New Radar System In Place Against Iranian MissilesThe U.S. and Israel will deploy the new "X-band" missile detection system in the Negev. American G.I.s will remain permanently to run the system. |
American G.I.s are coming to Israel's Negev desert – and this time they’re staying.
According to a report published in Defense News this weekend, the United States and Israel have signed an agreement to deploy the “X-band FBX-T” early-warning missile radar system, which is linked to a U.S. satellite-based alert network.
Deployment of the X-band comes as part of America's agreement to help defend the Jewish State against any future strike by a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic.
For the first time ever, military personnel from the U.S. European Command are to be permanently based in Israel, in order to staff the high-powered radar system, built by the Raytheon Company.
Although the original target date for the system’s debut was early 2009, it is likely that the date will be moved up to sometime this autumn, in order to allow personnel to integrate the system with the Arrow missile defense system.
The new system is expected to double – and possibly triple – the range of identification of incoming missiles aimed at the Jewish State, according to a spokesman for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (M.D.A.). The official said the X-band system can track an object the size of a baseball from a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers.
The system currently employed by the IDF, a component of the Arrow system dubbed “Green Pine,” has a range of only 800-900 kilometers. Once the “X-band” is integrated with the Arrow system that range of identification will expand to 2,000 kilometers.
The new range allows the Israeli public an effective window of approximately five minutes in which to prepare for a Shehab-3 ballistic missile attack from Iran. It similarly gives the IDF five minutes in which to intercept the Iranian missiles.
2. 'Pardoned' Terrorist Re-Arrested for Shooting
An Arab terrorist who was pardoned after promising not to engage in terrorism has been re-arrested for firing at IDF soldiers.
The undercover IDF Duvdevan unit, operating in the Arab-populated town of Shechem (Nablus), arrested Firas Tashtush, 24, for his involvement in shooting attacks against IDF soldiers. Tashtush had been one of nearly 180 terrorists included in a special pardon deal finalized a year ago between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The deal granted amnesty to the wanted Fatah terrorists, in exchange for their promise to stop their terrorist activities. They first underwent a trial period of three months; those who passed this period without engaging in terrorism - most of them - were then officially removed from Israel's "wanted" list.
Sold Their Guns, Received New Ones
Many of the terrorists in question were paid by the PA tens of thousands of shekels for turning in their weapons. Those who joined the PA's security forces received new weapons.
Tashtush was arrested ten days ago, but the news was permitted for publication only on Sunday. A senior Fatah Tanzim terrorist leader, he was arrested for his involvement in several shooting attacks against IDF forces in Judea and Samaria.
Terror Victims Group Responds
Lt. -Col. (ret.) Meir Indor, director of Victims of Arab Terror, says that the release of captured terrorists shows that the Cabinet is not serious about ending terrorism. “We know of some 180 Israelis who have been murdered during the last six years by terrorists who have been released,” he told IsraelNationalNews.
“The lesson of this release is simply this," Indor said: "Terrorists who have been released are going to go back to the business they know how to do. And they will encourage others to do what they know, as well."
3. Wedding Day Stats: Jewish Marriages up 8.3% in 2006
In honor of Tu B'Av, sometimes known as the Jewish day of joy and love, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) has published wedding statistics. The number of Jewish weddings is rising, as is the age of marriage - though not in all circles.
Tu B'Av, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Av, fell this year on Saturday, August 16.
The CBS press release is headlined with a quote from an ancient Jewish text known as the Mishna explaining the Jewish significance of the day. The Mishna, written 2,000 years ago, explains that Tu B'Av is one of Judaism's most festive holidays, on which Jewish maidens used to go out to the fields wearing borrowed white clothing, so as not to embarrass those who did not have fine garments of their own. The lasses would say, "Young man, lift up your eyes and appreciate whom you are selecting [to marry]. Look not at beauty, but rather at the family..."
The number of Jewish couples who married in recognized religious ceremonies in Israel in 2006 was 33,880 - up 8.3% from the year before. The number of new Moslem couples, however, rose 12%, to 9,273.
The median age of marriage for Jewish men was 28.2, compared to 26.4 for Moslems. Among women, it was 25.7 for Jews and 20.8 for Moslems.
More Than Half are Bachelors
Singlehood is becoming more prevalent in Israeli society. In 1986, 38% of men aged 25-29 were unmarried - and this percentage rose to 57% in 2006. In Norway, the rate is 58%, and in Italy - 80%.
Among women aged 20-24, 70% were unmarried in 2006 - compared with 74% in Norway and close to 90% in Italy and Britain.
Traveling to the East
A report by Globes says that travel agencies and sociologists note a trend of late in which unmarrieds aged 30-35 "drop everything" and leave for several months or more for the Far East. An Israeli hiking site, LaMetayel, finds that 47% of surfers on a forum for the Far East are aged between 25 and 40.
Religious Circles: Age Drops
On the other hand, an opposite trend has been noted in some religious-Zionist circles in Israel. Weddings of 18-year-old brides and 19-year-old grooms are no longer uncommon, and the matter has become a matter of public discussion. Some rabbis have expressed skepticism and even objections to the trend, while others have come out heartily in favor.
Many Jewish weddings are, in fact, held on Tu B'Av, and the day is known among secular Israelis as Love Day. Rabbi Shmuel Shapira, the rabbi of the town of Kokhav Ya'ir, explained to Arutz-7 that the secularization of the day "is positive from one standpoint: It shows that people want to love. True, they sometimes take advantage of it for various negative things that are very unacceptable - but the inner point of this striving for love, for goodness, for the ability to give to others and to feel united - this is something that we should try to develop, of course in a pure and holy manner..."
4. Cabinet Approves Freedom for 200 PA Terrorists
The Cabinet voted Sunday morning to approve Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s latest “goodwill gesture” to Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, freedom for 200 PA terrorists. Four ministers from the Shas Sephardic religious party voted against the move.
In a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office following the vote, Olmert said, "This is a gesture and a trust-building move aimed at bolstering the moderates in the Palestinian Authority and the peace process."
The release is expected to come next Monday, on the eve of what was to be U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s expected return to the region in her latest effort to keep the final status talks moving between Israel and the PA. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch told reporters over the weekend that there is a strong likelihood, however, that the crisis between Russia and Georgia may force Rice to "recalibrate the schedule a little bit."
The list of terrorists to be returned to the streets will reportedly include some with “blood on their hands” – that is, those who have been directly involved in attacks that resulted in the murder of Israelis.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the prime minister, said the decision was made to “strengthen the negotiating process.” He compared Mahmoud Abbas’s winnings, which come as the result of direct talks, to, what he described as, the meager result gained by Hizbullah after years of indirect talks.
“If we compare what Abu Mazen (Abbas) will get in two weeks, what Hizbullah got looks miniscule,” he pointed out.
In last month’s exchange deal, Hizbullah returned the badly decomposed bodies of kidnapped and murdered IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. In return, the Iranian and Syrian-backed Lebanese terrorist group won the freedom of jailed child-killer Samir Kuntar as well as four Hizbullah guerrilla fighters. In addition, Israel also exhumed and returned the bodies of 199 Arab terrorists, each delivered in brand-new coffins.
Israel has also dismantled more than 100 security checkpoints and roadblocks in Judea and Samaria over the past three months that have been used to prevent terrorists from entering pre-1967 Israel, and granted hundreds of additional work permits for PA Arabs in Israel.
Abbas last week rejected a final status proposal by Olmert that would have handed over to the PA 93 percent of Judea and Samaria as well as additional land in the Negev along the Gaza border as well as other security concessions.
Abbas rejected the plan outright because it did not promise geographical contiguity between Gaza, Judea and Samaria – which historically has never been the case – and did not promise to hand over half of Jerusalem to become the capital of the new PA state.
5. Sharp Responses to Gov't's Terrorist Release
Right-wing MKs, including Opposition Leader Binyamin Netanyahu, are furious at the Olmert government for agreeing to release 200 Palestinian terrorists - for what Netanyahu said was "nothing in return."
The government made the decision at its weekly Cabinet session on Sunday morning. Two of the terrorists to be freed have "blood on their hands;" one of them directly murdered a Jew 15 years ago, and the other dispatched other terrorists who murdered Jews. Their names, and the names of their victims, are to be released Sunday night or Monday.
Government spokesmen explained that the release was a "goodwill gesture" to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, meant to support his leadership as he struggles with Hamas for primacy in the Palestinian Authority.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said he does not think this move will make much of a difference, but "I did not object to it because it creates a good atmosphere." Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni explained, "When Israel releases terrorists only for those who use force against us [such as Hizbullah and Hamas], we broadcast that we cave in to pressures, and that using force against us and kidnapping soldiers are the only way to act against us."
Hasson: Gov't Makes Bad - Worse
Some Knesset Members reacted with fury. MK Yisrael Hason (Israel Our Home), a former Deputy Director of the General Security Service, said, "This government makes sure to 'repair' all the damage it caused by doing something even worse. If it wouldn't have surrendered in its negotiations with Hamas and Hizbullah, it would not have had to give in now to Fatah and release terrorists for nothing in exchange."
Saar: Hamas Will Now Raise Price for Shalit
MK Gideon Saar (Likud) said, "The decision to release over 200 terrorists as a gesture to Abu Mazen crushes the public confidence that terrorists and murderers must face justice. It will hurt the security of Israeli citizens, and will harm the efforts to free Gilad Shalit [kidnapped over two years ago by Hamas-associated terrorists]. We can only imagine how the release of 200 terrorists, at no cost, will affect the minimum demands that Hamas will now present for Shalit."
Eldad: Gov't With Blood on its Hands
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) minced no words: "The blood of the innocent victims who will be killed by the released terrorists will be on the head of this government."
"A government that frees terrorists as a gesture, and not even as part of an exchange, is a government that has no regard for the justice system that convicted them, nor for human life, and has blood on its own hands," Eldad said.
6. Israel Slams UNIFIL Complaints Against IAF
The head of Israel’s diplomatic delegation to the United Nations met with the commander of the UN’s Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Friday to deal with flak over continued Israeli Air Force reconnaissance flights and other complaints.
Dan Carmon, acting head of the delegation, sat down with Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano to discuss the latter’s accusations Thursday that Israel had violated UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
Graziano said that continued Israel Air Force overflights in Lebanese airspace and Israel's refusal to submit maps of areas on which it dropped cluster bombs during the war constituted a "permanent violation of 1701."
He also referred to the village of Ghajar, which straddles the Israel-Lebanon border, as "a permanent area under occupation", in spite of Israel's cooperation with the UN in drawing the border.
Carmon reportedly reprimanded Graziano during their meeting for ignoring Hizbullah’s repeated and numerous violations of the ceasefire agreement, an issue raised by another group, the International-Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, as well. Toni Nissi, general coordinator for the volunteer committee, referred to UNIFIL in a news conference Saturday as “hostages of Hizbullah.”
Nissi’s group monitors the implementation of a number of UN resolutions, including 1701, which he said Hizbullah has violated “big time, and not only by hiding its weapons in warehouses in the south.”
The Israel Air Force has continued its flyovers in order to monitor the terrorist group’s rearmament. Rearming is a violation of Resolution 1701.
Exactly two years ago, Hizbullah terror leaders said that the group was not obligated by the ceasefire resolution. At the time, deputy chief terrorist Sheikh Naim Qassam declared, “The UN decision does not obligate us and it does not carry weight with us. What Israel did not succeed in taking during war, it will not succeed with diplomacy and politics.”
On the issue of weapons smuggling into Lebanon, Graziano told reporters at a New York news conference Thursday that he could not ensure the area under his jurisdiction would be impenetrable. He also admitted that his forces made no attempt to prevent arms smuggling from Syria, as demanded by the UN Security Council, because the Lebanese government had not asked them to.
Despite a clear UN resolution and a 19-year-old national agreement calling for the disarmament of all non-governmental militias, Lebanon's cabinet voted earlier this month to allow Hizbullah to keep its weapons arsenal. The government decision specifically approved Hizbullah activities aimed at Israel.
Israel’s Cabinet also recently received an intelligence report on Syria’s latest weapons deliveries to Hizbullah – including the very advanced SA-8 Gecko surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile system.
Graziano stated there is no evidence of arms smuggling nor has there been movement of armed gunmen, and said UNIFIL forces enjoy excellent cooperation from Hizbullah terrorists and the local Lebanese population.
“At this moment, Hizbullah is one of [the] parties that agrees with 1701,” he said, insisting that no one was armed south of the Litani River, with the exception of UNIFIL troops, Lebanese soldiers, and “hunters.”
7. Defense Ministry Strikes Back in Battle of the Budget 2009
After warning last week that Israel does not have the “luxury” of cutting its defense budget by even one shekel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak Saturday slammed the Finance Ministry’s proposal to slash NIS 2.5 billion from his department's budget in 2009.
The Cabinet is scheduled to debate the budget on Sunday. Barak said Israel did not “have the luxury" to make budget cuts "in the face of threats we face, including Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas."
Welfare and education are part of defense, and a responsible leadership must simultaneously achieve social strength and security.
Barak also slammed a statement by Finance Minister Ronnie Bar-On last Tuesday that the government had to choose between making cuts in social welfare budgets and spending on defense.
The Defense Minister said the attempt the “present a dilemma between defense and welfare is deceiving. Welfare and education are part of defense, and a responsible leadership must simultaneously achieve social strength and security."
On Friday, Knesset Member Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and six defense subcommittee heads sent a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and government ministers warning the cuts crossed the “red line.”
In its letter, the committee wrote, "This week saw the two-year anniversary since the end of the Second Lebanon War, which demonstrated to all of us in the most painful way the heavy price of neglecting the military and minimizing the defense budgets in the years that preceded the war.”
The committee also pointed out the specific deficits suffered by soldiers at the front -- the deterioration in equipment stocks, a decrease in regular forces' training, and the decrease in the fighting ability of elite combat units – and noted that all came as “a direct result of the cut in defense budgets during those same years."
According to a report by the committee headed in 2007 by former Finance Ministry director-general David Brodet, the defense budget was to be raised by an annual NIS 46 million as well as additional incremental supplements over the next ten years.
8. Scientists Reveal Soot’s Role in Climate Change
Tons of soot are released into the air annually as forest fires rage from California to the Amazon to Siberia and Indonesia. Soot is the black substance formed by combustion which rises in fine particles.
Climate scientists have generally assumed that the main effect of smoke on climate is cooling, as floating smoke particles can reflect some solar energy back to space and increase cloud size and lifespan. But new research by scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and NASA may cause them to rethink soot’s role in shaping the Earth’s climate. The findings will influence future studies on human-induced climate change.
Photo: Dr. Ilan Koren
Air-borne particles such as soot – known collectively as aerosols – rise into the atmosphere, where they interact with clouds. Understanding what happens when the two meet is extremely complicated, in part because clouds are highly dynamic systems that both reflect the sun’s energy back into space, cooling the upper atmosphere, and trap heat underneath, warming the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. Aerosols, in turn, can have both heating and cooling effects on clouds. On the one hand, water droplets form around the aerosol particles and may extend the cloud cover. On the other hand, particles, especially soot, absorb the sun’s radiation, stabilizing the atmosphere and thus reducing cloud formation.
Dr. Ilan Koren and Hila Afargan of the Weizmann Institute’s Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department, together with colleagues from UMBC and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, have, for the first time, developed an analytical model that puts all of these factors together to predict when aerosols rising into the clouds will heat things up and when they’ll cool them off.
Photo: Dr. Ilan Koren
They tested their model on data from the Amazon and found it reflected the true situation on the ground so accurately that they could rule out the possibility that random changes in cloud cover – rather than aerosols from burning forests – were at work.
Their findings, which appear in the August 15, 2008 issue of Science, reveal that adding small quantities of aerosols into a clean environment can indeed produce a net cooling effect. As more and more particles enter the cloud layer, however, the effect progressively switches from cooling to heating mode. The researchers also found that the extent of the original cloud cover is important.
Photo: Dr. Ilan Koren
A completely overcast sky prevents the sun’s rays from reaching the aerosols, so the result may be additional cooling of the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. But the larger the ratio of open sky to clouds, the more aerosol particles absorb radiation, hastening the heating of the remaining cloud cover, reducing cloud cover, and heating the system.
An accurate model of the intricate relationship between clouds and aerosols has been a key missing piece in the picture of human-induced climate change. The scientists believe their findings may help both climate modelers and policy-makers to understand the true climatic consequences of burning trees or sooty industrial fuels.
10. Peres Refuses to Pardon Halamish Brothers
President Shimon Peres has refused a request to pardon Itzik and Danny Halamish, two brothers who were convicted earlier this year of attacking Arab marauders who attacked them.
Danny, 35, was sentenced to seven months in prison, but his request for parole has already been granted, and he is set to be freed in a month. His brother Itzik, 28, was sentenced to eight months, and the Parole Board is to convene in three weeks' time to hear his case. If he is granted the customary one-third off for good behavior, he should be released a month later.
The beginning of the jail sentences for the two IDF combat unit veterans was delayed for several weeks while Peres considered their request for a pardon. However, in May, the Supreme Court denied their request to have their sentences pushed off for good until Peres would make his decision.
Arabs Attack, Jews Arrested
The brothers were convicted of attacking Arabs who infiltrated the fields of their town, Maaleh Rechavam in eastern Gush Etzion, located approximately 9 miles south of Jerusalem. Not only do they claim that the Arabs attacked first, they also say they did not shoot at all, and that the judicial process against them was faulty throughout.
The story began one day in February 2004, when an Arab gang entered the fields just outside the young Jewish townlet. In accordance with accepted procedure, the local security officer, on Defense Ministry payroll, called two members of the local fast-response security team - Danny and Itzik - and the three went out to banish the Arabs from the fields where Jewish children play.
It did not go smoothly, however. The mob of 20 Arabs attacked the Jews with rocks and even with sticks, and then surrounded them. The security officer shot at the ground in front of the Arabs, and then he and the Halamish brothers retreated.
"The next thing we knew," Danny Halamish later told Israel National News, "the police came to arrest us - after the Arabs claimed that we had attacked them!"
Though the Jews filed a counter-complaint, the police later acknowledged that they never even interrogated the Arabs, Halamish said, "because of the weak claim that the Arabs had complained first..."
The site is just a kilometer away from the cave in which 13-year-old Kobi Mandell and his friend Yosef Ishran were brutally murdered while hiking in 2001. The murderers, who were apprehended just several months ago, were still on the loose at the time of the Halamish incident.
The Halamish brothers and the local security officer spent a few days in jail, and were soon accused of assault and battery. The security officer, who admitted that he had shot, received a pardon for "personal reasons." But the two Halamish brothers said they "had nothing to confess, since we did not shoot. But even more importantly," added Danny, "I have no intention of apologizing for having gone out to protect Jews. Even if I have to sit in prison for a few months, I will not say that it is wrong to do what I did. What do we have a state for, if not to protect ourselves? The State has lost its way..."
Danny, married with two children, said that though his legal position was solid, "the courts took the strange position that because we didn't make certain claims at the right time, our conviction stands. This is unheard of. First of all, our legal claim is one that can be made at any time, and the courts are simply not following the law. But regardless of this: How can they send two upstanding citizens to jail merely because of a technicality? This is totally unjust."
Police Shoot the Guns Themselves, Thus Neutralizing the Evidence
The brothers said that when their weapons were taken from them, they were confident that the ballistics tests would show that they had not been fired. This would support the finding that all the bullet casings had been shot from the security officer's gun. However, the police did not check the guns; instead they fired them, claiming to want to see if they were in working order. Thus, the brothers' claim that they had not shot could no longer be proven.
Despite the lack of evidence against the brothers, and despite a recommendation by the probation officer that the sentence be only community service, Judge Amnon Cohen and two other judges of the Jerusalem Magistrates Court ruled that they believed the Arabs. The judges said they should be jailed to "serve as a lesson to others."
The brothers' subsequent appeals to the District Court and the Supreme Court were rejected, largely because the claim about the lack of police ballistic tests should have been submitted earlier.
Danny said that he and his brother were convicted because "the justice system simply doesn't know how to deal with Arab aggression. Therefore, the easiest targets for their frustration are those on the frontline - like us, in this case, and Shai Dromi, and the settlers [Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria] in general. If the legal system were to exonerate us, this would be an admission that we are doing the security job that the country is supposed to do on its own, but is failing at."
Attorney Sheftel's Presentation
Attorney Yoram Sheftel, representing the two brothers, said in one of the appeals, "My clients were convicted amidst total disregard of the police blunder in not having performed ballistic checks on the guns... In addition, the Arab identification of the brothers was done improperly, and is not acceptable as evidence."
Furthermore, Sheftel said, "there are no grounds for the judge having rejected my clients' claim that they acted with proper authority as part of their community's security team. Actions like the one they took are routine in many towns in Judea and Samaria."
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