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Newsletter : 9fax0602.txt
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>PD
>Israel Faxx
>JN June 2, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 103
Eurovision 1999 a Success
Israel Faxx Staff Report
Saturday night's staging of the Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem went off spectacularly, gathering up high ratings all across Europe. The singer from Sweden won the contest, but Israel's Eden quartet finished in a respectable fifth place. Dana International, last year's contest winner, presented the prize - a statue made specially by artist Yaakov Agam. While walking on stage, Dana slipped (the statue is in one piece). Even this year, Dana knew how to steal the show.
Hizbullah Attacks SLA Withdrawal
By David Gollust (VOA-Jerusalem)
Outgoing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened his security
cabinet late Tuesday to discuss the violence that accompanied the
start of the withdrawal of Israeli-backed militiamen from the
Jezzine enclave in south Lebanon.
Officials say the Cabinet has authorized the armed forces to do
whatever is necessary to prevent a worsening of the situation
following a violence-filled day in south Lebanon.
Pro-Iranian Hizbullah terrorists killed two SLA militiamen and
wounded another with road-side bombs as the Israeli-backed force
began its withdrawal from Jezzine north of Israel's occupation
zone.
Two civilian workers at an army base in northern Israel were also
lightly wounded by shells fired from Lebanon. Israel answered
the attacks with multiple airstrikes against Hizbullah positions
around Jezzine, and officials warned after the Cabinet session of
stepped-up retaliatory action. But they said no expanded operations
would occur without the approval of Prime Minister-elect Ehud
Barak, who is in the process of forming the next government.
Dakar May Have Collided with Freighter
Israel Faxx Staff Report
A new theory has surfaced regarding the sinking of the Dakar
submarine 31 years ago and the deaths of 69 sailors. The theory
which appears to be supported by the recent photos of the Dakar,
holds that a large freighter collided with the submarine without
realizing it.
Based on photographs of the Dakar, experts now believe the craft,
which was on its maiden voyage, was involved in an accident causing
it to sink. The naval vessel, which was en route from England to
Haifa, seems to have been struck by a passing ship, causing it to
sink in 1968. Experts believe the vessel was close to the surface
when a ship accidentally struck it - immediately disabling the
craft.
A television news broadcast showed sections of the Dakar,
discovered last Friday under three kilometers of water midway
between Crete and Israel.
Israel Navy Commander Maj. Gen. Alex Tal said no technical means
are currently available in the world to bring the craft up from the
depths.
Col. (res.) Dr. Yehuda Melamed, former commander of the medical
services in the Israeli navy and an expert on underwater pressure
chambers at Haifa's Elisha Hospital, said a recovery operation is
not likely to bear fruit.
He explained that the tremendous depth at which the Dakar is
located, atmospheric pressure is 300 times greater than normal
atmospheric pressure, such that it is very likely that any remains
have been crushed.
"Furthermore," Melamed continued, "the search operations have
revealed that the ship split into three pieces when it hit the
ocean floor. It's hard to know, but I imagine that ocean currents
carried off a good portion of the remains. There's little question
that significant remains will not be found."
Melamed also offered his opinion as to whether retrieving the Dakar
and its crew is advisable, now that the crew members are "safely
buried" at sea. "We know the identities of the crew members who
died. An effort to rescue their remains would cost billions of
dollars, and in a country which often strains itself to find the
necessary funds to treat its ill, I think that a retrieval
operation, even if technically possible, is out of place."
Some family members appeared to agree with Melamed, but Shmuel
Shnapper, whose son Reuven Snapir was the ship's navigator, does
not. Shnapper said, "Many parents passed away without knowing how
and why the Dakar sank. I would like to see a full investigation
of the incident. So I think they should make an effort to
recover the ship to solve the mystery and to enable a Jewish burial
for the 69 crewmembers."
Haifa's Chief Rabbi She'ar Yashuv Cohen - once a military chaplain
- also disagreed with Melamed. Cohen said, "From a Torah point of
view, there is no bigger commandment than bringing bodies to
burial, no matter what the cost."
He also related how his brother-in-law, Chief Army Chaplain Rabbi
Shlomo Goren, ruled about a year or two after the ship's
disappearance that the sailors had died and that their widows could
remarry.
Admiral (ret.) Michael (Yummi) Barkai, 64, after he heard that a
search team located the missing Dakar submarine, took his own life
in his Tel-Aviv home Friday night. Barkai's younger brother,
who was the second-in-command of the Dakar, was among the 69-crew
members lost at sea.
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