ASSAD: WE’RE FIGHTING AGAINST FOREIGN MERCENARIES!
by Elad Benari (Arutz Sheva News)

Syrian President Bashar Assad insists in TV interview his regime is fighting against foreign mercenaries, not innocent Syrians.

In his first interview since December, Syrian President Bashar Assad insisted his regime is fighting back against foreign mercenaries who want to overthrow him and not innocent Syrians aspiring for democracy.

The interview with Russian TV, recorded on Tuesday and aired on Wednesday, showed that Assad is still standing his ground despite widespread international condemnation over his deadly crackdown on dissent.

“There are foreign mercenaries, some of them still alive,” Assad was quoted by The Associated Press as having said in the interview on Russian state news channel Rossiya-24. “They are being detained and we are preparing to show them to the world.”

Assad also cautioned against meddling in Syria, warning neighboring nations that have served as transit points for weapons being smuggled into the country that “if you sow chaos in Syria you may be infected by it yourself.”

Rebels and anti-regime activists have accused Syrian forces of mining many of the smuggling routes where weapons flow into Syria, mainly from neighboring Turkey and Lebanon.

Assad still has a firm grip on power in Syria, some 14 months into a revolt that has torn at the country’s fabric and threatened to undermine stability in the Middle East.

The UN estimated in March that the violence has killed more than 9,000 people. A UN observer team with more than 200 members has done little to quell the bloodshed, and some even have been caught up in the violence themselves.

On Tuesday, members of a team of UN observers were rescued by rebel fighters from the Syrian Free Army (SFA) after they came under fire in Khan Sheikhoun.

The observers reportedly came under fire when forces loyal to Assad opened fire on a funeral procession in the town.

Assad has denied that there is a popular will behind the uprising, saying foreign extremists and terrorists are driving the revolt. He acknowledged that there are genuine calls for reform and pointed to recent parliamentary elections as the cornerstone of his reform agenda.

The elections were the first under a new constitution, adopted three months ago, that allows political parties to compete with Assad’s ruling Baath party. The opposition boycotted the May 7 polls, saying they were orchestrated by the regime to strengthen Assad’s grip on power.

“To call for boycotting the elections, that’s the equivalent of calling for a boycott of the people,” Assad said in the interview, according to AP. “And how can you boycott the people of whom you consider yourself the representative? So I don’t think that they have any kind of weight or significance within Syria.”

Assad added that Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, are expected to visit Syria this month and said that he intends to complain to Annan about what he called one-sided criticism of Syria.

The West “talks about violence, but violence from the side of the government, not a word about terrorists,” Assad said. “We are waiting for this, as we have before. Mr. Annan will come to Syria this month, and I will ask him about this matter.”

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Obama Administration is coordinating with Saudi Arabia and Qatar in arming Syrian rebels. Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood also is channeling aid to the opposition, the report said.

According to the report, the State Department previously has changed its position and has said that while Washington will not directly arm the rebels, it will cooperate with those who do.

The Gulf States have shipped weapons, including anti-tank weaponry, to help the rebels fight back against Assad, added the report.

JERUSALEM: LIGHT OF THE WORLD
Rabbi llan Goldman

The writer is Central Shaliach (representative) for World Bnei Akiva and the Jewish Agency to the United Kingdom.

Our sages teach us “Who is wise? He who discerns what is about to come to pass”.

It was perhaps one of the most horrific predictions, when a century ago, the Meshech Chochma foresaw the Holocaust. While it is very dangerous for us to try and interpret the spiritual cause of the Holocaust, it is fascinating to see how it was viewed in the pre-Holocaust days.

The Meshech Chochma in his commentary on our Parasha addresses the verse: ‘And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am Hashem their G-d’ (Vayikra 26:44).

This verse bears within it the secret of the survival of our nation for over 2500 years of exile. The Meshech Chochma gives three practical explanations for how this survival was ensured.

The first is with regard to the behaviour and guidance of our forefathers.
The second is with regard to the decrees which our sages had decreed to separate us from the other nations.
Finally, the third explanation is with regard to his horrific prediction. The third reason for the survival of our people relates to the practising of the Torah and Mitzvot. When in some generations many leave the Torah and find replacements for our values, for Eretz Yisrael and for Jerusalem, it results in an awful reminder: “If the Israeli (i.e. Jew) thinks that Berlin is Jerusalem … then a raging storm wind will uproot him by his trunk… a tempest will arise and spread its roaring waves, and swallow, and destroy, and flood forth without pity…”.

This statement, ‘Berlin is my Jerusalem’ was introduced by Reform Jewry.

However, this warning of the Meshech Chochma is relevant to us all. No matter where one stands on the Jewish spectrum, there is a danger of forgetting Jerusalem to some extent.

If we view Jerusalem as merely a spiritual centre, then for 2,000 years of exile we have been creating new spiritual centres outside of Israel and can therefore forget why it is that we need Jerusalem.

We can, to an extent, settle for our communities and our largely populated Jewish areas around the world and forget that our heart, our longing and yearning should be focused on Eretz Yisrael and on Jerusalem.

Elsewhere, the Meshech Chochma explains how since Eretz Yisrael is the place where Hashem dwells, it is ever more so the case with Jerusalem. Similarly, the Chatam Sofer wrote that Eretz Yisrael is sacred, and Jerusalem holier.

And it was Rav Moshe Feinstein who wrote that since living in Israel and more so in Jerusalem brings with it more Kedusha, holiness, we should all strive to live there.

For 2,000 years we have settled for alternative spiritual centres, which on the surface could seem as substitutes for Jerusalem. However, today as we celebrate 45 years of the return of our sovereignty to the heart of Jerusalem, we are closer than ever before to the fulfilment of the prophesy,– ‘For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem’. Then we will all, please God, merit to recognize how: “Jerusalem is the light of the world. And who is the light of Jerusalem? The Holy One, blessed be He”(Bereshit Rabba 59:8).

IRAN BOASTS OF END TO US-ISRAEL ALLIANCE
by Rachel Hirshfeld (IsraelNationalNews)

An Iranian newspaper tied to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently boasted that United States has “rejected” Israel within recent months.

“It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region,” wrote Sadollah Zarei, according to a translation by Reza Kahlili.

The author writes that the only “obstacle” remaining is the Saudi Royal Family and once it falls, Israel can be destroyed.

“With diminishing support for Israel and with the (upcoming) collapse of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, there won’t be any obstacles left facing Iran with its policy of annihilation of Israel,” Zarei wrote.

While Democrats continue to endorse President Obama’s polices with regard to Israel in hopes of emerging victorious in the upcoming elections, the President’s record on the Jewish state has hardly been favorable, to say the least.

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama reportedly held an off-the-record foreign policy meeting with nine editors and columnists, widely known for their extreme criticism of the State of Israel, in order to seek foreign policy advice in light of the November elections.

ABBAS’ RIDICULOUS CLAIM OF ISRAELI ETHNIC CLEANSING
by Ryan Jones (Israel Today News)

Israel’s “moderate” Palestinian peace partner Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday marked the “catastrophe” (Nakba) of Israel’s modern rebirth by publicly claiming that the Jews are trying to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its Arab population. If that is true, then Israel is the absolute worst practitioner of ethnic cleansing in history.

In a televised speech, Abbas accused Israel of “building settlements in Jerusalem and around it…while there is a massive destruction of [Arab] houses in the city and their original inhabitants are being uprooted on a daily basis.”

While it is true that the Jerusalem Municipality occasionally demolishes Arab homes, it does so because those structure were built without proper permits. The reality is that Jerusalem only demolishes a small fraction of the illegally-built houses for fear of international backlash, and that many local Arabs are getting away with breaking the law simply because of their ethnicity.

Abbas continued by regurgitating the conspiracy theory that Israel is targeting the Al-Aqsa Mosque that sits atop the Temple Mount and that it is “trying to make Muslims and Christians flee the city by imposing heavy taxes, a policy which can only be called ethnic cleansing.”

As a non-Arab resident of Jerusalem, this writer can confidently say that those high taxes are shared by all the city’s residents.

But countering Abbas’ specific points is not necessary, since the numbers simply do not support his wild outburst.

Since Israel took control of the eastern half of Jerusalem in 1967, the local Arab population has grown by an amazing 257 percent, far faster than the growth rate of the city’s Jewish population at 140 percent. Even in recent years, which is presumably what Abbas was focusing on, the Arab population’s growth rate has far outstripped the Jewish growth rate. For instance, in 2009 there were approximately 285,000 Arabs living in Jerusalem. A year later, that number had grown to over 293,000. Officials speculated that by 2035, Arabs would constitute 50 percent of the city’s population. (Numbers provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics)

Again, if Israel is what Abbas says it is, then it is the most incompetent ethnic-cleanser in history, and Jerusalem’s Arabs have little to fear. But that won’t stop Abbas, who knows well by this point that the international media laps up negative accusations made by himself and others of Israel’s antagonists with little or no reservation.

OBAMA SEEKS FOREIGN POLICY ADVICE FROM ISRAEL’S CRITICS!
by Rachel Hirshfeld (Arutz Sheva News)

President Barack Obama reportedly held an “off-the-record” foreign policy meeting with nine editors and columnists to discuss Afghanistan, Israel, NATO and the G8 Summit at Camp David. Many of the participants are widely known for their extreme and unwarranted criticism of the Jewish state.

According to the reports, the meeting included Peter Beinart, author of the recent much-criticized book, “The Crisis of Zionism,”, which bashes the American Jewish establishment, claims US Jewish youth are abandoning Israel because of its actions and advocates a boycott on the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, calling the area “non-democratic Israel”. He calls Obama the “Jewish President” and blasts Netanyahu and his father, barely mentions Arab terror while excoriating “Jewish terror.”

The meeting also included The New Yorker’s David Remnick, who has compared the democracy of the State of Israel to that of Syria and Egypt, and Time’s Joe Klein, who has disregarded the threat of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, stating that the regime is doing so merely to “deter Israel.”

Sources would not discuss the specific details of the conversation, as it was “off the record”, but did indicate that Obama looked to the group to “help improve messaging” on the aforementioned foreign policy matters in the run-up to the 2012 election, reported Politico.com.

White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor clarified the last point stating, “The President didn’t ask for messaging advice. He simply noted that before writing that we haven’t offered enough ‘specifics’ on a given issue, that we’d appreciate it if they called over and gave us the opportunity to provide more information.”

“If President Obama believes Peter Beinart’s opinions are credible or anywhere near mainstream thought, then that is a five-alarm fire for Israel supporters all across the world,” said one senior GOP adviser, according to the Free Beacon.

ARCHAEOLOGIST FINDS NEW SUPPORT FOR BIBLE’S ACCURACY
by Ryan Jones (Israel Today News)

A Hebrew University archeologist says finds at a new dig site near Jerusalem are backing up the biblical narrative of an Israelite kingdom centered on Jerusalem in 1000 BC, around the time of King David and his son, King Solomon.

Professor Yosef Garfinkel has been digging at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh since 2007. Carbon dating of unearthed olive pits has put the period of activity at Khirbet Qeiyafa at 1020 BC – 980 BC, almost exactly the period of time the Bible says David and Solomon were active in the region. The dating, together with the uniqueness of the finds, has made Khirbet Qeiyafa one of the most important biblical archeological digs.

Less than a year after working Khirbet Qeiyafa, Garfinkel unveiled what is believed to be the oldest Hebrew inscription found to date. At the time, Garfinkel said the inscription proved that vibrant, centralized and literate Hebrew kingdom existed in the area 3,000 years ago, just as the Bible says it did.

Last week, Garfinkel shared his latest find – two ancient models of shrines that very closely resemble the biblical description of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. The models would have presumably been used in religious rites.

Garfinkel also says it is now clear that Khirbet Qeiyafa was a walled town, which means it must have been part of a centralized larger kingdom.

Perhaps most importantly, Garfinkel says the site is completely devoid of pagan idols and imagery, and contains no pig bones, despite being well endowed with the bones of sheep, goats and cattle. Together this means the site must be Israelite remains, as the Israelites were the only local people forbidden from eating swine or engaging in pagan rituals.

All of this evidence combined is important because it counters the claims of some archeologists that the Bible is full of myths, which until now have been based on the lack of evidence for a large and centralized Israelite kingdom around 1000 BC.

“For the first time in history we have actual objects from the time of David, which can be related to monuments described in the Bible,” Garfinkel said in a press release. “Various suggestions that completely deny the biblical tradition regarding King David and argue that he was a mythological figure, or just a leader of a small tribe, are now shown to be wrong.”

Still, not everyone is convinced, and many Israeli archeologists and professors continue to label the Bible as national folklore. Garfinkel hopes that continued work at Khirbet Qeiyafa and other sites will eventually lay bare the truth.

CIVIL UNIONS DIE – TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE WINS!
Zionica News

In back-to-back victories in the culture war on traditional marriage, Colorado’s civil union bill died in the Colorado House and North Carolina voters decided to uphold the biblical one woman-one man marriage definition.

By a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent, North Carolinians voted to become the 31st state to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, applauded North Carolina voters for joining voters in 30 other states in upholding the historic and natural definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

“At every opportunity, the American people have demonstrated a deep appreciation for the unique benefits that marriage between a man and a woman brings to families and society,” Perkins says. “They recognize that marriage is the only kind of union that results in natural procreation and keeps a mother and father together to raise the children produced by their union.”

As Perkins sees it, this overwhelming support for marriage is the reason why President Obama and liberal congressional candidates across the country have not expressed open support for same-sex marriage.

PALESTINIANS REFUSE NETANYAHU’S PEACE OVERTURE!
by Ryan Jones (Israel Today News)

The Palestinian Authority on Sunday dismissed a letter from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas suggesting that the two men return to the negotiating table.

Netanyahu’s letter was a response to a letter sent by Abbas to the Israeli leader last month in which Abbas insisted that since the peace process had already dragged on so long, Israel must now agree to meet all Palestinian demands before negotiations resume.

Abbas’ letter concluded by demanding that Netanyahu:
1.
Accept the two-state solution on the 1967 borders with possible minor and mutually agreed upon land swaps of equal size and value;

2.
Stop all settlement activities, including in East Jerusalem;

3.
Release all prisoners, in particular those imprisoned prior to the end of 1994; and

4.
Revoke all decisions taken since 2000 which undermine agreements signed between Israel and the PLO.

While Netanyahu has already verbally agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, freezing and even uprooting Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and setting free thousands of blood-soaked Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons are red lines that almost no Israeli is prepared to cross.

While details of Netanyahu’s response were scarce, it reportedly reflected those Israeli concerns, and insisted that the Palestinians return to the negotiating table without preconditions, as the two sides had clearly not yet reached the “final status” phase as stipulated by the original “Oslo Accords.” Netanyahu is said to have stressed that Israel’s new unity government offers Abbas the perfect face-saving opportunity to resume talks without first making hardline demands.

Netanyahu’s letter also presumably reminded Abbas of the things he left out of his own letter, namely that while the peace process has dragged on far longer than anyone hoped, that fact is primarily the result of not only continuing, but escalating Palestinian violence against Israel over the past decade.

The Oslo Accords obligated the Palestinian Authority to stop all violence against Israel, combat and dismantle any groups that engage in violence, and educate its people for peaceful coexistence. Numerous surveys show that the PA continues to violate those terms, despite Abbas’ public commitment to “non-violence.”

Palestinian officials were hoping no one noticed the discrepancies between their demands and claims and their behavior of the ground, and tried to paint Netanyahu and his policies as the sole obstacle to peace.

The content of Netanyahu’s letter did not represent grounds for returning to negotiations,” Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi told Reuters.

Barring any about-faces by either Israel or the Palestinians, it is assumed that Abbas’ next move will be to again approach the United Nations to recognize a State of Palestine in the absence of a peace agreement with Israel. Abbas tried a similar stunt last year, only to be shot down by the UN Security Council, where the United States threatened to veto the Palestinian motion.

AHMADINEJAD: “ISRAEL NOTHING MORE THAN A MOSQUITO!”
by Rachel Hirshfeld (Arutz Sheva News)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compared Israel to an annoying insect Saturday, maintaining that the Jewish state poses no threat to Tehran’s nuclear program.

“Israel is nothing more than a mosquito which cannot see the broad horizon of the Iranian nation,” he said in northeastern Iran’s Khorassan province, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Ahmadinejad said “regional states” were being duped into buying billions of dollars worth of arms from “arrogant and imperial powers,” driven, in part, by increasing speculation of an imminent war involving Iran and Israel, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

Such military purchases, he said, are unnecessary because there is no such war on the horizon.

The Iranian President alluded to “rulers” who sold “their petrol” for $60 billion worth in arms. While he did not explicitly mention the names of countries, Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a 20-year, $60 billion arms deal with the United States, including nearly $30 billion for F-15 fighter jets announced late last year.

Ahmadinejad also maintained that war is not essential to achieve the “destruction of Israel,” IRNA reported. “If countries of the region cut ties with the Zionists and give them dirty looks, it will spell the end of this puppet regime,” he said.

Ahmadinejad has long denied the Holocaust and has threatened to obliterate the Jewish state, calling it a “cancerous tumor.”

Only a few months after taking office in October 2005, the Iranian President asserted that, “With the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism,” according to an IRNA report.

Last week Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “blasted the U.S. war-mongering rhetoric against Iran,” including President Barack Obama’s assertion that “all options are on the table.” He added that war “can be 10 times more harmful to the United States than Iran,” according to a Fars report.

Fearful of an imminent Israeli attack, Western powers continue to impose sanction on the regime, exhausting diplomatic solutions in an effort to curtail Iranian ambitions and the likelihood of an Israeli strike.

Last month nuclear talks were held in Istanbul, Turkey between international and Iranian diplomats in an effort to curb the Iranian program, which EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton described as “constructive and useful.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said last week that he was optimistic that there would be progress in continued talks with the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain – the so-called P5+1, Fars reported. The parties are scheduled to meet again in Baghdad on May 23.

Prior to the meeting in Baghdad, discussions will be held in Vienna, Austria on Monday and Tuesday to address “outstanding issues and remove ambiguities,” Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali-Asghar Soltanieh said, according to Fars.

MEDIA DISTORTIONS OF TERRORIST THREATS
by Ryan Jones (Israel Today News)

The Israeli army complained in a blog post last week that both the international and the Israeli medias paint a grossly incomplete picture of the terrorist threat facing the Jewish state by regularly ignorning significant security incidents.

In the post, army officials listed a selection of nine abortive or thwarted terrorist attacks in 2012 that received almost no media coverage. Most of the incidents involved Israeli soldiers apprehending armed terrorists before they could reach Jewish targets. For instance:

On January 2, soldiers arrested two Palestinian men armed with automatic rifles as they attempted to leave the Samarian town of Nablus. Had the two reached a Jewish settlement or a town in Israel proper, a massacre could have ensued.

On April 11, again at the Nablus checkpoint, soldiers stopped a Palestinian man carrying several homemade bombs, three knives and 50 bullets. The incident occurred over the Passover holiday, a time when Israeli regularly congregate in public in large numbers.

On April 21, two Palestinian teenagers were arrested after soldiers found them to be in possession of five pipe bombs, a gun and ammunition.

In addition to the incidents listed, it should be noted that towns and villages in the western portion of Israel’s southern Negev region continue to suffer regular mortar and missile attacks from neighboring Gaza. Most attacks are not reported, as they have become a regular occurrence.

The sad reality is that terrorist incidents have become so commonplace in Israel that they rarely make headlines, even in Israel, unless people are hurt or killed. The unfortunate result of that practice is that the security situation in Israel is painted as far less severe than it really is.

The IDF stressed that terrorists are still trying to kill Israelis every single day. Thanks to the efforts of Israel’s security forces, the vast majority of those attempts are thwarted, but that does not diminish the fact that Israel is facing an enemy as determined and hostile as ever.

While these incidents are probably often ignored simply because without casualties they wouldn’t sell newspapers or bring in viewers, there are many in the media that gloss over the unrelenting terrorism facing Israel because it does not mesh with their political agendas vis-a-vis the region.