GLENN BECK ANNOUNCES "RALLY IN JERUSALEM" IN AUGUST BY: FERN SIDMAN On Monday, May 16th, FOX news personality and conservative talk show host Glenn Beck announced his intention of organizing a major rally in Jerusalem that is scheduled for August. During his morning radio program, he reminded his listeners of his previous rally, held in Washington, DC on August 28, 2010 called "Restoring Honor" which drew hundreds of thousands of people. Mr. Beck exhorted "all decent people and people of faith" to join him in Jerusalem in a rally called "Restoring Courage". Having recently returned from a trip to Israel, where he visited the Temple Mount, he said upon his departure, "The Temple Mount almost pulsated. I could feel it.” As a vocal advocate and fervent supporter of Israel, Mr. Beck has made Israel and the Jewish people a focal point of his broadcasts. On Feb. 4, 2011, Mr. Beck offered his prognostications on the revolution in Egypt by telling his television audience that, "If President Hosni Mubarak does step down, however, the Muslim Brotherhood would be the most likely group to seize power. They've openly stated they want to declare war on Israel and they would end the peace agreement with Israel and they would work towards instituting something we told you about, a caliphate." Often declaring his deeply held conviction that Israel and the Jewish people are being "set up", Mr. Beck has consistently addressed the exponential rise in anti-Semitism. "Old hatreds are coming over the horizon; it's a well-laid plan. Right now, when you're paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, it's tough. Pretty soon, you're going to want somebody to blame. And politicians always are there to give you someone to blame. And mark my words, we will be paying 10 dollars a gallon for gasoline. When that happens and someone comes to you and says, "It's the Jews. It's Israel. If they would just give up Jerusalem. If they would just divide Jerusalem." It is coming. This will be the mantra come September. "If they just divide Jerusalem, they just give it up! Go back to the '67 lines." It's coming", he ruefully observed. Issuing an impassioned appeal to his listeners earlier today, Mr. Beck warned that Israel is in imminent danger, "Things in Israel are going to get bad. They are going to spread across the Middle East. The things that I've told you are coming, will come. It's only a matter of time." Making an oblique reference to the upcoming meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Beck said, "There are people that will promise you "peace" in the coming months. They are going to attack the center of our faith; our common faith, and that is Jerusalem but it won't be with bullets or bombs. It will be with a two-state solution that cuts off Jerusalem; the Old City, to the rest of the world." Alluding to the dramatic escalation in global anti-Western and anti-Israel animus, Mr. Beck said, "There are forces in this land, and forces all over the globe that are trying to destroy us, but remember, 'we are the great Satan and Israel is the little Satan'". Offering a historical retrospective, he said, "Many in the history of man have had the opportunity to stand with the Jewish people; Poland, Russia, Germany, and time and time and time again, they have failed." As a devout Mormon, Mr. Beck spoke of his religious beliefs in the unfolding of geo-political realities. "The only seat of government that can and will solve this problem, with or without us is G-d. It is time to return inside the walls that surround Jerusalem and stand with peoples of all faiths, all around the world." Beseeching his listeners to join the rally in Jerusalem, Mr. Beck exclaimed, "As a citizen of America and a brother in the family of man, I come to you today and ask you to stand; stand with me in Jerusalem." Candidly admitting that he didn't know how many people would show up, or how much the event would cost, he declared that the rally would be "a life altering event" and warned that the "very gates of hell" would fight his attempts to hold the rally.
 by Daniel Greenfield While the media and politicians wail over Israeli settlements and revisionist historians pen narratives in which Israel’s entire history comes down to a plot to seize Arab land (following in the footsteps of how their American counterparts have reinterpreted US history)... very little is said of Israel’s Arab settlements. But Arab settlements in Israel far outweigh Jewish ones and have far less legitimate roots. Consider East Jerusalem, which Obama and the EU are insisting should be reserved for Arab residency alone. East Jerusalem does indeed have a solid Arab majority because in 1948 the armies of seven Arab nations invaded Israel and occupied half of Jerusalem, dividing it as their Soviet allies divided Berlin, and ethnically cleansed its Jewish population.
Jewish places of worship in East Jerusalem were bombed or turned into mosques and toilets, even the dead were not allowed to rest in peace as their tombstones were used to pave roads. Jewish homes were seized by Arabs and East Jerusalem became wholly Arab. This is the situation that Obama and the EU are fighting to perpetuate by banning any Jewish housing in the eastern half of the now united Jerusalem.
This is what every government that refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is legitimizing by rewarding the ethnic cleansing practiced by the Jordanian Legion and the Holy War Army (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) of the nephew of Nazi collaborating Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammad al-Husayni. And then there are the so-called Israeli settlements of Gaza, Judea and Samaria—which indeed were built on territory that Israel captured from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, after Egypt and Jordan had captured the territory in 1948, destroying Jewish villages on the territory in the process.
Some Jewish villages like Kfar Darom suffered the fate of being destroyed twice over, once by the Arab occupation armies in 1948, to be reestablished and again destroyed by Fatah’s terrorist militias after Israel agreed to ethnically cleanse its own population from Gaza to appease Arab terrorism. That is the truth behind the so-called Israeli Settlements issue, but it is not by any means the whole truth. Because the UN, the EU and the State Department have only applied the term “settlements” to Jewish towns and villages, never Arab ones, regardless of their legality.
This double standard that is defined purely by ethnicity and religion, and by no other factor whatsoever, represents the real international Apartheid that targets Jews for ethnic cleansing to the benefit of Arab Muslims. That means that the Arab Muslim seizure of land for the creation of settlements has been mostly unregulated and is widespread. Not only that it’s often aided and abetted by foreign activists who regularly come to “help” Arab villagers harvest olives. In reality this is often a charade in which those same villagers have marked the territory by planting on the land of Jewish villages nearby, resulting in calculated clashes that are broken up by soldiers and police, and filmed by the same activists resulting in international condemnations.
To avoid those condemnations, Israel eventually seizes the land from the Jewish farmers and turns it over to the Arab villagers. This only sets the stage for the next stage of the clashes, recreating in a microcosm the entire “peace process”, in which terrorism results in concessions, which results in more terrorism and more concessions, creating the cycle of appeasement and terrorism that has bedeviled Israel and most of the First World when dealing with Islam. Those same left wing activists, most notably groups such as Peace Now and Rabbis for Human Rights, go on to destroy and damage the land of Jewish farmers. When the farmers attempt to defend their land, the activists videotape the resulting encounter and the farmers are arrested. At which point the land can be easily seized while its owners are tied up by the legal system.
Attempting to reestablish ownership then becomes next to impossible in a political system constantly afraid of international condemnation and in a legal system controlled by the Anti-Israel left all the way up to the Supreme Court, which actually refused to seat a Justice for being too conservative. Read it all at CFP
 by Soeren Kern The European Union on December 8 adopted a resolution that for the first time explicitly calls for Jerusalem to become the future capital of both a Palestinian state and Israel.
Backing away only slightly from a more controversial Swedish proposal to officially call for the division of Jerusalem, the EU declared: “If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states.” The original proposal drafted by Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, a well-known pro-Palestinian activist whose country currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, had called for the creation of a “State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Israeli officials, angry over EU efforts to prejudge the outcome of issues reserved for permanent status negotiations, persuaded French diplomats to remove the offending text, as well as other references to a Palestinian state that would comprise “the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.”
Israel has always maintained that Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, regardless of any future peace settlement with the Palestinians.
This has been the declared policy of all Israeli governments, both left and right. The EU statement, which comes just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a 10-month freeze on construction in West Bank settlements, will be viewed by many as a European attempt to pre-empt any possible resumption of Middle East peace talks by helping the Palestinians improve their negotiating position vis-à-vis Israel.
Although the 27-member EU has limited clout as a diplomatic player in the Arab-Israel conflict, the EU is the biggest donor of financial assistance to Palestinian Authority, which has been accused of diverting the money to promote terror against Israel.
The EU statement, which is predictably one-sided, could end up disincentivizing a new round of negotiations: the Palestinians may well be emboldened by the EU’s tacit acceptance of their key positions and be led to believe that if they hold out longer, the EU will support them on other core issues as well.
 The recent Swiss vote to ban minarets was seen by many as a further indication that European populations are waking up to the threat of Europe’s Islamization and the need to stop the trend. If so, the European Union—the centralized bureaucracy that, as documented in Bat Ye’or’s important book Eurabia, went “over the heads” of European publics to meld the European and Arab/Muslim civilizations in the first place—still hasn’t caught up and remains locked in a pro-Arab/Muslim disposition. At least, the EU’s stance on Jerusalem would suggest so. Last week the new EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, “came down hard on the Israeli government” in her maiden speech to the European Parliament and said: “East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab residents and the construction of the separation barrier.” Her words prompted Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon to reply: “Just as the Romans did not succeed in cutting off Jerusalem from Israel, so too will diplomats from the UN and the EU be unsuccessful as well.” Ashton, previously the EU’s trade commissioner and expected to be given considerable authority as a new sort of EU foreign minister, also called Israel’s recently launched ten-month moratorium on settlement construction a “first step”—representing, as the EUobserver comments, “a cooler tone than EU foreign ministers who last week took ‘positive note’ of the move.” The EUobserver also pointed out that the speech was “significant for what it left out: Ms Ashton did not say that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, that it faces a security threat from Palestinian ‘terrorists’ or that Palestinians should immediately return to formal peace talks—the classic tenets of Israeli supporters.” Ashton’s statements also come hard on the heels of an EU-Israel spat over Jerusalem in which the EU explicitly called for East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state. That demand was later only partially toned-down under intense Israeli objections. In other words, even at a time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly accepted the call for a Palestinian state and enraged part of his right-wing base with the settlement moratorium, the EU keeps reflexively embracing Arab/Muslim positions.
As always, the EU’s stance on Jerusalem ignores several facts. Jerusalem was unified under Israeli sovereignty in 1967, after nineteen years in which Jordan illegally occupied the city and finally used it to attack Israel despite being implored by Israel to keep out of the fighting. Under Israeli rule, Muslims and all other groups (except Jews—on the Temple Mount itself) have enjoyed full freedom of worship—a stark contrast to the nineteen years of Jordanian rule when Jews and Christians were denied access to Jerusalem’s holy places and Jewish synagogues and gravestones were destroyed and desecrated. Muslims already have full control over Mecca, Medina, and countless sacred locales and shrines throughout the vast Muslim world, and their demand for Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem and the redivision of Israel’s capital can reasonably be regarded as excessive – especially when, as noted, Israel gives Muslims full access to their Jerusalem shrines and full rights in the city. Indeed, Jerusalem is full of minarets, and any visitor to its Old City or its Arab neighborhoods can attest to the vibrancy of Muslim religious life there. The EU should be more concerned with Islamization on the continent than with taking harsh stances against Israel as it struggles to survive and to find the right mix of accommodation and steadfastness in an Arab/Muslim environment hostile its very existence. But for the EU, after decades of forsaking its Judeo-Christian roots for pro-Arabism, that may be too much to expect. Even if European populations are starting to grasp the consequences of this civilizational self-abnegation, Europe’s Brussels-based bureaucracy remains willfully ignorant of the stakes. FPM 
 IN The Year 2000, Israelis and the Palestinians were on the verge of signing at Camp David, under the auspices of the then American President Bill Clinton, a historical agreement that would have settled all the disputes between them and brought peace and prosperity to the Middle East, in general, and to the Muslims of Palestine and the Jews of Israel, in particular. This agreement would also have made our earth a much better place for all of us to live in relative peace. But when all the arrangements were ready for the signing of the agreement, the Palestinians backed out, demanding, among others, that the Israelis grant them complete sovereignty over East Jerusalem’s Islamic holy site, in particular, the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But what right do the Muslims have to claim their complete sovereignty over East Jerusalem and why Israel should not cave in to their demand? To find the answer to this crucial question, we need to go to the Quran and see what it says about Jerusalem and if Muslims have at all any right over it. The name “Jerusalem” does not appear in the Quran.
However, a verse in it supposedly alludes to Jerusalem, saying: 17:1: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless,- in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things).” Muhammad was clearly the speaker of this verse. He claimed that Allah took him for a journey by night from the Sacred Mosque (in Mecca) to the farthest Mosque whose precinct Allah blessed in order that he could show Muhammad some of His Signs. Muhammad, however, did not describe where that farthest mosque was located and what Signs of Allah he had seen at or in the vicinity of that mosque. In the footnote to the above verse, Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, one of the foremost Muslim scholars, confirms that the Mosque referred to in the verse was located in Jerusalem.[1] N. J. Dawood holds the same opinion.[2] Abdullah Yusuf Ali, having been helped by the Hadith literature as well as by his strenuous study of them, which also enabled him to elucidate the mystical meaning of the journey, maintains: “The holy Prophet was first transported to the seat of the earlier revelations in Jerusalem, and then taken through the seven heavens, even to the Sublime Throne, and initiated into the spiritual mysteries of the human soul struggling in Space and Time.”[3] The location of the so-called ‘Farthest Mosque’ (‘Masjidul Aqsa’ in Arabic) thus established, let us now focus on whether the night journey Muhammad had allegedly made was corporeal, or a dream But before doing that, let us note one important fact, it being: curiosity to know has always been one of mankind’s strongest instincts. It is not that this instinct is possessed only by the humans, even animals, such as ape and bear et al, are also born with it that allows them to know their surroundings before they can venture out into a difficult and dangerous world of their own. The fact that man had always been curious to know about him, his supposed creator, his surroundings and the universe is manifest from the religious scriptures, in which, at least eighty-five percent of today’s world population firmly believe, supposedly, in order to live a “righteous life.” From these scriptures, we learn how our distant ancestors had tried to uncover the heavens’ secrets. Two of the secrets they tried to unveil related to our origin and the mysteries that abound in the heavens. Because all humans have originated from a single couple (i.e. Adam and his wife who had only sons and no daughters), all humans in the beginning naturally spoke a single language. Using the unity brought to them by their common language, they took to building a tower to the heavens, so that they could learn what was going on inside each one of the seven heavens. More at Islam Watch
 Three members of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group were indicted in Jerusalem three weeks ago, when a gag order had been clamped on the case. It was released for publication Monday that the suspects, including Mahmoud Arnout, a senior member of the Brotherhood in Jerusalem, funneled money for offices of the terrorist group. He and two co-members also were charged with developing a project for 300 residential units, one-third of them for the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Jabel Mukabar neighborhood in Jerusalem. They operated under the name of the Muslim chairty name Dawah to establish a terrorist cell to help Arabs whose houses faced demolition after having been built illegally in the city. Arnout also transferred $50,000 for renting offices for the Brotherhood and was in the process of obtaining more money from terrorists outside the country when he and his cell were arrested. The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm in Israel is the Islamic Movement, whose leader Sheikh Raad Salah has been arrested numerous times for incitement.
YNet
 After handing out construction freeze orders to all West Bank council heads, the Civil Administration on Monday sent supervisors to patrol West Bank settlements and enforce the orders approved by the cabinet. The supervisors carry different documents that are meant to help them determine whether any changes were made on the construction grounds. They will also receive aerial shots taken last Friday, to help compare the existing land conditions with any changes made in the future. According to the directive, all construction work that began by last Friday and did not lay foundations, must be stopped. Violation of the directive will prompt an immediate order to halt construction. If construction continues, work tools can be seized and enforcement forces can be called on scene. Violators may be charged and face up to two years in prison. As of Monday, a few orders were handed out to seize construction in several locations; however no unusual incidents were reported. Data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics confirms the claim that construction in the West Bank region was already at a low point prior to the cabinet's decision to freeze construction. According to the data, 1,199 new construction projects began between January and September – a 27.6% decrease from last year's number. Despite the nation-wide decline in construction, an increase was recorded in several areas such as Jerusalem, which recorded a 25% increase. The sharpest decline was recorded in the Tel Aviv area (39%), while the West Bank region came in second. Meanwhile, controversy among cabinet ministers over the freeze order continued. Minister Silvan Shalom, who was out of the country during the cabinet vote on the construction freeze, said he did not know the vote was scheduled to take place – but would have voted against it. "Freezing the construction is unnecessary, and will not bring Palestinians back to the negotiations table," Shalom said. Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon called for the establishment of a governmental committee that will deal with the hardships facing West Bank residents under the new conditions. Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday announced the recruitment of an additional 40 construction inspectors that will help the 14 currently employed inspectors enforce the temporary freeze. Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan criticized Barak, saying "he is not so innocent; he has a political agenda." The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel filed a petition with the High Court of Justice to revoke the decision to halt construction, until a suitable governmental decision is made. The petition, which was filed against Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Security Cabinet, claimed the construction freeze severely harms the basic rights of West Bank residents. The petition further claimed that the decision was not rooted on defense considerations and therefore should be made by the government and not the cabinet. YNet
 IT was the moment the Palestinians might have had a state, with a capital in East Jerusalem. For a single moment, the dove of peace hovered hopefully over the Middle East. On September 16 last year, the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, offered the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the most far-reaching and comprehensive peace deal any Israeli prime minister has ever offered. Mr Olmert recalls his pleas to Mr Abbas to accept the deal: "I said to him, do you want to keep floating forever - like an astronaut in space - or do you want a state? I told him he'd never get anything like this again from an Israeli leader for 50 years." Mr Olmert, who as a rule avoids the media these days, has undertaken hours of discussion and interviews with The Weekend Australian and provided unprecedented detail of his peace offer to Mr Abbas. The interviews took place amid growing tension over West Bank settlements. Palestinians appealed to the US yesterday to raise pressure on Israel, saying an Israeli plan to halt new construction in the West Bank was insincere. Mr Olmert says such disputes could have been resolved with his deal. He recalls meeting Mr Abbas more than 35 times for "intense, serious" negotiations, in the two years leading up to the September 16 offer last year. Mr Olmert says his offer to Mr Abbas included a Palestinian state occupying 94 per cent of the West Bank and all of Gaza. This would have allowed Israel to keep the major Jewish population areas in the settlements in the West Bank. But in return he would have given the Palestinians an equal parcel of land from Israel proper in compensation. He offered Palestinian sovereignty over all the Arab areas of East Jerusalem, so that it could function as a capital for the new Palestinian state. Dividing Jerusalem is an explosive issue in Israeli politics. Mr Olmert recalls his own struggle to come to grips with his offer on Jerusalem: "This was a very sensitive, very painful, soul-searching process. While I firmly believed that historically and emotionally Jerusalem was always the capital of the Jewish people, I was ready that the city should be shared." Perhaps Mr Olmert's most radical and audacious proposal was for an international administration of the sites in Jerusalem holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians. Mr Olmert proposed forming an area of "no sovereignty" to be administered jointly by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the new Palestinian state, Israel and the US. He offered to build a tunnel, under Palestinian control, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Mr Olmert says every European leader, and senior Americans, who knew of the plan acknowledged it as the most far-reaching and extensive peace offer Israel has made. Mr Olmert still regards Mr Abbas as a peace partner for Israel. "I think he's genuine in his desire to achieve a Palestinian state and he recognises the right of Israel to exist," he says. Mr Olmert speculates that Mr Abbas didn't accept the deal because he felt he could not deliver the Palestinian commitment to it, or perhaps because he feared the outcome of approaching Israeli elections. But nor did Mr Abbas directly reject the deal. Instead he said he wanted to bring experts back with him the next day. But the next day, the Palestinians' chief negotiator postponed the meeting. "I never saw him again," Mr Olmert says. The Australian
 How did the media report building plans for a Jerusalem suburb?Israel has recently come in for international criticism over the approval for construction of 900 housing units in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Irrespective of one's views on this policy, it is the responsibility of the media to report on Gilo accurately and with the relevant context. So how did some of the media refer to Gilo? -
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The "Gilo settlement in Jerusalem." - Reuters -
A "Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem." - BBC -
A "controversial settlement on the outskirts of east Jerusalem." - The Guardian -
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"one of a dozen Israeli settlements in mostly Arab east Jerusalem." - AFP -
A "part of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians." - LA Times
The Christian Science Monitor could not even decide on Gilo's location, introducing it as a "Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem" in the first paragraph of the story and then referring to the "area in southern Jerusalem" in the next. The prize for the worst inaccuracy, however, goes to The Times of London, whose staff editorial spoke of "Israel's decision to go ahead with new settlements around Jerusalem." Of course, Gilo is certainly not new and, while some existing areas are being developed within existing boundaries to allow for natural growth, there are no plans whatsoever on the part of the Israeli government to create any new settlements in the Jerusalem region. Is this symptomatic of the journalistic laziness surrounding the entire issue of settlements and precisely what these actually refer to? After all, many media outlets do nothing to dispel the largely mistaken image of all Israeli settlements as a collection of isolated homes on windswept hilltops. In the case of Gilo, this is as far from the truth as could be possible. And who then is influencing the language of those international politicians who are critical of the Israeli building plans? Are the media responsible for creating a skewed impression of Gilo due to past indiscretions regarding the language of settlements? As Maurice Ostroff, writing in the Jerusalem Post, explains: The $64,000 question then, is whether Gilo is in fact a settlement and if so, what type of settlement it is. To all who prefer to analyze a situation before arriving at a conclusion it is important to look at the facts in context. ... The reality is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported.
It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land. The current building approval was not a deliberately provocative political decision by Binyamin Netanyahu as reported in some media. The plan was initiated a long time ago by the Israel Land Administration.
Since Gilo is an integral part of the city, the approval was given by Jerusalem's Construction and Planning Committee and, as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement released by his office, "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between east and west of the city. The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, as in the US and any other enlightened place in the world. The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to enable construction in every part of the city for Jews and Arabs alike." The Washington Post, at least, was more nuanced in its language, describing Gilo as a "disputed neighborhood of Jerusalem" and providing a map to put Gilo in some geographical context. CNN also referred to Gilo as a "disputed neighborhood on Jerusalem's southern outskirts". Indeed, CNN is one of a number of media outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Boston Globe and CBS News, which have all, in the past, recognized the particular geography of Gilo, referring to it as a "neighborhood." For more background, see this Jerusalem Post article and keep an eye out on how your local media outlet reports on Gilo. HonestReporting
 By Daniel Greenfield The same media which can’t be bothered to notice that there is a proxy war going on between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, with Saudi jets bombing civilian targets.
Who have paid no attention whatsoever to a week of violence between Algerians and Egyptians that included stonings and death threats, are up in arms over the building of 900 housing units in the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem. The Obama Administration and the media are naturally not upset by the Jerusalem municipality’s decision to build 500 housing units for Arabs in Jerusalem.
No they’re upset by a private Jewish housing project built on privately owned land. And that double standard aptly conveys their premise that a Jewish house in Jerusalem is a “settlement”, while an Arab house in Jerusalem is just a house.
A Jewish home violates the “status quo” and is “unhelpful for peace”, while an Arab home is just a home. There is of course a name for that sort of policy, it’s one that Jimmy Carter who is still continuing his tour on behalf of Hamas knows quite well, Apartheid. In response to the Nof Zion construction, Obama warned that, “additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel’s security”.But Nof Zion is not about security, as much as it is about an overcrowded Jewish population in Jerusalem looking for someplace to live.
When the Arabs seized half of Jerusalem in Israel’s War of Independence, they forcibly expelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem in a brutal act of ethnic cleansing that goes ignored by the same leftists who focus on elderly Arab men waving keychains in the air. Homes belonging to Jewish families were replaced by Arab families, who in turn were not expelled when Israel liberated and reunited both halves of Jerusalem in 1967. While countries such as England recognized Jordan’s annexation of East Jerusalem, they have failed to recognize Israel’s reunification of the city. This has led to the ongoing absurdity in which children born in Jerusalem are treated as stateless by the US government and the US embassy remains in Tel Aviv, while the US Consulate in East Jerusalem does its best to pretend that it’s in the capital of Palestine, completely refusing to recognize Israel’s existence. Were security the issue, Gilo which faces the Arab towns of Beit Jala and Al Khader, and has been shot at repeatedly from them, would be a poor choice to live in. But Jerusalem is bulging at the seams. The price of housing has shot up, and while US Ambassador Richard H. Jones may have told Jewish residents of Jerusalem that “Sometimes people do have to move to a different location. They cannot always stay close to their families”, the reality is that living next to their families is exactly what people want to do. Regardless of what the State Department thinks about the matter. 1800 years ago the Romans expelled the Jewish population of Jerusalem and renamed it Aelia Capitolina, a pagan city, and renamed Israel, Syria Palaestina. Today Obama and the State Department seem determined to do the very same thing.
By calling a Jerusalem neighborhood, a “settlement”, Obama is actively attacking the right of Jews to live in Jerusalem. If Jewish Jerusalem is a settlement, then effectively every other part of Israel where Jews live is a settlement too. When even even liberal US news outlets such as CNN have described Gilo as a Jewish neighborhood, in contrast to radical left wing British outlets such as the BBC and Reuters, who branded it as a “settlement”, Obama’s shift is a deliberate one. Helpful as always, UN Secretary General Ki Ban Moonbat stepped in to denounce Gilo as a “settlement built on Palestinian land that undermines efforts for peace”.
Considering that Gilo already holds a population of 50,000, the land was privately owned and the Jewish presence there goes back to the Book of Joshua, but the facts are no obstacle to the lies. More at Canada Free Press H/T: gramfan
 By Aaron Klein JERUSALEM – A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party today slammed as "racist" President Obama's longstanding demand for a halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem. "President Obama should not interfere with the rights of the Jewish people to live in Jerusalem," said Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon.
"This ... is a racist demand, saying that Jews cannot live in Jerusalem, only Arabs." Danon continued: "Our duty is to the nation that chose to deepen the settlement across Judea and Samaria, and of course Jerusalem. We will fulfill that duty, even at the cost of ignoring Obama and his advisers." The Knesset member was speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony initiating 124 new apartments in a Jewish housing complex in the eastern section of Jerusalem. In a separate statement, he told WND "the answer to Obama's racist request not to permit Jewish building in Jerusalem was given today when we initiated the construction of another Jewish neighborhood in Nof Zion (eastern Jerusalem)." "The people in Israel are united behind Netanyahu's position regarding eternal rights of Jews to build and live in Jerusalem," he added. Danon's strong words came shortly after Obama stated in a Fox News interview today that settlement activity in Jerusalem and the West Bank complicated efforts by his administration to re-launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations while it also embitters the Palestinians. Obama was responding to a plan to build new homes within a Jerusalem neighborhood called Gilo, where already some 40,000 Israelis live. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement that "at a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed." Netanyahu's office responded to Obama's criticism by dispatching an aide who sent reporters a message calling the building plan in Gilo "a routine process." The aide explained that like other foreign leaders, Netanyahu does not normally review municipal building plans in local neighborhoods. The aide added that Netanyahu saw Gilo as "an integral part of Jerusalem." "Construction in Gilo has taken place regularly for dozens of years and there is nothing new about the current planning and construction," the aide added. Obama had demanded a complete halt to Jewish construction in the strategic West Bank and eastern sections of Jerusalem, which Netanyahu publicly has refused. Palestinians routinely build in those territories, and at times the construction takes place illegally on Jewish-owned land. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Jerusalem that a settlement freeze should not be a precondition for re-launching stalled talks with the Palestinians.
However, WND reported the Palestinian Authority rejected a proposal by Clinton for Israel to largely scale back Jewish construction in exchange for the resumption of talks. WND
 U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell reportedly asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, during one of their recent meetings, to freeze a construction project of dozens of housing units in Gilo. Netanyahu turned him down.
Gilo, one of Jerusalem’s largest neighborhoods with 33,000 people, was founded in 1971 on land in southern Jerusalem that was liberated in the Six Day War.
Mitchell reportedly said that the construction risks raising tensions with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu refused the U.S. request, explaining that the construction in Gilo, as in most places of the world, does not require government approval. He also explained that the neighborhood is “an integral part of Jerusalem.” A government official said that Netanyahu “is ready to show the maximum restraint when it comes to construction in Judea and Samaria to help restart negotiations, but this policy does not apply in Jerusalem, our capital.” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also asked for a construction halt in Jerusalem areas liberated in 1967 – but she has also acknowledged that the negotiating process has never before been made contingent upon a construction freeze in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. INN
 RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinians have asked the European Union to support their plan to ask the U.N. to recognize an independent Palestinian state without Israeli consent. The plan appears to be largely symbolic, given that the U.S., Israel's chief ally, would likely veto such an initiative at the United Nations. The move, however, reflects growing Palestinian frustration with the deadlock in peace efforts. That state would be made up of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and have east Jerusalem as its capital. Israel captured those territories in 1967. It pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but has annexed east Jerusalem and maintains a military occupation in the West Bank. Palestinian official Saeb Erekat says the request to the EU was made Monday. Source: Foxnews
 "All the feelings that we've been through came back to me, tears simply fell from my eyes," said Miriam Avraham, who lost her daughter Alona in the New York City World Trade Center attack eight years ago. Abraham attended a ceremony dedicating a new Jerusalem monument in memory of the victims of the September 11 attack on the United States. The monument, which was designed by artist Eliezer Weishoff at an estimated cost of NIS 10 million ($2.6 million) is nine meters high and is made up of a waving American is transformed into a memorial flame. This is one of the only monuments outside of the US that features the names of all the 2,980 victims of the attacks as well as their home countries. Five Israelis are among the dead. Weishoff began thinking of a way to honor the memories of the terror attack's victims eight years ago. He originally thought of designing a medallion. After receiving then Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert's blessing and the approval of environmental organizations, the sculptor contacted the Jewish National Fund and built the monument together with the JNF. "The concept was a burning torch with the American flag waving with its folds creating the upward flow of lines," Weishoff explained, "I made sure that the New York City municipality sent us a piece of the ruins from the Twin Towers and we planted it as a basis for the statue itself." This is not the first time Weishoff's work is dedicated to terror victims. He also designed the monument commemorating the three women killed in the Apropo coffee house bombing in Tel Aviv in 1997. The Jerusalem monument is not the only one in Israel dedicated to the victims of September 11. Rishon Lezion, Ness Ziona and Beersheba all have monuments commemorating the victims.
 Dozens of settlers took over the home of a Palestinian family in east Jerusalem Tuesday in an ongoing custody battle involving 28 houses that courts say belonged to Jews before the establishment of the State.
The settlers arrived at the home, located in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, carrying a court order naming them as the legal owners. Police confirm that the order was valid. A number of the neighborhood's residents and human rights activists who arrived on the scene in order to protest against the settlers were arrested by officers that accompanied the group to the home.
When the protest died down, the Palestinian family remained in the central part of the house while the settlers occupied a segment that had been added on to it. The court order says the family must be evicted as they do not pay rent to the legal owners of the house, but eviction procedures have not yet commenced.
Representatives of both sides have been invited to the police station to attempt to work out their differences in a peaceful manner. The battle for homes belonging to the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood began with the capture of east Jerusalem by Israel in 1967 – when a Sephardic committee displayed documents proving the land had belonged to them prior to 1948.
However Palestinian families residing in the neighborhood, backed by the Jordanian authorities, claimed the property was theirs. In 1972 a court determined that the land did indeed belong to Jews, but said the Palestinian families already living there could continue to occupy the homes as statutory tenants if they agreed to pay rent to the original owners.
Most of the families refused to recognize the arrangement, and have since waged a legal battle to try to prove their ownership. In recent years most of the residents have exhausted all legal options, and authorities have begun to evict them. "About 50 settlers and 20 security men came here, broke the door, and took over," Salah al-Karawi, a resident of the neighborhood who was himself evicted recently, told Ynet. "My family is scattered at neighbors' homes. Look and see, there is a tent outside every home, and that's how they live," he added. Orly Noy, of the Ir Amim organization for coexistence, explained that the residents "were lodged here in the '50s by the UN and the Jordanian government." Noy added that the presence of Jews in the area was creating instability. "Clearly the presence of a hostile population of settlers in the midst of a Palestinian neighborhood does not add to the stability in the city," she said. "The settlers are trying to promote the appearance of a good neighborhood, but this is not the case." Maher Khanoun, who was evicted from his house a month ago, told Ynet it had been a painful experience. "Every time I see settlers going in and out of the house I was born in just kills me," he said. "All of the 28 homes here are legal. We have a contract with the Jordanian government, we didn't steal the land. What they are doing to us is illegal – throwing people out and taking their homes." Source: YNet
 In the movie, “Groundhog Day”, the main character wakes up day after day, trapped in the same events, desperately looking for a way out of that living nightmare. It’s a very good metaphor for the Middle East.
Here are some quotes from a book whose title I will reveal in a moment:
“The only truly transcendent law in the Middle East is that of unintended consequences.”
“Nation-building and the redressing of historic wrongs were in the air…”
“His fighters secured control of key rivers, recaptured Kut, and on (date withheld) stormed victoriously into Baghdad. Still undecided was how this famous city—and, indeed, most of Mesopotamia—would now be governed.”
“I suppose we have underestimated the fact that this country is really an inchoate mass of tribes which can’t as yet be reduced to any system. The Turks didn’t govern and we have tried to govern…and failed.”
And finally “Our armies have come into your cities and lands not as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.”
All this and more was said in the 1920s by British imperialists. If it sounds like things being said by Americans, then you must assume that America has been repeating all the mistakes of Great Britain in the exact same places.
The book being quoted is “Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East” by Karl E. Mayer and Shareen Blair Brysac ($18.95, W.W. Norton, softcover) and its five-hundred pages are devoted to the extraordinary personalities of the 1920s who, believing it was Great Britain’s duty was to bring civilization to India, Africa, and the Middle East, devoted themselves to “Pax Britannia”, the rule of distant colonies representing a fourth of the world’s population.
The book is a reminder that whatever passes for modernity in the Middle East has generally been imposed by the process of European colonization in quest of its oil and other riches to fatten the profits of various British, French, and American business enterprises such as the Suez Canal and the oil companies.
Left to themselves the polyglot of tribes would never have experienced anything resembling modernization.
Afghanistan today would look very much the same to the earliest invaders and explorers who passed through it. No roads. No hospitals. Few schools. No jobs except raising poppies for the heroin trade or serving in the army or police. Men raised from youth to fight anyone and everyone. Pushtuns, Tajiks, Hazarus, Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Qizilbash.
The Middle East had been ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire for centuries—from Egypt to Persia. Going back even further in history, the region was no stranger to European invasions. The Crusades were a response against the Islamic invaders that at one point had laid siege to Vienna.
As the authors note, “In his history of Jerusalem, the Israeli writer Amos Elon calculates that over four millennia the Holy City has known ‘twenty ruinous sieges, two intervals of total destruction, eighteen recent reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religion to another.” In 1967 visitors could find the remnants of “Roman encampments, Crusader castles, Turkish parapets, and British pillboxes.”
To suggest, for example, that after more than sixty years of Israeli national sovereignty that Arab neighbor nations (and Iran) have the slightest intention of allowing it to exist is to ignore the history of centuries old intolerance directed against both Christian and Jew.
Following World War One, England and France divided the remains of the Ottoman Empire that had chosen to side with Germany. It would have died sooner or later of its own dead weight, but it was Sir Percy Zachariah Cox who would take out “a map and a pencil to draw the boundary between Iraq and the Nejd (now Saudi Arabia). The borders with Syria and Transjordan were defined similarly.”
There were Arab leaders, but they were generally the pawns of the great powers, frequently assassinated or deposed. With some exceptions, the nations of the Middle East continue to be ruled by monarchs and despots.
As the British Empire shrank in the wake of World War Two and American power grew only one thing is clear.
Neither of these imperial powers had any clue, nor way of dealing with the Middle East’s regressive Islamic fanaticism that remains a ceaseless threat to Western civilization. And, as in past times, the debates rage about staying in or getting out.
Every day in the Middle East is Groundhog Day.
 Thousands of police officers have deployed in Jerusalem Friday in advance of Muslim prayers on the Temple Mount. Police are on high alert following a week in which Muslims rioted in and around Jerusalem, as Muslim and Arab leaders accused Israel of attempting to harm the al-Aksa Mosque atop the Mount. In an attempt to reduce the chance of riots, police have limited access to the Temple Mount to Muslims only - only females, or men who are under age 18 or over 50.
In addition, only those with Israeli or Jerusalem identity cards will be allowed in, while foreign Muslims will be told to pray elsewhere. Tensions remained high on Thursday. While relative quiet was maintained in Jerusalem's Old City, attacks on Jews were reported in the nearby neighborhood of Mei Shiloach (Silwan) and across Judea and Samaria. Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Movement call to 'Defend Al-Aksa'
As Israel attempts to reduce tensions, Hamas, Fatah and the Israel-based Islamic Movement have each called on Muslims to “defend al-Aksa.” Hamas declared Friday a “Day of Rage” and called on followers to protest, while Fatah called for a general strike on Friday on behalf of the al-Aksa mosque. Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of working with “Jewish extremists” by allowing them to enter the Temple Mount compound. The Islamic Movement, an Israel-based Muslim organization that does not recognize Israel, has called for Israeli Muslims to arrive in Jerusalem for Friday prayers, and to ignore police limitations on the number or age of worshippers to be allowed in.
UN Called to Intervene
The Palestinian Authority has called on the United Nations to intervene in Jerusalem in order to prevent Israel from taking action regarding the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount. PA officials, along with senior members of Fatah and Hamas, have accused Israel of planning to allow religious Jews increased access to the Mount. PA minister Riyad al-Maliki relayed the request to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday during a visit to New York. “I informed him of the escalation of Israel's policy against Palestinians and against the al-Aksa Mosque,” he told AFP. The PA and Muslim leaders have accused Israel of sparking Muslim riots in and around Jerusalem by allowing religious Jews – described in PA media as “extremist settlers” - to visit the Temple Mount. Source: INN
 This week, The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) is marking the 30th consecutive year in which Christians from all corners of the globe have ascended to Jerusalem to celebrate the biblical Feast of Tabernacles. More than 5,000 Christian pilgrims from over 80 nations arrived in Jerusalem in recent days to take part in this week-long celebration, making it once again Israel’s largest annual tourist event and the largest solidarity mission to Israel this year. On Tuesday, during the annual Jerusalem March, Feast pilgrims were in national costumes while others wore specially designed “Jerusalem United” T-shirts to convey Christian support for a "united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty." “The status of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is once again being assailed, even to the ludicrous point of denying the 3,000 year old Jewish connection to the city. The Christian Embassy was founded 30 years ago on the principle of marshalling global support for a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty and we have never left that mandate,” said Malcolm Hedding, ICEJ Executive Director. Referring to the recent Arab riots that erupted amid rumors that a group of Jewish extremists was planning to visit the Temple Mount, Hedding stated that Israeli authorities have shown great responsibility in handling the tensions. “The way Israel has responded to the recent scenes involving crowds of agitators trying to deny the rights of others to visit Jerusalem’s holy sites only reinforces our confidence in Israel as the proper guardians of this city, to ensure freedom of access for all peoples,” he said. “The world is constantly declaring that Israel should adhere to human rights, parity and greater access of movement but is absolutely silent when Israel tries to ensure all of these. As Christians, we call on all of those who see Jerusalem as a holy and important city to reject this double standard.” Hedding also referred to the importance of Jerusalem in general and the work the ICEJ was undertaking in the political realm. “At this our 30th Feast we are reaffirming our commitment to stand with the Jewish people in their deep spiritual attachment to Jerusalem, and to working in our home countries for diplomatic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s unquestioned capital,” he said. Source: YNet
 by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz Amnon Lin, a former Knesset Member and authority on the Middle East, told Israel National News' Hebrew-language radio that a segment of the Arab-Israeli community is taking its orders from global jihadist organizations, such as Hizbullah and Hamas. "We need to get used to the idea that today, among Arab Israelis, there is a very extremist group - led by the Islamic Movement, Raed Salah, Kamal Khatib and others - who maintain very close relations with organizations in the Islamic movement outside Israel, be it Hamas, the Hizbullah or other elements, such as Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon - the Muslim Brotherhood. Israeli Arabs no longer live on an isolated island," Lin explained. Connections between Israeli Arabs and Islamist groups worldwide, Lin said, are by way of the Internet, telephone, through the mass media, and more. This facilitates events such as the pre-planned rioting in Jerusalem this week, which can be essentially orchestrated from afar. "Nowadays," Lin told Arutz Sheva, "Arab Israelis have many methods by which to receive guidance, and even orders and instructions, that 'you must do such-and-such' and thus place the struggle for Jerusalem - that is, the battle for the Temple Mount - at the center." Asked by the interviewer if this constitutes, in effect, an operational arm within Israel of the global jihadist movements, Lin replied: "I am certain that [the Islamist leadership in Israel] is an operational arm that acts in full coordination with the leadership of the Hamas groups or of Hizbullah. It is all networked by the extremist fundamentalist Islamic movement." INN: "If so, then we have to treat it like a spy network, because we are a country that has to deal with existential threats." Lin: "I don't think you or I need to encourage the security services. They do their job well." Asked if he sees the justice system at fault for the growth of Islamic fundamentalist activity, Lin replied that, in his estimation, the legal penalties for terrorist activities are not sufficient to deter those who want to attack innocent Jews. "The only thing that surprises me," added Lin, "is that we, Jews in the State of Israel, apparently have not yet learned, and are not investigating or aspiring to learn well, the sad truth that describes the situation among the Arab Israelis - [that they are] not separate from the general Arab public or from the Islamic fundamentalist public in the Arab countries." Amnon Lin, a graduate of the Shomer HaTza'ir Kibbutz movement in pre-state Israel, started his political career as in the mainstream socialist Mapai party led by David Ben-Gurion. Lin was responsible for Mapai party activities among the Israeli Arab sector in the 1950s and '60s. By the 1970s, Lin had switched parties and joined the Likud under Menachem Begin. Then, due to local political issues in his hometown of Haifa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lin rejoined the left-wing Labor party, Mapai's successor. His last term in the Knesset ended in 1988. Lin has published several publications and many articles dealing with the Arab refugees of 1948, the Arab states, politics in the Arab Israeli community, as well as on the future of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Source: INN
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