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Armageddon postponed for now Jerusalem Post Newspaper A science fiction conference entitled Armageddon 2001, which was to have featured a count-down at Megiddo at midnight on December 31, has been cancelled because the majority of the speakers will not make the trip to Israel. The conference, under the sponsorship of the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, Mishkenot Sha'ananim, and the Jerusalem Foundation was to have opened on December 28, but was cancelled when five of the nine speakers from the US and England dropped out due to the security situation. Although organizers assured the speakers that they would be safe at Jerusalem's Inbal Hotel, the main venue of the conference, those who cancelled, which included both science fiction writers and scholars, preferred to err on the side of caution. Several hundred people were expected to participate in the conference, said Emanuel Lotem, chairman of the ISSFF, who is hopeful that it can be reorganized for Succot 2001, providing that the co-sponsors don't withdraw their funds. Avi Katz, one of the conference organizers, was optimistic that it will be easier to convince Mishkenot Sha'ananim to continue with the project than it was to get them involved in the first place.
Jerusalem Post Some of Israel's friends in Europe are expressing concern about what a possible victory by Likud leader Ariel Sharon in the prime ministerial election could mean for the peace process and Israel's standing on the continent. "In Germany we are very concerned about Sharon, and the consequences of what may happen if he takes power," Wolfgang Thierse, the president of the German Bundestag, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview. Thierse, a popular politician from the former east Berlin and a rising star in chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democratic Party, said that although a Sharon victory would not lead Germany to"suddenly take sides with the Palestinians as a result of this change of power," in France there are "some French politicians who might feel they should do so." Asked whether Germany is concerned about a possible Sharon victory, Thierse, speaking through an interpreter, said, "I think that half of the Israeli population would be even more concerned if Sharon takes power. Can you imagine how Sharon would continue the peace process? I have spoken to Sharon myself, and heard what he said, but did not hear in anything he said that he is in favour of the peace process." Sharon, said Thierse, "has very clear positions on what he wants to defend - Jerusalem must remain Israeli, the army should only retreat in small amounts in the occupied territories, and settlements should be defended. What kind of peace process can come out of these positions?" At the same time, said Thierse, "Germany is not going to get involved in an [Israeli] election campaign, of course, but in one sense you have roughly an idea of what a politician wants in the case of Barak, and in the case of Sharon we don't know what he wants, what his plan for peace process can be, what they are.He has been an opposition politician and said no to the peace process in the past." ve a huge change of heart and go from a hawk to a dove." In Thierse's reading of the situation, reflecting to a large extent the thinking heard in briefings at the top levels of the Germany foreign policy establishment as well, "The decisive question is whether Israel is prepared to take settlements out of the Palestinian areas, and if Israel is prepared to agree to some kind of compromise on the Jerusalem question." Thierse continued: "The lack of desire for compromise in Israel makes the Palestinian side more radical, and we are experiencing this at the moment." Sharon told the Post last night he regretted Thierse's comments, and found it hard to believe that a person in his position would say such things. His assessments are "baseless," Sharon added. Sharon said that he is the only person who "can bring peace," since he has seen the "horrors of war and participated in all of the wars." "I think I understand the important of peace better than other politicians who speak about peace, but did not go through what I did," Sharon said.
Thierse hinted that the strong stand Germany took against a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood in September could change. "Both under US and European and German influence, Arafat put off declaring a Palestinian state, again and again [in the past], always in the hope that this would lead to a better agreement," he said. "But this postponement can not go on indefinitely, because at some point Arafat won't survive it physically or politically." Asked if Germany would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration now, Thierse said, "I think initially not. But it depends very much on Israel's policies, what they force European policy to be. If the Israeli side is not prepared to make further compromise, then this demands that Palestinians become more radical. Israel cannot have a policy of lack of compromise, trusting that Israel will always be supported by Europe and the US, no matter how sensible or reckless their policies are."
Israeli General Moshe Dayan's "This morning the Israel Defence forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the most sacred of our Holy Places, never to part from it again. To our Arab neighbours we stretch out again at this hour - and with added emphasis - the hand of peace. And to our Christian and Moslem fellow citizens we solemnly promise religious freedom and rights. We come to Jerusalem, not to posses ourselves of the Holy places of others, nor to interfere with the members of other faiths, but to safeguard the city's integrity, and to live in it in with others in unity" The Zionest Idea By Joseph Heller, published by The Joint Zionist Publications Committee, 1947. Jews and Arabs IN a democractic Jewish commonwealth Jewish-Arab differences can and must be settled in accordance with the demands of justice and for the common good of both sections of the population. The Arabs will have to give up their claims to the exclusive possession of the country and to acknowledge the right of the Jews to Palestine as a national homeland. The Jews, who have themselves been so long the target of hatred and persecution, will have to respect the rights of all ethnic and religious groups within the borders of the state. Both communities will remain closely linked with the larger national units to which they belong by their culture, history an tradition. Jewish Palestine will be a spiritual focal point for the whole of world Jewry. The Palestinian Arabs will be able to participate in the cultural development of the great Arab nation which inhabits the vast area between Irak and Egypt, and is politically organised in several sovereign states. It must be emphasised, however, that from a national point of view Palestine has a different significance for the Jews and Arabs. Wheras for the Jews Eretz Israel is their only national homeland, for the Arbs it is only an area inhabited by a tiny part of the Arab nation. Whereas the Jewish settlement in Palestine represents the vital interests of the whole of Israel and is the lodestar and anchor of hope for all its scattered members, the Palestinian Arabs are not the core of the cultural vanguard of the Arab world, nor can they be regarded as a distinct historic nation, cullturally independent of the wider Arab national community and possessing a spiritual heritage of their own. The historic right of the Jews to Eretz Israel is irrefragable. The Arabs in Palestine have, on the other hands, an unquestionable rigfht , both as individuals, and as an ethnic and relgious body, to presenve the material and cultural conditions of their existence and the freedom to manage their internal affairs. But they can hardly claim as their national homeland a country which has not played a noticeable part in their cultural development, and which they have utterly neglected for many generations. International recognition of the right of Jews to re-established their state in the ancient Land of Israel will prepared the way for a mutual understanding between the Jews and the Arabs, based on the real needs of both peoples, and will usher in a period of peaceful collaboration between the different nations and races of the Middle East. |
"For me peace is not just for a short
period of time, but a peace for generations," he said. "The people
of Israel deserve this."