Comments (0)New Fatah Charter Omits Language on Israel’s Demise
January 30, 2010Washington
JTA Wire Service
The new Fatah charter maintains a militant tone but emphasizes democratization and omits language in earlier documents that called for Israel’s destruction.
The office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence translated the document that emerged from Fatah’s council in Bethlehem last summer, and Secrecy News, a project of the Federation of American Scientists watchdog group, obtained a copy and published it Wednesday.
U.S. Jewish groups, spurred by the Zionist Organization of America, have long called for Fatah, the party of the more moderate leadership of the Palestinian Authority, to renounce the negationist language of earlier charters. The calls have been repeated in a number of congressional resolutions in recent years.
Such language is absent from the new charter, although it maintains a militant tone in its preamble, which says, “You must know that our enemy is strong and the battle is ferocious and long.”
There is no renunciation of the earlier language, and the preamble says the new charter “has been adopted within the framework of adherence to the provisions” of the 1989 charter.
Nonetheless, missing entirely from the charter is the reported language of the 1966 version that called for Israel’s destruction and in the 1989 version that implied Israel’s replacement, albeit through peaceful means.
Otherwise, the bulk of the charter focuses on democratizing the movement, a reflection of last summer’s political struggle between the young guard and the more established leadership. Whereas the Central Committee for years had been an ad hoc collection of acolytes of the leadership, 18 of its 23 members must now be elected by the entire membership.
Along Came a Spider
Researchers have discovered a new species of spider in the southern Arava region. But it’s already facing extinction.
The new spider, named Cerbalus Aravensis, has eight legs that can spread up to 5.5 inches apart. It was discovered by biologists from the University of Haifa in the Samar sand dune.
“The new discovery shows how much we still have to investigate, and that there are likely to be many more species that are unknown to us,” said Uri Shanas, who headed the research team. “If we do not preserve the few habitats that remain for these species, they will become extinct before we can even discover them.”
The Samar sand dune, which once was 2.7 square miles but today is down to 1 square mile, is the last dune left in the region due to farming and the loss of sand to construction.
And the Winner Is ...
Somebody in Israel won Israel’s largest-ever lottery drawing last month, worth about $20.6 million.
But nobody has stepped up to claim the prize since the Dec. 26 drawing.
“The message we want to get out is, ‘People, check your tickets,’ ” Oved Hazan of Israel’s state-run lottery told Israel’s Channel 10 television news last week.
The winner has up to six months to claim the prize money before it goes back to state coffers.
A Thief’s Thief
Dozens of ancient artifacts were stolen from an exhibit at the Korin Maman Museum in Ashdod, including silver coins from the Hellenistic period, two gold earrings, a bronze spear and several pieces of pottery.
Ironically, the relics were part of an exhibit called “Antiquities Thieves in Israel.”
The artifacts had been recovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority from thieves and put on display.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.