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Friday April 4, 1997

Mideast Report

Organic matzah offered to Israeli Pesach shoppers

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Health-conscious Israelis can look forward this Passover to spreading the traditional charoset on organic matzah.

The Israeli association for organic agriculture said it invested some $33,000 to organize the marketing and distribution of the matzah, as well as other kosher-for-Passover goods, including organic baby food and organic grape juice.

Association officials said the price of the unleavened bread, made from wheat that was not treated with any chemical fertilizers, would be about 30 percent more than the run-of-the-mill matzah.

Labor may back Palestine as state if resolution OKd

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- The Labor Party political bureau has decided to add a clause to its platform recognizing the Palestinian right to an independent state, with certain sovereign limitations.

The bureau also said Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel.

The resolutions still require party approval.

Graves of Israeli soldiers can get inscribed marble slabs

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- Bereaved families of Israeli soldiers can add a marble slab to graves in military cemeteries on which a two-line epigraph can be inscribed, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee decided Tuesday.

However, it also decided the current practice of allowing only the soldier's parents to be named on the headstones will continue. Thus, names of siblings and other relatives cannot be added, as many bereaved families had requested.

An additional term -- "fell during an operation," with a mention of the location of the incident -- is being added to the list of terms used to describe the circumstances of death.

After the deadly helicopter collision in the north of Israel two months ago, several families were angry that the army wanted to mark the graves with the inscription "fell in the line of duty" -- the standard inscription used for soldiers who die in military accidents.

They demanded an inscription that indicated their sons had died during a military operation, even though they had not actually died in battle.

Iranian spy freed from jail one year ahead of schedule

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A 32-year-old Israeli convicted of having contacts with a foreign agent who tried to recruit him for Iranian intelligence was released from jail this week.

Herzl Rad, who served two years of his three-year sentence, refused to comment on his conviction, saying only that he planned to remain in Israel.

Israel plans new satellite after initial rocket failed

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Haifa's Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is planning a second launch of a satellite, after a first attempt failed two years ago.

In that launch, the rocket crashed 14 seconds after it was sent up.

The new satellite, TechSat 2, is set to be launched by a civilian Russian company. The first satellite was sent up on a ballistic missile modified for civilian use.

The Technion will pay $400,000 for the launch.

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