This issue looks at the recent Hamas-backed confrontation at Jerusalem’s Western Wall and more.

OUR ISRAELI CONNECTION

The Israel Project reports
Several hundred Palestinian youths threw rocks at Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday (March 5), prompting Israeli police to evacuate Jewish worshippers and enter the nearby Temple Mount compound to stop the violence. Israeli police used tear gas and stun grenades to subdue the stone-throwers. The confrontation injured about 18 Israeli police and 13 Palestinians.

Israeli Minister of Public Security Yitzhak Aharonovitch blamed Iran-backed Hamas for instigating the clashes. “I accuse the Palestinians, including Hamas operatives, of inciting the situation,” he said. Witnesses said Palestinian worshippers were waving Hamas flags at the scene. In recent years Hamas has funded projects on the Temple Mount to increase its influence there, according to Israeli security services.

One Jerusalem reports
As recently as 2005, when the respected Gallup organization asked Americans if their sympathies lied with Israel or the Palestinians, 52% said Israel while 30% preferred the Palestinians. In February 2010, in answer to the same question: 63% chose Israel while only 15% said the Palestinians. Gallup concluded that Israel’s support is “the highest level in nearly 20 years.”

IT’S NEWS TO ME

One Jerusalem reports
For those of us who prayed that Obama’s Muslim outreach would be limited to his Turkey and Egypt speeches in which he praised Muslims and gave them credit for contributions to American culture that are non-existent, I am sorry to report that the President’s words are only one part of his courtship of problematic Muslims.

In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has dropped all legal attempts to deny a visa to one Tariq Ramadan. Mr. Ramadan is a slick defender of his grandfather, the founder of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, and is a European intellectual rock star who has been banned from European countries and universities because of his radical views. A few years ago, in a debate with Nicholas Sarkozy he called for a “moratorium” not a ban on the stoning of women in Muslim countries. He also wrote an article condemning Jewish intellectuals. These actions and some links with terrorists and the financing of terrorism caused the Bush Administration to refuse to allow him into the country.

There are news reports that Jordan’s King told the Palestinian Authority’s Abbas that Israel is threatening the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and that some unspecified action should be taken to protect Muslim sites in East Jerusalem. With these statements, the King earned himself the Chutzpah Man of the Year Award. You see, Jordan is the country that expelled (and killed) Jews who had resided in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. And from 1948 until Israel freed the Old City and unified it, Jews (and most Christians) were not allowed access to the Old City. Moreover, since 1967, under the governance of the State of Israel, Muslims have been given control over all their holy sites. Their control is so great that they have used it to destroy tons of antiquities from the days of Solomon’s Temple and they control who can visit the Holy Temple Mount.

OneNewsNow reports
President Barack Obama has named White House lawyer Rashad Hussain as his special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents 57 Muslim countries. The president claims Hussain is a “hafiz of the Qur’an” — one who has memorized Islam’s holy book.

He also contends that Hussain will continue working to repair U.S.-Islamic relations and develop the types of partnerships Obama called for last year in his address to the Muslim world in Cairo.

“It takes two to repair relations, and he’s not going to be able to do it on his own,” comments Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch. “He’s reaching out and reaching out and reaching out, and all he is doing is giving them the impression that we’re weak, and that’s really the way in which the Islamic Jihad groups operate. They understand weakness and strength. They don’t understand conciliation; they see it as weakness.” Spencer recalls that Hussain has spoken out against the “profiling” of Islamic terror suspects and once defended publicly Sami Al-Arian, who was a professor at the University of South Florida, who is now in prison for his role as a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

A wise man’s heart directs him toward the right, but a foolish man’s heart directs him toward the left.” ~ Ecclesiastes 10:2