JERUSALEM NEWS
NEWS AND INFORMATION
Events, happenings, and Opinions Concerning
Israel, Israelites, Judah, and Everyone Else
Jerusalem News-760
Jerusalem News-760
Date 27th April 2008, 22 Nissan 5768
Contents:
1. Israel Water Authority: Drought years threaten drinking water supplies
2. Lenny Ben David: What's Really behind the Screaming Headlines about the Arrest of an
Octogenarian Spy for Israel?
3. Arab Nazis followed by Brit-Am Comment
(a) The Palestinians' nazi past and present
(b) John Rosenthal: The Mufti and the Holocaust
(c) Tom Segev: If the Nazis had come
1. Israel Water Authority: Drought years threaten drinking water supplies
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976535.html
By Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel stands to lose large amounts of drinking water due to poor quality and problems associated with drought years, according to the Water Authority. Among the threats to water quality, cowsheds in the south have been found to cause groundwater pollution, and sewage could soon pollute drilled wells in the Western Galilee.
The Water Authority official in charge of quality, Sarah Elhanani, last week presented statistics at an emergency conference on water at the Agriculture Ministry's Beit Dagan facility: It emerged that the coastal aquifer, one of the two largest in the country, is fast becoming saline. Seventy years ago the quality of the water drawn from 80 percent of the area of the aquifer was defined as good; today, only 40 percent is so defined.
Elhanani said that a recent joint study by the Beit Dagan Veterinary Institute and researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev showed that cowsheds in the southern communities of Be'er Tuvia, Masuot Yitzhak and Orot are the source of increased concentrations of salt and manure in groundwater and nearby top soil. Smaller amounts of veterinary hormones such as testosterone and estrogen were also detected.
Nine wells used for drinking water have been closed in the industrial zones of Holon, Rishon Letzion and Bat Yam in recent years due to industrial pollution, including high levels of chromium. Concentrations of perchlorate used by the military industries were found in 11 wells in Ramat Hasharon and Tel Aviv, leading to their closure, and the material continues to spread.
A study on the impact of sewage on wells in streambeds by researchers led by Anat Magal of the Geological Survey of Israel was commissioned by the Water Authority following the severe case of sewage pollution two years ago of drinking water in wells drilled at the Kabri springs and Ein Ziv in Western Galilee. The study was published last week. Researchers introduced water containing dye at sites where sewage was suspected of percolating into wells, and the marked water took only 80 to 100 hours to cross 14 kilometers and reach the drill sites.
The test indicated that large areas of the region could find themselves without a water supply within days of a sewage pollution event.
In addition to improving treatment and delivery systems, the Water Authority has recommended the installation of water-quality monitoring systems to quickly detect sewage pollution
2. Lenny Ben David: What's Really behind the Screaming Headlines about the Arrest of an
Octogenarian Spy for Israel?
From: imra@netvision.net.il
More likely, Kadish is being used by American officials as a means to loosen
support for Israel as the two countries enter a tenacious period of
negotiations.
What's Really behind the Screaming Headlines about the Arrest of an
Octogenarian Spy for Israel?
by Lenny Ben David -Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - I*Consult
http://lennybendavid.com/2008/04/whats-really-behind-screaming-headlines.html
American engineer Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly
providing to an Israeli "handler" classified data on nuclear weapons, F-15
fighter jets, and the Patriot missile air defense system.
A few important points of perspective are vital: Kadish is 84 years old. The
alleged crime took place some 25-30 years ago (!), between 1979 and 1985.
Today Mr. Kadish lives an open, active life in a New Jersey retirement
village where, according to a community newspaper, he and his wife open
their sukka every year to raise money for local charities and for Magen
David Adom.
According to the New Jersey Jewish News, "Ben-Ami grew up in what was then
Palestine and fought with the Hagana. He also served in both the British and
American military during World War II and is an ex-commander of the Jewish
War Veterans Post 609 in Monroe."
News accounts suggest that Kadish's handler was the same man who directed
Jonathan Pollard. Probably to avoid any issue of statute-of-limitations, the
indictment alleges that this Zayde maintained ties to his handler until last
month.
Why now?
Do federal prosecutors really see octogenarian Kadish as a major criminal?
More likely, Kadish is being used by American officials as a means to loosen
support for Israel as the two countries enter a tenacious period of
negotiations. This is a pattern of American pressure that repeats itself.
The tactic is geared to embarrass American supporters of Israel,
particularly Members of Congress, who oppose weapons sales to Israel's foes,
dangerous concessions to the Palestinians, or the abrogation of previous
commitments to Israel.
During the last 30 years, particularly, in times of tension, American
officials claimed that Israel stole plans for the Sidewinder air-to-air
missiles, diverted nuclear material from a U.S. plant in the 1960s,
illegally obtained krytron triggers for nuclear weapons, pilfered computer
components from Patriot missiles, and used American technology on the Lavie
aircraft that was later transferred to China. The 2005 arrest of two AIPAC
staffers is more of the same, and they were charged under the creaky 1917
Espionage Act statute older than Kadish. For years, unnamed American
spy-hunters have been looking for an accomplice to Jonathan Pollard. Leaks
on these stories almost always took place on the eve of some contretemps
with the U.S. State Department.
Today's case against 84-year-old Kadish reflects more the impatience of the
U.S. Secretary of State with Israel's decision to continue building in
Jerusalem and in settlement blocs and to retain security roadblocks. To push
ahead in the illusionary Annapolis process at all costs, the State
Department must de-emphasize President Bush's letter to Prime Minister
Sharon stating that it is "unrealistic" to seek a "full and complete return
to the armistice lines of 1949."
With President George Bush on his way to Israel to celebrate Israel's 60th
anniversary, what better way to deflate the goodwill and cut-down the gifts
the President is supposedly bringing?
Lastly, in the twilight of George Bush's administration, a presidential
pardon for Jonathan Pollard is again being discussed, at least by Jewish and
Israeli sources. Disclosure of another Pollard-like spy would be an
effective tool to keep Pollard locked up for good.
-------------
Bio note: The author, Lenny Ben David is a former diplomat, Washington
consultant to foreign embassies, lobbyist, writer and editor.
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
3. Arab Nazis Exposed followed by Brit-Am Comment
(a) The Palestinians'
nazi past and present
http://www.likud.nl/extr446.html
(b) The Mufti and the Holocaust
by John Rosenthal
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/17089176.html
(c) If the Nazis had come
by Tom
Segev
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977767.html
In the second half of 1942, the Jewish public in Palestine was seized with great anxiety. Until the fall of that year, there was still a danger that the forces of the German "Desert Fox" - Erwin Rommel - would breach the British defense line in Egypt and conquer Palestine, too. The expectation was that the Arabs would join forces with the Nazis. The British stopped the German army while it was still in the desert; Bernard Montgomery gained worldwide fame; the feeling was that the Jewish public owed its salvation to him.
About two years ago, two German historians published a book that made waves: They said that the Nazis had indeed intended to annihilate the Jewish population in Palestine just as they destroyed European Jewry, and that the Arabs were supposed to assist them in this. One of the authors, Martin Cuppers, is due to give a lecture next week at an international conference, hosted by Yad Vashem and the Ben Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, on North Africa and its Jews during the World War II period.
The style will be academic, of course, but the book by Cuppers and Klaus-Michael Mallmann apparently provides a scholarly basis for the tendency to identify the Arabs with the Nazis, as Israel's official spokespeople have always done. Ahead of Cuppers' appearance in Jerusalem, a heated debate has been going on between him and an Israeli journalist and researcher living in Switzerland named Shraga Elam. Elam says the whole thing never happened and accuses Cuppers and Mallmann of falsification. Asked for a response by Haaretz, Cuppers says that Elam isn't worthy of a serious newspaper's attention.
According to Cuppers and Mallmann, the task of annihilating the Jews of Palestine was given to SS officer Walter Rauf, considered the inventor of the "death trucks" that were used before the gas chambers. The two cite a document dated September 14, 1942. The document deals with Rauf's return from Athens to Germany. Cuppers and Mallmann learn from the document that Rauf was sent to Athens to organize the destruction of the Jews in Palestine, in cooperation with the Arabs, and that he was called back to Germany when the Germans gave up hope of conquering Egypt, as happened shortly afterward at the Battle of El Alamein.
Elam disputes this: He says that Palestine is not mentioned at all in the document, nor is there any mention of cooperation between Rauf and the Arabs. According to Elam, the document also reflects the differences of opinion between the SS and the German army. Elam casts doubt on the notion that Rommel supported the destruction of the Jews; he backed the conspiracy of the generals who tried to assassinate Hitler. In the absence of solid evidence that there was in fact a plan to annihilate the Jews in Palestine, Cuppers and Mallmann's book should be considered anti-Arab propaganda, contends Elam in articles he has disseminated on the Internet and elsewhere.
In anticipation of his lecture in Jerusalem, Cuppers responded to an inquiry from Haaretz with a long and emotional letter. There is no basis to the claim that he and his colleague fabricated the history or are operating out of hatred for Arabs or Palestinians, he wrote. Their book is rich in evidence regarding the cooperation of Arabs with the Nazis, including the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who met with Hitler and with Adolf Eichmann.
As for the fact that Palestine is not mentioned in the document from September 14, 1942, Cuppers wrote: "This does not mean anything. Similar documents concerning Poland and the Soviet Union do not mention the exact arena of activity, since it was known to all." Thus, for example, a document from 1941, which talks about the cooperation between the SS formations and the Soviet army, does not mention the exact arena of activity. Therefore, one can also presume that when they wrote "Egypt" or even just "Africa," they could also have been referring to Palestine.
In response to Elam's claim that the document in question indicates nothing about the essence of Rauf's mission in Egypt, Cuppers says that the document from 1941 tells of a similar mission with which another SS unit in the Soviet Union was charged, and that there it says explicitly that, following the military conquest, the SS is authorized to take action against the civilian population. On the basis of this analysis, by the end of 1941, about a half million Russian Jews had been murdered, says Cuppers, who also warns against the argument that Rommel opposed the destruction of the Jews.
The conclusion that arises from Cuppers' letter to Haaretz is this: The document he and his colleague quote does not explicitly say what they assume from it. Historical logic, however, does support their thesis: There is no reason to assume that only in Palestine would the Nazis have protected the Jews' lives. There is no reason to assume that the Arabs would have displayed any more decency than the Lithuanians, for instance.
Brit-Am Comment: Shraga Elam is a left-wing writer of anti-Israel propaganda and associates himself with Holocaust deniers.
Hitler reportedly could not go for ten minutes without mentioning the Jews. Exterminating the Jews was the Nazi no.1 priority.
It was in some ways more important to them even than winning their war.
Rommel did not participate in the plot against Hitler. It is an Urban legend that says that he did and his family
consider such
a possibility a slur on his name. Rommel was loyal to the oath of loyalty he took to Hitler.
He did however towards the end let it be known that in his opinion Hitler should be replaced in order that peace be made with
the Allies. That is why he was forced to commit suicide. Rommel was also an avid patron of the Hitler Youth and attended
their ceremonies. Rommel was not anti-Nazi but rather more pragmatic than ideological.
The above article is an extract from the column in Haaretz by Tom Segev. In continuation of this
column Tom Segev reports of a 16th century German (or Swedish?) "plot" to conquer the Holy Land for the Jews.
See:
Brit-Am Now no. 1135
http://britam.org/now/1135Now.html#16
#2. 16th Century German Reports "Plot" for Swedish Ten Tribes (?) to Conquer Holy Land
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