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1. Al-Qaeda Targeting Germany for 'Next 9/11' - Within Weeks
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
Jihadists close to al-Qaeda explicitly warned in new communications that Germany will be the target of the next 9/11-scale terrorist attack. The timing of the strike, they say, will be within the next few weeks.
According to analysts with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a recently intercepted jihadist communication declares that "everyone knows" that the "next strike is very near, a strike that will surprise everyone in its effect, which will be much more shocking than that of 9/11/2001." The writer of the chilling message notes that this is the Muslim month of Ramadan and that "we pray that it will indeed be in this month."
After referring to a previous boast by Osama Bin-Laden, that the enemy is afraid and unable to prevent the next attack, the communication says:
"And the Germans, grandchildren of the Nazis, know more than everyone else that they will be the first ones to taste [the nightma. It is just a matter of time - that is, days or weeks - and God willing you'll see things that you've never heard of before."
While Germany and German assets have been singled out in the past, due to that nation's involvement in the war in Afghanistan, the threats have been general and motivational in nature. According to ITRR, the latest jihadist communication was unusual in that it was very explicit and open in targeting the Germans, in discussing a coming attack, and in specifying its timing. Aside from Ramadan, which ends 19 September 2009, the upcoming German national election on September 27 has been marked as a "red flag date" by ITRR. Jihadists keen on disrupting and influencing European foreign policy are likely to attempt attacks around the time of the elections.
German security services have also been cited in local media discussing stepped up jihadist chatter, threats and intelligence warnings aimed at the German state in recent months. Earlier this year, video messages delivered in German by an al-Qaeda fighter going by the name of Abu Talha, purportedly in Afghanistan, called on Germans to convert to Islam and remove their several thousand troops from the Afghan theater. According to a June report by Der Spiegel weekly, American intelligence agencies believe that al-Qaeda's leaders have decided to attack Germany, supposedly assigning the job to al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa).
2. Lieberman Demands Obama Accept ‘Bush Understandings’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, demanded Tuesday morning that the Obama administration accept the “Bush understandings” that guarantee Israeli sovereignty over large population centers in Judea and Samaria.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush made the promise in a letter to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Obama administration has stated it is not bound by the letter because it is not part of a formal and signed agreement.
Lieberman, speaking during a tour in Africa on the “It’s All Talk" program on Voice of Israel government radio, said that acceptance of the understandings is one of three “red lines” he is placing on the government’s proposed freeze on new building in Judea and Samaria.
However, he added that he will not threaten to leave the coalition and instead will remain in the government to influence its policies.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, chairman of the Labor party, announced on Monday he is signing the final approval for more than 450 new housing units in Judea and Samaria before the freeze takes effect. All of the residential units are slated for areas close to the 1949-1967 borders of Israel and do not include communities in the heart of Judea and Samaria.
The Foreign Minister’s second red line is that there be no government limits on building in eastern Jerusalem, where U.S. President Barack Obama has demanded that Israel halt all new construction for Jews. The U.S. government does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem and has not suggested restrictions on Arab building, much of which is illegal under zoning and planning laws.
Lieberman also said that the “stranglehold” on Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria must end, although he did not specify how that could be done if the building freeze continues. “The government must stop punishing them [Jew for living in communities that previous Labor governments approved,” he stated.
3. US Defense Sec’y Gates to Arabs: Stock Arms to Threaten Iran
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Al Jazeera network Monday that the Arab world should built up its “security capabilities” as a signal to Iran to think twice about developing a nuclear weapon.
He said that the Islamic Republic has to understand “that this path they're on is not going to advance Iranian security but in fact could weaken it.” However, he stopped short of saying that war will break out with Iran and stated that the Obama administration still prefers diplomatic and economic measures to persuade Iran to cooperate with international atomic energy inspectors.
The Arab world buys billions of dollars of weapons from the United States and other countries, but the Defense Secretary voiced doubt regarding a claim that American arm sales to the region have reached $100 billion.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who last month said Iran is preparing new proposals for talks with the world’s major powers, continues to maintain that Iran will not negotiate what he called its “undeniable” rights to develop nuclear power.
Diplomatic pressure on Iran is expected to increase after the American Congress ends its summer recess and its members meet to consider tougher sanctions against Iran. However, China and Russia, which have invested heavily in Iran’s nuclear facilities, have indicated they will continue to oppose crippling sanctions if the issue reaches the United Nations Security Council.
Mohamed ElBaradei, outgoing director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated on Monday that the agency has reached an “impasse” with Iran.
4. Preparing to Build in Mevaseret Adumim
by IsraelNN staff
The city of Maaleh Adumim held a demonstration on Monday calling on the government to allow building in Mevaseret Adumim, an area within the city limits where building has been frozen. The demonstration was attended by several Members of Knesset, including members of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's coalition, led by ministers Uzi Landau and Daniel Hershkowitz. Also present were members of the Yesha (Judea and Samaria) Council.
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Police initially banned the protest, which was to include the symbolic laying of a cornerstone. The demonstration was allowed to take place as scheduled after organizers promised not to allow any form of construction, even symbolic. Instead, protesters buried a jug and a scroll.
Landau was open in his opposition to Netanyahu's building freeze policy. Jews should continue to build “on this side of the green line, on the other side of the green line, throughout the country,” he stated. “This is our homeland.”
Mevaseret Adumim is part of “E1,=”, a stretch of land between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem where a large-scale construction project has been planned for several years. Construction has been postponed due to strong opposition from the Palestinian Authority, which argues that building in the area would make it impossible for the PA to create a unified capital city in the eastern half of Jerusalem.
Peace Now Protest – A Good Sign?
As residents of Maaleh Adumim cheered the symbolic beginning of new life in Mevaseret Adumim, members of Peace Now held a counter-protest calling for a complete building freeze in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
"People from Peace Now came to protest. It gave me confidence that a community will be built here,” said Yesha Council figure Danny Dayan. “Every time they've demonstrated against our efforts to build a new town, 'the dogs barked, the cars passed,' - the town was built.”
"Why do I think we will defeat [Peace No?” Dayan continued. “Because our belief in our cause is stronger, because we are more determined... in the end, these informers' protests won't help them. The land of Israel will be settled.”
Young residents of Maaleh Adumim turn out in support (photo: Flash 90)
Peace Now may succeed in creating temporary obstacles, but it will not stop the trend of Jewish growth in Judea and Samaria, Dayan concluded.
MK Uri Ariel of Ichud Leumi (National Union) had harsher words for the Peace Now demonstrators. “Whether they are a virus or not,” he said, referring to recent controversial remarks from minister Yaalon, “we should make them illegal.”
"What kind of Jew can even consider forbidding a cemetery outside a Jewish community?” he asked. Israelis must strengthen Netanyahu, “who is even weaker than his predecessor,” in order to continue building, he said.
Landau: Learn from Ben-Gurion
If Israel gives in to American pressure, “it will disgrace the state of Israel,” said Landau. Instead, he said, Israeli leaders should learn from Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion.
When the world warned Ben-Gurion not to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel, Ben-Gurion responded by moving the Knesset to Jerusalem, Landau explained. “We need to regain that spirit, to bring back that kind of leadership... We have honor, we have history, we have courage.”
5. Knesset Speaker: Drying Up Jewish Settlements Won’t Save Israel
by Hillel Fendel
“The Land is ours by right, and we will not guarantee our existence with apologies and weakness,” says Knesset Speaker Rivlin in Hevron.
Rivlin, a Likud MK serving his second term as Speaker of the Knesset, was the keynote speaker at a memorial ceremony on Monday marking the 80th anniversary of the Arab slaughter of 69 Jews in Hevron. He did not mince words, as he related to the intention of the government led by his party to freeze Jewish construction throughout Judea and Samaria.
“The lesson we have learned from Hevron is this," Rivlin said. "The Land of Israel is acquired by rights, and not by drying it up or freezing it. We will not strike roots here by imposing decree after decree, and we will not continue to hold onto it with weakness and soft-heartedness. We won’t be able to guarantee our existence by asking forgiveness for living or by bowing our head.”
Pressure Has Limits, Too
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other government officials have said that no matter how much they give in to American pressure, Jerusalem will never be a matter for negotiations. Rivlin related to this as well:
“Whoever thinks that by destroying Hevron, Jerusalem will be established – has not learned a thing. Whoever thinks that by drying up Ariel and Maaleh Adumim, we will thus build Tel Aviv and environs, or truly believes that the death of the settlement enterprise in Samaria we will gain international recognition of our territorial rights – is bound to trip, Heaven forbid, just as others have tripped.”
“Whoever thinks that in this way we will save ourselves from another Holocaust, is deluded by vain hopes.”
Rivlin has not personally attacked Netanyahu, and seems to feel – as do some other Likud leaders – that the Prime Minister is making a major effort to balance between his own principles and beliefs and the tremendous American pressure. In this context, Rivlin said in his address, “Our friends in the international arena should know that not everything is permitted in diplomacy. Even the wisdom of diplomacy has red lines that are gravely forbidden to cross.”
In his inimitably dramatic and poetic style, Rivlin listed some of the victims and the brutal manner in which they were “treacherously and murderously set upon by Ishmaelites whom these innocents had viewed as friends and brothers.” Among the victims were his mother’s cousins.
Not Only a Gravesite, But a House of Life Forever
“Hevron lies on the main road as you approach Jerusalem – and one cannot exist without the other. Hevron, and its field, and cave, and the trees all around it [a paraphrase of Genesis 23,17, which describes the Patriarch Abraham’s purchase of the property –ed, will belong to us, the children of Abraham’s son Isaac, not only for a gravesite, as Abraham purchased it, but for a house of life and an inheritance for generations.”
6. 'The Midnight Rabbi' Helps Struggling Yeshiva Students
by Ben Bresky
Who do struggling American yeshiva students turn to? The Midnight Rabbi. He's part social worker, part rocker, and all rabbi. Rabbi Eli Goldsmith, who teaches students in the wee hours, gives young Jewish American yeshiva students a musical outlet with his recording studio and jam sessions.
Rabbi Goldsmith is once again hosting youth music competitions to promote good self esteem among anglo yeshiva students in Israel. Past youth performers include Boruch Vidal, a rapper who performs with Avraham Pilcer, a violinist, a rock group Az Yashir who sing about Americans joining the Israeli army, Hello Sid, Sam Fisher and other young enthusiastic musisians.
The Unity of the Bands this past March was so successful, it is returning again for the new school year at a new alcohol-free club for youth called Shoreshim. Rabbi Goldsmith spoke on Israel National Radio's The Beat about how music can positively influence young adults to change for the better.
INR: So tell us who you are and how you became the Midnight Rabbi
Rabbi Goldsmith: I grew up in London and have been in Eretz Yisrael for ten years. I've seen from being in a few different yeshivas like Ohr Somayach the importance of music - especially me being a baal teshuvah and being involved in London in the music industry. My family, Harvey Goldsmith and my father Martin Goldsmith put on big events. I would see the effect of the music industry had on the youth. I wanted to be a famous rock singer at one point when I was a teenager. I won a "battle of the bands" in London. I'm still close to those guys because music has a bonding effect.
INR: What was the name of your old band?
Rabbi Goldsmith: Common Ground. It was about unity even in that world. But now the boys are coming to yeshiva not just for music but for spiritual reasons. So it can be a spiritually defined purpose. The music has the power to combine the physical with the spiritual. I see that with the bochurim [yeshiva student. It brings out their self esteem and togetherness.
INR: What were your father's big events?
Rabbi Goldstein: He helped do Live Aid. There's an interesting hashkacha pratis [Divine guidan story about someone else who's been helping - Jeff Pulver. My dad arranged to get him into the Led Zepplin reunion concert at Royal Albert Hall. Personally, I don't listen to their music and don't think their a good influence on the kids at all. Jeff Pulver likes them very much, and he's a good guy, so the hashkacha pratis is that even from such a place, he ended up contributing a decent amount of money to the studio the boys have been using.
It has a drum kit, piano, amps speaker system and even rebbes have been using it to speak their drashas on. Even though the kids are unfortunatley drawn to this type of music, especially the rap world, when they come with the right intentions, and inspiration, they elevate this type of music. It's an amazing thing and that what it was at Unity of the Bands.
INR: So why do they call you the Midnight Rabbi?
Rabbi Goldsmith: A few years back I was walking around the street late at night and was surprised to see how many young people were out there. I was learning full time and was learning very shtark [to appear to be religiou. I thought there needs to be something done in the kiruv world late at night. So I asked my wife and she agreed that I should pursue this. The first yeshiva was Netzach, where they called me the X-Box Rebbe because I used to see them where they used to play the video games late at night. Then it ended up Ner Yaakov which offered me an even later position, so they called me the Midnight Rabbi. So it came from the boys themselves. The idea was for me to come late at night.
I remember this one student, his first month or so in yeshiva, he used to come back drunk out of his face. Last year at an end-of-the year party, he told me he thought maybe he was having hallucinations because every night he would find this rabbi that he could sit and talk with about deeper things. And every morning he would wake up -- well not really in the morning, maybe in the afternoon -- and he would say, "Did I meet a rabbi last night? I can't remember." It made a deep impression on him and the whole year we had a good connection.
INR: Do you actually like rap and rock?
Rabbi Goldsmith: For me personally, I don't think any of this music is ideal. I don't listen to it in my own house. But my strength is from my past because I can bridge these gaps when I talk to them. At this point that's where they're at. I'm more just a stepping stone. I can't be the end result.
INR: When is your next event?
Rabbi Goldsmith: We have an open mic night and jam every two weeks in a club called Roots, Shoreshim. They help a lot of people, generally Israelis. They offered us to use their hall. We have up to 100 people. It's in town, in a little more controversial area, but a lot of the yeshiva students are there on a Thursday night anyway. Its for males only. The venue actually asked us to keep it that way. It makes it a simpler atmosphere that way. The goal is for them to express themselves and play together and inspire each other. It gives them an outlet where there's no hassle like fights or drinking.
They're getting so much out from the jamming and practicing. If people channel their free time properly, everything else goes positive. That's what the Unity of the Bands concert was about. I want to give a shout out to Boruch Kaplan and Danny Weiss and all the people who stepped forward and carried on when I wasn't able to be there.
INR: These are 19 year olds?
Rabbi Goldsmith: Yes. They did a good a job. They worked together with Jonty Zwebner, the well known producer, but they did a lot of the groundwork. My goal was to get these guys to run their own events and make them independent. We'll see from U Muse, which stands for Youth 4 Music, that the youth themselves have the power to lift up all their friends and family. I don't see that style of music as the goal, but it's definately a big step for the world to get to a more spiritual place. The lyrics represent a more postive message.
INR: Do you have any final words about your projects?
Rabbi Goldsmith: I appreciate your interest. Really what you've done for the boy's self esteem, it will help them for the rest of their lives. You have a big mitzvah.
The first Unity of the Bands concert of the year will take place Wednesday September 7th at Shorashim, 13 Shammai Street, Jerusalem at 9:15 p.m.
For more information on U-Muse visit http://www.music4theyouth.com
7. Jew Saved from Lynch in J'lem's Old City
by Maayana Miskin
A young Jewish man suffered injuries on Sunday night when he was attacked by an angry gang. The victim, Robert, spoke with Arutz Sheva's Hebrew-language news agency on Monday about his ordeal.
As he walked from the Jaffa Gate to the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem's Old City he noticed a group of approximately 15 young men wearing black, Robert recalled. The men appeared to be novice priests, he said.
As he passed the group, one of the robed men tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he spoke Hebrew. When he answered in the affirmative, the man suddenly punched him in the face. Robert put his hands to his face, and realized that he was bleeding heavily.
Robert attempted to flee, but the gang of robed men pursued him and began kicking him. Just as he began to fear for his life, Robert was rescued by a group of Jews who were passing through the area.
His rescuers took him to a nearby police station, where he filed charges. Police said the attackers were filmed by security cameras in the area.
Robert received treatment for cuts to his face. Medics told him that the man who punched his face had apparently been holding a sharp object.
The assault joins a string of attacks against Jews in the Old City and surrounding, predominantly Muslim, areas.
Robert said Monday that he planned to respond to the attack by walking through the same area again on Monday.
