Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen and Victims of Terrorism will end, as do other Jewish holidays, at nightfall, and the somber nature of the day will give way to the gaiety and festivities of Israel’s 62nd Independence Day. 

The transition between the days was explained by the late Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the first Chief Rabbi of the IDF and the man who set the date of Memorial Day. He said, “We view the warriors who fall in battle as those who sprout forth life. The life of a nation grew out of this blood… This day must be more than mourning: We must remember, we must grieve, but it must [also] be a day of majesty and vision.”

Rabbi Goren explained, in a 1974 speech, how he came to set Memorial Day just before Independence Day:

“The merit of doing this fell in my lot.. We first thought of setting Memorial Day on Lag BaOmer, the day that historically symbolizes the Bar Kokhba war, and that which is still celebrated by Jewish children as the day of Jewish strength. We thought we could thus combine the heroism of our early ancestors with that of our own children in this generation. But doubts crept in: Would we not cause harm to the general significance, shrouded in mystery as it is, of that historic day?

“One of the Fast Days, or during the Three Weeks in which we remember the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temples, was then proposed [for Memorial Day]. But we could not accept the fact that the Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers would be solely a day of mourning. It was felt that this day must be more than that. We must remember, we must grieve, but not only that – it must [also] be a day of… majesty and vision.

“We realized, therefore, that we could not assign this day to any existing holiday. But the first Independence Day was rapidly approaching [and we had not yet set a date to memorialize our fallen], and so we did what we did – without announcing it formally and without setting any specific format for the day. I went to Voice of Israel studios on the day before Independence Day, and read aloud the Chief of Staff’s Daily Military Order [including an announcement of memorial for the fallen soldiers], which he wrote according to my request. And so I became the narrator and the one who set Memorial Day on what became its date.”

Both Memorial Day and Independence Day are commemorated one day later than usual this year, by order of the Chief Rabbinate, in order to prevent the Sabbath desecration that would have resulted from having Memorial Day begin on Saturday night.

History of the Fallen
The 1948-49 War of Independence was Israel’s costliest war, with more than 6,000 dead – 1% of the Jewish population at the time – and 15,000 wounded. The war consisted of 39 separate operations, fought from the borders of Lebanon to the Sinai Peninsula and Eilat.

Then followed seven years of relative quiet – during which there were “1,339 cases of armed clashes with Egyptian armed forces, 435 cases of incursion from Egyptian-controlled territory, and 172 cases of sabotage perpetrated by Egyptian military units and fedayeen [terrorists] in Israel,” in which 101 Israelis were killed, as Israeli Ambassador to the UN Abba Eban explained to the Security Council on October 30, 1956. Eban gave these statistics the day after Israel began the Sinai Campaign – its military response to Egypt’s violation of international agreements by sealing off the Israeli port of Eilat, effectively stopping Israel’s sea trade with much of Africa and the Far East.

A total of 231 Israeli soldiers died in the Sinai Campaign fighting. In March 1957, after receiving international guarantees that Israel’s vital waterways would remain open, Israel withdrew from the Sinai and Gaza – yet the Egyptians still refused to open the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping.

The Six-Day War broke out on June 5, 1967. Along with the stunning victories, over 770 Israelis were killed.

Then began the period of the War of Attrition, which claimed 424 soldiers and more than 100 civilians. A ceasefire was declared on August 8, 1970.

Egypt and Syria attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, 1973. The IDF ultimately emerged victorious, but a total of 2,688 soldiers were killed in the Yom Kippur War.

In June 1982, in response to continued terrorist attacks and Katyusha shellings from across the Lebanese border, as well as an assassination attempt upon Israel’s late Ambassador to Great Britain Shlomo Argov, Israel attacked the terrorists in Lebanon in what was known as Operation Peace for Galilee. Close to 460 soldiers were killed between June and December 1982, and another 760 in daily ambushes against Israeli forces over the next two and a half years.

Between December 1987, when the first Arab “intifada” broke out, and the signing of the Oslo Accords in late 1993, 90 Israelis were murdered. Between the Oslo signing and the beginning of what became known as the Oslo War in September, 2000, 251 Israelis were murdered by terrorists.

Another 1,351 people have been felled by Palestinian Authority terrorists and gunmen in Israel since September 2000.

* Netanyahu, Barak honor the fallen In Remembrance Day speech, PM says all Israelis yearn for peace.

* Gates: US has a plan for Iran Denies writing “wake-up call” memo to Obama administration.

* Bill Clinton: I’ll back Obama on new Mideast peace plan Former US president tells ABC administration ‘must do something to deprive Israel, PA of any excuse not to engage in serious negotiations’

* Iraqi panel orders vote recount in Baghdad A panel Monday ordered a recount of ballots cast in Baghdad in Iraq’s March 7 election, raising the prospect of a change in the results that gave a cross-sectarian group backed by minority Sunnis a slim lead.

* Iran reveals air defense system Annual army parade showcases Islamic Republic’s surface-to-surface Ghadr, Sajjil and Shahab-3 missiles, as well as air defense system similar to Russian-made S-300.

* For Chinese, Web Is the Way to Entertainment The daily Web habits of a typical 18-year-old college student named Li Yufei show why American Internet companies, one after another, have had trouble penetrating what is now the world’s most wired nation.

* The Memorial Day-Independence Day Link Memorial Day for Israel’s Fallen and Victims of Terrorism will end, as do other Jewish holidays, at nightfall, and the somber nature of the day will give way to the gaiety and festivities of Israel’s 62nd Independence Day.

* Knesset Speaker: Jerusalem Must be United from Within Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, a scion of the famed Land of Israel-building Rivlin family, in Independence Day speech: “We will not apologize for having liberated Hevron or building Jerusalem.”

* Tony Blair stranded in Jerusalem Former British PM’s plans for general election campaigning due to Icelandic volcano ash cloud

* Bishop urges EU leaders to criticize Vatican ‘stupidity’ Roman Catholic bishop has called on EU leaders who are Christians to speak out against the Vatican if it makes “stupid” remarks, such as a recent declaration that homosexuality causes pedophilia.

It was just a phrase at the end of President Obama’s news conference on Tuesday, but it was a stark reminder of a far-reaching shift in how the United States views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how aggressively it might push for a peace agreement.

When Mr. Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a “vital national security interest of the United States,” he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests.

This shift, described by administration officials who did not want to be quoted by name when discussing internal discussions, is driving the White House’s urgency to help broker a Middle East peace deal. It increases the likelihood that Mr. Obama, frustrated by the inability of the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to terms, will offer his own proposed parameters for an eventual Palestinian state.

Mr. Obama said conflicts like the one in the Middle East ended up “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure” — drawing an explicit link between the Israeli-Palestinian strife and the safety of American soldiers as they battle Islamic extremism and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Mr. Obama’s words reverberated through diplomatic circles in large part because they echoed those of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the military commander overseeing America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent Congressional testimony, the general said that the lack of progress in the Middle East created a hostile environment for the United States. He has denied reports that he was suggesting that soldiers were being put in harm’s way by American support for Israel.

But the impasse in negotiations “does create an environment,” he said Tuesday in a speech in Washington. “It does contribute, if you will, to the overall environment within which we operate.”

The glimmers of daylight between United States and Israeli interests began during President George W. Bush’s administration, when the United States became mired in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three years ago, Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, declared during a speech in Jerusalem that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was a “strategic interest” of the United States. In comments that drew little notice at the time, she said, “The prolonged experience of deprivation and humiliation can radicalize even normal people.”

But President Bush shied away from challenging Israeli governments.

The Obama administration’s new thinking, and the tougher policies toward Israel that could flow from it, has alarmed American Jewish leaders accustomed to the Bush administration’s steadfast support. They are not used to seeing issues like Jewish housing in the West Bank or East Jerusalem linked, even by implication, to the security of American soldiers. Some fret that it raises questions about the centrality of the American alliance with Israel, which the administration flatly denies.

“In the past, the problem of who drinks out of whose well in Nablus has not been a strategic interest of the United States,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel and the vice president and the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He said there was an interest now because of the tens of thousands of troops fighting Islamist insurgencies abroad at the same time that the United States was trying to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“Will resolving the Palestinian issue solve everything?” Mr. Indyk said. “No. But will it help us get there? Yes.”

The administration’s immediate priority, officials said, is jump-starting indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians. There is still a vigorous debate inside the administration about what to do if such talks were to go nowhere, which experts said is the likeliest result, given the history of such negotiations. Some officials, like Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, advocate putting forward an American peace plan, while others, like the longtime Middle East peace negotiator Dennis B. Ross, who now works in the National Security Council, favor a more incremental approach.

Last week, National Security Council officials met with outside Middle East experts to discuss the Arab Israeli conflict. Two weeks before, General Jones and Mr. Obama met with several national security advisers from previous administrations and discussed putting forward an American proposal, even though it would put pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians.

Several officials point out that Mr. Obama has now seized control of Middle East policy himself, particularly since the controversy several weeks ago when Israeli authorities announced new Jewish housing units in Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Obama, incensed by that snub, has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a list of demands, and relations between the United States and Israel have fallen into a chilly standoff.

“The president is re-evaluating the tactics his administration is employing toward Israel and the entire Middle East,” said Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman who resigned in January to lead the Center for Middle East Peace, a Washington-based nonprofit institution that is working for a peace agreement.

“I don’t think that anybody believes American lives are endangered or materially affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Mr. Wexler, who has close ties to administration officials. “That’s an oversimplification. However, you’d have to have blinders on not to recognize that there are issues in one arena that affect other arenas.”

For their part, administration officials insist that their support for Israel is unwavering. They point to intensive cooperation between the American and Israeli militaries, which they say has allowed Israel to retain a military edge over its neighbors.

The sense of urgency in Washington comes just as many Israelis have become disillusioned with the whole idea of resolving the conflict. Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government has long been skeptical about the benefits of a peace deal with the Palestinians. But skepticism has taken root in the Israeli public as well, particularly after Israel saw little benefit from its traumatic withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Among American Jewish groups, there is less skepticism than alarm about the administration’s new direction. On Tuesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, publicized letters to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, signed by 76 senators and 333 House members, that implored the administration to defuse tensions.

In an open letter to Mr. Obama from the World Jewish Congress, the organization’s president, Ronald S. Lauder, asked, “Why does the thrust of this administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks?”

Mr. Lauder, who said the letter was scheduled to be published Thursday as an advertisement in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, said he discussed the letter with Mr. Netanyahu and received his support before taking out the ad.

A row about how to name the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories has scuppered a 43-nation scheme for managing Mediterranean water resources.

The Mediterranean Union conference in Barcelona had hammered out 99% of a draft text, delegates said.

But the deal failed when Israel and Arab countries disagreed over how to describe the Palestinian territories.

Israel objected to “occupied territories”, while “territories under occupation” did not suit the Arab bloc.

The United Nations has warned that almost 300 million people in the Mediterranean region will face water shortages by 2025.

The Mediterranean Union was launched by France during its EU presidency in 2008, to foster co-operation between European states, and countries in the Middle East and North Africa bordering the Mediterranean.

In Barcelona on Tuesday the Union’s secretary-general, Ahmad Masadeh from Jordan, called for urgent action to guarantee access to water for all the region’s residents.

Spain, the conference host, warned that the Mediterranean was prone to cyclical floods and droughts that required a “common strategy for a scarce resource”.

Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967. The settlements that Israel has built in the West Bank are home to around 400,000 people and are deemed to be illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Israel evacuated its settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and withdrew its forces, but Israel and Egypt maintain an economic blockade on the Palestinians living there.

The EU has turned a blind eye to the way post-Communist countries are dealing with their totalitarian legacy, with former secret police officers still filling powerful positions, says Nobel literature prize-winner Herta Mueller.

Ms Mueller, a Romanian-born German, has focused most of her novels and essays on life under dictatorship, under constant fear and intimidation by Romania’s secret police, the Securitate. Deportation and labour camps in the Soviet Union, as experienced by her own parents, are depicted in the latest novel, Atemschaukel (in English: Everything I Possess I Carry With Me), for which she won the Nobel prize last year.

In Brussels on Tuesday (13 April) to promote the book, Ms Mueller however focussed on the present, expressing her dissatisfaction with the EU’s lack of pressure on new member states to deal with their Communist past.
“I think the EU acted pretty naively by taking these countries on so quickly and was not able to foresee what kind of crafty and obstructionist barriers they would be faced with,” she told journalists during a press conference at the Passa Porta literature house in Brussels.
“I know that in Romania, scores of people who used to work for the Securitate are now in high-level positions and this has virtually no consequences. It is not important for the society,” she said.
“These people have gained so much influence that they have managed to almost re-create their old network of power, where they all know and serve each other. It is the second life of the dictatorship. Under different circumstances, organised in a different way. And without ideology. Without Socialism.”
One example of how little lustration – the term used to refer to government policies of limiting the participation of former Communists in political positions – has worked in Romania is the case of Radu Tinu, a self-acknowledged former Securitate chief who was responsible for planting microphones in the author’s appartment.
Mr Tinu – head of the Romanian branch of an Austrian insurance company – last year said that the new Nobel prize winner was suffering from a mental disease, that she was exaggerating her accounts and jokingly claimed the Securitate deserved the award.
“This irritated me a lot. Not that he exists, but that he holds this post, that Austria’s biggest insurance company – Staedtische Versicherung – employs such people. Also, that someone like him has such a standing in Romania that he can express himself in all newspapers. This would not have been possible in Germany,” Ms Mueller said.
Although she personally felt “nothing special” about being a Nobel prize winner, the 57-year old said there was some positive impact in the sense that it “pushed the topic of dictatorship into the spotlight.”
“Maybe what I say is being listened to by more people and perceived differently. That’s what I’m trying to use the prize for.”

Literature is political
Ms Mueller finds nothing wrong with claims that the Nobel prize jury is making mainly political decisions when granting these awards. “Literature is not something apolitical. All literary prizes are now and then surrounded by scandals and mostly because of political reasons.”
Asked if she felt any pressure for her future writing having won the award, Ms Mueller replied: “Pressure was during the dictatorship. When my house was being searched, when I was interrogated.”
“If I am satisfied with anything concerning my life, it is not the books, but the fact that I somehow managed to keep my integrity during the Romanian dictatorship. That’s the most important thing. For me, writing is a job like any other.”