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Reprinted with permission from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Although Israel won its existence more than 50 years ago, a new and insidious critique has begun to spread, attacking anew the legitimacy of Israel's very establishment as a Jewish state. The new line does not come from Tehran or Riyadh but, surprisingly from largely European intellectuals and certain voices on the fringe American Left, surfacing recently in The Guardian and The New York Review of Books. It proposes the elimination of Israel and is generally accompanied by calls to establish a bi-national Palestinian-Jewish state in its place.1 The new anti-Zionists invariably start with the claim that there are no Jewish rights to sovereignty in Israel, or that, in any case, Jewish nationalism is inherently unjust.
"You can have criticism of the State of Israel but it is entirely different to say it shouldn't exist. It is applying to the Jew a different standard than you apply to anyone else."
Curiously, this campaign is accompanied by no corresponding questions about the validity of any other of the more than 190 states that belong to the UN, whether they resemble Israel or not. There is no such scrutiny of the mini-states of Europe -- from Liechtenstein to the Vatican -- or the multi-tribal states of Africa, many of which are breaking down. Nor is there any questioning of the rights of expressly Catholic, Protestant, or Muslim states to exist. The exclusive focus on Israel raises troubling questions about the real motives of these commentators. As Michael Gove, assistant editor of the Times of London, recently noted: "I do not know how newspapers can get away with it. You can have criticism of the State of Israel but it is entirely different to say it shouldn't exist. It is applying to the Jew a different standard than you apply to anyone else."2
Equally remarkable, for all the singular focus on Israel, the attack on Jewish statehood avoids even the slightest consideration of the specifics of Israel's case. The attackers fail to examine the legal or political consequences of Israel's national expression as a Jewish state (perhaps because they find none) with regard to its non-Jews, religious and racial equality, or the civil and political equality of all citizens. They also ignore the specific historical circumstances and perils that gave rise to the need for Israel to identify Jewishly. In short, it is an attack on Israel without regard to the cost, benefit, or uniqueness of Jewish statehood -- indeed, without any grounding at all. That becomes clear after a brief examination of the history, the law, and the facts surrounding Israel's existence as a Jewish state.
The Rights of States and the Rights of Israel
International law has traditionally held that in order to be defined as a state, political communities must meet four qualifications: First, there must be a people; second, there must be a territory; third, there must be a government; and fourth, there must be a capacity to enter into relations with other states. In advocating Israel's admission to the UN in 1948, the U.S. representative to the UN Security Council argued that Israel fulfilled these conditions. In fact, the new attacks on Israel's rights are particularly ironic since Jewish nationhood preceded the emergence of most modern nation-states by thousands of years. Still, today's discourse has created doubts about the basis of Jewish peoplehood and the connection of the Jewish people to Israel's territory. Whether the new assault on Israel is a byproduct of the radical secularization of certain intellectual circles who have no understanding of Jewish history, or whether it emanates from a more insidious anti-Semitism that has been re-born, its handmaiden is the general ignorance that is rampant about Israel's unique roots.
The Jewish claim to a right of sovereignty in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel; Palestine) emerged in the last century for three essential reasons:
- ·First, it was not a new claim, but rather a reassertion of a historic right that had never been conceded or forgotten. Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch (Resh Galuta), while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the end of the Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.
- ·Second, the security of the Jewish people in the diaspora became completely untenable as the threat from anti-Semitic persecution and assault was replaced in the twentieth century with the threat of actual annihilation -- or genocide -- as demonstrated by the Holocaust. While this threat initially was focused in Europe, it soon extended to the Middle East, as newly independent Arab states came to view their ancient Jewish communities as European foreigners and systematically violated their basic human rights, either by denying them protection or by confiscating their properties. From the 1840 Damascus blood libel to the 1941 farhud (pogrom) against the Jews of Baghdad, an uneasy Arab-Jewish coexistence that existed earlier collapsed even before the rise of the State of Israel. Far from receding, the danger of rabid anti-Semitism persists, thereby necessitating a strong Jewish state that can serve as an ultimate refuge for Jews under threat, anywhere. The Jewish people have learned that they must not return to a state of powerlessness.
- ·Third, the steady growth of assimilation threatened to eliminate Jewish communities worldwide. The existence of a Jewish state, whose public culture is based on the unique practices of the Jewish people, is the best guarantor for Jewish continuity -- both religious and non-religious -- and the birth of a new Jewish civilization that can continue to contribute to the world community.3
Israel's Historic Basis: The Unbroken Jewish Connection with the Land of Israel
Israel is the only state that was created in the last century whose legitimacy was recognized by both the League of Nations and the United Nations.4 The League of Nations Mandate that was issued by the victorious powers of World War I did not create the rights of the Jewish people to a national home in Palestine, but rather recognized a pre-existing right, for the links of the Jewish people to their historic land were well-known and accepted in the previous century by world leaders from President John Adams to Napoleon Bonaparte to British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston.5 These rights were preserved by the successor organization to the League of Nations, the United Nations, under Article 80 of the UN Charter. The ancient, even biblical, association of the Jewish people with the Land of Israel was accepted in the Judeo-Christian tradition as a historical axiom.
Since the loss of the Second Jewish Commonwealth to Roman legions in 70 CE, the Jewish people never lost their connection to the Land of Israel.
From a legal standpoint, an opportunity arose to assert these historically recognized rights. Since 1517, Eretz Israel had been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire; when the Ottomans lost to the British in 1918, in the Treaty of Sevres they surrendered sovereignty over their Asiatic territories outside of Turkey. A vacuum of sovereignty was created in which the historic claim of the Jewish people could be raised. Yet the Jewish people themselves had begun raising it much earlier.
Since the loss of the Second Jewish Commonwealth to Roman legions in 70 CE, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish people never lost their connection to the Land of Israel (Palestine). The land, in fact, was never claimed to be the unique home of another nation, but rather was a province of other larger empires. As the renowned historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, has written:
From the end of the Jewish state in antiquity to the beginning of British rule, the area now designated by the name Palestine was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries; it was a group of provincial subdivisions, by no means always the same, within a larger entity.6
In the interim, the Jewish people never stopped exercising their claim to the land. Lewis, in fact, notes "there had been a steady movement of Jews to the Holy Land throughout the centuries."7 In 135 CE Jews took part in the Bar Kochba revolt against imperial Rome and even re-established their capital in Jerusalem. Defeated by the most brutal of the Roman legions under the command of the emperor Hadrian, Jews were forbidden to reside in Jerusalem for nearly five hundred years. Once a year on the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, they were allowed to weep at the remains of their destroyed Temple at a spot that came to be called "the Wailing Wall." In the meantime, the Roman authorities renamed Judea as Palestina in order to obliterate the memory of Jewish nationhood.
During this period, the Jewish national center shifted from Judea to the Galilee, where hundreds of synagogues were erected from the Mediterranean to the Golan Heights. Jewish law was then codified in the Mishnah by Judah Ha-Nasi. Despite the catastrophic losses in Jewish lives during the wars against the Romans, Jews still constituted the majority of the population of the Galilee in the fourth century. In the Upper Galilee village of Pek'in there remained a continuous Jewish presence from the Roman era to the rise of the State of Israel.
With the defeat of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) by Persian armies in 614, the Jewish people recaptured Jerusalem and made it again their capital briefly. Yet Byzantine rule was soon restored and Jews were forced again to vacate Jerusalem until the defeat of the Byzantines in 638 by the Islamic armies of Caliph Omar, who again opened the city for Jewish resettlement. Eretz Israel became a part of successive Muslim empires -- the Rashidun (the immediate followers of the Prophet Muhammad, who ruled from Medina), the Umayyads (who ruled from Damascus), the Abbasids (who ruled from Baghdad), and the Fatimids (who ruled from Cairo).
Under Islam, Jews were to be protected as a "people of the book," but were nonetheless forced to pay discriminatory taxes like the jizya (poll tax) and the kharaj (land tax). The crushing burden of these land taxes led to a loss of Jewish land control in the Galilee during the first several centuries of Islamic rule. During the Crusader occupation of Eretz Israel, many Jews were physically slaughtered, especially in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the great Jewish scholar and poet Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (1075-1141) still called for the mass immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel.8
The beginnings of Jewish recovery in Eretz Israel started with the defeat and expulsion of the Crusaders in 1187 by the Kurdish Muslim warrior Salah ad-Din who, like Caliph Omar, allowed the Jews to resettle in Jerusalem. For example, between 1209 and 1211, three hundred rabbis made their way from France and southern England to settle in Jerusalem, once it was safe again to do so. They were joined by rabbis from North Africa and Egypt. The great Jewish scholar Nachmanides (Ramban) erected a synagogue in Jerusalem in 1267 that still stands in the Old City.
Even before the rise of modern political Zionism, Jews continued to stream into the land from Yemen and Lithuania. By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem.
In the 13th century, Jewish families restored the community of Safed, which would become the international center for the study of Jewish mysticism by the sixteenth century. Reinforced by their rising numbers, Jews became assertive again about their claim in Jerusalem, so that the pope forbade sea captains from transporting Jews to Palestine in 1428.9 Despite the hardships, Jews continued to return. The great commentator of the Mishnah, Ovadia Bartinura, left Italy to settle in Jerusalem in 1488; his tomb is at the foot of the Mt. of Olives.
The influx of Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 into the Ottoman Empire, which took control of Eretz Israel in 1517, led to a substantial expansion of the Jewish presence in Safed, Hebron, and Tiberias, where Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent allotted his Portuguese Jewish advisor, Don Joseph Nasi, land grants for Jewish resettlement. Even before the rise of modern political Zionism, Jews continued to stream into the land from Yemen and Lithuania, whose numbers included the students of the halachic scholar the Vilna Gaon in 1809-1811. By 1864, a clear-cut Jewish majority emerged in Jerusalem, more than half a century before the arrival of the British Empire, the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, and the establishment of the League of Nations Mandate.
The Palestinian Arabs Include Waves of Arab Immigrants
During the restoration of the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, the overwhelming impression of Western visitors in the 19th century was that there were few Arab inhabitants. The British Consul General, James Finn, wrote in 1857 that "the country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants." He added that the land's "greatest need is that of a body of population."10 Mark Twain visited Eretz Israel in 1867, traveled through the Jezreel Valley, and related, "there is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent."11 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the great British cartographer, reached similar conclusions in 1881: "In Judea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there was no appearance of life or habitation."12
Geographers had long concluded that it was improbable "that any but a small part of the present Arab population of Palestine is descended from the ancient inhabitants of the land"; indeed, according to their analysis, Palestine was "peopled by the drifting populations of Arabia, and to some extent by the backwash of its harbors."13 Additionally, the Ottomans settled Muslim populations as a buffer against Bedouin attacks; Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian ruler, brought Egyptian colonists with his army in the 1830s. It is noteworthy that the common Palestinian name al-Masri, used by a clan in Nablus, literally means "the Egyptian."14
Yet the Palestine Liberation Organization has perpetuated a myth, put forward on the world stage by Yasser Arafat at the United Nations in 1974, that "the Jewish invasion [of Palestine] began in 1881." Moreover, he asserted that there was already a large indigenous Arab population when the Jews arrived. His implicit message was that there was a well-entrenched Palestinian society in place before Israel's rebirth, a society that had rights superior to those of the returning Jews.
Yet it is now clear that during the years that the Jewish presence in Eretz Israel was restored, a huge Arab population influx transpired from neighboring countries as Arab immigrants sought to take advantage of higher wages and economic opportunities that resulted from Jewish settlement in the land. Indeed, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."15
The Restoration of Israel Was Not a Product of European Imperialism
Another common argument put forward by the PLO is that Israel is really the product of European imperialism and hence it does not represent a legitimate national movement of its own. As a result, Zionism came to be portrayed in the Arab world as "a hyper-aggressive variant of colonialism."16 This perception has also penetrated the discourse of Israel's European detractors. Initially, it is true that the idea of a restored Jewish homeland received its greatest push from the declaration in 1917 of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, who called for its establishment after the British defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, ironically, during the subsequent years of the British Mandate over Palestine, European (and especially British) imperial policies actually obstructed the emergence of the Jewish national home.
First, the territory of Transjordan was cut off from the Palestine Mandate and granted by the British to the Hashemite dynasty from Arabia, who had lost their ancestral homeland, the Hijaz, to the Saudi clan of eastern Arabia. Second, the British sought to further partition the remaining territory of western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, reducing the area for Jewish settlement even more. Finally, with the 1939 White Paper, the British restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine just as Nazi Germany began its conquest of Europe and its Holocaust against European Jewry.
In this context, it is not surprising that Jewish underground movements waged an anti-colonial war in the 1940s against continuing British rule. In other words, Israel was anti-imperialist when it first emerged. By contrast, the Arab states at the time were aligned with the imperial powers. The Arab states that invaded the nascent State of Israel fielded armies that were trained and supplied by the French and British Empires. During Israel's War of Independence, British officers commanded the Arab Legion of Transjordan, while the Royal Air Force, defending Egyptian airspace, fought the Israeli Air Force over the Sinai Peninsula in 1949. And the nations of the world did not lift a finger when the Jews of Jerusalem were surrounded and faced annihilation, even though the UN had called for internationalization of the city. Only the Israel Defense Forces broke Jerusalem's siege and saved its Jewish residents. In short, Jewish independence in Israel was won by a native and indigenous community acting in its own defense with little help from outside.
Is Jewish Statehood Discriminatory?
Today, some argue that Israel's very establishment as a Jewish state discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis, even, as a recent article claimed, rendering them second-class citizens.17 Such a claim is not only utterly false, as any student of Israeli law or politics knows; it also seriously distorts the harmless -- and quite beautiful -- ways in which states can reflect the identity of their majority communities, or pay tribute to their founding histories, without infringing the rights of individual citizens. Israel's critics go too far when they seek to cloak Israel's mere communal expression in the inflammatory garb of religious discrimination.
Nearly every country in the world boasts one majority community, and nearly all reflect the cultural identity of that community in one way or another. The United States officially celebrates only Christian holidays; many European countries openly identify as either Catholic or Protestant; and many Muslim countries uncontroversially refer to themselves as an "Islamic Republic," whether they are democratic or not. For some, such identification is simply a sign of the spiritual persuasion of the majority; for others, it is homage to the story of the country's founding. There is nothing obviously wrong with such expression.
Indeed, in today's multi-culturalist environment, with a renaissance in public appreciation of communal identity, it is anachronistic to suggest that in the case of Israel, alone, communal identification is problematic. One can only wonder why Jewish national expression, with no discriminatory effect, is so uniquely hard to bear.18 Perhaps the reason stems from the history of opposition to Jewish statehood: it was first raised by Arab nationalists and religious Islamic radicals, who opposed Jewish rule on what they had deemed "Arab" soil. This opposition, though prominent in the rhetoric of Palestinian groups like Hamas today,19 is largely unacceptable in Western political discourse. That forces its proponents to reformulate their anti-Israel animus in the more universal language of rights and equality. Still, as convenient a target as it seems, Israel's self-expression as a Jewish state, like the communal identification of any state, has little bearing on questions of rights and equality.
The important point is not whether a state adopts some communal theme but whether it in fact discriminates: Are minority citizens equal under the law? Can they express their own heritage publicly and communally? Do they have the same opportunities for power and representation in the system, even the ability to become the majority? In short, are they first-class citizens?
Israeli Arab citizens are by law equal to Jewish citizens; they enjoy the same rights and are legally protected from discrimination.
For non-Jewish citizens of Israel, the answer to all these questions is "Yes. Unequivocally." Israeli Arab citizens are by law equal to Jewish citizens; they enjoy the same rights and are legally protected from discrimination. Non-Jews enjoy every freedom that democracies recognize, including freedom of worship, the free expression and exercise of religion, equality of financial, material, and employment opportunity, political power, and all legal rights. Indeed, Israel's Declaration of Independence demands nothing less.
According to the Declaration, the Jewish state "will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions." Israel's Arab citizens have, in fact, reached positions on Israel's Supreme Court and have elected powerful parties in the Israeli Knesset that fully participate in Israeli political life.
Some critics of Israel, often with questionable motives, exploit the nature of Israel's parliamentary political system to falsely depict Arab citizens as a vulnerable minority. Indeed they are -- but only inasmuch as all minorities in a parliamentary government that are outside the ruling coalition suffer some disadvantages. Israel contains a lively system of distinct communities living side-by-side, often vying for the same limited supply of the largely socialized national welfare and aid programs. Israeli Arabs, for example, compete with other minorities that do not typically reach the top -- ultra-Orthodox Jews, Russian immigrants, and religious Sephardim. That some of these groups sometimes do better than others does not show discrimination; it simply shows the system at work.
Most important, however, the disadvantages of political minorities in Israel have nothing to do with Israel's ceremonious identification as a Jewish state. Their situation will change if and when Israel transforms itself from a system of proportional representation, with each minority having a party to call its own, into a district-based election system. Many Israelis support such a change, though it has shortcomings, too. But even under the current, imperfect, political reality, Jewish and Arab citizens are equal under the law.
All this is not to deny that Israel has one special mission as a Jewish state -- albeit one that does not affect the rights of its non-Jewish citizens. Israel was built as a haven for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. The legendary Israeli statesman Abba Eban referred to this aspect of Israel as a case of "international affirmative action," because it was designed to correct an inherent disadvantage suffered by a particular group throughout history, which has deprived them of a level playing field. Unfortunately, Jews still need a place of refuge from persecution. For that reason, diaspora Jews deserve the special treatment they receive in this one respect. When the Jewish community of Ethiopia stood defenseless against the onslaught of armed partisans in the 1991 civil war, or when Argentina's Jews became the target of scape-goating and attacks during the recent economic depression, or when Soviet Jews fled Communism, Israel alone opened its doors unconditionally.
For Jews seeking refuge in Israel, the state grants immediate citizenship. Nevertheless, a non-Jew enjoys the same right and opportunity to become a citizen of Israel as any other country offers, including the United States. And once a citizen, he or she enjoys all the rights and privileges granted by Israel's laws and government to the majority of its people, based on a principle of equality now enshrined in the basic law of the country and the fabric of its political culture.
Israeli Rights Versus Palestinian Rights
Still, regardless of the rights that Israel has granted its non-Jewish citizens, critics malign it on different grounds: that Palestinians boast a stronger claim for national sovereignty over the same land. This claim needs to be examined separately. In particular, was there, prior to Israel's establishment, a distinct Palestinian nationalism vying for its own separate place in the land?
The Palestinian Arabs originally saw themselves in the early 20th century as part of a greater Arab national movement. For much of the first half of the last century Arab states sought to unify as they supported various schemes for Arab unity. In Arabic there are, in fact, two terms for nationalism: qawmiyah -- loyalty to the Arab nation as a whole, and wataniyah -- loyalty to the local country in which one resides. For decades, qawmiyah was far more predominant for Palestinian Arabs.
For example, Bernard Lewis has written that while the Palestinian Arabs had a growing sense of identity with their struggle against Jewish immigration in the 1930s, still "their basic sense of corporate historic identity was, at different levels, Muslim or Arab or -- for some -- Syrian; it is significant that even by the end of the Mandate in 1948, after 30 years of separate Palestinian political existence, there were virtually no books in Arabic on the history of Palestine."20
Moreover, the 1947 Partition Plan still described the Palestinians as "Arabs" and called for an "Arab state" in Palestine alongside of a Jewish state. In May 1956, Ahmad Shuqairy, who would found the PLO eight years later, stated before the UN Security Council: "it is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."21 In the early 1960s, many Palestinians looked to Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser as their leader as much as to any Palestinian. And there was no active movement of the Palestinians to separate the West Bank from Jordan or the Gaza Strip from Egypt to form a unique Palestinian state prior to 1967. Today, a third source of loyalty is emerging among Palestinian Arabs connected to Hamas or Islamic Jihad -- loyalty to the Islamic nation or umma. Hamas, after all, is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with pan-Islamic ambitions.
Still, Israel recognizes that a unique Palestinian national identity exists today. But given its historical background, it is impossible to show that Palestinian nationalism has a claim to the Land of Israel superior to that of the Jews.
In the future, whatever Palestinian political entity emerges from part of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it very well might decide to federate with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 10 or 20 years, where a Palestinian majority already exists. In the Balkans, for example, it is difficult for Europeans to predict the future of Bosnia or Kosovo. Will their populations seek to unify with states containing the same ethnic makeup, so that Croats in Bosnia will merge with Croatia, while Kosovars will seek to unite with Albania? The same long-term question applies to the Palestinian territories after Arafat.
The Continuing Need for Jewish Statehood
Regardless, a uniquely Jewish democratic society will continue to exist in Israel, where it will serve as a vital refuge for Jews facing anti-Semitism from France, Russia, South America, or Yemen. Israel remains the only country that allows unconditional Jewish immigration. In a few years Israel will comprise the largest Jewish community in the world. Only the army of the Jewish people, the Israel Defense Forces, can protect that community.
Some now argue that Jews no longer face the existential threats that anti-Semitism once posed. It is even suggested that today's anti-Semitism is caused, not counteracted, by Israeli policy. But the recent experiences of Jews in Ethiopia, Argentina, and across Europe, along with the vile slurs about world Jewry on the part of Islamic leaders like Malaysia's Mohammed Mahathir, give lie to such euphoria. Anti-Semitism has existed for centuries, well before the rise of the State of Israel. Indeed, it could be argued that it is not the reality of Israeli policy that is causing the new anti-Semitism, but rather the prejudices of European editors who feature difficult anti-Israeli photographs, out of context, as lead news items, while downgrading serious cases of massacre, such as on the continent of Africa.
Today, world leaders are willing to admit that the harsh critique that Israel receives can be traced to older, anti-Semitic roots. For example, the president of the European Commission, Roman Prodi -- commenting on a new opinion poll showing that Israel is the country regarded by most ordinary Europeans as a threat to world peace -- said the results "point to the continued existence of a bias that must be condemned out of hand," and "to the extent that this may indicate a deeper, more general prejudice against the Jewish world, our repugnance is even more radical."22
There is even a new strain of anti-Semitism that has emerged in the radical opposition to globalization, which now targets Jews as a kind of transnational economic force and, in chillingly familiar terms, blames them for economic upheaval. The anti-Semitic threat, unfortunately, is alive and well.
Not only is Jewish security at stake but so is Jewish continuity. Throughout Jewish history, national independence was perceived as a condition for Jewish self-fulfillment.23 Redemption was tied to the idea of return. For that reason, the re-birth of Israel strengthened Jewish identity. A reversal of Jewish independence would clearly have the opposite effect. As things stand, Jewish creativity in the future will come increasingly out of Israel, as the Jewish state emerges as the primary center of Jewish life. Just as the Jewish people of the diaspora once contributed to the growth of modern civilization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it will be Jewish civilization in Israel that will be the key source of the Jewish contribution to world society in the twenty-first century. A strong Jewish state is essential for protecting the continuity of Jewish identity and its place in world affairs.
* * *
1. Tony Judt, "Israel: The Alternative," New York Review of Books, vol. 50, no. 16, October 23, 2003.
2. Lawrence Marzouk, "UK Media Blasted Over Israel," Barnet & Potters Bar Times (UK), October 29, 2003; http://www.barnettimes.co.uk/features/newsfeatures/display.var.427956.0.uk_media_blasted_over_israel.php
3. Ruth Gavison, "On the Jewish Right to Sovereignty," Azure, Summer 2003.
4. Address by Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 1998, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0h3f0
5. Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World (New York: Bantam, 1993), pp. 14-15. For the sake of historical perspective, one would do well to consider Ben-Gurion's first premise, the title deeds of the Jews to this land, which he presented on January 7, 1937, to the Peel Commission:
"I say on behalf of the Jews that the Bible is our Mandate, the Bible which was written by us, in our own language, in Hebrew, in this very country. That is our Mandate. It was only recognition of this right which was expressed in the Balfour Declaration."
6. Bernard Lewis, "The Palestinians and the PLO, A Historical Approach," Commentary, January 1975: 32.
7. Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (New York: Norton, 1999), p. 164.
8. Arie Morgenstern, "Dispersion and the Longing for Zion, 1240-1840," Azure, Winter 2002.
9. Ibid.
10. Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons) p. 26.
11. Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 349.
12. Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations, pp. 38-40.
13. Palestine: A Study of Jewish, Arab, and British Policies (New Haven: Yale University Press and Esco Foundation for Palestine, Inc., 1947), v. 1, pp. 463-464.
14. Joseph Alpher, "Israel and the Palestinians: What Everyone Should Know About the Conflict," Reform Judaism, Fall 2002, vol. 31, no. 1.
15. Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations, p. 36.
16. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, "Graffiti on History's Walls," U.S. News & World Report, November 3, 2003.
17. Judt, "Israel: The Alternative."
18. Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, Why the Jews? (New York: Touchstone, 2003), p. 170.
19. "Hamas Leaders Vow to Press Fight Against Israel," Washington Post, Briefs (December 27, 1999), p. A16.
20. Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semite, p. 186.
21. Harris O. Schoenberg, Mandate for Terror: The United Nations and the PLO (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1989), p. 59.
22. Ed O'Loughlin, "Europe Apologizes to Israel for Poll, The Age (Australia), November 5, 2003.
23. Marvin Fox, "Jewish Power and Jewish Responsibility," in Daniel J. Elazar, ed., Jewish Education and Jewish Statesmanship (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1996), p. 60.


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Norman's Lindsey Street plans: A balance between form and function
Citizens voice concerns over new ideas for busy roadway
Coming and going, seven days a week, the Lindsey Street that Tim Sweatte grew up with has come a long way.
"It was paved," smiled Sweatte. "But there was just so much dirt on it that it looked like a dirt road."
Those dirt road days are gone. More than 20,000 drivers crowd Lindsey's lanes everyday.
Many of those drivers stop by Sweatte's family-owned Classics 50's Drive-In for the award-winning shakes.
"It is the most congested corridor in the Oklahoma City metro," said Norman Public Works Director Shawn O'Leary.
The city's solution came in a 2012 bond package. Voters approved a Lindsey renovation, which turned two lanes into four and added a turn lane from Interstate 35 to Berry Road.
Now, the only problem is another idea is starting to change a few minds.
Tuesday evening at Norman City Hall, residents voiced their concerns for the first time.
"We will not be very happy if you're doing anything that is going to impact that community," said one man.
"We'd like to see a single round-a-bout at Berry Road," said another concerned citizen.
The real discussion has become finding a balance between form and function. A new plan for a tree lined divided road now competes with the original, but costs more. Meanwhile, the city of Norman wants to move quickly, starting construction by 2015 when O-Dot begins renovations on the Lindsey Street interchange.
As for Sweatte, he just hopes the decision isn't rushed. "I think everybody should just stop and take a breath and look at the big picture," smiled Sweatte. "If we can do it and make it beautify Lindsey it's going to bring more traffic."
More traffic, he hopes leads to a sweeter future for everyone.


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NASHVILLE, TENN. - Running back Trabis Ward, tight end A.C. Leonard and offensive lineman Rogers Gaines were selected to the 2012 BOXTOROW HBCU All-American Team on Monday.
Ward was second amongst all HBCU players in rushing (1,422) and led all HBCU players in rushing touchdowns (15), while leading all FCS rushers in carries (309). He averaged 4.6 yards per carry and rushed for more than 100 yards in nine games including six-straight.
Leonard, in his first season with TSU after transferring from Florida, was the tight end selection after catching 51 passes for 733 yards and six touchdowns in 10 games. The 733 yards were the most by a tight end at the FCS level this year and was the fourth most throughout all four divisions of college football (FBS, FCS, D-II and D-III). He led all HBCU tight ends in receptions, yards, yards per reception (14.4) and touchdowns.
Left tackle Gaines was a part of a TSU offensive line that led the Ohio Valley Conference in rushing at
175.7 yards per game. The senior did not give up a sack all season and graded out at a 93.6.
Offensive lineman Kadeem Edwards and cornerback Steven Godbolt III were Honorable Mention selections. Godbolt picked off six passes in 10 games to finish first nationally in interceptions per game (0.60). He had two separate streaks during the 2012 season of three consecutive games with an interception.
The breakdown in representation from the conferences includes nine from the SWAC, six from the CIAA, five from the MEAC, four from the SIAC, and three from Tennessee State (OVC).
TSU finished the season 8-3, the most wins in an 11 game season since 2001.
Follow TSU Athletics on Facebook.com/TSUTigers, Twitter @TSU_Tigers and YouTube


text:
A festival
for mules
Clark County Mule Festival, Kahoka
Jim McCarty
Perhaps the best known symbol
of Missouri is the mule. If you are one of a growing number of mule
fans the place to go this month is Kahoka in Missouri's most
northeastern county.
On Sept. 18 and 19 Clark County will play host to as many as 10,000
mule lovers during the annual Clark County Mule Festival. With them
will come hundreds of mules, including the sorrel mule on our cover
and the baby at left which are owned by Becki Krueger of Medill.
The festival actually began when the Lewis and Clark Commerce Expedition
formed in Lewis and Clark counties to market crafts. Putting crafts
together with mules, the group hosted the first mule festival in 1986.
While crafts and a flea market are regular features of the festival,
most people come to see the mules and the wild antics of those who
love them.
Events at the mule festival leave spectators laughing. One event requires
two people to climb on the back of a mule facing opposite directions.
They then have to trade places without falling off. Mule polo, played
with brooms and a giant beach ball, is another festival staple.
A trail ride, mule pulling, team penning and roping, costume contest
and mule jumping are also among the events. Except for the rodeo, admission
is free.
For more information contact Becki at (660) 727-3295 or Mike Schantz
at (660) 866-2330. You can also log on to http://clarkcountymulefestival.tophonors.com.


text:
Runa Bhattacharjee
I am the Language Maintainer for Fedora Bengali-India and also an active contributor to the Gnome Translation Project and Mozilla. Currently, I work at Red Hat and am based at Pune, India.
I hang around at various IRC channels on freenode with the nick Nick:mishti or Nick:runa_b. I am member of ilug-cal [Lug Calcutta] and the Bengali l10n community group Ankur Bangla . Also I am part of Gnome-Women and Indian LinuxChix.
The address to reach me is: runab at fedoraproject dawt com


text:
Bob Hummer book
Talk about what is being written in other magic publications.
3 posts • Page 1 of 1
- Posts: 5421
- Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
- Location: Huntsville, AL
Bob Hummer book
My copy of the Fulves book, Bob Hummer's Collected Secrets (2nd edition), jumps from page 87 to 89. The text looks like there is nothing missing -- it flows smoothly from one page to the next. Is this just a numbering mistake? Does anyone else's copy do this?
- Steve Bryant
- Posts: 1909
- Joined: January 17th, 2008, 12:00 pm
- Favorite Magician: Ballantine
- Location: Bloomington IN
- Contact:
Re: Bob Hummer book
Mine jumps as well, but, as you noted, the text flows smoothly, so there seems to be no missing information.
- Richard Kaufman
- Posts: 25647
- Joined: July 18th, 2001, 12:00 pm
- Favorite Magician: Theodore DeLand
- Location: Washington DC
- Contact:
Re: Bob Hummer book
Does the number 88 have any significance in the world of Hummer?
Subscribe today to Genii Magazine
3 posts • Page 1 of 1


text:
In English, "to encourage" seems to have at least two uses:
to suggest that someone should do something (e.g. "He encouraged me to find a new guitar teacher.")
to give confidence or hope to someone (e.g. "In a rough time of life, he was always there to encourage me when I was feeling down." or "It's really encouraging to see how you've grown over the past year.")
How can these senses be translated to Spanish? As far as I know, there are at least three words in Spanish: alentar, animar, and fomentar. What is the difference between them?
Also, what about the noun form (encouragement) or the adjective form (encouraging)?


text:
Its obvious I travel a lot. I also like languages. One of the big regrets I had while living in Turkey is that I did not learn Turkish better.
During the bits of time I study a bit on various languages I notice interesting facts. I debated if I should notate them anywhere, and someone suggested I should make a Russian language blog, and others said it should be a comedy routine. Some day maybe I will do something bigger, but for now I've decided to augment the travel blog with interesting observations about different languages I am studying.
In fact, here is one I posted about Chinese last year.
<< Previous Entry Next Entry >>
Use my contact form to contact me directly.


text:
How Search Engines Work
It all starts with Crawling
There are various definitions of deep web. We'll focus on a couple that are relevant to your research work.
Many people think when you enter a search in a search engine, like Google or Yahoo, the search goes out on the entire internet and looks for your terms.
Not so.
When you use a search engine you're really just searching that search engine's database of web sites. To build their databases, all search engines send out little programs called bots or spiders. These programs search, or crawl, the internet looking for web sites to add to their databases.
Spiders can easily crawl "static" web pages, like this tutorial site. Static pages basically means you don't have to perform a search to get to the information -- it's right there on the page.
But there's a second kind of information on the web. Some web pages access information stored in databases. The information on these web pages is created when you interact with the web page, such as entering information in a search box. These web pages are called dynamic or database-driven web pages.


text:
3 has launched what it believes is the next generation in Wi-fi routers - portable devices that turn a 3G signal into Wi-Fi for all to enjoy.
The MiFi device is smaller than most mobile phones, measuring just 86 x 45 x 10mm and allows you to create a personal internet connection. This means multiple PCs can enjoy the mobile broadband speeds, and also Wi-Fi only devices can connect up too.
All that's needed is a 3G signal for the modem to work, which is battery powered as well, making it the industry's first mobile Wi-Fi router.
3G to Wi-Fi - again
This isn't the first 3G-to-Wi-Fi router the world has seen, as 3 also released a similar device, the D100, at the tail end of last year. However, this one was mains powered and couldn't be carted around town.
The new device will be launched close to Christmas in the UK, and is sure to rival the Buzz Lightyear / Teletubbies / Wii Fit (whatever's big these days) at the top of kids' wishlist.
Pricing has yet to be announced, but we're hoping all the pretty lights on top of the MiFi device are actually some kind of clever game too. (NB - we've spoken to 3, and they're not.)


text:
Listings in Hair Salon, Churches, Dessert, Pharmacy, Shop Locally and Open 24 Hours
McFarlain's Family Restaurant
in Steak, Soups/Salads, Dessert, Breakfast/Brunch, American
Come hungry… McFarlain's in the IMAX Complex features hearty meals.
3562 Shepherd of the Hills Exp
Branson 65616
Hurts Donuts
in Open 24 Hours, Fast Food/Fast Casual, Coffee House/Tea Room/Donut Shop
Hurts Donuts - Open 25 hours 8 days a week Gourmet Donuts, fritters, and more.
1580 W 76 Country Blvd
Branson 65616
Jigglin' George
in Shop Locally
673 Hwy 165, Bldg #7
Branson 65616
The Victorian Village
in Shop Locally
3044 Shepherd of the Hills Expy
Branson 65616
Sugar Leaf Bakery & Cafe
in Vegetarian/Vegan, Soups/Salads, Sandwiches/Subs/Grinders/Hoagies, Dessert, Coffee House/Tea Room/Donut Shop, Breakfast/Brunch, Bakery
Sugar Leaf Bakery & Cafe in the Grand Village Shoppes, where you will find some of Branson's best cakes and cookies, and hearty and savory cuisine!
2800 W 76 Country Blvd
Branson 65616
Cakes 'n' Creams 50's Diner & Dessert Parlor
in Dessert
Blast back to the past when you visit "Cakes 'n' Creams 50's Diner & Dessert Parlor," serving up fun and funnel cakes in Branson for more than 30 years!
2805 W 76 Country Blvd
Branson 65616
Mr. B's Ice Cream Parlor & Deli
in Ice Cream/Frozen Custard/Frozen Yogurt, Sandwiches/Subs/Grinders/Hoagies, Dessert
"Mr. B's Ice Cream Parlor & Deli" has been a corner fixture in historic Downtown Branson for years!
102 S. 2ndStreet
Branson 65616
Steak 'n Shake - Highway 376
in Open 24 Hours, Sandwiches/Subs/Grinders/Hoagies, Hamburgers/Hot Dogs/Wings, Fast Food/Fast Casual
"Steak 'n Shake," located just off Highway 76 on 376 in Branson, is ideal for a meal any time of day; they're open 24 hours!
1386 Highway 376
Branson 65616
Vintage Paris Coffee & Wine Cafe
in Dessert, Coffee House/Tea Room/Donut Shop
"Vintage Paris Coffee & Wine Cafe" in downtown Hollister doesn't serve just any old coffee, it's uniquely different from any other coffee you'll find.
260 Birdcage Walk
Hollister 65672
Kaffee Haus at Branson's Center Stage
in Gluten-Free, Dessert, Coffee House/Tea Room/Donut Shop, Bakery
Enjoy handcrafted coffee, teas, lemonade, and also entice your taste buds with a little something sweet!
1810 W 76 Country Blvd
Branson 65616


text:
Will the Republican Party's 2012 national rout have an impact? Will it become more a moderate (excuse the "dirty" word) conservative party that tries to inch back to George W. Bush's stated goal of a more "compassionate conservatism" that would appeal to growing, Democratic-inclined demographics? As Tony Soprano said: "Fuhgeddaboudit!"
Amid signs of looming Republican political civil war between purity-demanding conservative activists and a political establishment that seeks to enlarge the party's current perceived "MEMBERS ONLY" tent, there seems to be a race among Republicans to prove who has the least empathy and who will be tougher, no matter what the consequences (to groups that don't vote overwhelming Republican).
Ronald Reagan's smiling "Shining City On the Hill" has been replaced by a scowling "You Give Us What We Want or We'll Level that Hill."
Sen. Lindsay Graham blasts President Barack Obama's nomination of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as an "in your face nomination," but the reality is this: to millions of Americans, today's Republican Party has become the 24/7 "in-your-face" political party.
Many American independents, centrists, moderates and 20th century style conservatives are now in a state of near political grief. They sadly watch as a party that offered substantive alternatives to govern is morphing into a political party seemingly in a state of perpetual filibuster, seeking ways to provoke political brinksmanship, looking for ways to confront – while appearing to kowtow to its most ideologically intolerant rightward faction and polarizing conservative talk show hosts.
A government shutdown? Give us what we want, or it's about time we had another one (forget about the chaos it'd mean to not just the government but government services, funding and to millions of Americans). Default on the debt limit? Slash spending the way we want or those bills won't be paid – and it won't be as bad as you "libruls" think and might event help the country (forget about the wide variety of experts, including conservative economists, who predict it'd be catastrophic to the American and world economies).
The problem for the GOP is that its courage-challenged politicians won't stand up to the Tea Party, so the soggy tea bag is waving the elephant. According to Rasmussen, only 8 percent of voters now say they are members of the Tea Party, down from a high of 24 percent in April 2010. The Tea Party now has a limp 30 percent favorable rating and an unhealthy 45 percent unfavorable rating.
Some traditional conservatives are increasingly alarmed by the nihilistic tone of their party and they're speaking out. For instance, conservative blogger Doug Mataconis writes that his party now offers two choices: "Either the nation moves in the direction that those who advocate it want it to, or it burns. There's no room for compromise, no room for debate other than on the terms already set. This is not the philosophy of a party that wants to govern, and it's not the philosophy of a party that is going to last for an extended period of time in its present form. It is, in the end, a philosophy of anarchism in which one really doesn't care what happens."
Hint to the GOP: If politics ain't bean ball, the debt ceiling ain't the fiscal cliff. It's the fiscal Grand Canyon. The debt ceiling is where craven political gamesmanship and blatant partisan power-plays can shove the United States and the world into a major financial setback.
If that happens, then in future national elections all of Rush Limbaugh's listeners and all of the Tea Party's activists won't be able put the tea-guzzling Elephant Dumpty back together again.
Joe Gandelman is a veteran journalist who wrote for newspapers overseas and in the United States. He has appeared on cable news show political panels and is Editor-in-Chief of The Moderate Voice, an Internet hub for independents, centrists and moderates. CNN's John Avlon named him as one of the top 25 Centrists Columnists and Commentators. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com
Will the Republican Party's 2012 national rout have an impact? Will it become more a moderate (excuse the "dirty" word) conservative party that tries to inch back to George W. Bush's stated goal of a more "compassionate conservatism" that would appeal to growing, Democratic-inclined demographics? As Tony Soprano said: "Fuhgeddaboudit!"


text:
The goal of the challenge is similar to the Warping Core challenges, except the crystal is a "portal" with numbered lives, and the only enemies are Spiders.
In this challenge, there are no crystals to defend, but a portal that teleports to different locations on the map. The portal has a set number of lives, represented as health points, depending on the difficulty. Once the portal health reaches 0, it's game over. Portal health differs by difficulty.
For each spider that makes it into the Portal, the Portal's health goes down by 1.
Portal Health
- Easy: 16 Health
- Medium: 12 Health
- Hard: 8 Health
- Insane: 6 Health
- Nightmare: 6 Health
PC Nightmare Solo
Build a combination of Lightning Towers, Proximity Mine and Deadly Striker Towers at each portal location. Due to the staggered nature of spider spawns, the ability of the Lightning Towers to chain stun spiders across a large attack range will be your main stopping force here. Setup ensnare auras in key pathways leading to portal locations to prevent spiders from lunging through your portal.
Console Medium
Build many Magic Missile Towers around spots of the map on the sides of the paths, so spiders cannot or can hardly get behind them.
You can also build the Magic Missile Towers in a way such that they cover each other's blind spots, so they can defend themselves while you finish off any Spiders that come close to the portal.
If you have some Defense Units left over, you can build Electric Auras in choke points. Spiders that are immune to electricity will most likely be killed by the Magic Missile Towers.
Another way for a good set up is to put Electric Auras everywhere. Then put Inferno Traps everywhere. Spiders that are immune to electricity will most likely be killed by Inferno Trap. Spiders that are immune to Fire will most likely be killed by Electric Auras. Tip: A good way to kill spiders is to have a splash damage gun such as Crystal Tracker, Shai Hulud, etc.
Console Hard
As a Squire you can build Slice N Dices' on and or around the area where spiders drop spawn. To view where the spiders drop spawn, tap the left bumper on your controller to pull up the mini map; from here you'll be able to see randomly drop spawned spiders on your map. This is where placement should be. As mentioned above you can build the aforementioned defense units to create "choke points" at the main spawn points. Works well in conjunction with a Monks Ensnare Trap. Also the portal moves around the map, like warping core. Enjoy.
Enemy Spawns & Portal Teleportations
The areas in red and green are the enemy spawn points.The areas in white and blue are the portal teleporation points.
|Recommended Level: 60
|Challenge Information
|Number of Crystals
|Number of Waves
|Defense Units
|Starting Mana
|Mana Per Round
|Spawn List


text:
Secretary of State — State of California
Access additional information about this contest in the tabs in this section. For most screenreaders, you can hit Return or Enter to enter a tab and read the content within.
About this office
Head of elections and record keeping: Coordinates statewide elections and oversees election laws. Also keeps records about new corporations and businesses and other state databases.
For this office, only the two candidates who get the most votes in the primary election advance to the general election. The two candidates may be from the same political party.
News and links
California Secretary of State candidates talk election security — October 30, 2018 KCRA 3
Mark P. Meuser, candidate for California secretary of state, on the issues — October 30, 2018 San Diego Union-Tribune
Meet the Candidates: California Secretary of State — October 25, 2018 Winter's Express
Alex Padilla, Mark Meuser run for California secretary of state — October 17, 2018 Daily Californian
— September 28, 2018 Cal Channel and the League of Women Voters of California
— September 28, 2018 Cal Channel and the League of Women Voters of California
You can vote for 1 of these 2 candidates.
Alex Padilla
California Secretary of State
Top 3 Priorities
- Protecting voting rights
- Supporting California jobs and small businesses
- Increasing campaign finance transparency
Mark P. Meuser
Constitutional and Election Law Attorney
Top 3 Priorities
- Clean up California's bloated voter rolls. California...
- Cancel from the voter rolls those who are not eligible...
- Update California's business registration system so...


text:
20 years deep in the game, Nas returns on the cover of XXL. Issue hits newsstands on October 25. This Cover was designed by Mister Cartoon.
"God's Son is my favorite album by you," Tyler said. "And my second is probably Street's Disciple," he continued.
Awkward and quirky exchanges aside, the discussion quickly picked up with the 20-year-old Tyler asking Nas for advice.
Read more after the jump
"You, Em, Jay, Snoop, like, you guys all started when you was exactly my age," Tyler said. "The fact that you guys are still here makes me just always think, like, Fuck, could I?"
"Oh, you definitely can," Nas replied. "Someone like you is, you're interesting, for a lot of reasons. So someone like you, you can't wait to see what's next."


text:
How many evening diner,CMEoid sessions included the chant, "treat to goal,treat to goal" in regard to blood sugar. As with LDl cholesterol-the goal just kept getting lower and lower.
The DPPT study seemed to provide very good evidence that the microvascular complications of type 1 diabetes could be significantly mitigated by "good"control of blood sugar.Later a follow up report from that landmark trial also provided some reasonable evidence that perhaps macrovascular disease could also be decreased.
There has been the hope that we could accomplish the same thing with the complications of type 2 diabetes by a similar surge of intensive treatment aimed at bringing about near normoglycemia. Would that life and disease and managing disease were so simple.
The UKPDS trial was-and to date is the only large trial with more or less the medications that are now used-that tried to examine whether tighter control of blood glucose would do for the type 2 diabetic patients what the DPPT trial showed that it did for type 1 patients.
The DPPT was a fairly simple trial. There were patients with a disease that seemed fairly homogenous and has relatively straightforward pathophysiology , i.e insulin lack from the get go and the treatment intervention was simply more insulin. On the other hand, the UKPDS trial involved several treatment arms and greater heterogeneity of comorbid conditions in the subjects as well as more variation in the the tempo of the various pathophysiological disturbances and the pathophysiology of type 2 is much more complex than in type 1.
With trials with more complicated conditions and multiple treatment arms there is greater likelihood of chance and confounding and various biases clouding the results. Clouded results or not the UKPDS became a major element in the argument to treat to lower blood glucose value in type 2 diabetes. The results of the UKPDS were not earth moving but were encouraging. There was some decrease in blood vessel disease on retinal exam and some decrease in the rate of progression of urinary protein leak but no change in renal failure or blindness or clinical manifestations of macrovascular disease. The benefit in terms of reduction of retinal microvascular and perhaps renal disease was arguably balanced by an almost four fold increase in serious hypoglycemia episodes ( 0.6% per year versus 2.3%). The former effect was emphasized and the later effect was not in the 2002 position paper from the American diabetes Association from which a lot of the enthusiasm for tight control arose. A somewhat less optimistic assessment of the UKPDS trial is offered here by Dr. Roy Poses and fits more with my ever increasingly cynical nature.
Now fast forward to the ACCORD trial . Here is the announcement of the cancellation of the intensive treatment arm of this large randomized trial. This was supposed to be the trial that would answer-among other questions- the question "can we decrease the macrovascular events associated with type 2 diabetes with intensive blood glucose control ?" Here the treatment goal was a HbA1C of less than 6 %, i.e. basically normal.
However,there were more overall deaths in the intensive treatment arm than in the standard treatment arm. Of those intensively treated about 1/2 had hemoglobin A1C values of less than 6.4 while in the standard treatment arm 1/2 had value less than 7.5. The mortality increase was certainly not what the investigators likely expected.The overall death rate was reported as 20% higher but there were actually fewer heart attacks in the intensive treatment arm but of those there was a higher mortality. So what is happening to cause increase mortality? The NIH announced their analysis so far has not determined what factor(s) are to blame.
Is this simply a matter of getting the glucose too low? Maybe, but an early report from the trial claimed that the excess mortality was not related to hypoglycemia although there were expectedly more hypoglycemia episodes in the intensive treatment group. Also the NIH reports the analysis so indicates no link to the use of any particular medication ,e.g. rosiglitazone.
Dr RW suggested that excessive insulin use may really be the culprit though not necessarily by precipitating hypoglycemia episodes but by fueling weight gain and the metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Other suggestions have been made,see here for references, including the stress placed on patients to achieve a difficult therapeutic goal and the theory that too rapid decrease in blood glucose might have played a role.
Dr. Steven Pinker has written extensively and eloquently about the human mind's mysterious and marvelous workings and has discussed how the human mind can see events in different frames. I'll bet that we be seeing the results of this trial (so far we have only a snippet of the results) spun this way and that. But deaths are not a surrogate measure and the major observation of more deaths with intensive treatment may well shift the momentum of diabetic treatment from "lower is better" to "well maybe not too low" and maybe " not necessarily the same target for everyone". A number of doctor bribe programs (A.K.A. pay for performance ) are keyed to hemoglobin A1C levels .Will we see those third party payers whose interests are claimed to be in improving quality of care quickly revise their guidelines?
Physicians want better treatments for their patients and they want results of promising treatments to be true. That desire to do good for their patients coupled with big pharma funded hype often aided by a shinny veneer pasted on by academic and other thought leaders can really energize therapeutic exuberance that may have a much less robust evidentiary base that we were lead to believe.Treating to a goal or treating the numbers can make clinical life seem simpler, sometimes too simple.
First, we find out that maybe we were giving to much EPO, and then maybe lower LDL per se is not better and now more insulin may be too much of a good thing (haven't we known that for a long time?). It is a good thing we quasi- codified all or some of those things into guidelines and pay-for-compliance programs otherwise we might not have had a chance to use them before we decided there weren't really a great idea after all. I remember as house officers we used to talk about the patient dying but the electrolytes were in balance.
Featured Post
Is the new professionalism and ACP's new ethics really just about following guidelines?
The Charter ( Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium.A Physician's Charter) did not deal with just the important relationship of ...
Monday, February 11, 2008
More crumbling dogma ? -this time lower and lower blood sugar is better
2 comments:
- Roy M. Poses MD said...
Great post!
Actually, our post on the ACCORD results is here:
- james gaulte said...
I am going to have to practice on getting my links right.
sorry and thanks for the correct link.
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Life changing quinoa avocado bread buns
Last week I had the crazy idea to experiment with flour-less bread. On a Friday of all days. Why did I have such crazy thoughts on a weekend (or almost weekend) day? Well, it's quite simple, I was craving some bread (or bread like product), did not want to buy it, I wanted to make something myself and wanted it to be a fast and easy endeavour.
My go to ingredient of choice was quinoa. For a snippet of its benefits, read this.
Yes, I know, I've been using quinoa so much in all sorts of recipes lately that I should probably rename the blog 'TalesofQuinoa'. Hmm. Anywho, after browsing the world wide web I stumbled upon quite few recipes. Seems making quinoa bread is not that original of an idea? Be still my ego. But the recipes I browsed called for cooking quinoa first, then proceed to making the bread. While that is still easy and still on my To Try list, on this particular occasion I wanted something that would not take as much time. Something under 30 minutes, with no more than 5 minutes of active involvement. Or thereabouts. No kneading the dough, no waiting for it to rise. Quick, easy and nutritious.
I find the quinoa buns that I ended up with simply gorgeous. They're dense (as expected, since no flour, no kneading, no significant rising), flavoursome and so filling! And when toasted, try to limit your intake to just one. Impossible. Especially when topped, dipped, layered with more goodness. Not that you'd need suggestions on how to serve your bread, but I really need to tell you they made awesome burger style buns, especially with mushrooms and sweet potato. They are also awesome with lentils stewed in tomato sauce, topped with cashew aioli and hot chili sauce. Awesome with avocado, lemon and pepper. Awesome in a naughty way too, when topped with strawberry jam, walnuts and chia seeds.
I feel this wonderful recipe can be improved in so many ways! I look forward to play with it some more and to share any recipe variations worth sharing. I also look forward for you to try them and let me know what you think and what improvements you come up with to make them even more gorgeous.
Now, who's keen to try them?!
Life changing quinoa avocado bread buns
- 300 gr whole quinoa
- 200 gr almond meal
- 2 TBSP ground linseed
- 2 TBSP sesame seeds
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch sea salt flakes
- 1 avocado
- 1 lime, zest and juice
- 1 TBSP honey or maple syrup
- 190 ml water
- Preheat the oven to 170C and line a tray with baking paper.
- Add quinoa to a blender and whiz until you get it to a flour consistency.
- In a bowl, mix quinoa, almond meal, linseed, sesame seeds, sea salt and baking powder.
- In a separate bowl, peel and mash the avocado. Add lime zest and juice, honey and water and mix.
- Add the avocado water mix to the dry ingredients and mix well by hand for 2-3 minutes until you got a sticky, firm dough.
- Shape 7 balls out of the dough, slightly flatten them (not too much though) and place them in the baking paper, making sure they don't touch.
- Bake for around 25 minutes. Check them after about 15 minutes and if the bottom browns more than the top, turn them over for the remaining time. To check if they're done, poke 2-3 of them with a BBQ skewer and if it comes out clean and if the outside is golden brown, they're done .
- Allow them to completely cool before cutting.
Because I love quinoa and have been using it in so many of my dishes, including baking these beautiful buns repeatedly over the past year or making healthy donuts with it, I thought best to revisit this article and write a little troubleshooting guide to cooking with quinoa. Because it is really tasty and nutritious and I think everyone should make friends with it. Hope this helps!
- I bought my regular whole quinoa brand the other day and a new never-tried-before quinoa flour and set about to bake two batches of these buns. My conclusion: buy whole quinoa, not quinoa flour. The buns I baked with homemade flour from my usual brand of whole quinoa were as beautiful as always. The buns I baked with store bought quinoa flour were yuk and bitter.
- Quinoa has lots of fats which means it will go rancid after some time if it's ground to a flour consistency. Same as with nuts. Same as with linseed/flax seeds. Fact: you don't know how long that quinoa flour has been sitting on the shelf and although it might be well within its use by date and safe to eat, it might not be very palatable, might be bitter and yuk and produce bitter and yuk baked products.
- Also, quinoa is by itself a grassy, bitter grain, even in its whole form. BUT all whole quinoa available for purchase should be prewashed, ready and safe for you to eat. By commercial prewashing, the outer layer that gives quinoa it's bitterness should be removed. BUT again, not all companies are doing a good job at this prewashing bit. If there is a brand of quinoa that you have been buying and cooking whit regularly without washing and it's nice and nutty and yummy, you can go ahead and use that, make it into flour and it should be tasty. If you're buying quinoa for the first time and haven't tried that brand before in any type of cooking, I would recommend either you wash the whole batch (soak it for 24 hours, changing water once halfway) and then dry it back if you wish to make flour. An oven at low temp or dehydrator would do the job. Or you can also spread it out on a tea towel and let it air dry if you wish. You can also cook a handful of whole quinoa and see if it's bitter, but this might cause a bit of waste if it wasn't washed properly.
- If you can only get your hands on quinoa flour and not the whole quinoa grain, you can still purchase that if you want but you will need to roast the flour. Sounds weird, but it will remove the bitterness and turn the flour into it's yummy, nutty best. There's few ways to do it:
- you can use your oven on the lowest temp or your dehydrator on the highest temp and spread the quinoa flour (up to 1 kg) on a baking sheet in a uniform layer. You can do it at 100C for about 2-3 hours (mix it every half hour to make sure it doesn't burn)
- you can also do it at 150C for about 1 hour, mixing it every 20 minutes to make sure it doesn't burn
- you can also do it the speedy way in a skillet over low heat. You can only do about half cup – 1 cup at a time, depending on the size of your skillet.
Because this is more time consuming, I'd recommend doing the whole bag of quinoa flour at a time, then store it in the freezer or other cool dry place.
- Another thing that comes to mind is you could toast the whole guinoa grain in a skillet until it smells nutty and gets a golden color. Let it cool, then turn it into flour and use. I am yet to try this method.
- Baking stage. If you find that after 20-25 minutes your buns are not cooked in the middle, but seem golden on the outside, there two things to look at: maybe you made them a little too big or oven temperature was a little bit higher. Not a problem either way. Cover the buns with al foil so they stop browning on the outside and continue to cook them until done. Please know that these are not soft, spongy breads, like the white bread type of buns. They're small, dense, nutty and filling. They should not be hard as a rock though – end result is a dense bread, but very easy to bite into, even when toasted.
- If you have already made the buns, didn't read this troubleshooting guide before baking and they did turn out bitter, try cutting the buns in half lengthways and grilling them. It should remove almost all the bitterness and make them yummy.
Really hope this helps you! x
SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel here, for quick 60 seconds video recipes.
All plant based whole foods.


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Often considered the quintessential American neighborhood, Highland Park was created to be a respite from the stresses of early 19th century life. The town is known for the nationally recognized Highland Park Independent School District, whose alumni include actress Angie Harmon, baseball great Clayton Kershaw, and NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford and others.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
Rich in history and legacy, University Park is home to SMU, considered the "Ivy of the South" and a great place for kids to attend summer camps and athletic events. Kids go to the nationally recognized Highland Park Independent Schools, and there are more than 20 parks and practice fields. Homes range from quaint cottage styles to large estates.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
Appreciated for its winding streets, multi-acre lots, private lakes and distinct architecture, Preston Hollow is home to many of Dallas' business, arts and political influencers. The area is just six miles from Downtown. In the 1930's it became a popular location for people who wanted extra acreage for horses and stables. Today, Preston Hollow is renowned for its landmark mansions and rural feel with tree-lined streets that offer both privacy and a sense of community.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
Bluffview is an upscale neighborhood in north Dallas, Texas, prized for its hilly topography and distinctive terrain features, many of which were formed from the streams and tributaries of Bachman Creek. The many cliffs overlooking Bachman Branch and its tributaries, as well as the gently rolling hills, towering trees and crisscrossing creeks has made this one of the most sought-after upscale neighborhoods in Dallas.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
From the five-acre Klyde Warren Park to the renowned Arts District, the Uptown/Downtown neighborhoods are full of people and excitement. Enjoy Late Nights in the Arts district every third Friday of every month, where the Dallas Museum of Art keeps its doors open till midnight while hosting special speakers, live performances, concerts, readings, film screenings, and kids programs with free admission. If you're a foodie, you'll love this neighborhood's award-winning restaurants and hip bars. Catch a ride on the McKinney Avenue Trolley and discover incredible local shops and luxury retailers. Luxury high rises, smart live/work spaces, sophisticated mid rises and convenient townhomes welcome people from all walks of life.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
There's an unmistakable vibe to Lakewood. Foodies, hipsters, yuppies, artists, grandparents and kiddos happily mix and mingle in this community known for outdoor activities and community support. It's a community that embraces nature, with the Lake and its 15 miles of trails and many tributaries serving as a giant playground to those who live and visit here. Many of the neighborhoods' iconic homes were built in the 1920s by architects such as Charles Dilbeck and Clifford Hutsell, who also influenced the look of local gathering places like the Lakewood Shopping Center.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
One of the hidden gems on the west side of Dallas near Highland Park, this neighborhood was designed back in the 1920s. It was created in the "English Common" tradition, meaning it has clusters of homes built around private parkways with huge trees. This innovative plan means that Greenway Parks is very pedestrian-oriented, yet it's just minutes to shopping, dining and movies at Highland Park Village.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood
Welcome to the incredible Turtle Creek neighborhood, located just between Downtown and Highland Park. People who visit this tree-lined section of Dallas often remark that it has the look and feel of Manhattan's Upper East Side. Here, vertical homes with terrace views overlook huge trees that form a canopy over Turtle Creek. Right across the street is the Katy Trail, a popular destination for runners, bicyclists and people who like to walk to area shops and restaurants like the renowned Rosewood Mansion. Turtle Creek is also known for the historic trolley that runs right it and connects with neighborhoods in the West End and the Arts District.Click Here to Explore This Neighborhood


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Buy Carnival Food Supplies
New Online Booking Website (Click here)
Due to Covid-19 we are only offering Online Residential Rental Bookings
New Online Booking Website (Click here)
Due to Covid-19 we are only offering Online Residential Rental Bookings
T.S.S.A website reference.Not later than June1, 2019, all existing inflatable devices shall meet the criteria for stakingor anchoring systems referenced in ASTM F2374Inflatable Amusement Devices(see F2374-17section 5.6.8).2.13.2The dossiers for the affected devices shall be amended withdocumentation to support the revised staking and anchoring requirements.
Supporting our Community one event at a time
Partytime inflatables inc continues to develop meaningful relationships with many local and national charities. We are very proud to serve the local community of ottawa and surrounding area. To date our inflatables have been used for thousands of public events in and around the city. Inflatables offer a great opportunity for children to play and have fun in a safe environment. Its is our goal in 2018 to help organization raises thousands of dollars through special discounted rates on product rentals .As well as providing useful advertising linking to a large target audience.
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Partytime Inflatables is Licensed by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority in Ontario. When setting up inflatables on commerical property it is important to understand your legal requirements. Partytime Inflatables also employs a certified ADMI. Anytime Inflatables are setup on commerical property they must be inspected by a certified ADMI prior to operation.
Call or email us today so we can provide you the information you should know when planning an event using inflatables.
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Recently I read an excellent article in our church magazine, which led me on to this book by Canadian Dr. Sue Johnson. Here is a link to that article by Irene Oudyk-Suk:
We've Been Married that Long?
If you don't get around to the book, at least read Irenes's article which captures many of the main points. If you are interested in more from Irene who works as a therapist in Ontario, Canada here is a link to her website: Couples in Step
Without a doubt, this is one of the best books on relationships I have read. We've all heard about how neglected children who are never held or stimulated will fail to thrive. In studying 'love' and the brain, scientists have learned that emotional attachment is just as crucial for adults. Can I reach you? Do you have my back? Are you there for me? Will you value me and put me first? Do I matter to you? These are all questions which get at the very core of relationships and the key to strengthening and healing comes in conversations which focus on accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement.
This book is for everyone really: newlyweds, long-marrieds, gay or straight partners, and also for singles who need emotional attachment just as much, finding it with friends, family, and community. The writing is simple and straightforward. There are throughout the book, many examples and 'Play and Practice' sessions with questions and answers. Though helpful for therapists, I found myself skimming through some of those sections to be able to not get bogged down and focus on the more 'meaty' sections which are easy to identify. This could be a book to read through for the main points and keep on the shelf for future reference.
Very affirming for those who recognize what has made their relationship so strong, and very helpful for those who are struggling. Highly recommended.


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Policy for Development of the MoD Policy for Development of the MoD
The central priorities for MoD is to develop a management plan and strategy to implement and monitor the policy presented in the defence policy and to provide the equipment and resources necessary for its implementation. The structure and organisation of the MoD will be kept under review. In addition, the MoD will actively participate in defence and security aspects, including contribution to Government crisis management and contingency planning (including co-operation with other interested ministries).
Aside from these central issues, specific management priorities are also identifiable. These include the determination of force levels, equipment requirements, training, recruitment and deployment policy; career planning, the refinement and review of the concept of operations; the effective management of resource allocation and distribution; and the articulation of the defence programme into a detailed long term financial plan (a Long Term Costing, or LTC). An overriding policy objective will be to align accountability with responsibility and authority as closely as is practicable.
The MoD is prepared to share its experiences with other countries whose Defence Forces are developing or restructuring.
Namibia's foreign and defence policy is founded on the principles of peaceful co-existence and co-operation with other countries and in the operation of international law. The day-to-day guarantee of security lies in the maintenance of international order and, in particular, in the regional stability.
Defence relations with neighbours and the international community as a whole are good and the MoD and NDF will extend military co-operation and links as far as is practicable. Defence policy must be based on the premise that Namibia may face a regional security threat.