Israel spies on the US? Why?

Fresnozionism.org..
29 July '12..






A recent AP piece tells us that the CIA considers Israel its “number one counterintelligence threat” in the Middle East.

The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency’s Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.

The article describes several incidents illustrative of the mistrust between the intelligence agencies of the two nations, including of course the cases of Jonathan Pollard and Ben-Ami Kadish.

One wonders why this article appears now. Did the story idea suddenly pop into the heads of the AP writers? I don’t think so. Someone at the CIA decided to stick it to Israel today, when Mitt Romney is going around (correctly, in my opinion) criticizing the Obama Administration for tilting against Israel.

The piece strains mightily to find an example of a case in which Israeli spying actually damaged US interests (at least, interests that the CIA is willing to publicly admit). The best it can do is point to a Syrian scientist who was working for the CIA who might have been caught because of an Israeli leak.

Palestinian Financial Crisis Looms? Looking at the Roots of the Crisis.

Shoshana Bryen..
American Thinker..
29 July '12..

The Palestinians face an economic crisis more severe than the World Bank had anticipated; the Bank fears that the territories may become "ungovernable." This is not actually new, but since the Bank in its panic is considering bypassing restrictions on money to Hamas, it is worth looking at the roots of the "crisis."

The Palestinian Authority's 2012 budget -- produced by PM Salam Fayyad, the West's "go-to man" for economic decision-making -- was a fantasy. It called for $3.5 billion in spending, including $1.1 billion in aid, and showed a deficit of between $750 million and $1.1 billion. The latter has proven to be closer to the truth. The Palestinian economy was expected to generate about $1.3 billion, and the PA planned to spend three times that. (By comparison, Vermont, the smallest generator among U.S. states, produced about $26 billion last year.) U.S. aid ($513 million, not including security assistance) was expected to cover about 20% of actual PA spending, with the Europeans kicking in another 20%.

With planning like that, who could be surprised by a $200-million cash shortage?

The World Bank blames the world economy and Israel. It does not find fault with Palestinian corruption, an outsized security force, an oversized bureaucracy, an overreliance on other people's money, or the failure to find things to do that produce income. It declines to consider whether the ongoing Palestinian war against Israel has had an impact on the Palestinian economy.

There used to be income.

Reflecting on the power of memory

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 July '12..

In the world of Jewish memories and experience, this time of year has an especially stressful character. It’s a very hot Friday here in Jerusalem at this moment. The Sabbath will settle in as the sun sets, and the following 25 or so hours of disconnect from the surrounding world, always welcome, will be especially so because of what follows it on Saturday night: the observance of the ninth day of Av.

Av is a difficult month for people who live by the traditional Jewish calendar. The ninth day of Av is when the Babylonians destroyed the one-and-only Jewish temple in Jerusalem, bringing an end to independent Jewish life in what we call Israel today and killing some 100,000 Jews while exiling almost all the others. Some 640 years later, in the year 70, it was the turn of the Roman empire to conquer Israel and for the second time the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. This time, some two million Jews were killed; a million more went into an exile that lasted many centuries. An independent Jewish nation in its own land did not arise again until the establishment of modern Israel 64 years ago.

Av the ninth is marked by a sunset-to-sunset absolute fast that begins this coming Saturday night. There are mournful prayers, deliberate physical discomfort and a great deal of personal and community introspection. Beyond the ancient history aspects, the same date has been associated with some of the Jewish people’s blackest moments: on this day, the entire Jewish community of Spain was expelled in the fateful year 1492. On this day in 1942 in the city of Warsaw - one-third of whose entire population was Jewish at the time - the Nazi Germans began to liquidate the ghetto and send its inhabitants to their deaths in the Treblinka factory of death.

Once the ninth of Av is safely behind us, the rest of the summer for most religiously observant Jews gets easier and more enjoyable. The relaxation doesn’t quite reach our family, unfortunately. In 2001, our eldest daughter Malki, 15, was killed in a Hamas terrorist outrage in the center of Jerusalem. Even as most Jews breathe a sigh of relief with the end of the fast (this year, that means this coming Sunday night) we prepare ourselves for the annual pilgrimage to her grave and the public commemoration of the anniversary (called the azkara in Hebrew) of her murder.

We feel indescribable pain, but we are not morose or neutralized. We’re terribly sad, even overwhelmed by the feeling of loss. But we have full and constructive lives to live.

Gush Katif Seven Years Later - No, It's Not Fine

Sharon Katz..
Voices Magazine..
29 July '12..




It's Tisha B'Av.

My family went to synagogue to read Eicha (Lamentations). The Jewish people have plenty over which to lament - from the first major Tisha B'Av disaster (the sin of the spies in the desert) up through the destructions of the Holy Temples, the Spanish Inquisition, and most recently the Destruction of Gush Katif and Northern Shomron and the Expulsion of Jews from their homes.

On my way to sleep, I decided to check the news. Nothing special. IDF Home Front Command's Search and Rescue soldiers are training for chemical warfare. Opposition leader Shaul Mofaz said that attacking Iran could be catastrophic for Israel. The CIA says Israel is breaking into the homes of CIA agents in Israel. Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney has landed in Israel.
Regular day of news.

Then I saw a message from my niece. "On Tisha B'Av, remember the destruction of Gush Katif. Watch this movie - UNSETTLED - Documentary on the Disengagement from Gaza."(Click here)

Looking at the Expulsion from the eyes of settler, soldier and politician, it is done in such a true-life human manner without anyone banging your head with messages, it doesn't seem like a documentary.Up-close, personal, compelling, excellent! Directed by Joel Blasberg and Oreet Rees, produced by Arnold Peltz and Joel Blasberg, it is also magnificently filmed and edited.

In addition to the interviews done with the subjects of the documentary, the film brings us right up close to the interactions between soldier and settler at the moment of the Expulsion. We hear their dialogue, their thought processes, their reasoning, their arguing.

"It will be fine," the soldiers told the sobbing residents of Gush Katif as their were being thrown out of their homes. "It will be fine."

(Video Documentry) UNSETTLED - The Disengagement from Gaza

Gaza Withdrawal..
27 July '12..

This Tisha B'Av, as hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world mourn the tragedies that have befallen them throughout history, we are reminded of the heart wrenching episode the State of Israel underwent seven years ago - the disengagement from Gaza. The 90 minute film, UNSETTLED, offers a personal behind-the-scenes look, both before and during the evacuation, at the people whose lives would forever be impacted by the events which unfolded during those difficult weeks.


UNSETTLED - Documentary on the Disengagement from Gaza from Gaza Withdrawal on Vimeo.

With the ramifications of the disengagement from Gaza still very evident today, this emotional documentary film takes you back to experience the event from the perspective of both the settler and the soldier.

Free stream sponsored by TheLandofIsrael.com.

Please send comments to the producer at GazaWithdrawal@gmail.com.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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To Visit the Temple Mount On Tisha B'Av

Nadav Shragai..
Haaretz..
1st Published 9 Av 5769..

(While originally published on Tisha B'Av 3 years ago, Nadav Shragai's piece remains ever relevant, awaiting an answer. As far as Tisha B'Av 5772 (today) is concerned, it should be known that the police have closed Temple Mount to Jews. Y.)

"Tisha B'Av will last forever," promised Kamal al-Khatib, deputy head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, to thousands of cheering Muslims at the Temple Mount a few days ago. Even the hearts of Jews far from the mountain saddened. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas mocked us in the same spirit a few months ago when he said, "Call yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic - it is none of my business." He refused to accept Israel's Jewish identity. We, who have drifted away from Tisha B'Av and the Temple Mount, should be grateful to both of them, because sometimes a nation needs its haters to discover its real face in the mirror again.

Why deny it? Only a few of us still feel real pain over the destruction of the Temple some 2,000 years ago. Fewer still are attached to the Temple of yore. Tisha B'Av is filled with events organized by Temple Mount movements and groups interested in negotiations and public discourse, but the general public is not part of all that.

It is doubtful whether legislation would help in this case. It may even be harmful when the public does not feel mere indifference to this day but alienation. Regrettably, many people ignore Tisha B'Av. They wonder what mourning the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple has to do with them, who are living in a sovereign Jewish state.

But there's another way that will put not only the loss of the Temple and its existence at the center of this day, but mainly the loss of Jewish sovereignty and freedom and the beginning of the long exile. Were it not for that exile, in which we were banished from our land, persecuted, oppressed and murdered, our history as a nation could have been very different.

(+Video) And then Jim McKay....they're all gone.

Paula R. Stern..
A Soldier's Mother..
27 July '12..

If I understand the timing correctly, the London Olympics will begin on Friday night, July 27 - at 9:00 p.m. London time. I won't be watching it - in a few hours, the Sabbath will come to Israel. It is the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av, Tisha B'Av. This year, the mourning associated with this sad day will be pushed off to Sunday. We do not mourn on the Sabbath, not as a nation and not as an individual.

We will begin our mourning as the Sabbath leaves us. Tisha B'Av is, without doubt, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. we have a long list of tragedies that have befallen our people on this day and each year we remember. There are those who are against remembering the Israeli athletes who were murdered 40 years ago. They want us to move on, to stop remembering. This for a people who remember the day both our Holy Temples were destroyed more than 2,000 years ago - and even more for the First Temple.

We remember each Temple; we remember each massacre. We remember the expulsion from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition that started on this day in 1492, and so much more. I won't be watching as the opening ceremonies mark the start of the Olympics, but I will remember.

I was only 11, just about 12, but there were several moments that remain clear to me - the first announcement and confusion...how could the Olympics be continuing as if nothing is happening? They're playing while the Israelis are being held at gunpoint. And then the world seemed to straighten a little and the games stopped.

Jerusalem is Israel's Capital, Like it or Not.

Michael J. Totten..
World Affairs..
26 July '12..

White House press secretary Jim Carney refused to publicly name the capital of Israel yesterday. All he was willing to say when asked repeatedly is that the White House position on Israel’s capital hasn’t changed.

You can watch the video and read the transcript here.

This is all really quite silly.

It’s a fact—not an opinion—that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. Anyone who insists otherwise is in denial. You may wish Tel Aviv was its capital. You may even wish a united Al Quds was the capital of the Arab state of Palestine. But those things can only be true in an alternate universe or in the future. In this universe, in 2012, Israel exists and Jerusalem is its capital.

Gush Katif: Seven years after

Emily Amrousi..
Israel Hayom..
27 July '12..

A photo from 1977 shows the plot on which the Vesertiles' house in Ganei Tal will be built. There are four barefoot children in the snapshot, with yellow sand dunes in the background. It is a desert, without a speck of green anywhere. No birds, no flies, no beetles.

In a picture of the same location from 2005 there is already a modest house surrounded by dark green grass, and hundreds of trees heavy with fruit. Many birds, flies and beetles compete for a place amidst their branches. 20 minutes after the photograph was taken, it all disappeared. The birds, the trees, the house — all of it flown away.

Shlomo Vesertile kept the magnets he had on the refrigerator, commercials to businesses that have been wiped out: an appliance repairman who also does plumbing; a plant nursery and gift shop (open on Friday!); a Torah scribe (will come to clients' homes to check their mezuzot) and many more.

The community of Gush Katif was a miracle. It grew on a strip of land where thousands of mortars fell to great clamor, yet almost without hurting a soul. A heavenly dome of iron had protected it. A place where green leaves grow out of seas of sand until it becomes a mighty agricultural center, must have a guardian angel watching over it. Such a remote location, which in a few short years fills up with schools and places of Torah study, with cowsheds and kindergartens and factories, cannot develop without divine supervision.

Gush Katif's quick uprooting had also defied logic. Human language does not possess the ability to describe the destruction of 26 communities within five days.

Imagine that! Palestinians: moment of silence is racism

Fresnozionism.org..
26 July '12..








Aaron David Miller, whom I quoted at length yesterday on another subject, wrote recently that

Palestinians deserve an independent state living in peace and security alongside Israel. They’ve suffered enough; their cause is just and compelling.

Is it?

Palestinian Media Watch reports,

The Palestinian Authority is against the moment of silence at the Olympics to commemorate the Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics in 1972. According to the headline in the official PA daily, “Sports are meant for peace, not for racism.”

According to Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee:

“Sports are meant for peace, not for racism… Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them [nations].”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 25, 2012]

These words appeared in a letter sent by Rajoub to the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge. The letter ”expressed appreciation for [Rogge's] position, who opposed the Israeli position, which demanded a moment’s silence at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London.”

The PA daily does not refer to the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 as terror. In the article about Rajoub’s letter, the killing of the athletes is referred to as “the Munich Operation, which took place during the Munich Olympics in 1972.”

The article continues with examples of Palestinian officials — including President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad — honoring and praising the planners of the Munich massacre, Amin al-Hindi and Muhammad Daoud Oudeh (Abu Daoud).

Our Jerusalem, Our Capital, Our Temple Mount

Daniel Greenfield..
Israelnationalnews.com..
26 July '12..

When Jordan's Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city-- the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.

Since then the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is, however, standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as "settlers" living in "settlements", and describe them as an "obstruction to peace." Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.

Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world's oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as "settlements" is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to dip his hat to. How does one have "settlements" in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that you would have to ask London and Washington D.C. where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.

How does one have "settlements" in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that you would have to ask London and Washington D.C.

Jewish Sovereignty and the Temple Mount

Moshe Dann..
New English Review..
(August '12)..

The Israeli Police are very meticulous about Jews praying on the Temple Mount, site of the First and Second Temples. The holiest place in the world for Jews, they are forbidden to pray there.

Although the Temples were run by cohanim (priests), anyone could bring a sacrifice. It was in fact the first universal religious site in history. The center of Jewish worship, it was inclusive.

Strictly enforced by scores of guards employed by the Wakf (Muslim Authorities) who maintain surveillance of visitors, their discriminatory policy is enabled and assisted by Israeli (Arab) policemen. Non-Muslim religious items are prohibited by the Wakf, including Bibles and prayer books, and visiting hours are restricted.

According to UNESCO, Jordan is the legitimate authority in charge of maintaining and protecting the site and is the custodian of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

Because The Temple and the Holy of Holies, an inner sanctum into which only the High Priest was permitted and only on Yom Kippur, was situated on the Temple Mount many Orthodox rabbis forbid visits by Jews. The Temple, however, was located in the middle of the plaza and the southern third of the plaza was added during the Herodian period.

The exact site of the Temple, moreover, is unclear. Most believe it was in the area of the golden-domed "Shrine of the Rock," built by Muslims about 1,300 years ago, close to the spot where 4,000 years ago Abraham bought Isaac. A Crusader church was built there until reconquered and rebuilt by Muslim armies. Another opinion places the Temples slightly to the north.

Accessible to non-Muslims only during morning and early afternoon hours, except Fridays and Moslem holidays, to avoid interfering with Moslem prayers, Jews who intend to visit are required by halacha (Jewish law) to immerse in a mikve (ritual bath), avoid wearing leather shoes and walk along the periphery of the plaza area.

My visit to the Temple Mount was prompted by protests of prominent archeologists over destruction of the site ("renovations") carried out by the Wakf and recent discoveries, by chance, of First Temple period artifacts there.

More than a decade ago the entire southern portion of the Temple Mount, where the al-Aksa mosque is located was excavated by the Wakf and turned into one of the largest mosques in the Middle East. It can accommodate 10,000 people. In the process, however, 15,000 tons of valuable archeological material were dumped as garbage. Archeologists and volunteers sifting through the debris found thousands of important artifacts, some from the First and Second Temple periods – and their task is far from completed. How could Israeli authorities allow this travesty to happen?

Egypt is not the solution for the Gaza Strip

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
26 July '12..




Would it make sense for Egypt to annex the Gaza Strip?

How about take responsibility for security there?

What about being Gaza’s gateway for foreign trade?

First a reminder:

Hosni Mubarak is dead.

The president of Egypt is from the Moslem Brotherhood and the radical Moslem parties now dominate the Egyptian parliament.

While the Egyptian military still has a say, there’s no telling how long that will last or what the military might find itself doing in order continue having a say.

What would happen if Egypt either annexed the Gaza Strip or took security responsibility for it?

(+Video) Bizarre scene during White House briefing. Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?

Alana Goodman..
Commentary/Contentions..
26 July '12..

There was a bizarre scene during today’s White House briefing, when White House Press Secretary Jay Carney flat-out refused to say whether the capital of Israel was Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, despite repeated questioning from multiple reporters. The Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke reports:

Carney was caught flat-footed when asked which city is Israel’s capital. “I haven’t had that question in awhile,” he said after some hesitation. “Our position has not changed. You know our position.” The reporter said she didn’t know, but Carney moved on to another question.

That answer touched off a somewhat unruly scene, as WND’s Lester Kinsolving interjected that “she doesn’t know, that’s why she asked.” Carney moved on.

Kushner - From Israel: Ludicrous

Arlene Kushner..
26 July '12..

Sometimes the PA comes out with a statement that is so ludicrous that the impulse is to simply laugh at it. This is the case with the statement made by Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, in a letter sent to President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, thanking him for his stand in refusing a moment of silence for the Israeli Olympic athletes massacred 40 years ago in Munich:

"Sports are a bridge to love, interconnection, and spreading of peace among nations; it must not be a cause of division and spreading of racism between them."

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7189

~~~~~~~~~~

You know why Rajoub considers a memorial to the Israeli athletes to be a "cause of division"? Because it's better not to remind anyone that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, had a direct connection to the Munich massacre. According to Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, a.k.a. Abu Daoud, mastermind of that attack, not only did Abbas raise the funds for it, he also kissed him and wished him luck when he set out on his mission.

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/mahmoud-abbas-connections-to-munich.html

The laughter dies quickly on the lips in the face of this.

Quote of the week: "Definitely wasn't us Iranians. Must have been the Zionists that bombed the Israelis"

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
26 July '12..

Sober and measured assessments see the terrorist fingerprints of Iran's government all over the lethal attack by a human bomb on a busload of Israeli tourists at Burgas airport in Bulgaria on July 18. But there remains one reliable forum where doubts about Iranian culpability are the norm rather than the exception: the debating halls of the United Nations.

The speaker is His Excellency Mohammad Khazaee, the American-educated Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations since 2007. The remarks below were made in a UN Security Council debate on the Middle East yesterday:

"It's amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it... We have never and will not engage in such a despicable attempt on ... innocent people... Such terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed implicating others for narrow political gains... I could provide... many examples showing that this regime killed its own citizens and innocent Jewish people during the last couple of decades." [Source]

Here to Stay: Israel’s Settlers

Dani Dayan..
NYT Opinion..
25 July '12..




Maale Shomron

WHATEVER word you use to describe Israel’s 1967 acquisition of Judea and Samaria — commonly referred to as the West Bank in these pages — will not change the historical facts. Arabs called for Israel’s annihilation in 1967, and Israel legitimately seized the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria in self-defense. Israel’s moral claim to these territories, and the right of Israelis to call them home today, is therefore unassailable. Giving up this land in the name of a hallowed two-state solution would mean rewarding those who’ve historically sought to destroy Israel, a manifestly immoral outcome.

Of course, just because a policy is morally justified doesn’t mean it’s wise. However, our four-decade-long settlement endeavor is both. The insertion of an independent Palestinian state between Israel and Jordan would be a recipe for disaster.

The influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere would convert the new state into a hotbed of extremism. And any peace agreement would collapse the moment Hamas inevitably took power by ballot or by gun. Israel would then be forced to recapture the area, only to find a much larger Arab population living there.

Moreover, the Palestinians have repeatedly refused to implement a negotiated two-state solution. The American government and its European allies should abandon this failed formula once and for all and accept that the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are not going anywhere.

On the contrary, we aim to expand the existing Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, and create new ones. This is not — as it is often portrayed — a theological adventure but is rather a combination of inalienable rights and realpolitik.

It begins and ends in Iran

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
25 July '12..

Statement to the Security Council
Ambassador Haim Waxman
Israel's Deputy Permanent Representative
"The Situation in the Middle East"

Thank you, Mr. President - and allow me to extend Israel's appreciation to you for your able stewardship of the Security Council this month.

18 years ago, a bomb ripped through the Argentinian Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires. 85 people were killed. Hundreds were injured. The Islamic Republic of Iran - a Member State of this organization - was responsible for this act, along with its proxy Hezbollah.

Last week, a suicide bomber exploded on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Burgos, Bulgaria. Six were killed, including a pregnant woman. More than 30 were injured. The victims were mostly young people on vacation. Again, Iran and Hezbollah were responsible.

In recent months, Israelis were targeted in terrorist attacks and attempted attacks in India, Azerbaijan, Thailand, Kenya, Turkey and, most recently, in Cyprus. Iran and Hezbollah were responsible for each and every one of these acts. This is just one part of a bigger picture. Iran and Hezbollah's most recent terrorist plots span five continents and at least 24 countries.

It should be clear to everyone in this hall that these horrific events are not isolated. A clear line of terror runs from the bombing in Argentina to the attack in Bulgaria. It begins and ends in Iran.

The key: Jewish unity and Joseph's Tomb

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
26 July '12..

Last week, in the most unlikely of places, I came face to face with the power of Jewish unity. It was well after midnight when the convoy of heavily-guarded Israeli cars and buses began the short drive through the deserted streets of Shechem (Nablus).

Posted along the way were young men in IDF uniforms, keeping a watchful eye on the hundreds of Jews who were braving the late hour and our hostile neighbors to visit an ancient Jewish holy site in the heart of Palestinian-controlled territory.

For years, I had wanted to visit Joseph's Tomb, the burial place of one of our greatest Biblical forbears and one of Israel's premier sites of religious, historical and archaeological significance. Indeed, the late Dr. Zvi Ilan, one of Israel's foremost archeologists, described Joseph's Tomb as "one of the tombs whose location is known with the utmost degree of certainty and is based on continuous documentation since Biblical times" (Tombs of the Righteous in the Land of Israel, p. 365).

According to the Book of Joshua (24:32), "The bones of Joseph which the Children of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that had been purchased by Jacob." Ancient rabbinic texts such as the Midrash mention the site, as did the early Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who visited it nearly 1,700 years ago. Arab geographers, medieval Jewish pilgrims, Samaritan historians and even 19th-century British cartographers all concur regarding Joseph's Tomb and its location.

But ever since Israel ignominiously abandoned the site under a hail of Palestinian gunfire on October 7, 2000, visiting it has become a logistical challenge.

Currently, Israelis are allowed access to the tomb only once a month in the wee hours of the night and under tight IDF supervision.

BASIC PRINCIPLES such as freedom of worship and assembly are tossed aside, with the result being that a total of only about 1,200 Jews are able to visit the tomb in the one night per month that is made available.

That may sound like a lot, but the demand is far greater. During my visit, I noticed how the cellphones of the organizers did not stop ringing, as they were forced to contend with people who were pleading to be granted a space on one of the buses so they could visit the Tomb. Nearly all had to be turned away.

...To sorely rue its repeated and open calls for Israel's destruction

LOTL..
Guest Post: David Pakter..
26 July '12..




The following story appeared in Reuters news on Wednesday.

"Israel's Barak calls for swifter action against Iran"

Below is David Pakter's ("Reuters1945") posted response and remarks to Reuters News in their comment section. Our thanks once again to David for sharing and making this available to our readers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iran, as well as numerous other State actors, as well as numerous non-State actors, have repeatedly called for the final destruction of the State of Israel. In addition, the Constitutions of many of the above explicitly make clear the intention of the above parties to work tirelessly and continuously to achieve Israel's removal from the map of the Middle East.

Israel, in glaring contrast to the actions and endless threats of the above referenced parties, has never called for the destruction of those same parties or questioned their right to exist. On the contrary the State of Israel wishes only "to live and let live".

Given the above status quo, in which Israel's confirmed enemies have sworn repeatedly they will never waver in their stated goal/s to destroy the State of Israel, which they have attempted but failed to achieve, during numerous wars in the past- no one should be surprised that Israel would, and certainly should, take any and all threats to its survival, most seriously.