The Olive Branch

Grassroots Anti-Islamism in Germany September 7, 2010 2:05 P.M. By Benjamin Weinthal In what could be seen as a parallel to the robust grassroots opposition to the Ground Zero mosque in the U.S., citizens of the German city of Mönchengladbach, located in the West German state of North Rhine–Westphal...

Shana Tova for all of you, my friends in Israel and abroad!

Let the new year bring a just solution to the problems of Israel, the Jewish state (as it called in Hungarian) and strenghten its position!

Robi
from Hungary

hehe who me? I am the most tactful of beings. ;) :lol: just like me :wink: Sorry for not being able to follow quite your humorous line of thought. :cry: Please, explain :wink: The author of the article is basically a German-American Jew with a good lifetime practice and a balanced overview on the h...

I agree with you, Peter that it is a good and realistic article (which has become quite rare nowadays) but I could not quite follow your argumentation: I think that playing niqab card is at the root of it people are not making an equivalence with the Kipah anymore, but with the violent crowds at the...

Turkey Building 10 Meter High Wall inside Jerusalem by Gil Ronen, Aug 1, 2010 For no apparent reason, the Turkish government is building a 10 meter high wall along a section of the Old City wall in Jerusalem. Aryeh King, Chairman of the Public Complaints Bureau in eastern Jerusalem, recently noticed...

I am for an independent Kurdistan! They are much more a nation with a long history (I wrote about it a year ago, but you could read Wikipedia, too) and able to run a state of their own than the so called Palestinians (and some other artificially created Middle Eastern "nations".) They prov...

An Avalanche of Anti-Israel Propaganda July 6, 2010 - by Phyllis Chesler Is The New York Times on The White House Payroll? There is an avalanche of hatred bearing down on Israel. I fear it might be too late to stem this “blood-dimmed” tide and its fearful consequences. The state of Israel was envis...

Is political satire really a Western thing? I would say, yes. But I suppose basically it is only after the period of enlightment. Though satire has been well known in Greece and in Roman empire, too, but not in the Middle Ages. Maybe satire could exist only in civil societies and not religion-ruled...

I have similar feelings about Jerusalem, completely agree with the facts displayed and share the concern about her future, expressed in the following letter. But I couldn't manage to articulate the diversity and the tolerance felt in your country as well as the author did. Jerusalem and the foreigne...

The Real War is Palestinian vs. Palestinian The world has gone mad—or at least, the American leadership has now formally joined the Islamist and international madness about “peace in the Middle East.” President Obama has just claimed that American “vital national security” is linked to finding—or e...

Bernie, Jerusalem for the Jews is less secular then the Vatican for the Catholics. (I mean the Old City, especially the Temple Mount and surroundings, the traditional center of Jerusalem, which is not 'East-Jerusalem'.) Rome is a center of Christianity since less than 2000 years, Jerusalem is the ce...

Woe will be a divided Jerusalem - By DAVID M. WEINBERG, JP, 01/04/2010 The upshot of last week’s Obama-Netanyahu confrontation is that the White House wants to move Israel rapidly towards a division of Jerusalem. However, the widely held presumption that splitting Jerusalem will lead to prosperity ...

The West Bank and Gaza Strip are disputed territories whose status can only be determined through negotiations. Occupied territories are territories captured in war from an established and recognized sovereign. As the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not under the legitimate and recognized sovereignty...

the British establishment has never gotten over their treatment by the Jews in what was then Palestine.

Since I started to study the history of the Middle East, in respect to the the last 80 years, I've constantly getting the same feeling

Bernie wrote ... you do not believe in any negotiated solution , which means obviously you believe in war. Shimon, I believe you are not ready, to adopt mutual and respectful coexistence . Bernie, I would like to believe in negotiated solutions and would be ready to adopt mutual and respectful coexi...

He additionally offered that five Arab states would be involved in governing Jerusalem , which would be divided based on its demographics. I'm trying to wrap my head around this statement. It seems like a non-starter from several points, both Israeli and Palestinian. A compromise between to parties...

Title: Entire "contiguous" argument is nonsense. Name: Dr. L. Brnd City: San Diego State: USA "Contiguous" means "touching, in direct contact at one (1) point". Not "Continuous". The PA state can never be "contiguous" because 34 miles of Israeli soil...

'Apartheid week’ or ‘weakness’? By RAY HANANIA JP, 10/03/2010 Rather than hold celebrations that fuel a hatred of Israel around an exaggerated word like apartheid, Palestinians should call for compromise. There is one important fundamental about truth: Genuine truth gives one the power to tolerate ...

Another Fragment of the Lost Tribes of Israel Found in Africa?

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136374

This article from last year has some details which I've not read before. I marked them by setting them in bold. It is also unclear how could Livni and Olmert have made different offers. I find it somewhat strange. Details of Olmert offer to PA revealed, The Jerusalem Post | December 8, 2009 The Pale...

Alas, you are completely right on that, Margie

Sure, the Palestinian public in general is misinformed, also internationally. But the writer is Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University, Evanston, and Professor of International Studies at Birzeit University --- so I suppose he should know more about history than a tourist. (But people like ho...

An interesting and sincere testimony, for sure. There are some points, however, which contradict my knowledge of that time. E.g.: ..... Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews. From 29 November 1947 to 15 May 1948, each of these two communities endeavoured to establish a sovereign State . I did not k...

OK, Oren, 'double standards' maybe not the best expression for this case. But we are speaking about people living in Lebanon for 60 years or (an overwhelming part!) born there. They could not be considered 'lawless illegal immigrants' as your comparison seems to suggest. What I meant that it is a sh...

For those who are interested in 'The Haj' a plot summary can be found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haj_(novel) BTW, the conference I wrote about --- where the pragmatical Palestians lost their RoR-possibility against the more strongly represented Arab countries --- has been in Zurich not in Gen...

The well-known facts* described above are excellently and factually written down in the book of Leon Uris, The Haj, a favourite book of mine. It also describes the dramatic fate of Palestinian families who wanted to return to Israel and tried to represent their cause on the negotiations in Geneva wh...

Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely said on Monday that in order to maintain a Jewish Israel as well as Judea and Samaria, Israel must grant Israeli citizenship to PA Arabs. She spoke at Panel 3 of the Jerusalem Conference, which was entitled, "The Two State Solution, or Maybe Three, or One?" Other sp...

Ayalon touts population swap in peace deal, Haaretz, Febr. 13, 2010 Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon on Saturday spoke out on the peace process, saying that a deal between Israel and the Palestinians could include a swap comprising both land and populations, according to an interview published i...

Obviously the 'Settler's Plan' is too much to be considered as the 'Red LInes' by Israel --- it would cause too much international uproar. http://www.fmep.org/maps/west-bank/settlers-plan-for-palestinian-autonomy-oct-2006/settlers_plan_for_palestinian_authority.gif It could be imposs...

To consider the whole Jordan Valley as Israeli territory would take more than 30% of the WB as one can see from a former Israeli proposal: http://www.fmep.org/maps/redeployment-final-status-options/israeli-separation-options-for-the-west-bank-jul-2003/separation_options_july2003.gif ...

I only know that I took the 3 Maps about Olmert's Proposals from the Foundation for ME Peace homesite: http://www.fmep.org/settlement_info/overview.html I wonder if they are really authentic but even when yes they do not clear much important detail. They have quite a few unrealistic proposals consid...

ex-patriates are the kinds of people he is. refugees are the kind of people he isn't. That's the difference Good reasoning, Margie. A personal touch ... that was missing from my purely logical equations. Thanks Peter for very clearly explaining what I obviously could not do with my poor English for...

SPIEGEL: Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert made you the best offer: The establishment of a Palestinian state on far more than 90 percent of the West Bank, a division of Jerusalem and the return of a few thousand refugees to Israel. Why did you reject it? Abbas: I didn't reject it. Olmert resigned...

Corruption will let Hamas take W. Bank, BY KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JP, 09/02/2010 Dramatic warning delivered by Abbas’s former corruption-buster Fahmi Shabaneh. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Ya...

Berni wrote to Margie: If you do not support a Palestinian State, with East Jerusalem as its capital, or shared, then you ... whether you realize it or not, are supporting an Israeli attack on Lebanon and Syria this year. Just come out and say it ... Bernie, has it even occured to You that all the A...

I SEE YOU WANT TO EXPELL THE 270 THOUSAND PALESTINIANS The correct number is over 400,000, not 270,000. And no, they are not going to be expelled, they have never been admitted. They are not part of Lebanese society, they live in camps, waiting for a homeland. They live in refugee camps, administer...

As of 2007, Lebanon was host to over 375,000 refugees and asylum seekers: 270,800 Palestinians, 50,000 from Iraq,[103] and 4,500 from Sudan. I SEE YOU WANT TO EXPELL THE 270 THOUSAND PALESTINIANS :cry: Between 11 and 13 million people of Lebanese descent are spread throughout the world,[111] especi...

3.Until the site of Mount Maria can be shared, there will be no peace. 1. The Muslims own the site, and the Jews are mad. 2.Netanyahu wants it back, and the Muslims won't share it. (numbered by me for an easier reference) Where is this Mount Maria (i.e. Mount Mary?) If you mean the Temple Mount (al...

Margie, I 've been writing only about the Old City of Jerusalem, the heart of the city. Margie, in your answer you speak about "East Jerusalem", a non-existing entity . It is quite another story. "Jordanian Jerusalem" has been quite small and contained the whole Old City, not onl...

In 1882, for example, there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews living in Jerusalem out of a total population of 40,000. Actually the Old City had a Jewish majority also in the first half of the 20th century. The Muslim Quarter (MQ) was in reality a Mixed Quarter(MQ), a center of Jewish life. Mezuz...