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For the past 20 years, the best minds in Washington and Jerusalem treated Hamas as a pragmatic political operator whose leaders were satisfied living in the same world as the rest of us. Their charter, first adopted in 1988, endorsed a set of bloodcurdling millenarian goals. But despite the open madness and world-making ambitions of their public pronouncements, Hamas remained a semi-legitimate player, treated as just one unremarkable thread in the Middle East’s rich tapestry of mildly threatening, gun-toting political dreamers. Even to the most hardened Israeli security officials they were a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot whose extreme rhetoric and regrettably...

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud) announced on Friday morning that he is quitting politics, following Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to hand his portfolio over to Yisrael Beytenu head MK Avigdor Liberman so as to bring his party into the coalition. "This morning I let the Prime Minister know that due to his conduct and recent developments, and due to a lack of confidence in him, I am resigning from the government and from the Knesset and taking a timeout from political life," said Ya'alon. Ya'alon's resignation is particularly dramatic as Liberman has not yet formally been given his portfolio...

Ambassadors from five major European Union (EU) member states met with the Foreign Ministry's senior diplomat Alon Ushpiz in Jerusalem on Thursday, where they voiced opposition to the demolition of the homes of Arab terrorists. Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain were the five countries whose consul generals argued that such demolitions, which are meant as a deterrent for future terrorists and a punishment for heinous crimes, are "counterproductive." The ambassadors also denounced the attack on a Jerusalem synagogue this Tuesday in which four Jews and a Druze police officer were murdered by two Arab terrorists, reports Haaretz citing Israeli...

Severely Distorted Thinking about the Temple MountPosted By Arlene Kushner On November 5, 2014 @ 12:02 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 3 Comments Jewish presence in the land of Israel goes back more than 3,000 years.  Jews prayed for millennia, while separated from the land, to be able to return.  Once they did return, the people sacrificed in order to build and protect the land.And now, the Jew who is passionate about Jewish rights and Jewish attachment to the land is viewed as a “radical right winger,” a troublemaker.The world at large certainly sees matters this way:  If only nationalist...

A message from Yitz Glick, the brother of Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick who was shot four times last Wednesday by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem, reveals shocking differences in the US administration's reaction to events in Israel. Yitz wrote to Glick (who is not related to the family), saying "I just wanted to tell you that our family is shocked that we haven't heard a single word from the US State Dept., the US Ambassador or any representative of the US government regarding the shooting of our brother a US citizen Yehuda Glick."

An assassination attempt of a rabbi, a provocative visit by an Israeli MP, and a Palestinian leader saying Israeli moves are tantamount to a "declaration of war" have Jerusalem at its most perilous moment since the end of the second intifada.  Today Moshe Feiglin walked on the holiest site in Judaism and posed for photos in front of the Dome of the Rock, a revered Muslim shrine that rests wher many believe the Jewish Temple once stood. In doing so the Israeli member of parliament fueled growing Muslim-Jewish tensions around Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which in the past week saw an...

While Abbas himself is responsible for the hit on Glick, he has had one major enabler – the Obama administration. Since Abbas first issued the order for Palestinians to attack Jews, there have been two terrorist attacks in Jerusalem. Both have claimed American citizens among their victims. Yet the Obama administration has refused to condemn Abbas’s call to murder Jews either before it led to the first terrorist attack or since Glick was shot Wednesday night. Not only have the White House and the State Department refused to condemn Abbas for soliciting the murder of Jews. They have praised him...

The suspect in the Yehuda Glick shooting has been killed by police and the Shin Bet, police confirmed on Thursday morning. The shootout took place in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor. Forces arrived at the house of the suspect on Thursday morning after conducting an investigation. During police attempts to arrest the suspect, he refused arrest and a shootout took place. He was killed by police fire. The weapon in his home was taken by police for investigation on whether or not it is linked to the murder of Glick.

Doctors at the Sha'arei Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem are fighting to save the life of leading Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick, the director of the hospital, Professor Yonatan Halevi, said on Wednesday night. In a brief statement outside the hospital, Halevi told reporters that Glick, who was shot outside the Begin Heritage center in the capital, was in the operating room and that a senior doctor was conducting the operation. He added that Glick is suffering from serious wounds in the chest and in the stomach and that his life is still in danger, but noted that Glick’s condition...

On Sunday morning, Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount—the holiest site in Judaism—were appalled to find that Muslim worshipers had daubed anti-Semitic graffiti equating the Jewish Star of David to the Nazi swastika. Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick first uploaded a photo of the shocking graffiti onto his Facebook account, along with a statement blaming the lack of proper response by authorities to Islamist rioting and provocations, and accusing the government of burying its head in the sand. “When they make light of the torching of a police station on the Temple Mount, when the sole response to daily Muslim...

Jews who ascended to the Temple Mount in the last few days discovered that the Muslim Waqf has been planting trash cans throughout the plaza atop the Mount. Two weeks ago, as LIBA project coordinator Yehuda Glick visited the Mount, he saw drilling being carried out into the paved floor of the Mount plaza. Muslims refused to say what they were doing and were assisted by police in pushing Glick away. The mystery of the drilling has now been solved: the holes were used for planting dozens of trash cans, and dozens more await their turn. Temple activists said Monday...