The Palestinian Arabs regularly accuse Israel of intentionally targeting their civilian population in a cruel attempt to ethnically cleanse all non-Jews from the region.
That accusation, especially during times of escalating violence, is more often than not echoed by the international community.
Israel, meanwhile, maintains that it has no desire to harm Palestinian civilians, but finds itself forced to put them in harms way because Palestinian terrorists insist on violating international law by operating out of civilian population centers and disguising themselves as civilians.
Case in point: During the heavy weekend fighting in and around the Gaza Strip, Israeli aerial surveillance spotted a donkey-drawn cart transporting a concealed Katyusha missile through an agricultural grove outside Gaza city.
Had Israeli forces attacked the cart and killed its driver, they certainly would have been accused by both the Arabs and the world of murdering a "Palestinian civilian," a simple farmer at work in his fields.
However, the fact that farmer was transporting a missile to be used in an attack against Israeli civilians made him a legitimate military target, under international law.
In light of this and many similar incidents, not to mention the terrorists' cynical use of the civilian population as ...   more »

Two Jerusalem public officials on Monday recounted for Israel National News and Mayor Uri Lupolianski their near lynch at the hand of an Arab mob earlier in the day in the Israeli capital.
The victims, both municipal inspectors, said that after turning down a main road in an Arab-dominated area of downtown Jerusalem, they were suddenly forced to stop their car after coming upon burning dumpster pushed into the middle of the street.
As soon as their car had stopped, dozens of Arab men hurling glass bottles and wielding large metal bars attacked the vehicle. The two Jewish men managed to escape by driving their car onto the sidewalk, but said that the mob most certainly intended to do them physical harm.
Israeli security officials cited by Israel National News said the eruption of violence among Jerusalem Arabs over the past few days has been anything but a spontaneous response to the escalating fighting in and around Gaza, as Arab officials have tried to portray it.
The sources said ongoing riots and violent demonstrations by the capital's Arab residents is being planned and incited by elements that want to ignite bloodshed in the city and even spark a third intifada, ...   more »

Rebecca Anna Stoil
The IDF officially unveiled a new vehicle on Sunday designed to get infantry to and from the battlefield more efficiently.
The Tiger, a heavy infantry fighting vehicle built on the chassis of the Merkava 1 battle tank, "will be a significant aspect of operations in infantry brigades and will allow us to better perform ground maneuvers in order to achieve decision on the battlefield," said OC Ground Forces Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi.
A number of the vehicles would be deployed by the end of the year, Mizrahi said.
The Tiger is expected to be much more secure against anti-tank weapons, such as those used by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and by Hizbullah in Lebanon, than its predecessors.
The Tiger prototype was first displayed in March 2005 at a Low Intensity Conflict exhibition in Tel Aviv, and since then, the Merkava Tank Directorate has been working on production.
To make the Tigers, the turret, top and driver station hatch have been removed from old Merkava 1 tanks, and replaced with increased armor, including a new armored rear door that doubles as a ramp. The Merkava 1 is more than 20 years old.
The underbelly of the Tiger ...   more »

By Michael B. Oren
It begins with a single Qassam rocket, one of the thousands of homemade projectiles fired in recent years by the Islamic radicals of Hamas from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel. The rockets have made life nightmarish for many Israelis but have largely missed their targets. But this one gets "lucky": It smashes into an elementary school, wounding 40 children and killing 15.
The Israeli government, which had heretofore responded to the Qassams with airstrikes and small ground raids, cannot resist the nationwide demand for action. Within hours, tens of thousands of Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks are rushing into Gaza, battling house-to-house in teeming refugee camps. Just as swiftly, Palestinian officials accuse Israel of perpetrating a massacre and invite the foreign press to photograph the corpse-strewn rubble. The images flash around the Middle East on al-Jazeera TV and trigger violent demonstrations in Arab capitals.
Hezbollah, the radical Lebanese Shiite militia, then gets into the act, raining Katyusha rockets on northern Israel. But when Israeli warplanes bomb the Katyusha batteries, Syria leaps in, sending its commandos to retaliate by capturing key Israeli bunkers atop the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel's counterattack succeeds only in precipitating a ...   more »

Khaled Abu Toameh
US President George W. Bush is said to have approved a covert initiative to overthrow the Hamas government shortly after Hamas won the January 2006 parliamentary election, according to confidential documents obtained by Vanity Fair magazine.
The documents, which have been corroborated by sources at the US State Department and Palestinian officials, reveal that the plan was supposed to be implemented by the State Department.
The report confirms allegations by Hamas and other Palestinians that the US has been supplying Fatah with weapons and money so that its forces could bring down the Hamas government. Some senior Fatah officials have also accused the US of "meddling" in Palestinian affairs by encouraging Fatah to work toward toppling the Hamas government.
The magazine said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams were entrusted with provoking a Palestinian civil war, in which forces led by Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan - fortified with new weapons supplied at America's behest - would remove the democratically elected, Hamas-led government.
The State Department, according to Vanity Fair, declined to comment.
The magazine quoted a former US intelligence official with experience in covert plans that said the plan was ...   more »

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
A near-lynch by an Arab mob in Jerusalem ended without casualties on Monday, as rioters confronted civilians and soldiers in several locales. Arab students at Israeli universities held pro-Palestinian Authority demonstrations as well.  Hundreds of policemen are on high-alert duty in the capital on Tuesday.
Israeli security sources say that the riots are not a spontaneous outpouring of rage over the events in Gaza, as they are often portrayed. Rather, the sources say, the unrest is organized and incited by those elements interested in "heating up" the Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria regions. Those behind the incitement are attempting to spark what some sources say may be a "third Intifada."
Rioting, rock-throwing and firebomb attacks by Arab mobs were reported in several locations in municipal
Had they been able to, the Arab attackers "would have lynched us, not just the car."
Jerusalem during the day. In one instance, two municipal workers escaped a lynch mob on Salah A-Din Street, a main road in the eastern part of the capital. On Monday night, they described the event to Mayor Uri Lupolianski. 
Inspectors Ephraim Moshe and Chaya Eliyahu said they were driving down the street when they realized the road ...   more »

By Nina Khrushcheva
Commentary by 
The question that has dominated Russian politics, and world discussion of Russian politics - "Will Vladimir Putin or won't he stay in power?" - has now been settled. The former president will and he won't. The election of Putin's longtime acolyte and handpicked successor, Dmitri Medvedev, as Russia's president means that Putin is formally surrendering all the pomp and circumstance of Kremlin power. But now it looks like 21-gun salutes and first place in protocol lines are the only things that Putin is giving up - if that. In opting to become Medvedev's prime minister, Putin sees himself as coming closer to the machine of power, because he will obtain minute-by-minute control of the government.
This bizarre transfer of office but not power - perhaps a slight improvement on state governors in the American south who used to hand their offices to their wives when their term limits expired - is Putin's scenario. But what if it is not Medvedev's? What if Medvedev, after a few years, becomes as independent of his patron as Putin became of Boris Yeltsin, the man who put him on the Kremlin throne? Should that turn out to be the ...   more »

TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose 'the fraud of global warming.'
By Jeff Poor
The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.
Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism.
The Weather Channel had great promise, and that's all gone now because they've made every mistake in the book on what they've done and how they've done it and it's very sad," Coleman said. "It's now for sale and there's a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced - several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let's hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information."
The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.
Coleman also told the audience ...   more »

By Chuck Baldwin 
During this week back in 1836, the Alamo fell. For more than 13 days, 186 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna's seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet, they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans. 
It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally known frontiersman and former Congressman), Will Travis (only 23 years old with a little baby at home), and Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us. There was something different about them, however. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort. 
Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom has little to do with financial gain or personal pleasure. Accompanying Freedom ...   more »

Olivia St. John
Released Feb. 25, and questioning more than 35,000 citizens, the "American Religious Landscape Survey 2007" indicates that the nation's Protestant majority is in a death spiral. According to the Christian Examiner, the religious majority "in place since the colonial era, has dropped to 51.3 percent and will soon become a minority." In addition, although Christianity is unique in embracing absolute truth, 91 percent of students from evangelical churches believe truth is what you make it.
Moving rapidly to fill this void, leftist ideologues are infecting public schools and colleges with their own godless worldview, capitalizing on the "opportunity" Christian pastors and parents have provided. It is clear that America's religious and political landscape is changing due to spiritual apathy, and nowhere is this more obvious than when Christian parents place their children into secular institutions for their education.
While we face many real threats from outside our country, the radical transformation of our youth through an anti-Christian, tax-funded, socialist education system threatens to rot our country from within.
There is a good reason Karl Marx exhibited a keen appreciation for public schools in his "Communist Manifesto."
Most parents believe they are in charge of their public schools, ...   more »

The other day I ran across the words of the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, who once wrote, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life."
The meaning of that saying is incredibly simple and chock-full of common sense. In other words, it's the kind of thing that can be foreign to those of us brought up in a world where two plus two can equal 150. A stitch in time saves us five, at most, because the other four went to the government, and Newton's third law has been revised to read, "For every action, there's an equal but opposite lawsuit."
In today's world, Lao Tzu's simple bit of wisdom doesn't cut it in a place full of many constructed gray areas. This is especially true for politics and politicians.
I began to wonder how Tzu's words would have to be altered based on each of the Republican and Democrat presidential candidates – along with some of the more obscure parties and current politicians – general philosophies.
Here's my best shot at it:
John McCain: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him ...   more »

By: Michael Foust
NELSONVILLE, Ohio (BP)--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama defended his belief in same-sex civil unions March 2 by referencing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and then implicitly criticizing those who view Romans as a binding teaching on homosexuality.
Obama made the comments during a question-and-answer session with voters in Nelsonville, Ohio. A local pastor asked Obama how he plans to win the votes of evangelical voters when they disagree with him on moral issues.
"I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other," he said, referring to unions that grant all the legal benefits of marriage, minus the name. "I don't think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. That's my view. But we can have a respectful disagreement on that."
The Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew 5-7, the ...   more »