To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - Tzemach News items
From: bpr-list@philologos.org(BPR)
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1999 13:37:22 -0500

From: "Moza" <moza7@netzero.net>

UN CONTINUES TO PASS RESOLUTIONS: During its 87th general
session, which was convened on Thursday in New York, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted a decision renewing the "permanent
Syrian supremacy" over the natural resources of the Golan Heights and
the "supremacy of the Palestinian people" over the natural resources in
Israel, including Jerusalem. The resolution was adopted by the GA with
a majority of 146 votes with three votes against it (US, Israel and the
Marshall Islands).

TEMPLE MOUNT DESTRUCTION UPDATE: Chai V'Kaiyam leader
Yehuda Etzion continues in his two-track struggle to identify the Temple
Mount artifacts dumped by the Moslem Waqf in the Kidron Valley, and
to hold the Antiquities Authority responsible for continued Waqf
violations on the Mount. "So far, the Antiquities Authority has been
giving us evasive answers, to say the least. They even sent inspectors
last week to the Kidron Valley, while we were examining the remnant of
the dumps, and ordered us to stop, on the grounds that we were robbing
the country's antiquities! It's OK for the Waqf -- under the watchful eye
of the police -- to dispose of hundreds of trucks' worth of ancient
artifacts, but when we come to check what's in the dirt, we are labeled
robbers! If it wasn't tragic, I would laugh -- but today [Sunday], on the
tenth of Tevet, marking the beginning of the siege on Jerusalem and the
beginning of Temple's destruction, it is very hard to laugh."

Meanwhile, archeology students Wednesday presented artifacts,
including possible remnants from the First Temple, they said they
uncovered in the piles of fill dumped by the Waqf in the Kidron Valley.
The students also claimed that the Waqf had sifted through the fill
before loading it on dump trucks and had removed large items of value.
Antiquity Authority officials confirmed this, saying that items such as
columns and large decorated building stones had been kept on the
Mount. "The Antiquities Authority doesn't want to say this officially, but
what the Waqf is doing is not just destruction, but stealing ancient
artifacts," said Zachi Zweig, 27, a third-year archeology student at Bar-
Ilan University, who led a group of volunteers to the dump last week. The
artifacts found by the students included some 64 pottery rims, most of
those identified from the Second Temple period, with some from the
Middle Bronze Age, late Roman, Byzantine, and early Moslem periods.
These were examined and verified by three eminent Israeli
archeologists. Other finds included an intricately carved frieze from an
unidentified period, a rim of a stone vessel and a black and white piece
of cut marble which matches descriptions of elegant furniture from the
Second Temple. The stone was believed to have been used as part of a
table or table leg. They also found a ceramic leg from either an offering
bowl or figurine from the Bronze Age. The oldest item discovered was a
pottery shard with its distinct stripped decoration dating it from 8th
century BCE, which coincides with the First Temple period. They also
discovered colorful ceramic tiles from the Ottoman period. "We know
nothing of the Temple Mount, so even fill has value," said Zweig. "Who
knows? There could be in those piles of garbage remains from the
Second Temple itself." Further information and a picture can be found
on the website of the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful
Movement located at: http://www.templemountfaithful.org.

CLINTON AGAIN REBUKES G-D: US President Clinton has once again
invoked a national security waiver allowing him to postpone moving the
US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. When Clinton invoked the
waiver for the first time in June, some Jewish groups expressed
disappointment, and some members of Congress threatened to
introduce legislation to take away the president's waiver right in an effort
to force him to comply with the law within the next year. But with
Congress in recess and many others in Washington away for the
holidays or focused on the Israel-Syria talks, Clinton's move last Friday
did not get a lot of notice. The law allowing the waiver requires the issue
to be revisited every six months.

YESHA WITHDRAWAL COULD BE NEXT WEEK: Israel may
implement the second stage of the second withdrawal in Judea,
Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) within the next week and pull back from
another 5 percent of the territory. The withdrawal was supposed to have
taken place 15 November but had been delayed because Arafat rejected
the withdrawal map presented by Israel. Israel will also release a few
dozen Palestinian prisoners, including some from East Jerusalem, as a
goodwill gesture [?] for the holy month of Ramadan.

Meanwhile, several officials close to the talks assessed that the
chances that the final-status negotiating teams will be able to come up
with a framework agreement in February -- as originally envisioned -- are
slim. With a deadline for the framework agreement only 53 days away,
members of the Israeli team are hinting that the only way to achieve a
breakthrough is through massive US intervention. According to one
official, the Palestinians will not budge without this.

PROTESTING ILLEGAL ARAB BUILDING: Ten years ago Omar Sultan
illegally built a house on property belonging to municipal Kiryat Arba,
not far from the Jewish community. The building was declared officially
illegal and was ordered destroyed. The Arabs have been living there ever
since. A few weeks ago a group of Kiryat Arba-Hebron residents, led by
Malachi Levinger, began protesting on the road outside the building,
demanding that the illegal home be destroyed, as were so-called 'illegal
Jewish homes' at the Maon farm. Last week, Arabs uprooted grapevines
planted by Israelis in the fields near the building. Saturday over a
hundred Kiryat Arba-Hebron residents participated in a protest on the
road outside the illegal building, demanding that following its
destruction, fields be planted there. Among the speakers were MK Yuri
Stern, Mayor Zvi Katzover, and Rabbis Dov Lior, Eliezer Waldman and
Moshe Levinger. Keynote speaker, MK (Member of Knesset) Stern, told
the demonstrators that the struggle is for all of Eretz Yisrael. "The
Golan Heights are only the beginning. We must win there, and we will
be victorious elsewhere." He promised to continue to continue the
struggle against uprooting settlements and relinquishment of land to the
Arabs. Stern, seeing Israeli police photographing the crowd, said, "I am
trying to reach the Chief of Police. Why are they photographing the
protesters? The last time I was photographed at a demonstration by
police was outside a synagogue in Moscow."

ALBRIGHT COURTING AMERICAN MUSLIMS: Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright courted Muslim Americans on Tuesday at a dinner
ending their daytime fast and offering them the assurance "your views
are being heard." Responding to complaints that Muslims are ignored in
the shaping of Mideast policy, Albright said in the coming year, the last
for the Clinton administration, she intends to be sure "the legitimate
concerns of Muslim Americans are taken into account." She also
pledged to hire more Muslims for the State Department. "US foreign
policy is conducted in your name," she assured her guests.

According to al-Da'wa (THE MISSION), an Islamic publication, the
status of Israel is identical to the status of the individual Jew. What is
this status? "The race is corrupt at the root, full of duplicity, and the
Muslims have everything to lose in seeking to deal with them; they must
be exterminated." Historically, the Islamic world's orientation to
extermination of the Jews has not been limited to phrasemaking. Even
before Israel came into existence in May 1948, on 28 November 1941,
the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin, met in Berlin with Adolph
Hitler. The declared subject of their meeting was nothing less than "the
final solution of the Jewish Question." This meeting, which followed Haj
Amin's active organization of Muslim SS troops in Bosnia, included the
Mufti's promise to aid German victory in the war. Later, after Israel's trial
and punishment of Adolph Eichmann in 1961, Iranian and Arab
newspapers described the mass murderer of Jews as a "martyr,"
congratulating him posthumously for having "conferred a real blessing
on humanity" by liquidating six million "subhumans."

(Editor's note: For clarification sake, the Arabic word "muslim" means
"one who submits"; the act of submission is called "islam", which
became the name of the religion Muslims practice (Arthur Goldschmidt,
Jr., "A Concise History of the Middle East", London, Westview Press,
1988, p.33)]

CALLS TO "COME HOME": Two Israeli organizations, 'Operation
Homeward' http://www.op-homeward.org and 'Shuva' (Return), held a
press conference on Thursday, 23 December 1999 in Jerusalem calling
for American Jews to immigrate to Israel. The two emergency
movements are encouraging American Jewry to "pick up, pack up, and
come home to Israel before the ominous Y2K threat for which Jews will
be blamed, together with blatant anti-Semitism that is spreading daily
throughout the US makes it impossible for them to escape".

EGYPT TO SELL GAS TO ISRAEL, PA/PLO: Following years of
negotiations, the Prime Minister's Office announced on Wednesday that
Egypt has agreed to sell natural gas to Israel and the PA/PLO, the
JERUSALEM POST reported. The project, called "pipeline of peace,"
will provide gas through El-Arish in Egypt to Israel and the PA/PLO, and
later to Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. According to HA'ARETZ, the sale is
the latest in a series of steps Egypt has taken in recent weeks to
improve relations with Israel.

THE ANTI-SEMITISM OF THE BBC: BBC World News has just aired an
article which has taken it into new depths of anti-Semitism. The article
gave great credence to theories which are being voiced that the Jews
were never guided by Moses, that Joshua never conquered Jericho; and
worse still, that Jerusalem was never the great city of David. The chief
protagonists of this is a Professor Ze'ev Herzog who claims there is no
sign of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the slavery in Egypt, or anyone
wandering in the desert. The BBC article calls the Jews living in Hebron
"the small, militant Jewish community living in the heart of the
Palestinian city of Hebron." Basically, Herzog's chiefest goal seems to
be to discredit the biblical accounts of Israel's history -- and the BBC
seems intent on helping him. Israel's rebirth was no misguided UN
resolution. It was the fulfillment of a promise made by G-d to Herzog's
forefathers. The text of the BBC article can be read at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_575000/5751
68.stm

Tzemach News Service
Week Ending: 25 December 1999 / 16 Tevet 5760

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