New York, New York - July 13, 2006 -- American Friends of Magen David Adom (www.afmda.org) announced today that Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s first-aid and emergency response organization, and the State of Israel are on high blood alert due to the severity of the violence in the last two weeks. Magen David Adom provides 100% of the blood donations used to treat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and 97% of the blood used to treat Israeli citizens, and other victims being cared for in Israeli hospitals.

American Friends of Magen David Adom is asking for all U.S. citizens to donate the funding, instead of blood, required to ensure that the IDF is able to care for all those wounded as the current conflict in the region escalates. A gun shot wound requires 50 units of replacement blood; an organ transplant requires 10 units, and a hip fracture/joint replacement requires 5 units. It costs $36 to produce one unit of blood. This cost does not include the expense of testing and cleaning each unit of blood donated for use. It is imperative that MDA be able to operate at its fullest levels.

“It is critical during this time that we support those victims of the recent violence,” says Rabbi Daniel Allen, Executive VP of AFMDA. “In Israel, citizens are lining up to donate blood, but without this financial support, we risk not being able to process all potential donations.”

The volunteers and medical professionals of MDA must have the tools they need to operate effectively. One hundred and sixty ambulances have been dispatched from their emergency shelters all over the country and driven to the Northern border. Early next week MDA is training over a hundred volunteers in a crash course. MDA blood services are collecting twice as many blood units and 70% more teams are on red alert. MDA is increasing its capacity while Israel must face two fronts: Northern Galilee and Gaza Strip.

In order to allow MDA in Israel to function and keep its highest level, it needs you to share the burden, MDA in Israel needs: medical supplies, blood test kits, telecommunication devices, life saving vehicles maintenance, increase in staff to work all hours, and so much more.

Funding can be donated through AFMDA’s website (www.afmda.org), or through their hotline, at (866) 632-2763.

It is the late Yitzhak Rabin’s worst nightmare. Israel is under attack from terrorists based in Lebanon, with Syria and Iran backing the aggression. On top of that, it remains in a state of war with the Palestinians.

This is precisely the situation Rabin strived mightily to prevent by embarking on the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.

In 1993, when Rabin recognized the PLO and began a process designed to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace within five years, he was motivated by the understanding that Israel’s survival was no longer threatened by its immediate neighbors.

The sudden escalation on Israel's northern front this week added a disturbing complication to the three-week-old crisis in Gaza, but it also served, in the curious way of the Middle East, as a clarifying development. It was a reminder that there is, in the final analysis, no such thing as unilateral action. One may act as one pleases, but others are certain to react. It's best to consider the likely reactions carefully before making one's move. In that sense, unilateral action is merely — to paraphrase Clausewitz — a continuation of diplomacy by other means.

Israel decided two years ago — correctly, in our view — that it had to withdraw from Gaza, unilaterally if necessary. It did so because it knew it could not continue to rule over the densely populated Palestinian territory, but it could not negotiate a mutually agreed withdrawal with the Palestinian leadership under Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Fatah was bent on reaching a wildly unrealistic final-status agreement with Israel, including a return to the 1967 borders and a Palestinian right of return. Israel concluded that it had no partner for negotiation, and it decided to act unilaterally.

But Israel took its own words too literally. It had no partner for peace negotiations, true, but it did have an adversary that was prepared to permit an orderly Israeli withdrawal and to maintain a cease-fire, leaving the way open for further improvement. And there was an alternative leadership waiting in the wings on the other side that was much, much worse. Israel ignored that fact. By failing to encourage its de facto partner, Fatah, it ended up facing the worse alternative, Hamas.