The recent landslide Hamas election victory in the Palestinian territories would appear to be a huge blow to hopes for peace between Israelis and the Palestinians — and it is. But despite the Hamas victory, the truth is the peace process has been dead for years.

The late Yasser Arafat never really accepted Israel’s right to exist. In fact, on May 10, 1994, Arafat described his acceptance of the Oslo Accords as akin to the temporary truce between the prophet Muhammad and the Quraish tribe, which was later broken once Muhammad’s forces became powerful:

There are a myriad of reasons why one should exercise regularly. With the opening of the new and improved Klotsche Center, there is no better time to get motivated and get your butt into one of Milwaukee’s finest workout facilities.

As a one-time Bally’s personal trainer and life-long workout fanatic, I am familiar with the ins-and-outs and do’s-and-don’ts of a gym. Therefore, I feel it is high time to remind the public about some basic gym etiquette rules.

Ever since 9/11 the political atmosphere in this country has been highly charged. Emotions on all sides of the political debate run high, and it is not uncommon for opponents to throw epithets at each other.

By that I do not mean run-of-the-mill curse words, but politically loaded and emotion-laden bombs. Powerful words such as “fascist,” “Nazi” and “genocide” are often used carelessly. But the gratuitous use of such words can have harmful ramifications.

“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
– Carl Sagan, astronomer

A lot has been written about the Muhammad cartoons, but there are some facts that need to be made clear before a fair discussion can be had about the “cartoons of blasphemy.”

The first is that this was an engineered cultural clash. The cartoons were published months ago with nary a peep.

In 1998 under the auspices of former University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher an idea was born — the Milwaukee Idea.

A major goal of the Milwaukee Idea is “to forge vital and long-lasting community-university partnerships that enhance the quality of life for all,” according to the Milwaukee Idea Web site.

We are chemical beings.

Sometimes our bodies do not synthesize certain chemicals properly. When that happens, similar to diseases like diabetes, we must fix the chemical imbalance.

People who are nominally familiar with the Arab-Israeli conflict are most certainly familiar with the issue of Palestinian refugees. When Palestine was partitioned into Jewish and Arab states, the Jews accepted the plan, but the Arabs utterly rejected it. Shortly thereafter, the surrounding Arab countries — Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq — invaded Israel in the hope of wiping it off the map before it could even breathe. In the ensuing battle, some 600,000 Arabs either fled their homes or were driven out. Israel had survived its bloody birth.

In the decade following Israel’s creation, however, Jews who had been residing in Islamic lands found themselves surrounded by an increasingly hostile population. Some 900,000 Jews were coerced or frightened into fleeing their homelands following lethal riots and discriminatory legislation. Most ended up in Israel where they started new lives. To this day, slightly over half of Israel’s Jewish population is compromised of those Jewish refugees and their descendents.