Despite the blustery rhetoric about Israel heard in so many Islamic quarters, at least some groups in predominantly Muslim countries manage to talk and cooperate with Israel. Our friends at Ummah News Links, which covers the Islamic world for infidels, have found two interesting examples.

A group of Berber activists is planning to create next month North Africa's first friendship association with Israel, pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi reports. The activists plan to hold the official inauguration on 20 July in the city of Taroudaut, 60 kilometres inland from the western coastal resort of Agadir, the paper said.

Jewish Berbers living in Israel and Moroccan Berbers will be involved in the new association, which aims to allow Jewish Berbers to keep in touch with Berber and Moroccan culture and the Amazigh language, the association's founding committee said in a statement.

Israeli embassy and Azerbaijan Communications and Information Technologies Ministry have today held the First Telecommunication Forum in Baku.

The Israeli ambassador Arthur Lenk said that his country's companies show great interest in cooperation with Azerbaijan and they are going to make investment in this country.

"This is their first visit to Azerbaijan. Representatives of Israeli companies met yesterday at Azercell Telecom JV and AzTelecom. We want every Israeli firm to meet 10-12 Azeri companies," he noted.

Mr. Lenk added that Azerbaijan has good potential as both customer and partner in ICT sector. He invited Azeri companies to participate in joint projects.

Azerbaijan Communications and Information Technologies Minister Ali Abbasov added that Azerbaijan has recently started to deepen relations with Israel and this forum will further bring closer businesspeople of the two nations. He noted that Israeli companies can also penetrate the regional market through wining god name in Azerbaijan.