January 2004
Israelis, Palestinians scale Antarctic summit
The eight-member Breaking the Ice team pose at the summit of the "Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship."
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January 18, 2004 - Fifteen days after setting out on its historic trek, the Breaking the Ice expedition successfully climbed to the summit of an unconquered Antarctic mountain on Thursday (January 15).
Declaring that "our people can and deserve to live together in peace and friendship,'' the four Israeli and four Palestinian participants named the peak "Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship."
Speaking via satellite telephone from the peak of the snow-capped, windy 2,770-foot mountain near the Bruce plateau in Antarctica, expedition leader Heskel Nathanial read from a statement that the four Jews and four Arabs had written: "By reaching its summit, we have proved that Palestinians and Israelis can cooperate with one another with mutual respect and trust."
The expedition, which includes two women, departed in a rented British yacht on January 1 from Puerto Williams, a Chilean Navy base on the southern shore of the Beagle channel, 2,050 miles south of Santiago.
The group - including former IDF commandos and Fatah members - reached Antarctica after sailing 600 miles through some of the world's most dangerous waters. Then they trekked for a week on Antarctic soil to the foot of the mountain.
High winds and driving snow welcomed the expedition team members Thursday morning as they awakened at their high camp on the morning of the intended summit assault. The Israeli expedition leader, Doron Erel, and lead mountain guide Denis Ducroz from Chamonix, France, debated the wisdom of setting out on the projected route, which would take the inexperienced Israeli and Palestinian mountaineers within feet of yawning crevasses. After almost an hour, the green light was finally given. The expedition would go for the summit.
With crampons attached to their boots and ice axes in hand, the team members ascended slowly along the icy slopes of a glacier that leads up to the sheer rock faces of the mountain, itself. In a gesture that was only coincidentally symbolic, they were roped together in mixed groups of four: these Israelis and Palestinians would literally be taking responsibility for one another's lives.
Navigating in and above the clouds in near-zero visibility made finding the summit difficult and led to several impromptu changes in the route. But, finally, at 4pm, after four and half hours of climbing, on the fourth day of their ascent and more than 13,000 kilometers from their homes in the Middle East, they stood on a spot approximately 1000 meters above sea level, treading on pristine snow where no one has ever stood before.
The ceremonies at the summit were informal and varied. The three Palestinian men in the expedition team knelt in Muslim prayer. The Israelis opened a bottle of champagne for everyone. Palestinian team member journalist Ziad Darwish was moved to tears.
"This moment is so beautiful," he said, "seeing Israelis and Palestinians doing this kind of thing together. Yet, it also makes me think of all the horrible things we're doing to one another back home."
Erel, the Israeli expedition leader - said, "The point is that Israelis and Palestinians have done something unique together, something that required the kind of cooperation and involvement that you rarely if ever find among us. I can't tell you how pleased I am about how well we've all gotten along together and how well everyone performed. No one thinks that we're going to bring peace by climbing mountains, but everyone should know what we as Israelis and Palestinians are capable of doing when we set our minds to it. That's what I hope that both our peoples will be thinking when they hear about what we've done."
That, says Erel, is the impression the members of Breaking the Ice want to leave on their fellow Israelis and Palestinians: like climbing mountains, making peace requires a deep personal commitment. These Israelis and Palestinians were willing to go all the way to Antarctica to drive that message home.
"The idea was to bring together people that could easily be enemies outside. But because they have this shared goal and a challenge to face together, they have to support each other in order to succeed, despite any political, religious or philosophical barriers," Nathaniel told ISRAEL21c back in September when the expedition was still in its early planning stages.
While the trekkers eventually agreed on a name for the mountain and worked successfully together as partners, relations were not always easy. Fiery debates broke out over the security fence, the Temple Mount, peace accords, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, and even the wording of the proclamation. On the last day, they reached a unanimous agreement that the proclamation should reflect human and not political values.
Despite vastly different takes on historical and political events, the group bonded and came to each other's aid during personal conversations as they faced sea sickness, violent winds, and near-zero visibility during parts of the journey. They also spent many hours together contemplating the work of nature, as they saw for the first time penguins, seals, whales, and glaciers in the Drake Passage and the stark landscapes of Antarctica.
The expedition was the first organized by Extreme Peace Missions, a charity which hopes to bring people together through adventure and sporting endeavors.
It was initiated by the Peres Center for Peace in Israel and is funded by German, Palestinian and Israeli donors.
Courtesy http://www.israel21c.org/
Using a cell phone to monitor coronary disease
The Biolapis heart monitoring device won a silver medal in the medical category at the 52nd Global Exhibition for Technological Innovation held in Belgium last year.
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January 4, 2004 - Someday we may not only be using our cellular telephones to communicate with our friends and to keep updated on breaking news - but we may be counting on them to keep us healthy as well.
Israeli company Biolapis has developed a new device for monitoring coronary disease, and is in advanced negotiations with Samsung to integrate the device into a future generation of cell phones. In early December, a delegation from the South Korean technology giant came to Israel to observe the device in use in clinical trials.
The Biolapis heart-monitoring device has already garnered international attention, winning a silver medal in the medical category at the 52nd Global Exhibition for Technological Innovation held in Belgium last year. At the exhibition, 1,200 scientific patents from 40 countries were presented at the exhibition. Representatives of the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor Chief Scientist presented the device at the Israeli pavilion.
Since winning the medal, "I've been very busy," says Dr. Nitzan Yaniv, 43, who developed the device. In addition to the Samsung delegation, Yaniv has been approached by several other large corporations interested in his idea, including Radio Shack. And "every cardiologist who has seen this device is excited by its potential," he said.
Yaniv's formal background is in psychology, not technology, but as a master's student at BGU fifteen years ago, he adopted an interdisciplinary approach: the university in the Negev was so small in those days that what was known as 'the Beersheva Spirit' prevailed.
It was through the Beersheva connection that he got to know Dr. Amos Katz, who became a key part of the Biolapis device. Katz, the Associate Dean for Students Affairs at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Director of the Clinical Electrophysiology Laboratory, was intrigued by the idea of such an inexpensive, easy and user-friendly cardiological screening tool.
"Professor Katz knew from his work that heart exams had to be made easier, but he didn't have the tools. I sat in his office and showed him how my device worked and he immediately called in his colleagues to see," recalls Yaniv, who grew up on a small kibbutz near Haifa.
The device is currently undergoing tests at the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva which are being led by Katz, of the Soroka Heart Unit. The test focuses on monitoring coronary diseases by registering changes in pulse, and compares the efficacy of the test at identifying patients and predicting coronary complications, in comparison to existing procedures.
The device, currently being used in clinical trials in Israel, is a handheld computer device for cardiovascular disease screening which achieves the sensitivity currently available only in high end imaging equipment, while maintaining the accessibility of a blood pressure monitor.
It offers general practitioners, clinicians and cardiologists an affordable method to reliably diagnose and monitor cardiovascular risks. The test protocol is easy to conduct, does not require any other equipment, and can be done at point of care, using a non-invasive finger sensor. With a simple test that takes five minutes, a doctor can get immediate accurate information on the danger of cardiological complications.
The Biolapis core technology is based on response analysis of the cardiovascular system to a controlled stimulation. The device analyzes the pulse wave, and extracts multiple indicators of cardiovascular dysfunction, which can also be presented as a single risk factor score.
The monitoring ability it offers is extremely valuable for monitoring and continued care for heart patients who have already had a heart attack or have had an angioplasty. Despite its simplicity, the test has been found to be more reliable than more complex and uncomfortable checks such as EKG stress tests.
Its attractiveness to the medical community is enhanced by its low cost. With costs a key consideration in medical care today, this device maintains the efficacy of premium diagnostic solutions, such as nuclear and ultrasound imaging.
After its use for monitoring current cardiac patients is established, its developers say that the device can be used to estimate the danger of the development of heart disease in healthy people, particularly those who suffer from risk factors such as high blood pressure or who are overweight, but don't yet know that they have heart disease.
The fact that the test is quick, easy, and comfortable, will make it an optimal screening device, and the fact that it is sophisticated and compact means that it will be possible to integrate it into devices such as cell phones.
Biolapis has received financing by Office of the Chief Scientist of the government's Ministry of Industry and Trade and the founders, and is in various stages of due diligence by a number of financial and strategic investors. The government funding and investment by the founders allowed for the creation of a prototype that has been made that is currently undergoing clinical trials in hospitals.
Yaniv believes that once his device proves itself in Israel, the move to marketing it overseas should be exceptionally speedy. "We don't need FDA approval in the United States, because our device is not something new, it already exists but is used for other purposes. I believe that I could sell it tomorrow over the counter."
Courtesy http://www.israel21c.org/
Israeli Youth volunteers travel to India
January 5, 2004 - The Israeli Medical Cadets (Pirhei Refuah) program is to send 14 volunteers to India this month to teach emergency medical care to villages in need. Israeli youth volunteers undergo a training program at Israeli hospitals and go on to teach workshops to their Indian counterparts. The 10-day program is the third of its kind. Indian ambassador to Israel Raminder Singh Jassal, and Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Gideon Meir together with the groups 34 alumni, gathered at a ceremony at the Foreign Ministry on January 5 to wish the delegation a successful journey.
New Israeli-Kenyan Humanitarian Program Offers Hope to the Children of Kenya
Jauuary 12, 2004 - "Adopt A Child in Africa" is a new Kenyan-Israeli initiative that provides street children in Kenya with better opportunities to succeed in the future. All the funds raised for the project in Israel by Unistream, an Israel-based organization, will go towards building new classes and a dormitory for street girls. The Gilad Shafir Foundation, an Israeli organization based in South African, will implement the project in partnership with the Ngata Children's Home in Kenya, as well as help raise more funds abroad.
Over 160,000 children currently reside on the streets of various cities in Kenya with close to 60,000 in Nairobi alone. The children come from very poor homes that cannot cater to even their most basic needs. Poverty, parental alcoholism and prostitution, either drive the children away from home, or they run away as a result of severe abuse.
The Gilad Shafir Foundation is a non-profit foundation which helps promotes young people from disadvantaged backgrounds all over Africa, mainly in South Africa and Kenya.
For more information on "Adopt a Child in Africa," IsraAID - The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid - will feature the story and pictures of the children in the coming weeks on its website www.israaid.org.il
Israeli doctor leaves with family to Uganda on one-year humanitarian mission
January 14, 2004 - Dr. Negev Bar, a 36-year-old family doctor from Haifa and will be leaving for Uganda, along with his wife and two daughters in mid-January 2004. Dr. Bar will be providing voluntary medical treatment to the locals who come for treatment to the Kisiize hospital in southwest Uganda. The rural hospital has 200 beds and suffers from a severe shortage of trained medical staff, especially physicians.
This humanitarian effort was made possible thanks to the support of the Jewish Volunteer Corps (JVC) of the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), as well as the Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid (IsraAID).
Dr. Negev Bar, married and a father of two daughters, lives in Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan (north of Haifa). Currently, Dr. Bar serves as a family physician resident in the Department of Family medicine in Haifa, Israel.
Kisiize Hospital is situated in southwest Uganda, between Kabale and Rukungiri, in the Kigezi highlands, and is about 4,500 feet above sea level. The hospital was established in 1958 by the Ruanda Mission and subsequently handed over to the Church of Uganda. The hospital serves thousands of patients, some of whom travel from beyond Mbarara, the regional town 80 miles away.
Dr. Bar states, "Although the hospital is part of the Church of Uganda and despite the religious differences, or maybe due to them, I'm happy to go there as a Jew and as an Israeli physician in particular. I hope this year I'll have the chance to practice the Talmudic saying: One who saves a single life has saved the entire world."
Like in many parts of Africa, the population in the Kisiizi area has a prevalence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The average lifespan in Uganda is 46 for woman and 43 for men. The infant mortality is 87.9 per 1000 live birth.
For more information please contact: szahavi@hotmail.com
Beersheba Park: The Green Belt that will bring Change to the Negev Capital
January 12, 2004 - Nahal Beersheba, which was the unofficial junk, sewage, and garbage dump of the Negev's capital, is undergoing a total facelift. Anyone familiar with the streambed that was full of foul-smelling pools almost all year long would have difficulty recognizing it today. Along an eight-kilometer stretch where the streambed, which channels stormy winter floods, intersects Beersheba from east to west, most of the pollution and neglect have disappeared. Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, together with the "Shiqma-Besor" Drainage Authority, the Beersheba Municipality, and the Ministry of the Environment, have already completed the first stage of transforming Nahal Beersheba and its environs into the central green lung of Beersheba. It will become an attraction that in the near future will attract visitors passing through the city to stop, relax, and enjoy a green desert oasis that offers a wealth of possibilities for family recreation.
The Director of KKL-JNF Southern Region, Mr. Avinoam Alon, sees this giant project as one link in a chain of development plans for the Negev, whose goal is to improve quality of life for local inhabitants and to attract visitors to the various tourist sites that have been created throughout the Negev. The detailed plan for developing the park is proudly displayed on Mr. Alon's wall in an old green hut, from which KKL-JNF controls over half of Israel's total land mass, that constitutes the only real land reserves the country has for future development and settlement.
The park will spread out over an area of 3000 dunams on either side of Nahal Beersheba. It will be spotted with forest groves and lawns, decorative trees, and trails for bicycles and pedestrians. Some of these projects are already being executed. One of them is the Bell Garden that borders on the Neve Noi neighborhood, and another is the historical site of Beit Eshel, one of the first Negev villages established by KKL-JNF, which was since abandoned. The historical buildings, and the local modern buildings next to them, will serve the Nahal Beersheba Park management.
The heart of the park is a large artificial lake on an 80 dunam tract, which will be fed by the city's recycled effluents. The lake, along with the park's green areas, will use 1.2 million cubic meters of recycled effluents annually. The lake will be situated directly west of the Beersheba bypass highway, with the central recreation and leisure facilities right next to the lake, alongside tourist and various food services. During the course of building the park, 3 of the 39 ancient cisterns that are located throughout the park will be restored. The Turkish railroad bridge, one of the city's symbols, will be integrated into the park's landscape planning. The park is being built in stages due to the need to raise the considerable funds necessary for its creation. Much of the funding will come from contributions of Jewish communities and KKL-JNF supporters throughout the world, who recognize the dramatic change that the park will bring for the city and its inhabitants.
Park sites, such as the planned Conference and Fairs Center (near the Turkish bridge), a sports installation, a botanical garden with emphasis on desert flora, bridges that link the two stream-banks, and rest corners along the promenade, are choice projects for fundraising. These sites will also be supplemented by investments from other sources, such as the Conference Center train station, and a future hotel complex. The area set aside for future commercial initiatives is 50,000 square meters. Approximately 1000 dunams of the park will be planted with diverse flora, including 40,000 trees. The planned amphitheater will hold an audience of up to 8000 people, 5000 on regular chairs and an additional 3000 that can relax on a spacious lawn.
Along with the four main partners to the development of Beersheba Park, the Ministry of the Interior, the Antiquities Authority, the Israel Lands Administration, the Ministry of Housing, the Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, and the Ben-Gurion University, are also involved in the project. Avinoam Alon is not disturbed by the amount of partners to this unique project. A day after participating in a ceremony marking 30 years since the passing of the first Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. David Ben-Gurion - who also served as a member of the KKL-JNF Board of Directors - he is optimistic.
After 18 years with KKL-JNF and another 12 years teaching beforehand, he now supervises tens of projects that help realize Ben-Gurion's vision of developing the Negev. He summarizes: "The scope of both planned and implemented activities is tremendous. Only yesterday I ordered six small airplanes to spray pesticides on the forests to protect them against weevils. This alone cost 100,000 shekels, money that is not easy to come by. The number of projects we have undertaken is huge, and they all need additional investment in infrastructure, daily maintenance, research and development. We are active not only in the civilian sector, but also in army camps, whether by creating green spaces or by building installations for the benefit of the soldiers and their parents who come to visit them where they serve. Believe me, I have a lot of good reasons to get up in the morning."
See previous month's articles.