A Canadian Jewish legislator lost out on an attempt for a “million dollar shot” with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a visit to the Western Wall (Kotel), Canadian media reported.

Jewish Conservative Member of Parliament Mark Adler is looking ahead to next year’s election in his district where nearly 20 percent of the residents are Jewish.

Adler, rebuffed by one of Harper’s staff for a photograph of his standing with the prime minister at the Kotel, tried again. “This, it’s the re-election. This is the million-dollar shot,” Adler said.

The staffer replied, “I’m sorry, listen, you and 300 other people.”

After his remarks were reported, Adler insisted he was joking and said, “You guys don’t get a joke, huh? It’s all said tongue-in-cheek.”

Failing to use the Western Wall pilot to win possible votes, Adler settled for a Twitter photo showing entourage leaving the area and a tweet stating,  ”Leaving the Kotel in Jerusalem with @pmharper and the Canadian delegation.”

Harper wrapped up his maiden visit to Israel and moved on to Jordan, where he offered $150 million in aid  to help the kingdom take care of Syrian refugees and respond to the threat of chemical weapons.

In his visit to the Palestinian Authority earlier this week,. Harper announced $66 million in aid for the Abbas government.

A new and rare Asiatic lion is to land at Ben Gurion Airport on a flight from Sweden Thursday night and will take up lodgings at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, taking the place of the male lion that died last summer at the age of 16.

The newcomer, named Gir, is aged 2 and will join the zoo’s resident lioness Ileniya, who is 16 years old.

Zookeepers said they will make sure the youngster and the older female appear ready to get along with each other before letting them roam in the same den.

Two girls, ages 1 and 4, were buried Thursday afternoon after dying from poison that was used in their family home, and their two brother, ages 5 and 7, are alive in Schneider Medical Center in Petah Tikvah with the help of life support machines.

Meanwhile, a Jerusalem court has extended the remand of the exterminator who used poison at the home of the Gross family. His lawyer said that the poison has been used before without an resulting problems. The poison, when mixed with water, releases a dangerous gas.

Avigal and Yael Gross died Wednesday from the poison. Their parents and a third brother also were affected by the extermination but are in stable condition.

Israel has uncovered a world Jihad plot to execute massacres in Jerusalem and an attack against the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) lifted a gag order Wednesday and announced it has arrested three terrorists, Iad Abu Sara (24) and Rubin Abu Nijma (30) of Jerusalem and Ala Anam (22) of Jenin. Sara carries an Israeli identity card.

They were recruited and directed by Al Qaeda terrorists in Gaza and were under the direction of Arebe A-Shaham. The three did not know about each other and communicated via the Internet.

The attacks were to be carried out by foreign terrorists using fake Russian identities and disguised as tourists. One of them was to depart for Syria, via Turkey, for advanced explosives training.

They had studied the bus route from Jerusalem to Maaleh Adumim, east of the capital, and planned a massacre that was to start by shooting the tires of a bus, after which the terrorists were to shoot dead the passengers at close range and then slaughter the rescue teams arriving at the scene.

Two of the terrorists planned simultaneous attacks, one of them a suicide truck bombing at the Jerusalem Convention Center (Binyanei HaUma), where thousands of people often attend events, and the other at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Another plot was to kidnap an IDF soldier and attack the A-Tur neighborhood in Jerusalem.

The Shin Bet said that one terrorist revealed during interrogation how he obtained weapons and learned the use of explosives on the Internet.

“These patterns are identical to Al Qaeda operations,” said a security spokesman. Al Qaeda has established an initial infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, which includes hundreds of members. It can still be stopped.”

Not even U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would think that the Palestinian Authority is the party that could stop it.

He couldn’t be that far out, could he?

Aryeh Savir of Tazpit News Agency contributed to this report.

A special monitoring system run by the University of Padova in Italy has been installed in the Tower of David heritage site as part of an international project that attempts to use technology to determine the structural weaknesses in an ancient edifice .

The Tower of David is the tallest structure in the Old City of Jerusalem and a famous symbol to residents and tourist, with at least 2,000 years’ worth of history dating back to the First Temple period.

However, six major cracks in the tower raise questions if the structure would be able to survive an earthquake. Israel is located in a region extremely prone to earthquakes, and a major quake could be devastating.

“A major earthquake poses a serious threat and needs to be treated as such,” Dr. Avi Shapira, chairman of Israel’s National Earthquake Preparedness Committee,  told Tazpit News Agency.

“We want to preserve the structures of our past and historical monuments of the Holy Land that are significant to the world.,” he added.

Israel experienced five moderate earthquakes in October, which prompted experts to install a seismic monitoring system at the Tower of David in November 2013.

In a special conference at the Tower of David this week, Italian experts brought their knowledge during unique sessions addressing earthquake monitoring.

“Italy is a world leader in the earthquake monitoring field and conducting research in methodology for effective dealing with earthquakes,” explains Professor Claudio Modena, a Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Padova. “Israel is new to this area, and we believe that sharing our knowledge will help maintain historical structures in the event of a major earthquake.”

Modena, who lives in Verona, Italy, has also investigated historical and archaeological sites in Akko, Tzfat, and Beit Shean.

Two members of the delegation travelling with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper were shocked to see provocative and insulting behavior of Muslims and complacency of Israeli police during their visit to the Temple Mount Monday.

Stockwell Day, former Minister of Public Safety, accompanied Aharon Blumenfeld, a religious Jewish lawyer from Toronto was joined Harper’s entourage on Sunday after a private visit on the Sabbath with former Canadian businessman Mark Belzberg.

After the subject of the Temple Mount came up during the day and Blumenfeld said he wanted to ascend the Temple Mount, Day insisted that go along and even immerse in the mikveh (ritual poll) before, as required of Jews but not non-Jews.

If you’re going to experience something like a Jew, go all the way.

When the time tame to ascend the Temple Mount, Day and Blumenfeld discovered what Israelis go through every day, at least those who are allowed by police to visit.

First of all, the police inspected them and went through their pockets to make sure they were not carrying forbidden items, such as machine guns, bombs and a piece of Kleenex with a prayer scribbled on it.

They were warned not to pray and not to pick up any holy dirt from the holy site, which seems like a bit of a strange request. The Palestinian Authority has picked up a tons of holy dirt, along with artifacts that are evidence of the Holy Temples, in an effort to prevent exposure of proof beyond the Biblical account, which of course is part of a Zionist conspiracy to deny the Muslim claim that Jesus was a Palestinian and that the Zionist lobby made up all that other stuff.

After getting clearance, Temple Mount activists Rabbi Yehuda Glick  and Yoel Elitzur escorted Blumenfeld and Day to the Temple Mount for a visit of slightly more than an hour.

Towards the end, the action started, as seen in the video below.

Muslim men and women started screaming and yelling at the intruders. Glick, who has had his run-ins with police, complimented them on their handling of the situation. He told The Jewish Press that the law enforcement officers did a good job of separating the outraged Muslims from the visitors and preventing things from getting out of hand.

Day, who as minister dealt with police conduct, was not so impressed.

“If anyone in my country yelled at police like that, he would be arrested immediately,” he was quoted by Glick as saying.

Welcome to Israel.

Stockwell, by the way, is also active in the Canadian Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

In 2004, after the death of Yasser Arafat, Day was one of the few sane people who did not offer his condolences.

There’s no doubt that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made a lot of fans during his official state visit to Israel, Monday. Israeli Canadians went absolutely gaga over him, lining up the streets (well, one street) to welcome his procession.

It’s so rare that someone out there should be on our side these days, that we go nuts (especially, like I said, the Canadians among us).

One woman was not celebrating: Zehava Gal-On, chair of the leftist Meretz party reacted to Harper’s loving speech in the Knesset by saying: “He sounds like a spokesman for the Foreign Office.”

She meant the Israeli Foreign office. She meant it was inconceivable that a high official outside Israel would say nice things about us. It really made her angry.

And, of course, the Arab MKs left the assembly in anger.

So, not entirely a bad day…

Photo credit: Meital Cohen/Flash 90

A Jerusalem couple and their only child, a two-year-old boy, were killed in a gas explosion that also injured 14 others late Sunday night their apartment building in the Gilo neighborhood in southern Jerusalem.

Police have arrested a gas technician had worked on the premises before the blast, and a Jerusalem court has remanded him for two days. Residents in the apartment complex have complained to the gas supplier for several months about leaking gas.

The family was identified as Avraham Tufan, age 56, his wife Galit, 42, and their son Yosef Chaim. A 50-year-old woman was hospitalized in critical condition. Most of the others who were injured have been released from the hospital.