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FULL ARTICLESThursday, September 4
An IDF soldier was shot dead Thursday by Palestinian gunman from the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, near the West Bank city of Jenin.
UN Conference Turns into Israel Bashing Campaign
Israel's security fence came under harsh criticism at the United Nations, where an annual conference meant to bolster Palestinian civil society instead spent its energies denouncing Israeli self-defense policies.
Postcards of a Palestinian child dwarfed by the Israeli fence, slide shows of Palestinian humanitarian crises allegedly caused by the fence's construction, informational leaflets printed by the anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox group Neturei Karta, and maps of "Palestine" from the river to the sea from 1920, minus the caveat that Palestine was never a state, were all on display yesterday at UN headquarters in New York, where delegates from across the globe gathered for the International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People.
The theme of the two-day conference was "End the Occupation!"
The conference began with a statement of support by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan delivered by his deputy, under secretary general Kieran Prendergast. Annan's blessing of the conference was roundly criticized Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, who said the event "sabotages whatever positive developments there may be on the ground and derails the road map and the peace process."
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman wrote Annan last month urging him to distance himself from what he termed a "forum for anti-Israel propaganda." Foxman said he never received a response from Annan.
Setting the tone for the conference, Palestinian observer to the UN Nasser al-Kidwa urged delegates to overlook terrorism and focus on Israeli crimes.
"Violence in self-defense in the occupied Palestinian territories is not terrorism. It is a reaction to the odious Israeli crimes committed against the Palestinian people. It does not run counter to international law," he said. "Nonetheless we want to put an end to that violence as well."
Israel's rationale for constructing the security fence - to halt Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel to blow up discos, buses and cafes - received scant attention at yesterday's opening panel, titled "The situation on the ground: obstacles to peace."
The reasons for the fence's construction, as outlined by delegates, read more like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, with control of West Bank ground water, a lust for ancient Palestinian trees (which, delegates charged, are uprooted from the West Bank and replanted on Israel's side of the Green Line) and a desire to sow discord among Palestinian farmers and merchants among the allegations floated.
"The wall is destroying the Palestinian economy," said Jamal Juma, coordinator for the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network, who presented a slideshow featuring photos of the fence overlaid with occupation buzzwords in bold type, including "apartheid wall" and "ghettoization."
Juma said that up to a quarter of Kalkilya's 40,000-strong population is expected to flee the town by the end of the year due to construction of the fence. One of the cited reasons for Israel's destruction of Kalkilya's outdoor markets to make room for the fence was to end Israeli shopping in the town.
"Prices in the West Bank are cheaper than in Israel," he said.
John Reese, coordinator of the US Campaign to Stop the Wall, accused Israel of building the wall to gain control of Palestinian water and as a place to throw trash.
"The Israeli government, the IDF, the settlers are using the environment as a weapon of war against the Palestinian people, discharging their waste on the cities and farmland of Palestine," Reese said.
He showed slides of pipes allegedly pumping toxic waste in the territories; after numerous pictures of dry-looking pipes, Reese clarified that the waste is pumped only at night, when he apparently didn't snap photos.
The only Israeli speaker at yesterday's panel, former Meretz MK Naomi Chazan, used her time on the podium to urge the UN to skip the first two phases of the three-stage road map, and immediately declare Palestinian statehood. One of the phases she opted to skip demands a Palestinian crackdown on terror, but Chazan was the sole speaker to firmly denounce the attacks.
"It is quite beyond me, when everybody knows it is cruel and senseless and that there is no military solution to the conflict, that people do not speak out against [terror] at all times, in any form," she said.
Additional speakers slated to speak yesterday afternoon and today (Friday) include Cindy Corrie, whose daughter, Rachel, was killed last spring when she sat in front of a moving IDF tank that was destroying terrorist tunnels in southern Gaza, and Greta Duisenberg, the wife of European Central Bank chief Wim Duisenberg, who has blamed "rich American Jews" from the plight of the Palestinians.
By MELISSA RADLER
Palestinian conference at UN turns to Israel bashing
From Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1062646046047
Israeli Company Develops Portable Key Chain Data Storage
Like Alice in Wonderland who drank from a magic bottle and got smaller and smaller until she was able to fit through a keyhole, flash technology has made it possible to miniaturize and store large amounts of computer data on a silicon chip. And, go anywhere.
Tagged onto a giant blue whale, the chip helps to discover the secrets of marine life and expand scientific knowledge. In a mobile device on the golf cart, a GPS with a video display, it tips off the golfer, giving distances to the next hole, hazards, and even provides sport and financial ticker info, and an option to order food. The chip is in a multi-media device in the kitchen which allows the viewer to monitor the baby, watch the news, and get a new recipe. It is used to read bar codes, for interactive video on demand, and in a tough metal casing for public safety systems, fire control systems, ATMs, aerospace applications, and dozens of other 21st century needs.
An Israeli company M-Systems, which is a leader in developing flash-based data storage products, is the brain behind DiskOnKey, the first (and the most powerful) portable keychain storage on the market. U.S.-based CapMed has designed a patient-controlled Personal Health Key based on the DiskOnKey which captures data from physicians, hospitals, medical imaging, insurers, pharmacy, and labs.
The DiskOnChip and DiskOnKey line of products are small, lightweight, durable, reliable, tamper-proof, and consume very little power. The very rugged, very high capacity FFD (Fast Flash Disk) line withstands harsh conditions and does the job of a conventional rotating hard disk.
Flash technology puts older technology to shame. Hard disks are big, heavy, noisy, power guzzlers; floppy disks have low capacity. Both hard disks and floppy disks are delicate mechanical devices with spinning parts that can break.
The Kfar Sava-centered M-Systems was the first to patent (with its proprietary algorithms) and the first to introduce key chain storage. In July, M-Systems introduced the world's smallest 1-gigabit flash-based storage for mobile devices. And just last week, the company unveiled KeyComputing, a new subsidiary charged with extending the Smart DiskOnKey platform into new vertical markets.
M-Systems says KeyComputing will cooperate with strategic partners in the development of solutions that extend the mobility, security and ease-of-use of IT in the enterprise.
"Every 10 to 12 seconds, someone in London, Paris, Beijing, New York, San Francisco buys a DiskOnKey," said Dov Moran, CEO and President of M-Systems. Moran, a former Commander in the Israeli Navy, has a right to be proud of the high-sailing, pioneering product. DiskOnKey is breaking records, selling at 200,000-250,000 a month. With companies like IBM and Microsoft among its biggest customers, M-Systems' sales are expected to top $60 to $70 million in 2003.
The first, and still the fastest, most reliable, pen-sized computer storage system on the market, DiskOnKey can be clipped on to a shirt pocket or to your keychain. Depending on the model, you can save and transfer the data you need - Word documents, songs, pictures, PowerPoint presentations, digital video. You can plug into any PC and laptop with a USB port and begin work. It works on Macintosh, Linux and Windows-based computers. High speed (it has its own processor), large capacity (up to 1 gigabyte), no need to worry about losing data in a power failure - are all benefits. Some people use it for a backup. One person I know keeps it under his pillow when he goes to sleep at night.
The award-winning, power-packed, key-chain sized computer storage product was barely off the manufacturing line in 2001 when it was selected as 'the Best Product of the Year', by Electronic Products and PC Magazine.
Among its fans are Business Week which gave it the Industrial Design Excellence Award in 2001, and CBS News.com, which put it on its Holiday Wish List for 2002. The Wall Street Journal cited it as the 'leader in the keychain modules category.' In the August 11 issue, Fortune Magazine's Peter Lewis chose DiskOnKey for storage for the most powerful PC, nixing a floppy disk.
"'Who needs it' we were asked by analysts when we first decided to develop the miniature storage," said Moran. "They asked the same question when we decided to develop a DiskOnChip flash disk for mobile devices. Today, DiskOnChip is used in four out of five of the top handset (mobile) design devices."
Sitting in a conference room in M-System's spacious headquarters in Kfar Sava, Moran talked about how he started the company more than 10 years ago.
"I recruited all the best men I knew in the Navy," said the CEO. Moran, himself, graduated with honors in Computers and Electronic Engineering from the Technion in Haifa, Israel's prestigious Institute of Technology, and was an honor student in the MA Business Program at Tel Aviv University.
Recruiting a high quality team from the Navy (Army, or Air Force) for a business venture has been a successful model for some of Israel's most successful companies. The company's first flash technology products were for the military.
The Fast Flash Disk (FFD) product line is M-Systems' most rugged line designed for mission critical systems. It stays on keel within temperature extremes, shocks, and changes in altitude. Besides the military, M-Systems has developed the line for aerospace, reconnaissance, telecommunications and public safety. It is included in black boxes, radar and industrial automation, to name a few applications.
"We realized that the same technology could have commercial applications," said Moran.
At the end of July, M-Systems and Toshiba formed an agreement which raised their strategic relationship to an unprecedented level. As part of this agreement, Toshiba put in $4 million, giving them 1% ownership of M-Systems. In the last 10 years, M-Systems has come a long way. The $4 million raised through the agreement with Toshiba "is symbolic," said Moran.
In a hopping week with 7 major press release announcements, M-Systems also signed important agreements with a new U.S. distributor and Palm, producers of the popular operating system for handheld computers In addition, Motorola and M-Systems announced that they would work together to enhance Motorola's mission-critical devices used for public safety.
The company has other strategic relationships with several large companies - including Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Symbian and AMD. IBM is one of its biggest customers. It has offices in California, Massachusetts and North Carolina as well as Taiwan, Japan, China, and Austria.
M-Systems is constantly improving it products, adding security features, capacity, error detection and correction, "smart" features, and applications. All the R&D is done in Israel.
"Quality, innovation, and persistence are three principles in our credo," says Moran, pointing to a poster on the wall. His target: to build a large company that makes the world a better place to live in. And he has a dream: to build production facilities in Israel where half the workers are Arab and half Israeli.
By Sharon Kanon
Masters of miniaturization
From Israel21c: http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Articles%5El494&enZone=Technology&enVersion=0&
