Jerusalem -  (AFP)---Israel on Thursday marked the 14th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin at the hands of a Jewish extremist opposed to peace with the Palestinians.

TIKKUN  OLAM
 
B'nai B'rith Continues Israeli Disaster Relief Efforts in Flood-Ravaged Philippines  - Through its partnership with IsraAID, B’nai B’rith continues to provide disaster relief to the Philippines after the recent deadly typhoons and subsequent flooding. 

Estimates so far have the death toll at more than 300 and more than 500,000 people are now homeless.  The B’nai B’rith International Disaster Relief Fund is now open to help the devastated country. B’nai B’rith is a founding partner of Tel Aviv-based IsraAID, the Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid, which is an umbrella organization for more than 35 Israeli and Jewish non-governmental organizations. 

B’nai B’rith International Welcomes White House Focus on Sudan,Oct 23 - …B’nai B’rith International welcomes the administration’s enhanced focus on efforts to end the genocide in Darfur and help the people of Sudan live in security and peace. Over the last six years, we have witnessed staggering brutality in the region. Though exact numbers are not known, most experts agree that at least 300,000 people have been killed and perhaps up to three million displaced. The conflict is impacting surrounding nations as refugees seek safety wherever they can.

The White House’s commitment to enforcing sanctions against the Sudanese government, combined with incentives for compliance with international demands, is a positive step towards ending the human rights crisis.  A balance of pressures and incentives, combined with the sustained attention of the U.S. administration at the highest levels, is needed to end the violence and permit implementation of the 2005 peace accord.

Since the conflict began, B’nai B’rith has been active in efforts to end the horrifying genocide and help bring stability to the region.

ISRAEL

Avocado exports see 50% increase - Israeli vegetable growers expect to reach 50,000 tons in exports, revenues totaling some €70 million, compared with €47 million last season

Jerusalem Post, Nov 1 - Was Teitel's criminal record screened before his aliya? - As the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police announced Sunday the arrest of US immigrant Ya'acov Teitel, 37, on suspicion of deadly terror shootings and bombings spanning over a decade, the question was once again raised as to whether the authorities need to more carefully check the backgrounds of potential immigrants.

According to the Israeli authorities, the former Florida resident was known to the US authorities and wanted for his alleged involvement in violent crimes there, prior to his aliya in 2000.

Despite this suspicious past, neither the Interior Ministry nor the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) could confirm Sunday whether there had been knowledge of Teitel's alleged crimes abroad before he was allowed to immigrate.

A spokesman for JAFI did say, however, that potential olim coming from the West are asked only to declare whether they have a criminal record, but are not required to produce police documents proving or disproving this fact.

…However, in the past, Hadad has pointed out that many individuals had been denied citizenship on the basis of a clause in the law that a person who is "engaged in an activity directed against the Jewish people; or is likely to endanger public health or the security of the State," could be denied entry.

Jerusalem Post, Oct.25 - 'Boost Jewish presence on Temple Mt' - Against the backdrop of heavy rioting on the Temple Mount and inside Jerusalem's Old City, prominent rabbis and politicians called on Sunday evening for Jews to forge a stronger bond with the site, and to ascend the Temple Mount with increased vigor.

Nine police officers were lightly wounded and 21 Arab rioters were arrested during clashes on the Mount, in the alleyways of the Muslim Quarter and in east Jerusalem on Sunday. …..

THE  WEST  BANK

The Economist, Oct 15 - Not much of an olive branch - The plight of rural Palestinians on the West Bank is as grim as ever.

“What did the trees do?” says Muhammad Abu Awad, a retired teacher of agriculture and father of 14 children, as he looks gloomily at his ravaged field. Twisted, silvery stubs are all that remain of a lush grove that once offered up a yearly abundance of fat green olives.

The vandals came at night from Adei Ad, a Jewish settlers’ outpost deemed “illegal” even by the Israeli government, near Shvut Rachel, an established West Bank settlement that is judged illegal in international but not Israeli law. Working fast, unnoticed by Palestinian landowners in the nearby Arab village of al-Mughayir, the settlers cut down nearly 200 olive trees, of which 70 belonged to Mr Abu Awad. As a result, he reckons to have lost income worth around $3,400 that he would have earned from this year’s harvest. But that is not all. “I planted these trees with my own hands 35 years ago”, he says, wistfully touching the stumps, now wrapped in sackcloth to protect them from the sun. Mr Abu Awad hopes his trees will recover and one day bear fruit again.

As usual at harvest time, tension between Palestinian farmers and Jewish settlers has risen. The olive tree deeply stirs the emotions of Palestinians. It is a symbol of their struggle and a vital part of their rural economy. According to their ministry of agriculture, nearly 500,000 olive trees have been bulldozed, burnt down or uprooted in the territories since the second intifada (uprising) began in 2000. Israel’s army has cleared swathes of groves to create open areas in the Gaza Strip and along the security barrier being built on the western side of the West Bank, often taking big bites out of Palestinian land. The Israelis have also cut down thousands of trees near the Jewish settlements. Palestinians and human-rights groups have repeatedly castigated the Israeli army for failing to stop such destruction. The settlers say terrorists hide among the trees.

In recent years the Palestinians have usually been able to pick their olives under the protection of the Israeli army and police. Charities that help the farmers say the army has been taking this job seriously, letting the Palestinians harvest without being harassed by the settlers. But they criticise the soldiers for hectoring the farmers into rushing the picking and say the soldiers could do more to protect the trees before the harvest begins, especially in hot spots near ideologically extreme settlements.

…Mr Abu Awad says he is determined to fight to keep his land. “I’ll sleep on my land to protect it,” he says. “I tell my children: if I die, they should bury me where my blood was spilled. I’m in love with my land.”

Haaretz, Oct 29 - Claims that Israel Deprives Palestinians of Water Are Groundless - Israel Harel - Any libel involving discrimination against Palestinians immediately makes headlines. Yet Amnesty's accusations that Israeli settlers are taking Palestinians' water are groundless. Most of the settlements get their water piped in from inside the Green Line, not, as Amnesty claims, from wells that belong to the Palestinians. According to the Oslo II accords, the Palestinians are entitled to 23.6 million cubic meters a year - but in fact they pump, with Israeli consent, 70 million cubic meters. On top of this, the Israeli Civil Administration supplies, over and above the Oslo requirements, water to villages that are suffering from a shortage.
   
Amnesty does not ask where the millions of dollars that flowed to the Palestinian Authority for the construction of an efficient water system have vanished, or where the money is that the World Bank provided for a sewage system that would protect the environment and prevent the seepage of wastewater into the aquifers.

IRAN

BBI, Oct. 30 - Iran Shows True Colors in Rejecting Nuclear Deal - Iran is once again living by its 4-D code of diplomacy: deny, delay, deceive, and dissemble. Tehran once again rebuffed the west’s efforts at engagement and constructive attempts toward nuclear non-proliferation by rejecting a deal that would have sent Iran’s current stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing and later use in medical isotopes. The United States, Russia, France, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) backed the proposal.

In its rejection, Iran is proving that it has its own not-so-secret agenda and demonstrating it is not serious about efforts to curtail its nuclear weapons program.

“For more than a week, Iran hid behind a flimsy façade of cooperation while it continued with its nuclear weapons program. Iran has consistently thwarted international norms,” B’nai B’rith International President Moishe Smith said. “At every turn, Tehran continues to mislead the world about its true nuclear intentions. The largest state-sponsor of global terrorism has long demonstrated that its words and actions on its nuclear ambitions don’t always match. Iran’s duplicitous record should serve as a caution flag.”

The Iranian regime’s longstanding practice of denying international inspections of its nuclear facilities is yet another example of Tehran’s treachery. It was nearly a month after the secret nuclear enrichment site at Qum was discovered before Iran allowed international inspections. And the discovery of Qum begs the question: Are there more hidden sites?

“We need to keep our focus on the bigger goal, which is stopping Iran’s nuclear program,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “Iran has not demonstrated a willingness to abide by international rules governing inspections. Over long periods, the Iranian regime continues to block inspections of its known nuclear facilities, and very well may be hiding others. Iran has defied multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. Any efforts at engagement must be viewed through that prism.”

After weeks of dithering on the deal, Tehran chose to follow its dishonest history and reject a diplomatic solution to the grave global concerns about its nuclear program. The international community must now consider hard-hitting sanctions, which are still the most effective tool to ensure Iran does not create nuclear weapons.

EUROPE

Euronews, Nov 2 - The European Union’s leaders are optimistic they can get the long-delayed Lisbon Treaty finally rolling - Czech Prime Minister Jan Fisher, at a summit in Brussels, has said he is hopeful.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus wants an opt-out from the treaty’s Fundamental Rights Charter, fearing ethnic Germans could use it to reclaim land they lost in Czechoslovakia after World War II.
Klaus has withheld his final signature, and now current EU presidency Sweden has drafted a compromise. Only once Lisbon’s in force can a new long term EU president be chosen. ...

France, Germany and the European Union  - The Economist, Oct.22 - Future dreaming - French hopes for new Franco-German leadership in Europe may yet founder on disagreements about policies and priorities.

To most people, the prospect of an end to the European Union’s institutional navel-gazing is welcome. Once the Czech holdouts ratify the Lisbon treaty, goes the line, there should be no new grand schemes. Yet this is not how things are seen in France. Indeed, the French have been laying the ground for their next big idea: a deepening of the Franco-German axis to entrench their dual leadership and make Europe “one of the principal players of the 21st century”.

….The French are not suggesting a new EU treaty, but they have plenty of other wheezes. The celebration with Germany of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall next month may make up for François Mitterrand’s lack of support for German unification. The French want a joint commemoration of Armistice Day on November 11th. There is talk of marking the 50th anniversary in 2013 of the Elysée treaty on Franco-German co-operation.

Plenty of policy ideas are being kicked around as well. The French want to persuade the Germans to back a new industrial strategy to promote European champions, a common investment in clean technology, a European plan for energy independence, greater tax co-ordination and more. They see common ground in opposition to Turkish membership of the EU, as well as reform of laissez-faire capitalism. There is talk of a joint Franco-German government minister. Mr Lellouche has asked his team to prepare “a new Franco-German agenda for Europe”, ahead of a joint cabinet meeting before the end of the year. “In the new European configuration,” he said last month, “the Franco-German relationship will be central, because only it combines both political will and the capacity to push grands projets forward.”

There are many impulses behind this new Gallic offensive. One is Europe’s changing politics. The French realise that the British are likely to be unhelpful friends if the Eurosceptical Conservatives win the election next spring.

…Another factor is the view that, when the French and the Germans agree, Europe makes its voice heard.

No bridge across the Rhine

As it happens, Mr Sarkozy, never an instinctive Germanophile, got off to a fractious start with Ms Merkel, falling out over French plans for a Mediterranean Union; and it took time for Ms Merkel to get used to Mr Sarkozy’s tactile chumminess. But Mr Sarkozy knows he cannot impose his ideas on Europe. Early on he spotted a chance to use the anti-capitalist mood against the “Anglo-Saxons”, and sought an ally. “There has been a spectacular conceptual rapprochement between Merkel and Sarkozy,” insists a French official.

…Germany has other foreign-policy priorities besides France, such as improved relations with Poland and other central European countries. On nuclear power and Turkish membership of the EU, Ms Merkel’s new government is closer to French positions, although even here agreement may be elusive. It will keep nuclear-power stations open longer, but the two countries may not agree on a lot else over the EU’s energy policy. Nor is it clear that Ms Merkel will want to obstruct membership negotiations with Turkey.

Economic issues may be no easier. Germany’s new balanced-budget amendment to its constitution will force it to pursue a tight fiscal policy, unless the coalition circumvents it to permit tax cuts. France, on the other hand, plans to grow out of its deficit at a leisurely pace. Differences in debt and competitiveness will make it harder to manage the euro area. Germany will preach thrift and reforms to boost competitiveness. But if it just lectures its partners rather than co-ordinating policies, it risks aggravating tensions within the euro group rather than alleviating them.
Nor is there yet a Franco-German agreement on how to take the EU forward after Lisbon.

….The French are not starry-eyed. They know they are heading for possible rows over deficit-cutting. On industrial matters, the two countries often compete. The French are not happy that German trains, not French ones, will run on the soon-to-open high-speed link between Moscow and St Petersburg, nor that Siemens is pulling out of its nuclear joint venture with Areva. And the French are not blind to the need for other ties in Europe. They still hope to draw the British into a common European defence policy, even under a Conservative government. It is far harder for two countries to steer an EU of 27 members than one of 12. Yet the French expect the most from Germany—and it is not clear they will get much.

THE  FALL  OF  THE  BERLIN  WALL

Euronews, Nov 1st  - Bush, Gorbachev and Kohl honoured in Berlin - The three leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and West Germany, at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, have been honoured in the German capital.

Spiegel - Hungary reflects on the fall of the Berlin Wall - The sequence of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall began almost 20 years ago when a Hungarian border guard chose not to stop a flood of East Germans crossing into his country.

Winds of Change from the East - How Poland and Hungary Led the Way in 1989
Everyone remembers the iconic images from the dramatic breaching of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. But the groundwork was laid elsewhere. The fate of Germany and the rest of Europe was decided in Warsaw, Budapest and Moscow.

Politicians on trial in France  - The Economist, Oct 30 - Jacques Chirac, a former president of France, faces trial for corruption - A decision by an investigating judge to send Jacques Chirac, a former president, to stand trial in a court is without precedent in modern French history. Mr Chirac is accused of “misappropriation of public funds” during his time as mayor of Paris. The decision comes in a month in which the entrails of France’s one-time ruling elite have been spilling out. A former interior minister, Charles Pasqua, was this week sentenced to a year in prison (and a suspended sentence of two years) for involvement in arms trafficking to Angola. A former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, has also been tried in connection with a smear campaign and is awaiting a verdict.

The case against Mr Chirac concerns 21 “fake jobs” that were allegedly created for friends at the Paris town hall, where he held office between 1977 and 1995. As long as he was president, from 1995 to 2007, Mr Chirac was immune from prosecution, and his lawyer has argued that he remains so for acts carried out during his time in office. This has frustrated various investigating judges over the years, who have compiled numerous dossiers concerning Mr Chirac, all of which have been dropped, in some cases because the statute of limitations had expired.

………..The French political class has also been gripped this month by a trial over the “Clearstream” smear-campaign. Mr de Villepin, who was prime minister under Mr Chirac, has been accused of helping to spread a fake list of names linking Nicolas Sarkozy, then a fellow government minister and fierce rival, and other politicians to false bank accounts supposedly containing kickbacks from arms deals. Prosecutors have asked for an 18-month suspended sentence against Mr de Villepin for complicity in slander, and jail terms for two others. Mr de Villepin has denied all the charges. The verdict is due in January.

The consequences of all this for President Sarkozy are likely to be limited. He served in government under Mr Chirac, and is from the same political family, but was also his fierce rival and campaigned for office against Mr Chirac's record. Mr Sarkozy is unconnected to the Angola trial and he is a civil plaintiff in the Clearstream case…..

In many ways, this series of trials gives France a dismal image. A class of politicians seems to have been up to no good for a long period of time, and to have assumed that the timorous French justice system would never act. This month's events, however, have suggested exactly the opposite: that forthright investigating judges can still hold politicians to account

AFGHANISTAN

Washington Post, Nov 2 - Afghan election panel declares Karzai victor - President Hamid Karzai effectively secured a second term when challenger dropped out of race on Sunday, saying vote would not be free or fair.

Spiegel, Nov, 2 - The World from Berlin - 'The US and NATO Are Responsible for the Afghan Fiasco' - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been deemed the victor after his rival Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the second round.

The Afghan election fell apart on Sunday after Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the run-off poll, leaving President Hamid Karzai as the sole candidate. Now the election commission has cancelled the vote and declared Karzai the winner. German newspapers on Monday question whether the government in Kabul can still have any credibility.