Doesn't it sound all too familiar? Festive celebrations in Washington, which will only lead to more disappointment and endanger Israel's security.
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Exposing the Threat of Islamist Terrorism
Third in a National Symposium Series
Saturday February 2, 2008
Ranch of the Lonesome Dove in Southlake, Texas
9am Start (7:45am arrival time to satisfy security check-in)
(Texas Bar-B-Que lunch included)
VIP Dinner & Cocktail Pre-Symposium Reception
Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center, Grapevine, TX
Friday, February 1, 2008
7pm Start (6pm arrival time to satisfy security check-in)
Symposium Tickets: $149.00 per person
VIP Dinner Reception Tickets: $119.00 per person
Ticket purchase and reservation deadline: December 21, 2007
Speakers: 
Frank Gaffney
Founder and President Center for Security Policy
Atty. David Schippers
Former Chief Investigative Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee, author, counter-terrorism expert
Dr. Wafa Sultan
Syrian-American Psychologist and internationally known critic of militant Islam
Dr. Paul Williams
Former FBI consultant, best-selling author and investigative journalist
Laura Mansfield
Middle Eastern linguistic expert and investigative reporter
 Dr. Harvey Kushner
Chairman of Criminal Justice Dept. of Long Island University, best-selling author, advisor to the FBI and FAA
Robert Spencer
Director of Jihad Watch, best-selling author and expert on radical Islam
Dr. Bruce Tefft
Founding member of CIAs Counterterrorism Task Force
David Harris
Chief of Strategic Planning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Bahram Moshiri
Iranian ...   more »

Over 80 educators and ministry heads affirm efforts to negotiate lasting peace, and warn of consequences of failure.
David Neff
This week the Bush State Department is devoting its full diplomatic efforts toward bringing a two-state resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Over the past few months, they have put on a full-court press to gather a broad representation of Arab world leaders to join Israeli and Palestinian negotiators for a historic meeting in Annapolis, Maryland. Now, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed to a program of sustained and focused negotiations throughout 2008.
With these cautious but hopeful beginnings, over 80 evangelical leaders have signed a statement indicating their belief "that the way forward is for the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a fair, two-state solution."
These leaders—including Christian college and seminary presidents, denominational heads, and other ministry leaders—pledge their "ongoing support for the security of Israel," and state that "unless the situation between Israel and Palestine improves quickly, the consequences will be devastating" for Israel. Palestinians with little economic opportunity "are increasingly sympathetic to radical solutions."
The full text of their statement and the list of signatories follow.
An Evangelical Statement on ...   more »

Yitzhak Cohen says during cabinet meeting 'US intelligence report was ordered by someone who wants dialogue with Tehran. Minister Eli Yishai: 'We must not play dumb in the face of the report's findings'
Roni Sofer
"The manner in which the Americans relate to the intelligence report on Iran is similar to the way in which they viewed those reports they received during the Holocaust on railways transporting hundreds of thousands of Jews to their death at Auschwitz," Minister Yitzhak Cohen of Shas said during a security cabinet meeting Sunday morning on the Iranian nuclear issue.
"It can not be that (US President George W.) Bush is committed to peace as was declared at Annapolis, and then the Americans propagate such an intelligence report which contradicts the information we have proving Iran intends to obtain nuclear weapons," Cohen said. "How can we rely on the Americans if they publish this report that emasculates what the world explicitly knows regarding Iran, and renders impotent the entire struggle against the Iranians?"
Minister Cohen asserted that the report must have been "ordered by someone who wants dialogue with Tehran" and formulated an historical analogy to express just how serious the situation is: "In the ...   more »

Surpassing England in arms exports, Israel enacts new law to stem flow of arms to war torn countries and controversial regimes
Associated Press
Israel became the world's fourth largest defense exporter in 2007, surpassing Britain, with $4.3 billion in signed contracts, officials said Tuesday. 
Israel exports mostly radar systems, drones and anti-tank missiles to India, Turkey, Britain, the United States and other Western nations, defense officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information. 
Israel complies with US over China deal / By Shimon Shiffer 
Dispute with US over Israel's sale of drones to China may come to an end as security officials bow down to Washington's demand to coordinate all weapons exports with them 
But Israel has earned a questionable reputation for the small percentage of its sales - usually of shells, rifles and ammunition - that go to war-torn countries, analysts said.
A new Israeli law attempts to ensure that Israeli weapons do not end up in the wrong hands. Under pressure from the United States, Israel enacted the law that will make it illegal for Israeli residents to sell any weapons, even if they are not Israeli made, to embargoed countries or ...   more »

By Anshel Pfeffer
The rabbi of Israel's largest Reform synagogue may dream of plane loads of American Reform and Conservative Jews visting Israel, but fears that the ties between the U.S. communities and the Jewish state are eroding.
"I am worried for the future of the Reform movement and the State of Israel," says Meir Azari, rabbi of the Beit Daniel synagogue in Tel Aviv, in an interview before leaving for the U.S. Reform movement's conference.
The pinnacle event of the U.S. movement begins Wednesday in San Diego and is expected to draw 5,000 participants, both professionals and laymen.
"I'd like to see large groups of Reform and Conservative Jews on El Al flights from the U.S. - not just the many ultra-Orthodox, blocking the aisle with minyanim," Azari says.
The rabbi, a former chairman of the Reform movement in Israel, feels that over the last couple of decades, members of the American Reform community have fallen out of love with the Jewish state. Azari now wants to challenge the American branch to get all its members to visit Israel at least once in the next decade.
"I think every Reform community in the U.S. should send a mission to ...   more »

By Barry Rubin 
The distortion of Palestinian aid politics
My favorite sentence of the week is: "Asking for record $5.8 billion in aid through 2010, Palestinians promise fiscal reform." Karen Laub wrote on this subject for the AP, December 5, 2007. The request came from "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas" to double projected aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
What is funny about that opening sentence is that the PA has received so much money before and squandered it. Reform promises have been made and broken for more than 13 years. It is hard to remember the PA has existed that long with so little positive achievement. If Palestinians have such a bad economy it is not due to the "occupation" or to Israel but to their own leaders' greed, incompetence, failure to end violence, inability to present an attractive investment climate, and unwillingness to impose stability on their own lands.
So how does an AP story deal with the unintentional humor of the idea that pouring more money into the PA will lead to any diplomatic progress or that this regime will make better use of the funds? Remember that to a very large extent the United States and European ...   more »

By The Associated Press
Israel is trying to persuade hundreds of thousands of its citizens living overseas to return home in a project to coincide with the state's 60th
anniversary next year, the Absorption Ministry announced Sunday.
The project, dubbed "coming home", will try to lure Israelis living abroad to come back with tax breaks, employment and small business loans.
About 650,000 Israelis live abroad, 450,000 of them in North America, the ministry said. The ministry began contacting them last month through direct phone calls, an Internet site and a hot line.
"What surprised us most is the amount of positive feedback we received from countries where the standard of living is very high," said Erez Halfon, director of the Absorption Ministry. "We received 285 calls from Israelis living in Switzerland, and of them, 15 families have committed to coming home."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed support for the project at a cabinet meeting Sunday.
"Every Israeli, even if he lives abroad, is Israeli at heart and knows that his home is here. I call on all Israelis to return home," Olmert said.
"The project aims to bring 10,000 ex-pats back to Israel in the first year and double that ...   more »

Secular leader smashes menorah, blasts 'infiltration' of observant Jews
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – The residents of one secular Israeli town here were shocked today to discover a menorah lit last night by a rabbi in a public ceremony was smashed to pieces by the community's Jewish leader in protest of observant Judaism.
"He who disrupted the joy of the children and caused anguish to many of the residents here when he destroyed our menorah reminded us of the dark period of the Gestapo who found a Hanukkah Menorah hidden away in the Warsaw Ghetto and cracked the skull of a Jew with it," said Etai Rappaport, a resident of Afek, a northern Israeli communal town or kibbutz.
Rappaport yesterday invited Moshe Shmuel Oirechman, a rabbi and emissary for the Chabad Lubavitch worldwide Jewish outreach movement, to light the menorah in his town of Afek for several religious Jewish families.
Afek is a kibbutz, an Israeli collective community funded by secular Jews prior to and in the years following the establishment of Israel in 1948. Kibbutz communities were set up to adhere to social libertarian principals of communal living and farming, but currently many here are privatized and resemble regular ...   more »

Robin Pagnamenta
The Kremlin is seeking to restore Russia as a leading player in the global atomic power industry with a drive to create a state nuclear energy giant to compete directly with Areva, of France, and Westinghouse, which is owned by Toshiba.
President Putin is consolidating Russian civilian nuclear assets, including everything from uranium mining and enrichment to the design and construction of power stations, into a single company - Atomenergoprom.
With annual sales of about $8 billion (£3.9 billion), Atomenergoprom is designed to be a nuclear equivalent to Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian gas monopoly, and forms part of a strategy to bolster the country’s position in key international industries in which it has resources and expertise.
Atomenergoprom is set for rapid growth over the coming years, assisted by plans to build two nuclear power stations every year within Russia, starting in 2012 - a policy that will nearly double the share of nuclear energy capacity from 16 per cent to up to 30 per cent - as well as a renewed effort to land big nuclear contracts overseas.
Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Russian atomic energy agency, said: “Atomenergoprom was created to compete on the global market ...   more »

By Jerry Pierce 
FORT WORTH—Members of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth voted Dec. 2 to delay a decision on whether or not to include homosexual members as couples in a church pictorial directory.
Baptist Press broke the story of the church contention on Nov. 6. Multiple news outlets reported on the church’s decision to refer the matter to the deacons for a recommendation by Feb. 4.
“We do not want to rush to make a decision, but rather to continue to listen to each other and for God’s leading to our church,” Deacon Chairman Kathy Madeja said in a statement. “Our members have diverse opinions about many things, but what we have in common is our love for God, the church and each other.”
Pastor Brett Younger addressed the issue from the pulpit Dec. 2.
In comments drawn from sermon audio posted on the church website, Younger said: “Some of the most committed Christians in our congregation are baffled by this whole episode. They are seeking the best they know how to be faithful to Scripture and follow Jesus. They’ve been taught all of their lives what the Bible says on this issue, and those who read the Scripture ...   more »

By David Hambling 
For years, no military program has sparked more fevered speculation from conspiracy theorists than  the mysterious High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP.  And for years, the Pentagon has been pooh-poohing speculation that the enormous collection of transmitters, radars, and magnetometers in Alaska was some sort of superweapon. 
But, it turns out, the conspiracy theorists may not have been entirely off-base, after all.
Since its inception, there's been a huge range of opinion on what HAARP actually does: everything from a giant mind control facility to a space nuke countermeasure to a weather controller to an  ionosphere-boiling mad science experiment to the mother of all pork projects has been suggested. But now that the program is actually up an running, military managers say the electronics array has much more benign use.  "HAARP's main job is to produce radio waves to probe the ionosphere," an Air Force Research Laboratory officer said in October.
Which is true -- up to a point. 
A drive by Clifford Stone on the X-Files-esque uber-site Above Top Secret to use the Freedom of Information Act to turn up UFO-related documents has led to the release of a fascinating report, HAARP: Research and ...   more »

by Chuck Baldwin
One thing that Christians should come to terms with is the truism that government cannot do the church's job. Not in any shape, manner, or form. Yet, by the way many Christians and pastors behave these days, one gets the impression that they don't really understand this truth. Instead, it seems that many Christians and ministers see the government--especially the federal government--as an extension of the church.
Now, if anyone thinks that I am about to go into a "separation of church and state" tirade, think again. The modern definition of "separation of church and state" is so far removed from the original meaning of the First Amendment that it is downright preposterous. All the First Amendment does is prohibit (the federal) Congress from passing any law establishing a state church or from prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
The idea that James Madison and the other authors of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights intended to prohibit children from praying in school, or state and local governments from posting the Ten Commandments and from erecting Nativity scenes is the invention of modern-age humanists, whose real goal is to eviscerate America's Christian heritage. Such reasoning is ...   more »

'Purpose-driven' megachurch pastor answers evangelical critics
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a three-part series based on an interview with Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in Southern California, which he and his wife of 30 years, Kay, founded in 1980 with one family. In part one, Warren responds to critics among his fellow evangelical travelers. In part two, published tomorrow, the senior pastor – called by Newsweek one of "15 People Who Make America Great" – discusses how he handles fame, his unconventional approach to ministry and his visit last year with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. In part three, he responds to concerns about the pitfalls of partnering with government and his massive AIDS initiative.
By Art Moore
Rick Warren prays with people infected with HIV who participated in his church's "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" (WND photo)
LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Widely regarded by mainstream media as one of America's most influential leaders, he's met with dictators, apologized to Muslims on behalf of Christianity, accepted blame for global warming and invited pro-choice politicians to speak at his Southern California megachurch.
All of that, and more, raises red flags with a sizeable number of evangelicals who ...   more »

Terrorists Planning Major Attacks: The 30 Most Unthinkable Targets in America 
The U.S. government is in a frantic race to stop a weapons of mass destruction attack on an American city.
Newsmax magazine has the full story in its just released edition: “Stopping the Next 9/11” with an exclusive excerpt from Ronald Kessler’s new best seller “The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack."
You can get this valuable book free with Newsmax magazine which also includes, for the first time, a list of the 30 likely terrorist targets.
Futurist Dr. Marvin J. Cetron, who has consulted for the U.S. government, and in 1994 prepared a report for the Department of Defense warning that terrorists were planning to use commercial aircraft as guided bombs to strike major landmarks.
Cetron, working with some of the top experts in their fields, gives a surprising list of the most vulnerable targets today — featuring the “30 Most Unthinkable Targets.”
He reveals the “most diabolical plots for which people are least prepared.”
The new edition of Newsmax magazine is hitting newsstands across the country, including many Barnes & Noble, Hastings, Follett, B.Dalton, Books-A-Million, Joseph Beth and other major bookstores, as ...   more »

Find out who's censoring Christmas
List shows shoppers 'the good, the bad and the ugly'
Macy's Christmas decorations
Shoppers who want to find out which retailers are "censoring Christmas" can consult a list of the "good, the bad and the ugly" released by Focus on the Family Action, the political activist arm of the group founded by James Dobson.
The Colorado Springs-based organization commended Amazon.com, American Eagle Outfitters, JC Penney, L.L. Bean, Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Sears and Wal-Mart, among others, for specifically referring to Christmas in promotions and advertising
Focus on the Family also lists "U-turn retailers" that have "provided token acknowledgment of Christmas after initially neglecting its mention."
"Such changes came only after various groups and consumers voiced their feedback."
Among those groups, the hardware retailer Lowe's is mentioned for labeling Christmas trees as "Family trees" in its "Holiday Catalog" but then promising to revisit marketing labels in response to an alert by the American Family Association.
Home Depot offered "artificial trees" but since has re-labeled them "Christmas Trees." 
PetSmart added "the perfect gift for Christmas & the Holiday Season" to its marketing text in mid-November.
The Florida-based legal group Liberty Counsel previously reported PetSmart was heading for a ...   more »

By Julia Duin
Two years ago this month, a Saudi prince caused a media splash — and raised eyebrows — when he donated $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities to fund Islamic studies.
Although few details have been released about how the money has been spent, at Georgetown, the money helped pay for a recent symposium on Islamic-Western relations held in the university's Copley Formal Lounge. The event attracted about 120 persons: students, Catholic priests, men in business suits and several women in colorful head scarves who all came to hear religion experts from several American universities, as well as from Bosnia, Ireland and Malaysia.
A member of the Norwegian royal family said he flew in just for the event.
"I just came here to learn the language scholars are using about these things," Prince Haakon of Norway said.
Some call the Saudi gift Arab generosity and gratitude for the years American universities have educated the elite of the Arab world. Others say the sheer size of the donations amounts to buying influence and creating bastions of noncritical pro-Islamic scholarship within academia.
"There's a possibility these campuses aren't getting gifts, they're getting investments," said Clifford May, president of ...   more »

After koshering a wing of the White House kitchen with US First Lady Laura Bush, Rabbi Levi Shemtov—dubbed the "Rabbi of Capital Hill"—sets out on his Hanukkah mission. Take a look as Attorney General Michael Mukasey lights Hanukkah candles, President Bush pays his respect to Chabad representatives
Israel Bardugo
WASHINGTON - The larger-than-life Hanukkiya towers over gathered onlookers on the Ellipse—a manicured field located near the White House. Crowds fill the carefully-groomed lawn bundled up with heavy jackets in an attempt to insulate themselves from the teeth-chattering cold.   
Rabbi Abraham Shemtov wields the microphone and, among much fanfare, calls US Attorney General Michael Mukasey to the podium. Together the pair mounts the crane located nearby and the crowd closely watches as they place a torch up against the large wick to light an oversized Hanukkah candle. The crowd erupts into applause that continue on long after Shemtov and Mukasey put their feet back onto the ground.  
As Mukasey gets off the crane, he delivers a short and concise holiday message: "It's not easy to fight for freedom, the struggle of Hanukkah continues to this day. Today we have Iraq and Afghanistan, just like in the past (there were ...   more »

By Stephen Dinan - MIAMI — Mike Huckabee jokes that if he's not the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, someone better tell the other campaigns to turn their fire elsewhere.
While he's not quite comfortable with the term front-runner — "I would like to say we're 'emerging,' " he said yesterday — the former Arkansas governor finds himself facing near-smothering press attention and the concentrated attacks from other campaigns. But whatever he's called, his emergence means the former two-man race between Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani is now a lot more complicated.
Mr. Huckabee spent the morning in Miami yesterday picking up the endorsement of one of Florida's most powerful politicians, House Speaker Marco Rubio, the latest in a line of substantial backers Mr. Huckabee is amassing.
Mr. Rubio said he had planned to stay neutral in the race, but in the past few weeks had felt compelled to back Mr. Huckabee as the candidate who best communicates a pro-life, conservative-values message. Mr. Rubio said that's what helps Mr. Huckabee spar with far better-funded campaigns.
"There's a difference between a campaign and a movement," Mr. Rubio said. "When you're leading a movement, all you need is people. And ...   more »