Today's Israel News... October 13, 2010

Palestinians Reject Israel Settlement Compromise - Adrian Blomfield

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, offered Monday to extend a partial freeze on Jewish building in the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Within minutes of the proposal being made public, Palestinian officials had rejected it out of hand. (Telegraph-UK)

Diplomacy by Timetable - Jackson Diehl

In the Middle East negotiations, counterproductive timetables are multiplying. The one-year deadline for completing talks seems to have derived from a two-year deadline established last year by Obama's envoy, George Mitchell. Meanwhile, Israel's 10-month moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank has expired, prompting the administration to press for a new 60- to 90-day deadline. Once again the timetables are disconnected from a strategy.

Is it possible that Netanyahu and Abbas can agree on the borders of a Palestinian state in less than 60 days and end the settlement debate? No. But then, what will happen when the next deadline arrives? Discussion will be forced on yet another timetable. (Washington Post)

Ahmadinejad Trip Highlights Iranian Sway in Lebanon - Dominic Evans

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Lebanon Wednesday on a trip which underlines the growing power of Iran's Shi'ite ally Hizbullah. The U.S. says Iran's support for Hizbullah militants undermines Lebanese sovereignty.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Saturday that Lebanon should thank Iran for helping to rebuild Beirut's southern suburbs and south Lebanon after the 2006 war, both Hizbullah strongholds. "Where did this money come from? From donations? No, frankly from Iran." Officials close to Hizbullah say it spent about $1 billion of Iranian money since 2006 on aid and rebuilding. (Reuters)

Chavez's Secret Nuclear Program - Roger F. Noriega

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been developing a nuclear program for two years with the collaboration of Iran, a nuclear rogue state. Venezuela is also helping Iran obtain uranium and evade international sanctions. Chavez's decision to rely on one of the world's worst proliferators to help develop his country's capabilities in this sensitive technology sets alarm bells ringing.

A November 2008 contract between the Venezuelan state-run firm CVG Minerven and the Iranian government firm Impasco grants the Iranians a "gold mine" concession in the heart of the Roraima basin in the southeastern state of Bolivar, home to one of the world's largest deposits of uranium. A "cement plant" processes ore from the Impasco mine, but has yet to produce a bag of cement. Instead, it serves as a conduit for moving ore to a port on the Orinoco River where it is transferred onto Iranian-flagged vessels on the Atlantic Ocean.
    

Security Council Resolution 1929, passed this June, ordered all governments to prohibit any Iranian involvement in "uranium mining, production or use of nuclear materials and technology." The writer is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere. (Foreign Policy)

Turkish Journalist on the Flotilla Ship: "IDF Soldiers Did Not Open Fire Until Their Lives Were in Danger"

On Sept. 24, in an interview with Israel Channel 1 TV, Turkish journalist Azefik Dinc, who was on theMavi Marmara flotilla ship and wrote a book about it, said that no shots were fired from the Israeli helicopters and that IDF soldiers did not open fire until their lives were in danger. According to Dinc, it wasn't until the soldiers realized that some of their friends' lives were in danger that they began using live ammunition.

Dinc's descriptions completely contradict the biased testimonies of IHH activists which were the basis for a report compiled by the UN Human Rights Council. (Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center )

Israel Aerospace Industries Unveils Tilt-Rotor UAV - Darren Quick (Gizmag)

Tilt-rotor aircraft combine the vertical takeoff and landing capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and range of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is bringing these benefits to unmanned aerial vehicles with its new Panther and Mini Panther UAVs that were unveiled last week.

With an automatic flight control system that transitions between the hovering takeoff phase to forward flight and vice versa before landing, the system allows the craft to take off and land automatically with the click of a button on the operator console.

The Panther is powered by three ultra-quiet electrical motors that allow the craft to loiter for approximately six hours, at an altitude of up to 10,000 feet, with an operational radius of over 60 km (37 miles).

Who Are Israel's Friends? - Jennifer Rubin (Commentary)

In the poll, almost all the support for Israel statistically comes from non-Jews. This is simply a mathematical reality. The poll sampled 1,000 voters, only 1.6% of whom were Jewish.

Jews by themselves are a tiny percentage of the population who, on their own, could not sustain national support for Israel. It is the support from the majority of Christians that nurtures the U.S.-Israel relationship.

There is a large segment of Americans who, for reasons entirely distinct from religion and with no personal or ethnic tie to the Jewish state, nevertheless are strongly committed to its security and survival.

That is remarkable, a tribute to the innate decency and common sense of the American people. They have, despite a barrage of propaganda from Israel's foes, figured out who are the "good guys" in the Middle East and which country shares our values and concerns.

This data is helpful in rebutting the Israel-haters' rhetoric railing against the "influence of the Israel lobby."

Mike Sachs

Northeast Regional Director

212-750-4110 • Fax 212-750-4125

msachs@aipac.org

AIPAC • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Join us at the AIPAC National Summit, October 24-25 Visit www.aipac.org/Summit2010 for more information.

Not To Be Missed- Dr. Daniel Gordis: Path to Peace: Any Roads Left?

I heard Dr. Gordis when I attended the AIPAC Policy Conference a few years ago. He is an amazing speaker. This evening, for which we are a co-host, promises to be beyond interesting as Dr. Gordis clarifies for us where we currently are and how those of us longing for peace might proceed. 

Upcoming AIPAC Program: TURNING POINT: WHICH WAY WILL LEBANON GO?

I wanted to share with all of you an upcoming program that is being sponsored by AIPAC at the home of TSTI members Gail and Michael Kanef. It promises to be an interesting and important evening and your support will help AIPAC in its on-going work.

You are invited to an AIPAC Club briefing and discussion with David Schenker Director of the Program on Arab Politics,  Washington Institute of Near East Policy  TURNING POINT: WHICH WAY WILL LEBANON GO? Thursday, October 21, 2010 7:30 p.m.  At the home of Gail and Michael Kanef 318 Lupine Way Short Hills RSVP by October 19th to Jenny Ontaneda at 212-750-4110 or yontaneda@aipac.org   Light Refreshments Served | Dietary Laws Observed * $1,500 minimum contribution to AIPAC's 2011 campaign required to attend About our speaker: David Schenker is the Director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Mr. Schenker served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Levant country director, the Pentagon's top policy aide on the Arab countries of the Levant. In that capacity, he was responsible for advising the secretary and senior Pentagon leadership on the military and political affairs of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.  Mr. Schenker was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service in 2005.

Today's Israel News...

Reminder, Mike Sachs, TSTI member andNortheast Regional Director of AIPAC will once again be offering an update on Israel between the morning and afternoon services on Yom Kippur

Israel Through European Eyes - Yoram Hazony
Every few months, Israel is publicly pilloried in the international media and on university campuses around the world for some alleged violation of human rights, real or imagined. Whatever the ostensible subject, we know for certain that there will be another campaign of vilification in the media and on the campuses and in the corridors of power - a smear campaign of a kind that no other nation on earth is subjected to on a regular basis. We will again see our nation treated not as a democracy doing its duty to defend its people and its freedom, but as some kind of a scourge.
    Israelis and friends of Israel can reasonably be divided on the question of whether the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, or the parallel withdrawal from the security zone in South Lebanon in 2000, was really in Israel's interests. But one thing about which we can all agree, I think, is that these withdrawals did nothing to stem the tide of hatred and vilification being poured on Israel's head internationally. Whatever it is that is driving the trend toward the progressive delegitimization of Israel, it is a trend operating more or less without reference to any particular Israeli policy on any given issue.
    The modern State of Israel was founded, in terms of the understanding of the international community, as a nation-state, the state of the Jewish people. And the birth of Israel was followed by the establishment of dozens of additional independent states throughout the Third World. But now the nations of Europe have established a new paradigm in which the independent nation-state is seen by many intellectuals and political figures in Europe as a source of incalculable evil. Thus the new paradigm understands Israel, and especially the independent Israeli use of force to defend itself, as illegitimate down to its foundations. The writer is founder and provost of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. (Jewish Ideas Daily)

U.S. Wants Agreement Now, Peace Later - Shimon Shiffer
The Obama administration plans to present Israel and the Palestinian Authority with a new outline aimed at ending the Middle East conflict. Yediot Ahronot has learned that the Americans will pressure the parties to sign a framework agreement for a permanent settlement within one year, but that the agreement itself would be implemented within 10 years.
    A protocol summarizing a conference call between leaders of American Jewish organizations and Daniel Shapiro - the National Security Council's top Middle East expert; Dennis Ross, and David Hale - deputy to U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, provides a fascinating peek into the administration's plans in the near future. According to the American plan, the Israeli and Palestinian negotiation teams would hold intensive talks in isolated sites to discuss the core issues of the permanent agreement: Jerusalem's future, borders, settlements and refugees. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be required to hold frequent meetings in order to solve concrete problems and advance the negotiations' stages.
    If the talks reach a deadlock, American officials would intervene and attempt to bridge between the sides. In addition, the U.S. would try to convince the Arab states to offer goodwill gestures to Israel and influence the Palestinians to compromise. (Ynet News)

The President and the Peace Process - Lexington
Why, you have to wonder, do they bother with the "peace process." The present conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine has been going on for about a century. Yet every American president is implored upon entering office to bring the quarrel swiftly to an end. Most have a go - or at least go through the motions. Jimmy Carter owes his Nobel peace prize in large part to the peace deal he brokered between Israel and Egypt in 1978 (and has never let the world forget it). Bill Clinton got Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat to shake hands on the White House lawn, but no peace, and no prize, followed the unhappy Camp David summit of 2000. After his own election in 2000, George Bush took one look at the blood and muddle and decided that America had better things to do.
    After the dinner Mr. Obama intends to host at the White House on September 1 for Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the two sides are supposed to start talking directly again, relieving George Mitchell, Mr. Obama's envoy, of the need to shuttle between them. That is progress of a sort, albeit not the sort that poses the slightest danger of raising high expectations. It merely restores matters to where they stood after Mr. Bush inaugurated a previous set of direct talks in Annapolis at the end of 2007. These were expected to fail, and lived up to expectations. This next lot of talks is expected to fail, too. (Economist-UK)

Reassessing U.S. Military Assistance to Lebanon - David Schenker
In the aftermath of the Lebanese Armed Forces' (LAF) August 3 cross-border shooting of two Israeli officers, one fatal, U.S. military assistance to Lebanon has come under increasing scrutiny. The State Department and congressional appropriators should work out clear, transparent, measurable, and verifiable benchmarks by which all sides - including the Lebanese - can evaluate the merit of maintaining assistance to the LAF.
    Are LAF officers who share intelligence with Hizbullah disciplined or congratulated? Does the LAF play a role in preventing the import of weapons from Syria or their flow south of the Litani or in facilitating it? Do officials of Hizbullah's militia transfer directly into the LAF? Does LAF weaponry end up under Hizbullah control? Do LAF units follow Hizbullah guidance in obstructing the operations of UNIFIL? Will the LAF arrest and transfer Hizbullah officials that may be indicted by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri? (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

Mike Sachs

Northeast Regional Director

212-750-4110 • Fax 212-750-4125

msachs@aipac.org

AIPAC • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Join us at the AIPAC National Summit, October 24-25 Visit www.aipac.org/Summit2010 for more information.

Today's Israel News August 17, 2010

Reminder, Mike Sachs, TSTI member and Northeast Regional Director of AIPAC will once again be offering an update on Israel between the morning and afternoon services on Yom Kippur

U.S., Israel Build Military Cooperation - Charles Levinson

While U.S. and Israeli diplomatic relations weather their choppiest phase in years, behind the scenes, military commanders from the two countries have dramatically stepped up cooperation. U.S. military aid to Israel has increased markedly this year. Top-ranking U.S. and Israeli soldiers have shuttled between Tel Aviv and Washington with unusual frequency in recent months. A series of joint military exercises in Israel over the past months has included a record number of American troops.

This month, about 200 U.S. Marines joined a battalion of Israeli soldiers for an all-night march through the Negev desert, the culmination of three weeks of joint drills - the biggest U.S.-Israeli joint infantry exercise ever. In October, a missile-defense exercise between the U.S. and Israeli militaries brought in more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers. In the exercises, the two militaries have been drilling as a coalition force, battling a common enemy for the first time, just as the U.S. does with its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

U.S. military aid to Israel reached a high of $2.78 billion in 2010, up from $2.55 billion in 2009. It is slated to jump to $3 billion in 2011. The Obama administration has also requested an additional $205 million to fund the Iron Dome short-range rocket defense shield. (Wall Street Journal)

Israel Sees Battlefield Hidden in Southern Lebanon - Matti Friedman

Israel's military says Hizbullah is moving fighters and weapons into the villages of south Lebanon, building up a secret network of arms warehouses, bunkers and command posts in preparation for war - under the nose of 12,000 international peacekeepers. Hizbullah is armed by Iran and Syria and is more powerful than the Lebanese military.

Israel has begun releasing detailed information about Hizbullah's new border deployment to show the reach of their intelligence and to stake their claim that if another war breaks out and many civilians die, it will be because Hizbullah placed its armaments and fighters in their midst. An IDF officer said Hizbullah now has 5,000 fighters operating south of the Litani River, an area which is supposed to be free of militant activity under the 2006 cease-fire.

South Lebanon is festooned with posters of the bearded, turbaned Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and local residents, mostly Shiite, tend to support Hizbullah. Hizbullah members or supporters often attach themselves to journalists entering villages, shadowing them and discouraging photography. Peacekeepers are barred from searching private property, where the Israelis say much of the evidence of the guerrillas' presence would be found. UNIFIL's performance in the face of the Hizbullah buildup undermines Israel's trust in international forces to police other volatile areas, such as Gaza and the West Bank, under a peace treaty. (AP-MSNBC)

Has U.S. Policy on Israel Changed? - Zalman Shoval

President Obama came into office with strong preconceptions about foreign policy and especially about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The main result of the administration's new policy was to encourage the Palestinians to take more hard-line positions. Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas began to insist on preconditions for direct negotiations which never existed before. The Obama administration now appears to have concluded that the tactics it employed against the Netanyahu government were self-defeating. But it is premature to establish that it has revised its overall strategic outlook. The writer served as Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

Mike Sachs

Northeast Regional Director

212-750-4110 • Fax 212-750-4125

msachs@aipac.org

AIPAC • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Join us at the AIPAC National Summit, October 24-25 Visit www.aipac.org/Summit2010 for more information.

Today's News On Israel August 11, 2010

Our thanks to Mike Sachs, Northeast Regional Director of AIPAC

Lebanon Crisis Feared as Indictments Near in Assassination of Former Lebanese Prime Minister - Janine Zacharia

Hizbullah's leaders are pressuring the Lebanese government to end its cooperation with UN investigators from the tribunal set up to try suspects in the 2005 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, amid indications that some Hizbullah members will be accused of Hariri's killing in indictments expected as soon as next month. Many in the country now fear the indictments could trigger a new political crisis or even sectarian bloodshed. Traditional power brokers in Lebanon, including Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have flocked to Beirut in recent weeks to try to avert a crisis. Lebanese sources said Abdullah was so concerned about Hizbullah's warnings that he is working to delay the release of the indictments.
On Monday, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed in an elaborate two-hour broadcast from his hiding place that Israel was behind Hariri's assassination. Lebanon's prime minister, Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, 40, now faces the painful choice of whether to continue to try to find out who killed his father or to acquiesce to Hizbullah in order to maintain Lebanese stability. (WashingtonPost)

Al Jazeera Spreads Hizbullah Conspiracy Theories - Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
Monday's speech by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who tried to prove that his organization had nothing to do with the Hariri murder and conveniently pointed a finger at Israel, received widespread and often enthusiastic coverage in the Arab world, especially from Al Jazeera. In the Arab world today, Al Jazeera's support is as good as a court verdict, and is likely to be seen by many Arabs as proof positive of Israel's guilt. (Ha'aretz)

A Nuclearized Iran: Approaching the Point of No Return - Jeffrey Goldberg (Atlantic Monthly)

• The U.S. Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade Iraq's airspace on their way to Iran. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.
• If a strike does succeed in crippling the Iranian nuclear program, Israel will have removed from its list of existential worries the immediate specter of nuclear-weaponized, theologically driven, eliminationist anti-Semitism; it may derive for itself the secret thanks of the Middle East's moderate Arab regimes, all of which fear an Iranian bomb with an intensity that in some instances matches Israel's; and it will have succeeded in countering the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which is a prime goal of the enthusiastic counter-proliferator who currently occupies the White House.
• Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy's nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting - forever, as it turned out - Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean-built reactor in Syria.
• Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability (often understood to be the capacity to assemble more than one missile-ready nuclear device within about three months of deciding to do so). The Iranian regime, by its own statements and actions, has made itself Israel's most zealous foe; and the most crucial component of Israeli national-security doctrine is that no regional adversary should be allowed to achieve nuclear parity with the reborn and still-besieged Jewish state.
• "You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs," Netanyahu told me in 2009. "When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the world should start worrying, and that's what is happening in Iran." "Iranian leaders talk about Israel's destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance."
• An Israeli official who spends considerable time with the prime minister told me: "In World War II, the Jews had no power to stop Hitler from annihilating us. Six million were slaughtered. Today, 6 million Jews live in Israel, and someone is threatening them with annihilation. But now we have the power to stop them."

Mike Sachs

Northeast Regional Director

212-750-4110 • Fax 212-750-4125

msachs@aipac.org

AIPAC • The American Israel Public Affairs Committee

Join us at the AIPAC National Summit, October 24-25 Visit www.aipac.org/Summit2010 for more information.

About Israel... Worth Reading Today...

Israel (Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Yisra'el)

We have the great good fortune to have Mike Sachs, the Northeast Regional Director of AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) as a member of our community and our temple. Mike is kind enough to share some of the more interesting and relevant articles he sees about Israel with a number of us every week or so. With the overwhelming amount of information to sort through, I am finding great benefit in his taking the time to help me focus on specific articles.

It occurred to me that sharing theses selected pieces might be of great benefit to our entire community. This is particularly true at this moment in history as the threat of Iran's nuclear aspirations is greater than ever before. As a result, I will be posting a brief synopsis and a link to each article as I receive it. I thought there would be no better time to do so than now, as we celebrate Israel's establishment in 1948.

My thanks to Mike for taking the time to share these informative articles.


About Israel... Worth Reading Today...




When Armageddon Lives Next Door - Benny Morris

I take it personally: Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wants to murder me, my family and my people. Day in, day out, he announces the imminent demise of the "Zionist regime," by which he means Israel. And day in, day out, his scientists and technicians are advancing toward the atomic weaponry that will enable him to bring this about. President Obama, when not obsessing over the fate of the ever-aggrieved Palestinians, proposes to halt Ahmadinejad's nuclear program by means of international sanctions. But the wider Obama casts his net to mobilize as many of the world's key players as he can, the weaker the sanctions and the more remote their implementation. Yet even if severe sanctions are imposed, they likely won't have time to have serious effect before Iran succeeds at making a bomb.

At the end of 2007, the U.S. intelligence community, driven by wishful thinking, expediency and incompetence, announced that the Iranians had in 2003 halted the weaponization part of their nuclear program. Last week, Obama explicitly contradicted that assessment. At least the American administration now publicly acknowledges where it is the Iranians are headed. (Los Angeles Times)

The Trap of Foreign Forces Along the Jordan River - Amitai Etzioni

In the book America and the World, former U.S. national security advisers Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft recognize that Israel has a legitimate concern that if a Palestinian state is established, Iran and Syria will rush to load it with weapons and armies of Jihadists, or that Hamas will extend its policy of seeking to destroy the State of Israel to the West Bank. Brzezinski suggests "an American line along the Jordan River," while Scowcroft favors putting a "NATO peacekeeping force" on the West Bank. Most recently, a Washington Post op-ed by Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz mentioned "a demilitarized Palestinian state with U.S. or NATO troops along the Jordan River."

I suggest that this idea is a dangerous trap. Abba Eban once compared a UN force stationed on the Israeli-Egyptian border, which was removed just before Nasser attacked Israel, to an umbrella that is folded when it rains. The new umbrella is not much more reliable. Second, the American troops in Iraq, and the NATO ones in Afghanistan, are unable to stop terrorist bombs and rocket attacks in those parts. There is no reason to hold that they would do better in the West Bank. Third, there are very few precedents for demilitarized states. One second after the Palestinian state is declared, many in the Arab world, Iran, and surely in Europe, not to mention Russia and China, will hold that "obviously" the new free state cannot be prevented from arming itself, whatever it says on some treaty.

A strong case for a two-state solution has been made, but it better be based on the Palestinians developing their own effective forces and an Israeli presence on the Jordan River. Neither can rely on the U.S. or casualty-averse NATO to show the staying power for peacekeeping which neither mustered in Kosovo, Bosnia, or Haiti. The writer is a professor of international relations at George Washington University. (Global Security)

A Letter to Gaza - Nonie Darwish

I love my original culture and people. What makes me different is that I do not only love Arabs, but I also love the Jewish people. I respect their right to live in peace in their tiny homeland, Israel. We Arabs have suffered from an unnatural and consistent indoctrination into Islamic supremacy and Jew hatred for over 1400 years. Thus it has become unfathomable to the Arab mind to comprehend loving both Arabs and Jews and wishing both well. We want to encourage Arabs to look at Jews and others as human beings and not as enemies to conquer.

The first casualty of the jihad principle is peace and that is why I never learned peace as a value in Gaza. I have never heard a peaceful song in Arabic. I cannot blame the Jewish people, or the government of Israel, for what you call the "misery" of the Palestinians. I can only blame Arab and Islamic culture. I believe that this is an Arab self-inflicted crisis that has nothing to do with Israel. Arab education has never told us the truth about the Israeli people and the story from their side and what Jerusalem means to them. We were told that Jerusalem was a Muslim city simply because Mohammed dreamt one night that he went to the farthest mosque but he never mentioned Jerusalem. The Koran never mentioned Jerusalem, which is mentioned hundreds of times in the Bible as the heart and soul of the Jewish people.
It was the tradition of Muslim conquerors to convert churches and temples to mosques and that is exactly what happened to the Jewish Temple Mount when 100 years after the prophet Mohammed died, Muslim conquerors built the mosque right on top of it. Just imagine if Jews or Christians had built a temple on top of the Kaaba in Mecca. It is time for Muslims to extend the hand of reconciliation and peace to the Jewish people. The writer is an Egyptian-American human rights activist. Her father, Col. Mustafa Hafez, was commander of Egyptian Army Intelligence in Gaza and founded the fedayeen, which raided southern Israel between 1951 and 1956, killing 400 Israelis. (Front Page Magazine)

Rabbi Ed Feinstein At AIPAC 2010

A number of our Temple leaders were able to attend AIPAC's 2010 Policy Conference. As always it was a powerful experiences. One of the moving talks was delivered by Rabbi Ed Feinstein. He addresses the need to be aware, organized and ready to address each crisis as it occurs. It is well worth the 15 minutes it will take to watch.