And the Heavens Opened

This week the heavens opened finally. The picture shows a sight not often seen in Israel, taken in Zichron Yaacov. After a great two weeks of summer style weather for our visitor from the USA, Monday saw a rapid change. The extensive rains will hopefully bring some much needed water to the Lake Kinneret. The Kinneret which provides water to Israel, the Palestinians and Jordan under the terms of the peace treaty started the winter 3.75 meters below its maximum.

In a good year the winter rains can bring a further 2 meters of water to the lake so unless we have an exceptional winter, we are going to see the lake move into the next summer still well below its maximum.

The heavens also opened for the Annapolis conference. America has once again backed down from its stated position that the conference will deal with the Israel Palestinian issue only. Now it is crawling to Syria and offering them the chance to raise the Golan issue at the conference. What hypocracy.

The enemies of the West build on the certainty that with enough resolution they can get what they want without giving up on anything. Syria is just the latest example.

More on Annapolis

It concerns me that we seem to becoming immune to the daily (yes daily reports) such as the one below received from the army spokesman’s office.

“Overnight, 3 Palestinian gunmen attempted to infiltrate into Israel through the security fence between Israel and the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

An observation force identified the three gunmen as they were attempting to cross the fence into Israel in the area of the Israeli community of Nativ Ha'asara. The gunmen exchanged fire with an IDF post near the security fence.

A Golani brigade force responded by firing at the gunmen and identified hitting two of them. There were no injuries to IDF soldiers.

Yesterday, approximately 25 Kassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. Over 135 were fired since the beginning of November.”

Yet here we are off to Annapolis in a matter of days (even though the invitations have still not been issued) and we don’t even know who is going to attend.

In today’s paper, only one commentator was expressing optimism, all others pessimism as to the outcome. Meanwhile the army is on high alert and expecting attacks as Annapolis approaches. The army reports at “least 10 high level alerts”.

Further, at a time when so many are pessimistic as to the outcome, in the Western Negev, the reactions to Annapolis are apparent day by day. Since the beginning of the month, official sources say that 110 Kassam rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza into the Western Negev.

Almost 200,000 Israeli citizens -- including Ashkelon, Sderot and over 20 kibbutzim and Moshavim, now live under the daily bombardment of kasssam missiles fired from Gaza, while Egypt has facilitated the flow of hundreds of thousands of weapons, Ammunition since Israel's disengagement in August 2005, whole allowing Hamas to build a well trained organized army which numbers 13,000 fighters, many having had special training in Iran.

This is the surreal situation we are in.

Mohammed Al Dura tapes from France 2

Finally France 2 has produced some 18 mins of the tapes of the Mohammed Al Dura incident out of the 27 mins they pocess.

See the reactions of some of those present at the hearing in the video clip below
I don't think any further comment is nessary

Are We Facing Another War?

Yuval Steinitz, former Chair and Current Member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee gave an interesting talk here in Haifa this week in which he stated that much of the over optimism and, to some degree, arrogance in the Israel Defense Forces has now been eliminated after the consequences of the second Lebanon war last year.

He was also advocating a much stronger role for non army personnel in security decisions; he himself came from the department of Philosophy at Haifa University.

In his view, future warfare is more likely to be carried out by lazer technology and much effort and money is being invested in this field. He pointed out that almost 90% of the cost of an attack aircraft is the defense systems installed to protect the aircraft, whilst only 10% of the cost is designated for the attack role of the aircraft. He believes much more needs to be invested in defense systems for the military infrastructure.

Steinitz was a member of Peace Now in the past, an organization dedicated to the land for peace solution to the conflict but he stated that after the experience in Lebanon and Gaza, it is now not a case of land for peace but a case of land for war and continued incitement.

With the Annapolis conference in everyone’s sights now, he felt that, the attempts to strengthen Abbas were, in his opinion, doomed to failure. The reason for this, he felt was that Abbas was not in a position to give anything in return, since, on the one hand, by not giving anything in return, he could maintain his position vis a vis the Palestinian population at large. On the other hand, by giving something in return, he would be considered weak. This is the trap facing Israel.

Where are the future water supplies coming from?

The International Water Technologies and Environmental Control exhibition - WATEC 2007 - was full of innovative ideas for the desert regions of the Middle East held in Tel Aviv recently, aiming to find solutions for the world's desperate need for new sources of fresh water.

The exhibition, which featured over 2,000 visitors from 80 countries worldwide, dealt extensively with Israeli-developed water technology in fields as diverse as desalination, waste recycling for agricultural purposes, security from pollution and water terrorism, and the joint Israeli-Jordanian Red Sea-Dead Sea Conduit (RSDSC) project.

With the Israeli water management expertise leading the way, hundreds of overseas visitors came to survey the latest developments on display. Visitors from the governments of China, Italy, France, Austria and Germany were on hand to discuss partnerships with Israel aimed at alleviating the planet's water resource problems.

Abounding with lasers, filters, pipes and other gadgets, the exhibition room was a revelation into the multi faceted dynamics of water technology. In one of the largest displays, representatives from Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research mingled with exhibition-goers to talk about the 11 bilateral cooperation projects currently operating between Israel and Germany.

The SMART Project – a cooperative venture between research institutions, private sector companies and government organizations in Germany, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan – aims to boost the availability of groundwater in the Lower Jordan Rift Valley.

Amongst other devices shown were:-

- a device for purifying wastewater, rendering it fit for agricultural irrigation by using bacteriological treatment. Israel currently recycles 75% of its wastewater.

- a company offering to provide water security against accidental as well as intentional chemical and biological pollution, also known as water terrorism.

- and one of 20 Israeli startups who exhibited, introduced its personal purification device- a compact 100-gram water filter that fits onto the top of most standard narrow-neck bottles, and allows its user to drink from almost any groundwater source.

Looks like after the success of the high tech industry, followed by the biomedic field, water is going to be the next “Silicon Valley” industry

Annapolis here we come??!!

So, it seems the Annapolis conference is on its way. A date of November 25th is being suggested. As one who has been involved in negotiations with the Trade Unions of the UK in their heyday before moving here, it seems to me that the “shopping list” of demands is somehow rather distorted.

On November 5th, Mahmoud Abbas spoke in Ramallah, in Arabic of course, and made clear his commitments and demands. Now, I have no experience of international negotiations but having looked at the translation, I feel that no further comment is necessary.

For the Palestinians, Abbas reiterated that he is committed to implementing and abiding by the obligations under stage one of the road map. What that really means is anyone’s guess, since stronger leaders than Abbas have said the same and not implemented a thing. So, what confidence there can be in the weak Abbas’s statement that he will implement anything?

Abbas then continued for the rest of his speech on his expectations of the commitments from Israel:-

a) Freezing settlement activity, including natural growth
b) Removal of settlements
c) Opening institutions Jerusalem that were closed prior to September 2000
d) Release of prisoners
e) Removal of checkpoints in the West Bank
f) Israel to stop its military aggressions in the West Bank and Gaza
g) Stop confiscation of land
h) Stop demolition of houses
i) Stop construction of the wall
j) Stop assassinations
k) Not to affect the humanitarian needs of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.

Now if negotiations were to be really serious, I would have thought that somewhere in the speech there would have been some reference to terror, the need to build a social infrastructure for the Palestinians (Israel built the hospitals, Universities, clinics, etc, in the period 1967 -1990, nothing has been built since), the need to develop a judiciary, but no. What I see is the longer shopping list of demands with no specific plan for dealing with the root of the problem.

A Humanitarian Crisis?

“If the economic sanctions that Israel has applied against the Gaza Strip in reducing fuel supplies are to be regarded as collective punishment, so should the economic sanctions that were imposed against South Africa during the apartheid years, or those against Iran today”’ writes Dan Izenberg in the Jerusalem Post.

Although there is lots of talk about cutting off supplies of electricity and fuel to Gaza and the humanitarian crisis that would result, the courts are preparing to hear this week a petitioners' request for a show-cause order to cancel the original decision.

What has actually happened thus far is that amount of gasoline allowed into Gaza had been cut from an average of 350,000-400,000 liters per week to 300,000 liters and the government is also considering a further, gradual reduction.

Diesel exports were cut from 1.4 million liters per week to 1.2 million liters. A government spokesman stated that "according to government estimates, the amount of fuel necessary to fulfill the Gaza Strip's humanitarian needs does not amount to more than 50 percent of the amount supplied today, and this is a conservative estimate which provides a significant safety margin."

The spokesman added that the export of diesel for use in Gaza's power station had been reduced from an average of 2.2 million liters to 1.75 million per week. It said that in September, the Palestinians in Gaza had added a third turbine to provide additional power. When only two turbines operate, the power station produces 55 megawatts of electricity. When the third one functions, supply goes up to 63 megawatts. The drop in diesel exports imposed by Israel last week means that the amount of electricity provided for Gaza will return to the pre-September level.

All in all, hardly a humanitarian crisis but meanwhile at least one woman was suffering from shock after three Kassam rockets were fired at Sderot late Sunday morning, Israel Radio reported. One of the rockets hit a house and another hit an electrical line, causing a complete blackout in the western Negev town.

The siren system and 106 emergency hotline were offline following the attack, leaving the town's residents without even the means to prepare in case another rocket salvo would follow later in the day.

And so the deliberate targeting of the Israeli civilians goes on.