Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire

Party on, world

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:13:00 GMT

Today, as midnight arrives in country after country, explosions of celebration are set to rend the skies, from over the Opera House in Sydney (GMT minus 10 hours) to over Pearl Harbor in Hawaii (GMT plus 10 hours).

Wherever the Gregorian calendar is held to, toasts will be drunk, fireworks fired, dances kicked off, resolutions made and new wall calendars hung.

For full article click here.

'Israel can't do damn thing to stop Iran'

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:58:00 GMT

Iran is going to build more nuclear plants and enrich uranium to higher levels that previously announced, and there is not a damn thing Israel can do to stop it.

So swore Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week, openly laughing off the feeble efforts of the international community to pull Tehran into line.

Despite numerous and intensifying Israeli appeals to western world leaders to put a stop to Iran's pursuit of atomic weapons, the rogue state has been barreling ahead, even as Ahmadinejad repeatedly foretells the destruction of the Jewish state.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has the expertise and armaments necessary to deal with the Iranian threat, but Israel is fearful of the global condemnation that will erupt against her if she does.

Some in Israel have expressed the belief that - with the world media's ceaseless demonizing of Israel and turning the nations against her - the climate is being created in which a second Holocaust could take place.

Israel may release 'Arafat's heir'

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:36:00 GMT

Concern is growing in Israel that the Netanyahu government may be poised to release a convicted murderer and exceptionally charismatic terrorist leader in exchange for the return of IDF prisoner of war Gilad Schalit.

Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah and Tanzim chieftain, is widely considered the natural successor to the late Yasser Arafat, the mass murderer of countless Jews and other nationals during his 45-year tenure as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Schalit has been held captive by Hamas - apparently in the Gaza Strip - for more than three years.

While the government in Jerusalem is fighting to keep details of its negotiations for its soldier's release under wraps, other sources are reporting that Barghouti may head the list of as many as 1000 "Palestinian" prisoners Israel will let go in exchange for Schalit.

Analysts believe Barghouti may be able to unite Fatah and the Hamas to become the new leader of a single "Palestinian" entity Israel will be forced by world pressure to negotiate with.

Currently serving five consecutive life sentences for killing Israelis, Barghouti will reportedly be offered his freedom provided he agrees to go into exile.

But concerned watchers have noted that Israel made one of its most fatal mistakes when it let Arafat go free after having him in the IDF's gunsights in Beirut in 1982.

From exile the arch-terrorist was able to consolidate his forces, direct his international terror campaign to maintain pressure on the world to support his cause, and wait for the political climate to ripen for him to be welcomed to Israel by an Israeli government pressured by the United States.

International Christian Zionist Center Director Jan Willem van der Hoeven Monday faxed Israel's political leaders, appealing with them not to make the mistake of letting Barghouti go.

"By freeing Marwan Barghouti with all the other Hamas and Fatah prisoners, Israel will cause the only man charismatic enough to be able to do so to unite the Palestinian people – Fatah and Hamas into one.

"Hamas will become the controlling factor in all upcoming negotiations with Israel, and will possibly also be the winner in future elections among the Arabs in Judea and Samaria," van der Hoeven warned.

Instead of furthering Israel's security and well being, this move "may lead to a Hamas-led independent state under the leadership of Barghouti, which will without question be used to further dismantle the State of Israel."

Van der Hoeven cited Israel's decision to let Arafat escape Beirut.

That misguided decision "caused him to become the respected Palestinian leader with whom they then had to deal in Oslo and other places. Thus did they put Israel on the mortally dangerous road towards an independent Palestinian state!

"Now, with Israel for a second time about to make this same mistake, that state may well become a reality under the leadership of a Barghouti; another terrorist chief set free by the self-destructive Israelis."

The veteran Christian Zionist recalled how a prophet had once addressed a weak leader of Israel:

“Thus says the LORD, because you have let slip out of your hand a man who I had appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life AND YOUR PEOPLE FOR HIS PEOPLE.” (1 Kings 20:42 emphasis added.)

God will curse the EU

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:45:00 GMT

Beware! You’re in grave danger

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:35:00 GMT

EU: Let's ensure division of Jerusalem

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:31:00 GMT

European leaders plan to publicly demand next week that Israel's capital be cut in two, to be divided between the Jewish state and the non-existent state of "Palestine."

The EU will issue its call newly empowered by the Lisbon Treaty, which came into affect Tuesday, and which Europeans regard as placing them on a par with the United States.

While the Palestinian Arabs have never had a state, Jerusalem became the capital of the Jewish people in approximately 1000 BC. In the three millennia since, no other nation has designated the city as their capital.

Nonetheless the EU, along with the rest of the international community, is keeping relentless pressure on the Israeli government to give the Arabs sovereignty over half the city.

And over half their historic land.

According to reports running in the Israeli press Tuesday and Wednesday, a Swedish-drafted statement will be read out on December 7 after approval by the EU Commission. It will be the "first official EU articulation of a solution" for the issue of Jerusalem in the Middle East peace process.

Ha'aretz reported that the draft "refers directly to the situation in East Jerusalem, calling on 'all parties to refrain from provocative actions' and stating the EU Council 'has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem. If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found to resolve the status of Jerusalem as capital of two states. The Council calls for the reopening of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem in accordance with the road map. It also calls on the Israeli government to cease all discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.'"

The statement furthermore applauds Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's proposal of a unilateral declaration of statehood, and commits the EU to "at the appropriate time, recognize a Palestinian state."

Israeli officials have slammed the EU for ITS provocative meddling.

But Europe is resolved to interfere in a way it believes will intimidate Israel into wilting under the pressure.

Measures recommended include:

Ensuring an EU presence at Israeli court cases on house demolitions or evictions of Palestinian families and where there is a risk of demolition or eviction of Arab families.

Holding EU celebrations, commemorations and national or Europe day events in "East" Jerusalem.

Regularly hosting Palestinian officials for dinners with senior EU visitors at European missions with offices or residences in "East" Jerusalem.

Avoiding having Israeli security personnel accompany high-ranking EU officials visiting the Old City or "East" Jerusalem.

Refusing to meet Israeli officials in their "East" Jerusalem offices.

Sharing information on "violent" settlers in East Jerusalem to assess whether to grant entry to the EU.

The European Jewish Congress (EJC) on Tuesday reacted with "alarm and extreme concern" to reports of the EU's intentions.

It said that by taking this step, Europe would be creating an "impediment to peace."

According to a report on EUobserver.com, "a number of EU officials voiced surprise that the provisional statement evoked such a hostile reaction.

"Jerusalem should be the shared capital of two states. I think this is a position which has been stated often enough," Lutz Gellner, the spokesman of the EU's new foreign relations chief, Catherine Ashton, said.

May God YET bless America

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:23:00 GMT

Iran: We'll send our ballistic missiles to Tel Aviv

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:21:00 GMT

Before the dust settles from Israel's attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities, the Islamic Republic will send its ballistic missiles into the very heart of Tel Aviv.

This was spelled out at the weekend by a deputy of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative in the Revolutionary Guards, Mojtaba Zolnour.

It came hours before Iran launched what it described as "huge" war games intended to "promote [the] military power of the armed forces against any attack," according to a Brigadier General Ahmad Mighani quoted in Iranian television.

The verbal threats and military exercises comprise the latest saber rattling on the part of the Muslims in Tehran - a leadership that regularly denies the Holocaust even as it prepares to perpetuate another once against Israel.

Instead of forcefully confronting the genocidal government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the United States and European Union have done nothing more effective than repeatedly threaten sanctions.

Iran has made full use of the space afforded it by this appeasement approach to race ahead with its efforts to achieve nuclear capability.

In the words of a Christian Zionist who served for many years as a tank commander in Israel's Armored Corps - the international community is nearly ready to allow a second Holocaust to take place.

"Israel has become a thorn in the flesh of the world," he said. The sooner it is erased from the Middle East the happier mankind will be.

'Rabin promised Palestine with Jordan River border'

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:47:00 GMT

The so-called prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, said Sunday that the 1993 Oslo Accords signed between the Rabin government and the PLO promised the Arabs a state including the entire "West Bank" and eastern Jerusalem.

"Our goal is to stop the occupation of all the territories occupied in 1967 and to establish a state on that land," Fayyad said.

According to documented evidence, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin opposed the creation of a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel. Since his assassination in 1995, the PLO and Israel's other enemies have persistently maintained that Rabin agreed to a state.

Fayyad spun his latest version of this lie at a ceremony marking the end of a "Palestinian" police officers' course near Shechem in Samaria.

While they are called "policemen," Palestinian officers have often been identified as still enlisted members of the PLO's various terrorist organizations and the Hamas.

Shechem - site of the tomb of biblical patriarch Joseph - is one of a number of ancient Jewish towns occupied by the Palestinian Arabs. They call it Nablus.

The rolling drums of war

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:09:00 GMT

'Be ready for a major quake'

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:57:00 GMT

Israel is located in an area of intense and ongoing seismic activity, and needs to be ready to cope in the event of an earthquake - possibly a catastrophic one.

According to a report carried on Israel National News (INN) Thursday, Israel Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai warned of the danger that could strike 'more unexpectedly than the Yom Kippur War of 1973.'

It was essential that local authorities be as prepared as possible to meet the needs of disaster victims - both military and natural - for a number of days.

Vilnai toured northern communities including Akko, Safed and Tiberias.

According to INN, increased seismic activity in Israel's north last year led the government to begin preparing for the possibility of a major earthquake.

The Knesset (Israel's parliament) annually debates and discusses the state of Israel's readiness for a major temblor.

"Statistically" the country is due for a serious quake at any time.

US ambassador: Israel should do more than 'just talk peace'

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:46:00 GMT

The Obama administration continued its efforts this week to pull or push Israel into moving ahead with Washington's decreed solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Known as the "two state solution," it calls for the cutting in half of the historical homeland of the Jewish people and the creation of an Arab state called Palestine on the high ground overlooking what would be left of Israel.

Utilizing a special conference of foreign leaders being hosted in Jerusalem by Israeli President Shimon Peres, the White House instructed its ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, to try and woo the Netanyahu government into moving ahead with the land-for-peace process.

Rice gave what The Jerusalem Post Thursday described as "a warm and empathetic speech towards Israel."

It was important to decided, Rice gently chided her guests, "whether we are serious about peace or whether we will lend it only lip service."

"The time has come to relaunch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent-status issues: security for Israelis and Palestinians, borders, refugees and Jerusalem, she said.

President Barack Obama and his officials have a "clear goal," she stressed: "a comprehensive peace, including two states living side by side in peace and security - a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis, and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people."

This, insisted Rice, was "in the interests of the United States, of Israel and of the Palestinians."

Obama - recently awarded the once-prestigious Nobel Peace Prize despite having not ended wars anywhere on the planet - has expressed his wish to be the one who successfully secures peace in the Middle East.

Covering the American's speech, Post reporter Herb Keinon maintained that "ending the Israeli occupation" (leftist-speak for surrendering land to the murderous leaders of the PLO and Hamas) "is generally agreeable to Israel."

A great many Israelis have wearied of weathering decades of unrelenting international pressure on the Jewish state to embrace the discredited "peace process"

Rice's suggestion that Israel does little more than talk disregards the record of enormous and often dangerous risks successive governments in Jerusalem have taken to demonstrate their good faith in the pursuit of peace.

Israel has withdrawn from 99 percent of the formerly "IDF-occupied" Arab population centers in Samaria and Judea, giving the Arabs there freedom to govern themselves. Four years ago, the Israeli government forcefully uprooted 10,000 of its own citizens, and handed the entire Gaza Strip to the Arabs.

Earlier in the decade Israel agreed to give the "Palestinians" all this territory including parts of the Jewish capital of Jerusalem. Israel's holiest site - the Temple Mount - was offered too.

By vivid contrast, the Arab side has taken not a single step towards ending hostility towards Israel; on the contrary "Palestinian" mosques, schools and media feed their people on a daily dose of Israel-hatred and talk about the day when "all of Palestine will be liberated, from the Jordan River to the mediterranean Sea."

Not only "radical" Hamas leaders, but "moderate" PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas regularly incites his people against the Jews.

The lull in terrorist attacks on Israel buses, shopping malls and restaurants is attributable to ongoing and intensive anti-terrorism measures employed by the Jewish state, whose forces nightly arrest terror suspects in "the West Bank" and have successfully helped keep the cap on the kind of eruptions that cost hundreds of Jewish lives earlier in this decade.

For the Obama administration, however, the key lies in forbidding and putting an end to Jewish settlement in the heart of the Land of the Bible.

"Being serious about peace means understanding that tomorrow need not look like yesterday," Rice said, as if addressing a class of school students.

If Israel would only realize this, it would be able to "find peace, security, and prosperity with not just its immediate neighbors but in the region as a whole."

And then, Israel could "truly and fully take its rightful place among the nations."

Into the Winepress

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:42:00 GMT

The empty promises of a president of the United States

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:22:00 GMT

The US joins the world

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:20:00 GMT

US President Barack Obama last week firmly aligned his administration with the Arab world, joining the rest of the international community in its position against the Jewish State of Israel.

Addressing some 140 world leaders gathered in New York for the 64th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Obama condemned as an illegal "occupation" Israel's presence in its ancestral homeland.

And he roundly rejected the right of Jews to live and build communities in the hill country they believe was given to them by their God.

But while, according to the American leader, Israel's people have no right to possess, dwell in and govern the land of their fathers, the United States must insist that Israel "respect the legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians."

Obama's position indicates his acceptance and intention to champion the Arab narrative - which insists that the "Palestinians" have lived in the land "from time immemorial" and have the right to be formed as a nation in it.

He has thus rejected the Jewish narrative - which holds that this was the Land of Canaan given to Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob and then Jacob's descendants; that the nation took root here nearly 4000 years ago, growing and developing in this land and ruling as sovereigns over it; that following the Jews' expulsion from the land they kept burning for two millennia the fire of their intended return; that they are not a foreign implant, not a colony, not in the land in order to assuage stricken western consciences following the Holocaust; that the Palestinian Arabs have no national history - neither in this land nor anywhere else, and that the creation of an Arab state in the historical Jewish homeland constitutes land theft and poses an existential threat to Israel.

Critics slammed Obama's speech as the most anti-Israel message ever delivered by a president of the United States.

America's former ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, slammed Obama's address as "the most radical anti-Israel speech I can recall any president making."

The fact that the most powerful man on the planet, who has access to all the data, expertise and intelligence necessary to substantiate the Jewish position and to disprove the Arab one, nonetheless has chosen to throw his weight behind the latter at Israel's expense, is certain to have distressed many in the US.

"It felt as if a dagger had struck my heart when he stated that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," said Pastor Cecil Hall of the Anderson, TX, Full Gospel Church, adding that it "hurt, to think of the minds and hearts of the citizens of Israel as they heard those words from the country that has stood with them since the beginning."

"Although the words of Mr. Obama came from within the borders of my beloved America, they did not come from the heart of America. Please tell the wonderful people of Israel that the strong moral majority of Americans do not share Barak Obama's sentiment nor agree with his policies concerning Israel, at any time that those polices should harm or cause Israel to lose ground."

Norway FM to Barak: Israel is a friend despite Elbit divestment

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Investments Norway divested from the Israeli arms firm Elbit were part of a private fund and did not represent the country's policy, the country's minister of foreign affairs told Defense Minster Ehud Barak on Friday.

US aid for road sign plan - Towards a PA state

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:19:00 GMT

The United States is funding a Palestinian Authority project to place non-Hebrew road signs throughout Judea and Samaria. The PA plans to implement it in exclusively Israeli-controlled areas as well.

PA considering asking EU for sanctions against Israel

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:18:00 GMT

'Palestinian' official tells Ynet, 'Every country in world believes danger to peace is Israeli settlement policy, so we must translate this into sanctions'.

Moussa: no to settlement freeze without Jerusalem

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:17:00 GMT

The Arab League chief says any Israeli offer for a settlement freeze that doesn't include east Jerusalem is unacceptable and "will suspend the peace process."

Most Likud MKs to rally against PM

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:16:00 GMT

Pressure on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu inside the Likud will intensify next week ahead of his final decisions regarding a potential settlement freeze as part of US President Barack Obama's efforts to seek Middle East peace.