MICHAEL DECKER - Guest Legal Commentator
Firstly, it is important to note that for many years the Ministry of Interior failed to publish its regulations and guidelines. We can assume, therefore, that the Ministry of Interior for a long time did not operate according to any guidelines when relating to various issues, which may include granting visas to Evangelical Christian organizations.
In the case of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel vs. the Ministry of Interior, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) appealed before the Administrative Court to force the Interior Ministry to publish its regulations. The court ruled that the Interior Ministry is obligated to transparently publish its policies and reveal all guidelines to the public. The judge emphasized that this should have been done already.
In light of the ruling, the Interior Ministry was forced to publish all of its policies on their website. As of today, most of the Interior Ministry’s regulations are published. I mention this particular court decision because I believe that the situation regarding visas given to Christian volunteers might be clarified in light of the published polices.
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By JPOST.COM STAFF
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserted Tuesday that she would beat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the upcoming Kadima primary should he decide to run. In an interview with Army Radio, Livni said, "If the prime minister decides to run in the Kadima primary, which doesn't seem reasonable to me, I will beat him." The foreign minister also rejected claims of rivalry between herself and the prime minister saying that although she had "nothing personal against Olmert," the process within the Kadima faction was intended to replace him.
     "It's time for the public to regain faith in politics," Livni went on, "I hope people haven't given up yet. I have said this from the outset, and it's Olmert's decision. The public is tired of him."
     The foreign minister went on to speak of Israel's security situation, emphasizing the importance of planning and solid decision-making. "We are in a place where we recognize threats; we have to deal with them in advance… Security is a lot more than just army and command. Security is making the right decisions."
     Responding to assessments that she did not have enough experience to fill the post of prime minister, Livni ...   more »

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad short on funds, unable to pay public workers; appeals to World Bank for emergency funds
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has appealed to the World Bank to help him secure emergency financing to bridge a shortfall in donor funds and pay public workers, Palestinian and European sources said Tuesday.
Fayyad is seeking a so-called comfort letter from the international lending agency to obtain short-term private bank funding, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
His unusual appeal underscores the extent of the Palestinian Authority's budget crisis despite billions of dollars in aid pledged last year as part of a US-backed peace drive.
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Says critics have blocked alignment of U.S., Mexico and Canada
The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead, says Robert A. Pastor, the American University professor who for more than a decade has been a major proponent of building a North American Community. "The new president will probably discard the SPP," Pastor wrote in an article titled "The Future of North America," published in the current July/August issue of the Council on Foreign Relations magazine Foreign Affairs.
The SPP, which critics contend is a step toward a North American Union, is an agreement to increase cooperation on security and economic issues signed by the leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in 2005. Despite having no authorization from Congress, the Bush administration launched extensive working-group activity to implement the agreement. The working groups – ranging from e-commerce, to aviation policy, to borders and immigration – have counterparts in Mexico and Canada.
"The April summit meeting was probably the last hurrah for the SPP," Pastor wrote, referring to the fourth annual SPP meeting held in April in New Orleans.
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It has been nearly 30 years since Iran fell into the hands of the satanic radical mullahs hell-bent on bringing America to its knees – the position one assumes in the Islamic Republic just before one is executed.
Thirty years – and America still doesn't have a clue as to what it is dealing with in Iran.
We can blame Jimmy Carter, of course, for pulling the Persian rug out from under a perfectly reasonable and moderate potentate and for rolling out the flying red carpet for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – the diabolical inspiration for today's leaders in Tehran. But after 30 years of experience with Iran's terrorism and subversion, we have only ourselves to blame for this regime's continued existence.
Immediately after coming to power, Khomeini ordered his zealots to take the U.S. Embassy staff hostage. He and a young radical follower by the name of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held those Americans for 444 days. Only the swearing in of Ronald Reagan as president prompted their immediate release.
But Reagan, too, would soon feel the sting of the Shiite Islamic Revolution. On Oct. 23, 1983, Iran used its surrogate terrorist army, Hezbollah, to conduct a truck bomb attack on the ...   more »

According to his acolytes, Barack Obama is a constitutional law scholar.
He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for 10 years. He often references this credential in touting his own knowledge and understanding of the Constitution.
But what does he really know about the U.S. Constitution?
How does he actually view it?
Does he see the Constitution, as the framers did, binding the authority of the federal government?
Or, does he take the view prevalent in most U.S. universities and law schools today that the Constitution is a "living, breathing document" that adapts to changing times, conditions and mores?
You don't need to be a "scholar" to understand the Constitution. It was written to be easily understood by ordinary people – ranchers and farmers and men who worked with their hands in the 18th century. In addition to leaving us with the final document, the framers left us with hundreds of pages of writings about the debates they had with each other over the drafting and ratification process.
There can be little mistake about what they meant, what they had in mind, what they were thinking and why if you take the time to read the ...   more »

In God's economy, it would appear to be putting other gods before Him. That, after all, is what the first of the Ten Commandments would suggest.
In a television interview with Mike Wallace 51 years ago, Planned Parenthood saint Margaret Sanger expressed, not surprisingly, some different ideas.
While telling Wallace she wasn't certain she would characterize murder as a sin, she was quick to offer up her own idea about the worst kind of moral trespass.
"I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being, practically, delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things – just marked when they're born," she said. "That to me is the greatest sin that people can commit."
I commend you to watch this 30-minute TV program to see just how much American culture has changed in 51 years.
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George Jahn
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president on Tuesday blamed the U.S. and other "big powers" for global ills such as nuclear proliferation and AIDS, and accused them of exploiting the U.N. for their own gain and the developing world's loss.
But, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, time was on the poor countries' side.
"The big powers are going down," Ahmadinejad told foreign ministers of the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Tehran. "They have come to the end of their power, and the world is on the verge of entering a new, promising era."
The more than 100-member NAM is made up of such diverse members as communist Cuba, Jamaica and India and depicts itself as bloc-free. But most members share a critical view of the U.S and the developed world in general.
And with Iran assuming the chairmanship of the conference Tuesday, Ahmadinejad's keynote speech was tailored to reflect the struggle that some NAM members see themselves in against the world's rich and powerful countries.
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Jim Brown
Christian broadcaster and author Tom McMahon says evangelical pastor Rick Warren's belief that the church must take the lead in solving the world's problems of poverty, disease, and war cannot be reconciled with the scriptures.
Pastor Warren will be hosting an interfaith meeting next month with 30 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders "to discuss cooperation for the common good of all Americans." Warren's P.E.A.C.E. plan mobilizes churches to address global problems. But McMahon, president of The Berean Call ministry, says the popular Christian author is introducing evangelical Christianity to the social gospel that he learned from his mentor, social scientist Peter Drucker. 
"As a Christian, as a biblical Christian, I have real concerns about this because I don't find this in the scriptures," McMahon explains. "You see, it's true the world has all kinds of problems, but he's working on the symptoms and avoiding the root cause, which is the sin nature of humanity. So how can you work with all kinds of people [who are] called 'people of faith,' but it's not biblical faith?"
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By Steven Emerson  
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | News reports indicate that the recent World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid ended with something less than the Kumbaya atmosphere both organizers and attendees had envisioned.
According to the reports, a presidential advisor from the United Arab Emirates urged attendees to "to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism," adding "I can speak to pacifists but not bellicists, who are in favor of war."
Rabbi Marc Schneier, chairman of the World Jewish Congress in North America, responded, saying "Israel is not a political issue... If you want to understand Judaism, then you need to understand that Israel is a core issue of our religion."
Jay Rosenbaum of Temple Israel in Lawrence, N.Y., went further, telling a New York Sun reporter that the comments were anti-Semitic, representing "the same old rhetoric that has led to more hatred and the building of a wall between the Jews and the Muslims for the last 60 years."
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'American Stonehenge' monument draws occult, pagan worshipers
Georgia Guidestones
A Christian organization is pressuring the community of Elberton, Ga., to tear down a massive, granite monument that lists an alternative set of Ten Commandments that the organization labels satanic.
The monument, known as the Georgia Guidestones, was built under a cloud of mystery in 1980. It lists 10 commandments in eight different languages, including a call to establish a new world language, limit human population to 500 million and avoid being "a cancer on the Earth."
"We have atheists and Satanists getting the Bible's Ten Commandments removed from public property," said Mark Dice, spokesman for the group The Resistance, "yet the satanic Georgia Guidestones have stood for decades, and nobody seems to care. Well, we do."
Comparing the monument's command to "maintain humanity under 500 million in perpetual balance with nature" with an estimated world's population of over 6 billion, Dice told WND, "Regardless of anyone's religion, I think they would find it objectionable that there's this monument that calls for the elimination of over 90 percent of the world's population."
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Exclusive: Major Events on the Horizon Prompt a Surge in Anti-Terror Efforts
By PIERRE THOMAS
Government officials have been quietly stepping up counterterror efforts out of a growing concern that al Qaeda or similar organizations might try to capitalize on the spate of extremely high-profile events in the coming months, sources tell ABC News.
Security experts point to next month's Olympics as evidence that high-profile events attract threats of terrorism, like the one issued this past weekend by a Chinese Muslim minority group that warned of its intent to attack the Games.
Anti-terror officials in the U.S. cite this summer and fall's lineup of two major political parties' conventions, November's general election and months of transition into a new presidential administration as cause for heightened awareness and action.
This is what the Department of Homeland Security is quietly declaring a Period of Heightened Alert, or POHA, a time frame when terrorists may have more incentive to attack.
According to drafts of government memos described to ABC News, the period would run roughly from this August through July 2009.
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A surprising poll released Monday confirms Sen. Barack Obama's worst nightmare: he actually lost ground to Sen. John McCain after a global trip meant to buck up his sagging credentials in foreign and military policy.
The USA Today/Gallup poll has McCain leading Obama by four points, 49 percent to Obama's 45 percent, among likely voters.
Just last month, the same poll had McCain trailing by six points to the neophyte U.S. senator.
Among registered voters, McCain was just three points behind Obama -- a statistical dead heat.
The USA Today/Gallup poll is consistent with the Rasmussen tracking poll, which also shows Obama ahead by just three percentage points -- again a statistical tie.
The polls suggest that Obama's efforts to act like a president abroad -- even though he has yet to be elected -- may have backfired among American voters.
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