Israel has gone on heightened alert over a possible war with Syria amid reports that President Bashar Assad may be considering military strikes to regain the Golan Heights.
For years Israeli military intelligence has down-played Syria's capacity to launch a meaningful attack against Israel, and the threat level has been kept "low".But Israeli reports have revealed that the threat level had been raised after intelligence assessments that Damascus is "seriously examining" military action.The raised threat level comes as Israel prepares for Monday's Day of Atonement, known as Yom Kippur, a solemn Jewish holiday when the entire country effectively shuts down as residents fast and seek forgiveness for sins.It was on Yom Kippur in 1973 that Israel was caught by surprise as Syrian and Egyptian forces launched a joint attack and inflicted heavy losses before being repelled."The first two days of that war were huge defeats for Israel," said Prof Uri Bar-Joseph, an expert on the 1973 conflict. "All the intelligence analysts failed."Israel is determined to make sure that it is not surprised again, flagging up Syrian military preparations and signals from President Assad that his country might be readying for war.The Syrian ... more»
This Yom Kippur, leave the guilt at home.I looked at the pictures, just like you did, and wondered in total disbelief."Is that a car under all that water, or is it a boat?" "For how long were those people stuck on their own roofs?""Didn't they realize that those levees weren't strong enough?""That couldn't be the SUPERDOME, could it?""For heaven's sake, why didn't they get out while they could?"Katrina, perhaps the greatest natural disaster ever to occur on American soil, has claimed countless casualties, destroyed the lives of every 'fortunate' survivor, and wreaked havoc with our pristine and invincible national psyche.And while the corpses were yet damp and the downtown intersections still deluged, the obligatory finger-pointing could not wait. Read the press. Hear the news. Watch the circus. Today it's the Mayor, tomorrow it's Bush. "The engineers were amateurs." "God has spoken." FEMA was totally inept; the Governor should resign. It was a city of depravity; Ariel Sharon is the source of all things evil.And so it goes. Scapegoats were vilified and proletarians were suddenly promoted to pundits. And all the while, funerals and burials became daily fare as hundreds of thousands wondered when ... more»
In October 1973, with its forces battling to repel invasions by Egypt and Syria, Israel did what had previously been unthinkable: It briefly wheeled its nuclear-capable Jericho-1 missiles out of their secret silos. That, historians believe, was picked up by United States spy satellites and stirred up fears in Washington of a catastrophic flare-up between the Jewish state and the Soviet-backed Arabs. Message received, an urgent US shipment of conventional arms to Israel was quick to follow, and helped turn the war. With Israel's current arch-foe Iran seen gaining the ability to produce nuclear weapons within a few years, and preventive military options limited, some experts now anticipate another "lifting of the veil" on the assumed Israeli atomic arsenal. Were that to happen, experts say, the objective would be to establish a more open military deterrence vis-a-vis Iran and perhaps win Israel's nuclear option formal legitimacy abroad. "No one should simply assume that Israel would stay where it is now with its ambiguous capability if Iran becomes a nuclear power," said Professor Gerald Steinberg, head of the Conflict Management Programme at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. "Israeli policy is likely ... more»
JERUSALEM – A Jewish man removed by Israeli police from a key section of the Western Wall for blowing the shofar, or ceremonial ram's horn, during prayer services for last weekend's Rosh Hashana high holiday has been barred from the holy site for the upcoming Jewish holidays, WND has learned. The shofar traditionally is blown hundreds of times during Rosh Hashana prayers. Shmulik Ben Ruby, a spokesman for the Jerusalem Police Authority, told WND the Jewish man, 19-year-old Jerusalem resident Eliyahi Kleiman, was taken forcibly from the Western Wall last weekend for fear the sound of the shofar would offend nearby Muslims congregating on the Temple Mount, which is opposite the wall. "Hundreds of Muslims went up to the Temple Mount. In order to prevent any tensions between the two sides, we asked Kleiman to stop blowing the shofar," Ben Ruby said. "He continued and so he was removed and detained." The incident took place Sunday morning, the second day of the two-day Rosh Hashana holiday, when a group of about 20 Jews gathered at the northern-most section of the Western Wall commonly referred to as the "Small Wall." The little-known area stands opposite the spot at which the Holy ... more»
Senator Allen is not alone: The claim that Shakespeare was Jewish is based on my own theories, developed during years of writing nonsense
David Verveer
Only this week we read the horrible headline, Senator Allen discovered he is Jewish. This is a real shocker. How come, he seemed to be such a nice civilized person! He discovered his Jewish roots – and then turned his back on them. Now, it is not ... more»
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