My good friend and former partner in anti-Oslo demonstrations, Alex King, is an enthusiastic bicycle rider.  He rides everywhere.

And he decided to bike ride all the way to Kever Rachel.

He didn't get there.

He had to leave his bicycle behind.  Only motorized vehicles, that is, things that move with engines, could cross the IDF's security checkpoint.

Is this harrassment?  Is Condi Rice going to get involved?  Will the EU's humanitarian concern be displayed?

I doubt it.

If you have any good ideas about getting Alex to Rachel's Tomb on his bicycle, let us know please.

And keep those wheels spinning.

Here's a Reuter's story, straight from Dani Dayan, Yesha Council Chairman.

There's been much discussion, some of it irrational and flaming, about the Council, so let's open it up again.

Read the story and comment.

And if that doesn't interest you, does a Bob Dylan interview and story from 1987?  If so, then go here.

Would you like to read about the talk I gave to UC at Irvine students, Muslims, Jews and Christians? 

Go here.

And you did read about the Biden-Begin contretemps back in 1982?  And how I proved that Marty Peretz of The New Republic was wrong.  If not, go here.

_{Seems that Israel's Ministry for Tourism has come up with, what we sardonically called, "a better idea".}

<sub>Next year, some three million tourists will discover a new "Pilgrim's Route" leading from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. Along the way, they will be able to visit the site where the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan took place; the Qumran caves; and the site where, according to the New Testament, John the Baptist baptized Jesus.

"We're in the process of opening the Good Samaritan site to the general public, and the baptismal site is undergoing an accelerated process of development," said a senior official in the Civil Administration, which is responsible for all West Bank tourism sites under Israeli control. "We hope that in 2009, we will open first the Good Samaritan [site], and after that Qasr al-Yehud."

And Shai Weiner, the Ministry's deputy director general for economics, planning and infrastructure, has admitted that so far some NIS 3.5 million has been invested in that baptismal site with the Defense Ministry investing about another NIS 1 million to improve the access road.

Oni Amiel, CEO of Amiel Tours, which specializes in Christian pilgrims, is quoted as saying that it is about time Israel began competing with the Jordanian site. "There's an enormous flow of tourists there," he said. "It's important that the site on our side also be respectable."</sub>

_{This is a great idea.  However, there are many Jewish sites in that same area of Judea and Samaria that Christians can and do relate to just as much as the so-called "Christian sites".  Remember, at the time, they were all "Jewish sites".  The New Testament, as I have pointed out, Acts 8:1, refers not to the "West Bank" but to "Judea and Samaria".  There's a lot of potential for tourism in Shiloh, Beth-El and other Biblical locations.  Let's all benefit from this new policy.}

Thanks to AtlasShrugs (Pam Geller), we are privileged to see Jewish congregational prayer at the Republican National Convention:

Well, well.  Now some people will understand perhaps what we have to suffer here on the highways and byways of Judea and Samaria.  I am sure some passengers were terrified.  No one was injured or worse, but we in Judea and Samaria have not always been than lucky.

This occured yesterday in St. Paul at the Republican National Convention:

Sourced at MyRightWord

Seems they also dropped cement bags from an overpass bridge.

One of the keys to a successful information policy is to be able to truly explain the circumstances of why a certain policy is adopted.  And in our case, if those Republican delegates and others would think what it is to have rocks and molotov cocktails thrown at your cars and buses constantly, regularly or even intermittently, to be targets of terrifying violent acts, - then they will understand and commend the need to take measures of self-defense, whether by the security forces or the revenant Jewish population.