The Ohr Samayach yeshiva, widely known as a magnet for English speakers who want to come closer to Judaism, won approval from Jerusalem on Wednesday to build a 12-story yeshiva in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shimon HaTzaddik (Simon the Just), known to Arabs as Sheikh Jarrah.

The Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee approved the plan by a narrow 4-3 vote, with the expected strong opposition from the left-wing Meretz members of the City Council. The Planning Department reportedly objected to the project because of its proximity to the city’s light rail line and to hotels as well as Muslim character of the predominantly Arab neighborhood.

The building will not displace any Arabs and will be built on an empty plot near Ohr Samayach’s existing yeshiva. Three of the floors will be underground.

The idea of Jews living in areas of Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority claims is “theirs” because it was once occupied illegally by Jordan scratches the international community’s skin, but the notion of allowing a yeshiva to expand to teach Torah there undoubtedly will bare the true blood of anti-Semitism.

The world’s diplomatic offices are wallpapered with the 1947 Partition Plan as if that should be the basis for Israel’s future borders because that was the map, if the Arabs had not rejected it, that would have put Israel in the most defenseless position.

World ambassadors and the media establishment have a problem with Jews living there not because it is supposedly Arab land but rather because they cannot accept Jews acting as Jews and learning and teaching Torah.

The headlines on Thursday will speak of “fanatic Jews” planning to teach their radical views on Palestinian land.

Teaching Torah in Shimon HaTzaddik or Sheikh Jarrah, call it what you will, is a death threat to the Big Lie that the anti-Semitic world promotes.

That is why the Palestinian Authority and the entire Arab world are in a panic every time a Jew goes up on the Temple Mount and scream that the Jews have “stormed the Temple Mount” to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and build the Third Temple.

That is why Muslim clerics have to deny that the Holy Jewish Temple ever existed.

Jews? In Eastern Jerusalem? Maybe, but so long as they are good little Jews who are not fanatics who teach the foundations of Western civilization.

Thee eastern Jerusalem Arabs were sentenced to prison terms of four to seven years Wednesday for organizing Hamas activities and spreading its ideology. The Jerusalem court verdict declared that Hamas is trying “to take control of Jerusalem” through social activities, which is exactly the model Hezbollah used to take over southern Lebanon.

The court denied the defendants arguments that they simply were administrators who organized activities.

Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, has learned to sell its terrorism through social activities, supporting low-income families and educating children to hate Israel.

The court rules that the three Hamas leaders, who visited families of dead terrorists and met with terrorists who have been arrested, worked to persuade Arabs to accept Hamas ideology.

One of the Hamas men was charged with transferring funds from Jordan to Israel for the purpose of terror.

Jerusalem Municipality’s Committee for Planning and Building has approved the construction of another 350 residential units in Jerusalem neighborhoods that the United States and United Nations consider “illegal” and home to “illegitimate” Jews.

The neighborhoods are Har Homa, across the highway from the Gilo “settlement” in southern Jerusalem, and Pisgat Ze’ev and Neve Yaakov, both of them located on the northern end of the capital.

The city’s deputy mayor Pepep Alalu of the left-wing Meretz party sharply criticized the announcement by the committee and called it an intention ploy to prevent a final agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

Toa certain extent he is right if it agreed that anything Israel does without the approval of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is an obstacle to an agreement.

That is the one-way policy that the Obama administration has pursued and which assumes that Abbas’ demands are the basis for a final agreement, except perhaps for the demand to flood Israel with several million foreign Arabs under the hijacked phrase ”right of return.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s “framework: that is to be dumped on the Palestinian Authority-Israeli negotiating table some time in the near future undoubtedly will not tackle the issue of the Jewish neighborhoods that the West calls “settlements.”

No one in his right mind, not even PA negotiator Saeb Erekat seriously thinks that Israel will expel 300,000 Jews form Har Homa, Gilo, Armon HaNatziv, French Hill and Ramot neighborhoods.

The only reason that the United States makes a stink about every home that Israel announces will be built in these areas is that it wants to show Abbas it does not distinguish them from Arab neighborhoods in areas of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan before the Six-Day War in 1967.

If the West were to ignore new housing in Gilo and Ramot, it would be putting a silent stamp of approval on the right of Israel to exercise its right of sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods on land that was legally annexed to Jerusalem in 1980.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the biggest points of dissension in  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s “framework” that he failed to publicize before returning to Washington on Monday, according to an official in the Palestinian Authority.

“Negotiators for the PA disagreed with several of Kerry’s suggestions in the negotiations with Israel, especially concerning the future of Jerusalem, the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press.

He explained that Kerry’s proposal to note that there is a “Palestinian aim” at making Jerusalem the capital of a new PA state does not meet Mahmoud Abbas’ demand that it be explicitly stated that eastern Jerusalem would be the capital.

A Kuwaiti newspaper reported that the Palestinian Authority is considering allowing  an Israeli military presence in the  Jordan Valley  but that the PA also would deploy forces there.

In the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, there appears to be a serious dispute between the two leaders of Israel’s delegation, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s man, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, Israel Radio reported.

The internal dispute, which hays been encumbering the Israeli delegation’s effectiveness, is over the size of the territory in East Jerusalem in which there will be free movement for citizens of both Israel and Palestine. Molcho wants to limit that area as much as possible, while Livni is showing great flexibility on this issue.

In the negotiations, the Palestinian initial demand is a return to the 1967 border, while the Israeli position is going back to an area that encompasses not only all the Jewish settlement clusters, but all the Jewish settlements, period, which would include large and thriving centers like Psagot and Beit El. The Palestinians have also been told that the Jordan Valley will remain in Israel’s hands, as well as the water sources in the area. The Palestinians will be allowed to purchase water from Israel.

So far there have been 15 meetings between the heads of the two negotiating teams, each meeting lasting between 3 and 4 hours. Over the past few weeks American representative to the talks Martin Indyk has been present at the last segment of each meeting, to receive reports from both sides.

A source in the prime minister’s office has told Israel Radio that Israel is insisting on maintaining the integrity of a united Jerusalem in its present borders. But in Minister Livni’s office the version of the same story—unofficially—is more flexible.

Livni’s people have suggested that the leak regarding a dispute came from a source which is interested in sabotaging the talks. It appears that this source may be very close to the prime minister.

A Jerusalem court Monday sentenced a Jerusalem Arab bus driver to 3½ years in jail for handing over to Hezbollah information about potential targets in the capital for terrorists.

The sentence was handed down three months after the conviction of Issam Hashem Mashahara, who pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy in return for the prosecution’s dropping spy charges, for which he had been indicted.

Mashahara had traveled to Lebanon via Jordan and contacted Hezbollah agents, who later took him to an office of the terrorist organization for an interview.

He informed Hezbollah agents of the address of the official residence of the Prime Minister and of other possible places where terrorists could attack. Mashahara returned to Israel with software camouflaged as a children’s DVD in order to stay in touch with his contacts, who also paid him $1.500.

Even as the Channel 2 Television Authority refused to run Arieh King’s political commercial, in which he stated he wants to block Jerusalem’s “moazins” from blasting prayers over the loudspeakers at all hours, King ran a parlor meeting in the home of Awaida Yunis in the neighborhood of Wadi Kadum in Jerusalem, according to a report in Makor Rishon.

King, a well known pro-Israel activist, is running for Jerusalem city council in the upcoming elections, representing Jerusalem’s  periphery neighborhoods, including the one he lives in.

But while other candidates for mayor and city council have been meeting with various rabbis, King has been busy meeting the Muchtars (clan leaders) of the various Arab neighborhoods.

Yunis who hosted the parlor meeting said that while he doesn’t support all of King’s political agendas, this election is about services, and he want eastern Jerusalem to receive the same quality of services that the west side of town receives.

Yunis said that his neighborhood of 1500 Arabs will all go out to vote for King, whom they believe will work to clean up their neighborhoods, and improve municipal services.

King said that most of the Jerusalem’s Arabs want to remain under Israeli sovreignity, and that his party “United Jerusalem” will fight to make sure it stays that way.

King added that he has been working for years with his Arab neighbors to improve the cleanliness of the streets and increase local security.

King promised his listeners that he will work to build more parks and schools in the Arab neighborhoods.