Showing posts with label Tsvi Sadan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tsvi Sadan. Show all posts

Friday, January 4, 2019

Jesus, the Temple and an Ancient Weight Stone - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

Jesus, the Temple and an Ancient Weight Stone

Friday, January 04, 2019 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY
"An amazing archaeological discovery." This is how Prime Minister Netanyahu called the recent discovery of a 3,000-year-old beka stone used for weighing a half-shekel worth of silver. The little weight stone was found during on-going excavations at the foundation of the Western Wall. Obviously, Netanyahu is using this finding as an opportunity to debunk the false Palestinian narrative that traces their origin not to the Arabian Peninsula, but to one of the nations of ancient Canaan, like the Philistines and the Hittites.
Archeological findings proving the obvious–that the so-called "Palestinians" have no history in the Land of Israel–continue producing an abundance of material validating both biblical and extra-biblical sources that tell the story of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel.
The tiny stone inscribed with the inverted Hebrew "beka," is one only a handful of First Temple-period weight-measuring stones ever found, and the only one found with its inscription intact. It was found thanks to the Emek Tzurim Sifting Project. This volunteer-based project recovers archeological artifacts from 400 truckloads of topsoil removed during the 1996-1999 construction of the huge new underground el-Marwani Mosque built in the space known as Solomon's Stables. This illegal digging by the Muslim Waqf, which Israel did nothing to stop, was supposed to erase any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. 
The sifting project itself, began in 2004 as a private initiative of Israeli archaeologists Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira, has yielded hundreds of artifacts, including coins, jewelry and fragments of the Second Temple floor tiling. Since 2017, the project has been funded by the Israel Archaeology Foundation.
The beka weight is dated to the time of Solomon's Temple that stood in Jerusalem from the 10th to the 6th century BC. The beka, or half-shekel (Exodus 38:26), weighing 11.33 grams (0.4 ounces of silver, $4.5 in today's value), was an annual "ransom money" every Israelite man from 20-years-old was commanded to give for the Temple service: "each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life" (Exodus 30:12).
During the Second Temple era, the only "legal" half-shekel was a silver coin minted in Tyre. Jews living in Israel paid the half-shekel in their respective towns and villages. Jews from around the world who came to Jerusalem–particularly during the feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles–paid this tax upon arrival to the city. These "tourists," who didn't always know the exact exchange rates, were easy prey for crooked money changers. Jesus, who himself paid this annual tax (Matthew 17:25), rightly condemned this apparently widespread practice of overcharging, a problem not properly addressed by the Temple authorities.
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Friday, November 9, 2018

EXCLUSIVE: Israel Today Interviews Katie Hopkins - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

EXCLUSIVE: Israel Today Interviews Katie Hopkins

Friday, November 09, 2018 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY
Israel Today recently had the opportunity to interview one of the UK's more controversial conservative commentators regarding her views on Israel's modern rebirth, the Middle East conflict and the liberal agenda that she and others like her say is sinking the West and eroding support for the Jewish state there.
Katie Hopkins is reviled by liberals in both the UK and North America, but she's found growing popularity among conservatives who see her as one of the few willing to speak truth to ills in our societies, irrespective of the consequences of doing so.
Below are several outtakes from the interview that took place when Hopkins was visiting Israel. The full text of the interview can be found in the November 2018 issue of Israel Today Magazine.
Israel Today: You mentioned being encouraged by seeing enthusiastic young Jews from around the world visiting Hebron. Most other journalists think Israel should get out of Hebron and other "Palestinian" towns.
Katie Hopkins: We were there when young recruits for the IDF were shown around. That was so exhilarating. I met these young Israelis who were there because they wanted to belong to something. There were 16- and 17-year-old boys from London coming to join the IDF as volunteers because they needed to belong to and fight for something. That's why I was so excited. But then I went into the Palestinian side. The level of hatred there is just beyond any kind of understanding.
Israel Today: How does the Jewish community in the UK feel about the rising antisemitism there?
Hopkins: Imagine being part of the Jewish community in Golders Green, where they've just approved planning for a mega-mosque right in the heart of this community. Rules were changed to make this happen. That's what the Muslim population is doing, planting these huge mosques right in the center of Jewish heredity.
Israel Today: Not many people would dare think these things, let alone saying them out loud.
Hopkins: That's exactly right, and that is why I am the target of death threats from jihadists who want to behead me. But once you choose to speak out it feels good because you give other people a voice, so I am okay with whatever the consequences may be.
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Friday, October 5, 2018

Angela Merkel's Problematic Policy Toward Israel - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

Angela Merkel's Problematic Policy Toward Israel

Friday, October 05, 2018 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY
There are two disturbing aspects of Germany's policy vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One is Germany's decision to fill the financial gap left by America's decision to stop supporting UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian refugee relief fund. The second is Germany's financial support for the illegal Bedouin village of Khan al-Akmar, located just east of Jerusalem, which Israel's Supreme Court ruled must be evacuated. 
Both these things stem from a German moral position, which makes them all the more irritating.
Back in 1981, then-Prime Minister Menahem Begin rebuked German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt for giving moral support to the Palestinian cause. "From a moral point of view," said Begin, "Schmidt's statements certainly rank as the most callous ever heard … it seems that the Holocaust had conveniently slipped his memory. The German debt to the Jewish people," continued Begin, "can never end, not in this generation and not in any other." Schmidt's sympathy for Israel's enemies was all the more troubling in light of what Begin called Germany's "lucrative business deals with Saudi Arabia.''
One could easily find the similarities between the positions taken by Schmidt and Merkel, who now challenges Israel's sense of morality, while at the same time seeking lucrative business deals with Iran. To fully appreciate how problematic Merkel's sense of morality is, one needs to understand UNRWA and Khan al-Ahmar.
UNRWA is the only UN refugee relief organization devoted to a single group of people, the Palestinians. Furthermore, under the auspices of this organization, the number of Palestinian refugees has grown from less than half-a-million in 1948 to more than five million today (so much for Palestinian "genocide"). 
UNRWA is the institution that invented the notion of hereditary refugee status. No other group of refugees (and there were more than 100 million refugees in the 20th century) was ever granted this counterproductive benefit, which we must conclude has but one goal: to destroy Israel. Likewise, no other group of refugees has benefited from UN aid for such a long period of time. All other refugee crises were solved within a decade or two. But UNRWA continues to nourishing the Palestinian refugee problem for more than 70 years, without showing any signs of fatigue. In this light, Merkel's support of UNRWA is anything but moral.
And if invigorating UNRWA wasn't enough, Germany is actively intervening in Israel's internal affairs by speaking out on behalf of the illegal settlement of Khan al-Ahmar. Since the early 1990s, the Israel Supreme Court has three times ruled against the Bedouin settlement, which was represented by radical left-wing Israeli NGOs bankrolled by European nations, Germany included.
As someone who once lived in the town of Ma'aleh Adumim, I followed closely how the few tents of the Jahalin tribe situated just half a mile from my house slowly became a village of shacks that now nearly surrounds Ma'aleh Adumim. The Jahalin faction now living in the West Bank broke away the part of their tribe that resides in "Israel proper" over some sort of internal feud shortly after the 1948 War of Independence. It wasn't until the 1990s that the Jahalin in the West Bank began to identify themselves as Palestinians, and they did so only because it was economically expedient to do so.
The repeated appeals to the Supreme Court, and Israel's sluggish implementation of the court's rulings, has turned Europe's attention to this shabby village. It was quickly became a case study for Israel's alleged immorality and Europe's commitment to the supposedly moral causes of all peoples who hate Israel with a passion. This, according to Merkel, is a sound moral position.
It would have been one thing to criticize Israel if it was truly an incarnation of apartheid South Africa. It is an entirely different thing when, Germany of all countries, accuses Israel of lacking morality, while at the same time supporting the immoral agendas of both the Palestinians and Iran. 
This is what's so irritating about what amounts to condescending preaching coming from a country that lost any right to chastise Israel. As Israeli journalist Shimon Riklin rightly said, when it comes to criticizing Israel, Germany should keep its mouth shut for the next 2,000 years.
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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Israel, and Trump's Vision for a Better World - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

Israel, and Trump's Vision for a Better World

Wednesday, September 26, 2018 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY
"I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship."
Trump is not my president. This is an important observation considering the gazillion non-Americans who think they have an obligation to hate him. That Trump is not my president frees me from feelings that do nothing but distort things. From the narrow Israeli viewpoint, we should be thankful for Trump's pro-Israel policy, and many indeed are thankful. More encouraging, Trump's UN speech last night shows that his pro-Israel policy isn't the result of early morning convulsions. His vision for a better world is the vision of his administration, the vision of those who voted him in, and it is this vision, not Trump's personality, that so angers his political rivals.
To Israeli ears, The New Yorker's scornful reporting of "the audible ripple of gasps and giggles" supposedly heard in the UN General Assembly during Trump's speech sounds too vindictive and harsh. The terms "patriotism," "homeland," "people," "sovereign and independent nations" guided by "ancient wisdom" do not sound at all offensive to most Israelis who, I suppose, would not mind seeing Israel restored to the kind of Liberal Conservatism that Trump is talking about. 
America under Trump wants to restore the sovereignty of nations and pride in national culture and heritage. Instead of the uni-cultural world coerced upon us in the name of multiculturalism, America now encourages countries like Israel to freely pursue our own destiny. "The whole world is richer, humanity is better," said Trump, "because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly in its part of the world." 
Israel–harshly and unfairly criticized by the UN, EU and their innumerable NGO cohorts–should follow's Trump's lead, for it, too, must not surrender its "sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy." Freedom and democracy, the American leader correctly observes, should be allowed to be defended "against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination," which means, coercion of the masses into accepting ideologies that scorn and loath anything other than a multiculturalism run amok.
This vision, it is almost needless to say, suits Israel like a glove because, by definition, Israel must attribute its very existence to its uniqueness. It's no surprise, therefore, that of all nations, Israel is singled out as most problematic, which is why its very existence is continuously challenged, mostly by the same unelected powers exposed so effectively by President Trump.
Those who follow Israel closely know that its Jewish character and its sovereignty are being challenged on a daily basis. Internal and external forces do their utmost to frustrate the majority's desire to guard Israel's uniqueness. At times it seems as if our governments capitulate to these unelected, undemocratic forces seeking to turn Israel into just another "normal" country. Now, with America's backing, one could only hope that our leaders will know to seize the historical moment and further entrench both Israel's uniqueness and its sovereignty.
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Monday, June 18, 2018

The Next Planned EU/UN Punch to Israel's Face - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

The Next Planned EU/UN Punch to Israel's Face

Monday, June 18, 2018 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY
That Europe is heavily involved in what I have previously called "the dead Jew industry" should by now be beyond doubt. But in case some still don't get it, I would refer them to the EU's financial support of unrepentant terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who was convicted of 26 murders and attempted murders, for which he was sent to jail for five life sentences, plus an additional 40 years for membership in a terrorist organization. 
Holland and the EU, among others, hope that this convicted killer will replace Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian government. If that ever happens, Barghouti, who has already outlined his strategic plans for the future, would join forces with Hamas to resume the "armed struggle" against Israel.
A recent report by NGO Monitor, an Israeli organization that monitors the activity of the supporters of the dead Jew Industry, reveals once again how Europe is fanning the flame that will one day force Israel out of the so-called "West Bank," creating a new "Gaza" in the very heart of Israel.
NGO Monitor has shown that the EU contributed to the radical left-wing Israeli NGO Yesh Din some €269,975 for the pursuit of its new project of investigating the Israeli army's forcible entries into Palestinian homes. Knowing on which string to harp, Yesh Din is particularly interested in the effects these forced home entries (FHE) have on women and children. Gender sensitivity goes a long way nowadays, especially when it pertains to Palestinian women.
More specifically, in a grant proposal submitted to the UN, Yesh Din outlines its future objectives, the investigation of already assumed criminal offences routinely committed by Israeli soldiers during these forced home entries. The lack of true criminal investigations into these alleged crimes, so goes the logic, proves that there must be a "culture of impunity within Israel's security forces personnel." Such an opportunity to throw another punch at Israel's face is not going to be missed, especially not by the EU and the UN.
However, just as these radical NGOs won't tell you the reasons for the checkpoints, Yesh Din likewise won't acknowledge the justification behind those forced home entries. For their part, neither the EU nor the UN care to ask. Nevertheless, FHE is the practice of any security force around the globe that enters with considerable force into home of possibly dangerous individuals who are suspected of being involved in terrorism. More often than not, FHE takes places in the middle of the night, regardless of the identity of the uninvolved occupants of the targeted home. In Israel, as in any other country, FHE is carried out according to intelligence that locates the place where a suspect could be found in order to capture him or her for further investigation.
By nature, therefore, FHE is sensitive, since it is life-risking for the soldiers who enter into close quarters where uninvolved family members are being fully exposed to the brute force of such an operation. There should be little wonder that NGOs find the FHE a treasure trove of human rights violations. It is the nature of such operations that would send women to complain of foul play. Focusing on FHE, therefore, guarantees the desired results – the blaming of Israel for systematic violations of human rights.
Back in 2106, Ehud Yaari, in my opinion the most trusted Israeli journalist covering the conflict, told anyone willing to listen that the Palestinian Authority, realizing that its quest for statehood was going nowhere, decided to shift its current emphasis to the more lucrative human rights issue. This demonstrates the cunning of the Palestinians. It also shows that, in effect, NGOs like Yesh Din are clearly collaborating with the Palestinian Authority in its objective to ruin Israel.
PHOTO: IDF soldiers raid the home of a suspected terrorist in Hebron. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)
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