Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 16, 2012

!Shana Tova u'Metuka שנה טובה ומתוקה!

Once I saw a piece of art that turned the sounds of the shofar into a graphic format, done by Avraham Lowenthal of Tzfat. (h/t Amiyena and Vermue) I thought it was a nifty idea and made one of my own.

So here is a Rosh Hashanah poster for EoZ fans using the same motif, although using only the mandatory 30 sounds instead of the full 100, and mine is a bit more literal.

It would also make a great sukkah decoration!

I want to wish all of you a Shana Tova u'Metukah, a happy and sweet year. May this be a year of health, a year of prosperity, a year of joy, a year of peace, and a year of security.

I will not be blogging during the holiday.

Sunday links

From Ian:

Undermining the Jews of the Arab World

"If you’re looking for an online aggregator of Israel-bashing articles, you could do a great deal worse than visit Open Zion, the website edited by the darling of America’s Jewish far left, Peter Beinart. All the obsessions of today’s anti-Zionists are neatly organized there, in the form of hand-wringing tracts about Rachel Corrie’s death, Israel’s resemblance to apartheid South Africa, and the dangerous refusal of Israel and the United States to acknowledge that Iran’s rulers really are reasonable people."

Westerners who fuel the Muslim world's grievance culture

Condemning the "grievance" as much as the perpetrator is fast becoming the default response to mass Islamist violence. This must not be allowed to stand "
"Rather predictably, The Guardian this week argued that the wave of violence sweeping the Middle East was a spontaneous reaction to the anti Islamic film, "The Innocence of Islam". The film, we were told, set off a "long fuse that led to an explosion of violence that killed the US ambassador to Libya". The Independent adopted a similar line with its article headlined: "An incendiary film –and the man killed in the crossfire". It added: "The mob enraged by film mocking Prophet Mohamed kills US ambassador in Benghazi rocket attack".

MEMRI:
Sunni-Shiite Debate Deteriorates into a Brawl on Egyptian TV

Anti-American Antisemitic Cartoons on Yemeni Houthi Channel Al-Masirah TV
Hizbullah TV Dedicates Excellence Festival to French Holocaust Denier Roger Garaudy

'It's not about elections in America, but centrifuges in Iran'

PM Benjamin Netanyahu addresses claim that he is using Iran issue to harm the Obama re-election bid: "The only thing guiding me is centrifuges in Iran. It's not my fault that the centrifuges aren't more considerate of the Americans' political timetable."

Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike

An armada of US and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s covert nuclear weapons programme.

Revolutionary Guard chief threatens Israel’s annihilation in case of Iran strike

Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari also warned that Iran might close the Straits of Hormuz if it is attacked, withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and hit U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Hezbollah Raises Latin American Profile

Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.

Man charged with trying to bomb downtown Chicago bar

An 18-year-old man who tried to set off what he thought was a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar on Friday night has been arrested and charged in a federal undercover sting, authorities said Saturday.
Adel Daoud, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Hillside, planned for months for the attack and prayed with a man who turned out to be an undercover agent before attempting to set off a bomb in a Jeep outside a bar, authorities said.
According to an FBI affidavit, Daoud used email accounts starting in about October 2011 to gather and send materials "relating to violent jihad and the killing of Americans."

IDF Blog: Happy Rosh Hashana from IDF Soldiers

What the Mossad’s female agents do — and don’t do — for the sake of Israel

Breaking cover, five high-ranking agents discuss the advantages they have as female spies, the dangers and costs of their work, and where they draw the line

Where I Go: Bar Refaeli

The native Israeli, whose work as a model and as the founder and designer of under.me
underwear has taken her across the globe, returns to her childhood home when vacation calls. She shares her local favorites—from chic shops to secret beaches to home-cooked meals—below.

Also, The Blood Libel Continues at the Guardian and Fox News

Armada of British naval power massing in the Gulf as Israel prepares an Iran strike (h/t Yoel)

Rosh Hashanah greetings from Netanyahu and Peres

I always like that Netanyahu has a full set of Talmud, Mishnayot and Shulchan Aruch behind him. (The Shas is not in order, though. )

Peres' is just cheesy:

(h/t Yerushalimey)

Arab media: "Thousands of Jews desecrating the Wailing Wall"

The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation's latest press release, picked up by other Arab media, is upset over the thousands of Jews who attended the midnight Selichot on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

Thousands of Israelis last night desecrated the Wailing Wall and surrounding areas, where they had gathered from late night to dawn in the squares and performed biblical and Talmudic rituals, and loudly chanted, on the eve of the so-called "festival the Jewish New Year," which falls tomorrow and beyond. there is expected to be an increased presence of Israelis at the Wailing Wall over the next two days, guarded by the Israeli occupation forces.

And they have photos of this "desecration:"

But even worse are the Jews who ascended to the Temple Mount this morning:

In a related matter some sixty settlers stormed the Aqsa Mosque Sunday morning around 9:20, arriving via the Mughrabi Gate. They wandered in the area, while performing some Talmudic rituals, accompanied by elements of the occupation forces. Witnesses said that the atmosphere in the al-Aqsa mosque was very tense, and the number of intruders on the mosque may increase in the coming hours under repeated calls from the Israeli bodies to intensify their storming of Aqsa during the so-called "festive Jewish season" which begins this afternoon and lasts about a month.

Here are the offensive photos of those scary Jews "storming" the Temple Mount:

Juan Cole engages in libel against me

Juan Cole, the pseudo-academic who I have proven is a liar and an idiot a number of times, last month slanderously claimed that my blog influenced mass murderer Anders Breivik:

As in Norway, where the Muslim-hating network (fostered also by hateful web sites like “Gates of Vienna,” “Elders of Ziyon,” and a host of others) deeply influenced mass murderer Anders Breivik, so in the United States the purveying of a negative image of Muslims predictably has resulted in violence.

Cole knows very well that Breivik never mentioned my blog in his manifesto, and indeed there is no evidence that he ever read my blog. Incidentally, I fisked and condemned his manifesto completely.

Juan Cole knows that people like me are a threat to him, because we expose his lies and fallacious arguments so easily while he pretends to be an intellectual. So it is not surprising that such a creature resorts to lies to try to slander me, since he is utterly incapable of actually arguing with me.

Cole also knows that this is not a hate site. I am not against Muslims and I am not against Islam as a personal religion. I have never said or implied that I support violence against Muslims. However, I am very against the hateful and supremacist political philosophy of Islamism, and I believe that Islamism must be regarded as just as evil as other supremacist political philosophies like Nazism and Communism.

Will Juan Cole apologize for this slander? Of course not. He never corrects his mistakes, even when they are proven - which is about all you need to know about his intellectual honesty.

(h/t Dan)

Hamas leader says how great things are in Gaza - no occupation, booming economy, easy travel

The mainstream media, NGOs and the UN describe Gaza as:

Occupied by Israel
Under siege
An economic mess dependent on outside aid
A prison where no one can enter or leave without Israel's permission

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar tells Arab media a different story:

Seven years after Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip, several things have changed both at the political and the economic level, Hamas official Mahmoud Zahhar said Friday.

Speaking to Ma’an, Zahhar asserted that “Gaza is free of occupation, and contiguity with the outside world is easier as visitors from all over the world visited the coastal enclave.”

He said the economic situation has improved noticeably and the Gaza Strip became self-reliant in several aspects because lands in former Israeli settlements were planted. “We are self-dependent in several aspects except petroleum and electricity.”

Asked to comment on the protests in the West Bank against the deteriorating economic conditions, Zahhar said that was a natural result of economic reliance on the United States and Israel who completely control the Palestinian economy.

The Hamas official boasted that the economic conditions in the Gaza Strip are much better than in the West Bank; “people in Gaza receive full salaries, and all the money the Ramallah government transfers goes to Fatah supporters only.”

Asked whether or not he believes the Palestinian Authority has really collapsed, Zahhar said the replacement was ready. “The resistance program, which was originally replaced by the PA, is ready,” he said.

Of course, Zahar is a liar as well. The unemployment rate in Gaza remains higher than in the West Bank and there are no personal freedoms there. In fact, according to Palestine Press Agency, hundreds of young Gazans are desperately trying to move to Europe - some even asking for political asylum from Hamas thugs - and Hamas is stopping them from leaving.

But why does the media rush to trumpet any statement or report that says that Gaza is a humanitarian disaster under brutal Israel occupation and they ignore statements by Gaza's own leaders that say the opposite?

The Gaza meme is obviously more attractive than honest reporting.

(h/t Herb)

Arab media again falls for joke article: "Kissinger predicts Israel will occupy half of ME"

A November 2011 spoof from British satirical website The Daily Squib has suddenly been picked up by dozens of mainstream Arab media as if it is real.

The article, entitled "Henry Kissinger: 'If You Can't Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf'", includes this section:

"If you are an ordinary person, then you can prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised."

After pausing for a few minutes to collect his thoughts, Mr Kissinger, carried on: "We told the military that we would have to take over seven Middle Eastern countries for their resources and they have nearly completed their job. We all know what I think of the military, but I have to say they have obeyed orders superfluously this time. It is just that last stepping stone, i.e. Iran which will really tip the balance. How long can China and Russia stand by and watch America clean up? The great Russian bear and Chinese sickle will be roused from their slumber and this is when Israel will have to fight with all its might and weapons to kill as many Arabs as it can. Hopefully if all goes well, half the Middle East will be Israeli. Our young have been trained well for the last decade or so on combat console games, it was interesting to see the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 game, which mirrors exactly what is to come in the near future with its predictive programming. Our young, in the US and West, are prepared because they have been programmed to be good soldiers, cannon fodder, and when they will be ordered to go out into the streets and fight those crazy Chins and Russkies, they will obey their orders. Out of the ashes we shall build a new society, a new world order; there will only be one superpower left, and that one will be the global government that wins. Don't forget, the United States, has the best weapons, we have stuff that no other nation has, and we will introduce those weapons to the world when the time is right."

End of interview. Our reporter is ushered out of the room by Kissinger's minder.

Suddenly, Arabic media has picked up on this story and reporting on it straight.

Yemen Today, Palestine Press Agency, Jordan Zad and dozens of other Arabic websites are recounting Kissinger's supposed warmongering words in their headlines.

Other recent satirical articles that Arabic media believed were the George Clooney 3D Arafat bio-pic and Paris Hilton converting to Islam. (The last one was also on The Daily Squib.)

PLO whines it is not the center of attention in the West

The Muslim world is engaging in deadly riots against Western targets, and the PLO is jealous that the media is not focused on them - and only them:

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat met on Thursday with ambassadors from Europe, the US and Japan on the 19th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords.

Erekat said Israel had been occupying Palestine since 1967, "and this is considered an offense to humanity. Israeli authorities have signed many agreements, and never committed to them."

In a statement, he called the occupation a main source of violence and chaos in the Mideast.

Yup. All the rioters in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain and elsewhere are really upset over - the "occupation."

But Erekat did talk about the idiotic Mohammed video, in typically bombastic terms:

Separately, Erekat addressed the growing outrage over an anti-Muslim video clip apparently produced in the United States.

"All abuses and attempts against Islam cannot be justified by freedom of expression. The real names for such abuses and attacks are 'racist,' 'terrorist,' and 'fascist,'" Erekat said.

Now, which is worse: a stupid video no one saw until Muslims broadcast it on their TV, or the now-daily explicit anti-semitism and incitement in the Arab media that are read by hundreds of thousands?

And why is it that not a single Western journalist is smart enough to ask Erekat the liar such a simple question?

Saturday night links - and lots of them

From Ian:

LATMA: Post chronological Islamic history and a Rosh Hashana greeting (very funny Judith Butler skit)

Israel’s window for action against Iran ‘is getting much smaller,’ says Ambassador Oren

‘The issue is not whether we trust the US,’ says Israel’s envoy to Washington. ‘The issue is our responsibility as a sovereign Jewish state
"In a telephone interview from his Washington offices on Thursday, Oren — a former paratrooper who fought in the 1982 Lebanon War; author of “Six Days of War” and other highly regarded works of history; and now three years into the post of ambassador — was at his diplomatically polished best."

The abandonment by Charles Krauthammer

“The Obama policy is in shambles. Which is why Cordesman argues that the only way to prevent a nuclear Iran without war is to establish a credible military threat to make Iran recalculate and reconsider. That means U.S. red lines: deadlines beyond which Washington will not allow itself to be strung, as well as benchmark actions that would trigger a response, such as the further hardening of Iran’s nuclear facilities to the point of invulnerability and, therefore, irreversibility.”
"This is beyond feckless. The Obama policy is a double game: a rhetorical commitment to stopping Iran, yet real-life actions that everyone understands will allow Iran to go nuclear.
Yet at the same time that it does nothing, the administration warns Israel sternly, repeatedly, publicly, even threateningly not to strike the Iranian nuclear program. With zero prospect of his policy succeeding, Obama insists on Israeli inaction, even as Iran races to close the window of opportunity for any successful attack.”

Palestinians Have Launched 9,000 Rockets at Israel Since Gaza Pullout

IDF Poster: These are our neighbours

Gunmen attack Sinai HQ of MFO peacekeeping force, four injured

Islamist gunmen burst through perimeter fencing, firing heavily, bring down observation towers; Egyptian troops arrive to try to restore order
"The headquarters of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai was attacked on Friday night by dozens of Bedouin Salafi gunmen, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported.
Dozens of gunmen, in some 50 vehicles, surrounded the base and then 60-70 of them burst in, storming into the base amid heavy gunfire."

BBC is full of liberals afraid to mock Islam (says veteran of the BBC)

"A respected BBC broadcaster has claimed television is dominated by ‘liberal sceptical humanists’ who laugh at Christianity but are afraid to mock Islam.
Roger Bolton, a former editor of Panorama, said an obsession with human rights over religious beliefs had left corporation bosses out of touch with the public."

Riot News:
Australia: Arrests made after police officers injured at anti-Islamic film protest in Sydney CBD
Syndey Riots Video

Rabbi Says Media Must Answer If Reports That Jews Made Anti-Islamic Movie Aren't True

He calls the spreading of false information "blood libel," which could result in more violence against Jewish people.

The eight dumbest things said about free speech this week

CNN Ignores Real Goal of Cairo Riots: Freedom of Blind Sheik

Obama Covers Posterior, Suddenly Complies With War Powers Resolution

Israel a ‘prisoner’s paradise,’ says American cable series

MSNBC’s ‘Lockup: World Tour’ visits the Jewish State and passes an encouraging verdict
"Not only does Israel maintain fewer prisoners per capita than most Western countries, but released inmates achieve high levels of reintegration into society. Recidivism rates in the US and Europe hover at 75%, with rates in Israel as much as 20% lower. Israeli prisons themselves are less crowded than in most countries, in part due to the release of thousands of Palestinian “security” prisoners in recent years.
A thread running through Lockup’s Israeli prison interviews is the ability of education, skills-development and job placement to prevent repeat offenses."

With neurotechnology, the lame don’t just walk — they race

Neurotech, the science of putting together man and machine, is set to be the next big breakthrough area for Israeli technology
"How was she able to finish the marathon — or for that matter, even walk? Lomas was able to accomplish her feat thanks to a special hi-tech walking brace suit, called the ReWalk, made by Israeli company Argo Medical Technologies. Lomas’ accomplishment is notable not just for itself; it also sheds light on what has until been on less well-known area of Israeli activity in life sciences, neuroscience and neurotechnology."

From Zvi:

Forbes: From Startup to Brain Nation

"Israeli President Shimon Peres,89, has a vision: position Israel not only as the “Startup Nation,” but also as the Brain Nation. “There is no doubt that brain research in the next decade will revolutionize our lives and impact such major domains as medicine, education, computing, and the human mind, to name but some. Moreover, it will not only relieve the suffering of patients of such debilitating diseases as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but it will also engender large economic rewards as well.”"
It's really nice to see incredibly talented people working together on an ambitious dream.

SingTel: Israel "part of our golden plans"

(and he's clearly very serious about this)

"Southeast Asia's largest telco SingTel is eyeing investments and partnerships in Israel, especially in the multimedia space, as part of its ongoing transformation to diversify from its core carriage business to becoming a provider of ICT services....He pointed out that the telco had set up a S$200 million (US$163 million) venture capital fund, Innov8, in 2010, which it could tap on to invest in startups...."For many of these people in emerging markets, the only way advertisers have access to them is through mobilephones," he pointed out to ZDNet Asia in an earlier report, referring to how people in such countries were more likely to own handsets than own television sets or consume media through other forms."

Confused half-truths, projections of Palestinian tendencies onto Israel and twisted caricatures by the Chairman of the Pal Encyclopedia

He got a few things right about the intense debate and a few things right about the history, but what is striking is how little the author understands Israel, its culture, its people, its history, its leaders and its reality. And yet he feels comfortable "teaching" people his completely nonsensical version of reality.

And of course, toward the end, he throws in a pile of complete balderdash in which he blames Haredi soldiers for the purported killing of Palestinian civilians, after he claims that rabbinic councils have called for such (another complete fiction).

OECD: Israel has 2nd highest percentage of people attending higher education

"Israel has the second-highest percentage of 25 to 64-year-old people attending higher education among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states, according to a just-released report."

What?!? Those "evil" Israelis didn't kill him?

"A deaf Lebanese boy who crossed the barbed wire fence into Israel was handed over to U.N. peacekeepers Friday.
Security sources said 10-year-old Mohammad Hasan Fadel Jawad had crossed the barbed wire fence facing the southern Lebanese village of Rmeish Thursday afternoon.
They said Israel handed over the boy to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) at the border town of Naqoura Friday morning.
UNIFIL in turn handed the boy over to the Lebanese Army, who returned him to his parents in the border town of Aita al-Shaab."

Lebanese newspaper editor goes on anti-semitic diatribe

Charles Ayoub is the editor of the Lebanese newspaper al-Diyar and is known to be close to Hezbollah and Syria.

But his latest article, about the absurd Mohammed video, is pure Jew-hatred. He doesn't even try to pretend to be anti-Zionist - he hangs his Jew-hate right out there, proudly.

In this article, he says Jews want to divide Muslims from Christians so Jews can control both of them. He says 400 Jews disembarked off the airplane that eventually was bombed over Lockerbie. He says Moammar Gaddafi, his sons and his mistresses were Jewish, and that's why he sent arms to Lebanon to keep the civil war going.

And, of course, he says all the Jews didn't come to work at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

According to Ayoub, Jews control both the United States and Russia.

The stupid Mohammed video? It wasn't released to coincide with 9/11. No, the Jews who (naturally) made the movie to cause a rift between Christians and Muslims released it right before the Pope was to visit Lebanon, in order to cause internal strife! The film's purpose is to incite Muslims to attack Christians while the Pope is there.

So diabolical!

There has been a definite uptick in explicit anti-semitism in the Arabic media in the past few months. It is starting to become as acceptable as it was in the days before MEMRI and the Web when Arabs didn't pretend to distinguish between Jews and Zionists. Usually, Arab anti-semites would hide their caricatures of big-nosed, black-hatted Jews by labeling them "Zionists" or they would claim that "Zionists" controlled the banks and the media, and so forth.

And even though it was a joke, it revealed that they were at least embarrassed to admit that they really hated Jews. That embarrassment seems to be melting away.

Only in the past week we saw explicitly anti-Jewish vitriol and incitement in Egyptian and Jordanian newspapers.

As far as I can tell, there has been no pushback against these articles in the Arab media or in talkbacks.

Saudi vice cop gets beaten

Haven't done one of these for a while....

Two Saudi men and a woman allegedly beat up a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) on Wednesday night after he caught one of their female relatives with an Arab man in a state of khulwa (seclusion) inside a car.

The girl, who managed to escape the scene afterward, called for help from her family after the Hai’a officer caught the couple.

Lt. Col. Zaki Al-Rehaili, spokesman for Makkah police, said the victim sustained a fractured skull when he was hit with a stone by one of the assailants.

Must be the occupation.

Friday links

From Ian:

A "Palestinian Spring": A Renewed Fatah Bid to Remove Fayyad by Khaled Abu Toameh

"Palestinians noticed that in many cities, Fatah activists were organizing and leading the anti-Fayyad protests. Palestinian Security forces had been instructed not to prevent the protesters from burning posters and effigies of Fayyad."

A cynical view of Middle East democracy -- One person, one vote, one time?

The latest rampages following the "Innocence of Muslims" film do not augur well for the future of MidEast democracy
"Am I being overly cynical? Tell me after we see what action Libya takes against the murderers of the US ambassador and after we see how hard President Mursi cracks down on the demonstrators, feverish over a 13 minute film trailer. And finally, tell me when we see if either regime (or any of the others) allows any significant political opponents to arise who could defeat them in future democratic elections – if they ever take place.
How long did democracy last in Gaza before political opponents were tortured and thrown off buildings? How many opposition parties are there in the West Bank – outside prison, that is? Yup - one person, one vote, and only one time."

Myths and realities: Israel and the refugee problem

"The Palestinians' so-called leaders are busy selling their "narrative", but let's call a spade a spade – their narrative is nothing but propaganda, full of half-truths, omissions and outright lies and it's built on the tears of the crimes the Arab world committed against 850,000 Arab-Jewish (*) refugees and continues to commit against the 5,000,000, downtrodden Palestinian pawns."
(* Jews from Arab countries would be better)

Irish Times: State did nothing to save Jews, says Shatter

THE GOVERNMENT in the 1940s did nothing to oppose the extermination of the Jews in Europe, Minister for Justice and Defence Alan Shatter said yesterday.
"He also warned that the international community today had to stand up to those such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran who not only denied the Holocaust but were actively seeking to destroy the state of Israel.
Opening a conference to mark the centenary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved more than 50,000 Hungarian Jews from the death camps, the Minister said there were many who did nothing in the face of the industrialised genocide and destruction of European Jewish civilisation."

UN Watch: Hillel Neuer: New UN human rights official is a hero to Holocaust deniers

"De Zayas is not a Holocaust denier. But he is a hero to them. His publications and lectures are promoted on websites such as “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust.” It’s easy to see why.
One of his key themes is that hardly any Germans knew what was happening to their Jewish compatriots."

MEMRI Cartoon in PA daily shows Israel as a knife slitting Jerusalem’s throat?

Israel urges world boycott of Ahmadinejad speech to the UN

UN envoy Ron Prosor: ‘Iran’s nuclear program is like an express train, and the international community’s response is like a local train that stops at every stop’

U.N. shipment of high-tech to North Korea, Iran unjustified and unfathomable, say investigators

"The high-tech shipments to two of the world’s most dangerous governments were initially made public last April by Fox News, which reported that WIPO’s method for carrying out the transaction in North Korea seemed designed to bypass safeguards set up in 2008 after a similar scandal involving another U.N. agency, the United Nations Development Program."

Dramatic moustache causes man to flee hometown

The iconoclastic facial hair caused him to abandon his hometown of Bara in Khyber Agency after the militants declared it ‘un-Islamic’.
“It was the summer of 2008, when members of the LeI arrested me and took me to a religious scholar who declared the moustache un-Islamic and ordered it to be shaved,” he said.
The pride of Afridi’s life was shaved at gunpoint. Refusing to be cowed by the militants’ threats, however, he decided to move to Peshawar so that his moustache may thrive unfettered."

IDF Blog A Rosh Hashana Greeting from the IDF Chief of Staff

A great Jewish year for tourism: Record 3.5 million visit Israel

Israel receives NIS 18 billion ($4.5 billion) in tourism revenue over past 12 months • Tourism Ministry approves construction grants for 18 new hotels, half of them in Jerusalem.

Israel Daily Picture: Beneath the Old City of Jerusalem Lies a Huge Cave. Does It Date Back To King Solomon or King Zedekiah?