Monday, May 9, 2016
Dry Bones by Ya’acov Kirschen “The Way We Are”
Tuesday evening May 10 through Wednesday May 11 is Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s National Remembrance Day for the Fallen & Victims of Terror.
Wednesday evening May 11 thru Thursday May 12 is Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Independence day.
The official “switch” from Yom HaZikaron to Yom HaAtzmaut takes place a few minutes after sundown, with a ceremony at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Cemetery in which the national flag is raised from half staff to the top of the pole.
B”sd
Dear Family & Friends,
Too many dead heroes & victims of Palestinian Terror attacks. Too many sad families – widows & orphans today on Yom HaZikaron – Memorial for our fallen soldiers & Terror victims. Pray that their pain doesn’t take too long to diminish to tolerable. This is how we earned our freedom on our ancestral Home-Land. A huge cost in blood & injury. The soldiers who have died this year from their wounds in War & Terror have increased to 59.
No, it is NOT fair. Hug your loved ones & especially your children.
I watched the movie EXODUS again tonight. It was one of the reasons Manny & I came to Israel in 1962 to try to arrange our Aliyah. Didn’t succeed then but, the Yom Kippur War was another catalyst in the Winston family that led to Manny’s submissions of countless military applications for defense & offense. I still see several of his inventive concepts in use.
So have a sweet night & a safe day. Tomorrow night (Wednesday) starts Yom Hatzmaut, our 68th Israel Independence Day. I have a big flag on my gate & 2 flags flying proudly from my car windows. I’ll go to the country to celebrate with a bar-b-que in the forest.
All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom
Our Website: WinstonIsraelInsight.com
1.Memorial Day: 23,447 fallen soldiers since 1948 By Tova Dvorin
2.A day to join Israelis in a sad circle of grief By Danny Danon
3.The Jewish warrior By Shmuley Boteach
4.At 68 – is Israel isolated? by Yoram Ettinger
5.BDS equals economic warfare
6.2 Elderly Women Stabbed in Jerusalem Attack on Eve of Israel’s Memorial Day
7.Bomb Blows Up in IDF Officer’s Face at Hizme Checkpoint, Injures 2 soldiers
8.Amona residents demand government legalize their West Bank outpost
9.‘Stop distributing TV & radio frequencies to Palestinians’ Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Shurat HaDin
10.Top White House aide boasts of Iran deal deception
11.Rhodes’ contempt & Obama’s revulsion by David M. Weinberg
12.Second Temple-era mikveh discovered under Al-Aqsa mosque
1.Memorial Day: 23,447 fallen soldiers since 1948 By Tova Dvorin
68 soldiers added to the list of the fallen in 2015/6; nation to hold ceremonies at military cemeteries nationwide. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com First Publish: 5/6/2016, 8:30 AM
IDF soldiers stand to attention at Kotel Memorial Day ceremony (file)
Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90
A full 23,447 Israeli soldiers have died in action, the Defense Ministry published Friday, ahead of Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron).
Sixty-eight additional soldiers fell over the last year; 59 were IDF veterans who died as a result of war-related injuries.
The data also showed that there are now 9,442 bereaved families, 4,917 widows and 1,948 orphans.
Memorial Day falls on Tuesday night/Wednesday this week, and will begin with a siren at 8 p.m.; Memorial Day ceremonies will begin nationwide immediately following the siren.
On Wednesday, at 11 a.m., the siren will sound for two minutes, followed by daytime ceremonies and visits to Israel’s military cemeteries.
The Defense Ministry’s Families and Memorials division, which is in charge of Memorial Day events, noted that 1.5 million Israelis are due to visit 52 military cemeteries this year, as well as hundreds of military burial plots from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Eilat in the south. Hundreds of buses and shuttles will be available for the visitors.
In addition, Magen David Adom (MDA) will dispatch 132 mobile units to cemeteries nationwide, to distribute water and ensure the health of visitors.
Every year around Memorial Day soldiers place a candle, a flag, and a bouquet of flowers on the graves of the fallen.
Major events nationwide will include the Yad L’Banim Memorial Day ceremony, on Tuesday in Jerusalem at 4:30 p.m.; an 8 p.m. torch-lighting ceremony at the Western Wall (Kotel); at 9:15 p.m., a special ceremony at the Knesset; the official ceremony at 11 a.m. at Har Herzl on Wednesday; and at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Har Herzl, the official ceremony for terror victims and their families.
2.A day to join Israelis in a sad circle of grief By Danny Danon
Op-ed: Israeli Ambassador to the UN describes his task to convey the unique spirit
of Israeli Memorial Day to the world. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews 5/8/2016, 10:55 PM
Ambassador Danny Danon Reuters
(JTA) This year I will mark two of Israel’s most important national holidays – Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) and Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) – far away from home. These are special days in Israel and for the Jewish people throughout the world, when people of all political and religious persuasions set their differences aside and unite in memory of the heroes whose sacrifices make the very existence of a safe, secure and prosperous Jewish state possible.
The process begins with solemn siren sounds throughout Israel. A sense of silent sorrow permeates the air and a celestial presence is felt that seems to be unique to our tiny nation. While the American version of Memorial Day commemorates the losses in some of history’s bloodiest wars, the atmosphere is different here than what is experienced in Israel. One does not find the same sense of sadness and unity that all Israelis feel on this holy day. Ours is an exceptional blend of personal and public mourning weaved in to one heart-wrenching day.
On Yom Hazikaron, Israelis and Jews throughout the world will retell the stories of bravery and martyrdom displayed by these heroes of Israel and those whose lives were cut short by the savage horror of terrorism. Through these tales that describe intense battles and highlight our mutual heritage, we try to breathe new life into our loved ones who are no longer with us. Still, we know deep down that no amount of touching memorials and heartwarming poems will bring back our heroes.
This year, I have a special task. I will do my best to convey the spirit of these special days to diplomats from around the world and our close friends here in America. Sadly, this bond has grown even closer over the past few years with a significant number of American Jews who have given their lives in Israel’s defense and fallen victim to the murderous terrorism that plagues our country. In doing so, I hope to build a bridge of shared values based on a common heritage and a future in which we are bound together with one another.
This is a new addition to what is my personal yearly challenge of passing on my family’s torch of memory to my children. My best attempts at describing the brave character of their grandfather, who fought valiantly in defense of a country that he loved so much, always seem incomplete and insufficient. The stories I tell and the photos I show have given my children some sense of who my father was, but I realize they will never have the opportunity to meet this exceptional personality whose love and guidance played such a huge part in who I am today.
On this special day we should take it upon ourselves not only to remember the heroes who were killed in defense of their country, but also the brave bereaved families who are left behind. The latest wave in Israel has added far too many new families to this sad circle of grief.
I am referring to the heroism of parents who despite being put in the cursed situation of burying their children vow to put every effort into going on with their lives. The heroism of siblings that find themselves trying to fill an interminable void. The heroism of the orphans, whose parents have gone in an instant from the most important person in their lives to just an honored memory. And of course, the heroism of the widows who somehow find the strength to turn in to lionesses that guard their young and leave no stone unturned in ensuring they grow up feeling loved and protected.
This is true heroism for which no citations are awarded.
On Yom Hazikaron, as we stand at attention and pay our respects to the brave men and women who fought valiantly in our nation’s wars, we must also honor the heroes who are still here living among us. After all, on this day everyone experiences for a short while the pain and loss felt by the bereaved families every hour of every day. On that day, for 24 short hours we are reminded what they go through and why it is so important that we stand resolutely at their sides.
(Ambassador Danny Danon is Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations.)
A day to join Israelis in a sad circle of grief By Danny Danon
3.The Jewish warrior By Shmuley Boteach
JPost.com 05/09/2016 14:16
Throughout the world there is a global onslaught against the Jewish people. Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, has remarkably become the single most hated country on Earth.
A man with an Israeli flag takes part in a march through Paris. (photo credit:Reuters)
Last week, at our annual Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala, I launched my new book, The Israel Warrior. The Israel warrior is an ancient concept that is now being reborn.
A few days ago, after spending Passover in Israel with my family, I brought my eldest son close to me and placed my hands on his head. We had traveled to Israel to spend the holiday with him because the IDF, in which he is currently serving, would not let him leave the country. It was amazing for our family to spend a full week with him when most of the time we get 10 minutes to speak to him from the field.
Knowing he was returning to the Golan Heights, where he is just across the border from the Iranian-funded monsters of Hezb’Allah, I invoked G-d’s blessing upon him: “May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord shine his light toward you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift his countenance toward you and grant you peace.”
I reminded my son that Hassidim never say goodbye, because they are constantly in the process of meeting. It was much harder for his mother to say goodbye to her son and see him off in his olive green uniform.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and said to him, “There are three levels in devotion to a cause. The first is God forbid to die for a cause, martyrdom. The Jewish people have had way too much of that already. The second, much higher, is to live for a cause. But the third and the highest is not just to live but to fight for a cause. You, Mendy, have the privilege of being in the first Jewish army since Bar Kochba decimated the Roman armies of Hadrian and Julius Severus 2,000 years ago. But this time Israel will rise victorious. And you are a part of it.”
My friends, a new kind of Jew is now inhabiting the earth. It is the Jew who is fed up with being subject to a hatred he has never earned and malice which he does not deserve. It is the Jew who knows he has done nothing to warrant to the world’s enmity. It is the Jew who knows he killed no one’s god, stole no one’s land, poisoned no one’s wells, drank no child’s blood, and is the victim, rather than the perpetrator, of genocide.
For too long we Jews have developed a complacency mentality.
If six million Jews die, it must be because we were sinful. We didn’t observe the Sabbath.
If Israel is hated around the world, it must be because it’s doing something wrong. It’s occupying another people. It stole the land from the Arabs, making them pay for Jewish suffering in the Holocaust by colonizing a darker-skinned people. And if Jews are blown up on buses or stabbed in the streets of Ra’anana, it’s because of West Bank settlement policy.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said so himself, as did Peter Beinart in a debate he and I had in Tel Aviv in front of 1,000 young Israelis.
But we no longer raise passive Jews. Our organization challenged Secretary Kerry in a full-page New York Times ad demanding he stop justifying terrorism against Israelis. We exposed Beinart for the lie that Israelis die because of Jewish olive groves in Beitar.
When six million Jews die the Israel warrior shakes the foundation of the heavens demanding divine justice. We are guilty of no sin. We deserve long lives. And we demand that the God of Israel protect us.
When Jews living peacefully in their ancient homeland are targeted for murder, the Israel warrior builds a defensive army to protect life.
Yes, I know, it was the Jewish people who gave the world the notion of peace. I am well aware that Judaism says that peace, not war, is life’s highest value and that God’s very name is peace. “Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu,” He who creates peace among the celestial host shall grant peace among us as well.
But as King Solomon said so wisely in Proverbs, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven… a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war & a time for peace.”
Just 71 years after the crematoria were silenced, we declare that so long as Iran is allowed to threaten the Jewish people with annihilation, there can be no peace. So long as Hamas fires rockets at Jewish nurseries, there can be no peace. So long as the Palestinian Authority incites its citizens to stab pregnant Israeli women on the streets of Jerusalem there can be no peace. And so long as the boycott movement calls for the economic destruction of the Jewish states on the world’s campuses, there can be no peace.
Throughout the world there is a global onslaught against the Jewish people. Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, has remarkably become the single most hated country on Earth. The Israel warrior takes no pride in having to fight. He, like King David before him, prefers harp and lyre to sword and shield. He, like the Maccabees before him, prefers to light candles to dispel the darkness then fling arrows at invading Greek armies. The Israel warrior does not today, and has never in the past, erected a monument to a military victory, the way that Rome did with Titus’s and Constantine’s arch.
But for all his reluctance to fight or revel in the glory of combat, the Israel warrior will not shirk from a battle that is imposed upon him. He will fight back. Never again will Jews be murdered in gas chambers.
The author’s latest book The Israel Warrior has just been published.
The Jewish warrior By Shmuley Boteach
4.At 68 – is Israel isolated? by Yoram Ettinger
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other Western policymakers, joined by much of the “elite” Western media, have repeatedly argued that 68-year-old Israel is becoming increasingly isolated due to its defiance of global pressure to evacuate the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which tower over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion International Airport and 80% of Israel’s population, transportation, technological and business infrastructure.
Since 1948, global pressure on Israel to commit itself to dramatic concessions has been a fixture of Israel’s foreign policy and public diplomacy, accompanied by warnings that Israel was dooming itself to painful isolation. An examination of Israel’s global position — economically, militarily and diplomatically — reveals that irrespective of Israel’s uphill diplomatic challenges, reality routinely disproved these warnings as Israel demonstrated unprecedented integration into the global street.
Thus, alongside the rough diplomatic talk that has always pounded Israel, there has always been a mutually beneficial, geo-strategic walk. This is highlighted by Israel’s unprecedented civilian and military cooperation with the international community, in response to growing international demand for Israel’s military, economic, technological, scientific, medical, pharmaceutical and agricultural innovations.
Israel’s increasing global integration is clearly reflected in a string of recent developments, which are consistent with Israel’s well-documented 68-year track record:
Notwithstanding Europe’s support of the Palestinian Authority and harsh criticism of Israel, NATO does not subscribe to the “isolate Israel” policy. The organization follows its own order of geo-strategic priorities and therefore refuses to cut off its nose to spite its face. Hence, on May 3, 2016, NATO significantly upgraded its ties with Israel, inviting Jerusalem to establish a permanent mission at their Brussels headquarters. This upgrade serves to expand the mutually beneficial Israel-NATO relationship in the areas of counter-terrorism, intelligence, battle tactics, non-conventional warfare, science, cyber and space technologies and defense industries, where Israel possesses a unique competitive edge.
While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continuously blasts Israel in the diplomatic arena, Turkey did not block the recent agreement between NATO and Israel. Moreover, the balance of trade between Israel and Turkey has catapulted from $2.5 billion in 2009 to over $5 billion in 2015. Turkey also has not been able to ignore the unique niches of Israel’s exports in the areas of defense, medicine, pharmaceuticals and agriculture.
India, the seventh largest, and one of the fastest rising economies in the world, has become one of Israel’s closest partners — second only to the U.S. Oblivious to the “isolate Israel” school of thought, India has become the largest consumer of Israel’s defense systems, with Israel trailing only the U.S. and Russia in terms of military sales to India. On March 29, 2016, Israel’s Rafael Advance Defense Systems concluded a long-term agreement with India’s Reliance Defense Systems, which is expected to generate $10 billion in sales. A year and a half ago, Rafael won a $500 million contract to supply missiles to India’s ground forces.
Seeking to leverage the momentum of the “integrate Israel” trend, China’s Kuang-Chi technology conglomerate is launching an Israel-based international innovation fund to invest in early to mid-stage Israeli and global companies, reflecting the vigorous Chinese interest in mature and startup Israeli companies. Chinese investments in Israeli companies has expanded from $70 million in 2010 to $2.7 billion in 2015, while the China-Israel trade balance has surged from $30 million in 1992 to $11 billion in 2015. The trade balance could have been dramatically larger if it weren’t for Israel’s cautious attitude in light of China’s close ties with Israel’s enemies.
| | China has followed in the footsteps of Hong-Kong-based tycoon Li Ka-Shing, whose venture capital fund, Horizons Ventures, invested in 30 Israeli companies, accounting for almost half of its portfolio. Reaffirming the “integrate Israel” reality, Fitch Ratings — one of the three credit rating organizations designated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — recently upgraded Israel’s credit rating outlook from “stable” to “positive,” while maintaining its A rating. The upgrade generates a robust tailwind for foreign investments and foreign trade. In April, while all advanced economies were struggling, Fitch Ratings lauded Israel’s thriving economy in comparison to other OECD countries. Fitch commended Israel for its success in overcoming intense national security and homeland security challenges; reducing the ratio of government debt to GDP from 95.2% in 2000 to 64.9% in 2015; reducing the budget deficit to 2.1% — the lowest figure since 2008; bolstering foreign exchange reserves to $90.6 billion and sustaining the strength of the shekel. The fact that 250 global high-tech giants have established research and development centers in Israel exposes the lie behind the contention that Israel is risking growing isolation. For instance, on February 22, 2016, Oracle, which operates four centers in Israel, acquired Israel’s five-year-old Ravello for $500 million — the company’s fifth Israeli acquisition. On March 3, 2016, Cisco Systems acquired its 12th Israeli company, Leaba Semiconductor, for $350 million. On March 10, 2016, Intel acquired its ninth Israeli company, Replay Technologies, for $175 million. In 2015, Intel, which is currently investing $130 million in a new center in Israel, exported $4.1 billion worth of products from its manufacturing plant in Israel. Intel Capital’s portfolio includes some 60 Israeli startup companies. In 2015, global pharmaceutical giants such as Merck, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Pfizer, AbbVie, Janssencilag, Roche, and Eli Lilly invested $150 million (compared to $130 million in 2014 and $100 million in 2012) in groundbreaking medical research, conducted in leading Israeli hospitals. Leading investment funds are veteran supporters of the “integrate Israel” school of thought. For instance, the Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed raised $1.2 billion for its 11th fund dedicated to U.S. and Israeli startups. The Israeli investment funds, FIMI, Vertex Ventures and Israel Secondary Fund-2 raised $1.1 billion, $150 million and $100 million respectively, mostly from overseas investors. At 68, Israel is highly integrated into the key global disciplines, in defiance of Kerry’s warning that “if we do not resolve the issues between Palestinians and Israelis, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel.” The secretary’s warning is overwhelmingly squelched by global reality. In fact, 71% of the U.S. public considers Israel favorably, according to the February 2016 annual Gallup poll. At 68 – is Israel isolated? by Yoram Ettinger 5.BDS equals economic warfare By Asaf Romirowsky, Nicole Brackman JPost.com 05/08/2016 20:50 Due to the ongoing violence in Syria, SodaStream also went out of its way to offer employment to Syrian refugees – one of the only Middle Eastern companies to do so. |
Supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign protest in Cape Town [File]. (photo credit:Rodger Bosch/Afp)
At the core of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS ) is economic warfare meant to delegitimize and marginalize Israel. But the fatal fallacy of the movement is rooted in the fact that its proponents are hurting the very constituency they claim to represent.
Daniel Birnbaum is the CEO of SodaStream, one of Israel’s greatest commercial start-up successes. The company (made famous in a 2014 Super Bowl advertisement featuring actress Scarlett Johansson) was a pioneer in economic inclusion, establishing a factory in the West Bank and employing both Palestinian and Jewish workers (among them a high proportion of women).
Due to the ongoing violence in Syria, SodaStream also went out of its way to offer employment to Syrian refugees – one of the only Middle Eastern companies to do so. Providing an avenue to job security in skilled labor is a fundamental tenet of refugee rehabilitation policy. Israel has been at the forefront of successful refugee resettlement and absorption since the state’s inception, with the integration of close to one million Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands.
As Birnbaum underscored in a press release, “As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I refuse to stand by and observe this human tragedy unfold right across the border in Syria… just as we have always done our best to help our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the West Bank, the time has come for local business and municipal leaders to address the Syrian humanitarian crisis and take the initiative to help those in need. We cannot expect our politicians to bear the entire burden of providing aid for the refugees.”
But in October, 2015, nearly 500 of the company’s Palestinian workers lost their jobs. The reason wasn’t because the company no longer wanted to employ them. It was due – at least in part – to the efforts of the BDS movement to mount enough international pressure to close the facility.
Though the company denied it was a factor, the tactic worked; many of the workers were thrust into unemployment.
Notwithstanding that, SodaStream offered 1,000 positions to Syrian refugees at the company’s new facility in Rahat.
The BDS movement uses economic pressure to attempt to strong-arm the Israeli government into complying with its agenda. Its effects are wide-ranging, from political activism on college campuses to commercial guerrilla tactics like covertly placing stickers on grocery products to draw attention to their Israeli origins.
Much of the time, its claims are laden with anti-Semitic overtones and rely on emotional appeal rather than hard data. Such tactics have far-reaching – and very counterproductive – consequences, for example, the unwillingness of the French directorate-general for international security of intelligence to accept technology offered by an Israeli security company that “could have helped counter-terror agents track suspects in real time,” undermining the chance to avert the recent deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and Belgium.
Despite its aspirations, in fact BDS has had little economic impact on Israel.
According to Forbes, “The impact of BDS is more psychological than real so far and has had no discernible impact on Israeli trade or the broader economy… that said, the sanctions do run the risk of hurting the Palestinian economy, which is much smaller and poorer than that of Israel.”
Israel’s centrality to US regional and global policy has not gone unnoticed; US Congress sought to cement Israel’s economic and trade ties to the US with a bipartisan bill – the US-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act – designed to counter the BDS movement and strengthen the two nations’ relationship. The bill “leverages ongoing trade negotiations to discourage prospective US trade partners from engaging in economic discrimination against Israel. It also establishes a clear US policy in opposition to state-led BDS, which is detrimental to global trade, regional peace and stability.”
The extremism that the BDS movement advocates highlights the group’s refusal to come to terms with the State of Israel, its recidivism and its ignorance in evaluating the landscape of greater Middle East politics.
When Syrian refugees are being offered jobs in Israel at an Israeli company it is clear how removed the BDS reality is from that of the Middle East.
Asaf Romirowsky is the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. Nicole Collins Brackman is a fellow at Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).
BDS equals economic warfare
6.2 Elderly Women Stabbed in Jerusalem Terror Attack on Eve of Israel’s Memorial Day Two elderly ladies were stabbed by Arab terrorists as they walked with friends in Jerusalem early on the morning before Israel’s Memorial Day. By: Hana Levi Julian JewishPress.com May 10th, 2016
Two elderly Jewish women were stabbed by two Arab terrorists as they walked along a path under the boardwalk in Jerusalem’s Armon HaNatziv neighborhood early Tuesday morning near the Arnona section of the city, which is not far from Arab neighborhoods.
The victims were part of a group of five women who were out enjoying the beautiful spring weather in the capital when the two masked Arabs launched their attack, according to police sources.
Both women were in their 70s and were stabbed in the chest, one stabbed multiple times. The two victims were rushed by paramedics from the Magen David Adom emergency medical response service to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. They were both conscious and were listed in fair condition upon admission to the hospital’s Trauma Unit.
Magen David Adom ambulance evacuates wounded after terror attack to hospital. (file)
Photo Credit: Hadas Parush / Flash 90
Two suspects were tracked down and arrested within a short time after they managed to escape, fleeing in the direction of the Jabel Mukabar section of Jerusalem, according to security sources. Jabel Mukabar has been a terrorist stronghold in the city for months.
About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her year working in broadcast journalism. 2 Elderly Women Stabbed in Jerusalem Terror Attack on Eve of Israel’s Memorial Day
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7.Bomb Blows Up in IDF Officer’s Face at Hizme Checkpoint; 2 IDF Soldiers Wounded in Hizme Bombing Attack
An IDF officer was seriously wounded on the night of Israel’s Memorial Day when a bomb blew up in his face at Hizme checkpoint. By: Hana Levi Julian JewishPress.com Published: May 10th, 2016
Scene of bombing attack at Hizme checkpoint – Photo Credit: Zoro / Rotter.net
An IDF officer and a second soldier have been wounded in a bombing attack at the Hizme checkpoint, while another more serious attack may be pending.
The IED (improvised explosive device) was detonated by terrorists as the officer was searching a suspicious package planted on the road at the entrance to the checkpoint. A second bomb detonated shortly after the first.
Two pipe bombs were discovered attached to a gas cannister shortly after the initial attack, according to local sources. The Adam junction is currently being evacuated for the safety of everyone in the area.
Sappers have discovered a third and possibly a fourth bomb as well.
The officer was wounded in his upper body, according to Magen David Adom medics on the scene, who say he sustained head and facial wounds but is fully conscious. He was evacuated to a hospital in Jerusalem.
A second soldier is in stable condition after sustaining shrapnel wounds in the leg.
The checkpoint is located near the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, not far the from Jewish community of Adam.
About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.
Bomb Blows Up in IDF Officer’s Face at Hizme Checkpoint
8.Amona residents demand government legalize their West Bank outpost By Tovah Lazaroff Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 05/09/2016 00:52
Israel to reimburse Palestinians who lost land to Amona outpost
Police officer filmed beating minors in Amona eviction given light sentence
One of the most violent clashes between settlers and security forces took place at Amona in 2007 when the IDF demolished nine unauthorized new stone homes.
Palestinian laborers work at a construction site in a settlement near Jerusalem . (photo credit:Reuters)
Residents of the Amona outpost in the West Bank plan to reject any relocation plan and have demanded instead that the government legalize their small hilltop community, which is slated for demolition at the end of the year.
“The government brought us here, and if they made a mistake we should not have to pay for it by losing our homes,” Amona spokesman Avichay Buaron said on Sunday.
He was responding to an article in Ha’aretz that said the Defense Ministry and settler leaders were working on a plan to build a new legal community in the Shiloh area.
Buaron said that the Defense Ministry had not made any such offer to the 40 families that live in the Amona outpost and that they had heard of the project in the media, just like everyone else.
Amona, first built in 1995 with NIS 2.16 million from the Housing and Construction Ministry, is one of the oldest West Bank outposts, located just outside the Ofra settlement. It is under the auspices of the Binyamin Regional Council.
One of the most violent clashes between settlers and security forces took place at Amona in 2007 when the IDF demolished nine unauthorized new stone homes; they were the first such structures in a community that had lived in caravans since its inception.
In 2008, the nongovernmental group Yesh Din petitioned the High Court of Justice against the outpost on behalf of 10 Palestinians from the nearby village of Shiloach (Silwad) who claimed ownership of the property.
An initial HCJ ruling that the outpost must be razed by the end of 2012 led to a series of appeals and, in 2014 the court reissued its ruling in which it said the homes had been built on private Palestinian property and it was not possible to legalize them retroactively.
Amona residents have long claimed that they purchased the property and that the government initially had intended to build a new neighborhood of Ofra on their hilltop.
In recent years, they said they had repurchased a number of the plots, but the High Court has never upheld their ownership claims. In its 2014 ruling, the judges said that even if a separate land court were to authenticate the purchases, it would still not be possible to legalize the outpost.
With a pending evacuation just seven months away, Binyamin Region spokeswoman Tamar Asraf said a two-pronged approach was needed.
“The council supports the battle of the Amona families to stay in their homes,” she said, but it also has a responsibility to provide for them, should the IDF be forced to carry out the court’s decision.
The council has been in discussions regarding alternative housing sites with both with the Defense Ministry and Amana, the construction arm of the settlement movement, including the possibility of relocating the families to an area near Shiloh, Asraf said.
“If there is an evacuation, we have to be prepared for the day after,” she said.
Buaron, however, said that if the government wanted to it could find a solution to legalize the homes that would be acceptable to the court.
Buaron, who moved to Amona 19 years ago, said he did so with the understanding that it would and could be legalized.
“They gave us water and electricity,” he said. “They worked on the place so that it would be a neighborhood. The problem is a legal one, not a diplomatic one, so a legal solution is needed.”
Amona residents demand government legalize their West Bank outpost
9.‘Stop distributing TV & radio frequencies to Palestinians’
Shurat HaDin Legal Organization demand government to stop PA frequency allocation due to incitement to murder Israelis. By Arutz Sheva Staff First Publish: 5/8/2016, 10:39 AM
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner: Shurat HaDin
The Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, on Sunday addressed Prime Minister and Minister of Communications Binyamin Netanyahu, demanding an immediate stop to the allocation of radio and television frequencies for Palestinians, due to incitement to murder Israelis and Jews.
According to a letter sent by Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin, the Israeli government distributes said frequencies under the Oslo Accords; however, radio and television broadcasts are used by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to encourage the current wave of terrorism and incitement to murder.
Incitement to murder is a violation of the PA’s commitments under the Oslo agreements, and incitement to genocide is an offense under international law. Shurat HaDin are threatening to take the government to the High Court (Supreme Court) if they do not stop allocating frequencies immediately.
The letter further stated that a significant portion of terror in the recent wave of attacks is being incited directly by official PA radio and television, with leaders encouraging such attacks. This was illustrated when Murad Bader Abdullah Adais, the 16-year-old Arab terrorist who stabbed to death Dafna Meir at her home in Otniel, admitted that he was inspired to launch his murderous attack by Palestinian TV.
“It is inconceivable that the Israeli government will continue to allocate TV and Radio frequencies for Palestinians, who advocate killing Jews. In Rwanda, heads of television and radio which called for incitement to genocide were convicted of war crimes, but the Israeli government ignores this and does not take the obvious steps to prevent this,” said Darshan-Leitner.
“US and European Jewish communities successfully fought to close the Muslim propaganda broadcasts on radio and television (there), and only Israel lets it go. The government must adopt a zero tolerance policy for incitement to murder Jews and stop the allocation of frequencies immediately.”
‘Stop distributing TV and radio frequencies to Palestinians’
10.Top White House aide boasts of Iran deal deception |
New York Times Magazine article reveals that top Obama administration official Ben Rhodes peddled false narrative to sell Iran deal • Rhodes: We created media echo chamber, with reporters saying things that validated what we had given them to say. By Erez Linn and Israel Hayom Staff
Pres. Barack Obama & Natl. Sec. Advisor Ben Rhodes in Oval Office Photo credit: White House |
In the lead-up to and wake of the nuclear deal reached between Iran and six world powers last July, U.S. President Barack Obama tried to sell it as a historic opportunity. His argument was simple — a “moderate” president, Hassan Rouhani, had taken power in Tehran and was seeking to open a new relationship with the West.
But, it turns out that, as many suspected, the Obama administration was peddling a false narrative. A New York Times Magazine article published on Thursday revealed that the administration intentionally distorted the truth to hide fact that Obama had already wanted a deal with Iran when extremist Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president. And this campaign of deception was led by Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes.
This revelation was made by Rhodes himself in the New York Times Magazine article, which was a profile piece about him. Calling the 38-year-old Rhodes the “boy wonder of the Obama White House” and “Obama’s foreign policy guru,” the article said Rhodes had achieved a “mind meld” with Obama and helped the president “execute a radical shift in American foreign policy.” This despite the fact that, as the article stated, Rhodes’ “lack of conventional real world experience of the kind that normally precedes responsibility for the fate of nations — like military or diplomatic service, or even a master’s degree in international relations, rather than creative writing — is still startling.”
Rhodes admitted to the article’s author David Samuels that the Obama administration had created a media “echo chamber” to promote the Iran deal, with reporters “saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”
“In the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse the [expletive] out of this,” Rhodes said. “We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.”
Regarding opponents of the Iran deal, Rhodes said, “We drove them crazy.”
According to the article, U.S. State Department officials finalized their proposal for an interim deal with Iran (which became the basis for the final deal) in March 2013, several months before Rouhani was elected president. Not only that, the talks with the Iranians began in Oman in July 2012.
Following Rouhani’s election in the summer of 2013, the “idea that there was a new reality in Iran was politically useful to the Obama administration,” the article said. Rhodes, however, acknowledged being skeptical about how “moderate” Rouhani and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif really were. “Yes, I would prefer that it turns out that Rouhani and Zarif are real reformers who are going to be steering this country into the direction that I believe it can go in, because their public is educated and, in some respects, pro-American,” Rhodes said. “But we are not betting on that.”
Rhodes described the ease with which the White House manipulated reporters, saying: “All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
Regarding the Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy, Rhodes said: “We don’t have to kind of be in cycles of conflict if we can find other ways to resolve these issues. We can do things that challenge the conventional thinking that, you know, ‘AIPAC doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the Israeli government doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the Gulf countries don’t like it.’ It’s the possibility of improved relations with adversaries. It’s nonproliferation. So all these threads that the president’s been spinning — and I mean that not in the press sense — for almost a decade, they kind of all converged around Iran.”
The article said: “By eliminating the fuss about Iran’s nuclear program, the administration hoped to eliminate a source of structural tension between the two countries, which would create the space for America to disentangle itself from its established system of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey. With one bold move, the administration would effectively begin the process of a large-scale disengagement from the Middle East.”
Leon Panetta, who served stints under Obama as both CIA chief and defense secretary, was also interviewed for the article. Panetta said there was no “meaningful” division between the “hard-line” and “moderate” camps in Iran. “There was not much question that the Quds Force and the supreme leader ran that country with a strong arm, and there was not much question that this kind of opposing view could somehow gain any traction,” Panetta said.
Panetta said that as defense secretary one of his primary tasks was to keep Israel from launching a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to Panetta, both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barack “were both interested in the answer to the question, ‘Is the president serious?’ And you know my view, talking with the president, was: If brought to the point where we had evidence that they’re developing an atomic weapon, I think the president is serious that he is not going to allow that to happen.”
Panetta was then asked if he would make the same assessment now.
“Probably not,” he replied.
The New York Times Magazine article prompted much negative backlash from media and political figures, with many using derogatory terms for Rhodes, including “liar.”
New York Post columnist John Podhoretz wrote: “Congratulations, liberals of the Washington press corps and elite organizations: You’re a bunch of suckers. We all know this because the Obama White House just told us so.”
Brooklyn Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind said, “What an absolute disgrace — what a farce! Not only were Iranians laughing at us, our government was laughing at us.”
Republican Congressman Peter King of New York called the Iran deal a “hoax on the American people.”
“Obama was so intent on getting this agreement with Iran,” King said. “He wanted to sell it to the American people, and that is what the Iranian government wanted.
“The administration was out of control.”
Asked on Friday about the New York Times Magazine article, White House spokesman Josh Earnest rejected claims that the Obama administration had distorted the truth about the Iran deal, saying, “I recognize that there might be some people who are disappointed they did not succeed in killing the Iran deal and maybe these unfounded claims are the result of sour grapes.”
Top White House aide boasts of Iran deal deception
| | 11.Rhodes’ contempt & Obama’s revulsion by David M. Weinberg The recent New York Times Magazine interview with Ben Rhodes has sparked a firestorm because in it, Rhodes, the “most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from U.S. President [Barack] Obama himself,” boasts how he and Obama hoodwinked Congress and the American people into accepting the nuclear deal with Iran. Rhodes admits to crafting and selling a false narrative about Iranian “moderates” and “hard-liners,” and to manipulating lobby groups and journalists into becoming shills for the administration. But that is not why people should pay attention to this shocking article. The sins of Obama, Rhodes and Co. described in this article go far beyond lying to the American public about the Iran deal. The central takeaway is not just rich mendacity and downright deceit. What bolts off the pages of this interview with Rhodes — who is described as Obama’s “ventriloquist” or “mind meld” doppelganger is the unabashed “contempt”&”revulsion” for America. In fact, the word “contempt” is the interview’s keyword. It appears five times. Rhodes is described as being “laced with aggressive contempt for anyone or anything that stands in the president’s way.” He and Obama are said to be “laced with brutal contempt” for the mainstream media, which is so easily manipulated by them. They hold a “healthy contempt for the groupthink of the American foreign policy establishment,” and for the history and principles of traditional American foreign policy. The author of the New York Times Magazine profile, David Samuels, is perceptive enough to pick up on this “contempt” and term it the Obama/Rhodes “hallmark.” Worst of all, Obama/Rhodes express “contempt” for the notion of America as a “moral actor.” They disdain and dismiss this concept. They view America as a sullied actor on the world stage, and have been on a campaign to “restructure the American narrative” in light of this incriminating belief. “We saw this as our entire job from the very beginning,” Rhodes avows without blinking. In short, America is a bad actor that has to make amends for its ugly imperialist past and allow equally rightful and perhaps more legitimate actors (such as Iran) to assume a legitimate role on the world stage. Only Obama has the deep understanding of America’s criminality in order to right the world by cutting America down to size. Everyone else just “whines incessantly” about the collapse of the American security order in Europe and the Middle East, Rhodes prattles. All previous American leaders and defense policy decision-makers were “morons.” This is the mindset at the root of the Obama presidency. The kicker is that Rhodes explicitly confirms what many of us have long suspected (and I have written about for eight years): That Obama’s scorn for America is sourced in his Indonesian-youth period. Rhodes suggests that Obama’s particular “revulsion” (revulsion!) against a “certain kind of global power politics” is a product of his having been raised in Southeast Asia. “Indonesia was a place where your interaction at that time with power was very intimate, right?” Rhodes asks. “Tens or hundreds of thousands of people had just been killed. Power was not some abstract thing,” he muses. “When we sit in Washington and debate foreign policy, it’s like a Risk game, or it’s all about us, or the human beings disappear from the decisions.” “But he [Obama] lived in a place where he was surrounded by people who had either perpetrated those acts — and by the way, may not have felt great about that — or else knew someone who was a victim. I don’t think there’s ever been an American president who had an experience like that at a young age of what power is.” The article goes on to describe how Obama and his “work wife” Valerie Jarrett (Obama’s White House counselor and closest friend; the other person described as having a true mind meld with Obama) connected way back in their bachelorhood days around this deleterious understanding of America. She was born in Iran; he grew up in Indonesia. Obama and I “lived in countries that were predominantly Muslim countries at formative parts of our childhood,” Jarrett says. Therefore, they share a “deeply held premise about the negative effects of use of American military force on a scale much larger than drone strikes or Special Forces raids.” Thus, the deal with Iran was something that Obama “was eager to do since the beginning of his presidency.” It was the “center of the arc” — the ultimate goal that would “create the space for America to disentangle itself from its established system of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey. With one bold move, the administration would effectively begin the process of large-scale disengagement from the Middle East” — and the handover of the region to Iran. Rhodes has no problem bragging about the “far-reaching spin campaign” he ran to turn the “president’s emotional footprint” — Obama’s disparagement of America and his consequent drive to knock back America’s global policy footprint — into policy. The so-called “grown-ups in Washington didn’t know what they were talking about,” but the whippersnapper Rhodes and his bigheaded boss did. They know better. Washington analyst Lee Smith (The Weekly Standard) summarized the Rhodes interview this way: “For the last seven years the American public has been living through a post-modern narrative crafted by an extremely gifted and unspeakably cynical political operative whose job is to wage digital information campaigns designed to dismantle a several-decade-old security architecture while lying about the nature of the Iranian regime. No wonder Americans feel less safe — they are.” To which I add: For the last seven years, America has been led by an ideologue whose conceptions of global right and wrong were formed in the Muslim world, and who has been set on a course from day one to bring about a seismic shift in the global balance of power against the West and in favor of Islam. It’s not (merely) a fear of Middle East quicksand, nor a distaste for American overreach, nor the search for some new grand geopolitical architecture that animates Obama. It’s a devotion to the honor of Islamic civilization. No wonder Americans feel dishonored by Obama. They are being denigrated purposefully. |
Rhodes’ contempt & Obama’s revulsion by David M. Weinberg 12.Second Temple-era mikveh discovered under Al-Aqsa mosque |
Al-Aqsa mosque was destroyed in an earthquake in 1927 • As it was being rebuilt, the British archaeologist Robert Hamilton documented the excavation of its foundations • He hid away the findings that the waqf found inconvenient • Today, thousands of findings, including a seal with the inscription “From Gibeon to the king” unearthed by Dr. Gabi Barkai and Zachi Dvira, shed light on the Temple Mount’s Jewish period • A peek back into history. By Nadav Shragai
Dr. Gabi Barkai unearthed the hidden findings ‘From Gibeon to the King’7th cent. BCE engraving king” engraving on “From Gibeon to the king” engraving on seventh ce found under Al Aksa Mosque. Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin |
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In 1927, an earthquake struck Jerusalem, killing 130 people, wounding 450 and destroying or heavily damaging about 300 buildings, including Al-Aqsa mosque. The Muslim Waqf, led by Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, began restoring the mosque. Robert Hamilton, the director of the antiquities department during the Mandatory period in pre-state Israel, spotted an opportunity in the midst of disaster.
Hamilton took advantage of this unexpected window of opportunity to reach an agreement with the Waqf that would allow archaeological investigation on the Temple Mount, for the first time ever, in the area where the mosque had collapsed. Hamilton documented reconstruction work by the Waqf, photographed, sketched, excavated, analyzed & wrote about a series of findings, some surprising.
But this unprecedented cooperation between the British archaeologist and the Muslim clerics was not without a price. In the book that Hamilton later published, he makes no mention of any findings that the Muslims would have found inconvenient. It was no coincidence that these findings came from two historical periods that preceded the Muslim period in Jerusalem: the Second Temple era and the Byzantine era. These findings were hidden deep in the Mandatory archives department (which today is part of the Antiquities Authority archives in the Rockefeller Museum). These days they are finally coming to light.
Eighty years later, Hamilton’s hidden findings are providing support for similar findings unearthed by two Israeli archaeologists, Dr. Gabi Barkai and Zachi Dvira. For the past seven years, Barkai and Dvira have been working on a unique project: sifting tons of earth that the waqf removed from the Temple Mount in the dead of night about 13 years ago. This earth is filled with tiny archaeological findings.
Some important background: In 1999, during preparations to install the gates of Al-Marwani mosque in Solomon’s Stables at the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, the Muslims brought in bulldozers and dug a pit deep and wide. This scandal, which has already been described in the most condemnatory terms possible, led recently to a comprehensive report by the State Comptroller’s Office — a report that is, unfortunately, classified. Still, some good has come from the bad.
Archaeological science was given the extraordinary opportunity to examine the earth of the Temple Mount. Unlike what happens during a proper excavation, this earth is being examined “out of its context” (with no way to determine which layer a particular finding came from or to make sure that the remaining ruins are not damaged). The Temple Mount Sifting Project has discovered hundreds of thousands of small items that teach us a great deal about Jerusalem’s past and confirm information that Hamilton and the waqf kept from the public for decades.
Beneath the floor of Al-Aqsa mosque, which had collapsed in the earthquake, Hamilton discovered the remains of a Jewish mikveh [ritual pool used for purification] that dated back to the Second Temple era.
Apparently, Jews immersed in this mikveh before entering the Temple grounds.
Barkai and Dvira found a multitude of small items from the periods of the First and Second Temples. Among these items were fragments of the small columns used in a hypocaust — a space under the floor of a room, used to heat the room above — and tubuli – hollow square bricks through which heated air passed, heating the space. Barkai believes that these are remnants of the heating system that the pilgrims, or perhaps the priests, used after completing the ritual immersion.
About half a meter (1.5 feet) under the floor of the damaged mosque, Hamilton discovered the remains of a Byzantine mosaic. When Dvira saw the photographs of it, he immediately recalled hundreds of thousands of mosaic stones and fragments of column capitals, marble used to cover stalls, and marble used for the grating of a church, all from the Byzantine period (324-638 C.E.) that had been found amid the earth taken from the Temple Mount.
These findings have brought about an important revolution in the way we view the history of that period. They suggest that contrary to everything that has been written in the history books, the Temple Mount contained structures — a church or churches — during the Byzantine period. It was not empty and desolate, as was believed until now.
“We have an enormous amount of findings from the Byzantine era,” says Dr. Barkai. “They are mainly ceramics, rare coins — including a coin of the last Byzantine emperor, Heraclius — and even a Byzantine lamp with an inscription that refers to Jesus. The people writing the history of the Temple Mount definitely have to reassess their work on this particular era.”
Sifting to win
Sifting earth by placing it on horizontal screens and then pouring water on it might look odd to professional archaeologists. But the multitude of findings, the first ones from the soil of the Temple Mount, which were not excavated directly from the Temple Mount, and which are so small, have amazed many people. The wet sifting method was adopted by many other archaeologists and led to many significant discoveries. For example, archaeologist Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, who excavated near the Western Wall plaza, used the methods developed by the Temple Mount Sifting Project in Emek Tzurim and unearthed five seals from the First Temple era.
The bulla (a small clay seal) discovered in the City of David, which provides the earliest archaeological evidence, in ancient Hebrew script, of the existence of the city of Bethlehem, was also discovered during wet sifting of buckets of earth brought to Emek Tzurim from the City of David. Other archaeologists have brought earth to Emek Tzurim from their own excavations — and this is how the location of the sifting project became not only a place to sift earth from the Temple Mount, but from other digs as well.
One of the rare findings discovered recently is a bulla that was found in a First Temple-era trash pit on the southeastern slopes of the Temple Mount. The bulla bore the inscription: “From Gibeon to the king.” Gabi Barkai believes that the bulla, which is about 2,600 years old dating back to the seventh century B.C.E., is evidence of the tax that the inhabitants of Gibeon paid to the king of Judah, who was likely Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah.
“This is the first time that a bulla of this type has been discovered someplace other than the antiques market. It gives validity to 50 other bullae, most of which are in the collection of Joseph Chaim Kaufman of Belgium. Each bulla mentions a city whose name appears in the fifteenth chapter of the biblical Book of Joshua,” says Barkai. “This demonstrates that those cities paid taxes to the central government.”
The bulla that bears the inscription “From Gibeon to the king” was found by accident when the ground was being leveled on the eastern slopes of the Temple Mount in order to prepare for a mass given by the Pope, who visited Israel that year. Zachi Dvira, who was there when the work was going on and watched it, received permission to transfer the earth from there for sifting in Ein Tzurim National Park. This led to the discovery of amazing findings including fragments of earthenware and tools, bones and five other bullae from the First Temple era.
The sifting of the earth from the Temple Mount to date has uncovered thousands of coins from various periods. Among the coins that generated the most excitement was the half-shekel coin, which was stamped during the great rebellion against the Romans and was used to pay the Temple tax. Another coin bears the image of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), under whom the anti-Jewish decrees were promulgated and the Hasmonean rebellion began.
Another coin that came from the soil of the Temple Mount dates back to the rebellion during which the Second Temple was destroyed. This coin bears the inscription “The liberty of Zion.” Other findings include animal bones, some of them perhaps of animals kept on the Temple Mount for sacrifice and which were burned during the destruction. Fox and pig bones were found as well.
To date, 120,000 volunteers have participated in the Temple Mount Sifting Project. Even now, excitement breaks out every time someone shouts “I found something!” The Nature and Parks Authority made the land available for the project. Bar-Ilan University is giving the project academic sponsorship, and the Antiquities Authority has issued it a license. The Elad organization provides the funding.
Jewish sources
Dr. Gabi Barkai says that to date, about two-thirds of the earth removed from the Temple Mount has been transported to the sifting site, and about half of the total amount has been sifted. “The remaining third, which was not taken to the sifting site, became mixed in large part with other dust and earth, so we let it go. … We have enough sifting work for another seven years,” he says, and mentions that piles of earth remain on the Temple Mount. In an extraordinary move, he High Court of Justice has ruled that the waqf is forbidden to move them.
“We are willing to allow the Waqf to remove the earth from there under certain conditions that will allow us to carry out a better archaeological examination of it, or if they allow us to sift it there. Meanwhile, the waqf refuses to allow either option. Not only that, but it is deliberately mixing this earth with modern-day trash and construction debris in order to reduce our ability to get something out of it in the future,” he says.
Until the piles of earth reach Emek Tzurim or are examined on the eastern side of the Temple Mount, Barkai and Dvira still have plenty of work to do, and plenty of discoveries to make: “From the prehistoric era, from the days of Adam to our own time.”
Here are several examples of recent discoveries: three scarab seals from the second century B.C.E.; fragments of prehistoric tools made of flint, and some ceramics from the 10th century B.C.E., including pitcher handles. Similar handles were discovered recently at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah Valley, at a site that is identified with the period of the united monarchy and King David; large numbers of figurines from the First Temple era; scales for weighing money, made of stone with a domelike structure and a flat base, and slingshot stones shaped like tennis balls, also from the First Temple Period resembling those that were discovered in the ruins of the Assyrian destruction of Lachish. One of the more exciting discoveries to come from the mounds of earth was the handle of a pitcher with the imprint of a seal from Rhodes. It bears the date corresponding to 165 B.C.E., the year that the Temple Mount was purified and the Temple rededicated — the year of the Hanukkah miracle.
Hundreds of opus sectile tiles and thousands of mosaic stones of the same flooring type that were discovered in the sifting project link the Temple Mount to scripture texts. These are fragments of colorful tiles, some of them of marble and others of bituminous chalk, which comes from near the Dead Sea. Examples of such tiling were found in the past in Herod’s palace in Jericho, at the Herodion and on Masada.
Dr. Barkai quotes from the scriptures, drawing a connection between them and the hundreds of colored tile. “Josephus says that during the Second Temple era, the Temple courtyards were paved with ‘colored stones.’ The sages of the Talmud also say that Herod built the Temple ‘of blue, yellow and white marble.'”
Muslim contempt
Large findings hardly survived the Waqf’s bulldozers. Most of the ones that did are still on the Temple Mount. Some of them were used as raw material for the Waqf’s construction work on the Temple Mount, and a little of it reached the black market. Still, the piles of earth that were removed from the Temple Mount contained fragments of red marble columns from the Roman period.
In the waqf museum on the Temple Mount, a large fragment is preserved with a dedicatory inscription. The fragment was part of the victory arch that the Romans build after the Second Temple was destroyed. The inscription commemorates Flavius Silva, the conqueror of Masada, who was the governor of the province of Judea during the 80s C.E. The fragment came from a building in Solomon’s Stables, which the Muslims began to level in 1996.
This week, a rare photograph was taken on the Temple Mount. Taken inside the Dome of the Rock, it shows construction materials and rebar placed on the Foundation Stone, the place where the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant are believed to have been. While there does not appear to be any archaeological damage, this state of affairs is an expression of the weakness of the Antiquities Authority in the place that is the most important to the Jewish people. This weakness takes the form of the authority’s complete dependence on the police and also of the contempt that the Muslims show toward Jewish archaeological remnants on the Temple Mount.
The director-general of the Antiquities Authority, Yehoshua “Shuka” Dorfman, spoke about the current situation on the Temple Mount before the Knesset’s Education Committee. He described the Temple Mount as “an archaeological site that is not under the Authority’s supervision … our ability to provide supervision is limited. Would I say that I am pleased? Definitely not. But we cooperate with the police, and we know what is happening on the Temple Mount.”
Second Temple-era mikveh discovered under Al-Aqsa mosque
13.The next stage of Zionism By Ashley Perry JPost.com 05/08/2016 20:52
Our ancestors would have sacrificed much just to enjoy one moment living in this time & in this land, with its myriad of challenges.
Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl. (photo credit:Wikimedia Commons) Zionism has always had a pure and simple axiom at its very base: the return of an exiled and indigenous people to their ancestral homeland.
While we, living in the 21st century, have the luxury of pontificating about the importance and place of Israel, our ancestors would have sacrificed much just to enjoy one moment living in this time and in this land, with its myriad of challenges.
The return to Zion was simply an occasion unprecedented in the annals of history. No other people had spent as long in a Diaspora, suffered as much oppression, while maintaining its distinctiveness and a tribal memory yearning for return. Zionism was never distinct from Judaism, and was rarely far from the Jewish heart, soul or lips. Even in the relatively more benign exile, Jews rarely ceased to wax lyrical about their aspiration to return, perhaps phrased best by the immortal words of Spanish Jewish poet Judah Halevi, who wrote, “My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west.”
Halevi followed his heart to the Land of Israel, as did countless others over the centuries. However, modern practical Zionism returned the precept of return to the communal restoration of sovereignty and mass settlement. When sovereignty was restored the most natural next phase for Zionism was collective return from the four corners of the earth. Aliya thus became the formative tenet of Zionism.
The concept of the “ingathering of the exiles” is enshrined in the first operational paragraph of Israel’s Declaration of Independence and found its legal expression in arguably the most important law on Israel’s statute books, the Law of Return. This law declares that any Jew has the right to live in Israel, and has brought millions of Jews from over 130 different nations speaking dozens of different languages back to their homeland.
The reestablished nation was formed out of broken bodies and souls fleeing centuries of exile and persecution, and in the immediate wake of unprecedented destruction. Yet, the ethos of aliya has never wavered and continues unabated to this day.
Nevertheless, while Israel will always remain vigilant and open to Jewish communities in distress, the days of mass Aliyot may have ended earlier this year when a government decision was made to bring the final group of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
Many could reasonably suggest that the exiles have been largely ingathered, especially as Israel now has the largest community of Jews in the world and will be composed of the majority of world Jewry in a short period of time.
Nonetheless, over the centuries many of our people were lost to us in the long exile. Some were physically destroyed while others were forcibly separated from Jewish society. In different eras Jews were forcibly converted and separated from their brethren in places like Germany, France, Russia, Iran, Yemen, Ethiopia, Hungary and of course, Spain, on three separate occasions.
Almost every Jew alive today has ancestors or distant relatives who were forcibly converted but were able to return to openly Jewish lives after a period.
However, many were not so fortunate. Perhaps the greatest mass conversions occurred in Medieval Spain and Portugal when hundreds of thousands of Jews were forcibly cut off from their people. Many of their descendants carried the flame of Judaism close to their hearts throughout the intervening centuries through surreptitious prayers, covert customs or a secret tongue. Today, millions of the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities would like to reconnect with the Jewish social fabric.
This can and should be the new challenge of Zionism at the beginning of the 21st century.
A Zionism that sought to unravel history, repeal the dispersion and ingather the exiles should also encompass those whose ancestors were cruelly ripped from the Jewish body but now seek a return and a reconnection.
Zionism does not need to be redefined or amended, it merely has to be restored to its fullest and widest meaning.
At one of the early Zionist Congresses, the father of modern political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, remarked that “Zionism is a homecoming to the Jewish fold even before it is a homecoming to the Jewish land.”
Meaning that Zionism is a communal effort and like the Latin formula ‘nemo resideo’ (leave no man behind), it is not fulfilled unless we offer its vision also to those we lost or were disconnected from during the 2,000 years of exile.
Herzl saw Zionism as having a transformative effect on Jewish peoplehood, and returning those lost or disconnected from us should also be given a right to reconnect with Israel and the Jewish people, and that is what many of these descendants seek. In turn, this fulfillment of Zionism can draw many benefits and help us meet the many challenges we face ahead.
The history of Zionism serves as a reminder that the Jewish people are indeed the “eternal nation” and we never let historical circumstances prevent us from achieving the seemingly impossible. The next phase of Zionism should include the appreciable task of offering the hand of reconnection to those we lost during the Exile and whose souls also yearn for a return to Zion.
The writer is a former senior government adviser and president of Reconectar, an organization facilitating the reconnection of the descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities and the Jewish world. He is also director of the Knesset Caucus for Reconnection.
www.Reconectar.co.
The next stage of Zionism By Ashley Perry