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Newsletter : 2fax0613.txt
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Israel: Bush Must Not Include Palestinian State in Peace Plan
By Michael Drudge (VOA-London)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have met in London to discuss the Middle East crisis. A senior Israeli official said during the Washington visit, Sharon urged President Bush not to push Israel into a peace accord that would create a Palestinian state. The official said Sharon warned the president that his government would collapse and he would have to call new elections if a Palestinian state is established while Palestinian terrorism continues.
Powell Sees "Temporary" P.A. State
By IsraelNationalNews.com & Ha'aretz
Secretary of State Colin Powell has come up with an interesting idea for the Israeli-PLO standoff: A temporary Palestinian state.
Powell told a London-based Lebanese newspaper that President Bush feels that such a state could be a "step towards a comprehensive agreement, something on which the Palestinians could hang their hopes and dreams." Bush's vision of peace in the Middle East, Powell said, includes "the end of the conquest, the end of [Jewish] settlements [in Yesha], and a Palestinian state - and I know that in order to reach this vision, a temporary state is needed as an interim stage."
Bush has spoken out strongly against Yasir Arafat's leadership, and Powell's statements echoed this to some extent. "In order for a temporary state to be created," the Secretary said, "it must be democratic, transparent, without corruption, and its security organs must work well."
However, the U.S. administration Wednesday downplayed Powell's comments. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer later made clear, however, that Bush had not signed on to the idea. He said such a state was one among many ideas that Bush is receiving in his consultations with Arab and Israeli leaders as he seeks a way to end Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli targets, end Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas, and establish a Palestinian state.
"It's reflective of a variety of pieces of advice that people in the government are paid to listen to, from whatever source they may originally derive," Fleischer told reporters.
Powell was asked about the idea as he flew to a G-8 meeting of foreign ministers in Canada. "I did not say there would be a state. I said these are the ideas that are out there," he said. "I'm just trying to lay out to you the range of ideas that are out there, the issues that the president is examining."
Palestinians Hope Intifada Will Lead to End of Jewish State
By VOA News
A Palestinian opinion survey shows a majority of Palestinians hope the current fighting with Israel will go beyond ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and lead to the elimination of the Jewish state. The poll of more than 1,100 people in the West Bank and Gaza was conducted by a Palestinian think tank, the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC).
In the survey, 51 percent of respondents called for "liberating all of historic Palestine," referring to all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a December poll, 44 percent of Palestinian respondents held that view.
But the current poll shows some Palestinians are tiring of the fight with Israel. When asked in December whether to continue the uprising, 84 percent said "yes." When the same question was asked for the current survey, 79 percent approved. Support for suicide bombings against Israeli targets also declined, from 74 percent in December to 68 percent in the current survey.
Holocaust-era Art To Be Sent into Space with Israeli Astronaut
By IsraelNationalNews.com
On 19th July, Israel's astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon, will be launched into space with Holocaust-era art from Yad Vashem's Art Museum. Ramon contacted Yad Vashem requesting a Holocaust related item to take with him on his launch into space on the shuttle Columbia, due to the significance of the Holocaust to him as a Jew and as an Israeli.
On a personal level, the Holocaust is even more meaningful to Ramon as his mother is an Auschwitz survivor, and his grandfather and other members of his family perished in the death camps.
Yad Vashem chose "Moon Landscape", created by Peter Ginz, a 14-year-old Jewish boy, during his incarceration in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Ginz was multi-talented and had, at a young age, already written stories, articles and poetry, and continued to do so after being sent to the ghetto in 1942. During his incarceration Ginz traveled to places near and far within the depths of his imagination, and with great longing, he visited Prague, the city of his birth, in a poem written from behind the ghetto walls. In 1944 Ginz was killed in Auschwitz.
The moon landscape depicted in Ginz's drawing attests to his aspiration to reach a place from where the earth, which threatened his life, could be seen from a secure range. Even more so, the picture reveals a young man who, in addition to his other talents, was both a researcher and scientist full of optimism that science precedes all and would ultimately bring a remedy for humanity.
Speaking to the New York-based American Society for Yad Vashem from the Houston, Texas Space Center where he is in training, Ramon said, "I feel that my journey fulfills the dream of Peter Ginz 58 years on. A dream that is ultimate proof of the greatness of the soul of a boy imprisoned within the ghetto walls, the walls of which could not surrender his spirit. Ginz's drawings, stored at Yad Vashem, are a testimony to the triumph of the spirit."
"Moon Landscape" connects the dream of one Jewish boy who is a symbol of the talent lost in the Holocaust, to the journey of one Jewish astronaut, who is a symbol of our revival.
