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JABALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AFP) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana joined new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas's call for an end to rocket attacks on Israel as he toured a Hamas stronghold used as a launchpad by militants. AFP Photo On a visit to Gaza's impoverished Jabaliya refugee camp after talks with Abbas, Solana said he was "moved" by the plight of poverty-stricken residents and said the new leadership would do its utmost to revive the peace process. Stumbling over rubble and viewing razed homes left by Israel's incursions into northern Gaza in a bid to stem rocket...

RAMALLAH -- The Palestinian leadership held its first meeting since the departure of the ailing Yasser Arafat, putting on a show of unity Saturday to dispel concerns about possible chaos and infighting in Arafat's absence. The meeting came as doctors in a French hospital continued to treat Arafat for a mysterious illness. A Palestinian diplomat who spoke to Arafat said doctors ruled out leukemia, adding that his condition was improving. About 1,000 Palestinian students rallied Saturday at An-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, many of them carrying Arafat's portrait. In Gaza City, about 400 students marched from...

This coming Monday night marks the beginning of Tisha B'Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, when we commemorate the torrent of tragedies that have engulfed our people over the millennia. From the destruction of the First and Second Temples in ancient times, to the expulsion from Spain in 1492, on through the outbreak of World War II, Tisha B'Av has always been a day filled with calamity, grief and sorrow. As the ninth day of the eleventh month on the Hebrew calendar, it is the Jewish 9/11, our people's national day of infamy. Then again, in our current...

How about some facts Posted: Thursday, May 20, 2004 - written by jerry golden Intelligence and I might add very good intelligence that weapons brought in from Iran and Saudi Arabia by Hizbullah are sitting near the Israeli Egyptian border ready to be brought in by tunnels into Rafah. Some of them still in a tunnel that goes under the Suez Canal near a town called El-Arish where they were unloaded from a ship. These weapons were to escalate the battle between the Terrorists groups controlled by Yasser Arafat to make it appear that the IDF was ran out...

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 ISRAEL ATTACKED IN WORLD COURT BY NEARLY 60 COUNTRIES Jewish state isolated amid international concern over security barrier By: Stefan J. BosSpecial Correspondent, ASSIST News Service JERUSALEM / THE HAGUE  (ANS) -- Israel appeared increasingly isolated Wednesday, February 25, as two blocs representing dozens of Muslim countries and 20 percent of the worlds' population supported a Palestinian challenge to the legality of Israel's West Bank barrier. The Arab League and Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents over 50 countries, told the World Court in The Hague, The Netherlands, that Israel's security wall cuts into territories...

Weblog My Talk at UC-Berkeley February 12, 2004 My Talk at UC-Berkeley. I spoke on February 10 at the University of California-Berkeley to a crowd of about 550; a sizeable number could not get in. As I had expected, this was the most out-of-control talk of the roughly one thousand I have given, with a core group of about 150 Islamists, Palestinian radicals, and far-leftists constantly disrupting me, mostly with insults that I would prefer to forget. The best and fullest account of the event is by Cinnamon Stillwell, "Fascism at UC Berkeley: Muslim Student Association Disrupts Daniel Pipes Lecture,"...

Sharon Loses His Way On Israeli 'Settlements' by Daniel PipesNew York Sun February 10, 2004 Israel's Prime Minister Sharon has broken with decades of his own history and declared an intent to withdraw all Israeli habitations from Gaza, plus some from the West Bank. Doing so raises a basic question: Just how important are these "settlements" in the grand scheme of Palestinian-Israeli relations? (I use quotation marks around settlements because the dictionary defines this word as "a small community" or an establishment of people "in a new region." This inaccurately describes the Jewish habitations in question, many of which boast...

Hezbollah's Victory, Israel's Declineby Daniel PipesNew York Sun February 3, 2004 When asked in 1787, as the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia came to an end, whether it had created a monarchy or a republic, Benjamin Franklin replied. "A republic, if you can keep it."His pessimism comes to mind whenever a republic makes a terrible mistake, from the French policy of appeasement toward Germany in the 1930s to the American policy of incrementalism in Vietnam to the South Korean "sunshine policy" now under way.And Franklin's worry felt newly relevant on Thursday last week, as the state of Israel effected a most...

No. 459 12 Av 5761 / 1 August 2001 WHY ISRAEL REJECTS "OBSERVERS" Saul Singer Why Not Outside Observers? / The British Observe the Hadassah Convoy Massacre / UN Observers Before the Six-Day War / The One-Sided Response of UNIFIL / International Observers are Not Neutral / Further Examples of International Monitoring / The Experience of Observers in Hebron / Putting Observers at Risk / What About American Observers? Why Not Outside Observers? In the midst of an already crumbling cease-fire, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell dropped what to Israeli ears was a bombshell. Standing next to Palestinian Authority...

The Losses That May Save UsDaniel Gordis When David Ben Gurion met the philosopher Isaiah Berlin in December 1950, the Prime Minister apparently didn't make much of an impression. Berlin, his biographer Michael Ignatieff reports, thought Ben Gurion a "peasant leader -- rough, ruthless, and cunning." And Isaiah Berlin, apparently, did not consider that description a compliment. In some ways, though, it's surprising that Berlin was so dismissive of Ben Gurion. After all, it was Berlin himself who pointed to the fact that in "real life," ideology and practice cannot always come together neatly. In Berlin's own words, "Some of...

Hilltop StandMichelle NevadaApr 08, '03 / 6 Nisan 5763 I stood on the top of a hill, as I let the cold Nevada wind blow through my hair and bite at my cheeks. The last time I had stood on the top of a hill, I had been in Samaria. And, as I looked around to survey the scene, I noticed that the land here looks very much like the land of Samaria – rocky hilltops with stubby scrub-brush overlooking fertile bottom-land. A river was snaking through green fields below me, and tractors and greenhouses dotted the valley. Far...

By Dr. M. G. "Pat" Robertson Address to the Herzliya Conference Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy December 17, 2003 CBN.com – One day in the late 19th Century, Queen Victoria of England reportedly asked her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, this question... "Mr. Prime Minister, what evidence can you give me of the existence of God?" Disraeli thought for a moment and then replied, "The Jew, your majesty." Think of it, according to Disraeli the primary evidence that God exists is the existence of the Jewish people... A people who in 586 BC were deported to Babylon, yet returned...

Micha and I were sitting at the dining room table a couple of days ago. He was doing some homework, and I was reading. Out of the blue, he looked up at me and asked, "Do you think I'll still have asthma when I'm a grownup?" For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why in the world he was asking me that. "I don't know. You might. But I'm sure it's going to get a lot better. Why do you ask?" "Ema says that the army won't take me if I have asthma." Now, the truth is that...

  Monday, October 27, 2003Professor Tony JudtNew York Universitytony.judt@nyu.edu Dear Professor Judt, Though I'm sure you weren't wondering, I'll begin by telling you that we had a pretty nice Shabbat here in Jerusalem. The weather was beautiful, we had a house full of guests, there was a wedding across the street that went way into the night. And nothing blew up. Kind of an idyllic day here in Jerusalem. For the most part. But not entirely. You see, I made the mistake of re-reading your recent piece in the New York Review of Books (Israel: The Alternative) before heading off...

If rogue nations are to be brought into line by the US, shouldn’t Israel be punished for ignoring UN resolutions? Gerald Kaufman is just asking... The unprecedented security measures for President Bush’s visit to Britain this week prove that the war against terrorism, launched by the United States two years ago, has certainly not been won. If further proof were needed, the atrocious terrorist acts against two synagogues in Istanbul at the weekend provide blood-spattered confirmation. But if the invasion of Iraq last spring was not about Saddam Hussein’s alleged links to international terrorism, what was its rationale and...

By Bob Westbrook Courtesy of Trumpet Sounds It was a bloody awful sight, tremendous in its spectacle. That most formidable and regal of creatures, the fierce and fearsome lion, had slipped into the midst of a flock of sheep. Mauling and tearing at will, the strong lion easily ripped into flesh, splattering blood in frightful volumes. The defenseless sheep reacted in chaotic terror, as the proud beast tossed and trampled without restraint. When the carnage was finished, a grim, grisly scene remained. What is this? Is it a description from one of those gory wildlife TV shows? No it is...

In the rush to condemn the Malaysian Prime Minister's overt anti-Semitism, some say that the speech's most important aspect has been overlooked. In the rush to condemn the Malaysian Prime Minister's overt anti-Semitism [see related article], some say that the speech's most important aspect has been overlooked. Although Mahathir mentioned the problems and infighting of Moslems all over the world numerous times, he named only one place specifically - that which he called Palestine - and hinted at a scheme to resolve the issue once and for all. He said, "For well over half a century we have fought over...

Dr.Condoleezza Rice currently serves as President Bush ’s National Security Advisor. As a thirty-year-old assistant professor at Stanford Uni- versity, she addressed the graduates on Senior Class Day. She told them, "All you have to do with the large, huge, and very frightening problems that we face is to make a contribution. If you focus too much on solving that problem, rather than just making a contribution to its solution, I'm afraid that you will become paralyzed at the enormity of the task and unable to do anything at all.” That ’s what we are attempting to do in The...

(IsraelNN.com) Over 3,000 Christians from 80 countries will be arriving in Israel, spending the Sukkot holiday in the capital. The 24th annual Feast of the Tabernacles sponsored by the ICEJ (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem) will open on the evening of Sunday October 12th, with the guests enjoying an address by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Islam’s Insanity By Alan Caruba Americans are largely unaware of the way, throughout the Middle East, the truth is turned on its head. Facts and evidence that is "obvious" to the Western mind is immediately declared a lie, a hoax, and a fabrication by the voices that rule the Middle East. "The story of the arms ship is but a licensed fabrication by Israel," said the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian government’s daily newspaper, Al-Akhbar. To the rest of the world, it is evidence the Palestinian Authority wants nothing but war with Israel. Everything the US offers as proof of the...