UPDATES 8 pm Israel time, Thursday, May 22 2014:
**In the last 24 hours there have been Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem (on Hagai Street), the Benjamin bypass road, near Tekoa, at Madama, near Amos, at Al Khader, on the Arad-Beersheva road, north of Ofra, at the Benjamin security fence, in Hebron, at Shomron Einav, in the south Hebron hills, near Beit Ummar, on the Gush Etzion road, at Hamivtar, in Qalandia, at the junction of the Trans-Judea highway, and at the southern Gaza security fence.
The above attacks included attacks on IDF soldiers, Israeli tour buses, and individual Israelis. Attempted stabbings, detonated IEDs, thrown “rocks” and Molotov cocktails–all of these have become a feature of daily life in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza border area.
**The Chinese government food company Bright Food has bought 56% interest in Israel’s primary and iconic food company Tnuva–effectively buying the company.
This is just the latest in a series of sales of Israeli companies to foreign investors. What began as a trickle is in danger of turning into a flood. The Chinese have (at least for the moment) agreed to keep Tnuva’s base of operations in Israel–but who knows what next week will bring?
Your humble servant believes the time has come for some governmental soul-searching on the issue of sales of companies to foreign entities. It does not take much imagination to see where such sales may lead.
**Following Tzipi Livni’s meeting with Mahmoud Abbas last Thursday in Paris, PM Netanyahu was on the verge of firing Livni only to be stopped by Yair Lapid, who warned Netanyahu that his Yesh Atid party would leave the government and break apart the coalition if Netanyahu did so.
And so Livni survives to have more chances to try to give away and undermine Israel, and Yesh Atid, the party that was supposedly formed to represent the “center”, has now veered ever further to the “left”.
**So-called “democracy”–Palestinian style–continues to run amok in the Palestinian autonomous areas of Judea and Samaria.
It was revealed today that Mohammed Dahlan, the chief opponent to Mahmoud Abbas in supposed upcoming elections at the end of this year, has been sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for defamation and slander. In fact, his secret trial took place in April in Ramallah and referred to comments Dahlan made last October.
The specific charge was that Dahlan had accused PLO security forces of helping to protect Israeli residents of Judea and Samara.
The sentence is meant to make it impossible for Dahlan to run for the Presidency. As Dahlan pointed out today in the Palestinian media where he termed the sentence “a mockery” and then added that Abbas has turned the Palestinian judicial system “into a tool that serves his needs, concerns, and personal grudges.”
By the way, the above information is not meant as support for Dahlan–who is notorious for his hatred of Israel.
TODAY’S BLOG:
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In an absolutely outrageous miscarriage of justice, Temple Mount advocate Yehuda Glick was arrested in the Kotel (Western Wall) plaza today for selling bracelets that read “The Temple Mount is Ours”.
Can you even begin to believe this? The exact words “The Temple Mount is Ours” which Mordechai Gur used in 1967 which his troops took full Israeli control of the Temple Mount for the first time in a thousand years is now the basis of getting arrested by the Jerusalem police.
Unbelievable.
Especially unbelievable given the history of the Temple Mount–and the fact that under the Dome of “the Rock” lies the holiest place in Judaism–the Foundation Stone. The fact is that the Jerusalem Police and the current Israeli government have totally bought into the falsehood that Temple Mount is a “Muslim site”.
For the last week and a half, this blog has detailed the history of the Temple Mount–and in particular the Dome of “the Rock.”
Yesterday, we had just arrived in the year 1516 CE–2,466 years since Solomon built the First Jewish Temple over the holiest place in Judaism, the Foundation Stone.
The non-Arab Turkish Ottoman Empire has conquered Jerusalem in the form of the armies of Sultan Suleiman I. He proceeds to rebuild the walls of the city–the same walls that stand today. His policy toward the Jews is one of give and take. On the one hand, Suleiman immediately encourages Spanish and Portuguese Jews who had been thrown out of Spain and Portugal 24 years earlier to come and live in Jerusalem.
On the other hand he decrees that no Jew (or Christian) can ascend the Temple Mount. However, to compensate the Jews for their loss, he orders that a Jewish place of prayer be established at the retaining wall of the Second Temple–the Western Wall (Kotel) where Jews still pray today.
And so the situation remains for the next 340 years. During this period, the Temple Mount (and Jerusalem) are generally ignored by Muslims, and though Jews are prohibited from entry, there are reports from Muslim sources that Jews continue to covertly ascend the Mount whenever possible.
In 1856, the outcome of the Crimean War results in the British demanding that the Turks open the Temple Mount daily to all visitors–especially Jews and Christians–on every day of the week except Friday. Ironically, during the aforementioned 340 years, a number of Jerusalem rabbis had issued rulings that Jews should not visit the Mount until the return of the Messiah.
Nevertheless, beginning in 1857 Jews return to the Mount again, openly, and in great numbers.
And it is in this year that we will stop our journey today–and tomorrow, when we resume, we will have our first photographs of the Christian-designed building that holds the holiest place in Judaism, the Dome of “the Rock”.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.