The Key Resolutions
Israel will be 55 years old in May. The country was established under sanction of inter national law after the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181 in 1947, dividing the remaining 23 percent…
ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
Twenty Facts About Israel and the Middle East
The world’s attention has been focused on the Middle East. We are confronted daily with scenes of carnage and destruction. Can we understand such violence?
Status of Jewish Holy Sites
Under Jordanian occupation (May 28, 1948—June 7, 1967), all Jewish holy sites in East Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria were off-limits to Jews. In East Jerusalem, 58 synagogues were destroyed or desecrated. Jordan built…
When Was the Holy Land an Independent Arab State?
For years Yasser Arafat has referred to Israel as “our country, Palestine” and has talked about retaking the land, “restoring its freedom,” and restoring the State of Palestine with “holy Jerusalem” as its capital…
Eye on the Middle East Nov/Dec 2002
Reading the news reports that flood the airways and Internet these days, one often tends to conclude that searching for good news is a vain pursuit. That certainly applies to what is taking place in
They Cry in Silence Nov/Dec 2002
On a day in late July, students, faculty, and employees were taking a leisurely lunch inside the popular Frank Sinatra Cafeteria on the campus of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Without warning, a thunderous explosion…
Israel in the News Nov/Dec 2002
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Web site has reported a new children’s outdoor game being played these days in the Palestinian Authority (PA) city of Ramallah. The name of the game was not reported…
Zvi Nov/Dec 2002
Where there is no faith, there is the tendency to hate. We see this every day as Arabs volunteer to become suicide bombers. And they wait eagerly to be called to do so. Those…
Standing Tall in the Rose Garden
When George W. Bush strode into the White House rose garden in June, much of the world waited somewhat eagerly to hear what the U.S. chief executive would say. He said a mouthful. Some likened…
Peace in Two Sentences
Why is it so difficult to find the formula for peace in the Middle East? What’s the problem, anyway? The problem and solution are two simple sentences.
America’s Perplexing Diplomacy
Israel is America’s most faithful ally in the Middle East, if not in the world. Yet U.S. policy toward this tiny democracy often leaves us scratching our heads.
Legacy of a Terrorist
Dictators make bad neighbors. And make no mistake; before he is an Arab, before he is a Palestinian, even before he is a Muslim, Yasser Arafat is a dictator. When he founded the Palestine Liberation Organization…
A Terrorist by Any Other Name
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. And if Nobel Peace Prize-winner Arafat funds and preaches terrorism, he’s every inch a terrorist.
Dateline: Jerusalem
The West Bank? The West Bank of what? Subtly slanted journalism is shaping the thinking of people around the globe—and it is not pro-Israel.
Israel in the News Sep/Oct 2002
Yasser Arafat’s Fatah terrorist organization is signed on posters throughout Judea, Samaria, and Gaza that threaten terrorism against Americans. The posters say attacks will take place if the United States continues to support Israel…
From Bill Sutter’s Desk Jul/Aug 2002
For almost two years, the State of Israel has been under unusual pressure. She has suffered mercilessly at the hands of Arab-Muslim mobs and has been treated as an outcast by many countries…
Rachel Is Still Weeping
They stormed the Church of the Nativity and held nuns and priests hostage. Are these peacemakers? What is the truth behind the Muslim-Christian alliance?
Eye on the Middle East Jul/Aug 2002
When the Israelis decided to go into the refugee camp at Jenin in order to ferret out terrorists and their weapons-making factories, a fateful decision was made. Instead of using massive, indiscriminate bombing campaigns as
Israel in the News Jul/Aug 2002
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been accused of massacring Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp when soldiers went after terrorists there. Dr. David Zangen, a senior pediatrician at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, was in Jenin…
Recycling Adolph Hitler
The Egyptian press is resurrecting old propaganda to slander the Jews—but with a new twist: It is comparing President Bush and America to Nazis.
Eye on the Middle East May/Jun 2002
Late last winter a flurry of peace proposals began floating through the air of the Middle East. The situation in Israel was desperate. Palestinian terrorists were murdering innocent civilians at an alarming rate. In…
Israel in the News May/Jun 2002
The Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that converts to Reform or Conservative Judaism inside Israel must be registered as Jews. The ruling overturns Israel’s long-standing policy that only those who convert under Orthodox…
Palestinian Flags Over the Churches of Jerusalem?
Hours before Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasser Arafat made his December pledge to stop the suicide bombings and terrorist attacks on innocent Israeli civilians, he made another promise. Speaking in a mosque in Palestinian-held Ramallah…
Eye on the Middle East
Israel is not worth the price of an atom bomb. That opinion was expressed in an editorial appearing in an Iranian newspaper in response to remarks made by former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani. The editorial…
Israel in the News Mar/Apr 2002
Plans by the terrorist organization Hamas to produce homemade Katyusha rockets in the West Bank were foiled after the Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, arrested a Hamas operative at the Rafah border crossing as he…
When Terror Is Not ‘Terror’
Does abhorrence of terrorism depend on the nationality or religion of the victim? Are some lives less precious than others, so much so that the word terrorism would not apply to murderous attacks on these…
Eye on the Middle East Jan/Feb 2002
According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, Israeli Cabinet minister Dan Meridor hailed a recent Palestinian statement as “a major breakthrough.” Apparently the Palestinian Authority (PA) has offered to resettle Arab refugees in the
Israel in the News Jan/Feb 2002
The deputy chairman of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council told about 350 Islamic clerics recently they should support a holy war against Israel to “expel the sons of apes and pigs from Palestine.” Speaking to representatives…
Who Weeps for Hagar’s Children?
Two children, two promises. The road has not been easy for Isaac’s seed, but neither has it been a bed of roses for the descendants of Ishmael.
Israel’s Quest for Peace
What happened to the Oslo “peace train”? Did it even leave the station? Ride the rails of inquiry for a look at why there still is no peace in the Middle East.
Duplicity: The PA Strategy to Destroy Israel
“Say one thing, do another.” Such is standard PA procedure. This insightful article is chock-full of facts that reveal the inconsequential value of PA promises.
Israel’s Internal Battle
Religious vs. Secular. Likud vs. Labor. Hawks vs. Doves. For a country fighting to stay alive, little Israel has more than its share of domestic troubles.
Israel in the News Nov/Dec 2001
Engineers have found that sections of the southern wall of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, are in “intermediate” danger of collapse, possibly due to the Moslem Wakf Authority’s significant construction work directly above…
U.S. Embassy–Closing the Door Once More
Early in June the current administration opted to follow the lead of former President Clinton, at least temporarily, by closing the door on moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Citing security interests…
Israel in the News Sep/Oct 2001
According to an Internet report on Yahoo!® News, the poll was conducted by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion from May 24 through 26 and showed 76 percent of respondents favored “operations like the May…
The Voice of the Devil
It started in the Garden of Eden. His voice was soothing and persuasive; the objects of his intentions, receptive; and, as a result, we live today with some very regrettable consequences.
The PLO vs. The Christians
Arafat’s war against Israel has shattered nearly as many old certainties as lives. One of the most seemingly solid of the certainties was that no one could attack Israel’s capital and live to tell the…
Eye on the Middle East Jul/Aug 2001
At the height of the recent Al-Aqsa Intifada, Palestinians and Israelis bemoaned the suffering it caused. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, determined to widen the war and force international intervention on his behalf…
Israel in the News Jul/Aug 2001
At the invitation of Iran, Israel’s archenemy, members of the terror groups Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas met with parliamentary leaders of 30 Islamic countries at a two-day conference in Tehran. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan…
Eye on the Middle East May/Jun 2001
We have commented often in this space about the issue of revisionist history—the writing of fiction while calling it fact. The most recent blatant example is the Arab contention that the Jewish people have had…
Israel in the News May/Jun 2001
THE JERUSALEM POST—Fatah has issued a leaflet vowing to escalate the intifada and to make the lives of Gilo residents “hell.” The leaflet praised the recent killing of Israeli motorist Tzahi Sasson on the Bethlehem…
Zvi May/Jun 2001
The world has so many big countries. Russia has 6.6 million square miles of land; Canada has 3.8 million. Even Jordan has 57,354 square miles of land. We have only 7,850 square miles.
Christians and the Jerusalem Giveaway
When, during the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli Colonel Mordechai “Motta” Gur uttered the electrifying words, “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” Jewish people danced in the streets; and Bible-believing Christians shared their unbridled joy.
History by The Wishing Well
The ugly tentacles of revisionism are spreading over the Temple Mount. And if Arafat has his way, they eventually will reach all the way to Christ Himself.
Israel at the Epicenter
Did you know the Quran does not mention Jerusalem even once by name? Why, then, is that city so important to Muslims? The explanation is eye-opening.
Eye on the Middle East Mar/Apr 2001
Sheik Hassan Nashrallah has a suggestion for all Jewish people living in the State of Israel. Nashrallah is the secretary-general for the Hezbollah terrorist organization that operated against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Israel in the News Mar/Apr 2001
Israel needs 528 billion gallons of water annually to survive. But if things stay as they are, the Jewish nation will run out of fresh water in fifteen years, according to Ronald S. Lauder…
Zvi Mar/Apr 2001
Many people here live with horrifying memories of the Holocaust. They came here to find peace. But with the unrest in Israel today, the terrible fear they lived with in Europe has returned to them.
Ascending Mars’ Hill
As bizzare as it may sound, some people propose turning the Temple Mount over to God! But whose God will it be?
Eye on the Middle East Jan/Feb 2001
Every now and then a story breaks that contradicts the notion that Jews and Palestinian Arabs could never live together in peace and mutual respect for one another. Recently, on the eastern…
Israel in the News Jan/Feb 2001
Dr. Aaron Grossman of Chicago, Ill., was shocked to discover that the Associated Press had supplied newspapers with a photograph of his badly beaten son and had identified him as a Palestinian being brutalized…
Knowing Who Your Friends Are
When a Jewish senator was interviewed on the subject of anti-Semitism, he frankly acknowledged how anti-Jewish prejudice had affected his life. “I believe,” he said, “that from time to time, every Jew looks around…
Losing the Vision?
We have entered the “post-Zionist” era. Yet God says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” What does this all mean for little Israel?
Israel in the News Oct/Nov 2000
HA’ARETZ (INTERNET EDITION)— Palestinian electricity consumption is climbing by 15–20 percent a year and could become a future time bomb threatening Israel’s limited reserves, a senior industry source said.
Never Missing an Opportunity to Miss an Opportunity
Speaking of Israel’s adversaries, someone once commented that “they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity!” If anyone wants proof of that wry observation, he need only consider the events that took place during…
Turning Back the Clock
For thirty years, Israeli farmers in north- ern Israel have lived in relative safety. Now those days may have ended.
Israel in the News Aug/Sep 2000
HAARETZ—Prime Minister Ehud Barak expressed his gratitude to Russian President Vladimire Putin for the freeing of Adi Sharon, a 12–year–old Israeli boy. According to Russian news agencies, the 13 gang members responsible for the kidnapping…
Israel in the News Jun/Jul 2000
THE JERUSALEM REPORT— Participants are currently being recruited for a new program to take non-Jews from around the world on tours of the Nazi death camps in Poland and then to Israel.
Eye on the Middle East Apr/May 2000
Who’s on First.” That famous comedy routine by Bud Abbott and Lou Costello had audiences in an uproar trying to figure out who was where on the baseball diamond.
Israel in the News Apr/May 2000
Born in Jaffa in 1935, Levy was a thirteenth generation sabra (native Israeli) who devoted his life to his country. He served in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) for more than twenty-five years…
Can Israel and Syria Make a Deal?
In spite of all the optimistic talk in Washington, Jerusalem, and Damascus about peace being on the horizon, there are serious questions about how much, in the long run, can actually be achieved.
Eye on the Middle East Feb/Mar 2000
JERUSALEM—In an attempt to enlarge an exit to an underground mosque, the Muslim Wakf has been illegally excavating underneath the Temple Mount and dumping the dirt by the truckload into the Kidron Valley.
Israel in the News Feb/Mar 2000
JERUSALEM—The population in Israel has reached 6.2 million, and the Jewish population is approaching 5 million, according to recent figures published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). A CBS spokesman said he expects rapid…
Israel Extends Its Arm
Late last summer the Israeli Navy sent its fleet from the port of Haifa on a special mission. In concert with the navy, Israeli Air Force jets swept into the sky bound for the Mediterranean. Their combined mission was to form a gala welcoming committee. The recipient…
Is Everybody Happy? Don’t Count on It!
When the Sharm Agreement was signed at Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, last month, a mini-eruption of euphoria flowed into statehouses and liberal editorial offices all over the world. At long last, the spin was, we are on the road to…
Israel at the Crossroads
As I sat in the Israeli Government Press Office auditorium with many “weathered” journalists from around the world, a scene unfolded on the large-screen television before me that amazed us all. There in Washington, D.C….
Barak’s Government
Israel’s volatile political scene was struck by lightning the middle of this year with the election of Ehud Barak as prime minister. The One Israel party leader was the choice of nearly six out of every ten voters on May 17. Unlike the late Yitzhak Rabin…
A Palestinian State?
With a new Israeli prime minister who appears more open to negotiating with the Palestinians than his predecessor, it is appropriate to raise this question: What would a Palestinian state involve?
Israel in the News Oct/Nov 1999
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the Iranian regime has significantly increased its funding of the Hamas terror organization to permit an escalation in attacks at a time when the government of Israel is working to advance…
The Many States of Palestine
An early Zionist leader was fond of speaking of the land that was to become Israel as “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Although his observation was, in large measure, accurate, it was not quite the whole of…
Israel in the News Aug/Sep 1999
“This one we call Yirmiyahu, that one is Tikva and this one here is Fortuna Ziona,” said Col. Dan Engelhard, a pediatrician, pointing to the three newborns under his care. The three were born in the refugee camp hospital—delivered by…
Changing Horses at High Speed
With the dexterity of an old Pony Express rider, America’s current administration appears to have leaped into a new saddle with bewildering speed. Dust raised from the change of direction is causing great consternation in Jerusalem…
Israel in the News Jun/Jul 1999
As the United States moves to revive the stalled Israeli-Syrian peace talks, Defense Minister Moshe Arens said recently that the only way Damascus will make peace is if Israel withdraws from the entire Golan Heights. He is against…
Listen to the Children
The assumption now is that some sort of Palestinian state will soon be a fact of life for Israel and the Middle East. With the U.S. administration manifesting a perceptible policy shift in favor of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians, coupled with…
Eye on the Middle East Apr/May 1999
Egyptian Foreign Minister Moussa recently sent the Israelis a message meant to influence voters to dump Prime Minister Netanyahu in favor of, in their view, a more flexible candidate. Moussa urged Israelis to embrace a Palestinian state…
Interview With David Bar–Illan
In view of the turmoil now being experienced in the Middle East, we have decided to replace Israel In The News with an interview Elwood McQuaid conducted with Mr. David Bar-Illan on November 18, 1998. He is the Policy and…
Eye on the Middle East Dec/Jan 1998/1999
Palestinian militants were pleading “wounded pride” following last summer’s retaliatory strikes against terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan. A leader of Islamic Jihad said he hoped Muslim militant groups would carry out attacks to punish…
Israel in the News Dec/Jan 1998/1999
Long lines of potential immigrants formed outside the Jewish Agency offices in Moscow…for the first time in years as the ruble continued to fall, according to Jewish Agency emissaries. In Israel, Absorption Minister Yuli Edelstein predicted that…
The Shrinking State Of Israel
The Jewish people had traveled a tortuous road for the better part of two millennia before Baron Lord Rothschild received, on behalf of the Jewish people, the official letter sanctioning a national home for Jewish people in Palestine. For 400 years…
Israel At 50: Celebrating the Year of Jubilee
The year 1998 is the Year of Jubilee—the 50th birthday of the State of Israel! What is going through the minds of Israelis on the state’s 50th birthday? What are the expectations of its citizens? Since Israel is a nation of immigrants…
Eye on the Middle East Oct/Nov 1998
It is often difficult to feel certain you are getting the straight story when listening to spokesmen for the Palestinian Authority and their cohorts in the Middle East. The new Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheik Ekrima Sabri, recently appointed by Yasser Arafat…
Israel in the News Oct/Nov 1998
Israel’s high-profile rescue team in Nairobi continued to search for survivors in the rubble of the bombing of the us embassy in Kenya…,after having succeeded in rescuing a man, a woman, and her son. The army home front command rescue teams…
Israel Cannot Forget What Many Refuse to Remember
Repeated denials by U.S. officials of any intention to pressure Israel into a posture of appeasement in the interest of approving nods from Yasser Arafat are refuted by their own actions. The heat is on Israel to acquiesce to Washington’s…
Prophetic Implications
The stepping aside of the United States, even temporarily, in favor of intervention in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians by the European Union brings to mind an end-times scenario. There is a strong indication that…
Eye On The Middle East Aug/Sep 1998
The idea of Israel’s making a complete withdrawal of its troops from southern Lebanon should cause a rousing celebration in Beirut and the Arab world. After all, withdrawal from south Lebanon has been the stated objective of…
Israel in the News Aug/Sep 1998
The government intends to lodge a protest with the Palestinian Authority over an interview PA Chairman Yasser Arafat gave…in which he compared the Oslo Accords to a temporary truce, saying he envied Palestinian suicide “martyrs”…
Israel’s Right to Peace And Security
It is increasingly clear that the major roadblock to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not Israel’s alleged refusal to make concessions to Arab demands. In fact, the more land Israel concedes, the more strident the Palestinian…
Israel in the News Jun/Jul 1998
By 2003, Israel will finally have fulfilled the dreams of its founders when it overtakes the United States to become home to the largest number of Jews in the world. This according to the Institute of the World Jewish Congress, which is…
The Peril of Pressuring Israel
Flying in the face of the contention that Israel must make unilateral concessions to Arab demands to relinquish land and make sweeping withdrawals from the territories are realities that, if not reckoned with decisively today, will certainly come back in…
Eye on the Middle East Apr/May 1998
Since the January visits to Washington by Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat, much has been said about a “demilitarized” Palestinian state. It is presumed that such a state would cause no appreciable problems for Israel, while bringing much aid and…
Israel in the News Apr/May 1998
The Absorption Ministry announced…that immigration was up more than 20% in the last six months of 1997, compared to the first six months of the year, with the majority of newcomers arriving from Ukraine and Ethiopia. Some 36,000 immigrants arrived…
Eggs Over Easy
It was a bad year for the Jewish people in Israel—suicide bombings, more deaths in Lebanon, murders of innocent civilians, and the peace talks at a standstill. To make matters worse, at year’s end the United States was pressing Prime Minister Netanyahu…
Israel in the News Feb/Mar 1998
The threat of missiles aimed at Israel is the most significant since the War of Independence, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai warned recently.
“They can hit our most vital asset, the civilian population we are supposed to be defending,” he told…
My Brother’s Keeper?
On September 26, 1997, Russian President Boris Yeltsin brought the curtain back down. With a single sweep of his pen, he consorted with the darkest elements in Russian society to snuff the lamp of religious freedom that had flickered tenuously since the…
Eye on the Middle East Dec/Jan 1997/1998
After the tragic suicide bombing on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem last September, Yasser Arafat was adamant. The bombers, he insisted, came from abroad; thus, he had no control over the invaders. As a matter of fact, the problem, he claimed, was with…
Israel in the News Dec/Jan 1997/1998
Hundreds of urns filled with human ashes that were discovered at the former Buchenwald concentration camp were buried [recently] at a mountain cemetery.
The 701 metal urns were found May 7 by carpenters working on the roof of…
Six Days In June Oct/Nov 1997
“A people considered for centuries as non-fighters carried out in June, 1967 against long odds the most nearly perfect military operation in modern history.” With these words an eminent American historian opened her…
The Yom Kippur War Oct/Nov 1997
Prime Minister Golda Meir was worried. It was that same strange feeling she had back in 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War. Reports had been coming in since May…
Lebanon: Land Of Beauty, Land Of War
The Bible pictures Lebanon as a land of towering mountains covered by tall cedars, rising above lush valleys with flowing rivers. Although few of the famed trees grow in the rugged mountains of modern Lebanon…
Bombs in the Marketplace: “How Long, Oh Lord?”
On July 30, two young Arab men embarked on a suicide mission with the intent to kill and maim more innocent Israelis. Their target was Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, an open-air shopping strip jammed tightly…