JERUSALEM DIVIDED
GENESIS 25:20-26
20 And Isaac was forty years old (A BIBLE GENERATION NUMBER=1967 + 40=2007+) when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.
21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 And the children (2 NATIONS IN HER-ISRAEL-ARABS) struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels;(ISRAEL AND THE ARABS) and the one people shall be stronger than the other people;(ISRAEL STRONGER THAN ARABS) and the elder shall serve the younger.(LITERALLY ISRAEL THE YOUNGER RULES (ISSAC)(JACOB-LATER NAME CHANGED TO ISRAEL) OVER THE OLDER ARABS (ISHMAEL)(ESAU)
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.(THE OLDER AN ARAB)
26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob:(THE YOUNGER-ISRAELI) and Isaac was threescore (60) years old when she bare them.(1967 + 60=2027)(COULD BE THE LAST GENERATION WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AMOUNG THE 2 TWINS)(THE 2 TWINS WANT JERUSALEM-THE DIVISION OF JERUSALEM TODAY)(AND WHOS IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM TODAY-THE YOUNGER ISSAC-JACOB-ISRAEL)(AND WHO WANTS JERUSALEM DIVIDED-THE OLDER,ESAU-ISHMAEL (THE ARABS)
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
ISAIAH 31:5
5 As birds flying,(PLANES) so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem;(WITH PLANES) defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it.(NUKE OR BOMB ISRAELS ENEMIES)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(WW3 STARTS BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AND ISRAELIS UPROOTED FROM THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)
PSALMS 137:5-6
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-4 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished;(RAPED) and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
LUKE 1:32-33
32 He (JESUS) shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:(IN JERUSALEM)
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob (ISRAEL) for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.(THATS RULING FOREVER FROM JERUSALEM JESUS DOES)
ISAIAH 9:6-7
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:(JESUS 1ST COMING) and the government shall be upon his shoulder:(JESUS 2ND COMING AS RULING KING FROM JERUSALEM FOREVER AT THE END OF THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION) and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his (JESUS) government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,( IN JERUSALEM) and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
Unholy Acts in the Holy City-November 6, 2015, 10:30 pm Blogger-David Baron-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
At our synagogue on the holy day of Yom Kippur, we honored a righteous African Moslem who rescued innocents in the Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris. As a supporter of the two state solution, it is reprehensible that the Palestinian authority has not acted or spoken out in condemnation of these recent brutal stabbings. A strong case can be made that the P.A. may have instigated violence. When you deny all people free and open access to the Temple Mount and furthermore, prohibit worshippers of other faiths from even offering a private prayer, you are condoning and legitimizing fanaticism.The core issue is Islamic insistence on its rights and primacy while negating the rights and primacy demands of others. Ask a few common sense questions. Why can’t an “infidel” rabbi, priest, or minister pray for peace on this contested site? Why can’t supervised archaeological digs be permitted in this area? Why does the Wakf, the so-called administrative authority, disallow outside inspections of the mosques but allows weapons to be stored inside? Why did the Wakf not condemn stoning of Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below? Politically correct commentators refuse to confront this unfounded authoritarianism head on. They deflect with a host of justifications for unjustifiable acts of murder. It is always about the rage over settlements or Israeli incursion into the Temple Mount or the disproportionate response to knife wielding attackers and never the core issue of unquestioned Islamic hegemony.The New York Times recently joined the chorus of Arab deniers of claims to the existence of an historic Jewish Holy Temple on the site with twisted syllogistic tip-toeing over a preponderance of scholarly certitude. Let’s not delude ourselves. This chorus of denial is targeting any Jewish historical connection to the city or the land. A most outrageous example can be seen in the recent Orwellian UNESCO proposal, proposed on behalf of the Palestinians to declare that the Western Wall is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque! Claims to the site’s Islamic holiness are tenuous at best, given that Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran and yet is continuously referenced in the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, the Jewish Temple is not the least significant of three holy places. It is, for the Jewish people, the one and only HOLIEST site.There will never be holiness and peace in this holy city until we confront the core issue of Islamic refusal to accept the primacy of others’ claims in the communal sharing of this sacred space. Unlike Mecca, where no church or synagogue will ever be sanctioned, Jerusalem’s Holy places belong to and must be administered by a faith that preceded Islam and which gives all faiths full access to visit and yes, even to perform the unthinkable Holy act of voicing a prayer.Look closely to Jerusalem, for it portends a future that many western cities are now confronting in shariah inspired honor killings. We must give no quarter to fanaticism and unacceptable demands for supremacy. True holiness resides where people respect origins, openly share, and pray aloud for peace.
IDF soldier seriously hurt in day’s second Hebron shooting-19-year-old suffers wounds to upper body in Friday’s fourth terror attack; large number of troops searching area-By Times of Israel staff November 6, 2015, 6:47 pm Updated: November 7, 2015, 12:41 am 10
An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded Friday evening in a shooting attack at the Beit Anun junction north of the West Bank city of Hebron.The victim was initially identified as a 19-year-old Israeli who had been shot in the upper body. Later in the evening, the Israel Defense Forces revealed that the casualty is an IDF soldier. His family has been notified of his condition, the military said.Medics and emergency personnel rushed to the scene of the attack, where they administered first aid treatment before evacuating the victim to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem.This was the fourth terror attack on Israelis in the West Bank in one day. A short time earlier, two Israeli teenagers were wounded, one seriously, in a separate shooting attack in the Hebron area.The security forces were looking into the possibility that one cell had carried out both the Beit Anun attack and the shooting at the Tomb of the Patriarchs a short time earlier, Channel 10 said.Large numbers of forces from the IDF and Shin Bet security service were conducting searches in the Beit Anun area, Maariv reported.The shootings come hours after a Palestinian woman in her 70s tried to drive her car into a group of soldiers in the Hebron area. She was shot and wounded by troops and later died of her wounds.Also Friday, an Israeli man was badly hurt when he was stabbed outside a West Bank supermarket north of Jerusalem. A Palestinian from the Jerusalem area later posted a video clip on Facebook claiming responsibility for the stabbing.
The row over Netanyahu’s media czar: When gross negligence becomes deliberate harm-By declining to quickly cancel the appointment of a man who called Obama anti-Semitic, Netanyahu risks signaling that he doesn’t care to heal ties with this US administration By Raphael Ahren November 6, 2015, 6:08 pm 53-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The last thing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed four days before flying to Washington to see the American president — a sit-down of central importance to Israel’s national security — was a scandal involving one of his most senior officials insulting the president and the secretary of state.It is therefore safe to assume that Netanyahu would not have appointed Dr. Ran Baratz as his new communications chief, or at least not made that appointment public before his November 9 meeting with President Barack Obama, had he known that Baratz was a Facebook loose cannon prone to posting sneeringly insulting attacks on leading Israeli and American politicians.A former philosophy professor and the founder of the Conservative Hebrew website Mida, Baratz, it turns out, has not only made scathing remarks about President Reuven Rivlin, deemed President Barack Obama a modern anti-Semite and compared Secretary of State John Kerry’s mental age to that of a 12-year-old, but has also criticized Netanyahu himself.That fact that Netanyahu appointed someone with such views, and with the indiscretion to publish them, to a post whose main responsibility is fashioning the government’s communications strategy can thus be seen as a case of gross negligence rather than an act of deliberate provocation. Had the prime minister known, he presumably would not have given Baratz a job that carries far more weight than that of a spokesman; the official title is media advisor and head of the public diplomacy and media.Netanyahu is not fond of new media. He doesn’t use cell phones. He probably doesn’t spend much time on Facebook. None of which, however, is any excuse for failing to have his advisors run the most rudimentary background checks on so sensitive an appointee.So inappropriate and incendiary an appointment was bound to cause damage and offense — to the Israelis insulted by Baratz and, more troublingly, to the US leadership with whom Netanyahu’s relationship is already dire. Yet as the crisis has escalated since Wednesday, Netanyahu has done the absolute opposite of minimizing the harm and negative fallout.After Baratz’s Facebook musings about Obama and Kerry were first revealed, it was widely assumed in Israeli political circles that the prime minister would swiftly withdraw the appointment. Commentators suggested he would. Opposition leaders urged him to. Even fellow Likud ministers piled in.There was no way, it was believed, that Netanyahu could contemplate arriving at the White House for his first meeting with the president in over a year — a year arguably overflowing with more bad blood between the Israeli government and the US administration than the previous seven years combined — while still entertaining the idea of employing someone who had publicly termed Obama anti-Semitic. Monday’s meeting is not merely a photo-op to demonstrate the unbreakable and unshakable ties between Israel and America. Its purpose is to bury the hatchet over the Iran nuclear deal and to move on to discussing ways in which the US can help Israel defend itself against intensifying threats on and around its borders. In the most concrete terms, Netanyahu is hoping to see US military assistance for Israel upgraded from about $3 per annum to $5 billion.True, Baratz profusely apologized for his incendiary comments, Netanyahu disavowed them, and White House spokesperson Josh Earnest assured reporters that they were “completely immaterial to the importance” of the US-Israel relationship.The president still has 440 more days in office. In the unstable Middle East, that’s an eternity, a vast period of innumerable potential crises in which Israel may need the shoulder-to-shoulder support of its superpower ally-The Obama administration is unlikely to sanction Israel over the hire. US military assistance to Israel will likely be increased, as planned. But the choice of chief communications director has been very sourly noted at the White House and the State Department, and an already toxic relationship between the two leadership poisoned a little further.Obviously, Earnest said, it is up to Netanyahu to decide who will “represent him and his country.” But Baratz’s apology was certainly “warranted.” In other words: We won’t interfere in the Israeli government’s choice of chief spokesman. But make no mistake: We hold you accountable for his views. What he thinks is evidently what you think.Had Netanyahu accompanied his declaration that Baratz’s comments were “totally unacceptable” with the simple withdrawal of the appointment, the healing could have begun.Instead, however, he chose to do the reverse: He did not cancel the hire. Indeed, he personally corrected the State Department spokesman’s public assertion that he had told Kerry by phone that he would review it. On Twitter, he clarified that he had only told Kerry he would “deal with the issue” on his return from the US to Israel.This clarification was patently intended in part for domestic audiences. Netanyahu doesn’t like to appear as someone who easily folds. Hawkish colleague-rival Naftali Bennett’s statement Thursday that “only Israel itself” decides who serves in what position hinted at what the rapid firing of Baratz could have done to the prime minister’s image on the political right.And so it is that the Israeli prime minister is coming to Washington for crucial talks while still entertaining the idea of employing as a senior aide someone who has said he thinks the president is anti-Semitic and “threw Israel under the wheels of the bus” with the Iran deal, as Baratz opined on Facebook.Obama may be nearing the end of his term. He may have given up on brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The Iran deal may be done. But the president still has 440 more days in office. In the unstable, unpredictable Middle East, that’s an eternity, a vast period of innumerable potential crises in which Israel may need the shoulder-to-shoulder support of its superpower ally.Netanyahu may yet withdraw the appointment. He may be planning to gauge the mood in Washington first. It won’t be pleasant. If it was clearly a mistake to hire a media czar without properly checking his background, it would seem a far graver mistake not to have canceled that appointment as soon as the problematics became clear.Mistakes happen. But if you refuse or even hesitate to correct them, people will conclude that you don’t really think they’re mistakes at all.
Israel leads world for cabinet resignations within first 6 months-High ministerial turnover harms stability, shows ‘failed governmental system,’ study says-By Times of Israel staff November 6, 2015, 9:48 pm
Israel holds the record for cabinet ministers resigning within six months or less from the date of their appointment, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) says in a new report that compares such activity in 20 countries. The turnover highlights “a failed governmental system,” the report finds.The think tank found six Israeli ministerial resignations within the periods under review, compared to three in Poland and one apiece in Hungary, Denmark and Germany. The other countries used in the comparison had no resignations.Israel also has “the highest turnover among ministers and their portfolios in the first half of a government,” said IDI researcher Ofer Kenig in the report.The study was published Monday, a day after Shas leader Aryeh Deri resigned as economy minister — days less than six months since this government’s formation on May 14.The report points to Deri’s resignation as symptomatic of systemic flaws in the functioning of Israel’s government. The Shas leader quit in a move aimed at facilitating the passage of legislation on the Jewish state’s natural gas reserves, which Deri opposes. As a political carrot, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expanded the purview of the remaining ministry Deri heads, which is now labeled the Ministry for the Development of the Periphery, Negev and Galilee.The swift rotation of ministers, in particular at the start of a new government, signals a lack of responsibility among Israel’s political leaders, said IDI President Yohanan Plesner, a former MK who served in the Knesset for five years.“It is acceptable to replace ministers in other democracies, but it is rare that these changes are made at the beginning of a term. This is because we expect a new government to work toward attaining the trust of its citizens and to provide stability to the country – at least the beginning of its tenure,” Plesner said. “We expect the members of the government who are granted important positions and portfolios to display responsibility for their new posts.”He added: “There is no doubt that this rapid turnover is another symptom of a failed governmental system that must undergo several structural changes in order to create long-term stability.”While the shifts cannot be the sole reason for the “failure of the Israeli government system, it is no coincidence,” the report said.The changes in ministers’ identities “impact the stability of the governmental framework, its ability to direct policy and the minimal contiguity needed for the proper functioning of a governmental system,” it continued.With Deri’s resignation, Netanyahu now serves as minister of foreign affairs, economy, communications and regional cooperation.He previously nominally served as health minister, making Yaakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism the deputy minister with ministerial authorities. The compromise allowed Liztman, of the anti-Zionist UTJ, to serve in the government without signaling recognition of the Jewish state. After a High Court ruling rejected the unusual formulation, Litzman assumed a full ministerial role and now holds the post of full minister.
GENESIS 25:20-26
20 And Isaac was forty years old (A BIBLE GENERATION NUMBER=1967 + 40=2007+) when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian.
21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 And the children (2 NATIONS IN HER-ISRAEL-ARABS) struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.
23 And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels;(ISRAEL AND THE ARABS) and the one people shall be stronger than the other people;(ISRAEL STRONGER THAN ARABS) and the elder shall serve the younger.(LITERALLY ISRAEL THE YOUNGER RULES (ISSAC)(JACOB-LATER NAME CHANGED TO ISRAEL) OVER THE OLDER ARABS (ISHMAEL)(ESAU)
24 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.(THE OLDER AN ARAB)
26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob:(THE YOUNGER-ISRAELI) and Isaac was threescore (60) years old when she bare them.(1967 + 60=2027)(COULD BE THE LAST GENERATION WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AMOUNG THE 2 TWINS)(THE 2 TWINS WANT JERUSALEM-THE DIVISION OF JERUSALEM TODAY)(AND WHOS IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM TODAY-THE YOUNGER ISSAC-JACOB-ISRAEL)(AND WHO WANTS JERUSALEM DIVIDED-THE OLDER,ESAU-ISHMAEL (THE ARABS)
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
ISAIAH 31:5
5 As birds flying,(PLANES) so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem;(WITH PLANES) defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it.(NUKE OR BOMB ISRAELS ENEMIES)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(WW3 STARTS BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AND ISRAELIS UPROOTED FROM THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND)
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)
PSALMS 137:5-6
5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6 If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-4 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished;(RAPED) and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.
LUKE 1:32-33
32 He (JESUS) shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:(IN JERUSALEM)
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob (ISRAEL) for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.(THATS RULING FOREVER FROM JERUSALEM JESUS DOES)
ISAIAH 9:6-7
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:(JESUS 1ST COMING) and the government shall be upon his shoulder:(JESUS 2ND COMING AS RULING KING FROM JERUSALEM FOREVER AT THE END OF THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION) and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his (JESUS) government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David,( IN JERUSALEM) and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
Unholy Acts in the Holy City-November 6, 2015, 10:30 pm Blogger-David Baron-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
At our synagogue on the holy day of Yom Kippur, we honored a righteous African Moslem who rescued innocents in the Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris. As a supporter of the two state solution, it is reprehensible that the Palestinian authority has not acted or spoken out in condemnation of these recent brutal stabbings. A strong case can be made that the P.A. may have instigated violence. When you deny all people free and open access to the Temple Mount and furthermore, prohibit worshippers of other faiths from even offering a private prayer, you are condoning and legitimizing fanaticism.The core issue is Islamic insistence on its rights and primacy while negating the rights and primacy demands of others. Ask a few common sense questions. Why can’t an “infidel” rabbi, priest, or minister pray for peace on this contested site? Why can’t supervised archaeological digs be permitted in this area? Why does the Wakf, the so-called administrative authority, disallow outside inspections of the mosques but allows weapons to be stored inside? Why did the Wakf not condemn stoning of Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below? Politically correct commentators refuse to confront this unfounded authoritarianism head on. They deflect with a host of justifications for unjustifiable acts of murder. It is always about the rage over settlements or Israeli incursion into the Temple Mount or the disproportionate response to knife wielding attackers and never the core issue of unquestioned Islamic hegemony.The New York Times recently joined the chorus of Arab deniers of claims to the existence of an historic Jewish Holy Temple on the site with twisted syllogistic tip-toeing over a preponderance of scholarly certitude. Let’s not delude ourselves. This chorus of denial is targeting any Jewish historical connection to the city or the land. A most outrageous example can be seen in the recent Orwellian UNESCO proposal, proposed on behalf of the Palestinians to declare that the Western Wall is part of the Al Aqsa Mosque! Claims to the site’s Islamic holiness are tenuous at best, given that Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran and yet is continuously referenced in the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, the Jewish Temple is not the least significant of three holy places. It is, for the Jewish people, the one and only HOLIEST site.There will never be holiness and peace in this holy city until we confront the core issue of Islamic refusal to accept the primacy of others’ claims in the communal sharing of this sacred space. Unlike Mecca, where no church or synagogue will ever be sanctioned, Jerusalem’s Holy places belong to and must be administered by a faith that preceded Islam and which gives all faiths full access to visit and yes, even to perform the unthinkable Holy act of voicing a prayer.Look closely to Jerusalem, for it portends a future that many western cities are now confronting in shariah inspired honor killings. We must give no quarter to fanaticism and unacceptable demands for supremacy. True holiness resides where people respect origins, openly share, and pray aloud for peace.
IDF soldier seriously hurt in day’s second Hebron shooting-19-year-old suffers wounds to upper body in Friday’s fourth terror attack; large number of troops searching area-By Times of Israel staff November 6, 2015, 6:47 pm Updated: November 7, 2015, 12:41 am 10
An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded Friday evening in a shooting attack at the Beit Anun junction north of the West Bank city of Hebron.The victim was initially identified as a 19-year-old Israeli who had been shot in the upper body. Later in the evening, the Israel Defense Forces revealed that the casualty is an IDF soldier. His family has been notified of his condition, the military said.Medics and emergency personnel rushed to the scene of the attack, where they administered first aid treatment before evacuating the victim to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem.This was the fourth terror attack on Israelis in the West Bank in one day. A short time earlier, two Israeli teenagers were wounded, one seriously, in a separate shooting attack in the Hebron area.The security forces were looking into the possibility that one cell had carried out both the Beit Anun attack and the shooting at the Tomb of the Patriarchs a short time earlier, Channel 10 said.Large numbers of forces from the IDF and Shin Bet security service were conducting searches in the Beit Anun area, Maariv reported.The shootings come hours after a Palestinian woman in her 70s tried to drive her car into a group of soldiers in the Hebron area. She was shot and wounded by troops and later died of her wounds.Also Friday, an Israeli man was badly hurt when he was stabbed outside a West Bank supermarket north of Jerusalem. A Palestinian from the Jerusalem area later posted a video clip on Facebook claiming responsibility for the stabbing.
The row over Netanyahu’s media czar: When gross negligence becomes deliberate harm-By declining to quickly cancel the appointment of a man who called Obama anti-Semitic, Netanyahu risks signaling that he doesn’t care to heal ties with this US administration By Raphael Ahren November 6, 2015, 6:08 pm 53-THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
The last thing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed four days before flying to Washington to see the American president — a sit-down of central importance to Israel’s national security — was a scandal involving one of his most senior officials insulting the president and the secretary of state.It is therefore safe to assume that Netanyahu would not have appointed Dr. Ran Baratz as his new communications chief, or at least not made that appointment public before his November 9 meeting with President Barack Obama, had he known that Baratz was a Facebook loose cannon prone to posting sneeringly insulting attacks on leading Israeli and American politicians.A former philosophy professor and the founder of the Conservative Hebrew website Mida, Baratz, it turns out, has not only made scathing remarks about President Reuven Rivlin, deemed President Barack Obama a modern anti-Semite and compared Secretary of State John Kerry’s mental age to that of a 12-year-old, but has also criticized Netanyahu himself.That fact that Netanyahu appointed someone with such views, and with the indiscretion to publish them, to a post whose main responsibility is fashioning the government’s communications strategy can thus be seen as a case of gross negligence rather than an act of deliberate provocation. Had the prime minister known, he presumably would not have given Baratz a job that carries far more weight than that of a spokesman; the official title is media advisor and head of the public diplomacy and media.Netanyahu is not fond of new media. He doesn’t use cell phones. He probably doesn’t spend much time on Facebook. None of which, however, is any excuse for failing to have his advisors run the most rudimentary background checks on so sensitive an appointee.So inappropriate and incendiary an appointment was bound to cause damage and offense — to the Israelis insulted by Baratz and, more troublingly, to the US leadership with whom Netanyahu’s relationship is already dire. Yet as the crisis has escalated since Wednesday, Netanyahu has done the absolute opposite of minimizing the harm and negative fallout.After Baratz’s Facebook musings about Obama and Kerry were first revealed, it was widely assumed in Israeli political circles that the prime minister would swiftly withdraw the appointment. Commentators suggested he would. Opposition leaders urged him to. Even fellow Likud ministers piled in.There was no way, it was believed, that Netanyahu could contemplate arriving at the White House for his first meeting with the president in over a year — a year arguably overflowing with more bad blood between the Israeli government and the US administration than the previous seven years combined — while still entertaining the idea of employing someone who had publicly termed Obama anti-Semitic. Monday’s meeting is not merely a photo-op to demonstrate the unbreakable and unshakable ties between Israel and America. Its purpose is to bury the hatchet over the Iran nuclear deal and to move on to discussing ways in which the US can help Israel defend itself against intensifying threats on and around its borders. In the most concrete terms, Netanyahu is hoping to see US military assistance for Israel upgraded from about $3 per annum to $5 billion.True, Baratz profusely apologized for his incendiary comments, Netanyahu disavowed them, and White House spokesperson Josh Earnest assured reporters that they were “completely immaterial to the importance” of the US-Israel relationship.The president still has 440 more days in office. In the unstable Middle East, that’s an eternity, a vast period of innumerable potential crises in which Israel may need the shoulder-to-shoulder support of its superpower ally-The Obama administration is unlikely to sanction Israel over the hire. US military assistance to Israel will likely be increased, as planned. But the choice of chief communications director has been very sourly noted at the White House and the State Department, and an already toxic relationship between the two leadership poisoned a little further.Obviously, Earnest said, it is up to Netanyahu to decide who will “represent him and his country.” But Baratz’s apology was certainly “warranted.” In other words: We won’t interfere in the Israeli government’s choice of chief spokesman. But make no mistake: We hold you accountable for his views. What he thinks is evidently what you think.Had Netanyahu accompanied his declaration that Baratz’s comments were “totally unacceptable” with the simple withdrawal of the appointment, the healing could have begun.Instead, however, he chose to do the reverse: He did not cancel the hire. Indeed, he personally corrected the State Department spokesman’s public assertion that he had told Kerry by phone that he would review it. On Twitter, he clarified that he had only told Kerry he would “deal with the issue” on his return from the US to Israel.This clarification was patently intended in part for domestic audiences. Netanyahu doesn’t like to appear as someone who easily folds. Hawkish colleague-rival Naftali Bennett’s statement Thursday that “only Israel itself” decides who serves in what position hinted at what the rapid firing of Baratz could have done to the prime minister’s image on the political right.And so it is that the Israeli prime minister is coming to Washington for crucial talks while still entertaining the idea of employing as a senior aide someone who has said he thinks the president is anti-Semitic and “threw Israel under the wheels of the bus” with the Iran deal, as Baratz opined on Facebook.Obama may be nearing the end of his term. He may have given up on brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The Iran deal may be done. But the president still has 440 more days in office. In the unstable, unpredictable Middle East, that’s an eternity, a vast period of innumerable potential crises in which Israel may need the shoulder-to-shoulder support of its superpower ally.Netanyahu may yet withdraw the appointment. He may be planning to gauge the mood in Washington first. It won’t be pleasant. If it was clearly a mistake to hire a media czar without properly checking his background, it would seem a far graver mistake not to have canceled that appointment as soon as the problematics became clear.Mistakes happen. But if you refuse or even hesitate to correct them, people will conclude that you don’t really think they’re mistakes at all.
Israel leads world for cabinet resignations within first 6 months-High ministerial turnover harms stability, shows ‘failed governmental system,’ study says-By Times of Israel staff November 6, 2015, 9:48 pm
Israel holds the record for cabinet ministers resigning within six months or less from the date of their appointment, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) says in a new report that compares such activity in 20 countries. The turnover highlights “a failed governmental system,” the report finds.The think tank found six Israeli ministerial resignations within the periods under review, compared to three in Poland and one apiece in Hungary, Denmark and Germany. The other countries used in the comparison had no resignations.Israel also has “the highest turnover among ministers and their portfolios in the first half of a government,” said IDI researcher Ofer Kenig in the report.The study was published Monday, a day after Shas leader Aryeh Deri resigned as economy minister — days less than six months since this government’s formation on May 14.The report points to Deri’s resignation as symptomatic of systemic flaws in the functioning of Israel’s government. The Shas leader quit in a move aimed at facilitating the passage of legislation on the Jewish state’s natural gas reserves, which Deri opposes. As a political carrot, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expanded the purview of the remaining ministry Deri heads, which is now labeled the Ministry for the Development of the Periphery, Negev and Galilee.The swift rotation of ministers, in particular at the start of a new government, signals a lack of responsibility among Israel’s political leaders, said IDI President Yohanan Plesner, a former MK who served in the Knesset for five years.“It is acceptable to replace ministers in other democracies, but it is rare that these changes are made at the beginning of a term. This is because we expect a new government to work toward attaining the trust of its citizens and to provide stability to the country – at least the beginning of its tenure,” Plesner said. “We expect the members of the government who are granted important positions and portfolios to display responsibility for their new posts.”He added: “There is no doubt that this rapid turnover is another symptom of a failed governmental system that must undergo several structural changes in order to create long-term stability.”While the shifts cannot be the sole reason for the “failure of the Israeli government system, it is no coincidence,” the report said.The changes in ministers’ identities “impact the stability of the governmental framework, its ability to direct policy and the minimal contiguity needed for the proper functioning of a governmental system,” it continued.With Deri’s resignation, Netanyahu now serves as minister of foreign affairs, economy, communications and regional cooperation.He previously nominally served as health minister, making Yaakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism the deputy minister with ministerial authorities. The compromise allowed Liztman, of the anti-Zionist UTJ, to serve in the government without signaling recognition of the Jewish state. After a High Court ruling rejected the unusual formulation, Litzman assumed a full ministerial role and now holds the post of full minister.
