Candle Light March: Don't Free Terrorists! - Free Gilad Shalit!

4 Shevat 5769

Memorial candle light march this Sunday night, 7 Shevat (Feb. 1), at 5:00 PM to emphasize that the policy of releasing terrorists resulted in 180 Jews being murdered since the year 2000.

The march will start in Jerusalem at Kikar Tzion (Zion Square), go towards the Prime Minister's House and then on to the President's house. Freeing terrorists simply endanger Am Yisra'el.

Please join us - for more info call 02-538-8999, 052-4239870

Sponsored by Almagor, the "Terror Victims Association"

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As a victim of terror myself (French Hill suicide bombing, 9 Tammuz 5762/June 19, 2002), I encourage you to take only 2 1/2 minutes of your time to find out more about this very important, non-profit organization.

"Releasing Terrorists Again?"

Cross-posted on Esser Agaroth.

"The Temple Mount is in our hands."

June 1, 2008

"Har Habayit Beyadenu"

"The Temple Mount is in our hands." The words spoken joyously by General Motta Gur, on retaking the Temple Mount, after 19 years of being forbidden access to the holiest of our sites.




A year ago we celebrated 40 years that a united Jerusalem has been in our hands. By the thousands, we danced in the streets. Who would have dreamed that within the course of the year that followed we would have a government blind enough, foolish enough, sufficiently devoid of Jewish passion, to consider negotiating it away to a Palestinian Authority whose head has refused to recognize us a Jewish State?

Tonight begins Yom Yerushalayim. May we move past these evil days with all possible speed, and hold fast to our sacred heritage for all time to come.

Enjoy a magnificent rendering of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav by the late Ofra Haza:

http://judaismoreformista.blogspot.com/2007/08/ierushalaim-shel-zahav-ofra-haza.html

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This willingness to even consider negotiating away the Temple Mount is but one facet of the colossally stupid (and dangerous) policies of Olmert and company.

Read more - click here

The Other Burning Bush

Motza'ei Shabbat Behar 5768

Who remembers the scene in "The Fiddler on the Roof" when the rabbi was asked, "Rabbi, is there a blessing for the Tsar?" And the rabbi responded...

"Yes. May the Almighty bless and keep the Tsar,...far away from us."

Well, this is the perfect model for what I believe to be the most appropriate blessing for U. S. President Bush.

Unlike the Divine words Moshe Rabbenu heard emanating from a burning bush, not consumed, President Bush is burning (click here for photo) because his pants are on fire,...as in "Liar, Liar."

President Bush received praise from "right-wing" Members of the Kenesseth [MK] for his address to that body on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Rabbi MK Me'ir Porush (UTJ/Agudas Yisroel) is engaging in settlement activity,...sort of.... Huh?

But, I digress....

The President's words which caught my attention in particular were these:

"...Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. ...We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

So, why does the president continue to encourage us to talk with Fatah? Has he seen "Palestinian" educational television lately? Can he really be that stupid to confuse Fatah with Hamas, Hizbollah, and Al-Qaeda?

I don't think so.

It's about oil. It's about money. It's about being handed a particular "map" by the Saudis.

No, I'm not saying that the [Arab terrorist-loving] American leftist got it right. They got it only partly right,...and probably by accident at that.

President Bush himself talked about the U. S. being addicted to oil, and how "we have to get off of oil."

No, he's not that stupid.

The only question is if he's doing this because he believes it's the right thing to do to protect the interests of the U. S.? Or is this "Bible-believing Christian" conveniently dismissing Biblical recommendations against doing nasty things to Jews, and putting their lives in jeopardy, for the sake of less noble goals?

You be the judge, as he talks out of the other side of his mouth.

Bush: 'My Heart Breaks' over Arabs' Situation

(IsraelNN.com) After leaving Israel Friday, U.S. President George W. Bush met Saturday with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas – and promised him that there would be an Arabs state in areas controlled the PA by the end of 2008, if he had anything to say about it. "It breaks my heart to see the vast potential of the Palestinian people, really, wasted," Bush said. Such a state “would be an opportunity to end the suffering that takes place in the Palestinian territories," he told Abbas. (Read more...)

The only conclusion is that at the very least, he is misleading both Israelis and the Americans who support us.

"Mr. President, may the Almighty bless and keep you [and your plotting and planning]...very far away from us!"

Cross-posted on Esser Agaroth

They Were High School Students!

Alef d'Rosh Hodesh Adar Sheni 5768

I already wrote about the terrorist attack on Merkaz HaRav. Now that I have seen the list of victims, I'm too upset to write much more about this, so I'm doing a hand off to Batya at "Shiloh Musings." Please click "Another Grave to be Filled." Then click her main page, and scroll down through her coverage.

Yonatan Eldar HY"D of Shilo, and only 16, a junior in high school, was one those martyrs killed.

He lived next door to the Yerushalmi family, whose son Shmu'el Efraim HY"D survived the attack on another yeshiva high school, "Hitzim," six years ago, only to be killed himself a month later at the Givat Tzarfatit (French Hill) bombing, where I was the last one to see him.

I can't get Yonatan's face out of my mine: blond hair, glasses. He was only a student of mine for a short while, four years ago. He was only in the sixth grade, yet the principal and all of the teachers had to call upon him to install and operate software, or even fix their computers. He was that bright.

I just sat next to him in a tremp the other day. He was telling me that was studying at Yeshivah leTze'irim Yerushalayim [Yashla"tz], the Merkav HaRav associated High School, and most prestigious Religious Zionist yeshivah high school in the world.

I will miss you, Yonatan. May your blood be avenged!

When I go to visit your family, no doubt I will see more of my former students. It is a common custom for the martyr's classmates to sit with the family much of the time, and stay close by in the same town. They are after all like brothers.

Lately, I have bumped into many former students who are now serving in the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF]. I say to them "HaShem Yishmor Otcha" (May God watch over you).

From now on, I will have to remember to say this to every one I meet, even he's only on the way to school.

I don't know what else to say.

From Israel National News, The Jewish martyrs are:

Doron Mehereta, 26, of Ashdod
Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav HaShachar (a community in the Binyamin region of Samaria)
Ro'i Rote, 18, of Elkanah (a community in Samaria)
Yochai Lipshitz, 18, of the Old City of Jerusalem
Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shilo (a community in Samaria)
Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem
Segev Pniel Avichayil, 15, of N'vei Daniel in Gush Etzion
Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat, Gush Etzion

Doron, Yonadav and Ro'i were students in Merkaz HaRav; the others were students in the LeTze'irim Yeshiva High School of Merkaz HaRav in the adjacent building.

Seven of the ten wounded students remain hospitalized. The public is asked to pray for the recovery of: Naftali ben [son of] Gila from Sderot, Yonatan ben Avital, Shimon ben Tirza, Nadav ben Hadas, Reuven ben Naomi and Elchanan ben Zehava.

Cross-posted at Esser Agaroth.

The right wing's Jerusalem gambit

The right wing's Jerusalem gambit

A new coalition of religious hard-liners with ties to President Bush seeks to scuttle any plans for dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians.

By Gregory Levey

Dec. 13, 2007 On Nov. 26, the U.S. State Department got hit with an unexpected barrage of phone calls. The Coordinating Council on Jerusalem, a new coalition of American groups with hard-line views on Israel, was on the line -- all of the lines. Or so the group said two days later in a press release, proudly proclaiming that with 10,000 calls in less than 48 hours it had managed to overload the State Department's voice-mail system. The group was making known its opposition to any Israeli concessions on dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians -- an issue that was swirling around the Bush administration's peace summit taking place in Annapolis, Md.
The new coalition's dubious achievement wasn't much noticed by the media, and perhaps isn't in itself important, but it was a sign of battles to come in the year ahead, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders struggle to move forward with any real progress after Annapolis. Although most appraisals of the conference were reservedly positive -- after all, at least the two sides were talking seriously again after a seven-year drought -- the event also opened a can of worms.
On the eve of Annapolis, the new right-wing coalition's representatives directly lobbied a top Bush official with their concerns about the summit. Even Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took notice and seemed threatened by their potential to obstruct progress -- leveling some harsh words just before the Annapolis conference apparently directed at the coalition.
Annapolis was only the beginning of a renewed series of high-level negotiations, and the joint Israeli-Palestinian statement read by President Bush at the event was purposefully vague so as to avoid angering either leader's constituents or allies. Anyone reading between the lines, however, could see that the most explosive issue of all, dividing Jerusalem, had reemerged. The new coalition of religious groups seeks to use the incendiary Jerusalem question to scuttle any of the progress promised by Annapolis. Its efforts also threaten to cause painful rifts among American Jews, and perhaps shake up some pro-Israel political alliances.
Although the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the new high-level negotiations, some of AIPAC's major donors and allies are involved with the Coordinating Council on Jerusalem. The coalition is also being aided in its efforts by evangelical Christian groups and supported by figures such as G. Gordon Liddy. It is directed by an influential former fundraiser for George W. Bush, Jeff Ballabon.
Ballabon is a Washington lobbyist who served as a major fundraiser for the 2004 Bush reelection campaign and was the architect of a strategy that has sought to bring Orthodox Jews into the Republican fold, in an effort to balance the overwhelmingly Democratic voting habits of mainstream American Jews. Just before the conference in Annapolis, Ballabon, along with Christian leaders and representatives of various Orthodox groups, met with Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, to make sure their point of view, and the force of their commitment, were understood by the administration. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hadley reportedly assured them that, for the time being, the issue of Jerusalem was in fact not on the negotiating table.
Some interesting fissures have begun to crop up along with the new coalition. A few weeks before the Annapolis meeting, a congressional letter requesting increased aid for the Palestinian Authority -- which would help it meet some of its obligations toward achieving peace -- was endorsed by AIPAC, surprising many in Washington lobbying circles. (The Israeli government had not opposed the aid.) That decision earned AIPAC a sharp rebuke by one of its most important donors, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who said, "If someone is going to jump off a bridge, it is incumbent upon their friends to dissuade them." Adelson, reportedly the third richest person in the United States and a prominent donor to the Republican Party, is also a major donor to the Zionist Organization of America, a group that, although lacking anything near the clout that AIPAC wields, is still influential among Middle East hawks in the GOP. And it is a core member of the new Coordinating Council. The national president of ZOA, Mort Klein, told Salon in an interview that "Israel should not be willing to give away any part of Jerusalem to another entity, just as the U.S. wouldn't give away any part of Washington." He added, "Jerusalem is mentioned 700 times in our holy book. It's not mentioned even once in the Quran."
ZOA has been active for a long time, but has never gotten the kind of political attention enjoyed by AIPAC and other more mainstream groups, or by the Christian evangelical groups pushing hawkish Middle East polices who have joined the Coordinating Council. What has changed is that the obstructionist agenda of the ZOA and the evangelical groups is now being aided by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish member organizations of the newly formed coalition -- many of which have, prior to now, stayed aloof from international politics.
Agudath Israel, for example, an umbrella organization of ultra-Orthodox American Jews and a member group of the Coordinating Council, recently broke its long-held rule of not delving into Middle East politics by speaking out against the division of Jerusalem. The Orthodox Union, the largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization in the United States, also recently broke its tradition of supporting the policies of the Israeli government, issuing a press release that sharply criticized Olmert's statements at Annapolis because he "did not explicitly resist Palestinian President [Mahmoud] Abbas' claim to a piece of Jerusalem."
That a successful peace deal would necessitate some sharing of Jerusalem is at this point essentially a given in the eyes of most political leaders. It has been floated subtly by Prime Minister Olmert's Cabinet allies, is quite clearly supported by many in the State Department and is thought of as an absolute minimum for agreement by Abbas.
To Orthodox Jews, however, Jerusalem is a red line (just as it is to their opposites on the Muslim side). Any perceived threat to sole ownership of the holy city summons dangerous levels of emotion and energy, even from those who would not normally pause from their prayers and everyday lives to wade into the swamp of Middle East politics. It is these thousands of Americans, normally not involved in Middle East discourse, that may give the Coordinating Council for Jerusalem the strength and potential to be a real obstacle to peace in the year to come.
These stirrings stateside have not gone unnoticed by the Israeli government. In response to the lobbying intended to preempt any talk of dividing Jerusalem, Olmert stated, "Israel is sovereign to decide on any issue regarding Israel." The message was that Jerusalem is an issue to be determined by Israel itself, and not by its hard-line American cheerleaders.
To be sure, the views of this new American coalition of religious right-wingers don't come anywhere near representing the consensus of American Jewry or of Israel's mainstream supporters in the United States -- whose views, unlike those of the CCJ, don't generally turn on Scripture but rather on issues of peace and security. Still, the vigor with which these actors have recently entered the debate, and the determined efforts with which they will likely proceed over the next year, aren't going to make anything easy for those striving for a Middle East accord of any kind.
The Annapolis conference may have been a start, but it has also unleashed a zealotry on U.S. shores that may once again help demonstrate how nearly impossible achieving Middle East peace could really be.
-- By Gregory Levey

Israel Matzav: Olmert to give away Temple Mount?

Israel Matzav: Olmert to give away Temple Mount?

Brothers and Sisters…

Have we forgotten…? Have we forgotten why there is a Jewish State in the first place? Now our youth dodging service in the IDF; our leaders are giving away holy Jewish land with impunity; Olmert and Peres are negotiating and making deals with terrorists and murders; we are betraying our heritage and our identity. Can't we see the writing on the wall?

Olmert and Peres have become a part of the Israeli secular (majority?) who has no love, connection, or interest in the Temple Mount, Jerusalem as our eternal Capital, or Judea and Samaria for that matter. Olmert and Peres could care less what will happen to the Jews who live there. They have their own agenda… and that is to go down in history, along with President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the great peace-makers of our time, and (if their scheming and collaboration succeeds) with a Nobel Peace Prize for their treachery.

It's too bad that there is no prize for traitorous conduct in office, for betraying your country, your people, and your religion... Olmert and Peres would be the undisputable winners. Forget the Knesset, the "Good Old Boy" politicians have chained themselves to their seats and they would rival those of the 1920s in Georgia, Tennessee, or Alabama in the Southern United States. Our MKs are only interested in preserving their own interests and position, not in the "Jewish" future of Israel.

Isn't it about time that the Israelis who "Care" about our heritage; who "Care" about what it means to be a Jew; who care about the future of our children; and who "Care" about keeping Israel a Jewish State rather than a secular abomination stand up and he heard before it's too late? Elections in 2010 are too far away... act now to force new elections or be prepared to be forced out of what was once Israel.

But what do I know... I'm just an old retired Jew who is a disabled Army veteran and who lives in the U.S. I've been told by some that Israel doesn’t need or want any more American Jewish Retirees" making Aliyah. I've been told to "mind my own business". But how can I forget thee O'Jerusalem?? I am still a Jew; I save my shekels all year so I can visit Israel. I give what I can to Jewish causes, I do my best as an activist in a pro-active Jewish organization that protects our interests and people in the Diaspora, oh, and I did fight in the Sinai in October of 1973 with brave men whose love of Hashem, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, our Heritage, our land, and the future and preservation of our country as a Jewish State and Jewish Homeland still burned within them.

The flame that I witnessed and felt in burning our hearts then must not be allowed to die… to be smothered by those who hold secular interests above the Torah, our people and our destiny.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs “for the love of Hashem and the Jewish people, do not give away our land!” Too much Jewish blood has been shed protecting it... and know this. What is lost can never be recovered in today's world.

Wake up and remember these five principals:

AVAHAT YISROEL

HADAR

BARZEL

MISHMAAT

BITACHON

If you have any feelings at all when you hear the words
“NEVER AGAIN” … do your duty to save Israel

That's my 2 shekels worth.
Bill Maniaci
B’nai Elim Blogmaster
http://bnaielim.blogspot.com/