US SENATE BACKS NETANYAHU, ASKS OBAMA TO PRESSURE ABBAS!
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (IsraelNationalNews)

Eighty-seven U.S. senators—almost the entire 100-member Senate—have signed a letter to President Barack Obama that in effect blames the Palestinian Authority for freezing direct talks–at least for the time being–with Israel.

The Senators’ letter may help counter anti-Israel international sentiment, led by the Obama Administration. U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters Monday that the United States is “disappointed” that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not extend the 10-month moratorium on building. The freeze was instituted to satisfy Abbas’ condition for a resumption of direct talks, but he balked, arguing that it was not comprehensive and extensive enough.

A new poll reveals that President’s Obama’s peace-making efforts in the Middle East do not interest voters, whose attitude points to his becoming a one-term President for not succeeding in addressing issues such as economics, that do interest constituents.

The senators’ letter praises Prime Minister Netanyahu, who they pointed out “did not abandon the talks” despite “the brutal murder of four innocent Israeli civilians by Hamas militants at the start of the negotiations. We also agree with you (Obama) that it is critical that all sides stay at the table,” the letter stated.

The senators sent the letter on Monday, according to the Foreign Policy website’s ”The Cable,” which described the message as including a “thinly veiled reference to Abbas’s multiple statements that he would leave the talks if the moratorium was not extended.” “Neither side should make threats to leave just as the talks are getting started,” the letter stated. It was sent several hours before U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell announced he will return to the region this week in an effort to prevent the talks from being frozen indefinitely. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has not said he will carry out his threat to end the talks following Israel’s resumption of building for Jews in Judea and Samaria, but instead he has referred the issue to the Arab League for a decision next week, relieving himself of the responsibility.

OBAMA ASKS FOR TWO-MONTH WEST BANK CONSTRUCTION MORATORIUM
Jerusalem Post Staff

In return, US will not demand extension, will commit to UN Security Council vetos, weapon deliveries and presence of Israeli forces in Jordan Valley says David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. US President Barack Obama has requested Israel extend the West Bank settlement construction moratorium by only two months and in return “will not ask for a moratorium extension beyond sixty days,” according to David Makovsky from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a close associate to Dennis Ross and Obama’s Middle East adviser, Army Radio reported Thursday.

“According to senior US officials,” wrote Makovsky on Wednesday, the Obama Administration’s efforts to extend the construction freeze “culminated in a draft letter negotiated with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and chief Israeli peace negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, and ultimately sent from President Obama’s desk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.”

Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process, explains that, “At its core, the letter offers a string of assurances to Israel in return for a two-month moratorium extension. More specifically, US officials indicate that the document makes commitments on issues ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached.”

The letter commits the US to veto any UN Security Council proposal regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the coming year. In addition, Washington will not object to the request of leaving Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley for a prolonged duration.

“Regarding policy issues,” Makovsky writes, “the letter guarantees that Washington will not ask for a moratorium extension beyond sixty days. Rather, the future of settlements is to be settled at the table as part of territorial negotiations.”

“Second,” Makovsky continues, “the letter promises that the United States will veto any UN Security Council initiative — Arab or otherwise — relating to Arab-Israeli peace during the agreed one-year negotiating period.”

“Third, Washington pledged to accept the legitimacy of existing Israeli security needs and not seek to redefine them,” says Makovsky. “In this context, the letter explicitly mentions the need to ensure a complete ban on the smuggling of rockets, mortars, arms, and related items, as well as the infiltration of terrorists into Israel.”

Addressing Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley, Makovsky continues, “the letter offers to help maintain a transitional period for Jordan Valley security that is longer than any other aspect of a negotiated peace — an apparent allusion to keeping Israeli troops in that region for an extended period of time.”

Regarding future weapon deals, Makovsky writes that “the letter explicitly discusses the need to enhance Israel’s defense capabilities in the event that the parties reach security arrangements. Even if a security deal fails to materialize, Washington’s offer creates the baseline for Israel’s defense needs in a post-peace era.”

WORST JERUSALEM RIOTS IN SEVERAL YEARS
by David Dolan (Jerusalem)

Sounds of border police stun grenade fire and ambulance sirens reverberated for many hours throughout the center of Jerusalem recently as Israeli Jews put the finishing touches on their outdoor Succot booths which are central to the annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration. To many local residents, it was a carbon copy of the days when the Palestinian uprising attrition war raged in the city from late 2000 until 2004.

The ferocious clashes erupted in the troubled Silwan neighborhood near the Temple Mount. Although founded by Yemenite Jews in the early 1900s, Silwan has mostly been populated by Arabs since Islamic mobs violently chased the Jewish residents out during the 1929 riots, which left dozens of Jews dead all over the land. However in recent years, Silwan, with around 50,000 residents, also contains a growing Jewish enclave because it is adjacent to the ancient City of David, which is revered by many religious Jews.

At least ten Israelis, five of them policemen, were wounded during the prolonged clashes, which quickly spread to other Arab neighborhoods. Around fifteen Palestinians were also injured, most of them active rioters. One Israeli man was stabbed in the back during the unrest. Several police and private cars were torched or smashed, along with a number of city buses. Thick smoke covered the Temple Mount complex and the nearby Mount of Olives for much of the day. Dozens of Palestinians hurled stones and metal objects upon thousands of Jewish worshipers gathered for pre-Feast of Tabernacles prayers at the Western Wall. Israeli riot police then rushed to the contested holy site, clashing with Palestinian stone throwers while pushing them back from above the hallowed Western Wall.

The intense violence began when an armed Israeli security guard, who works at the City of David Jewish enclave, stopped at an intersection in Silwan as he was driving to a private Jewish home before dawn. He was quickly surrounded by a group of local Palestinians men wielding rocks, including 32 year old Sami Sirhan, a known activist who has been involved in a series of clashes with Jews in the area. Police reports said the incident appeared to be a deliberately staged ambush. The guard told police investigators he pulled out his gun and attempted to escape the area, shooting first in the air and then at Sirhan after the men surrounding his car refused to move back. Sirhan was instantly killed. His subsequent funeral later in the day sparked off the worst rioting in the city since the Al Aksa uprising ended in 2004. Some media reports said he was a member of the large Sirhan family clan which spawned Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian who assassinated US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968.

Israeli police and paramilitary forces were quickly reinforced in the city. Officials pledged to do everything possible to keep the incident localized, and to prevent another full blown Palestinian attrition war from breaking out. However sporadic clashes have been continuing in the city every day since, with occasional gunfire cutting through the air. A Jewish apartment was firebombed in the mixed Abu Tor neighborhood on September 26. While PA leaders publicly urged calm, some Israeli critics charged their purported attempts to maintain the peace were thin at best. Hamas and its allies continued to urge Palestinians to use “all means possible to resist Zionist occupation of Palestinian land.”

FLOOD OF FIRE

Weeks before the Jerusalem riots, the Hamas terrorist group had already launched its program, dubbed “Flood of Fire,” to oppose renewed Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations by means of violent unprovoked attacks upon Israeli civilians. Two days before the elaborate early August White House ceremony took place that formally inaugurated the US-mediated talks, four Israeli civilians were brutally slaughtered in a Hamas ambush near Judaism’s second holiest city on earth, Hebron. The following evening, Hamas terrorists attempted to kill two more Israeli male civilians who were driving northeast of Ramallah. Although the men survived the attack, one was seriously wounded. On September 26, a young Jewish couple was shot and seriously wounded in the same area as the first attack near Hebron, but this time both victims survived. As before, the wife was nine months pregnant, but thankfully this time the baby was born alive, delivered by caesarian section

Many Israeli news reports pointed out that the number of Jewish victims in the initial assault should have read five, since a 40 year old mother of six who was due to deliver her seventh child this month was among the dead. Her husband, driving their family car, was also slain, leaving their six other children instantly orphaned. Two younger passengers in the back seat, a man and a woman, were also killed. They were acquaintances of the car owner who was simply giving them rides to their homes in the Jewish community of Beit Haggai after picking them up at a hitchhiking outpost.

The sheer brutality of the armed assault was demonstrated by the fact that after shooting their victims from a passing car, the Muslim terrorists jumped out and pummeled their bodies with bullets at point blank range to make sure they were all dead, at which time they would have realized that one of the women was clearly pregnant with child. This did not stop them from riddling her swollen belly with bullets.

KILL ALL THE JEWS

The Hamas group took full responsibility for the atrocious attack, the worst terrorist incident in several years. A Hamas statement hailed the murderous assault as a “heroic operation” that would be repeated many times in the future. The statement claimed it was not just timed to coincide with the Washington ‘peace summit,’ but was “a continuation of the jihad and resistance project against the Zionist enemy until the liberation of the land.”

Although PA leader Abbas echoed President Barrack Obama in denouncing both attacks during his Washington summit comments, he used the very same language as the Hamas statement, calling them “operations.” And Abbas mainly decried the violent assaults because they might affect the renewed peace process, not because they had taken innocent Jewish lives, including an unborn baby. PA security forces did at least arrest some leading Hamas activists in the Hebron area, a move denounced by the radical Islamic group which put out a threatening statement saying, “The hands that have reached the heart of the occupier can reach you too.”

Israeli army officials indicated that the three terror attacks may have been ordered by Iran and/or Syria, who actively support the radical Muslim group with money and arms. They said army intelligence had detected increased text communications prior to the attacks, without specifying what that entailed.

Palestinian rockets and mortar shells were fired on many days during September at various Israeli targets around the Gaza Strip, mostly civilian centers. Grad missiles landed on several occasions either inside or on the outskirts of the large city of Ashkelon, just a few miles north of the Hamas-ruled coastal zone. Others struck near the port of Ashdod, which is halfway between Gaza and metropolitan Tel Aviv. One shell exploded between two kindergartens in an Israeli kibbutz community thirty minutes prior to the scheduled arrival of youngsters for their daily activities.

The discovery of phosphorous inside some of the mortar shells was particularly worrisome since it can badly burn skin and lead to permanent nerve damage. Hamas accused Israel of dropping phosphorous bombs on Palestinian civilian zones during the Cast Iron war nearly two years ago. The IDF countered that traces of the element found on the ground came from flares exploded high above in the air, designed to light up the night sky during ground combat engagements.

A popular new film produced in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip vividly illustrates the Hamas vow to wage jihad until Israel is totally destroyed. Titled, The Great Liberation, it shows Palestinians blowing up central Israeli government and economic institutions, including the Bank of Israel in Jerusalem and the nearby Supreme Court building. The movie later pictures jubuliant Palestinian forces ‘liberating’ Tel Aviv from Israeli Zionist rule. Palestinian national flags are shown flying over the city’s buildings as Arabs drive through the streets celebrating their ‘triumph.’

IDF GETS READY

On the tenth anniversary of the start of one of Israel’s worst ever conflicts—the Palestinian Al Aksa attrition war, which took over 1,100 Israeli lives, mostly civilians, and over 5,000 Palestinians, a majority of them armed fighters—IDF commanders were busy preparing for the possibility of a major new wave of violence if American mediated peace negotiations break down once again, as many expect. However unlike during that four year conflict, Israeli security officials warn that a renewed wave of Palestinian violence today could be quickly supported with active military intervention by Syria and Hizbullah, along with Hamas militia forces that now fully control the Gaza Strip. In other words, a full blown conflict may result on a scale not seen since the1973 Yom Kippur war.

Such a conflict could also be sparked by an IDF strike on Iranian nuclear targets or a successful Hizbullah or Hamas assassination of a senior Israeli political or military official. Hizbullah leaders threatened again during September to revenge the car bomb killing of a top Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyehin in Damascus in February 2008 by carrying out assassinations of Jewish officials, even though Israel has strongly denied any responsibility for his death.

In continuing preparations for a potential major conflict, full-scale brigade level military exercises involving live fire are now being held on a regular basis. Military forces have been reinforced on the Golan Heights and along the Lebanese border, and sea patrols have been stepped up off the coasts of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile a Kuwaiti newspaper says Syrian army leaders have signed a formal “defense alliance pact” with the Hizbullah militia. The paper, Al-Rai, reported that in the event of war, Syrian and Hizbullah missile launchers will “split a bank of targets” inside of Israel while Syrian radar outposts pass on intelligence pinpointing the exact locations of airborne Israeli Air Force jets and helicopter gunships. The report came soon after a large house filled with Hizbullah rockets blew up in south Lebanon. According to the 2006 UN ceasefire resolution, the Iranian and Syrian backed militia is not supposed to be operating in the area.

Meanwhile Israeli officials have decided not to publicly oppose the largest ever American weapons sale in the region, worth close to 60 billion dollars, even though it could potentially threaten Israel. The sale, to oil rich Saudi Arabia, will include around 70 F-15 warplanes and over 140 Apache and Black Hawk helicopters.

With regional war possibly looming, Israel’s new incoming armed forces chief of staff, Major General Yoav Galant, was busy during September putting together his new military team. His vacated position as head of the Southern Command, in charge of all operations involving the Gaza Strip, will be taken over next February by Major General Tal Russo, who previously served on the general staff. In a surprise move, the new head of Military Intelligence—a crucial position given that he is responsible for giving regular strategic assessments to senior government officials—is not someone serving on the general staff, as is usually the case. The new head is Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, a widely respected officer that previously served as Russo’s deputy.

‘STAND WITH US AGAINST IRAN’

US President Obama publicly admitted in late September that an American military strike against Iran’s threatening nuclear program may become unavoidable. Speaking during a televised town hall meeting, he first stated that “We don’t think a war between Israel and Iran or other military options would be the ideal way to solve the problem”—a statement Israeli leaders agree with, although they would be quick to add there may be no other realistic choice if Iran is to be kept from developing deadly nuclear warheads. However the President then added that his administration is “keeping all our options on the table,” which is not something he was saying soon after coming into office when he expressed confidence that diplomacy alone would suffice to deflect the radical Shiite regime from developing nuclear weapons.

The same day that Obama spoke, visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Fox News Network that Iran may be capable of producing nuclear warheads within two years. The statement squared with others issued recently by the UN Atomic Energy Agency and French government officials. Barak added that “We have to start to consider what follows if sanctions won’t work.” In reality, most security experts believe that the Israeli government is far beyond just ‘starting to consider’ its options.

The clearest hint that Israel may be closer than many experts think to selecting a “military option” against Iran came from Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, said to have a close working relationship with Netanyahu. He stated quite clearly that Israeli leaders believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons, and called upon American Jews to support them in whatever actions they may deem necessary to counter this portentous reality. The diplomat’s comments were widely reported in Israel.

Speaking before a Jewish audience at a Yom Kippur synagogue service in the American capital city, Oren said Israeli leaders are more concerned with the Iranian threat than with Hamas activities in the Gaza Strip and the current peace process with the Palestinians. “More than Gaza, more than peace, the ultimate quandary of statecraft centers on Iran. This is the radical, genocidal Iran whose leaders regularly call for Israel’s annihilation and provides terrorists with the means for accomplishing that goal. This is the Iran that undermines governments throughout the Middle East and even South America, and an Iran that shoots its own people protesting for freedom. Iran does all this without nuclear weapons: Imagine what it would do with the nuclear arms it is assiduously developing.” He ended his address by calling for American Jewish support as Israeli leaders grapple with difficult issues, especially Iran: “Stand with us as we resist Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.”

As the all too familiar dance carries on featuring words of ‘peace’ swirling around acts of terror and threats of regional war, it is comforting to recall the Word of the Lord delivered through the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah many centuries ago: “Your sun will set no more, neither will your moon wane. For you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be finished.”(Isaiah 60:20)

NEW JEWISH HOUSES HAVE WORLD FUMING!
by Ryan Jones (IsraelNationalNews)

True to his word, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has allowed the self-imposed Jewish building freeze in Judea and Samaria (the so-called “West Bank”) to lapse and for approved construction projects there to resume.

Work began on Monday on at least 2,000 new housing units and a number of new schools in Jewish communities throughout the territories the Palestinians claim for their future state.

Netanyahu had been under heavy pressure to extend the freeze, and has been doing his best to keep a low profile both for himself and for Israel since the freeze expired on Sunday.

But that hasn’t stopped the world from moaning.

According to government sources cited by The Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu was on the phone non-stop on Monday to listen to the complaints and expressions of disappointment from world leaders.

“The United States is disappointed, but we remain focused on our long-term objective and will be talking to the parties about the implications of the Israeli decision,” said US State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement insisting that “settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law, and urges Israel to fulfill its…obligation to freeze settlement activity.”

[Ed. Note – It is a common misconception fueled by inaccurate reporting and outright misinformation by world leaders that Israel has ever agreed to totally halt Jewish growth in Judea and Samaria. While Israel has agreed not to build new Jewish towns in those areas, every Prime Minister has carefully stipulated that natural growth in existing towns must be allowed.]

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was “very concerned that talks could falter on this issue and I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government to show leadership to resolve this so the parties can focus on the real challenges ahead.”

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton reiterated that the body she represents views Jewish homes on those ancient Jewish lands as “illegal under international law, constituting an obstacle to peace and threatening to make a two-state solution impossible.”

Israeli officials tried in vain to get the international community to see things in context.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was adamant that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ threat to quit the negotiations over the resumption of Jewish construction is a ruse, an excuse to avoid a peace deal he never intended to sign or honor.

The Palestinians “refused to accept the gesture of the (Jewish building) moratorium for nine months,” Lieberman told reporters in New York, referring to the fact that Israel imposed the freeze in November 2009 as a means of enticing the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Abbas rejected the gesture up until the end of last month, and then demanded it be extended indefinitely.

For Lieberman, that is evidence that the Palestinians did not enter the negotiations in good faith.

Vice Premier Silvan Shalom added that “no demand like this was ever presented to any Prime Minister in the past, and it did not disrupt negotiations. If the Palestinians leave the talks, it will be clear that it is just an excuse.”

The US Congress appeared to be taking Israel’s side.

The journal Foreign Policy reported that a letter signed by 87 out of 100 US senators was sent to US President Barack Obama this week urging him to press Abbas hard to remain at the negotiating table, and praising Netanyahu for having done so even when Israeli civilians were murdered in brutal acts of Palestinian terrorism on the very day the negotiations resumed in Washington.

“Neither side should make threats to leave just as the talks are getting started,” the senators wrote.

Meanwhile, Abbas has backed down from his threat to immediately suspend negotiations, and has said he will give Israel another week to reinstate the Jewish building freeze, which in the Palestinians’ eyes must also include Jerusalem.

SHIP OF JEWISH LEFTISTS SETS SAIL FOR GAZA!
by Gil Ronen (Arutz Sheva News)

A ship carrying Jewish left-wing activists from around the world set sail from Cyprus at noon Sunday, and is headed to Gaza, carrying what activists say are humanitarian supplies.

Among the passengers are Yonatan Shapiro, a former IDF helicopter pilot who co-signed a letter by IDF reservists who refused to serve in missions that targeted terrorists in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, for fear of killing civilians. Shapiro also recently vandalized the Warsaw Ghetto memorial with graffiti comparing the ghetto to Gaza.

Shapiro said that the goal of the ship is to “break the siege on Gaza” and transfer equipment and humanitarian supplies. He stressed that they would not enter a confrontation with the IDF even if the IDF stops them from reaching Gaza.

Among other activists on board are a Holocaust survivor, Julie Moskowitz, and Rami Elhanan, who lost his daughter in an Arab terror attack.

Israel’s position is that those who wish to transfer supplies to Gaza by land are allowed to do so using Israeli and Egyptian crossings. Only weapons and dual-purpose goods are barred. However, no supplies may be shipped by sea due to concerns that Hamas and other Gaza terrorist groups would take advantage of such a sea route, if opened, to import weapons that would be used against Israel.

Jews in Israel have grown increasingly nationalistic in the last two decades, after the granting of autonomy to Arabs within the Land of Israel resulted in a wave of unprecedently barbaric Muslim attacks that have killed and maimed many thousands. However, some Israeli Jews still hold leftist views and see Israel as the aggressor in the conflict.

Outside Israel, too, right-wing Jews are increasingly critical of Jewish leftism regarding Islamism. Conservative writer David Horowitz recently called liberal Jews who support Islamists “Jews for Cutting Their Own Heads Off” and blogger Don Feder called liberal jews “Temple Beit Meshuga,” (beit meshugaim means “insane asylum” in Hebrew).

ABBAS STEPS UP RHETORIC AS BULLDOZERS PREPARE TO ROAR!
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (IsraelNationalNews)

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas raised the volume Saturday in his diplomatic campaign to pressure Israel to extend the building freeze, hours before bulldozers are preparing to mark the end of the moratorium Sunday.

“Israel must choose between peace and the continuation of settlements,” Abbas said in his address to the U.N. General Assembly. He added a long list of complaints against Israel, claiming that the IDF has destroyed one-quarter of the homes in Gaza and that its counterterrorist maneuvers have put most Gaza residents out of work.

Signaling a move towards reaching an agreement with Hamas, the rival to his Fatah party, Abbas called for Israel to remove all restrictions on the flow of goods and merchandise into Gaza. The partial embargo, which does not include most commercial goods, is designed to prevent further smuggling of advanced weapons and terrorists for the Hamas terrorist organization, which heads a de facto government in Gaza.

His insistence for Israel’s extending the 10-month building freeze received more support from U.S. President Barack Obama, who told the United Nations, “We believe that the moratorium should be extended.” Trying to prevent a Palestinian Authority walkout on the American attempts to continue direct talks between the PA and Israel, President Obama added. “We also believe that talks should press on until complete.”

The government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to play down the end of the moratorium, which nationalists will celebrate on Sunday with several high-profile events where cornerstones will be laid for new homes.

One government official told Reuters that the Prime Minister is in contact with international leaders, who are conducting “intensive efforts to find a mutually agreed compromise to the issue of the moratorium ending.” The official added, “If this is going to work, it must be a two-way street. It also has to be said that the plan for building in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) in the coming year is so modest that in no way would they impact on the parameters for a peace deal.”

Cabinet Minister Benny Begin, a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party, told TIME magazine that Israel is “going through the motions” even though it is apparent that the Palestinian Authority is not sincere in its claim that it only wants part of what is now Israel.

Begin also pointed out that there is no point in talking with Abbas about a new PA state that includes Gaza, where the Hamas terrorist organization threw Abbas and his Fatah party out of control more than three years ago in a bloody militia war.

AHMADINEJAD: USA ORCHESTRATED 9/11 TO SAVE ZIONIST REGIME!
(reported on “FOR ZION’S SAKE” web site)

*NEW YORK – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to the United Nations General Assembly Thursday, decrying “the altar of Zionism” and saying that the September 11th attacks were orchestrated by elements within the US government in order “to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime.”

Ahmadinejad’s anti-Zionist remarks were a significant component of his speech, in which he asserted that the era of capitalism is over due in no small part to attitudes and beliefs and the “global management and ruling structures.”

The Iranian President said that with the advent of atheism and egoism, “Man’s disconnection from Heaven detached him from his true self.” Ahmadinejad attributed the historic development of colonialism as a whole to humanity’s betrayal of monotheism.

In speaking about the world’s current governance, Ahmadinejad referenced September 11th, 2001’s attacks on the World Trade Center as the starting point for a “propaganda machine” that “implied that the whole world was exposed to a huge danger, namely terrorism, and that the only way to save the world would be to deploy forces into Afghanistan.”

“It was said that some three thousand people were killed on the 11 September, for which we are all very saddened,” Ahmadinejad said. “Yet, up until now, in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions wounded and displaced and the conflict is still going on and expanding.”

Ahmadinejad said there were “three viewpoints” in identifying those responsible for the September 11th attacks. The main viewpoint, he said, “advocated by American statesmen,” is that “a very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack.”

The second viewpoint – which Ahmadinejad called the viewpoint of “the majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians” – was “that some segments within the US government orchestrated the attack in order to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime.”

Finally, he said, some believe September 11th “was carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation.” He conceded that “this viewpoint has fewer proponents.”

Ahmadinejad announced that, in light of this professed ambiguity as to the culpable parties, Iran will host a conference “to study terrorism and the means to confront it.” He also suggested that the UN set up a fact-finding group for September 11th.

Ahmadinejad continued on to decry “the Zionists.”

“The Zionists have imposed five all-out wars on the neighboring countries and on the Palestinian people,” he said, also accusing “the Zionists” and ‘the Zionist regime” of committing crimes against defenseless civilians in wars in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as attacking “a humanitarian flotilla.”

“This regime which enjoys the absolute support of some Western countries regularly threatens the countries in the region and continues publicly announced assassination of Palestinian figures and others, while Palestinian defenders and those opposing this regime are pressured, labeled as terrorists and anti-Semites.”

“All values, even the freedom of expression in Europe and in the United States, are being sacrificed at the altar of Zionism,” Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad proposed “the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the reference to the vote of the people of Palestine to exercise their sovereignty and decide on the type of governance.”

Ahmadinejad then turned his attention to the discussion of nuclear energy, which he called “clean and cheap and a heavenly gift which is amongst the most suitable alternatives to cut the pollutions emanating from fossil fuels.”

He decried nuclear weaponry, saying that Security Council members “have equated nuclear energy with the nuclear bomb, and have distanced this energy from the reach of most of nations by establishing monopolies and pressuring the IAEA, while at the same time, they have continued to maintain, expand and upgrade their own nuclear arsenals.”

“Not only the nuclear disarmament has not been realized [sic] but also nuclear bombs have been proliferated in some regions, including by the occupying and intimidating Zionist regime,” Ahmadinejad added, proposing that the year 2011 be proclaimed a year of nuclear disarmament, with “nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none.”

Ahmadinejad then went on to denounce the structure of the UN, including the Security Council veto.

“The veto advantage grants impunity to aggression and occupation,” Ahmadinejad said. “How could, therefore, one expect competence while both the judge and the prosecutor are a party to the dispute? Had Iran enjoyed veto privilege, would the Security Council and the IAEA Director General have taken the same position in the nuclear issue?”

Ahmadinejad suggested revoking the veto privilege and making the General Assembly the “highest body” of the organization.

Calling “occupation of other countries under the pretext of freedom and democracy” an “unforgivable crime,” Ahmadinejad said “the world needs the logic of compassion and justice and inclusive participation instead of the logic of force, domination, unilateralism, war and intimidation.”

Iran, he said, has “observed the regulations of the IAEA,” yet has “never submitted to illegally imposed pressures, nor will we ever do so.”

“Those who have used intimidation and sanctions in response to the clear logic of the Iranian nation are in real terms destroying the remaining credibility of the Security Council and the trust of nations for this body, proving once and again how unjust is the function of the Council,” Ahmadinejad said.

“We have announced that we stand ready for a serious and free debate with the American Statesmen [sic] to express our transparent views on issues of importance ot the world in this very venue,” Ahmadinejad said, proposing an annual free debate in the General Assembly.

The end of his remarks focused on “making a world full of purity, safety and prosperity,” with Ahmadinejad adding that women are “a reflection of God’s beauty” and “the guardian of purity,” but that the “tendency to toughen the souls and behaviors of women deprives them from their very basic right of being a loving mother and caring wife.”

In a statement issued immediately following the speech, which met with applause in the General Assembly hall, United States Mission to the UN spokesman Mark Kornblau said, “Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable.”

OBAMA’S BROKEN MORAL COMPASS ON DISPLAY AT THE UNITED NATIONS!
By Anne Bayefsky (Fox News)

Today, the United Nations opens its annual debate at the General Assembly with President Obama making every effort to appear statesmanlike as he faces increasing criticism in his own backyard. Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who will mount the same platform later in the day, has exactly the same idea. At $20 billion dollars a year, the U.N. has become the world’s most expensive hot air balloon, with American taxpayers funding a quarter of the bill.

A White House press release on Monday spelled out the formula for the president’s sought -after makeover. The White House described the “dramatically” different Obama foreign policy as one which includes a warm embrace of the United Nations. It also claimed that “the new era of engagement” has been a major success, pointing to U.N. sanctions on Iran, momentum against nuclear proliferation, and U.S. participation in reforming the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The facts suggest otherwise. Nobody at the U.N. believes that the Iran sanctions will prevent an Iranian bomb. The weak Security Council sanctions adopted after 18 months of engagement garnered fewer votes than the sanctions adopted during the Bush years. The President himself has knotted together the issues of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, thereby making non-proliferation efforts much more difficult.

In May, the President agreed to co-sponsor an international conference intended to redirect the heat from Iran to Israel in the name of disarmament. And a year after the U.S. joined the U.N. Human Rights Council, Libya has become a member, anti-Israel hysteria has reached new heights, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference has informed the Administration that reform is dead in the water.

None of that, however, is likely to mean the President will confront real world evils during his moments today at center stage. At a Monday press briefing with America’s U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes indicated that Obama will repeat his tired-out mantra on Iran. It’s still about an “open door” policy that remains open, despite Iran having made it crystal clear it has no intention of walking through. The President is evidently oblivious to the image of weakness he has projected, and will continue to project, in the General Assembly.

At the same MDG summit, President Obama unveiled to Americans another aspect of his “dramatically” different foreign policy. He chided “donor nations” yesterday for failing to “move beyond the old, narrow debate over how much money we’re spending.”

The enthusiasm for engagement has left the Obama team with at least one immediate conundrum, which will be played out as Ahmadinejad’s speech unfolds this afternoon. How anti-semitic is anti-semitic? U.S. representatives have been instructed to sit in their seats during his harangue until the anti-semitism or other possible affront reaches such a level that they must get up and walk out. It would be useful to have the Administration’s instruction sheet on the subject of what is or is not sufficiently offensive, but it has not been made available to the public.

After all, the Obama Administration’s representative stayed put in June when the Syrian representative told the U.N. Human Rights Council: “Israel…is a state that is built on hatred…Let me quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing merrily as they go to school and I quote ‘With my teeth I will rip your flesh. With my mouth I will suck your blood.”

Given that Ahmadinejad again questioned the Holocaust while talking to reporters in New York on Tuesday, it is disturbing that the President has still not decided to stay away from the Iranian President’s speech. The Israeli representative, needless to say, has already figured it out and will not be there. In fact, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu – who last year felt that he had to come and show the members of the General Assembly the construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – will not be coming to the Assembly this year at all.

So we will just have to wait and see what it takes to move the Obama team.

Of course, Ahmadinejad doesn’t care a whit if Obama’s folks come or go. By the time Ahmadinejad ends his New York trip, the U.N. will have translated his words into six languages and webcast them around the world.

He will have been fawned over by many in the American media and scores of academics who have made careers of refusing to nail down what counts as right and wrong. As MIT research associate Jim Walsh told Fox News yesterday, while preparing to dine with Ahmadinejad that evening (for the sixth time), “every Iranian meal I’ve had has been delicious.”

A fairly accurate reflection of the moral compass of today’s engagement enthusiasts.

Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

SUKKOT: FEAST OF TABERNACLES IN ISRAEL
by Hana Levi Julian and Yoni Kempinski (IsraelNationalNews)

Jews around the world Wednesday evening will enter temporary structures known as “sukkot” and celebrate the week-long holiday that commemorates G-d’s protection of the Jews during their 40-year sojourn through the desert on their way to the Promised Land.

Thousands of Jews have streamed into Israel to celebrate Tishrei – the first month in the Hebrew calendar and which is filled to the brim with Jewish holidays, including the two holiest of the year, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Another 7,000 tourists flooded into Jerusalem this week for the festivities – including Christian pilgrims, who have come to join in with their version of Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles.

The holiday of Sukkot, which begins at sundown, is one of the three major festivals (shlosha regalim) of the Jewish calendar in which the Jewish People were enjoined to “go up to Jerusalem”.

In Israel, the holiday lasts for seven days, two of which are “holy days” – one each at the beginning and end of the holiday. The five days in between are known as “Chol HaMoed,” during which most ordinary activities are permitted. It is during these days that a massive outpouring of families and friends is seen throughout the country as domestic holiday tourism floods a myriad of sites throughout Israel.

In countries outside Israel, Sukkot lasts eight days, beginning with a two-day Sabbath-like holiday, followed by five days of Chol HaMoed. This year, the holiday begins with a three-day holiday as a result: two days of “yom tov” followed by the Sabbath.

One of the most important customs of Sukkot is the recitation of the blessings over the Four Species: an etrog (citron), a lulav (palm frond), three sprigs of hadassim (myrtle) and two branches of aravot (red willow).

According to the Midrash, the Four Species represent the four types of Jews that comprise the People of Israel, whose unity is emphasized on the holiday of Sukkot:

1.The etrog, which has a good fragrance and taste, represents a person with both wisdom (Torah learning) and good deeds

2.The hadas has a good fragrance, but cannot be eaten, representing a person with good deeds, but who lacks wisdom

3.The lulav is edible, but has no scent, representing a person with wisdom but without good deeds, and

4.The aravah has neither taste nor smell, thus representing the person who lacks both good deeds and wisdom or Torah learning.

The lulav is only considered kosher if all four species are taken together – if one is missing, the entire lulav is invalid. So too it was with the incense mixture used in the Holy Temple in ancient times, of which there were 11 ingredients. One of those, the chelbanah was a spice with a terrible smell, and yet the entire mixture was considered invalid if that or any other spice, was omitted.

From this, we learn that all Jews must work together and remain united, as one People, regardless of our differences.

Also on this holiday Jews eat all their meals in temporary booths constructed of various materials, including wood paneling and cloth, with the roofs covered in branches of live material, open enough to be able to view the stars above.

Men sleep in these structures as well, to commemorate the “clouds of glory” that surrounded and protected our ancestors from the harsh desert conditions as we traveled to the Land of Israel after fleeing from Egypt.

Nightly “Water-Drawing Celebrations,” called Simchat Beit HaShoeva (Celebration of the House of Water-Drawing) — are held to commemorate the ceremonies and celebrations that took place at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in preparation for drawing water for use during the festival service. These celebrations, held in Jewish communities around the world, often feature special celebrations that include all-night music and singing by live bands and special foods.

Sukkot in the Diaspora ends with another two-day holiday that includes Shemini Atzeret (the final day of Sukkot) and Simchat Torah – the “Rejoicing of the Torah,” and last Jewish holiday in the Hebrew month of Tishrei.

In Israel, the holiday of Shemini Atzeret / Simchat Torah begins Wednesday at sunset, September 29, and lasts for one day.

The holiday is characterized by unbridled joy and celebrates the conclusion and renewal of the reading of the Torah each week. Also featured are the prayers for rain, officially commemorating the start of the region’s season of winter rains, and the “Yizkor” prayer for departed souls.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: To connect with the celebration of Sukkot at the time of our Lord Yeshua – read the wonderful worlds of John 7:37-39!)

PALESTINIANS ADMIT PEACE TALKS ARE A SHAM!

While Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas puts on a show of playing nice with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the sake of the Obama Administration, the Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon assured the Arab world that the current negotiations are just part of a larger plan to delegitimize Israel.

The Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported that on September 9, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah insisted that “the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations…are not a goal, but rather another stage in the Palestinian struggle… to isolate Israel, to tighten the noose on it, to threaten its legitimacy, and to present it as a rebellious, racist state.”

So much for genuine talks leading to lasting peaceful coexistence.

Like Abbas, Abdullah is sticking to Yasser Arafat’s conclusion decades ago that Israel cannot be defeated in one knock-out blow, but must be slowly whittled away at.

Of course, Abdullah’s remarks were not reported by the mainstream media, because they were spoken and reported on in Arabic. It seems Arabic is the language that simply doesn’t matter. You can say anything, reveal any nefarious plot, and everyone will simply brush it off because you said so in Arabic.

But, can anyone imagine an Israeli Ambassador, speaking in either English or Hebrew, saying that Israel was only in the current negotiations to reveal the Palestinian Authority as liars with the ultimate goal of delegitimizing the “Palestinian cause” into oblivion?