Christ's disciples' remains 'discovered'

An amateur archaeologist and film maker claims to have identified what could be the remains of some of Christ's 12 disciples in a first century burial chamber buried beneath a block of flats in Jerusalem.
Adrian Blomfield, Jeruslaem
28 Feb 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9111834/Christs-disciples-remains-discovered.html

A team led by Simcha Jacobovic, a Canadian documentary director, used a robot to photograph a number of limestone burial caskets, found below a block of flats, which may provide an unprecedented glimpse into Christianity's earliest days.

But the potential significance of the discovery is almost certain to be overshadowed by controversy, with Mr Jacobovic using it as new evidence to bolster his widely disputed claims to have identified the bones of Christ and his family at a nearby burial site.

The caskets, known as ossuaries, were inscribed with what some independent experts said could plausibly be the earliest Christian iconography ever documented.

One of the ossuaries carries an etching of a fish with what appears to be a human head in its mouth, perhaps an image of Jonah, the reluctant Old Testament prophet. The story was of major significance to early Christians and is referred to in the Gospels because Jonah spent three days in the belly of the giant fish that swallowed him, just as Christ spent three days in the tomb.

The fish was also seen as a sacred symbol by early Christians; not only did fish feature in a number of Christ's miracles, but many of the disciples were fishermen, while the Greek for fish – ichthys – is held to be an acronym for "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour".

Independent archaeologists say no Jewish tomb from antiquity is known to have carried a picture of a fish, giving further credibility to the theory that the etching is indeed Christian.

A second, adjacent ossuary is engraved with a Greek inscription that appears to refer to resurrection. It could be translated as "Divine Jehovah, raise up, raise up." Some Israeli archaeologists, however, said that some contemporary Jewish communities, including the Pharisees and the Essenes, also believed in resurrection.

The tomb, like others uncovered in Jerusalem, would almost certainly date to before AD 70, the year the city was destroyed by a Roman army. As a result, if the bones are shown to belong to early Christians they may well have been contemporaries of Christ and perhaps even his disciples as the community in Jerusalem was considered to be small at the time.

Further investigation is likely to be tricky, however. Although the chamber was discovered in 1981, excavation has been impossible because of an edict by Jewish religious authorities who hold that it is sacrilegious to interfere with Jewish tombs.

After years of negotiation, Mr Jacobovic, himself an Israeli-born Jew, managed to win approval to lower a robotic arm beneath the tower block to photograph the ossuaries.

According to Mr Jacobovic and his colleague James Tabor, a biblical scholar at the University of North Carolina, the discovery gives greater credence to their controversial claim that a chamber they called "the Garden tomb" nearby housed the remains of Christ.

They have concluded that both tombs, which lie in the Jerusalem district of East Talpiot, are probably located on the rural estate of Joseph of Arimathea, who the Gospels say took charge of Christ's burial.

"These two tombs, both dating to around the time of Jesus, are less than 200 feet apart," they wrote in a report published yesterday. "Any interpretation of one tomb has to be made in the light of the other. As a result, we believe a compelling argument can be made that the Garden tomb is that of Jesus of Nazareth and his family."

Their widely challenged assertions rest on the discovery in 1981 of ossuaries in the Garden tomb that appear to carry names similar to those of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Two others carried the names of "Judah, son of Jesus" and a woman they claimed could have been Mary Madgalene, whom they suggested could have been Christ's wife in a theory given popular appeal in Dan Brown's novel the "Da Vinci Code".

But the Israeli archaeologists who discovered the ossuaries dismissed Mr Jacobovic's conclusions as nonsense, saying such names were common at the time.

Biblical scholars have also pointed out that, as a Galilean, Christ would not have been buried in Jerusalem, particularly not in a tomb that suggested considerable wealth given His humble origins.

Israeli archaeologists, who jokingly refer to Mr Jacobovic as "Indiana Jones", point out that he is a film maker with no academic qualifications beyond a bachelor's degree and say he has "cherry-picked" findings from experts on his team to create the flimsiest of cases.

"His Jesus theory is conjecture built upon deception built upon wilful misinterpretation in order to spin a moneymaking yarn and garner publicity," said one archaeologist who asked not to be identified in order not to link his name to the claims

Archaeologists Excavate Biblical Giant Goliath's Hometown

July 11, 2011 http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/11/in-israel-archaeologists-unearth-bibles-bad-guys

TEL EL-SAFI, Israel – They haven't found the slingshot -- not yet anyway.

But as archaeologists continue excavation at Gath -- the Biblical home of Goliath, the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling -- they are piecing together the history of the Philistines, a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible.

Close to three millennia ago, the city of Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath, famously felled by a well slung stone.

The Philistines "are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story," said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation.

The latest summer excavation season began this past week, with 100 diggers from Canada, South Korea, the United States and elsewhere, adding to the wealth of relics found at the site since Maier's project began in 1996.

In a square hole, several Philistine jugs nearly 3,000 years old were emerging from the soil. One painted shard just unearthed had a rust-red frame and a black spiral: a decoration common in ancient Greek art and a hint to the Philistines' origins in the Aegean.

The Philistines arrived by sea from the area of modern-day Greece around 1200 B.C. They went on to rule major ports at Ashkelon and Ashdod, now cities in Israel, and at Gaza, now part of the Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip.

At Gath, they settled on a site that had been inhabited since prehistoric times. Digs like this one have shown that though they adopted aspects of local culture, they did not forget their roots. Even five centuries after their arrival, for example, they were still worshipping gods with Greek names.

Archaeologists have found that the Philistine diet leaned heavily on grass pea lentils, an Aegean staple. Ancient bones discarded at the site show that they also ate pigs and dogs, unlike the neighboring Israelites, who deemed those animals unclean -- restrictions that still exist in Jewish dietary law.

Diggers at Gath have also uncovered traces of a destruction of the city in the 9th century B.C., including a ditch and embankment built around the city by a besieging army -- still visible as a dark line running across the surrounding hills.

The razing of Gath at that time appears to have been the work of the Aramean king Hazael in 830 B.C., an incident mentioned in the Book of Kings.

Gath's importance is that the "wonderful assemblage of material culture" uncovered there sheds light on how the Philistines lived in the 10th and 9th centuries B.C., said Seymour Gitin, director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and an expert on the Philistines.

That would include the era of the kingdom ruled from Jerusalem by David and Solomon, if such a kingdom existed as described in the Bible. Other Philistine sites have provided archaeologists with information about earlier and later times but not much from that key period.

"Gath fills a very important gap in our understanding of Philistine history," Gitin said.

In 604 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded and put the Philistines' cities to the sword. There is no remnant of them after that.

Crusaders arriving from Europe in 1099 built a fortress on the remains of Gath, and later the site became home to an Arab village, Tel el-Safi, which emptied during the war surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. Today Gath is in a national park.

An Israeli town founded in 1955 several miles to the south, Kiryat Gat, was named after Gath based on a misidentification of a different ruin as the Philistine city.

The memory of the Philistines -- or a somewhat one-sided version -- was preserved in the Hebrew Bible.

The hero Samson, who married a Philistine woman, skirmished with them repeatedly before being betrayed and taken, blinded and bound, to their temple at Gaza. There, the story goes, he broke free and shattered two support pillars, bringing the temple down and killing everyone inside, including himself.

One intriguing find at Gath is the remains of a large structure, possibly a temple, with two pillars. Maeir has suggested that this might have been a known design element in Philistine temple architecture when it was written into the Samson story.

Diggers at Gath have also found shards preserving names similar to Goliath -- an Indo-European name, not a Semitic one of the kind that would have been used by the local Canaanites or Israelites. These finds show the Philistines indeed used such names and suggest that this detail, too, might be drawn from an accurate picture of their society.

The findings at the site support the idea that the Goliath story faithfully reflects something of the geopolitical reality of the period, Maeir said -- the often violent interaction of the powerful Philistines of Gath with the kings of Jerusalem in the frontier zone between them.

"It doesn't mean that we're one day going to find a skull with a hole in its head from the stone that David slung at him, but it nevertheless tells that this reflects a cultural milieu that was actually there at the time," Maeir said.

Leftists to Elie Wiesel: Occupied Jerusalem can't be holy

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1164718.html

22/04/2010
Leftists to Elie Wiesel: Occupied Jerusalem can't be holy
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent

Jerusalem must be shared by both Israelis and Palestinians, a leftist activist group said Thursday, in response to Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel's ad in the Washington Post last week.

"For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics," Wiesel wrote in the ad, titled "For Jerusalem." To this, the group responded by saying that as long as the city remains occupied it cannot be holy.
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"It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture - and not a single time in the Koran...the first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem," Wiesel had written.

Wiesel also wrote that Jews, Christians and Muslims were able to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem and that only under Israeli sovereignty had freedom of worship for all religions been assured in the city.

"The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory," he wrote.

In the open letter made public Thursday, activists in the Just Jerusalem group, which includes Israel Prize laureates Avishai Margalit, Zeev Sternhell as well as former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, said they wanted to express their "frustration, even outrage" at Wiesel's letter, saying that "Jerusalem must be shared by the people of the two nations residing in it."

"Only a shared city will live up to the prophet's vision: Zion shall be redeemed with justice," the letter said.

The letter's signatories said that their "Jerusalem is concrete, its hills covered with limestone houses and pine trees; its streets lined with synagogues, mosques and churches." They added that that Wiesel's Jerusalem, on the other hand, was "an ideal, an object of prayers and a bearer of the collective memory of a people whose members actually bear many individual memories."

"Our Jerusalem is populated with people, young and old, women and men, who wish their city to be a symbol of dignity - not of hubris, inequality and discrimination. You speak of the celestial Jerusalem; we live in the earthly one," the letter said.

The letter's signatories also said that the reason they found Wiesel's ad so troubling wasn't only "because it is replete with factual errors and false representations, but because it upholds an attachment to some other-worldly city which purports to supersede the interests of those who live in the this-worldly one."

"For every Jew, you say, a visit to Jerusalem is a homecoming, yet it is our commitment that makes your homecoming possible. We prefer the hardship of realizing citizenship in this city to the convenience of merely yearning for it," the letter said.

Jerusalem, the letter continued, was not, as Wiesel claimed in his ad, above politics since "contemporary Jerusalem was created by a political decision and politics alone keeps it formally unified."

"Second, your attempt to keep Jerusalem above politics means divesting us of a future. For being above politics is being devoid of the power to shape the reality of one's life," letter writers continued.

The signatories culminated their response by appealing Wiesel to visit Jerusalem for himself, thus seeing "with your own eyes the catastrophic effects of the frenzy of construction."

"You will witness that, contrary to some media reports, Arabs are not allowed to build their homes anywhere in Jerusalem. You discover see the gross inequality in allocation of municipal resources and services between east and west," the writers said.

"We will take you to Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families are being evicted from their homes to make room for a new Jewish neighborhood, and to Silwan, where dozens of houses face demolition because of the Jerusalem Municipality?s refusal to issue building permits to Palestinians."

The letter culminated by reiterating the chant used by Sheikh Jarrah activists in their weekly rallies: "Nothing can be holy in an occupied city!"

Uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927336.ece

March 18, 2009
Scholars in uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls
James Hider in Jerusalem

For more than 60 years scholars have believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic Jewish sect called the Essenes, who lived in the 1st century in the mountains and recorded their religious observances on parchments.

Now a new theory challenging the broadly accepted history is sending shockwaves through the archaeological community, even leading to the arrest of one prominent scrolls scholar’s son in the United States.

Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, claims in a forthcoming study that not only were the 930 scrolls written by Jewish priests living in Jerusalem but that the Essenes as a sect did not exist.

In her new book Memory and Oblivion, Professor Elior says that the scrolls were written by the Sadducees, a class of Jewish priests dating back to the time of King Solomon.

The scrolls were found by a shepherd in a cave at Qumran, on the edge of the Dead Sea, in 1947. One of the most important archaeological finds of the century, their significance was enhanced by the discovery of an untouched version of the Hebrew Bible dating back to 300BC.

Some scholars believe that the obscure sect may have had an impact on early Christianity, positing that John the Baptist or even Jesus may have spent time with them. Professor Elior argues, however, that an analysis of the scrolls shows that the authors were recording the routines and practises of the cohanim, or priests, descended from Zadok, the first high priest in Jerusalem after the conquest of the city by the Israelites hundreds of years before.

She believes they were taken to Qumran some time during the 2nd century BC after the Sadducees turned their backs on the Temple of Jerusalem, which they said had been defiled by the conquest of the Seleucid Greeks, the descendants of one of the generals of Alexander the Great, in 175BC.

“I believe any serious scholar truly can’t but admit that the law reflected in the scrolls is a Sadducee law,” she said, pointing out that there were no corroborating historical records, either in Jewish or early Christian literature, to indicate that a large sect of celibate men lived in the area over a long period of time.

“The Essenes are only a literary invention of a Utopian society that lived a most benevolent and chaste life,” she told The Times.

The confusion arose from scholars using other, later texts as their sources, she said, noting that the Jewish-Roman scholar Josephus mentioned them, but that he was writing hundreds of years later.

The professor also noted that when the texts were unearthed in 1947, the area around Jerusalem was caught up in the war that created the Jewish state, and that early hurried assessment of their origin set scholars on the wrong track for decades. The theory has stirred controversy in academic circles, with established scrolls experts vehemently rejecting the new interpretation.

“Almost seventy scholars accept the statement that one of the Essenes’ groups lived in Qumran, and some say we’re all morons and only they understand,” Hanan Eshel, a professor at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, told the Haaretz newspaper.

The debate has even led to the arrest of the son of one proponent of the theory that the Essenes did not write the ancient scriptures. Raphael Golb, the son of Norman Golb, a professor at Chicago University, was arrested in New York this month for allegedly creating online aliases and conducting a campaign of harassment against academic opponents of his father’s theories.

Father and son claimed that members of mainstream academia were trying to silence the professor. The younger Mr Golb reportedly accused his father’s critics of being anti-Semites trying to deny the link between the scrolls and established Jewish institutions.

Monastic mystery

— The Essenes are believed to have been a religious sect in Palestine from about the 2nd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD

— The New Testament makes no mention of them, and accounts by Pliny the Elder, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus differ in significant details

— Pliny, in his day, fixed their number at 4,000. They are thought to have moved to the desert in opposition to the powers in Jerusalem and lived in secluded monastic communities

— It is believed that they considered themselves to be a chosen elect and that messianic figures would appear to them and usher in a new age, and that they spent their days engaged in manual work or study of Scripture

— After a year’s probation, converts received emblems but were banned from common meals for two years

— Those who qualified then swore piety to God, justice towards men, hatred of falsehood and faithful observance of the tenets

Source: www.britannica.com

Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5556027.ece

January 21, 2009
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
Children play with a flaming lump, allegedly containing white phosphorus, in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday
Martin Fletcher in Jerusalem

The Israeli military came close to acknowledging for the first time yesterday its use of white phosphorus munitions during the war in Gaza, but continued to insist that it did not breach international law.

As fresh evidence emerged of Gazan civilians being burned by phosphorus, Avital Leibovich, the army spokeswoman, said its use was “legal according to international law...All the munitions we were using were legal, like the French, American and British armies. We used munitions according to international law.

“They [Hamas] were committing war crimes by putting the civilians in the front line,” she said. “If Hamas chooses to locate training camps, command centres...in the middle of the [civilian population]...look how populated it is...naturally they are endangering the lives of civilians. Hamas is accountable for the loss of the civilians.”

Major-General Amir Eshel, the army's head of strategic planning, said that firing shells to provide a smoke screen was legal. “It is the most nonlethal kind of weapon we used. I don't see any issue with that,” he said.

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating.

The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.

Yesterday reports emerged from Gaza about the killing of five members of the Halima family, when a single white phosphorus shell dropped on their house in the town of Atatra on January 3. Two others were in a coma and three were seriously wounded, according to doctors and survivors.

Salima Halima, 44, who is in Gaza City's Shifa hospital, said that the chemical burst in all directions after hitting her living room.

Nafiz Abu Shahbah, a doctor who trained in Britain and America, said he was sure white phosphorus was responsible. Her wounds at first appeared superficial “but it eats at the flesh, it digs deeper and gets to the bone...The whole body becomes toxic,” he said.

In the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Associated Press found a crater that was still producing acrid smoke days after the war ended, and in the town of Beit Lahiya a lump of white phosphorus burst into flames after some boys dug it up from beneath some sand.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Gaza yesterday, when he became the first world leader to visit the Palestinian territory since the end of the war. “This is shocking and alarming,” he declared while visiting a UN warehouse that was still smouldering after being hit on Thursday, allegedly by white phosphorus shells. “I'm just appalled.”

Visibly angry, he condemned Israel's “excessive” use of force, and demanded that those responsible for shelling schools and other facilities run by the UN Relief and Works Agency during the 22-day offensive should be held to account. “It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations,” he said.

Israel has apologised for attacks on UN facilities but insisted in almost every case that Hamas fighters were using the buildings for cover.

Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza
May. 30, 2007
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.

Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses."

Latest rockets manufactured in China

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733119975&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Jan 1, 2009
Latest rockets manufactured in China
By YAAKOV KATZ

The Grad-model Katyusha rockets that were fired into Beersheba on Wednesday were manufactured in China and smuggled into Gaza after the Sinai border wall was blown up by Hamas in January, defense officials said.

The Chinese rockets have a range of 40 kilometers. They are very similar to the 122 mm Soviet-made Katyusha that was used extensively by Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War and are slightly more sophisticated than an Iranian-made Grad-model Katyusha that is also in Hamas's arsenal.

The four rockets that hit Beersheba this week were filled with metal balls that can scatter up to 100 meters from the impact site, officials said. These rockets have also been fired into Ashkelon and Ashdod.

The three countries that manufacture Grad-model Katyushas are China, Russia and Bulgaria.

Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post the rockets were smuggled into Gaza in the 12 days after Hamas blew a hole in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt on January 23.

"Huge quantities of weaponry were smuggled into Gaza then from above ground, including the Grad rockets," an official said, adding that even after the border wall was sealed, Hamas continued to smuggle the long-range rockets into Gaza via tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.

From China, the rockets make several stops before reaching Gaza. In many cases, officials said, they are bought by Iran or Hizbullah and then transferred to Sinai.

In some instances, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has learned of weapons that came from Yemen and Eritrea, were moved to Sudan, then north to Egypt, and finally smuggled into Gaza.

"This is a complicated smuggling system that involves many different people around the world," one official said.

The Grad-model Katyushas, officials said, were packed with large quantities of ammonia and less-than-maximum explosives to increase their durability and lethality.

Last Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that Cairo was not responsible for Hamas's military buildup and that the long-range rockets in the group's arsenal were not smuggled through the tunnels from Sinai.

Defense officials said Wednesday that Aboul Gheit was partially correct, in that some of the rockets did not come into Gaza through tunnels, but that they did enter the Strip from Sinai.

Hamas is a Creation of Mossad

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ZER403A.html

Hamas is a Creation of Mossad
by Hassane Zerouky
Global Outlook, No 2, Summer 2002
www.globalresearch.ca
23 March 2004

Thanks to the Mossad, Israel's "Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks", the Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat's Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, "Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)".

Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamist movement in Palestine, returning from Cairo in the seventies, established an Islamic charity association. Prime Minister Golda Meir, saw this as a an opportunity to counterbalance the rise of Arafat’s Fatah movement. .According to the Israeli weekly Koteret Rashit (October 1987), "The Islamic associations as well as the university had been supported and encouraged by the Israeli military authority" in charge of the (civilian) administration of the West Bank and Gaza. "They [the Islamic associations and the university] were authorized to receive money payments from abroad."

The Islamists set up orphanages and health clinics, as well as a network of schools, workshops which created employment for women as well as system of financial aid to the poor. And in 1978, they created an "Islamic University" in Gaza. "The military authority was convinced that these activities would weaken both the PLO and the leftist organizations in Gaza." At the end of 1992, there were six hundred mosques in Gaza. Thanks to Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad (Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks) , the Islamists were allowed to reinforce their presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the members of Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine) and the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression.

In 1984, Ahmed Yassin was arrested and condemned to twelve years in prison, after the discovery of a hidden arms cache. But one year later, he was set free and resumed his activities. And when the Intifada (‘uprising’) began, in October 1987, which took the Islamists by surprise, Sheik Yassin responded by creating the Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement): "God is our beginning, the prophet our model, the Koran our constitution", proclaims article 7 of the charter of the organization.

Ahmed Yassin was in prison when, the Oslo accords (Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government) were signed in September 1993. The Hamas had rejected Oslo outright. But at that time, 70% of Palestinians had condemned the attacks on Israeli civilians. Yassin did everything in his power to undermine the Oslo accords. Even prior to Prime Minister Rabin’s death, he had the support of the Israeli government. The latter was very reluctant to implement the peace agreement.

The Hamas then launched a carefully timed campaign of attacks against civilians, one day before the meeting between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, regarding the formal recognition of Israel by the National Palestinian Council. These events were largely instrumental in the formation of a Right wing Israeli government following the May 1996 elections.

Quite unexpectedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered Sheik Ahmed Yassin to be released from prison ("on humanitarian grounds") where he was serving a life sentence. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, together with President Bill Clinton, was putting pressure on Arafat to control the Hamas. In fact, Netanyahu knew that he could rely, once more, on the Islamists to sabotage the Oslo accords. Worse still: after having expelled Yassin to Jordan, Prime Minister Netanyahu allowed him to return to Gaza, where he was welcomed triumphantly as a hero in October 1997.

Arafat was helpless in the face of these events. Moreover, because he had supported Saddam Hussein during the1991 Gulf war, (while the Hamas had cautiously abstained from taking sides), the Gulf states decided to cut off their financing of the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, between February and April 1998, Sheik Ahmad Yassin was able to raise several hundred million dollars, from those same countries. The the budget of The Hamas was said to be greater than that of the Palestinian Authority. These new sources of funding enabled the Islamists to effectively pursue their various charitable activities. It is estimated that one Palestinian out of three is the recipient of financial aid from the Hamas. And in this regard, Israel has done nothing to curb the inflow of money into the occupied territories.

The Hamas had built its strength through its various acts of sabotage of the peace process, in a way which was compatible with the interests of the Israeli government. In turn, the latter sought in a number of ways, to prevent the application of the Oslo accords. In other words, Hamas was fulfilling the functions for which it was originally created: to prevent the creation of a Palestinian State. And in this regard, Hamas and Ariel Sharon, see eye to eye; they are exactly on the same wave length.
*
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original Global Research (Canada) articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & title of the article are not modified. The source must be acknowledged as follows: Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca . For cross-postings, kindly use the active URL hyperlink address of the original CRG article. The author's copyright note must be displayed. (For articles from other news sources, check with the original copyright holder, where applicable.). For publication of Global Research (Canada) articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: editor@globalresearch.ca .

© Copyright H ZEROUKY 2004. For fair use only/ pour usage équitable seulement. This article originally appeared in French in L’Humanité. Translation by Global Outlook, 2002.

Lost for Centuries, Herod's Tomb Comes to Light

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ancient/herods-tomb.html

Lost for Centuries, Herod's Tomb Comes to Light
By Scot Hoffman

Though he died more than 2,000 years ago, the final resting place of Herod the Great, King of Judaea, should have been relatively easy to find. Most experts had narrowed the location of his tomb to Herodium, a grand complex designed by the king on a man-made hill south of Jerusalem. A biography written about Herod less than a hundred years after his death even gave fairly specific details about where in Herodium the king was interred.

And yet decades of search came to naught—until recently.

Herod was born in 73 B.C. to an influential family in the Mediterranean city of Ashqelon in Judaea. Edified by his father, Antipater, who had gained power by conciliating the Romans, Herod rose quickly to political prominence. When rivals murdered his father and the Parthians invaded Judaea in 40 B.C., Herod fled to Rome, where the Senate, impressed by his allegiance, named him King of Judaea.

Herod returned with a Roman army and captured Jerusalem in 37 B.C. Rome repeatedly expanded Herod's territory and wealth, which he used to undertake ambitious building projects, including the Herodium and his famed Temple on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. But though his closeness with Rome led to stability and prosperity in the kingdom, many of his subjects regarded his relationship with Judaea's overlords as a betrayal.

Herod's 33-year rule was marked by his political, military, and architectural genius on one hand and by increasing paranoia and extraordinary cruelty on the other. His old age was marred by uprisings in the kingdom, intrigue within his family (Herod had ten wives and more than a dozen children), and poor physical and mental health.

It was near the end of his life that Herod allegedly ordered his most infamous act: the killing of all male infants in Bethlehem. His goal was the death of the baby Jesus, whom prophets said would become King of the Jews.

Herod died in 4 B.C. in Jericho, succumbing to a gruesome, mysterious illness. An enormous funeral procession carried his body on a golden bier to the edge of the Judaean desert, where an elaborate resting place in his beloved Herodium awaited him.

'It Is Something Very Special'

Herodium is built on a volcano-shaped hill about 8 miles (13 kilometers) south of modern-day Jerusalem. The massive white-stone complex was Herod's desert retreat, housing a fortified palace, administrative buildings, gardens, and ritual baths.

When Hebrew University Professor Ehud Netzer and his colleagues began excavating at the site in 1972, their aim was not to locate Herod's tomb. But over time, Netzer's focus changed and finding the king's burial site became his main focus.

Early accounts of Herod's funeral led scholars to believe the tomb would be found at the base of Herodium, but decades of searching the lower complex turned up nothing. In 2006, Netzer suggested the team examine a seemingly out-of-place section of wall halfway up the hill.

About a year later, on April 27, 2007, diggers hit upon a slab of high-quality, highly ornamented pink limestone. Further excavation revealed a remarkably ornate sarcophagus, one fit only for a king.

"It's a sarcophagus we don't just see anywhere," Netzer said. "It is something very special."

Herod's elusive tomb had been found.

The remains of a huge staircase leading up to the burial site have been uncovered, as well as an enormous area once thought to be a hippodrome but now known to be a staging area for Herod's funeral procession. Netzer's team thinks a monument up to 80 feet (24 meters) tall may have marked the king's tomb.

Most of the burial site is in ruins, probably deliberately damaged by Jewish rebels, who loathed the Roman-appointed Herod and holed up in Herodium during a revolt against the Roman Empire in the late 60s A.D. The team found no bones in the tomb, and it's highly unlikely Herod's remains will ever be found.

Today, Herodium is protected by the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, and Netzer's work at the site continues.

"We need to find more artifacts in order to fill in the pieces of the puzzle," he said.

Obama's missteps

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3391.shtml

Obama's missteps
By George Bisharat
Online Journal Guest Writer
Jun 19, 2008

On his first day as the presumptive Democratic candidate for president earlier this month, Barack Obama committed a serious foreign policy blunder. Reciting a litany of pro-Israeli positions at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he avowed: "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

In promising U.S. support of Israel's claims to all of Jerusalem, Obama couldn't have picked a better way to offend the world's 325 million Arabs and 1.5 billion Muslims. Israel's 41-year stewardship of the Holy City has alarmed Muslims from Morocco to Malaysia. Upon seizing East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel razed the ancient Muslim Maghribi quarter to make room for Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall. Since 1991, Israel has steadily ratcheted down Palestinians' access to Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Most West Bank Palestinians can no longer worship there.

Obama's unnecessary promise deviates from nearly six decades of U.S. foreign policy that held Jerusalem to be occupied territory under international law. This long tradition was first broken in 2004 when President Bush acknowledged Israel's demands to keep its illegal West Bank settlements in a final peace agreement, including those around Jerusalem. Thus Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, would both scorn the international legal system's foundational principle -- the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition by war -- and echo President Bush, whose failed Middle East policies he has rightly deplored.

If Sen. Obama's Philadelphia speech on race was a model of courage and nuance, his AIPAC talk was brimming with the pro-Israel orthodoxy that typifies this year's presidential campaign. Like presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, Obama also backed Israel's so-called right to exist as a Jewish state.

How has it become an article of faith for U.S. politicians to support a state's privileging of one ethno-religious group over others? For what Israel seeks in recognition as a Jewish state is permission to permanently discriminate against Palestinians. Israel is, by law, a Jewish state. Its declaration of independence and basic law declare it to be so. But its population, excluding the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is not exclusively Jewish: 20 percent of Israel's citizens are native Palestinians, and another 4 percent are mostly immigrant non-Jews. Moreover, Jewish demographic predominance was achieved through the expulsion by force or fear of about 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. Israel denies Palestinian refugees -- with their offspring, about 5.5 million persons -- their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and homeland in order to maintain a strong Jewish majority.

According to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 20 Israeli laws explicitly favor Jews. Israel's law of return, for example, grants rights of automatic citizenship to Jews no matter where they are from, while Palestinian exiles still holding keys to their family homes in Israel are denied this right. Religious parties play pivotal roles in Israeli politics, and Orthodox Jewish rabbinical courts govern matters of family law there.

Why should any American presidential aspirant promote ethno-religious supremacy in Israel? Don't we see a "Christian state" or a "Muslim state" as inherently discriminatory? Why don't we recognize the same in Israel's quest to be ordained a "Jewish state?"

Like Israel, we are a nation that combines a sincere commitment to democracy and a history that includes injustices. While we have never fully atoned for our dispossession of Native Americans, in facing the legacy of slavery, we have made an unyielding pledge to equal rights. A truly visionary American president might respectfully press a similar commitment on Israel, not endorse its urges for ethno-religious privilege. The terrible suffering inflicted on European Jews in the Nazi holocaust does not entitle Israel to subjugate Palestinians.

Barack Obama whiffed in his first major foreign policy speech as the Democratic candidate. He may believe it necessary to pander to Israel's U.S. supporters in order to gain office. But he narrowed future policy options to those that would undermine international law, offend core American values and diminish our standing in the vital Middle East.

George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.

TAKING BACK ISRAEL

Professionally recorded in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, it is my first impromptu interview on DVD. The subjects I was asked to comment on include Gush Katif, Sharansky, The Transfer Agreement, The Second Lebanon War, Rabin, etc., in short, my history of modern Israel. Within, I kid at times, am philosophical occasionally, but the core is very real. I outline practical, desperate steps needed to oust the ruling establishment and replace it with a government determined to save the state from ruination.

You've all seen the trailer of the DVD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBt-LxzXllA

Now I'm determined to spread the message. I'll be sending it to anyone who has bought my DVDs or books, for free, if you so desire. I'll add another DVD free if you order now for $10.

And I'll make a package of 4 DVDS for $15. TAKING BACK ISRAEL and any three of the others:

The Best Of Barry 2007 - A brand new MP3 with 124 radio shows from 2007. A week of me on one disc.

Preventing The Israeli Holocaust - Recorded in Denver last year, I outline the Israeli political disaster as it exists at this moment, complete with missiles.

The Vatican's New Crusade For Jerusalem - Recorded in Jerusalem and filled with expert guests, I explore the history, then and now, of the Vatican's covert fight to make Jerusalem its capital.

The Secret War Against The Settlers - How the Israeli ruling establishment works with the CFR to eliminate Judea and Samaria.

Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin And Wayne Owens - Recorded in Salt Lake City, the first half is the complete Rabin assassination, followed by how the same gang did the same thing to Utah Congressman Wayne Owens.

Return Of The Giants - Strange aerial phenomena accompany the Oslo Accord.

This offer is limited to this article. And if you want my book Bye Bye Gaza, I have a few copies which I'll sign and send you for $25.

Write chamish@netvision.net.il or:

Barry Chamish
POB 840157
Saint Augustine, FL 32080-0157

Watch me at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3557853190547322236

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7088685722391870150&q=chamish&total=58&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=7

Get my books on lulu.com including the newest, Bye Bye Gaza:

http://www.lulu.com/content/575116

Woman Applying for ID Says She's 120

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/woman-applying-for-id-says-shes-120/20080215180709990001

Woman Applying for ID Says She's 120
Relative Says Mariam Amash Drinks a Glass of Olive Oil Every Day
AP

JERUSALEM (Feb. 15) - Mariam Amash filled in the routine form with anything but routine information. Amash, who recently applied for a new Israeli identity card, said she was born 120 years ago - a claim, if confirmed, that would make her the oldest person in the world. The Guinness Book of Records currently lists 114-year-old Edna Parker of Shelbyville, Indiana, as holding that title.

Sabine Haddad, a spokeswoman for Israel's Interior Ministry, confirmed that Amash, from the Israeli Arab village of Jisr a-Zarka, is listed in the population registry as having been born in 1888. "We're just not sure it's correct," Haddad said.

The listing was based on a birth certificate issued by Turkish authorities who ruled the region at the time, she said. Ministry clerks in an Israeli city near Amash's village found out about her claim this week when she came in to replace an identity card she lost.

Relatives said she has 10 sons and one daughter, her eldest, now in her late 80s. She has about 120 grandchildren, 250 great-grandchildren and 20 great-great grandchildren, they said.

A granddaughter-in-law, Hamda Amash, 40, said Mariam is a "healthy, active woman. She walks each day and makes sure she drinks at least one glass of olive oil." She was a pampered second wife who married relatively late, explaining the ages of her children, Hamda Amash said. "Her house is always full of people," she said. "People like to come to her house. She talks to us about the old days. She knows the history since the Turkish times." Turkish control over the Holy Land ended with World War I.

A devout Muslim, she has made four pilgrimages to Mecca, the last one about 15 years ago, when she would have been over 100, relatives said.

Amarilis Espinoza, a Guinness spokeswoman in London, said she was not familiar with Amash's contention, but said multiple documents would need to be produced to back up a birth certificate, like the birth certificates of a spouse and children, death certificates, school certificates and medical examinations.

"Anything that helps reconstruct the timeline of the person back to that age," Espinoza explained. "There is a lot of documentation that needs to be prepared before we could announce a person is the oldest person."

Israeli conductor 'now Palestinian'

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3336183.ece

Israeli conductor 'now Palestinian'
Reuters
Published: 14 January 2008

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples.

"It is a great honour to be offered a passport," he said on Saturday night after a Beethoven piano recital in Ramallah, the West Bank city where he has been active for some years in promoting contact between young Arab and Israeli musicians.

"I have also accepted it because I believe that the destinies of ... the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked," Barenboim said. "We are blessed - or cursed - to live with each other. And I prefer the first."

"The fact that an Israeli citizen can be awarded a Palestinian passport, can be a sign that it is actually possible."

Former Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouthi, who helped organise Saturday's concert, said the passport had been approved by the previous government of which he was a member and which was replaced in June. The passport had actually been issued about six weeks ago, he added.

Argentine-born Barenboim, 65, is a controversial figure in his adoptive homeland, both for his promotion of German music and vocal opposition to Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

Asked about US President George W. Bush's remarks last week on a visit to the region that a peace could be signed this year, Barenboim warned of the danger of raising hopes too high.

"It would be absolutely horrible if now, with good intentions, expectations are raised which will not be able to be fulfilled," Barenboim said. "Then we will sink into an even greater depression."

Though he dismissed any wish to play a political role, the former music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra took a dig at Bush's strikingly forceful call in Jerusalem last week for Israel to end, in the president's own words, "the occupation".

"Now even not very intelligent people are saying that the occupation has to be stopped," Barenboim said.

Based in Berlin, he is closely identified with German music and in 2001 conducted an opera by 19th-century composer Richard Wagner in Jerusalem despite anger in some quarters at a performance of a work by a German accused of anti-Semitic views.

For the past decade, Barenboim has promoted Arab-Israeli cultural contacts, notably alongside the late Palestinian-American writer Edward Said.

King Herod's tomb may have been found

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070508/ap_on_sc/israel_herod_s_tomb

King Herod's tomb may have been found
By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
5-8-7

An Israeli archaeologist on Tuesday said he has found remnants of the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem, on a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert where the biblical monarch built a palace.

Hebrew University archaeologist Ehud Netzer said the tomb was found at Herodium, a site where he has been exploring since the 1970s.

Netzer said a team of researchers found pieces of a limestone sarcophagus believed to belong to the ancient king. Although there were no bones in the container, he said the sarcophagus' location and ornate appearance indicated it is Herod's.

"It's a sarcophagus we don't just see anywhere," Netzer said at a news conference. "It is something very special."

Netzer led the team, although he said he was not on the site when the sarcophagus was found.

Stephen Pfann, an expert in the Second Temple period at the University of the Holy Land, called the find a "major discovery by all means," but cautioned further research is needed.

He said all signs indicate the tomb belongs to Herod, but said ruins with an inscription on it were needed for full verification.

"We're moving in the right direction. It will be clinched once we have an inscription that bears his name," said Pfann, a textual scholar who did not participate in Netzer's dig.

The fragments of carved limestone found at the sandy site are decorated with floral motives, but do not include any inscriptions.

Herod became the ruler of the Holy Land under the Romans around 40 B.C. The wall he built around the Old City of Jerusalem during the time of the Jewish Second Temple is the one that can be seen today. He also undertook massive construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Massada and other locations.

It has long been assumed that Herod was buried at Herodium, but decades of excavations failed to turn up the site until now. The first century historian Josephus Flavius described the tomb and Herod's funeral procession.

Herodium was one of the last strong points held by Jewish rebels fighting against the Romans, and it was conquered and destroyed by Roman forces in A.D. 71, a year after they destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Hebrew University had hoped to keep the find a secret until Netzer's news conference on Tuesday. But the university announced the find in a brief statement late Monday after the Haaretz daily found out about the discovery and published an article on its Web site.