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March
24, 2007
Israel News on Israel Prayer .com NOW On-Line News Briefs and News Launch Go beneath the surface to the most pertinent Israel News Stories and all the News Impacting Israel Pray
in the Spirit and "with understanding of the times" “Where
there is no counsel, the people fall; Diplomatic Realities Analysis:
The Saudi fig leaf Much has changed
in the five years since the Saudi initiative first emerged, but
two principles have remained sacrosanct. The Palestinians, backed
by the Arab leaders, have adamantly refused to back down from the
demand for the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees.
All Israeli governments continue to oppose any concession on the
issue, reflecting the consensus that allowing the refugees back
would amount to suicide of the Jewish state. Coalition:
A temporary union for common purposes
Cabinet
rejects Hamas Fatah coalition in landslide vote The
Bush administration found little good to say Saturday about a Palestinian
coalition government that falls short of Western demands and complicates
US plans to revive long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
With Iranian help, Hamas forces are expanding fast and getting more sophisticated weapons and training than do those under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' control, according to the U.S. security coordinator. Incitement to Violence Islamic
leader ordered out of J'lem As
long as this horrendous phenomenon was just contained to Israel
people were able to claim that suicide bombers were just groups
and individuals who had lost all hope and out of extreme desperation
resorted to killing others with explosives attached to their bodies.
Because of the pervasiveness of this sort of violence this argument
is now defunct. However the truth is that it should have never been
given any credibility in the first place, and its premise shows
a fundamental ignorance of both the possible causes of suicide and
radical Islamic society. Can You Dig It? Israeli
works did not damage Temple Mount, UN says In the report, which was obtained by Ynet, UNESCO experts laud Israel for the transparency with which the works were being carried out, and note that the excavations conducted near the Temple Mount compound do not jeopardize its stability.
The Religious Divide Shas
Proposes Expanded Bill to Outlaw Missionary Activity Statistics reported by the Interior Ministry indicated that 437 Jews abandoned their faith to “accept Jesus” in 2003, rising to 884 converts to Christianity in 2004 and 733 in 2005. . . . “Whether it is Christians coming from abroad or Jewish converts working in Israel, they all have the same agenda – to destroy every trace and memory of the people of Israel,” reads the proposed bill. Shas
seeks harsher punishment for missionaries A war on missionaries was declared Tuesday when Shas faction head MK Yakov Margi proposed a bill stating that Israel 's laws against proselytism should be aggravated. Backed by six other faction members and in concordance with Shas' spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's instructions, Margi proposed the sentence for preaching conversion should be one year imprisonment. Shas-Ashkenazi
deal produces 12 new ultra-Orthodox rabbinic court judges Many
of the 15 judges appointed to rabbinic courts yesterday are relatives
of politicians, public figures or veteran rabbinic court judges,
and only one has a background in law. Women's rights organizations
said yesterday was a black day in the struggle for women's rights
in the rabbinic courts. Many view the rabbinic courts as favoring
men in divorce cases and as failing to do enough to minimize the
problem of women whose husbands refuse to divorce them. The ultra-Orthodox may enjoy their achievements for a while, but this is a pyrrhic victory because they are imposing decrees the public cannot tolerate. This
is another test the new justice minister, Daniel Friedmann, has
failed. It is hard to understand why a man who conducted fierce
struggles against the ultra-Orthodox establishment and against nepotism
hastened to approve the improper appointments of judges who are
anti-liberal, lack legal education and are committed to the Haredi
hierarchy. As a Baptist journalist in Israel for the past 25 years, I've often been shocked at how little Israelis know about my denomination. Of Note From the Nations Investigator
into Hariri killing: Int'l tribunal needed The
chief investigator probing the assassination of former Lebanese
prime minister Rafik Hariri backed the creation of an international
tribunal to prosecute the alleged perpetrators, saying without a
court it is difficult to justify the investigation. The
British personnel from the frigate HMS Cornwall were "engaged
in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial
waters," and had completed their inspection of a merchant ship
when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, the ministry said in
a statement. The demand for an immediate cease-fire, backed by much of the international community but ignored for weeks by the United States and Britain, had been "dangerous and misguided," John Bolton said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview…. "Hizbullah had committed an act of aggression and Israel was reacting in its own self-defense. And if reacting in its own self defense meant the defeat of the enemy that was perfectly legitimate under international law and frankly under good politics." Spy vs. Spy By
Way of Defection Who is Ali Reza Asgari and why is he important? No one is quite sure yet, but when the Iranian general and former deputy defense minister disappeared in Istanbul earlier this year, suddenly everyone had a good spy story to follow. Iranian
official reportedly defected is at NATO Germany "Asgari is a gold mine for western intelligence," an Israeli defense source told the Times. ….According to the Times, the escape took several months to plan, and at least 10 close members of Asgari's family had to flee the country as well. Asgari has two sons, a daughter and several grandchildren, and all are considered to have escaped Iran. New on the Book Shelf An
Interview with Historian Michael Oren “You
cannot withdraw from Iraq and be confident that the enemy is not
going to follow you. Because the enemy is going to follow you. America
can’t detach from the Middle East because the Middle East
is not going to detach from America. And America’s going to
have to learn to fight this fight to win in a much more prudent
and effective way. And there are ways America can fight it more
effectively.” — Michael Oren The
author of the acclaimed Six Days of War finds continuity
in U.S. relations with the Middle East from the early 19th-century
war against the Barbary pirates to today's Iraq war. As America's
power grew, he contends, strategic considerations became complicated
by the region's religious significance, especially to the Protestant
missionaries whose interests drove U.S. policy in the 19th century
and who championed a Jewish state in Palestine long before the Zionist
movement took up that cause. These
collections of news stories are not just for the
sake of information, opinion
or commentary but rather are meant to help Christians and Messianic Jews pray more effectively for the things that God has declared He is going to do. WANT
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