Despite the significant rise in terror attacks against Jews in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli High Court ruled that the fences around two towns, Ofra and Adam in the Binyamin region, be dismantled.

The Israeli High Court ruled that the fences were built without the proper authorizations, and they cut off Arab access to some farmland. The fences were built to prevent Arab terrorists from infiltrating into the town and committing terror attacks. Ofra is a community of 3000 residents, and Adam has over 4000 residents.

The IDF was supposed to dismantle the fences 3 months ago, and replace them with new fences around the towns, but it never began work on either project.

The primary reason the IDF did not comply is because they Ministry of Defence never gave approval or funding for the replacement fences.

Major General Nitzan Alon just gave the order to dismantle the security fences around two towns by this coming Friday, even though no replacement fence is in place.

It may take the IDF up to 6 months to build a new fence to protect the towns, assuming the IDF gets the approvals and funding.

Alon said the IDF will increase patrols around the communities until a replacement fence is built.

The town of Ofra has petitioned the High Court to not destroy the fence until a new one is built, as the IDF patrols alone are insufficient protection against Arab terror in the area. An answer to the petition is expected mid-week.

At the Oz Etzion (Jewish) outpost in the Binyamin region, a large number of troops arrived on Saturday night to expel the residents and destroy the homes that were built there.

There are two permanent homes built on the site. They were rebuilt there after troops destroyed the homes that were on the hill a month ago.

According to the Tazpit News agency, troops violently attacked the local residents, after they asked the troops to not destroy the equipment that was there.

One person was reported to have been pepper sprayed after he was handcuffed, while a second was violently attacked and his camera was taken away, on which he had recorded the violence.

Memorials for two memorable Jews took place this weekend, though they stood, perhaps, on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

The Matriarch Rachel, wife of the Patriarch Jacob and mother to biblical figures Joseph and Benjamin, was remembered on the 11^th of the Jewish month of Cheshvan, being visited by a reported 70,000+ of her and her husband’s descendants.  Jews from all over Israel and all walks of life came on Friday and Saturday night to pay their respects to the beloved matriarch, who is considered to be the mother of aliyah, said to be weeping for her exiled children by the prophet Jeremiah.

On Saturday night, a somewhat different Jew was also remembered, albeit by a significantly smaller and less pious crowd.  Less than 25,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday night to remember former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.  Less a celebration of his life and accomplishments than a nostalgic gathering for Oslo and reflection on his murder, the Rabin memorial this year was themed “Remembering the Murder: Fighting for Democracy”.

Monday is proving to be a busy day for Arab rioters and terrorists throughout Judea and Samaria. It is believed that some of the riots are due to the financial upset with the Palestinian Authority.

Arab terrorist threw a firebomb at IDF soldiers in Hebron. IDF shot and wounded the terrorist.

Benjamin: Jilazun refugee camp near Beit El: 100 Arabs rioted, burned tires and threw stones at the soldiers. IDF forces responded with tear gas.

Nabi Saleh: 30 Palestinians rioted, burning tires, throwing stones, of tear gas grenades and improvised grenades at IDF soldiers.

Benjamin Junction near Neve Tzuf: Rioting from the village of Nabi Saleh. About 60 rioters threw stones at Israeli vehicles traveling on the road and at IDF forces. Route closed to traffic for several minutes due to disturbances. IDF forces responded and repelled the attackers. Stones hit passenger cars on the road. A large forces IDF is now ensuring the road is open to traffic.

Birzeit: Dozens of rioters threw stones at an IDF pillbox, as well as gas grenade at IDF forces. The IDF responded.

Shomron: Hawara: Villager threw stones at a school bus carrying children. No injuries, but the bus was damaged.

Jit junction near Kedumim: Bus was pelted with stones. Damage to windows.

Route 55 near the Karni Shomron rioters threw stones at Israeli vehicles.

Judea: Terrorists blocked the road with stones and burning tires next to the settlement of Ma’ale Hever near Hebron.

Zif junction: Massive stone throwing at Israeli vehicles, no casualties but vehicles damages.

Hebron: IDF soldier very lightly injured by a stone to the face. Soldier was treated on the spot, and then transferred to the hospital due to the proximity of the strike to his eye.

The inspectors at the Cave of the Patriarchs found a tourist carrying a a stun grenade. The tourist was detained by security forces.

At the T-junction between Tekoa and Efrat, rioters blocked the road. They threw stones and burned tires. IDF forces are in place.

The NY Post’s Michael Benjamin, himself a former Democratic assemblyman, reported that NY State Senator Malcolm Smith from Queens, a Democrat, is planning to be the city’s 109th mayor, come 2013, running on the Republican ticket. He also suggested that Smith’s trial balloon had rattled some GOP leaders, who are attempting to nip it in the bud. Democrats are saying Smith is just a stalking horse for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, meant to sway black votes from former city Comptroller Bill Thompson.

To remind you, Malcolm Smith’s former 15 minutes of fame happened over his pitifully short stint as State Senate majority leader — when he lost his majority after Democratic senators Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate defected to the GOP. It was political slapstick at its worst, and quite a record from which to recover. In the end, Smith was deposed by the Senate Democrats.

Benjamin reminded his readers that Smith still faces questions about a suspicious awarding of the contract to run the Aqueduct “Racino,” and irregularities at some charities with which he is associated.

“One of the questions we ask candidates is, ‘Have you ever done anything that would be an embarrassment to you or the Republican Party?’” Queens GOP Chairman Phil Ragusa told the NY Daily News. “I don’t think he could pass that test.”

Except that the same Daily News report says State Republican Chairman Ed Cox confirmed that he met with Smith “at the urging of a mutual friend,” but declined to comment further.

“There’s an opening for a fusion candidate in the 2013 race,” says Benjamin, pointing out that all the Democratic candidates have been left of center, yet as the last five mayoral elections have shown, the left no longer has the majority even in New York City.

The alliance Benjamin envisions would combine Republican voters, the Orthodox Jewish bloc, outer-borough “Koch Democrats” and minority voters.

He suggests that the Haredi and the evangelical Christian communities are actively looking for a “traditional-values standard-bearer.”

The conservative blog “PlanetAlbany” opined that the best candidate would be an African-American former Democratic assemblyman who is pretty conservative on social issues, and an insightful political observer – namely NY Post pundit Michael Benjamin.

Colin Campbell of “Politicker” reminded his readers recently of the growing influence Orthodox Jewish voters are commanding in NY City politics, and that “even though the community’s voters might side strongly with the Republican candidate in the 2013 mayoral race, they are mostly registered as Democrats and candidates seeking to win the Democratic primary are extensively courting the community.”

All the candidates recognize this reality and are working hard to engage Orthodox voters, reported Yossi Gestetner a few months ago. As the candidates competing for the nomination are nearly identical on social issues, some have been working to separate themselves in other ways.”

Gestetner brought the example of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who started his own Iran boycott website and took a firm stance against the campaign within the Park Slope Food Co-op boycotting Israeli products, calling it “wrongheaded and an affront to American values and interests.”

Last week Governor Andrew Cuomo may have committed a costly mistake when vetoed a bill that would have made it possible for many special-education students to be placed in private schools using public funds. Catholic and Orthodox Jewish groups had lobbied for the bill, arguing that children learn best in settings that resemble their home environment.

It may be just the kind of rallying point that would help elect New York’s Third Consecutive Republican mayor.

On Tuesday afternoon, a Border Guard police force raided the outpost of Ramat Migron in the Benjamin region, where two minors were detained without being arrested.

Border Guard police also raided the nearby outpost of Maoz Zion.

The raid, as has become a habit with the Border Guard, took place while a wedding was being conducted in the small village of Ramat Migron.

Local residents complained in the past that the police intelligence service’s ritual of arriving with an intent to destroy property during these celebrations stems from a desire to weaken the outpost residents and ruin their celebrations. But every destruction will be followed by construction, they vowed.

In a press release issued on Wednesday, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Ir David Foundation announced that a clay seal was discovered bearing the name of the city of Bethlehem, evidence that the city existed during the period of the First Temple in Jerusalem.  The find fortuitously coincides with the upcoming holiday of Shavuot, during which time Jews from around the world focus on the story of the biblical figure Ruth, set in the city of Bethlehem.

The 1.5cm seal – called a bulla – was discovered during sifting of soil removed from the archeological excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out in the City of David, just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.  The sifting is underwritten by the Ir David Foundation, which treated The Jewish Press to a private tour.

The clay bulla was meant to seal a document or object, used as a way of showing that the private item had not been tampered with.

The new bulla bears the words:   בשבעת   Bishv’at    בת לים    Bat Lechem [למל[ך   [Lemel]ekh

Eli Shukron, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said “it seems that in the seventh year of the reign of a king (either Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah), a shipment was dispatched from Bethlehem to the king in Jerusalem.”

“The bulla we found belongs to the group of “fiscal” bullae – administrative bullae used to seal tax shipments remitted to the taxation system of the Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE,” Shukron said.  “The tax could have been paid in the form of silver or agricultural produce such as wine or wheat”.

According to Shukron, this is the first time the name Bethlehem has appeared in an inscription from the First Temple period, proving that Bethlehem was a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly in earlier periods.”

The first mention of Bethlehem in the Bible occurs in regard to the matriarch Rachel, wife of Jacob, sister of Leah, and mother of Joseph, who died while giving birth to Benjamin “in Ephrat, which is Bethlehem, and was buried there (Genesis 35:19; 48:7).

In later generations, when the region was settled by the descendants of Jacob and Leah’s son Judah, a man named Boaz made Ruth, a Moabite convert and daughter-in-law of Naomi, his wife (Book of Ruth).  The couple’s great-grandson, David, became the most celebrated king in Jewish history, and made his capital in Jerusalem, on the site of the modern day “Ir David” – City of David.

Today’s’ revelation by Israel’s security forces, about a Palestinian terrorist cell comprised of nine Arabs from the Ramallah area who were recently indicted on several failed abduction attempts of Israeli civilians in the Benjamin region of Judea and Samaria last March, is reminiscent of Jimmy Breslin’s comic novel “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”

The terrorist cell in question attempted several violent kidnappings of Israeli civilians. The idea was to repeat the Gilad Shalit successful abduction which led, eventually, to the release of 1,027 Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails. But this cell was unable to execute even one successful abduction and was eventually rounded up by a joint Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), IDF, and Israeli Police operation.

The terrorist gang was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and their preparations for the abduction attempts included obtaining electric tasers, tear gas, clubs, and a cigarette lighter in the shape of a very realistic pistol.

The gang used rental cars in their operations.

The cell used lookouts that alerted them when Israeli vehicles were approaching. The civilians they planned to kidnap were going to be hidden in a cave or in a secret apartment in Ramallah. They even planned to film the abduction and post the video on You Tube, to advance the negotiations over the hostage’s release.

On March 11, 2012, The terrorists attacked an Israeli driver near the Beit Aryeh community in Judea and Samaria. The terrorists blocked the road and attempted to pull the driver out of his vehicle, but he managed to escape.

The next day, March 12, the terrorist cell attacked a female Israeli driver near the Ma’ale Levona community in Judea and Samaria. They blocked the road and tried to shatter the vehicle’s windshields using heavy objects, but the driver was able to escape.

On March 15, the terrorists attacked another female Israeli driver, who was riding with her baby daughter, around midnight, near the Beit El community. The terrorists were able to block the vehicle and even managed this time to shatter its windshield using heavy objects, but were chased from the scene by the appearance of another Israeli vehicle.

The terrorists are associated with several other abduction attempts. Last March, they tried to pick up two Israeli civilians who were soliciting a lift from a gas station. The hapless squad stopped next to the pair and one of the Israelis almost got on, but his friend became suspicious and pulled him away at the last minute.

“The arrest of this terrorist cell enabled security forces to thwart all their remaining planned attacks as well as any additional terrorist and kidnapping attempts,” says an IDF Spokesperson’s Office press release.

During the first half of May, 2012, the Judea military court received indictments against the cell’s leader, Mahmed Ramdan, and against his cohorts, all of whom were charged with kidnapping attempts.

The ISA stressed that this case “shows the ambition of terror organization to kidnap Israelis” and the threat they pose to peaceful civilians.