Israel Our Home MK David Rotem says if blowing up Western Wall can save a life, he would do it

Roee Nahmias
Israel Our Home MK David Rotem says he is ready to do everything to reach peace, including blowing up the Western Wall.  
Cohen's answer came in response to a question during an interview with Voice of Peace Radio about how his hawkish party can justify remaining in a coalition with a government who is holding talks with the Palestinians, something his party opposed.  
Rotem emphasized that even so-called rightists, in Israel, were pro-peace, adding that he himself would do almost anything to ensure it.   
"If they guarantee to me that by blowing up the Western Wall I can save the life of one person, I will place an explosives device near     
it and destroy it because I am really ready to do everything for peace if I have a real partner for peace," he added.  
Speaking to Ynet later, Rotem said: "I told them they should not accuse me of not caring for the lives of Israeli soldiers and citizens. This was a metaphor to say that if I could save lives I ...   more »

By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent  
A year after the Second Lebanon War, renovations have finally begun on private shelters in the North.
As Haaretz reported two months ago, the 2,443 private shelters, which are located in apartment buildings and serve their residents, are being renovated by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which has raised NIS 43 million for the purpose.
At the same time, the state is renovating some 3,300 public shelters north of the line running from Acre to Amiad. Those renovations will cost some NIS 60 million.   
By law, a public shelter is the municipality's responsibility, while private shelters are the responsibility of each building's residents. However, many northern apartment dwellers cannot afford to renovate their shelters themselves, so IFCJ volunteered to fill the gap.
The actual work will be done by the state-owned Amigur company.
IFCJ said yesterday it had volunteered to fund the renovations immediately after the war, but it wanted the government to resolve certain issues first, such as who would bear overall responsibility for the project, who would grant permits for the renovations and who would be responsible for supervising the shelters' upkeep after the work was finished. However, legal ...   more »

  MI research chief Yossi Baidatz: Hamas and Fatah will clash in West Bank very soon. (IDF Archives) 
MI: Syria increases military activity for fear of an Israeli attack  
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent  
The head of the research division of Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, told lawmakers Sunday that Syria believes that Israel is planning to attack, and has therefore increased its military activity.
Baidatz said, however, that the Syrians are reluctant to go to war, and therefore are not expected to initiate it. While the Syrian army has not altered its deployment along the Golan Heights, it has increased its activity in order to prepare for a possible Israeli attack, he added.
Speaking to the cabinet during its weekly meeting, Baidatz said Syria is closely following the activity on the Israeli side and is highly sensitive to Israel Defense Forces action in the Golan, he said. 
Baidatz said the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah would likely clash in the West Bank very soon.
In June, after five days of bitter clashes between the two groups, Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip, leaving the West Bank largely under Fatah control.
He explained that Fatah's ...   more »

JERUSALEM - Israeli security officials on Monday warned citizens traveling in Egypt, Jordan and other Muslim countries to leave immediately due to a "concrete and severe" threat of terror attacks.  
Israelis anywhere in the world should also be alert to the danger of being kidnapped by operatives from Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, according to the announcement from Israel's National Security Council.
Israeli tourists are allowed to visit Egypt and Jordan, which have peace agreements with Israel. But the council said any Israeli citizens in those countries should cut their trips short.
The council also warned against travel to Morocco, where Israelis can visit with special permission from that country's government, and to Tunisia. But those warnings were less urgent than the "severe" warning for other Muslim states.
The announcement on the council's Web site, a renewal of a travel advisory issued twice a year, also warned Israelis not to travel to Mideastern countries like Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, as well as African nations like Somalia, Djibouti and Chad
Orignal Source

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By David Rubin
“Anyone who believes that Israel can maintain its current hold on all the West Bank is living in a dream.” These confident words were spoken by embattled yet defiant Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as he addressed a Friday gathering of Jordan Valley farmers. One might think that with the obvious Iranian and Hizbullah threats hanging over Israel’s head and the ominous warnings of a senior IDF officer regarding the Hamas buildup in the South, Mr. Olmert would be placing his focus elsewhere. Nonetheless, the issue of the demographic threat to Israel caused by its presence in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) has returned to the front pages.
In order to judge this issue rationally, avoiding the emotional diatribes frequently launched by those on both sides of the issue, it is crucial to examine the facts. As Prime Minister Olmert rightly emphasizes, “Everyone understands that the State of Israel can’t exist without a Jewish majority.” His Convergence/Realignment plan for unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria was based specifically on this perception, the problematic reality of a tiny Jewish population living amongst a large and rapidly rising Palestinian Arab population. Only by relinquishing control of these territories would ...   more »

Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors, youth groups and social organizations to stage mass protest in Jerusalem demanding adequate allowances for Holocaust survivors
Ynet reporters

After Holocaust survivor organizations rejected the government's allowance plan proposal last week as "an insulting offer", thousands are expected to demonstrate Sunday morning for the fair treatment of Holocaust survivors and will demand more adequate aid packages.
 
The "March of the Living" will start opposite the Knesset in Jerusalem and will reach the Prime Minister's Office.
 
'Insulting Offer'
 
Holocaust survivors reject government allowance plan  / Yael Branovsky
 
Heads of Israel’s Holocaust survivor organizations hold emergency meeting following Olmert’s proposal to allocate NIS 130 million in financial assistance in 2008; ‘it seems as though the government considers us a burden and is waiting for the biological solution,’ survivor says  
Full Story
 
 
 
Survivor organizations are demanding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meet with them for direct negotiations, in order to find a suitable solution for those elderly Holocaust survivors who cannot live respectably on the minimal allowances they currently receive.
 
Last Thursday representatives of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors met with Prime Minister's Office Director General ...   more »

New reporting requirements about the US-Saudi relationship, revised visa guidelines that could make it easier for Israelis to visit America, strengthened US-Israel security cooperation and greater protection for high-risk institutions including synagogues are all part of boosted antiterrorism measures signed into law by US President George W. Bush Friday.
The new legislation, which mostly implements unfulfilled recommendations of the September 11 Commission, comes at a time of heightened tension in the US-Saudi relationship. Voices in America are increasingly chastising the Gulf power for not doing more to help stem violence in Iraq and otherwise back US efforts in the Middle East.
That criticism has contributed to congressional displeasure at a planned multi-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, with more than 100 representatives, mostly Democrats, vowing to vote against the deal.
The September 11 Commission, set up to investigate the terror attacks of that day and recommend corrective measures, had found that Saudi Arabia was a "problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism," and called for the US to "confront problems with Saudi Arabia in the open and build a relationship beyond oil, a relationship that both sides can defend to their citizens and includes a shared commitment ...   more »

ALGIERS: Iran's outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Israel to "go find somewhere else" for its state and leave its territory for the creation of a Palestinian state, according to an interview published yesterday. "Our support (for the Palestinian people) is unconditional. As for the Israelis, let them go find somewhere else," Ahmadinejad told several Algerian newspapers ahead of an visit to Algiers that starts Monday.
Iran consistently refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist in the Middle East, and Ahmadinejad sparked outrage abroad by stating after coming to power in 2005 that Israel should be "wiped from the map." He also provoked a storm in June by saying a "countdown" had begun that would end with Lebanese and Palestinian militants destroying Israel, and his government last year hosted a conference on the Holocaust questioning the German Nazis genocide of the Jews during World War II.
In his latest diatribe, the Iranian leader accused Israel of committing "butchery" in the Palestinian territories. Ahmadinejad said, too, that Iran wanted to cooperate with Algeria against terrorism. "Islam bans the assassination of innocent people wherever they are," he said. "We reject all methods of terrorism, whatever the denomination or motive," Ahmadinejad declared. He ...   more »

By Stan Goodenough
Israel and the United States are snakes that are ready to attack other states at any minute, "even if they know they will die."
So said Syrian minister of propaganda Mohsen Bilal in a blistering public attack on Sunday.
Bilal, who is a minister in one of the most vicious and bloodthirsty regimes in the world, also described Israel as an "immoral" nation bereft of principles or values.
He warned that the Syrian government was keeping a close eye on the Golan Heights, which it intends to try and snatch from Israel.
Damascus claims the Golan - a plateau towering over the Sea of Galilee in north-west Israel - to be part of Syria.
But the heights, which were biblically part of the Land of Israel, and which the Balfour Declaration awarded to Israel, has been under Israeli control for over 40 years.
In all of Middle Easter history, Syria has only controlled this area for 20 years.
Original Source

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By Stan Goodenough
The PLO and its Palestinian Authority - the terrorist organizations representing the Palestinian Arabs - announced Thursday that their people were finally satisfied with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The approving comments came after Rice visited with PLO and PA chief Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah during a week-long diplomatic sweep through the Middle East.
Rice, together with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, was in the region to pave the way for an international peace conference the Bush administration plans to sponsor this fall, probably in November.
The universally-desired outcome of that conference is the creation of a Muslim state called Palestine in the heart of the biblical land of Israel.
Only God-fearing Jews and Bible-believing Christians oppose this vision out of conviction that it is in opposition to what God has purposed according to the Bible, that it will further endanger Israel's existence, and that it will result in further widespread death, injury and destruction.
Significantly, whereas "Palestinians" in the past repeatedly questioned the "fairness" of Rice's dealings with them, they now appeared pleased.
"We're very encouraged by this visit because we felt this time that Rice meant business" a senior PA official said, according to ...   more »