Top Obama Advisors Say Time for Israel To Surrender Jerusalem
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A Washington-based think tank that is viewed as one of the primary sources of foreign policy advise for US President Barack Obama is recommending that Israel surrender control of Jerusalem to an international body.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) correctly determined that the issue of Jerusalem is the primarily obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
As such, in order to move forward with the land-for-peace process as a whole, CAP has suggested that a third party administer and police the city while both Israel and the Palestinians maintain their claims to sovereignty until an agreement can be reached.
CAP expects that agreement would take a very long time to reach, if ever, but that in the meantime the rest of the conflict could be concluded.
There are concerns in Israel that Obama will adopt the recommendation considering his close ties to CAP and his overriding determination to oversee an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement.
Bloomberg News reported that “CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the [Democratic party] platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign.”
It was also noted that Obama adopted many of CAP’s policy recommendations while he was still president-elect.
via Source
Israel Must Attack Iran, Insists Bolton
Former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton told The Washington Post on Thursday that the only way left to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is to support an Israeli military strike on the Islamic Republic.
Bolton said the soft approach taken by US President Barack Obama had only hastened the Iranian nuclear threat, and that today the only options that remain are to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons or intervene militarily.
With Obama almost certain to never order a military strike on Iran, that leaves only Israel.
Bolton urged Israel to decide quickly whether or not it will strike.
“Israel’s decision of whether to use military force against Tehran’s nuclear weapons program is more urgent than ever,” said Bolton, adding that he is confident new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully grasps the gravity of the situation and will respond accordingly.
via Source
U.S.-Israel A Potential Diplomatic Train Wreck
A best-selling author and former political consultant to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes the U.S. and Israel are headed for a diplomatic train wreck over the alleged “peace process” with the Palestinians.
The Associated Press has reported that, under pressure from the United States, Israel is reducing its security presence in four West Bank towns. Israeli and Palestinian defense officials say Israel is granting U.S.-trained Palestinian security forces greater autonomy in the four towns. The ability of Palestinian security forces to maintain law and order is key to Mideast peacemaking because Israel needs to be convinced that a future Palestinian state will not threaten its security.
Joel Rosenberg is the author of Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson, and Jesus are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World. He thinks the Israelis have already made too many concessions.
“I see a diplomatic train wreck coming between the United States and Israel over this so-called ‘peace process’ and Washington’s insistence on essentially forcing Israel to make territorial concessions,” he notes.
Most Israelis do not trust Barack Obama, according to Rosenberg.
“Only 34 percent of Israelis see President Obama as a friend, as an ally; whereas more than 85 percent saw President Bush as a friend and ally,” Rosenberg points out. “There are deep concerns in Israel about where President Obama is taking the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Huge Underground Chamber Found In Israel
A 2,000-year-old underground chamber has been discovered in Israel’s Jordan Valley.
The largest human-made cave in Israel, the 1-acre (0.4-hectare) space is thought to have begun as a quarry. In subsequent centuries it may have served as a monastery, hideout for persecuted Christians, or Roman army base, experts say.
Archaeologists working in the valley found the cave this past March when they came across a hole in a rock face.
As they were about to enter, two fearful-looking Bedouins appeared and warned the team that hyenas and wolves inhabited the cave.
But science prevailed, said team leader Adam Zertal, and once underground, “our eyes opened to see something unimaginable.”
The archaeologists peered into a huge hall lined with 22 thick pillars—giving the “impression of a palace,” added Zertal, of the University of Haifa in Israel.
“We didn’t have much light—it was complete darkness,” he said. But “even with the torches, we saw how glorious it looks.”
Etched into those columns were 31 Christian crosses, Roman letters, a Zodiac sign, and what looks like the Roman army’s pennant—all of which surprised the researchers.
“It surely was not just a quarry,” Zertal said.
Around the first century B.C. and the first century A.D., when the chamber’s creation likely began, the Roman-appointed King Herod the Great, who ruled the region from 37 to 4 B.C., had returned from Rome with plans to develop the Jordan Valley.
Thousands March In Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade
June 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
About 2,000 participants in a gay pride parade have marched peacefully through Jerusalem.
In past years, the gay pride event in the holy city provoked violent protests, even stabbings, by ultra-Orthodox Jews and extremists. But this year, except for one egg-throwing incident, there were no clashes.
Police said they arrested the egg-tossing protester. Others put up signs and demonstrated in an ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem, far away from the parade.
The marchers waved rainbow and Israeli flags and donned rainbow dresses, shirts and headbands.
The parade was more restrained Thursday than a gay pride march in more secular Tel Aviv earlier this month. One marcher scolded another for removing his shirt, saying, “This is Jerusalem.”
Police sources said Wednesday that this year the parade is not expected to stir violent protests.
Police believed the controversial event would run smoothly as leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community - who in past years have led anti-gay protests - decided not to protest to avoid exposing their young people to the issue of homosexuality.
As a result, only 1,600 police officers were assigned to the parade, compared with 12,000 in 2006.
Israel Peace Talks In Paris Called Off
A meeting between Israel’s prime minister and a senior US envoy has been canceled amid growing differences over settlement building in the West Bank.
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot said the US put off the meeting in response to Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to heed US demands to halt settlement activity.
But Mr Netanyahu’s aides say it was the prime minister who cancelled Thursday’s meeting with George Mitchell in Paris.
They said “more professional work” was needed, without adding further details.
Instead, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is now scheduled to travel to Washington on Monday to meet Mr Mitchell.
Mr Netanyahu has arrived in Paris from Rome, on his first trip to Europe since he took office.
Can 3rd Temple Be Built Without Destroying Dome Of The Rock?
A new Jewish interfaith initiative launched last week argues building the Third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem would not necessitate the destruction of the Dome of the Rock.
“God’s Holy Mountain Vision” project hopes to defuse religious strife by showing that Jews’ end-of-days vision could harmoniously accommodate Islam’s present architectural hegemony on the Temple Mount.
“This vision of religious shrines in peaceful proximity can transform the Temple Mount from a place of contention to its original sacred role as a place of worship shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians,” said Yoav Frankel, director of the initiative.
The Interfaith Encounter Association at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim’s Konrad Adenauer Conference Center in Jerusalem is sponsoring the program, which includes interfaith study and other educational projects.
According to Islamic tradition, the Dome of the Rock, built in 691, marks the spot where Muhammed ascended to Heaven.
But according to Jewish tradition, Mount Moriah, now under the Dome of the Rock, is where the Temple’s Holy of Holies was situated.
Until now Jewish tradition has assumed that destruction of the Dome of the Rock was a precondition for the building of the third and last Temple.
However, in an article that appeared in 2007 in Tehumin, an influential journal of Jewish law, Frankel, a young scholar, presented a different option.
His main argument is that Jewish doctrine regarding the rebuilding of the Temple emphasizes the role of a prophet.
Russia Aims To Host Mideast Peace Meeting
The Russian president said in Cairo on Tuesday that Moscow aimed to hold a Middle East peace conference before the end of 2009, a move backed by Egypt and which Russia said also had Israel’s approval.
Russia, which has proposed such a conference in the past, is a member of the Quartet of Middle East negotiators, along with the European Union, the United States and the United Nations.
“We paid special attention to Middle East issues. We highly appreciate efforts by the Egyptian president to create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation in the region,” Dmitry Medvedev said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
“(The) Moscow Middle East conference, which we plan to hold before the end of the year, will also contribute to achieving this goal,” he said at a joint news conference in Cairo.
Mubarak, speaking after the two sides signed cooperation agreements, said Egypt backed the conference in Moscow.
Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently told Russia that Israel “would, in principle, agree to attend, provided, of course, that anti-peace elements such as Hamas and Hezbollah are not invited”.
Israel Trying To Boost Image With Gays?
June 17, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
The sun was just beginning to sink into the Mediterranean as the couples took their places under the fluttering wedding canopy: three sets of brides and two sets of grooms.
In a nod to Jewish wedding tradition, a member of each couple stepped on a glass to seal the deal. Except in this wedding the centuries-old words that finalize the Jewish marriage contract were uttered with a twist: “If I forget thee, O Tel Aviv, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Tel Aviv above my highest joy.”
Replacing the traditional “Jerusalem” with “Tel Aviv” was a pronounced statement in Israel’s first municipal gay wedding ceremony and reflected the fact that it only could have taken place in Tel Aviv, the most open and liberal of Israel’s cities.
The wedding, although just symbolic because the marriages are not recognized by the state, was seen as a sign of how far Israel’s gay community has come since its coming-out as a tiny movement in 1974, when a handful of activists wearing masks marched in front of Tel Aviv City Hall demanding equal rights.
Netanyahu Calls for Conditional Palestinian State
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed an independent Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, dramatically reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
A week after President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees giving up the goal of returning to Israel.
Netanyahu, in an address seen as his reponse to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.
Senior Palestinian officials Saeb Erekat said the plan “closed the door” to negotiations.
Still, it was a dramatic transformation for a man raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and who has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.
“I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him.
Clinton Reverses - Israel On Its Own With Iran
In a reversal of her stated position as a presidential candidate, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed last week that an Iranian attack on Israel would no longer be considered as an attack on America. Speaking during an interview on ABC TV she said that the Iranians could expect “retaliation” but America was not committing itself to come to Israel’s defense.
Interviewer and White House Correspondent George Stephanopoulos reminded Clinton of her previous position by playing a 2008 video recording in which she states: “I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States.”
Barak Urges Netanyahu To Accept Palestinian State
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the principle of a Palestinian state.
“The current government was formed with the commitment to respect the deals reached by preceding governments,” Barak told public radio, ahead of a speech by Netanyahu on Sunday to lay down his peace policies.
These include “the roadmap which clearly states that the conflict must be resolved on the principle of two states for two peoples,” said the head of centre-left Labour party, the most moderate member of Netanyahu’s otherwise right-leaning cabinet.
“If such a solution fails, there will be only one political entity from the Jordan Valley to the Mediterranean — the state of Israel.
“Under such a scenario, if the Palestinians have the right to vote, it will no longer be a Jewish state, but a bi-national state. And if they don’t have the right to vote, it will be an apartheid regime,” said the former premier.
[...]
The hawkish Netanyahu, who is due to present his government’s peace policy on Sunday, has yet to publicly embrace the creation of a Palestinian state, the cornerstone of international peace efforts.
The Israeli press has been filled with speculation in recent days that Netanyahu may finally do so in his speech.
US President Barack Obama’s administration has been pressing Israel to commit to the two-state principle and to halt all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank
Actor Jon Voight Goes After Obama, ‘False Prophet’
June 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Speaking at a Republican party fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., Monday night, actor Jon Voight called President Barack Obama a “false prophet,” the Wall Street Journal reports . Voight emceed the dinner, which raised nearly $15 million for the GOP.
Voight focused on Obama for much of his speech. “Obama as a candidate portrayed himself as a moderate but turned out to be wildly radical,” he said. “Everything Obama has recommended has turned out to be disastrous.” Voight also said that the U.S. under Obama’s leadership is in danger of “becoming a weak nation.”
Hillary Clinton Warns Iran, Attack On Israel Is Attack On US
Despite its decision to pursue diplomatic negotiations with Teheran over its nuclear program, the United States would view an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel as an attack on itself, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday, asserting that there would be retaliation for any such attack.
Speaking to ABC News “This Week,” Clinton described the prospect of engagement with Iran as a great opportunity, saying that a diplomatic process “means that for the first time, we would actually be sitting at a table across from Iranians authorized by the supreme leader to talk with us about a whole range of issues. That gives us information and insight that we don’t have.”
Such talks, she said, would help determine the real goals of the Iranian nuclear program. “We understand the legitimate right of nations to have access to peaceful, nuclear energy,” Clinton said. “If that is at the core of what they want, there are ways of accommodating that do not lead to a nuclear weapon.”
However, she continued, negotiations would not negate the primary goal of the engagement, “which is to do everything we can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.”
Clinton’s interviewer, George Stephanopoulos, went on to ask whether the Obama administration’s policy currently echoed her own campaign statements regarding a nuclear umbrella that Washington would provide Israel.
“I think it is US policy to the extent that we have alliances and understandings with a number of nations. They may not be formal as it is with NATO, but, I don’t think there is any doubt in anyone’s mind that were Israel to suffer a nuclear attack by Iran, there would be retaliation,” Clinton said.
The secretary of state, however, did not rule out the possibility of a preemptive strike on Iran. Alluding to Israel’s reported possession of nuclear arms, she said that the US did not want another arms race triggered by a nuclear-armed Iran. Teheran, Clinton said, would perhaps be better persuaded to drop its nuclear ambitions if it were faced by the prospect of a preemptive strike by either the US or Israel.
