Interview with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz


Mofaz to 'Post': PA must halt terror by end of September   In a 90-minute interview with The Jerusalem Post Wednesday evening, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that Israel will have to reassess its relations with the Palestinian Authority if the latter fails to take action against terrorist organizations by the end of September.   "At the end of September,…

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From Beirut to Jerusalem


On Sunday, July 27, just hours after abducted IDF soldier Oleg Shaikhet's body was found, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah broadcast a call for the kidnapping of more Israelis.   Just a few days later, 17-year-old Dana Benett went missing, and then 19-year-old Eliezer Zusia Klughaupt disappeared. Several Israelis have reported attempted kidnappings – some at gunpoint – from which they…

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Rockets galore


Aside from suicide bombers, the weapon most emblematic of the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel that began three years ago in September, is the Kassam rocket.   The Kassam, a crude rocket that contains between 10-15 kilograms of explosives, made its debut in Gaza during the first months of the war. Ever since, Kassam rockets have been fired extensively, if…

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Pipe dreams, reality and war


Wednesday, the US Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee postponed indefinitely its vote on the White House's nomination of Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes to the board of directors of the federally mandated and financed United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC.   The Senate committee's tabling of the nomination of a scholar to a think tank is…

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Fighting minority tyranny


Last week saw the first official mosque opening in Granada, Spain since the Spanish Inquisition. Just after the mosque opening ceremonies concluded, 2,000 Muslims from all over Europe converged on the town for an Islamic conference. There participants were told that the aim of Muslims in Europe is to overthrow the capitalist system. According to the BBC, Spanish Muslim leader…

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Meaningless half-steps


The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations this week distributed an op-ed under the title "A Muslim wakeup," that was published on Wednesday by The Christian Science Monitor. The author, a self-proclaimed Muslim political activist in New York named Ahmed Nassef, railed against the "anti-Jewish bigotry" which he admits is ubiquitous in the Arab world today.   Nassef,…

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Sharon’s accidental tourist — Interview with Benny Elon


As the government debates how to implement the various stages of President George W. Bush's Road Map for a Middle East Peace, Tourism Minister Benny Elon is preparing for what he believes is the predestined failure of the road map.   Son of retired Supreme Court justice Menachem Elon, a former head of a yeshiva, and a resident of the…

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Morality under fire


In an interview with the Palestinian Authority's television station shortly after he was named prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas was asked how he thought he would be able to make a deal with Israel given what the interviewer referred to as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's anti-peace stand.   Abbas responded by explaining that Sharon does not operate in a vacuum. He…

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The law of the peace process


This week, US Senator Arlen Specter submitted a troubling request to the US Justice Department. Specter asked that the US attorney-general request that Israel extradite convicted Hamas terrorist Hassan Salameh to stand trial in the US for the murder of three US citizens.   Salameh was one of the commanders of Hamas at the time of his arrest in 1996.…

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Hamas’s big victory


Hamas's latest offer is to temporarily stop massive attacks inside pre-Six Day War Israel, while continuing with smaller attacks. Massive attacks by Hamas, it says, will be limited during this undefined period to Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The offer is contingent on Israel agreeing to stop all targeted killings of Hamas members and releasing all terrorists from jail.   Israel's…

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