Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire

Book of the Ages - Perspectives

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:43:00 GMT

Jews inch towards their Temple

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:28:00 GMT

Another step on the long road towards the restoration of Temple Worship in Jerusalem was reportedly taken Monday with the opening of a new workshop in which robes will be manufactured for practicing priests.

According to a report in The Jerusalem Post Wednesday, a number of Kohanim, (Jews in the Cohen family line who trace their ancestry back to Aaron, the first High Priest) have already had measurements taken for the biblically-described vestments.

One of them is the well-known chief rabbi of Efrat Shlomo Riskin.

For the new garments, special flaxen thread is being imported from India, and worms from which just the right color crimson dye is obtained are being brought in from Istanbul, according to the report.

The new workshop was inaugurated by the Temple Institute which is situated in Jerusalem's old City, just a stone's throw from the Temple Mount - the site of the first and second temples and the place where, according to the Bible, the Third Temple will be built to welcome the Messiah.

Over the years the institute has worked to create - in strict accordance with the biblical pattern - many of the implements required for Temple worship, including the golden seven-branched Menorah, the Table for the Show Bread, and the Breast-Plate, Crown and Robe for the High Priest.

Fully one-third of all the commandments handed down to the Jews through Moses cannot be kept without a functioning Temple, said the Post.

Many Jews (and a growing number of Christians) believe that just as God is keeping His millennia-old promise to reconstitute the scattered people of Israel in their ancient homeland, He will follow through on His pledge to restore the Temple they have been without since Rome razed it to the ground nearly 2000 years ago.

This divine design will not be thwarted despite the fact that Islamic control extends over the Temple Mount to this day, and while Muslims the world over threaten violence and mayhem if the Jews try to build on the site.

We must bomb Iran - former Israeli intelligence chief

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:57:00 GMT

If Israel does not move with force against Iran, the Jewish state will pay a terrible price down the road.

Israel must not talk about attacking, but must launch its strike as a surprise when it believes it needs to do so.

These are the views of a former head of the Mossad, Israel's CIA, in an interview published Wednesday on World Net Daily.

According to the inline conservative news service, Meir Amit, who although retired is still described as one of the most highly-regarded figures in Israel's intelligence community, has made a 180 degree turn on the issue of whether or not to hit Iran.

A year ago he was apparently more in favor of the assassination of Iranian fanatical leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than of attacking his country.

Mounting evidence that Iran is racing to acquire an "A-bomb for Allah" - and this as Ahmadinejad intensifies his fiery rhetoric threatening Israel's destruction appear to have changed Amit's assessment of what the IDF needs to do.

According to WND, Amit is not overly concerned about Tehran's military response to an Israeli strike on its nuclearization program.

"I am not impressed by Iran's threats. We have to do what we think should be done and obviously plan for consequences. All my life I decided on the spot what to do according to the existing situation," he said.

Both conflicting and corroborating reports circulating in Israel this week indicate that something could happen soon, as both sides have increased their saber-rattling.

An ABC report Tuesday toyed with the idea, and quoted unnamed US officials as saying they feared Israel could hit Iran before the end of this year.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed such a likelihood as slim.

Israel's present circumstances "will not allow it to engage in regional adventurism," Mottaki told NBC News according to The Jerusalem Post.

"Israel is still facing the post-trauma of the attack against Lebanon in 2006. So we don't believe that Israel... is in a position to be able to engage in another attack in the region."

Mottaki ominously warned the international community that it had better pressure Israel into backing away from any attack, because Iran's response would be widespread whether Israel or the US was behind an attack.

"It should be understood that all efforts should be made towards [getting] Israel [to avoid] a militaristic action in the region," he said, threateningly.

Turkey trying to get Israel, Syria into direct talks

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:32:00 GMT

Israel and Syria, two states still technically at war with one another, will soon sit down for direct talks aimed at securing a peace agreement between them, according to Turkish foreign ministry officials cited in Arab-language newspapers Wednesday.

Turkey has been acting as middle-man negotiator between officials from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office and Syrian representatives.

At least three rounds of such indirect talks have reportedly been held in recent months, but the next could be face-to-face, said the London-based Al-Hayat.

A decision on direct talks is expected to be taken after July 13, when Syrian dictator Bashar el-Assad is due to attend a special European Union gathering in Paris, France.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is also scheduled to be at the event, though a planned meeting between the two leaders is currently not anticipated.

The Paris conference will see the EU's launching of the new "Union for the Mediterranean" - an idea that stems out of a proposal made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy during his election campaign.

Sarkozy is believed to see the new initiative - which has been substantially watered down since it was first floated - as a way to promote peace between Israel and the Arab states.

Assad recently called for more European involvement to push Israel into making the concessions the Syrian demands for “peace.”

Syria’s primary demand is for Israel to surrender the Golan Heights, part of Israel’s sovereign territory, which the Syrians used in the past as a platform from which to attack the Jewish state.

Israel, in good faith or folly, opens Gaza crossings

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:31:00 GMT

Gaza's Arabs stopped firing rockets at Jewish targets for 24 hours, and were rewarded Wednesday by an Israeli decision to open the "border" crossings allowing food and material to enter the terrorist enclave.

As a result of the Olmert government's show of goodwill, the Hamas terrorist group that controls Gaza and that "negotiated" what it calls a ceasefire with Israel is expected to grow even more popular.

In securing the "truce" after raining thousands of rockets down on Sderot and other population centers in the Negev, Hamas is perceived by the Palestinian Arabs as having scored yet another victory against the hated "Zionists."

Jerusalem's decision to acquiesce to the ceasefire demand is understood by both rightist and leftist Israelis to be to Hamas' advantage.

The Islamic terrorist group will use the hiatus to strengthen itself and improve its attack capabilities in order to wage an even more successful next round against the Jews.

Four killed in Jerusalem bulldozer terror attack

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:29:00 GMT

At least four people were killed in Jerusalem early Wednesday afternoon when an Arab bulldozer driver turned his massive machine into a weapon of terror, trampling down pedestrians and plowing into cars and two public buses in the capital's downtown area.

An off-duty IDF-soldier reportedly shot and killed the terrorist, but not before he had successfully crushed a car, killing its woman driver, and tipped two buses onto their sides, injuring dozens of people, at least seven of them seriously.

Before the killer was shot dead, eye witnesses reported seeing panicking bystanders fleeing down Jaffa Street - one of Jerusalem's busiest roads - while other bystanders screamed for anyone with a gun to shoot.

A state of emergency was declared in the city following the attack.

Early investigations identified the Arab as an Israeli-identity-document-holding Jerusalem resident. He was a 32-year-old father of two.

It was the second terrorist attack carried out by an Arab Jerusalemite in recent months. Eight Yeshiva students were killed in March by a gun-toting terrorist from a neighborhood in the south of the city.

Deceptive promises

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:12:00 GMT

God hides His face

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:10:00 GMT

Gentile who saved chief rabbi identified

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:50:00 GMT

Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Meir Lau was reportedly deeply moved Friday as he told how the identity had recently been discovered of a man who helped save his life during the Holocaust 63 years ago.

Lau, formerly chief rabbi of Israel, told Israel Radio that while he had known the first name of his, at the time 18-year-old, rescuer, Fyodor, he had not known his family name of Michajlitschenko, a name that was only uncovered during a search of hitherto inaccessible Nazi records.

The rabbi said he had been a small boy in the Buchenwald concentration camp when Michajlitschenko - imprisoned by the Gestapo - looked after him, knowing he was a Jew. The young man had helped protect Lau against the biting cold and had stolen extra potatoes with which to feed him.

Jews call the relative handful of Europeans who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis "righteous gentiles."

Lau said that if Michajlitschenko should choose to visit Israel, he would personally welcome him to Ben Gurion International Airport and "make efforts to ensure he is bestowed the Righteous Among the Nations title."

"I always admired him," Lau said emotionally, according to The Jerusalem Post. "He knew I was Jewish boy [and he] protected me with his body."

'Palestinians' make mileage out of truce

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:49:00 GMT

As they have done since earlier on this week, the Palestinian Arabs continued to play Israel for the fool Friday, on the one hand saying that they supported the truce, and on the other firing missiles from Gaza in the hope of killing Jews and torpedoing it.

Two mortars were fired from Gaza into the Western Negev in the morning, hitting near a kibbutz but causing no injuries or damage.

The Fatah faction of the PLO's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades claimed credit for the attacks. Just hours earlier a senior spokesman for Fatah chairman and Palestinian Authority "President" Mahmoud Abbas said the PA was thankful for the ceasefire and was hoping it would hold.

Friday's firings followed two earlier rocket attacks in breach of the truce. On Thursday a Kassam rocket exploded near a gas station in the battered town of Sderot, and on Tuesday three rockets slammed into the same town, badly damaging a house and sending a number of people into shock.

Hamas Friday purportedly condemned the rocket firing of the day before.

While Israel has yet to respond militarily to the attacks, the Arab side is making a great deal of mileage out of it, proclaiming its "victory" over Israel by getting the IDF to sign a ceasefire in the face of multiple barrages on Israeli territory, instead of sending a ground force into the Strip as it threatened to do.

At the same time, by continuing to hit at Israel while its mighty military machine sits castrated in the sand around Gaza, the "Palestinians" are only strengthened in their conviction that, together with their god, they will ultimately vanquish the Jewish state.

'Don't free terrorist who destroyed my family'

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:47:00 GMT

A majority of ministers in the Olmert government support the release of Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar in exchange for the return of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizb'allah in 2006.

This is according to The Jerusalem Post, which Friday reported that 15 ministers had conveyed their intention to vote for Kuntar's freedom in the cabinet debate that is set for Sunday.

While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had yet to indicate whether or not he will support the exchange, another 10 ministers are thought likely to vote in favor.

Before the vote is taken the Cabinet will reportedly be informed whether the IDF soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, or even still alive.

Kuntar's release is an extremely controversial and painful issue in Israel.

Among those who oppose it are Mossad chief Meir Dagan, and one of Kuntar's victims - Smadar Haran Kaiser.

On June 18 Kaiser, The Washington Post published an opinion article by Kaiser headlined "[The world should know what he did to my family](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2740-2003May17 )."

"It had been a peaceful Sabbath day" when Kuntar unleashed hell on her world, Kaiser wrote, as she recounted what happened:

"My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

"Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. 'This is just like what happened to my mother,' I thought.

"As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

"By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her."

While she had never sought to take revenge for what happened to her family, Kaiser said, she was "determined that Samir Kuntar should never be released from prison."

But the Goldwasser and Regev families want their sons back and they have lobbied their government to let Kuntar go free.

Education Minister Yuli Tamir said Thursday she believed Israel "must make every move to bring them [the soldiers] home."

While the price was "painful and intolerable ... it shouldn't be an obstacle," Minister-without-Portfolio Ruhama Avraham-Balila told the Post.

A senior MK in the opposition Likud Party, Yuval Steinitz, said that were he in the government he would oppose the deal.

"I think this deal is a disaster," he said when contacted by the Post, and it was particularly so because "we have strong evidence that [Goldwasser and Regev] are dead."

It was a mistake to "start any kind of negotiation before you get solid information about the fate [of the captives]."

If Israel "bargained for corpses" terrorists would have no reason to provide information about future captives or to keep them alive.

Israeli leftists: Peace with Syria will wean Damascus from Tehran

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:46:00 GMT

Israelis have the choice: Either they can agree to give Syria the Golan Heights in exchange for promises of peace, or they can face a future surrounded by an Iranian belt in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip.

This logical-sounding argument was put forward Thursday at a conference sponsored by the Tel Aviv "Peres Center for Peace."

It was made by Alon Liel, a former director-general of Israel’' foreign ministry and sold-out champion of the land-for-peace process.

Syria's President Bashar el-Assad is fearful of the growing Iranian influence over his country and wants out, Liel maintained.

It was Assad, rather then Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was pushing for negotiations towards a peace agreement with Israel.

"I believe the reason for this is that Assad is afraid of Iran," said Liel, according to Ynetnews.

"The Syrians know exactly who the Iranians are, just as we do. They also know how dependent they've become in fields like military strength and their economy. I believe they came to the conclusion that they were under a 'friendly takeover' by Iran, and that Iran may yet do to them what they did in Lebanon."

To Israeli and Middle East realists, Liel's proposition, which was laden with "apparentlys," is so much wishful thinking.

His reasoning held that pulling Damascus out of Tehran's orbit would have "a positive effect" on negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs as some of the obstacles in the way of a Palestinian state - "like the issue of the [Arab] refugees for instance" - would be resolved.

"Syria will apparently agree to grant the refugees citizenship," Liel said.

Such an arrangement would ease the minds of the Lebanese, who "fear that the Palestinian refugees will be settled there as well and alter the country's demographics."

Removing this threat will ostensibly starve Hizb'allah of much of its support, thereby radically reducing Iran's influence to Israel's north.

"What's more," Liel continued, "the Syrians will no longer allow [Hamas leader] Khaled Mashaal to remain in Damascus.

Therefore, if "we reach a stage where Syria stops aiding Hamas and Hizb'allah, the balance of power will shift in Fatah's favor and this will help the peace process."

Liel told the Peres Center gathering that Israelis who wish to live with such a "friendly belt" around their state should support an American brokerage of an agreement that would see Syria normalize relations with Israel and agree to end the conflict.

The Peres Center was founded by Israel's current state president Shimon Peres, architect of the disastrous Oslo Accords and the leading light among anti-Jewish Israeli Jews.

Peres' philosophy, as embraced by leftists like Liel, sees Israel's Jews severing themselves from their biblical and Diaspora history and moving ahead into a "new Middle East" as "modern Israelis."

PLO spokesman: We'll make bigger impact than Jesus

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:43:00 GMT

PLO chief and PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas' senior spokesman Thursday asserted presumptuously that the "successful" outcome of the land-for-peace process would make a greater impact on the Middle East than that made by Jesus Christ.

Saeb Erekat was speaking at a conference funded by the ultra-leftist 'Peres Center for Peace' in Tel Aviv.

"If we want a peace agreement – there are only six months left. This is the time to make decisions," Erekat said.

He insisted that there are solutions to the "core issues" of who will get Jerusalem, what will happen to the "Palestinian refugees," and what the final borders of Israel and Palestine will be.

"The Israeli and Palestinian (sic) leaders who reach an agreement will be more important to the region's history than Jesus," Erekat proclaimed.

Abbas’ man, unsurprisingly, also expressed support for the ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza-controlling Hamas terrorists who are exploiting the truce to re-arm in preparation for the next onslaught on Jewish population centers in the south.

"We want the truce in Gaza to hold. It is good to give a chance for peace, and the calm is necessary for us," he said.

Hamas shows what it will do AFTER the ceasefire

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:23:00 GMT

The television clip shows the Israeli tank moving slowly forward and suddenly being attacked by Hamas gunmen.

As it bursts into flame one of the Arabs runs out with an Israeli soldier on his back. Could he be saving a Jewish life?

Of course not. He is kidnapping another IDF member to use as an effective bargaining chip.

The terror group has learned that abducting IDF soldiers really works for them.

And in the week leading up to the start of its ceasefire with Israel, it was acting out for its Gaza Strip TV audience - especially targeting the Arab youth - the way it will carry out another such kidnapping as soon as that truce collapses - as most observers and Israeli officials believe it will.

The video was recorded from Al-Aqsa Television and circulated by the Palestinian Media Watch.

Hamas got a gift from Olmert - Bibi

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:21:00 GMT

Israeli Opposition leader, Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu sounded spitting mad Thursday at the Olmert government's agreeing to a ceasefire with the Gaza-controlling Hamas terrorist organization.

The terrorists got a period of quiet in which to regroup and rearm in readiness for the next round of terrorist attacks, he said. In exchange, Israel "got nothing."

"I would like to know, what did we achieve here exactly? Hamas will not stop rearming – [Hamas politburo chief] Khaled Mashaal said they wouldn't and the defense establishment already said the truce will be fragile.

"We didn't get [kidnapped IDF soldier] Gilad [Schalit] back. We got nothing. The government is allowing Hamas to go about rearming before the next round of terror attacks," said "Bibi," as Netanyahu is popularly known.

Asked by Ynetnews why he thought the government had agreed to the truce, Netanyahu said it was because it lacked leadership.

"The government agreed because it has a policy of weakness. It promotes passiveness and the lack of action characteristic of many of the governments in Israeli history. This is evident of a lack of leadership.

Israel has exercised more forces for lesser things. I don't think this is a matter of different political views – this is a matter of impotence... the prime minister and the defense minister are blaming each other for putting politics first. This is an incompetent government faced with a clear security threat and doing absolutely nothing about it," he said.

Netanyahu stressed that it was precisely because Israel wants "the children of Sderot to sleep peacefully for many years to come" that there is no choice but to act.

"We have to stop being passive and work towards toppling Hamas' rule. Israel cannot afford to have an Iranian enclave, which has no intention of recognizing our right to exist."

"In the next conflict," Netanyahu added, "we will find ourselves facing deadlier weapons and we'll pay a heavier price. We have to have faith in our own military strength and we have to utilize it to bring Hamas down. Anything else is escapism."

PM to Hamas: Be good now or else...

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:21:00 GMT

Sounding more like a scolding parent than a reigning Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert warned the Hamas terrorists Thursday that they had been given their last chance to avoid an IDF invasion of the Gaza Strip.

According to a report on the website of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Olmert told the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia that the "Palestinians" in Gaza are "pxxxed off with Hamas" after years of violence.

"I think the strategy of Hamas, which does not want to recognize Israel's right to exist in the first place, and the extremism, and the fanaticism, and the religious dogmatism, is the enemy of peace," Olmert reportedly told the newspaper.

[He THINKS? - Ed note]

"We are at the end of our tolerance with regard to terror in Gaza," he added.

Fox News reports that Olmert has voiced his hope that Israelis in the south will enjoy a period of quiet after months of daily rocket and mortar barrages, but that he has instructed the IDF to be ready for any operation, short or long, large or small, if Hamas breaks its side of the agreement.

Sounding just as out of touch with reality, White House deputy press secretary Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Washington DC he hoped the truce would have a fairy-tale ending.

"We hope this means no more rockets will be fired by Hamas at innocent Israelis as well as lead to a better atmosphere for talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority."

For that to happen, Johndroe conceded, "Hamas has to choose to become a legitimate political party and give up terrorism."

Gilad's father: Where's my son?

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:51:00 GMT

The father of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Schalit says Israel's government assured him that his son's release and return home would be an integral part of the ceasefire deal with the Hamas terrorist organization that went into effect Thursday morning.

Noam Schalit, who has had to live daily, and go to bed every night for two years with the knowledge that his precious boy is in the hands of one of the most vicious Muslim gangs in the world, is desperately looking for a way to force Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to insist Gilad be freed.

He warned Thursday he is even ready to petition Israel's High Court of Justice to stop the government from agreeing to the truce.

Olmert and his cabinet had pledged to include Galid's release in the terms of the truce, and by moving ahead without ensuring that this will happen increases, Schalit believes, the danger to his son's life.

In a letter drafted by his lawyers and reportedly sent to all the top members of Olmert's government as well as to the attorney-general, the distraught dad stated that the truce "agreement, as it is revealed by the media, puts Gilad's life in greater danger and reduces the chances of his being released, statistically. It also contradicts a whole series of commitments expressly made to [us] by the heads of the state. It is not only flawed and morally outrageous, it is also illegal."

Stung into action, the Prime Minister's Office announced Thursday afternoon it was sending an official to Egypt next week to discuss freeing Gilad.

"Palestinian sources" cited on Ynetnews said there was a chance that a deal could be struck sometime in July.

However, the shaky ceasefire is likely to collapse well before then, slamming the door shut on any such agreement and possibly resulting in Gilad's death.

Before a ceasefire was even being seriously discussed, Hamas was demanding a long list of terrorist prisoners be released from Israeli jails in exchange for the soldier.

The Ynetnews report indicates the Hamas received their truce "free of charge" and will still insist on all those prisoners being let out before it sends Gilad Schalit home.

In the beginning...

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:04:00 GMT

The Bible on Israel

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:03:00 GMT

Syria - It's the Golan we want, not peace

webmaster@jnewswire.com (Ryan Jones) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:02:00 GMT

The terrorist-supporting Damascus regime of Bashar el-Assad Saturday clarified its priorities for being willing to sit down and talk - albeit indirectly - with Israel.

It's not a state of peace and normalization Syria wants, said Syrian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Faisal al-Mikdad. It's the Israeli Golan Heights.

And the Syrians are willing to go to war to grab them.

"[W]e will defend our [sic] land at any time."

In fact, the Golan Heights were part of the Ottoman province of Palestine that was originally set aside for the creation of a Jewish homeland.

Great Britain gave the plateau to the French Mandate of Syria and it was controlled by an independent Syria for just 20 years before the IDF took control of the land in 1967 – in response to Syrian aggression and terrorism.

Despite the fact that Israel has held the heights for more than twice as long as Syria, Damascus insists it is the rightful owner.

The Israelis "should know that the Golan Heights belong to us and that they should not be raising their children in the Golan, since this is not their place. They will not enjoy their lives there," al-Mikdad warned.

“Syria has several courses of action if Israel refuses to return" the heights, he added, ominously.

According to the Syrian, Israel is no longer the feared foe of 1967 and 1973, and Syria is not engaging the Jewish state "from a position of weakness.

"The victory achieved by the Lebanese resistance [Hizb'allah] in July 2006 changed everything in the region," he said.