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Can Wine and Fruit Promote Truth? By Norma Zager “That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end.” Lise Hand In today’s world it seems more difficult than ever to maintain a civil discourse. The meeting of minds is often no more civil than ten rounds at Madison Square Garden, with all the blood and sweat necessary to exert a knockout punch. The other evening, Soraya and Isaac Nazarian invited us to...

Two people were killed, including a 15-year-old boy, and at least 32 were wounded when militiamen from the ruling Hamas party used guns and clubs to break up protests over unpaid government salaries near the parliament building in Gaza City and elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. The wounded included three schoolchildren and a TV cameraman. Hamas Radio accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah Party of stoking the unrest and dividing the Palestinian people. It also attacked his efforts to pressure Hamas to recognize Israel, a move that could help to ease crushing international sanctions that have rendered...

With realignment apparently dead and any diplomatic process with the Palestinians stagnant, some voices inside the EU are calling for the three preconditions to talks with Hamas to be "revisited," The Jerusalem Post has learned. These voices, according to European officials, are not advocating dropping the three conditions - ending terrorism, accepting previous agreements and recognizing Israel - but rather staggering them so an opening is created for talks with the Palestinian Authority. EU begins paying aid to Palestinians "No one is questioning the need for the three conditions," a senior European diplomatic source said. "But maybe if you cannot...

Egypt threatened to withdraw its support for the Palestinian Authority if the PA did not act to control the rampant anarchy in the Gaza Strip, according to a report in the London Arab newspaper Al Quds. The report claimed that following the incident at the Rafah border crossing in which two Egyptian soldiers were killed, Egyptian authorities delivered the threat to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as part of a specially delivered message. Egypt also threatened to withdraw its support for the peace process if the PA did not take the proper steps to restore order to Gaza. Israel Radio reported...

An Overview of U.S.-Israel Diplomacy: The Disengagement Deal on PaperPosted 9/14/2005By Rick Richman On the eve of the unilateral Gaza withdrawal, Ariel Sharon explained his action to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot: “I`ve reached a deal with the Americans. I prefer a deal with the Americans to a deal with the Arabs.” What, exactly, was that deal? What did Israel receive for its disengagement plan? And what – since Israel has now carried out its end of the bargain – does the United States owe Israel? The public record of the deal is the April 14, 2004 letter from George...

The Mid-East Peace Process was to be Clinton's Legacy. He failed. Bush has been successful in getting the two parties together working along the Roadmap to Peace mainly because two very large impediments have been removed from the equation; namely, Yassir Arafat and Saddam Hussein.

During a joint press conference with US President George W. Bush on Monday evening [Israel time], Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reiterated Israel's understanding that major Israeli population centers in the West Bank would remain in Israel's hands even after final status negotiations. In his prepared statement, Bush reiterated that any final status agreement would have to take into account realities on the ground and that it was unrealistic to expect a return to the 1949 armistice lines. Bush also repeated the US understanding that one of Israel's obligations under the road map was to cease all expansion of settlements. Bush...

On Thursday, Washington sources said that the Bush Administration did not plan to publicly confront the Israeli government over newly approved plans to build 3,500 new homes to the west of Ma'aleh Adumim. According to the sources, quoted on Israel Radio, the administration, while opposed in principle to all expansion of settlements and to the new building at Ma'aleh Adumim in particular, does not want to spark a row on the issue with Sharon so as not to further complicate his efforts to push the budget through the Knesset this week and thus cement the legislative process ahead of the...

Israel plans to build 3,500 new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to cement its hold on Jerusalem, government sources said Monday, drawing Palestinian warnings that peace efforts were at risk. The blueprint for construction between the Maaleh Adumim settlement and Arab East Jerusalem clashed with a U.S.-backed peace "road map," despite hopes for a breakthrough buoyed by a truce Israel and the Palestinian Authority declared last month. The road map requires a halt to settlement expansion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and sought by Palestinians...

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that peace efforts with the Palestinians would be frozen if they do not crack down on militant groups in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed four people outside a Tel Aviv nightclub Friday. "There will be no progress politically, and I repeat no political progress, until the Palestinians carry out a determined campaign to destroy the terrorist groups and their infrastructure in the territories," Sharon said before his weekly Cabinet meeting.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is increasingly denounced as a traitor. Israeli government ministers are receiving death threats. Protesters have accosted senior politicians and yelled at them during public appearances. Far-right Israelis are growing increasingly strident in the months leading up to the planned withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip this summer. Many Israelis are drawing parallels to the period of inflamed passions that preceded the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was killed by a nationalist who rejected Mr. Rabin's concessions to the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon, a supporter of the settlers for decades, has been the...

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says that disengagement from Gush Katif and northern Shomron is fine, but only as a first step towards a full-fledged PLO state. Rice met with Prime Minister Sharon's top aide Dov Weisglass in Washington on Monday. She explained to him the U.S. position that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza is acceptable only as a prelude to the full Road Map plan proposed by President Bush. The Road Map plan calls for a "viable" - i.e., territorially-contiguous - Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Rice, as well, emphasized this point to Weisglass. This means...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House insisted on Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is committed to the U.S.-backed road map Middle East peace plan, despite his comments in a newspaper interview that suggested otherwise. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he did not think that accounts of Sharon's comments to the daily Yedioth Ahronoth accurately reflected the prime minister's views. "Prime Minister Sharon has reaffirmed his commitment to moving forward on his bold proposal to move out of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank," McClellan said. "That is a proposal that can help get us...

How many times can you kill a corpse? -------------------------------------- Posted: April 15, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The Bush administration threw down the gauntlet at Yasser Arafat's feet yesterday during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In fact, before the press conference even began, Arafat was already all over the airwaves, denouncing it to all who would listen. Two weeks ago, Arafat began making overtures to Israel's deadliest enemies, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Both are sworn to the total destruction of the state of Israel, the confiscation of all Israeli land, the banishment of...

The US on Thursday condemned the Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 10 and wounded dozens and urged Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Ala to deal with terrorist activity. "We condemn it thoroughly," Secretary of State Colin Powell said after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. "Once again, terrorists have killed innocent people and at the same time they have struck a blow, once more, against the aspirations of the Palestinian people to have a homeland of their own." "This kind of action has got to stop. And I once again implore the Palestinian leaders, and especially Prime Minister Abu...

From bad to worse Posted: December 4, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com It was bad enough when Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush were insisting that – no matter what – Israel remain committed to the disastrously misguided "roadmap" to create a Palestinian state as the lynchpin of a Mideast peace plan. Now Powell is considering meeting with an Israeli meddler and an Arab provocateur who have come up with a new plan to carve up the Jewish state – outside of accountability to the people affected. Imagine if, let's say, Ralph Nader began informal negotiations...

There's no point in grieving about the demise of the "road map" the State Department concocted and Condi Rice announced fourteen months ago. It's clear, isn't it, that the Arabs resident in Palestine and elsewhere had and have no desire for an Arab state living in peace with Israel. Their desire is the extinction of Israel and the death of Jews. They say this all the time, they teach it in school, they preach it in their mosques. There's no reason to disbelieve them since they've suited their actions to their words with perfect consistency. Why else would they dance...

Bible Scholar: Road Map a Path to America's Destruction By Stan Jeter For CWNews July 3, 2003 What does bad weather in the U.S. have to do with peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians? A lot-say some Bible scholars. CBN.com – What does bad weather in the U.S. have to do with peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians? A lot-say some Bible scholars. The problem, they say, is that America has been pressuring Israel to 'surrender land for peace'. Land the Jews say God promised them 4,000 years ago. It seems with every major U.S. action to pressure...

The Biblical argument against the Road Map to Peace.Those who call themselves Biblical Christians must realize that the question of the Jewish claims to the Land of Israel are as absolute as the Ten Commandments or the prohibitions against incest, bestiality or homosexuality. These laws apply to all mankind for all time. Only a heretic believes that the laws of the Bible are made by a God who in His Omnipotence and Omniscience would "change His mind", God forbid. This article is not written for those who have already abandoned all shreds of connection with the Bible, but both Jews...

The current roadmap to peace is fatally flawed. it expects of the Israelis in confronting terrorism what we would not expect of or tolerate ourselves. It is time to apply the same principles to the Palestinian terrorists that we have allpied to Al Quida, the Taliban and ti the Ba'athists. THE GOLAN PLAN A SUPERHIGHWAY TO PEACE The Palestinian people have until July 1st to turnover all terrorist organizers, participants and supporters to the IDF. This includes, but is not limited to, all mebers of Hamas, all members of the Islamic Jihad, all members of the PLO and all members...