Libya joins UN Security Council
Libya — a former pariah state condemned by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism — won a seat on the United Nations Security Council Tuesday without opposition from the Bush administration…

Associated Press story at CBC News (dated October 16, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/GI)

Israel Struck Syrian Nuclear Project, Analysts Say
Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports. The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its determination to snuff out even a nascent nuclear project in a neighboring state. The Bush administration was divided at the time about the wisdom of Israel’s strike, American officials said, and some senior policy makers still regard the attack as premature…

From The New York Times (dated October 13, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/WT)

The Battle for Jerusalem Begins
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will put Jerusalem on the negotiating table as he hurtles toward a “joint declaration” with the Palestinian Authority ahead of next month’s U.S.-sponsored Mideast summit. The prime minister says that a joint declaration with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas prior to the summit will lead to direct negotiations. The Arabic Al Quds Al-Arabiya newspaper reported Monday morning that Olmert has now come to an agreement with Jordan that Arabs in eastern Jerusalem will be granted Jordanian citizenship. The plan would leave Jerusalem's Muslim holy sites under the control of the Hashemite kingdom, according to the report. Olmert vehemently denied the report…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated October 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/WT/RE)

Israel May OK Division of Jerusalem
A confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that his government would support a division of Jerusalem, which is reportedly a key component of an Israeli-Palestinian declaration to be made at a U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference next month. As part of recent negotiations between the sides, Deputy Vice Prime Minister Haim Ramon has proposed turning over many of the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem to the Palestinians…

Associated Press story at My Way News (dated October 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/WT/RE)

West Papua Delegation Donates Gold For Holy Temple
On Wednesday, the last day of the Sukkot festival, a 34-person delegation from West Papua presented a large amount of gold to be used in the building of the Holy Temple. The delegation, including representatives of the nation’s government, explained that they study the Bible regularly and recently came upon a verse in Zecharia (6:16) reading “And the distant ones will come and build the Temple of G-d.” They discussed the passage among themselves and decided that their faith obligates them to fulfill the verse…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated October 7, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/AP/RE)

'Dozens died in Syria-Iran missile test'
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the proliferation and development of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in Jane's Defence Weekly, which reported that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria. According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a Scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated September 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/WT)

Muslims caught red-handed destroying Temple artifacts
Islamic authorities using heavy machinery to dig on the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – have been caught red-handed destroying Temple-era antiquities and what's believed to be a section of an outer wall of the Second Jewish Temple…

From WorldNetDaily (dated September 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/RE)

Putin praises strength of 'Warsaw Pact 2'
President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao…attend an unprecedented show of joint military force [Aug. 20] amid fears that the Russian leader is trying to turn an increasingly powerful central Asian alliance into a second Warsaw Pact…Founded in 2001, the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization], which includes the four central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as China and Russia, is rapidly gaining a reputation as an anti-Western organization…Yet the SCO has wider ambitions. Pakistan, India and Mongolia all want to join - as does Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, attended the summit as guest of honour…

From The Telegraph (London) (dated August 20, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (EU/AP/ME/WT)

'Reunion' of Priests Spurs Talk of Third Temple
What made this blessing at the Western Wall unique was that the service was among the opening ceremonies of the first international Kohen-Levi conference, "The Gathering of the Tribe," held this week in Jerusalem….Members of the Jewish priestly class came from near and far to participate in this unique "family reunion" of the sons of Aaron…[Many] came to learn exactly how to fulfill their divine ancestral duties for when the Third Holy Temple is built…In addition to seminars about purity laws for priests and the correct way to offer the blessing of the Kohanim, experts talked about recent DNA testing that validates the belief that today's Kohanim descend from one man who lived about 3,000 years ago, at the time of the Exodus -- namely, Aaron. Most Ashkenazi and Sephardi Kohanim in the world have a common set of genetic markers indicating their common origin…

Jewish Telegraphic Agency story at Jewish Exponent (dated July 26, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/RE)

Putin’s hostile course
At virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership appear to be doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass the United States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests…

From The Washington Times (dated October 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (EU/AP/ME/WT)

Rethinking the core issues
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah to help Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams craft a joint declaration for the upcoming Annapolis summit that addresses the "core issues," particularly, - refugees - known as the Palestinian "right of return" - final borders, and Jerusalem… Israel is…mistaken to waste most of its diplomatic energy "killing" the Palestinian "right of return," when there is no danger that Israel will be forced to absorb millions of Arab refugees. Diplomatically, Israel has already won that battle. But on two other "core issues," borders and Jerusalem, that are no less critical to Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state, and are today in great peril, Israel has a bloody diplomatic fight ahead…

From Institute for Contemporary Affairs director Dan Diker in The Jerusalem Post (dated October 15, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/WT/RE)

Selling out Israel on the installment plan
Name one concession Israel has made in recent years that has been reciprocated by its sworn enemies. This is not a trick question. There are none. That's why next month's announced "Middle East Summit" in Annapolis, Md., should be viewed as one more installment payment in the sellout of Israel and of American interests in the Middle East. While the United States continues to struggle to shore up democracy in Iraq, the Bush administration — like administrations before it — proceeds in undermining the likelihood that the region's first democracy will endure. At every negotiating session, Israel is pressured into making concessions for "peace" and receives more war in response. Mostly this is because of the wishful thinking in the West that has replaced sound policy. Why should the Palestinians make concessions when they are drawing closer to their objective of eradicating Israel by throwing stones and bombs and stonewalling negotiations?...

From columnist Cal Thomas at Jewish World Review (dated October 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/WT)

Dutch researcher claims to confirm Queen Jezebel's seal
For some 40 years, one of the flashiest opal signets on display at the Israel Museum had remained without accurate historical context. Two weeks ago, Dutch researcher Marjo Korpel identified article IDAM 65-321 as the official seal of Queen Jezebel, one of the bible's most powerful and reviled women. Israeli archaeologists had suspected Jezebel was the owner ever since the seal was first documented in 1964…

From Haaretz (Tel Aviv) (dated October 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/RE)

A thundering silence on Temple Mount's depredation
The "Jewish State" is allowing Judaism's holiest site to have its priceless artifacts destroyed and nobody seems to care…

From Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks at Jewish World Review (dated September 10, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends October 18, 2007 (ME/RE)

Turkey's ruling party wins election
Turkey's Islamic-rooted ruling party won parliamentary elections by a wide margin Sunday, and the prime minister pledged to safeguard the country's secular traditions and do whatever the government deems necessary to fight separatist Kurdish rebels…

Associated Press story at Yahoo News (dated July 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME)

Olmert Reiterates Stance to Give Away Judea and Samaria
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reiterated his belief that Israel "needs to withdraw" from the biblical Jewish provinces of Judea and Samaria [known to most as the West Bank]…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated July 21, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/WT)

Israel frees 255 prisoners in bid to boost Abbas
Israel released 255 Palestinian prisoners on Friday as part of a series of goodwill gestures designed to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his standoff against Hamas…

From CNN (dated July 20, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/WT)

Report: Christians crucified by terrorists in Iraq
Believers in Jesus said to be nailed to crosses, tied with ropes, set ablaze…

From WorldNetDaily (dated July 17, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Israelite priests hold first gathering since Temple era
Jews belonging to the Tribe of Levi, and particularly the Kohen [i.e., priest] clan, came together for a mass gathering in Jerusalem on Sunday. It was the first large-scale gathering of biblically-mandated Israelite priests since the time of the Second Temple. The gathering included lectures and seminars on the history and future of the Temple, and culminated with all of the participants declaring the priestly blessing over Israel from the Western Wall. Genetic research over the past several decades has succeeded in isolating a particular DNA signature shared by all members of the Tribe of Levi, making the reinstitution of Israel's priestly caste a relatively simple endeavor once the Temple is rebuilt.

From Israel Today (dated July 15, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/RE)

Germany Skeptical of EU Foreign Ministers' Middle East Initiative
Germany has criticized a call by 10 European foreign ministers to redefine EU objectives in the Middle East, including deploying in the Palestinian territories an international troop force armed with a "robust mandate"…

From Deutsch Welle (Germany) (dated July 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (EU/ME/WT)

Olmert allows Muslims to dig on Temple Mount
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has quietly granted the Waqf – the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount – permission to dig unsupervised on the sacred site, WND has learned. The permission was granted in spite of longstanding fears from leading Israeli archeologists the Waqf might hide or dispose of Jewish Temple artifacts discovered during any Muslim digs. The last time the Waqf conducted an unsupervised excavation on the Temple Mount, in 1997, the Muslim custodians ultimately were caught by Israeli authorities disposing truckloads of Mount dirt that contained Jewish Temple artifacts…

From WorldNetDaily (dated July 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/RE)

Hamas’s plans for Temple Mount foiled
Hamas attempts to gain control of the Temple Mount and recruit new Israeli-Arab operatives in east Jerusalem have been foiled by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), a senior security official announced on Monday…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated July 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

[Israeli Minister] Lieberman wants NATO troops in Gaza
Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman discussed deploying NATO forces in the Gaza Strip in a meeting with NATO Deputy Secretary General Alessandro Minuto Rizzo in Brussels…

From Ynet News (dated June 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/EU/WT)

Israel braces for July war with up to five enemies
Israel is preparing for an imminent war with Iran, Syria and/or their non-state clients. Israeli military intelligence has projected that a major attack could come from any of five adversaries in the Middle East. Officials said such a strike could spark a war as early as July 2007…

From World Tribune (dated June 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/WT)

Look who's holding hostages again
How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran? No, not the guys back in the Seventies, the ones being held right now. What? You haven't heard about them? Odd that, isn't it? But they're there…

From columnist Mark Steyn at Jewish World Review (dated July 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

How Empires End
Longtime critics of the [Iraq] war like Gen. William Odom say it is already lost, and fighting on will only further bleed the country and make the ultimate price even higher. The general may be right in saying it is time to cut our losses. But we should take a hard look at what those losses may be…

From columnist Patrick Buchanan at Human Events (dated July 20, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

The Persistence of Islamic Slavery
Besides being practiced more or less openly today in Sudan and Mauritania, there is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well -- notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962, Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970, and Niger, which didn’t abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and according to a Nigerian study, as many as one million people remain in bondage there. Slaves are bred, often raped, and generally treated like animals…

From Robert Spencer at FrontPage Magazine (dated July 20, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/AF/RE/MO)

Temple Mount travesty
A bulldozer was seen last week ripping up earth on the Temple Mount, at the Dome of the Rock platform. It slashed a long gash, purportedly to lay new electric cables. With crude, damaging handling, it exposed a largely gray deposit, which according to archeologists is a sure-fire indication of "archeologically significant" matter. Incomprehensibly, despite TV air-time and print space, these revelations by the Archeologists Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount (CPDATM) failed to cause much stir. The public has perhaps grown numb due to official abdication of control on the Mount. But the expedient turning of official blind eyes amounts to abetting the Wakf's ongoing construction at Judaism's most sacred site…This travesty was perpetrated with Israeli policemen stationed nearby. Archeological supervision was nowhere to be detected…The officers on hand, moreover, according to testimony by archeologist Prof. Yisrael Caspi, CPDATM head, forbade him from picking any remains out of the rubble. Caspi and other archeologists were warned that they had better not even try to bend down, lest they stretch out an arm to touch anything. A policeman was finally dispatched to maintain particular vigilance against Prof. Eilat Mazar, most suspected of a proclivity to lay a hand on a pottery shard. Speaking for the CPDATM, Mazar expressed "the deepest distress at the continued official disregard and disrespect for the incalculable archeological importance of the Temple Mount"…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated July 14, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/RE)

What We Pre-Empted
Given the problems and U.S. casualties in Iraq, polls show a large majority of the American people believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Yet if we imagine what the world would look like today if Saddam Hussein had not been deposed, it seems clear that almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today's world with Saddam still in power…

From American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Peter Wallison in The Wall Street Journal (dated July 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Iran’s Proxy War
Tehran is on the offensive against us throughout the Middle East. Will Congress respond?...

From U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) in The Wall Street Journal (dated July 6, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/WT)

Israeli and Palestinian authorities are failing to protect the Temple Mount
I don’t know who are worse: the Muslim religious authorities digging up Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, or the Israeli authorities who are allowing it to happen…

From Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks in The Wall Street Journal, reposted at Biblical Archaeology Society (dated July 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends July 25, 2007 (ME/RE)

Report: PM willing to return Golan for peace with Syria
A recent flurry of secret messages from Israel to Syria signaled Israel's willingness to give up the Golan Heights in return for a peace agreement…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated June 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/WT)

Palestinians say fed up with gunmen
For most Palestinians, black-hooded gunmen have long been respected symbols of resistance against Israeli occupation. Now, frequent internal fighting and lawlessness gripping the Palestinian territories have transformed the militants into no more than gangsters in the eyes of many of those who once saw them as heroes. "It's very ironic but I'm relieved the Israelis have started a bombing campaign. The gunmen killing each other on the streets were forced to go into hiding," said Mai, a Gaza housewife, referring to strikes aimed at halting rocket attacks on Israel…Legislator Nasser Jum'a, once a leading member of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade… said ordinary Palestinians were so fed up with the armed groups "they now wish the Israeli occupation would take over in Gaza or hope for the return of Jordanian rule in the West Bank" to get rid of them…

Reuters story at Yahoo News (dated June 7, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/WT)

[After threat] Putin offers radar site in Azerbaijan
Vladimir Putin, bitterly opposed to a U.S. missile shield in Europe, presented President Bush with a surprise counterproposal Thursday built around a Soviet-era radar system in Azerbaijan rather than new defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Bush said it was an interesting suggestion and promised to consider it. Putin's formula would force a major rethinking of U.S. plans for defending Europe against attack from hostile regimes such as Iran or North Korea. While outright acceptance of Putin's idea appeared doubtful, the White House seemed eager to avoid further inflaming tensions by giving it short shrift. The Russian president said he would abandon his threat to retarget missiles on Europe — if Bush accepted the Kremlin's missile-defense proposal…

Associated Press story at Yahoo News (dated June 7, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (EU/ME/WT)

Iran president sees "countdown" to Israel's end
Iran's president said on Sunday the Lebanese and the Palestinians had pressed a "countdown button" to bring an end to Israel. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who triggered outrage in the West two years ago when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map", has often referred to the destruction of the Jewish state but says Iran is not a threat. "With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine," Ahmadinejad said in a speech. "By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future," he said. He did not elaborate…

From Reuters (dated June 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/WT)

Gaza: Female TV staff get death threat
A radical Islamic group in the Gaza Strip issued a death threat over the weekend against women working for the official Palestinian Authority television station, accusing them of dressing immodestly and behaving in a way that violates the teachings of Islam. The threat, the first of its kind against female employees of Palestine TV, was made by the Righteous Swords of Islam, a relatively new group that is believed to have links with al-Qaida…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated June 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Palestinian Kindergarten Graduates Vow to Die for Allah
A televised graduation ceremony at a Palestinian kindergarten in Gaza shows little boys dressed in black masks, camouflage fatigues, carrying toy guns, and waving green Hamas flags. The children vow that their most "lofty aspiration" is death for the sake of Allah. The ceremony aired on Hamas' Al-Aqsa Television on Thursday…

From Cybercast News Service (dated June 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Spanish PM backs French plan for 'Mediterranean Union'
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Thursday that he backed a French proposal to set up a "Mediterranean Union" comprising nations from its northern and southern flank…

Agence France-Presse story at Expatica (dated May 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (EU/ME)

Vatican signals support for Turkey EU bid
The Vatican has indicated it supports Turkish EU accession and acknowledged Ankara's progress toward democracy at a time when clouds of doubt are gathering over Turkey enlargement inside the EU itself…

From EUObserver.com (dated May 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (EU/ME)

Russia wants control of downtown Jerusalem
Moscow is in negotiations to purchase a large section of downtown Jerusalem once controlled by the Russian government prior to Israel's rebirth in 1948…An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman stressed that Israel is not "selling" the land to Russia, but rather "returning" the area to its former owners - a very dangerous way of putting things considering the Arab claim to all of what is today the Jewish state…

From Israel Today (dated May 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/EU)

'EU should have more say at Rafah'
Israel has asked the European Union observer force at the Rafah border crossing to take upon itself wider authority, and on a parallel track Israel has asked Egypt to step up efforts to prevent Palestinian terrorists from crossing into Gaza…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated May 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/EU)

[Israel] Sabbath-Sunday Bill Survey Shows Support
[Member of the Israeli Knesset] Zevulun Orlev (NRP) has announced the findings of a poll showing 56% support amongst Israelis for his proposed legislation making Sunday a day of rest and allowing some public transportation and entertainment on the Sabbath. Orlev's bill would change the official approach to Sabbath as the country's day of rest… Orlev's bill, which he proposed last week, also calls for a second day of rest during the week - Sunday - during which businesses and offices would be closed…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated May 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/RE)

Ex-chief rabbi opposes new moves to visit Temple Mount
Former chief rabbi Abraham Shapira, responding to a visit to the Temple Mount this week by dozens of religious-Zionist rabbis, declared Wednesday that such visits remain forbidden for Jews… Perhaps the most significant ruling, though, came from Rabbi Yaakov Ariel - one of the leading halakhic figures in religious Zionist circles today and a candidate for the chief rabbinate. Ariel published his ruling Friday in Argaman, a journal for religious women, where he gave explicit permission to women to visit the Temple Mount if they immerse in a mikveh after completing their menstrual cycle. He also gave permission to brides to go on their wedding day, after immersion and before the marriage ceremony…

From Haaretz (Tel Aviv) (dated May 16, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/RE)

Rabbis Call for Temple Mount Visits
Close to 30 leading religious-Zionist rabbis visited the Temple Mount "in purity" on Sunday, after taking the necessary Halakhic [Jewish legal] precautions. The precautions involve immersing in a mikveh (ritual bath), taking off one's shoes, and clarifying the precise areas forbidden for entry - or else going only with a guide who knows the area. The visit was unique in that it marks the first time such a large group of rabbis ascended together to the holy site… [Rabbis consider that] biblical law forbids one from entering the holy areas of the Temple Mount, and some feel that the precise boundaries of those areas are not known. However, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel of the Temple Institute has shown that the rock under the Dome of the Rock is in fact the Holy of Holies, and most scholars agree… Last week, a group of over 40 rabbis signed a declaration calling upon the religious public - those who know the laws and restrictions - to frequent the permitted sites on the Temple Mount… Former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, however, issued an opposite call, saying that visits to the Temple Mount could lead to the grave sin of entering forbidden sacred locations…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated May 13, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/RE)

Israel is doomed (again)
By any rational analysis of all the factors in play, Israel is doomed. Which is why the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War in 1967 has come at a propitious time. If Israel's position is precarious now, it seemed hopeless in the days leading up to that war…

From Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial page editor Paul Greenberg at Jewish World Review (dated June 6, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Water As The Source Of Life And Strife
The next major Middle East war could well be fought not over land, oil or religion -- the traditional causes of conflict to date -- but over water, a precious commodity becoming rarer by the day. Addressing top leaders in industry, business, banking and the media in his speech at the opening session of the World Economic Forum held on the shores of the Dead Sea last week, King Abdullah II of Jordan raised the alarm over the scarcity of water in the region and warned of the dire consequences for not only the developing nations, but the havoc water scarcity would have on the developed world as a whole…

United Press International story at TerraDaily (dated May 21, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (ME/ND/WT)

Was Osama Right?
Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won't change their view…

From author Bernard Lewis in The Wall Street Journal (dated May 16, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends June 8, 2007 (US/ME/RE/WT)

Israeli Envoy: Syrian Build-up - the Strongest Since 1973 War
Israel's Ambassador in Washington says Syria is developing its most serious threat against Israel since it attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973…

From Arutz Sheva Israel National News (dated May 9, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/WT)

King Herod's Tomb Unearthed Near Jerusalem, Expert Says
The tomb of King Herod the Great has been found on the sun-bleached slope of a desert mountain near Jerusalem, an Israeli archaeologist announced today. Hebrew University professor Ehud Netzer and colleagues say they solved one of Israel's great archaeological mysteries by unearthing the remains of Herod's grave, sarcophagus, and mausoleum at the Herodium complex…

From National Geographic News (dated May 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/RE)

Congress: India Builds Military Ties With Iran
Congress has determined that India was developing military relations with Iran despite a nuclear agreement with the United States. Members of the House and Senate said India was establishing defense and military cooperation with Iran in wake of a U.S. nuclear agreement with New Dehli. They have raised the prospect that Iran could benefit from U.S. missile technology sold to India…

From Middle East Newsline (dated May 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (AP/ME/WT)

Putin not able to track all nukes
Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Bush he could not account for all of Moscow's nuclear weapons at the same time al Qaeda was seeking to purchase three Russian nuclear devices on the black market, former CIA Director George J. Tenet said…

From The Washington Times (dated May 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/AP/ME/WT)

Top Hamas official: Kill all Americans
Sheik Ahmad Bahr, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, declared during a Friday sermon at a Sudan mosque that America and Israel will be annihilated and called upon Allah to kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One"…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated May 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Report says terror attacks up sharply
Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up more than 25 percent last year, killing 40 percent more people than in 2005, particularly in Iraq where extremists used chemical weapons and suicide bombers to target crowds, the State Department said Monday…

Associated Press story at Yahoo News (dated April 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (GI/ME/WT)

Iran possibly months from making bomb
New reports indicate Tehran close to enriching weapons-grade uranium…

From WorldNetDaily (dated April 10, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/WT)

Europe: Majority supports strike on Iran
Over half of Europeans would support a preemptive military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a poll released last week by a London think-tank reports…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated April 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/BR/ME/WT)

Iran, Syria Prepare for War in Mid-2007
Israel's intelligence community has assessed that Iran and Syria were preparing for war in mid-2007. Officials said the war was expected to be sparked by a U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. At that point, they said, Iran, Syria and Hizbullah would also attack Israel with a range of missiles and rockets…

From Middle East Newsline (dated April 4, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/WT)

Court prevents groups from sacrificing live animals at Temple Mount
In their efforts to sacrifice a live animal at the Temple Mount, the New Sanhedrin Council adopted an almost underground modus operandi. Rabbis Adin Steinsaltz, Israel Ariel, Yishai Baved and their associates secretly located a butcher, found a Cohen hailing from a lineage 1,000 years old and worked out a plan to quickly erect an alter on the Temple Mount. They tried to revive the customs of the ancient Sanhedrin tribunal, which was the highest judicial body for the Jewish people in Israel some 1,600 years ago. They sought to slaughter a sacrificial animal across from the Western Wall. The activists, who belong to various religious circles such as the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, also petitioned the High Court of Justice for the right to perform the ritual. Their plans were thwarted on Sunday when the court rejected their request, ruling that "the rights of the petitioners to practice their faith are outweighed by other considerations such as public order and safety." Despite the ruling, the followers decided to hold a colorful procession on Sunday in Jerusalem, heading to the Western Wall along with two sheep. The Temple Mount Movement followers present were joined by partners from the Temple Institute, which has for years prepared the traditional holy tools and utensils for the Third Temple, according to Torah specifications. The spectacular display did not, however, persuade authorities to allow the participants to perform the practice…

From Haaretz (Tel Aviv) (dated April 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/RE)

First Temple wall found in City of David
A wall from the First Temple [period] was recently uncovered in Jerusalem's City of David, strengthening the claim that it is the site of the palace of King David, an Israeli archeologist said Thursday…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated March 29, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/RE)

Towards a Totalitarian Europe
Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovksy has warned that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. When people who have worked on higher levels in the EU system note similarities as well, it is time people start taking this idea seriously. In 2002 Louis Michel, the then Belgian minister of foreign affairs and today a member of the European Commission, told the Belgian parliament that the EU will eventually encompass North Africa and the Middle East as well as Europe…The Constitution will move even more power into the hands of the already powerful and unaccountable elites. The EUrocrats are basically saying that since somebody may conceivably threaten our democratic system at some point in the future, we might as well dismantle it now, in an orderly fashion. Moreover, whereas constitutions have traditionally outlined the basic workings of the state, the proposed European Constitution, running into hundreds of pages, betrays an almost sharia-like desire to regulate all aspects of life. It is an instrument of control, a blueprint for an authoritarian state. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state, but such societies can also be transnational, as was the Soviet Union, which the EU resembles more than just superficially: An artificial superstate run by an authoritarian bureaucracy that overrides the will of the people and imposes its ideology on the populace. Are we back in the E.U.S.S.R? Although the EU, due to its transnational nature, most closely resembles the Soviet Union, there are also similarities with Nazi Germany. The EU was created by perfecting the Big Lie technique that was championed by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: Serve people massive lies, so big that they cannot believe that anybody would lie about it, and they will believe them, at least for a while. It should also be mentioned that Adolf Hitler stated his admiration for the warlike nature of Islam. The admiration was mutual. Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist and passionate anti-Semite who cooperated closely with Nazi Germany during World War II. Later, leadership of Palestinian Arabs was transferred to Husayni’s nephew Yasser Arafat, a very dear friend of the EU, who in 2002 gave an interview in which he referred to "our hero al-Husayni." If the EU is supposed to protect us from the horrors of Nazi Germany, it is remarkable how many of its traits it is copying, such as flirting with Arab strongmen and admiration for Islam. The Muslim immigration the EU is promoting to Europe has triggered the largest wave of anti-Semitism since the rise of, well, Nazi Germany, and may yet force the remaining Jews to leave. That Europeans should support this organization to prevent a new totalitarian regime is a sick joke. The EU is a lot closer to totalitarian states than the supposedly evil nation states it is going to replace. Since there is no European demos, no pre-political loyalty or shared public community, and since legislate power has been transferred to the unelected EU Commission, there is no way the EU can function as a democracy in any meaningful sense of the term. The EU can only become one giant Yugoslavia, either ruled by an authoritarian oligarchy in the fashion of Tito, or fall apart into civil wars. The slow, but steady stifling of free speech through legislation and Muslim Jihad violence indicates an ominous trend: Europe is moving in a totalitarian direction…

From blogger Fjordman at The Brussels Journal (dated April 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/ME/RE/WT)

Failure to See Jihad for What It Is
Someday, when the war in Iraq has become a historical episode, we will tally up the lessons learned--if, that is, we ever learn any. Here are two worth mastering because failing to do so probably means we will no longer exist. Lesson 1. Nation-building in a war zone is nuts. Nation-building in an Islamic war zone is suicide…I hate to be the one to break it to Gen. Petraeus, not to mention President Bush, but the fact is, in an Islamic war zone, an "infidel" army just isn't going to win Islamic allegiance. There are many religious and cultural reasons I could offer in explanation, but instead I'll turn to the underreported story of the week: two findings contained within an extensive new poll of Muslim opinion conducted in four major Islamic countries, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan. Accordingto WorldPublicOpinion.org, more than half of those polled in Indonesia, and three-quarters of those polled in Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan believe in the strict application of Shariah, or Islamic law. Nearly two-thirds of all respondents expressed their desire to see the Islamic world united in a caliphate. Which brings me to: Lesson 2. With numbers like these, portraying jihadist war goals (Shariah, caliphate) as belonging to a "tiny band of extremists" is nuts. Persisting in this PC fantasy as part of the narrative and strategy of the "war on terror" is suicidal. But such PC fantasy fuels hearts-and-minds efforts that go beyond "allegiance"-winning outposts in Iraq as the United States now weirdly cheers on world Islamization to curry Islamic favor…

By columnist Diana West in The Washington Times (dated April 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (ME/AP/RE/WT)

Hezbollah’s German Helpers
Holding currently both the E.U. and G-8 presidencies, Berlin would be in a strong position to head the fight against an organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the replacement of Lebanon's fragile democracy with a Tehran-backed Islamic state. So far, however, Germany has squandered this unique opportunity to push for a Hezbollah ban. Berlin's passivity is consistent with its tolerant approach toward the "Party of God" over the past two decades…Why does the German government tolerate [its] activities? First, the Hezbollah leadership in Beirut recognizes the value of a German safe haven. It demands that Hezbollah followers carefully obey German law, which Berlin claims they do "to a large extent." Experience from attacks in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere suggest, though, that terrorists follow the law up and until the point they decide to strike. Second, too many Germany policymakers uncritically accept the idea that there is supposedly a political Hezbollah -- an Islamist but legitimate movement independent of those Hezbollah terrorists who have murdered hundreds of people around the world. To believe that fairy tale, they even ignore Hezbollah's own words. As Mohammed Fannish, member of the "political bureau" of Hezbollah and former Lebanese energy minister put it in 2002: "I can state that there is no separating between Hezbollah's military and political arms"…

From European Foundation for Democracy senior fellow Alexander Ritzmann and Foundation for Defense of Democracies chief operating officer Mark Dubowitz in The Wall Street Journal (dated April 17, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (EU/ME/WT)

The Long Road to Victory
The US's difficulties with confronting Iran have little to do with the decision to invade Iraq. Rather, America's feckless diplomacy toward Iran to date is the result of the administration's early misunderstanding of Iraq and of Iranian and Arab interests. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration identified certain basic guiding realities and missed others. First there was the issue of Arab tyranny…Yet recognizing this basic reality did not lead the administration to adopt appropriate policies…By pushing fast elections, the US entrapped itself. It inadvertently empowered its enemies and so was unable to embrace the duly elected governments. In opposing the forces it expended so much energy getting elected, the US was perceived as weak, foolish and hypocritical…As for the Arab world, the administration believes that since the Arabs oppose Iran's quest to become a regional nuclear power, they will help the US both in stabilizing Iraq and in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Here too, the administration confuses common interests with common agendas. The fact that the Arabs share common interests with the US does not make them allies. As a young Saudi imam put it this week to The Wall Street Journal, "We are waiting for the time to attack [the US]. Youth feel happy when the Taliban takes a town or when a helicopter comes down, killing Americans in Iraq. It is a very dangerous situation for the US in the whole Muslim world"…

From Jerusalem Post deputy managing editor Caroline Glick at Real Clear Politics (dated April 14, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends May 9, 2007 (US/ME/RE/WT)

IDF intelligence: Iran, Hizbullah preparing for possible US strike
Head of military intelligence says Iran, Syria and Hizbullah preparing for possible confrontation with US this summer…

From Ynet News (dated April 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/US/WT)

Sundering Jerusalem Is Explored: Israel’s Government Considering Plan Advanced by Riyadh
In a bid to open a channel to the Arabs, Israel's premier is embracing a long dormant Saudi peace proposal that would divide Jerusalem and could flood the Jewish state with Palestinian Arab refugees with family claims to land evacuated in the 1948 war that created the state. Speaking in Tel Aviv yesterday, Prime Minister Olmert said Israel was prepared to make "sweeping, painful, and tough concessions" in order to forge open contacts with Arab states that offered in 2002 to acknowledge Israel's right to exist in exchange for its full retreat from the territories it won in the 1967 war…

From The New York Sun (dated March 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/WT)

Jews Revive the Sanhedrin with Plans for a Passover Sacrifice
In a donated apartment concealed among the narrow streets of the Jerusalem suburb of Nahlaot, 13 Orthodox Jewish men meet every Tuesday to debate matters of Jewish law. They are the management team of a larger developing Sanhedrin, or religious court, in Israel. And they plan to sacrifice sheep on the Temple Mount on the day before or one month after Passover, which starts at sundown April 2. Either date is permissible under Jewish law. "If the government will not resist," said Rabbi Dov Stein, 68, a member of the group, "we will do it"…The Passover sacrifice is the latest of more than 40 legal decisions issued by the modern Sanhedrin…Some Orthodox Jews see the Passover sacrifice on Jerusalem's Temple Mount -- one of the most disputed pieces of real estate on the planet -- as key to quickening redemption. The Sanhedrin bought a herd of 12 sheep -- 110-150 pounds each -- from a farm in southern Israel. Anyone wanting to eat of the sacrifice can pay seven shekels ($1.67) for an 8-10 gram slice, the minimum required by Jewish law, Stein said. The group is hoping to collect 30,000 signatures through its Web site to prove its influence to the Israeli authorities, and gain access to the Temple Mount area…

Religion News Service story at Beliefnet.com (dated March 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE)

Solana: EU supports Syrian initiative to regain Golan Heights
The European Union supports Syria's goal of regaining the Golan Heights from Israel, the EU foreign policy chief said after meeting President Bashar Assad on Wednesday…

From Haaretz (Tel Aviv) (dated March 14)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (EU/ME/WT)

Syria ready with bio-terror if U.S. hits Iran: Damascus reportedly hiding WMD among commercial pharmaceuticals
An American biodefense analyst living in Europe says if the U.S. invades Iran to halt its nuclear ambitions, Syria is ready to respond with weapons of mass destruction – specifically biological weapons…She anticipates a variation of smallpox is the biological agent Syria would utilize…[She] also told WND the North Koreans were working closely with the Syrians on their biological weapons program…

From author Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily (dated March 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/AP/WT)

'Renew animal sacrifices on Mount' says radical rabbi
Member of Sanhedrin says sacrifices 'were not possible when the people of Israel were in the Diaspora, but now they are.' Adds: Jerusalem Temple should be rebuilt, Israeli government standing in our way…

From Ynet News (dated March 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE)

Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs
Forty-eight percent of Germans think the United States is more dangerous than Iran, a new survey shows, with only 31 percent believing the opposite. Germans' fundamental hypocrisy about the US suggests that it's high time for a new bout of re-education…

From Der Spiegel Online Berlin bureau chief Claus Christian Malzahn (dated March 29, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (EU/US/ME/WT)

Eurocrat empire building
The [EU] commissioners are not elected and are accountable to no one. This deliberate democratic deficit was built in as a structural feature of the EU. An unelected and unaccountable structure makes it easier to impose centrally driven change on a society… Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian foreign minister who authored the Rome treaty, dreamed of a European superstate. He hoped that such a state might one day become as powerful as the United States. [He said] "I think we have re-established the Roman Empire without a single shot being fired." Washington foolishly supported the European unification project. It failed to see that democratization and decentralization are far more likely to preserve peace than unification and centralization…Empires…are carnivorous monsters. They have to keep growing in order to avoid unraveling. Hence, they inevitably grow ever more totalitarian and expansionist. The EU is interfering more and more in the daily lives of its subjects. At the same time, its territory continues to expand, from the original six members to the present 27. By definition, there is no end to this process. The Leviathan has to be fed...Five years ago, Louis Michel, then the Belgian minister of foreign affairs and at present a member of the European Commission, told the Belgian parliament that eventually the EU will encompass the entire Mediterranean basin, including North Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Michel also posited that only by incorporating both Israel and Palestine into the EU will there be peace between them. The European-Mediterranean ("Euro-Med") partnership between the EU and the countries of the Maghreb (an Arab word meaning "the West" and denoting Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya -- the North African Muslim countries to the west of Egypt) was established specifically to promote the economic, cultural and political integration of the EU and the Maghreb countries…Theoretically the [EU] constitution should have been discarded after its rejection at the polls. The Europeanist politicians, however, refuse to accept the electorate's "no." "It has to be yes," they say, as they know that the empire will collapse if it cannot expand. They are now writing down a new and binding institutional framework, which, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel made clear, shall not be put before the electorate in a referendum. Empires cannot be democracies…

From Brussels Journal editor Paul Belien in The Washington Times (dated March 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (EU/ME)

The Way the World Doesn't Work
It seems to me the elite internationalists are doing their darnedest to remake the world in a way that clearly doesn't work. Take, for example, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana's recent proclamation that his confederation of nations that brought us the two global wars of the 20th century will support Syria in efforts to regain the Golan Heights…There is a cacophony of international cries today for this land to be returned to Syria, from whom Israel captured it in the 1967 Six-Day War and again in 1973 after Syria briefly recaptured it and used the high ground for a massive armored assault on the Jewish state…But is it even accurate and proper to use the word "return" in this case? What is the history of the Golan? To whom does it rightfully belong? I'll bet it will surprise almost everyone reading this column today -- perhaps even many Israelis -- to learn that the Golan, which so many assume to be the undisputed territory of Syria, has been out of Damascus' control for far longer than it was within its control. It also might shock readers to learn how Syria gained control of the Golan Heights for the 19 years prior to 1967. Syria stole it -- at least part of it -- from Jews…

From WorldNetDaily editor and CEO Joseph Farah at Human Events Online (dated March 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/EU/WT)

Just Like the Mullahs: Taking hostages is just standard operating procedure for Iran
The mullahs… took the hostages because that is what they do. They’ve been doing it for a long time…The Iranians have two basic reasons to take hostages. One is to break our will and drive us out of the region; the other is to trade their prey for their comrades now in our grip, of whom there is a significant number (several hundred Iranian intelligence and military officers have been captured in Iraq in recent months, according to good U.S. government sources). Why now? Because now is when they succeeded in doing it; they’ve been trying all along…

From columnist Michael Ledeen at Jewish World Review (dated March 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/WT)

Mothballing the Fleet
Tony Blair’s getting angrier every day. But if past Iranian hostage takings are an indication, he may be upset for a while. The American-embassy hostages were held for 444 days, and the Israeli soldiers kidnapped last year by Iran’s Hezbollah puppets still aren’t free. Blair is threatening to escalate to a “different phase,” but Iran’s leadership knows something that most Americans don’t. Two months ago, Britain’s government announced plans to mothball almost half its naval fleet due to defense-budget cuts. Much of its existing navy is already so degraded; it would take over a year to get into action. According to the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, senior naval officers say that the cuts “will turn Britain’s once-proud Navy into nothing more than a coastal defense force.” In fact, the British naval forces have been so neglected; the U.K. probably couldn’t pull off the Falkland Islands mission today. The world’s fifth-largest economy now supports an army that ranks 28th in size. What are they thinking? The 9/11 attacks should have been a wake-up call to our allies — but they seem to have had a tranquilizing effect instead…

From former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) at National Review Online (dated March 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/BR/WT)

Europe’s Stark Options
As the American columnist Dennis Prager sums them up, "It is difficult to imagine any other future scenario for Western Europe than its becoming Islamicized or having a civil war." Indeed, these two deeply unattractive alternative paths appear to define Europe's choices, with powerful forces pulling in the contrary directions of Muslims taking over or Muslims rejected, Europe an extension of North Africa or in a state of quasi-civil war…

From Mideast expert Daniel Pipes for National Interest (dated March-April 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (EU/ME/RE/WT)

From Cold Peace to Cold War?: The Significance of Egypt’s Military Buildup
Since the 1978 Camp David Accords, the Egyptian government has undertaken extraordinary efforts to modernize its military with Western arms and weapon systems. By bolstering its armored corps, air force, and naval fleet with an array of U.S. military platforms, the Egyptian armed forces have emerged as one the region's most formidable forces. But as the post-Husni Mubarak era looms, questions abound. Who, precisely, is Egypt arming against, and why? Has Egypt attained operational parity with Israel? How will the military be affected by a succession crisis? Could Cairo's weapons arsenal fall into the hands of Islamists?...As the Egyptian armed forces continue to upgrade the quantity and quality of their military platforms to unparalleled heights--levels rivaling those of Israel--they have positioned themselves to be a major player on the Middle Eastern block. The path charted by Egypt during the coming years, though, will go a long way toward determining the significance of its meteoric rise from an archaic, Soviet-styled military to a Western-armed, twenty-first century juggernaut…

From American Enterprise Institute research assistant Jeffrey Azarva in The Middle East Review of International Affairs (dated March 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Let the Evidence Speak
In a recent Archaeological Views column [in Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR)], Michael Coogan counseled readers to question authority. He said we should “beware of an argument based on ‘authority.’” While I heartily agree with Coogan, I believe there are other examples of unscientific methodology being practiced in the fields of Palestinian archaeology and Biblical studies that are just as insidious. As one schooled in the scientific method, it disturbs me that, in addition to the say-so of esteemed authority figures, many times opinions are driven by preconceived notions, received knowledge (e.g., my professor told me such-and-such in graduate school), arguments from silence (thus-and-so has not been found to support a biblical statement—i.e., the Bible is guilty until proven innocent) or majority opinion. In an objective, scientific inquiry, conclusions must be based on evidence, and evidence alone. Take the matter of the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible. Most scholars are of the opinion that biblical history prior to the monarchy is myth and fable. This attitude is reflected in Views columns. Hendel stated, “Archaeological research has…secured the non-historicity of much of the Bible before the era of the kings.” Dever remarked, “there was no military conquest of Canaan.” Coogan expressed a similar view with regard to the conquest of Jericho, which I shall comment on below. How can we check the veracity of this supposition? If we are honest researchers using sound methodological principles, we need to examine the evidence, much of it documented in the pages of BAR, to see if it agrees or disagrees with the proposed hypothesis. Due to space limitations, we can consider but a few examples pertaining to Joshua and Judges, proceeding from the end of the Judges period backward in time…

Biblical Archaeology Review article from archaeologist Dr. Bryant Wood, reposted at Associates for Biblical Research (dated March 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE)

The So-Called Jesus Family Tomb “Rediscovered” in Jerusalem
[There is a] new book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, entitled The Jesus Family Tomb…[accompanied by a] documentary…on the Discovery Channel called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus"…I said in the title of this article, the "rediscovery" of the so-called tomb of Jesus' family because in 1996, the BBC ran an Easter special called "Heart of the Matter: The Body In Question" on the resurrection of Jesus. In this documentary they claimed that the ossuaries of Joseph, Mary and Jesus were found in 1980 and were sitting in the basement of the Department of Antiquities in Jerusalem…Jacobovici acknowledges this BBC broadcast in their [new] book…Now he claims to have more information that was not available in 1996 to prove his case, and has a different interpretation of some of the ossuaries. In the Forward to the [new] book, James Cameron describes the research as being done with "systematic rigor"…and called it "brilliant scholarly research" with conclusions that were "virtually irrefutable," "compelling," and "extremely convincing"…Is this the case, or is Cameron overstating his case?...

From Gordon Franz at Associates for Biblical Research (dated March 17, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends April 2, 2007 (ME/RE)

'Jesus Tomb' Filmmakers Should Be Ashamed, Archeologist Says
The makers of a new documentary detailing the supposed discovery of Jesus' tomb should be ashamed of the inconsistencies and unscientific evidence they are reporting in the film, said the archeologist who oversaw the initial dig…

From Cybercast News Service (dated March 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE)

Present-day Sanhedrin court seeks to revive ancient Temple rituals
The present-day Sanhedrin Court decided Tuesday to purchase a herd of sheep for ritual sacrifice at the site of the Temple on the eve of Passover, conditions on the Temple Mount permitting…

From Haaretz (Tel Aviv) (dated February 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE)

Israelis Want To Be In EU
A full 75 percent of Israelis would like Israel to be part of the European Union, and 11 percent said they would leave Israel if they were granted EU citizenship, according to a new survey…

Ynet News story at TotallyJewish.com (dated February 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/EU)

Arab League blasts Temple Mount dig for 'altering features' of Jerusalem
The Arab League chief on Saturday accused Israel of attempting to alter the features of Jerusalem with its ongoing construction and excavation work near the Mugrabi Gate to the Temple Mount, and urged the international community to intercede to stop the work…Moussa said, without elaborating, that the dig reflects Israeli attempts to tighten control over Jerusalem…In Jordan, Islamists called for holy war, or jihad, to save the mosque and vowed revolt against their Arab rulers if they do not protect the Jerusalem flashpoint site from Israeli actions…

From Haaretz (Tel Aviv) (dated February 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Israel to request upgrade in EU standing
Israel scheduled to request status equal to that of Switzerland and Norway…

From Ynet News (dated February 7, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/EU)

Purim Replay
If you stop to consider, it might occur to you that there is something surreal about Purim this year [sunset Saturday, March 3, to sunset Sunday, March 4—anniversary of the celebration in the book of Esther]. It is almost as if we are witnessing "replay". Haman is once again in our midst, but this time he is called Ahmadinejad - same country, same place, same agenda. Today's Iran is Persia of yore, and even as the malevolent Haman schemed Holocaust - the "final solution", so too, his 21st century heir is orchestrating a plan to wipe Israel off the map. And even as the Jews in Shushan were divided, caught napping and assimilating into their secular culture, so today, our people are fragmented, sleeping, and succumbing to the enticements of society. To be sure, there is one huge difference between Shushan of old and the events of today - Esther and Mordechai are missing. There is no one to summon our people, to awaken them from their slumber and charge them with their Divine calling. There is no one to proclaim those two magic words, "Keemu V'Keeblu" - "Let us re-accept and re-commit to our Torah" - two magic words that resulted in a. nechapochu - "a miraculous turn-around", converting darkness into light, doom into blessing, culminating in the joyous festival of Purim. But worse still, today we find ourselves in an untenable situation. Not only do we have to deal with the Ahmadinejads of this generation - Hamas, Fatah, and all the other anti-Semites who are proliferating on every continent, but we have to deal with a scourge that is by far more menacing - those of our people who have become Jewish self-haters. And that is an evil that we cannot easily overcome, for the decay from within is by far more deadly than any onslaught from without. Our own people, members of the liberal left, have taken up the cause of those who would wipe us off the map…

From Esther Jungreis at the Jewish Advocate (dated February 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Tales from the Crypt, do we have the bones of Jesus
The last week in February started out with an incredible announcement. James Cameron (director of the film “Titanic”) and Simcha Jacobovici announced that they have found the bones of Jesus! At their news conference, they promoted their Discovery Channel special “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” that will air on March 4th and also promoted [a book on the subject]… The foundational claim is that they have discovered the family tomb of Jesus Christ. But is this really the tomb of Jesus or his family? There are many good reasons to believe this tomb has no relationship at all to Jesus and his family. Many are asking what to think about these claims. Therefore, I put together a quick two-page summary of some of the criticisms and concerns that surfaced in the first few hours after the announcement. Before we look at those criticisms, let’s first review the history of this tomb…

From theology professor and radio host Kerby Anderson at One News Now (dated February 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE)

The Battle on the Temple Mount
A furor erupted in Jerusalem last week. It concerns the construction of a new walkway to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, intended to replace an earlier bridge that had collapsed. The only one that permits entry to the Mount for non-Muslims, via the Mughrabi Gate, the bridge is located near the Western Wall, and completely within Israeli jurisdiction…Islamic critics claimed that this work being done outside of the walls of the Temple Mount was an imminent threat to the al-Aksa Mosque on the Mount. Although the charge was baseless, Muslim organizations called for massive protests and there were also threats of violence…On this issue, as so many others in the past, Israelis and Arabs are on different pages. Yet we Israelis, largely blind to their perspective, continue to expect Arabs to function according to our terms, which are intended to be reasonable and conciliatory…But what is apparent now is that the head of the Islamic Movement, Kamal Khattib, has already declared that what the mayor proposes [i.e., a slowdown] is insufficient, and that only a complete cessation of the project will do. Clearly, he doesn't really care what the plans say. He will oppose them regardless of the facts…Almost certainly, it has nothing to do with stopping the construction of a walkway. The outrage over the walkway is only the latest front in the ongoing war against Israel. For Palestinian Arabs, nothing will truly suffice except total Israeli surrender…

From Jerusalem investigative writer Arlene Kushner at FrontPage Magazine (dated February 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Moscow-Tehran Ties
“The lion and the bear are hunting the eagle.” That's how a refugee from Tehran's reigning ayatollahs put it when he called me this week about recent developments in his homeland. The lion to which my friend referred was on the coat of arms of nearly every Persian king for more than a thousand years. The bear, of course, is imperial Russia. And we're the bird. It's an apt metaphor. Vladimir Putin, Moscow's current czar, is behaving like a bear awakened from hibernation — hungry and territorial. His recent words condemning U.S. foreign policy are mirrored by actions — both overt and covert — aimed at undermining U.S. national security. While eschewing animal symbols on their green, white and red flag, the Islamic radicals running Iran's theocracy act like lions on the prowl — dangerous to any prey. And while the simile is unlikely in nature — the lions and bears in my friend's parable have certainly teamed up to hunt the eagle. The only trouble with the allegory is that the United States is acting more like an ostrich than an eagle…

From Fox News commentator Lt. Col. Oliver North (dated February 22, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (EU/ME/WT)

The myth of Al Aqsa mosque
Presently, the Mullahs are calling for another "intifada" claiming that the Jews are undermining the Al Aksa Mosque and the place where their myths believe Mohammed launched himself into the Seventh Heaven. Where did this story come from? Does it meet any known time-line?...

From Middle East analyst Emanuel Winston at Israel Insider (dated February 13, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends March 1, 2007 (ME/RE)

Egyptian MPs want nuclear bomb
In stormy Parliament session, many politicians call on government to 'change diplomatic language', work to obtain nuclear weapons, particularly after Olmert implied that Israel possesses such a bomb…

From Ynet News (dated February 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/WT)

40% of young UK Muslims want sharia law: Over a third say conversion from Islam should be 'punished by death'
[A recent survey] found evidence that young Muslims held more fundamentalist beliefs on key social and political issues than those over age 55. Forty percent of Muslims between aged 16 to 24 said they would prefer to live under sharia law in the UK, compared to only 17 percent of those over 55. Thirty-six percent of the younger group said a Muslim who converted to another religion should be "punished by death," while only 19 percent of the older group agreed. Thirteen percent of young Muslims surveyed said they "admired" organizations such as al-Qaida and others who were prepared to "fight the West"…

From WorldNetDaily (dated January 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (BR/RE/ME)

Lieberman pushes Israel to join EU
Stumbling blocks to European Union membership such as the possibility that Israel might have to drop its Law of Return or the fact that Israel is physically located on the Asian continent have not deterred Israel Beiteinu head and Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman from pushing to make what many would call a "pipe dream" into reality within the next five years. While the Israeli has not formally asked for membership in the 27 member body of European states and the EU does not view it as a possibility at this time, Lieberman has still put it high on his agenda for security, economic and cultural reasons…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated January 31, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/EU/WT)

How the 'axis' seeks the killer missile
North Korea and Iran are cooperating in developing long-range missiles, the deputy director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said yesterday…

From The Washington Times (dated January 30, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/AP/WT)

Iran prepared to provide security in Caucasus, C. Asia with Russia
Iran's foreign minister said Sunday the Islamic Republic is prepared together with Russia to provide security in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Secretary of Russia's Security Council Igor Ivanov is holding talks in Iran with the country's top officials. Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran and Russia could play an effective role in providing security in the region, especially in the Caucasus and Central Asia…

From Russian News and Information Agency Novosti (dated January 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/EU/AP/WT)

Iran prepares people for 'messiah miracles': Government broadcasts series on imminent appearance of apocalyptic Islamic 'Mahdi'
Official Iranian radio has completed broadcasting a lengthy series on the imminent appearance of a messianic figure who will defeat Islam's enemies and impose Islamic Shiite rule over the entire world – even speculating on specific dates the so-called "Mahdi" will be revealed. English-language transcripts of "The World Toward Illumination" programs can be found on the website of IRIB, a public broadcast arm of Tehran…

From WorldNetDaily (dated January 27, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Olmert's party proposes handing West Bank to Europe
A member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party yesterday proposed transferring control of the West Bank to a European task force until the establishment of a Palestinian state, at which time the strategic territory would be handed to security forces associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The proposal comes after WND broke the story earlier this week that, according to top European and Egyptian diplomatic sources, Israel has been conducting behind-the-scene negotiations to hand over most of the West Bank to Abbas' security forces. The sources said the transfer of security control to Abbas would be coordinated by the European Union and Jordan…

From WorldNetDaily (dated January 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/EU/WT)

Israel pledges 'two-state solution'
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have pledged to forge a peace between their countries, calling the vision of two states, side by side, the only path…

Press Association story at Breitbart.com (dated January 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/WT)

Waiting for the Mahdi: Official Iranian Eschatology Outlined in Public Broadcasting Program in Iran
The website of the governmental Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has posted a lengthy document titled "The World toward Illumination." The document is a transcript of an IRIB series on the imminent arrival of the Mahdi, the Twelfth or Hidden Imam, awaited by Shi'ites as the Messiah. The program describes in glowing terms the messianic age to be inaugurated by the Mahdi. He is to begin his uprising in Mecca, and then march on Iraq, where he will establish his "seat of world government" in the city of Kufa and subjugate the current world powers. This will be an age of unparalleled happiness; there will be completely new technologies at mankind's disposal, and "corruption, war, and rebellion will no longer exist." Neither will "liberal democratic civilization"…

From The Middle East Media Research Institute (dated January 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Iran: Israel, US will soon die
Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria's foreign minister…

From Ynet News (dated January 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/WT)

NSC seeks to place Israel in NATO
In an effort to establish more effective deterrence in the face of Iran's race to obtain nuclear weapons, [Israeli] government ministries are, for the first time, working on drafting a position paper that will include guidelines and a strategy for turning Israel into a full-fledged member of NATO, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The paper is being drafted by an interministerial committee made up of representatives from the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry and headed by the National Security Council. The committee plans to complete the paper by the end of February and present it to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for approval…

From The Jerusalem Post (dated January 23, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/EU/WT)

Not This Time: Don't give up when victory is at hand
Certain parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are uncanny. A new general, David Petraeus, is taking over in Iraq with a credible new strategy, counterinsurgency. Four decades ago, General Creighton Abrams became the American commander in Vietnam, also with a new strategy. It called for taking and holding the villages and hamlets of South Vietnam. In a word, it was counterinsurgency, and it worked. Now in Iraq, Petraeus has as good a chance of success, starting with the pacification of Baghdad, as Abrams had. And the painful lesson of Vietnam applies in Iraq: Don't give up when victory is at hand. Those in Congress who advocate retreat in Iraq refuse to acknowledge this lesson. And they may have their way, whatever Petraeus accomplishes. With their calls for troop withdrawals and fund cutoffs and their antiwar resolutions, they have put America on a slippery slope in Iraq. And we know where it leads: to defeat while victory remains quite possible. This happened in six descending steps in Vietnam, and today's coalition in Congress of antiwar Democrats and vacillating Republicans has started pushing us down that dangerous slope…

From Weekly Standard co-editor Fred Barnes (dated February 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

November 2008: America is nuked
Only two weeks after the elections in November of 2008, the United States of America, a nation of former greatness, lay in absolute desolate ruin. Within the previous 72 hours a series of eight successive, delayed nuclear devices had been detonated. Indescribably large portions of metro Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and two thirds of the island of Manhattan have been turned into steaming craters. Millions are dead. President George W. Bush is in intensive care; two-thirds of the Cabinet, including the vice president, are missing or dead. President-elect Barack Obama faces the most enormous challenge of any incoming president in the history of the nation. But why? How did it happen? Turn back the clock to the week of Feb. 5, 2007. With a courageous handful of dissenting votes against the measures, the two houses of Congress purposefully ignore the pleas of Gen. David Petraeus and both pass non-binding resolutions that condemn the president's call for victory. One comes from the Democratic controlled House condemning the president, his plan and by implications the troops, and the other from a U.S. Senate that ceases to even feign any faint resemblance of standing for victory…As a nation our leaders had taken us from the shadows of Churchill to the defeat of Chamberlain. And what's worse is we had let them…

From columnist and radio host Kevin McCullough (dated February 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Israel’s Worst Nightmare: Israel cannot live with a nuclear Iran
A nuclear Iran could completely remake the region (not to mention imperil the Jewish state) merely by existing…And these terrifying scenarios exclude the most terrifying scenario of all: Iran uses its bomb. In a poll, 66 percent of Israelis said they believed Iran would drop a nuclear weapon on the Jewish state. Though defense experts are divided over the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear attack, every strategist we spoke with for this article considered the scenario plausible. "No one knows if Iran would use the bomb or not," says [current Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim] Sneh. "But I can't take the chance." The threat of a theologically motivated nuclear assault against Israel tends to be downplayed in the West; not so here…

From Jerusalem Shalem Center senior fellows Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael Oren in The New Republic, reposted at Aish.com (dated January 28, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Talking Ourselves Into Defeat: Profligate self-doubt can exact a price
The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows--all emit a Stygian gloom about America. Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines…

From Wall Street Journal deputy editor and columnist Daniel Henninger (dated January 25, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

This Holocaust will be different
The Nazis, of course, industrialized mass murder. But still, the perpetrators had one-on-one contact with the victims…The second holocaust will be quite different. One bright morning, in five or 10 years, perhaps during a regional crisis, perhaps out of the blue, a day or a year or five years after Iran's acquisition of the Bomb, the mullahs in Qom will…give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…the go-ahead. The orders will go out and the Shihab III and IV missiles will take off for Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Haifa and Jerusalem, and probably some military sites, including Israel's half dozen air and (reported) nuclear missile bases. Some of the Shihabs will be nuclear-tipped, perhaps even with multiple warheads. Others will be dupes, packed merely with biological or chemical agents, or old newspapers, to draw off or confuse Israel's anti-missile batteries and Home Front Command units. With a country the size and shape of Israel (an elongated 20,000 square kilometers), probably four or five hits will suffice: No more Israel…No Iranian will see or touch an Israeli. It will be quite impersonal. Some of the dead will inevitably be Arab…It is doubtful whether such a mass killing of fellow Muslims will trouble Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. The Iranians don't especially like Arabs, especially Sunni Arabs, with whom they have intermittently warred for centuries. And they have a special contempt for the (Sunni) Palestinians who, after all, though initially outnumbering the Jews by more than 10 to 1, failed during the long conflict to prevent them from establishing their state or taking over all of Palestine. Besides, the Iranian leadership sees the destruction of Israel as a supreme divine command, as a herald of the second coming, and the Muslims dispatched collaterally as so many martyrs in the noble cause…A question may nevertheless arise in the Iranian councils: What about Jerusalem? After all, the city contains Islam's third holiest shrines (after Mecca and Medina), Al Aksa Mosque and the Mosque of Omar. But Ali Khamenei, the supreme spiritual leader, and Ahmadinejad most likely would reply much as they would to the wider question regarding the destruction and radioactive pollution of Palestine as a whole: The city, like the land, by God's grace, in 20 or 50 years' time, will recover. And it will be restored to Islam (and the Arabs). And the deeper pollution will have been eradicated…

From Ben-Gurion University history professor Benny Morris in The Jerusalem Post (dated January 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Boys of the Taliban
Just recently, the Taliban issued a new set of 30 rules to its fighters. Many of the instructions were to be expected…But there is a curious rule that the Western media has typically ignored. Rule No. 19 instructs that Taliban fighters must not take young boys without facial hair into their private quarters…Rule No. 19 obviously indicates that the sexual abuse of young boys is a prevalent and institutionalized phenomenon among the Taliban and that, for one reason or another, its widespread practice has become a problem….That a mass pathology such as this occurs in a culture which demonizes the female and her sexuality -- and puts her out of mind and sight -- is only to be expected. To be sure, it is a simple given that the religious male fanatic who flies into a violent rage even at the thought of an exposed woman’s ankle will also be, in some other dysfunctional and dark secret compartment of his fractured life, the person who leads some poor helpless young boy into his private chambers. The key issue here is that the demented sickness that underlies Rule No. 19 is by no means exclusive to the Taliban; it is a widespread phenomenon throughout Islamic-Arab culture and it lies, among other factors, at the root of that culture’s addiction to rage and its lust for violence, terror and suicide…In the dysfunctional and morbid paradigms of this culture, the idea of love is, obviously, completely absent from men's understanding of sexuality. Like the essence of Arab masculinity, it is reduced to a form of prison sex: hurting others with violence. A gigantic rupture inevitably develops between men and women, where no harmony, affection or equality is allowed to exist. The sexual confusion, humiliation, and repression that develop in the mindset of many males in this culture are excruciating. And it is no surprise that many of them find the only avenue for personal gratification in the act of sexually abusing young boys and, of course, in humiliating the foreign "enemy," whose masculinity must be violated at all costs -- just as theirs once was…

From Frontpage Magazine managing editor Jamie Glazov (dated January 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends February 5, 2007 (ME/RE/WT/MO)

Al-Qaeda 'rebuilding' in Pakistan
The head of US spying operations says the leaders of al-Qaeda have found a secure hideout in Pakistan from where they are rebuilding their strength. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said al-Qaeda was strengthening its ties across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Pakistan rejected the comments, which are the most specific on the issue yet…

From BBC News (dated January 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (AP/ME/WT)

Ahmadinejad's nukes for U.S, not for Israel
There is hardly enough American political will to sustain the fight in Iraq, let alone political capital for a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Instead, it appears the free world's one remaining hope of neutralizing Iran's nuclear arsenal by force is Israel – the nation that launched a pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb factory in 1981. It's a matter of survival for Israel, we're told. After all, everyone is familiar with the bellicose mutterings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel. Right? Maybe. Perhaps. Could be. Iran might indeed strike Israel with nuclear weapons if it ever had the chance. But, I think it's more likely Iran's determination to develop nuclear weapons is based on its desire to destroy "the Great Satan," not "the Little Satan." There are several reasons to make this judgment…

From WorldNetDaily editor and CEO Joseph Farah (dated January 18, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/RE/WT)

Why Europe Abandoned Israel
To argue as the title of this article does, that Europe has abandoned Israel, is to suggest that it was once in its corner. And in fact, this is true…Today 40 years later, that residue of sympathy for the plucky underdog nation of Israel has disappeared…So why are the Europeans so hostile to Israel, and so sympathetic to the Palestinians? There are a number of factors that explain European behavior towards Israel. I have identified seven of them: 1) Europe's dependence on Middle East oil; 2) Europe's rivalry with the US; 3) The growing number of Muslims and their militancy; 4) The small number of Jews, and their passivity; 5) The role of elites in Europe's politics; 6) Europe's long term disease of anti-Semitism; and 7) The decline of Christianity in Europe…

From American Thinker chief political correspondent Richard Baehr (dated January 13, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (EU/ME)

Bush's ace up his sleeve
[President Bush is calling for] a "surge" of 21,500 troops, 15 percent of the U.S. forces already in Iraq, to pacify the capital. And even that troop commitment is "not open-ended." This is just not credible. For, if the situation is as dire as Bush says and the potential disaster as horrific as he describes, the logical course would be to treble the number of troops in Iraq and commit to fight indefinitely. How does one explain the disconnect? Is Bush absurdly exaggerating the consequences of a pullout? No…But Bush has to know the card he played is not going to save the pot into which he has plunged his legacy, the credibility of his country and America's standing as a superpower. Which leads me to believe Bush has yet another card to play, an ace up his sleeve. What might that be? Midway through his speech, almost as an aside, Bush made a pointed accusation at and issued a direct threat to – Tehran. To defend the "territorial integrity" of Iraq and stabilize "the region in the face of extremist challenge," Bush interjected, "begins with addressing Iran and Syria." "These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." Now, any networks providing "advanced weaponry and training" to jihadists and insurgents are outside Iraq. Otherwise, they would have been neutralized by air strikes already. So, where are they? Answer: inside Syria and Iran. And Bush says we are going to "seek out and destroy" these networks. Which suggests to this writer that, while the "surge" is modest, Bush has in mind a different kind of escalation – widening the war by attacking the source of instability in the region: Tehran...

From columnist Patrick Buchanan at WorldNetDaily (dated January 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

The consequences of failure in Iraq
What would be the consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq, or a failed Iraq? The Iraq Study Group's report didn't address this. Here is what would happen: A genocidal, Sunni-Shiite clash as American convoys flee south…

From Weekly Standard contributing editor Reuel Marc Gerecht in Insight magazine (dated January 12, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

The 800-Pound Guerrilla
Iran is fighting to defeat us in Iraq, and they have demonstrated time and again a determination to succeed. To top it all off, they are also seeking nuclear weapons. The only way to secure Iraq--and, more importantly, America--is to topple the Iranian regime. Tragically, nothing in Bush's new strategy indicates a plan to go as far as is needed…

From Allen Forkum at Cox & Forkum (dated January 11, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 18, 2007 (US/ME/WT)

Tehran pollution kills 3,600 in a month
Air pollution has killed 3,600 people in just a month in the Iranian capital Tehran, an official said Tuesday, describing the city’s environmental situation as a “collective suicide”…He said that the deaths were caused by heart attacks brought on by the air pollution and that the smog was responsible for 80 percent of the fatal heart problems that month in Tehran, one of the world's most polluted cities… The new figures showed a sharp rise in pollution-related deaths in Iran, where 9,900 people died of pollution in the previous Iranian year (March 2005 to March 2006). Carbon monoxide from car exhausts is blamed for the majority of deaths by creating respiratory and cardiac problems in Tehran, which has 1.3 million ageing cars with poor fuel efficiency, spewing lethal gases into citizens' lungs…

Agence France-Presse story at TerraDaily (dated January 9, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/ST)

U.S. Finds Iranian Evidence of Al Qaida Support
The U.S. military has found evidence that Iran helped train and equip Al Qaida's network in Iraq…

From Middle East Newsline (dated January 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/WT)

Mubarak hints: We’ll develop nukes
During summit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian president hints that if Iran attains nukes, Egypt will have to also in order to defend itself. Up until now Egypt has claimed its nuclear program was for energy purposes only …

From Ynet News (dated January 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/WT)

Risk of collapse at Western Wall
Following report of risk of collapse, Western Wall authorities plan to demolish Mugrabi hill – Jews' only entrance to the Temple Mount, meaning Jews can no longer enter site…

From Ynet News (dated January 2, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/RE)

Iran website heralding 'Mahdi' by springtime
State media: Shiite messiah to kill archenemy in Jerusalem, may arrive [with Jesus] during next equinox…

From WorldNetDaily (dated December 31, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

Saddam death 'ends dark chapter'
Saddam Hussein's execution has closed a dark chapter in Iraq's history, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said. Mr Maliki said the former leader had faced his fate "like all tyrants"…

From BBC News (dated December 30, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/WT)

Jesus, Mahdi both coming, says Iran's Ahmadinejad
In a greeting to the world's Christians for the coming new year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he expects both Jesus and the Shiite messianic figure, Imam Mahdi, to return and "wipe away oppression"… Ahmadinejad… sees his main mission, as he recounted in a Nov. 16, 2005, speech in Tehran, as to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance." With Iran's continued development of nuclear technology in defiance of the West, some analysts fear Ahmadinejad's intent is to trigger the kind of global conflagration he envisions will set the stage for the end of the world. Ahmadinejad hosted a conference last week examining whether the Nazi genocide took place, drawing Holocaust deniers from around the world. The Iranian president has described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be wiped off the map…

From WorldNetDaily (dated December 19, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

War with Iran is imminent
In addition to moving additional military forces into the region, President Bush is putting into place a new political and military command team, all in preparation for an expanded war in the Middle East…

From author Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily (dated January 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/WT)

The War Against Global Jihadism
Given the stakes involved in this war and how little is known, even now, about what is at the core of this conflict, it is worth reviewing in some detail the nature of our enemy - including disaggregating who they are (Shia and Sunni extremists), what they believe and why they believe it, and the implications of that for America and the West…

From White House Office of Strategic Initiatives director Peter Wehner at Real Clear Politics (dated January 8, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (GI/ME/RE/WT)

[Saddam Execution] Botched
Of the 6 billion people on this earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed, but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the pre-eminent monster on the planet. If the death penalty was ever deserved, no one was more richly deserving than Saddam Hussein. For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy, but a crime -- against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for, and against justice itself…

From Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer at Townhall.com (dated January 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/WT)

The Iranian who wants an apocalypse
Ahmadinejad is unique, not because of his pronouncements about Israel, which he wishes wiped off the face of the earth, but because he actively seeks to bring about an apocalyptic struggle between the righteous and the wicked to accelerate the return of the mahdi or Hidden Imam…

From Michael Burleigh in The Telegraph (London) (dated January 5, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

We need to be part of EU and NATO
I have recently suggested that it is in Israel's national interest to join the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)…My goal for Israel is to complete this global re-positioning within the coming five years…

From Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (dated January 3, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/EU)

Iran can still be stopped
The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is rapidly leading Israel to a political and security downfall while Iran is racing towards achieving a nuclear weapons capability. While Iran's leaders are busy denying the Holocaust, they also continue to announce their intentions of wiping the State of Israel off the map. Israel is like a bus speeding towards an abyss. The bus driver is tired and helpless… What can we say about such words when even Olmert himself said similar things during an address he gave last year in the US: "We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being heroes. Tired of winning. Tired of beating our enemies." When even Israel's leadership sends out a message of fatigue and weakness, why should we be surprised that the world agrees? The main principle which we should follow is this: The key to promising the existence of Israel is developing strength…

From former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in The Jerusalem Post (dated January 1, 2007)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/WT)

How the West Could Lose
After defeating fascists and communists, can the West now defeat the Islamists? On the face of it, its military preponderance makes victory seem inevitable. Even if Tehran acquires a nuclear weapon, Islamists have nothing like the military machine the Axis deployed in World War II, nor the Soviet Union during the cold war. What do the Islamists have to compare with the Wehrmacht or the Red Army? The SS or Spetznaz? The Gestapo or the KGB? Or, for that matter, to Auschwitz or the gulag? Yet, more than a few analysts, including myself, worry that it's not so simple. Islamists (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia) might in fact do better than the earlier totalitarians. They could even win. That's because, however strong the Western hardware, its software contains some potentially fatal bugs. Three of them – pacifism, self-hatred, complacency – deserve attention…

From Daniel Pipes in the New York Sun, reposted at The Middle East Forum (dated December 26, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (US/BR/ME/WT)

Motherless Russia
Previous would-be conquerors of Russia such as Napoleon and Hitler failed due to her harsh winters and inexhaustible supply of men. Contemporary conquerors, and there are two eyeing Russia hungrily, apparently will have only the winters with which to contend. Some think that France will be the first European country in modern times to be taken over by Muslims due to her very large, violent immigrant population and effeminate native populace. Others point to the Netherlands, from which native Dutch people are beginning to flee in the face of hostile Islamism among the immigrants in that densely-populated nation. But Russia--a huge nation with vast natural resources, thousands of nuclear warheads, and until recently a global superpower—-may be the first to go under. This seems possible even though Russia suffers little from the suicidal tolerance and multiculturalism that afflicts Western Europeans. All the would-be conquerors, tyrannical tsars, and sinister Communists could not destroy Russia. Yet there is a force more powerful than all these, a force which can overcome comparatively minor factors such as wealth, size, and military power, and that is demographics. And it is demographics that will deliver Russia into the hands of chaos, Islam, China, or most likely a combination of all three…

From Population Research Institute vice president Joseph D’Agostino at Right Bias (dated December 22, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (EU/AP/ME)

The chain of events matters
The conference of Holocaust deniers held in Teheran under the sponsorship of Iranian President Ahmadinejad was a provocation that compels us to respond to very strongly… If the conference were an isolated incident, we could perhaps dismiss it with contempt, as part of a bizarre phenomenon. But the moment it becomes a link in a chain of activities aimed at preparing the ground for Israel's destruction, we have no choice but to relate to the conference with all due gravity. Moreover, supporting the conference is not a lunatic-fringe neo-Nazi organization, but rather the fanatical government of a major and wealthy Middle Eastern Muslim country. And this is the chain: Iran provides the money, arms and instructors to Hizbullah in Lebanon. Iran supports Hamas in the territories. Iran manufactures long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching any target in Israel. Iran is investing enormous resources to manufacture a nuclear device and is willing to take on the entire world to do so. The Iranian government is intensively involved in denying the Holocaust based on the assumption that the memory of the destruction of European Jewry gives Israel an umbrella - Europe's guilty conscience… As recently as a year or two ago, no one could have imagined that the president of any state in the world denying the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel. Now, we find ourselves in the absurd situation of having to prove that the Holocaust is not a hoax and that the State of Israel has the right to exist…

From the Yad Vashem Council chairman in The Jerusalem Post (dated December 13, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (ME/RE/WT)

FAQ - The Shiites and the Sunnis
1) Who are the Sunnis and the Shiites?...

From Dean Barnett at Townhall.com (dated December 12, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends January 10, 2007 (GI/ME/RE)

Why the Dead Sea is dying
Officials hope that the two-year feasibility study and environmental and social assessment will recommend a multibillion-dollar project to link the Dead Sea with the Red Sea, which lies 200km (125 miles) to the south, using a pipeline or canal to suck 1,900 million cubic metres (2.1 million cubic yards) of water annually from the Gulf of Aqaba. However, many people — including environmentalists and Israeli scientists living in the worst-affected areas — say that it is a costly extravaganza that fails to address the root cause and could ruin the very sea that they are trying to save…

From The Times (London) (dated December 9, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (ME/ST)

Baker Report Asks Israel to Give Up Land 'Vital To Survivability'
In exchange for Syrian help in calming the situation in Iraq, the Iraq Study Group is asking Israel to give up land "vital to its survivability," a senior Israeli lawmaker said Thursday…"The Golan Heights is extremely vital to Israel's survivability in the long term," he told Cybercast News Service…

From Cybercast News Service (dated December 7, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (US/ME/WT)

Follow God or vanish, Ahmadinejad tells West
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Western leaders to follow the path of God or "vanish from the face of the earth"…

Agence France-Presse story at Breitbart.com (dated December 6, 2006)
Posted to Current World News & Trends December 12, 2006 (ME/RE/WT)