Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment in Jerusalem prior to leaving for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, and ahead of the Jewish holy days in the Hebrew month of Tishrei.

Attending the meeting were Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Israel Policy Deputy Inspector General Zohar Dvir, Jerusalem District Police Commander Yoram Halevy, the deputy Director of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency), an IDF representative and personnel from the National Security Council.

The prime minister ordered police to increase forces particularly in the Old City of Jerusalem and around the Temple Mount, underscoring that “determined action be taken against any attempt to violate order there,” according to his media adviser.

Netanyahu also requested that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein take action to “continue to prevent parliamentarians and ministers from going up to the Temple Mount during this sensitive period,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

In addition, the prime minister “directed that activity be increased against Palestinian incitement on social networks, including expanded action vis-à-vis Facebook and other platforms, with the goal of removing inflammatory content. He also instructed that a response team be established to refute disinformation about Israeli policy on the Temple Mount.”

In addition, Netanyahu received an update on IDF operations and reinforcements along the roads and in the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria.

Barely a few hours prior to the meeting, a terrorist from the Palestinian Authority stabbed and seriously wounded an IDF reservist at a guard post in the Judean city of Efrat, only eight minutes south of Jerusalem. The terrorist had infiltrated the community late Saturday night, and dozens of IDF soldiers, reservists and local security response personnel had spent the entire night searching the city and surrounding fields to track him down.

The attack came on the heels of a series of terrorist stabbings of IDF soldiers and other attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, at least three of which took place in Hebron. In response, the IDF beefed up its forces in the holy city next to Kiryat Arba, but other Jewish communities are still vulnerable.

On Friday afternoon barely an hour before the start of the Sabbath, an Arab couple from the nearby town of Bani Naim carried out a vehicle ramming attack at the Elias Junction entrance to Kiryat Arba on Highway 60, next to the Paz gas station, at the bus stop and hitchhiking post. IDF soldiers stationed at the site shot and killed the male terrorist and wounded the female attacker; but three Israeli teenagers were injured and suffered major trauma as well. All three were treated for their relatively minor physical wounds and the major shock they endured.

Within hours, the IDF surrounded and sealed off Bani Naim, which also was home to the teenage terrorist who climbed in the window of the Kiryat Arba home of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel, z’l, at the start of this summer and stabbed her to death while she slept in her bed.

It’s not known how long the closure will last. But Arab villages have been sealed off before, and when the curfew is lifted, terrorists are free to leave and kill Israelis again, inspired and financially remunerated for their efforts by the government of the Palestinian Authority.

The prime minister is clearly hoping that beefed up police at the Temple Mount and in the Old City will contain, if not entirely eliminate Arab terror attacks while he is meeting with President Barack Obama in New York, and addressing the United Nations General Assembly: a gathering that for the most part could care less these days whether Israelis live or die.

It’s Netanyahu’s unenviable job to remind them of why they should care, if only for their own survival — and Israel’s — and the last thing he wants or needs is trouble at home by Knesset members who take the opportunity while he is away to create “a distraction.”

Weekly archaeological finds are incontrovertible evidence of the Jewish connection to this land. Now it’s in the footsteps of King David to the fortified city of Sha’arayim, in the Valley of Elah where David fought Goliath, as described in the book of Samuel. The Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem has mounted an outstanding exhibition of artifacts from that location that shook the academic world. See it with Walter who paints pictures in sound.

How: The Arabs try to destroy all evidence of the Jewish connection with Temple Mount, by illegally digging there and tipping everything into Arab Landfills.

Plus: The real Chabad Lubavitch. An insight into their philosophy and achievements. Walter talks with the Chairman and Managing Director of this extraordinary Chasidic movement Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky.

The Walter Bingham File 18Sept.2016 – PODCAST

The Honenu legal aid society on Sunday submitted an urgent complaint to police IA following a complaint from a minor who had been arrested on the Temple Mount and claimed that a non-Jewish policeman punched him in the stomach with his fist at the police station.

The minor, 16, claimed the non-Jewish policeman punched him in the stomach and another policeman threatened him, after they had arrived inside the police station. The minor was detained after the cops had spotted him taking a step back and bowing slightly in the direction of the holy sanctuary.

According to the complaint, submitted by attorney Menashe Yado, once the minor had arrived at the station, one policeman urged him angrily to sit down on a bench, saying, “Sit, sit, before I break your bones,” while the other police punched the minor in the stomach.

“This was police violence against a handcuffed minor who was not being violent at the police station nor in general,” Yado wrote in his IA complaint. He stressed that this was not an isolated case in the way the cops of the David Sector have been treating Jews who arrive at the Temple Mount.

Amazing, the ever-vigilant Israeli police manage to stop every single Jew who tries to visit the Temple Mount with a prayer book/siddur, an Israeli flag, or with any sign or clothing that could be remotely associated with Judaism or Israel… yet these 2 Arab children dressed in full Hamas terror outfits along with toy guns managed to openly walk in and around for a photo op in front of everyone.

Simply inconceivable.

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Someone pointed out on the Muqata Facebook page that these children dressed as terrorists are terrorists. But they aren’t — yet.

Right now, these children are victims of child abuse by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority and their own parents.

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Israel also granted 500 Gazans access to the Temple Mount today, as a goodwill gesture for their Eid al-Adha holiday.

Perhaps the police let these kids walk around as Hamas terrorists so those Gazan visitors would simply feel more welcome and at home.

Aerial photographs shot by a drone operated by Rahaf, a company specializing in photography and documentation projects from the air, show the dreaded “Kinneret Island,” which appears in Israel’s northern lake whenever the dry season claims significant portions of the lake’s water.

According to Pinhas Green, Deputy CEO of the Kinneret Authority, “since the beginning of summer the Kinneret level has gone down by 40 inches, placing it at 14.76 inches below the lowest red line. The level is very low. The drought arrived early this year. … We should all pray for an exceptionally rainy winter.”

To be full, the Kinneret is currently missing 180 inches (38 ft.).

Israel transports water from Lake Kinneret, or the Sea of Galilee, to the population centers of Israel, as well as to Jordan. The lake supplies only about 10% of Israel’s drinking water needs, but under the terms of the Israel–Jordan peace treaty, Israel also supplies 50,000,000 cubic meters (1,765,733,336 cubic feet) of water annually from the lake to Jordan. In recent years the Israeli government has made extensive investments in water reclamation and desalination infrastructure in the country. This has allowed it to significantly reduce the amount of water pumped from the lake annually in an effort to restore and improve its ecological environment, as well as respond to some of the most extreme drought conditions in hundreds of years which the lake’s intake basin has frequently experienced since 1998.

It is expected that in 2016 only about 25,000,000 cubic meters (880,000,000 cubic feet) of water will be drawn from the lake for Israeli domestic consumption.

Jordan, on the other hand (the folks who gave you the Islamic Waqf on Temple Mount), which hasn’t made an investment in water preservation, will continue to receive more than a billion and a half cubic feet of water every year.

Archaeologists from the Jerusalem-based Temple Mount Sifting Project are confident that they have successfully restored a unique architectural element of the Second Temple: a series of regally decorated floor tiles that adorned the porticos atop the Temple Mount, which were likely featured prominently in the courtyards of the Second Temple during the rule of King Herod in Jerusalem (37 to 4 BCE).

Frankie Snyder, a member of the Temple Mount Sifting Project’s team of researchers and an expert on ancient Herodian style flooring, said he succeeded in restoring the ornate tile patterns “using geometric principles, and through similarities found in tile design used by Herod at other sites.” Snyder, who has an academic background in both mathematics and Judaic Studies, explained that “this type of flooring, called ‘opus sectile,’ Latin for ‘cut work,’ is very expensive and was considered to be far more prestigious than mosaic tiled floors.”

Assortment of Herodian floor tiles / Courtesy City of David

“So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount,” said Snyder, who noted that there were no opus sectile floors in Israel prior to the time of King Herod. “The tile segments were perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them.”

“It enables us to get an idea of the Temple’s incredible splendor,” said Dr. Gabriel Barkay, co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project. The restored tiles will be presented to the general public on September 8, at the 17th Annual City of David Archaeological Conference.

Zigzag Module, Herodian floor tiles / Courtesy City of David

“This represents the first time archaeologists have been able to successfully restore an element from the Herodian Second Temple complex,” said co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project Zachi Dvira.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project was established in response to the illegal removal of tons of antiquities-rich earth from the Temple Mount by the Islamic Waqf in 1999. It is located in the Tzurim Valley National Park, and is supported by the City of David Foundation and the Israel Archaeology Foundation. The initiative is run under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University and the Israel Parks & Nature Authority.

To date, approximately 600 colored stone floor tile segments have been uncovered, with more than 100 of them definitively dated to the Herodian Second Temple period. This style of flooring is consistent with those found in Herod’s palaces at Masada, Herodian, and Jericho, as well as in majestic palaces and villas in Italy, also attributed to the time of Herod. The tile segments, mostly imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia, and Egypt, were created from polished, multicolored stones cut in a variety of geometric shapes. A key characteristic of the Herodian tiles is their size, which corresponds to the Roman measurement of one foot, approximately 29.6 cm.

Herodian floor tiles Opus Collection / Courtesy City of David

The possibility that large expanses of the Temple Mount during the Second Temple were covered with opus sectile flooring was first raised by archaeologist and director of the Jerusalem Walls National Park with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority Assaf Avraham in 2007.

Avraham’s theory was based on a description given by the Romano-Jewish historian Josephus (1st Century CE) who wrote, “… the uncovered [Temple Mount courtyard] was completely paved with stones of various types and colors…” (The Jewish War 5:2). Additionally, Talmudic literature records the magnificent construction of the Temple Mount, describing rows of marble in different colors — green, blue and white.

“Now, as a result of Frankie Snyder’s mathematical skills, we have succeeded in recreating the actual tile patterns,” said Dr. Barkay, stressing that “this represents the first time that we can see with our own eyes the splendor of the flooring that decorated the Second Temple and its annexes 2,000 years ago.”

Barkay related that in describing the Temple that Herod built, “the Talmud says that ‘Whoever has not seen Herod’s building has not seen a beautiful building in his life,'” so that although our generation has not yet merited to see the Temple in its glory, “with the discovery and restoration of these unique floor tiles we are now able to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Second Temple, even through this one distinctive characteristic.”

Since the Temple Mount Sifting Project’s inception in 2004, more than 200,000 volunteers from around the world have taken part in the sifting, representing an unprecedented phenomenon in the realm of archaeological research.

In preparations for Eid al-Adha, marking the Quran’s version of the Torah story of the Binding of Isaac, which this year falls on Sept. 11 (as well as on the 10th and the 12th, depending on local moon spotting), the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Gen. Yoav Mordechai announced a long list of accommodations to be made by his unit to facilitate observing the festival in Judea and Samaria and in the Gaza Strip.

The accommodations below have all been approved by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beiteinu), in the spirit of facilitating a life of religion and worship. This is particularly magnanimous, considering the fact that Eid al-Adha is a deceptive attempt to replace the story of Abraham’s binding of Isaac, which follows the story of the expulsion of the maidservant Hagar and her son Ishmael to the desert, with a revision which places Ishmael, father of the Arabs, on that altar on the Temple Mount.

1. Israel will coordinate 10,000 Arab family visits in Judea and Samaria

2. Israel will allow prayer of married men who are younger than 45, and women age 30 and up, for two festival days.

3. Israel will coordinate an increased number of flights via Ben Gurion International Airport for Judea and Samaria Arabs.

4. Israel will coordinate an increased number of visits of Arabs from abroad in Judea and Samaria.

5. Israel will coordinate permits for prayer on Temple Mount for Gaza Strip Arabs ages 60 and up.

6. Israel will coordinate family visits abroad for Gaza Strip families crossing Allenby Bridge into Jordan.

In addition, the Judea and Samaria border crossings will remain open longer and goods will be permitted to pass as late as 7 PM.

It should be noted that every one of the above easing of the regulations on behalf of the Arab civilian population in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza involves a nightmare of security operations, because Hamas, the PLO and all the other terrorist outfits in those enclaves are expected to take advantage of these softer rules and use the lull to push terror attacks as well as riots. In effect, the Israeli security forces will be doubling their efforts over this short period of time, to block potential attacks.

Gen. Mordechai informed PA senior officials and international organizations of the special festival efforts.

Good luck.