Let's Hear It For the Archeologists

Jericho after Joshua:

Ancient Holy Land quarry uncovered, team says

Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls

The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said.

The cave's main hall, about three meters tall, is supported by some 20 stone pillars and has a variety of symbols etched into the walls, including crosses dating back to about AD 350 and Roman legionary emblems.

"We saw a hole in the ground ... and went down and discovered this giant cavern, originally a quarry, built uniquely with hall after hall," Zertal told Reuters.

Just in case you're wondering, not only Jews and Judaism but Jesus and Christianity predated Arabs and Islam in this country.

There's Free Speech and There's Responsible Speech

Wait, what exactly does this JPost editorial mean?

Nevertheless, if we genuinely believe in free speech, Israeli society must protect the right of demagogues like Salah to spout away.

Israel is the only country in this region that protects a speaker hostile not merely to this or that government policy, but to the legitimacy of the regime itself. Salah delivered his Haifa speech under the protective umbrella of Israel's police and courts as guardians of his civil liberties.

When we say Israel is a Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East, that's what we mean.

Fraidy Cats

The State notified the High Court on Sunday that it could not set a time frame for construction work necessary to turn an area immediately outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City into a national park.

The statement came in response to a petition filed by the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount against illegal burial of Palestinians in the area...charging that Muslims were turning part of the Ophel, situated at the southeast corner of the Old City walls, into a cemetery.

According to Israel Radio, a representative of the Public Attorney's Office said during the hearing that the area is "like a barrel of gunpowder," and that there is fear that riots would erupt if the law is enforced. The petitioners said that the security argument was baseless, seeing as there were no riots when the government instructed to stop burial at the site in the past.

Shameful.

The state can't uphold the law.

A Six-Year Itch - A 2003 Op-ed Of Mine

So Silly of Us

by Yisrael Medad

Much of the criticism, from without and from within, to the nationalist camp ideology centered on the fact that we offered no alternative to what the nations of the world accepted. Basically, they thought that it was all so silly of Israel to campaign and struggle in the arena of world opinion on behalf of such a policy.

Israel is now being requested, gently or less so, to proceed along a path intended to resolve the conflict with the Arabs who term themselves ?Palestinians?. The United States and the United Kingdom have prepared a ?road map? which is to provide directions and a timetable for this path that Israel is to take. After decades of diplomacy, terror and economic boycott, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, formerly the Palestine Liberation Organization, may be forced to face the core issues that have, until now, proved nigh insolvable.

In the almost 39 years since Israel assumed the administration of territories alternatively termed ?disputed? or ?occupied?, but, nevertheless, portions of the Jewish people?s historical homeland, the great debate has raged within Israel what is to be the principled policy on the issue. Of those 39 years, representatives of the nationalist camp have served as prime ministers for 19 of them, just over half. Their basic platform (and Ariel Sharon is still an unknown) could be summarized as no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River and uninhibited Jewish residency in the area. Without analyzing the specific political ramifications of such a position - whether Israeli sovereignty, autonomy or condominium - this approach is now being challenged by the ?road map?.

In addition to Likud prime ministers (Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu and Sharon), Israel?s Foreign Ministry has been in Likud hands. If there is one major failing, it has been in the ability and capability of these Foreign Ministers to adequately present Israel?s case in the information and diplomatic fields. We are now reaping the stunted growth of the inactivity and the lack of influence on the permanent civil service personnel who vigorously opposed the Likud philosophy.

Official spokespersons, from Directors-General to ambassadors, from consuls-general to plenipotentiaries, as well as officially sanctioned academics and researchers, at the UN and over a hundred countries, have done their best to undermine such a philosophy. The subject was avoided at the social talk sessions of conferences and delegations, not enough printed or published and many sought simply to avoid the issue. Israel voluntarily gave up most of the weapons it could have employed in this battle, or, when they were available, the permanent staff belittled the matter and the materials. Residents of the Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza were stymied in their own efforts, while offers of help and appearances were kept to the barest of minimums.

Much of the criticism, from without and from within, to the nationalist camp ideology centered on the fact that we offered no alternative to what the nations of the world accepted. Basically, they thought that it was all so silly of Israel to campaign and struggle in the arena of world opinion on behalf of such a policy.

Yet, already 80 years ago, it was a British statesman who stood up to local Arabs and their supporters.

That statesman?s message was predicated on the obvious: national rights to a national home in what was called ?Palestine? were viewed as belonging to the Jews from a historical, religious, legal and cultural sense, and to the Jews only. We were the one and only 'national grouping'. The Arabs had national rights in other places. In March 1921, Winston Churchill visited the Palestine Mandate (during which, on his famous "Sunday walk", he created TransJordan and plunked down Abdullah as Emir in Rabat-Ammon). He was presented with a memorandum from various delegations of Arabs. To one from Haifa, which was particularly strongly worded, he replied:

"It is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a national home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews and good for the British Empire. But we also think it will be good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine... I would draw your attention to the second part of the Balfour Declaration which solemnly and explicitly promises to the inhabitants of Palestine the fullest protection of their civil and political rights."

This message of Churchill is as relevant today as it was then. Ariel Sharon himself could learn a thing or two about the true importance of Shiloh and Bet-El.

True, this message meets with ridicule. That self-destructive ridicule originates with Zionist groupings on the left, spreads to Jews of the Diaspora, finds a willing audience among non-Jewish radical organizations and becomes the bon mot of the ?liberal? and progressive? camp. Nevertheless, after a decade of the Oslo Process, with its dreams and visions of a ?New Middle East?, of inculcating democracy and its institutions, of defusing religious Islamist fanaticism and halting incitement, is this message any less potent? And if there has been insurmountable difficulty in applying the values behind Churchill?s message, why should the values of peace and security be any more relevant to the Palestinian nationalist agenda?

Too many times, supporters of Israel remaining in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) and retaining the overall responsibility for the region have been charged with failing to understand the realpolitik that is involved in defending such a view. Yet, to many, the Rogers Plan, the Jarring Plan and so on and so forth, through to Oslo and now the Road Map, are themselves victims of incomprehensibility and unrealities.

No one, except the Jewish residents of the Yesha communities, have challenged the conception that the Arabs are willing to compromise, that they are willing to co-exist and that they are multi-culturalists. The experience of the Jews of Yesha, as much as it has been negative in these regards, is also no different from Jews on the western divide of the 1967 ?Green Line?. The Arabs make no distinction between Yesha and elsewhere in Israel, something too many people are willing to ignore.

The Road Map plan will lead nowhere but tragedy. How silly.

Do They Call Them "Qassams" Over There?

KABUL (AP) -- U.S. and Afghan officials say a rare rocket attack on the main U.S. base in Afghanistan has killed two U.S. troops and wounded six Americans.

Israel 1949 - Two Short Clips

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem:



Jerusalem to Yad Mordechai to Beer Sheva to Kinneret, Tiberias:

HH # 222

Here.

Shmuel Katz - 2001 - On "Illegal Settlements"

The Jerusalem Post, December 17, 2001

GET THE WORD OUT

By Shmuel Katz

...the State Department came up with the Fourth Geneva Convention as proof [of the "illegality" of the Jewish communities]. But the Fourth Geneva Convention proves nothing of the sort. It proves the opposite. The Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to Israel and its presence in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza district. The convention defines itself strictly in its second clause: "The present convention shall apply to cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party."

Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, which Israel occupied in 1967, were not territories of a High Contracting Party. Judea and Samaria did not belong to Trans-Jordan nor did Gaza belong to Egypt. In the war of Pan-Arab aggression in 1948, Trans-Jordan had invaded Judea and Samaria, occupied them and, in blatant illegality, annexed them. It then celebrated the annexation by changing its name to Jordan. Egypt had similarly annexed the Gaza district. The annexations of course gave Trans-Jordan and Egypt no rights of sovereignty. Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza is perfectly legal.

Indeed, the last sovereign of both areas was the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Defeated in World War I, it had relinquished sovereignty over vast areas including Palestine; Palestine was handed over to the British to govern as a trustee - a mandatory for the purpose of bringing about the "reconstitution of the Jewish National Home." When Britain retired from the Mandate, Jewish historical rights which the Mandate had recognized were not canceled; and no new sovereign ever took over in Judea and Samaria or in Gaza.

The legal adviser of the State Department, called upon to defend the Carter claim that Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza was illegal, got over the difficulty by simply ignoring Article 2 of the convention. In his opinion he didn't even mention it. He loftily declared that "the principles of the convention appear applicable whether or not Jordan and Egypt possessed legitimate sovereign rights in respect of the territories." No less.

Further on in his statement, he markedly avoided mentioning that in 1967 it was once again the aggressors of 1948 who attacked Israel (then confined to the narrow armistice lines of 1949). He did mention the Six Day War of 1967, but how? He wrote: "During the June 1967 war, Israeli forces occupied Gaza, the Sinai peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights." That was all. Not a word about who started the war or about its flaunted gruesome purpose: the destruction of Israel.

THE CONTINUING smear on Israel on the part of the government was brought to an end by the successor administration of Ronald Reagan, who personally had strongly and repeatedly denounced it. His administration issued a declaration that Israeli settlements were not illegal (though they were regarded as "an obstacle to peace"). A prominent member of the administration, law professor Eugene Rostow - himself a former assistant secretary of state - subsequently wrote: "Israel has a stronger claim to the West Bank than any other nation or would-be nation [and] the same legal right to settle the West Bank, the Gaza strip and east Jerusalem as it has to settle Haifa or west Jerusalem."

But the damage was done; and never did Israel launch a counter-campaign to lay bare the monstrous falsity of Arab historical claims, their grave annihilatory intent towards Israel, the skewed misleading interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the effort to acquit the Arabs of their aggression. Never a serious reply to Arab fabrications point by point so as to combat the widespread ignorance among even our own people. Never an educational campaign to demonstrate the unique roots of our people in Eretz Yisrael...

"West Bank" - A Reminder

The US Consular Services in Jerusalem, if an American gives birth to a child in the area I refer to as Judea and Samaria, will provide you with a Birth registration certificate and Passport and the listing of the location of birth will be...the "West Bank".

I have disputed that and am engaged in communication with the State Dept. (see here; and here; and also here)

I just thought I'd remind the powers-that-be what the Arabs, and especially Jordan, meant when they thought of the West Bank.

Here's a Jordanian stamp from the 1964 (before Israel "occupied" the area and started "colonizing" and erecting "settlements" where "settlers" live in a "natural growth" phenomenon:



Anybody succeed in identifying the area of Israel, who know, that "Zionist entity"?

On Jimmy Carter's Visit To Gush Etzion

An op-ed by my friend, Toby, a Gush Etzion resident, on Jimmy as a modern Bil'am*:

Jimmy Carter, an unwilling Bilaam

And I fully identify with this:

One man wrote, after the visit, "I've always said that we should reach out and provide hospitality to VIPs, diplomats and reporters."

*

Numbers 22-24

Does "Restricted Access" Apply By Us, Too?

Seems "restricted access" - to our national homeland, to the homes we've built, to our historical archeological sites, to our holy places - seems to be a pattern when dealing with Muslims, here:

A Christian group that wants to convert Muslims has filed a federal lawsuit claiming Dearborn has violated its rights by restricting access to an Arab festival. Arabic Christian Perspective filed the suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court over plans to confine group members to one area during this weekend's 14th annual Dearborn Arab International Festival, The Detroit News reported.

The California group wants to pass out literature promoting Christianity over Islam throughout the festival area, comprising about four blocks. It claims restricting members to just one area violates religious and free speech rights, the newspaper said...

The State Dept. Is So Considerate

After reading this, I turned to the Jerusalem Consulate-General in Jerusalem wishing to know: may Jews submit reports about being denied entrance to Joseph's tomb in Shechem, an act guaranteed according to the Oslo Accords and, likewise, being denied by the Waqf officials our right of freedom of prayer on the Temple Mount?


---------- Forwarded message ----------

- from Zogby's Arab American Institute.

Summer travel plans? Read this!

By href="http://www.aaiusa.org">AAI

Posted on Sunday June 14, 2009

If you plan to travel to Israel or the Occupied Territories this summer, please report any instance of denied entry to the Department of State. The Arab American Institute maintains contact with State and senior officials in the office of American Citizens Services about this and other, relevant issues. ACS continues to encourage U.S. citizens to report instances of denied entry. At the recent, April 24th meeting held by the White House for Arab American leaders, Michele Bond reiterated her desire to hear about any difficulties American citizens face when traveling to the Occupied Territories. During a May 28th conference call with several organizations, including the AAI, Michele Bond again reiterated the need for American citizens traveling to the Occupied Territories to notify the Bureau of Consular Affairs of any problems they face, be it denial of entry or unnecessary delays and harassment at the border crossings...or just send emails of anecdotes and negative experiences without full details of their personal information if they are concerned with privacy...The United States has continuously made it clear to the Israeli government that fair and consistent treatment of U.S citizens, regardless of ethnicity, is a priority, and continues to address this matter with the highest levels of the Israeli government.

The Consulate General strongly encourages anyone denied entry into Israel or the West Bank to complete the Denial of Entry Form and submit it via e-mail to JerusalemACS@state.gov in order to track cases.

Posted on Sunday June 14, 2009

If you plan to travel to Israel or the Occupied Territories this summer, please report any instance of denied entry to the Department of State. The Arab American Institute maintains contact with State and senior officials in the office of American Citizens Services about this and other, relevant issues. ACS continues to encourage U.S. citizens to report instances of denied entry.

At the recent, April 24th meeting held by the White House for Arab American leaders, Michele Bond reiterated her desire to hear about any difficulties American citizens face when traveling to the Occupied Territories. During a May 28th conference call with several organizations, including the AAI, Michele Bond again reiterated the need for American citizens traveling to the Occupied Territories to notify the Bureau of Consular Affairs of any problems they face, be it denial of entry or unnecessary delays and harassment at the border crossings.

Citizens can fill out official Denial of Entry forms, providing their information and the details of their denial, or just send emails of anecdotes and negative experiences without full details of their personal information if they are concerned with privacy. It is vital for the Department of State to have this information, Ms. Bond informed us, so that the department has empirical evidence to present when they address this issue with senior Israeli officials.

The United States has continuously made it clear to the Israeli government that fair and consistent treatment of U.S citizens, regardless of ethnicity, is a priority, and continues to address this matter with the highest levels of the Israeli government. Without any reporting of cases of denial of entry or harassment, the U.S government is forced to take the Israeli government at their word when they say that the situation has improved and is being resolved.

The Consulate General strongly encourages anyone denied entry into Israel or the West Bank to complete the Denial of Entry Form and submit it via e-mail to JerusalemACS@state.gov in order to track cases.

This Is Known as "Dripping Antisemitism"

Who said:

“They want to build their temple at a time when our blood is on their clothes, on their doorsteps, in their food and in their drinks...“We are not those who ate bread dipped in children’s blood.”

The leader of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, Sheikh Raed Salah

and

He went on to deny any Israeli or Jewish historical claim to the city, denying that there ever existed a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount.

"The claims of the Jews are big lies and they have no right to any speck of dust here," he said.

Another Attempt at the Idea of Sharing

From Reuters:

...clerics in Jerusalem launched a project on Thursday aimed at finding a way to share the city's holiest, and most fought over, site.

Even the Jewish religious scholar promoting it acknowledges it might need divine intervention before a peaceful remapping of the area where Muslims built the 7th century Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the biblical Jewish Temple.

"We offer this vision for a long and deep discussion, and of course want to continue with a parallel research from other religions," said Yoav Frankel, director of the project promoting a vision of "God's Holy Mountain" (www.godsholymountain.org).

Invitations to Thursday's launch conference depict a sunlit imagined future for the area Jews call Temple Mount. Happy Muslims and harp-playing Jews mingle between the Dome of the Rock and a new Temple, as Christians walk over from the nearby Sepulchre Church, traditional site of Jesus's resurrection.



The project, headed by Jewish members of the Interfaith Encounter Association (www.interfaith-encounter.org) encourages all three faiths to re-examine the complex and perhaps foster a new theological outlook, making room for all to worship there.

But Frankel conceded it may take more than debate of Jewish law, or halacha, to alter centuries of tradition in favor of a compromise by which Jews would agree to build a temple nearby, not in the spot traditionally regarded as the correct site -- right where the Dome has stood since the 7th century.

"Regular halachic discussion will not be powerful enough," Frankel said, referring to the need for a "holy revelation" to make such a shift possible in Jewish tradition.

...It still lies at the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sovereignty over the holy sites remains a sticking point in international efforts to draft a final peace settlement.

Not even all members of the interfaith group, which is dedicated to religious coexistence, favor the new project...Muslim cleric Abdullah Darweesh, who was to speak at the official project launch on Thursday, said all "holy Christian and Islamic sites should be under Arab sovereignty."

...Since the Second Temple was destroyed under Roman rule in AD 70, Jews have prayed at the Western Wall, part of the ruins.

Many Orthodox Jews believe they must not set foot on the Temple Mount itself for fear of treading on the now unknown site of the inner sanctum. Some groups, however, call for Israel to seize the site and rebuild the temple, a step some believe would then herald the return of the Messiah and a time of world peace.

Let's try a two-step approach:

first, small archeological survey digs to determine if indeed Mount Moriah exists under the Temple Mount platform;

second, a small room, located in the collonaded walkway along the western section of the Haram compound, to be closed off for Jewish prayers.

Like The Clash of a Motor with a Camel

Jeffrey Goldberg, not one of Yesha's friends (he penned that biased anti-Levinger piece in The Atlantic some 8 years ago), thinks that:

Settlements make Israel insecure, and they make it seem immoral in the eyes of the world.

And while we're on the subject, let's go back in time, to 1927 and Henry Nevinson:

‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion.’ In our English country churches we sing the words with a certain pathos, vaguely identifying ourselves with the mourners, and inclined to gloat over the hideous cry for bloodthirsty vengeance with which the little Psalm terminates. Very few of our congregations give a thought to the people who for nearly nineteen centuries have wept beside so many rivers far from Babylon, remembering Zion. It is only in the last few years that their passionate yearning for their ancestral and consecrated country has been granted a fresh and steadfast hope.

Throughout all those centuries, it is true, an occasional Jew would struggle to Jerusalem as a pilgrim, there to live out his remaining years in study and meditation; there to join in the lamentation at the Wall of Wailing; and there to die, awaiting the Messiah’s advent so long deferred. About fifty years ago, some enterprising Jews from Jerusalem began to establish ‘colonies’ in their old country, partly with the aid of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who poured money lavishly into the cause; and the still flourishing settlements of Petah Tikvah (‘Dawn of Hope’), famous for its Jaffa oranges, the neighboring Rishon-l'Zion, famous for its wines, Rehoboth close by, Rosh Pinah, the beautiful hillside town above Lake Merom, and one or two more, prove the success of the experiment, though all are run upon the old-fashioned lines of private ownership and hired labor.

But the present Zionist movement for acquiring land in Palestine, and planting upon it towns and agricultural villages, is not yet twenty years old. My friend Israel Zangwill, whose recent loss is lamented by all who love high literature and noble enthusiasm, thinking that Palestine was already too full of Arabs and other inhabitants, sought for other lands as a Jewish national home, and consulted me upon the character of various places in Africa where I had traveled. He consulted Professor Gregory, the famous geologist of Glasgow, also, but our reports were not favorable. Nor did the Jews as a body favor any scheme for settlement outside Palestine. For it was to Palestine they were attached by all the sentiments of tradition and worship...

...the settlers worked without much hope, being also harassed by the Arabs and the Turkish officials, and plagued with malaria and want of drainage. A change came with the foundation of the Palestine Land Development Company in 1908, and from that time we may date the rapid growth of the present Zionist Organization...The famous ‘Balfour Declaration’...greatly encouraged the earlier Zionist hope, and the present rapidly growing movement may almost be said to have started from the Declaration's date. Its object is simply to create a national home for Jews in Palestine, not to convert Palestine into a Jewish country, as the Arabs feared, and as certain English officials and clergy still pretend to believe. The total of the Jewish population is now about 150,000, as against some 700,000 or 800,000 Arabs, and only about one tenth of the cultivatable land is owned by the Jewish race, while it is estimated that something like 4,000,000 population could find good livelihood in Palestine if the land were properly developed...

...the objection of the Palestinian Arabs is easily understood. The meeting of European immigrant Jews with Arabs means the clash of two civilizations—or of two ages in history. It is like the clash of a motor with a camel. One’s tastes are naturally on the side of the camel. What an interesting and picturesque creature he is! How dreamlike, prehistoric, full of our childhood’s religious associations! How finely adapted to his desert life! With what aristocratic detachment he stalks through the puddle of a world, disdainful as an English lord whose land has been nationalized by a Labor Government! He serves as a frieze; he makes a memorial. On each side of the new roads let us leave him a soft, dusty strip to pad along. But down the centre here comes the motor, all Europe and America behind it!

When the Balfour Declaration was first published, the Arabs expected the Jews to come swarming into the country by hundreds of thousands, driving the Arabs out and occupying their lands. In 1920 there were serious anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem, and the next year in Jaffa. Outwardly, at all events, things are quiet now, though leaders of the Arabian policy have indignantly assured me that they would welcome a Wahabi invasion under Ibn Sa’ud rather than see Jews entering the land under British protection...No one likes to have the habitual standard of his life altered, even if raised, and the Jew will certainly alter the standard of life in Palestine. For the immigrants are progressive, intellectual people, making demands upon life for body and spirit that Arabs have never dreamed of...

...as I surveyed the work of the Zionist cause in tangible or visible form I was filled with a sympathetic exhilaration at the sight of so many young men and young women released from the perpetual fear under which their fathers had suffered for so many centuries; able to follow their own chosen way of life without restrictions; able to enjoy the light of the sun and the beauty of the sea, as I saw one Sabbath day upon the beach of Tel-Aviv; and able, as I saw in their communal villages, to work side by side in hope, no longer trammeled by the petty regulations and obsolete observances of an oppressive past.

Of course, historically, there was another point of view, which in February 1921 stressed Greater Syria:

In order to be ready to give useful information before the [Kinf-Crane] Commission, branches of the Moslem and Christian League were formed at Jaffa, Gaza, Hebron, Djenin, Nablus, Acre, Haifa, Safed, and other places. All branches worked under a constitution approved by the Military Governor of Jerusalem. It was decided to draw up three resolutions to be presented to the Commission:

1. The independence of Syria, from the Taurus Mountains to Rafeh, the frontier of Egypt.
2. Palestine not to be separated from Syria, but to form one whole country.
3. Jewish immigration to be restricted.

The entire Christian and Moslem population agreed to these resolutions.

It should be said here that there is no justification, from an ethnological or geographical point of view, for dividing Syria into the northern part under the French and a southern part, namely Palestine, under the British. This has already been pointed out by the greatest authority on the history and geography of Palestine, Sir George Adam Smith. One race, the Syrian, or Palestinian, is dominant throughout the territory, from Aleppo to Beersheba; and there is no natural frontier that can divide the two halves of this land...The inhabitants of the land should be called Syrians — or Palestinians, if Palestine is to be separated from Syria

which would mean, as Goldberg wrote up at the beginning:

"Those who are familiar with life in Palestine, where the feeling between Moslem and Christian and Jew is perhaps more intense than in any other land, are fully cognizant that this scheme for a Jewish state not only accentuates and increases the animosities that have always existed, but invites another tragic chapter in the history of the Hebrews."

A Phrase Netanyahu Could Have Employed

In his speech last Sunday, when relating to the activity of renewing a Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu said:

...let me first say that the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel has lasted for more than 3500 years. Judea and Samaria, the places where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David and Solomon, and Isaiah and Jeremiah lived, are not alien to us. This is the land of our forefathers.

The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people...But I say that if the state of Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occured.

This tragic history of powerlessness explains why the Jewish people need a sovereign power of self-defense. But our right to build our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: this is the homeland of the Jewish people, this is where our identity was forged.

Since Abraham Lincoln is a favorite of President Obama, he could have used this phrase from the Emancipation Proclamation appropriately adapted to our reality in describing the act of Jews to live in their land, make it flourish:

“upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgement of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God”.

Racists Don't Know They Are Racists

Edward Luttwak has a lovely letter in the TLS:

In reviewing Patrick Tyler’s A World of Trouble: America in the Middle East, Oliver Miles (May 29) uses quite a lot of his text to identify a number of American officials as Jewish, from the 1920s to Kissinger and right down to Barack Obama’s recent appointees...Miles does the same for Tony Blair’s former envoy to the Middle East, Lord Levy.

Like some especially crass Arabs, Miles clearly implies that no Jew should have any role in shaping or executing US or British Middle East policy, thereby blandly imputing disloyalty to any Jewish official, regardless of his record or expressed opinions. That is exactly racist.

He also writes that the “Arab mother” of President Obama’s special envoy, George Mitchell, could turn out to be his “Achilles heel”. But few people would be foolish enough to emulate Miles by referring to his mother in order to attack Mitchell – it would only disqualify the attacker.

EDWARD N. LUTTWAK
4510 Drummond Avenue, Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815.

Not Quite A Dialogue

(that's Itamar Ben-Gvir)

For Some People, The Conflict Is Really Simple

For this person, at least:

...there is a statistically precise way to measure the extent of peace that exists between Israel and the Palestinian population of Gaza. Before Israel removed all Israeli settlements from Gaza, Palestinians launched several hundred Qassam rockets at Israel each year. And today, with Gaza ethnically cleansed of Jews, Palestinians fired more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and mortars at Israel last year alone.

How can this be? Without Israeli settlements, why would Gaza Palestinians fire any rockets and mortars at Israelis living in Israel, let alone 10 times more than when there were Israeli settlements in Gaza?

There can be only one conclusion: Israeli settlements are not the problem.

Even more apparent, however, is the fact that U.S. pressure on Israel to restrict or remove settlements in the West Bank will not only fail to ease tensions with the Palestinians, but in all likelihood any Israeli settlement decrease will only increase Palestinian violence toward Israel, just like it has in Gaza.

If Israeli settlements are not the main obstacle to peace, then what is? The answer is Israel's very existence. This is why rockets and mortars are fired not at Israeli soldiers in Palestinian population centers, but at Israeli civilians living in Israeli population centers. It is the reason why most bus bombings and terrorist attacks take place in Israeli cities and not in Israeli settlements.

The Palestinians never have truly accepted the existence of the state of Israel. Palestinians did not accept the two-state solution proposed by the United Nations in 1947 and they did not accept the two-state solution brokered by President Clinton at Camp David in 2000. Even the supposedly moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently revealed that he rejected a two-state solution proposed by Israel's previous prime minister.

In each instance, the government of Israel agreed to make enormous concessions to create a Palestinian state living side by side along Israel. But in each instance, the Palestinians not only refused but responded with even more violence. The simple truth is that the Palestinians do not want a peace that includes Israel...

For The Record: Clinton & Lieberman

Secretary's Remarks: Remarks With Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:11:28 -0500
Remarks With Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman
Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

June 17, 2009

SECRETARY CLINTON: Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to welcome Foreign Minister Lieberman to the State Department today for his first official visit to Washington in his new role. Minister Lieberman’s visit gave me the opportunity to reaffirm the United States deep, unshakable friendship and bond with Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is and will remain a cornerstone of our foreign policy, and I was pleased to have this chance to express that personally to the foreign minister. The United States has no greater ally in the Middle East and no greater friend than Israel.

Because our countries are close friends, we spoke honestly and openly about a range of issues. And we are looking forward to continuing that dialogue in the U.S.-Israel strategic dialogue, which has provided a useful forum for discussion of shared concerns and challenges over recent years. We exchanged views on the Middle East, including Iran, and reiterated the need for Iran’s leaders to comply with obligations to the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. And we look forward to Iran’s response to our offers of engagement.

And of course, we also focused on efforts to bring about a comprehensive peace between Israel and her neighbors in the region. Israel’s right to exist in peace and security is undeniable and non-negotiable. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security in two states that will entail both parties fulfilling their obligations under the Roadmap.

Building on the Arab Peace Initiative, Arab states must do their part to support the Palestinian people as they develop the institutions that will sustain their state. And they must recognize Israel’s legitimacy and, in doing so, choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

The United States will never do anything to undermine Israel’s security, and the United States also supports a viable Palestinian state. We do not believe that these two objectives are incompatible. In fact, we believe they are both critical elements of a comprehensive and secure peace.

Minister Lieberman, I hope that you enjoy your first visit to the United States as your country’s foreign minister, and I look forward to continuing our conversation and working with you more on these issues in the future.

[she doesn't mention the "s" word = "settlements"]

FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Madame Secretary, at the outset, I would like to say to you how much the people and the Government of Israel appreciate your consistent support of Israel. We value your friendship greatly. We remember the many contributions you have made personally, even before you became a United States senator from New York. We thank you, Your Excellency, for your longstanding commitment to Israel and to strengthening the American-Israeli special relationship and friendship.

I think that we have had a good discussion today covering a broad spectrum of regional and global issues. We also covered a wide range of important bilateral topics. Madame Secretary, I thank you for your very kind hospitality today, and I look forward to our future friendly dialogue, both in Washington and in Jerusalem. Thank you.

[and neither does he]

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Our first question goes to Lachlan Carmichael [AFP].

QUESTION: Yes, Minister --

SECRETARY CLINTON: Here comes the microphone, Lachlan.

QUESTION: Minister Lieberman, first, Ambassador Oren, the new ambassador to Washington, is talking about some interesting proposals on settlements. Could you elaborate on what they might be? And then for Secretary Clinton, does that mean there is some wiggle room to your statement that there should be no such settlement activity?

And finally, for both of you, did you discuss previous President George Bush’s letters, private letters to the Israeli Government? Is that issue over with?

FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Thank you. It’s a long question. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: It’s actually three questions.

FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Three questions, yeah. First of all, we really don’t have any intention to change the demographic balance in Judea and Samaria. But we think that, you know, as – in every place around the world, baby are born (inaudible), people get married, some pass away. And we cannot accept – we cannot accept this vision about absolutely completely freezing call for our settlements. I think that we must keep the natural growth. Prime minister spoke about this in his speech. I think that this position, it’s – this view, this approach, it’s very clear.

And also, we had some understandings with the previous administration and we tried to keep this direction. And we are, of course, ready for immediately direct talks with the Palestinians.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as President Obama, Senator Mitchell and I have said, we want to see a stop to the settlements. We think that is an important and essential part of pursuing the efforts leading to a comprehensive peace agreement and the creation of a Palestinian state next to a Israeli-Jewish state that is secure in its borders and future. We believe that this process which Senator Mitchell is quarterbacking for us has just begun. There are a number of critical concerns, many of which overlap in their impact and significance, that will be explored in the coming weeks as Senator Mitchell engages more deeply into the specifics as to where the Israelis and the Palestinians are willing to go together.

I think that the whole issue that you’ve raised is one that we’ve expressed our opinion on. And in looking at the history of the Bush Administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements. That has been verified by the official record of the Administration and by the personnel in the positions of responsibility. Our former ambassador Dan Kurtzer has written an op-ed that appeared in the last few days that lays out our position on that.

MR. KELLY: Our next question, Israeli television, Channel 2.

QUESTION: Thank you. Madame Secretary, I’m interested to know, how do you envision any progress, any chance for achievement of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track when the Israeli prime minister and the foreign minister have put so many conditions on the existing of a Palestinian state, conditions that are all – all-out refused by their Arab neighbors, including the Palestinians? And when you hear that the Israeli – current Israeli Government refuses totally to talk about your demand of freezing the settlement activity, how do you envision a progress on that track?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think if one looks at Israeli history, there have been prime ministers going back to the beginning of Israelis’ statehood that have staked out positions which have changed over time. I personally have known such prime ministers from Labor, Likud and Kadima, who started in one place, but in the process of evaluating what was in the best interests of Israel, and that has to be the primary obligation of any leader of Israel: What is in the best interests of my people and the future of my state?

And these prime ministers have moved to positions that they never would have thought they could have advocated before they started looking hard and thinking hard about what the future should be. But that’s what negotiations are for.

QUESTION: Do you hold out that Netanyahu and Lieberman will follow through (inaudible)?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I leave that to them to decide. I’m just reflecting on history and on people who have been in these positions over the last 30, 40 years. And there has been an evolution in thought. And I thought Prime Minister Netanyahu, in recognizing the aspirations of the Palestinians for a state of their own in his speech on Sunday night, said something that many people were waiting to hear him say.

MR. KELLY: Next question, Charlie Wolfson from CBS News.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, on Iran, and also for the foreign minister. The Iranians have protested U.S. actions through the Swiss ambassador today. Could you bring us up to date on those protests? And there have also been criticisms or reports of criticisms about U.S. interference in Iranian affairs because of the call to Twitter, if you could comment on that.

And for the foreign minister, does the outcome of the Iranian election change Israel’s position in any way, and were your discussions today – did they touch on that, and any actions you asked the Administration to do?

SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s four questions for the foreign minister. (Laughter.) We have very creative reporters on both sides here. (Laughter.)

The United States believes passionately and strongly in the basic principle of free expression. We believe that it is a fundamental human right for people to be able to communicate, to express their opinions, to take positions. And this is a view that goes back to the founding of our country, and we stand firmly behind it.

And therefore, we promote the right of free expression. And it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter, is a very important one not only to the Iranian people, but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly young people. I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter – (laughter) – but apparently, it is very important. And I think keeping that line of communications open and enabling people to share information, particularly at a time when there was not many other sources of information, is an important expression of the right to speak out and to be able to organize that we value.

FOREIGN MINISTER LIEBERMAN: Thank you. As somebody said before you, we support evolution, not a revolution, and we never interfered in any internal affairs of the different countries. And what it’s important for us, not the personal creation, but the creation of policy. And what we saw during this elections, it was only one point that every candidates were united: its achieving, quote, nuclear capability; and maybe the other point, the hatred to Israel. What it’s important for us, it’s real – not the domestic problems of Iran, but their policy. And we hope that they will change their policy...


Thank you all.

And no, Lieberman did not push her:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow during a fall Wednesday, her chief of staff said. Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell and injured her elbow, chief of staff Cheryl Mills said in a statement released late Wednesday.

Clinton was treated at The George Washington University Hospital, just a few blocks from State Department headquarters, before going home. She will undergo surgery to repair her elbow in the coming week, Mills said.

One Man's Opinion

When a group of people is forbidden to live where they want to, we call that apartheid -- unless the people are Jews, and the place they want to live is Judea and Samaria. Then the people are called "settlers" and their homeland is renamed "the West Bank," erasing their historic and Biblical connection to it.

The reality is that generations of Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria throughout the past 3,000 years, even after Rome's destruction of ancient Jerusalem. Their communities endured waves of massacres, but dedicated children of Israel kept returning and rebuilding -- often at risk to their lives. The last big massacre was in 1929, when Arabs murdered all the Jewish families in the Judean town of Hebron.

Now President Barack Obama calls to forbid all Jewish expansion in Judea and Samaria, even from natural growth (the birth of new babies, the building of a school for Jewish children already living there).

This is unjust. This is discriminatory. And this is not the way to peace.

Alexis Worlock

Salt Lake City

RETRACTION OF - "Haaretz: Netanyahu's Gov't A Nazi 1000-Year Reich"

After reconsidering, and following comments my friends sent me, I am retracting the implication I assumed regarding the political cartoon drawn by Eran Volkovsky for David Grossman's article on the front page of Haaretz on Wednesday, "Netanyahu's message is there will be no peace":




That's Benny Begin (of all people!) saying to Bibi Netanyahu:

"Well, that leaves us 999 years and 362 days".

That is a clear and unmistakable reference to Hitler's 1000-year Third Reich, the 'Drittes Reich'. In other words, after Netanyahu's speech, their government has that much time left, minus the three days since the speech at Bar-Ilan.

It didn't appear in the English-language edition. I can't find it at the Haaretz web site, nor anywhere else.

This is ugly, self-hating Jewish antisemitism. It's sick.

Volkovsky is vicious. In the past, he's drawn Bibi leading Avigdor Lieberman, as a dog, on a leash.

Here's the Haaretz logo, the caricature and the top part of Grossman's article:



UPDATE

A good friend suggests I am wrong and that the 1000 years reference is to this:-

Senior Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech on Israeli-PA diplomacy Sunday night. Dr. Erekat said, "Netanyahu will have to wait 1,000 years for someone to agree to talk to him."

BBC Discovers Yesha Wines - L'Chayim!

Tim Franks of the BBC has a report on the vineyards and the wines of Yesha.

Of course, Yesh Din pops up, and there's even this photo-map of my home area there:



and here, pics #3 & #4, are the real vineyards.

Some highlights:

Settler vineyards take root in West Bank

The climate is perfect, the soil just right, the grapes just so. But the occupied West Bank is not obvious wine country...This is land which Israel conquered 42 years ago. But the Jews who have settled the West Bank will tell you their roots in this land lie much deeper.

Yaakov Berg, a fresh-faced wine enthusiast in his 30s, lives in
a small shack in the hilltop settlement of Psagot, which abuts the Palestinian city of Ramallah...A short drive away lies his own winery. Opened only a few weeks ago, it is the swankiest in the West Bank.

"The wine is the main thing," he said, amid a tower of oak barrels. "But also we think it's very important to explain to people: listen, we are here, back. And part of that is that we work the land again."

...the Settlers' Council has grand plans for the Psagot winery. The Council is talking about building as many as 20 holiday homes around the winery. Wine-making, the Council's General secretary, Pinchas Wallerstein, says, "is some kind of new development... a new way to settle people in the area, even more permanently than mobile houses".

...One of the outposts, Rehelim, is home to another boutique
winery...Erez Ben Saadon labels and stories his Tura wine in a small, strip-lit concrete shed. His vineyards lie in majestic undulating sweeps at a settlement nearby.

Passionate about his job, he kisses the budding grapes in an emotional flourish. And his passion extends to his view of US
President Barack Obama's demand that settlement activity stop.

"We're a democratic state," he says. "The only democratic state in the Middle East. And I think the most un-democratic thing happening today is the American administration trying to force us into doing things that go against our own election results."

...on a swish roof terrace, at an evening tasting for Erez Ben Saadon's wine [in Tel Aviv], the praise gushes. "The Merlot is
excellent," says Shai Segev, wine critic for the Yediot Ahranot newspaper. Mr Segev says its provenance is unimportant as "wine and politics don't mix".

But Israel's leading wine critic, Daniel Rogov, says there are domestic and overseas consumers who "simply won't" buy the wine because it comes from the occupied West Bank. In contrast, he says, there are others who lean more towards the "right-wing, Orthodox Jewish side, who will hunt out these wines
precisely because they come from there".

Mr Rogov describes himself as a "peacenik". He refuses to travel to the West Bank, but will review its wine, if it is brought to him inside Israel. Year on year, he says, the wine from the occupied territories is not just increasing in quality, but quantity.

...The scale of the project is evident as you drive around the West Bank past hill-sides marked with newly cleared swathes of land. By the settlement of Har Beracha, 10 hectares are due to be planted with vineyards within the next two months.

As Shivi Dror, another West Bank winemaker, put it: "When we
take over 100 dunams (10 hectares) of land with a single vineyard, it's the same amount of land that 200 houses would cover."

...Ibrahim Shabana owns a grocery store in the village of Sinjel. He says settlers are growing grapes on land which has been in his family for more than 100 years. All that is left for him are a few, straggly vines of his own, on a small, uneven field. "I feel hopeless," he says. He says that he cannot fight the settlers, for fear of violence or arrest by the police, "while the settlers get off free".

For their part, settlers argue that claims of intimidation or theft are often made by Palestinians and seldom proven.

The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din has begun to track the spread of the vineyards. It says the settlers' insistence that they are only planting vines on state-owned land is simply not true.

On a road overlooking the West Bank vineyards close to the
settlement of Shilo, the group's energetic Land Projects
Coordinator, Dror Etkes, unfurls a map on the baking hot bonnet of his car.

It is, he says, just one illustration of how vineyards take over land beyond what even Israel says are the authorised boundaries of the settlements, across privately owned Palestinian land.

In a statement, the Civil Administration, the Israeli authority which oversees the West Bank, confirmed that the information on the map is correct.

Mr Etkes says that dealing with this issue should be a matter for the Israeli authorities, not the American administration.

And in late May, I visited with Yaakov at his winery with the employees of the Begin Center:




P.S. And here is my 'vineyard', of grapes for eating: 1 & 2. I hope the crop is great this year.

OU's "Jewish Action" Article on Entering the Temple Mount

Following the well-viewed entrance of Rabbi Mordechai Tendler into the Temple Mount via video (see follow-up here), the OU's "Jewish Action" magazine explains the situation on the basis of Halacha.

It is quite a complicated subject but below are the highlights:

What’s the Truth About…Har HaBayit? By Ari Z. Zivotofsky

(His caveat: This article is not taking a position on the propriety of ascending Har HaBayit nowadays. If, however, one chooses to ascend, he must be careful to restrict himself to certain areas and to immerse properly in a mikvah prior to going. Furthermore, one must adhere to the laws relating to mora mikdash, showing awe and reverence for the Beit Hamikdash, and should ascend under the guidance of an expert in the topic.)

MISCONCEPTION: Many religious Jews do not visit Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount) today. This is because we are all presumed to be in a state of tumat met (ritual impurity due to “contact” with the dead), and a tamei met is prohibited from ascending Har HaBayit. (Since the removal of tumat met requires the use of the ashes of a parah adumah, which are currently not available, every Jew is presumed to be in this state of impurity.)

FACT: Although individuals with certain forms of ritual impurities are barred from all of Har HaBayit, a tamei met may enter the peripheral areas of Har HaBayit surrounding the central holier region that included the Temple compound. Thus, although we currently lack the means to remove tumat met, this is not really a deterrent for ascending Har HaBayit. Those who refrain from ascending do so because of other halachic or political concerns or because of archeological uncertainties.1

BACKGROUND: Halachah recognizes different levels of kedushah (holiness) that relate to both time and place...A similar hierarchy [to the Shabbat example] is relevant to the sanctity pertaining to space.

The sanctified areas in Jerusalem correspond to the Israelite desert encampment (Tosefta, Keilim 1:10; Sifri, Naso 11; Rambam, Beit Habechirah 7:11; see Aruch Hashulchan Ha’atid, Beit Hamikdash 14:17, 36:7). Three concentric levels of sanctity existed in the encampment: the innermost area called Machaneh Shechinah, the Divine Camp that contained the mishkan (Tabernacle); Machaneh Leviyah, the encampment of the Levites that surrounded Machaneh Shechinah, and Machaneh Yisrael, an area beyond Machaneh Leviyah where the rest of the Jews encamped. When the Jews settled the Land of Israel these “camps” were represented by the following sanctified areas: the Azarah (Temple Courtyard), which started at Sha’ar Nikanor (the Nikanor Gate) and included the Beit Hamikdash building and the altar (Machaneh Shechinah); Har HaBayit (Machaneh Leviyah) and the rest of Jerusalem (Machaneh Yisrael)...

A person experiencing one of these states of tumah who ascends Har HaBayit does not incur the penalty of karet but is guilty of violating a negative prohibition, for which he should receive lashes (Rambam, Biat Mikdash 3:8). In order to remove these types of tumah, one must wait a requisite period of time, immerse in a mikvah and wait for the sun to set.9 During the period between immersion and sunset the individual has the status of a tvul yom, and is permitted on Har HaBayit but can go no further than the Ezrat Nashim (Women’s Courtyard) (Rambam, Biat Mikdash 3:5-6 and Beit Habechirah 7:17).10

In summary, the generally accepted halachot are as follows: a tamei met may ascend Har HaBayit, but may only proceed as far as the Cheil. Those in a state of tumah hayotzei megufo are barred from the entire Har HaBayit; once such a person becomes a tvul yom, he is permitted on most of Har HaBayit.

All of the above regulations were in effect during the time of the Temple. The question is, Are they applicable today?...

Even though the mikdash is today destroyed due to our sins, one is obligated in its reverence just as when it was standing. One should not enter except where he is permitted, and should not sit in the Azarah and not act with levity opposite the Eastern Gate. … Even though it is destroyed it still possesses its holiness (Beit Habechirah 7:7).

Opposing Rambam, Ra’avad (Beit Habechirah 6:14) opines that since the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed, the original sanctity of the area is no longer in effect and therefore the punishment of karet no longer applies. Some understand Ra’avad as disagreeing with Rambam only with respect to the actual punishment of karet; according to this reading, he concurs with Rambam in that the restrictions pertaining to Har HaBayit still stand—or at the very least, he is uncertain as to whether these restrictions still apply and therefore does not permit entry ab initio. Others are of the opinion that Ra’avad permits free entry to all of Har HaBayit.14

Today, Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and many rabbis forbid Jews from ascending Har HaBayit, and thus no shul or other Jewish structure is found there. Some rabbis do permit entry (the number of religious Jews who visit is increasing, but is still quite small). But, seemingly, Jews did not always avoid the area.15 It is reported that with the Muslim conquest in 638 CE, the Jews were permitted to build a shul and beit midrash on Har HaBayit. Ben-Zion Dinburg,16 a former Israeli minister of education, marshals numerous obscure sources to demonstrate that a shul existed on Har HaBayit between the seventh and eleventh centuries. Rabbi Shlomo Goren (Sefer Har HaBayit [5752], chap. 26) finds evidence of a Jewish presence on Har HaBayit even before the Muslim conquest. Meiri (1249-1315; Shavuot 16a) wrote that he heard that in his time there was a widespread custom to ascend Har HaBayit. The Radvaz (1479-1573; 2:691) assumed that the rock in the Dome of the Rock is where the aron kodesh stood and he calculated how far one must be from that point; he then permitted entry to the rest of Har HaBayit. Rabbi Yechiel Michel Tuketchinsky (d. 1956), writing pre-Six-Day War (Ir Hakodesh Vehamikdash, sec. 5, pp. 80-81), observes that in the time of the Beit Hamikdash there were shuls on Har HaBayit. Furthermore, he says that in our pre-Messianic period, when we get permission to build (and the ability to do so), there is plenty of available space on Har HaBayit on which a shul can be built...the remains of numerous Second Temple period mikvaot have been found in close proximity to Har HaBayit. Although their precise purpose is unclear, it has been reasonably suggested17 that they were used by the hordes of people who were in a state of tumat met and tumah hayotzei megufo but who nevertheless wanted to ascend to the areas of Har HaBayit accessible to one with the status of a tvul yom.

Those religious Jews who ascend Har HaBayit today abide by the ruling of Rambam, who states that entering the areas where the Azarah and the Beit Hamikdash itself stood still incurs the punishment of karet.18 However, there is one important aspect of this discussion that has not yet been addressed: the exact location of the historical Har HaBayit (the area referred to as Har HaBayit during the time of the Beit Hamikdash). Where exactly was the historical Har HaBayit located?19 The mishnah in Middot (2:1) states that Har HaBayit was 500 by 500 amot, an area of approximately 62,500 square meters. (An amah is roughly a half-meter.) Today the area referred to as Har HaBayit is a rectangle that is twice as long north-south as it is east-west, covering an area of about 145,500 square meters. Herod had built additions to Har HaBayit in the north and south, creating “spectator” sections for non-Jews. Thus, those who permit entry to the area suggest there are regions in the south (near the El-Aqsa mosque) and north that were clearly added by Herod. If this is correct, then anyone can enter those areas, even one who has not gone to a mikvah. Those who object to ascending Har HaBayit at all assert that there is no way to know with certainty—and archeological evidence can never definitively determine—the precise location of the Beit Hamikdash. Thus, even though a tamei met may technically ascend Har HaBayit, because of the severe punishment (karet) he would face were he to mistakenly enter the Azarah, one should avoid the entire area.20 Therefore some authorities (such as Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef) state that one should not ascend Har HaBayit because we are in a state of tumat met; these authorities agree that a tamei met is not barred from the peripheral areas of Har HaBayit, but they maintain that when one is in a state of tumat met, he should avoid all of Har HaBayit lest he stray into forbidden areas.

Those who rule permissively note that aside from the Herodian additions, there are many areas on Har HaBayit that a tvul yom may enter. The forbidden zone (where a tamei met is not permitted to enter) is a rectangle-shaped area of about 357 amot east-west by 165 amot north-south. Currently, Har HaBayit’s rectangular- shaped compound measures about 500 amot east-west and close to 1,000 amot north-south, thus providing a large margin of error when calculating where one may go.

Some authorities suggest totally avoiding the entire Har HaBayit so as not to potentially violate a different commandment—that of mora mikdash, showing proper awe and reverence for the Beit Hamikdash (Vayikra 19:30; Rambam, Beit Habechirah 7:1-7). This includes (Berachot 54a, 62b; Yevamot 6a-b) not entering Har HaBayit while wearing leather shoes or with a walking stick or purse. Also, one may not spit, have dust on one’s feet, use Har HaBayit as a shortcut or engage in idle chatter while there (Aruch Hashulchan Ha’atid, Hilchot Beit Hamikdash 14: 1-14). Rambam also adds that mora mikdash bars even a ritually pure person from entering the area for no purpose.

In recent years, the question regarding the advisability of ascending Har HaBayit under present circumstances has been addressed in great detail by many leading rabbis. Those who forbid entering the area do so because of the fear of violating the laws pertaining to its sanctity. Advocates insist on extreme caution and intense reverence, but see a value in establishing a connection between the Jewish people and the awesome holiness of Judaism’s most sanctified site. May we be zocheh to the day when there will be a rebuilt Beit Hamikdash on Har HaBayit and all our questions will be answered by those who sit in the Lishkat Hagazit (the Office of Hewn Stone, where the Sanhedrin sat).

This post is for information purposes and the article should be read in its entirety.

I have been ascending the Temple Mount since 1970 in accordance with a specific p'sak by Rav David Chelouche z"l and from shiurim with Rav Shlomo Goren z"l in addition to my own studies and research (see here, and here, for example). So I am glad to be able to upload the above.

See a 2002 "Jewish Action" article by my friend Rabbi Mordechai Rabinovitchץ


UPDATE

Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement's northern branch, spoke Wednesday afternoon in front of Muslim students at Haifa University and warned them that Benjamin Netanyahu was intending on completing his plan to gain control of the Temple Mount, which he said the prime minister had tried to do during his first tenure...Salah claimed that the government continued constantly to dig tunnels under the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque, and that Netanyahu was planning to complete during his current term what he did not complete during his first one – "to dig additional tunnels under al-Aqsa and rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount."

Nice guy



eh?

Is There A Word "Depropertization"?

I spotted this in the Museum of the Underground Prisoners in the former Central Jerusalem Prison in the Russian Compound.



Is there really a word like that, "depropertization"?

Well, I found this academic article:

The generally disappointing outcomes of privatization can always be explained away in terms of ‘institutional’ shortcomings, but the real challenge is to devise more flexible property rules to deal with diverse goods and local environments. The rest of the paper notes some of the most salient anthropological contributions in a range of other fields, including intellectual property and ‘culture’. While some scholars reject the concept of property in non-Western contexts, recent work in legal anthropology has laid out a rigorous definition that facilitates comparative analysis and exposes the limitations of the currently dominant economistic approaches. ‘Propertization’ is continuously establishing new ‘fictitious commodities’, but it is argued here that some critics of neoliberalism exaggerate the nightmare of its property logic and overlook the countertendencies.

and then this:

P. 10 -

Functionarization and to a large extent depropertization of dominant groups in the XIX century as major tendency, much more important for Russia than awkward development of capitalism during that period

and also this:

Obama's job is to take you away from anarchism, not towards it. And he's is for more dangerous because he uses far more deceptive means ("localization," "hope"). Let's remember the history - the welfare statists were created by the elite to keep revolution (depropertization) at bay.

Hmmm.

I would have used simply "arms expropriation".

I think the translator was being too literal and was a Hebrew speaker using a good dictionary but the word is too 'superior' and doesn't fit.

And Another Poll

According to the poll, 64 percent of the Jewish public supports a two-state solution. The poll, conducted as part of an in-depth study by the Institute for National Security Studies, found that the readiness of Israel's adult Jewish population to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state in the context of a final status arrangement rose from 21 percent in 1987 to 61 percent in 2006, falling to 55 percent in 2007 and 53 percent in the current poll.

The director of the poll, Yehuda Ben Meir, believes that...the concept of a Palestinian state still has negative connotations to many.

When the price issue is raised, the public is seized with significant stinginess. Only 15 percent support the removal of all West Bank settlements as part of a final status arrangement, while 43 percent are willing to "evacuate only the small and isolated settlements." More than 40 percent oppose evacuating West Bank settlements under any conditions.

Source

It Need Not Take Two To Go Nowhere

Dr. Alex Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian. His is the author of a number of books including Nations United How The UN Undermines Israel and The West and a forthcoming book on Israel's moral and legal right to exist as a Jewish State. He sent me a great article which I have excerpted below:

The Two-State To Nowhere: Another Futile Attempt At Appeasement

“There is reason to believe that [the president] cherished the illusion that presumably he, and he alone, as head of the United States, could bring about a settlement –if not a reconciliation—between Arabs and Jews. I remember muttering to myself as I left the White House after hearing the President discourse in rambling fashion about Middle Eastern Affairs, ‘I‘ve read of men who thought they might be King of the Jews and other men who thought they might be King of the Arabs, but this is the first time I ‘ve listened to a man who dreamt of being King of both the Jews and Arabs.’”1

Herbert Feis, a State Department economic advisor, did not say this about President Obama’s address in Cairo in June 2009, but after Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, in February 1945. Roosevelt wanted the Arabs to allow thousands of Jews from Europe to immigrate to Palestine to which Ibn Saud responded, “Arabs would choose to die rather than yield their land to Jews.”2
George Antonius, an Arab nationalist, reiterated this point when he said, “no room can be made in Palestine for a second nation except by dislodging or exterminating the nation in possession.”3

Attempts to solve the Arab/Israeli conflict regularly fail because of the refusal to acknowledge that this dispute has never been about borders, territory or settlements, but about the Arabs refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist...

...For Hamas liberating all of Palestine to establish an Islamic state requires a holy war against Israel. Anyone daring to sign away even “a grain of sand in Palestine in favor of the enemies of God…who have seized the blessed land” should have their “hand be cut off.”5

...One-sided concessions have convinced the Arabs of the rightness of their policies and the efficacy of using violence to cleanse the country of Jews and Christians.
What compelling reason do Arabs have to stop launching rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities, refuting the Jewish connection to the land of Israel, destroying artifacts and Jewish holy sites, dehumanizing Jews...if the West does not hold them accountable?

...Comparing the plight of the Arabs with that of African Americans is a distortion of history and demeans the experiences of the millions of Africans who were brutally abducted from their homes, transported under inhuman conditions aboard slave ships and exposed to torture, murder and rape. Nothing remotely like this has ever occurred with the Arabs in Israel...

...Those claiming that Jews have a moral obligation to cede land to the Arabs do not understand Israel’s legal right to exist as a Jewish state...There are no comparable legal documents conferring the same right on the Arabs living in Palestine at that time or since. 6

-------
1. Herbert Feis, The Birth of Israel: The Tousled Diplomatic Bed (New York: W.W. Norton, Inc. 1969):16-17.
2. Charles E. Bohlen, Witness to History 1929-1969 (New York: W.W. Norton, Inc. 1973):203-204.
3. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening, the Story of the Arab National
Movement (New York: Capricorn Books, 1965): 412.
5. Jacob L.Talmon, Israel Among The Nations (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), 172.
6. Lloyd George, The Truth About The Peace Treaties vol. II, (London: Gollancz Ltd, 1938),1149-1201; Howard Grief, The Legal Foundation And Borders Of Israel Under International Law (Jerusalem: Mazo Publishers, 2008): 136-147, 493.

Obama Speaks But I Find It Hard To Comprehend

Obama yesterday:

On the Israeli side, that means a cessation of settlements. And there is a tendency to try to parse exactly what this means, but I think the parties on the ground understand that if you have a continuation of settlements that, in past agreements, have been categorized as illegal, that's going to be an impediment to progress...The United States will continue to try to be as honest as possible to all sides in this dispute to indicate the degree to which it's in everybody's interests to move in a new direction.

Parsing means to examine in a minute way, to analyze critically. I don't mind that.

Cessation/continuation. The act of Jewish settlement, that is, the return of Jews from their Exile, is a process almost 2600 old. From Babylon we returned. And from 70 countries around the world. Obama now wants to try a stop that?

And exactly what past agreement categorized the communities as "illegal"?

Why are they an impediment? What about Arab settlements in Israel?

If Obama wishes to be "honest", he need be "genuine" which means he must be "true". That really isn't that difficult.

Is That A Rogue Elephant?

I have met with Michael Fenenbock who is a long-time American political consultant. He and his wife Daphne are the founders of “Denuke Iran” (www.denukeiran.com), an online advocacy campaign aimed at preventing the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

He has an op-ed at Ynet and an excerpt:

Implementing a Palestinian state all but guarantees Jewish armed resistance. Not Jewish armed resistance directed towards the IDF or the State of Israel. Jews will not war with Jews. No, no, no – Jewish armed resistance will be aimed at Palestinian Arabs. Weapons will be obtained. Fighters will join the resistance. It will be brutal. Horrific. And very, very bloody. It is lunacy to think otherwise.

If President Obama is promising a “solution,” he is promising something that is not his to promise. There is an elephant in the room.

I do not advocate violence, but I am not an ostrich. If we speak of a Palestinian state we must speak of all its implications. If America is to midwife a Palestinian state, hard questions must be asked.

...surely, Americans should ask, if things do not go well with this two-state idea, is there an exit strategy? The stakes are high. A two-state venture is fraught with risk and peril. There is an elephant in the room.

The question, of course, is that for four decades many have supported and have been thrilled with "Palestinian resistance".

Will a Jewish liberation struggle also gain sympathy?

You'll Never Know Where You'll Find A Revenant

Ruchie is a good friend and comrade-in-words:

The Begin-Sadat center had trouble finding translators to provide simultaneous English for the foreign guests and journalists. In the end they found Ruchi Avital, who teaches translation at the university. She has lived in the settlement of Ofra for 23 years.

"They refused to give us the text ahead of time, not even the translators," she complained. "I am tense like everyone else, but I guess I am part of the event. In this instance I need to be Netanyahu's voice, but every translation is an interpretation."

In the earphones, Avital's voice did not break when she said "demilitarized state," but several moments later her tone rose, nearly cracked when she told the listeners that the settlers are not the enemy of peace but "our brothers and sisters."

There's a Term for That Activity

The report in Haaretz on Tuesday whereby the U.S. administration has become convinced that it would be impossible to freeze West Bank settlement construction altogether came as a shock to Israeli peace activists.

The activists quickly handed over to the Americans documents proving the legal system's approval of a settlement freeze, containing High Court of Justice rulings in which the justices rejected petitions filed by settler organizations in a bid to prevent the settlement freeze.

Source

Pal. Graphics (and Jewish kowtowing)

This Jewish pro-Pal. site, Jews for Justice for Palestine, has this graphic up:



If you can't see, her cheek reads: "I refuse to occupy".

There's a Magen David earring and there;s a bit of blue and white.

Pals. are more to the point and exclusive of anything Jewish:

I Think That Data Is Incorrect

The AP data here, even if they may be, although it is unclear as there are no quotation marks, the source is Micahel Orn:

The U.S. has long argued that settlements are obstacles to peace. Nearly 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, along with 180,000 Israelis in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. The Palestinian seek both areas, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future independent state.

My impression is that we in Yesha have passed 300,000.

Extrapolation from statistics is tricky, for sure.

For example:

(1)

A new study by the University Center in Ariel concluded that the population in Judea and Samaria is growing at a rate three times higher than that in the rest of Israel. The study appears in the 2007 statistical journal put out by the University Center. Professors Dan Suan and Dr. Vered Ne’eman-Haviv led a team of researchers in compiling twelve chapters of information on all details of life in Judea and Samaria...

The study found that while in 1995 the population of Judea and Samaria stood at 130,000, as of 2007 it had jumped to 270,000 – in other words the population grew by 107%. In contrast the population of Israel grew by only 29% in the same period of time. Even more impressive is that in the three years between 2005 and 2007 the growth rate was 5% a year, three times higher than the rate in the rest of Israel of 1.7%.

The main factor in the growth came from natural increase. The birth rate in Judea and Samaria stands at 35 births per 1,000 persons whereas the average in the rest of Israel stands at only 20 births per 1,000 individuals. The second factor in growth came from positive migration (persons migrating in minus persons migrating out). In fact, Judea and Samaria had the highest rate of positive migration in all of Israel. The third factor in growth came from immigrants to Israel, who came mainly from the US, Britain, and France.

(2)

The official figures from Israel's Bureau of Statistics is 289,600 at end of 2008 with the end of 2007 being 276,100.

So, if in one year Jewish figures went up by 13,500, half of that (we're in June) is 6,750, at least.

289,600 + 6,750 = 296,350. And we know there's always a delay is registering births and domicile moves. We're over 300,000.

Add eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods, as this source notes, and

Give or take the odd few thousand (Israel is slow to update its figures), there are nearly 300,000 settlers in the West Bank and a further 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

Blogging: Anonymous Or Not

When I began this blog five years ago, I chose to be public. You read me, Yisrael Medad, not some anonymous shadow.

It was and is restrictive but it's all me.

I was accused actually of being 'narcissistic' because I had so many pictures of myself on the opening screen page. Gee. Imagine, a blogger who is not narcissistic.

Well, read on:

Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity

Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled today. In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of a blog called NightJack.

...His blog, which gave a behind-the-scenes insight into frontline policing, included strong views on social and political issues, including matters of “public controversy,” the judge said.

...In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr Horton had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”. Coming down in favour of freedom of expression, the judge also said that even if the blogger could have claimed he had a right to anonymity, the judge would have ruled against him on public interest grounds.

...Hugh Tomlinson, QC, for the blogger, had argued that “thousands of regular bloggers who communicate nowadays via the internet under a cloak of anonymity would be horrified to think that the law would do nothing to protect their anonymity of someone carried out the necessary detective work and sought to unmask them”.

The judge said: “That may be true. I suspect that some would be very concerned and others less so.”

But “be that as it may”, he added, the blogger needed to show that he had a legally enforceable right to maintain anonymity in the absence of a genuine breach of confidence, by suppressing the fruits of detective work such as that carried out by Mr Foster.

The uniqueness of this case, nevertheless, is that the commentary in the blog is the work of a serving Lancashire detective and, therefore, being a public servant, he was in a difficult legal situation.

Obama Engages ABC

Dear Mr. Westin:

As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC's astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.” This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.

Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party's views to those of the President's to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

Respectfully,
Ken McKay
Republican National Committee
Chief of Staff

We Can Only Wish Them Success

Protesters attack a building of pro-government militia in Iran:



Better than going nuke.


Source

Hillary Clinton Model March 2002

Wow, what a gal.