by Sara Yoheved Rigler
Passover: Why redemptive things happen to good people.
One day in 1962, something terrible happened to Dick and Judy Hoyt. After nine months of joyful anticipation of the birth of their first child, something went terribly wrong. During the delivery, the umbilical cord coiled around the baby's neck, cutting off oxygen to his brain. The baby was born brain-damaged and quadriplegic, coupled with cerebral palsy. The doctors said that the child would be a vegetable all his life, and recommended putting him into an institution.
Dick and Judy refused. They brought their son Rick home, determined to make the best of the situation. Six years later, when the local public school refused Rick as a student, Dick and Judy themselves taught him the alphabet.
Although Rick could neither talk nor move, Dick and Judy were convinced that he comprehended what was going on around him and that he was as intelligent as his two younger brothers. Rick was 11 years old when his parents raised $5,000 and approached computer engineers at Tufts University to build a computer that would allow Rick to communicate using the only motion he controlled, slight lateral head movements. The engineers refused, ...   more »

By Aaron Klein 
JERUSALEM – Israeli officials here are giving former president Jimmy Carter the cold shoulder for his plans to meet the chief of the Hamas terrorist group, which the U.S. and Israel have been attempting to isolate.   
The State Department and its director, Condoleezza Rice, even criticized Carter for his reported plans to meet Hamas. 
But the Israeli government and Rice have no moral authority whatsoever to judge Carter while they are enabling terrorists far more active than Hamas. 
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzippy Livni, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak all reportedly turned down requests to see Carter, who arrived in Israel today and is due in Syria later this week, where he is likely to meet Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshaal, who resides under protection in Damascus. 
The State Department says it twice advised Carter against meeting any Hamas representative. Rice told reporters this weekend she finds it "hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace." 
Hamas is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. The group is responsible for scores of deadly suicide bombings, and ...   more »

by Hillel Fendel(IsraelNN.com) "When Israel's ideology will collapse, and after we take Jerusalem, Israel's ideology will collapse altogether, and then we will proceed with our own ideology, inshallah [if Allah wills], and we will throw them out of all of Palestine."  So said Abbas Zaki, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to Lebanon on Lebanese television last week, according to a translation by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute).
Expressing strong support for terror attacks against Israel, Zaki said, "We believe wholeheartedly that the Right of Return [of millions of Arabs and their descendants who left Israel in 1948 and 1967 -ed.] is guaranteed by our will, by our weapons, and by our faith." 
Asked if this means he believes "in weapons, not just in negotiations," Zaki said that neither of them is effective by itself: "The use of weapons alone will not bring results, and the use of politics without weapons will not bring results. We act on the basis of our extensive experience. We analyze our situation carefully. We know what climate leads to victory and what climate leads to suicide."
"We talk politics," Zaki said, "but our principles are clear. It was our pioneering leader, Yasser Arafat, who persevered ...   more »

Tovah Lazaroff ,
Former US president Jimmy Carter called on Monday for Hamas and Syria to be brought into the peace process and for the America to open a dialogue with Iran.
"I think it is absolutely crucial that in a final dreamed-about and prayed-for peace agreement for this region, Hamas be involved and Syria be involved," said Carter as he addressed a technology conference hosted by The Marker at Airport City outside of Tel Aviv.
When asked about the Iranian threat, Carter added that his government must "talk directly to Iran." In spite of his Nobel Prize for Peace and his role during his presidency in brokering the 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt, Carter said that his work in the Middle East remained undone.
"One of the un-met needs of my life for the last 30 years has been to help bring permanent peace and security to this country, and also peace and justice to the surrounding communities," said Carter.
He spent Monday explaining that he was simply here on a fact-finding mission for his center.
But throughout the day he spoke of the role he could play in working toward a cease-fire, in the release of ...   more »

Yaakov Katz
Israel is increasingly concerned that the United States will allow the sale of fifth-generation, stealth-enabled Joint Strike Fighter jets - aka the F-35 Lightning II - to Saudi Arabia, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
But while this could pose a major challenge for the IDF, defense officials told the Post on Sunday it also presented Israel with a unique opportunity to ask the Americans for new advanced technology that would not be sold to the Saudis, to enable Israel to retain its qualitative edge in the region.
Two weeks ago, the head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Military Bureau, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, met with Pentagon officials in Washington and reached understandings concerning certain arms purchases. A week earlier, Defense Ministry director-general Pinhas Buchris was at the Pentagon for similar talks.
Defense officials said Sunday that the two visits had been used to present the Americans with a "shopping list" that Israel hoped would be finalized in the coming months. Leading the American side of the talks was Beth McCormick, the acting deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and national disclosure policy.
In June, Gilad met with McCormick to present Israel's objections to a proposed US sale ...   more »