The Mayor of the Druze town of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights dismisses as 'a total joke' a UN assertion that Golan Druze suffer from the 'hardship' of 'Israeli occupation.'
Dulan abu-Saleh, the mayor of Majdal Shams, the largest Druze town in
the Golan, told the Makor Rishon newspaper that the U.N. Economic and
Social Council’s recent statement on the area was “a total joke,” the
daily reported Friday.
...
Abu-Saleh objected to the inclusion of his native area in the U.N.
panel’s statement earlier this month, which said that “economic and
social repercussions of the occupation on the living conditions of the
Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, including
East Jerusalem and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan.”
“I don’t understand what they’re talking about, it’s laughable,”
abu-Saleh said. Druze in the Golan “don’t serve in the IDF and so far
are only receiving from the state.”
Referencing the war in Syria, he
said: “Why don’t they condemn the horrors in Syria, where dozens of
children are killed daily? Golan residents have a good life.”
He also said: “Although we weren’t included in some major cabinet
decisions on budgets, when we build and make up plans we never felt
discrimination. On the contrary, we always found an attentive ear.”
Prior to the eruption in 2011 of a civil war in Syria, only 1,700 of
the Golan’s Druze claimed Israeli citizenship offered to them. Hundreds
have applied since then.
And Abu-Saleh is not a lone voice.
Karim Batkhish, a resident of the town of Masaada, is quoted as saying:
“The war in Syria is irrelevant to us. Some may say they support [Syrian
President Bashar] Assad but it’s a lie to show Syria we’re with them.
They’re lying, no one wants to see Syria here.”
That kind of matches the 'Palestinian' experience under 'occupation' in Jerusalem, doesn't it?
Terrorist Samir al-Kuntar wiped out along with Hezbullah commanders in Syria
In what is said to be an Israeli airstrike, terrorist Samir al-Kuntar and several commanders of Hezbullah in Syria were wiped out around 10:00 pm last night in Damascus.
Let's go to the videotape.
Israel: U/D Footage from Damascus shows destruction following Israeli airstrike that killed Samir Kuntar and others pic.twitter.com/OjZSxYeyji
In 1979, Kuntar (at left in the picture above) and three other
terrorists penetrated Israeli territory from Lebanon and entered the
town of Nahariya. They murdered a police officer and then entered the
home of the Harran family of Nahariya. From here, I am going to let the
words of the sole survivor of that attack - Smadar Harran Kaiser - speak for themselves:
Samir Kuntar (Bashed Israeli toddlers head in, killed family in 79) always regarded as major hero for Lebanese/Palestinian militant factions
Abu
Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was
captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985
hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are
probably few who remember why Abbas's terrorists held the ship and its
400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a
Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli
prison for life. Kuntar's name is all but unknown to the world. But I
know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.
It
was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of
Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro
and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar's mission against my
family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu
Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be
prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his
terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on
April 22, 1979.
It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband,
Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2,
on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern
coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around
midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by
Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks
away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst
into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they
charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment.
In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As
they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the
stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed
the door.
Outside, we could hear the men storming about.
Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a
crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my
arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to
take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing
into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and
Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never
forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about
hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if
Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space
and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she
could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she
had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what
happened to my mother," I thought.
As
police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the
beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in
front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever
see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his
rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.
By
the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too,
was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.
The
next day, Abu Abbas announced from Beirut that the terrorist attack in
Nahariya had been carried out "to protest the signing of the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty" at Camp David the previous year. Abbas
seems to have a gift for charming journalists, but imagine the character
of a man who protests an act of peace by committing an act of
slaughter.
Two of Abbas's terrorists had been killed by police on
the beach. The other two were captured, convicted and sentenced to life
in prison. Despite my protests, one was released in a prisoner exchange
for Israeli POWs several months before the Achille Lauro hijacking. Abu
Abbas was determined to find a way to free Kuntar as well. So he
engineered the hijacking of the Achille Lauro off the coast of Egypt and
demanded the release of 50 Arab terrorists from Israeli jails. The only
one of those prisoners actually named was Samir Kuntar. The plight of
hundreds held hostage on a cruise ship for two days at sea lent itself
to massive international media coverage. The attack on Nahariya, by
contrast, had taken less than an hour in the middle of the night. So
what happened then was hardly noticed outside of Israel.
To
complete the record, Abu Abbas died in an American prison in Iraq in
2003 shortly after Smadar Harran Kaiser wrote the article above. I just
want to add to this from a web site I found about why Samir Kuntar should never be released:
According
to Smadar Haran, her last memories of Danny and Einat, that day, were
when they were being led away at gun point by Kuntar. She could hear
from her closet space Danny telling Einat, "Don't be scared, my baby, it will be alright" and Einat replied to him in her little voice, "Dad, where is Mommy? I want Mommy."
Smadar's last memory of her 2-year-old daughter, Yael, was when her
little daughter was taken to the apartment hiding space. Right before
Yael had her mouth covered by her mother, she asked her mother "Where is my little pacifier."
There was no time to search for the pacifier. Minutes later
Smadar covered Yael's mouth to keep her from revealing the hiding space.
Smadar soon felt her daughter's tiny tongue licks and lip sucking on
the palm of her hand. She didn't know what to make of it at first but
hours later was told by doctors and paramedics that the reason Yael was
licking her palm while she covered her mouth was because she was gasping
for air.
After taking Danny and four-year old Einat hostage,
Kuntar and his group took them down to the beach. Samir Kuntar quickly
shot Danny in the back and then drowned him in the Mediterranean Sea to
ensure his death. While Kuntar drowned Danny, he forced terrified Einat to watch and cry. According to eyewitnesses, "Danny was murdered in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see." Little Einat would not have that horrible memory in her head for long. Kuntar, the brave Lebanese freedom fighter,crushed Einat's skull over and over upon the rocks with the butt of his rifle until she was dead.
...
During
the ensuing shootout between Kuntar's terror group and Israeli police,
two policeman were killed along with two of the Arab terrorists. Kuntar
and the fourth participant, Ahmed Al-Abrass, were captured. Ahmed
Al-Abrass was later free by the Israeli authorities in the infamous May
1985 Ahmed Jibril prisoner exchange deal in which 1,150 Arab prisoners
(some of whom had blood on their hands) were exchanged for three Israeli
soldiers. Kuntar was not included in the deal.
The Israeli
government determined at first to make a decision to execute Kuntar, for
his horrific crime, especially for the fact that he tortured and beat
to death the 4-year old toddler. Israeli Prime Minister at that time,
Menachem Begin , proposed a draft resolution to the Security and
Foreign Affairs Committee in the Israeli Keenest on April 24, 1979. He
demanded to eliminate a previous resolution stipulated by the Israeli
cabinet, which said no execution should be implemented against
terrorists as the international law prohibits it. The Israeli Foreign
Minister Izer Weizman and Transportation Minister Hayeem Landau
supported Beagin’s draft resolution. Abraham Sharer, who was the head of
the Likude parliamentary bloc also, called for Kuntar’s execution.
Isaac Shamir issued a statement on April 25, 1979 also calling for his
execution.
The Israelis tried to implement the execution sentence
on Samir Kuntar and the whole parliament agreed on them. The only
dilemma they were having was the Israeli law that doesn’t allow
execution except for the Nazis of the World War II and to those found
guilty of betrayal to their country. Furthermore, they did not want the
international community on their backs; also, they wanted to improve
their relationship with Egypt after the peace process. As a consequence,
the Israeli central court in Haifa sentenced Kuntar to 5 life sentences
plus 47 years to come up with the total of 542 years. During the trial,
Kuntar was waving victory signs, and called himself a hero.
Samir Kuntar has confessed proudly to his murder of the little girl and never once showed one ounce of remorse for his crime. Even
while serving his prison term, he has bragged repeatedly during
interviews about how proud he was for murdering the 4-year-old Israeli
child. While in prison Kuntar got married and even receives conjugal
visits. Below he stands proudly alongside other convicted Arab murderer, Marwan Barghouti.
But it is unlikely that the attack on Kuntar and his Hezbullah cohorts was a revenge attack.
Israel wouldn't risk Hezbollah retaliation for such a strike, unless it was to prevent a significant attack being planned by the Kuntar cell
Lebanon's al-Mayadeen reported that the IAF took out the entire building in which Kuntar and his friends were meeting using a long-range missile while hovering over the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). This likely would have rendered unnecessary any coordination of the attack with Russia. The silence of the Russian S-400's that 'protect' Syria is rumored to be a quid pro quo for Israel not attacking every time Russia violates its air space.
Al Mayadeen (via Israel Radio) Israel took out Kuntar w/ long range missile while hovering over Kinneret. Syria still 'investigating.'
Syria has yet to admit that Israel is responsible for the attack or to condemn it, but that is likely coming soon. Kuntar was said to be attempting (unsuccessfully) to recruit Golan Druze to attack Israel.
@lrozen Dispatched to Golan to try to recruit Syrian Druze to attack Israel as part of Assad's NDF. They rejected him and his $.
Two Druse villagers indicted for murdering wounded Syrian
Two Israeli Druze from the Golan Heights village of Majdal Shams have been indicted for murdering a wounded Syrian after they broke into an ambulance transporting him back in June and murdered him. This is from the first link.
The defendants, 48-year-old Bashira Mahmoud and 21-year-old Amal Abu
Salah, can be seen in video of the attack beating and stoning one of the
wounded Syrian men as he lied motionless on the pavement outside the
ski village of Neve Atib on the night of June 26th, the indictment
states.
The indictment details how the ambulance carrying the two
Syrian men – wounded in fighting in the country’s civil war – was
passing through Majdal Shams at 9:15 p.m., escorted by a military police
cruiser, when it was blocked by an ATV, after which dozens of locals
approached the ambulance and began checking who it was carrying. The
military police told the crowd the wounded men were IDF soldiers, but
the mob did not believe them and began to pound on the vehicle,
shattering the back windshield. The ambulance driver and the military
police managed to flee towards Neve Atib where they stopped in the
parking lot of a local hotel awaiting approval to continue on.
After
a few minutes, an IDF vehicle with troops arrived, as did dozens of
Druse villagers, many of them wearing masks and carrying sticks and
poles and stones. They then blocked the vehicles in and charged the
ambulance, tossing aside the IDF soldiers trying to protect it.
The
soldiers fired in the air and managed to scatter the mob temporarily,
but they returned and pulled the wounded Syrians out of the ambulance
through the shattered windshield and began to beat them with metal and
wooden sticks and stones.
One of these was Abu Salah, the
indictment states, who “repeatedly and with great force beat the wounded
in his upper body with the intent to kill.” He also threw a stone at
the wounded man, while Mahmoud “approached the wounded man and hurled
large stones at him with great force repeatedly,” with the intent to
kill, the indictment states.
Both of the defendants were allegedly caught on video attacking the men, according to the indictment.
Israel places greater value on Arab lives than the Arabs do.
Suspects arrested in Druze attack on ambulances in Golan Heights
Nine Druze from Israel and the Golan Heights have been arrested and charged with the Monday lynching of two wounded Syrians, who were being brought to Israel by ambulance for treatment, in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border.
Inflamed by media reports suggesting some of
the hundreds of wounded Syrians who have been admitted to Israel for
medical care belong to jihadi rebel groups fighting the Druze in Syria,
the crowds of Druze blocked two army ambulances for inspection.
One
ambulance managed to escape with crew and patients unharmed. In the
other, a Syrian casualty was killed and another seriously wounded in
what Israeli officials described as a lynching. Two troops accompanying
them were also injured.
Radical
Islamists see the Druze, whose religion is an offshoot of Islam, as
apostates to be combated. Druze in Syria and many in the Golan Heights,
which Israel captured from Syria in 1967, have long been loyal to
President Bashar al-Assad.
Damascus's official
news agency SANA on Tuesday described those behind the lethal ambulance
attack as "heroic Syrian young men" and alleged they had targeted
wounded insurgents from the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
Israel's stated policy is to offer medical treatment to Syrians regardless of possible affiliation to armed groups.
Druze communal and spiritual leaders from Israel
and the Golan mobilized to stem further flare-ups, issuing an edict on
Tuesday warning any Druze engaging in such violence that they risked
ostracism from the close-knit sect.
The West has never understood how much of the Middle East is tribal and clan-based. The 'countries' in the Middle East were creations of the era following World War I, and to this day, most of these peoples' loyalty is to their tribes and clans and not to the countries in which they nominally live. The Druze support Assad because they are a minority like him (Assad is an Alawite) and because they fear the Islamists (who consider them apostates) even more.
Israel working to create safe area in Syria for Druze
Fearful of a genocide of Syrian Druze, Israel is working with other countries, the International Red Cross and the United Nations to bring about the creation of a safe zone for Druze and other religious minorities in southern Syria according to a report at the website Walla! (link in Hebrew) that has been confirmed by Israeli diplomatic sources. The Red Cross refuses to confirm the report.
According to the report, Israel says it cannot take in hundreds of thousands of Druze, but it is working toward a safe zone in the area of Idlib, near where the borders of Israel, Syria and Jordan come together. The Druze, like other religious minorities in Syria, support President Bashar al-Assad and fear a massacre by Islamist forces as the Assad regime apparently collapses.
Israel says that it will not stand by and watch a genocide on its borders.
Lapid recounted speaking with the family of Zidan Saif, the Druse
police officer who was killed defending Jewish worshipers in the
Jerusalem synagogue massacre last week.
“What will we tell them, that [Saif] is a second-rate citizen?” he asked.
Israeli Druze “are not Palestinians,” a Druze leader said regarding a proposed law to officially codify Israel’s status as a “Jewish state.”
As opposed to Muslim Arabs, members of the Druze community tend to be pro-Israel.
“We are not Palestinians and do not have religious or cultural
connections with them, but are full Israeli citizens. I want the state
to be a Jewish state and not one of ‘all its citizens,’” said Atta
Farhat, the head of the Druze Zionist Council for Israel, according to
the Jerusalem Post.
Farhat said Jews “respect others and their way of life.”
“We see what is happening in Iraq, Egypt, and other Arab countries.
We don’t want to live under a government of darkness, but where we have
freedom,” added Farhat.
Exclusive: Rabbi of Kehillat Bnei Torah eulogizes Druze police officer
The picture collage above is from the funeral of the Druze police officer Zeidaf Saif, who was murdered at the terror attack in Har Nof on Tuesday morning. In the middle picture, there's a man speaking at the microphone who looks a little out of place. He is Rav Yitzchak Mordechai Rubin, the rabbi of Kehillat Bnei Torah, where the terror attack took place.
I have tape (sound only, Hebrew only - sorry) of the Rabbi's eulogy.
Syrian opposition: Obama allowed ISIS cancer to metastasize
An Israeli Druze who is in touch with the Syrian opposition accuses the Hussein Obama administration of allowing what he calls the ISIS cancer to metastasize. He also reports that the (non-Islamist) opposition wants friendly relations with Israel.
Mendi Safadi, an Israeli Druse who served as former Likud deputy minister Ayoub Kara’s chief of staff, has independently met with members of the liberal and democratic Syrian opposition who oppose the Islamists and want friendly relations with Israel.
Safadi, who met with senior opposition officials last week, has traveled in the region, met with activists, and relayed messages from them to the Prime Minister’s Office.
He was responsible for relaying the congratulatory letters from the Syrian opposition to then President-elect Reuven Rivlin.
Islamic State should have been dealt with months ago, when it was concentrated in much smaller territory, Safadi told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Sunday.
“Islamic State is a cancer,” and just like the disease, “it needed to be attacked before it spread.”
...
Islamic State could have been finished off three months ago if the US had acted decisively at that time, said Safadi, but now that the group has spread, it will require a much more robust ground operation to eliminate the group’s hold on territory in Iraq and Syria.
Safadi showed the Post documentation identifying two apparent spies who infiltrated Islamic State and were sending him information about the group in return for cash.
Not all of the fighters affiliated with Islamic State are true believers, he said, noting that some have come to the conclusion on their own that the group is extreme and dangerous.
...
Safadi also claimed that his sources in Islamic State told him about the group’s upcoming declaration of a caliphate, a month-and-a-half before it was to occur.
Safadi said that he shared the intelligence with Israel and contacts in the United States six months ago, but no action that he is aware of was taken to halt the group at that point.
Safadi also claims that if the US supported the non-Islamist rebels, the war could be over in months. Read the whole thing.
But of course, that won't happen. Hussein Obama wants the world to be taken over by radical Islam. What could go wrong?
Deputy Knesset Speaker Hamad Amar (Likud) (yeah, we're real racists in this country - he's Druze) ripped former Arafat adviser and current MK Ahmed Tibi (pictured with Muamar Gadhafi) for the latter's contribution to the situation of 'Israeli Arabs.'
“Perhaps more than anyone else, Tibi represents all that is wrong
with parts of the Israeli Arab leadership,” Amar wrote in a post to Congress Blog.
“Rather than encourage integration among our community, the community
of Arabic-speaking Israeli citizens, Tibi supports segregation, calling
for the complete ostracism of any Israeli Arab who volunteers for
national civilian service,” he continued.
Tibi does this, he added, because, “he knows his political future
rests on the continued demonization of the State of Israel and its
Jewish majority.”
Amar took Tibi and other Arab Members of Knesset to task for their
visits to despotic Arab regimes, including previous warm ties with
deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and shows of support for Syria’s
Bashar Assad “even while the rest of the world stands aghast at his
systematic butchery.”
Amar argued that his own story, and that of the Druze community,
shows that “there is another way.” Druze Israelis are highly integrated
in the IDF, he noted. In recent years, he said, “I initiated an
overhaul, repair and modernization of the sewage and water systems and
the electricity grids in predominantly Arab areas in the north of the
country, long ignored by others.”
“This is what can happen if one chooses integration and contribution over ostracism and demonization,” he declared.
Israeli Arabs have more rights than Arabs elsewhere in the Middle
East, he noted. “In our whole region consisting of over 350 million
Arabs, there are only 1,658,000 Arabs who have complete political and
religious freedom and have the right to vote in full democratic
elections. It is no coincidence that all of these Arabs live as full and
equal citizens in the one Jewish State.”
Amar concluded with a call to Israel’s Arab community. “What is our role as Arabic-speaking Israeli citizens?” he asked.
“Will we pick up the gauntlet and contribute and assist in the
building of our country, as Kennedy encouraged, or will we, like Tibi,
continue to malign it while preventing our community from the progress,
development and integration it requires and deserves?
Indeed. There should be more Israeli Arab MK's like Amar.
One of the 22 anti-Israel resolutions passed in the recent United Nations General Assembly session called on Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria. The Arab Druze residents of the Golan have a different view. Over the last year and a half, they've been accepting Israeli citizenship in droves.
One resolution, for instance, slams Israel’s 1981 annexation of the
“occupied Syrian Golan” and demands that Israel “rescind forthwith its
decision.” Given what’s happening across the border in Syria, where the
ongoing civil war has killed over 44,000 people and created over 500,000
refugees, I suspect most of the 20,000 Syrian Druze on the Golan are
thanking their lucky stars to be living safely under Israel’s
“occupation.” But you needn’t take my word for it: According to the Hebrew dailyMaariv, whose report was subsequently picked up the Winnipeg Jewish Review,
Israeli government statistics show that the number of Golan Druze
applying for Israeli citizenship (for which the annexation made them
eligible) has risen by hundreds of percent since the Syrian civil war
erupted, after 30 years in which very few did so.
“More and more people comprehend that
this [Israel] is a well-managed country and it’s possible to live and
raise children here,” one Druze who acquired Israeli citizenship
explained.
“In Syria there is mass murder, and if [the Druze are] under
Syrian control they would likely be turned into the victims of these
atrocities. People see murdered children and refugees fleeing to Jordan
and Turkey, lacking everything, and ask themselves: Where do I want to
raise my children. The answer is clear–in Israel and not Syria.”
But what the Golan’s own residents want, of course, is of no interest
to the UN: It would rather Israel return the area, and its Druze, to
the Syrian hellhole “forthwith.”
Can someone please explain to me why we are doing this? As the Assad regime murders its own people, Israel, through the good graces of the United Nations and the Red Cross has just completed the transfer of 12,000 tons of apples from the Golan Heights (which the Red Cross insists on calling 'Occupied Golan') to Syria.
The sale of fruit represents a significant economic and human link between Syrian farmers in the occupied Golan and the Syrian market, and the ICRC has been running such operations since 2005. The programme is only possible because all parties recognize the ICRC’s role as a neutral intermediary.
The transfer takes place annually. Druse farmers from the Golan Heights send apples to be sold in Damascus markets, where they come in plain white packaging to hide their origin.
Why are we helping the Syrian economy now? And why are we doing so in a way that makes our help anonymous? If Assad goes, the Syrians may lose interest in the Golan pretty quickly.
Druze MK Ayoub Kara (Likud) has warned that Israel will defend Syria's Druze community if it is attacked by Bashar al-Assad.
Deputy Galilee and Negev Development Minister Ayoub Kara said Sunday that should Assad attack the Druse population in Syria, Israel would not sit with its “hands folded.”
Kara, a Likud lawmaker who is Druse, said in a statement he is concerned Assad could “attack the Druse in Aleppo as was done in the past. He needs to know that in that case we will not sit with our hands folded.”
Kara’s comments came on the same day that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asked his ministers at the weekly cabinet meeting not to speak publicly about the situation in Syria. If they must do so, he said, they should first coordinate their message with the Prime Minister’s Office or Defense Ministry.
One government official said it was clear that Kara was “expressing his own opinion, and not that of the government.”
Kara said he was already hearing support for the Syrian opposition among Golan Druse who “for years were afraid to express opposition to the Assad regime.”
Defending the Syrian Druze would probably not be a bad move for Israel.
The Druze on the Golan Heights are in limbo between Israel and Syria; even though they would rather stay under Israeli rule, they have to continue to declare their loyalty to Syria's Bashar al-Assad, because they cannot rely on Israel not to return them to Syria, and therefore they have to live in fear of one day falling under Assad's rule.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
