Sunday Headlines

Take a step back and look at this first article in the context of "the big picture" - contemplate and reflect. The headline tells the sad story:

Activists Arrested For Bowing On Temple Mount

Really?

Knesset Member Michael Ben Ari (National Union) and a few dozen activists celebrated Jerusalem Day by going up to the Temple Mount Sunday morning and asked to pray on the site.

Unlike the activists who kept their prayers short, Ben Ari threw himself down full length on to the ground of the Temple Mount as part of the prayer.

According to those who were with the lawmaker, the Arab bystanders did not respond to Ben Ari's action. “We scare ourselves for nothing,” said the MK. “Arabs understand what leftists do not understand. We have a right to pray on the Mount.”

Although the Arab security force on the site tried to arrest the MK and two other activists, Ben Ari refused to cooperate, insisted on his diplomatic immunity and claimed his right to pray on the site.

Although the Arab security force on the site tried to arrest the MK and two other activists, Ben Ari refused to cooperate, insisted on his diplomatic immunity and claimed his right to pray on the site.

Earlier, those who went up to the Temple Mount explained the decision to do so especially on this day as a desire “to bring loyalty to the holiest site in Jerusalem” as they defined it.

At 3:00 p.m. Sunday, thousands of people are expected to march around and through the Old City of Jerusalem in the traditional flag march marking the reunification of the ancient capital.

Outgoing IAF Commander: Best To Keep Quiet On Iran

Outgoing IAF commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nechushtan suggested on Friday that it would be better to keep quiet on the subject of Iran and a possible Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities.

“We’re unable to talk about many things we’ve done and maybe that’s a good thing,” said Nechushtan, perhaps hinting at some covert operations Israel has carried out. “The Air Force will continue to protect Israel.”

Six Day War Vet: I Saw Significance During Battle

On Sunday, as the nation celebrates Jerusalem Day and the anniversary of the reunification of the capital during the Six Day War, the 77-year-old Cahaner, who now lives in Kibbutz Neveh Eitan near Beit She’an, will join dozens of his fellow soldiers along the same road that they fought so hard to capture 45 years ago. At points where they fought with Jordanian forces, the veterans will lay wreaths and honor their fallen comrades.

“Every day, I feel the honor that I had to be responsible for Jerusalem,” he said.

“Jerusalem is not the same as any other place.”

“Today there are clouds over the city – violence and struggle between religious and secular,” he said. Extremism is the biggest threat that the city faces, he said, both haredi extremism and Muslim extremism.

Russia Warns West

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has warned the West against launching ‘hasty wars’, which may increase regional tensions and even trigger a nuclear war.

“Sometimes these [military] actions — which undermine state sovereignty — could result in a fully-fledged regional war, and even — although I do not want to scare anyone — the use of a nuclear weapon,” Medvedev was quoted by AFP as saying on Thursday during a legal forum in Saint Petersburg.

Russia has been at odds with the Western powers over the best way to manage the ongoing violence in Syria, which has led to many deaths over the past year.

Moscow, along with Beijing, has so far vetoed two anti-Syria resolutions, saying a solution to the Syrian crisis must be sought through political dialogue.

Losing Egypt, Losing The Mid-east

While the world debates the threat of Iranian weapons and their long-term effects on Israel and the Persian Gulf area, events may soon reach a critical mass in the most central and important Arab country, Egypt, in ways that endanger not only Egyptian-Israeli ties, but also the entire fabric of stability in the oil-rich Mid-East.

Egypt, meanwhile, lies at the heart of the Mid-East and symbolizes the region's dominant Sunni Arab community.

Recently, Israel warned all its citizens vacationing in the Sinai Desert to evacuate the area immediately because of an influx of armed Libyan extremists bent on killing Israelis.

Israel's Shin Bet security agency confirmed that two of the rockets used in recent attacks on the Israeli resort city of Eilat came from the weapons depots of Libya, smuggled across the border into Egypt. But there are other troubling signs.

Israeli officials say al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Libyan terrorists are all operating in the Sinai Desert on Israel's southern border, some of them having developed strong working relationships with members of the eleven Bedouin tribes in Sinai who specialize in smuggling drugs, weapons, and even enslaved women.

The last time a U.S. president's anti-corruption and pro-human rights crusade failed so miserably was when Jimmy Carter and his advisers thought Ayatollah Khomeini was a better bargain than the shah of Iran. We are still paying for that error. Jimmy Carter's U.N. ambassador even spoke of Khomeini as "some kind of saint," while Obama and his aides believe that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey's Islamist leadership are the face of moderate Arab democracy.

One can only guess how long we will pay for Obama's many errors.

Scandals And Syria

When a delegation of Syrian Kurdish rebels recently visited Washington, D.C., the State Department met them to ask for a favor. What was it? The Obama administration urged them to join the Syrian National Council (SNC), the organization created by the U.S. government through Turkey to lead the opposition movement and receive Western aid for all Syrian opposition groups.

But the Turkish Islamist regime, which Obama put in charge of forming the SNC, put the Muslim Brotherhood in control, a fact I pointed out within hours of the announcement of the SNC leadership’s names.

Now that several SNC leaders have resigned complaining about Brotherhood domination, followed by some Arab journalists pointing out the obvious Brotherhood domination at the SNC’s last meeting, that reality is clear. But the implications of such an incredibly foolish policy—America putting an anti-American, antisemitic group into the “official” leadership of Syria’s rebels — have never been properly examined as a case study for Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy.

The Kurds had walked out of the talks that formed the SNC last year when they saw how Islamists would be in control. Not only do they oppose Islamism itself but they also see the Brotherhood as an Arabizing and centralizing group that would impose a regime oppressing the non-Arab Kurds.

To sum up, Obama policy has strengthened the Islamist forces in the opposition and fragmented the rebels, thus helping preserve a radical anti-American Syrian regime that is an ally of Iran or helping make any revolution more likely to produce a radical anti-American Syrian Islamist regime that will be an ally of an Islamist Egypt.

Obama policy follows the worst possible course. It minimizes U.S. help to the revolution while at the same time ensuring that a disproportionately large amount goes to Islamists.

"Moral Compass"?>

On July 2, 2011, Rep. Trent Franks, a member of the House Committee on Armed Services, denounced the Obama administration's policy of "limited contacts" with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Franks emphatically stated that "the [Obama] administration is fooling themselves as well as placing the United States and Israel in severe danger if they fail to recognize the fallout that would stem from the Muslim Brotherhood gaining significant and newfound influence in Egyptian policies following the September elections."

Completely ignoring this grave security risk, Obama enlarged the "limited contact" to a full public endorsement of a group whose codified aim is to murder Jews, exterminate Israel, and infiltrate the West and destroy it from within. According to Discover the Networks, MuslimBrotherhood operative Mohamed Akram espoused the "common goal of dismantling American institutions and turning the U.S. into a Muslim nation."

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, explains that "Egypt's parliament, which is dominated by two pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, voted unanimously [in early March 2012] to expel Israel's ambassador to Egypt, and signaled that the Camp David Accords would soon be a thing of the past: Egypt, the parliamentarians declared, would 'never' be Israel's ally. In fact, Israel was Egypt's 'number one enemy.' And how did Barack Obama respond to this egregious trampling upon the agreement that has kept an uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt for thirty years? By announcing a resumption of military aid to Egypt."

So a group that publicly espouses destruction of American Judeo-Christian values and freedomsreceives an open invitation to the White House. Furthermore, Obama bypasses congressional approval and gives $1.5 billion dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood. Washington Post journalistWilliam Wan notes that Obama has turned a blind eye to the daily dismantling of any democratic parameters in Egypt despite American congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates about the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also see:

Spain Hit By downgrades Amid Greek Contagion Fears

Federal Judge Blocks National Defense Authorization Act

Obama's Tough Council For Frazzled Euro Leaders: "Don't Worry, Be Happy!"