by Rebbetzin Tzipporah Heller
Esther was a lonely orphan who developed within herself the unusual qualities of piercing through veils and touching all hearts
The holiday of Purim represents the best of times. It emerged, however, from the worst of times.
We were never closer to obliteration, both spiritually and physically. The hedonism of the prevailing Persian culture was part of the air that we breathed. It dulled our senses to the point that when King Achashverosh appeared in the garments of the High Priest of Jerusalem, presenting the treasure that had been robbed from the Holy Temple with the detachment of a museum curator, there was no protest.
We too had reached the point of being able to say, "How beautiful, how fascinating," when we once said, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten." We were desensitized to ourselves, and to God.
God is the hidden character of the Book of Esther. His name is never mentioned. As the events were played out in real time, few were able to see His hidden presence.
One of the few was Esther. Somehow she had escaped the desensitization.
FROM LONELINESS TO STRENGTH
Let us look at ...   more »

by Rabbi Yaakov Salomon
It took more than ten years to find those ten minutes.
They stared at me every single morning. The cufflinks did.
There was really nothing at all special about them. They were not 24k gold, not platinum, and decidedly not sentimental. I had purchased them at SYMS about 15 years ago, and probably paid less than 12 dollars for them.
They were fake gold with a cheesy-looking black hexagram on the end of each of them. And you know what? I liked them. They just sat in my closet, near my socks, in an old rectangular box that they called "home." Roommates of the cuff links included assorted plastic collar stays, a couple of Canadian coins, an old, non-functioning, cap-less blue Papermate, and two other pairs of cheap cufflinks -- cousins, I guess.
One of them was broken. That hexagram thingy had separated from its base. I don't remember exactly when that happened, but it was definitely more than ten years ago. And practically every morning
"When are you going to fix me?"
"Why aren't you fixing me?"
"Don't you like me anymore?"
The questions were valid. And I had no answers. I did still like ...   more »

Despite the Bush administration's insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of receiving permission from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in the March 4 issue.
The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former US intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
The panel initially focused its efforts on plans for destroying Iran's nuclear facilities and on regime change but has more recently been directed to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq, according to an Air Force adviser and a Pentagon consultant, who were not identified.
The consultant and a former senior intelligence official both said that US military and special-operations teams had crossed the border from Iraq into Iran in pursuit of Iranian operatives, the article said.
In response to the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran. To suggest anything to the contrary is ...   more »

Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon.
A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons.
"We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named.
"The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes start shooting at each other."
As Iran continues to defy UN demands to stop producing material which could be used to build a nuclear bomb, Israel's military establishment is moving on to a war footing, with preparations now ...   more »

By Haaretz Service  
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Sunday that Israel was holding secret contacts toward winning the release of kidnapped IDF soldiers.
IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit has been held by Hamas and other groups since his capture in late June. In July, Hezbollah forces along the Israel-Lebanon border seized IDF Master Sergeant Ehud Goldwasser and First Sergeant Eldad Regev.
Israeli security sources confirmed over the weeked that some progress had been made toward a prisoner swap for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit. But the defense establishment said a deal with Hamas, which is holding Shalit in cooperation with other organizations, had not yet been clinched and the soldier's release was not imminent.    
Addressing a memorial ceremony for fallen soldiers whose burial place is unknown, Peretz said that Israel will step up its contacts with the Palestinians, and that the government must act to support moderate Arab governments.
Peretz said the effort to secure the release of kidnapped IDF soldiers was a "sacred duty." He said that the contacts were being carried out in "determined and hidden ways."
The defense minister also responded to a recent statement by Jordan's King Abdullah, who urged a renewal of Israeli-Palestinian ...   more »

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(IsraelNN.com) The United Nations, Russia, Arab states and the media have escalated an international broadside against Israel while touting the Hamas-Fatah coalition.
A report by the U.N. Human Rights Council has provided the background for the Arab position, backed by Russia, that the Western-led economic boycott of Hamas must be lifted in order to fight poverty in the Gaza area.
The council report was commissioned to John Dugard, who formerly campaigned against South Africa apartheid and who concluded that the racist policy is similar to that of Israel. He defined Jews as a "race" and charged that the Israeli army is guilty of terror worse than that of Arab terrorists. Dugard's draft is to be published next month in a full report by the U.N.
Dugard wrote that "Israel's laws and practices in the [Palestinian Authority (PA)] certainly resemble aspects of apartheid. Can it seriously be denied that the purpose of such action is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group, Jews, over another racial group, Palestinians, and systematically oppress them?"
The report accuses Israel of terror by flying jets that set off sonic booms, forcing "residents to live in fear of settler terror." ...   more »

LONDON – New concerns for Prince Harry's safety have emerged with MI6's discovery that the Iran-backed Mahdi army has obtained a version of the super-sensitive, U.S.-created Promis software, according to a breaking report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
The software provides access to databases on specific targets. It is equipped with artificial intelligence, which can analyze tens of millions of snippets of information in seconds to create a sophisticated overall picture that can both identify and predict the actions of a target.
The software was originally sold by a renegade FBI agent, Robert Hanssen. For years he had been a KGB spy inside the FBI. Before he was arrested in 2001, he had passed the FBI version of Promis to his handlers in Moscow. Hanssen is now serving a 20-year sentence for espionage in America's top security prison at Florence in Colorado.
Bill Hamilton, the creator of the software and head of the company, Inslaw, which markets it to U.S. intelligence agencies, said the acquisition by terrorists of Promis through the Soviets "is a matter of deep concern."
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hanssen's handlers sold a copy of Promis to Semyon Mogilevich, the head of Europe's notorious ...   more »

By Simon Saradzhyan
Alexander Natruskin / Reuters
Hadley meeting Thursday in Moscow. 
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday dismissed Washington's assurances that a planned missile defense system in Eastern and Central Europe was not intended to prevent an attack from Russia.
"The tracking stations and missile interceptors there are not needed because the trajectories of hypothetical missiles that could fly out of Iran and North Korea lie in an absolutely different direction," Lavrov said in remarks carried on the TV Center channel.
Lavrov is the latest in a series of top Russian officials to criticize the system, which would include a radar installation in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in Poland in addition to a radar station and missile interceptors already deployed in Alaska.
Washington maintains that the system is designed to protect the United States and its NATO allies in Europe from ballistic missiles fired by so-called rogue states, such as Iran and North Korea.
The commander of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces, General Nikolai Solovtsov, said last week that Russia might target the new installations in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The proposed system has become a major irritant in U.S.-Russian relations, not least because the new ...   more »

TEHRAN (Reuters) -        Iran has no reverse gear in its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, while a deputy foreign minister vowed Tehran was prepared for any eventuality, "even for war."  
"Iran has obtained the technology to produce nuclear fuel and Iran's move is like a train ... which has no brake and no reverse gear," Ahmadinejad said, ISNA news agency reported.
Iran ignored last week's U.N. deadline to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make fuel for power plants or material for warheads. Tehran says it wants a deal but rules out the West's key demand that it suspend the atomic work.
The United States, which accuses the Islamic Republic of wanting nuclear weapons, says it wants a diplomatic solution to the row but has not ruled out military action if needed.
Vice President Dick Cheney said on Saturday Iran's atomic ambitions must be curbed and said "all options" were on the table.
"We have prepared ourselves for any situation, even for war," Manouchehr Mohammadi, one of the foreign minister's deputies, was quoted by ISNA as saying. Iran says it wants only to generate nuclear power.
Iranian military commanders have said recent ...   more »

Critics say the 'tabletop exercise,' aimed at testing responses to an IED assault, stokes a state of fear.
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
Feb. 23, 2007 - The White House is staging a high-level exercise Saturday to test responses to the prospect of a massive domestic terrorist attack involving IEDs (improvised explosive devices)—the same deadly roadside bombs that have been used by insurgents against the U.S. military in Iraq.
White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend will preside over a group of senior officials—including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence John (Mike) McConnell—as they attempt to deal with the latest nightmarish scenario cooked up by government counterterrorism planners.
As part of the exercise, the officials will be handed a thick binder which lays out a scenario involving simultaneous terror attacks by “sleeper cells” of 20 to 25 individuals each dispersed in five cities across the country: New York, Washington, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. The officials will then be tested on how they direct their respective agencies to respond. “We’ve designed this to overtax the system, to push the system beyond the breaking point,” said one senior administration official familiar with planning for ...   more »

By Bob Unruh
David Parker and his team of lawyers approach the reporters and TV cameras after a recent motions hearing. Left to right: Robert Sinsheimer, Jeffrey Denner, David Parker, Neil Tassel
A federal judge in Massachusetts has ordered the "gay" agenda taught to Christians who attend a public school in Massachusetts, finding that they need the teachings to be "engaged and productive citizens."
U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf yesterday dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought by David Parker, ordering that it is reasonable, indeed there is an obligation, for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality.
Wolf essentially adopted the reasoning in a brief submitted by a number of homosexual-advocacy groups, who said "the rights of religious freedom and parental control over the upbringing of children … would undermine teaching and learning…
David and Tonia Parker and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin, who have children of school age in Lexington, Mass., brought the lawsuit. They alleged district officials and staff at Estabrook Elementary School violated state law and civil rights by indoctrinating their children about a lifestyle they, as Christians, teach is immoral.
"Wolf's ruling is every parent's nightmare. It goes to extraordinary lengths to ...   more »