November 2008 Headlines
JERUSALEM, Israel - The Birthright organization, which brings groups of Jewish youth from the Diaspora on tours to Israel, has honed its screening process to exclude Messianic Jews.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he's ready to sign a peace deal with the Palestinians.
CBNNews.com - AMMAN, Jordan - China wants to help the Hashemite Kingdom develop nuclear capabilities.
JERUSALEM, Israel - The latest poll in advance of Israel's February 10 elections shows the Likud party, headed by opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, widening its lead against the Kadima party, now led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Chief Rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar called for a national day of prayer Thursday both for Israel and for the global economic crisis.
GAZA STRIP - One day after 42 truckloads of humanitarian aid was delivered to residents of the Gaza Strip, a Kassam attack by Palestinians on a kibbutz in the western Negev prompted Defense Minister Ehud Barak to again close the border crossings.
NEW YORK CITY - United Nations General Assembly President Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann called for an international boycott of Israel as an apartheid regime.
MAJDAL SHAMS, Syria - Convicted murderer Samir Kuntar, freed by Israel last July during a prisoner exchange with the Lebanese-based Hezbollah terror group, addressed a cheering crowd of supporters on Tuesday near the Syrian village of Majdal Shams. Kuntar was serving a life sentence for the murder of an Israeli family, including a four-year-old whom he bludgeoned to death, and a policeman, in the northern coastal city of Nahariya in 1979.
NEW YORK CITY - The United Nations General Assembly observes day two of the annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, an annual event that critics say is devoted to Israel-bashing. RELATED STORIES: P.A. Says Hamas 'Staging' Blackouts Hamas vs. Jews, Christians Today's debate, entitled "The Palestinian Question and the Situation in the Middle East," will focus on the Israeli "occupation" and the resultant suffering of the Arab population. Following UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon's lead blaming Israel for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, the two-day annual event features films and photographic exhibits allegedly documenting Palestinian hardships under the Israeli occupation. If all goes as planned, the two-day observance will end with at least 20 anti-Israeli resolutions. Navi Pillay, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, recently blamed the Israeli government for the situation in Gaza, ignoring the more than 170 rockets and mortars fired by Gaza Palestinians on southern Israeli communities just in the past 10 days. Source: YNet news
TEHERAN, Iran - Iran announced the breakup of an alleged Israeli spy network on Monday.
DAMASCUS, Syria - At a two-day meeting in Damascus, Palestinian terror groups again called for the return of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants to the State of Israel. RELATED STORIES: Abbas Will Fight for 'Right of Return' Islamic Jihad: Israel's Deadliest Threat Hamas and its Unrelenting Hatred of Israel Telltale Responses to Terror
JERUSALEM, Israel - Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed former Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball player Tal Brody to the party at a press conference on Tuesday.
JERUSALEM, Israel - The economic crisis in America has prompted dozens of Israelis to turn their hearts toward home.
CBNNew.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - In his first remarks since joining the Likud party, former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General Moshe Ya'alon said Arab Israelis look at all Israelis as "settlers."
CBNNew.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blamed the political situation in Israel for failure to reach a negotiated peace by year's end.
CBNNew.com - RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to call for early presidential and legislative elections if Fatah and Hamas have not settled their differences by year's end.
CBNNew.com - GAZA STRIP - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak will reopen border crossings to the Gaza Strip Monday if Hamas makes good on halting rocket and mortar shell attacks on southern Israel, according to the Ramallah-based Ma'an news agency.
CBNNew.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Ze'ev Jabotinsky, grandson of the legendary Zionist leader for whom he is named, joined the Likud party over the weekend.
CBNNew.com - BETHLEHEM, Israel - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with security officials over the weekend to confirm the deployment of Palestinian Authority security forces in Bethlehem, beginning on Christmas Day.
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - "Global reformation is what I'm after," world-renowned theologian Dr. J. I. Packer told CBN News.
LONDON - Israeli President Shimon Peres wound up his visit to England in royal splendor.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire called on the United Nations to suspend or revoke Israel's membership in the United Nations.
NABLUS, West Bank - Israel Defense Force (IDF) troops prevented a Palestinian man from stabbing a female soldier at a checkpoint near Nablus (biblical Shechem).
CBNNews.com - HERZLIYA, Israel - Robots of every shape and size displayed their capabilities Wednesday at a conference in Herzliya.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter (Kadima) vowed to empty Beit HaShalom (the peace house) within 30 days.
COPENHAGEN - The Danish government is considering banning circumcision for boys under the age of 15. The legislation, recommended by Denmark's National Council for Children, has been supported by the country's Ethics Council. "Circumcision is the irreversible damage to a child's body before he is given the chance to object," the National Council for Children stated, claiming that the practice also negated sexual equality. "Just like female circumcision was banned five years ago, male circumcision should be banned," they said. Rabbi Bent Lexner, the country's chief rabbi who is certified to perform the procedure, said he hoped the government would not pass such legislation. "The comparison between circumcision and the intentional mutilation of the female sex organ in certain societies is simply complete nonsense," Lexner told the Hebrew language paper Yediot Ahronot. "If the law forbidding circumcision is ever passed in Denmark, Jews will have to leave the place they've been living in for hundreds of years," he said. Source: YNet news
JERUSALEM, Israel - Two separate polls show the Likud party, headed by Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holding a substantial lead in the upcoming general elections.
JERUSALEM, Jordan - Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi is coordinating the publication of an advertisement in Israeli newspapers promoting a Saudi peace initiative.
HEBRON, Israel - The government decided against the forced expulsion of Jewish families living in Beit HaShalom in Hebron, which was to be carried out Wednesday, according to an order issued by the High Court.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni confirmed on Wednesday that Israel will not attend the U.N.-sponsored Durban II conference this spring.
AMMAN, Jordan - Jordanian King Abdullah summoned outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to a secret meeting Tuesday evening in Amman.
Israel - The most pressing question in the Middle East remains will Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Authority (PA) officials said Hamas is staging blackouts in the Gaza Strip as a propaganda tool to incite Palestinians against the PA, Israel and the U.S.
JERUSALEM - In a press conference announcing his decision to enter politics, Former IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. General (ret.) Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon said he could no longer "just sit idly by" during these critical times.
LONDON - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband reestablished high-level intelligence cooperation with Syria, according to Syrian officials quoted in the London-based daily The Times.
GAZA STRIP - Israel deported three foreign activists who boarded a fishing boat from Gaza to avoid IDF (Israel Defense Forces) intervention.
LONDON - British pro-Palestinian protesters slammed Israeli President Shimon Peres Tuesday evening during his remarks at Oxford University.
JERUSALEM, Israel - After weeks of deliberation, former IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Chief of Staff Lt. General (ret.) Moshe Ya'alon informed Likud party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu Monday evening that he wants to be part of Likud.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Newly released statistics by tourism ministry officials showed a 36 percent rise in visitors to Israel between January and October 2008, compared with the same eight months in 2007.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged Monday to release an additional 250 prisoners as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
JERUSALEM, Israel - According to a recent poll, only 6 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should back the Palestinians in the Middle East peace negotiations.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Likud party chairman and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said his party is also interested in "peace and security."
DRESDEN, Germany - Israel's chess team defeated their Egyptian counterparts at the biennial Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany. For the first time since 1981, when Egypt defeated Israel, the two teams faced off, with Israeli team winning 2.5-1.5. Top-ranked Israeli Boris Gelfand, who ranks 20th worldwide, and teammate Boris Avruch, both won their games. Israel's chess team, which is ranked eighth worldwide, now has six points, with two wins and two draws in the first four rounds, making it a medal contender. Israel's women's team scored its third win in four rounds, defeating Bosnia 3-1. The Chess Olympiad is hosting 1,270 players, 722 of whom are men making up 146 teams, while 548 are women making up 111 teams. Source: Haaretz
HEBRON, Israel - Jewish residents living in a disputed property in Hebron have no intention of complying with a ruling by the High Court ordering them to evacuate their homes within 72 hours. RELATED STORIES: Explosives, Weaponry in Hebron Tunnel IDF Destroys Tunnel in Hebron Gov't. Allows Deployment Despite Danger MKs: Jews Should Return to Marketplace The Price Israel Pays Though residents have presented evidence of the building's legal purchase and petitioned the court to allow them to remain in their homes until the matter is cleared up, the judges ruled that the State would assume ownership in the interim. Speaking at a conference marking the murder of right-wing activist Meir Kahane 18 years ago, Michael Ben-Horin refuted the decision by the ultra-liberal justices. "Why should the residents of the house of peace leave? What is the High Court - a Jerusalem branch of [ultra left-wing] Meretz or [Arab party] Hadash? [Islamic Movement leader] Raed Salah demands that we leave too - so what?" he continued. "We [Israelis] are surrounded by enemies. We have Hezbollah to the north, Iran in the east and Hamas in the south. I am an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] officer, a father of two commando soldiers," he said. "To our great sorrow, the current regime is doing everything in its power to drive a wedge between Jews and weaken our fortitude. The heart aches," Ben-Horin said, predicting that an evacuation will bring "violence, hatred, polarization and a weakening of the IDF." Source: YNet news
JERUSALEM, Israel - Officials of Mekerot, Israel's National Water Carrier, warned of the likelihood of water rationing in the spring should the nation suffer another winter of below average rainfall.
GAZA STRIP - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip on Monday, as Palestinians continued firing rockets on western Negev towns.
GAZA STRIP - Hamas officials shut down the power plant Thursday, cutting electricity to many residents of Gaza City.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Reconciliation between rival Palestinian factions appears as ellusive as ever, prompting Cairo to cancel this week's meeting between Hamas and Fatah.
ASHKELON, Israel - Five rockets fired by terrorists in the Gaza Strip hit in and around the coastal city of Ashkelon late Friday morning. Several residents, including children, were treated for shock.
GAZA STRIP - Smuggling tunnels from the Egyptian Sinai to the Gaza Strip continue to flourish, according to Palestinian sources.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Canadian police arrested a man suspected of planting a bomb outside a Paris synagogue in 1980.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Despite some significant drops Thursday in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) indices, Bank of Israel chairman Stanley Fischer said Israel wouldn't consider "massive fiscal expansion."
BIR AL-MAKSOUR, Israel - Arab Bedouins, residing in the northern Israeli village of Bir al-Maksour, believe they're related to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.
NEW YORK CITY - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told U.N. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon that Syria must be called to task for facilitating arms smuggling across its border.
NEW YORK CITY - Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told participants of the U.N.-sponsored interfaith conference in New York Wednesday evening that Jerusalem is holy to two religions - Islam and Christianity - never mentioning its centrality to Judaism over millennia.
TEHERAN, Iran - Iran's latest announcement that it test-fired a new generation of missiles, called Sejil, was actually the Shahab-3 missile with a new logo, according to western experts.
NEW YORK CITY - United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon invited Israeli President Shimon Peres to a dinner Tuesday evening for some 40 attendees of the interfaith conference.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer announced a further cut in the national interest rate, the lowest in Israel's history. RELATED STORIES: Bank of Israel Chief Convenes Emergency Mtg. Global Crisis - Is There an End in Sight? Dow Jones Falls to Four-Year Low TA Stock Exchange Drops Sunday Beginning Friday, November 14, the central bank's lending rate will drop to an all-time low of 3.0 percent, which should prompt retail banks to lower interest on overdrafts. Fischer's latest cut reflects the need to respond to the continuing economic downturn worldwide, which some analysts believe is occurring more rapidly than anticipated. "The Bank of Israel is signaling that it, the government and the Finance Ministry understand there is a need for government intervention, and we're going to see more rescue plans from the government," said Clal Finance analyst Ori Greenfeld Tuesday evening. While the 3 percent rate is the nation's lowest ever, Greenfeld said it may be cut even further in 2009, to as low as 2.5 percent. "The Bank of Israel's interest rate decisions follow developments in world markets," Greenfeld said. "If interest rates around the world continue to drop, the same will happen here," he said. Greenfeld said concern about inflation is not the main focus right now. "At this point, what's needed are capital injections to the banks, so they'll lend money, and breathing room for corporate bonds," he said.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Three Arab residents of the ancient port city of Akko were indicted on Tuesday for torching a yeshiva or rabbinical school in the town.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israeli Foreign Minister and Kadima party chairwoman Tzipi Livni and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas both rejected outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's call to return to pre-1967 borders.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas promised to continue following the path of the shahid (martyr) at a rally commemorating the late PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) chief Yasser Arafat.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Jerusalemites rejected the prospects of another ultra-Orthodox mayor to succeed outgoing Mayor Uri Lupoliansky, by choosing prominent Israeli businessman Nir Barkat over Haredi (ultra-Orthadox) candidate Meir Porush.
GAZA STRIP - Advisors to President-elect Barack Obama met secretly with Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip prior to the U.S. presidential elections, according to a senior Hamas official.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Tony Blair, the European Union's Middle East envoy, convinced Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak Monday to transport fuel to the Gaza City power station.
JERUSALEM, Israel - International Atomic Energy Agency officials found traces of enriched uranium at the Syrian site targeted by an Israeli air strike in September 2007.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers arrested a Palestinian attempting to smuggle a pipe bomb into Israel.
JERUSALEM, Israel - At a graveside memorial service Monday for slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert elaborated on his recipe for peace.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists found a 2,000-year-old earring near the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.
JERUSALEM, Israel - On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for the division of Jerusalem and a return to the 1967 borders.
TEL AVIV, Israel - Dan Meridor, 62, announced his return to the Likud party at a press conference in Tel Aviv.
TEL AVIV, Israel - Two Eitrean refugees, who arrived in Israel just six months ago, took first and second place in Tel Aviv's 10,000 meter (six mile) road race.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister and head of the Palestinian negotiating team Ahmed Qureia said Jews have no legitimate claim to the Temple Mount.
DAMASCUS, Syria - In an interview with Britain's Sky News in Damascus, exiled Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal said President-elect Barack Obama must factor Hamas in any regional peace deal.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Palestinians fired anti-tank missiles at Israel Defense Forces troops patrolling Israel's border with the Gaza Strip Saturday evening.
JERUSALEM, Israel - An Arab Israeli woman, convicted of complicity in a 2002 terror attack in Jerusalem, dropped her bid for a seat on a city council.
GAZA STRIP - Senior Hamas officials said there will be no long-term cease-fire with Israel.
CBNNews.com - GAZA STRIP - A senior Hamas official said it's increasingly unlikely that they will send a delegation to Cairo next week for reconciliation talks with Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.
SDEROT, Israel - Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired five more Kassam rockets on southern Israel Friday.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israeli Arabs and Palestinians held a rally Thursday protesting the High Court of Justice's decision allowing construction of the Museum of Tolerance.
JERUSALEM, Israel - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wrapped up a four-day, broad-based war exercise Thursday, which focused on the military response to a two-pronged assault by Lebanon and Syria.
TEHERAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulated U.S. President-elect Barack Obama Thursday on capturing the hearts and minds of the majority of American voters.
JERUSALEM, Israel - In a joint press conference in Herzliya, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni lauded the progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, without citing anything specific. Rice said the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference in November 2007 brought a change in the atmosphere wrought by the second intifada (armed Palestinian uprising) from 2001 to 2004. RELATED STORIES: Secretary of State Rice Congratulates Obama Rice Wins Concessions from Israel Rice: Hamas 'Incapable of Governing'
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israelis had mixed reactions to President-elect Barak Obama's offer to Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, 49, to serve as his chief of staff.
JERUSALEM, Israel - The Jerusalem Municipality razed two illegally built homes in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, Wednesday.
JERUSALEM, Israel - President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will represent Israel next week at a United Nations-sponsored interfaith conference.
GAZA STRIP - An Israeli air strike on a rocket-launching cell in the northern Gaza Strip killed one terrorist and injured four others, according to Palestinian sources.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Israel Police Fraud Unit detectives will again grill outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at his Jerusalem residence Friday morning. It is the second session since Olmert resigned as prime minister.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak agreed Monday to relocate residents of Migron to the larger community of Adam. Migron (see I Samuel 14:2 and Isaiah 10:28) was first established in 1999 and became an official "outpost" in March 2002, receiving help from various government ministries over the years.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Less than a week after agreeing to allow its Muslim citizens to be ruled by sharia (Islamic) law, Britain urged European Union member nations to enforce tariff agreements on Israeli products imported from Judea and Samaria (The West Bank).
JERUSALEM, Israel - Labor, Likud and Meretz Knesset factions agreed Monday to vote against the 2009 state budget draft.
WESTERN NEGEV, Israel - Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired more than 35 Kassam rockets on southern Israeli communities early Wednesday morning, following an Israel Defense Forces operation to thwart "an immediate threat."
NEW YORK - Newly installed Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Professor Gabriela Shalev reminded member nations that the Nazi Holocaust began with incitement, not with the gas chambers.
JERUSALEM, Israel - From Israel to Iran, people throughout the Middle East are eagerly awaiting the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election, because the results will have a profound impact on the future of the region.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Likud MK and former Education Minister Limor Livnat petitioned the High Court to prevent outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from engaging in further negotiations with Syria or the Palestinian Authority.
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Defense Minister and Labor party chairman Ehud Barak said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni isn't capable of leading the country.
GAZA STRIP - Hamas threatened to boycott reconciliation talks with Fatah, scheduled to being on November 9 in Cairo.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Dr. Benny Begin, who announced his resignation Sunday as head of the Geological Survey of Israel, will reenter politics as a member of Likud.
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Meir Porush, the Haredi candidate running for mayor of Jerusalem, said that in 10 to 15 years, there will not be any secular mayors of Israeli cities.
JERUSALEM, Israel - Last week, a top Iranian official said some within Iran are recommending their government launch a preemptive strike against Israel.