Dear Family & Friends,

A treasure trove of good info.  4 pieces by Israel Medad, a rare writer, multi-talented.  Jerusalem: Sifting Project rescuing remnants of Jewish history from Muslim destruction on the Temple Mount…And, how the Muslims may destroy their own self-declared holy site by fighting each other for Global Caliphate Dominancy.  Russian arms to Iran & Syria…& much more.

Have a cooler night, a wonderful Modim L’Simcha (middle days of Sukkot) with family. Bring your kids & cameras to ZIKIT ADVENTURE PARK at the foot of Ma’ale Adumim!  Full disclosure:  I love it so much I invested in it!  Check out its Website:  Zikit.net.

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

1.Jewish history’s greatest archaeological crime

2.The Muslim Schism over Jerusalem by Pinhas Inbari

3.WATCH: Rare ‘blood moon’ event illuminates night sky

4.Iran to buy $21 billion in Russian space equipment & aircraft

5. Russian Arms: To Syria Today, Tomorrow to a “Demilitarized Palestine” by Mark Langfan

6. Radical Left’s anti-Settler Litmus Test for Diplomats  by Prof. Steven Plaut

7.The Doomsday of Israel’s Left—and HaShem By Tuvia Brodie

8.Noting US Official Discrimination By Yisrael Medad

11.Zweig, Maimonides & Cohen’s Borborygmi  by Yisrael Medad

1.Jewish history’s greatest archaeological crime By Daniel K. Eisenbud   9/27/15  JPost.com

Antiquities Authority attempts to solve mystery of Tomb of the Maccabees

Rare 3,000-year-old King David era seal discovered by Temple Mount Sifting Project

The Temple Mount Sifting Project, now in its 10th year, has uncovered hundreds of thousands of invaluable antiquities from tons of ancient debris discarded like trash from Judaism’s holiest site.

Barkay looks over priceless pieces of debris believed to date back to the First Temple period.          (photo credit:MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)

            In 1999, thousands of years’ worth of fragile and irreplaceable Jewish archaeological antiquities were surreptitiously and violently dug up by Arab bulldozers at Judaism’s holiest site, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, to build an entrance to a subterranean mosque.
The resulting thousands of tons of invaluable debris – believed to contain over 1 million artifacts dating back to the First Temple period – were then carted off in dump trunks and discarded like garbage to a nearby landfill in Jerusalem’s Kidron Valley.
According to internationally recognized archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, PhD, who is the co-director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, located near Mount Scopus, the removal represents perhaps the greatest archaeological crime in history.
“Approximately 400 truckloads saturated with the history of Jerusalem were illicitly removed – barbarically removed – from the Temple Mount by the Islamic Wakf in November 1999 to promote a political agenda,” says Barkay at the sifting projects headquarters earlier this month.
The professor emeritus from the Hebrew University and recipient of the 1996 Jerusalem Prize for Archaeological Research says the debris was taken from the southeastern section of the contested holy site without the knowledge of authorities, including the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
“All of that was dug up with bulldozers in a place where even a toothbrush is too large a tool to carry out excavations,” he says.
“The Temple Mount is the most delicate and the most important archaeological site in this country, and it was never ever excavated because of politics.”
            As a result, Barkay says, the historic plateau where the First and Second Temples once stood has become a “black hole in the history of Jerusalem.”
            “Jerusalem may be the most excavated place on earth, but the most important place in Jerusalem is totally unknown,” he says. “It’s terra incognita; a piece of unknown land.”
            Although Israel technically regained sovereignty over the Temple Mount after reunifying Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War, the government’s concession to allow the Jordanian government to oversee the coveted holy site has resulted in what Barclay terms a “catastrophe.”
            “This is part of a cultural war that has been launched against every civilization that is non- Muslim… that continues now in Iraq and Syria with ISIS,” he says.
Although the IAA is supposed to have oversight of all excavations in Israel, Barkay laments that the Temple Mount – which is home to Al-Aksa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site – is considered “extraterritorial.”
“Though the Temple Mount is part of the capital, it is the only place in the State of Israel in which the authorities are not working normally,” he explains. “The antiquities authority does not have full jurisdiction on the Temple Mount, and therefore cannot fulfill its legal task.”
Consequently, illegal Arab construction is routinely carried out there without any coordination with the IAA, Israeli government, or Jerusalem Municipality, resulting in grievous and irreversible damage to the compound’s bounty of unrivaled buried artifacts.
Asked the degree of loss to Jewish history due to the ongoing destruction, Barkay estimates that it is incalculable.
“The Temple Mount is the place that is the soul, heart and spirit of the Jewish people,” he reflects. “It is the only holy place for Jews – all synagogues around the world are directed toward the Temple Mount. This is the place where creation began…. and the rest of the world was created around it, according to Jewish tradition.”
            Barkay points out that Arab denial of Jewish history at Judaism’s holiest site has only exacerbated the Temple Mount’s already contentious geopolitical underpinnings.
IN 2004, Barkay and co-director Zachi Dvira created the Temple Mount Sifting Project – under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University – in an effort to reclaim, analyze and document the discarded history.
The two archaeologists procured a government license to have the debris transferred to Emek Tzurim National Park, located on the western slopes of Mount Scopus, where the project is headquartered.
“Part of it got lost,” Barkay says of the enormous transfer, which required hundreds of truckloads. “Part of it got mixed up with modern urban garbage, and some of the material is lost forever.”
The sifting, Barkay discloses, is operated with aid from the NGO Ir David (City of David) Foundation and cooperation from the Israel National Parks Authority, while research and publication of the findings is funded by private donors through the Israel Archaeology Foundation.
“Using the wet-sifting technique, most of the finds can be identified and dated by matching them to parallel finds found in a clear context elsewhere,” he says. Unique methodological techniques have been developed in the Temple Mount Sifting Project, “which is somewhere between a survey and an excavation,” in order to study the finds.
A full-time staff of 20 – aided by thousands of volunteers who have come from around the country, and the globe, over the last 10 years to spend a day, or a few hours to help sift through the massive collection using dozens of hoses connected to sinks – uses advanced quantitative analytical techniques to reveal the unique patterns of the findings.
Barkay relates that many of the tens of thousands of buckets of earth that have been sifted contain fragments of pottery, glass vessels, metal objects, bones and mosaic tesserae stones, dating primarily from the First Temple period (10th century BCE ) to the present day.
Findings have also included stone vessels, approximately 5,000 ancient coins, various pieces of jewelry, a rich assortment of beads, terracotta figurines, and even clothing, he recounts. The antiquities are sorted and studied at the project’s archaeological laboratory downtown, where the processing and analysis of findings are completed and compiled in a large computer database.
“We have a representation of 15,000 years of history here,” he says. “From prehistoric flint implements, up to finds of the modern time.”
            However, only slightly more than 50 percent of the reclaimed earth has been sifted, and a massive shortfall in the project’s funding now seriously endangers the possibility of continuing the work. In an effort to ensure that the project continues, Barkay and Dvira launched a crowdfunding campaign earlier this month.
“We depend on private donations, so we initiated this crowdfunding campaign, which can be found on our website half-shekel.org.” He adds that the sifting project needs more than $1 million to continue operations.
Moreover, Barkay says the project’s survival is in a race against time.
“As the research has advanced, the time necessary, and the number of tasks to be completed, have significantly increased,” he said. “I am in my 70s now and we have another 15 years to go here.”
            In the meantime, despite a growing Arab campaign to rewrite Jewish history at the contested holy site, Barkay notes the sifting project has been instrumental in irrefutably proving the inexorable link between Jews and the Temple Mount.
            “Even now we have new information that may well change the written history of some of the periods of the Temple Mount,” he says.
            “The sifting project has proven itself to be an inexhaustible source of knowledge for the research and study of the archaeology and history of the Temple Mount, and the project is continuing full steam with many more finds waiting to be discovered by professionals and visitors who come to work at the site.”
            Indeed, Barkay says the tens of thousands of volunteers have become as invaluable to the project as the historic relics they sift through.
“There is nothing more touching than to look at the excitement of the face of somebody when he or she touches the soul — the sacred soil — of Jerusalem and of the Temple Mount,” he says. “And to look at the face of a child who finds an object which is 2,000 years old… to see the spiritual uplifting, and to see the shining face of that person, is something which is not possible to experience anywhere else but here.”
And that, he says, “is the most important thing for me here.”

Institute for Contemporary Affairs  Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation  Vol. 15,  No. 30   Amid the systematic destruction of mosques and holy places in the Arab world, it is precisely Israel’s responsibility for security at the mosque compound on the Temple Mount that protects the mosques there from a similar fate.

§  The Sunni controversy between the Salafis – from whom Al-Qaeda emerged – and the Muslim Brotherhood is about what constitutes the center of Islam. Whereas the Salafis view the Arabian sites of Hijaz and Mecca as the center of the faith, the Muslim Brotherhood locates it at the ancient Cairo Al-Azhar University.

§  Because Cairo has no special religious holiness, the Brotherhood regards Jerusalem as their religious center. From the Salafis’ standpoint, the Muslim Brotherhood’s enhancement of the special status of Jerusalem poses a danger to the status of Mecca. Jerusalem was at the bottom of agenda for the Prophet and his successors, and Mecca was at the top.

§  The Palestinian Authority is the weakest force in the Al-Aqsa plaza. In visiting the site recently, the PA minister of religious affairs was almost lynched.

  “The people want an Islamic Caliphate,” “Yes to the Caliphate,” “No to democracy” are the signs at this 2011 rally at the Dome of the Rock. View video. (YouTube)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEHUm62KuPo

            The notion of a “conflict over Jerusalem” immediately brings an association with the Arab-Israeli conflict over the Holy City. Surprisingly, however, amid the systematic destruction of mosques and holy places in the Arab world, it is precisely Israel’s responsibility for security at the mosque compound on the Temple Mount that protects the mosques there from a similar fate.

            To understand the nature of the danger to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one needs to understand the disputes within the world of Islam over the mosque and over the importance of Jerusalem in general.

            Islam is divided into the Shia and the Sunna, but the Sunna is also divided into two main groups: the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. There are other groups as well, such as the Sufis, but that does not concern us in this discussion.

Shia vs. Sunna; Salafis vs. Muslim Brotherhood

            The controversy between the Salafis – from whom Al-Qaeda emerged and who are also known as Wahhabis – and the Muslim Brotherhood is about, among other things, what constitutes the center of Islam. Whereas the Salafis view the Arabian sites of Hijaz and Mecca as the center of the faith, the Muslim Brotherhood locates it at the Cairo Al-Azhar University, founded in the year 970 as a center for Islamic studies from which rulings and edicts on Islam and Islamic culture emerge. But because Cairo has no special religious holiness, the Brotherhood regards Jerusalem as their religious center.

            Thus, from the Salafis’ standpoint, the Muslim Brotherhood’s enhancement of the special status of Jerusalem poses a danger to the status of Mecca.

            The conflict is not only theoretical and theological but concerns positions of power. In Syria, for example, the Salafi Islamic State is engaged in an outright war with the Nusra Front of the Muslim Brotherhood.

            [Editor’s note: The author exposes Al Nusra’s affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Until now, reports suggested Al Nusra was an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.]

            The theological debate, of course, is undergirded by the political-military struggle between the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. One source of the theological disagreements between the two sides is the attitude toward holy places. Whereas the Salafis frown upon the cult of holy places other than Mecca and Medina and destroy such sites systematically – and not only antiquities and shrines of Christianity but Muslim shrines as well – the Muslim Brotherhood accepts the icons of holy places.

  Destruction of a mosque in Mosul by ISIS (Iraqi News)

            This religious controversy also involves Jerusalem. “Liberating Al-Aqsa” or “Al-Aqsa is in danger” are main motifs of the Muslim Brotherhood’s preaching throughout the region. Salafis, however, downplay the issue of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa to the point of omitting it altogether. And whereas the Muslim Brotherhood focuses on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, the Salafis focus on a more immediate goal: “conquering Rome” – that is, the Christian world.

Salafis Downgrade Jerusalem

            Although the Salafis do not state explicitly that they reject the status of Jerusalem in Islam, it can be inferred from where they place their emphases. For example, it appears that there is a Salafi cleric in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, and he has a website called The Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. At the site, however, the reference to Al-Aqsa is geographic – the marking of a place. There is no reference to its holiness, only to various religious matters with no discussion of Jerusalem or Al-Aqsa at all.¹

            On one of the Facebook pages that reveal Salafi followers’ attitudes,² a follower called Abdullah wrote: “One must ask why the Prophet first conquered Mecca and [many other places] before he turned to Jerusalem? Why didn’t the first caliph, Abu Bakr, conquer it? And why did Omar conquer it only after many other conquests? And also, why did Saladin conquer it only after he had defeated the Fatimids in Egypt and spread the Sunni school in Egypt and at Al-Azhar?”

            For him, Jerusalem was at the bottom of agenda for the Prophet and his successors, and Mecca was at the top.

            Against this backdrop, the proclamation that the Islamic State disseminated in Jerusalem during the most recent Ramadan should come as no surprise: it did not refer to Al-Aqsa or Jerusalem, but only warned Christians to leave the Muslims’ neighborhoods.³

            A surprising assertion from the Sunni direction came from Cairo. In answering the question of a Salafi teacher from Saudi Arabia, Adnan Rajahi, about the status of Jerusalem in Islam, a religious scholar named Mustafa Rashad stated⁴ that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was originally called the Ayliya Mosque. Only at the time of the Umayyad Caliph Marwan Bin al-Hakam, he explained, was its name changed to Al-Aqsa and attributed to a Koran verse about the Prophet Muhammad’s ascent into the heavens – and this for purely political reasons of redirecting the pilgrimage from Mecca to Jerusalem, since Mecca was then ruled by the Damascus-based enemies of the Umayyads. A real Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Egyptian scholar told the Salafi questioner from Saudi Arabia, exists in Saudi Arabia.

            The Salafis and Al-Qaeda, then, are likely to see the Muslim Brotherhood’s great emphasis on the Al-Aqsa issue as a danger and to use it as one of the pretexts for destroying mosques in Iraq and Syria.

Assad: Change Prayer Direction to Jerusalem?

            A direct danger to the status and wellbeing of Mecca comes from a surprising direction – that of the Assad regime in Damascus. The danger involves bolstering Jerusalem’s status in Islam as the kibla – the new-old direction of Muslim prayer. In one of the emails exposed and published in The Guardian,⁵ an adviser to President Assad, Hadil el-Ali, suggested that in one of his major speeches Assad should express support for the Palestinians and propose changing the direction of prayer to Jerusalem. Although ultimately that was not included in the speech, it indicates the mood in Damascus at the time. Instead of calling to change the direction of prayer to Jerusalem, Assad convened a large Sunni conference in Damascus under the watchword “Saving Al-Aqsa.”⁶

            Fayaz Shuker, an Assad supporter and leader of the Lebanese Baath Party, went so far as to threaten the destruction of the Kaaba holy site in Saudi Arabia, saying it was nothing but “[a heap of] stones.”⁷

            One of the Palestinian Authority’s difficult problems with Saudi Arabia is the PA’s support for Assad’s regime.⁸

            A senior Palestinian official in Ramallah confirmed to this author⁹ that one of the main reasons the Palestinian Authority so demonstratively organizes pilgrimage processions to Mecca is to signal to the Saudis that the PA’s relations with Assad do not come at the expense of Mecca’s status compared to Jerusalem’s, despite the importance of Jerusalem in the Palestinian context.

Palestinians, Jordan, Caliphate Supporters All Want a Piece

            One reason for the Muslim Brotherhood’s pronounced emphasis on the Al-Aqsa issue is political. They want to unify all the Arab revolutions in all the separate Arab countries into one great revolution under the flag of saving Al-Aqsa that they brandish. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, for their part, regard this as a political danger and hence do not support the Palestinians’ struggle to entrench their status in Jerusalem; they see the emphasis on Jerusalem as working against them. The Palestinians’ complaint that the Arab League (under the influence of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states) is not implementing an old decision of an Arab summit in Sirte, Libya, to allocate half a billion dollars to Jerusalem has become an ongoing Palestinian grievance.¹⁰

Jordanian minister being rescued from a mob on the Temple Mount (Arab media)

Caption: View attempted attack on the Jordanian Minister of Waqf, Sheikh Dr. Dahood Hulayyel and the Chief Justice of Jordan, Sheikh Ahmed Halil, during their visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque, particularly after the 7:20 point. (YouTube)¹⁴

            In seeking to maintain its status in Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority came up with the idea of “religious tourism” to the city. The aim is to flood it with Muslim tourists, who would strengthen its Muslim character and thereby counteract the “Judaization” trend in the city.

            The Muslim Brotherhood harshly condemned this initiative, calling it “normalization.” In their view, an inundation of tourists in the city sharply contradicts the slogans about battle and warfare to liberate Al-Aqsa, with which they hope to unite the whole world of Islam under their flag.¹¹

            In actuality, the Palestinian Authority is the weakest force in the Al-Aqsa plaza. In visiting the site recently, the PA minister of religious affairs was almost lynched.

            The Palestinian Authority’s ambition to declare east Jerusalem the capital of Palestine represents a minority position. Other forces, which are stronger than the PA, reject this political designation for Jerusalem and instead see Al-Aqsa as the place where the worldwide Islamic caliphate will be proclaimed in the future.

            The dominant force in the mosque compound is Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Islamic Liberation Party). Deployed worldwide, Hizb ut-Tahrir has adopted the exclusive goal of promoting the idea of the Islamic caliphate and does not hide its intention to proclaim the caliphate from Al-Aqsa. Thus, the movement clashes with the PLO on the one hand, as in the ousting of the senior Palestinian official, and with Hamas on the other, but first and foremost with Jordan.

            For Jordan, maintaining its designation as “Guardian of the Holy Places” in Jerusalem is a matter of the highest strategic importance, since this role embodies the prestige of the Hashemite dynasty. Jordan believes it will retain this role after an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is concluded.¹²

Thus, when the “state of Palestine” was accepted by UNESCO, Jordan compelled the PLO to sign an agreement that leaves the representation of Jerusalem in Jordan’s hands, without transferring it to the “state of Palestine.”¹³

            In May this year, Hizb ut-Tahrir humiliatingly expelled two senior religious figures who had come from Jordan to lead the prayers at Al-Aqsa.¹⁵ This sparked a crisis between the Palestinian Authority and Jordan;¹⁶ the reason, according to a senior Jordanian official, was that Jordan identified PA-affiliated Fatah members among the expellers.¹⁷

Notes

1 http://www.alaqsasalafi.com

2 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=576988422352022&set=a.547912281926303.1073741827.547905065260358&type=1. The link no longer works but the quoted statements were at the site.

3 http://www.amad.ps/ar/?Action=Details&ID=79112

4 http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=319658

5 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/14/bashar-al-assad-syria15

6 http://www.maannews.net/Content.aspx?id=475541

7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UY2ZHt5k0vk

8 Abbas’s congratulations on Assad’s election.

9 In a personal conversation.

10 As heard recently on Radio Palestine, August 26, 2015.

11 http://www.thetower.org/1463-muslim-clerics-visit-to-jerusalem-exposes-rift-between-qatar-moderate-arab-states. Qatar stood behind the foiling of the Palestinian Authority’s initiative, while Egypt and the religious leadership that supports the regime backed it.

12 http://www.almustaqbal-a.com/index.php/shaker/14134.html

13 http://kingabdullah.jo/index.php/ar_JO/news/view/id/10778/videoDisplay/1.html

14 http://www.albawaba.com/loop/watch-moment-jordanian-imam-gets-kicked-out-aqsa%E2%80%A6-palestinians-699102

15 http://www.amad.ps/ar/?Action=Details&ID=74528

16 http://arabi21.com/story/854407/????-??????-????-??????-???-?????-??????-??????????

17 Personal conversation with a senior Jordanian official.

Pinhas Inbari is a veteran Arab affairs correspondent who formerly reported for Israel Radio and Al Hamishmar newspaper, and currently serves as an analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

– See more at: http://jcpa.org/article/the-muslim-schism-over-erusalem/#sthash.CCGNM64y.dpuf

First total eclipse, combined with unusually large moon, since 1982; won’t recur for 18 years

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF  & AP 9/28/15, 2:04 am Updated: 9/28/15 8:40am View of a total lunar eclipse combined with a so-called supermoon in Tel Aviv, Israel, on September 28, 2015. (Miriam Alster/ Flash90)

The 2015 blood moon is seen on September 27, 2015 in Burbank California. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images/AFP)

·         A swollen “supermoon” is seen during the stages of a total eclipse in Trébons sur la Grasse, southern France, early on September 28, 2015 (AFP PHOTO/REMY GABALDA)

·        View of the moon during a full eclipse in Buenos Aires on September 27, 2015 (AFP PHOTO / JUAN MABROMATA)

·        A flock of birds fly by as a perigee moon, also known as a super moon, rises in Mir, Belarus, 95 kilometers (60 miles) west of capital Minsk, Belarus, late Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015. The full moon was seen prior to a phenomenon called a “Super Moon” eclipse that will occur on Monday, Sept. 28. (AP/Sergei Grits)

·       A super moon rises over the Lower Fox Creek School near Strong City, Kan., Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015. It was the first time Sunday since 1982 that a total lunar eclipse was combined with a supermoon. (Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle via AP)

·       A full moon rises between clouds in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015. (AP/Gero Breloer)

         Stargazers across the world watched a rare total lunar eclipse combined with a so-called supermoon Sunday night.

            In Israel the rare coupling was visible starting at 3:10 a.m. (0110 GMT) and reached its peak at 5:47 a.m.  It was the first time the events have made a twin appearance since 1982, and they won’t again until 2033.

            When a full moon makes its closest approach to Earth, it appears bigger and brighter than usual and is known as a supermoon. That will coincide with a full lunar eclipse where the moon, Earth and sun will be lined up, with Earth’s shadow totally obscuring the moon.

Watch a live stream of the eclipse as it progresses here:

Blood moons are full lunar eclipses in which the sun’s rays entering through the earth’s atmosphere make for a red, or blood-like, appearance.

When a full or new moon makes its closest approach to Earth, that’s a supermoon. Although still about 220,000 miles (354,000 kilometers) away, this full moon looks bigger and brighter than usual. In fact, it will be the closest full moon of the year, about 30,000 miles (48,000 kilometers) closer than the average distance. (The moon’s orbit is far from a perfect circle.)

 A swollen “supermoon” is seen during the stages of a total eclipse in Trébons sur la Grasse, southern France, early on September 28, 2015 (AFP PHOTO/REMY GABALDA)

This eclipse marks the end of a tetrad, or series of four total lunar eclipses set six months apart. This series began in April 2014.

The 21st century will see eight of these tetrads, an uncommonly good run. From 1600 to 1900, there were none.

Observatories marked the celestial event with public telescope viewing, although magnifying devices weren’t necessary; the eclipse was easily visible with the naked eye. Astronomers urged stargazers to simply look to the east.

NASA planetary scientist Noah Petro is hoping the celestial event will ignite more interest in the moon. He is deputy project scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, which has been studying the moon from lunar orbit since 2009. “The moon’s a dynamic place,” Petro said. “We’re seeing changes on the surface of the moon from LRO. We’re seeing that it’s not this static dead body in the sky … it’s this great astronomical object that we have in our backyard, essentially. So people should get out and start looking at it.”

            The rare confluence of a lunar eclipse and a super moon had prompted talk in some Christian circles of an impending apocalypse, but NASA reassured those who may be worried that no large object is likely to strike the Earth in the next few hundred years.

Deal, which was signed last month at MAKS-2015 air show in Russia, involves satellite-related equipment and the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional passenger aircraft • Russia and Iran have been seeking to boost economic ties in wake of nuclear deal.

Reuters & Israel Hayom Staff

      Iran has signed contracts worth $21 billion to buy satellite equipment and aircraft from Russia, Manouchehr Manteghi, the managing director of Iran Aviation Industries Organization, said in an interview with Russian news agency Sputnik on Saturday.

     Manteghi said the contracts had been signed at the MAKS-2015 air show in Russia last month.

     The contracts involved satellite-related equipment as well as the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional passenger aircraft, Sputnik said.

     Russia and Iran have been working to boost economic ties since Iran signed a deal with six world powers in July, which offers Iran relief from sanctions in exchange for curbing its nuclear program.

5.OpEd: Russian Arms: to Syria Today, Tomorrow to a “Demilitarized Palestine”  by Mark Langfan  This article’s doomsday scenario is only a few hours away from the creation of a Palestinian State. Arutz Sheva  IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Sunday, September 27, 2015 6:40 AM

 Mark Langfan, who specializes in security issues, has created an original 3d Topographic Map System of Israel to facilitate clear understanding of the dangers facing Israel and its water supply. It has been studied by US lawmakers and can be seen at www.marklangfan.com.

In the time it would take an Israeli tourist to finish an Israeli breakfast, Russia deployed close to a thousand Russian special operations soldiers to Syria.  No UN resolution. No discussion.  No nothing.  “President” Assad, the genocidal mass-murderer of hundreds of thousands of Sunnis, merely “invited” the Russians to come, and they came.

The Russians  came with mobile anti-aircraft missile batteries, various Russian special forces and nuclear submarines armed with enough nuclear bombs on the one submarine to incinerate the practically the entire world. If ever a terrorist Palestinian state is formed in the “West Bank”, any Palestinian terrorist president can, and will, just as easily invite the Russians into their new country within a day.  Before Israel, or anyone will know it, Russians and their anti-aircraft missile batteries will line the Green Line. The moment that happens, start saying Kaddish for Israel.
            What exactly are Israel and Netanyahu going to do the afternoon of the morning during which Russia slips a thousand Speznetz paratroops into the newly formed “West Bank Palestine”?
            Far-fetched? Well, despite the accelerating proliferation of Jihadi groups faster than you can say “Allahu Akbar,” and Obama’s cash infusion of $150 billion dollars into the Iran leading-state-sponsor-of-terror, Prime Minister Netanyahu is still talking about a “Palestinian State”. With European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Netanyahu stressed his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu declared: “I support the vision of two states for two peoples – a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state,” he declared. (Whisky tango foxtrot?-ML)
Up to now, Abbas and Israel’s Frankenstein-like creation of the Palestinian Authority have violated every diplomatic “limitation” that the Palestinians “agreed to” in the Oslo Accords, or should I say Discords.    They declared a state, raised the flag at the UN, filed with the ICC, unceasingly foment terror and violence – you name it, the PA has violated it.  Israel throws a “we’re stopping the money” tantrum only to transfer the money they withheld a couple of months later. 

What exactly are Israel and Netanyahu going to do the afternoon of the morning during which Russia slips a thousand Speznetz paratroops into the newly formed “West Bank Palestine”, and they deploy as a fait accompli tripwire force along the Green Line and in East Jerusalem? They won’t be able to do a thing.
Why will Russia want to deploy to “Palestine”?  For starters, the Russians were crazy enough to want to deploy in Syria, where they risk the hatred of the entire Sunni Arab world and the loss of their troops to the Jihadi crazies. 

In “Palestine”, they will be seen as heroes to the entire Sunni Arab world, and don’t have to fear Israel will harm a single hair on the head of a single Russian soldier.  If the Russians deployed to Syria where all logic defied a deployment, they surely will deploy to “Palestine”.  Secondly, this way they insure an alliance with all the Sunni Arab countries even if the Russians are still friendly with Iran.  Finally, the Russians will have created the beginnings of a firewall protecting Cyprus where they will own “Palestine” and control what remains if – as they hope – Israel is destroyed.
Abbas and the “West Bank Palestine” will want them to deploy to protect Abbas and his cronies from Hamas and all the other Jihadis who would otherwise wipe Abbas out of existence the moment Israel leaves the area.  Abbas will be the protected baby of the nuclear-power UN-Veto-powered Russia.  Abbas will have concluded the coup of history: Israel commits virtual suicide, America pays for it and loses all strategic value of Israel its military strategic fulcrum, and Russia looks like a hero to the Muslim world.
Maybe Israelis should start checking their non-Israeli passports.  For, when the Russian-protected “Palestine” starts lobbing Katyusha rockets into Tel Aviv and mortars into West Jerusalem, what is Israel going to do with thousands of Russian special forces lined along the Green Line and several nuclear submarines parked in the eastern Mediterranean? It will be game over for Israel.
Netanyahu’s delusional notions of a “demilitarized Palestinian State” are a greater immediate threat to Israel’s existence than the Obama-Iranian nuke deal.  Until Israel publicly rids itself of the suicidal notion of a “demilitarized Palestinian state”, the greatest dangers to Israel are its own politicians.

Russian Arms: to Syria Today, Tomorrow to a “Demilitarized Palestine”

6.Op-Ed: The Radical Left’s anti-Settler Litmus Test for Diplomats  by Prof. Steven Plaut  The radical left in Israel can’t get more than 4% of the votes in the voting booth, so they have found a novel (undemocratic) way to try to force Israel to do as they wish. Arutz Sheva  IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Saturday, September 26, 2015 8:35 PM

 Prof. Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa and is author of “The Scout” (available from Gefen Publishing House). More of his writings can be seen on the New Plaut Blog, as well as in numerous electronic and print newspapers.…

                  The latest tactic of Israel’s anti-democratic Fascist Left is a campaign to pressure foreign governments to refuse to accept Israeli diplomats posted to serve there if the diplomat holds opinions contrary to those of the Radical Left.

The Radical Left represents – at most – 4% of Israelis.

The current brouhaha involves Dani Dayan, who used to be head of the Council of Judea and Samaria (“West Bank”)  and is a “settler” who lives on the “wrong” side of the pre-1967 Green Line border. The Brazil government muttered a bit at the idea of a “settler” being appointed as Israeli Ambassador to the country, but the personal opinions of diplomats, whose mandate is to follow government policy, are generally not an issue in approving such appointments.

Things escalated when several Israeli radical leftist ex-members of the diplomatic corps, led by Alon Liel, who teaches at Tel Aviv University and whose wife just happens to be the head of the BDS-supporting New Israel Fund in Israel, interfered and issued their own call to Brazil to refuse to approve the appointment.

            Liel is an anti-Zionist who is a leading figure in the BDS terrorism movement that calls for a world boycott of Israel. A petition of ultra-leftists is now circulating in Israel to support the campaign for Brazil to BDS Dayan.

Liel’s sidekick Amiram Goldblum, a founder of Peace Now, who together with Liel fabricated the now-infamous “apartheid” pseudo-survey, appeared on a Channel OneTV newscast to defend those calling on Brazil to reject Dayan. The Channel One MC, not known for rightist views,  then referred to such people as “shtinkers,” Hebrew slang for informers or rats. Goldblum and Liel had earlier initiated petitions to EU governments to unilaterally recognize “Palestine.”

            The Channel One MC blasted Goldblum and his friends, claiming that since they are evidently incapable of persuading the Israeli public of the correctness of their positions, as the election results proved, they were using illegitimate tactics to coerce Israel into accepting the radical left’s agenda, using foreign pressures and extortion.

            Zionist Union MK’s in Israel are denouncing the ultra-leftists involved in the campaign to get Brazil to reject Dayan and other Israelis are calling them traitors.

            These radical leftists are the same people who foam at the mouth whenever anyone suggests that Supreme Court appointees be people who oppose judicial activism and who therefore support the rule of law.

            In general, the Far Left in Israel has never had any respect for the rule of law and democracy.  Since it cannot convince more than 4% of Israelis of the correctness of its agenda, it resorts to underhanded anti-democratic tactics involving recruitment of pressures from foreign entities to coerce Israel.

            The Far Left opposes Israeli sovereignty and supports efforts to undermine that sovereignty.

Imagine how the Far left would react if someone were to suggest a campaign against all civil servant and judicial appointments of anyone who is NOT in favor of expanding settlements! Is their fascist campaign to have an anti-settler litmus test for diplomatic appointees any less objectionable?

7.The Doomsday of Israel’s Left—and HaShem By Tuvia Brodie      Arutz Sheva  IsraelNationalNews.com  9/27/2015, 3:09 PM

 Tuvia Brodie has a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh under the name Philip Brodie. He has worked for the University of Pittsburgh, Chatham College and American Express. He and his wife made aliyah in 2010. All of his children have followed. He believes in Israel’s right to exist. He believes that the words of Tanach (the Jewish Bible) are meant for us. His blog address ishttp://tuviainil.blogspot.com   He usually publishes 6-10 times a week on his blog. Please check the blog regularly for new posts. …

            Want to see an optimistic pessimist? Look at Israeli Leftists—and those who support a Leftist political vision for Israel. They believe with great optimism that Israel is doomed.

They believe with great faith in two things. First, HaShem plays no role whatsoever in what happens in Israel; and, second, Israel is doomed if it doesn’t endorse a ‘two state solution’.

These optimists see Israel through a pessimistic prism. They look at numbers and facts—and draw conclusions which, in the long run, prove false.
These anti-Israel Israeli Leftists remind one of what the motivational writer Zig Ziglar is reported to have said about the bumblebee: an engineer can prove to you that a bumblebee cannot fly. Its wings are too short and its body too big. But the bumblebee still flies.

Leftists—and, again, those who support a Leftist vision of Israel—are like the engineers who would deny the bumblebee’s ability to fly. They say Israel is too small to support a Jewish state. Israel has too many Arabs. Israel has too few Jews. Israel is doomed in the future unless it capitulates today.      Leftists conclude that if Israel doesn’t agree to create a new state of ‘Palestine’ out of the Jewish Judea-Samaria, Israel will never remain a democratic, Jewish state (Sergio Della Pergola, as quoted by Ariel Zellman, “The Democratic Challenge”, insp, 2013). Arab birth rates are so much higher than Jewish rates, they argue, Israel is destined to lose its Jewish majority (ibid). Arabs will so outnumber Jews, they’ll simply use the ballot box to take over Israel.

The Left (and its friends) cite World Bank data (ibid) to prove their point. They cite the propagandistic ‘Palestinian Bureau of Statistics’ (“Palestinians Will Outnumber Jews In Israel By 2020? (NOT)”, israelstreet. org, January 3, 2013). They cite their own Leftist friends (“Palestinians Now Outnumber Jews in Israel/Palestine”, liveleaknews, October 17, 2012).

Poor Israel. If it doesn’t immediately surrender holy Jewish ancestral homeland to those who seek to destroy it, it will destroy itself tomorrow.

This has been a prime Leftist argument for Israel to commit national suicide. Don’t wait to be destroyed by your enemies; take your future into your own hands: destroy yourself now by volunteering to shrink your borders to indefensible borders!

Since few outside the Left accept this Arabs-will-outbirth-you argument, Israel’s Left is trying a new doomsday argument. According to Leftist Alon Tal, it’s not the Arab birth-rate that’ll kill Israel, it’s the combination of both the Arab and the Jewish birth rates that’ll destroy Israel (“Israel’s soaring population: Promised Land running out of room?”, Jerusalem Post, September 26, 2015).

The new anti-Israel mantra is no longer ‘birth rate’. It’s ‘population density’.

The argument works like this: today, Israel has a population density of 352 people per square kilometre (ibid). By 2059, that density will increase to (as much as) 880 per square kilometre.

Leftists want you to be frightened. Israel is a small country. This increase in density, they claim, threatens Israel. Israel can’t sustain such a population density (ibid). Israel is “on the road to an ecological, social and quality of life disaster” (ibid).

The Left is frightened by this ‘discovery’. But according to the World Bank’s own numbers (in a survey different from that cited by Israel’s Left), a density of 880 people per square kilometre doesn’t come close to meeting the ‘life-threatening-disaster’ criteria cited by Israel’s Left.

You see, Israel’s future density projection pales beside some current density numbers for countries that also have limited space. But few have written the kind of eulogies for those countries Israel’s Left would write for Israel.

For example, as of 2014, Bahrain has a population density of 1,792 per square kilometre, more than twice that of Israel’s future projection. Bangladesh has a density of 1,222 per sq kilometre. Bermuda has a density of 1,304 per… Hong Kong has a density number of 6,897 per square kilometre, almost eight times greater than the Left’s future projection for Israel.

Then there’s Macao. Its density number is 19, 328 per square kilometre, almost 22 times that of the Left’s Doomsday estimate for Israel.  

Macao is still ‘alive’.

Maldives’ density is 1,191. Malta is 1,136. Monaco is 18,812 (not a misprint).  Singapore has a density of 7,814 per square kilometre (all these density numbers come from data. worldbank. org).

Israel’s Left isn’t dismayed by such numbers. They’re optimistic. Once Israel’s density reaches 880 per square kilometre, it’ll be doomed.

Actually, they’re right. Israel is doomed—if you don’t believe in HaShem. Israel’s like that bumblebee. It can’t survive. It’s too this; and, worse, it’s too that—just like the bumblebee.

Perhaps that’s why HaShem created the bumblebee—to teach us that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

It’s too bad Israel’s Left rejects HaShem. If it believed in HaShem, it would know why Israel exists, survives and thrives: this is the land of HaShem; this is the Land of miracles.

It’s the land HaShem Himself gave to us. It’s ours, forever.

8.Noting US Official Discrimination By Yisrael Medad                Arutz Sheva  IsraelNationalNews.com 9/25/2015, 3:09 PM

Yisrael Medad  I am a resident of Shiloh, with my wife and children, and now grandchildren, since 1981, having come on Aliyah in 1970.  I have served in a volunteer capacity as a Yesha Council spokesperson, twice a member of Amana’s secretariat, Benjamin Regional Council plenum member and mayor of Shiloh.  I was a parliamentary aide for Geula Cohen and two other MKs, an advisor to a Minister, vice-chairman and executive director of Israel’s Media Watch and currently, am Information and Content Resource coordinator for the Begin Heritage Center.

            As you also can learn from Facebook, even belatedly, US Consulate General Daniel Blome paid a condolence visit to the Duma village relatives of the firebombing incident, still being either investigated, or not: 

            U.S. Consul General Donald Blome travelled earlier today to Duma in solidarity with surviving members of Dawabsheh family as they fight to survive their wounds from the vicious terrorist attack of July 31. 

The official press release further reads:

He met with members of the family and reiterated the United States’ sincere condolences for the deaths of Saad and baby Ali. The Consul General conveyed his concern for Saad’s wife, Riham, and four-year-old son, Ahmad, both of whom remain in critical condition. The United States has condemned this terrorist attack and urges that the perpetrators of this heinous crime be brought to justice.

?            Malachi Rosenfeld from Kochav HaShachar was murdered this past June by local Arabs who lived not far away.  One of them was an American citizen.  Did the CG pay a condolence visit to the family of the murdered young man??

There are other activities that the Consulate, using American citizens’ tax dollars, provide for the Arab population of the territory it supervises and provides services (see here; and here; and here for just a sampling).  Except for consular services (passports, birth certificates, visas, social security issues and such), these activities are limited to Arabs.

Visits by the C-G, current and former, to various events or simply funding activities such as olive harvesting festivals, beer tasting (okay, wine is out there), art exhibits, sports seminars, music  performances and much more are regular activities.  

The Jewish residents in the area are basically excluded from all this.

These activities, of course, are intended to promote, build and fortify a future state of Palestine.  I got that.  

But would this not be considered discriminatory if “Palestinian Arabs” were not involved, or perhaps it is because “Jewish settlers” are involved?

BY yISRAEL mEDAD  tol.Com Times Of Israel 9/29/15, 12:03 AM 

Yisrael Medad

First They Came for the Zionists and Then the Jews

If you have been following events at the Temple Mount these past few years, you might know that it is, as the Muslim establishment asserts, all the fault of the Jews.

We have caused floors to cave in, for trees to fall down, we chemically treat the subterranean tunnels, we collapse structures, and all sorts of nefarious deeds – all imagined.

On the eve of the Succot Holiday, Muslims again decided to initiate violence. As you can observe in this video clip photographed by the Israeli Police, from several vantage points, rocks are thrown, Roman candles are shot off, firebombs are tossed (also into the archaeological gardens outside and south of the Temple Mount) and other mayhem is caused.

What caught my eye in particular was a Qadi, a Muslim clergyman, standing among the crowd

There he is, and he doesn’t seem to be attempting to halt the violence. Indeed, many adults are mulling around and no one seems to be attempting to halt the youth from their criminal deeds, all done even before the police enter the compound.

I wonder who he is

and I hope police intelligence or the GSS are on to him.  And if he is innocent of my suppositions, all the better.

If anyone is ‘contaminating‘, Jews are not the ones doing so.  And, by the way, Abbas already employed the term ‘contamination’ previously but few noticed.

Another problem is that of outsiders who also misrepresent reality.  This is from a ‘report‘ by a “crisis group” this year:-

Temple activists often film their worship – nearly always purposeful and provocative violations – and upload them on the internet. These postings are widely shared by Arabs, Muslims and others as evidence that this element of the status quo already has been overturned.

It would seem they are fomenting a crisis rather than trying to calm matters.  The majority of pictures and video clips are those of Islamist groups or activists.

Whether or not Abbas is seeking a pre-67 status quo is irrelevant.  Jews have the right to be there.  The Muslims should get used to it.  And Israel’s political, judicial and police authorities should support that right.

And defend it in international forums. 

tIMES oF iSRAEL  tol.com September 11, 2015, 3:28 PM 

Yisrael Medad, currently Information Resources Director at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, is American-born and made Aliyah in 1971

                               (Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, last night (Thursday, 10 September 2015), visited the British Library in London where they were briefed on the library in general and two items in particular — the original Balfour Declaration, in which UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour declared that Britain would support the establishment of a national home for the Jewish People in the Land of Israel…

Two years ago, I sent to the Prime Minister’s office, to several ministers and since then, to ministers in this new government an idea of mine which is to mark, celebrate and highlight the upcoming centenary of the Balfour Declaration —

which was issued on November 2, 1917.

Okay, I admit, the Arabs and their supporters have beat us to the idea.

Their aim includes this:

We are seeking more awareness, primarily in Britain, of the Balfour Declaration’s intentions and consequences; particularly the failure to implement its second clause, which promised to safeguard the rights of the Arab population in Palestine.

Not to be too picayune but “Arabs” per se are not mentioned but rather “non-Jews”.  That was purposeful since the country was to become, upon the agreement of the Principal Allied Powers: “to entrust to a Mandatory selected by the said Powers the administration of the territory of Palestine…within such boundaries as may be fixed by them; and…that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…[this] recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;”

          Note the use of “communities” — not a people, not an ethnic group nor a national collective.  Arabs, as Arabs, had, at that time, six other countries existing or being developed.  Arab’s civil and religious rights are preserved and well-protected, more than in any other Arab state of which there are 22.  

          The country was meant to be Jewish as in the UN’s recommendation:  “Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence”

          The Arabs, having not only rejected that resolution but launched a war of aggression against the will of the UN, forfeited any privileges to demand a rollback of all that has gone on.

It is indicative of the site’s owners that they also include this at their FAQs, that they “believe that we should, individually and collectively: acknowledge where British policy towards Palestine was marked by duplicity, denial and racism;”

The site itself is a paragon of duplicity and mendacity.

          To counter that anti-Zionist effort I suggest that my initiative be established – and I’d be willing to be a member of its steering council – and that it set up a site, produce educational material, convene a conference on Thursday, November 2, 2017 and much more.

11.Zweig, Maimonides & Cohen’s Borborygmi  by Yisrael Medad

http://myrightword.blogspot.co.il/2015/09/zweig-maimonides-and-cohens-borborygmi.html

From: YMedad <yisrael.medad@gmail.com>  Date: Sun, Sep 27, 2015 at 8:47 AM
Subject: [My Right Word] Zweig, Maimonides & Cohen’s Borborygmi  – To: yisrael.medad@gmail.com
I presume that I am to feel honored that a Jew, one Roger Cohen, during the break from synagogue services in London on Yom Kippur this year, penned, without breaking his fast, an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “Jews as Far as Possible” the whole point of which was to focus on my residency in Shiloh and to defame me as a “Messianic Jewish settler”.
His title originates in a phrase of Maimonides he quotes: “We have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, have cast them behind our backs, and removed them from us as far as possible.”

            The phrase is from Maimonides’ “Guide for the Perplexed”, Book Three, Chapter 46 in discussing the sacrificial goat to be sent off to Azazel:  these ceremonies are of a symbolic character, & serve to impress men with a certain idea, & to induce them to repent; as if to say, we have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, have cast them behind our backs, & removed them from us as far as possible.

            Cohen may have seen it in Rabbi Sacks’ April article.  Cohen’s conclusion is that

Jews, as I said, are a practical people. Their interest is in the feasible not in magic wands.

            Possibly short of words, he again quotes, this time Stefan Zweig, who defined Jews as

“the ever-recurring — since Egypt — community of expulsion,” 

            So short of words was Cohen we know because his op-ed of last October carries the same theme and the same title, The Community of Expulsion.  At that High Holiday season he was upset that his Rabbi had not mentioned the Gaza hostilities of last summer.  Zweig’s quotation is found in his memoir sent to his publisher a few months before doing what, presumably, Cohen perhaps thinks as practical: he and his wife committed suicide.  His Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday, in which you can read this: “The real determination of the Jew is to rise to a higher cultural plane in the intel­lectual world.“ reflects at one point on the situation the Jews of Austria found themselves during the Hitler ascendancy and the persecution that followed and it reads:  “only now, for the first time in hundreds of years, the Jews were forced into a community of interest to which they had long ceased to be sensitive, the ever-recurring — since Egypt — community of expulsion. But why this fate for them and always for them alone? What was the reason, the sense, the aim of this senseless persecution? They were driven out of lands but without a land to go to.”

            “Only now”?  Zweig (and Cohen) knows not of Jewish history and the constant incidences of expulsions and persecutions and slaughters?  And were Jews insensitive before 1933 to others who were in unfortunate situations?
Cohen continues displaying either ignorance or willful distortion and asserts that Jews came

up with the idea of a faceless God with whom they had a covenant, and that covenant — binding over thousands of years of uprooted wandering — was in essence a covenant of ethics…(while) For a long time it was a covenant of the powerless. 

            It was not solely a covenant of ethics but of commandments and law and ritual and of having the Jewish people reside in it national homeland, the Land of Israel.  Cohen should read Harel Fisch’s 1978 “Zionist Revolution: A New Perspective” and in particular its second chapter, The Covenant, where he writes:  “Israel becomes the covenant people par excellence, summoned to bear witness to the purposes of creation, to endure the messianic tensions of history, to undertake the task of building a sanctuary out of the materials of this world…the covenant is not one possible interpretation  of reality: it is reality itself as Israel experiences it.  There are millions of Jews who try to escape it…it is here that the bond between the Jewish people and the land of Israel is located…the Jew is driven by a force s old as history itself to reunite himself with his land…the Covenant, in fact, rests on a triad of relationships: God, land and people.”

            If he does read it, he will realize that he is the weak link in Jewish history, the one who seeks to escape.  Not wishing to be seen as fleeing his Judaism, he redefines it to suit his own needs.  And his need is to portray me and my family, friends and fellow residents of Judea and Samaria as “the Messianic Jewish settler”.  We are the Jews who acquiesce “to the injustice of dominion over another displaced people, the Palestinians” who think “justice and peace are incompatible with the status quo in the Holy Land.”
            He knows that those ideas are odd (the “Holy Land”?) and adds in complete inversion.

Perhaps such ideas are Jew-ish, the delusions of which “real Jews” in their absolutist certainties have rid themselves. But I will take the “as far as possible” of the Jewish philosopher over the “all-or-nothing” conviction of the Messianic Jewish settler.

            I write “in inversion” as in his pursuit of his self-defined liberalism, progressivism and humanism, it is he and other Jews-against-themselves, “intellectuals sympathizing with their country’s enemies and perversely apologizing for their own existence”, a Finkler (When Finkler says he doesn’t have anti-Semitic friends, Libor answers: “Yes, you do. The Jewish ones.”), who seek to rid themselves of authentic Judaism.  In his last year’s piece, he would have it that the Palestinians have joined the ever-recurring “community of expulsion.”

            The historical reality is that in the 20th century, during 1929-1948, thousands of Jews whose families had, in many cases, been living for centuries in the Land of Israel under several foreign occupation regimes, were expelled from their homes – in Hebron, Gaza, Gush Etzion, Jerusalem’s Old City – by Arabs after being terrorized, killed, raped and pillaged.  Israel returned to Judea, Samaria and Gaza as a result of yet another attempt at expulsion and eradication.
None of this, it would seem, makes or leaves an impression on Mr. Cohen.  He is an ASHamed Jew. He has a target – the “settler”, and he will not be redirected no matter how wrong he is about Zionist values, about Arab behavior or interpretations of law.  He is determined to assist the establishment of a political entity that, besides having no true national identity, has but one goal: the denial of a national identity for the Jews. For him, the most practical act, is to remove, as far as possible, genuine Jewish beliefs and philosophical outlooks from any dialogue, and also to redefine the course of recent history that will thus permit his narrative to be accepted.
I, and some 600,000 more Jews who reside in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem’s post-67 neighborhoods, east, north and south of the former Green Line armistice delineation, are ‘Messianic’ and are not ‘practical’.
I cannot attribute his illogical and shallow nonsensical thoughts, his chyme, to his empty stomach or its hyper-resonant borborygmus as, since I have pointed out that he has repeated previously this thinking (and not only at the High Holiday season).  He points the finger at us in typical ostJuden fashion, highlighting: “the moral dilemmas of the modern Israeli condition with its power and precariousness, its prosperity and violence, its uncertainty and contaminating dominion. The terrible thing about the Holy Land today is the denial of this humanity to the stranger.” 

12.Egypt’s War on Terrorism Bears Fruit by Khaled Abu Toameh

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6559/egypt-war-on-terrorism

·       Egyptian President Sisi’s war against the smuggling tunnels will undoubtedly weaken Hamas and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip. Sisi should be commended, rather than criticized, for his courageous actions against Islamist terrorists, both in the Gaza Strip and in Sinai.

·       Sisi’s actions will benefit not only Egyptians, but also many Palestinians who are opposed to Hamas and radical Islamist groups.

·       When the Egyptians destroy a Hamas tunnel, that is called “war on terrorism.” But when Israel destroys a tunnel, that is condemned as an “act of aggression.” This moral slithering is why it is important for the international community to stand behind Sisi’s relentless war on radical Islam.

·       Without such backing, Islamists will continue to pose a major threat not only to Israel, but to many Arabs and Muslims who oppose Hamas, Islamic State and Islamic Jihad.

·       The environment of the Gaza Strip is the last thing that Hamas cares about. Hamas did not think about damage to the environment or to agricultural fields when it used those fields, as well as populated areas, as launching pads for attacking Israel.

            Egypt began this week flooding smuggling tunnels along their border with the Gaza Strip with water from the Mediterranean Sea — a move being condemned by Hamas and other Palestinian factions as a “disturbing nightmare.”

            The Egyptian army’s move is another sign of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s determination to destroy the tunnels that were used to smuggle weapons, people and merchandise from Sinai to the Gaza Strip and the other way around.

            This act is also a sign of Sisi’s resolve to pursue his military campaign against Islamist terror groups that are waging war against the Egyptian authorities in Sinai. The Egyptians are convinced that Hamas and other Palestinian groups have been providing aid to the terror groups in Sinai.

            Since the beginning of the year, dozens of Egyptian soldiers and police officers have been killed in a spate of terror attacks launched by Islamist groups in Sinai.

            Earlier this week, Egypt’s Interior Ministry announced that terrorists shot dead an Egyptian general in Sinai. In another similar shooting a few days earlier, a terror group killed General Khaled Kamel Osman.

            The decision to pump water into the smuggling tunnels is seen as a severe blow not only to the terror groups in Sinai, but also to Hamas, Islamic Jihad & other Palestinian factions inside the Gaza Strip.

Seawater covers parts of the ground where Egypt has been pumping water into smuggling tunnels along the border with Gaza. (Image source: Al Jazeera video screenshot)

            Judging from the reaction of the Palestinian groups, it is clear that they are in a state of hysteria as they see their tunnels collapsing one after the other.

In a statement published in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian groups, including Hamas, denounced the flooding of the tunnels as a “disturbing nightmare” for the Palestinians. The factions appealed to the Egyptian authorities to “stop this despicable crime against the Palestinian people and their environment.”

            “The Palestinian people are surprised by the Egyptian move, which will tighten the blockade on the Gaza Strip, destroy vast areas of agricultural land and harm those living near the border (with Egypt),” the statement said.

            Initially, Hamas leaders did not take the reports about flooding the tunnels seriously. Some Hamas leaders, in fact, first thought that these were rumors designed to scare them and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

            But when Hamas leaders woke up on September 13 to discover that the Egyptians had begun pumping water into the smuggling tunnels, they could not believe what they were seeing.

            Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri announced that his movement asked the Egyptians to stop flooding the tunnels with seawater. “We hope that the Egyptians will comply with our demand,” Abu Zuhri said. “This measure is completely unacceptable and poses a threat to many families living alongside the border.”

            Sources in the Gaza Strip noted this week that the Egyptian move has thus far proven to be effective & successful. They said that since being flooded with water, several tunnels have collapsed.

            It is worth noting that despite its outrage, Hamas has stopped short of issuing threats against Egypt in response to the flooding of the tunnels.

            Hamas’s response would have been different had it been Israel that was flooding the tunnels with water. But Hamas knows very well that it would not be a good idea to mess with the Egyptian authorities and President Sisi.

            During the past two years, the Egyptians have destroyed hundreds of smuggling tunnels along their border with the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, Hamas didn’t dare launch one terror attack against Egypt.

            Hamas is now pretending that it is concerned about the damage to the environment that is caused by the flooding of the smuggling tunnels. But the truth is that the environment of the Gaza Strip is the last thing that Hamas cares about.

            Hamas did not think about damage to the environment or to agricultural fields when its men fired thousands of rockets at Israel in the past few years. In fact, Hamas used these fields, as well as populated areas, as launching pads for attacking Israel.

            Hamas is interested only in one thing: preserving its rule in the Gaza Strip. The tunnels that are now being destroyed by the Egyptians were used by Hamas to smuggle all types of weapons into the Gaza Strip. Hamas warlords are also believed to have earned millions of dollars from the smuggling industry during the past few years.

            Sisi’s war against the smuggling tunnels will undoubtedly weaken Hamas and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian president should be commended, rather than criticized, for his courageous actions against Islamist terrorists, both in the Gaza Strip and in Sinai.

            Sisi’s actions will benefit not only Egyptians, but also many Palestinians who are opposed to Hamas and radical Islamist groups. Israel also stands to benefit from Sisi’s war against Hamas. The destruction of the tunnels means fewer weapons used by Hamas to attack Israel.

            However, Israel still has good reason to be worried about Hamas’s plans and intentions.

While Sisi is busy flooding the tunnels on the border with Egypt, Hamas continues to dig new ones on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

            It is no secret that Hamas has also managed to rebuild many of the terror tunnels that were used to infiltrate gunmen into Israel during last year’s military confrontation between the two sides. Hamas is planning to use these tunnels in the future, to dispatch its men to kill as many Israelis as possible.

            The Israelis have thus far been monitoring the situation very closely and have refrained from attacking the tunnels. That is because Israel is keen on maintaining the unofficial truce with Hamas that was reached in the aftermath of last year’s war, known as Operation Protective Edge.

There is not much that Israel can do at this stage other than hope that Sisi will continue with his measures to undermine Hamas. Any attempt by Israel to flood a Hamas tunnel will most likely spark an international outcry and bring condemnations from the United Nations. In addition, such a move on the part of Israel is likely to trigger a violent response from Hamas — one that could lead to another war.

            When the Egyptians destroy a Hamas tunnel, that is called “war on terrorism.” But when Israel destroys a tunnel, that is condemned as an “act of aggression.” This moral slithering is why it is important for the international community to stand behind Sisi’s relentless war on radical Islam. Without such backing, the Islamists will continue to pose a major threat not only to Israel, but to many Arabs and Muslims who oppose Hamas, Islamic State and Islamic Jihad.