“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.
Victory of Israeli-Orthodox Judaism is everyone’s defeat
|
Jabotinski 'the Liberal' and Maimonides 'the humanist'
As a liberal (NOT a Jew) Jabotinsky recoiled from all dictators and from totalitarianism. He was an extreme individualist, almost a committed anarchist. (Israel Eldad, 1980)
“Every person is a king” Jabotinsky formulated and this meant an inner freedom, the freedom of choice. Even the acceptance of the discipline that Jabotinsky desired to be the result of a free decision by man as man.
"My outlook is in essence the negation of the totalistic state. The instinctive ideal of man is a serene anarchy. As long as this ideal cannot be realized, democracy must be recognized as the form closest to the ideal. |
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)
Aries: | Benjamin | impulsiveness; selfishness; self-confidence; loyalty; |
Taurus: | Reuben | appetite for Earthly pleasures; sexual beauty; peaceable |
Gemini: | Simeon | brother of violence with Levi; intellectual; communicative |
Cancer: | Levi | brother of violence with Simon; emotional; motherly |
Leo: | Judah | kings; generosity; vengeance; being on top |
Virgo: | Zebulun | new experiences; glass; precision; analysis |
Libra: | Issachar | servitude; weighing all options; judiciousness |
Scorpio: | Dan | judgement; violence; emotional imbalance; snake |
Sagittarius: | Gad | good fortune; expansiveness; religiosity |
Capricorn: | Asher | wealth; hard work; old in youth, young in old age |
Aquarius: | Naphtali | goodly words; satisfaction; swift; communicative |
Pisces: | Joseph | emotional security; occult ability; confusing |
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
The temple: A center of Enlightment or a center of Power? Fort Antonia was described by Josephus as being like a city with large areas for troop parades etc. A legion of troops (5000 fighting and 5000 support) was housed there. Only the Haram fits the description and the small area now designated the site of the Fort would have been impossibly small. The habit of accepting the temple mount tradition as fact has fatally perpetuated a blindness regarding all the descriptions of the temple which testify against such an assumption.
Read more: Israel & The Temple Revolution |
Zealotism & Megalomania
Megalomania involves delusion: what the megalomaniac thinks about himself is not, in fact, true. A megalomaniac is the mediocre chess player who accuses everyone who beats him of cheating, because he’s “too smart” to lose fair and square. |
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
"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) |
|
"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 ResourceAccording 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).
Josephus & The Three Hills
| |
![]() 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) |
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
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...
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...
Titus (Latin: Titus Flāvius Caesar Vespasiānus Augustus) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own biological father. Prior to becoming Emperor, Titus gained renown as a military commander, serving under his father in Judea during the First Jewish–Roman War.
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.
Flashback 2001: Rehavam Zeevi dies after Palestinian shooting
Israel's ultra-nationalist tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, died in hospital Wednesday after being shot in the head by a hardline Palestinian group claiming revenge for Israel's assassination of its own leader, a hospital official said on public radio.
"Zeevi once called then-President George Bush a liar and anti-semite for pressuring Israel to stop settlement expansion in the West Bank. "Rehavam Zeevi, who has been assassinated aged 75, was so rightwing that he barely remained within the outer perimeter of political acceptability." (The Guardian 2001) |
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.
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'...]
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..
|
" 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. |
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."
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 |
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.
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..
Jerusalem, a Canaan city
"He will arise in the land of Galilee...he shall reveal himself in the land of Galilee; | |
Uru-Salem - city of Salem - and Shahar "He who first built Jerusalem was a potent man among the Canaanites, and is in our own tongue called Melchisedek, the Righteous King, for such he really was.. He called the city Jerusalem (Uru-Salim), which was formerly called Salem. "Josephus
Salim or Shalem is attested as a god, presumably identified with the evening star. The Ugaritic text describes Shahar and Shalem as morning & evening stars.
Aijeleth Shahar or Ayelet HaShachar ("hind of the dawn") is found in the title of Psalm 22. Read also: Venus Morning Star - Venus Evening Star |
A week after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ratified a resolution negating the Jewish ties to the Temple Mount and Western Wall, Texas Senator Ted Cruz (Republican & Christian Zionist) rebuked the Obama White House for not making a diplomatic effort to fight the controversial measure.
On Monday, Cruz signed onto another joint, bipartisan letter by members of Congress, opposing yet another planned UNESCO resolution. |
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
"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.”
"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.
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...
Flashback: The beginning of the Temple revolution
|
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 |
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.
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)
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...
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.
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). |
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) |
|
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?”
The Bible Unearthed - Myths & Reality
|
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)
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.”
The Long Journey From Jewish Law To Hellenism
Read more: Saddam's death, page 61
|
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. Prophetic Religion: Rejecting Idolatry & BloodcultProphetic 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). ![]() 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.
Prophets of the Assyrian Period Jonah Joel Amos Hosea Isaiah Micah Zephaniah Nahum |
"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.
"Until 1967 religious Zionists in Israel were marginalized both by the secular majority, and by the more visibly religious groups that seemed to offer a more authentic, uncompromising brand of religion. The Six-Day War of June 1967 resulted in the the capture of East Jerusalem and other territories of the Biblical Land of Israel. |
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.
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.
Question: Who is the moderate Israeli Jew?The problem with modern Zionism is that the State of Israel (a democratic theocracy) has two founding fathers, who are each others opponents:
EZRA-ism in its extreme form is represented by the ZEALOTS, Messianic fanatics (the Messiah is a Warrior and a King...) - who are responsible for the end of Jewish cultural life in Roman controlled Judea. In the Talmud, the Zealots are called the Biryonim, meaning "boorish", "wild", or "ruffians", and they are condemned for their aggression, their unwillingness to compromise to save the survivors of besieged Jerusalem, and their blind militarism. | |
2. Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism 'working for the good of humanity'
Herzl in 'Der Judenstaat': "Shall we, then, end up by having a theocracy? No!... | |
Netanyahu & Religious Messianism
|
Netanyahy meets the Rebbe "Since we last met many things have progressed. What hasn't changed, however, is that Moshiach hasn't come. There are still a few hours left in the day, so try to bring him today!" |
Rabbi Schneerson encouraged people to focus on the Jewish Messiah very much. Beginning with his very first farbrengen as Rebbe, he spoke of this generation's mission to complete the Dira Betachtonim, and urged everyone to do all within their power to help the world reach its ultimate state of perfection...
Schneerson would finish almost every public talk of his with a prayer for the imminent arrival of the Messiah. As early as the 1970s, he sought to raise awareness of the Messianic age by encouraging people to learn and become knowledgeable in the laws of the Holy Temple... (Wikipedia)
The difference in the inner quality between Jews and non-Jews is “so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species.”
“An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.”
“…the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews....”
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 Roman Fort Antonia (Harem esh-Sharif - Mount Moriah - Temple-mount)
symbolizes the victory of the Roman Empire over Jewish Zealotism.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus, three main Jewish groups existed at the time of Christ—the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. He also mentions a fourth group called the Zealots who were founded by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee. Josephus notes that the Zealots agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions; but they say that God (i.e. Jewish 'Divine' Law) is to be their only Ruler and Lord... (so any secular government and any secular constitution has to be - and will be - rejected..)
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...
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..."
ramallah - west bank - 2002 (second intifada)
The Second Intifada, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was the second Palestinian uprising against Israel – a period of intensified Israeli-Palestinian violence.
It started in September 2000, when Ariel Sharon (Likud) made a visit to the Temple Mount (Haram esh-Sharif), seen by Palestinians as highly provocative; and Palestinian demonstrators, throwing stones at police, were dispersed by the Israeli army, using tear gas and rubber bullets.
Both parties caused high numbers of casualties among civilians as well as combatants: the Palestinians by numerous suicide bombings and gunfire; the Israelis by tank and gunfire and air attacks, by numerous targeted killings, and by reactions to demonstrations
ariel sharon - the farmer who had to be a right wing (mercyless) zionist
The Temple?
Ariel Sharon's farm, Sycamore Farm (Sycamore|Shikmim), is the largest private farm in Israel, a thousand acres near the desert town of Sederot, worked by laborer's from Thailand, (not Palestinians), and originally bought with the help of the Hollywood producer Meshulam Riklis.
|