BUSH INSISTS ON PALESTINIAN STATE JULY 16,2007
BY STAN L BOWMAN JR
GEORGE W INSISTS ON GIVING THE SO CALLED MODERATE WASHINGTON ARABS AS WELL AS HAMAS MURDERERS A STATE OF THEIR OWN SIDE BY SIDE WITH ISRAEL WITH EAST JERUSALEM AS THEIR CAPITAL.
THIS IS COMPLETE NONSENCE AS WASHINGTON IS DECIEVED INTO BELIEVING THE LIE THAT BY GIVING THE ARABS A STATE OF THEIR OWN THAT PEACE WILL OCCUR. LITTLE DOES GEORGE KNOW THAT WORLD WAR 3 OCCURS BECAUSE JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL IS DIVIDED, WHEN WILL WASHINGTON GET THIS THROUGH THEIR THICK SKULLS.
WASHINGTON WANTS TO GIVE THE ARABS 190 MILLION PLUS IN AID TO HELP BUILD INSTITUTIONS IN THE WEST BANK (THE MODERATE SO CALLED WASHINGTON ARABS) AS WELL AS IN GAZA ( HAMAS MURDERERS). WASHINGTON INSISTS ON A TWO STATE SOLUTION. I INSIST ITS ISRAELS GOD GIVIN LAND AND ONLY ISRAELS.
WASHINGTON INSISTS ISRAEL GIVE THE 67 BORDERS AS WELL AS EAST JERUSALEM AS THE ARABS CAPITAL. WELL IF THESE PEOPLE READ THE BIBLE THEY WOULD KNOW ITS ISRAELS LAND AND GOD WILL TAKE REVENGE ON ALL WHO FORCE ISRAEL INTO THE DECEPTION OF LAND FOR PEACE. BUT SINCE THE BIBLE SAYS IT HAS TO BE A LAND FOR PEACE 7 YEAR TREATY, IT HAS TO COME TO PASS, SO THE DECEPTION HAS TO BE FULFILLED FOR THE PROPHECIES TO OCCUR.
WASHINGTON ALSO WANTS A CONFERENCE IN THE FALL TO GET THE PRO PALESTINIAN STATE COUNTRIES TOGETHER TO FIGURE OUT THE TIMELINE AND TO KEEP THE ROAD MAP ON TRACK.
Peres vows to pursue peace as Israel's president By Ari Rabinovitch
Sun Jul 15, 3:50 PM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Nobel peace laureate Shimon Peres was sworn in as Israel's president on Sunday and pledged to seize the opportunity to encourage long-delayed efforts to achieve a diplomatic resolution to conflict in the Middle East. A former prime minister and Israel's eldest statesman, Peres, 83 was elected by parliament a month ago to the highly prestigious post. Though the job is largely ceremonial, past presidents have had substantial influence in Israeli politics.When the opportunity for peace is created, it must not be missed, Peres said in his inaugural speech to parliament, after taking the oath of office, in a ceremony interrupted briefly by the wails of his infant great-grandson, at which he smiled.
It is a president's duty to encourage peace processes at home, with our neighbors and the entire region, Peres added in his remarks to a house packed with Israeli well-wishers and dignitaries.Peres won a Nobel prize along with the late Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for a 1993 interim peace deal, Israel's first with the Palestinians, that led to the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.As head of state, Peres will have the critical job of granting pardons or commuting sentences for prisoners in Israeli jails, including dozens of Palestinian inmates Israel has pledged to release in a boost to President Mahmoud Abbas.
Peres replaces Moshe Katzav, who resigned from the presidency last month after admitting in a plea bargain for a dropped rape charge to committing sex crimes against a woman employee and sexually harassing another.Born in Poland, Peres immigrated before Israel achieved statehood and rose through the ranks of the leftist Labour party as an ally of the country's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.As deputy defense minister in the late 1950s Peres secured a secret deal with France to launch an Israeli nuclear program that the Jewish state has reportedly used to produce atomic weapons, though Israel does not comment on this.
Peres served as prime minister from 1984 to 1986 then again in 1995 after Rabin's assassination, though he never won an Israeli election for the position decisively.
He left Labour in 2005 to help found the centrist Kadima party alongside Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister who has been in a coma since suffering a stroke the following year.Peres, Israel's ninth head of state, had to step down as Olmert's deputy in order to become president, and resign as parliament's longest-serving member of 48 years.While the presidency does not entail any direct involvement in policymaking, Israeli presidents traditionally speak out on key issues, often influencing political decisions. The president also meets world leaders.(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem)
Olmert and Abbas to Meet in Jerusalem at PMO
by Hana Levi Julian (JULY 16,07 INN)
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Monday afternoon in Jerusalem and present Abbas with a list of 250 PA prisoners to be released, and another 178 wanted fugitives to receive amnesty.The mass pardoning of terrorists is part of a major good will gesture to help increase Abbas’s stature among the PA population.Abbas is under enormous pressure from Arab nations and the international community, explained an Olmert aid. He has recently taken a series of positive actions: he is using determined rhetoric against terror; he has issued a presidential decree that bans carrying firearms; and he has insisted that armed militias must not be allowed to control the streets.
The concessions will be accompanied by a warning, however, not to include Hamas in any role in the Palestinian Authority government. PMO staffers also told reporters that Olmert will demand that Abbas bring the PA-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria under tight control. Meanwhile, we are willing to make these gestures to prove that Israel means what it says,” added the source.Abbas is also expected to arrive with demands, including for permission for a Jordanian army brigade to deploy in PA-controlled Judea and Samaria in order to help Abbas bring the areas under control.He is also expected to request more weapons and other materiel from Egypt and full security coordination with Israel , which would prevent any more unilateral moves by Jerusalem .According to Maariv, PA security forces have already received a large shipment of weapons from Jordan. The transfer of arms reportedly took place via the Allenby crossing on Sunday. Israeli officials agreed to allow the weapons delivery despite objections from senior security officials.
PA sources did not respond to reports of the weapons transfer. Israeli sources admitted that official policy regarding weapons transfers to the PA has changed and said the transfer had been approved several weeks ago.lmert’s office flip-flopped over whether the government would include arch-terrorist and Fatah Tanzim leader Zekarya Zubeidi on its amnesty list, but eventually was forced to admit this week that he was indeed going to be included. The 178 fugitives will all be made to sign a promise to abandon their terrorist activities and lay down their weapons, as will the 250 convicted PA terrorists to be freed from their sentences as part of the package. Olmert’s office emphasized that none of the 250 prisoners to be released will have blood on his hands, meaning those who have taken part in an attack that has murdered Israeli citizens.Other concessions to be included in the good will package are the transfer of tax monies collected by Israel on behalf of the PA that were withheld after Hamas was elected to the PA leadership, and the removal of security checkpoints in Judea and Samaria.
Peres: We Must Rid Ourselves of the Territories
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 16,07 INN)
Shimon Peres, on the eve of becoming President of Israel, tells AP that he won't insult the minority, but that he has not changed his opinions.Shimon Peres took the oath of office, administered by Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, in a ceremony accompanied by musical interludes of Biblical verses. The singers were unaccompanied by musical instruments, except drums, apparently in respect for the current Three Weeks mourning period for the Holy Temples. In the AP interview, which took place just hours before Peres was sworn in in the Knesset as Israel's 9th President, Peres expressed his surprised joy at being elected President. I don't think there was any person who was so much attacked and criticized in these last 60 years like myself, Peres said. But the fact [is] that after 60 years of criticism, of terrible remarks, they decided to elect me as the president. I didn't expect it.
Peres also said he would continue his crusade of surrending parts of the Land of Israel in exchange for promises of peace from Israel's enemies. He noted that this would require Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria. We have to get rid of the territories, he said. I won't make any secrets of my mind. I shall respect the minority. I shall not insult them. I changed my position [to President]. I didn't change my beliefs and concepts.
Eldad on the Attack
MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) responded with anger at Peres' remarks. I wanted to accept Peres as the President of the entire country, Eldad said, but he decided to begin with divisiveness and discord. To say so derisively that Israel must get rid of area and, consequently, a quarter of a million people who live there... This is not the way to start.Peres is famous for having a way with words and unique comparisons. As Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz wrote on Friday about a recent Peres speech, Peres was full of clever aphorisms that sometimes seemed rather less wise when they sunk in.For instance, on April 10, 1999, Peres said on New York television, We have to replace the fire of hatred with the water of existence.In May 1997, Peres told the Jerusalem Report, In Argentina, the home of the tango, you know that in order to dance well, you have to close your eyes and let the romance begin... Peace is a romantic process.
Quake triggers fire at Japanese nuclear plant
Black smoke rising from a facility of Tokyo Electric Power's nuclear plant at Kashiwazaki.July 16, 2007 - 7:15PM
A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Japan today, killing five people and injuring hundreds as it toppled houses, triggered mudslides and sparked a fire at a nuclear plant.In the hardest-hit areas northwest of Tokyo, homes were reduced to rubble and a bridge was nearly cracked in two by the force of the mid-morning quake, which also sent small tsunami waves rolling into the Japanese coast.The government set up a crisis management centre while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe broke off from election campaigning to race to the scene of the worst damage in Niigata and Nagano prefectures.Rescue workers were hunting for anyone buried alive in the wreckage after nearly 300 buildings were flattened by the quake, which shook skyscrapers in Tokyo more than 200km from the epicentre.
When the earthquake hit, I was out on my boat and I felt this swing, said Susumu Ishiguro, the owner of a fishing shop in the worst-hit city of Kashiwazaki on the Sea of Japan (East Sea).I came back to the port and I found my house was a complete mess. I think all the old houses got crushed, he said.The four women and one man confirmed dead were all in their 70s or 80s, police said. At least 441 people were hurt and more than 300 were evacuated to shelters, officials said.The quake triggered 50cm tsunami waves and was followed by several aftershocks, including a strong 5.6-magnitude tremor in the afternoon.Raising fears among residents, smoke billowed for hours from a blaze at a nuclear power plant in Kashiwazaki before being put out. Plant officials said the reactors shut down automatically and that there was no radiation danger.Abe, dressed in a relief worker's uniform, headed to the scene by military helicopter, cutting short a campaign stop ahead of July 29 elections.
We need to take every step to save lives. It's supposed to rain tomorrow in the area so we have to take every step to save lives, secure lifelines and reassure people, said Abe, who is struggling in opinion polls.Kashiwazaki city police officer Masao Honma said: It was too strong to stand. Some people got under tables, others immediately went outside.City employee Shoji Iida said residents put iron sheets down on the roads to help traffic go through.The roads were all fractured and deformed with bumps all over the place, he said.
The quake also triggered mudslides in the city, where soil was already loose after a major typhoon at the weekend, which left four people dead or missing and flooded hundreds of homes across Japan.Today was a bank holiday in Japan, so financial markets and many offices were closed.Service on Japan's famed bullet trains was temporarily suspended as a precaution after the earthquake, which severed power to some 21,000 households.Japan lies at the junction of four tectonic plates and is hit by about 20 per cent of the world's most powerful earthquakes.Niigata was the scene of a major earthquake in October 2004, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale. Sixty-seven people were killed, including those who suffered stress and fatigue afterwards.
The 2004 Niigata earthquake was Japan's deadliest since January 1995, when a 7.3-magnitude tremor destroyed much of the western metropolis of Kobe, killing more than 6,400 people.agencies
Moshe Feiglin Sums Up Olmert Releasing Terrorists in One Sentence
July 15, 2007...
Moshe Feiglin, who is running for the head of the Likud party against Benjamin Netanyahu, can describe Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's action of releasing terrorists in one sentence. Only one who undervalues Jewish lives can come up with such an agreement to give freedom to murderers with so much blood on their hands.
It has happened countless times that criminals who are freed repeat their heinous crimes. Who will bear the responsibility if G-D forbid Jews in Israel and innocent people throughout the world will lose their lives to one of these freed terrorists?
Moshe Feiglin has the moral compass that is presently absent from Israeli politics. The right decisions based on Jewish values will actually save lives in Israel and worldwide.
Moshe Feiglin, Manhigut Yehudit's candidate for Prime Minister of Israel will be in the United States between July 15th and July 19th.Members of the press are invited to contact us to arrange an interview. There will also be a press briefing in New York on Wednesday July 18th. Members of the press who would like to attend may contact us:
Tova Abadi - Media Liaison - 917-301-0997 (cell)
simplefaith2002@yahoo.com
The Manhigut Yehudit website is www.jewishisrael.org
Active RFID's Growing Role in Overall Market
Tuesday July 10th, 2007
Research firm IDTechEx of Cambridge has released an update to its annual report on the current and future state of the active RFID industry, with projections out to 2017. Listed below are key findings from Active RFID and Sensor Networks 2007-2017:
As a percentage of the entire RFID industry, active RFID will grow over the next ten years. Specifically, it is expected to more than double from 12.7 percent of the market in 2007 to 26.3 percent in 2017.
IDTechEx pegs the active RFID market value in 2017 at $7.07 billion.
There are a number of factors driving the growth of the active RFID market, many similar to what is seen on the passive RFID side. Among them are an increase in track-and-trace generally (both assets and people), decreasing cost of the technology, standardization, integration with other wireless technologies, contactless payment adoption, and the ambitious Ubiquitous Sensor Networks (USN) projects seen in Asia.
IDTechEx estimates that 614 million active RFID tags were sold as of the beginning of this year. At 593 million, car clickers accounted for the vast majority. In a distant second place were military applications, which have used 6.3 million.
Active RFID is a systems business, according to IDTechEx. That is, providers make money less on the tags and more on deploying holistic solutions. Contrast that to some of the passive RFID supply chain and retail deployments, in which the anticipated high-volume consumption of tags will contribute significant, recurring cost.
While there has been much coverage of the adoption of RTLS solutions by the healthcare industry and hospitals in particular, there have not been many estimates of the actual number of deployments occurring. IDTechEx provides a figure: 50 hospitals per year are installing RTLS systems for asset, patient, and staff tracking.
Active RFID and RTLS has attracted more than its fair share of interest from investors: 37 percent of the 27 recent IDTechEx-tracked fundings went to companies that are in some way involved with active RFID. Notable, too, is that one of the biggest acquisitions to date in the RFID industry was Lockheed's $400 million purchase of Savi, a company that focuses heavily on active RFID technology (see Lockheed Martin to Buy Active RFID Leader Savi).
Sarkozy brings in EU troops to celebrate Bastille day
16.07.2007 - 09:26 CET | By Lucia Kubosova
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has reiterated calls for a common European defence policy, with troops from all EU member states present for a march in Paris to celebrate the 14 July Bastille Day.For his first Bastille Day appearance as French President, Mr Sarkozy sat in the back of a military vehicle, leading a parade of European military forces down the Champs Elysees. It was the first time that troops from other EU states – including 30 soldiers from Germany's Bundeswehr - were invited for the traditional parade, along with flag-bearers from all the bloc's countries. This showed that Europe had to look at France through different eyes, explained Mr Sarkozy.
It's Europe's party, he said, adding It was a parade of armies but it is peace that we want to celebrate, according to press reports.The French politicians and public were joined by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, as well as Portuguese prime minister Jose Socrates, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency. Mr Sarkozy introduced other changes to the various traditions connected with the celebration. The new leader ditched the usual July 14 televised interview and also refused to issue the mass pardons usually granted for the holiday.
However, speaking to European defence ministers and French military officers on the eve of the celebrations, the French president reiterated his call for a common European defence policy. The basis for a European defence exists. We must make it grow, he said, adding I want Europe to be capable of ensuring its security autonomously.The national holiday marks the storming of Bastille prison in Paris on 14 July 1789 by frustrated crowds which precipitated in the French revolution.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
TYPHOON MAN-YI IN JAPAN
WE SEE THE SEA AND WAVES ROARING.
Typhoon Man-yi lashes southern Japan
Sat Jul 14, 7:47 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - A strong typhoon lashed southern Japan with high winds and heavy rain on Saturday, killing a boy, injuring dozens and forcing thousands of people to evacuate homes.Man-yi struck the southernmost main island of Kyushu after storming through the islands of Okinawa on Friday, moving northeast at 35 km per hour (22 mph), the Meteorological Agency said.With winds blowing at up to 216 km per hour (134 mph), forecasters expected the typhoon to move along the coast of the southeastern island of Shikoku and the country's central region later in the day.
The typhoon was expected to brush by Tokyo late on Sunday, bringing heavy rain and winds, before veering off into the Pacific Ocean on Monday.
A 11-year-old boy died after he was swept along by a fast-moving river while trying to pick up a ball, a police official in southern Kagoshima prefecture said.Public broadcaster NHK earlier said 56 people, including the boy, had been injured. Television footage showed heavy rain pounding on empty streets and workers mopping floors of train stations.NHK said several houses and a post office collapsed under a landslide in Kagoshima, while strong winds and landslides damaged dozens of homes in other areas.Local officials advised over 15,000 households to evacuate as they warned of more flooding and landslides. Around 12,000 people fled to evacuation centers on their own.We're worried. We don't want to stay home, one elderly evacuee told NHK television.Train services in Kyushu were halted, highways closed and more than 590 flights cancelled, Kyodo news agency said, disrupting travel for many during a three-day holiday weekend.Around 29,700 homes in Kyushu suffered power blackouts, an official at Kyushu Electric Power said.The storm was classified as a category 1 typhoon by British-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com), down from category 4 on Friday.
Russia suspends application of arms control treaty Sat Jul 14, 5:50 AM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree suspending Russia's application of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) arms control treaty, the Kremlin said Saturday. Russia has threatened several times to pull out of the treaty because of the US military encroachment into territory once part of the former Soviet Union, including Washington's plans to develop a missile defense shield in Europe.Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree 'on the suspension of the application by the Russian Federation of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and the international accords linked with it, the presidential press office said in a statement.It said the suspension would take effect from the day of the signing.
But the move does not mean that we have closed the door on dialogue, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.The suspension is motivated by some points of the initial 1990 accord concerning the security of the Russian Federation, it said.
The CFE treaty, which came into force in 1992, is one of the key post-Cold War security accords in Europe.It limits deployments of tanks and troops in countries belonging to NATO and the former Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe and lays down measures aimed at confidence-building, transparency and cooperation between member states.Putin had threatened three months ago to pull Russia out of the CFE until all of NATO's current members ratified it.
It would be appropriate to announce a moratorium on Russian adherence to this treaty until it has been ratified by all NATO countries without exception, he had said in a state of the nation speech in April.The CFE was signed in Paris in 1990 by the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the former Warsaw Pact.But it was adapted in Istanbul in 1999 following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in order to limit deployments on a country-by-country basis.NATO states have refused to ratify the new pact on the grounds that Moscow has failed to honor commitments made in Istanbul to withdraw Russian forces from the ex-Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.Putin's insistence that all countries ratify the CFE appeared particularly aimed at the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were once part of the Soviet Union and are not part of the treaty.The three are all now members of NATO.
China, Russia seek multi-polar world JULY 13,07
Associated Press Friday, July 13, 2007 (Moscow)
Russia and China on Friday stressed their common desire for a multi-polar world one not dominated by the United States - and vowed to keep improving economic ties that President Vladimir Putin said are already improving fast.Putin met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, a former ambassador to the United States who suggested the trip to Moscow less than three months after his appointment, underscoring Russia's importance for Beijing.In the past few years, thanks to great contributions by our leaders and our governments, great positive changes have occurred in bilateral relations, taking our strategic partnership further, Yang told Putin in talks at the Russian leader's residence outside Moscow.Relations have reached an especially high level, Putin said, adding the volume of bilateral trade was increasing by up to 43 per cent annually.
Still, trade between Russia and China remains far outstripped by China's commercial ties to the United States, Japan and South Korea, and Moscow and Beijing have been pushing to add more economic substance amid burgeoning political ties.Communist rivals through much of the Soviet era, Russia and China have found common ground in their opposition to what they perceive to be US dominance of world affairs.They have used their clout as veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council members to counter US moves, for example, forcing proposed sanctions against Iran to be watered down.
Following his meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Yang said close relations between Russia and China help foster the creation of a multi-polar world and the democratization of international relations, which he said both countries believe are the most important trends in history.
Efforts to create a new, more fair world order were at the forefront of cooperation between Russian and China in international affairs, Lavrov said.Lavrov said they agreed to work faster toward agreement on water resources shared by the two countries, and he stressed the need to update migration regulations.With Russia's population declining, residents of its sparsely populated eastern regions are concerned about the expanding presence of Chinese migrants.A 2005 chemical spill in northern China sent poisoned water flowing into the Amur River - which divides the two countries - and into Russian territory, straining bilateral relations.The two countries are slated to participate in major military exercises in central Russia next month, along with other members of loose political and military groups called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Friday, July 13, 2007 by Staff Writer
Muslims rip up Temple Mount, archeologists protest
The Muslim overlords of Jerusalem's Temple Mount began hacking a deep trench into the holy hill earlier this week as a prelude to more extensive infrastructure work on the mosques that currently occupy the compound. The Islamic Trust (Waqf) gained the approval of the Israeli police to proceed with the work, but leading archeologists note that digging with heavy machinery at such a sensitive historical site also requires, by law, the approval of archeological authorities. The use of tractors and other heavy machinery in construction at the Temple Mount requires real, professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulous documentation, stated the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, an apolitical group that includes Israelis archeologists and intellectuals from across the political spectrum.
Committee member Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University accused the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of giving a green light to the work without going through the proper channels out of fear of the Muslims. As a result, said Mazar, even more of the history of Israel's temples to the Almighty will be destroyed, further erasing the historical and biblical connection of the Jewish people to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Mazar and the committee previously protested extensive construction work done by the Muslims under the Temple Mount, which resulted in a huge amount of dirt and debris being deposited unceremoniously in the Kidron Valley below. The mounds of debris were later found to contain shattered pieces of Jewish temple history. By contrast, the Muslim world erupted in outrage and violence earlier this year when Israel tried to repair a walking bridge leading to one of the Temple Mount's gates.
WELL THE BIBLE CLEARLY SAYS THE EU WILL HAVE ITS OWN ARMY, SARKOZY IS MAKING IT COME TO PASS.
France stages pan-European Bastille Day bash
Associated Press - Published July 15, 2007
PARIS -- Troops from all 27 European Union nations marched in France's Bastille Day parade for the first time Saturday, part of a revamped celebration enacted by new President Nicolas Sarkozy.It's a party. It's Europe's party, Sarkozy said of the holiday. It was a parade of armies, but it is peace that we want to celebrate.
Sarkozy, who has pushed for a united European military, stood in the back of a military vehicle to lead the procession. It circled the Arc de Triomphe before continuing down the Champs-Elysees escorted by mounted regiments of the Republic Guards.
He got out of the vehicle briefly to talk with spectators, an unplanned move that took guards by surprise.On the eve of the Bastille celebrations, Sarkozy reiterated his push for Europe-wide defense.The basis for a European defense exists. We must make it grow, he said in a speech to European defense ministers and French officers. I want Europe to be capable of ensuring its security autonomously.Chicago Tribune
Sons of Aaron - The Priestly Tribe - Convene in Jerusalem
by Hana Levi Julian (JULY 15,07 INN)
A four-day International Conference of Descendants of the biblical figure Aaron, the Priestly Tribe (Kohanim) and the whole Tribe of Levi to which the Kohanim are a part, begins on Sunday, July 15.Bring forth Aharon’s sons….Then anoint them, just as you anointed their father, so that they will be Kohanim (priests) to Me. It will be done so that their anointing will make them an eternal [hereditary] priesthood for all generations. Moses proceeded to do exactly as G-d had commanded him.(Exodus 40:14, 15) Throughout Jewish history and to this day, Jews are careful to note which families belong to the tribe of Levi and the priestly family of Aaron. At the special gathering this week in Jerusalem, they will learn more about their roots and discuss the latest research proving their genetic ties.
The International Conference of Kohanim and the Tribe of Levi falls on the first day of the Hebrew month of Av and the beginning of the nine-day period leading up to Tisha B’Av, the second-most solemn fast day in the Jewish calendar.It is also the date on which Aharon the High Priest, brother of Moses left this world to enter the World to Come.Recent scientific research and DNA testing has allegedly proven a genetic connection between the descendants of the Tribe of Levi, the biblical priests and their assistants who began with the sons of Aharon.Project director Professor Karl Skorecki, one of the main researchers in the seminal Kohen Genetic Signature study, is scheduled to present the findings Monday, July 16 at 11:30 a.m. in HaKotel Hall auditorium, near the Western Wall Plaza .
This is not only the first family reunion of the Jewish priestly dynasty in nearly 2,000 years, said conference organizer Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman in a statement sent to the media. The research and information we will share will play an important role in appreciating and maintaining our unique and precious heritage. Rabbi Kleiman is the director of The Center for Kohanim in Jerusalem and the author of DNA & Tradition.
Molecular geneticists have recently discovered the Kohen Modal Haplotype, a Y-chromosome DNA lineage signature shared by a majority of both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Kohanim.This indicates direct patrilineal descent of present-day Kohanim from an ancient ancestor, genetically dated to have lived approximately 3,000 years ago, corresponding to the time of the Exodus from Egypt.Kohanim and other members of the tribe, the Levi’im (Levites), are being invited to participate in what has been billed as the first family reunion held since the days of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Four days of seminars, touring, presentations of the latest research and lectures by leading rabbis and scientists on such topics as genetic genealogy, biblical history and contemporary issues in the Jewish legal arena will be offered in English as well as Hebrew.
This Week with Rabbi Eckstein - July 12, 2007
Dear Friend of The Fellowship,
One year ago, on July 12, 2006, the Second Lebanon War began when Hezbollah terrorists attacked Israel Defense Forces patrolling the Lebanon border. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed, and two were kidnapped and continue to be held to this day.
This act of aggression plunged Israel into war. By the time a United Nations-brokered ceasefire was in place a month later, Hezbollah had fired nearly four thousand rockets at Israel, causing great suffering and widespread devastation in the northern part of the country. One hundred and fifty-nine Israelis were killed. Over four thousand were injured, and hundreds of thousands displaced. More than one million Israelis were forced to live in bomb shelters that had been unused for years and were terribly run-down. Conditions in many were nearly unbearable.
Thankfully, Fellowship supporters responded quickly and generously to our calls for emergency assistance. Contributions to our Israel Emergency Fund allowed us to send help within 24 hours of the first Hezbollah attack, to continue helping throughout the war and assist in rebuilding efforts afterward. Thousands signed our petition of support for the Israeli people, and joined us in prayer for Israel’s peace and security. Despite the terrible pain of that time, this incredible display of love for Israel and her people was a great blessing.
Today, there is again the possibility of war. Gaza is now a radical Islamic state, ruled by Hamas. Iran continues to provide arms to radical Palestinian and Islamist groups and persists in its aggressive and hostile rhetoric against Israel. Syria is positioning its military for a possible strike. In Lebanon, the United Nations’ peacekeeping force has proved utterly ineffective in preventing Hezbollah from rearming. Clearly, there is now much more than just a remote chance of war erupting it is a real possibility.
As I reflected on the devastation of last year’s war during a recent trip to northern Israel, I was reminded of the importance of being prepared. During the past year, the Israel Defense Forces has been working hard to prepare itself to defend Israel in the event of war. And through our campaign to renovate and equip Israel’s bomb shelters to supply them with essentials such as food, water and sanitation, and to ensure that they are in good repair friends of The Fellowship have been helping to ensure that Israel’s people will have safe, comfortable places to take refuge if Israel is attacked.
While physical preparation is essential, spiritual preparation is also important. War unleashes chaos, destruction and suffering. It is precisely at this time that we need to recommit ourselves to pray daily for Israel and her people, and to remind ourselves that we can always trust in God. The Bible says, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea (Psalm 46:1-2). Thus we are assured that, even in times of greatest crisis, when the world seems to be falling apart around us, God is present, and hears His people’s cries for help.
Keeping this in mind, I ask you today to do two things. First, contribute as best you can to our campaign to repair and equip Israel’s bomb shelters. Given the current circumstances in the Middle East, this is an urgent need. We must ensure that Israel is never again faced with the situation she had to deal with last year, when thousands of Israelis were crowded for weeks into shelters that lacked even basic infrastructure and supplies. Second, continue praying daily for the peace of Jerusalem, for Israel’s protection and for the safe return of Israel’s soldiers who have now spent a year in the hands of terrorists. These soliders Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, as well as Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas several weeks before last year’s war began have endured much, and greatly need as much prayer support as we can give them.
On behalf of everyone at The Fellowship, and the people of Israel, I want to thank you for your support. May you be blessed, even as you have blessed the Jewish people.
With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS.
Typhoon Man-yi lashes southern Japan
Sat Jul 14, 7:47 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) - A strong typhoon lashed southern Japan with high winds and heavy rain on Saturday, killing a boy, injuring dozens and forcing thousands of people to evacuate homes.Man-yi struck the southernmost main island of Kyushu after storming through the islands of Okinawa on Friday, moving northeast at 35 km per hour (22 mph), the Meteorological Agency said.With winds blowing at up to 216 km per hour (134 mph), forecasters expected the typhoon to move along the coast of the southeastern island of Shikoku and the country's central region later in the day.
The typhoon was expected to brush by Tokyo late on Sunday, bringing heavy rain and winds, before veering off into the Pacific Ocean on Monday.
A 11-year-old boy died after he was swept along by a fast-moving river while trying to pick up a ball, a police official in southern Kagoshima prefecture said.Public broadcaster NHK earlier said 56 people, including the boy, had been injured. Television footage showed heavy rain pounding on empty streets and workers mopping floors of train stations.NHK said several houses and a post office collapsed under a landslide in Kagoshima, while strong winds and landslides damaged dozens of homes in other areas.Local officials advised over 15,000 households to evacuate as they warned of more flooding and landslides. Around 12,000 people fled to evacuation centers on their own.We're worried. We don't want to stay home, one elderly evacuee told NHK television.Train services in Kyushu were halted, highways closed and more than 590 flights cancelled, Kyodo news agency said, disrupting travel for many during a three-day holiday weekend.Around 29,700 homes in Kyushu suffered power blackouts, an official at Kyushu Electric Power said.The storm was classified as a category 1 typhoon by British-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com), down from category 4 on Friday.
Russia suspends application of arms control treaty Sat Jul 14, 5:50 AM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree suspending Russia's application of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) arms control treaty, the Kremlin said Saturday. Russia has threatened several times to pull out of the treaty because of the US military encroachment into territory once part of the former Soviet Union, including Washington's plans to develop a missile defense shield in Europe.Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree 'on the suspension of the application by the Russian Federation of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and the international accords linked with it, the presidential press office said in a statement.It said the suspension would take effect from the day of the signing.
But the move does not mean that we have closed the door on dialogue, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.The suspension is motivated by some points of the initial 1990 accord concerning the security of the Russian Federation, it said.
The CFE treaty, which came into force in 1992, is one of the key post-Cold War security accords in Europe.It limits deployments of tanks and troops in countries belonging to NATO and the former Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe and lays down measures aimed at confidence-building, transparency and cooperation between member states.Putin had threatened three months ago to pull Russia out of the CFE until all of NATO's current members ratified it.
It would be appropriate to announce a moratorium on Russian adherence to this treaty until it has been ratified by all NATO countries without exception, he had said in a state of the nation speech in April.The CFE was signed in Paris in 1990 by the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the former Warsaw Pact.But it was adapted in Istanbul in 1999 following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in order to limit deployments on a country-by-country basis.NATO states have refused to ratify the new pact on the grounds that Moscow has failed to honor commitments made in Istanbul to withdraw Russian forces from the ex-Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.Putin's insistence that all countries ratify the CFE appeared particularly aimed at the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were once part of the Soviet Union and are not part of the treaty.The three are all now members of NATO.
China, Russia seek multi-polar world JULY 13,07
Associated Press Friday, July 13, 2007 (Moscow)
Russia and China on Friday stressed their common desire for a multi-polar world one not dominated by the United States - and vowed to keep improving economic ties that President Vladimir Putin said are already improving fast.Putin met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, a former ambassador to the United States who suggested the trip to Moscow less than three months after his appointment, underscoring Russia's importance for Beijing.In the past few years, thanks to great contributions by our leaders and our governments, great positive changes have occurred in bilateral relations, taking our strategic partnership further, Yang told Putin in talks at the Russian leader's residence outside Moscow.Relations have reached an especially high level, Putin said, adding the volume of bilateral trade was increasing by up to 43 per cent annually.
Still, trade between Russia and China remains far outstripped by China's commercial ties to the United States, Japan and South Korea, and Moscow and Beijing have been pushing to add more economic substance amid burgeoning political ties.Communist rivals through much of the Soviet era, Russia and China have found common ground in their opposition to what they perceive to be US dominance of world affairs.They have used their clout as veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council members to counter US moves, for example, forcing proposed sanctions against Iran to be watered down.
Following his meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Yang said close relations between Russia and China help foster the creation of a multi-polar world and the democratization of international relations, which he said both countries believe are the most important trends in history.
Efforts to create a new, more fair world order were at the forefront of cooperation between Russian and China in international affairs, Lavrov said.Lavrov said they agreed to work faster toward agreement on water resources shared by the two countries, and he stressed the need to update migration regulations.With Russia's population declining, residents of its sparsely populated eastern regions are concerned about the expanding presence of Chinese migrants.A 2005 chemical spill in northern China sent poisoned water flowing into the Amur River - which divides the two countries - and into Russian territory, straining bilateral relations.The two countries are slated to participate in major military exercises in central Russia next month, along with other members of loose political and military groups called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Friday, July 13, 2007 by Staff Writer
Muslims rip up Temple Mount, archeologists protest
The Muslim overlords of Jerusalem's Temple Mount began hacking a deep trench into the holy hill earlier this week as a prelude to more extensive infrastructure work on the mosques that currently occupy the compound. The Islamic Trust (Waqf) gained the approval of the Israeli police to proceed with the work, but leading archeologists note that digging with heavy machinery at such a sensitive historical site also requires, by law, the approval of archeological authorities. The use of tractors and other heavy machinery in construction at the Temple Mount requires real, professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulous documentation, stated the Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, an apolitical group that includes Israelis archeologists and intellectuals from across the political spectrum.
Committee member Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University accused the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of giving a green light to the work without going through the proper channels out of fear of the Muslims. As a result, said Mazar, even more of the history of Israel's temples to the Almighty will be destroyed, further erasing the historical and biblical connection of the Jewish people to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Mazar and the committee previously protested extensive construction work done by the Muslims under the Temple Mount, which resulted in a huge amount of dirt and debris being deposited unceremoniously in the Kidron Valley below. The mounds of debris were later found to contain shattered pieces of Jewish temple history. By contrast, the Muslim world erupted in outrage and violence earlier this year when Israel tried to repair a walking bridge leading to one of the Temple Mount's gates.
WELL THE BIBLE CLEARLY SAYS THE EU WILL HAVE ITS OWN ARMY, SARKOZY IS MAKING IT COME TO PASS.
France stages pan-European Bastille Day bash
Associated Press - Published July 15, 2007
PARIS -- Troops from all 27 European Union nations marched in France's Bastille Day parade for the first time Saturday, part of a revamped celebration enacted by new President Nicolas Sarkozy.It's a party. It's Europe's party, Sarkozy said of the holiday. It was a parade of armies, but it is peace that we want to celebrate.
Sarkozy, who has pushed for a united European military, stood in the back of a military vehicle to lead the procession. It circled the Arc de Triomphe before continuing down the Champs-Elysees escorted by mounted regiments of the Republic Guards.
He got out of the vehicle briefly to talk with spectators, an unplanned move that took guards by surprise.On the eve of the Bastille celebrations, Sarkozy reiterated his push for Europe-wide defense.The basis for a European defense exists. We must make it grow, he said in a speech to European defense ministers and French officers. I want Europe to be capable of ensuring its security autonomously.Chicago Tribune
Sons of Aaron - The Priestly Tribe - Convene in Jerusalem
by Hana Levi Julian (JULY 15,07 INN)
A four-day International Conference of Descendants of the biblical figure Aaron, the Priestly Tribe (Kohanim) and the whole Tribe of Levi to which the Kohanim are a part, begins on Sunday, July 15.Bring forth Aharon’s sons….Then anoint them, just as you anointed their father, so that they will be Kohanim (priests) to Me. It will be done so that their anointing will make them an eternal [hereditary] priesthood for all generations. Moses proceeded to do exactly as G-d had commanded him.(Exodus 40:14, 15) Throughout Jewish history and to this day, Jews are careful to note which families belong to the tribe of Levi and the priestly family of Aaron. At the special gathering this week in Jerusalem, they will learn more about their roots and discuss the latest research proving their genetic ties.
The International Conference of Kohanim and the Tribe of Levi falls on the first day of the Hebrew month of Av and the beginning of the nine-day period leading up to Tisha B’Av, the second-most solemn fast day in the Jewish calendar.It is also the date on which Aharon the High Priest, brother of Moses left this world to enter the World to Come.Recent scientific research and DNA testing has allegedly proven a genetic connection between the descendants of the Tribe of Levi, the biblical priests and their assistants who began with the sons of Aharon.Project director Professor Karl Skorecki, one of the main researchers in the seminal Kohen Genetic Signature study, is scheduled to present the findings Monday, July 16 at 11:30 a.m. in HaKotel Hall auditorium, near the Western Wall Plaza .
This is not only the first family reunion of the Jewish priestly dynasty in nearly 2,000 years, said conference organizer Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman in a statement sent to the media. The research and information we will share will play an important role in appreciating and maintaining our unique and precious heritage. Rabbi Kleiman is the director of The Center for Kohanim in Jerusalem and the author of DNA & Tradition.
Molecular geneticists have recently discovered the Kohen Modal Haplotype, a Y-chromosome DNA lineage signature shared by a majority of both Ashkenazic and Sephardic Kohanim.This indicates direct patrilineal descent of present-day Kohanim from an ancient ancestor, genetically dated to have lived approximately 3,000 years ago, corresponding to the time of the Exodus from Egypt.Kohanim and other members of the tribe, the Levi’im (Levites), are being invited to participate in what has been billed as the first family reunion held since the days of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Four days of seminars, touring, presentations of the latest research and lectures by leading rabbis and scientists on such topics as genetic genealogy, biblical history and contemporary issues in the Jewish legal arena will be offered in English as well as Hebrew.
This Week with Rabbi Eckstein - July 12, 2007
Dear Friend of The Fellowship,
One year ago, on July 12, 2006, the Second Lebanon War began when Hezbollah terrorists attacked Israel Defense Forces patrolling the Lebanon border. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed, and two were kidnapped and continue to be held to this day.
This act of aggression plunged Israel into war. By the time a United Nations-brokered ceasefire was in place a month later, Hezbollah had fired nearly four thousand rockets at Israel, causing great suffering and widespread devastation in the northern part of the country. One hundred and fifty-nine Israelis were killed. Over four thousand were injured, and hundreds of thousands displaced. More than one million Israelis were forced to live in bomb shelters that had been unused for years and were terribly run-down. Conditions in many were nearly unbearable.
Thankfully, Fellowship supporters responded quickly and generously to our calls for emergency assistance. Contributions to our Israel Emergency Fund allowed us to send help within 24 hours of the first Hezbollah attack, to continue helping throughout the war and assist in rebuilding efforts afterward. Thousands signed our petition of support for the Israeli people, and joined us in prayer for Israel’s peace and security. Despite the terrible pain of that time, this incredible display of love for Israel and her people was a great blessing.
Today, there is again the possibility of war. Gaza is now a radical Islamic state, ruled by Hamas. Iran continues to provide arms to radical Palestinian and Islamist groups and persists in its aggressive and hostile rhetoric against Israel. Syria is positioning its military for a possible strike. In Lebanon, the United Nations’ peacekeeping force has proved utterly ineffective in preventing Hezbollah from rearming. Clearly, there is now much more than just a remote chance of war erupting it is a real possibility.
As I reflected on the devastation of last year’s war during a recent trip to northern Israel, I was reminded of the importance of being prepared. During the past year, the Israel Defense Forces has been working hard to prepare itself to defend Israel in the event of war. And through our campaign to renovate and equip Israel’s bomb shelters to supply them with essentials such as food, water and sanitation, and to ensure that they are in good repair friends of The Fellowship have been helping to ensure that Israel’s people will have safe, comfortable places to take refuge if Israel is attacked.
While physical preparation is essential, spiritual preparation is also important. War unleashes chaos, destruction and suffering. It is precisely at this time that we need to recommit ourselves to pray daily for Israel and her people, and to remind ourselves that we can always trust in God. The Bible says, God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea (Psalm 46:1-2). Thus we are assured that, even in times of greatest crisis, when the world seems to be falling apart around us, God is present, and hears His people’s cries for help.
Keeping this in mind, I ask you today to do two things. First, contribute as best you can to our campaign to repair and equip Israel’s bomb shelters. Given the current circumstances in the Middle East, this is an urgent need. We must ensure that Israel is never again faced with the situation she had to deal with last year, when thousands of Israelis were crowded for weeks into shelters that lacked even basic infrastructure and supplies. Second, continue praying daily for the peace of Jerusalem, for Israel’s protection and for the safe return of Israel’s soldiers who have now spent a year in the hands of terrorists. These soliders Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, as well as Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas several weeks before last year’s war began have endured much, and greatly need as much prayer support as we can give them.
On behalf of everyone at The Fellowship, and the people of Israel, I want to thank you for your support. May you be blessed, even as you have blessed the Jewish people.
With prayers for shalom, peace,
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS.
Friday, July 13, 2007
KING DAVIDS TOMB A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
THIS CAN NOT BE A FINAL TREATY THIS MONTH BECAUSE THE FINAL TREATY HAS TO BE A 7 YEAR TREATY MADE BY THE EU FOR ISRAEL AND THE ARABS AND MANY.
Mideast peace treaty possible this month, says expert
By Deena Douara
First Published 7/4/2007
CAIRO: A meeting between the Quartet, the Palestinian Authority, and Israeli leaders will take place in Egypt mid-July, announced EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Toward the middle of the month, we will recuperate this initiative, he said. Political analyst from the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies Emad Gad told The Daily Star Egypt that he believed the countries were very close to negotiating a peace treaty delineating a two-state solution very close to what former PM Arafat was said to have been offered at the 2000 Camp David meeting. He believes that moderate Palestinians are ready to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
While the Quartet meeting was postponed from late June due to high tensions within the Palestinian territories, Gad explains that the situation is very different now.
It is looking positive in the West Bank, he says, where Israel has returned tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority and the EU has resumed relations with the territory. Abbas is also supported by the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
Abbas is actually stronger than before, explains Gad, as he and his Fatah party no longer need to take approval or agreement from Hamas, as was the case under their unity government.
Hamas is now controlling Gaza only.
The meeting will also represent former British PM Tony Blair’s first test as Middle East envoy for the Quartet — composed of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.Despite being generally considered pro-Israel, Abbas had welcomed Blair as the new representative, saying the Arabs were ready to deal with Blair as mideast negotiator.Blair can play a positive role in convincing the Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate, says Gad. He explains that Blair’s close ties to US President Bush put him in an advantageous position, as the US is in a position to pressure the Israelis to resume negotiations.
MEPs defy member states on EU symbols
11.07.2007 - 17:45 CET | By Mark Beunderman
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament is considering flying the EU flag and playing the EU anthem more often in its own buildings as part of a political message to member states who have scrapped the union's symbols from the proposed new EU treaty. The parliament on Wednesday (11 July) adopted its opinion on the EU's reform treaty which was agreed by EU leaders last month and which will be subject to detailed negotiations in a so-called Inter Governmental Conference (IGC) in the coming months. In Wednesday's opinion, MEPs welcomed the fact that the reform treaty blueprint safeguards much of the substance of the original EU constitution, which was rejected in popular referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005.But the EU assembly also regrets drafting changes in the new style treaty. It has been stripped of all constitutional elements while explicitly suggesting EU's powers can be limited and handed back to member states. It also gives the UK a special opt-out from the EU's charter of fundamental rights.
MEPs are particularly irked about the disappearance from the treaty text of the EU's 12 star flag and Beethoven's Ode to Joy – which were given official status as EU symbols in the failed EU constitution.In a bid to defy member states on the symbolic issue, the parliament says in its opinion that it intends to give official character to the EU's flag and anthem in its own internal rulebooks. Some senior MEPs eye a more frequent use of the unions symbols in official ceremonies in the parliament itself.German social democrat MEP Jo Leinen, who drafted the report, told EUobserver so far the anthem is not being officially used in the parliament - at least I rarely heard it in the seven years I've been here. If we have it in the rules of procedure, we could play it when we have visits of foreign delegation or during celebrations, he added. Why not give the parliament, which has been directly elected by European citizens, an avant-garde role in doing this? That way, those who somehow hope that the flag and anthem would disappear would see themselves confronted with the opposite.
The idea has also caught the interest of parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering who told EU leaders at their June summit that he was moved to hear Beethoven's Ode to Joy being played for him when he was recently received in the Israeli parliament.
If the Israeli Knesset is willing to play the EU anthem, the European parliament should perhaps consider doing the same when welcoming foreign visitors, Mr Poettering suggested when speaking at a young journalists event in Brussels last month.Mr Poettering's spokeswoman said he had already informally raised the idea with political group leaders in the EU parliament adding that the parliament chief might formally table a proposal at a later stage.
UK opt-out dramatic
Apart from the EU symbols issue, MEPs in their report also voiced other criticism on the simplified treaty blueprint prepared by the former German EU presidency.An opt-out from the EU's right charter by would be a dramatic set-back which would cause serious damage to the EU's inner most sense of identity, the report says – without explicitly mentioning the UK, which secured the opt-out during the June summit, or Ireland and Poland which might make the same move in the IGC talks.MEPs also regret various drafting changes in the new treaty text, which give an impression of distrust vis-a-vis the union and its institutions a reference to the raft of protocols and declarations designed to safeguard member states competencies against Brussels interference.Meanwhile, the parliament is also keen to ensure that it will not lose out in the IGC negotiations itself, with the opinion paper expressing concern that member states could undermine MEPs' powers to control the European Commission in its daily work.The conference of political group leaders in the parliament is set on Thursday to appoint three representatives to take part in the IGC and defend the assembly's interests. The nominated candidates are German conservative MEP Elmar Brok, Spanish socialist Enrique Baron Crespo and UK liberal Andrew Duff.The trio will attend the IGC's ministerial meetings, while parliament chief Poettering is set to take part in meetings at heads of state and government level.
Stocks touch new highs on resource frenzy
Email Print Normal font Large font July 13, 2007 - 4:34PM
Australian stocks ended higher, propelled consolidation hopes in the resources sector sparked by one of the country's biggest resources takeovers yet.While Rio Tinto's hefty $US38.1 billion price tag for Canadian aluminium producer Alcan Inc sparked a downturn in its share price, hopes that merger and acquisition fever might spread through the sector helped boost other mining plays.At the 4.15pm close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was 26 points higher at 6389.4, while the All Ordinaries gained 25.3 points to 6425.4.But both indices touched new intraday highs, the S&P/ASX200 reaching 6436.7 and the All Ordinaries touching 6469.2.On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index contract was up 30 points at 6398 on a volume of 19,889 contracts.
CMC Markets senior dealer Josh Whiting said the market brushed off mid-week jitters to put in a strong performance.The news (of Rio's buy for Alcan) reignited talk of further consolidation in the global resources sector,Mr Whiting said.Other possible resource stock marriages suggested by analysts include a BHP Billiton takeover of US aluminum producer Alcoa, or locally an approach by Oxiana Resources for zinc miner Zinifex.The world's biggest miner BHP Billiton added 44 cents to $39.16, market predator Rio Tinto lost $2.54, or 2.45 per cent, to $101.30, and possible takeover target Alumina climbed 15 cents to $8.55.Mid-tier miner Oxiana firmed one cent to $3.91 and zinc and lead miner Zinifex was steady at $20.60.These speculations are exciting investors further in an environment where many are already bullish due to a rosy outlook for base metals,Mr Whiting said.Traders are scared of missing out on the next big takeover announcement in the materials sector.AAP
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Terror chief: Arafat died of AIDS
Confidante says Abbas told him contents of French medical report July 12, 2007
3:00 p.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein - WorldNetDaily.com
Yasser Arafat
JERUSALEM – A confidential medical report released to the Palestinian Authority from the French hospital in which Yasser Arafat died revealed the Palestinian leader succumbed to AIDS, said the founder and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command terrorist group. Ahmed Jibril – the infamous, Damascus-based PFLP chief who at times was a close Arafat confidante – said in an interview with Hezbollah's Al-Manar television that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his team told him the French medical report listed AIDS as Arafat's cause of death. When Abu Mazen (Abbas) came to Damascus with his team, I asked them: What happened to the investigation into the death of Abu Ammar (Arafat)? The Israelis killed him. He was my colleague ever since 1965 and used to sleep at my home. He and I followed the same path. Is it conceivable that when (former Lebanese Prime Minister) Rafiq Al-Hariri was killed, all hell broke loose, even though he was just a merchant in Saudi Arabia, who later entered politics, whereas the death of Yasser Arafat, who for 40 years had been carrying his gun from one place to another, is not investigated? Is this conceivable? Continued Jibril: They (Abbas' team) were silent, and then one of them said to me: To be honest, the French gave us the medical report that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar's death was AIDS.
Jibril stressed the AIDS information doesn't originate with him but was told to him by Abbas and his team: I am not saying this, they did. Now they pretend that they miss Yasser Arafat and complain that [Hamas] entered his house in [Gaza] and so on.
Jibril's PFLP has carried out numerous anti-American and anti-Israeli terror operations. The group is suspected by some of targeting Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. Jibril is believed to have been behind a massive shipment of weapons to Arafat in 2001 that was seized by Israel and used as part of a campaign to isolate the late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader. Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, at a military hospital in Paris. The official cause of death was not released because French law prohibits distribution of medical records to anyone other than immediate family. Arafat's widow, Suha, has refused to divulge any details of his illness. A copy of Arafat's medical report was obtained in 2005 by the PA as part of an internal investigation into Arafat's death. A book published in Israel in 2005 quoted Arafat's doctor stating the Palestinian leader died of AIDS.
In The Seventh War by Haaretz journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff, Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's personal physician, was quoted saying he knew Arafat's French doctors found the AIDS virus in the blood. Al-Kurdi played no role in Arafat's medical care during the final weeks of the Palestinian leader's life and refused to divulge the source of the AIDS information. He claimed the virus was put into Arafat's blood in an effort to blur the traces of poisoning, which he says was the real cause of death. Many senior Palestinian officials claimed in media interviews they are convinced Arafat was poisoned by Israel. While Arafat was ill, some publicly speculated he was dying of AIDS. The homosexual site 365Gay.com, which deals regularly with issues related to HIV/AIDS, ran a piece reminding readers that for several years it had been suggested Arafat was bisexual and could have contracted the disease.
If suggestions that Arafat has AIDS are true, it is doubtful it would be made public, wrote 365Gay.com European bureau chief Malcolm Thornberry. National Review diarist David Frum suggested in a column Arafat contracted AIDS from homosexual sex with his bodyguards. Ion Pacepa, who was deputy chief of Romanian foreign intelligence under the Ceausescu regime and who defected to the West in 1978, stated in his memoirs the Romanian government bugged Arafat and had recordings of the Arab leader in orgies with his security detail. Arafat's wife, Suha, mostly lived abroad and rarely saw her husband.
Teenage boys?
In a WND interview, the National Security Agency's former analyst of Arafat's communications said the U.S. had information indicating the Palestinian leader may have been a homosexual who preyed on teenage boys. James J. Welsh, who in the early 1970s monitored communications for the NSA related to Arafat's Fatah movement, said, One of the things we looked for when we were intercepting Fatah communications were messages about Ashbal [Lion cub] members who would be called to Beirut from bases outside of Beirut. The Ashbal were often orphaned or abandoned boys who were brought into the organization, ostensibly to train for later entry into Fedayeen fighter units. Arafat always had several of these 13-15 year old boys in his entourage. We figured out that he would often recall several of these boys to Beirut just before he would leave for a trip outside Lebanon. It proved to be a good indicator of Arafat's travel plans. While Arafat did have a regular security detail, many of those thought to be security personnel – the teenage boys – were actually there for other purposes, Welsh said. Arafat's Fatah and PLO organizations based themselves in Beirut after they were expelled from Jordan in 1970. The terror groups remained in Lebanon until Israel's military operations in the area in 1982. In response to Welsh's allegations, senior Arafat aide and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told WND the reports are utter nonsense and don't merit any reaction.
King David’s Tomb: A Different Perspective
By Leibel Reznick JULY 13,07
Those who trust in the Lord shall be like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever (Psalms 125:1).
Dr. Ari Zivotofsky’s well-presented article What’s the Truth about … King David’s Tomb? addresses the question of the true location of King David’s Tomb from a Biblical as well as an archaeological perspective. In the article, Dr. Zivotofsky emphatically states that the area known today as Mount Zion was not part of inhabited Jerusalem in King David’s time, and it is highly improbable that he was buried there. The Bible tells us that the City of David is Zion (1 Kings 8:1) and that David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the City of David (1 Kings 2:10). If, as Dr. Zivotofsky claims, the present-day Mount Zion was uninhabited during the time of King David, then it is not only highly improbable, but quite clearly impossible that King David was buried there.
But what evidence is there that present-day Mount Zion was not inhabited during the reign of King David? The answer is that since no evidence of occupation during the era of King David has been discovered there, that proves it was not occupied at that time. In other words, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence! This is a very dangerous stance to take with regard to the archaeology of Jerusalem. Many archaeologists and historians claim that in the general Jerusalem area there is a dearth of artifacts and remains of buildings from the eras of Kings David and Solomon, which gives them reason to doubt there ever was such a capital city. Some take an extreme position, carrying this line of reasoning one step further: I am not the only scholar who suspects that the figure of King David is about as historical as King Arthur, asserts Philip R. Davies, professor of Biblical studies at the University of Sheffield, England.1 Those of us who follow the unfolding story of Jerusalem archaeology realize that Davies is hardly a lone voice. In the world of academia, his opinion is close to, if not representative of, the majority view. And on what basis are the views that there was no Davidic capital of Jerusalem and that Kings David and Solomon did not exist predicated? The absence of evidence is evidence of absence. As I already stated, this is a dangerous position to take.
A tel is a mound that consists of a layer of ruins built upon other layers of ruins. Jerusalem is not a tel in the traditional sense of the word; it’s a city of hills with bedrock a few feet below the surface. In some places bedrock even protrudes above the land surface. This is because when an inhabited area was destroyed, the conquerors would remove the debris all the way down to the bedrock and build anew. (Recently the esteemed British scholar and archaeologist Kenneth A. Kitchen quipped about Jerusalem, We are lucky to have anything really old at all!)2
Archaeology is the art of interpreting physical finds based on ever-evolving scientific principles. The interpretation of the archaeologist is subject to his or her prejudices, therefore scholars who doubt the veracity of the Bible will interpret the finds in a certain way. Those who believe in the accuracy of Biblical history will interpret them quite differently. Leaving the inaccuracy of archaeological evidence aside, I would like to address the issue of the location of King David’s Tomb from a Biblical and a historical perspective.
Ancient Jerusalem consisted primarily of two large hills, the Eastern Hill and the Western Hill. The northern part of the Eastern Hill is occupied by the Temple Mount and the long, southern slope stretching downward is an area referred to as the archaeological City of David.
The Western Hill consists of the Armenian and Jewish quarters of the Old City as well as the area adjacent to the south of the Armenian Quarter, commonly called Mount Zion. Historically, the City of David, Mount Zion and King David’s Tomb were all located on the Western Hill. During the course of the twentieth century, archaeologists moved the City of David and Mount Zion over to the southern slope of the Eastern Hill. (Despite the move, people still commonly refer to the Western Hill as Mount Zion.) The question is: Is King David’s Tomb located on the Western Hill, where tradition has always placed it, or is it located on the Eastern Hill as the archaeologists claim?
The Bible tells us that King Chezekiah repaired gaps in the city wall adjacent to the City of David. The newly constructed wall was moved a bit closer to the center of town, slicing through several homes. The stones removed from the demolished homes were used to build the new wall. The prophet Isaiah stated as much, You [Chezekiah] have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many … and the houses that you have broken down to fortify the wall (Isaiah 22:9-11). A section of Chezekiah’s wall was found by Professor Nahman Avigad shortly after the Six Day War of 1967. The dating of the wall can be determined by an analysis of the method with which the wall was constructed and by the pottery shards that were found inside the wall. And, indeed, the wall passes right through some ancient homes. Avigad’s discovery has been dubbed the Broad Wall, named after a wall mentioned in the book of Nechemiah. The wall is located in the Jewish Quarter on the Western Hill. According to Isaiah, Chezekiah’s wall was part of the wall of the City of David. Therefore, it follows that the City of David must have been on the Western Hill and not the Eastern Hill as archaeologists claim.
Some people erroneously believe that ill-informed Christian pilgrims during the Middle Ages mistakenly named the Western Hill Mount Zion and the City of David. Not so. According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, the Western Hill was the site of the City of David (Wars of the Jews, Book V, chap. 4). Josephus, a resident of Jerusalem and a Kohen who served in the Second Temple, was intimately familiar with the geography of Jerusalem and its environs. His writings are the primary source for the history of the late Second Temple period and have served as an invaluable tool in the field of archaeology. Josephus’ knowledge of the City of David was also based on a tradition that can be traced all the way back to the Davidic Dynasty. If he claims that the Western Hill is the site of the City of David, I am inclined to agree with him rather than take the word of a few modern-day revisionist historians.
Could it have been that the location of King David’s Tomb was forgotten during the years of the Babylonian exile? No. Nechemiah mentions that during the Post-Exilic period, the walls of the city were repaired to a place opposite the sepulcher of David (Nechemiah 3:16). Josephus refers to the sepulcher of David several times. Similarly, in writing about the early years of the Bar Kochba rebellion, the Roman historian Dio Cassius (ca., 200 CE) mentions King David’s Tomb (Roman History 69:14). Throughout the generations, Jews and non-Jews have referred to Mount Zion and to King David’s Tomb. Despite the tradition dating from Josephus’s time until 1914 placing King David’s Tomb, the City of David and Mount Zion on the Western Hill, archeologists claimed that all of these sites were really on the Eastern Hill. Were one to subscribe to the predominate archaeological view, one would have to believe the highly unlikely scenario that one morning every Jerusalemite awoke and could no longer remember where Mount Zion was located. The residents of Jerusalem then took a wild guess and assumed that it must have been on the Western Hill. Fortunately, in 1913, French archaeologist Raymond Weill came along and informed everyone they had guessed wrong and it was really on the Eastern Hill. Archaeologists may subscribe to Weill’s theory, but I don’t buy it.
One way archaeologists determine the extent of an ancient inhabited area is by studying the contour of the surrounding burial grounds. Since burials were rarely conducted within the city limits, the assumption is that the city extended to the area of the cemeteries. Numerous First Temple period gravesites have been found in Jerusalem. The overall contour begins east of the Eastern Hill and follows a southern course along the Kidron Valley, around the southern edges of the Eastern and Western Hills and northwards, west of the Western Hill.3 Had only the Eastern Hill been inhabited, then we would expect to find the contour of the burial grounds to surround the Eastern Hill only. However, the contour indicates that both hills were occupied concurrently.
(Because of editorial constraints, I do not wish to address the issue of the Tosefta quoted in Dr. Zivotofsky’s article concerning Rabbi Akiva. But suffice it to say that the reading of the same Gemara text as printed in the Yerushalmi is quite different. In addition, not only is the Kidron Valley east of the Eastern Hill, it goes southward and turns west of the Western Hill.)
One reason archaeologists are reluctant to place the Biblical Mount Zion on the Western Hill is because there is no natural water source there. The city inhabitants would have required many large cisterns in order to survive. Even if the cisterns had cut into the bedrock, they would not have been adequate because most bedrock is porous. Without waterproof plaster, the water would seep through the rock to a lower level. Many scholars believed that waterproof plaster was not invented until well into the Iron Age, long after the era of the Jebusites and King David. Without plaster, there are no cisterns. And yet, in the late 1950s, Yigael Yadin was excavating a Late Bronze Age level (corresponding to the pre-Davidic time of the Jebusites) at Hazor. He writes:
The most exciting aspect of the excavations in this area was the many bottle shaped, rock-cut cisterns. …In one cistern, the upper, more porous parts of the rock were even plastered! This one [cistern] went out of use for water storage as early as the Late Bronze period. It is one of the earliest examples of its kind known in the country and disproves the allegation that plastered cisterns were first introduced by the Israelites in the 12th and 11th centuries BCE.4
Speaking of water sources, there are two sources of water that are associated with ancient Jerusalem. One is mentioned a few times in Tanach, the Gihon (Gichon), and the other, mentioned in the Talmud, is the Shiloah (Shiloach). Archaeologists have been puzzled by these two sources since there is only one known underground stream in Jerusalem. That 1,750-foot underground stream begins its course at the eastern slope of the Eastern Hill, runs under the hill and flows into a small pool at the southern base of the hill. Archaeologists solved the two water-source problem by calling the beginning of the stream Gihon and the terminus Shiloah. However, there are a number of problems with this universally accepted solution.
1. It’s highly unusual for a small 1,750-foot-long stream to have two names, one for each end.
2. The Talmud (Sukkah 48a) relates that for the Temple Water Drawing ceremony on Sukkot, messengers were sent down to the Shiloah to draw water and bring it back up to the Temple Courtyard through one of the southern gateways, called the Water Gate. If Gihon and Shiloah are the same stream, why did the Temple messengers bypass Gihon and travel an additional 1,750 feet further south to the Shiloah?
3. The underground stream is on the eastern slope of the Eastern Hill. The Gihon was, in fact, on the western side of the City of David. As it states in Chronicles 2 (32:30), Chezekiah also blocked the upper watercourse of Gihon, and diverted it straight down to the west side of the City of David.
4. The verse above refers to the upper watercourse of the Gihon. That qualification certainly implies that there was a lower watercourse. The archaeological Gihon is a single source for the underground stream. How do the archaeologists explain the existence of an upper and lower watercourse? They can’t.
The solution to these problems is as follows. To the west of the Western Hill are two tremendously large cisterns. One is located at the western base of the Western Hill and its modern name is the Sultan’s Pool, referring to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who had the walls of the old city constructed. The other cistern is located in Independence Park, behind the Sheraton Plaza Hotel, and is called the Mamila Pool. Before archaeologist Raymond Weill came along, the Sultan’s Pool was known as the Lower Gichon and the Mamila Pool as the Upper Gichon. In ancient times, these two cisterns were supplied with water by means of an aqueduct system, traces of which can still be seen. Thus, the author of Chronicles knew what he was writing. The City of David and Mount Zion were clearly located on the Western Hill.5 Additionally, the Shiloah was the underground stream located on the Eastern Hill. Both ends of the stream had a single name—Shiloah.
Where is King David’s Tomb located? Tradition, dating all the way back to the time of King David, says that it is on present-day Mount Zion. I have presented here a number of arguments supporting this long-held tradition. Archaeologists have recently moved Mount Zion to the Eastern Hill and have called the area City of David. Our Sages said, Kol ha’meshaneh, yado al ha’tachtonah, The burden of proof is on the one who seeks to change. This is true with regard to tradition and also with regard to moving mountains.6
Rabbi Reznick is a maggid shiur in Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, New York. He has written numerous books and magazine articles on the topic of Jewish history and archaeology. He is presently a scholar-in-residence for the David Dov Foundation of Lakewood, New Jersey, which is dedicated to the research of Biblical archaeology by Orthodox scholars.
Notes
1. Biblical Archaeology Review 20:4, (July/Aug. 1994).
2. Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 151.
3. Ephraim Stern, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, (New York, 1993), 713.
4. Yigael Yadin, Hazor: The Rediscovery of a Great Citadel of the Bible (New York, 1975), 123.
5. For an analysis of the derivation of the name Gihon, see my article: Moving Mount Zion Jewish Action (summer 2001): 38-43.
6. After completing this article, I found the following quote from Meir Ben Dov, a Jerusalem archaeologist of some note, concerning the location of King David’s Tomb.
A number of scholars engaged in research on Jerusalem have reverted to the mediaeval theory suggesting the upper city (Western Hill)—today’s [Mount] Zion—as the tomb’s location. These propositions can now be accepted since recent archaeological discoveries have shown that the city rose to the upper hills already during the reign of the kings of Judah. Hence, one should not reject out of hand the location of the graves (of the Davidic Monarchy) in the upper city (Western Hill) of which [Mount] Zion is an integral part (Jerusalem: Man and Stone [Tel Aviv, 1990], 237).
As an interesting aside, I read recently that Dame Kathleen Kenyon, the famed archaeologist who excavated for a number of years in Jerusalem in the 1960s, found a goodly number of early First Temple shards on present-day Mount Zion but threw them away. Since Kenyon was a minimalist, she firmly believed that Mount Zion was not inhabited during the First Temple period, and that it was only inhabited in the second century BCE. She therefore concluded that the shards did not belong on Mount Zion, and she tossed them out.
Mideast peace treaty possible this month, says expert
By Deena Douara
First Published 7/4/2007
CAIRO: A meeting between the Quartet, the Palestinian Authority, and Israeli leaders will take place in Egypt mid-July, announced EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Toward the middle of the month, we will recuperate this initiative, he said. Political analyst from the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies Emad Gad told The Daily Star Egypt that he believed the countries were very close to negotiating a peace treaty delineating a two-state solution very close to what former PM Arafat was said to have been offered at the 2000 Camp David meeting. He believes that moderate Palestinians are ready to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
While the Quartet meeting was postponed from late June due to high tensions within the Palestinian territories, Gad explains that the situation is very different now.
It is looking positive in the West Bank, he says, where Israel has returned tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority and the EU has resumed relations with the territory. Abbas is also supported by the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
Abbas is actually stronger than before, explains Gad, as he and his Fatah party no longer need to take approval or agreement from Hamas, as was the case under their unity government.
Hamas is now controlling Gaza only.
The meeting will also represent former British PM Tony Blair’s first test as Middle East envoy for the Quartet — composed of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.Despite being generally considered pro-Israel, Abbas had welcomed Blair as the new representative, saying the Arabs were ready to deal with Blair as mideast negotiator.Blair can play a positive role in convincing the Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate, says Gad. He explains that Blair’s close ties to US President Bush put him in an advantageous position, as the US is in a position to pressure the Israelis to resume negotiations.
MEPs defy member states on EU symbols
11.07.2007 - 17:45 CET | By Mark Beunderman
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament is considering flying the EU flag and playing the EU anthem more often in its own buildings as part of a political message to member states who have scrapped the union's symbols from the proposed new EU treaty. The parliament on Wednesday (11 July) adopted its opinion on the EU's reform treaty which was agreed by EU leaders last month and which will be subject to detailed negotiations in a so-called Inter Governmental Conference (IGC) in the coming months. In Wednesday's opinion, MEPs welcomed the fact that the reform treaty blueprint safeguards much of the substance of the original EU constitution, which was rejected in popular referenda in France and the Netherlands in 2005.But the EU assembly also regrets drafting changes in the new style treaty. It has been stripped of all constitutional elements while explicitly suggesting EU's powers can be limited and handed back to member states. It also gives the UK a special opt-out from the EU's charter of fundamental rights.
MEPs are particularly irked about the disappearance from the treaty text of the EU's 12 star flag and Beethoven's Ode to Joy – which were given official status as EU symbols in the failed EU constitution.In a bid to defy member states on the symbolic issue, the parliament says in its opinion that it intends to give official character to the EU's flag and anthem in its own internal rulebooks. Some senior MEPs eye a more frequent use of the unions symbols in official ceremonies in the parliament itself.German social democrat MEP Jo Leinen, who drafted the report, told EUobserver so far the anthem is not being officially used in the parliament - at least I rarely heard it in the seven years I've been here. If we have it in the rules of procedure, we could play it when we have visits of foreign delegation or during celebrations, he added. Why not give the parliament, which has been directly elected by European citizens, an avant-garde role in doing this? That way, those who somehow hope that the flag and anthem would disappear would see themselves confronted with the opposite.
The idea has also caught the interest of parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering who told EU leaders at their June summit that he was moved to hear Beethoven's Ode to Joy being played for him when he was recently received in the Israeli parliament.
If the Israeli Knesset is willing to play the EU anthem, the European parliament should perhaps consider doing the same when welcoming foreign visitors, Mr Poettering suggested when speaking at a young journalists event in Brussels last month.Mr Poettering's spokeswoman said he had already informally raised the idea with political group leaders in the EU parliament adding that the parliament chief might formally table a proposal at a later stage.
UK opt-out dramatic
Apart from the EU symbols issue, MEPs in their report also voiced other criticism on the simplified treaty blueprint prepared by the former German EU presidency.An opt-out from the EU's right charter by would be a dramatic set-back which would cause serious damage to the EU's inner most sense of identity, the report says – without explicitly mentioning the UK, which secured the opt-out during the June summit, or Ireland and Poland which might make the same move in the IGC talks.MEPs also regret various drafting changes in the new treaty text, which give an impression of distrust vis-a-vis the union and its institutions a reference to the raft of protocols and declarations designed to safeguard member states competencies against Brussels interference.Meanwhile, the parliament is also keen to ensure that it will not lose out in the IGC negotiations itself, with the opinion paper expressing concern that member states could undermine MEPs' powers to control the European Commission in its daily work.The conference of political group leaders in the parliament is set on Thursday to appoint three representatives to take part in the IGC and defend the assembly's interests. The nominated candidates are German conservative MEP Elmar Brok, Spanish socialist Enrique Baron Crespo and UK liberal Andrew Duff.The trio will attend the IGC's ministerial meetings, while parliament chief Poettering is set to take part in meetings at heads of state and government level.
Stocks touch new highs on resource frenzy
Email Print Normal font Large font July 13, 2007 - 4:34PM
Australian stocks ended higher, propelled consolidation hopes in the resources sector sparked by one of the country's biggest resources takeovers yet.While Rio Tinto's hefty $US38.1 billion price tag for Canadian aluminium producer Alcan Inc sparked a downturn in its share price, hopes that merger and acquisition fever might spread through the sector helped boost other mining plays.At the 4.15pm close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 was 26 points higher at 6389.4, while the All Ordinaries gained 25.3 points to 6425.4.But both indices touched new intraday highs, the S&P/ASX200 reaching 6436.7 and the All Ordinaries touching 6469.2.On the Sydney Futures Exchange, the September share price index contract was up 30 points at 6398 on a volume of 19,889 contracts.
CMC Markets senior dealer Josh Whiting said the market brushed off mid-week jitters to put in a strong performance.The news (of Rio's buy for Alcan) reignited talk of further consolidation in the global resources sector,Mr Whiting said.Other possible resource stock marriages suggested by analysts include a BHP Billiton takeover of US aluminum producer Alcoa, or locally an approach by Oxiana Resources for zinc miner Zinifex.The world's biggest miner BHP Billiton added 44 cents to $39.16, market predator Rio Tinto lost $2.54, or 2.45 per cent, to $101.30, and possible takeover target Alumina climbed 15 cents to $8.55.Mid-tier miner Oxiana firmed one cent to $3.91 and zinc and lead miner Zinifex was steady at $20.60.These speculations are exciting investors further in an environment where many are already bullish due to a rosy outlook for base metals,Mr Whiting said.Traders are scared of missing out on the next big takeover announcement in the materials sector.AAP
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Terror chief: Arafat died of AIDS
Confidante says Abbas told him contents of French medical report July 12, 2007
3:00 p.m. Eastern By Aaron Klein - WorldNetDaily.com
Yasser Arafat
JERUSALEM – A confidential medical report released to the Palestinian Authority from the French hospital in which Yasser Arafat died revealed the Palestinian leader succumbed to AIDS, said the founder and leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command terrorist group. Ahmed Jibril – the infamous, Damascus-based PFLP chief who at times was a close Arafat confidante – said in an interview with Hezbollah's Al-Manar television that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his team told him the French medical report listed AIDS as Arafat's cause of death. When Abu Mazen (Abbas) came to Damascus with his team, I asked them: What happened to the investigation into the death of Abu Ammar (Arafat)? The Israelis killed him. He was my colleague ever since 1965 and used to sleep at my home. He and I followed the same path. Is it conceivable that when (former Lebanese Prime Minister) Rafiq Al-Hariri was killed, all hell broke loose, even though he was just a merchant in Saudi Arabia, who later entered politics, whereas the death of Yasser Arafat, who for 40 years had been carrying his gun from one place to another, is not investigated? Is this conceivable? Continued Jibril: They (Abbas' team) were silent, and then one of them said to me: To be honest, the French gave us the medical report that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar's death was AIDS.
Jibril stressed the AIDS information doesn't originate with him but was told to him by Abbas and his team: I am not saying this, they did. Now they pretend that they miss Yasser Arafat and complain that [Hamas] entered his house in [Gaza] and so on.
Jibril's PFLP has carried out numerous anti-American and anti-Israeli terror operations. The group is suspected by some of targeting Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. Jibril is believed to have been behind a massive shipment of weapons to Arafat in 2001 that was seized by Israel and used as part of a campaign to isolate the late Palestinian Liberation Organization leader. Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, at a military hospital in Paris. The official cause of death was not released because French law prohibits distribution of medical records to anyone other than immediate family. Arafat's widow, Suha, has refused to divulge any details of his illness. A copy of Arafat's medical report was obtained in 2005 by the PA as part of an internal investigation into Arafat's death. A book published in Israel in 2005 quoted Arafat's doctor stating the Palestinian leader died of AIDS.
In The Seventh War by Haaretz journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff, Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's personal physician, was quoted saying he knew Arafat's French doctors found the AIDS virus in the blood. Al-Kurdi played no role in Arafat's medical care during the final weeks of the Palestinian leader's life and refused to divulge the source of the AIDS information. He claimed the virus was put into Arafat's blood in an effort to blur the traces of poisoning, which he says was the real cause of death. Many senior Palestinian officials claimed in media interviews they are convinced Arafat was poisoned by Israel. While Arafat was ill, some publicly speculated he was dying of AIDS. The homosexual site 365Gay.com, which deals regularly with issues related to HIV/AIDS, ran a piece reminding readers that for several years it had been suggested Arafat was bisexual and could have contracted the disease.
If suggestions that Arafat has AIDS are true, it is doubtful it would be made public, wrote 365Gay.com European bureau chief Malcolm Thornberry. National Review diarist David Frum suggested in a column Arafat contracted AIDS from homosexual sex with his bodyguards. Ion Pacepa, who was deputy chief of Romanian foreign intelligence under the Ceausescu regime and who defected to the West in 1978, stated in his memoirs the Romanian government bugged Arafat and had recordings of the Arab leader in orgies with his security detail. Arafat's wife, Suha, mostly lived abroad and rarely saw her husband.
Teenage boys?
In a WND interview, the National Security Agency's former analyst of Arafat's communications said the U.S. had information indicating the Palestinian leader may have been a homosexual who preyed on teenage boys. James J. Welsh, who in the early 1970s monitored communications for the NSA related to Arafat's Fatah movement, said, One of the things we looked for when we were intercepting Fatah communications were messages about Ashbal [Lion cub] members who would be called to Beirut from bases outside of Beirut. The Ashbal were often orphaned or abandoned boys who were brought into the organization, ostensibly to train for later entry into Fedayeen fighter units. Arafat always had several of these 13-15 year old boys in his entourage. We figured out that he would often recall several of these boys to Beirut just before he would leave for a trip outside Lebanon. It proved to be a good indicator of Arafat's travel plans. While Arafat did have a regular security detail, many of those thought to be security personnel – the teenage boys – were actually there for other purposes, Welsh said. Arafat's Fatah and PLO organizations based themselves in Beirut after they were expelled from Jordan in 1970. The terror groups remained in Lebanon until Israel's military operations in the area in 1982. In response to Welsh's allegations, senior Arafat aide and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told WND the reports are utter nonsense and don't merit any reaction.
King David’s Tomb: A Different Perspective
By Leibel Reznick JULY 13,07
Those who trust in the Lord shall be like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever (Psalms 125:1).
Dr. Ari Zivotofsky’s well-presented article What’s the Truth about … King David’s Tomb? addresses the question of the true location of King David’s Tomb from a Biblical as well as an archaeological perspective. In the article, Dr. Zivotofsky emphatically states that the area known today as Mount Zion was not part of inhabited Jerusalem in King David’s time, and it is highly improbable that he was buried there. The Bible tells us that the City of David is Zion (1 Kings 8:1) and that David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the City of David (1 Kings 2:10). If, as Dr. Zivotofsky claims, the present-day Mount Zion was uninhabited during the time of King David, then it is not only highly improbable, but quite clearly impossible that King David was buried there.
But what evidence is there that present-day Mount Zion was not inhabited during the reign of King David? The answer is that since no evidence of occupation during the era of King David has been discovered there, that proves it was not occupied at that time. In other words, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence! This is a very dangerous stance to take with regard to the archaeology of Jerusalem. Many archaeologists and historians claim that in the general Jerusalem area there is a dearth of artifacts and remains of buildings from the eras of Kings David and Solomon, which gives them reason to doubt there ever was such a capital city. Some take an extreme position, carrying this line of reasoning one step further: I am not the only scholar who suspects that the figure of King David is about as historical as King Arthur, asserts Philip R. Davies, professor of Biblical studies at the University of Sheffield, England.1 Those of us who follow the unfolding story of Jerusalem archaeology realize that Davies is hardly a lone voice. In the world of academia, his opinion is close to, if not representative of, the majority view. And on what basis are the views that there was no Davidic capital of Jerusalem and that Kings David and Solomon did not exist predicated? The absence of evidence is evidence of absence. As I already stated, this is a dangerous position to take.
A tel is a mound that consists of a layer of ruins built upon other layers of ruins. Jerusalem is not a tel in the traditional sense of the word; it’s a city of hills with bedrock a few feet below the surface. In some places bedrock even protrudes above the land surface. This is because when an inhabited area was destroyed, the conquerors would remove the debris all the way down to the bedrock and build anew. (Recently the esteemed British scholar and archaeologist Kenneth A. Kitchen quipped about Jerusalem, We are lucky to have anything really old at all!)2
Archaeology is the art of interpreting physical finds based on ever-evolving scientific principles. The interpretation of the archaeologist is subject to his or her prejudices, therefore scholars who doubt the veracity of the Bible will interpret the finds in a certain way. Those who believe in the accuracy of Biblical history will interpret them quite differently. Leaving the inaccuracy of archaeological evidence aside, I would like to address the issue of the location of King David’s Tomb from a Biblical and a historical perspective.
Ancient Jerusalem consisted primarily of two large hills, the Eastern Hill and the Western Hill. The northern part of the Eastern Hill is occupied by the Temple Mount and the long, southern slope stretching downward is an area referred to as the archaeological City of David.
The Western Hill consists of the Armenian and Jewish quarters of the Old City as well as the area adjacent to the south of the Armenian Quarter, commonly called Mount Zion. Historically, the City of David, Mount Zion and King David’s Tomb were all located on the Western Hill. During the course of the twentieth century, archaeologists moved the City of David and Mount Zion over to the southern slope of the Eastern Hill. (Despite the move, people still commonly refer to the Western Hill as Mount Zion.) The question is: Is King David’s Tomb located on the Western Hill, where tradition has always placed it, or is it located on the Eastern Hill as the archaeologists claim?
The Bible tells us that King Chezekiah repaired gaps in the city wall adjacent to the City of David. The newly constructed wall was moved a bit closer to the center of town, slicing through several homes. The stones removed from the demolished homes were used to build the new wall. The prophet Isaiah stated as much, You [Chezekiah] have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many … and the houses that you have broken down to fortify the wall (Isaiah 22:9-11). A section of Chezekiah’s wall was found by Professor Nahman Avigad shortly after the Six Day War of 1967. The dating of the wall can be determined by an analysis of the method with which the wall was constructed and by the pottery shards that were found inside the wall. And, indeed, the wall passes right through some ancient homes. Avigad’s discovery has been dubbed the Broad Wall, named after a wall mentioned in the book of Nechemiah. The wall is located in the Jewish Quarter on the Western Hill. According to Isaiah, Chezekiah’s wall was part of the wall of the City of David. Therefore, it follows that the City of David must have been on the Western Hill and not the Eastern Hill as archaeologists claim.
Some people erroneously believe that ill-informed Christian pilgrims during the Middle Ages mistakenly named the Western Hill Mount Zion and the City of David. Not so. According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, the Western Hill was the site of the City of David (Wars of the Jews, Book V, chap. 4). Josephus, a resident of Jerusalem and a Kohen who served in the Second Temple, was intimately familiar with the geography of Jerusalem and its environs. His writings are the primary source for the history of the late Second Temple period and have served as an invaluable tool in the field of archaeology. Josephus’ knowledge of the City of David was also based on a tradition that can be traced all the way back to the Davidic Dynasty. If he claims that the Western Hill is the site of the City of David, I am inclined to agree with him rather than take the word of a few modern-day revisionist historians.
Could it have been that the location of King David’s Tomb was forgotten during the years of the Babylonian exile? No. Nechemiah mentions that during the Post-Exilic period, the walls of the city were repaired to a place opposite the sepulcher of David (Nechemiah 3:16). Josephus refers to the sepulcher of David several times. Similarly, in writing about the early years of the Bar Kochba rebellion, the Roman historian Dio Cassius (ca., 200 CE) mentions King David’s Tomb (Roman History 69:14). Throughout the generations, Jews and non-Jews have referred to Mount Zion and to King David’s Tomb. Despite the tradition dating from Josephus’s time until 1914 placing King David’s Tomb, the City of David and Mount Zion on the Western Hill, archeologists claimed that all of these sites were really on the Eastern Hill. Were one to subscribe to the predominate archaeological view, one would have to believe the highly unlikely scenario that one morning every Jerusalemite awoke and could no longer remember where Mount Zion was located. The residents of Jerusalem then took a wild guess and assumed that it must have been on the Western Hill. Fortunately, in 1913, French archaeologist Raymond Weill came along and informed everyone they had guessed wrong and it was really on the Eastern Hill. Archaeologists may subscribe to Weill’s theory, but I don’t buy it.
One way archaeologists determine the extent of an ancient inhabited area is by studying the contour of the surrounding burial grounds. Since burials were rarely conducted within the city limits, the assumption is that the city extended to the area of the cemeteries. Numerous First Temple period gravesites have been found in Jerusalem. The overall contour begins east of the Eastern Hill and follows a southern course along the Kidron Valley, around the southern edges of the Eastern and Western Hills and northwards, west of the Western Hill.3 Had only the Eastern Hill been inhabited, then we would expect to find the contour of the burial grounds to surround the Eastern Hill only. However, the contour indicates that both hills were occupied concurrently.
(Because of editorial constraints, I do not wish to address the issue of the Tosefta quoted in Dr. Zivotofsky’s article concerning Rabbi Akiva. But suffice it to say that the reading of the same Gemara text as printed in the Yerushalmi is quite different. In addition, not only is the Kidron Valley east of the Eastern Hill, it goes southward and turns west of the Western Hill.)
One reason archaeologists are reluctant to place the Biblical Mount Zion on the Western Hill is because there is no natural water source there. The city inhabitants would have required many large cisterns in order to survive. Even if the cisterns had cut into the bedrock, they would not have been adequate because most bedrock is porous. Without waterproof plaster, the water would seep through the rock to a lower level. Many scholars believed that waterproof plaster was not invented until well into the Iron Age, long after the era of the Jebusites and King David. Without plaster, there are no cisterns. And yet, in the late 1950s, Yigael Yadin was excavating a Late Bronze Age level (corresponding to the pre-Davidic time of the Jebusites) at Hazor. He writes:
The most exciting aspect of the excavations in this area was the many bottle shaped, rock-cut cisterns. …In one cistern, the upper, more porous parts of the rock were even plastered! This one [cistern] went out of use for water storage as early as the Late Bronze period. It is one of the earliest examples of its kind known in the country and disproves the allegation that plastered cisterns were first introduced by the Israelites in the 12th and 11th centuries BCE.4
Speaking of water sources, there are two sources of water that are associated with ancient Jerusalem. One is mentioned a few times in Tanach, the Gihon (Gichon), and the other, mentioned in the Talmud, is the Shiloah (Shiloach). Archaeologists have been puzzled by these two sources since there is only one known underground stream in Jerusalem. That 1,750-foot underground stream begins its course at the eastern slope of the Eastern Hill, runs under the hill and flows into a small pool at the southern base of the hill. Archaeologists solved the two water-source problem by calling the beginning of the stream Gihon and the terminus Shiloah. However, there are a number of problems with this universally accepted solution.
1. It’s highly unusual for a small 1,750-foot-long stream to have two names, one for each end.
2. The Talmud (Sukkah 48a) relates that for the Temple Water Drawing ceremony on Sukkot, messengers were sent down to the Shiloah to draw water and bring it back up to the Temple Courtyard through one of the southern gateways, called the Water Gate. If Gihon and Shiloah are the same stream, why did the Temple messengers bypass Gihon and travel an additional 1,750 feet further south to the Shiloah?
3. The underground stream is on the eastern slope of the Eastern Hill. The Gihon was, in fact, on the western side of the City of David. As it states in Chronicles 2 (32:30), Chezekiah also blocked the upper watercourse of Gihon, and diverted it straight down to the west side of the City of David.
4. The verse above refers to the upper watercourse of the Gihon. That qualification certainly implies that there was a lower watercourse. The archaeological Gihon is a single source for the underground stream. How do the archaeologists explain the existence of an upper and lower watercourse? They can’t.
The solution to these problems is as follows. To the west of the Western Hill are two tremendously large cisterns. One is located at the western base of the Western Hill and its modern name is the Sultan’s Pool, referring to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who had the walls of the old city constructed. The other cistern is located in Independence Park, behind the Sheraton Plaza Hotel, and is called the Mamila Pool. Before archaeologist Raymond Weill came along, the Sultan’s Pool was known as the Lower Gichon and the Mamila Pool as the Upper Gichon. In ancient times, these two cisterns were supplied with water by means of an aqueduct system, traces of which can still be seen. Thus, the author of Chronicles knew what he was writing. The City of David and Mount Zion were clearly located on the Western Hill.5 Additionally, the Shiloah was the underground stream located on the Eastern Hill. Both ends of the stream had a single name—Shiloah.
Where is King David’s Tomb located? Tradition, dating all the way back to the time of King David, says that it is on present-day Mount Zion. I have presented here a number of arguments supporting this long-held tradition. Archaeologists have recently moved Mount Zion to the Eastern Hill and have called the area City of David. Our Sages said, Kol ha’meshaneh, yado al ha’tachtonah, The burden of proof is on the one who seeks to change. This is true with regard to tradition and also with regard to moving mountains.6
Rabbi Reznick is a maggid shiur in Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, New York. He has written numerous books and magazine articles on the topic of Jewish history and archaeology. He is presently a scholar-in-residence for the David Dov Foundation of Lakewood, New Jersey, which is dedicated to the research of Biblical archaeology by Orthodox scholars.
Notes
1. Biblical Archaeology Review 20:4, (July/Aug. 1994).
2. Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI, 2003), 151.
3. Ephraim Stern, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, (New York, 1993), 713.
4. Yigael Yadin, Hazor: The Rediscovery of a Great Citadel of the Bible (New York, 1975), 123.
5. For an analysis of the derivation of the name Gihon, see my article: Moving Mount Zion Jewish Action (summer 2001): 38-43.
6. After completing this article, I found the following quote from Meir Ben Dov, a Jerusalem archaeologist of some note, concerning the location of King David’s Tomb.
A number of scholars engaged in research on Jerusalem have reverted to the mediaeval theory suggesting the upper city (Western Hill)—today’s [Mount] Zion—as the tomb’s location. These propositions can now be accepted since recent archaeological discoveries have shown that the city rose to the upper hills already during the reign of the kings of Judah. Hence, one should not reject out of hand the location of the graves (of the Davidic Monarchy) in the upper city (Western Hill) of which [Mount] Zion is an integral part (Jerusalem: Man and Stone [Tel Aviv, 1990], 237).
As an interesting aside, I read recently that Dame Kathleen Kenyon, the famed archaeologist who excavated for a number of years in Jerusalem in the 1960s, found a goodly number of early First Temple shards on present-day Mount Zion but threw them away. Since Kenyon was a minimalist, she firmly believed that Mount Zion was not inhabited during the First Temple period, and that it was only inhabited in the second century BCE. She therefore concluded that the shards did not belong on Mount Zion, and she tossed them out.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
BARROSO EU IS AN EMPIRE
Published: July 10, 2007
Abbas wants international force in Gaza
RAMALLAH, West Bank, July 10 (UPI) -- Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that an international force should be deployed in Gaza to protect the area's residents. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has said that it would regard any international troops as occupiers, Alalam Satellite TV reported. Abbas met Tuesday with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Prodi said that all parties involved, presumably including Hamas, would have to support the deployment of an international force. We have insisted on the necessity of deploying an international force in the Gaza Strip to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid and to allow citizens to enter and leave freely, Abbas said at a news conference with Prodi in Ramallah.
Abbas said that 4,000 people are waiting at the Rafah Crossing into Egypt, trying to leave Gaza and at least 11 people have died there.
IDF: Iran May Go Nuclear in 6 Months; NATO: Go It Alone
by Ezra HaLevi (JULY 11,07 INN)
According to the IDF, Iran will be able to produce nuclear weapons within six months. NATO says Israel must go it alone according to Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The IDF Military Intelligence (MI) assessment was reported Tuesday to the Knesset and included a concrete assessment determining that Iran could cross the technological threshold required to produce nuclear weapons in the next 6-12 months and possess an operational warhead by the middle of 2009. The assessment is at odds with US estimates that put the date between 2010 and 2013. Both agree, however, that military strikes could set back the technology for years.
IDF MI also is of the opinion that sanctions against Iran have not weakened the regime, because huge oil reserves still proivide all the money necessary to neutralize any pressure created by the international community. The assessment also revealed that Israel’s withdrawals – from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 – have added precedents and solidified belief throughout the Middle East that armed struggle can achieve the destruction of Israel within this generation.
Lieberman: NATO Says Go It Alone
Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu party), whose government portfolio was created specifically to deal with the Iranian threat, met with NATO’s Assistant Secretary-General Alexandro Minoto Rizo and the European Union’s representative Franco Partini earlier this week. Lieberman reported that NATO’s senior officials said Israel should not assume that the international community will stop Iran just to help Israel. Israel should prevent the threat, herself, and should not expect support of other countries, Lieberman reported as the conclusions reached at the meeting. NATO is stuck in Afghanistan and European and American troops are wallowing in the Iraqi quagmire, which is something that is going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, he said. Winds of Chamberlain are blowing in Europe, Lieberman told Army Radio, referring to that leader’s conciliatory policy toward the Nazis in WWII. When I hear from a respected prime minister like [Italian Prime Minister] Romano Prodi that Israel should agree to a peaceful Iranian nuclear program, it seems like something surreal. The political situation is such that they are trying to turn this into our problem alone.
Lieberman said that although Europe or the US could not be relied upon to attack Iran on Israel’s behalf, they would support Israel’s actions. If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the US will support us, he said.
Another Lieberman in Favor of Iran Strike
US Senator Joseph Lieberman has been publicly calling for US strikes on Iran. He repeated the call last week, saying the Islamic Republic has declared war on the US and is waging a proxy war against coalition forces in Iraq. The Connecticut Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate said intelligence reports proved Iran was behind much of the terrorism in Iraq and must be confronted directly. Although no one desires a conflict with Iran, the fact is that the Iranian government by its actions has declared war on us.
Al-Qaeda Threatens to Attack Iran
23 Tammuz 5767, July 9, '07
(IsraelNN.com) International terrorist group Al-Qaeda issued a threat to Iran recently warning that the group would attack Iranian interests if Iran did not cease its involvement in Iraq. The group issued a tape giving Iran two months to withdraw from Iraq completely. If they fail to do so, said Al-Qaeda leader Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, we will begin a cruel war against them. Iran, a Shiite Muslim country, has often been accused of supporting and training radical Shiite groups in Iraq. Al-Qaeda, which is Sunni, has accused Iran of supporting terrorist attacks against Sunni leaders and mosques.
Women in Green: Outlaw Peace Now
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 11,07 INN)
Motorists driving along the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway Tuesday morning were surprised and dismayed to see Syrian flags flying alongside Israeli flags as they made the ascent to the capital. The red, white and black Syrian flag was placed on poles between the Shaar HaGai intersection and the government complex by extreme left-wing Peace Now members. By hanging the colors of the enemy state, Peace Now wished to draw attention to its desire for government talks with Syria.Nadia Matar, co-founder of the grassroots Women in Green organization, said that Peace Now has thus shown its true face. I call upon the authorities to gather the Peace Now leadership, Matar said, put them on buses, and send them to Syria, where they belong and where they will be welcomed happily.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke with an Arabic newspaper on Monday and made a direct plea to Syrian President Bashar Assad to agree to direct, unmediated peace talks with Israel. I turn to you, Mr. Assad, and call upon you to engage in direct peace negotiations - but you prefer American mediation, Olmert said.Menachem Begin tendered a similar invitation to Anwar Sadat - who wound up receiving the entire Sinai desert in less than five years. In 1977, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin tendered a similar, though less biting, invitation to then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat - who took up the gauntlet and wound up receiving the entire Sinai desert within less than five years. Hevron activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir filed a complaint with the police against Peace Now. They similarly claimed that as Syria is an enemy state, it is illegal to unfurl the country's flag in public.
Nadia Matar said that Peace Now is actually calling not for peace talks but for a surrender to Syrian demands to immediately give up the Golan Heights. I call upon the Attorney General to view this as an act of treachery and betrayal, she said. Those who act to give up Israeli territory to the enemy is, by law, a traitor.Israel took control of the Golan Heights in the Six Day War of 1967, after the Syrians used the area for years to shell Israeli kibbutzim below. Since then, the Syrian border has always been Israel's quietest. In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan.In early 1999, the Knesset voted that no part of the Golan or Jerusalem may be transferred to a foreign power without an absolute majority of 61 Knesset Members and a popular referendum in accordance with a to-be-legislated Referendum Law. In May of this year, the Knesset voted, in a preliminary reading, to require the referendum even before such a Referendum Law is legislated. Israelis must realize that Peace Now is collaborating with the enemy, Matar said and this organization must be outlawed. It is ridiculous that the Kach movement [originally founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane - ed.], which calls for love of Israel, is outlawed, while those who collaborate with the Palestinians and inform on Jews are legal.
Peace Now is dedicated to destroying the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria [Yesha], and often seeks out Arabs who will claim that Jewish towns are built on their land. The PA news agency Ma'an recently thanked Peace Now for publishing a report alleging that 40% of Yesha communities are built on private Arab land. The Yesha Council published a factual rebuttal of the report, but this did not stop Ma'an from writing, This is now a ready-to-go case for the International Court... Now that Peace Now has given this gift to the land-owners, we must thank this organization.
Barroso says EU is an empire
11.07.2007 - 09:12 CET | By Honor Mahony
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU is not just any old international organisation, nor is it a superstate, but it might just be an empire, according to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. Veering into uncharted naming territory after being asked on Tuesday (10 July) by a journalist what kind of a structure the 27-nation bloc is, Mr Barroso said We are a very special construction unique in the history of mankind, Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire, he said. He went on the clarify that instead of like super state empires of old, the EU empire is built on voluntary pooling of power and not on military conquest.
What we have is the first non-imperial empire, said the centre-right Mr Barroso, who was formally Portugal's prime minister. We have 27 countries that fully decided to work together and to pool their sovereignty. I believe it is a great construction and we should be proud of it. The commission chief said he did not see why the EU should constantly be in existential doubt about this, adding that he did not see there being a danger of British, German or French identity ever being lost.
Communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom, present at the same press conference, steered clear of empire references. Instead she paraphrased former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's comment that one has to be either a genius or French to understand the EU. They made the comments after giving the commission's official go ahead to a new treaty outline for the bloc. This is to be negotiated over the coming months and is to result in a treaty being finalised before the end of the year. The treaty mandate was agreed at an ill-tempered EU summit last month and is already being put into question in some capitals. Poland has been particularly vocal about re-opening a key part of the agreement on EU voting rights.
But Mr Barroso reiterated previous comments that the treaty outline should not be undone.There is a principle of good faith. For me it is as important as any legal commitment, he said. It is inconceivable that an agreement that was agreed unanimously in June is reopened now.
New EU treaty to be communications prority for Brussels
11.07.2007 - 09:13 CET | By Honor Mahony and Renata Goldirova
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission is planning on making the promotion of a new treaty one of its main tasks in the coming months, after the previous more grandly name EU constitution was rejected in two founding member states. EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom on Tuesday (10 July) said she wants to discuss the final treaty with citizens. Communicating will be one of the main political priorities, said the commissioner who is planning on highlighting the fight against climate change and energy solidarity as reasons why citizens should like the new document. The new treaty – essentially a repackaging of most of the draft EU constitution – is set to be finalised by the end of the year with one year for ratification, and is to come into force by mid 2009. We need them on board, we cannot do without them in 2007. [This year] is not enough to have a project for the political elite, citizens have to be there, she told EUobserver.
Skewed message
Ms Wallstrom, the first ever commissioner responsible for communications, has been struggling to make her mark through a combination of a lack of resources and a skewed message on how much to involve the citizens. While there were several Brussels-initiated citizen discussions on the EU after the constitution was rejected by France and the Netherlands, the first half of this year saw highly secretive government discussions on the new treaty. Member states also made it clear they were going to do everything possible to secure a new look treaty document that did not have to be put to a referendum again – with both France and the Netherlands keen to avoid the unpredictable ratification path. In addition, the new treaty reprises most of the constitution - 90 percent in the words of the Irish leader Bertie Ahern - leaving the EU open to the charge that it ignored the results of the referendums.For her part, the commissioner is planning on publishing a paper at the beginning of autumn on how to structure debate with citizens.
Communicating
But there are already problems with the approach. She admits that it is not clear whether there is actually a legal basis for taking communication in the direction that she would like – such as communicating priorities and making sure Brussels puts its own stamp on the message it wants to promote, something she calls political ownership of the issues.While MEPs are generally supportive of the idea, member states are reluctant to let the commission go down this path believing communication is more of a national domain and concerned that Brussels will spread propaganda.
According to officials, there is already a major discussion in the commission about whether an entirely new legal platform should be created for communications.
UN denies requesting control over Shaba Farms
by Barak Ravid July 11, 2007
The United Nations and the government denied a Haaretz report on Wednesday that said the world body had requested Israel transfer the disputed Shaba Farms area on the Lebanese border to UN peacekeepers.The UN has not asked the government of Israel to hand over the Shaba Farms to the UN, a UN official said. The UN's cartogropher continues his work and will be visiting the area shortly. The secretary-general remains engaged on the issue. Jerusalem also denied the report.
According to the Haaretz report, printed on Wednesday, the United Nations transmitted messages to Israel in recent weeks that the organization's mapping experts have determined that the Shaba Farms on Mount Dov, now controlled by Israel, is Lebanese territory. The report said that the UN, which has communicated to Israel that the disposition of the Shaba Farms should be dealt with as soon as possible, has proposed to senior government officials that Israel withdraw from the area and that it be considered international territory to be controlled by UNIFIL. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert oppose the idea, Haaretz said. The size of, and sovereignty over, the Shaba Farms has been a matter of controversy due to the way the border between Syria and Lebanon was marked during the French Mandate between the two world wars. When the UN marked the border between Israel and Lebanon after Israel's withdrawal in May 2000, the Shaba Farms were said to be part of Syrian territory, and that Israel therefore did not need to withdraw from it in the absence of an agreement with the Syrians.
Lebanon did not accept the line of demarcation, and has since claimed that the Shaba Farms are in its territory. Hezbollah took advantage of the controversy to justify attacks on Israeli forces in the area. Government officials in Jerusalem said the UN cartographer handling the matter in recent months has determined that the area is indeed Lebanese, said the report.Haaretz also wrote that the officials added that Syria and Lebanon also agree that the area is Lebanese. Therefore, the UN has said there is no reason for Israel not to relinquish control over the area. Government officials are treating the matter with kid gloves out of concern that a public statement by the UN could lead to renewed conflict in the North. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon apparently transmitted the UN's conclusions in the meeting between himself and Olmert in New York last month, part of which was private. Another message is said to have come through the UN's special coordinator for the Middle East, Michael Williams, in a meeting with Livni a few weeks ago.
France and the United States are also ratcheting up their pressure on Israel, in the belief that a withdrawal from the Shaba Farms will strengthen the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will be coming to the region next week, pressed Olmert during the Second Lebanon War to withdraw from Shaba to bolster Siniora. Olmert refused, saying the move would be viewed by Hezbollah as a victory. Israel and the UN discussed Shaba ahead of the release two weeks ago of the periodic report on the implementation of Resolution 1701. The UN wanted to include a clause stating that Shaba was Lebanese and urging a solution. This would have been a departure from 1701, which states that the fate of the farms is to be resolved in the determination of the border between Lebanon and Syria. On Livni's instructions, senior Foreign Ministry officials pressured UN officials to remove the clause.
Blair seeks a broader role in Mideast peace process
Blair is envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators.
By Adam Entous, Reuters | July 11, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Tony Blair is seeking a broader role as Middle East envoy that would give him more direct involvement in peacemaking, expanding the limited mandate world powers gave him last month, diplomats said yesterday. Breaking News Alerts The former British prime minister tentatively plans to visit Israel and the occupied West Bank next week for the first time as envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations.
Senior Western and European diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said talks over Blair's role were still under way and that his visit could be postponed.
Blair's office declined to comment.
Blair met the Quartet envoys privately following their meeting in London yesterday. It was a positive, practical discussion, a Blair spokesman said. Blair also met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The spokesman said it was the first time they have met since Blair was appointed to his new role. Few details about Blair's plans have been made public since the Quartet appointed him on June 27, the day he stepped down after 10 years in power. But he has been holding discussions with world leaders about his role, which the Quartet defined as raising funds for the Palestinians, building their ruling institutions, and promoting their economic development.He is talking to leaders about what he wants to do. He has made clear the capacity-building mandate is not enough, said one senior Western diplomat familiar with the discussions. He doesn't see himself bound to that. He wants a political role. A senior European diplomat in Jerusalem involved in the discussions said Blair has delivered a similar message to Quartet members. As far as Blair is concerned, his mandate has not been finalized, the diplomat said. Despite some initial resistance within the EU to Blair's appointment, a senior EU diplomat said there was growing support within the bloc for giving him a freer hand politically. In its June 27 announcement, the Quartet did not spell out any political, mediating role for Blair in reviving the long-stalled peace process. Many Arab and European commentators seized on the omission as a sign that Blair would be relegated to a peripheral role, leaving any serious peacemaking to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other leaders.
It is unclear whether the Quartet would agree, either formally or informally, to an expanded role for Blair. Some European diplomats have raised questions about Blair's ability to garner broad Palestinian and Arab public support because of his support for the US-led invasion of Iraq and his close ties with President Bush. Other officials say support from Bush is Blair's strength in the job because of US influence over Israel.Globe Newspaper Company.
Pastor says 'hate crimes' bill symptom of nation's moral rot
Jim Brown OneNewsNow.com July 11, 2007
Conservative Christian activists have held a press conference on Capitol Hill to denounce a hate crimes bill in the Senate they believe threatens their religious freedom. One of those activists, a pastor from Texas, says the removal of God from public life in the U.S. has led the country into a two-fold crisis.Pastor Rusty Lee Thomas of Elijah Ministries warns a dangerous trend has corrupted American culture and seeks to criminalize and remove the freedoms of Bible-believing Christians. He joined representatives from a handful of Christian ministries who rallied at the Capitol against S.B. 1105, which would include crimes against homosexuals in federal hate crimes statutes. Thomas told the crowd that America's experiment with liberty is in jeopardy. In America, what we are seeing is homosexuality is being exalted, it is being celebrated, it is being protected, and it is being honored, he said, while Christianity is more and more being marginalized, punished, and persecuted in the United States of America.
Thomas is convinced that America is struggling from what he calls the moral rot from within and is in danger of the threat of terror from without. The Texas pastor asserts that America is denying the obvious link between the two. Yes, I dare state that there is a direct connection between the sins and crimes of abortion and the sodomite agenda and the Islamic terrorism that threatens our nation, Thomas shared. America is refusing to connect the dots, however, and we are living in a major state of denial and may I tell you, it is not good to live in this wretched state. The coalition of Christian activists traveled to Washington to petition senators to reconsider their support of S.B. 1105. A House version of the measure passed in May.
American Family News Network.
Europe, UN Let Israel Down in Lebanon
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 12,07 INN)
The UN has all but decided that the Shab'a Farms in the Mt. Hermon region between Israel, Lebanon and Syria should be assigned to Lebanon. Italy may have flubbed a chance to free the captive soldiers, and France has no demands on its Lebanese visitors. A United Nations team of map experts has all but decided that the Shab'a Farms in the Mt. Hermon region should be assigned to Lebanon and not Israel. Israel has long contended that when the original border was drawn between Lebanon and Syria after World War I, the area was placed on the Syrian side. This would render it currently under Israeli sovereignty, following Israel's capture and annexation of the Golan in 1967 and 1981, respectively. Lebanon, however, claims the area as its own - and the United Nations cartographic experts are apparently siding with the Lebanese. Israel persuaded the UN not to publicize this position, for fear that it would lead to renewed Hizbullah hostilities against Israel, but publication now appears inevitable within two months. Haaretz reports that Israel turned down a proposal to internationalize the Mt. Dov area, as it is known in Israel. Israel instead would rather officially retreat from the region within the framework of a new and improved Second Lebanon War ceasefire agreement.
Europe Lets Captives Down
Meanwhile, the two Israeli soldiers being held captive in Lebanon by Hizbullah - Eldad (ben Tova) Regev and Ehud (ben Malka) Goldwasser - are still in the news, though their release seems no closer than before. No word has been heard from them since their capture in June 2006. The captives' families were utterly frustrated to hear on Monday of a vague Italian report accusing the Italian government of missing a chance to free their sons. Le Stampa reported that the ex-chief of Italy's intelligence agency, Nicolai Polari, said the two Israelis could have been released, but that the Italian government did not act appropriately. The intelligence services were very close to a situation in which they could have freed the two, but it didn't happen, Polari said. Italian President Romano Prodi said he could not confirm the report, as he does not have the full details. I am not aware that we ever had knowledge of the whereabouts of the captives, he said. On Monday, family members of the captives asked the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to demand a sign of the captives' health from soon-to-be-visiting Lebanese Parliament members. The relatives said that this must be a pre-requisite for the visit later this month - but the French minister did not agree. Kouchner said he could not make such a condition, but promised to demand such information on the captives when the Lebanese arrive in his country. French officials do claim that the release of the Israeli captives is a high priority for them.
Vatican Expands Use of Prayer for Conversion of the Jews
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 11,07 INN)
International Jewish bodies have called upon the Vatican to clarify a new Papal edict expanding use of an old prayer that asks Divine help for Jews to overcome their blindness. Pope Benedict XVI issued a directive last week, authorizing expanded use of a prayer service known as the Tridentine Mass. The phrase perfidious Jews was removed from the liturgy in question by Pope John XXIII in 1959, such that the anti-Semitism that accompanied it for centuries is not self-evident. However, the prayer, recited on Good Friday, still includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews, asking Divine help in removing the veil from their hearts and overcoming their blindness.How do we now sit and dialogue when the other side believes we are blind and need to be converted?
Jews have responded with great disappointment. The leadership of IJCIC (International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations) has sent an urgent letter to the Cardinal responsible for Catholic-Jewish relations, asking for clarification regarding the decision. The letter noted the profound concern within Jewish circles that have greeted this decision, adding that it can be construed to have turned back the clock on the improvements made in Jewish-Catholic relations since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's. French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said on Saturday that the prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews.
The head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said the Papal decision was a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations. He told the Catholic News Service, They understand that perfidious was offensive, but how is this any less offensive? Foxman noted that the previous pope, John Paul II, had been very courageous to bring about reconciliation and repair 2,000 years of terrible history in terms of understanding Jews, calling Jews the elder brothers of Christianity... How do we now sit and dialogue when the other side believes we are blind and need to be converted?
ONCE AGAIN THE BIBLE PROOVES TRUTH THAT THESE PEOPLE REALLY EXIST, NOT NO MYTHS. SO IF THESE PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE WERE LITERAL WE BETTER BELIEVE THE PROPHECIES WILL BE COMING TO PASS LITERALLY, BECAUSE THEY ARE TO.
Babylonian King's Eunuch Really Existed!
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 12,07 INN)
A routine research visit to the British Museum nets a landmark archaeological discovery and proof of the truth of the Bible.British newspapers report that ancient Babylonian expert Dr. Michael Jursa of Vienna discovered a small clay tablet that provides proof of the Bible's veracity. Though the tablet was unearthed near Baghdad in 1920, only last week was it deciphered for the first time, by Dr. Jursa. Upon reading the tablet, which records a donation of gold by the chief eunuch of King Nebuchadnezzar, a man named Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, Jursa suddenly realized that the name sounded familiar. He quickly consulted Jeremiah 39, where he found the man's name listed as one of Nebuchadnezzar's top ministers who took part in the destruction of the First Holy Temple 2,500 years ago. The Biblical account, however, has his named spelled slightly differently: (Samgar) Nevo Sarsekim.
Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the British Museum's Middle East Department, was very excited: This is a fantastic discovery, he told The Telegraph, a world-class find. If Nevo-Sarsekim existed, [then] which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power.Speaking with The Times, Finkel said, A mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history. This is a tablet that deserves to be famous.Dr. Jursa, associate professor at the University of Vienna, said, It’s very exciting and very surprising. Finding something like this tablet, where we see a person mentioned in the Bible making an everyday payment to the temple in Babylon and quoting the exact date, is quite extraordinary.
Dr. Jursa has been visiting the museum for over 15 years to study a collection of more than 100,000 inscribed tablets. Reading and piecing together fragments is painstaking work, The Times reports, and more than half are yet to be published.
The full translation of the tablet, as provided in The Telegraph, reads: [Regarding] 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
Not Altogether Invented
On hearing of the discovery, Geza Vermes, the eminent emeritus professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, said it shows that the Biblical story is not altogether invented.The reactions of Vermes and Finkel indicate that the discovery has not yet totally shaken the core faith of some who believe that the Bible is not true. The Bible is merely not altogether invented, one says, and who knows how many other Old Testament figures may have existed? However, many websites provide information regarding the truth of the Torah.
The Israeli left unmasked
July 11, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern - By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Much has been said here and abroad about controversial statements made in recent weeks by a yarmulke-wearing, prominent international leftist Jewish leader and senior activist of Israel's peace camp who called on Israel to cease being a Jewish state and instead model itself after Europe. But I think most people are missing the point. Avraham Burg, once an important Knesset member in Israel's leftist Labor party, recently published a book, Defeating Hitler, in which he repeatedly compared various Israeli Jewish policies with that of Nazism. To define the state of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It's dynamite, said Burg, who once was Israel's Knesset speaker and was considered by some a hopeful for prime minister. Burg, a scion of one of Israel's founding families, also served as chairman of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, both of which are major Jewish organizations.
Burg said Israel's Law of Return, which allows all Jews seeking sanctuary in Israel to become citizens, is similar to Nazi rule, even though it was created in response to genocidal Nazi crimes. The law helped Jews escape persecution in countries such as Germany, Russia and Yemen. The Law of Return is an apologetic law. It is the mirror image of Hitler. I don't want Hitler to define my identity, Burg said. He compelled Israelis to obtain foreign passports. He said Israel should model itself after the European Union and become a multinational state, and he urged the Israeli government to allow the EU more influence in its affairs. The leftist Israeli leader said Israel should learn from the assimilation and inter-marriage of Jews in the U.S., where Jewish individuals marrying non-Jews has become a major phenomenon.
Burg criticized what he called Israelis' closed conception of religion, which he stated is orthodox, not humanist and not universal. He said other alternatives to Judaism must be offered.
Burg now is a citizen of France. He retired from Israeli politics and departed Israel in shame after it was disclosed he may have engaged in election corruption and vote tampering while trying to become chairman of the Labor party. He also was accused of illicit business practices. He is still active as a leader in Israel's peace camp, which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state and Israeli evacuations of the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. Burg has been condemned by many politicians and commentators here and abroad as a self-hating Jew who is encouraging anti-Semitism. One Knesset member called for Burg to be denied a burial plot in Israel's national cemetery reserved for the country's leaders. But what many seem to be missing is that Burg's views are not renegade. They are representative of the Israeli left. Burg's reasoning is the same as those petitioning for more EU control of Israel's affairs and for evacuations from biblical Jewish territories and holy sites. Burg comes from the school of people like Geneva Initiative leader Yossi Beilin, Labor Chairman Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and their ideological godfather and mentor, Shimon Peres, who officially becomes Israeli president later this week. So many around the world wrongly believe the conflict in Israel is about territory. They think the Israeli left mainly wants to cede land to the Palestinians while the right stands against land giveaways.
In actuality, the main Israeli political battle is between a left that wants Israel to be a secular, European-like state, and the religious right, which sees Israel as a Jewish country defined by national Zionism. It's a battle that will ultimately determine the future of Israel. Growing up in a Jewish community in the United States, I was fortunate enough not to have experienced the kind of anti-Semitism that permeates places like France and, increasingly, the UK. But European anti-Semitism pales in comparison to its venomous counterparts in Israel. That's right, Israel. It wasn't until I moved here to open WND's Jerusalem bureau in February 2005 that I fully understood what anti-Semitism is. The hatred many secular, leftist Israelis feel for the religious is so deep I cannot do it justice with words. The secular leftist media routinely demonize the religious. I've seen the way secular Jewish security forces brutally squash legal religious Jewish protests at the direction of leftist politicians. I've borne witness the past few years to the enactment of institutional anti-Semitic laws, such as deeming religious Jewish construction in strategic territory illegal while ignoring rampant illegal Arab building; or denying Jews the right to pray at or even visit Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount, during most hours of the day.
This great divide extends itself to the streets. Religious and secular cities are mostly separated. Just try talking to a secular leftist Jew in Tel Aviv about religion and God and watch his or her face wither in anger. But many Israeli leftists politicians and activists are more enterprising than the average leftist Israeli. They disguise their hatred of Judaism with specific political policies. Just like Islamic terrorists who claim their attacks are aimed at ending America's military presence in the Middle East or our support for Israel when the jihadists' real goal is worldwide domination of Islam, leftist Israeli leaders state their aim is to create a Palestinian state when their true intention is the establishment of a secular Israeli country by stabbing at the lifeline of religious Zionism with evacuations of the West Bank – the biblical heartland and center of the religious Zionists movement – and with the division of religious Jerusalem and stationing of foreign troops on Israel's borders.
Already, the religious Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip were uprooted and international forces were deployed along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Burg is not a maverick. He is a leftist politician who knows he has no chance at being re-elected, so he was able to take off his mask and expose his true beliefs and the real nature of Israel's internal war. And he didn't blurt these things out during a spontaneous interview; he detailed his views in a book he said took him three years to compose.
Some believe Burg could have become Israel's prime minister. What if he had achieved Israel's highest office before he let loose his real beliefs? Why isn't anyone asking whether Israel's current prime minister, who seeks to evacuate the Jewish West Bank and sections of Jerusalem, shares Burg's anti-Jewish views? What about Ehud Barak, who as prime minister in 2000 announced at Camp David he was ready to cede the Temple Mount and who offered PLO leader Yasser Arafat a state within rocket range of Israel's population centers? And what about all the Israeli leftist politicians who regularly petition for placing EU or U.N. troops in Gaza or the West Bank?
Sure, some Israeli leftist politicians, including Beilin and some from Olmert's party, condemned Burg, but I believe they did so because they were angry at him for exposing them. The admitted anti-Jewish Burg once held some of the most prestigious leadership positions in world Jewry. Why isn't anyone questioning whether top leaders of Jewish organizations now share his beliefs? Perhaps Burg's revelations about the left help explain why, as I reported, the leaders of the Jewish National Fund, which collects hundreds of millions of dollars in Jewish donor funds for the stated purpose of Jewish settlement, has been ceding Jewish-owned properties to Arabs in key sections of Jerusalem and other Israeli cities designated by the left for evacuation. The JNF, which proudly posts pictures of leftist leader Peres on its newspaper advertisements, has been allowing Arab squatters to live completely illegally on millions of dollars worth of Jewish-owned land purchased for Jewish settlement.
Perhaps Burg's admissions might also help explain why, as I reported, mainstream U.S. Jewish groups, including the leadership of United Jewish Communities, one of the most financially endowed Jewish organizations on the planet, neglected the plight of religious Jewish refugees evacuated from Gaza in 2005 who didn't receive most compensation promised to them by the Israeli government. The uprooted national religious Gaza Jews still live in terrible conditions in refugee camps and suffer from low employment and a host of other problems. The UJC largely ignored the Gaza Jews while instead funding initiatives with Jewish money to aid Israeli Arabs. The esteemed Jewish organization finally started helping a bit after they were exposed and angry Jewish donors demanded action to help the Jews of Gaza. So, while many are resoundingly condemning Burg for his anti-Jewish views, I thank him for unmasking the true beliefs of the Israeli left. Perhaps now the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be understood in its proper context.
Abbas wants international force in Gaza
RAMALLAH, West Bank, July 10 (UPI) -- Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that an international force should be deployed in Gaza to protect the area's residents. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has said that it would regard any international troops as occupiers, Alalam Satellite TV reported. Abbas met Tuesday with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Prodi said that all parties involved, presumably including Hamas, would have to support the deployment of an international force. We have insisted on the necessity of deploying an international force in the Gaza Strip to guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid and to allow citizens to enter and leave freely, Abbas said at a news conference with Prodi in Ramallah.
Abbas said that 4,000 people are waiting at the Rafah Crossing into Egypt, trying to leave Gaza and at least 11 people have died there.
IDF: Iran May Go Nuclear in 6 Months; NATO: Go It Alone
by Ezra HaLevi (JULY 11,07 INN)
According to the IDF, Iran will be able to produce nuclear weapons within six months. NATO says Israel must go it alone according to Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The IDF Military Intelligence (MI) assessment was reported Tuesday to the Knesset and included a concrete assessment determining that Iran could cross the technological threshold required to produce nuclear weapons in the next 6-12 months and possess an operational warhead by the middle of 2009. The assessment is at odds with US estimates that put the date between 2010 and 2013. Both agree, however, that military strikes could set back the technology for years.
IDF MI also is of the opinion that sanctions against Iran have not weakened the regime, because huge oil reserves still proivide all the money necessary to neutralize any pressure created by the international community. The assessment also revealed that Israel’s withdrawals – from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 – have added precedents and solidified belief throughout the Middle East that armed struggle can achieve the destruction of Israel within this generation.
Lieberman: NATO Says Go It Alone
Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu party), whose government portfolio was created specifically to deal with the Iranian threat, met with NATO’s Assistant Secretary-General Alexandro Minoto Rizo and the European Union’s representative Franco Partini earlier this week. Lieberman reported that NATO’s senior officials said Israel should not assume that the international community will stop Iran just to help Israel. Israel should prevent the threat, herself, and should not expect support of other countries, Lieberman reported as the conclusions reached at the meeting. NATO is stuck in Afghanistan and European and American troops are wallowing in the Iraqi quagmire, which is something that is going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, he said. Winds of Chamberlain are blowing in Europe, Lieberman told Army Radio, referring to that leader’s conciliatory policy toward the Nazis in WWII. When I hear from a respected prime minister like [Italian Prime Minister] Romano Prodi that Israel should agree to a peaceful Iranian nuclear program, it seems like something surreal. The political situation is such that they are trying to turn this into our problem alone.
Lieberman said that although Europe or the US could not be relied upon to attack Iran on Israel’s behalf, they would support Israel’s actions. If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the US will support us, he said.
Another Lieberman in Favor of Iran Strike
US Senator Joseph Lieberman has been publicly calling for US strikes on Iran. He repeated the call last week, saying the Islamic Republic has declared war on the US and is waging a proxy war against coalition forces in Iraq. The Connecticut Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate said intelligence reports proved Iran was behind much of the terrorism in Iraq and must be confronted directly. Although no one desires a conflict with Iran, the fact is that the Iranian government by its actions has declared war on us.
Al-Qaeda Threatens to Attack Iran
23 Tammuz 5767, July 9, '07
(IsraelNN.com) International terrorist group Al-Qaeda issued a threat to Iran recently warning that the group would attack Iranian interests if Iran did not cease its involvement in Iraq. The group issued a tape giving Iran two months to withdraw from Iraq completely. If they fail to do so, said Al-Qaeda leader Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, we will begin a cruel war against them. Iran, a Shiite Muslim country, has often been accused of supporting and training radical Shiite groups in Iraq. Al-Qaeda, which is Sunni, has accused Iran of supporting terrorist attacks against Sunni leaders and mosques.
Women in Green: Outlaw Peace Now
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 11,07 INN)
Motorists driving along the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway Tuesday morning were surprised and dismayed to see Syrian flags flying alongside Israeli flags as they made the ascent to the capital. The red, white and black Syrian flag was placed on poles between the Shaar HaGai intersection and the government complex by extreme left-wing Peace Now members. By hanging the colors of the enemy state, Peace Now wished to draw attention to its desire for government talks with Syria.Nadia Matar, co-founder of the grassroots Women in Green organization, said that Peace Now has thus shown its true face. I call upon the authorities to gather the Peace Now leadership, Matar said, put them on buses, and send them to Syria, where they belong and where they will be welcomed happily.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke with an Arabic newspaper on Monday and made a direct plea to Syrian President Bashar Assad to agree to direct, unmediated peace talks with Israel. I turn to you, Mr. Assad, and call upon you to engage in direct peace negotiations - but you prefer American mediation, Olmert said.Menachem Begin tendered a similar invitation to Anwar Sadat - who wound up receiving the entire Sinai desert in less than five years. In 1977, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin tendered a similar, though less biting, invitation to then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat - who took up the gauntlet and wound up receiving the entire Sinai desert within less than five years. Hevron activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben-Gvir filed a complaint with the police against Peace Now. They similarly claimed that as Syria is an enemy state, it is illegal to unfurl the country's flag in public.
Nadia Matar said that Peace Now is actually calling not for peace talks but for a surrender to Syrian demands to immediately give up the Golan Heights. I call upon the Attorney General to view this as an act of treachery and betrayal, she said. Those who act to give up Israeli territory to the enemy is, by law, a traitor.Israel took control of the Golan Heights in the Six Day War of 1967, after the Syrians used the area for years to shell Israeli kibbutzim below. Since then, the Syrian border has always been Israel's quietest. In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan.In early 1999, the Knesset voted that no part of the Golan or Jerusalem may be transferred to a foreign power without an absolute majority of 61 Knesset Members and a popular referendum in accordance with a to-be-legislated Referendum Law. In May of this year, the Knesset voted, in a preliminary reading, to require the referendum even before such a Referendum Law is legislated. Israelis must realize that Peace Now is collaborating with the enemy, Matar said and this organization must be outlawed. It is ridiculous that the Kach movement [originally founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane - ed.], which calls for love of Israel, is outlawed, while those who collaborate with the Palestinians and inform on Jews are legal.
Peace Now is dedicated to destroying the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria [Yesha], and often seeks out Arabs who will claim that Jewish towns are built on their land. The PA news agency Ma'an recently thanked Peace Now for publishing a report alleging that 40% of Yesha communities are built on private Arab land. The Yesha Council published a factual rebuttal of the report, but this did not stop Ma'an from writing, This is now a ready-to-go case for the International Court... Now that Peace Now has given this gift to the land-owners, we must thank this organization.
Barroso says EU is an empire
11.07.2007 - 09:12 CET | By Honor Mahony
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The EU is not just any old international organisation, nor is it a superstate, but it might just be an empire, according to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. Veering into uncharted naming territory after being asked on Tuesday (10 July) by a journalist what kind of a structure the 27-nation bloc is, Mr Barroso said We are a very special construction unique in the history of mankind, Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire, he said. He went on the clarify that instead of like super state empires of old, the EU empire is built on voluntary pooling of power and not on military conquest.
What we have is the first non-imperial empire, said the centre-right Mr Barroso, who was formally Portugal's prime minister. We have 27 countries that fully decided to work together and to pool their sovereignty. I believe it is a great construction and we should be proud of it. The commission chief said he did not see why the EU should constantly be in existential doubt about this, adding that he did not see there being a danger of British, German or French identity ever being lost.
Communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom, present at the same press conference, steered clear of empire references. Instead she paraphrased former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright's comment that one has to be either a genius or French to understand the EU. They made the comments after giving the commission's official go ahead to a new treaty outline for the bloc. This is to be negotiated over the coming months and is to result in a treaty being finalised before the end of the year. The treaty mandate was agreed at an ill-tempered EU summit last month and is already being put into question in some capitals. Poland has been particularly vocal about re-opening a key part of the agreement on EU voting rights.
But Mr Barroso reiterated previous comments that the treaty outline should not be undone.There is a principle of good faith. For me it is as important as any legal commitment, he said. It is inconceivable that an agreement that was agreed unanimously in June is reopened now.
New EU treaty to be communications prority for Brussels
11.07.2007 - 09:13 CET | By Honor Mahony and Renata Goldirova
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission is planning on making the promotion of a new treaty one of its main tasks in the coming months, after the previous more grandly name EU constitution was rejected in two founding member states. EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom on Tuesday (10 July) said she wants to discuss the final treaty with citizens. Communicating will be one of the main political priorities, said the commissioner who is planning on highlighting the fight against climate change and energy solidarity as reasons why citizens should like the new document. The new treaty – essentially a repackaging of most of the draft EU constitution – is set to be finalised by the end of the year with one year for ratification, and is to come into force by mid 2009. We need them on board, we cannot do without them in 2007. [This year] is not enough to have a project for the political elite, citizens have to be there, she told EUobserver.
Skewed message
Ms Wallstrom, the first ever commissioner responsible for communications, has been struggling to make her mark through a combination of a lack of resources and a skewed message on how much to involve the citizens. While there were several Brussels-initiated citizen discussions on the EU after the constitution was rejected by France and the Netherlands, the first half of this year saw highly secretive government discussions on the new treaty. Member states also made it clear they were going to do everything possible to secure a new look treaty document that did not have to be put to a referendum again – with both France and the Netherlands keen to avoid the unpredictable ratification path. In addition, the new treaty reprises most of the constitution - 90 percent in the words of the Irish leader Bertie Ahern - leaving the EU open to the charge that it ignored the results of the referendums.For her part, the commissioner is planning on publishing a paper at the beginning of autumn on how to structure debate with citizens.
Communicating
But there are already problems with the approach. She admits that it is not clear whether there is actually a legal basis for taking communication in the direction that she would like – such as communicating priorities and making sure Brussels puts its own stamp on the message it wants to promote, something she calls political ownership of the issues.While MEPs are generally supportive of the idea, member states are reluctant to let the commission go down this path believing communication is more of a national domain and concerned that Brussels will spread propaganda.
According to officials, there is already a major discussion in the commission about whether an entirely new legal platform should be created for communications.
UN denies requesting control over Shaba Farms
by Barak Ravid July 11, 2007
The United Nations and the government denied a Haaretz report on Wednesday that said the world body had requested Israel transfer the disputed Shaba Farms area on the Lebanese border to UN peacekeepers.The UN has not asked the government of Israel to hand over the Shaba Farms to the UN, a UN official said. The UN's cartogropher continues his work and will be visiting the area shortly. The secretary-general remains engaged on the issue. Jerusalem also denied the report.
According to the Haaretz report, printed on Wednesday, the United Nations transmitted messages to Israel in recent weeks that the organization's mapping experts have determined that the Shaba Farms on Mount Dov, now controlled by Israel, is Lebanese territory. The report said that the UN, which has communicated to Israel that the disposition of the Shaba Farms should be dealt with as soon as possible, has proposed to senior government officials that Israel withdraw from the area and that it be considered international territory to be controlled by UNIFIL. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert oppose the idea, Haaretz said. The size of, and sovereignty over, the Shaba Farms has been a matter of controversy due to the way the border between Syria and Lebanon was marked during the French Mandate between the two world wars. When the UN marked the border between Israel and Lebanon after Israel's withdrawal in May 2000, the Shaba Farms were said to be part of Syrian territory, and that Israel therefore did not need to withdraw from it in the absence of an agreement with the Syrians.
Lebanon did not accept the line of demarcation, and has since claimed that the Shaba Farms are in its territory. Hezbollah took advantage of the controversy to justify attacks on Israeli forces in the area. Government officials in Jerusalem said the UN cartographer handling the matter in recent months has determined that the area is indeed Lebanese, said the report.Haaretz also wrote that the officials added that Syria and Lebanon also agree that the area is Lebanese. Therefore, the UN has said there is no reason for Israel not to relinquish control over the area. Government officials are treating the matter with kid gloves out of concern that a public statement by the UN could lead to renewed conflict in the North. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon apparently transmitted the UN's conclusions in the meeting between himself and Olmert in New York last month, part of which was private. Another message is said to have come through the UN's special coordinator for the Middle East, Michael Williams, in a meeting with Livni a few weeks ago.
France and the United States are also ratcheting up their pressure on Israel, in the belief that a withdrawal from the Shaba Farms will strengthen the government of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will be coming to the region next week, pressed Olmert during the Second Lebanon War to withdraw from Shaba to bolster Siniora. Olmert refused, saying the move would be viewed by Hezbollah as a victory. Israel and the UN discussed Shaba ahead of the release two weeks ago of the periodic report on the implementation of Resolution 1701. The UN wanted to include a clause stating that Shaba was Lebanese and urging a solution. This would have been a departure from 1701, which states that the fate of the farms is to be resolved in the determination of the border between Lebanon and Syria. On Livni's instructions, senior Foreign Ministry officials pressured UN officials to remove the clause.
Blair seeks a broader role in Mideast peace process
Blair is envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators.
By Adam Entous, Reuters | July 11, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Tony Blair is seeking a broader role as Middle East envoy that would give him more direct involvement in peacemaking, expanding the limited mandate world powers gave him last month, diplomats said yesterday. Breaking News Alerts The former British prime minister tentatively plans to visit Israel and the occupied West Bank next week for the first time as envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations.
Senior Western and European diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said talks over Blair's role were still under way and that his visit could be postponed.
Blair's office declined to comment.
Blair met the Quartet envoys privately following their meeting in London yesterday. It was a positive, practical discussion, a Blair spokesman said. Blair also met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The spokesman said it was the first time they have met since Blair was appointed to his new role. Few details about Blair's plans have been made public since the Quartet appointed him on June 27, the day he stepped down after 10 years in power. But he has been holding discussions with world leaders about his role, which the Quartet defined as raising funds for the Palestinians, building their ruling institutions, and promoting their economic development.He is talking to leaders about what he wants to do. He has made clear the capacity-building mandate is not enough, said one senior Western diplomat familiar with the discussions. He doesn't see himself bound to that. He wants a political role. A senior European diplomat in Jerusalem involved in the discussions said Blair has delivered a similar message to Quartet members. As far as Blair is concerned, his mandate has not been finalized, the diplomat said. Despite some initial resistance within the EU to Blair's appointment, a senior EU diplomat said there was growing support within the bloc for giving him a freer hand politically. In its June 27 announcement, the Quartet did not spell out any political, mediating role for Blair in reviving the long-stalled peace process. Many Arab and European commentators seized on the omission as a sign that Blair would be relegated to a peripheral role, leaving any serious peacemaking to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other leaders.
It is unclear whether the Quartet would agree, either formally or informally, to an expanded role for Blair. Some European diplomats have raised questions about Blair's ability to garner broad Palestinian and Arab public support because of his support for the US-led invasion of Iraq and his close ties with President Bush. Other officials say support from Bush is Blair's strength in the job because of US influence over Israel.Globe Newspaper Company.
Pastor says 'hate crimes' bill symptom of nation's moral rot
Jim Brown OneNewsNow.com July 11, 2007
Conservative Christian activists have held a press conference on Capitol Hill to denounce a hate crimes bill in the Senate they believe threatens their religious freedom. One of those activists, a pastor from Texas, says the removal of God from public life in the U.S. has led the country into a two-fold crisis.Pastor Rusty Lee Thomas of Elijah Ministries warns a dangerous trend has corrupted American culture and seeks to criminalize and remove the freedoms of Bible-believing Christians. He joined representatives from a handful of Christian ministries who rallied at the Capitol against S.B. 1105, which would include crimes against homosexuals in federal hate crimes statutes. Thomas told the crowd that America's experiment with liberty is in jeopardy. In America, what we are seeing is homosexuality is being exalted, it is being celebrated, it is being protected, and it is being honored, he said, while Christianity is more and more being marginalized, punished, and persecuted in the United States of America.
Thomas is convinced that America is struggling from what he calls the moral rot from within and is in danger of the threat of terror from without. The Texas pastor asserts that America is denying the obvious link between the two. Yes, I dare state that there is a direct connection between the sins and crimes of abortion and the sodomite agenda and the Islamic terrorism that threatens our nation, Thomas shared. America is refusing to connect the dots, however, and we are living in a major state of denial and may I tell you, it is not good to live in this wretched state. The coalition of Christian activists traveled to Washington to petition senators to reconsider their support of S.B. 1105. A House version of the measure passed in May.
American Family News Network.
Europe, UN Let Israel Down in Lebanon
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 12,07 INN)
The UN has all but decided that the Shab'a Farms in the Mt. Hermon region between Israel, Lebanon and Syria should be assigned to Lebanon. Italy may have flubbed a chance to free the captive soldiers, and France has no demands on its Lebanese visitors. A United Nations team of map experts has all but decided that the Shab'a Farms in the Mt. Hermon region should be assigned to Lebanon and not Israel. Israel has long contended that when the original border was drawn between Lebanon and Syria after World War I, the area was placed on the Syrian side. This would render it currently under Israeli sovereignty, following Israel's capture and annexation of the Golan in 1967 and 1981, respectively. Lebanon, however, claims the area as its own - and the United Nations cartographic experts are apparently siding with the Lebanese. Israel persuaded the UN not to publicize this position, for fear that it would lead to renewed Hizbullah hostilities against Israel, but publication now appears inevitable within two months. Haaretz reports that Israel turned down a proposal to internationalize the Mt. Dov area, as it is known in Israel. Israel instead would rather officially retreat from the region within the framework of a new and improved Second Lebanon War ceasefire agreement.
Europe Lets Captives Down
Meanwhile, the two Israeli soldiers being held captive in Lebanon by Hizbullah - Eldad (ben Tova) Regev and Ehud (ben Malka) Goldwasser - are still in the news, though their release seems no closer than before. No word has been heard from them since their capture in June 2006. The captives' families were utterly frustrated to hear on Monday of a vague Italian report accusing the Italian government of missing a chance to free their sons. Le Stampa reported that the ex-chief of Italy's intelligence agency, Nicolai Polari, said the two Israelis could have been released, but that the Italian government did not act appropriately. The intelligence services were very close to a situation in which they could have freed the two, but it didn't happen, Polari said. Italian President Romano Prodi said he could not confirm the report, as he does not have the full details. I am not aware that we ever had knowledge of the whereabouts of the captives, he said. On Monday, family members of the captives asked the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to demand a sign of the captives' health from soon-to-be-visiting Lebanese Parliament members. The relatives said that this must be a pre-requisite for the visit later this month - but the French minister did not agree. Kouchner said he could not make such a condition, but promised to demand such information on the captives when the Lebanese arrive in his country. French officials do claim that the release of the Israeli captives is a high priority for them.
Vatican Expands Use of Prayer for Conversion of the Jews
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 11,07 INN)
International Jewish bodies have called upon the Vatican to clarify a new Papal edict expanding use of an old prayer that asks Divine help for Jews to overcome their blindness. Pope Benedict XVI issued a directive last week, authorizing expanded use of a prayer service known as the Tridentine Mass. The phrase perfidious Jews was removed from the liturgy in question by Pope John XXIII in 1959, such that the anti-Semitism that accompanied it for centuries is not self-evident. However, the prayer, recited on Good Friday, still includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews, asking Divine help in removing the veil from their hearts and overcoming their blindness.How do we now sit and dialogue when the other side believes we are blind and need to be converted?
Jews have responded with great disappointment. The leadership of IJCIC (International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations) has sent an urgent letter to the Cardinal responsible for Catholic-Jewish relations, asking for clarification regarding the decision. The letter noted the profound concern within Jewish circles that have greeted this decision, adding that it can be construed to have turned back the clock on the improvements made in Jewish-Catholic relations since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's. French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said on Saturday that the prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews.
The head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said the Papal decision was a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations. He told the Catholic News Service, They understand that perfidious was offensive, but how is this any less offensive? Foxman noted that the previous pope, John Paul II, had been very courageous to bring about reconciliation and repair 2,000 years of terrible history in terms of understanding Jews, calling Jews the elder brothers of Christianity... How do we now sit and dialogue when the other side believes we are blind and need to be converted?
ONCE AGAIN THE BIBLE PROOVES TRUTH THAT THESE PEOPLE REALLY EXIST, NOT NO MYTHS. SO IF THESE PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE WERE LITERAL WE BETTER BELIEVE THE PROPHECIES WILL BE COMING TO PASS LITERALLY, BECAUSE THEY ARE TO.
Babylonian King's Eunuch Really Existed!
by Hillel Fendel (JULY 12,07 INN)
A routine research visit to the British Museum nets a landmark archaeological discovery and proof of the truth of the Bible.British newspapers report that ancient Babylonian expert Dr. Michael Jursa of Vienna discovered a small clay tablet that provides proof of the Bible's veracity. Though the tablet was unearthed near Baghdad in 1920, only last week was it deciphered for the first time, by Dr. Jursa. Upon reading the tablet, which records a donation of gold by the chief eunuch of King Nebuchadnezzar, a man named Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, Jursa suddenly realized that the name sounded familiar. He quickly consulted Jeremiah 39, where he found the man's name listed as one of Nebuchadnezzar's top ministers who took part in the destruction of the First Holy Temple 2,500 years ago. The Biblical account, however, has his named spelled slightly differently: (Samgar) Nevo Sarsekim.
Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the British Museum's Middle East Department, was very excited: This is a fantastic discovery, he told The Telegraph, a world-class find. If Nevo-Sarsekim existed, [then] which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power.Speaking with The Times, Finkel said, A mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history. This is a tablet that deserves to be famous.Dr. Jursa, associate professor at the University of Vienna, said, It’s very exciting and very surprising. Finding something like this tablet, where we see a person mentioned in the Bible making an everyday payment to the temple in Babylon and quoting the exact date, is quite extraordinary.
Dr. Jursa has been visiting the museum for over 15 years to study a collection of more than 100,000 inscribed tablets. Reading and piecing together fragments is painstaking work, The Times reports, and more than half are yet to be published.
The full translation of the tablet, as provided in The Telegraph, reads: [Regarding] 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
Not Altogether Invented
On hearing of the discovery, Geza Vermes, the eminent emeritus professor of Jewish studies at the University of Oxford, said it shows that the Biblical story is not altogether invented.The reactions of Vermes and Finkel indicate that the discovery has not yet totally shaken the core faith of some who believe that the Bible is not true. The Bible is merely not altogether invented, one says, and who knows how many other Old Testament figures may have existed? However, many websites provide information regarding the truth of the Torah.
The Israeli left unmasked
July 11, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern - By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – Much has been said here and abroad about controversial statements made in recent weeks by a yarmulke-wearing, prominent international leftist Jewish leader and senior activist of Israel's peace camp who called on Israel to cease being a Jewish state and instead model itself after Europe. But I think most people are missing the point. Avraham Burg, once an important Knesset member in Israel's leftist Labor party, recently published a book, Defeating Hitler, in which he repeatedly compared various Israeli Jewish policies with that of Nazism. To define the state of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It's dynamite, said Burg, who once was Israel's Knesset speaker and was considered by some a hopeful for prime minister. Burg, a scion of one of Israel's founding families, also served as chairman of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, both of which are major Jewish organizations.
Burg said Israel's Law of Return, which allows all Jews seeking sanctuary in Israel to become citizens, is similar to Nazi rule, even though it was created in response to genocidal Nazi crimes. The law helped Jews escape persecution in countries such as Germany, Russia and Yemen. The Law of Return is an apologetic law. It is the mirror image of Hitler. I don't want Hitler to define my identity, Burg said. He compelled Israelis to obtain foreign passports. He said Israel should model itself after the European Union and become a multinational state, and he urged the Israeli government to allow the EU more influence in its affairs. The leftist Israeli leader said Israel should learn from the assimilation and inter-marriage of Jews in the U.S., where Jewish individuals marrying non-Jews has become a major phenomenon.
Burg criticized what he called Israelis' closed conception of religion, which he stated is orthodox, not humanist and not universal. He said other alternatives to Judaism must be offered.
Burg now is a citizen of France. He retired from Israeli politics and departed Israel in shame after it was disclosed he may have engaged in election corruption and vote tampering while trying to become chairman of the Labor party. He also was accused of illicit business practices. He is still active as a leader in Israel's peace camp, which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state and Israeli evacuations of the Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. Burg has been condemned by many politicians and commentators here and abroad as a self-hating Jew who is encouraging anti-Semitism. One Knesset member called for Burg to be denied a burial plot in Israel's national cemetery reserved for the country's leaders. But what many seem to be missing is that Burg's views are not renegade. They are representative of the Israeli left. Burg's reasoning is the same as those petitioning for more EU control of Israel's affairs and for evacuations from biblical Jewish territories and holy sites. Burg comes from the school of people like Geneva Initiative leader Yossi Beilin, Labor Chairman Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and their ideological godfather and mentor, Shimon Peres, who officially becomes Israeli president later this week. So many around the world wrongly believe the conflict in Israel is about territory. They think the Israeli left mainly wants to cede land to the Palestinians while the right stands against land giveaways.
In actuality, the main Israeli political battle is between a left that wants Israel to be a secular, European-like state, and the religious right, which sees Israel as a Jewish country defined by national Zionism. It's a battle that will ultimately determine the future of Israel. Growing up in a Jewish community in the United States, I was fortunate enough not to have experienced the kind of anti-Semitism that permeates places like France and, increasingly, the UK. But European anti-Semitism pales in comparison to its venomous counterparts in Israel. That's right, Israel. It wasn't until I moved here to open WND's Jerusalem bureau in February 2005 that I fully understood what anti-Semitism is. The hatred many secular, leftist Israelis feel for the religious is so deep I cannot do it justice with words. The secular leftist media routinely demonize the religious. I've seen the way secular Jewish security forces brutally squash legal religious Jewish protests at the direction of leftist politicians. I've borne witness the past few years to the enactment of institutional anti-Semitic laws, such as deeming religious Jewish construction in strategic territory illegal while ignoring rampant illegal Arab building; or denying Jews the right to pray at or even visit Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount, during most hours of the day.
This great divide extends itself to the streets. Religious and secular cities are mostly separated. Just try talking to a secular leftist Jew in Tel Aviv about religion and God and watch his or her face wither in anger. But many Israeli leftists politicians and activists are more enterprising than the average leftist Israeli. They disguise their hatred of Judaism with specific political policies. Just like Islamic terrorists who claim their attacks are aimed at ending America's military presence in the Middle East or our support for Israel when the jihadists' real goal is worldwide domination of Islam, leftist Israeli leaders state their aim is to create a Palestinian state when their true intention is the establishment of a secular Israeli country by stabbing at the lifeline of religious Zionism with evacuations of the West Bank – the biblical heartland and center of the religious Zionists movement – and with the division of religious Jerusalem and stationing of foreign troops on Israel's borders.
Already, the religious Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip were uprooted and international forces were deployed along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Burg is not a maverick. He is a leftist politician who knows he has no chance at being re-elected, so he was able to take off his mask and expose his true beliefs and the real nature of Israel's internal war. And he didn't blurt these things out during a spontaneous interview; he detailed his views in a book he said took him three years to compose.
Some believe Burg could have become Israel's prime minister. What if he had achieved Israel's highest office before he let loose his real beliefs? Why isn't anyone asking whether Israel's current prime minister, who seeks to evacuate the Jewish West Bank and sections of Jerusalem, shares Burg's anti-Jewish views? What about Ehud Barak, who as prime minister in 2000 announced at Camp David he was ready to cede the Temple Mount and who offered PLO leader Yasser Arafat a state within rocket range of Israel's population centers? And what about all the Israeli leftist politicians who regularly petition for placing EU or U.N. troops in Gaza or the West Bank?
Sure, some Israeli leftist politicians, including Beilin and some from Olmert's party, condemned Burg, but I believe they did so because they were angry at him for exposing them. The admitted anti-Jewish Burg once held some of the most prestigious leadership positions in world Jewry. Why isn't anyone questioning whether top leaders of Jewish organizations now share his beliefs? Perhaps Burg's revelations about the left help explain why, as I reported, the leaders of the Jewish National Fund, which collects hundreds of millions of dollars in Jewish donor funds for the stated purpose of Jewish settlement, has been ceding Jewish-owned properties to Arabs in key sections of Jerusalem and other Israeli cities designated by the left for evacuation. The JNF, which proudly posts pictures of leftist leader Peres on its newspaper advertisements, has been allowing Arab squatters to live completely illegally on millions of dollars worth of Jewish-owned land purchased for Jewish settlement.
Perhaps Burg's admissions might also help explain why, as I reported, mainstream U.S. Jewish groups, including the leadership of United Jewish Communities, one of the most financially endowed Jewish organizations on the planet, neglected the plight of religious Jewish refugees evacuated from Gaza in 2005 who didn't receive most compensation promised to them by the Israeli government. The uprooted national religious Gaza Jews still live in terrible conditions in refugee camps and suffer from low employment and a host of other problems. The UJC largely ignored the Gaza Jews while instead funding initiatives with Jewish money to aid Israeli Arabs. The esteemed Jewish organization finally started helping a bit after they were exposed and angry Jewish donors demanded action to help the Jews of Gaza. So, while many are resoundingly condemning Burg for his anti-Jewish views, I thank him for unmasking the true beliefs of the Israeli left. Perhaps now the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be understood in its proper context.
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