The Israel News Agency covered the historic arrival of US President George W. Bush for Israel's 60th birthday celebrations. The Israel News Agency covered the historic arrival of US President George W. Bush for Israel's 60 birthday anniversary celebrations. President George Bush attended the Facing Tomorrow Peace Conference in Jerusalem, Israel. President Bush is greeted by Israel President Shimon Peres, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other dignitaries.(less)
Facing Tomorrow, the first annual conference of Shimon Peres' presidency took place in Jerusalem, Israel, May 13-15, marking Israel's milestone 60th anniversary, at the International Convention Center.
World leaders both Jewish and non-Jewish, thinkers and doers, artists and scientists, rabbis and entrepreneurs including the next generation of leadership will take part in the Facing Tomorrow Israel 60 Birthday event.
The Facing Tomorrow Israel 60 Birthday Conference examined what the future holds for the global community, the Jewish people and the State of Israel. It also focused on Jewish and Israel contributions to humanity.
Attending Facing Tomorrow Israel 60 Birthday conference participants includeed: former British PrimeMinister Tony Blair; French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner; formerPresident of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev; former US Secretary of State, Dr.Henry Kissinger; former Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Havel; President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili; Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, Ambassadors MartinIndyk and Dennis Ross, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and Professor Alan Dershowitz.
Business luminaries such as Google founder Sergey Brinn, Mark Zuckerman, founder of Facebook, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch and Ratan Tata, Chairman, the Tata Group also attended.
Honorary Chairs of The Israel President's Conference are: Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson. Sheldon Adelson is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer ofthe Las Vegas Sands Corporation, Miriam Adelson heads the Dr. Miriam andSheldon G. Adelson Drug Rehabilitation Clinics in both Tel Aviv and LasVegas. Yair Green, attorney-at-law, will serve as Co-Chair. Elliott Broidy,Chairman of Markstone Capital Group, is heading the Conference's Benefactor Committee.
The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) is developing the Facing Tomorrow Israel 60 Birthday conference program. Ambassador Dennis Ross serves as the Chairman of the Board of JPPPI, Professor Yehezkel Dror is its Founding President, and Avinoam Bar-Yosef is the JPPPI's Director-General.
The Conference's steering committee is headed by Israel Maimon, former Israel Cabinet Secretary.
Eyal Arad, co-Chairman of the Euro Israel Group, will serve as spokesman.
Charley J. Levine, CEO of Lone Star Communications, is managing the conference's international media relations and public relations.
Kissinger at Israel Facing Tomorrow Conference: Timetable Needed to Combat Global Nuclear Threat
By Ora Koren, Haaretz Correspondent
In an address at the "Facing Tomorrow" presidential conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that the nuclear threat facing Israel is in fact a global danger, and urged the international community to forge a specific timetable to combat it.
Kissinger spoke before an audience of world leaders and dignitaries, saying that one of the major global shifts today is the rise of fundamentalism and radicalism. Compounded by the rise in nuclear weapon development, he said, this shift represents a historic turning point.
The Nobel Prize laureate added that the Iranian nuclear threat, besides threatening to destroy Israel, is also an existential threat to the world and must be addressed internationally. He explained that as long as a nation is capable of developing nuclear weapons in defiance of the United Nations Security Council and major world powers, then nuclear capability will consequently spread into many other nations. He stressed that when groups such as the Security Council voice objection to nuclear weapons development, they must do so with specific instructions and a defined timetable, otherwise, the situation will only deteriorate.
Kissinger also addressed the issue China's economic growth and the threat it poses to the U.S. hegemony on the world economy, saying that the issue must be addressed from the vantage point of future cooperation, rather than strategic competition. The world has changed, Kissinger said, and the theories of foreign relations that were valid in the past are now also changing. He cited the cooperation between the European nations within the framework of the European Union as an example of such successful cooperation.
The former secretary of state also addressed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, saying that it required both sides to be very brave. He added that it was impossible to move forward unless both sides know that a peace agreement is not the end of the road, but rather a starting point for future processes.
It is imperative to maintain the kind of cooperation that Shimon Peres is cultivating, he said.
In conclusion, Kissinger said that it was the joint interest of many world nations to prevent the rise of fundamentalism and to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Kissinger added that another international goal was for world nations to cooperate in efforts to advance the research into renewable energy sources and the protection of the environment while raising awareness for new technologies. He said that these were the challenges of tomorrow and that Israel could play an important role in facing them.
The Israel News Agency interviews Israel Maimon, former Cabinet Secretary to Israel Prime Minister Arik Sharon and Ehud Olmert and today Chairperson of the Presidential Facing Israel Conference in Jerusalem.
US President George W. Bush and several other political and world Jewish leaders attended Facing Tomorrow.
On Israel 60th Birthday Bush Tells Iran, Syria, No Appeasement On Terrorism
Photo: Joel Leyden / Israel News Agency
By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency
Jerusalem ----- May 17, 2008 ....... US President George W. Bush will leave Saudi Arabia this morning for Egypt after having visited Israel for its 60th birthday celebrations.
Upon his historic arrival at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, Bush stated: "Israel is our strongest friend and ally in the Middle East. Our two nations both faced great challenges when they were founded. And our two nations have both relied on the same principles to help us succeed. We built strong democracies to protect the freedoms given to us by an Almighty God."
President George W. Bush was greeted by Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel President Shimon Peres, several other Israel dignitaries and an Israel Defense Forces 50-person strong orchestra in a colorful and warm red carpet welcome.
Bush was told by Peres: "Welcome to the new Israel: Three thousand years old, and going on sixty."
Bush spent three days in Israel visiting the Facing Tomorrow Conference, the Knesset and Masada before flying off yesterday for Saudi Arabia.
Just hours before Bush's Blue and White Air Force One arrived in Israel, a Grad type rocket produced in Iran and launched from Gaza slammed into a shopping mall in the southern Israel city of Ashkelon.
Fourteen civilians were wounded. Three people suffered severe wounds, two were moderately injured and five suffered light injuries.
Two women and a young girl were seriously wounded, Magan David Adom reported. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Ashkelon is a port city of 120,000 people located about 10 miles north of the Gaza Strip. The Iran rocket which hit the shopping mall was only one of at least 20 Katyusha-type rockets to have rocked the city.
Israel President Shimon Peres responded by saying that it was Hamas' actions in Gaza and Hezbollah's in Lebanon which are holding up the establishment of a Palestinian state. Shimon Peres, the winner of a Nobel Peace Price, went on to remind the world that Israel could have been living in peace with a Palestine state if the Palestinians would have accepted a state back in 1948. But rather than living in peace with the Jewish population which has a historic roots going back to the first and second temples in Jerusalem, Masada and Gamla, the Palestinians chose to join invading Arab armies with the promise of taking all Jewish land.
"As Iran calls for wiping Israel off the map, inciting hate and violence against the Jewish people, those in Teheran are actually delaying the establishment of Palestine and keeping children in Gaza in poverty," said one participant at the Facing Tomorrow Conference in Jerusalem. "Iran is doing exactly the same thing that Arab leaders did with the minds of those Arabs who lived here in 1948, giving them false hope of securing all the land and keeping these people in poverty. It is not Israel which is oppressing the Palestinian people today, it is Iran and Syria."
This is President George Bush's second trip to the middle east in five months, and his second to Israel as president.
After leaving Israel yesterday, Bush visited Saudi Arabia, where he and his delegation addressed the high price of oil. Many in the President's delegation questioned leaders in Saudi Arabia about their neglect in assisting Palestinians who live in poverty while those in Saudi Arabia eat caviar, drive Rolls Royce and fly off to their homes in France, England and the Caribbean for vacations.
Jewish leaders in Israel appeared more concerned about the quality of life for those living in Gaza and the West Bank and truly advocating the establishment of Palestine in contrast to those in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.
Many Jewish leaders at Israel 60th birthday Facing Tomorrow Peace Conference in Jerusalem, including Israel UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman, ADL Director Abe Foxman, Sir Ronald Cohen and advertising giant Maurice Levy stated that Israel is ready to assist in investing in a state named Palestine. But that any investment in a future entity called Palestine could only be realized when terror organizations such as Iran backed Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah which call for Israel's total destruction, lay down their weapons.
"As Iran calls for wiping Israel off the map, inciting hate and violence against the Jewish people, those in Teheran are actually delaying the establishment of Palestine and keeping children in Gaza in poverty," said one participant to Facing Tomorrow Conference. "Iran is doing exactly the same thing that Arab leaders did with the minds of those Arabs who lived here in 1948, giving them false hope of securing all the land and keeping these people in poverty. It is not Israel which is oppressing the Palestinian people today, it is Iran and Syria."
George Bush used his interviews in both Israel and Saudi Arabia to criticize Hamas which controls Gaza and opposes recognition of Israel as a country.
"Their vision is to destroy Israel," Bush told Israel reporters. "How about a vision that says we want to coexist with Israel so we can raise our children in peace? Now, I'm sure, people say, 'Bush, oh man, he sounds hopelessly idealistic.' But the truth of the matter is, in order for peace to be secure, it's that kind of idealism that has got to prevail."
In his speech to the Knesset, Bush spoke about his visit to Masada and repeated the Israel pledge, saying, "Masada shall never fall again."
At the same time President George W. Bush predicted that Israel's 120th birthday would find it alongside a Palestinian state and in an all-democratic neighborhood free of today's oppression, restrictions on freedom and extremist Muslim movements.
During a speech to the Knesset, the Israel parliament, Bush limited his mention of Palestinians to just one sentence. "The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved, a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror," he said.
The President stated his opposition to negotiating with “terrorists and radicals,” and, invoking Nazi Germany, rejecting “the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, then Israel Prime Minister Arik Sharon warned the United States not to "appease the Arabs at Israel's expense." Sharon made reference to the catastrophic consequences of European democracies appeasing Hitler prior to World War II, specifically citing the Munich Pact of 1938 which ceded Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Germany: ''Don't repeat the terrible mistakes of 1938, when the enlightened democracies in Europe decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a comfortable, temporary solution. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia.''
Bush began his speech declaring with a broad and warm smile:"Yom Atzmaut Sameach," or "Happy Independence Day." President Bush denounced anti-Semitism "in all forms," and stated that "Israel has a right to defend itself".
In reaction to the speech, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "Bush's recognition of Palestine as the national homeland for the Jews is a very dangerous act of discrimination and racism, obliterating the right of return for Palestinians and establishing a genocide at the expense of Palestinian rights." He added: "We want to tell Bush, Israel is not going to survive another 60 years. Israel's end is drawing closer, and it will take less than 60 years to achieve it."
"Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away," said Bush. "This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you."
Bush's trip to Egypt follows a one-day visit to Riyadh, where he met King Abdullah and secured a promise of a Saudi Arabia increase in oil output in response to his repeated appeals for help in easing record world oil prices
President Bush will meet Egypt President Hosni Mubarak and Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today. Bush will meet with Jordan King Abdullah, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Iraq officials on Sunday at an international economic forum.
The above text was edited and SEO optimized for the Internet by Joel Leyden.
Joel Leyden of the Israel News Agency interviews Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at the Israel 60th birthday Facing Tomorrow Conference in Jerusalem, Israel. Facing Tomorrow was coordinated by Israel President Shimon Peres and attended by Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, US President George W. Bush, dozens of world leaders and respected dignitaries in the Jewish world.
Joel Leyden of the Israel News Agency interviews Maurice Levy, Chairman and CEO of the Publicis Advertising and PR Group. Levy was a speaker at the 60th Israel birthday Presidential Facing Tomorrow Conference in Jerusalem. Facing Tomorrow was coordinated by Israel President Shimon Peres and attended by Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, US President George W. Bush, dozens of world leaders and respected dignitaries in the Jewish world.
Levy speaks about Israel's PR and discusses solutions for improving Israel's global image.
The Israel News Agency covered the historic arrival of US President George W. Bush for Israel's 60th birthday anniversary celebrations and the Shimon Peres Facing Tomorrow Conference in Jerusalem, Israel. President Bush is greeted by Israel President Shimon Peres, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other dignitaries.
Joel Leyden, a native of New York, has practiced international public relations, public affairs, crisis communications, reputation management, Web 2.0 and journalism for 25 years.
As an Internet pioneer in Israel, he co-created Israel's first commercial Website - NetKing in 1995.
In addition, Leyden produced the first Website for an Israeli prime minister, established the first condolence website for assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, created the Israel Defense Forces Website, was the first SEO - search engine optimizer in Israel and serves today as both commercial PR / SEO and publisher of the Israel News Agency, Israel's first on-line news organization.
Joel Leyden, the proud father of three children, is a leading father's and children's rights activist in Israel advocating equal access and reforms in Israel's gender bias family court custody laws and public child welfare departments for children of separated and divorced parents in Israel.
Joel Leyden, who has university degrees in journalism, psychology and mass communications, resides in a suburb north of Tel Aviv, Israel and in New York City.
