by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) On Wednesday, the last day of the Sukkot festival, a 34-person delegation from West Papua presented a large amount of gold to be used in the building of the Holy Temple.
The delegation from West Papua presents the gold for the Holy Temple to Rabbi Yehuda Glick, director of the Temple Institute.
The delegation, including representatives of the nation’s government, explained that they study the Bible regularly and recently came upon a verse in Zecharia (6:16) reading “And the distant ones will come and build the Temple of G-d.” They discussed the passage among themselves and decided that their faith obligates them to fulfill the verse.
West Papua, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, is rich in gold mines, so the delegation thought it natural to donate gold for the Holy Temple. The Holy Temple will be built in the place where the First and Second Temples once stood – on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
The group heard of the Temple Institute in Israel, which deals with advancing the building of the Temple, and on Hoshana Raba - the 7th day of Sukkot - the delegation arrived at the Institute's headquarters in Jerusalem’s Old City and presented ...   more »

The lid of secrecy covering the Sept. 6 Israeli air strike into Syria remains tight but one new theory emerging amid the speculation is that the Israeli conducted an electronic warfare exercise in preparation for future strikes or an attack on Iran.
Authoritative reports from the Middle East stated that the Israel operation included extensive electronic warfare jamming by aircraft. The Israeli were testing the capabilities of Russian-made air defenses, including both radar and missiles located near Damascus and south of Homs near the Lebanese northern border.
The raid was unprecedented in the blanket of jamming and electronic disruption that it caused over wide areas of Syria enroute to the target point, a base near the Euphrates River.
The jamming also affected parts of Lebanon and Israel but Syria was able to get a small amount of sensor information from one of its electronic eavesdropping stations and spot the Israeli infiltration.
The raid was part of a U.S. “masint” operation according to this theory, referring to the military practice known as measurement and signature intelligence that is designed to learn the chrematistics and capabilities of all weapons in a region that emanate electronic signals. The masint signatures are needed for ...   more »

Gil Hoffman
National Union-National Religious Party chairman Benny Elon proved that peace plans were not limited to the Left on Sunday when he presented his solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - a plan dubbed the "Israeli initiative."
At a press conference at Tel Aviv's Beit Sokolow, Elon repeatedly referred to peace and spoke about the need to help the Palestinian people. Elon launched a million-dollar advertising campaign to promote his plan on some 400 billboards and in the Hebrew and English press, as well as through a Web site in Hebrew, English, Arabic, Russian, French, Spanish and German.
The 16-page plan will be distributed to thousands of decision-makers in Israel, the US, Europe and Arab countries. The money for the campaign was raised from Israeli and American Jewish donors.
Elon said he had decided a different approach was needed to solve the Middle East conflict, one not based on Israeli territorial compromises. He purposely released the plan, which he had been working on for months, ahead of the upcoming summit between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"The political discourse in Israel consists of old-fashioned concepts and mistakes," Elon said. "The assumptions are that in order ...   more »

Caroline Glick
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is moving boldly down the rabbit hole. Next week, Rice is due back in the Middle East for meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The purpose of her upcoming visit, like her previous ones, will be to pressure the Olmert government and the Fatah terror organization to reach "substantive agreements" that she'll be able to present to the world at her peace summit in Maryland next month.
It is far from clear what American interests Rice is advancing with her unswerving effort to reach a peace accord between Israel and Fatah. Indeed, Rice's efforts are detrimental to US interests in the region.
On Tuesday, 77 senators signed a letter to Rice regarding her plans for the summit. Among other things, the senators called on the Arab states, which Rice hopes will participate, to "recognize Israel's right to exist and not use such recognition as a bargaining chip for future Israeli concessions."
The senators' warning was well placed. Far from cooperating with the US, the Arab world is undercutting its policies. Not only are the Arabs - including Egypt and Jordan - distancing themselves from Israel; in a direct slap at the US, the ...   more »

Devastating Earthquake May Threaten Middle East's Near Future, Geologist Predicts
Science Daily — The best seismologists in the world don’t know when the next big earthquake will hit. But a Tel Aviv University geologist suggests that earthquake patterns recorded in historical documents of Middle Eastern countries indicate that the region’s next significant quake is long overdue.
Damage in Jerusalem's Old City following a July 11, 1927, earthquake. One of the first earthquakes on the Dead Sea Fault to be recorded by modern seismographic techniques, it reached 6.2 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was in the northern part of the Dead Sea. (Credit: American Colony Hotel, American Colony Collection) A major quake of magnitude seven on the Richter scale in the politically-fragile region of the Middle East could have dire consequences for precious holy sites and even world peace, says Tel Aviv University geologist Dr. Shmulik Marco. In light of this imminent danger, Marco, from the school’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, has taken an historical approach to earthquake forecasting by using ancient records from the Vatican and other religious sources in his assessment. The past holds the key to the future, he says.
“All of us in the ...   more »

Five former State Department and Pentagon officials tell Rice that Israeli and Palestinian capitals should be established in Jerusalem, Arab refugees to return only to future Palestinian state
Five former State Department and Pentagon officials are proposing Israeli and Palestinian capitals in Jerusalem and excluding Arab refugees from returning to Israel as part of an Middle East accord.  
In a six-page policy statement submitted to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, they also suggested a series of peace conferences following the one she hopes to convene next month, probably in Annapolis, Maryland, near Washington.  
Hamas, which controls Gaza and about one-third of Palestinian-held land, has not met US terms for attending. Those conditions are recognizing Israel's right to exist and abandoning violence against the Jewish state.
But the ex-officials suggested Hamas might be drawn to attend a second conference, which implicitly would accept the first one and Israel's existence. They called the role of Hamas the most difficult issue in peacemaking.
Jerusalem's future and that of Palestinian refugees have snarled past US peace efforts. Former President Bill Clinton's mediation efforts between the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak envisioned sharing Jerusalem.
Clinton ruled out ...   more »

Iranian leader says during Jerusalem Day rally in Tehran, 'Let a referendum be held in Palestine on the transfer of Zionists to Europe, Canada or Alaska.' Adds: Israel committed crimes under pretext of the Holocaust
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned "the atrocities of the Zionist regime against the oppressed Palestinian people," the IRNA news agency reported Friday.
According to the regime's mouthpiece, the president suggested holding a referendum on the transfer of Israel's Jews to Europe, Canada or Alaska.
"Let all Palestinians including Muslims, Christians and the Jews attend the referendum," he added.  
IRNA said Ahmadinejad repeated an earlier suggestion to Europe on the "settlement of Zionists in Europe or in big lands such as Canada and Alaska so they would be able to own their own land".
Ahmadinejad further stated that "the creation of the Zionist regime, the continuation of its existence and unlimited support for the regime (by the US) are an insult to human dignity."  
"Defense for the ominous interests of the Zionist regime is a must for certain powers. Western governments who are pioneers of secularism pursue defense for the Zionist regime as the holiest task in the world," the president was quoted as ...   more »

Millions of Iranians attended nationwide rallies Friday in support of the Palestinians, while the country's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel's continued existence was an "insult to human dignity."
"The creation, continued existence and unlimited (Western) support for this regime is an insult to human dignity," Ahmadinejad said. "The occupation of Palestine is not limited to one land. The Zionist issue is now a global issue."
Ahmadinejad's remarks came as millions of Iranians held rallies across Iran to protest Israel's continued control of Jerusalem.
The demonstrations for "Al-Quds Day" - Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem - also spilled over into anti-American protests because of US support for Israel.
In the capital Teheran, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets as they chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Some protesters also burned American and Israeli flags.
State television reported similar large rallies in all other provincial capitals and smaller towns across Iran.
The Iranian president once again said Palestinians should not pay any price because Europeans committed crimes against Jews in World War II. He said they could give a part of their own land in Europe or Alaska so that the Jews can establish ...   more »

Prior to 1996, the wireless age was not coming online fast enough, primarily because communities had the authority to block the siting of cell towers. But the Federal Communications Act (1996) made it virtually impossible for communities to stop construction of cell towers —even if they pose threats to public health and the environment. Since the decision to enter the age of wireless convenience was politically determined for us, we have forgotten well-documented safety and environmental concerns and, with a devil-may-care zeal that is lethally short-sighted, we have incorporated into our lives every wireless toy that comes on the market as quickly as it becomes available. We behave as if we are addicted to radiation. Our addiction to cell phones has led to harder "drugs" like wireless Internet. And now we are bathing in the radiation that our wireless enthusiasm has financed. The addicted, uninformed, corporately biased and politically-influenced may dismiss our scientifically-sound concerns about the apocalyptic hazards of wireless radiation. But we must not. Instead, we must sound the alarm.
By Amy Worthington
Illa Garcia wore jewelry the first day she went back to work as a fire lookout for the state of California in the summer of 2002. ...   more »