By: Olivier Guitta – News World Communications Inc.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said last week that al-Qaida was still the largest threat to the United States. He added, “If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaida.”

ROOTS OF HEZBOLLAH — Members of the Basij volunteer militia established by Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini wave Hezbollah and Iran’s national flags as they attend a rally on al-Quds day (Jerusalem Day) in Tehran on Sept. 27. Jerusalem Day, an annual day of protest decreed in 1979 by Khomeini saw people across the Middle East demand that the holy city be returned to Palestinian control. (UPI)

But some analysts say that the focus should not go entirely on al-Qaida, stressing that the capabilities of the Shiite organization Hezbollah should not be underestimated.

Pre Sept. 11, 2001, Hezbollah was the organization believed to be responsible for the deaths of the largest number of Americans killed in terrorist attacks. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called Hezbollah “the A-team of terrorists, while al-Qaida may actually be the B-team.”

Today in a context of major tension with Iran regarding its nuclear program, Iraq and Lebanon, just to mention a few, intelligence analysts warn that the Hezbollah threat against the West should not be taken off the radar.

Hezbollah is believed to maintain a vast network of operatives across the world; from Europe to Africa to the Middle East, to Latin America and even North America.

In Africa, and in particular in the predominantly Sunni Maghreb, extremist Shiites are making inroads. The threat of potential Shiite terrorism is something Morocco knows something about, having dismantled earlier this year a large terrorist cell known as the Belliraj network. Members of this cell included a correspondent of the Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV. According to intelligence sources they were planning terror attacks in Morocco.

Hezbollah has long had a presence in Latin America. It is believed to maintain a large base of operations in the tri-border area where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina converge.

Following the assassination by Israel of its leader Abbas Moussawi, Hezbollah launched in 1992 and 1994 two terror attacks in Buenos Aires against the Israeli embassy, killing 29 people and the Jewish community center, killing 85.

Intelligence sources say that Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America have expanded into Venezuela and other countries. In October 2006 homemade bombs were left in front of the U.S. embassy in Caracas. Police subsequently arrested a student in possession of Hezbollah material in Spanish.

Europe presents other possible targets. Counterterrorism officials, especially in Europe, are sometimes privately more concerned by Hezbollah than al-Qaida. Intelligence officials say that infiltrating the movement is almost impossible, mostly because of the lack of a large Shiite population on the continent, and when compared to Intel on Sunni terrorist groups, European law enforcement officials say they are almost blind.

Hezbollah has an impressive network in Europe with, according to intelligence officials, operatives in Belgium, Bosnia, Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.

Germany is thought to have about 900 Hezbollah members and authorities fear it could become a target. A recent report issued by Germany’s security services, says Hezbollah could launch damaging terrorist attacks in Germany, the UK and elsewhere in Europe. British authorities confirmed recently that Hezbollah sleeping cells disseminated throughout the UK are threatening to strike in case of attacks against Iran.

The Middle East remains the region where Hezbollah can inflict the most damage to the West. Being clearly in command in Lebanon, UNIFlL forces in southern Lebanon remains vulnerable to attacks.

Hezbollah’s arsenal is impressive and includes some 40,000 rockets that have been supplied by Iran, Syria and Eastern European countries. These weapons could also end up in the hands of the insurgents in Iraq.

Finally, Hezbollah could also be a threat to the U.S. homeland. In February 2004, then-CIA Director George Tenet stated that Hezbollah had cultivated an extensive network of operatives on American soil and an “ongoing capability to launch terrorist attacks within the United States.”

After its most successful operative, Imad Mughnieh, was assassinated in Damascus in February, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned state and local law enforcement agencies of a potential risk of Hezbollah’s revenge against targets in the United States.

Hezbollah’s activity in the United States has so far been limited to major fund raising through business ventures, criminal activity (such as cigarette smuggling) and donations from supporters. Some experts think that Hezbollah would never dare attack the United States on its soil because it would endanger its huge fundraising operations. This, say others, might be wishful thinking. A confrontation with Iran could well change that.

By: Claude Salhani – News World Communications Inc.

Turkey is a land of many paradoxes. While the Kemalist notions of secularism and the separation of mosque and state are taken seriously, at the same time the state provides funds for the building of mosques, keeps the Sunni clergy on the state’s payroll and allows school textbooks that teach that being a Sunni Muslim is part and parcel of the Turkish identity.

No less of a paradox is how Ankara hopes to adhere to the European Union as it promotes one branch of Islam while ignoring minorities, such as the Alevis, who constitute roughly 10 percent to 15 percent of the country’s population.

Still, Turks take their secularism to heart to the point that often the word “secularism” does not convey the sense of urgency felt in post-Ottoman Turkey to describe the notion of keeping religion separate from politics, as intended by Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), the founder of modern-day Turkey. Instead, Turks often borrow the word “laicite” from the French.

Numerous factors play a part in making Turkey into the land of contradictions that it is today. Certainly its geographic location, as a nation straddling the borders of East and West, sitting along the periphery of the Judeo-Christian West and the Muslim Levant and beyond, counts for something. Turkey was a co-founder of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, whose charter defines its members as “Islamic countries committed to preserving Islamic principles, ethical, social and economic values.”

Writing in the October-November issue of the journal Survival published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in an article entitled “Turkey’s Latest Crisis,” Gareth Jenkins, an analyst based in Turkey, reports that “claims by opponents of the (ruling Justice and Development Party), or the AKP, that it wants to establish an Islamic state are probably exaggerated. But the AKP’s denials that it has a religious agenda are equally misleading.”

Yet, as Jenkins reminds us, “Women who believe the Koran requires them to cover their heads in public are banned from working in the civil service and are even forbidden from studying at universities on the grounds that doing so would be a violation of the secular nature of the Turkish state.”

And although Shariah law prohibits the lending of money for profit, there is hardly another country in either the East or the West with as many banks and as many branches of these banks.

Turkey’s cross-cultural exposure and its geographic position have resulted in some unique geopolitical assets.

Turkey, possibly more so than any other nation in Europe or the Middle East, understands the mindset of both the European and Levantine cultures. And as one of the rare countries in the region to enjoy relations with both the Arabs and Israel, Turkey in recent years has become involved in trying to mediate between Syria and Israel on the one hand, and Iran and the West on the other.

“Turkey is becoming more active in geopolitical affairs,” said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a news conference in Washington last Friday.

“Turkey,” said Erdogan, “could also play a positive role if it were to act as a mediator in the stalled negotiations between Iran and the West over the controversial nuclear dossier.

“We are ready to be the mediator,” said the Turkish prime minister. “I do believe we could be very useful.”

Ankara announced earlier this year that it had begun to play an informal role in the talks between Iran and the group of six leading powers trying to talk Iran out of its nuclear ambitions — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Replying to this reporter’s question, Erdogan reaffirmed that Turkey was not prepared to accept the possibility that Iran — right next door — could acquire nuclear weapons, but he did not elaborate as to what steps Turkey might take in that regard.

Erdogan said: “The world is going through a global political and economic crisis.”

Keeping in line with its paradoxical identity crisis, since Erdogan’s ruling party, the AKP, or the Justice and Development Party, came to power in 2002, as Jenkins reminds us, despite its Islamist leanings, there has been an absence of any explicit pro-Islamic legislation. Rather, there has been a “battery of liberalizing reforms” passed in hope of appeasing the European Union and gaining entry into the Brussels club, something Ankara has been pushing for almost 20 years now.

But continued refusal from some European countries, particularly France under the leadership of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who remains ardently opposed to Turkey’s accession to the EU, risks pushing Turkey off the fence and into the Islamist camp. At a time when the West needs all the friends it can get, alienating the Turks to the point where they would turn away from Europe and begin looking eastward once again would be an unforgivable mistake.

By: Leigh Phillips – EUobserver

Extreme right parties, from anti-immigrant and xenophobic populists to outright neo-fascists, are almost certain to increase their presence in the European Parliament after the 2009 elections unless the European Union and mainstream parties wake up to the threat and take action, long-time monitors of far right activities are warning.

Far right rally in Germany (Photo: Steffen Sebert 2005)

UK Labour MEP Glyn Ford, one of the parliament’s own leading experts on extreme right parties and author of the European Parliament’s landmark 1991 inquiry into racism and xenophobia in Europe, has said that ahead of the financial crisis, the various far-right parties were already on track to achieving a rise in their numbers from the current 57 deputies to between 60 and 70 in the June 2009 elections.

However, if the financial crisis results in a sharp increase in unemployment across the bloc, Mr Ford worries that such parties will take advantage of the anger and bitterness such economic dislocation causes and achieve an even higher seat count.

“The ‘Fascist Right’ would probably win high twenties to low thirties,” given their current levels of support in different member states, Mr Ford predicts. “Equally, the ‘Fascist Lite’ parties would gain thirty to forty seats.”

The centre-left deputy and watcher of the far right across Europe distinguishes between the hardcore neo-fascism of groups such as the Greater Romania Party and the British National Party, and the anti-immigrant, Islamophobic populists of such tendencies as the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and the Danish People’s Party, who nonetheless have no fascist roots.

“It’s complicated because they’re not all classic fascist groupings …but we’re likely to see them both grow. Not everywhere, but there’s been a continuous secular growth election after election for the last 25 years.”

Mr Ford predicts that although the grouping of extreme right parties in the parliament – the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty political “family” – was both founded and dissolved last year, falling apart over competing exclusivist national narratives, the far right is likely to successfully mount a second attempt to create a political grouping in the European Parliament after the elections.

He even worries there may be two different hard right groupings formed after the next parliament – one more extreme than the other.

“Unfortunately, we’re likely to see the Fascist Right have enough members to form a political group again and you’re probably going to get a Fascist Lite group on the side as well.”

Bulgarian MEP Kristian Vigenen, the chair of the Extreme Right Watch Working Group – an initiative of the Party of European Socialists in the parliament, agrees: “The reaction of the EU to the crisis so far has been strong, but if the economic situation gets worse, we’ll see a contraction of the labour markets and migrant communities will be amongst the first groups to lose their jobs.”

“This of course creates a better environment for these parties,” he told this website, highlighting Slovakia and his own Bulgaria as key member states in which the far-right are likely to see growth.

Crisis scapegoats>

Graeme Atkinson, the European editor of Searchlight, the respected UK journal that has soberly reported on the activities of the far right since 1975, agrees with the euro-deputies, saying: “There is a firm probability of an increase in the far right in the next parliament.”

“With the global financial crisis, and the growing unemployment, this disaffection will only grow,” he told EUobserver. “They will begin to look for scapegoats for the crisis and look outside the mainstream, but these groups will deliver nothing but chaos.”

He believes a conservative euroscepticism will accompany the immigrant-bashing discourse: “People will be quick to blame domestic politicians and Brussels for this, for the increase in the cost of food and fuel, for issues that are largely international in scope.”

Mr Atkinson say that while the phenomenon is happening across the EU, the far right in Austria and Italy in particular will see a large increase in their European representation. He expects a small increase from the right populist Flemish separatists, the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), and says that the UK’s British National Party is within striking distance of one seat. Mr Ford, for his part, believes the BNP may win three seats.

“In the Netherlands, however, I’m not so sure,” said the editor of Searchlight. “The non-conventional right is so fragmented and at each other’s throats at the moment.”

The status quo in France and Germany is unlikely to be altered – the Front National should stay roughly the same – a solid one eighth of the vote, he believes, while the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party of Germany) is unlikely to win any seats.

Mr Ford also predicts higher results for Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party) and Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (Alliance for the Future of Austria) in Austria and the anti-immigrant Lega Nord and the Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance) in italy.

Far-right in the east

Searchlight’s Mr Atkinson warns that “one of the biggest worries comes from the popularity of the far-right, populist spectrum in the new member states,” however. “In Poland, there is a worry about the extreme parties with a thoroughly reactionary rightist agenda – anti-women’s rights, anti-abortion, opposed to gay and lesbian rights – that is firmly rooted in the Roman Catholic church’s more fundamentalist wing.”

Likewise, he said, Hungary is now seeing the emergence of “some really quite threatening groupings, some of whom even have a paramilitary character,” referring to Magyarországért Mozgalom (Movement for a Better Hungary – Jobbik for short) and its Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard).

Mr Atkinson wants the EU institutions and mainstream parties to pay more attention to what is happening in the east.

“The EU is unfortunately not taking a lot of notice of this,” he said. “The real concern is in Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, and the Czech Republic as well. In these states, there is considerable prejudice towards various minorities.”

“The EU needs to sit up and take notice and defend democracy … It’s very important to contrast how quickly the EU acted around the Austrian vote for the Freedom Party in 2000 and what they are doing now. They are willing to turn a blind eye to developments in the new member states.”

Mr Ford meanwhile highlighted the neo-fascist Partidul Romania Mare (Greater Romania Party) as cause for concern.

Left also to blame

Mr Atkinson has strong words for the social democratic parties as well when he explains why this is happening.

“The mainstream left bears a responsibility for this as it’s moved right to the centre, moving away from their natural constituency of working people. These people, who are disillusioned, disenchanted, abandon their traditional allegiance to the social democratic or even communist parties and vote for these vehicles of protest with their easy answers about Muslims, Roma or immigrants.”

Nonetheless, he is clear that there is need for engagement, but not the sensationalism that can actually aid the growth of these groups.

“It’s important not to exaggerate the threat,” he said. “It’s not a cause for panic – they are not about to take over the parliament. Today is not 1933.”

* Iran opens fourth navy base in Gulf The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced the opening of its fourth navy base on the shores of the Persian Gulf, opposite the United States Navy Base in Bahrain.

* Seized tanker anchors off Somalia A huge Saudi oil tanker hijacked in the Indian Ocean on Saturday is believed to have anchored off the coast of Somalia.

* Palestinian PM: Settlement building will destroy peace process Palestinian Prime Minister and Finance Minister Salam Fayyad called on the international community to up the pressure on Israel to suspend all construction in the settlements.

* Global gloom depresses oil price Oil prices have drifted below $55 a barrel amid worries over falling demand and slowing global growth.

* Mass Emergency Meeting in Hevron The large Jewish community of Hevron – close to 800 people, including some 90 families – is awaiting the invasion of a large police/army force for the purpose of emptying Peace House of its Jews.

* ‘Assad ready for peace, if he gets what he wants’ “(Syrian) President Assad is willing to reach a peace agreement, if Israel and the United States give him what he wants.”

* Poll: Across the Board, Americans Support Israel According to poll data released on Sunday, fully 66 percent of American voters – Democrats, Republicans and others – believe that the United States should support Israel over the Palestinian Authority.

* Syria dismisses uranium traces report A Syrian official disputed on Tuesday that the UN nuclear agency’s discovery of uranium traces at a bombed site was an indication that Syria was building a nuclear reactor.

* Iran sends mixed signals on US-Iraq pact Reaction in Iran to the approval by Baghdad of a controversial military pact with Washington has been mixed.

* Israeli tanks move into Gaza, level farmland Israeli tanks forged into the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, drawing mortar fire from Palestinian militants and intensifying violence that has chipped away at a tenuous cease-fire.

By: Col. Bob Maginnis – HumanEvents.com

President-elect Obama has promised to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo (Gitmo) Bay, Cuba even though the alternatives are unattractive. But before he shutters that facility the new president must resolve the underlying problem that made Gitmo infamous.

The problem that torpedoed Gitmo was the government’s failure to identify the appropriate means to handle captured terrorists who haven’t committed a “crime” but undoubtedly would if left free to roam. To what legal process are these terror suspects entitled if they are going to be detained long-term?

Otherwise, the legal issues related to Gitmo have been resolved by three Supreme Court rulings, federal laws like the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which enacted our long-standing policy regarding treatment of detainees, and administration policies like the Department of Defense Detainee Program that prescribes the minimum standards of care for detainees in accord ance with Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions.

Today, Gitmo is a legally accountable and a state-of-the-art detention facility. Detainees have recreation facilities, world-class medical care, culturally appropriate meals, and their cases are reviewed annually.

President-elect Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo primarily because Gitmo’s image has been tarnished by negative media reports. Its critics hope closing the facility will create a global wave of diplomatic and popular goodwill that could accelerate the transfer of some detainees to other countries and improve America’s reputation.

The U.S. has transferred or released more than 500 detainees. Today, 250 remain, and many of those could be released to their home countries if we could be assured the detainees will be maintained in custody and treated humanely. Our concern is that some former detainees have been released and then returned to the fight.

At least 37 former Gitmo detainees have done exactly that. Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti man, was originally detained in Afghanistan and spent three years at Gitmo before being released in 2005. Al-Ajim returned to Kuwait, but in May 2008, he traveled to Iraq, where he became a suicide bomber.

The U.S. doesn’t want to transfer all detainees, however. Some are suspected of committing war crimes and should be tried and punished if found guilty. Others likely can’t be successfully tried but are too dangerous to release. Both groups are the subject of considerable discussion within the Obama camp.

One option is to bring both groups to the U.S. “I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on U.S. soil as anywhere else,” said Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who serves as a legal adviser to Obama.

But some Bush administration lawyers believe moving the terrorism suspects to American soil could increase their constitutional and statutory rights and thus invite an explosion of civil litigation. In fact some detainees could soon win their freedom through habeas corpus [contest detention] petitions to roam our communities waiting for trial or a country to accept them.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that Gitmo detainees are entitled to seek their freedom through federal habeas corpus cases. This ruling has opened the door for more than 200 claims to include one that may soon release 17 Chinese Uighers captured in Afghan terrorist training camps. The Uighers are a Muslim-Turk ethnic opposed to Chinese government control of their native region.

Last month, federal judge Ricardo Urbina demanded that the Bush administration produce the Uighers in his courtroom. The judge said he intended to release them to the Washington, D.C. Uigher community. Fortunately, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency injunction blocking their release.

Taxpayers will have to build a special detention facility if the Gitmo detainees are brought to America. They can’t be housed with convicted American criminals because the Gitmo detainees haven’t as yet been tried. Then there’s the problem of location. Siting a terrorist detention facility would be a major political football which no one wants because it would inevitably become ground zero for terrorist sleeper cell attacks.

President-elect Obama has said the U.S. civilian and military court-martial systems would provide a framework system to handle detainees brought to America. His “hybrid” court system would be used to try up to 80 of the detainees for war crimes. Currently, 18 detainees are charged before military commissions.

It’s unlikely Obama’s hybrid court system would survive Supreme Court challenges any better than the Bush administration’s enemy combatant tribunals and military commissions process. In fact, there is bipartisan resistance to Obama’s hybrid system because it would treat terrorism as a mere crime and grant terror suspects captured on the battlefield the same legal rights and protections as Americans.

Likely, most of the detainees would walk if tried by Obama’s hybrid court system because the government has insufficient admissible evidence. The detainees have been treated as combatants and not criminals. They were not read Miranda rights. All were questioned without attorneys present. The soldiers who captured them were not concerned with preserving the chain of custody of evidence or proving beyond a reasonable doubt their guilt.

Granting the detainees legal rights in a U.S. court could also jeopardize our war effort. Civilian due process rules, which give defendants discovery rights, would grant the detainee access to the intelligence needed to prove the government’s case and other intelligence needed to defend against charges. The government avoided this problem in the “dirty bomber” case against American citizen Jose Padilla by dropping charges that relied on classified information.

The final group of detainees haven’t necessarily committed a “crime” by Obama’s hybrid court’s standard but undoubtedly would if left free to roam. Among this group are terrorist trainers, bomb makers, recruiters and facilitators, terrorist financiers, and potential suicide bombers. We can only try someone for war crimes if they have already perpetrated the act, not if they have financed it, supported it, produced propaganda for it or said they intended to participate.

Mohammed al-Qahtani is typical of this group. He is suspected of planning to be one of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Qahtani’s case has been allegedly tainted by “torture” and is therefore difficult or impossible to prosecute. Preventing people like Qahtani from following through with their intent is a critical aspect of the war on terror.

President-elect Obama will soon discover that while many want Gitmo closed, few offer viable alternatives and scarcely any nations have assisted in accepting detainees of other nationalities. That leaves America with a lot of terrorists to house, possibly for decades.

Gitmo may be a black eye on our image abroad but it serves two critical functions — it keeps the terrorist killers off our battlefields, and it keeps America’s streets safer. Bringing terrorists to the U.S. and granting them the rights of citizens in hybrid courts based on civilian criminal standards with civilian due process rules is the wrong way to redeem our reputation.

Soon to be commander-in-chief Obama must put America’s interests above that of terrorists. Our military, intelligence and law enforcement services need facilities and the legal tools to capture and detain terrorists as well as terrorist supporters like Qahtani who are conspiring to kill thousands of innocent Americans.

Mr. Maginnis is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a national security and foreign affairs analyst for radio and television and a senior strategist with the U.S. Army.

* Olmert calls for world to stop Iran nuclear bomb PM tells ‘General Assembly’ of Jewish leaders Islamic Republic ‘has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons; free world must do whatever it can to prevent nuclear Iran’

* Hezbollah, an Imminent Danger CIA Director Michael Hayden said last week that al-Qaida was still the largest threat to the United States.

* We’ll go to war over Hebron house, warn settlers Right-wing activists say they have no intention of complying with High Court ruling they must evacuate disputed property.

* Iraqi ministers agree to extend U.S. military presence The Iraqi cabinet overwhelmingly approved the security agreement that sets the conditions for the continued U.S. presence.

* Summit shows times have changed The G20 summit in Washington was a striking event first of all for who was there.

* ElBaradei confirms uranium found at bombed Syrian site The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said the agency needs more transparency from Syria and other nations.

* Poll: Most Americans want US to back Israel Most US citizens believe America should stand behind Israel, a poll found this week.

* Was the Aksa Mosque built over the remains of a Byzantine church? Archeological archives show a Byzantine mosaic floor underneath the Temple Mount’s Aksa Mosque that was likely the remains of a church or a monastery.

* Turkey is Becoming More Active in Global Politics The last few years we have seen Turkey beginning to emerge from its shell and play a greater role in regional politics.

* Crisis likely to bolster far right in EU parliament Extreme right parties, from anti-immigrant and xenophobic populists to outright neo-fascists, are almost certain to increase their presence in the European Parliament after the 2009 elections.

By: Jessica Steinberg – News World Communications Inc.

With the Sea of Galilee, one of Israel’s main freshwater resources, at its lowest level in four years, it is no secret that Israel is reeling from an ongoing drought and is not expecting relief anytime soon.

JOY! A meteorologist from Kibbutz Negba in south Israel measures the amount of rain after Israel received its first good rainfall in eight months after suffering from drought conditions on Oct. 28. (Chameleons Eye via Newscom)

Public service announcements on the radio remind listeners to cut down on water usage in the garden and kitchen, and you may get some dirty looks at the gym if you stay in the shower for too long.

It isn’t that there aren’t some very practical solutions out there: Israel’s academic institutions have almost always been engaged in water research, seeking smart options to answer the lack of this critical resource.

But water technologies are taking a long time to reach the market that needs them.

“There’s an extraordinary amount of inertia in this industry,” explains Prof. Rafi Semiat, director of the Grand Water Research Institute at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

“We’ve known for a long time, for example, that desalination is a solution. So we created the Israel Desalination Society back in 1997, with its main target to convince the government that desalination is an essential solution. Only in 2002 did the government decide that the water issue called for desalination; but two months later, we had good rain and the Kinneret [Hebrew for the Sea of Galilee] rose.

“Then the finance ministry said desalination plants cost too much and six years later, we only have two desalination plants.”

The desalination plants, both built by Israeli companies, are in Ashkelon and Palmahim.

Given Israel’s access to the waters of the Mediterranean, desalination – the process by which excess salt and other minerals are removed from water in order to provide fresh water that can be used by humans or for irrigation – has always been an obvious solution for the country’s water shortage, along with the necessary technologies that make the water drinkable.

For the scientists who have long been researching and discovering alternative water methodologies, the government’s tendency to drag out the decision-making process is frustrating, but it hasn’t stopped any of the local academic institutions from looking for – and proposing – solutions.

Israel has always used “marginal water,” since the establishment of the state, says Prof. Eilon Adar, who heads Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, down in the arid air of Sde Boker, the Negev desert region of southern Israel.

“We were the first nation to start to develop non-conventional water sources. One hundred years ago, people didn’t consider groundwater as a water source, although Abraham was already digging wells,” he points out.

At the same time, the country’s water experts were already making plans back in the 1960s, when they inaugurated the National Water Carrier to carry water from the Kinneret to the center and south. That was considered a project that would last 45 to 50 years, providing Israel with the time to come up with alternative and additional sources of water.

Down in Sde Boker, which was home to Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and where dry desert air is a constant reminder of water scarcity, the focus is on investigating methods to improve water quality.

Scientists have been studying the biochemical evolution of contaminants in the water using biochemical reactors in order to come up with the most efficient model to get rid of the biochemicals.

By studying the so-called hydraulic connections between water bodies under the surface, they can see if the water is contaminated, where the chemicals go and how fast that can happen.

The Zuckerberg scientists also recently developed a special membrane to sieve organic poisons from waters at chemical complexes, which is now being used at Israeli agrochemicals giant Makhteshim Agan Industries, and are beta testing their methods for nano filtration and desalinating treated sewage water at the Shafdan water treatment plant in central Israel.

They’re also researching gray water – water from the kitchen – and looking at how to convince households to separate and treat this water, and use it to irrigate the garden without damaging the soil or humans.

“We’re trying to figure out why so many innovations at this stage are considered premature,” says Adar. “We can see very clearly that there are obvious ways for our innovations to be leveraged and implemented. But allocations need to be made to look at the innovations that have the clear potential to become a product and then find whatever funding necessary to move from alpha model to beta site.”

The motivation is certainly there, given the continual lack of rain in this arid corner of the earth. And consortiums are being formed all the time.

Zuckerberg was recently selected to be the national center for advanced water technologies, supported by the government for the first four to five years, and acting as a bridge between academia and entrepreneurs.

The institution, with Adar at the helm, isn’t the only academic body forming consortiums and looking carefully at water quality. At the Hebrew University campus in Rehovot, the verdant plain known for its citrus orchards, Prof. Avner Adin has spent years in the water business, moving from academia to government and back to academia.

So, when the recent water crisis hit in 2001, Adin felt very “frustrated” over the lack of good water management, and instituted the Israel Water Association, a non-governmental organization dedicated to working with the government and other water institutes to create better water management in Israel and to represent Israel internationally.

“I decided I had to do something,” he said. “Scientists have always been aware of the issues of water quality, or finding additional water sources that could be purified for human consumption,” says Adin, who divides his time between his university research, classes and consulting for the government and industry.

“We were thinking about seawater desalination back in the 1960s, and that’s the advantage of science for a country – allowing it to look forward.”

The process, however, has taken years. While Adin and others spent years in their laboratories, devising methods for purifying alternative water sources, the country staggered from one water crisis to another, never fully deciding which solutions to invest in for the long term.

Scientists like Adin, Adar and Semiat never intended for the government to rely on one solution, such as desalination. Adin, for example, is constantly thinking about five different, parallel solutions, including desalinating seawater and brackish water, conserving water, purifying storm and drainage water and creating artificial rain.

His department is collaborating with BGU’s Zuckerberg on ways to treat sewage water – given that the water quality can be made decent and doesn’t require very different processes to treat it, the question is, rather, how to transfer and store it.

At Adin’s Water Treatment Technology laboratory in Rehovot, the current work also focuses on different filtration systems for water, using test tubes set with fine membranes that sift through particles, and bacteria that need to be filtered out of the water, which, however, can slow down the flow.

The Rehovot lab is used for department research, and is an active site for the consultation that the department offers to the government and local industry, from computer chipmaker Intel – which has several research and development centers in Israel – to giant Israeli generic drug producer, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.

Adin has also focused on electroflocculation, in which one puts different elements into water in order to reduce the negative changes that can take place in the filtration process.

This process was created and patented by Adin, and is used by privately owned Israeli company, TreaTec21, which uses electroflocculation, dual biological treatment and advanced oxidation to treat all drinking water and most of the municipal and industrial wastewater, using a continuous, static process to remove suspended solids, dissolved organic contaminants, fats, emulsions, dyes and heavy metals.

Local industry has always benefited from Israeli academia, particularly in the water business.

Semiat points to two projects from the Technion that are currently being tested by local companies. One involves the introduction of magnesium (a mineral essential for plants and humans) into desalinated water, which hitherto had been added directly to crops using desalinated water, but now the trend is to add it earlier, to the water itself. A Technion researcher found a way to extract magnesium from seawater and transfer it to the desalinated water at a low cost.

Another recent Technion discovery involves recovering a larger amount of water from brackish water desalination plants. The current percentage of water that can be desalinated from brackish water is limited to 70 percent or 80 percent usable water.

The Technion discovery uses crystallization techniques to remove salts and make more, and cheaper, water. The solution is currently being piloted by two Israeli companies: Israel Desalination Enterprises (IDE) Technologies Ltd. and Global Environmental Solutions Ltd. (GES), the companies that built Israel’s desalination plants.

So, even when the Israeli government doesn’t move quickly enough to utilize the water solutions developed by its own researchers, Israeli industry is quick to capitalize on its local smarts.

IDE, based in Ra’anana, is now marketing its own snowmaker – and selling it to the Swiss ski slopes. The snow machine was originally created for desalinating salt water, but the company realized that the machine could create snow without adding any chemicals. And a new market was born.

“It’s like water,” said the Technion’s Semiat. “People think there is a single solution, but there isn’t. Companies are always looking for new directions, for new solutions; it’s just that it takes a long time.”

Adar, from BGU, takes a more academic approach to the Israeli attitude, pointing out that any water innovations are initiated by academics, but they are generally at too premature a stage to be presented to and utilized by entrepreneurs.

“There’s a huge gap between academic feasibility and industrial capability,” he says. “With water and clean air, it’s very clear that it’s something that everybody expects the national authority will provide.

“In Israel, we know that water doesn’t come from air and love; you have to pay for it. No one now expects to get it free, but they do expect that there will be an adequate supply and quality. Yet that’s what’s missing in Israel.”

Not every Israeli academic institution dealing with water focuses on water quality. In the desert, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura, a kibbutz north of Eilat, promotes regional cooperation among Israelis, Palestinians and other neighboring Arab countries in environmental matters.

Clive Lipchin, research director at the Arava Institute, calls it “dealing with Israel’s environmental problems that often originate outside our borders, but reach our borders,” including issues of water, air quality, waste management and agriculture.

At the moment, the Arava Institute is involved in a couple of water projects: the Red Sea/Dead Sea project, which is a World Bank-funded study on connecting the Red Sea and Dead Sea via pipeline and open canal through the Arava Valley; a desalination plant at the Dead Sea and the largest water pumping station in the world between Aqaba and Eilat.

GLOA Jordan is an initiative funded by the German government to understand more effectively how climate change might affect water in the region. In working with Palestinians, Germans, Jordanians and Israelis, the project is “broad and ambitious,” says Lipchin, and the Arava Institute’s involvement will include getting the public and government sector involved.

“Water is a frustrating but extremely complex issue,” says Lipchin. “But you have to take a broad look and understand that there is no one solution, and that it’s a problem that’s never going to go away, because you always need water.

“At the same time, progress is being made. Nobody’s walking around blindfolded here. Everyone understands that there’s a real problem, and there has to be a real solution. We just have to be pragmatic.”

* China holds the cards at summit It is not clear how much the leaders of developed and developing countries from around the world, gathered to discuss a fast-moving financial crisis with a soon-to-depart president of the United States, can hope to accomplish.

* Russia Backs Off on Europe Missile Threat President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia retreated Friday from his threat to deploy missiles on Europe’s borders.

* Global financial crisis increasing terror threat The Washington Post quoted intelligence officials as saying that the deepening global economic crisis could weaken fragile governments in the world’s most dangerous areas.

* Iraqi cleric calls for peaceful mass protest against U.S. Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for a massive prayer service and a peaceful demonstration in Baghdad next week against the U.S.-led presence in Iraq.

* Barkat’s agenda Fiorello LaGuardia, the legendary New York City mayor between the Great Depression and World War II, seldom disappointed reporters for a quote.

* Iran pushes for further oil cut Iran is to urge the oil-exporters’ group Opec to agree another cut in production to boost the price of oil.

* Iraq: Negotiators agree on US security pact draft U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have agreed on a draft of a security pact that would allow American troops to stay in Iraq for three more years.

* Abbas, Olmert to meet Monday A Palestinian official says the Palestinian president will meet with the outgoing Israeli prime minister on Monday and raise his concern about renewed Gaza fighting.

* UN General Assembly Concludes Interfaith Dialogue The U.N. General Assembly concluded a two-day conference on interfaith dialogue with a call for member states to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

* Pope says Catholics in politics must follow faith Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging Catholics who get involved in politics to stay true to their church’s teaching.

By: Jessica Steinberg – News World Communications Inc.

With the Sea of Galilee, one of Israel’s main freshwater resources, at its lowest level in four years, it is no secret that Israel is reeling from an ongoing drought and is not expecting relief anytime soon.

JOY! A meteorologist from Kibbutz Negba in south Israel measures the amount of rain after Israel received its first good rainfall in eight months after suffering from drought conditions on Oct. 28. (Chameleons Eye via Newscom)

Public service announcements on the radio remind listeners to cut down on water usage in the garden and kitchen, and you may get some dirty looks at the gym if you stay in the shower for too long.

It isn’t that there aren’t some very practical solutions out there: Israel’s academic institutions have almost always been engaged in water research, seeking smart options to answer the lack of this critical resource.

But water technologies are taking a long time to reach the market that needs them.

“There’s an extraordinary amount of inertia in this industry,” explains Prof. Rafi Semiat, director of the Grand Water Research Institute at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

“We’ve known for a long time, for example, that desalination is a solution. So we created the Israel Desalination Society back in 1997, with its main target to convince the government that desalination is an essential solution. Only in 2002 did the government decide that the water issue called for desalination; but two months later, we had good rain and the Kinneret [Hebrew for the Sea of Galilee] rose.

“Then the finance ministry said desalination plants cost too much and six years later, we only have two desalination plants.”

The desalination plants, both built by Israeli companies, are in Ashkelon and Palmahim.

Given Israel’s access to the waters of the Mediterranean, desalination – the process by which excess salt and other minerals are removed from water in order to provide fresh water that can be used by humans or for irrigation – has always been an obvious solution for the country’s water shortage, along with the necessary technologies that make the water drinkable.

For the scientists who have long been researching and discovering alternative water methodologies, the government’s tendency to drag out the decision-making process is frustrating, but it hasn’t stopped any of the local academic institutions from looking for – and proposing – solutions.

Israel has always used “marginal water,” since the establishment of the state, says Prof. Eilon Adar, who heads Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, down in the arid air of Sde Boker, the Negev desert region of southern Israel.

“We were the first nation to start to develop non-conventional water sources. One hundred years ago, people didn’t consider groundwater as a water source, although Abraham was already digging wells,” he points out.

At the same time, the country’s water experts were already making plans back in the 1960s, when they inaugurated the National Water Carrier to carry water from the Kinneret to the center and south. That was considered a project that would last 45 to 50 years, providing Israel with the time to come up with alternative and additional sources of water.

Down in Sde Boker, which was home to Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and where dry desert air is a constant reminder of water scarcity, the focus is on investigating methods to improve water quality.

Scientists have been studying the biochemical evolution of contaminants in the water using biochemical reactors in order to come up with the most efficient model to get rid of the biochemicals.

By studying the so-called hydraulic connections between water bodies under the surface, they can see if the water is contaminated, where the chemicals go and how fast that can happen.

The Zuckerberg scientists also recently developed a special membrane to sieve organic poisons from waters at chemical complexes, which is now being used at Israeli agrochemicals giant Makhteshim Agan Industries, and are beta testing their methods for nano filtration and desalinating treated sewage water at the Shafdan water treatment plant in central Israel.

They’re also researching gray water – water from the kitchen – and looking at how to convince households to separate and treat this water, and use it to irrigate the garden without damaging the soil or humans.

“We’re trying to figure out why so many innovations at this stage are considered premature,” says Adar. “We can see very clearly that there are obvious ways for our innovations to be leveraged and implemented. But allocations need to be made to look at the innovations that have the clear potential to become a product and then find whatever funding necessary to move from alpha model to beta site.”

The motivation is certainly there, given the continual lack of rain in this arid corner of the earth. And consortiums are being formed all the time.

Zuckerberg was recently selected to be the national center for advanced water technologies, supported by the government for the first four to five years, and acting as a bridge between academia and entrepreneurs.

The institution, with Adar at the helm, isn’t the only academic body forming consortiums and looking carefully at water quality. At the Hebrew University campus in Rehovot, the verdant plain known for its citrus orchards, Prof. Avner Adin has spent years in the water business, moving from academia to government and back to academia.

So, when the recent water crisis hit in 2001, Adin felt very “frustrated” over the lack of good water management, and instituted the Israel Water Association, a non-governmental organization dedicated to working with the government and other water institutes to create better water management in Israel and to represent Israel internationally.

“I decided I had to do something,” he said. “Scientists have always been aware of the issues of water quality, or finding additional water sources that could be purified for human consumption,” says Adin, who divides his time between his university research, classes and consulting for the government and industry.

“We were thinking about seawater desalination back in the 1960s, and that’s the advantage of science for a country – allowing it to look forward.”

The process, however, has taken years. While Adin and others spent years in their laboratories, devising methods for purifying alternative water sources, the country staggered from one water crisis to another, never fully deciding which solutions to invest in for the long term.

Scientists like Adin, Adar and Semiat never intended for the government to rely on one solution, such as desalination. Adin, for example, is constantly thinking about five different, parallel solutions, including desalinating seawater and brackish water, conserving water, purifying storm and drainage water and creating artificial rain.

His department is collaborating with BGU’s Zuckerberg on ways to treat sewage water – given that the water quality can be made decent and doesn’t require very different processes to treat it, the question is, rather, how to transfer and store it.

At Adin’s Water Treatment Technology laboratory in Rehovot, the current work also focuses on different filtration systems for water, using test tubes set with fine membranes that sift through particles, and bacteria that need to be filtered out of the water, which, however, can slow down the flow.

The Rehovot lab is used for department research, and is an active site for the consultation that the department offers to the government and local industry, from computer chipmaker Intel – which has several research and development centers in Israel – to giant Israeli generic drug producer, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.

Adin has also focused on electroflocculation, in which one puts different elements into water in order to reduce the negative changes that can take place in the filtration process.

This process was created and patented by Adin, and is used by privately owned Israeli company, TreaTec21, which uses electroflocculation, dual biological treatment and advanced oxidation to treat all drinking water and most of the municipal and industrial wastewater, using a continuous, static process to remove suspended solids, dissolved organic contaminants, fats, emulsions, dyes and heavy metals.

Local industry has always benefited from Israeli academia, particularly in the water business.

Semiat points to two projects from the Technion that are currently being tested by local companies. One involves the introduction of magnesium (a mineral essential for plants and humans) into desalinated water, which hitherto had been added directly to crops using desalinated water, but now the trend is to add it earlier, to the water itself. A Technion researcher found a way to extract magnesium from seawater and transfer it to the desalinated water at a low cost.

Another recent Technion discovery involves recovering a larger amount of water from brackish water desalination plants. The current percentage of water that can be desalinated from brackish water is limited to 70 percent or 80 percent usable water.

The Technion discovery uses crystallization techniques to remove salts and make more, and cheaper, water. The solution is currently being piloted by two Israeli companies: Israel Desalination Enterprises (IDE) Technologies Ltd. and Global Environmental Solutions Ltd. (GES), the companies that built Israel’s desalination plants.

So, even when the Israeli government doesn’t move quickly enough to utilize the water solutions developed by its own researchers, Israeli industry is quick to capitalize on its local smarts.

IDE, based in Ra’anana, is now marketing its own snowmaker – and selling it to the Swiss ski slopes. The snow machine was originally created for desalinating salt water, but the company realized that the machine could create snow without adding any chemicals. And a new market was born.

“It’s like water,” said the Technion’s Semiat. “People think there is a single solution, but there isn’t. Companies are always looking for new directions, for new solutions; it’s just that it takes a long time.”

Adar, from BGU, takes a more academic approach to the Israeli attitude, pointing out that any water innovations are initiated by academics, but they are generally at too premature a stage to be presented to and utilized by entrepreneurs.

“There’s a huge gap between academic feasibility and industrial capability,” he says. “With water and clean air, it’s very clear that it’s something that everybody expects the national authority will provide.

“In Israel, we know that water doesn’t come from air and love; you have to pay for it. No one now expects to get it free, but they do expect that there will be an adequate supply and quality. Yet that’s what’s missing in Israel.”

Not every Israeli academic institution dealing with water focuses on water quality. In the desert, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura, a kibbutz north of Eilat, promotes regional cooperation among Israelis, Palestinians and other neighboring Arab countries in environmental matters.

Clive Lipchin, research director at the Arava Institute, calls it “dealing with Israel’s environmental problems that often originate outside our borders, but reach our borders,” including issues of water, air quality, waste management and agriculture.

At the moment, the Arava Institute is involved in a couple of water projects: the Red Sea/Dead Sea project, which is a World Bank-funded study on connecting the Red Sea and Dead Sea via pipeline and open canal through the Arava Valley; a desalination plant at the Dead Sea and the largest water pumping station in the world between Aqaba and Eilat.

GLOA Jordan is an initiative funded by the German government to understand more effectively how climate change might affect water in the region. In working with Palestinians, Germans, Jordanians and Israelis, the project is “broad and ambitious,” says Lipchin, and the Arava Institute’s involvement will include getting the public and government sector involved.

“Water is a frustrating but extremely complex issue,” says Lipchin. “But you have to take a broad look and understand that there is no one solution, and that it’s a problem that’s never going to go away, because you always need water.

“At the same time, progress is being made. Nobody’s walking around blindfolded here. Everyone understands that there’s a real problem, and there has to be a real solution. We just have to be pragmatic.”

* Gilad: We won’t let Iran go nuclear Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, has stressed.

* Eurozone officially in recession The eurozone has officially slipped into recession after EU figures showed that the economy shrank by 0.2% in the third quarter.

* EU calls on Israel to reopen border crossings to Gaza The European Union called on Israel Friday to reopen its border crossings with the Gaza Strip.

* G20 urged to reject protectionism Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged leaders of the G20 developed and emerging economies to resist calls for protectionism.

* Five rockets slam into Ashkelon area Following the morning’s Kassam rocket strikes on Sderot and the Sha’ar Hanegev region, the Ashkelon area also came under attack on Friday afternoon.

* Sarkozy puts pressure on Russia France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is concerned about Russia’s threat to deploy missiles near Poland and wants a summit on European security.

* Looking for Freshwater Solutions in Israel With the Sea of Galilee, one of Israel’s main freshwater resources, at its lowest level in four years, it is no secret that Israel is reeling from an ongoing drought.

* Russian MPs back presidency move Russian MPs have backed a bill to extend the presidential term from four to six years amid speculation it may herald Vladimir Putin’s early return.

* ‘Israel abused interfaith conference’ The Islamic Republic has said that Israel tried to abuse a UN interfaith conference in order to achieve its political ambitions.

* Iraq’s al-Sadr renews threats to attack US Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr on Friday renewed threats to resume attacks on U.S. forces.