Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Israel and the Dark Mirror

Source: YouTube poster "orlibonurb."  "I Am Israel - Documentary Film HD Version".  YouTube, June 1, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbws4DsnaM0 

In light of the above video, which I think timeless, we have this also to consider:

BERLIN – Arab youths threw stones at a Jewish dance group during a street festival in Hannover, injuring one dancer and forcing the group to cancel its performance, German police and dance officials said Thursday. [1]

The span from Arab youth throwing rocks at a Jewish dance troupe in Germany is not so far to an adult spewing venom at Israel from a podium in Vienna:

Source: Vimeo contributor "morris108" but the authorship appears to be Kawther Salam [3]  "Speech of Omar Al-Rawi on 4 June 2010."  Vimeo, June 6, 2010: http://vimeo.com/12316642. Primary source: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2010/06/05/demo-and-video-israel-terrorist

Never mind the data that has come out in the weeks since the Mavi Marmara incident, nor the more sophisticated impression of Gaza provided through aid distribution reports, freelance photography by Gaza residents, and such as the Roots Club video, speaker Omar Al-Rawi, a member of Vienna's City Council [2},  will continue along his lines for the social benefits accompanying them, a simple exercise in the acquisition, development, and experience of raw narcissistic power. 

"One last word.  Today ten thousand people came with us.  We also know that near here two hundred people are demonstrating for solidarity with Israel.  We live in a free country and everybody can freely express their opinion.  Two things I want to tell that group: First, they stated that this is the greatest anti-Semitic event.  I say shame on you!  for that statement.  We reject that smear.  Come here and see: here are anti-racists . . . straight people who are against anti-semitism, racism, and against Islamophobia."

The crowd then chants, "Terrorist Israel!  Terrorist Israel!"

Let's take this behavior to the video's end:

"And the second thing I would like to tell those friends of Israel: He who is a good friend gives sincere counsel.  He must tell his friend: "Dear friend you have gone too far.  You are trespassing every limit.  If you want this country to continue living in peace, it will not work without the rights of the Palestinians."

Remember this: the rights of the Palestinians today are in the hands of Hamas, legend to this moment for "extrajudicial killings" in Gaza, the Palestinian Authority, which has yet to change the genocidal charter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization from which it sprung in the spirit of Yassar Arrafat, the governments of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt that deny Palestinian refugees camped amidst their bailiwicks the full rights and privileges of citizenship, including access to jobs, and the UNRWA and a small host of disingenuous NGO's that administer humanitarian programs throughout the population but can't seem to put a lid on anti-Semitic, Judeophobic cartoons for children.

Clearly, there has evolved around Israel not a battle for land or for the betterment of Arabs in any progressive material or social aspect, but rather for the possession of language and the obliteration of thought and thoughtfulness itself. 

This is what what the world buys into when it embraces the "Palestinian narrative":

Article 15: The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation - peoples and governments - with the Arab people of Palestine in the vanguard. Accordingly, the Arab nation must mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine. It must, particularly in the phase of the armed Palestinian revolution, offer and furnish the Palestinian people with all possible help, and material and human support, and make available to them the means and opportunities that will enable them to continue to carry out their leading role in the armed revolution, until they liberate their homeland.

Article 22: Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress. Israel is a constant source of threat vis-a-vis peace in the Middle East and the whole world. Since the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people look for the support of all the progressive and peaceful forces and urge them all, irrespective of their affiliations and beliefs, to offer the Palestinian people all aid and support in their just struggle for the liberation of their homeland. [4]

Liberation from whom?  And from what?

Those two questions may seem at first about people, political organizations, or governments, but, ultimately, they are more accurately about ideation and language and the psychology of fear expressed in tropes that insulate and sustain the same: "the Zionist movement" and "world imperialism" would seem to exist in their own metonymic cloud, a cluster of associations that reach toward opposites in "Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress."

As good as such language may be made to sound, one may ask what of "liberation, unity, and progress" characterize today the essentially Judenrein states of, say, Algeria, Libya, and Syria.

Gasa, and this with Israel's acquiesence, has been made Judenrein too, and in it, Hamas has routed Fatah by force of arms, and the two to this day cannot agree on who is to represent whom and what.

The energy simmering up into the Middle East Conflict and threatening to boil over into World War III derives from language and the potential within it to poison the heart, blind reason, and dull compassion. 

Failure to address the same--the poetics of contempt, violence, and capricious willfulness--enables all of the too familiar inhumane horrors, not the least of which may be having one's sworn "liberators" turn out one's next generation of petty dictators, jailers, state-sanctioned sadists, and thugs.

Cited Reference

1. Grieshaber, Kirsten.  "Youths attack Jewish dance group in Germany."  Associated Press, June 24, 2010: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_jewish_attack

2. Wikipedia.  "Omar Al-Rawi": http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Al-Rawi

3. Salam, Kawther.  Kawther Salam: Europa and Palestine News: http://www.kawther.info/wpr/2010/06/05/israel-terrorist

4. "The Palestinian National Charter": http://www.iris.org.il/plochart.htm

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Clarity on Gaza, Finally, One Muslim Voice

During this same period of Flotilla Face-Offs with the IDF, Pakistan, my nation of matrilineal and patrimonial heritage has witnessed the extraordinary massacre of 120 moderate, pacifist Muslims, followers of the Ahmadiyyah movement that subscribes to peaceful, pluralistic Islam. Specifically, they embrace non-violence, condemning violent jihad. They were massacred, in cold blood, in worship, by fellow citizens, fellow Pakistanis, fellow Muslims. Most of the murdered were elderly, and male. Hundreds more were injured, some of whom are still dying this week. Emergency services did not arrive for over two hours. Pakistani police stood back, apparently allowing the carnage to occur, supposedly too afraid to engage. Awaiting special operations commandos to intervene, in their uncertainty, perhaps their tacit tolerance, Pakistani police became silent accomplices to the massacre. Many of the pacifist Muslim worshipers died of uncomplicated hemorrhagic shock within mere minutes of advanced medical care.

Where has been the subsequent national and international outrage at the death of these Muslims? Where is the Muslim world now? Where are the Muslims calling for War Crimes to be investigated within the inert and increasingly fractious Pakistani 'leadership'? We, the Muslims find ourselves suddenly voiceless, tongue tied, jaded and unmoved, yet somehow Gaza stokes our bald fury.

Ahmed, Qanta, MD.  "Israel and the Flotilla: On the Dangers of a Binary View."  The Huffington Post, June 24, 2010: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/israel-and-the-flotilla-o_b_613660.html

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God in Two Dimensions

teVYe's

E       I       n    s    t   E    i    N      '     s

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Go to the Places Where They Oppress Women . . . .

Go to the places where they oppress women;

Go to the places where they hang homosexuals in squares and deny the rights of minorities.

Go to the places where there is no freedom of expression, no freedom of press, no independent courts and no human rights organizations.  There are no human rights. Go to Teheran. Go to Gaza.

For those for whom human rights are truly important, you need to support the democratic and liberal Israel against these dark forces.

Netanyahu, Benyamin.  "Statement by PM Netanyahu on the Occasion of the Visit of the Chancellor of Austria, Werner Faymann."  Translation.  Office of the Prime Minister of Israel, June 23, 2010: http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/EventsDiary/eventaustria230610.htm

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On Gaza's Blockade, Question Authority

The sustained blockade that has been enforced in and around the Gaza Strip has had significant repercussions for the people of Gaza. They have been deprived of adequate supplies of essentials such as food and fuel. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says that a large proportion of families lack the means to purchase even the most basic items, including food, soap, school materials and clean drinking water. According to Amnesty International, the overall blockade on Gaza has led to mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages. Eighty percent of the population remains dependent on humanitarian aid, but the UN says that as a result of the blockade, only one quarter of the necessary aid is able to reach those who need it. [1]

After reviewing the "law of armed conflict" into which fit Israel's operations to maintain its sea blockade of Gaza, researcher Katherine Iliopoulos moves on to the effects of the blockade on Gaza's residents.  The above paragraph, as with much rhetoric on the subject on the web, bears close reading.  In fact, take it sentence by sentence:

1. The sustained blockade that has been enforced in and around the Gaza Strip has had significant repercussions for the people of Gaza.

A fair topic sentence, it includes the possibility of forestalling the development of Gaza as a forward operating base for Iran and the strip's transformation again into an active combat zone.

2. They have been deprived of adequate supplies of essentials such as food and fuel.

Israel's overland throughput of constructive goods and consumer supplies has been as substantial as it has been relentless. 

Factual data reported out by Israel include a 2009- 2010 shipping report --  http://www.scribd.com/doc/32598706/Gaza-Strip-Merchandise-and-Humanitarian-Aid-2009-2010 -- and a weekly update, e.g., http://www.scribd.com/doc/32650677/Gaza-Strip-Merchandise-and-Humanitarian-Aid-May-30th-June-5th-2010

In addition, one may find on the web photographs of swelling market stalls and productive agricultural business as well as the lively and modern "Roots Nighclub" video. [3]

By the numbers, Gaza would seem awash in food and fuel aplenty. 

3. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says that a large proportion of families lack the means to purchase even the most basic items, including food, soap, school materials and clean drinking water.

" . . . lack the means to purchase . . . ."  -- that should signal the presence within Gaza of a distributive economic issue.  No less than in, say, Somalia, aid may flow into a country by the thousands of tons, but once in may not reach its intended recipients or reach them in optimal ways.

4. According to Amnesty International, the overall blockade on Gaza has led to mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages.

It's understood that with the exception of fishing, the seaport cannot operate, but the emphasis on missing imaginary port operations and jobs as a panacea for what ails Gaza obscures economic potential elsewhere in the society, both in terms of gross earnings as well as in the social structure undergirding the distribution of proceeds. 

Focusing on the sea blockade scratches a certain itch, usually anti-Semitic or knee-jerk monkey-see-and-do, but the body would seem larger than the one irritant and worth separate independent study within the discipline or practice of economic development.

5. Eighty percent of the population remains dependent on humanitarian aid, but the UN says that as a result of the blockade, only one quarter of the necessary aid is able to reach those who need it.

The UN has been saying a lot of things about Israel for years, much of it similarly unreasoned.

I've mentioned this to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others in the information trade: I want "clear, accurate, and complete" factual data--photographs, reports, videos--on such as Gaza, scrupulously authenticated and captioned, so that it may be seen through other than the prismatic slits of Internationalist and Islamist ideology as well as state interest.

Moreoever, I wish to see--to obtain and collect--multiply sourced and redundant primary information, so that one's impression, which may when relayed contribute to public impression, becomes corroborated, tested, and increasingly valid and reliable as well as properly interpreted, by which I mean empirically grounded and thoughtful and reasoned in every aspect.

That life may well be uncomfortable for most in Gaza--I don't doubt it: however, what part of domestic economic and social discomfort lies with Hamas and its administration would seem an as yet unasked,  unanswered, and particularly unexamined question.

What we know is Israel's sea blockade helps minimize the presence of war materiel in Gaza and consequently forestalls its progress as a platform from which to attack Israel:

This past week intermittent rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued targeting the western Negev. Six rocket hits were identified in Israeli territory, three on May 31 and three on June 1. All the rockets fell in open areas. There were no casualties and no damage was done. The Popular Resistance Committees and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, claiming they were in response to the events surrounding the flotilla.

On June 1 an anti-tank missile was fired at an IDF force engaged in routine security activity near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip. The force returned fire (IDF Spokesman, June 1, 2010). The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the missile (PIJ website, June 1, 2010. [2]

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center report, from which the above has been copied, includes charts illustrating both the quantity of material lobbed into Israel from Gaza and its distrubtion across time in the post-Cast Lead period.

My appeal to my fellows is general: we know the lingo pertaining to standards in journalism and social science research--may we with greater curiosity, diligence, honesty, and integrity look into claims made in passing.

Cited Reference

1. Iliopoulos, Katherine.  "The Legality of Israel's Naval Blockade of Gaza."  Crimes of War Project, June 8, 2010: http://www.crimesofwar.org/onnews/news-gaza9.html

2. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.  "Rocket Fire Continues."  June 2-8, 2010: http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e089.htm

3. OA&L.  "Israel - Gaza: Basics."  June 9, 2010: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/page/2/

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Rubio on Israel

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Additional Recommended Viewing: Netanyahu's Speech - UN - September 2009

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Other Rachels, Not Protesting, Murdered Anyway

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co2X5LKH5n0

Tip Source: Facebook.

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About the Turkish IHH in Its Own Words

There has been much debate in the media about whether Turkey’s İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri İnsani Yardım Vakfı is a charity or a terrorist entity. The IHH, which sponsored the ill-fated Mavi Marmara expedition to Gaza, is said by a number of credible authorities, including the French counter-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Brougieres, to have ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. IHH spokesmen say this is an outrageous slur, and point to the group’s charitable works in, for example, Mali, Togo and Chad, where they have sent teams of physicians to treat cataract patients.

Okan and I went to the IHH headquarters in Istanbul to see what they had to say for themselves. Here’s our footage of our interviews.

"Claire and Okan" (I've listed their page to the left under the Journals heading) have produced interviews with IHH spokespersons and delivered them via their web site unedited, unexpurgated, unmanipulated.  If its natural for you to to view such work as propaganda, consider the dull parts and contemplate the possibility that it is what it seems and quite made itself without the guidance of a copywriter or public relations team.

"A Day at the IHH: 'The Jewish People are Dying Because of Your Shrewd Questioning'".  The Claire and Okan Orient Express, Nimbus Productions, via Vimeo, June 15, 2010: http://murkyinturkey.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/a-day-at-the-ihh-the-jewish-people-are-dying-because-of-your-shrewd-questioning/

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Pierre Rehov: Counter-Witness, Counter-Propaganda

Source: YouTube poster "Occupation101".  "Gaza's Reality."  YouTube, April 3, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0T3jMRNwV8.

I'm inclined to consider the "April 3, 2007" posting date a blooper considering what seems like the inclusion of winter 2009 combat footage in the piece.

The problem with propaganda is that it eludes authentication through triangulated corroboration, i.e., the observation of similar data from separate and separately interested (or disinterested) sources.

Whatever happened to simple "who, what, where, when, how, and why" plus the reading of many newspapers, now the query for many web searches and sites?

The problem on the Palestinian side: "collaboration"--what a loose noun is that one--continues to carry a death penalty in Gaza: look not yet on Flickr or Facebook for images associated with affluence, good health, and good spirits (not to mentioned good building repair and new construction) in Gaza.  It's not that they may not be there; it's rather that showing off the brighter side (like the Roots Restaurant and Nightclub -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJvvkXYD12U & http://www.rootsclub.ps/) would seem to undermine the impetus for "freedom flotilla" and suicide bombers (and not that Ahmadinejad should care to spare Gaza as a weapons depot or collateral target in a nuclear exchange).

As a reminder, here's that marvelously enticing and sexy and thoroughly modern and respectable Roots video:

Source: YouTube poster "Sadafdotps".  "Roots Club."  YouTube, August 9, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJvvkXYD12U

Look again, and you may see a well known (and well dressed) dignatary or two.

The Roots Club owners, Cactus ("For Development and Investment"), have additional photographs posted at  http://www.rootsclub.ps/gallery.php.

It should come as no secret to any that southern American society may not be the only to feature "mill shacks and mansions," i.e., the poor and wealthy side by side.

Which side do you want to see in, say, Baltimore: "The Projects" or "Harborplace"?

A short documentary on Baltimore showing the urban nature of the city. We tried to document the current socioeconomic diversity within the city by capturing its true nature; it's poor, it's homeless, it's a mess. We even ventured into a homeless park where the city has allowed people to create tent shelters and develop their own little community within the area. It was nuts. [2]

Source: YouTube poster "stephenpeyser".  "Baltimore City."  YouTube, December 7, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGBFd3X_hfs

You see at the end of Stephen Peyser's piece a reversion to a larger and more encompassing thing called "Baltimore".  Here's a more focused upscale view of the same city:

Source: YouTube poster "VickiPolin".  "Baltimore's Inner Harbor."  YouTube, January 10, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAymLFq9NH0&feature=related

I didn't choose the above for its music track by Cat Stevens AKA Yusuf Islam (http://www.catstevens.com/) but would call it fortuitous given its adaptation in the visual promotion of one of America's greatest cities.

Here's the question: which Baltimore do you believe exists?  Which is the propaganda?

If I asked "Which Gaza do you believe exists?" would the question not be every bit as absurd as the two about Baltimore?

Where access to information is open and robust, as it is with a high bandwidth connection on the Internet in an open society such as exists in the United States and much of Europe and elsewhere, we're sooner or later simply going to see the dirt streets beside the paved highways, the look of poverty beside the brimming grocery markets, for such have nothing to do with America, Jews, Israel, or Danish cartoonists but with economic behavior and public policy the world over.

Here I return to culture, language, and conflict (and the subject of this roundabout post):

For Pierre Rehov, life only took on true meaning when he began putting it at risk. He had been a movie producer, a novelist, a journalist and a lawyer. But none of those professions satisfied his searching soul. In moments of deep personal introspection he questioned himself, “Who and what am I really?” For him, the answer came when he turned on the news on October 6, 2000, and saw the images of the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura, the 12 year-old Palestinian boy, whom Israel was summarily accused of targeting. “I was in shock,” says Rehov, who rarely watches the pro-Arab French broadcasts. “In this case, I knew as a producer that there was something very fishy about the images. The angles just weren’t right.” [1]

French filmmaker Pierre Rehov has enjoined the media war involved with Gaza, the Palestinian cause, and the immense but unreasoning anti-Semitism of Israel's surrounding Arab world (and much of the world beyond).

As most know who have had the least curiosity about it, the "Muhammad al-Durra incident" as it has been titled on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Durrah_incident) has ranked among the most contested footage for validity.  It and other pieces have given rise to the term "Pallywood" to describe scripted agitprop put together to impress the world with the horrors of Israeli services (contribution of electricity, water, humanitarian aid throughput, and with the QIZ's--see previous post--plus construction activities, the facilitation of jobs).  Wikipedia features a page for that also (and "Hezbollywood" too): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallywood.

On the Israeli side, there's no need to play the same game.

As noted here in "Israel - Gaza: Basics" (http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2010/06/06-1630.html), Gaza's own photojournalists (and as with the Roots Club, businessmen) must inevitably record what exists even if it's a good thing (like the delivery of concrete and steel to a hospital for post-war repairs).  Until proven somehow inauthentic, I'm accepting the following as perfectly true (and I hope to have more of the basic "where, when then who, what, and how" on it soon).  For now, it's another portrait of Gaza as recorded and put together by French documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov, and it includes a little bit of Palistinian flag waving in New York City followed by an ending telling what the bother's really about--simple, simple blinded, disingenuous, habituated, irresponsible, and thoughtless hate.

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Only in blogging may one get away with this--not propaganda, not cause-related, not purposeful: only beautiful and sweet, and, aw, heck, I'm just an ol' Maryland boy at heart, and if you grow up in the "Corridor" (Baltimore-Washington), this is one of the places to go when the time for going out has come and there's a little spare change to cover the visit.  Again by Vicki Polin:

Source: YouTube poster "Vickipolin."  "Inner Harbor (Baltimore, MD)".  YouTube, November 21, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7FT1qvq8OU&feature=related

Gaza.  Jerusalem.  Baltimore.  Might as well add Islamabad, Mumbai, Mogadishu, Jakarta, Montreal, Riyadh, Beirut, Tehran, and so on: whatever the city or country, no matter the demographics and with hardly a care for rabid clerics anywhere, we are sooner or later going to see all of it honestly, as it is, and from both sides and then some.

Reference

1. Rehov, Pierre. "PIERRE REHOV and the "Contre-Champs" project: Inspired by Aliza Davidovit's article in Lifestyles Magazine." (abstracts): http://www.pierrerehov.com/about.htm.

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Pop QIZ for the ME

Under the agreement (P.L. 104–234) requires that articles eligible for QIZ status must be manufactured in or directly imported from the areas administered by the Palestine Authority or another notified QIZ and meet the several conditions.

To quality for this scheme a product must be substantially transformed in the manufacturing process. Material and processing costs incurred in a QIZ must total not less than 35% of the appraised value of the product when imported into the United States.[1] Of this 35%, 15% must be either US materials or materials from Israel, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip, and/or Jordan or Egypt depending on the program. The remaining 20% of the 35% input must come from Israel and Jordan or Egypt. The remaining 65% can come from any part of the world.  All importers must also certify that the article meet conditions for duty exemption.

Under the sharing agreements, the manufacturer from the Jordanian side must contribute at least 11.7% of the final produce, and the manufacturer on the Israeli side must contribute 8% (7% on high-tech products). Under the Israeli-Egyptian agreement, 11.7% of the inputs must be made in Israel.

The clothing and textile industry has benefited most from this arrangement. As tariffs on these goods into the United States are relatively high, exporters have used the duty-free benefits of QIZs to gain quick access to markets in the United States. [1]

On this very day in Egypt, June 14, 2010, some 779 Egyptian firms have bought into and are participating in the Egyptian part of the Qualifying Industrial Zones program. [2]

In Jordan, some 9,000 of about 30,000 jobs have been created for Jordanian labor--international labor, including from the West Bank, accounts for the remainder:

Under the FTA, Jordanian products which have at least 35 per cent value-added content from Jordan can be exported to US markets without customs duties while exports under the QIZ agreement, which promotes regional economic cooperation, requires an 8 per cent input from Israeli or West Bank sources . . ." [3]

For God's sake, don't call it "collaboration"!

Call it "resisted economic integration" or "mutually assured development" or some such: the problem is it puts people to work, distributes paychecks and profits locally and regionally, and alters social attitudes for the better.

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Certain people resist love.

Certain others embrace it.

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It's not only business that gets into the business of integrating communities and producing cooperation in the broader public interest: 

The Bedouin village of Um Bateen, just outside Beersheba in southern Israel, has no paved roads – which makes it the perfect place for a new mountain bike club. [4]

Within Israel, where broad intercommunity cooperation is possible, various programs facilitate integrating activity programs for adults and children.  I don't want to drift off into leisure and society issues on this post, nor do I want to spell the difference between cultural assimilation and the maintenance of cultural identity, but while the QIZ campuses of Egypt and Jordan mix Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian and other labor in local and regional efforts to produce goods for international markets, and do so quite successfully, I thought it might be healthy to relay yet another success story involving the development of another productive and enjoyable common experience among people who might otherwise mix less or less well.

the Tourism Ministry in cooperation with the KKL-JNF, the Cycling Association, the Nature and Parks Authority, the Development of the Galilee and the Negev authorities and other ministries and bodies, has developed a multi-year action plan that includes infrastructure development of 4,900 kilometers of varied cycling paths and the accompanying facilities, as well as educational, community and explanatory activities. [5]

Would you have your country spend $30 million on bicycling infrastructure if it encouraged community development, cross-cultural activity, and tourism?

Israel is spending that much, and my bet is that it will see it return in both the development of its children, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, and in returns associated with cultural, ecological, and historical tourism.

Source: Reference item "4"; on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E43mUeMB_Go

Reference

1. Wikipedia.  "Qualifying Industrial Zones": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualifying_Industrial_Zone

2. Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry.  "List of Companies Entitled to QIZ Duty-Free Treatment."  Table valid from June 6 to August 14, 2010: http://www.qizegypt.gov.eg/images/attachment.ashx.pdf.

3. Nouman, Abeer.  "Imports from U.S. Surpass Jordanian Exports under QIZ, FTA."  January 22, 2010: http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article16648.

4. Green Prophet Staff.  "Cycling for Peace as Israeli Arabs, Jews, and Beduoin Kids Get Free Bikes and Clubs."  June 14, 2010: http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/06/14/22668/israel-kids-free-bikes/

5. Kloosterman, Karin.  "Pumping $30 million into Cycling Tourist's Pedals."  Green Prophet, June 11, 2010: http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/06/11/22588/tourism-cycling-israel/

Other Reference

Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry.  QIZ Egypt Media Center Press Coverage: http://www.qizegypt.gov.eg/Media_PressCoverage.aspx.

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