By Nadav Shragai, ISRAEL HAYOM
 
It happened in 1988 on the Temple Mount. It started when a gang of Muslims captured an Israeli policeman — an officer in the “Yamam” counterterrorism unit. By the time he was rescued by his comrades, he had been beaten and bloodied. His weapon, however, remained with his captors. With the firearm in hand, thousands of Muslims barricaded themselves in Al-Aqsa mosque. Police began closing in on the mosque, but resisted breaching its walls, as was common in those days. Eventually, a compromise was reached and a team of officers approached the mosque gates. The besieged group inside cracked open the doors and the gun, according to an agreement reached earlier, was “concealed” beside it. Police “discovered” it. Israeli “honor,” as well as the gun, were restored to their rightful places. The masses made their egress from the mosque.
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By YOSEF BEGUN, JPOST

A Passover story on the eternal theme of being a Jew.

 
After the cold, dark winter comes Passover, a holiday of spring that warms the heart. And no holiday was closer to the hearts of Jewish activists in the Soviet Union than this one, which marks the Exodus from Egypt, from slavery to freedom. But in the spring of 1977, I was not to share in the joys of the celebration.
 
Incarcerated in a Moscow prison for my “anti-Soviet” activities, I shared a cell with criminals who were imprisoned for such crimes as robbery, violence and rape. They were simple, ignorant men.
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By JPOST.COM STAFF
 

 

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said on Tuesday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas doesn’t really want peace with Israel and instead has gone to make peace with Hamas.
 
“Now it appears that Abbas is bluffing. He is not willing to make concessions, he turned to the UN and he ran to hug Hamas instead,” Katz said on his Facebook page.
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Ted Belman.  I am surprised that the US took this threat seriously. The US over the decades have expended much effort and aid to protect the PLO and the PA, no matter what the provocations. That means they have a lot to lose should he make good on the threat. That doesn’t make it all the more realistic.
 
Netanyahu had a different response;
 

“Yesterday the Palestinian Authority discussed dismantling, today it is mulling uniting with Hamas. Let them decide whether to dismantle or unit.”

 
The US probably doesn’t want them to unify also because that would put the “peace process” in further jeopardy. For that matter, Hamas doesn’t want them to unify because that would in jeopardy all the money that the US and the EU give the PA and thus the share of it that the PA gives to their people who live in Gaza.

US to Revoke Aid to PA Over Threats to Dismantle?
 
State Department official hints that financial aid, political support for the Palestinian Arabs to be ‘seriously harmed’ if PA disbanded.  Chairman Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dismantle the PA on Sunday, in a move which would dissolve the Oslo Accords and allegedly make Israel “vulnerable” to international legislation, according to some analysts.
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The Economy Ministry predicts a 4.7% rise in Israeli exports to Asia this year, the largest increase for any of the world’s regions.
 
By Ora Coren, HAARETZ,  Apr. 22, 2014
 
Israel’s exports to the Far East this year are projected to exceed those to the United States for the first time, the Economy Ministry said on Sunday.
 
Such a development would make the Asian market Israel’s second largest export market after Europe. The Central Bureau of Statistics has already reported that last year, for the first time, Israeli exports to Asia equaled those to the United States.
 
But two companies, Intel and Israel Chemicals, account for much of Israel’s Asian exports, as other Israel firms are having a hard time diversifying from an approach focused on Europe and the United States.
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As a result of significant demographic changes in recent years, World Jewry is in the process of a changing of the guards. It is Israel who will decide whom she defines as a friend and whom she defines as an enemy.
 
By Ron Jager, INN
 
The “Celebrate Israel Parade” known in the past as the “Israel Day Parade” will be marching June 1st for its 50th consecutive year, but it is now under the shadow of its allowing the participation of Jewish groups and Jewish organizations that assist and support the economic and political boycott of Israel.
 
Under the leadership of UJA Federation of NY, this event, which has always been solidly pro-Israel, has evolved into the latest ideological battleground between the classic Jewish liberal circles which have dominated American Jewry since the Holocaust and the growing coalition of secular and religious leaders, organizations and synagogues who refuse to support an unspoken and immoral policy of “selection” – a kind of “gentleman’s agreement” that has legitimized the division of the Jews of Israel and of Israel itself into two distinct groups, good Jews and bad Jews.
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Silence of holiday morning disrupted by seven rockets fired from Gaza; one rocket lands in residential area, RPG rocket fired at IDF soldiers.

Matan Tzuri, Yoav Zitun, YNET

 
The Israel Air Force struck three terror targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday afternoon, in response to rocket fire at southern Israel earlier Monday.

(Photo: AFP)

The IDF Spokesman’s Office said in a statement that “IAF aircraft attacked two terror targets in the south of the Gaza Strip and an additional target in the center of the Strip. Direct hits were confired, and all aircrafts returned safely to their bases.”
 
Palestinian reports, however, claimed four targets were. According to a Hamas statement, targets included a security facility in the central Gaza Strip, near the Nuseirat refugee camp, another strike hit a livestock farm nearby and a third one hit an open area in Deir al-Balah. A fourth target was a Hamas military post near Khan Yunis in the south of the Strip. Read more…

By Gideon Israel, AMERICAN THINKER

For those who believe that the purpose of the peace process is actually a process in which ‘peace’ between two ‘nations’ will be achieved, it is hard to understand how the political left, after twenty years of negotiations, numerous Israeli concessions without any Palestinian concessions, continued PA- sponsored incitement against Israel, delegitimizing of Israel in all international forums, terror attacks, and rejection of Israel, still thinks there is a chance to reach peace. I believe the answer is simple and requires a readjustment of our expectations from the peace process and the nature of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.
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Keeping peace process alive would require settlement freeze, prisoner release, drawing of future border, senior Fatah official says
TOI

A senior Fatah official said Monday that the Palestinian leadership put forward seven terms by which they would extend peace talks with Israel beyond their April 29 deadline.
 

Amin Maqboul, a member of the Fatah revolutionary council, told the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds that the Palestinian Authority would agree to an extension of negotiations if Israel agreed to: announce the basis on which future talks will be held; draw the outline of the borders of a Palestinian state within the next three months; halt settlement construction; withdraw Israeli troops from the West Bank’s Area C to the lines held before the Second Intifada; release the fourth wave of prisoners that it has until now refused to do; end what he called “disruptions” in Jerusalem and open Palestinian institutions in the city.

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By JPOST.COM STAFF

Source confirms reports that PA warned that it may dissolve itself if so-called “Israeli intransigence” continues.
 

 
US envoy to the Middle East peace process Martin Indyk did not present any new proposals on how to salvage the currently stalemated Israeli-Palestinian peace talks during a meeting on Friday, a Palestinian official told AFP on Sunday
 
According to the report, the unnamed source confirmed reports that the Palestinian Authority had warned Israel that the Ramallah-based, self-government body may dissolve itself if so-called “Israeli intransigence” continues. Read more…

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Thomas Lifson, AMERICAN THINKER
 
A website called Now The End Begins has compiled 40 comments by Barack Obama on Christianity and Islam. Collectively, they create quite an interesting picture.  I admit that there may be instances of the president speaking as favorably of Christianity as he does of Islam, but I am not aware of them. I do remember in the 2008 campaign that he said he had accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, and that was in response to public awareness of his attendance at Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church, Trinity United. What the president left unsaid is the nature of Jesus as understood in Black Liberation Theology. But that is a discussion for another time.
 
The list has been reprinted here and here. (hat tip: iOwnTheWorld.com). See what you think:
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Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger,
“Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
 
“Israel Hayom”, April 18, 2014, http://bit.ly/1kHRkZG
 

3,400 years ago, the Moses legacy was shaped during the first clash of civilizations (Passover) between faith and responsibility-driven liberty (Moses) on the one hand, and paganism and subjugation-driven repression (Pharaoh) on the other hand. The victory of the Moses legacy established a dramatically new world order for millennia.

In 1623 and 1630, the mindset of the “Mayflower” and “Arabella” Pilgrimswas: a departure from modern day Egypt (England), the parting the modern day Red Sea (the Atlantic Ocean), culminating with the landing in modern day Promised Land (USA).  They laid the foundations for the morally, industrially, scientifically and militarily exceptional Judeo-Christian American culture, based upon the Moses legacy. Read more…

Awaiting America’s Camlann
 
By John Thompson
 
In Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the legendary King Arthur had to confront the errant Mordred at Camlann. The two entered tense negotiations while their uneasy armies stood by, ready for the least sign of aggression from the other. One knight, however, was walking in the grass and came across an adder. He pulled out his sword to kill the snake and two armies took that as a signal. The resulting carnage was – literally – almost total.
 
One can get the sense that the United States is nearing its own Camlann these days. On one side, a burgeoning law-enforcement culture that has become arrogant, militarized, and has lost its old sense of purpose. On the other side is a heavily armed public which has lost its trust in America’s institutions.
 
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http://drrichswier.com/2014/04/19/bring-back-the-house-un-american-activities-committee/
 
By Paul R. Hollrah,

In the years immediately following World War II, most American were understandably concerned about Communist infiltration at the highest levels of the U.S. government.  For example, how could anyone forget the photograph taken at the Yalta Conference, February 4-11, 1945, in which Alger Hiss, a deep-cover Soviet agent, was seen leaning over FDR’s shoulder, whispering advice to him as he negotiated with Churchill and Stalin?  Hiss served as Roosevelt’s senior advisor on political affairs.
 
Roosevelt arrived in Yalta carrying copies of the Morgenthau Plan, which advocated that the post-war occupation of Germany include measures to eradicate Germany’s ability to wage war, and to remove or destroy other key industries basic to military strength.  The Morgenthau Plan was the brainchild of yet another deep-cover Soviet spy in the highest echelons of the Roosevelt administration, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White. Read more…

 By Diana West

The important-sounding Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union has recently reiterated “its strong support for Ukraine’s unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”

Poor, destabilized, post-putsch Ukraine is to be congratulated for receiving something none of the 28 countries that actually belongs to the EU ever does: support for its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. (“Unity” is a more complicated matter, given the EU’s reflexive pox on separatist movements that might prefigure the breakup of the EU itself.) As the world’s pre-eminent transnational entity since the breakup of the USSR, the EU is all about eradicating its members’ sovereignty, independence and borders.
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