Two headlines that sum up a lot
Ha’aretz: Israel offers aid to Turkey after 41 killed in earthquake
Yediot Aharonot: Turkey rejects Israel’s offer of post-quake aid
Apparently, Ankara thinks it’s preferable for innocent people to die than to accept help from Jews.
Comments (0) »Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 4:08 PM | Stand For Israel
Turkish PM: Rachel’s tomb is Muslim, was never Jewish
In a statement that reveals what’s really at stake in the ongoing controversy–and PA-stoked violence–over Israel adding some religious sites to a list of Jewish heritage sites, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Saudi newspaper Al Wattan that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb “were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites.”
The al-Aksa Mosque is the black-domed mosque that sits at the southern end of the Temple Mount, which was not included (some Israelis have said, scandalously) on the list of national heritage sites.
As a reminder, Rachel was one of the Jewish people’s four matriarchs and lived several thousand years before the Islam was founded. Her grave, which is described in Genesis 35:19, has been a pilgrimage site for Jews (and, later, Christians) for thousands of years.
Comments (0) »Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 10:41 AM | Stand For Israel
Waqf, PA leadership attempt to rewrite biblical history
We told you before about the ongoing (low-burn) violence and media circus surrounding the Jewish state’s adding two major tourist and spiritual pilgrimage spots to a list of sites of “Jewish cultural heritage.”
Well, on Friday, worshipers at the Western Wall were stoned by rioters on top of the Temple Mount and 15 Israeli policemen and dozens of the rioters were injured in the resulting scuffles. (Don’t Islamic leaders mind their followers using the high ground of what is ostensibly a holy site to attempt to maim worshipers below?)
So let’s go over this again: Israel added two spots to a list that designates sites of historical and cultural relevance. And this caused Palestinians to riot? (Continuing the long tradition of the Palestinian Authority using violence or threats of it where other governments use diplomacy.) And countries ranging from Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab league states, to–predictably– the UN felt the need to condemn the list-making (while not condemning the violence fomented by the PA). And, of course, the U.S. hasn’t retracted the State Department’s comments on the matter, which were that the Israeli list was “provocative and unhelpful.”
So what are these sites anyway?
What exactly are these sites? One is Rachel’s Tomb, which sits on the edge of Bethelehem close to Jerusalem. The second is the Cave of the Patriarchs, which sits in the middle of Hebron. Just how “provocative” is it to add these to the list of sites of Jewish cultural import?
Rachel’s Tomb is identified in Genesis 35:19-20: “So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb.” As the Bible relates, the site has been holy to Jews for thousands of years — more than a thousand years before Islam even came into existence! (And holy to Christians hundreds of years before…)
The case of the Cave of the Patriarchs is even more ironic: Genesis 23 records how…
Read More » Comments (1) »Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 7:34 AM | Stand For Israel
UK’s Guardian gives an amen to indignation over “heritage sites” violence and historical revisionism
London’s Guardian rails against the attempt to blot out Jewish history via the fracas over the “Jewish historical sites”:
Comments (1) »Palestinian protests against the restoration of Jewish heritage sites are part of a campaign of delegitimization against Israel. The inclusion in Israel’s heritage restoration project of two of the most sacred Jewish sites, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, has sparked riots and led supposedly moderate Palestinian leaders to burst forth with disturbingly inflammatory rhetoric, with the U.S. State Department and the UN secretary general both reprimanding Israel for the decision as well.
This latest uproar is another example of the general Palestinian unwillingness to accept and acknowledge the deep-seated historical roots of the Jewish people in the region. The Cave of the Patriarchs is mentioned in the Bible and has been a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for more than 3,000 years as the burial place of the people’s three forefathers. The refurbishment of two shrines central to Jewish history in no way threatens Palestinian political ambitions. What it does do is present an obstacle to those who wish to erase Jewish history in the region.
Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 9:54 AM | Stand For Israel
Some clues as to what was discussed at terror trio’s meeting
Last week, we told you how a troika of terror heads–Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah–had a little dinner party.
Although some Western powers, including the U.S., continue a policy of engagement with Syria (Undersecretary of State William Burns visited Damascus just a week before the dinner party and the U.S. is sending its first new ambassador in five years), ties between Assad and Hezbollah remain strong. According to the Washington Institute, since the 2006 war with Israel, Hizbullah has procured an estimated 40,000 rockets and – with Syria’s help – reportedly improved the quality of its arsenal.
Syria also may have provided the Russian-made shoulder-fired Igla antiaircraft system, which is capable of downing Israeli F-16s.
Ha’aretz writer Yoel Marcus wrote that the well-publicized banquet was “certainly in Iran’s interest, but it is unclear whether it is in Syria’s.” After all, the Syrian regime is among those Iran would like to bring down: Not only is Assad not a Shi’ite Muslim like the Iranian mullahs, but he and his government are secular — something the Iranian regime wants to stomp out.
Marcus continues, showing just how “scary” Israelis find the troika (summary: not very):
As for Ahmadinejad, he has a big mouth – he does not understand that the more he threatens us with a second Holocaust, the more he spurs Israel to build greater means of deterrence and increases its willingness to use them. The reasoning, as Ronen Bergman wrote last week in Yediot Ahronot, which won the day when former Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the bombing of the Iraqi reactor and by which the Syrian reactor was bombed, is that a country calling for the destruction of Israel must not be given the means to do so. Our deterrence is based on force and the willingness to use it in the face of a threat to our survival.
Israel’s reputation is built on deterrence. Iran, full of itself, could presume that we will not act or we will not be allowed to act. But good intelligence on their…
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Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 4:53 PM | Stand For Israel
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