Arab Palestinian terrorists murdered four Jewish civilians in a shooting attack at the Bani Naim junction just south of Hevron Tuesday evening august 31, 2010. Assailants firing from a passing car riddled the vehicle with bullets as it travelled near Hebron a volatile city that has been a flash point of violence in the past.

Emergency service paramedics could do nothing to save the victims whose bodies were riddled with bullets. The terrorists reportedly made sure their victims were dead by shooting them from close range after the initial fusillade. One of the victims was pregnant, stated police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. A Zaka volunteer who arrived on the scene broke down in tears when he neared the car and discovered that one of the victims was his wife. The IDF is combing the area, searching for the terrorists.

Israel’s national rescue service stated the victims were two men and two women. The four were all citizens of Beit Hagai. The victims are a husband and wife, parents of ten, and two passengers. Their names were cleared for publication Tuesday night by local police:

Yitzhak and Talia Ames, parents of six
Kochava Even Chaim
Avishai Shindler

Some 500 Israeli Jewish citizens live in heavily fortified enclaves in the city amid more than 100,000 Arab Palestinian settlers. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel stated at the scene that serious soul-searching must be done “in order to find out how it is that Israeli Jewish citizens are deprived of the basic right to defend themselves.”

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack against Israelis since March 2008, when a lone assailant gunned down eight students in a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary.

IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi arrived on the scene of the attack along with Head of Central Command Major General Avi Mizrahi and Judea and Samaria Commander Brig.-Gen. Nitzan Alon. Ashkenazi stated: “There is no doubt that this is a very difficult event. First, we express our condolences to the victims’ families and to Beit Hagai. We are working in several directions since the event occurred and we will continue to act until we capture the terrorists. IDF along with other security agencies will continue to operate until we capture the murderers who were responsible for this incident. ”

Upon arriving in Washington for this week’s talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and said “terror will not determine Israel’s borders or the future of the settlements.” Borders and the fate of Jewish re-settlements on land Arab Palestinians want for a future state are key issues in the negotiations.

Netanyahu faces some domestic opposition from elements of his hard-line coalition of religious and nationalist parties. He has stated that protecting Israel’s security interests will be his top priority in the talks. Heading into a meeting with Clinton, Netanyahu said in the statement he would tell her, “This criminal murder proves again the need to stand firmly on Israel’s stringent security demands, and there will be no compromise on them.” The attack disrupted a relative lull in the West Bank. The last fatal attack occurred in June, when Palestinians opened fire on a police vehicle near Hebron and killed one officer.

Asked about the shooting, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley stated the U.S. is aware “there are those who will do whatever they can to disrupt or derail the process.”

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak promised a tough response to an attack he said was aimed at sabotaging the talks. “Israel will not allow terrorists to raise their heads and will exact a price from the murderers and those who send them,” he said in a statement.

U.N. envoy Robert Serry issued a statement condemning the attack and urging all parties “not to allow the enemies of peace to affect the negotiations about to be launched.” There is widespread opposition to the resumption of the peace talks among Palestinians. Hamas opposes any contact with Israel and has harshly criticized Abbas for agreeing to resume the negotiations.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s office issued a statement charging the attack was aimed at undermining his government’s effort to build international support for the Palestinian position and ending the (Israeli) “occupation of the Jewish Holy Land.”

Hamas, a fierce rival of the Western-backed Palestinian president, expelled Abbas’ forces from Gaza in 2007 and took over the territory. Abbas has been trying to limit the Islamic militants’ reach in the West Bank, jailing activists and even cracking down on mosque preachers. Hamas, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel, is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and European Union.

Opposition to resuming talks is also coming from within the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group headed by Abbas. Some Fatah activists threaten to try to depose him if he makes concessions and several hard-line PLO groups plan a demonstration in the West Bank administrative capital of Ramallah on Wednesday to protest resumption of negotiations.

The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility. About 3,000 people joined a rally in Gaza to celebrate the attack. Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida was among them and told The Associated Press: “The Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron.”

The terror attack is typical of Arab attacks that intentionally target civilian victims. A survey carried out by an Arab Palestinian Authority organization in early August found that among the Arab public in the Palestinian Authority, over 55% view violence as either essential or desirable, nearly 31% see it as either acceptable or tolerable, and only 13.7% say it is unacceptable. Evil knows no barriers, civility, morality or God.
A previous U.S. launching of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was also accompanied by deadly violence. Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli in the West Bank before then-President George W. Bush convened Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a summit in Annapolis, Maryland, in November 2007. The gunmen stated the attack was “an act of protest against the Annapolis conference.”

In Parashat Vaethanan, Moshe reiterates the prohibition against idolatry, issuing a particular warning against bowing to the celestial bodies – the sun, the moon and the stars (4:19).

One might wonder, why does the Torah strictly forbid giving honor to the sun and the moon? After all, they, like everything in nature, are servants of God. If the secretary of the President of the United States would visit us, wouldn’t we treat her with honor? Even if she’s only a secretary, she nevertheless deserves special respect by virtue of her position as the President’s personal secretary. Why doesn’t this apply to God’s “secretaries”? What’s wrong with giving honor to the sun and the moon?

Truth be told, this is precisely how idolatry started in the ancient world. People began giving homage to the sun, moon and stars, recognizing their stature as God’s servants. With time, however, they forgot about God, and looked to the creations in the sky as divine beings. But what is inherently evil about giving honor to the celestial beings if one does so to express honor to God Himself?

Rav Moshe Alshich (Safed, 1508-1593) explained that bowing to anything besides God is strictly forbidden because every person has some of God within him. Each and every human being has within him or her a Neshama, a soul, which is part of God. When a person inflates a balloon by blowing into it, part of him, his breath, is inside that balloon. Similarly, God “blows” a soul into a body to create a human being. As such, every person contains within him a part of God.

If a person bows to something, even something as exalted and prominent as the sun, he defames God. He creates a situation where God is bowing before one of His servants. This is why idolatry is so disgraceful – even if a person intends to honor God by bowing to a physical entity. Such an act causes God to bow before something He created, and this is a grave infraction upon God’s honor.

How might this concept apply to us, who do not worship the sun or the moon and have no intention of doing so?

The lesson of the Alshich’s insight is that any transgression we commit constitutes a grave desecration of the Almighty’s Name. We generally associate the term “Hilul Hashem” (desecrating God’s Name) with public misconduct, which dishonors the Torah and the Jewish people. Indeed, public wrongdoing certainly constitutes a “Hilul Hashem,” but sins committed in private also belong to this category. When a person transgresses, he takes his soul, he takes part of God, and uses it for something that God considers abominable. By sinning, we force God Himself, as it were, to violate His own creed. Even if one sins in the privacy of his own home with nobody around him, He defames God’s honor by causing Him, so-to-speak, to act wrongfully.

The concept of the Neshama, of the part of God within every person, should serve as a great source of pride and self-esteem. Every person must recognize that he or she is someone important, as the Almighty Himself resides within him or her. This knowledge and awareness will lead us to always act and speak in a manner befitting a Godly creature and prevent us from falling prey to our sinful instincts. If we keep in mind that God resides within us, we look at ourselves and our lives differently, we take ourselves more seriously, and we ensure to conduct ourselves with respect and dignity.

We are all part of God – and this is precisely how we should always look at ourselves, and precisely how we should always act.

Parasha Insights by Rabbi Eli Mansour

The Jewish people are indigenous inhabitants of the Land of Israel.

The right of Jews to execute their rights as the indigenous people of the Land of Israel is in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and the U.N. resolutions on the Culture of Peace. The United Nations currently recognizes as indigenous any nation that declares itself as such, and according to section 10 of the UN General Assembly’s 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, “indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option of return.”

This right, counters the false claim that Jews are “occupiers” in their homeland. “In accordance with international law,” the Jewish people have the right to live in all parts of their indigenous homeland and to maintain and develop their religious and cultural identity as indigenous to the land. Israel fits all the criteria to be recognized internationally as indigenous natives to the Land of Israel.

Please view the catagories on Maps of the Holy Land, Tombs of the Israel’s Ancestors and Prophets, Antiquities of the Holy Land etc.  its places, mountains, streams, rivers, Jerusalem Temple Mount and of course historical documentation of the people of Israel.