Rabbi Nachman Kahana
Part One: Yalkut Shimoni - Iran will destroy the world
Part Two: Avraham's Disciples
Part Three: Building Walls, Closing Doors
Part One: Yalkut Shimoni, "Iran will destroy the world"
HaShem appoints strange messengers to do His bidding. At times it is a talking donkey or an arch-evil anti-semite, like Bilam, who knows the true value of the Jewish nation, yet desires to destroy us - the only link between humanity and its Creator.
Hashem speaks through the foul mouth and evil thoughts of Bilam as a way of letting the world know that they can never destroy Am Yisrael, despite their diabolical intentions and manipulative, misguided, hypocritical condemnations.
At one point Bilam calls out (Bamidbar 23:9):
From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them.
I see a people who live apart (am le’vadad yishkon)
and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
This week dictators and murderous regimes the world over are celebrating the adoption of the UN Human Rights Council’s reform package that dropped them all from a blacklist, while Israel is placed under permanent indictment.
Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba targeted Israel for permanent indictment under a special ...   more »

Early afternoon found me in one of my favorite places in Israel - a cab - returning from my very favorite place in Israel - the Western Wall. As we wove through Jerusalem's diverse neighborhoods, we passed ancient buildings with centuries of history adjacent to modern commercial buildings, yet, somehow, the scene was not incongruous at all. I sat in (a rare moment of) awed silence, absorbed in the surreal beauty of this timeless city.
Suddenly, I noticed a two-story, concrete, cylindrical building that had obviously been a guard tower during one of Israel's early wars, probably from '48 or '67. It was painted red, which forced a point into my head. "You know," I commented to my taxi driver, "Jewish soldiers could very well have died in this tower, in an effort to secure the Jewish homeland for the Jewish people. And now, politicians are giving away that very land to the same people who haven't stopped trying to annihilate us since it became our homeland."
Thus began our discussion of Israeli politics. As the conversation moved into that murky area between politics and religion, we stumbled upon a question, a contradiction that neither of us could answer. On ...   more »

Palestinians lack true national identity as theirs mostly characterized by hatred towards Israel
Ofir Haivry Published:
The growing political and cultural rift between the Arabs of the Gaza Strip and those residing in Judea and Samaria has stirred debate about the possibility of establishing two separate political entities and the future of Palestinian nationalism in general. Yet perhaps we should be asking whether there ever really was a Palestinian "nation"?
In many places in the world, arbitrary borders set by colonialist powers define a "nation" that do not exist in practice. Is there such thing as a Sudanese "nation" or Iraqi "nation"? Or are we talking about a collection of tribes, groups, and even nations possessing vastly different ways of life, religions, and values that has been gathered together by chance and who are paying a bloody price for this to this very day?    
many areas, the border was drawn in a rather random manner. Had it been performed a little differently, would the Arabs of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon become Palestinian? Would the Arabs of Tarshiha in the Galilee be Lebanese? Are residents of Trans-Jordan, which was initially part of Mandatory Palestine and a few years later became ...   more »

Following an inquiry from The Jerusalem Post, CNN has corrected a feature on its Web site that failed to identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital and which had instead listed it as "Jerusalem, null."
The change was made on Wednesday, after the Post contacted a CNN spokesman in Atlanta, where the company is based, and asked why Israel was referred to in this way by the Web site.
The feature in question appears on the CNN home page, which offers visitors the option of checking the weather at various locations around the world by typing in the name of the desired city.
The page returns a result containing the city name followed by the country in which it is located, such that someone who typed in "Moscow" would receive the weather report for "Moscow, Russia."
But visitors to the site who typed in "Jerusalem" received the weather forecast for "Jerusalem, null," with no mention made of the city's location in the State of Israel.
After being contacted by the Post on Wednesday, CNN spokeswoman Jennifer Martin said that the company had made "a clarification" to the Web site after having received "a few inquiries" on the issue.
The matter was first ...   more »

By Aluf Benn,
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to initiate the evacuation of illegal outposts in the West Bank in the coming months, political sources in the capital said Wednesday.
"This year we will see the evacuation of outposts," the sources said, and the appointment of Ehud Barak to the Defense Ministry will bolster Olmert's ability to deal with this issue.
A short while after taking over from an ailing Ariel Sharon, Olmert ordered the evacuation of nine homes from the Amona outpost in January 2006. The evacuation deteriorated into a violent clash between settlers and security forces, and the prime minister has since avoided evacuating any other outposts in the West Bank.
Several months ago, then defense minister Amir Peretz, presented Olmert with a proposal for the evacuation of several small outposts, but the prime minister rejected the proposal, arguing that an "overall plan is necessary."
The sources pointed out two main reasons for Olmert's change of attitude:
1. A promise made to the United States. Israel promised the U.S. administration, while Ariel Sharon was prime minister, that it would evacuate outposts established after March 2001. This was not carried out despite strong American pressure on Sharon. On ...   more »