From: Eddie Chumney
To : heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Israel in the News
Israel
in the News
July
5 to July 11, 1999
TEMPLE MOUNT
IDF CALLS UPON CHAI VEKAIYAM [TEMPLE MOUNT ACCESS] LEADER TO
RETURN WEAPON
IsraelWire-7/8
Yehuda Etzion, the leader of the Chai Vekaiyam organization,
which is fighting for Jewish Freedom of Religion on Jerusalem's
Temple Mount, was informed on Wednesday that he must forfeit his
IDF issued weapon. This despite the fact that he is a resident
of the Samarian community of Ofra and uses the weapon for
self-defense when traveling. According to an Arutz-7 News
report, quoting Etzion, he does not plan to comply with the order
to surrender his weapon, calling the order "arbitrary and
unjust." Etzion stated he will take the weapon order to court to
fight for his right to protect himself pointing out that despite
his activities regarding the Temple Mount, he has not been
involved in any weapons related offences in the past decade and
there was no reason for him to forfeit his weapon at this time.
JERUSALEM
MRS. CLINTON: JERUSALEM IS ISRAEL'S 'ETERNAL, INDIVISIBLE'
CAPITAL July 8, 1999 By Barry Schweid, Associated Press Washington (AP)
Hillary Rodham Clinton, in pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat from
New York, is assuring Jewish leaders she considers Jerusalem the
eternal and indivisible capital'' of Israel. She also says she
will actively advocate locating the U.S. Embassy there.
"Of course, the timing of such a move must be sensitive to
Israel's interest in achieving a secure peace with its
neighbors,'' Mrs. Clinton wrote Mandell I. Ganchrow, the
president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
America, which represents nearly 1,000 Orthodox synagogues in the
United States. In a telephone interview Thursday, Ganchrow
called the statement by the first lady significant. "I think it
is important she understands the seriousness of the issue,'' he
said. "We would want to meet with her and try to gauge her
emotional attachment to these issues,'' the retired surgeon said.
"I think that's fair.''
ISRAEL
ISRAEL'S BARAK SAYS PEACE WITH ARABS URGENT
Reuters July 6, 1999 Jerusalem
Incoming prime minister Ehud Barak appealed to Israel's Arab
neighbors Tuesday to end the Middle East conflict swiftly and
thoroughly, calling peace with Syria, Lebanon and the
Palestinians equally vital and urgent.
Hours before he was due to be sworn in as Israel's prime
minister, the 57-year-old former army chief began a speech to
parliament by citing his 35 years in a military uniform as
incentive to make peace at home and in the region. "I call on
all regional leaders to take our outstretched hand and to make a
peace of the brave,'' said Barak, the Labor Party leader who
defeated rightist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a May 17
election.
Appealing to Israel's arch-foe, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad,
Barak said: "We were tough and bitter enemies on the battlefield.
The time has come to build an open and brave peace that will
ensure the future and security of our peoples, our children and
our grandchildren.'' He said his new, broad-based government,
comprised of 75 of the 120 members in Israel's Knesset, was
determined to advance negotiations with Syria "as quickly as
possible'' on the basis of United Nations land-for-peace
resolutions.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND CACHE OF RARE 'JESUS COINS'
Reuters in Ha'aretz 7/8/99
A cache of 1,000-year-old coins found near the Sea of Galilee
bear the likeness of Jesus and have Greek inscriptions praising
him, archaeologists announced yesterday. The coins were
unearthed in October in archaeological excavations at the site of
ancient Tiberias in northern Israel but only during a cleaning of
the find last month did archaeologists discover the image of
Jesus on 58 of the 82 coins. Some coins also bore Greek
inscriptions such as "Jesus the Messiah, the King of Kings," and
"Jesus, the Messiah, the Victor."
"This is the largest collection of these types of coins. They
are very rare," said archaeologist Yizhar Hirschfeld, who
co-directed the excavations. Archaeologists also found many
types of bronze utensils dating from the 10th and 11th centuries,
when the Islamic Fatimid ruled the region. Hirschfeld said the
coins were probably brought from Constantinople to Tiberias by
Christian pilgrims. "We know Tiberias was a mixed city, where
Jews, Moslems and Christians all lived together. Tiberias was a
pilgrimage site," Hirschfeld said.
Archaeologists found the coins and other objects in three large
clay pots hidden under the floor of a structure. The Crusaders
destroyed ancient Tiberias at the end of the 11th century but the
invaders did not discover the coin hoard.
PEACE PROCESS
CLINTON, NEGOTIATORS READY PROPOSALS FOR MIDEAST PEACE
Copyright 1999 Nando Media 1999 Associated Press By Barry
Schweid Washington July 7, 1999
Now that Israel's new prime minister, Ehud Barak, has formed a
government and put peace-making with the Arabs at the top of his
agenda, President Clinton and his Mideast mediators are likely to
move in quickly with their own peace proposals. Clinton said
last week he would invite Barak to the White House soon after the
Israeli leader finished selecting a Cabinet. And Clinton
declared that Israel's key to security was peace with all its
neighbors - a formula Barak says has his highest priority. In a
gesture of urgency, Clinton said he would outline his views right
after talking to Barak, and then went on to touch on two of them:
support for Palestinian aspirations for a homeland and for
Palestinian refugees living wherever they like.
Barak rejected Clinton's statement on refugees as unacceptable
and called for clarification. The president has not reopened the
red-hot subject, but administration officials in a damage-control
operation told Israel privately that the refugee problem could be
decided only by negotiations.
Clinton also called on Israel to carry out the land-for-security
accord he helped reach in October at the Wye River talks in
Maryland between Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel's prime
minister, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The Wye River
accord calls for Israel to relinquish an additional 13.1 percent
of the West Bank. Netanyahu halted after giving up 2 percent,
saying Arafat had failed to hold up his end of the bargain when
he didn't root out terrorist cells on land already under the
Palestinian Authority's control. While Clinton and other U.S.
policy-makers habitually say all land-for-peace decisions are up
to the parties and the United States would not presume to impose
terms on them, a private push or even a nudge in one direction or
another can be telling.
BARAK NEEDS TIME TO ACHIEVE PEACE-MUBARAK
Reuters July 9, 1999 ALEXANDRIA, Egypt
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said after talks with Ehud Barak
Friday he had high hopes that Israel's new prime minister would
make progress toward Middle East peace, but would need some time
to do so. Barak pledged to leave no stone unturned in search of
peace with the Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria to end the
Arab-Israeli conflict so that "a set of independent, strong,
self-confident states in the region'' could emerge as cooperative
neighbors. "I am confident that we have an opportunity we have
to exploit it to bring a new momentum to the peace process,'' a
smiling and relaxed-looking Barak told a news conference in a
sumptuous palace hall after more than two hours with his host.
Mubarak, describing Barak as "a man of his word,'' said he was
optimistic that the new Israeli prime minister would change the
atmosphere and enable stalled peacemaking to resume. "I have
great hopes, but give the man some time, two months, something
like this, to make a reshaping, a good estimation of the
situation, so as to go straight (and) steadily on the peace
process,'' he said.
Barak said he had deliberately chosen Egypt as his first foreign
call as prime minister because of its "unique role in
establishing the peace process'' and Mubarak's efforts to bridge
gaps between Israel and the Palestinians in past negotiations.
BARAK WANTS TO COMBINE WYE WITH FINAL STATUS PACT
Reuters July 9, 1999 Jerusalem
Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Friday that he hoped to combine
implementation of the U.S.-brokered Wye land-for-security deal
between Israel and the Palestinians with a future final status
treaty. "The Wye agreement will be implemented. The issue that
(Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat and I will discuss is
whether we can together ... find a way to combine the
implementation of the Wye agreement with a final status
agreement,'' Barak told Israel Channel One television.
PALESTINIANS FEAR BARAK NOT SERIOUS ON PEACE
Reuters July 10, 1999 Ramallah, West Bank
Palestinian officials lashed out Friday at Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak's suggestion that the Wye peace accords be implemented
in conjunction with a final peace deal.
"How can anyone who intends to build trust and restore confidence
and who intends to revive the peace process come and suggest
changes such as mixing between the Wye and final status
negotiations?'' asked chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
"There are issues that need immediate implementation and others
that would go parallel to final status talks, but we can not
accept any changes,'' Erekat told Reuters. "Implementation of
outstanding agreements complements the establishment of the
Palestinian state. One cannot be at the expense of another.''
TALKS ON WYE TO RESUME IN 10 DAYS
Ha'aretz By Aluf Benn, Amira Hass and Nitzan Horowitz July 12,
1999
Israel and the Palestinian Authority will begin discussions on
the Wye agreement in about 10 days, after Prime Minister Ehud
Barak returns from his visits to the United States and Britain,
Barak said after his meeting yesterday with PA Chairman Yasser
Arafat at the Erez Checkpoint. The two leaders came out of the
meeting with encouraging statements about building confidence and
understanding, and Arafat called Barak a "friend and partner."
Barak asked Arafat for six to eight weeks to formulate an outline
for the continuation of negotiations, and the Palestinian leader
agreed.
During his visit to the United States, Barak will present to
President Bill Clinton his ideas for advancing the peace process
on all tracks. According to diplomatic soures, Israel will
propose the following stages:
-- Formulating a joint outline with the U.S. Administration for
talks with the Palestinians and the resumption of talks with
Syria, during Barak's visit to Washington.
-- Shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
during the first week of August. The secretary of state will
visit Syria, the PA, Jordan, Egypt and Israel.
-- Establishing negotiation teams in the new government.
-- Resuming talks with the Palestinians in the end of September,
after the holidays in Israel and the UN General Assembly.
-- Summit meeting by Barak, Arafat and Clinton at the end of the
year, to declare "an agreed framework for the permanent
settlement," or a declaration of principles outlining the steps
toward a permanent settlement.
MIDDLE EAST
YELTSIN, ASSAD PRAISE BARAK
Weekend News Today By Andra Brack Source: Ha'aretz Jul 6, 1999
Syrian President Hafez al Assad and Russian President Boris
Yeltsin said yesterday that the formation of a new Israeli
government by Prime Minister Ehud Barak provides a chance for
"constructive efforts" on the road to Middle East peace. A joint
communique released by the Kremlin after the leaders met in
Moscow said that they believed the results of the Israeli vote
"open specific opportunities for constructive efforts towards a
comprehensive and just peace in the region".
In their joint communique, both men agreed that Russia should
play a significant role in resolving the Middle East conflict,
and called for "a multipolar world order in which no nation can
dictate terms to the rest of the world." Yeltsin said that Russia
supports a resumption of the negotiations between Israel and
Syria from the point at which they were suspended during the
Netanyahu era, and called Assad "a distinguished statesman and
valued friend and ally of Russia.
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From: Voices United For Israel
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Israel News
From National Unity Coalition for Israel
Phone 913 432 7900 Faxc 913 432 7997
Email voicesunited@mindspring.com
Web www.Israel-unitycoalition.com
WORLD JEWRY MOURNS LOSS OF 1ST AND 2ND TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM
On Tisha B'Av, Wednesday evening, July 21, 1999, thousands of Jews
from Israel a nd abroad are expected to take part in an old Jerusalem
custom: Walking Around t he Walls of the Old City. In previous years,
more than 30,000 people have taken part in the event, walking
literally in the footsteps of their forefathers and s ages.
This year a much larger turnout is expected as Jews the world over
will mourn th e destruction of Jerusalem and both the First and Second
Temples therein. On thi s same date, the First Temple in Jerusalem was
destroyed by the Babylonians (586 BCE) and the Second Temple by the
Romans (70 CE). Both of these tragedies befell the Jews on Tisha
B'Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, thus creating this
national day of mourning.
On this day, about 3,300 years ago, the Jewish people despaired of
ever successf ully entering and possessing the Land of Israel (Numbers
14:1).
IDF ALREADY PLANNING WEST BANK PULL-OUT
The IDF has already begun to reactivate plans, originally drafted
during Benjamin Netanyahu's term of office, to implement the Wye
accords, and will be able to carry out such an order within two
months. The fact that the accords, originally scheduled to be
implemented in January, never got off the ground has given the
army plenty of time to update and improve its preparations. During the
first stage of the second part of the withdrawal, implemented last
November, no IDF milit ary bases in the West Bank were evacuated.
Several bases, however, had been earm arked for evacuation or
relocation (because of their proximity to Palestinian Authority
controlled areas) in the subsequent stages that were never
implemented. The second phase of withdrawal will be concentrated in
the Ramallah-Nablus area, and will not require the evacuation or
relocation of any army bases, although some checkpoints will be
removed. (Ha'aretz)
GOLAN RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
The battle to prevent a withdrawal from the Golan Heights heated up
over the wee kend as several leading players met to discuss tactics.
Groups including the Golan Settlements Committee, Ma'amatz (the
coalition of extra-parliamentary right w ing groups) and Professors
for a Strong Israel held their first post-election me eting to draw up
a plan of action. Kiryat Arba lawyer Elyakim Ha'etzni cast a pa ll of
pessimism over the session by declaring that Barak's plan for a
national r eferendum "gives Assad an advantage of 18 percent due to
the Israeli Arabs." He said the only way to win the fight for the
Golan was by adopting Shas's method o f going door to door.
Eli Ze'ira, chair of the Golan settlements council, claimed opinion
polls show t hat 50 percent of the public opposes giving up the Golan,
but he was refuted by Prof. Eli Pollack, who said it was an illusion
to believe "the Golan is in the n ation's hearts." He warned the media
would soon be comparing weeping mothers of soldiers killed in Lebanon
to the settler's villas. "It will be our boys versus their money," he
warned, calling for lobbying Shas MKs as well as a campaign which
other speakers said would include hunger strikes and street rallies
uniting West Bank settlers with those on the Golan. (Ha'aretz)
FORWARD, JULY 9,1999
Putting the Golan Up for Sale
By HILLEL HALKIN
Here we go again: The Golan Heights are back on sale.
The last time we had this "everything on the Golan must go" atmosphere
was durin g the Rabin-Peres administration, when the rumors flew as
fast as the envoys bet ween Jerusalem and Damascus that an
Israeli-Syrian deal was around the corner. T he deal was, of course,
"land for peace": Israel would cede the entire Golan to Syria in
return for a peace treaty that would include security arrangements and
the promise of an Israeli embassy and Israeli tourists in Damascus.
The Netanyahu victory in the 1996 elections scotched this scenario,
and many Isr aelis, including quite a few who had voted against Mr.
Netanyahu, hoped it had s cotched it for good. Indeed, this hope was
supposedly shared by Ehud Barak, who as chief of staff in the
Rabin-Peres years was said to have been opposed to the total
concession of the Golan. Now, however, we have been surprised twice:
Once by recent reports that Mr. Netanyahu himself was secretly seeking
to negotiate a settlement with Hafez al-Assad similar to that
proposed by his predecessors, and a second time by the rapidly
growing impression that the newly elected Mr. Barak is preparing to
do the same thing.
The world, needless to say, is delighted. Why shouldn't it be? The
world cares ( and knows) as much about the history and geography of
the Golan as it does about the Kalahari Desert. The world wants peace
and quiet in the Middle East - especially quiet. The Syrians have
clearly told the world that it can have them if and only if Syria
gets the entire Golan. The Israelis have mumbled. They have been
mumbling about the Golan for the past seven years. The world
understands clear speech better than it understands mumbles. It would
like the Israelis to give th e Syrians what they want so that it can
stop worrying about another damned war in the Middle East.
And, indeed, why not give the Syrians what they want? The only reason
I can thin k of is that for Israel, this would be unjust, demoralizing
and dangerous. That needn't perhaps worry the world. It should worry
us.
---------- It would be unjust because the Syrian claim to the Golan is
not a good one - cer tainly no better than Israel's. True, Arabs lived
on the Golan for hundreds of y ears, but so, before them, did Jews,
who fought and died there for their indepen -dence, as any visitor to
the spectacular archeological site of Gamla knows. Nor , since Syria
only became an independent state in 1944, which means that it cont
rolled the Golan for a grand total of 23 years as opposed to 32 so far
for Israe l, were the Golan's Arabs politically Syrian. Indeed, the
pre-1967 border itself dates back no further than 1920, when England
and France carved up Syria and Palestine between them. Israel
occupied the Golan militarily as a result
of a defensive war of the kind that has changed numerous
international frontiers in our t imes (among them the Polish-German
and Russian-Japanese ones) and has developed the area economically
beyond anything the Syrians ever dreamed of. Moreover, Sec urity
Council Resolution 242, to this day the most authoritative
Israel is not willing to play international sucker.
---------- international statement of the "land for peace" principle,
never demanded a total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan or any other
Arab land conquered in 1967. By what conceivable moral, legal or
historical right, then, does Syria have the whole Golan coming to it?
What kind of "compromise" (ah, how the world
loves that word!) will it be if Syria gets 100% of the territory under
dispute and Israel gets zero?
Giving up the whole Golan in spite of its unfairness would be
demoralizing, firs t, because to do so would mean acknowledging that
Israel, although the militaril y stronger party, is more afraid of a
war with Syria than Syria is of a war with Israel - presumably
because Israelis are easier to frighten; second, because Is
rael has invested an enormous amount not only economically but also
emotionally in the Golan, the loss of which, along with the eviction
of nearly 20,000 Jewish residents from their homes, would be
devastating, and third, because ever since 1982 the Golan has been
officially as much a part of Israel as the Galilee or Tel Aviv. What
happens to the psyche of a nation that treats its sovereign territory
as someone else's?
And this is why giving the controlling heights of the Golan to Syria
would be da ngerous not only to Israel's military security, but even
more, to Israel's psych ological security. If Israel caves in on the
Golan because of its fear of war, w hy should it not cave in on
Jerusalem - indeed why should the Arabs not expect i t to cave in and
threaten it with war until it does? It is fooling oneself to im agine
that a total return of the Golan will not make the Palestinian Arabs
more intransigent about a total handing over of the West Bank, just as
the total retu rn of Sinai in 1977 made the Syrians more intransigent
about the Golan. And supp ose that in 10 or 15 years the Palestinian
state that will exist then comes to I srael with pan-Arab backing and
says: "Do you want to live in peace with us? The n please hand over
those parts of the Galilee that have an Arab majority and tha t were
assigned to us by the 1947 U.N. partition resolution." On what basis
woul d those who support ceding the whole Golan to Syria today oppose
yielding to suc h a demand tomorrow? What will they tell Israelis -
what will Israelis tell them selves - when the Golan gone, they are
once again asked to make "reasonable" ter ritorial concessions for the
sake of peace? No Israeli in his right mind wants a
war with Syria and the thought of the human cost that such a war
would entail is quite rightly enough to make one tremble. But it should be - there
is every in dication that it is - enough to make the Syrians tremble,
too. The argument that the only way to avoid such a war is to give
Syria the Golan so that Israelis can frequent the bazaars of Damascus
is absurd. Apart from its national pride (Israel, of course, is not
supposed to have any), Syria has no
need of the whole Golan, which comprises one-half of one percent of
its total land area, while Israel is certainly do not need to shop in
Damascus. In fact, Israel has nothing to gai n, economically or in any
other way, from diplomatic relations with a third-world police state
like Syria, with which a simple state of non-belligerency would b e
quite sufficient. "Land for peace?" By all means! But let Israel give
less lan d and get less peace. It is still not too late for the Barak
government, which i s taking its first steps this week, to stop
mumbling and tell the world and the Syrians loud and clear that, yes,
Israel is willing to compromise but not to pla y the international
sucker.
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Ancient Christian Symbol
Rediscovered On Mount Zion
AURORA, Colo. (EP) -- A Messianic
Seal from the Christian
church in ancient Jerusalem has
been rediscovered after
2,000 years. This ancient symbol
was found on Mount Zion. It
is believed to have been created
and used by the Jewish
believers who called themselves
Nazarenes in the first
Messianic Church.
Three companies -- Olim Creative
Products of Tiberias, News
About Israel (NAI) of Jerusalem,
and Christian Floral
Delivery of Colorado -- jointly
announced the discovery of
this ancient symbol, which has been
copyrighted by NAI. It
consists of three separate but
integrated symbols: a menorah
at the top, a star of David in the
middle, and a fish at the
bottom. In each of the renditions
of the three-part symbol
the star is created by interlacing
the stand of the menorah
with the tail of the fish.
The Messianic Seal was found etched
or inscribed on eight
ancient artifacts. The artifacts
were presented to Ludwig
Schneider, editor in chief of NAI's
magazine Israel Today,
in 1990. They came from Tech
Otecus, an elderly monk who
lived as a hermit in the Old City
of Jerusalem. Otecus said
that in the 1960's he had
personally excavated about 40
artifacts bearing the Messianic
Seal from an ancient grotto
located in the immediate vicinity
of the Upper Room on Mount
Zion.
What was once the main entrance to
the grotto is now covered
with a jail-like heavy wire mesh
enclosure. Its door,
leading down into the ancient
baptismal place, is tightly
secured with a heavy chain and
lock. According to Schneider,
the last remaining entry to the
grotto was sealed shortly
after he excitedly told the priests
at the local monastery
about the discovery of the
Messianic Seal.
Schneider photographed eight
artifacts which were given to
him by Otecus, and showed the
pictures to the curator of the
Israel Museum. "When he had
carefully studied my pictures,"
Schneider recalled, "the
curator immediately promised me
that these artifacts and their
unique symbol were an
important find. He told me that the
museum already had seen
other artifacts bearing the same
three-part symbol from some
other sources he did not
specify."
According to Bob Fischer, president
of Olim Creative
Products and co-author with local
historian and artist
Reuven Schmalz of their book, The
Messianic Seal of the
Jerusalem Church, the ancient
three-part symbol has, since
135 AD, been suppressed by various
Israeli groups or
agencies, such as the Israel Museum
and Orthodox rabbis in
the Old City of Jerusalem, while
simultaneously being buried
for these nearly two millennia by
the church.
According to Fischer, at least two
of the eight artifacts
were obviously ceremonial pieces
which may well have been
used by James the Just, the brother
of Jesus, who is said to
be the first pastor of the church,
or perhaps even by one or
more of the Twelve Apostles.
One of the eight artifacts is a
brick-sized block of
well-worn local marble. This piece
bears an etched version
of the Messianic Seal with a Taw
(the last letter in the
ancient Hebrew alphabet that looks
exactly like a sign of
the cross) in the eye of the fish
symbol, as well as the
ancient Aramaic lettering
proclaiming the use of this
artifact as a stand to hold a vial
of anointing oil. The
ancient Aramaic is transliterated
as, "La Shemen Ruehon"
(For the Oil of the Spirit).
Another of the eight artifacts
is a small, almost intact, vial
which could well have sat on
top of the marble stand.
Commenting on what he characterized
as the "monumental
importance" of this
archaeological discovery, Fischer said,
"Beyond the historical
background of the Nazarenes, the
first Jewish believers who founded
the Jerusalem Church, the
Messianic Seal itself proclaims to
the world the pervasive
Jewishness of Jesus Christ and the
decidedly Jewish
foundation and roots of the church
founded in His name."
"The Messianic Seal of the
Jerusalem Church," Fischer
continued, "strikes at the
very roots of anti-Semitism while
proclaiming a compelling message
that restores unity: Jew
with Jew, and Jew with Gentile. The
importance of this
discovery cannot be minimized. The
Messianic Seal is not
only just the key to understanding
the Dead Sea Scrolls, it
can and should shake the
foundations of the church and
orthodox Judaism with its
incredible message of unity and
love. It breaks down barriers that
have existed for
millennia and points the way toward
restoration."
(EP - Evangelical Press News
Service)
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