UN Map with Shiloh

The Shiloh area on a map from the UN:-

^

It Failed

It failed:

...Reiterating its vision of a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders,
Reaffirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital,
...Reaffirming the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and recalling its resolutions 446 (1979), 452 (1979) and 465 (1980), determining, inter alia, that the policies and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,
Recalling also its relevant resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem, including resolution 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980, and bearing in mind that the annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community,
Affirming the imperative of resolving the problem of the Palestine refugees on the basis of international law and relevant resolutions, including resolution 194 (III), as stipulated in the Arab Peace Initiative,
Recalling the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 9 July 2004 on the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
Underlining that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, and calling for a sustainable solution to the situation in the Gaza Strip, including the sustained and regular opening of its border crossings for normal flow of persons and goods, in accordance with international humanitarian law,
Welcoming the important progress in Palestinian state-building efforts recognised by the World Bank and the IMF in 2012, and reiterating its call to all States and international organizations to contribute to the Palestinian institution building programme in preparation for independence,
Reaffirming that a just, lasting and peaceful settlement of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict can only be achieved by peaceful means, based on an enduring commitment to mutual recognition, freedom from violence, incitement and terror, and the two-State solution, building on previous agreements and obligations and stressing that the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an agreement that ends the occupation that began in 1967, resolves all permanent status issues as previously defined by the parties, and fulfils the legitimate aspirations of both parties,
Condemning all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism, and reminding all States of their obligations under resolution 1373 (2001),
Recalling the obligation to ensure the safety and well-being of civilians and ensure their protection in situations of armed conflict,
Reaffirming the right of all States in the region to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders,
Noting with appreciation the efforts of the United States in 2013/14 to facilitate and advance negotiations between the parties aimed at achieving a final peace settlement,
Aware of its responsibilities to help secure a long-term solution to the conflict,
1. Affirms the urgent need to attain, no later than 12 months after the adoption of this resolution, a just, lasting and comprehensive peaceful solution that brings an end to the Israeli occupation since 1967 and fulfils the vision of two independent, democratic and prosperous states, Israel and a sovereign, contiguous and viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security within mutually and internationally recognized borders;
2. Decides that the negotiated solution will be based on the following parameters:
–  borders based on 4 June 1967 lines with mutually agreed, limited, equivalent land swaps;
–  security arrangements, including through a third-party presence, that guarantee and respect the sovereignty of a State of Palestine, including through a full and phased withdrawal of the Israeli occupying forces, which will end the occupation that began in 1967 over an agreed transition period in a reasonable timeframe, not to exceed the end of 2017, and that ensure the security of both Israel and Palestine through effective border security and by preventing the resurgence of terrorism and effectively addressing security threats, including emerging and vital threats in the region;
–  a just and agreed solution to the Palestine refugee question on the basis of Arab Peace Initiative, international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, including resolution 194 (III);
–  a just resolution of the status of Jerusalem as the capital of the two States which fulfils the legitimate aspirations of both parties and protects freedom of worship;
– the just settlement of all other outstanding issues, including water and prisoners;
3. Recognizes that the final status agreement shall put an end to the occupation and an end to all claims and lead to immediate mutual recognition;
4. Affirms that the definition of a plan and schedule for implementing the security arrangements shall be placed at the centre of the negotiations within the framework established by this resolution;
5. Looks forward to welcoming Palestine as a full Member State of the United Nations within the timeframe defined in the present resolution;
6. Urges both parties to engage seriously in the work of building trust and to act together in the pursuit of peace by negotiating in good faith and refraining from all acts of incitement and provocative acts or statements, and also calls upon all States and international organizations to support the parties in confidence- building measures and to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to negotiations;
7. Calls upon all parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949;
8. Encourages concurrent efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace in the region, which would unlock the full potential of neighbourly relations in the Middle East and reaffirms in this regard the importance of the full implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative;
9. Calls for a renewed negotiation framework that ensures the close involvement, alongside the parties, of major stakeholders to help the parties reach an agreement within the established timeframe and implement all aspects of the final status, including through the provision of political support as well as tangible support for post-conflict and peace-building arrangements, and welcomes the proposition to hold an international conference that would launch the negotiations;
10. Calls upon both parties to abstain from any unilateral and illegal actions, as well as all provocations and incitement, that could escalate tensions and undermine the viability and attainability of a two-State solution on the basis of the parameters defined in this resolution;
10bis. Reiterates its demand in this regard for the complete cessation of all Israeli settlement activities in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem;
11. Calls for immediate efforts to redress the unsustainable situation in the Gaza Strip, including through the provision of expanded humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian civilian population via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and other United Nations agencies and through serious efforts to address the underlying issues of the crisis, including consolidation of the ceasefire between the parties;
12. Requests the Secretary-General to report on the implementation of this resolution every three months;
13. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

_______________________

The Foreign Affairs Ministry has now (finally) responded officially:-

The PA resolution can only harm chances for peace as it:

Reduces any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate and compromise while encouraging Palestinian rejectionism. The resolution is part of the PA's strategy to bypass direct negotiations by forcing its positions on Israel through third-party pressure.

Allows the Palestinians to ignore Israel's legitimate interests, especially in regards to the necessary security arrangements and recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Promotes further Palestinian unilateral actions that violate the agreements signed - with the backing of the international community - between Israel and the PA, as well as all internationally accepted frameworks for peace, including UNSC Resolutions 242, 338 and 1850.

Rewards the PA - at a time of heightened terrorism and official incitement - for choosing Hamas as its partner in government at a time when radical Islamist terrorism is raging throughout the region.

^

Archaeology in a Thousand Years' Time

What I just saw:-

The effects of foreign military interventions on production and distribution systems in occupied lands are commonly assessed through the study of textual sources and pottery typologies in Bronze Age archaeology and historiography. In this article, we explore the zooarchaeological record of the recently uncovered Late Bronze IIA deposits at Alalakh (Tell Atchana) to test whether the Hittite intrusion into Syria had any effect on the economic organization of local policies. The quantitative analysis of taxonomic compositions, mortality profiles, and body part distributions suggests that while slight modifications occurred in the distribution of provisions, the faunal economy of Alalakh did not go through drastic changes under Hittite rule.

That's the abstract from an article entitled

Provisioning an Urban Center under Foreign Occupation: 

Zooarchaeological Insights into the Hittite Presence 

in Late Fourteenth-Century BCE Alalakh

Can't wait for the archaeology reports in 1000 years' time.

^

The Jewish Right of Repossession

It is claimed that

The international law, in the form of several dozens of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, has already confirmed the Palestinian right to repossess their lands and to return to their homes over 130 times in 62 years. A resolution of particular importance to property affirmed regularly is, for example, Resolution A/RES/52/62 “Palestine refugees’ property and their revenues” of 10 December 1997...This resolution and others like it affirmed also the entitlement of Palestinians to the revenues from their property since 1948. The problem of course is that Western colonial powers, which created Israel in the first place, blocked any implementation of these resolutions and vetoed any resolution which called for Israel’s sanctions.

First of all, let's clear up one basic matter: 
UN GA resolutions and non-Chapter VII Security Council resolutions are not binding and do not constitute "international law".

And secondly, if there is a right of "repossession", it is that of the Jews.

...the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country; and...Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;...

And a professor of international law sent this to me:

There is no doctrine in international law which gives a people the right to claim possession of property simple because it was previously owned or possessed by others of their ethnicity. Nor is there any doctrine of international law that grants people the right to cross international borders and take up residence in other countries simply on the basis of property ownership or possessory rights. 
There is no doctrine of general international law that grants Arabs, as opposed to Jews, unique rights to property from which they might have been dispossessed. 
There are also numerous peoples around the world, including Palestinian Arabs, Germans, Russians and others, who had the legal rights in property of members of their group adversely affected by wars of their choosing. International law does not require universally overriding domestic legislation and restoring the property rights adversely affected by those rights. There are limited doctrines of international law protecting property rights in certain circumstances. None of these doctrines protects anywhere near what the Palestinians claims as property rights. 
Under international law, several dozens and even several hundreds of UN General Assembly resolutions do not constitute “the international law.” Under international law, all General Assembly resolutions and nearly all Security Council resolutions constitute nothing more than the recommendations of the representatives of the governments of states of the world. Thus, the ability of Muslim and Arab countries to pass at will UN General Assembly resolutions denying the legal rights of the Jewish people, including their right to self-determination, and asserting imaginary Palestinian Arab rights, such as the imagined right to murder Jewish Israeli civilians as “resistance,” does not alter international law. 
Incidentally, no Security Council resolution has ever purported to "confirm the Palestinian right to repossess their lands and to return to their homes."

^

< Sigh >

.

^

What 'Apartheid Roads'?

Spotted by me while on our bus home at the T-Junction, off of Highway 60 leading into Bet-El:

Notice the license plates

That looks like pluralistic traffic to me.

^

Demography Figures

I read this:

RAMALLAH, December 29, 2014 (WAFA) – The number of Palestinians and Israelis is expected to reach about 6.4 million each by the end of 2016, with the number of Palestinians in historical Palestine (including Israel) amounting to a total of 7.2 million compared to 6.9 Israelis by the end of 2020, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ report released Monday.

...PCBS’s report stated that the number of Palestinians in historical Palestine estimated at 5.9 million by the end of 2013 is expected to exceed the total number of Israelis by the year 2020 if the current growth rates persist.

...A total of 4,550,368 million Palestinians live in the West bank...Meanwhile in Gaza...around 1,760,037 Palestinians remain...


a. According to Yakov Faitelson, the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is 1.5 million.

Moreover,

According to the CIA FACTBOOK publications, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria fell down to 2.83 child per woman in 2014, compared with 5.70 child per woman in 1994. The TFR of Arabs had reduced more than by 50% in less than one generation.

b. According to Yoram Ettinger,

in Judea and Samaria, there are 1.7 Arabs as of 2013 (probably 1.74 in 2014) and 1.4 in Gaza (probably 1.45 in 2014).

and more here.

^

This Week's Mahmoud Abbas Word

...Abbas earlier stressed that visiting the Mosque and the city is an ‘act of support with the prisoner and does not mean normalization with the warden.’ 

^

Peeving With Eve

Eve Harow of Voice of Israel's Rejuvenation program and I discussing current events, or what she calls "Eve's Peeves".

Program link.

Listen in.

^

The Blonde and the Beard - Temple Mount Scenes

From here:-

And then there was Bnei Akiva:

^

More Biblical Narrative Confirmation

So, the Biblical narrative is fact-based?  Here is Yigal Bloch:-

Judeans in Sippar and Susa during the First Century of the Babylonian Exile: 

Assimilation and Perseverance under Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Rule

And from the abstract:-

The present study discusses the attestations of persons of Judean origin in Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets (of the period between 550 and 490 bce) as possible evidence of some aspects of the social history of the community of Judeans exiled to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar II. 

and Judah was carried away captive to Babylon (I Chronicles 9:1)

And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia (II Chronicles 36:20)

By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept, When we 

remembered Zion (Psalms 137:1)

...a group of merchants in the city of Sippar (belonging mostly to a single family) uses, in part, distinctly Judean personal names in the first generation of the exile, but abandons them completely in favor of Babylonian theophoric names in the next generation. In another instance, a group of individuals active mostly in Susa and probably belonging to the families of royal officials...displays the use of Yahwistic personal names even though the fathers of those individuals bore Babylonian theophoric names. It is suggested that the persistence of Yahwistic – hence distinctly Judean – names among royal officials or their direct offspring, even after the previous generation bore Babylonian names, reflects a considerable measure of tolerance toward ethnically foreign elements in the royal administration...

^

Why Does the World Tolerate Ridiculousness?

This is ridiculousness:-

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu 

said Sunday that Turkey stands behind Palestinians in their efforts to oppose what he called Israeli attempts to "reduce the Islamic character" of Jerusalem..."We back this stance against the reduction or the elimination of Jerusalem's Islamic character," Davutoglu said. "Turkey will not accept any impositions concerning Al-Aqsa and will do whatever needs to be done internationally to protect Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque."

No, not him and his smile.
His position.

I already today wrote about Hamas trying to fool the public with falsified photographs and locations. 

But why do cultured and educated diplomats and politicians across Europe and other countries tend to believe all this nonsense?

Well, they believed charges of blood cannibilzation.  And well-poisoning.

And Arabs follow through on these themes, knowing there will be people who simply don't like Jews not for what they do but for what they represent.

And that is dangerous because it is based on irrationality against which there really is no defense.

^

They Can't Even Do Kiddush

This

Two months ago I made a large Friday night dinner with friends and I proposed we perform the kiddush. No one remembered the words, but someone thought of connecting to the spirit of the times and Googled the text. When dessert arrived, one of my friends, a dedicated fighter in the army of liberation of the secular cart, said: “Listen, we need to write a secular kiddush for ourselves. Let’s talk about it one day next week.” Two months passed and the idea of a secular kiddush fell victim to both our busy schedules.

is what can drive me crazy.

How difficult can it be to get a few people together and write ip an alternative text?

They don't know Hebrew?

They do.

But they have an inadequate cultural background - fault of the schools (actually, the Ministry of Education).  

Couldn't they compose an alternative Shakespeare?   Of course, they could.

Bible, siddur, midrash - all that is strange, odd, foreign and totally unacceptable in modern households.

And worse is they can't seem to get together.  The pressures of work or tennis? Or boating?

By the way, this is the lead in to the piece:-

The ‘Israeli Friday’ campaign: No wonder it annoys us secular Jews ||It may be crass and arrogant, but the new media campaign to promote the traditional Sabbath hits non-observant Jews where it hurts.

^

Calling the Kettle Black - Very Non-Kosher

Here is extreme left-winger Akiva Eldar in Ha-Ha-Haaretz:-

The use Harel and his friends make of the language of democracy is in the best case sanctimonious hypocrisy, and in the worst case malicious cynicism.

Chutzpah to the nth degree.

^ 

Betar and The Munkatch Rebbe's Son-in-Law

I hope all recall this wedding video

A bit more on it:

...the wedding of the Munkács rabbi's 18-year-old daughter, Frime Chaye Rivke. The Grand Rabbi of Munkács (Mukacevo), Chaim Elazar Shapiro, father of the bride, makes a speech in Yiddish exhorting Jews in America to continue to keep Shabbes (to observe the sabbath day)...The marriage had been arranged six years earlier, though the bride and groom did not meet until their wedding day. Newspaper accounts indicate that some 20,000 people attended the celebrations.

By coincidence, I found this and read it all through:

The Bulletin’s Day Book, September 28, 1934
My own marital woes, which started because Svengali Hitler evil-eyed Mrs. H. W. into frowning on my anti-Nazi activities, have been completely adumbrated by something really big in the way of marital woes.

I have no reference, except incidentally, to the widely broadcast connubial troubles of that noble Chicago prizefighter who swings leather under the name of Kingfish Levinsky. I am using the Levinsky business merely as a springboard to toss me deep into the wilds of a place called Carpatho-Russia in Czechoslovakia where a keyhole snooper (Walter Winchell forgot to put him on his payroll, has just tipped me off to one of the juiciest divorce scandals that ever brightened a Broadway columnist’s day.

There’s a bit of similarity in the Carpatho-Russia divorce case I am about to unfold and the Kingfish Levinsky nuptial eruption. Just a tiny bit, but enough for me to use in the nature of what is known in newspaper offices as a news lead to a story which otherwise would be lacking in timeliness since it happened some time ago.

Levinsky, be it known, was married months ago to Roxanne Goldie Glickman, a fan-dancer. The wedding got its share of attention and ballyhoo. Now Roxanne is suing for divorce but the Kingfish is being very generous about the matter:

“It’s a nerve she got to use me for divorce,” he says, “and take my automobile in the bargain. But I still love her and if she wants to come back to me it’s okay by the King, but the mother and father must keep away.”

The Kingfish evidently was plagued with in-law trouble. So was the couple out in Carpatho-Russia. And right there the similarity between the two cases ends.

Permit me to introduce the principles in the divorce case that has rocked not only Carpatho-Russia and Czechoslovakia to its foundations but has caused violent temblors even in Poland and Palestine and has finally resulted in ripples that reached the sacrosanct precincts of the Day Book.

Exhibit one is the in-law, revealed to us in the semi-anonymity of the name “the Munkacevo Rebbe.” He is the Rebbe in the town of Munkacevo which is in Carpatho-Russia which is in Czechoslovakia. Hereafter he shall be referred to simply as Rebbe, or Reb.

Exhibit two is the daughter of the Rebbe, one Frumetl [Frime Chaye Rivke Shapira]. She is the wife in the case. Aside from that she doesn’t play a very important role, being more in the nature of an innocent bystander to a finish battle between the Reb and his son-in-law. Incidentally, at the time of her wedding she was only seventeen years old.

And now for exhibit three, the second principal in the scandal. He is the least anonymous base of the triangle. Day Book fans, meet Boruchl Rabinovitch, a swashbuckling young modern thrown by some inscrutable fate into an ancient Chassidic land, somewhat in the manner of a Connecticut Yankee waking up in King Arthur’s Court. Only Boruchl was in the Rebbe’s Court, which in its own field was every bit as powerful and omniscient as King Arthur’s.

About a year and a half back there took place a wedding in Munkacevo that had the populace not only of the surrounding towns, but also the neighboring nations, by the ears. You can get a weak sort of idea about what sort of affair this was by recalling the wedding scene in The Dybbuk, the play put on some years ago by the Habima Art Theatre. It must have been delirious. It lasted two weeks. That is, the celebration did. Reporters from Poland, (Boruchl was born there), from Hungary, from the chief cities of Czechoslovakia were there to provide not only the Yiddish press but the general press as well with color stories of the most colorful nuptials in years. From Prague came a Fox Film Company representative who paid the Rebbe many thousands of Czechoslovakian kronen for the privilege of filming the celebration for posterity, if not for Broadway movie temples.

Then, even as the most beautiful of dreams and the wooliest of nightmares, the wedding was completed and the couple settled down to their life of bliss in Carpatho-Russia. Or, more properly, in the Munkacevo Rebbe’s court.

Now there is where Boruchl, the young modern, made his second mistake. His first, of course, mean old mysogenists will say, was getting married at all. But, having married, he should have known better than to live with his in-laws. Boruchl, back in Poland minus his Frumetl, is now probably a lot wiser, beside being a year and a half older.

It wasn’t long after the hills of the countryside had stopped echoing to the talk of the wedding that a sinister note began to creep into the conversations, back-fence and bridge party, about the couple. That a scandal was brewing, even the miller’s apprentice in Munkacevo sensed. It was in the air.

The Rebbe, the townsfolk said to one another, had better quit poking his nose into his son-in-law’s affairs, or there’ll surely be an explosion.

And there was an explosion.

It appears that the Reb was “dead sot agin,” as our hill-billies might say, Zionism and anything and anybody that advocated Zionism.

Boruchl was for Zionism.

The Rebbe tried by might and main to convert him. But Boruchl, having his roots in Poland which is strongly Zionist, was adamant. Despite everything the Rebbe and his court could do to him, he persisted in being a Zionist, in reading Zionist literature and Yiddish newspapers. The court established a strict espionage over Boruchl, but nevertheless the young modern in King Arthur’s Court got around to the Munkacevo meetings of the General Zionists and the Mizrachi or Orthodox Zionists.

Quarrels between the youth and the old man were bitter and were becoming increasingly so when a blessed event dropped in on the almost forgotten Frumetl. This, the Reb mistakenly thought, would bring peace. So did the court think. And so did the townspeople.  But Boruchl thought otherwise. He announced that his son would become, on growing up, a member of Betar, the Revisionist Scout organization.

That was too much for King Arthur. He exploded all over Munkacevo. He called his flock to the synagogue and laid down the law. Take, he said, your children out of the Hebrew High School here, take them out of the schools where they are brought up in a nationalistic spirit. And if the parents defied his order, he threatened to invoke upon them a boycott.

There is no need to enter into the ensuing legal difficulties that beset the Rebbe, aside from pointing out that there was a law suit brought against him in the town’s courts by the Jewish Party which charged him with spreading irresponsible gossip against the High School and with proclaiming unheard of boycott slogans.

This nice kettle of fish gave off an aroma that Boruchl’s sensitive nose couldn’t withstand. He quailed under it. It was, to mutilate the metaphor, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Boruchl fled, leaving Frumetl, Boruchl Junior and the Rebbe and a note flinging his militant father-in-law’s rabbinate, which had been profferred to him as a wedding gift, into his teeth.

And now, the old man, perhaps contrite, has made representations to the lad in Poland, asking for peace. But Boruchl is determined to get himself a divorce. More from the Rebbe, our spy assures us unnecessarily, than from Frumetl whom he probably still loves.

Prague has heard about the business, too. And the Fox Film man who filmed the wedding has hurried out to Munkacevo to offer the old man 20,000 kronen for the film rights to the divorce case.

Now there’s marital woes for you, H. W., and don’t ever let me hear you mention the slight difficulty you had with Mrs. H. W. over that Svengali Hitler business. At any rate, Svengali isn’t my father-in-law, which is something to be thankful for.

And post-1937, following the Rebbe's death, the new Rebbe, the son-in-law was:

...rudely disrupted by the beginning of World War II, when he was unceremoniously deported to Poland. He was miraculously released soon afterwards and he promptly moved with his family from Munkacs to Budapest, where he managed to obtain visas and escape to Palestine. There he endeavoured to rebuild his shattered life but, as well as having to deal with the tragedy of the Holocaust and the deaths and disruption it had caused, his wife - always of frail health - died in April 1945.

and afterwards:

 In 1946, Rabbi Boruch tried to become the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, but retired from the race, not wanting to compete against the other contenders. Shortly thereafter he moved to São Paulo, Brazil, together with his second wife, Yehudis, in this way totally cutting himself off from his surviving chasidim and from his position as head of one of pre-war Hungary's pre-eminent chasidic dynasties. In addition, as a result of a change of theological direction, Rabbi Boruch had become sympathetic to Zionism and the State of Israel, concepts that had been anathema to his father-in-law and most of pre-War Hungarian Haredi orthodoxy. The Munkatcher chasidim who had survived the war were devastated by his refusal to lead them and many of them never forgave him for turning his back on them and for diverging so dramatically from the philosophy espoused by his father-in-law.

Rabbi Boruch returned to Israel in 1963 to become Chief Rabbi of Holon. He later moved to Petah Tikva where he headed a small Beis Hamedrash until his death in 1997...he was also a gifted orator, although his relative obscurity and personal desire to remain out of the limelight meant that he rarely spoke outside of his own immediate vicinity. In 1996, he published his works entitled Divrei Nevonim and Binat Nevonim.

But who was HW?

^ 

What's Behind The Partition?

I just hope the Even Shtiyah (Foundation Stone) is still there:-

Source.

^

A Matter of Tourism

This sounds good, correct?

ZAGREB, Croatia – This month, the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism (IIPT) Croatia marks its 2nd anniversary. A highlight of the past IIPT Croatia year was Cycling for Peace.

...in November 2012 with its inaugural session followed by a reception...Louis D’Amore joined in via video link from Vermont, USA, while Sneshka Richter, IIPT Director for Events and Development and Founder of IIPT Croatia, called upon not only representatives of institutions and organizations of importance to the IIPT within the tourism industry, but also individuals from different walks of life, with a clear message that it does not matter in which field we operate; it is important that we can join forces towards common positive goals.

This reads like wonderful news:

SRINAGAR, India - After witnessing worst slump in the wake of floods, the Kashmir tourism industry is fast refurbishing for the upcoming season.  To begin with the tourism department here in association with local stakeholders has decided to organize some cultural and adventurous programs in the run up to the New Year celebrations.

On December 29, Funtoosh- an entertainment firm would organize a skit at SKICC; On Dec 30, there will be a program to be organized by youngsters at Nageen Club and on December 31 tourist department will organize cultural programs at Gulmarg.

From January 3, the department will organize skiing training program in Pahalgam in order to promote it as an alternative skiing destination.

But, as you can expect, this item is to be viewed negatively:

JERUSALEM, Israel - The Israeli parliament's finance committee on Sunday voted through $3.3 million to build a tourist center at a settlement in the occupied West Bank...The money is for a project at the Barkan settlement in the north of the Palestinian territory, the Knesset statement said.  It comes less than three months before a snap general election on March 17 backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but denounced by the opposition...

^

The Latest Constructed Temple Mount Mosque

A picture Rotter picked up from an Arab source:-

I alerted my readers to this development over a year and a half ago, here.

It's in the space at the right of the women's section, at the bottom of the steps that are in a stairwell just inside the Moghrabi Gate to the left as you walk in. You can actually peer down.

^

But Where Were the 'Palestinians'?

More Jewish-Zionist historical narrative confirmed.

Official clay seals, six actually, were found by a Mississippi State University archaeological team in Israel and the claim is that they offer evidence that supports the existence of biblical kings David and Solomon.

Whereas the reality that David and Solomon were historical figures is disputed and that no kingdom they established existed as recorded in the Bible narrative, these new finds 

provide evidence that some type of government activity was conducted there in that period

The details are that Jimmy Hardin from MSU discovered clay bullae at Khirbet Summeily, east of Gaza and in the December 2014 issue of Near Eastern Archaeology published his preliminary results which indicate that 

...this site is integrated into a political entity that is typified by elite activities, suggesting that a state was already being formed in the 10th century B.C. We are very positive that these bullae are associated with the Iron Age IIA, which we date to the 10th century B.C., and which lends general support to the historical veracity of David and Solomon as recorded in the Hebrew biblical texts...Some text scholars and archaeologists have dismissed the historic reliability of the biblical text surrounding kings David and Solomon, such as recorded in the Bible in the books of Kings and Second Samuel, which scholars often date to the Iron Age IIA or 10th century B.C.  The fact that these bullae came off of sealed written documents shows that this site -- located out on the periphery of pretty much everything -- is integrated at a level far beyond subsistence...

...We believe that the aggregate material culture remains that have been discovered at Summeily demonstrate a level of political-economic activity that has not been suspected recently for the late Iron Age I and early Iron Age IIA...when taken together, these reflect a greater political complexity and integration across the transitional Iron I/IIA landscape than has been appreciated recently, as scholars have tended to dismiss trends toward political complexity (e.g., state formation) occurring prior to the arrival of the Assyrians in the region in the later eighth century b.c.e."

But where were the "Palestinians'?

^

Illouz' Illusion

Rabin’s assassination was the deed of a lone individual who was by every standard a highly functional and competent member of a community dubbed the “settlers’ movement.” (Although he did not live in a settlement, he supported them and the desire to scuttle the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords was the motivation for the murder he committed.) 

That was Ha-Ha-Haaretz's Eva Illouz, a Hebrew University sociologist of emotions, popular culture and the history of emotional life, and since 2012, President of the Bezalel National Academy of Arts and Design, rewriting definitions as she railed against what she perceived were "calls for anti-Arab measures or even violence".

In order to deprecate Israel as an unworthy member of human society, she reached out to France, noting

Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, responded to the waves of anti-Semitism that last summer shook France, a country in which Jews count for less than 1 percent of the population: “To attack a Jew because he is a Jew is to attack France. To attack a synagogue and a kosher grocery store is quite simply anti-Semitism and racism.”

The problem with drawing such a parallel is that the Arabs of Israel would have to be equal to the loyalty, commitment and respect displayed by Jews to France. Not only is that non-existent here, and worse, the violence displayed by Arabs to Jews here in Israel and our institutions - state, religious and cultural - is more lethall than that displayed, refrettedbly by Jews towards Arabs, but that the Jews in France suffer violence from Arabs far worse than the situation for arabs here in Israel.

True to her post-modernity, she turns everything about.  For her, life is but an illusion.

^