SWI NEWS: Thursday, April 1, 2010 17 Nisan, 5770
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010India orders Israeli armed UAVs - in case US drones reach Pakistan
DEBKAfile Special Report April 1, 2010, 12:08 AM (GMT+02:00)
IAF Anti-Aircraft Laser Could Be Operational by 2015
(IsraelNN.com) Laser systems that will replace existing air defense systems on the battlefield are expected to go operational in five years’ time, experts told a unique academic conference hosted by the Israel Air Force this week. The systems being developed include lasers that will shoot down airplanes.
Col. Zvi Haimovitz, Commander of the Northern Anti-Aircraft Support Unit, told the conference that “it is just a matter of time” before the laser technology becomes operational. “It is too bad that laser systems are not advancing at the same rate as standard systems, but their price certainly plays a significant role in the delayed process,” he explained.
Some of the Israeli academia’s top scientific and technological minds met with hundreds of the Air Force’s top officers at the conference, that was titled “Energy: The Challenge of the Future.” It was held at an IAF base in Herzliya, the IDF website reported.
Anti-Aircraft Lasers
Maj. Gen. (res.) Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel, former head of the Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure (Maf’at) and current Chairman of the Space Authority, said that short-range missiles are the threats that the world is dealing with today. “The IDF knows the technology for intercepting short range rockets very well, and now laser technology and electromagnetic weapons can be used to intercept short range missiles,” he said.
“A laser weapon can shoot down anything that is in the air including aircraft,” Ben-Israel explained, adding that it will take about five years for laser technology to be operational in the battlefield.
The chances that a terror group like Hamas could acquire such technology itself are “close to zero,” he estimated, but added: “I do not think that the question of whether Hamas can get to this technology is a practical question. However, hypothetically speaking, if Hamas would have such a weapon there would be very little we could do against it. It can be possible to find solutions in electronic warfare against the system, but keep in mind that we would have a very short time at our disposal. There is no armor that can prevent the effect of a powerful laser beam.”
IAF Commander, Maj. Gen. Ido Nechushtan, said that “in our reality, those who think better and faster, have an advantage in the battlefield. It is important that we continue to develop technologies that we have yet to invent. We must develop new technologies.”
Brig. Gen Rami Ben Efraim, Head of IAF manpower branch, said during the conference that “the idea behind this day is to connect the academia and a practical body such as the Air Force that actually puts research into practice.”
The Garden Tomb: Where Jesus Rose Again?
JERUSALEM - On Easter Sunday, millions of Christians around the world will be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In Jerusalem, thousands of Christian pilgrims will visit what many believe to be the site of that resurrection.
Located near the heart of Jerusalem is a place called The Garden Tomb, what some believe was the Garden of Joseph of Arimathea. Here is where some believe Jesus died, was buried, and then rose from the dead.
The garden is a two acre oasis in the often hectic city of Jerusalem. British Christians bought the garden 125 years ago and formed The Garden Tomb Association. For years, they’ve allowed visitors here free of charge.
“What we do have here in the Garden is a perfect representation of the Biblical accounts at the end of the four Gospels. Everything in those four Gospels matches what we show people here in the Garden,” Richard Meryon, director of The Garden Tomb, said.
Touring the Garden
Today, nearly a quarter of a million visitors pour into The Garden Tomb each year. Guide Steve Bridge took CBN News on a tour visitors get when they come to the garden.
“What we plot out is the basic geography that we have in the Bible,” he explained. “Jesus was crucified outside of the city walls at a place called Golgotha. And in the immediate area to where Jesus was crucified there was a garden that belonged to a rich man by the name of Joseph of Arimathea.”
We came first to the place the Bible calls “Golgotha,” where the book of Matthew says “and when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull.”
“What are some of the main questions people ask you when they come here?” we asked Bridge.
“Some of the main questions, certainly from Christian groups would be can we be certain that this is the place where Jesus died and He was raised to life,” Bridge said. “People often ask how come there are two places, here and there is the Holy Sepulcher?”
Weighing the Evidence
The question arises because some believe Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the actual place of the crucifixion and resurrection, not the Garden Tomb. Constantine’s mother Queen Helena helped build the church in 326 A.D.
The archeological weight supporting the church’s claim is substantial. For example, the Roman emperor Hadrian built a temple on the site in the second century because local Christians venerated the site as the place of Golgotha.
But the evidence for the Garden can be compelling. The gospel of John says, “… at the place where jesus was crucified, there was a garden … “ (John 19: 38; 41)
If you have a garden, you need lots of water, especially in the dry Middle East. The Garden Tomb contains one of the oldest and largest cisterns in Jerusalem. It’s 2,000 years old and holds about 200,000 gallons of water.
“So the tomb we have here is a typical of a first century Jewish rolling stone tomb. It’s dated at least 2,000 years, possibly older,” Bridge explained to CBN News.
The Empty Tomb
In the Garden, the Bible also says there was a tomb.
“It is carved out of solid rock. It’s a man-made tomb and that’s how the Bible describes the tomb in which the body of Jesus was laid,” Bridge said of the tomb, while we we standing next its entrance.
“This channel that you can see in front of the tomb entrance is where the stone would have sat that would have been rolled to seal the entrance to the tomb. So finally, the most important thing about this tomb itself is that it’s empty.”
We went inside for a look.
“What we’re looking at when we’re looking at this direction is through into the burial chamber itself,” Bridge explained. “And what you have inside the burial chamber are these two areas where a body would be laid, one just down here and one on this side.”
The tomb itself seems to fit the Bible’s description. But whether The Garden Tomb or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the site of the resurrection of Jesus, many Christian pilgrims take with them a profound affirmation of their faith
“I’m a Bible teacher in the states. And want to take some of this passion back, that Jesus is who he says he is, that he is the son of God, and he did walk this earth,” Kelcey Gillespie, a Christian who made a pilgrimage here to Jerusalem, told us.
Celebrating the Person
As people celebrate Easter, those at The Garden Tomb stress it’s not the place, it’s the person.
“The Bible writers really weren’t that interested in establishing where Jesus died. We have very little information,” Bridge said. “The Bible writers themselves were much more interested in Jesus Christ himself who he is. Why He died.”
“That’s what we want people to take away, that the tomb is empty. And we as Christians, of all the world’s faiths, serve a living God who’s overcome death, who’s has dealt with the sin in our life,” Meryon said. “And Jesus is the centrality of our Christian faith, is He not?”
“And so here at the Garden that’s what we want people to take away is the living Lord Jesus. The Easter weekend is the weekend that changed the world,” he added. “The weekend that Jesus died and was buried and rose again for me and for you.”
U.S. Seeks 4 Month Jerusalem Building Freeze
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2010/March/US-Seeks-4-Month-Jerusalem-Building-Freeze-/
The U.S. wants Israel to freeze construction in East Jerusalem for four months, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.
In exchange, the U.S. says it would pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to hold direct peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The freeze would include Jewish neighborhoods such as Neveh Yaakov, French Hill, and Ramat Shlomo, the source of recent tensions between the U.S. and Israel.
“According to this idea, Israel would make it clear to the United States that during the coming four months no massive construction in East Jerusalem neighborhoods would be planned or carried out, enabling Israel to be seen as meeting the American and Palestinian demands,” the Ha’aretz article read.
Palestinians officials previously agreed to only indirect talks. They continue to refuse direct talks until Israel completely freezes construction in East Jerusalem.
Budapest Seder stoned; none injured
According to Eran El-Bar, a Jewish Agency representative in Hungary who attended the Seder, guests at Rabbi Shmuel Raskin’s table were stunned when the stones began smashing into the windows of the home around 11 p.m., just as the festive dinner was drawing to a close.
“The incident was alarming for some of those present,” El-Bar told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, “although a decision was made to continue with the Seder nonetheless.”
“But nearly a half-hour later,” he continued, “another rock smashed into the window. It was then that we decided to call the police.”
Hungarian police arrived at the home and even stationed a number of officers outside the home, El-Bar said. However, around midnight, another projectile slammed into the window – this time smashing a hole through the double-plated glass.
“The final incident was something stronger than just a rock being thrown,” El-Bar said. “It seemed to come from some sort of primitive weapon, like a slingshot.”
“It’s a miracle that no one was hurt,” he added. Although no suspects were apprehended, El-Bar refuted previously reported claims that police had responded to the incident nonchalantly.
“They responded to the scene,” he said. “There wasn’t any gunfire, and I think the police acted as was expected of them.”
El-Bar also said that he wished to stress the positive aspects of the holiday’s observance in Hungary.
“This was one unfortunate incident,” he said. “But it shouldn’t overshadow the fact that hundreds of young people took part in Pessah Seders throughout Budapest, including one at my home, and one that was held at the Jewish Community Center. All of those events took place without any incident whatsoever, and I think overall, that this was a positive Pessah.”
However, the attack on Rabbi Raskin’s home came at a time when fervent, far right-wing sentiment is building in Hungary, against the backdrop of national elections there later this month.
Hungary’s 100,000-strong Jewish community, most of which resides in Budapest, has been put on edge by the sharp spike in support for the far-Right Jobbik party among Hungarians.
Under slogans like “Hungary belongs to Hungarians,” Jobbik, whose formal name is the Movement for a Better Hungary, has employed fierce, populist rhetoric in its election campaign, and is expected to make significant gains when Hungarians go to the polls on April 11.
While the prime target of Jobbik’s anti-foreigner platform has been the Roma, Hungary’s Gypsy minority, the party has also expressed its resentment of “foreign speculators,” including Israel, which party officials have openly declared are trying to control the country.
Moreover, Jobbik has been able to capitalize on widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling socialist party, and is expected to gain enough votes to enter the Hungarian Parliament for the first time.
El-Bar downplayed a link between the far-Right’s pre-election ascension and Tuesday night’s attack but acknowledged that the the streets of Budapest were awash with right-wing propaganda, and that stark, nationalist sentiments there had already begun to materialize in other ways.
JTA contributed to this report.
Belgium Moves Toward Banning Muslim Face-Covering Veil
by Gil Ronen
(IsraelNN.com) A parliamentary committee in Belgium voted on Wednesday to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in public, and the full House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill in late April. The Interior Affairs Committee, in which all major parties are represented, was unanimous in its decision.
“We cannot allow someone to claim the right to look at others without being seen,” MP Daniel Bacquelaine of the French-speaking MR liberal-values party told the Associated Press. “It is necessary that the law forbids the wearing of clothes that totally mask and encloses an individual.”
Similar legislation is being mulled in France as well and has been supported by President Nicolas Sarkozy. On Tuesday, however, France’s Council of State warned that the prohibition risked being found unconstitutional. The Belgian legislation could also be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg.
Last November, Swiss citizens voted to ban minarets on mosques.
Only ‘a couple of dozen’ wearers
The Belgian legislation specifically targets the burqa and the niqab, both of which which cover the face, although these are not commonly seen in Belgium. “We have to act as of today to avoid (its) development,” Bacquelaine said. “Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society,” he said.
There are about 500,000 Muslims in Belgium. The Belgian Muslim Council says only “a couple of dozen” wear full-face veils. Several districts of Belgium have already banned the burqa in public places.
Supporters of the ban say that face-covering garb poses security problems and violates women’s civil rights. Opponents like Isabelle Praile, the Vice President of the Muslim Executive of Belgium, said it could set a dangerous precedent. “Today it’s the full-face veil, tomorrow the veil, the day after it will be Sikh turbans and then perhaps it will be mini-skirts,” she told the AFP news agency.
Sources close to the Indian defense ministry in New Delhi disclosed Wednesday, March 31, that a military purchasing mission was in Israel recently to expedite the purchase of a large number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) armed with missiles, for deployment on its front lines against Pakistan.
Indian sources did not disclose the size of the order placed with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) - running to hundreds of millions of dollars - but they made no secret of their intention to build up their fleet of reconnaissance and killer drones for a possible duel against US-armed Predators in the hands of Pakistani forces.
Islamabad is pushing Washington hard for strategic Predator drones, like those the US employs against al Qaeda and Taliban strongholds in Pakistan’s tribal districts on the Afghan border.
From Israel, New Delhi has commissioned a few more drones of the Heron MALE (medium-altitude, long-endurance) type, as well as Searcher-II and Harpy `killer’ drones designed to detect and destroy enemy radars by functioning like cruise missiles.
Our military sources report that their reconnaissance and targeting features are sought by India for its response should the Americans decide to let Pakistan have drones capable of firing AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. New Delhi made its order urgent after learning that Washington may deliver drones to Islamabad much sooner than Indian intelligence had foreseen.
Together with the drones, India also ordered from Israel advanced ground control systems and data terminals for their operation.
The visiting Indian delegation also discussed the possible introduction of Israeli Harop `killer’ UAVs to the Indian Air Force from 2011. These drones can loiter six hours over targets on ground, sea or dense urban areas and strike them from different angles. The visitors checked on the progress of the DRDO unmanned gunship helicopter, a joint Indian-Israeli project on commission for both their air forces, which is under construction at an Israeli aerospace industry plant. India is going half-and-half with Israel in the costs of developing and production of the innovative helicopter.
