07Apr 26 Israel News Launch

“Where there is no counsel, the people fall;
But in the multitude of counselors there is safety.”

When Necessity and Courage Meet

Everything we hear from Washington points to the conclusion that if Israel and the US are going to foil Iran's genocidal plans, there is an 18 month window of opportunity: the time left to Bush in the Oval Office.

'The world must learn from Israel about fighting terror'
By Ben Lando Jerusalem Post Correspondent WASHINGTON Apr. 22, 2007

International law dealing with terrorism is out of date and needs to be reevaluated, Israel Air Force Col. (ret.) Uri Dromi said on a trip here this past week. Doing so, in his opinion, will strengthen the ability of Western countries to fight terrorism. Currently the United States and Europe have incongruent military legal and military strategies, which cause them to lag behind Israel in fighting terrorism, Dromi said. He is working to create an international "consortium" of think tanks to consider how well the law is suited to handling terrorism.

In the Diaspora: Hallowing helplessness
By Samuel Freedman Jerusalem Post Apr. 19, 2007

Holocaust remembrance in the United States, very much unlike Israel, centers almost singlehandedly on mourning the dead. This worthy and necessary imperative has turned over the years into something that mocks the memory of the slain: a consecration of weakness, an association of victimhood with morality…. But in Jewish America, we like our communal heroes weak if not dead, and we measure our worthiness in our ability to claim victim status. Israel troubles us with its strength and its fallible exercise of power.

Syria threatens violence over Arab plan
By Jerusalem Post staff Apr. 16, 2007

Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal threatened on Monday evening to return the Golan Heights to Syrian hands "by way of resistance if Israel [rejects] the Arab peace initiative." Bilal did not elaborate, but some analysts raised the possibility of either a full scale conventional war or a terror campaign in the Golan as one of the means to undertake a mukawama ("resistance" in Arabic).

Related Story by Yaacov Katz: Don't underestimate Syria's military

The gist of the Israeli message in its recent talks with United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is that Syria is preparing for a military confrontation with Israel

US appeals to UNSC on Hariri tribunal
By Associated Press WASHINGTON Jerusalem Post Apr. 21, 2007

The panel to prosecute suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was meant to clear the air in Lebanon's fractured and suspicious political culture. Instead, it has become a defining symbol for the country's difficulties. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's weak government has demanded the tribunal be created, but the opposition parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, has not convened the legislature to approve the court. The deadlock threatens Saniora's government.

Hamas militants have fired a barrage of rockets and mortar shells toward Israel as Israel celebrated its 59th independence day. Hamas militants said they considered a five-month truce has come to an end.

Hamas' claim of responsibility for Monday's rocket and mortar fire was unusual. Since November, it has refrained from such announcements. This time, Hamas was apparently motivated by a desire to regain its fighting image in the eyes of the Palestinian public. Its statement even exaggerated the number of rockets and missiles fired. The attack was apparently timed for Independence Day to maximize its effect.

Egypt threatens to cut Hamas ties if rockets don't stop
By Khaled Abu Toameh Jerusalem Post Apr. 25, 2007

"The firing of the rockets and the resignation of Interior Minister Hani Kawassmeh [earlier this week] are part of an attempt by Hamas to extract concessions from President Abbas ahead of his meeting with Mashaal," he told The Jerusalem Post. "The meeting is supposed to focus on the possibility of including Hamas in the PLO. Mashaal wants to be deputy chairman of the PLO. At the meeting, Hamas will agree to a cease-fire with Israel on condition that Mashaal is appointed to a senior position in the PLO. This is extortion."

Al-Jazeera aired a statement by Ghassan Ben Jeddou, the network's bureau chief in Beirut, Lebanon, who had interviewed Prince Hassan in Amman and who said the tape contained remarks by the Jordanian royal claiming that a national security adviser in Saudi Arabia was financing Sunni militants to fight the Iran-backed Hezbollah group. The network identified the Saudi official as Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former Saudi ambassador to Washington.

The covert war
Middle East has become espionage hub teeming with secret agents
By Ronen Bergman Yediot Aharonot YNetnews.com 4-18-07

The two … events, as well as other dramatic incidences that have occurred in the Middle East lately - such the disappearance of Iranian General Ali Reza-Asgari, the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists, the disappearance of others, and the crash of an aircraft carrying revolutionary guard members – again highlight the extent to which the Middle East has become a hub teeming with secret agents operating against each other in a covert war with only a tip of it exposed.

A large and growing number of young Palestinians born abroad have no interest in coming to the Palestinian Authority or Israel, Palestinians in London have told Ynetnews. They expressed anger at Palestinian leaders for continuing to trumpet a "right of return," a call which is neither desirable nor realistic, the men said, adding that the demand is merely an attempt to force concessions out of Israel during peace talks.

Yes, there is a moderate Islam - let's support it
By Daniel Pipes Jerusalem Post Apr. 17, 2007

Moderate Muslims do exist, I reply. Admittedly, they do not constitute a movement but represent mere wisps in the face of the Islamist onslaught. This means, I argue, that the US government and other powerful institutions should give priority to locating, meeting with, funding, forwarding, empowering and celebrating those brave Muslims who, at personal risk, stand up and confront the totalitarians.

Attackers killed three people Wednesday at a publishing house that had been the subject of protests for distributing Bibles in Turkey, the government-run Anatolia news agency reported.

[The publishing house was connected with Campus Crusade for Christ.]

Last week we reported on the murder on Wednesday, April 18 of three Christian evangelists in the east Turkey city of Malatya (46 year old German missionary and father of three, Tilman Geske; 35 year old ex-Muslim, pastor of the local church, and father of two Necati Aydin; and Ugur Yudsel, a younger, ex-Muslim, already engaged to be married).

The young Muslims who performed the murder were university students, all 19 years old (this was planned on purpose, as Turkish criminal law prevents harsh punishment for minors under 20). The details of the murder are grotesque, reported as follows….

Bethlehem Muslim gang accused of using stolen documents to grab Christians' land
By Khaled Abu Toameh Jerusalem Post Apr. 20, 2007

Dozens of Christian families from the Bethlehem area are about to discover that their homes and lands have been "sold" to Muslims without their knowledge, Palestinian Authority security officials said Thursday. The officials told The Jerusalem Post that members of a local Muslim gang have been arrested on suspicion of stealing land and property registration documents from the Bethlehem Magistrate's Court.

What could be more natural, then, than for the celebrated international human-rights organizations, who rush to condemn Israel for crimes real and imagined, to cry out in protest against this ongoing cruelty to the soldiers' families?

Honest Democrats should admit that they are in a predicament: The electoral interests of their party are at odds with the interests of the country in Iraq…. And politically, Iraq is coming alive again. A Shiite-led Iraqi democracy is taking root--an astonishing achievement given the concerted efforts of the Iraqi Sunnis, and the surrounding Sunni Arab states, to attack and delegitimize the new Iraq.

McCain v. Reid This isn't just about politics.
by William Kristol The Weekly Standard 04/24/2007

Usually, politics is a murky business--gray upon gray, one set of mixed motives jostling with another. But sometimes there is a time for choosing--between courage and cynicism, between honor and disgrace.

John McCain's speech to the cadets of the Virginia Military Institute is the best single analysis by any political figure of where we stand in the war in Iraq. It is a serious and sober attempt to persuade the American people that the war is winnable….

Israel Prayer News Briefs: Be informed and pray accordingly.
We seek to digest the facts, spit out as much rhetoric,
bias and prejudice as possible,
shine a light on the under-reported aspects,
then position ourselves before God to pray as He leads.
This will produce much more effective Issachar prayer warriors for Israel.
–Donna Diorio www.israelprayer.com