Israel

Has Israel "destroyed more fauna and flora than anyone in history?" Were the early Zionist pioneers "racists" and "colonialists"? Is Israel's democratic form of government no more durable than the Arab dictatorships? The answer is yes - according to the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at Villanova University. Amid the lush greenery and serene atmosphere of Villanova's campus in suburban Philadelphia, the Arab and Islamic Center is working overtime to blacken Israel's name through lectures, seminars, literature and the media.

Listening to the talk shows and interview programs, one tires of hearing malicious and fallacious statements charging Israel with being responsible for both the inception and practice of the current terrorism. Unfortunately, the hosts and interviewers do not sufficiently correct the slander and thereby, unwittingly, encourage the audience to accept the lies as truths. What does Israel have to do with the terrorism committed by Iraq and Iran against each other? Where is Israel's involvement in the massacres committed in Lebanon by the Muslims against the Christians and vice versa?

Against a backdrop of furling flags and frigid temperatures, an estimated 2,500 people gathered in Center City yesterday to light a fire for Israel. Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the rally at John F. Kennedy Plaza was organized in support of Israel's recent and controversial incursion into Gaza. Unlike similar events held around the country last week, the hour-long gathering went off without incident. No arrests were made, no rocks thrown, no anti-Semitic obscenities hurled.

After failing to persuade the United States to delay announcing a Mideast peace initiative, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned yesterday that "only Israel" can make decisions affecting its security. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, meanwhile, blamed Netanyahu for creating "a real impasse" and said the United States "needs to intervene urgently to put the peace process back on track. " Netanyahu said in Jerusalem that "The United States can - and from our point of view ought to - propose different ways of helping the parties to make progress in the process.

When I look at a world map, I sometimes wonder what the insane fuss in the Middle East is all about. Sure, I listen to the experts, the pundits and even Henry Kissinger. But then I look at the map and it still makes no sense. If I look closely and squint, I can find a country that has about 8,000 square miles. That's Israel. To give you an idea how small that is, you could take about 40 Israels and put them together and the whole thing would still be smaller than Texas.

On Friday afternoon, students at the Harry B. Kellman Academy of Beth El in Cherry Hill, ushered in the Sabbath with a song of support. At 2 p.m., they joined thousands of other children at similar schools across North America to sing music and lyrics in support of the children of Israel, who have been living through the nightmare of air raids and war. "Ahd yavoh Shalom," the students sang. It meant: until peace comes. The song was originally meant to be sung as a message of solidarity during wartime.

After a one-year hiatus in its Israel study program, Akiba Hebrew Academy in Merion Station has sent 42 high school juniors - 60 percent of the 11th-grade class - for a semester in Israel. School spokeswoman Hallie Freedman said that while the decision to study in Israel has been difficult for students and their families, it "shows a tremendous commitment to the state of Israel at a time when terrorist acts continue to devastate the region. " Students will study Jewish history, among other subjects, and take a series of trips throughout the country.

World leaders who reacted to the U.S. air strike against Libya early today generally expressed feelings ranging from embarrassment to horror, but Israel praised the United States for attacking the "bully" regime of Moammar Khadafy. In Britian, Neil Kinnock, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said, "I am horrified. People worldwide will condemn President Reagan's decision. That air strike was not the way to fight or defeat terrorism. " There was no immediate reaction from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose government permitted the United States to use bases on its soil as staging areas for the Air Force FB-111 jets used in the attack.

The recent election that drove the ultra-orthodox Shas Party out of Israel's ruling coalition and brought to prominence the staunchly secular Shinui Party is a revolution-in-the-making for the Jewish state. Rules about marriage, citizenship, military service, large-family subsidies, what is kosher, and even who is a Jew could all be overturned. One of Shinui's campaign planks was that Shas, the strongest of the religious parties, used ministerial power in previous governments to earmark tax money for its separatist network of schools, social services and synagogues - overburdening the overall economy in a society Shas wants little to do with.

Akiba Hebrew Academy, a private Jewish day school in Merion, has sent 49 junior students to spend five months studying and visiting sites in Israel. They will stay at the Alexander Muss Campus in Hod HaSharon along with students from other U.S. cities, Israel and Europe. LEADERSHIP PROGRAM Baldwin School juniors Sarah Gleich, Sarah Herold and Karen Unterecker attended a 1999 summer gathering of the National Young Leaders Conference sponsored by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council.

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waded Monday into one of Israel's deepest political morasses, urging lawmakers to find a "just" replacement for a law that has exempted tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews from compulsory military service. The Israeli leader appeared before a parliamentary committee charged with crafting a new draft law after the current system was deemed illegal by the country's Supreme Court. With a July 31 deadline looming, the committee must find a compromise palatable to both to secular and modern Orthodox religious parties, whose followers serve in the military, and to ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, who say their loyalists are serving the state by serving God. Netanyahu told the panel's first meeting that a more equitable sharing of the country's defense burden must be implemented gradually, and without pitting any one sector against another.

In May 1967, in brazen violation of previous truce agreements, Egypt ordered U.N. peacekeepers out of the Sinai, marched 120,000 troops to the Israeli border, blockaded Eilat (Israel's southern outlet to the world's oceans), abruptly signed a military pact with Jordan, and, together with Syria, pledged a war for the final destruction of Israel. May '67 was Israel's most fearful, desperate month. The country was surrounded and alone. Previous great-power guarantees proved worthless.

JERUSALEM - In a turn of events that could influence a possible Israeli strike on Iran, Israeli media reports early Tuesday indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reached an agreement with the Kadima opposition party for a unity government, canceling an early election. There was no immediate comment from official sources on the decision. The reports came as Israel's parliament held debates into the night over whether to break up ahead of early elections called for the fall.

JERUSALEM - The Palestinian prime minister pulled out of a planned meeting with Israel's leader on Tuesday, torpedoing what was set to be the highest-level talks between the sides in nearly two years. The meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, attended by two lower level Palestinian officials, lasted less than an hour and ended with a brief joint statement pledging to seek peace. It signaled little progress had been made. Even before Salam Fayyad's pullout, both sides played down expectations for the meeting, which the Palestinians portrayed as a last-ditch effort to salvage peace talks before the U.S. presidential election season.

JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister lambasted German poet and Nobel Prize laureate Guenter Grass on Thursday for saying Israel is a threat to world peace and for calling for international oversight of both Israeli and Iranian nuclear facilities. Grass, 84, published a poem in a German newspaper on Wednesday in which he questioned how Israel could call for ending Iran's nuclear program while holding what is widely believed to be its own atomic arsenal. Grass said he wrote the poem, titled "What Must Be Said," after Berlin sold Israel submarines that could launch nuclear warheads and that could potentially be used in an attack on Iran.

HEBRON, West Bank - Israeli security forces swiftly evicted dozens of Jewish settlers from an illegally occupied building in this volatile West Bank city on Wednesday, ending a weeklong standoff that had threatened to spill over into broader violence. The raid caught the settlers off guard. Only a day earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had moved to block the eviction order. Settler supporters in Netanyahu's hard-line government condemned the surprise raid, a key political ally threatened to quit the coalition, and settler leaders vowed retaliation.

Gov. Christie said Wednesday that his visit to Israel, where he has met this week with that nation's top leaders, will help strengthen diplomatic ties and drum up business back home. The Republican said he was confident his talks with Israeli business and political leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, would pay off for New Jersey. "I think we'll see a lot come out of it from an economic perspective and a diplomatic perspective," Christie said Wednesday from the Sea of Galilee in a teleconference with U.S. reporters.

JERUSALEM - Shaul Mofaz, Israel's Iranian-born former military chief and defense minister, waited more than three years for another chance to take the helm of the centrist Kadima Party. After accomplishing that mission in Tuesday's primary, he now faces an uphill battle in leading Kadima back to power. Mofaz soundly defeated the current party leader, Tzipi Livni. Official results are expected Wednesday morning, but Israeli TV have declared Mofaz the winner after he built an insurmountable lead.

JERUSALEM - A new Israeli law bans showing overly thin models in local advertising in an attempt to fight the spread of eating disorders. It also requires publications to disclose when they use altered images of models to make the women and men appear even thinner than they are. The law, passed late Monday, appears to be the first attempt by a government to use legislation to take on a fashion industry accused of abetting eating disorders...

JERUSALEM - Israel halted its air strikes against Gaza Strip militants early Tuesday and rocket fire from the Palestinian territory ebbed as a cease-fire ending four days of clashes appeared to be taking effect. Both sides had indicated they have no interest in seeing the fighting spiral into all-out war, and an Egyptian security official reported that Egyptian intelligence officials had brokered a truce. There was no official truce announcement from Israel or Gaza's Hamas rulers, but Israeli Cabinet Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio that the latest outbreak of violence "appears to be behind us. " Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech Tuesday evening suggested that Israel would refrain from any new strikes unless attacked.