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An Israeli father of seven was shot dead in an apparent terror attack in the West Bank on Thursday afternoon, while driving along Route 57, between the northern West Bank settlements of Shavei Shomron and Einav. Rabbi Meir Chai, 40, lived in Shavei Shomron for the last 14 years, and teaches at the Talmud Torah School. His seven children range from two months-old to 18 year-old. Magen David Adom paramedics attempted to save Chai, but were forced to pronounce his death at the scene of the shooting.

An everlasting hope of finding significant amounts of oil in Israel may have been realized with the announcement Thursday that “significant quantities” of oil were found in a well in the area of Rosh HaAyin, a city located east of Tel Aviv on the western edge of Samaria.

Two hundred 12th graders from all parts of Israel, including urban centers, have written Defense Minister Ehud Barak that they want to serve in the army but will not accept orders to expel Jews from their homes. The unprecedented declaration represents another slap in the face of the Defense Minister, whose policies prompted the Hesder yeshiva in Arad to announce on Wednesday it is pulling out of the Hesder program after he threw the Har Brachah yeshiva out of the Torah study army service program. Defense Minister Barak has rejected as insufficient Hesder yeshiva Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s signed statements opposing...

UN Charter: “To maintain international peace and security.” Edit LinkBy Ted Belman A movement is afoot to get the UN to predetermine borders between Israel and the future 23rd Arab state and to recognize “East Jerusalem” as its capital. Such predetermination would be in violation of the Roadmap which calls for a negotiated solution where “negotiated” implies freedom to say “no”. And such predetermination would prejudge the outcome which the world never tires of telling Israel, no one can do. I began doing research on the powers of the UN and on whether such UN predetermination would be ultra-vires its...

Vatican, Israel Joust Over Jerusalem Site The Mt. Zion site where Jesus Christ is believed to have gathered his disciples for the Last Supper was lost to the Roman Catholic Church more than 450 years ago. No accord came of the latest talks. By Edmund Sanders December 22, 2009 Reporting from Jerusalem - The government of Israel seems to be embracing the Christmas spirit. This week it is organizing carols and tree giveaways in Jerusalem, bus service to Bethlehem and even a fireworks show in Nazareth with an apparent eye on burnishing the nation's reputation for religious diversity. But Israel...

In a twist, right wing Israelis are turning the tables on far-left organization Peace Now. The group set up a hotline for Israelis to "fink" on residents of Judea and Samaria who build homes, in violation of the government's construction freeze. The group says on its website that the hotline will help enforce the freeze, "which is an Israeli interest."

Exclusive: Israel wargame sees U.S. sidelining Netanyahu on Iran Dan Williams TEL AVIV Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:31am EST TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel will find itself diplomatically sidelined and militarily muzzled as the United States pursues a nuclear deal with Iran next year, according to a closed-door wargame at Israel's top strategic think-tank. Not even a warning shot by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- the simulation featured an undeclared Israeli commando raid on Iran's Arak heavy water plant -- would shake U.S. President Barack Obama's insistence on dialogue. Israel's arch-foe, meanwhile, will likely keep enriching uranium, perhaps even winning...

(IsraelNN.com) The first anniversary of Israel's counterterrorism Operation Cast Lead in Gaza is set to be a catalyst for a series of anti-Israel protests worldwide. A mass march to the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel is to include several Western VIPs. From December 27 through early January, the dates of Operation Cast Lead last year, international pro-Palestinian groups are set to hold "Gaza Freedom Marches" in North America, Europe and Israel. The Gaza Freedom March in Hamas-controlled Gaza itself is slated for December 31. Organizers of the latter event are expecting around 50,000 local participants, with over 1,000 from...

Diplomacy offers the best way to resolve tensions over Iran's nuclear program but the Pentagon must be ready with military options if needed, the top US military chief said on Monday. "No resolution is yet in sight, but I fully support the effort to focus on diplomatic solutions to existing tensions" with Iran, Admiral Mike Mullen wrote in a memorandum setting out strategic priorities for the US armed forces in 2010. "My belief remains that political means are the best tools to attain regional security and that military force will have limited results," said Mullen, chairman of the Joints Chiefs...

Former US President Jimmy Carter is asking for forgiveness of the Jewish community for forgiveness for any stigma he may have caused Israel. “…..I have the hope and a prayer that the State of Israel will flourish as a Jewish state within secure and recognized borders in peaceful co-existence with its neighbors and with all the Moslem States, and that this peaceful co-existence will bring security, prosperity and happiness to the people of Israel and to the people of the Middle East of all faiths. “We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive...

Just in time for Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus' childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered in Nazareth, then a hamlet of around 50 impoverished Jewish families where Jesus spent his boyhood. Archaeologists and present-day residents of Nazareth imagined Jesus as a youngster, playing with other children in the isolated village, not far from the spot where the Archangel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the boy. Today the ornate Basilica of the Annunciation marks that...

Turns out there are real questions about the accuracy of that recent Quinnipiac poll showing President Obama’s approval rating at just 52 percent among Jewish voters. As the JTA’s Eric Fingerhut pointed out, the Jewish sampling “was derived from a sample of just 71 respondents, for a margin of error of plus or minus 11.6 percent — a sample size that pollsters generally say makes such surveys unreliable.” Actually, common sense and some knowledge of Jewish voting habits should be enough to render any such poll findings suspect at best. Obama enjoys two important advantages that make him almost a...

Iran’s nuclear threat to regional security has replaced Israel as the Arab world’s public enemy number one for the Arab world, according to an Arab survey commissioned by the Doha Debates group.

The recent Swiss vote to ban minarets was seen by many as a further indication that European populations are waking up to the threat of Europe’s Islamization and the need to stop the trend. If so, the European Union—the centralized bureaucracy that, as documented in Bat Ye’or’s important book Eurabia, went “over the heads” of European publics to meld the European and Arab/Muslim civilizations in the first place—still hasn’t caught up and remains locked in a pro-Arab/Muslim disposition. At least, the EU’s stance on Jerusalem would suggest so. Last week the new EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, “came down...

NAZARETH, Israel — Israeli archaeologists say they have uncovered remains of the first dwelling in Nazareth that can be dated back to the time of Jesus.They say the find sheds a new light on what Nazareth might have been like in Jesus' time — probably a small hamlet with about 50 houses populated by poor Jews.Archaeologist Yardena Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority says remains of a wall, a hideout and a cistern were found after builders dug up a convent courtyard.Alexandre said Monday archeologists also found clay and chalk vessels used by Galilean Jews of the time — an...

Israel, A Bird’s Eye View by Ari Bussel Israel from above is a miracle and looks too innocent to be generating all the havoc around her. As we increase our distance into the clouds, she looks petite, fragile, almost under-developed, clearly out of proportion with the daily uproar that surrounds her. Flights to Europe that depart at the early morning hours are a disaster, forcing one to wake up at 2AM in order to leave at 3AM for the airport to catch a 5:30AM flight. Essentially, the night’s rest is ruined, nonetheless, seeing the horizon lit with a yellowish-reddish light...

ISRAEL has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families' permission. The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge. Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said: "We...

On a recent training exercise U.S. Air Force Europe (USAFE) C-130J Hercules tactical transport aircraft and their crews deployed to the Israel Air Force Base at Nevatim, in the Northern Negev desert in southern Israel, for a period of 10 days. According to USAFE, news release, the units, belonging to Ramstein, Germany based 37th Airlift Squadron participated in the exercise Dec. 1 through 10 to accomplish various training requirements for the C-130J Super Hercules which are not allowed in Germany because of country regulations.

The Islamist group Hamas is masterminding efforts to have senior Israeli leaders arrested for alleged war crimes when they visit European countries including Britain, a top Hamas official involved in the effort has told The Times. The claim comes amid continuing diplomatic fallout after a British arrest warrant was issued last week against Tzipi Livni, who served as Foreign Minister during Israel’s Gaza offensive last winter. The warrant was withdrawn when it became clear that Ms Livni, now leader of the opposition, was not in the country. Its existence apparently prompted her to cancel a trip to attend a meeting...

At the end of an hour-long meeting Sunday evening with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that "Egypt has more to fear from Iran than we do." The foreign minister went on to stress that "The greatest danger in the Middle East today is Iran, which is a greater threat to moderate Arab nations than to Israel." Teheran, according to Lieberman, is "attempting to duplicate the model of Hizbullah in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen." Earlier on Sunday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak welcomed Suleiman to Jerusalem, saying that Egypt is a "central player" in the Middle East....

Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families' permission. The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper ... The Channel 2 report said in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers,...

Benny Ben-Dror parachuted from an exploding helicopter in the Yom Kippur War and miraculously survived. Ben-Dror had kept his survival story secret from the public until now. “I was discharged from the IDF in August '73,” explains Ben-Dror, who is now 58, “and one Saturday morning in October I got a call: ‘There’s going to be a war. Come.’”

WASHINGTON: A "bunker buster" bomb with more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor is to be put into service by the United States next December, six months later than previously scheduled, the Defense Department said. The deployment's timing may help shape new calculations in long standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, much of which are believed to be underground to avoid detection and enhance their chances of surviving an attack.

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli authorities could soon use special commando units, unmanned spy planes and cellphone-jamming equipment to enforce a moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank, military officials said Sunday, deepening a showdown between the government and Jewish settlers. Enraged settlers leaders vowed to resist the plan, prompting Defense Minister Ehud Barak to warn that settlers would face the full wrath of the military if they continue to flout the 10-month construction slowdown. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the settlement slowdown last month in an attempt to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. But the Palestinians...

A Jewish woman who married an Arab who subsequently tortured her is pleading to the Israeli government to include three of her six Jewish children, trapped in Gaza, in any deal that returns kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

An American lawyer and linguist, who was born in Israel, has plead guilty to leaking highly classified FBI document to an Internet blogger and agreed to a prison sentence of 20 months. The final sentence will be decided by the courts.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A "bunker buster" bomb with more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor is to be put into service by the United States next December, six months later than previously scheduled, the Defense Department told Reuters on Friday. The deployment's timing may help shape new calculations in long standoffs with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs, much of which are believed to be underground to avoid detection and enhance their chances of surviving an attack. "Funding delays and enhancements to the planned test schedule have pushed the capability availability date to December 2010,"...

In the face of mounting international pressure to suspend its nuclear activity, Iran flexed its muscles on Wednesday and test-fired its most advanced ballistic missile, capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe. The missile tested, according to Iranian reports, was an upgraded version of the Sajjil 2, a sophisticated ballistic missile that has a range of close to 2,000 kilometers, can carry a nuclear warhead and is powered by a solid-fuel propellant which gives it greater accuracy and range. With solid fuel, the missile can be stored in underground silos, making it more difficult to detect before launch. "This...

Arab honour is at the root of Arab rejectionism and intransigence. It prevents Arabs from accepting blame or compromising. It also prevents Arabs from losing land to Israel or ending the conflict. Arab honour is closely linked to Islamic concepts of jihad and dhimmitude. Arab honour impells them to seek domination. Failure to dominate, dishonours them. Accepting responsibility is an anathema to their honour.. Muslim violence against the publication in Denmark of cartoons featuring Mohammed is a prime example of their refusal to accept the rule of law or western norms that are at odds with what their honour demands....

Israel's new rocket defense system has proven a hit-to-kill capability. Officials said Israel's Iron Dome has achieved the ability to strike incoming short-range missiles and rockets. They said the Iron Dome demonstrated this during its first live fire test in mid-2009. "They met head on," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. In a Nov. 17 address to the International Aerospace Conference and Exhibition-Israel, Barak said Iron Dome exceeded all expectations. He said the assessment within the Defense Ministry and military had been that the interceptor would explode 10 meters from the incoming missile.

Palestinian Authority Special Forces were praised this week by an American general for becoming the founders of a new Arab country within Israel's current borders. Addressing a battalion in Tulkarm that recently finished training in Jordan, US lt. General Keith Dayton said: "As I look at you, I couldn't be more proud of the fact that you stepped up to be the founders of a Palestinian state." The United States plans to expand a program to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the occupied West Bank, the general in charge of training and equipping them said Monday. "We...

Today, he believes Germany is doomed. "People there don't get married, and if they do they have one child," he says. "But the Turks and the other foreigners have many children. So it is a question of time that Germany will no longer be German." Why does he think this has happened? "I think it is a punishment for the Holocaust," he says, matter-of-factly. "Germany will leave the stage of history, no doubt about it." But the Jews, by contrast, will never die. This is a neat irony of history that he loves. "All the great cultures have left the...

Kuwaiti Columnist: "The Zionist Cockroach" Has Taken Over the World, and Has Caused Everyone to Hate Arabs and Muslims In a December 11, 2009 column titled "The Zionist Cockroach" in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas, Kuwaiti columnist Fakhir Hashem Al-Sayed Rajab compared the Zionists to cockroaches capable of survival in any situation who use dishonorable means to assure their continued existence. He wrote that the Zionists had taken over the world and caused everyone worldwide to hate the Arabs and the Muslims – and stated that this was in light of the absence of any unified Arab stance. Following is...

Article in Egyptian Gov't Daily 'Al-Ahram': Escalation in Region Proves Truth of 'Protocols of Elders of Zion' http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3847.htm On October 1, 2009, the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram published an article by author Ilham Sharshar stating that recent events in the Middle East – including what she called the "inevitable" clash between Iran and Israel – were all part of the Zionist plan to establish a Jewish kingdom to rule the world, in accordance with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.The following are excerpts from the article: "Every Escalation [in the Region] Proves [the Truth Of] These Protocols' Every...

is similar in size (and appearance) to the American Predator (both weighing about a ton), but the Israeli vehicle is built mainly for endurance. The Hermes can stay in the air for 36 hours, and has a payload of 650 pounds (300kg). This means that, with its cruising speed of 125 kilometers an hour, the Hermes 900 has a max range of 4,500 kilometers. Thus the Hermes 900 could fly to Iran (1,500 kilometers distant), do some reconnaissance, and return. Although the 900 has a quiet engine, it is fairly visible, even at its highest altitude (nearly 10,000 meters/30,000 feet)....

The 30th summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, meeting in Kuwait this week, expressed its solidarity with Saudi Arabia in its fight with the Shi'ite Houthi rebels in northern Yemen. The Kuwaiti emir noted that Saudi Arabia is facing "flagrant aggression that targets its sovereignty and security by those who have infiltrated its territory." The formerly little-noticed conflict between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government is now taking on the coloration of an additional hot front in an ongoing region-wide cold war. The conflict in northern Yemen reveals the ongoing Iranian regional effort to convert Shi'ite populations into assets...

No teacher in Santa Cruz County - maybe even in all of Northern California - is going to have a tale to top Kathleen Crocetti's "What I Did on My Winter Break" story. The Mission Hill Middle School art teacher will have what she believes could be an experience of a lifetime when she boards a plane Dec. 22 bound for one of the world's most troubled regions. She's going to Gaza. Crocetti will be traveling with her husband Bill Lucas and about 1,000 activists from all over the world to take place in the Gaza Freedom March and to...

To grasp the underlying anti-Zionist viewpoint prevalent in New York Times coverage of Israel and the Palestinians, one need look no farther than Ethan Bronner's ruminations in the December 16 edition, ("Israelis and Palestinians Ponder Surprising Role for Netanyahu: Peacemaker," page A6. Bronner starts by reporting that Aluf Benn, a senior columnist at the "left-leaning" Haaretz newspaper, recently wrote that he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seriously interested in making concessions to the Palestinians to achieve a two-state solution. Bronner then reports that Benn was attacked by many colleagues, politicians and friends who firmly disagreed that Netanyahu could be...

Anti-apartheid activists have named a number of commercial brands as Israel's sponsors, urging the world nations to think twice before buying their products ahead of Christmas. The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) released a list of 10 multi-national companies with Israeli ties, saying the firms benefited from the West Bank apartheid wall in one way or another. The USACBI accused the commercial groups of having a direct role in the suffering of Palestinian people, exploiting the Palestinian work forces and supporting the Israeli military build-up and its illegal settlement projects in the occupied Palestinian...

President Barack Obama’s past continues to haunt him. A friend e-mailed me this revealing post by Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr., pastor of The Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake, Virginia. Bishop Jackson wrote it last June, but I have not seen it circulated or mentioned before now. Now, someone found it and put it on their own blog. Like so many of us, Bishop Jackson describes himself as once a leftist Democrat; an African-American who grew up in a black urban community in Pennsylvania, and a man who is disturbed about what he calls “a strain of anti-Semitism in the black...

If you want to understand what's really going on in the alleged Israel-Palestinian peace process-beyond the babble that progress is being made, it's all Israel's fault, and everyone is working hard on it-here's what you need to know. For the present, the Palestinian leadership isn't interested in pursuing negotiations with Israel because it has a different strategy: get everything it wants from others without making any concessions. First, the Palestinian Authority (PA) came very close to obtaining a European Union (EU) resolution which made it sound like the Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem is an accomplished fact. The...

Israel, Our Prayer by Ari Bussel ‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give them.” —Deuteronomy 30:19-20 As I sit in the plane departing Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, I think...

The Kuwaiti newspaper al-Sayissa reported Wednesday that Iran has urgently summoned either Syrian Vice President Farouk Sharaa or Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. They are apparently being called to the Iranian capital to receive orders to be carried out in the event of Iranian nuclear sites being targeted in war, Israel Radio reported. The newspaper quoted a Gulf state diplomat as saying that Nasrallah will travel to Teheran in the coming days in order to receive his marching-orders. Iranian opposition organizations in Paris told the newspaper that the Iranian intelligence apparatus has established a bank...

The Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), a U.S. taxpayer-funded organization noted for the virulent anti-Israeli attitudes of its academic members, held a conference in October at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Most of the conference was apolitical, but two lectures in particular raise (again) the question of whether PARC should be the recipient of taxpayer monies. Indeed, this is not the first time the public has been warned about PARC's questionable scholar-activism. Titled, "Palestine: What We Know," and billed as "a multi-disciplinary survey of the state of scholarship on Palestine," much of the October event was scholarly...

Here's one from the Department of We Are The World: Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address the U.N.'s climate summit in Copenhagen. Say what you will about these two gentlemen—the support for terrorists, the Holocaust denial, the suppression of civil liberties—at least nobody can accuse them of being global warming "deniers." On the contrary, the two leaders, who met in Caracas last month for at least the 11th time, have been nothing if not cooperative when it comes to environmentally friendly and carbon-neutral technologies. Bicycles, for instance: In 2005, Chávez directed his government to "follow seriously the project of...

Kadima Knesset Member Ronit Tirosh has called on government officials to stop flying British Airways and has suggested an Israeli boycott of British goods. Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin of the Likud backed her idea. MK Tirosh's initiative is in retaliation for the British government’s recommendation that its Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs label Jewish products made in Judea and Samaria as "Israeli settlement produce."

The PLO Central Council on Wednesday approved a resolution calling on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to stay in power until new elections are held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The decision was immediately condemned by Hamas as "illegal." Salim Za'noun, chairman of the Palestine National Council, the PLO's parliament-in-exile, said that the decision to extend Abbas's term in office had been taken at the end of a two-day meeting of the PLO Central Council in Ramallah. The council consists of scores of members of the Palestine National Council, where all Palestinian factions, with the exception of Hamas,...

The Palestine Liberation Organization's Central Committee yesterday extended Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's term until new elections are held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - elections in which Abbas reiterated that he would not run. The Palestinian leader is now officially a lame duck. That's not an insult. Many renowned international leaders achieved their greatest accomplishments when it was clear that they were about to exit the world's stage. In Israel, it has been lame duck leaders with nothing left to lose who have offered the Palestinians the best offers they have received. On January 23, 2001, just...

U.S. President Barack Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Haaretz. They said Obama warned President Hu Jintao during the American's visit to Beijing a month ago as part of the U.S. attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program.

Jewish “terrorist” Ya’akov Teitel, who is charged with the murder of two Palestinians, has told an Israeli court: “God is proud of me.” Mr Teitel, 37, an American immigrant who lives in the Shvut Rachel settlement in the West Bank with his Manchester-born wife Rivka, is charged with 14 offences. Charges include two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder, and include alleged attacks on gay, left-wing and messianic Jews. He is accused of murdering a Palestinian taxi driver in East Jerusalem and a Palestinian shepherd in the West Bank. He also allegedly sent a gift wrapped bomb...