Your Egypt

[Hoss]

At a UN conference, held at the European Parliament in Brussels, heard an array of speakers call for a boycott against Israel and strategize on ways to achieve its international isolation, during the first day of an event billed by organizers as a gathering to promote "Middle East peace".

The 'International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace' has been organized by the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and attracted political figures and pro-Palestinian members of non governmental organizations (NGOs).

According to the Bnei Brith organization, which sent delegates to attend the conference from its European Affairs Office, British Member of Parliament Clare Short said during her speech that Israel was not interested in a two-state solution, and blasted the EU for "allowing" Israel to build "an apartheid wall".


"The boycott worked for South Africa, it is time to do it again," Short was quoted as saying.


The security fence was also attacked by the European Parliament's vice president, Edward McMillan-Scott, who maintained that it would not bring peace to Israel. McMillan-Scott added that the European Parliament was committed to "a two state solution with safe borders," according to the Bnei Brith report of the conference.


Pierre Galand, European coordinator of the Committees and Associations for Palestine, claimed that the conference was taking place despite pressures to cancel it, and blamed the Fatah-Hamas conflict on "Israeli policy".

Wolfgang Grieger, Secretary of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said that the conference had "received a message from Ban Ki-moon".

"It opened this morning with some 400 participants attending, representatives of 140 civil society organizations, members of the European and national parliaments, 53 government observers, as well as 16 intergovernmental organizations, including UN agencies. The Committee is very pleased with this big turnout," he said.

[Hoss]

The Zionist Federation of Great Britain has cancelled a scheduled appearance by Haaretz columnist Danny Rubinstein, after he reportedly likened Israel to apartheid South Africa during a UN conference in Brussels on Thursday.


According to a UN report, Rubinstein said that "Israel today was an apartheid State with four different Palestinian groups: those in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians, each of which had a different status."


The report quoted Rubinstein as condemning the security fence, saying that "even if the wall followed strictly the line of the pre-1967 border, it would still not be justified. The two peoples needed cooperation rather than walls because they must be neighbors."


On Friday, the Zionist Federation released a press release, saying "Rubinstein's participation in this weekend's Zionist Federation conference in London has been cancelled by mutual agreement."

"The ZF regularly holds meetings where a wide variety of views are expressed, and while there is no question that Rubinstein has every right to express his views about Israel, it was mutually agreed that his participation in the Zionist Federation conference became untenable," the statement said.


Andrew Balcombe, Chairman of the ZF, said: "Criticism of Israeli policy is acceptable. However, by using the word 'apartheid' in a UN conference held at the European Parliament, Danny Rubinstein encourages the demonisation of Israel and the Jewish people. I believe he was naïve to attend the UN conference."


Earlier, he told Ynetnews: "This is a conference of Israel-haters," adding that delegates were clearly guided by a single agenda: "To prove that Israel is a racist apartheid state, and therefore Israel should be boycotted internationally, as South Africa was."

Danny Rubinstein is an Israeli journalist.

Rubinstein was born in Jerusalem in 1937. From 1967 to 1990, he worked for the now-defunct newspaper Davar, as a columnist and Jerusalem bureau chief. Since 1990 he has worked for Haaretz, where he is a member of the editorial board. He writes regular columns on the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestinian affairs. He has spoken Arabic from childhood.

Rubinstein also teaches in the History of the Middle East department at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba and has published several books.

[redskin from Red Sea]

Ministers from Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority will sign an agreement Monday to pave the way for the construction of a canal that will link the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

The canal will generate electricity, provide fresh water, and prevent the Dead Sea from drying up.

Water will be drawn from the Red Sea at Aqaba in Jordan, raised to 170 metres above sea level and then let to fall to the Dead Sea which, at 400 metres below sea level, is the lowest place on earth.

The project will consist of 110 miles of canal, tunnel and piping, and the electricity provided by the water will provide for pumping the water in the initial stages and power a desalination plant.

There are also further plans to construct holiday resorts and a water park along parts of the route.

The first stage will be a $20m feasibility study partly funded by the World Bank with the estimated $3bn cost of the final project also to be partly funded by the bank.

Canals linking the Red Sea, Dead Sea and Mediterranean Sea have been discussed since the 19th century, initially for transport, then hydroelectricity and now with the main purpose of desalinating sea water.

With the regions population continuing to grow especially in the past 100 years, water has become more and more precious.

As a result the Dead Sea, a lake 10 times more salty than sea water, has fallen by 20 metres leaving wide areas of salt flats.

The sea level continues to fall by about 80cm a year raising the possibility of a battle for control of water resources in dry areas which can be fierce.

Some analysts believe that this was one of the underlying causes for the 1967 six day war and the reason behind Israel's invasion of Lebanon. The former secretary general of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has warned that the next wars will be fought over water not oil.

Control of water rights remains a major factor in relations between all the countries near the Jordan Valley and especially between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The canal has been called the Peace Conduit by some commentators who see the co-operation involved as a model for peaceful co-existence in the region.

Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian minister for planning, said that all parties were excited and enthusiastic, but required technical advice before deciding how the project will develop. But Dave Phillips, a water consultant to the Palestinian Authority, warned that the canal, which would be one of the biggest of its kind in the world, might be difficult to justify economically.

"There is maybe a 20 to 30-year lifetime for this project because that is how long it will take for the Dead Sea to regain its natural level.
"When you consider the vast capital costs, the economic sense is not clear. Also, because the desalinated water will need to be pumped long distances and to a high altitude to get where it is needed, the cost of the water will be very high."

Countries with less than 500 cubic metres of water per year are described as suffering from scarcity of water. In a comparative study, the UK has around 1,500 cubic metres per person, Israel 340, Jordan 140, and the Palestinian Authority only 70.

The Red Sea-Dead Sea canal is expected to generate 850 million cubic metres of drinkable water, almost the existing annual water use of Jordan, which would be divided between Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

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