by Rabbi Yaakov Salomon
Nobody's perfect. God understands that. Let's try to understand that too.
We find ourselves at a most pivotal point in the calendar. Rosh Hashana is swiftly approaching. It is that time of year when we review our behavior and ask God for forgiveness. But our Sages teach us that there is a strategy that we can employ that gives us an edge in getting the pardon we so desire. That is our ability to forgive others. When we demonstrate our willingness and capacity to absolve others of the misdeeds they afflict on us, we, in a sense, "model" the conduct that we hope God will bestow upon us.
Nobody's perfect. We need to remember that, especially when the small stuff seems to matter to us more than it should. In fact, that's a great place to begin practicing the forgiveness thing.
A few examples:
Parking Double
Does it bother you when you are late for something or someone, and you are seeking that rare, all too valuable parking space, and then you notice that someone has parked his vehicle with incredible mathematical precision and he is occupying two parking spaces?
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Judges ask State to explain why it won't establish special broadcasting authority in West Bank. Left-wing group: Our stance has been reinforced
Meirav Crystal
The High Court of Justice on Thursday ordered the State to explain within 10 days why it won't work to establish a special broadcasting authority in the West Bank area.  
According to the law, the Second Authority for Television and Radio cannot impose its authority in the territories, and therefore a tender for a license to broadcast in the territories is illegal.
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Head of Military Intelligence research division tells Knesset committee Damascus simultaneously boosting ties with West, radical countries. Adds: Hamas establishing bona fide country in Gaza
Amnon Meranda
"Syria is moving forward along the path of peace and openness toward the West while simultaneously strengthening its ties to the radical axis," the head of the research division of Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday.
Addressing the Iranian nuclear program, Baidatz said "the most optimistic scenario as far as the Iranians are concerned is that they will have obtained nuclear capabilities by 2010," but added that such a scenario was "not likely".
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Yaakov Katz ,
The US Department of Defense has notified Congress of a potential sale to Israel of 1,000 smart bombs capable of penetrating underground bunkers, which would likely be used in the event of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
The notification to Congress was made over the weekend by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the branch of the Pentagon responsible for evaluating foreign military sales. Congress has 30 days to object to the deal.
The deal is valued at $77 million and the principal contractor would be Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
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by Gil Ronen
(IsraelNN.com) The Muslim Fatah-controlled authority in Judea and Samaria is encouraging a "sharp demographic shift" in Bethlehem, where the Christian population went from a 60 percent majority in 1990 to a 40 percent minority in 2000, to about 15 percent of the city's total population today.
It is estimated that, for the past seven years, more than one thousand Christians have been emigrating from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000 Christians remain in the city. International human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, who teaches at Hebrew University, told the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs that, under the PA-Fatah regime, Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims.
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by Ze'ev Ben-Yechiel
(IsraelNN.com) "The notion of a Greatr Israel no longer exists, and anyone who still believes in it is deluding themselves," said Ehud Olmert, in what is likely to be his last cabinet meeting as Prime Minister.
"Forty years after the Six Day War ended, we keep finding excuses not to act. This isn't doing Israel any good,” said Olmert to the members of his cabinet.
Olmert warned that unless Israel gives up more land, it will face pressure from overseas to grant all PA Arabs citizenship in a single state of two nationalities. “The international community in starting to view Israel as a future binational state. We can prove that we have been more creative than the other side through the years, and that they have been more obstinate, but as usual, we will win the debate by not losing sight of what's really important.”
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Tovah Lazaroff
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has discussed with the Palestinians transferring to them 98.1 percent of the West Bank, Channel 2 reported on Sunday evening.
The report on the ongoing negotiations was broadcast in advance of Tuesday's planned meeting between Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Prime Minister's Office declined to comment on the news item and said only that many such media reports had been published in the last months regarding the talks.
Earlier in the day, during what could be his last cabinet meeting before he becomes the head of a transitional government, Olmert addressed Israel's relationship to the West Bank when he spoke of a voluntary evacuation bill to help relocate settlers living east of the security barrier.
"The vision of a greater Israel no longer exists. Those who speak of it are delusional," the prime minister said. No vote was taken on the measure.
According to Channel 2, however, Olmert is considering concessions far beyond land east of the barrier and could transfer 98.1% of the West Bank to the PA. That is significantly more than the 94% to 96% that had been discussed in previous negotiations.
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New Book Details Mishaps That Have Likely Delayed Iran's Efforts To Go Nuclear
By ELI LAKE,
WASHINGTON — Israel and America are intensifying a clandestine war against Iran that has run hot and cold since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but has grown more urgent as Iran races to obtain an atomic bomb.
That is a central claim in a new book, "The Secret War with Iran," by an Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, who also details a series of mishaps during the past 2 1/2 years that have likely delayed Iran's efforts to go nuclear.
While President Bush and other Western leaders have warned of the seriousness of the threat that Iran may obtain a nuclear weapon, little reporting has surfaced in the West on the efforts in the shadows to stop the Iranians. Mr. Bergman himself has had to skate a close line in this area, in part because of military censorship in Israel, where some of his reporting has been withheld from publication pending rulings from the Israeli Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, the Israeli
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday sounded a defeatist note as he declared before his gathered cabinet that the idea of "Greater Israel" is a thing of the past, and that Jews living in their biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria must make way for the emergence of a 23rd Arab state.
"Greater Israel is over. There is no such thing," insisted Olmert, as he belittled anyone who continues to cling to Israel's biblical rights to all the land west of the Jordan River as "delusional."
Olmert went on, however, to admit that just a few short years ago, he was one of those who believed in Israel's divine and historical rights to those lands.
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