by Jonathan Rosenblum
An intolerable, intractable situation.
Two things are ever clearer about the current situation in Sderot. The first is that it is intolerable; the second, that nobody has any clear idea of what to do about it. "There are no good answers, no good options," says Gerald Steinberg, director of Bar Ilan University's Center of Conflict Resolution.
Two weeks ago, under heavy Kassam fire from Gaza, over half of Sderot's 24,000 citizens had fled the city. Three-quarters of the city's children are suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress, and over a dozen Jews have been killed by Kassams. In peak season, residents find themselves scurrying for cover, after the sounding of the Red Dawn alert system, five or more times a day. In short, Sderot has become a place that no one would continue to live in, if they had the slightest alternative.
The great fear hovering over Israel's Jews is that this border town, populated mostly by immigrants from Arab lands, who were shunted to the periphery of the country over half a century ago and newer Russian immigrants, could easily become a model for other Israeli towns and cities.
Already Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin ...   more »

Hal Lindsey
Last week, WorldNetDaily reported a stunning admission from a Syrian official. He said that Syria had "learned from the Hezbollah experience last summer and we can have hundreds of missiles hitting Tel Aviv that will overwhelm Israel's anti-missile batteries."
He claimed Syria has "proof" Israel is also readying for a war. "We hear about special Israeli trainings to take Damascus. We see that Israel is re-establishing bases of the Israeli army in the Golan that are unusual and not needed except for war. We believe the Israeli government has an interest in confronting Syria to rehabilitate its image of losing to Hezbollah."
The WorldNetDaily report also says that Damascus believes newly-installed Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, "wants to prove he is a military expert." This information is perfectly in line with the official statements made by both Bashar Assad and Mushen Bilal to several major Arab newspapers.
Furthermore, London's Daily Telegraph reported June 25 that Tehran was establishing a missile defense shield for Syria. Iran is also preparing to ship sophisticated military hardware, including "dozens of medium-range Shahab-3 and Russian-made Scud-C missiles, together with Scud-B missiles."
Syria recently test-fired two Scud-D surface-to-surface missiles that ...   more »

Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs said he has received approval from the U.S. and Europe for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
"If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the U.S. will support us,” Avigdor Lieberman said following a meeting with NATO and European Union officials.
Lieberman said the Western powers recognized the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel, Israel Today magazine reported. But military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are "going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities,” and they are sending the message that Israel should "prevent the threat herself.”
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President Vladimir Putin yesterday signalled that Russia was on a new and explosive collision course with Nato when he dumped a key arms control treaty limiting the deployment of conventional forces in Europe.
Putin said Moscow was unilaterally withdrawing from the Soviet-era Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty because of 'extraordinary circumstances that affect the security of the Russian Federation', the Kremlin said. These required 'immediate measures'.
The treaty governs where Nato and Russia can station their troops in Europe. Moscow's decision to bin it suggests that Putin's talks earlier this month with President George Bush came to nothing, and that the Kremlin has reverted to its earlier belligerent mood. The Kremlin has for months been bitterly incensed by the Bush administration's decision to site elements of its missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Putin has derided American claims that the Pentagon system is designed to shoot down rogue missiles fired by Iran and North Korea. Instead he says the target is Russia.
Last month he said the US could use a former Soviet radar system in Azerbaijan instead. But during his seaside summit this month with Putin at the Bush family's Maine home, President Bush rejected ...   more »

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended the application of a key Cold War arms control treaty.
Mr Putin signed a decree citing "exceptional circumstances" affecting security as the reason for the move.
Russia has been angered by US plans to base parts of a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The US said it was "disappointed" by Russia's decision but would "continue to have discussions with them in the coming months" on how to proceed.
The 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) limits the number of heavy weapons deployed between the Atlantic Ocean and the Urals mountains.
The Russian suspension will become effective 150 days after other parties to the treaty have been notified, President Putin's decree says.
'Cornerstone'
The suspension is not a full-scale withdrawal - but it means that Russia will no longer permit inspections or exchange data on its deployments.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said Moscow was not "shutting the door to dialogue".
"We have submitted to our partners proposals on ways out of the situation. And we continue to wait for a constructive reaction," Mr Kislyak said.
A Nato spokesman echoed White House sentiments, saying the alliance "regretted" Russia's decision. ...   more »

Is the Federal Reserve the protector of America's money policy and financial well-being, as routinely portrayed by the establishment press?
Or is it, as critics have long alleged, an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite?
A stunning, in-depth documentary now answers this question – and the answer is more than surprising. It's shocking.
"The Money Masters: How Banks Create the World's Money" is comprehensive and authoritative. This three-and-a-half-hour fast-paced historical documentary throws back the veil of deceit hiding the origins and operations of the corrupt banking elite that clandestinely controls America far more than most people realize.
But many of those in power, past and present, do realize:
"I sincerely believe ... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." – Thomas Jefferson
"Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money." – Daniel Webster
"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute ...   more »

By Frank J Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times | July 13, 2007
Future historians will doubtless dissect with care the mindset of the current generation of American policymakers and legislators, and the public whose fate they help determine. Votes in coming days in the Senate will be among the evidence examined in the hopes of answering a question that will, with hindsight, be asked by many: What on earth were they thinking?
That question, of course, is often posed on what the West's leaders and their peoples could possibly have had in mind as first they ignored, then tried to appease, the rising power and growing malevolence of Adolf Hitler and his fellow totalitarians. Couldn't they see what is so clear to us now: Such behavior on the part of freedom-loving nations would only put them at greater risk?
The answer, of course, is that the broad nature of the peril, if not all its particulars, could be foreseen — and was, at the time, by some like Winston Churchill. But the vast majority of his countrymen and others who would soon find themselves at war, enslaved or dead, preferred to listen to those who promised conflict could be avoided: ...   more »

U.S. counterterror officials are warning of an increased risk of an attack this summer, given al-Qaida's apparent interest in summertime strikes and increased al-Qaida training in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.
On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a "gut feeling" about a new period of increased risk.
He based his assessment on earlier patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence he would not disclose.
"Summertime seems to be appealing to them," Chertoff said in his discussion with the newspaper about terrorists. "We worry that they are rebuilding their activities."
Other U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, shared Chertoff's concern and said that al-Qaida and like-minded groups have been able to plot and train more freely in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border in recent months. Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in the rugged region.
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Across town from the site of the recent attempted car-bomb attacks, several thousand Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government – a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America.
"One day my dear Muslims," shouted Anjem Choudary, "Islam will govern Britain!"
The Muslim leader's charge, along with interviews with protesters and a "literal foaming-at-the-mouth" diatribe by another speaker, were captured on tape June 22 by nationally syndicated talk radio host Rusty Humphries.
Humphries, who was in London with WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein, recorded angry Muslim leader Abu Saif, who kept his voice at a fever pitch through declarations such as: "Brothers and sisters, make no mistake. Make no mistake. The British government, the queen, ...
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Iran has asked Japanese refiners to pay in yen currency for all crude oil purchases in an apparent attempt to reduce the Middle Eastern country's US dollar holdings, a news report said Saturday.
Iran, in a standoff with the US over its uranium enrichment program, has asked to switch to yen-based transactions immediately, Japan's Kyodo News agency reported, citing an unidentified oil industry official.
Japanese refiners were considering the proposal, received Wednesday from the state-run National Iranian Oil Co, but were reluctant to make the switch because they saw no advantages to it, the official was quoted as saying.
Iran has refused to halt its uranium enrichment program, despite the threat of UN sanctions, saying it only wants to produce electricity. Washington accuses Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran has already taken other measures to reduce its dependence on the US currency. Earlier this year, Tehran announced it had begun pulling its foreign currency accounts out of European banks to protect its assets from possible sanctions.
Tokyo has been reducing its Iranian oil imports amid the nuclear standoff. Still, Iran remains Japan's fourth-largest oil supplier, shipping 1.59 million kiloliters (11,130 barrels) of crude in May according to Japan's ...   more »

By Zev Wallack
Land of My Birth - Sixty years ago, on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Av 5707 (1947), an immigration ship by the name of "Leaving Europe 5707" (also known as "Exodus 1947") arrived in Eretz Yisrael. This was a fairly small ship that the Hagannah had bought from US Navy surplus, and 4,500 refugees from Europe had been packed into it. As soon as the ship left France British warships began to follow it, with a fighter plane flying overhead at all times.
Any reasonable person could see that this was not going to be a fair fight. It was clear that the "illegal immigrants" would be able to use only hand weapons, in order to avoid giving the British an excuse to use live ammunition, which might have led to a terrible slaughter. Here is how the struggle was described by Aharon David Kurtz (Adar):
"We began our preparations for a `battle` against seven British destroyers. Our small and creaky vessel, when compared to their warships, clearly demonstrated the great par between the forces, giving us the feeling that 'we were like grasshoppers... in their eyes' [Bamidbar 13:33]. But we still did not say, 'Let us ...   more »

An Israeli biopharmaceutical start-up is developing a treatment for cancer patients designed to harness the power of the patient's immune system in order to destroy cancer cells in the body.
The potentially revolutionary immunotherapy drug, developed by Shoham-based company Immunovative Therapies, incorporates living immune cells as the active ingredient in the treatment, stimulating the body's own immune system to fight the tumor. The drug, AlloStim, has already been successfully tested in animal trials, and Phase I/II clinical trials on patients with advanced blood cancer will begin at the end of this year, or the start of 2008.
Cancer is a growing problem worldwide. Over recent decades, the incidence of cancer has escalated dramatically, now striking nearly one in two men, and more than one in three women. In the US alone, 1.2 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year, and half of them die as a result of the disease. The National Cancer Institute estimates that the number of cancer cases will increase further as the population ages.
"The battle against cancer is a battle we are losing," admits Michael Har-Noy, founder and CEO of Immunovative Therapies. But he hopes to be part of the change in the battle ...   more »

A federal policy that bans Canadians from listing Jerusalem, Israel, as their birthplace on their passport does not violate the Charter of Rights, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal has ruled.
In 2006, Eliyahu Veffer, a 19-year-old Canadian citizen born in Jerusalem, requested that the minister of foreign affairs list Israel as his country of birth on his Canadian passport. His request was rejected, and last week a three-judge panel ruled against his appeal.
"Mr. Veffer has not been discriminated against in that his human dignity has not been invaded," the judges wrote. "Mr. Veffer still maintains the freedom to express his faith and his subjectively held views as to the status of Jerusalem, he is just not able to do so in his Canadian passport."
The decision maintains that the ban on listing Israel as the birth country alongside Jerusalem is not discriminatory, despite the fact that Israel is the only country that is banned from being listed when cities in disputed territories are concerned.
The appeals court wrote that Veffer's passport was no more than a travel document showing proof of citizenship and "there is no evidence that the absence of a country name beside Jerusalem hinders his ...   more »

Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in Canada on Thursday to discuss greater involvement by Canada in Middle East peace talks and a potential new trade deal between the two countries.
The 45-year-old monarch is expected to ask Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to consider a role for Canada as a broker, particularly in talks to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Jordan is one of the few Arab states that recognizes Israel, and is actively trying to kick-start a new peace process.
The Conservative Canadian government's more pro-Israeli stance is not perceived as an obstacle to Canada's participation, said Nabil Barto, Jordan's ambassador to Canada.
"The Canadian government is very strong in its commitments to both sides, the Israeli side and the Palestinian side," Barto said.
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Nasrallah's control over south Lebanon complete despite presence of UN troops
Majdi Halabi
A year has passed since the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, yet it appears that nothing has changed in south Lebanon. The entire region still belongs to Hizbullah. Nothing happens there without the organization's approval. 
Even weddings are coordinated with Hizbullah activists so that everything is orderly and no "undesirable songs" are played, heaven forbid, that praise another leader except for Nasrallah – I was told of this by a Lebanese friend who resides in the south of the country. He says that members of the organization take care of everything. The money available to close associates there is doing its job, and the southern villages show absolute loyalty to Hizbullah and to Nasrallah.  
Hizbullah members transferred huge sums to the south and earmarked funds to rebuilding homes destroyed by the IDF during the war. In some cases the organization even earmarks funds for people who lost their jobs.  
Hizbullah's control in the south is absolute not only in civilian matters, but also when it comes to military affairs. Recently, many Hizbullah flags were hung on 10-meter high (roughly 30 feet) flagpoles under the ...   more »