"Know Your Palestine" Quiz , open to all the international community. by Oscar73 | English, baby! Blogs

Jerusalem was never holy to Muslims

Oscar73 — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 11:42:56 GMT

Jerusalem was never holy to Muslims

t’s time to end the propaganda myth that Jerusalem is a holy city to Muslims.

The Muslim fixation and clamor on Jerusalem is actually a very recent historical development, a product of political conflict, not historical truth.

Jerusalem rates not a single mention in the Quran and Muslims face Mecca in prayer.

In the seventh century, the Damascus-based Umayyad rulers built up Jerusalem as a counter-weight and hajj pilgrimage alternative to Mecca, where their political rivals were. This is when the important Muslim shrines, the Dome of the Rock (691 CE) and, later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque (705 CE), were intentionally built on the site of the destroyed biblical Jewish temples –– a time-honored practice to physically signal the predominance of Islam.

However, references in the Quran and hadith to Muhammad’s night journey to heaven on his steed Buraq from the ‘farthest mosque’ couldn’t mean Jerusalem because the Quran refers to Palestine as the “nearest” place. And it couldn’t have been a reference to the Al-Aqsa (‘Furtherest’) Mosque, for the simple reason that the Al-Aqsa Mosque didn’t exist in Muhammad’s day.

With the demise of the Umayyad dynasty and the shift of the caliphate to Baghdad, Jerusalem fell into a long decline, scarcely interrupted by occasional bursts of Muslim interest in the city during the Crusader period and the Ottoman conquest. Mark Twain, visiting in 1867, described it as a “pauper village.”

It did, however, become a majority Jewish city during the nineteenth century. The 1907 Baedekers Travel Guide lists Jerusalem with a population of 40,000 Jews, 13,000 Muslims and 7,000 Christians.

So little did Jerusalem mean to the Ottomans that, during the First World War, they abandoned it to the British without a fight and even contemplated entirely destroying the city before pulling out.

Only upon the Arab confrontation with Zionism in the twentieth century did Jerusalem become a passionate Islamic issue.

It was the Haj Amin el Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, a vociferous anti-Semite and later Nazi collaborator, who expended enormous energy to focus Islamic attention on Jerusalem.

Seeking to foment a Muslim war on Palestine’s Jews, he fabricated a tradition that the wall to which Muhammad was held to have tethered his steed Buraq was not the southern or eastern walls, as Muslims had asserted for centuries, but the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site but for the Temple Mount itself, turning the site into a flashpoint.

The massive Arab assault on Jews across British Palestine in 1929, in which 133 Jews were murdered and hundreds more maimed, was triggered by orchestrated, false rumors that Jews had attacked, or were intending to attack, the mosques atop the Temple Mount.

trangely, even under the Mufti, the Temple Mount was still recognized by Muslims as the site

of the biblical Jewish temples. Thus, the Jerusalem muslim supreme Council’s publication, ‘A Brief Guide to the Haram Al-Sharif’, states of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount on p. 4 that “Its identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.” (After 1954, all such references to the biblical temples were excised from this publication).

During Jordan’s illegal occupation and annexation of the eastern half of Jerusalem (1948-67) Amman remained Jordan’s country’s capital, not Jerusalem, which became a backwater. Infrastructure, like water, electricity and sewerage, were scanty or non-existent. No Arab ruler, other than Jordan’s kings, ever visited. As Israeli elder statesman Abba Eban quipped, “the secular delights of Beirut held more attraction.”

Significantly, neither the PLO’s National Charter nor the Fatah Constitution, the latter drafted during Jordanian rule, even mention Jerusalem, let alone call for its establishment as a Palestinian capital.

Today, however, Palestinian Authority (PA) officials issue flat-earth denials that Jerusalem was the site of the Jewish temples, or indeed that there is any Jewish connection to the city.

Muhammad Hussein, the PA Mufti, sneers at the Jews’ “alleged Temple” and insists that “Palestinians have an exclusive right … which they share with no one” to the Temple Mount. Sheikh Tayseer Al-Tamimi, the former Chief Justice of the PA’s Religious Court, insists, “I don’t know of any Jewish holy sites in [Jerusalem]” and dismisses Jewish claims as “fictitious Jewish history.”

Today, the PA uses Jerusalem as a propaganda instrument, at once inciting violence and orchestrating anti-Israel campaigns.

In 1996, Yasser Arafat uses Israel’s opening of an archeological tunnel near the Mount to incite riots on the basis of the lie that the tunnel threatened the stability of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Twenty-five Israeli soldiers and a hundred Palestinian rioters were killed in the ensuing violence.

In 2015, Mahmoud Abbas urged violence over Jews visiting Temple Mount, borrowing from Haj Amin’s playbook fabricated claims of Jewish assaults on the mosques to instigate it. Over 30 Israelis were murdered and over two hundred Palestinians, the vast majority terrorists or rioters, were killed in subsequent attacks and clashes.

“no-go zone” in Sweden

Oscar73 — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:17:14 GMT

“no-go zone” in Sweden

Sweden in denial

Swedish police chief presents new report which finds an increase in the country's 'vulnerable' areas, where police fear to tread.

Jihad Watch quotes Emma Löfgren of The Local who reports “5,000 criminals in Sweden’s vulnerable areas" where police fear to tread.

Sweden’s national police chief has presented a new report about the country’s problem areas, increasing the number of districts classified as "vulnerable" or "especially vulnerable".

The report follows another high-profile report from 2015 which listed 53 so-called "vulnerable" areas, including 15 considered "especially vulnerable".

In the new report, 61 areas are now on the list, of which 23 are considered especially vulnerable, 6 are risk areas (areas that are at high risk of becoming especially vulnerable) and 32 are vulnerable.

Portions of the report were revealed last week, but the full version was presented today.

The term “no-go zone” famously caught on in some international media back in 2015 after it was used by a Swedish newspaper columnist to label these areas, but it has been strongly rejected by police and emergency services themselves.

The police definition describes these districts as "socio-economically vulnerable areas" with a generally high crime rate. In an "especially vulnerable" area there are also often "parallel societal structures, religious extremism", and police regularly have to adapt their methods to the volatile situation. Residents also often do not report crimes, either out of fear of retaliation or because they think it will not lead to justice.

Why we celebrate Jerusalem Day -

Oscar73 — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 13:38:45 GMT

Why we celebrate Jerusalem Day -

As soon as Israel declared its independence in 1948, the tiny Jewish country was attacked en mass by its Arab neighbors. Jordan illegally occupied east Jerusalem and the Old City. Israeli forces made a concerted attempt to dislodge them, but were unable to do so. By the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Jerusalem was left divided between Israel and Jordan. The Old City and East Jerusalem continued to be illegally occupied by Jordan, and the Jewish residents, some who's families had lived there for over 1000 years, were forced out. For the first time in millennium Jerusalem was uninhabited by Jews.

For the next 19 years under Jordanian occupation, synagogues were demolished and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was plundered for its tombstones, which were used as paving stones and building materials. Jews were unable to visit Jewish holy sites and the Kotel (Western Wall) was used as a garbage dump.

On June 5, 1967, after receiving many threats of annihilation from the surrounding Arab countries, Israel made a preemptive strike which resulted in the complete collapse of the Arab forces.

On June 7, 1967 (28 Iyar 5727), Israel liberated the Old City of Jerusalem, the Golan heights, the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, and Judea and Samaria (Shomron).

On May 12, 1968, the Israeli government proclaimed a new holiday—Jerusalem Day— to be celebrated on the 28th of Iyar, the Hebrew date on which the divided city of Jerusalem was reunified one. On March 23, 1998, the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Day Law, making the day a national holiday.

One of the themes of Jerusalem Day, based on a verse from the Book of Psalms, "Built-up Jerusalem is like a city that was joined together" (Psalm 122:3).

STRAVA

Oscar73 — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 07:18:24 GMT

STRAVA

you can track all of your runs and rides, analyze your performance:

http://www.strava.com/

u can write here what u think about Israel

Oscar73 — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 22:41:28 GMT

u can write here what u think about Israel

The journey To Jerusalem (“al-Israa wal Miraaj.”)

Oscar73 — Mon, 21 May 2012 06:44:07 GMT

The journey To Jerusalem (“al-Israa wal Miraaj.”)

After decades of shying away from an ancient pilgrimage route, Muslims are visiting Jerusalem to pray at Islam’s third-holiest site, the revered al-Aqsa mosque.

In doing so, they find themselves caught in a disagreement between some leading Muslim clerics, who oppose such pilgrimages, and Palestinian leaders who encourage them as evidence of the city’s Muslim credentials.

Palestinians say the only Arab visitors have been officials from Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel. Recent trips here by a top Egyptian cleric and a Jordanian prince sparked angry backlashes in their home countries.

The vast majority of the pilgrims are from non-Arab countries like South Africa, Malaysia and India, where the stigma of visiting Israeli-controlled areas isn’t as powerful.

“Jerusalem is a beautiful place,” said Ali Akbar, 51, a Shiite Muslim who was visiting recently with a group of 40 pilgrims from Mumbai, India. “All Muslims should try to come to Jerusalem and pray and seek the blessings of Allah, the almighty,” Akbar said.

Muslim pilgrims began trickling back beginning around 2008 as violence between Israel and the Palestinians petered out. Palestinian tour guides, hotel operators and religious officials also attribute the increasing numbers to easier travel and rising Muslim middle classes in Asia and Western countries that can afford tickets to the Holy Land.

While Islam’s birthplace is in the Arabian peninsula, Jerusalem is intimately tied with Islam’s beginnings. Mohammed’s first followers prayed toward al-Aqsa and only later turned their prayers east to Mecca.

For centuries, Muslim pilgrims visited Jerusalem while on their way to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, now in Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims believe visiting Jerusalem deepens the sanctity of their pilgrimage.

But that pilgrimage route was abruptly halted after Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. East Jerusalem is home to the hilltop compound housing both al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.

As a result, many Muslims believe visiting the mosque would amount to recognition of Israel’s claim to the area and be inappropriate when Israel prevents many Palestinians from entering.

Those sentiments have recently softened somewhat, and an estimated 2,000 people have come over the past year. That’s a tiny percentage of the roughly 3 million visitors to Jerusalem annually, mostly Jews and Christian pilgrims — but still a sharp contrast to the almost total absence of Muslim pilgrims here for many decades.

In February, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Muslims to visit Jerusalem. Abbas said it would underscore the city’s importance to the Islamic world and bolster Palestinian claims to east Jerusalem, which they seek as their capital.

“The flow of crowds and congestion in (Jerusalem’s) streets and holy sites will strengthen the steadfastness of its citizens,” Abbas said.

Answering the call, Egypt’s leading religious cleric, Ali Gomaa, came to pray last week, saying the two-hour visit was a show of solidarity with the Palestinians. Gomaa arrived with Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed. The Jordanian interior and foreign ministers have made similar visits recently, as has a popular Muslim preacher, Habib al-Jafri, said Palestinian officials.

But other Muslim leaders blasted Abbas’ call as a violation of an Islamic ban on traveling to Jerusalem while it is under Israeli control.

“Visiting the state of the Zionist enemy — for non-Palestinians — is forbidden,” Yousef al-Qaradawi, a widely influential Muslim cleric, wrote on his website. He said Jerusalem needs warriors not tourists. “Muslims are ordered to liberate (Jerusalem) and save it from (Israel’s) hands.”

Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Islamic parties in Jordan and Egypt all condemned the visits by Gomaa and the Jordanian officials.

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said the visitors were welcome. “The city is open to pilgrims of all faiths,” he said.

Al-Aqsa compound is a series of sprawling plazas holding al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden-topped “Dome of the Rock.”

The compound is sacred to both Jews and Muslims. It is one of the most sensitive religious sites in the world, and control over the area is one of the thorniest issues at the core of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. It is revered as the holiest site in Judaism as home to the two biblical Jewish Temples. Jews today pray at the Western Wall located at the foot of the compound.

Palestinians use the area to worship and rest — one of the few open spaces in the intensely crowded walled Old City of Jerusalem. They sit under the soaring pine trees and walk among the intricately painted turquoise tiles adorning the Dome of the Rock. Children play football nearby.

During a recent visit, dozens of Muslims from Mauritius and India donned colorful long baggy shirts and pants that the women top with headscarves, the men with skull caps. They reverently prayed near a rock from where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed rose to heaven during the miraculous journey of “al-Israa wal Miraaj.” Several women placed their hands in another shrine believed to hold a hair of the prophet.

But the foreigners are still a novelty, and officials who guard al-Aqsa compound plaza struggle with identifying them.

One such recent visitor was a middle-aged man in Western clothing who carried an Uzbek passport and claimed to be a Muslim. He spoke Russian — not Arabic or English — and couldn’t read passages of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, usually how guards check a person's faith.

Three guards discussed what to do as the man stood nearby. Then one of them tapped out a question about Islam and translated it into Russian using his smart phone. He held it up for the man to read. He answered it correctly.

The guards slapped him on the back.

“Welcome,” one of them said.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/21/215462.html

.

Oscar73 — Fri, 11 May 2012 07:43:13 GMT

.

The Prophet defender

Oscar73 — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 08:11:49 GMT

The Prophet defender

The “Cyber Terrorist- The Islam and the Prophet defender" died from grain of dust…Lol!!!

A Saudi hacker known just as “Cyber Terrorist” died in Riyadh after suffering an apparent acute asthma attack caused by the dust storm that hit the Saudi capital last week.

The 28-year-old hacker was known for penetrating the most well protected sites including Microsoft, Kaspersky, Milworm, besides the server of another hacker known as the king of hackers Kevin Mitnick. In addition to numerous Jewish sites, banks and major companies, he was also able to hack into the site of the Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

A colleague and fellow hacker mourned his friend’s passing and described him as a person who allocated his time in defending Islam and the Prophet. He said the friend specialized in hacking the hackers and even got the attention of U.S., Israeli and British media, who wrote about him.

“One company had shown interest in working with him for a large sum of money but he rejected the offer because it came from a Jewish company,” he said.

Earlier in the year, a Saudi hacker by the name of OxOmar was allegedly responsible for the hacking of Israel’s national airline as well as its stock exchange. He is also believed to have posted details of thousands of Israeli credit card holders after hacking into the bank’s account.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/22/209470.html

Mark Twain

Oscar73 — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:21:42 GMT

Mark Twain

I would ask you to refer to a cute little book full of humor called “A delightful journey in the Holy-Land” written by Samuel Longhorn (more commonly known as Mark Twain). Longhorn traveled in Israel in 1867, he did not see neither Palestinians, nor green pastures, nor Arab villages, nor bustling cities, nothing! He saw and described swamps, sickness, Malaria, unending desert and no civilization what so ever. “The land of tears”, that is how he called Israel.

"Palestinians" are an invented people..why u ask yourself?

answer:

Arabs & Muslims consider the Middle East to be The Dar al Islam and will never accept the presence of the Jewish State there. They are opportunist squatters and 'the occupiers' of Israeli territory. The fictitious race has adopted the phony name of 'Palestinians' as a strategic tactic re facilitating their Land grab operation.The supposed impoverished lifestyle, imposed on the fake race by Hamas, is iintended to influence the international community against Israel and in favour of the Islamic take over agenda.

United with Israel

Oscar73 — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:47:51 GMT

United with Israel

Join to us the pro-Israel activists, watch our trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIups13TWv8&feature=youtu.be

Giving the light to the humanity.... :)

Baruch Haba b'shem Adonai

Oscar73 — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 06:30:38 GMT

Baruch Haba b'shem Adonai

winter in Israel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS2PBUrasbM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5QV19-8g3k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0kdBXU8UpI

Well? Where are they?

Oscar73 — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:05:22 GMT

Well? Where are they?

"It is unconscionable to think that people are dropping like flies on Syrian streets, the injured are hiding in private homes to avoid capture or cold-blooded murder, the funeral processions are being shot at with many killed at a time they bereave the dead, the detained are tortured and many die and are buried in mass graves, yet the international community seems only willing to extend words of comfort.

Where is your conscience people? It’s Easter Sunday for heaven’s sake. Then comes Erdogan who thinks Gaza is tragic with its people under siege and tyranny while Syrians, under his buddy Assad, enjoy comfort and freedom. Where is your humanitarian flotilla to Syria Erdogan? Our injured, attacked by the snipers of your dear friend Assad, cannot go to hospitals for fear of being either killed on the spot or arrested to die under torture. Or does that not fit with your understanding of what a human tragedy is? Are Gazans better people than Syrians? Is Assad too dear a friend for you to bother?

And where are the Hamas Palestinians who seem to forget everyone else’s tragedy except their own? Where are their voices? Never expect Syrians to come to your aid again. When elections come, we will make the MB in Syria pay for your silence. And where is King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? What kind of leader is governing over Makah and Medina who is afraid of his own shadow?

Where are the young tiger Princes of al-Saud to overthrow everyone over 80 who clings to power like a sick patient clings to oxygen? Have you become too comfortable for your own good? Wake-up Bandar bin Sultan. This is your time. Where are all the Arab leaders and the Arab League? The cowards hosting dinners to celebrate their fat bank accounts while our people die in front of their eyes?"

This Revolution is for all ages and against any Arab and non-Arab oppressor in the region. This Revolution is against Assad, the Mullahs of Iran, and the hapless King of Saudi Arabia.

This Revolution is against the bigotry of Hizbullah giving aid to kill Syrians and the barbaric IRGC training Assad on how to maximize death.”

اسرائيل وطني

Oscar73 — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:57:57 GMT

اسرائيل وطني

Join to my Israel on fb and be a proud Muslim!!!

http://www.facebook.com/myisraelar

Red Bull Rampage Biggest Crashes

Oscar73 — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:45:32 GMT

Red Bull Rampage Biggest Crashes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGns5qn-OL8&feature=related

Dead Sea - Israel

Oscar73 — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:11:50 GMT

Dead Sea - Israel

Dead Sea is finalist for 'New 7 Wonders of Nature'

The lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea is also a plentiful source of unique minerals used in a wide array of cosmetics products.

"You are the only country [in the region] that respects personal freedom,"

Oscar73 — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:45:36 GMT

"You are the only country [in the region] that respects personal freedom,"

Beneath the revitalized layer of exaggerated hatred for Israel spreading over the Middle East dwell thousands of Arabs who are willing to help and even love the Jewish state.

Thanks to the "Arab Spring" revolutions in surrounding nations, a growign number of Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, etc are realizing just how good and decent Israel is compared to their own totalitarian societies, despite the fact that many were raised from childhood to view Israelis as blood-thirsty monsters.

Acting on that realization, and desirous of fleeing new regimes that may actually be worse than the previous rulers, thousands of foreign Arabs have sent requests to Israeli government agencies requesting asylum, visas to visit and even offering to serve the Israeli army and Mossad.

Israel's Foreign Ministry told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper that it is receiving requests even from "members of Arab parliaments, members of political movements and other important political figures."

Many of the letters arriving demonstrate that those Arabs not content to simply be spoon-fed a diet of anti-Israel propaganda have come to understand the reality of the Jewish state.

"You are the only country [in the region] that respects personal freedom," wrote Dawoud, a computer technician from Iraq seeking political asylum in Israel.

"The people of Israel are the strongest and most cultured in the region," wrote another young man from Iran who wants to move to the Jewish state with his whole family.

Houmam from Iraq wrote in to ask for a loan for treatment for his sick father, noting that "I know you [Israelis] love to help others."

Many more wrote in simply wanting to do business with or travel to Israel, activities that are currently forbidden by their own governments.

Most of the requests are submitted via the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Arabic website, though others also write directly to the Mossad and IDF.

The phenomenon is yet further evidence that while it may be far from perfect, Israel is recognized even by many Arabs as the most decent nation in the region, and certainly not deserving of being singled out as some kind of pariah.

It is also reminiscent of the Arab immigration to the British Mandate area from 1922-1947 as a result of the prosperity being created by the growing Jewish community. British records show that during those years the Arab population in the area increased by 120 percent, far outpacing the community's rate of natural growth.

The ancient Jewish people related to this land by the oldest Taboo – The Bible.never was " Palestinians people" , but many land thieves and illegal invaders was.

Oscar73 — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:55:04 GMT

The ancient Jewish people related to this land by the oldest Taboo – The Bible.never was " Palestinians people" , but many land thieves and illegal invaders was.

“The State of Palestine” is in the corner of Jordan.

Vulture in Saudi Custody Suspected as Mossad Agent

Oscar73 — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:06:07 GMT

Vulture in Saudi Custody Suspected as Mossad Agent

Vulture in Saudi Suspected as Mossad Agent

Saudi Arabian security forces have captured a vulture that was carrying a global positioning satellite (GPS) transmitter and a ring etched with the words "Tel Aviv University." They suspect the bird of spying for Israel.

The GPS and ring were connected to the bird as part of an long-term project by Israeli scientists that follows vultures' location and altitude for research purposes.

The arrest of the vulture - whose identification code is R65 - comes several weeks after an Egyptian official voiced the suspicion that a shark that attacked tourists off the Sinai shore was also acting on behalf of Mossad. The incidents may reflect a growing irrational hysteria among Arabs surrounding Israel's military prowess and the efficacy of its intelligence services, possibly fueled by the Stuxnet virus' success..

Reporter said that the R65 was caught near the home of a sheikh in the community of Hayel in Saudi Arabia. The words "Tel Aviv University" etched in English on a ring clasped to its leg, and especially the transmitter, caused the finders to suspect espionage and alert the security forces.

Ohad Hatzofe, bird ecologist for the Nature and Parks Authority, said that the vulture story has been making the rounds in Arabic internet sites, including Al-Jazeera forums and Arabic military forums. "The subject is receiving great publicity and it is important that Saudi authorities understand that it is not true. There is also an international treaty of nature protection professionals, that forbids doing things like this," he added.

The researchers said that seven vultures that were marked in Israel in the last few years reached Saudi Arabia. Transmissions from four of them have ceased and they are presumed dead. One vulture - beside R65 - is still alive and flying around Saudi Arabia, after spending the winter in Sudan.

The Mossad may be behind Red Sea shark attacks

Oscar73 — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:06:08 GMT

The Mossad may be behind Red Sea shark attacks

(Or maybe Eid Al – Adha's sheep that Thrown to see)

Egyptian authorities leaving no stone unturned in bid to discover mysterious shark attacks which left German tourist dead.

'Mossad plot not out of the question,' says South Sinai governor

Shark attacks on tourists in the Red Sea have triggered a flurry of speculation as to what could have caused them, with suggestions ranging from overfishing to an Israeli plot to harm Egyptian

tourism.

The body of a 70-year-old German woman washed up on the shore at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea after an attack on Sunday. Officials said the shark had taken a chunk out of her right thigh and bitten through her right elbow. Egypt had just lifted a ban on swimming in parts of the area imposed after three Russians and a Ukrainian were injured in shark attacks last week.

The government has invited international experts to help locate the killer shark but officials were at loss as to what could have caused its behavior. "There is not one reason that will be ignored. We are seeking any reason that causes a change in shark behavior," Ahmed el-Edkawi, assistant secretary for the South Sinai region, told Reuters.

Some said sharks had been drawn to shallow waters after cattle being shipped in for last month's Islamic feast of the sacrifice, or Eid al-Adha, had died and were thrown overboard. Others suggested it could have been part of a secret plot by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

"What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm," South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by state news site egynews.net.

Egyptians often blame neighboring Israel for a variety of problems such as drug and weapon smuggling, or say it supports media that seek to portray Egypt in a bad light.

Local diving experts said single shark attacks are extremely rare in the area and were mystified by as to why so many people were attacked in such quick succession.

The attacks grabbed the attention of world media and raised fears of a long-term hit to a tourism sector that is a lifeline for the desert peninsula's population and the biggest foreign currency earner for Egypt.

"We've seen more attacks in a few days than in the previous 15 years," said Florian Herzberg, dive operations manager at the Reef 2000 centre in Dahab resort north of Sharm. "It could be a shark with behavioral problems that was deliberately fed different things and now associates humans

with food."

Water sports centers said business had dried up after officials banned snorkeling and swimming, leaving tourists with little to do but speculate over the cause of the attacks. "Egypt is full of rumors and one does not know what to believe," said Gasser Mohamed, a diving instructor at CFun Divers centre in South Sinai.

"I see that there are a lot of sharks in the sea and the possible rarity of tuna fish due to over-fishing seems to be causing the attacks."

Helping 200 million people around the world

Oscar73 — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 05:08:57 GMT

Helping 200 million people around the world

Conference on Dry lands, Deserts and Desertification

A four-day international conference in the Negev is aimed at helping 200 million people around the world threatened by poverty and hunger. More than 50 countries will be represented at a four-day international conference in the Negev that is aimed at helping 200 million people around the world threatened by poverty and hunger.

The third annual conference, with the unwieldy title of “Conference on Dry lands, Deserts and Desertification: The Route to Restoration,” opens Monday at Ben Gurion University’s campus in Sde Boker, located between Be’er Sheva and Eilat.

More than 500 government officials and academics, including those from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, will participate. The conference is co-sponsored by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

"If you do nothing about desertification, people will starve and die," said Prof. Alon Tal, Arava Institute founder, Ben Gurion professor and native of North Carolina.

Israel's success in rehabilitating the Arava desert has attracted worldwide attention to the Jewish State, where 97 percent of the land is arid. Israel has not only "made the desert bloom,” it also has also invested major resources in learning how to keep dry lands from overtaking fertile soil.With increasing worldwide soil erosion, salinization and groundwater mismanagement, Israel wants to share its solutions with the world.

"If you do nothing about desertification, people will starve and die," asserted Prof. Tal. “Desertification” has been "the orphan of global environmental problems on our planet" because it was not high on most nations' list of priorities, he added.

"We believe that by bringing a diverse group of academics, professionals and policy-makers together to confront the myriad critical issues of desertification, the BGU conference can serve as a meaningful catalyst for cooperative and collaborative projects in the future at the global level.”

Delegates will discuss the public health aspects of desertification; sustainable building in desert environments; remote sensing to assess how flora are responding to anti-desertification attempts; grazing and the Bedouin community; the future of the Dead Sea; environmental education and dry-land agriculture; and soil and water restoration.

Parts of the Negev desert have been transformed into a productive breadbasket, actually reducing the desert's size significantly since 1948. Jewish National Fund (JNF) -KKL (Keren Kayemet L'Israel) -planted forests are thriving and salt- and drought-resistant crops are flourishing as a result of advanced agricultural methods.

The desert is dotted with commercial fish ponds and with healthful algae used for manufacturing pharmaceuticals and health foods.Prof. Tal stated that algae grow better in dry areas, one example of how the desert setting offers advantages. Arid spaces are also perfect settings for solar and wind power, as well as trails for hiking.

Rescue Dolphin operation in North Israel

Oscar73 — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:57:40 GMT

Rescue Dolphin operation in North Israel

Harry Reid say thanks to all

Oscar73 — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:46:41 GMT

Harry Reid say thanks to all

Harry reid said thanks to all the voters that

told them bye bye.....

What i do when I get bored

Oscar73 — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:47:03 GMT

What i do when I get bored

well.one example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvI5nVEblmA

lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN--HVnfhq8&feature=player_embedded

ya binti:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXQbso-br6o

12345

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDjjmtxFrx4&feature=player_embedded