The shekel is continuing its sharp appreciation against leading currencies, breaking new thresholds despite major losses on Wall Street, the US government bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holding, and the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. The shekel-euro exchange rate fell below NIS 5.00/€ with the shekel-dollar exchange rate nearing NIS 3.50/$ in early morning foreign currency trading Wednesday.  The Euro then rose to NIS 5.03/€, with the dollar rising in trading to NIS 3.53/$ in late morning hours.
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The shekel has depreciated less than the other currencies which have been affected by the US dollar's downturn in international markets, and it is expected to continue to appreciate against the dollar, but Israeli banks are nonetheless poised to minimize any damage that may be caused to the Israeli currency.

Stocks rise and fall
In the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, stocks went up by 2 percent but came back down again by close to 3 percent Wednesday. The MAOF index plunged 2.9 percent to 874 points and the Tel Aviv 100 dropped by 2.4 percent to 771 points. The Tel-Tech index went up by 0.3 percent.
"We're in for a hard time globally. The powerhouse of the world economy is going into a recession for a while. That's going to hurt everybody."

Overall trade volume was NIS 1.9 billion.

International Bank of Israel disclosed its Lehman Brothers exposure, assets which are exposed to negative impacts, as €8.6 million in Eurobonds which are due to mature during 2009. Other Israeli banks have also disclosed their exposure to Lehman Brothers, with Bank Hapoalim reporting an exposure of $109 million, Bank Leumi an exposure of $88 million, and Israel Discount Bank an exposure of $57 million.
 
Banks convened
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer convened the heads of Israel's banks Wednesday morning to strategize with banks in order to minimize damage from the US economic fallout. The Bank of Israel and the Finance Ministry have said they are ready to thwart a similar crisis in the Jewish State, and are keeping an eye on markets around the world.

Chairman of the Banking Association, Moshe Perl, said that whatever happens to the US economy will have an effect in Israel, noting that 30 percent of Israeli exports are sold in the United States, and that about 25% of the tourism in Israel comes from America. 

'It can't happen here'
Yet Dr. Yitzhak Klein, Director of the Israel Policy Center and writer for the INN blog "A State of the Nation" says that Israelis should not worry about experiencing a similar economic disaster.  "It can't happen here, the kind of meltdown of the financial sector that's taking place in the States," Klein said. "Banking regulation in Israel is excellent."

Klein added that while Israel will not undergo a recession similar to that in the US, "we're in for a hard time globally.  The powerhouse of the world economy is going into a recession for a while. That's going to hurt everybody."

The Israeli Credit Insurance Company (ICIC) reported a whopping 45 percent increase in unpaid debts by US customers to Israeli exporters in the third quarter of 2008 as compared to the corresponding quarter of 2007. The ICIC predicts Israeli exporters will witness increasing credit risks in the coming months, due to the worsening US financial crisis and the expected impact on the economy.

Aides to Transportation and Road Safety Minister Shaul Mofaz announced early Thursday that he has decided to accept the results of Wednesday's primary elections for the leadership of the Kadima party, despite the closeness of the count.

IDF Army Radio reported he would accept Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's leadership as head of the party, and support her in her bid to form a new government, despite advice from his attorneys that he challenge the results based on alleged polling irregularities.

With almost all of the votes counted, Livni won by less than 2%, and her margin of victory was a scant 431 votes. Mofaz's camp initially said he would appeal the results.

The exit polls for all three leading television channels in Israel misled the public into believing that Livni had an easy victory, giving her 47-49 percent of the vote versus 37 percent for Minister Mofaz. The Channel 2/Dahaf exit poll gave Livni 48 percent of the vote to 37 percent for Mofaz. The Channel 1 poll gave Livni 47.2 percent to Mofaz's 37.1. The Channel 10 poll gave Livni 49 percent and Mofaz 37 percent.

Had he filed a challenge to void the results at the polling station in the Bedouin city of Rahat, and had the appeal been accepted, Livni's margin of victory would have been a single vote.

Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit received 8.5 percent of the vote, and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter 6.5 percent, compared with seven percent that each was given in the exit polls.

The voter turnout at the Kadima primaries passed the 50 percent mark during the evening hours, according to the party's central election committee. The statistic was greeted with relief at the Foreign Minister's campaign headquarters, where a higher turnout was seen as an advantage.

Fatah-PA pleased
"It is no secret that working with Livni will be much easier. She knows the material and there is no need to start from scratch with her."

Sources in the Fatah-PA expressed satisfaction with the result of the TV exit polls Wednesday night. Fatah-PA officials followed the vote anxiously and were worried by the low voter turnout, just like the Livni camp.

A senior Fatah-PA source said that "even if our formal position is that we work with whoever is elected, it is no secret that working with Livni will be much easier. She knows the material, and there is no need to start from scratch with her."

The source estimated that if Mofaz were elected he would have tried to create a coalition with Shas and the nationalist parties and toughen Israel's stance in negotiations, whereas "Livni understands that the solution to the situation is a quick diplomatic agreement with us," he said.

Livni Asked for More Time
The polling was supposed to end at 10:00 P.M. but Kadima's central elections committee extended it by 30 minutes at Livni's request and despite Mofaz's protests. Moti Morel, a strategic advisor to Mofaz, said following the media exit polls that "if Livni wins tonight, then Miss Clean will have to live with the eternal stain of having stolen an election with extra time."

"You can't change the rules of the game in the middle of the game," Morel said. "You don't just come up to a judge and say 'give me a few more minutes."

Whip Predicts Whipping
Likud Knesset faction whip MK Gideon Saar predicted Wednesday that Kadima will be trounced in the next elections.

Speaking at a pre-Rosh HaShanah Likud function, Saar said: "A prime minister must be elected by the entire nation. At the end of all of the deals, combinations and agreements there is a voting booth, and in the next elections, Kadima will be beaten and defeated at the polls."

MK Shelly Yechimovich (Labor) said Wednesday evening that Livni should call elections instead of trying to form a coalition in the present Knesset. She spoke on a Channel 2 panel.

Yechimovich's position was met with surprise by fellow panelists who noted that Labor is expected to take a walloping if elections are held anytime soon, because Livni will take many of its voters away from it.

Officials in Paris say prosecutors have decided a September 6 attack on three 17- and 18-year-old counselors from the Bnei Akiva Youth Movement was not an anti-Semitic crime, ethnically or racially motivated. Five teenage boys were charged in the attack, including one Jew.

 

However, Rafi Zaouch, emissary for the World Bnei Akiva movement and the Jewish Agency in France, vehemently rejected the contention that the incident was not an anti-Semitic attack. He noted in a statement released Thursday that although one of the perpetrators is of Jewish descent, he was raised in accordance with Islamic norms.

 

"The young suspect is Jewish according to Judaism, but grew up and was educated by Muslims," said Zaouch. "The young suspect was never part of the Jewish Community."

 

The incident began with three Muslim/African immigrants who reportedly began throwing chestnuts and shouting anti-Semitic remarks in Arabic at the counselors, all of whom were wearing yarmulkes, just as they were finishing the Sabbath afternoon prayer service. The attackers, they said, yelled out remarks such as, "Dirty Jew" and other such epithets.

 

Approximately a dozen youths then approached the skull-cap wearing worshippers, according to a statement issued by the movement in France, and beat them with brass knuckles until police arrived.

 

"The police claim that the attack was not anti-Semitic, since one of the attackers comes from a Jewish family, whereas tens of the attackers were Muslim and yelling anti-Semitic remarks and speaking Arabic. How can anyone claim that it was a gang fight?" demanded Zaouch. "These three young teens were on their way to an educational activity and never met the attackers. The attackers, who met these three boys for the first time, did not try to steal, but to cause violence."

 

The victims, Dan Nabet, Kevin Bitan and David Buaziz, suffered a broken nose, a broken jaw and several wounds that required stitches. All three required treatment at the local hospital.

 

Interestingly, Zaouch claimed in his statement that the French police tried to force the Bnei Akiva teens to accidentally voice a racist, anti-Muslim remark. "The police officers cross-examined them and said remarks such as, 'They smell, those Muslims, eh?' The teens did not speak anything of the above.

 

"The French public was not comfortable with the attack, therefore there was a sigh of relief when the media announced that the attacker was Jewish (even though he was one of tens) and claimed that it was a gang fight. The French media now claims that it is all the Jews' fault and that once again the Jewish community made a false accusation."

  

France has the largest population of Muslims and Jews in Western Europe.

 

World Bnei Akiva Expresses Outrage, Considers Self-Defense Classes

The World Bnei Akiva organization expressed outrage in a separate statement supporting Zaouch and the testimony of the three boys who were attacked.

 

"The attack was anti-Semitic," said the statement bluntly.

 

"The World Bnei Akiva movement is in constant contact with the families and is considering further activity of the movement in France as [a] result of the attacks. World Bnei Akiva secretary general, Ze'ev Schwartz advised the movement in France to start a self defense class for the Bnei Akiva participants.

 

"The Israeli martial arts 'Krav Maga' class will take place at central Bnei Akiva branch in the 19th quarter in Paris," concluded the statement. 

 

ADL, French Groups Urge Extra Security for High Holidays

A similar attack occurred in the same neighborhood on June 22, when 17-year-old Rudy Haddad was attacked as he was leaving a synagogue after Sabbath prayers. The teen was severely injured.

 

The Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents in France, urged the mayor of Paris to reinforce police in the area. The group said there is a growing feeling of insecurity among Jews living in the district’s Buttes de Chaumont area.

 

The Anti-Defamation League called on French police to provide heightened security for the Jewish community for the upcoming holidays following the attack.

 

“In view of this incident, the previous attack and the approaching Jewish High Holidays, it is especially important for the government of France to ensure that the Jewish community is safe from harm,” noted Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the New York-based anti-Semitism watchdog group.

A car bomb exploded Wednesday at the front gate of the U.S. embassy in the capital of Yemen, killing at least 16 and injuring a number of others. Among the killed were six terrorists, six embassy guards and four civilians, and so far there have been no reports of casualties among the embassy staff.

 

According to a Yemeni security official, there were two car bombs, confirming a report of two separate explosions from Ryan Gliha, the embassy’s spokesman. In addition, volleys of heavy gunfire were heard for 10 minutes following the blasts.

It is not clear whether the embassy itself sustained damage, but the Yemeni official said that the blasts damaged several homes nearby. At least seven Yemeni citizens sustained injuries according to local medical officials, who identified them as residents of a housing complex near the embassy.

A Breeding Ground for Terror
The modern Republic of Yemen has a history of political violence and internecine warfare, dating back to a civil war in the 1960’s in which Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to establish his influence.  Since then, there has been a string of attacks on foreign military and diplomatic targets in Yemen.

In 2000, local Al-Qaeda operatives blasted a hole in the side of an American destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 crewmen. A year later an Al-Qaeda terrorist cell attacked a French oil tanker, killing one person. In 2003, two people were shot to death when a throng of protestors tried to storm the U.S. embassy in protest over the invasion of Iraq.

The Jews of Yemen, possibly the oldest continuous Jewish community outside of Israel, have also felt the violent impact of Muslim extremism. Now numbering a mere 50 families, the community has been the subject of numerous death threats and ultimatums. As result, a number of the Jews have fled their mountain homes, and are now forced to spend their days in a secured compound in Sa’ana, where they are under constant guard by Yemeni armed forces.

It is the role of Yemen as a breeding ground for terrorists that concerns Dr. Mordechai Kedar the most.
“Don’t doubt that those who wish to forge cells of Al-Qaeda or similar organizations can do it in the mountains, far from the eyes of the police, security organizations or intelligence agencies,” warned Kedar.

“Yemen is the biggest arms market in the Middle East,” said the researcher from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, one of the leading think tanks in the Middle East. “Whatever you want to find, you can find,” he noted, including cannons and other heavy armaments.

“The only thing you need is money,” Kedar said, and for the right sum just about any type of weapon can be purchased and procured instantly in one of the country’s many outdoor bazaars. “Just let them know what you want, and there it is.”

Perhaps the biggest single incubator of terror in the small country at the southwestern end of the Arabian Peninsula is its terrain.

“Many areas are not accessible to cars,” continued Kedar, “only to donkeys in the mountains. Terrorists can find refuge in the caves in the mountains, in the villages hanging to rocks in the mountains.”

To make matters worse, the sparsely-populated and mountainous inland regions are inhabited by people with very strong tribal affiliations, who can sense the presence of a foreigner from a distance.  “Anyone who doesn’t belong in the area will be detected within 10 kilometers,” said the researcher. From the standpoint of intelligence as well as physical accessibility the mountainous areas are difficult to monitor. Tribal awareness and loyalty are strong, said Kedar, and members of one tribe will not work for any other group due to fear of retribution.

To illustrate the difficulty of catching terrorists on the ground in Yemen, Dr. Kedar cited the case of an Al-Qaeda “activist” who had run away from his home and had taken refuge in a village in the mountains. Although American intelligence officials knew his location, they were unable to nab the terrorist, and in the end they decided to fly an unmanned aircraft over his location, from which a missile was launched that killed him.

“Don’t doubt that those who wish to forge cells of Al-Qaeda or similar organizations can do it in the mountains, far from the eyes of the police, security organizations or intelligence agencies,” warned Kedar.

Osama's Home Turf
A particularly disturbing prospect comes into focus at Yemen’s northern border with Saudi Arabia. The land there is so barren and rugged that for all intents and purposes the border does not exist at all, as it is largely unmarked and unmanned. This means that weapons from Yemen can easily cross into, and terrorists out of, Saudi Arabia, a kingdom long suspected of tacitly harboring and even nurturing Al-Qaeda terrorists—including Osama Bin Laden.

In fact, it is precisely this region, in the howling deserts and mountainous wastes of the Yemeni hinterland, that the world’s most wanted man should, by all rights, call home. Although a citizen of Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden was born near the Yemeni-Saudi border, and his ancestral roots are traced to the other side of the invisible boundary, to Yemen. Indeed, the caves and mountains of Yemen could very well have served as the classroom where Bin Laden learned how to survive, much as he does now, beyond the reach of the law, hidden from the eyes of the world.

A Troubled - and Troubling - Region
On top of the conditions that make Yemen a marketplace for terror, the republic is plagued by internecine conflicts and competing identities. “Yemen was a battlefield for a long time,” observed Dr. Kedar. He pointed out that in the mountainous town of Sa’dah, a local Shiite tribal leader named Al-Houthi has declared independence from the Sunni-dominated government. The Sunnis populate the more developed coastal areas, from which they draw their support as the country’s ruling elite, exercising a much-resented authority over the large Shi’ite minority. The so-called Sa’dah insurgency has been ongoing for about two years.
“There is always in Yemen a hidden fire under the ashes.”

Yemen’s rulers succeed in maintaining order only “as long as the government succeeds in recruiting the head of the tribe and paying him in order not to act against the government,” Kedar said. “But in many cases they don’t succeed. It’s a different culture.”

Kedar added that American security and intelligence forces collaborate with the Yemeni government, leading Yemeni tribesmen with local grievances to view the Americans and their own government as a common enemy, a pact between equally legitimate targets. However, terrorists of both Shi’ite and Sunni persuasions find their home in Yemen, and Kedar noted that as in the case of the most recent bombing, it is difficult to determine exactly who plans and carries out terrorist attacks.

 

As civil insurrections continue to flare from remote mountain hideouts, fed by an almost unlimited abundance of cheap arms and a strong aversion to foreign influence, Yemen continues to brim with the dark promise of more attacks like Wednesday’s.

 

As Kedar put it, “There is always in Yemen a hidden fire under the ashes.”

A landmark report released Wednesday by the E.H.L Consulting Group entitled "Philanthropic Support for Israel's Nonprofit Organizations by U.S. Donors," shows that American philanthropic support to nonprofits in Israel rose, with more philanthropists patronizing specific organizations.

E.H.L. Consulting, a Pennsylvania-based fundraising organization, analyzed charitable giving patterns to 80 Israeli non-profits from 2001-2006, examining four major sectors: Arts and Culture; Education; Health, Hospitals and Diseases; and Human Services.

According to the study, charitable giving to Israel grew by 64 percent over the 7 year period. The most marked rise in giving was recorded in the Arts and Cultural division, with a growth of 82 percent. Health, Hospitals, and Disease prevention giving rose by 66 percent, as did Human Services giving, with Educational institutions charity growing by 42 percent.

E.H.L. Consulting's report relied on statistics from Giving U.S.A., an annual yearbook of charitable giving in the United States put together by the Giving U.S.A. Foundation and the Center for Philanthropy at Indiana University, for data comparisons between U.S. nonprofits and their Israeli counterparts. Aggregate charitable giving to Israel was disproportionate to the growth in philanthropy in the United States, with the same U.S. nonprofits only averaging a 20 percent growth from 2001- 2006.

The report also indicates that many American donors to Israeli causes prefer to invest and become involved with specific organizations rather than give their money to be dispersed by large "umbrella" organizations like the Jewish Federation.

According to Giving U.S.A., Americans gave $11 billion more dollars in 2007 than in 2006, sharing their wealth to the tune of $306 billion.

Israeli Charities Concerned For Future

The High Holiday season is considered a particularly auspicious time to give charity, with nonprofits making appeals to donors for all types of Jewish and Israeli causes.

Yet despite the positive trend reported by E.H.L., fundraising efforts are expected to be hampered by the chaos on Wall Street that has followed the failure of the Lehman Brothers investment bank, the last-minute sale of Merrill Lynch to the Bank of America and a 13th-hour bailout of insurance giant A.I.G. by a combination of the New York Federal Reserve, JP Morgan and Chase banks.

Concern Among Funded Organizations

Spokesman for the Jewish Agency for Israel, Michael Jankelowitz, told Israel National News, "It's an issue that concerns all israeli not-for-profits. It's still too early to give exact figures… the Jewish Agency is following with utmost concern..."

Jankelowitz said that while the Jewish Agency's charitable drive for 2008 is already secured, the results of the organization's 2009 campaign remain to be seen.  "We've already seen with the subprime [the mortgage market crash], that it's had an impact on Jews to contribute less in general and to overseas concerns in particular. We already saw the results; people not being able to fulfill the pledges to which they'd committed.

"And on top of it," Janekelowitz said,  "the Jewish Agency's is a dollar-based budget. In the past the dollar's been worth nearly five shekels, now it's only at three and a half."

The United States government is concealing Iran's role in the 9/11 attack, says Kenneth Timmerman, world-renown investigative journalist and contributing editor of Newsmax.

Timmerman published an expose on unknown Al Qaeda head terrorist Osama Bin Laden for the Reader's Digest in 1998. Less than a decade later, in 2006, he was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize by former Swedish deputy Prime Minister Perk Ahlmark for his expose on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Speaking on Israel National Radio's Tovia Singer Show, Timmerman stated that the Iranian government was "deeply, directly and materially involved" in the preparation, the planning, the execution "and the aftermath of the attack in helping Al Qaeda". He said that the American public is in general unaware of this connection.

[audio:123471]
Click here to download the entire interview (right-click and choose "save target as" or "save link as")

Timmerman quoted the 9/11 Commission Report, issued on July 2004 as saying: "We now have evidence suggesting that 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi "muscle" operatives traveled in or out of Iran between October 2000 and Feb 2001."
There's strong evidence that Iran allowed transit of Al Qaeda members before 9/11

The “muscle” operatives were the 9/11 hijackers who overpowered airline crew members, slit their throats, and terrorized passengers so the Al Qaeda pilots could seize control of the airliners and fly them into their targets.

The commission concluded that there was “strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”

The commission also concluded that the hijackers "were accompanied by a senior Hizbullah operative." Timmerman, in his book “Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran”, identified the operative as Imad Faize Mughniyeh, Hizbullah's second-in-command who was assassinated last February in Damascus.

Although the commission noticed that "either this was a direct material evidence of Iran's involvement in the hijackings or it was just a remarkable coincidence", says Timmerman, "they didn't come down either way... they wouldn't say which". In explanation of this resignation he said: "I can assure you they (the commission) were under tremendous, tremendous pressure from the US intelligence community not to say anything about this."

Rabbi Tovia Singer is the founder and director of Outreach Judaism, an anti-missionary organization. Rabbi Singer addresses more than 200 audiences a year. He is the author of the book and accompanying audio CD series entitled Let's Get Biblical and Singer holds a bachelor's degree in social work. He has hosted the Tovia Singer Show since 2002. Tovia's fast-paced, biting commentary on Israeli current events makes for exciting and sometimes confrontational talk radio. Your live phone calls and instant messages are a big part of the show. Tovia interviews Israeli and American politicians, newsmakers, terror victims, authors and more giving you the inside scoop on what's really going on in Israel and the Middle East. The program airs live every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10:00 p.m. to 12 midnight New York time on Israel National Radio.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas more "goodwill gestures" despite the Kadima elections that will determine his replacement as party leader and head of the government, PA sources said Wednesday. He apparently has backtracked on his stated promise to quit the day after the elections.

One of the gestures he promised Abbas at a meeting on the eve of the leadership elections is the release of more Arab terrorists.
One of the gestures he promised Abbas at a meeting on the eve of the leadership elections is the release of more Arab terrorists.

Prime Minister Olmert had promised to resign after a new leader is chosen, but he can remain in power for several weeks while his replacement tries to form a new government, which is not a certainty. If the new party leader is unable to form a government, President Shimon Peres will ask another party leader to carry out the task or order new elections.

Prime Minister Olmert's reported promise of more compromises and concessions to the PA may be challenged by opposition parties, who can ask Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to rule that he has no right to make policy decisions while he is a "lame duck" prime minister.

Mazuz recently denied a petition that he declare the government to be in "transition" and to limit Olmert's flexibility. If one of the four candidates wins Wednesday's election on the first round with at least 40 percent plurality, the Olmert administration will legally be one that is temporary.

Sources quoted by Chinese news agency Xinhua also stated that Abbas asked Prime Minister Olmert to offer more facilities to Arabs at the Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, to take down more checkpoints and roadblocks and to free Marwan Barghouti. The Tanzim terrorist head is serving five life terms in prison for planning deadly terrorist attacks that resulted in the murders of numerous people. Prime Minister Olmert replied he would free him by the end of the month, Xinhua reported.

Prime Minister Olmert already has granted permission to the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount to repair and restore verses from the Koran that were carved into several Muslim buildings on the Temple Mount, according to WorldNetDaily reporter Aaron Klein.

Special tools and machinery for repairing the verses have been stored in Ashdod for three years, Klein reported.

"Forming a new government based on the votes of 431 Kadima members would be a legal farce," says Likud whip MK Gideon Saar.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the new Kadima party leader and the Prime Minister-designate, won her party's primaries on Wednesday by a scant 1.1% margin.  The difference between her and Transportation Minister Sha'ul Mofaz amounted to only 431 votes, from among the fewer than 40,000 Kadima members who voted.

"A Prime Minister in Israel should be democratically elected by the entire nation," Saar said this morning, "and not by 431 party members.  Forming a new government in these circumstances would be a legal farce that would strike a clear blow at Israeli democracy."

"The parties should display national responsibility, sit together and determine an agreed-upon date for new Knesset elections," Saar said.

Calls for new elections have also been heard from the Labor Party, even though it is currently a coalition member and virtually certain to join Livni's government.  Agriculture Minister Shalom Simchon and MK Shelly Yechimovitch are the two leading Labor voices calling to allow the public to choose the next Prime Minister.  Simchon is a close confidante of Labor leader Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is said to strongly favor new elections.  During the Kadima election campaign, Barak came out openly against Livni's candidacy. 

Livni now has 42 days to form a new government, throughout which period Ehud Olmert will remain Prime Minister, even if he tenders his resignation.  Labor ministers have said that they are not in her pocket, though these threats are not being taken very seriously, while Shas is saying that it will join a Livni government only under certain conditions.

"If Livni wants a government," Shas leader and Industry and Trade Minister Eli Yishai said, "she must meet our demands. If money for underprivileged children is blackmail, then we're blackmailers." He also said that Shas would sit in a Livni-led government only if Jerusalem is not divided. Livni heads the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority that the PA has said are leading to the division of Jerusalem.

Livni herself said, "We have a national mission, and that is to quickly build stability in the Israeli government. We must meet various threats, and there is financial instability. This is not my responsibility alone, but also that of my colleagues in Kadima and the other parties."

Media Predictions Were Way Off
The media is licking its wounds after predicting unanimously last night that Livni had won by a 10-12% margin.  The nation's top pollsters admitted that the phone polls asking voters how they had voted were open to distortion.  Veteran Israeli pollster Mina Tzemach said, "There really is a problem, and we have to sit and figure out how it happened."

Yitzchak: Media Lied in Order to Help Livni
Some blamed the media not only for mistakes, but even for purposely distorting the pre-election trends in order to bring victory to Livni.  "The media publicized purposeful lies," writes Yoav Yitzchak of the Hebrew-language NFC news site, "and failed their obligation to work on behalf of the purity of the democratic process.  [I refer] specifically to Yediot Acharonot, Maariv, Haaretz, and Channel Two... For many weeks they have brainwashed the public, specifically the Kadima voters, publicizing again and again that Tzipi Livni is winning by 10-20%.  They publicized this over and over, with the purpose of creating public opinion, possibly in the hope that the false polls will in the end bring the result that they want. By doing so, they greatly hurt the chances of the other candidates..."

The planned demolition and expulsion of a Jewish community in Samaria was thwarted early Wednesday morning by a large group of area Jewish residents. After gathering a force of soldiers and demolition equipment, the Israel Defense Forces cancelled the demolition when they understood the size of the crowd that they were up against, marking another victory for Jewish pioneers defending their homes against what they believe to be an immoral government policy.

 

A crowd of 300 protestors gathered in the pre-dawn hours in Yad Yair, an outpost near the Jewish towns of Dolev and Talmon, to resist what they had just learned would be an attempt by Israel Defense Forces to uproot the homes of the nearby community and expel its residents. 

 

Meanwhile, Israeli armed forces prepared to deploy a large number of soldiers as well as demolition cranes to carry out the expulsion order. According to the IDF, senior military officials had been in negotiations with the residents to leave the current location of Yad Yair and relocate elsewhere.

 

However, the army apparently decided in the interim that it would remove Yad Yair, despite the fact that an agreement had been reached between the IDF and the community’s leaders. When residents of nearby communities such as Nahliel, Niryah, Harsha, Dolev and Talmon heard about the demolition plans late Tuesday night, they quickly gathered at Yad Yair to show support for their neighbors.

 

Yad Yair was named in honor of Yair Mendelson, a Dolev resident murdered by Arabs during the first intifada.

 

Nadia Matar, a noted Jewish activist and founder of Women In Green, decried the attempted expulsion and commented on what she and others see as a small victory. “Sadly, instead of dealing with the Arab enemy and international anarchists from the extreme Left and Europe who are inciting the Arabs to attack Jews, this current government is persecuting the Jewish pioneers of Judea and Samaria,” said Matar.

 

“But thank G-d we have learned our lesson from the expulsion from Gush Katif and are not so na?ve anymore. Yesterday [the army] planned an expulsion, but hundreds of activists prevented the crime of destroying Yad Yair,” she said.

 

Yanir Aldubi is a community spokesman from Dolev and chief secretary of the Binyamin Regional Council, and was present at the scene. He said that he was disturbed by the fact the government was preparing heavy forces to destroy the community, despite the fact that the residents of Yad Yair had already reached an agreement with the IDF, reported Haaretz Wednesday.

Akiva HaCohen, one of three Jews exiled from their homes in Samaria for trying to farm their land, said that when the army learned of the size of the crowd, commanders decided not to pursue the demolition. At that moment there were other incidents throughout Judea and Samaria that required IDF manpower, said HaCohen, a resident of Yitzhar, and the IDF decided that it could not afford to carry on the operation with the increased number of soldiers it realized it would need.
Jews “are not going to be the quiet victims anymore, but we are going to protect Israel actively against Arabs, as in Yitzhar.”

 

However, HaCohen notes that another factor may have thwarted the expulsion: Notably, one of the crane operators for the IDF that was supposed to conduct the demolition of the houses broke orders and refused to carry out the demolition.

 

Four days ago HaCohen’s hometown of Yitzhar was the scene of a stabbing of a nine-year-old boy by an unidentified Arab man from a neighboring village, who attacked the child after setting a house on fire Saturday morning. Rather than give in to the attacker, the boy fought back with enough strength to break the attacker’s knife, after which the Arab threw the child off a 12-foot high balcony.

 

Although the child survived, Yitzhar residents were enraged by the absence of IDF forces at the town, which could have prevented the attack. Instead of praising the child, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert led the media campaign that denounced Yitzhar’s residents for retaliating against the attack.

 

Nadia Matar said that the Yitzhar incident, for which the Arab town that harbored the attacker paid dearly, showed a new resolve among the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

 

“After Amona, the new slogan should be ‘We are all Yitzhar’,” said Matar, quoting from a new bumper sticker her group has produced.

 

Matar cited Wednesday’s victory as proof that Jews “are not going to be the quiet victims anymore, but we are going to protect Israel actively against Arabs, as in Yitzhar.” 

 

She added that the Jewish struggle for security was unfortunately aimed against the current government of Israel as well. “Sadly, there is a coalition between the current government and the Arab enemy.

 

“We hope the current government will be replaced with a normal Jewish government that protects its Jewish citizens and fights the Arab enemy.”

Terrorism, murder, sexual promiscuity, blasphemy, cruelty to animals and all that is evil in the eyes of G-d must be fought, says Ray Peterson, a Noahide living in the USA.

Noahides, or the "Children of Noah," are Gentiles who believe that the Torah was given to the Jewish people by the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and adhere to the Seven Noahide Laws which were set forth in the Book of Genesis (Bereishit) and elaborated upon in the Talmud.  The Noahide movement has seen a resurgence in the last decade, with non-Jews around the world espousing belief in the Torah, rejecting other religions such as Christianity, and committing to live by the Torah laws set forth for non-Jews.  The Seven Noahide laws are:

• Prohibition of Idolatry
• Prohibition of Murder
• Prohibition of Theft
• Prohibition of Sexual Promiscuity, including homosexuality, adultery, and perverse acts
• Prohibition of Blasphemy
• Prohibition of eating the flesh of an animal which was taken while the animal is still alive
• Requirement to establish Laws and Courts to exercise justice

Speaking on Israel National Radio's Weekend Edition, Peterson remembered the horrors and the lessons of September 11th in his weekly audio segment.

Peterson described the day he and his wife found out about the terror attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  He describes the shock Americans felt, and their questioning as to how G-d could let a tragedy like this happen.  Peterson goes on to attribute the evil acts of September 11th to man rather than G–d, saying mankind has free will to determine whether it will do actions for Good or for Evil.

Peterson also warned listeners not to assume they are already keeping the Noahide Laws without trying, citing the example of the North American practice of eating "rocky mountain oysters," a delicacy which is gleaned during the castration of bulls while they are still living, making them not "kosher" for non-Jewish consumption.

Peterson,  who runs the website www.NoahideNations.com,  states that the way to fight evil, is to do positive actions.  He describes his personal experiences of  volunteering to help others and through it, being paid back many times over.

To hear the inspiring audio, click HERE.

On November 11 2009, the residents of Jerusalem will decide their mayor for the next five years. One of the candidates, Nir Barkat, discussed with IsraelNationalRadio show hosts Yishai and Malkah Fleisher his plans for Jerusalem.

[audio:123474]

Click here to download the entire interview (right-click and choose "save target as" or "save link as".)

Barkat claims that tourism in Jerusalem is a vastly untapped market. Two million tourists visit Jerusalem annually, and Barkat wants to raise that number to 10 million tourists a year within a decade. Such an increase would generate some 150,000 jobs. He also discussed developing the health sciences of Jerusalem, by integrating the hospitals and universities.

Barkat also related to the sharp rise in prices for renting and purchasing apartments in Jerusalem. Local analysts say that many apartments are purchased by Jews overseas and remain empty most of the year. This widespread phenomenon creates a shortage in the rental market and has driven prices upward. Barkat proposes regulating the number of apartments sold to overseas buyers who refuse to rent their property. He also proposed renting vacant vacation apartments, particularly to students of the Hebrew University, who would vacate the housing during the summer vacation months anyway.

Barkat stressed the importance of a united Jerusalem and joining forces with the neighboring suburbs such as Gush Etzion to the south, and Maaleh Adumim to the east. However, his reasons for not dividing the city were more economic than ideological. That, plus being head of the Jerusalem offices for the Kadima party, has caused him to lose the support of some who are against dividing Jerusalem. Kadima leaders on the national ticket have negotiated with the Palestinian Authority behind closed doors a deal which purportedly divides Jerusalem by axing off the eastern suburbs.

Barkat finished off with a call to get out and vote. 

The other major candidate at this point is Meir Porush from the Agudat Yisrael Hareidi faction. Meir Porush is a long standing supporter of the Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). As deputy minister in the Knesset housing authority, he channeled resources to developing new neighborhoods in the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the Yesha towns.

Yishai Fleisher is program director of Israel National Radio. He and his wife Malkah host a talk show on Jewish current events and Middle East politics from a neo-Zionist point of view every Monday and Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Israel time on Israel National Radio.

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to speak in the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, a major international evangelical Christian group based in Jerusalem plans to send a petition to the U.N. Secretary-General calling for the arrest and indictment of Iran’s president on charges of incitement to genocide against Israel. The petition from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (I.C.E.J.) has gathered signatures from tens of thousands of Christians around the world, as the group joins the chorus of prominent voices from many countries demanding that Iran’s president be brought to justice.

“We feel a profound and telling moral duty to speak out against the growing Iranian nuclear threat to Israel,” said David Parsons, media director for the I.C.E.J.

"The silence of most Christian clergy in the face of Germany's horrific bid to annihilate European Jewry left a deep stain on the churches,” said the I.C.E.J.’s executive director, Rev. Malcom Hedding. “Yet from it has arisen a sense among multitudes of Christians today that we have an inescapable moral duty to earnestly speak out whenever another genocidal campaign threatens the Jewish people.

"Unfortunately, we are concerned that just such a genocidal campaign is taking shape in the form of Iran's repeated threats to eliminate the Jewish state, and its quest for nuclear means to carry out these threats," said Hedding.

'Hold Ahmadinejad Legally Accountable for Clear Calls to Genocide'
For several years Ahmadinejad, as president of the Islamic Republic, has repeatedly threatened to “wipe Israel off the map,” and has repeatedly denied the holocaust as a “myth.” Israeli Government officials and American legal experts say that such statements are a clear call to genocide and thus a  violation of the U.N. Charter Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a treaty drafted by the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and approved in 1948 by the General Assembly.

A week ago Israel’s Minister of Pensioner Affairs and former Mossad Agent and Nazi-hunter Rafi Eitan told a German magazine that capturing Ahmadinejad and sending him to the International Criminal Court in The Hague was a distinct possibility.

In 2006, following a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran sponsored by the Iranian government, and prior to Ahmadinejad’s visit to to the United Nations, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations convened to declare a legal battle against the rogue Islamic leader. Among the speakers at the event was Alan Dershowitz, perhaps America’s most well-known attorney, who argued the legal grounds for indicting Ahmadinejad. Since then, numerous Jewish and non-Jewish groups have called for the leader’s indictment. 

At another event, in Toronto, Dershowitz called Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the “Hitler of the 21st century…a dictator who denies one Holocaust in order to bring about another Holocaust.”

The latest shot in the battle has been fired by the I.C.E.J., who plan to deliver their petition, signed by more than 55,000 people in 128 countries, to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the eve of next week’s appearance by Ahmadinejad at the General Assembly. The petition reflects the sentiments of community leaders and government officials around the world, who are outraged that the U.N. has bestowed upon him the honor of addressing the Assembly on its opening, rather than pursuing his indictment for violating the Assembly’s very own charter and treaties.

The petition is called ‘Stop a Nuclear Iran’, and it points out that the Iranian president's statements that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and his denial of the Holocaust violate the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Particularly disturbing, as the I.C.E.J. points out, is the fact that Ahmadinejad’s Iran is developing the means to carry out its threat to commit genocide against the Jewish State.

Chilling Film Concludes with a Call to Action
A short film,produced by the the I.C.E.J., compares Hitler’s partly successful campaign to wipe out the Jewish nation with that of the Iranian leader.

“It was a crime of genocide, so enormous, so horrific, committed by men so sinister, with so many innocent victims, and so few rescuers, that it has it deserves its own name: the Holocaust,” the narrator begins.

“Nothing compares to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Yet today, an alarming campaign to commit genocide, targets the same Jewish people.

“It is Iran’s call for wiping Israel off the map and its drive for the means to carry it out,” continues the narrator in the film, referring to Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons.

“We should take these threats seriously,” the voice in the film says, as direct quotes from Ahmadinejad’s speeches to cheering crowds appear on the screen:

“Israel must be wiped of the map.”

“The elimination of the Zionist regime will be smooth and simple.”

The video shows Iran’s leader delivering a speech full of vituperative attacks on Jews, and the reaction of the crowd as it chants, repeatedly, “Death to Israel” with thousands of fists pumping in the air.

The film continues: “The Iranian president has violated an international treaty on incitement to genocide, yet the United Nations has yet to hold him to account or to take effective action against Iran’s nuclear threat.

As for the Holocaust, says the narrator, “he says it never happened.”

“We say, never again!” proclaims the film.

“Let’s be the rescuers of the day. Let’s stop Iran!” the film exhorts, as it presents a link to the I.C.E.J.  petition.

The petition adds that Ahmadinejad’s campaign “not only endangers Israel, but is also a threat to the peace and security of the world community."

The I.C.E.J.’s Hedding also slammed the leaders of certain Christian groups, among them the Mennonites and the Quakers, who plan to further honor Ahmadinejad by hosting him at a special reception during his visit to the U.S., in which the Christian leaders hope to engage in a “dialogue” with the threatening leader.

"These Christian leaders will forever be associated with the appeasement of wickedness,” said Hedding, bringing to mind the lasting condemnation of Western leaders for appeasing Hitler in the 1930’s.

Hedding explained to his fellow Christians that “Jesus did not talk with Herod because he represented a system that was corrupt and evil."

Rally at U.N. Plaza
David Parsons spoke to INN a day before his departure for a New York rally at the Dag Hammerskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations' world headquarters. He explained that the rally will be led Monday, on the eve of the annual fall opening of the U.N. General Assembly, at which Ahmadinejad will be invited to speak along with the leaders of other member states. The rally, organized by the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, is sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, United Jewish Communities, U.J.A.-Federation of New York, and Jewish Council for Public Affairs."

The rally will repeat the message of the petition and demand that the U.N. bring the recalcitrant Iranian leader to justice.

“I think there are lessons we can take from Hitler,” Parsons said. “When someone develops a warped self-awareness, like Hitler had about being the ‘fuhrer’ of the fatherland, and makes threats against the Jews, and then develops the means to carry them out, we should take all this seriously.

“It looks like Ahmadinejad has all three—warped self awareness, threats and the means to carry them out.”

As Parsons discussed the Islamic Republic’s support for its leader's “radioactive rhetoric,” he could only speculate on the “dark religious reasons” of Iran’s Muslim clerics in pushing for nuclear weapons for the country.  Parsons also pointed out that “even [former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, who is considered moderate, was the first to suggest nuking Israel 5-6 years ago.”

Rafsanjani said that Iran has nothing to fear from an Israeli retaliation, since “Israel in return could only hit a few Arab cities” and not Iran, according to Parsons.

“It’s not just a threat to Israel, it’s a threat to the whole world,” said Parsons of the Iranian menace. “So much more could be disrupted,” he explained, by the economic and political shockwave that would follow a physical blast from an Iranian warhead.  

Parsons offered words of warning to his fellow Christians: “The history is that Christian leaders were silent during the Holocaust, and we dare not be silent again in the face of another genocidal threat against the Jewish people.

“We feel a profound and telling moral duty to speak out against the growing Iranian nuclear threat to Israel.”