Free Republic

A team of archaeologists and scientists says it has, for the first time, found pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus in a tomb in Jerusalem. The researchers, from Hebrew University and institutions in Canada and the US, said the shroud was very different from the controversial Turin Shroud. Some people believe the Turin Shroud to have been Christ's burial cloth, but others believe it is a fake. The newly found cloth has a simpler weave than Turin's, the scientists say. The body of a man wrapped in fragments of the shroud was found in a tomb...

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Kadima head Tzipi Livni and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Tuesday evening in an apparent effort to prevent the diplomatic crisis stemming from a British arrest warrant issued against Livni from spinning completely out of control. Israeli officials react to Livni's UK arrest warrant According to a statement put out by Livni's office, Miliband expressed his "shock" at the arrest warrant and promised to work immediately to ensure that a similar occurrence would not happen in the future against Livni or other Israeli leaders. Miliband told Lieberman that the warrant was "completely unacceptable."

A resident of the Jewish community of Eli in Samaria has discovered that the giant Google search engine is apparently not waiting for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to complete final status negotiations. In Google's Internet world, life for Jews in the region has already taken on a new reality. Eliezer Tabor picked up a connection on the community’s wireless router as usual this week. But he found that despite the fact that the rest of the sites he surfed recognized his location as within Israel, Google named his location as within “Palestinian territory.”

A Jewish bride and her father were arrested on the Temple Mount the day before her wedding, after an Arab policeman claimed he saw the father muttering prayers and the bride nodding her head. The father and daughter were being taken around the site on Wednesday morning by her brother Eli, a volunteer who conducts regular tours at the Temple Mount, when suddenly they were accosted by the Jerusalem policeman.

European Union foreign ministers agreed on Tuesday that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state, as part of a negotiated settlement, EU diplomats said. The foreign ministers, meeting for a second day of talks in Brussels, adopted a text agreeing that Jerusalem should provide "the future capital of the two states", one diplomat said. The move is bound to anger Israel which has already warned Europe against seeking to foist a solution to the Middle East problem on the parties involved. However, an earlier proposal by the Swedish EU presidency, to explicitly support the...

European Union foreign ministers pulled back from a confrontation with Israel by dropping a call for east Jerusalem to be recognised as the future capital of a Palestinian state. At a meeting in Brussels, they instead said that Palestinian territory must simply include part of the city. Israel reacted with relief that a concerted campaign by its diplomats persuaded European foreign ministers to stop short of endorsing the division of half the city as the Palestinian capital. An Israeli foreign ministry statement said: "In light of the extreme draft originally presented by the Swedish presidency at the start of discussions,...

JERUSALEM -- Israel last year revoked the Jerusalem residency of more than 4,500 Palestinians, far more than in any other year since Israel took full control of the city in 1967, according to government figures obtained under the country's freedom of information act by a local human rights group. In what an official for the group on Wednesday called a "frightening" escalation in the enforcement of Jerusalem residency laws, the Interior Ministry said that a sweep of its files last spring turned up thousands of names of Palestinian Jerusalemites who had left the country for longer than the allowed seven...

(IsraelNN.com) A “welcoming” committee of Arabs and foreign anti-Israel activists, including those from the United States and Sweden, attacked Jews with clubs and stones Tuesday as a new family moved into a home in eastern Jerusalem. Police stopped the attack but not before blood was streaming down the face of a Jewish guard at the site. The clash came as Sweden plans to present a proposal to the European Union that it recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Authority, a step that would give the PA de facto status as a state and weaken Israeli sovereignty over...

The Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday morning that a Swedish-led attempt to have the European Union recognize eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Authority will backfire. The draft proposal, expected to be placed on the EU table next week, would damage efforts to reach peace with the PA and damage the EU’s standing as a trusted entity, ministry spokesman Yossi Levy said.

The European Union usually goes out of its way to appease Palestinian Terror and prove its disdain for Israel, but the latest report goes beyond the pale even for the EU. Ha'aretz is reporting that the European Union foreign ministers are expected to officially call next week for the division of Jerusalem, to serve as the capitals of both Israel and Palestine. A draft document authored by the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Sweden, and implying that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, has been obtained by Haaretz. Jerusalem is waging a diplomatic campaign...

An Arab university lecturer and writer is hiding underground out of fear for his life after shocking the Palestinian Authority with a book that links Jews with the Temple Mount. The Arab world has been conducting a campaign, including removal of tons of dirt containing archaeological evidence, to try to eliminate historical Jewish links with the Temple Mount. Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, of Birzeit University in Ramallah, threw acid on the propaganda campaign that tries to convince Arabs that the First and Second Temples never existed. He wrote in a book, “The legendary Temple of Jerusalem may be the place of...

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Wednesday called US President Barack Obama's strong criticism of the building of additional Jewish homes in a Jewish neighborhood of the Israeli capital a position based on racism. Said Barkat: "Israeli law does not discriminate between Jews, Muslims, and Christians or between eastern and western Jerusalem. The demand to halt construction by religion is not legal in the United States or in any other free place in the world. I do not presume that any government would demand to freeze construction in the United States based on race, religion or gender and the attempt to...

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was ordered by the Obama apparatchiks to express displeasure at the decision by Israel to build houses in the East Jerusalem suburb of Gilo. But Gibbs failed to disclose that the land on which Gilo was built, as with other suburbs in "disputed" parts of East Jerusalem, was home to many Jews who were driven out in 1948 by the British officered Arab Legion of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It was not liberated by Israel, and the land restored, until the June, 1967 Six Day War, nineteen years later. King Hussein of Jordan had...

Dsvid Littman, 75, was awarded the Order of "Hero of Silence" last Summer 2009 by the Israeli Mossad for having been an undercover volunteer helping 500 children leave Morocco clandestinely in 1963. The Order of "Hero of Silence" is a very rare award. Only nine people have received it, seven whose identities remain classified. "drzz.info" obtained exclusive photographs of this private event taking place at the heart of Israel's intelligence community and featuring Ephraim Halevy, the Mossad's former director general, and the current Mossad's deputy director whose face has been "blacked" for confidentiality restrictions.

The Great Rift Valley extends some 4,000 miles southward from Syria north of Israel, through the Gulf of Aqaba, through Ethiopia, and all the way to Mozambique in southeast Africa. It harbors a giant fault, which has been under investigation as a model for sea floor spreading. A recent geologic event rent a gaping crack through the desert of Ethiopia, causing safety concerns for locals. These crustal plate motions may foreshadow rifting events further north in the Great Rift Valley...

A White House spokesman on Wednesday condemned a decision by the Israeli government to proceed with settlement expansion in Jerusalem. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration is “dismayed” by the Jerusalem Planning Committee’s decision that moved “forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem.” Gilo is a neighborhood in Eastern Jerusalem. Gibbs said the move would hamper future peace negotiations in the Middle East the administration is trying to move forward. “At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed,” Gibbs...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Tuesday that it was "dismayed" over Israeli approval to expand the Gilo settlement in Jerusalem and sharply criticized the ongoing evictions and demolition of Palestinian homes. "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. U.S. President Barack Obama has urged Israel to curb settlement expansion as a gesture of goodwill to Palestinians in an effort to restart the peace process. Israel on Tuesday approved the building of 900 homes...

A bright blue sky could not hide the gray shadows of pain that marked the eyes of the families of the victims of the "9/11" terrorist attack that found themselves in Arazim Park in Jerusalem on Thursday. They had gathered together with international dignitaries and Israeli leaders to dedicate a new monument to the their loved ones, who lost their lives in the senseless 2001 attack on America by the Al Qaeda terrorist organization...

Obama Drags America Into the Darkness Monumental Meeting Tonight Goodbye, Jerusalem? Hello “Al Quds”? thelastcrusade.org Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet this evening with President Obama this evening to discuss the immediate formation of a Palestinian State, with [East] Jerusalem as its capital. The meeting comes on the heels of reports that President Obama has pledged his support to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad for a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence and the confinement of Israel to its 1967 borders. At the meeting, Mr. Obama is expected to employ a carrot and stick technique to exact Mr....

OBAMA HEARTS TERRORISM America’s Gift to Islam: Jerusalem Barry's Kristallnacht Surprise Armageddon Dawns thelastcrusade.org President Barack Obama has come to an agreement with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to offer America’s official recognition of an independent Palestinian state with the old city of Jerusalem as its capital.The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister is also seeking a UN Security Council resolution to replace Resolutions 242 and 338 in a bid to win the international support for the borders of the new Palestinian state.The resolution is expect to apply stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.Several Israeli officials...

Chaos is the only term that can describe the events taking place in Jerusalem these past few days and it doesn’t look like the mayhem will subside anytime soon. Israeli police are in an all out battle with masked Palestinian protesters as stun grenades, stones, petrol bombs and plastic chairs are raining from the sky. The fact that this World War III type of scene is happening outside one of Jerusalem’s most holy shrines shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those who are familiar with the history between these two enemies. As Israeli riot police tried to extinguish...

Arab American journalist, Joseph Fara, writes: Well, as an Arab-American journalist who has spent some time in the Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I’ve got to tell you that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing. Isn’t it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland? The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple...

Following a conflagration of violence at Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Sunday, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal declared that "Jerusalem's fate will be decided with jihad (holy war) and resistance, and not negotiations." Clashes between Israeli police and youths armed with rocks broke out Sunday at the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount compound, home of the Muslim holy site, the al Aqsa mosque. The confrontation was apparently sparked by radical Jewish clerics' call to their followers to go up to the compound, and by calls by radical Muslim clerics for their followers to defend the site. Meshal, in Damascus, voiced hope that...

Following a day of clashes between security forces and Arab rioters in Jerusalem, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday evening stated that the fate of the capital would be determined by force, not negotiations. "The fate of Jerusalem will be determined only by confrontation and not by the negotiating tables," Mashaal said in a speech, according to Channel 10. "The Israelis want to divide al-Aqsa Mosque, and this is not all. They want to hold their religious ceremonies in the mosque … in preparation for demolishing it and building their temple there," he reportedly said. Israel is interested in...

Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land's most volatile shrine, where past violence has escalated into prolonged conflict. A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many of them running for cover into the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of the Islamic structures in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. They remained holed up in the mosque with police outside for several hours until dispersing...

JERUSALEM – Israeli forces stormed Jerusalem's holiest shrine Sunday, firing stun grenades to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinian protesters in a fresh eruption of violence at the most volatile spot in the Holy Land. A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields closed in on the crowd, sending many protesters — overwhelmingly young men — running for cover into the black-domed Al-Aqsa mosque. The mosque is one part of the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Dozens of protesters remained holed up inside the mosque for several hours, occasionally opening...

JERUSALEM-TORONTO – The Archaeological Research currently taking place in the ‘Walls Around the Old City’ national park at the City of David in Jerusalem is in the public’s best interests, according to an Israeli Supreme Court decision regarding two recent petitions against the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). The petitions were submitted by residents living near the excavation site. According to a press release issued by Yaen Vered, the IAA representative in Canada, it is the IAA’s opinion that “these residents are being incited by other factors whose considerations are political and improbable.” In a telephone conversation with the Jewish Tribune,...

A Sudanese man used a knife from the in-flight meal to threaten crew members after the plane left Turkish airspace and demanded that the flight be diverted to Jerusalem, the official said.

Arabs cursed and attacked Jews in an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood while police looked on, until they intervened by arresting Jews, eyewitnesses reported. The clash in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood began when a new Jewish family began unloading possessions for their new apartment home...

Boulder, CO, USA – Jerusalem's geology has been crucial in molding it into one of the most religiously important cities on the planet, according to a new study. It started in the year 1000 BCE, when the Jebusite city's water system proved to be its undoing. The Spring of Gihon sat just outside the city walls, a vital resource in the otherwise parched region. But King David, in tent on taking the city, sent an elite group of his soldiers into a karst limestone tunnel that fed the spring. His men climbed up through a cave system hollowed out by...

A record number of people - 1.5 million visitors - came to the Western Wall during the Hebrew month of Tishrei, according to figures from the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and the Israel Police. The rabbi of the Kotel (Western Wall), Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz, commented that "these figures are evidence that the Western Wall is the spiritual home for Jews from all around the world, regardless of their background."

On Sept. 17, a Shin Bet-undercover police unit detained three Palestinians fabricating bombs and using pipes as components for rockets in a covert workshop in the Abu Dis village of Jerusalem, DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report. They worked in the grocery storehouse under the direction of an engineer. The terror cell planned a rocket assault on Jerusalem and Maaleh Adummim. The facility also contained a large cache of side arms which the suspects admitted had been stocked ready for terror attacks in the city. Their questioning led to the arrest Thursday, Oct. 15 of a fourth Palestinian under orders to carry...

Jerusalem – Ma’an – Christians of several denominations gathered in Jerusalem Friday for a silent vigil in solidarity with besieged Islamic holy sites at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. “We are here to support Al-Aqsa and those who are confined inside it, we are here in support of Muslims whose dignity is humiliated and religious feelings are harmed by attacks on their holiest sites,” Archbishop Atallah Hana told those gathered. This sit-in was a response to the call of Muslim scholars and clergymen to consider Friday a day of solidarity with Jerusalemites, and Muslim holy...

Satanic “Dome of the Rock” to be removed bythelastcrusade.orgJews in the town of Mitzpe Yericho are taking steps for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, by preparing descendents of Cohanim (priests) and Levites for service. At the Mitzpe Yericho rabbinical school, Temple novice priests learn exactly how to conduct the daily Temple service and offer the required sacrifices of doves, lambs, cows, and grain.Today is really a historical event for the Jewish people,” organizer Levi Chazan said as another part of the school was completed. “It is the beginning of the work for the Third Temple.” The school...

TEL AVIV – Senior Palestinian Authority officials told WND the Obama administration offered their group guarantees that the U.S. would pressure Israel over a Palestinian state in exchange for the PA's withdrawal of support for immediate U.N. action over an investigation claiming Israel committed war crimes. The PA officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND the guarantees include pressing Israel to agree to a two-year timetable to negotiate a Palestinian state set along the pre-1967 lines – meaning a state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. The officials said the Obama administration hopes to...

Jews Have More Claim to Jerusalem than the French in Paris or Germans in Berlin Posted by smoothstone It is a mistake to think of Judeophobia being a mostly Muslim problem, since we already know that Islamism is a culture of Jew-hatred that permeates books, magazines, newspapers, sermons, the Internet, television and radio in the Arab Middle East. Sadly, Judeophobia is a global problem. As Joel Hilliker writes, history shows undeniably that the greatest persecutions of Jews have come at the hands of Western Christian society—tracing back clear to the first Roman Empire. But in spite of the hatred that...

Developers of a new Jewish neighborhood on privately-owned land in eastern Jerusalem plan to lay the cornerstone for the project Wednesday afternoon, ignoring U.S. President Barack Obama’s opposition to Jewish “settlers" in the area. Former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau plans to be on hand for the ceremony which marks the development of 105 luxury units in Nof Tzion.

On a recent History Channel presentation of 'The Naked Archeologist' the show examined the Bar Cochba Revolt of 135 AD. According to Josephus the Herodian Temple had a rectangular base measuring 450 X 450. Silver coins minted during the revolt featured a Fig Tree on one side and the rebuilt temple on the other. If the only evidence for the rebuilt temple was the widespread discovery of hundreds of thousands of the Bar Cochba silver throughout ancient Israel, there would be no controversy today. However, when the base of the Temple Mount was measured recently, the base was discovered to...

Israeli police fired stun grenades on Sunday to disperse 150 Palestinians who hurled stones at Jewish worshipers visiting a sensitive religious site in the Old City before the start of the holiest day for Jews. Two policemen were lightly wounded, a spokesman said, and Palestinian medics said they evacuated a Palestinian man suffering from a head injury. Police restored calm and closed the complex after the incident. The incident occurred before Yom Kippur in the complex known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Harm al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). It houses al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the...

This is more evidence that the Palestinian leaders have no real desire to make peace, they continue to deny history. You can't negotiate with people with people who deny your legitimacy. Last month Sheik Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, chief Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority said: Jews have no history in the city of Jerusalem: They have never lived there, the Temple never existed, and Israeli archaeologists have admitted as much. Those who deny this are simply liars. ..his comments come on the heels of those by Shamekh Alawneh, a lecturer in modern history at Al Quds University. On an Aug....

Yesterday Pres Obama addressed the UNGA on the subject of the conflict between Arabs and Jews conflict and had this to say; ...I will also continue to seek a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world. What is noteworthy here, is that he referred to "Palestine" like it was a state already. Is that not pre-judging the outcome? He also wants there to be peace with the "Arab world" which means more pressure on Israel to cave to the demands of Syria. Palestinians have strengthened their efforts on security. Israelis have facilitated greater freedom of movement...

Øbama: "... yesterday I had a constructive meeting with PM Netanyahu and president abbas..."After promising his support for an undivided Jerusalem on April 16, 2008 in Philadelphia..."It is not an acceptable option for Jerusalem to be severed from Israel along the lines of the 1967 borders. That is not going to be an option."...

A street recently uncovered in the capital’s City of David was, metaphorically, “the last seam of independent Jews in Jerusalem,” Uri Goldflam of Shalhevet Education and Consulting said on Wednesday. The street connects the Jews who lost their Second Commonwealth independence in 70 CE, and the Jewish people today, Goldflam said. “The symbolism... After Jews hid beneath the stairs from the Romans, and now as a free people, Jews can again walk above the street. After 2,000 years, the steps are not silent anymore.” The one-to-two-meter wide section of a stepped street believed to be Jerusalem’s central thoroughfare during the...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- An archaeological dig in Jerusalem has turned up a 3,700-year-old wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the region, experts say. The wall is built of enormous boulders, confounding archaeologists as to how ancient peoples built it. Standing 8 meters (26 feet) high, the wall of huge cut stones is a marvel to archaeologists. "To build straight walls up 8 meters ... I don't know how to do it today without mechanical equipment," said the excavation's director, Ronny Reich. "I don't think that any engineer today without electrical power [could] do it."...

JERUSALEM – Archaeologists digging in Jerusalem have uncovered a 3,700-year-old wall that is the oldest example of massive fortifications ever found in the city, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Wednesday. The 26-foot-high wall is believed to have been part of a protected passage built by ancient Canaanites from a hilltop fortress to a nearby spring that was the city's only water source and vulnerable to marauders. The discovery marks the first time archaeologists have found such massive construction from before the time of Herod, the ruler behind numerous monumental projects in the city 2,000 years ago, and shows that Jerusalem...

Christianity Surrenders to Islam Get Ready for Armageddon ByPaul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org The Crusades are now being conducted in reverse.The holy war was called to free the Church of Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem from the clutches of Muslims.Nearly one thousand years later, the Obama Administration is in the process of giving the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Temple Mount, and other sacred sites back to the forces of Islam.Militant Christianity is now in full retreat. The surrender of the sites is advocated not only by the Vatican but leading mainline Protestant denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (USA),...

PA police directed traffic in northern Jerusalem neighborhoods three times this past month – in violation of Israeli law and the Oslo Accords. A World Net Daily (WND) report documents other violations of Jerusalem’s sovereignty by the Palestinian Authority, indicating to some that the division of Jerusalem has already begun.

A plan for the building of a new settlement, Ma'aleh David, in the middle of an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem was filed for approval by the relevant municipal committee at the Jerusalem Municipality. The plan calls for the construction of 104 housing units on the land where the former headquarters of the Judea and Samaria police was housed in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. The new settlement is planned to be connected to an existing Jewish neighborhood, Ma'aleh Zeitim, and together will be occupied by some 200 families, forming the largest Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem

Moscow, Aug 21 (DPA) A Russian newspaper claimed Friday that suspected pirates who boarded the freighter Arctic Sea were actually agents of the Israeli secret service trying to stop it from smuggling arms into Iran. According to Russian media, the Arctic Sea may have been carrying illegal X-55 cruise missiles destined for Iran hidden among its cargo of lumber. Men acting on behalf of the Israeli Mossad secret service commandeered the ship to divert the weapons away from Israel's regional enemy, the daily Novaya Gazeta said. Citing Moscow publicist Yulia Latynina, the daily pointed to the surprise visit of Israeli...

Mike ‘Huckabee the Macabee will appear in eastern Jerusalem Monday at the site of a Jewish-owned building Obama wants cleansed of Jews. The former Republican presidential candidate will take on the policies of U.S. President Barack Obama when he begins a three-day tour of Israel.