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Zionists Are Already Re-building Temple Off-site and Plan to Destroy Al Aqsa Mosque
Needless to say, the news in the Syrian newspapers and on the street takes quite a different spin on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And now for some news, direct from Syria.
I just got back from a fabulous trip to Syria, truly a hidden treasure of fantastic historical sites going back thousands of years and a delightful place full of incredibly friendly and hospitable people, even after finding out that I am an American.
You might be surprised to hear that Syria is a fantasic destination, even for Americans. But think about it. Who has been telling you that Syria is full of terrorists? Of course, it's the Zionist-dominated American media. The very same media that has been embedded as part of our Zionist-dominated war-mongoring government. The very same media that has been beating the drums for war against all the countries that Zionists would like to see the US invade and "democratize". The very same media that when being "risque" may even try to blame the war on "oil". The very same media that goes out of its way to avoid the word "Zionism" or explaining Israel's apartheid regime, or Israel's on-going history of ethnic-cleansing against non-Jewish indigenous Palestinians in Palestine-Israel. The very same media that tries to deny that the war on Iraq was a war fought on only Israel's behalf.
Yes, THAT US media. That department of misinformation.
So, no wonder that I, for one, was not surprised to find out that Syria was a friendly, beautiful and fascinating place to visit.
However, I must say, that I was surprised at how incredibly friendly the Syrian people were. We went in with a small group tour, all Christians (mostly Christian Scientists, and a couple Roman Catholics), and one agnostic.
Everywhere we went, even just walking down the street, many of the Syrian people called out "Hello" and "Welcome!" to us, even after they found out we were American, which we were more than a little ashamed to admit since we are all anti-war and detest Bush's policies. We were welcomed into many Syrians' homes for "flower tea" or Syrian or Turkish coffee, into upscale homes, modest apartments and Bedouin adobe mud homes sitting on carpets.
Contrary to what Zionists' would have Americans believe, Syrian women are free to wear whatever they want. In any given street scene or restaurant, the spectrum of clothing that women in Syria wear ranges from Brittany Spears' style skin-tight jeans and teeshirts (but no belly showing) to professional Western-style suits, to wearing a hejab and a traditional robe to being entirely covered in black, face included (mostly from Iran, I was told). There were no Afghan-style burqas to be found, even in a store, which we had wanted to bring back for a Halloween outfit.
Contrary to what Zionists would have you believe about the Muslim men oppressing their women, we found Muslim men to be very charming, natural and relaxed and even deferential to women. As woman I felt completely comfortable in communicating with the Syrian men I met. In fact, at one point, my fiance decided to stay with the tour in the museum, and I decided to split to explore on my own. We were in Alleppo, the oldest continuously inhabited by humans city in the entire world. I went into a shop that sold some hookah pipes to photograph them, and a small gathering of men invited me to join them in smoking the "hubbly-bubbly" as it is called. I said I would like to but didn't have time. They were most gracious.
By the way, the "hubbly-bubbly" is a recent popular craze at all the Syrian restaurants and cafes. It is just flavored tobacco with apple being the current Syrian favorite, but it is available in other flavors such as mint, cappacino and more. I tried it twice later, and can attest to the fact that it is very mild tobacco. I did not even get a nicotine buzz! It's just a fun thing to do.
It may not come as a big surprise that the Syrian newspapers have many stories about the evils of Zionism, the neoconservatives, apartheid Israel, Israel's Apartheid Wall, the war crimes of Ariel Sharon, and general wrath about Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people. These stories are not what one ever typically finds in the US media. By the way, there were no Syrian stories dwelling on that red herring of "oil". Because the Syrians know, along with the rest of the world, that the war on Iraq was the brainchild of Israel and the Zionists, both Israeli and American.
The following revelation most likely will come as a surprise to you, dear readers, as it was even a surprise to me, an expert on Zionism and Palestine-Israel.
As a matter of fact, it is a fact that is not known by many outside of Israel or the Middle East:
The Zionist Jews are already re-building the Third Temple offsite somewhere in the Jewish state of Israel, which they plan to re-locate to the original site of the first two temples in Jerusalem--- on the Temple Mount. The Zionists are waiting for the right moment to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, which is the third most holy site of the Muslim world, and then re-locate the temple they are currently building off-site. We were informed about this endeavor by a top-level Syrian official during our trip.
According to him there are many Zionist organizations whose sole purpose is to realize this event. Apparently this is common knowledge in the Middle East, yet Americans are certainly not aware of this. This makes it even more clear why Sharon’s visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque in September 2000 with 1000 troops sparked off the Second Intifada by the Palestinians.
This was a deliberate act by Sharon to show that he was stepping up the timetable to make the Zionist dream of rebuilding the Temple on the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, heralding a NEW WORLD ORDER with Jerusalem as the capital of the world. The Zionists have already been digging tunnels underneath the Al Aqsa Mosque.
And of course, the Palestinians reacted violently and predictably as Sharon was hoping, to give him an excuse to “retaliate” with even greater force and more deadly violence, since Israel has the fourth strongest army in the world, and the Palestinians have NONE.
Unfortunately for Sharon, the WILL OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE is stronger than all of his weapons. However, the Palestinian people are being sorely tried. It’s up to the American people who have been enlightened about the evil of Zionism to spread the word of this new Nazism, this neo-Nazism, and to stop it by pressuring our government and becoming the media ourselves. NOW we must spread the word. There is still time for JUSTICE to triumph over evil.
As a lone sign at the recent anti-war rally in NYC on March 20th stated: "Second Most Important World Super-Power: American Pulbic Opinion."
If you believe in justice for all regardless of religion, ethnicity or sex, you and me, we've got our work cut out for us.
You might be surprised to hear that Syria is a fantasic destination, even for Americans. But think about it. Who has been telling you that Syria is full of terrorists? Of course, it's the Zionist-dominated American media. The very same media that has been embedded as part of our Zionist-dominated war-mongoring government. The very same media that has been beating the drums for war against all the countries that Zionists would like to see the US invade and "democratize". The very same media that when being "risque" may even try to blame the war on "oil". The very same media that goes out of its way to avoid the word "Zionism" or explaining Israel's apartheid regime, or Israel's on-going history of ethnic-cleansing against non-Jewish indigenous Palestinians in Palestine-Israel. The very same media that tries to deny that the war on Iraq was a war fought on only Israel's behalf.
Yes, THAT US media. That department of misinformation.
So, no wonder that I, for one, was not surprised to find out that Syria was a friendly, beautiful and fascinating place to visit.
However, I must say, that I was surprised at how incredibly friendly the Syrian people were. We went in with a small group tour, all Christians (mostly Christian Scientists, and a couple Roman Catholics), and one agnostic.
Everywhere we went, even just walking down the street, many of the Syrian people called out "Hello" and "Welcome!" to us, even after they found out we were American, which we were more than a little ashamed to admit since we are all anti-war and detest Bush's policies. We were welcomed into many Syrians' homes for "flower tea" or Syrian or Turkish coffee, into upscale homes, modest apartments and Bedouin adobe mud homes sitting on carpets.
Contrary to what Zionists' would have Americans believe, Syrian women are free to wear whatever they want. In any given street scene or restaurant, the spectrum of clothing that women in Syria wear ranges from Brittany Spears' style skin-tight jeans and teeshirts (but no belly showing) to professional Western-style suits, to wearing a hejab and a traditional robe to being entirely covered in black, face included (mostly from Iran, I was told). There were no Afghan-style burqas to be found, even in a store, which we had wanted to bring back for a Halloween outfit.
Contrary to what Zionists would have you believe about the Muslim men oppressing their women, we found Muslim men to be very charming, natural and relaxed and even deferential to women. As woman I felt completely comfortable in communicating with the Syrian men I met. In fact, at one point, my fiance decided to stay with the tour in the museum, and I decided to split to explore on my own. We were in Alleppo, the oldest continuously inhabited by humans city in the entire world. I went into a shop that sold some hookah pipes to photograph them, and a small gathering of men invited me to join them in smoking the "hubbly-bubbly" as it is called. I said I would like to but didn't have time. They were most gracious.
By the way, the "hubbly-bubbly" is a recent popular craze at all the Syrian restaurants and cafes. It is just flavored tobacco with apple being the current Syrian favorite, but it is available in other flavors such as mint, cappacino and more. I tried it twice later, and can attest to the fact that it is very mild tobacco. I did not even get a nicotine buzz! It's just a fun thing to do.
It may not come as a big surprise that the Syrian newspapers have many stories about the evils of Zionism, the neoconservatives, apartheid Israel, Israel's Apartheid Wall, the war crimes of Ariel Sharon, and general wrath about Israel's aggression against the Palestinian people. These stories are not what one ever typically finds in the US media. By the way, there were no Syrian stories dwelling on that red herring of "oil". Because the Syrians know, along with the rest of the world, that the war on Iraq was the brainchild of Israel and the Zionists, both Israeli and American.
The following revelation most likely will come as a surprise to you, dear readers, as it was even a surprise to me, an expert on Zionism and Palestine-Israel.
As a matter of fact, it is a fact that is not known by many outside of Israel or the Middle East:
The Zionist Jews are already re-building the Third Temple offsite somewhere in the Jewish state of Israel, which they plan to re-locate to the original site of the first two temples in Jerusalem--- on the Temple Mount. The Zionists are waiting for the right moment to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque of the Dome of the Rock, which is the third most holy site of the Muslim world, and then re-locate the temple they are currently building off-site. We were informed about this endeavor by a top-level Syrian official during our trip.
According to him there are many Zionist organizations whose sole purpose is to realize this event. Apparently this is common knowledge in the Middle East, yet Americans are certainly not aware of this. This makes it even more clear why Sharon’s visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque in September 2000 with 1000 troops sparked off the Second Intifada by the Palestinians.
This was a deliberate act by Sharon to show that he was stepping up the timetable to make the Zionist dream of rebuilding the Temple on the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, heralding a NEW WORLD ORDER with Jerusalem as the capital of the world. The Zionists have already been digging tunnels underneath the Al Aqsa Mosque.
And of course, the Palestinians reacted violently and predictably as Sharon was hoping, to give him an excuse to “retaliate” with even greater force and more deadly violence, since Israel has the fourth strongest army in the world, and the Palestinians have NONE.
Unfortunately for Sharon, the WILL OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE is stronger than all of his weapons. However, the Palestinian people are being sorely tried. It’s up to the American people who have been enlightened about the evil of Zionism to spread the word of this new Nazism, this neo-Nazism, and to stop it by pressuring our government and becoming the media ourselves. NOW we must spread the word. There is still time for JUSTICE to triumph over evil.
As a lone sign at the recent anti-war rally in NYC on March 20th stated: "Second Most Important World Super-Power: American Pulbic Opinion."
If you believe in justice for all regardless of religion, ethnicity or sex, you and me, we've got our work cut out for us.
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http://www.2la.org/lebanon/ee/terrorlb.htm
***A human rights activist said Monday that the issue of Lebanese who were victims of arbitrary abduction and detention by Syrian forces was a harsh humanitarian outcome of the civil war.***
"This problem forms a tragedy, and touches all the sectors of our society," said Ghazi Aad, director of S.O.L.I.D.E (Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile). "Many Lebanese families are still waiting for their beloved ones."
Aad's comments came during a press conference held at the Saint Joseph University (USJ), in association with student representatives from the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the Phalange Base, Lebanese Forces (LF) and the National Liberal Party (NLP).
During the press conference, Aad announced that a petition demanding a solution for the detainees' issue had gathered about 10 thousand signatures and would be presented to Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir on Tuesday and to the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia on Wednesday.
"The students' petition demands a proper clarification about the fate of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons," he said. "Our movement is the first of many to come, aiming at reaching the demands listed in our national petition, which are the immediate release of all the detainees and retrieving the bodies of those who passed away," Aad said.
"We also want to add another demand," he said. "Responsible officials should be convicted for these violations, and Lebanese victims should be compensated."
The Syrian and Lebanese governments continue to deny the existence of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons, although many testimonies, particularly from parents and families who visited them in prison, confirm their presence, as do interviews with members of Parliament and Syrian activists.
Aad explained that the petition held the signature of students because they represent the whole of Lebanese society. " This way, no one can say any of the signatures aren't true.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
By Nadav Shragai
The firemen manning the two fire trucks dispatched to the Western Wall on July 28, 1981 were still wondering what they were supposed to do there when they were suddenly told to return to the station. Yehuda Meir Getz, the rabbi of the Western Wall, had ordered the fire trucks and was also the one that hastily canceled the order after he discovered that all the firemen on the way to the Western Wall were Arabs. He feared that his plans - to dig under the foundations of the Dome of the Rock in order to find the site of the Holy of Holies, and the place where the Temple artifacts had been concealed - would be discovered too soon.
The firemen had been assigned a secondary role in the project: to pump out hundreds of cubic meters of muddy water from the huge tunnel, chiseled eastward. Getz, along with workers from the Religious Affairs Ministry, had cleared the opening secretly during work aimed at uncovering the full length of the Western Wall.
Rabbi Getz managed to keep the secret for only a few weeks. A violent confrontation broke out in the tunnel, which according to the Western Wall rabbi's calculations, led to Ein Itam: the spring through which impure priests went to immerse themselves on their way from Beit Hamoked on the Temple Mount outside the walls. The Muslims discovered the breach and dozens of them slid down through openings in the Temple Mount area to the tunnel located near the Western Wall plaza. Getz and the yeshiva students who were alerted to the site rushed to block the way of members of the Waqf (Muslim trust) with their bodies. At the end of a turbulent day, with the Temple Mount at the epicenter of international attention, then prime minister Menachem Begin, minister of police Yosef Burg and police commissioner Shlomo Ivstan ordered that the opening that had been made in the wall on the eastern side be resealed.
That was the only time since 1967 that governmental officials had tried to tunnel eastward underneath the Temple Mount. At the time, it was officially announced that the huge tunnel under the structure of the Dome of the Rock had been discovered by chance during preparation of a niche for a holy ark at the Western Wall. Only years later did two members of the committee appointed by the government to investigate the affair disclose that the story about the niche for a holy ark was merely a cover-up for the real story.
Archaeologist Meir Ben Dov and the coordinator of the ministerial committee for Jerusalem affairs, Ephraim Shilo, discovered that the tunnel had been opened deliberately, but in order to prevent public relations damage to the state, this essential finding was left out of the final conclusions of the report they authored. Years later, Rabbi Getz explained that he had been motivated by an intense desire to find the lost Temple artifacts, first and foremost the Ark of the Covenant.
Warning from the Rebbe
A new book about Rabbi Getz makes new revelations about the affair. The author, Hila Volberstein, reveals that he was not alone in his plan to tunnel from the Western Wall eastward under the Temple Mount. He had a partner - Rafi Eitan, advisor on terrorism and security to three prime ministers (Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres), who later gained fame as the man who recruited and handled Jonathan Pollard.
The book about Getz, who was involved extensively in kabbala and for whom the Western Wall tunnels were a second home, is being published almost eight years after his death. In the volume, which was commissioned by the family, Getz is described as he was: an enterprising man of many talents, a philanthropist (who gave charity in secret), a man with a spiritual approach to life, an army officer and a mystic both in action and dress - with a black robe and white headdress, a prayer book and Bible in his pocket and pistol on his hip. He was among the first to settle in the renewed Jewish Quarter after the Six-Day War. Of his 11 children, most live in Judea and Samaria. One son, Yair, was killed in Samaria in the mid-1980s when the car he was driving was hit by a truck driven by an Arab. Getz was convinced that he had been murdered for nationalistic reasons. Another son, Avner, was killed in the battle for the Old City in the Six-Day War.
Volberstein reveals extensive excerpts from Getz's diaries, just a small proportion of which had been made public before. She presents numerous testimonies, such as that of Naftali Kidron, formerly an engineer in the Religious Affairs Ministry, according to which the source of the rabbi's almost total devotion to the project to uncover the Western Wall was his intense desire to find the Temple artifacts.
Getz, who served for many years as rabbi of the Western Wall on behalf of the Religious Affairs Ministry, clung ardently to his plans to find the Temple artifacts, refusing to relinquish his program even after the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, advised him to stop. The Lubavitcher Rebbe warned Getz that anyone who found the Temple artifacts was placing his life in danger, although he did make it clear that finding the artifacts used in the Temple would bring Jewish redemption closer. Rabbi Getz, writes Volberstein, "decided to be the atonement for the Jewish people, to search for the Temple artifacts and to do whatever he could to speed up the redemption. However, he was waiting for the right moment to open the tunnels in the easterly direction."
Eitan's testimony
One of the most fascinating testimonies in the book is that of Eitan. "As the excavation of the tunnels progressed," says Eitan, "I met with Rabbi Getz almost daily. Together with him, I studied the structure of the Holy Temple and its dimensions. We drew conclusions as to the location of the Holy Temple and the Holy of Holies. When we arrived at the spot that according to our studies was supposed to be the gate through which the priests set out in order to immerse themselves, we assumed that if we made an opening in the wall to the east, we could move forward and eventually reach the Holy of Holies. But we waited for the right time to make the opening. We told no one about it because we preferred to keep the secret to ourselves, so that if - heaven forfend - it were discovered, the responsibility would not fall on the government or its leaders. That is why Begin, who knew about the excavations along the Western Wall, did not know about our plans to make the opening to the east."
Eitan reveals that the opening was planned at first for the floor under the level where the excavation to uncover the Western Wall was being carried out at the time, "and in this way, it was not supposed to be discovered at all. We planned to go in, see the tunnels and move ahead in the direction in which we estimated that the foundations of the Holy of Holies would be found. We were of the view that without heavy tools, using a delicate chisel, we could chip away at the soft limestone walls. We thought that in that way, we could advance quietly and secretly to discover the hiding place where the priests had concealed the Temple artifacts and arrive at the spot just under the Holy of Holies, the place where the Ark of the Covenant was hidden."
Eitan was not the only one privy to Getz's secret. A number of Religious Affairs Ministry officials and students of the rabbi were also aware of his plan. He consulted with Avraham Hanan, described in the book as a man "with supernatural powers" of insight. Many years ago, before the archaeologists had drawn their maps, Hanan marked on a map the route of a tunnel from the direction of the southern wall area, northwest to Solomon's Stables inside the Temple Mount. The excavators indeed discovered a tunnel along the route that Hanan had marked, but refrained from entering the Temple Mount. When Getz began to serve as rabbi of the Western Wall and the project reached a more advanced stage, Hanan designated the spot where in his view the Temple artifacts were buried. Getz was convinced that the Ark of the Covenant was buried in the same spot.
Catalyst for the Messiah
The Ark of the Covenant, which has not been seen since the destruction of the First Temple, was perhaps the most important of artifacts in the Temple, defined as the principal seat of the divine spirit. Some believe that it is still hidden in the tunnels excavated by King Solomon under the Holy of Holies. The tractate Shekalim of the Mishna states: "There once was a priest (in the time of the Second Temple) who while working in the Temple noticed that the part of the floor was different from other parts (and realized that at that spot there must be an entrance to a subterranean passage). He told another priest, but barely had he finished speaking before his soul expired, and it was clearly known that that was where the Ark was hidden."
Jewish sources say that the Ark will be discovered a short time before the coming of the Messiah. Nachmanides wrote that the Ark would be discovered "during the construction of the Temple or in future wars before the coming of the Messiah king." Rabbi Getz also believed that finding the Ark and/or Temple artifacts would serve as a catalyst for the coming of the Messiah. At first, he sought only to find the place at which the altar had stood, thousands of years ago.
The rabbi had two signs for the location of the site of the altar. The first was that the altar had been placed on level ground. However, the Temple Mount is made up of numerous tunnels, one atop another. If level ground, different from the rest of the surrounding ground, could be found, it would serve as proof of the site of the altar. The second sign was that under the place of the altar, where the sacrifices were brought in the time of the Temple, the floor was made of a mixture of zinc and plaster.
"If even a speck of zinc is found," stated the rabbi, "we will know where the altar stood and that will advance us considerably."
In July of 1981, that small niche for a Holy Ark was carved into the wall in the extension of the Western Wall, opposite the spot where Rabbi Getz believed the Holy of Holies was located. Immediately after the excavations began, an opening was created and the huge eastward tunnel carved into the rock under the Temple Mount was discovered. Its dimensions were impressive - 28 meters long and six meters wide. The floor of the tunnel was covered with a great deal of water and mud. "I immediately approached the place and I was seized by an enormous excitement. For a long time I sat, unable to move, with burning tears pouring down my cheeks. I finally gathered up strength and entered. I sat on the steps and said Tikkun Hatzot [midnight prayers] as is our custom."
The first people brought in on the secret were the then director-general of the Religious Affairs Ministry, Gedalia Schreiber, and the two chief rabbis, Shlomo Goren and Ovadia Yosef. Goren was excited by the discovery as was Getz. He viewed the huge tunnels as a primary means to locate the precise location of the Holy of Holies, the area of the Holy Temple to which all but the High Priest on the Day of Atonement were forbidden entry, on pain of death.
Agreement on the matter would decide once and for all in the dispute among the rabbinical authorities concerning this major issue. It would also make it possible to define for the general public the boundaries of the area where one could be permitted to enter the Temple Mount, thus abolishing the sweeping prohibition imposed by most authorities on halakha (Jewish religious law) on Jews entering any part of the Temple Mount. Relaxing the prohibition might create yet another and perhaps even more complex problem in the relations between religion and state: All Israeli governments have prohibited Jews from praying on the Temple Mount (as opposed to visiting it). Relaxing the halakhic prohibition on entry to the Temple Mount would considerably widen the circle of those seeking to pray there.
Mortal danger
The floor of the tunnel was covered with mud and water, which were removed by hand. The circle of those privy to the secret grew. Among them was Israel Radio reporter Moti Eden who, says Volberstein, participated in the work of uncovering the tunnel. "At night, after my work at the radio station, I came to the tunnel and using hoes and wheelbarrows, helped with the difficult work of cleaning out the tunnel," recalls Eden, today Channel One's reporter in the north.
Seven weeks after the discovery of the tunnel, news about it was broadcast on Israel Radio. Reporters from all over the world streamed to the site. In late August, on a Friday night, Arabs brought water hoses and very powerful lighting into the tunnel through one of the openings in the floor of the Temple Mount. Getz, who feared the entry of Arabs into the tunnel and the Western Wall plaza, ordered the opening that had been made be boarded up. But just a few hours later, Muslims reentered the tunnel.
Getz was immediately alerted to come to the site from his home in the Jewish Quarter. His wife called students from the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva to come and ran after him. Seeing her husband standing almost all alone facing a group of Arabs holding tools, sticks and hoes, she ran back to the plaza where the worshipers were praying and cried, "Hurry! The rabbi is in mortal danger!"
The story ends with the political echelons ordering the opening to the tunnel sealed with reinforced concrete. Rabbi Getz wrote in his diary: "I will now retire from the project with a bitter taste in my mouth. I have never felt the humiliation of Judaism that I felt today in our own sovereign country. I pray that this is the end of the exile ... The media is going wild and self-hatred is rife. However, I must refrain from revealing secrets even to this diary and therefore I will not react or respond to those that condemn us."
On the evening of September 3, 1981, Getz added in his diary, "I felt during the Tikkun Hatzot prayers closer to the prayers of my forefathers when they saw the flames arising from the house of our Lord at the time of its destruction with their own eyes. The sound of the blows, of the Arabs inside the tunnel. Their every shout pierces my wounded heart. With all intensity, the cry left my mouth, `Gentiles have entered your sanctuary, defiled your Holy Temple, but I must remain strong and must not break down, for I must continue even if I am all alone.'"
In September 1995, three days after completing the construction of the Beit El yeshiva for the study of kabbala, Rabbi Getz passed away. In the Western Wall tunnels, there remains to this day the synagogue that he built, just opposite the spot where the Holy of Holies is assumed to be. Torah classes and prayers are still held there.
Getz was a personal friend of numerous public figures, among them Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Ben Hanan and Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel. He was careful not to go up on the Temple Mount, but his formal title, "rabbi of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount," testified to his heart's burning quest.
Western journalists were particularly enraged by this plague. "It is simply impossible to report when you can't see an inch in front of you,"complained a frustrated Andrea Koppel of CNN. "I have heard from my reliable Egyptian contacts that in the midst of the blanket of blackness, the Jews were annihilating thousands of Egyptians. Their word is solid enough evidence for me."
While the Jews contend that the plagues are justified given the harsh slavery imposed upon them by the Egyptians, Pharaoh, the Egyptian leader, rebuts this claim. "If only the plagues would let up, there would be no slavery. We just want to live plague-free. It is the right of every society."
Saeb Erekat, an Egyptian spokesperson, complains that slavery is justifiable given the Jews' superior weaponry supplied to them by the superpower God.
The Europeans are particularly enraged by the latest Jewish offensive. "The Jewish aggression must cease if there is to be peace in the region. The Jews should go back to slavery for the good of the rest of the world," stated an angry French President Jacques Chirac. Even several Jews agree. Adam Shapiro, a Jew, has barricaded himself within Pharaoh's chambers to protect Pharaoh from what is feared will be the next plague, the death of the firstborn. Mr. Shapiro claims that while slavery is not necessarily a good thing, it is the product of the plagues and when the plagues end, so will the slavery. "The Jews have gone too far with plagues such as locusts and epidemic which have virtually destroyed the Egyptian economy," Mr. Shapiro laments. "The Egyptians are really a very nice people and Pharaoh is kind of huggable once you get to know him," gushes Shapiro.
The United States is demanding that Moses and Aaron, the Jewish leaders, continue to negotiate with Pharaoh. While Moses points out that Pharaoh had made promise after promise to free the Jewish people only to immediately break them and thereafter impose harsher and harsher slavery, Richard Boucher of the State Department assails the latest offensive. "Pharaoh is not in complete control of the taskmasters," Mr. Boucher states. "The Jews must return to the negotiating table and will accomplish nothing through these plagues." The latest round of violence comes in the face of a bold new Saudi peace overture. If only the Jews will give up their language, change their names to Egyptian names and cease having male children, the Arab nations will incline toward peace with them, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah declared.