I switched the TV on half-way through a performance of Brahms' 4th Symphony in London's Royal Albert Hall last night. I'm not a great fan of Brahms (too stodgy, like German dumplings), but it was stirring nonetheless.

Conductor: Daniel Barenboim.

Orchestra: ?, but with a number of Levantine and Semitic features in the orchestra, not the usual crowd (BBC Symphony Orchestra). It emerged that it was the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, about which I knew nothing. At the end of the performance, Barenboim spoke:

“Usually when we come to the Proms, I am encouraged to say a few words about what’s wrong with the Middle East. But you’ve just heard what’s right with the Middle East.”

That, and the roar of applause, said everything. Here is a demonstration that young Israelis and Arabs can, and do, work together.

As they went on to play the overture to Wagner's Die Meistersinger (What, Jews playing Wagner!), I was almost reduced to tears as I watched and listened to these young Israelis and Arabs play this soaringly lovely piece of music.

Barenboim, by the way, more than rustled a few feathers when he sneaked a performance of the overture to Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde in a concert he gave in Israel a few years back, after which he was denounced as a person non grata. Wagner was deeply antisemitic (proof that a complete shit can nevertheless write good music) and Hitler's favorite composer. His music remains taboo in Israel even to this day.

More on last night's London Proms here.

More on the uproar Barenboim created in Israel with his 2001 perfromance of Wagner here.

More on the Western-Eastern Divan orchestra here.

And a video (not last night's performance, I'm afraid, but one in La Plaza Major, Madrid of Wagner's Walkyrie), of Barenboim conducting the Western-Eastern Divan.

And Barenboim on Frost over the world.

BTW, who was it who said; "Blessed are the peacemakers"?

This isn't news to me, but since it is most likely news to most, I thought I'd post about this.

I have actually made a few posts in the past about medical procedures performed in Israel on Palestinians, but yesterday the BBC, known to be very anti-Israel, published a nicely balanced article about the issue. Here are some excerpts from the article. I urge you to read it in its entirely if you can.

I would like to point out that I am pasting PARTS of the article here, the parts that aren't often published, and am aware that I have left out certain sections. This is to ensure the basic points get across in case you don't click on the article itself.

Crying out in pain, Ahmed lies in a hospital bed in Barzilai Medical Centre, his blood-encrusted lower limbs heavily bandaged. Two weeks earlier, the 17-year-old became another victim of the violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants when he lost his left leg, he says, in an Israeli missile strike against militants in Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

At first, he was taken to Gaza's Shifa hospital, but with the territory's health system under severe strain after months of Israeli blockade and internal strife, his only hope for life-saving treatment lay in Israel itself.

"We got our permit from the Israeli authorities within 24 hours," said Ahmed's father, Muhammad. "An ambulance took my son from Shifa to the Erez crossing, where he was transferred to an Israeli ambulance and brought to Barzilai. I used to work in Israel so I wasn't afraid, but for him it is his first time," he said.

Since his arrival at the medical centre in Ashkelon, Ahmed has undergone three operations and he is awaiting a fourth.

While some 1,600 Gazan patients had permit requests denied by Israel in 2007, more than 7,000 were allowed in for medical treatment - a 50% increase on 2006 - according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

MEDICAL PERMITS FROM GAZA
2006: 4932 granted; 538 denied
2007: 7176 granted; 1627 denied

Under the 1994 Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, the Palestinian Authority assumed responsibility for health services in the West Bank and Gaza. However, with tertiary care virtually non-existent in Gaza, Palestinians there are forced to seek such treatment in Israel or beyond.

Barzilai is one of three hospitals in Israel to which most of the cases come, but its proximity to Gaza - just 12km (seven miles) - means it gets those which are most severe.

"We treat hundreds of Gazans here each year," says Dr Ron Lobel, Barzilai's deputy director.

He says there are some five to 15 Gazan patients there at any given time.

"Most are extremely ill, a lot have bullet wounds, but we also treat Palestinians with cancer, kidney and liver diseases who can't get treatment in Gaza."

He says doctors never ask patients how they got their injuries or if they belong to a militant group.

"Even if they're terrorists they're treated like any other person being brought into the emergency room - we make no distinction between treating Israelis or Palestinians."

Most treatment is funded by the Palestinian Authority's health department, although many cases are treated by Israel for free.

Ironically, Barzilai's closeness to Gaza also means the hospital is within range of militants' rockets.

"It's absurd," says Dr Lobel. "We're treating Gazans while coming under fire from their own back yards."

In February, a rocket landed near the hospital's emergency room on the same day that a Palestinian woman from Beit Lahiya in Gaza gave birth there to premature twins.

"WHO believes there is a right for everybody to get health care," said Mahmoud Dahar, the organisation's director in Gaza.

"Israel has the most sophisticated security measures at the Erez crossing, so if people are going to carry out attacks, they will be stopped there. No requests should be turned down."

But Israel says it has to balance Gaza's humanitarian needs with its own security.

In June 2007, two Palestinian women who had received medical entry permits were arrested at the Erez crossing after it was discovered they planned to blow themselves up in an Israeli hospital, Israeli authorities said.

In 2004, a female suicide bomber who claimed she had surgical plates in her legs blew herself up at the crossing after bypassing the metal detector, killing four Israelis.

"This is why the crossing can't be the first point of verification, there has to be some sort of clearance process beforehand," said Maj Lerner.

The crossing itself has been bombarded over 200 times by mortars, rockets and sniper fire since last June, automatically closing every time.

"It's a dilemma we're dealing with - the terrorists make life very difficult for genuine medical cases, but at the end of the day the vast majority who need treatment in Israel are actually approved."

There's a program at Schneider Children's Hospital in Petach Tikva that performs life-saving heart surgery on children from all over the world, all expenses paid. And now five children from Iraq are here in Israel with various life-threatening problems and they will be attended to at the Rambam Hospital in Haifa. The country has done all it can to get them into surgery as soon as they can. This isn't the first time Israel has treated Iraqis. Back in 2005, an Iraqi man came to Israel to get a birth defect in his heart fixed.

In medical news, Dr Shulamit Levenberg of the Technion in Haifa has been chosen by "Scientific American" as one of the worlds fifty leading scientists. Basicall she has produced muscle tissue in the laboratory that is not rejected when implanted in the body. This is an enormous step forward in effectively replacing damaged or injured tissue.

I will continue to update about other cool stuff as it happens when I have more info to give. Have a wonderful week!

Update: Mark Cohen of Good News Israel updates me that the oeprations took place at Rambam hospital in Haifa, and not at Schneider where the program takes place. Thanks!

Joint council to be headed by Cellcom CEO Amos Shapira and Palestinian businessman Walid Najjab of PalTel communications company

Sixty leading businessmen from Israel  and the Palestinian Authority have announced the establishment of a joint business council.

The council will be headed by Cellcom CEO Amos Shapira and Palestinian businessman Walid Najjab of the PalTel communications company.

The announcement was made over the weekend in a joint press conference held at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East at Jordan's Dead Sea resort.

"The idea was born due to the difficult political situation, but we have no plans or pretensions to deal with diplomatic processes," Shapira told Yedioth Ahronoth on Sunday.

The Palestinian chairman of the council, Walid Najib, said, "We will do what we know how to do best: Take advantage of possibilities on the business and economic level."

Source: Ynet.

"Obviously, the song deals with the last war between Israel and Lebanon, and its implications. It speaks about the silent majority around the world that does nothing while extremists spread their ideals of hatred and violence," Kfir Gov, leader of the Israeli band, “Seek Irony” told Ynet.

Rab, the Lebanese lead vocalist of “Blood Ink”, and his family reside in northern Lebanon in an area that was mostly outside of the range of the fighting.

"I’ve been listening to this music for as long as I can remember," Rab, the 23-year-old Christian singer, told Ynet in an email interview.

"The story my family tells is that my sister, who is a metal fan, used to put the headphones on my ears when I was just a month old. She used to put me to sleep listening to 'The Wall' by Pink Floyd.

“I somehow grew up in this atmosphere, at age 14, I was already listening to the Scorpions and Aerosmith. Then I discovered the harder styles, and it went on,” Rab said.

Click here to read the rest of this story from Ynet.

• In a survey published recent an Switzerland, Israel was first in terms of investment in research and development out of the 55 most developed countries. It was also second in raising capital and second in development of IT.
• New York Magazine named Tel Aviv as one of the four recommended cities for spending a brief holiday. They even suggested Betty Ford, the restaurant where my co-workers and I do lunch often (it’s not a rehab!)
• Some science stuff:
  • Israeli astronomer Prof. Zvi Mazeh and his team have discovered a new planet that they named HAT-P-2b. This is especially great since Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. :-)
  • The robotics class at Ostrovsky High School in Ra’anana won the 14th annual World Robotics Championships for the second year in a row.
• Some sports stuff:
  • The Israeli youth team for pairs bowling won the Gold in the European Bowling Youth Championships, gold in the boys’ masters final, bronze in the boys’ team even, and silver in the all events competition.
  • The girls won a silver medal in the girls’ trio and one of the participants, Roni Aharonowitz, was the first female ever to bowl a perfect 300 game in the history of the competition.
  • Israel’s delegation to the World Swimming Championships for Disabled Youth brought home six gold medals and four silver medals.
  • Arik Ze’evi the Judoka won a bronze medal from the European Judo Championships. So did Gal Yekutial (different weight categories).
• Some medical stuff:
  • Newsweek called Dr. Eyal Gur, head of microsurgery at Ichilov Hospital as one of the best microsurgeons in the world.
  • They also named Prof. Lior Gepstein from the Technion for developing heart tissue and pacemakers from stem cells.
  • And Dr. Shulamit Levenberg, also from the Technion, for creating muscle tissue that they body doesn’t reject.
  • AND Dr. Hossan Haick, also from the Technion, for inventing an electronic “nose” that can diagnose cancer.
• And some good news to finish off with: The Jewish National Fund is working with the Palestinian Authoriy, Egypt, and Jordan to plawn 5 million olive trees along the common borders.

I'd like to mention that some of these items were taken from the Israel Good News Digest.

A source among the owners of the mall APSC said that they are planning to increase future business with Israeli companies and they believe that business can be used as a bridge for peace. "The problem starts when people have no money, and then they don't have any education and they turn to violence and extremism," he said. 

I'm not sure it lays down the building blocks for peace, but it certainly can't hurt... 

Two Israeli students recently won the unique experience of representing Israel in an international youth conference at the United Nations, and developed strong ties with representatives from the Arab world.

During the conference, the two developed friendly ties with representatives from Arab countries, meeting delegates from Syria , Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and Lebanon

The conference addressed the eradication of poverty, the fight against AIDS, the reduction of infant mortality around the globe and the promotion of gender equality.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Apparently the border with Lebanon has long since been fertile ground for drug trafficking into Israel, many times with full cooperation between Israeli citizens and the Hezbollah on the other side of the border.

Who says Israel and the Hezbollah can't co-exist? All we need to do is legalize pot.

Or, actually, keep it illegal.

This post is dedicated with love to Fizz. :-)