What began as an anti-Israel campaign throughout the world, is coming to Israel, with a conference on “Israeli Apartheid” to be held Wednesday in the Israeli Arab city of Nazareth, Maariv reports.

The conference, held as part of the “Apartheid Week,” will feature Dr. Yousef Jabareen, senior lecturer at Haifa University, who will speak about “racism within the Green Line,” and Dr. Haidar Eid, a professor from a Gazan university, who will speak over Skype about “the similarity between Palestine and South Africa before the removal of Apartheid laws.”

Event organizers are young Arab activists who are members of the local branch of the BDS movement, which leads the international boycott campaign against Israel.

Raja Zaatara, one of the organizers and a member of Hadash party politburo, said: “The green line has a policy of apartheid and the territories have a regime of apartheid. In Israel there are dozens of laws explicitly speak about rights that are exclusive to the Jews, for example, the Law of Return, and various real estate laws.

“If anyone in the U.S. or in Europe chooses to boycott Haifa University because it discriminates against Arabs, or Tel Aviv University because it runs more than 50 projects for the Army, I can quite understand them,” said Za’atra. “If I was a Belgian or French citizen, I would be boycotting Israel in order to influence the situation. The boycott is a legitimate tool of civilian struggle.”

Abir Cobti, a female political activist and one of the organizers of the conference, says that the purpose of the event is to help isolate Israel in the international arena. “We will continue to engage in promoting economic boycott against Israel as a legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people.”

The “Im Tirtzu” movement, dedicated to reviving Zionist values in Israel, criticized the participation of Dr. Jabareen in the Nazareth event.

“This is yet another play of the Theater of the Absurd, which continues to break new records. Arab citizens of Israel—Israelis such as Dr. Yousef Jabareen, who lectures in Israeli academic institutions and even heads an academic institute in Israel, taking part in a conference accusing the state of Israel of apartheid,” said Im Tirtzu Chairman, Ronen Shoval. “This conference is part of hallucinatory Antisemitic propaganda campaign against Israel and against Israeli democracy. “

Google Street View has officially launched in Israel, providing images of religious sites and city streets in major Israeli cities Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.

Due to security issues, several sensitive sites will not be visible on the service, including the prime minister’s residence and the military headquarters in Tel Aviv.  Military officials expressed concern over the introduction of Street View in Israel, due to previous admission by Arab terror organizations that they had used internet services to attack Israel.  Islamic Jihad in Gaza has stated that it used Google Earth, which shows images of locations from above, to fire rockets at Israel.

Israel is the first Middle Eastern country to permit Street View to film locations and display them online.  Iraq’s National Museum is also viewable on Street View.

Beersheba, Nazareth and Eilat will soon be added to the service.

Famed Google Maps application Street View, which is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth providing 360-degree panoramic views from positions along streets throughout the world, will be launched in Israel on Sunday.

Just eight months since Google was given the go-ahead by the Law, Information, and Technology Authority to release special Street View photography cars throughout Israel to photograph streets in Israel’s major cities, the launch will be celebrated on April 22 with Israeli government officials in attendance.

The service, which has been the source of controversy and privacy lawsuits in several countries, will feature images of the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth and Mizpe Ramon, as well as the Dead Sea and the Kinneret/Sea of Galilee.

According to the Haaretz newspaper, Israeli authorities required Google to provide full details of all routes Google photographers intended to take, as well as to provide residents with the capability of blurring out license plates, homes, and other personal information before images are published.

Additionally, any litigation which may result from the Google’s Israeli Street View images must be conducted in Israel, not the United States. Google has also promised not to dispute criminal claims against it by arguing that the Law, Information, and Technology Authority lacks the standing to prosecute.

A new report released by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics sheds light on Christians living in Israel.

In 2011, 154,500 Christians lived in Israel, 2% of the State’s population.  Of those, 80.4% (124,218) are Christian Arabs.  The remainder are primarily immigrants who came from the former Soviet Union with Jewish members of their families under the Law of Return, as well as Ethiopians, Phillipinos, and Romanians.

The largest Christian Arab town is Nazareth (22,200), followed by Haifa (13,800) and Jerusalem (11,600).  The largest population of non-Arab Christians resides in Tel Aviv and its environs, followed by the Haifa area, the south, and then the Jerusalem region.

The average age of Christian bridegrooms at the time of their first marriage was 29.1 In 2009, approximately 1.5 years older than the Jewish grooms, 2 years older than Druze grooms and 3.5 years older than Muslim grooms.  The average age of Christian brides was 24.5, about a year younger than Jewish brides, 3 years older than Druze brides, and 4 years older than Muslim brides.

The average number of minor children in Christian families is 2.2, with 2.3 in Jewish families and 3.1 in Muslim households.

According to the statistics, Christian Arabs had the highest rate of success on matriculation exams in the country in 2010, with 63% of Christian 12^th graders earning certificates, compared with 58% of Jewish students, 55% of Druze students, and 46% of Muslim students.

In an environment of regional instability and geopolitical threats to Israel, the IDF will hold a series of drills to prepare the country in the event of a biological, chemical or radioactive attack.

For the first time, the IDF will simulate a “dirty bomb” radioactive terror attack in Israel.  The exercise, titled “Dark Cloud”, will take place in January in Haifa.  It will include the IDF Home Front Command, hospitals, police, and emergency services.

On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry will hold its sixth annual “Orange Flame” exercise to practice a response to biological attacks.  Hospitals in Afula, Nazareth, and Tiberias in the north will practice dealing with 5,000 patients a day exhibiting  symptoms related to contact with biological weapons.  An inter-ministerial committee will concurrently practice containing a national crisis, utilizing polices such as regional quarantines and mass vaccine distributions.

Syria is known to have a large cache of VX, sarin, and mustar gases, and Libya was discovered to have a large chemical weapons arsenal following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.