Israeli and Palestinian leaders clash over Temple Mount access
ISRAEL - Palestinian and Israeli leaders have clashed over access to the Temple Mount, as tensions in Jerusalem intensify. Both Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have ratcheted up the rhetoric on Israel over Temple Mount.
The historic and religious site for Jews and Muslims alike has been the epicentre of a spike in violent hostilities and tension. On 8 October, 3 police officers were injured in outbreaks of violence marking the opening of Temple Mount to visitors. Over the course of this weekend, the site was daubed with graffiti equating Israel with the Nazis.
This follows Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s incendiary remarks this week calling on Muslims to defend the al-Aqsa mosque.
Meshaal, speaking from exile in Doha, Qatar, said “We call on all our people inside the country to hurry up to al-Aqsa (Mosque on Temple Mount) to defend it.”
In response to the spout of violence, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said that “I am committed and Israel is committed to maintaining the status quo exactly as it has been for many decades,” he said on Monday. “What we’re seeing are Palestinian extremists who are instigating violence through incitement. The incitement is spread by false and baseless rumors that we are threatening the Muslim holy places. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Jordan Pressing Israel not to Allow Jewish Temple Mount Prayer
JORDAN - Jordanian ambassador to 'Palestine' reveals diplomatic war against new prayer bill, and vast financial network to Arabize Jerusalem. Jordan's King Abdullah II is pressing Israel not to pass a bill allowing Jews to exercise their religious rights and pray on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, a senior official of the Hashemite kingdom revealed on Tuesday.
Jordanian Ambassador to "Palestine" Khalid al-Shawabka told the Palestinian Arab Ma'an News Agency that a bill proposed by MK Miri Regev (Likud) dividing prayer time at the Mount, as is done in Hevron's Cave of Machpelah, is "unacceptable," calling the Al-Aqsa Mosque (often used as a euphemism for the entire Temple Mount) and Jerusalem "red lines."
Currently the Jordanian Waqf (Islamic trust) has de facto control of the site and pays the salaries of local staff. Al-Shawabka further revealed the Hashemite kingdom invests 7 million dinars ($9 million) into Jerusalem developmental projects every year through the Palestinian Authority (PA) ministry of endowment. The figure is an important revelation, as the PA has no legal jurisdiction over the undivided capital of Israel - it is possible the "projects" refer to the 40,000 illegal Arab housing units in Jerusalem, which grow at a rate of roughly 800 per year.
The ambassador added that King Abdullah II himself donates $3.5 million from his own pocket to fund projects at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Under Jordan's auspices, the site has been the scene of anti-Semitic graffiti, the destruction of Jewish artifacts, and constant violent Arab rioting.
Bennett: Something New Has Begun in Jerusalem
ISRAEL - Members of the Jewish Home party welcomed on Tuesday evening the election of two new Chief Rabbis for Jerusalem. Former Israeli Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar was elected as the new Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, while Rabbi Aryeh Stern of the Halacha Brura Institute was voted in as Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi.
In a statement, Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett, one of Rabbi Stern’s main backers, said that “something new has begun in Jerusalem”. “I congratulate the newly elected chief rabbis, Rabbi Stern and Rabbi Amar, who will glorify the Torah. This is an important victory for religious Zionism in Jerusalem; we will continue to lead a line of Judaism with a connection to Israel."
Deputy Minister of Religious Services Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan said after the results of the election were announced, "We promised and we kept our promise. Jerusalem has elected a Zionist rabbi who believes in the people of Israel and the State of Israel.” “When I was elected I promised that it was time for religious Zionist rabbis to be appointed to key positions and that day has come. We believe this will have a significant impact on the image of religion in the country,” he added.
"Today we can announce to Jerusalem that we have two new rabbis who match the character of the city," said Rabbi Ben-Dahan. Deputy Education Minister Avi Wortzman also welcomed the results and said that after the tumultuous election campaign, the new chief rabbis of Jerusalem must unite and work together.
Catholic Leader: Leftists Wrote Radical Paper, Then Leaked It
VATICAN - A leftist element within the Vatican was behind a controversial church document calling for liberal attitudes toward gays, divorce and remarriage, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, tells Newsmax TV. The liberal bishops who wrote it made a calculated gamble that it would pick up steam when they flagrantly leaked it to the press, Donohue said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"It was an interim report… written by one to three people out of 265," Donohue said. "The bishops were not consulted. How did they learn of this interim report? From the media. They leaked it out to the media. The left in the Catholic Church is just like the left in our society. They gambled. They thought they were going to create this momentum — everybody has to get on board the progressive train. But the train came to a shrieking halt because the conservatives pushed back."
On Saturday, Catholic bishops — after a two-week meeting called a synod — passed a revised document that spells out the Roman Catholic Church's position on homosexuality, marriage, divorce, and sex. The document was missing passages from a draft released earlier in the week that had a surprisingly liberal acceptance of gays, unwed Catholics who live together, and remarried divorcees who want to receive Holy Communion.
The eurozone’s German problem
EUROPE - There is a deal to be done to save the euro from deepening crisis. The outlines of it are generally accepted outside Germany: structural reforms in France and Italy and elsewhere combined with measures to strengthen their long-term fiscal positions; and in return, a large pan-eurozone fiscal stimulus and quantitative easing (QE) by the ECB. This offers the best way out of the current impasse in the eurozone, not just for the periphery but also for Germany. But it will take a political earthquake for the Germans to back such a deal.
Instead, the stability of the euro and the futures of the participating countries will continue to be vulnerable to the short-term exigencies of German domestic politics. This is a recipe for stagnation, deflation and political populism in France and Italy. It may culminate in a breakdown in relations between Germany and these countries and could even lead to eurozone break-up.
Europe has got itself into a terrible hole; it shows few signs of getting itself out
UK - “Thank goodness that one’s out of the way”, a leading UK banker told me recently, referring to the decisive “no” vote in the Scottish independence referendum. “Now it’s Europe we’ve got to convince people of, but we can win that one too, and then perhaps all this uncertainty will be behind us”. With regard to the uncertainty, somehow I doubt it.
Big business and finance have always been a good deal keener on political and economic union than the populations they answer to, if for no other reason than it is supposed to be good for business. Right now, however, it is quite hard to argue that being “good for business” is something the European Union can boast about. Paralysed by political division, racked by high levels of unemployment and economically floored by dysfunctional monetary union, not since the Second World War has Europe seemed in such a perilous condition.
The only thing that holds the whole endeavour together seems to be fear of the consequences if it blows apart. This is hardly a stable foundation for a lasting union, or indeed a thriving economy. Europe has got itself into a terrible hole; it shows few signs of getting itself out.
Florida Makes Off-Grid Living Illegal
USA - Robin Speronis lives off the grid in Florida, completely independent of the city’s water and electric system. A few weeks ago, officials ruled her off-grid home illegal. Officials cited the International Property Maintenance Code, which mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source.
That’s like saying our dependency on corporations isn’t even a choice. The choice to live without most utilities has been ongoing for Robin, the self-sufficient woman has lived for more than a year and a half using solar energy, a propane camping stove and rain water.
In the end, she was found not guilty of not having a proper sewer or electrical system; but was guilty of not being hooked up to an approved water supply. Speronis is still being hassled by the municipality of Cape Coral for not having a connection to city water, nor proper sewage. That, regardless of the fact the city capped her sewers themselves.
Water Crisis Seen Worsening as Sao Paulo Nears ‘Collapse’
BRAZIL - Sao Paulo residents were warned by a top government regulator today to brace for more severe water shortages as President Dilma Rousseff makes the crisis a key campaign issue ahead of this weekend’s runoff vote.
“If the drought continues, residents will face more dramatic water shortages in the short term,” Vicente Andreu, president of Brazil’s National Water Agency and a member of Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, told reporters in Sao Paulo. “If it doesn’t rain, we run the risk that the region will have a collapse like we’ve never seen before,” he later told state lawmakers.
The worst drought in eight decades is threatening drinking supplies in South America’s biggest metropolis, with 60 percent of respondents in a Datafolha poll published yesterday saying their water supplies were restricted at least once in the past 30 days. Three-quarters of those people said the cut lasted at least six hours.
Germany’s ill-equipped army — the campaign for higher military spending
GERMANY - On virtually an hourly basis the German media features new “revelations” about alleged “technical glitches” and the “ailing” state of the German army (Bundeswehr). The reports all have one clear objective: a massive increase in defense spending.
Already last weekend Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) claimed in an interview with Bild am Sonntag that in the event of NATO calling upon assistance the German army would be unable to provide the required aircraft and helicopters. “At the moment our flying capacities are less than the targets set a year ago which, in the event of an emergency situation, we would seek to make available to NATO within 180 days,” she said. “This is due to the spare parts bottleneck for aircraft and the incapacity of naval helicopters.”
The beginning of this week then witnessed a flood of reports regarding the limited capabilities of the German armed forces. On Tuesday the official website of the Bundeswehr reported that a “new deficiency had been discovered” in the Euro Fighter. The German army currently possesses 109 planes. The manufacturer had informed the Bundeswehr that “manufacturing defects on a large number of bore holes” were discovered on the rear fuselage of the aircraft. As an “emergency measure” the life of the plane was halved from 3,000 to 1,500 flight hours.
The message behind this media firestorm is unmistakable. In order to achieve its desired change in foreign policy the ruling elite needs an army that is materially and psychologically able to make war on a large scale. Above all, what is required is a much higher defense budget, more soldiers, a tight chain of command and the “right attitude” towards war.
Mario Draghi's QE: too little for markets, too much for Germany
EUROPE - European stocks have suffered the steepest one-day fall in 15 months after the European Central Bank retreated from pledges for a €1 trillion blitz of stimulus and failed to clarify the scale of quantitative easing. The sell-off came amid a mounting political storm in Europe as leading German economists and jurists reacted with fury to the ECB’s first asset purchases, denouncing the move as monetary debauchery, and threatening a blizzard of lawsuits in the German courts. “Our worst fears are being fulfilled,” said Hans Werner Sinn, head of Germany’s IFO Institute.
The Milan bourse tumbled almost 4 percent, led by sharp falls in Italian banks counting on fresh ECB liquidity. The Eurostoxx 600 index was off 2.4 percent and the FTSE 100 fell 1.7 percent to its lowest level this year, with effects spreading through global markets. Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, seemed unable to secure backing for far-reaching measures from Germany’s two ECB members or from the German finance ministry, forcing him to play down earlier hints for a €1 trillion boost to the ECB’s balance sheet.
Yet Mr Draghi’s “QE-lite” is already enough to enflame opinion in Germany, where the anti-euro AfD party has swept into three state legislatures. There was criticism across the political spectrum, with even the Social Democrats and the Greens denouncing the first tentative steps towards QE as a dangerous new departure. “I have never seen such outrage in Germany at the actions of a European institution. The ECB is becoming a sink for nuclear waste,” said Gunnar Beck, an expert on German law at the London University.
Why Are Islamists Obsessed with Jews on the Temple Mount?
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - What lies behind the alarming harassment of Jewish worshippers at Judaism's holiest site? And why aren't Temple Mount activists afraid? Why are Muslims obsessed with Jews visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem? These are questions the Temple Institute is asking in a new video illustrating the shocking harassment, intimidation and violence faced by Jewish pilgrims to the holiest site in Judaism at the hands of Muslim extremists.
The video is a montage of several clips - all taken by Muslim worshippers on a single day (1st October) - showing small groups of Jews on the Mount being verbally and, in at least one case, physically assaulted by mobs of Islamists in an attempt to drive them from the holy site. In the last clip, the tactic finally works; a group of Jewish visitors are literally swept off the Mount for their own safety by police as an angry Muslim mob surges forward.
As a leading figure in the campaign for equal Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount, this kind of harassment is something Rabbi Richman faces more often than most. But he says he isn't fazed; in fact, he sees the growing belligerence by Islamists as a positive sign that the Jewish people are reclaiming their holiest site after centuries of occupation.
"As someone who experiences this regularly, I do not find confrontation with these Muslim agitators to be frightening or even the least bit disturbing. On the contrary, I believe this phenomena is a sign that the Muslims themselves know that their days of domination on the Temple Mount are numbered.”
"They scream when we ascend the Mount because they know that the master of the house is coming home!"
Contact Lost With Planes One by One as FAA Fire Spread
CHICAGO, USA - The first radio links with pilots were lost just as the pre-dawn crush of flights into Chicago began. Air-traffic controllers in a nondescript Federal Aviation Administration building about 40 miles from the city switched to backup channels. Then those failed. They tried emergency connections, which also went dead. Within minutes, radar feeds, flight plans and other data controllers rely on to direct more than 6,000 aircraft a day above five US states had vanished as a fire was being set in a communications room one floor below. The attack was thorough and carried out by someone who knew the system intimately - down to removing steel sheathing on data cables to destroy them, according to three people with knowledge of the incident. The September 26 outage, blamed on a suicidal communications technician, was the worst case of sabotage in the history of the nation’s air-traffic control system.
ISIS Within a Mile From Baghdad
IRAQ - Islamic State (ISIS) fighters are only a mile away from Baghdad, according to a spokesman for the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. Battles between ISIS and Iraqi forces have also been raging in the strategic city of Amiriyat al-Fallujah, 25 miles west of Baghdad. Battles on both fronts have been calmed over the past several days, and Iraqi bombing and ground forces have been successful in keeping the ISIS forces from entering the capital. The threat on Baghdad is still very real, however. "They said it could never happen and now it almost has," a spokesman for a Christian aid group said in an interview. "Obama says he overestimated what the Iraqi Army could do. Well, you only need to be here a very short while to know they can do very, very little."
Labour ‘full of queers’: Minister attacked for ‘vile’ retweet
UK - A Conservative minister has been forced to apologize after retweeting a poem that said Ed Miliband’s Labour Party is “full of queers,” leading outraged MPs to demand his resignation. Business Minister Matt Hancock said he was “incredibly sorry” after he retweeted the offensive poem, which claimed Labour had been rejected by its traditional support base because of its prominent homosexual members. The tweet, which Hancock quickly deleted, read: “The party run by young Ed is quietly going quite dead. Bereft of ideas, quite full of queers, no wonder the faithful have fled." Homosexual Labour MP Chris Bryant called the comment “vile” and said Hancock should be sacked.
Muslim Writer Attacks Las Vegas-ization of Mecca in Times
MECCA, SAUDI ARABIA - A New York Times op-ed today details a conflict within Islam that will resonate with anyone whose hometown has ever been the site of backlash against new construction and sprawl, which is to say, pretty much everyone in the United States who doesn't live in Las Vegas. The piece by Ziauddin Sardar describes a version of the familiar preservationists versus developers debate taking place in one of the highest-stakes locations imaginable — namely, Mecca, a place so important to hundreds of millions of people that its name is a synonym for "a place that is important to people." Writes Sardar: Pilgrims performing the hajj this week will search in vain for Mecca’s history.
The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world’s tallest buildings. It is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers that includes luxury shopping malls and hotels catering to the super rich. The skyline is no longer dominated by the rugged outline of encircling peaks. Ancient mountains have been flattened. The city is now surrounded by the brutalism of rectangular steel and concrete structures — an amalgam of Disneyland and Las Vegas.
Given the general association between religion and tradition, the number of historic sites that have been demolished in Mecca to make way for development is shocking. The clocktower skyscraper described above is on the site of a 1781 fortress. Houses belonging to one of Mohammed's wives, one of his closest allies, and his grandson have been torn down to be replaced by bathrooms, a Hilton, and a palace, respectively. Why? Mecca, Sardar explains, is controlled by Saudi interests whose philosophy combines modern materialism with the religious belief that historic sites promote idolatry (the company performing much of this construction? The Saudi Binladin Group).
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.
