This Is No Way To Live

I read that the Islamic Jihad is manufacturing new rockets with longer range capabilities (12.5 miles), similar to the Grad rockets already in use by Gaza terrorists. The new rockets are armed with a much deadlier warhead that carries double the amount of explosives compared to the regular Qassams.

Security officials say that this information confirms that the terrorists in Gaza are definitely getting outside help as they increase their efforts to develop new weapons, a situation that is cause for deep concern and alarm in the opinion of IDF officials.

Tragically predictable as is their habit, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have launched a new wave of increased Qassam missile attacks to coincide with the arrival in Israel tomorrow of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It has become predictable that more rockets fly every time Secretary Rice is coming to Israel. Hamas is determined to send her a message. A heavy barrage of 7 Qassam missiles struck Sderot last night night, March 26. One exploded in the old market, injuring three people and leaving 16 in shock. Of the 16 missiles fired during the day, one landed south of Ashkelon, several exploded in kibbutzim causing heavy damage to property. Israeli military sources report that Hamas is providing missiles to Islamic Jihad in order to step up the attacks on Israel, without being held solely accountable and drawing Israeli fire.

There is an increased threat from the North as well. The Jerusalem Post carries this headline today: Hizbullah has rockets that can reach Dimona. The officials said the Lebanese group has acquired new Iranian rockets with a range of some 300 kilometers. That means they can hit anywhere in Israel's heavily populated cities.

Threats from Gaza - threats from the northern border - as Senator John McCain said last week during his visit to Sderot, "This is no way to live." This is true, not just for Sderot but for all of Israel.

Edi from Israel has a movie on sderot and the qassams on youtube -
please watch and move forward - that the world can see it.

הלינק לאתר:the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cZ6hsA1ogg

The Basket Bomb

Purim is supposed to be the most fun-filled holiday during the Jewish year. Everyone from toddlers to grandparents dress-up in costumes. Families and friends enjoy the feast together, and alcohol is imbibed – liberally. Two other quintessential Purim customs are giving gifts of food to friends and gifts of charity to the poor.

The custom, known as Mishloach Manot or “sending portions", describes a basket that contains at least two different types of ready-to-eat food. There are two rationales behind this custom. The first reason is ultra-practical: to ensure that everyone has enough food to enjoy the Purim feast held later that day. - The second reason for giving gift baskets is that it is supposed to increase the feelings of friendship and love. Harkening back to Haman's evil plot to destroy the Jews, the gift-giving custom is an attempt to perennially repair that rift.
However, this year something went wrong in the town of Ariel, the capital of Samaria. Ariel is located in the heart of Israel, 40 km (25 miles) east of Tel Aviv, 40 km west of the Jordan River and 60 km north of Jerusalem.

Over the weekend several news sources reported a near-fatal attack on a 15-year-old boy who received a Purim basket. Here are some of the links to that story: Ynet News, Jerusalem Newswire, Jerusalem Post. Amiz Ortiz was seriously wounded after a parcel bomb in the form of a Purim gift blew up in his face. He is the son of a messianic Jewish family in Ariel.

They are members of a tiny, almost secretive community that operates in Ariel. The group had experienced occasional harassment before, in the form of hostile fliers and demonstrations against Christian missionary groups. But the police investigation into the explosion indicates that they now must also fear religious-based terror.

Members of the messianic community in Israel said Monday, that while the near-fatal attack last week on 15-year-old Ami Ortiz of Ariel marks a major escalation, it comes after years of anti-missionary violence directed at the community.

The boy’s father, David Ortiz, told The Jerusalem Post from Schneider Medical Center, where his son Ami is hospitalized in serious condition, that since he came to Israel over 20 years ago he has been the target of violence, mostly by Muslims.

This was the most serious attack against the embattled messianic community in Israel. Both Muslims and Haredi Jews, who are vehemently opposed to Christian missionary activity, are suspected of sending the bomb, and it is still unclear whether the perpetrators were Muslim terrorists (disguised as orthodox Jews) or Jewish anti-missionaries (acting like terrorists).

Sending a bomb to kill someone is an act of murder, born in a heart filled with hatred. To target children with such a device is the work of a coward.

Let’s hope we find out the gift givers' name. But if we don’t, G-D knows exactly who “Haman” was during Purim 2008. In the end, God will always overthrow the plots of the wicked and establish His justice and His righteousness on the earth.

Blotting Out The Name Of Haman

At no time of the Jewish year is the synagogue as "wild" as during the Megillah reading: Every time Haman's name is read, the congregation erupts in a deafening chorus of groggers, clanging pots, cap-guns and sirens. Some write Haman's name on the bottom of their shoes and stomp it out. Others write his name in wax and melt it! - Who was Haman, and why the obsession with blotting out his name?
To find out why, we must start in the first book of the Bible, where Esau sold his birthright for a pot of lentils to his brother Jacob. (Gen. 25) When Esau lost his inheritance to Jacob, Esau hated Jacob and vowed to kill him. Esau therefore taught his grandson, Amalek, to hate and pursue Jacob and his descendants, the Israelites. The Midrash says that when Esau was getting old, he called in his grandson Amalek and said: "I tried to kill Jacob but was unable. Now I am entrusting you and your descendents with the important mission of annihilating Jacob's descendents -- the Jewish people. Carry out this deed for me. Be relentless and do not show mercy."
True to his mission, Amalek has historically tried to destroy the Jews. The Amalekites first attacked the Israelites (Jacob's descendants) at Rephidim in the desert of Sinai during their Exodus from Egypt: "smiting the hindmost, all that were feeble behind," (1 Samuel 15:2). Amalek attacked the Israelites while Moses was leading them out of Egypt into the Promised Land. They attacked the Israelites without apparent provocation as they were travelling during the Exodus (Ex 17:8). "When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind" (Dt. 25:17-18). The battle was fierce, and while Moses held up the staff of G-d on top of the hill, Israel prevailed over the Amalekites. But when Moses' hands became tired and let down the staff of G-d, the Amalekites prevailed over Israel. Only after Aaron (the priest and brother of Moses) and Hur made Moses sit down and supported his hands, did Joshua destroy the Amalekites with the sword.

The Amalekites made the grievous mistake of becoming the first of the Canaanite nations to attack the Israelites after the Exodus. For this act of arrogance, the Amalekites were punished with the ultimate ignominy in the ancient Near East: the blotting out of their name.
The shame of the Amalekites is memorialized when Moses makes his farewell speech to the people of Israel: “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt.…When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25: 17, 19)
G-D punished the Amalekites by ordering King Saul to destroy them (1 Sam 15:2-3) - over 300 years after they had first attacked Israel. However Saul did not obey the Lord, and kept some of the loot after defeating the Amalekites. They would have been wiped out by Saul, if he had followed God's instructions (1 Sam.15). King Saul had a chance to wipe out Amalek, but in pity he spared Agag, the king . He did destroy the city of Amalek, but other raiding parties/nomadic bands of Amalekites survived. For this, God rejected Saul as king of Israel, and was slain by an Amalekite.
Because of Saul's error, descendants of the Amalekites continue to threaten Israel across the ages.
So what does Amalek have to do with Purim? The Scroll of Esther (3:1) identifies Haman as the descendent of Agag, King of Amalek. Haman was a descendant of the Amalekite king Agag. Haman the Agagite, the descendant of Agag, plotted the mass extermination of Jews Haman, had ascended to the position of "prime minister" of the Persian Empire. This rabid anti-Semite planned an empire-wide pogrom to eliminate the Jewish people.
The attempted Holocaust in the book of Esther is another result of Saul's disobedience. Haman's desire to wipe out the Jewish people was an expression of his long-standing national tradition.
Purim opens on a somber note. Haman is identified as the descendant of Amalek, whose people attacked Israel in the desert, the symbol of cruelty to the weak. Before celebrating the defeat of the wicked, one must remember that God (as well as God's people) has a war with the Amalekites and will not be at ease until the Amalekites are blotted out. On the Sabbath before Purim, the portion of the Torah dealing with Amalek is read. This day is called Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance. It is a special mitzvah [commandment] of the Torah to hear the reading and thus remember.
The idea of blotting out the memory of the name of the Amalekite descendant Haman took many forms. In ancient Persia and Babylon an effigy of Haman was burned. In the 1800s in Eastern Europe, Jews would write the name of Haman on the soles of their shoes and when his name was spoken, they would stamp their feet, erasing the writing into the ground. Modern customs included the use of noisemakers, cap pistols and the like to drown out the name of Haman.
The theme of cursing or blotting out the names of evil men is found throughout the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Hebrew verb that is most often used in this context is “machah”, which means "to blot out" or "to obliterate." It occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures 35 times in various forms, often describing the actions of God to "blot out" the name or the memory of particular individuals or nations. Sometimes it refers to the "blotting out" of sin. It is the word used in the Torah for God's promise to blot out the name of Amalek, but it is also used several times in reference to God's anger toward the people of Israel.
Like those who follow the ancient tradition of writing the name of Haman on the soles of their shoes, we are obliterating the name that God has cursed and judged each time we stamp our feet, boo and hiss, and make loud noises with our groggers. The name of Haman is shameful, and should be blotted out, if only symbolically, for it stands for evil, hatred, and rebellion against the God of Israel. In contrast, the names of Esther and Mordecai bring joyful remembrance, and are to be honored.

Confused?

When my grandfather left Europe in 1935,
there was graffiti on the walls saying:
"Jews, go to Palestine!"
And now when I visit Europe, the graffiti says:
"Jews, get out of Palestine!"
What short memories these Europeans have!

Discoveries from First Temple Period

The First Temple was built by King Solomon during the 10th century BCE in 957 BCE. It was the center of ancient Judaism. The Temple replaced the Tabernacle of Moses and the Tabernacles at Shiloh, Nov, and Givon as the central focus of Jewish faith. This First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

Undisturbed layers from the First Temple period (1000-586 B.C.) are not often found anywhere in Jerusalem. This is because later building activities in this area erased or damaged remains from the First Temple period. It is therefore amazing that - despite this - very important remains have been discovered from this period.

Just recently, the Israel Antiquities Authority discovered a rich layer of finds from the latter part of the First Temple period (8th-6th centuries B.C.E.) near the Western Wall plaza.

It is actually the first time in the history of archaeological research in Jerusalem that building remains from the First Temple period were exposed so close to the Temple Mount - on the eastern slopes of the Upper City. The walls of the buildings are still preserved to a height of more than 2 meters.

In the excavations, the remains of a magnificent colonnaded street [a street, lined by columns] from the late Roman period (2nd century C.E.) were uncovered; the street appears on the mosaic Madaba map, and is referred to by the name - the Eastern Cardo.

In ancient Roman city planning, a cardo was a north-south-oriented street that served as the center of economic life. The street was usually lined with shops, merchants, and vendors. It was the "hinge" or axis of the city. The Cardo in the Old City of Jerusalem was a good example. After the Jewish rebellion of 70 CE was crushed by Titus' troops, Jerusalem was renamed Colonia Aelia Capitolina, and a long colonnaded Cardo was built, running across the city from north to south.

The level of the Eastern Cardo was paved with large heavy limestone pavers that were set directly atop the layer that dates to the end of the First Temple period. This Roman road thus “seals” beneath it the finds from the First Temple period, and protected them from being destroyed in later periods.

The Madaba Map is a mosaic on the floor of a church in the town of Madaba (present-day Jordan), during the sixth century. The map portrays the Holy Land most accurately. Its centerpiece is the walled city of Jerusalem, represented by its walls, gates, streets and principle buildings. The Cardo, extending in a straight line southward from Damascus Gate is clearly seen, and the city's walls and gates are plainly marked.

Condi's Irrational Behavior

Carolyn Glick wrote in her column “Condi’s Echo chamber” that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left many Israelis and supporters of Israel scratching their heads in disbelief last week. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0308/glick030708.php3?printer_friendly
Rice arrived in Israel while well organized groups of hundreds of Arabs threw rocks at Jewish motorists in Jerusalem. The violence was incited by the “peace-loving” Fatah, in Judea and Samaria and within sovereign Israel. About a dozen of these stone-throwing “peace-loving” Fatah members almost lynched two municipal inspectors, who were lucky enough to escape by the skin of their teeth.Outside Hebron, an Israeli was also attacked by such a mob and escaped alive only by opening fire at his assailants.In another incident, Fatah forces murdered a Palestinian and seriously wounded an Israeli outside of Hebron.
Thousands of Fatah members rallied in Ramallah and Hebron, in support of Hamas and its missile offensive against the western Negev, and Israeli Arabs escalated their verbal and physical assaults on Israel and Israeli Jews.
Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas referred to the IDF's operations in Gaza as an attempted "holocaust." He praised terrorists, suspended negotiations with Israel. That alone proves Fatah's full support for Hamas's efforts to destroy Israel. It’s an open fact without any hidden agenda. Anyone who has a brain should see it.
So why isn’t Rice questioning her devotion to Palestinian statehood and support for Fatah? She should know of Iran's deep involvement in the Hamas's missile offensive, shouldn’t she? One would think she might have thought that an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza could weaken Iran and put a damper on its efforts to take over Lebanon and Iraq?
Yet she keeps ignoring Fatah's involvement in terror, and continues to support Hamas's missile war against Israeli civilians. Her boss - George Bush - even overrode a congressional ban on the transfer of $150 million dollars to help Fatah. Rice ignored the fact that UN refugee camps in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria and Jordan are hotbeds of terror recruitment, training and indoctrination. She ignored Hamas's widespread popularity in Palestinian society, and called for Israel to step up its humanitarian aid to Gaza, and defended the Palestinians as victims. She also ignored Abbas's open support for Hamas against Israel, and insisted that the only way to end violence is to establish a Palestinian state.
This is totally irrational behavior to any person with a sound mind. How could this happen? Does she have an inability to comprehend the social consequences of her own actions, possibly due in part to a lack of empathy?
Is she delusional or has she isolated herself from all information and all persons bearing information that might force her to change her policy course?
The Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders defines delusions as false beliefs based on incorrect inference about external reality that persist despite the evidence to the contrary and these beliefs are not ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture. That leads to talking or acting without regard of rationality.
Rice stated once that growing up during racial segregation taught her determination against adversity, and the need to be "twice as good" as non-minorities. I am not a psychologist, but maybe that is the reason behind her support of Fatah and Hamas? She seems to express her idea or belief with unusual persistence or force.
It is too bad, that Rice’s irresponsible actions will imperil the lives of tens of millions of people. Why? Because the US and the free world will not come to grips with the spirit and intent of the enemy they are in a war with.
Shalom - Lilo

Islam Is A Religion Of Peace

How in the world can Israel continue talking to the PA leadership at the very time that its people are rejoicing over the callous murdering of eight Jewish yeshiva students by a Palestinian who is rewarded and crowned by the PA's chief newspaper with the title "holy martyr?"

Official Fatah newspaper: jihadist who murdered students a "martyr".

Remember: Fatah is the moderate group, that sincerely wants peace with Israel. Fatah wants peace, this I know, for George and Condi tell me so. And remember: Islam is a religion of peace -- George and Condi told us that also, and no number of stories like this will ever convince them otherwise. Celebrate a mass murderer as a martyr? Never! What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

Nor is this a partisan matter either, of course. Everyone, just everyone, knows Islam is a religion of peace. Except, unfortunately, the glorious mujahedin and their allies who celebrate their heroic deeds in gunning down high school students.

Death Is Coming

The photograph below shows a Hamas poster. The translated caption reads: "Death is coming, O Zionists, hide yourselves". The words are par for the course. But the photograph shows what are meant to be Israeli citizens, covering their heads against incoming rockets. This gives away the Hamas policy: citizens are their targets. We know this, of course, but this poster illustrates it very clearly. Not that the media will pay it any heed.

Professor Moshe Sharon, advisor on Arab and Islamic affairs to Israel's Prime Minister Begin from 1977-1982, provided us with a quote from the Hadith, in his book "Judaism, Christianity and Islam" (page 103), that deals with the "Islamic tradition describing the conditions for the 'Final Hour', for the Day of Judgment and for the establishment of the (ideal) Islamic divine order. According to this tradition, attributed to the prophet Mohammed himself, the 'Hour' will not come before the Muslims fight a final battle with the Jews and annilhilate them. In the course of the war, the Jews will hide from their Muslim pursuers behind rocks and trees. On that day, Allah will give mouths to the rocks and to the trees and they will call out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

The same quote still appears frequently on handbills issued by the Hamas terrorist organization in territories administered by Israel as a rallying cry to kill the Jew.