Caring is sharing with Syrian children and moms

Clockwise from L.: Raed Salah, Paul Corkum, Ferenc Krausz, Douglas Coleman and Jeffrey Friedman

Sheikh Raed Salah, a Palestinian activist with Israeli citizenship, has donated half the endowment of $200,000 he received this week for winning the 2013 King Faisal International Prize (FFIP) for “Service to Islam” to “the children, bereaved mothers and widows in Syria.”

He earmarked the other half of the cash prize to “set up an international trust to support (East) Jerusalem and the Holy al-Aqsa Mosque.”

The Syrian National Coalition has just published a “Thank You” note to Sheikh Raed Salah on its Facebook page.

FFIPs were awarded in three other categories this year:

-- The prize for “Arabic Language and Literature” went to the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo for its contributions over the past 80 years, including publication of a large collection of specialized dictionaries.

-- The prize for “Medicine” was shared by Jeffrey Michael Friedman of Rockefeller University in New York and Douglas Leonard Coleman of the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, for their discovery of the leptin pathway and its role in regulating bodyweight.

-- Two physicists shared the prize for “Science”: Paul B. Corkum of the University of Ottawa and Ferenc Krausz of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. They are recognized for their independent pioneering work, which made it possible to capture the incredibly fast motion of electrons in atoms and molecules with a time resolution down to attoseconds. For context, an attosecond is to a second what a second is to about 31.71 billion years, or twice the age of the universe.

Prizewinners received their awards from Saudi Crown Prince Salman at a gala ceremony in Riyadh last Saturday night.

The King Faisal International Foundation says on its website its prize for Sheikh Raed Salah were in recognition of his following services to Islam:

• Being a preeminent founding member of the Islamic Movement in occupied Palestinian territories in 1948.
• Pursuing distinctive reforms and social services during his chairmanship of the Islamic Movement between 1996-2001.
• Serving as Chairman of al-Aqsa Foundation for the Refurbishment of Revered Islamic Places and Chairman of the Humanitarian Relief Organization in Occupied Palestine.
• Being one of the pioneers who have led many projects in al-Aqsa Mosque, in collaboration with the Islamic Endowment Organization in al-Quds and the Committee for the conservation of the revered al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
• Being the first to discover the tunnel dug under al-Aqsa Mosque by the occupiers.
• Serving his countrymen by working and succeeding, together with al-Rawha Peoples Committee, in preventing the confiscation of al-Rawha land in 1998.
• Organizing regular events titled “al-Aqsa is in Danger” which attract thousands of Palestinians in the occupied territories and help boost their morale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raed_Salah

Palestine wins upgraded UN status by a mile

Electronic screen lights up with the final vote and Ban Ki-moon congratulates Mahmoud Abbas

In an extraordinary lineup of international support, the UN General Assembly voted overnight by a more than two-thirds majority to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, a move vehemently opposed by Israel and the United States.

The 193-member world body approved the resolution upgrading Palestine’s status to a nonmember observer state at the United Nations late Thursday by a vote of 138 in favor to 9 against, with 41 abstentions.

The vote was a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and violence. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States.

The vote grants Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation, after an electronic screen lit up with the final vote.

With its newly enhanced status, the Palestinians can now gain access to UN agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

Abbas told the assembly the vote was the "last chance to save the two-state solution" with Israel.

Israel's envoy to the UN said the bid pushed peace process "backwards," while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counter-productive.”

"Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states [one Arab, the other Jewish] and became the birth certificate for Israel," Abbas said shortly before the vote in New York.

"The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine," he said.

Joining Israel and the United States in voting “no” were Canada, Czech Republic, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

Of the “Big Five” permanent members of UN Security Council, three voted in favor (China, France and Russia), one abstained (UK) and the fifth voted against (U.S.).

The vote highlighted the lack of unity as well among the 27 member states of the European Union. But it also marked a drain in sympathy for Israel in Europe.

Just one EU country -- the Czech Republic -- voted against Palestine upgrading its status within the world body.

Fourteen others -- Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Spain and Sweden -- voted in favor (as did non-EU members Norway and Switzerland).

The remaining 12 EU members -- notably Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and United Kingdom -- abstained.

The vote grants the Palestinians the same status at the UN as the Vatican, and they will keep their seat next to the Holy See in the General Assembly chamber.

The Holy See promptly issued a communiqué after the vote stating in part: “Considering the outcome of today’s vote of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and to encourage the International Community, and in particular the Parties directly concerned, towards concrete action in view of the aforementioned objectives, the Holy See welcomes with favor the decision of the General Assembly by which Palestine has become a Non-member Observer State of the United Nations.

“It is a propitious occasion to recall also the common position that the Holy See and the Palestinian Liberation Organization expressed in the Basic Agreement of 15 February 2000, intended to support the recognition of an internationally-guaranteed special statute for the City of Jerusalem, and aimed, in particular, to safeguarding the freedom of religion and of conscience, the identity and sacred character of Jerusalem as a Holy City, respect for and freedom of access to its Holy Places.”