Yaakov Katz and Jpost.com staff
Israel successfully launched the Amos 3 communications satellite from Kazakhstan Monday morning.
Takeoff had originally been slated for last week, but was postponed until Monday due to a failure in its launching system.
The satellite, which joins the Amos 1 and 2 in space, will provide high-quality broadcasting and communications services to Europe, the Middle East and the East Coast of the United States.
Army Radio reported Monday that Amos 3 will eventually replace Amos 1.
The satellite was built by Israel Aerospace Industries's MBT Space Division and is to replace the Amos 1, which was initially intended to operate for 11 years but has already been orbiting the Earth for 12.
The new satellite has a predicted operating life of 18 years and will carry a 250 kg. payload, compared to 160 kg. for the other Amos satellites. It is to be placed in a geostationary orbit, 36,000 km. from Earth.
In January, Israel launched the TecSar satellite, the first of its kind developed here, and one of the world's most advanced space systems. The TecSar can create high-resolution images using advanced radar technology called Synthetic Aperture Radar.
In addition to the TecSar and ...   more »

The Sea of Galilee, Israel's main source of fresh water, is dropping rapidly and could reach the dreaded "black line" - below which it is impossible to pump out any more water - in just three months.
According to experts cited in The Jerusalem Post Sunday, this past well-below average winter rainfall, which followed several similarly dry years, and is being aggravated by successive heat waves already experienced this year, is threatening the country with the worst water shortage it has ever known.
Over the week-long Passover holiday the Galilee - known in Israel as Lake Kinneret - dropped by an alarming six centimeters.
Israel's only other fresh-water reservoirs - two mountain acquifers - have also been badly depleted in recent years, and can only go down to a certain level before sea-water pressing in underground from the Mediterranean makes its water brackish and unfit for human consumption.
While Israel is building desalination plants to make sea water palatable, progress on these is painfully slow when seen against the rapidly-growing water need.
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Likud official infers Temple Mount not Jewish holy place

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 Printer-friendly version By Stan Goodenough
October 17, 2007

The head of the Likud Party's foreign relations department gave a massive boost to the claims of Islam - Israel's most implacable enemy - Tuesday when he inferred that Jerusalem's Temple Mount was not sacred to the Jewish people.

Arab and other Muslim leaders and clerics, who assert that the hill is Islam's third holiest site, have long and fiercely maintained that the Jews have no historical connection or claim to the outcrop the Bible calls God's "holy hill."
While secular Jews often appear content to limit their "right" to the Western Wall, Israelis who have the fear of the Lord and who know that their nation's First and Second Temples were built on top of the mount will not agree to relinquishing it to the followers of another god.
Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States, and traditionally a right thinker on Israeli security issues, told a meeting of the Foreign Press Association that the Likud - which is led by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - could allow an Arab or Muslim country to administer the site for ...   more »