Image copyright KATE STEPHENS Image caption The synchrotron is a particle accelerator that essentially acts as an extremely powerful microscope

In a rare show of unity in the Middle East, an advanced research centre to be shared by the troubled region has opened in Jordan.

Despite political tensions and rows, countries usually hostile to each other are jointly supporting the venture.

Its name is Sesame - Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East.

The facility hosts a synchrotron, a particle accelerator that acts as a powerful microscope.

Researchers including Iranians, Israelis and Palestinians - who would never normally meet - will now use the machine together.

Sesame is a play on the famous phrase "Open Sesame" and is meant to signal a new era of collaborative science.

By generating intense beams of light, synchrotrons provide exceptionally detailed views of everything from cancerous tissue to ancient parchments to plant diseases.

Sesame's vast white building, located amid dusty hills some 35km north of the capital Amman, makes a stark contrast to the olive groves around it.

Image copyright KATE STEPHENS Image caption Funding problems - among other issues - have led to delays on the project

The idea of a Middle Eastern synchrotron was first mooted 20 years ago but the sheer novelty of the plan and the extreme sensitivities of the region led to endless delays in finance, design and construction.

For most of the past decade, a British physicist, Prof Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, has chaired the project through a series of obstacles.

For a start, Israel and Iran do not have diplomatic relations with each other and nor do fellow members Turkey and Cyprus

Iran has been unable to pay its share because of international sanctions on banking

Two Iranian scientists were killed in what the Iranian government said were assassinations by the Israeli secret service - one was a delegate to the Sesame Council, the other had visited Sesame

After a freak snowstorm, the Sesame roof collapsed leaving key components exposed to the elements

Now, standing in the centre of the completed - and tested - main ring of the Sesame synchrotron, Prof Llewellyn Smith admitted that he was "a bit surprised" that the venture had got so far.

"The real problem has been finding the money - the countries in this region have science budgets that you can hardly see with a microscope," he said.

Image copyright KATE STEPHENS Image caption Sesame will be the first synchrotron in the Middle East

"And there've been many times in the history of this project when a rational person would say 'let's give up' but it's so important it's kept going and here we are today."

The turning point came in 2012 when Iran, Israel, Jordan and Turkey each agreed to contribute US$5m provided that all the others did too, though the Iranians have yet to pay.

That unlocked further finance from Italy and also from the EU which funded Cern, the international particle collider in Geneva, to manufacture the magnets that guide Sesame's beams. Unesco has also provided support.

There are some 60 synchrotrons in use around the world but Sesame will be the first in the Middle East.

The aim is to provide young scientists in the region with a reason not to emigrate to Europe or America - to try to help stem the brain drain of research talent.

Dr Gihan Kamel is an Egyptian who returned to the Middle East from a synchrotron in Italy in order to work at Sesame.

She sees the facility as vital for establishing advanced science in the region enabling it to develop techniques for the early detection of cancer or for analysing key crops to improve agriculture or explore treasured documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls which are 2,000 years old.

She says that it takes time to adjust to working with people from different religions and cultures but that the result of collaboration makes it worth it.

"We are not building a paradise, it's not an ideal place," she told me.

Image copyright KATE STEPHENS Image caption The facility could help lead to key developments in medicine and biology

"But we are creating something, we are giving hope for other people for other generations."

One of the earliest movers behind the project, Prof Eliezer Rabinovici, a leading Israeli physicist, described the opening as "a very moving moment".

"People and scientists from all over the region as well as many parts of the world have demonstrated that one can work together over decades for a common goal benefitting humanity," said Prof Rabinovici.

"Today a tiny lighthouse is opened which can suggest another direction to the young generation."

This comes amid escalating tensions in the region with the war in Syria right next door to the nation hosting Sesame, Jordan.

Last month the King Abdullah of Jordan, who performed today's opening ceremony at Sesame, recently criticised Iran over its role in the Syrian conflict.

So I asked a senior Iranian scientist, Prof Mahmoud Tabrizchi, whether these tumultuous events make a collaborative project like Sesame too difficult.

"Science is different from politics," he said, describing Sesame as "the greatest event in science in the Middle East".

"Scientists are doing their job. Science is like water - it flows between the countries but it never runs out. So it is better to share with each other."

The opening ceremony was attended by royalty, ministers or senior officials from the Jordanian, Cypriot, Egyptian, Iranian, Israeli, Pakistani, Palestinian and Turkish delegations, and by the European Commissioner for research and science and the heads of Cern, Unesco and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The first research using the synchrotron is due to start shortly with a "beam-line" using infra-red light with others to follow.

And because of the high cost of electricity in Jordan there are plans for a solar farm which would make Sesame the first synchrotron to be powered by renewable energy.

Looking ahead, already discussions have started about copying the Sesame model by building similar synchrotrons in other parts of the world including Africa and Central America.

Follow David on Twitter.</s>UNITED NATIONS U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Wednesday she will visit Turkey and Jordan from May 19-25 to see how Syrian refugees "are coping, day in and day out," to see U.N. humanitarian work and highlight the U.S. aid response.It will be the first overseas trip by Haley, a member of President Donald Trump's cabinet, and follows a bid by Trump to temporarily ban refugees from entering the United States and to cut funding to the United Nations and its agencies."What is happening in Syria and its neighbouring countries is a true humanitarian crisis. But those who accuse the U.S. of heartlessness in the face of this crisis are wrong," Haley wrote in the Wall Street Journal newspaper on Wednesday.

"No country has invested more in protecting, housing, feeding and caring for Syrian refugees than the U.S. We have provided nearly $6.5 billion in emergency assistance for Syria since the start of the crisis," she wrote.

Haley said she would talk to government leaders about how U.S. programs to help refugees are working. She also plans to visit refugee camps and families, U.S. funded schools and to witness U.N. efforts to ship humanitarian aid into Syria from Jordan and Turkey. "With American help, Syria's neighbours have made the difference between life and death for millions of Syrians. The U.S. and the U.N. will continue to do a great deal of heavy lifting for these desperate people," Haley wrote.

Haley's trip coincides with Trump's maiden trip abroad to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium. A crackdown by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to civil war and Islamic State militants used the chaos to seize territory in Syria and Iraq. Half of Syria's 22 million people have been uprooted and more than 400,000 killed. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.</s>Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday formally launched an international research center whose members include experts from around the world including arch-rivals Iran and Israel.

The International Center for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, known by the acronym SESAME, "is the first research center of its kind in the region," said the royal court.

SESAME council president Chris Llewellyn Smith said the center, located in Balqa province just northwest of Amman, would be the world's first solar-powered accelerator.

"The center is expected to attract a large number of scientists from the region," Smith said, adding it had "so far received 55 scientific research projects on the use of nuclear accelerators."

SESAME was set up on the model of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) -- Europe's top physics laboratory -- and construction work on the $100 million center started in 2003.

It was developed under the auspices of UNESCO and officially came into existence in April 2004.

Jordan was chosen from among five countries for the project, which was funded mostly by the member countries and the European Union.

The project's website says that SESAME is a "third-generation" synchrotron light source aimed at promoting "scientific and technological excellence in the Middle East."

Its mission is to "prevent or reverse the brain drain by enabling world-class scientific research in subjects ranging from biology, archeology and medical sciences."

SESAME also seeks to "build scientific and cultural bridges between diverse societies, and contribute to a culture of peace through international cooperation in science," the website says.

Among the project's members are arch-rivals Israel and Iran, in addition to Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority.

Despite their deep hostilities, experts from Israel and Iran have served two-year terms as vice presidents of the SESAME council.

In 2010, one Iranian member of SESAME, Majid Shahriari, was killed in Tehran, with Iran accusing Israel of assassinating the nuclear scientist.

Seyed Mahmoud Reza Aghamiri served as vice president from December 2011 to May 2014 when Eliezer Rabinovici, a physics professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, replaced him.

Members Cyprus and Turkey also do not have diplomatic relations, like Iran and Israel.

The center also has 17 observers, who have an advisory role and include the European Union, China and the United States.

The Jordanian king was given a tour of the facility on Tuesday and was briefed on the technology used there, the royal court said in a statement.

Synchrotron uses a high-resolution X-ray to delve below the surface and identify minute details.

The centre has three accelerators that can propel electrons up to 2.5 billion electron volts.

The chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Agency, Khaled Toukan, "pointed to the political, technical and financial challenges that faced the project's task force," the statement added.</s>A massive physics project 30 kilometers northeast of Amman in Allan, Jordan is seeking to bridge divisions between countries in the Middle East. Israel, Iran, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, Cyprus and Egypt many of which have cold diplomatic relations or none at all are working together to advance cutting-edge science in a region that suffers from significant brain-drain and political instability.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Jerusalem Post.</s>While Jared Kushner presumably slaves over a way to bring peace to the Middle East, a group of Middle Eastern physicists in Jordan might already have the answer.

It’s not a traditional peace agreement in any way, but the method works under the premise that friction from opposing sides can sometimes lead to radical breakthroughs. The Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) opened Tuesday — the Middle East’s first particle accelerator. And it has paired Israeli and Arab scientists working side by side in a way diplomats might only dream of.

Located in Allan, Jordan, just 35 kilometers from Amman, SESAME — Alibaba’s famous password — aims to promote scientific research built on the hope that its “diverse members could work together harmoniously,” said Chris Llewellyn Smith, President of the SESAME Council, at the opening ceremony. Before to heading SESAME, Smith worked at the world’s largest particle accelerator facility in Geneva, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN.

The $90 million facility was formally founded in 2004, with UNESCO’s support. While it will operate as a larger research center, SESAME’s pride and joy is its synchrotron accelerator. For almost a century, scientists have realized a good way to study particles is to fling them at things at a high speed. The particle accelerator propels electrons through the 133-meter-long ring until they near the speed of light. At such a high speed, these particles emit intense light beams that tell scientists about these certain forms of matter.

Like joint Arab-Israeli orchestras and artistic endeavors, SESAME offers a shot at reconciliation in a troubled region.

“There was never such a facility in the region until now, and this project is a scientific bridge between countries,” Nasher Sawadi, a Jordanian physicist who plans to work there told Haaretz.

“We don’t mix politics with science,” one of the project’s backers, Prof. Dincer Ulku of Turkey, also told the paper. “And the work on establishing the facility was not influenced by political issues. I believe that a person needs to be good, no matter where he comes from.”

The center includes participation from Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey.

Particle physics is not the only game in town. Among the more than 550 research requests submitted to the group are plans to study pollution in the Jordan River Valley, discover new drugs for cancer therapy, and study the chemical composition of ancient manuscripts to better date them in history.

Additionally, SESAME has one thing to put it ahead of its American and European peers. Smith says it will be the world’s first accelerator powered solely by renewable energy.

“As well as being a day for celebration, the opening is an occasion to look forward to the science that SESAME will produce,” Smith said Tuesday.</s>For the past 20 years Washington has aggressively pursued the age-old imperial strategy of ‘divide and conquer’ throughout the Middle East, Southwest Asia and East Africa. Frustrated at its inability to control national policy of various independent nation-states, Washington used direct and indirect military force to destroy the central governments in the targeted nations and create patchworks of tribal-ethno-mini-states amenable to imperial rule. Tens of millions of people have been uprooted and millions have died because of this imperial policy.

Washington’s strategy of fragmentation and secession follows closely the “Greater Israel Plan” set forth by Israeli politico-military writer Oded Yinon in February 1982 and published by the World Zionist Organization. Yinon maintained that the key to Israel’s domination of the Middle East rested on fostering ethno-religious and regional divisions. Following the Yinon Plan, in the first instance, Tel Aviv signed accords with Jordan and Egypt to break-up Arab regional support for the Palestinians. It then proceeded to fragment what remained of Arab-Palestine into small warring enclaves between the West Bank and Gaza. Israel then sub-divided and settled wide swatches of the West Bank with the collaboration of the corrupt ‘Palestinian Authority’ under Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel’s ‘divide and conquer’ strategy toward the Greater Middle East depended on its placement of ‘Israel First’ officials in top policymaking positions of the US Defense, State and Treasury Departments and the power of the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) — the so-called “Israel Lobby” – to control the US Congress and Presidency in matters related to Israel.

The Israeli Mid-East strategy of fragmenting and weakening pro-Palestinian governments thus become the official US policy toward Arab countries.

This policy has not been limited to the Arab Middle East: Israel and US policymakers intervened to undermine the ‘pro-Palestinian’ government of Sudan by supporting a secessionist war to create a huge resource-rich ‘Southern Sudan’ conglomeration of tribal warlords, leaving a devastated region of mass murder and famine.

Somalia, Libya and Ethiopia were also riven by regional wars financed and armed by the US with overt and covert Israeli operatives and advisers.

Israel’s policy to weaken, fragment and destroy viable developing countries, differed from the traditional policies of colonial regimes, which sought to conquer and exploit unified nation-states. Washington has blindly followed Israel’s imperial ‘model’ without assessing its impact on US interests and thus undermining its past practice of economic exploitation of viable nation states.

‘Israel First’ officials within the US federal administrative policy-making bodies played a decisive role in fabricating the pretexts for the 2003 US invasion and destruction of Iraq. They pushed fake ‘documents’ alleging Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and they promoted a plan to sub-divide the country in three ethnically ‘cleansed’ regions: Kurds (as Israel’s allies) in the North, impoverished Sunnis in the center and easily controlled Shia tribal leaders in the South.

The policy of dismantling a central government and promoting regional fragmentation backfired on the US authorities in Iraq: Sunni insurgents, often trained by experienced Baathist (former Iraqi Army) officers, formed the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS), which took over major cities, slaughtering all non-Arab, non-Sunni residents, and threatened to established an independent state. The Shia-led government in Baghdad turned to Iran for support, forcing the US, Israel and the Kurds to declare war against ISIS, while trying to retain the weakened Sunni tribal clients. No viable central government remains in the once powerful multiethnic republic of Iraq.

The US joined Saudi Arabia in invading and bombing Yemen to destroy the Houthi rebels and favor the Sunni Salafist groups allied to al Qaeda. The goal was to weaken Yemen and prevent popular Yemini revolts from spreading to Saudi Arabia as well as undermining any Houthi alliances with Iran and expression of support for Palestine.

The US directly invaded Afghanistan expecting to easily conquer and ‘neatly’ subdivide that enormous region and ‘skillfully’ pit the various regional ethno-tribal groups against each other – while setting up a lucrative and militarily strategic site for launching future wars against US (and Israeli) rivals in Iran, Central Asia and China.

The battle-hardened Afghan Islamist Pashtun guerrilla-fighters, led by the Taliban, and unified by ethno-religious, national, tribal and extended family ties and customs, have successfully resisted this divide and conquer strategy. They now control most of the countryside, infiltrating and influencing the armed forces and police and have driven the US forces into garrison airbases, reliant on dropping mega bombs from the stratosphere.

Meanwhile, blinded by the media propaganda reports of their ‘successes’, Washington and the NATO powers launched a bloody surrogate war against the secular nationalist government of Syria, seeking to divide, conquer and obliterate an independent, pro-Palestine, pro-Iran, ally of Russia.

NATO’s invading armies and mercenary groups, however, are sub-divided into strange factions with shifting allegiances and patrons. At one level, there are the EU/US-supported ‘moderate’ head-chopping rebels. Then there are the Turkey and Saudi Arabia-supported ‘serious’ head-chopping al Qaeda Salafists. Finally there is the ‘champion’ head-chopping ISIS conglomeration based in Iraq and Syria, as well as a variety of Kurdish armed groups serving as Israeli mercenaries.

The US-EU efforts to conquer and control Syria, via surrogates, mercenaries and terrorists, was defeated largely because of Syria’s alliance with Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Syria has effectively been ‘chopped up’ by competing imperial and regional powers leading to a possible confrontation among major powers. The US-Kurdish-Turkey conflict provides the most immediate danger of serious open warfare among major nations.

Among the myriad surrogate groups that Washington supported in its seemingly contradictory policy of violently overthrowing the Syrian government in Damascus while seizing territory from ISIS, Pentagon strategists have relied most heavily on the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (YPG). The US escalated its military support for the YPG, promising heavy arms and increased US ground and air support. Meanwhile, the YPG expanded its control of the Kurdish regions in Syria especially along the Turkish border, creating a powerful territorial tie of Syrian-Kurds with Turkish-Kurds and Iraqi-Kurds. The US generous supply of heavy weapons to the YPG has increased the Kurds capacity to fight Turkey for the establishment of a contiguous ‘Greater Kurdistan’. Moreover, the US government has publicly informed Turkey that its armed forces will provide a ‘shield’ to protect the YPG – and indirectly the PKK – from Turkish attack.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is acutely aware that the YPG’s goal is to partition Southeastern Turkey and Northern Syria and form a Kurdish state with Iraqi Kurdistan. US Defense Secretary James Mattis’ pledge that ‘Washington is committed to protecting its NATO ally (Turkey)’ is ambiguous at best and most likely a hollow promise. Washington is counting on the Kurds as a strategic ally against both Damascus and ISIS. Only after accomplishing their twin goals in Syria might the Pentagon turn against the Kurds and support the Turkish government.

Complicating this scenario, the Israelis have long-standing ties with the Iraqi Kurds as part of their own divide and conquer strategy. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv has been bombing Damascus, aiding ISIS fighters in southern Syria (with material and ‘humanitarian’ medical treatment) while supporting YPG against the Syrian and Turkish militaries.

The Erdoğan regime is in a quandary: A victory for the Kurdish YPG and their occupation of territory along its border will materially threaten the ‘unity of the Turkish state’. An armed, unified Kurdish presence in this region will result in enormous pressure on Erdoğan from the nationalist political parties and supporters and the Turkish Armed Forces. On the other hand, if Erdoğan launches cross border attacks on the Pentagon-supported YPG it will directly face US ground and air power.

President Erdoğan is clearly aware that the US was involved with the silent ‘Gulanist’ permeation of the Turkish state leading up to the 2016 abortive Gulanist coup. Erdoğan’s scheduled meeting with US President Donald Trump in mid-May may not resolve the impending Turkish-Kurdish confrontation in Syria where the US is committed to protecting the YPG.

Washington hopes to convince President Erdoğan that the YPG will hand this strategic territory over to an amorphous, minuscule puppet Arab-led militia, presumably made up of non-Kurdish collaborates of the US-NATO-Saudi war against Damascus. It is hard to imagine the veteran politician Erdoğan believing a Pentagon plan for the YPG to just hand over its territorial patrimony after having fought and died to secure the region. The US is in no position to force the YPG to surrender its gains because the YPG is crucial to the Washington-Israeli-Saudi plan to destroy the central government in Damascus and fragment Syria into weak tribal mini-states.

Erdoğan’s imminent failure to get Washington support for his war with the Kurds will force him to play his ‘nationalist’ card: There will be more pro-Palestine rhetoric, more opposition to a Cyprus accord, more pro-Russia posturing and the ‘discovery’ of more and greater ‘internal threats’ to the great Turkish State.

Will Erdoğan be able defuse the hostility among his own and independent nationalist supporters?

One point is clear: A territorially-based powerful Kurdish militia, armed by the US, will be far more formidable threat to the unity of the Turkish state than the previous ill-armed rag-tag guerrillas in the mountains of northern Iraq.

It will be a humiliating defeat if Erdoğan surrenders to Pentagon demands and tolerates a US-YPG alliance on Turkey’s border. Erdoğan has some powerful options of his own: Turkey might deny the US Armed Forces access to its huge airbases in Turkey thus weakening NATO’s ‘southern flank’. A Turkish threat to withdraw from NATO altogether would have greater repercussions. Even the slightest hint of exercising these options would set off a ‘second coup’ against Erdoğan. This would involve a more serious US-NATO-backed uprising by senior Turkish officers, ‘nationalists’, democratic secularists and Kurds in major urban centers with ‘Gulanist’ politicians and bureaucrats waiting in the wings.

President Trump and the Pentagon may gain a foothold against Damascus with Kurdish surrogates in Northern Syria, but the loss of Turkey will be a strategic setback. Behind all of this confusion and devastation the partition of Syria and, eventually of Turkey, fits in very well with Greater Israel’s ‘Oded Yinon Plan’ for subdividing Muslim countries.

James Petras is author of The End of the Republic and the Delusion of Empire, Extractive Imperialism in the Americas: Capitalism's New Frontier (with Henry Veltmeyer), and The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.</s>Scientific project will use cutting-edge technology while promoting diplomacy in the Middle East.

The Middle East's first particle accelerator has officially been inaugurated in Allan, Jordan, in a ceremony attended by King Abdullah II and Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO.

According to UNESCO's press release on Tuesday, the official name of the facility is Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East, or SESAME - the password used in Ali Baba's time to open the gates to unimaginable treasures.

The $90m laboratory's mission is: "Enabling world-class research in its members in subjects ranging from biology and medical sciences through materials science, physics and chemistry to archaeology."

It aims to build "scientific and cultural bridges between neighbouring countries, promoting mutual understanding and tolerance through international cooperation, and fostering a regional community of scientific users who will work together".

SESAME is located 35km north of Jordan's capital, Amman, and was built emulating the institutional structure of CERN - the world's largest particle accelerator in Switzerland.

The project aims to provide state-of-the-art technological equipment to researchers in the region, helping stem brain drain to northern countries.

The need for an international synchrotron light source was first identified in the 1980s by renowned scientists such as Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam. In 1995, the Middle East Scientific Cooperation group (MESC) started organising meetings and advocate for the cooperation project.

In 1997, MESC took up one proposal from scientist German Gustav-Adolf Voss, who suggested using components from a facility in Berlin that would soon be decommissioned in order to start a project in the Middle East. The German government agreed under the condition of UNESCO patronage.

SESAME was formally founded in 2004 and today the project has eight full member states and 17 observers.</s>ALLAN, Jordan, and BELLINGHAM, Washington, May 16, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Leaders of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, joined others in the global photonics community in congratulatingscientists and supporters from UNESCO and elsewhere on the inauguration today of the SESAME synchrotron by King Adbullah II of Jordan.

Located in Allan, Jordan, SESAME - the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East - will engage scientists from countries throughout the region in experiments involving the study of properties of materials from rare semiconductors to viruses. Consortium members are Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey.

"We are all united in our dependence on life sustaining light," said SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs. "Now the light from SESAME will ensure scientific interchange that offers hope for improved mutual understanding. As Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam noted, 'Scientific thought and its creation is the common and shared heritage of mankind.' We are very grateful to those who worked so hard to realize the dream of SESAME. SPIE joins the many who hope it leads to a flourishing of science in Jordan and recognition throughout the region of our shared heritage.

Science diplomacy was the theme of all talks at the inaugural ceremonies, reported SPIE Member Joe Niemela of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).

Among the remarks, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Carlos Moedas noted that while many people talk and write about science diplomacy, he was impressed from his first visit to SESAME to see people actively engaging in it.

Science advocate Princess Sumaya bint Hassan of Jordan spoke about the need for international cooperation and goodwill in the region and how SESAME is playing a positive role in that regard.

Among other dignitaries on hand for the ceremonies were Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova, ICTP Director Fernando Quevedo, and President of the SESAME Council Chris Llewellyn Smith.

SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics, an educational not-for-profit organization founded in 1955 to advance light-based science, engineering, and technology. The Society serves nearly 264,000 constituents from approximately 166 countries, offering conferences and their published proceedings, continuing education, books, journals, and the SPIE Digital Library. In 2016, SPIE provided more than $4 million in support of education and outreach programs. www.spie.org</s>1. A Palestinian man is charged in what has come to be known in the UK as the “Good Friday murder.” UK student Hannah Bladon, 20, died after being stabbed multiple times in the back with a seven-inch knife as she was travelling on a light rail train near the Old City in Jerusalem, on Good Friday, April 14. Jamil Tamimi, 57, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem, was arrested at the scene and has been officially charged in Israeli court with Bladon’s murder.

2. A Jordanian citizen who had entered Israel several days earlier was shot and killed while stabbing an Israeli police officer. Police spokeswoman Luba Simri explains:

The government of Jordan called the death of the terrorist a “heinous crime,” and released the following statement:

The Daily Beast did a respectable job of covering the story as a whole, but the headline writer engaged in a journalistic habit that I find both troubling and recently all too common: the headline reads, “Israeli Police Shoot Jordanian Dead After Stabbing Attack.” [Emphasis added] Note the word after, implying that perhaps police officer shot the terrorist after his attack was already over, maybe even unnecessarily. The Daily Beast should have used the word during: to clarify that the terrorist was shot while he was stabbing an Israeli police officer. When the headline is phrased correctly the facts speak for themselves: making it clear that the Israeli police officer was acting in direct and immediate self-defense, and had almost certainly saved his own life and possibly additional lives as well.

News breaks fast. Get HonestReporting alerts by e-mail 

and never miss a thing.

3. Palestinians voted in local elections on Saturday, choosing mayors and local councils in communities across the West Bank. This is a rare chance for Palestinians to cast ballots after more than a decade without presidential or legislative elections. Nonetheless, the elections have served to highlight the Fatah-Hamas split, with Hamas boycotting the elections and not permitting voting in Gaza. With no legislative or presidential elections in sight, the municipal ballot is seen as a popularity test for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party, which controls the Palestinian Authority (PA) government. Though the PA is technically the only official government of the Palestinian people, it controls only the West Bank, while the Hamas terror organization controls the Gaza Strip.

4. On the i24 News program “The Daily Dose,” HonestReporting’s Daniel Pomerantz discusses the role of “fake news” in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with journalist Mike Wagenheim and host Yael Lavie. Our portion of the segment was shot right here in our own HonestReporting offices.

People answering their phones heard messages saying that Nasrallah himself ordered last year’s murder of Badreddine, a high-level Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah claims Israel assassinated Badreddine, while Israel says the killing was inside job.
• Washington Post columnist David Ignatius bends an ear to cabinet minister Israel Katz and his idea for an Israeli-Jordanian rail link that would also benefit the Palestinians. From Jordan, trains could link up to Saudi Arabia, Iraq or even Syria.

This isn’t a peace plan; Katz is a hard-liner who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state. But it might offer some economic benefits for the Palestinians, under Katz’s proposal for a spur line that would run south to Jenin in the West Bank. The “land bridge” would mean a striking reduction in travel distances: The overland rail connection between Haifa and Dammam in Saudi Arabia would be 1,763 kilometers, compared with 6,169 kilometers by sea; a trip to Irbid would be 120 kilometers, vs. 1,446 by sea, via Aqaba. The Baghdad link would be 2,145 kilometers vs. 7,782 by sea, via Basra. “We want the U.S. to back this initiative,” Katz told me in an interview this week as he displayed his maps of the proposed rail network for the first time to a U.S. journalist. “It can be a game-changer,” he argued, noting that the Arabs could receive cargo without potential threats to commerce from Iran and its proxies at the Strait of Hormuz at the eastern edge of the Gulf and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea.
• Hamas arrests alleged killer of military commander, Mazen Faqha who was killed last March in Gaza. Hamas blamed Israel, while Israel denied involvement. Either way it was an embarrassing breach of Hamas’s military security and a sign that they might not be quite as all-powerful as they portray. Taking the position that Israel had worked with a local resident Hamas released the statement:
• Is the concept of “Jordan is Palestine” gaining traction among Palestinians as an alternative to an Israel focused two-state solution? Christian Science Monitor’s Taylor Luck thinks so. Yet from the article it is hard to tell whether the concept is truly serious, or just a niche idea.
• FIFA (the international association for football – or “soccer” for Americans) has delayed a vote being pushed by the Palestinian government over whether to remove Israel from international competition due to Israeli teams located in the West Bank. FIFA has reiterated their former position: that they are not a body for resolution of political conflicts, nor an agency for determining borders.
• The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah is scheduled to speak at an Islamic Relief Canada event aimed at promoting Muslim solidarity, which is to take place in Toronto on May 20. While Islamic Relief is considered to be one of Canada’s leading Muslim non-governmental organizations, its head organization—Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW)—was banned by Israel and the United Arab Emirates in 2014 for its alleged financing of terrorist organizations. Other speakers include Nouman Ali Khan, a prominent Muslim American cleric who projects a moderate image, but who expresses extreme and punishing views about homosexuals and women. The Middle East Forum, an American think-tank originally founded by Daniel Pipes, is publicly calling on Trevor Noah to “support tolerance” by canceling his appearance.
• In the pages of The New York Times, former Haaretz journalist and editor Shmuel Rosner takes a look at the publication’s metamorphosis: from a respected center-left voice in Israeli society to a sensationalist publication with very little Israeli readership and even less credibility. Rosner points out that these days Haaretz takes an angry and apocalyptic tone in its criticism of Israel, furiously pointing out that unless Israel changes its ways it will face failure as a nation. Rosner concludes with this thoughtful insight:
• Those who follow news about Israel may already know that the nation of Qatar is Hamas’s major financial and logistical sponsor. It appears that Qatar is also behind Hamas’s latest PR move: the “new charter,” which is neither new nor a charter. As if that weren’t enough, Qatar also sponsors the Taliban and the Al Qaeda linked group, Al Nusra Front. Ironically, Qatar is technically a US ally: the United States keeps a base in Qatar which is apparently essential to US military presence in the region, yet the base is essentially right down the street from local Hamas and Taliban headquarters. It is a strange dilemma. For more insight on Hamas’s “new charter,” we produced this video:
• As President Trump prepares to visit Israel, promising in his usual dramatic style, “the biggest deal on earth” for securing Israeli-Palestinian peace, Newsweek columnist Marc Schulman takes a look at what this really means through the lens of Israel’s complex political landscape.

– Oded Eran and Adi Kantor: A New President in France

 – Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot: The Weapons Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower

 – Bruce Rosen: Medicare doesn’t have to be expensive. Just look at Israel

For more, see yesterday’s Israel Daily News Stream and join the IDNS on Facebook.

Before you comment on this article, please remind yourself of our Comments Policy. Any comments deemed to be in breach of the policy will be removed at the editor’s discretion.</s>Ankara and Tehran are on different sides of Syria's civil war, but they are looking to boost bilateral trade and improve banking relations following the lifting of international sanctions on Iran in January.

Shi'ite Iran has stood by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the uprising against him, while mainly Sunni Turkey has been one of his fiercest critics, supporting his opponents and giving refuge to rebel fighters.

"It is above all in our own countries' interest to strengthen our political dialogue and reduce our differences of opinion to a minimum," Erdogan told a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in Ankara.

"We have to work together to overcome the problems of terrorism and sectarianism and the related humanitarian crises that are shaking our region," Erdogan said.

Erdogan's comments came a day after the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), meeting in Istanbul, accused Iran of supporting terrorism and interfering in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries including Syria and Yemen.

Sectarian divisions have flared up in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia's Sunni allies rallying behind it as it cut diplomatic ties with Iran, the region's main Shi'ite power. Turkey has close ties with Riyadh.

Besides their rivalry in Syria, Iran is allied with the Houthi movement in Yemen, which has been battling forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed president.

Meanwhile, Turkey is seeking international backing for its view that Kurdish YPG forces in Syria are a terrorist group closely linked to PKK militants fighting in southeast Turkey.

Despite the political divisions, Turkey could be one of the major beneficiaries as Rouhani, bolstered by reformist gains in February elections, pursues plans to strengthen the private sector and welcome foreign investors.

Turkey imports large amounts of natural gas from Iran and the two countries are looking to boost banking and trade ties, with the goal of tripling bilateral trade to $30 billion annually in the coming years.

"The situation is ripe for cooperation between Turkey and Iran in the post-sanctions era," Rouhani said.

"The most important part is closer ties between banks and credit lines. We decided to improve banking relations. Turkish banks can now establish branches in Iran to help facilitate economic relations between the two countries," he added.

Iran's central bank governor called on Friday on the United States and the European Union to help it access the global financial system, including assets that Tehran says were supposed to be unfrozen following the nuclear deal.

Iran is increasingly exacerbated that few trade deals are going through as foreign banks shy away from processing transactions with the country even after the nuclear-related sanctions were lifted.
The first synchrotron in the Middle East, SESAME, opens in Jordan, marking a rare cooperation between Iran, Israel, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority.