Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has a busy day Thursday and is scheduled to talk with two foreign ministers and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a four-hour time span.

His office announced he will welcome U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at 10:15, and the American efforts to bring Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas together in direct talks will undoubtedly be at the top of the agenda.

Sarkozy will drop in for a discussion at 12:30, followed by British Foreign Secretary William Hague at 2:15 p.m.

Rachel’s Tomb, located in the northern outskirts of Bethlehem, about 400 yards south of Jerusalem, is the third holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. For the past 1,700 years, the site has been identified as the burial place of the Jewish matriarch, Rachel, and Jews were known to pray at the site for over the past 3,000 years. Rachel, the beloved wife of the patriarch Ya’akov, died during childbirth as the family was traveling to Hebron.

Rachel’s Tomb in the Hebrew Bible

According to Genesis 35:16-21,

They set out from Bayt-El; but when they were still some distance from Efrat; Rachel went into childbirth, and she had hard labor. When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Have no fear, for it’s another boy for you.” But as she breathed her last –as she was dying– she named him Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benyamin. So Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Efrat — now Bethlehem. Over her grave Ya’acov set up a pillar, it is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day.

Photo by Rachel Avraham.

Whenever the Jewish people faced sorrows, throughout the generations, they would traditionally pray for Rachel to cry for them at Rachel’s Tomb, believing that her tears to God have special powers. Since she herself was childless for many years, many Jewish women visit her grave in order to pray to have children, although other members of the Jewish community who face troubles also visit her grave. Thus, as the third holiest shrine in Judaism, Jews across the Diaspora maintained a spiritual connection to Rachel’s Tomb over the centuries and paid for the holy sites upkeep.

According to Jewish tradition, the matriarch Rachel has always cried for her people whenever the Jews needed her. Ya’akov reportedly buried Rachel in Bethlehem, instead of in the Tomb of Patriarchs in Hebron, because he foresaw that his descendants would need her prayers en route to exile in Babylonia. Additionally, Yosef, Rachel’s eldest son, was the first Jew to pray by her grave. According to a Midrash, Yosef broke away from his captors temporarily en route to bondage in Egypt and cried out at her grave,

“Mother, my mother who gave birth to me, wake up, arise and see my suffering.” Rachel replied, “Do not fear. Go with them, and God will be with you.”

As Jeremiah 31:15-17 states,

Rachel, weeping for her children, she refuses to be comforted for her children who are gone. Thus said Hashem: “Restrain your voice from weeping, your eyes from shedding tears; for there is reward for your labor” declares Hashem. “They shall return from the enemy’s land and there is hope for the future” declares Hashem: “Your children shall return to their own country.”

Islamic Attitude

Photo by Rachel Avraham.

Historically, the Muslim world considered Rachel’s Tomb a site holy to Jews. According to a report written by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, the sixteenth century Arab historian Mujir Al Din wrote that Rachel’s Tomb was a Jewish holy place. He recorded that Rachel’s Tomb was built with “eleven stones and covered with a cupola which rests on four pillars, and every Jew passing writes his name on the monument.” The same JCPA report states that in 1830, the Ottoman Turkish authorities decreed that Rachel’s Tomb was a Jewish holy site, proclaiming,

The tomb of esteemed Rachel, the mother of our Lord Joseph…they (the Jews) are accustomed to visit it from ancient days; and no one is permitted to prevent them or oppose them (from doing) this.

Another Ottoman decree, dated 1831, orders that all obstacles be removed that were in place that interfered with members of the Jewish community that sought to visit Rachel’s Tomb.

In 1615, Mohammad, Pasha of Jerusalem, had rebuilt Rachel’s Tomb on behalf of the Jewish people. In 1841, Jewish caretakers were given exclusive ownership of the place. And in 1845, the entire Rachel’s Tomb compound was redone with the permission of the Turkish authorities by Moses Montefiore.

Iran will be able top produce 30 nuclear bombs a year and 100 within the decade, Minister of Strategy, Intelligence and International Relations Affairs Yuval Steinitz told a defense conference this week.

He told the IsraelDefense C5I Conference that Iran could reach the capability of operating 54,000 centrifuges.

“Iran is not North Korea or Pakistan – its nuclear industry is several dozen times bigger than that of those two countries,” he said. “It will be able to enrich enough uranium to produce 20-30 nuclear bombs each year. In addition, it is already enriching tens of thousands of centrifuges at the facility in Qom.

“Within a decade, it could reach more than 100 nuclear bombs. This is not about the risk of ayatollahs with a few bombs stored in the basement, but a genuine danger to the well being of the world.”

Israeli soldiers on Tuesday arrested three Palestinian Authority security officers who murdered 24-year-old Ben-Yosef Livnat at Joseph’s Tomb two years ago but spent only one year in a PA jail before being freed.

An IDF investigation of the incident confirmed Palestinian Authority claims that Livnat and other Jews tried to enter the holy Jewish site without coordinating with the military but added that the Palestinian Authority security officers “fired deliberately and with intention to harm the worshipers.”

Tuesday’s arrests were carried out by the IDF in Samaria. The Palestinian Authority had refused an Israeli request in 2011 to turn them over to the IDF.

Israelis will get a real time drill next week, including how to act in a chemical weapons attack, in the annual Home Front national Emergency Preparedness drill.

Tensions on the northern border postponed the drill, which was supposed to take place three weeks ago.

“Our opponents hold long-range missiles with large warheads and a carrying capacity of hundreds of pounds,” and a “large volume of rocket fire” is a certainty in the event of an attack from the north, said Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg.

The last time Israel was under an aerial attack was last November, before the Pillar of Defense counterterrorist campaign ended Gaza terrorist missiles attacks that struck as far north as Tel Aviv and in the Jerusalem area.

In 2006, Hezbollah pounded the Galilee area, Haifa and Hadera with approximately 4,000 missiles and rockets that killed 44 civilians and more than 120 soldiers.

Since then, Hezbollah is estimate to have increased its stockpile of rockets to more than 60,000 missiles.

IDF officers have said it is only a matter of time until Hamas and/or Hezbollah put their missile stockpiles to work. “The question is no longer will rockets be fired at the large populated areas in Israel, the question is when it’ll happen,” according to Home Front Defense Minister Gilad Erdan.

Next week’s drill will test Israel’s preparedness, especially in urban areas such as metropolitan Tel Aviv.

Sirens will sound at 12:30 p.m. and 19:05 p.m. on Monday, and citizens will be instructed to enter bomb shelters or protected rooms for 10 minutes.

The annual drill is going high-tech this year and will include text messaging and social networks.

“Everyone will hear the siren,” the Home Front said in a preparatory message to Israelis. “There will be announcements on television and radio.  A ‘personal message’ will be sent to all those with cell phones that are capable of receiving them and cell phone providers that participate in the program.”

Hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world are expected to visit the spectacular 1,700-year-old Lod mosaic this summer at the Louvre, the first time an official Israeli exhibition will be displayed in the world’s most visited museum.

The spectacular Lod mosaic that was uncovered in an archaeological excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority is on display starting tomorrow (Thursday) in the Cour du Sphinx (Sphinx Courtyard) in the Roman wing of the museum until August 19.

Approximately 700,000 visitors have attended exhibitions at five museums in the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Only a number of private Israeli artists previously have been exhibited in the Louvre.

“This is a great honor and achievement for the Israel Antiquities Authority and a wonderful opportunity for the millions of visitors to the museum to see the masterpiece from Lod and learn about the archaeology and history of the Land of Israel,” said Shuka Dorfman, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The 1,700 year old mosaic, one of the most magnificent and largest ever revealed in Israel, was uncovered in Lod, near Ben Gurion Airport, in 1996 and was covered over again in order to protect it.

In 2009, after obtaining the necessary funding to expose it, the Israel Antiquities Authority renewed the archaeological excavation there and removed the mosaic from the site in order to conserve it.

The mosaic constitutes a rare archaeological gem that is extraordinarily well-preserved. It measures approximately 180 square meters and is composed of colorful carpets that depict in detail mammals, birds, fish, flora and the sailing and merchant vessels that were used at that time. It is thought the mosaic floor was part of a villa that belonged to a wealthy person in the Roman period.

The Louvre is holding a festive opening event on Thursday, sponsored by the Israeli embassy in Paris.

Thirteen years after Israel’s enemies unleashed one of the most damaging fake atrocity stories in military history, the Israeli government has come up with an official report [1.8 mb pdf] to refute the September 30, 2000 France 2 news broadcast, narrated by respected correspondent Charles Enderlin, that claimed to show 12-year old Mohammad Dura shot dead by IDF soldiers.

Oh, we already know and knew almost immediately beyond a reasonable doubt that al Dura was not shot by the IDF, and we almost certainly know that he was not shot at all, by anybody. Persuasive evidence (more persuasive than the official report) is here.

In fact, we can say with confidence that the incident was a fake, set up by France 2′s Palestinian cameraman and local Gaza residents.

But what is difficult to understand is the Israeli diffidence in the face of the vicious allegations.

The immediate response of the IDF was to temporize. From the official report:

On that same day, following the France 2 report, the Spokesperson Unit released a statement which made clear that while it was not possible to determine, based on the footage broadcast by the network, the source of the shots apparently fired at Jamal and the boy, ultimate responsibility lay with the Palestinians for cynically launching armed attacks from within the civilian population. …

But then, at a press conference on October 3, it turned disastrous:

[Maj. Gen. Giora] Eiland, in response to a question regarding Al-Durrah, answered that as a result of the gunfire at the junction, Jamal and the boy “took cover next to a wall, several meters from where Palestinians fired at us. The soldiers returned fire and apparently the boy was hit by our fire.”

Eiland later explained,

I had not seen all the evidence made available to the Israeli army only later…Given the long history of Palestinians exposing their children to danger, I assumed that the main issue in this case would be the question: Why would the Palestinians have exposed their own civilians to danger by firing on the Israelis while a boy and his father were in the crossfire? I did not realize that my words would be used to accuse Israel of cold-blooded murder.

The footage was played and replayed around the world. Two weeks later, two IDF reservists were torn to pieces in Ramallah to shouts of “al-Dura! al-Dura!” The alleged cold-blooded murder became the symbol of the Intifada, and an inspiration for suicide bombers. Daniel Pearl’s murderers and even Osama bin Laden, before and after 9/11, invoked it as justification for their acts.

Meanwhile IDF Maj. Gen. Yom Tov Samia, OC Southern Command, reenacted the incident, examined the relative locations of soldiers and Palestinians, and concluded that IDF bullets could not have hit al-Dura. This was announced at a press conference on November 27, which was almost entirely ignored by the media — and by top officers and Israel politicians. Indeed, the IDF Chief of Staff, Shaul Mofaz, told the Knesset that the investigation was a “private initiative of Samia,” not part of an official investigation.

Why didn’t Mofaz and his boss, Ehud Barak, who was serving as both Prime Minister and Minister of Defense at the time, take up the cause of the IDF and demand, with the maximum possible diplomatic force, that all information related to the incident — including all the footage shot by France 2 on that day — be placed at Israel’s disposal to do a proper investigation?

It didn’t happen, not then and not later, despite the revelation of more and more facts casting doubt on the story that the IDF had shot Dura. In 2005, the PM’s spokesperson to the foreign press, Ra’anan Gissin, asked France 2 for the footage and was turned down. In 2007, the IDF spokesperson tried to get the footage, but again Enderlin refused to provide it. More recently, the French Ambassador was asked “to help,” to no avail. Surely the State of Israel could have done more to defend the honor of its armed forces than to deploy low-level officials.

A French media critic, Philippe Karsenty, who has been defending himself against a libel suit filed against him by France 2 correspondent Enderlin for at least 10 years — he called the presentation “a hoax” — spoke bitterly in 2009 about the treatment he received from government officials:

During all those years, I got the cold shoulder from Israeli officials. With the exception of a few mavericks like Danny Seaman (director of the Government Press Office), Raanan Gissin (Spokesman, Prime Minister’s Office), Shlomi Amshalom, former deputy spokesperson for the IDF, or former ambassador Zvi Mazel, the vast majority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs personnel treated me and others who pursued this case, as embarrassments – conspiracy nuts who they wished would just disappear…

In 2002, when it was still possible to do something immediate, Nissim Zvili was the Israeli ambassador to Paris. He listened courteously but explained to me that he was a friend of Charles Enderlin, the French journalist who narrated the al Dura hoax.

In 2006, Zvili was replaced by Daniel Shek, who refused to shake my hand, and later commented on a Jewish radio that I was defending “conspiracy theories.” When I asked his colleague in charge of communication at the embassy in Paris, Daniel Halevy Goitschel, why he never returned my phone calls, he responded: “the phone doesn’t work at the embassy.” We are not even dealing with a lack of support here. On the contrary, I was being sabotaged.

When I won the case [against another media outlet] in May 2008, Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said: “Karsenty is a private individual and no one in the Israeli government asked him to take on his battle against France 2. Karsenty had no right to demand that Israel come to his aid. All calls on the Israeli government to come and ‘save’ him are out of place. He was summoned to court because of a complaint of the French television channel. I don’t see where there is room for the Israeli government to get involved.”

Last December, I went over the evidence with Aviv Shir-On, who now claims to have helped me, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). After two hours he repeated the old MFA refrain, “I’m not convinced.” Let’s say, for the sake of generosity, that Shir-On is just one more timid defender of Israel, so afraid of what “others” might say, that even the judgment of an independent (and hardly well-disposed) French court in favor of his own country, does not give him the courage to speak. So even though I won the case, and the new evidence from France 2 sharpens our argument, I could not count on Israeli officials to help move into a counter-attack. Enderlin, humiliated by the court decision, was allowed to bluff his way back to prominence, and recently, in the Gaza war, lead the journalists’ attack on the Israeli government…

On January 2009, I met Tzipi Livni, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and asked her about the al Dura story and the lack of reaction of the Israeli officials. Why didn’t the State of Israel demand that France 2 admit their blood libel following the court decision? I was stunned by her answer: “Well, it happens that we kill kids sometimes. So, it’s not good for Israel to raise the subject again.” (Philippe Karsenty: Israel Losing the Media War: Wonder Why?).

Karsenty was convicted, and the conviction was overturned on appeal — but recently the decision that exonerated him was reversed by France’s highest court.

It’s too late for the Israeli government to help him with his case, but let’s hope it can find the strength at last to support the IDF.

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Meet Jay Shultz, president of the Am Yisrael Foundation and head of seven non-profit organizations serving the international community in Tel Aviv. What opportunities does Tel Aviv offer to immigrants from English-speaking countries and others planning to settle in Israel? Tune into the second part of this week’s Goldstein on Gelt podcast to find out!

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