"...To be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become depressed, and not to falter - this is what life is, herein lies its task." Fyodor Dostoevsky (to his brother Mikhail, Dec. 22, 1849)

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.
Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly.
“Do not therefore do injustice to yourselves. Remember one day you will meet Allah and answer your deeds. So beware, do not astray from the path of righteousness after I am gone." Prophet Muhammad, Last Sermon

About political holism

Political holism is based on the recognition that "we" are all members of a single whole. There's no "they," even though "we" are not all alike. Because "we" are all part of the whole, and therefore interdependent, we benefit from cooperating with each other. Political holism is a way of thinking about human cultures and nations as interdependent.
Political holists search for solutions other than war to settle international disagreements. Their model of the world is one in which cooperation and negotiation, even with the enemy, even with the weak, promotes political stability more than warfare.
In an overpopulated world with planet-wide environmental problems, the development of weapons of mass destruction has rendered war obsolete as an effective means to resolve disputes.

Political dualists consider political holists unpatriotic for questioning the necessity to defeat "them." In times of impending war, political dualists tend to measure patriotism by the intensity of one's hostility to the country's immediate enemy.
Naturally, they would view as disloyalty any suggestion that the enemy is not evil, any call for cooperation with the enemy, any criticism of one's own country.
To political dualists, cooperation with the enemy means capitulation, relinquishment of the nation's position of dominance.

At its extreme, political dualism is essentially tribalism. (Betty Craige, 16-8-1997)

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres has died at a hospital near Tel Aviv

Peres was admitted to Sheba Medical Centre in Ramat Gan two weeks ago, where he was intubated and sedated. Doctors expressed cautious optimism in the days immediately following his hospitalization.
As foreign minister, Peres was the one to finalize the interim Israeli Palestinian Oslo Peace deal.
While it did not turn into a lasting treaty, in 1994 he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, along with the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Peres has been a staunch advocate of the two-state solution with Palestine, trying to boost the process following Rabin's assassination in 1995. However, his position in the matter weakened following a string of suicide attacks by Palestinians and mounting pressure from Israeli nationalists. (Russia Today, 28-9-2016)

Shimon Peres in Hiroshima, 1997:
You must understand that you have to learn all the time.
If you are too strong, you will lose your eager to negotiate.

Science and technology, can they be neutral?
Are they independent from the cultures?
No, the long range missiles can hit a target on the other side of the globe in a few second. The use of science and technology should be carefully examined. Otherwise, we will do the same thing again as we dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.
We have had five wars in the last 50 years. We have developed the emotion that we hate one another, enemies. For us, our enemies are killers. It is very difficult.
We need to compromise. It is like a relation between a wife and a husband. We have to face to our enemies and to negotiate with them.
If you are too strong, you will lose your eager to negotiate. This is the point.
We have to pay the price for understanding the enemies. We understand that.
History tells us that. If you kill more, you have to kill more to protect yourself. So, it pays off. It is reasonable to pay the price.
Educate people, build a science and technology based industry, develop an innovative society. These things are becoming more and more important in modern societies.
The continuation is the key thing. To defend your culture, arms are useless, though arms are useful to defend your border.
Universities become more important to educate young people. The world is changing so much.

We need to learn "how to learn." We have to teach our children how to learn to work together, to communicate, etc.
The new age has arrived already. We have to create a better world for our children.

Hiroshima Peace Forum 1997

Settlers leader: 'Peres played a role in the settlement enterprise'
Benny Tocker, Arutz Sheva (ideology: religious Zionism), 29/09/2016

No need for Universities. We need 'the Land'!

Daniella Weiss, former mayor of Kedumim and a leader of the Nachala settlement movement, recalled Shimon Peres’s contribution to the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.
“The left talks about Peres’s sin, the beginning of the massive settlement in areas liberated during the Six Day War. Even though the breakthrough was in Gush Etzion and in Hevron with Rabbi Hanan Porat and Rabbi Levinger, the signing of the Sebastia agreement with Shimon Peres was actually the beginning of the massive Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria,” Weiss told Arutz Sheva.
“It is not for nothing that the left refers to the Sebastia agreement as Shimon Peres’s ancient sin. I remember we gave him a bouquet of flowers. He took this historic step even though he did not agree with our being in Judea and Samaria,” she added.

At the same time, Weiss continued, one cannot ignore the Oslo Accords and in this regard, Peres made a huge mistake.
“He thought of a new Middle East, but the exact opposite happened and Peres made a bad mistake,” she said. “Peres’s contribution to the breakthrough in Samaria compared to the damages of Oslo and the illusion of a new Middle East is an historic contribution, and I am happy that there is settlement in the midst of the terrible chaos of Oslo.
“Thank God that the settlement enterprise began 40 years ago, and we will only grow from here,” concluded Weiss.

Victory of Israeli-Orthodox Judaism is everyone’s defeat
Yehuda Nuriel, YNet news Opinion, 11.10.2016

The secular majority in Israel has given up on (modern) Judaism in favor of Orthodox Judaism. And Orthodoxy’s victory is everyone’s defeat—because it is political rather than ethical.

The meaning of this kind of “Judaism” (Pharisaism, Hypocritical observance of the letter, or: Deification of men-made Jewish Law) is mainly about prohibitions, constraints and excuses on opening businesses, public transportation and leisure, people marrying whoever they choose, issues of faith or a different sexual inclination and an excuse for being exempt from military service (like I was told in basic training: “If things get difficult, then we say we’re religious”).
The second partner in the Orthodox victory, Religious Zionism, has replaced the ancient principles of faith with a single “under no circumstances.” This land is all mine, they say, and the world can explode, or at least the Temple Mount.
Busy preparing us for the religious war that will eventually arrive, Inshallah, against Islam in general and the Palestinians in particular, so that there is no chance to discuss anything else with them.

The reaction to these “Judaism” shows is sometimes hostile contempt... But secular Israel is missing the point, or the essence. It does not engage in studying Judaism — or infusing it with its own content.
For example, what can actually be translated from the Jubilee year mitzvot (in the spirit of Jabotinsky)? Or: How does Maimonides philosophically overcome the problem of the existence of evil?
It seems that we have never been further away from the Judaism that can bring together a group of people for the sake of a better shared future.

Read more: Saddam's Death, Page 68 - Jesus, Hillel & Pharisaism

School Year Begins for Third Temple Priests
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News, August 4, 2016

The Temple Institute has brought the Third Temple one step closer by establishing a school for Jewish priests (kohanim) to learn how to perform the Temple Service. Four months ago, the Temple Institute established a registry of Kohanim, a list of men who have a clear patriarchal heritage from the priestly class....
The Temple Institute was founded in 1987 to fulfill the mission of bringing about the Third Temple.
It has recreated over 70 vessels that are ready to be used in the Temple, is breeding the Red Heifer in order to purify the Nation of Israel, and has produced the special garb the Bible requires the Kohanim to wear while performing the Temple service.
The Institute has also reconstructed the High Priest’s breastplate...

The Twelve Tribes & the Twelve Signs, according to Rabbi Joel C. Dobin
Benjamin and Judah (FIRE-signs) are the two signs|tribes of the Jewish State of Israel
The other signs have disappeared... ( 'The ten lost tribes'...)
'Lost' means: a broken band with G'd (the universe - universalism - holism)

UNESCO votes: No connection between Temple Mount and Judaism
Jerusalem Post, 13-10-2016

In a 24-6 vote, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization gave preliminary approval to a resolution that denies Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the vote stating: “The theater of the absurd continues at the UN.” “Today UNESCO adopted its second decision this year denying the Jewish people’s connection to the Temple Mount, our holiest site for more than 3,000 years,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority, however, welcomed the results.
The official spokesman of the Palestinian Presidency Nabil Abu Rudeinah said that the continued international decisions against the occupation and its policy including that of UNESCO regarding Jerusalem and the al-Aksa Mosque form a clear message from the international community that it does not agree with the policies that protect the occupation and contribute to the creation of chaos and instability.

A sentence has been inserted into the text that mentions that Jerusalem and its Old City walls are holy to all three religions; Judaism, Islam and Christianity. The Western Wall is mentioned twice in quotes. Otherwise it was referenced in the text by its Muslim name of the Buraq Plaza.
Netanyahu suggested that the Bible aside, UNESCO members should visit the Arch of Titus in Rome.
“On it one can see what the Romans brought back to Rome after they destroyed and looted the Second Temple on the Temple Mount 2,000 years ago. There, engraved on the Arch of Titus, is the seven-branched menorah that is the symbol of the Jewish People, and I remind you, is also the symbol of the Jewish state today,” he said. “By this absurd decision, UNESCO has lost what little legitimacy it had left,” Netanyahu added.

Twenty-six nations abstained from the vote and two were absent. Those who supported the motion included Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam.
Those who opposed the resolution were: the US, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany and Estonia

Israel: Education Minister Bennett suspends activities with UNESCO
Hezki Baruch, Arutz Sheva, 14/10/2016

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who is also president of Israel's National Commission for UNESCO, has decided to suspend immediately all activities in conjunction with the international organization. His decision comes one day after UNESCO decided to accept the Palestinian Authority's suggestion to detach Jewish history from the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
"The Israeli committee will cease all participation. There will be no more meetings with UNESCO representatives, or participation in international conferences. There will be no professional cooperation between us and an organization that backs terror," Bennett's office told the press.
Bennett also turned to countries represented in UNESCO and wrote: "The Western world needs to stand up against UNESCO and against handing prizes to terror supporters. Just like we work against Islamic terror in Aleppo and Palmyra, we need to fight political terror in Jerusalem. Cutting Jerusalem off from Israel will create a domino effect that will affect the entire Western world," he said.

The UNESCO decided to accept the Palestinian Authority's suggestion to detach Jewish history from the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

"We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others in the same way as we learn from our own;
for we are a modern nation and wish to be the most modern in the world." Theodor Herzl

The City of David & the Jewish Temple Site: "An inferior part of Jerusalem"
Ernest L. Martin, june 2000

Everyone admits David's city was on the southeast corner of Jerusalem, many hundreds of feet south of the Haram walls. The Temple was to the north of David's city (build on the Ophel hill). "It contained an inexhaustible spring, there were subterranean excavations in the hills and tanks and cisterns for holding rain water" (Tacitus) Rabbi David Kimchi reported about the condition of the Temple and the Temple Mount about twenty years after Rabbi Samson (about 1235 C.E.). He was the final Jewish authority who stated without ambiguity that the site of the former Temples in Jerusalem "was still in ruins" in his day and he qualified his statement with the further observation that no gentile buildings were then erected over the temple site. (E.L. Martin)	The well-known "Wailing Wall" has nothing to do with the original sanctuaries in Jerusalem. The western parts of the rectangular shaped area that they have selected to adore and at which they congregate to worship (and they have done so for almost 380 years) are the remains of a structure that was held by their forefathers in the first century to be in utmost contempt. Modern Jews have literally set aside the true location of their former Temples and have substituted the real location for a first century Roman citadel called Fort Antonia that was built by Herod the Great. This Herodian structure was situated about 600 feet north of the northern wall of their former Temple at Jerusalem. The actual southern site of their Temple now stands in an unrecognized state. It is forlorn, lonely, abandoned, thoroughly forgotten and bereft of even a meager amount of attention by the people who once adored it. The site is even accounted today by the Jewish people as an inferior part of Jerusalem... (E.L. Martin)
"Utter desolation has possessed the land. Their once famous Mount Sion instead of being as it once was, is a Roman farm like the rest of the country. Yea, with my own eyes I have seen the bulls plowing there, and the sacred site sown with seed. And Jerusalem itself is become but a storehouse of its fruit of old days now destroyed, or better, as the Hebrew has it, a stonequary..." Eusebius of Caesarea, bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, born about 260
The Site of the Temple - Bible Study Resource According to Josephus Herod Agrippa was able to look down into the priests’ court of the Temple from a room in the Herodian palace (west of the Temple). " About the same time king Agrippa built himself a very large dining-room in the royal palace at Jerusalem, near to the portico. Now this palace had been erected of old by the children of Asamoneus. and was situate upon an elevation, and afforded a most delightful prospect to those that had a mind to take a view of the city, which prospect was desired by the king; and there he could lie down, and eat, and thence observe what was done in the temple... The chief men of Jerusalem were very much displeased at it; for it was not agreeable to the institutions of our country or law that what was done in the temple should be viewed by others, especially what belonged to the sacrifices. They therefore erected a wall upon the uppermost building which belonged to the inner court of the temple towards the west, which wall when it was built, did not only intercept the prospect of the dining-room in the palace, but also of the western cloisters that belonged to the outer court of the temple also, where it was that the Romans kept guards for the temple at the festivals." Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (Book 20, Chatper 8, Paragraph 11) Josephus & The Three Hills The Antonia Hill, the Temple Hill and the Herod's Palace Hill The temple was a fortress that guarded the city, as was the tower of Antonia a guard to the temple; and in that tower were the guards of those three. Now as to the tower of Antonia, it was situated at the corner of two cloisters of the court of the temple; of that on the west, and that on the north; it was erected upon a rock of fifty cubits in height, and was on a great precipice; it was the work of king Herod, wherein he demonstrated his natural magnanimity. In the first place, the rock itself was covered over with smooth pieces of stone, from its foundation, both for ornament, and that any one who would either try to get up or to go down it might not be able to hold his feet upon it. Next to this, and before you come to the edifice of the tower itself, there was a wall three cubits high; but within that wall all the space of the tower of Antonia itself was built upon, to the height of forty cubits. The inward parts had the largeness and form of a palace, it being parted into all kinds of rooms and other conveniences, such as courts, and places for bathing, and broad spaces for camps; insomuch that, by having all conveniences that cities wanted, it might seem to be composed of several cities, but by its magnificence it seemed a palace. And as the entire structure resembled that of a tower, it contained also four other distinct towers at its four corners; whereof the others were but fifty cubits high; whereas that which lay upon the southeast corner was seventy cubits high, that from thence the whole temple might be viewed; but on the corner where it joined to the two cloisters of the temple, it had passages down to them both, through which the guard (for there always lay in this tower a Roman legion) went several ways among the cloisters, with their arms, on the Jewish festivals, in order to watch the people, that they might not there attempt to make any innovations.. The temple was a fortress that guarded the city, as was the tower of Antonia a guard to the temple; and in that tower were the guards of those three. There was also a peculiar fortress belonging to the upper city, which was Herod's palace; but for the hill Bezetha, it was divided from the tower Antonia, as we have already told you... And as the hill on which the tower of Antonia stood was the highest of these three, so did it adjoin to the new city, and was the only place that hindered the sight of the temple on the north. ( Antiquities 18.4.3, Bellum 1.21.1 and 5.5.8)
When the Haram was thought to be the Temple Mount, the Sisters of Zion, a Catholic order of nuns who excavated the small building just off the northwest corner of the Haram, declared that their little building was the Roman Fortress. But it could not hold 500 troops, much less a whole legion (5,000-6,000), as the Romans always kept in the Antonia. It was also at the same level as the Haram, so the troops could not have gone down from there to the Haram. There is no room between that little building and the Haram for a bridge and road to have been built. The only sizes, descriptions, and locations that fit the literature are those that place the temple behind the Spring of Siloam and the Roman fortress 600 feet to the north and more than 200 feet higher in altitude. (AMEU 2014)

Ban Ki-moon rejects UNESCO resolution on Temple Mount
Ynetnews, 16.10.2016

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon distanced himself from a recent UNESCO resolution which failed to acknowledge the ties between 'the Jewish people' and the Temple Mount.
"The Al Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif, the sacred shrine of Muslims, is also the Har HaBayit - or Temple Mount - whose Western Wall is the holiest place in Judaism...
He noted that "any perceived undertaking to repudiate the undeniable common reference for these sites does not serve the interests of peace and will only feed violence and radicalism" and he called on all sides "to uphold the status quo in relation to the holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem."

Don't search for the truth, just make out of lies your own 'truth'
US, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany and Estonia

Josephus & the destruction of the temple

TITUS: "If we go up to this tower of Antonia, we gain the city; for if there should be any more occasion for fighting against those within the city, which I do not suppose there will, since we shall then be upon the top of the hill and be upon our enemies before they can have taken breath, these advantages promise us no less than a certain and sudden victory."

When Titus saw that these men were neither to be moved by commiseration towards themselves, nor had any concern upon them to have the holy house spared, he proceeded unwillingly to go on again with the war against them.
He could not indeed bring all his army against them, the place was so narrow; but choosing thirty soldiers of the most valiant out of every hundred, and committing a thousand to each tribune, and making Cerealis their commander-in-chief, he gave orders that they should attack the guards of the temple about the ninth hour of that night.
But as he was now in his armor, and preparing to go down with them, his friends would not let him go, by reason of the greatness of the danger, and what the commanders suggested to them; for they said that he would do more by sitting above in the tower of Antonia...
So he sent the soldiers about their work at the hour forementioned, while he went out himself to a higher place in the tower of Antonia, whence he might see what was done...

The rest of the Roman army had, in seven days' time, overthrown some foundations of the tower of Antonia, and had made a ready and broad way to the temple.
Then did the legions come near the first court, and began to raise their banks. The one bank was over against the north-west corner of the inner temple, another was at that northern edifice which was between the two gates; and of the other two, one was at the western cloister of the outer court of the temple; the other against its northern cloister...

"...the tower of Antonia was parted from the temple..."

In the mean time, the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been in..., that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their body which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper's spreading further...
For they set the north-west cloister, which was joined to the tower of Antonia, on fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary... Two days after which the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther...
The Jews, in like manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave off what they were about, till the tower of Antonia was parted from the temple, even when it was in their power to have stopped the fire..
The next day the Romans burnt down the northern cloister entirely, as far as the east cloister, whose common angle joined to the valley that was called Cedron [Kidron], and was built over it; on which account the depth was frightful. And this was the state of the temple at that time.

Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to storm the temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the holy house...
While the holy house was on fire, every thing was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain... There was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword...
Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it...

And now the Romans burnt all the surrounding buildings, as also the remains of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one on the east side, and the other on the south; both which, however, they burnt afterward... The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer [court of the] temple... they were in such a rage, that they set that cloister on fire...

Ksenia Svetlova : 'Cancel memorial session for Rehavam Ze'evi'
Arutz Sheva Staff, 18/10/2016

Ksenia Svetlova (born Moscow 28 July 1977) is an Israeli politician, journalist and associate professor at Hebrew University. She serves as a member of Knesset for the Zionist Union (an alliance of the Labor Party and Hatnuah). She is an advocate for progressive denominations of Judaism.

MK Ksenia Svetlova demanded that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein cancel the special Knesset session set for next month to honor the memory of former Minister Rehavam Zeevi, who was assassinated in 2001.
In an open letter to Knesset members, Svetlova wrote that “this honorable house should be a model for our constituents from all parts of the political spectrum - right and left, Jew and Arab, religious and secular, women and men.”
“Having a session for the memory of Rehavam Zeevi for his problematic legacy will cheapen the rule of law in general, and the honor of every Israeli in particular, and will miss the goal of the Knesset and its function.”
According to Svetlova, “It is not the function of a house of legislation to celebrate a legacy of crime, underworld, sexual offenses and hatred of foreigners. Those are main chapters in the legacy of Ze'evi, [and] the Knesset ought to free itself from them immediately.."

Rehavam Zeevi was an IDF general and the outspoken head of the Moledet party. He was also sharply opposed to the Oslo Accords, and led and participated in many protests against them. In 2001, he was appointed Tourism Minister in the government of Ariel Sharon. Zeevi was murdered at the height of the Second Intifada, as he left the Hyatt Hotel on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem.

Chairman David Shain of the Likud Youth attacked Member of Knesset Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union), for her attempt to cancel the Knesset's annual session in memory of Rehavam Zeevi, scheduled for next mont.

Jerusalem March to celebrate Israel’s existence
Eli Mendelbam| YNet News, 21.10.2016

Tens of thousands of Israelis and foreign friends of Israel from across the world flooded Jerusalem’s streets on Thursday as they marched to celebrate Israel’s existence.
With Israeli flags waving high, an electric enthusiasm permeates Jerusalem’s streets as tens of thousands turn out to march across the capital and demonstrate their friendship; ‘We love Israel, and we want to support Israel.’
The display of solidarity was particularly significant in light of the recent UNESCO decision to adopt a controversial resolution which Israel has said denies the deep historic Jewish connection to [Mountain Moriah: Fort Antonia, Haram al-Shariff or 'Templemount'...]

Haram al-Sharif: Holy site but also
symbolic summation of the Palestinian homeland.
Hamid Dabashi, Al-Jazeera, 4-11-2015

Reducing the current or any other uprising in Palestine to a dispute over al-Haram al-Sharif is to radically distort the nature of the Palestinian cause - cutting into it with an Israeli cookie cutter that consistently demonises Palestinians by reducing them to their religious denomination.
Palestinians revolt not because they are Muslims, Christians, agnostics, or atheists. They revolt because they are Palestinians and their land is being robbed from under their feet.
Like all other Muslims, Palestinian Muslims for sure hold al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in a particularly sanctified light. But irrespective of being Muslim, for Palestinians at large, Haram al-Sharif is also the symbolic summation of their homeland.
Palestinians are Palestinians not just by virtue of their historic rootedness in their ancestral homeland of Palestine, but also by a sustained course of resistance to the Zionist theft of their homeland and the collective and the cultural memory that resistance has generated.
Dividing and reducing Palestinians to their religious affiliation is a Zionist trap inaugurated by their own fanatical entrapment within a militant zealotry that sees the whole world in its own image.
The Palestinian cause is an anticolonial, national liberation movement, irreducible to any religious denomination.
Al-Haram al-Sharif, of course, has historic and sacred significance for all Muslims around the world. But its significance in Palestine and for Palestinians is a matter of national pride and territorial integrity..

Israel’s ‘Absurd’ Map Of Jerusalem’s Old City
Daoud Kuttab, Huffington Post, 15-4-2016

Mount Zion (Ophel), or the 'City of David, the real temple site & the 'old city of the Jews', destroyed by the Romans

It has been proven true over the years that victors write the history. Nowhere is this fact more obvious than in Jerusalem, where some Israelis are trying unsuccessfully to rewrite centuries-old history.
By changing facts on the ground the some Israelis are desperately trying to claim exclusivity to a city that has been known for its diversity and religious pluralism.
The latest attempt to monopolize the holy city has been so over the top that an Israeli newspaper called the effort “absurd.” A map of Jerusalem’s old city distributed for free to all tourists and produced by the Israeli tourism ministry received widespread condemnations from Christian and Muslim religious and social leaders.
Of the 57 tourist locations identified by Israelis in the old city of Jerusalem, only one Islamic and five Christian sites were listed.
Al Haram Al Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary covering 144 dunums, which occupies about a quarter of the old city is the only Islamic site on the said map. Christian locations which fill out the old city are also greatly reduced to a mere five.
In exchange for the ignored historic religious sites and locations that have been preserved and honoured for centuries, the Israeli ministry of tourism, run by a right-wing minister, has forced down the tourists’ throats Jewish locations that not even Israeli tour guides heard of.
Almost every Jewish owned house or synagogue in the old city is given prominence, an attempt that the Israeli daily Haartez called “absurd” because of its silliness.
The controversial map is the latest reflection of the struggle for the narrative regarding Jerusalem.
Israel’s apologists are working overtime to try and minimise Christian and Islamic cultural connections to the city of Jerusalem while greatly exaggerating any remnants of Jewish presence.

Netanyahu: "The Truth Will Win"
announces funding of right-wing archeological project
Ma'an News Agency, Oct. 22, 2016

" Excavations in Jerusalem [...] undermined the fantasies about the glorious past [and] failed to find any traces of an important tenth-century kingdom, the presumed time of David and Solomon. No vestige was ever found of monumental structures, walls or grand palaces, and the pottery found there was scanty and quite simple." Shlomo Sand, Prof. Emeritus, Tel Aviv University in: 'Invention of the Jewish people'

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Wednesday that the Israeli government would assist in funding a settler-driven archeological project in occupied East Jerusalem, in response to the passage of a UNESCO resolution strongly condemning Israeli policies at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the “Temple Mount.” Netanyahu slammed the decision at the time, calling it "delusional": "With this absurd decision, UNESCO lost the little legitimization it had left. But I believe that the historical truth is stronger and the truth will win," he said... According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the 'Temple Mount Sifting Project' works to “sort through debris” from an excavation undertaken in 1999 by the Islamic Endowment (Waqf) that has managed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound since the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. According to Haaretz, the archeological project is run by the right-wing settler group Ir David Foundation, also known as Elad, the main financiers of the contentious archeological digs around the Old City of Jerusalem, while also managing the City of David National Park, which was established to promote Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Dr. Riad Malki: "Palestine will continue to defend itself through available legal and Multilateral fora. We will not be intimidated by spin and PR bullying and efforts to divert attention from Israel’s violations and disregard for international law.
Our resolve to protect Palestine’s heritage as a bastion of tolerance and coexistence is unwavering and we appreciate the principled support of states who stand up to these fallacious campaigns and stand tall in defense of international law and the rights enshrined therein."

Gaza is gradually becoming unfit for habitation
by the 1.8 million people who still live there.
Shlomi Eldar, Al-Monitor, 21-10-2016

Song For Gaza: "I live in the USA and during this time Dec 25th 2009 -Jan 3rd 2010 I saw no reference to Gaza or the Freedom March or the multi national protesters gathered there. Anyway I was moved, in the circumstances, to record a new version of 'We shall overcome'. It seems appropriate." Roger Waters, august 2011

With new Israeli encroachment in the name of security and restrictions on the importation of chemicals and fertilizers, even more of Gaza's farmers are being forced to abandon their lands despite a near-total lack of other employment options.
Unlike other manufacturing sectors, the farmers’ economic downfall will have immediate and dire consequences for residents of the Gaza Strip. Even now, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency regularly supplies more than half the residents with sacks of flour, rice, sugar and oil. Fruits and vegetables grown locally make up an important part of their meager diets.
The slow ruin of Gaza’s agricultural sector began about a decade ago, when Hamas came to power and Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip.
But farmers were dealt a near fatal blow by the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, known as Operation Protective Edge, and are having a hard time recovering. Now farmers are saying that what little remained after the war has been wiped out in recent months....

The dire state of farming in Gaza is similar to the desperate straits of Gaza’s traders, who claim Israel has revoked the permits that allowed them to travel to the West Bank.
Thus, step by step, Gaza is gradually becoming unfit for habitation by the 1.8 million people who still live there.

A village in the jungle: Netanyahu's worldview has won
Sever Plocker, YNet News Opinion, 20-10-2016

As for Netanyahu, his worldview has won. The ‘two-state’ solution has been buried, and all that is left for Bibi to do is to manage the current complex situation, which he is attempting to treat as a permanent solution. I am not dismissing the possibility that he will succeed, at least in the medium term.
These are not unusual comments. They reflect a deep revision among liberal public opinion leaders in the US, especially the Jews among them. Now we see, they told me, that those who described Israel as “a villa in the jungle” were right...
An expression of this new spirit could be found this week in the usually left-wing Jewish American magazine Tablet, which seriously suggested that Netanyahu should receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to Mideast stability.

The next Nobel Peace Prize ought to go to Bibi Netanyahu.
Liel Leibovitch, Tablet Magazine, 14-10-2016

Consider the evidence: With three of his country’s four neighbors ravaged by turmoil, Netanyahu, Israel’s second-longest-serving prime minister, has kept things rock-solid.
Netanyahu’s government has succeeded in considerably strengthening Israel’s ties with other Arab nations, which is why the Jewish state is set to open a diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi, and why you can now read pro-Netanyahu op-eds in the Saudi press
. Finally, understanding the crucial importance of a sound energy policy to the future stability and prosperity of the region, Netanyahu managed to curb the crisis with Erdogan’s Turkey.
Add to that Israel’s repeated aid to the suffering people of Syria — everything from taking a risk and opening its borders to facilitate aid to those who need it most to taking in more than 2,000 Syrian refugees and treating the wounded rebels — and you have a solid case for Bibi, peace Nobelist. So give Netanyahu his due, and give him the prize next year.

The rebels are Jihadists. Turkey has been a supporter of Muslim Brotherhood extremists in Syria, only interested in hateful revenge. Abu Dhabi is an absolute monarchy. Saudia Arabia also is an absolute monarchy. Its statereligion is Wahabism, the (pharisaic) enemy of all forms of spiritualism that are based on the rights of individuals to create their own forms of worship.

Pharisaic means: practicing or advocating strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit.... ; no empathy, self-righteous; sanctimonious; hypocritical..

Attempts to rewrite history
Arutz Sheva Staff, 25/10/2016

The History Of Palestine - The Land Of Canaan
Qumsiyeh: A Human Rights Web

Palestinians are the endogenous people of the Southern Land of Canaan and the Western Part of the Fertile Crescent, the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan. Key milestones in human civilization occurred in this Land of Canaan: animal and plant domestication, development of the alphabet, and development of laws and religions.
Key historical periods:

5000-1500 BC: Canaanites from Northern Iraq to the Sinai ("the fertile crescent") develop agricultural communities and city-states from cave dwellers hunters and gatherers. Phoenician Canaanites in the north develop commerce and shipping around the Mediterranean. Philistine (flst) canaanites develoip desert routes and commerse. Nebatean Canaanites build cities like Petra and BirSaba and 'Asqalan.

1500 BC-500 BC: Palestine is an amalgam of small kingdoms and tribal ruling groups representing multi-religious communities of Canaanites (Jebusites, Amurites, Nebateans, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Philistines).
The dominant language was Aramaic (most dominant); its local dialects of Arabic and Hebrew and Syriac developed their scripts from proto-Aramaic in Palestine.

500 BC-765 AD: Palestine remains an amalgam of small tribes and religions but now ruled by empires (Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman).
Christianity develops under the Roman Empire in Palestine and becomes the predominant religion among the natives by 300 AD (some Judaic, Nazarene, Samaritans and others remained on the Abrahamic tradition).
Around the same time a new religion based on the Abrahamic religion evolved and became known as Talmudic Rabbinic Judaism.
The Talmud ('Oral law') came more than 200-300 years after the New Testament (primarily evolved in Safad in Palestine and in Mesopotamia). There were no Talmudic Jews prior to the 2nd to third century AD.

Mazin Qumsiyeh is challenging the prevailing misconceptions, facile generalizations, and downright ignorance that have long served to obscure Palestinian realities, and, consequently, to prevent the articulation of a just solution. Breathtaking!" Dr. Hanan Ashrawi

UNESCO resolution calls for respecting status quo of religious sites
Palestine News Network, 26-10-2016

"Jews had no interest in the Haram until after the Crusades,
when they misunderstood that it was the Temple Mount." G.W. Buchanan

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed on Wednesday a resolution that denied Jewish ties to Jerusalem’s Old city, two weeks after voting on a resolution announcing Al-Aqsa mosque compound Islamic heritage.
The resolution denounces Israeli settler enterings into Al-Aqsa mosuqe and ongoing excavations carried out by Israeli Occupation Authorities under Al-Aqsa mosque, and call for a halt to these aggressions.

PLO Secretary General Dr. Saeb Erekat in an official statement on the vote said “Israel’s Illegal attempts to change the identity of Occupied East Jerusalem have been ongoing since its occupation of the city in 1967".
“Through an orchestrated campaign, Israel has been using archeological claims and distortion of facts as a way to legitimize the annexation of Occupied East Jerusalem...."
"Contrary to what the Israeli government claims, the resolution that was voted by UNESCO aims at reaffirming the importance of Jerusalem for the three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
The resolotion calls for respecting the status quo of its religious sites, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound that continues to be threatened by the systematic incitement and provocative actions of the Israeli government and extremist Jewish groups.”

Josephus: "It was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed us"

"It was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed us. It were the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple.
Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, daring the entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the taking of the city, and allowed time to the siege, in order to let the authors have opportunity for repentance."

Titus placed himself on the western side of the outer [court of the] temple; for there were gates on that side above the Xystus, and a bridge that connected the upper city to the temple.
This bridge it was that lay between the (Jewish) tyrants ('Zealots') and Caesar, and parted them; while the multitude stood on each side; those of the Jewish nation about Sinran and John, with great hopes of pardon; and the Romans about Caesar, in great expectation how Titus would receive their supplication.
So Titus appointed an interpreter between them, which was a sign that he was the conqueror, and first began the discourse, and said, "I hope you, sirs, are now satiated with the miseries of your country..."
When I came near your temple, I departed from the laws of war, and exhorted you to spare your own sanctuary, and to preserve your holy house to yourselves. I allowed you a quiet exit out of it, and security for your preservation; nay, if you had a mind, I gave you leave to fight in another place. Yet have you still despised every one of my proposals, and have set fire to your holy house with your own hands.
What preservation can you now desire after the destruction of your temple? O miserable creatures! what is it you depend on? Are not your people dead? is not your holy house gone? is not your city in my power? and are not your own very lives in my hands? And do you still deem it a part of valor to die? However, I will not imitate your madness. If you throw down your arms, and deliver up your bodies to me, I grant you your lives...

To that offer of Titus they made this reply: That they could not accept of it, because they had sworn never to do so; but they desired they might have leave to go [,,] into the desert, and leave the city to him...
At this Titus had great indignation, that when they were in the case of men already taken captives, they should pretend to make their own terms with him, as if they had been conquerors... So he gave orders to the soldiers both to burn and to plunder the city...
AND thus was Jerusalem taken, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the eighth day of the month Gorpeius [Elul].

The name "Zealot" was first used by Josephus to describe the militant Jews in the War of 66-70.
Herford summarizes the simple ideas that they believed the Torah demanded:
1) YHWH was the only king that the Jews would acknowledge; 2) they would establish His reign by rooting out paganism and by breaking the yoke of tyranny; 3) the Torah made separation from Gentiles necessary, exalted Israel as the chosen of God, and promised triumph. The zealots would seek to enforce these beliefs by violence of any kind.

Netanyahu recalls UNESCO ambassador
Gary Willig, Arutz Sheva, 26/10/2016

Following the second UNESCO vote to deny the connection between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made the decision to recall Israel's ambassador to UNESCO (Shama-Hacohen).
"We will decide what do, what our next steps vis-à-vis the organization will be.”
"What we have to understand in the end is that this absurdity harms not only the historical truth, but also harms the truth of the present. The credibility of the United Nations will end while Israel continues to grow and flourish."
After the vote was taken Shama-Hacohen symbolically lifted a black dustbin with the word 'history' written on it and placed a copy of the resolution in the dustbin.
“This is yet another absurd resolution against the State of Israel, the Jewish people and historical truth." he said, comparing the resolution to the infamous UN resolution declaring Zionism as racism in 1975...

Spiritual Materialism Is Idolatry
Hatem Bazian, Daily Sabah, Turkey 26-10-2016

The Fox and the Lion "In the supposed conflict between the secular West and the Muslim world, Sufism is presented as the ‘modern’, ‘light’ or ‘open’ version of Islam. Yet Sufism is pure Islam just like any other form of Islam. There is no Sufism without Islam and there is no Islam without Sufism. Today, however, people want to create a new sort of Sufism, which relates more to commercialized spirituality. But real Sufism is a sort of ‘self-education’. The human being is in between being an animal and a human being and in Sufism it is believed that the real reason of our creation is ‘to become human’. "Kudsi Erguner

The word "spiritual" is a term that postulates a new relationship between the human and God that is no longer regulated by existing "tradition" or normative religious discourses.
One has to assert that Islam emerges and is centered in the metaphysical first and foremost...
In classical and foundational Islamic thought, the metaphysical shapes and regulates the material world, and not the other way around.
This statement might appear controversial to some who are rooted in modernism and materialism, but it is set at the root of every Muslim scholar of repute spanning centuries. The confusion is the result of a modern crop overtaken by the outer glitter of the material modern world.
When the material becomes the measure of all things then mankind itself becomes but material, emptied of inner and metaphysical meanings... What makes the human a human if the only measure is the material!

In the pre-colonial period, the spiritual and temporal constituted a coherent whole, with each informing and reflecting the other inwardly and outwardly.... One's actions, work, family relations, political sphere, pastime and moments of rest were all a spiritual undertaking, governed by the metaphysical understanding of the universe.
Colonialism left the inward and the spiritual in a state of dislocation and disorientation, which consequently produced a vacuum and total loss of outward meaning.
To compensate for and in some cases to resist colonial intrusion, a particular mode of spiritual production arose that was vested in the material and temporal representation of an emptied inward state...
Countless Islamic groups, sects and modes of discourse are located in this spiritual materiality and reducing or totally eliminating the metaphysical imprint of the society.
The quest for many a Muslim group is to capture and hold on to power... They are pre-occupied with power and the material world to the extent that the metaphysical ultimate realities are reduced to and measured by the material rather than being subverted by it.
The attempt to develop spirituality based on constructing a relationship with the material and physical is nothing but a refined form of idolatry. Renewing Islam is meaningless if it is not founded upon a re-centering of the metaphysical and de-centering the material.

Archaeologists spotlight Solomon’s Temple-era artifacts
By Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel, October 27, 2016

Israeli archaeologists presented new details of what they said were the first tiny artifacts, unearthed in situ on the Temple Mount, ever conclusively dated to the time of the First Temple over 2,600 years ago.
The artifacts excavated from the mount are said to include olive pits, animal bones and pottery fragments dating to the time of the First (Solomon's) Temple, between the 8th and 6th Centuries BCE.
Archaeologists have previously found a limited number of artifacts from First-Temple-period Jerusalem, but none of those finds were uncovered atop the mount (Mount Moriah**) itself. Rather, they were recovered from the Ophel excavations to the south of the Mount (Mount Zion**), and from the 'Temple Mount Sifting Project', which examines rubble credibly believed to have been removed from the holy site and dumped in the nearby Kidron Valley.
The digs at the Mount were carried out between 2007 and the past year.. The finds on the Temple Mount itself range from a previously undocumented monumental structure believed to be from the 11th and 12th centuries — the period preceding and including the Crusades — to artifacts from Roman times and finds from as far back as the First Temple period.

(** info added by the website editor - see: Josephus & the three hills)

Flashback: Archeology Shows Bible written Late, Full of Errors
By Juan Cole | Feb. 6, 2014

David and Solomon didn’t have a huge palace in Jerusalem in the 1000s and 900s BC. The Assyrians, the gossips of the ancient world, wrote down everything on their clay tablets. They knew events in the whole Middle East. They did not know anything about a glorious kingdom of David and Solomon at Jerusalem.
Indeed, in the 1000s when David is alleged to have lived, Jerusalem seems to have been largely uninhabited, according to the digs that have been done.
Jerusalem was not in any case founded by Jews, but by Canaanites in honor of the god Shalem, thousands of years ago.
There is no reason to think anyone but Canaanites lived in the area of Jerusalem in the 1000s or 900s BC.
Likely some Canaanites became devoted to Y*H*W*H in a monotheistic way during the Babylonian exile when they began inventing Judaism and becoming “Jews” and projecting it back into the distant past.

During the Babylonian exile they began inventing Judaism and becoming “Jews”
and projecting it back into the distant past...

The City of Salem|Shalem

Genesis 33:18: And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padan-aram (an early Aramean kingdom in Mesopotamia); and pitched his tent before the city.
Genesis 33:19: And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for an hundred pieces of money.
Genesis 33:20: And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-Israel...
Genesis 34:27: The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister.
Genesis 34:28: They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field,
Genesis 34:29: And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house.
Genesis 34:30: And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house....

Shechem was a Canaanite city, first mentioned in Egyptian texts on the Sebek-khu Stele, an Egyptian stele of a noble at the court of Senusret III (c. 1880–1840 BC). Traditionally associated with Nablus, it is now identified with the nearby site of Tell Balata in Balata al-Balad in the West Bank.
In the Amarna Letters of about 1350 BC, Šakmu (i.e. Shechem) was the center of a kingdom carved out by Labaya (or Labayu), a Canaanite warlord who recruited mercenaries from among the Habiru.
Labaya was active over the whole length of Samaria and slightly beyond. Shechem was important in ancient Palestine because of its position in an east-west pass between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, one of the few such routes in Palestine’s hill country.
Salem (Jerusalem) was just a tiny part of the Shechem kingdom, ruled by tribal leaders (Canaan was a tribal society. Local wars were fought between individual city-state kingdoms. Villages were often raided by nearby bandits and outlaws.)
Habiru are considered to have been the original Hebrews. The Habiru are variously described as nomadic or semi-nomadic, rebels, outlaws, raiders, mercenaries, and bowmen, servants, slaves, migrant laborers, etc. The Amarna letters suggest that this class of people held unique status in the Near East.

Knesset speaker asks Vatican to help fight UNESCO decisions
By Alexander Fulbright October 27, 2016,

Mount Zion: Ophel Site & the Jewish Old City Ancient Jerusalem (the 'City of David) was divided in the Lower City (Temple & Jewish Priests & citizens). and the Upper City (nowadays the Arab Old City). What modern Jews claim is not the Lower City, but the Upper City The Upper City was the neighbourhood of the rich, with large, elaborate dwellings inhabited by the families of the local aristocracy. Here were the palace of King Herod and the Roman Fort Antonia, Roman bathhouses, etc. (There was a bridge from the Upper City to the temple in the Lower City)

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) has asked the Vatican for its help in preventing 'anti-Israel UNESCO decisions' from occurring again. In a letter to the Secretary of State for the Vatican Cardinal Pietro Parolin following the UNESCO vote, Edelstein requested help “to prevent the recurrence of developments of this sort.” Edelstein wrote that the UNESCO vote was “an assault on history and deeply offensive to both Christianity and Judaism.” “The denial of the historicity of the two Jerusalem Temples and the Temple Mount as recounted in both the Old and New Testaments is a terrible indictment of the international community when repeatedly adopted by a UN body,” he said. Edelstein added that “it is now high time to ensure that that the international community adopts another resolution that reaffirms Jerusalem as a holy city for all monotheistic religions, a city where the two Temples stood and from which the Word of G-d was first promulgated to humanity by our prophets.”

"Their once famous Mount Sion instead of being as it once was, is a Roman farm like the rest of the country. Yea, with my own eyes I have seen the bulls plowing there," Eusebius of Caesarea (bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine)

Did David and Goliath happen or not?
Tali Farkash |YNet News, 30.10.2016

David played on the harp, and sang before Saul. And David's music cheered Saul's heart, and drove away his sad feelings...

Using the Bible to explain archaeological findings is controversial.
“In the gap between a myth and reality backed by archeological findings, there is a lot of grey area,” says Yehuda Kaplan, one of the curators of the exhibition 'In the valley of David and Goliath'.
“Archaeology doesn’t have the ability to say if something happened or did not happen, about a lot of stuff. For example, we have not found Goliath’s skeleton or shield.
“There have also been doubts whether David himself was a real figure. Some researchers accept every line in the Bible, and others see it as a mythological collection and therefore saw David as a sort of ‘King Arthur.’
The Bible, in any event, is not a history book. It reflects opinions. It has a didactic mission, but in my eyes, it has absorbed historical material.”

Question: So did David and Goliath happen or not?

“An empire, a kingdom—as the kingdom of David and Solomon is described—is a complicated mechanism which includes bureaucracy and fortified cities. Hardly any archaeological remains have been found from that period.
“We prefer to let the audience decide for itself which explanation it accepts...
The Bible, in any event, is a vivid and fascinating source – not necessarily for answers, but also for questions: Who are we and what is our history?”

Haredi MK: Higher education is idolatry
Yoel Domb, Arutz Sheva, 02/11/2016

Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) criticized haredi participation in programs of higher learning, claiming that academia is unacceptable for haredi young men because, in his words, "they want to secularize us."
Gafni added that this was also the reason why he does not visit haredi academic institutions, as he does not want to be seen as identifying with them.
This week it was reported that there was a significant increase in haredi participation in academic institutions, despite rabbinic opposition to academia.

Moshe Gafni is an Israeli politician and Member of the Knesset for the Haredi party United Torah Judaism. In February 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Gafni and other government leaders for making disparaging remarks about Reform and Conservative Judaism.
Gafni, following a decision to expand the egalitarian section of the Western Wall, declared he would refuse to recognize the decision and that Reform Jews were "a group of clowns who stab the holy Torah.” (Wikipedia)

A revolt against the mighty ultra-Orthodox establishment
Eric H. Yoffie, former president of the Union for Reform Judaism, 6.03.2016

As a Reform Jew, I am never happier than when Israel’s ultra-Orthodox leaders are insulting Reform Judaism. Recently, the ultra-Orthodox world in Israel has been pouring out its anti-Reform abuse at record levels. Needless to say, I have been a very happy man. In case you missed it, here is a sampling of these Haredi attacks:

Moshe Gafni, a Knesset member from the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, has said that “Reform Jews are a group of clowns” who have “declared war on the Torah.” Israel Eichler, a Knesset member from the same party, has compared Reform Jews to the mentally ill. Not to be outdone, Shas leader Rabbi David Yosef has said the Reform Jews are “not Jewish” and are “literally idolaters.”

The hysterical anti-Reform ranting of ultra-Orthodox leaders is a sign of ultra-Orthodox weakness.
Reform is starting to take root in a meaningful way in Israeli soil. Nonetheless, the Reform movement is modest in size, receives virtually no government support, and has no representation in the Knesset.
Why in heavens name would the mighty ultra-Orthodox establishment, representing 10% of Israel’s population, be so obsessed with the “threat” posed by liberal Judaism?

The answer is that the Haredi leadership is not stupid. Desperate and fanatic, yes, but not stupid. And it knows that the Haredi ghetto is crumbling, that rabbinic control over young people is eroding, and that any Jewish voice that offers a synthesis of modernity and tradition threatens to accelerate this process.
Therefore, Haredi rabbis are trying to distract their young people by non-stop attacks on others. Instead of stressing the blessings and authenticity of their own beliefs and way of life, they focus on the shortcoming of others. “Beware of Reform, destroyers of the Jewish world,” they scream.
But their attacks are no longer working... What the Haredi masses care about is the desperate poverty that their rabbis have forced upon them by forbidding young men to work and by prohibiting all but incidental contact with the outside world...
The revolt against the rabbinic authoritarians is now in full swing... Cell phones and computers are infiltrating the ultra-Orthodox family, bringing the good and the bad of the modern world and further undermining rabbinic edicts....
The battle is not yet won, to be sure. In the short term, it will get much uglier... But let us have no doubt about the outcome.
For Israel, what the future holds—and the sooner, the better—is a messy but pluralistic coexistence, with secular, Orthodox, and non-Orthodox models bumping up against each other in Israel’s chaotic public square.

INFO: In 1948 Secular Left-wing Zionists made a deal with 'the devil'
Stuart Schoffman, Tablet, 28-10-2011

In his new Nextbook Press book, Ben-Gurion: A Political Life, co-written with the veteran Israeli journalist David Landau, Shimon Peres describes the deal that Ben-Gurion made with ultra-Orthodox rabbi-politicians at the time of Israel’s founding:
kashrut in all public institutions, Shabbat as the day of rest, rabbinic control of marriage and divorce, and the exemption of full-time yeshiva students, who at the time numbered only in the hundreds, from army service.
This would all seem a violation of Herzl’s vision, but Peres defends Ben-Gurion’s consensus-building move as wise and pragmatic, “because the number of people in Israel who defined themselves as people of faith was large.”

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau: "Zionism started long before Herzl"
Gol Kalev, Jerusalem Post, 4-11-2016

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who, after serving as the nation’s chief rabbi, returned to his previous post of chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, serves as a source of inspiration for many. As the new year begins, I visited him to get his views on where we are in the Jewish story:
“The return to Zion is a dream come true. That dream started long before Theodor Herzl and the establishment of the Zionist movement,” Lau states. “There is not a single prophet who did not envision the return to Zion in his prophecy...’”

WHILE MANY prefer to point to international developments such as the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations mandate, Lau does not hesitate to refer to an older source as the legal basis for Zionism.
“Zionism started,” he says, “when Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. It continued when Jacob purchased land in Shechem [Nablus], and then again when King David purchased land from the king of Jebus [the Temple Mount]. This is where the roots of Zionism lie.”

I (Gol Kalev) ask Lau if the return of the Jews to Israel represents a new phase of Judaism.
“The current phase draws directly from that very first phase in the biblical era,” he replies. To illustrated such a connection, he recounts a conversation he had with David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister.
“It was on April 2, 1972,” he says. “I came to Ben-Gurion’s house on Keren Kayemeth Boulevard (today’s Ben-Gurion Boulevard [in Tel Aviv]) and had a long conversation. We spoke about Ben-Gurion’s testimony before the Peel Commission.” The commission was formed in 1936 by the British government to investigate the causes of riots in Palestine.
During testimony, Lord Peel asked Ben-Gurion if he had a deed that showed the land belonged to him.
Says Lau: “Ben-Gurion responded, ‘Yes, I have a deed. Lord Peel, you are a British Christian, you believe in the Bible.’ Ben-Gurion then dramatically lifted up the Bible and proudly said, ‘This is our deed.’”

The Temple period & the end of the era of the Pophets (700 CE to 500 CE) "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." Matthew 3:37 The Second Temple period in Jewish history lasted between 530 BCE and 70 CE, when the Second Temple of Jerusalem existed. The sects of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots were formed during this period. The Second Temple period ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. After the death of the last Jewish Prophets of the antiquity and still under Persian rule, the leadership of the Jewish people was in the hands of five successive generations of zugot ("pairs of") leaders. They flourished first under the Persians (c. 539–c. 332 BCE), then under the Greeks (c. 332-167 BCE), then under an independent Hasmonean Kingdom (140-37 BCE), and then under the Romans (63 BCE-132 CE). Prophetic Religion: Rejecting Idolatry & Bloodcult Prophetic religion is commonly thought to oppose temple worship and to insist that proper ethical behavior alone is sufficient for God, who does not demand any sort of ritual behavior. Prophetic religion, in this view, assumes that “right” (ethical action) trumps “rite” (worship). * Isa 1:10-17 is often used as a prime example of prophetic religion. It reads in part: What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. (Isa 1:11) Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isa 1:16-17) * Amos 5:21-25 is similar, as seen especially in verse 24, famously quoted in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (Amos 5:24) * The conclusion of Mic 6:6-8 expresses the same idea: what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic 6:8) There are only two [minor] 'prophets' who are supporting temple-building and temple-service: Haggai and Zechariah. They symbolize the end of the era of the [real] prophets and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy. The clearest example of a pro-temple attitude is found in Hag 1. Haggai prophesied soon after the Judeans [lead by Ezra and Nehemiah] began to return from exile in Babylonia, and a major aspect of his mission was convincing the leadership to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.. (source) Prophets of the Assyrian Period Jonah Joel Amos Hosea Isaiah Micah Zephaniah Nahum Prophets of the Babylonian Period Jeremiah Habakkuk Ezekiel Obadiah Daniel Pro-Temple scribes|priests of the Persian Period Haggai Zechariah Malachi

From EZRA (creator of 'The Chosen People', 500 bC) to Jabotinsky (1929)
"The most important task of Zionism is
to make Eretz Yisrael the leading state of the civilized world"
The ideology of Betar, Ze'ev Jabotinsky 1929

"There is no question of ousting the Arabs. On the contrary, the idea is that Palestine on both sides of the Jordan should hold the Arabs, their progeny, and many millions of Jews. What I do not deny is that in that process the Arabs of Palestine will necessarily become a minority in the country of Palestine." (Jabotinsky: To the Great Britian's House of Lords, February 11, 1937)

It is not true that the Zionists have ignored the idea of mission, the mission of the Jewish nation in the world; rather we believe that the world will yet learn from us many truths, truths still unknown to it. However, the single way leading to this is the creation of the Jewish State.

No Mercy

First of all, the Jewish nation must build its state, this undertaking is so complicated and difficult that it demands the full strength of an entire generation, perhaps even more than one generation.
Jewish youth must, therefore, devote itself completely to this sole task; all other ideas, though they be beautiful and humane, should influence us only in so far as they do not hinder the rebuilding of a Jewish state.
When one of these ideas becomes, even if indirectly, an obstacle on the road to a Jewish state, it must be mercilessly sacrificed in favor of the one ideal.
One should remember that one may have many ideas and respect them highly, but one can only have one ideal. To this ideal all other ideas must bow, and near it there should not and cannot exist a second ideal, for two ideals are as absurd as two gods; one can worship only one God and only one ideal. Everything else one may like is, and must, remain secondary importance.

What then is, practically speaking, a Jewish "State"?
When can it truly be said that our country has ceased to be "Palestine" and become Eretz Yisrael? Only then, when there will be more Jews that non-Jews; for the first condition of a national state is national majority.
For a long time, many Jews, including Zionists, were unwilling to understand the simple truth. They maintained that the creation of important positions in Palestine (settlements, cities, schools, etc.) is enough. According to them a national life could be freely developed even though the majority of the population were to be Arab. This is a great mistake...
If we desire that Eretz Yisrael should become and remain a Jewish State, we must first of all create a Jewish majority.
The first step in Zionism consists of this, but it does not follow that it is the last step. After attaining a majority in Palestine and being enabled to govern upon broad democratic principles, we will have before us even a more important task: Shivat Tzion (the return to Zion).
By this we mean the creation of such conditions which would enable every Jew who is unwilling or unable to live in the diaspora to settle in the Jewish State and earn his livelihood there.

Afterward will come probably the most important task of all: to make Eretz Yisrael the leading state of the civilized world, a country the customs and laws of which are to be followed by the whole universe.
"From Zion shall go forth Torah", signifies a "Torah" not merely in the religious sense. Zionism is a tremendous, overwhelming important tack, the boundaries of which our generation cannot as yet envisage.
The first step, that deed without which there can be no Zionism, or a Jewish state, or a real Jewish nation, is the creation of a Jewish majority in Eretz Yisrael on both sides of the Jordan.

Zionism & "moderate Judaism"
By Times of Israel staff, November 5, 2016

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog launched a bitter attack on Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night, telling tens of thousands of Israelis who turned out in Tel Aviv to remember slain leader Yitzhak Rabin that incitement by the prime minister and his associates has to end.
“Twenty-one years on, the incitement is the same incitement and the leader is the same leader,” Herzog told a packed Rabin Square as Israel marked the late prime minister’s November 1995 murder.
Rabin was gunned down at the end of a peace rally by right-wing extremist Jew Yigal Amir, amid national tensions over then-peace efforts with the Palestinians.
Herzog was responding to comments by the coalition chairman, Likud MK David Bitan, who said hours before the start of the rally that Rabin’s murder was not a political assassination.

Addressing the murdered prime minister, Herzog declared: “Yitzhak, I promise you from here that I won’t let any leader destroy our democracy.”
Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni also took aim at Netanyahu, telling the crowd in Rabin Square that “no one will tell us what Zionism is.”
“This is the time to get out of the corner, to go from defense to offense and say enough! “We say yes to democracy, to moderate Judaism, yes to peace..." "Zionism is equality… Zionism is defending minorities… Zionism is peace from a position of strength… security for the State of Israel and not isolated settlements…"
The head of the left-wing Meretz party, Zehava Galon, also lambasted Netanyahu over Bitan’s comments.
“The murder was the result of a propaganda machine. The prime minister who was then on the balcony and the incitement continues to this day,” she said, referring to a virulently anti-Rabin rally in Jerusalem ahead of the prime minister’s assassination, which then-opposition leader Netanyahu watched from a nearby veranda.

This year’s Tel Aviv event was nearly cancelled because of a lack of funding, but the Labor Party agreed this week to step in.

Rabin served as Israel’s chief of staff during the Six Day War in 1967. He was later ambassador to the US, defense minister and twice prime minister. In 1994, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with then-foreign minister Shimon Peres, who died last month, and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, for his part in signing the Oslo Peace accords a year earlier.

Yehuda Glick to Trump: "Ascend the Temple Mount"
Arutz Sheva Staff, 09/11/2016

Following Tuesday's presidential election, MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) invited Donald Trump, the US President-elect, to visit the Temple Mount (Harem esh-Sharif) and Judea and Samaria (Westbank-Palestine).
The elections showed, said Glick, that "the American people are tired of hypocrisy and political correctness, and prefer directness."
MK Oren Hazan (Likud) also congratulated Trump...: "I have long claimed that the era of political correctness is over. The public wants to hear the truth and not words that cover up hidden intentions.”
Yochai Damari, head of the Hevron Regional Council, said, “This revolution of 2016 takes me back 40 years to the revolution of 1977 (when Menachem Begin was elected).”
“Trump’s statements are more sympathetic to Israel and to the 'settlement movement' than anything we’ve heard in recent years...” “I appeal to the Prime Minister and the Government of Israel to immediately adopt the Levy report and to continue building throughout Judea and Samaria..."

The Battle Against Israel's Religious Zealots
Avirama Golan, Haaretz, Nov 16, 2011

The battle that is taking place in Israel today is between representatives of religiosity and the state's citizens. It is a retrograde move, the crux of which is a reaction by the religious-Messianic base to Israeli sovereignty.
This is a new and dangerous wave of the Jewish Diaspora sea, which is forever disconnected from place and time, and it is threatening to overflow and drown Zionism and its accomplishments.
The roots of its family tree are in Rabbis Kook, Sr. and Jr.; its stem is Gush Emunim; and its questionable fruit is the "price tag" campaign.
This reactionary element may call itself Religious Zionism, but it is the rack and ruin of the Herzlian Zionism.
It is entirely a new breed of Judaism: ultra-Orthodox-zealous in its religiosity (and therefore denies, of course, the sovereignty of the state and its secular and overly free institutions).
It is nationalist-racist in its outlook more than the most fanatical of secular right-wingers. The spearhead of the new breed is no longer preoccupied with matters of land and territories. This battle was already won by the settlers to the detriment of the State of Israel. What interests this element is "Judaizing" Israeli society.

The nationalist extremism of Hardaliyut [Hebrew acronym for national ultra-Orthodoxy] draws its inspiration from Western fascist movements...
Its strict adherence to Jewish law, its hatred of free speech, and its phobia of sexuality drink from the same dark postmodern sources of inspiration as its beloved American evangelism and its detested radical Islam.
The only ones who are fighting are the direct victims of the undertow, the women. While putting themselves and their families at real risk, they are attempting to stop it. But the general public, religious and secular, is not adding its voice to theirs...

Yasser Arafat Museum opens in Ramallah
Elior Levy, YNet News, 10.11.2016

Exactly twelve years after Yasser Arafat's death, a museum in his memory opened in Ramallah. The Yasser Arafat Museum is dedicated to his activities as the head of the PLO and chairman of the Palestinian Authority.
The museum is located inside his Ramallah compound, behind his grave. The building is two floors and spreads over 2,600 sq. m.
Amongst the items on display are Arafat's rifle, one of his famous keffiyehs, the sunglasses that he wore in his 1974 UN address and the eyeglasses that he used for his last decade alive. Pictures of the leader with various world leaders are hung in the hallways.
The Nobel Prize for Peace that he was awarded together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres after the Oslo Accords were signed is also on display. It was brought from his house in the Gaza Strip.

The crowning exhibit is the small bedroom in which Arafat slept when his compound was under siege during the Second Intifada. Inside the 5-sq.-m room are his single bed, a small wardrobe with his uniform hanging, a small television set, and a picture drawn by his daughter, Zahwa.
Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit attended the opening ceremony along with former Secretary General Amr Moussa and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who cut the ceremonial ribbon.

A memorial ceremony was held on Thursday in Ramallah for Arafat, which was attended by MK Aiman Udeh (Joint List).
In response, Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman wrote on his Facebook page, "He's not willing to attend Peres's funeral in Jerusalem, but he'll make a speech in Arafat's memory. We'll continue to act until he will no longer be a member of Knesset in Jerusalem..."