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Background: Intra-gastric band migration (band erosion) following laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) is a known complication requiring revisional surgery. Management has most often involved band removal and suturing of the stomach wall, followed by delayed replacement at a third operation. We report our experience with simultaneous band removal and replacement. Methods: Between May 2001 and December 2003, we performed 754 laparoscopic operations using the Lap-Band ®. Patients developing band erosion were treated by laparoscopic band removal and immediate replacement of a new band following gastric wall repair. Results: 16 patients (2.1%) developed band erosion after a mean of 23 months following surgery (range 11-40 months). Patients presented with epigastric pain (6), port-site bulge (3) or were asymptomatic (7), band erosion being suspected during fluoroscopy for band adjustment and confirmed by gastroscopy. Postoperatively, 11 patients developed fever that responded to antibiotics. No patient suffered from intra-abdominal infection, wound infection, pneumonia or pulmonary embolism. Mean hospital stay was 4 days (range 1-8 days). Conclusion: Band erosion following LAGB can be treated safely with simultaneous laparoscopic band removal, gastric wall suturing and immediate replacement of the band, thereby preventing weight gain, the appearance of co-morbidities and the need for additional surgery.

This study analyzes a dialogue process aimed at building relationships between Jews and Palestinians in Israel using an innovative research approach of following the story of the encounter. It attempts to explore whether such dialogue groups are able, in practice, to actually get away from the unbalanced political–structural conditions of the conflict between them. Usually we try to learn about such processes through successful ‘good enough’ encounters. This study takes the opposite position of looking at what we can learn from an unsuccessful encounter: A ‘bad enough’ one. Analysis of the dynamics that evolved in this dialogue shows the different tactics that were used by two Jewish-Israeli students to control the dialogue and emphasize themes of ‘togetherness’, ‘we want quiet’ and ‘we are all human beings’. We follow the futile attempts made by both other Jewish and Palestinian participants to counter these control attempts and to center the discussion on national identity and conflict. Finally, we discuss ways in which such a dialogue process could have been improved and could have served as a learning experience for its participants.

The storytelling method can be used to work through intractable conflicts. Working-through enables people who have suffered traumatic social experiences to learn to live with these painful events while developing an ability to listen to the pain of the “other.” The storytelling approach focuses on the way personal storytelling facilitates the working-through processes in intractable conflicts. The storytelling approach was used in To Reflect and Trust (TRT), a dialogue group that began in 1992 and involved descendants of Nazi perpetrators and Jewish descendants of Holocaust survivors. The storytelling method was applied to a year-long Jewish-Palestinian student workshop held at Ben Gurion University in 2000–2001.

Se referant a des recherches et des actions-recherches menees depuis de nombreuses annees aupres de descendants de tortionnaires nazis et de survivants de l’Holocauste, l’auteur, co-fondateur de PRIME (Institut de recherche sur la paix au Moyen-Orient), analyse les processus psychologiques qui alimentent et perpetuent, de generation en generation, des conflits inter-communautaires, et plus particulierement le conflit israelo-palestinien. Differentes actions menees dans cette perspective, illustrent la facon dont il est possible de faire evoluer ces conflits, par le dialogue et par la levee du silence sur des traumatismes passes, et la deconstruction d’identites monolithiques fondees sur la negation de l’Autre et la division du monde entre bons et mechants, victimes et bourreaux.

In spite of the fact that the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred nearly 60 years ago, there has been very little psychosocial research on the long-term effects of these unprecedented nuclear attacks on its victims. In this qualitative study, we use psychosocial literature from the Holocaust in order to help understand the effects of this man-made tragedy. We analyzed semi-structured interviews taken with 8 survivors of the bombs--5 from Nagasaki and 3 from Hiroshima. Our research questions were: When the survivors talk about their experiences, what do they focus on and with what are they preoccupied? What can we learn about the long-term effects of the experiences from both psychological and physical aspects? And, where does the A-bomb experience "fit" into the survivors' lives? Our analyses showed that there were 9 main themes that emerged from the interviews that could be grouped into two main categories--themes connected to the experience itself and themes connected to life afterward. We discuss the implications of these themes on the personal, social, and cultural levels and offer suggestions concerning ideas for dealing with the trauma.

Considering the immense efforts invested in Holocaust education in Israel and around the world, there is very little published research which looks at the impact of this education on teenagers' modes of understanding. This qualitative study addressed two questions: When adolescents learn about the Holocaust, what are the themes they see as central to an understanding of it? And, do these issues remain stable during the learning period? Forty‐seven Jewish‐Israeli teenagers (33 girls, 14 boys) were asked to write about their thoughts, feelings and attitudes about the Holocaust, both before and after participation in a Holocaust seminar that included a trip to Poland. The most salient themes that they wrote about at both time periods were: learning about the Holocaust, the evaluative theme, emotions, the link between the Holocaust and Israel and the Holocaust as the most horrific world event. We found little stability of thematic frequency and some stability in thematic meaning. Our results also show that th...

This article describes a method of data collection and analysis that was developed for the tracing of processes of identity construction and perception of others among young Jewish adults – citizens of Israel. In order to learn how young adults perceive different ‘others’ and construct their sense of collective identity, a semi-structured interview was developed that was comprised of five moral dilemmas concerning internal as well as external others that contribute to the construction of Jewish-Israeli identity. This article traces the process of instrument development and presents the types of analyses that were used in interpretation of the dilemmas. We then demonstrate the analyses by presenting examples from four interviews with Jewish-Israelis. Based on the results of our study, ideas for future research and utilization of the research method are offered.

��� This article examines the attitudes of a group of Jewish Israeli adolescents who participated in a Holocaust seminar that included an optional trip to related sites in Poland. The authors sought to determine whether youth who participate in such a seminar still consider Jewish Israeli identity important, which lessons of the Holocaust they value, and whether belonging to a survivor’s family makes a difference when considering these lessons. The results show that, regardless of participation in the trip and affiliation with Holocaust survivors, the youth hold a strong sense of Jewish Israeli national identity and tend to support Jewish and Zionist lessons more than universalistic ones, although a complex interplay exists between identity and those lessons. Adolescents whose family members included survivors connected a more “power-oriented” interpretation of the Holocaust to a strong sense of national identity; participants not related to survivors developed a more complex frame of reference that combined both power-oriented and humanistic lessons of the Holocaust. Researchers working inside and outside Israel have studied empirically the issues of Israeli identity and the “lessons of the Holocaust.” The topics, though separate, are closely linked, scholars have pointed out. To date, however, few efforts have been made to assess how and if belonging to a family of Holocaust survivors affects the lessons learned and the sense of national identity. In this article, we look at this threeway connection by beginning with a review of literature on Holocaust education within Israel and on lessons of the Holocaust. We then turn to the topic of national identity within Jewish Israeli society and a short review of the literature to date on the “third generation”—the grandchildren of the survivors—before presenting our research results.

This article examines the ways in which one's perception of the other contributes to processes involved in the construction of collective identity. This study presents analyses and comparisons of semi-structured interviews using a dilemma concerning ownership of a house that was undertaken with 20 Jewish and Palestinian university students, citizens of Israel, who participated in a 1-year seminar that dealt with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Analyses of the entire sample showed that, during the year, all of the participants enhanced their self-awareness of the complexity of the conflict. Each group emphasized the processes that reflect the role of the conflict in the construction of its collective identity. The Palestinians appeared to be in the process of constructing their identity and the Jews in the process of deconstructing theirs while trying to cope with their need for security during the on-going conflict. In-depth analyses of interviews with 2 women students highlighted the processes of ident...

This article presents a report summarizing a pilot study conducted by the Israeli-Palestinian research team of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME). Sixteen Israeli and twelve Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were engaged in cooperative work were analyzed to measure the degree of their effectiveness in their societies, and obstacles encountered in their cooperative work. In addition, this report presents these NGOs' interpretation of the causes of environmental damage and its connection to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. NGOs data were collected from field interviews, their publications, and web sites. Results showed that while the Israeli and Palestinian NGOs agreed that joint work is needed to address ecological problems, they differed in their reasons for working together. This difference also appeared in their interpretation of the sources of environmental deterioration, relationship of the political conflict to the state of the environment, and the effect of the peace process on solving ecological problems. At the end, it was concluded that “environmental narratives” of both sides differ greatly, and that the establishment of a “culture of peace” is a protracted process.

Minimal peace building during a violent conflict is suggested as a strategy for future post-conflict peace processes. This paper describes a process of five workshops in which Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli teachers developed a joint school textbook of two narratives (an Israeli and a Palestinian) in regard to three dates in their mutual conflict: the Balfour Declaration, the 1948 war and the 1987 Intifada. The teachers developed these two narratives to be taught in their classrooms. All these activities took place under severe conditions of asymmetry of power relations of occupation (of the Palestinians) and of suicide bombers (against Israelis) throughout the project. The Two-State solution requires in our view textbooks of two narratives, so students learn to respect the narrative of the “Other.”

This article describes how telling the story of one's personal experiences in a small group comprised of members from opposing sides of intractable conflicts can help work through some of the ongoing intergenerational effects of violence. The concept of "working through," which underlies the rationale for using this method, is reviewed. This story-telling approach was developed by the members of TRT (To Reflect and Trust). It was initially composed of German descendants of Nazi perpetrators and Jewish descendants of Holocaust survivors. The original members met annually for 4 to 6 days at a time, and in recent years have been joined by others actively working to reduce tensions in the current conflict areas of Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Palestine-Israel. The guidelines for dialogue work in such groups which have evolved from the TRT encounters are presented and discussed, with examples of how they have been adapted for use in the Northern Ireland and Palestinian-Israeli contexts.

This article examines psychosocial aspects of family/parent-child relationships during the Holocaust by focusing on the emotional memories of such relationships. Global and thematic analyses were undertaken on 93 life story interviews and testimonies with Holocaust survivors. Results showed that survivors who lived through most of the war with parents/family and those who had lived approximately an equal time with loved ones and without them were able to recall and narrate more emotional memories, both positive and negative, than people who had experienced the traumatic period mostly on their own. However, going through the war with family did not guarantee the narration of emotional memories; close to half of these victims could not recall/narrate such memories. In general, when the survivor recalled relative emotional security, she or he felt safe, even when physical danger was imminent. However, this feeling did not always continue when the physical situation worsened or when the survivor was separated...

This study assumes that the collective identities of both Jews and Palestinians in Israel have long been constructed around the Jewish-Palestinian conflict, a major focus of social and historical reality in the Middle East region. Monolithic in their early stages, these constructions of identity underwent a process of deconstruction and reconstruction, primarily due to changes in the political reality (the peace process), globalization, and the surfacing of conflicts that were hidden within the monolithic construction. The deconstruction process, though painful and problematic, creates new opportunities for a dialogue that engages elements of identity, which no longer ‘fit’ the contenders. Such a dialogue took place in ‘laboratory’ form at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev from October 1996 and June 1997 between two leading participants in an ongoing workshop for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli students. Most conflict group encounters are measured by outcomes, not by process. We identified problems when the method common for these groups was used at Jewish-Palestinian encounters and this led us to try another way. This study employs a qualitative methodology to analyse the process of groups in conflict. It looks into how the process of questioning one’s own self and the other’s perception takes place in this context. In describing the dialogue that evolved between a Jew, Avner and a Palestinian, Nasser (both pseudonyms), the tension between the individual and collective identity levels, between the internal group process and the asymmetric social and political reality, is revealed. We suggest that the confrontation and friendship between Avner and Nasser created a new quality of dialogue, enabling a more complex identity construction to emerge on both the Jewish and the Palestinian sides.

A la difference de certains historiens ou sociologues israeliens qui ont developpe une approche critique post-sioniste, on ne trouve que quelques signes d’une tendance critique comparable chez les psychologues israeliens. Cela est particulierement inquietant a la lumiere de la recente transition de la guerre au processus de paix. Cette transition a ete a l’origine de nombreux dilemmes sociaux et individuels nouveaux qui beneficieraient d’un debat ouvert au sein de la psychologie sociale et clinique. Cet essai tente de rendre compte de ce manque en le rapportant a ses racines historiques, politiques et culturelles. Les aspects historiques concernent l’influence des traditions psychologiques europeennes et americaines. Deux remarques d’ordre politique sont presentees : Les psychologues israeliens, par leur implication dans le domaine militaire et leur acceptation de la revendication securitaire sioniste, ont tendance a appartenir au courant politique dominant (Gergen, 1973 ; 1989). Une atmosphere hyper-politisee a pousse les psychologues israeliens a adopter une position de neutralite et d’objectivite. Celle-ci a fourni une rationalisation commode a l’apolitisme, notamment dans la mesure ou la polarisation politique israelienne au cours des annees quatre-vingt et quatre-vingt-dix etait percue comme une menace pour l’autorite professionnelle des psychologues. Culturellement, les psychologues, de meme que les milieux sociaux europeens dont la plupart d’entre eux sont originaires, ont eu tendance a adopter la tradition individualiste nord-americaine, en reaction au puissant courant collectiviste qui dominait la societe israelienne durant ses premieres annees. Cela peut expliquer la faiblesse et la lenteur de leur reaction sociale, en termes d’humanisme, de feminisme et de constructivisme.Des exceptions a cette tendance generale sont mises en evidence et l’on explorera la question : comment parvenir a un changement de la psychologie israelienne de facon a ce qu’elle devienne plus politiquement sensible et critique. On peut supposer que cette reflexion a quelque pertinence pour le developpement d’une psychologie politique dans d’autres societes, particulierement dans celles qui traversent une periode de transition de valeurs, ou qui souffrent de conflits sociaux violents et durables.

This paper presents an analysis of the group process in encounters between Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens by using a typology for discourse classification. The typology presented here is a sensitive research tool that was developed in the absence of existing instruments, which analyze the developmental process of discourse in groups. It is an instrument that can help in conceptualizing and analyzing the process occurring in face-to-face encounters between representatives of groups in conflict. Inter-group encounters are seen as a developmental process. In this paper, development is defined as changes in the quality of discourse, progressing on a scale from the lowest point—“ethnocentric talk”, to the highest point—“dialogic moment”. Progress is transition from discourse based on stereotypes, not listening to the other, and perceiving the other as an object for persuasion to dialogue characterized by equality, listening, trying to understand reality from the other's point of view, and a joint effort in construction of meaning. The study is based on the assumption that change in the quality of discourse is a sign of a cognitive and affective change in the way one perceives the “other”, the “self” and “truth”, which enables the parties to engage in dialogue and achieve understanding. The categories, which distinguish among types of discourse, grew out of text analysis based on the Hermeneutic Case Reconstruction method (The narrative study of lives. Sage 1(1) (1993) 59). The article demonstrates the use of this typology in analyzing examples from the discourse, which took place over the course of 1 yr at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. It is important to note that since the emphasis is on content and its meanings, this kind of analysis poses the question of subjectivity of the researcher's perspective. As Jewish Israeli researchers, we were aware of possible bias in our interpretations due to being more sensitive to one group's point of view. In order to allow for multiple perspectives, the raw data was presented to two Palestinian Israeli researchers. The Palestinian researchers provided additional viewpoints and interpretations that were integrated in the analysis of the group discourse.

The TRT (To Reflect and Trust) approach of bringing together descendants of Holocaust survivors and descendants of Nazi perpetrators relies on group dialogues in which participants share their personal life stories, thereby enabling them to reflect on their personal and collective histories as victims and victimizers. This process was initiated and led by the second author—an Israeli psychologist and a specialist in group processes—in the context of the socially and historically contextualized approach to group interventions that he has developed. The present study describes a new phase of the TRT group that brought together, in the framework of a workshop, professionals from South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Israel and the Palestinian Authority—all of whom were working with victims and victimizers in current conflicts. Our question was whether the TRT process, using methods of storytelling to address a past catastrophe of human making, could help the professionals who try to help other people move out of current conflicts into peace-building. We found that the TRT storytelling approach facilitates the working through of current ethnic conflicts. Participants' responses to the workshop indicated the importance of the storytelling process and of the emotional support provided by the TRT group members. We focus here on the special significance of the group process between Germans, Jews, and Palestinians, which emerged as highly significant for the Jewish participants in their efforts to reconcile being both victims and victimizers (within two separate historical contexts: German/Jewish and Israeli/Palestinian).

Parkin, which is mutated in most recessive Parkinsonism, is a key player in the selective removal of damaged mitochondria via mitophagy. Damaged mitochondria may carry mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations, thus creating a mixed mtDNA population within cells (heteroplasmy). It was previously shown that Parkin over-expression reduced the level of heteroplasmic mutations that alter mitochondrial membrane potential in human cytoplasmic hybrids. However, it remained unclear whether Parkin serves a similar role at the entire living organism, and whether this role is evolutionarily conserved. Here, we show that mutation in the Caenorhabditis elegans orthologue of Parkin (pdr-1) modulates the level of a large heteroplasmic mtDNA truncation. Massive parallel sequencing revealed that the mtDNAs of C. elegans wild type and pdr-1(gk448) mutant strains were virtually deprived of heteroplasmy, thus reflecting strong negative selection against dysfunctional mitochondria. Therefore, our findings show that the role of Parkin in the modulation of heteroplasmy is conserved between human and worm and raise the interesting possibility that mitophagy modulates the striking lack of heteroplasmy in C. elegans.

A theoretical framework concerning cultural patterns labeled individualism and collectivism is probed with regard to two conflicted societies, Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian-Arab societies. The following three methods were used to examine collectivism/individualism constructs among 1,190 Palestinian and 1,144 Israeli high school students: items that tap values, interest in different domains of history, and attitudes toward conflict resolution. Both groups were found to be more collectivistic than individualistic oriented. However, as predicted, the Palestinians scored higher than the Israeli students on items emphasizing in-group collectivist orientation (my nationality, my country, etc.). The differences between the two groups tended to reflect some subdistinctions such as different elements of individualism and collectivism. Moreover, they reflected the historical context and contemporary influences, such as the stage where each society is at in the nation-making process.

Unlike certain Israeli historians or sociologists who have developed a critical "post-Zionist" approach, Israeli psychologists display few signs of this critical trend. This is especially disquieting in light of the latest back and forth movement between warfare and the peace process-a movement that created many new social and individual dilemmas that would benefit from an open debate within social and clinical psychology. This paper tries to account for this deficiency by looking at its possible historical, political, and cultural roots. The historical aspects relate to the influence of European andAmerican psychological traditions. Two political aspects are presented: (1) Israeli psychologists, through their involvement in the military and their acceptance of the Zionist claim for security, tend to belong to the political mainstream (Gergen, 1973, 1989); and (2) a hyper-political atmosphere scared Israeli psychologists into neutrality and objectivism. This provided a convenient rationale for apoliticism, especially when Israeli political polarization in the 1980s and 1990s was perceived as threatening psychologists' professional authority. Culturally, the psychologists, like the European social strata from which most of them originated, tended to adopt the American tradition of individualism as a reaction to the strong collectivist trend that dominated Israeli society during its early years. This may account for their weak and delayed social response of humanism, feminism, and constructivism. Exceptions to this general trend are highlighted, and the question of how Israeli psychology might become more politically sensitive and critical is explored. This discussion may have relevance for the development ofpolitical psychology in other societies, especially those going through transition of values or suffering from long, violent conflicts.

Most of the social-psychological literature assumes that prosocial behavior is part of the basic human repertoire and only when certain conditions become unfavorable, will the natural prosocial tendency fail (Latane & Darley, 1970). Only few researchers have addressed the general tendency toward bystanding behavior,2 its relation to perpetrating behavior, trying to overcome it in victimizing scenes by activating the bystander and thereby reducing the potential for victimization (Staub, 1996). The present analysis suggests several psychosocial constructs that can account for bystanding behavior. Several factors (such as length of exposure, fragmentation of the planning and execution of the crime) are highlighted—in order to differentiate between low, middle range and high-level bystanding behavior. Finally, ten examples of bystanding behavior during the Holocaust are presented, suggesting that only a careful analysis of the context and its interaction with the persons involved may help us work through and perhaps prevent the potential negative aspects of bystanding behavior in future criminal acts.

Two assumptions which characterize the measurements of quality life (QOL) studies, are questioned by the present report: First, the assumption that QOL is the same thing for all subjects, is usually related to health problems and can easily be measured across subjects. Second, when this assumption is given up by introducing subjective base-rates in an intra-subject (before-after) design, researchers still tend to assume that no response shifts occur on the QOL scales, e.g., that these scales maintain the same meaning and values for subjects over time and interventions. In our study we found that QOL had different subjective interpretations [1--4]. While for some certain issues in their family-life determined their quality of life, for others these were issues at their workplace or of their health conditions. Second, when QOL was tested against a subjective base-line (for each individual according to their choices of domains), about eleven percent of the hypertensives and normotensives showed a clear response shift of scale-calibration over the period of one year. When the scores of these subjects were excluded, the significance of certain previously reported results changed. For example, the significant difference between normotensives and hypertensives concerning the change in their subjective evaluation of QOL over the year and their initial depression became more significant, while similar changes in their evaluation of sexual impairment and control at their work-place became insignificant. These results suggest that response shifts have to be traced and quantified, before one can claim any results (or lack of results) in 'before-after' designs, concerning subjective meaningful issues like quality of life.

Impressive similarities and telling differences characterize the representations of national identity among adolescents from four neighboring countries that are geographically interwoven and also have in common bilateral, long-dated histories of conflictual relationships--Greece, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. (The Israeli sample includes a separate subsample of Palestinians living in Israel.) Ethnocentrism, European integration, and attitudes towards immigration, as measured by student reponses to the Youth and History survey, are the components of national identification examined. All five groups are highly ethnocentric in relation to the rest of the students completing the survey. Greek students incorporate European cooperation in their ethnocentric conception; for Turkish, Palestinian, and Israeli-Palestinian youths, European cooperation is associated with democracy, while for Israelis it has strong humanitarian connotations. Finally, Turkish youths seem to have the most stringent criteria for conditional immigration. These results are placed within a wider theoretical context of the socio-psychological dimensions of national identity.

Triandis' the ore tical frame work, conce rning cultural patterns labele d individualism and collectivism, is probed with regard to the religious marker in th e Is ra e l i J e wish soc ie ty. Thre e me tho ds a re u se d to e xa min e collectivismindividualism constructs in 185 religious and 956 secular high school students: value items, interest in different domains of history, and attitudes toward political issues. A common collective basis of mutual value consensus was found in the two groups; however, as predicted, there were differences between secular and religious students on the three kinds of items, since the re ligious scored higher than the se cular students on items e mphasizing collectivist orientation. The differences, however, do not fit the common theoretical frame work of collectivismindividualism, but rather tend to reflect the distinction between in-group and universal collectivism.

Active porins were isolated and purified from the outer membranes of the gram-negative anaerobic rod Porphyromonas asaccharolytica and the aerobic coccobacillus Acinetobacter baumannii. The porins from both bacteria appear to be monomers when isolated and purified. Both porins exhibited decreased mobility on SDS-PAGE after boiling for 10 min in the sample buffer. After heating, their molecular weight is estimated at 43 kDa while without heating they run as proteins with a molecular weight of approximately 37 kDa. Due to their characteristic heat-modifiability, these proteins were named HMP (heat-modifiable protein)-P. asaccharolytica and HMP-A. baumannii. Amino acid analysis revealed both porins to be hydrophilic proteins. These proteins have been shown to be active in transporting sugars when incorporated into liposomes. The permeability of both porins for L-arabinose was less than that produced by the porin of Escherichia coli B. Permeability to high molecular weight disaccharides was lower than for small monosaccharides. Western blot analysis did not reveal any antigenic cross reaction between HMP-A. baumannii and the HMP-P. asaccharolytica. The results obtained in this study confirm that although these heat-modifiable proteins are pore forming proteins and have similar activity they differ in their antigenicity.

RAUMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST is deeply (though not only) associated with the bitter struggle of the last hundred years between Arabs and Jews. It is difficult to summarize this long struggle in a few sentences. I will concentrate in this paper on the trauma associated with the PalestinianIsraeli conflict. There were about six hundred thousand Jews and a similar number of Palestinian living west of the Jordan river, when the United Nations decided to establish two national states in this territory, on 29 November 1947, thereby ending the British Mandate (which started after WWI). The Jewish population which immigrated to Palestine during the last hundred years' came from all over the world. Most of the Palestinians" lived in this region and some immigrated into it from neighboring countries.3 The national consciousness of both groups grew systematically in a kind of implicated relationship, while focusing on the conflictual aspects of the commonly claimed territory.* The Jews viewed their immigration [aliyah, lit. "going up"] as an act of revival of their national home, which had been destroyed about two thousand years ago by the Romans. For many years, they had tried to ignore the Palestinian population as a separate social and recognized national entity. Most of the Palestinian leadership soon viewed the Jewish immigration as an intrusion of an alien group, similar to previous intrusions of conquerors or colonialists (Crusaders, Mamelukes, British, and French). Though there were several efforts to develop peaceful relationships between these two developing groups, most of the history of the last hundred years can be characterized by indifference and animosity of two geographically and eco

Ninety-eight men

RNA transcripts are generally identical to the underlying DNA sequences. Nevertheless, RNA–DNA differences (RDDs) were found in the nuclear human genome and in plants and animals but not in human mitochondria. Here, by deep sequencing of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and RNA, we identified three RDD sites at mtDNA positions 295 (C-to-U), 13710 (A-to-U, A-to-G), and 2617 (A-to-U, A-to-G). Position 2617, within the 16S rRNA, harbored the most prevalent RDDs (>30% A-to-U and ∼15% A-to-G of the reads in all tested samples). The 2617 RDDs appeared already at the precursor polycistrone mitochondrial transcript. By using traditional Sanger sequencing, we identified the A-to-U RDD in six different cell lines and representative primates (Gorilla gorilla, Pongo pigmaeus, and Macaca mulatta), suggesting conservation of the mechanism generating such RDD. Phylogenetic analysis of more than 1700 vertebrate mtDNA sequences supported a thymine as the primate ancestral allele at position 2617, suggesting that the 2617 RDD recapitulates the ancestral 16S rRNA. Modeling U or G (the RDDs) at position 2617 stabilized the large ribosomal subunit structure in contrast to destabilization by an A (the pre-RDDs). Hence, these mitochondrial RDDs are likely functional.

Patients often fail to recognize essential hypertension as a disease until it is identified as such by a physician. Thus it is commonly believed that the side effects of the medication are primarily responsible for their feeling ill, rather than the effects of the disease itself. Our study compares the Quality of Life (QoL) of normotensives and hypertensives and inquires into the effects of the disease, as well as those of antihypertensive medication. The study compared 368 outpatient male hypertensives with 155 male normotensives, matched for age and level of education, using various QoL indicators and other measures at the beginning of a one-year, controlled clinical trial. The results showed that the hypertensives view their life events as more severe and less desirable than do the normotensives: they exhibit higher depression scores, more semantic memory problems and less satisfactory sex lives; they feel less fit physically, less in control of their lives, more tense and score lower on a har...

As a rule, people have related to the external (political or security) difficulties impeding the peace process since the signing of the Oslo agreement. At the basis of this approach lies the assumption that when these difficulties are solved, the psychological difficulties of the individual that may delay the actualization of this most beautiful vision—a real peace between us and our Arab neighbors—will disappear by themselves. Therefore, there is no real need to relate to them at this stage. In this article, we try to undermine this basic assumption. By using narrative analysis of an interview with a student—an officer who spent most of his regular army service in suppression of the Intifada—we try to demonstrate the discourse through which the young Israeli confronts the question of his identity in connection to relations with the Palestinians. The officer (we call him Adi) was chosen because the interview with him exemplifies many of the issues that came up also in other interviews with young Israelis who were involved in the Intifada. The interview demonstrates both the positive qualities as well as the major problems that we found in the other interviews. Throughout the entire interview, we encounter Adi's attempts to maintain his interpretative system even when it no longer matches the reality within which he is acting. (Behavioral Sciences)

Numerous publications describe the original sample of descendants' of Nazi perpetrators in Germany: the silencingby both their families and the German society of their parents' participation in the extermination process during the Third Reich, their working-through process, the 'double wall" phenomenon between them and their parents, the logic of the descendants' moral arguments, their parents' paradoxical morality, the descendants' identification and pseudoidentification with the victims (Bar-On, 1989a, 1989b, 1990a, 1990b, 1991b; Bar-On & Charny, 1992; Bar-On & Gaon, 1991; Rosenthal & Bar-On, 1992). In addition, several television programs and journalists have interviewed the German self-help group that evolved as a by-product of this study.2 The present aiscussion is a follow-up of that study, 712 years after the initial interviews took place, and concentrates on three perspectives: (1) The perspective of the German interviewees: In what way did the numerous interviews, the group work, or both affect their life perspective? (2) the positive and negative roles of the media in this process; and (3) the role of the author as interviewer, participator, observer.

The Levant is an important migration bridge, harboring border-zones between Afrotropical and palearctic species. Accordingly, Chameleo chameleon, a common species throughout the Mediterranean basin, is morphologically divided in the southern Levant (Israel) into two subspecies, Chamaeleo chamaeleon recticrista (CCR) and C. c. musae (CCM). CCR mostly inhabits the Mediterranean climate (northern Israel), while CCM inhabits the sands of the north-western Negev Desert (southern Israel). AFLP analysis of 94 geographically well dispersed specimens indicated moderate genetic differentiation (PhiPT = 0.097), consistent with the classical division into the two subspecies, CCR and CCM. In contrast, sequence analysis of a 637 bp coding mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) fragment revealed two distinct phylogenetic clusters which were not consistent with the morphological division: one mtDNA cluster consisted of CCR specimens collected in regions northern of the Jezreel Valley and another mtDNA cluster harboring specimens pertaining to both the CCR and CCM subspecies but collected southern of the Jezreel Valley. AMOVA indicated clear mtDNA differentiation between specimens collected northern and southern to the Jezreel Valley (PhiPT = 0.79), which was further supported by a very low coalescent-based estimate of effective migration rates. Whole chameleon mtDNA sequencing (∼17,400 bp) generated from 11 well dispersed geographic locations revealed 325 mutations sharply differentiating the two mtDNA clusters, suggesting a long allopatric history further supported by BEAST. This separation correlated temporally with the existence of an at least 1 million year old marine barrier at the Jezreel Valley exactly where the mtDNA clusters meet. We discuss possible involvement of gender-dependent life history differences in maintaining such mtDNA genetic differentiation and suggest that it reflects (ancient) local adaptation to mitochondrial-related traits.

Factors required for mitochondrial function are encoded both by the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. The order of magnitude higher mutation rate of animal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) enforces tight co-evolution of mtDNA and nuclear DNA encoded factors. In this essay we argue that such co evolution exists at the population and inter-specific levels and affect disease susceptibility. We also argue for the existence of three modes of co-evolution in the mitochondrial genetic system, which include the interaction of mtDNA and nuclear DNA encoded proteins, nuclear protein - mtDNA-encoded RNA interaction within the mitochondrial translation machinery and nuclear DNA encoded proteins-mtDNA binging sites interaction in the frame of the mtDNA replication and transcription machineries. These modes of co evolution require co-regulation of the interacting factors encoded by the two genomes. Thus co evolution plays an important role in modulating mitochondrial activity. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Mitochondrial Gene Expression.

This is a first report of an unusual 4-day workshop that took place in Wuppertal, Germany, in June 1992. Five American and three Israeli children of Holocaust survivors encountered for the first time a group of children of perpetrators of the Holocaust who met regularly as a self-help group since the author interviewed them as part of an exploratory study, between 1985-1988. The workshop was not predesigned, so the members of both groups could help structure its schedule. The members devoted most of the time to getting acquainted with each other's personal stories. A very supportive and open atmosphere evolved, which helped people share intimate details of their life stories. Members of both groups evaluated the workshop as being a beginning of a "therapeutic and inspiring" process. The group decided to meet for two additional workshops in April and July, 1993, in Israel and in the United States. What was learned from this process can be applied to other contexts, like Latin America, Eastern Europe, South-East Asia or the Middle-East, in which families of victims and victimizers in former totalitarian regimes are morally and emotionally still committed to their mutual past.