Mike Hochman cannot wait till the first match of the new Israeli professional baseball league on Sunday
My name is Mike Hochman and I'm a player in the new Israel Baseball League. This league is the brainchild of Larry Baras, from Boston. He had the dream to create a professional baseball league in Israel years ago and, on June 24th, 2007, his dream comes to fruition.  
Players from all over the world were scouted and drafted in to this league. The hope is the talent level will be on par with 'A' Minor-league baseball. When I was perusing some of the other players and their bios I was a little taken aback.  
There are players from the Dominican Republic that are the "real-deal". Some of these guys have howitzers attached to their shoulders, jet-packs for legs, and the "pop" to crank out homers to all fields. I'm sure I'm going to see some fantastic athletic feats in the next couple of months.  
Why am I keeping this diary? Because I think the idea of pro-baseball in Israel is worth sharing. Baseball is unique to other sports; there is no clock, so the game unfolds at its own ...   more »

Rabbi Avraham Yosef, son of Shas’ spiritual leader, rules that children may not be named after the founder of Zionism, whom he defines as ‘evil’
A person’s name may not be changed under any circumstances, unless it is either "Herzl" or "Nimrod," in which case it must be changed, Rabbi Avraham Yosef ruled this week.  
During a radio show on which he replies to halachic questions, the rabbi, son of Shas’ spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef, was asked by a listener whether names should be changed if, for instance, the bride and her mother-in-law share the same name.  
The rabbi answered that a name must never be changed, though another name can be added to the first name, unless one carries the name of “an evil, indecent figure” like Herzl, the founder of Zionism, or the biblical Nimrod. “One must be careful not to name his children by these names,” Yosef stressed.   
The rabbi’s ruling, and his statement that Herzl was an evil person, is surprising in light of the fact that Yosef serves as the chief rabbi of the city of Holon on behalf of the Chief Rabbinate – an institution that is affiliated with the State ...   more »

Hamas will go after "Israeli spies" in Gaza and might use bombs in its struggle with Fatah in the West Bank, a leading Hamas hardliner in Gaza was quoted as saying Saturday.
The comments by Mahmoud Zahar, a founding member of Hamas, suggested that his group's offer of amnesty to Fatah members was not ironclad and that Hamas would try to destabilize the Fatah-controlled West Bank.
Zahar, who is close to the Hamas military wing, spoke in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. His comments were published on the magazine's Web site.
Hamas: Fatah gave information to Israel
Zahar is widely seen as one of the key players in Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza in mid-June. He staunchly opposed the brief government coalition between Hamas and Fatah and leads the movement's hard-line wing.
In response to the takeover, the security forces of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas arrested scores of Hamas activists in the West Bank, and Fatah-allied gunmen seized others, in some cases shooting them in the legs.
Zahar said Hamas loyalists in the West Bank would defend themselves in the same way they had targeted Israel during years of the Palestinian uprising - with bombs and ...   more »

By Charles Krauthammer    
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
EDITOR'S NOTE: There is no sovereign state of "Palestine". The author, for reasons known only to him, has chosen to call territory won by Israel in a defensive war with this name.
Gaza is now run not by a conventional political party but by a movement that is revolutionary, Islamist and terrorist. Worse, Hamas is a client of Iran. Gaza now constitutes the farthest reach of the archipelago of Iranian proxies: Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Mahdi Army (among others) in Iraq and the Alawite regime of Syria.
This Islamist mini-replica of the Comintern is at war not just with Israel but with the moderate Arab states, who finally woke up to this threat last summer when they denounced Hezbollah for provoking the Lebanon war with Israel. The fall of Gaza is particularly terrifying to Egypt because Hamas is so closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the chief Islamist threat to the secular-nationalist regime that has ruled Egypt since the revolution of 1952. Which is why Egypt has just invited Israeli, Jordanian and moderate Palestinian leaders to a summit next week — pointedly excluding and isolating Hamas.
The splitting of Palestine into ...   more »

By Barry Rubin      
A sobering article that the Bush administration, EU and any other would-be "humanitarian" should read
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | During World War One, Germany concluded that its chief ally, Austria-Hungary, was more of a burden than an asset. As one German official put it, being in that alliance was like being "shackled to a corpse."
And more than a century earlier, it was said of the doomed French dynasty, the Bourbons, that they learned nothing and forgot nothing.
Welcome to the alliance with Fatah, sort of Austria-Hungary and the Bourbons rolled up into one. The group is now ruler of a West Bank-only semi-state after Hamas captured the Gaza Strip from it. The United States is backing Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas with aid and probably military assistance. Israel's government will do everything possible to preserve that regime, too.
This is a completely logical policy decision. It makes perfect sense given the balance of forces and the overall situation. I understand why it is being done. The problem is that it isn't going to work very well, or at least only to a limited extent. And if we know that now, perhaps this fact should shape policy just ...   more »