation on the Temple Mount.

The ridiculous accusations that Israel plans to harm the al-Aqsa Mosque are utterly baseless. The fact that they are made not only by Islamist extremists but also by the mainstream Palestinian leadership is alarming and dangerous.

It is the Palestinian rioters themselves who are defiling the al-Aqsa Mosque by transforming it into a base for attacks. They use the mosque's furniture as barricades and launch fireworks from inside its premises, where carpets and wooden beams could easily catch fire. The rioters are also demonstrating their disrespect for the many Muslim worshippers who simply wish to pray in peace, as well as for the Islamic Waqf that manages the site.

The Israeli Police, which is responsible for public order in Jerusalem, takes extra care not to hurt the sensitivities of Muslim worshippers on the Temple Mount. Officers only enter the area in specific cases when riots have to be controlled. Moreover, as a matter of policy, the police never enter the mosque itself. Although they often find themselves in life-threatening situations, police officers who operate on the Temple Mount are equipped merely with non-lethal measures.

Both Muslim worshippers and visitors from other faiths are expected to respect the status quo. Anyone who breaks the rules will be dealt with accordingly by the police, whether they are Muslim, Jewish or members of another faith.

Israel places the highest value on upholding freedom of religion and worship. Jewish holy sites (like the Western Wall), are open to visitors of all faiths, as are the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

The following is a link to a video clip which shows Palestinian rioters desecrating and endangering the al-Aqsa Mosque they pretend to protect:

http://youtu.be/I5mcCA6UF9I

Terror attack in Jerusalem

According to initial media reports, a Palestinian terrorist used his car to deliberately drive into a crowd of Israelis near a light-rail train station in Jerusalem around noon today (Israel time). 

The driver from eastern Jerusalem (member of Hamas) sped away and then crashed into a second group of pedistrians and other cars. Shortly afterwards, the terrorist exited his car and attacked passers-by with a metal pole. The terrorist was shot dead by the police.

One person was killed and approximately nine people were injured, including two in serious condition.

This is the second deliberate attack on a Jerusalem light-rail station using a vehicle in recent times. The last car attack, which took place exactly two weeks ago (Wednesday, 22 October), killed Chaya Zissel Braun, a three-month-old dual Israeli-American citizen and 22-year old Karen Jemima Mosquera, originally from Ecuador. 

Christian in Haifa Expresses his Vews

A view of one of, what I believe, is the silent majority. what a pity that they feel threatened when expressing the opinions. 

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JH. is not an ordinary man. J who was born in Haifa identifies himself firstly as an Israeli citizen: secondly as a Christian and lastly an Arab. An Israeli-Christian-Arab in that order. He has a strong conviction that the Jews have a  claim on Israel. Two things make Joseph extra ordinary: his thoughts about Jews and his lack of fear in expressing those views.

 He is 38 years old, married with 4 children, two sons and two daughters. After high school Joseph studied accountancy and business management at Haifa University. His acquired knowledge helped him build a business making custom made furniture in his workshop in Downtown Haifa. He speaks with pride when he says he owns is own home and can provide for his family.

J. admires the Jewish people and calls them ‘brilliant’.  ‘From nothing’ he says ‘they have built a great nation’. He sees them as a people with unique God given abilities that think creatively and make good managers in business. He also believes that the Jews have a historical right to claim Israel as their national homeland with Jerusalem as the capital. These views would cost J. his life if spoken in the West Bank or Gaza: even in some Arab communities within Israel he could expect persecution by way of rejection. He states that many Christian Arabs feel this way but are too afraid of speaking out.

J. wants a strong Israel. When Israel shows weakness he says Christian Arabs feel insecure. With concern he sites the recent wars and compares them with the Yom Kippur war in 1967 when Israel took Jerusalem for its capital. Since 67 Israel have gained nothing from their battles. He highlights the recent war in Gaza and asks after all the losses on both sides what has Israel gained? Hamas lives to fight again. This he says is a weakness of Israel’s leadership and a recipe for disaster.

J. says to survive in Israel a man needs a dream. His dream is to enter into politics and have a place in the Knesset. He speaks of Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King as men who had dreams and became leaders. Today he is a hard working carpenter: tomorrow could be a different story.

Healthcare for Palestinians

From the Director of International Public Relations - Emek Medical Center, Afula

It borders on the incomprehensible how the western, educated, cultured, democratic and ‘balanced’ world focuses its media-generated wrath against Israel.  Better to remember that no country on this earth is beyond constructive criticism, especially western super-power societies with dubious histories of their own.  But – let’s not go there.

As is our trademark, I want to share with you something positive so as to offer you a choice on what to focus … something positive and uplifting, instead of depressing negativity.     

Nivin was born in Ramallah (in the Palestinian Authority), married and now lives with her husband in East Jerusalem.  Her battle with breast cancer brought her into the sphere of Sonja Dinner, a Swiss-based international philanthropist who cares deeply about the plight of women in Arab societies.  Sonja is providing invaluable support for the creation of Emek’s Comprehensive Breast Care Center and decided to step out of the box and bring Nivin to Emek for a sensitive and necessary surgical procedure. 

Get the picture?  A Muslim Arab woman living in a society where such things are not even openly discussed, from an area that could be the flashpoint for another war, traveling through checkpoints with her Palestinian Muslim husband to Israel’s Emek Medical Center – the mecca of coexistence through medicine – to be treated by a team of Jewish & Arab Israeli physicians for a disease that women in her society suffer from in silence.

Nivin, her husband and Sonja met with Emek’s Professor Dan Hershko (Head of Surgery ‘B”) and Dr. Azziz Shoufani (Head of Plastic Surgery).  She was examined and later operated on in what proved to be a highly successful procedure.  With Sonja’s help and encouragement, Nivin is now a role model for other women in her society and is helping to break through Arab taboos surrounding this deadly disease.                  

  

Sonja Dinner (left) with Nivin in her East Jerusalem home

Expert medical attention (unavailable in the Palestinian healthcare network) was called for and they came to Israel, to Emek.  Another in a long line of Palestinians who have been saved here.

I’m proud to be living in a country where offering such help is the norm.  I’m even more proud of Emek’s humanitarian professionals who, through their fingers and hands flow the magic of healing and ultimate reconciliation. 

It is unsensational acts such as these that represent real hope.  Do you understand that?  

Hamas dependants can go to Israeli hospitals but not Gazans!

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Major General Yoav Mordechai, on Monday accused Hamas of a double standard for allowing the daughter of the group's leader Ismail Haniyeh to receive medical treatment in Israel.

"When there is a personal interest, Hamas has no problem in allowing patients to come into Israel," Mordechai said during an interview with the Palestinian news agency Ma'an.

Mordecai criticized Hamas conduct during Operation Protective Edge, claiming that the group's leaders prevented injured Gazans from reaching the field hospital set up by Israel on the Gaza border.

The hospitalized girl is one of Haniyeh's 13 children. She suffered complications from routine treatment, was transferred to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv via the Erez Crossing, and sent back to her home last week.

When Israel receives a request for treatment, it is not interested in the relatives of the patient, whether it's Haniyeh or some other people," said Mordecai.

"Haniyeh's daughter is one of more than the one thousand patients from the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority areas, both adults and children, that we treat each year," said Ichilov Hospital in response.

A Palestinian source told the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the treatment and transfer of the patient had been coordinated with the Palestinian Authority, and that relatives of other Palestinian officials had also been treated in Israel in the past.

Gazans Speak Out: Hamas War Crimes

 Mudar Zahran September 19, 2014

Full report at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4706/gazan-hamas-war-crimes#

Mudar Zahran is a Palestinian writer and academic from Jordan, who resides in the UK.

"If Hamas does not like you for any reason all they have to do now is say you are a Mossad agent and kill you." — A., a Fatah member in Gaza.

"Hamas wanted us butchered so it could win the media war against Israel showing our dead children on TV and then get money from Qatar." — T., former Hamas Ministry officer.

"They would fire rockets and then run away quickly, leaving us to face Israeli bombs for what they did." — D., Gazan journalist.

"Hamas imposed a curfew: anyone walking out in the street was shot. That way people had to stay in their homes, even if they were about to get bombed. Hamas held the whole Gazan population as a human shield." — K., graduate student

"The Israeli army allows supplies to come in and Hamas steals them. It seems even the Israelis care for us more than Hamas." — E., first-aid volunteer.

"We are under Hamas occupation, and if you ask most of us, we would rather be under Israeli occupation… We miss the days when we were able to work inside Israel and make good money. We miss the security and calm Israel provided when it was here." — S., graduate of an American university, former Hamas sympathizer.

While the world's media has been blaming Israel for the death of Gazan civilians during Operation Protective Edge, this correspondent decided to speak with Gazans themselves to hear what they had to say.

They spoke of Hamas atrocities and war crimes implicating Hamas in the civilian deaths of its own people.

Although Gazans, fearful of Hamas's revenge against them, were afraid to speak to the media, friends in the West Bank offered introductions to relatives in Gaza. One, a renowned Gazan academic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that as soon as someone talked to a Western journalist, he was immediately questioned by Hamas and accused of "communicating with the Mossad". "Hamas makes sure that the average Gazan will not talk to Western journalists -- or actually any journalists at all," he said, continuing:

       "Hamas does not want the truth about Gaza to come out. Hamas 
        terrorizes and kills us just like Daesh [ISIS] terrorizes kills Iraqis. Hamas           is a  dictatorship that kills us. The Gazans you see praising Hamas on TV           are either Hamas members or too afraid to speak against Hamas. Few               foreign [Western] journalists were probably able to report what Gazans             think of Hamas."

Many more comments in the full report at  http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4706/gazan-hamas-war-crimes#

Mahmoud Abbas’s Dangerous Grandstanding

Washington Post Editorial Board, September 29  

For full article go to   http://tinyurl.com/m5azgul  

  

THE GOOD news from the Middle East is that the truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has held for a month, and Hamas appears ready to make concessions to avoid a resumption of fighting. Last week the Islamist movement renewed its agreement with the secular Fatah party to turn over Gaza’s government and security control of its borders to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Though it’s not clear that the accord will last, Hamas is emerging as the loser of the summer war. According to Israel, as much as 80 percent of Hamas’s military arsenal has been destroyed, and its poll ratings among Palestinians are sinking as it fails to deliver the gains it promised from the conflict.

Hamas’s diminution might seem to create new possibilities for agreement between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Abbas, after all, denounced Hamas’s embrace of carnage and refused to support a simultaneous uprising in the West Bank. Yet Mr. Abbas delivered a bridge-burning speech to the U.N. General Assembly last week, mendaciously accusing Israel of “a new war of genocide” and declaring that a return to negotiations was “impossible.”

For several years Mr. Abbas has oscillated between half-hearted participation in peace talks and attempts to advance the Palestinian cause through unilateral action at the United Nations. The latter initiatives have no chance of substantive success and risk being self-defeating, as the Palestinians should have learned from Mr. Abbas’s last such gambit in 2012. Then their lobbyists were unable to win enough support for a U.N. Security Council resolution even to force a U.S. veto, and a compensatory symbolic measure in the General Assembly provoked Israel to impose painful financial sanctions.

Mr. Abbas nevertheless is trying the Security Council again, after refusing to respond to a U.S. framework for peace talks painstakingly developed by Secretary of State John F. Kerry. He proposes a resolution that would mandate the creation of a Palestinian state based on Israel’s 1967 borders in a set period of time; when it is voted down or vetoed by the United States, the Palestinians hint that they will seek a war crimes investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court. That, in turn, would almost certainly prompt retaliatory sanctions by Mr. Netanyahu’s government and possibly by Congress, which supplies the Palestinian Authority with much of its funding.

Mr. Abbas has repeatedly rejected violence, and he has convinced a series of U.S. and Israeli negotiators that he has a realistic view of the terms for a Palestinian state. Yet he has now rejected platforms for a settlement on two occasions from two U.S. presidents. He persists in grandstanding gestures that he must know will only delay the serious negotiations that must precede the creation of a Palestinian state and that undermine those in Israel who support such talks. He has spoken for years of retiring but, at 79, he clings to his post four years after his elected term expired. Hamas has done the most harm to Palestinians and their cause in recent years. But Mr. Abbas has done little good.

Co-existence in the Children’s Ward

Debra Kamin September 11, 2014,

http://www.timesofisrael.com/co-existence-in-the-childrens-ward/

 

At Rambam Hospital in Haifa, kids from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are studying together in between treatments

Hodaya is 8 years old and her favorite color is pink. She is small for her age, and over her tiny, pale face she wears a green paper surgical mask.

Hodaya would have loved to join the millions of Israeli students who went back to school on September 1, but she couldn’t. That’s because Hodaya is suffering from an aggressive form of bone cancer, and like dozens of other children at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital, she can’t leave the building.

Instead, Hodaya goes to school for a few hours a day inside of the hospital building. And while she doesn’t have the shiny new backpack, the gleaming locker or the pages upon pages of homework that other students in Israel have, she has something that none of them can even dream of: friends from Gaza and the West Bank, who are hospitalized alongside her and learning in the same classroom.

At Rambam, which is the largest medical center in the country’s north and one of Israel’s most renowned, pediatric education follows the same model as it does in hospitals across the country: the Education Ministry oversees curriculum and coursework, and sets mandates for the number of hours each day that hospitalized children must attend class.

But when you have 5-year-olds on dialysis and 11-year-olds undergoing chemotherapy, nothing, not even math homework, is normal. And at Rambam, where on average half of the beds in the pediatric wing are filled by children from Gaza and the West Bank, the banalities of reading, writing and arithmetic become even more surreal.

 

Dima Chamra, an Arab art therapist at Rambam, greets

17-year-old Sana Charoob, a patient from Jenin (left),

while Amtaz Manfor, a Druze teacher at Rambam, stands

behind 8-year-old patient Simdosh Chansan Jamal, also

from Jenin (right). (photo credit: Ofer Golan)

“We try to make them feel as normal as possible, even though it’s not a normal thing to be hospitalized,” says Ilana Levy, who manages all of the hospital education centers in Haifa, including that of Rambam. “We don’t care where you are from. We have Jews here, Christians, Arabs. We have children from Gaza. During the war, while there was fighting every day, we had children from Gaza sitting next to religious Jews in class. It doesn’t matter. We love all the children here and want to keep their lives as normal as possible.”

Classes at Israel’s hospitals ramped up on the first day of September, just as they did at schools around the country. Classrooms, which are divided by age group, all have an Arab-speaking teacher and a Hebrew-speaking teacher, and several have special assistants like art therapists or volunteers doing their national service. Classes generally run from 8:45 a.m. until 2 p.m., as they do in schoolhouses throughout Israel, but students come and go depending on their treatment schedules and how they are feeling each day.

“They come and they learn, and we really get attached to them,” says Lila Yahiach, one of the teachers in the oncology unit. Yahiach is Muslim, and she shares her classroom with Yehudit Levy, a religious Jew, as well as a Jewish national service volunteer named Hodaya Toledanu (no relation to the patient). Yahiach speaks in Arabic to the Arabic-speaking students, Levy speaks in Hebrew to the Jewish students — but both insist they feel the same connection, and the same responsibility, for everyone in their classroom.

Shilat Levy, a five-year-old patient at Rambam, is

Jewish and from Haifa. (photo credit: Ofer Golan)

Asked if she believes the students inside of Rambam can sometimes learn more about the outside world than their peers in Jewish-only or Muslim-only schools in the region, Yahiach immediately says yes. “Some of the students come here, and they speak only Arabic, but, it’s like anywhere – they make friends,” she says. “So they also want to learn Hebrew. And they start to, so they can talk with each other. They are kids. Of course they want to talk to each other.”

The ratio of Jewish to Muslim students is always in flux, although hospital officials say it generally sits at an even split. This week, as the school year opens, there are four students from Gaza, all of them hospitalized full-time. Some of them have been at the hospital for years, living there with their families while they undergo intensive treatment. There are 12 students from the Palestinian Authority, including five from Jenin. In the past the hospital also housed a number of Syrian children who were brought across the border for treatment. (The Gaza and PA kids’ treatments are paid for by the Palestinian Authority and they come to the hospital as medical tourists. The education costs are covered by the hospital and the Education Ministry, which stipulates that all kids in Israeli hospitals get schooling regardless of where they live.)

One of those students from the West Bank, Muhammad, is 12 years old. He shares a classroom with Hodaya in the surgery department, and while Hodaya practices writing the Hebrew alphabet with her Hebrew-speaking teacher, he sits alongside his instructor, a Druze teacher named Amtaz Manfor, and together they practice reading and writing English.

“English is the language of the world,” Muhammad, who also wears a mask to protect himself from contamination in the classroom, says. “So I like learning it. And my teacher likes speaking it.”

Manfor, who wears the traditional white veil of Druze women, hugs Muhammad and laughs. “I do like English,” she says. “And he is a good student.”
Also in the classroom are two girls from Gaza, who are gluing multi-colored sequins onto pieces of white paper with Dima Chamra, a Christian Arab who is a trained art therapist.

“It’s stressful here,” she says in English before giving a direction to the girls in Arabic. “The art is really helpful for them. It gives them an outlet. Some of them are here for a very long time.”

Dr. Rafael Beyar, Rambam’s director general, says that inside of a hospital, there is no place for politics.

 “This is really a way for us to show that coexistence can happen,” he says of the classrooms in the pediatric wing. “We have Jewish and Muslim kids, Arab kids, kids from Gaza, kids with cancer, kids with kidney diseases, kids that stay here for a very long time. The hospital becomes their home. And whn you live together and you also learn together.”

Rambam has recently undergone a series of massive renovations and reconstructions, including the unveiling of a cutting-edge hybrid parking garage/underground hospital facility that is fully fortified. The shimmering Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital, a cheerful, light-filled new pediatric building, had its soft opening this summer. The children interviewed for this story are still being housed in the old building, but Beyar says that once all the pediatric cases have been moved to the new unit, classes will be larger and offer more chances for children from across the region to learn alongside each other and even become friends.

“A life is a life,” Beyar says. “It doesn’t matter where the patient comes from or what his religion or opinions are. We are care for patients, we educate the children who live here at the hospital, and we stay out of political arguments.”