Israeli ambassador to US says Syria is purchasing arms at levels not seen since 1973 Middle East war, adding Damascus is becoming a serious threat
Reuters
Israel is growing more concerned about unprecedented military purchases and stepped-up training by Syria, at levels not seen since the 1973 Middle East war, its envoy to the United States said on Wednesday.  
"Syria is developing into a very serious threat," Israeli Ambassador Sallai Meridor told a luncheon sponsored by the Israel Project, a group that promotes the country's agenda. "We hope it's not offensive but we're not sure."  
A significant build-up of missile capability by Syria could "create major damage to Israel" and Russia was supplying the arms to Damascus, he said, without providing specific details of the source for that information.  
Meridor said Israel had tried to make it clear that it had no "offensive intentions" toward Syria, but added the Israeli government was working to make sure it was not surprised or unprepared if attacked. 
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed the territory in 1981. The two sides have so far failed to negotiate a resolution over the strategic plateau. 
Syria ...   more »

'If today's Arab anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish propaganda strongly resembles that of the Third Reich, there is a good reason." So writes Joel Fishman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in "The Big Lie and the Media War against Israel," an insightful piece of historical research.
Fishman begins by noting the topsy-turvy situation whereby Israel is perceived as a dangerous predator as it defends its citizens against terrorism, conventional warfare, and weapons of mass destruction. A 2003 survey, for instance, found Europeans seeing Israel as "the greatest threat" to world peace. How did this insane inversion of reality - the Middle East's only fully free and democratic country seen as the leading global menace - come to be?
Fishman's answer revisits World War I, which is not a surprise, as post-cold war analysts increasingly recognize the extent to which Europe lives still under the shadow of that disaster, whether in its renewed policy of appeasement or its attitudes towards its own culture. Back then, the British government first exploited advances in mass media and advertising to target both the enemy's and its own civilian populations, hoping to shape their thinking.
The Central Powers' publics heard messages designed to undermine support ...   more »

By Jonathan Tobin      
A weak government's survival will impact the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | As a matter of principle, it is not the business of American friends of Israel to tell Israelis who should, or should not, be their prime minister.
That is, unfortunately, a proposition that has been observed largely in the breach over the course of the last 30 years.
American Jews, and American politicians, for that matter, have done their best — or worst — over the past three decades to try and tilt the outcome of Israeli politics and elections to suit their preferences.
A left-leaning Diaspora Jewry often undermined right-wing Israeli prime ministers such as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Benjamin Netanyahu. The right-wing minority tried, albeit with far less success, to give Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, and then Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert the same treatment.
American presidents have also done their best to help elect Israeli leaders that they thought were more sympathetic to their vision of the alliance and the peace process, and to block those of whom they disapproved.
AN UNLIKELY PAIR
This pattern appeared to have come to an end in recent years with ...   more »

It probably should not come as a surprise, since many of the same people did the same thing during the Vietnam War, but it certainly is a sad commentary on the state of political affairs when a presidential candidate stands before a cheering crowd and calls for the defeat of American forces in the midst of war.
Barack Obama told his admirers, "We are only one signature away from ending this war." And the people cheered. He is actually saying, "We are only one signature away from waving the white flag of surrender." Should the president accept the Democrats' demand for a date-certain schedule for withdrawing American troops, it would be a national declaration of defeat – and a national disgrace.
This disgraceful sentiment rests not on Obama's shoulders; he is simply playing to the crowd that already wants to surrender, regardless of the consequences. Sen. Harry Reid, the highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, has already declared, "The war is lost." Rep. John Murtha is trying to convince people that once American forces surrender, the natives will quit fighting, and all will be well in the world.
What happened to Ronald Reagan's policy during the Cold War: "... we win, ...   more »

A board member for Equality California has come out swinging at the Bible-based Capitol Resource Institute, which works on behalf of family and biblical values in California, especially among its lawmakers.
"If you continue your efforts, we will BURY you," said an e-mail from Ben Patrick Johnson, to his "colleagues" at the CRI, according to a statement from the Christian organization.
"For a group that purports to expand tolerance and civil rights, Equality California is not practicing what it preaches," CRI said.
(Story continues below)
"This type of language evokes images of Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the podium of the United Nations when he declared that Communism would bury America," said CRI. "The irony is not lost on us – Communists squelch all opposing speech, just as the modern 'intolerance' movement seeks to silence all opposing viewpoints.
"Johnson then threatens 'we have every intention of yours [group] going down, as have others who oppose decency and human rights.' It is shameful that a group that represents itself as promoting tolerance and civil rights would stoop to the very tactics it accuses CRI of using. Not once has CRI personally attacked opponents in such a degrading and ...   more »

By Bob Unruh
Exodus, according to the dictionary, is "a going out, departure or emigration," or "the departure of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses." Now there are Christian leaders who would like to add another definition: "The mass departure of Christians from the public school system."
Chaplain E. Ray Moore of Exodus Mandate, whose goal is to "encourage and assist Christian families to leave Pharoah's school system," said there's an urgent need Christian parents must understand.
"Based on statistics, there is a 70-to-80 percent chance that a [Christian] child will abandon the church and their faith in a public school career," Moore told WND. The bottom line, then, is Christian parents need to lobby their pastors, pastors need to lobby their denominations, and their denominations need to start programs creating and operating public schools.
"We think probably 75 percent of the Christian churches could provide, and have the financial resources to provide, a Christian education for children, if they saw it as a necessity," said Moore, who has endorsed a move building among Southern Baptist churches to do just that.
Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has called on Southern Baptist churches to expand into K-12 education, ...   more »

lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a veteran California teacher whose school officials ordered him to remove several banners carrying slogans from American history, such as "In God We Trust."
"Unfortunately, it seems like religion is now treated as a disease or pathogen that has to be removed or eradicated from the public at all costs," said Robert Muise, of the Thomas More Law Center, which is bringing the action against Poway Unified School District.
The superintendent, Donald Phillips, justified the sudden removal of banners that had been used for 25 years by Westview High math teacher Brad Johnson.
"The fact that we've been doing something inappropriate for a long period of time doesn't make it right," Phillips said. "As we become a more diverse society, we must have a greater sensitivity."
The federal civil rights lawsuit alleges a violation of Johnson's constitutional rights in the order by school officials to remove the banners not because they contributed to any disruption, but because they promote a "Judeo-Christian" viewpoint.
Teacher Brad Johnson, who was ordered to remove educational banners he's used for 25 years
Johnson, a 30-year teacher, had used them almost since the beginning of his career without opposition. ...   more »

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper, something of a backwoods New York Times, sent one of its senior columnists into the American Deep South last week to find out how the religious right is doing. Not well, he reported with undisguised satisfaction. Indeed, he wrote, it might be going the way of the Soviet Union.
Because the whole Bush experience has been so unsatisfactory, writes columnist John Ibbitson, the impending political doom was foreseeable for the Jerry Falwells, the Pat Robertsons and the James Dobsons (of Focus on the Family renown). By putting a born-again Christian in the White House and by electing two Republican Congresses, they have gained very little in return.
Gay marriage was resisted, a pretense was made to find federal financing for faith-based community organizations, the "line was held" on stem-cell research, but much more was expected. (Only 10 days earlier, Republican appointees to the Supreme Court had firmly prohibited partial-birth abortions, but Ibbitson quietly overlooked the decision.) 
And whom, he wonders, will the religious right favor now? Of the three leading Republican contenders, Rudolph Giuliani is twice divorced and marches in gay pride parades. John McCain in the past bitterly attacked the religious right. Mitt Romney, ...   more »

by Lori Palatnik
Wines, spices and candle. Easy as 1-2-3.
See companion article on the inspirational side of Havdalah.
Just as we proclaim the entrance of Shabbat by making "Kiddush," so too we mark the exit of Shabbat with "Havdalah."
1. What You'll Need:
double-wicked candle (or two candles held with flames together)
cup of wine or grape juice
spices (cloves work well)
piece of foil (or plate) for dripping the candle on, and extinguishing the flame
2. Shabbat ends when three medium-sized stars are visible in one glance in the evening sky. This time varies according to location and season.
In North America, a quick way to calculate when Shabbat is over is to add one hour and 10 minutes to candle lighting time. (For example, if Friday night candle lighting was 6:00 p.m., then Shabbat ends at approximately 7:10 p.m. Saturday night.) For an excellent software program that lists Shabbat times for cities around the world, see www.aish.com/kaluach/.
3. If the time for the end of Shabbat has passed, one can recite the following words and begin to do "weekday" activities:
Baruch ha-mavdil bein kodesh le-chol.
Blessed is the one Who divides between the sacred and the mundane....   more »

Buoyed by what they said was a crowd of more than 200,000 Israelis from across the political spectrum who gathered in Kikar Rabin on Thursday night to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, rally organizers said they were planning a series of events with the same goal and would not stop until the prime minister had gone.
Police put the crowd at 150,000.
The event's main organizer, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, told the crowd that "Democracy is in danger." The very committee that the prime minister established, Dayan said, had "stood before him and bravely said, 'Mr. Olmert, you have failed.'"
Tel Aviv protest next threat to Olmert
Marzel: Don't go to anti-gov't rally
Yet Olmert was refusing to recognize his personal responsibility as made plain by the findings of that committee - the Winograd interim report on the Second Lebanon War. And thus, said Dayan, he was undermining the foundations of democracy. "We must stand today in the name of democracy and say, 'No more.'"
Asked by The Jerusalem Post about the intended impact of the rally, Dayan responded: "The event is about what happened here tonight... Tonight's event has shown that democracy has returned to its ...   more »

MK Ophir Paz-Pines has announced that he will erect a tent outside the Prime Minister's Office until the current government resigns and allows the county to heal itself.
Paz-Pines - who resigned from his post as science, culture and sport minister last October over Israel Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman's addition to the cabinet - said he would begin sitting in the tent on Sunday morning and would not leave until Olmert resigns.
The tent will be built on Saturday night, and Paz-Pines will be joined by Motti Ashkenazi, who led the campaign to evict former prime minister Golda Meir from office after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
PM aides downplay 'irrelevant' TA rally
Read Ophir Paz-Pines's new JPost blog
Paz-Pines said that because he is still involved in running for the Labor Party primaries, he won't be able to remain in the tent 24/7. However, he vowed to spend as much time there as possible when he wasn't competing in the primaries.
Paz-Pines is currently third in the Labor leadership race, behind MKs Ehud Barak and Ami Ayalon.
Original Source   more »

The Samaritans claim that, as opposed to mainstream Judaism, theirs is the true religion of the ancient Israelites, predating the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
In 2005 there were about 700 Samaritans in Israel, living mostly on the holy Mount Gerizim near the city of Nablus in the West Bank.
Each year, a day before the Jewish Seder meal is held to mark the beginning of the Passover holiday, members of the Samaritan community gather, under tight security, in Kiryat Luza on Mount Gerizim to celebrate the traditional Passover sacrifice. 
Samaritan elders congregate
In the afternoon, community representatives arrive at the home of the great priest to invite him to partake in the ceremony. The event begins with the chanting of prayers and verses from the book of Exodus, which tells the story of the Israelites journey from Egypt to the land of their fathers.
Elders during cermony
At precisely 7:10 pm, the great priest gives the signal to begin the sacrifice of dozens of sheep. Samaritan women are allowed to watch but not participate. Once all the sheep are killed, they are placed in deep holes - "ovens" - for about three hours.
Knives sharpened in preparation for sacrifice
Lambs ...   more »

One day after WND reported Christian activists were seeking a pledge from the president to veto a "hate crimes" bill now approved by the U.S. House, the White House issued a statement saying the proposal is "unnecessary and constitutionally questionable."
The plan, H.R. 1592 by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is feared by opponents, as WND has reported, as a means to target Christians and to demolish both freedom of speech and religion in the United States. The House voted 237-180 for it today.
"The administration favors strong criminal penalties for violent crime, including crimes based on personal characteristics, such as race, color, religion, or national origin. However … if H.R. 1592 were presented to the president, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," the White House said.
The statement said state and local criminal laws already provide penalties for the violence addressed by the new federal crime defined in the bill, and many carry stricter penalties than the proposed language.
"State and local law enforcement agencies and courts have the capability to enforce those penalties and are doing so effectively. There has been no persuasive demonstration of any need to federalize such a potentially large range ...   more »