by Rabbi Yehuda L. Oppenheimer
Longing for a better future.
Unless things change a whole lot in the next few weeks, we will one again be going through the days leading up to and including Tisha B'Av, the Ninth Day of the Month of Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. Year after year, we reflect on our condition in the Diaspora, and what this long, seemingly endless exile is supposed to teach us, while awaiting the long sought for Redemption.
There is an interesting anecdote recorded regarding a meeting between the prophet Jeremiah and the famous Greek philosopher, Plato. Jeremiah was mourning the destruction of Jerusalem, and Plato engaged him in conversation. Impressed with Jeremiah's great wisdom, Plato asked him, "I do not understand how a sage of your stature can weep so bitterly over something that is over and done with. Surely, what is past is finished with, and your concern now ought to be solely with the future, and how you can influence it. What possible use can there be in all of this weeping?"
Jeremiah answered, "I cannot give you a proper answer to your logical question, for you will not understand it."
Was Plato ...   more »

LISBON: The Quartet seeking peace in the Middle East will probably meet in the region in August, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday.
Solana said it would be the first meeting of the Quartet - which comprises the EU, the US, the UN and Russia - after Portugal assumes the six-month rotating EU presidency this weekend.
Solana, speaking alongside Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado at a press conference in Lisbon, described the situation in the Middle East as “complex and difficult.”
The Quartet is looking to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and on Wednesday named former British prime minister Tony Blair as its new special envoy.
In his first comments since being named envoy, Blair said yesterday he planned to travel to the region in July, and reiterated that a two-state solution was the only way to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The Quartet has since 2003 tried to implement a “roadmap” for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
But the three-stage blueprint that should have led to the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel by 2005 has since languished. – AFP  
Original Source
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US President George W Bush has said he will name an envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a coalition of Muslim countries.
The role of the envoy will be to bolster relations between the Muslim world and the US.
The OIC represents some 57 Islamic states and promotes Muslim solidarity.
The news came as former British PM Tony Blair was named as the Quartet's envoy to the Middle East, to work on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.
Mr Bush said the envoy to the OIC would "listen to and learn from representatives from Muslim states" and "share with them America's views and values".
It is the first time such an envoy has been appointed by a US president.
"This is an opportunity for Americans to demonstrate to Muslim communities our interest in respectful dialogue and continued friendship," Mr Bush said.
Is trying to improve America's image amongst Muslims a lost cause? What would it take to improve relations between the US and the Islamic world? Send us a comment.
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'Jerusalem not holy to Muslims'
Yaakov Lappin
Jerusalem is "not holy to Muslims at all," the president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Morton Klein, told a Quebec synagogue congregation, the Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reported on Friday.  
Klein said Jerusalem had never been important to Muslims, and that the Islamic claim on Jerusalem was designed "to take away our heart and our soul," the CJN said.  He added that Palestinians "have never been a real people because there was never an actual country called 'Palestine,'" the report added.  
"He even accused Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of being willing to sell out Israel for the chance at 'peace,' when 'peace' has never been on Palestinian leaders' minds," CJN quoted Klein as saying.  
Australian FM rejects Syria call
Meanwhile, in Ramallah, Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has rejected calls by the Syrian ambassador for Australia to take a less pro-Israel stance, the Australian Jewish News (AJN) reported.  
"What some ambassador - the Syrian Ambassador I think it is - says in Canberra, well my only response to that is I would like Syria to play a truly constructive role in constraining extremism," Downer was quoted ...   more »

Syria is producing more long-range missiles and is equipping its armed forces with as much anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry as it can get its hands on, warned the head of Israeli Defense Ministry's political-military bureau on Saturday.
Speaking to Israel Radio, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad stressed that he does not believe Syria will initiative a conventional full-scale war with Israel in the near future, but noted that the leadership in Damascus does appear to have become “enamored with the violent option.”
Gilad said that Syria and Iran are working together to strengthen and support Lebanon's Hizballah and the more violent Palestinian terror groups, apparently hoping that Israel will respond by striking Syria and setting off a war that its northern neighbor has been feverishly preparing for.
Earlier this month, reports indicated that Syria had managed to procure Russia's top fighter-interceptor, the Mig-31, providing it with vastly increased air defenses.  
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By The Associated Prerss  
A state-run Syrian newspaper on Saturday lambasted Tony's Blair's appointment as a special Middle East envoy, saying a man with "hands smeared with innocents' blood" cannot be a peace envoy.
Shortly after stepping down as Britain's prime minister, Blair was named Wednesday as a Mideast envoy by the "Quartet" of peace mediators that is comprised of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.
Blair, who handed over the reins to Gordon Brown, has said his task would be to prepare the ground for a future Palestinian state as an essential first step toward reaching a negotiated settlement in the region. 
"How could a liar, who is directly connected with Washington and who is a staunch proponent of the extremist rightist ideology, be a peace envoy?" the Tishrin newspaper said in a front-page editorial. "Who would trust his promises? Would he work truthfully for peace so long as he personally doesn't know, as we think, the meaning of the word 'truth'?"
In some Arab countries, including Syria, Blair has been criticized on the suspicion that he is a lackey of U.S. President George W. Bush and for supporting the U.S.-led war in ...   more »

The justifiably furious reaction of the American public, which deluged senators with telephone calls, e-mails and faxes, forced the Senate to reverse itself yesterday and send the amnesty bill crashing to defeat — a potentially fatal blow. It was a devastating setback for the Bush administration and its Democratic Party allies, in particular Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Ted Kennedy.
In addition to being an extraordinary substantive triumph for the American people, it was a huge victory for the conservative movement. Talkers such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and many others played an indispensable role in making available the research by the Heritage Foundation and NumbersUSA and analysis from editorial pages such as this one to tens of millions of Americans in a very short period of time. But ironically, by demonstrating in a powerful way its ability to reach and educate the public about the specific problems with the bill, talk radio has also made liberal politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein even more determined to revive the so-called Fairness Doctrine (the equal-time policy enforced by the Federal Communications Commission until it was eliminated in 1987 at the urging of President Reagan) in an ...   more »

By Jerry Klinger
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays
many parts,”
William Shakespeare – As You Like It – 2/7
“Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of
others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”
Robert F. Kennedy  
Stanley Stein was not his real name; it was a name he chose for himself in the few seconds he was given, rather than being known simply as patient #746. He could not use his real name anymore. He did not want the stigmatization, the fears of societal revulsion and isolation to extend to his beloved family that he had been snatched away from suddenly, traumatically. Stanley Stein was a leper. Taken away under American quarantine laws, to a benign American concentration camp in Carville, Louisiana with other diseased human beings like himself; Stanley was 31.
Stein’s real name was Sidney Maurice Levyson. He was born in Gonzalez, Texas, June 10, 1899. He grew up in the tiny hamlet of Bourne, Texas where his father opened ...   more »

Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
June 26, 2007
Should the United States relinquish its sovereignty and form a North American Union with Canada and Mexico? If the socialists have their way, this will happen without you being aware of it or having the opportunity to vote on it. 
Let me explain.  The direction of American foreign policy is not developed by our elected representatives but by private organizations which determine policy agendas. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), established in 1921, is considered the most influential organization in setting the public foreign policy agenda. As a matter of fact, this is one of its stated purposes.  Go to www.cfr.org or www.wikipedia.org and type in “Council on Foreign Relations” and view its mission statement.
The CFR is not a small Washington think tank.  It has over 3,700 lifetime members, all of whom are influential in their fields.  Some notable members are former Presidents George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Vice President Dick Cheney, Former Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Paul Volker, General Colin Powell, leftist billionaire George Soros, television journalists Tom Brokaw and Barbara Walters, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Ambassador to the United Nations ...   more »

Turmoil in Catholic Church: Pope Benedict XVI plans to publish new version of 400-year-old prayer which calls Jews 'perfidious'. Church officials fear reintroduction of prayer could harm church's relations with Jews, Muslims
Ynet
Pope Benedict XVI's intention to reintroduce a controversial Latin Mass with anti-Semitic references has launched turmoil in the Catholic church, according to a report in the Independent.  
The 16th-century Tridentine Mass, which refers to Jews as "perfidious", was replaced in 1969. In the words of the original, penned in 1570, Jews live in "blindness" and "darkness"; it pleads that "the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ".
High-ranking bishops and cardinals in the Catholic Church have expressed severe opposition to the reintroduction of the prayer, out of concern that it will harm the church's relations with Jews and Muslims.  
Leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, sent the pope a letter to voice his opposition to the changes to the mass.  
However, Pope Benedict announced Thursday that he intended to publish next week an amended version of the prayer.  
A spokesman for the Church ...   more »

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking in Tehran on Tuesday. (Reuters) 
Report: Ahmadinejad says Iran is nuclear, cannot be turned back  
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
 Israel Radio reported Saturday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has released a statement saying Iran has become a nuclear nation and no one can cause the country to backtrack.
"Our enemies cannot harm us, not because they don't wish to, but because they cannot do so due to their difficult situation," Israel Radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Ahmadinejad and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday defended a controversial fuel rationing plan in Iran, state-television IRIB reported.
According to Isral Radio, Ahmadinejad said the rationing of fuel has made Iran better able to withstand pressure from the international community. He was referring to sanctions placed on the country following its refusal to halt uranium enrichment as part of its nuclear program.
He said the enemies of Iran have acknowledged the fact that the rationing of fuel has made his country "undefeatable," the radio reported.
Khamenei said in a meeting with government officials that the surplus from the rationing plan and non-import of oil could be used for other development plans in the ...   more »