In recent months, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem have taken to the streets in protest over businesses operating on Saturday – the Jewish Sabbath when ritual law bans Jews from working.  At times, the demonstrations have even turned violent, like a conflagration in July over a parking lot near the Old City. Most of the ultra-Orthodox ire has been directed at the Jerusalem municipality.

Until now.

Last week, the Shabbat Strife took a surprising turn with some ultra-Orthodox taking aim at the world’s biggest electronic chip maker for keeping their new Jerusalem plant open on the Jewish day of rest. Though the building is located in an industrial park on the outskirts of the city, it is nearby a religious neighborhood that strictly observes the Sabbath laws.

Intel’s new electronic chip plant was inaugurated on Nov. 15, and the company said it would operate on Saturdays in accordance with its business needs and Israeli law. This announcement drew hundreds of angry ultra-Orthodox Jews who gathered outside the building. Some threw rocks at police trying to disperse the crowd.

Since last week’s outburst, representatives of the ultra-Orthodox community, with mediation from religious parliament member Uri Maklev, have been trying to reach an agreement with Intel. An aide to Maklev said a likely solution to the quarrel would be to keep the plant open on Saturdays, but allow only non-Jews to work.

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, a leading Jewish sage, is expected to okay the deal. But Israeli radio is already reporting that not all of the ultra-Orthodox will be satisfied.

The web portal run by the ultra-Orthodox reported (Hebrew) that Rabbi Elyashiv authorised sending a special envoy to the United States to meet with “the man in charge” - Craig Barrett, Intel’s chairman. An aide to Maklev said the legislator was unaware any envoys were being dispatched to negotiate with the company.

The protests pit the ultra-Orthodox community against a multi-billion dollar manufacturer and Israel’s largest exporter. So far, it seems unlikely that Intel’s business in Israel will be affected. But if the disagreement escalates further, jeopardising Intel’s operations, there is a chance that the government, which has so far avoided getting involved such issues, may step in.

Click below to watch footage of the protests in Har Hotzvim, Jerusalem on November 14, 2009:

PHOTO: Ultra-Orthodox Jews take part in a protest against the operation of an Intel plant on the Jewish Sabbath in Jerusalem November 14, 2009. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

A group of Gazan women are beating high unemployment, achieving self-empowerment, and raising environmental awareness, all with a rather unconventional resource: garbage.

With funding from USAID, the Organisation for Supporters of Palestinian Environment launched a project that trains and assists 24 women in creating craft items for sale out of household garbage.

The artists display their flower vases made of plastic soda bottles, or wall-hangings made of tree bark, and scrap metal at two or three-day exhibitions, where potential buyers can make their purchase.

Each piece sells for about 20 to 50 NIS ($5-10 U.S. dollars). Twenty-five percent of the total sales are distributed to the craft workers.

The Gaza Strip is sealed off by an Israeli blockade against the ruling Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2008 and refuses to recognise Israel.

The isolation has made the Gaza economy almost entirely dependent on foreign aid with unemployment reaching up to 40 percent and poverty levels rising.

In such conditions, the sales mean sizeable incomes for the dextrous women.

Manager of the environmental group, Wissam Abu Jalambo, says he thought of launching such an initiative while trying to find a way to educate more people on being more eco-friendly.

“The idea received funding in 2008, as part of the initiative ‘managing household waste’. Through it, we were able to start five-months training workshops, which came after courses that taught environmental principles. The aim is providing the women with an income, and assisting the environment by reducing waste, even if only by a little bit. The idea is to raise awareness through recycling waste and making use of it,” he said.

One of the recycling crafters, Samar Ahmad Abu Najaa, says this is not just a job for them but also a way to relieve stress and feel empowered.

“This is a nice idea because first, people can vent internal tensions. Second, it is a good income for the women and it makes her feel that she exists,” Abu Najaa said.

Click below to watch the women at work in Gaza City, filmed on November 15, 2009:

PHOTO: Palestinian women ride a donkey-pulled cart past a garbage dump in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip January 20, 2009. REUTERS/Patrick Baz/Pool

Hamas has kept a pretty low profile in the West Bank recently–when will that change?

According to recent polls in both Israel and the West Bank, both Israeli and Palestinian populations are looking to see Hamas step up to the plate in negotiations. But that might not be enough to make Hamas willing to resurface in the West Bank just yet.

Two days ago, the Israel Dialogue Institute released a poll saying that over half of the Israeli public wants to see Hamas brought into negotiations if it recognized Israel (See Reuters’ story here).

A Ha’aretz article said, “it turns out that the majority of the public - 57% - supports the view of (Knesset member) Shaul Mofaz of (Israeli centrist party) Kadima, who published a plan earlier this week, in which he called for dialogue with Hamas under certain conditions. Inside Kadima the idea has tremendous support by some 72 percent of the party’s voters.”

Even more surprising is that among supporters of Likud, Israel’s right-wing political party, 53%  of the public approved of negotiating with Hamas.

But according to a recent report in the Carnegie Endowment’s Arab Reform Bulletin, Hamas plans to keep lying low in the midst of the West Bank political storm between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American negotiators (original Arabic here).

“Hamas has also gone to ground on the West Bank because it is convinced that the current situation will eventually redound to its benefit,” says Palestinian writer Omran al-Risheq–especially given Abbas’ refusal to restart peace talks with Israel, the US reluctance to demand a total settlement freeze, and Abbas’ recent announcements that he won’t run for re-election. (Read Reuters’ latest story here.)

Palestinians, it seems, may be more divided than Israelis about their interest in seeing Hamas rebound in the political arena.  Al-Risheq says that recent opinion polls show Hamas as increasingly popular in the West Bank at the same time that it’s reputation is plummeting in Gaza.

“West Bank Palestinians view Hamas as symbol of resistance to Israeli and U.S. domination, whereas Gazans –who have had a chance to test governance by Hamas –see its performance as similar to, if not worse than, that of the corrupt PA leadership (led by the Palestinian Fatah party).”

Rivalry between Islamist Hamas and the Western-backed Fatah movement grew after Hamas won a 2006 parliamentary election. The rift deepened in 2007 when Hamas forces wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Ultimately, al-Risheq argues, Hamas thinks that the longer it waits in silence, the better chance it has of seeing conditions turn in its interest: from seeing the complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority, where Hamas can become the feasible alternative, or to an Egyptian-brokered Palestinian election in June 2010, where Hamas can garner popularity by successfully doing a prisoners exchange with Israel.

Do you think Hamas can wait out the storm, or will it have to act soon?

PHOTO: Hamas police officers march in front of Yasser Arafat billboard. Gaza city, 25 Oct 2009. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Dozens of body bags layed out neatly on the pavement in central Jerusalem is a sight the city has been pleased to be rid of in recent years after a period of regular bombing and shooting attacks that killed scores of city residents in the early part of the decade.

Israeli companies will unveil this month an array of new technologies that will save and maximize use of the world’s most valuable resource… water.

The systems range from a drone that flies 300 metres (900 feet) above ground to fight water leaks– described this week in a recent Reuters article on fighting global leakage – to a petroleum gas storage system that sits on the ocean floor.

Water technology is one of the things Israel does best. Two thirds of the country is arid, and its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, famously declared that Israel would only survive if it could “make the desert bloom”.

Since then, Israeli companies have been pioneers in the field and many of of their developments have penetrated the global market.

You can take a look at some of the more intriguing systems to be exhibited at the government-sponsored WATEC conference in Tel Aviv on Nov 17-19 by clicking here.

Blind Palestinian children attend special schools in East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza.

The Reuters news desk, along with many foreign journalists in Israel, received a peculiarly worded beeper message in English from the Israel Defence Forces Spokesman’s Office on Israel’s seizure of a ship carrying hundreds of tons of Iranian-supplied arms on Wednesday.

It read as follows (the strangely worded part is in bold letters):

IDF Spokesperson Update: ‘FRANCOP’, the weapons laden ship intercepted by the Israel navy, left the Ashdod naval port yesterday evening, after all of the arms and munitions had been unloaded. The ‘FRANCOP’ has continued on its way, sailing towards its original port of destination after the incidents of yesterday. Israel Navy personnel released the ship without complications and with best wishes for their continued safe journey. (This is a retarded sentence for foreign press, comes across as obsequious) the arms unloaded were transported overnight, under the supervision of sappers, to an IDF ammunition base in central Israel, where the weaponry will be properly and safely stored.

The spokesman’s office issued an apology in a subsequent beeper message. An officer in the spokesman’s office told Reuters the unusual commentary in the original message was the result of a mistake committed by a low-ranking soldier.

PHOTO: Israeli soldiers stand near munitions displayed at the port of Ashdod November 4, 2009, that according to the military was found on the Antigua-flagged Francop vessel, intercepted overnight in the Mediterranean Sea, 100 miles (160 km) from Israel. Israeli naval commandos have boarded the ship carrying Iranian-supplied rockets destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and taken the vessel to an Israeli port, the government said on Wednesday. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Ordinary women and men, wearing plastic bags on their feet, pulling pants up to knee level, clutch their children to their chests and roam along a 110-metre dark tunnel of sewage to cross from the Israeli-occupied West Bank to East Jerusalem.

Erected under a barrier that Israel is building in the West Bank in defiance of a World Court ruling,  the tunnel serves as a gateway connecting Palestinians from the West Bank to East Jerusalem, a centre for medical, social, religious and other services for the Palestinians.

The passage goes from the village of Old Beit Hanina in the West Bank to the area also called Beit Hanina in what Israel has annexed as part of its Jerusalem municipality. It was first used in early 2004, locals say, when Israel erected the barrier between the two Beit Haninas. What was originally essentially one village became physically divided  in two.  The tunnel was last used during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in late September by people anxious to visit family or to pray in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque. Israel restricts entry for Palestinians to the city. Since then Israel has blocked off the passage — not for the first time.

Scenes of people’s legs sinking up to the knee in sewage are depicted in  ”Journey 110″ by Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar, who spent six hours capturing the 12-minute-long clip last year.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip can only enter Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a capital for their future state, with often hard-to-get permits from Israeli authorities. In 1967, Israel captured the territories including Arab East Jerusalem.

Local officials in Old Beit Hanina estimated the number of people who crossed the passage at up to 150 per day while it was open. “People are not doing it for fun and this is may be the only way to get to Jerusalem,” said Saleh Daajneh, an official in the village.

When Israel first found out about it, soldiers blocked the passage with rocks but “tunnel operators” managed to find  a gap for people to squeeze themselves out the other end of the tunnel. Israel says the barrier is needed to  prevent Palestinian militants from attacking  their cities inside Israel.

After Ramadan this year, Israeli bulldozers again blocked the entrance of the tunnel with rocks.

“There must be a compelling reason why these people have to go through this trip,” said film maker Jarrar after a screening in Ramallah. His film will compete in  the film festival “Instants Video” in France’s Marseille next month.

To read full story in Arabic, click here

PHOTO: Film maker Khaled Jarrar posing for a picture, with his film playing in background, after the screening of the film in Ramallah.  December 27, 2009.

An Israeli coffee chain is boycotting ‘Turkish’ coffee in response to the current anti-Turkish sentiment in Israel following the screening in Turkey of a TV drama which portrays Israeli soldiers in a negative light.

Marketing manager of Ilan’s Coffee House Michal Steg said the chain decided to pull its “Istanbul coffee” off the shelves as a way to show support for Israel.

“We sell more than 30 kinds of coffee and one of them is called Istanbul coffee, cafe Istanbul, and… we decided that we are going to take part of the feelings that we had in Israel and not to sell this coffee like for the next few weeks, days,” said Steg. “The idea is because we wanted to be part of what’s going on here and to feel more patriotic and so its a more kind of symbolic way to show it”.

Coffee shop regulars had mixed opinions about the coffee shop’s reaction to the political dispute.

“I know politically this is a bit of a tough time with Turkey but it’s still a friendly nation and I’m sure there are other forums to solve these problems but I wouldn’t go to the route of boycotting goods and products,” said Len, a Tel Aviv resident.

Another Tel Aviv resident, Yehoshua David Merel, said the boycott is nonsensical because ‘Turkish coffee’ isn’t even really from Turkey. “The idea to stop selling Turkish coffee in Israeli coffee houses is ridiculous in my opinion because first off, Turkish coffee doesn’t actually come from Turkey, so you’re not in any way boycotting the country itself,” said Merel.

Once-close ties between the Jewish state and Turkey, a secular state with a Muslim population, have deteriorated since Israel’s offensive earlier this year in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Turkey recently barred Israel from participating in a NATO war exercise in Turkish airspace and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the move was a result of public concern over the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The drill was postponed indefinitely after other nations, including the United States and Italy, refused to take part without Israel’s air force. In January, Erdogan, who heads the Islamist-rooted AK Party, stormed out of a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in protest at the Israeli Gaza offensive.

In recent weeks, Israelis have been protesting in front of the Turkish Embassy over what they see as Ankara’s anti-Israeli line.

But Turkey still values its ties to Israel, Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, the Turkish ambassador to Israel, said at a recent academic conference on Turkish-Israeli relations.

“I understand today they are not going to discuss only bilateral relations but also Turkey’s roles in the world, Turkey’s role in the region. I believe of course, our relations are very important, but also it is very important to understand our roles in the world, and Turkey’s a positive impact on the region,” said Celikkol.

Turkey has strengthened its relations with neighbouring Syria, viewed by Israel as an enemy state.

“The ambassador actually pushed the government line that Turkey has a regional role, being a regional power. And it has certain ambitions, and he expects the Israelis to understand that. Of course this we can understand, but we cannot understand that the prime minister makes anti-Semitic statements,” said Professor Efraim Inbar of Israel’s Begin-Sadat Institute.

Click below to see our October 27-29, 2009 coverage of the boycott, which include interviews with Steg, Celikkol and Inbar:

PHOTO: An Israeli woman looks at a sign depicting a crossed out Turkish flag taped to the window of a coffee shop in Tel Aviv October 27, 2009. Picture taken October 27, 2009. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Today marks the 14th anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination on Nov. 4, 1995, a day that many Israelis consider a stark reminder of political and religious fissures that have yet to be healed.

Rabin was shot in Tel Aviv at a rally to garner support for the Oslo Accords. His assassin, Yigal Amir, had a religious and right-wing background and rejected Rabin’s peace initiatives.

Today, Israeli papers are filled with reminders of the contentiousness that the death of one of Israel’s  historic figures symbolizes.

In a commemorative posting on the Israeli blog Israelity, writer David Brinn notes that Rabin’s assassination is “not a holiday that brings the country together.”

“The Right blames Rabin and his followers on the left for the failed Oslo process and the Left blames the right for the environment that enabled an Israeli to take the life of a prime minister.”

Today’s Haaretz reported that right wing-groups were calling on students in Jerusalem to boycott Rabin memorials. Activists said they planned to pass out flyers alleging the remembrance day was being used by the Left to demonise Jewish settlers and their supporters.

The Israeli daily also released an editorial noting that while Rabin had set into motion the creation of a Palestinian state, he was effectively following a course charted by his influential foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Rabin founded Palestine-in-the-making without resolving the conflict between that act and his stated opposition to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, the division of Jerusalem, and the handover of the Jordan Valley,” the editorial said.

In the Jerusalem Post, columnist Liat Collins, criticized the use of Rabin’s legacy as a political yardstick, and a rallying cry against right-wing politicians: “They also judge whether the [religious and settler] communities (which probably account for half the Jewish population of the country) are remembering him in a suitable fashion, with sufficient soul-searching and pain. They usually find the accused guilty.”

As Israelis struggle over their own divisions on this anniversary, Barak Obama will try to address the rift that opinion polls show has opened between the U.S. president and the Israeli public.  Obama, who addressed Muslims worldwide in a fence-mending speech in Cairo in June, plans to pay tribute to Rabin in a videotaped speech that will be played at a memorial for Rabin on Saturday at the site of his assassination in Tel Aviv. It will be the latest in a series of Obama recordings targeting the Israeli public. Opinion polls put his popularity rating in Israel at between 6 and 10 percent.

PHOTO: Israeli soldier lights candle at the spot where Rabin was assassinated. Tel Aviv, Israel. November 4, 2008. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen