 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
FULL ARTICLESWednesday, August 27
Third Bomb Factory Discovered in Nablus
IDF operations in Nablus entered the sixth day Wednesday. Soldiers continued searching for fugitives and weapons.
Soldiers from the Nahal Brigade operating in the city uncovered a storeroom of weapons and explosives hidden in one of the apartments in the buildings they searched.
It was the third bomb factory discovered by security forces in the city since the operation was launched last week. Soldiers found weapons, explosives, fertilizer, chemical substances, bolts and screws and a bomb comprised of several kilograms of explosives.
In addition soldiers found equipment used to manufacture bombs, and leaflets belonging to the Islamic Jihad that contained inciting material.
Soldiers removed all the weapons and explosives and blew them up. IDF forces have focussed operations on Nablus and Jenin in recent days where the terrorist infrastructure continue to flourish and cells continue to plot and plan further attacks against Israeli targets.
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Third bomb factory discovered in Nablus
Nablus Residents Welcome IDF Curfew
Speaking off the record, residents in Nablus admit that they welcomed the curfew that Israel Defense Forces troops enforced in their city on Thursday. The curfew prevented, or at least delayed, a collapse of internal order and security in the large West Bank city, a locale which in recent months has been convulsed by a series of killings and reprisal murders and by shooting sprees on the street perpetrated by gunmen whose aim is to intimidate the locals or to carve out turf for themselves.
In Nablus, residents in recent days had little patience for reports of the musical chairs game being played in the Palestinian Authority compound in Ramallah. Jibril Rajoub or Mohammed Dahlan, Nasser Yussef or Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) - anyone can grab the reins of power, people say in Nablus, just as long as he does something about the state of siege and terror that grips the city.
And this reign of terror, local residents emphasize, has not been caused by Israel's army: the problem is roaming, armed Palestinians who claim they belong to the Fatah movement. Just let some Palestinian leader do something about these gunmen, the locals say.
It's not easy for residents to admit that they were happy about the curfew. At the end of the day, the policy has been enforced by the same Israeli army which has (in past days) damaged seven of 14 health clinics in a compound operated by the non-government Work Committees Union of Health. These facilities provide free health care to the city's residents.
Yet on Thursday, city residents also asked this same Israeli army to impose a curfew on Salam, a village east of Nablus - a feud between two families from the village led to the killing of one person followed by a series of violent reprisals (including the burning of 16 homes). The murder suspect's entire family slipped out of the village. In a scene not witnessed in the territories over the past 30 months, the IDF opened up one of its roadblocks so that Palestinian vehicles could travel from Nablus to Salam so that mediators might try to calm down the two feuding families. Obliging the request of local residents, the IDF transfered the murder suspect from a would-be hiding place to a detention center in Nablus. However dramatic, this village vignette was nothing compared to the tumult in the city of Nablus itself.
On Monday August 18, Shua'ib Shakshir, a worker in a furniture factor owned by "B" - who comes from one of Nablus' wealthiest families - was murdered. The target in the killing was "B," not Shakshir. According to one report, masked men broke into the factory and opened fire before security men could respond, killing Shakshir. A day earlier, masked men shot a friend of "B"'s in the legs - this man, "Y," also comes from one of Nablus' well-to-do families. The two prominent families have strong ties with Palestinian Authority power brokers. A flyer circulated by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades declared that the shooting attacks came as a response to the apparent rape of a young woman in Jenin. Local residents believe that the shootings are a result of various power struggles between rival families.
The following day, masked men killed a guard at a cell phone store managed by "Y." The victim, Ziyad Abu Hamdan, lived in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus (some city residents claim that Abu Hamdan took part in a shooting spree in Nablus seven months ago, and killed one person). Following the murder, armed groups started to attack one another in the city, cars and houses burned, the brother of Nablus' governor was kidnapped for several hours, and a restaurant owned by the kidnap victim was destroyed. About 10 people were wounded by the street shootings. Armed, masked men, some of them teenagers, erected "checkpoints" in the city. Ostensibly as part of the man-hunt for Abu Hamdan's murderer, they demanded that pedestrians display their identity cards.
There is no dearth of political-sociological explanations that account for such "Lebanonization" of Nablus. The explanations include grinding poverty, unemployment, pressures that have mounted under the ongoing closure, class and social differences separating persons from city, village and refugee camps, and the paralysis of the PA police force during the past two years. Whatever the precise mix of such explanations, the bottom line is that most Nablus residents live in fear and are held captive by various armed groups. Palestinian Authority official representatives (from local-urban and national levels) are helpless to do anything to help the residents. In recent months, business proprietors and white-collar professionals have left Nablus and moved to Ramallah. Newspapers are too cowed and frightened to report about Nablus' plight.
While the internal family feuds preceded the outbreak of the current, blood-soaked dispute between Israel and the PA, the in-fighting in Nablus has been exacerbated in the atmosphere of death and destruction that has thickened during the IDF's incursions.
A number of questions envelope the chaos in Nablus: Is anybody orchestrating the activity of the armed groups? Who are the masked killers? How many people belong to these violent groups? All such questions ought to be addressed in a police inquiry. Nablus residents are sick and tired of the threadbare excuse saying that PA security men cannot do anything in a conquered city. Residents believe that these rival groups are tied to power struggles within Fatah and the PA establishment and to struggles between residents of refugee camps and the city. In other words, the issue is not simply crime: patterns of behavior associated with Fatah, the organization which purports to lead the Palestinian national struggle against Israel's conquest, have worsened in a city that is now perched on the edge of chaos.
By Amira Hass
Shin Bet Arrests Beduins Working With Hamas to Attack IDF Soldiers
Three Israeli Beduins from the Negev district recruited by a Hamas operative in the Hebron region to compile information to be used in attacks against IDF soldiers in the south were arrested by Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, on August 11.
A fourth Beduin is suspetced of training the group in the use of weapons but was unaware of the planned terrorist activities. Details released for publication on Wednesday revealed plans to abduct a former military governor who maintains business ties with the Beduin sector, a Border Policeman and murder an IDF soldier in the Hebron area in order to snatch his weapon and perpetrate a combined shooting and car bomb attack on a bus transporting soldiers. Officials said the cell had reached advanced planning stages of attacks they planned to perpetrate when they were arrested.
On July 8, Yusef Nakaira,21, a resident of Ramadin in the Hebron area was arrested by Israeli security forces. He admitted to working illegally in a school cafeteria at Kesaife in the Negev district for a number of years and as a member of Hamas took advantage of his job to recruit others and establish a military cell.
Nakaira recruited Ali Arait, 22, and a 17 year old minor to compile information to be used in attacks against Israeli soldiers in the Negev district. Yusef Abu Hajaj a Civil Guard volunteer is suspected of selling an ammunition clip to Nekaira and receiving thousands of shekels from him in order to purchase an M16 rifle.Ali's brother Sa'ad, 27, a former IDF tracker instructed the group in preparing pipe bombs and using weapons. After being questioned he was released to his home until investigaters decide whether to indict him.
Officials said that while he instructed the others in the use of weapons they believe he was unaware of plans to perpetrate attacks and had no intention to participate in terrorist activities. Nakaira admitted to investigaters details of terror attacks the cell were to carry out.
Ali Arait, a resident of Kesaife near the Nevitim Junction and a building engineer by profession confessed to investigaters that he had undergone military and weapons training after being recruited to the Hamas cell. In the framework of his activities he also admitted to monitoring the movements of buses at the Nevitim Junction as part of the information compiled to be used in attacks against IDF soldiers that had been planned by Nekaira.
Ali was also an accomplice to plans to abduct or harm a Beersheba resident and attempted to recruit a resident of Tel Arad for the Hamas and requested that he supply them with weapons. The Israeli Arab minor also recruited to the cell. He admitted to being recruited by Nekaira to Hamas and to compiling information on the movement of buses leaving IDF bases in the area. He also gave Nakaira a map he sketched of the area he lived in with details of IDF bases and an M16 ammunition clip full with bullets to be used in an attack.
The Hamas infrastructure in Hebron is responsible for carrying out two attacks in the Beersheba area in the first half of 2002. On February 10,2002, the shooting attack at the entrance to the IDF Southern Command headquarters in which two female soldiers were killed and 18 wounded and on May 10 the same year the bomb attack in the center of the city in which 19 civilians were wounded.
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Shin Bet cracks Israeli Beduin Hamas cell
Jerusalem Gets Switched on to Renewable Energy
A joint Israel-US conference on renewable energy sources kicked off on Tuesday in Jerusalem with the first ever demonstration of a commercial hydrogen fuel cell in Israel.
The Energy Independence of Democracies in the 21st Century conference, which is sponsored by, among others, the US Department of Energy, the American Jewish Congress, and the Ministry of National Infrastructure, focuses on developing renewable energy resources to enable national energy independence.
National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky and Minister-without-Portfolio Uzi Landau will both attend the conference, which continues over Wednesday and Thursday.
The cell, slightly smaller than a desktop computer, generated enough electricity to run a laptop computer using hydrogen from an attached gas cylinder.
Former US senator Rod Grams, addressing the conference, stressed the importance of energy independence to both Israel and the United States.
"We have faced energy crises and Israel has no natural energy resources of its own," Grams said."By gaining independence we lessen the chance of energy being used as a weapon."
"Israel does have brain power, so let's turn that into energy," Grams said.
Randa Fahmy Hudome, until recently the US assistant deputy secretary of energy, said US President George W. Bush has pledged $1.7 billion for hydrogen fuel research.
"Our administration feels hydrogen is the way," Hudome said. "We need to make the technology available for everyday life."
Hudome explained that the interest in hydrogen fuel cells is focused on powering vehicles and not an all-encompassing method of generating electricity.
"Diversification is secure," she said. "If one source becomes unavailable then you still have others."
Hydrogen fuel cells, which use hydrogen gas to generate heat, electricity, and water, are gaining popularity as the answer to environment friendly vehicles powered by home-grown resources. Although the technology was invented in the Sixties, the high cost of units limited application to extreme circumstances such as spacecraft and nuclear powered submarines.
With oil resources running low, the United States is looking for ways to wean itself off gasoline.
Several large car manufacturers in the US are testing hydrogen-powered prototype cars and the industry is gearing itself for what may be the most radical change since the invention of the internal combustion engine.
By STUART WINER
Kibbutz Lotan is promoting Ben-Gurion's legacy by greening the desert
Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava is turning green. "We're in the process," says kibbutz member Alex Cicelsky, one of the founders in 1983. "The sustainability attitude has to come from within - we're making an internal change."
Mike Nitzan, Lotan's director of eco-tourism, explains: "In retrospect, [David] Ben-Gurion's vision of greening the desert was misguided. The 'classic' agricultural methods used by the moshavim of the northern Arava have already led to a lowering of subterranean water levels. The early signs are there to be seen - look how the acacia trees are suffering."
Over the past few years, the kibbutzniks of Lotan have adopted ideas previously considered eccentric. A few members started with organic gardens for internal consumption, while others put their energy into recycling or composting.
Seven years ago, they put it all down on paper.
The kibbutz's revised mission statement, signed by all its members in October 1997, points to a community based on Reform Zionist Jewish values: Jewish renewal, equality, economic cooperation, and ecology.
"We strive to fulfill the biblical ideal to 'till the earth and preserve it,' in our home, our region, the country, and the world. We are working to create ways to live in harmony with our desert environment," reads the statement.
Lotan's Web site defines the kibbutz as "A progressive community engaged in religious pioneering - utilizing classic kibbutz institutions for the creation of democratic Jewish communal traditions." The second kibbutz formed by graduates of Reform youth movements from North America and Israel, Lotan currently numbers 75 families from nine countries (average age: 35), and 60 children. About half of its 150 adults are immigrants.
Lotan, affiliated with the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, the Kibbutz Movement, and the "Green Kibbutz" group, now has a reputation as the "greenest" kibbutz in the country.
Its reorientation can be defined as social ecology - or ecological socialism. As an integrated, holistic community, the kibbutz tries to be at once a business, an education center, a group of individuals, a religious community, and one of action.
Lotan still functions as a classic kibbutz, whose members meet daily at mealtimes in the communal dining room. The first obvious difference is that they separate their organic waste (for compost) before offloading dishes to be washed.
As part of the gradual transition, the kibbutz is phasing out its once-rambling lawns, replacing grass with less-thirsty undergrowth. Instead of asphalt (which burns the feet in the afternoon sun), paths are being covered in mulch.
"I know that this makes a great photograph," says Nitzan as we stroll past the kibbutz swimming pool surrounded by lush green lawns, "but it's an illusion. The pool was constructed with donated American money before we changed our ideology. Now, I think, such a water-intensive project would be low on our list of priorities."
"The JNF and Reform and Conservative movements in the States are also changing direction as they become more environmentally aware," adds Nitzan, 44, who emigrated from Los Angeles 22 years ago.
Eco-tourism is an increasing element in the kibbutz's income, now accounting for about 10 percent, according to Nitzan.
But the kibbutz's 24-room guest house is rarely full nowadays. "Three years ago, 80% of our guests were from abroad. Now 85% are Israelis," notes Nitzan.
Every day, busloads of Eilat- or northern-bound Israelis and tourists disembark for two hours of rest and inspiration at Lotan's Center for Eco-Tourism and Creative Ecology.
"We usually start by putting a kettle of cold water in a solar oven [a wooden box lined with reflective aluminum foil that concentrates sunlight]. By the time we're back, the water has boiled, so we pick some herbs and make them tea."
At the demonstration recycling center, visitors experience the advantages of garbage sorting hands-on. Recycled trash, tires, and mud are used to craft benches, raised gardens, playgrounds, and even bus stops. The sturdy retaining walls are made of old tires filled with garbage and covered in mud-and-straw adobe. There are comfortable public benches made from oil drums in shaded sitting areas, and examples of straw bale construction.
Together with fellow Arava Kibbutz Keturah, the members of Lotan persuaded their local council to create the recycling station, sponsored by the Israel Environment Ministry and inaugurated on January 14, 2002.
"It's a matter of creating a demand where there was no market," explains Nitzan. "We started by collecting discarded tires from the Arava road."
Now all the discarded tires in Eilat and the Arava are brought to Lotan.
"It shows people that if they think differently, anything is possible. It starts with your local building committee and reaches the municipality. A small but increasing number of Israelis are thinking like us," says Nitzan.
"Recycling has become a value. We try to raise awareness - this in turn creates a demand. For example, there's been a 30% rise in demand for Lotan's organic produce in recent years." Most of the produce from the kibbutz's organic fruit and vegetable gardens is sold to a 60-family shopping cooperative in Eilat.
Lotan's 250 cows produce 40% of the kibbutz's income in the form of fresh milk for the Yotvata dairy.
How does herding cows into pens fit in with the community's environmentally friendly ethos?
"The sustainable approach means taking economic factors into account. There are always two sides to the coin," says Nitzan. "We're not fanatics - we use concrete, for example."
Lotan's next major construction project is to redirect the community's wastewater and flow-off from the cowsheds into a NIS 10 million constructive wetlands sewage treatment installation at the heart of the adjacent birding park.
The sewage will seep through gravel and pollution-sucking plants into a reservoir.
"This will help solve another problem, that of reusing water - the gray water will be used by the migratory bird reserve and for agriculture," explains Nitzan. (Lotan sits on the migratory route of most European birds. The resting stops were built on the site of former sand dunes that were trucked away to Eilat for use in the construction of hotels and tourist facilities.)
Opened in 1998, Lotan's holistic health center, Neveh Briut ("Oasis of Health"), combines health programs, wholesome food, and recreation, while providing employment for the several alternative therapists who live on the kibbutz.
"A central element of the kibbutz's vision is to help restore and repair the world by starting with ourselves," says Nitzan.
Guests enjoy an invigorating Thai massage, reiki treatment, or a watsu ("floating shiatsu") session in the pool, and join ongoing yoga or tai chi classes.
Nitzan says the holistic approach coalesces well with environmentalism. "Both ecology and the body-spirit environment involve physical contact."
Over the past five years, dozens of people from all corners of the globe have studied organic gardening and alternative building techniques, and helped run the migratory bird reserve as part of Lotan's three-month "Green Apprenticeship" work-study program. As well as learning practical skills, they contributed to the expanding Center for Creative Ecology with several alternative natural building projects.
Sadly, the courses have been temporarily halted.
"The kibbutz is full up. We simply don't have the space for more people," says Cicelsky.
"It's a vicious circle - we don't have the critical mass of people to make enough money to afford to build more houses."
Erika Boltvinik, 29, who made aliya from Mexico nine years ago, was a green apprentice in 2000.
"I learned about growing food, compost, geodesic domes, ecological construction... It involved creative work that I enjoyed so much. I stayed for three months more in order to learn how to build with straw bales. Besides the beautiful area, the people of Lotan were not only teachers of their subjects, but also great life teachers. I was living a very intense period. A lot of clarity came during my time at Lotan - and with it a lot of magic."
Boltvinik, currently continuing her studies in Mexico, hopes to apply what she learned in Lotan on her return to Israel by initiating a natural care center in the Negev.
"I would always recommend that people do the Green Apprenticeship - not only to learn ecology and enjoy the beautiful desert, but to experience the lifestyle of this community. I am very grateful for the experience," she says.
The Lotan green experiment appears to be off to a good start. As more kibbutzim and rural settlements latch onto these ideas, the community's success will ultimately be measured in terms of its influence on mainstream Israel. Yet nobody in Lotan is coerced into living this way.
"Unlike other eco-communities, one of our basic tenants is pluralism," notes Cicelsky.
"Most of us are practicing Jews and don't drive on Shabbat - but if you want to take out a car, then go for it. No one checks whether you separate your garbage or empty your buckets of washing water in the garden. The environmentally aware lifestyle has become the accepted norm here through education and understanding. But we don't want to push it on anyone," says Cicelsky.
Geo-building
In various places around Lotan, one encounters one of the strongest, easiest-to-build structures ever created: geodesic domes. This brilliantly simple design, created by German mathematical wizard Walter Bauersfeld in 1922 and substantiated by American inventor-guru R. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller in the 1950s, may yet revolutionize architecture.Because they are made up of triangles, geodesic spheres are among the strongest, most stable structures. Lotan is experimenting with geodesic domes as a form of sustainable architecture.
At the eco-park, visitors are protected from the hot desert sun by a covering of interwoven creepers and vines over a dome produced from pieces of irrigation-pipe connected to 250 date-palm branches (a local, renewable resource) in a pattern of 136 triangles.
Motivated by a growing awareness of the importance of sustainability in community planning, Lotan is making significant efforts to use renewable resources in building projects.
The alternative/natural construction philosophy involves integrating the meteorological parameters of one's surroundings. Understanding the logic of the desert enables architectural and environmental planning for sustainable settlements.
The Arava Valley imposes extreme conditions of heat and cold on its residents, and conventional construction techniques neglect insulation - requiring extensive heating and cooling, and thereby raising energy expenses.
By dealing with its specific desert environment issues, Lotan is adapting traditional and creative approaches.
"We're experimenting with straw bales as a means of providing super-insulation," says Nitzan.
Two kibbutz houses have annexes made of straw bales.
"Over 100 years ago, American settlers arrived in areas similar to this and built their houses this way," says Cicelsky, 42, who grew up in upstate New York before emigrating 22 years ago. "This building should last for many years."
"The design of any house has to take heating into consideration. Conventional building materials mean higher energy needs. This is a low-impact, sustainable, thermodynamically better solution that utilizes waste material - the straw would otherwise have been burned."
Cicelsky studied water and soil sciences at the Hebrew University's Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, where he specialized in agriculture and the environment, and informal education at the nearby Weizmann Institute of Science.
"Earlier this year, I hosted 15 Negev Beduin at the Creative Ecology Center. We sat in a geodesic dome, drank solar-heated tea, and discussed construction techniques, sun angles, winds, and seasons. I pointed out that a brick is good for the producer and contractor - but not for insulation. Then I took a bucket of soil that they brought from the Negev and showed them.
"It's funny - every time I mix earth and straw together, an elderly Arab, Beduin, or Druse magically appears to say that's how his grandparents built their home. Today's generation has forgotten these things."
The novel and imaginative structures incorporate local mud and clay, recycled and natural materials, and environmentally smart designs that maximize wind exposure and shade as cooling agents.
Mud can be found even in the arid desert; it's drawn from dry riverbeds around the kibbutz, or salvaged from waste debris thrown up by drilling deep water wells.
Cicelsky says this is the way we should all build our homes.
"Cinder blocks and concrete ultimately pollute the earth. They are inefficient and expensive. Mud and straw can protect us from cold, rain, wind, and sun - and it's all around us!"
A visit to the eco-park costs NIS 25 (NIS 15 for children). The tea is free.
For details, visit www.birdingisrael.com/KibbutzLotan.
By Daniel Ben-Tal
Eco-Zionism
