Why Americans Are Adopting Fewer Kids from China

Becky Freer says adopting a 10-month-old girl from China was the best thing she ever did. So when Freer, a 44-year-old resident of Austin, Texas, recently decided to further expand her family by adopting a sister for her now 3½-year-old daughter, she thought China was the obvious choice. But as a single woman, Freer is no longer eligible. "Three years ago I was an acceptable parent, and now I'm not," she says. "It seems kind of unfair."




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While her daughter will have a new sister — Freer has since been approved to adopt a child from Ethiopia — Freer is one of a growing number of prospective parents who are unable to adopt from China under new laws Beijing put in place in May 2007. The stricter guidelines, intended to limit the overwhelming number of applicants to China's well-regarded adoption program, have been effective — adoptions of Chinese children by U.S. citizens have dropped 50%, according to the U.S. State Department. The new regulations require, among other things, that adoptive parents be married, under 50, not classified as clinically obese, not have taken antidepressant medications in the past two years, not have facial deformities and meet certain educational and economic requirements. In 2005, U.S. citizens adopted 7,906 children through the state-run China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA). In 2008, that number fell to 3,909 kids. (See pictures of American children up for adoption.)

But the new laws are only part of the reason that fewer Chinese children are being adopted by families in the U.S. While the Chinese government does not release domestic adoption figures, U.S.-based adoption agencies say more Chinese children are being adopted in China. "You have this cultural shift along with the economic shift, where more and more people cannot only afford to adopt a child, but culturally it's more accepted," says Cory Barron, foundation director at Children's Hope International. Historically, adoption was neither socially acceptable nor a viable economic option for many families in China. But orphanages were getting crowded, prompting the government to open up to international adoptions in 1992. Josh Zhong, founder and director of Chinese Children Adoption International in Colorado, remembers what it was like in China just 10 years ago. "You would see hundreds of thousands of children," he says. "Orphanages begging you to come in, saying, 'Please help us. These children need to go home.' " A slow shift in gender perception may also be playing a role. While girls still make up 95% of children at orphanages, Zhong says that, too, has shifted. "People's attitude toward having girls is changing dramatically," Zhong says. "I have friends [in China] who have girls, and they are just so excited."

With fewer children being put up for adoption and foreign demand remaining strong, China can afford to be more selective. "I think they are saying, You know what? We have fewer children now and so we are looking for better parents," Zhong says. His organization has experienced a drop from 1,152 China adoptions in 2005 to 422 in 2008. And while Beijing's new standards may sound harsh to Americans with their hearts set on a baby, they have little influence in the matter. "These are China's children, and they can set the requirement to what they deem is best," says Barron.

International adoptions in the U.S. gained popularity in the 1990s as families reached out to poorer corners of the world to adopt a child in need. Adoptions increased not only in countries like China, which has always had a trustworthy system, but also in countries that didn't have a good system of checks and balances. By 2006, the U.S. began implementing some provisions from the 1994 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, a treaty intended to crack down on the abduction, exploitation, sale and trafficking of children. The U.S. went on to fully adopt the regulations in April 2008, and has since stopped processing adoptions from Vietnam, Guatemala, Liberia and Kyrgyzstan until those countries meet the convention's standards. At the same time, China tightened its own laws, resulting in a worldwide drop in international adoption from a peak of 22,884 adoptions in 2004 to 17,438 last year.

Adopting a child from the CCAA has never been a simple task. After submitting a long list of required documents, including home studies completed by social workers and federal background checks, applicants' paperwork is approved by the CCAA and the wait begins. Fees and expenses can amount to upwards of $20,000 before families are cleared to take home their new child. And the wait can be long. Today, China has a backlog of approved applicants from around the world and is just now placing children into the homes of families who were approved for adoption in March 2006.

For some families, that's too long, and so they look to China's "waiting child" list of children with special needs, ranging from cleft lips or deafness to more severe physical and mental disabilities. Prospective parents can read about a child's disability in a national database and decide if it is something they can take on. "Kids who would probably never be adopted in China and maybe wouldn't have been adopted in the U.S. are now getting homes," Barron says. Lee Ann Laune, 37, a director of special-education programs in Missouri, says she probably looked at more than 100 children over the course of 2½ years before finding her daughter Hope. "When we first got into this, there was a six-to-nine-month wait," she says. As time passed, Laune and her husband Paul would look at the "waiting child" list to see if they came across a child who was meant for them. In April, the Launes were approved to adopt Hope, a 4½-year-old deaf girl from Hunan province. "When we looked into her eyes, it was an automatic for us. It was 'We can handle this,' " she says. "It's unbelievable to know we are going to be that saving grace for her."

The Myth Of Might

While China may become the largest economy on the planet in the next few generations, it will also suffer from some catastrophic demographic problems. To control population growth over the last four decades, most couples are restricted to only one child. This has been widely enforced, to the point where the average number of children per couple has been 1.7.. But many of those couples aborted a child if it is a female, because much more importance is attached to having a male heir. Thus there are 30 million more males than females, and the number is growing. These surplus males are coming of age, and the competition for wives is causing problems. Women are taking advantage of their scarcity, but men are also going to neighboring countries to buy, or even kidnap, young women to be wives. This is causing ill will with neighbors.
The biggest problem, though, is the growing shortage of workers. As the population ages, all those one child families means there will be more elderly than the economy can effectively support. Currently there are 13 working age Chinese for every retiree. In 40 years, there will only be two for each retiree. At that point, retirees will comprise 30 percent of the population (versus 12 percent now.) Traditionally, children cared for their parents in multi-generation households. That model is dying out, and China is faced with huge pension cost increases at the same time they expect their economy to be the mightiest on the planet. But at that point, the largest single government expense will be the care of the elderly, and this will impose crushing taxes on those of working age. Many working age Chinese are worried about this, for there is no easy solution in sight.

The government is giving the navy's submarine force (ten nuclear boats, and 60 diesel-electric) more publicity, and more money. The Chinese see submarines as a potential equalizer in any future naval war with the United States. Currently, most Chinese subs are of poor quality. But several new designs are entering production. These are not as good as Western boats, but appear good enough to pose a real threat.

Russia may no longer be a communist police state, but it retains its paranoia about the United States, and thus feels united with China. Russian media is currently pushing the accusation that the U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan (for logistical support of operations in Afghanistan) is also an electronic listening post concentrating on Russia and China. There's no evidence of this, but the accusation is widely believed in Russia and China. The two nations also continue to unite in opposing international moves against Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs, or to punish particularly nasty tyrants (as in Sudan and Zimbabwe). Sort of another Axis Of Evil, but in reality the ancient tactic of weakening your enemy by causing trouble for them whenever possible.

Despite the danger from cell phone use (and uncontrolled spread of information), the government is not interfering with the expansion of cell phone service into rural areas. Over half the population lives in more than five million rural villages. This is where the poorest people live, and those that are angriest at the corruption of local officials. But over $10 billion is being spent by cell phone companies to get service to every corner of the rural villages. Part of the demand is from those corrupt officials and police in rural areas, who feel safer with cell phones (the better to call for help if a mob of angry locals comes after them.)

China has suffered five straight months in export declines. All this has put over 25 million Chinese out of work. But because exports are only a small component of the economy, there will be over 5 percent GDP growth this year. This is continuation of a nearly decade of declines in the annual rate of GDP growth. Most of that growth now comes from internal consumer decline. The creation of a Chinese middle class has become the cornerstone of Chinese economic growth. The Chinese "upper class" (defined as a family making more than $36,000 a year) has grown to two million households. These families are on a buying binge, and the less affluent (anyone making more than $10,000 a year is doing well) are doing even more buying because of sheer numbers (over 100 million "middle class" families). All this, even with a high savings rate. Exports are not only being hit by recession caused decreases in demand, but more product quality scandals as well. The latest one has to do with drywall board from China. No one is sure how it happened, but large quantities of drywall exported to the United States has the tendency to release corrosive (to metal, and to human health as well) sulfur fumes. Thousands of American homes and commercial structures were built with the "sulfur board" before the problem was realized. The lawsuits are piling up, and Chinese product quality has taken another hit.

In Taiwan, several dozen retired generals and colonels are being investigated for corruption. The charges involve senior officers taking bribes to approve promotions, and civilian suppliers bribing generals and procurement officials to obtain military contracts.

April 16, 2009: Chinese military officials announced that they were open to talks with their Taiwanese counterparts. This would be as part of an effort to ease tensions between the two nations (or, according to China, between them and a renegade province protect by the imperialist United States).

The Newest Thing in Old Solar Technology Nets Ten Times As Much Energy Per Gram of Silicon

The next frontier in traditional solar panels is concentrators - devices, usually lenses, that concentrate solar power onto the most expensive part of a solar panel - the silicon. Skyline Solar's "solar trough" design concentrates sunlight without using expensive lenses or complicated robotic armatures for tracking the sun as it crosses the sky.

The entire system is built from commodity parts in an effort to make it cheap and scalable – the ultimate goal being 'grid parity,' or a system that is competitive with fossil fuels as a means of generating electricity. That's why the Department of Energy gave Skyline a $3 million grant as part of its Solar Energy Technologies Program. (Investors have plunked down another $25 million.)

Proponents of concentration photovoltaics have long argued that the technology has the potential to slash the cost of solar power, but until now, it has represented an incremental cost savings at best. Indeed, many industry observers believe that thin film solar, a competing technology, is the one to watch.

Skyline Solar's approach is straightforward and therefore, potentially, a winner. Long, curved, shiny panels of aluminum concentrate the sun's energy onto custom-built strips of solar photovoltaics - the same stuff that is on conventional solar panels. There are no lenses, and the troughs only have to rotate along a single axis in order to track the sun, in contrast to competing systems that require more complicated (and less reliable) two-axis tracking to keep flat panels always facing directly into the sun.

Skyline Solar has already put up its first demonstration plant, in San Jose, California, for Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. The company claims that the technology is suitable for any city that gets at least as much sunshine as New York City, and plants based on it are economical at the 100 kilowatt to 100 megawatt range of power production. By comparison, a smallish coal-fired power plant would be about 500 megawatts, and most solar PV plants top out at a hundred or so kilowatts.


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"What we are developing is a linear concentrator at the core," said Skyline CEO Bob MacDonald at an early reveal of the technology. "It’s a quite straightforward design that takes a reflective optical sheet and forms it into a parabolic section that focuses the light onto a straight line.... So, it’s essentially a silicon module that’s enclosed by an aluminum reflector."

Only time will tell who will win the race to make solar energy competitive with fossil fuels for electricity production, and all forms of solar photovoltaics are starting the race at the back of the pack. Concentrated solar power, wind turbines and even geothermal power all produce power at a significantly lower cost
Cheap, off-the-shelf parts and a clever design make Skyline Solar's reflective aluminum troughs a contender in the race to make solar ubiquitous
By Christopher Mims
Posted 05.04.2009 at 1:52 pm
http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-05/newest-thing-old-solar-technology-nets-ten-times-much-energy-gram-silicon

The World's 10 Worst Cities

Linfen, China: This city of more than four million is in the heart of Shanxi, China’s coal-production hub, and has frequently been deemed the most polluted city in the world; citizens suffer from choking clouds of coal dust as well as drinking water polluted with arsenic. But Linfen is not the only city in the country with environmental woes—the World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are found in China’s industrial areas

صور من رحمة النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم بغير المسلمين

د.محمد بن عدنان السمان
المدير التنفيذي لشبكة السنة النبوية وعلومها


• الصورة الأولى :
عن عائشة رضي الله عنها قالت للنبي صلى الله عليه وسلم : هل أتى عليك يوم أشد من يوم أحد ؟ قال ( لقد لقيت من قومك ما لقيت ، وكان أشد ما لقيت منهم يوم العقبة ، إذ عرضت نفسي على ابن عبد ياليل بن عبد كلال ، فلم يجبني إلى ما أردت ، فانطلقت وأنا مهموم على وجهي ، فلم أستفق إلا وأنا بقرن الثعالب ، فرفعت رأسي ، فإذا أنا بسحابة قد أظلتني ، فنظرت فإذا فيها جبريل ، فناداني فقال : إن الله قد سمع قول قومك لك ، وما ردوا عليك ، وقد بعث الله إليك ملك الجبال ، لتأمره بما شئت فيهم ، فناداني ملك الجبال ، فسلم علي ، ثم قال : يا محمد ، فقال : ذلك فيما شئت ، إن شئت أن أطبق عليهم الأخشبين ؟ فقال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم : بل أرجو أن يخرج الله من أصلابهم من يعبد الله وحده ، لا يشرك به شيئاً ) رواه البخاري .

• الصورة الثانية :
عن ابن عمر رضي الله عنهما ( أن امرأة وجدت في بعض مغازي رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم مقتولة . فأنكر رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم قتل النساء والصبيان ) رواه البخاري ومسلم .
وفي رواية لهما ( وجدت امرأة مقتولة في بعض تلك المغازي . فنهى رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم عن قتل النساء والصبيان ).

• الصورة الثالثة :
عن أنس بن مالك رضي الله عنه : كان غلام يهودي يخدم النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم فمرض ، فأتاه النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم يعوده ، فقعد عند رأسه ، فقال له : أسلم . فنظر إلى أبيه وهو عنده ، فقال له : أطع أبا القاسم صلى الله عليه وسلم ، فأسلم ، فخرج النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم وهو يقول : الحمد لله الذي أنقذه من النار ) رواه البخاري .

• الصور الرابعة :
عن عبد الله بن عمرو رضي الله عنهما أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال : (من قتل نفسا معاهدا لم يرح رائحة الجنة ، وإن ريحها ليوجد من مسيرة أربعين عاما ) رواه البخاري .

الصورة الخامسة :
عن بريدة بن الحصيب رضي الله عنه عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم أنه كان إذا أمر أمير على جيش أو سرية ، أوصاه خاصته بتقوى الله ومن معه من المسلمين خيرا . ثم قال ( اغزوا باسم الله . وفي سبيل الله . قاتلوا من كفر بالله . اغزوا ولا تغلوا ولا تغدروا ولا تمثلوا ولا تقتلوا وليدا . وإذا لقيت عدوك من المشركين فادعهم إلى ثلاث خصال ( أو خلال ) . فأيتهن ما أجابوك فاقبل منهم وكف عنهم . ثم ادعهم إلى الإسلام . فإن أجابوك فاقبل منهم وكف عنهم . ثم ادعهم إلى التحول من دارهم إلى دار المهاجرين . وأخبرهم أنهم ، إن فعلوا ذلك ، فلهم ما للمهاجرين وعليهم ما على المهاجرين . فإن أبوا أن يتحولوا منها ، فأخبرهم أنهم يكونون كأعراب المسلمين . يجري عليهم حكم الله الذي يجري على المؤمنين . ولا يكون لهم في الغنيمة والفيء شيء . إلا أن يجاهدوا مع المسلمين . فإن هم أبوا فسلهم الجزية . فإن هم أجابوك فاقبل منهم وكف عنهم . فإن هم أبوا فاستعن بالله وقاتلهم . وإذا حاصرت أهل حصن ، فأرادوك أن تجعل لهم ذمة الله وذمة نبيه . فلا تجعل لهم ذمة الله وذمة نبيه . ولكن اجعل لهم ذمتك وذمة أصحابك . فإنكم ، أن تخفروا ذممكم وذمم أصحابكم ، أهون من أن تخفروا ذمة الله وذمة رسوله . وإذا حاصرت أهل حصن ، فأرادوك أن تنزلهم على حكم الله ، فلا تنزلهم على حكم الله . ولكن أنزلهم على حكمك . فإنك لا تدري أتصيب حكم الله فيهم أم لا ) رواه مسلم .

• الصورة السادسة /
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه قال بعث النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم خيلا قبل نجد ، فجاءت برجل من بني حنيفة يقال له ثمامة بن أثال ، فربطوه بسارية من سواري المسجد ، فخرج إليه النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم فقال : ( ما عندك يا ثمامة ) . فقال : عندي خير يا محمد ، إن تقتلني تقتل ذا دم ، وإن تنعم تنعم على شاكر ، وإن كنت تريد المال ، فسل منه ما شئت . فترك حتى كان الغد ، فقال : ( ما عندك يا ثمامة ) . فقال : ما قلت لك ، إن تنعم تنعم على شاكر فتركه حتى كان بعد الغد فقال : ما عندك يا ثمامة فقال : عندي ما قلت لك فقال : ( أطلقوا ثمامة ) . فانطلق إلى نخل قريب من المسجد ، فاغتسل ثم دخل المسجد ، فقال : أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله ، وأشهد أن محمدا رسول الله ، يا محمد ، والله ما كان على الأرض وجه أبغض إلي من وجهك ، فقد أصبح وجهك أحب الوجوه إلي ، والله ما كان من دين أبغض إلي من دينك ، فأصبح دينك أحب دين إلي ، والله ما كان من بلد أبغض إلي من بلدك ، فأصبح بلدك أحب البلاد إلي ، وإن خيلك أخذتني ، وأنا أريد العمرة ، فماذا ترى ؟ فبشره رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم وأمره أن يعتمر ، فلما قدم مكة قال له قائل : صبوت ، قال : لا ، ولكن أسلمت مع محمد رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ، ولا والله ، لا يأتيكم من اليمامة حبة حنطة حتى يأذن فيها النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم ) رواه البخاري ومسلم .

• الصورة السابعة :
عن خالد بن الوليد رضي الله عنه قال: ( غزوت مع رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم خيبر فأتت اليهود فشكوا أن الناس قد أسرعوا إلى حظائرهم فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ألا لا تحل أموال المعاهدين إلا بحقها ) رواه أبو داود بسند حسن .

• الصورة الثامنة /
عن سهل بن سعد الساعدي رضي الله عنه أنه سمع النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم يقول يوم خيبر : ( لأعطين الراية رجلا يفتح الله على يديه ) . فقاموا يرجون لذلك أيهم يعطى ، فغدوا وكلهم يرجو أن يعطى ، فقال : ( أين علي ) . فقيل : يشتكي عينيه ، فأمر فدعي له ، فبصق في عينيه ، فبرأ مكانه حتى كأنه لك يكن به شيء ، فقال : نقاتلهم حتى يكونوا مثلنا ؟ فقال : ( على رسلك ، حتى تنزل بساحتهم ، ثم ادعهم إلى الإسلام ، وأخبرهم بما يجب عليهم ، فوالله لأن يهدى بك رجل واحد خير لك من حمر النعم ) . رواه البخاري ومسلم .

• الصورة التاسعة :
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه أنه قال : قيل : يا رسول الله ! ادع على المشركين . قال " إني لم أبعث لعانا . وإنما بعثت رحمة "رواه مسلم .

• الصورة العاشرة :
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه قال : كنت أدعو أمي إلى الإسلام وهي مشركة . فدعوتها يوما فأسمعتني في رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ما أكره . فأتيت رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم وأنا أبكي . قلت : يا رسول الله ! إني كنت أدعو أمي إلى الإسلام فتأبى علي . فدعوتها اليوم فأسمعتني فيك ما أكره . فادع الله أن يهدي أم أبي هريرة . فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم " اللهم ! اهد أم أبي هريرة " فخرجت مستبشرا بدعوة نبي الله صلى الله عليه وسلم . فلما جئت فصرت إلى الباب . فإذا هو مجاف . فسمعت أمي خشف قدمي . فقالت : مكانك ! يا أبا هريرة ! وسمعت خضخضة الماء . قال فاغتسلت ولبست درعها وعجلت عن خمارها . ففتحت الباب . ثم قالت : يا أبا هريرة ! أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله ، وأشهد أن محمدا عبده ورسوله . قال فرجعت إلى رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ، فأتيته وأنا أبكي من الفرح . قال قلت : يا رسول الله ! أبشر قد استجاب الله دعوتك وهدى أم أبي هريرة . فحمد الله وأثنى عليه وقال خيرا . قال قلت : يا رسول الله ! ادع الله أن يحببني أنا وأمي إلى عبادة المؤمنين ، ويحببهم إلينا . قال فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم " اللهم ! حبب عبيدك هذا - يعني أبا هريرة - وأمه إلى عبادك المؤمنين . وحبب إليهم المؤمنين " فما خلق مؤمن يسمع بي ، ولا يراني ، إلا أحبني ) رواه مسلم .

الصورة الحادية عشرة :
عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه قال :قدم طفيل بن عمرو الدوسي وأصحابه ، على النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم فقالوا : يا رسول الله ، إن دوسا عصت وأبت ، فادع الله عليها ، فقيل : هلكت دوس ، قال : ( اللهم اهد دوسا وأت بهم ) رواه البخاري .

الصورة الثانية عشرة :
عن جابر بن عبد الله رضي الله عنهما أنهم قالوا : يا رسول الله ! أحرقتنا نبال ثقيف ، فادع الله عليهم . فقال : اللهم اهد ثقيفا ) رواه الترمذي بسند صحيح .

يا أختي المسلمة

فيا أختي المسلمة :

هلا تَدَبَّرْتِ قولَ رسول الله
: " نَحِّ الأذى عن طريق المسلمين " ؟صحيح

فإذا كانت إماطةُ الأذى عن الطريق من شُعب الإيمان التي أَمر بها رسولُ الله  , فأيُّهما أَشَدُّ أذًى : شوكةٌ أو حَجَرٌ في الطريق , أم فتنة تُفْسِدُ القلوبَ , وتَعْصِفُ بالعقول , وتُشِيعُ الفاحشةَ في الذين آمنوا ؟
إنه ما من شابٍّ مسلمٍ يبُتلَىَ مِنْكِ اليومَ بفتنةٍ تَصْرِفُهُ عن ذكر الله , وَتصُدُّه عن صراطه المستقيم , كان بُوسعك أن تجعليه في مَأْمَنٍ منها , إلا أعقبكِ منها غدًا نكالٌ من الله عظيم.

بادري إلى طاعة ربك عز وجل , ودَعي عنكِ انتقادَ الناس ولَوْمَهم , فإن حساب الله غدًا أَشَدُّ وأعظم.

تَرَفَّعِي عن طلب مرضاتهم ومداهنتهم , فإن التساميَ إلى مَرْضَاةِ الله أسعدُ لكِ وأسلم , قال رسول الله : " من التمس رضا الله بِسَخَطِ الناسِ , كفاه الله مؤنة الناس , ومن التمس رضا الناسِ بِسَخَطِ الله , وَكَلَه الله إلى الناس " . [صحيح]


ويجب على العبد أن يُفْرِدَ الله بالخشية والتقوى , قال تعالى:{ فَلاَ تَخْشَوُاْ النَّاسَ وَاخْشَوْنِ} (44) سورة المائدة , وقال جلا وعلا: {وَإِيَّايَ فَارْهَبُونِ}(40) سورة البقرة , وقال سبحانه: { هُوَ أَهْلُ التَّقْوَى وَأَهْلُ الْمَغْفِرَةِ} (56) سورة المدثر

.
وإرضاء المخلوق لا مقدور ولا مأمور , أما إرضاء الخالق فمقدور ومأمور , قال الإمام الشافعي رحمه الله: (( رِضَى الناسِ غايةٌ لا تُدْرَكُ , فعليك بالأمر الذي يُصْلِحُكَ فالزمْهُ , ودع ما سواه فلا تُعَانِهِ )) , وقد ضمن الله للمتقين أن يجعل لهم مخرجًا مما يضيق على الناس , وأن يرزقهم من حيث لا يحتسبون , قال عز وجل: {وَمَن يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَل لَّهُ مَخْرَجًا (2)وَيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ(3)} سورة الطلاق .

بنك الطعام المصري

يمكن للبنك استقبال الـــكفـارات

يمكنكم التبرع نقداً أو بشيكات بإسم بنك الطعام المصري لأحد مندوبينا أو بحسابنا الموحد رقم 888777 لدى البنوك التالية:

1- بنك بي ان بي باريبا BNP Paribas

2- المصرف المتحد

3- بنك عودة

4- البنك التجاري الدولي CIB

5- البنك العربي الأفريقي

6- البنك الأهلي المصري

7- البنك الأهلي سوسيتيه جنرال NSGB

8- بنك إتش إس بي سيHSBC

9- بنك فيصل الإسلامي

10- بنك مصر

11- بنك المؤسسة العربية المصرفيةABC

12- بنك بيريوس

13- البنك الوطنى

14- البنك العربي

15- البنك المصرى لتنمية الصادرات

16- بنك باركليز

17- الهيئة المصرية للبريد المصري

كما يمكنكم التبرع بمقر بنك الطعام 6 ميدان النافورة - المقطم



راسلناعلى
info@Egyptianfoodbank.com

أضــرار جليس الســوء

جليس السوء مضرة على صاحبه من كل وجه وشؤم عليه في الدنيا والآخرة ومن أضراره :
1ـ من أضرار جلس السوء انه قد يشكك في معتقداتك الصحيحة ويصرفك عنها 0
2ـ أن جليس السوء يدعو جليسه إلى مماثلته في الوقوع في المحرمات والمنكرات 0
3ـ أن المرء بطبيعته يتأثر بعادات جليسه وأخلاقه وأعماله قال صلى الله عليه وسلم : ( المرء على دين خليله فلينظر أحدكم من يخالل ) " رواه أبو داود " ، وقد قيل " إياك ومجالسة الشرير فإن طبعك يسرق من طبعه وأنت لا تدري " 0

4ـ أن رؤيته تذكر بالمعصية سواء كانت ظاهرة عليه أو خفية وكنت تعرف ذلك منه فتخطر المعصية في بال المرء بعد أن كان غافلا أو متشاغلا عنها 0

5ـ أنه يصلك بأناس سيئين يضرك الارتباط بهم وقد يكونون اشد انحرافا وفسادا 0

6ـ أنه يخفي عنك عيوبك ويسترها عنك ويحسن لك خطاياك ويخفف وقع المعصية في قلبك ويهون عليك التقصير في الطاعة 0

7ـ أنك تحرم بسببه من مجالسة الصالحين وأهل الخير لانهماكك معه في الشهوات والملذات ويحذرك من مجالستهم فيفوتك من الخير والصلاح بقدر بعدك عنهم 0

8ـ أن الذي يجالس أهل السوء يقارن أفعاله السيئة بأفعالهم فيستقل سيئاته بجنب سيئاتهم فيكون ذلك سببا في زيادة طغيانه وانحرافه وتقصيره في الأعمال الصالحة وعلى الأقل يصاب بالعجب بما هو عليه والعجب مرض مهلك ، جليس السوء مضرة على صاحبه من كل وجه وشؤم عليه في الدنيا والآخرة ومن أضراره 0

9ـ أن صحبته ومؤاخاته عرضة للزوال عند وجود أدنى خلاف أو تغيير مصلحة بل وتحصل البغضاء بدون ذلك قال عبدالله بن المعتز ـ رحمه الله ـ " إخوان السوء ينصرفون عند النكبة ويقبلون مع النعمة " 0
قال أبو الحسن التهامي ـ رحمه الله :
شيئان ينقشعان أول وهلة ***** ظل الشباب وخلة الأشـرار
وقال ابن حبان ـ رحمه الله ـ " العاقل لا يصاحب الأشرار لان صحبة السوء قطعة من النار تعقب الضغائن لا يستقيم وده ولا يفي بعهده 0

10ـ أن مجالس أهل السوء لا تخلو من ا لمحرمات والمعاصي كالغيبة والنميمة والكذب واللعن ونحو ذلك فربما يوافقهم جليسهم فيما هم فيه أو ينكر عليهم لكن لا يفارق مجلسهم فيقع في الإثم 0

11ـ أنها لو دامت مودتهم في الدنيا فإنها سرعان ما تنقشع في الدار الآخرة وتنقلب إلى عداوة وبغضاء قال تعالى : ( الأخلاء يومئذ بعضهم لبعض عدو إلا المتقين ) 0

12ـ أن غالب مجالس أهل الفسق لا يذكر الله فيها فتكون حسرة وندامة على أصحابها يوم القيامة 0

13ـ أن في مجالستهم تضييعا للوقت الذي سيحاسب العبد على التفريط فيه يوم القيامة 0

14ـ انك به تعرف ويساء بك الظن من اجل صحبتك له 0

وختاما قال الشيخ عبدالرحمن السعدي ـ رحمه الله ـ " وبالجملة فمصاحبة الأشرار مضرة من جميع الوجوه على من صاحبهم وشر على من خالطهم فكم هلك بسببهم أقوام وكم أقادوا أصحابهم إلى المهالك من حيث يشعرون ومن حيث لا يشعرون " ، وقال أبو الأسود الدؤلي ـ رحمه الله ـ " ما خلق الله خلقا اضر من الصاحب السوء " 0

فعلى العاقل الناصح لنفسه الذي يريد لها النجاة والسعادة في الدنيا والآخرة أن يتجنب مخالطة هؤلاء ويفر منهم غاية الفرار ولا يتهاون في ذلك 0


إعداد :
أحمد بن صالح بن فهد الخليف

HOW MANY?

A JEWISH MAN

What scientists know about swine flu

Emma Wilkinson
Health reporter, BBC News
Preliminary analysis of the swine flu virus suggests it is a fairly mild strain, scientists say.

It is believed that a further mutation would be needed in order for the H1N1 virus to cause the mass deaths that have been estimated by some.

But at this point, it is impossible to predict with any accuracy how the virus will continue to evolve.

UK experts at the National Institute for Medical Research outlined on Friday the work they are due to start on samples of the virus sent from the US.

The research, being done at the World Influenza Centre in Mill Hill, will be vital for working out the structure of the virus, where it came from, how quickly it is capable of spreading and its potential to cause illness.

Structure

Analysis done so far suggests what they are dealing with is a mild virus and nowhere near as dangerous as the H5N1 avian flu strain that has caused scientists so much concern over the past decade.

Influenza A viruses are classified according to two proteins on the outer surface of the virus - hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N).
The swine flu strain is a H1N1 virus, the same type as seasonal flu which circulates throughout the world every year, and kills roughly 0.1% of those infected or higher in an epidemic year.

Professor Wendy Barclay, chair in influenza virology at Imperial College London says initial indications suggest there is nothing about the genetic make-up of the new virus which is a cause for particular concern.

The key to its potential lies largely in the H1 protein.

"There are two aspects - one is which receptors the virus tends to bind to and what we see is that it is binding to the upper respiratory tract rather than deep in the lungs."


H1N1
Can spread between humans
Attaches to receptors in the upper respiratory tract causing mild illness
A pandemic is thought to be imminent
When a flu virus binds to the upper respiratory tract, it tends to cause mild illness but can be easily spread as people cough and sneeze, Professor Barclay explains.

If a virus binds further down in the lungs, it tends to cause much more severe illness, as in the case of the H5N1 avian flu virus which has caused concern in recent years.

"With the H1 gene we also look at the cleavage site," she adds.

"The virus has to be cut into two pieces to be active and it uses an enzyme in the host to do that.

"Most influenza viruses are restricted to the respiratory tract because they use enzymes in the lungs.

"But some, like H5 viruses can evolve to cut into two pieces outside the lungs, so they can replicate outside the respiratory tract."

Analysis

These initial indications are largely guesswork from looking at the genetic sequence of the virus and comparing that to what is known from work on other influenza viruses.

It will take weeks and months of biological analysis to properly get a handle on the potential of the H1N1 virus.

The team at Mill Hill, one of four World Health Organisation's centres for influenza research will be working in close collaboration with the Health Protection Agency who are carrying out testing in the UK, and their findings will also feed into the development of a potential vaccine.


What this outbreak does highlight is how difficult it is to predict new pandemic strains

Professor Jonathan Ball, Nottingham University
Soon, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge will begin the genetic sequencing of the virus and will also be monitoring any mutations or changes in how virulent it is.

However, there is one other reassuring aspect about what is known so far.

That is there seems to be nothing unusual as yet in another protein in the centre of the virus, called NS1, which is linked to the strength of the immune response the virus produces.

In some more pathogenic viruses, it is this NS1 protein which initiates a "cytokine storm", a particularly severe immune reaction that can be fatal in even healthy young people.

Predictions

Scientists have also played down concerns that the milder H1N1 virus, could combine with the more dangerous H5N1 avian flu virus, causing a super virus that has the ability to both spread easily between humans and cause severe illness.

This is unlikely - or at least just as unlikely as it ever was and the H5N1 virus has been around for a decade without combining with normal seasonal flu.

Professor Jonathan Ball, an expert in molecular virology at the University of Nottingham said: "The chance of swine H1N1 combining with H5N1 is as likely as any other strain recombining.

"What this outbreak does highlight is how difficult it is to predict new pandemic strains.

"Many people suspected that H5N1 was the most likely candidate for the next pandemic strain, but now it appears that this was a mistake - but that's not to say H5N1 or another reassortment containing parts of H5N1 may not happen in the future.

"That's the trouble - you can't predict."

What was the impact of the Zionists on Palestine?

In the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a litany of Christian travelers - Siebald Rieter and Johann Tucker, Arnold Van Harff and Father Michael Nuad, Martin Kabatnik and Felix Fabri, Count Constantine Francois Volney and Alphonse de Lamartine, Mark Twain and Sir George Gawler, Sir George Adam Smith and Edward Robinson - found Palestine virtually empty, except for Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Safed, Shechem, Hebron, Gaza, Ramleh, Acre, Sidon, Tyre, Haifa, Irsuf, Caesarea, and El Arish, and throughout Galilee towns - Kfar Alma, Ein Zeitim, Biria, Pekiin, Kfar Hanania, Kfar Kana and Kfar Yassif. To stay, these Jews had submitted to innumerable conquerors, taxes, pogroms and degradation. But they stayed. In 1799, Palestine was still so much in need of people that Napoleon Bonaparte championed a full-scale return of Jews.

In the early 19th century, Palestine was a backward, neglected province of the Ottoman Empire. Travelers to Palestine from the Western world left records of what they saw there. The theme throughout their reports is dismal: The land was empty, neglected, abandoned, desolate, fallen into ruins.

In Jerusalem, all reports and journals of travelers, pilgrims and government representatives during these years, repeatedly record the poverty, filth and neglect and the desolate nature of the countryside. Early photographs show lepers in rags and dilapidated buildings. Jerusalem was surrounded by marauding bands of Bedouin Arabs and had to close her gates at nightfall and reopen them at first light, a practice that was similar in Biblical times.

Some quotes from the writings of these visitors before modern times:

Nothing there [Jerusalem] to be seen but a little of the old walls which is yet remaining and all the rest is grass, moss and weeds. [English pilgrim in 1590]


The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population. [British consul in 1857]


There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] -- not for 30 miles in either direction... One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. ... For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee ... Nazareth is forlorn ... Jericho lies a moldering ruin ... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation... untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds ... a silent, mournful expanse ... a desolation ... We never saw a human being on the whole route ... Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country ... Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery Palestine must be the prince. The hills barren and dull, the valleys unsightly deserts [inhabited by] swarms of beggars with ghastly sores and malformations. Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes ... desolate and unlovely ... [Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1867]
Remarkably, there are photographs dating to the 19th century and early 20th century that document the development of Palestine from the desolate, pre-Zionist landscape reported by travelers to the green and productive land that Jewish immigrants created there. This web site has 460 photographs and lithographs of the period, some never before available to the public. They show how the industrious Zionists made the lightly-populated land productive and able to support the great increases in Jewish and Arab numbers that came to Palestine in the following decades.

Winston Churchill was British Colonial Secretary when he visited the Middle East in the winter of 1920-1921. Anti-Semitic elements in the British government tried to assert that the Jews were not needed to develop Palestine. Churchill replied:

Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell—a handful of philosophic people—in wasted sun-drenched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea."
In 1924, a few months after becoming Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Elwood Mead (namesake of Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam) published a highly favorable review of Jewish settlements in Palestine based on his visits there in 1923. His article, "New Palestine," praised the Zionists accomplishments and plans, a publicity coup. Mead blamed Islam, Ottoman governance, and Arab culture for the demise of Roman irrigation systems that, according to Mead, once supported "lands flowing with milk and honey." Mead was a consultant to Chiam Weizman offering his expertise to maximize the return on investment of the extensive investments in irrigation, land reclamation, and water supplies in the Zionist areas based on Mead's extensive experience in the American West.

After the Arab riots in 1929, Mead wrote to the British High Commissioner that Jewish colonists had produced "a marvelous transformation" in the Palestinian landscape. Mead noted that in his visits to Palestine he had seen nothing "to indicate that the Arab was injured." Moreover, the Jewish example of "what modern finance and equipment can do, coupled with the sympathetic interest of the government is bringing him out of the hopeless inertia that misgovernment and oppression of centuries past have created .... " Jewish settlers in Palestine were not only reclaiming the land, they were elevating living standards for the Arab population and assisting the British government.

In his report to the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan for the year 1925, the British High Commissioner wrote:

Fuel-power stations for the generation of electrical light and energy have been established at Haifa and Tiberias by the [Jewish] Palestine Electric Corporation, Limited. This increase in commercial activity, in building enterprise and new industrial developments is due almost entirely to Jewish capital and the entry during the year of an immigrant class with money to invest.
During this period a significant shift of population took place as Arabs and others from all over the Middle East moved to the areas of Zionist cultivation and development. The organizational and technical skills of the Jewish settlers, their access to outside capital, and their sheer hard work created an economic boom that created opportunity for Arab workers, particularly in contrast to the stagnant conditions elsewhere in the region. This has been documented by many, following the much-criticized but basically sound work of Joan Peters in her book From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab–Jewish Conflict Over Palestine. The central findings are that:

1.As far back as 1893, the Jews not only were already far from being a small minority in the areas where they had settled, but were the largest single group there (if one divides the non-Jewish population into Muslim and Christian), and


2.Substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century; from 1893 to 1947 while the Palestinian Arab population slightly more than doubled in areas where no Jews were settled, it quintupled in the main areas of Jewish settlement.
These findings are supported with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer.

Sources and additional reading on this topic:
•Jerusalem Archives
•First Photos of the Holy Land
•The History and Meaning Of "Palestine" and "Palestinians"
•From Time Immemorial: Table of Contents and Excerpts
•Selected Texts: From Time Immemorial
•New York Review of Books, From Time Immemorial
•Letters Regarding New York Review of Books review of From Time Immemorial
•Book review: Peters, J. From Time Immemorial (Gellner)
•Revisiting A Mideast Must-Read, From Time Immemorial
•Finding truth in the Mideast: Interview with Joan Peters
•Book review: Peters, J. From Time Immemorial (Vanyukov)
•An American In Palestine: Elwood Mead and Zionist Water Resource Planning, 1923-1936
•British High Commissioner's Report to the League of Nations, 1925
•The Myth Of The Palestinian People
•Roots of the Water Conflict in the Middle East

قانون سعودي جديد : ارتكاب الزنى اهون من الخلوة بخادمة!! ,و ايييه!

عاقبت محكمة سعودية الأسبوع الماضى عاملا مصريا وآخر هنديا بالحبس 7 شهور والجلد 350 جلدة لاتهامها بالخلوة بخادمة إندونيسية.وتبين من مطالعة الحكم أنه صدر بناء على شهادة شاهد واحد يدعى محمد البلوى «سعودى الجنسية»، فيما قال العامل المصرى عبدالفتاح محمد بندق الصادر ضده الحكم لجريدة مصرية: إن الشريعة الإسلامية أوجبت لإدانة المتهم شاهدى عدل، بينما صدر الحكم بناء على شهادة شاهد واحد، كما أن العقوبة جاءت أغلظ من عقوبة جريمة الزنا، وهى 100 جلدة، بينما وقع القاضى علينا عقوبة الجلد بــ 350 جلدة فى واقعة لو صحت فإنها أقل إثما من الزنا. وأضاف أن القاضى رفض إثبات روايته للواقعة لأن كل ما نسب إليه واقعة مختلقة سببها خلافه مع الشاهد الذى لم يحدد اسم الخادمة، ولا كفيلها الذى لم يشهد فى القضية

واتضح من حيثيات الحكم أن هيئة الأمر بالمعروف والنهى عن المنكر امتنعت وفقا لرواية شاهد الإثبات الوحيد عن التوجه معه لمكان الواقعة التى ادعاها.وجاء فى نص الحكم: «أنا صالح بن سعيد الزهرانى القاضى بمحكمة جدة الجزئية بناء على الدعوى المحالة من المدعى العام ضد كل من محمد أبو بكر « هندى الجنسية»، وعبدالفتاح محمد بندق «مصرى الجنسية»، والمتهمين فيها بالتسبب فى هروب خادمة إندونيسية من منزل كفيلها، والاختلاء المحرم بها بداخل غرفة العامل الهندى».وأضاف الحكم أنه حضر للشهادة خلف بسطام العتيبى، وشهد أن العامل الهندى يعمل بنفس الحى الذى يسكن فيه بصفة حارس، وكنت أراه بالحى باستمرار، وهذا ما أشهد به

ولم تتطرق شهادة الشاهد الأول للواقعة محل القضية، بينما قال الشاهد الثنى محمد البلوى: إنه شاهد الخادمة الإندونيسية بداخل غرفة العامل الهندى، وكان معه العامل المصرى عبدالفتاح، وقمت بسؤال العامل المصرى عن سبب وجوده، فقال إنه حضر لأخذ أغراضه من العامل الهندى، وعند رجوعى لتكليف العامل الهندى بشراء الماء، كان الخوف واضحا على العامل المصرى، فسألته ماذا يحدث داخل الغرفة؟، ورجعت مرة أخرى للتأكد مما يدور بالغرفة، وعند توقفى أمام المنزل، رأيت امرأة إندونيسية بداخلها، وذكر لى العامل الهندى أنها كانت عنده منذ قليل مع العامل المصرى، فذهبت لقسم الشرطة، ولكن المسئولين رفضوا التجاوب معى، فرجعت، وهذا ما رأيته بالتفصيل. وواصل الحكم أنه بسؤال المتهمين أنكرا.ثم أضاف الحكم العقوبة دون سرد للأسباب، وجاء فى خاتمته وحيث الحال من الدعوى والإجابة والبينة، حكمت المحكمة على كل منهما بسجنه 7 شهور، وجلد كل واحد منهما 70 جلدة مكررة خمس مرات بين كل مرة ومرة 10 أيام
www.arabtimes.com

هل فشلت حملة مصر ضد حزب الله؟

عبد الرحمن الراشد

السؤال يفترض أن يطرح كالتالي: هل توجد حملة مصرية ضد حزب الله، لولا أنها عبارة السيد حسن نصر الله قائد حزب الله؟ منذ الصيف الماضي بدأت هجمة كلامية تنتقد مصر بدعوى أنها تشترك مع إسرائيل في حصار حكومة حماس وشعب غزة. المصريون كانوا يتجاهلون التعليق ويكتفون بالظهور في دور الوسيط الذي يريد إصلاح الشرخ الفلسطيني، حتى وقعت الحرب وكبرت القضية. في حرب غزة وجّه معظم اللوم ليس إلى إسرائيل، أو الدول المحسوبة على حماس التي لم تفعل شيئا لمساندتها، بل كان موجّها بشكل استثنائي ضد المصريين، حيث صُوروا كخونة وعملاء وعديمي رحمة.

وكانت المفاجأة الكبرى أن الحملة توّجت بكلمة السيد حسن الذي ظهر على شاشات التلفزيون داعيا إلى الانقلاب على النظام المصري عسكريا وشعبيا. أمر غريب لم يحدث قط من قبل في عالم الخلافات العربية. وصارت القضية أكبر من مجرد تحريض عندما قبض على خلية أقر السيد حسن بأن رئيسها بالفعل من كوادر حزبه، وأنه أرسل في مهمة عسكرية.

لذا يبدو غريبا أن يظن أحد أن هناك حملة على حزب الله وهو الذي يقود مع الآخرين الحملة في برنامج منظم وليس مجرد ردود أفعال إعلامية، كانت تبدو كحملة لإخراج مصر من معسكر الاعتدال ردا على الطرح القائل بضرورة إخراج سورية من معسكر التطرف الإيراني.

والغريب أن حزب الله ألف على ارتكاب الأخطاء على مدى السنوات الثلاث، فمنذ تورطه باختطاف الجنديين الإسرائيليين والحرب الإسرائيلية، فاحتلاله منطقة السنّة في بيروت الغربية، ثم استهدافه مصر، أكبر الدول العربية. ثلاثة حسابات خاطئة تماما. فمعركته مع إسرائيل كلفته عمليا كل ما جمعه في سنوات سابقة، يحظر على قواته اليوم دخول الأراضي اللبنانية المحاذية لإسرائيل، أي في نحو عشرين في المائة من أراضي بلاده، وفرض عليه حظر بحري مع رقابة دولية أرضية وإسرائيلية جوية، فكان انتصارا دعائيا ضخمته الأجهزة الإعلامية. وبعدها بعام هجمت ميلشيات الحزب على مناطق السنّة في بيروت في أول صدام طائفي صريح. عمليا في 9 مايو العام الماضي تغير تاريخ السنّة الذين كانوا في معظمهم مؤيدين لحزب الله في مواجهة إسرائيل وانقلبوا ضده تماما، حتى إن سنّة لبنان رفضوا تأييد حماس في حرب غزة لأن حماس صارت اسما مقرونا بحزب الله.

ولم يكتفِ السيد حسن عند هذين الخطأين فهاجم مصر، أكبر الدول السنّية في العالم العربي. لماذا فعلها رجل يسعى جاهدا للخروج من حيز الطائفة الضيق إلى زعامة إسلامية؟ السبب أن السيد يعيش في قبو تحت الأرض، ولا يصله إلا فقط أقوال رفاقه الذين صوروا له أنه زعيم العالم الإسلامي وبطل الصمود، وأن كلمة منه تهز مصر أو الأردن أو السعودية أو إندونيسيا. نحن نعرف أن الزعامة دعاية، لكن لم نعرف أن من أطلق الدعاية صدقها. لهذا عندما ظهر يطلب من المصريين التظاهر وقلب النظام خرج إلى الشارع نحو مائتي شخص في مدينة سكانها تسعة ملايين. الآن عسى أن يعلم حزب الله أن قيادة العالم الإسلامي لا تتم فقط عبر المايكروفونات والاحتفالات والتصوير مع سمير قنطار والجنرالات وخالد مشعل.

* نقلا عن صحيفة "الشرق الأوسط" اللندنية

Jewish Canadians Concerned about Suppression of Criticism of Israel

Background: IJAN Toronto members, working with other local Jewish activists in Toronto, put together and op-ed piece and collected 161 names of Jewish Canadians within a week, debunking the myth that criticism of the Israeli state is anti-Semitic, or that Israel acts out of self-defense. It also decries recent attacks on Israeli Apartheid week at several Canadian Universities. The statement, “Jewish Canadians Concerned About Suppression of Criticism of Israel.” speaks about the current climate as analogous to the Red Scare of the 1950s. Both the Toronto Star and the national Globe and Mail refused to publish it. The piece was then placed as an “advertisement” in one of the free weekly papers in Toronto, NOW Magazine. It is currently circulating on various lists and websites on the Internet, and may eventually be placed as an advertisement in either the Globe and Mail or the Ottawa Citizen, if more money can be raised. And names keep coming in.
We are Jewish Canadians concerned about all expressions of racism, anti-Semitism, and social injustice. We believe that the Holocaust legacy “Never again” means never again for all peoples. It is a tragic turn of history that the State of Israel, with its ideals of democracy and its dream of being a safe haven for Jewish people, causes immeasurable suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people.

We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics. Charges that those organizing Israel Apartheid Week or supporting an academic boycott of Israel are anti-Semites promoting hatred bring the anti-Communist terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. We believe this serves to deflect attention from Israel’s flagrant violations of international humanitarian law.

B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress have pressured university presidents and
administrations to silence debate and discussion specifically regarding Palestine/Israel. In a full-page ad in a national newspaper, B’nai Brith urged donors to withhold funds from universities because “anti-Semitic hate fests” were being allowed on campuses. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff have echoed these arguments. While university administrators have resisted demands to shut down Israel Apartheid week, some Ontario university presidents have bowed to this disinformation campaign by suspending and fining students, confiscating posters, and infringing on free speech.

We do not believe that Israel acts in self-defense. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, receiving $3 million/day. It has the fourth strongest army in the world. Before the invasion of Gaza on 27 December 2008, Israel’s siege had already created a humanitarian catastrophe there, with severe impoverishment, malnutrition, and destroyed infrastructure. It is crucial that forums for discussion of Israel’s accountability to the international community for what many have called war crimes be allowed to proceed unrestricted by specious claims of anti-Semitism.

We recognize that anti-Semitism is a reality in Canada as elsewhere, and we are fully committed to resisting any act of hatred against Jews. At the same time, we condemn false charges of anti-Semitism against student organizations, unions, and other groups and people exercising their democratic right to freedom of speech and association regarding legitimate criticism of the State of Israel
http://www.ijsn.net/C83/

Israeli Apartheid

For the liberation movements of southern Africa, Israel and apartheid South Africa represented a racist, colonial axis. It was noted that people like John Vorster had been Nazi sympathisers, interned during World War II - yet feted as heroes in Israel and, incidentally, never again referred to by South African Zionists as anti-Semites.

It is instructive to add that in its conduct and methods of repression, Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith— even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment, and aggression against neighbouring states.

Any South African, whether involved in the freedom struggle or motivated by basic human decency, who visits the Occupied Palestinian Territories is shocked to the core at the situation they encounter and agree with Archbishop Tutu’s comment that what the Palestinians are experiencing is far worse than what happened in South Africa, where the Sharpeville massacre of 69 civilians in 1960 became the international symbol of apartheid cruelty.

I want to recall here the words of an Israeli Cabinet Minister, Aharon Cizling in 1948, after the savagery of the Deir Yassin massacre of 240 villagers became known. He said: “Now we too have behaved like the Nazis and my whole being is shaken.”

It needs to be frankly raised that if the crimes of the Holocaust are at the top end of the scale of human barbarity in modern times, where do we place the human cost of what has so recently occurred in Gaza and against the Palestinians since 1948 in the nakba (catastrophe) they have endured? Guernica, Lidice, the Warsaw Ghetto, Deir Yassin, Mai Lei, Sabra and Shatilla, Sharpeville are high on that scale— and the perpetrators of the slaughter in Gaza are the offspring of holocaust victims who are yet again, in Cizling’s words, behaving like Nazis. This must not be allowed to go unpunished and the international community must demand they be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Once more, let me turn to our South African experience. There, as with other struggles such as Vietnam, Algeria, the former Portuguese colonies, the just nature of the struggle was the assurance for success. With that moral advantage, on the basis of a just liberation struggle, we learnt the secret of Vietnam’s victory and strategised according to what we termed our Four Pillars of Struggle: Political mass struggle; reinforced by armed struggle; clandestine underground struggle; and international solidarity.

At times, any one of these can become predominant— and it is not for outsiders to direct those at the frontline of the struggle as to what and how to choose, but to modestly provide the lessons of our experience, pointing out that the unity of the struggling people is as indispensable as the moral high-ground they occupy. For the Vietnamese, the military element was generally primary but always resting on popular mass support.

In South Africa the mass struggle became the primary way, with sabotage actions and limited guerrilla operations inspiring our people. It all depends on the conditions and the situation.

But unquestioningly, what helped tip the balance, in Vietnam and South Africa, was the force and power of international solidarity action. It took some 30 years but the worldwide Anti-Apartheid Movements campaigns, launched in London in 1959, for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions not only provided international activists with a practical role, but became an incalculable factor in (a) isolating and weakening the apartheid regime (b) inspiring the struggling people (c) undermining the resolve of those states that supported and benefited from relations with apartheid South Africa, (d) generated a change of attitude amongst the South African White population generally, and political, business, professional, academic, religious and sporting associations in particular. Boycott made them feel the pinch in their pocket and their polecat status everywhere— whether on the sporting fields, at academic or business conventions, in the world of theatre and the arts they were totally shunned like biblical lepers. There was literally no place to hide from universal condemnation backed by decisive and relentless action which, in time, became more and more creative.

To conclude: we must spare no effort in building a worldwide solidarity movement to emulate the success of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Nelson Mandela stated after South Africa attained democratic rule that “we South Africans cannot feel free until the Palestinians are free.” A slogan of South Africa’s liberation struggle and our trade union movement is “An injury to one is an injury to all!” That goes for the whole of humanity. Every act of solidarity demonstrates to the Palestinians, and those courageous Jews who stand by them in Israel, that they are not alone. Whilst many Palestinians have lost their lives the Palestinians have not been conquered or cowed. Repression generates resistance and that will grow. Israeli aggression stands exposed.

A turning point has been reached in humanity‘s perception of this issue. The time is ripe for us to drive home the advantage— we know the times are changing and Zionist hegemony is fast losing control. Like South Africa, this can mean, must mean: freedom, peace, security, equality and justice for all— Muslim, Christian and Jew. That is well worth struggling for!

RONNIE KASRILS is a South African politician. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the African National Congress since 1987.
We Learn From History That We Learn Nothing From History
by Ronnie Kasrils

"The Only Democracy in the Middle East"!!!!

Israeli Spying on the United States

The Pentagon and the Department of State] are channels through which flow thousands of messages dealing with the nation's top secrets each day...

But how secure are the secrets?

The leaks to Israel are fantastic. If I have something I want the secretary of state to know but don't want Israel to know, I must wait till I have a chance to see him personally.
This declaration came from an ambassador, still on active duty in a top assignment, while he reviewed his long career in numerous posts in the Middle East. Although hardly a household name in the United States, his is one of America's best-known abroad. Interviewed in the State Department, he spoke deliberately, choosing his words carefully: "It is a fact of life that everyone in authority is reluctant to put anything on paper that concerns Israel if it is to be withheld from Israel's knowledge," said the veteran. "Nor do such people even feel free to speak in a crowded room of such things."

– Paul Findley, They Dare To Speak Out
(Entire chapter coming soon.)

Breaking the Taboo on Israel's Spying Efforts on the United States
Christopher Ketcham, AlterNet - Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S., yet public discussion about it is almost nil. more

Now I've Seen Everything: A spy goes to work for a thinktank
Justin Raimondo, AntiWar.com - Of course there's nothing all that unusual about a spy going to work for a Washington thinktank. Ex-CIA employees do it all the time: so do all sorts of other spooks, who would otherwise be haunting the world's darkest corners. No big deal. But what I've never seen, and don't recall ever hearing about, is the spectacle of a spy for a foreign country being hired by any organization that hopes to influence U.S. foreign policy. Well, here's one for the record books: the Middle East Forum has hired Steve Rosen, once the head of policy development for the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosen is accused of stealing highly classified information from the U.S. government and passing it on to Israeli government officials. more

Israel’s “Spy” in the White House
MER Monthly Magazine - Take the word "spy" here in the overall context of the background, role, connections and allegiances of Rahm Emanuel. more

Army veteran accused of slipping secrets to Israel in '80s
Larry Neumeister, San Francisco Chronicle - An 84-year-old U.S. Army veteran was charged with revealing secrets about America's nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles to Israel more than 20 years ago in a case linked to an earlier spy scandal that strained U.S.-Israeli relations. more

Where Did AIPAC Come From?
Grant Smith, AntiWar.com, Excerpt from Foreign Agents - AIPAC was founded by Isaiah L. "Si" Kenen, springing from the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs Kenen registered twice with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) as a foreign agent for Israel. more

AIPAC on Trial: The lobby argues that good Americans spy for Israel?
Justin Raimondo in The American Conservative - Is there a First Amendment right to engage in espionage? Dorothy Rabinowitz seems to think so. Describing the actions of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former top officials of AIPAC, the premier Israel lobbying group, who passed purloined intelligence to Israeli government officials, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist characterized them as “activities that go on every day in Washington, and that are clearly protected under the First Amendment.” If what Rabinowitz says is true—if passing classified information to foreign officials is routine in the nation’s capital—then we are all in big trouble. more

Video: Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?
Fox News - It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work. Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series

US Interests and Israel/Palestine

lthough it is not often reported by the press, a large proportion of American diplomatic and military experts have long held that U.S. support of Israel is often contrary to and, in fact, extremely damaging to U.S. interests.

Support for Israel interferes with: American relations with the oil-producing nations, with whom we previously had friendly ties; with Muslim consumers, who represent 1.2 billion people world-wide; and removes much-needed money from domestic American requirements — tax revenues that could be addressed to domestic needs are instead sent abroad to prop up a system of discrimination that is antithetical to American principles of equality and democracy.

In addition, the ‘special relationship’ between the U.S. and Israel is increasingly imperiling American lives.

Why, then, is this done? Close examination of the history and current situation reveals that U.S. policies in the Middle East are rarely driven by U.S. interests. Rather, they are largely driven by two very different factors:


1.Special-interest lobbying of the sort that is common to Washington. The only difference from typical lobby groups is that this lobbying is on behalf of a foreign government. Fortune Magazine rates one of the many lobby organizations working on behalf of Israel, AIPAC, as the second most powerful lobby in Washington. In total, many experts rate the pro-Israel interest group as the most powerful lobby in Washington.


2.The efforts of a growing number of individuals with close ties to Israel (known as neoconservatives) who have attained key positions at high levels of the U.S. administration, State Department, and Pentagon.

Interestingly, the oil and weapons industries, although very influential over parts of American Middle East policy, are not responsible for our relationship with Israel. In fact, quite often both of these industries find our support for Israel undermines their corporate interests in the region.

Some Muslims Are Not Bad

I attended an extremely disturbing event Thursday night. It was hosted by WETA, the PBS station in Washington DC, and was part of the national launch of an 11-part PBS series, "America at a Crossroads," to begin airing April 15. It featured clips from the series followed by a panel discussion with some of those involved in the films, moderated by Robert MacNeil. The panel discussion represented a "wide" spectrum of opinions: all the way from, at one end, suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists to, at the other end, suggesting that some Muslims are not terrorists.

In other words, from what we were shown on Friday, it appears that much of the series contains subtle, intellectually "acceptable" Muslim-bashing. While the title of the series claims that it is focusing on America, many of the clips seemed to be focusing, over and over again, on Islam, largely examining "bad Muslims" (the majority) with a few "good Muslims" thrown in (often consisting of those who bash bad Muslims).

One entire program in the series, funded with federal money dispensed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), is dedicated to Richard Perle, the neoconservative strategist who pushed for "regime-change" in Iraq and is now promoting it once more in Iran. While his opponents are also included in the segment, Perle is given the opportunity to rebut each one; the film was produced by his associate Brian Lapping. The title of the program, "The Case for War: In Defense of Freedom," seems to indicate a perspective that few facts would support. While only short clips were shown on Friday, Perle's approving, and welcomed, presence at the screening seems to indicate a happy CPB-PBS-Perle relationship. Happy for Perle that is; not for those of us who are less than pleased at manipulations that destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives, at least, and whose agenda appears to be an Israeli American empire based on a mutilating sword, and whose deathly swath cuts many ways.

At the other end of Friday night's "A" through "C" gamut of views was Michael Isikoff, whose rebuttal of Perle's claims about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was deservedly applauded by the audience. Isikoff's own clip portrayed him as a crusading investigative reporter, a la Dustin Hoffman in "All the President's Men." However, it turned out that Isikoff's form of crusading reporting was not to uncover presidential malfeasance but to expose "dangerous Muslims," i.e. those who oppose tyrannical regimes or who dare to suggest that Hamas and Hezbollah are resistance movements opposing brutal Israeli aggression.

Practicing the reverse of A.J. Liebling's dictum that the duty of journalism is "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," Isikoff's offering in this series appears to be to go after arguably the most attacked community in the US today. A few miles away from where Isikoff was being feted by PBS for his work in exposing "Muslim terrorists," Sami Al-Arian (who has never been convicted of any crime, but who has spoken out passionately in favor of Palestinian rights) is spending his fourth year in prison, largely in solitary confinement. Perhaps Isikoff will now turn his investigative skills to examining the role of Israel and its partisans in Al-Arian's persecution and in the Crossroads series itself. He may wish to begin with CPB's head, Cheryl Halpern, a former chairwoman for the Republican Jewish Coalition, who, according to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, currently sits on the board of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), whose husband is a member of AIPAC, and whose family has business interests in Israel. Her predecessor at CPB was similarly solicitous of Israel, as are so many of the neocons now associated with the organization.which brings me to my next point:

Missing
It is interesting that in an 11-program series focused largely on the Middle East, no mention is made of the core issue of the region: the enormous injustice perpetrated in 1948 when Israel ethnically cleansed most of the indigenous population, and its ongoing and ruthless efforts in this direction today. While the series focuses on the activities of people who are opposing past and present dispossession, it appears that no mention is made of the oppression they are resisting. It is a little like describing the actions of someone being attacked by wolves without mentioning the wolves.

The issues in the Middle East and 9/11 have far more to do with the usual causes of war, competition over territory and resources, than with religion. Nevertheless, there are religious dimensions to the conflict, and it would certainly be valuable to explicate these. Yet PBS ignores the fact that there are three major religions centered in the Middle East, not just one, and that the major ethnic-cleansing at the region's core was done in the name of one of the two religions ignored in the series. If one of the religions is going to be examined, with much of the focus on its alleged warts, it seems to me that the other two should be exposed to equal scrutiny. Why was this not done?

Fundamentalist Jewish settlers are among the most fanatic and violent populations in the Middle East, and they proclaim that their violence is endorsed, even required, by their religion. Growing numbers of Christians endorse and fund this violent dispossession of the world's original Christians and others, and also claim to base their activities on their religion. Similarly, violent Jewish and Christian extremists operate in the United States, some cells defined, even by the US government, as "terrorist." While at least six out of PBS's eleven programs focus on Muslims and their connections to violence, not a single program focuses on Jewish extremists who torture farmers, attack children regularly, and whose core beliefs include the proposition that a non-Jew is "not worth the fingernail of a Jew." Similarly, there is not a single program examining American Christians who advocate violence at home and abroad, and who eagerly anticipate mass slaughter, in the name, they say, of their religion.

Moreover, with all this attention on Islam, one would at least expect some depth from a $20 million, publicly funded series that spends so much time on this subject. Sadly, however, despite a surface appearance of balance, there is much to suggest that PBS has actually provided little more than tokenism. In Washington DC there are numerous scholars on Islam, many of them living and working within a short distance of Friday's event. Yet, PBS gave us a panel in which two Jews and one Christian informed us about Muslims. While I suspect that no one would accuse the panelists of undue humility, I sincerely doubt that even one would claim to be an Islamic scholar. In addition, for the only program of the series in which a Muslim is the main "expert" on Muslims, PBS has chosen to utilize a woman whose new-found media fame, and resultant fortune, have come from attacking Muslims.

Soft Core
Let me emphasize that I am not accusing PBS of hate speech. I fully anticipate that the 11-part series will contain many uplifting and accurate statements about Islam and Muslims. My expectation is that the series will be skillfully produced, its approach will be intelligent, and its tone will be tolerant. (One of the shows that received Public Broadcasting Corporation funding for the series, by neoconservative Frank Gaffney, a member of the Project for a New American Century who previously worked under Perle, was deemed too openly "alarmist" and has been postponed for further editing. A second program, by yet another neoconservative, Robert Kaplan, is also being held for broadcast later.)

Overall, I expect that the series will provide what appear to the general public to be nuanced and thoughtful answers. My concern is simple: that it will so rarely, if ever, ask the right questions. Most of all, I am worried that in its many hours of programming, the wolves, and these are many and diverse, will be missing.

In some ways, the title of the series is quite correct; America is indeed at a crossroads, but of a very different nature than the series discusses. Either we will continue to let our mainstream media, from the "public" to the commercial, from the liberal to the conservative, manipulate Americans into fear and hatred of Muslims, thereby enabling Israeli and American aggression; or we will stand up and oppose this media manipulation, and refuse to allow the resultant policies of barbarism.

During the question and answer period following the screening, I briefly raised a few of the points mentioned above. (Robert MacNeil responded that PBS probably should have included something about Israel-Palestine; Isikoff misconstrued what I said and then disagreed.) Afterwards, several people came up to tell me they agreed with my comments. One man who expressed deep concern at the targeting of a minority population explained his own experience with such activities: he had fled Nazi Germany at the age of seven.

Instead of undertaking a thinly veiled prosecution of Muslims in which it found some of the accused "not guilty," it would have been valuable for PBS to do what it claimed: examine ourselves and the divergent paths from which we must choose. Either we will continue in the direction promoted by Perle, Gaffney and others, and continue destroying more and more of the globe, and quite possibly ourselves; or we will turn back to efforts to build a nation and a world in which ethnic agendas and outmoded tribalisms give way to universal principles of justice, equality, and coexistence.

In my opinion the second path is not only the direction that morality decrees, it is also the only path that will ever provide the safety from violence and cruelty that we all seek for ourselves and our children.

If you agree, I hope you will let PBS ombudsman Michael Getler (http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/) know: 703-739-5290. He's never returned any of my phone calls (even in his previous incarnation as ombudsman at the Washington Post); maybe he'll return yours
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew. Her blog is alisonweir.org

dubai...

The Emirate of Dubai in the U.A.E. is one of the great success stories internationally in the process of economic development. Traditionally the trading hub of the Region, Dubai is now extending its success into tourism and knowledge based industries.
Dubai's strategic location is also a key element in its success. The heart of one of the worlds richest regions, Dubai is located midway between the Far East and Europe. Over 120 shipping lines and 100 airlines connect to more than 140 global destinations. The award winning Emirates airlines is ever expanding into new destinations.
Surrounded by vast dunes of rolling sand lapping at the foothills of the arid Hajar mountains to the east, Dubai has come of age as the ideal tourist destination. Often known as ‘The City of Gold' or ‘The City of Lights', these days it seems like it could be known as ‘The City of Records'. With the first 7-star hotel, the first ski domain in desert the largest man-made islands and the richest horse race in the world. Dubai is also breaking records for tourism growth. Between 2001 and 2004 the yearly number of visitors to Dubai has grown by almost fifty per cent to over 6 million.

Parents of critically injured US peace activist demand justice from Israel

he parents of an American peace activist who was severely injured by Israeli forces at a demonstration in the occupied West Bank called on the Israeli government today to take "full responsibility" for the shooting.

Tristan Anderson, 38, was hit in the forehead by a high-velocity teargas canister fired by an Israeli border policeman in the village of Nilin earlier this month. The incident came after a demonstration against Israel's West Bank barrier, which as elsewhere has cut off a large slice of the village's agricultural land.

Since last July, four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in similar demonstrations in the village.

Anderson was rushed to the Tel Hashomer hospital in Israel, where he has already had three operations. He lost the sight in his right eye and doctors had to remove portions of his frontal lobe. It is not clear if he will survive, or how much brain damage he may have suffered.

His parents, Nancy and Michael, who flew out from their home near Sacramento in California to be at his bedside, said he remained in a "very critical condition" in a medically induced coma.

"We are horrified and overwhelmed," said Nancy Anderson. "We are scared and really still in shock. To shoot peaceful demonstrators is really horrifying to us. What we want to ask is that the Israeli government publicly take full responsibility for the shooting of our son."

She said no Israeli official, from either the government or the military, had contacted the couple since their son was hurt. "I don't carry any negative feelings towards the soldier who shot our son," she said. "All I feel is love for Tristan and fear for his recovery."

Tristan Anderson worked in Oakland, California, as part of a crew involved in setting up conventions. He arrived in Israel in February with his girlfriend, and was planning to stay three months before joining his parents in Europe for a holiday.

He had been involved in previous peace demonstrations elsewhere in the world, including in Iraq in 2003, El Salvador and Guatemala. He was at the 2000 demonstration in Prague against the World Bank and IMF.

"Tristan has always been interested in how societies that go through conflict are able to resolve their issues," said his father. "He came to understand for himself what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was about. It is ironic that the country in which he was shot is a democracy where it is supposed to be a duty for everyone to follow their conscience. We want to know the truth of what happened and we want justice for our son."

Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli activist who was at the demonstration this month, said Tristan was hit at around 4.30pm inside the village, at least 1km from the barrier, at a time when the demonstration was dispersing. Although, as is often the case, there had been some stone-throwing at the protest, he said Tristan had never thrown any stones or taken any violent action. Pollack said Israeli border police had led an incursion into Nilin that morning.

"For hours before he was shot, Tristan was nowhere near the wall," he said. It is thought he was hit by a high-velocity teargas grenade, a weapon newly being used against West Bank demonstrators. It comes in a black canister labelled in Hebrew "40mm bullet special/long range", and is silent when fired, according to demonstrators. Tristan was hit from a distance of about 60 metres, they said.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer acting for the Anderson family, said he had filed an official complaint demanding an independent investigation. He said that evidence from Israeli human rights researchers showed neither the border police nor the barrier itself were under any threat at the time of the shooting.

"The incident took place in the village of Nilin when the protesters came back to the village after a peaceful demonstration," Sfard said. "The policemen involved, both the guy who shot and the officers who gave orders, must take the full might of criminal justice."

The Israeli military described the protest as a "violent riot", saying that "approximately 400 rioters threw a massive number of rocks at security forces".

"Israel regrets that the Israeli and foreign nationals co-operate with violent rioters against the building of the security fence, whose purpose is saving the lives of Israeli citizens," it said. "As such, any Israeli, Palestinian, or foreign national who illegally participates in a violent demonstration takes upon himself the risk of personal harm during the dispersal of these disturbances."

jewish INTO MUSLIMS!

Crime in Israel

Crime in Israel is present in various forms which include drug trafficking, arms trafficking, money laundering, burglary, car theft, human trafficking etc. Organized crime has increased dramatically in Israel since the 1990s and is described by the BBC as a "booming industry". The Israeli mafia have extended their activities in foreign countries like the United States, South Africa, and the Netherlands.[1] According to a report by the Israel Police, drug trafficking, trafficking of women for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, illicit gambling, pirate filling stations and real estate are the major forms of crime in the country.[2]
Cocaine and heroin abuse is increasing in Israel with the drugs coming mainly from countries like Lebanon and Jordan. Israel is also a money-laundering center.[3] Director of the Latin American Institute of the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C. Dina Siegel, criminology professor H. G. van de Bunt, and lecturer in criminology Damián Zaitch showed in their book Global Organized Crime that a significant amount of crime in Israel, especially crime against property, is committed by the citizens of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA or PA).[4] Motor vehicle theft is a major crime committed by the Palestinians. Since the early 1990s, there has been an increase in the rate of robberies in Israel. Between 1994 to 2001, the rate of robberies increased from 14.0 to 30.6 cases per 100,000 population. The reason behind this increase in robberies is analyzed as a result of the establishment of the PA which according to the book Global Organized Crime "serves as a safe heaven for Palestinian offenders". However, the organized crime industry associated with motor vehicle theft involves not only Palestinians, but also Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. The parts of the stolen cars are removed in "chop shops" in the PA and then these vehicles are sold in the black market in the Israeli territory. Media reports suggest some of these vehicles are even handed over to high-ranking PNA officials.[5]
Although Palestinian criminals are involved in organized crime in the country, Siegel et al. suggested one should not conclude that "organized crime in Israel is dominated by Palestinians. Organized crime committed by Jews or other non-Palestinians has been part of the Israeli crime scene for many years".[2]
Arms trafficking is another form of crime and it is directly associated with terrorism. There are many links between Israeli and Palestinian gangsters that facilitate these ventures.[5] Violence against minors is also a problem in Israel. In 1999, approximately 7,000 cases of crimes against minors were documented which included physical assault (54%), molestation (37%) and repeated physical victimization (9%).[6] However, Israeli minors are not solely the victims of crime, they are also sometimes the perpetrators. Teenage violence in schools is a problem in Israel; the first major study on teenage crime in the nation by T. Horowitz and M. Amir in 1981 indicated three major forms of violence in Israeli schools: theft, breaking and entering, and vandalism.[7] Studies have suggested that Israeli Arab youth are more violent than Jews in the country, a fact which academics attribute to cultural, social, and economic differences.[8]
In 2002, the Israel Police documented 464,854 criminal files and non-prosecution cases while the number was 484,688 in 2003. This was an increase of 4.5% over 2002

سكنك !!!

يعيش في ولاية تكساس الأمريكية حيوان عجيب يشبه الارنب ويوازيه في حجمه يعرف بأسم " سكنك " Skunk سلحه الله عز وجل بوسيلة دفاع عن النفس عجيبة ونادرة وفعالة .
* اذا وجد هذا الحيوان الصغير نفسه أمام عدو ”ضرط ”عليه .
*الضرطة الواحدة من هذا الحيوان العجيب كفيلة بتلويث الجو برائحة مقرفة ومنفرة تنتشر في مساحة تزيد عن ميلين مربعين لا يمكن للانسان أو الحيوان احتمالها ولا يوجد خيار أمام الضحية الا الهرب من المنطقة .
* أما اذا كانت القذيفة مباشرة ... وضرط ال " سكنك " في وجهك ... فأن كل صابون المدينة لن ينفعك ولن يغسلك من الرائحة التي تعلق بك وتحولك الى جيفة بكل ما في هذه الكلمة من معنى . * فلاح من تكساس على معرفة بهذا الحيوان وحكاياته أخبرني ان سكان الولاية كانوا يعالجون المصاب بقذيفة مباشرة من هذا الحيوان عن طريق عصير البندورة " الطماطم " حيث يتم نقع المصاب في برميل مليء بعصير الطماطم لعدة ساعات ويتم عزله عن الاخرين وكأنه مصاب بالطاعون الى ان تزول عنه اثار العدوان .
* اذا واجهت هذا الحيوان الصغير وحاولت الامساك به او ضربه يدير لك على الفور مؤخرته .... الى هنا وتصرف هذا الحيوان يشبه تصرف الحكام العرب الذين يديرون مؤخراتهم لكل من يرغب في جلدهم ... ولكن الفرق هو في الخطوة التالية .... فالحاكم العربي يستسلم للجلد والرفس واشياء اخرى ... اما هذا الحيوان فيتخذ وضعا قتاليا بأن يرفع ذيله الى اعلى .... ثم يصوب نحو الهدف .... ويطلق ” ضرطة ” واحدة فقط قبل ان يهرب بسرعة لتحضير قذيفة جديدة يقال انها تحتاج منه الى يومين كاملين حتى تكون جاهزة للاطلاق .
* لا ادري ان كان لضرطته صوت مثل ” ضرطات ” الحكام العرب ... ولكن الذي اعرفه جيدا ان لضرطته رائحة قوية نفاذة تنتشر في مساحة واسعة قد تمتد الى ميلين مربعين وتظل الرائحة في الجو لاكثر من ساعتين كاملتين .
* نحن أيضا—اقصد العرب—نتمتع بمثل هذه الوسيلة الدفاعية وان كان الصوت عندنا يعلو على الرائحة ... أدخل الى أي مطعم عربي يقدم أطباق الفول مخلوطة بالبصل والثوم والفجل لتسمع ما يشجيك من عزف منفرد وجماعي تعقبه روائح مختلفة تتباين بتباين نوع الفجل والبصل والثوم وفتحات التهوية في المطعم سيء الذكر .... ولن يعتذر احد لاحد لاننا كلنا في الهم شرق ... ولاننا الشعب الوحيد في الكرة الارضية الذي وضع للضرطة عشرين اسما .... وميز بين ضرطة الانسان وضرطة الحمار ... ففي كتاب ” فقه اللغة وسر العربية ” الذي وضعه الامام اللغوي عبد الملك بن محمد الثعالبي الذي مات قبل 1026 سنة بالتمام والكمال تجد شرحا وتفصيلا للضرطة ومسمياتها تبعا لنوعها .... فما يخرج عن الانسان يسمى ضراطا ... وضرطة البعير يسميها العرب ” ردام ” ... وضرطة الحصان ” حصام ” واذا ضرط العنز يقال ” حبق ” بها ... والضرطة عند الانسان على انواع .... فأذا كانت ليست بشديدة قيل : أنبق بها ... فأذا زادت قيل : عفق بها وحبج بها وخبج ... فاذا اشتدت قيل : زقع بها .... ونظرا لان العرب لم يعرفوا حيوان ” سكنك ” الذي يعيش في ولاية تكساس لم يسموا ” ضرطته ” وان كنت اظنها من قبيل ” الزقع ” على سبيل القياس .
* في تقرير نشرته مجلة انجليزية عن التسلح في العالم ذكرت المجلة ان لدى العرب دبابات حديثة تزيد في عددها عن ضعفي ما لامريكا وبريطانيا وفرنسا مجتمعة ... وينفق العرب مليارات الدولارات سنويا على شراء الاسلحة ... وتضيف المجلة ان دولة مثل الامارات ستصبح خلال خمس سنوات صاحبة أقوى خامس سلاح جو في العالم .... ومع هذا يدافع أطفال القدس عن الاقصى بالحجارة ... وبقنابل هاون " هووم ميد ".
* اذا كانت كل هذه الاسلحة للفرجة ... وللاستعراضات العسكرية في مشيخات الخليج وليست للدفاع عن النفس والمقدسات ... فلماذا لا نلجأ الى الدفاع عن أنفسنا باستخدام سلاح " الضرطة " وهو سلاح فعال وغير مكلف ولا يحتاج الى تدريب ولا الى جنرالات عرب ولا الى خطط حربية من أي نوع . ... ولا يحتاج التدرب على هذا السلاح الفعال الى كليات حربية او عسكرية .
* يكفي أن يصطف مائة مليون عربي على الحدود مع اسرائيل - بعد وجبة فول وفجل وبصل فاخرة - ومع أول اشارة من القذافي - باعتباره عميد الزعماء العرب وأقدمهم - يدير العرب مؤخراتهم الى اسرائيل ويقصفوها بمائة مليون ضرطة مباشرة ... فقد يتم بذلك تحرير الارض وطرد المغتصب وتحرير الاقصى !!
* هل تذكرون حكاية القذافي مع ”الرز“ و .... ”طز ” ؟
* كان القذافي قد القى خطبة عصماء شتم فيها امريكا ... وهتف بصوت عال :“ طز في امريكا ” فردد الليبيون في ملعب طرابلس الهتاف بعده وظلوا يطززون لامريكا حتى الصباح .... فمنعت الولايات المتحدة تصدير الرز الى ليبيا حتى اختفت هذه المادة تماما من الاسواق رغم انها تشكل مادة اساسية في طعام الليبيين .
* يومها دخل مواطن ليبي الى دكان وسأل البائع العجوز : هل يوجد عندك رز ؟ فرد عليه البائع ساخرا : حيرتونا ... عليكم ان تختاروا اما ” طز ” واما ” رز ” !!
* اذا كانت هذه الاسلحة الجرارة التي نشتريها بمليارات الدولارات لا تستخدم للدفاع عن النفس فلماذا لا يتم توفير اثمناها وانفاقها على الفقراء والمعوزين ... وبناء المدن العربية التي تحولت الى ” خرابات ” وتحسين الوضع الصحي والمعيشي لملايين العرب ممن يعيشون تحت حزام الفقر ؟
* لماذا تنفق سوريا مئات الملايين على التسلح ومع ذلك تعجز قواتها عن رصد طائرات اسرائيلية تحلق فوق القصر الجمهوري وتقصف ضواحي دمشق ... ويخرج الينا الرئيس بشار الاسد في لقاء نشرته واشنطون بوست مؤخرا يتباهى فيه بأن مخابرات بلاده تتعاون مع المخابرات المركزية الامريكية وهو ما لم تصرح به اسرائيل نفسها .
* من يفسر لنا مسرحية العراق ؟
* لقد انفق صدام مليارات الدولارات على الاسلحة ... ومع ذلك سقطت بغداد بدبابتين .... ولما اشتد ساعد رجال المقاومة العراقية لم يجدوا سيارة نصف عمر لحمل صواريخ الكاتيوشا لقصف فندق فلسطين فاستعانوا بالحمير !!
* صحيح ان الحمير من الفولكلور العربي .... ولكن مفعولها القتالي لم يعد يناسب القرن الحادي والعشرين .... لذا اقترح على العرب تربية حيوان ” سكنك ” الامريكي ... فضراط هذا الحيوان الصغير مضافا الى ضراط الجيوش العربية الجرارة يكفي لاحتلال العالم خلال ساعات بخاصة اذا سلمت القيادة لشيخ ام القيوين ..... والمعاذ بالله !!

أسامة فوزي

المقال ماخود بصرف من الكاب الساخر اسامة فوزي

وله جزيل الشكر وكل القدير و الاحترام

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