Angelina Fares dreamt of becoming Miss Israel, but after police foiled an 'honor killing' plot against her last week she announced she won't participate
Goel Beno "I respect the Druze community and its religious leaders and I am whole with my decision to drop out of the competition. I'm a little sad because my dream of being Miss Israel is over. It isn't easy for me to give it up," said 18-year-old beauty queen finalist Angelina Fares on Monday evening, bringing to an end what has been a strenuous experience for her family.
Honor Killing Foiled  
Life of Druze beauty contestant threatened / Goel Bano  
Police foil plans to commit honor killing against Israel's first Druze beauty pageant contestant. Community's leader to try to dissuade girl from competing one last time Fares, the first Druze to contend in the beauty pageant, made headlines when police announced they had arrested two men from Sajur, Angelina's village in northern Israel, for conspiring to murder her in order to prevent her participation in a pageant that "would defile the honor of the Druze community." While Angelina relocated from Sajur for her own safety Sheikh Muwaffak Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, ...   more »

Amos Carmel-Abolish the Law of Return, Yaron London wrote here Monday. He noted that three Arab-Israeli organizations made this proposal recently and explained that it would be worthwhile to accept it, "not in order to placate the Arab population but because it would be good for the Jews." Really?  
Abolishment of the Law of Return would not suffice to placate these three organizations, but there is no doubt that they would welcome it – and this fact alone negates its chances of being beneficial to the "Jews." This is not because of the Arab-Jewish demographic balance in Israel necessarily being a zero-sum game, but rather, because of the first clause in the Law of Return and what David Ben Gurion said at the Knesset at the time the law was enacted on July 5th 1950. Every Jew is entitled to come to Israel as a new immigrant, Ben Gurion said, adding that the law does not grant rights on behalf of the State, but rather, provides a legal basis to the basic Zionist idea and fundamental right of every Jew to enter the country and reside there. "The right to return preceded the state," he said. Damage would be far greater than ...   more »

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu(IsraelNN.com) Syrian terrorists said they tossed mines across the Syrian border into Israel. Israeli officials claimed the attackers were shepherds. The provocative tactics copy those used by Hizbullah ahead of last year's war in Lebanon.
In a statement to WorldNetDaily, the new Syrian terrorist group said that it was responsible for planting six mines across the Israeli border Saturday morning. IDF soldiers prevented the attack from succeeding when they discovered the explosive devices before their patrols passed by.
The terrorist gang, the Committee for the Liberation of the Golan Heights, said it is copying the methods of the Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Saturday's incident of placing anti-personnel mines across the Syria-Israel lines, the first such attack on Israel, comes on the heels of reports of unusual Syrian military activity along the border. Golan Heights residents fear that extensive construction on the Syrian side is intended to house soldiers and terrorists in preparation for the same kind of offensive as last summer's cross-border attacks on Israel.
Israel initially said that Syrian shepherds were responsible for the mine placement. Israeli officials filed a complaint with the United Nations, which is responsible for maintaining security in the buffer zone between the ...   more »

By Art Moore----ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A group of reformists from Muslim societies who have become accustomed to death threats upped the ante yesterday with a declaration they hope will spark a popular movement across the Islamic world to "fight back" against fundamentalist interpreters of the faith. Secularists such as Ibn Warraq, Nonie Darwish and Irshad Manji helped formulate the "St. Petersburg Declaration," which seeks to do no less than eliminate traditional understandings and practices of Islam that conflict with universally accepted human rights.
Nonie Darwish Darwish, who read the statement in Arabic – others presented it in English, Bengali and Farsi – believes the statement will resonate with untold millions. "You cannot believe the hunger of Muslims to hear what we're saying right now," said Darwish, a native of Egypt and a founder of ArabsForIsrael.com. "At least 50 percent will tell us, you are right, but don't reveal my name. They are so scared to speak out. To live in the Middle East and say what we're saying is a death sentence." Darwish was among the speakers at the two-day Secular Islam Summit in St. Petersburg, which culminated with the declaration. Warraq, who uses a pseudonym because of death ...   more »

Americans are more pro-Israeli in their views today than they were 10 and 20 years ago, but they are also more polarized, according to a recent Gallup poll. Sympathy for Israelis has increased substantially, and sympathy for Palestinians has increased slightly. The percentage of Americans who are impartial regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute - either favoring both sides, favoring neither side or having no opinion - has decreased. A combined 78 percent of Americans favor either the Israelis or Palestinians, while 22% are impartial. Two years ago, 30% of Americans said they were impartial, while 14 years ago 43% said they were. The random poll of 1,007 adults was carried out on February 4-7 and has a 3% margin of error. The figures have varied slightly from year to year, but averaging all polls conducted from 1993-1999 and comparing these with all polls conducted since 2000, Gallup trends show that the average level of sympathy for Israelis rose from 41% to 53%, while the average sympathy for Palestinians rose from 13% to 16%. Gallup polls from 1988-1993 had a slihtly different method of recording no opinion responses, which makes them not directly comparable to polls conducted since 1993. As Americans have ...   more »

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to be approved for commercial production.
The laboratory-created rice produces some of the human proteins found in breast milk and saliva.
Its U.S. developers say they could be used to treat children with diarrhoea, a major killer in the Third World.
The rice is a major step in so-called Frankenstein Foods, the first mingling of human-origin genes and those from plants. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has already signalled it plans to allow commercial cultivation.
The rice's producers, California-based Ventria Bioscience, have been given preliminary approval to grow it on more than 3,000 acres in Kansas. The company plans to harvest the proteins and use them in drinks, desserts, yoghurts and muesli bars.
The news provoked horror among GM critics and consumer groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
GeneWatch UK, which monitors new GM foods, described it as "very disturbing". Researcher Becky Price warned: "There are huge, huge health risks and people should rightly be concerned about this."
Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "Using food crops and fields as glorified drug factories is a very worrying development.
"If these pharmaceutical crops end up on consumers' ...   more »

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An Iraqi national wearing wires and concealing a magnet inside his rectum triggered a security scare at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday but officials said he posed no apparent threat.The man, identified by law enforcement officials as Fadhel al-Maliki, 35, set off an alarm during passenger screening at the airport early on Tuesday morning.A police bomb squad was called to examine what was deemed a suspicious item found during a body cavity search of the man. Local media reports said a magnet was found in his rectum."He was secreting these items in a body cavity and that was a great concern because there were also some electric wires associated with that body cavity," Larry Fetters, security director for the Transportation Security Administration at the airport, told reporters.Maliki, 35, who lives in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was preparing to board a US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia.The flight left without Maliki but with his luggage aboard. It made an unscheduled landing in Las Vegas, where the plane was thoroughly searched but nothing was found, officials said.Passengers were not evacuated and no flights were disrupted by the incident at Terminal One at Los Angeles airport."There ...   more »

"I could migrate, but the problem is I want to stay in Malaysia, because this is my country. And I love my family. I just want to live peacefully."Malay-Muslims make up 60% of Malaysia's population. The rest are mostly Christians, Hindus and Buddhists.But many Malaysian Muslims believe that people like Maria pose a threat to Islam.And the debate between those who say Maria should have the right to officially convert, and those who are against apostasy has become so heated that the prime minister has asked both sides not to discuss sensitive religious questions in public.Fearful of what could happen, Maria would only talk to us on the phone from the privacy of her car.She is very aware of the possible consequences of her decision to become a Christian if she is discovered."If the authorities find out, I will be in big trouble. They will create hell between me and my family, and hell in my life so that I will no longer get any privileges or employment."Her fears are not unfounded. Another convert - Lina Joy - has been forced to go into hiding since her case went to court.And at least one of the lawyers involved in that ...   more »