Holy Temple Mikveh Discovered Near Western Wall

Hillel Fendel Holy Temple Mikveh Discovered

A 2,000-year-old mikveh (ritual bath) has been uncovered just 20 meters from the Western Wall. Given its location just outside the Holy Temple - where untold numbers of Jews regularly immersed before entering - the newly-revealed pool is among the largest ever discovered in Jerusalem.

The mikveh was found at the site known as the Western Wall Tunnels, which has long been under excavation and study by the Israel Antiquities Authority, with the support of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation.

It is located about 30 meters past the entrance to the Tunnels, in the general direction of the Western Wall. Once it becomes open to the public, the 11 broad steps leading down to the mikveh will be seen approximately 8 meters below floor level.

Josephus, the famous turncoat general and historian of the period, wrote that the administrative and governmental center of Jerusalem was located at the foot of the Temple, and that among the buildings there were the National Council and the Lishkat HaGazit, Chamber of Hewn Stone, where the Sanhedrin – Israel’s Supreme Court – convened. The archaeologists feel that it is possible that the luxurious hall aside the mikveh was originally one of these structures.

Archaeologist Alexander Ohn, the director of the dig, explains: “It is interesting to note that in the middle of the first century, changes were made in the grand structure. It was no longer used for public administrative purposes, and in its western wall a large mikveh was installed – with 11 steps descending into the immersion pool. It appears that Jerusalem was growing at this time, and with it the need to provide a solution for the increasing numbers of people who came en masse to Jerusalem, especially on the pilgrimage festivals (Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Sukkot)). Ritual immersion in a mikveh and precise observance of the laws of purity were an inseparable part of Jewish life at this time; the importance of a mikveh, especially in this location, was great.”

Parts of the mikveh had been uncovered in the past, but now another hall – one of three – has been revealed. The structure was built of smooth stone hewn in a particularly intricate manner, with high-quality decorations and architectural style. Its importance can be determined by the fact that it is similar to other luxurious structures built by King Herod such as the Temple Mount, the Machpelah Cave, and one in Elonei Mamreh.

Obama Addresses Israel-Palestinian Issue at the UN

Esther Levens, CEO and Founder of the Unity Coalition for Israel, an organization of Christians and Jews dedicated to a safe and secure Israel. (913) 648-0022 - elevens@israelunitycoalition.org

Today's meeting at the UN with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was hosted by US President Barack Obama. It represents a foray by Obama into the mired Israel/Palestinian peace process which officially started with the Oslo Accords August 20, 1993. It was later signed by Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, September 13, 1993 Since that time successive American presidents have dived into the process, with little to no success. Now, Obama has begun his presidency by making conciliatory moves toward the Arab world. He has distanced himself from the traditional US pro-Israel position rooted in the religious and historic Judeo-Christian basis of our country.

It is now when 'the rubber meets the road,' so to speak. Americans by and large do not want to see Israel dismantled and reduced to an area along its coastline that is only 9 miles wide in places. That narrow strip of land is home to 70% of Israel's population. Carving a Palestinian state out of Israel's heartland would make these Israelis totally vulnerable to attack from above, if the bordering highlands of Judea and Samaria are relinquished to the Palestinians.

The Palestinian Refugees have been held captive for 61 years, while world financing of the United Nations UNRWA project has kept them impoverished and used as a propaganda tool to generate support for a Palestinian state. The monies contributed have been misused for weapons and military training rather than directed to infrastructure and development of viable businesses to help the people. The camps themselves have been used to foment hatred of Israel, indoctrination leading to incitement, suicide bombings, and rockets and missiles targeting Israeli civilians.

There are other much more desirable options if the Arabs would only begin by stopping the on-going Jihad against Israel and recognizing Israel as a nation - which they have yet to do.

A full page ad in the Washington Jewish Week expresses the case for millions of Americans. It has been signed by Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Christians' Israel Public Action Campaign (CIPAC), Americans for a Safe Israel and Unity Coalition for Israel (UCI).

Below are some excerpts, followed by the ad in its entirety:

" Dear President Obama, Our organizations, representing the views of millions of Americans, are deeply troubled that current Mideast policy initiatives by your administration will compromise Israel's security and undermine the longstanding U.S.- Israel alliance." . . .

" Israel is entitled to be recognized by all nations as a Jewish state that protects the rights of all of its citizens and freedom of worship for all faiths. The Jewish people became a nation over 3,000 years ago in the Land of Israel, which encompasses Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") as well as the city of Jerusalem." . . .

" A just and lasting peace can be achieved in the Middle East only when the Palestinians and all the nations in the region first recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. They must clearly demonstrate their recognition of Israel by permanently ending all acts of belligerency and incitement directed against Israel and the Jewish people."

###

(The following letter was published as a full page ad in the September 4, 2009 edition on page 3 of the Washington Jewish Week newspaper.):

Dear President Obama,

Our organizations, representing the views of millions of Americans, are deeply troubled that current Mideast policy initiatives by your administration will compromise Israel's security and undermine the longstanding U.S.- Israel alliance. You have expressed a willingness to consider a broad range of views. In this spirit, we urge you to address the concerns of the important segment of both the Jewish and Christian communities which our organizations represent.

Your calls for a freeze on construction in the so-called "settlements" only serve to promote the anti-Jewish bias of Israel’s enemies. Stifling the growth of thriving Jewish communities will not bring peace. Therefore, we urge you to take the following fundamental factors into account when formulating U.S. policy regarding the Middle East:

1. Israel is entitled to be recognized by all nations as a Jewish state that protects the rights of all of its citizens and freedom of worship for all faiths. The Jewish people became a nation over 3,000 years ago in the Land of Israel, which encompasses Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") as well as the city of Jerusalem. Based on the Jewish people’s deep historic and religious connection with the land, their fundamental right to settle throughout this land was explicitly recognized under international law by the League of Nations (Mandate for Palestine, unanimously adopted 1922). This internationally guaranteed right has never been abrogated or revoked by any international successor organization. Therefore, U.S. policy must support the right of Jews to live anywhere within the Land of Israel.

2. It should be understood that the United Nations recognized the State of Israel in 1948 based on the historic and biblical right of Jews to live in their ancestral homeland, not only because of the Holocaust. The Arab nations' refusal to accept this fact has been demonstrated countless times over the last 60 years by their hostile behavior towards Israel.

3. The "two-state solution" currently promoted by your administration is incompatible with the goals of peace. Establishing a terror-sponsoring Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and in the heart of Jerusalem, where no Jews would be allowed to live, would seriously undermine Israel's security as well as violate the internationally guaranteed right of Jewish settlement.

4. Israel, as a sovereign nation, has the unconditional right to designate an undivided Jerusalem as its capital. Jerusalem was established as the capital of the Jewish nation in biblical times. The city was divided by illegal Jordanian occupation of its eastern neighborhoods in 1948, and then reunified under Israeli sovereignty in 1967. Jerusalem stands today as a free and unified city. Therefore, U.S. policy must clearly reflect recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and firmly reject any proposal which would redivide the city.

A just and lasting peace can be achieved in the Middle East only when the Palestinians and all the nations in the region first recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. They must clearly demonstrate their recognition of Israel by permanently ending all acts of belligerency and incitement directed against Israel and the Jewish people.

Mr. President, we urge you to give these issues your serious attention.

Respectfully,

Hon. Marc Caroff
(President, Louis D. Brandeis District chapter of the Zionist Organization of America).
ZOA (local Brandeis District chapter): 301-384-7637; hsaaba@aol.com

Richard A.Hellman
(Founder and President, Christians' Israel Public Action Campaign).
CIPAC: 202-234-3600; RAHellman@cipaconline.org

Herbert Zweibon
(Chairman, Americans For a Safe Israel).
AFSI: 212-828-2424; afsi@rcn.com

Esther Levens
(Founder and CEO,Unity Coalition for Israel).
UCI: 913-648-0022; www.israelunitycoalition.org

Warren Manison
(Washington,D.C.representative, Unity Coalition for Israel)

'It's enough talking about talking'

Sep. 23, 2009
Hilary Leila Krieger, JPosr correspondent in NEW YORK , THE JERUSALEM POST

The Obama administration is growing increasingly frustrated with Israeli and Palestinian foot-dragging over peace negotiations, which it wants to see relaunched immediately and based on previous agreements and principles laid out in earlier talks. "We're not going to be starting from scratch," a senior administration official told The Jerusalem Post, following three-way talks held by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "There's a body of agreements and basic principles" to build on, he said.

The Obama administration has until now been vague about how it sees such a process going and what frameworks would govern the talks. But Obama called for immediate final-status talks at the beginning of Tuesday's trilateral meeting, telling the press, "Permanent-status negotiations must begin, and begin soon."

The senior official described Obama as having expressed his "impatience" over the need to start negotiations during his separate one-on-one meetings with Netanyahu and Abbas earlier in the day.

"It's enough talking about talking, and it's time to get started as soon as possible," he said.

While he pointed to the previous formulas as providing a framework for the talks - something the Obama administration has until now refrained from staking out - the senior official added that "neither side should hold out for the perfect formula."

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who spoke to reporters following the meetings, said the mechanisms of the negotiations were still being worked out and would be part of the discussions set for the coming weeks.

"We anticipate that there will be an active United States presence," he indicated, but added, "Of course that does not preclude the likelihood of direct negotiations between the parties. No successful negotiation is all of one and all the other. There has to be both, in appropriate circumstances on appropriate subjects."

Though Netanyahu has repeatedly said he is ready to restart talks, with the Palestinians demanding that Jerusalem completely freeze settlement construction before negotiations begin, the US official said that "both sides have been holding out for different things before the talks can start," and noted that in his meetings, Obama had taken both sides to task for not moving forward more quickly.

The US had been hoping to announce the resumption of negotiations as part of this week's three-way event, but it became clear the sides were too far apart for that to happen.

Mitchell, who has been meeting with the sides and is set to speak to them again next week, said the administration had gone ahead with the trilateral meeting anyway to show Obama's commitment to the issue and the "urgency" with which he saw it.

Mitchell described Tuesday's conversations, in which he participated, as "cordial," "direct" and "frank," as well as occasionally "blunt on all sides."

Washington had been pushing Israel to freeze settlement construction while the Palestinians clamped down on incitement and reformed their security services, and in exchange for gestures from Arab states that didn't have relations with Israel.

Mitchell said that conversations on settlements and other issues were continuing, but that the United States had never seen settlements as the only obstacle or a settlement freeze as a precondition for talks starting.

"There are many obstacles. [Settlements] are one. It's not the only one," Mitchell said.

"We are not identifying any issue as being a precondition or an impediment to negotiation. What we have said is that we want to get into negotiations," he continued, describing the settlement freeze and other US "requests" on all sides as ones that would "create the most favorable conditions available to try to achieve success in those negotiations."

Mitchell stressed, however, that the US had moved the process significantly forward and that officials expected the sides to move forward with talks.

"While differences remain between them, we have made very substantial progress," he said. "It's difficult to disentangle ourselves from history, but we must do so. The only reason to hold public office is to get things done. We all must take risks for peace. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is critical to Israel's security, and it's necessary for Palestinians to realize their aspirations."

"We actually think we're close, but we have more work to do," the senior administration official told the Post.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1253627542026&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Fond Jane and Mr. Braun

Sarah Honig , THE JERUSALEM POST

We're all familiar with holier-than-thou anti-Semites whose much-touted "best friends" invariably are Jews. Well, the good news is that Jane Fonda is awfully fond of us. She says so in her blog. Given all that fondness, Fonda feels persecuted for no fault of her own. She cannot fathom why she must "wake up in the morning to a barrage of e-mails" about "a petition protesting the Toronto International Film Festival's decision to feature a celebratory 'spotlight' on Tel Aviv... By doing this the festival has become, whether knowingly or not, a participant in a cynical PR campaign to improve Israel's image, make her appear less warlike."

Fonda is so fond of us that she insists our face remain as dirty, demonic and denigrated as she and her avidly mud-slinging chums (like Danny Glover, presumably our friend by association) deem appropriate for us. Truth may be detrimental to their ends, which obviously justify any and all means.

FOR THESE ends Israel needs to remain besmirched and blackened. And that was why fond Fonda, comrade Glover and more than 50 other petition signatories (among them various indispensable useful-fool Israelis) had such a bone to pick with the Toronto festival, itself hardly a Lovers-of-Zion shindig by any measure.

It featured a bunch of films about Tel Aviv, many of which conform to the popular Israeli genre of self-deprecating, pro-Arab flicks scripted for the explicit purpose of winning acceptance and accolades from Fonda and her ideological likes overseas. Sucking up to the Fondas of this world, it's widely believed in our provincial backwoods, is the only way for an ambitious Israeli academic/artiste/author/moviemaker to carve out a career and bask in the ambiance of moneyed Israel-bashing liberal patrons.

How deliciously ironic then that Fonda - albeit indirectly and inadvertently - punishes precisely those Israeli producers who obsequiously fawn to please just her sorts. Their radicalism and/or brownnosing make no difference. This effectively parallels two millennia of Jewish experience with assorted Judeophobes - including those who had cut no slack for urbane "Germans of the Mosaic persuasion."

Toronto's festival, according to the Jane-brand of spurious historiography, omitted to stress that "Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine's main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps."

Uncool as it may be, according to George Orwell "speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." Fonda should appreciate revolutionary acts. In her younger years, when she bombastically boosted Huey Newton and the Black Panthers, she insisted that "revolution is an act of love. We are the children of revolution, born to be rebels. It runs in our blood."

So let's get on with the revolutionary act of telling the truth. Habitual knee-jerk detractors, who disdain historical references, please note that Fonda and crew were those who launched us on this foray into that past.

RECENTLY I wrote of almost forgotten Tel Aviv founder Yosef-Eliahu Chelouche, a native of Jaffa, scion of a Jewish family from North Africa (kosher presumably for Third World ennoblers) and a notable political dove till Arab bloodlust disillusioned him. In his 1931 memoirs, long before Tel Aviv became the vast Zionist empire's icon, Yosef-Eliahu described those 12 desolate windswept acres of wasteland purchased for a hefty sum in 1909 for Ahuzat Bayit (as the embryonic city was called). They were hardly occupied by Arab villages as Fonda and friends aver.

Yosef-Eliahu recalled them as "a sea of sand, a barren desert with powdery yellow mountains and hills, where jackals howled." Beyond Jaffa's decaying narrow alleyways stretched an undulating shadeless wilderness. It was a horrendous, almost impassable and seemingly interminable tract, without landmarks or signs of habitation.

From its inception Ahuzat Bayit was traversed by a boulevard - not because it was a preplanned aesthetic feature. Tel Aviv would rise on pyramidal mounds with unstable continuously shifting slipfaces. These were pronounced unsuitable for construction. To level off the area, teams of pioneers used wheelbarrows to move tons of sand from the highest points and deposit them in the gullies bellow. The deepest ditch cut across Ahuzat Bayit exactly where Sderot Rothschild now stretches. Filled with so much soft sand, it was judged unsafe to support structures. Instead it was covered with topsoil and lined with trees. If anything, Tel Aviv was reclaimed from an empty strip of desert.

Elementary intellectual integrity should oblige Fonda and her retinue of our "best friends" to recall that Jaffa was also a pivotal early 20th-century Jewish hub. If anyone was forcibly dislodged therefrom, Jaffa's Jews were; 1921's unprovoked five-day Jaffa-generated Arab riots, in which 49 Jews were massacred (among them leading Jewish literati, including left-wing Yosef Haim Brenner) and more than 150 wounded, effectively brought down the curtain on Jaffa's Jewish community and boosted adjacent Tel Aviv as a separate, independent, viable, modern and thriving alternative entity.

The carnage filled 12-year-old Tel Aviv with tents and makeshift sheds to shelter Jewish refugees fleeing the Jaffa bloodbath before even self-proclaimed anti-imperialists of the Fonda-mold could conjure up supposed Jewish provocation for Arab butchery.

As to the 1948 escapades of Jaffans on the eve of Israeli independence, I will summon my own mother's testimony. The minaret of Jaffa's Turkish-constructed Hassan Bek Mosque, for instance, was used by Arab snipers to take frequent potshots at passersby on the adjacent streets of Tel Aviv. For Jane's attention, that was before we could conceivably be accused of becoming conquistador ogres.

My mother often recalled the mortal risk entailed in crossing the street to the corner grocery. She was nearly shot on her way to the dentist. One afternoon, her landlord, Mr. Braun, buttonholed her at the entrance to his apartment house on 7 Rehov Aharonson. Standing in the doorway he lectured her sternly about the foolhardiness of her sorties outdoors. Just then a bullet whistled by. Mr. Braun fell dead at my mother's feet.

Odds are Jane doesn't know about Mr. Braun. But she should educate herself about Hassan Bek's snipers, who didn't care about the identity of their numerous random victims. It helps Jane's predatory propaganda not to mention them, to pretend that Jaffa didn't aggressively and continuously attack Tel Aviv, that peaceable Jaffans were dispossessed arbitrarily in villainous circumstances devoid of context.

In a world of cosmopolitan detachment, Jane's propaganda works. Toronto Festival codirector Cameron Bailey half-apologetically conceded "that Tel Aviv is not a simple choice and the city remains contested ground." But if even Tel Aviv is "contested ground," if even its legitimacy is questionable, what are we to say about Israel as a whole?

So much for all those insincerely avowed two-state syrupy sentiments.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804596413&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Likud divided over diplomatic effort

Sep. 22, 2009
Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST

Likud cabinet ministers praised Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday for entering Tuesday's tripartite meeting with US President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with the upper hand, while rebel MKs in the party launched an effort to limit Netanyahu's diplomatic flexibility. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will not be the only Israeli politicians in the US on Tuesday. They will be joined by the fiercest critic of the peace process in the Knesset, Likud rebel MK Danny Danon.

Danon came to New York to meet with Jewish leaders and congressmen in an effort to pressure Netanyahu to stick to the Likud's policies and not surrender to Obama and the Palestinians. Reacting to Netanyahu's advisers' boasts about "kicking off" a renewed diplomatic process, he warned the prime minister not to fall into a trap set for him by the American president.

"Any concession of Netanyahu's won't satisfy Obama or the Palestinians, so there is no point," Danon said. "No one remembers now that Netanyahu gave in on a Palestinian state at Bar-Ilan University [in June].

"Everything he said there is now taken for granted, and in New York, Obama will push for more. The real US pressure begins now."

Danon criticized Netanyahu for failing to bring a nine-month settlement freeze to the cabinet or Likud faction for approval before his trip to the US. But he said he would praise the prime minister if he left the meeting with the president without giving in.

"If Netanyahu is strong and tells Obama what he really believes, he will get support from the Likud and from all of Israel," Danon said.

Ministers from the Likud and other parties on the Right said Netanyahu already deserved praise for resisting American and Palestinian pressure. Minister-without-Portfolio Bennie Begin, who has led battles against diplomatic concessions in the past, said that Netanyahu had proved his ability to stand strong for Israel's interests.

"The Palestinians had misconceptions," Begin told Army Radio. "They mistakenly thought that Israel's head would be delivered to them [not on a silver platter but] on a plastic McDonald's plate. Yet that didn't happen."

Habayit Hayehudi's Daniel Herschkowitz, who heads the most right-wing party in the coalition, said that even though he opposed any stoppage of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, Netanyahu impressed him by removing public buildings, Jerusalem and 450 housing units from his understandings with the US.

"I personally am not happy with any freeze, and I would vote against it, but it's definitely clear that it could have been a lot worse," Herschkowitz, who is minister of science and technology, said. "I don't think Obama will intensify pressure on Israel in New York beyond what Mitchell did. But even if there will be pressure, Netanyahu will be strong enough to withstand it."

Shas chairman Eli Yishai added that he was "convinced that Netanyahu would defend Israel's interests in the face of American pressure."

At the opposite end of the political spectrum inside Netanyahu's cabinet, Barak's No. 2 man in Labor, Welfare and Social Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog, said his party must unite in support of the peace process and issued a veiled threat to Netanyahu about what would happen if he let the diplomatic negotiations falter.

"If it will be proven that the peace process isn't serious, and it is merely a farce intended to stall time, I will lead the process of taking Labor out of the government," Herzog said at a meeting with Labor pensioners in Jerusalem.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1253198168911&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Goldstone Mission Guilty of Hate Crime

Ignoring Nine Years of Terror

September 21, 2009 | Eli E. Hertz

Arab leaders will see the Goldstone Report as justification to continue to incite, inflame and encourage Palestinian Arabs to pin every problem they face as individuals and as a society on Israel. This strategy of channeling frustrations into hatred and revenge against Israel is adopted both by Israel's immediate Palestinian Arab neighbors and Arab leaders throughout the Muslim-Arab world.

The UN Goldstone Mission ignores Hamas - a terror organization listed as such by the United States, European Union, and Canada among others. Internationally binding instruments go on to impose uniform mandatory counter-terrorist obligations to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable. The Goldstone Mission in effect became a violator of international law.
There is no escape clause - United Nations Security Council repeats its unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, in all their forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed.

Terrorist organizations such as Hamas that indiscriminately launch around-the-clock Qassam rockets targeting civilian populations in Israel, are clearly committing Crimes Against Humanity - acts of terrorism for which the United Nations Security Council Resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter directs everyone to fight terrorism by all means.

International law leaves no room to question Israel's right to defend its citizens against systematic and sustained terrorist attacks launched by Hamas from Gaza.

Israel's reaction to nine years of Hamas aggression is nothing more than a measured, fair and proportional response, designed to effectively terminate the attacks upon it, in order to prevent its recurrence. Israel was far from using all means in fighting Hamas in Gaza, as required by the United Nations.

Myths and Facts

Rosh Hashanah Rockets

Jacob Shrybman
Sun Sep 20 2009 14:19:06
http://sderot.worldmedianetworks.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=530&q=3

It is true that there were no direct physical casualties from last night's rocket fire- but that doesn't explain what happened here in Sderot, Israel last night. My family lives in Silver Spring, Maryland- thousands of miles away from where I live and work. I spent the family oriented holiday Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, with amazing families in Sderot, Israel where I work and live.

After a long day of eating, drinking, and celebrating I arrived home to take a relaxing shower and go to bed. As I got out of the shower with my towel the night silence was lit up and my relaxed body turned into a racing heart beat and quivering legs. The echoing "Tzeva Adom" (Color Red) reverberated in my first-floor apartment in Sderot as I huddled in its most sheltered area- the corner of the kitchen next to the refrigerator. Then suddenly the sheer silence as the alarm finished was swiftly broken by a not so distant explosion. Since I work for Sderot Media Center two qassam rockets had just clocked me into work at just before 1am- and I was out the door running down the street to get my camera.

Why has the world bought into this misconception that the rockets have stopped as more than 250 have struck Israel in the past eight months?

Last night, the two rockets with doubled explosive warheads that the recently debuted Al-Qaeda terrorist group Ansar al-Suna fired at civilians was out of the news in minutes as usual, as thankfully there were no casualties.

Why is it such a struggle to make people listen to what is happening here in southern Israel? If President Obama gives his wife a "fist-bump", the whole world knows about it and is giving "fist-bumps," Yet, no news coverage is given to thousands of people running from rockets in the Holy Land over the New Year's holiday.

Thankfully there were no casualties, however, that is not at all reporting any of the stories of what happened. Here are just three short stories of the thousands that occurred.

Today, the day after, as I was eating lunch with my friend from work I asked him if he was asleep when the Color Red alarm went off, and he told me he was. Knowing that he is a bit lazy, I asked him if he got out of bed when it sounded. He answered me, "Of course, because everyone was yelling and screaming throughout the whole house." This comes from a family that never talks about the rocket fire existing.

After one lunch I stopped in to wish some other friends a happy new year. Over a cold glass of grapefruit juice this mother was telling me how some of her kids had finally started sleeping on the second floor of their home, as the family sleeps in the living room on the ground floor for years now because of the rockets. She said but after last night when they all jumped up and ran into their sheltered room on cue from the Color Red alarm they have been scurrying around the house like traumatized mice.

After a cold drink and catching up with some friends I arrived at another close friend's house for their holiday bbq. Amongst the festivities, I asked my friend how she was doing after the Color Red alarm last night. She, who takes 6 daily pills for coping, told me she was surprisingly fine. She continued to tell me that it only took her an hour to fall asleep after calling her pregnant daughter to check how she was doing following the alarm. She shifted to quietly explain to me how her 14 yr-old son jumped out of bed from the alarm and for awhile following was having trouble breathing from the panic attack he was having.


Due to the normalization of this rocket fire has it become boring to the rest of the world to hear about these acts of terror?

As millions of parents around the world send their kids off to their first weeks of school this September, is it not striking that there is an entire generation of children in Sderot suffering from the reality of not knowing life without consistent rocket fire?

Once again, it is true that there were no direct physical casualties from last night's rocket fire- but that doesn't explain what happened here in Sderot, Israel last night.

This Rosh Hashanah, away from my family I started the new year crouching to protect myself from incoming rockets, while thousands of miles away my father was taking a digesting walk and my mother was reading a book on the couch. People are physically detached from this reality of rocket fire but ignorance is no excuse.

As we start the new year, the rockets are still striking here so how long do the people of Sderot have to wait until the world listens?.

Palestinians suspected of setting fire to settler field, caravan

Fire injures six, burns down caravan. Police arrest four Palestinians for suspicion of arson

Efrat Weiss
YNET News

Six people were injured from smoke inhalation after Palestinians allegedly set on fire to fields near the Gilad Farm outpost in the West Bank on Sunday. A mobile home was entirely burnt down and two other structures sustained damages following the fire. Police arrested four Palestinians for suspicion of arson. Palestinians living nearby denied the allegations, saying the settlers set fire to Palestinian fields. These fires, they said, sometimes spread to the settlers' own property.


The families living in the area managed to escape ahead of time, but their belongings, which included clothes, furniture, books and picture albums was completely destroyed inside the caravan.


Police, army and fire units arrived at the scene and managed to extinguish the flames within a few hours. Those injured were taken to the hospital for treatment.


Twenty five families currently live at the Gilad Farm outpost. Itzik Zar, one of the residents, described the chain of events. "At around 1pm one of the residents from the northern houses spotted two people approaching the farm in a blue tractor, carrying an object in their hand."



Zar added that "about 160 yards away from the farm, the two started a fire, while one of them began to scream and whistle."



"I saw smoke coming toward the houses, but despite it being a holiday, I called the emergency hotline and notified the council as well."



"While we were setting up a dining table outside the house, the wind carried the smoke in our direction and in about 10 minutes the fire reached the table and consumed it whole. The residents used fire extinguishers and pans, giving a true fight," he said.


According to Zar, Yitzhar's security officer arrived at the scene first with a water tanker, at which point smoke entered Zar's children's rooms and the houses at the lower part of the farm. Following this the women and children left the area in their vehicles.


"If this would have happened at night, and we would not have been alert, it could of ended in disaster," said Itay Raz, who suffered injuries. "There is no water pipe here, and the water tanker emptied out before we were done. We waited 40 minutes for a water tanker to arrive from Ariel. There are people with families and children living here, so let us live."

Letter to IDF Radio:"Remember Asaf Ramon When You..."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133505#replies
by Gil Ronen

"Captain Asaf Ramon, his father, the Ramon family and many others like them symbolize the Return to Zion; the realization of the Zionist vision; the readiness to sacrifice for all of us; the Jewish moral code in defense of our nation, its state and our country; the beautiful Israel; the solidarity in Israeli society; the giving, the Zionist ethos!

Remember him when you report innocently about “demonstrations” at Na'alin by “activists” who hurt the bodies and souls of IDF soldiers and Border Police."

(IsraelNN.com) Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service published a letter Friday sent by an unknown person to Galei Tzahal, the IDF's radio station (also known as IDF Army Radio).

The letter reads thus:

Captain Asaf Ramon, his father, the Ramon family and many others like them symbolize the Return to Zion; the realization of the Zionist vision; the readiness to sacrifice for all of us; the Jewish moral code in defense of our nation, its state and our country; the beautiful Israel; the solidarity in Israeli society; the giving, the Zionist ethos!

Remember him when you report innocently about “demonstrations” at Na'alin by “activists” who hurt the bodies and souls of IDF soldiers and Border Police.

Remember him when a doctor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University disseminates a photo of an IDF soldier and calls him a murderer – yet you remain silent. You did not cover that.

Remember him when IDF reservists turn to the Attorney General and demand that he investigate the Ha'aretz newspaper and Danny Zamir for libel, after they besmirched the IDF during Operation Cast Lead – and again you are silent, you did not cover that either!

Remember him the next time you consider participating in a media lynch against a battalion commander and reservists as you did to the battalion commander who hit violent anarchist Yonatan Pollak while he and his friends destroyed an IDF roadblock, confronted soldiers and harmed them.

Remember him when you give Hamas terrorists an open microphone.

Remember him for not holding an in-depth discussion about the Tel Aviv “Rugatka” pub that prevents soldiers from entering it. You preferred to hide that...

Remember him for the prominent podium you give to anarchist groups and “Breaking the Silence,” which assassinate the character of the IDF and its soldiers.

Remember him when you prevent discussion and prevent anyone from expressing deep and fundamental opinions against those who defame IDF soldiers without any basis.

Remember him when you do not cover the protest against those organizations.

Remember him when you pillory those who call to make government service conditional on military, civilian or national service, and thus damage all those who serve.

Remember him when you exalt Israeli films that win prizes only because they present the IDF as an immoral army of murderers.

Remember him when you interview the actors who dodged military service and whose only contribution to the IDF was to sling mud at it.

Remember him, because handing out briefs and undershirts to soldiers on (the program) “A Mother's Voice” and pretending that you care about the soldiers, but then slandering them after every operation – that is not being “the soldiers' home” (an IDF Radio slogan – ed.).

Remember him, because when you wear a uniform or enter the gates of the station, you are supposed to be in the same army!

Remember him, because your broadcasts de-legitimize, and even demonize, IDF soldiers in compulsory service and the reserves.

Remember him – because we ask you, Galei Tzahal – are you on our side or that of the enemy?

Arutz Sheva asked the person who wrote the letter to contact it and make his or her identity known.

Israel: Talks stalled because of Palestinians

Foreign Ministry rejects Abbas remarks, says Palestinians at fault for stalled negotiations

Roni Sofer
YNET News

The Palestinian Authority is at fault for curbing any progress in the peace process, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

"The Authority is the one to prevent a meeting and resumption of the peace process," the Ministry said in response to earlier remarks by Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian leader said Israel should be blamed for the stalled talks. "Ever since the government was formed, Israel is willing to meet wit the Palestinian Authoroity and resume peace negotiations with no pre-conditions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levi said.


Abbas: Peace process stuck

Abbas said earlier Saturday that the peace process was "stuck" after the failure of the last mission by Special US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell.



Abbas made the remarks after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.



US Envoy Mitchell returned to Jerusalem empty-handed Friday after his latest four-day mission in the region. Mitchell failed to get Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a freeze on Jewish settlements or a resumption Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.


'We must focus on Israeli side'

President Abbas said it was now up to Israel to pave the way for peace negotiations, adding that Mr. Mitchell would resume his efforts with officials in the region after the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.


Abbas also said the Palestinian side has met all its obligations, adding that "we must focus on the Israeli side" and noting that Envoy Mitchell still has plenty of work ahead of him.



An agreement on a settlement freeze is believed necessary in order to open the way for a tripartite summit next week in New York between Netanyahu, Abbas, and President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN meeting.

Comment: This response is too little, too late. Abbas and his PR machine beat Israel, again, to the story!

Gratitude? Soft Power? Popularity? Apologizing? Hey, We’re Talking About International Relations Here!

HRubinReports
Barry Rubin

Today, U.S. foreign policy is full of the notions of “soft power,” confidence-building measures, popularity, apologizing and showing empathy in order to win the respect of other counties. The idea that there is gratitude in international relations is a very powerful one in Washington, perhaps in the West generally. AAnd so I thought of the fragility and fantasy involved in these worthy sentiments when I came across the following passage by another country’s most famous writer of the day, a close personal friend of his country’s leader, as a response to a massive American aid effort which saved the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen while asking for nothing in return except good will:

“In all the history of human suffering, I know of no accomplishment which can be compared in magnitude and generosity with the relief that you have accomplished….The generosity of the American people resuscitates the dream of fraternity….It will be inscribed in the pages of history as unique, gigantic, and glorious…and will long remain in the memory of millions you have saved from death….”

Who was the author and what the occasion for this outpouring of eternal gratitude?

The leading Soviet novelist Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Lenin’s favorite writer, wrote this in 1921 at Lenin’s request, thanking the U.S. campaign that not only saved so many lives but also probably prevented the USSR’s collapse. Of course, this debt was repaid by seventy years of Soviet Communism which did everything possible to destroy U.S. interests and credibility.

By the way, the Soviet government never let the letter be published in the country. When reference was later made to it in Soviet publications—with no hint of the letter’s contents--the title given turned the gratitude into hatred and suspicion: “The Greek Hoover and His Gifts. “ Herbert Hoover headed the program. The implication was taken from the Greek story of the Trojan Horse, that is the treachery implicit in phony generosity. The concept is best known today from the phrase, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”

It is hard to think of a single instance, certainly in the Middle East (outside of Israel) at least, when U.S. humanitarian or economic aid, material support, military liberation (Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait), support for statehood plus massive funding (Palestinian Authority), or diplomatic support have ever brought cooperation or warm feelings toward America. Any hope of appealing by such methods to the regimes of countries like Bolivia, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, or any others you care to add is not going to work.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).

German FM: Ahmadinejad is a disgrace to Iran

US, UK, Germany condemn Iranian president's repeated Holocaust denial. Washington's ambassador to UN says President Barack Obama will not meet with Iranian counterpart during UN General Assembly in New York

YNET News

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Friday condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's latest denial of the Holocaust.


"Obviously, we condemn what he said," Gibbs said at a news briefing. Such a comment "only serves to isolate Iran further from the world," he added. Ahmadinejad delivered a speech at Tehran University, hinting once again that the Holocaust never took place: "If the Holocaust was planned by the West, why won't you allow any research on the Holocaust?


"The Holocaust," he added, "Has turned into a black box and they won't let anyone open it and examine it… If this is such an important event, why won't you let us reveal the reality to the entire world?"


Susan Rice, US ambassador to the United Nations, called Ahmadinejad's comments "hateful, adding Obama and Ahmadinejad un unlikely to "have a direct engagement" during the UN General Assembly in New York next week.


Britain was also swift to condemn Ahmadinejad's remarks, calling them "abhorrent as well as ignorant": "It is very important that the world community stands up against this tide of abuse. This outburst is not worthy of the leader of Iran," Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.


Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier also condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks, calling Tehran's ruler "a disgrace to his country."



In a statement Steinmeier said: "Today's statements by the Iranian President are unacceptable. With his intolerable tirades he is a disgrace to his country. This sheer anti-Semitism demands our collective condemnation.



"We will continue to confront it decisively in the future."


Paris was next to issue a censure, with the French Foreign Ministry calling the Iranians president's speech "appalling and unacceptable."



Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon deplored the speech as "irresponsible" and "full of anti-Semitic rhetoric." The Canadian government, he added, will not remain indifferent to that kind of rhetoric "by the radical Iranian regime which violates human rights."



The Associated Press contributed to this report

Young Guns

, THE JERUSALEM POST

They've had it. And they're taking the situation into their own hands. The Jewish year 5769 marked a rise in young, driven, grassroots politics and public relations and the spotlight shone especially on Jerusalem municipality party Hitorerut Yerushalayim (Wake Up Jerusalem), which garnered an astounding two seats, and student-led hasbara group Im Tirtzu (If You Will It), which hit campuses across the nation with their Zionist messages. Also this year, freshman Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely championed women's rights, and she represented her religious-Zionist constituency by opposing parts of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's land reform.

Down south in Rahat, environmentalist Ahmed Amrani became the Rahat mayor's chief of staff. And up in Galilee, Yoel Zilberman , founder of the New Guardsmen, has led over 2,000 volunteers in patrolling their homesteads.

At the High Court, human rights lawyer Michael Sfard protected the little guy, while Tel Aviv activist Nic Schlagman made sure he had food and shelter.

Some, like Africa-Israel's Nadav Grinshpon , had a nose for business. Others, like chemical engineer Dr. Hossam Haick , were pioneers in inventing nanotechnology aimed at sniffing out cancer.

Dudi Sela hit the big time on the international tennis stage this year. And soon, the world will be listening to the music of Asaf Avidan and the Mojos , who recently signed with Sony.

We take our hats off to these young Israelis and we salute, as ever, the lone soldiers .
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UK dhimmi trade unions boycott Israeli goods in protest over Gaza

Jihad Watch

The jihadist propaganda offensive so relentlessly pursued by the Palestinians bears bitter fruit today. Human shields? Pah! It's all Israel's fault! "British trade unions approve Israel boycott," from the Jewish Telegraph Agency, September 17 (thanks to News4U): JERUSALEM (JTA) -- British trade unions approved a boycott against importing goods produced in some Israeli settlements.

The boycott was approved Thursday by the Trade Union Congress at its annual conference. The congress also called for an end to arms trading with Israel and for disinvestment from some Israeli companies.

According to the London Times online, the unions had considered a comprehensive boycott of consumer goods produced in Israel but reconsidered following "frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations."

The statement approved by the delegates read: "To increase the pressure for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories and the removal of the separation wall and illegal settlements, we will support a boycott of those goods and agricultural products that originate in illegal settlements through developing an effective, targeted consumer-led boycott campaign."

The boycott reportedly was proposed in response to Operation Cast Lead, Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

Israel's industry, trade and labor minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said that "a boycott is wrong, as it will first and foremost hurt the Palestinian families who are employed in these factories. This is a unilateral attempt to promote political agendas with the use of economic weapons."

What happened to the US deadline on Iran?

dore gold , THE JERUSALEM POST

Earlier this month, it became clear that Iran was defying the US and its Western allies by once again refusing to open serious negotiations over its nuclear program. After all, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on September 7 that, he believed, "the nuclear issue is finished," adding, "We will never negotiate on the Iranian nation's rights." Days later, Iran's new five-page proposal to the P-5 plus 1 (the US, Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany) did not provide an opening for serious nuclear negotiations, but rather vague formulations for the agenda of any future talks. Indeed, the Iranian document began by asserting that the world was moving beyond "the difficult era characterized by domination of empires, predominance of military powers." It made reference to the need for "complete disarmament," but said nothing about its own nuclear program. In his Friday sermon on September 11, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei further backed the uncompromising Iranian nuclear stance.

THIS PAST July, when the G-8 announced that the opening of the UN General Assembly "would be an occasion for taking stock of the situation in Iran," most international observers understood that there was a hard September deadline that Iran had to meet to begin serious negotiations. Obama himself stated at a July 10 press conference after the G-8 meeting: "We've offered Iran a path towards assuming its rightful place in the world. But with that right comes responsibilities. We hope Iran will make the choice to fulfill them, and we will take stock of Iran's progress when we see each other this September at the G20 meeting." The G20 will be convened September 23.

Unfortunately, at this stage, there is little evidence that the Obama administration is about to adopt effective action in a timely manner in light of Iran's policy of rejectionism. Engagement was the centerpiece of its Middle East policy and has been hard to abandon. For example, while rejecting the newest Iranian proposals on September 10, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley reminded reporters that engagement was still official US policy, stating: "We remain willing to engage Iran." Moreover, within 24 hours Crowley announced that the US would negotiate with Iran despite his determination a day earlier that their proposals were inadequate.

The hard-line Iranian newspaper Javan noted the dramatic US shift on September 14: "One day after the hasty response to Iran's updated package of proposals, America made a U-turn and announced that because these proposals could become a basis for direct talks with Iran, it accepts the talks over this package." Indicating Iranian understanding of the new US policy, the article was entitled: "The inevitable acceptance of nuclear Iran." The first meeting between Teheran and the West reportedly will take place in early October when Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, and Western diplomats meet with Saeed Jalili, the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator. According to Solana's office, the meeting will not yet be a "formal negotiation," which presumably will come at a later stage. The September deadline appeared to have vanished and the Iranians have gained valuable time.

The consequences of letting the September deadline pass without a decisive response is clearly not understood in Western capitals. Iran will carefully calibrate its next moves on the basis of how it believes the US and its allies will act in the weeks ahead.

THERE ARE two very important Iranian considerations that are likely to be affected by what the West does now. Just recently, Glyn Davies, the US ambassador to the IAEA, acknowledged that the Iranian stockpile of low-enriched uranium has already reached a sufficient level so that it was possible to talk about Teheran having "a dangerous and destabilizing possible breakout capacity." What he probably meant was that the Iranians could soon take their low-enriched uranium and put it through a further stage of enrichment to produce weapons-grade fuel. He announced that Iran already has enough low-enriched uranium for at least one atomic bomb.

Under the breakout scenario, Iran would refuse any more IAEA inspections, shut down the IAEA cameras that provide a partial picture of what transpires in the Natanz enrichment plant, and manufacture high-enriched fuel.

International precedents in this area are not encouraging. North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor was under IAEA monitoring until 2002, when Pyongyang removed the IAEA seals from its stock of spent fuel rods and expelled international inspectors. Since, North Korea conducted two nuclear tests and got away with them: first in October 2006 and then in May 2009. Reportedly, Iranian representatives were present at both. Teheran undoubtedly observed that no serious action was taken against North Korea for its nuclear breakout. Should Iran escape from the September deadline that the West itself instituted, then its readiness to follow the North Korean example will substantially increase.

The second area which will be affected by how Iran is handled at present will be deterrence. The common assumption in Washington policy circles is that even if Iran reaches the nuclear finish line, the US can fall back on the same Cold War deterrence that was used against the Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's offer in July of a "defense umbrella" against Iran to worried Arab states foreshadows the coming approach of the administration to a nuclear Iran. But will Iran respond to Western deterrence the way Washington hopes?

Indeed, over the last year, Western leaders have repeatedly declared that a nuclear-armed Iran was "unacceptable." But should they subsequently acquiesce to Iran's final sprint to a nuclear capability, what credibility will US deterrence have with the leadership in Teheran after it successfully defies the West's repeated warnings? There is an unwarranted complacency growing in the West about Iran. Some believe that if the world survived the advent of Pakistani and North Korean nuclear weapons, and the sky did not fall, then an Iranian bomb will be no more threatening. The cases are, of course, very different. Iran is a revolutionary power whose aspirations extend into Iraq, Bahrain, and other oil-producing states. It is involved in both the Afghan and Iraqi insurgencies, while its support for terrorism reaches into Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. Now Iran is heavily involved in South America and East Africa, with growing security and economic ties. In short, the nuclearization of Iran has global implications.

In dealing with the new Ahmadinejad government, the proposals currently being considered for severe sanctions, including a gasoline quarantine, on Iran must be pursued immediately, despite the start of any negotiations. The West must demonstrate political will, but time is now short. The decision to engage Iran diplomatically has never been cost-free. In 2003-2005, Teheran engaged with the EU-3 (UK, Germany and France) for two years, exploiting the talks to race ahead with construction of key uranium enrichment facilities, while fending off punitive measures by the UN Security Council for three entire years. Iran today is far more advanced than it was then and the time for diplomatic experimentation is extremely limited. The scale of the next crisis with Iran will largely be affected by how the Obama administration responds to the challenge it faces when it meets the Iranians next month.

The writer, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was ambassador to the UN in 1997-1999. He is the author of the newly-released The Rise of Nuclear Iran: How Teheran Defies the West (Regnery).
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"Rosh Hashana"

Arlene Kushner

Rosh Hashana begins this evening. And so I want to begin today by wishing all those who are observing the holiday a year of peace, health, fulfillment and spiritual growth.

May the Almighty watch over each of us and lead us to where we are meant to go. May He protect Israel and keep us strong and truly committed. It was a bombshell of sorts, but not really unexpected: The Goldstone Commission released its findings -- which accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza-- yesterday. This investigation was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, a vociferously anti-Israel group, and the bias was so much anticipated that Israel refused to cooperate in the investigative process. Its mandate was to "investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying power, Israel, against the Palestinian people."

Prime Minister Netanyahu could not be more correct in calling this a "kangaroo court." A "prize for terrorists," he said that makes it more difficult for democratic countries to combat terrorism.

What makes it all the more disgraceful is that the head of this commission, South African Constitutional Court Judge Richard Goldstone, is a Jew.

The diplomatic approach of our government is to, in essence, head this off at the pass. This report will now go to the Human Rights Council and from there to the Security Council. The goal is to delegitimize it by contacting Western democracies and seeking their cooperation in refusing to pass on this. Without the support of these countries, the report would lack moral authority.

Significant to blocking the process is having a veto in the Security Council that will prevent this from going to the International Court at the Hague. All eyes will be on the US in this regard.

~~~~~~~~~~

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, is the US, and has called upon American Jewish leaders to act with force against the report. It is, he said, "a dangerous attempt to harm the principle of self-defense by democratic states and provides legitimacy to terrorism." As such, it "should be treated like the [eventually rescinded] UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 equating Zionism with racism. We must mobilize and act with all force against the report in order to remove it."

~~~~~~~~~~

For more on this, please see the Jerusalem Post editorial.

"The learned judge's concoction, based heavily on unverifiable claims from avowedly non-objective sources, some of them long-since discredited, is a feat of cynical superficiality, without appropriate distinction between terror and defense. The distorted picture justifies the Foreign Ministry's reaction of 'nausea and fury.'"

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804588620&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

~~~~~~~~~~

The British Trades Unions have called for a boycott on some Israeli goods coming out of Judea and Samaria -- as a response to our action in Gaza. This thinking is exacerbated by the Goldstone report.

There is concern that another repercussion of the report will be its use in countries that have universal jurisdiction -- allowing claims against Israeli leaders even if their alleged "crimes" were committed elsewhere. But Foreign Ministry lawyer Allan Baker thinks this is unlikely because the report does not contain sufficient evidence to support criminal charges.

~~~~~~~~~~

Still no agreement reached on a settlement freeze. Mitchell has been bouncing between Jerusalem and Ramallah. What seems fairly obvious is that Netanyahu has made his offer, pretty much along the lines that have been described ad infinitum, but Abbas is saying nothing doing: A total freeze or no negotiations.

I am opposed to a freeze in any terms, but I'll give credit here to the prime minister for holding out and not caving to the demand that the freeze be total, in order to appease the PA.

~~~~~~~~~~

I had said I wanted to return with a story about Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, and am pleased to do so here:

Sixty years ago, in the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belson, a young Dutch boy named Yoachim (Yoya) Yosef received a tiny Torah scroll from the rabbi of Amsterdam. It was used to secretly teach him his Torah portion for his bar mitzvah, and he kept it with him ever after; when he survived the war, he came to Israel and brought the scroll with him. In fact, he became one of Israel's top physicists and ultimately a mentor to Ramon, who was himself the son of a Holocaust survivor. He was involved with experiments Ramon carried out in space.

Ramon brought this tiny scroll into space with him, along with an Israeli flag, mezuzot, and a kiddush cup.

"I want to bring on the mission as much as possible of the Jewish people, of the identity of the Jewish people," he said at the time. As to the Torah scroll, it represents "the ability of the Jewish people to survive everything, including horrible periods, and go from the darkest of days with hope and faith in the future."

From space he broadcast the story of the scroll.


While Ramon was a secular Jew, he requested kosher food on his mission, and asked to be excused from work on Shabbat. (No, I don't know how he calculated Shabbat in space, but there is a way). He believed he represented all of the Jewish people on this mission.

How exquisitely moving is this story, and how utterly painful that he, and then his son, have been lost to us. But there is a way in which he is not lost, because he serves as a magnificent model of proud Jew that should be broadly emulated.

We must remember him with hope for our future as a people, as surely he would want us to.

~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info

shofar.jpg

TwoMiniatureTorahsYoyaandHenry.jpg

UN Investigation of Israel Discredits Itself and Undercuts Human Rights

September 16, 2009 3:43 PM
by Alan M. Dershowitz
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Richard Goldstone—the primary author of a one-sided United Nation’s attack on Israeli actions during the Gaza war—has now become a full fledged member of the international bash-Israel chorus. His name will forever be linked in infamy with such distorters of history and truth as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and Jimmy Carter. The so-called report commissioned by the notorious United Nations Human Rights Council and issued under his name is so filled with lies, distortions and blood libels that it could have been drafted by Hamas extremists. Wait, in effect, it actually was!



One member of the group is an Hamas lackey who before being appointed as an "objective" judge had already reached the conclusion—without conducting any investigation or hearing any evidence—that Israel’s military actions “amount to aggression, not self defense” and that “the manner and scale of its operations in Gaza amount to an act of aggression and is contrary to international law.” So much for objectivity. Many human rights experts urged her to recuse herself because of her prejudgment, but she was on a mission on behalf of her “client”—Hamas. And she did a good job as an advocate! But as a judge, she employed an Alice-In-Wonderland conception of justice: verdict first, trial to support the verdict.



Other members were accompanied on their investigations in Gaza by actual Hamas activists who showed them only what they wanted them to see. The group was eager to find or manufacture “evidence” to support what the Human Rights Council itself had directed them to find, namely that Israel committed “grave violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip.” This conclusion too was reached before any investigation. No wonder so many prominent human rights experts, including Mary Robinson, refused to participate in this mockery of human rights, declaring that it was “guided not by human rights, but by politics.” No wonder so many nations that are dedicated to human rights—such as Switzerland, Canada, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands—refused to go along with the politically-motivated witch hunt. They should also refuse to accept the politically motivated, entirely pre-ordained conclusions of the biased report.



As I wrote before the “Kangaroo Court investigation” began:

“The UN Human Rights Council is a scandal. [It has] a long history of singling out Israel for condemnation and of ignoring real human rights abusers by the world's worst offenders, several of which dominate the Human Rights Council and it predecessor.

As Hudson Institute scholar Anne Bayefsky recently noted: "The Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all the other 191 U.N. member states combined.... The more time the Council spends demonizing Israel, the less likely it becomes that it will ever get around to condemning genocide in Sudan, female slavery in Saudi Arabia, or torture in Egypt.”

The very idea of the UN Council conducting an "independent" or objective investigation of Israel is preposterous.

A careful reading of the official media summary—the widely quoted press release—of the report itself reveals the bias of its members and discredits the entire enterprise.

The summary never criticizes Hamas. It downplays the rockets deliberately fired by Hamas at Israeli civilian targets in Sderot and other towns and cities, blaming them on generic “Palestinian armed groups.” It faults Israel more than Hamas for using human shields. It cites the admission of Hamas leader Fathi Hammad, who boasted that:

“For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahedeen and the children. This is why they have formed humans shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahedeen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life.”

But it concluded that “it does not consider [this admission] to constitute evidence…” It ignored videos, which constitute hard evidence, that clearly show Palestinian terrorists firing rockets from civilian areas, including schools. This was part of a pattern of ignoring evidence that undercut its pre-determined conclusions and exaggerating—sometimes manufacturing—evidence that supported it.

The lowest blow and the worst canard contained in this lie-laden report is that the Israeli judicial system is incapable of conducting investigations and bringing about compliance with international law. It claims that the Israeli judicial system “has major structural flaws that make the system inconsistent with international standards,” and that “there is little potential for accountability for serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law through domestic institutions in Israel.” This is a direct attack on the Israeli Supreme Court by a lawyer who knows full well that there is no country in the world that has a judicial system that demands more accountability than the Israeli system does. There is no judicial system in the world—not in the United States, not in Great Britain, not in South Africa, not in France—that takes more seriously its responsibility to bring its military into compliance with international law. The long term President of the Israeli Supreme Court, Professor Aharon Barak, opened the Supreme Court of Israel to all claims of law violation. Cases that would be rejected by the courts of other nations have been pursued by the Israeli Supreme Court. This part of this infamous report has literally turned black to white and white to black. It has condemned the most responsive judicial system in the world, without even bothering to compare it to other systems. In doing so, they have made a mockery of international human rights and turned into a weapon that targets only Israel.

Another Orwellian “newspeak” conclusion is that “the international community has been largely silent” about alleged Israeli abuses in the Gaza and the West Bank. Didn’t the investigators even read the reports of the Human Rights Council, as well as so many other organizations of the international community, that obsess over Israeli imperfections, to the exclusion of other real human rights abusers? No country in the world has been subjected to more criticism than Israel. Yet on Planet Goldstone “the international community has been largely silent” about Israel. This statement could only have been written by a variation of the three monkeys with hands covering their eyes and ears, but not their mouths or pens.

Every serious student of human rights should be appalled at this anti-human rights and highly politicized report. Judge Richard Goldstone should be ashamed of himself. In an apparent effort to curry favor with the international anti-Israel establishment, and perhaps with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, he has abandoned all principles of objectivity and neutral human rights. He no longer deserves the mantle of a human rights advocate. He has done more to destroy the credibility and objectivity of human rights than any credible human rights personage in modern times.

If the methodology and conclusions of this infamous report were ever applied generally to democracies seeking to combat terrorists who hid behind civilians—as in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq—it would constitute a great victory for terrorism and a defeat for democracy. But not to worry. The report is not intended to establish general principles of international law, applicable to all nations. It is directed at one nation and one nation only: the Jew among nations—Israel. For shame.

Goldstone Report Endorses Unreliable Witnesses

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA

“The mission found Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo to be credible and reliable witnesses. It has no reason to doubt the veracity of the main elements of their testimony. The Mission also reviewed several sworn statements they and other eyewitnesses gave to NGOs about the incident and found them to be consistent with the account it received.”Yesterday the United Nations' fact-finding mission into the three weeks of fighting in the Gaza Strip published its scathing report, harshly condemning Israel for its “disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” Much of its conclusions are based on Palestinian witnesses, and the process in which the U.N. Human Rights Council investigators, led by Judge Richard Goldstone, selected these witnesses is unknown. There are clear systemic problems in relying on the testimony of many of the witnesses. Specifically, according to media reports, Hamas representatives accompanied U.N. investigators throughout much of their fact-finding visit to the Gaza Strip, casting doubt in particular on the credibility of witnesses aligned with Fatah.

The case of Khaled and Kawthar Abed Rabbo illustrates this predicament. Before Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip, Khaled Abd Rabbo was a member of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority police forces, and the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida identifies the Abed Rabbo family as loyal to Fatah. Yet, the Goldstone team fails to take into account Khaled Abed Rabbo's reported loyalties to Fatah. Surely, in the context of intra-Palestinian violence, in which Hamas took advantage of the fighting with Israel to kill and maim Fatah opponents, the testimony of Abd Rabbo— who says that his three daughters and mother were shot in cold blood by an Israeli soldier on Jan. 7 — must be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Moreover, while the Goldstone committee “found Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo to be credible and reliable witnesses [and] has no reason to doubt the veracity of the main elements of their testimony,” Khaled Abd Rabbo and his relatives have given more than a dozen different versions of what happened to them on Jan. 7, 2009. These multiple conflicting accounts appearing both in the mainstream media and a number of NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are incompatible with the U.N. commission's statement that “The mission also reviewed several sworn statements they and other eyewitnesses gave to NGOs about the incident and found them to be consistent with the account it received.”

A review of the earlier statements by witnesses given to both NGOs and journalists reveals not only that the witnesses were completely unreliable, but that the U.N.'s statements, to the contrary, are not credible.

Despite the many inconsistencies in the various testimonies and reports, the general outline of the Abd Rabbo story is that on Jan. 7, an Israeli tank unit approached the family home in Izbet Abed Rabbo, near Jabalya, in the northern Gaza Strip and ordered the family to leave the home. Several family members exited, waving a white flag. Outside the home were two soldiers standing next to a tank. A third emerged from the tank and shot at three sisters, killing 7-year-old Souad and 2-year-old Amal, and seriously injuring 4-year-old Amar. In addition, the soldier injured the girls' grandmother, Souad.

An earlier CAMERA report focused on the inconsistencies in Abed Rabbo's story as reported in media outlets. This analysis focuses on the inconsistencies between the Goldstone findings on the Abed Rabbo story versus earlier NGO investigations.

Fatah-Hamas rivalry in Abd Rabbo case is key, but omitted

The Goldstone report does not mention Abed Rabbo's Fatah affiliation. In his Jan. 28 testimony, Khaled states: “We have nothing to do with Hamas and we were used to hav[ing] the Israeli army come into our area. So I thought this time we could stay in our houses. We had nothing to do with Hamas. We did not pose any danger to Hamas.”

Yet, a Jan. 27 from the Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reveals that the Abd Rabbo family are Fatah loyalists, that their land was taken over by Hamas for tunnels, arms caches, and rocket attacks, that the family was waiting for reparations from Hamas, and that they were afraid to speak out against Hamas:

The Abd Rabbo family kept quiet while Hamas fighters turned their farm in the Gaza Strip into a fortress. Right now they are waiting for the aid promised by the [Hamas] movement after Israel bombed the farm and turned it into ruins. . .

The hill on which Abd Rabbo family lives overlooks the Israeli town Sderot, a fact that turned it into an ideal military position for the Palestinian fighters, from which they have launched hundreds of rockets into southern Israel during the last few years. Several of the Abd Rabbo family members described how the fighters dug tunnels under their houses, stored arms in the fields and launched rockets from the yard of their farm during the nights.

The Abd Rabbo family members emphasize that they are not [Hamas] activists and that they are still loyal to the Fatah movement, but that they were unable to prevent the armed squads from entering their neighborhood at night. One family member, Hadi (age 22) said: “You can't say anything to the resistance [fighters], or they will accuse you of collaborating [with Israel] and shoot you in the legs.” (Translation by Palestinian Media Watch)

Thus, the Abed Rabbo family are Fatah loyalists, their property was taken over by Hamas fighters, they were awaiting reparations from Hamas, they were afraid to “say anything to the ‘resistance,’” and Khaled failed to note the Hamas takeover of his area. Therefore, on what basis does the commission accept at face value his claim that there was no fighting at the time of the shooting incident? The report concludes: “The testimony of Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo, however, shows that the Israeli armed forces were not engaged in combat or fearing an attack at the time of the incident.”

Was Khaled outside at the time of the shootings or inside his house?

Was Khaled outside or inside his home at the time of the alleged shootings of his three girls? Despite the U.N.'s claim that Abed Rabbo's earlier sworn testimonies to NGOs are consistent with the Goldstone testimony, Khaled is not consistent on this key point. His respective testimonies to the Goldstone Report and Human Rights Watch, which is cited 33 times in the U.N. report, are contradictory as to whether he was inside or outside during the shooting. The Goldstone report claims that after hearing Israeli soldiers using a megaphone calling upon the family to leave their home, Khaled stepped outside along with his wife, three daughters, and mother. The report states (paragraph 771):

At about 12:50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house all of them carrying white flags.

Indeed, this is what Khaled testified to the U.N. delegation on June 28. Yet, according to Human Rights Watch's August 2009 “White Flag Deaths” report, Khaled said he was inside during the time of the actual shooting. The Human Rights Watch report states:

According to all three family members [Khaled, his brother, and his mother], around noon the family heard the tank outside their house and then a soldier on a megaphone calling on them to come outside. Afraid to send out any men, two women and three female children gathered at the door, at least three of them holding pieces of white cloth. They stepped outside and saw an Israeli tank about 10 meters away with its turret pointed at the house. On the front steps stood Khalid's mother, Su'ad, 54, his wife, Kawthar, 26, and their three girls, Su'ad, 7, Samar, 4, and Amal, 2.

Likewise Souad Abed Rabbo, Khaled's mother, told investigators from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, that she, her daughter-in-law, and three grandaughters — but not Khaled — exited the home following the soldiers' call. The PHR-I report states:

Feb 2 2009. Souad Abed Rabbo told the team that on 7 Jan 2009 there were 30-40 people in the house in Jebel al Kashif. On the first day of the “ground invasion”, 4 Jan 2009, the Israeli tanks had already passed the house. Now they experienced tank shelling around the house and Israeli soldiers shouting that they should all come out of their houses. She, her daughter in law (married to her son Khaled) and her three granddaughters went out of the house, Souad and the daughter in law and her 7-year old girl each holding a white flag above their heads. The girls were Souad, 7, Samar, 4 and Amal, 2. Outside the house there was an Israeli tank. It had come from the west towards the house that was facing north. It was 11.30 –– 12.00. The tank was in the garden about ten meters from her, when she stopped to receive permission to leave unharmed. On her right side were the three girls, behind her was the daughter in law close to the door of the house.

Similarly, Khaled specifically told the Irish Times that only women and children went outside, and that he deliberately stayed behind to demonstrate the family's civilian status:

“My three daughters, wife and mother went out carrying white flags,” Mr Abed Rabbo said. By sending the women out, the family sought to prove they were civilians.

Whether or not Khaled was inside or outside the home is not an incidental detail. It goes to the central question of what exactly he might have been able to see. Moreover, the very fact that Khaled has been inconsistent about whether he was inside or outside during the alleged shootings is enough to disqualify him as a reliable witness. To that end, Khaled's claim in the Washington Post —“I was holding Amal when they shot her. My hand felt heavy and I dropped her, and I saw her abdomen open” — is notable. He does not repeat it in his testimony to the U.N. investigators, even though in that version he did claim to be outside during the shooting. The bottom line is that Khaled cannot simultaneously have held Amal while he watched her insides spill out and have waited inside to demonstrate that his family was civilian. Thus, he is lying in either one or both cases, and the U.N. investigators should have called him on this instead of dubbing him "reliable.

Other inconsistencies derive from this basic flaw in Khaled's story. For instance, is it true that “Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo carried their three daughters and mother back inside the house” as per the Goldstone Report, or that “The women and girls managed to scramble back inside the house, some of them bleeding badly,” as per Human Rights Watch? Or perhaps, “The grandmother retreated inside the house, while the father and mother moved the injured girls,” as per the investigation of Adalah, Al-Mezan and Al-Haq, which also all contributed to the Goldstone Report.

The Ambulance Incident

Again, despite U.N. claims that earlier testimony to NGOs was consistent with the accounts its own investigators received, this was not the case with respect to events surrounding Samieh al-Sheikh, the ambulance driver/neighbor, who said he tried to assist the Abed Rabbo family. According to the Goldstone report, Khaled and Kawthar

shouted for help and a neighboour, Sameeh Atwa Rasheed al-Sheikh, who was an ambulance driver and had his ambulance parked next to his house, decided to come to their help. He put on his ambulance crew clothes and asked his son to put on a flourescent jacket. They had driven a few meters from their house to the immediate vicinity of the Abd Rabbo house when Israeli soldiers near the Abed Rabbo house ordered them to halt and get out of the vehicle. Sameeh al-Sheikh protested that he had heard cries for help from the Abd Rabbo family and intended to bring the wounded to hospital. The soldiers ordered him and his son to undress and then re-dress. They then ordered them to abandon the ambulance and walk towards Jabaliyah, which they complied with. When the families returned to Izbat Abd Rabbo on 18 January, they found the ambulance in the same place but had been crushed, probably by a tank.

Yet, al-Sheikh told Human Rights Watch the soldiers “ordered him to get out of the ambulance and walk out of the neighborhood.” In that testimony, he did not make any mention of either his son or orders to undress. (In yet another version of what happened, al-Sheikh told Time Magazine “the Israeli soldiers beat me up.”) Moreover, Goldstone and Human Rights Watch contradict each other as to how the ambulance was destroyed. While Goldstone is unclear about what crushed the ambulance (“probably . . . a tank”), HRW definitely states that the ambulance was crushed under a destroyed house, where their investigators saw it:

When he returned to his home after the Israeli withdrawal on January 18, he said he found his ambulance crushed under his demolished house. Human Rights Watch observed the crushed ambulance under the rubble of al-Sheikh's destroyed house on January 25.

Kawthar, Khaled's wife, gives a different account about the ambulance's fate. In her recorded testimony to the Goldstone committee, she says that the ambulance was crushed immediately when al-Sheik tried to help – not later, after he left for Jabaliya. She said:

My neighbor, uh, he's an ambulance driver and he was, uh, worked to help patients and we called on him and asked him to help us with the ambulance but when the ambulance came out they crushed the ambulance. They hit the ambulance and did not allow it to reach us.

Husband—Wife Contradictions

In another indication that the U.N. mission was grossly mistaken when it found “Khalid and Kawthar Abd Rabbo to be credible and reliable witnesses,” the Goldstone testimonies by the husband and wife team are not consistent with each other. Khaled spoke before the investigators on June 28 in Gaza. Kawthar's testimony was given in a video. She was filmed with her daughter Samar at a Belgium hospital.

1) Which parent carried which daughter?

Khaled testifies that when the family left the home to reach a hospital: “I carried my daughter Suad, 3 years old [sic]. She was dead. I left the house. My wife carried Amal, 2 years old and she joined me.”

However, according to Kawthar: “I carried Suad and my husband carried Amal.” Also, Kawthar's daughter Samar states in the video, “my father carried Amal.”

2) When did the family learn that Samar was injured and not killed?

Khaled testifies to the Goldstone commission:

Of course, we reached the Kamal Idwan Hospital and they confirmed that the three of them were martyred, that is Suad, 3 years old, Samar, 4, and Amal, 3 years old and but [sic] surprisingly enough they told me that Samar, no, she had survived and she was moved to al-Shiffa Hospital.

In contrast, Kawthar and Samar talk about an incident on the way to the hospital, which Khaled did not mention and which contradicts his testimony:

Kawthar: On the way, uh, this girl [Samar], we were, uh, in front of them and she was behind us with her uncle and a soldier saw her. So he told her uncle to throw her on the floor.

Samar: A soldier found me and told him, “Put her down.” He told my uncle, “Put her down. Throw her.” This is what he said and my father carried Amal. Amal is very small. She's 2 years old, and a half, and my elder sister she is 7 and a half years old.

Kawthar: They didn't see us as were running with our girls but when they saw her [Samar] they told her uncle, “Throw her down,” and then they were surprised to see that the girl was still alive. So they told the uncle, “Come back and get her.” So thanks be to God her uncle came back and got her after she was thrown on the floor and then he came back and took her.

Either the family knew that Samar was alive during the alleged incident with the soldier on the way to the house, or the family only found out once they reached the hospital. They can't both be true. Again, either Khaled or Kawthar, or both, are lying.

Conclusion
This analysis is only a partial expose of the many inconsistencies between Khaled and Kawthar Abed Rabbo's testimonies to the Goldstone committee, as well as disparities between the family members' account to Goldstone versus earlier NGO accounts and media reports. While the mission says “it has no reason to doubt the veracity of the main elements of their testimony,” an objective observer would have no trouble identifying literally dozens of reasons to discount the Abed Rabbos' testimony.

Fundamentally Freund: The UN has outdone itself this time

MICHAEL FREUND

Even for a body with a steady and dependable record of demonizing Israel, the UN has truly outdone itself this time. Mustering all the righteous indignation at its disposal, the world organization has deemed itself morally fit to accuse the Jewish state of "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during last winter's conflict in Gaza. These were among the unsavory findings of the 575-page report released on Tuesday by the Goldstone Commission, under the authority of the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The harshness of the report is simply breathtaking. It lambastes Israel for using "collective punishment" and asserts that the IDF's military operations "were carefully planned in all their phases as a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population."

Israel's assault, the report concludes, "was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole," which is about as close as you can come to depicting a country's actions as Nazi-like without actually using the "N" word.

THE PANEL, headed by South African Jewish jurist Richard Goldstone, also recommended that Israel be given three months to launch its own investigations "in conformity with international standards" or face possible referral by the UN Security Council to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Jewish state and its wartime leaders now face the prospect of being hauled before the very same tribunal that is pursuing the perpetrators of genocide in Darfur and the murder and conscription of children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Sure, the report also accused the Palestinians of similar violations of international law, but we all know perfectly well just how this is going to play around the world.

In short, the Goldstone report is nothing less than a political pogrom, one which reeks of anti-Semitism, moral relativism and bias. It has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with a political agenda which seeks to isolate the Jewish state, besmirch its good name and pressure it into making concessions to its enemies.

More than 60 years may have passed since the State of Israel was founded, but clearly much of the world still seems incapable of forgiving us for having the gall to defend ourselves.

Various legal experts have already weighed in, asserting that Israel has little to fear from the report in the form of practical consequences because of jurisdictional and other issues. They point to the fact that its recommendations are not binding, and that in any event Israel is not a party to the treaty which established the court at The Hague.

All that may be true, but regardless of the legal ramifications, this is a body-blow in political and diplomatic terms. It reinforces all the hostile propaganda that has been hurled in Israel's direction over the years by the Palestinians and their supporters, and enshrines Israel alongside thugs such as Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and Liberia's Charles Taylor as modern-day war criminals.

WORSE YET, the fact that the report bears the imprimatur of a panel headed by a prominent international Jewish jurist will make it that much more difficult to counter the slanders it contains, as people will naturally assume that the ethnic identity of its author shields against any possible underlying anti-Israel partiality.

Whether Goldstone consciously sought to lay this outrageous document at Israel's doorstep just days before Rosh Hashana is debatable, and we may never truly know. But in a sense that he surely never intended, its timing could not possibly have been more fortuitous.

Starting with Rosh Hashana, Israel is entering a period of judgment, an annual rite of passage when the creator of the world assesses us both individually and collectively and determines our fates for the coming year.

In contrast to Goldstone and his ilk, this is one tribunal where we can and will get a fair hearing, from a judge who truly has our best interests at heart and wishes to dispense justice tempered with mercy.

The slap in the face that the UN has given Israel is a timely reminder that we cannot place our trust in man, or rely on him to adjudicate on our behalf. It is a sharp and unpleasant signal that Israel remains very much alone among the nations, maligned and misunderstood.

Surely, we must criticize and condemn the Goldstone report with every ounce of our being, and redouble our efforts to explain Israel and its cause. But the onset of the High Holy Days presents us with a unique and far more powerful opportunity.

"Everything that happens on a day-to-day basis has already been decreed on the previous Rosh Hashana and will be reevaluated and judged on the upcoming Rosh Hashana," writes Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, chief rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem, in his brilliant work Thoughts for the Month of Elul. "All the headlines of the upcoming year, may they be for the good, will be written in Heaven on Rosh Hashana and will only be published later, when the events themselves transpire."

Each of us, then, now has an opportunity in the coming days to literally write the future. Through our prayers and our actions, we can influence events and sway the heavenly verdict in Israel's favor. We can write the coming year's headlines through the power of our pleas and the resonance of our repentance.

If you believe, as I do, that there is a God who actively intervenes and guides the course of history while granting us free will, then by necessity the course of the future has yet to be finalized.

So this Rosh Hashana, let's strike a blow at all the Goldstones and Israel-bashers out there, and channel our passions in the direction of prayer. Let's show the UN what we think of its courts and their rulings, by going over their heads and appealing to a much higher authority. For in doing so we can be assured that justice will, for once, finally be served.
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