Pro-Israeli demonstrators rally downtown

By Brent Jones, The Baltimore Sun | June 4, 2010

About 75 demonstrators waved Israeli flags at a downtown Baltimore intersection Friday in a show of support for this week's deadly attack by Israeli defense forces trying to prevent an aid flotilla from reaching the impoverished Gaza Strip. The 90-minute rally, organized by Baltimore Zionist District, was held at Pratt and Light streets to raise awareness of what supporters called an act of self-defense by Israel against Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement that controls Gaza.

Maryland peace activist sees Gaza blockade easing

By Paul West, The Baltimore Sun | June 2, 2010

A Maryland peace activist aboard the pro-Palestinian flotilla raided by Israeli commandos expressed guarded optimism Wednesday that the deadly episode would force Israel to relax its years-old blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government "may have made a gross mistake," Edward L. Peck, a retired U.S. diplomat who lives in Chevy Chase, said in a telephone interview. "And so, this could lead to an improved situation for the people" of Gaza. "It's a horrible thing that happened to those Turks who died" in the Israeli attack.

Israelis, Palestinians clash near Gaza Strip

March 27, 2010

JERUSALEM - Two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinians were killed in an exchange of fire along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip on Friday after an Israeli army patrol spotted Palestinians planting explosives along the border, the army said. The Israeli deaths were the first military casualties since shortly after Israel completed a three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip in January 2009 that aimed to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel. Two other soldiers were wounded in Friday's incident.

Obama's no honest broker on Israel

March 25, 2010

Your March 24 article, "Obama, Netanyahu, meet; minds don't," caught my attention because your writer used the term "Arab East Jerusalem" in referring to construction in Jerusalem. There is no such thing as "Arab East Jerusalem." There is North, South, East and West Jerusalem, which is all a part of Israel. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Washington recently, "Jerusalem is not a settlement." It is within Israel's borders, and Jewish and Arab citizens both are allowed to live and build in Jerusalem.

Heralding Israel's heritage

By Aron U. Raskas | March 5, 2010

J -The Israeli government adds two culturally rich, millennium-old historic sites to a list of national treasures, and riots break out, followed by international condemnation. Yet, it is precisely this cynical, predictable response that demonstrates why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to add the Tomb of Rachel and the Cave of the Patriarchs to Israel's National Heritage Sites. There is no nation with firmer roots in a land than the Jewish people in the greater land of Israel.

Other notable deaths

April 28, 2008

Yossi Harel, 90 Ship commander Yossi Harel, the ship commander whose attempt to bring Holocaust survivors to Palestine aboard the Exodus 1947 built support for Israel's founding, has died. Mr. Harel's daughter Sharon said he died Saturday of cardiac arrest at his home in Tel Aviv. Mr. Harel commanded four expeditions that brought thousands of refugees to the shores of Palestine, his daughter said. But the best known was that of the Exodus 1947, a ship that left France in July 1947 carrying more than 4,500 people -- mostly Holocaust survivors and other displaced Jews -- in a secret effort to reach Palestine.

'Exodus 1947': a close look at a big story Review: The plight of refugee Jews trying to reach Palestine after World War II, aboard a creaky Chesapeake

By David Zurawik | David Zurawik,SUN TELEVISION CRITIC | July 5, 1997

"Exodus 1947" is a real-life "Mission Impossible" that starts with a broken-down, Chesapeake Bay steamer in Baltimore and ends with the birth of a new nation in Palestine.Along the way, there's a deadly blockade of British gunships, 4,500 refugees from Hitler's European death camps, freedom fighters from the Haganah and the heroism of a crew of Jewish men in their 20s and 30s, many of whom had never even been to sea."Exodus 1947," which is co-produced by Maryland Public Television and airs at 10 tomorrow night, is a documentary you don't want to miss.