by Jonathan Rosenblum
The urgent need to renew Israel's national purpose.
Last summer's war in Lebanon triggered a process of national soul-searching unlike any that I have experienced in my nearly three decades living in Israel. Nor did that process end with the war. Fueled by revelations of the failures of the war, an unending string of corruption scandals, and the threat to Israel's continued existence posed by Iran that soul-searching has continued unabated.
Interestingly, the sharpest critique during the war came from Ha'aretz, the newspaper of Israel's elites. The war in Lebanon, as portrayed by Ari Shavit and others, was not simply a failure of the political and military echelons; it represented the failure of Israeli society in general.
Yair Sheleg, for instance, wrote that a decadent society is ill-equipped to confront threats to its very existence. Signs of that decadence are everywhere to be found. Hedonism and the pursuit of material goods occupy the adults. Being a celebrity -- regardless of achievements -- is the primary goal of Israeli youth.
Shavit describes a profound "cultural affliction: the relinquishing of ideas, principles, basic beliefs, worldviews, and an overall grasp of reality --... sophistication without a [moral] compass..."
The elites, ...   more »

Defense establishment's first nighttime anti-ballistic missile system test deemed a success. 'The successful test strengthens Israel’s readiness and fortitude and demonstrates the power of the defense establishment,' Defense Minister Peretz says
Hanan Greenberg
The defense establishment on Sunday evening test fired the Arrow system – the anti-ballistic missile system – for the first time during the night.  
The test was conducted simultaneously in two different fields at 9:18 p.m. and was deemed a success.  
According to defense sources, the test was aimed at examining the system's ability to deal with destroying enemy missiles. This time the main battery, which is supposed to hit the missile, was not placed dozens of kilometers from the test field.  
Iranian Threat  
Iran announces '2000 km range missiles' / Yaakov Lappin  
Defense Minister Mohammad-Najjar tells Islamic revolution rally, ‘We have new 2000 kilometer surface-to-surface missiles and new warheads to place on them;’ range announced places Israel within striking distance, but Iranian diplomat insists: Iran is no threat to Israel     
"This test constitutes a step up in the extreme conditions we set for ourselves compared to previous tests," a defense source stressed. "We are definitely dealing with relevant threats faced ...   more »

By: MARSHALL THOMPSON
JERUSALEM -- The Israel Antiquities Authority is considering broadcasting real-time, 24-hour video from a contentious Jerusalem holy site in a bid to allay Muslim fears the shrine will be harmed by repair work, an official said Thursday.
Muslim leaders ridiculed the idea, and Israeli police were on heightened alert before Friday Muslim prayers at the site, imposing travel restrictions and planning for a helicopter to hover overhead.
Israel says it needs to replace a centuries-old earthen ramp leading to the hilltop compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, which was damaged heavily in a 2004 snowstorm. It has promised the work would not harm Islamic shrines at the site, some 60 yards away, but those assurances have not calmed Muslim outrage over the project. 
Lawmaker Israel Hasson said he proposed installing cameras so "all the Arab world would be able to see everything that goes on there."
The Antiquities Authority said it was looking into how much the Webcast would cost.
"The Antiquities Authority is looking into the possibility of installing Internet cameras ... to show that we are working with full transparency, and to show that we aren't digging ...   more »

By MATTI FRIEDMAN,
Israel's Cabinet voted to push ahead with construction work on a ramp leading to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, despite objections from the Muslim world and violent Palestinian protests.
Tensions in the city have been high since last week, when Israel began work outside the compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount. The new walkway is meant to replace an ancient earthen ramp that partially collapsed in a snowstorm three years ago.
Arab leaders have accused Israel of trying to harm Muslim holy sites. Israel denies the repair work and accompanying excavations will come anywhere near the compound.
Some Cabinet ministers, including Defense Minister Amir Peretz, suggested last week that work should be frozen because of the protests. But the Cabinet decided overwhelmingly to push ahead Sunday. There were no objections to the decision, the government said, though three ministers abstained. A participant in the meeting said the three were from the dovish Labor Party, including Peretz and the Cabinet's only Muslim minister.
Ahead of the vote, workmen returned under heavy guard to the site in the walled Old City after a break Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath....   more »

Security forces to continue boosted presence in capital Sunday as excavation works are resumed at Mugrabi Gate. Islamic leaders plan protests while Mayor Lupolianski invites Waqf officials for talks
Ynet reporters
Security forces will again be on high alert on Sunday around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem as excavation works resume at the Mugrabi Gate.  
Meanwhile, Islamic Movement leader Sheik Raad Salah announced his plans to build a protest tent in Jerusalem at some distance from the Temple Mount in accordance with the restraining order issued against him by the court.
Right Responds  
Lieberman: World accustomed to Muslim violence  / Roee Mendel  
Right-wing minister slams Muslim riots on Temple Mount, demands more severe Israeli response. On other side, Arab MKs condemn ‘premeditated Israeli aggression’ in carrying out renovations at holy site     
A spokesman for the Islamic Movement, Zahi Nujidat, told Ynet: "We do not intend to relinquish our right to raise our voices in pain over what Israel is doing at the Mugrabi Gate. We will not give up; we will be there to protest.
"We call on the Israeli government, if there are wise men there, to stop offending Muslim's feelings. The government of Israel ...   more »

Using maps created in 1866 by a British explorer and passages from the Jewish Mishnah, an Israeli archaeologist and professor at Hebrew University says he has pinpointed the location of the sacred Jewish Temple, twice built and twice destroyed in ancient times.
While popular consensus places the Temple, built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. and rebuilt by Jews who returned from Babylon in the 5th century B.C., on the site of the present Muslim Dome of the Rock, Prof. Joseph Patrich says archaeological remains show its exact location – and the consensus is wrong.
Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, facing west.
According to Patrich, the Temple, its corresponding courtyards, chambers and gates were oriented in a more southeasterly direction, sitting diagonally on what is the modern Temple Mount. The difference in orientation and the placement further eastward varies from the east-facing orientation of other scholars who believe the Temple was closer to today's Western Wall.
However, that difference is why, Patrich says, the Temple did not sit over the rock believed by Jews to be the site where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac and where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended into heaven. ...   more »

Tiny cameras the size of a fingernail linked to specialist computers are to be used to monitor the behaviour of airline passengers as part of the war on terrorism.
Cameras fitted to seat-backs will record every twitch, blink, facial expression or suspicious movement before sending the data to onboard software which will check it against individual passenger profiles.
Scientists from Britain and Germany are spending £25million developing a system which they hope will make it virtually impossible to hijack an airliner by providing pilots and cabin crew with an early warning of a possible terrorist attack such as 9/11.
They say that rapid eye movements, blinking excessively, licking lips or ways of stroking hair or ears are classic symptoms of somebody trying to conceal something.
A separate microphone will hear and record even whispered remarks. Islamic suicide bombers are known to whisper texts from the Koran in the moments before they explode bombs.
The software being developed by the scientists will be so sophisticated that it will be able to take account of nervous flyers or people with a natural twitch, helping to ensure there are no false alarms.
"We're trying to develop technologies that indicate the differences between normal ...   more »

TOLLWAY giant Transurban is looking to expand its e-tag system to give customers cashless entry into Sydney car parks.
Transurban will roll out an electronic tag toll system in Sydney similar to its Melbourne operation if it succeeds in its $1.26 billion takeover bid for Sydney Roads Group.
The deal would leave Transurban in control of most of Sydney's roads, adding the M1 Eastern Distributor, the M4 and M5 to the M2 and M7 motorways it already operates.
The acquisition would make Transurban the country's dominant toll road operator. It would use this base to deliver thousands of its e-tag customers to other interested partners in Sydney.
The company is starting with cashless parking, but is also exploring the potential for linking up with petrol stations, fast food outlets and supermarkets.
On Friday, Transurban confirmed discussions were taking place with a range of parking station operators in Sydney.
A spokesman said: "We launched cashless parking in August last year at Federation Square, in Melbourne. It's early days, but we are looking at opportunities to roll this out elsewhere."
Cashless payments for goods and services using e-tag accounts began in Melbourne last August. Starting at Federation Square, motorists use a "Smartdisc" ...   more »

Feb. 19, 2007 issue - Jalal Sharafi was carrying a videogame, a gift for his daughter, when he found himself surrounded. On that chilly Sunday morning, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad had driven himself to the commercial district of Arasat Hindi to checkout the site for a new Iranian bank. He had ducked into a nearby electronics store with his bodyguards, and as they emerged four armored cars roared up and disgorged at least 20 gunmen wearing bulletproof vests and Iraqi National Guard uniforms. They flashed official IDs, and manhandled Sharafi into one car. Iraqi police gave chase, guns blazing. They shot up one of the other vehicles, capturing four assailants who by late last week had yet to be publicly identified. Sharafi and the others disappeared.
At the embassy, the diplomat's colleagues were furious. "This was a group directly under American supervision," said one distraught Iranian official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. Abdul Karim Inizi, a former Iraqi Security minister close to the Iranians, pointed the finger at an Iraqi black-ops unit based out at the Baghdad airport, who answer to American Special Forces officers. "It's plausible," says a senior Coalition ...   more »

By Dale Hurd
CBN News


February 9, 2007
CWNews.com – COLOGNE, Germany - Today’s Germany likes to think of itself as “tolerant.” All sorts of lifestyles are embraced by their society: homosexuality, trans-genderism, even radical Islam.
But some say that tolerance has a limit, and it apparently stops at the door of one Bible-believing church.
The church, called Christliche Gemeinde Köln or Christian Church of Cologne, says it has had to endure years of government harassment and discrimination, even having its tax-exempt status temporarily revoked.
The church and the homes of several church leaders were raided by tax police last year. And the church now stands accused of tax evasion.
Germany is where Protestant Christianity began. And yet this spirit-filled, Bible-based Church, which would be commonplace in America, is looked upon with suspicion as a dangerous cult, and a sinister influence.
The church is led by American Pastor Dr. Terry Jones.
Jones said, “If you’re a part of this church, you can lose your job, you could have your kids taken away from you.”
American attorney Joel Thornton is helping defend the church.
“If you called and asked someone in the government here in Cologne, ‘What do you think about ...   more »

by Adam Daifallah
On the Wailing Wall, Qassam rockets and hummus (or why everything you think you know about Israel -- if you haven't visited Israel -- is likely wrong).
Just under 10 days isn't a lot of time to travel a lot a whole country. But our little group -- just under 30 Québec university students -- travelled from one end of Israel to the other in that time span, managing to visit many points in between. In that time we saw, amongst others: Old Jerusalem, a Christmas church service at Abu Gosh, the Israeli Supreme Court, the Knesset, Yad Vashem, the security fence/wall/barrier, a kibbutz, Mettula, Haifa, Caesarea, Ben Gurion University, Sederot, Ma'ale Adumim (a "settlement" in the West Bank that is more like a small town) and Be'er Sheva. We talked with scholars, journalists, students, politicians and activists from all corners of the Israeli political spectrum.
It would take too much time and I would bore you to death if I went through every detail of what we learned. So I will just offer my overall impressions of this country, which I was seeing in person for the first time.
Israel is a fascinating country. Its people ...   more »

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian unity government which will be formed under an agreement reached in Saudi Arabia will not recognize Israel, a political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday.
"The issue of recognition was not addressed at all (in Mecca)," Ahmed Youssef said. "In the platform of the new government there will be no sign of recognition (of Israel), regardless of the pressures the United States and the Quartet would exert," he said.
Youssef said Haniyeh hoped to form the new government before a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East mediators on February 21 and urged the Quartet to lift sanctions on the Palestinians.
"The pretext by the Quartet to continue the boycott of Hamas members in the government should end because they are wrong policies that will only push toward more tension and possibly toward more conflict in the Palestinian territories," he said.
The Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- on Friday repeated its demand that any Palestinian government renounce violence, recognize Israel and respect peace deals in order to receive Western aid.
In a joint statement, the Quartet withheld judgment on whether the new ...   more »

Small to moderate tremors felt from Negev Desert to central Israel; no injuries, damage reported. ‘I just lied in bed and felt the room move,’ Tel Aviv resident recounts
Two earthquakes measuring 3.6 and 4.5 on the Richter Scale were felt from the Negev Desert to the Sharon region in central Israel at around 12:15 a.m. Saturday.  
No injuries or damage were reported.  
Rami Hofstetter of the Geophysical Institute of Israel told Ynet that the earthquakes were small to moderate in magnitude, adding that the epicenter was on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.  
The earthquakes occurred about a minute apart, he said.  
“The chair I was sitting on began to wobble,” a Rishon Letzion resident recounted, “but the house itself did not shake.” 
Aharon Deutch of Tel Aviv told Ynet “I live on the 6th floor; I was lying in bed when I felt the room start shaking.”
A Netanya resident said the earthquake that hit the area lasted about two minutes.  
In 2004 an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter Scale rattled the country; several injuries were reported and a number of buildings were damaged.
Original Source
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