Rabbi Nachman Kahana
Parashat Ve’Ata Te’Tzaveh 5768
I am writing this week’s divrei Torah in the lobby of a magnificent hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea, that ancient area of Sodom and Amora and its three sister towns, which were destroyed by HaShem because of their debased ways. (These five cities are not unique. An acquaintance of mine, on his return from a visit to San Fransisco, remarked that if God does not destroy San Francisco, He owes an apology to Sodom and Amora.)
Now, despite its bad track record, or perhaps because of it, this area was chosen by the Ariel Institutions of Yerushalayim for its bi-annual rabbinic conference. For four days, the lowest point on the planet (the Dead Sea) was launched into orbit of keddusha (holiness) by the presence of over 200 of Israel’s leading rabbis in a conference dealing with the Shoah (Holocaust).
It is a constant source of amazement to me how Hashem interlocks the practical plans of Man with His spiritual agenda: 1- The Jewish nation; 2- This week’s parasha; 3- The place which was designated for the conference; and 4- The Shoah, all meshed together in synchronization.
As I gaze at ...   more »

                                                      
 
  By Gerald A. Honigman
     Somebody finally orchestrated justice for a deliberate mass murderer of civilian men, women, and children the other day. Among his numerous other exploits, some four hundred of the latter were killed, maimed, and wounded in an Argentine Jewish Community Center in 1994. 
     Imad Mughniyeh, a chief honcho in Hizbullah, now gets to indulge in the pleasures of his own personal seventy-two virgins awaiting him in Muslim Paradise after being blown apart in Damascus. Israel is blamed as his dispatcher. 
     Hizbullah’s #1, Hassan Nasrallah, rallied thousands of supporters at Mughniyeh’s funeral in Beirut and warned that Jews everywhere (like in Buenos Aires earlier), as well as the Jew of the Nations, would pay dearly. 
     For Nasrallah--as well as the vast majority of his Arab brethren--Jews are still expected to play their age-old, subjugated, dhimmi role. Dhimmis were not allowed to defend themselves if attacked by a Muslim. They could just beg for mercy. Dhimmis could not bring charges against Muslims, had to pay a "protection tax," etc. and so forth. 
      So, no great surprise that when Israel refuses to act like the Muslim East’s or the Christian West’s proverbial ...   more »

By Zafrir Rinat and Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondents, Haaretz Service and AP    
Friday's earthquake shook open a large hole on the Temple Mount plaza, near the Dome of the Rock.
Al-Aqsa mosque officials belonging to the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch covered the hole with wooden planks following afternoon prayers.
The officials, who also said the quake caused cracks in several local residential buildings, said the hole was a meter deep, two meters long and meter and a half wide.
The Islamic Movement blamed Israel for the hole, saying Israel is digging tunnels in the area that undermine the stability in the area of the Al-Aqsa mosque. The organization urged Islamic states to take action to stop Israeli excavations in the area.
Epicenter northeast of Lebanese city of Tyre
A Tel Aviv resident, living on the second floor, said: "We felt the earth move. The bed was rocking, the doors were moving, and the chandeliers were swinging."
In the West Bank, An old house fell onto the main road in Kofin village west of Nablus, blocking it but not hurting anyone.
The earthquake also shook Lebanon and Syria.
Residents in some areas of Beirut left their apartments and went into ...   more »

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS  
  The tens of thousands of dead fish discovered early Saturday morning in the Tiberias marina and suspected to have been poisoned do not pose any threat to the purity of the water in the Kinneret, Water Authority spokesman Uri Shor told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.
The Kinneret.
"We took samples from both the fish and the water and sent them to the lab. There is no threat to the water," he said. The Kinneret is the largest single source of Israel's drinking water.
The Agriculture and Health ministries warned the public on Saturday afternoon not to eat fish bought from unregulated sources in the marina or from elsewhere in the Kinneret.
All fishing in the area was suspended. Teams that examined fish in other markets such as Nazareth did not find any poisoned specimens.
Media reports suggested that fishermen may have used poison to increase their haul. "The fishermen can put an end to it [the poisoned fish] and the fact that they don't is very serious. They can end it easily," Shor told the Post.
Several dead fish from the Kinneret were being analyzed by research labs and test results were ...   more »

If a series of reports in The Jerusalem Post this week is accurate, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is aware of and possibly even directing clandestine talks on the future of Jerusalem.
The back-channel talks, according to these same reports, are looking at ways to divide Jerusalem between Jews and Arabs in a way that the city could be the capital of both the State of Israel and the nascent State of Palestine.
Such dual-track negotiations have been used before, notably leading up to the 1978 Camp David Agreement and resulting in the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Veteran diplomats, at least some who have been involved in trying to find a solution to the century-long Arab-Jewish conflict, believe that because of the strong, in fact intractable positions both sides hold on the so-called core issues - final borders of Israel and “Palestinian,” sovereignty in Jerusalem, the “Palestinian” refugees “right of return,” the allocation of water resources - solutions are unattainable through open talks.
The reasoning is that the constituents on both sides - the Israeli and Palestinian public - will not allow their representatives to go too far down the road towards compromising on these issues before they pull the plug on ...   more »

The Israeli government has been hammered with a succession of reports in the local press this week charging that it is secretly negotiating over the future of Jerusalem with leaders in the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization.
According to investigations carried out by journalists at The Jerusalem Post, the back channel discussions are taking place in tandem with the official talks that have been spurred along under pressure from the United States.
While the official talks are said to be making little progress, the secret discussions are dealing with the de facto division of Jerusalem, with Arab claims to property on both eastern and western sides of the city being put forward.
PLO/PA official Hatem Abdel Qader was quoted in the Post Wednesday as saying that the question of Jerusalem is both "on the table and under the table."
Jerusalem is Israel's 3,000-year-old capital which, after nearly two millennia under gentile rule, was restored to Jewish control by the Six Day War, 40 years ago last year, in what was seen by most Jews and many millions of Christians as a miraculous answer to unbroken centuries of prayer.
During the first decades after 1967, Israeli leaders repeatedly vowed that Jerusalem would ...   more »

By Lina Sinjab  
The bombing took most Syrians by surprise, including the government
It took the Syrian authorities nearly a full day to issue a statement condemning the killing of leading Hezbollah member Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus on Tuesday night.
When it appeared, the statement made no clear accusation of who was behind the car bomb.
The assassination is being taken very seriously and has triggered alarm in Syria, a country that usually keeps a tight hold the security situation.
Hezbollah is a strong ally of Syria and analysts believe the assassination of one of its top members is meant as a message to both Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's other main backer. "This means that the war on Iran has become a reality more than ever before. It is a dangerous security penetration in Syria," says analyst Sami Mubayyed.
Militant guests
The mood in the street is shock. Car bombs are not usual in Syria, a country that is widely viewed as safe by its inhabitants.
Nevertheless, says analyst Dr Firas Shihab, everything appears to be carrying on as normal. 
"Maybe this is because people have confidence in the security services or maybe because they were waiting to know ...   more »

Jewish state on highest alert after assassination of most-wanted terrorist
By Aaron Klein
Imad Mughniyah
JERUSALEM – Israel is on high alert today for retaliatory attacks after Hezbollah deputy commander Imad Mughniyah, one of the most wanted terrorists in the world, was assassinated yesterday in a car bomb blast in Syria.
Mughniyah, responsible for infamous deadly attacks against the U.S. and Israel, including involvement in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, was No. 1 on Israel's most-wanted list of terrorists.
According to defense officials, Mughniyah was the most important Hezbollah operative, directly planning most of the terror group's major operations, including the 2006 raid of Israel's northern border in which two soldiers were kidnapped, promoting Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon that year. The officials said unlike many other terror leaders who could be easily replaced, Mughniyah's death was a major blow to Hezbollah, explaining it would take years to replace him.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office yesterday released a statement denying responsibility for the assassination. An Olmert spokesman today added the prime minister learned of Mughniyah's death through news reports.
Still, Hezbollah directly blamed Israel for the bombing and vowed retaliation. In a recorded speech ...   more »

Court hears challenge to Mexican truck program
Mexican rigs, sometimes with hundreds of safety violations, are headed your way, according to those who are challenging the legality of a Bush administration program to let those trucks, and their drivers, roam the U.S.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has heard arguments in a pair of lawsuits over the administration program that is supposed to be "testing" the procedures that eventually could be used to let thousands of Mexican rigs cruise U.S. roads.
The cases have been brought by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and a coalition of the Sierra Club, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and Public Citizen.
"It makes no sense that while safety and security laws are continually being ratcheted up on U.S.-based drivers and companies, the DOT wants to allow their Mexico-based counterparts to get by with lower standards," Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA, said.
His organization is in court over the Bush program because it alleges the Mexican-based carriers are not meeting U.S. rules and regulations regarding safety.
"Ever since we filed our original legal challenge last September, our attorneys have been chomping at the bit for this day," he said. "We are confident ...   more »

Latvia sent Russians packing on British claims NATO secrets stolen
Vladimir Putin
LONDON – Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up his attacks on Britain by accusing its foreign intelligence agency of feeding Latvia's secret intelligence chief with "bogus evidence" that has led to three Russian diplomats being expelled from the country. The former Soviet Republic now is part of NATO and the diplomats were accused of stealing sensitive military NATO secrets.
The Kremlin has ordered Russian newspapers to mount a media blitz on Latvia's spy agency, SAB, and its British-born director, the burly Janis Kazocins. His liking for English-cut country tweeds and a clipped accent marks him out as a graduate of Sandhurst, Britain's training academy for the army. The son of Latvian refugees to Britain in the post-World War II era, he had been born in the industrial town of Peterborough in the Midlands.
Kazocins had a distinguished career in the army, rising to become a full-blown general who served in Northern Ireland and was a key NATO planner for the first Gulf War. He went on to become military attache at the British Embassy in the Latvian capital, Riga.
In an unexpected move, he resigned his position ...   more »

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
The FBI said Thursday it has put its domestic terror squads on the alert for any threats against synagogues and other potential Jewish targets in the United States following the killing of a Hezbollah commander.
FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said there have been no specific threats so far against any Jewish centers after Tuesday's assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, which Hezbollah and its Iranian backers blamed on Israel.
Still, the FBI ordered its 101 nationwide Joint Terrorism Task Forces to contact community sources for any information signaling ramped-up Hezbollah activity over the next month. Such high-priority orders are not issued often, but they are not considered unusual.
"The FBI monitors world events and continues to maintain a strong posture through the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces for any and all threats emanating from any terrorist group," Kolko said in a statement. "Although we have no specific threat information at this time, we remind everyone to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities."
Intelligence officials said there are few, if any, Hezbollah guerrillas in the United States. However, the terrorist group has a fair number of fundraisers and sympathizers in the country. The U.S. ...   more »

'This is one of the great developments of the 19th century towards democracy'
By Bob Unruh
A government bureaucrat in Germany says that nation demands all children attend government-approved schools because they all must be "integrated" into society the same way.
"This is one of the great developments of the 19th century towards emancipation and democracy," a recently dated letter to a homeschool advocate said.
WND has reported a number of times on Germany's aggressive enforcement of its Hitler-era ban on homeschooling, and even when parents decided they would flee to Iran to seek a less-oppressive educational environment for their child.
One German student, Melissa Busekros, at one point simply was taken into custody by members of a team of police officers and confined to a mental institution for her crime of being homeschooled. 
Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole."
Drautz said homeschool students' test results may be as good as for those ...   more »

Sunday, He Who Walks on Water, as I refer to our Illinois junior senator, Barack Obama, appeared with George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. Senator Obama said
'We need to recognize, because Judge Alito will be confirmed, that if we're going to oppose a nominee that we've got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake. There is an over—reliance on the part of Democrats for procedural maneuvers.'
He added
'There's one way to guarantee that the judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court are judges that reflect our values. And that's to win elections.'
As is usuallly the case when Sen. Obama speaks, people have been falling all over themselves today to swoon over the wisdom and eloquence of these remarks.
Once again, I find myself distressed and mystified by the cult of personality surrounding this guy. Not only does he display a profound grasp of the obvious, his reasonable words are rarely reflected in his extremist positions and votes. I can't take it anymore. I need someone smarter than me to answer a question I've had for nearly two years:
Why does he keep getting away with this routine?
This whole nauseating ...   more »

Makes case ideology is mental disorder
WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.
"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness." "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."
While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to "the vast right-wing conspiracy."
For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.
Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by the two major candidates for the Democratic Party presidential nomination can ...   more »

Family members dispute official death toll from tainted medications
PANAMA CITY, Panama - Panama’s government has vastly underestimated the number of people who died from taking medications tainted with a chemical commonly found in antifreeze and brake fluid, family members and a lawyer for the victims said.
The official death toll, set late last month in a report by the attorney general’s Legal Medicine and Forensic Science Institute, is 115. But victims’ families dispute the methodology used to produce that figure and estimate the number of poisoning deaths at up to 300.
“We do not agree with that investigation and we don’t share their methodology,” Gabriel Pascual, the leader of a committee representing victims’ families, told The Associated Press. Pascual says his grandmother died after taking poisoned cough syrup in October 2006.
In mid-2006, people in Panama began dying after using cough syrup, antihistamine tablets, calamine lotion and rash ointment made at a government laboratory. Investigations found that the medicines were contaminated with diethylene glycol, commonly used in brake fluid and antifreeze.
Seeking to determine the scope of the mass poisoning, the government’s forensic institute analyzed 763 potential cases, concluding that 174 of them were poisonings from diethylene glycol.
The ...   more »

By OMAR SACIRBEY
Muslim Americans and political observers heralded the 2006 elections as a sort of debutante's ball for the Muslim voter, when anger and organizational heft pushed unprecedented numbers of Muslim citizens to vote and get involved with U.S. politics.
The 2008 election cycle, however, isn't quite working out that way.
Many Muslim Americans sense that presidential candidates have, at worst, conflated their faith with terrorism, and, at best, treated them as a liability to be kept at arm's length.
They're especially disappointed that Sen. Barack Obama, in denying claims that he is a closeted Muslim, left it at that. They say he could have at least defended Muslims, or knocked down the notion that being a Muslim is somehow a negative.
"I think he knows Islam isn't a violent religion, but he certainly has some sort of hesitancy to talk about his experience with it because of a fear that this will damage his campaign," said Qasim Rashid, 25, who covered the issue on his weekly Muslim-themed online radio show.
It's almost as if Muslims are asking for an Obama version of the famous "we're-not-gay" denial from "Seinfeld": "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Many Muslims say ...   more »

U.S. group appeals to Saudi king to spare her life, prosecute religious police
President Bush with King Abdullah
A Saudi Arabian court's decision to execute a woman for witchcraft has drawn the protest of international human rights groups.
The trial and conviction of Fawza Falih is a "miscarriage of justice," said Human Rights Watch in an appeal to King Abdullah, the BBC reported.
Among Falih's accusers is a man who alleged she made him impotent.
The American rights group is asking the Saudi ruler to void the conviction and to bring charges against the country's religious police, who detained her in 2005 and allegedly beat her, the BBC said.
Saudi Arabia's religious police, or Mutaween, enforce Islamic law in accord with the government's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
The illiterate Falih allegedly was forced to fingerprint a confession she could not read.
Human Rights Watch argued Falih was tried for the undefined crime of witchcraft and convicted based on written statements of people who claimed she bewitched them.
Falih and her representatives were not allowed to attend most of the hearings, Human Rights Watch pointed out, asserting the trial failed to meet the "safeguards" ...   more »