From the headlines, it appears Israel invited Hamas to fire rockets at innocent civilians in the south.

Israel and the United States invested mega bucks developing this wonderful Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system. During the November 2012 intensive escalation of rocket fire by Gaza Arab terrorists, the Iron Dome intercepted some 431 rockets with an 85% success rate. Even if  it is not 100% perfect, the system has been providing an extra level of protection to the men, women, and children who have had their lives shaken for years by the endless  Kassam and Katyusha rockets. 

All I can say is thank G-d the Iron Dome has been deployed to protect the south!

This morning (March 21) Arab terrorists fired at least four rockets at Israeli cities. Apparently, two of the rockets fell short and landed in the Gaza Strip. One struck a house in the city of Sderot, causing serious damage and authorities are searching for the location of the possible fourth rocket.

So, why did the Iron Dome System fail to intercept these rockets?

President Obama, here in Israel for his first visit as president, did not have time on his schedule to visit the Iron Dome site. In order to allow the President to see the Iron Dome, they moved the Iron Dome from the  south to the airport (in the center of the country) for him to see.

Was it really worth risking the lives of innocent civilians in order for Netanyahu to have a toy for show and tell? If indeed the Iron Dome was moved from the South, there needs to be an investigation for the negligent disregard for human life and accountability. Honoring a visiting president is not worth risking people's lives.

So, Muslims get offended by a low budget film that no one cares about, by a nobody producer, that no one would have even known existed if someone hadn't brought it to the attention to someone or the other in the Muslim world. These "Islamists" then used the film as an excuse to riot and murder.

Ahmedinajad, once again, speaks at the UN with his menacing and inciting language—calling Israel  a foul Zionist entity whose days are numbered. 

I feel a sense of relief knowing the the Persian leader will appear before the World body to fire his hate and incitement against the Jewish Nation on the 10th of Tishrei—Yom HaKipurim, the day of atonement. Kipurim, atonement can also be translated as K'Purim, like Purim, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Jewish people being saved from the plans of the evil Haman in Persia in the time of Mordecahi and Queen Esther.

As we head into Yom Kippur, may Queen Esther's request that 

אם על המלך טוב, ינתן גם מחר ליהודים אשר בשושן לעשות כדת היום, ואת עשרת בני המן יתלו על העץ.

If it pleases the King (HASHEM), allow the Jews that are in Shushan to do tomorrow as they did today,  and let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows. 

Okay, here’s another no brainer.

You decide to enter a closed military zone with the intent to interfere with an army’s anti-terror operations. You ignore the warnings and all attempts to remove you from the theater of operations. In doing so, you are assisting an enemy in a time of war, thus becoming an enemy combatant.

You sit yourself down in front of a D9 bulldozer. 

This bulldozer is a giant military bulldozer. It is not used for building little pink houses for you and me (see footage of IDF D9 bulldozers destroying Hizbullah buildings). Standard procedure for operating a D9 is to have personnel on the ground, at a safe distance to direct the driver, since the driver cannot see in front of him due to the bulldozer’s large shovel that obstructs the view in front of the machine.

Obviously, having personnel on the ground is not an option in Gaza. Otherwise, there would need to be medical helicopters on hand to evacuate the dead soldiers' bodies. 

As you look up at this giant monstrosity to see the reaction of the driver as you have parked your little body in front of this military juggernaut, you notice you cannot see him!

At this point you should be smart enough to realize, “Hey, I better get my butt out of here, quick!!!”

With all apologies to the Corrie family’s sensitivities over the loss of their daughter and their openly expressed anti-Israel sentiment, Rachel Corrie’s death is a result of her own reckless stupidity. She wanted to be a martyr. My congratulations to her family, Rachel became a martyr for the Hamas terror organization.

Now quit blaming the IDF. Rachel and her terrorist allies are the ones to blame; not Israel. 

Here it is Tisha B'Av. The day Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples,along with many other great tragedies that occuered on this day.

How is the Jewish State commemorating Tisha B'Av?

Israel is honring the Fallen Temples by giving us this headline:

Temple Mount Closed to Jews on Tisha B'Av

Is this legal?

No it is not. Well the headline is; the closure is not.

Here is the law directly taken from the Knesset web site.

There is no excuse under Israeli law for preventing Jews from peacefully ascending the Temple Mount. There is also no excuse from preventing Jews from offering the Korban Pesach (Passover Offering) or the twice daily Tamid (Perpetual Offering).

My point is not to start a halachic question about restoring these Korbanot without the Beit HaMikdash. There is plenty of information available online for those who are looking at both the halachic pros and cons .

What is important is that barring Jews out of fear the Arabs may violently object means the Jewish visitors must be protected from attacks; not punished.

We can no longer allow our galut syndrome to allow us to cower in fear from those that want to destroy us.

We have rights, and we have allowed them to be violated for too long.

How can the High Court rule there are political repercussions to consider?

Does a Jew saying Tehillim (Psalms) on the Temple Mount really cause political repercussions?

Jewish prayer is not  threat to the peace.

Protection of Holy Places Law 5727 (1967)*

1.      The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places.

2.       

a.      Whosoever desecrates or otherwise violates a Holy Place shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of seven years.

b.      Whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.

3.      This Law shall add to, and not derogate from, any other law.

4.      The Minister of Religious Affairs is charged with the implementation of this Law, and he may, after consultation with, or upon the proposal of, representatives of the religions concerned and with the consent of the Minister of Justice make regulations as to any matter relating to such implementation.

5.      This Law shall come into force on the date of its adoption by the Knesset.

LEVI ESHKOL
Prime Minister

ZERACH WARHAFTIG
Minister of
Religious Affairs

SHNEUR ZALMAN SHAZAR
President
* Adopted by the Knesset on 27 June 1967.

I found this comment on my Youtube page. My reply was way too long to include in the comments, so I am uploading it to the blog.

The comment was posted on the video for Israelity! with Mark Kaplan: We Won't Get Fooled Again! from 24 Feb 2012.

The viewer wrote (typos are not edited out):

• Does your historical claim to the land supercede the rights of those born there? Does Israels fear of terrorism morally justify the denial of the human rights of over 2 million people? (conservative palestinian refugee/diaspora figure). i would say no. To the second question i would add the point that denial of human rights creates terrorism, same for Ireland or Israel. I support 1 state: a recognised jewish homeland without the racist policies. Thank you for your thorough thoughtful response!

  Here is my response:

  Your Q: “Does your historical claim to the land supercede (typo in original) the rights of those born there?”

  A: Which rights? We all have rights and those rights need to be protected. Palestine was a grossly under populated territory in the Ottoman Empire. The overwhelming majority of those people calling themselves “Palestinian” today are descended from people who immigrated to Palestine during the period of the Mandate.

  Arab Nationalism is a new invention (as is the Arab Palestinian Nation). It was mainly a reply by the likes of Haj Amin al-Husseini who was concerned that Palestine, which had been 500 years under Ottoman-Turkish Muslim rule, would now fall into the hands of the infidel Jews. Such a change in rule is an affront to Islam that maintains that once land is under Islamic rule it must remain under Islamic rule. That’s why the Muslim dream is to return to Andalusia (Spain). The Jewish People never gave up their claim to Eretz Yisrael. The Jews were forcefully exiled (transferred) from their land by the Romans. According to the modern-day Rome Statutes, forcible transfer of an occupied population is a War Crime and a Crime Against humanity which could be brought before the International Criminal Court.

  Not every group of people can have an independent country. The Arabs had an area of land reserved for self-determination three times the size of the United States, and Palestine was not part of that territory, nor did the Arabs request it at the Paris Peace Conference. There were around 300,000 People, of many ethnic and religious backgrounds, in the entire territory of Palestine. This did not justify an independent Arab country.

  Q: Does Israels fear of terrorism morally justify the denial of the human rights of over 2 million people? (conservative palestinian refugee/diaspora figure)?

  2-million Palestinian refugees?

  Funny, there were around 600,000 Arab refugees in 1948 (now, despite exaggerated figures believed to be around 2-million). The Arab refugees of the Arab-Israel conflict are the only group of refugees that can hand their status down generation to generation. This is connected to your question about the historical claim of the Jews… and the “rights of those born there.”

  The UN defines these “Palestinian” refugees as any Arab whose permanent place of residence was in Palestine between the years 1946 and 1948. So the Arab claim of being Palestinian “from time immemorial” has been reduced to being a “Palestinian” for only two years in the mid-twentieth century! This is another Arab propaganda scam, plain and simple. 

  UN Security Resolutions 1269,1368, and 1373 which are cited under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which authorize the use of force, protect the right of every individual and country and obligate all countries to combat terrorism in any way necessary. Israel is not only within her rights to defend its population from the likes of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, but is obligated to do so. In doing so, Israel does everything possible to protect the safety of uninvolved Arabs in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Unfortunately, when it comes to war, sometimes with all the protection you can provide for bystanders, there are civilian casualties. This is not a case of the IDF attacking civilians, but the opposite is not true when terrorists in Gaza fire rockets on Israeli cities or board school buses or enter night clubs with suicide belts.

  The solution is that Israel must first place Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria under Israeli civilian law, then incorporate the other territories as security would allow under Israeli civilian law.

  In order to make it possible to incorporate areas B and C into normal Israeli law (areas either under shared cooperative control if the IDF and the Palestinian Authority or under total PA control), the UN must first decommission UNRWA and place the High Commission for refugees in charge of settling the refugee problem. One third of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria have expressed the desire to leave the region and be resettled elsewhere. Israel should pay these people well above market value for their homes, and be given a basket of benefits to help settle and integrate them into new countries. This is not racism, this is humanitarian aid.

  Israel must either imprison or exile those who are involved or support terrorism.

  Those people, who are left over and can swear allegiance to the State of Israel, must go through a normal citizenship process, as exists in other countries. Once they pass the citizenship requirements they should be granted the full benefits of citizenship.

  That is the only just and humane solution; not making half of Israel Judenrein and chopping the land into another two countries as was done with the Eastern 76% of the country when Trans-Jordan was created in violation of International Law.

  Israel’s democracy does everything possible to protect the rights of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Israel’s High Court has been a champion for Arab rights at the expense of Jewish rights. Why is it only Muslim’s are allowed to pray at Judaism’s holiest site? Why would the Supreme Court force Jews out of their homes in a land dispute when the ownership has not been proven?

   Just as Jewish rights do not negate Arab rights; Arab rights cannot negate Jewish rights. International law was very specific about the protection of the rights of self-determination of the Jews in Palestine/Eretz Tirael, as International Law was very specific about the right of self-determination of the Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.

  You cannot make half the heartland of the Jewish Nation Judenrein as Mahmoud Abbas is demanding…that would be Apartheid!