Rabbi Asher Brander
Far too many years ago, my sixth grade Rebbe once challenged our class: For a moment, imagine that you can be an eyewitness to any scene in Tanach – which one would it be? I honestly don’t remember my classmates responses, but surely some chose matan torah (they were there – but have a slight memory loss); others opted for box seats in the Eila valley to watch Dovid and Goliath; the dramatically inclined wanted to be a fly on the wall in the Yehuda-Yosef reunion, while those looking for "action" were Mt. Carmel bound (watching Eliyahu defeat the false Ba'al prophets). These admittedly fuzzy projections stand in stark contrast to a crisp recollection of my Rebbe's answer. It was the compelling image of the intense Sodom negotiations conducted between Avraham and Hashem that captured his soul. To consider the humble Avraham uncomfortably and yet confidently uttering: My dear God, do you mind if I ask for a further price reduction was for him the ultimate in human heroism (Some claim this to be the Biblical source that Jews don’t pay retail – but we'll leave that for a different discussion.)
Heroism? Surely! - but does it ...   more »

Disclose cease-fire in Gaza will be used to rearm, prepare for battle
By Aaron Klein
Hamas logo
The Gaza cease-fire agreed to yesterday by Hamas and Israel is a "victory" for Palestinian "resistance" and will be used by local terrorist groups to rearm and prepare for battle against the Jewish state, top Gaza-based terror leaders told WND.
"We are humiliating the Israelis. They kept threatening to make a huge operation in Gaza, but they were the ones who begged us to go into the cease-fire," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, a leader and spokesman for the Hamas-allied, Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror group.
Along with Hamas, the Committees took responsibility for firing nearly 30 mortars and rockets from Gaza into nearby Jewish communities Wednesday, lightly injuring one Israeli woman just hours before the truce went into effect.
"[The rocket attacks] prove we are not going into this cease-fire from a weak point but from a point of force and power," Abdel-Al said.
Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND his group will use the truce to rearm itself.
"The hudna (temporary truce) will be used for more training, arming. ... We don't ...   more »

By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent 
Jerusalem's mayor and city manager urged the High Court of Justice on Thursday to prevent the Gay Pride parade from taking place in the capital next Thursday, on the grounds that it would offend the public's sensibilities.
In a joint letter to the High Court, Mayor Uri Lupolianski and city manager Yair Ma'ayan wrote: "Past experience shows that the parade greatly offends, deliberately and unnecessarily, the feelings of Jews, Muslims and Christians, who view its sheer existence, and the blatant manner in which it takes place, as a desecration of the holy city and of the values with which they were raised."
The letter was sent in support of a petition on the matter filed by right-wing activists Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir. 
Ma'ayan and Lupolianski stressed that their request contradicts the position of the municipality's legal counsel, Yossi Havilio, who favors holding the parade.
Havilio, who sent a separate response to the court, argued that the parade's organizers are making every effort not to offend the city's Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities.
"Based on the data presented to the municipality's legal counsel, there is no intention of having the parade pass through, or close ...   more »

J.Post.com Staff
Iran on Friday warned Israel it would retaliate to an attack with a "strong blow," after the New York Times reported that the IAF had conducted a drill, apparently for a strike against the Islamic republic.
"If enemies, especially Israelis and their supporters in the United States, would want to use a language of force, they should rest assured that they will receive a strong blow in the mouth," senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami was quoted by AFP as saying during a Friday prayers sermon, which was also broadcast live on state radio.
Khatami stressed that the Iranian nation's mentality was "to fight foreigners."
"Given this mentality, if you make a hostile look at the Islamic Iran, you will witness such a united roar by our nation that it will definitely make you regret any vicious move forever," he added.
On Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said "the nuclear issue has ended from our point of view."
"Recently they have started a new game - by testing us - but this will result in no achievement for them except humiliation," he said without elaborating.
Original Source
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By Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt
WASHINGTON: Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military's capacity to carry out long-range strike and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran's nuclear program.
More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.
The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles, which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.
Israeli officials declined to discuss the details of the exercise. A spokesman for the Israeli military would say only that the country's air force "regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel."
But the scope of the Israeli exercise virtually guaranteed that it would be ...   more »

'To say, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel'
State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide, but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.
The end of the story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year, and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a recent report in the Eugene Register-Guard.
But the word from the state was coverage for "palliative" care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed, but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.
"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"
She said she was devastated when the state health program refused coverage for Tarceva, the drug her doctor ordered for treatment of her lung cancer.
The ...   more »

As gasoline prices climb higher and higher, it's easy to wonder if the oil companies are fixing prices. Our congressional leaders have been wondering the same thing, so they are holding hearings to find out if that is going on. Price fixing is an ugly act in anyone's book.
Another variation of price fixing is known as "bid rigging." It occurs when two or more companies pretend to compete for the same contract, but secretly agree to do it inflate prices. The conspirators each present high bids, so that even the one making the lower bid gets more money than they would have gotten otherwise.
About the only thing worse than bid rigging, would be foreign companies conspiring to rig bids to cheat our soldiers living overseas. Well, the U.S. government has alleged just that in a recent lawsuit.
According to the Department of Justice, a Belgian company named Gosselin Worldwide conspired with four German moving companies (Birkart Globistics GmbH & Co. Logistik und Service KG; ITO Möbel Transport GmbH; Viktoria International Spedition; and Andreas Christ Spedition & Möbeltransport GmbH) to cheat the military by engaging in bid rigging to fix high prices for moving the household belongings of soldiers ...   more »

Law unconstitutional because it 'encourages arbitrary enforcement'
A federal court has declared a Florida law banning representatives of the Gideons from handing out Bibles within 500 feet of any school in the state unconstitutional because it is vague and actually "encourages arbitrary enforcement."
The ruling in a case brought by the Alliance Defense Fund comes from U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore and addresses an incident that developed Jan. 19, 2007, at Key Largo School, run by Principal Annette Martinson.
The law actually prohibits anyone without "legitimate business" from being within 500 feet of schools in the state and specifies "each principal or designee of each public or private school in this state shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency to prohibit any person from loitering in the school safety zone who does not have legitimate business in the school safety zone or any other authorization, or license to enter or remain in the school safety zone or does not otherwise have invitee status in the designated safety zone."
The issue arose because of team of Gideons, known for paying all of their own expenses out of pocket while raising all of their own funds and giving away Bibles, ...   more »

JPost.com Staff
US and Canadian intelligence agencies warned Thursday that Hizbullah attacks on Jewish targets around the world could be imminent.
ABC News quoted intelligence officials as saying that Hizbullah had activated sleeper cells in Canada, and that top terror operatives had left Lebanon for the US, Canada and Africa.
According to the officials, Hizbullah wants to avenge February's assassination of its operations head Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus, for which the Shi'ite group holds Israel accountable.
Israel has repeatedly denied the allegation.
There was no reliable intelligence regarding the possible targets of such an attack, the sources told ABC News, adding, however, that Hizbullah operatives had recently been seen conducting surveillance on the Israel Embassy in Ottawa and on several Toronto synagogues.
"There are concerns Hizbullah might be ready to do something along those lines," ABC quoted a senior US counterterrorism official as saying.
CIA and National Security Agency officials quoted by the report said British and Canadian agencies began receiving a flow of intelligence on February 17, only a few days after Mughniyeh's funeral, regarding a possible Hizbullah attack.
"They want to kill as many people as they can, they want it to be a big splash," former CIA ...   more »

Security officials stunned by release of al-Qaida’s 'ambassador to Europe'
By Aaron Klein
Abu Qatada
LONDON – Is the release from prison this week of a radical cleric once described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe part of a deal that Britain made with Gaza-based terrorists for the freedom last summer of kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston?
Johnston was released last July after being held captive by a Palestinian group for nearly four months – the longest detention of any foreign correspondent kidnapped in Gaza.
At the time of his release, Palestinian sources involved in the negotiations to free Johnston claimed to WND that Britain told the kidnappers through mediators it would free from jail Abu Qatada, who has been accused of serving as al-Qaida's spiritual adviser in Europe.
The Palestinian sources involved in the Johnston negotiations claimed last year the British government pledged through a third-party mediator to release Abu Qatada only after a period of at least six months so the release wouldn't appear connected to Johnston's freedom.
Qatada had been detained in Britain as a terror suspect but was not tried or sentenced.
He is accused among other things of planning terror attacks in Jordan ...   more »