Gaza resident speaks out against factional fighting, says situation in Gaza was better when Israel was in charge
Aviram Zino
“I’m afraid to say this out loud, they may execute me for it, but there are a lot of people, including myself, who think it would be better if Israel came back here. Things would be much better than they are now,” said Samara (alias), a graduate of the Islamic University living in the Gaza Strip.  
According to Samara, who lives nearby one of the Fatah strongholds taken over by Hamas in recent days, fear reigns in Gaza’s streets, and apart from gunmen and military officials, no one leaves their homes.  
“The children are afraid all the time,” Samara says. “My nephews ask, ‘Why are the Israelis shooting at us?’, and we tell them it’s Palestinians. Then they ask, ‘Why are Palestinians shooting at us?’, and I have no answer for them.  
“We have no food at home. We’ve been living on soups and canned food for days. There is no electricity or continuous water supply, let alone medicine or essential hygiene products,” she explained.  
The gun battles taking place in the streets keep all of ...   more »

By Jonathan Lis and Yair Ettinger, Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies  
Haifa was set to host its first Gay Pride parade Thursday, a week before a similar march in Jerusalem seems set to spark fierce protests.
Dozens of members of the ultra-Orthodox community demonstrated Wednesday evening in Jerusalem in protest of the parade scheduled to take place next Thursday.
Police gave approval Wednesday night for the Jerusalem march, a statement said, despite vocal and potentially violent opposition from the ultra-Orthodox community. 
A garbage receptacle was set on fire during the demonstration, which was organized by the head of the ultra-Orthodox community's religious court, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch.
The head of the gay rights organization sponsoring the parade, Noa Satat, said that "the parade will be an expression of freedom of speech and civil rights, and will bear a restrained and moderate Jerusalem character" as opposed to Tel Aviv's more flamboyant parade.
"We are calling all the participants in the parade to respect the residents of Jerusalem including the ultra-Orthodox residents. We invite anyone that the freedom of speech and the democracy in Israel is important to them, to take part in the parade," she said.
Sa'ar Netanel, a member of the ...   more »

Government approves of appointment of Labor Chairman Ehud Barak as defense minister, former Defense Minister Amir Peretz hands in resignation, will no longer be part of government as of Monday
Ronny Sofer
The government unanimously approved the appointment of newly elected Labor Party Chairman Ehud Barak as Israel's next defense minister on Friday.
Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz handed in his resignation and will no longer be part of the government as of Monday evening.
Olmert decided on the appointment in his meeting with Barak Friday morning.  
During the meeting, Olmert said he wished to rush the appointment in light of the tense security situation and the collapse of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip.  
Barak responded to Olmert's request, and is expected to enter his new role upon being sworn into Knesset on Monday.
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, who was also a candidate for the position, expressed satisfaction with Olmert's decision. 
So far, Olmert has received the approval of Chairman of the Pensioners Party Raffie Eitan, Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman, and Shas head Minister Eliyahu Yishai.
In an attempt to put things in order following recent changes in government roles, Olmert plans to leave the ...   more »

Residents of Beit El on Tuesday joyously resumed compliance with the forgotten biblical commandment to tithe the first wool sheared from a sheep born and raised in the Land of Israel to the priests.
Beit El Chief Rabbi Zalman Melamed was eager for his town to join the other scattered few that ceremoniously fulfill the commandment, which is found in Deuteronomy 18:3.
Melamed got his chance three months ago, he told those gathered on Tuesday, when he learned that a local resident of Beit El had decided to buy a small flock of newborn lambs. The rabbi immediately bought five of the lambs for himself, and waited until they were ready to be shorn.
Young men from the community went about shaving the lambs as Melamed addressed the happy crowd, reported Israel National News. The wool was later presented to former Israel chief rabbi Avraham Kahane-Shapira, a man whose priestly lineage is indisputable, according to Melamed.
“These commandments bring us closer to our dream of rebuilding the Holy Temple and supporting the priests,” Melamed told Israel National News.
Town elders estimated that the commandment had not been fulfilled in over 2,000 years in Beit El, a major ancient religious center ...   more »

The BBC apologized this week for referring to Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and promised not to repeat "the mistake," following a complaint by four British organizations.
Arab Media Watch, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Friends of Al-Aksa and the Institute of Islamic Political Thought sent a joint complaint to the BBC after a presenter on its Football Focus program on March 24 mentioned that Jerusalem was Israel's capital and "historic soul."
The BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit posted a response on its Web site: "The reference was a passing one in a context where the focus was on sport, not politics. While recognizing the sensitivity of the issue of the status of Jerusalem, the ECU took the view that the program-makers had taken sufficient action by acknowledging the error and rectifying the Web site."
The Editorial Complaints Unit's ruling was: "Complaint resolved."
In a letter to the complaining NGOs, Fraser Steel, head of editorial complaints at the BBC, said: "We of course accept that the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and that the BBC should not describe it as such. I was therefore pleased to see that Katherine Tsang [BBC Information adviser], when she wrote to you in ...   more »

'We have to stop being so tribalistic," insists NU/NRP Knesset member Benny Elon, "and remember that no one group in this country would have succeeded without the others."
Such promoting of societal cohesion might seem out of place, coming from a religious right-winger with a reputation for undermining his political opponents with the purism of an ideologue. But then, Elon is altogether an unusual sort of firebrand - one whose gentle manner and good cheer don't correspond to the "extremist" image that has accompanied the 52-year-old resident of the West Bank town of Beit El throughout his political life.
It is a stereotype many would deem well-deserved. After all, Elon began his Knesset career as a member of Moledet - headed by murdered minister Rehavam Ze'evi - a party pegged as racist for its platform.
Indeed, the son of retired Supreme Court Justice Menahem Elon and husband of author and pundit Emunah Elon might just as well have tattooed the scarlet letter "T" on his chest for "Transfer," or "O" for "ousted out of mainstream discourse." Neither detractors on the Left nor center-rightists were swayed by Elon's claims of finding a "humanitarian solution" to Israel's Palestinian problem. It did not ...   more »

Hundreds of Islamic centers in the United States have become a hot-bed of extremist activity; they promote violence, terrorism and hatred against America.   
“Our initial investigation has concluded there are between 400 to 500 radical Islamic centers in the U.S.,” said David Gaubatz, the director of counterintelligence and counterterrorism for the Society of Americans for National Existence. “In those places, they preach an extreme version of Islam that says America and the West is the enemy. They espouse violence, hatred and the need for terrorism.”
Gaubatz is a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who now works for the Mapping Shari’a in America Project (www.mappingsharia.com), which is supported by SANE, a national non-profit group devoted to investigating the 2,300 Islamic centers in the U.S. for extremist activity.
Gaubatz and his investigators are currently active and will soon form a team of about 12. They pose as people interested in converting to Islam or who are current Muslims. Their goal is to infiltrate mosques and Muslim centers. Recently, he and his team penetrated the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, located in Falls Church, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
Sporting a beard and Muslim dress, Gaubatz said he went on ...   more »

By George Parker in Brussels, John Thornhill in Paris and James Blitz in London
Tony Blair, the British prime minister, could end up swapping Downing Street for a job as the first full-time European Union president, under a plan being actively touted by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.
Mr Sarkozy is understood to have discussed the idea with other EU leaders ahead of next week’s European summit, Mr Blair’s last major international event as prime minister.
His support for Mr Blair taking on a big European job is a remarkable sign of Anglo-French rapprochement since Mr Sarkozy replaced Jacques Chirac as president last month.
German diplomats say Mr Sarkozy put his plan to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, while EU officials say the French president has also touted his idea around other capitals, including Madrid. But the British prime minister remains unpopular with governments in countries such as Italy and Spain, which opposed the Iraq war. Mr Blair’s failure to take Britain into the euro will also count against him.
Mr Blair’s aides admit that Mr Sarkozy and other EU leaders have suggested the idea, but Downing Street insisted that Mr Blair was standing down from frontline politics on June ...   more »

By Geoff Marsh for express.co.uk  Have your say(19)
TONY Blair wants to hand the European Union radical new powers in his last act as Prime Minister, it emerged today.
The Prime Minister has welcomed controversial plans to bring back the troubled EU constitution by the back door - totally bypassing the need for public referendums on sweeping new powers for Brussels.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has suggested ditching the name "constitution" from the title and instead calling it an "amending treatyÓ - to avoid having to seek the approval of voters.
French and Dutch voters rejected the original plan - which would hand Brussels the power to represent individual countries at the UN and change national laws - two years ago.
 The British people will see right through any shabby stitch-up.  
Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague
Britain's voting rights would be reduced by a third under the scheme and our hard-won veto on European directives would be torn up. Britain could also lose the right to impose quotas on immigration.
Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: "If Tony Blair thinks he can hoodwink the British people by smuggling in the rejected EU consitution under another name, he had better ...   more »

Socrates (470-399 B.C.) was a famous Greek philosopher from Athens who taught Plato, and Plato taught Aristotle. Socrates used a method of teaching by asking questions. The Greeks called this form "dialectic" – starting from a thesis or question, then discussing ideas and moving back and forth between points of view to determine how well ideas stand up to critical review with the ultimate principle of the dialogue being veritas – Truth.
Characters
Socrates
President, National Education Association, or NEA
Jowakka (age 14, a typical public school student from Washington, D.C.)
Mutumbo (age 18, a typical student from South Africa)
Liberalism demands ... [e]veryone is taxed to support indoctrination into the state religion through the public schools, where innocent children are taught a specific belief system. ...
~ Ann Coulter
{Setting: Socrates' Academy, Washington, D.C., 2007}
Socrates: We are gathered here today at my Academy to discuss a very important question – Should public school be mandatory?
NEA: {affronted} Well, what a ludicrous question, Socrates. Of course public school should be mandatory.
Socrates: Why, pray tell?
NEA: {condescending} Well, all of the academic studies unmistakably show that children who are not forced to attend public schools are more likely to ...   more »

CBS) In New York, cops armed with Geiger counters pull over trucks for random inspections.
Robotic underwater cameras crawl along the hulls of cruise ships looking for explosives and traces of radioactivity.
And from the air, sensors snoop for radiation hot spots. It is the last line of defense against an unthinkable threat.
"Terrorists — al Qaeda, bin Laden — have sought nuclear materials for a number of years now," FBI Director Robert Mueller told CBS News correspondent Bob Orr in an exclusive interview.
Mueller says terrorists would like nothing better than to hit the U.S. with a nuclear weapon.
"When we saw 9/11, everyone I think pretty much looking at those pictures thought this is about as bad as it could get," Mueller said. "Its not as bad as it could get. A nuclear device — if a nuclear device went off, you're talking about devastation that is far, far beyond what we saw on September 11th."
That kind of devastation was portrayed in the film "The Sum of All Fears," when a nuclear bomb leveled much of Baltimore.
That was just a movie, but officials warn the threat is real, and the bomb wouldn't have to be that ...   more »

WASHINGTON (AFP) - China's secretive transformation of its military power leaves the United States preparing for the worst eventualities, including over Taiwan, a        Pentagon official said Wednesday.  
About 900 Chinese missiles are in place opposite Taiwan, while China is also rolling out far more sophisticated long-range nuclear missiles, combat planes, warships and submarines, the        Department of Defense official said.
Richard Lawless, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for Asia-Pacific affairs, said the US government urgently wanted to launch a strategic dialogue to discuss China's military intentions, especially over nuclear arms.
"I think if we had a true dialogue of depth... we might be able to constrain and put some of those issues of (Chinese) intent to bed," he told a hearing of the House of Representatives armed services committee.
"Not being able to, we must plan and prepare for the worst," he said. "It is an area of intense concern and we're giving it due attention from the highest levels of the Department of Defense and the inter-agency discussion."
The United States and China have long been at loggerheads over Beijing's military build-up, although US Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed optimism about future relations at a Singapore security conference this month....   more »

By Aaron Klein
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

 
JERUSALEM – Terrorist groups, including Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees, have seized large quantities of CIA security files stored at major compounds of militias associated with the U.S.-backed Fatah organization of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, terror leaders told WND today.
The terror leaders claimed the files contain, among other information, details of CIA networks in the Middle East.
"The CIA files we seized, which include documents, CDs, taped conversations and videos, are more important than all the American weapons we obtained the last two days as we took over the traitor Fatah's positions," said Muhammad Abdel-El, spokesman for the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees terror group.
The Committees has been accused of carrying out anti-U.S. attacks, including a 2003 bombing of an American convoy in Gaza that killed three U.S. contractors.
Hamas has the past few days taken near-complete control of the Gaza Strip, advancing on the vast majority of Fatah security buildings and positions in the northern, southern and central sections of the territory.
(Story continues below)
 
Hamas gunmen today captured the second of four major Fatah command centers in central Gaza City, planting the group's green flag on the ...   more »